Treecat Social Dynamics

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:I believe Nimitz and Honor's story was Peak Bears migrating outside their territory due to abnormal weather conditions. Dead shot Honor put an end to their wanderings.

Stephani's story was the Hexapuma.

And Stephanie crash-landed quite far from her home and the Bright Water Clan's range.

A single treecat is no match for a hexapuma, one on one. But treecats aren't stupid, they attack in groups; hexapumas know not to tangle with groups of treecats. So it stands to reason that treecats do clear the areas near their range of hexapuma and other threats.

I always get that part of Honor and Stephanie mixed up. Their personalities seem so alike. Perhaps Honor is a reincarnation of Stephanie.

I'll go along with the gang tactic of cats against a hex. But I wouldn't be surprised if a cat or three got wounded or killed in the battle. Hexes are some huge SOBs. This leads to the question, can a treecat hear the mind voice of all animals? If so, it should be impossible for an animal to sneak up on a cat. Does textev say one way or the other?

At any rate, peak bears and pumas are dangerous to kittens.

Is Nimitz still aware of Honor while he is sleeping? I know not when he is drugged, or Nimitz would have sensed Honor's trouble in the shower with Young. The author saw that problem ahead of time and had Young poison Nimitz. Yet he didn't see that he needed some sort of similar measure when Honor fought Burdette.

cthia wrote:I always get that part of Honor and Stephanie mixed up. Their personalities seem so alike. Perhaps Honor is a reincarnation of Stephanie.

Minus the reincarnation part, that is not a coincidence. Laughs Brightly remarks that he did the exact same thing as Climbs Quickly did before him, and as a descendant, he was a traditionalist and rode on Honor's right shoulder.

Also note the names. Honor's treecat name (Dances on Clouds) evokes of Stephanie's mishap. Her full two-legs name is Honor Stephanie Harrington.

(Though her sister is Faith Katherine Honor Stephanie Miranda Harrington, so I expect all female descendants of Stephanie have Stephanie as a middle name)

I'll go along with the gang tactic of cats against a hex. But I wouldn't be surprised if a cat or three got wounded or killed in the battle. Hexes are some huge SOBs. This leads to the question, can a treecat hear the mind voice of all animals? If so, it should be impossible for an animal to sneak up on a cat. Does textev say one way or the other?

It does. Hexapumas are dumb animals and have no mindvoice. I don't remember if it says they don't have any mindglow or if it's so dull as to be indistinguishable from any other living being. Either way, in a forest, you wouldn't be able to tell that there's a large predator coming just from mindglow.

I personally put mindglow and higher-level thinking on a parallel: the two are linked. Would be interesting to put a treecat next to a Stilt from Medusa and see if those have mindglows too. How about dolphins?

At any rate, peak bears and pumas are dangerous to kittens.

Is Nimitz still aware of Honor while he is sleeping? I know not when he is drugged, or Nimitz would have sensed Honor's trouble in the shower with Young. The author saw that problem ahead of time and had Young poison Nimitz. Yet he didn't see that he needed some sort of similar measure when Honor fought Burdette.

Huh? First, Nimitz is perfectly capable of not acting when told to stay. He can also be left at a distance, like she did when duelling with pistols. If Nimitz was going to intervene, he'd have done much sooner. Remember, for treecats, there are only two types of enemies: those that are dead and those that still need to be dealt with. They don't understand leaving enemies alive or ritual duels. Or Dr. Evil's unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism (treecats would have acted like Dr. Evil's son and grabber a gun).

Second, what danger was Honor in? She was in no physical or emotional distress. She was actually perfectly self-centred. She probably drew from Nimitz to achieve this state. So this is not the same situation as Young's rape attempt. Meanwhile, Burdette was feeling smug and self-congratulatory, so not the same thing as the assassins during the Maccabeus Plot.

If Burdette had killed Honor, that's a different story. But he didn't.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:I always get that part of Honor and Stephanie mixed up. Their personalities seem so alike. Perhaps Honor is a reincarnation of Stephanie.

Minus the reincarnation part, that is not a coincidence. Laughs Brightly remarks that he did the exact same thing as Climbs Quickly did before him, and as a descendant, he was a traditionalist and rode on Honor's right shoulder.

Also note the names. Honor's treecat name (Dances on Clouds) evokes of Stephanie's mishap. Her full two-legs name is Honor Stephanie Harrington.

