We Are as Mayflies: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"Every man is a spark in the darkness, by the time he is noticed he is gone forever. A retinal after-image that fades and is obscured by newer, [[Superior Species|brighter]] lights."''
|''[[Warhammer 40,000]] ''}}
In any [[Speculative Fiction|science fiction or fantasy]] series, human beings are the most [[Humans Are Flawed|ephemeral]] of creatures. Every other sentient species lives at least as long as, and usually far longer than, human beings. The only exception are the brutish races: Trolls, Orcs, or Ogres - they mature faster. Ironically, Humans are one of the longest-lived species of animal on Earth.
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== [[Anime]] ==
* ''[[The Slayers]]'' actually builds on this trope, with longer-lived races stating that they're impressed at how fully humans ''live'' their short lives compared to themselves.
* ''[[Bleach]]'', Shinigami live for centuries, Hollows live forever and humans ... well they just loop around through a series of reincarnations.
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* It's implied that [[Sleepwalker]] and his race are extremely long-lived, as [[Arch Enemy|Cobweb]] has been ravaging the Mindscape since before recorded time and Sleepwalker has fought him on many occasions.
* [[The Smurfs]] are definite long-livers compared to humans—they can live up to 600 years (Grandpa Smurf is a few centuries beyond that) and still remain active and sprightly. In the [[Animated Adaptation]], it's mostly due to the Long Life Stone which gives the Smurfs their longevity, though its power must be replenished every 1000 years or the Smurfs will suffer [[Rapid Aging]] that leads to their death.
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Star Wars]]''. Yoda: "When 900 years old you be, look as good you will not."▼
== [[Literature]] ==
* Inverted and turned [[Up to Eleven]] in
** This premise was loosely adapted in an episode of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]''.
* Inverted in
* Played straight and subverted in the ''[[The Word
* 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.
** Vlad lampshades this in his early life, remarking that, given the ''functional'' life expectancies of members of [[The Mafia|the Jhereg]], he really doesn't have to worry about lifespan differences between himself and his Dragaeran associates.
** One Dragaeran, [[Person of Mass Destruction|Sethra Lavode]], is {{spoiler|around 220,000 years old. She is older than [[The Empire]] in which the main characters exist, a country which has been around long enough to have had ''289'' emperors
* In [[Philip Pullman]]'s ''[[His Dark Materials]]'', 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.
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** 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.
** This trope lent an undertone of [[Tear Jerker|tragedy]] to the early relations between humans and [[Bond Creatures|treecats]]. The 'cats are very long-lived, as in 250–300 years. The first treecat to bond with a human, Climbs Quickly/Lionheart, did so when he was about 50 (a young adult), and she was 11. When she died at about 104 years old, he [[Driven to Suicide|suicided]] soon after, having lived only about half of his natural span. Treecats continued to bond, because they considered the results worth the price. The advent of prolong for humans served to remove [[Blessed with Suck|the Suck from the Blessing]].
* James Blish's excellent ''[[Cities in Flight]]'' series does the same thing, with two drugs - one that holds off aging, and one that prevents almost all disease. Unfortunately, the supply is limited, so only those who can prove their worth to society are ever started on the drugs - and some people are considered just too old to start now.
* The Aurorans and other Spacers in [[Isaac Asimov]]'s Robot stories are humans who live for several hundred years, in contrast to earthbound and Settler humans, who reject robots and life-extending technology.
* In [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''Future History'' stories, there are a group of humans, referred to as the [[wikipedia:Howard Families|Howard Families]], who live inordinately long lives, in comparison to "normal" humans. One member of the Family, Lazarus Long (among other names) has lived, as of the last work by Heinlein on the subject before the author passed away, about 2,000 years, give or take a century, and is still going strong.
** Although the advancing march of science eventually created a rejuvenation technology capable of working on normal humans, ironically out of the human race's mistaken belief that the Howard Families were hiding the
* In Steven Erikson's ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' most of the non-human races are effectively immortal. This includes the pure-blooded Tiste Andii, Tiste Liosan and Tiste Edur(being invaders from either a different world that is at the same time the origin of Order and magic this shouldn't surprise anyone), the Jaghut, T'lan Imass (who turned their whole people into undead in order to extinguish the Jaghut) and most likely the Thelomen Toblakai and K'Chain Che'Malle matrons as well. Also immortal (unless killed, which happens a lot) is every [[Physical God|Ascendant]], god, dragon, greater demon or [[Anthropomorphic Personification|personification of a principle]]. Add to that age-defying alchemy and sorcery and a lot the characters appearing in the books are significantly older than the current civilizations with a few going up to 500.000 years, or even as old as existence.
