New updates on Planet of the Singing Velociraptors https://twitter.com/LajaraSedai/status/1291931406189436929

A prologue to a book about bird advanced intelligence fucking up humans would show humans who communicate with drums over large distances.

Raptors would very quickly learn and mimic the rhythms (since birds can already entrain to rhythms generated by humans) and mimic melodic whistles (some human languages can be whistled for distance communication through dense forest)

So they could easily make human distress signals or signal some kind of gathering and very much Fuck Up some humans

They could use it for some strategic hunting or war. Lure away some humans using their codes and then have another force sneak into the poorly defended home/town/whatever

Humans would keep changing their codes but they raptors catch on so fast. And have their own impenetrable signals too. It would be a rhythmic and melodic arms race

Then the body of the book begins, thousands of years later. Humans managed to survive. Still an arms race. So you could do some cool speculation about how that would shape both human and bird culture. Maybe gestural languages take off more among humans.

Both parties have advanced tech. Would need to do some really creative thinking about what "tech" would look like made by bird species, embodied in the ways they can interact with objects

Lots of both parties' tech weaponry will still rely on encryption, decryption, and mimicry. Both species very clever at this.

Imagine what other physical and cultural adaptiations each species might have evolved. What does family or government structure look like? Idk yet. But I am caffeinated from excedrin for a migraine and am really having fun with these ideas.

And how might other birds and mammals evolved? Could we be closer with other Great Apes bc of their gestural capabilities that the raptors cannot mimic? What animals would we have domesticated? Would we have falconry and parrots and shit to give us some avian advantages somehow?

And how/why in earth's history are dinosaurs and humans coexisting? I haven't figured that out yet either but will need to be answered.

Also birds won't write. We will use that to our advantage. Most tech operation will be vocal, output auditory, maybe mechanical manipulation designed around talons and beaks (depending on species).

Most birds to have GREAT visual abilities. Very good at discriminating between subtle colors, visually identifying objects, etc. Sharper vision than ours. So I could see lots of icon-based tech in their societies. Motion representation and framerates v different from ours.

Visual tech will be some kind of extrapolation from how many species use feathers (pigmentation and and motion, spreading, etc.). Some motion on computers(?) might harken back to how they perceive movements of prey animals. Lots of quick darting stuff to catch attention?

I could see color changes on screens, icons unfolding and spreading out or folding back in, images looking "ruffled" or "smoothed," quivering or swaying, etc. All in codes generally incomprehensible to humans bc we're not embodied in feathered predator bodies.

And maybe not even computer screens. Objects that move and transform like this. Idk yet.

Also think about bird fovea placement (part of your eye with sharpest vision). For humans, it's the center of the retina. So we use the middle of the eye to look. Birds of prey use the top of their eye so images from down below while they're flying hit their retina.

So those species would be perched up high and looking down on their tech. What would that make workstations look like?

(This is why birds like owls and raptors cock their head to the side or turn their head upsside down to look at stuff while they're standing on the ground. They see best when objects are reflecting light to the top of the retina)