Working on an aggressive, warlike alien species that, while having an average height of between 6-7 feet and a mostly humanoid frame also has a second set of arms extending from its abdomen that are much smaller than its upper arms but- given their place on the creature's body, and their size (for the purpose of this question I'll define much smaller as up to the average human's elbow in total length, about a centimeter and a half in width and hands proportionately sized to those dimensions), would these limbs really be that useful?
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2$\begingroup$ i reccomend larry nivens "mote in gods eye", his moties may give you some ideas. $\endgroup$– JohnCommented 2 days ago
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$\begingroup$ Hindu gods & goddesses are traditionally depicted with more arms than the standard humanoid count. Apparently, they make do w/out complaining. ramana-maharshi.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/… $\endgroup$– François JurainCommented 23 hours ago
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1$\begingroup$ VTC, needs details. what are those arms/hands good at? How strong, how precise, how many bending points, how many fingers, how are the fingers oriented? what are their evolutunaric/historic purpose? Are they highly multi tasking able, doing separate stuff with each arm (like an octopus) or are they more like humans, who have trouble doing two different unrelated movements with their two arms? $\endgroup$– datacubeCommented 23 hours ago
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4 Answers
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It's up to you to give them uses for them - or not, as you choose. Useless organs are a staple of both real life (like ear control muscles on humans) and fiction (like the always popular horned humanoids).
Maybe they use them to carry and tend to their nursing infants. Maybe they're for holding on to mates during arboreal copulation. Maybe they're a pre-digestive organ that reduces food into an edible form after it is gathered. Maybe they handle fine manipulation, and the big arms are only suited for powerful gripping and pulling, like some of our ape cousins. Maybe they need them for fending off swamp parasites as they walk doubled over like a gorilla with their big arms occupied with feeling ahead in the murky water.
In the modern setting maybe they use them to get things out of pouches and hooks and loops and pass them to their hands from places that on the body that are hard for their big arms to reach. Maybe they've given up war and all taken jobs doing data-entry, hellfire fast with three hands on the keyboard and one on the mouse. Maybe they always win video game tournaments.
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Precision tasks
Smaller arms likely are much more precise than their large ones. Things like eating (like spider pedipalp), crafting tools, grooming, dressing wounds, etc.
With the smaller arms for precision tasks, they free up the need for the larger ones to have that capability. This means we can upgrade the larger arms in ways where they would trade away the unneeded precision for other, more useful traits.
The large arms in turn could have things such as more ridged armour plates, or be overloaded with muscles. Like a crab: A large claw for combat and small one to eat.
By specializing pairs of arms in opposite directions, you gain the advantages of both, while the disadvantages can be mostly offset by the other pair. They can even work in concert; The larger arms keeping something heavy steady, the smaller ones working on it.
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Think of it as a cost/benefit calculation. Every organ, every trait a species possesses came along because the energy-consumption of developing and mainting it was smaller than the advantage it deleivered Did the arms give the species a necessary advantage over a 2-armed species on the planet? If not then evolution would spend that "energy" on developing more useful traits (color-vision, opposable thumbs, etc.)
If the arms have no significant advantage in said environment I would recommend scraping that idea.
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Look at work, look at life- and evaluate where a extra arm is needed. This shows up as "teamwork" - meaning another needs to work with you to get a job done.
Or as tools. Benches with claws, hoists, n-axis robots with "nests" to hold on to a part- everywhere something is gripping a hold to something - and you need another set of tools just to keep the tooling nearby and get on with the job - you could use those extra pairs. Sometimes you have the tooling integrated.
A nailgun, is actually a hammer and a set of nails, with one grip, allowing you to hold the workpiece. Imagine how this worked out before. You either had a apprentice hold the wood in place or you screw-clamped it into place. In your case- the upper arms hold the heavy piece while the lower limbs nail it in place.
Finally, consider the opportunities for sex-work. You could be up there working hard, while your lower limbs are at work down their, jerking hard. You thought about upvoting, didn't you, but now, that finger has gone limb. Just hand the mouse to your lower limbs, and get on with it.
PS: Remember without eyes, you have problems coordinating a task, meaning your head swivels between upper and lower, or your eyes dart between upper and lower. So eyes on stalk, or extra eyes it is.
Also the lower limbs are the dirty ones, you do not do handshakes with them.
Now you may push the button. And button up.
