Stone Age Chimps

[ysabetwordsmith]

 Chimpanzees are in the Stone Age.  Of course, Homo ergaster  did that for about a million years and it never went anywhere but the one rather awesome hand-axe.  You need a cluster of inventors, not just one ... which is hard because most inventors don't want to incarnate at that level of technology.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

Makes sense as to why they're stuck at that level of tech... everyone who could advance it, went elsewhere.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

In my experience as a lama, it's almost impossible to build a civilization by yourself. Pretty much the only option is to chain it -- and this has actually been written down in history and spec fic both -- by telling people, "I will do the thing. It's just going to have to get done in blocks of 50-60 years. After I die, wait 2-3 years, then look around for a toddler who is doing the thing, and I'll boost it up another step."

The reliable and efficient way, of course, is to get a few dozen friends together and cluster it. I mean really, to a lama, hominid history looks like one person trying to build the sapience engine one piece at a time, getting dragged off by their friends to work on somebody else's project, coming back and finding theirs has gone out again, and finally screaming "Jesus Maya Jackalope will you people quick fucking around and come help me get this fucking thing in gear!!!"

And then, you know, the whole Neanderthal and Cro Magnon thing happened, with the latter having the larger team and therefore winning.