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[Noxes]

Food:
Breeding the Flowers and increasing our overall Food yields is still the highest priority.

Bio-research:
Begin analyzing the collected specimens from the botanical facility for traits which may be desirable in the Flower of Life (for example; rapid growth, wind pollination, ability to regrow from damaged root-stock, etc.). I say analyze since We wouldn't know what Kudzu is, though that is the one I would like to cross with the Flower the most (Talk about Invasive and Hardy!). Otherwise continue the current cross-breeding experiments.

Have the Pollinators continue observing the Princess Flowers, giving them the enhanced attention corresponding to their status. See if the Master Pollinator can discern anything in particular about the Link between the Princess Flowers and the Queen Flower (if they have any sort of Link between each other or the other Kai, as Our Flower has with Us)

Scouting:
Same orders as before, but do check out the Human Hive Ship before it gets away; just a cursory inspection so we can know exactly what their capabilities are should they come back this way (or we encounter more of its kind).

Soldiers:
As soon as Food stores allow begin pulling the soldiers out of Stasis and equipping them with battle-suits and blasters (if they aren't already similarly equipped). Though they are not Burrowers and so will be unsuitable shock troops, they will helpful as base security as we start raising our profile. I say raise them sooner rather than later simply because the Stasis sickness takes several days to clear, and we can wait until this next Flower harvest such that food shouldn't be as major an issue.

Research: Have the soldier try and refine the RPG until he can say with reasonable assurance it won't explode until at least the third shot (a good start).

Construction:
Create a shaft that connects to our main entrance (recycle the kill-zone basically) but heads off 90 degrees away from the Upper Hive and secure it with redundant heavy doors for now (another killzone later). This will lead off to a 'Debarkation Point' located a goodly distance away from the hive (make a k or 2) from which tunnels may be dug as needed to raiding targets. As long as we are sure to collapse our old assault tunnels as we use them it should be fairly difficult to directly follow one back. The Doors and killzone will be basically two-way, since they will be used to secure the tunnel from 'unauthorized access' from the Pit as well as any one who 'somehow' follows a tunnel back or burrows down to the debarkation point.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Construction
1)Finish the food synthesizer
2)Try to build a facility that will produce an analogue of grub's digestive juice. Than we may either add it too the food or build technological "external stomach" To produce a half digested food for regular Kais.
3) Do dig away nice safe distance away to setup deep military base\supply depot quite far away. choose SSE direction to build it closer to manufacture facility.

Military
1) Carefully scout the hive ship
2) Wake up the soldiers after the second food synthesizer is finished

Flowers
Standing orders + gather some pollen from the hybrid for future use and put it into stasis\storage

Eggs
Lay: B-commander.
Will: M-nurses to M-commanders. If successful lay them immediately

Bioresearch
1) Task pollinator to concentrate on improving Princess flower as he sees fit, and use captured materials from the raid to speed up the improvement
Ideally he should try to ask what Princess would like to include in it's genome and what not.
(I want Princess queen to be an ideal mate for all other kinds of flower)

2) Vivisect and carefully study the ape. Analyze it's muscles, reproduction, brain and sensory system, digestion, and, especially, immune system.  It's  some caste of bipeds and their main caste should be quite similar we may use the info for future war, including biological warfare. It would be nice to find a bacteria or virus that are safe for us but not for that biped
Finally try to estimate ability of bipeds to alter DNA judging by changes they have done. 

[10ebbor10]

Vivisecting only works on living species.

[Noxes]

Vivisecting only works on living species.

yep, it's just dissection otherwise XD

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Whew, that was a long read. So, are you fellows thinking you'd want to stick around on this planet until we're in the many thousands, or do we want to spread asap?

If we're sticking around, we should stay underground literally forever. Surface flowers should take a back seat, if not scrapped all-together, while we bide our time and build up our resources/biology/tech. If we did this slowly & carefully, we could probably honeycomb the surface (crust) without the humans suspecting a thing- all they know is an alien crashed and probably survived. They don't know it's us, and therefore don't know what to look for.


If we're looking to leave mars soon/ish, then we should scout out the human's ferrying systems & prepare for either a strike&capture or planting a couple stowaways- when we have the resources. Until then it's still the same plan of 'keep hidden, keep safe'. The difference being of this taking weeks instead of months/years, (depending on time-skips). In this case, we could probably leave a queen here to go with the above plan, while sending another to earth.


