Reasons to voluntarily change into a fantasy race?

Question

So one of the biggest quirks of the world I'm building is that, along with supernatural powers suddenly becoming real in modern day, the human race is granted multiple separate opportunities to voluntarily transform themselves into exotic and never-before-seen humanoid species. Periodically, for the first few years, everyone on earth is given the body of a new species to try out (the same species for everyone on earth each time) and they're given a week to decide if they want to stay human or become this new creature forever.

Essentially, previously all-human modern societies are now also populated with fantasy races through an opt-in system.

Now, since this is an opt-in system, obviously people have to want to make the jump, which means it has to be tempting to at least a sizeable chunk of people. Now obviously this for the most part excludes making any of these creatures things that humans wouldn't find sexually attractive (so more like elves, less like orks and trolls), but I'm pretty sure it takes a lot to make somebody throw away their entire physical form in exchange for a new one even if it isn't creepy or gross. So I brainstormed a while for a system that could make it tempting without making these species objectively better than humans, and the system I came up with was that your new body was totally genetically randomized. The body could be male, female, tall, short, anything. The human body you started with has no bearing whatsoever on what your new body will look like.

This I think would tempt a lot of people. A lot of people, for whatever reason, lost the genetic lottery, and if there were suddenly a second one, one which some of these people proceeded to win the hell out of, I'm pretty confident a lot of them are going to be tempted. So with this system I'm picturing the following being the biggest reasons people took the offer:

1: The new body they were offered, through sheer luck of the draw, scores significantly higher on the attractiveness scale

2: It was a chance to escape a sick, disabled, or genetically defective body and live a relatively normal life

3: They're transgender and the body they were offered was the sex they identified as

4: They just flat-out like the new species better and want to be one

Buuuuuut... I have this nagging feeling I might be missing something here, some other major reason somebody might want to make the jump, or possibly that I'm underestimating how many would belong to category 4.

Can anyone here think of any significant or noteworthy reasons besides these four that I'm missing here, and which I might want to bring up or show in-story?

Answer 1

A few things I can think of:

• Peer pressure: If all your friends and family decide to make the jump, would you want to be left out?
• New rules: Different species with different physical/mental capabilities means this could open up new jobs and regulations which need to be adopted and during this shift having a new body will mean you can be apart of, or leader of, this change.
• Incentives: If these fantasy bodies are potentially better for sick or disabled people, government could give incentives for people to make the shift. These incentives might provoke others to follow.
• Different groups: People love to categories things [citation needed] and the pull of being part of a unique group will mean people are more willing to change.
• Blackmail: What if people could be blackmailed/forced to change? You mention the fantasy forms would ideally be attractive still, imagine the unfortunate people involved in sex trafficking forced to change in order to appeal to wider range of customers. Scary thought. Rule 34 of the internet...
• New culture: Just look at Japanese culture of manga and anime and I'm sure people will jump at the opportunity to carve out a new life as some of these fantasies creatures.

What might be interesting is if you can switch back and forth between your human form and fantasy form, for example once a year or so. This might mean more people are willing to adopt it as you still have the option of return to "normal".

Answer 2

My list...

• Poor man's immortality. I'm old, and the body I've been offered is young. It's a chance to live a second lifetime.

• Anonymity

  • I owe the Mob a LOT of money and the body I've been offered looks nothing like me. Punishment avoidance in general might actually be one of the biggest reasons anyone changes races. And the bigger the crime, the more likely they'll opt in to avoid prison time. Worse still, and generally speaking, this may become a popular form of bankruptcy without all the hassle of contacting a lawyer and standing before a judge. An easy way to avoid paying debt.
  • I'm running away... from my family, from my job, from my abusive father/boyfriend/husband.... In this regard it could even become a form of suicide (identity suicide vs. physical suicide). I could even imagine the suicide numbers dropping as the opt-ins inrease, prompting a wave of government-funded studies....

• I'm saved. I have a terminal disease and my new body doesn't. Very obvious choice. Would also apply to the disabled in any form including blindness and deafness. It is, in fact, a way to correct nearly any genetic or accidental deformity or condition. Prompting more government-funded studies...

• Time to give Johnny the beat-down of his life. Particularly popular with the Orc conversions will be the victims of bullying, because it's all too human to want to seek vengence.

• Glarnak's will be done! Particularly popular with the cultists and those waiting for the aliens riding in the wake of the next asteroid. These religiously-minded people tend to opt-in in groups. And since Glarnak is the god of worldbuilding, it's obvious that He would like as many opt-ins as possible.

Answer 3

In many fantasy novels or games, the non-humans depart from the human baseline. For game balance, they might not be better across the board, but they are better in many stats and they have advantages.

• Elves are graceful. Elves are beautiful. Elves are near immortal. They may be a bit less sturdy than humans, but on balance, who doesn't want to be an elf?
• Orcs are strong. Orcs have stamina. Orcs heal quickly. Okay, so they are a bit dumb and ugly, but there are compensations.

And then there is how the change happens. Would it be possible to identify the individual after transformation? What about fingerprints? DNA? Could a divorced parent wiggle out of child support payments? Would a criminal record vanish?

