(C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

[Arayaz]

Could you achieve self sustaining agriculture in a zero-G environment?

Do you mean for a scientifically advanced society, or for people who happen to live in zero-G?

Yes
A scientifically advanced society that lives in zero G.

I mean, have they always been there?

pretty much yes. About 95 thousand years.

Could you give more details about 1) how they got there and 2) the ecosphere of where they are?

[lurker]

Could you achieve self sustaining agriculture in a zero-G environment?

Do you mean for a scientifically advanced society, or for people who happen to live in zero-G?

Yes
A scientifically advanced society that lives in zero G.

I mean, have they always been there?

pretty much yes. About 95 thousand years.

Could you give more details about 1) how they got there and 2) the ecosphere of where they are?

The yinrih are at Kardashev level II at the time covered in the setting, having had permanent space settlements in place for 95 thousand Earth years by this point.

They have a good reason to be living in zero gravity because they're quadrupeds whose hands are also their feet, and floating frees up their prehensile extremities from having to bear their weight.

Honestly I haven't given much thought to the ecology of Yih (their homeworld). This isn't a spec bio project. Let's just say it's like Earth unless noted.

I could just wave my hand (the yinrih have four of them, after all) and say that they can grow whatever they need to sustainably in a small space with no gravity, but I think that's less interesting from a worldbuilding perspective.

So here are the possibilities I've come up with so far:

1. They can grow artificial meat (they're obligate carnivores) from fungus or something, and can sustain themselves on that if need be, but that's bad for morale, so they trade for real food when they can, making real food an expensive luxury.

2. They mine asteroids and trade the minerals for all their other consumables, or at least their food. That seems like it would be viable. It's how Tolkien's dwarves worked IIRC, but I also imagine spacer societies forming specifically to achieve self-determination and independence for whatever reason (anarchosyndicalist commune, anyone?) and having to rely on outsiders for your daily bread doesn't seem terribly independent.

[Arayaz]

The yinrih are at Kardashev level II at the time covered in the setting, having had permanent space settlements in place for 95 thousand Earth years by this point.

They have a good reason to be living in zero gravity because they're quadrupeds whose hands are also their feet, and floating frees up their prehensile extremities from having to bear their weight.

Honestly I haven't given much thought to the ecology of Yih (their homeworld). This isn't a spec bio project. Let's just say it's like Earth unless noted.

I could just wave my hand (the yinrih have four of them, after all) and say that they can grow whatever they need to sustainably in a small space with no gravity, but I think that's less interesting from a worldbuilding perspective.

So here are the possibilities I've come up with so far:

1. They can grow artificial meat (they're obligate carnivores) from fungus or something, and can sustain themselves on that if need be, but that's bad for morale, so they trade for real food when they can, making real food an expensive luxury.

2. They mine asteroids and trade the minerals for all their other consumables, or at least their food. That seems like it would be viable. It's how Tolkien's dwarves worked IIRC, but I also imagine spacer societies forming specifically to achieve self-determination and independence for whatever reason (anarchosyndicalist commune, anyone?) and having to rely on outsiders for your daily bread doesn't seem terribly independent.

Hmm, artificial food seems likely. By Kardashev II they could probably synthesize real food, too.
If they're obligate carnivores, though, why do they need agriculture?

[lurker]

If they're obligate carnivores, though, why do they need agriculture?

Their food needs to eat, too.

[Arayaz]

If they're obligate carnivores, though, why do they need agriculture?

Their food needs to eat, too.

Ah, right... I can't believe I forgot that, I guess I assumed it was basically all synthetic meat. The more important question would be how their livestock survive up there.

[lurker]

Ah, right... I can't believe I forgot that, I guess I assumed it was basically all synthetic meat. The more important question would be how their livestock survive up there.

After some research I may be misusing the term "obligate carnivore" My intention was that the yinrih require at least some animal tissue in their diet in order to obtain nutrients they can't make on their own. They are capable of digesting plant matter (indeed, the trees they lived in coevolved a tasty fruit to use them as seed dispersers) but they nevertheless must eat at least some meat, even if it's synthetic.

My priority is "what opens up more interesting worldbuilding options" rather than "what's the most realistic", within reasonable limits, of course. So I might go with the idea that they can be self-sustaining with artificial food and recycled water, but "real" food is always preferred. I think that enables the use of space-born city-states as safe havens for groups of weird political ideologues, persecuted religious minorities, and cult colonies that I want to play around with. This wouldn't be possible if the they had to live off trade alone, since they'd need to stay in the good graces of their trading partners.

[Salmoneus]

They've been in space for 95,000 years... and yet their agricultural food chemistry is permanently stuck at specifically the level of Earth in 2024? [i.e. they can make artificial meat but it's not fully convincing]. That seems both weird and 'convenient'.