In anycase, we're nearing the end of our tech, so why not focus on body: try to select for stronger genetics- things that can just keep changing and changing and changing. As in to the point of making space-ship drones, (which RAM specifically didn't like a few posts ago). Btw, hinthint, if we expand on that kaibridization program, that would make for a handy-dandy launching point for a vehicle kai- internal fusion/propellant factory by default. (assuming we're staying put)

-edit
btw, I agree with decoding the human language- would provide a good alternative to scouting.
-Also, at some point we should capture some humans for experimentation because humans.

[Xantalos]

Grizzly, you just gave me the best idea ever.
We should capture a human, actually multiple humans, and then try to hybridize them with the Flowers.
No neative consequences I can see from this whatsoever.

[RAM]

I suspect that the flowers may object to that. And I am not really opposed to extraplanetary organisms, I just feel that it will require more research and probably produce a less effective product. And my thoughts are that in space combat you probably want a mixture of quality and quantity, but you will want the odd bit of extreme quality for those occasions when you are dealing with something that has enough point defence to neutralise about as much energy as can be directed at its surface area and can generate a stellar destabilisation field that is effective from the outer solar system. But for all I know we can produce insane numbers of hyper-efficient caltrops that can emit focused or unfocused energy discharges from any appendage to zip along at mind-boggling speed and produce energy beams that could match anything feasible by conventional technology. I just suspect that someday we will need a shiny metal death machine with a spinal gun capable of propelling a super-dense high-energy packet at near the speed of light through a generated spatial fold and that the mind path would do that sort of thing better...

As for hitting out technological limits, I am not certain what that means, but there are several ambiguities. It may refer to the limits of the body path, and bear in mind that we seem to have general material synthesis, which is not skimping on the tech... It could mean that we have hit the limits of what we brought with us. It could also mean that we have hit a wall of diminishing returns as far as upgrading our weapons goes, and that we really won't get any more bang for our volume. Or it could mean that the mind path has nothing to offer that we don't already have... That last one seems doubtful to me...

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Surface flowers should take a back seat, if not scrapped all-together

I disagree, they are more productive because sun is a sun...
We can plant them in isolated places were no humans reside
We can plant them after conquest, rapidly creating huge food base
We can plant them in any place and turn it into a Martian weed
Finally we can treat aboveground flowers as underground meant to be raised on dedicated farms with artificial sun. 

As for sitting in the hole for years... Problems with that approach:
1) Humans can and will increase their presence on Mars, making the war harder and harder
2) Large hives will create a noticeable seismic activity and temperature changes whatever we do
3) Our underground facilities can be discovered by pure chance with the prospecting humans will do
4) The longer we sit here, the more likely that advanced civs will visit Sol and establish embassies\trade posts\colony\Navy base here making our possible war with humans way harder

I'd prefer to start war sooner than later, starting with assimilating isolated human subhives...
Ideally that could be done with semiindependent raiding nomadic subhives that an survive without techs at all but are capable to use it

Making\stealing a ship to send a single queen with a single flower  and a mate is an interesting possibility... Because that is enough to make new hive possible
__________

Grizzly, you just gave me the best idea ever.
We should capture a human, actually multiple humans, and then try to hybridize them with the Flowers.
No neative consequences I can see from this whatsoever.

I see one: Flowers may decide that humans are better symbiotes than Kai

[Xantalos]

We're encouraging the flowers to grow in them, not with them, though. If this works right we could eventually breed mobile flowers that hunt down and plan themselves in human hosts.
Ans why would the Flowers decide that the nonpsychic humans are a better fit for them than the Kai they evolved alongside of?

[Ukrainian Ranger]

If this works right we could eventually breed mobile flowers that hunt down and plan themselves in human hosts.

Little to independent to my tastes

Ans why would the Flowers decide that the nonpsychic humans are a better fit for them than the Kai they evolved alongside of?

Because humans are smarter than average Kai?
Because flowers may be influenced by the host?

[Xantalos]

Well, if you want to be safe we could breed a subspecies of flowers that is inherently parasitic and then try them out on human captives. It would be really cool - and effective - to have them, especially if we could design capsules to drop them from orbit onto a planet with. They'd plant themselves in hosts surrounding the drop site and we'd have the beginnings of a base right there.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

I disagree, they are more productive because sun is a sun...
True but-
We can plant them in isolated places were no humans reside
We'd have to worry about being found. If we don't curb their spread, they'd cover the planet, and that would allow the humans to accidentally alert the uber-enemy to our presence, (they'd recognize the Flower). If we curbed their spread, we'd still be in much greater danger of being discovered, what with having a surface presence.
We can plant them after conquest, rapidly creating huge food base
Which would be how useful? Keep in mind we'd have to ferry all the food up into space at that point, and also that this doesn't mean we have to put it foremost on our research. (vs, say, closing the vents and going back to 'extremely hard' to locate)
We can plant them in any place and turn it into a Martian weed
covered
Finally we can treat aboveground flowers as underground meant to be raised on dedicated farms with artificial sun. 
It would be a convenience to be able to grow in alkali soil, but why not just focus on hydroponics instead? We could re-splice the evergreen back in later to get the stim properties again.

