A separate sapient race in human (pre)history

[Stuart Mackey]

Qualms, no; they'd have cheerfully wiped the planet clean of everyone but themselves. But judging from history, unless the population is small they weren't likely to bother, and would subjugate them instead. They would have forcibly converted them to Christianity.

They would also be equally happy wipe them out if it suited their purposes, as happened in Australia to the Aborigines there. Their only hope would be able to fight them to a stand still in some way, as in NZ, and gain a peace of some sort.

It was far easier in real-world Australia than it would be in a North/South America that wasn't decimated by European plagues. The native Australians were decimated by plague as the American natives were. Places like Africa, Asia, India that WEREN'T decimated generally didn't suffer the genocide-and-replace treatment.

Native Australians were driven of cliffs, shot and generally subjected to what can only be described as genocide, disease was only part of it. Native Americans were close behind, ethnically cleansed would be a good description for their treatment, their remnants, after being herded onto 'reservations' like cattle, were but a shadow of the nations they were.

Even if one assumes they are resistant to human disease, they must be culturally and technologically up to play with human, particularly western, nations, and the history of the Inca shows the necessity of technology and India and Asia the necessity of a degree of political and cultural cohesion. The only ones who were able to resist were the Japanese, and they did so very well.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Native Australians were driven of cliffs, shot and generally subjected to what can only be described as genocide, disease was only part of it. Native Americans were close behind, ethnically cleansed would be a good description for their treatment, their remnants, after being herded onto 'reservations' like cattle, were but a shadow of the nations they were.

And the evidence is that much, perhaps even most of the killing was due to disease.

Even if one assumes they are resistant to human disease, they must be culturally and technologically up to play with human, particularly western, nations, and the history of the Inca shows the necessity of technology and India and Asia the necessity of a degree of political and cultural cohesion. The only ones who were able to resist were the Japanese, and they did so very well.

Once again; the groups that survived as nations were primarily the disease resistant ones. Both because of numbers, and because of the very social cohesion you talk about. How much social cohesion would Japan have had after losing 50%-75% of their population ?

If technology was what stopped them from genocide, then the Europeans would have exterminated the Africans as they did the native Americans and Australians - but they didn't. It obviously wasn't moral qualms that stopped them, either. What did, was numbers and cohesion; yes, they could have killed them all, but it would have been much harder than it was slaughtering the remnants of a people already half-exterminated by disease.

[Stuart Mackey]

And the evidence is that much, perhaps even most of the killing was due to disease.

Is it? care to share? I don't recall to be honest.

Once again; the groups that survived as nations were primarily the disease resistant ones. Both because of numbers, and because of the very social cohesion you talk about. How much social cohesion would Japan have had after losing 50%-75% of their population ?

That does not explain NZ Maori, or Japan who had been isolated for 250 years when Perry showed up and were no more capable than any other Asian nation of the 19th century.

If technology was what stopped them from genocide, then the Europeans would have exterminated the Africans as they did the native Americans and Australians - but they didn't. It obviously wasn't moral qualms that stopped them, either. What did, was numbers and cohesion; yes, they could have killed them all, but it would have been much harder than it was slaughtering the remnants of a people already half-exterminated by disease.

That does not explain NZ Maori, who, while hit hard by disease, were capable of fighting off the British army, tactically and operationally, and negotiated British citizenship on an equal footing.
What stopped them in Africa was moral qualms (White man's burden, save their souls etc), and a the necessity of a ready source of labour.

[Johonebesus]

I also think you're over estimating the Europeans tolerance, Mr. Abyss. If our non-humans are very clearly not human, I would expect that the reaction of many Europeans would be to destroy them as thoroughly as possible, not just conquer and then casually relocate and remove them when they got in the way. The Spanish initially conquered the states they found, and today most Latin Americans are still of American Indian descent. The English only bothered with genocide because they colonized in large numbers, more so than the Spanish. They still were more interested in just getting the natives out of the way than in eradicating them from the Earth.

But we are considering a different species, one that, at best, might look like some sort of ogre or troll to Europeans. Not humans with darker skin and funny clothes, but "animals". I think it likely that all churches would agree that these creatures lack souls, and then the European powers would be tempted to make them extinct out of fear and disgust, bolstered by good Christian conviction. I can easily see the Church calling for a crusade to wipe out the devils invading the Earth, and the Protestants wanting to reclaim and secure the land from the Devil's brood.