History Main / WeAreAsMayFlies

* In the BlackJewels series [[Muggle Ladens]] and other short-lived races are view as 'flash in the pan' beings living only a handful of years compared to the hundreds of the Blooded races. Undead guardian of Hell, Saetan, is over 50,000 years old and even he is considered young when compared to the ancient dragons like Lorn.

* The Doctor from ''Series/DoctorWho'', who is over 900 years old. Actually, he looks younger in his later incarnations than he did his earlier ones. One of the {{Tie In Novel}}s points out the problems this can cause if a Time Lord ends up on one planet for a long period of time.

* Inverted in ''TheMoteInGodsEye''. The humans live about a century and a half, thanks to some advanced biotech. Then they meet the Motie Mediators, who live for no more than fifteen years.
* Played straight and subverted in the ''Literature/TheWordAndTheVoid'' and ''[[{{Shannara}} Genesis of Shannara]]'' trilogies by TerryBrooks. Demons ([[spoiler: humans that sold their souls to the evil Void]]) are very long-lived and possibly ageless (as well as being very hard to kill), while tatterdemalions, frail Faerie creatures made from the memories of dead children, live for only several weeks before dissipating.
* The {{Dragaera}}ns of Steven Brust's novels live for about 2000 years. Brust does address a side effect of this, however: they take over a hundred years to reach maturity.

* Also appears in ''Literature/HonorHarrington'', by DavidWeber. Humanity has a anti-aging drug regimen that must be started as early as possible to be most effective. This also leads to a interesting variation: Being that the regimen (called "prolong") has different versions that were developed at different times, this trope can happen ''three ways'' normals -> first-gen -> second-gen -> third-gen, where people that are in their seventies and have a full space-navy career can appear to be in their early teens to those who have not experienced the effects.
** There's profound socio-economic effects too. First Generation Prolong was only discovered around a century ago, and on rich planets like Manticore there isn't anyone physically over 40, and the life span will go for 300 years. 3rd Generation like Honor will go much farther, 500 is possible. For many worlds, the promise of Prolong being administered for free as a Government program is a major plot point. This causes what's practical in governments to change. One Government's Annexiation bid will gradually rewrite districts in the new federal government, with the core nation having dominance written in for the next 20 years, and ending fully in 70 years. Given that the prolong makes this nothing on a human lifespan makes it work.

* [[IainBanks Iain M. Banks']] ''The Algebraist'' has (most) of the species of the galaxy divided up into two groups: the slow and the quick. The quick have human-like life spans, the slow live [[TimeAbyss much, much longer]] (up to a billion years or so). Also invoked when a [[TheCulture Culture]] ship investigates Earth, and the ship tells our narrator:

* In Dutch author Paul Harland's novel ''"Water to Ice"'', one of the protagonists is a many-thousands-of-years old man who was made immortal by aliens. His particular variation is interesting: Like Dorian Gray, his "aging" is transferred to a transcendental "painting" of him. After so many centuries, he wants the thrill of being able to die back, so he placed the picture in a vault, which is then sunk into the corona of a star. It could go at any moment, but it's impossible to predict ''when''. However, he also describes an encounter he once had with a species of electromagnetic beings, which exist for only fifteen ''minutes'' at a time before dying forever, and how their joy and wisdom is a constant soothing memory to him. Unfortunately, when he meets his original benefactors - aliens who see it as their holy mission to banish mortality from the universe - they inform him casually that they have since bestowed immortality on aforementioned ephemeral beings. He then triggers his vault to open.

* Skeeve from ''MythAdventures'' is mentioned to have a much shorter life expectancy than his various non-human friends. His Pervect mentor, Aahz, has even justified how hard he pushes Skeeve to succeed, on the grounds that his student won't have very long to build his skills or career.
* Many of the immortals and gods from the TortallUniverse have incredibly long life-spans, as you would expect from their names. This only ever really comes up around dragons. It must be strange for Daine to raise one from birth, knowing that Kitten will outlive her by centuries or millennia.

* VladimirVasilyev's ''The Big Kiev Technician'' series is an UrbanFantasy taking place in the distant future, where all major cities have become [[MegaCity Mega Cities]] (Big Kiev is roughly the size of modern-day Ukraine) but ModernStasis is in full effect. The biggest changes from modern times include various fantasy races living side-by-side with humans and various pieces of technology being alive and having to be tamed instead of built. All fantasy races live for centuries, if not millennia. Humans have a normal lifespan and resent it. Even worse, a community of a HumanSubspecies called Longers was found in Big New-York that have a lifespan roughly double that of normal humans. They were slaughtered by normal humans who couldn't bear to have other humans live for so long. However, several characters (members of other races) admit that this means that humans are more likely to make advances and change the status quo due to their short lives.

