Why Orcs beat Elves

[amerigoV]

well, by the time elves reach their age of maturity - what is it now, 100? - the orcs will have had 8-9 generations of breeding. It's simple math that orcs will win over time.

So, by the time elf mommy and elf daddy have elf baby #1, the orc mommy from 100 years ago maybe had 8-10 orc babies. Say half made it to breeding age due to violence/war/survival of the fittest, so 4-5. Let's conservatively say 4. If things go similarly for each generation , those 4 orcs will each produce 4 more that reach breeding age.

4x4, or 16 orcs after 22 years
16x4, or 64 orcs after 33 years
64x4, or 256 orcs after 44 years
256x4, or 1012 orcs after 55 years
1012x4, or 4048 orcs after 66 years
4048x4, or 16,000+ orcs over 77 years
16,000+ x4, or 64,000 orcs over 88 years
64,000x4, or 256,000 orcs over 99 years when the baby elf reaches maturity a year later.

Or just watch the opening of the movie Idiocracy
First 10 minutes of Idiocracy (Clip 1) | Free Video Clips | SPIKE

Hmmm, that does kinda support the view that orcs are descended from elves....

 

[Kaodi]

In addition, there is very solid evidence that, for any species that learns very complex behaviors (like, say, humans) having older individuals around as repositories of knowledge is a hefty competitive advantage - having grandma and grandpa around to watch the kids and teach them skills is a big deal. So much for nature not caring if we live a long time.

Not so fast: Cooperation and competition in a cliff-dwelling people

Abstract:

In animals that breed cooperatively, adult individuals will sometimes delay reproduction to act as helpers at the nest who raise young that are not their genetic offspring. It has been proposed that humans are also a cooperatively breeding species because older daughters, grandmothers, and other kin and nonkin may provide significant childcare. Through a prospective cohort study of children's (n = 1,700) growth and survival in the Dogon of Mali, I show that cooperative breeding theory is a poor fit to the family dynamics of this population. Rather than helping each other, siblings competed for resources, producing a tradeoff between the number of maternal siblings and growth and survival. It did not take a village to raise a child; children fared the same in nuclear as in extended families. Of critical importance was the degree of polygyny, which created conflicts associated with asymmetries in genetic relatedness. The risk of death was higher and the rate of growth was slower in polygynous than monogamous families. The hazard of death for Dogon children was twofold higher if the resident paternal grandmother was alive rather than dead. This finding may reflect the frailty of elderly grandmothers who become net consumers rather than net producers in this resource-poor society. Mothers were of overwhelming importance for child survival and could not be substituted by any category of kin or nonkin. The idea of cooperative breeding taken from animal studies is a poor fit to the complexity and diversity of kin interactions in humans.

 

[Umbran]

Not so fast:

Not so fast yourself. I was talking about having older individuals around to give care to kin. These folks bring in degree of polygyny, giving care to non-kin, how many siblings are around, and how resource-poor the region was - far, far more variables. Looking at a Gordian knot of different effects does not counter suggestion that one of them tends to have a specific effect.

Especially when we consider that while their study has a goodly number of people, they were apparently all in one community and culture. I'd not call that a death knell for the idea in general, just that the effect was overcome in this instance.

I cannot show you the full article, as it is for subscribers, but this July Scientific American had an article on the subject: The Evolution of Grandparents

In Brief:

• People today typically live long enough to become grandparents, but this was not always the case.
• Recent analyses of fossil teeth indicate that grandparents were rare in ancient populations, such as those of the australopithecines and the Neandertals. They first became common around 30,000 years ago, as evidenced by remains of early modern Europeans.
• This surge in the number of seniors may have been a driving force for the explosion of new tool types and art forms that occurred in Europe at around the same time. It also may explain how modern humans out competed archaic groups such as the Neandertals.

 

[mmadsen]

well, by the time elves reach their age of maturity - what is it now, 100? - the orcs will have had 8-9 generations of breeding. It's simple math that orcs will win over time.

The orcs outbreed the elves -- then hit their lands' carrying capacity, try to expand into surrounding lands, suffer casualties, and either increase their lands (and thus their sustainable population) or not.

Presumably some elf factions see an orc horde as a failure to properly cull the herd in time, while others decry unnecessary violence against still-peaceful orcs and don't feel justified in fighting until the horde arrives.

 

[Kaodi]

Not so fast yourself.

Maybe. It might be better for my purposes if the Grandmother Hypothesis is correct. But I think the article on the Dogon justifies enough scepticism to shy away from assuming it for any reason, if not discarding it.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Too bad everyone knows that once Humans enter the scenario they would beat both Orcs and Elves.

Personally, I never put too much stock in computer models since they can nor correctly predict the weather a week from today. So unless that model includes variables like an sudden unexpected technological advancements in weaponry, natural disaster, a rampaging dragon, a civil war, or a zombie incursion then I have to be skeptical of any outcome it may predict.

 

[Wolf72]

Has anyone read the prequel trilogies of Shanarra by Terry Brooks? ... or even remember the original series.

I'm not sure why, but I never caught on to the fact that elves in Shanarra had a similar age range to humans.

Then I read the those new (to me) 6 books (with Nat and then the gypsy morph) ... and I noticed that when the elves finally appeared they weren't anything like I remembered, then I reread Sword of Shanarra ...

then I read through the World of Shanarra and learned that the elves went into hiding (knew that already) but they began changing ... smaller lifespan leading to more population.

It made me rethink elves a bit. I'm still a fan of the longer lifespan, but quick maturity model though (Elf Quest).

 

[Hand of Evil]

the error in the math is that it does not take into account alignment...yea, I know; not another alignment thread. But orcs are chaotic evil, that should mean something, most likely internal conflict and a high mortality rate do to the nature that CE applies.

 

[Thanee]

It's odd that so many settings place the elves as a dying people, gradually being driven to extinction or leaving the realm. Almost like they'd ...

... all taken the concept from the same source.

Bye
Thanee

 

[was]

cause elves spend too much time baking cookies and making toys