* Robert Jordan's ''[[Wheel of Time]]'' has the Ogier — for them, ninety years or so amounts to young adulthood, while the channelers (magic users) can live as long as six centuries, under the right circumstances.
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{{quote|That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.}}
* For the same reason, Carmilla in the [[Whateley Universe]] looks upon her fellow students differently. After all, she really is a [[Eldritch Abomination|Great Old One]] even if she ''looks'' like a teenager.
* [[Iain Banks
{{quote|"Their children's children will die before you even look old, Diziet. Their grandparents are younger than you are now..."}}
* 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.
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* Played straight in ''[[Discworld]]'', though, where dwarfs live for centuries, trolls even longer, elves are immortal, and so forth. Again, the only races which appear to have shorter lives than humans are gnomes and pixies.
** Then there are the vampires, who are incredibly strong and almost unkillable by conventional methods, and can be reduced to dust through their weaknesses. One drop of blood on the ashes and they return to life. The only way to knock a vampire out for really long periods of time is to get rid of the ashes somehow, like burying it, sinking it in the ocean, or throwing it off the Disc.
* Turned upside-down in the [[Ray Bradbury]] short story "Frost and Fire", taking place on an [[Science Marches On|otherwise habitable Mercury]] with a very rapid rotation and temperature extremes, and, due to solar radiation, rapid aging effects for the human underground colony that the survivors of a crashed ship formed. Its people live, grow old and die within ten days, at a rate of about a decade a day. When the heroes discover and take shelter in the forgotten ship's sealed interior, they're astonished to find they're no longer growing old, and speculate that without the solar radiation's effects, humans might live to an unthinkable one hundred days old.
** To compensate for the short lifespan, humans were telepathic and learned their language and knowledge while they were in the womb.
*** Which wasn't necessarily a good thing. One particularly awful meme that persisted was that you could steal someone's remaining days of life by killing him.
* 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 the aforementioned ephemeral beings. He then triggers his vault to open.
* In ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/The Restaurant At The End of The Universe|The Restaurant at the End of the Universe]]'', the second ''[[
* Non-alien example: Because the life expectancy is so bad for their time period, Vlad Tepes and Elizabeth Bathory of ''[[Count and Countess]]'' consider their lives to be halfway over by the time they've hit twenty.
* All of the Barsoomian races in the ''[[John Carter of Mars]]'' series can live for centuries, potentially
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* ''[[Star Trek]]'' is a prime example; in order to reuse characters from the original 1960s series in the various sequels and movies, every race has been given a lifespan at least double that of humans (which by the 24th century is already well over 100). Some—like the Vulcans—started out that way, but others were [[Retcon|RetConned]] in decades later.
** Trill Symbiotes are fantastically long-lived, but to different ends: to permit the [[The Nth Doctor|body-changing premise]], and to allow Dax's various funny "three hundred years old" lines. Trill themselves aren't indicated to be particularly long-lived.
** One notable exception is the Ocampa on ''[[Star Trek:
** Sometimes ''[[Star Trek]]'' [[Subverted Trope|subverts]] this trope. By the time the series takes place, human lifespans have increased. In ''Next Generation'', Doctor McCoy is 137 years old.
*** Taken to its [[Incredibly Lame Pun|logical]] extreme in ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'', when {{spoiler|[[Leonard Nimoy]]'s Spock travels back in time at the age of 155 and is still healthy enough to go marching 14 kilometers across an Ice Planet.}}
*** Also in the latest{{when}} film, {{spoiler|Scotty explains that he believes he was sent to the federation outpost as punishment for attempting interplanetary beaming with
**** Porthos. (Who, sadly, [[What Could Have Been|didn't get to reappear on the transporter pad at the end of the film as planned]]. Well, the series is still young.)
*** In ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'', 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,<ref>which was certainly the case when ''The Making of Star Trek'' was written back in the 1960s, and [[Word of God]] 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</ref> and McCoy living to 137 would be an exception.
