How Primitive Are Humans?

[Darth Zakryn]

Ok, constant references are made throughout the series that humans are primitive, cavemen level primitive. KA seems to have taken a lot of her advanced technology design off of Star Trek and Star Wars, but mostly Star Trek. What I'm having a hard time believing is that human weapons and technology can't be THAT primitive. Sure, they lack things like force fields, energy weapons, and proper spacecraft, but for the most part, they're functioning at a reasonable technological level, at least in my admittedly less than humble opinion.

Any thoughts on this?

[Acalio-Laron-Jaham]

well whilst human weapons such as modern guns are quite a piece of work in their own right, they are considered primitive compared to andalite and yeerk weapons technology because shooting a energy/plasma based ammunition is very sophisticated compared to propelling lead slugs via raw gun power and compressed gas (i think thats how one of the alien characters in animorphs described it, dunno whether it was ax or a yeerk who said it)

[Phoenix004]

Considering how many centuries we've had the ability to propel chunks of metal using gunpowder, you can understand them seeing it as primitive. The idea of matchlock pistol is laughable compared to a machine gun, let alone comparing guns to laser beams.

I think the main reason we are seen as primitive is because we haven't mastered space travel. We can't even realistically travel beyond our own moon, which is pretty pathetic compared to other species.

Of course Ax has a much greater respect for humans we he finds out that in just 60 years we went from the first plane to landing on the moon, as it took Andalites almost 3 times as long.

Even some Yeerks probably realised how dangerous humans were capable of being. Visser One acknowledged that although we are primitive, billions of armed humans are nothing to laugh at. After blowing up the Yeerk Pool with our "primitive explosives" it's safe to say some Yeerks started to see us as a threat.

[NateSean]

That is about when Visser One (Formerly V3) took the seven-fingered kid gloves off. But the nuke was by surprise and once they were on guard and expecting an attack, the force fields went up.

It kind of make me wonder what would have happened if Jake was able to rally the Airfoce before nuking the Yeerk Pool. How much damage could our primitive technology have done if we had taken the Yeerks by surprise?

[Estelore]

I don't consider humans primitive at all... but I do find our technologies are only much advanced in very specific areas of influence. I'll list those that really leap at me as being advanced, among all Earth-based technologies.

Communications. Transfer of information, translation between languages, exchange of media... sure, we're not transmitting via z-space or ansible... but the human raw talent for networking is ridiculously well-developed, especially in the most recent generations. Kids are raised to take it for granted that it will only take them ten seconds to rally two dozen of their peers to a single location at a specific time. They almost-instinctively realize that lack of these skills is potentially a severe social detriment. Humans are dang geniuses at communication, and the advances in our technology reflects this.

On-planet war. We're scary good at killing ourselves and each other. Considering the subject of this forum in general, I don't think I really need to say more. MM #3, anybody?

Social Engineering. Propaganda. Advertising. Taking communication past simple transfer of information, and ratcheting it up to the raw creation of pop culture and mob opinion/action. Scaring the crap out of each other with a few well-chosen sounds and images in a 30-second television clip. Religion. Politics. Dividing the masses of underwealthy plebes so that no single mass has complete control. Humans are good at allocating power so that only a small group can use the resources... and then influencing public opinion so that the masses support the group's use of those resources. Humans are good at lying, manipulating, using other humans. Our culture and technology are absolutely saturated with it.

On-planet transportation. I don't just mean moving people and goods... I also mean movement of wastes, base materials and resources. Humans are brilliant at generating a successful infrastructure and maintaining it to its absolute minimum degree of cost per functionality. Yeah, many road systems are total monstrosities of disrepair... but you can still make a car drive on them, for the most part. Trains and oceanic transports are a larger part of the movement of food and clothing than people from developed countries easily acknowledge.  Ancient Rome had a comprehensive, effective sewer system and an even more comprehensive set of aqueducts and roads. Ancient China and early Portugal and Netherlands all had incredible navies. Jericho, the acknowledged first human 'city' in the mid-east, had very well-planned tracks for carts and human movement, and it had a massive wall around its perimeter for defense.

What do humans really suck at?
Keeping their hands to themselves. Leaving each other alone. Leaving each others' minds and resources untouched. Keeping to their own lands of origin. Sitting still.

Medicine, for that matter. Cataract surgery existed in ancient Egypt and was one of the earliest surgical procedures on record... but anaesthesia hasn't been around very long at all.
Doctors and scientists still haven't worked out a way to deliver children without significant pain and detriment/risk and to the health of the mother, and there still isn't one field-wide agreed-upon ideal method for treating something as simple as a pilonidal cyst.

Coping with disasters. Disaster after disaster has shown us that humans really suck at dealing with large-scale emergency situations. Our hospitals are undersized, understaffed, and undersupplied. Our armies and national guards are usually understaffed right at the time of a national disaster. Evacuation routes are, frankly, pathetic and insufficient. If you're in a major city during a bombing or earthquake, heaven help you the instant you try to get out of the city.

