Well...their long-livedness is a function of having gods mixed into their ancestry. So you'd think they age the way immortals typically do in fiction, go through childhood at a normal pace and then all of a sudden stop once they hit adulthood. Except...just slowing down instead of stopping altogether. So more like Wolverine.

On the other hand, if you look at the Kitana/Mileena origin story from the old timeline, it says that they grew up together enough for Kitana to have really thought they were sisters for a while.

But Mileena was created by Shang Tsung, who's only 1000 years old, a tenth of Kitana's age.

So accounting for the fact that Kitana must have been mostly grown-up when she met her "sister" for the first time, and was told some excuse about being long-lost twins, maybe "she was kidnapped by rebels, we thought she was dead, but we finally found her", or "you were raised separately to develop different fighting styles but now it's time you learned to work as a team" or something along those lines..."and by the way, she's disfigured and super-sensitive about it, so how's about the two of you wear masks from now on?"

Either Kitana was the equivalent of a teenager at the time, which isn't so bad, it still allows for some "growing up" together...or she was a very gullible grownup. Which is totally possible. She's pretty naive and gullible in MK9.

Personally. I'd like to believe Old Timeline Kitana was pretty smart though since she figured out the truth on her own and kept it a secret until the right time to betray Kahn came around. Maybe being introduced to Mileena was the first moment she began to suspect something was wrong and started investigating?
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As far as other races go...well, we don't know which ones are long-lived, do we? The Shokan obviously are, because Goro's like 2,000...but who else?
I mean...Bo' Rai Chi is super-old...but Li Mei is described as a normal "young" girl, and they're the same race. So do Outworlders live a long time, or is Bo special somehow?
Do Tarkatans live a long time? They've never said, but they are half-demons. The idea that Baraka's been around long enough to have participated in historical events like the fall of Edenia, like in Tancharoen's webseries, doesn't sit right with me though, personally. I see Tarkatans as the MK version of most fantasy fiction's orcs/goblins. They're nearly wild animals and they live a warring barbarian life. They should only live to be like 40 at best due to the lifestyle/poor health if they don't die in battle first.
Raptors...Reptile is another character that fans sometimes talk about as if he's been around for a very long time and has participated in backstory stuff, but personally, I think Reptile is young. See...he doesn't KNOW what drove his race extinct, he wasn't around to remember it. He has to be TOLD what's going on whenever he meets someone wiser like Khameleon, or Nitara who apparently has the hobby of being an archaeologist who's studied Saurian history.
Centaurs we know pretty much nothing about. Same with the Seidans and Havik. (You could say "well Hotaru had white hair even when Shujinko was young"...but that's graphical limitations, man. Like everyone in MK9's opening cutscene wearing the wrong costumes. Besides, maybe it's not white from age, like that's a natural color there? I wish Hotaru was just blonde or something instead though. Why make a character who looks EXACTLY the same as Fujin? Speaking of which, why do his eyes glow?)
Vampires aren't undead in MK, they're a normal biological race who ONLY bite to feed and can't convert victims...but they also have some of the famous strengths and weaknesses like being harmed by Earthrealm's sun and can only be killed by wood stake to the heart or Fatality-level bodily dismemberment. So do they age? I would guess yes, slowly. As slow as Edenians? Probably not, 10,000 is really a ridiculous number. Most writers wouldn't go that far. But I bet Nitara DOES remember Kahn's merging of Vaeternus, whenever that was. Has to have been before he came after Earth, Kahn seems to target realms one at a time and those MK tournaments do always take ten "generations" (I wonder if it's different for every realm since a generation would be a different length of time for different races, or if it's always 50 years...)
Everyone else seems to be either same as a human or straight-up immortal and not aging at all. I mean I don't think gods ever HAD childhoods, I imagine them being just blinked into existence fully-formed by the Elders. It's not like their mortal forms are their real bodies, they're really like made out of energy or their element or something, and they just become fleshy in order to do mortals-only stuff.

A lot of this is interesting to think about and makes a lot of sense; personally, I never through Baraka and Reptile were thousands of years old, so I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who thought so because so many people seem to.

I've wondered for a bit if maybe Seidans have lifespans similar to Edenians since I'm kind of stuck on the idea that the Orderrealm god spread his essence to Seidans after the Chaos god created the tempest in Chaosrealm, which might explain why Hotaru looks the way he does; maybe he got a good portion of godly essence or something, as unlikely and unsubstantiated as that is.

