[hippokrene]

I've populated a large land with a group of immortals. I'd like your thoughts on them and their culture.

Most stop aging in their twenties or thirties, though a few are as 'young' as late teens and some as 'old' as their 60s. They're resistant to illness and disease. They're incredibly hardy and can heal from almost any injury. Decapitation or being burned alive on a pyre would kill one, but she could recover from being skewered by a half dozen spears or he could regrow a lost limb.

They still need to eat and drink. Enough alcohol can get them drunk. Heat, cold, wind, and rain all bother them, even if they're more likely to survive it.

Their society has existed for a couple thousand years BUT an immortal's memory goes back only 100-200 years. Typically, the 'older' one seems, the more memory they can retain. If they meet someone they were passionately in love with or bitter enemies with 500 years ago, they might get a flash of deja vu, but they'd have no knowledge of the person or their interactions.

They can retain general knowledge. If you teach one how to fish, he'll probably always know how to fish, though he could grow rusty at it. If you teach one to how to calculate pi, she might remember it.

They can have sex but are normally infertile. Only the priests and priestesses of a single god know how to reproduce. They mostly do so to keep the population stable though the total number of immortals has increased over time.

The religious leaders tend to shuffle people around over time. Everyone is required to serve in the military for 50 years, every 300 years. It's a pre-industrial world. Several of the nations around them are tributaries, part of the tribute has to be in slaves.

The children of slaves can become freemen (but not citizens) through military service. They're usually placed on the front lines and receive little to no armor. Killing a citizen results in the death of the slave or freeman and their family.

Their social order goes: Slaves (non-immortals) -> Freemen (non-immortals) -> Citizens (immortals) -> Nobility/Priesthood (immortals)

The immortals are supernatural. According to their religion, their gods created them to keep another supernatural race in check. Theoretically, they're always at war with this other race, but while they have a constant border watch and seasonal skirmishes, serious campaigning usually only happens once a decade or so. As far as they can tell, the land of their enemy is an endless, hellish wasteland, but the only way out of it is through the immortal's nation.

The level of technology is similar to 13th century China.

My goal here was to create a group of immortals that were stable but able to have change in their culture, society, and technology over time, as well as being psychologically similar enough to humans that I could realistically portray one's POV without it being too much of a jump from what the reader can identify with. The individuals of the race could be better than humans and the military strong, but they still have enough population pressures that they're unlikely to overwhelm the entire continent.

Is there anything that jumps out as problematic?

What would you imagine as the major difference between this culture and a similar culture at its level of technological development?

[RedMage]

Differences? Hmm.

At first I wondered about them only having memories for 100 yrs or so. But then I thought, that actually makes sense. How many of us can actually remember the people we knew as kids? Things they said, how they acted? If we're honest with ourselves, isn't much of our memory from a period as far back as that more of an idealized or general impression than anything? Eventually, even that fades. So I'm ok with that now. As for differences:

1) Entertainment: I'm currently reading The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin (I think that's how you spell her name). In it the reader is told that the uber powerful rulers of a world spanning empire entertain themselves in ways that are utterly horrifying and sickening. Like we think of gladiatorial fights in the coliseums of Rome.

I think your society, too, would have to be this way. The immortals would have to be constantly striving to find a new thrill, a new high. The bar for entertainment must constantly be rising. It's the same in our culture, I know, but it must be even more so for them. And, at the same time, there must also be the slower, more sedate entertainments. The old stories, card/dice/chess games and music that have been around for millennium but are still enjoyed by those of a nostalgic mood.

2) Laws, Law Enforcement, Government: There wouldn't be as many laws in such a society. Nor as many police. And government would be a slow, long process. Like today's Western culture, entertainment would have a much greater importance than anything done in government. The celebrities would be entertainers and everyone would be constantly talking about them and everyone would know the most intimate details of their lives.

The reason for less police would be that the majority know the laws and abide by them. Immortals would have long since gotten over the need to break the rules and push the boundaries of the law.

By fewer laws I don't mean there would only be fifty actual laws. But there would be very little bureaucracy, very little in terms of special interest groups striving to perfect this or that. There would, of course, be special interest groups; perhaps ones along the lines of abolitionists, or Feed the Hungry of Colfor Swamp, or Save the Zebras. Those would be part of the entertainment for immortals, something for them to do during their endless existence.


