The Official OTC TBRPG Planning and Organization Topic

[Alex Humva]

You could definitely rush things, but there's a reason nature has it to where it takes most animals a while to fully grow.Now, if you were to grab an insect like ship instead of a mammal like ship, things could work. Compare insect maturity times to that of practically every other animal; pretty quick. That, and insects already have a naturally tough exoskeleton, so you wouldn't even need to do much genetic tampering, just replace their exoskeleton with something tougher.Organic ships do have a fundamental problem though; they die. Metal ships can have their parts replaced, organic ships can't, unless you want cyborg ships. Eventually your ship will get old and die, and then you have to replace it. Metal ships suffer from a similar problem but not quite to that degree. Typewriters from the early nineteen hundreds still work today with a bit of tinkering and repair work; however, not many people are still alive and well from the Edwardian era.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Sweetroll Thief Alex Humva

[Lord Kini Hawkeye]

Power: Birth Defects on Ships? That image just made me laugh.This is all theoretic, of course. I might not actually use a parasitic race, but if i were to do so i'd probably operate under the assumption that every race has some sort of brain and/or spinal chord. because, simply put, it might take time upon something like first contact to assimilate an alien, once you've had enough time to do so, the process will only get faster. When you're something so alien to the rest of the galaxy that you have nothing like yourself, suddenly the term "alien" doesn't really apply in a lot of ways.Granted something that didn't have a spinal chord or brain can't and wouldn't be assimilated so that could be an interesting plot twist.And i'm going to go out and say it now, if i were to do this it'd be closer to the flood as far as the assimilative aspects were to go... Maybe Vaguely insectoid for everything else.

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

It would also take an organic ship a fairly long time to heal from an injury, maybe as long or even longer than a metal and plastic ship.There's also the small matter of the ship having to undergo respiration somehow. If it follows our O₂-based system, it will then need to do something with the Carbon-Dioxide.

[Lara White]

Never seen organic ships evaluated this closely before :lol:My two cents is that it's just not worth it, logistically speaking (the point about aging ships is a good point) and it's a lot of squick.

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

Yes. Because of all the problems, from respiration to squick, that organic ships would face, this is one time when I'm going to bend my own rule and pretty much disallow a colossal mistake.

[Xomeron]

On the matter of spines; I'm completely redoing the Reverene's skeletal structure; they have no spines.(cue thousands of "spineless" jokes) but rather this weird riblike structure of tough cartilage. Really, the whole point of the Reverene is to emphasize the strange.On Organic Ships; the thing doesn't necessarily age, healing isn't necessarily slow(grow some extra flesh from the DNA sample, graft it in, voila)

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

The only way to stop the thing aging, realistically, would be to make it all one big tumor. And growing enough flesh to patch the kind of holes weapons fire would create in a ship like that would take time.Also, large amounts of squick. Organic ships aren't happening. End of story.

[Lara White]

So far we have mysterious, powerful aliens whose home is an enigma and a parasitic, all-consuming flood race. Now all we need are human stand-ins and we can play Starcraft. :w:

[Blessed Blade]

^ Do eight foot tall humanoid creatures with horns which kick ships to start them count? =P

[Lara White]

Hey, I kick computers to fix my internet connection. I was speaking culturally, though, so I dunno. I still like the idea of the aliens who developed on an airless planet and therefore can run around in space without proective gear.

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

Although an airless planet would present major problems to life, like the universal necessity of respiration of some sort, and the difficulties of keeping yourself from undergoing explosive decompression in a vacuum.

[Lara White]

Theoretically they could have developed using something like, say, cosmic radiation, and I suspect that an exoskeleton could remove the danger of explosive decompression. (Am working this out slowly...it's an idea TPTI gave me and I want to use it at some point.)

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

An exoskeleton would be better than an endoskeleton, but it would have to be completely devoid of structural weak-points like, say, mouths or eyes. Cosmic radiation could be used as an energy source, but they would still need the actual chemical components for whatever chemical reaction is the basis of their metabolism.

[Lara White]

Dang...biology isn't one of my strong suits. This could take a while and I don't know enough about it to build this. >< :w:

[Blessed Blade]

What about absorbing stuff for energy and chemicals? And as for eyes and mouths, a telepathic race could handle the limitations of not having any eyes and mouths; though obviously they couldn't communicate with beings who were mentally shielded.

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

The problem is that there wouldn't exactly be anything to "absorb" on an airless planet - no plants, and any other animals would have exactly the same problems you'd have. Plus, realistically, to take in any sort of nutrients you'd need, at the very least, a permeable membrane, and those, by definition, aren't very good armor.

[Blessed Blade]

Unless the chemicals you needed were stuff like rocks and such...I'm just offering possible ways for that to work, so it might not be actually plausible. =P

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

Generally speaking, minerals don't provide the right sort of stuff for the basis of life. There's been a lot of talk about silicon-based life, true, but it's really not nearly as viable as carbon, and even with carbon the sort of carbon that's locked up in rocks is pretty useless for metabolism, you need organic carbon (unless you're a plant, in which case atmospheric carbon is pretty good, too).

