City Musings: Monsters?

[sythyry]

There have been extensive mutterings and murmurings that I should construct a city, in which we -- wrongfolk, monsters, angels, and other undesirables -- can live as we wish. I certainly haven't decided not to, though it's probably a terrible idea for a great many reasons.

Still ... how do we wish to live?

Specifically I am thinking about the monsters -- Vae, of course, and the Elfimel. And hCevian, of course, though his case is less troublesome, mainly because he is nearly impossible to exclude from a city. But the other monsters cannot.

We could be an ordinary city. Primes inside, monsters outside. Vae is certainly used to this. The angels will be unhappy, but the angels are here as refugees anyhow.

Or we could let those four creatures inside the walls. It's not as if walls keep us safe from Vae anyhow, and the angels are not very dangerous. This will probably cut our prime immigrants by half.

Or we could, I suppose, try to allow other monsters inside the walls as well -- mherobump and taptet and other generally safe ones. This isn't that extraordinary, though few cities make much of a point of it.

Or, say, we could have a "Monster Ghetto". Monsters may come to a certain portion of the city, inside one set of walls, but outside of another set. The inner city is, of course, reserved for primes alone, just like a normal city. But, unlike most cities, monsters can come inside of some walls. And I'm thinking of, e.g., trying to make sure that some important cultural areas are in the monster ghetto -- like the museum and theatre districts, and the governmental areas, and the best shopping, if I can manage that. The inner city could be mostly for prime homes. That would be unusual.

[Poll #1726949]

Comments

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Building the ghetto with certain important acculturating institutions placed within seems a very sensible plan. You might also consider a program whereby individual monsters, having shown themselves peaceful and trustworthy citizens of the ghetto, can then receive permission to visit or eventually even live in the prime city.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

I second this. Some sort of pass or testing system or proving system, as unambiguous and non-subjective as possible, to get the safer monsters to be allowed fully in. The ghetto would be a lower level of 'pass', requiring less work to get in, but there would be some actually useful method of social mobility for monsters.

Also, the language you use will be very relevant -- consider things that are less demeaning, like "nonprime". Don't use the term 'monster'. Maybe "civilized nonprime", "unproven nonprime", "trusted nonprime", done on an individual by individual basis?

Wasn't there some group of primes that was trying to do some live in harmony with monsters thing in your journeys some time ago?

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Sythyry would run into the fact that the built-in Common language has words for "Zi Ri" and "Gormoror" but not "Wheriwheffle". The gods probably wanted the primes to think of nonprimes as lesser beings.

(By the way, why do fantasy races always seem to be Capitalized? We don't write about "Humans".)

[xolo.livejournal.com]

They are lesser beings. That's how they were created.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, for varying senses of "lesser". Vae is not a lesser being in the way that some taptet or scawn would be a lesser being.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's a good idea.

Ghettos tend to rapidly become 'undesirable' parts of a city: people quickly assume that, since X are allowed to be there, then all 'evil' should be pushed to that part of the city. Then that tends to be self-sustaining: associating all X with evil.