EPTAnatomy of Starcraft - Page 5
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whatthefat
United States918 Posts
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JamesArk
Canada37 Posts
But seriously these kick ass, please continue. Scourge would be a funny one. | ||
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fire_brand
Canada1123 Posts
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Ponera
Canada596 Posts
The concept of ultralisks living in swampy environments is as flawed as it was when they thought that dinosaurs had to live in swamps. It just isn't really necessary and is logically a cop-out. I still think the legs are an issue. The horn may well be a cancerous growth, who knows perhaps many of the other random horns and bumps are cancers. It would make sense! As far as the wings of the zergling for heat exchange: dragonflies actively use their wings for heat exchange. They lay them horizontally to heat up and even do a behaviour called "Obelisking" to cool down. If you look at the zerging animation post-speed, they actually do get a little bit of hang time in the air from time to time. This is logically similar to flying fish, who leap out of water to get some speed and some air! I don't like the concept of zerg having genders. I suspect they are all mono-gendered, like all the other superorganisms out there. It would make sense for the units to be sterile males or females, with queens being active reproducers (inject lavae) with male genes being added with additions of new buildings. | ||
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Ponera
Canada596 Posts
By popular demand!! ![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100721022202/starcraft/images/9/9c/Roach_SC2_Head2.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://www.starcraft2dude.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/roach.jpg) The roaches eyes are binocular and likely allow for a great assessment of acid distance shooting, which is a critical tool to have. The lower jaw doesn't properly occlude with the upper jaw...kind of awkward to be honest. Not sure what the purpose is here. Definitely can see that the elements of the lower jaw can be pulled together to form a complete jaw. This function is clearly to eat oversized prey and probably to help them power out that lovely acid spray (despite what I said before, after doing some image gawking I realize that it's likely that the acid comes from their stomach. Derpy move on my part!). Seems this has been adapted to focus largely on the acid distribution rather than functional jaws, which is fine and dandy considering they eat creep or get nourishment from creep or what the hell ever. I am a fan of the cool carapace overhangs that are joined by some membrane of some kind. It's clear that they can pull their head in and as they do this, the carapace overhangs come together to completely cover the head. Nice feature for a burrowing animal.It's also a nice feature for an animal made to take a beating. The carapace collar which this whole aspect fits into is awesome for taking a beating, but would get hung up in the burrowing process (perhaps). The head cover is nicely pointed, so that does help mitigate any burrowing issues. The low to the ground gait of the roach is perfect for taking hits, the orientation of the limbs is also great for taking a hit from above. Not sure why they have spikes sticking upright from their 'knee' joint and why they have so many spikes. They have six standard insecty looking limbs. With the upgrade Glial Reconstitution, they move really fast. This is because the Neuroglia alter the structure of the nerves to allow for more rapid firing, perhaps not even going to the brain to cut out the middleman. This works similar to what happens when you touch a hot stove- you actually pull the hand away before the message is fully relayed, as the message hits a proximal node and sends an immediate "get the fuck out of here" message to the hand. These could easily be coordinated at the node where these axial nervous strands meet up (probably near the front of the animal, at the top of limbs. It means the brain would send a message to move and the limbs would start doing it rapidly via the ventral nerve chord (an insect trait that would serve the roach well as having your nerves bundle on the belly is better for taking massive tank shells with your back, especially on a low to the ground animal. Would be hard to sever the chord!) If the spikes on the knees are growths, it would make a lot more sense as the cellular metabolism is clearly in overdrive when this animal goes into healing mode. Would be easy to get out of hand! The upper claws are really, really vicious. Compact and piercing with a sharpened outer edge, they are formidable weapons. They clearly use these to help burrow through the ground, slicing up the ground in front of them similar to what the Ultralisk would do during a burrow charge. I would not want to meet one of these in a dark alley, as close combat they appear to be even worse than long range (depending on how the acid is). The acid itself is green. I think I mentioned that most strong acids are actually clear. So there must be some additive to make it sticky, which is green. The acid housing is clearly in a large stomach. Again we see the cellular metabolism taking over here- the roach is remarkable in this way. They can manufacture acid, probably hydrofluoric or hyrdochloric acid, exceedingly fast. The stomach lining, throat lining and mouth lining would all be recycled rapidly as well, probably shedding with each expulsion of acid making it even more disgusting to get hit by this acid. If you didn't die from it, you'd almost certainly get some secondary infection as a result. Their fabulous metabolism takes over yet again with the healing powers. Once they go underground, they enter some sort of dormancy that allows them to rapidly regenerate damaged areas, which would explain all the outer growths. For as durable and heal prone as a roach is, it probably is prone to a myriad of chromosomal, auto immune and cancerous diseases. This is a double edged sword. Out of combat, the roach certainly must gorge on nutrients. They also probably have a high mortality due to the aforementioned disease. Not what you'd expect from an animal made to simply not die, but the metabolism and healing aspects come with a heavy price. This genetic code is likely rather unstable as well, given the propensity for mutation that would come with high cellular metabolism. There is likely a basic strand that is used for every roach and if this is damaged, using DNA from a roach that has been alive for a while would be a mistake. It is exactly why cloning isn't viable for humans right now, the DNA strand ages and in the case of the roach, probably starts containing more and more errors in a rapid fashion. Questions, comments, flames, criticisms and all participation greatly appreciated! | ||
