Implementing Underwater Civilizations

~sciocont wrote:

Atrox_Somnium wrote:

Sorry Nick I didn't realize it was moved so i thought i put it here by accident and then i read the first page so i freaked out and deleted it. Anyways my idea was underwater caves, and I understand that there are many issues with this, but I may have come up wth some solutions. I read through this thread and noticed that one of the problems with underwater caves is that the fire would use up the oxygen in the cave. Well I did some research and apparently if the cave was big enough, the oxygen wouldn't be depleted for quite some time (i don't know if long enough to forge something. maybe just enough for a simple tool).

To use the cave for this purpose, it would have to be fairly large. You'd also have to bring in flammable material, make sure it's dry, and somehow start the fire. If you're a dolphin, you can't do that. If you're a mermaid, the chances of all that happening are slim to none. Beyond this, there's some question as to whether/how caves will exist in the game, since our current concept for planet modeling isn't extremely conducive to it.

Well, planet generation aside, what about lobe fins? I'm pretty sure there are some fish that can walk on land, if only for a short while with them.

If you are referring to smelting above land and living underwater, then that would be amphibious society and is already agreed on to be possible. The point of the discussion is underwater civilizations.

The definition of an amphibian is an organism that can live on land and water. The aquatic organism i speak of cannot live on land, it can only go on it for a short while. So it goes on land (or in the cave i was speaking of). Let's say this cave has some magnesium (yeah i'm bringing back magnesium) and so the aquatic organism can light a fire in the cave, forge something before the fire burns out (possible minigame?), and get back into the water to rehydrate or breathe as needed. And boom. We got underwater civilizations.

Though if there are any flaws with this, please point them out

Atrox_Somnium wrote:

The definition of an amphibian is an organism that can live on land and water.

So, if organisms are going on to land and not dying for extended periods of time, what do you call that? Living.

:/ alright you got me there, mr. technicality. but there are also fish that can survive on land. those are living as well and yet they are called fish.

but we aren't talking about fish aren't we? *sigh* sorry for the double post. I just realized. My bad, sorry

Atrox_Somnium wrote:

:/ alright you got me there, mr. technicality. but there are also fish that can survive on land. those are living as well and yet they are called fish.

The entire point of this thread is "can you do it underwater?" If you're not underwater, of course you can do it. We have no problem with amphibious creatures, whether they are naturally or technologically amphibious.

NicktheNick wrote:

So, if organisms are going on to land and not dying for extended periods of time, what do you call that? Living.

One of the best posts I've seen in a while.

so most of the threads i have seen this on have been exceptionally old, so i shall put this here.

i kinda cringe when i see the posts about no ability to leave your world or even hit your society stage under water because of the inability to create fire. first of all, fire may have been the spark for us, but that was mainly because some guy noticed that when a wildfire passes by, the meat off of an animal tasted better. however, in an underwater environment you do not necessarily need fire because you have a different set of factors to deal with. if we needed fire to eat fish then we would not eat sushi. also underwater social organisms could use the skeletal part of corals to sharpen rock underwater. also, your creatures after reaching the (i believe awakening is tribal type era) they could use some sort of thing they developed (still trying to figure what type of equipment they would make) or the internal lungs that certain species of fish have developed (mentioned in the organ design thread) to make missions onto the shore to do various things.

i will have more for you when i think about other parts to it, posting this now so i will see it later and remember it.

Metallurgy requires fire, modern tools and electricity require metal. Should be end of story there. You can have some technology, but nothing past the Stone Age.

WJacobC wrote:

Metallurgy requires fire, modern tools and electricity require metal. Should be end of story there. You can have some technology, but nothing past the Stone Age.

however if one could develop a form of technological advancement other than metallurgy because part of everything i have been seeing is really thinking outside the box, then we could follow a completely different path for advancement. maybe only on unearthlike planets (i dont know if this happens on earth but go along a path developing silicon instead of metal or something like that.

give me a few days and i will have a solution for you. goodnight

There's been 14 pages on this thread trying to find ways to do metalurgy underwater, or finding another way of developing all the things we need metals for. And this has not been the only thread about the subject.There has been more. The "closest" one was a kind of super selective breeding to turn some other underwater animals into tools. But that would take too much time to turn a profit (the star would die out before that)

If you can find a way of developing metalurgy or an alternative to metals underwater, go on and share it with us. But check before in case someone came with that idea before, at least in this thread, but there has been many before you, and noone could find a way.

We will be able to get to stone age technology underwater correct.

One question, would it be possible to mount an attack on a wooden boat that is above water, using spears and rocks. If we can do that, you could get gold (or other valuables) from the ship, and use it to buy technology.
This would be uplifting correct.

In order:

Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes.