Policing our citizens. Reinforcing laws. We sure try, but we've hardly eradicated crime. It's pretty unrealistic to think we ever could, under any system that allows a modicum of privacy to its citizens.

*shrug* But of course, that's just my views.

I can live without flying cars. XD

[Darth Zakryn]

W-whoa. I've been waiting for a post like yours, Estelore?

[Estelore]

Thanks? Hehehe... I tend to think about this stuff frequently, whether I'm particularly "right" about it or not.
Maybe I just play "Dwarf Fortress" too much. It makes you think about resources and tech.

[Shock]

i downloaded that but i can't make it play in my DOSbox...

oh well.

[Miette]

In comparison to races like Andalites, yeah, we are pretty primitive. But I believe that it was Ax who admitted that we were technically ahead of his race in terms of space travel, or something like that.

[Phoenix004]

We aren't ahead of the Andalites in terms of space travel, we're just learning faster than they did.

[Nar Klawip]

Every species has it's strengths and weaknesses, and I think Ax summed it up pretty well in Megamorphs #2

"Humans may be technologically primitive, not to mention physically weak, what with tottering around on two spindly legs. But if you’re in a situation that requires instant adaptability to change, and boundless courage, you should always have a couple of humans along with you.” ~Ax

[Darth Zakryn]

THREAD BUMPER!

What I originally wanted to know when I started this thread was why do they call weapons that use physical projectiles "primitive?" Just because they don't use energy weapons? Hey, in Halo, they used projectile weapons alongside energy weapons! Was it just the type? Could physical projectiles be improved upon and upgraded to be better, or was this just a typical display of modern Andalite/Yeerk arrogance?

[EvilPinkDragon]

I think it's a combination of arrogance, and you could only go so far with projectile weapons. For some reason I'm under the impression that earth guns can't go through force fields but Dracon beams can wear them down? I could be totally wrong. It's been a while since I read the series (Re-reading it now though ^^ ).

The yeerks are hardly one to talk though, seeing as how they stole most of their technology.

[Darth Zakryn]

Both weapons would have their advantages and disadvantages. For example, take a look at the X-1 Viper battle droid from Star Wars. Its armor not only can survive impacts from energy weapons, it actually channels that energy into its own weapons, making this a serious impediment for a force armed only with energy weapons, as opposed to a force that moderates both.

You can see it in all the advanced sci-fi works, such as Star Wars and Halo, that despite being able to create and mass-produce higher-energy weapons, they also use projectile weapons just like ours for adaptability. Hell, look at the Borg in Star Trek; the Federation's phasers keep getting absorbed by the Borg personal force field, yet just a few dozen rounds from Picard's Tommy gun and they go down instantly! You'd think the Federation would learn.

And face it: The Federation IS what the Andalites' (and consequentially, the Yeerks') technology is based on.

[Aquilai]

I wrote this a day after this post was started but others had posted before I bothered to press Submit and days became well more days. Good ol' Firefox forms stored what I wrote but never submitted till now:

Ok judging from the dozens of applications these are the key techs I think stand out: energy (source/weapons/shields), computer, spaceflight, medical/biological.

For a base reference we shall compare against Andalites as opposed to say Ellimist/Crayak levels of technology. We also assume all of Yeerk tech is covered by Andalites even though realistically I'm sure they'll have stolen (/invented) more than we know. A subtle point that should also be taken into account is the industrial technology and resources required to create the technology.

Energy:
From Dracon beams and shredders if we assume these energy beam weapons to be based on a laser design then we can surmise the energy supply output must be around 100KW-1MW which is more than enough to power a house for an hour, melt a tank or crash aircraft. Currently there are working devices like these mountable to planes weighing at around 3000kg. In terms of energy technology, high end power stations can currently generate several GW of energy but obviously their size compared to a compact handheld shredder capable of burning through 10ft of solid titanium is unmatched. Portability aside, there's also the energy efficiency issue, to convert chemical/electrical/other to light and heat energy for us means considerable loss in energy.
In terms of theoretical energy sources since Ax at one point said fission and fusion energy were like toys to Andalites this could be anything from antimatter to somehow extracting zero point energy. In any case, energy levels of that magnitude would mean any of these handheld devices could be used to blow up a sizable area when sabotaged or malfunctioning. Unless a completely new form of safe energy extraction is found this is pretty unrealistic or completely ahead of human technology and science!
Similarly for energy shields/forcefields the energy requirement would be enormous and we're nowhere near being able to create shields that can allow/disallow objects (or even select which objects) to pass through. Currently the best we can do is use the repulsion of the electromagnetic force to levitate small objects. An unrealistic scenario would be patching intruders with magnetic clothing and using an EM field to repulse them from approaching a "shielded" place. Another primitive point to humans =(

