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[Lallante]

-Diary of Dr Delerl "Hacksaw" Gutthirst-

It has been 6 years since the beginning of this expedition, and 4 more before that since the (re)discovery of the Codex.  So much blood split, gold spent and resources plundered, all to ensure the Brotherhood's sole goal is not lost with time, as we were so sure the Codex had been.

A long forgotten fort, 10 winters past, was reclaimed by a party of great hammerdwarfs, stout and true to a dwarf.  By Armok's blessing, the leader was sympathetic to the Brotherhoods ancient cause, and was able to spirit away the Codex from a crypt deep beneath the fort for study by our greatest booksmiths.  56 Chapters of impossibly valuable ancient knowledge were quickly devoured, and after a mere four years we were ready to put once-lost knowledge into practice once again.  It was clear, with modern fortressbuilding knowledge, where our ancestral brothers-in-arms had gone wrong.  The designs they had used left so many clues, clues we were able to weave into a new and foolproof plan.

The "Codex of Secrets of Dwarven Childcare" had been reclaimed, and the Brotherhood of Uristic Retrograde Nurture was alive with purpose anew.

...

I arrived with the first expedition, to help found this now-mighty fortress, while two brothers in arms, now appointed Captain of the Guard and Mayor respectively, followed suruptitiously with the migrant waves that came shortly after. None of us has spoken to any of the unitiated about our true purpose here.  No one knows that we even have a connection that predates the fortress founding, let alone the existence of the Codex or Brotherhood.

Now, six years from the fortress' inception, our uniquely dwarven experiment, some might say THE dwarven experiment, is nearly ready to commence.

Fortress Screamrags, the Bloody Children.  Auspicious names indeed....

Tomorrow we strike earth on my laboratory complex, and before year is out, the experiment shall begin....

[coldmonkey]

"[The child in question] has been stung by a honey bee!" Does anyone know if bee stings builds character? Or will I have to make a necessary sacrifice for science?

[Koremu]

"[The child in question] has been stung by a honey bee!" Does anyone know if bee stings builds character? Or will I have to make a necessary sacrifice for science?

I've been trying to determine myself if being stung by bees increases resistance to disease syndromes, but I've yet to manage to build a fort with enough hives in high-traffic above ground areas to get enough bee stings to be certain.

[Gentlefish]

There's only one way to find out.

Dwarven science. Pit a dwarf in with all the bees and have him eat and drink nothing but bee products. See if the many stings increase his disease resistance and ability to heal.

I volunteer my latest fort to test.

[coldmonkey]

I'm currently building a little area just for that. Isolated from main fort, plenty of water, food and booze. Some twenty active beehives, all along the walls. Incidentally, the Beekeeper just had a baby. I'm weak to irony like that.
Update: Alright, more than 100 bee stings on the same dwarf over the course of a year, no visible attribute changes. I think it's safe to say that bees are worthless for training dwarves.

[Bumber]

I'm currently building a little area just for that. Isolated from main fort, plenty of water, food and booze. Some twenty active beehives, all along the walls. Incidentally, the Beekeeper just had a baby. I'm weak to irony like that.
Update: 30 bee stings on the same dwarf, no visible attribute changes.

Did you name him Urist McNicolascage?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=d4MqTCIDKhU

(Sorry, it couldn't be helped.)

[Danielle]

This is amazing.
Once I have enough Dwarven Babies to spare, I'll engage in some !!SCIENCE!!

[Tomcost]

Wow, this is just dwarvenly amazing! I would do some science by myself, but I'm still a noob.

Despite that, I have an idea. I've read through all the pages and necromacer live training either wasn't suggested, or wasn't given enough importance. With it we could not only have a better control over which creatures that our future supersoldiers will fight, but also the time when they will attack. Obviously, the creatures used should be babies, poults, puppies, or parts from bigger creatures, like hands. With enough timing and careful planning of the creatures/parts used (large serrated discs anyone?), this should succeed.

Well, thats the humble opinion of a newbie.

[simonthedwarf]

offtopic deleted

[Avelon]

I got to page 20 and had to reply. After this I'll go back to reading but here's a beautiful idea.

Put a child in Daycare Academy. That is, it's the same thing as the current idea for military daycare, but without the combat-oriented training.

Instead, the child is subjected to the most horrific things you can come up with. Dropping things from one too many z-levels into their cage room, making 1 wall a window into your execution room, etc.

Expose the kid to the worst things you can imagine...and as soon as s/he's 12, make them an Engraver/Stonecrafter and have that dwarf make all of your daycare chamber engravings, decorations, etc. You could also make them a metalcrafter if you want to make the statues and etc. out of a high-quality metal instead of stonecrafting.

In this way you can be assured that the interior decorator for your daycare center will be of the right kind of stock for the Spartan program.

Bonus points: Establish a burrow for the whole area, including only adult dwarves who have themselves been through some manner of Daycare Training. This would include a doctor with all medical labors enabled, a miner, engraver, and foocrafter for the creation of new rooms, etc. The Daycare Staff is sealed off from the rest of the fortress via airlock which is how you get mothers (airlock is its own burrow) with Hopefuls into the area and also how you get completed trainees back out of it.