* A plot point that was lampshaded several times by the long lived laguz of ''VideoGame/FireEmblem''. All laguz and those with laguz ancestry have extended life spans, triply so with the Dragon Tribe. When several dragon allies from ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Path of Radiance]]'' encounter Ike and friends in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Radiant Dawn]]'' they are somewhat awed that the Greil Mercs look different and are surprised that Ike and Co. miss them. In their eyes, barely anytime has passed at all. [[HalfHumanHybrid Beorc-laguze hybrids]] inherent the longevity of their laguz ancestors, which creates problems when they need to blend in among beorc for a long period of time.

* A plot point that was lampshaded several times by the long lived laguz of ''VideoGame/FireEmblem''. All laguz and those with laguz ancestry have extended life spans, triply so with the Dragon Tribe. When several dragon allies from ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Path of Radiance]]'' encounter Ike and friends in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Radiant Dawn]]'' they are somewhat awed that the Greil Mercs look different and are surprised that Ike and Co. miss them. In their eyes, barely anytime has passed at all.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', Eldar are virtually immortal (one of their recently deceased leaders was alive and active at the time of the Great Crusade, 10,000 years ago), and Orks only grow stronger as they age; thus, they have the ''potential'' for immortality (but due to their violent natures, they seldom live long). On the flip side, tau and kroot(unless when they eat the flesh of long-lived organisms) have natural less-than-human life expectancies. Humans themselves, due to things such as gene treatment, cybernetics and the odd effects Warp travel has on aging, have the potential to live for several centuries-- or at least, [[FantasticCasteSystem Haves do]]. Space marines, being SuperSoldier humans, also have the potential to live for centuries (or even forever, as none has ever died of old age). Chaos Marines, due to the power gained by being card-carrying members of the LegionsOfHell and living in a NegativeSpaceWedgie, live for thousands or tens of thousands of years, and the Necrons have been around since before the dinosaurs went extinct.

Note though, this implies most animals don't die of old age in the wild, which includes humans, and should include aliens too. Humans in the 'wild', without advanced medicine, tend to live 30-40 years, having very few predators apart from each other, but we don't drop dead from old age until 75-100, a figure that hasn't changed much in 50,000 years. Intelligent aliens should be similarly long-lived compared with their near relatives. If they've managed to slow down their aging process (through, say, genetic engineering), their natural lifespan could be long indeed, making this a [[JustifiedTrope justifiable trope.]]

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', Eldar are virtually immortal (one of their recently deceased leaders was alive and active at the time of the Great Crusade, 10,000 years ago), and Orks only grow stronger as they age; thus, they have the ''potential'' for immortality (but due to their violent natures, they seldom live long). On the flip side, tau and kroot have natural less-than-human life expectancies. Humans themselves, due to things such as gene treatment, cybernetics and the odd effects Warp travel has on aging, have the potential to live for several centuries-- or at least, [[FantasticCasteSystem Haves do]]. Space marines, being SuperSoldier humans, also have the potential to live for centuries (or even forever, as none has ever died of old age). Chaos Marines, due to the power gained by being card-carrying members of the LegionsOfHell and living in a NegativeSpaceWedgie, live for thousands or tens of thousands of years, and the Necrons have been around since before the dinosaurs went extinct.

* Played with in an old sci-fi story where a man is found who has clearly lived for centuries without aging. When asked how old he is the man claims to have forgotten but that it doesn't matter because everyone is like that where he comes from. The narrator's father decides to find this planet of eternal youth but their ship crashes on a different planet, killing the immortal and the father. Eventually the narrator befriends the natives who live for about five years. As the story ends he is in is fifties and when a child (whose entire family line the narrator has known) asks how old he is the narrator realizes the natives don't have a good concept of what fifty years would mean and claims that he has lost track. He leaves, depressed, and the child's mother assures the boy that the narrator is simply immortal.