As for sitting in the hole for years... Problems with that approach:
1) Humans can and will increase their presence on Mars, making the war harder and harder
If we stay hidden, they won't be building defenses, and the process of terraforming would take a very long time. We can monitor their communications and strike/escape when needed.
2) Large hives will create a noticeable seismic activity and temperature changes whatever we do
Unless we adapt to living in cold environments. We're body, after all. Seismic activity would only really register when our plans were coming to fruition.
3) Our underground facilities can be discovered by pure chance with the prospecting humans will do
True. Hmm, we could always adopt the model of dense hives dispersed across wide areas, or tunneling at extreme depths.
4) The longer we sit here, the more likely that advanced civs will visit Sol and establish embassies\trade posts\colony\Navy base here making our possible war with humans way harder
True, but we'd have to fight them anyway- say we break out early and take over the human system. The advancedciv already knows humans are there, and so discovers we're alive upon their first ambassadorial visit. If we wait, we can muster our forces.

I'd prefer to start war sooner than later, starting with assimilating isolated human subhives...
Ideally that could be done with semiindependent raiding nomadic subhives that an survive without techs at all but are capable to use it
Meh, sounds a lot more vulnerable than staying hidden & staying deep.

Making\stealing a ship to send a single queen with a single flower  and a mate is an interesting possibility... Because that is enough to make new hive possible
Precisely, but it comes with the whole 'announcing our presence' bit.
__________

Grizzly, you just gave me the best idea ever.
We should capture a human, actually multiple humans, and then try to hybridize them with the Flowers.
No neative consequences I can see from this whatsoever.

I see one: Flowers may decide that humans are better symbiotes than Kai

Inconceivable! There's no way puny humans could be better tenders than mighty kai! (Being facetious. In truth, I doubt they'd see more than a niche role, maybe a couple if they bring unique qualities to bear. More of a joke curiosity suggestion anyway.)

Well, if you want to be safe we could breed a subspecies of flowers that is inherently parasitic and then try them out on human captives. It would be really cool - and effective - to have them, especially if we could design capsules to drop them from orbit onto a planet with. They'd plant themselves in hosts surrounding the drop site and we'd have the beginnings of a base right there.

Btw, this is very dangerous. Very very dangerous. But being body, I think we should get used to the concept of bio warfare. +1.

I suspect that the flowers may object to that. And I am not really opposed to extraplanetary organisms, I just feel that it will require more research and probably produce a less effective product. And my thoughts are that in space combat you probably want a mixture of quality and quantity, but you will want the odd bit of extreme quality for those occasions when you are dealing with something that has enough point defence to neutralise about as much energy as can be directed at its surface area and can generate a stellar destabilisation field that is effective from the outer solar system. But for all I know we can produce insane numbers of hyper-efficient caltrops that can emit focused or unfocused energy discharges from any appendage to zip along at mind-boggling speed and produce energy beams that could match anything feasible by conventional technology. I just suspect that someday we will need a shiny metal death machine with a spinal gun capable of propelling a super-dense high-energy packet at near the speed of light through a generated spatial fold and that the mind path would do that sort of thing better...

As for hitting out technological limits, I am not certain what that means, but there are several ambiguities. It may refer to the limits of the body path, and bear in mind that we seem to have general material synthesis, which is not skimping on the tech... It could mean that we have hit the limits of what we brought with us. It could also mean that we have hit a wall of diminishing returns as far as upgrading our weapons goes, and that we really won't get any more bang for our volume. Or it could mean that the mind path has nothing to offer that we don't already have... That last one seems doubtful to me...

Also, You sir are weak-minded for a kai! Of course we can do that. And we can do it better. In the previous world, the mind kai dominated, (ass-pulling here, didn't read any of the previous thread), but now it is body's time to shine! It's time for a paradigm shift. Let's make a superkaibrid like this, except with more egg-laying and more Flower-planting. Let's impregnate the entire universe! Create a breed that is hardy, ubiquitous, and cunning!
Now, that doesn't mean mind doesn't have a place; indeed, there should be a synergy, mind helping where it's most convenient for body to ignore. For example, who says we need to develop a living railgun? (yet) If we apply ourselves, we could easily use a cyborg model to satisfy both worlds! Body providing the host, Mind providing disposable tech! But with body taking the lead role, of course. Yes, a bright future indeed.

