Not the Kryponion critters, but the possibilies of 31st century-based usage of human/animal bonds...
In this month's NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC there's an article about an experiment in domesticating animals that's been taking place in Russia for 50 years in which they've achieved dog-like human bonding in foxes.
Not just tolerance for humans, but wanting human/fox contact. In generation after generation, which is the qualification for domestication- not just isolated individuals making a bond.
Pretty interesting- especially in light of a recent find in the Middle East in which fox remains were found beside human indicating a pet/human relationship. Said remains are supposedly older than similar remains that have been found setting the oldest known dog/human partnerships.
So the Russian experiment's sort of like us reinventing the wheel we didn't know ever turned.
That's neither here nor there, though. What made me think of the Super-Pets is the idea of induced domestication in a handful of decades and how that might be extrapolated to imagine the future.
It might be common to see genteel ladies strolling the streets of Metropolis with tigers on a leash (assuming tigers can survive that long...sigh). Sub in lion or bear or zebra or eagle...
Think also of how many breeds of dogs there are- all descendants of wolves. Most breeds are less than a 1,000 years old. Look at a Pekingnese and a wolf. Hard to imagine them as related, but they are.
What sort of animals might result from the selective breeding over centuries of domesticated Cheetahs or Panda Bears or foxes?
The research indicates that some traits in foxes like ears staying floppier longer into cubhood and tails that curl upward when around humans occur with only the selection for friendliness towards humans.
Imagine what we might breed for with a giraffe?
Or with animals from other planets?
Why not a tamed Lightning Beast? Or Earthquake monster? And I don't mean tamed like a circus animal-- I suppose before long domesticated foxes in the here and now would be considered separate breeds (if not species) from their wild, undomesticated cousins, so a domesticated strain of Earthquake monster would be a 'horse of a different color' than the one that Jungle King used.
We're learning so much more about animals and their relations to us- that branch of science should be as miraculously advanced as teleportation portals or limb regeneration or computers in the 31st century.
I've previously imagined special, mutated sort of animals that no-one else but the LSH could work with, but the fox-research makes me think of eagle/human partners where the eagles have been bred for *centuries* to want to please their humans using their great eyesight for search and rescue purposes. Or bats.
That'd be pretty much the only 31st century Batman I'd want to see appear in a LSH book. One who worked with actual bats, using advanced training methods learned from centuries of a bond achieved through selective breeding.
So a Legion of Super-Pets wouln't be super-hero dogs owned by Legionnaires (though I still want to see that sort of- just not Kryptonion sentient ones), but would be a sort of umbrella organization embracing animals that humans bond with to save lives. Like search and rescue dogs, army dophins, etc. However, even if a Legion of Super-Pets is destined to remain nostalgic, I think any animals shown in the 31st century might be imagined with this research in mind.
Posted by Red Arrow on :
If this was a vote, I vote no. There are far too many pets, domesticated or otherwise, that are bred just to be sold to bad owners. I was thinking of getting some rabbits or guinea pigs in the future, but the horror stories of abandoned Easter gifts has left me cold. I know this is mostly about fictional characters, but this matters a lot in reality as well.
Me, I'm hoping for a Gundam future.
Posted by Set on :
I wonder if the 'pets' of the future will be more likely to be animatronics, like robo sapiens or whatever, due to the various issues with keeping living pets.
It's also not clear what the status of 'kinda smart' animals is in the future. Are dolphins and whales and chimps protected species, or, more to the cutting edge, are species discovered on alien worlds that are 'on the cusp' of being considered sentient, gathering in groups, forming communities, but not having gotten to the 'make fire' stage, protected or avoided? Does the UP have a 'prime directive' of non-interference, or are they animals until proven otherwise?
It's been 1000 years, and all sorts of alien / magical / meta-gene influenced shenanigans have occurred to the genetics of various species even in the 21st century comicbook universe (with cities of advanced gorillas and water-breathing people and bird-people). It would be interesting to 'discover' that the whales and dolphins of Earth became fully sentient centuries ago, perhaps as a result of some Atlantean tinkering (or tinkering by someone who was anti-Atlantean, and was trying to turn them against them?), and have long since relocated to a water-world (or several of them, as colonists) far from Earth, where they alone rule the waters of their new home(s).