I'd also expect them, in general, to be a much more somber people. To be "been there, done that", "seen it". Nothing surprises them anymore at all. And, again, that's why entertainment is so huge to them. I keep coming back to that and I keep trying to find something else. But, really, that's what it would come down to for their society, I think. The new big thing. The next high in entertainment.

[KatG]

Um, I have a question. If their memories only go back to 200 years at best, how do they know when it's been 300 years and they have to serve in the military again?

Issues the Immortals might have, other than as RedMage points out, boredom:

1) Resources. The big problem with an immortal population that needs food and beds is supplying them for thousands of years, and you say that this population is getting larger. Sure they have slaves to work the fields, but they have to feed and cloth and house all the slaves too. And the only other land around seems to be a hellish wasteland that is trying to kill them. So that's a big issue for the ruling priesthood, since they keep very tight control over everyone -- supplies, trade from other lands to provide supplies maybe, keeping that chain of supply open, dealing with disputes over supplies, supplies to the army having precedent over supplies to the reserve populace, etc.

2) Slave revolts -- they're not immortal and can't become so, so there will be slave riots from time to time, and if the slaves greatly outnumber freemen and immortals? And these revolts can damage resources.

3) Armed combat stress -- your society isn't a straight society but instead a standing holy army. Most of the population does military duty and the immortals have to serve 50 years at a pop. Even if big battles are rarer, soldiers are stressed, fearful, bored when nothing happens, and in a state of agitated alert mixed with periods of recreation. So that's going to effect their behavior. It would be a very military society and there would probably be a lot of sport combat competitions -- races, wrestling, etc. There would probably be a lot of gambling in the society. Social conventions would be organized per the military model and be fairly hierarchical. The celebrities would perhaps not be entertainers but warriors who break the record for archery, combat meets, and so on -- athletes essentially. Trade wouldn't be regular trade -- military needs would always be supplied first and the government controls it, so the city essentially again is the supply depot for the army and the standing reserves who aren't currently serving.

4) Women as equals -- Since you have women among the rulers and the immortals as warriors and generals and necessary for reproduction, presumably women and men would be seen as roughly equal in the society. Women bred for war would be fairly strong, muscular, tall, etc. Jobs would be unlikely to have a gender preference in the society. So that's all stuff to factor into how the society operates. That being said, it's possible there would be female only squadrons where it would be a great honor to get in, etc.

5) Curiosity -- Immortals have time to think about stuff. And some of them are likely to question the religion, the governing priesthood, the mission, even with military discipline and religious restrictions. Some of them may go into the wasteland, may try to treat with the inhabitants of the hellish wasteland even if they are demons, or may want to explore beyond the endless conflict of the two kingdoms to other lands. The more locked the society is in ritual, restriction and duty, the more you're going to have immortals breaking rules at the edges. And slaves and even freemen have much incentive to break the rules if they can do so without death.

[RedMage]

KatG makes a good point and now I want to clarify one of my own points. When I said there would be less of a need for police, I did not mean that people wouldn't break laws, wouldn't try to get outside the establishment of society. Rather, it would be the lesser things that you would not need police for. Immortals would use cross-walks at the corners to cross streets, they would generally not have any thieves among their ranks, and would not be littering.

And now that KatG pointed it out, I can say that this would be because the society is so rigid. I imagine it would be like what we think of Sparta as being. And it has existed like this for so long, it will be normal to the immortals and it would not even cross their minds to do anything that could break the law. Of course, they would see their slaves doing things quite often. That would be where a police force would be required, and quite a large one at that to control the slave population.

[hippokrene]

Um, I have a question. If their memories only go back to 200 years at best, how do they know when it's been 300 years and they have to serve in the military again?
There are accessible public records maintained by the bureaucracy.

It's possible for someone to cheap the system by moving, changing your name, and cutting ties. There are a few problems with that…
1) You lose your linage.
2) In another 100-200 years, you're not going to remember why you tried to get out of service. You might end up enlisting anyway but now you have no wealth or rank.
3) If anyone bothers to find out who you are, they'll find an immortal with no history, which means no military service.


1) Resources. The big problem with an immortal population that needs food and beds is supplying them for thousands of years, and you say that this population is getting larger. Sure they have slaves to work the fields, but they have to feed and cloth and house all the slaves too.
Right now, they have a continuous landmass about that's about 9,000,000 kmsq. as well as a large island.

