what should my bug people eat

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fruityloops
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what should my bug people eat

Post by fruityloops »

i have this bug setting of sorts where small sapient bugs exist alongside humans. though humans don't seem to know they're sapient. one of the main concerns is the fact that i don't know what these bug people should eat. and considering someone took issue of sapient animals eating each other, i'm scared that my spider people eating other bugs would be seen as bad...

i know that sounds too silly of a concern, but why aren't societies falling apart because of this?
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Re: what should my bug people eat

Post by Curlyjimsam »

I think they should eat the same things as real bugs do (which gives you a range of options). I don't think sapient species eating each other is necessarily bad. Why should your spider people have the same moral views as twenty-first century humans?
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Re: what should my bug people eat

Post by Keenir »

fruityloops wrote: 22 Feb 2019 17:08 i have this bug setting of sorts where small sapient bugs exist alongside humans. though humans don't seem to know they're sapient. one of the main concerns is the fact that i don't know what these bug people should eat. and considering someone took issue of sapient animals eating each other, i'm scared that my spider people eating other bugs would be seen as bad...
are these "other bugs" also sentient/sapient ?

orcas eat dolphins and whales...regardless of how much humans love all three.
i know that sounds too silly of a concern, but why aren't societies falling apart because of this?
humans eat monkeys and chimpanzees and kangaroos...and, have been known to eat other humans.
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sangi39
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Re: what should my bug people eat

Post by sangi39 »

I'm trying to remember the conclusions you came to in the "what animals should they ride" thread, which I think was that they wouldn't use non-sapient arthropods or that there aren't any non-sapient arthropods (honestly can't remember which).

As Keenir suggested, though, humans do eat closely related species (and in some cases there are acts of cannibalism), and general speaking that seems to be true for a fair number of carnivorous/omnivorous species given the opportunity/ability.

As for sapient bugs eating members of a different species of sapient bugs, part of me thinks that might be unlikely anyway, though. On the one hand, sure, one species might not have anything against eating another. On the other hand, surely the sapient species would be better at defending themselves from attack, and, while possibly enslaved, not entirely worth herding around as a food source. The economics of the thing might just make it not worth doing. Like, why would a sapient spider predominantly feed on sapient ants if the ants, say, have tools, can formulate plans and set traps themselves, and probably take a generation to breed?

On the other other hand, if sapient spiders did actively eat other bugs, but not as their predominant food source, then I can't see societies crumbling either. Humans have wars. We kill each other. We just tend not to eat each other after we've done the killing part.
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Re: what should my bug people eat

Post by alynnidalar »

sangi39 wrote: 26 Feb 2019 16:48 On the other other hand, if sapient spiders did actively eat other bugs, but not as their predominant food source, then I can't see societies crumbling either. Humans have wars. We kill each other. We just tend not to eat each other after we've done the killing part.
And when we do, it's mostly ritualistic anyway. I don't think any human society has actually used cannibalism as a major food source.
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Re: what should my bug people eat

Post by sangi39 »

alynnidalar wrote: 26 Feb 2019 17:03
sangi39 wrote: 26 Feb 2019 16:48 On the other other hand, if sapient spiders did actively eat other bugs, but not as their predominant food source, then I can't see societies crumbling either. Humans have wars. We kill each other. We just tend not to eat each other after we've done the killing part.
And when we do, it's mostly ritualistic anyway. I don't think any human society has actually used cannibalism as a major food source.
Oh, yes, thank you. I forgot to mention that part [:)] Yeah, most of the time cannibalism in humans isn't just about food, but either a part of warfare, revenge, funerary rituals, etc. where the consumption of another person takes on some sort of cultural meaning.

But yeah, I can't think of an instance where a society would actively keep/breed/attack another group of humans for the sake of just eating them as food. We take over a decade to mature, and don't tend to have multiple births, giving birth roughly once a year, and we don't exactly weigh a lot. I think we weigh, on average, about the same as a sheep, but they can breed within a year, so you're looking at basically raising a sheep, but having to invest 10 times the amount of resources into feeding it before it can start replacing itself (you can replace a sheep more or less within a year or two of it being born). It's just a lot easier to keep/breed/attack something else for food.
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fruityloops
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Re: what should my bug people eat

Post by fruityloops »

I don't think must species of spiders eat ants. maybe ant mimics? idk. been while since i read up on insects. also, there are non sapient bugs now to avoid the whole issue
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Re: what should my bug people eat

Post by elemtilas »

fruityloops wrote: 01 Mar 2019 19:07 ]also, there are non sapient bugs now to avoid the whole issue
Ah.

Paracannibalism.

Frankly, I'd just go with the full-on cannibalism and let those be shocked as will be shocked.
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Re: what should my bug people eat

Post by Ahzoh »

Make them eat human flesh
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Lambuzhao
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Re: what should my bug people eat

Post by Lambuzhao »

Ahzoh wrote: 02 Mar 2019 02:36 Make them eat human flesh
Ha ha! Not unlike the Ovions from original Battlestar Galactica (!?)

Alternatively, the insects could infect the humans with a sort of zombie-fungus. The fungus makes the humans go rabid-belligerent, humans attack and kill other. The insects then harvest the dead humans, and in so doing, ingest some spore/trepanosomoid stage of the fungus that then gets passed on to humans.
Last edited by Lambuzhao on 02 Mar 2019 09:40, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: what should my bug people eat

Post by Lambuzhao »

elemtilas wrote: 01 Mar 2019 19:49
fruityloops wrote: 01 Mar 2019 19:07 ]also, there are non sapient bugs now to avoid the whole issue
Ah.

Paracannibalism.

Frankly, I'd just go with the full-on cannibalism and let those be shocked as will be shocked.
Insects are the stars of shock & awe.

I just saw a video about mantises, where a recently copulating pair of mantises gets ambushed by a green horned cricket (which looked more like a big grasshopper to me, but anyway). The cricket actually startled away the male, and pounced on the female and killed & ate it.

Whether cold-calculating or serendipitously opportunistic: paracannibalism… yeah, that seems very insectoid to me.
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Re: what should my bug people eat

Post by Lambuzhao »

sangi39 wrote: 26 Feb 2019 16:48

As for sapient bugs eating members of a different species of sapient bugs, part of me thinks that might be unlikely anyway, though. On the one hand, sure, one species might not have anything against eating another. On the other hand, surely the sapient species would be better at defending themselves from attack, and, while possibly enslaved, not entirely worth herding around as a food source. The economics of the thing might just make it not worth doing. Like, why would a sapient spider predominantly feed on sapient ants if the ants, say, have tools, can formulate plans and set traps themselves, and probably take a generation to breed?
My son and I got into a discussion about why more farmers don't sell turkey eggs. They're edible, after all, and larger than chicken eggs.
Turns out, there are no breeds of turkey that can lay more than one egg a week, while most chicken breeds can lay one egg a day.
Also, turkeys have larger size and slower maturity to reach egg-laying age, which means more food and time as compared to chickens.
Furthermore, turkeys don't thrive on being 'cooped up' (literally), while henhouses are a notoriously familiar sight on farms.

So, while intelligence of potential sapient prey species makes them less appetizing, even some larger, non-sentient species may be cost-prohibitive for spiderfolk or insectoids to harvest.
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