We've seen plenty of examples of how humanity has changed (and / or stayed the same) over the last 1000 years, but it's not terribly clear if cats and dogs and whatnot even still exist, or if domesticated strains of animals have all but vanished as 'pets' went out of style...
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
quote:Originally posted by Set: It's also not clear what the status of 'kinda smart' animals is in the future. Are dolphins and whales and chimps protected species, or, more to the cutting edge, are species discovered on alien worlds that are 'on the cusp' of being considered sentient, gathering in groups, forming communities, but not having gotten to the 'make fire' stage, protected or avoided? Does the UP have a 'prime directive' of non-interference, or are they animals until proven otherwise?
We've seen this issue explored a little bit with the Antareans.
Posted by Cobalt Kid on :
Todd, you rock! I also get NG and thought that was a terrific article. Especially the physical traits that develop from domestication, in addition to social ones.
Posted by Kent Shakespeare on :
quote:Originally posted by Red Arrow: If this was a vote, I vote no. There are far too many pets, domesticated or otherwise, that are bred just to be sold to bad owners. I was thinking of getting some rabbits or guinea pigs in the future, but the horror stories of abandoned Easter gifts has left me cold. I know this is mostly about fictional characters, but this matters a lot in reality as well.
Me, I'm hoping for a Gundam future.
I have no idea what a Gundam future is, but i ditto the rest.
pets-as-commodities is dangerously irresponsible, in terms of fads and the aftermaths. Pets-as-symbiotic-relationships, even working relationships (a la dogs) makes sense, to a point. It's hard to see a tiger-as-pet as the latter. And extraterrestrial animal pets will be a nightmare, both ethically and biologically.
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
I seriously doubt we'll ever see domesticated tigers. I suspect the amount of selective breeding needed to really make them domesticated would basically turn them into something very similar to modern housecats. I wouldn't surprise me if a number of smaller animals such as foxes though become common as pets in the future. For some species, it may be the only way in which they survive. Interestingly, skunks are apparently one of the most easily domesticated animals, but for obvious reasons have never caught on as pets.
Posted by jimgallagher on :
Skunks can be destinkified though.
I think it's interesting that the ability to smell a skunk's musk is a genetic trait. Some people just don't have it. Lucky dogs.
Tangent Lad
Posted by Red Arrow on :
But what would the purpose be for humans to domesticate these animals?
And what do you mean by domestication, because the way most pet suppliers breed animals is not what you would consider "friendly to humans" conditions.
Posted by Quislet, Esq on :
Red Arrow,
Yes the puppy mills are bad, but not all people who breed animals do so inhumanely. And as Eryk said, domestication may be the only way for some species to survive.
In regards to the future of pets in the Legion universe, we do know from Whizzy (Streaky's descendent) that cats developed a telepathic ability.
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
quote:Originally posted by jimgallagher: Skunks can be destinkified though.
That raises a lot of ethical issues, however, similar to (though perhaps not quite as bad as) declawing cats.
One interesting question concerns the future of animals that we today consider as "livestock" rather than pets. Assuming that vegetarianism or at least synthetic meat is the trend of the future, then where does that leave animals such as cattle that thrive only because we happen to find them both tasty and docile enough to raise for food. There are relatively few wild cattle left today, so it wouldn't surprise me if, by the Legion's time, they only exist in zoos.
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
quote:Originally posted by Quislet, Esq: In regards to the future of pets in the Legion universe, we do know from Whizzy (Streaky's descendent) that cats developed a telepathic ability.
Hmm... for some reason I always thought that was simply a trait of Whizzy rather than something that applied to all cats. If it *is* a general feature of future cats, it'd be cool to see more of it.
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
That's right now. I know people with miniature horses. And pet pigs.
Foxes/men before dogs/men makes sense because they're much easier to tame than wolves, imo. I can see them miniaturized in Legion times and bred for permenant white or red, as well as some people keeping the seasonal coat variety.
Racoons make amazing pets, and if the rabies scare could be eliminated, I could see people having them for pets. Especially if they could be domesticated like foxes, and not need to return to the wild after they mature.
