Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 07, 2024, 10:50:58 PMSo, serious question here.  I'm writing up the rules right now for a human-only scifi game (no intelligent xenos have ever been discovered... yet).  Some humans have adapted to their world (some naturally, some via bioengineering), so they have different groupings based on their homeworld or bioengineered design (some adapted to high-G worlds, etc.).  What should I call it?  "Race" doesn't really fit, nor does "ancestry" or "species."  Things like "lineage" imply that their parents were like that (which is not always the case).  I'm actually stumped here, because I'm not pandering, but "race" really doesn't work.  Any suggestions are welcome!

Strain. Unmodified humans are pure strain, modified ones are heavy strain (2G worlds) etc.

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on June 13, 2024, 11:40:12 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 07, 2024, 10:50:58 PMSo, serious question here.  I'm writing up the rules right now for a human-only scifi game (no intelligent xenos have ever been discovered... yet).  Some humans have adapted to their world (some naturally, some via bioengineering), so they have different groupings based on their homeworld or bioengineered design (some adapted to high-G worlds, etc.).  What should I call it?  "Race" doesn't really fit, nor does "ancestry" or "species."  Things like "lineage" imply that their parents were like that (which is not always the case).  I'm actually stumped here, because I'm not pandering, but "race" really doesn't work.  Any suggestions are welcome!

Strain. Unmodified humans are pure strain, modified ones are heavy strain (2G worlds) etc.

I'd say Phenotype or Genotype would be better. Strain has too many negative connotations with diseases/viruses to the point its been used to distinguish types of zombies and vampires.

Phenotype (if the physical differences are more due to environmental factors; ex. a human who grew up in high gravity) or Genotype (if the physical differences are a result of differences in the subject's genetic code; ex. a human bio-engineered for higher gravity) are both scientifically accurate and in generally even sound more sci-fi than Strain does (ex. High Gravity Phenotype).

Another related bit is that you could actually use both to represent the differences between someone who naturally adapted to an environment (ex. a human with the Heavy World Phenotype) and one who is bio-engineered (a Titan Genotype; since they're engineered it means someone's going to brand name the process).

That can set up all sort of interesting elements in a sci-fi setting... perhaps Phenotypes aren't AS adapted as Genotypes, but also don't suffer nearly so severe side-effects from different environments. By contrast Genotypes are so adapted to their environment they have real problems in other environments.

None of it matters unless you want to use whatever term for 1) flavor for genre aesthetics. 2) you want to discriminate against ideologically driven signaling language in your hobby.

I suggest you do both.

I like "race."  Ever since I was little the term "human race" bugged me.  Why have that term if there are no other races?  D&D made sense of that for me.