Killjoy wrote:
On this subject of maturation rates, the widely-held concept of a century or longer until physical maturity is just plain silly. It's rediculous.
Think about it for a minute.
It's not pratical or feasible...what species could survive while bearing offpring entails caring for an infant for 10+ years, a toddler for 10+ years, etc, etc, etc.
Many catgirls died to bring you this theory.
Perhaps the Elvish maturation rate is not just a linear multiplication of the Human maturation rate (i.e. an Elf will appear to be the same age as a Human half his age). In fact, we know that that's not the case, as Sarine has been of young-adult appearance for the past 2,000 years.
One alternate possibility is that Elves mature (grow into adulthood) at the same rate as humans and then simple don't age (whither to death) afterwards. However, this is falsified by the fact the half-elves mature more slowly than humans, and Sarine says that they matured quickly compared to Elves. So Elves definitely *do* mature at a delayed rate.
I would hypothesize that Elves begin to mature from conception at the same rate as humans, and that that rate then declines as the years go by. That is, the difference in physical maturity between human and elven 1-year-olds is small (Elf kid still appears about a year old); between 10-year-olds is noticeable (Elf kid appears maybe 7 years old); between 100-year-olds is incredible (Elf appears maybe 20 years old); between 1000-year olds is incomparable (the human would be dead by hundreds of years; the Elf appears maybe 25 years old). In other words, Elven maturation decelerates as they approach maturity, and beyond a certain age just isn't noticeable at all.
Given the various references to Meji's apparent age and actual age made in the comic (e.g. how old Bani thought she was when they met, how old people think she is now, etc), we could probably compute the exact formula to graph half-elves' age discrepancy from humans' (plotting human maturity as a linear graph, where apparent age = actual age, since "apparent" is by human standards here), and then use that as the basis to figure a probably aging rate for full Elves.
But I like catgirls, so I'm gonna stop now.