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Carnivore Society
13 years ago
Curiously, or perhaps not so curiously, the most popular species in the fandom are carnivores. I suspect that a touch of this affinity for carnivorous animals stems from a couple of human resemblances: binocular vision (we can imagine ourselves seeing the world the same way) and a fascination with aggression as opposed to docility. The power of the status quo also perpetuates this affinity.
Whatever the reasons are, we tend toward carnivorous species in our fiction. This leads to explorations of what everyday life would be like for furries. True, the emphasis of the story is on the characters and their interactions, their struggle, but in between we also look at how things would be different-- for instance, what would chairs be like? A simple question that presents problems for an author to solve.
Most furry settings fall into three categories: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Modern Drama. In the latter two, authors generally explore the idea of how furries would be different by either circumventing the issue or creating a society of peaceful artifices and alternatives to primordial predator/prey interactions. For example, in many science fiction settings food for carnivorous humanoids is synthesized from proteins.
In Sejhat, however, we have a bit of a problem. The Beastfolk are mostly carnivorous, but they do not have the advantages of modern technology to compensate for a lack of meat. Thankfully, they are at least partially omnivorous- bread and fruits are common, desirable parts of their diet... but where a staple foodstuff for humans would be carbohydrate rich food like bread or rice, the Beastfolk sustain themselves primarily with meat. They simply cannot do without it.
This is a serious limitation on their population and society. Consider this: It takes about 10 units of grain to create 1 unit of beef. It takes about 4 units of grain to create 1 unit of pork, and about 2 units of grain to create one unit of poultry, and as little as 1.5 units of grain (or equivalent) to create 1 unit of fish.
This means that a society of carnivores would certainly be interested in crops, but not primarily for personal consumption- a very large part of it would have to be diverted to animal consumption. Humans do generally require a small consumption of meat in order to gain the necessary proteins to prosper, but this is significantly smaller than that which would be required by a man-sized wolf or cat.
Supposing that Beastfolk society transcends a hunter/gatherer stage, it seems to stand to reason that even in relatively modern times a large population would still be involved in the ancient trade of Pastoralism. Given that the setting is akin to the 19th century, however, there simply isn't enough common land to sustain large numbers of people in a nomadic pastoral existence. Thus, I imagine that even different carnivore races would be just as inclined, if not more inclined to adopt organized agriculture. This, in turn, necessitates land and labor management, which in turn is the foundation for a landed nobility.
This seems to fly in the face of the common depiction of Beastfolk in a fantasy setting, where they are displayed as being disorganized and prone to displays of individualism and barbarism as opposed to authoritarianism and an entrenched nobility.
Going back to the grass-roots, let's talk about another problem that all industrialized or industrializing societies have to deal with: Urbanization. Generally speaking, the biggest limitation to urban growth, aside from its food supply, is squalor. We have a good, well-recorded understanding of the squalor problem in growing cities going at least back to the nuisance assizes of London from the 1300s.
Squalor in cities isn't just a matter of dealing with the piss and shit of the citizenry-- it is also dealing with all the animal waste. Living in streets clogged with animal manure is nasty enough, but a persistent problem in large cities was also the problem of offal, namely- what do you do with animal parts that you can't or don't want to use?
This was a big enough problem in London, Paris, and even New York. It's a problem that, in modern times, has only been separated from cities due to improved infrastructure and technology. I imagine that in a Beastfolk city, the riverfront would be an appalling sight of butcher's shops dumping the offal of animal carcasses into the nearest rivers, tinged pink with blood and filth. Combine that with the waste of animals living and traveling within the confines of any city, and you get... well, it's not terribly fantastic, is it?
How would a Beastfolk government deal with this? The people need meat- it's not simply a luxury... Yet they could do without the pollution, the rotting guts sitting on the streets, the dodgy quality control, and the overwhelming odor. Through varying mechanisms, cities in the industrial revolution did ultimately confront and control the squalor problem. Would the mechanisms of the Beastfolk be much different?
