[OB] Why are Parshendi SO different looking than all other races?

[JekyllLantern97]

The title pretty much says it all, but I'll expound a little further. In all the Cosmere books I've read, the human races have had slight biological differences, (i.e. skaa vs. nobles) and definitely had different fashions, but no race is as bizarre as the Parshendi. As far as I can tell, all other Cosmere races have regular red blood, similar skin tones and textures, and haven't been incredibly small or large. So why then are the Parshendi so different looking? If I understood OB correctly, the Parshendi were created by Honor and Cultivation (because they've been on Roshar longest), so why did they make them look so weird compared to the other races? Maybe I'm off track, but the first races shards create usually look like us human beings. 

Thanks in advance

[Calderis]

Every race we've seen on other worlds has been some variety of human. Parshendi are not. There is no common ancestor. They are a completely different species, as are the Aimians.

Kandra are more similar to humans than Parshendi in that they were created from humans. 

Edited July 7, 2018 by Calderis

[Singer]

Maybe someone else can answer this better, but it seems to me they are a race that was made to suit the ecology of Roshar. They can grow carapace and their forms change in association with the storm. So, they were made for Roshar just like cremlings and chasmfiends and sky eels.

[CrazyRioter]

Yeah they fit in with the Rosharian ecology.

Also Honor and Cultivation did not create them, they were probably created by Adonalsium.

[RShara]

Yeah they were created for Roshar's unique ecology. We haven't really seen any other created sapient races so far, other than on Roshar, so it's not surprising that the parsh are so different. The Aimians, both Siah and Dysan, are also verrrrrrrrrry different.

Humans existed on Yolen before the Shattering, and it's unclear whether they evolved or were created, but all the other humans in the cosmere were either based on, or descended from, those original humans.

[Weltall]

Welcome to the Shard!

We don't know if the singers/Parsh* were created by Adonalsium directly or if they simply evolved there naturally over an extremely long timespan, since while we know that Uncle Andy created the entire system we don't know how much he directed anything specific after the astromonical (and potential Realmatic) details were established and how much time passed between the creation of the system and any other event in Cosmere history.

But yeah, they're different from all the strains of humanity because they're native to Roshar and share similar traits (the natural affinity for spren bonds, the carapace) while humans are not native to that world. And both species of Aimian are similar, with Brandon remarking that they may be able to pass as human but they're actuallly very different. One imagines that there could be worlds that would be even more 'different' to our eyes since there were three sapient races on Yolen and not all of the Vessels were human. For example, there is at least one world somewhere in the Cosmere where there are no humans and it's not Braize.

 

* At some point, it would be nice to get an absolute term for their species so we know exactly what to best call them.

Edited July 7, 2018 by Weltall

[RShara]

48 minutes ago, Weltall said:

Welcome to the Shard!

We don't know if the singers/Parsh* were created by Adonalsium directly or if they simply evolved there naturally over an extremely long timespan, since while we know that Uncle Andy created the entire system we don't know how much he directed anything specific after the astromonical (and potential Realmatic) details were established and how much time passed between the creation of the system and any other event in Cosmere history.

But yeah, they're different from all the strains of humanity because they're native to Roshar and share similar traits (the natural affinity for spren bonds, the carapace) while humans are not native to that world. And both species of Aimian are similar, with Brandon remarking that they may be able to pass as human but they're actuallly very different. One imagines that there could be worlds that would be even more 'different' to our eyes since there were three sapient races on Yolen and not all of the Vessels were human. For example, there is at least one world somewhere in the Cosmere where there are no humans and it's not Braize.

 

* At some point, it would be nice to get an absolute term for their species so we know exactly what to best call them.

Well the planetary system Roshar really wouldn't work over the span of millions and billions of years. Ten gas giants, three inner rocky planets, one with three tiny moons in an impossible orbit?  Yeah, nope

[Leyrann]

2 hours ago, RShara said:

Well the planetary system Roshar really wouldn't work over the span of millions and billions of years. Ten gas giants, three inner rocky planets, one with three tiny moons in an impossible orbit?  Yeah, nope

If the gas giants orbit far enough away they'll probably not destabilize the inner planets, and otherwise resonance is an option. The moons are going to be very, very tricky though. But hey, maybe they're newer.