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[Madman198237]

Even the backwards Imperium has teleportation, right? Because it's quite simple to manipulate that into a more-than-fast-enough FTL system, depending on its limitations.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The issue is that "teleportation" is just short-range Warp travel. That's how most of the galaxy's vessels function, and it can be just as dangerous too. The Necrons appear to have an alternate form of teleportation, but nobody knows how it works.

[Madman198237]

Huh, I thought it was separate and instantaneous. Oh well, maybe we can technology our way out of that.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It may appear instantaneous or nearly-so, as long as you're imposing that kind of condition on the Warp where time need not pass. But any exposure carries some risk of warp predators noticing you, and the longer the distance the worse it will be and the more "actual time" you'll have to spend in the Warp. And of course, there's always an even rarer but real risk that you'll teleport backwards in time.

Whatever the Necrons are doing appears to use a different manipulation of reality or realities, but replicating their tech is unlikely to say the least.

[Glass]

...just curious, given silicon, what would the Necrons (and Tyranids, for that matter) actually think of us?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The Necrons aren't specifically against organic life (well, non-machine life, we're technically not under the word organic) - they were organic life. They just hate everyone that's not them due to their treatment at the hands of the C'Tan and their belief that the galaxy belongs to them alone. The saner Necron Lords can be surprisingly reasonable, but most of them have some kind of mental damage and the vast majority of their population are mindless automatons now. We aren't likely to be friends.

The Nids have scoured galaxies, so they've probably encountered silicon life and worked on ways it could be adapted to them. Regardless, even if we're not biologically compatible the energy in our chemistry will still be fair game for combating entropy - Nids eat worlds down to the bedrock.

[Ardent Debater]

Q: Are all 'psionics' in this setting strictly related to warp phenomena?

I want to propose a mixed scenario, in which there is a mobile larval stage similar to wierd's plan, that during "mating" – between 3 units to start with, can evolve more and bigger configurations later if competition allows – the mating ritual forms physical bonds between units, cementing them together into a tube. Take the stronger, tougher dorsal layer of wierd's plan as the foundation for an outer shell while the delicate manipulators of the ventral section end up on the inside. This 'adult form' would have the combined neural capacity and memories of all participants, enabling it to be "smarter" than individual larvae. It thus has the capacity to use the now-internal manipulators for complex tasks no larva could perform alone.

Back to the psychic question: the adult's increase in capability comes at cost of mobility now that all the former legs are stuck in one mass. (I expect some creatures will evolve to leave the tips free for active defense, but then they are pointing every which way and the ones in contact with the ground/seafloor cannot shift the whole quickly.) It would be handy if these adults eventually find a means of communication with their more mobile youth. To ensure they get a steady food supply delivered, for instance.

If straight psionics are out something else could still substitute. Perhaps our electro-silicon tubes are covered in natural LEDs to flash messages. Or pheromones if you want to be boring.

Code: [Select]

Unset Symmetry (0):
Tubular Symmetry (1): Chaoskl21
Paired Symmetry (1): Taricus
Triune Symmetry (1): MetalSlimeHunt
Further Symmetry  (Trigonal-60deg radial, truncated bilateral, "Weird's Symmetry") (7): Weird, Madman, Piratejoe, Glass, IncompetentFortressMaker, Kilojoule Proton, NG
Mixed Life Cycle – wierd's symmetry -> Tubular (1): mightymushroom
P.S. Also tried to recalibrate votes since so many came up while working. Apologies if I got yours wrong.

Spoiler:  GM Note (click to show/hide)

A: Psychic phenomena entails to essentially overlaying the Immaterium on physical reality and controlling what happens through force of will. Anyone that can do it consistently is a "pysker", and species have a varying level of psychic potential. Some, such as the Eldar, are invariably powerful psykers, so much so that much of their technology depends on it, some have limited psychic potential but individuals who are capable of matching or even surpassing more attuned species, such as Mankind, and a few, due to the circumstances of their evolution or pecularities individual to that species, have no psychic potential at all and must make do with material means, such as the Tau and ultimately, your species. The Q'Orl are notable in that they don't have psychic potential, but are able to traverse the Warp and maintain an empire bsubjugating the psykers of other species.

