Merfolk allegory to the real world Silk Road?

[Scalenex]

So I'm trying to flesh out an undersea world existing along side (or underneath) a traditional land based fantasy world.

For a long while I called the two major undersea powers, Water Rome and Water China, but I have since called them Oshamni Empire (based on the Latin word ocean and omni) and Haiyang Empire (based on the Mandarin for ocean).

Anyway, the Oshmani are in the center of densely populated sea lanes so they are constantly dealing with other undersea powers, tentatively called Water Greece, Water Carthage, etc but the Haiyang Empire is powerful but isolated. I haven't fleshed them out yet.

A big land mass blocks the straight line shortest distance between Water Rome and Water China. Swimming around the long way is difficult but not impossible. This would be an allegorical Silk Road.

I have no idea what sea folk would trade or covet.

In the real world, Rome valued silk and porcelain above all else, China valued wool goods and horses (they had horses in China but at the time the western horses were superior), and wool.

Spices went both directions. Slaves went both directions.

I'm not sure what water breathing would trade on their proverbial Silk Road.

I'm not sure if I want any of my undersea powers to have slavery or not. First, slavery is a touchy issue. Second, assuming a moral vacuum, I believe it would be harder to keep slaves underwater than on land because there are more directions slave can runaway. I might create an oppressive caste system instead. That doesn't require as many literal chains to maintain.

On land, I have human nations, elf nations, dwarf nations etc. In sea, integrated nations are the norm.

Merfolk (humanoids with fish tails instead of legs), ojiongo (humanoids with squid tentacles instead of legs), astalakians (crab people), and karakhai (shark people) are the four most populous sea people.

In most nations and provinces, very frequently the norm is that a merman or mermaid is sitting on the throne with an astalakian seneschal handling the mundane stuff, a karakhai standing guard, and a ojiongo playing the role of a clever but not fully trustworthy advisor.

While some karakhai work with the undersea empires, they frequently play the part of the barbarians at the edge of civilization, the proverbial Vandals, Visigoths, Huns, Mongols, etc.

Eventually I want to create five or six minority races. So far I only have aquatic cyclopes (aka seaclopes).

In most cases a merfolk is going to feel more kinship with a astalakian or ojiongo of their own nation than a merfolk of another nation, though if they must deal with foreigners, they would prefer to deal with foreign merfolk than foreign anything else. This bias would carry over to the other undersea races.

I'm not sure if the racial split is important or not but it could provide context.

[brian 333]

Bronze artifacts fabricated on land near one empire but not available to the other may be a major commodity. If one empire has extensive coastal trade and the other does not, pearls, ambergris and manganese nodules may be more valuable on one side of the world than the other. Shallow seas may produce bulk items like kelp for food or more fibrous undersea plants for rope and clothing, deeper abbysal plains may provide delicacies like giant crustaceans or exotic reagents from cold sinks, volcanic vents, or animals of the deeps.

And don't forget that crevasses and deep sea trenches may harbor monsters and empires as yet unknown.

[sktarq]

Well there are a bunch of things. But really it is all about asking what they want...adding wants as needed.

My first thought it to ask "what do these groups DO day to day and how do they get that done?" look at the world you want them to have and figure out what they would need to make that happen.

If they carve and build with stone...how? with what kind of tools? and how do they produce the force needed to get big swinging impacts?
Also some kinds of stone or other tool sources would be rare...certain kinds of clam may be better for making fishhooks or lures or whatever than other kinds of shellfish and those clams may have restricted growing areas...or perhaps flint for flint knapping is rare in some areas whilst common in others.

How do they hold/store stuff....on land we have pounches, baskets, amphorae, metal containers, wood containers, and a whole multitude of ceramics....what do the people under the sea do?

Do people wear clothing? If not how do they deal with the differences between high and low temp regions? With water's higher thermal conductivity if anything it matters MORE about being well suited for you local temp zone. Humans use clothes for this but that may or may not be appropriate for your world. But having wetsuit like materials may work...perhaps something like Mera's scale suit for example.

