Cat Breeding in the Cult of Bast

Bumped for coolness, and because I've been thinking about it again lately.

Dogs are obediant. And cats ?
Can be trained like dogs if you have the right breed. Don't know if ancient Egyptian cats are one of the right breeds, but intentional breeding for the purpose would help a lot.

So, there are three basic features I want to get in the mix- polydactyly, increased intelligence, and hairlessness. Hairlessness is the least functional, so I had it at lowest priority, but it occurs to me that it's also the most immediately obvious different from the typical cat. Hairless Sphynx cats require sun protection just like pale humans do, and that combined with the fact that hairlessness would make them seem more human-like could easily lead to the sacred cats acquiring clothes and jewelry, which then makes the whole thing self-reinforcing by making them seem even more human-like. So, a priest happening upon a hairless mutation and deciding it must be a special servant or perhaps even incarnation of Bast migh be the easiest way to get the whole temple breeding institution set up, but there'd be a rather long lag before any practical benefits could be obtained- breeding them into guard cats, for example.
'Twould be nice to get everything in a package, but assuming three or even two simultaneous spontaneous mutations is a bit ASB. Since polydactyly seems as though it would be the most immediately useful trait, I think I want to pursue that as the initial POD- the emergence of six-toed cats with opposable thumbs in ancient Egypt. Still got to work out how or if that could help trigger a temple breeding program (note- it doesn't need to be an intentional selective breeding program; priests maintaining the royal line of the Incarnations of Bast with the temple cats would do just as well), but in the meantime I'm interested in working out the ripple effects of the existence of 'improved' cats on the rest of Egyptian society.

So, just starting with the assumption that the mutant cats are better ratters, food storage goes up, and plague vectors go down. Presumably, that lets the human population get bigger, and the Cult of Bast gets more political power. Could the obvious protection provided by "Bast's Servants" lead to cat-worship and the cats themselves spreading outside of Egypt? How would a slightly richer and slightly less-diseased Egypt effect history, regardless of how the improvement was obtained?

Hm, here's a thought- polydactyly isn't likely to trigger the sort of immediate reaction that hairlessness would, so we won't get the intial mutant being considered exceptionaly religiously important, taken by the priests to establish a royal line, or anything like that. But, by the time somebody notices and word gets to the Temple of Bast that polydactyl's exist, the population of them is likely to be small enough that a large fraction of them could reasonably be rounded up and added to the temple herd. That might well trigger a tradition of periodically scouring the country for the most exceptional specimens to either send to Pharaoh or add to Bast's entourage.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
There may be a small problem with having cats prevent plague through killing rats. The flea that is the primary vector IIRC is called the cat flea, not the rat flea, as the cat is its preferred animal.

Now, yes, having less rats would prolly mean less plague, but if the fleas then get on the cats the cats will spread it so it will still be prevalent, tho it may be less.

Or not. I'm not all that sure the cat is the preferred animal, tho I'm pretty sure the fleas would get on the cats as well...dunno....miinor nitpicky detail, shouldn't bother overall story.
 
There may be a small problem with having cats prevent plague through killing rats. The flea that is the primary vector IIRC is called the cat flea, not the rat flea, as the cat is its preferred animal.
Do you have a reference for that? I've only ever seen it attributed to the black plague, primarily carried by rats.
what if the cats bathe?
'Tis an interesting question. Sphynx cats often require bathing, but they would be less likely to carry fleas anyway, and of course that whole issue is moot if the POD is polydactyly instead of hairlessness. Ancient Egyptians did value cleanliness, but I don't know if that extended beyond bathing themselves to bathing their cats.
 
ASC?

Bumped for coolness, and because I've been thinking about it again lately.

. Since polydactyly seems as though it would be the most immediately useful trait, I think I want to pursue that as the initial POD- the emergence of six-toed cats with opposable thumbs in ancient Egypt. Still got to work out how or if that could help trigger a temple breeding program (note- it doesn't need to be an intentional selective breeding program; priests maintaining the royal line of the Incarnations of Bast with the temple cats would do just as well), but in the meantime I'm interested in working out the ripple effects of the existence of 'improved' cats on the rest of Egyptian society.


Have you done any further work on a timeline Foxfire, or have you decided that this is Alien Space Cats? (in any case, you're right, this is cool)
 
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