Outsider Universe and Domesticating Animals

[SaintofM]

Ben a long time since I posted on here, so Hi yall. ANyhoo, this topic has been on my mind on and off, and is a general question for any and all factions and races in the series.

Domestication of animals allowed Humans to go from hunter and gathers that lived in small family groups to how we are today, with the domestication of the wolf being a key part of that.

Dogs are also a good look at how varied they an be, and also an aspect of genetic engineering for a latter part of the post.

There are three main areas I am thinking of.

A. The 6 main characteristics of Domestication, and how they go about it and if they skip steps or forgo it all together.
B. Genetic Engineering
C. Any replacements for the meat base part of them.


In general there are 6 areas most domestic animals need to have to fit the bill, though not always.

Cattle and goats can be used for dairy, goats and geese for weeding, and fowl in general are great at hunting pests. Cows and Horses can pull carts and farm equipment like plows. Dogs being the ultimate as we have bread dogs for all kinds of jobs. Hunting, hearding, tracking, pest Controle, hard labor (Rottweilers were used to pull carts, one of the reason they used to bob the tail), war, and family protectors. Have a new job, we can breed a dog for that.

1. They need to be able to eat food that is cheap, plentiful, and Ideally something we don't eat. We can give them more human food here and there, such as grains for cattle, but for the most part everyday grasses (say for cattle, sheep, and horses) and food scraps (chickens and pigs). Becaus with most predators you need to raise what they eat, there are only a handful of them that have been domesticated, namely dogs and cats and Cats domesticated themselves/humans.

2. Need to Grow Fast. To grow to full size, Chickens need as little as 6 to 8weeks, 2 to 3 months for a duck, 5 months for a goat, 6 months for a pig or dog, a year or 2 for cattle, and so on. This way they can reproduce fast, and often, so you can keep using them. Most have multiple jobs before they go on the plate. This is also why you don't see too many parts of the world that have elephants. While we still use elephants to this day in labor and in fun, most have traditionally been wild caught due to how long it takes one to grow up and how long they have to stay with their mother even after they are weened.

3. Can reliably be breed in Captivity: Some animals are easier than others. Rodents like rabits, rats, ice, and guiny pigs are among them. Dogs and cats are another. Lamas are also another good one and so on. However some animals are just difficult to breed in captivity. Rhinos, Cheetahs, and giant pandas come to mind as numerous factors like their disposition usualy keep them from makeing little ones of their kind.

4. Calm and Passive enough to not make us fear for our lives around them.
This one can verry to some degrees as marathoning Dr. Pole can attest among other things. Some dogs have worse reputations for aggression, earned or otherwise, than others. Beef cows do not have the same level of human contact as say those trained as oxen or dairy cows. However, we shouldn't see them and go: This is going to get me killed more times than not. Probably another reason most big predators like bears, lions, Tigers, and Lepards and so on haven't really been domesticated (not for a lack of trying).

5. Have to comfortable around humans enough that their fight or flight instincts do not kick in when in stressful situation.
Fight or Flight, or the body's response to stress, is a key part of an animals survival. It gives you the extra boost to try to outrun dinner/something trying to make you dinner, or to defend your territory, young, and so on. Stressors like war, bad weather, a potential predator, strangers, or hard work. One of the reasons why, as awesome as this would sound, that the Zebra hasn't been domesticated. They are so used to being surrounded by things that think they are delicious they have had to act in kind to the world around them.

6. Socia animals. Scial animals are easier to accept people, or anything of another species for that matter, than none social ones.

There are exceptions to this. There is a research institute in Russa that tried to breed foxes that were friendlier so they could use them in the fur trade. After a few generations they found a few things that comes with domestication from more adorable features like floppier ear, oto able to read people easier, and other dog like traits.

The next wuetion what would they be used for. Food and labor for the most part. Be it their meat, eggs, wool/hair, milk, cheese, and so on. Until recently, may less for leather good s as it took a while to get an animal to the point it was time to put it to the dinner table, but otherwise but that was always an option for many (or say the feathers of fowl for quills or pillows.)

Genetic Engineerig: While now adays we hear the term we think of genetic tampering via science, most animals we have these days in the pet store or on the farm are a product of this. Before we could go at a genetic level, we had to selectively bread the traits we as a species we wanted. Lots of trial and error, but eventually we got alot of plants and animals they way they are now. Some, like Corn and English Bull Dogs as they are now, could never exist as they are in the wild, and as such require human attention at the reproduction stages of development. Its also how we got orange carrots and the Scottish Fold Cats. We saw a trait we liked and went with it. Its also how we get so many parakeets with different colors. FOr the most part, wild ones are green with a yellow head and some black speckles. A few generations in the pet shop you get dozens of color combinations of white, yellow, blue, grey, and some that look like they came from a quart of rainbow sherbet.