**** In the [[Expanded Universe]], T'Pau is still alive in the ''Next Generation era.'' She's ancient even by Vulcan standards, though.
* The Doctor from ''[[Doctor Who]]'', 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
** The new series also features an [[Inverted Trope|inversion]]: The Family of Blood, otherwise advanced and powerful aliens, can only live for a few months.
{{quote|'''Martha:''' "Three months and they die. Like mayflies, he (The Doctor) said."}}
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** Also, an early episode dealt with Humans who were taken off-world and injected with a virus that caused them to live out their entire life-span in about 100 days. They were understandably surprised to learn that most humans live many tens of thousands of days.
* ''[[Farscape]]'' plays this straight in the case of most of the crew: [[Human Aliens|Sebaceans]] like Aeryn can live for up to 200 cycles- assuming they don't get killed first; Rygel has apparently lived for centuries, though he's only ever admitted to having spent 130 cycles in prison; at the start of the series, Zhaan is over 800 cycles old; Pilot's species can apparently live for over a millennia- unless they're bonded to a [[Living Ship|Leviathan]], in which case they share the Leviathan's lifespan of 300 cycles.
* In ''[[ALF]]'', the incredibly long lifespan of Melmacians is often used as a running gag, like when ALF shows off pictures of a relative's 250th birthday party, which resembles a five
* In the ''[[Power Rangers]]'' universe, aliens tend to be ''tens of thousands'' of years old. [[Power Rangers Mystic Force|One season]] avoided this, having a race of human-looking magical beings age normally (which some viewers found jarring), but [[Power Rangers Operation Overdrive|the next]] returned it with a vengeance, featuring a hero known to be active at a time when the continents of Earth were one, making him at ''least'' 250 million years old. In most cases, we don't know the true age of these characters—just how long ago some event they took part in was. Any of them could possibly be ''older''.
** Most famous and familiar is Zordon. As usual, no clue is given as to his age, but he was an old man in a flashback to when he was [[Sealed Good in a Can|put in a can]] ''10,000 years ago''. If anything, he's ''lost'' wrinkles since.
* In one episode of ''[[Smallville]]'', Clark Kent meets and befriends a Kryptonian named Dax-Ur, who had moved to Earth and given up his powers over a hundred years ago. He only looked middle-aged.
** Some characters taunt Clark about the fact that any woman he chooses to be with will eventually be dust while he will look exactly the same as he does now.
* An episode of ''[[Andromeda]]'' called
* On ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'', Junior Gorg is 473 years old, and Ma and Pa have been married for over 500 years.
== [[Music]] ==
* [[VNV Nation]]'s entire musical output is based on this trope. Several songs take on the view that all of humanity's efforts to deify itself are futile, as our lifespans are brief and no-one will see our great works later on. Especially hammered home in the song
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The basic ''[[Dungeons
** Elans are arguably the prime example of this here. They can sustain themselves indefinitely without food or water, and are incapable of dying of old age. However, they're actually humans that have been altered through a "mysterious psionic ritual."
** On the other end, there are the Thri-keen, a race of psionic insect-people. Their maximum age? 29.
** Half-orcs have a shorter lifespan because their non-human parents, orcs, have a shorter lifespan. Indeed, most of the "evil" "brute" races tend to have a slightly shorter lifespan, ranging from dying in their 60s to dying in their 40s.
** Early D&D editions give gnolls a life expectancy of 35 years.
** One of the domains in the ''[[Ravenloft]]'' setting's Burning Peaks cluster was inhabited by humans who aged at twice the speed of regular humans, the better to keep its tyrannical darklord's armies stocked with fresh troops.
* In ''[[Warhammer
** Being skeletons [[Recycled in Space|in SPACE]], the Necrons don't really count for this, but their Star Gods, the C'tan, who have lived for ''billions'' of years, do.
*** Played with in the Necron's backstory, the Necrontyr had short lives and were really jealous of the [[Precursors|Old Ones]] who lived for very long times, the C'tan got the Necrontyr to transform their bodies with living metal, the transformation dulled their minds and senses, and thus we have the Necrons, Warrior-Robots of the C'tan.
*** The C'tan are hinted to be born at the birth of the Galaxy, making them the oldest beings in the universe with no exceptions (predating even the Chaos Gods, although that can be contested due to the laws of the universe not working in the Warp).
