Existential world-building question

[Bamagan]

I got to weaving a SciFi-Fantasy world for a tale, but am stuck on a basic conceptual point. I could merely ignore it and plunge ahead, but my OC side keeps objecting.

Those familiar with Larry Niven’s ‘Ringworld’ series (and if you like SF, you should be) will remember the catlike Kzin - a ferocious, space-going species posing a serious threat to H. sapiens.

Okay, the series is a good read and, while not intending to copy Niven’s work, I was contemplating a world with the dominant species being descended from a primitive predator, maybe like velociraptor. Then I had a second thought.

Is it at all likely that a predator species would evolve into a tool-using species? My point is that our ancestors weren’t big enough or tough enough to go head-to-head with their clawed and fanged competition. We are here because they chose a different route.

Predators are generally going to be more intelligent than those they prey on (as somebody once remarked, how bright do you have to be to sneak up on a field of clover?) but is there any reason for a predator species to develop more intelligence than, say, current dogs and wolves, house-cats and lions?

Thoughts?

Sure. Tool use, in evolutionary terms, exists to either amplify existing capabilities or to allow access to new capabilities. Any species, predatory or herbivorous or whatever, might face evolutionary pressures that promote the use and development of tools in response to climate, terrain, and perhaps even disease, as well as predator/prey dynamics. Anything that can kill a critter, or hamper its ability to reproduce, can serve as a selective criteria. Anything that can help a critter survive a little bit longer or thrive a little bit better can do the same.

That being said, as others seem to have mentioned, there's a fair bit more than just tool-use required for a species to become a civilization. We really have only ourselves as the example, so we might overemphasize our various peculiarities as being prerequisites, but xenosociology is a highly speculative science.

 

[StillStunned]

house-cats

House cats have developed tools. They're called humans.

 

[liliput1]

Penny, whatever you do, make sure the scapula gets in there somehow.

“I have a thing for shoulder blades.”

“Speak up dear I can’t hear you.”

“I said I have a thing for shoulder blades!”

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Struggling a little to understand how answering the question will help you tell a story.

I like to have a neat package, with no loose ends.As I said, it's not that important, just a comfort thing lest some tiny voice keep telling me it's all illogical.

 

[CalBishForNow]

House cats have developed tools. They're called humans.

All jokes aside, this reminds me of Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Doors of Eden. Multiverse-traveling sci-fi and each version of Earth is dominated by an intelligent species from earlier and earlier in time. Neanderthals, rat people, dinosaurs who adapted to the cold, and more. The narrative briefly mentions a world dominated by cat people who don't use tools much the way we think of them but have a great understanding of germ theory, because their leap into intelligence depended on symbiosis with toxoplasma gondii. It's a very catlike kind of civilization in that they use other animals as their tools.

Going back to the OP, there are lots of different kinds of intelligence in that book.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Many predatory dinosaurs were like early Homo in that they were bipedal, not savannah quadrupeds. The key skill development for Homo may have been projectile weapons. We think of dinosaur arms as shrinking down, unused, but they would certainly be capable of flinging a few rocks or breaking branches off trees. It could develop from there.

I see your point and you are quite right about bipedal dinos. I guess you might have hit the problem better than I did. If I'm a velociraptor, fast, nimble, a superlative 'combatant', what benefit would you get from throwing rocks?

 

[TarnishedPenny]

One of the very first animal intelligence documentaries featured a raven solving a puzzle involving string. Ravens can also parrot sounds, which doesn’t get talked about enough.

Nevermore...

 

[liliput1]

cat people who don't use tools much the way we think of them

Well of course not. Many of them get broken when they are knocked onto the ground.

 

[SimonDoom]

I see your point and you are quite right about bipedal dinos. I guess you might have hit the problem better than I did. If I'm a velociraptor, fast, nimble, a superlative 'combatant', what benefit would you get from throwing rocks?

If your prey was faster than you, you would gain an evolutionary advantage by being able to throw rocks, because a thrown rock can move faster than anything running on land.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

@TarnishedPenny - I think you are pushing at the limits of verisimilitude. Do you really need a scientifically robust reason for these creatures to have evolved to become what the story needs? I’d say not.