Reality warping is almost entirely Warp-affiliated, though the C'tan were able to do so through means that bore no relation to the Warp and the Necrons possessed technology that was capable of not only replicating their feats, but shattering and binding them into fractions of their former selves. Barring extreme technological advancement, this sort of pseudo-psychic phenomena is beyond the grasp of your appendages. Even so, as wierd and the Terran biosphere demonstrate, there is a massive amount that can be done without deviating from the material. Determining the biosphere's prevalent form of reproduction is going to be the next question and that kind of age-stratified dichotomy is more than possible. Anything that isn't outright supernatural in on the table for communication purposes, LEDs aren't only a novel idea, they're more than doable from silicon. Other possibilities are the exchange of electric pulses, vibrating at specific frequencies, or as already mentioned, even radio.

It also means that if we develop FTL travel, ours will be PURELY technological, meaning it does not require going through the warp. (though it might be that we stumble on an arm of the webway, and reverse engineer creating a wormhole network of our own. again through purely technological means.)

Which isn't necessarily a good thing, since it would likely either be slower or take a lot more resources dedicated to our exotic FTL.

I am going to vote for boring triangles.

Code: [Select]

Unset Symmetry (0):
Tubular Symmetry (1): Chaoskl21
Paired Symmetry (1): Taricus
Triune Symmetry (2): MetalSlimeHunt, Nirur
Further Symmetry  (Trigonal-60deg radial, truncated bilateral, "Weird's Symmetry") (7): Weird, Madman, Piratejoe, Glass, IncompetentFortressMaker, Kilojoule Proton, NG
Mixed Life Cycle – wierd's symmetry -> Tubular (1): mightymushroom


Spoiler:  GM Note (click to show/hide)

I'll have you know triangles are magnificent. Perhaps not radical or tubular, but they have a distinctly sharp appeal.

...just curious, given silicon, what would the Necrons (and Tyranids, for that matter) actually think of us?

Spoiler:  GM Note (click to show/hide)

That massively depends on what sort of species evolution leads you to become, but relations are unlikely to be amicable.

[Tyrant Leviathan]

Yep. Nids eat “everything” of value. Air and rocks included.

I am not voting this time though I had an idea for us to look Anthropodish/buggy ( no, Nids are a mix of dinosaur and bug. Not true bug) but crystal shapes is cool.

As for super powers given we absorb particle radiation, it makes us Godzilla, or even Magneto powers ( Magnetism and radiation have a relationship, plus Legion the rock bug from Gamera killed things with electro magnetic waves.)

[Shadowclaw777]

Code: [Select]

Unset Symmetry (0):
Tubular Symmetry (1): Chaoskl21
Paired Symmetry (1): Taricus
Triune Symmetry (3): MetalSlimeHunt, Nirur, SC777
Further Symmetry  (Trigonal-60deg radial, truncated bilateral, "Weird's Symmetry") (7): Weird, Madman, Piratejoe, Glass, IncompetentFortressMaker, Kilojoule Proton, NG
Mixed Life Cycle – wierd's symmetry -> Tubular (1): mightymushroom

[Ardent Debater]

Code: [Select]

Unset Symmetry (0):
Tubular Symmetry (1): Chaoskl21
Paired Symmetry (1): Taricus
Triune Symmetry (3): MetalSlimeHunt, Nirur, SC777
Further Symmetry  (Trigonal-60deg radial, truncated bilateral, "Weird's Symmetry") (7): Weird, Madman, Piratejoe, Glass, IncompetentFortressMaker, Kilojoule Proton, NG
Mixed Life Cycle – wierd's symmetry -> Tubular (1): mightymushroom
On a planet with seas so teeming with unseen vigor, the emergence of life that insisted on a gargantuan immensity visible to bare optics was no more avoidable than the dwindling of the stars above in the epochs to come. Floating in the midst of the seas, above abyssal pressure yet below the hateful sun, the first viable macro-organism was a weak and anemic thing no larger than a man's fingernail, whose arrival was met with no fanfare save the rippling disturbance its flailing stubs dealt. Pathetic and beneath the notice of the dull crimson blaze above, it was a peculiar cluster of primitive cells, clinging to no weary dictum of what life should be and accepting none. Already abominable for its silicon composition alone, it further confounded reason with the assumption of a sleek trigonal shape, and shattered it with the emergence of six vestigial limbs, each jutting from the crystalline, almost chitinous surface at angles a small mind would deem incapable, but nonetheless proved sufficient to tread in concert with the shifting tides. Bobbing to and fro, it lacked a consciousness capable of more than intuiting the need to fill the gurgling slits between its appendages with the salt of its forebears, and blindly, clumsily pursuing it to the furthest extent of its feeble ability.

