Worldbuilding Prompt What Animals Serve in the Military in SARP?

[Wes]

Here's a world-building question.

In the real world, you see animals sometimes used in the armed forces such as:

• Mules for extreme terrain that vehicles can't go on
• Dogs for sniffing for IEDs, finding people in collapsed buildings, or to catch fleeing suspects
• Camels for desert travel
• Elephants
• Dolphins for marine work

What animals serve in the military forces of the Star Army universe?

Rather than answer with just what's on the wiki, get creative and maybe we can turn the top answers into SARP lore.

 

[Yuuki]

To be honest, I feel like animals are more or less obsolete when we're talking about the sensor, AI, power, and propulsion technology Yamatai has, and the inherent abilities and augmentations of its personnel. My answer is none.

 

[Wes]

To be honest, I feel like animals are more or less obsolete when we're talking about the sensor, AI, power, and propulsion technology Yamatai has. My answer is none.

It can't be be none because we have at least one telepathic alien beetle technician!

 

[Yuuki]

Bidole might as well wear rank.

 

[Hollander]

When talking about the Star Army specifically, I feel like animals have to compete with robots and other technologies, like Yuuki said. That makes it an interesting wordbuilding challenge. Robots can work tirelessly, recharge off of solar power or kinetic energy or whatever, they can repair each other, maybe they can even replicate with nanites or whatnot. That’s tough competition. Still, I think you could imagine a few situations where a living, self-repairing, reproducing animal with instincts could still serve a useful purpose.

The Frontier Critter
Animals might also be superior in frontier situations. A very distant colony, a remote outpost, somewhere planet-side where spare parts or replication stations are hard to find. In that situation, a team of draft mules can haul equipment, pull trees, serve as personal mounts, help with construction efforts. If your robot breaks after falling into a canyon, you're in a pretty tough spot unless you have more of them. If your mule gets sick, you may have a team of them back at base that can fill in while the mule gets better. Is it easier and more economical to provide veterinary care for a mule, than it is to repair and maintain a robot?

Ecological Control
Animals could be used as ecological tools, controlling pests and invasive species and so on. For example, what if we found (or developed) an animal that ate the Mishhuvurthyar Slime Tentacle Vine that’s causing problems on Jiyuu III?

https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=planet:jiyuu_iii:flora#mishhuvurthyar_slime_tentacle_vine

You can have manual removal teams of robots working on the issue, sure, but imagine if you also had a population of animal ‘partners’ out there constantly chewing up the vines, reproducing, spreading to places your robots can’t easily get to, etc.

Smell
As a newbie, I don’t yet know how well Star Army technology handles olfactory stuff. An Emrys Industries Basic Sensor Package for Androids, built in YE 34, had these capabilities:

“Olfactory

• Range and sensitivity same as a human
• Discriminatory, able to identify specific scents accurately”

Some android player characters are listed as liking the smells of certain things, so surely Star Army has smell-capable tech, but how good is it? Is it easier to program a sense of smell, or get a bloodhound? I’m less sure about this application, but who knows, maybe in extreme tracking situations like drug detection or Mishhu influence detection, you have a sniffing animal supplementing your technical solution.

So I'm thinking animal solutions may be supplementary to technological solutions. Construction bots and mules. Ecological clean-up drones and goats. That sort of thing.

 

[club24]

I know you said not specifically wiki stuff, but the My’leke are a big part of the Nesh navy who work closely with the daur and laibe in both a support and combat amount.

And i plan to start introducing some of my spooky creatures back into the mix again including one that made an appearance in the first Division 5 thread, since Kingdom Fall is not a properly funded or run military force they resort to less mainstream tactics such as weaponising the fauna of the neshaten homeworlds.

 

[Yuuki]

Yeah but My'leke are more or less just people with four paws, not service animals.

 

[demibear]

I have thought about making animal trainers for the Reds since they are on some fairly rugged locations. Not sure about as service animals unless they were specifically genetically created (notXenomorphs/intelligent Direwolves) to contend with the threats of the setting. Alternative maybe is make a hybrid organic biosensor (saw something in GURPS once before) that has the sensitivity of an animal, but what happens if it requires more maintenance compared to an animal or EM conditions are present that reduces its effectiveness? Robots for the core worlds where all the high tech is and more options for the poor folks.

 

[club24]

Yeah but My'leke are more or less just people with four paws, not service animals.

I mean, they’re talking tigers with avatar tails the shukaren made special tech for so they could operate their other tech, maybe not a service dog but by sarp standards of hi tech and aliens i would be more inclined to think animal

But again thats why im making scary hybrids and genetic abominations!

 

[Ametheliana]

You once said horses so I've always assumed horses.