Fair enough. Well, not exactly. The premise of my world is rules can't be broken. Again, perhaps I was relaying too much on what most think of as the standard for terms. By no healing magic. I mean, there is no "spell or move" that just reverses damage. If for example you are shot in the chest. There is no "quick, you heal!" option. In the same way there is no "disguise" option. Unless you count an optinal illusion? In my girls case. She doesn't technically heal, but takes over an automatic response with the intention of giving it better orders. Humans don't naturally regrow limbs. So by taking over the response, she is changing the game. But a move like that, isn't really that useful in the healing department, because it is too slow. If she was shot in the heart, she could in theory use this technique, but it took her a month to regrow part of her arm. I am assuming she would die, before she could repair her heart. Right? Does that explain the situation better? In my world, there is really no such thing as a spell book. Magic is an innate process with rules. Anything that fits inside those rules is acceptable. She is the only one tha does this, not because she is the only one able too, but because she was the only one that figured it out. Which is partly due to others not really wanting to risk messing up. I mean, that would suck! lol.
I think what you're looking for to explain why all species are human-like is the theory of convergent evolution...whereby the same environment will cause similar species to evolve to fill the ecological gaps. Thus, on the Galapagos Islands, there are finches and not much else...so that the finches evolved to fill niches that (in Europe, say) were filled by other species...and the Galapagos insect-eating finch was very similar to a European insect-eating non-finch. So, if you've got an environment similar to Earth, where humans developed, you'd expect something similar to humans to evolve (as in four limbs, head at the top, etc.). But that human-like being could be descended from Velociraptor, and be genetically incompatible with us. See Star Trek Voyageristant Origin Theory. When running/walking, speed is a simple calculation of length of stride x strike rate. Steve Austin, in Six-Million Dollar Man, was able to run at 60 mph because his legs became a blur as he upped his strike rate. An athlete will try to improve both of these variables. To put some meat on those bones, imagine I want to run a 4-minute mile...If I have a strike rate of 180 strides per minute (top athletes manage this) I need to cover about 2.5 yards per stride. This will give me a speed slightly above 15 mph. ETA: Or if I want to run 100metres in 10 seconds, I'll need about 30 strides of nearly 3.5 metres each, a speed of around 21.5 mph. So Steve Austin is either doing 720 strides per minute, or 10 yards per stride (the world long jump record stands at 29 feet 4 1/4 inches, or slightly less than 10 yards)...a speed significantly above 30 mph, for a humanoid, rings my bullshit-ometer. Jessica, you appear to suggest, finds that her well-developed leg muscles enable her to increase her length of stride. However, you need to factor in that the human body has 2 types of muscle, slow-twitch and fast-twitch. Unsurprisingly, it is the fast-twitch ones that sprinters use, and these operate anaerobically...which means that they develop more power in the short term (because the chemical reaction these muscles employ doesn't waste energy combining the oxygen with the glycogen) but also burns fuel (glycogen) like a drag racer burns...whatever drag racers burn! The result is that I'll never beat Usain Bolt over 100m because, well... whereas, make it over 10 miles, and I'd fancy my chances a bit, because my slow-twitch muscles develop less power, but do it by combining oxygen (delivered regularly by my cardio-vascular system) and glycogen much (I think it's about ten times) more efficiently, so I can keep up my pace. To get back to Jessica, she is analogous to the Ethiopians, who live at altitude and have evolved a physique to cope with the reduced oxygen levels. And that is why, over the last thirty years, most Olympic DISTANCE medals have been won by people from that part of Africa. They don't run fast (well, not THAT fast - most Olympic sprinters have been US) but they do run far, using their very efficient slow-twitch muscles fuelled by a well-developed cardio-vascular system. Most Olympic distance runners are light, using BMI, whereas sprinters are border-line obese. Usain Bolt 1.95m, 94kg, BMI 24.7, born at altitude of 230 metres Haile Gebrselassie 1.65m, 56kg, BMI 20.5, born at altitude of 2,430metres Note, also, how much taller Bolt is (the last five Olympic 10k golds have been won by men around the height of Gebrselassie) because 100m is all about how much power you can put down, whereas 10k is more about how little weight you've got to move.
