Idea for a story i've considered writting.

[Texan]

Hey guys, I'm a friend of the one they call Tylzen (Aka Christian). Earlier today, I was asking his advice on a book im thinking about writing. He told me to go to this site and post it in the forums.

The genre is science fiction/alternate history . The point of divergence from our normal space time was 65 million years ago when the earth survived a NEAR MISS from a meteor, thus preventing the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Now, I have been told members of this site represent the worlds foremost experts on science, evolution, etc, etc, etc. Therefore, I was wondering if yall could help me with a few of the scientific details and help me answer a few questions.

a.) Would mammals have still become the dominate species on the planet. I suspect the answer would be no, but im not an evolutionary expert.

b.) Since they dinosaurs were allowed to survive AND flourish, would it be possible for a particular species to evolve into a form of sentient being? If so, which species was capable of making the great leap?

and finally....

c.) If a species did evolve that far, what type of society would they build? What governments would they enact? Would they be democratic or totalitarian? What about family structure? Since reptiles are born from eggs, would family be considered any less/more important? What about religions? What laws would they adopt? And at what pace would they advance technologically?

Im confident that you people, in you near infinite wisdom can provide the answers i seek.

 

[Aught3]

Now, I have been told members of this site represent the worlds foremost experts on science, evolution, etc, etc, etc.

Ha! I believe we were oversold, you may want to ask for a refund.

a.) Would mammals have still become the dominate species on the planet. I suspect the answer would be no, but im not an evolutionary expert.

I would agree with your assessment, mammals may have survived in some smaller niches but would not have achieved dominance so quickly (or maybe at all) without the mass extinction event.

b.) Since they dinosaurs were allowed to survive AND flourish, would it be possible for a particular species to evolve into a form of sentient being? If so, which species was capable of making the great leap?

I think velociraptor is generally considered to be a good candidate. But any dinosaur that engaged in group behaviour (like pack hunting) would be a good possibility.

c.) If a species did evolve that far, what type of society would they build? What governments would they enact? Would they be democratic or totalitarian? What about family structure? Since reptiles are born from eggs, would family be considered any less/more important? What about religions? What laws would they adopt? And at what pace would they advance technologically?

Without agriculture they would not get anywhere and for agriculture they would need to wait until the rise of grasses. Assuming grasses still emerge in your alternate universe. I'm just going to give one speculation on laws they would have. I would bet that their equivalent of abortion (egg smashing) would be considered a great crime treated roughly the same as murder. That might be an interesting theme to explore in any case.

 

[Gnug215]

This sounds like an interesting idea. I always found contrafactual history interesting.

I'd go with Aught's Raptors, or well, some descendent of theirs, of course. Building on that, I think you could probably compare a "Raptor society" to hunter-gatherer societies that we have seen through history, maybe something like the Native Americans. However, if this society had many larger enemies, such as T-Rex, it would be a different story from what the NAs have experienced.

If you went with this option, I think it would confine you to a relatively primitive setting. Like Aught says, a modern society like ours would probably have to be agricultural.
You mention sci-fi, so perhaps you're aiming for a modern or even futuristic setting?

In that case, I guess we'd have to extrapolate some dinosaur/reptile traits into an advanced Raptor society. (For example, reptiles are usually scaly and cold blooded. What kind of behavior would one see from that?)

If, again, we assume it were the Raptors that evolved, and that they evolved as pack-oriented hunters, then I think it would be fair assessment to say that it's likely they would be hierarchical and totalitarian.

Reproductive practices would also be worth looking more into in more detail, I think. You could get plenty of inspiration for exciting and varying family structures by reading a bit about that.

As a final thought, you could just incorporate a bunch of "common" reptile characteristics into an amalgamated species (or even an amalgamated society of different species with different characteristics) such as camouflage, venom, dropping and regenerating limbs, shedding skin, baking cakes, etc.

 

[nasher168]

I agree with Aught's assessment on the mammals. At the time of the dinosaurs' extinction, mammals were mostly rodent-like animals, likely scavenging on meat, eggs and smaller animals. Without the dinosaurs' extinction, they would likely have stayed this way.

