So at my workplace (in bioinformatics) we use a tool called somalier to identify sample swaps.
Essentially, in non-coding regions of the genome there are certain random sites where the allele frequency in a population is close to half, maximising the likelihood that site is different between individuals. If you look for those sites, say 300 of them, you can start to form a barcode that you can use to reliably identify individuals.
This is also why in research, variants in non-coding regions are typically omitted as it’s considered personally identifiable information - random variants in these regions are typically conserved as they have little effect on fitness, whereas variants in coding regions tend to be more common in the population.
Another gold standard is STR profiling, the concept is similar. Just sprinkle in some Sci Fi magic where there’s some form of instantaneous sequencing and the logic holds up.
If you have a non-invasive, rapid DNA sequencing system like this, chances are you’re going to have very advanced genetics research in general, because that kind of tech is going to be used in research fields first before anything else. As a result, gene editing using a retrovirus to propagate a harmless change to one’s DNA would actually be a potentially available technology at least to some degree, although it would be tricky and expensive unless further developments are made.
The risk for security wouldn’t necessarily be falsification or spoofing so much as making someone impossible to identify or allowing them to forge a new fake identity. A career criminal could use this to escape justice, a spy could use this to hide their real identity, and it could also be used as a sort of bio-cyber attack by using an airborne pathogen to lock people out of any services, areas or technologies that require ID.
It’s still definitely a technically superior option to physical ID media on its own, it just comes with its own vulnerabilities.
That’s to say nothing of random harmless mutations that occur naturally just as a result of background radiation or just your cells transcribing it wrong. Your cells can easily correct a one-off error in DNA, but if you feed your entire DNA sequence through sha256, if even one base pair is off, the hash is going to be completely different. that’s kind of the point of a cryptographic hash
This sounds analogous to what happened with Sudafed (Pseudoephedrine). It used to be just over the counter, but when people were buying up huge amounts to make meth, quantity limits and IDs became required.
You say that the Intium extractors need 1000x more pills than carnivores using them for their intended purpose. This means that the rationing doesn’t need to be severe enough to be a burden on genuine users. Simply make the rationed maximum amount 10x what a carnivore needs, and make it so anyone can still acquire the pills. Bad actors would need to coordinate 100 people to get the number of pills they need to make a paltry amount of money that isn’t worth the labor cost of organizing that many people.
The pills maybe don’t even need to be behind the counter. In our society, if I pick up a controlled/dangerous substance (e.g. flex seal or stump remover), I get my ID scanned at checkout. That’s the only additional burden, and it’s a minor one (assuming that identification documents are common-place). The product is still on the shelf where I can grab it and head to the checkout line. Perhaps an ID isn’t really necessary, as long as each individual purchase is below the cap. Who would want to go to 100 stores to get enough pills? That’s a lot of time and effort for what you claim is tens of dollars in Intium.
Can an herbivore pick up pills for a carnivore friend? Yes, as long as they aren’t doing it for more than 10 friends. Can a carnivore who loses their pills get replacements without worrying about it? Yes.
The extreme amount of pills required for illicit usage makes bad actors easy to detect with minimal impact on authentic use. Also, the limited value of the Intium able to be extracted by this method means that only a modest barrier is required to prevent illicit usage.
The situation you are describing is a best-case scenario for constructing a policy that is simple, effective, and a limited burden on aboveboard access.
It isn’t actually, at least not intentionally, I just thought of this interesting scenario after I had already developed the lore of how they solve the predation problem. Though I suppose the reader can interpret it as an allegory!
This is basically the tragedy of the commons - people abuse free access to a resource to the eventual detriment of the community. Elinor Ostrom has some research on less authoritarian solutions to the problem, even won the 2009 Nobel in economics for her work on the subject. Might be worth digging into.
By coincidence, I’ve had a “Santa AU” story idea for awhile just like this. Maybe material for a Blender short one day if I git gud at animation, who knows.
Furry/Anthro universe, set in near(?)-future. Giant high-tech factory at North Pole makes tons of toys. Huge antigrav spaceships deliver the toys, piloted by “Santa’s” reindeer (All 9: Dasher, Dancer, Rudolph, etc.), split into teams to handle each continent. Dunno if any other workers, or if all automated toy-making. Oldass oil painting of the Saint Nicolas (also a reindeer) hanging on the factory wall; operation inspired by his legendary generosity, continued by generations of admiring reindeer (and other Furry species) throughout the centuries after his death.
