Au Ra physiology and other lore.

[Samcaesar]

Woof woof! :3

Hey man, take that up with the lore devs, that is some hot skitty on wailord action and apparently the devs dig it. Until they state otherwise, I'm inclined to believe that they can, I honestly don't think the Au Ra are that different than the other races of man. Plus if a Roe and Lala can.. Shivers Only the twelve know what that would make.


I think choosing a mate based on their strength isn't very eugenics orientated, no more than a dude is practicing eugenics for only dating women with big breasts, but I could see where you come to that conclusion! The Auri have plenty of reason to choose a mate based on strength outside of strong babies, a mother and father capable of defending the homestead with as much strength as possible together is much more efficient for protecting babies for example!

Care to go further what you mean by that?
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Reasonable, but there are certain additional factors which sway the tide of battle, I suppose in the case of our MRD vs ROG, really whoever's smarter wins?

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1. However SE has shown that they do heavily borrow from real life for their cultural inspirations, the Holy Roman Empire influences on Ishgard, Doman culture with Japanese, or the Roman influences on Garlemald are pretty apparent. If they somehow make a reasonable justification for those difference I'll accept them, but

You're not wrong, but whenever those things are explainable to something akin to realities logic and the logic of the fantasy realm, you get a great fantasy realm going. Aether and the Allagan abuses of its power probably explain the floating islands. Dragoons are imbued with the spirit (And arguably aetheric essence) of dragons allowing them to jump with such great heights. You got me on those dragons, but it could be aether could be bumblebees and their stupid pathetic wings. Same on Rauhbahn, but you'd be amazed on what the body can do under extreme circumstances, endorphins are one hell of a drug! It can be rationalized, and in turn those rationalizations can be rejected, as I've done in this thread with rationalization of the Auri sexual dimorphism. It's really a pursuit for making sense in a world that we can only draw parallels and some intersections to, and it's what we've been doing! I love it a lot haha.

You'd be surprised what a well sharped knife could do metal when given the proper edge and enough power! But again, aether! It's utterly unknown to us in concerns to its capabilities (While genetics on the other hand is something we are far more familiar with)
2. Fans in generally ought not to support such weak excuses, I mean, what happens whenever

3. Well, I hope they update that blip as well sometime soon. That's not the case in FFXIV though, considering the weird Miqo'te with Allagan genes, and seeing as how that Miqo'te talked about his forefathers also expressing the gene, he's probably not infertile himself. Despite the similarities between Miqo'te and Hyur, they also have arguably one of the most different appearances due to the expression of entirely different ears and furred tails. I wouldn't be so far as to guess Au Ra follow along the same sort of deal.

5. The poll took the entire playerbase, if their reasoning for the Auri girls is "Most players choose this one" then why do the men not follow up? It's not like they suddenly polled those outside of the Japanese for how the men of a new race should look. It's a risk SE ought to take. The "Dub the Dew" contest wouldn't have occurred if the poll was moderated properly, honestly, such things as having options of like "Do you want it to be masculine looking? y/n" "Do you want it to be feminine looking? y/n", a diverse amount of guided questions is the best way to handle a poll.

But it's also a much less sincere effort, which isn't what SE ought to be aiming for, especially whenever the fans and the FFXIV dev team have been touting the "We think of our fans" banner post 1.x series. If the fans choose not to participate in the poll, why should SE care about them? Those fans chose not to voice while some fans did. While it would be easy for SE to go along with whatever the writers feel like or whatever the artists feel like, it removes the voice of the fans and consumers who might actually be willing to suggest things, and if SE wishes to continue that banner of "We think of our fans" they ought to look out of them.

Mmn, which is why I'd prefer it be implemented later rather than sooner. Plus it's the artists job to do that sort of thing, if they don't want to draft and design another "tough woman model" it's a wonder what they were thinking whenever they were asked to make Roegadyn girls. It's a true show of effort, and SE won't know how many people it'll garner til they actually tried and produced it.

The walrus men sound horrifying, and I'd be very much so prepared to raise a spear to defend myself if I saw them coming to Eorzea :P

[Kaiser-Ace]

Hmm, grasslands typically haveong grass and the horns just give them a "unique spacial awareness" so to me thats more like, for lack of a better term, "spidy sence". That could be exclusive for hunting, interfere with the function of others, or work in a completely inconceivable way that the devs have to explain.

