Neural Combat Net

Suicide Junkie · #1 November 17th, 2001, 01:25 AM

quote:
So, racial techs are some kind of "instinct" owned by the race? IMO that's the only way to give the "racial" adjective to a technology. But racial techs must be researched, just as conventional technology (It is only knowledge, developed by the scientist/priests). So, something here is not correct (Perhaps my concepts fused

True, it is reserached, and can likely be stored on computers and stone tablets.

For some, like Psychic and Temporal, the physical ability would be cruicial. How do you explain sight to an alien without eyes? How can you expect them to know that the TV their trying to build has a fuzzy picture?
Organic and crystalline, too. Having the ability to form DNA or crystals at will, and possibly also using them as a language would make the tech pretty much inaccesible to outsiders.
What about religious? How about the race forming a collective entity in a sort of psychic-like way. They all have minimal telekinetic powers, and the shrines unify the will of the masses towards a goal, which then happens like magic.
Imagine the nature shrine setup such that visitors think of making cold people warm. Then those 1M people on the harsh ice moon find that the TK powers of the people who have visited the shrine are warming their planet. That would be pretty cool. Research points would be spent learning what evokes the strongest and longest-Lasting responses from the population. Gifted shrines would probably have caretakers from the religious species to power it.

Puke · #2 November 17th, 2001, 02:40 AM

quote:
Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
How do you explain sight to an alien without eyes? How can you expect them to know that the TV their trying to build has a fuzzy picture?

how do you explain frequency modulation radio to a species that has no organs capable of receiving radio waves? thats impossible!

I would propose that if science has been unified enough to allow for the creation of things like resource converters and quantum reactors, that any technology that follows the laws of physics (even if they end up being different from what we understand now) could be created by any race. it would just require a litte more work for some. organic creatures could be constructed one amino-acid at a time, until you have complex protines and cells. anything that requires a device to operate could be replicated. i dont care if things would have to be reverse engineered by stripping off layers one atom at a time, it could be done.

The only possible exception is if religious tech works because there really is a god, and the other techs work because there really is magic.

------------------
"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Suicide Junkie · #3 November 17th, 2001, 03:39 AM

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How do you explain frequency modulation radio to a species that has no organs capable of receiving radio waves? thats impossible!

You can, but they end up using crude mechanical methods to do what every member of your race does from birth.

quote:
I would propose that if science has been unified enough ..., that any technology that follows the laws of physics (...) could be created by any race. it would just require a litte more work for some. organic creatures could be constructed one amino-acid at a time, until you have complex protines and cells. anything that requires a device to operate could be replicated. i dont care if things would have to be reverse engineered by stripping off layers one atom at a time, it could be done.

We could have a normal tech tree organic manipulation, but if it had 20x the reserach cost (inherently unfamiliar territory), and had five more levels to work through (racial-tech children start with innate ability) before Organic Armor I, not many would bother.
Construction costs would be prohibitive, too, especially if you had do build up a device from atomic scale scratch.

Trying to support a military in SE4 using these not-my-racial-tech components would fail miserably.

Shyrka · #4 November 17th, 2001, 12:26 PM

quote:
Originally posted by suicide_junkie:

Quote:

How do you explain frequency modulation radio to a species that has no organs capable of receiving radio waves? thats impossible!
You can, but they end up using crude mechanical methods to do what every member of your race does from birth.

Correct, we humans can't see electromagnetic radiation outside the visible spectrum, but have instruments that "translate" it for us (For example).

quote:
I would propose that if science has been unified enough ..., that any technology that follows the laws of physics (...) could be created by any race. it would just require a litte more work for some. organic creatures could be constructed one amino-acid at a time, until you have complex protines and cells. anything that requires a device to operate could be replicated.

Yes, i think this is a very logic idea. The science should be available for all intelligent races, no matter how complex is.

quote:
We could have a normal tech tree organic manipulation, but if it had 20x the reserach cost (inherently unfamiliar territory), and had five more levels to work through (racial-tech children start with innate ability) before Organic Armor I, not many would bother.

This is a good idea too. The racial traits could mean some type of aptitude to develop organic/temporal/etc. technology, instead of having exclusive access to it. I think this is better than the actual system.