The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Ok, I'm going to give this place an injection if nothing else, to stop people from complaining that it's dying rather than simply sleeping. This will be achieved through the creation of a few new topics, all more or less connected to the SC universe. I expect every member of this Forum to post in my new and shiny forums. If you do not, then I will hunt you down with my shiny Synth ship and bubble you. Some of these topics have been discussed before on this board, howver, some may not have been. anyone who feels that i'm simply resurrecting a dead topic is free to say so, but this is for new people as well as old, and we haven't all been here since the beginning you know : Now then, on to the topics:

The M:bots and their reproduction ability.

Why? Why couldn't the M:bots repair their Mother Ark? Are mechanical lifeforms really that much more complex? if man could create Androsynth, shouldn't the M:bots have been able to repair, or rebuild their Command Centre? Your thoughts on mechanic lifeforms and construction, software versus hardware and suchlike will be greatly appreciated.

Because the damage was so small and the mother ark is so gentle that only a microscopic race could fix it.(hmm I wonder who...)And after all, m:bots are computers and they don't "know" how to reproduce themself because they don't need to! Who knew that the mother ark will be damage and the precurser won't be around to fix it? Ah yes the eternal1.
And btw: sorry if I got you so mad :P

Mad? not mad, just energic. But I disagree. The are not merely computers, they are supposed to be sentient mechanical being, like AI kind of thing. If a human can think abstractly enough to invent the idea of artificial reconstruction, then wouldn't a mechanical mind do the same, only faster? Or are you saying that you feel that a mechanical mind wiould be faster, yet more limited than a human mind?

As for too small, that's just a matter of constructing smaller things. Given time, we may be able to construct nanobots. I see no reason why it should be different for the M:bots...

IMO, the Mmrnmhrm couldn't repair the Mother Ark because it wasn't their job. The Daktaklakpak were created for this purpose, but when the Precursors didn't come around to check up on them, they suffered bit decay in their programming, so thus gained sentience and decided to do what they did. The Mmrnmhrm were colonists I think, like Commander Hayes said.
Funny that the Chmmr wouldn't mention anything about the Daks...oh well.

Assuming SC3 as canon, it might stand to reason that the Mmrnmhrm might not have even been aware of the Dak's prescence. Then again I don't see why not, since both were supposed to have been created by the same Mother Ark. Being left without a purpose (and perhaps even incomplete programming) would leave this a possibility though.

So are you saying the M:bots weren't sentient then? That only the Dacs were sentient, and then only because of bit decay? wouldn't true Artificial Intelligence mean that the M:bots were able to think outside the box? And if they were just machines, how could they make a decision to merge with the Chenjesu? That surely wasn't in their programming... And why would the chenjesu choose to merge with mere machines?

They are just like the androsynth, how the hell they couldn't reproduce themself, only to clone? Because it is "outside" the box, they need to learn it, and we don't know how well they will learn about a manner they don't need to worry about?

I think Deep_Jiffa is on to something here... unlike organic beings like humans which have instincts that drive us to procreate, M:Bots don't.  Therefore, any repair or reproductive capacities would have to be 'learned', which could take a long period of time.  Also, they might have decided there was no need to reproduce according to their original programming, at least until they met other sentient lifeforms and began to see some benefits of reproduction.  It also may depend on what the robots were made out of; there might have been some raw materials which were not readily available in their sphere of influence (a lack of M-Rocks?).

Interswting point. Being constructed beings the M:bots would not have instincts as such. But after the mother ark failed, surely they would see the need, and divert as much time as possible to coming up with an alternative?

Another question to ponder, how could the M:bots "die" Except for in battle? Surely, if they have electronic brains they'd be able to transfer their conciousness into a new place? Or simply copy themselves? Or would that mayhap be too traumatising for their minds?

Maybe not traumatic, but you'd then have the Mycon-Deep Children problem come up, where the differing programs would almost compete against each other.  In effect, it'd perpetuate and guarantee bit decay.  

Also, why would the M:Bots see the need?  If they already accomplished whatever mission they were programmed to do, and if there was no threat to them or their existence (at the time) why would they bother, especially if they won't die?  Remember that, with them being machines, they might not necessarily have that overriding drive to live, much less reproduce, and thus death might have meant nothing to them, especially if it didn't affect their 'mission', whatever that might have been.

i forgot can someone remind me what the mother-ark really is? obviously it's what created the Mmrnmhrm but is that just a refer to the Precursors.. its been a while since i played the game

if so, both Mycon and Mmrnmhrm are sentient beings created by the Precursors in cause of one biological and one mechanic?

but i'm still not sure about the motherark i know the commander explaines about it somewhere but can someone give a full info about the motherark?