And since it was mentioned about large builds sucking at steppe topography, it strikes me that they could in fact be simmiler to lions. Females using their leane and leathal form to hunt while the more hulking males defend the home teratory.

Then assuming the horns grant a certain level of esp then they are 100% practical for hunting prey AND the anti-stealth sencory to prevent the camp from being ambushed.

(Also let's stop using fringe and psudo biology on a game where we have fish people, carnivorous plants, and sentient rock creatures. None of it truly applies in a fictional " Magic trumps Logic " based universe.)

[jomoru]

(Also let's stop using fringe and psudo biology on a game where we have fish people, carnivorous plants, and sentient rock creatures. None of it truly applies in a fictional " Magic trumps Logic " based universe.)

That doesn't mean they don't base things at least in part on IRL ideas. The Roe seem in part based on Ice and Fire giants from Norse myth, even going so far as to have a vague sort of viking backstory for the Sea wolves. They aren't a 1 for 1 thing but you can see how Viking culture was used as a basis. Similarly Doma is based on Japan, its not a 1 for 1 thing but it has many Japanese aspects.

now Othard seems to be "Hydaelyn asia" the Xaela are warring nomads who live upon the steppes. We know the Xaela are using a real world language practice. I would bet that Xaela will take heavily from Mongolian and other steppe people(the Huns!).

[lololink]

That doesn't mean they don't base things at least in part on IRL ideas. The Roe seem in part based on Ice and Fire giants from Norse myth, even going so far as to have a vague sort of viking backstory for the Sea wolves. They aren't a 1 for 1 thing but you can see how Viking culture was used as a basis. Similarly Doma is based on Japan, its not a 1 for 1 thing but it has many Japanese aspects.

now Othard seems to be "Hydaelyn asia" the Xaela are warring nomads who live upon the steppes. We know the Xaela are using a real world language practice. I would bet that Xaela will take heavily from Mongolian and other steppe people(the Huns!).

None of them are physical or biological logics, they are culture. Lalafells can throw a roegadyn fly away with their little baby hands.

[Isklexi]

figured I'd post what I'll go with if I decide to change to a male instead of a female, shake things up, y'know

There's a haircut straight out of DBZ.

As for crossbreeding fantasy species, I usually frown upon slippery slope arguments, but this subject really is one in fantasy stories. I come from Warcraft, and they've got a character called Med'an that ranks up there with terrible fanfiction.

On selective breeding for survival, humans IRL don't selectively breed for specific traits consciously. Even with our current knowledge of genetics, we don't do it. Unless eugenics is specifically part of their culture, I doubt there is any overt selection going on.

On future FF races, I'd love to see a playable beast race that has next to zero dimorphism. It would be a departure from the current roster of races.

[zuzu-bq]

crocodile tail do it do it

I really like the crocodile tail, but I'll check how the tails look in game before I pick one.

[Cilia]

What the fox says!

Not going to go further into racial interbreeding. If the devs say it's possible it's possible, even if I disagree with it. (Maybe it's like Pokémon breeding, where Roegadyn x Lalafell produces Lalafell all the time? /shrug)

Either way, choosing a mate based on the genotype / phenotype advantages it can give offspring is literally the definition of eugenics. Seekers Miqo'te might engage in this, but until someone says so I do not believe either Au Ra tribe does so. Don't know what the Au Ra find sexually attractive (and I doubt they'll go into that much detail), but the women almost certainly don't have a genotype capable of expressing the height and muscle mass of the men. Why that is and how they survive then... don't know, but we (still) know next to nothing about the Au Ra anyway.

(Phenotypical expressions of genotype are complex affairs, not the simple "Gene X produces Y in the organism" deal most fiction runs with.)

I figure the Xaela are more emotional because their wills are "fiery;" fire is hot, and a hot temper is more passionate. By extension, Xaela are probably more inclined to choose mates based on love, affection, and / or physical desire instead of going on what makes the most logical sense. Unless it's a part of their social structure like the Seekers Miqo'te, I highly doubt they practice eugenics.

1. Just because the cultures currently in-game have real-world inspirations doesn't mean everything will or has to.

Saying "Aether / Magic / Allagan tech" is just as much a cop-out as saying "genetics" (it's actually more of a cop-out because it has zero real-world basis).

Even if he had endorphins and adrenaline to keep him running for a short time, Raubahn still should have lost too much blood to remain conscious throughout the entire scene, and would have simply bled to death afterward without immediate medical care he had no clear reason to be given.

