IF life on Earth like planets develops like here

[sabredog]

Once technology becomes high enough, it can compensate. So perhaps one can't point to any one Aslan world and say "That's impossible"[*]. But it's not about adapting to another world than Earth. It's about how much energy a world gets from its sun and how much of that gets turned into herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores. And timeover is quite right about the average number of pure carnivores a world can support being smaller than the average number of omnivores which in turn is smaller than the average number of herbivores.

[*] Though ISTR something about Aslans eshewing carniculture meat in favor of meat from live animals, which would tend to reduce the effects of technology quite a bit.​

That the canonical world generation system doesn't take that factor into account is IMO a flaw. But it's not a flaw I expect to be able to convince Marc Miller about, and I don't have a simple fix for it either. Divide all populations by 3 for Aslans and Vargr and multiply by 3 for K'Kree? Seems rather messy.


Hans

The only reason anyone would think a world can only support a smaller number of carnivores than omnivores is if that person merely looked at Earth's animal's predator/prey relationships. And that is assuming an awful lot when comparing our world's evolution to an alien one. It works as a sort of blanket rule for a game but not necessarily that way in the real universe.

Even the rule about Aslan and Vargr being smaller in number merely because they are carnivores is specious since it also assumes that though they are starfaring major races that have technology far beyond what we have today that they are also shockingly stupid when it comes to feeding themselves and their burgeoning populations among assorted worlds. What? Do the Aslan also only populate certain worlds that allow them to stock the places with their preferred food items with no thought to how much farther they could colonize otherwise? Are they utterly unable to adapt to an agrarian/domesticated food culture as they advance in cultural advancement?

Jeez, if they prefer meat from live animals they can still develop, in Traveller terms anyway, entire worlds just for food production of those more costly luxury prey items and the giant meat cows stacked and kept alive through IV feeding as chunks are harvested daily are just the everyday foodstock.

 

[rancke]

The only reason anyone would think a world can only support a smaller number of carnivores than omnivores is if that person merely looked at Earth's animal's predator/prey relationships.

Not the only reason. The 10:1 loss of nutritional value when feeding vegetable matter to food animals sort of suggests something in that line too.

I find it a lot harder to understand how anyone can possibly believe that there wouldn't inevitably be such a loss when a carnivore eats a herbivore.

And that is assuming an awful lot when comparing our world's evolution to an alien one. It works as a sort of blanket rule for a game but not necessarily that way in the real universe.

It assumes that plants turn sunlight into food, that herbivores eat that food directly, and that carnivores then eat the herbivores. I don't see that as a stretch. Assuming any other arrangement now; THAT would be a stretch.

Even the rule about Aslan and Vargr being smaller in number merely because they are carnivores is specious since it also assumes that though they are starfaring major races that have technology far beyond what we have today that they are also shockingly stupid when it comes to feeding themselves and their burgeoning populations among assorted worlds.

I already dealt with that. It just assumes basic economic rules applies. There would be a strong correlation between the cost of keeping an intelligent being alive and the number of live intelligent beings.

f they prefer meat from live animals they can still develop, in Traveller terms anyway, entire worlds just for food production of those more costly luxury prey items and the giant meat cows stacked and kept alive through IV feeding as chunks are harvested daily are just the everyday foodstock.

And doing so would be more expensive than eating the food used to raise the meat animals.


Hans

 

[sabredog]

Not the only reason. The 10:1 loss of nutritional value when feeding vegetable matter to food animals sort of suggests something in that line too.

I find it a lot harder to understand how anyone can possibly believe that there wouldn't inevitably be such a loss when a carnivore eats a herbivore.

Of course there is a loss in the exchange - never said there wasn't. But that doesn't mean anything other than....

It assumes that plants turn sunlight into food, that herbivores eat that food directly, and that carnivores then eat the herbivores. I don't see that as a stretch. Assuming any other arrangement now; THAT would be a stretch.