I think velociraptor is generally considered to be a good candidate. But any dinosaur that engaged in group behaviour (like pack hunting) would be a good possibility.

Don't forget Troodon. It's the one that was conjectured as a possible candidate for a "dinosapien" in just such a scenario as the one being proposed.

That said, this picture in the linked wikipedia article is ridiculous, IMO. Assuming that they would evolve even remotely human characteristics is to arrogantly assume our bodies are somehow superior and likely to be selected for again, rather than merely a result of our own evolutionary heritage.

c.) If a species did evolve that far, what type of society would they build? What governments would they enact? Would they be democratic or totalitarian? What about family structure? Since reptiles are born from eggs, would family be considered any less/more important? What about religions? What laws would they adopt? And at what pace would they advance technologically?

Ooh, I could have lots of fun with this one... We're basically talking about alien culture, something that I've been doing in a story of my own.
I would imagine for a start that their societies would be based around females being the traditionally dominant gender, since female theropod dinosaurs were usually larger than the males.
For brains to develop to large sizes they would almost certainly be at least descended from carnivores or omnivores like us, so one would expect a level of aggressiveness in their society, like humans. This doesn't necessarily mean war in the same way we fight it, but some fighting, even if only small-scale, seems inevitable.
Perhaps if they are descended from animals that hunted in packs, there might be a degree of this lingering and manifesting itself in their society. Humans are descended from animals that lived in extended family groups, but not packs in the same way that the raptors or Troodon did. I can't think how this could manifest itself right now, but it might be worth consideration. Especially in terms of family structure.
Maternal instincts were, I think, present in some dinosaurs, so the idea of family might well have emerged, though not in the mammalian, human sense.
Religions could well have emerged. After all, it has been demonstrated that pigeons can show signs of "superstitious" behaviour, and they are themselves descended from dinosaurs.
As for technological advancement... I think that's entirely for you to imagine. We only have one species as an example and they are so varied in this regard as to still have stone age cultures in some parts of the world whilst other places are advanced enough to send men to the moon.

 

[ExeFBM]

I think you could take this anyway you wanted really. There's no need for you to set a time frame for the development of sentience or society (be it a million years to 500 million years), as a near miss in a time before technology wouldn't be recorded. Remember that your protagonist dinosaur species would still be evolving, and would likely only bear a passing resemblance to what we know it's ancestors as. Our ancestors at the time would have likely been small rodents, so the change can be considerable. One thing to think about might be the type of society that a group of carnivores might develop, as opposed to our omnivorous one.

 

[Texan]

think velociraptor is generally considered to be a good candidate. But any dinosaur that engaged in group behaviour (like pack hunting) would be a good possibility.

Agreed. I have considered the velociraptor as a prime candidate, but I was hoping to make the hypothetical species vegetarians....

Without agriculture they would not get anywhere and for agriculture they would need to wait until the rise of grasses.

Didnt the earliest forms of grass begin to germante about 70 million years ago?

I'm just going to give one speculation on laws they would have. I would bet that their equivalent of abortion (egg smashing) would be considered a great crime treated roughly the same as murder. That might be an interesting theme to explore in any case.

Love it! I considered that myself!

 

[Texan]

Like Aught says, a modern society like ours would probably have to be agricultural.

Agreed. Would it be possible for decendants of the raptor to develop a highly-sophisticated system of agriculture?

You mention sci-fi, so perhaps you're aiming for a modern or even futuristic setting?

Thats what i was hoping for...

In that case, I guess we'd have to extrapolate some dinosaur/reptile traits into an advanced Raptor society. (For example, reptiles are usually scaly and cold blooded. What kind of behavior would one see from that?)

Arrogant, emotionless, etc

If, again, we assume it were the Raptors that evolved, and that they evolved as pack-oriented hunters, then I think it would be fair assessment to say that it's likely they would be hierarchical and totalitarian.

True, but our ancestors shared those characteristics, but we have since developed a more enlightened society.

 

[Aught3]

Didnt the earliest forms of grass begin to germante about 70 million years ago?

Yes the early species came on the scene around the KT extinction but grasses only rose to prominence around 15 million years ago. Our agriculture has only been around for about 10,000 years.