And the only other land around seems to be a hellish wasteland that is trying to kill them.
They border a hellish wasteland, but also several other nations and the sea.

The wasteland is where two world intersects another. They can travel around the wasteland, but once in it, it appears to be endless and the only way out is through their land.


So that's a big issue for the ruling priesthood, since they keep very tight control over everyone -- supplies, trade from other lands to provide supplies maybe, keeping that chain of supply open, dealing with disputes over supplies, supplies to the army having precedent over supplies to the reserve populace, etc.
The priesthood isn't the nobility. I seem to not have been very clear earlier. Sorry.

2) Slave revolts -- they're not immortal and can't become so, so there will be slave riots from time to time, and if the slaves greatly outnumber freemen and immortals? And these revolts can damage resources.
I agree. I thought about making one of the viewpoint characters a freeman in one of the major cities while a slave revolt is fermenting. The freemen are in an interesting position; their ancestors were slaves and they lack certain rights and privileges, but some of the more established families are well off and have political/social power.


3) Armed combat stress -- your society isn't a straight society but instead a standing holy army. Most of the population does military duty and the immortals have to serve 50 years at a pop. Even if big battles are rarer, soldiers are stressed, fearful, bored when nothing happens, and in a state of agitated alert mixed with periods of recreation. So that's going to effect their behavior. It would be a very military society and there would probably be a lot of sport combat competitions -- races, wrestling, etc. There would probably be a lot of gambling in the society. Social conventions would be organized per the military model and be fairly hierarchical. The celebrities would perhaps not be entertainers but warriors who break the record for archery, combat meets, and so on -- athletes essentially. Trade wouldn't be regular trade -- military needs would always be supplied first and the government controls it, so the city essentially again is the supply depot for the army and the standing reserves who aren't currently serving.
This is great stuff. I've thought about making this race more mentally resistant to war fatigue but there's still the impact on the culture and the rest of the population and military.

4) Women as equals -- Since you have women among the rulers and the immortals as warriors and generals and necessary for reproduction, presumably women and men would be seen as roughly equal in the society. Women bred for war would be fairly strong, muscular, tall, etc. Jobs would be unlikely to have a gender preference in the society. So that's all stuff to factor into how the society operates. That being said, it's possible there would be female only squadrons where it would be a great honor to get in, etc.
I agree.

5) Curiosity -- Immortals have time to think about stuff. And some of them are likely to question the religion, the governing priesthood, the mission, even with military discipline and religious restrictions. Some of them may go into the wasteland, may try to treat with the inhabitants of the hellish wasteland even if they are demons, or may want to explore beyond the endless conflict of the two kingdoms to other lands. The more locked the society is in ritual, restriction and duty, the more you're going to have immortals breaking rules at the edges. And slaves and even freemen have much incentive to break the rules if they can do so without death.
I've debated how much freedom a regular immortal is allowed. I assume there are going to be those who enjoy fine foods, many servants, throwing parties, being senators, etc, and are happy to spend lifetimes accumulating wealth and power. At the same, I wanted a world where a young or down-on-his-luck immortal still enjoyed a decent existence, and a society where tradition rules with an iron fist doesn't strike me as one.

[RedMage]

I've debated how much freedom a regular immortal is allowed. I assume there are going to be those who enjoy fine foods, many servants, throwing parties, being senators, etc, and are happy to spend lifetimes accumulating wealth and power. At the same, I wanted a world where a young or down-on-his-luck immortal still enjoyed a decent existence, and a society where tradition rules with an iron fist doesn't strike me as one.

You could always give them what I've found in some books:

Young noble/aristocrat down on his luck, lowest of the low. Suddenly, he's attending a ball, wedding, festival celebration, whathaveyou at the home of one of the most prominent members of the society (usually a high ranking government official such as a prominent Senator) He's wearing a suit that cost him several thousand dollars and he just bought it and didn't even bat an eye at the price tag. And no, he's not there because somebody invited him so as to give him a job or raise his luck a bit. He's just there.

AKA: the lowest of the immortals can still have a place in society higher than the majority of freemen. Their idea of being down and out is not the same as their mortal slaves/workers.

Or, another idea might be that a person can take half their military service early. They can come out of it with money and prestige. Like going into the military so as to go to college in our culture. This could also work to put the completion of their service off to a later date than when it would have come up again anyways. That would make an interesting option for those in financial trouble, especially if you get a high ranking member of society who throws all those parties suddenly announcing that he's taking half his service now and not doing the full thing in sixty years.

