Sci-Fi development/evolution of an aquamarine species

Creatures Intelligent in Water...
Um, they would need some help, since
fire was a huge advancement for us monkeys,
and one that allows us to create tools and weld
and stuff like that. Also water and electricity
mix not at all. So if they happen to have a ground
dwelling species to help them out, it won't matter
how supper smart the species is, they just won't
be able to create advanced technology due to
their environment. They would be stuck with
crude tech at best, since even smelting would
be quite difficult due to swift cooling of metals
in the water.
So without the ability to use even basics that
we take for granted, their intelligence is kinda
useless since they will be unable to utilize it
due to where they happen to live.
Would be horrifying if they lived in an ocean of
liquid methane, cause if they did somehow master
fire. Well there goes their species and lively hood.

So a little extra help might be required to make it
plausible, unless you are not looking for the species
to be grounded in more realistic elements.

 

No offense, but everything you said is old news. Others and I already figured as much out here...

 

Sorry to have said what already has been.

 

I haven't read all the thread entries here, but one thing strikes me. The ability to be effective under water requires a different body shape/type from what land-dwellers need to survive. It's no accident, I reckon, that the highly intelligent mammals who live in the water have more in common with fish, in terms of body construction, than they do with land creatures. They needed to evolve this way in order to survive. Water is water. Creatures like us, with two arms and two legs, don't 'live' underwater because it's a very inefficient body structure in the water. We would be too slow to catch prey, but also very vulnerable to BEING prey.

Water-dwelling mammals have fins for balance, but no fingers, toes, etc. Strong tails for propulsion but no legs. Streamlined body shapes with no real definable necks. Or, rather, the ones that DO have 'necks' are usually the ones that can climb out of the water and spend some time on land ...seals, penguins, etc. And they are totally helpless on land, aren't they. Belly flopping along, till they hit the water again.

The mammals that never voluntarily come out of the water, like dolphins, whales, porpoises, can't function on land at all—even though they do need to breathe air. Their intelligence is massive—some say it equals or even surpasses our own—but they don't 'do' technology. They can't build stuff because they can't hold on to tools, except in a very rudimentary way ...via their mouths.

I'd say you'll need to work on how the properties of water itself would shape the kinds of creatures these water-dwellers would be. How would they evolve? To still be effective under water, so they could survive for millenia, but also to acquire finesse in handling objects? Once you figure this out, then the rest should be rather easy. There are many underwater resources. Trade with land dwellers is definitely a possibility. Etc.

 

If you have the time listen to Mindscape podcast #41. Not specifically about cognition and such; but they do go into ideas about vision and mammals in the discussion - worth a listen anyway imo

 

We have fire, they have underwater steam vents. Most of the major tectonic plate boundaries are underwater, this means many underwater volcanoes or steam vents in active areas. Steam power could be the basis for their culture (cthulu steampunk?).

We used stone, they could use coral or sharks teeth.

We had the wheel, they would have propellers.

If we assume larger brains are an evolutionary advantage, then the aquatic species could have similar influences.

The majority of the worlds surface is underwater so the areas to explore are vast, so it gives you a lot of room for various groups and tribes.

 

How do you forge metal in steam vents underwater?

 

But how would they use underwater volcanoes? I mean, smithing is off the table, they would boil themselves when coming too close to a volcano, which means no discovery of metal work. Steam power is also near impossible, sure, steam vents could be used, but what for? Electricity? Underwater? After the first one gets electrocuted, electricity would be discontinued, if they would even get that far. Before they would have to discover electricity, like observing the effects of lightning, which seems quite difficult underwater, don't you think?

Also, steam vents are stationary, which means that steam powered vehicles are impossible, or do you see any way to make such steam vents mobile somehow? We used/use fire to heat up water in locomotives, but there's no fire underwater. Besides, all the water around probably would cools down anything way too fast to be practical.

Propellers are very far fetched. We invented the wheel, because round stones (or other stuff) rolled down steep surfaces. From that someone got the idea to use it for transportation, probably with tree trunks as the stone ages version of a conveyor belt. So, there is a natural occurrence that inspired us to invent the wheel.
What would be the inspiration for inventing a propeller underwater? I can't think of any natural occurrences underwater that could spark the idea to invent a propeller.

 

How about this - instead of technology based on creating tools, all their technology is organic.

They've learned to artificially breed undersea creatures for all their needs. Their ships are living creatures. Their computers are enlarged octopoid-brain creatures. Their flying craft are artificially enlarge flying fish.

Etc.

