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On November 07 2007 04:24 zer0das wrote:
For the last time, the rules governing chemical bonding and electronic excitation don't change just because they're Protoss. No, they cannot absorb gamma rays, any bonds in their body would dissociate so quickly without any shielding it wouldn't even be funny, psionic powers be damned. There's a reason Gamma Ray Bursters could wipe out large swaths of life. As already mentioned, IR is less energetic than visible light, and generally only vibrationally excites molecules. Molecules absorb UV very weakly (sigma or n electrons must be excited to sigma star, not an easy process), and the fact that organic ones tend to dissociate in it makes it even less feasible. Not to mention there's probably an ozone on Aiur due to the green plants, which is a third strike on this.
Could a humanoid like creature that is an autotroph arise? Maybe... but not with the traits the Protoss have.
Although I'm sure there's different ways life could come about other than the way it has here on Earth, Blizzard hasn't put out something even slightly feasible. I doubt they'll change the skin color of Protoss to green either, lest anyone cries orcs in space again. They could just go "It's a parallel universe! The laws of physics are a bunch of lies!" but they'd be stupid to do so. My guess is they thought they'd be clever and throw out something pseudo scientific to impress people, but they neglected the part where they make it clever and feasible.
uhh maybe protoss "life" is different? they might be based off building blocks other than our familiar amino acids, with hereditary information stored in mechanisms other than DNA. I see no reason why gamma radiation would be damaging, as long as their makeup is stable in the presence of high energy...
also the reason why plants absorb red light is because of the electrons are part of the chlorin ring with magnesium center, and the numerous conjugated double bonds lowers the absorption spectra into the visible range. however less conjugation = higher absorption spectra, giving rise to the possibility that there can exist things that absorb other than visible light... and actually, photosynthetic bacteria do exist that actually proliferate in infared/darker red (the infared that you said only "vibrates" molecules) range. chlorophyll evolved because of the dominant presence of visible light on earth. the reason why things don't absorb UV is because of the vulnerability of DNA to mutation when it is exposed to UV light. if other planets such as auir received drastically different electromagnetic radiation than we do on earth, i'm sure their life would deal more with the radiation they receive, and not the visible light we have
also their green plants could operate by completely different mechanisms than ours on earth. green simply means that they do not absorb green light, but that could be a byproduct of a pigment they have that absorbs other EM radiation, and it just happens that green light was one of the higher quanta level that they don't absorb.
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For the record...
The sun provides about 10 kcal/mol (of photons) of energy (at least that's what hits us). Most bonds (organic ones, but all bonds are on the same order or two) take around 100 kcal/mol to cleave them. UV is anywhere from 10-100 kcal/mol. Gamma rays give off 9.4*10^7 kcal/mol (just to illustrate a point... 94000000 kcal/mol). Anything hit by a gamma ray is going to form radicals and ions very easily, which is going to set off a chain reaction that is going to do god knows what, and that is a very bad thing for anything living. "High" energy is a bit of an understatement...
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On November 07 2007 07:42 LeoTheLion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2007 04:24 zer0das wrote:
For the last time, the rules governing chemical bonding and electronic excitation don't change just because they're Protoss. No, they cannot absorb gamma rays, any bonds in their body would dissociate so quickly without any shielding it wouldn't even be funny, psionic powers be damned. There's a reason Gamma Ray Bursters could wipe out large swaths of life. As already mentioned, IR is less energetic than visible light, and generally only vibrationally excites molecules. Molecules absorb UV very weakly (sigma or n electrons must be excited to sigma star, not an easy process), and the fact that organic ones tend to dissociate in it makes it even less feasible. Not to mention there's probably an ozone on Aiur due to the green plants, which is a third strike on this.