Pickaxes and sledgehammers are used while mining for a reason. Trying to stab or cut rock monsters with knives (letter openers, in a Lalafell's case) is pretty damn pointless.

2. See above.

3. Hiccups in regards to genetic hybrids aside, I figured maybe the Miqo'te descendants of the Allagan royals just stayed with Miqo'te society (it's part of the G tribe ancestry?), and the more genetically "Miqo'te" their offspring are the more likely it is they're fertile? Or maybe it's just like Pokémon genetics (see above). I'm fine with minor vagaries like this.

Either way, racial interbreeding is still stated to be rare, and with that in mind it's still highly improbable Hyuran genes have seriously affected the Raen genotype, even assuming racial interbreeding produces genetic hybrids and not just one or the other (Pokémon genetics).

5. While (as far as I can tell) the data harvested to come up with the Au Ra designs took up the entire playerbase... there's the possibility people overall went with the "cute / petite" women and the "tough" men. There's also the possibility they designed Auri women to appeal specifically to the Japanese market (since they conform to Japanese standards of beauty) and Auri men to appeal to the Western market (since their larger, muscular frames appeal to Western ideals of manliness). Don't know, but the end result is the sexual dimorphism the Au Ra exhibit.

There's no perfect solution. No matter what they do someone isn't going to be happy, so they went with what they thought would make the most people happy.

Like I said before, if they decide to change female Xaela designs (or any race / sex design) in the future, they'd have to give a free Fantasia to anyone who doesn't like the new look, everyone else would complain about how that's not fair, and then they'd have to give everyone a free Fantasia. (It's probably not that complex a thing, just changing around some numbers, but y'know.) The only alternative is to tell the people stuck with their new model "tough," and that makes them look like jackasses.

Introducing more "tough female" models might help, but then again it might not. Considering they've already done so with the female Highlanders and Roegadyn and people aren't playing them much, signs are not favorable.

Do not fear the doughy walrus midget men; they are cute and cuddly, hardly threatening, as they main source of supporting theyselves is diving for oysters and crafting beautiful jewelry out of things like coral and pearls. It's the women you want to watch out for, as they're much taller and more muscular than the men, and regularly hunt large sea mammals like orca.

There's a haircut straight out of DBZ.

As for crossbreeding fantasy species, I usually frown upon slippery slope arguments, but this subject really is one in fantasy stories. I come from Warcraft, and they've got a character called Med'an that ranks up there with terrible fanfiction.

A lot of the exclusive Auri male hairstyles are ridiculous and would take at least an hour to do in real life. Only one is (sorta) realistic-ish.

And yeah, I know all about Me'dan's 3 planet ancestry and how he's a big ol' Marty Stu. I disagree with his character and it makes absolutely zero sense, but he's not my character to be responsible for and I'm not in control of the world, so I just ignore(d) him just like everything I don't care about in other fantasy worlds.

[jomoru]

None of them are physical or biological logics, they are culture. Lalafells can throw a roegadyn fly away with their little baby hands.

Um Ok? I'm just pointing out the Devs are completely making stuff up but rather using the real world as some level of basis. Its not a 1 for 1 thing but its not something that is completely abandoned.

[Kaiser-Ace]

Um Ok? I'm just pointing out the Devs are completely making stuff up but rather using the real world as some level of basis. Its not a 1 for 1 thing but its not something that is completely abandoned.

Not disputing the mythological Origins of a lot of the themes. Heavensward especially is borrowing heavily from Norse mythology.

I just see nothing but futility in arguing Eugenics and Genetics in a universe where our sciences aren't fundamental laws like in our universe.

So yes, environment practicality is a definite but as far as those other two go, they're taking it way further than any level of application considering Hydaelyn and Earth vary slightly in their laws of physics and nature.

[jomoru]

Not disputing the mythological Origins of a lot of the themes. Heavensward especially is borrowing heavily from Norse mythology.

I just see nothing but futility in arguing Eugenics and Genetics in a universe where our sciences aren't fundamental laws like in our universe.

So yes, environment practicality is a definite but as far as those other two go, they're taking it way further than any level of application considering Hydaelyn and Earth vary slightly in their laws of physics and nature.

Well ultimately we have two things to argue from, what the Devs might have been inspired by Or developing psychic powers and reading their brains directly.