 

Archimedes developed a screw for lifting water based on his observation of spiral movement in space, and water also moves in spiral patterns(whirlpools) based on the weather/wind/temperature so if you had a reasonably curious species it could figure it out as well(the propeller isn't any more common naturally on land). (I only know this as I had looked up when the propellor was invented). If the species wasn't wholly aquatic they might have their own stargazers and philosophers as well.


Regarding harnessing power from a steam vent, I am thinking more water wheel and gears than electrical. The steam leaving a vent is under pressure so again I think a reasonably clever species could develop a water wheel and gears system.

I agree though that transferring the power would be difficult and I am not sure how to address that. They would either have to be solely tied to the bottom of the ocean were the vents are, or have cities that float below the surface to harness the wind and solar(again, heating water to create steam and temperature differentials to create movement). If a building under water had a 'windmill' to catch water currents that could be a source of power for their vehicles or potentially a means to expand their cities away from the bottom.

Humans used horses to turn millstones, would an aquatic species use trained fish or eels harnessed to something similar to drive their gears?

I do like the organic technology solutions though. It would give the writer slot of leeway.

I enjoy trying to come up with these solutions though.

 

For lighting, there are animals that are bioluminescent, have them breed a species specifically for using as a light source in their cities.

 

Well, the real question here is, what would they use it for? We used gear systems in windmills to get flour, something that is utterly useless underwater. There are so many other thing that are useless underwater, like clothing as example, or cups, bowls, spoons, bells, parasols, water pipes (...), whistles, air conditioners, towels, toilet bowls, faucets, showers, sinks, paper, roads,...

...I'm sure this list could go on for a very long time, but point is, there isn't much an underwater species could ever deem as useful to be motivated to invent stuff. There are lots of great and neat ideas, but the usefulness/practicality usually falls flat.

 

Maybe they are only semi aquatic and want to control the dry land areas so develop pumps to push out their frontier?

 

Perhaps, and this is just a thought, your squiddies are engineered by a more advanced race? Perhaps their makers were fiddling around to see if they could make a lifeform that could handle whatever pressures the environment around them has. Maybe the precursors had caused severe damage to their world, and it was cheaper to breed things that could survive to make repairs than it was to build machines. But since they come from the sea, they must keep their bodies wet. You're not gonna fly a spaceship full of water, and octopi are able to get out of their tanks and move around for a while with few problems, the precursors could have exploited this to use their tanks as a decontamination method, allowing the engineered-to-be-resistant creatures to be cleaned so that contagions don't harm the precursors.

Since they were engineered, that covers how they understand the technology they have, and how they can survive on land. Perhaps they can survive for hours without special gear on land, but need to soak their skin to survive. With special gear that keeps their skin wet, they might not even need to return to a pool to rehydrate.

 

Well, I'm currently growing to the idead, that their development was a genetic accident. Like, the land dwelling species delved into many wars, developed advanced warfare, nukes, bio-chemical weapons, and other nasty stuff that holds potential to mess around with their victims genes. This stuff also gets into the seas, alongside with other garbage, causing lots of mutations, and my Squiddies basically developed by random chance, with odds of something like one in a billion, or trillion, maybe even higher.
By the time my Squiddies come out of the water, the land dwelling species has already bombed each other to extinction. There still could be survivors at that time, but they would be sick, struggle with procreation, some would be mutated. And they would be very close to extinction.

Somewhat similar to 'Planet of the Apes', just that it would be 'Planet of the Squiddies'...

Though, the Squiddies would by no means on a super human level. The mutations just benefits their development into a hybrid (Water/land) species and caused their intelligence to skyrocket (well, compare to other fish). The big drawback is, that they suffer from smaller mutations, something like an increased rate of cancer or physical disabilities. Though, it would not be so severe that they go extinct, but severe enough to make their struggle for survival a little harder.
By the time, they reach gene manipulation, they favor research to stop the mutations, which results in them to keep their aquatic nature. Come to think of it, this species could be the inventor of gene-mods for my setting, and it also gives me the opportunity, to preserve their aquatic nature.

In terms of tools and building in general, they would figure out the little that is possible underwater, thanks to their above average intelligence. Add some curiosity to it, and they could not just invent things for their survival, but also out of said curiosity. And lastly, they understand the limits of what is possible underwater, and decide to check out the world above the waters, where they eventually find the ruins and leftovers from the (near extinct) land dwelling species. There, they eventually figure out new technologies and understand that they suffer from mutations, opening two important goals for further development: Figure out gene manipulation to stop mutations, and figure out space travel to get off their wrecked home planet.

Due to their somewhat accelerated development (let's say something between ten and fifty thousand years???) they are a relative young species and could be somewhat lost, in terms of what to do in space, or show a certain degree of inexperience due to less wars and conflicts during their development.

Currently I like this set up the most, though, I am still open for inspiration/critique.