Squash in as many holiday tropes and not-so-subtle references as possible – e.g. The Guardians; Dancer makes small-talk about Rudolph and his girlfriend Clarice; maybe squeeze in Vader-San’s Synth species cuz this a techno AU and me shameless simp; etc.
In my fursona’s world, Santa’s a polar bear and the elves are, paradoxically, emperor penguins.
In actuality, that world’s equivalent of the Coca-Cola company had more influence on the modern concept of Santa Claus. Or really Santa Claws as he’s called. Like IRL, in my fursona’s world Santa is a traditional legend.
However, to make Santa work…
You’d need a fat polar bear (easy to find, bears tend to be on the chonky side in my fursona’s world) dressed in a red suit. Or green, the whole red suit design was Coca-Cola’s idea, originally the jolly old elf wore green.
The sack is a bag of holding. In my fursona’s world, magic is surprisingly common, just not relied on due to its fickle and unreliable nature.
The sleigh… I guess you could put a wing enchantment on one.
Toon or toonified reindeer that ignore gravity during the flight. Could also help resolve the whole “white tailed deer” situation with depictions of reindeer if they’re basically a mix of the two in traits.
At the end of the day, it’s generally impossible to prove motive beyond a reasonable doubt outside of cases where there is extensive evidence of that motive. Let me use two different hypothetical murder cases as examples:
Case 1: The culprit already legally owned a gun. Everything seems normal with them, but then they go and shoot their neighbor who apparently owed them a large sum money and never paid it back. It can be inferred that this was a premeditated murder but it could have also been spur-of-the-moment.
Case 2: The culprit has constantly complained about their neighbor not paying back a large sum of money they loaned said neighbor. Witnesses report that the culprit has been saying things like “I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch if he doesn’t give me my money”, and the culprit only recently purchased a gun. The culprit then goes and shoots their neighbor. In this case, it’s pretty clear that the culprit had every intention to kill their neighbor.
Cases like case 1 almost always get plea-bargained down from first-degree murder to second-degree murder/homicide.
While this is heavily species dependent, assuming a highly diverse set of species, I’d imagine at least a part of the cultural evolution would be clothes as a tool for courtship, not necessarily protection. Covering up the naughty bits, showing off status through fashion, hell even basic clothing for specific jobs (however minimal they may be) are likely occurrences in such a setting.
And to piggy back off the multi species tangent; I’d imagine the less fur you have (or fat) the more likely you would be to wear clothes for comfort or protection. The size problem is simply resolved less through diversifying the clothes, but modularization. Foxes don’t wear pants, they wear togas. Lizards wear leather straps around their girdles, birds might only ever had a bandolier and a hat. You don’t buy a shirt, you buy a strip of cloth with sleeves. Then you tie it around you and secure it with a clip.
The diversity surrounding species variety would motivate eclectic industries capable of handling multiple different forms and needs. A niche, unless highly ludicrous, would be doomed financially.
EDIT: Negating courtship is also a reason for clothes such as in a business
My science-fantasy world with intelligent animals living in harmony takes place millions of years after humanity mysteriously disappears from the Earth, I imagine how this goes is someone dug up some ancient human artifact that contained information about Christmas and felt determined to do something similar in their present day (wouldn’t be the first time, a lot of their science and technology was borrowed from the humans when their ancestors dug up human ruins and deciphered human language). They might pull off a Santa and sleigh in the following ways:
Well all the humans are extinct from the planet and they haven’t built Anthropocene Park yet, so best they can do is dress an overweight bonobo or other ape in red and strap a fake beard onto him. Or, if we’re using animals that I actually have developed characters for and possibly the much cuter option, Santa Cat!
A sack of toys wouldn’t be hard to come by, though they would likely have to be species specific since different animals like different things. Not a huge problem all things considered.
They have something called a Gravitational Slipstream Hovercraft which are nearly ubiquitous as the primary form of public transportation, think of them like aerial buses. GSS hovercrafts are probably by far the safest way to do this, as they can levitate and fly very fast under their own power, have active stabilization to keep itself steady as a sleigh needs an open top, have automatic collision warning and avoidance systems for both flying animals and other hovercraft, and can lift enough weight to carry a massive bag of toys. They would need to rent a hovercraft from one of the airlines/public transit providers, probably the Feline Ministry of Transportation as the Felines are more or less considered to have the best hovercraft tech. Unless Santa has a pilot certificate and is type rated on that hovercraft though, they would probably also need to “rent” a pilot too. From there, they can build a structure that resembles a sleigh around the hovercraft, which luckily wouldn’t be hard to do since GSS hovercrafts don’t have wings that need to be kept aerodynamically clear, nor do they have rotors or spinning engines that create airflow. GSS engines can still do their gravitational field manipulation from behind the sleigh facade.
