The Nature of Predators 174

Izzet

Usually such doors need to receive power to open, to prevent exactly this. Simply have the bolts on a spring to achieve this.

Koda

Imma put my small theory: the real “predator” the Koshians are afraid of is competition. They’ve probably surmised that competing species that achieved space fairing tech would eventually out compete and out perform all other life, sentient or otherwise, from the galaxy until eventually they themselves would turn on each other. Yes, innovation is crucial for all species, but, too much innovation for the sake of innovation would be inconvenient and easily lead to a collapse in society. While the fantastical dreams of a type 2 civilization may solve this problem in the long term; no species in this universe is even at type 1! That’s even AFTER some have been hegemonic and spacefaring for an entire millennia! It’s very strange and can only lead me to the conclusion that the perceived threat by those in power is a civilization that out grows and outcompetes its neighbors. This might be what SP has been foreshadowing and a fault in their logic that anyone with a brain would have foreseen since the act of rooting out predation leaves their ecosystems out of balance as the herbivores just outcompete all life, but it’s perhaps this very outcompeting that they witness and distress them that has let them to this haphazard conclusion: that all forms of competition are bad and must be sated. The excuse of ‘predator disease’ whilst holding back their research and inventors from anything more than plants and genetics would be a perfect cover for them if not for the existence of a predatory omnivorous space-age species that not only survived multiple great filters on their own but now seeks to help and ingratiate their cosmic neighbors to their cause and ideals. Perhaps their is a very real threat that warrants such fear when it comes to advancing to through the different stages of a galaxy-spanning species, the inevitable wars and fights for resources, or the prospects of alliances and potential genocides of cultures are fear inducing… but are they enough to warrant stagnation? What if the actual reason is the theory that proposes that all other species are ‘quiet’ for a reason? That there is a bigger cosmic threat out there jsut waiting and searching for the slightest hint of any galaxy with enough age and resources to have developed its own expansive all encompassing civilization jsut so that they can be worth the trouble of conquering? Or perhaps the answer has been there since chapter 1: an evil so great and all consuming, a predator truly without emotions or fear. Knowing only hunger and its drive to satiate it. It once thought this entire arm of the galaxy was dead of all life, as foreshadowed by our own omnivorous apes suddenly re-appearing. How angry or vengeful would this unknown’s wrath be if it learned otherwise that not only did life exist here, but that it has thrived and diversified so much?

So, basically every single suggested reason? I'm leaning more towards a 'cold-blooded' version of the Venlils' 'hot-blooded' anti-predator aggression. Essentially, their revulsion towards predators is due to the intellectual belief that they could eat them and not wanting to take that chance, rather than a purely emotional 'fear/hate/violence' reaction. Contrast Kalsim with Jerulim or Kippe the Yulpa, and you can see what I mean. Because their ancestors were eaten by predators, they perceive any predator as a threat, to the point that it is part of their thought process/sapient brain rather than their instinctive/lizard brain.

Vladi Vladi

if this is about nuclear war/holocausts, diminishing foods, pollution, cultural hybridization resulting in a "Human Galaxy", disease, social hybridization resulting in diminishing galaxy-wide populations because everyone wants to spend time with aliens, scientific stagnation, religious stagnation, "humans are crazy, they'll do something stupid with a star or Wormhole or blackhole and trigger the apocalypse", "there's something outside our galaxy it doesn't like meat-eaters", "there's something outside our galaxy it makes meat-eaters into immoral cultists", "we used to be predators and meat-eating is bad so lets wipe all predators out", "they look scary and remind me of an ancient foe", "sapient meat-eaters are all artificial descendants of a Universe-wide Archeo-tech Empire", or something along the line of any of the above.... I am gonna reach my hands through the screen, grab Chief Maronis, bend him over, shove my fist, up his anus, and reach sooo deep, I'll come out the other side and rip out his tongue.