How do there civilizations get the needed food production densities to sustain permanent habitable places like towns or cities (unless everyone is nomadic/seminomadic which could be an interesting choice)? And with that what do they need for that to keep working? How do they move food from one area to another?

Ask how they do whatever and trace back sources for material and labour building story hooks and culture as you do so.

How do the inhabitants show status in their societies? Gold? Shinny rocks? pearls of certain colours that are only produced by exotic shellfish? Food eaten? Draped clothing or hair braids woven with coloured fibers? What are the "posh" versions of the items you came up with above? The more "stuff" you come up with the more there is to trade for. If you want areas that are less trade focused then things like "honor" name, and body modification may be better.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Let me see.

Exotic foods that only grow in one location or the other. Mangrove fruits (specifically mangrove wine) is the only thing I'm coming up with so far for that, without some method of refrigeration to prevent the food spoiling... though if the deep waters are cold enough (or magic is involved) pretty much any fish or plant could work. Pacific salmon notably cannot be farmed (they die if kept contained that long), which would presumably make transporting a live population to the other end of the road impossible, ensuring only one end had access to them and making their meat a stable trade item.

The reason Romans weren't able to just make their own silk is that it required both the correct trees and the correct silkworms, and the Chinese were careful never to sell them one while the Romans still had the other (probably a massive oversimplification, fyi). What could be a good underwater analogy? I kind of like the idea of special sand for special glass; you need both the right kind of coral and the right kind of parrot fish to grind it up into sand.

Mercenary companies could also travel the road, searching for lands where their exotic tactics and equipment would be an advantage for the client.

---

On the subject of minority races, I'm rather fond of Selkies (humanoids that can don seal skins to turn into seals). They can hold their breath long enough to function in an underwater society, but their dependence on air-filled areas to live and 'recharge' in makes them comparatively easy for the ruling class to control.

[Mechalich]

So the first thing here is you have to decide how your undersea civilizations operate. Specifically are you simply pretending that life under the sea is simply a vaguely blue-tinted version of life on land (which is the most common approach in fantasy) or are you actually going to care about the various problems being in an aquatic medium presents to building a civilization and attempting to world-build from those principles. That you're referring to your undersea states as if they corresponded to land-based empires suggests the former.

Now that's fine, but it means that if you have an allegory to the silk road it functions according to GM fiat, because the entire underwater aspect of your setting already does that. In terms of what they trade you can simply make up commodities like 'alchemical reagents' or 'iron coral' or any of the other fantasy facsimiles to terrestrial technologies that your undersea civilizations will need by the boatload anyway. You can even make up textiles to take the place of silk and wool - ex. oyster thread linen and sea dragon scale - and run with those.

[Scalenex]

Bronze artifacts fabricated on land near one empire but not available to the other may be a major commodity.

I'm still not 100% sure what the norm of trading between sea and land folk is going to be. There is going to be an issue that the land nations and sea nations are generally ignorant of the intricacies of the politics of the other nations.

I do have a small isolated island of Nerymer inhabited by a long lost tribe of elves nicknamed the sea elves. Physiologically they are normal elves, they just happen to have a very long standing alliance with an undersea nation, though I haven't decided which one yet.

The Sea Elves of Nerymer are going to be a rarity in that their land folk that worship the deities by their sea names and personalities instead of their land names and personalities. You skip the italicized part if you don't want the metaphysics.

I don't know if you ever read Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series, but in that fiction series, the ancient Olympian gods have split personalities of sorts. Jupiter and Zeus are the same god but also not. I liked that idea that I adapted that idea to my setting. The sea folk worship the same nine deities that the land folk but with different names and slightly different personalities. In my case, some of my deities are gender swapped. The sea folk have a strong motiff of Mother Sea, Father Sky, Uncle Sea Floor, and the weather goddess and shark goddess are two weird aunts. As far as the sea folk are concerned, the land doesn't have a deity associated. The land is the cosmic equivalent of a hairball or turd accidentally discharged from the Sea and Sky. The only reason life exists on land at all is because the weather goddess invented something she calls "rain" in order to give the dead rock life giving water.

