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On September 18 2012 13:18 Ponera wrote:
There is a massive scale issue with units in the game. Just look at battlecruiser versus zergling. So that scale issue we are kind of not counting, as that's more for balance/practicality than it is for being canon to lore. The infestor doesn't "make" the marines- it actually snags them in battle or injuries post battle (or who knows, perhaps newly deceased) and infests them.
Presumably, the infestor which is a superorganism, has fungus farmers that perhaps use dead terrans to cultivate the fungus. The marines and the fungus farm are stored in the swollen abdomen.
Yeah I know, it's the issue between game mechanics/implementation vs. lore, like what Gradius wrote earlier. Infestors likely grab Marines from prior battles, but then they should be more like Spider Mines, with each Infestor having a limited supply rather than infinite (so long as you have the energy or the time to wait for it to regenerate) like they currently do. It's a bad implementation when better options are available. Also, you have consider the issue of the power armor, Marine power armor can only be folded into so tight a space, acting as an unavoidable limitation to the amount of Marines an Infestor can possibly store internally.
Directly addressing the size issue though, Infestors are cargo space 2 units, that puts them in the size category of a Zealot, Marauder, Hydralisk, Roach, etc., which means they are bigger than a Marine, but not as big as a Seige Tank, so based on the sizes of the units under the cargo size 2 umbrella (and I'm going based on art assets, and not their in-game size) that means the Infestor can only be a couple of times the size of a Marine, likely between 2-3 times the size of a Marine.
On September 20 2012 15:05 zcki wrote:
What if fungi itself can't survive in the atmosphere (or out of infestor) for longer then 4 seconds? Whether it's susceptible to light or something lacking in the atmosphere (wether there is one or not) to maintain itself. Kind of like broodlings are on a timer once out on their own.
I've never really thought of fungal growth as an actual fungal spread on units, great idea to look closer into this.
Actually, looking at the effect for FG, I'm thinking it acts like an expanding foam sealant. These sealants expand on contact with moisture in the atmosphere, sealing in a space. The Infestor could fire a tight ball of fungi that release a chemical that functions like the sealant foam, the foam expands and then hardens, sealing the affected units in place. As to the quick dying nature of the fungi, that could be related to how they do damage, maybe the fungi release a chemical that deals damage, but also wrecks the sealant, giving it a finite lifetime. Either the Zerg focus more on damage and lose the hold, or focus more on holding units in place and lose the damage. The current sweet spot is what we see in-game.
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There are no fungi that expand that rapidly or release chemicals that corrosive (or however they cause damage.)
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There are also no organisms that exist in the universe as far as we know that are capable of achieving escape velocity unaided by mechanical means, that doesn't stop the Zerg from doing the same (in fact in the lore its stated there were none on the Zerg's home planet either, they just got lucky that some happened to "fly" nearby). There are no known organisms that are capable of reincarnating other organisms, but that's an established canon ability of the Zerg. There are no known non-microscopic organisms that can survive the vacuum of space (and even the Water Bear goes inactive when in vacuum). I could keep going for some time. The point is when its obvious that no natural (and sometimes even man-made) thing has the exact properties necessary you try to think of things that fit the bill in terms of ability to try and understand it, at that point you're left with saying the Zerg must be capable of producing this odd thing through biological means, somehow.
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I will now copy and paste something I said in my youtube channel, in reply to someone:
Uniformitarianism is a limiting factor, to be sure, but it's also a logical leash to stop us from bullshit creeping in. If I give liberalities out, it really means that anything can be anything. So within the confines of what we know, rather than what we don't, it's reasonable to assess things based on life as we know it...especially since every single thing in Starcraft is based on life on Earth.
Add this with lore + gameplay and we are sufficiently handcuffed for your argument to be troublesome. If we say "oh well this thing doesn't make sense so this other thing, which can be rationalized, doesn't have to make sense" then we would literally get nowhere.
The very simple truth is that we can't necessarily explain every inch of a creature that we can't actually look very in-depth for. It's quite limiting; from what we can see and what we do know, it's a FUNGAL growth. That said, any additives are speculation; to speculate past "well maybe there is some protists or something" is really scientifically irresponsible.
Yes you could make the argument that SC2 is made by artists, not scientists, and that there are a lot of gaps, but I am trying my very best to explain things or write them off; Fungal bothered me, I consulted a mycologist. :it's all part of the process! Turns out fungal is controversial for more than just balance!
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Sorry if I sounded mean there, it's just that there is method to my madness and if you take exception as passionately as you have, please show me where I am wrong in the method so I can correct my madness! I didn't mean to be a jerk, I am just letting you know the rationale behind my logic/training and was recently given "the business" on youtube by a different subscriber as interested and passionate as you. So, there it is! Thanks so much for feedback, People like you will turn "Anatomy of Starcraft" into (as planned) "Anatomy of Science Fiction" and eventually I will be the Lady Gaga of science...or at least maybe one day I can make a difference educating and using context to engage the audience!
