New answers tagged civilization
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Best and Worst Koppen Climate Types for Human Civilization?
Depending on what you mean by civilization, pretty much anywhere that is not immediately fatal is fair game.
Humanity did not rise to the top of the food chain of every ecosystem on earth by being ...
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Best and Worst Koppen Climate Types for Human Civilization?
One video that I have seen relates total populations to climate types, and from smallest to largest in numbers of human populations are
ice caps (Antarctica, Greenland)... no resources to exploit.
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When many animal and plant materials are comparable to modern materials, why would any civilization develop metal working?
We have real-world examples of this. Up through the 19th century, we hunted whales in order to harvest various oils that their body produces. These oils were highly desirable as lamp fuel, and were ...
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When many animal and plant materials are comparable to modern materials, why would any civilization develop metal working?
Unworkability
Scales and shells are too hard and/or brittle to work and thus can't be shaped as desired.
They Don't Scale Up
Spider silk is stronger than steel in some very useful ways but is far ...
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When many animal and plant materials are comparable to modern materials, why would any civilization develop metal working?
I mean, the easy answer is they wouldn't. They might discover that the ground has metals but not care because there's plenty of lizard scales laying around.
But if the point of the exercise is to ...
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When many animal and plant materials are comparable to modern materials, why would any civilization develop metal working?
How exactly similar are those equivalent? Because even if a lizard skin is as hard as steel, if you can't melt and shape it, it is clearly not as useful as steel. Your society will start with ...
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When many animal and plant materials are comparable to modern materials, why would any civilization develop metal working?
Tools and parts won't grow on trees
When people were primitive, they used stones as tools. There are plenty of stones for use, but they almost never have a shape that a tool needs. What was a major ...
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When many animal and plant materials are comparable to modern materials, why would any civilization develop metal working?
Art. Metal has a look and feel unlike other substances. Jewelry was historically a major domain of metal.
Electricity. All those lovely wires need metal. As soon as someone figures out that lightning ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
It's not the only planet doomed to be destroyed by the same event.
If it's just one planet in the system, and they have a few years to plan, they could always commandeer any of the other, potentially ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
Life basically is divided into growers (plants) and eaters (animals.) Growers have a very low energy budgets, almost certainly incapable of supporting civilization. Thus the race you're trying to ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
The Once and Future Home World:
Let us assume a cataclysm bad enough to wipe out life, but not actually blow up the planet.
Your native population will be destroyed by the cataclysm to come, but you ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
Outside of space opera, FTL isn't going to happen, and interstellar travel is hard.
A "realistic" interstellar civilization is a mesh of systems connected together with lightspeed ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
Finding a planet for them is harder than you think
It's not actually as easy as you think to move planets. For example, we Earthers have evolved for billions of years to live on Earth in very ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
Capitalism, Colonisation and "Ethics"
You want to displace this population and take their planet for your own. Ethical rules and other such inconveniences prevent you from wiping them out ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
Ethics
Humans won't see reason about environmental destruction. They won't stop competing to dig up resources to kill each other. The aliens can't kill them - it would be unethical - and they can't ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
A planet? Good heavens, why would you inflict so crude and plebian a dwelling place on them?
Of course they were living on one before, but given that you are removing them anyway, what conceivable ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
Why rescue them?
The aliens value the diversity of civilizations in the galaxy. They want to preserve as many as possible, not as dry databases but as actual, thriving, developing cultures.
Just ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
You need an artificial habitat no matter what.
The nearest suitable planet for this species is many light years away. Some delicate aspect of this species' biology makes cryogenic preservation or ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
It's on the way
Due to speed limits, the nearest suitable planet is thousands of years away. So whatever vessel you use to transport the civilization, it needs to be a self-sustaining ecosystem in its ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
Entertainment value
Let's take another point of view on this situation : a primitive civilization will be relocated in order to keep them from extinction. Sure, you could bring them to some planet ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
Biologically incompatible species
There is an incompatibility between available planets and the biology of some/all of the species required for the primitive civ to survive. A constructed habitat is a ...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
Practicality & Simplicity.
The following assumptions are made in this answer:
The advanced race has time to construct at least one cylinder before the extinction event occurs and the science/...
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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
Convenience, due to multiple and maybe concurring factors, for example:
the cylinder can be brought closer to the rescue place, easing logistic on the evacuation. One thing is moving a lot of people ...
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