My character sometimes talks about her people and that includes her great grandparent's generation that initially fled Earth and arrived at the new planet before she was born. "Ancestors" sounds more distant than "great grandparents", and "great grandparents" sounds like just her single family line of descent, but she is referring to a large group of many families. So which term do people think is more precise or fits better when she is talking about her people? Or is there a better term than either of those two choices? Thanks in advance.
The original colonists, maybe? Unwieldy, I know, but when I read ancestors and elders and the old ones in Sci-Fi, I always cringe. It never feels natural.
Hmmm, perhaps I could use "immigrants". They are from the second group to arrive. It's still not quite right, though. Maybe I'll go with 'elders', but it's not quite right either because the only people still alive from the original generation were young kids when the group arrived. It's now ~3 generations later.
Again, she's not an original settler. She's talking to an original settler and she's describing what she's knows about her people's arrival ~60 years earlier.
Well, then... When she refers to "the people", who is she really referring to? Is she contextually talking about all of them, historical and present, just historical, just present? Also, do these people have a name? I've picked up on tids and bits of your WIP and know there are social issues at play, so I'm intuiting that these are maybe a defined group...? Maybe? Because if they are, I would think that their group name would be the most appropriate.
She's only talking about her great grandmother and her (great grandmother's) generation, right? And they were the original settlers, were they not? So that seems like a good term to use to describe them.
Maybe I should invent a new word: Foreparents? Is that too weird for a setting a couple hundred years in the future?
Yes to your first sentence, no to the second. She's describing the arrival of her great grandparents' generation's arrival on a planet there was already an established population that had arrived ahead of them.
Perhaps I should just stick to "my people". She refers to her current group as Runners. They fled, she's descended from them. But half the original group stayed to live with the Founders. And the reference includes both groups of ancestors. For the group that stayed, I haven't settled on an appropriate group name: immigrants, settlers, something along that line but I'm not certain. The first arrivals are the Founders.
I just had a funny thought for a new word: My Geeps, like my Peeps but referring to grandparents. The girl she's talking to can ask what she means. Jeeps Greeps Gampers
Second wave? Second wavers? Or, assuming this is the book from Centauri Rising, you could ironically use some sort of derogatory term that the original settlers gave them. "The trespassers/intruders/something better", she snorted. "That's what (my great grandmother) says they called us back then, and it kinda stuck". Feel this could still be one step away from being a good idea though.
I've been thinking of this in terms of the Irish, who began emigrating in the early 1800s, and who continue to do so today. My grandmother emigrated in 1912. Even my son wouldn't refer to her and her generation as "ancestors" (I agree, it sounds ancient). He'd probably just say, "my great grandmother", but there isn't an identifiable characteristic by which to group her and her generation of immigrants. They are just immigrants to us. I like your idea of "Runners". If that's what identifies all of the members of that generation, it's irrelevant who stayed and who moved on (unless there is some other reason you need to identify as a group those who stayed and those who moved on).
Sorry about the lack of clarity @thirdwind. Yes @Patra Felino, this is ~60 yrs later, Centauri Rising was a hastily written prequel. You guys are great (@ everyone). I think this sounding board is helping.
