Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: terran_emperor on January 22, 2008, 08:40:00 am
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Am i the only one who thinks that the shivans have Organic tech?
I think so...well no so much organic along the lines of the Shadows/vorlons.
But more sort-of cyber organic - sort of like their ships are part orgainc,, part machine - cyborg ships :)
Hey, it is cononically said somewhere that the actuall Shivan creatures encounters seemed cyber-enhanced
My reasoning was this
1)the Textures of the Shivans always got me thinking part organic
2)the way the Sathanas arms move in the endgame cutscene always struck me as organic movement rather than Mechanical
3) (SCP only) The animated glowmaps for the shivan craft reminds me of a Heart-beat & Pulse
4) Some of the ships look like they scould be on the same family-lines. As in they grow
Im serious about that last point. That is an interesting idea
My speculation is that shivan warships grow aver many Centuaries
There are 2 possible lines of growth
Cain Rakshassa
\/ \/
Lilith Moloch
\/ \/
???? Ravana
\/ \/
Demon ????
\/ \/
Lucifer Sathanas
Fighter/bombers are specially grown cannon-fodder - like the sheep soldiers drove across mine-fields in WWI/WWII
Freighers/Transports...
Id have to speculate
Mephisto > Dis
Azrael > Asmadeus
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Very nice. Explicitely your 'Growth Lines' make sense, especially with some ships esentially being mini-Sathanai. They really do seem to like that four-arm setup.
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maybe, but I think of it as Mass Effect's Sovereign :D
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I strongly disagree with the idea of the Vasudans or the Shivans using "organic" vessels. First of all, organic structures are invariably extremely fragile compared to true armor plating. Second, there is far less variation between members of a certain class of Shivan ship than between members of a species. This indicates that Shivan vessels are built to blueprints and specifications, just like Terran ships would be. Third, the FS1 ships especially clearly show obviously mechanical design aspects. Finally, many of the ships in the "growth line" could not possibly have arisen from or grow into others. A Demon's configuration has nothing to do with that of a Lucifer.
Shivan ships are built just like everyone else's, out of metal alloys and probably some exotic matter as well.
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I never said wholey organic...I ment Cyber-organic - the Borg (the actual drones, not the ship), The Dark Legion (American Sonic the Hedgehog comics). Maybe even organic with amour-plating - like the Evangelions (if you don't know what Neon Genesis Evangelion is, look it up),
As to demon becoming a lucifer, that's a caterpiller to a moth/butterfly. Besides, look at the Nose of the Cain, Lilith, Demon and lucifer and tell me they don't look similar.
I never said anything about Vasudans haning organic tech.
Vasudan ships are like the minbari ships in B5. Ignore the white-star because that was a Minbari/Vorlon hybrid.
Monbari ships had that somewhat alive look, despite being mechanical. The asthetics of them was very smooth. You know what i mean...
Minbari ships look more organic that the Earth ships did.
Now Vasudan vessels are just like that. They look organic compared to Terran Design, but are just as mechanical
Vasudan vessels look more like a work of are than the cold militaristic Terran designs
Does any one get the point im trying to make here?
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Terrans had no problems flying in Dragons and Maras...they don't seem organic, semi-organic, cyber-organic or cyborgish at all..not in the least.
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I've thought of the shivans being able control their ships by a centralized conscience, like they "plugged" themselves up
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Think of the Sathanas like a digging machine. That one moves its arm too, but it doesn't live. It's simply made to move its arm.
I love the idea of growing ships, but I think that's a bit too alien, even for the Shivans. (After all, they have a lot of similarities to us too.) They obviously have hugely advanced manufacturing techiques (like growing a partially crystalline hull over nano-manufactured inner systems or so), but GROWING SHIPS...
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I strongly disagree with the idea of the Vasudans or the Shivans using "organic" vessels. First of all, organic structures are invariably extremely fragile compared to true armor plating.
No they wouldn't be. Organic compounds are far more resilient than metals in most environments, much cheaper to produce, and much more easily repaired. Why do you think we use plastic for so much? =)
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do remember that inorder for terrans to fly the Shivan fighters, they had retrofit them, replace the weapons and adding terran fight controls. They count even get the Dragon that they captured to work properly. Think - orgainc nervous system in stead of wires for fighter/bombers.
And even though it it an SCP enhancement, the Animated glow maps on shivan vessels really does remind me of a heartbeat
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I'd have to agree that Shivan ships do have some organic tech on them and it only seems natural. A mind-machine interface allows for better control & such. However, the growing ships part sounds a bit too far fetched for me. Interesting but not especially realistic.
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Has anyone else noticed that the FS1 shivans look more mechanical (like a fusion of technology and biology) , while FS2 shivan ships seem more organic in nature? Keep in mind that I'm using these terms abstractly, this is just how they look to me, not necessarily how they are.
I think it is entirely possible that shivan ships are part biological. I doubt that they would have likes of growth like that though. I think that they are indeed organic, then they are bioengineered, and some design elements are used multiple times.
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I also believe that shivan ships at least some of them ike the Ravana and the Sath use at least to some extent biological tech. Or some sort of tech-organic elements are built in them.
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Maybe they're genetically engineered monsters made by the terrans in the future sent to wipe out any civilization that expands too far but have run amok!
Now if that isn't a run-on, I don't know what is :lol:
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No they wouldn't be. Organic compounds are far more resilient than metals in most environments, much cheaper to produce, and much more easily repaired.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Yeah right. Organic compounds are also severely limited and are definitely not tougher. Extreme heat, cold and radiation are common place in space. While I do believe organic matter can survive one of those, it can't all 3. Burning up in re-entry springs to mind.
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Remember, organic does not equate with 'alive'. Organic Chemistry is merely a certain branch of chemistry that includes Hydrocarbons etc. This includes such things as Polymers and Plastics which can be every bit as tough as their metallic-element based counterparts.
That said, personally I'm not too fond of how often insect races with organic tech tend to turn up in Sci-fi, it's like you can't be an insect without chewing your building material....
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Terrans had no problems flying in Dragons and Maras...they don't seem organic, semi-organic, cyber-organic or cyborgish at all..not in the least.
Yes, you seem to be quite the expert on this. Okay, exactly what did the interface of the Mara look like (in Shivan form; not modified to accommodate terrans)? And what is its armor's chemical composition? At the very least, provide a quote from which you based the statement.
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No they wouldn't be. Organic compounds are far more resilient than metals in most environments, much cheaper to produce, and much more easily repaired.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Yeah right. Organic compounds are also severely limited and are definitely not tougher. Extreme heat, cold and radiation are common place in space. While I do believe organic matter can survive one of those, it can't all 3. Burning up in re-entry springs to mind.
They stayed AWAY from planets! :p
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I was thinking about starting a thread on this a couple days ago but it slipped my mind. I think organic hulls are very possible. Heck some of the armor on the hulls even looks like an exoskeleton with bony protrusions. As far as them growing into new ships I don't think so. Similarities are more likely from mass production. It doesn't mean the ships can't be grown at factories though.
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Actually, organic compounds are used in some of the most effective armour on the planet, admittedly, they are far more designed around absorbing impact damage than friction or heat damage, but the thing about Carbon-based molecules is that you can, with some work, give them properties not too dissimilar to Ceramics. It's all a question of aligning stuff properly within the molecule.
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Not to mention the Shivans themselves seemed to have some sort of exoskeleton or armor since they took all those hits in the cutscene and still kept coming. If it works for you why not apply it to your ships.
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Also, dont forget that it is theoretically possible to have organic chains based on silicon rather than carbon.
And also don't forget that.
Also, why waste resources building sathanas in a factory when you could have a ship that naturally grows in to one.
The first few batches though would be force-grown into the approriate stage to meet fleet requirement numbers, ie their growth is sped up so that you have a ravana or sathanas from a rakshassa in a few weeks rather than the centuaries it takes naturally. And since their force-grown, they have a shorter lifespan then the ones who evolved naturally. Of course this would have all occured long before the war with the Ancients.
Also...I'm thinking of taking the "growing ships" idea and applying it to the Hades. The hades is a hybrid of Terran/Shivan Tech. Now in my opinion the Hades in Silent Threat was incomplete.
My view on how the Hades would grow is this
First it grows from Hades Mk1 (the Canon Model) to the Hades Mk2 - that model with more turrets and 5 Engine subsytems
Then is grows Shivan Armour/skin getting even tougher to kill. Then it grows shivan weapons (Shivan Super Lasers replaced by Lucifer Beams from the Port). and finally it grows Lucifer shields and would be near invicible (hey, i never noticed any reactor subsystem weak points)
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How then, did the GTA and PVN capture shield, sensor and other equipment, and ship parts, in FS1?
Also, when the Dragon and Mara fighters are captured and used in both FS1 and FS2, it makes no mention of any kind of organic nature to them.
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They also never mentioned they aren't :nervous:
The whole theory kinda gives ideas for a campaign with that as the main idea, i might or might not develop it :D
most likely not since i have NO knowledge on modding/FREDing or anything :doubt:
I like the idea, it might not be probable but still... oh and in the cutscene in the disable freighter in FS1... the interior of the ship looked oddly too terran for my taste... lot of the textures and lot of the way things are built seem convenient for a human being to move around, not for a bunch of huge massive shivans to move around properly (from where they come crawling before killing everybody seemed quite large, though). The point is: either the ship was completely not organic, since the insides looked as mechanic as any other, or the devs were just too lazy to make a more consistent design-wise ship interior :rolleyes:
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Yes, you seem to be quite the expert on this. Okay, exactly what did the interface of the Mara look like (in Shivan form; not modified to accommodate terrans)? And what is its armor's chemical composition? At the very least, provide a quote from which you based the statement.
Hallfight...inside of shivan freighter...METAL...no organic things in sight.
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Mura
Well, donor organs are kept on ice arent they? ;)
Organic tech is almost a Holy-grail for technology, so I wouldn't be surprised the big-wigs would classify any mention of of organic tech at the highest level. Beyond level omega.
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The whole theory kinda gives ideas for a campaign with that as the main idea, i might or might not develop it :D
*cough* Red Sun *cough*
I wouldn't be surprised the big-wigs would classify any mention of of organic tech at the highest level. Beyond level omega
Aren't you running out of Greek alphabets at that point? Oh well, there are other alphabets, of course. "The following has been classified level Öylätti".
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Hallfight...inside of shivan freighter...METAL...no organic things in sight.
As i kinda tried to said in my previous post about Hallfight cutscene... the interior indeed was quite lot of metal, but i still think the interior didn't looked very consistent with everything else shivans build... of course we have never seen the interior of any other shivan ship in any other cutscene, but that's just what i think :nod:
Might as well the whole organic idea be some kind of shivan's version of feng-shui :lol:
*cough* Red Sun *cough*
:nervous: :shaking: i need to play more campaigns than i thought (or lurk the forums a bit more :p )
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OI MURA, You cant use the Evoving Hades idea - thats Mine. I already have it planned out. you can't use it.
And Lobo, i know its Red Sun. I had once planned to adapt Red Sun into a FS2 campaign using the Hades as the Red Sun.
Anyway, red sun is my inspiration, but im developing it in a different direction to CW...
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OI MURA, You cant use the Evoving Hades idea - thats Mine. I already have it planned out. you can't use it.
And Lobo, i know its Red Sun. I had once planned to adapt Red Sun into a FS2 campaign using the Hades as the Red Sun.
Anyway, red sun is my inspiration, but im developing it in a different direction to CW...
LOL, i wasn't thinking about the Hades at all XD don't worry, the hassle to make all those models is all yours, pal, no need to rise your voice ;) :lol:
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Ok. just so long as its not the Hades thats fine. You can use any ship you please apart from the Hades
Sorry about shouting...but it seemed like i had though up a good campaign Idea, then someone came along and steals
Lol, retexturing the Hades Mk2 is easy ive already done it. :D Rearming it is also easy. Though the maps, might not meet the current SCP visual standard. wonder if i could get someone to do a HTL version. I cant remember who did the original Shivan Hades Reskin job though. Anyone know?
My main trouble will be to Shield the Hades.
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Yes, you seem to be quite the expert on this. Okay, exactly what did the interface of the Mara look like (in Shivan form; not modified to accommodate terrans)? And what is its armor's chemical composition? At the very least, provide a quote from which you based the statement.
Hallfight...inside of shivan freighter...METAL...no organic things in sight.
Tell me: Are you sure that's metal? Is there 100% indisputable evidence that it is metal? No. You still haven't proven anything.
EDIT:
A quote from the Shivan tech entry:
Physically, the Shivans have multiple, compound eyes and five legs with claw-like manipulators. Their insect-like carapace does not appear original to the creature's physiognomy, suggesting the Shivans are a cybernetic fusion of biology and technology.
This means that it's highly probable that the Shivans are cyborgs, to an extent. And it's not that far to go to think that this could be the way with their ships. Honestly, have you ever seen any windows on a ships? Why don't Shivan fighters have cockpits? (It's possible that when you fly in captured Shivan craft the mechanics created the cockpit, much like that BSG episode.)
A leading hypothesis is the hive mind theory, arguing that Shivan society is broken down in specialized functions driven by a collective intelligence. The most convincing evidence supporting this theory is the behavior of Shivan forces following the destruction of the Lucifer, the turning point of the Great War.
Another quote supporting my idea of Shivan biology integrated into their ships. And it's 100% canon.
Let's see, I have 2 quotes supporting my idea, you have none. I win by default.
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two words: Magnetic boots... stop the flame wars already, don't feed the trollz and stuff like that, it's damn BORING when people start attacking each other without reason :mad: :hopping: :mad2:
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two words: Magnetic boots... stop the flame wars already, don't feed the trollz and stuff like that, it's damn BORING when people start attacking each other without reason :mad: :hopping: :mad2:
:wtf:
There isn't any flaming going on in this thread. There might be rudeness and hostile debating, but that's not flaming.
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I think some people are getting confused between Organic Technology and Biological Technology ;)
As far as ships and things are concerned, even if they were 'grown', I don't think they would evolve, it just paints the inevitable image of a Cain with a sign on the back saying 'When I grow up, I want to be a Sathanas!'.