Food and booze are dumped into the Daycare Center and then the adults in charge of the Center itself will disperse necessary supplies into the test chambers luxury pods of the children. In this way you can ensure that the ONLY friends your Spartans will ever make are the daycare center adults, and if ever they themselves throw a tantrum because the Spartans die, well, it's okay because none of them are militant and some of them will never develop ANY friendships with ANY of their coworkers/dependents (the miner, for instance, or the engraver will not 'know' any of the others so will not get a bad thought from taking down the doctor if s/he tantrums...which s/he shouldn't BECAUSE s/he's been through Spartan training him/herself!).

Yes? =D

[Tomcost]

I got to page 20 and had to reply. After this I'll go back to reading but here's a beautiful idea.

Put a child in Daycare Academy. That is, it's the same thing as the current idea for military daycare, but without the combat-oriented training.

Instead, the child is subjected to the most horrific things you can come up with. Dropping things from one too many z-levels into their cage room, making 1 wall a window into your execution room, etc.

Expose the kid to the worst things you can imagine...and as soon as s/he's 12, make them an Engraver/Stonecrafter and have that dwarf make all of your daycare chamber engravings, decorations, etc. You could also make them a metalcrafter if you want to make the statues and etc. out of a high-quality metal instead of stonecrafting.

In this way you can be assured that the interior decorator for your daycare center will be of the right kind of stock for the Spartan program.

Bonus points: Establish a burrow for the whole area, including only adult dwarves who have themselves been through some manner of Daycare Training. This would include a doctor with all medical labors enabled, a miner, engraver, and foocrafter for the creation of new rooms, etc. The Daycare Staff is sealed off from the rest of the fortress via airlock which is how you get mothers (airlock is its own burrow) with Hopefuls into the area and also how you get completed trainees back out of it.

Food and booze are dumped into the Daycare Center and then the adults in charge of the Center itself will disperse necessary supplies into the test chambers luxury pods of the children. In this way you can ensure that the ONLY friends your Spartans will ever make are the daycare center adults, and if ever they themselves throw a tantrum because the Spartans die, well, it's okay because none of them are militant and some of them will never develop ANY friendships with ANY of their coworkers/dependents (the miner, for instance, or the engraver will not 'know' any of the others so will not get a bad thought from taking down the doctor if s/he tantrums...which s/he shouldn't BECAUSE s/he's been through Spartan training him/herself!).

Yes? =D

That has been already discussed, but you should focus on the most important part pf this program: making utterly traumatized super soldiers.

So far, here is a resume of this thread:
-Training by the occassional attacks of tamed animal doesn't prove to be good enough (low skill gain, risk of the child going insane, and general death risk)
-Training via hostile animal ends with either the children or the animal dead (even with low risk animals like fleshballs).
-Training a thrall or husk is EXTREMLY dangerous and apparently too insane and foul minded for the people in this forum

Read my post (like, 3 post above yours), to see my newest idea, which, due to my lack of experience, could not be taken too practice. (if someeone wants to try it, feel free to do give it a try, and post the results)

[birdy51]

I prefer the idea of a tri room concept, with doors between each sector. One is the child's bedroom, the second is the chicken bonanza room, and the third is the child's food/dining room complex.

The child will be forced to walk through the war zone in order to eat and sleep. In addition, the middle section should also contain a statue garden/meeting area, making the child want to stay in the middle room more than his bedroom or his private dining room.

Has this method been documented yet?

[Scruffy]

So, this thread is STILL going on?
Interesting

...I'm getting an urge to experiment again.
Something compact and easy to apply on a larger scale..
Hmm... Screw sleep. I'm doing this. Again.

Edit: Darn. The specimen died. While they got used to tragedy really fast they did not survive the speartrap containing on training spear even though I gave them extra room so they didn't have to stand on it. The room may be too large for using animals and dropping is too much work. Tricky. Otherwise the design is suited for mass producing.


The rooms were a bit large (6 squares each. One set for low traffic and used for dropping food. I suppose that the chair and middle door could be removed but that would lower the room value) The grated area in the middle was for the "life is a bitch" -tragedy training.
Since the trap kills the little dorflings I have no proper way of training them. Perhaps I could consider pumping water in and letting it flow through the grates for some swimming training?

[Tomcost]

Scruffy, did you use spike traps to train your "test subjects"? That method is already fatal for unarmored ADULTS (yes, training spears can break bones), imagine what can they do to children.

We need to find something which we can control AND is not fatal to train our future supersoldiers.

[Lich180]

Not sure if its been mentioned before in the last few pages, but I know a Coinstar system would train skills, without the risk of death (unless the kid passes out on the bridge, and is flung into a wall, or drops a piece of clothing in the Coinstar).

It should train armor user, strength, agility, endurance, and such skills pretty efficiently.