-sly

Note that biological reproduction is simplified immensely by the principle of self-similarity. Our components (cells) are largely the same from organ to organ, with a few alterations here and there. Thus we can build cells and then differentiate them later on.

A machine which has little in common with itself on the micro-level from region to region has potential to be MUCH more complicated.

D_999 : Yes, but does that really matter? After all, the only thing they would need to reproduce accurately is the brain. The rest of the stuff can be built to different versions, or whatever they feel like, seeing as they aren't as dependant as we are on not bleeding to death or suffocating. And even if the brain was immensly complicated, might not the different parts of the brain be produced separetly and then put together?

Oatworm: Another interesting point. Perhaps they wouldn't have that need. But is that something that comes with biological life only? I would imagine that any sentient being feels the need to live. And furthermore, we don't know if they had finished what they were meant to do, or if they were failing to do it. And even if they didn't feel the need to procreate, I'd assume that they'd have backups of themselves hidden away in case they were destroyed. Then, it would simply be a case of manufacturing a new body...

1) Mmrnmhrm may have a brain which is difficult to analyze. For example, if they use q-bits (information using quantum superposition) in processing, any attempt to debug the process will interfere with the result -- perhaps fatally!
In that case, even if they can reproduce a brain, they may not know a boot sequence, because that was stored in the Mother Ark.

2) It could very well be that though the M:bots are capable of seeing what their current configuration is, they are incapable of devising a method of getting raw materials into that configuration.

M:bots are machines, and they are sentient, but this does not mean that they can instantly solve all mechanical problems. It merely needs to be really difficult.

Also, note that reverse-engineering has the potential to be much much harder than engineering. Building an M:bot given an M:bot is probably much harder than the original task of building some device which fits the technical specifications for an M:bot. For one thing, you are never quite sure that you have it exactly right.

Or we could just take the lazy, non-thinking solution and say the mother ark was beyond repair.  ;D

There are several other reasons why reverse engineering may be impossible. For example, the Precursors (or whoever sent the Mother Ark) may have made the Mmrnhmrm brain tamper-proof by adding a nice little self-destruct sequence if someone tries to examine it. The Mmrnhmrm brain (for simplicity, I'll assume a single unit; this reasoning should generalise to many separate parts that form a single mind) would probably have some sort of protective shell anyway, and it makes sense to ensure that one's terraforming robots (or whatever the Mmrnhmrm were intended to be) don't get out of control á la Mycon by simply making some part impossible for them to copy. The brain, naturally, is the part that can't be replaced by something else, so it makes sense to try to make it indestructible otherwise but impossible to copy by enclosing it in a shell that can't be opened without destroying the whole thing. This would force the Mmrnmhrm to use black-box testing to determine the behaviour of their brain, which gives them practically no idea how they actually work.

This suggests that the Mycon and Mmrnmhrm were built by different people; the Mmrnmhrm with proper safeguards, and the Mycon without.

Nope. They can't reproduce themselves because the ability of reproduction was taken away from them intentionally during their creation. The Androsynth are sterile (sorry Luk...)



They dont need to have insticts, the need of procreation could be programmed and it's a pretty obvious thing to do when you're planning a creation of new species. If they don't replicate, they'll die because sooner or later, the material every M:bot is made of will fall apart. Theoretically they could be repaired indefinitely but it could be too expensive or whatever.

For me it seems that the M:bots are designed to be a swarm like ants or bees. Swarm creatures are usualy divided into workers, warriors and queens. We don't know if there is a worker - warrior distinction among the M:bots, but the Mother Ark is very much like a queen of a swarm - it's only purpose is to spawn new workers/warriors. The only diffirence is that a typical swarm has it's ways of creating new queens when old ones die. Seems like the M:bot designers forgot this minor detail...

I know it's kinda off topic, but why is everyone calling the Mmrnhmrm M:bots? Sorry, but it's piqued my curiosity.

