Predators in Equestria · 4:15pm May 30th, 2015
Hiya,
Took awhile to think this chapter through, and due to life in general. I am hoping to get to a chapter a month, as I would like to get to my other projects. But this one needed some good thinking due to the context of this story being gryphons in this empire being fairly okay with the thought of hunting other sentient species (Sure, gryphons there is a problem with, noone has concerns about why the Predator does it!).
I can't completely imagine how it would be like to be a sentient predator in a world full herbivores with human levels of intelligence. Every creature is somewhere around 3-4x smarter then its Earth counterpart. A moth actually competed to be Rainbow Dash's pet and was able to understand what she said to it! Its likely that nearly all animals and insects have this same level of intelligence in some way, which is kinda scary. I have a few thoughts on why this is, but not here to debate that.
All creatures want to live and survive, and being a intelligent predator like gryphons are, some rationalization has to have happened in their society for it. They have the instinct to hunt, to kill, to eat meat, and it has to be very difficult to figure out species ones are 'safer' to do that to. Cows can talk, but they do not seem that intelligent, compared to donkeys anyways. Deer and ostriches aren't in the show, so it is safe for me to put them on the same level as cows for gryphon farming purposes (though I have been told that talking deer are in the comics now).
In the end, though I have put alot of thought into this society over the last month and a half, I have decided that this route makes sense, predator society would find rationals, like hunts with rules, to make themselves feel more civilized. They would start early on showing their kids that being hunters is okay, they would also put in place reasons why it might be wrong to hunt these species, especially since they realize they need to, on some level, get along with them. And they they should, being one of the only sentient predator species in a world of herbivore species is liable to get you wiped out if you don't try to play nice on some level.
Well, I hope you all enjoy this new chapter, and I will work to get more chapters out faster. Thanks!
I read a heap of "Do ponies eat meat"-threads and similar ones in the last months.
So maybe I could give you this:
My personal policy is to avoid getting to details about food, as good as possible. Writing about ponies it is not much of a deal I think.
But you write about griffons, who are most likely hunters and eat meat for sure.
So my construct for hunting / eating meat / sentient/sapient creatures and such is as follows:
Not every creature in the world is sentient or sapient. This is a effect of background magic if you have a heap of ponies (or other 'magical' creatures) around.
So creatures near of settlements grow sapient in a matter of a few generations. Creatures remote to settlements stay feral. Maybe the effect is even less prominent with griffons.
This would however, have an impact on hunting cultures. As they *know* sapient versions of their prey. And it surely feels strange to kill a goat in a remote valley, whilst you know two workers at your neighbours facility are in fact goats.
But it is less awkward than something like cannibalism.
3110115 Hmm, that is a good working theory for a world, if ponies have that kind of natural magical affect on the areas around them. My own thoughts at the moment is that their is an ambient magic in the air itself that causes it, but that it, for one reason of another, is 100% airborne, meaning, it does not mix into the water at all. This explains why ponies are all right with the death of fish or other aquatic life, and how some things, like dolphins and that sea dragon in the first episode Rarity helps, are still incredibly intelligent, as they breath air and not water per se.
And I've read some of those threads while I was figuring out how to do this society, their has to be laws to keep themselves 'civilized', while enough opportunity and freedom to allow their race to be true to their instincts. I looked at quite a few ways, including having the society patrol its own, as in making gryphons of a certain age fight eachother so only the best come out of it to avoid overpopulation and risk too many incidents with other prey animal nations.
There are alot of ways this could go, I am looking to not go incredibly into the nitty gritty admittedly, but I think I have enough now to make sense of the nation and how it works. We'll have to see if that is true as I continue the story.
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It's a bit darker then my attempt - but if it fits your story, you're fine, I think.