Mera is considered the goddess of the sea to the land folk, but the sea folk consider her alter ego Enosha, the goddess of shallow seas because both Mera and Enosha want to bring the land and sea together.

Korus is the god of nature to land folk. His alter ego, Mubete the goddess of nature and of course the sea folk consider the heart of nature to be in the ocean, not on land.

Greymoria is the goddess of magic and night to land folk. To seafolk, Taedi is the goddess of magic and deep water.

Enosha, Taedi, and Mubete are considered the Three Sisters or the three Daughters of the Sea are on the main deities for most sea dwellers (though the shark people like the shark goddess, Bellusk, as their primary goddess for obvious reasons). Enosha (NG) wants the land and sea folk to get along, Mubete (TN) believes good fences make good neighbors, and Taedi (NE) believes the land folk should be food and/or slaves to the sea folk.

Mera (NG) the land goddess pushes peace between all people, but she is still working on making peace on land so is having trouble sponsoring envoys between land and sea. Korus (TN) vaguely warns his followers not to over fish or otherwise aggravate the sea folk, and Greymoria (NE) has not intention of setting up the land folk to be the saves of the sea folk but she does love it when her followers kill their enemies by drowning them.

Anyway, trade between the land and sea on a large scale is difficult because the land and sea people are pretty ignorant of each other.

If Sea Nation A attacks a bunch of ships of Land Nation 1, Land Nation 1 may accidentally choose to retaliate against Sea Nation B. Likewise, if the land folk do something to piss off the sea folk, Sea Nation B could try to retaliate against this seemingly unprovoked attack against them by attacking Land Nation 2.

If one empire has extensive coastal trade and the other does not, pearls, ambergris and manganese nodules may be more valuable on one side of the world than the other. Shallow seas may produce bulk items like kelp for food or more fibrous undersea plants for rope and clothing, deeper abbysal plains may provide delicacies like giant crustaceans or exotic reagents from cold sinks, volcanic vents, or animals of the deeps.

These are all good ideas. I figure Water Rome uses artificial pearls of very specific weights for their base currency. I figure Oshamni males and females would wear pearl necklaces and add or remove pearls when making routine purchases and sales. This hasn't fully caught on with the other nations who mostly barter and prefer natural (but not uniform) pearls.

And don't forget that crevasses and deep sea trenches may harbor monsters and empires as yet unknown.

I was certainly planning to have the deep dark waters spawn horrific monsters but I'm not sure about empires as of yet unknown. Maybe petty hermit kingdoms as of yet unknown but I think it would be really hard for the deep seas to support enough life for a full empire even with a dash of magic.

Well there are a bunch of things. But really it is all about asking what they want...adding wants as needed.

My first thought it to ask "what do these groups DO day to day and how do they get that done?" look at the world you want them to have and figure out what they would need to make that happen.

If they carve and build with stone...how? with what kind of tools? and how do they produce the force needed to get big swinging impacts?

That's a good point I had not considered. I don't always agree with the Youtuber Shadiversity but I think his video on weapons merfolk would use is well reasoned, and I based my weapon assumptions, but I hadn't considered how tool use would be affected. I really need to befriend a marine biologist who likes fantasy.

Also some kinds of stone or other tool sources would be rare...certain kinds of clam may be better for making fishhooks or lures or whatever than other kinds of shellfish and those clams may have restricted growing areas...or perhaps flint for flint knapping is rare in some areas whilst common in others.

Flint tapping is a good idea I had not considered. I invented a fire-less ceramic type I named Viridilut. Essentially when a common blue clay is mixed with a common yellow clay, the green clay will harden so it can make a tool or weapon. Not as as steel but better than nothing.