Holy cow. I feel bad that I am not smart enough to reply better. I was also a bit confused by your opening part before Jessica.
True, and to paraphrase Inspector Fowler in The Thin Blue Line (British TV series), in the Star Trek universe, aliens are humans with plastic forehead extensions.
Given the form itself, my natural response is about the issue of symmetry and it would mean/require four hands, but the muscles and mass addition would further reduce the efficiency of the human form. Though by this logic one could also wonder why a millipedes and the like have dozens of legs and not just two less... As to the matter of convergent evolution, is that not like seed or host theory upon which the universe, ancestral beings or nature itself pushes towards a "type" of life that is increasingly more advanced with humanoids being one of the forms for high-order sentient life? For Wynn, I was wondering if part of the "magic" was a cosmic background which sort of works to push responsive organisms towards a humanoid form over a long course of evolution. The origin of this magic could be some wavelength that fills the universe or a natural mathematical law. The theory an oversoul or something similar also is a possibility if you want to go that route. There are just so many possibilities that the need for an explanation may be more restrictive than beneficial, but I do not think that only "natural selection" needs to be advanced for these settings.
The magic you describe doesn't really sound that much like traditional magic it seems to me more like genetic mutations or superpowers. Is it essential to your story for it to be referred to as magic? Because if I just read the description of the abilities without the context I would probably have assumed it was an ability that the aliens had evolved.
No, it doesn't have to be called magic. Earthlings can do it too though, the premise is that Earthlings souls evolved to the point of being able to do it. I call it magic, because I assume if we coud suddenly do that, we would call it magic. If that makes sense?
If they can change their cellular structure enough to repair a limb, they could probably alter their appearance. Take the sorceressces in the Witcher universe, or the Aes Sedai in Wheel of Time. They can heal in a similar manner to what you say, but the women and men have impeccable appearances because they slowly alter their bone structure and other things with magic over time. This possibility can fuel the plot too. In Doctor Who they have a species that looks completely human on the outside, but have many internal organs and senses normal humans do not. Many of these mutations were not natural, but forced by traveling through time and space for millenia, and also leaders of their race promoting genetic alteration through exposure to certain objects. So like your race, they genetically evolved into what they are.
In my case, it is a skill, not an alien trait, such as the character that can repair limbs. In my world, any one could do that with magic. When I said, hard to change appearance I meant purely in the sense that growing different body parts is not exactly an easy thing to do, nor would it happen suddenly. So in that characters case, her race isn't know for that ability but just her. But the real question or point of the thread was: "Does the fact that aliens are naturally often almost indistigishable from normal human based on the premise that the evolution that happened on our world would be similar to evolution on their world hit your bullshit button?" Did I explain that well? Like a better example is a girl of my named Kerrin. She is an alien too. Her world is covered in a huge forest. Not only trees, but like. Her world like ours, needed a simiar tempature to support life, needed oxygen, ext. So life sprouted in mostly the same way. The biggest difference is that of culture. No one figured out gun powder. So, no revolution based on technology. They stuck to the forest, but did develop farms, and did began to build a society, but no guns. No explosives. They didn't figure out electricity either. That is how her world was. If you were a doctor and were to examine her. I suspect there would be noticible differences. Like perhaps she doesn't have a tail bone and similar such things. But on the outside? I tried to add the picture nicely but didn't exactly work. http://andromon1217.deviantart.com/art/Evil-Kerrin-Color-567227929 To be fair, the outfit she got, on another planet. lol. She was.... a bit... well the outfit speaks for itself. So to re say the big question of the forum. Does it break your suspense of disbelief that she is an alien from another world completely unrelated to Earth and yet she is about 5 feet 10 tall, 4 limbs. Pale skin tone. Completely able to blend into Earth without effort.
Depends on what your idea of the soul is and such things like that. I mean Native Americans believe/used to believe (heard most are Christian now at least around where I live which is sad) that everything has a soul whether that be plants/animals/or even planets (at least ours). So if it is like that I don't know how much sense it would be seeing as how souls go into everything. But if your views are more Christian/Catholic/Jewish then it makes more sense. It depends on your own views and what kind of world (Usually I find worlds share their beliefs with the makers)