Whatever the reasons are, we tend toward carnivorous species in our fiction. This leads to explorations of what everyday life would be like for furries. True, the emphasis of the story is on the characters and their interactions, their struggle, but in between we also look at how things would be different-- for instance, what would chairs be like? A simple question that presents problems for an author to solve.
Most furry settings fall into three categories: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Modern Drama. In the latter two, authors generally explore the idea of how furries would be different by either circumventing the issue or creating a society of peaceful artifices and alternatives to primordial predator/prey interactions. For example, in many science fiction settings food for carnivorous humanoids is synthesized from proteins.
In Sejhat, however, we have a bit of a problem. The Beastfolk are mostly carnivorous, but they do not have the advantages of modern technology to compensate for a lack of meat. Thankfully, they are at least partially omnivorous- bread and fruits are common, desirable parts of their diet... but where a staple foodstuff for humans would be carbohydrate rich food like bread or rice, the Beastfolk sustain themselves primarily with meat. They simply cannot do without it.
This is a serious limitation on their population and society. Consider this: It takes about 10 units of grain to create 1 unit of beef. It takes about 4 units of grain to create 1 unit of pork, and about 2 units of grain to create one unit of poultry, and as little as 1.5 units of grain (or equivalent) to create 1 unit of fish.
This means that a society of carnivores would certainly be interested in crops, but not primarily for personal consumption- a very large part of it would have to be diverted to animal consumption. Humans do generally require a small consumption of meat in order to gain the necessary proteins to prosper, but this is significantly smaller than that which would be required by a man-sized wolf or cat.
Supposing that Beastfolk society transcends a hunter/gatherer stage, it seems to stand to reason that even in relatively modern times a large population would still be involved in the ancient trade of Pastoralism. Given that the setting is akin to the 19th century, however, there simply isn't enough common land to sustain large numbers of people in a nomadic pastoral existence. Thus, I imagine that even different carnivore races would be just as inclined, if not more inclined to adopt organized agriculture. This, in turn, necessitates land and labor management, which in turn is the foundation for a landed nobility.
This seems to fly in the face of the common depiction of Beastfolk in a fantasy setting, where they are displayed as being disorganized and prone to displays of individualism and barbarism as opposed to authoritarianism and an entrenched nobility.
Going back to the grass-roots, let's talk about another problem that all industrialized or industrializing societies have to deal with: Urbanization. Generally speaking, the biggest limitation to urban growth, aside from its food supply, is squalor. We have a good, well-recorded understanding of the squalor problem in growing cities going at least back to the nuisance assizes of London from the 1300s.
Squalor in cities isn't just a matter of dealing with the piss and shit of the citizenry-- it is also dealing with all the animal waste. Living in streets clogged with animal manure is nasty enough, but a persistent problem in large cities was also the problem of offal, namely- what do you do with animal parts that you can't or don't want to use?
This was a big enough problem in London, Paris, and even New York. It's a problem that, in modern times, has only been separated from cities due to improved infrastructure and technology. I imagine that in a Beastfolk city, the riverfront would be an appalling sight of butcher's shops dumping the offal of animal carcasses into the nearest rivers, tinged pink with blood and filth. Combine that with the waste of animals living and traveling within the confines of any city, and you get... well, it's not terribly fantastic, is it?
How would a Beastfolk government deal with this? The people need meat- it's not simply a luxury... Yet they could do without the pollution, the rotting guts sitting on the streets, the dodgy quality control, and the overwhelming odor. Through varying mechanisms, cities in the industrial revolution did ultimately confront and control the squalor problem. Would the mechanisms of the Beastfolk be much different?
In his Bazil books, Christopher Rowley uses noodles as a military staple rather than bread, and the dragons eat their food with healthy helpings of "akh," a spice sauce that helps with taste and to some extent nutrition. Since you have a fantasy world, a few made up plants that provide the ability for a predator species to close the nutrition gap without substantial agricultural investments would be somewhat reasonable. They also did battlefield salvage, including the trolls, which I'd imagine would be considered close to cannibalism, and presents issues.