I never could type their name correctly. I always started with a 'M' and pressed 'r', 'n', 'm' randomly. M:bots is just easier

Not true, the Mycon are just like m:bots but their creator, Juffo-Wup didn't a mistake in the genetic code and when they copy their memories onto the deep children, they mistake is repeated.

First of all Jiffa you could say what exactly isn't true.
Secondly there are some grammatical errors in your post that make it impossible to understand.

Now to the point.
We dont know if M:bots are just like the Mycon, because we didn't realy have a chance to talk with them.
True there are some similarities like:
- both seem to do some kind of terraforming/colonising job for someone.
- the Mycon despite the fact that they are organic, seem to be very "robotic" in their behaviour.

I kind of like the idea of Mycon and the M:bots beeing created by the same person/species (maybe they tried to find out which lifeform would be better - mechanic or organic?).
But if they were created by the same people, for the same purpose then why did they fight on opposite sides during the Alliance - Hierarchy war?
Remember that the Mycon were not enslaved, they actively seeked out Ur-Quan to join them.
Maybe one of them (or both) forgot what was their purpose and decided that their priority is to do whatever is necessary to stay alive, and joined the side that would assure their survival/allow development in the future.

M:bots are a courtesy of a_stupid_box over at the starcontrol Forums, which seem to be down at the moment... It is simply faster to write.

Both Mycon and M:Bots were created by the Precursors. Although not canon to everyone, the Ortog/Precursor in SC3 says so itself.

DJ:

I will elucidate for you, DJ, because I see where you're going (even though you refer to my race analogous with robots.... >:(.)
The Androsynth know how to clone themselves because it's been with them for the past 75-ish years. They watched Hsien So do it, and learned it. They then later replicated the technique themselves. I would assume the M:Bots watched one of their own kind be produced as well, but never figured on needing to know how to do it themselves, as the Dak would simply fix the Ark whenever it was needed. The Androsynth learned because a revolution was in their future, and they knew it.
Also...
Biologicals (Androsynth), having a limited lifespan, would pick up on such things much faster. Necessity is the mother of invention. An Androsynth would think:
"Letsee here. I'm a clone. I'm genetically superior to my makers, both physically and mentally, yet I'm in bondage. I can't reproduce due to my lacking of sex organs. They clone us to keep us as a race existant."
Any Androsynth could put 2 and 2 together and come up with,
"They're weaker than us, but they know how to make us. We learn fast. Faster than they do. We're stronger than they are. We kill them, learn how to clone ourselves, and get the hell out of here."

Robotics (M:Bots), not knowing a natural end, would initially not think of picking up on such knowledge, as it would be coded into them. An M:Bot would think:
"The Mother-Ark makes us. The Mother-Ark ALSO makes Daktaklakpak. The Daktaklakpak repair the Mother-Ark if anything goes wrong, so more of us can be made. We M:Bots colonize planets for us to live on and for the Dak to repair (and consequently subsist as well.) We are a stable cooperative."

By the time the M:Bots realized that the Mother-Ark wasn't working and the Daks weren't responding due to bit decay, logic circuits took over.
"The death of our race is eminent. We cannot repair ourselves, nor the Mother-Ark. The Daks are unresponsive to the coming cataclysm of our cooperative. A race comes to us. The Chenjesu. They see our plight. They seek to merge with us into one, all-powerful race that would be able to grow, learn, and evolve into such a being that no other sentient in the galaxy has ever seen before. We accept."



Ehm, Juffo-Wup isn't their creator. It's their belief system of Non, Void, and Juffo-Wup. They are part of Juffo-Wup, which is All. Wouldn't make sense for their creators to be them.

Ivan:


A good analogy. Were this the case, however, don't you think it strange that a race that already IS in a Hierarchial system would join another Hierarchy instead of joining a egalitarian society of sentients? They'd adapt much quicker to becoming part of a Hierarchy, were this the case, methinks.

$0.02

Consider that their hierarchy is very flat, with all members but one being equal (that one being the mother ark). And that one superior has been gone for a looong time. Basically, they're egalitarian.
A society that is also a hive-mind has potential to be a very egalitarian society.

As for the androsynth, I would expect them to learn to clone, THEN kill their masters.
:-/

D999:


"Flat Hierarchy" is an oxymoron. A true Hierarchy needs steps, its what makes it run. The big boss tells the lieutenants what to do, lieutenants tell their sub-commanders what to do, sub-commanders tell the grunts what to do, grunts do it, but everyone helps a little in some way (usually the grunts are too stupid to figure it out themselves and need direction from the uppers). So, not "basically egalitarian", they are.



