alien and ahistorical moralities

[Spring Bass]

That fucker from Malazan, the super warlord that is 100,000 years old is a prime example. There is no indication that such a great span of years has done anything to him, and there is little doubt in my mind that it would. Same with Elves, or Dwarves, or any other long lived race.

I found a bit of this in, of all things, a Mercedes Lackey book. The elves in the book are basically your typical elves: long-lived, beautiful, etc. But one of the effects of being long-lived with little conflict or the like to shake them up (and a lot of time to refine what they've made), is that they've turned into stubborn, nit-picking perfectionists. There's a funny part (and I'm paraphrasing) where the protagonist is walking around an elvish city, getting weird looks from various people, until one of them finally tells him that his outfit is simply atrocious, and they have to do something about it.

[jurble]

I prefer the Nonmen of Bakker's world for super-long-lived race - they go insane. There's an upper-limit to how much information a brain can hold, and after thousands of years, all the memories that get saved are those of torment and anguish, while the happier ones get deleted to make room. Moreover, Bakker being Bakker, actually has sound reasoning behind this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_theory