Developing a setting where humans are immortal.

So I’ve thought of a new story, but I’ve got some problems fleshing out the setting (a low-end fantasy world). You see, the most important plot point is the fact that people can’t die-whether from old age or by injury. This hasn’t always been the case, it’s the result of what happened centuries ago.

The problem is, although this alone kills about half the laws of physics, I’m still trying to keep things as plausible and realistic as possible.

There are a few different approaches I could go with this, so I’m wondering which one you people find best.

1) Humans age normally, until they die. They become undead that moment (when their organs stop working). Biologically, their body is dead, but it doesn’t rot, and they have still full control of it.

Now, if the body is partly destroyed, (the head is cut off, for example) the person’s consciousness will remain to the parts it identifies with. In the above head-cut-off example, most humans would retain control of only the head, since their sense of self is mostly focused on that. Some people would still retain control of both the head and the rest of their body, and many practice mental discipline to be able to perform acts like this. The moment they lose control of a body part, it starts to rot normally.

If the body is fully destroyed, (like, completely burned in a fire) the consciousness will drift in the environment. After such a process, and with the body lost, a person’s mind will be ruined, and things like self-consciousness or personality cease to exist. In time, though, the consciousness usually starts to develop a sense of self, and the person exists as a spirit. Spirits typically can’t affect the material world in any way. However, most of them manage, in time, to transfer themselves inside a material object, “possessing” them, in a sense, as it provides clear borders for the consciousness, making much easier to maintain a sense of self. Spirits have little to no control over these objects, and in extremely rare cases can they accomplish more than a barely noticeable movement.


2) Much like the first one, only the bodies of the undead still rot. Since that’s not pleasant or helpful in any way, most of them just tear apart their flesh when it starts happening and leave only their skeleton, which is much more durable. They don’t have much problems with this, as they can easily replace/add limbs using materials such as wood or metal, or sew a new “flesh” for themselves. They can control them just as well they did their own body. This has many advantages, so generally, the more time one person is “dead” the more they look (and exist) as a golem.

When the body is destroyed, there exist the same rules with number 1.


3) Humans regenerate, and so don’t age any more after their bodies are fully developed. The regeneration rate is very fast, but no fast enough so that it could be any help in a fight, or situations like that. The body will regenerate from any point, down to a single cell. So, even if you set a human on fire, while he’ll burn faster than he regenerates, he’ll still be alive and whole after a few months.

This fixes many problems the other two present, such as how is one able to see without eyes/with their optical nerves broken. In the same time, it would cause massive overpopulation, something I’d rather avoid.



And that’s all I’ve got at the moment. I first thought of the story a few days ago, so I haven’t thought it through yet. I know very little biology, so please inform me of any mistakes you notice. (Only if you think they can be avoided, of course. It’s impossible to have things make sense anyway, so I’m only talking of any unnecessary breaks from reality.)

Also, if you have any other critique, question or idea about the subject, feel free to say so.

edited 29th Nov '10 12:03:45 PM by Dealan

I'm pretty sure, reading this, that the laws of science have to no longer apply for this situation to be possible. Biology especially would no longer apply, by the sounds of it.

EDIT: remember that plausible is not the same as possible, especially when it applies to fiction. Star Trek often comes across as plausible when what it depicts is in reality impossible. Keeping the rules apparently consistent is the most important thing for me, and as long as you make it seem like you're not just "inventing" rules as you go along (for instance, if it's important to the plot that spirits can very rarely move objects a little, include a minor example of an object moving a little that is not important to the plot, so it doesn't look like an Ass Pull when you introduce the main event), I think this will be fine. If you do want it to be possible, as well as plausible, I think you're out of luck — there are just too many impossibilities here to fix them all and retain your awesome central idea. But from your thoughtful list, it looks like the rules of your Universe do make sense, and have a clear cause etc. etc., it looks very plausible to me, at this stage.

That said, allow me to give some incredibly unhelpful feedback:

This sounds awesome, and I would read the hell out of it.

edited 29th Nov '10 1:43:40 PM by mmysqueeant

There are some sort of jellyfish that is actually near-immortal, I think.

Yup, popped up on google search and everything.

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

Also something else of interest

edited 29th Nov '10 1:54:50 PM by MrAHR

It may not be very revolutionary, but when I write about immortal characters, I write them in two ways.

Either: Immortals stop aging after puberty and have suped-up immune systems that kill all diseases. They are still vulnerable to injury, even though they heal pretty quickly. It's difficult but not impossible to kill them.

Or: Immortals just don't die. You can toss one into a wood chipper and he'll heal right up, though it could take a long time. They can be ravaged by disease, but they wouldn't die. They can age until they're nothing more than dust, but they're not technically dead.

I prefer the first type, but the second type can be fun to write about as well.

It is possible - if you have advanced technology - to make people nearly immortal, like the first kind, but to make someone truly immortal is far beyond the scope of human science.

Thanks for the responses people.

I should have said that my setting doesn't have any kind of advanced technology. The technology is about medieval lever, with some more progress on steam engines.

But I'm not interested in scientifically explaining why people are immortal. I already have an explanation (it's pretty much A Wizard Did It but it's important for the plot). What I'm concerned about is whether there would be more consequences that I haven't though yet.

I'd assume there would be a lot of people who sought after true death, a lot of myths about something that would grant true death and so on. After all, immortality tends to be something of a Blessed with Suck.

Well, Gulliver's Travels had a nice section on immortals.

Tuck Everlasting, The Salvation War, High Lander, try looking into things with immortal/near immortal beings.

The biggest concern would probably be overpopulation. If more people are being born than dying, the population will increase, and if it increases too much then problems start to develop. The most likely solution would be to stop having kids - maybe only 1 out of 1000 people has a single child, to replace the few who 'sort of' die.

Yes, there are people looking for a True Death. One of the two protagonists is one of them.

Also, overpopulation is a problem. Though the undead don't need to feet, they still need a place to live and work at. Most cities have expanded greatly in these last centuries, many new ones have been created and exploration of new lands is one of the most common jobs the undead are given.