SO how extensive would be however many years in the future it is for humans and the other races that have had a head start on this?

Finally, what areas would animals still be used in and how could they be replaced. I can still companionship and even service animals being used. Pouch rats in Africa are being trained to sniff out gunpowder, land minds (they are too small to set them off, so they don't die when they find one) and even some form of cancers. Dogs and cats have been able to notice human conditions and are able to alert their humans to panic attacks, seizures, and other conditions long before they know they are going to have one. And of course, there are still some used for pest Controle like a number of terrier breeds of dogs. But I can see most jobs, outside of luddites like the Amish or those tht want to go "organic" might still use hairlum plants and animals in their intended uses.


The easy answer for meat would be two fold: There probably be still a demand for something off an animals, but for the most part we are doing research now into make artificially created meat substances in the lab that taste and feel like the real deal. I can see this easily being perfected and made a regular staple for the most part. I could also see more plant based meals that are made to taste like them. Hydroponics are growing in popularity, and I can see a ship having a small green house to be both a place to grow food and to make oxygen. We might find other animals that could replace what we use.

What are your guys thoughts on this part of world building?

[Cthulhu]

A high-tech civilization wouldn't need domesticated animals anymore. They may improve whatever they already have out of tradition and convenience, but past a certain point, it will be far too inefficient. Utility stuff like herding, pest elimination, guarding, hunting, detection, etc. can be done with technology instead.

Even raising animals as a food source may become obsolete. We are only a step away from 3D-printing the meat from cell cultures grown in vats, or printing meat substitute from base substances like protein paste.

For a highly-advanced civilization, another step would be to genetically engineer a super-optimized animal, a nature-defying creature which cannot exist outside a food factory. Imagine an endlessly growing worm, where you can simply cut off pieces of meat. A blob which can spit out eggs faster than a machine gun. Or something straight out of a nightmare (or fetish), able to produce a literal river of milk. There's abundant, cheap meat, and everyone's happy, since those things don't even have a brain. The only exception to this rule could be pets or "legacy" animals for gourmets.

Finally, a hyper-advanced civilization should be able to develop matter-energy conversion. From there, anything goes.

[Arioch]

I think it's clear that agriculture and pastoralism were among humanity's most important steps toward civilization, and both involve domestication. I think about the subject a lot in terms of worldbuilding, but I try to focus on how things might be different for other biomes and alien cultures, rather than assume that there will always be an alien equivalent to horses and dogs, etc., and how these differences can impact the development of cultures. A culture developing on a younger world with less biodiversity might have very few suitable organisms for domestication (especially if a particular role requires intelligence or a sophisticated adaptation), and highly evolved organisms on an older world might actually be harder to domesticate, with adaptations specifically to prevent this kind of "parasitism." And then, of course, there is the question of what an engineered biome might look like, and what happens in the long term when the technological controls over this kind of biome break down. I explore all three of these scenarios to some extent in the Outsider background, and have used them as tools to help explore ways in which Loroi society, in particular, is different from ours.

Domesticated organisms continue to be very important for food & resource production even for advanced technological civilizations, as we see in our world today. Resource sources that can self-replicate and mostly take care of themselves are very cost-effective. Selective breeding and even gene-tampering can be important here, but is often a tendency (both in fiction and in real life) to over-specialize. As today's chicken farmers are being reminded, over-optimization can have disastrous unintended consequences. The ideal domesticated organism is not one with the most optimal output, but one that won't either go extinct or destroy the ecosystem when things don't go as planned.

While the use of animals for power and transport may be among the most important for a developing culture, this is where utility falls off dramatically for a technological civilization. Hunting and guard animals is another role that doesn't disappear, but become much less important as technology advances. However, food will always be important; even if a culture becomes vegetarian, autotrophs will nearly always be among the most efficient and sustainable ways to create food.

In Outsider, the Loroi had both a domestication advantage, in that they inherited some engineered plants and animals from the precursor civilization that were useful for food and materials, but also a domestication disadvantage, in that they didn't have any good candidates to use for power or transportation. This led to Loroi culture growing much faster than their technology.

[Cthulhu]

In Outsider, the Loroi had both a domestication advantage, in that they inherited some engineered plants and animals from the precursor civilization that were useful for food and materials, but also a domestication disadvantage, in that they didn't have any good candidates to use for power or transportation. This led to Loroi culture growing much faster than their technology.