(Though her sister is Faith Katherine Honor Stephanie Miranda Harrington, so I expect all female descendants of Stephanie have Stephanie as a middle name)

I'll go along with the gang tactic of cats against a hex. But I wouldn't be surprised if a cat or three got wounded or killed in the battle. Hexes are some huge SOBs. This leads to the question, can a treecat hear the mind voice of all animals? If so, it should be impossible for an animal to sneak up on a cat. Does textev say one way or the other?

It does. Hexapumas are dumb animals and have no mindvoice. I don't remember if it says they don't have any mindglow or if it's so dull as to be indistinguishable from any other living being. Either way, in a forest, you wouldn't be able to tell that there's a large predator coming just from mindglow.

I personally put mindglow and higher-level thinking on a parallel: the two are linked. Would be interesting to put a treecat next to a Stilt from Medusa and see if those have mindglows too. How about dolphins?

At any rate, peak bears and pumas are dangerous to kittens.

Is Nimitz still aware of Honor while he is sleeping? I know not when he is drugged, or Nimitz would have sensed Honor's trouble in the shower with Young. The author saw that problem ahead of time and had Young poison Nimitz. Yet he didn't see that he needed some sort of similar measure when Honor fought Burdette.

Huh? First, Nimitz is perfectly capable of not acting when told to stay. He can also be left at a distance, like she did when duelling with pistols. If Nimitz was going to intervene, he'd have done much sooner. Remember, for treecats, there are only two types of enemies: those that are dead and those that still need to be dealt with. They don't understand leaving enemies alive or ritual duels. Or Dr. Evil's unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism (treecats would have acted like Dr. Evil's son and grabber a gun).

Second, what danger was Honor in? She was in no physical or emotional distress. She was actually perfectly self-centred. She probably drew from Nimitz to achieve this state. So this is not the same situation as Young's rape attempt. Meanwhile, Burdette was feeling smug and self-congratulatory, so not the same thing as the assassins during the Maccabeus Plot.

If Burdette had killed Honor, that's a different story. But he didn't.

The proper venue.

cthia wrote:The proper venue.

I'll continue posting here, thank you. A 450-page thread is a massive, discontinuous, unsearchable mess.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:The proper venue.

I'll continue posting here, thank you. A 450-page thread is a massive, discontinuous, unsearchable mess.

???

So you want to make "the can of worms" even more discontinuous by discontinuing that discussion in that proper thread??? Where I've gone to great lengths to keep the conversation together? Thus searchable? And continuous? By including "can of worms" links, everywhere and in all threads applicable (because this can of worms threatens to ignite in many different threads which actually would be a mess)? Where I've refrained from any other topics in that thread which would break continuity until that subject is "put paid?" Hmm, I don't follow your logic. But then my screen name means logic, for a reason.

At any rate, I anticipate only one more post to wrap that thread up anyway.

BTW, I never proposed discontinuing this thread.

Climbs Quickly was a scout. That certainly implys he "scouted" things, being investigated stuff, looked for interesing things (to Treecats), would note changes in food plants and prey, check on predators that might be getting too close to a clan's range. He might also keep tabs on the neighboring clans activities and any preceived shift in their activities closer to his own clans.

I get there is a sense of a buffer area between clan territories, not an actual defined (and agreed to) border. This is not quite a hunter-gatherer -in terms of nomadic forrest dwellers- but by the time Humans had arrived, Treecats had a good grasp of the amount (productive amount) of territory it took to keep a clan supplied and healthy. You would expect that marginal land might be used in the creation of buffer space if it was in a usefull place but you could also expect that what marginal land was needed to provide enough of some resource you would need relatively more of it to make up for shortfalls. And then there are things like Purple Thorn which Treecats realize are critical and that would be protected.

Climbs Quickly certainly was being cautious and sneaky getting into the greenhouse to investigate what turned out to be Celery. That implys to me that Scouts might be supposed to and were expected to be sneaky and do a bit of trespassing on other clans ranges, at least in the terms of keeping tabs on activity and changes. Also kind of a courage/skill boasting rights thing.
He was also really sure he was not supposed to let the Two Legs know anything about The People although he was really confident that he could slip in and out without letting them know he had been there. That sounds very much like a Recon/Scout drifing around places they really arn't supposed to be and that is very skilled in this job.

Telepathy/empatch in Treecats. All this talk about "Power". I think it is more a question of the (aside from having the wireing and the ability to do it) strength of the transmitter and the sensitivity of the receiver. Those are not the same thing. Voice vs ear kind of stuff.

