Re: IQ or intelligence in ConLang/Cultures

On Sat, Sep 09, 2000 at 07:09:06PM +0000, Leo Caesius wrote:
[snip]
>   I am constantly amused by the fact that every article in the WWN
> references an "Expert" of some kind  - be it "Bible Expert," or "Physics
> Expert," or "History Expert."  As a child, I imagined "The Experts" on the
> staff of the World Weekly News to be a highly-prestigious group of
> illuminati, wielding total omniscience on all manner of arcane subjects, and
> culled from the greatest universities and training grounds on the globe.  In
> short, something like "The Judges" on the popular American TV show
> "Jeopardy."
[snip]

Interesting. The Experts in my con-universe aren't a class of
holier-than-thou people who'd like to lord it over you, though. Perhaps a
better name might be "wizards" but I don't like the confusion and implicit
connotations that result from reusing that word.

Being an Expert in my con-universe isn't an easy thing, though, and it's
not always a glamorous thing. Esp. during the glory days of the Experts in
the Kingdom Era, one must undergo an extremely intensive training, and
then quite a long period of apprenticeship, and then make substantial
contributions in order to be more than just a "helper" of their mentors.
(And "helpers" aren't exactly admired by everybody.) And after one is
recognized as an Expert, one must maintain a good record of helping
people, actively contributing to the general peace, etc., and sometimes
risk one's life to fight unpleasant, nasty creatures that sometimes come
by. (Failing to risk one's life when there is reason to do so immediately
disqualifies one from being called an Expert, at least in public eye.)

During the Era of Scattering, though, the standard of being an Expert
dropped sharply, there being no longer the proper training facilities and
sufficiently qualified trainers. But that's another long story I think
I'll omit here :-)


T