....assume smaller, and/or more efficient carnivores if you just have to stick with the Earth model of calorie/energy transfer. No reason to limit ourselves to overly large Aslan/Kzinti-things. Smaller carnivores with less wasteful energy burning requirements would do very nicely. Once they evolved to the point of animal domestication their population could explode. That might even be the impetus for expansion off their world and out of their solar system.

And doing so would be more expensive than eating the food used to raise the meat animals.
Hans

Not necessarily - you are assuming that just because that concept might be expensive to you, here and now, it would be so to another species that needs to do that for survival. Eliminate most of the bone structure or re-engineer it for what is needed and replace that with meat and fat. Use a food that is cheap and efficient to keep it alive. It doesn't even need legs, but if you want a ham hock then engineer something that has 10 of them - just not useful. Remove the thing's brain and leave just enough of a nervous system to get that tasty hint of prey item adrenal response to being hunted and killed for that real-prey flavor. Make them capable of growing to the size of a semi-trailer and warehouse them.

It may be expensive, but the savings would be in the efficiency from growing as much fresh meant as possible in as small an area as possible. The real prey items can be luxury market food for those who can afford it. Yes, yes, the Alsan don't like carniculture - it is stunning that they could ever build any kind of interstellar empire with that kind of rank stupidity. It would certainly make them easy to get rid of if the Imperium ever wanted to.

Besides, I thought we were talking about something other than the fursuit aliens in Traveller here. If we are limiting to those then, well, lets just take the lions/zebra and wolves/elk models and forget the speculation - pure carnivores fail and xenophobic herbivores and plucky humans win.

 

[HG_B]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/13/tech/innovation/lab-grown-meat/index.html

Grow just the part you need in a "lab". MUCH more efficient. But, it would be a problem if you keep your TL limited ti 6...

 

[rancke]

Of course there is a loss in the exchange - never said there wasn't. But that doesn't mean anything other than....




....assume smaller, and/or more efficient carnivores if you just have to stick with the Earth model of calorie/energy transfer.

You have another model that doesn't suffer from the same problem of energy loss in the process of turning plants into food animals?

No reason to limit ourselves to overly large Aslan/Kzinti-things.

Unless you're looking at intelligent carnivores that has roughly the same mass as humans.

But yes, size would be another factor, although it's one I feel justified in ignoring when talking about Aslans and Vargr.

Smaller carnivores with less wasteful energy burning requirements would do very nicely. Once they evolved to the point of animal domestication their population could explode. That might even be the impetus for expansion off their world and out of their solar system.

If you come up with less wasteful energy burning requirements, those same requirements would apply to omnivores and herbivores from the same biosphere, resulting in the same proportional distribution of carnivores to omnivores to herbivores. So if the average distribution of omnivores is as indicated by the Traveller world generation rules, the average distribution of carnivores of the same size ought to be less (the factor 3 is just a guesstimate; lacking any data on the subject, I think assuming omnivores fall midways between carnivores and herbivores makes as much sense as anything else). I'll grant you that my objection to the K'Kree numbers might be in error, since K'Kree mass more than humans.

Not necessarily - you are assuming that just because that concept might be expensive to you, here and now, it would be so to another species that needs to do that for survival.

No, I consider it irrefutably obvious that if it takes three times as much to support someone, any given amount of resources will only support one third as many.


Hans

 

[BlackBat242]

You have another model that doesn't suffer from the same problem of energy loss in the process of turning plants into food animals?


If you come up with less wasteful energy burning requirements, those same requirements would apply to omnivores and herbivores from the same biosphere, resulting in the same proportional distribution of carnivores to omnivores to herbivores. So if the average distribution of omnivores is as indicated by the Traveller world generation rules, the average distribution of carnivores of the same size ought to be less (the factor 3 is just a guesstimate; lacking any data on the subject, I think assuming omnivores fall midways between carnivores and herbivores makes as much sense as anything else). I'll grant you that my objection to the K'Kree numbers might be in error, since K'Kree mass more than humans.



