For context, I have a science-fantasy world with intelligent, non-anthro animals trying to live in peace with each other. A major problem is of course what the carnivores eat, and their solution is something called Dietary Enzyme Supplements, which carnivores take in order to supply artificial, carefully engineered digestive enzymes that allow them to digest plant matter and directly synthesize essential nutrients that would otherwise only be found in meat inside their own digestive tracts. It’s something that works really well for its intended purpose and that they’re really proud of, and I talk more about their history with solving the predation problem here if you’re interested.
For the species, taxa, and factions that have committed to banning predation and having predator and prey live in harmony, dietary enzyme supplements are typically freely available and a guaranteed right under their constitution, along with plant based food in general. Dietary enzymes are ubiquitous and work really well for their intended purpose, and represent the very bleeding edge of their chemistry and nutrition science prowess.
The most advanced dietary enzymes, those intended for obligate carnivores like cats, contain trace amounts of a special quasi-element called Intium as part of how they work, which is also a really powerful substance that power most of their super advanced sci-fi tech. However, due to how versatile and powerful it is, Intium is also extremely dangerous if misused, so it is heavily regulated by the government, and the only real “consumer” product that contains it are those obligate carnivore dietary enzymes. The next most accessible source is hovercraft fuel and the internal components of hovercraft engines, both of which are prohibitively expensive and require an aviation related license to purchase, while dietary enzymes are both free at the point of access and anyone can just go into a grocery store and take them without anyone else batting an eye.
The vast majority of animals that need dietary enzymes do not abuse their free access to them, since there’s no benefit in taking more than the required dose and they’re just flavourless pills that most animals don’t just stuff their faces with. However, this is where amateur chemistry enthusiasts come in, after a post on a science forum showing how to extract Intium from ATDP, which are the dietary enzyme supplements most commonly used by Felines. The process is pretty simple, basically just burn the pills at a very high temperature and in a high oxygen environment to convert the proteins and other support chemicals into carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, etc, and you’re left with a solid residue of mostly Intium oxide, which can then be further processed into pure Intium. This is technically legal since the government doesn’t regulate what exactly you do with dietary enzymes once you have it, but the problem is that ATDP, while free to use, still has a high production cost, and only contain minuscule amounts of Intium. A domestic cat for example typically takes one pill of ATDP per week, with the enzymes attaching to the lining of their digestive tracts to prevent the still perfectly functional enzymes from being expelled out the other end after one cycle of digestion and being wasted. However, an unlicensed chemist smelting pills to extract Intium can go through literally thousands of pills in a few hours, and those pills are paid for almost entirely by Feline tax revenue so neither the Feline government nor the Feline population in general are happy about this. Of course the safety risks of working with Intium apply as well, including pretty severe explosion risks, but the amounts they extract are so small that it’s hardly a public safety hazard so much as a public burden as they destroy tens of thousands dollars worth of dietary enzymes just to extract ten dollars worth of Intium. The Intium is not the expensive part of those pills, the expensive parts are the carefully engineered and synthesized proteins that surround the Intium. After a few incidents of particularly brazen and entitled animals (who notably weren’t even carnivores and had no biological need for dietary enzymes, certainly not the super advanced obligate carnivore versions that contain Intium) cleared out multiple grocery store shelves for their Intium extraction hustle and went viral on their internet, attracting intense public shaming with both predator and prey calling them selfish and misusing public resources, they realized that it was a massive problem and a policy change was needed to ensure fair access to this extremely important resource.
The most obvious and immediately effective solution is just to implement some kind of rationing system, where instead of a shelf filled with boxes of dietary enzymes that any animal can take, they move them behind the pharmacy counter and require ID to obtain, where they’ll check both whether you’re actually a species that requires the enzyme and also use a centralized database that tracks how much you’re taking per month. However, again, only a tiny minority of animals abuse the free access to dietary enzymes to do things they really shouldn’t be doing anyway, so it would feel like a massive burden for the rest of the carnivore populations who literally depend on access to dietary enzymes to survive in a society where predation is banned. It would also preclude things like animals who don’t need dietary enzymes getting them for their carnivore friends since they were going to the store anyway, or even things like losing your box of dietary enzymes and potentially getting denied replacements if they only allow animals to obtain them at the specific dosages they need, nor would they be able to stock up some dietary enzymes in their own nests and dens in case of supply chain issues. Not to mention the costs associated with implementing and maintaining such a rationing system which will also be passed onto the general public, potentially siphoning funds away from other public projects like housing and transportation, or just having less money to make more dietary enzymes. Free and easy access to both plant based food and dietary enzymes have been such staples in their society that they really don’t to abandon it just because a few animals don’t follow the rules, so they’re looking for an alternative that lets them have their dietary enzymes and eat it too.
What do you think? Is their only hope to just start rationing dietary enzymes? If you were a policy maker in this world, how would you address this issue? This world is supposed to be socialist so I’d love a socialist (or leftist in general) perspective on this!
Yes they all are. I specifically intended everyone to be sentient/sapient because part of the reason for me making this world was I hate cop-out “designated food animals” that so many other animals living in harmony stories have. The Lion King and Simba eating bugs for example, or how Zootopia implies that everyone there just eats fish instead of each other. Even when I was a a kid this had always annoyed me because it’s so hypocritical, when it really wouldn’t have needed that much more suspension of disbelief to just say the cats in this world just can digest plants or something. So I specifically chose to have every single animal be sapient so there can be no cop-outs to the predation problem and it can be confronted straight-on.
I also chose this as to not limit myself in what kind of animals I can have as characters, but admittedly I haven’t developed the lore much beyond cats, dogs, and fuzzy woodland critters since those tend to be the animals I like the most. Eventually I will probably flesh out the lore for bugs and aquatic animals, but currently my lore and main plot only acknowledge them tangentially and don’t focus on them.
I think it’d be neat to have eusocial insects be alien to the point of the hive being the person rather than the individual. Ocean life also presents a lot of opportunities for alien psychology.
Also, off topic for this thread but how do creatures with the body plan of a cat, dog, or most fuzzy woodland critters (notably the lack of thumbs) do a technological society?
Admittedly this is more or less just glossed over in my lore. I envision this world to be like a cartoon or anime, so essentially I just play the toon card take for granted that they manage to do it “somehow” and their paws are dexterous enough to somehow wrap around things to hold them and are capable of fine object manipulation. Similar to something like My Little Pony where the characters are four legged horses with hooves but for all intents and purposes function as hands.
Though, I do have a few simple constraints to make it more believable, namely in relation to how they carry things. Because they are four legged, they can either interact with things using their front paws, or walk, but not both. They have to stop walking to do things or stop doing things to walk. Things are usually carried by mouth, either directly or with a basket that holds more cumbersome things. They also have this side bag that slings over their front legs and back and hangs off the side of their bodies, kind of like the saddle bag on a horse minus the saddle, or for even heavier things they carry it on their back. For very large and heavy things especially in industry, they now commonly use a small type of open-canopy hovercraft called a “floating platform” that levitate and move around, kind of like a forklift.