[ SECRET POST #6487 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6487 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 12 secrets from Secret Submission Post #926.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: The merfolk conundrum

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks, I love world building thought experiments! And also I think it's cool and good and smart to look at tropes and go "But why is it this way?"

And now let's think of ways that could lead to Merfolk being dominant.

How:

1) Resources - Maybe the environment is wrecked on land but Merfolk still have access to undersea mineral deposits. Maybe there's a fictional resource that gives them an advantage (looking at you vibranium) or long life or great strength. If you live 4x as long spending half your life at sea still gives you an advantage over humans. Also? Fish and salt are super important resources and controlling them would be a leg up

2) Magic - We've already covered it, but living in such a hostile-to-humanoid-life place would be really hard. If they've made it to the conquering stage they might as well have a legup. Also, from Cuthulu to Aboleths we've long imagined monsters in the seas. Maybe they have a powerful god or patron backing them.

3) Trade- This one's the biggie. This is how I'd do it, if I were the Napoleon of Mermaids. Traveling by water has been a huge deal since forever. You don't have to have a *road* (requires maintenance and geography to be on your side) and it's wildly more energy efficient. So you've got a culture of 110% perfect pirates who could strike at *any* time from underwater and kill basically without weapons just by pulling you into their home. Or they could drill holes and sink ships. They would be a NIGHTMARE! So if they can functionally control trade they could build up wealth and power, hire mercenaries, and build up a significant land presence. They could be Venice 2.0! They wouldn't be great fighters on their own, and if a big enough power decided to kick in their teeth on land it would *suck* but still.

Why:

1) Resources - They aren't going to be good at metal working or wood working and their food production is going to be limited BUT they could make the people on land do all that shit.

2) Stratified culture - If they're the only ones who can go under water then under water is their special place! They can colonize the land to extract that wealth for their water settlements. And their lower-class/non amphibious citizens literally can't partake in the better parts of their empire. The T H E M E S man, the parallels!

3) Mess rolls down hill - If land people are fucking up it'll end up in the ocean eventually. And it sucking being down stream of a bad neighbor.

Thank you for posting this, it's been fun!

Re: The merfolk conundrum

[(Anonymous)]

What wealth could they even practically extract from the land though? There's a reason land humans haven't colonized all of the ocean floor and that's because most of the stuff we have up here won't hold up under water and struggles to hold up in any drastically different environment. Imagine the most exquisite land human food you can think of then imagine it under a bucket of seawater, is it still appetizing? Plus there's depth/pressure to think of. Can't even import livestock or servants or anything, they'd just quite literally get crushed and die.

So why bother to extract and import stuff that would quickly rot and break instead of using stuff that wouldn't? Especially if that involves potentially violence and risking your own people? It's not like the ocean is running out of rocks.

I'm trying to think of something they'd want to import but unless you changed how the world works *just so* they'd specifically want to import that product which seems a little on the nose and a forced plot, it's hard to imagine what it could be.

Re: The merfolk conundrum

[(Anonymous)]

Gems, plastics, food stuffs (even if they aren't delicious farming is still a p.i.t.a.), glass, items that can then be enchanted to function underwater, blood sacrifices to their eldritch masters, wood/linen for boats, I could go on.

Also, they can easily spend time on land so they could happily build up regular city.

Look, living takes work. There will lways be folks who would rather make someone else do more of that work. ::gestures to all of human history::

Re: The merfolk conundrum

[forgottenjester]

Oh these are all lovely ideas. Thank you so much!

I agree with the trade route being the most advantageous to them. They could become an economic power house by providing the sea's bounties and acting as guides.

Though, yeah, the fact of "what can they bring back that wouldn't be ass underwater" is their biggest hurdle.

Re: The merfolk conundrum

[(Anonymous)]

Well now we're back to why living underwater is so hard =)

I could imagine almost a werewolf situation where they have this "civilized" empire but they swim around eating raw fish and sinking ships to let out aggression.

Re: The merfolk conundrum

[forgottenjester]

That would be really fucking funny, actually.

Re: The merfolk conundrum

[(Anonymous)]

Ooh! Ooh ooh ooh! OOH! ::waves hand like a 4th grader::

The fact that bringing things to the ocean isn't a flaw, it's a feature! (Wrt storytelling)

Cracking open a bottle of wine to let it dilute around the room of your under sea home like incense is just like lighting incense. Wearing expensove clothes that won't last under water is just like wearing clothes that won't last on land. You feel me? These mother fuckers could be doing Shein hauls and eating gold leaf pizza with their tithes.

Wealth and domination as synonymous with waste and consumption destruction.

Your undersea dwelling masters keeping their shit from the poors (no mater how much it sucks underwater) as parallel to modern billionaires who want to colonize mars to get away from the filthy poors (mo matter how much it would SUCK on Mars. They don't even have an ionosphere!)

But no, yeah, the fact that it's dumb doesn't mean it isn't realistic.

Re: The merfolk conundrum

[forgottenjester]

:) A good point.

I was more thinking about how to make technology last. Yeah the food and signs of wealth works great, but if you want to smelt iron we start having a problem.