So assuming the planet is rich in iron meaning it has an abundant amount of iron on the surface could they reach society stage before running out of iron to eat. Additionally to be generous well also assume there is a asteroid that is made up of iron that hits the planet every now and then, the asteroid will be small enough as so it doesn’t cause a mass extinction event.
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The iron amount brought by such asteroids might not be worth the damage…
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Oh.
Yeah but given ideal conditions could it happen?
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Maybe, if the player species becomes civ-capable fast enough.
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Given how quickly multicellularity can be achieved through lithotrotrophy, it is entirely possible that this could be used in speedruns.
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I am not sure the developers are planning to make MP amounts in multicellular dependent on your place in the food chain…
What I mean is that because of the enormous amount of energy generated by lithotrophy, you can put a nucleus in just a couple of generations and become multicellular in a couple more generations. I was able to become multicellular in less than a billion years this way.
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Hm. Maybe getting to becoming an ironeater sapient before the iron stash of a planet runs out isn’t so insane afterall…
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Are there any problems for the emergence of intelligent lithotrophs and their civilization at later stages?
Lithotrophs do not need to have a huge body surface area like phototrophs, they can create a digestive tract where pieces of iron are broken down by enzymes into a solution of pure iron that is absorbed in the intestines, which have a large surface area.
Some obstacle may be the oxidation of iron as a result of GOE, but as I have shown: it is possible to evolve into a multicellular life form before all the iron on the surface is oxidized.
However, some obstacle may be the lack of oxygen on the surface, but if the oxygen values at which all the iron on the surface has not yet been oxidized, and there is already enough oxygen for combustion are possible, then I think that the civilization of lithotrophs has no problems.
Although I may be wrong about something.
(I wonder if this will start a debate about lithotrophic civilizations?)
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Won’t them viewing iron as a foodsource (usually) instead of an useful metal be a problem?
Iron metabolism works in such a way that they eat pure iron and process it into rust. And as we know, rust can be easily smelted back into iron (after all, iron ore and rust are essentially the same thing).
It is very likely that frequent interaction with iron, as well as the scarcity of pure iron reserves, will accelerate the development of metallurgy in order to obtain iron from rust and ore.
Also, their frequent interaction with iron will very quickly lead them to the idea of using it not only for gastronomic purposes. It is quite likely that some of their first tools will be made from iron bars of pure iron, long and painstakingly sharpened with stones.
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By the way, if iron eaters spend the lion’s part of their lives mining for it, could it be they’d usually be blind?
I don’t think easily is the right word for iron smelting.
“Not atrocious after you’ve had a semi-stable agrarian civilization for the past 6000 years” is how I’d describe it.
The Reduction-Oxidation (Or Redox) of Iron Oxide in a forge is accomplished through Carbon Monoxide, which will steal oxygen from the ore to become carbon monoxide at temperatures over a thousand celsius.
Wood literally does not burn hot enough, you will need to produce charcoal or coal coke prior. And you will need to feed it ample oxygen to react the carbon to CO and keep the temperature up.
This is, of course, dependant on having large reserves of carbon; here’s question, why are you, as mobile creature, not an autotroph or bacterium, bothering to eat iron if there’s that many free calories from oxidizing carbon instead?
On earth carbon is only so common in flammable form because autotrophs, especially photosynthesizers, are working overtime. Not to mention unreacted oxygen.
Or, if there’s enough free iron that whole mobile species can evolve and develop intelligence, over millions of years, why are you smelting iron if it’s in such abundance?
And in such a scenario, wouldn’t the autotrophs fixing carbon also use the iron? so burning them for charcoal to smelt iron is thermodynamically dumb, since you could just eat them instead of generating a bunch of waste heat.
If there weren’t an abundance, any large creatures would just go extinct before they got the chance to save themselves through smelting tricks.
I think a decent point of comparison is the youtube channel Primitive Technology, who has made an obscene amount of furnace designs to try to smelt iron, and to date only has a few grams of it; obviously his ore is pretty poor, iron autotrophs funnily enough, but even I’m sure even pure haematite in the best bloomery clay can engineer isn’t going to feed any species enough free calories in iron to survive; using any pre-industrial method anyways.
(I apologize if this post came off as a bit mean, I disagree the assertion iron smelting is a silver-bullet solution)
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If we account that the player in theory can go against what autoevo/evolution would prefer, does the chance of a successful litho civ being possible increase?
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A big “probably yes”.
I wouldn’t say a litho civ is impossible just by evolution in the first place, it’s still an energy source, if a highly condition dependant and luck based one (as if life isn’t already).
And the player gets away with things like out-skilling mass famine, because game design. Why is this a question?
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I mean, in case of sentient plants for instance it’s been suggested that there would be limits to how far a player would be able to go, not allowing them to evolve the plants into the beforementioned form.
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The game will not have any artificial restrictions that would prohibit the creation of an organism with photosynthesis and a developed brain, instead it will be limited by the game mechanics itself, because photosynthesis will give little energy, in addition, a huge photosynthetic surface will be needed, which will not allow your creature to move.
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Except you could probably still find a “pseudo-niche” where such an organism could function when guided well by the player until it achieves sapience, because players get a passive population bonus that prevents their extinction just from a horrendous species build.
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