So I learned of this a few weeks ago, but forgot to post; apparently smelting oxides requires a reducing agent, such as carbon monoxide or hydrogen, normally carbon monoxide is present because (char)coal is also the source of heat, a platinum smelter couldn’t do this, it would be one hell of a copper smelter though.
Maybe you could electrolyze water to make hydrogen gas, and use that, but this is getting blatantly ridiculous.
So I just finished scrolling and double checking all three threads about underwater civilizations, and while I don’t have any full thesis and fully thought out ideas on the subject (though I am of the opinion they can exist) I noticed several instances where people bemoaned having to scroll through for all of the already done ideas, and wished a list was compiled but didn’t want to do it themselves.
I figured I might as well do that, and have compiled a list in miscellaneous order of proposed ideas, that have been discussed, some having been disproven and some not.
Here we go:
Thought I might add in my own two cents, surprisingly oil is not once discussed even once, and it occurs naturally seeping from the sea floor.
Hope this is helpful to somebody.
Dam- this is pretty thorough. Much appreciated. As for oil I think that would be really useful for getting to space without fire i.e. Europa type world through gysers with ceramic or wooden rockets, or sea launch rockets to ship all the massive economies of scale needed or whatnot, despite those two being utterly rediculous theories oil helps them out. Also oil is good for storing really flammable things, especially those that burn underwater. I think oil might help with the floating forges idea, I mean it’s not hot enough to melt much, but it’s way easier to burn oil than damp driftwood by a longshot, so that could get a society quite good at fire until they get some coal or thermite or something that can reliably burn how enough to smelt iron or other metals needed to get far on the tech tree. I think that either floating forges or trading with surface civs are the most likely scenarios, like for real no one had any really good arguments against them, aside from yk “why would two civs be on the same planet” and “that’s super spicific like very unlikely” which doesn’t actully change anything. It doesn’t need to be probable, likely, or easy, just somewhat doable. Also as for the two civs being implausible thing, take fire hawks, birds witch use fire, or Parrots or dolphins or crows or other primates. Given a few million years and humans sticking to a single biome, that would be super reasonable. Especial trading with a pre-existing aquatic civ to skip across the tech tree until they surpass the older civ. And a stone age hunter gatherer or farming villages can last millions of years without going extinct or accending by way of being too smart. Especial if there’s a hard limit on tech. So yeah. It’s a numbers game and one or two civs could pull it off using one of the two lamest methods easily. Also amphibious civs are disqualified for being lazy and not doing it underwater. My worldbuilding project has underwater cities on this one planet and I don’t count the speicies on it as a underwater civ. It did all the smelting on the islands. So yeah
So, found this online, and it perfectly describes this forum,
hear me out, lava snails. they have iron shells and live underwater if the player lets say evolves a creature to produce iron shells and shed them they would have usable iron right there. by making their creature have many shell shapes (or have the shells be made of individually shedding strips (or both)) they could use this as their method of metal acquisition.
But how would they shape that metal? They could make tools of the shell but how would they smelt it down and reshape it?
Metal acquisition, while it might be difficult in some cases, isn’t the biggest problem here
Idk maybe creatures that are made of metal and fill in space? so you could basically make a mold and have it grow into it
Um- and biotech is suddenly feasible. Then again, useless without welding and that doesn’t work for computers or engines or rockets. At best you’ve pushed the issue from nothing past neolithic to nothing past iron age.
@TwilightWings21 knapping I assume. Primitive af lol. I recommend taming an noc like this so you can breed them into any shape.
Uselessly low structural integrity will ensue.
What is a noc???
Knapping could work but I was more thinking of shaping it into like hulls and the outside of rocket ships when I said that
I was talking about the player making their creature make shaped metal shells (which is a bit meta but possible).
Hmm, then you’re stuck knapping them. Unless you can think of a way to weld them (and computers) thats good and all, but not gonna get you to space.
I don’t know what your talking about I was talking about the player designing their species to have shaped iron (or other metals if possible) shells for every purpose they can need metal for.
But they wouldn’t be able to use that metal for anything but basic tools
Making a Neolithic or simple tools Civ is already determined to be possible, but not something industrial or space stage
The problem with your idea is that there is no way to shape the metal into various different desired shapes, only a select amount by breaking the metal.
YOU CONTROL YOUR CREATURES EVELUTION there is no simpler way to put it
But how would they melt the metal? I get you control your creatures evolution, but that doesn’t bypass the necessity for a way to shape the metal
Um- at evolutionary speeds. Not at selective breeding speeds. Eugenics isn’t possible for a semi-iron age civ. It’s not really possible at all without PCRs and a better understanding of genetics than we’ll have for a decade or two.
the game you control your creatures evolution in game its a meta answer you can make “useless” evolutions that allow you to use pre-made metal segments for society stage onwards
At evolutionary speeds. Edit: oh
edit 2: oh my gosh that’s unreasonably horrificly crazy
This is for plausibility of a realistic civilization underwater, yeah for use in game but not just by exploiting game mechanics to make it possible