There is no law outside of Eschers drawings that suggests either Bio or Organic tech would have to 'look' like they are part of a living being. My main complaint against Biotech is where, exactly, do these ships get the nutrients to grow and increase Biomass? Semi-Organic, where the hull is constructed but the systems are 'grown' is not only possible, but has actually be considered in modern day Earth technology.
Edit : Such as:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s407256.htm
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:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Love that image.
Well the evolving ships theory is mine...if i want to use it, there is nothing saying that i can't
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Tell me: Are you sure that's metal? Is there 100% indisputable evidence that it is metal? No. You still haven't proven anything.
Metallic clang. Magnetic attraction (soldiers boots). I'd say metal.
This means that it's highly probable that the Shivans are cyborgs, to an extent. And it's not that far to go to think that this could be the way with their ships. Honestly, have you ever seen any windows on a ships? Why don't Shivan fighters have cockpits? (It's possible that when you fly in captured Shivan craft the mechanics created the cockpit, much like that BSG episode.)
they do have cockpits...looks closer.
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I think there was a mention in an FS1 mission briefing (the Playing Judas mission probably) that there were cargo containers with parts for Shivan fighters in them. To me this says that the ships are manufactured.
For a while I used to dwell on the idea that each of the different classes of Shivan ships were possibly a "form" of Shivan in their own right but not anymore. For some reason I think there may be a canon reference about difficulties in extracting Shivans from their fighters in order to make them flyable by humans (it might not be canon, I probably got that idea from some mod). If so then that may reinforce the idea of them being fused with the ship's interface, like someone mentioned earlier.
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Tell me: Are you sure that's metal? Is there 100% indisputable evidence that it is metal? No. You still haven't proven anything.
Metallic clang. Magnetic attraction (soldiers boots). I'd say metal.
This means that it's highly probable that the Shivans are cyborgs, to an extent. And it's not that far to go to think that this could be the way with their ships. Honestly, have you ever seen any windows on a ships? Why don't Shivan fighters have cockpits? (It's possible that when you fly in captured Shivan craft the mechanics created the cockpit, much like that BSG episode.)
they do have cockpits...looks closer.
1) Those sound a lot more like vacuum boots, as opposed to magnetic. I won't deny that there could be some metal parts of the ship, though. Even if there is, it doesn't invalidate my point about a fusion of biotic and abotic materials and/or control systems.
2) No they don't. And I will continue to blatantly deny it until you show me more proof than a simple "yes they do".
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The cargo containor = donor organs on ice :pimp:
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I wonder, how would vacuum boots work in space? It's a question regarding tge forces of attraction aspect.
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I wonder, how would vacuum boots work in space? It's a question regarding tge forces of attraction aspect.
If they were vacuum, they weren't in a space without air, might be unbreathable to us, but shivans have to breath something, and having gas tanks on you all the time would be too annoying when you have a whole ship that can be filled with the gas you breath, so the vacuum boots might as well work (though i doubt they work properly anyway, i am more pro-magnetic boots guy)
If you need proofs you can just see that the boarding party isn't wearing pressurized suits, just regular battle suits with gas masks.
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I wonder, how would vacuum boots work in space? It's a question regarding tge forces of attraction aspect.
Note how the troops were in the ship with bare skin exposed. That means that there is some kind of gas in there to equalize the pressure. And what you do is you place your foot on or very close to the desired surface, and activate the vacuum. Past that, I'd imagine it would act like those suction cups.
EDIT: And Mura said the same thing. Sorry.
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metallic clang? It sure sounds like they are walking on metal.
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metallic clang? It sure sounds like they are walking on metal.
If you listen closely, you'll see that there are plenty of steps the soldiers take when there are no metalic clings, and when there are the clings, it doesn't align to their footsteps. It's something else.
And:
I won't deny that there could be some metal parts of the ship, though. Even if there is, it doesn't invalidate my point about a fusion of biotic and abotic materials and/or control systems.
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Well one thing that is almost certain is they are wearing magnetic boots as they turn them on to attach to the ship. Normally you would think that would mean a metal surface. However that doesn't mean that the organic components couldn't have metals in them. Remember human blood contains a lot of iron. Not enough to attract magnetic boots but then again were not Shivan.
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Wow, I love how there's an argument going on about the relevance of magnetic/vacuum boots toward determining whether Shivans are primarily organic or metallic. It's a perfectly (not)sane thing to do, right?
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I think shivans are a bit of both. They have organic tech...
Thier ships are Space-fairing Cyber Lobsters - as the ships grow, they discard the metallic outer hull parts and grow new ones like a Lobster/crab discarding its shell
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I doubt that shivan ships actually "grow". While it is possible, even likely that they have some organic parts (the TNS Cylon raider and Basestar come to mind) and not entirely impossible they could be alive, I just don't think they would grow. Someone mentioned earlier how all shivan ships of the same class look the same, further evidence that they don't grow.
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Well, imagine how many ships in-game you would need to make every ship unique...and how the game can only handle a certain number...
But in universe, each ship of a class would either have slight differences or the entire class would be grown to a set template- the shivan's knowledge of Oganic tech is such that they can grow it to meet a specific design with no physical varience between individual ships
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Well, biological parts could be grown from the same template, but I still think that Shivan ships have some sort of mechanical parts.
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Well i have never said that they were completely organic. I believe that while they are part-organic, they are also part mechanical. But that doesnt mean they cant grow to a fixed template
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Is there anything left to discuss on this topic?
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the shivan's knowledge of Oganic tech is such that they can grow it to meet a specific design with no physical varience between individual ships
Certainly explains why the Lilith has twice the armor and better weapons than a Cain despite being the same size.
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Well actually, the Lilith has almost 4 times the armor. I think it is really a later design based on the cain but radically upgraded. The Lilith would use different armor and probably different innards, just laid out the same.
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Shivan fighters look metallic. Shots impacting their hull sound the same as impacting GTVA metallic hull. Shivan ships explode just as human ships - no organs or blood flying around.
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So, to revise the word 'organic'. If you shot an object made of polyester, would you expect to see blood and organs flying around? After all, polyester is an organic compound.
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Shivan ships could be made out of a mixture of carbon nanofiber and metal plating. The insides could be biological.
Is there anything left to discuss on this topic?
I'm going to have to second this. This topic has just turned into speculation and an exchange of opinions (not truly a flame war, yet).
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95% of threads in the General Freespace area are based on theory, conjecture and interpretation of facts ;)
You could probably get away with the idea that a framework is created in space, and then the organic components are 'grown' under a controlled technique, so building a ship is immensely faster because you don't have to do all the wiring/ducting etc, it generates itself to a 'pre-programmed' format, in a similar way to how plastics and polymers can be created. To be honest, it's not too dissimilar to ideas that are being researched right now on Earth.
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Ah, I understand it better then.
Are you talking about how compounds 'self-assemble'? This is being researched for nanomachines, protein folding, etc.
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95% of threads in the General Freespace area are based on theory, conjecture and interpretation of facts ;)
It's why I like it! ;)
Good for making missions too...
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Ah, I understand it better then.
Are you talking about how compounds 'self-assemble'? This is being researched for nanomachines, protein folding, etc.
Yep, I seem to recall some research recently that made nano-wires that would actively seek out a particular chemical 'key', and each strand of the wire could be grown in such a way as it sought a different key from it's neighbours. Something like that could create massive reductions in the size production speed and costs of some technologies.
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So, to revise the word 'organic'. If you shot an object made of polyester, would you expect to see blood and organs flying around? After all, polyester is an organic compound.
Organic (as used in sci-fi) - almost living ships, made out of cells and stuff
Carbon tubes, nano-materials, super-alloys - NOT organic. Calling something organic just cause it has some carbon in it is silly.
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Yeah. Chemistry, among the rest of natural sciences, is silly.
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Spider SILK! :P
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Carbon tubes, nano-materials, super-alloys - NOT organic. Calling something organic just cause it has some carbon in it is silly.
That's what Organic Chemistry is. It's the study of materials that use mostly Carbon and Hydrogen in their molecular structure.
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I know what it is - I'm saying we call it organic simply because water and carbon are the biggest construction blocks of our bodies.
Hell, we have iron in our blood. Shall we call iron a organic material?
Calling it organic is downright stupid. It's an element just as every other in the periodic table.
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Because Iron has no more or less to do with us being alive than Carbon or Hydrogen do? Or maybe because organic molecules are, by definition not an element, whereas Iron is? There are, in fact, quite a number of organic compounds that contain metal, the most famous being enzymes. When they are bonded with Carbon and Hydrogen in the right way, they are organic compounds.
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Having not read any of the thread, I have to say that IMO, the Shivans are not really "organic". I find the whole "growth" lines theory complete rubbish myself. What I think is that Shivan ships are "grown", but they are not really organic. They're like the waste product to some reaction that makes the Shivans all their energy. Since they're not assembled, but grown, they can be created much faster. Now I know that TrashMan is going to say "BAH THATS CUMPLEET RUBBISUH GO AWEY SNEYLE," but I'll believe what I believe. :p
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No, I wouldn't say that.
Carbon tubes can be indeed "grown" but they consist of only 1 element.
The story is similar with practicely all new nano-materials.
A slab of carbon-based armor is no different than metallic armor when it comes to it's "organic-ness"
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You really are a stubborn arse, aren't you? It's been, what?, 4 pages already?
Ah, I understand it better then.
Are you talking about how compounds 'self-assemble'? This is being researched for nanomachines, protein folding, etc.
Yep, I seem to recall some research recently that made nano-wires that would actively seek out a particular chemical 'key', and each strand of the wire could be grown in such a way as it sought a different key from it's neighbours. Something like that could create massive reductions in the size production speed and costs of some technologies.
I wonder how it could work in especially large scale production. Cars that self-assemble sounds nice but hmm, ships are another sort altogether. Management of the self-assemblers (i.e. nanomachines?) would be hell.
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I suppose one way would be to have several 'propagators' around the ship that hold cultures for the requirement of that particular part of the ship, so, for example, growing (or repairing) the wiring for the scanners would only require triggering a single unit, which would regrow any broken strands, probably using some kind of magnetic or molecular identifiers that the newly grown strands would seek out, that way, every wire would automatically connect the its corresponding connection.
@Trashman - They've made Nanotubes out of Tungsten Suphide as well, ironically enough, they are commonly called 'Inorganic Nanotubes'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inorganic_nanotube
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Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to clarify on Organic and how it differs from Bioscience.
The whole reason that Carbon forms the basis of Organic Chemistry is nothing to do with the fact that it is, after H and O, the third most common element in most life forms, and much more to do with the fact it is tetravalent, which allows it to form a multitude of different molecules, including polymers and some of the long chain molecules which, whilst not alive, were what formed the building blocks that life is based on.
Organic Chemistry isn't about living creatures, Biochemistry is for that, it's about studying the properties of this somewhat unique element and it's ability to form Organic Compounds, yes, they are the building blocks of life, they are also the building blocks of Action Man, Your computer Keyboard, and Poly-tetra-floroethylene wire sheathing. They're pretty flexible things, as it were.
Consider the alotropes of Carbon, you can get anything from diamond, an incredibly hard transparent material to graphite, an incredibly soft opaque one and that will begin to give you an idea into the vast range of materials you can get from mucking around with Carbon.
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I strongly disagree with the idea of the Vasudans or the Shivans using "organic" vessels. First of all, organic structures are invariably extremely fragile compared to true armor plating.
No they wouldn't be. Organic compounds are far more resilient than metals in most environments, much cheaper to produce, and much more easily repaired. Why do you think we use plastic for so much? =)
There's a reason why tanks aren't armored with plastic. Furthermore, plastic is "organic" in terms of having carbon, but plastic is not alive and there are no plastic cells.
Actually, organic compounds are used in some of the most effective armour on the planet, admittedly, they are far more designed around absorbing impact damage than friction or heat damage, but the thing about Carbon-based molecules is that you can, with some work, give them properties not too dissimilar to Ceramics. It's all a question of aligning stuff properly within the molecule.
Yes, but can this stuff be integrated with and produced by cells? People here are positing that Shivan ships aren't just "organic" in the carbon sense, but biological.
How then, did the GTA and PVN capture shield, sensor and other equipment, and ship parts, in FS1?
Also, when the Dragon and Mara fighters are captured and used in both FS1 and FS2, it makes no mention of any kind of organic nature to them.
Not only that, but the Dragon and Mara actually look mechanical and constructed. The Mara has lots of sharp angles and flat or regularly curved surfaces, and there's a very un-biological regularity to its features.
Besides, mechanical/drytech components are not necessarily boxy like Terran ships--one look at any car produced in the last 15 years will show that.
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@Woolie
That's why I'm careful about distinguishing between BioTech and Organic Tech, an awful lot of people seem to think they are the same thing ;)
Actually, I seem to recall that ERA, or Explosive Reactive Armour is based on a superfluid organic compound, but yeah, metal is preferred, as much for it's malleability as its' reassuring thickness.
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Actually, I seem to recall that ERA, or Explosive Reactive Armour is based on a superfluid organic compound.
Yes, but it is not biological, which is the essence of the ludicrous "grown ships" notion. The Shivan ships may well be made of carbon-bearing materials, but they are not alive!
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Heh, I was editing my last post as you typed ;)
Yup, my position is that they aren't 'living' ships, but they make a lot of use of 'Organic' techniques, maybe the armour is 'grown' to coat a metallic superstructure, maybe the wiring is grown inside that, it's all complete conjecture anyway, but it's fun to talk about ;) For all we know, that might be exactly how they make the Terran vessels, after all, there's no law that says organic stuff has to look like something out of an Escher drawing.
'Living' as in reacting to external stimuli with some degree of self awareness is another matter entirely.
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Woolie, look into my eyes . . . You will see the future . . . And you will realize that the Shivans have the technology . . . They can rebuild themselves . . . Better than they were before . . . Better, stronger, faster.
:lol:
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Woolie, look into my eyes . . . You will see the future . . . And you will realize that the Shivans have the technology . . . They can rebuild themselves . . . Better than they were before . . . Better, stronger, faster.
