|
On May 02 2011 16:38 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2011 06:14 MindRush wrote:
nice read, but the zerg section explains just how drones create buildings on creep. From your explaination, hatcheries can only be built on creep, or by the initial overlord. Please make a plausible statement that a drone morphing into a hatchery gets extra energy from the 300 minerals or something and creep is not needed for initial building placement. The initial creep is either spread by the initial overlord who lost this ability afterwards or the protohatch came in a bubble with creep or protocreep, so some of it splashed onto the ground and very quickly grew to common creep. Another explanation would be that the overlord arrives with 7 drones and 350 minerals and one drone builds the hatch, but I think that the zerg have faster ways to establish a new base. The initial hatchery is created without creep as the drone was genetically engineered to have this ability because hatcheries are essential. I will include an explanation in the OP which assumes that the hatchery has a creep-generating organ which functions already during the morphing so when the construction is cancelled, some creep is still left on the ground.
was referring to the hatcheries drones create after initial hatchery
OP only explains building on creep, whereas drones can build other hatcheries off creep
|
wow alot of hard work put into that i see.. amazing job, creds to u!!
|
Yeah, I enjoyed the read and definitely can appreciate the hard work put into this by yourself and the community.
|
you are correct in that, as we can't predict what the "gas" for the lack of better wording is ( what kinda compound), It might be wise to leave it out.
|
wow impressive wright up! cant wait to read more. great job, thanks for the hard work.
|
On May 06 2011 05:30 MindRush wrote:
was referring to the hatcheries drones create after initial hatchery
OP only explains building on creep, whereas drones can build other hatcheries off creep Recently, the OP was extended:
"As a hatchery is essential to establish a brood, every drone has the complete DNA incorporated to morph into this structure. It can do so even without existing creep because the hatchery has a creep-generating organ which is active during the transformation already. Even when the drone is ordered to cancel the morphing and gets back to its original form with a very fast retrogression of its organs, some creep is left on the ground."
|
Good work son. I am .. proud ..
Terran was very well written
|
Dude great post, very interesting, and most of it is legical,
|
This thread is NICE! Extremely nerdy, but nice!
Just wanted to point out something I consider impossible:
It is not yet fully understood how this telepathic link from Overlords to their underlings works, even though some mind control devices were already build. Zerg experts assume that the zerg evolved – or were genetically engineered to have – a part of their brain or even a dedicated organ to be a biological radio wave transmitter. Analyzing and recreating some patters was enough to get some zergs under control or to slow down a small group of zergs.
Problems I see:
The only way I know (correct me if I´m wrong!) to get biological molecules (proteins, DNA, lipids, whatever) to emit energy in the radio wave spectrum is during spin relaxation of atom nuclei in the molecules (see the NMR method for this). And this only occurs in measurable amounts in magnetic fields of high strength. Even though some bacteria are know to have organelles they use to "feel" the magnetic field of earth (the so called "magnetosomes" of Magnetospirillum magnetotacticum) I really can't see an overlord produce a magnetic field strong enough (we talk about super-cooled magnets , weighting several tons)
Even if any organism could produce radio waves in whatever way, there were several other problems
To mention a few: Information transport is nearly impossible, since you cant modulate the signal wavelength, and turning it on and of takes a long time.
Also, the overlord itself would absorb most of the signal.
The signal would be extremely weak. Due to the thermal noise (waves emitted by stars, the planets, the air, the organisms etc. in the radio wave spectrum) the signal would be extremely easily lost.
More conventional solutions to this:
If I were you, I would think about the overlord "telepathic link" more in the directions of sound and light. Light producing organs (or organisms) are well known, some fish incorporate bioluminiscent bacteria in special organs. Light pulses could be used to transport information easily.
Overlords could also produce ultrasound (like bats), to "sing the song of mind-control". Easy information transport etc.
All units with connection to the ground could also use infrasound to spread information in areas of some squarekilometres easily (see elephants for example). The zerglings themselves could act as a swarm by feeling the vibrations of their surrounding and tapping with their legs (this is typical for many insects). So it would be sufficient for the "telepathic" signals of overlords to reach very few units, and then be relayed by other means.
|
The laws of physics state that anything invisible cannot see anything because the light that would reach the things eyes are passing around it. Throughout human history, this has been proven true. Banshees use specialized goggles that feed battlefield information to the pilot, and even though the pilot cannot see anything outside of the cockpit, him or her can still find and destroy its targets. Satellites pinpoint the banshees position and feed radio information through sensors on its hull, and vice versa. This way, the satellite is "Seeing" what the banshee sees, even though the banshee itself is effectively blind. Ghosts use specialized goggles that can see objects on every wavelength, just not the visible spectrum, as the visible spectrum bends around the ghost. Banshees are also equipped with similar sensors. Dark Templar can psionically sense everything around them, and Observers function the same way ghosts do. They simply see all other spectrums but the visible spectrum.
|
hegeo, yes, the radio wave explanation raises some issues. But electromagnetic rays work in space, too; while sound does not. Light is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum. I admit that the current explanation with a biological transmitter / receiver has some weak points, but I rather would try to fix the weak points instead of making it more complicated with using a variety of possible communication options.
Since zerg were altered by the Xel'Naga, we can suspect a kind of "intelligent design" to create this ability. If we look at the eye of mammalians (the eye senses a part of the electromagnetic spectrum) with a focusable objective lens and automatic aperture, all this with very high resolution – isn't that amazing? Even better, our brain automatically detects a lot of stuff like different movements and also filters out things which we don't need to see. If we look at a human face, we instantly detects its emotion, often we are not able to explain how we can do it. Higher mammalians are also able to interpret the emotion of others.
Similar filters in zerg could be able to use a weak signal with incomplete information to still follow the Overlord's orders.