Answer 4

Adding to other lists already given:

1. Your culture says women are weak and feeble, and have to stay at home and be protected by the manly, macho menfolk. Well screw you, patriarchy, now I'm a troll lady or giantess and can rip you weak and feeble human men into small pieces. So NOW try and stop me learning to drive or getting that job as a policewoman or soldier!
2. I can't have kids. Maybe this new body will be able to father children/bear children?
3. I don't want kids. If I become an elf and my other half stays human maybe we won't be cross-fertile... and our parents will stop carping on about grandchildren every time they visit.
4. I'm pretty good at my job as a human, but if I was an [insert species here] I'd be awesome at it. Elf for a supermodel, orc for a Rugby prop forward, and so on.
5. My religious leader says that [insert species here] are God's chosen people. It is my destiny and religious duty to become one.

Answer 5

People tend to dream they are someone else

Look at roleplaying events: many people like to present himself as a hero or fantasy creature. Most of them could transform unconsciously.

People tend to be different

People change color of their hairs, made tattoos and even surgeon operations to be different. They think they will be unique but they are not. With some time a new species like Terminator-man-with-gun-in-arm or Sweet-girl-with-big-eyes-and-colored-hair would arise.

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In fact, I read some fiction stories where opposite problem has been arisen: why many people still don't change their look? It's too easy to want to be a little different and too hard to revert to original state.

Answer 6

"I'm an elf trapped inside a human body"

Just as you have trans-gender people now, you could have trans-racial people...

Answer 7

A new body is like having a new life, even if nothing else about your life changes you're suddenly having to relearn how to type with new fingers, how to walk on new legs, how to talk with a new mouth and tongue, not to mention all the sexual stuff. I think the more extreme the transformation the more enthusiastic people will be to try it, have you ever wondered what it would be like to have and extra pair of arms, scales or fur or an exoskeleton, or a merfolk tail, what if you could have face tentacles like an illithid?

A lot of people are simultaneously crushed by how mundane their everyday lives are but also too comfortable to leave the secure/predictable life they've set up for themselves, a new body lets them have the best of both worlds, their life doesn't change at all but everything in it feels different.

Why be an elf or an orc when you could be an aarakocra, tiefling or aboleth?

Answer 8

I have some questions about this system.

When you go into a new body how much are you yourself? After every transfer, you could have the same memories but will you feel different about them? The same action in one body may feel wrong in another body. A piece of music you love as human can evoke displeasure as an elf. Is the experience between different races the same?

Can the races interbreed? Will one spouse hope to be an elf so they can have half-elf children with their other human spouse?

What are the rules for establishing identify after the change? Must there be witnesses to the change to verify identify? Will the government accept that? Will your family and friends?

When you become a member of the new race, will the members of new race accept you?

Although getting traits are random, what is possibility that after the change the person in question looks like someone else? You wrote the system generates some attributes randomly. Who controls that system? Can that system be hacked to commit fraud or force certain attributes?

Can you change back up if you try it and do not like it?

Answer 9

Economics

Assuming changing is largely free, some bodies will offer more economic opportunity, a large portion of your poorest people will be forced into changing just due to economic circumstances. This may very well be your largest factor.

Dwarves and mechanical aptitude, flying races, attractive elves, water breathing, temprature tolerances, night vision in general, each offers new economic opportunities to your person. It is the same reason the poor were often the most likely to go to colonies or move in unsettled areas historically.

If they get to pick their race this is several orders of magnitude more powerful, since people will try to match skills or desires with the new race.

Answer 10

answering as prompted in your other question...

To be honest, assuming your starting world is anything like our world, getting anywhere near 50% take-up sounds beyond fiction.

Going through your suggested reasons:

• Attractiveness – most of us – even if we aren't particularly attractive – are happy, and it's likely to look like some furry fetish if we transform into flawless animal-people. Also, cosmetic surgery already exists, but most people don't take it up not due to price, but because they don't want it.

• Healthy body – some might take it for this reason, but a quick google suggests only a very small proportion of the (non elderly) population has a life-limiting physical disorder.

• Forget trans; even optimistic estimates suggest only 1% has "some degree" of non-binary conformity. It's not going to give you a significant proportion. Additionally, I'd imagine someone who identifies as a female human isn't going to want to be a female cat any more than a male human

• Prefer the species – I think many of us might wonder what it's like, but not want to do it long-term. The grass is always greener on the other side. I imagine a lot of people might take the 1 week trial each time, then revert.

Initial Offerings

For the first offering, anyone even vaguely sensible would avoid an offer of a species change. There's too many risks & unknowns. Will it work? Are there side-effects? Are they really killing people and replacing them with beastman puppets? What happens to my memories & personality?

There's enough people who avoid the first release of an OS because it'll be problematic, how much more an unproven supernatural species change! A 1 week trial is also worth nothing on the first offering, as there's no proof yet that you can change me back!

So once you've had at least a couple of offerings, and people are starting to believe it's for real, and doesn't have any major immediate side-effects...