:lol:
And there's no reason they can't do this with non-biological tech as opposed to slow-growing, fragile biological structures?
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Biological or organic structures?
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Ah, I understand it better then.
Are you talking about how compounds 'self-assemble'? This is being researched for nanomachines, protein folding, etc.
Yep, I seem to recall some research recently that made nano-wires that would actively seek out a particular chemical 'key', and each strand of the wire could be grown in such a way as it sought a different key from it's neighbours. Something like that could create massive reductions in the size production speed and costs of some technologies.
I had some scientist working on nano-technology holding lectures at my college. Nano-materials don't really "grow" in the exact meaning of the word.
that said, some of the properties are utterly fascinating.. did you know that by just twisting a carbon nano-tube slighly, you get it to change it's properties from non-conductive to conductive?
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Yup they have some pretty amazing qualities. I suppose 'grown' is the wrong word for it, it's sort of like a sugar crystal, you can 'grow' one, but all it is really doing is forming chemical bonds with all the saturated molecules, and because of it's properties, they can only form into one particular shape :)
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Biological or organic structures?
I'm not sure what you mean. Organic materials can be artificially fabricated. The Ferrari Enzo's carbon fiber bodyshell is organic but it is entirely artificial and constructed, with no living components. What's really under debate is the idea that Shivan ships are essentially based on biological creatures that are grown into spaceships, which is absurd.
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Ah, so that's where all of this confusion arose from: whether the Shivan ships were actual organisms 'grown' into ships or whether they were organics, metal, and a Shivan integrated into it.
I personally believe in the latter, like you do.
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Well, the idea of living ships has been used before, anyone remember farscape? The Moya was pretty much alive, it even gave birth to a ship! XD
Why the hell not? why is it too difficult to believe it could be done? I don't actually know, and i am not looking for an answer from anyone, i guess i just like my sci-fi with a touch of fantasy :pimp:
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Biological structures are fragile compared to artificial materials designed for strength, and must be supplied with oxygen or other cellular fuel through a complex and delicate circulatory system. They are very slow growing (100m redwoods take centuries to grow to full size), are difficult to repair--biological self-repair is very slow and the results are often inferior to the original, consume vast amounts of energy and resources in the process of growing (assuming a child consumes an average of 1750 calories a day, he will have consumed over 48 gigajoules by the time he turns 18. That's a LOT of energy to make a 150-pound object, the equivalent of more than 10 tons of TNT), are prone to mutation and diseases, and have too much variation between specimens.
Yes, the idea of creature ships has been used and abused before, and is one of the most obnoxious clichés in sci-fi. I think the meme comes from the misconception that because biological organisms are mysterious, complicated, and nearly impossible to fully repair when they break, they perform better. Shoot a big-bore rifle at an elephant and at an 8-ton armored car and see which one ends up in better shape and which one gets repaired faster.
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Organic Living spaceships do seem absurd at aou current level of Technologybut given some time, say 1,000,000 years, it wont. Its the holy grail of Technology. I mean sometimes the organic vesion of something is superior to the Mechanical version - Ie computers vs the brain/We repair faster (and in some cases better) than a car or building.
Also, Living doesnt necessarily equate alive-(read thinking). I mean The human(/Vasudan/fox/cat/Um...er...Whatever) body is living, but it is the Brain that makes them truly alive. In a sense, the brain is the Pilot in the fighter...
A lot of what follows is my own speculation
I think that Shivan Vessels are like a cross between Terminator (T-800 series Model 101 (The Arnold Skinjob)), the Borg and Xenomorphs from Alien Quadrilogy.
They have basic mechanical endoskeleton includes some corridoors (Remember, we only see one)(Say I was the Transport and where the shivans landed was my left collar bone. Now say that collar bone was held together with a specially grown skin.-Terminator.
The Skin once grown, hardens like acrusta- (Cant spell it) - Lobster or Crab shell
In the toughest places, this skin-shell is left unarmoured. But in Thinly covered places it is re-enforced with armour. Also, the skin is covered in a variaty other instuments. - The Borg
Interior is a mix of organic and mechanical Tech. Design in mechanical looks like a warped version of normal mechanics on terran ships. Interior design in the organic area is something by Geiger
Wiring and power-conduits are a mix of organic and mechanical. (Nerves connect to cappacitors, Veins/Arteries connect to mechanical piston pumps <- that sort of thing
The skin and endo-skelleton are capable of growing over the course of years (Much like our skin grows). Think of them being abit like Time-lord Regeneration for how the - only they take about a year to complete
The organic hulls are able to heal over time. (This offers an explanation to something in-game...In the mission where you have to destroy the Sathanas' main beam cannons, I managed, without cheats, to get the Sathanas down to 87% hull...In the next mission, High Noon, The Sathanas was back up to 92% hull. The amount of time between the two missions didnt seem long enough to justify a repair crew...so ipostulate organic healing)
The organic parts thrive on either nebula gas, or the energy emitted around subspace nodes...(Hey for all we know, it could be Shivan's Catnip
Growth occurs in major spurts every few hundred years. Ships which have just had a growth spurt or are in the middle between spurts are put into combat duty. The spend years practically unchanged apart from small differences, like weapons and the nerve/wiring configuration
When a ship is about to have a growth spurt or is having one, it is withdrawn from service and kept at a drydock. The armour is removed and refitted after the growth is complete
Cains would grow first grow tougher, developing into Liliths
Liliths grow in size and shape developing into a stop-gap ship, which I shall refer to as a Lilin (Look it up) (note: this ship is one ive created, otherwise the Evolution of a Lilith into Demon Doesn't make a whole lotta sense)
Lilins look like a cross between a Demon and a Lilith. The exact look of a lilin i haven't decided, but imagine a corvette that looks half-way between a Lilith and a Demon, and you'll have some idea of what it would look like - i might do a sketch some time and ask someone to model it. ;)
The Lilin Eventually grows into a Demon.
Demons then grow into another stop-gap I'll call the Archdemon (again ive created this ship for reasons of pure sense)
Archdemons are a half-way between a Demon and a Lucifer.
The handfull of Archdemons that survive long enough then grow into Lucifers
The few Lucifers that survive to old age then become something else - juggernaut that looks Luciferish (Hey, the ravana destroyer looks Sathanasish)
***Cookie to the person who find the pattern in the nomenclature and for those who got my joke earlier in the post***
Something similar happens along the Rakshassa line, culminating in the Sathanas
That is my opinion. You guys are all free to "believe whatever you want to believe"
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Organic Living spaceships do seem absurd at aou current level of Technologybut given some time, say 1,000,000 years, it wont. Its the holy grail of Technology. I mean sometimes the organic vesion of something is superior to the Mechanical version - Ie computers vs the brain/We repair faster (and in some cases better) than a car or building.
Also, Living doesnt necessarily equate alive-(read thinking). I mean The human(/Vasudan/fox/cat/Um...er...Whatever) body is living, but it is the Brain that makes them truly alive. In a sense, the brain is the Pilot in the fighter...
A lot of what follows is my own speculation
I think that Shivan Vessels are like a cross between Terminator (T-800 series Model 101 (The Arnold Skinjob)), the Borg and Xenomorphs from Alien Quadrilogy.
They have basic mechanical endoskeleton includes some corridoors (Remember, we only see one)(Say I was the Transport and where the shivans landed was my left collar bone. Now say that collar bone was held together with a specially grown skin.-Terminator.
The Skin once grown, hardens like acrusta- (Cant spell it) - Lobster or Crab shell
In the toughest places, this skin-shell is left unarmoured. But in Thinly covered places it is re-enforced with armour. Also, the skin is covered in a variaty other instuments. - The Borg
Interior is a mix of organic and mechanical Tech. Design in mechanical looks like a warped version of normal mechanics on terran ships. Interior design in the organic area is something by Geiger
Wiring and power-conduits are a mix of organic and mechanical. (Nerves connect to cappacitors, Veins/Arteries connect to mechanical piston pumps <- that sort of thing
The skin and endo-skelleton are capable of growing over the course of years (Much like our skin grows). Think of them being abit like Time-lord Regeneration for how the - only they take about a year to complete
The organic hulls are able to heal over time. (This offers an explanation to something in-game...In the mission where you have to destroy the Sathanas' main beam cannons, I managed, without cheats, to get the Sathanas down to 87% hull...In the next mission, High Noon, The Sathanas was back up to 92% hull. The amount of time between the two missions didnt seem long enough to justify a repair crew...so ipostulate organic healing)
The organic parts thrive on either nebula gas, or the energy emitted around subspace nodes...(Hey for all we know, it could be Shivan's Catnip
Growth occurs in major spurts every few hundred years. Ships which have just had a growth spurt or are in the middle between spurts are put into combat duty. The spend years practically unchanged apart from small differences, like weapons and the nerve/wiring configuration
When a ship is about to have a growth spurt or is having one, it is withdrawn from service and kept at a drydock. The armour is removed and refitted after the growth is complete
Cains would grow first grow tougher, developing into Liliths
Liliths grow in size and shape developing into a stop-gap ship, which I shall refer to as a Lilin (Look it up) (note: this ship is one ive created, otherwise the Evolution of a Lilith into Demon Doesn't make a whole lotta sense)
Lilins look like a cross between a Demon and a Lilith. The exact look of a lilin i haven't decided, but imagine a corvette that looks half-way between a Lilith and a Demon, and you'll have some idea of what it would look like - i might do a sketch some time and ask someone to model it. ;)
The Lilin Eventually grows into a Demon.
Demons then grow into another stop-gap I'll call the Archdemon (again ive created this ship for reasons of pure sense)
Archdemons are a half-way between a Demon and a Lucifer.
The handfull of Archdemons that survive long enough then grow into Lucifers
The few Lucifers that survive to old age then become something else - juggernaut that looks Luciferish (Hey, the ravana destroyer looks Sathanasish)
***Cookie to the person who find the pattern in the nomenclature and for those who got my joke earlier in the post***
Something similar happens along the Rakshassa line, culminating in the Sathanas
That is my opinion. You guys are all free to "believe whatever you want to believe"
:yes:
BTW: It's spelled Giger, not Geiger :P
Was that your joke?
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The Lilin are the daughters of Lilith, and they're demons. Very good name :yes: :yes: :yes: :yes:
But I was wondering why we haven't encountered any Lilin or Archdemons during FS1...
I've been playing with the idea that the Shivans use (partly) biological subsystems and/or weapons in 'normal' ships. Biological systems, as terran_emperor said, are mostly superior to non-biological systems (compare the central nervous system to the internet, for example), and the Shivans could be using biological reactors, beam turrets, neural-network AI, etc. etc. etc. That would explain how they get all this power in that tiny Lilith, for example... Imagine the GTVA doing something like that...
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Organic Living spaceships do seem absurd at aou current level of Technologybut given some time, say 1,000,000 years, it wont. Its the holy grail of Technology. I mean sometimes the organic vesion of something is superior to the Mechanical version - Ie computers vs the brain/We repair faster (and in some cases better) than a car or building.
Modern computers are in no way comparable to a human brain. They function and process data in entirely different ways. Furthermore, computer technology is advancing exponentially, and together with quantum and massively parallel computing, will result in artificial computers with the computing power of a human brain within a few decades. Also, we do not repair faster or better than an artificial object. Human self-repair sucks. Most damaged tissues are replaced by largely nonfunctional material called scar tissue when they are damaged. Scar tissue is basically like biological Bondo. It is relatively weak, inflexible, and does not contribute to the functioning of organs. It does not resist infection well when replacing skin, either. Many wounds or lesions can take months to finish healing, and the repaired stuctures are always inferior to what they once were. But wait, it gets even better. Many parts of our bodies cannot repair at all! If you suffer brain damage, the damaged brain tissue is gone. If heart muscle dies, it is not replaced. If your spinal cord is severed it cannot reconnect. And severe enough injuries can cause you to die. If a car's engine block cracks, the engine can be replaced. If a window is smashed, the pane can be replaced. If body panels rust and develop holes. new metal can be welded in place. For a car to be totaled means the damage costs more to repair than the vehicle is worth, not that it cannot be repaired.
]Also, Living doesnt necessarily equate alive-(read thinking). I mean The human(/Vasudan/fox/cat/Um...er...Whatever) body is living, but it is the Brain that makes them truly alive. In a sense, the brain is the Pilot in the fighter...
This is complete fabrication. Insects, trees, and bacteria are just as alive as you are. Human beings are the only creatureso n the entire planet capable of full conscious thought. Are animals not alive despite their inability to think? Your idea is the old body/soul duality dressed up in "scientific" clothes.
A lot of what follows is my own speculation
I think that Shivan Vessels are like a cross between Terminator (T-800 series Model 101 (The Arnold Skinjob)), the Borg and Xenomorphs from Alien Quadrilogy.
They have basic mechanical endoskeleton includes some corridoors (Remember, we only see one)(Say I was the Transport and where the shivans landed was my left collar bone. Now say that collar bone was held together with a specially grown skin.-Terminator.
The majority of Shivan textures look metallic. The plates have lots of straight lines or curves so regular that they would've had to have been cut to spec using fabrication equipment. Even when you take the spec maps away, many ships have metallic highlights in the textures. The "shell" texxtures of the Demon and Ravana have corrosion, a feature of artificial materials.
The Skin once grown, hardens like acrusta- (Cant spell it) - Lobster or Crab shell
In the toughest places, this skin-shell is left unarmoured. But in Thinly covered places it is re-enforced with armour. Also, the skin is covered in a variaty other instuments. - The Borg
Except the textures look like metal, not chitin or other proteins. The red parts have a distinct crystalline look, which is definitely not biological.
Interior is a mix of organic and mechanical Tech. Design in mechanical looks like a warped version of normal mechanics on terran ships. Interior design in the organic area is something by Geiger
The hallfight cutscene is rather murky, but there is nothing Giger-like about it.