In general of course the problem with any question about these people is that unless they're really, really stupid there's basically no conceivable limit to what they can do. 95k? For context, 250k separates the invention of the internet from the invention of the Lavallois process (a greatly improved method of stone-flaking that lead to the first non-one-time-use tools) - and progress develops exponentially. 95k is longer than the time between the first known bone fishing spear and the moon landings. It's an incomprehensibly long time span. In less than a hundred years, computers have gone from non-existant to modern AI capable of writing forum posts more or less indistinguishable from the work of human hands. Who could seriously predict the next 95k?

Asimov once predicted, a few decades ago (so long it feels like another universe!) that at current population growth rates all life on earth would be human in just over 600 years, and every atom in the universe would be part of a human in around 6,700 years. Obviously, population can be held at zero to prevent this, but it's an illustration of how small changes, operating across hundreds or thousands of years - let alone 100,000! - can very quickly become exponentially out of hand.

[Keenir]

Could you achieve self sustaining agriculture in a zero-G environment?

pretty much yes. About 95 thousand years.

Then the answer is Yes...or they'd have figured out a viable long-term alternative to agriculture.

remember: the biggest problem (or danger) in zero-G, is stuff! bits of soil, water, grit, toenail clippings, etc...that stuff just drifts around, and can clog machinery, get in one's nose, etc.

This wouldn't be possible if the they had to live off trade alone, since they'd need to stay in the good graces of their trading partners.

The trade partners might look the other way in terms of heresies or local cultural shifts, particularly if these are the best people to get the ores and other things from. (and-or may have ancestral links or other ties to the people they're trading with)

They've been in space for 95,000 years... and yet their agricultural food chemistry is permanently stuck at specifically the level of Earth in 2024? [i.e. they can make artificial meat but it's not fully convincing]. That seems both weird and 'convenient'.

just remember this line:

My priority is "what opens up more interesting worldbuilding options" rather than "what's the most realistic", within reasonable limits, of course.

In general of course the problem with any question about these people is that unless they're really, really stupid there's basically no conceivable limit to what they can do. 95k? For context, 250k separates the invention of the internet from the invention of the Lavallois process (a greatly improved method of stone-flaking that lead to the first non-one-time-use tools) - and progress develops exponentially.

Except when something is lost...like happened in Pategonia(sp) and Tazmania(sp) with certain hunting tools, or with the Greeks losing Linear A and B & later getting writing from their trade partners...when I was young, I read an article that said "We went to the Moon with the Apollo rockets, and now we no longer have the ability to build those rockets."

So 95 years is plenty of time to play with, not just with the gaining of skills, but the loss and re-gaining of skills.

[lurker]

In general of course the problem with any question about these people is that unless they're really, really stupid there's basically no conceivable limit to what they can do.

I disagree.While I can't tell you what that limit might be, I can absolutely imagine a limit existing.

[lurker]

remember: the biggest problem (or danger) in zero-G, is stuff! bits of soil, water, grit, toenail clippings, etc...that stuff just drifts around, and can clog machinery, get in one's nose, etc.

Oh boy, that ain't the half of it! Yinrih have pelage, and they shed constantly. There's a reason humans refer to yinrih orbital colonies as "kennels" (affectionately, of course). There's ventilation everywhere to screen out all the fluff, but I pity whoever has to clean the filters. Their claws are also very sharp and contain iron like a rodent's teeth, so not something you want in your eye, although yinrih are just as tactile as they are visual, so I think their claws wear down naturally rather than needing to be trimmed.

[Arayaz]

In general of course the problem with any question about these people is that unless they're really, really stupid there's basically no conceivable limit to what they can do.

I disagree.While I can't tell you what that limit might be, I can absolutely imagine a limit existing.

I avoid writing about or depicting any culture with technology even approaching that of modern-day earth, for the simple reason that I believe it practically beyond my capabilities to imagine the future. Like, we can think about laser guns, or superhuman AIs but, to (mis)quote Mark Rosenfelder, "it'd be like a Roman author inventing really fancy swords."

This means that for a futuristic scifi, anything goes, but realism is almost completely unachievable.

[lurker]

“it'd be like a Roman author inventing really fancy swords”

But some people like fancy swords. I’m not worldbuilding for a book or a TTRPG campaign. This is nothing more or less than a playground for me to get lost in while daydreaming.

[Visions1]

I thought the Yinrih eat warhead-apples?

[lurker]

I thought the Yinrih eat warhead-apples?

Yes. I had to correct my use of "obligate carnivore" above. They need some animal tissue in their diet, but are capable of digesting plant matter to an extent. I guess "omnivore" is a better description. Presapient yinrih, as well as the Atavist movement among modern yinrih, eat a lot of steadtree fruit as well as meat and other fruits.