Could a humanoid like creature that is an autotroph arise? Maybe... but not with the traits the Protoss have. This is why people bring up endosymbiosis, like a coral. Such creatures exist in real life. Show nested quote +Although I'm sure there's different ways life could come about other than the way it has here on Earth, Blizzard hasn't put out something even slightly feasible. I doubt they'll change the skin color of Protoss to green either, lest anyone cries orcs in space again. They could just go "It's a parallel universe! The laws of physics are a bunch of lies!" but they'd be stupid to do so. My guess is they thought they'd be clever and throw out something pseudo scientific to impress people, but they neglected the part where they make it clever and feasible. uhh maybe protoss "life" is different? they might be based off building blocks other than our familiar amino acids, with hereditary information stored in mechanisms other than DNA. I see no reason why gamma radiation would be damaging, as long as their makeup is stable in the presence of high energy... also the reason why plants absorb red light is because of the electrons are part of the chlorin ring with magnesium center, and the numerous conjugated double bonds lowers the absorption spectra into the visible range. however less conjugation = higher absorption spectra, giving rise to the possibility that there can exist things that absorb other than visible light... and actually, photosynthetic bacteria do exist that actually proliferate in infared/darker red (the infared that you said only "vibrates" molecules) range. chlorophyll evolved because of the dominant presence of visible light on earth. the reason why things don't absorb UV is because of the vulnerability of DNA to mutation when it is exposed to UV light. if other planets such as auir received drastically different electromagnetic radiation than we do on earth, i'm sure their life would deal more with the radiation they receive, and not the visible light we have also their green plants could operate by completely different mechanisms than ours on earth. green simply means that they do not absorb green light, but that could be a byproduct of a pigment they have that absorbs other EM radiation, and it just happens that green light was one of the higher quanta level that they don't absorb.
I agree with most of your points except the part about DNA. Dark Origin made it clear that Zerg and Protoss both use DNA.
Also the point about absorbing the "wrong" type of light. Bees can see ultraviolet light, so presumably it's biologically possible to store some wavelenghts of UV light. (Artanis might look "black" under a UV lamp.) However, the basic rules of biology forbid absorbing gamma radiation.
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On November 07 2007 08:52 Kimera757 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2007 07:42 LeoTheLion wrote:On November 07 2007 04:24 zer0das wrote:
For the last time, the rules governing chemical bonding and electronic excitation don't change just because they're Protoss. No, they cannot absorb gamma rays, any bonds in their body would dissociate so quickly without any shielding it wouldn't even be funny, psionic powers be damned. There's a reason Gamma Ray Bursters could wipe out large swaths of life. As already mentioned, IR is less energetic than visible light, and generally only vibrationally excites molecules. Molecules absorb UV very weakly (sigma or n electrons must be excited to sigma star, not an easy process), and the fact that organic ones tend to dissociate in it makes it even less feasible. Not to mention there's probably an ozone on Aiur due to the green plants, which is a third strike on this.
Could a humanoid like creature that is an autotroph arise? Maybe... but not with the traits the Protoss have. This is why people bring up endosymbiosis, like a coral. Such creatures exist in real life. Although I'm sure there's different ways life could come about other than the way it has here on Earth, Blizzard hasn't put out something even slightly feasible. I doubt they'll change the skin color of Protoss to green either, lest anyone cries orcs in space again. They could just go "It's a parallel universe! The laws of physics are a bunch of lies!" but they'd be stupid to do so. My guess is they thought they'd be clever and throw out something pseudo scientific to impress people, but they neglected the part where they make it clever and feasible. uhh maybe protoss "life" is different? they might be based off building blocks other than our familiar amino acids, with hereditary information stored in mechanisms other than DNA. I see no reason why gamma radiation would be damaging, as long as their makeup is stable in the presence of high energy... also the reason why plants absorb red light is because of the electrons are part of the chlorin ring with magnesium center, and the numerous conjugated double bonds lowers the absorption spectra into the visible range. however less conjugation = higher absorption spectra, giving rise to the possibility that there can exist things that absorb other than visible light... and actually, photosynthetic bacteria do exist that actually proliferate in infared/darker red (the infared that you said only "vibrates" molecules) range. chlorophyll evolved because of the dominant presence of visible light on earth. the reason why things don't absorb UV is because of the vulnerability of DNA to mutation when it is exposed to UV light. if other planets such as auir received drastically different electromagnetic radiation than we do on earth, i'm sure their life would deal more with the radiation they receive, and not the visible light we have also their green plants could operate by completely different mechanisms than ours on earth. green simply means that they do not absorb green light, but that could be a byproduct of a pigment they have that absorbs other EM radiation, and it just happens that green light was one of the higher quanta level that they don't absorb. However, the basic rules of biology forbid absorbing gamma radiation.
