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Voting closed: April 07, 2013, 10:34:35 am

[Tavik Toth]

Try battle of Hexbarax again.In a UWM trench. With the equipment of a UWM officer. Try speech again.


"Soldiers of the UWM! We must hold firm against the Altered horde! Today we turn the tide! We will show them the power of the UWM! We are no strangers to war! At first we fought for freedom. We fought for resources. That all changed when the Altered happend. Now we will hold the line! With oue lives if need be! Soldiers, pilots of the human race! Stand firm! Stand strong! And bring back the hope of Humanity!"

((hopefully This works.))

[Knight Otu]

Make the final plans and models for the game - saving/loading, combining the engines, selecting actual enemies, bosses, and powerups, etc, everything that still needs to be done to have the game completed.

[Radio Controlled]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

((Every bit of carbon and hydrogen can be converted into or utilized by something living with enough energy and your body is mostly carbon and hydrogen. All the Altered needed to do was to get one of their cells inside you. As they multiplied they would eat you from the inside out, hijacking parts of your body as they do it and modifying them to suit their own needs (much like a virus or bacteria), before those too are eaten.))

((Except you need ridiculous amounts of external energy for that. Which means they either have an extremely efficient means of photosynthesis, or have access to some other energy source. Also, neither genetics nor biochemistry works in a way that you can simply shove around molecules at will to create what you need (unfortunately, otherwise my field of study would become vastly more potent.). But y'know, I could buy that, let's just say they could.))


((With the resources of a solar system at your disposal, making a few asteroid sized traveling-near-light-speed ships isn't that hard, if the Altered have the intelligence for it. The UWM Titans are made from asteroids. And they are currently being used to combat planet sized fungi.))

((They seem rather feral to me, acting on instinct rather than intellect. Also, 'making a few asteroid sized traveling-near-light-speed ships' is incredibly hard. I mean, in this setting, humans don't even really understand how their FTL travel works. But let's just assume they somehow work that out.))


((they would require large amounts of food to survive without hibernating))

((Indeed, but seeing how they can seemingly recycle organic matter at will, this would be the least of their problems.))

((they can re-engineer themselves, although it can be explained if they have psychic powers or other such space magic or have DNA-altering powers like the "alien"))

((Too bad Lego Genetics don't work in real life (again, it would be soo much more fun if it did. But let's just roll with that too.))

((They tried.))

Hexbarax, a mostly industrial planet, marked the sight of one of the longest, bloodiest and most important victories. One of the original planets infected, Hexbarax was also the main source of the Fleshships and altered coated meteors-plague rains- which had so effectively infected many planets. When attempts to destroy the planet via long range bombardment failed the military began a ground war in which 12 billion men and women lost their lives. In the end, they drove the hordes back and with then help of low orbiting laser bombardment purged the planet.

 

)))

Why couldn't they just nuke the planet away? I mean, if they managed too get troopships full of soldiers onto the planet, surely delivering WMD's to their target would be easy. Hell, if it's the enemy 'homeworld', why not just destroy the planet and be done with it? And shooting altered-meteors in space is laughably easy if you have advanced computers to do the math for you.



((I have thought about these and some other arguments against the plausibility of the Altered today. While most can be explained away if you are willing to stretch (a good deal) the bounds of reality, then I still come across a seemingly insurmountable problem: If those Altered really are as potent as we think we are, how could humanity have survived against them, never mind won? If they can consume a planet starting from a single cell, then the only thing the battle of Hexbarax would have achieved would be to feed the horde, seeing how many people died there. If they can alter themselves at will, and they have a 'hive mind'/enough individual intelligence to co-ordinate their efforts, they would only need to create a viral version of themselves which hides in a human body, only to re-emerge once all the inhabited planets are sufficiently infected.

Sorry for the rant everyone, I guess it's the stress of the exams starting to get to me. And sorry, PW, for trying to demolish your background, but rest assured that it at least makes much more sense than 99% of modern sci-fi.

[Tavik Toth]

((It's like Black death but as a race!))

[Harry Baldman]

@Radio: ((I do believe at least some of your concerns might be addressed by this hypothesis of mine: the Altered really weren't all that potent and their abilities weren't entirely miraculous. It's just that there was no UWM in the beginning, no higher organization present in galactic human society. It is very much like a zombie apocalypse in that respect - defeating it is a mere matter of organization (think of the Altered as improved, regenerating and amusingly-shaped speed zombies). Also, perhaps the exact facts of the entire Altered Wars have become muddled over time both deliberately and accidentally (what with the whole "many hundreds of years" thing getting in the way), with exaggerations and deliberate omissions sneaking into history. Therefore, what we're getting from UWM sources plays up the Altered like the be-all, end-all threat to humanity that we overcame, granting us a greater belief in the power of human ingenuity and the strength and necessity of the UWM.))