Maybe not, but it's under my skin now. Besides, I get to participate in a fine discussion among thoughtful people I respect.

 

[liliput1]

I see your point and you are quite right about bipedal dinos. I guess you might have hit the problem better than I did. If I'm a velociraptor, fast, nimble, a superlative 'combatant', what benefit would you get from throwing rocks?

Humans worked in packs to wear down prey, just like raptors. Rock throwing can just be one of the tricks involved in herding prey and keeping them off balance. The amount of work that is involved in making a spearhead... you don't actually want to throw that. It's really a polearm that lets you attack things with a longer reach.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Yeah. Lions are already social, so it's totally plausible indeed. I do wonder what pushed cats and dogs in that direction, though. Maybe it had something to do with their prey roaming in herds, but that's me guessing.

I think one of my profs, 'waaay back when, suggested that felines, by and large, are stealth and ambush hunters; for them, more hunters won't necessarily made a difference. Canids are more likely to run down prey, for which group cooperation is useful. It made a bit of sense then, but is certainly not the only factor.

 

[liliput1]

Yes, definitely, as long as the environment imposes selective pressure on the species to evolve that way.

Human beings evolved big brains, opposable thumbs, upright carriage, and a loss of body hair so we could run around the hot plains of Africa hunting game. Our chimp cousins went into the trees and evolved differently.

Think of an environment and a selective pressure that it would generate. Then you can imagine how a species would adapt to that environment.

The easiest way to imagine this is if the species are geographically isolated. It would be difficult for an intelligent species to evolve in an environment where another intelligent species already existed, because the existing species would see it as competition and kill it off before it could become intelligent.

When I was in college they had just rearranged the hominid family tree based on the appearance of vein holes in the occipital lobe of the skull - the reason putting cold stuff on the top of your neck feels so good is because we evolved radiative veins back there as part of our savanna adaptation, which allows our brains to run hotter in a hot climate without cooking themselves. If you chill that blood it goes straight back to the heart and lowers your core temperature. They also theorized that walking upright reduced our thermal profile at midday and got our brains up into the air and away from the hot ground.

 

[Stanfield2025]

I think one of my profs, 'waaay back when, suggested that felines, by and large, are stealth and ambush hunters; for them, more hunters won't necessarily made a difference. Canids are more likely to run down prey, for which group cooperation is useful. It made a bit of sense then, but is certainly not the only factor.

I hadn't even considered that, but it makes a ton of sense to me. Canids are pretty cursorial, while big cats have comparatively poor stamina. I think another factor in canid sociality is the lack of grappling ability they have. Big cats can grapple really damn well, so it's easier for one to dispatch prey. Canids aren't typically about the one-on-ones since their only weapons are their jaws.

 

[IWroteThis]

Depending on how much backstory you want/need, perhaps they come from a world that evolved similar to ours.

Humans weren't the top of the food chain, so they adapted to survive, eventually becoming the top predator. Then, to protect their young, old, and otherwise vulnerable members, they started hunting the previously dominant predator to extinction. To survive, that species then evolved, retook the top spot in the food chain, and developed an instinctive hatred of humans. Thus, they are always aggressive towards humans no matter where they come from nor where they encounter them.

That gives you a reason for an otherwise dominant predator species to advance and an explanation for their racial hatred of humans.

 

[anthrodisiac]

*sniffs* So much speculation about my peoples...

All right, let's get one thing clear, velociraptors weren't actually that big. They were turkey-sized little fuckers, ankle-biting shits. But that actually might benefit you here.

One wouldn't expect the apex predator to become a tool-user. They already excel at what they do. But a species either forced from its current niche (human ancestors forced out of trees) or evolving ways of competing against more dominant predator species would put evolutionary pressure to evolve new strategies. One of those could possibly be higher intelligence and tool use. Is it likely? Pretty much impossible to say, but your story takes place on one of those few worlds where even the unlikely thing happened, because we know it happened at least once, so it's possible. But once you start the route of tool use, you aren't guaranteed anything, so what is required after that? Outcompeting the apex predator. It could be that the increased intelligence means they figure out if they take out the big predators, they can have everything for themselves. Or at least are so good at competing that it takes away a food source for the apex predators, until slowly the "weaker" smart species becomes the dominant species by dint of their intelligence and use of tools.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Uh-oh, anthrodisiac's shown up. Everyone hide.