Computing:
In terms of computer technology there hasn't been much in the books to compare to. The way computers or systems are hacked is by knowing the system inside out. If you take the example of Ax being able to "hack" into any human computer system by typing a few buttons even though he probably doesn't know the operating system, the command lines, or if the computer even has programming software to create a program to hack in and make use of vulnerabilities is highly unrealistic.
The only computer technology that we can compare with would be Pemalite AI and hologram (autostereoscopy) technology. There's lots of fiction about AI (the implications etc) but how close are we? The Chee have been programmed to be benign and have the level intelligence similar to humans. Don't get me wrong I don't know many people who can calculate the cube root of any random 8 digit number but that isn't really a measure of intelligence. We have computers that can beat virtually anyone in chess but the rules are already taught to them. This here is the main problem. Currently there are many fields of AI research taking place an example could be computer vision where a computer is taught to distinguish the pixels from a memory. How does a computer recognise the boundary between a striped t-shirt wearing guy to a similar background wall? (It's all pixels). In a different area of AI, NLP (natural language processing) do the different meanings of "fruit flies like a banana" really mean what the computer is taught it to mean? Perhaps another more important field, KRR knowledge representation and reasoning. All the many fields are so specialised and unique that combining them all together currently hasn't been done.  I wouldn't say it's impossible though.
Hologram autostereoscopy technology is another area that whilst we're not there yet could still be feasible especially considering our desire for better multimedia. Autostereoscopy means being able to see 3D images with depth without the need for extra glasses. Today's 3D glasses in cinemas are already improved upon from it's predecessor the distinctive red and green lenses. The hard part may be accommodating for all people not just the binocular vision capable majority.

Space:
Spaceflight well it's pretty clear we're in our infancy despite having reached the moon within a seemingly short time. There was a documentary a few years back saying how much of the technology and knowledge from the first lunar landing is already being lost because people have retired or passed away. With new safety regulations the race to the moon attitude has shifted and unfortunately progress due to our economic climate has been stifled. Possibly the more significant part of the Animorph's universe's spaceflight tech is Z-space which goes along with other scifi as a plot device for FTL travel similar to subspace or hyperspace. Our understanding of the universe isn't enough to know how to create one or even if it's useable in that way...yet.
The resources to build a dome ship? It's possible. We have our space station which can support life for months at a time plus there have been plants grown on the ISS. Of course the ISS is hardly a spaceship but it's probably as unwieldy as a dome ship against space fighter ships. If we assume there's enough power output for a spaceship then the question next that comes to mind is how does it move? If we assume Z-space is for interstellar travel what's the engine for interplanetary travel? We use chemical fuel for thrust although ion thrusters have been used before. The main drawback with using ion thrusters would be the power output required to give the same acceleration as rocket fuel however given enough power these could be what's used in Andalite/Yeerk fighters. The flaw with an ion drive would be since it uses ions to maneuver it would only work in environments that are not filled with other ionising particles so only useful in the vacuum of space.
Of the fundamental forces the gravitation interaction is one of the ones that we've had the least success in finding more about. In a lot of space sci-fi, mostly for convenience, there's some form of artificial gravity which currently we don't possess. From that we can assume that Andalites could possibly have solved the unified Theory of Everything which still shows how primitive we are. Although saying that anti-gravity ships could be another method for spaceflight at least theoretically.

Biological:
Escafil device...beyond my knowledge XD considering it somehow makes use of z-space to store forms it is seemingly implausible scientifically speaking. To be able to store the DNA as information is possible in the same way I could store the source code of a program to a disk and transmit it as via the internet but the data needs to be stored somewhere. Z-space sounds a little too convenient. In any case the crux would be being able to convert the information back into something useful. The fastest growing natural lifeform is the giant kelp which can grow 2ft per day. I'm unsure how fast unnatural biological organisms can grow but clearly the escafil device has a form of catalyst that forces extremely rapid cell reproduction within minutes from anything as small as an ant to the size of a blue whale. Then there's also the point at which the cell death and reproduction ends. Somehow morphing technology must tell the body to stop growing up to presumably the age of the acquired DNA. This age can be determined by the length or how worn out the telomeres of the target organism is then the catalyst must be taken out so rapid growth would stop.
Another question for morphing is the lack of limitation. There are times when the Animorphs have morphed+demorphed many times in succession so that wears out the user mentally but what energy does it use? Does morphing somehow drain an unforeseen lifeforce? If morphing just like a catalyst on some form of universal stem cell then morphing could provide all the replacement body parts any medicine would need. It also questions how Andalites could still have disabled people in their society.

If you've read this much then congrats! I don't think we're that primitive. For any living species you could assume their generation's technology would be at the height of their technology but this may not be true (eg WW3 nuclear winter for example forcing us back thousands of years). In the end we have no other real species to compare against. Needless to say our science fiction will always be ahead of science fact otherwise it wouldn't be fiction and we'd be much more bored! Thanks for reading.