((Plus, what prevents us from speculating about the motivations and intelligence of the Altered is that nobody knows what was up with them in the first place. The fact that Altered people all went crazy at the exact same time could have been caused by anything, including hyperspace shenanigans and interdimensional boogaloo, and it is pretty much impossible to know what goes through their non-minds. It's kind of one of the things I like most about Einsteinian Roulette: how little we know about pretty much everything. Much of humanity's incredible technology is based around field manipulators, which are black boxes nobody understands. Nobody knows why the Altered went crazy. Nobody knows what exactly happened at any place or at any time. Space Jumping is a mystery. Nothing is truly understood in the future, and the more we progress, the more questions are raised.))

((On a side note, I really like going on tangents.))

[PyroDesu]

Much of humanity's incredible technology is based around field manipulators, which are black boxes nobody understands. Space Jumping is a mystery.

((Perhaps related? Space jumping and manipulators, that is, not the complete lack of understanding.))

[Harry Baldman]

((Perhaps related? Space jumping and manipulators, that is, not the complete lack of understanding.))

((Possibly, in that they both seem to operate on a poorly-understood bit of space magic that freely violates a great many known laws of physics. Space magic is weird that way - there is never any more data on it than what it does. And magic does not care about reasons, only about repeatability. So they could be related for all we know, which is, once again, not a whole lot.))

[Nikitian]

(( Concerning how those black boxes work, I have a theory:

I think that we've been misled and the miracles the Field Manipulators/Psychokinetic Amps make happen are actually work of our brains. The Pocket Calculators thus provide us with convenient mental activity, and the Funny Brain Chips directly stimulate the right areas (or, possibly, run the same convenient mental activity, just on the subconscious level - if the understanding of those brain processes is still lacking). That way they could only make sub-optimal automated manipulators using brains in jars as well as it would require actual humans (even just half-conscious, as it is in case of the Ghost Ships) to use the manipulators/amps at their full potential. Hm - even the whole HMR Corps could be just a way to produce the most efficient manipulators/amps users, with our command's determination at stuffing whatever little remains into the robot platforms just as long as the brain matter is sufficiently intact. And the black boxes Should Not Be Opened for the sake of the humanity not learning the dangerous truth about its true abilities and ((sort of) lack of) their boundaries.
(Yeah, just another frakking conspiracy theory - sorry for being so bland and unimaginative.)

This theory is mostly based on the evidence that a manipulator couldn't be overloaded without a human user nearby - as Piecewise said, 'There is actually a good in-universe reason for that' - as well as the apparent meaninglessness of calculations the field manipulators require to use (not to mention the scepticism that calculations that high-tech would take humans (often not so intelligent or educated, let us be frank) to be done, and not just computers). ))

[Tavik Toth]

((What is this Ghost ship business i keep hearing?))

[Harry Baldman]

(( Concerning how those black boxes work, I have a theory:

I think that we've been misled and the miracles the Field Manipulators/Psychokinetic Amps make happen are actually work of our brains. The Pocket Calculators thus provide us with convenient mental activity, and the Funny Brain Chips directly stimulate the right areas (or, possibly, run the same convenient mental activity, just on the subconscious level - if the understanding of those brain processes is still lacking). That way they could only make sub-optimal automated manipulators using brains in jars as well as it would require actual humans (even just half-conscious, as it is in case of the Ghost Ships) to use the manipulators/amps at their full potential. Hm - even the whole HMR Corps could be just a way to produce the most efficient manipulators/amps users, with our command's determination at stuffing whatever little remains into the robot platforms just as long as the brain matter is sufficiently intact. And the black boxes Should Not Be Opened for the sake of the humanity not learning the dangerous truth about its true abilities and ((sort of) lack of) their boundaries.
(Yeah, just another frakking conspiracy theory - sorry for being so bland and unimaginative.)