They have actual reindeer, who are also sapient just like every other animal, and you could presumably just hire nine of them to pretend to run in front of your hovercraft. As for how they might levitate with the hovercraft while not having anything supporting their hooves, they can use a similar form of technology as a gravitational slipstream drive, albeit several stages more advanced and way more restricted by the government. A quantum interface can levitate pretty much anything within its area of effect. This would probably be the hardest part simply because they need to make a good case to the regulators why they should be allowed to use quantum interfaces in this way, and they would also need a government researcher to ride along with them and to be the actual one operating the quantum interface, possibly even my main character!
Rudolph is pretty easy, just strap a red light to her muzzle and pretend to bully her for a bit! The hovercraft has navigation instruments and would be flying in IFR so she doesn’t actually need to shine through the fog.
Realistically, instead of delivering presents to individual houses, they would probably just parade around going from city to city and handing out free swag to kits/cubs/etc along the way. I doubt the government security agencies would give them access to their naughty lists so they’ll just have to take their word for it on if they were naughty or nice. This world might have its share of Grinches too, mostly in the form of air traffic controllers freaking out and not allowing them to enter their airspace because their aircraft is “unsafe”, such Christmas haters amirite?
I’d honestly say that there’s IRL precedent to something like this. As for it being coercion or guilt tripping, I’d definitely say it’s guilt tripping, and on that note I think that this would inevitably sour relations between the two governments.
Depends a lot on how far you want to go with playing up the source animals differences.
In the transformation scenario, a dog character would suddenly find themselves seeing less colors, which could be played for a change in outlook where they stop relying on sight so much, and pick up the slack with smell. It could also have interaction-with-society effects: signs written/drawn with certain color combos would become unreadable, some computer games would become harder, if not impossible, to play, plus others (talking with a person with daltonism could probably give you more information here). Does your character now have the ability to see in the dark? This could change their habits and circadian clock drastically, and inform a lot of their behavior (suddenly it’s a lot easier to be a night thief, or be a security guard, or a valuable asset in mining operations).
If smells change, so do food tastes, so the character would have to re-evaluate every food preference. Every single person (both others and self) would gain a new smell dimension. Suddenly a great friend’s presence may become unbearable. Is the character’s room close to an outside trash can? Suddenly even just a day’s trash might be uncomfortable. The same applies for any in-house trash, such as in the kitchen. I’m unsure of this, but there might be smell components to certain emotional aspects? Can “smelling” fear become more than a metaphor? And going farther than just smells, dogs can be trained to detect panic attacks and other issues, could a dog character train themselves to replicate that?
Is the character digitigrade or plantigrade? Suddenly they might have no shoes to wear, and pants need completely different fits, even without considering the tail. Will they be able to even walk immediately, or will they struggle to keep equilibrium with tail and/or legs? The clothes’ fit might be relevant with fur alone, if the character ends up having a long or thick coat, rather than a short one.
And hearing, of course. Do they hear worse? Better? Human hearing is not particularly good so probably better? Are electronics now unbearable due to their buzzing? Do people talk too loud? Is working in an office absolutely agonizing? Do they plug their ears to handle the new stress? The unique thing about these changes is that they are really hard to relate to, even more so than eyesight problems, because it comes from being better at something than any human possibly could, and it creating problems. This means that not even in disabled communities would your character be able to find someone who understands. It’s the kind of thing that almost begs to introduce a plot thread of alienation from peers (even more so than just being an anthro in a human world).
Do they have claws? They’re more of a weapon now, even if the character themselves does not think of them that way, other people would. Do they have a different weight and/or height? They might tire more easily now, or hit their head (if growing) or not be able to reach things they could (if shrinking). Are they a deer or other animal with horns? That’s a weapon and different weight feel (they would probably flail with their head when nodding the first times). Do the horns fall and regrow every year? That’s something they could sell for some cash maybe? Or maybe it weirds the character out.
Temperature control would be a whole other thing. Humans wear clothes in place of having fur coats, but now your character has a fur coat. What do? Are clothes more of a social thing now? To make them look less alien to others? Do they relish the opportunity to be naked while alone at home? A fur coat would also protect them from the sun and other weather effects, but forget any kind of long term exertion unless you magic some cooling system, panting and wet noses are not sufficient for prolonged running (unless you hand-wave it away or never introduce it as a complication).
