Unfinished notes on a Trilobite civilization

A world building exercise. The actual text probably reads like a dry infodump and/or rambling which I will try to edit into something better. I avoid both supernatural and sci-fi elements, trying to offer a template for a Trilobite civilization whose overall capabilities are no better or worse than pre-industrial Human civilizations. As they are, they could be used as a pre-Human sapient species, primitive aliens found on a new planet or as an aquatic fantasy race which, I hope, is more interesting than generic merpeople. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Btw, once I have a solid idea of how Trilos are, I plan to make up some stats for them as a race.

1)Real-life trilobites have tens of thousands of known species with great differences like the number of segments, eyes that might or might not be on top of stalks, some crawled while others swam, there might have been air-breathing trilobites, defensive spines… The list goes on. There is even a species with a big frontal trident whose purpose is currently unknown. Inspired by this, I imagine that the Trilo civilization purposely breeds itself to create castes suited to certain needs. For example, a warrior caste might be bigger and have a thicker shell. Warrior subcastes, which also correspond to martial art traditions and/or warfare philosophies, might include traits like spines, armored antennae and even volvation*. The responsibility and knowledge related to the art of breeding would fall upon the breeder caste.

*Turning into a ball, like armadillos and woodlice.

1a)Expanding the above, they depend a lot on biotechnology, having things like corals that glow at night as light sources. But no magic or genetic engineering, they just do like Humans did with things like corn and dogs: domesticating and breeding generation after generation to optimize the desired traits. And there are a lot of neat lifeforms with interesting traits below the seas, like, well, corals that glow in the dark.

2)Trilo antennae would be used for manipulating objects and handling tools. Two simple antennae might not be enough, so they would have forked or branched antennae, each end roughly corresponding to a Human finger. Each caste might have its own sets and arrangements.

3)Their wheel/helical mills use sea currents and volcanic vents to provide power.

4)-Trilobites could have as few as 2 segments and as many as 103. As a trilo ages and molts, the number of body segments increases. The elders could resemble centipedes. Perhaps the number of segments equals their age in years.

5)The shells left after molting might be preserved for symbolic reasons? Associated with aging and thus history, they could be used as writing mediums and/or building material. Each trilo could carve his year-long diary upon his shell, then after molting, store it in their library/museum equivalent. The closest Human equivalent for these carved shells would be the funerary urns of the Marajoara Culture.

5a)Most Trilos combine their expanding neural system and shell carving into something that is both art and recording. Each molted shell has its own ideograph, which works as a mnemonic device. They tend to be highly complex and coded in ways that might make sense only to the Trilo who carved it. Then the respective Trilo might simply gaze or touch the ideograph to trigger a very accurate, but possibly imperfect, recall of the memories and events in the year prior to the moulting. Even Trilos which specialize in understanding and decoding the carved shells of others will struggle to understand which details have no purpose besides being aesthetic, and perhaps meant to cryptograph the carving. Many Trilo communities expand this into a set of written shibboleth pictograms. There are also numerous secret cults and societies which exist inside a community or spread through several regions.

6)In contrast to the above, Trilo languages are quite structured and formalized. This is meant to prevent the naturally high linguistic drift caused by the prevalence of local cants, secret languages, dialects and individual symbols spread through Trilo civilization. Left unchecked, a particular Trilo village may develop its own language in as few as three generations. Trilo nations which conduct censuses of their population make sure to inspect if their people are speaking and writing according to standards.

7)They could discover that roman concrete that sets underwater.

8)Like humans, they seem to have vision as their main sense.

9)Trilos mainly use lunar calendars. Trilo civilization first tried to figure and foresee the tidal cycles of the coasts they live in, but these are too erratic for timekeeping. In the process they noticed how the Moon influences the tides and has regular changes, making it a nice timepiece. Understanding the tidal cycles is equivalent to Human meteorology, and as important and difficult. Of course, this all presumes that the satellite of the planet the Trilos live in is just like the real-life Moon.

10)Some trilos could walk on land. These become the smith caste, which not only forge metals but establish a whole parallel civilization dedicated to providing the related infrastructure, like charcoal-making. They might be equally respected and feared, as well as being seen as some sort of wizard/miracle-maker. The concept that they tame fire alone seems very bizarre for aquatic beings.
>I really like the idea of the taming, perhaps the smith caste is a tamed animal, along the mining ones, than enter a simbiosis state with the Trilos.
>The smiths also colonize the tidepools and possibly even dig out their own private saltwater pond as impenetrable fortresses.

11)They probably favor bronze over iron because it lasts longer in contact with seawater. It is also possible to use iron or steel items coated with zinc or tin.

12)Perhaps they put eggs which are kept inside their bodies. After hatching, the babies, or baby(?), have to molt or further develop before being born. Basically mixing insects and marsupials.

13)Glass beads, gold and standardized pearls as money.

14)As long as the gills stay moist, they can survive on land for four days.

15)Trilo mating might include fluorescence. Fertile females have their facial sutures shine along certain wavelengths which the male eyes are attuned to, but not the females.

16)Possible basis for a sort of agriculture/herding are sea anemones. Although they are mainly predatory animals, some anemones host several types of unicellular algae. This could have been bred by the Trilos into a viable source of food. I imagine an orchard of sea anemones, each with a great canopy of green and flattened tentacles which resemble soft solar panels. Packed with tiny algae, they can fully feed the host anemone. In return, the anemones protect them from herbivores through their stinging cells. If necessary, the anemones can also move their tentacles and slowly change location, maximizing exposure to sunlight. The Trilos regularly cut slices of meat off the trunk. Reproducing the anemones is simple, as they might be even bisected in half and still regenerate. From the basic orchard variety, some Trilo communities might breed a type of anemone whose sting is painful and/or lethal to everyone but the Trilos of that particular community. This concept might be expanded into an orchard whose canopies form a great dome which protects against swimming predators such as the Anomalocaris and Trilo raiders. Expanding the idea further, the internal chambers of the anemone trunks, now useless as stomachs, could become housing for the Trilos. Tunnels could be cut into the flanks to connect the chambers of different trunks, using an internal lining of concrete to prevent the anemone from closing them through regeneration. So the ideal sea anemone orchard also doubles as a fortified village/town, whose very walls are a food source.