Nah, living things can absorb gamma radiation... and then fragment many times and react in exciting and painful ways.
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lol, this is funny stuff.
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what about Dark Templar? doesnt the name alone contradict the "fact" that they absorb photons for breakfast?
+how do they eat if sun shines right through their cloak
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On November 05 2007 02:05 XMShake wrote:
If plantoss are autotrophs, my firebats should do more damage to them.
WTF, is this pokemon now? =p
Op, i think you're reading way too much into it, but if it makes you happy, HF =]\
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On November 07 2007 10:59 [angst]chraej wrote:
what about Dark Templar? doesnt the name alone contradict the "fact" that they absorb photons for breakfast?
+how do they eat if sun shines right through their cloak
If im not mistaken Dark Templar are called that because they strayed from the "normal Protoss" path of life and not cause they cloak.
And the cloaking is because they bend the lightwaves around them not that they are transparent.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoautotroph
says:
The bacteriochlorophyll pigment absorbs light in the extreme UV and infra-red parts of the spectrum which is outside the range used by normal chlorophyll.
So, possible.
I think shakuras is also supposed to emit light from underground, if you look at the doodads.
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Post too long, didn't read.
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On November 07 2007 08:45 zer0das wrote:
For the record...
The sun provides about 10 kcal/mol (of photons) of energy (at least that's what hits us). Most bonds (organic ones, but all bonds are on the same order or two) take around 100 kcal/mol to cleave them. UV is anywhere from 10-100 kcal/mol. Gamma rays give off 9.4*10^7 kcal/mol (just to illustrate a point... 94000000 kcal/mol). Anything hit by a gamma ray is going to form radicals and ions very easily, which is going to set off a chain reaction that is going to do god knows what, and that is a very bad thing for anything living. "High" energy is a bit of an understatement...
I think he missworded that and intended to say UV rays. Gamma rays are extremely impossible, it would be like thinking that any form of life can exist on the sun.
On November 07 2007 08:52 Kimera757 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2007 07:42 LeoTheLion wrote:On November 07 2007 04:24 zer0das wrote:
For the last time, the rules governing chemical bonding and electronic excitation don't change just because they're Protoss. No, they cannot absorb gamma rays, any bonds in their body would dissociate so quickly without any shielding it wouldn't even be funny, psionic powers be damned. There's a reason Gamma Ray Bursters could wipe out large swaths of life. As already mentioned, IR is less energetic than visible light, and generally only vibrationally excites molecules. Molecules absorb UV very weakly (sigma or n electrons must be excited to sigma star, not an easy process), and the fact that organic ones tend to dissociate in it makes it even less feasible. Not to mention there's probably an ozone on Aiur due to the green plants, which is a third strike on this.