Well, natch. They learned from the first ones sitting around watching Hsien do his thing. It would be quite an irony for mankind as well, kind of overdone in books and movies, but good nonetheless.
"Humans made us big and strong but kept us as slaves. Now we learned how to make ourselves. As a collective, we are now going to proceed to thwomp you royally!"

"I love being a clone. Everything I do bad gets blamed on the other me!"

Hmm... The only thing that the Ortog ever said to me was:
"Moooooo!" :)

Let's leave SC3 alone, shall we?
The answers provided by it are simple and... well... stupid.

Oh.. I said I like the idea of the M:bots and Mycon beeing created by the same person/people, but there's something wrong with that reasoning.
Mycon's understanding of terraforming seems to be: "Take a nice warm planet, full of oxygen, water and various life forms and turn it into a burning lake of molten lava"

Now the M:bots... well nobody ever said anything about them changing planets. In addition, if I'm not mistaken, only the Spathi said something about M:bots doing some kind of colonising job, and they started the sentence with "Maybe..." so it was just their wild guess. And even if they are doing some kind of colonising/terraforming then they aren't/weren't terraforming to the same type of the planet as Mycon did, so it is highly unlikely that they are working for the same people.





Well maybe. But a swarm is not a hierarchical system.
A hierarchy works something like this:
- There is one boss person or group that gives all the orders
- There are groups under command of 'the boss' but they also have other groups under their command.
- And there is one group that only takes orders but cannot give any to anyone.

A swarm is more complicated:
There is no leader in a swarm. The only purpose of queens existance (which has nothing to do with leadership) is, like I've already said: spawning new workers and warriors. In a swarm there is no individual that gives commands. All of the entities of the swarm form something similiar to a brain, but a single organism, on its own, is uncapable of making any decisions (just like a single brain cell is uncapable of making any decisions on its own).
So as you can see there is no hierarchy in a swarm. True - sometimes a swarm sacrifices a 1000 workers to save the queen but that's because a single queen spawns a 1000  workers per very-short-amount-of-time, and it is not a hierarchy of the I'm-The-Leader-And-You're-The-Follower type.

So I guess adaptation would be equally hard in both cases (or wouldn't be hard at all).

The Mycon and the Mmrnmrhm can be designed by the same.

The Mycon do the terraforming thing (although their programming went astray), the Mmrnmhrm do the spying/gathering information/learning other species thing. The Mmrnmrhm seem to know moralic standards (they are machines, why would they look after the weak if not programmed) and seem to be capable of interspecies relationship, the Mycon just do everything their job needs, voiding things that stand in their way.

The designers could have found, that for the terraforming parts you could best take an organic being (as planets full of life are seldom inhabitet by mechanical life), and diplomatic things done by mechanic beings (less distrust because you're looking so different, although organic yourself). Most People would be curious about mechanic lifeforms and wish to make contact and study you, but an organic interloper might want your planet to inhabit it themselves.

Just my thoughts.

Or just turn it into a giant volcanic rock... :P

Here is a thought... Precursers created mycons to stabalize tectonics in planets to allow an otherwise unsuitable planet to be colonized. additional terraforming may have been required but not part of the mycon role. either there was an immediate/semi-immediate flaw in their programming (possibly part of the precurser downfall), or it came later. This misprogramming resulting in a confusion of their task, from something like makeing unstable worlds stable unto making stable worlds into unstable, or changing worlds to  be habitable to precursers to changing worlds into being habitable to mycons. Mycons may not have been intended to continue after their task was complete, and planet was stable. Mycon facts: deep children planted into planets mantle... require heat to survive... attracted to water worlds... develop tendrils which spread out underneath the tectonic plates... then suddenly burst up to the surface.

Precursers created the m:bots either to be the surface element of the terraforming, or  :P after realizing that mycons were out of control, and thus represented a threat to all life worlds, developed, and those that may develop, and faceing a threat to theirs own worlds, which they may not have been fully able to defend them selves and simultanious hunt down their rogue creation, which was expanding exponentially, they created the m:bots to hunt them down... If I recall correctly in sc1 M:bots were my preferred match for mycons... I wasn't very good at timing the sheilds.