On a side note, I never agreed with the concept of societies like Kevin and Kell where every single bleeding organism is sentient. Either evolution would leave sufficient organisms low enough on the totem pole to be eaten, or God would make sure there's something to eat without guilt.
Offal makes decent fertilizer though, and any predator society that gets to the point of cities would probably realize that it's better off on farmers fields and pastures than in a river. This is especially true if they have steam engines or other technology to get it there cheaper.
Desertification is an interesting issue. The Beastfolk lands aren't particularly prone to this problem, but there are large tracts of steppe country in the north that are just one or two droughts away from turning into a dustbowl-style situation. These lands are still used by pastoral societies like the Sabalazmon and the Rosomai, so there's an equal problem with exhausting the ecology. However, desertification is still far less of a problem in the Beastfolk Alliance than, say, the Caliphate of Man to the south, which precariously sits on the periphery of a massive desert.
Kibble would probably be popular with the lower classes, even though it does have nutritional constraints. While it's not nearly as healthy as a raw diet for a dog or cat, they live well enough, even if they end up with minor health problems.
Insects are another option, as they produce a lot of 'meat' IE: protein, for very little input. They are relatively clean and easy to raise and farm.
Rather than a city of carnivores built up in the middle of thousands and thousands of acres of cultivated farmland, you could have a relatively normal amount of cultivated farmland and a culture that eats mostly fish and insects, with red meat and pork as luxuries for the wealthy. This sort of mirrors real life, where only the wealthy could afford meat, and poorer citizens had to contend with fish and grain, and vegetables.
Keeping the rivers clean would be a necessity, if the rivers are where the fish farms are located. This would necessitate the building of an immense sewage system under cities that deposits waste further down-river, or into another river entirely.
As for fish, the Checchiatari (cat people) already rely greatly on the natural fisheries and have a heritage of seafaring stemming from their appetite for it. In fact, they're one of the world's biggest mercantile/naval powers, which is made all the more curious when you consider the fact that they don't fancy getting wet.
It might take a while to start, but with urbanization comes eventually industrialization, and with industrialization comes processed food. You'd have insect meal instead of "pink slime" and the like. That or a sort of tofu.
For the food supply issue specifically; you may want to glance at the history of fertilizer, especially industrial scale applications. Policy makers in 19th century Europe were surprisingly well aware of their nations precarious agricultural systems. It was urbanization and farmland scarcity that led to so called "guano booms," where harvesting vessels were sent out all over the world to collect compacted bird excrement; it being an excellent fertilizer. Naturally, these sources were depleted in a few decades. Natural nitrate deposits were then exploited, but they were not enough in geographic availability (it was though, one of the resources which drew the Germans to launch their own colonial operations in Africa). By the end of the 19th century scientists were working on chemical alternatives. The results (I believe they were the Germans who figured it out first; the Royal Navy cut off their African supply route of nitrates) were synthetic, ammonia based agri-chemicals, and dynamite. I remember reading somewhere that over half of all of human proteins are now based on this stuff, which goes to show how reliant we are on them.
So perhaps then, you can add in another potential resource conflict; not a conflict over land or farmland per se, but over the materials that make such production possible. At the Wansee Conference, Hitler rationalized Germany's conquests of Russia and Poland specifically mentioning population and food availability. I can imagine more sincerely desperate leaders and policy makers would find themselves making similar rationalizations if their people really are facing starvation.
I think the solution to the meat problem, too, is slave labor. It's cheap, readily available, and when you're done with the laborers, you butcher them. It's the most efficient solution to the problem.
About a century ago the Beastfolk Alliance started moving towards ending slavery. It's technically illegal in all member states... but that doesn't mean that it doesn't still happen discretely.