What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

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Lord-Herek
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What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by Lord-Herek » Sat, 24. Jul 21, 12:30

I'm making a mod for myself to make the race distribution in human factions feel more consistent and natural.
Meaning that some race can be more prevalent in a particular faction than a different race.

For example, I heard that Japanes were the most advanced according to lore and Argon faction is supposed to be heavily
influenced by Japanes/Asian culture so I would make that Argon would consist mostly of Asian race and only low percentage of White/Black NPCs.

What do you think would be the right distribution of races in other human factions according to lore?

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mr.WHO
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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by mr.WHO » Sat, 24. Jul 21, 12:54

Note that X-series is like 2'000 years in future and humans are multi-environment, multi-planet species for long time.

Each planet, or even each station could have entironment(s) similar to Earth or completely different (many sector description across the series mention planets with extreme environment) - this could absolutely push the skin color drift to any and all directions.
Plus generic engineering 2k years in future would probably allow anyone to select skin color, hair color etc. long before birth.

This is really silly question - it's like person 2'000 BC asking what is distribution of Osiris and Zeus believers in our time.


X4 kinda clearly show that people and even aliens much more indentify with their planet (Antigone, Earth, Argon Prime, HoP/PAR planets) rather than anything else.

The only remotely "race based" things are:
- Paranid treat anyone with less than 3 eyes as inferior.
- Split treat Boron as inferior.
- everyone think Teladi are greedy.
- Terrans think everyone else are stupid (or at least foolish, especially towards Xenon thread).
- Boron thinks everyone else is overly brutal.

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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by Axeface » Sat, 24. Jul 21, 13:35

What do you think would be the right distribution of races in other human factions according to lore?
Exactly as it is in vanilla X4.

There is no lore about race distribution. Japanese culture and language was prevalent, do you understand the difference?

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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by Shehriazad » Sat, 24. Jul 21, 13:45

If you wanted to make skin colors in the game feel more "natural then you'd simply make the vast majority of humans in X4 milk-coffee color skinned with almond shaped eyes.

The different shades we have today are getting more and more mixed due to most of the planet becoming rather intercultural, and thousands of years in the future something like an asian, caucasian or african skintype would be very rare in most circumstances. So you'd want those to only pop up like unicorns.

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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by jlehtone » Sat, 24. Jul 21, 13:59

mr.WHO wrote:
Sat, 24. Jul 21, 12:54
Note that X-series is like 2'000 years in future and humans are multi-environment, multi-planet species for long time.
https://www.egosoft.com:8444/confluence ... I/Timeline
* 2042 AD (21 years from now) Terrans build a Jump Gate
* 2147 AD Terran colonists are isolated from Sol. They take name "Argon"
* 2934 AD Sol reconnects to Gate network
* 2995 AD Events of X4

So, closer to 1'000 than 2'000, but your point stands.

Note that Earth would send colonists within next 120 years. Relatively small number of people that are forefathers of Argon. The Argons have been busy the last 800 years before X3R. Argons should differ from Terrans.
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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by mr.WHO » Sat, 24. Jul 21, 14:59

Shehriazad wrote:
Sat, 24. Jul 21, 13:45
The different shades we have today are getting more and more mixed due to most of the planet becoming rather intercultural, and thousands of years in the future something like an asian, caucasian or african skintype would be very rare in most circumstances. So you'd want those to only pop up like unicorns.
Sorry, but that's not true - no matter what you think, Sun shines differently in different parts of Earth.
Everyone in Northern hemisphere is basically white-in-transition (notice that Afro-Americans are more pale, already after just 300 years).
Everyone living closer to equator will be brown or black, eventually.
Everyone living in South-East Asia will become yellow some day.

Then you add space station environment (that will obviously not provide full sun spectrum light to save energy and prevent overheat, which is problematic in vaccum).
Then you add hundrerds of planets, frequently with diffrents stars (e.g. red dwarf is extremely different from our Sun, Mars is different, despite the same Sun).

If anything, both Terrans and Argons will be crazy diverse.

More likely, we would see things (not yet) frequently visible in present time, like detaching "race" from "skin color" like:

Caucasian-white
Caucasian-brown
Caucasian-black
Caucasian-yellow

African-white
African-brown
African-black
African-yellow

Asian-white
Asian-brown
Asian-black
Asian-yellow

And this is only under condition provided by Earth base environment (would apply to Terrans, which population is like 95% Earth based).

As for Argon, it's anybody guess, since we don't really know much about Argon Prime or Antigone (two most prominent and oldest Argon worlds) - the distribution would most probably be factor of:
- continent size and location (closer or further from equator) - this we could see from in game planet background.
- population distribution - e.g. Earth northern hemisphere has much more land, yet most population live in South-East Asia and India - we don't have any information, unless we would check the night light in these planets, which are most propably randomly generated.