They're clean like cats but more social and less destructive. Their nocturnal nature would need to be dealt with unless they become a pet that is mostly chosen by night people.
I'd kind of love to see Night Girl with both an owl, a racoon and perhaps a number of night creatures from her home world and perhaps one from Braal (a gift from Rokk), that she could use as a team for night forays.
I have a friend who raises puppies and she's amazingly loving and wonderful with them, so there are bad AND good breeders, as in everything.
My cat, still a kitten, fetches balls and strings, goes where I point and ruffles the shade when she wants me to raise it so she can sit on the window ledge. Is she telepathic? Maybe. Or, maybe soon.
Posted by Set on :
quote:Originally posted by Eryk Davis Ester: One interesting question concerns the future of animals that we today consider as "livestock" rather than pets. Assuming that vegetarianism or at least synthetic meat is the trend of the future, then where does that leave animals such as cattle that thrive only because we happen to find them both tasty and docile enough to raise for food. There are relatively few wild cattle left today, so it wouldn't surprise me if, by the Legion's time, they only exist in zoos.
We are technologically able to grow cultured flesh in a lab right now, from a small sample of cells (sometimes used to grow a larger 'swatch' of skin for a burn victim, from a small patch taken from an unburnt part of their body), and, scaling up, could grow vast sheets of mink fur or prime rib or tasty bacon from donor animals that remain alive and healthy, having only given a few cells for the cause of keeping meat-loving humans satisfied.
It's just not *economically* feasible yet, and won't be until it's cheaper than raising cows and butchering them. (PETA fairly recently offered a $1 million dollar prize to the first research team working on this to come up with an economically viable solution to put vat-grown meat from an animal that remains alive on the market.)
Fish is an odd exception. With proper 'scaffolding,' cow muscles can be grown and used as 'steak' (just, currently, at way too high an expense to be viable). Attempts to replicate this with fish produces only undifferentiated mush, and they aren't quite sure why it doesn't grow in solution the way that beef or chicken does.
I'm sure that, by the 30th century, they'll have figured that out, and 99% of 'meat' will come from vats, while the animal donors whose flesh thousands of people are eating every day, graze outside, unaware that that shot in the rump they got five years ago extracted some cells that have been cultured into several hundred thousand pounds of rump roast since then...
The only *real* meat will be expensive, as it will come from animals at end-of-life, or be purchased on the black market from illegal suppliers, or members of local cultures or faiths that are allowed to cull X number of animals as part of their traditional beliefs (and, unfortunatly, some bad egg occasionally abuses these exceptions to sell off the venison or whale meat or whatever, since it's worth ridiculous amounts to wealthy carnivores who want to eat 'real' meat instead of the cultured stuff, despite cultured meat tasting *better*, due to controlled nutrients, etc.).
A few entire *worlds* (such as Talokk VIII and Orando) may have such 'cultural exceptions,' and there might be a bit of 'carnivore tourism' on those worlds, as gourmands cross the gulfs of space to sample flesh taken from real animals, that can only be acquired illegally on their home worlds.
(And there's no recourse to complain to if the guy who you paid a ridiculous sum for 'real' venison went to the super-market and bought some cultured meat and packaged it to look like 'real' meat... It's not like you can take him to the cops for cheating you out of the illegal stuff you wanted!)
Posted by Fat Cramer on :
Some disease, like Mad Cow, could also hasten the development and acceptance of vat-grown meat/ Returning to feedlots, not to mention grass-fed livestock, would become financially prohibitive.
Disease could play a part in the absence of pets as well. We don't see pets in the Legion stories, apart from the Super-pets, and I've often wondered why there isn't a clubhouse cat or a dog on the streets of Metropolis.
Apart from extinction and social mores, could animals become objects of hatred and fear at some point in the future? Cats were feared in the Middle Ages as companions of witches and carriers of disease. There was (or will be) some big disaster before the Legion's time, which varies according to different versions of the Legion - great wars, robot rebellions, technology crash. Given some of the anti-bird hysteria we've seen with the bird flu in our own time, animals, including household pets, could become scapegoats for some plague and fall out of favour, even after the disaster is over.