No, I consider it irrefutably obvious that if it takes three times as much to support someone, any given amount of resources will only support one third as many.


Hans

Right... but to say

Or think about an intelligent pure carnivore, like Niven's Kzinti or the Aslan, how large a population would you get on a planet like Earth? Perhaps somewhere between 10 million and a 100 million? How high an industrial level could that size of population achieve? Could they even achieve a single planetary government?

100 million?

When the current population of humans on our TL6 (average, large parts are still 4-5, while some are 7) planet is 7.077 billion?

Even if we say that there can only be 1 pure carnivore for each 7 omnivores, that gives ~1 billion Aslan/Vargr on Earth right now... 10-100 times as many as you say is the maximum!

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
http://esa.un.org/wpp/Other-Information/faq.htm

 

[Timerover51]

Right... but to say

100 million?

When the current population of humans on our TL6 (average, large parts are still 4-5, while some are 7) planet is 7.077 billion?

Even if we say that there can only be 1 pure carnivore for each 7 omnivores, that gives ~1 billion Aslan/Vargr on Earth right now... 10-100 times as many as you say is the maximum!

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
http://esa.un.org/wpp/Other-Information/faq.htm

The title of the thread is:

IF life on Earth like planets develops like here

That is what I am assuming. Human populations can attain high densities because human consume a large quantity of plant matter along with meat. I am assuming that the Aslan (lion) are as much a carnivore as the Terran Lion, if not genetically modified, by the Ancients, lion stock. As for my facts in the following comments, I can support every one of them.

A Terran lion consumes about 10 times its body weight per year in meat, with an adult male assumed to need on the order of 4,000 pounds of meat a year. The Aslan are listed at an average of 100 kilos or 220 pounds, and there does not appear to be the considerable sexual dimorphism that exists in the Terran lion. Applying the standard 3/4 of an adult for the basis of an animal population, that would make the average biomass of an Aslan population of 165 pounds. (For those who prefer metric, most of my data is in English units, so you will need to convert.) Based on Terran carnivore meat consumption, that would equate to an intake per Aslan of 1,650 pounds of meat per year.

An acre of good Midwest US farmland in pasture can support one 1,000 pound animal unit (1 cow or 5 sheep) for one month. Allowing for some wastage, one square mile can support about 50 animal units for an entire year, or 50,000 pounds of herbivore. If you allow for a 10% harvest of the herbivore biomass per year, and figure about 20% of a carcass would be non-edible, that gives a yearly production of 4,000 pounds of meat per year per square mile of good pasture. It is possible to increase that yield with supplemental feeding of grain and optimizing the pasture with forage crops such as alfalfa with additional fertilizer. A lot of the Western US range land used for cattle raising will support one animal-unit month on 10 acres or more, greatly reducing the meat output. Four thousand pounds of meat per year will support about 2.5 Aslan.

The Earth has a land area of 57.5 million square miles. If every square mile of the land surface of the earth was equal in production to Midwest US pastureland, the Earth could support 143.75 million Aslan. However, large portions of the Earth's surface are not suitable for grazing large concentrations of herbivores, specifically the tundra, taiga, and mountain biomes, although you might be able with a lot of effort do something with the hot deserts and irrigation. Cold deserts such as the Gobi probably could not be used extensively. There would exist the option of converting all temperate forest and jungle biome area to pasture grazing land. The polar regions of any Earthlike planet would likely be pretty much unusable.

I see nothing whatsoever in Traveller to assume a massive increase in agricultural productivity, nor is there anything in the published Traveller literature resembling H. Beam Piper's carniculture vats. There are repeated comments in the description of the Aslan to their desire for land holdings, which would equate to meat production. For the Terran lion, a population density of 1 per square mile is viewed as extremely high and exceptional.

Therefore, I will stay with my view that an Aslan planet is not going to have that many Aslan on it compared to a potential human population.