And even then all of this could be thrown out of the window, because what we see in X4 are only people who are in space - this could be hugely different than actual planetary population distribution.
E.g. what if all Asians decided to stay on Earth? We don't have any information about it, thus ANY configuration we see in X4 is plausible.

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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by dtpsprt » Sat, 24. Jul 21, 16:15

The interaciality and multiculturism observed today projects a totally mixed up human species with characteristics of the three race types intermixed.
That said, one should expect that people born in space or living most of their time in space (not in planets) should be more tan coloured than the planetside ones due to larger ultra violet exposure. Also the skin coloration based on geography on any planet can not be consistent (like black in the equator - white in the poles) due to different distances of each planet from their sun, amount of radiation from the sun and amount of Electromagnetic field of each planet that would shield from radiation.
Therefore one can safely "guess" that body characteristics will be a mixture of the dominant genes of all three human races with skin coloration being on the tan side.

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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by dtpsprt » Sat, 24. Jul 21, 16:29

mr.WHO wrote:
Sat, 24. Jul 21, 14:59
Caucasian-white
Caucasian-brown
Caucasian-black
Caucasian-yellow

African-white
African-brown
African-black
African-yellow

Asian-white
Asian-brown
Asian-black
Asian-yellow
Caucasian-white = Sweedish, Danish, Germans etc
Caucasian-brown = Italians, Greeks, Indians (from India)
Caucasian-black = Erithreans (some tribes) and Ethiopians (some tribes also)
Caucasian-yellow = Arab nations

African-white = Some tribes in the middle of the African Jungle, plus a greater percentage of Albinos than Caucasian/Asian
African-brown = South African tribes, North Nigerian tribes, Ethiopian tribes
African-black = Soudan tribes, Ugandan tribes, Congo Tribes
African-yellow = Mid/South Nigerian tribes, American Africans, Australia Aboriginals

Asian-white = Coreans, Japaneese
Asian-brown = Native Americans
Asian-black = A lot born in Viet Nam fathered by Black African soldiers and present day in Africa by Chinese (mainly) advisers
Asian-yellow = Chinese (South), Mongol tribes, Thai etc

We already see them in front of our eyes...

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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by Alan Phipps » Sat, 24. Jul 21, 16:40

Who knows, maybe by then some affluent potential parents might be able to choose some of the basic physical characteristics for their potential offspring?
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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by mr.WHO » Sat, 24. Jul 21, 16:46

dtpsprt wrote:
Sat, 24. Jul 21, 16:29
We already see them in front of our eyes...
While these are really good examples, I was thinking more about something relatively short term (like 100-300 years) effect of change in sun exposure.
Your examples are more of a long term effect of living in the environment, that impact not just skin tone, but overall race and body features.

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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by Clownmug » Sat, 24. Jul 21, 21:22

Usually in fiction when humanity achieves space travel they abandon petty things like this and thus it's never mentioned.

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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by dtpsprt » Sun, 25. Jul 21, 08:03

Alan Phipps wrote:
Sat, 24. Jul 21, 16:40
Who knows, maybe by then some affluent potential parents might be able to choose some of the basic physical characteristics for their potential offspring?
Affluent potential parent's children would not just appear in a space station's general population. Since X Universe is (or became) an economy game, which means that money is might, they may be in the "governing" positions and surely out of the dangers of battle and/or space who will be "reserved" for the "less affluent" ones.
As the saying goes: "the day poo will be of value poor people will be born without a$$" meaning once one starts putting value in things there will always be poor and rich...

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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by dtpsprt » Sun, 25. Jul 21, 08:08

mr.WHO wrote:
Sat, 24. Jul 21, 16:46
dtpsprt wrote:
Sat, 24. Jul 21, 16:29
We already see them in front of our eyes...
While these are really good examples, I was thinking more about something relatively short term (like 100-300 years) effect of change in sun exposure.
Your examples are more of a long term effect of living in the environment, that impact not just skin tone, but overall race and body features.
The only short term change can be in skin coloration due to exposure to UV radiation, which is "maxed out" in space and varies hugely on planet conditions/range from their sun which would make the spacers more tanned in general and a huge variation in the planetary populations if they stay on planet, therefore out of the game.

EDIT: Another short term variation would be space living population having shorter legs than the planetside ones, given the existence of artificial gravity on ships/stations, as they walk way less. The pianists/accordion players have exercises that mimic walking for their fingers that result on them getting longer so they can expand their reach on the keyboard

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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by Drumma » Sun, 25. Jul 21, 15:49

Since children have been mentioned:
Where are the children ?
Shouldn't there be some kids running around in the bars/game room and shopping/trading areas ?

