So basically, this is a sci-fi fantasy world with intelligent/sapient animals. Not anthros like in Zootopia, just regular animals that can all talk to each other, form societies, and develop science and technology. Obviously, predation is a massive, central issue to this world, being that it was the primary driving force of all animals for most of their history. However, they have now progressed enough technologically where even obligate carnivores like cats can get all their required nutrients without needing to eat other animals, with sufficient help from their biochemistry and chemical manufacturing prowess. Obviously, this does not mean every single species who historically did eat meat stop overnight. Actually, some would argue that the journey toward abolishing predation, a journey marked by revolution, war, and death for both sides, is almost as bloody and violent as predation itself (this is a massive logical fallacy yes, but it is an opinion held by many in-universe and I explore that in my plot).
First, some context: I will be using the terms Carnivore and Herbivore, to refer to the biochemical characteristics of animals. In their universe, those designations, when capitalized as proper nouns, have fairly straight forward definitions: A carnivore is any animal that, without access to science or technology, is incapable of deriving their complete nutritional requirements without eating meat, they cannot subsist on raw plants alone without processing and/or taking synthetic supplements. A cat is a carnivore, so is a dog, so is a ferret, so is a fox, so are humans technically but they disappeared from the planet millions of years ago. By contrast, a herbivore is any animal that can subsist on raw plants alone, like mice, rabbits, horses, and deer. This definition is purely biochemical, as in do you have the enzymes and gut structure to do it, and by design does not take into account things like preference, behaviour, culture/religion, or how practical it would be (if there was only plant that can sustain you and literally nothing else other than meat, it still counts), because, again, they have the technology to allow basically every animal to subsist on plants, comfortably at that, minus it not tasting the same. You’re either one or the other, if you’re not sure, then Carnivore is the catch-all term unless your ability to subsist on raw plants is verifiable. Omnivore isn’t really as a term in this world since pretty much every animal is technically an omnivore, as in they can eat and digest both meat and plants, including nearly every “Herbivore.” Likewise, terms like predator and prey imply behaviour and ecology, not biochemistry, and most animals fell into both categories historically, but with their technology those terms have become so fluid as to be essentially meaningless.
Which brings me to the in-universe opinions that I have come up with, they relate to both predation and interspecies coexistence in general, since those kind of go paw to paw. Note that these are super generalized and are in no particular order.
Carnivores:
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“It’s my right to eat my prey, no matter how much suffering it causes! I don’t care what technologies are available, predation is the natural order of things and should never be challenged! The role of a predator is to dominate and rule their prey. Maybe the prey would suffer less if they just accepted and made peace with their place on the food chain!” (This is called Trophism.)
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“Predation is both barbaric and totally obsolete in our current technological landscape. It is unbecoming of an intelligent, sapient species with complete control over our primitive instincts. Every species is equal, we should all live in peace as comrades and work together to take care of and benefit everyone!” (This is called Unitism.)
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“Look, I’ll concede that we shouldn’t be eating other animals and actively making them suffer. But I just can’t agree to this interspecies cooperation nonsense. My only responsibility to my own species (or taxon, which is a group of related species), no one else. I won’t hunt my prey but I won’t be helping them without benefit to myself either.”
Herbivores
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“Even though I’m low on the food chain, it is still my place. I don’t want to be eaten and will try to avoid it to the best of my ability, but if that’s what it comes to, then so be it.” (Trophism)
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“I don’t want you to eat me, in fact I want to be your friend and ally! I think every species is equal and that your evolutionary history does not define an intelligent animal, and as long as we all commit to being nice to each other, there is no reason every species can’t live in harmony!” (Unitism)
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“Those savages hunted us for generations! I don’t care if they don’t do that anymore, I don’t care how long not a single member of their species has even so much as mildly hurt another animal! Not only do I not want to ally with them, I think it’s the duty of my species or taxon, as the prey, to rise up and destroy my predators! No amount of peacemaking now can undo nature and I’d turn the tables and kill every single one of them if I could!”
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“Hey, it’s nice that you’re not eating prey anymore and all, and though I don’t harbour any active ill will toward you, I still don’t trust you and just want to be left alone with my own species or taxon. You don’t interact with me if you don’t need to and I don’t interact with you if I don’t need to, cool?”
What are your thoughts? Are there any more sides to this issue that you can come up with? And personally, which one would you most agree with if you were in this world?
