The selfish tree

From: Richard Melvin <rmelvin_at_radm.demon.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 23:48:16 +0100

Here's an interesting thought experiment for any sociobiologists out there:

• - what would elves be like if they were just a tree's way of making more trees?

To be precise, if you were a tree, and had a bit of mytho-magical energy to throw around[1], what kind of creature would you be best advised to spend it on?

Some answers:

• - one based on the common, energy-efficient 'man-rune' design[2].
• - one that is hard-wired to act in your interests. So aldryami feel little pain or fear with respect to anything that happens to their own bodies, but threaten an elf with burning down one of his trees[3] and they'll do whatever you want. Similarly, happiness, for an elf, is not good food, drink, sex and companionship, but knowing that all your trees are growing steadily in good earth and sunlight.
• - one that knows what your interests are. So you give it the song of the forest (elf-sense) so it knows when you are hurting, and give it intelligence so it can find and fix problems before they start hurting you.
• - one that cooperated with others like it. Most real threats to a tree and its descendants will tend to kill off the whole forest, replacing it with some completely different ecology. So you want an elf that is good at communication and cooperation with others of its kind, so they can deal with the big threats together. Of course, there is still some internal competition within the forest, so elves are just better than humans at communicating, rather than being a hive mind[4].

So now you have a green age elf - born as a fruit from a tree, lives at the call of the tree, dies as food for the tree.

But, of course, third age elves aren't like that[5] - they have sex, found dynasties and worship anthromorphic godesses. Some cannot hear the song of the forest, some leave the forest, and some even put their own lives ahead of the good of the forest.

So, what changed?

The elves of the Pavis garden tell a tale of the first trickster, who stole the secret of the tree of life, and his son, Mortal, who was the first man born of woman.

Ever since that day, elves must use the magics of Uleria to produce a child-seed. Elves born in this way are more like their elf-parents, and less like the trees they ritually adopt. Often, they are less magical but physically stronger. They can be more creative at finding new solutions to problems, but sometimes feel pain or fear.

And some cannot hear the song of the forest[6].

Richard

[1] Now, if you were a majorly magical kind of tree, you might be able

    to generate a worthwhile protector creature all by yourself - call     it a dryad. On the other hand, most trees need to band together by     the tens or hundreds to make a single elf.

[2] Of course, you might also produce something a lot stranger, like

    the various species of red goblins.

[3] It might well be more accurate to speak of the elf belonging to the

    tree.

[4] On the other hand, Voralans, coming from a 'forest' that

    is effectively a single organism, have virtually no     individual identity.

[5] Well, not pc elves anyway.

[6] Yes, this is another human origin myth.

• -- Richard Melvin

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