Wiring and power-conduits are a mix of organic and mechanical. (Nerves connect to cappacitors, Veins/Arteries connect to mechanical piston pumps <- that sort of thing
Biological circulatory vessels are extremely delicate, nowhere near tough enough to withstand the amount of energy that would surge through an FS fighter (keep in mind that the guns on an FS fighter are equivalent to small nuclear devices--they're extremely powerful). Also, please stop confusing biological with organic. A carbon-fiber sports car bidy is organic, but it was molded, not grown.
The skin and endo-skelleton are capable of growing over the course of years (Much like our skin grows). Think of them being abit like Time-lord Regeneration for how the - only they take about a year to complete
I don't think you understand how slow growing is. It takes CENTURIES for a large tree to grow. Even the largest trees are no taller than the length of a Satis.
The organic hulls are able to heal over time. (This offers an explanation to something in-game...In the mission where you have to destroy the Sathanas' main beam cannons, I managed, without cheats, to get the Sathanas down to 87% hull...In the next mission, High Noon, The Sathanas was back up to 92% hull. The amount of time between the two missions didnt seem long enough to justify a repair crew...so ipostulate organic healing)
Healing is extremely slow and in most complex organisms, imperfect. The disparity between hull strengths in those two missions is impossible to justify and can only be attributed to an error in the game.
The organic parts thrive on either nebula gas, or the energy emitted around subspace nodes...(Hey for all we know, it could be Shivan's Catnip
What is this "energy" emitted around subspace nodes?
Growth occurs in major spurts every few hundred years. Ships which have just had a growth spurt or are in the middle between spurts are put into combat duty. The spend years practically unchanged apart from small differences, like weapons and the nerve/wiring configuration
When a ship is about to have a growth spurt or is having one, it is withdrawn from service and kept at a drydock. The armour is removed and refitted after the growth is complete
Cains would grow first grow tougher, developing into Liliths
This would make the growing of ships even slower. We're talking centuries here--so slow it's just not worth it to create ships this way.
Liliths grow in size and shape developing into a stop-gap ship, which I shall refer to as a Lilin (Look it up) (note: this ship is one ive created, otherwise the Evolution of a Lilith into Demon Doesn't make a whole lotta sense)
Lilins look like a cross between a Demon and a Lilith. The exact look of a lilin i haven't decided, but imagine a corvette that looks half-way between a Lilith and a Demon, and you'll have some idea of what it would look like - i might do a sketch some time and ask someone to model it. ;)
The Lilin Eventually grows into a Demon.
Why does it completely change configuration? Why haven't we seen these things?
Demons then grow into another stop-gap I'll call the Archdemon (again ive created this ship for reasons of pure sense)
Archdemons are a half-way between a Demon and a Lucifer.
The handfull of Archdemons that survive long enough then grow into Lucifers
The few Lucifers that survive to old age then become something else - juggernaut that looks Luciferish (Hey, the ravana destroyer looks Sathanasish)
***Cookie to the person who find the pattern in the nomenclature and for those who got my joke earlier in the post***
Something similar happens along the Rakshassa line, culminating in the Sathanas
That is my opinion. You guys are all free to "believe whatever you want to believe"
I prefer not to pull things out of my ass and invent new ship classes of which there is no evidence for. Why can't they just BUILD a Sathanas or Lucifer? It's a far more parsimonious theory than some missing-link ship class that no one has ever seen.
The Lilin are the daughters of Lilith, and they're demons. Very good name :yes: :yes: :yes: :yes:
But I was wondering why we haven't encountered any Lilin or Archdemons during FS1...
I've been playing with the idea that the Shivans use (partly) biological subsystems and/or weapons in 'normal' ships. Biological systems, as terran_emperor said, are mostly superior to non-biological systems (compare the central nervous system to the internet, for example), and the Shivans could be using biological reactors, beam turrets, neural-network AI, etc. etc. etc. That would explain how they get all this power in that tiny Lilith, for example... Imagine the GTVA doing something like that...
First of all, the brain is not a distributed network like the internet. The closest example to the internet might be a primitive invertebrate's nerve net, which is extremely rudimentary compared to a brain and has nowhere near the bandwidth of fiber optic connections. Neural-network AI isn't biological either--it's a software theory. A neural network AI is a program that could run on a drytech computer. You want comparisons of biological and non-biological systems--try these:
Artery vs. oil pipeline. Lay an artery across the Alaskan tundra and watch it freeze and die.
Teeth vs. grinder. Whirling blades don't get cavities and they can dice up things that a human could never chew.
Chobham armor vs. tree bark.
Automobile vs. horse. Hardly anyone owns a horse anymore.
Synthetic morphine vs. opium. The former makes you a lot higher than the latter.
EDIT: And let's not forget--how would Terran weapons and electronics work with all this biological crap?
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Several computer scientists are combining synthetic chips and biological nerve cells to improve computing tech. Others try to synthetically reproduce muscles. They don't just do that for fun, right?
The comparisons you're giving don't quite make sense. The artery didn't evolve to lay across the Alaskan tundra. The artery has evolved to work ideally in normal circumstances (i.e. in a living body). A pipeline is designed specifically to do its job somewhere else. As for the rest of your comparisons. BTW, endorphins work even better than synthetic morphine.
The red parts have a distinct crystalline look.
Do they? They could as well be biological, especially since we do not know a thing about "life, but not as we know it".
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Ever heard of neural-network AI, Woolie? Computer scientists are quite busy researching that, since they think it would lead to better computers. Heck, they're even combining synthetic chips and biological nerve cells to improve computing tech.
It's all about AI and the ability to learn. Quantum and massively parallel computing, as you call it, will work as fast as a human brain, I agree, but will it work as good as a human brain? Your supercomputer would still be using pre-programmed rules, and that's just not comparable to learning things. Look at the tech room description of the GTSG Alastor (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/GTSG_Alastor), for example. They didn't use quantumcomputers there, did they? At least in the FS universe, this biological computing works.
The red parts have a distinct crystalline look.
Do they? They could as well be biological, especially since we do not know a thing about "life, but not as we know it".
I said that Neural Network AI is a software theory. The neurons in an Alastor's neural network could be quantum processors. The same principles that apply to a human brain could be applied to quantum processing units or virtual processors running on a single quantum computer, with the same results.
As for the "biological living crystals" part, demonstrate a plausible glowing crystal life form if you want to make that assertion. Meanwhile I could bore a hole in a piece of quartz and stick a red LED inside it and get a glowing red crystal.
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I'm probably late to say this , but :
Cain -> Lilith -> Rakshassa -> Ravana -> Lucifer -> Sathanas
Lucifer losses shields , because the Sathanas is too big for those reactors to shield it .
OR
Cain -> Lilith -> Moloch -> Demon
BUT , I don't think their tech is organic or biological at all . I prefer to think that their ships are simply made of very resistant armour and a lot of regular metal inside . That's all
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As for the "biological living crystals" part, demonstrate a plausible glowing crystal life form if you want to make that assertion. Meanwhile I could bore a hole in a piece of quartz and stick a red LED inside it and get a glowing red crystal.
We don't even know if they are crystals. They could be, yes, but they could be anything else... Something we do not know about :nervous:.
It's behaviour when the Saths blow up Capella seems pretty alien to me... Not like any red LEDs in crystals would do, anyway :P
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IMO, the growth lines theory was stupid, because they all look exactly the same, there are no intermediate stages between a Lilith, and say, a Moloch.
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As for the "biological living crystals" part, demonstrate a plausible glowing crystal life form if you want to make that assertion. Meanwhile I could bore a hole in a piece of quartz and stick a red LED inside it and get a glowing red crystal.
We don't even know if they are crystals. They could be, yes, but they could be anything else... Something we do not know about :nervous:.
It's behaviour when the Saths blow up Capella seems pretty alien to me... Not like any red LEDs in crystals would do, anyway :P
Do you think the red crystals caused the supernova to go off rather than the wacky subspace fields? As for it looking "alien", yeah, it's alien. The Shivans are alien; they're three-legged monsters with bladed hands. That doesn't make Sathanas-class juggernauts living creatures.
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Do you think the red crystals caused the supernova to go off?
It was a subspace disturbance. Maybe the crystals aligned themselves in such a way that they became conductors for the subspace weapon.
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Do you think the red crystals caused the supernova to go off?
It was a subspace disturbance. Maybe the crystals aligned themselves in such a way that they became conductors for the subspace weapon.
Ah, but you see, you mentioned the subspace weapons. So the Sathanas-class juggernauts are living creatures because the big subspace weapon has red glowing crystal barrels. How does that work?
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I never said anything about the Saths being living creatures. In fact I disagree with the statement that the Shivan ships are alive.
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I'm not saying they live either, and I'm definitely not saying they grow. I'm just saying that the Shivans use biological tech in their ships, as I stated above.
There must be a link between the red glow and the subspace stuff they have. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense to use energy for lighting when you need that energy for wacky subspace fields.
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@Snail: Then what does your post have to do with anything? I was telling him that he was saying Sathanas=alive because the Sathanas ships look weird and creepy and that he should try a less ridiculous argument.
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Then what does your post have to do with anything? I was telling him that he was saying Sathanas=alive because the Sathanas ships look weird and creepy and that he should try a less ridiculous argument.
I didn't say anything of the sort.
p.s you reply damn quick.
p.s you edit damn quick too. :P
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Then what does your post have to do with anything? I was telling him that he was saying Sathanas=alive because the Sathanas ships look weird and creepy and that he should try a less ridiculous argument.
I didn't say anything of the sort.
p.s you reply damn quick.
I didn't say you the Sathanas was alive, that's why I said "him" referring to FreeSpaceFreak.
The entire "biotech" argument basically boils down to "Shivan ships kind of look spiky and buglike so therefore they're giant space bugs that grow".
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Sorry, but by the time I had replied you had already edited your post.
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@Woolie: I'm not saying these things are living creatures, I'm just disagreeing with two parts of your long post. The rest of it does make sense :yes: but I forgot to type that.
BTW, let's try not to get too personal. This is a thread about the Shivans using organic or even biological tech, not about each other's posts.
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No, no, I was just clarifying why my post didn't make any sense. Anyway...
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@Woolie: I'm not saying these things are living creatures, I'm just disagreeing with two parts of your long post. The rest of it does make sense :yes: but I forgot to type that.
BTW, let's try not to get too personal. This is a thread about the Shivans using organic or even biological tech, not about each other's posts.
The problem with the idea of crystal life forms is that living structures are constantly moving nutrients, wastes, organelles, etc. around. One of the properties of crystals is that all the atoms are completely locked in place and cannot move. They're also impermeable, which makes it impossible for the crystal to take in nutrients and expel wastes.
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....
To a post a while back
My Joke was a reference to THE GREAT GONZO! You know...he's a...um...[Interrupted by Gonzo]: Whatever :lol:
I guess im the only person here who watches the muppets
As to the Lilin/Archdemon...I created those as a way for the Ship growth lines to make a little more sense.
I only postulate their existance...
And to anyone who wants to bring this down to just
The entire "biotech" argument basically boils down to "Shivan ships kind of look spiky and buglike so therefore they're giant space bugs that grow".
I Could be starting a thread about Terran ships are alive (as in The Transformers alive) simply because they look blocky like Transformers
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The problem with the idea of crystal life forms is that living structures are constantly moving nutrients, wastes, organelles, etc. around. One of the properties of crystals is that all the atoms are completely locked in place and cannot move. They're also impermeable, which makes it impossible for the crystal to take in nutrients and expel wastes.
Ravana has tubes which have to have SOME use.
Not that I support the conclusion that Shivan ships are alive. I think the tubes might transfer the needed elements around faster than usual so the Ravana can react quicker than other Shivan ships.
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....
To a post a while back
My Joke was a reference to THE GREAT GONZO! You know...he's a...um...[Interrupted by Gonzo]: Whatever :lol:
I guess im the only person here who watches the muppets
As to the Lilin/Archdemon...I created those as a way for the Ship growth lines to make a little more sense.
I only postulate their existance...
And to anyone who wants to bring this down to just
The entire "biotech" argument basically boils down to "Shivan ships kind of look spiky and buglike so therefore they're giant space bugs that grow".
I Could be starting a thread about Terran ships are alive (as in The Transformers alive) simply because thy look blocky like Transformers
You're going to defend the idea of living Shivan ships by citing a series (the Transformers) whose "life" comes from magic (the "sparks")?
On the contrary, the Lilin/Archdemon ships show your position's weakness. If the Shivans have these ass-pull ships, why don't they use them? The Moloch is a pretty crappy corvette and a Lilith derivative with an LRed would be such a vastly superior vessel that the Moloch would have no reason to exist.
The problem with the idea of crystal life forms is that living structures are constantly moving nutrients, wastes, organelles, etc. around. One of the properties of crystals is that all the atoms are completely locked in place and cannot move. They're also impermeable, which makes it impossible for the crystal to take in nutrients and expel wastes.
Ravana has tubes which have to have SOME use.
Not that I support the conclusion that Shivan ships are alive. I think the tubes might transfer the needed elements around faster than usual so the Ravana can react quicker than other Shivan ships.
Why can't they be rigid tubes walled with that red crap and packed with power conduits? I'd guess that they feed energy to the weapons.
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Why can't they be rigid tubes walled with that red crap and packed with power conduits? I'd guess that they feed energy to the weapons.
The so called "red crap" is what I meant by "needed elements," which really should be "needed compounds," but oh well.
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I've always thought that the red material was the shell of the tubes and that they were hollow and full of power cables/conduits.
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How can they be hollow and full at the same time? :wtf:
Anyway, I think that the Shvians get their power from the red stuff, which is why it is so common throughout their designs. Even the Asmodeus and the Mephisto have them.
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Remember, Shivans were originally meant to be green. You can still see some green coloring on the cutscene Lucifer model. So organic Shivans all the way. Eat your veggies... or else.
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How can they be hollow and full at the same time? :wtf:
Anyway, I think that the Shvians get their power from the red stuff, which is why it is so common throughout their designs. Even the Asmodeus and the Mephisto have them.
Maybe I used the wrong word, but I had the idea that the red material was only the shell or covering of the tubes. The conduits would be bundled inside. The red material appears to be equally as useful as armor as the gray plating.