Could a humanoid like creature that is an autotroph arise? Maybe... but not with the traits the Protoss have. This is why people bring up endosymbiosis, like a coral. Such creatures exist in real life. Although I'm sure there's different ways life could come about other than the way it has here on Earth, Blizzard hasn't put out something even slightly feasible. I doubt they'll change the skin color of Protoss to green either, lest anyone cries orcs in space again. They could just go "It's a parallel universe! The laws of physics are a bunch of lies!" but they'd be stupid to do so. My guess is they thought they'd be clever and throw out something pseudo scientific to impress people, but they neglected the part where they make it clever and feasible. uhh maybe protoss "life" is different? they might be based off building blocks other than our familiar amino acids, with hereditary information stored in mechanisms other than DNA. I see no reason why gamma radiation would be damaging, as long as their makeup is stable in the presence of high energy... also the reason why plants absorb red light is because of the electrons are part of the chlorin ring with magnesium center, and the numerous conjugated double bonds lowers the absorption spectra into the visible range. however less conjugation = higher absorption spectra, giving rise to the possibility that there can exist things that absorb other than visible light... and actually, photosynthetic bacteria do exist that actually proliferate in infared/darker red (the infared that you said only "vibrates" molecules) range. chlorophyll evolved because of the dominant presence of visible light on earth. the reason why things don't absorb UV is because of the vulnerability of DNA to mutation when it is exposed to UV light. if other planets such as auir received drastically different electromagnetic radiation than we do on earth, i'm sure their life would deal more with the radiation they receive, and not the visible light we have also their green plants could operate by completely different mechanisms than ours on earth. green simply means that they do not absorb green light, but that could be a byproduct of a pigment they have that absorbs other EM radiation, and it just happens that green light was one of the higher quanta level that they don't absorb. I agree with most of your points except the part about DNA. Dark Origin made it clear that Zerg and Protoss both use DNA. Also the point about absorbing the "wrong" type of light. Bees can see ultraviolet light, so presumably it's biologically possible to store some wavelenghts of UV light. (Artanis might look "black" under a UV lamp.) However, the basic rules of biology forbid absorbing gamma radiation.
Well, i think that the toss really dont have DNA but Blizzard worded their genetics DNA just to make people understand what they are talking about.
Also even if they got DNA they dont need to have them distributed the same way we do, for example if they didnt have any growth in the outer layers of their skin and thus didnt have any DNA there they wouldnt be vulnerable to UV radiation at all and thus can live from it easily. I mean, we have a full copy of our DNA in every cell, wich is highly excessive.
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On November 07 2007 10:59 [angst]chraej wrote:
what about Dark Templar? doesnt the name alone contradict the "fact" that they absorb photons for breakfast?
+how do they eat if sun shines right through their cloak
Maybe they only cloak in combat. The game is an RTS; there's a universe "behind" it. They uncloak and the Zealots take off their armor in the Protoss sunlight bars 
Klockan
Well, i think that the toss really dont have DNA but Blizzard worded their genetics DNA just to make people understand what they are talking about.
No, I think you're wrong.
Zerg can infest Terrans because both use DNA. The Hybrids couldn't exist unless the Protoss also used DNA.
Also even if they got DNA they dont need to have them distributed the same way we do, for example if they didnt have any growth in the outer layers of their skin and thus didnt have any DNA there they wouldnt be vulnerable to UV radiation at all and thus can live from it easily. I mean, we have a full copy of our DNA in every cell, wich is highly excessive.
This makes a bit more sense. This brings up all kinds of questions like "how are the photosynthetic compounds getting to those dead cells" but maybe they've got a kind of red-blood-cell thing going on. Then there's the question of energy transferral to the not-about-to-die cells...
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On November 07 2007 07:34 zer0das wrote:
If you think the laws of chemistry are more forgiving than physics... well, not really. Matter does whatever the hell it wants, and you just deal with it. I'd say there's far more undiscovered things in physics, which would make seemingly exotic things very possible.
I just have to answer this btw, since breaking the laws of fysics is fun!
Now lets say that the protoss evolved a way to convert electromagnetic waves into matter. Also they evolved a way to convert matter into energy in a usefull way. Now they are walking nuclear powerplants! Also if we say they convert them itno electrons, the UV rays wouldnt be able to damage the cells due to excessive amounths of electrons making the free radicals harmless.
