This post will build on two previous posts. The first one was An RPG of Nerds, where we expand English’s creative side. Groups of animals are called very different things, like a murder of crows or a parliament of owls. Here we extended that to groups of humans.
The second post we are building on is The 6 Basic Characters and the 5 Basic Settings. In today’s post, we could care less about the 5 basic settings. And 2 of the 6 basic characters have been done – that of humans and animals. So lets have fun with the 4 other categories of characters in groups.
The first category is aliens. By the title, you can guess that I think a group of aliens ought to be called a strange. This is a good word to encompass a meeting up of a variety of aliens. Like a United Nations of different planets or one of those inter alien bars that is common in science fiction. Similar words for this might be a unique of aliens, or a kaleidoscope of aliens.
But what of a group of very similar aliens? Like Earth was being attacked by a BEM (bug eyed monsters) of aliens. Or if they act like social insects, they might be simply called a hive of aliens. Or, if they hand out technology to earth that is meant to improve the place, they could be called a benevolence of aliens.
The next category is robots or computers. How about a mass production of robots? A generation of computers? A logic of AIs (artificial intelligences). How about a prosaic of robots because they are so predictable?
The next category is godlike or near godlike creatures. I don’t even have to make up a word for a group of gods because English already has the term a pantheon of gods. Since gods can likely replicate themselves, if they so choose, a group of Thors could be called a thunder of Thors. There are so many gods and mythologies that this could be a fruitful area for someone to explore.
The near godlike creatures could be angels or demons. It might be possible to have an order of angels (notice that religion already uses this word for a group of adherents). On the other side you could have a chaos of demons.
Next we have the lesser magical creatures. How about a flight of fairies? Or a wise of wizards? Or how about the semi magical races? You could have a habit of hobbits. How about an ugly of orcs? A slender of elves? An adept of dwarves?
And since this piece has already mentioned science fiction characters, I am reminded of one that would likely fit under the category of humans. Clones would likely go under this label. I would call a group of them a repeat of clones.