 

[rancke]

100 million?

When the current population of humans on our TL6 (average, large parts are still 4-5, while some are 7) planet is 7.077 billion?

Even if we say that there can only be 1 pure carnivore for each 7 omnivores, that gives ~1 billion Aslan/Vargr on Earth right now... 10-100 times as many as you say is the maximum!

I didn't say anything of the sort. All I did was agree with timeover that carnivores would average fewer than omnivores of the same general mass.

How many? Well, the figure I mentioned was a factor 3 less than that of human populations. So a couple of billions on a world like Earth given TL7.

Mind you, as soon as intelligence and technology enters into it, everything gets less clear-cut.

For high-population worlds one can expect carrying capacity to be a major limiting factor, but technology can increase carrying capacity. Also, just because Aslans don't like carniculture meat doesn't mean some of them aren't forced to make do with it. After all, 72% of Aslans live without either owning or controlling land and they still manage to survive.

For worlds with lesser populations, it gets more complicated. A world with a human population of a million is presumably not exceeding its carrying capacity by a long chalk, and neither would a world with a million Aslans. But any Aslan will consume as much in food as a human that subsisted entirely on meat products. That has to inhibit population growth to some degree. How much? I frankly have very little notion.


Hans

 

[HG_B]

I see nothing whatsoever in Traveller to assume a massive increase in agricultural productivity,

Then you are utterly ignoring or, misunderstand the effects of TL's in critical aspects of civilization.

 

[Dragoner]

Then you are utterly ignoring or, misunderstand the effects of TL's in critical aspects of civilization.

Even now we could be more productive than we are, there is the efficiency principle in effect, production is actually held back to inflate the market.

 

[HG_B]

Even now we could be more productive than we are, there is the efficiency principle in effect, production is actually held back to inflate the market.

No. I know a large cattle rancher. This isn't what happens in the States at least.

 

[Dragoner]

No. I know a large cattle rancher. This isn't what happens in the States at least.

odd I know there are plenty of subsidies here and much of the corn grown is feed.

 

[sabredog]

Nearly all the corn and grain grown here in my state goes to feedlots. Even the smaller farms around the west end of my county send their corn for animal feed with a small part of it being sold in their Saturday Market stalls.

Paradoxically, almost all of corn and grainstuffs in the stores comes from out of state. Which is really odd since this state used to be one known for (among other things now considered evil violation of Mother Earth) its farming and food production. For human food that is.

 

[robject]

The sticking points in "are there other civilizations?" are not just that "space is really big", but also that "space is really old" and "it seems that technology must develop faster than evolution". If the civilization question is meaningful beyond mere speculation, then it seems to me that the point is likely to be "we will not find signs of another civilization".

Consider two situations:

(1) A mainworld whose people never leave their system.

(2) A mainworld whose people are successful in colonizing other systems.

In the former case, the odds of detecting them at all, much less finding them alive in our particularly tiny slice of time, are literally astronomical, and the civilization question is effectively moot.

In the latter case, there are two ways to expand into space:

(a) linearly, that is, one planet at a time.
(b) exponentially.

If expansion is linear (case a), then (1) applies here, too, since it is nearly certain that it will take a "small forever" for them to get here from there.

On the other hand, if expansion is exponential (case b), then it is clear that such a people has not yet arisen, at least in this galaxy -- because they'd be here by now -- and thus we shall not meet them, either.


Consider exponential colonization. Say it takes 10,000 years for one world to colonize another world to the point where that world itself is ready to send out a colony ship. First off, that's a mind-bogglingly long time for a technological civilization by our frame of reference; we could well be gone by then.