This entity, harshly limited by the crude state of the same apparatus that distinguished it from its unseen ancestors, which it could neither call on reason or emotion to think and condemn, squirmed in paroxysm of wet birth, scraped in callous darkness, and struggled in tenacious pursuit of continual existence. Less than a single Terran month after its emergence, its brittle exoskeleton was punctured on a rock when the churning waves ruptured its carapace and its existence came to an end not two minutes later, dully unable to process the damage it underwent and grasping for escape. None would know of its fate and it died forgotten, but its legacy remained, in the handful of near-identical copies its messy and unrefined method of reproduction allowed. Thoughtlessly clinging to the same example, these descendants continued the course and boasting the semi-functional body their competitors lacked, soon spread throughout the oceans of the world. With growing distance and finite resources came competition, and in its wake, the onset of natural selection. Generations later, parts of the population began to change.

When the initial bout was finished, what method of reproduction was enshrined in the dominant majority of future species?

Fission: The simplicity of mitosis brought to a grand scale, reproduction occurs when a grown individual accumulates the resources to split into two smaller, roughly equal replicas of itself.
Fragmentation: Nowhere near as tidy as mitosis, reproduction occurs when a grown individual accumulates the resources to split and is instead shattered into several pieces, which then struggle to grow.
Budding: Lacking implicit lethality toward the parent, reproduction occurs when a grown individual accumulates resources to foster the growth of a younger copy directly on itself, which later breaks away.
Sexual: Driving a divide between members of the species, or not, depending, reproduction occurs when a grown individual exchanges genetic material with another, though the particulars of how that happens and what emerges afterward may vary. (Complications Require Further Questions)
Exotic: Challenging to genuinely comprehend, the species clings to no Terran method of reproduction and instead perpetuates their genetic material through a process that's more than likely found on no other biosphere, with flaws and advantages unique to it alone. (Specify the Details)

Spoiler:  The Home System (click to show/hide)

Location: The Galactic South
Sun's Radiation: Harsh
Home-World's distance from Sun: Middling
Home-World's Size: Large
Home-World's Topology: Jagged
Home-World's Number of Moons: One
Home-System Traits:
- Isolated Star System
- Thick Immaterial Veil
- Frequent Meteorites
- Lack of Warp Routes
Home-World Traits:
- Cavern Networks
- Mineral Abundance
- Ideal Atmosphere

Spoiler:  The Home-World's Biosphere (click to show/hide)

Respiratory Gas: Chlorine
Dominant Symmetry: Trigonal Radial, Truncated Bilateral
Dominant Method of Reproduction: To be determined

[Glass]

...hmn...
Exotic, construction. Every so often, their bodies will start to produce a "core" and they will be driven to build a small facsimile of themselves with appropriate materials, into which the core will be inserted. The core and construction fuse, producing a new specimen.

[Naturegirl1999]

Budding

[Man of Paper]

Gonna finally stop sleeping on this with a suggestion:

Exotic: Shedding

These strange entities reproduce by “shedding”, a process in which the interior body of the creature forces a crack in it’s exoskeleton and pushes it’s way through. Once the shell is vacated, the exterior of the newborn begins to harden. The vacant shell also begins a progress of regeneration, refilling the exoskeleton with those important insides and allowing it to birth another life at a later time.

[Shadowclaw777]

I don’t see how those two are different compared to Budding, just adding intricate detail into how it is done and the sementics.

Budding

[Man of Paper]

This is Bay12, if people aren’t arguing about semantics are you even playing a forum game?