[Snail]

IMO, stuff in a trashcan is very different from the stuff that comes from my theoretical reactions.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Dirt is dirt. Ashes from a coal-burning energy plant is just as useless as radioactive waste from a fission reactor.

[Snail]

Okay I give up.

[Woolie Wool]

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.

[captain-custard]

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 .............

[Asuko]

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.

[Snail]

Did I say it was canon?

[Asuko]

You didn't but we're filling up plotholes, are we not? I'd much rather not get into an argument over it.

[Flipside]

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'

[TrashMan]

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.

[Flipside]

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.

[TrashMan]

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.

[Gamma_Draconis]

A bug the size of a man can't function on earth. In space however, it could be very different.

[Flipside]

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.

[TrashMan]

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.

[Ghostavo]

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? 

[Flipside]

The basics of Biotech is DNA, not the cell

And iirc Nanotubes were inspired by Spider silk, but I'm not certain on that.

[Asuko]

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.

[Woolie Wool]

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.

[Admiral_Stones]

What if you **** up some cells that way to grow some nice Iridium-Tungsten-Spider Silk mix