(kids = young people not goats) :-)

... just wondering

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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by Skeeter » Sun, 25. Jul 21, 16:06

I just wish they had more that a few body types. They all look slim and about the same height. Be nice if they put more effort into npcs so some are thin or fat tall or short and do better to fix their materials so their faces dont shine like metal surfaces and the skin being too bumpy of pores it looks so fake and dont let shadows be cast on them too strongly, the lighting when it hits them looks stupid and unnatural. But in ego eyes im thinking they think its a space game lets worry more on ships stations and the empire building fluff. So there trying to do bare min in the ways of diversity with animations, looks, how much they can say etc. Granted npcs look alot better than they used to but so much more is needed to make npcs look natural and be naturally acting in the universe. Most are there just to be info points or crew hires instead of any meaningful addition to story/quest markers which i wish them to be more like in say a rpg/fps. And why did they model hair the way they do, it looks stupid. Most games that use human models have better modelled hair than this, even old 90s games had better hair lol.

Need more civilians too so normal clothes not just uniforms, more culture grouped i.e some religious types, punk types, gang looking types, family types. Walking around getting on and off ships then walking around the stations malls if they add em and then back on a random ship as passengers to go around different stations like their having a life.
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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by dtpsprt » Sun, 25. Jul 21, 16:11

Drumma wrote:
Sun, 25. Jul 21, 15:49
Since children have been mentioned:
Where are the children ?
Shouldn't there be some kids running around in the bars/game room and shopping/trading areas ?

(kids = young people not goats) :-)

... just wondering
Probably gone with the "Little Susie" announcements... or, simply, wondered out of an airlock!!!

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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by mr.WHO » Sun, 25. Jul 21, 17:27

Skeeter wrote:
Sun, 25. Jul 21, 16:06
Need more civilians too so normal clothes not just uniforms, more culture grouped i.e some religious types, punk types, gang looking types, family types. Walking around getting on and off ships then walking around the stations malls if they add em and then back on a random ship as passengers to go around different stations like their having a life.
I still hope one day we will be able to customize crew clothes/uniforms (e.g. faction colors, dress code for captain, pilot etc.) - this would get well with a few more clothes choices.

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The Race Issue in X4

Post by delilah wild » Sun, 25. Jul 21, 18:51

I am enjoying the human diversity that Egosoft is injecting into X4. But the abundant presence of Black humans in the Terran DLC has disturbed others and generated debate about the human diversity of the X Universe.

Some of these concerns seem to be explicitly racist (viewtopic.php?f=146&t=440825), others incorporate racial stereotypes (https://www.reddit.com/r/X4Foundations/ ... _ships_is/), while still others presuppose an erroneous understanding of race (https://www.reddit.com/r/X4Foundations/ ... ack_asian/, viewtopic.php?f=146&t=440917).

It is not racist to speculate on what our genes, bodies and cultures will be like in a thousand years - the time period in which X4 is set. Assuming the genetic selection pressures don't radically change, that is not enough time for species-altering variations to emerge. But with all the scenarios in scifi, who knows? Star Trek envisions a WWIII in response to eugenics. Joan Slonczewski’s A Door into Ocean imagines humans adjusting their genotypes to the various planets they settle thereby creating different subspecies of human beings.

Still, we ought to be cautious about speculating in terms of race(s) and wary of racial stereotypes. As it applies to human beings, race is a pejorative concept setting some humans apart from others. As a matter of evolutionary science there are no subspecies or races within humanity.

This applies to X4 in a straightforward way. The humans, Teladi, etc. are of different species. These species may have different factions (e.g., ANT, ARG, TER) while some factions are composed of many species (e.g., Scala Pact). Neither species nor faction equates to race. Nor is race correlative to the ethnicities or languages of the humans in the X Universe. The lore does note the strong influenced of Japanese culture in the early years, but there is nothing I’m aware of in X that implies racially segregated factions amongst the humans.

One of the main reason we are having this conversation in X4 is because Egosoft mistakenly labels different species as races. This error was likely inadvertent and I hope Egosoft will correct this going forward.

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Re: The Race Issue in X4

Post by Zloth2 » Sun, 25. Jul 21, 19:26

Oh, that's not just Egosoft by a LONG shot, that's all of gamedom. Every different faction with bodies that look significantly different are different "races." Doesn't matter if biologists would call them a different race, species, or kingdom. Honestly, it doesn't even matter if you would need to call in a geologist to categorize the differences! As far as gamers are concerned, a hyper-intelligent shade of the color blue would still just be another "race." It may seem lazy, but it really doesn't matter much for gaming. No point in having a dozen different words for "snow" if you live in the tropics.
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Re: What is the race distribution (White, Black, Asian) in human factions according to lore?

Post by CBJ » Sun, 25. Jul 21, 19:31

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