17)A side-effect of Trilo breeding is that an individual which shows clear congenital defects, either physical or mental, is born more frequently than when it comes to Humans. It is also an archetype of their myths, folklore and literature. Trilo communities try to care for such individuals as best as they can. In some cases, they are numerous enough to become a social class. Trilo breeders are seen as responsible for them and their defects, and try to fit them within the society, even if their personal feelings towards what some Trilos regard as failures are of pity, shame and anger. The actual success of this varies. A blind or partially paralysed Trilo might still become an artisan or storyteller. A deaf or mute Trilo can be trained as a scribe which writes and copies confidential documents and letters. Most individuals with intellectual disabilities can still be simple laborers. The inevitability of such cases is a part of a breeder's learning. There are whole manuals for breeders which catalogue such defects and ways to compensate and care for them. There are also legends of breeders which traveled far away to find other examples of a previously unknown congenital defect, possible causes and ideas on what to do about it. In some stories, the disabled individual travels together. The personal feelings of the disabled individual are rarely considered. He is not considered guilty of his own problem, but at the same time he isn't expected to be anything but grateful that someone is taking care of him. Most disabled individuals are indeed grateful, and those that find a way to contribute and work are satisfied.

18)Trilos have little facial expressions due to being hard-shelled. They compensate for this by having an amazing range of voice intonations, capable of conveying feelings and moods as well as Human smiles and frowns. Accomplished Trilo poets, kings and singers can express two or three feelings at the same time, through precise and nuanced differences in tone and speed. Sadly, other species often fail to perceive or understand it. And Trilo speech is optimized for talking underwater, so they also sound much worse outside it.

19)A floating ecosystem composed of a swimming worm which secretes a sort of slime net in which they live. All sorts of organic particles and algae get stuck on it. The slime gradually hardens as well. Over time, it becomes a reef analogue. The worms live within the tunnel network of the hardened core, leaving it to secrete more slime along the external surfaces and eat the food stuck on it. Several algae species grow on the upper surface and the sides of the slime-reef. Many animals feed on these algae. And there are predators which seek the herbivores and the worms. One of these looks like a nautilus which knows how to float but can't swim yet. So he crawls along the slime-reef with its tentacles, seeking entrances to the worm tunnels, where its mix of buoyancy and tentacles make it agile and fast enough to seek the worms and spray them with neurotoxic ink. Slime-reefs may become kilometers-long, but hardened slime is quite brittle and storms can break them up. No matter their size, slime-reefs provide energy-rich biomes in the nutrient-poor areas of the ocean. Once the Trilos breed a long-ranged swimming mount or develop a vehicle, perhaps a wet sub powered by oars or a type of screw propeller which uses water currents, the discovery and colonization of slime-reefs might be a mark in their history similar to the discovery of the Americas.

20)Antennae with natural or artificial armor could work as a form of whip-like weapon. If they grasp or attach a rock (or a natural weight) at the end, we have a sort of flail.

21)Investigate possibility of long-range electromagnetic communication based on stimulating electroreceptive animals like sharks.

>These electric fields are generated by all animals due to the activity of their nerves and muscles. A second source of electric fields in fish is the ion pumps associated with osmoregulation at the gill membrane. This field is modulated by the opening and closing of the mouth and gill slits.[11][15] Many fish that prey on electrogenic fish use the discharges of their prey to detect them. This behavior of a species collecting information from the communicative signals of a different species is referred to as "Eavesdropping"[16] and has been observed in the electroreceptive African sharptooth catfish (Clarias gariepinus) whilst hunting weakly electric Marcusenius macrolepidotus.[17]This has driven the prey to evolve more complex or higher frequency signals that are harder to detect.

>From what is known about the winghead shark, the shape of the hammerhead apparently has to do with an evolved sensory function. Like all sharks, hammerheads have electroreceptory sensory pores called ampullae of Lorenzini. The pores on the shark's head lead to sensory tubes, which detect electric fields generated by other living creatures.[13] By distributing the receptors over a wider area, like a larger radio antenna, hammerheads can sweep for prey more effectively.

22)Trilo mythology and religion combine aspects of real-life Empedocles cosmogony, Yin & Yang, Ancient Egyptian Maat/Isfet.

Basically, Order came out of a random possibility in the sheer chaos that was. Little by little, more and more elements of order arose, some which died, some which combined with other elements of order. This is not only true to life, but also rocks, air, water… All of it is both ordered and chaotic to an extent. Sentient and sapient beings are considered more orderly than animals, but both still have a chaotic element which must be gradually purged so they might become an ideal form in the future.

The water itself is likened to Chaos. The smith caste takes this further, considering that they are less chaotic because they don't need the water as much as other trilos. And also because their smithing refines the chaotic mineral into pure metal, using fire, which is the antithesis of water. Fire is also the secret element that only the smiths truly know and use. Some aspects of zoroastrianism might be useful here.

>Empedocles (c. 490—430 BC), argued that what we call birth and death in animals are just the mingling and separations of elements which cause the countless "tribes of mortal things."[8] Specifically, the first animals and plants were like disjointed parts of the ones we see today, some of which survived by joining in different combinations, and then intermixing during the development of the embryo,[a] and where "everything turned out as it would have if it were on purpose, there the creatures survived, being accidentally compounded in a suitable way."