The elvish Faverians
Table of Contents
Journal notes regarding the "elves".
In the new world where we have chosen to make our home, we have found several human-like species. The New Neanderthals, which appears to descend from Neanderthals from our world who would have travelled there tens of thousands of years ago, and Faverians—or as many of us called them, the "elves"—who claim to be native of this world. They are the true leader people here, having subjugated the Neanderthals and make those look at them with as much awe as terror and hatred. And they want to force us exactly in the same position—at their feet.
Biology
Physically, the Faverians look a like like how we've imagined elves, minus the pointy ears, hence the nickname we've given them. Bonus point for the fact that they positively hate it. First, Faveirans are extremely long lived, commonly living several centuries. In fact, I don't think that they truly age like us, but that rather that they just all die off of slow erosion by their endless conflicts and wars.
Second, their muscles are stronger than ours and they have faster reflexes. However, now that we've managed to cheat by increasing ours with our new magic powers, we can compete with them. Still, we all still have troubles controlling our reflexes and coordinating our movements if we go too fast. That means that the Faverian remains very dangerous enemies, even if we don't look at them with the same dread as the Neanderthals do.
Third, the Faverians look "pretty". They have thinner bone structure than us, pale skin, and always black hair and blue or green eyes. They are about 10 cm taller than us, which makes them 30 cm taller taller than the Neanderthals.
Culture
What really makes the Faverians different from us is their eidetic memory and the resulting incredible arrogance: they look down on us and the Neanderthals and consider us as some kind of stupid gold fish unable to remember anything. Yet, they pay for this advantage in other ways. Indeed, many Faverians use this memory as a crutch to get on without getting through the troubles of truly understanding things like science or magic. And then if the exercise or situation change a little bit from what they are used to, they are completely lost. Not all of them are like that, of course, but many Faverians are never truly challenged to exercise their brain to its full capacity.
Because of this great memory, Faverians always compare things to previous situation, people to others they know. They both hate and highly value changes and novelties. They are slow to adapt and change slow to learnt from mistakes and often need to repeat them several times or to have a very long introspection afterwards to draw conclusions from it. And even then, they don't interiorise them quickly.
Another important cultural point is the fact that Faverians are convinced that their creation myths are real and that some superior god-like beings created them before leaving this world. As a result of this close relationship with their gods, Faverians' ancestors used to have wonderous magical powers and secret knowledge. However, with each new generation, they lose some of those because Faverians prefer to keep such knowledge secret rather than share it with others.
Thus, Faverians have this idea of a golden aged that is long past, like the Romans used to think with their own past golden age, our own ancestors with the Romans themselves, or us with the Eden garden. Faverians do not have our idea that society constantly builds up on previous discoveries and progresses forwards socially and technologically. Instead, they look at us with bemusement and consider us as having some kind of incomprehensible boundless optimism.
Conclusion
The Faverians are dangerous enemies. Their behaviour and arrogance makes it extremely difficult for us not to take offence at them and, in reaction, to despise them for their own biological inferiorities. But it would be a mistake to look down on them, and one they would certainly make us pay dearly. Let us not tolerate any insult or feel any inferiority complex regarding them, unlike our cousins the Neanderthals, but let us not underestimate them either.
In addition, it might be difficult to admit, but it seems that us, sapiens from the modern Earth, have more in common with those Faverian enemies than with our cousins, the new Neanderthals. Everyone in this relationship thinks so, but everyone is also too horrified by this conclusion to truly speak it aloud. The Neanderthals and Faverians both see our high endurance, our tall stature and fine facial features, our high education and value of culture, and, yes, our love of hierarchy, dislike of differences between people, and our own arrogance and conviction of being better than anyone else as all being essential Faverian traits.
Finally, we have already managed to gain a great advantage in the war by making the Faverians think we were nothing but slightly different Neanderthals. They will, of course, not underestimate us to such a degree any longer. However, my advice is to continue to play on their fascination for the new and their ultimate belief in their own superiority. This will only earn us a bit more time, but any small amount is good when we still need to learn so much about our magic powers and this new world. We have to remember that the Faverians are not the ultimate enemies, and that, sooner or later, the Mist and the Shadows will catch up with us. What we need to do is be in a the best position to impose our terms upon the Faverians when we will all be ultimately forced to ally together.
Lille under the Mist by AmélieIS with an image from Diane Picchiottino on Unsplash
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