 

[Stanfield2025]

From what I recall, the raptors that contribute good evidence for pack-hunting are Utahraptor, Deinonychus, and one or two trackway species. Velociraptor itself has next to no pack-hunting evidence. And there's almost no indication as to what the raptor packs would've been like. We barely have any inkling as to whether they were highly parental, how they pack-hunted, or anything else.

 

[BeechLeaf]

One wouldn't expect the apex predator to become a tool-user. They already excel at what they do.

I'm not sure of this. It fits the sample size of one (tool user) that we know. It fits the picture: if you can run after something, catch it, and chomp it up, you don't have to do Wile E. Coyote calculations on a blackboard.

But a dinosaur with small arms that could use them to pick up a rock, and throw it at the prey they were gradually gaining on, would benefit by tripping up their prey. A top predator doesn't have to be like a shark, with only one mode of attack. I don't think it has actually happened, but it seems to make sense as a scientific fantasy on another planet.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I'm not sure of this. It fits the sample size of one (tool user) that we know. It fits the picture: if you can run after something, catch it, and chomp it up, you don't have to do Wile E. Coyote calculations on a blackboard.

But a dinosaur with small arms that could use them to pick up a rock, and throw it at the prey they were gradually gaining on, would benefit by tripping up their prey. A top predator doesn't have to be like a shark, with only one mode of attack. I don't think it has actually happened, but it seems to make sense as a scientific fantasy on another planet.

Amended: One wouldn't expect an apex predator that does not already use tools to then develop tool use. If they're the apex predator, they don't have selection pressures to adapt new strategies because they already excel at what they do. Could it happen anyway? Yes, but it's a lot less likely than a predator species that is not the apex to then find new strategies to become more proficient. You could see an arms race of intelligence though, where two species keep jumping past the other, becoming apex, then the other develops new strategies, the other has to adapt. Or a new, more dominant species enters the biome and puts pressure on the existing apex predator, which then has to adapt and one of those adaptations would potentially be greater intelligence and tool use.

We're just talking most likely paths of evolving intelligence and tool use. Obviously, any path is theoretically feasible, and in an infinite universe/multiverse, must have happened an infinite number of times.

 

[Stanfield2025]

I wonder if anyone here is familiar with the "Dinosauroid" hypothesis. It's widely mocked for valid reasons, but it's interesting as a sci-fi concept.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I wonder if anyone here is familiar with the "Dinosauroid" hypothesis. It's widely mocked for valid reasons, but it's interesting as as sci-fi concept.

Yeah. I dunno if I buy into it. You apes got weird-ass bodies.

 

[BeechLeaf]

It's a Red Queen thing. An apex predator that's very good at running and catching is under constant selection pressure from its prey. They, in general, run faster than it does (life/dinner principle). Again, we're probably thinking of leopards and kudu. But if the predator is not quadrupedal and has a chance of slowing the prey down with a rock to the head, that would get selected for.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I've been a scifi and fantasy fan my whole life, and my opinion is that history has proven that for most readers, it doesn't matter how dumb and shallow, or simply non-existent, your worldbuilding is, as long as you deliver with characters/plot. Readers will eat it all up.

Your thought process does you credit, but you are somewhat overthinking the whole thing. Most readers wouldn't even begin to think about the things most commenters mentioned.

What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter whether it's cats, armadillos, or kangaroos. Just make them interesting and relatable. Their evolutionary aspects are mostly irrelevant, especially if you take into account the knowledge of a typical reader.

 

[Bamagan]

It's worth keeping in mind, vis a vis apex predators, that they might not face much pressure to develop weapons, i.e., tools to improve their killing skills. But they might need to develop tools to find prey, preserve kills, improve shelters, and myriad other things that are important to survival and which might then lead to civilization.