It's likely that the first people who take it up will be people with a furry fetish, or sex-workers who want to / are forced to monetise that. So that immediately means that – unless furry fetish has suddenly become respectable & desired (it won't in that time – look how long it's taken LGBT to become acceptable) – most people are going to look at it in a somewhat dim view. I think this is worth considering, because those who first embrace it are likely to set the tone for the overall thing.

Breaking it down

Let's deal with some easy demographic blocks...

I'm going to skip 'Christian' (31%) because it's a very varied block.

Wikipedia gives ~24% of the world's population as Islamic, and most of that will be in countries with some degree of Islamic law. Taking Indonesia as an example (it's one of the most liberal Islamic majority nations, and one I'm somewhat familiar with), the culture is still largely conservative, and species shifting is very likely to be seen as Haram. This is doubly so if species shifting is seen as a 'western' thing – which is likely will as the countries most likely to give it good press are western – or a fetish. So religious observance and social pressure will prevent them from taking up the offer – and in many Islamic nations, there would be punishments (either official or done by local communities) for anyone who did accept the offer.

China (18%) will be your next largest block. It seems unlikely that the Party would look favourably on species shifting. It would likely be seen to go against the One China value. The current party is more traditionally communist, and has been stamping out anything seen as foreign / disruptive (e.g. clampdown on Christianity in China), so I think we can safely assume they would similarly take a very low view of species-shifting. It would also possibly be seen as disrespectful to one's family / community. It would be a career-limiting move.

Your next biggest demographic block is Hindus (15%). My knowledge here is rather limited, so perhaps a commenter who knows more might help. For lack of anywhere better to start, comparing attitudes to LGBT issues, Hinduism is more accepting than Islam, but it's still not as accepted as in the west. Hinduism does of course have a big connection to anthropomorphic animals in its gods – I suspect that would make it reject shape-shifting, as e.g. it would be seen as disrespectful to Ganesha to accept an elephant trunk. On the other hand, it might mean a larger uptake. However, again, very strong family pressures are likely to prevent people taking up the offer.

We've now dealt with 57% of the world's population... You'd now need near 100% uptake in the rest of the world to reach your goal.

Let's go to the other extreme – Western Europe and North America (~14%) Views here are generally very liberal.

I think we can assume that uptake would be largest amongst the young (mid-teens to mid 20s). Younger children hopefully aren't permitted to make life-altering decisions like species-shifting for themselves? Also once you move up the age brackets, views tend to be more conservative. So let's assume it's highest amongst 15-35s (~25% of UK population, probably similar across WE/NA).

Initially, it's going to be a career-limiting move. Even if governments move to make discrimination based on species illegal, discrimination based on sex has been for decades, but most companies still have a huge gender pay gap. It's going to be hard to be taken seriously in a executive meeting with rabbit ears. Based on other discrimination issues, it's likely to take decades for it to become widely accepted.

It'll also be problematic practically – in particular, any changes like tails or wings, or changes to basic skeletal structure (animal legs) will be hugely problmatic. As noted in your other thread, it'll cause issues for clothing. But also chairs. And cars – I won't want a tail if it stops me driving (or makes it difficult / uncomfortable). Modifications to cars – because of safety certifications – will take years. New furniture will be expensive. Similarly medicine – these new bodies might start healthy, but presumably they'll decay like ours. Medicine will take ages to catch up. Will I have to visit a vet to get my tail / wings looked at? Why is my fur/feathers dropping? I've got lice. Vets aren't licensed to work on humans in most jurisdictions.

There's many jobs where it'll be impractical – a safety hat won't fit big ears; a tail will be a liability in a kitchen. Whilst some might give benefits (wings for couriers...?) the majority of tools and workplaces aren't ready to take advantage of it. Paws won't work a mouse and keyboard. And flight is likely to get legislation pretty quickly (think drone laws), due to risks (dropping your bag at 100ft and killing someone), and privacy fears. There might be compulsory registration – knife laws are pretty pointless if gangs have retractable claws. Every nation will consider how it can be militarised.

With the increase of 'far-right' groups, one can quickly imagine "Keep Europe for Humans" marches (EDL, etc.). Short of actual lynchings, this will create social pressures against species-shifting.

Let's optimistically say uptake in WE/NA, amongst 15-35s (where it'd be highest) is 10%. Let's say 5% across WE/NA. That gives you probably less than 1% worldwide uptake. More realistically, it's likely to be an order of magnitude lower for many decades, without some other pressure.

So... what could you do to encourage people to change?

To make people want to change in large numbers, you'll probably have to invent some big issue, like a disease epidemic which the new species (and perhaps some humans if you want to keep them) are immune to. Or large cash payments, or real-estate in the beastman world across the portal, etc. Or a food shortage – perhaps the new bodies are able to digest grass & leaves etc.?

Sorry... that's all really negative! You might want to just skip your story forward a few decades to the point where uptake is now ~10% and starting to spike up? Or just set it somewhere like California or Vegas where uptake might be highest? Or start with a future world with widespread cybernetics & surgical bodymods which would be much more accepting of this offer.

Answer 11

Well, does the new body have any special abilities beyond physical boosts, like magic, flight, etc.? Because a lot of people would probably give up their human forms in a heartbeat if they could fly in exchange.