So the first 10k years there's the home system, plus the colony.
After 20k years, two more systems are colonized, for a total of 4.
30k years, there are 8.
40k years, there are 16.
50k years, there are 32.
60k years, there are 64.
In 100k years, there are over 1,000 colonized systems. Still early days, astronomically speaking.
In 200k years, there are over 1 million colonized systems. And we're just getting started.
In 300k years, there are over 1 billion colonized systems.
In 400k years, there are over 1,000,000,000,000 colonized systems, and the civilization (if that's what you call it) has three times the star systems as the Milky Way itself.


Now, 400,000 years feels like a long forever to me, but it's just a pause in time for the Earth, and I daresay it's just a rounding error for Sol and the rest of the galaxy.

So, all you need is one civilization to extend beyond its star system in a life-like manner (that is, faster-than-linear growth) and be able to develop worlds on a ten thousand-year scale, to envelop the entire Milky Way.

Granted, perhaps the remains of such a civilization will disintegrate, entropy being what it is, but even if so, then so what? We still won't find them.

 

[coldwar]

I've noticed something about the talk of Aslans and any other species like them.
The thing i noticed is that there is a tendency of assuming what kind of animal they would possible eat. Most likely something similar to a Cow. As well as that you are only talking about land animals too.
How would it change if they ate large animals, that weighed from 10 to 40 tons in pure meat, or even more. Yes these large animals need more feed, but then most of that feed, doesn't need to be on the ground. If it's small enough, it could both eat leaves of trees and ground graze.

On a side note, the Aslan homeworld is the same size as earth, but has less hydrographics, thus even more land for possible graze.

Just my two cents.

 

[HG_B]

odd I know there are plenty of subsidies here and much of the corn grown is feed.

I guess so. I know of none that raise less cattle so that they can sell less. Pls send me a link of any that you know that intentionally stop producing cattle so that they have less to sell.

 

[HG_B]

On the other hand, if expansion is exponential (case b), then it is clear that such a people has not yet arisen, at least in this galaxy -- because they'd be here by now -- and thus we shall not meet them, either.

Why are you so sure that they would what to spend time with a bunch of low TL savages out on the rim of the galaxy????

 

[robject]

Now let's look at the Imperium, since that's what we're all thinking about when we log in here.

Let's be conservative and say the Ziru Sirka colonized 10,000 worlds in 10,000 years (tho' it's more like 15,000 in 8,000 years, but I'm using lazy math).

Assume that this colonization is exponential, even though it's actually got an interesting topology. That would mean, looking back, we might see this:

Imperial Year - Colonized Worlds
-10k: <10 worlds (Vilani discover jump)
-9k: 20 worlds
-8k: 40 worlds
-7k: 75 worlds
-6k: 150 worlds
-5k: 300 worlds
-4k: 600 worlds
-3k: 1,200 worlds
-2k: 2,500 worlds
-1k: 5,000 worlds
+0: 10,000 worlds

We know it's not really like this, because we're at 11,000 worlds at year 1100. But It does look like humaniti can easily double its population every 1,000 years.

So we could see

+1000: 10k worlds
+2000: 20k worlds
+3000: 40k worlds
+4000: 80k worlds
+5000: 160k worlds
+6000: 320k worlds
+7000: 640k worlds
+8000: 1 million worlds
+9000: 2 million worlds
+10000: 4 million worlds

...skipping a bit...

+26000: 512 billion worlds

So in a mere 36,000 years, humaniti in Traveller could fill up the galaxy.

 

[robject]

Why are you so sure that they would what to spend time with a bunch of low TL savages out on the rim of the galaxy????

In which case, again, our question is moot. Naturally the reason to ask the question in the first place is because we want to know about them. But maybe there's another reason to ask it.

And, your Original Post title asks if life develops "like here". Life here seems to imply that no stone will be left unturned...

 

[Dragoner]

I guess so. I know of none that raise less cattle so that they can sell less. Pls send me a link of any that you know that intentionally stop producing cattle so that they have less to sell.

A link of how subsidized agriculture works? Here in Indiana it's mostly pigs, but they do raise or lower production to maximize profits; output is not 100% all the time.