How do they hold/store stuff....on land we have pounches, baskets, amphorae, metal containers, wood containers, and a whole multitude of ceramics....what do the people under the sea do?

I hadn't given this a lot of thought. I figured this would actually be a case where underwater basket weaving has value. I'm still pondering if they have an equivalent of wood.

Virdilut is the proxy for most underwater metal items, though I pondered a few workarounds for getting metal goods underwater.

Do people wear clothing?

I figured that since I would like to make some art for my world and not have to slap a NSFW label on everything, that clothing would be worn.

If not how do they deal with the differences between high and low temp regions? With water's higher thermal conductivity if anything it matters MORE about being well suited for you local temp zone. Humans use clothes for this but that may or may not be appropriate for your world. But having wetsuit like materials may work...perhaps something like Mera's scale suit for example.

I don't know enough about physics or marine biologist to answer these questions in an intelligent way

How do there civilizations get the needed food production densities to sustain permanent habitable places like towns or cities (unless everyone is nomadic/seminomadic which could be an interesting choice)?

I figured they would have domesticated some sea plants that would be a stand in for cereals and others that would be a stand in for fruits and vegetables though it would probably be less efficient than land agriculture so there are probably more nomads in the sea than on land.

And with that what do they need for that to keep working? How do they move food from one area to another?

A while back, someone had the idea of taking a large net and tying it a giant crab, putting an equivalent of a carrot under the crab's nose to make it walk a specific direction and use giant crabs as the equivalent of barge mules.

Maybe I'm off base but I think the best way to move bulk goods is to have a large slow creature tow it or create rope harnesses to allow merfolk and other sea people to take turns towing it..

Ask how they do whatever and trace back sources for material and labour building story hooks and culture as you do so.

nod

How do the inhabitants show status in their societies? Gold? Shinny rocks? pearls of certain colours that are only produced by exotic shellfish? Food eaten? Draped clothing or hair braids woven with coloured fibers? What are the "posh" versions of the items you came up with above? The more "stuff" you come up with the more there is to trade for. If you want areas that are less trade focused then things like "honor" name, and body modification may be better.

Good ideas, I will ponder.

Let me see.

Exotic foods that only grow in one location or the other. Mangrove fruits (specifically mangrove wine) is the only thing I'm coming up with so far for that, without some method of refrigeration to prevent the food spoiling... though if the deep waters are cold enough (or magic is involved) pretty much any fish or plant could work.

These are good ideas.

Pacific salmon notably cannot be farmed (they die if kept contained that long), which would presumably make transporting a live population to the other end of the road impossible, ensuring only one end had access to them and making their meat a stable trade item.

The reason Romans weren't able to just make their own silk is that it required both the correct trees and the correct silkworms, and the Chinese were careful never to sell them one while the Romans still had the other (probably a massive oversimplification, fyi). What could be a good underwater analogy? I kind of like the idea of special sand for special glass; you need both the right kind of coral and the right kind of parrot fish to grind it up into sand.

An interesting idea.

Mercenary companies could also travel the road, searching for lands where their exotic tactics and equipment would be an advantage for the client.

Also a good idea.

---

On the subject of minority races, I'm rather fond of Selkies (humanoids that can don seal skins to turn into seals). They can hold their breath long enough to function in an underwater society, but their dependence on air-filled areas to live and 'recharge' in makes them comparatively easy for the ruling class to control.

I was thinking of making selkies a rare type of Fair Folk, but making them a more common mortal race has some appeal.

So the first thing here is you have to decide how your undersea civilizations operate. Specifically are you simply pretending that life under the sea is simply a vaguely blue-tinted version of life on land (which is the most common approach in fantasy) or are you actually going to care about the various problems being in an aquatic medium presents to building a civilization and attempting to world-build from those principles. That you're referring to your undersea states as if they corresponded to land-based empires suggests the former.