Ok, I've been snooping around and reading stuff for a while. Decided to make an account.
Just finished reading the thread and I believe I may have a vague, but possible solution: So, there were posts mentioning creating substances like spiders, and others talking about artificial selection with other creatures. How about mixing the two? Maybe the underwater species can create a sort of "living" organism themselves? It started as a way to break down prey or distract predators, but eventually evolved to be a coral type substance that becomes their vehicles and such? An idea to think about.
Another: The organisms being the vehicles and ships and stuff themselves. How about a species that can adapt/change their bodies in a relatively short amount of time? Their cells change or create new special cells to do the tasks they need, when they need it. Or certain members have different "jobs" that they specialize in.
Think about this one, maybe? I'm writing this while very tired, may impair my thinking.
These may take a long time though, not too sure about it. Not really too sure about either of them, but underwater civ is too cool to not have in this game.

so first of all, wiggin has a great idea.

@wiggin do you mean something similar to this thing( http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-016 )

also if there is a way for the creatures to let raw oil out to the surface of the water and find a way to set it on fire (still working on how they would do this) it could be a major start. from there they would not need to use the fire to work with the metal as they could then use objects around them. for example and this is about to go on the organ design thread as well certain species of sea urchin have spines powerful enough to bore through steel (at least from what iv'e
read, part of the reason why none of my aquariums have them)

also maybe on alien planets there could be certain metals that we do not no of that do not need fire to work ( or we could just create an underwater forge in a volcano, this may have been said before, i dont know)

Yes, thank you for that link! I am thinking of the same type of organism, only multicellular. They can change/mutate themselves in order to make up for the lack of technology/metallurgy. And to ellaborate on my first idea, the organism would create bio-versions of all the technology, in the same way artificial selection (the wolves -> dogs example) would.
The metals not needing fire, and the volcanic vents, have already been mentioned and discussed. The metals aren't strong enough, and the volcanic vents aren't hot enough.

Not sure about what you are trying to get at with the oil and the sea urchins, though. Care to explain a bit more?

underwater there are always deposits of crude oil somewhere. if these creatures could find a way to access said oil and keep a controlled stream of it together all the way to the surface, then when they lit it on fire (by the way in case anyone did not know, oil can burn on water) they could hold bits of metal ore in the fire using , stone staffs i guess and break it down into the pure metal, or at least closer to it. from there they could carve it using the sea urchin spines or something else similar.

Again, as discussed when discussing thermal vents, even if you get the necessary temperature, as the water spreads heat so fast, getting near to it would mean instantly killing the creature.

Other than that, acording to this article (which speaks about burning crude oil from a spillage, quite similar), it is usually not possible to keep the oil buirning on the water, as it spreads too thin.

Additionally, geting the oil pocket to break and spill all the oil on the water would be quite hard, as they are usually not too close to the surface.

Additionally, those pockets would not last too much, making finding new ones a necessity. And they are not too common.

Additionally, the oil is very bad for the health of most water creatures, and it blocks sunlight while it is on the surface, making underwater plants not recieve light, which is a big hit to the environement.

Overall, not possible for many reasons.

Well, what if the civilization started on land, but moved underwater for some reason that made the surface inhospitable; bad nuclear test, zombies, contagion, etc?

Basically what I am say is, would it be possible for the civilization to move into underwater settlements once they've gotten metal work and the other supplies needed? Or for space empires to colonize a water planet and have undersea dome colonies or something along those lines?

The idea of a mutating multicellular creature is a good start.
However , how would one evolve this ability. It would be very hard, and in most cases would not happen.
--
@Aiosian_Doctor_Xenox
Yes that is possible if the civilizations people are amphibious or if they get the correct technology to survive that deep underwater.

Something like this perhaps?

Spoiler:

Yes but are the inhabitants intelligent beings evolved from aquatic creatures? It seems, since the city is Atlantis, they are just humans that built an underwater city inside a waterproof dome. Remembers me of Bioshock, except that Rapure doesn't have a dome and buildings themselves are waterproof.
So I think you missed the point.
I like the concept art though.

Aiosian_Doctor_Xenox wrote:

Something like this perhaps?

Spoiler:

Yes, that is perfectly possible, because in that case metallurgy and fire were developed terrestrially.

Well, what if these 'aquatic civilizations' never went above sea level for their metallurgy?

Bare with me here, I may have something.

What if the creatures stumbled across some caves that had air pockets, and saw a vein of molten rock in there, and it sent sparks off onto plant roots(or fungi tendrils or something) hanging from the ceiling into the water, and there is an oily substance on them that catches fire, and burns in the water. This creature leaves and brings back others, they figure out what this 'fire' thing the old coot is talking about is, and it somehow burn underwater, out of the oxygen in the water. They then figure out how to make a forge in their little aquatic village after observing the cave more and the fire itself, or if the oily stuff is too much, then maybe they had some limited ability to breath air for a short time, and just built a forge in that cave?

Or would that be too out there for you folks?

Ok, this is getting a little ridiculous. That just combined several other series and throws in such hypothetical unlikely situations that we can't even hope to simulate it.

Seriously, we just need to admit there is no way to do this without uplifting. People have been debating this for three years and it just won't happen. I'm not being negative or rude to those suggesting ideas, I'm just saying that at this point it's not helping everyone to continue debating this. That brain power would be much more useful in finalizing Microbe Stage or the Function Part Discussion.