Remember, Shivans were originally meant to be green. You can still see some green coloring on the cutscene Lucifer model. So organic Shivans all the way. Eat your veggies... or else.
If I paint my car green, is it a living creature? Also, Shivans are not their ships.
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If I paint my car green, is it a living creature? Also, Shivans are not their ships.
Apparently the Shivans are "connected" to their ships somehow. I believe that it says in the FSRefBible that a Shivan ship gets its power source from the Shivan itself. Would explain why it was so hard to get the reverse engineered Shivan ships to work.
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If I paint my car green, is it a living creature? Also, Shivans are not their ships.
Apparently the Shivans are "connected" to their ships somehow. I believe that it says in the FSRefBible that a Shivan ship gets its power source from the Shivan itself. Would explain why it was so hard to get the reverse engineered Shivan ships to work.
If Shivans could generate that much power, why do they need fighter weapons at all? How would they support their power generation? How would they survive the energy surging through the biological parts of their bodies (assuming that they are sybernetically enhanced)? I don't recall anything like that in the Reference Bible. The fact that they were able to reverse engineer it at all is evidence that the basis of most of the technologies is similar to that of Terran ships.
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I was joking. The FS2 techroom strongly suggests that Shivans are both organic and mechanical. It would appear that their ships are the same way.
It has been suggested that what we have actually seen have been either robots or organic creatures in some sort of exo-skeleton. However, we have, at present, no reason to support either hypothesis.
Their insect like carapace does not appear original to the creature's physiology, suggesting the Shivans are a cybernetic fusion of biology and technology. The integrated plasma weapon also exhibits properties of an organic artificial fusion.
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That's about the Shivans, not their ships. Shivan ships are not Shivans.
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1st: My citing terran ships as Transformers was a (very bad) joke. You know "ha-ha...(grown)...That was awful" Id completly forgotten about sparks when i posted. But you saying they are magic is the only way to accuratly describe the soul
Hey, i may be semi-aithiest, but i still believe in the soul. Actually I have no well defined patten of belief
2nd: I'm not getting into that Soul/body duallity stuff. If i did we'd be here till chrismas 5,000,000,000,008!
I said Living doesn't necessarily equate alive
But i never said alive=Sentient
Now I'm not going to argue about whether animals are sentient or not...I don't know...By my I can't prove or disprove it. I cant even prove the sentience of anyone else on this forum. I can only prove my own to myself
What i ment was a frog/bear/Pig/Rat/Dog/Whatever's leg might be living but it is the creature's Brain is what makes it alive
3rd: And I know the Lilin and Archdemon not appearing are holes in my theory...my only answer to that is "I wasn't on the Game design Team...(I was only 10)"...
or shivan command could be using them for a secret purpose which requires all ships of that class...
Or by the time the fleets reached us, they had all been destroyed
Or...Using my own arguement...The Lilin/Archdemons had all been destroyed by fs1 and by fs2 or were far behind the lines growing...
That might explain why we only encounter 1 Demon in FS2
I think that all the Lilin being in the Lucifer and Sathanas fleets previously being destroyed is more likely...They were all between growth spurts and all the Lilin had been destroyed.
As for the Archdemon, in the Lucifer fleet, only one Demon survived to become an Archdemon...It then evovled to the next step and was killed in a subspace cataclysm in Mutturs' Stellian Spiral, near Sol 3
In the FS 2 fleet most ships of that growth hadn't been lived long enough to reach even the Demon stage (hey we only encounter) let alone the archangel stage
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shivan command
"The Ravana is down! The Ravana is down! Abort mission, pilots! Get out of there now!"
Oh wait. That would actually work. The reason why the Shivans seemed less strategic in FS2 is because they had developed their own version of GTVA Command.
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The soul stuff is all metaphysics and spirituality and has no place in this thread.
If the GTA destroyed these mythical corvettes, why were there no reports of these ships ever existing. One might be able to explain away the Nahema appearing soon enough to influence the HOL by saying that they have a limited deployment or whatever, but the GTA and PVN would have noticed massive capital ships running around, and you even said that they had engaged and destroyed them.
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I mean they were destroyed before Terrans and vasudans ever encounter them...
No encounter, therefore no records...At least untill the conspiracy theorists get involves.
I agree with WW that the stuff about the Soul has no place in this thread. Whomever though i was refering to that opened an MFing big can of worms. Anyone who wants to discuss that sort of thing go find a priest/minister/rabbai/philosipher and talk it over with them
(No Offense Intended to anyone. Please don't :snipe: , :beamz: or :headz: me)
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Who destroyed them? Now you're creating an entire new race to justify your claims?
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Who said anything 'bout a new race? Not every ship lost in history has been due to enemy action.
Subspace Accidents? Asteroid Belts? Commets? Solar Flares? Ion Storms? Nebula Storms (even more severe than in that FS mission? Magnetars (a highly Magnetic version of a Pulsar)? Black holes? Some chemical which eats the shivan superstucture?
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But why would it wipe out an entire class of ship? Do you think the Lilins would all be segregated in their own fleet? They wouldn't--they're not super-ships, and would be spread among Shivan battlegroups just like other small and mid-size warships. Even the Sathanas fleet had hordes of escorts that engaged GTVA forces at capella while the juggernauts did their thing. Your calamity would have had to wipe out the entire Shivan navy.
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Like i said...I know they are holes in the theory. The achillies heel. To be honest i made them up on the spot as i was typing to fill in the gap...
For all we know, the Cain/Lilith could be the catapiller, The Lucifer the Butterfly and the Demon one big flying armoured cocoon ;)
For the other line
Rakshassa = Catterpiller
Moloch = cocoon
Ravana = Just emerged from cocoon butterfly
Sathanas = Fully formed butterfly
That was actually my other theory, but i didnt post that because i wanted to avoid the insectoid line of though and go somewhere else
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Like i said...I know they are holes in the theory. The achillies heel. To be honest i made them up on the spot as i was typing to fill in the gap...
I think you should think about this some more. You can't just make things up as you go along.
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Why not? Thats what every theorist does. Some just are able to produce evidence.
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No, most theorists conceptualize and prepare their theory and THEN present it.
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Oh wait. That would actually work. The reason why the Shivans seemed less strategic in FS2 is because they had developed their own version of GTVA Command.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Of course. When nobody was giving orders they were doing better. If the IQ of GTVA Command is -10, what is the IQ of Shivan Command then? -100? :wtf:
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If you came here to make Command jokes, you aren't doing anything for this thread.
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Well, i appreciate them...I did start this thread so i can say what is off topic for it...
This thread is way too serious...
As to the Shivan Command - however shivans co-ordinate fleets at long range...Could be a shivan admiral ofver there comms, could be a king/queen...could be some fellow playing 4d chess
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Well, i appreciate them...I did start this thread so i can say what is off topic for it...
This thread is way too serious...
A prerequisite for any sort of debate is approaching the subject matter seriously. If you cannot do so, you cannot have a rational discussion.
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So, doesnt mean you cant have the odd joke now and again...
-ontopic
So, i believe that Shivans have organic tech and ships grow. You dont thats fine by me. But it is nice to see others' opinion
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So, doesnt mean you cant have the odd joke now and again...
-ontopic
So, i believe that Shivans have organic tech and ships grow. You dont thats fine by me. But it is nice to see others' opinion
Concession accepted.
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Its nice to have a good talk with someone, even if viewpoints clash. You and the others actually had some good points about my theories.
Heh! it could be worse, i mean it not like we're the USA and George Bush's so called "Axis of evil" :lol:
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IMHO the Shivans are a hivemind race with the Hive on one ship, which we never saw. It communicates through delegates (ie the lucifer) to the rest of the Shivan fleet, perhaps because they are so far away. Shivan ships might have an integrated control built right into the ship (barring fighters/bombers), which receives orders from the delegate ship. The Shivans themselves provide power, perform maintenance, fly fighters, etc. I myself doubt that all of the ship is organic, but I'm willing to bet that parts of it, like the command/control part, is organic (At the very least a cyborg-ish type being). The vital control systems of the ship are grown a la Brave New World, and just the hulks of the ship are manufactured. This would greatly speed up and increase production capacity. Bigger ships' cores would be allowed to mature longer before being put into ships.
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I had a comment involving octopus, sea stars and other kinds of shell fish and some more theories i forgot as i rode into page 7, but including them now would be just adding fuel to a extinguishing fire (good thing it's extinguishing, omg... people got really fired up here).
Ah well, i guess this is one discussion i wont be into anymore since it seems decaying now.
Good topic terran_emperor, you really got things interesting hahahaha :nod:
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Good topic terran_emperor, you really got things interesting hahahaha :nod:
I agree, you got me thinking about it...
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Thanks...This was something this has been in my mind for a while...Im surprised its not come up before
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I think it has from time to time, but as the knowledge of 'real' science changes, it can alter people's perceptions on the possibilities for 'techno-jargon', so sometimes it's interesting to re-raise a discussion based on new info ;)
The technique of 'growing' wires as nanotubes, for example, is a workable theory here on Earth today, it's basically about as small as technology can get according to current known laws, the downside is still heat, however, but that will change, 20 years ago someone would have thought us insane if we'd said that something more powerful than a mainframe (of the time) would one day sit inside a box the size of an A4 folder.
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Holy ****, I miss a day and all this has been posted up?
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I think it has from time to time, but as the knowledge of 'real' science changes, it can alter people's perceptions on the possibilities for 'techno-jargon', so sometimes it's interesting to re-raise a discussion based on new info ;)
The technique of 'growing' wires as nanotubes, for example, is a workable theory here on Earth today, it's basically about as small as technology can get according to current known laws, the downside is still heat, however, but that will change, 20 years ago someone would have thought us insane if we'd said that something more powerful than a mainframe (of the time) would one day sit inside a box the size of an A4 folder.
How fast does this stuff "grow"? I imagine very slowly. Also, nanotubes are not biotech in any way. They're as dead as a hunk of metal.
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Holy ****, I miss a day and all this has been posted up?
It's because Woolie Wool's like me. He posts without thinking and without hesitation...
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No, I entered this debate with a solid position. I didn't need to reconstruct theories on the fly, which means I have a speed advantage.:P
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No, I entered this debate with a solid position. I didn't need to reconstruct theories on the fly, which means I have a speed advantage.:P
What was that position again? (I haven't read any of this thread really) :P
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That the idea of biological living, growing Shivan ships is silly, derived from outward appearances of only SOME Shivan ships and sci-fi clichés, and inconsistent with physics and biology. The Shivan ships were built, not grown.
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I agree, but I also say they are part organic.
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I agree to an extent.
I think that Shivan ships are made differently from GTVA ships (they grow by a sort of chemical reaction. It creates pure energy while giving off the materials which are eventually self-assembled by some freaky reaction into the ships the Shivans want).
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That's certainly a different take on things. What sort of chemical reaction would this be?
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Proteins fold themselves naturally. It stands to reason that the same thing could work on a larger scale, especially considering how long the Shivans have been around and how much they could potentially know about biotechnology.
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I think that Shivan ships are made differently from GTVA ships (they grow by a sort of chemical reaction. It creates pure energy while giving off the materials which are eventually self-assembled by some freaky reaction into the ships the Shivans want).
So beam cannons and capship shielding self-assemble?!
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Yes, to an extent.
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Then how did we reverse-engineer shielding systems from them? Do GTVA shielding components self-assemble too? And if we can do thàt, why don't we do it with the rest of our stuff? It would certainly speed up our lines of production, and we could even defeat the Shivans with it, so why don't we do it?
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Because we did it with normal technology, not with Shivan technology.
Technology was self-assembled but later on it can easily be created, albeit with more difficulty, by normal means. Really what I meant is that the Shivans ships are assembled cell-by-cell, but extremely fast. So a juggernaut would take maybe a month or two to make, while it would take the T/Vs 20 or so years.
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Because we did it with normal technology, not with Shivan technology.
Technology was self-assembled but later on it can easily be created, albeit with more difficulty, by normal means. Really what I meant is that the Shivans ships are assembled cell-by-cell, but extremely fast. So a juggernaut would take maybe a month or two to make, while it would take the T/Vs 20 or so years.
How do you think the Terrans would be able to figure out how to manufacture a technology "grown" like this? You can't reverse-engineer something that uses completely alien engineering. Shivan shields must have been constructed using techniques and materials known to the GTA for them to build their own.
Also, how could you really speed up such a process? Cell growth, with all of its molecular- and atomic-level operations, is always slower than casting or forging.
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Because we did it with normal technology, not with Shivan technology.
Technology was self-assembled but later on it can easily be created, albeit with more difficulty, by normal means. Really what I meant is that the Shivans ships are assembled cell-by-cell, but extremely fast. So a juggernaut would take maybe a month or two to make, while it would take the T/Vs 20 or so years.
How do you think the Terrans would be able to figure out how to manufacture a technology "grown" like this? You can't reverse-engineer something that uses completely alien engineering. Shivan shields must have been constructed using techniques and materials known to the GTA for them to build their own.
Also, how could you really speed up such a process? Cell growth, with all of its molecular- and atomic-level operations, is always slower than casting or forging.
You know the drill. Command saw that Shivans use biological technology and classified it level ultra-something-hyper-super-mega-Omega.
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It's just like normal technology, but it gets put together much faster. Is it so hard to understand?
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Yes. Normal technology is not made out of self-assembling waste. Not even partially. You can keep talking to the contents of a dustbin for 8000 years, but you'll never get a PC out of it.
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IMO, stuff in a trashcan is very different from the stuff that comes from my theoretical reactions.
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Dirt is dirt. Ashes from a coal-burning energy plant is just as useless as radioactive waste from a fission reactor.
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Okay I give up.
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Because we did it with normal technology, not with Shivan technology.
Technology was self-assembled but later on it can easily be created, albeit with more difficulty, by normal means. Really what I meant is that the Shivans ships are assembled cell-by-cell, but extremely fast. So a juggernaut would take maybe a month or two to make, while it would take the T/Vs 20 or so years.
How do you think the Terrans would be able to figure out how to manufacture a technology "grown" like this? You can't reverse-engineer something that uses completely alien engineering. Shivan shields must have been constructed using techniques and materials known to the GTA for them to build their own.