Posted by Tom Tanner on :
No doubt on the Sorcerer's World, there are not-quite-sentient animals used as familiars by many of the magic-users there, if not exactly pets.
Posted by Candlelight on :
quote:Originally posted by Set: . . . (And there's no recourse to complain to if the guy who you paid a ridiculous sum for 'real' venison went to the super-market and bought some cultured meat and packaged it to look like 'real' meat... It's not like you can take him to the cops for cheating you out of the illegal stuff you wanted!)
To do that effectively, bone would have to be included sometimes, right? Can bone be vated? Marrow is big right now and meat is said to taste better if it's cooked with the bones. Also, most stock uses bones for the richness and flavor.
The idea is kind of repulsive, but not as bad as the current systems.
Will wild meats be vated, too? You mentioned venison, but there is a distinctive flavor to many of the wild meats.
I'd rather we all went to veggies than growing vats of meat, I think.
Earth is supposed to have healthy eco-systems in the 31st century, at least, historically, that's what we've seen. In the Legion Companion books, especially.
That includes health animal populations and oceans of plankton. Animals won't become vegetarians if they weren't born that way, so there won't be a world of complete controled substances.
Posted by Set on :
quote:Originally posted by Candlelight: To do that effectively, bone would have to be included sometimes, right?
I've read that coral makes really good scaffolding, in place of bone. Growing bone is possible, but overly complicates the procedure, as I understand it.
quote: I'd rather we all went to veggies than growing vats of meat, I think.
I've slaughtered animals on a farm, and been a vegetarian, at different points of my life, so I can see both sides of the issue.
Ultimately, I'm not ethically against eating meat, since it's the only thing the human body is designed to eat (requiring extensive colonies of micro-organisms in our guts to digest vegetable matter, since we can't do that ourselves). I'd just like it better if animals didn't have to be raised and killed for the purpose.
Today it's the only economically viable way to produce meat, but that's not gonna be the case 100 years from now, let alone 1000 years from now, and I suspect that as time goes on, and the population increases, and it's no longer economically or agriculturally *possible* to raise enough meat 'the old fashioned way' to feed Earth's ten billion plus souls, that the only people who insist on eating meat from animals that have been hunted down and killed are going to seem as crazyflakes to the people of the future as the people talking up how segregation and slavery 'weren't that bad' today or people who evoke the ancient Greek concept of eromenos or horribly misinterpret the writings about Mohammed and Aisha in the Haditha to rationalize NAMBLA-esque views of when it's appropriate for an adult and a child to enter a sexual relationship.
[Wow, that was a ridiculously long run-on sentence...]
There will always be a minority to support any fringe position, and the rest of the world will continue to move beyond them, until they are as cut apart from modern society as the Amish.
.
Cramer's probably got the right idea, that society is more likely to move away from herds of food animals because of stuff like avian flu, swine flu and mad cow than any massive surge in people caring about animal welfare. I think a combination of 'safer' and 'cheaper' will eventually win out over people who knee-jerk resist doing what's good for both them and the rest of humanity and have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
Being that I'm still a carnivore, despite having been much healthier when I was a vegetarian (and lost 70 lbs in six months, and stopped being diabletic!), I'm one of those people who will probably have to have my bacon pried out of my pudgy dead fingers...
[ April 18, 2011, 12:25 PM: Message edited by: Set ]
Posted by Candlelight on :
I saw a 'Monster Quest' this week. He was hunting/fishing for a fish/species in New Guinea who was attacking naked fishermen.
The suspect fishes weren't hitting his regular bate so he switched to meat, pork, to be exact. The natives, who used to be cannibles, said that human flesh tastes like pork. He had one of the bad fish on his line practically before he cast out!
I'm thinking I'm not going to be able to eat pork again.
I can see fish herding in the future with natural and man made bays netted off and the best fish for eating kept in schools there and carefully husbanded. They do that on a small scale in a number of countries now, where general fishing of the populations of certain endangered fish is forbidden.
I wonder where the twin fish cadets come from that Lightle created? Would they be considered pets by some? Are they a duo mind, which makes them sentient but, if they're separated far enough do they become beta or gold fish like?
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