Category talk:Species

I move that we remove Gargoyle Beasts and Loch Ness Monsters from this category. The category name "Races" (as opposed to "Species") implies that only sentient, intelligent races are included, and that will be confusing or misleading regarding garg-beasts and Loch Ness monsters. I know that technically, Greg doesn't like the term "sentient", but he has said that garg-beasts don't have human or gargoyle intelligence, and there's no evidence that Loch Ness monsters do either. We also have no evidence whether or not dragons are intelligent, so I move we remove them as well, until we have more information about them. Vaevictis Asmadi 12:53, 17 August 2007 (CDT)

Who said I didn't like the term "sentient"? -gdw

Er, that was my impression from conversations archived at Ask Greg. Vaevictis Asmadi 14:24, 17 August 2007 (CDT)

There is another option: we could change the name to Category:Species instead. Wouldn't be hard. I only picked Races as a title because of the article Three Races. -- Supermorff 08:12, 18 August 2007 (CDT)

I'd prefer changing the name of the category to species, since the word "race" isn't particularly well defined and is often a subjective term.--Moeen 11:34, 18 August 2007 (CDT)

That's true, although that also means that "species" can be more restrictive. Are the New Olympians technically a species, or are they something else? "Race" would probably apply either way. And if "species" doesn't apply in this case, and we nevertheless rename to Category:Species, do we include New Olympians or not? -- Supermorff 06:49, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

Good question. The New Olympians are technically speaking just a group of hybrids between Oberon's Children and Humans that happen to be living together on an island. So they're really a kind of hybrid no different from, say, Merlin. So they're a species the same as Merlin, but it's a matter of perspective as to whether or not they're a "race" on their own, say, different from Merlin. So to answer your question, I guess not, but Hybrids are (though one has to distinguish between a Oberon's Children-Human hybrid and a Gargoyle-Human hybrid, of which there only seems to be Delilah at this point, created by artificial means).--Moeen 10:07, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

Even the New Olympians aren't all one group, since there are some of human-Third Race ancestry, and some of animal-Third Race ancestry. "Halfling" or "Hybrid" or "Race" covers all of them (except the gargoyle clan) but IMHO "Species" does not. -- Vaevictis Asmadi 10:41, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

This is more complicated than I thought. New Olympian is starting to look more like a nationality than a race, given that the people there seem to be a conglomerate of all sorts of species. This category may be more trouble than it's worth...--Moeen 13:40, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

So... to solve the problem: change to Species and remove the New Olympian article? We can link to notable exceptions, including New Olympians and (now that I think of them) Mutates. What do you think? -- Supermorff 13:53, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

Or... since Species can be defined to mean a group of beings capable of interbreeding, we could just include them both. (New Olympians, except for the local gargoyles, can interbreed as evidenced purely by their continuing survival. The Mutates can theoretically interbreed as evidenced here, although the offspring would not technically be "mutates".) -- Supermorff 14:06, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

What we could do is change to Species, and then include a subcategory for Hybrids in general, without specifying what kind, and include New Olympians in the Hybrid category. Given how hybrids can interbreed regardless of type, it might not be necessary to further differentiate. I suppose Mutates could count as a species, since they're just "evolved" humans of a sort.--Moeen 15:35, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

There's already a Category:Hybrids, but it's for characters not races. I'll probably change the category to Species in the next few days, unless someone beats me to it. -- Supermorff 18:07, 19 August 2007 (CDT)

I don't see using Hybrids as a sub-category. For one thing, there are many different types of hybrids, and they can't all interbreed. Delilah is a hybrid, but she's basically a gargoyle. She'd never be fertile with Claw, let alone with something that's half dog and half Third Race. Unless the dog-halfling shapeshifted, but that doesn't count, otherwise everybody would belong to the Third Race as a species. Even the mutates aren't a species, because part of being a species or a race is, in my opinion, being an interbreeding population with a shared ancestry or heritage. The mutates just happen to all be mutated in the same way, except for Wolf who's also a mutate. -- Vaevictis Asmadi 20:25, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

I think the idea was to use a Hybrids category to contain pages on types of beings that aren't necessarily defined as Species (e.g. New Olympian, Mutate, etc.). It would not necessarily have to be a subcategory of Species, but interlinking the two categories might be sensible. In any case, the fact that a Hybrids category already exists for a different purpose makes this idea moot.

Personal opinion: There are many different definitions of the word "Species". Let's first decide what articles we want to include in this category, by which I mean let's decide what articles a Gargoyles fan might reasonably expect to be included in this category. (Like it or not, this will probably include both the New Olympians and Mutates.) Then we'll find a definition of species that fits around those articles, and not the other way around. Agreed? -- Supermorff 06:38, 21 August 2007 (CDT)

No, I don't agree. "Mutate" is not a species, any more than "GMO food" or "clone" are species. A mutated gargoyle is not the same species as Wolf, who is not the same species (anymore) as Talon. Likewise, Thailog is not the same species as Dolly the sheep.

I'm totally fine with New Olympians being a species for the purposes of this Wiki, but let's not start adding every possible character group. I don't want Mutate, Cyborg, Clone, Robot, or GMO in the Species category.

Just because a gargoyle fan might expect that mutates are a species, doesn't make it so. Many a fan probably doesn't expect half the canon-in-training revelations, either. I don't want an inaccurate or misleading Wiki just for the sake of being totally predictable. -- Vaevictis Asmadi 11:33, 21 August 2007 (CDT)

I am not suggesting that clones, cyborgs or robots by classed as species.

Are you taking the word "Mutates" to mean "a being that has been mutated", or (as in the article in question) the group of four mutated beings that founded the Labyrinth Clan? In the former case, I agree that mutates in general would not be a species. I was using the latter case.

Out of curiosity, why have you not raised objection to the inclusion of Category:Mutates or similar categories in Category:Characters by species? (Notice that Category:Clones and Category:Cyborgs are not, and never have been, included in this category.) -- Supermorff 13:38, 21 August 2007 (CDT)

I meant mutates in general. Clone, cyborg, and mutate are all nothing more than methods of modifying an existing being or creating a single new one. None of them is a species. But what applies to one generally would apply to all.

I guess I never thought about Characters by Species. But it would be another step entirely to explicitly declare that "mutate" is a species. You have a good point though... maybe it should be a sub-category of the Hybrid characters category. We already have Hybrid in the Characters by Species, right? It isn't a species, but by definition a hybrid means a mixture, I think it's the best we can do for that category. -- Vaevictis Asmadi 19:27, 21 August 2007 (CDT)