r/AskScienceFiction • u/Lost-Specialist1505 • 1d ago
[Riddick] Are furyans and elementals aliens or just mutants/different type of human?
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u/wittyjokename92 1d ago
The correct term is post human species. Star wars would call them near-humans. Holdovers from early colonization efforts that predated the invention of FTL technology. Along with exposure to alternate dimensions or parallel universes. It's unknown exactly where the divergence began but the earliest Muslim settlers in the helion system encountered Elemental diplomats while transporting the piece of the Black Stone that lays at the heart of New Mecca.
Furyans have a more mysterious history since they were rarely encountered and even their extinction was unknown to the galaxy at large. Some of the Ulama of New Mecca were aware of the Furyans but they appeared to have kept that information secret. The only known interaction between Furyans and humanity before the 6th Necromonger crusade is a brief skirmish in the Aquilan system. Information is scant but an Aquilan expedition left for uncharted space before what is believed to be a Furyan war party returned and ravaged the outer Aquilan colonies before vanishing.
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u/AdventurousQuail36 1d ago
The Furyan origin story will be expanded upon in Fast & Furious 17: Riddickulously Fast
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u/pleasedothenerdful 1d ago
As one of the 17 fans of Chronicles of Riddick, I would watch the shit out of that.
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u/wittyjokename92 1d ago
18 fans including me. Fully accept that it's a borderline dead franchise but I still jump every time Vin updates about the 4th movie
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u/Hot-Refrigerator6583 1d ago
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
I actually enjoyed the second film, tbh. It was a little campy, and mostly suffered from not enough world-building. There's just so much going on in the background that just gets side-lined for an extended prison break sequence.
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u/wittyjokename92 1d ago
It's a franchise with incredibly deeply thought out lore and designs that just didn't sink into the zeitgeist like it should have. Right proper B movie camp all around but doesn't deserve being compared to Rebel Moon for failed franchises.
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u/pleasedothenerdful 1d ago
Don't forget the top tier cast giving 100%. David Twohy is a god compared to Snyder.
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u/khazroar 1d ago
I will argue toe to toe with anybody that the first two films are genre defining masterpieces, and the third is the best of all of them but suffers solely for being derivative of Pitch Black.
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u/wittyjokename92 1d ago
Better than most franchises with technically 4 films if you count the anime and some of the best DVD extras ever made
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u/ianjm 1d ago
I agree with this take, but to me the Elementals are far more mysterious given their apparent intangibility. Furyans can be explained by genetic tinkering and adaptation over centuries, but you don't develop the ability to turn yourself into wind as a response to your environment.
Having said that, the Riddickverse has at least one documented pheomina that can grant similar abilities, which is exposing onself to the underverse, demonstrated by Lord Marshal Zhylaw.
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u/wittyjokename92 1d ago
In universe the answer is absolutely we have no freaking idea. Even the Necromongers have to just believe that the Lord Marshal and the Holy Half Dead are mystical rather than mechanical.
Out of Universe in the most convoluted of ways we know that Elementals are extremely long lived, ethereal, and their entire race fits aboard a single ship as they observe the other races and nudge them but don't lead them.
We also know Furyans were manipulated by the Elementals into existence from isolated human colonists. There's a singular mention of how Furyans, Elementals, and Necromongers exist as a Quad of mystical forces competing for the future of life in the galaxy. And a dubiously true reference to gods existing.
Riddick and the Purifier both exhibit extreme superhuman abilities in strength and aggression and endurance. The only proven Elemental is cable of gliding through the air currents and is described as having an almost ephemeral body composition allowing them to be nearly weightless and impervious to most forms of harm. Necromongers are weirder but essentially they're cold to the touch, can't feel pain besides the wounds in their necks, and have extremely slow heart rates and breathing rates. The 4th elder race goes back and forth between being humans and an unnamed other race.
