10-29-2010, 07:41 AM | #51 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: Would a 9 lb sapient spider producing 1/10 lb of silk a day suspend your disbelie
They're apparently slow enough to be basically harmless - local kids like to flip them over with sticks.
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10-29-2010, 07:48 AM | #52 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Would a 9 lb sapient spider producing 1/10 lb of silk a day suspend your disbelie
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Many large spiders still produce silk even if they don't make actual webs with it. Would it make much of a difference if they weren't sapient but well trained farm animals? Would that be enough to make silk cheap-ish? |
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10-29-2010, 10:46 AM | #53 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Would a 9 lb sapient spider producing 1/10 lb of silk a day suspend your disbelie
Why do they have to be giant? Small animals usually have a higher metabolic rate relative to their mass, and would therefore be relatively faster, plus there seems to be an advantage (in terms of silk grade) to smaller spinnerets. In any case, realistically it would probably be possible to have a critter that produces silkworm-quality silk at a somewhat lower price than conventional silk (there are inefficiencies in the silkworm process), or spider-quality silk at a higher price (good quality and fast don't go together well), what you mostly need is a silk producer that can be farmed.
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10-29-2010, 10:55 AM | #54 |
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Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Would a 9 lb sapient spider producing 1/10 lb of silk a day suspend your disbelie
I suppose having simply a normal large omnivorous sociable spider would work more easily and plausibly.
I just thought it would be neat to have a spider character that produced cheap silk. None of this precludes having a spider race and a farmable normal spider and make it a common misconception that they are the same. |
10-29-2010, 11:03 AM | #55 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Stuttgart, Germany
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Re: Would a 9 lb sapient spider producing 1/10 lb of silk a day suspend your disbelie
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10-29-2010, 11:14 AM | #56 |
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Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Would a 9 lb sapient spider producing 1/10 lb of silk a day suspend your disbelie
That raises the question of what the juveniles need silk for if they get their food from mamas/papas. But an interesting idea to expound upon. I give you that. :)
How about infants weave webbing in order to stay on the back of their mothers? In modern-ish times they don't need it because of cribs, backboards,etc. Youths use it for hunting before they would have had the intelligence to use more complex strategy. Adults may produce some as a vestigial but slightly marketable trait. |
10-29-2010, 11:15 AM | #57 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Would a 9 lb sapient spider producing 1/10 lb of silk a day suspend your disbelie
I don't think that your gaming preferences actually fit with gritty realism. If you want giant silk-producing spiders, and your players aren't going to look too closely, go for it.
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10-29-2010, 12:00 PM | #58 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Would a 9 lb sapient spider producing 1/10 lb of silk a day suspend your disbelie
But I waaaaaaaaant it. ;)
I'm good at BS-ing, so getting any hypothetical players to believe stuff is unlikely to be problem. Extinct race of bio-engineers made many of the races from simple animal stock for certain purposes. Tailor spiders, human farmers, shoe making leprechauns... see it all makes sense now, doesn't it? :) |
10-29-2010, 12:37 PM | #59 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Hmm, looks like Earth, circa CE 2020+
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Re: Would a 9 lb sapient spider producing 1/10 lb of silk a day suspend your disbelie
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Also assuming that the GURPS UT estimate that 1 Terabyte could hold the contents of a human brain is accurate, I don't see a problem imagining a spider with a type of brain construction that could work at that size. This to me is the biggest move away from known reality. Most spiders are solitary. A few "hang together" in groups, but no known spider shows signs of true social behavior. They also start with their adult-behaviors "hard-wired," so don't need to learn from Mommy. Technically, the beings you're describing probably wouldn't be classified as spiders. But if it looks like a spider, swims like a spider, and quacks like a spider....
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10-29-2010, 12:44 PM | #60 | |
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Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Would a 9 lb sapient spider producing 1/10 lb of silk a day suspend your disbelie
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Human babies are more like primate fetuses than proper infants. But with some species of parrots being sapient, like the Kea, I don't see how odd it would be to have a more intelligent animal 4 times its size. |
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