Also, I think it's refering to the lack of schematics- we only had so many, so if we wanted to make a space craft we'd have to design it from near-scratch. Which would likely take a tech queen & hive, and apparantly even with that it was a problem in the last thread, (if I read Ross right).

[Ukrainian Ranger]

1) No, we'll not need to ferry most of our food into space because majority of Kai will live on Mars for quite a long time

2) As for premature discovery of the flowers, we are starting to plant flowers on surface after the war will start, not earlier (and yet hard to find farms are viable even earlier if we'll meet food problems)

3) Humans will build defenses. At the very least against each other. And their Navy will grow in size.

4) We may shut down our climate control but hive will generate heat whatever we do, you can't have neither industry nor alive organism without  that

5) We need mineral deposits, humans need mineral deposits. We'll compete for those that means contacts

6) You are assuming that by hiding better we will be able to grow with the same pace... That's just wrong. Surface resources and taking risks will allow us to grow faster. Growth and hiding should be balanced, else we are wasting our time allowing humans to develop\find allies.

7) You are ignoring internal problems of the hive, like rebellious queens that we we will face when our population will become much
larger

[GrizzlyAdamz]

1. Just how long are we staying on a single planet? Don't you think the humans will take drastic measures once we've pushed them off their major colony? I know I would. And let's not forget the uber-aliens and what staying on one planet, hell, one solar system for too long means to our prospects for surviving as a race.

2. Your viable is different from my viable. Our chance to be discovered wouldn't stay 'hard'.

3. I doubt the humans will have too much intra-species strife. They've made it this far, (haven't blown themselves up), and have made contact with other races, (will have formed a planetary union- humans gotta stick together now). All they would make is a token garrison. Their fleet on the other hand is another problem, one which might be better-handled by biding our time and mustering our forces.

4. If we're cold-adapted, and keep our heat-producing tech in the deep, they'd only see a moderate warming once we've got thousands upon thousands of bodies in each of our hives. Btw, (ross/vet player) how far down could we feasibly go?

5. Weren't they mining that moon or something? They seem more interested in terraforming than mining here- if we stay deep, it shouldn't be a problem (yet). It's not like there's a mineral rush going on..(we need to decode those transmissions...).

6. We're gaining a lot more by biding our time than they are. We're talking months, maybe up to a year or two here, not 20. (at least at our current pace) Besides, we've got all we need down here. Plus, I don't think we'd have the capacity for rapid surface expansion yet either, (just one queen..).

7. Do Kai have to deal with rebellions often? Figured it would be minimal, what with the 'hive mind' thing. (ross/vet player)Do we only control the starting queen, or would we also assume control of the tech queen & her brood once we birthed her?

[10ebbor10]

1. Yup, remember the humans have their orbital destruction Railgun. With sustained fire they can cover the entire planet in dust, killing of all surface live. (Wouldn't be a terraforming setback btw, as well, terraforming hasn't even reached that stage yet)

2. Eyes in the sky. Also known as satellites. Vegetal growth is very, very noticeable on infrared and laser vision. (Which the humans have, if only to detect pirates and monitor terraforming)

3. Maxim 11: Everything is airdropable at least once. Impact will leave a warm

4. Remember that Mars has large underground ice reserves. These make excellent heatsinks. (As well as being a prime target for human mining operations, but you can't have everything). Also, Mars has severe temperature fluctuations. If we can set up heatsinks, we can dump heat during day (when it's hot), and remain invisible at night.

5. Humans have mining operations on one of Jupiter's moons. I think Titan. They probably got more colonies than that actually, Titan, Mars and Earth were just the ones that were on a feasible intersection path with out vessel.

6. Yup, I say we bide our time.

7. As soon as we get more than 3 Queens, there's a chance that they'll break of and go independent. IIRC we control all queens under our influence.

Suggestion: We can dig up my plan from the previous time again. We shoot one/several large rocket(s) with a fragmentation warhead in orbit, and cause handmade Kessler Syndrome. That should knock out human communications, kill their orbital weaponry, and prevent reinforcements.

Suggestion: Remember the fungi. Fungal diseases are very hard to combat. If we work on it's spreading a bit, and drop it off in several major human population centers, there's a chance they'll have to quarantaine the entire planet.