As for the Mileena/ Kitana thing, those are indeed some interesting thoughts. I, too, 've thought for a while that maybe Mileena's introduction to Kitana was what sparked Kitana's journey to investigate her past. Though I'd really like to know where it's said Kitana actually grew up to believe Mileena was her sister. Looking at Shang Tsung, that would be impossible unless his age of being approx. 1,000 years old was retconned. Another thing about that, I've also always wondered why everyone, especially Kitana, just accepted Mileena always wearing a veil over her mouth for thousands/ hundreds of years; I mean, if she really knew Mileena had a Tarkatan-ish mouth, what would be the explanation for that? Shao Kahn: "Oh, I banged a Tarkatan after your mom died." I doubt it. Plus there's the whole supposed to be "twin sisters" thing.

I kind of like your explanation that she might've worn it and Shao Kahn explained that it was because she was "disfigured" perhaps from an injury being captured or genetic defect, but wouldn't that make Mileena suspicious herself of what Kahn and Tsung have intended for her? I just can't see her being okay with having to live a lie for a sister she hates; or better yet, if she even /knows/ she was created by Shang Tsung and not born like Kitana, how exactly does this whole lie work? It never made much sense to me. Regarding Mileena and Tarkatan aging, I've personally wondered if since godly essence has a positive influence on mortal health and genetics and such if having demonic genetics would have a reverse affect? Like, could that be an indication that Tarkatans live extremely flimsy lifespans partly because of this? Also, how would that affect Mileena? I've heard ideas that suggest she might be mentally unstable because of such opposing forces inside of her.

Their MK2 bios and Kitana's ending are all about it, really.

They're introduced as twin sisters who fight together as a team, and then Kitana's ending goes "Over the years, she learns stuff" like that Mileena's not her sister, she's a clone, which means before that point, she did believe they were twins. And it does use the word "years".



Well Mileena always knew her own origin, she had to. And she wants to please her "father" so she does what she's told.

The ONLY reason Kahn didn't have Mileena disposed of when she came out wrong was he saw a way to make her useful: By having the girls live like sisters and fight as a team, he'd have a spy close to Kitana who could let him know if she ever does turn on him. That's also straight from their MK2 bios, Mileena's job is to spy on Kitana.

Obviously, Mileena would KNOW that this is her mission, she wouldn't make a good spy if she didn't know she was supposed to be spying. And she probably figured that if she did it well enough, and waited patiently till Kitana finally went off the reservation, then she could finally get to be the real princess and "daddy's favorite" like she wants.

The veil is more so the kingdom can't tell them apart, not to keep Kitana from asking questions. Obviously, it's just a piece of cloth and there's no way Kitana didn't know what was under it. Telling her her sister has a birth defect is the simplest explanation...but you do want other people to see them as twins and not be able to tell them apart, especially when they're in the field as assassins. And it's also because Mileena's mouth was originally unintended and undesired in the old timeline, Kahn and Mileena both probably didn't want to have to look at it, it was an object of shame.

Nitara's MKA Bio calls the vampires immortal.

As I pointed out, "immortal" is a word with a lot of different confusing possible definitions.

Maybe they don't age. I can't say for sure that word answers the question.

Hotaru's Deception bio says he has been around for centuries.

I always thought that was just more lack of attention to detail, misplaced continuity. Shang's bio in MK1 said he was 1000 right? Kitana's age wasn't stated as 10,000 until MK3. I could be wrong, but I don't think it said anything about Kitana's age in MK2.

Shang's age is given in MK1 yes, but his origin story that's still true also REQUIRES him to be only 1000 because it's tied into the tournament.

He's a human from Earth, he discovers how to portal to Outworld and meets Kahn, learns soul stealing, and wins 9 MKs, being beaten by Great Kung Lao at the 10th.

That's 500 years. (So he's maybe in his 520s or 530s at this point, depending on how old Shang was at his first tournament. 'Cause he wasn't middle-aged and gray haired yet going by the picture in the comic where he looks the same as in MK2.)

Then he comes back with Goro to kill GKL, and Goro wins 9 MKs, being beaten by Liu Kang at the 10th.

That's another 500 years.

So Shang HAS to be like 1040, tops.



I suppose it does. But again, how? Why do Seidans live that long? The fact that being super-old isn't special and HUMANS are the weird ones for having human lifespans really bugs me, now that Edenians have an explanation for why they age slow but other races don't. Or is Hotaru special and his age has something to do with his white eyes? Because Dairou and Darrius and the NPCs in Konquest don't have white hair or glowing eyes so I guess they're not super-old? ...but they sure didn't give us an origin story for Hotaru when they introduced him...

Considering she has ancient knowledge of things like Reptiles people and gave him the sword, I think she's been around.

They established that that was just 'cause she's a tomb raider and has explored ancient Zaterran ruins and stuff.
Not that I'm saying Nitara can't be old. I already agreed that vampires at LEAST age slowly if they do at all. I'm just not sure if they're "immortal" because they're hard to kill or if they're literally frozen at a specific age and stay that way forever.