Also, how could you really speed up such a process? Cell growth, with all of its molecular- and atomic-level operations, is always slower than casting or forging.
You know the drill. Command saw that Shivans use biological technology and classified it level ultra-something-hyper-super-mega-Omega.
That has nothing to do with the issue of how they could reverse-engineer devices created through completely alien techniques.
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Yes. Normal technology is not made out of self-assembling waste. Not even partially. You can keep talking to the contents of a dustbin for 8000 years, but you'll never get a PC out of it.
unless someone already threw one in there that is .............
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Because we did it with normal technology, not with Shivan technology.
Technology was self-assembled but later on it can easily be created, albeit with more difficulty, by normal means. Really what I meant is that the Shivans ships are assembled cell-by-cell, but extremely fast. So a juggernaut would take maybe a month or two to make, while it would take the T/Vs 20 or so years.
I love how we're making our own canon like this.
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Did I say it was canon?
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You didn't but we're filling up plotholes, are we not? I'd much rather not get into an argument over it. :D
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I pretty much agree, arguing over what we, or another race, are capable of doing in several hundred years time is a moot point, it's interesting to debate, or even to debate against, but at the end of the day, it is all purely 100% hypothesis. I don't really care whether a Mod for the game is 'canon' so much as whether it is 'good' ;)
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I would disagree.
It stands to reason that a metal has metallic properties. and we know what those properties are. You can't make a metal without those properties, assuming you could it wouldn't be metal anymore.
In a similar fashion biological (read: cellular) things have their own properties. And those properties have quite a few weaknesses and aren't prime material for space-faring warships.
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Actually, if an ants armour was as thick as a Tank, it could withstand roughly the same level of punishment, the difference is that an Ant is sentient, and would therefore rather preserve its own life.
Someone already mentioned Spider Silk, which is stronger than any metal-based fibre known to man, though, I think, some organic compounds can take more punishment. Certainly, if you think about things on a cellular level, biological tech has disadvantages, but remember that a cell is a collection of organic compounds, not a compound in and of itself, if something were engineered to grow chitinous plating that was 4" thick on its carapace, I think you'd be surprised as just how tough it was, especially with a softer, absorbent later underneath to soak up impacts.
Look at it this way, 200 years ago, metal would never float, so we built all our ships out of trees.
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Except you forget that some thing function because of their small scale.
A bug the size of a man couldn't function.
What I'm saying is that we can experiment and change many things, but we can't change the very basic of what makes something what it is, what defines it. And if those things that define it have weakneses...well..you're stuck with them.
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A bug the size of a man can't function on earth. In space however, it could be very different.
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Also, we are talking about forced genetics here, not natural evolution, it's true you cannot take a bug and increase it to the size of a man, but even now we are working on techniques to take the silk-producing glands from a spider and engineer them into producing silk that has something like 4-5 times the tensile strength of Steel. Obviously, the idea of breeding spiders that could catch elephants is not very appealing, so geneticists are working on the gland at a cellular level, trying to discover how it actually combines the materials into the silk.
That is Biological, not Organic technology, but the whole thing about Biotech, is that if you have a flaw, you breed or engineer it out. Certainly, Shivan Ships could never 'evolve', but forced Bio technology is not the same as evolution.
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But the basics of biotech is still a cell.. and a cell has it's inherent weaknesses.
Speaking of which, nano-tubes and some new special alloys beat everything, spider silk included.
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But the basics of biotech is still a cell.. and a cell has it's inherent weaknesses.
Speaking of which, nano-tubes and some new special alloys beat everything, spider silk included.
Then I assume this would rule out Shivan ships being metallic in favor of carbon composites? :p
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The basics of Biotech is DNA, not the cell ;)
And iirc Nanotubes were inspired by Spider silk, but I'm not certain on that.
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But the basics of biotech is still a cell.. and a cell has it's inherent weaknesses.
You do realize how weak of a counterpoint it is. A cell needn't be made the way they are made here on Earth. Again, forced evolution (aka biotech) could change the makeup of a cell dramatically. All that matters is that it has the DNA needed to reproduce.
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Also, we are talking about forced genetics here, not natural evolution, it's true you cannot take a bug and increase it to the size of a man, but even now we are working on techniques to take the silk-producing glands from a spider and engineer them into producing silk that has something like 4-5 times the tensile strength of Steel. Obviously, the idea of breeding spiders that could catch elephants is not very appealing, so geneticists are working on the gland at a cellular level, trying to discover how it actually combines the materials into the silk.
That is Biological, not Organic technology, but the whole thing about Biotech, is that if you have a flaw, you breed or engineer it out. Certainly, Shivan Ships could never 'evolve', but forced Bio technology is not the same as evolution.
The problem with a lot of "strong" materials is that there is more than one kind of strength. A material that has a lot of tensile strength but not much impact or shear strength. Many of the harder metals are so useful because they're strong against all kinds of physical deformation, not just one or two.
Spider silk is very strong when you grab it by both ends and try to pull it apart. It wouldn't be very strong against an axe.
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What if you **** up some cells that way to grow some nice Iridium-Tungsten-Spider Silk mix :yes:
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Why not just build a ship instead of trying to use inefficient, ridiculously slow biological processes?
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Because we can.
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Well, technology might reach a point where its actually easier to grow a new ship than build it.
I know this may seem like magic to you guys But
Arthur C. Clarke' s 3rd Law States: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Think on it. If you went back in time to 1007, you would be unable to explain modern technology as anything other than magic
(You'd also probably get burnt for practising witchcraft/soucery ;) )
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on the talk of boots magnetic or vacuum, it looks magnetic to me
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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I think it's about time this topic went dead.
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YOu know what i think? The shivans are just too lazy to design brand new ships.
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Well, technology might reach a point where its actually easier to grow a new ship than build it.
I know this may seem like magic to you guys But
Arthur C. Clarke' s 3rd Law States: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Think on it. If you went back in time to 1007, you would be unable to explain modern technology as anything other than magic
(You'd also probably get burnt for practising witchcraft/soucery ;) )
I prefer not to engage in intellectual cop-outs like throwing up our hands and saying "we'll never know". If we did that all the time, we wouldn't even have any technology.
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Its not a cop-out. Give it several thousand years and we will know
I don't believe in most forms of magic...not including the intepersonal kind, ie friendship, love etc
But apart from feelings i believe that Magic is just tricks of hand, distaction or really advanced technolgy...
Think the Technomages from B5...(Prehaps the fellow who parted the Red Sea and the guy who was born about 2000 years ago were Technomages...No offence to anyone who blieves that stuff...dont Jihad me)
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That has nothing to do with the issue of how they could reverse-engineer devices created through completely alien techniques.
GTVA scientists see energy being focussed into shields. The components generating, projecting, and focussing the energy are completely foreign to them, but they can now fully understand the principles behind the shield. The observance of Shivan tech in action, even though they can't understand the way the tech was produced, provides them with the missing links into their energy-barrier research.
SHAZAM.
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That's ridiculous. You can't learn how to make a gun by studying a bullet. You can't learn how to make armor by observing it deflecting bullet. To replicate Shivan technology, the GTA scientists would have had to been able to examine, understand, and imitate all the critical components. This would be impossible if it was some sort of living creature that had no resemblance to any Terran technologies.
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You can learn how to make a gun by looking at a gun. You can learn how to make armor by looking at armor. :rolleyes:
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It's also a matter of materials and resources. We all know what happened to the production of Prometheus cannons.
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Actually, you don't need to understand the tools used as long as you understand the job they are doing, you can, for example, put a current into a 'black box' situation, and it might go in at 20 Hertz and come out at 50 Hertz, then you could send it in at 70 Hz and it would come out at 50Hz. In that case, for example, it's perfectly possible to tell what action is taking place without understanding the exact workings of the device that is doing it, so you can use your own technology to replicate the effect.
Reverse Engineering doesn't happen as quickly as in Freespace 2, but I wouldn't say it was impossible.
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You can learn how to make a gun by looking at a gun. You can learn how to make armor by looking at armor. :rolleyes:
Can you fabricate Chobham armor by looking at the panels on an M1 Abrams tank?
No?
Then you're wrong.
A biological Shivan techbase would have so little in common with Terran engineering that the GTA could not reverse engineer any Shivan technology. The principles, techniques, and equipment used would be so alien that it certainly wouldn't be possible to integrate it into abiotic Terran technology. Most technologies are dependent on other technologies to function. You can't build and run computers without the manufacturing plants, raw materials, electricity, software, etc.. You can't make alien biotech without whatever technologies the alien creators used to make and maintain it.
The basic technological base that the Shivans employ must be reasonably similar to that of the Terrans, with the possible exception of exotic subspace technologies, that, by the way, the Terrans never figured out. This effectively rules out biowank.
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You can learn how to make a gun by looking at a gun. You can learn how to make armor by looking at armor. :rolleyes:
Can you fabricate Chobham armor by looking at the panels on an M1 Abrams tank?
No?
Then you're wrong.
No, but if you got a sample of the armor, then you could study the molecular structure, etc, to understand how the armor works, and then try to replicate it yourself.
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You can learn how to make a gun by looking at a gun. You can learn how to make armor by looking at armor. :rolleyes:
Can you fabricate Chobham armor by looking at the panels on an M1 Abrams tank?
No?
Then you're wrong.
No, but if you got a sample of the armor, then you could study the molecular structure, etc, to understand how the armor works, and then try to replicate it yourself.
Not if you don't have the tools, knowledge, raw materials, and techniques needed to make it. You can't just hand someone blueprints and tell him to go build the device. He needs a grounding in the technology it is derived from. The GTA would have no grounding in biological shield systems. It would be so alien that you could give them schematics and they wouldn't be able to do anything with it.
And honestly, there's nothing in this that suggests biotech at all:
(http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/images/Mara320x240.jpg)
What do we have here? Straight lines, regular curves, a precise layout that is identical between individual fighters. Sounds like they built it to me.
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Well, Woolie, you have to note that Shivan ships look like insects in general... :drevil:
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Seconded. Some ships look kinda like they got chitinious segmentations.
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You're trying to tell me these look like biotech, grwon ships??? :wtf: :wtf:
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Scorpion
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/SF_Basilisk
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/SF_Manticore
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Notice that these are 3D models. I'd have preferred seeing concept art.
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HR Giger has a lot to answer for....
There is no 'grown' look about Biotechnology unless you want it to look grown, that's the whole point of it, to take natural mechanisms and convert them to serve different purposes. There is no law whatsoever that something that is created using a biotechnology has to look 'grown'. Opinions on whether Shivans use it or not aside, let's please get this understood?
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Notice that these are 3D models. I'd have preferred seeing concept art.
They look much the same in the concept art that I've seen, only with the gun ports less evident. Some of the Inferno R1 Shivan fighters--SF Serpent, SB Durja, SB Kahlan, etc. are based on concept art, and they're certainly in the same mechanical nightmare vein as the FS1 fighters.
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Notice that these are 3D models. I'd have preferred seeing concept art.
I think there's some concept art of the Ravana and Sathanas in the game credits. Go view it.
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HR Giger has a lot to answer for....
There is no 'grown' look about Biotechnology unless you want it to look grown, that's the whole point of it, to take natural mechanisms and convert them to serve different purposes. There is no law whatsoever that something that is created using a biotechnology has to look 'grown'. Opinions on whether Shivans use it or not aside, let's please get this understood?
Living creatures made of dividing cells tend to have characteristic properties of few or no sharp angles, no perfectly regular shapes (the human eyeball is not entirely spherical and changes shape when focusing on an object, while, for example, the SF Manticore Trashman mentioned has perfect rectangular cross-section '"arms" with 90 degree angles), and lack of uniformity between individual examples (Shivan fighters of a certain class are exactly the same shape and size). Name a living creature that has major body parts with a perfectly rectangular cross section and 90 degree angles.
Here is a picture of the SB Nahema: Notice the geometric design features and metallic highlights in the texture. Notice the straight lines and crisp angles:
(http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/images/Nehema320x240.jpg)
The triangular patterns in the SC Raksahasa are definitely not biological:
(http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/images/Rakshasa320x240.jpg)
The SD Ravana has textures that not only show distinct plating, but corrosion as well! Low poly aside, the thing hanging down on the right is not round, but a beveled trapezoid.
(http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/images/Ravana320x240.jpg)
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Just because something is organic, doesnt mean it has to look like something by Geiger. But that doesnt mean itll look like anything by Seuss or the Joe Strazynski fellow
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There's no law whatsoever in nature that states that edges must be round etc etc, that's a Hollywood view of Biotech. The human eyeball is probably one of the most advanced organs on a human being. It's also not a space fighter designed to take several megaton impacts, so yes it can be soft, malleable and rounded.
Cells and other biological structures are put into place as instructed from several sources, including, but not relying on, DNA. If they are 'told' to make a square edge, they will do so.
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Cells and other biological structures are put into place as instructed from several sources, including, but not relying on, DNA. If they are 'told' to make a square edge, they will do so.
And if they are grown into a prefabricated square (or round, triangular, whatever) box, they will do so even more. And that would explain Woolie's "non-biological" look too.
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None of your biological theories explain why the Shivan ships have metal textures!
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Dude, Armour
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So if the hull is armored with metal, and that's the only exposed part, what are you basing 'organic' on? The only two things I can think of are the FS1 tech description of Shivans, which states that they had biomechanical armor (the Shivans themselves), and Derelict's boarding party, which is non-canon. Furthermore, in Hallfight, the interior of that ship... look, metal!
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Bones are made largely of calcium, which is a metal, once again, there's no reason at all why that couldn't be adapted to create an exoskeleton using other metals.
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When i say Armour, i mean either like a lobster shell - it growns out of the old armour then its skin hardens into the new stuff, or it is like the shell a hermit crab uses - as each ship grows it picks up a new set of armour
Besides...Who says the evolution of an Alien race has to happen the way it did to us? I think it very possible for a race to evolve metalic exo-skelletons. And for those of you who say "that doesnt make sense" - who says evolutions has to make sense? Hell the known patterns of evolution make no sense as it is. I mean where the heck did nature come up with some of the designs? The Duck-billed platterpuss? The hammerhead shark?