*** The fact that both the Necrontyr and the Tau have/had such short life expectancies has led to some interesting [[Epileptic Trees]].
** There's also Asdrubael Vect, leader of the Dark Eldar, who is
*** His backstory has since been retconned, as it's flatly stated there were many older than him and he was not the founder of Commorragh, as he was but a mere slave even after it's founding.
** Craftworld Eldar skirts on this since that their "death" is simply being sealed inside a stone so their souls are not devoured. They are fully capable of being "reanimated" when placed in Wraithbone armor (although in doing so the spirit can never be put to rest again). Farseers in particular become gigantic walls of sentient crystal, meaning they could live forever so long as their craftworld
* ''[[Exalted]]'': The process of Exaltation ''greatly'' expands a person's life span. The Dragon-Blooded, who get the short end of the stick, typically live for several centuries, and the Scarlet Empress was around for close to 800 years before she disappeared. Solars and Lunars can typically live up for several millenia; Ingosh Silverclaws, one of the oldest-lived Lunars in the setting, died of old age at somewhere around 3100. The Sidereals, who get even greater longevity, can live for close to ''6,000'' years; there are Sidereals still around who remember the Primordial War. Needless to say, when you live that long, [[What Measure Is a Non Super|mortals swiftly fall out of your peer group... and possibly your notice]].
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Both the [[Religion of Evil|Prophets]] and The [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Elites]] in ''[[Halo]]'' live longer than
* In ''[[Soul Blazer]]'', the player meets up with a race of people in the Mountain of Souls who live for only one year. They make the most of their lives and are incredibly happy.
* Subverted in the ''World of Mana'' series, in which the elf-like race the Jumi, can live for as long as their hearts aren't damaged. Unfortunately, their hearts are gigantic jewels sticking out of their chests, which can be easily plucked off to kill them. Over the years they were hunted to extinction.
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* Averted in ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]''. Humans have relatively normal lifespans that are mocked as "too short" by the immortal Occuria.
* Also finally subverted in ''Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings'', in which a [[Winged Humanoid]] race is introduced that has half the lifespan of humans. The standard races with 2-4 times the lifespan of humans exist, too.
* Mostly averted in ''[[Mass Effect]]'': 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.<ref>Futuretech medical science means the average human lives to ~150</ref> Drell live about 85 years due to medical complications,<ref>They come from an arid world, and most species' worlds/modified environments are humid enough to cause an
** Sovereign also uses the trope when talking about organic species compared to his own race of machines, but then, {{spoiler|they give the organics [[Omnicidal Maniac|little chance to prove them wrong]]}}.
*** Part of the Reaper motivation is actually {{spoiler|their belief that by converting organics into new Reapers they're actually doing us a favor by granting us immortality}}.
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* An exception: In ''[[Twokinds]]'', the Keidran only live about twenty years. ''Humans'' are the elf-like ones.
* The Nemesites in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'' have been established to live at least for centuries—which is a very useful trait for members of an interstellar civilization in a universe ''without'' faster-than-light travel.
* In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20170802124754/http://www.revenant-braves.schala.net/ Circumstances of the Revenant Braves]'', ethereal beings like ancient spirits and vices can live forever, where their human counterparts come and go.
* In ''[[Tales of the Questor]]'', elves ''used'' to live longer then humans, but a long time ago an elf king had a [[Literal Genie|powerful salamander]] grant his wish that his people never grow old, [[Be Careful What You Wish For|accidentally turning the elves into a race of mayflies.]]
** Well, the exact truth of how it happened has gotten very muddled over the years (Sam herself notes that there are at least three versions). In each version, however, the king also went back and got a chalice that would avert this. Typically, the chalice has been lost for centuries - Sam herself has no hope (or any real desire) of finding it in time to avert her own death. However, now that she's with a Questor like Quentyn, there's a chance now.
** It's not entirely clear how long other species live in that 'verse, though Racconnans like Quentyn are implied to live a couple hundred years.
* The Elves of ''[[Errant Story]]'' can live for untold millenia- unfortunately for them, by the time of the story, no pureblood elf was born in over a thousand years, and they are now confined to a single city after a great war with humanity. They don't help their case by many being [[Can't Argue with Elves|insufferable jerks]], so much so that even the order of human [[Magic Knight|magic-wielding warrior-monks]] they'd created as protectors decided to [[Screw You, Elves|tell them where they can stuff it]].