Those domesticated animals are a bit strange. It seems as if the Soia specifically made them for a civilization of a much lower tech level compared to what they had. Especially since they lived in spaceships where you can't keep cattle around.

[Snoofman]

In Outsider, the Loroi had both a domestication advantage, in that they inherited some engineered plants and animals from the precursor civilization that were useful for food and materials, but also a domestication disadvantage, in that they didn't have any good candidates to use for power or transportation. This led to Loroi culture growing much faster than their technology.

Those domesticated animals are a bit strange. It seems as if the Soia specifically made them for a civilization of a much lower tech level compared to what they had. Especially since they lived in spaceships where you can't keep cattle around.

Perhaps the Soia did it for the loroi’s sake. Even as a genetically engineered race themselves, the loroi likely had their own culture. The traits of which may have been inherited from their human predecessors.

It may not be efficient but it seems more appealing. What would you find more appealing: a protein paste made from god knows what, or a beautiful, grazing beast from a grassy field?

Or maybe the plants and animals were created for recreational purposes. The loroi were based off of a hunter-gatherer species. Even the loroi must have suffered from the pressures of living in space. They probably needed some shoreleave to hunt and forage as their human predecessors.

Also the Soia could have engineered the animals and plants as a fail safe. In the event their civilization crumbled and their technology failed them, the Soia creations could breed and survive on their own for the Soia to reclaim later. Agriculture and civilization may fall, but nature will always find a way to grow and thrive.

[Cthulhu]

Perhaps the Soia did it for the loroi’s sake. Even as a genetically engineered race themselves, the loroi likely had their own culture. The traits of which may have been inherited from their human predecessors.

According to the Loroi, they were the Soia. Besides, they had no planet-side settlements anyway.

It may not be efficient but it seems more appealing. What would you find more appealing: a protein paste made from god knows what, or a beautiful, grazing beast from a grassy field?

When was it the last time when you saw cattle grazing? Or, did you ever visit an industrial-scale ranch? It's nothing as idyllic as TV commercials might suggest.

Or maybe the plants and animals were created for recreational purposes. The loroi were based off of a hunter-gatherer species. Even the loroi must have suffered from the pressures of living in space. They probably needed some shoreleave to hunt and forage as their human predecessors.

At such an unimaginably high tech level, they should've had something like holo-decks.

Also the Soia could have engineered the animals and plants as a fail safe. In the event their civilization crumbled and their technology failed them, the Soia creations could breed and survive on their own for the Soia to reclaim later. Agriculture and civilization may fall, but nature will always find a way to grow and thrive.

Then why did they bombard all those "fail-safe" planets? Also, it's a very roundabout way to create a backup of sorts.

[Arioch]

The Soia-Liron organisms were for planetary colonization, and mainly represented foods and industrial materials. Even in an ultra-tech society, resources that grow themselves are very cost-effective if you have the open space. As with the technological items from the era, these were for the use of the client races who inhabited the planetary colonies, and not for the Soia themselves.

[gaerzi]

Those domesticated animals are a bit strange. It seems as if the Soia specifically made them for a civilization of a much lower tech level compared to what they had. Especially since they lived in spaceships where you can't keep cattle around.

They are mysterious and unknowable, and it's possible even the author doesn't really know why they did what they did because it's most probably not really important to the plot anyway, but since the Soia apparently enjoyed recreating various lifeforms in their own biology kit, why wouldn't they do it with non-sapient lifeforms too? Perhaps recreating plants and fungi was what they learned in high school, then non-sapient animals were the subject of college studies, while the recreation of a sapient and cultured species was left for the master thesis.

According to the Loroi, they were the Soia. Besides, they had no planet-side settlements anyway.

Yeah but we know they are deluded about this. Now way we'd have the Barsam and Nibiren if the Loroi were the precursor empire and their uncanny resemblance to humans was just a freak coincidence.

When was it the last time when you saw cattle grazing?

Yesterday. A total of eight cows, and maybe two dozen sheep.

[bunnyboy]

Very interesting topic, but as a scifi setting I m surprised that nobody has said anything about domesticated sentients.

In some sense, loroi themselves fills this role, though they have lost their ancient masters. Loroi might also treat some of another races in their union as "animals" or "pets", though I think historians are doing this more often.