Now that's fine, but it means that if you have an allegory to the silk road it functions according to GM fiat, because the entire underwater aspect of your setting already does that. In terms of what they trade you can simply make up commodities like 'alchemical reagents' or 'iron coral' or any of the other fantasy facsimiles to terrestrial technologies that your undersea civilizations will need by the boatload anyway. You can even make up textiles to take the place of silk and wool - ex. oyster thread linen and sea dragon scale - and run with those.

I'd like to put science into my fantasy, but until I run across science that pushes me otherwise, I tend to lean towards blue tinted land practices out of expediency.

I'd like to make friends with a marine biologist who likes fantasy and is patient enough to let me bounce ideas off of him or her once a week.

[sandmote]

Valuables that I could see traveling an undersea route:

• Orca and Walrus ivory
• Rare shells
• Glass sponges, as difficult to crush baskets in general or symbols of love if specifically looking at the Venus’ flower basket.
• Whichever undersea spices you invent. A good chunk of human spices are things that are supposed to taste bad to us or are outright toxic to something else, so it might be an interesting twist if some races don't like particular spices (the closest analogy I can think of is how high sensitivity to aldehydes makes cilantro taste worse). Alternatively, the pungent flower or seed of a particular seagrass.
• Writing tends to more difficult underwater, so whatever is used to do so is likely to be more valuable.
• If anyone mentioned any sort of gems or semiprecious stone, I missed it. A good chunk of early trading on the silk road was from the Chinese seeking jade.
• A stronger variant of Virdilut requiring the addition of a rare material (or secret combination of more common materials) using a heavily guarded technique.

I would also like to suggest some nomadic cultures that tie wagons to some group of larger creatures that feeds on something slower moving (or is otherwise able to feed while dragging weight). Some drag racks of growing seaweed along the surface, others drag dwellings where the seafolk rest, and some just large packs of supplies. The seafolk then follow their herd along with the annual migration routes north for the winter and back south for the summer, trading and hunting along the way. You'd then have a one set of cultures along the surface of the open ocean and the monsters or deep-sea cultures along the seafloor on the same part of the map. Maybe some sirenians along the coasts, and some type of cetacean in the open ocean?

[brian 333]

I once read of an ocean surface culture which rafted on cyclical ocean currents as it followed it's course. (The third Earthsea book by LeGuinn.) Subsurface currents, especially thermohaline currents, would make trade routes easy if those using them had the means to contain and buoy their goods. Think submarine airship, with mini.underwater sails for steering, perhaps?

[Bohandas]

I have no idea what sea folk would trade or covet.

For the covet part, anything that requires fire to make; stuff that would be relatively simple to make on land but require volcanism, chemistry, or magic to make under water

[sktarq]

I hadn't given this a lot of thought. I figured this would actually be a case where underwater basket weaving has value. I'm still pondering if they have an equivalent of wood.

Virdilut is the proxy for most underwater metal items, though I pondered a few workarounds for getting metal goods underwater.

Well the underwater weaving is underwater because it adds flexibility to materials that would otherwise break when they are dry.....which does tend to mean that they are also stronger and far more long lasting when dry....sure you could make up a an equivalent to reeds, rushes, willow etc.

and really longevity is going to be your biggest enemy when it comes to underwater materials...most of our landlubber versions tend to dissolve with remarkable alacrity when left in oxygenated salt water.

I figured they would have domesticated some sea plants that would be a stand in for cereals and others that would be a stand in for fruits and vegetables though it would probably be less efficient than land agriculture so there are probably more nomads in the sea than on land.