Treecat telepathy/empathy

Brigade XO wrote:I get there is a sense of a buffer area between clan territories, not an actual defined (and agreed to) border. This is not quite a hunter-gatherer -in terms of nomadic forrest dwellers- but by the time Humans had arrived, Treecats had a good grasp of the amount (productive amount) of territory it took to keep a clan supplied and healthy. You would expect that marginal land might be used in the creation of buffer space if it was in a usefull place but you could also expect that what marginal land was needed to provide enough of some resource you would need relatively more of it to make up for shortfalls. And then there are things like Purple Thorn which Treecats realize are critical and that would be protected.

In A Beautiful Friendship, RFC very sneakily tells us, without bringing much attention to it, that treecats learned agriculture because of their contact with two-legs. It was still experimental at the time of the book, so treecat clan ranges were still rather big, but Climbs Quickly was pondering on the fact that they had a comfortable surplus of food during the last Winter.

Agriculture was such an important step for humans that we basically divide our existence in two eras: before it and after it (the third would be the Space Era, when we practice agriculture away from Earth).

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:I get there is a sense of a buffer area between clan territories, not an actual defined (and agreed to) border. This is not quite a hunter-gatherer -in terms of nomadic forrest dwellers- but by the time Humans had arrived, Treecats had a good grasp of the amount (productive amount) of territory it took to keep a clan supplied and healthy. You would expect that marginal land might be used in the creation of buffer space if it was in a usefull place but you could also expect that what marginal land was needed to provide enough of some resource you would need relatively more of it to make up for shortfalls. And then there are things like Purple Thorn which Treecats realize are critical and that would be protected.

In A Beautiful Friendship, RFC very sneakily tells us, without bringing much attention to it, that treecats learned agriculture because of their contact with two-legs. It was still experimental at the time of the book, so treecat clan ranges were still rather big, but Climbs Quickly was pondering on the fact that they had a comfortable surplus of food during the last Winter.

Agriculture was such an important step for humans that we basically divide our existence in two eras: before it and after it (the third would be the Space Era, when we practice agriculture away from Earth).

Uh, maybe the fourth era should be "away from the planet." The third era has already claimed "away from Earth" - growing crops (Marijuana) atop private highrise buildings. LOL

Treecats learning agriculture is interesting. A new niche of Cat has to be created - the farmer? Memory Singers and Scouts certainly can't do it. A lot is involved with farming. Pesticides, harvest times, crop rotation, animal control, etc. You don't want critters decimating your crop. And, farming Cats are going to have to develop a more precise way of telling time if they are going to become successful at it. A "hand of hands" isn't likely to be the beginnings of a reliable almanac.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:I get there is a sense of a buffer area between clan territories, not an actual defined (and agreed to) border. This is not quite a hunter-gatherer -in terms of nomadic forrest dwellers- but by the time Humans had arrived, Treecats had a good grasp of the amount (productive amount) of territory it took to keep a clan supplied and healthy. You would expect that marginal land might be used in the creation of buffer space if it was in a usefull place but you could also expect that what marginal land was needed to provide enough of some resource you would need relatively more of it to make up for shortfalls. And then there are things like Purple Thorn which Treecats realize are critical and that would be protected.

In A Beautiful Friendship, RFC very sneakily tells us, without bringing much attention to it, that treecats learned agriculture because of their contact with two-legs. It was still experimental at the time of the book, so treecat clan ranges were still rather big, but Climbs Quickly was pondering on the fact that they had a comfortable surplus of food during the last Winter.

Agriculture was such an important step for humans that we basically divide our existence in two eras: before it and after it (the third would be the Space Era, when we practice agriculture away from Earth).

The first example of a treecat getting a higher education will probably be horticulture - or psychotherapy. Third will probably be anthropology.

cthia wrote:Treecats learning agriculture is interesting. A new niche of Cat has to be created - the farmer? Memory Singers and Scouts certainly can't do it. A lot is involved with farming. Pesticides, harvest times, crop rotation, animal control, etc. You don't want critters decimating your crop. And, farming Cats are going to have to develop a more precise way of telling time if they are going to become successful at it. A "hand of hands" isn't likely to be the beginnings of a reliable almanac.

Indeed. And having a ready surplus of foodstuffs so your population never grows hungry, plus is less manpower-intensive, means more individuals are free to pursue other tasks. This is where other professions start.

I really meant it when I said there are only two eras for humanity. For the first 100,000 years of humans before us, our population was more or less stable. It wasn't until agriculture 12000 years ago that things changed.

CrashCourse World History on Agriculture (it's the first episode)

Kurzgesagt on the Human Era which he defines as starting with agriculture.