I couldn’t see any other sides to it. I’m sure you could make things more complicated if you tried, but it’s certainly enough to tell stories with. Since I don’t have anything to add, I’ll say that I would definitely be a unitist. I find it offputting to think of eating anything sentient or nearly as intelligent as me. Octopuses are a salient example. I’ve never met one smarter than me, but the possibility is enough to put me off.
What it did make me think of is the other levels of the trophic pyramid. Since technology is pretty far along, are they at a point where they might start splicing and creating chimerae? Some kind of gene therapy that changes their biochemistry would lead to some very Zootopia storytelling, so maybe avoid that. What about a Clive Barker sort of thing? Maybe a powerful Decomposer chimera?
I haven’t really developed the chimera/hybrid aspect but it would certainly be possible with their current technology. Though in most of the cultures I developed that would most likely be seen as “playing god” and extremely unethical, similar to the augment debate in Star Trek if you’ve seen that. Not saying that’s necessarily the correct opinion (I’m absolutely not qualified to weigh in on that IRL) but I think most of the characters I’ve made would strongly disagree with genetic engineering of animals, if it was “just because we can” without very strong further justification. Or at the very least they would hold the opinion that while such actions may be ethical in the future depending where the future goes, their current society is not mature enough for that.
It’s a very comfortable sort of world you’re building. I go straight towards “what could go horribly wrong”, but that’s not what you’re building here, it’s more of a slice of life vibe, right? That’s really cool. I hear you talk about how everyone would be too sensible and restrained to tinker with world-endangering technology and I get this yearning feeling.
Thank you! I actually take a Star Trek approach/philosophy to my main plot, as Star Trek was one of the major inspirations for this. I’ve described it in the past as a cross between Star Trek and Zootopia with Pokemon Anime level tech (also Pokemon level adorable creatures, minus the trainers and battles).
It’s kind of like the Federation in TNG or DS9, where by the time my main plot starts, their internal society has settled down and gotten most of its issues hammered out (actually, possibly more so than the Federation since there isn’t a parallel to the Maquis issue), but there are plenty of factions and empires beyond their borders that do not agree with their way of life (even though they’re extremely pacifist, but unlike the Federation they don’t even do a lot of outward exploration), namely they are animals between the lower and middle rungs on the food chain being the most technologically advanced and therefore basically untouchable by the big apex predators, and more importantly, they see such a large scale and successful example of predator-prey cooperation as a serious threat to their rule, lest members of their own species and societies get any ideas, so they seek to destroy them any way they can.
Most of my characters are researchers in a government lab trying to push the frontiers of technology (also inspired by Star Trek), and there is a general looming dark cloud among them that what they create in that lab will be used for evil, but the ethics of science and the implications it has which the researchers did not intend but cannot control is also an aspect I want to directly confront, as well as just generally scratching that sci-fi itch that a only having a nearly all scientist cast at the forefront of their field can. Also, I just really love the juxtaposition of cute little animals like cats and mice wielding advanced super-technology.
One unexpected angle on the whole thing is an idea from anthropology; we humans are often researched and defined in relation to our tools, instead of in relation to our food. Perhaps an additional ideological tack to explore in the Carnivore/Herbivore debate is a view that all animals should not be defined by their food, but by their tools. They might use this logic to take a dim view of various technologies, or they may be full-bore extropians who wish to transcend biochemistry altogether.
“Am I a Unitist or a Trophist? I’ve replaced my guts with a bioreactor that turns waste and sunlight into all my nutrients. I miss eating sometimes, but it’s objectively better overall. That smells nice, what did you order?”
Could definitely be an interesting thing to explore! Could also get into the issue of what role the “experience of living” plays in their society and existence in general. Like you said, even though plenty of carnivores agree that they should never hunt and eat prey again, they still enjoy eating food, even plant based food, because obviously it’s something that they’re hardwired to enjoy. They could well conclude that the ideal way of living is to distill the animal existence to all the enjoyable parts for everyone, just get rid of the parts that cause suffering like predation while keeping everything else as close to “natural” as possible. Or, maybe they’ll want to go even further, transcending their bodies and basically going “full singularity,” finding new joys that beings with regular animal bodies can’t even comprehend. Issues of what separates a living animal from a machine, or if that is relevant at all. Again bringing up Star Trek (it really is possibly my favourite series), kind of like the Borg issue.
Thank you for the ideas!
Thanks for sharing! You’re building something with a lot of fun storytelling capabilities, I hope you’ll share more as it grows.
Thank you so much!