Thing with that....underwater plants need light just like normal ones...and if they are in the light filled waters near the surface and not attached to the ocean floor they will tend to float away...unless you come up with some way around that....so your description is limited to areas where the light from the surface reaches the ocean floor with enough strength to power decent growth of plant life. Even very tall underwater plants like giant kelp have pretty limited depth ranges that they thrive in. We see belts of it here where I am that give a good indicator of depth when putting around in a boat)

Now all that is fine...but it does give a sharply delineated area that is suitable for such a lifestyle. Which could be a good reason to give definition to the various areas of civilizations you have developed (each on different platues, shelves, or shallow seas (like the North or Baltic seas)). Could also be a good reason to have cultural splits between nomads who have animals that graze in free flowing surface waters and those who live in the shallows and farm. It matters less what exactly you pick rather picking something and working with the consequences if you want the whole to hang together like that and not be handwaved (and to be sure handwaving is totally fine but it seems like you want to minimize it from what you have written)

A while back, someone had the idea of taking a large net and tying it a giant crab, putting an equivalent of a carrot under the crab's nose to make it walk a specific direction and use giant crabs as the equivalent of barge mules.

Maybe I'm off base but I think the best way to move bulk goods is to have a large slow creature tow it or create rope harnesses to allow merfolk and other sea people to take turns towing it..

So basically using a net as a cart and giant crabs as oxen....well seems suitably fantastical but has a couple questions...firstly how do you transport things like clay, sand, grain etc? Things that would slip through the net or dissolve their way through? Not to say it can't work but it would mean you'd need subcontainers like barrels, amphorae, crates, etc. secondly...buoyancy control seems like a nightmare. I mean it could be cool to have a full lift off the floor prcedure to start and stop these things...but damn if I can think of a how without getting weird.

[brian 333]

Remember the crab in Moana? A beast of burden with containers glued to its back, perhaps traveling in schools with merfolk to guide them with training and rewards. Watch out for the anemone glued between the cargo!

[Mechalich]

Terrestrial transport is dominated by concerns of weight. Undersea transport is defined by drag. If you want to haul anything around you need to stuff it into as narrow of a cylindrical tube as you can. However, even then it probably isn't worth is overall. The easiest way to conduct mass transit from one undersea to point to the other is going to be to float it, transport it across the surface, and then sink it back down at the destination. Using animals to haul ships is viable, but it's probably going to operate similar to a shore-hauled barge. You tie ropes to a ship on one end and a whale (or whatever) on the other and then pull. This is probably more efficient than oars, but still less than sails.

Pulling back, this gets to the most critical aspect of any hypothetical merfolk civilization - how amphibious are they? Can they breathe air in at least a limited fashion? Can they walk around on land, even if slowly? And if they are amphibious how much does this limit their ability to move about in different ocean environments?

A lot of aquatic species work best as amphibious species that can utilize a terrestrial environment in at least a limited way to perform all the various forms of chemistry that only really work on land even while they spend 90+% of their time in the water and source most of their calories there.

[Martin Greywolf]

In the real world, Rome valued silk and porcelain above all else, China valued wool goods and horses (they had horses in China but at the time the western horses were superior), and wool.

Spices went both directions. Slaves went both directions.

To make an underwater Silk road, we must first udnerstand the real silk road. And that's what I'm gonna focus on, because it solves a lot of your problems.

First thing first.

Spoiler: It's not one road

Show

This map isn't very good, but not very good is the best we can get, the standard is absolutely awful. The gist of it is that there isn't one road, it's a network of extensive trade connections, land and sea, that don't connect various end points per se, but rather go from one city to its neighbours. The map also doesn't show the northernmost route, and tries to assign commodities to various routes when it really shouldn't.

Our second issue is that Rome and China are talked about, but there was a lot of empires between them. Various incarnations of Persians, several large steppe empires, all of Indian history etc etc.

This bias causes a lot of... odd ideas to spring around. So, let's talk about the most important thing for you.

There was almost no commodity that made it all the way

This is very important. When you look at top ten lists of Silk road trade commodities, they say something about China importing western wool and horses, which... okay, technically true, but everything is western from where China is. What they were buying was the steppe horses from their immediate neighbours, and the same goes for wool. China was perfectly capable of producing wool internally, what was importan were some exotic wools from fairly nearby.

