Star Control/WMG: Difference between revisions

* So the Melnorme sold the Slylandro these self-replicating robot probes. The Slylandro screw up the programming and turn the things into an all-consuming plague of [[wikipedia:Von Neumann probe#Von Neumann probes|von Neumann probes]] that threaten to destroy all life in the galaxy, starting with mobile spacecraft and working their way down to planets and space dust. The Melnorme are clearly aware that this is happening, and yet they make no effort to prevent it. They know exactly what's wrong with the probes, but they don't do anything about them, even though they ''have'' the self-destruct code for the probes. Why? Don't they care that all their customers will get eaten by these things eventually? Aren't they worried about being attacked by angry aliens who resent their irresponsibility? The answer is surprisingly simple:

** '''The Slylandro Probes are a [[Batman Gambit]] by the Melnorme.''' Based on facts you can purchase from them, the Melnorme know a lot about the [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Ur-Quan]] [[Enemy Civil War|Doctrinal War]]. They expect the [[Omnicidal Maniac|Kohr-Ah]] to win, in which case the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za will stand by and let them kill everyone who isn't Ur-Quan. Even if the Kzer-Za win, that isn't exactly a good thing for non-Ur-Quan life either, because the Kzer-Za will enslave everyone. The Melnorme are in no position to defeat the Ur-Quan directly, so they have to use an indirect solution. Their plan is to use the Slylandro as patsies to create a fleet of self-replicating robot probes that will eventually [[Kill Us Both|destroy every starfaring fleet in the region]]. That includes the two warring Ur-Quan fleets. So the Kohr-Ah may eventually win their war... but it won't matter because by that time their ships will be hopelessly outnumbered by hordes of [[We Come in Peace, Shoot to Kill]] probes.

*** When the Melnorme find out about [[The Captain]] and his operation in the region, they switch over to a new plan and decide to support the Captain ([[Adam Smith Hates Your Guts|for a nominal fee]]).

**** As a general strategic rule, you can reach pretty much any position in a straight up charge if you have enough men. While the Sa-Matra may well be able to kill a trillion of these things per square inch they advance, if they have infinite resources they eventually will reach it. The question is whether they can get that many before the Sa Matra gets turned in their direction.

** All this might've made a lot of sense... If Kohr-Ah ships weren't the best possible choice for obliterating probes with. A plot to take out the Khor-Ah with 2418-B Probes is analogous to taking out the Wehrmacht with a horde of berserk and horny bunny rabbits.

*** Quoth Uncle Joe, "Quantity has a quality all its own." The Kohr-Ah ships may be the BEST choice to take out probes, but even they aren't perfect and can in fact be defeated (if you have ever pitted those ships against each other in the instant battle setup). The Wehrmacht would be able to take out vast numbers of berserk and horny bunnies, perhaps even a hundred to a person, but if the enemy has nearly infinite resources and attack in swarms to maximize their numerical superiority, they WILL eventually win. By the time the Kohr-Ah get finished with the Kzer-Za, they'll have taken pretty nasty losses in any event, Sa-Matra or no (particularly if you did things like send the Thraddash after both of them). The probes will have a several YEAR headstart to multiply into swarms large enough to hold out against the Kohr-Ah, and considering that they can probably partially recycle their own losses and the wreckage from their kills, it's quite possible that it MAY have worked.

*** It's ''possible'' that they have to let someone else buy the probes just because they can't do anything benevolent.

*** It's their culture. In their culture, giving (in this case healing the galaxy) without receiving something in return is considered vulgar and barbaric. Since the galaxy is not excatly in position to actualy pay anything and propably never would be, they use proxies.

 

== [[Starfish Language]]? What [[Starfish Language]]? ==

** Pretty much confirmed in the game, the translation is closest thing the system can produce.

** Except why would the Orz word/concept for "molecules" be untranslatable? Furthermore, if they, or at least their manifestations in Truespace are not made of molecules, what are they made of? They and their ship certainly seem to react to enemy weapons fire in exactly the same ways as regular molecular matter. It seems more likely that when the Orz say that they "are not made of *bubbles*," they are saying they are not individual, discrete entities as are the lifeforms native to Truespace. Rather, they are all connected manifestations of a single, extraspatial entity.

*** At one point they say "I am Orz. I am the one with many *fingers*." I once read somewhere a metaphor that when a hand rises up from water, at first the fingertips look like separate objects, but they are revealed to be connected.

*** Actually I think *many bubbles* might actually mean ''multicellular organism'', not molecular structure. To an [[Energy Being]] type [[Eldritch Abomination]] [[Humans Through Alien Eyes|cells in DNA-based life would look like bubbles]]. If you don't believe me search on [[The Other Wiki]] or Google up somewhere learning about cells, you might see at the appearance of cells that they might look like bubbles to a particularly strange extradimensional being that has no prior concept of cellular life (likely from an 11-dimension universe, and considering the Orz, I'd think one probably like the hell-dimension in [[Event Horizon]]), as likely the only other beings they knew of prior to the Androsynth were refugee Taalo, who were likely silicon or sulphur-based. I don't think the Orz mean molecules as *bubbles*.

 

== The Androsynth fell victim to a [[Homestuck|SBurb session]] ==

 

 

 

Perhaps the Taalo escaped into a session of Sburb when the Dynarri's puppeteered minions came for them and now play the role of the Trolls to the Androsynth's Kids.

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[[Category:Wild Mass Guessing/Video Games]]

[[Category:WMG]]

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