The only about evolution thaat makes sense it Natural Selection - Survival of the fittest.
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The only about evolution thaat makes sense it Natural Selection - Survival of the fittest.
And ironically enough, Darwin hated that phrase, it was made by a reporter trying to explain it to the masses, and Darwin always pointed out that it wasn't entirely accurate ;)
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There's no law whatsoever in nature that states that edges must be round etc etc, that's a Hollywood view of Biotech. The human eyeball is probably one of the most advanced organs on a human being. It's also not a space fighter designed to take several megaton impacts, so yes it can be soft, malleable and rounded.
Cells and other biological structures are put into place as instructed from several sources, including, but not relying on, DNA. If they are 'told' to make a square edge, they will do so.
How do you reconcile the fact that Shivan ships of a certain class are all the same shape and size and appear to be entirely identical? Not even identical twins, which share all of their DNA, are truly alike. The nature of biological growth means that there will be variations between individuals.
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In a similar vein, could you tell the difference between 2 cockroaches, despite the fact that, to each other, there might be a whole wealth of subtle differences? Unless they have some kind of physical imperfection, or there's a difference in size, it's almost impossible for humans to tell the difference between the members of several other species.
It could also be said making a different model or texture for every Shivan ship in the game would be an extremely wearisome task ;)
Edit: Bees are another good example.
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Putting this on another perspective, how about if the ships were 'cyberized'? A ship could be a biotech framework with metal plating and features done on the exterior in order to make it more resilient.
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I'd say that's a more likely explanation the fully Biotech to be honest. As Aardwolf stated, the Shivans used Biomechanical armour, most likely an enhanced muscle frame with metal carapace or the like, and I seem to recall that Volition confirmed that the Shivans were inside those suits, though I'm not certain about that, which would mean that kind of tech was certainly available to them if it is true.
Things like muscles simply won't function in space for the main part, it's too cold for non-rigid biological constructs, but a biological framework with embedded technology sounds more plausible. Ships would still be constructed, but by creating the under-systems using biological techniques, the construction time could theoretically be greatly reduced.
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I'd say that's a more likely explanation the fully Biotech to be honest. As Aardwolf stated, the Shivans used Biomechanical armour, most likely an enhanced muscle frame with metal carapace or the like, and I seem to recall that Volition confirmed that the Shivans were inside those suits, though I'm not certain about that, which would mean that kind of tech was certainly available to them if it is true.
Things like muscles simply won't function in space for the main part, it's too cold for non-rigid biological constructs, but a biological framework with embedded technology sounds more plausible. Ships would still be constructed, but by creating the under-systems using biological techniques, the construction time could theoretically be greatly reduced.
Megascale biostructures would take centuries if not millennia to grow.
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Not if you know how to force-grown it in a few days, which i suspect the shivans know how to do
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Not if you know how to force-grown it in a few days, which i suspect the shivans know how to do
And how will you do this? Magic wand?
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Once again, we move into the realm of supposition, there no reason that something cannot grow extremely quickly, bamboo can, in wet weather, grow at an astonishing rate, you can literally hear them growing, something the mass of the Sathanas could be, as long as materials were available, grown in considerably less than the time if took to build the Colossus. Yes, it takes an Elephant about 30 years to reach full size, but that's because it has a great deal more to do than simply 'grow', that increase in size, just like in humans, is a 'triggered' event that is bought about by a bunch of hormones going 'ok, now you can get big enough to choose whether to challenge the herd-leader', remove that trigger and you'd get 6-ft 3-year olds, you can see something similar in things like CPP Syndrome which pushes a child into puberty extremely early, or Robert Wadlow who had a problem with his pituary gland and grew to well over 8ft Tall by his early 20's iirc.
And remember that biological growth is exponential in nature, not linear.
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Accelarated growth. Any species capable of producing the shivan's scale of numbers would also have the technology to accelarate the growth of their vessels when necessary. I like i said, if their was urgent need for a particular class, ie a fllet of cains, then they would accelarate thier growth so that they have the number of cains they need. This would possibly come at the cost of the ship's lifetime - the force grown ships would only live a for decades, while the ones that grow naturally would last centuaries
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I'm not even certain they would be 'alive' in the normal sense of the words, they would be more like a plant than an animal, and plants, in ideal conditions can live to be extremely old indeed. Now, take a 'plant' that is engineered to grow into a specific shape, genetically coded, with an external technology to ensure that mutation doesn't compromise the design, not too difficult if you are capable of designing a genetic structure from the roots upwards, as it were.
The 'seed' itself takes care of controlling all the functions to grow the ship, you only have to supply materials, it's an enormous initial expense to create the genetics, but once you have the 'code' for creating the seed, it's a massive saving on building understructures. Once the structure has grown, then further technology is connected to the structure, such as armour etc, or possibly even grown there as an exoskeleton similar in fashion to the suits that Shivans wear, only more rigid. The ships are still piloted, they are not sentient, they have no nerves, so they can't feel pain or react in any manner they are not instructed to, they are still machines, but biologically created ones, not manufactured.
The advantages are actually multiple, which is why modern science is trying so hard to do this kind of stuff, as long as you have the material, you need minimal building facilities, which is handy for frontline deployment, ships would be unlikely to be self-healing as such, but certainly, once out of the battles, genetic coding could make repairing them a lot simpler than having to dry-dock the ship etc.
Edit: I'm not saying this is how they were made, I'm saying if they were biological, this is how I think it would work. I could even go on to suggest that those 'Comm Nodes' were ship seeds that were receiving/relaying construction data from somewhere, after all, it's entirely a hypothetical conversation in the first place.
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Accelarated growth. Any species capable of producing the shivan's scale of numbers would also have the technology to accelarate the growth of their vessels when necessary. I like i said, if their was urgent need for a particular class, ie a fllet of cains, then they would accelarate thier growth so that they have the number of cains they need. This would possibly come at the cost of the ship's lifetime - the force grown ships would only live a for decades, while the ones that grow naturally would last centuaries
You did not answer my question. I asked you how this could work. You respond by saying it could work. Circular logic.
Once again, we move into the realm of supposition, there no reason that something cannot grow extremely quickly, bamboo can, in wet weather, grow at an astonishing rate, you can literally hear them growing, something the mass of the Sathanas could be, as long as materials were available, grown in considerably less than the time if took to build the Colossus. Yes, it takes an Elephant about 30 years to reach full size, but that's because it has a great deal more to do than simply 'grow', that increase in size, just like in humans, is a 'triggered' event that is bought about by a bunch of hormones going 'ok, now you can get big enough to choose whether to challenge the herd-leader', remove that trigger and you'd get 6-ft 3-year olds, you can see something similar in things like CPP Syndrome which pushes a child into puberty extremely early, or Robert Wadlow who had a problem with his pituary gland and grew to well over 8ft Tall by his early 20's iirc.
And remember that biological growth is exponential in nature, not linear.
Even if you grant that point, which I still don't as bamboo is far less complex than an elephant, much less an SJ Sathanas--it is essentially a hollow cylinder of microscopic "pipes" and porous materials, this doesn't remove the fact that biological growth is horrendously inefficient for multicelled organisms with all the cellular growth, death, and differentiation. It is far more efficient to manufacture the components outright with the minimum of parts.
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Exposed to certain chemicals In a vat? In a chamber where it's subjucted to some type of radiation?
i dont know how accelarated growth tech works. Because we havent developed it yet.
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This is speculation on technology in a fictional universe. Anything is possible if it fits with the general theme. I for one, agree that Shivan ships could be built with organic parts. It's a cool concept and sounds pretty neat. It can also explain how the Shivans can produce such large number of ships and the general "insect" look that Shivans have.
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*is willing to entertain this idea*
Biological means alive, organic means made of carbon (and I think hydrogen may also be a requirement).
Still, the ships could be grown out of a single genetic code. Think of it this way: all ants in a colony have the same DNA (mostly), but different ones are exposed to different pheromones and become different types of ant. Also, the Drosophila melanogaster fruit fly's body grows into its complicated shape using only two starting chemicals (one at each end of the body) to activate and deactivate certain genes at different locations and times, based on the spreading rate of those chemicals. So a very complicated form can be produced by one genetic code and two chemicals (on a small scale). It wouldn't take too much to make an even more complicated thing (a starship), given a few more chemicals, and maybe some artificial chemical emitters.
Lastly, suppose these biological components are designed to undergo some sort of controlled apoptosis (cell death), and have their organic components be swapped out with metallic ones (sort of like petrification/fossilization)... the ships could be grown, and then be hardened. The exact way to do this is not something I could tell you, but I imagine it would certainly be possible.
Edit: even so, being biological or organic has nothing to do with looking like an insect, or looking like any living thing known to man.
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Exposed to certain chemicals In a vat? In a chamber where it's subjucted to some type of radiation?
i dont know how accelarated growth tech works. Because we havent developed it yet.
Concession accepted.
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*is willing to entertain this idea*
Biological mean alive, organic means made of carbon (and I think hydrogen may also be a requirement).
Still, the ships could be grown out of a single genetic code. Think of it this way: all ants in a colony have the same DNA (mostly), but different ones are exposed to different pheromones and become different types of ant. Also, the Drosophila melanogaster fruit fly's body grows into its complicated shape using only two starting chemicals (one at each end of the body) to activate and deactivate certain genes at different locations and times, based on the spreading rate of those chemicals. So a very complicated form can be produced by one genetic code and two chemicals (on a small scale). It wouldn't take too much to make an even more complicated thing (a starship), given a few more chemicals, and maybe some artificial chemical emitters.
Lastly, suppose these biological components are designed to undergo some sort of controlled apoptosis (cell death), and have their organic components be swapped out with metallic ones (sort of like petrification/fossilization)... the ships could be grown, and then be hardened. The exact way to do this is not something I could tell you, but I imagine it would certainly be possible.
Edit: even so, being biological or organic has nothing to do with looking like an insect, or looking like any living thing known to man.
Yes, but differentiation and apoptosis mean that vast numbers of cells must be wasted, which gives it yet another disadvantage to manufacturing processes where nearly all the raw materials can end up in the finished product.
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I was using apoptosis with a special, added meaning... that, the cells don't just die, they are hardened with metal alloys. A few cells could remain through most of the hardening process to ensure the free tranport of the metal into the areas that have not yet hardened. It could even be that the carbon-based organic material is converted somehow into nanofibers to reinforce the hull/armor/etc., or that it is drained out of the ship as the metals are being pumped in (I realize those words imply it is a rather fast process, I meant slowly, maybe over months even), and the cells revert to their unspecialized forms for use in other ship constructions.
And I don't see how differentiation requires that cells be wasted, even if it weren't possible to revert them back to the 'stem cell' type.
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Even if you grant that point, which I still don't as bamboo is far less complex than an elephant, much less an SJ Sathanas--it is essentially a hollow cylinder of microscopic "pipes" and porous materials, this doesn't remove the fact that biological growth is horrendously inefficient for multicelled organisms with all the cellular growth, death, and differentiation. It is far more efficient to manufacture the components outright with the minimum of parts.
The thing is, you're assuming things that don't need to be true. They don't have to grow the ship of whole cloth. In fact, it makes a great deal of sense not to. Seperate subsystems as seperate organisms, probably broken down yet further to allow it to better resist damage and failure (death).
However in another sense I think everyone is looking at this in the wrong fashion. The analogy of coral would work well. The ships are still built; they are not alive themselves. The manufacturing process, however, was biological rather than mechanical.
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An interesting (but borderline off-topic) thing to note is that plants (but not animals) actually reduce the local entropy (by pushing it elsewhere, no doubt)... that is, they can get more useful energy than animals. The processes they use do not let energy go to unusable forms as rapidly as the processes that keep animal life alive.
Also, did I mention Carbon Nanofibers?
Edit: and furthermore, all of these Shivan theories assume they can build single ships rapidly. That's not necessary. In fact, they had 32 years (depending on how long it took to reach Terran space, of course) to rebuild. They didn't need fast construction, just lots of material and "labor" to do it.
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I all of a sudden love where this discussion is heading.
Also, apoptosis does not necessarily mean the raw materials used to make the (now dead) cells are wholly wasted. It can be broken down and reused.
I like the concept of the epidermal layer of the ships hardening into the armor that makes them into the metal plating. I suppose a carbon nanofiber weave would strengthen it from regular wear and tear from, say, Subspace.
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Edit: and furthermore, all of these Shivan theories assume they can build single ships rapidly. That's not necessary. In fact, they had 32 years (depending on how long it took to reach Terran space, of course) to rebuild. They didn't need fast construction, just lots of material and "labor" to do it.
32 years ... or even longer. How do we know if it was the same group of Shivans that attacked us in the Great War. The ships we saw in FS2 could have been in development for a very long time. (I don't want to start an argument about Shivan theories and such, I just wanted to put this out as a possibility).
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As far as im concerned, the Shivans in FS1 & 2 were 2 different groups
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Shivans from an alternate universe probably? I've got Sync on my mind lately.
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What i Mean is in the Shivan Fleet layout, the Lucifer fleet was the 49th Mobile Fleet - A fleet that moves as a whole...although, it could just have been a Battle Division of that fleet :nervous:
The FS2 Fleet would be something like the 101th Juggernaught Brigade + support fleet (all the other ships)
And each of them are acting autonomously
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As was mentioned earlier, Apoptosis is a 'keyed' event, like puberty, only at a much lower level, there are a few ways of dealing with this and a few reasons why it may not even be neccessary.
As Ngtm1r mentioned, calcification and other techniques could be one answer, like coral, the main physical structure of the ship could be equivalent to a 'shell', with various production units around the ships, the genetic material could travel via capillary action through that shell. As far as rounded is concerned, once again, that a question not so much about cell death as the fact that a sphere has the largest possible volume in the smallest possible area, it's efficient, so nature uses it, however, it is still coded in to be that way and can be altered. and since blebbing and other membrane deformations only take place after the onset of Apoptosis, if it doesn't happen, then the membrane will not deform.