The exceptions to these are things that can't be found anywhere else - silk (before Justinian pulled off the greatest heist of all time), ceramic (intricately decorated ceramic specifically) and spices.
There was no caravan that transported these from Nanjing to Rome, they just got there bit by bit, decreasing in amount and increasing in cost as they went. To a point where some of the spices were unaffordable by any but the richest of kings.

Slaves are an interesting topic - they usually only travelled in short hops, so you weren't likely to find a German in China, but their descendants could make it there, in theory. I suppose it's possible for a specific slave with a very particular skill was traded along for increasing cost, but I haven't heard of it. When you see foreigners in some number far along the road, it's usually mercenaries or exiles.

What to do under the sea?

Focus more on the localized trade, and pick a very few, fairly small objects that will genuinely travel all the way around it. It's best if these are based on some inherent scarcity - sure, we find statues of Buddha in viking graves, but they weren't all that valued as a commodity. Unless they were made of jade or ivory.

[thefantodayhtml]

I'd like to make friends with a marine biologist who likes fantasy and is patient enough to let me bounce ideas off of him or her once a week.

Not a marine biologist, but I took a class on it last year and watched a Planet Earth episode about the ocean, so I can at scrounge up at least some helpful information :)

I figured they would have domesticated some sea plants that would be a stand in for cereals and others that would be a stand in for fruits and vegetables though it would probably be less efficient than land agriculture so there are probably more nomads in the sea than on land.

Okay so if you’re looking for ‘sea plants’ things get a bit weird because the ocean is rich in things that look like plants but aren't, things that are technically related to plants but don’t look like them, bacteria that act like plants, animals that look like plants, animals that act like plants, and very few actual plants that are recognizable as such.

The upshot of this is that if your civilization lives in a shallow sea or similar it will be able to farm…… vaguely plant-like things that may or may not be actual plants.

If it’s in the open ocean then there’s technically plenty of phytoplankton around…. Except that you can’t really eat phytoplankton so you’d have raise or hunt stuff that can.

The easiest way to conduct mass transit from one undersea point to the other is going to be to float it, transport it across the surface, and then sink it back down at the destination.

Elaborating on this further, we can expect that much of the mer-Silk Road's trade will be overseas in addition to underseas for the same reasons that overseas trade was such a big deal historically. This adds a few interesting wrinkles:


-The trade networks of both sea and land nations are probably going to overlap. Sea nations will have both undersea and oversea trade routes, while land nations will have both overland and (again) oversea ones.

-This also creates a niche for more traditional thalassocracies that are influenced by both land and sea civilizations but aren't really either. Though this would also mean that they have to deal with even more headaches than they had to in our world.

[brian 333]

An interesting point about the physics of water: the surface is the worst place to travel.

Submarines are far more fuel efficient than surface ships. Wave action, winds that blow contrary to current flow, and the surface tension of water make forty feet above or below sea level a much better place to travel. Humans rely on air, and air containment, recycling, and replenishment makes above surface travel a better compromise for us. Species not dependent on air may find more reliable currents, (roads,) at depths we humans would not enjoy, that make travel easier and faster. More importantly, such roads would be far less seasonal, and virtually immune to storms.

[Scalenex]

Not a marine biologist, but I took a class on it last year and watched a Planet Earth episode about the ocean, so I can at scrounge up at least some helpful information :)


Okay so if you’re looking for ‘sea plants’ things get a bit weird because the ocean is rich in things that look like plants but aren't, things that are technically related to plants but don’t look like them, bacteria that act like plants, animals that look like plants, animals that act like plants, and very few actual plants that are recognizable as such.

The upshot of this is that if your civilization lives in a shallow sea or similar it will be able to farm…… vaguely plant-like things that may or may not be actual plants.

If it’s in the open ocean then there’s technically plenty of phytoplankton around…. Except that you can’t really eat phytoplankton so you’d have raise or hunt stuff that can.




Elaborating on this further, we can expect that much of the mer-Silk Road's trade will be overseas in addition to underseas for the same reasons that overseas trade was such a big deal historically. This adds a few interesting wrinkles:


-The trade networks of both sea and land nations are probably going to overlap. Sea nations will have both undersea and oversea trade routes, while land nations will have both overland and (again) oversea ones.

