How did the Xi'an develop, and [what happened to] the species that was at the top [of the food chain]?
TL;DRThe speakers imagine the Xi'an developing tools and banding together because of predators they later eliminated, helped by long lifespans, with one such predator, the Santok.yāi, still existing in a preserve.
We got, what, 30,000 years of history?
We got a very long time. I personally have always imagined that the Xi'an were not self-aware while they were prey animals. Maybe in their early days when they were starting to develop tools, the predator animals that used to hunt them down and kill them all the time were around. And so that's part of the reason why they developed tools and banded together in groups. This active predation helped them develop as an actual civilization. And so I also like to imagine that once they banded together and had tools to get rid of their predator species, they just got rid of them. I don't believe that at that time the predator species were self-aware like the Xi'an were.
I would also think the long lifespan of a Xi'an would probably benefit them, because there's so much knowledge that they can acquire and then grow over the few hundred years they're living. I could see them very quickly assessing and understanding the apex predators around them and how to either avoid them or overcome them.
I could see them having them still around as a zoo-type thing, of showing how far we've come. We're not afraid of this elephant-tiger-bat anymore.
Yeah, they actually have them on the zoo planet. They keep them in the preserve.
Yeah, I mean, we have the Santok.yāi, that super scary creature that used to drop down from the trees and kill the heck out of Xi'an. So that's still around.
Yeah, and they named a ship after it.
Yeah. Like, aha, now we control the Santok.yāi. Suck it.
Yeah, maybe that would be the real baller Xi'an move, to have one of those on your compound as a pet, running around with a fancy collar.