 

[Texan]

Didnt the earliest forms of grass begin to germante about 70 million years ago?

Yes the early species came on the scene around the KT extinction but grasses only rose to prominence around 15 million years ago.

Didnt know that. Ill have to keep that in mind. MaybeI could have it to where the great leap for raptors occurred around 15 million years ago?

Our agriculture has only been around for about 10,000 years.

True, but our species has only been around for like 200.000 years, right?

Wow, I see you guys are as smart as they say!

 

[Aught3]

Didnt know that. Ill have to keep that in mind. MaybeI could have it to where the great leap for raptors occurred around 15 million years ago?

You could do that or you could just have whatever it was that caused grasses to flourish happen earlier. I don't know what that was so you might have to look it up.

 

[Prolescum]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Origin

 

[Texan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Origin

Good episode, but not quite what i had in mind.

For one, the Voth society, while very advanced, is highly superstitious and over narrow-minded. Heck, that episode reminded me of the Galileo trials. LOL

Anyway, I figured it might be a good plot twist to have humans from our reality crossover in to the universe of the dinosaur descendants? What do y'all think? I know you people are evolutionary experts and writers, but any input would be welcomed.

 

[Texan]

Didnt know that. Ill have to keep that in mind. MaybeI could have it to where the great leap for raptors occurred around 15 million years ago?

You could do that or you could just have whatever it was that caused grasses to flourish happen earlier. I don't know what that was so you might have to look it up.

Maybe, but I don't want it to be to complicated.

Question: Would it be possible for a carnivorous raptor to evolve into a herbivore or an omnivore? I'm not trying to stupid stupid, but I am an American. My education on evolutionary science is somewhat limited

 

[Prolescum]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Origin

Good episode, but not quite what i had in mind.

For one, the Voth society, while very advanced, is highly superstitious and over narrow-minded. Heck, that episode reminded me of the Galileo trials. LOL

Anyway, I figured it might be a good plot twist to have humans from our reality crossover in to the universe of the dinosaur descendants? What do y'all think? I know you people are evolutionary experts and writers, but any input would be welcomed.

Sorry, I should've qualified the link. I meant only that here was an example of a herbivore breed and a well defined society of evolved dinosaurs from Earth.

 

[nasher168]

Question: Would it be possible for a carnivorous raptor to evolve into a herbivore or an omnivore?

Yes, and it has in fact happened. Look at modern birds. They are descended from primitive raptors, yet 100 million years or so of evolution has left many of them as herbivores.

A quick point that I didn't consider earlier:
If your intelligent dinosaurs are descended from raptors, it would be quite likely that they would have feathers in some form, even if only fairly vestigial, like human fur.
This is what Velociraptor possibly looked like:

 

[KristoffDoe]

You mean, something like THIS?

 

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

You mean, something like THIS?

What is this beautiful link? This magical place???

I believe I have found a new reason for living.

 

[lrkun]

Hey guys, I'm a friend of the one they call Tylzen (Aka Christian). Earlier today, I was asking his advice on a book im thinking about writing. He told me to go to this site and post it in the forums.

The genre is science fiction/alternate history . The point of divergence from our normal space time was 65 million years ago when the earth survived a NEAR MISS from a meteor, thus preventing the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Now, I have been told members of this site represent the worlds foremost experts on science, evolution, etc, etc, etc. Therefore, I was wondering if yall could help me with a few of the scientific details and help me answer a few questions.

a.) Would mammals have still become the dominate species on the planet. I suspect the answer would be no, but im not an evolutionary expert.

b.) Since they dinosaurs were allowed to survive AND flourish, would it be possible for a particular species to evolve into a form of sentient being? If so, which species was capable of making the great leap?

and finally....

c.) If a species did evolve that far, what type of society would they build? What governments would they enact? Would they be democratic or totalitarian? What about family structure? Since reptiles are born from eggs, would family be considered any less/more important? What about religions? What laws would they adopt? And at what pace would they advance technologically?

Im confident that you people, in you near infinite wisdom can provide the answers i seek.

This so reminds me of the planet of the apes. ^_^