How does it work you say? Well, it uses the same principles as teleports and stasis fields 
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-View Larger Size-
This image shows the power on a particular surface provided by sunlight (to the earth) according to the different wavelengths in sunlight. The yellow sections show the amount of power at the top of our atmosphere while the red shows how much would be on the same-sized area but at sea level.
According to wikipedia, about half the energy provided by sunlight is in the visible part of the EM spectrum. The other almost-half of the energy is below that in the infrared part of the spectrum. UV light is only the very small portion that's left over. A few scant UV photons are going to power a physical form as impressive as a Protoss? We generally don't bother with solar panels that collect energy in UV range because there simply isn't enough energy there to justify the expense. Plants know where it's at.
To emit additional, high energy light, Aiur's star would have to be much hotter and would probably start killing off most life forms on Aiur's surface (I would guess). That's even assuming the Protoss can absorb UV light in the first place, which is so remote that it defeats Blizzard specifying that the Protoss can live off sunlight in the first place.
Also, I'm no expert on biology, chemistry and certainly not biochemistry, but "higher" life forms tend to require far more energy in comparison to "lower" life forms. They're more complex and are greater concentrations of matter and energy. Higher life forms live by consuming lower life forms. This leaves human beings with a very large energy requirements in comparison to the physical acts we perform. Protoss, on the other hand, would be even more complex considering their additional functions (like psionics and light absorption) as well as their greater intelligence, durability, strength, speed. For me to believe that it can survive on a small fraction of what a human survives upon doesn't make sense to me.
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On November 07 2007 22:40 Klockan3 wrote:I just have to answer this btw, since breaking the laws of fysics is fun! Now lets say that the protoss evolved a way to convert electromagnetic waves into matter. Also they evolved a way to convert matter into energy in a usefull way. Now they are walking nuclear powerplants! Also if we say they convert them itno electrons, the UV rays wouldnt be able to damage the cells due to excessive amounths of electrons making the free radicals harmless. How does it work you say? Well, it uses the same principles as teleports and stasis fields
That would use so much energy it wouldn't run on the sunlight it collects. Unless of course you want to appeal to a magic kind of psionics that can generate energy from nothing, in which case I'm not sure why you'd need the Protoss to absorb light at all? (Making matter with their limitless energy source?)
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On November 07 2007 23:26 Tiptup wrote:+ Show Spoiler +-View Larger Size-This image shows the power on a particular surface provided by sunlight (to the earth) according to the different wavelengths in sunlight. The yellow sections show the amount of power at the top of our atmosphere while the red shows how much would be on the same-sized area but at sea level. According to wikipedia, about half the energy provided by sunlight is in the visible part of the EM spectrum. The other almost-half of the energy is below that in the infrared part of the spectrum. UV light is only the very small portion that's left over. A few scant UV photons are going to power a physical form as impressive as a Protoss? We generally don't bother with solar panels that collect energy in UV range because there simply isn't enough energy there to justify the expense. Plants know where it's at. To emit additional, high energy light, Aiur's star would have to be much hotter and would probably start killing off most life forms on Aiur's surface (I would guess). That's even assuming the Protoss can absorb UV light in the first place, which is so remote that it defeats Blizzard specifying that the Protoss can live off sunlight in the first place. Also, I'm no expert on biology, chemistry and certainly not biochemistry, but "higher" life forms tend to require far more energy in comparison to "lower" life forms. They're more complex and are greater concentrations of matter and energy. Higher life forms live by consuming lower life forms. This leaves human beings with a very large energy requirements in comparison to the physical acts we perform. Protoss, on the other hand, would be even more complex considering their additional functions (like psionics and light absorption) as well as their greater intelligence, durability, strength, speed. For me to believe that it can survive on a small fraction of what a human survives upon doesn't make sense to me.
Heres how it works:
Hotter mats makes higher frequencies on the electro magnetic waves. Further distance from the star makes it colder. As such you can easily have earth like temperature on aiur at the same time as you have much higher UV simply by having the star as a very hot one together with having aiur further away from it, or making it a smaller star such as a white dwarf.