[hippokrene]

Differences? Hmm.

1) Entertainment: I'm currently reading The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin (I think that's how you spell her name). In it the reader is told that the uber powerful rulers of a world spanning empire entertain themselves in ways that are utterly horrifying and sickening. Like we think of gladiatorial fights in the coliseums of Rome.

I think your society, too, would have to be this way.
It's important to remember that the ruling caste of Jemisin's world don't do anything. They don't lead armies, they aren't ruling provinces, they're not explorers or diplomats, and they're not scholars or inventors. They do nothing but sit around a giant castle their entire lives in the heart of a powerful empire, surrounded by servants.

Their behavior is not just boredom, but being part of a society where their only goal in life is personal indulgence. And Jemisin stuck in some of those horrifying scenes not so we'd have insight into their character and society, but so we would know they were Capital-E Evil.

I'm not interesting in portraying an evil empire, though I agree that there would be immortals who'd abuse their power and that the structure of the society is unequal.

The immortals would have to be constantly striving to find a new thrill, a new high.
I agree there would be boredom, but not everyone reacts to boredom by trying to find a new high. If an immortal goes to a play that they've seen before, they might like that it's still playing. The idea that a play they liked is something that no one puts on anymore could easily upset them. And if they want a new play, it doesn't necessarily mean they want one with more blood, sex, and 'thrills.'

It's the same with other arts and entertainment.

If your earliest memories are of complex and bombastic music like Beethoven, you might want more of the same and hate it when people try to mess with the 'classics.' You might want something more soft and romantic like Chopin. You might want to hear exotic music with instruments and tunes from outside your culture. Or you might want something even more complex and bombastic.

And that's preferences in a vacuum. If the queen suddenly decides she loves ukulele music and you're a noble in the capitol, ukuleles are going to be in for a while. If you're the governor of a small mining settlement on the border, you're stuck with whatever instruments and music the locals have developed. Admittedly, there will be immortals who'll hire their own full orchestra and have them shipped to said border town, but not everyone has the funds or temperament to do something like that.

And, at the same time, there must also be the slower, more sedate entertainments. The old stories, card/dice/chess games and music that have been around for millennium but are still enjoyed by those of a nostalgic mood.
I agree. One of the reasons those games are popular is unlike a coliseum, they're portable, inexpensive, and you can play them with just a few friends.



And it has existed like this for so long, it will be normal to the immortals and it would not even cross their minds to do anything that could break the law.
Or, you could have spent lifetimes breaking the law.

There will always be people who think stealing from others is a great way to make a living. There will always be those who think political or business rivals need to die. There will always be those who become addicted to various substances, or who have compulsions that can't be satisfied legally. Finding your lover in the arms of another or being treated without due respect will always make some people homicidal.

I believe they're far likely to commit crimes due to poverty or desperation. Laws based on religion or custom will feel 'natural' to them. Society is more apt to look the other way when they commit minor offences.

That would be where a police force would be required, and quite a large one at that to control the slave population.
I probably need to research whatever passed for a police force in ancient China or Rome. I imagine there wasn't much.

[hippokrene]

I'd like to thank you two for your comment. This is just the sort of discussion I'd hoped for.

[Violent Emesis]

I am curious, how is their immortality possible? If the slaves and Free men are incapable of immortality, why are they? Would there be any possibility of, over the years, a secret change amongst the slaves or Free men? Slaves always outnumber the masters, and slaves have always been seen as little more than livestock, so would those immortal masters know if somehow evolution began favoring slaves and Free men with immortality, or the beginnings of immortality? You say only the Priesthood are fertile insofar as the immortals are concerned, so are all slaves and free men fertile? If that were the case, and Slaves and Freemen (S&F for short here!) started getting their immortal on, they could get some revolution going. Hell, I do not even know where you are taking your story, so forget I wrote anything if this is way off base.

[KatG]

There are accessible public records maintained by the bureaucracy.

It's possible for someone to cheap the system by moving, changing your name, and cutting ties. There are a few problems with that…
1) You lose your linage.
2) In another 100-200 years, you're not going to remember why you tried to get out of service. You might end up enlisting anyway but now you have no wealth or rank.
3) If anyone bothers to find out who you are, they'll find an immortal with no history, which means no military service.