* Corporal Vog of '''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' 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.
** More recently [[General Ripper|Xinchub]] admitted that humanity wasn't very well suited to pursuing immortality like the "Project Lazarus" he'd been in charge of because we're one of the shorter-lived species in the galaxy.
* The longevity of manticores in ''[[Darwin Carmichael Is Going to Hell]]'' is initially used as [[Immortal Immaturity|part of a punchline]]. But then there's [http://dcisgoingtohell.com/052-rock-god-part-iv/ what happens] when the characters are forced to confront their worst fears . . .
* Played with by the [[All Trolls Are Different|trolls]] in ''[[Homestuck]]''. Their lifespan is determined by their position on the [[Alien Blood|hemo]][[Fantastic Caste System|spectrum]]: the lowest-blooded trolls are lucky to make it to 24 [[Alternative Calendar|sweeps]] (about 52 Earth years), while the empress has lived for millenia.
* In ''[[Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures]]'' [[Petting Zoo People|Beings]] are the local human equivalent in terms of lifespan. Creatures tend to live for several centuries, 1500 years for Angels and Demons, 3000 for [[Horny Devils|Cubi]] (longer if they eat souls), Dragons outlive civilizations and Fae are essentially immortal until they choose to die (and their [[Non-Linear Character|view of time]] is a bit different.
* Most Cyantians, of ''[[The Cyantian Chronicles]]'', have lifespans of 120 years, whether that's earth years or slightly longer Cyantian "rots" isn't really specified. In addition genetic Elites of some species can live for centuries, as of ''Akaelae'' Alpha is over 750 and has had a number of different wives and cubs.
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** Inexplicably, the Nibblonian race itself is seventeen years older than ''the universe''.
** You don't need much of an explanation when you're able to ''swallow yourself out of existence''.
* [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] in the
* There is also the bird Filburt had Rocko watch over in ''[[Rocko's Modern Life]]'' at one time where it turns out that Turty (the bird's name) and its species only live for weeks, though it's subverted in a way for Turty when it's revealed that Heffer accidentally sat on Turty, killing him.
* A short stop motion film called [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU8PU6iw0BY
== Other ==
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** Understandable, since they were only partly organic [[Mechanical Lifeforms]]. When mostly organic characters have been introduced with a similar lifespan, things got weirder. Some, like Gresh, were still seen as youngsters by others, despite being at least ''100 000 years old''!
* This concept is the main feature in the [[Older Than Dirt]] legend, ''[[The Epic of Gilgamesh]]''.
▲* [[Star Wars]]. Yoda: "When 900 years old you be, look as good you will not."
* The [[Danbooru]] pool [http://danbooru.donmai.us/pool/show/1626 Tragedy of Long Life] is about the heartbreak of long-lived characters outliving friends and loved ones. [[Tear Jerker|You may need tissues.]] (NSFW due to ads)
*
** At least one other tree in Methuselah's grove has been found to be ''older'', but its exact location was never revealed for the exact same reason.
** Clonal colonies of aspen trees, coral polyps, and fungal mycelia can potentially live as long if not longer, if the deaths of individual trees/polyps/patches are disregarded and the lifespan of the colony as a whole is considered. Some networks of fungal strands are thought to date back to the end of the last Ice Age, when the forests with which they share a symbiosis first became established. One such plant, [[wikipedia:Pando (tree)|Pando, the ''Trembling Giant'']], dates back ''80,000'' years.
** King Clone, the creosote bush that's estimated at over 11,000 years old.
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* Some species of turtle can live for more than a century, and there are claims of twice that.
** Same goes with the tuatara, a reptile from New Zealand.
* [
* Due to a quirk of their genetics, lobsters cannot die of old age. As they age, they just grow larger and larger. Being too large is a serious disadvantage when it comes to competing for food supplies against other, tougher predators, so few lobsters live past 15 years. Theoretically, though, there could be [[Nightmare Fuel|centuries-old gigantic lobsters scuttling about on the bottom of the ocean floor.]]
** Deep-sea tubeworms about methane "cold seeps" have been calculated to live for more than 200 years, based on their glacially-slow metabolism and the time it takes them to build up the structure of their tubes.
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[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:Humans Are Indexed]]
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