I was wondering if anyone had any theories as to how things may be affected by a faster growth rate. Two of my characters belong to a race of merpeople (one is part human) and one of their many biological differences than humans is they grow faster. Not like say Twilight where they're all grown up in six years or something like that, more like the characters are about four or five but have the maturity of seven or eight year olds.
Based on what I heard about intellectually gifted people, it tends more to the social side. These 13 year olds were in college, faced with 18-25 year olds and there is no one their age. They are isolated among the crowd.
Although these kids are physically more mature than they would be if they were human. Plus they have access to playmates of their kind
Is their lifespan longer than a humans or do they die faster? Do they only age faster or do they also heal at an accelerated rate? Does the enhanced aging make them all slim due to a fast metabolism? If you would like to know perhaps a technical aspect of this then I recommend you look into the real medical condition Progeria, a very rare condition that causes humans to age at an incredibly fast rate.
They have a longer life span. And no they don't really heal faster than humans, the kids probably have big appetites though. And progeria doesn't cause accelerated maturity (as in getting taller and more adult), just age (as in cell breakdown), in fact even victims who reach their teens don't hit puberty.
Well, what you would have then is 4 - 5 year olds in the bodies of 7 - 8 year olds. You mention greater appetite, and indeed, if they are a race sized to the specs of your average human, then yeah, more food would be needed to grow those bodies. Humans are relatively large creatures in the grand scheme of things and we require a subsequently large amount of food, which is converted to body mass at a relatively low ratio so, yeah, lots'a food.
I'm a little unclear as to the problem -- if these merpeople are a relatively abundant species, there would be so many of them that it wouldn't be a surprise that they'd be more mature, it would just be an accepted given. If there aren't very many merpeople, and/or they are so otherwise identical to humans that they are confused for humans, and there is a need to fully integrate them with humans, then I suppose there would be problems. 4/5 year olds who present as 7/8 year olds will be expected to act in ways that they may not be able to act. A 14 year old, who presents as, say, an 18 year old, though, could present a real problem -- not only will they be presumed to have some knowledge and maturity they don't have, but they do have enough knowledge to be able to exploit this opportunity for appearing older to do things they shouldn't be allowed to do.
Within the context of their own race, I can't see how this would matter. Make something up and it's all good. If they are humans with accelerated growth, that might be different, but again, only if compared with other humans of normal growth.
This is what as known as a writing prompt, and you shoild take it as such.What do you think the implications are? Write a story around them and see how your extrapolations hold together. Then polish the story and pass it around. If people discuss it and argue the points, then you have succeeded in making them think. This is how a writer brainstorms - he or she puts it out there as a lightning rod and waits to see what strikes at it. Do you have the courage to lay it on the line?