-This also creates a niche for more traditional thalassocracies that are influenced by both land and sea civilizations but aren't really either. Though this would also mean that they have to deal with even more headaches than they had to in our world.

That is an interesting idea. I hadn't considered undersea people use boats and ships to move cargo. That is a very excellent idea, but it would require me to retcon a lot of stuff I wrote for my world. It would change a lot if aquatic and land people's ships kept crossing paths. I will ponder this.

An interesting point about the physics of water: the surface is the worst place to travel.

Submarines are far more fuel efficient than surface ships. Wave action, winds that blow contrary to current flow, and the surface tension of water make forty feet above or below sea level a much better place to travel. Humans rely on air, and air containment, recycling, and replenishment makes above surface travel a better compromise for us. Species not dependent on air may find more reliable currents, (roads,) at depths we humans would not enjoy, that make travel easier and faster. More importantly, such roads would be far less seasonal, and virtually immune to storms.

Without steam power, gasoline, or nuclear power, a submarine is going to struggle to move. Merfolk or other undersea creatures would have to row it or tow it, though I suppose it would work for moving bulk cargo even if it didn't work as personal transportation.

Assuming a Merfolk or other sea creature can hold their breath at least a little while, they could rig a boat or a ship with a wind sail. Realistically since wind is almost an alien concept to sea creatures they would not invent sails as easily as land people, but they could copy a land people's sailing ship or the weather goddess Resona

I couldn't find it, but I brought up the idea of using underwater currents as undersea roads. Assuming you watched the Pixar movie Finding Nemo, think about the East Australian Current or the EAC. I imagine they would be highly valuable natural resources for intelligent sea people.

I'm great at physics, though while I understand currents like the EAC, to push animals and water forward in the current, it must be creating a counterforce the opposite direction the opposite direction. Intelligent people might be able to rig something equivalent to sails to harness that power and pull cargo the opposite direction of a prevailing current.

Or maybe magic can create artificial currents then you could create parallel two directional current/roads.

[Mechalich]

I couldn't find it, but I brought up the idea of using underwater currents as undersea roads. Assuming you watched the Pixar movie Finding Nemo, think about the East Australian Current or the EAC. I imagine they would be highly valuable natural resources for intelligent sea people.

Finding Nemo drastically exaggerates the velocity of said current. Major undersea currents are slow. Most fail to consistently top 1 km/h, meaning they run at a fraction of walking speed.

[hamishspence]

Some are moderately fast though. According to Wikipedia, the EAC maxes out at 90cm/s - since 1m/s = 3.6 kph, 0.9m/s = 3.24 kph.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Australian_Current

Not nearly as dramatic as the movie - but still well above 1 kph.

[Bohandas]

If it’s in the open ocean then there’s technically plenty of phytoplankton around…. Except that you can’t really eat phytoplankton so you’d have raise or hunt stuff that can.

You'd just have to run the water through some kind of big filter and you could catch plenty of plankton. That's basically how the plankton feeding creatures do it anyway.

Without steam power, gasoline, or nuclear power, a submarine is going to struggle to move. Merfolk or other undersea creatures would have to row it or tow it, though I suppose it would work for moving bulk cargo even if it didn't work as personal transportation.

Just stick a harness on some sharks or whales or something

[brian 333]

Slow deep sea currents may move as little as 4 miles/day, with some locations clocking in over 70. Averages of about 10 to 15 miles/day are about what the wagon trains across the North American West were accomplishing. Add this steady, free, velocity to whatever the draught animals or mechanical apparatus can do. Then consider the length of the trade routes and the many civilizations the route passes before reaching its starting point.

The American Clippers made 5 year round trips for massive profit between the US East Coast and the Asian East Coast. Faster trade may be more profitable, but steady trade through many ports is more sustainable.