The strangest part is that this all takes place only 800 years from now and the city of Paris and Earth still exist and are known but also that travel to earth from New Mecca takes years on a direct route and decades on the back routes. There's also a central government of some sort but it's never mentioned besides a comic that is no longer available and retconned though parts are still treated as canon.
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u/EvernightStrangely 1d ago
Aliens. Furians used to have their own civilization, but they were destroyed by the NecroMongers because of the prophecy. I don't know enough about the elementals to say for sure but their abilities seem to go far beyond any mere mutation.
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u/Kind_Of_A_Dick 1d ago edited 1d ago
Is
Judi DenchRiddick the last of the Brunnen-G?Edit - Wrong character for the comparison
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u/ashtekka 1d ago
Wow a Lexx reference in the wild.
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u/Kind_Of_A_Dick 1d ago
Any show that does what they did with prophecies needs to be mentioned. The scene where Stanley accesses old prophecy readings stored in memories and because he keeps accessing different memories the prophet has to keep interrupting giving other prophecies(in the past) to remind Stanley where to go. It has a similar feel to way later on in the Doctor Who episode "Blink" where the Doctor adds special commentary onto dvds in the past to talk to the person in the present.
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u/Mccmangus 1d ago
Yo hey yo, that's the wrong scifi
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u/Aleph_Red 22h ago
Yo Hey Rah, Jerhume Chronicles was a wild swing that did not land, at least for me.
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u/Hot-Refrigerator6583 1d ago
They're all humans -- or at least descended from human roots.
Although we've only seen a fraction of the Riddick-verse, almost all non human life appears to be some form of sub-sapient animal. There's been almost zero indication that Humans have ever encountered any thinking entities that weren't derived from human ancestry.
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u/khazroar 1d ago
Both.
I'll admit from the start that I'm not aware of anything in canon that addresses it, so this is entirely my own interpretation.
Furyans are absolutely an alien species, they're not an offshoot of humanity since leaving Earth. But they're so anatomically near identical that I don't think it's reasonable to say they're not humans either; just as carcinisation leads to crabs evolving independently over and over, because it's simply a natural form for evolutionary pressures to lead to, humans are a similar thing on a wider scale. Just as those different unrelated species are all crabs, Furyans are humans just like Homo Sapiens are. I think Elementals are a bit more questionable whether they still count as human or their differences are large enough to exclude them.
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u/Annual-Ad-9442 1d ago
so non-Terran humans?
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u/khazroar 1d ago
Essentially, yes, though I feel like that term can also apply to human populations that once started on Terra but have been off planet and evolving in their own directions for long enough that they're now distinct.
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u/Annual-Ad-9442 1d ago
a little hard to think that way because I grew up on Starcraft and the humans are called Terran despite Earth not having contact with them for a while.
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u/khazroar 1d ago
I think typically "Terran" is about where they think of as home. I believe the humans in StarCraft came (originally) from a Terran empire, but then got cut off in distant space and found themselves isolated from where they came from? So Terran was an identity they clung to when they didn't have a new home, and even if they've now found a home there, the label stuck. If they made contact again, I wouldn't be surprised if Earth didn't consider them Terran.
Ultimately it just depends on the world though. In some settings even people living on the Moon will no longer consider themselves Terran, even if they're the ones who emigrated, not even second generation.
Another useful example is Stargate, humans got spread all over the galaxy a few millennia ago (so, after they'd fully developed into Homo Sapiens, even after fully developing human civilization as we know it, they got shipped out around the peak of Egyptian power, before Rome started knocking things over), and by modern day those who have any cultural memory of Earth see it and it's people as something mythical.
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u/Tacitus_ 1d ago
StarCraft Terrans are descended from humans from Earth who were forced onto colony ships because the government wanted to get rid of undesirables.
When the UED sends an expedition there, a local general recognises that they came there all the way from Earth. The UED meanwhile intended to absorb the colonies now that they're more or less flourishing, and maybe more pressingly, to wipe out the aliens.
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