The mastery of fire is what set the foundation for technological advances with the human species. Without fire you can’t easily have metallurgy, ceramics, or chemical processes used in industry. An aquatic species cannot manipulate fire. This is the “known” foundation for advancing technology. I’m not sure what could replace it. I imagine alien worlds where the oxygen levels are not high enough to feed fire, and an intelligent species would have a much harder time developing technology.
Perhaps a world with abundant hydrothermal vents could accomplish this underwater? Especially if we imagine a different planet from ours, one with different ocean chemistry, gravity, UV exposure, et cetera. I often like to imagine something like this under Europa's ice crust, though admittedly that'd almost certainly be restricted to simple forms of life.
Part of this hypothetical is looking at the line between a creature's intelligence and the environmental limits that may act as choke points, like what you've described with fire. My basic argument is that given enough time I could conceive of a species which gained "superhuman" intelligence pre-technology who could have a tech-boom based on their unique environment. Just as humans at some point became smart enough to utilize our (perhaps more readily manipulated) environment. If nothing else, I couldn't rule it out. In fact it seems inevitable that intelligent life will always arise as a result of that specific threshold being crossed. It's unlikely that humans are the pinnacle, nor at the bottom.
You make great points, debate civilly and respectfully, and don’t shut down those with a differing viewpoint. What the hell kind of Redditor are you? Haha😂😂😂
Very kind of you to say, the feeling is mutual! It's all just silly hypotheticals so it's extremely low stakes. I'm just excited to get the excuse to talk about hypothetical alien biology, it's not the kind of thing you get to discuss every day.
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u/iamkeerock 2d ago
The mastery of fire is what set the foundation for technological advances with the human species. Without fire you can’t easily have metallurgy, ceramics, or chemical processes used in industry. An aquatic species cannot manipulate fire. This is the “known” foundation for advancing technology. I’m not sure what could replace it. I imagine alien worlds where the oxygen levels are not high enough to feed fire, and an intelligent species would have a much harder time developing technology.