[Woolie Wool]

Why not just build a ship instead of trying to use inefficient, ridiculously slow biological processes?

[Snail]

Because we can.

[terran_emperor]

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  )

[Killer Whale]

on the talk of boots magnetic or vacuum, it looks magnetic to me

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[Asuko]

I think it's about time this topic went dead.

[Titan]

YOu know what i think? The shivans are just too lazy to design brand new ships.

[Woolie Wool]

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.

[terran_emperor]

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)

[Agent_Koopa]

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.

[Woolie Wool]

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.

[Snail]

You can learn how to make a gun by looking at a gun. You can learn how to make armor by looking at armor.

[Mobius]

It's also a matter of materials and resources. We all know what happened to the production of Prometheus cannons.

[Flipside]

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.

[Woolie Wool]

You can learn how to make a gun by looking at a gun. You can learn how to make armor by looking at armor.

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.

[blowfish]

You can learn how to make a gun by looking at a gun. You can learn how to make armor by looking at armor.

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.

[Woolie Wool]

You can learn how to make a gun by looking at a gun. You can learn how to make armor by looking at armor.

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:

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.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Well, Woolie, you have to note that Shivan ships look like insects in general...

[Admiral_Stones]

Seconded. Some ships look kinda like they got chitinious segmentations.

[TrashMan]

You're trying to tell me these look like biotech, grwon ships???

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

[Asuko]

Notice that these are 3D models. I'd have preferred seeing concept art.