As for the repairs of the mother ark... I dug around in the basement, and found my sc1 manual, and my sc3 manual, sc2 was not present, presumed lost with all hands, did find my notes from playing though. sc1 manual mentions nothing of the mother ark, sc3 proposes the idea that m:bots chose to merge based on the  mother ark "was failing", and without a new system for reproduction, they were bound for extinction.
I dont personally recall the mother ark being mentioned in sc2... though I skipped much dialogue in this pass through uqm. sc3 being generally considered "unofficial" in these parts I suspect its a moot point.

Nonetheless on the subject of mother ark repairs performed by m:bots and excluding daks at "unofficial" nonsense... I might venture to guess that either the precursers after seeing the mycon go nuts decided on a more mangable system of terminating rogue constructs... one source for many threats, vs many threats, each a potential source of many more. or the original proogramming of m:bots was a client server fashion like earliy terminal/mainframes, where the mother ark was a central processor, and drone units only processed basic behaviour programming. then as the mother ark began to malfunction the behaviour routines (like tcp/ip) starting looking for alternate paths to the main processor, or any processor with free time, finding idle drones to process its new data. eventually gaining limited sentience outside of mother ark, creating backups of still functioning routines in mother ark cpu, eventually evolving into a cluster of workstations relationship amongst the drones. Perhaps they didn't develop the knowledge to repair the mother arc in time to make the salvage of any remaining programming cost effective, and with the new cluster of workstations system being better than the older terminal/mainframe system, why go back...

Now for self replication... first most obvious answer is that and mother arc self repair were first functions to go. Possibly they simply lacked the appendages to do so them selves (microscopic soldering iron isn't standard equipment for a terraforming bot or scout bot), and the terminology/communication skills to convey what must be done to repair mother ark to another species (chenjesu/human). perhaps they had a bit decay problem and dammaged mother ark themselves during a drunken black out and dont remember doing it...hmmmm.
shades of bender.

Mike Guthrie
Wile E. Coyote
io74@mailandnews.com

Life is a journey... Has any body seen my car keys?

SC1 Manual:
The Mmrnmhrm are a consonantal, robotic race with an almost admirable level
of technological attainment -- for a member of the Alliance, anyway.  These frag-
ments of metal disks fear vowels nearly as much as they do a Dreadnought closing in at
full-bore.
ProtoQuotoSynthetic assembly of a captured, splattered Mmrnmhrm indicates evolution [evolution?  interesting - C20]
from a technologically competent progenitor.  This ancestral imprint may explain why a
member of an essentially laggard confederation has developed a nearly clever ship.  The "X-
Form" appears in one of two guises: a blocky, slow vessel which fires a laser, and a quick,
fighter-profile form which tries to counter Hierarchy weapons with a missile.  Mmrnmhrm
captains switch forms to save their craft, or, occasionally, to mount a surprise charge.


SC2 Manual:
Mmrnmhrm:  The Mmrnmhrm's origin is mysterious.
Less than a thousand years ago, the first Mmrnmhrm
awakened, alone, on the surface of a dark, airless
moon.  Looking up, the conical, segmented robot saw
the huge factory-starship which had just finished man-
ufacturing it by stripping the surface of the moon for
raw materials and then refining these crude ores into
final parts within its cavernous interior.  Within a few
years, the star system teemed with millions of intelli-
gent, self-aware robots who called themselves the
Mmrnmhrm.
These non-hostile mechanical beings were assembled for some kind of mis-
sion by a distant alien race.  When born/built, each Mmrnmhrm awakens
filled with knowledge and purpose, though to date the Mmrnmhrm have
not revealed the exact nature of their long-term mission.  Within a century
after the first Mmrnmhrm was built, they had established peaceful relations
with the nearby Chenjesu and colonized the adjacent stars in the Virginis
constellation.

SC2 dialog: Hayes:
We didn't really get much of a chance to learn about those mechanical beings,
but I'll tell you what I know.
They are the product of a distant, unknown culture
who sent a giant Factory-Ark into our region of space many centuries ago.
The Mother-Ark (that's what Earth Press called it) churned out millions of the robots and then finally broke down.
I don't know why the Mmrnmhrm didn't repair the Mother-Ark, maybe they can't.
My personal guess as to why they were sent here is that they are the leading edge of a colonization project
and once the Mmrnmhrm have tamed enough new worlds, the genuine colonists -- whoever they are
will arrive to claim their due.