Thought about posting this in the Ember’s End forum, but it pertains to locations and the locations forum has been pretty sadly neglected.
So it occurs to me that the whole “True Blue may make rabbits immortal” concept sets up a pretty serious logistical problem, though it may be centuries before it really becomes an issue. As stated by Missy Dreft, the long life associated with True Blue requires that rabbits continue to consume it. I would guess that, since rabbits clearly continue to eat other foods after True Blue becomes plentiful, the stuff probably isn’t enough by itself to cover all their nutritional needs. Between those factors and the fact of a constantly increasing, never decreasing (so far as we know) population, there is an inevitable conclusion to be faced: the rabbits are going to run out of room.
Now, of course, it will presumably be quite some time before this becomes an issue. Natalia is pretty sparsely settled, with wide swaths of land showing no evidence of settlements. This goes even beyond the map as we have it, with rabbits now having the opportunity to move into territory once dominated by predators or into unsettled territories like those apparently lying between Natalia proper and Terralain. It’s also possible that, through the Pilgrim’s expeditions, the Kingdom of the Mended Wood could travel across oceans to old dominions of rabbit kind like Golden Coast and the Blue Moss Hills.
However, no matter how vast the world where Natalia is located is, its space is finite. There’s only so much room for rabbits to live in, particularly when you account for the need for land on which to grow True Blue and other food sources. If the rabbits truly cannot die so long as they continue to consume True Blue, they’ll continue to multiply until eventually there will be a critical mass of the number of living rabbits vs. the land needed to grow all their food. At that point, the rabbits will face a crisis, to which only three solutions present themselves-at least to my mind:
Smalls and Heather decree that no one can have any more children. This would be a fairly depressing development, like a utopia turning dystopia.
Some miraculous event occurs, a truly divine transformation that truly completes the Mending by healing all wounds and reuniting the living with their deceased loved ones and ancestors. Such an event would presumably also bring about true immortality for rabbits, negating the need for food.
Rabbit technology continues advancing until Heyward and Emerson invent a
, at which point the rabbits are free to spread through the final frontier. Of course, that them introduces the problem of finding planets they can live on, but if they can develop the technology to actually get their terraforming shouldn’t be too much of a stretch.
Well, there’s my crazy thought process for you.
I feel like it might turn into a City of Ember scenario, where the underground rabbits might eventually forget about the upper ground rabbits causing a civil war between them all. but good theory!
Hmm, maybe they could grow underground like at cloud mountain. Only for a while though.
Trying to remember the last time-if ever-one of my posts prompted this much discussion...
Aww, thanks @Jo4life, I'll try to write it and totally have #Jemma as well.
Yeah I was thinking if I have enough time to write the fan fiction I would totally have Jo and Emma have kids in it.
Hmm... I never thought about that; awesome theory tho!
Rather a humorous issue... I would rather die than imagine that the first solution you suggested would be a possibility, so I'll completely ignore that one. (😂) As for the second one, I think that would be totally awesome. And about #3, that would be both stellar and terrifying. Rabbits in space? 😲 😄
That is a good point. I think point 2 is best.
Just an idea, don’t feel pressured at all! I think that no matter what you write it’ll be great!
Thats great! If you ship #Jemma you could make it “official“ because we never found out for sure that she ended up with Jo. Please, please, please!!!!!!!
Thanks! Its a working progress, and this would obviously be years and years later, so Heather's and Picket's kids would be grown up and some of them probably married and having kids of their own. I'm still deciding if I should write it or not, but if anybody wants to do it instead, that would be great. Also, love your ideas @Derrick Rowe! They help me with this fan fiction.
That sounds cool @Scribe of the Cause ! I’m really impressed by your theories @Derrick Rowe great ideas!
It would take many, many, many centuries before it would become an issue, look at us, we don't live forever but humans certainly do reproduce like rabbits. The human population has, since the end of the Black Death, continuously grown from about 370 million, to the present 8.7 billion (about 700 years). In that time span, we have created improved crops that yield a higher amount of grain and other food, per acer of land, and crops that can be grown in harsher and less ideal environments. Further, we have mechanized agriculture by implanting advancements like the seed drill, mechanical reapers, and eventually the tractors we see today, all of this has created, and still creates an abundance of food with large tracts of arable land being abandoned due to the increased crop yields per acer. In addition to higher population densities per acer in cities with the development of high-rise buildings allowing the contraction of the population, allowing for the increase of the population. There are more Americans living in urban areas now than in rural areas, just like almost everywhere else on earth. Also, supposing the rabbits have an industrial revolution, that will lead to a drop in the growth of the rabbit population (as the industrial revolution has done to the human population) as children are a burden rather than an asset in a industrial society (you cost money and don’t add help improve the martial income of the household unlike in a, undeveloped, agricultural society). Further, rabbits, like humans since at least the dawn of civilization, likely have developed family planning/birth control methods as not everyone wants fourteen children, even when they are a material benefit to the household. Due to these factors, and others (I suspect as with humans it is the war generation that is most interested in reproducing, and not necessarily their children, that why we have a demographic here in the US call the “Baby Boomers”), it would take a long time for population to become a problem, humans have been worrying about our population for a long time and have been fretting about the carrying capacity of earth (how many humans we can have) but the 8.7 billion of us have not reached that point even during the explosive growth of the last two hundred years.
Sorry if my fan fiction is really weird, it just came to me. Smalls and Heather decide to store away the True Blue when Natalia gets overpopulated, but some greedy rabbits (don't know who yet) start a revolution to get True Blue back. That's all I have so far and its not the best fan fic😂.
Also, these are really good theories! fun to read 😁
Okay I have lots to say.
wow
having known the characters for a long time I think that rabbits like Heather, Smalls, Weezie, Jo, Cole, ect. I think edveuntually they would find it’s their time, and go peacefully, exhausted they would want to go. Easy like falling asleep.
Emerson and Heyward will find a way to the MOON!!!
@Scribe of the Cause whats your fan fiction idea?
This has given me an idea for an awesome fan fiction! Though I probably wouldn't have enough time to write it myself, maybe someone else can.
I love your thoughts about this, because I have actually thought about this. I do agree it will be sometime before anything starts to happen, and I also agree with all your theories as well. One of my theories is maybe they will limit True Blue, maybe even store it away for good, so the population can go down, but I doubt they would do that.