[Knight Templar]

Species 8472

Yea, they were the ones that were tearing up Cubes with 1 shot.... but not Voyager!....

[Sandwich]

Have you ever inspected the hi-res Shivan renders on the Descent Network site? You can easily see that the Shivans are wearing body-armor (see appendage joints (elbows, etc) in this pic - 1617Kb), as well as get a good glimpse of true Shivan "skin" in this pic (2082Kb), right around the third leg's "knee".

Therefore, there's no reason to take that Shivan Seth Hijacking movie on the ST CD as a joke per se - it could easily be a Shivan in a spacesuit as opposed to body armor, and we'd likely never see the difference.

[Knight Templar]

I thought Adam Pletcher or Dave B told us that the Shivans we see are the real deal, no armour?

[karajorma]

Yep. I was about to say that.

The armour you see could very easily be part of the animals body. If you'd never seen an armadillo and someone told you it was wearing armour you might believe them

[Knight Templar]

or a turtle..

or if you saw an animal with horns maybe, like a rhino, you would think it could be a weapon grafted onto it. Or a hermet crab, but in that case it actually is armour.. unless its it's house. Maybe the shivans are like hermit crabs! They live in their armour!

[TrashMan]

There si no way that biological material can be as good as normal, metal one...

Can your skin handle as much punishment as titanuium? As much heat? Cold? Acceleration stress? Weight?
any animal that has skin/shell even as remotly close to plain steel? (O.k. - turtles have a really tough shell, but not even close)

When you find one, gimme a call...

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by TrashMan
There si no way that biological material can be as good as normal, metal one...

Can your skin handle as much punishment as titanuium? As much heat? Cold? Acceleration stress? Weight?
any animal that has skin/shell even as remotly close to plain steel? (O.k. - turtles have a really tough shell, but not even close)

When you find one, gimme a call...

Can a centimeter of steel stop a bullet like a centimeter of spiderweb can?

[Knight Templar]

Originally posted by TrashMan
There si no way that biological material can be as good as normal, metal one...

Can your skin handle as much punishment as titanuium? As much heat? Cold? Acceleration stress? Weight?
any animal that has skin/shell even as remotly close to plain steel? (O.k. - turtles have a really tough shell, but not even close)

When you find one, gimme a call...

I thought we were talking about shivans here. And if you ask me, they were made to play anywhere. Space, Planet side, your mother's womb, etc.

Besides, it's sci-fi, which makes it entirely possible for them to have that kind of a carapace.

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by Sandwich


Can a centimeter of steel stop a bullet like a centimeter of spiderweb can?

Can it stop a laser? Heat? Can it hold form?

*yes, you can make anything you like, even Shivans with 10 heads and 11 arms *

[LtNarol]

Consider the following: Humans and all other known life forms on earth are carbon based.  We have, however, no indication of Shivans being carbon based, which could in turn change a number of things, the posibilty of strong natural or genetically altered armor is not ludicrous.  I'd also point out the dinosaurs, notably the triceratops, I for one doubt you can shoot through its neck armor with a hand gun - even carbon based life forms have their advantages.

[J.F.K.]

Originally posted by Sandwich
Wow, been a while since I've seen this kind of topic. There have already been many discussions on this very subject (Origin of the Shivans by Aken Bosch, NTF Publishing House, 2372), just do a search if you want to see what's already been said in the past.

Anyway, I can't speak for Eddie, but I'm sure if he wanted to say something here, he'd say this:

[mikhael]

Originally posted by TrashMan
There si no way that biological material can be as good as normal, metal one...

Can your skin handle as much punishment as titanuium? As much heat? Cold? Acceleration stress? Weight?
any animal that has skin/shell even as remotly close to plain steel? (O.k. - turtles have a really tough shell, but not even close)

When you find one, gimme a call...

Why can't you modify a turtle's follicles to build the shell from a carbon/steel composite? naturally, you'll have to feed the turtle the steel, but there's nothing to stop you from doing it.

Now, in another point, Sandwich presents the spiderweb stopping bullets better than steel. He's absolutely correct. Spider webbing has a higher tensile strength per unit weight than the best steel ever made. Your counterpoint asked about a laser, but see, there you have made a classic misstep. Steel is inferior to ceramic for stopping lasers.

Metal has its place, but its not the only thing you can use in that place.

[Vilkacis]

I dont' think it would be possible to make a protein based lifeform use "inorganic" elements for building it's body as proteinsynthesis is what drives DNA based life.

[Black Wolf]

Fortunately, we don't have any evidence that Shivans are DNA based.

[TrashMan]

You said steel.... that's only one metal.... how about titanium? Or some of the others hi-tech-space-age materials. They have propertys that would make your head spin...
And you forgot about heat/cold/acid...etc...

And Vilkacis is right... That can't be done...
You've been watching too much si-fi man...

[Black Wolf]

And you're too set in your own beliefs to be discussing such a theoretical topic as this one. In fact, practically every sci fi in existence is guilty of perpetuating exactly what we are trying to argue against - that alien life would conform to the same rules as life on Earth ever seen a Star Tek alien? If not think Human with bumps ). On earth, it may be unlikely that animals would create steel shells or titanium claws, and no earth lifeform could form a vessel capable of moving about practically in space. However, we would be arrogant in the extreme to assume that the rules of life on earth dictate the rules of life in the entire galaxy, or more so the entire universe. We look back and laugh at the astronomers who believed that the sun revolved around the earth... but is your stance any different? The rules and laws that we take for granted on Earth could be meaningless in the environments of other planets, or indeed some sort of interstellar medium, like a nebula or asteroid field.

I guess what I'm saying most of all is that, particularly when discussing a topic for which there is absolutely no hard data whatsoever, you need to keep an open mind.

Oh, and personally, I think this little fella might have been a bad idea - there're people proving every day that there are enough ways to display anger on this board without another pissed off smiley.

[TrashMan]

The Universal Laws of the whole Universe:
Laws of physics = organic matter can't stand high temperatures and radiation.... just can't

And I say again...crap...

[Black Wolf]

That's not physics - that's chemistry, and if high school chem taught me anything, it's that Chemistry is the single least constant classical science in existence (with the possible exception of biology, which is the other science you law of "physics" touches on, and is inextricably tied up in chemistry anyway). There are rules, and then there are ten dozen exceptions to those rules.

However, I'll eat my words if you can prove, beyond all doubt, that there is no alien life in the universe capable of surving an intersellar existence.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Vilkacis
I dont' think it would be possible to make a protein based lifeform use "anorganic" elements for building it's body as proteinsynthesis is what drives DNA based life.

1) The word is inorganic.

2) Wanna explain to me how we grow bones then? Considering they are mostly made of calcium phospate which is definately an inorganic material?

While I'll quite happily admit that it is definately easier to have a metabolism which lays down calcium phosphate than metals I don't doubt that there are organisms that could do it.
 I've seen papers on enzymatic reduction of mercury salts into mercury metal so maybe it could be done with more reactive metals like iron and titanium.
 Cells that used a similar process could deposit a layer of metal over the outside a creature living in space.
 It would be hard to do I don't doubt it but I definately wouldn't rule out the possibility of a creature growing a metal exoskeleton.

[TrashMan]

All advanced metals don't exist in nature... They were man-made...