*** In ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' when we meet T'Pau she is already an adult with some influence among Surak's followers. A century later, she appears as a sort of matriarch of Spock's family in the original series. It seems the Vulcans are consistently meant to be long-lived[[hottip:*:which was certainly the case when ''The Making of Star Trek'' was written back in the 1960s, and WordOfGod ascribed to Vulcans a typical lifespan of 250 years. TOS episode ''Journey to Babel'' established both that Sarek, Spock's father, was 102 years old and that it was extremely unusual for a Vulcan to be retiring at such a young age; he had a rare form of heart disease]], and [=McCoy=] living to 137 would be an exception.

* Mostly averted in ''Franchise/MassEffect'': Although the asari and krogan have natural lifespans of about a thousand years, other species live no longer than humans, if even as long as that.[[hottip:*:Futuretech medical science means the average human lives to ~150]] Drell live about 85 years due to medical complications [[hottip:*: They come from an arid world, and most species' worlds/modified environments are humid enough to cause an uncureable disease in drell lungs]], salarians only about 40 (though they spend far less time sleeping), and vorcha only 20. [[BloodKnight And it's pretty rare for a krogan to die of natural causes.]]

* Corporal Vog of '''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' is about 12 million years old. He says 'about' because there is a margin of error converting to human timescales. The margin of error in his math covers more time than the existence of the human race.

* Played straight and subverted in the ''Literature/TheWordAndTheVoid'' and ''[{{Shannara}} Genesis of Shannara]'' trilogies by TerryBrooks. Demons ([[spoiler: humans that sold their souls to the evil Void]]) are very long-lived and possibly ageless (as well as being very hard to kill), while tatterdemalions, frail Faerie creatures made from the memories of dead children, live for only several weeks before dissipating.

* In PhilipPullman's ''HisDarkMaterials'', Serafina Pekkala, the witch Queen, discusses the impossibility of equal relationships between men and witches due to the lifespan issue; witches live for many hundreds of years. Angels in His Dark Materials live even longer; at one point an explicit comparison is made that as human life is to witches', so are witch lifespans to angels'. Pullman also inverts the trope with the Gallivespians, tiny human-shaped people who reach maturity rapidly and die after living roughly ten years.

* Never actually stated in ''Webcomic/{{Terra}}, but indicated by the birth dates of alien characters in the codex. [[EvilOverlord Sovereign Northazul Kalar]], the oldest Azatoth character we have data on, is 160 in the present day and looks to be in the equivalent of late forties/early fifties judging by his graying hair, and most of the other Azatoth characters are somewhere in the range of 40-60 years old and look to be in their thirties at most. Eve Arlia, a Varelien, is 72 and looks twenty-something. Meanwhile the oldest human character, General Winters, is 58 and looks his age.

* Inverted with the [[TheKingdom Boron]] in the ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'' series. The encyclopedia packaged with the [[LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition X-Superbox]] says the average Boron's life expectancy is about 35 years, whereas the average human lives to be about 110. The [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Split]] invert or avert depending on sex: males generally don't live more than 50 years, whereas their womenfolk usually top 80. Played straight with the [[ProudMerchantRace Teladi]], who average 250 years with the world record being 400.

* An extreme example, ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' live for millions of years, or even longer, unless actively killed... In fact, no transformer has ever been shown to have died of natural causes, or even mentioned as such. The characters from the first series went into SuspendedAnimation four million years ago, and when they woke up, all their old acquaintances were still fighting the war. They're rarely shown as being affected by old age (except for one character, Kup), and one character, Vector Prime, may very well be nearly as old as time itself.
** The [[Film/{{Transformers}} movies]] add [[GrumpyOldMan Jetfire]] to the list. Apart from being ''one of the first transformers to ever live'', his aging is explained as from being starved of energon. He even comments that his father was the ''first wheel.'' He might just be going senile.

* Namekians in ''Manga/DragonBall'' live for at least 500 years. The Kaioshin live for about 5 million. Saiyans live about as long as humans, but they stay young longer.

** However, ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' reveals that death, far from being a disadvantage of Men, is actually intended by Eru as a [[BlessedWithSuck gift to the race]], allowing them to depart from the world early and go on, presumably returning to existence beyond Middle-earth, while the Elves are stuck on Middle-earth until its end, thus resulting in their growing wistfulness and melancholy as they see the world around them changing and decaying. Death also allows Men greater defiance of Fate.
** Even the Numenoreans are long-lived compared to other humans (most Numenoreans can live to 200- the royal line, which has Elvish blood, can live up to twice that). Dwarves have a similar lifespan- they live to about 250 on average. For that matter, so are Hobbits: a hobbit comes of age at thirty-three, and it's not uncommon for them to live well over a century.