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Yeah, the atmosphere theory falls in the initiation phase. But if fungal growth requires sugar for rapid development, it could be that the infestor shoots out nutrients together with the spores (and this where the celebrated... comes into the picture again.)
While the nutrients are digested, the spores have rapid growth. Once they run out, the growths just die.
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Are you perhaps able to provide an explanation why infestation gave Kerrigan high-heel things as part of her body (seen in the cinematic where she battles Zeratul)?  It seems a little... Uh. Impractical.
Also the Fungal Growth video was absolutely disgusting. I like it! :D
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Now for what is perhaps the most interesting part of the mutalisk...the glaive wurm launching. This is certainly an exaptation (a part that has been re-purposed evolutionarily) of an anus. This orifice seems to have been expanded and reinforced by claw-like things that surround it on 4 corners. This makes me strongly think that the origins of the wurm are actually an intestinal parasite which was re-purposed to cause damage, perhaps using explosive gases (which can be really cheap and easy to get, like Hydrogen) or more likely a strong acid that has had green added for effect (as most of the strong acids are clear). It is possible that along with abdominal contractions the wurm is launched with some sort of lighter-than-air gas (perhaps a small hydrogen explosion with a muscle contraction used to make a biological firing chamber.) Give it an ability to bounce around, which I have no idea about because I can't find a pic of a glaive wurm, and you have something that can cause considerable damage in a group of units.
You know, I think it is probably vaspene gas. That stuff is green, and you need a hell of a lot of it to spawn a mutalisk, so it seems quite plausible that this is what all that gas is used for.
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You all heard the expert, the alternative to a fungus is a protist, but I am not convinced on this either. It's just like the siphon ability, it doesn't make sense. If the fungus is eating nutrients provided by the infestor, then dies when they are done, how exactly is it damaging units at all? It would be kinda like giving the suits some athletes foot...annoying, inconvenient and probably stinky, but ultimately not really all that effective at eating through neosteel or shields, for example.
Vespene would have to be lighter than air, which it appears to be, and it does look like they use a green gas to fire out the glaive wurm. Neat!
Kerrigan has heels because developers sometimes have autism.
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On September 22 2012 08:05 Ponera wrote:
You all heard the expert, the alternative to a fungus is a protist, but I am not convinced on this either. It's just like the siphon ability, it doesn't make sense. If the fungus is eating nutrients provided by the infestor, then dies when they are done, how exactly is it damaging units at all? It would be kinda like giving the suits some athletes foot...annoying, inconvenient and probably stinky, but ultimately not really all that effective at eating through neosteel or shields, for example.
Vespene would have to be lighter than air, which it appears to be, and it does look like they use a green gas to fire out the glaive wurm. Neat!
Kerrigan has heels because developers sometimes have autism.
I thought it was pretty clear that Kerrigan having boobs and high heels was the Zerg starting to branch out their brand and attract some new talent through sex appeal.
Also, this thread is awesome and I thank you for making it and brightening up my day.
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I'm writing something similar to this in my mom's basement.
User was banned for this post.
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Nice write up, and very interesting read, hope to see more in the future
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That Fungal Growth video was one of the most epic things I've listened to ever. Well done, Az/Ponera!
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Thanks! Yeah there is more to come from Az, I'm sure, but I haven't talked to her as there is a conference going on and I am going out to the field tomorrow! Hooray for making money while basically road tripping with a friend and helicoptering around the back country.
Alch, what are you writing in your mom's basement?
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You should do the baneling next. I've seen some calculations somewhere for its explosiveness. I think the baneling short story has some examples.
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This is really cool, is it possible to put them all into the first post to we don't have to search through the pages? Or is there a character limit?
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If someone compiled links for me I'd edit the first post but I'm looking at new content whenever I'm working on this project.
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The photoshop of the "new" zergling is really cool, nice job!
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amazing work. I can understand a lot of it, currently studying biomedical science and I had the idea of doing something similar but I don't have enough knowledge/experience to actually do one of these analyses myself. Therefor I really appreciate these!!
It's incredibly interesting.
I couldn't find anything about burrow charge; is it possible for a creatue of that enormous size?
And why did you mock the eye placement of the ultralisks?
Again, love the work!
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I mock a lot of things about these creatures. The ultras line of site would be bad for locating its victims.
Its potentially possible depending on substrate and how they use their claws. I may do a separate episode about it as I have some good insight into burrowing. I'll upload something from my hotel tonight if their net isn't total crap.
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EPT
