I read a lot of non-fiction, and I often come across little titbits of information that I feel like using for setting material.
For instance, I've recently been reading Empire of the Summer Moon, which explains one of the main reasons why plains indian raiders were always keen to take children captive: when women are in the saddle a lot, they often have miscarriages and become infertile. Plains indian tribes had chronically low fertility rates, so they would literally steal other people's children to keep themselves going (as well as adopting exiles, runaways, and so on). That's something I've never heard of before, but will certainly use as grist for the setting-depth mill if horse-riding nomads come into things.
I wonder if the same goes for bikes? If so, could work in a post-apoc set up as well.
ReplyDeleteFor a second there I thought you were talking about push bikes. I was like "Where is this post-apocalyptic world of his set? Saigon?"
Deleterealistic post-ap! Rubber becomes a critical commodity again. Secure your water supply and discover toxic sites that have nothing to do with the Event.
DeleteActually the more I think about this, the more a realistic post-ap setting just sounds like being poor in India. Not much romance.
Extend that idea to all of the steppe horse-cultures. Especially the Mongols.
ReplyDeleteA group of guys who roll around compulsively conquering everything but also soak up genetic information from pretty much everywhere they go and then spread it around. In his history podcast Dan Carlin points out the enormous genetic diversity of the Mongols (Genghis Khan allegedly had blue or grey eyes.) Kind of like an empire of the mixed-raced, which is not how we think of empires at all. The effect on the global gene-pool must have been enormous.
Genghis Khan probably impregnated several thousand women. There's a reasonable chance that any given person of Eurasian origin alive today will be distantly related to him.
DeleteAfter the apocalypse, in the Gamma World, they tell this legend about Mick Hucknall.
Deletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/dec/02/mick-hucknall-apologies-to-1000-women
And there are entire tribes of red-headed Mancunian gobshites roaming the landscape.
DeleteThanks for this. I'll use it in my fantasy world if you have no objection.
ReplyDeleteOutdated science is often a good source of ideas that's not quite fact or fiction. I got several good ideas from a medieval bestiary that (I think) Zac posted about a while ago.
I like this too. I can imagine all sorts of criteria and initiation rites and rules by which a tribe tries to absorb those it perceives as worthy. Several fantasy societies have the idea of "You keep what you kill" -- the Fremen in Dune, the Green Men in the John Carter stories, the Necro-somethings in Chronicles of Riddick.
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