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Even if you grant that point, which I still don't as bamboo is far less complex than an elephant, much less an SJ Sathanas--it is essentially a hollow cylinder of microscopic "pipes" and porous materials, this doesn't remove the fact that biological growth is horrendously inefficient for multicelled organisms with all the cellular growth, death, and differentiation. It is far more efficient to manufacture the components outright with the minimum of parts.
The thing is, you're assuming things that don't need to be true. They don't have to grow the ship of whole cloth. In fact, it makes a great deal of sense not to. Seperate subsystems as seperate organisms, probably broken down yet further to allow it to better resist damage and failure (death).
However in another sense I think everyone is looking at this in the wrong fashion. The analogy of coral would work well. The ships are still built; they are not alive themselves. The manufacturing process, however, was biological rather than mechanical.
Coral grows so incredibly slowly that even kicking it with a diving fin inflicts damage that can take the coral decades to repair.
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Yes Coral grows slowly using photosynthesis from just beneath the waterline. just because it uses the same technique doesn't mean it has to grow at the same speed, it's in an entirely different environment and isn't using any kind of engineered techniques, it was one of the first organism to appear on the planet.
Now, I'll be honest, this is turning into nit-picking now, I've defended this concept with reasonable and appropriate answers and it's just getting to the point where everything I compare the growth to you take as a literal transfer of every function of that organism. Three pages is enough I think.
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Statement: Living stuff grows too slowly.
Rebuttal: Bacteria can double every 20 minutes
Counter-rebuttal: Bacteria can't grow faster than they can absorb nourishment. The growth rate will decelerate rapidly
Counter-counter-rebuttal: Not if they are put into an environment rich in nourishment all around, specially prepared for the growing bacteria's use.
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CCC-Rebuttal: Building something large, like a ship, takes much much longer than a colony of bacteria.
CCCC-Rebuttal: Not exactly as bacteria can grow exponentially.
CCCCC-Rebuttal: Bacteria are only one type of cell. A ship would require specialization of the cells.
CCCCCC-Rebuttal: Much like how living organisms grow, the process of building a ship can be broken down into parts that are later fitted into a whole.
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Your Cx6 rebuttal is a poor answer to an even poorer question. Yes, a ship would require specialization of cells, and no, that is not something that would cause a problem. They could specialize after growing, and in theory it would be possible for them to despecialize (although I don't know that any earth-life is known to do so).
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I understand that but that was just me throwing ideas around.
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Statement: Living stuff grows too slowly.
Rebuttal: Bacteria can double every 20 minutes
Counter-rebuttal: Bacteria can't grow faster than they can absorb nourishment. The growth rate will decelerate rapidly
Counter-counter-rebuttal: Not if they are put into an environment rich in nourishment all around, specially prepared for the growing bacteria's use.
Wouldn't a shipyard be more practical than growing ships in Sathanas-sized bags of nutrients?
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Statement: Living stuff grows too slowly.
Rebuttal: Bacteria can double every 20 minutes
Counter-rebuttal: Bacteria can't grow faster than they can absorb nourishment. The growth rate will decelerate rapidly
Counter-counter-rebuttal: Not if they are put into an environment rich in nourishment all around, specially prepared for the growing bacteria's use.
Wouldn't a shipyard be more practical than growing ships in Sathanas-sized bags of nutrients?
Maybe not if you could re-use that bag of nutrients several times. Anyway if it constructed some sort of tubes within itself (like blood vessels) as it grew to transport stuff around fast, then it wouldn't have to be in a bag of nutrients.
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i guess another possibility exists that the ships are grown in a nebula, :confused: instead of a vat of nutrients, i mean that way its easier than using a bag of nutrients over and over again.
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But nebulas are not very dense and probably don't contain the right compounds anyway.
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Well, they'd probably have developed to minimize the amount of nutrients that are neither reusable nor used in the construction of the ship...
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I knew it was a mistake to check in on this....
You don't need a bag of nutrients the size of a Sathanas, you establish a mining operation using the miners we already know the Shivans have, you then place the seed in a suitable location and begin to supply it with nutrients, the ship would then begin to construct it's own under-structure using the materials supplied, if there are no materials for the cells to use, then they simply won't do anything, a ship is not going to starve to death because it is not 'alive' in the standard use of the word. The power could be supplied using non biological means, which means a vast supply of readily convertible energy is on-hand for the genetic construction mechanisms.
The various materials would be fed into a chamber where enzymes would form them up into various required materials, unused material would be either ejected, or, more likely, recycled and stored. once processed, they could be fed to a capillary system that runs throughout the ship, much like the veins in a leaf, where the material would be secreted to a precise 'blueprint' defined by the genetic code, that can be done via either 'formers' which force the secretion to grow into a particular shape, or 'limiters' which re-absorb any material that does not correspond to the blueprint, both cell types have analogies in naturally occurring biology.
Once construction is complete, the secretion hardens, the veins close and most of the building 'engine' suffers from triggered cell death, or is stored in a 'holding area' much like the Spleen, ready to be released and duplicate itself when required to, for repair operations etc.
Animals grow in a womb, but the only womb a plant needs is the seed, with correct biological programming, a constant supply of nutrients, and a power source that is far higher than that supplied by normal sugar-absorbtion techniques such as digestion and photosynthesis, coupled with the fact that the whole structure is capable of making it's own 'builder cells', so 1 cell makes 2, 2 cells make 4 etc, I'd guesstimate a Sathanas-type biomass could be created in under 2 years.
I once remember a lesson my lecturer taught about starlings, every female starling has an average of 4 chicks per year, of those 4 chicks, they are lucky if 1 survives. However, if every single chick survived for every single starling, within 30 years, Earth would be solid Starling to a depth of 3/4 mile. If you consider the starlings as the 'cells' of the Biomass, it gives a good feel to how quickly things can move, only the Biotech could replicate far faster and, with the right mechanisms, without mutation.
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Statement: Living stuff grows too slowly.
Rebuttal: Bacteria can double every 20 minutes
Counter-rebuttal: Bacteria can't grow faster than they can absorb nourishment. The growth rate will decelerate rapidly
Counter-counter-rebuttal: Not if they are put into an environment rich in nourishment all around, specially prepared for the growing bacteria's use.
Wouldn't a shipyard be more practical than growing ships in Sathanas-sized bags of nutrients?
Maybe not if you could re-use that bag of nutrients several times. Anyway if it constructed some sort of tubes within itself (like blood vessels) as it grew to transport stuff around fast, then it wouldn't have to be in a bag of nutrients.
Circulatory systems would greatly reduce the durability of a starship, which is not what you want. Even if structural strength is not compromised, a hit that barely scratches anything else would completely destroy the circulatory vessels, and they would have to reach pretty much every living cell in the entire ship. A circulatory system would be far, far more extensive, and thus vulnerable, than conduits or wiring in an abiotic vessel, and components of a conventional starship would not wither and die if their power was cut off.
Also, I still haven't seen evidence that biological processes can produce materials with sufficient strength in all aspects (not just tensile) for use in a starship. The only known organic materials that can compete with steel are created either through macroscale artificial processes (like carbon fiber) or nanotechnology. Althoiugh, at the nanotech level and below, the difference between "alive" and "not alive" starts to get rather fuzzy, as many proposed nano-machines would have the capacity to self-replicate. But even these nanites wouldn't be biological in terms of carbon-based proteins and water biology.
There is also the issue of radiation. Multicelled organisms like humans really don't like radiation, but bacteria are far more sensitive to any sort of radiation, even sunlight. Most bacteria that can survive being in the open protect themselves with cysts, but this prevents them from doing anything other than sitting there. The radiation shields needed to protect cells or even the aforementioned nanites would greatly increase the cost and complexity of construction, giving further advantages to macroscale non-biological construction.
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A circulatory system is nothing more than a series of tubes, which themselves could be repaired if needed, structural integrity would not be affected all that greatly especially if the armour was grown or attached seperately. Wiring and other material would be deep in the surface and would be no more vulnerable than equivalent circuitry and ducting on a manufactured vessel. Like all manufacturing techniques, there are trade offs, linear manufacturing has some advantages of biological, but that's not really the point.
Enzymes create the structures they are told to, and things such as carbon nanotubes can be emulated and produced with the correct material and genetic programming. Much like food is broken down into its constituent elements, releasing energy in a human body, materials can be reconnected and altered by Biotech. human technology at this moment in time can only create nanotubes under somewhat limited circumstances, but the whole aim of the research is to broaden that scope, with particular targetting at Space-use. Once again, the seed could easily contain the 'key' locations where such nanotubes would grow, all the needs to be put in place is an initiator that the carbon connects to after being stripped from gases like Methane by the enzymes.
Just as Calcium forms a fair percentage of bones and teeth, it's possible to make other metals behave in a similar fashion, also 'toughness' is as much as defined by the lattice structure of a substance as by the material it is made from, that is why things like suits of armour used to actually be a honeycomb of metal between to plated layers, it was every bit as strong as an inch of solid steel, but considerably lighter.
Earth bacteria doesn't like extreme conditions, and even then we have Extremophiles, indeed, there is strong evidence that there are forms of bacteria that can pretty much ignore incredibly intense radiation.
http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=1269
I also found out that Bacteria also has the advantage of growing even faster in low gravity environments.
http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/news/expandnews.cfm?id=1341
A lot of the new lightweight armour types are detailed as 'Biologically inspired', it's not such a massive leap to altering the biological system that created the inspirations and creating the armour that way, certainly beyond the bounds of human technology today, but so is most of the Terran technology of Freespace 2.
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In my model, as proposed earlier, there doesn't have to be a circulatory system; the biological components of the ship could be swapped out with metal alloys and carbon nanofibers as the growth of the ship progressed and neared completion. The finished product is not alive, just the means of construction.
I'd say it's like coral, but Woolie Wool already 'destroyed' that argument with his infallible logic that any comparison to something requires that all of the other aspects of that thing be present in the thing you're trying to explain through analogy.
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You seem to forget something. As we know Volition and their general appreciation of highly accurate uses of science, they propably don't have a clue that blood veins and such lower the ship's structural integrity. The discussion here seems to get really science-y, which simply don't applies to Volition.
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Volition makes no statement on the matter, and therefore this discussion is purely speculative.
In retrospect, however, I'm glad to see how far it has gotten considering the rather ridiculous content of the first post.
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A circulatory system is nothing more than a series of tubes, which themselves could be repaired if needed, structural integrity would not be affected all that greatly especially if the armour was grown or attached seperately. Wiring and other material would be deep in the surface and would be no more vulnerable than equivalent circuitry and ducting on a manufactured vessel. Like all manufacturing techniques, there are trade offs, linear manufacturing has some advantages of biological, but that's not really the point.
The problem is that you need a lot more circulatory vessels in a bioship than wires in a normal ship. Vessels would have to reach every single living cell on the entire ship. The structural integrity may not be affected, but even a very minor hit could destroy the vessels themselves, and whatever part of the ship the vessels lead to will die.
The argument seems to be going from "biological ships" to "abiotic ships constructed by monocellular organisms whose extensive genetic engineering makes them border on bio-nanites".
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Woolie, you don't die from a scratch wound, do you? You have got a circulatory system as well, and even if you lose 15% of your blood, you'll manage to get to the hospital in time. So why wouldn't it be the same for ships?
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The thing is, veins don't take blood to most of the body, capillaries do, and that material is absorbed through the capillary walls by various cells and taken where it is needed. Apart from very specific points on a human (such as the jugular) most major veins (arteries) are deep inside the body out of harms way, I honestly don't see any kind of 'circulatory' system being used for anything other than construction anyway, possibly for repair, but it certainly could not be done in battle, you'd have to supply the ship with necessary materials and wait for the repairs to take place. Biotech is fast, but I doubt it could be so fast that it could be used as an in-battle repair system, though, I have doubts about nanotechnology in that department as well.
So that circulatory system would only really be used in non-combat situations and for construction in my opinion.
In many ways Biotech is exactly that, it's making cells behave like nanotech, not surprising since Nanotech was concieved because genetics was found to be a lot harder for us to understand than 'physical' technology. In 1991, the US Army Bio Division suggested Biotech proposals for techniques that, when developed, would allow soldiers to grow lost limbs, filter out nerve gas etc in their oesophagus and other things, these all relied on creating 'pre-programmed' cells to make them behave in a specific manner, not dissimilar to Nanites in a lot of respects.
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Why not just build a ship instead of trying to use inefficient, ridiculously slow biological processes?
Inefficient compared to what though? It took the terrans 20 years to build the Colossus. They had to hire, feed and pay workers for all that time in order to do the work. With a biologically grown ship you might simply set things up and come back 40 years later. That gives the Shivans themselves more time for flying around nuking stars.
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Or building more Sathanas.
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Apart from very specific points on a human (such as the jugular) most major veins (arteries) are deep inside the body out of harms way [...]
As will they be on a spaceship. Animal skin is "dead"; we don't have living cells that need to be supplied with blood all over the surface of our bodies. In the same way, an organic spaceship would be surrounded by a crystalline structure of dead organic cells, forming armor. Or even better, inorganic armor and an organic interior.
An interesting question that never comes up is power generation. Does an organic ship carry the standard SciFi fusion/fission reactor, or something else? Also, how would an organic ship propel itself?
Someone else touched on this earlier. Standard biological metabolism methods won't generate nearly enough power for beamz and engines.
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What my theory was is that the Shivans just have different means of construction with different metals/alloys. So the technology made (like weapons or sensor arrays) is easy to reverse engineer though it cannot be built the same way as the Shivans make it. So it's like hand-making a substance as opposed to being made by a factory. Same things come out but they're made different ways at different speeds.
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Handmade items are still made with the same materials and principles, it's only a matter of getting a machine to do the exact same things.
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Not necessarily. You could condense, simplify, and otherwise alter steps that a machine would have to take to build something.
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Handmade items are still made with the same materials and principles, it's only a matter of getting a machine to do the exact same things.
So... Humans can make liquid oxygen with knitting needles, then?
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Edit: Hahaha nice analogy.