[Visions1]

That does sound similar to humans. And actually, some canids: https://wildlife.org/wsb-blueberries-su ... wolf-diet/
Though wolves actually have a somewhat hard time digesting them.

[Salmoneus]

In general of course the problem with any question about these people is that unless they're really, really stupid there's basically no conceivable limit to what they can do. 95k? For context, 250k separates the invention of the internet from the invention of the Lavallois process (a greatly improved method of stone-flaking that lead to the first non-one-time-use tools) - and progress develops exponentially.

Except when something is lost...like happened in Pategonia(sp) and Tazmania(sp) with certain hunting tools, or with the Greeks losing Linear A and B & later getting writing from their trade partners...when I was young, I read an article that said "We went to the Moon with the Apollo rockets, and now we no longer have the ability to build those rockets."

So 95 years is plenty of time to play with, not just with the gaining of skills, but the loss and re-gaining of skills.

This is true - the bigger and more famous example would obviously be the Fall of Rome, where sociologically society regressed a thousand years, and the same was true technologically in many (but not all!) ways.

It feels a little implausible to have a society in which society continually takes as many steps back as forward, but it's not impossible, and makes more sense than a society in permanent stasis. And creates interesting storytelling possibilities (why did previous civilisations decline, and what did they leave behind them?)

[Salmoneus]

In general of course the problem with any question about these people is that unless they're really, really stupid there's basically no conceivable limit to what they can do.

I disagree.While I can't tell you what that limit might be, I can absolutely imagine a limit existing.

I didn't say you couldn't. I said that such a limit was inconceivable, not that the existence of a limit was inconceivable: we can conceive of there BEING a limit, but I don't think we can meaningfully conceive WHAT that limit might be!

[Salmoneus]

“it'd be like a Roman author inventing really fancy swords”

But some people like fancy swords. I’m not worldbuilding for a book or a TTRPG campaign. This is nothing more or less than a playground for me to get lost in while daydreaming.

Which is fine, but in a dream it makes no sense to really ask what is or isn't plausible. Your original question was phrased in terms of "the possibilities" and "a worldbuilding perspective".

From a worldbuilding perspective, a civilisation that can, as you've specified, harness the ENTIRE energy output of an ENTIRE star, that plays around with ONE HUNDRED TRILLION TIMES the total energy use of human civilisation, and yet, even after 95 THOUSAND YEARS, is incapable of inventing the Impossible Burger, doesn't feel very possible to me. And from a worldbuilding perspective it is extremely difficult to build a coherent world around those three seemingly incompatible data points, because if the most basic things have to be resolved by "hey, it's just a dream, anything goes", then there's no reason to have one thing go rather than another, or to understand what it would be like to be in that world. [what happens every time someone comes up with the idea of tofu - an angel comes down and cuts the thought out of their brain?]

That's not to invalidate the concept of a surreal, dreamlike world in which rationality and causality have no power... I'm just saying that I don't know how to answer questions about what economic structures and agricultural technologies are "possible" and create the most interest "from a worldbuilding perspective" in such a setting.

[Keenir]

“it'd be like a Roman author inventing really fancy swords”

But some people like fancy swords. I’m not worldbuilding for a book or a TTRPG campaign. This is nothing more or less than a playground for me to get lost in while daydreaming.

Which is fine, but in a dream it makes no sense to really ask what is or isn't plausible. Your original question was phrased in terms of "the possibilities" and "a worldbuilding perspective".

From a worldbuilding perspective, a civilisation that can, as you've specified, harness the ENTIRE energy output of an ENTIRE star, that plays around with ONE HUNDRED TRILLION TIMES the total energy use of human civilisation, and yet, even after 95 THOUSAND YEARS, is incapable of inventing the Impossible Burger, doesn't feel very possible to me.

Theres an old Harry Turtledove story, in which the easiest thing to invent in all the universe, is interstellar spaceflight -- its invented by civilizations in the Steam Age, the early Stone Age, and every point in between...except for by humans. When first contact is made, nobody can understand why humans never went that way, and instead developed atomic weapons...but once contact is made, humans can figure out how to travel interstellarly.

All the Yinh(sp) have to do - like humans did in the Turtledove story - is to have kept missing the Impossible Burger, maybe by a small bit, maybe by a chemical or fermenting hurdle...and just kept missing til First Contact is made.

[teotlxixtli]

I had this idea for an anti-vegan society, i.e. they only use animal products, mostly because I thought it was funny. But then I looked at the way that Inuit people live and thought it might be possible. But even Inuits eat berries and almost certainly have medicinal uses for plants and fungi.
Is there really any way to have a society that only uses animal products?