((I kinda hope we're overreacting here. I mean, a six is the lowest overshoot one can get, and overshooting means 'You do as intended, but too good, with unexpected consequences.' We tried to see if Grate survived that rock, so I'd imagine a six would be in the regions of 'Grate isn't dead, but he ain't really himself either'. Maybe PW will give him a crippling mental disorder, or have him do weird things at random times, but I don't think it'll be straight up daemonic possession. On a 1, sure, but a six doesn't seem bad enough to warrant impromptu possession by the Spirit of Timmy.
That said, I ain't taking risks at this point in the mission. I mean, Miya helped lift that big piece of rubble, he's done his part in this.
It just occurred to me that, on every single mission Miya has been on, something dangerous or horrible happens just before mission end. First the random abduction of Mesor, then that little low-orbit stunt with Gilgamesh, and finaly the base getting eaten on the planetoid mission. And now this, maybe. Seems the HMRC always needs to go out with a bang.))
Back away a good bit. Quite a good bit. If anything preternatural starts to happen, start running for the Sword or the dropship, whatever's fastest. Carry Pancaek if needed. (
@ Xan: you really should check if you can create other organisms first. I bet you'll have to ask the Doc or just ask PW OOC. For now, you could deal with the excess biomatter by metabolizing whatever you don't need into a solution of highly concentrated organic polymers (like the
honeypot ant). Then you create a layer of shock-absorbent tissue around it, a layer of chitin for protection, then you sever that ball form you body. You know have a big ball of organic material for later use, you can store this in the ship then go eat all of the other sod bodies and keep doing this. This way, you'll have a sizable reserve to use for when you can start growing your minions.
Oh, and I've been thinking the last few days about what I'd do if I had access to that flesh converter amp, and I'm pretty sure I could create an ecosystem from scratch with the only goal of feeding the horde given some time to design.
One of these organisms would be a 'mobile recycling unit'. Think something like a largish multi-legged specimen who's only task is to devour and digest any organic matter you feed it, after which it metabolizes it into that high-energy soup I mentioned above, and any excess waste products are stored in a different bladder. It would have a hollow tail or tongue or whatever to give this food to you or one of your horde. This way you'll never run into the problem again of having too much stuff to eat and becoming too big to be practical. You could settle into the form you like and let this thing do the assimilating of
screaming civilians available biomatter. Added bonus that no organism you create will need a digestive system, just a bladder to store this pre-digested slurry (thus more space for other fun organs, like toxin sacks). Couple this with a mobile hatchery of sorts to grow certain organisms and you could theoretically create a small army on the fly.
Oh, and since every ecosystem needs a way of inputting energy and matter, I'm been thinking on how to design an organism to best capture available energy (e.g. solar through photosynthesis). This way the waste products in that bladder in the recycler/digester unit can be reused. Not to the extent of how the Tyranids apparently do that stuff, but still. In a system where the predators don't have to eat the herbivores, but instead are directly fed by the primary producers, a great loss of energy can be avoided (see
10% rule.))
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Topic: Einsteinian Roulette (Original Thread: Rules, Armory, Misson archive 1-11) (Read 3989638 times)