It's possible for someone to game the system by having the records altered, claiming that they did do their military service already when they didn't. Since no one handling the records 300 years later will remember that the new records are wrong, you could get out of it. You won't remember that you've done it after awhile, so you won't know that you did anything wrong either. So I'm just saying if 200 years is the cut-off point for memories, then you might want to make the military service every 200 years, not 300. It's very difficult to keep records and have a long term bureaucracy if your workers continually forget and have to rely on the records. Because records are really easy to get altered. (History is written by the victors and the sneaky.)

And then there are the Immortals who will have forgotten they served and are told they have to serve and think the records are wrong and resent it, which has effects on the army. If an Immortal commander is pissed off, what's to stop him from letting his squad of freemen and other Immortals get largely slaughtered in the skirmish and making it look accidental to get revenge? If you do that, fail at the war, I imagine there are penalties, but if an Immortal was really angry about it, that person might not care.

You have incentives for the nobles to enlist -- wealth, power, lineage. But there is going to be a cadre of people who don't like the military and endless war, don't want the wealth and power, want the system to be changed and will try to game the system. Unless they were bred to be docile except in battle.

The wasteland is where two world intersects another. They can travel around the wasteland, but once in it, it appears to be endless and the only way out is through their land.

I'm assuming there is some sort of land structure that means that the people who live in the wasteland country can't go around the wasteland like the immortals can? If they can go around the wasteland, why not do that to take the war to the wasteland people and wipe them out permanently?

The priesthood isn't the nobility. I seem to not have been very clear earlier. Sorry.

The priesthood keeps the records, tends to the religion that runs the society and makes the babies, so they are the rulers in actuality if not name. And the society works through rigid control, caste system, ritual honor, and a militarized philosophy of war duty as purpose. So both the priesthood and the nobles, dealing with the demands and rules of the priesthood, have to keep the populace compliant, supplied, and sufficiently staffed with compliant Immortals.

I agree. I thought about making one of the viewpoint characters a freeman in one of the major cities while a slave revolt is fermenting. The freemen are in an interesting position; their ancestors were slaves and they lack certain rights and privileges, but some of the more established families are well off and have political/social power.

Certainly you might want to have a few major characters who are freemen. There is the question of Immortal-freeman relationships.

I've debated how much freedom a regular immortal is allowed. I assume there are going to be those who enjoy fine foods, many servants, throwing parties, being senators, etc, and are happy to spend lifetimes accumulating wealth and power. At the same, I wanted a world where a young or down-on-his-luck immortal still enjoyed a decent existence, and a society where tradition rules with an iron fist doesn't strike me as one.

Well, you're not doing a replica of Roman society, like Barclay sort of was in his Children duology, and you're not doing a straight replica of medieval China either. Both of those empires did not have a religion that says they were created to fight another people. The emphasis on military service in the society was simply not there. They were countries that had large armies but they were not military cultures. You're kind of weaving in the Spartans, but the Spartans were known for their austerity and this society doesn't seem that, um, spartan. :)

So that's an interesting mix, but if nearly everyone has to do military service periodically -- the freemen send some of their kids for advancement, the Immortals have to periodically serve for decades -- and relearn a lot of their battle experience -- the slaves get used as fodder, etc., then you do have a military culture and it is going to have to be somewhat of an iron fist culture because the military is about order, discipline, obedience, etc. and the religion is about being military. It doesn't have to be Evil Empire sort of culture, but it would be highly ritualized and honor based (like the Chinese,) and there would be strong penalties for bucking the system. People would probably spy on each other a bit and the rulers would have spies.

And in that sort of system, you usually have larger than usual black market trade. I mean, the freemen have enormous incentive to sneak stuff past the nobles.

And there is that huge temptation of the wasteland itself. It's like Everest, a giant dare. Military prowess being important in the society, gambling also probably being important in the society -- the ability to pull off feats -- young and forgetting Immortals will be tempted to go into the wasteland alone and prove themselves, find out stuff they think is being hidden from them, win a bet, etc. So that's going to be happening, and it may be indulged as a rite of passage or some of it may not be. You'll have to judge how valuable the Immortal lives are to the rulers -- is it a big deal if an Immortal is lost not to war but to accident and stupidity? As you say, how much leash do they get as a main resource of the war.