How can the Overlord create a oscillator circuit? I have no clue, but I just assume he can. And that he has body parts which can be used as an antenna. If he uses short wave, he can broadcast to a great area with little energy. Even without reflection of the space wave at the ionosphere, the ground wave should be reaching far enough to control any underling on the battle field.
Kinetik_Inferno, I would assume that the Banshee stealth technology works with very small cameras which film the surrounding area and project it on the hull which acts as monitor. But your explanation nicely avoids questions like "if it uses cameras, we should see at least the camera lenses and hence, be able to locate it." I added it to the "Additional details" section.
|
Do you plan to post it on the official forums one of these days? I'm sure people there would find it interesting as well.
|
On May 07 2011 18:39 hegeo wrote:
Just wanted to point out something I consider impossible:
...
More conventional solutions to this:
If I were you, I would think about the overlord "telepathic link"
yada yada
It'd be more reasonable to assume that overlords command their underlings using evolved pheromones. Obviously this only works over a few miles even after stretching one's imagination, so cerebrate-overlord communication would have to be psionic (ie a wizard did it).
|
Pheromones need a medium to be transported. Overlords need to give specific commands to their underlings, they need something with quite high information density.
|
@ Eiviyn
Yeah, thought of that too, but pheromones would diffuse way to slow for what the OP wants the overlords to be. He imagines more of a direct link between two units to allow the overlords to directly control every single zerling.
@[F_]aths
If you really want the zergs to have radiowave communication, so be it. Just thought this thread was intended to describe the starcraft universe as realistically as possible (just kidding ;-) so I just proposed ways of communication well established in nature, which could make the whole overlord-communication sound more "organic", Radio frequencies, encoded for every single unit sounds extremely technical and somewhat non-biological to me.
I think with this you also underestimate "swarm intelligence" and the self organization of large groups of animals (see ants for example, or hunting wolves etc.). A simple order (attack, retreat) by an overlord would be sufficient for the whole group of zergs to obey in a highly logical and "intelligent" fashion.
Another thing: I think there should be a section to explain why gravity and atmosphere are (at least nearly) equal on every planet and especially every space station. Since Xel'Naga-watchtowers are found on every map, it would be straightforward to assume that they invented a system that allowed them to have an environment equal to their homeworld wherever they settled (powered by the same source as the watchtowers perhaps? idk).
Why do we need atmosphere and gravity?
a) without gravity (especially on these flying rocks like scrap station) marines would just fly away when shooting, tanks would shoot their projectiles into space (no parabolic trajectory), etc. and since the range of the tanks doesn't change from one planet to another, gravity should be the same everywhere.
b) an atmosphere is needed for the banshee to fly (helicopter rotors!) as well as for the mutalisk and the broodlords (wings). And we need an atmosphere, since we hear all the gunshots and explosions on every map, so there needs to be a medium to transport sound waves.
|
I'm not sure if this has been pointed out, but in regards to medivacs transferring energy it doesn't make sense in relation to the idea that medivacs can heal zerg units (also seen in the campaign w/ mind control towers) / protoss bio as well
|
I cant beleive how much time and effort you put into that hahahaha, that's sick, very good read! 
|
On May 09 2011 02:52 hegeo wrote:
Yeah, thought of that too, but pheromones would diffuse way to slow for what the OP wants the overlords to be. He imagines more of a direct link between two units to allow the overlords to directly control every single zerling.
Pheromones are actually surprisingly fast.
Even if they were slow, however, I envisage overlord commands to be rather simplistic. Ant pheromones offer such simple commands as attack, run away and regroup, which is about the level of complexity that I imagine overlord commands would be. Like ants, the individual creatures would fill in the blanks themselves (how and what to attack).
|
On May 09 2011 08:02 Eiviyn wrote:
Pheromones are actually surprisingly fast.
Even if they were slow, however, I envisage overlord commands to be rather simplistic. Ant pheromones offer such simple commands as attack, run away and regroup, which is about the level of complexity that I imagine overlord commands would be. Like ants, the individual creatures would fill in the blanks themselves (how and what to attack).
You're right, I already wrote exactly the same in my post:
I think with this you also underestimate "swarm intelligence" and the self organization of large groups of animals (see ants for example, or hunting wolves etc.). A simple order (attack, retreat) by an overlord would be sufficient for the whole group of zergs to obey in a highly logical and "intelligent" fashion.
I still would think the addition of other means of communication (as in bee hives etc.) have to be considered additionally, since pheromones will need at least a minute to diffuse through air (We talk about an overlord flying like 250 feet over the battlefield - even though this time is just a rough estimate, since I really don't want to calculate the diffusion of these small molecules).
The pheromones could be used for more or less "general" commands and control of zerglings, while sound could be for short term reactions (which is by the way of course nothing unusual in nature).
|
I don't think looking at "real-life" communications is relevant.
In Starcraft, the terran use "psi" disruptor or emitters to mimic zerg communications, so whatever link the zerg have with one another is psionic in nature - aka something fictionnal that is not directly related to radio waves. And psionic signals are known to reach across worlds.
Besides, the Overmind was a hive mind, the collective conscience of all zerg - he didn't command the zerg as much as he was the zerg. The Overlords, and to a lesser extent the Cerebrates, were mere relays. I don't think the Overmind's commands were technically "orders", just as you don't "order" your fingers to move - they just follow your will.
Bees or ants colony are a lot more complex that each individual insect, but there is no such conscience.
In other words, I'd rather consider the Swarm as a single entity, with the Overmind being the equivalent of the brain, the zerg as the various limbs, and the overlords as the nerves - though they don't have to be in physical contact with the zerg to transmit orders, as they use psionic calls.
Of course each individual zerg also have its own brain and limbs, which makes things a little confusing, but the "Swarm" works on a higher level.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