This theory is mostly based on the evidence that a manipulator couldn't be overloaded without a human user nearby - as Piecewise said, 'There is actually a good in-universe reason for that' - as well as the apparent meaninglessness of calculations the field manipulators require to use (not to mention the scepticism that calculations that high-tech would take humans (often not so intelligent or educated, let us be frank) to be done, and not just computers). ))

((Even though the idea is interesting, it merely relocates weird space magic from an external artifact to the human brain itself. It still does not change the essence that weird space magic is indeed at work. Besides, it doesn't really explain automated field manipulators, since those don't actually contain brain matter as far as I know. And the in-universe reason for the impossibility of overloading field manipulators without a human nearby might be that no sane engineer would ever automate a field manipulator into overloading itself, considering that really bad things would happen if they did. After all, manipulators are precision technology, not tools of mass destruction.))

A question for piecewise: what does an automated field manipulator consist of? How big is it? Asking because we haven't actually seen one yet.))

[Parisbre56]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

((Too bad Lego Genetics don't work in real life (again, it would be soo much more fun if it did. But let's just roll with that too.))

((I wasn't talking about lego genetics. DNA is just an information storage medium, correct? With the correct tools in place this DNA can be used to perform simple actions or even store data about past events. If the Altered DNA has the correct amount of instructions in the correct order they can adapt and work together like a swarm of cell sized robots. If they have the ability to alter their DNA to store more recent data and then somehow transfer useful data (something like a virus or maybe some kind of DNA-tube organelle, or even more advanced forms of communication if they don't use DNA.) to other nearby altered cells then they can be even more adaptable. And the more altered cells that exist in close proximity the "smarter" they become. It's like fast evolution with no need to wait for offspring and flaws in DNA-copying. At least that is how emergent behaviour works in computers: you give them a small set of good instructions and some memory and they can adapt to most situations. Unless I misunderstood and the Altered take over people by infecting them with a virus. Or maybe I'm thinking too much like a programmer and cells don't really work like that.
Hmmm... Of course this presents us with the problem that a)they would "think" very slowly and b)why didn't the UWM use something to disrupt their inter-cell communications))

((Also, to accelerate something to say 0.7c you need a fraction of its mass in antimatter (guesstimate of 1/4 of its mass including containment system). Of course, since most of the technology we're using is leftovers from the Altered wars the Altered would not need to build any of this. They would simply need to get hold of some manipulators or eat some amp wielding humans.))

((Hmm... Harry Baldman's theory about the Altered starts looking more and more plausible.))

[Parisbre56]

((For the new year I wish health, happiness and less 504s to all))

[piecewise]

Well, it's going to be complicated. Later, as well.
Get to the tinker. Look up the list of modern smallest directly-operated military space craft (i.e., what would correspond to fighters/bombers/etc. in air warfare).

That rocketbike in the armory is pretty close to the smallest military vehicle. We don't really have fighters and bombers as things go.

Try battle of Hexbarax again.In a UWM trench. With the equipment of a UWM officer. Try speech again.


"Soldiers of the UWM! We must hold firm against the Altered horde! Today we turn the tide! We will show them the power of the UWM! We are no strangers to war! At first we fought for freedom. We fought for resources. That all changed when the Altered happend. Now we will hold the line! With oue lives if need be! Soldiers, pilots of the human race! Stand firm! Stand strong! And bring back the hope of Humanity!"

((hopefully This works.))

Officers don't have standardized equipment so you'll still need to pick yours

Make the final plans and models for the game - saving/loading, combining the engines, selecting actual enemies, bosses, and powerups, etc, everything that still needs to be done to have the game completed.

[aux:4+1]

Yeah, everything goes as you desire it to go. Which hasn't been very well explained yet, but certainly gives you lots of leeway for explaining it now.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

((Every bit of carbon and hydrogen can be converted into or utilized by something living with enough energy and your body is mostly carbon and hydrogen. All the Altered needed to do was to get one of their cells inside you. As they multiplied they would eat you from the inside out, hijacking parts of your body as they do it and modifying them to suit their own needs (much like a virus or bacteria), before those too are eaten.))

((Except you need ridiculous amounts of external energy for that. Which means they either have an extremely efficient means of photosynthesis, or have access to some other energy source. Also, neither genetics nor biochemistry works in a way that you can simply shove around molecules at will to create what you need (unfortunately, otherwise my field of study would become vastly more potent.). But y'know, I could buy that, let's just say they could.))


((With the resources of a solar system at your disposal, making a few asteroid sized traveling-near-light-speed ships isn't that hard, if the Altered have the intelligence for it. The UWM Titans are made from asteroids. And they are currently being used to combat planet sized fungi.))

((They seem rather feral to me, acting on instinct rather than intellect. Also, 'making a few asteroid sized traveling-near-light-speed ships' is incredibly hard. I mean, in this setting, humans don't even really understand how their FTL travel works. But let's just assume they somehow work that out.))