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CrazyF1r3f0x
United States2120 Posts
I love this Ponera, keep em coming  I'd be especially interested in the overlord, because all of the units you have analyzed have been combat units, where as the overlord is a multipurpose non-combat unit; that, in terms of the lore, is needed to command the swarm through psychic instruction, as well as server as transport; I truly wonder how its anatomy helps/impedes this function. Reguardless, whatever you analyze, I'll be sure to read <3 | ||
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zylog
Canada943 Posts
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Ponera
Canada596 Posts
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Al Bundy
7257 Posts
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Ponera
Canada596 Posts
Arrogance said: If you think about it, just shooting acid at your enemy over any distance especially onto an armored target, is going to be as effective as a water-gun. However, if the roach actually packages up it's volatile payload of acidic chemicals into little shells much like a shot-gun (based on it's attack animation), the acid could travel further, penetrate more heavily armored targets, and reach it's target with all the chemical components intact. Another Idea to think of is that the roach's payload is probably not one chemical, but two or more, for instance the bombadier beetle on earth stores two chemicals in it's body, hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide. These chemicals can mix together in a speciallized chamber, and then spray out of it's nozzle like rear-end at temperatures exceeding 210 degrees F (over 98 degrees celcius). Video related, it actually even looks like a roach, or at least how a roach should have worked (makes more sense coming out the tail end, then out the mouth) Therefore the roach probably has a primer Protien that initiates the reaction between the acid and several others to enable it to burn through terran and protoss warmachines with ease. If I knew what it was, I would probably make a fortune selling it to world super-powers, fortunately (or unfortunately in my case) I do not. I completely agree with this. So you have a mixture of heat, acid and discarded biological material. Lovely. | ||
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Remfire
492 Posts
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Faust852
Luxembourg4004 Posts
Congratz. | ||
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GhandiEAGLE
United States20754 Posts
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xNSwarm
155 Posts
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Ponera
Canada596 Posts
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bahunto28
Canada262 Posts
1) extraneous features in many species may be related to increasing the possibility of mating. aka a peacocks' feathers. considering that zerg hatcheries produce larvae (hastened by queen injections), this is not likely. 2) vestigial features are often found on a number of organisms who may have had an evolutionary function long since lost. these may be examples of that and who knows, these features may be lost over time. for instance sc3? 3) an unknown function? iirc, zerg broods are controlled by overlords/overmind/cerebrates. perhaps the extra mandible or other like feature house the receptors for said communication (whether sent by phermones or other signalling methods). housing these organs in a hardened structure would help protect them from external damage 4) the extra mandible may be used in the burrowing ability zerg units possess? would have to look at that animation more carefully. anywho, these are the first thoughts i had reading your entries. excellent work! | ||
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bahunto28
Canada262 Posts
On September 08 2012 02:25 Fyrewolf wrote: Indeed, the original sc1 lore states that the larva's primary abilities are replicating various dna strains with very rapid growth, and that the evolutionary breeding of new traits(speedling) occurs within new buildings. To quote the lore directly: "The closest creatures to the original Zerg insectoids are the Zerg Larvae. Although their size and toughness were greatly boosted by the Xel'Naga during their experiments, they still possess the two traits that originally intrigued the ancient masters: genetic versatility and psychic sensitivity. Maggot-like, Zerg Larvae contain within them the genetic code for all other Zerg breeds. When a new breed of Zerg is needed, an individual Larva will enter a pupal state and begin replicating the DNA of one specific Zerg breed at an astounding rate. After a short gestation period, the new mature Zerg hatches. A young hive will only have the genetic code for the most basic of Zerg breeds, such as the Drone, but as it grows and develops new structures, its library of genetic strains is expanded." regarding the last statement, i would not think that there is a library of genetic strains, but rather all potential zerg units/structures are already encoded. it is a matter of gene expression/differentiation that determines which pathway the larvae may take. (assuming they replicate based on universal genetics and not some other unknown mechanism). any other thoughts are probably terran dominion propaganda. | ||
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Aveng3r
United States2411 Posts
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Ponera
Canada596 Posts
As far as mating structures in zerg units, it's pretty obvious that zerg units are all nonreproductives, so having said features would be rather useless. | ||
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Resentable
Canada132 Posts
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