However in such an envoirment Aiur wouldnt be very green etc. But really, this is taking this thing way to far in a game were obvious fantasy aspects such as teleports, stasis fields, warping, wings in space, full body armor several inches thick, hovering factories, storms conjured from thin air and broodlings instant killing tanks exist.
That would use so much energy it wouldn't run on the sunlight it collects.
I was allowed to change the laws of fysics, in this case transforming matter to energy and back gives 100% conversion and no waste at all in the forms of heat or spilled light.
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On November 07 2007 23:38 Klockan3 wrote:
But really, this is taking this thing way to far in a game were obvious fantasy aspects such as teleports, stasis fields, warping, wings in space, full body armor several inches thick, hovering factories, storms conjured from thin air and broodlings instant killing tanks exist.
Why? Last time I checked, Blizzard didn't try to tell us that those ran on sunlight.
I was allowed to change the laws of fysics, in this case transforming matter to energy and back gives 100% conversion and no waste at all in the forms of heat or spilled light.
You're taking all the science out of science fiction. There's no fun left in the genre after that. 
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My main objection was always that the amount of energy required by the Protoss would be much more than either UV or IR could provide (also taking into account the inefficiencies of the processes used to convert them to usable energy). Although I'm a bit surprised that there are plants out there that could subsist on IR, after a little digging it does seem doable given the right conditions (ie, the sun emits a lot of IR- although to power a humanoid, I think it'd have to be quite a bit more). UV still seems really sketchy to me for reasons already mentioned, but neh.
Anywho, there's still the problem of where do the Protoss get their minerals from... or you know, anything in their bodies that isn't carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. They're almost certainly going to need some metals in their body to have the structures necessary to convert the light to energy, not to mention the structures that build those structures (enzymes), etc, etc. This is probably just as big an issue, especially since they don't drink water (it diffuses through their skin!).
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you make some great points, i'll give you that. there's probably a few possibilities for the apparent contradiction by blizzard. it might be that the guy who came up with the answer for that particular Q&A is new to blizzard and not well versed on the original creator's vision of the protoss race, and thus made up a seemingly appropriate answer at the time.
or it's also possible that the world of starcraft does not follow the same trend as the real world does. what i mean by this is that a being with bodily features and functions that seem appropriate, both logically and evolutionary, for carnivorous beings, might not be so. why might this be the case? well, as you quoted, the xel-naga created them for one. they evolved in the telepathic sense, yes, but i think we have to assume that many of their other attributes (opposable thumbs, intelligently capable mind, body structure) were already in such a form at the time of their creation.
so while in the real world it is not beneficial for a plant to move around or have consciousness, for the protoss, it is beneficial to have those said qualities, and also to gain nutrition effortlessly. however, there is certainly a problem that they perhaps "used to" hunt. this implicates that they were once carnivores but now are not, and perhaps, as one user suggested, evolved into these light and moisture absorbing beings.
it seems unlikely that this would have happened because the protoss live for thousands of years and as we know, evolution does not occur during ones life, but over generations. losing the need for a stomach, and gaining the wonderful ability to absorb tangible amounts of energy through one's skin would surely take millions, if not billions of generations. i am not well versed on the timeline of the protoss, but from what i remember some of the protoss heroes would say shit like "i've been around for 9000 years since nearly the start of the protoss race". definitely not enough time for the said evolution to have taken place 
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Btw, a much bigger wrongdoing by Blizzard are the deep space monsters. How did they evolve? What do they live on? How in hell do they mate? How can their cells survive traveling through deep space?
Btw, for you that dont know what im talking about, read the zergs story in the manual and youll see that the overmind finds spacemonsters wich are capable of traveling between stars wich he assimilated. Those arent in the game btw, maybe a new zerg capitol ship?
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EPT![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Solar_Spectrum.png/400px-Solar_Spectrum.png)