And this is only from the point of view of a single character. If everyone is anthro (and has always been), then there are a lot of societal-level differences.
There’s a lot to fur coats, for example. Maintenance would be a lot harder for everyone, overall. Some species have short coats, other long coats, other double coats, and possibly much more (a species having no coat could be an ostracizing factor, for example: sphinx cats could be frowned upon). In double coat species baths could be just a surface wash, while deeper sessions might be relegated to grooming parlors of some sort, which would also handle problems with mating and other fur coat health concerns (it is a surprisingly deep topic. I plan to play around with it on something I’m writing). House plumbing would require some extra filters to catch fur, but this is not limited to water plumbing but also to air plumbing, as in, air conditioning and any other air cycling units would need to deal with shed fur and dandruff. Clothing styles would also be a lot different, cotton is great at grabbing shed fur, so I expect it would be favored a lot less in comparison with other fabrics, or it could be worn as a sign of luxury (as in, only people who have other people to handle their needs such as cloth washing would go through the effort of wearing them, as a display of economic power).
Claws, hooves, horns, and all other “externals” can be used as weapons, how does your society deal with that? Enforced culling? Only criminals have them as a display of power and not belonging in “normal” society, while “normal people” are all expected to neutralize theirs? Would things as de-clawing being treated as a normal thing that everyone is expected to do, or would it be considered mutilation, and inhumane?
What about “internal” weapons? Poisons and venoms? Would those people be looked down upon with inherent suspicion? Maybe they would be sterilized at birth? Could they have been “naturally” selected against, such that toxic traits disappear from the species entirely? Are there prey/predator dynamics?
I feel the that for a mixed species society something would have to be changed at some root level in the past (either species culling, massed sterilization, selective breeding, or others) that could either lead to deep rooted distrust or animosity between species (Beastars works in this zone, although I personally don’t think the equilibrium the manga starts with is something that could have occurred naturally), or have been totally accepted and be considered normal.
Or you could go with geographically enclosed species, no mixing whatsoever. Each species would have wildly different societal norms and expectations, with trade and collaboration being either a tense or unusual affair. Amphibian species could require very humid environments, and travel to other societies would need to be reliant on technology (for example, water misters that they could use on themselves to re-hydrate). Mammals could have a stronghold on non-equatorial latitudes, while equatorial ones would be dominated more by reptiles. This could work well in a black-and-white-morality setting, whereas for a morally-grey setting you could add species mixing in the in-between latitudes, and even some notable exceptions for added dynamics, such as camels in deserts.
Even with mixed species societies you can have a lot of this, even if you assume that the natural weapons are a thing in play. There’s no strict need for state regulations: you can handle the situation on a social level. Sure, some species have dangerous natural weapons, but their use in harming others can very well be something that is totally unheard of, or you can just ignore it all together, and only play them for flavor, or for less violent drama (for example: daltonic species ending up congregating together, because the way they paint their houses is unsightly to more colorful folks; noise-sensitive species doing the same because they build everything farther apart, or with more noise reduction techniques that other species find eerily mute; places that are totally mixed and there are no facilities to help with these differences, but were the people do the extra work of being aware and respect each other differences.)
And this is just touching the surface. Are you including avians? Do they fly? In a more reality-based setting that’s a hard sell, but in hand-waved or magic settings there’s a lot you would have to think with them.
For a less complex setting you could go mono-species, and just deal with the particulars of on single species. This is would be perfect for going deep instead of wide, but at this point I’m rambling more than thinking, so I guess this is a good place to stop. Either way, as you can see there is a lot to think about, it just depends on how deep and wide you want to go with it.
In the Beastars manga, We see that the Komodo dragons are feared and hated for their venom. They are segregated by going to eat at separate restaurants and all that. It kinda allows for the world to feel more real, by adding a touch of discrimination like in the real world. Just like in real life, most people couldn’t care about the differences. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of people who don’t accept others as people and look down upon them.
TLDR: Adding some racism and discrimination to your story seems to give your world a more real and dark touch. Someone I’ve personally loved.
I do plan to incorporate inter-species discrimination into my story-- in fact, it’s the main plot of the story.
But for many of the things mentioned in this thread-- yeah I’m not gonna go that deep. I’ll just incorporate what I feel necessary and that’s it, most people will hand-wave the more minor detail anyway.
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