((they would require large amounts of food to survive without hibernating))

((Indeed, but seeing how they can seemingly recycle organic matter at will, this would be the least of their problems.))

((they can re-engineer themselves, although it can be explained if they have psychic powers or other such space magic or have DNA-altering powers like the "alien"))

((Too bad Lego Genetics don't work in real life (again, it would be soo much more fun if it did. But let's just roll with that too.))

((They tried.))

Hexbarax, a mostly industrial planet, marked the sight of one of the longest, bloodiest and most important victories. One of the original planets infected, Hexbarax was also the main source of the Fleshships and altered coated meteors-plague rains- which had so effectively infected many planets. When attempts to destroy the planet via long range bombardment failed the military began a ground war in which 12 billion men and women lost their lives. In the end, they drove the hordes back and with then help of low orbiting laser bombardment purged the planet.

 

)))

Why couldn't they just nuke the planet away? I mean, if they managed too get troopships full of soldiers onto the planet, surely delivering WMD's to their target would be easy. Hell, if it's the enemy 'homeworld', why not just destroy the planet and be done with it? And shooting altered-meteors in space is laughably easy if you have advanced computers to do the math for you.



((I have thought about these and some other arguments against the plausibility of the Altered today. While most can be explained away if you are willing to stretch (a good deal) the bounds of reality, then I still come across a seemingly insurmountable problem: If those Altered really are as potent as we think we are, how could humanity have survived against them, never mind won? If they can consume a planet starting from a single cell, then the only thing the battle of Hexbarax would have achieved would be to feed the horde, seeing how many people died there. If they can alter themselves at will, and they have a 'hive mind'/enough individual intelligence to co-ordinate their efforts, they would only need to create a viral version of themselves which hides in a human body, only to re-emerge once all the inhabited planets are sufficiently infected.

Sorry for the rant everyone, I guess it's the stress of the exams starting to get to me. And sorry, PW, for trying to demolish your background, but rest assured that it at least makes much more sense than 99% of modern sci-fi.

Good points. I wonder if anyone else has asked these sorts of things? Perhaps you should search the internet when you get back to the ship, there might be something interesting there.

(( Concerning how those black boxes work, I have a theory:

I think that we've been misled and the miracles the Field Manipulators/Psychokinetic Amps make happen are actually work of our brains. The Pocket Calculators thus provide us with convenient mental activity, and the Funny Brain Chips directly stimulate the right areas (or, possibly, run the same convenient mental activity, just on the subconscious level - if the understanding of those brain processes is still lacking). That way they could only make sub-optimal automated manipulators using brains in jars as well as it would require actual humans (even just half-conscious, as it is in case of the Ghost Ships) to use the manipulators/amps at their full potential. Hm - even the whole HMR Corps could be just a way to produce the most efficient manipulators/amps users, with our command's determination at stuffing whatever little remains into the robot platforms just as long as the brain matter is sufficiently intact. And the black boxes Should Not Be Opened for the sake of the humanity not learning the dangerous truth about its true abilities and ((sort of) lack of) their boundaries.
(Yeah, just another frakking conspiracy theory - sorry for being so bland and unimaginative.)

This theory is mostly based on the evidence that a manipulator couldn't be overloaded without a human user nearby - as Piecewise said, 'There is actually a good in-universe reason for that' - as well as the apparent meaninglessness of calculations the field manipulators require to use (not to mention the scepticism that calculations that high-tech would take humans (often not so intelligent or educated, let us be frank) to be done, and not just computers). ))

((Even though the idea is interesting, it merely relocates weird space magic from an external artifact to the human brain itself. It still does not change the essence that weird space magic is indeed at work. Besides, it doesn't really explain automated field manipulators, since those don't actually contain brain matter as far as I know. And the in-universe reason for the impossibility of overloading field manipulators without a human nearby might be that no sane engineer would ever automate a field manipulator into overloading itself, considering that really bad things would happen if they did. After all, manipulators are precision technology, not tools of mass destruction.))

A question for piecewise: what does an automated field manipulator consist of? How big is it? Asking because we haven't actually seen one yet.))

Sounds like something for you to investigate in character huh?

[Harry Baldman]

Sounds like something for you to investigate in character huh?

((Somebody, get on this. I MUST KNOW NOW.))

[Tavik Toth]

Be equipped with a Mk3, a .50 cal machine gun and a desert eagle. Just cause.