Trashman don't take me seriously, but you should take out trash rather than dump it here.
Biology versus technology
Sandwich already came up with the spiderweb analogy.
Biology in most regards exeeds what technology is capable of. Think of the birds' bones. You simply can't create anything that has so good weight/strengh ratio.
Staying at bones - bones are, as earlier mentioned, partly inorganic in their structure. However bones are so superb that they provide fantastic connection for muscules - which are far more efficent than any known motor on Earth.
This may all seem good and ect., but I guess I still wouldn't convince you.
Well to tell one thing there is no such thing as organic matter or inorganic. The vis vitalis idead was abandoned long ago.
What set a "living" being aside from "dead" matter is the existence of metabolism - so viruses are quite dead!
A number of metabolisms are possible. Water is only necessary because it's our only known solvant that maked most of the chemical reactions possible. Other things can fill in that gap as well. *say liquid iron, at high temperatures heavier elements can come into play* - but let's stay close to our frog.
Even your own metabolism uses heavier elements like iron and copper. It's far from being impossible that an animal could develop an organ that would transfer some blood into his hide, where the hemoglobin would slowly decompose and leave a shell of iron.
However that would be far from your good 'ol knights shiny armor.
There are complexes in the body that contain metal in key points.
Some of the hormones are actually like that.
If a complex is created with high quantities of metal you can have an organic armor.
However metal armor is not necesserily as good as other materials:
Why don't cops wear metal armors?
Because kevlar's actually stronger!
Plastics made today are better than alloys made earlier.
And plastics are quite close to some of the materials that nature makes. *after all they are made from alkans*
Let's drop biology and return to Shivan armor:
They could simply use cybernetic implants, and graft an armor over their bodies when they need it. - In a way it is the Shivan, but still a suit.
Same goes for plasma gun.
Let's go back to biology, bioships:
Creating a ship that's an actual creature could be superior in several ways - I doubt however that the Shivans would be their ships - but it would need a horrendous ammount of genetic manipulation and experimentation.
If they found a space adopted lifeform however....
But it looks like the Shivans did not.
That does not take care of bioship. We were talking about the ships as if they were animals - plants are living too.
You could grow a ship - we are back at stage 1. Not too probable.
But you could grow parts for it. An organic component would "repair" itself, resist more usage and could develop on its own. However it would have different tolerances - but don't assume life can't live in outer space. Life needs water - but water won't freeze if you keep it warm, and if it's a part of a ship it can be kept in a better environment.
Such bio-part ships would be useable by humans as well.
As for advanced metals I say an organism can be improoved and can be forced to grow around and across certain structures - an armour plate for instance; if you reject all forms of advanced metabolism.
About Shivan homeworld:
The Shivans could have a homeworld - or I say should have had - but obviously they spent some of their evolution in space and by now they are a space-race that lives in zero-g, and probably uses gene-manipulation and cybernetic implants as well.
So it's also up to debate how much current Shivans resemble their ancestors.
So their planet doesn't even has to be low-g or radiated.
About those Shivans were made issuies - it's more than likely they forged their own image, and "made" their own children.
I doubt they would be messengers of another race, because if so they should have shown minimal sign of communication.
As for their affinity to subspace I had a theory long ago, that I first proposed on VWBB:
Subspace is another set of dimensions paralell to our reality, but it's folded up. It only unwraps where gravity pulls it apart, but it's still so folded that it doesn't affect out daily life (except for laundry, where is that purple sock of mine?
), but is undfolded enough, to be arranged for entry. Once a ship entered subspace its no longer in our reality.
That's why inrasystem jumps are much easier, and why you always seem to end up near a planet - and explains the existence of nodes as well. Places where gravity maintins a subspace tunnel between the stars *so inside a system you have a subspace sphere*.
I've gone a little further - in subspace light and radiation can get traped, and in a tunnel it forms rings. These ring can both frame the tunnel or collapse it.
Each time a ship passes through subspace it dumps energy into it.
So terrans and vasudans are another couple of pyromaniac in a powder filled barrel!
Ever noticed how dim Shivan engines are - that's the reason. They tone down energy emission.
They travel extensivly in subspace - even if they're not nomads, which I'm inlined to believe, if not totaly, then in the sense, that they are vanderers of the universe. So anyone else violating it is threatening them.
I doubt there's a single Shivan planet. But they may have shipyards and installations. Heck it is possible that they had those, but now most of that's lost, because they've been declining ever since they conquered most of the galaxy, and now it's lost tech.
