Races

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Races

Postby newsblade » Sun Sep 23, '12, 12:42 pm

I'm a bit confused about species and "nationality" in Phantasy Star classic series.

We find that natives from Palma (parman/palmen) are Human beings and we already know that natives from Earth (earthmen) are also human beings. Although born in different planets/nations both species should be "Human".

In PSGen1 there is a human, walking in Parma, that says to be a Motavian [Race: Human (Motavian)]. Why? Because he was born and lives in Planet Motavia. So "Motavian" is clearly a "planet-nationality" thing. It is also a race, because that's the name of native motavians.

In short:
Species: Humans, Numans (new humans), Motavians, Musk Cats, Dezolizians, etc.
Planet-nationality: Earthmen, Parmans (shouldn't it be Parmen?), Delozlizians, Motavians, Ryucrossians(?), Parumans(?), etc.


However PSIV may contradict this, because native Motavians (from Planet Motavia) call humans (born in planet Motavia) "Parmans". Are they really Parmans? Or should they also be Motavians (because they were born in Motavia, like that person in PSgen1) Shouldn't they call them by the species name ("Humans")? Maybe motavians call them that because those humans came from Planet Parma, like saying "you do not belong here, return to your [native-destroyed] planet"... Or maybe in PSIV they are considering "Parman" a short for "Humans (Parman natives)" or "Humans, native from Planet Parma".

In Phantasy Star Universe is clear that race is the same as species (e.g.: "Race: Human"). But this sometimes is so confusing that when I play PSII Text adventures, don't know if I was talking to a human from Motavia or a native motavian humanoid specie.
Last edited by newsblade on Sun Sep 23, '12, 12:42 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Races

Postby Thoul » Tue Sep 25, '12, 4:59 am

Human and Parman seem to be used interchangeably in most of the series. Usually, if a game refers to a Motavian, I assume that to mean the native Motavian species unless some context makes it more likely that it means a human. If a random NPC in a mostly Palman city in a Text Adventure is called Motavian, I would assume that to mean a human. The native Motavians didn't like to be in the Palman cities, so it is unlikely that the game means a real native... unless there's a picture or description that says otherwise.

I think PSIV refers to the government or army of the planet as "Motavian" somewhere in the Daughter related dialogue. That would clearly be the human government or army, not the native species, since the latter wouldn't have been involved with the Daughter project.

I suppose it would have been easier to keep everyone straight if the game had referred to Palmans living off-Palma as colonists. That's what they really are - citizens of Palma's colonies on the other worlds. That might have used too much precious space in the memory of the original cartridges, though.
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Re: Races

Postby Arctic-snowfox » Sun Sep 30, '12, 10:42 am

I agree with thoul. but i personally think about parma and the parmanians being alike to that of motavia and motavians. but it seems transportation between planets is availiable, that just leaves earthmen that confuses me.
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