As telepathic race, loroi might see pets differently than us. Would they reject them as invasion to their personal area like they avoid each other, or is it something that bring them calmness? The need for touch is important to human wellbeing, but it is not clear if loroi lacks that. So, pet might help to fill the need for being mothery on war. I also thought that some insect in general make great pets, but considering the war against umiaks, I believe there would be currently bias against those and someone with such a pet would be as suspicious than being openly communist during McGarthyism.

For different original loroi worlds, I imagine these:

Deinar: Soia-Liron organisms as pig-like miros. Wild descendant of these animals on planet for hunting. Few smaller species for food and pets on orbiting stations.
Maia: Might have some pets that resembles rodents or hunting birds.
Mezan: The planet being desert I believe those living there would treasure anything useful that could live there to point that they have domesticated and experimented in attempts to make it thrive more.
Taben: Some tamed animal resembling bird, bat or flying lizard or maybe even delphin or smaller fish, that can hunt or locate other animals for local hunters.
Perrein: Has more unique animals than other loroi planets together and some of those are grown to satisfy the palate of it's residients.

[Arioch]

Very interesting topic, but as a scifi setting I m surprised that nobody has said anything about domesticated sentients.

"Domesticated sentients" kind of gets us into gray areas of the definitions of both words. If an intelligent organism has no free will, is it really "sentient," and if it does have free will, is it really "domesticated?" If "domesticated" just means "adapted to live on a farm or in a house instead of the natural environment," then humans are domesticated animals. If it means being kept forcibly as servants or chattel, that's probably better referred to as slavery.

If it refers to any selective breeding or genetic engineering of sentients for a specific role, then that's exactly what the Soia-Liron sentient species are.

[Cthulhu]

"Domesticated sentients" kind of gets us into gray areas of the definitions of both words. If an intelligent organism has no free will, is it really "sentient," and if it does have free will, is it really "domesticated?" If "domesticated" just means "adapted to live on a farm or in a house instead of the natural environment," then humans are domesticated animals. If it means being kept forcibly as servants or chattel, that's probably better referred to as slavery.

Looking at the tech gap and at how the client races were mostly confined to their designated worlds, maybe they were the Soia's "domesticated" beings? The Neridi might be onto something...

[gaerzi]

"Domesticated sentients" kind of gets us into gray areas of the definitions of both words. If an intelligent organism has no free will, is it really "sentient," and if it does have free will, is it really "domesticated?"

Oh, oh, is this where I get to be the pedant that points out sentience does not necessitate sapience?

But ignoring that. Domestication does not preclude free will, as any pet owner can attest. Really, a pet is an animal that is put in a relationship of dependency (as it depends upon its owner for food, shelter, healthcare, and affection) and in return provides companionship and some minor services (keeping rodents away, warning when intruders approach, etc.) without all the stress and worries that come from social interactions with other people of our own species.

[Demarquis]

I'm going to go with a definition of "a species that has been artificially bred to better align with another species' needs." For humans, that includes a non-aggressive manner, an economic value, cost-efficient resource requirements, etc. But for another species, the list might be different.

The Loroi are a lot like us, but they are obviously attuned to war much more than we are (and that's saying a lot). So I think anything they would domesticate would have to replace itself more or less as quickly as they do themselves, otherwise near constant warfare (even with pre-spaceflight technology) would eventually wipe out the species. Almost certainly, the male-female ratio would be bred to match more closely that of the Loroi themselves.

The primary use of any domesticated animal will be agricultural, but I also think that the Loroi would be interested in "dual use" animals, such that they can be used in direct support of combat if needed. The analogy would be to horses (draft animal, transportation, and cavalry). Anything that can pull many times it's weight, yet whose body parts can be utilized in the manufacture of weapons and armor would have been massively useful to them. So: a massive, armored and spikey beast.

Loroi riding Ankylosaurs anyone?

[Arioch]

Oh, oh, is this where I get to be the pedant that points out sentience does not necessitate sapience?

And intelligence does not necessitate self-awareness. -50 pedantry points.

[bunnyboy]

I believe that every social alien is potential to have pets or other domestic/symbiotic creatures to provide some interaction as well other produce (be that nourishment, work force, communication, hygiene, guard, etc). Though I do think that common scifi trope of bioengineered "Flintstones" is utterly ridiculous.
I forgot what made me think "that opens another can of worms", but that did made me chuckle for idea of Alex opening literal can of worms, used by loroi as a hygienic product to clean the skin and hair as they eat all the dirt, grease, dead cells and parasites.
Just like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluestreak_cleaner_wrasse.

[Demarquis]

"And intelligence does not necessitate self-awareness. -50 pedantry points."

Although I imagine high intelligence would be a prerequisite, depending on exactly how you define "intelligence".