[Blessed Blade]

Okay, so for this airless species, you'd need to be a plant cyborg who can communicate and see through telepathy, and still somehow absorb minerals and chemicals? That would honestly be fairly interesting, given that it's so far off from normal. xD

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

Well, the plant bit wouldn't help at all, given that there isn't an atmosphere. Telepathy would rely on the electrical signals produced by the nervous system, and electricity can't travel through a vacuum, so that's shot. Basically, an airless species would have to be magic, too.

[Blessed Blade]

True. So, Airless Plant Cyborgs with telepathy and mineral absorbtion, who are magic. Sounds plausible. </sarcasm> =P

[Toast of Awesomeness]

Just look up a decent sci-fi example of airless life. They've already thought this stuff out. XD

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

Looked it up. They covered some issues, but not all of them. They skipped over, for example, the fact that there would be no true basis to the food chain - plants wouldn't be able to fix inorganic carbon from the atmosphere as there wouldn't be an atmosphere. Without something at the base of the food chain, there can be no food chain, and therefore no macroscopic life-forms - though I doubt even microscopic ones would survive.

[Lord Kini Hawkeye]

They've also thought out Organic Ships and Parasites :PThere has to be a basis for everything, you know, and just cause someone else thought it out doesn't mean it's going to be allowed :PI for one though, agree with the "ban" on Organic Ships, considering i wasn't really going to use them anyways.And as far as myself having a parasitic race, i'm not going to get angry cause i can't "assimilate" one's race, long as there's a reason for it. Just as long as not everyone jumps onto the "we can't be taken over" bandwagon

[Lara White]

The "blow up the threat to all sentient life" bandwagon, however...

[Xomeron]

Rover, on the subject of Silicon Based life: Silicon is thought to be a possible basis because it reacts in the exact same way that Carbon reacts, and builds pretty much the same structures.Also, opinion on Telepathy?

Edited January 15, 2012 by King Of Shadows

[Lord Kini Hawkeye]

Lloyd: I encourage that bandwagon, could be an interesting plotline The Response to the threat to all sentient life wouldn't happen to be a series of seven rings, would it? :PXom: While I myself have no problem with Telepathy, i think it should, if allowed, require the same sort of timed period in which the being in question would have to condition it's mind to read anothers. As communication between the same species, i myself cannot see why not. However with others outside your own species it might be a problem.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Lord Kini Hawkeye

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

Correctly interpreting the electrical fields coming from the nervous system of an alien should be very difficult indeed, and will take some time to learn.Also, the biggest problem with silicon-based biochemistry is that silicon can't bond with quite the diverse range of atoms that carbon can bond with. There are many more than that, but that's the big over-arching problem.

[Lara White]

The problem with telepathy is that it needs some sort of medium to communicate through, as we haven't yet found any sort of communication that doesn't involve a link between the two. Basically you'd need a connection of light or sound or somesuch to communicate. In addition, you also have to consider interstellar lag.There will only be a pile of rings if it involves the rest of us not dying. More likely we make an elite soldier and give him access to a prototype stealth ship and a crew of the the brightest, the toughest and the deadliest we have to offer.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Lloyd: the White Wolf

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

And then, of course, we'll have the nasty gits who use the fear and confusion generated by the "threat to all sapient life" for their own profit, and likely the detriment of everything else that moves.

[Xomeron]

So when can we expect a draft of this?

[Lara White]

"Ah yes, [insert race name here]. The hiveminded race of parasitic creatures allegedly consuming entire planets. We have dismissed that claim."

[Wyrd Bid Ful Araed]

(Am working this out slowly...it's an idea TPTI gave me and I want to use it at some point.)

I did what now?The way I was going to make my evil hivemind creatures a hivemind was by giving them morphic resonance. Means they can still share memories and thoughts but they're not going to suddenly hijack your head because its not real telepathy Edited January 16, 2012 by The Dreadful Flying Glove

[Lara White]

I think it was you. Could be wrong, it was a while ago.What is this morphic resonance you speak of?

[Wyrd Bid Ful Araed]

Its a little bit of pseudo-science that will get you laughed out of any scientific meeting if you bring it up, but basically means that creatures that share a shape have a kind of genetic memory. Thoughts from older generations get passed down hereditarily, and you get a kind of in-species telepathy. The example I heard being used was that sheep on opposite sides of the country figured out how to cross cattle-grids (by rolling over them rather than walking) simultaneously and without interacting with each other. Its also supposed to be how you can tell if someone is staring at you, though I'm not quite sure how that works.Given the race I'm planning are essentially a kind of sentient bacteria sharing memories and thought is really the only way they can communicate on any higher level

[Lara White]

Well, you could have something that looks like telepathy in a "finishing each others' sentences" kind of way. They just think so alike that they all know what the others are thinking.

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

So when can we expect a draft of this?

It might be a week or two. I'm in college, kind of busy, writing music. Not too busy to run the RPG - for me, that's easier than writing it up - but occasionally too busy for relatively simple paperwork.

[Lara White]

If you need help, feel free to ask.

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

As a matter of fact, if you wouldn't mind adapting some version of SK's industry system to work in space (with the things I have specified regarding ag/civ/military accounted for), that would be great. I'm at a loss as to how to actually approach that particular problem.

[Lara White]

If you've already got something in place regarding IP (military or civil) shoot me a PM. Otherwise, I'll get to work.