Star Trek: Discovery - Season 4 (With Spoilers)

[Worffan101]

It's sooo stupid though. Human level intelligence nearly REQUIRES carnivory for lifeforms that are anything like vertebrates

Wait, are you saying that vegetarians aren't really human?

No, I'm saying that it's much harder to sustain a brain capable of intelligence on plant matter, ESPECIALLY at a preindustrial level.

I can go out today and eat tofu and succotash and nuts and the like, but those take a LOT of breeding and labor to be viable foods. Also, it requires more processing power to be an ambush or pursuit predator, especially the latter, than to be a herbivore. So there's an evolutionary incentive to be smart as a carnivore or omnivore.

[Durandal_1707]

No, I'm saying that it's much harder to sustain a brain capable of intelligence on plant matter, ESPECIALLY at a preindustrial level.

Sheesh, people have managed vegetarian diets since years with "BC" in them, especially in areas where religions like Buddhism are widespread. Is that pre-industrial enough for you?

[Worffan101]

No, I'm saying that it's much harder to sustain a brain capable of intelligence on plant matter, ESPECIALLY at a preindustrial level.

Sheesh, people have managed vegetarian diets since years with "BC" in them, especially in areas where religions like Buddhism are widespread. Is that pre-industrial enough for you?

With a very sedentary lifestyle and intensive farming, yes.

That requires evolving the big brain FIRST and restricts the lifestyle + habitat. You're not disproving my point. It'd be damn near divine intervention levels of miraculous for a cow to become sapient.

[TGLS]

Isn't saying that the Ba'Ul (the species the Kelpians preyed upon) must be vegetarian kind of an assumption that's not necessarily true? Like if you had a food chain like this:
Plants < Insects < Ba'ul < Kelpians

The Ba'ul could plausibly have the high food input and other things necessary to develop big brains in the first place.

[Frustration]

The smartest non-humans we know of are all omnivores, even if they mostly consume insects. It's partly due to energy concentration - plants are almost always totally immobile and probably could never develop intelligence because the energy/time ratio for photosynthesis isn't great enough. Brain matter is energetically expensive and requires significant material resources in addition.

[CharlesPhipps]

Isn't saying that the Ba'Ul (the species the Kelpians preyed upon) must be vegetarian kind of an assumption that's not necessarily true? Like if you had a food chain like this:
Plants < Insects < Ba'ul < Kelpians

The Ba'ul could plausibly have the high food input and other things necessary to develop big brains in the first place.

I mean there's no indication the Ba'ul aren't omnivores and may have actually been eating the Kelpians after they got the technology to reverse the prey order.

[Worffan101]

Isn't saying that the Ba'Ul (the species the Kelpians preyed upon) must be vegetarian kind of an assumption that's not necessarily true? Like if you had a food chain like this:
Plants < Insects < Ba'ul < Kelpians

The Ba'ul could plausibly have the high food input and other things necessary to develop big brains in the first place.

I think that BOTH versions of the Kelpien backstory are stupid.

The one Saru initially presents is patently absurd.

The one later revealed is absurd for the exact same reason in reverse, especially since eating predators is incredibly inefficient especially in a terrestrial ecosystem. Basically, the energy density of the food is outweighed by there not being enough food to support a population. figure you lose 90% of the energy with each trophic level change. That effectively means that if you're eating herbivores, you have something like 5x the energy density compared to eating plants, and 1/10 the biomass in the ecosystem. if you're eating carnivores, you have 1/100 the biomass in the ecosystem but still 5x the energy density AND the erstwhile prey is smarter and more challenging to catch.

Essentially, if the Ba'ul are themselves predators, evolving to eat them is a hilariously bad strategy and would almost certainly never evolve.

More importantly, it just SOUNDS stupid as you watch the show, unless, presumably, you're an illiterate hack with a uniquely absurd level of narcissistic delusion like Kurtzman is.

[Frustration]

They could be engineered by an advanced civilization, if that civilization were both absurdly sadistic and grossly inefficient. Even if these hypothetical creators desired compounds in brain tissue that couldn't be replicated, there are dozens of methods to produce them more efficient than designing a highly intelligent organism on the lines of the humanoid model.

No modestly intelligent, barely-scientifically-literate person could find the scenario remotely plausible.

[CharlesPhipps]

I think part of the problem here is that critics (not saying who) are trying to justify it evolutionarily versus culturally.

The Ba'ul aren't eating/killing Kelpians because they have it as their biology. They're eating/killing Kelpians because FUCK THOSE GUYS THAT USED TO EAT US.

I mean, it seems to be ignoring the entirety of the plotline that no one needs to be eating anyone and this is a metaphor for cyclical revenge and race hatred.

[McAvoy]

Isn't saying that the Ba'Ul (the species the Kelpians preyed upon) must be vegetarian kind of an assumption that's not necessarily true? Like if you had a food chain like this:
Plants < Insects < Ba'ul < Kelpians

The Ba'ul could plausibly have the high food input and other things necessary to develop big brains in the first place.

I mean there's no indication the Ba'ul aren't omnivores and may have actually been eating the Kelpians after they got the technology to reverse the prey order.

Here is the thing apparently when Kelpians go past that fear stage of their life, they become threats. As in they nearly drove the Ba'ul into extinction. So the Kelpians were kept in that fear stage and culled before they go past it.

Honestly if the Kelpians went through that stage earlier in life it would make a bit more sense. Kids would benefit from such a danger detection.

There is nothing to suggest that the Kelpians are not omnivores.

Vulcans are vegetarian by choice for example.

Also there are plenty of plants, nuts etc that are richer than meat. Nuts in general are dense in protein for example. The issue is for real world pre civilization humans is finding these types of plants and nuts in abundance.

Not that hard of a concept to say:

'Kelpians evolved on their planet due to the high abundance of the E' verplen'ti and E'verla'st plants that grow fast on their world and is a super dense form of nutrition to the species'.

There you go.