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 Chmmr : what are they/could they have been?

Many of us seem to have reached the conclusion that the Commander interrupted the Process. What do you think the end result would have looked like if it had not been interrupted? What does a Chmmr look like anyway, are they built into their ships, or can they move around? Is every Chmmr a pairing of one Chenjesu and one M:bot, or is the ratio different? What do you think will happen now that the process has been interrupted? Will the Chmmr go crazy? Will they be just fine? Did they lsoe something due to the cessation of the process?

To think that we could've gotten a better ship than the Avatar if we would've waited for the extra 70-some years is simply terrifying.
As for the Chmmr themselves, they seem to be the pinnacle of perfection, albiet they CAN'T STOP TALKING IN CAPITALS. Perhaps they would've gleaned some emotion from the Chenjesu side of them, but I would wager the Mmrnmhrm had emotions too.
Insanity? Not direct insanity, but they become quite a bit more illogical with their direct application of logic (confusing, no?). Example: they strap a huge bomb on a one-of-a-kind ship and amplify it, seeing it as the only way to destroy the Sa-Matra. Personally, I bet given enough time, they could've thought up another way to destroy the Sa-Matra without the sacrifice of the Mark I.
The way they look: I would wager that, instead of simply having a slightly chopped up Chenjesu body with Mmrnmhrm rings around it, both races would've fully integrated. You'd have mechanical interfaces within a crystalline support frame. You could see the wiring, the guts of the M:Bots inside the Chenjesu body, and the Chenjesu would probably have some exterior components of the M:Bots as well.

Re your example, maybe you could have come up with something in time, but did you have time? No.

On the whole, I feel that the Chmmr might have been mroe emotional if allowed to complete themselves. Or maybe they would have become something completely different? Maybe they would have merged to a single entity, capable of battling the Sa-Matra? Or to a lifeform fused into a ship not unlike the Avatar, producing a race that actually lives in space?

But then again luki and necro, time isn't avaliable. Assuming you finish the game in the first time, you have like 5-16 months until all races starts to die, including the chmmr. So could they find another solution? I think the answer is 90% no.

I understand that time wasn't available, as per my answer to necro, but I'm trying to imagine what the chmmr would have become had the process not been interrupted, and this is disregarding the timelimit. If the Kohr-Ah hadn't been, what would the Chmmr have looked like when they emerged?

I actually suspect that the Chmmr might have been less emotional, to tell you the truth; it might sound a little weird since they seem to be very logical, but they are also frighteningly passionate (hence the CAPITALS).  In a way, it seems to me as if they're a duality of extreme emotion and logic, with logic being somewhat the interface they use to interact with the outside world.  If the process was allowed to continue, they might be more balanced than they turned out.  As for their physical looks, I'll take Necro-99's view on this one; they'd probably turn out to be a more integrated being than what they turned into.  

On the other hand, what's preventing them from continuing the process in the future?  Once the Ur-Quan are gone and, assuming SC3 is canon, once the Eternal1's are put back in their place, why can't the Chmmr pull a Spathi and hide out on Procyon for a while?  After all, if every other species can spend some time on self-improvement as a natural course of life, what's preventing the Chmmr from engineering an accelerated process of self-improvement for themselves?  I know that, when the Sun Device is used, it sort of completes the process in an accelerated time frame, but over time, it might be possible for the Chmmr to fix the problems caused by that incident.

What would be really interesting would be to see whether, now that they do not need to destroy the sa-matra, they change direction in their development altogether.

Perhaps they will develop so that individuals can split into the two component races. Perhaps there will be multiple compatible strains which complement each other. Perhaps they will have partially interchangeable parts -- robotic and crystal elements are swapped around in early age to give both a bit of flexibility, then as the Chmmr ages, one favored combination is settled upon, and a change is difficult or has increasingly negative consequences. Kind of half way in between human marriage and Daemons from His Dark Materials.
Perhaps they will learn to speak in normal case like everyone else.

Speaking in normal case woudl be a definite plus..

The idea of interchangeable parts is interesting, though it confuses me a bit. Do you mean that they will simply keep these parts in a large warehouse somewhere where Chmmr can just go change parts, or would each Chmmr have custom parts made for hiim/her/it. And if this would happen, how would reproduction work? Would they simply "build" new units somehow, or would the Chenjesu side be abel to produce a "embryo" of sorts, that could then build onitself with different parts?

As for splitting back into two races... That means that every Chmmr that splits takes it's own life doesn't it? And are both the chenjesu and M:bot personality necessarily intact within the Chmmr?

Well, some interchangeable parts would be like vacuum cleaner attachments, but that's not mainly what I'm thinking of.

Consider two beings who exchange ideas much faster than the ideas are generated. I propose that this combination is essentially indistinguishable, even from their point of view, from one being.
I further propose that this is one coherent idea for how a Chmmr mind works.

Then two individuals (each crystal+mechanical) could agree to swap to see if they could find a better fit.
Say... for crystal components (Chenjesu) C1 and C2, and mechanical components (Mmrnmhrm) M1 and M2, you have two initial Chmmr C1M1 and C2M2. They think that the better arrangement might be C1M2 and  C2M1, so their mechanical bodies swap crystals. After some initial disorientation, they may like the new arrangement better. Otherwise, they can swap back and hope that they weren't negatively altered by their time swapped. (I assume that going back to the previous combination does not have any additional risk, and going back to any combination previously tried has very little)

Clearly, from a game theory point of view, once you have found a reasonably nice combination there is little incentive to go through the risk of swapping.

There might be some benefit to swapping for a limited time only. It might give you a different perspective, or a doctor could feel first hand the symptoms, or it could be a gesture of intimacy.

When 'shopping around', you could commit to come back before making a final decision. This could help the following situation:

C1M1 is not very happy, and C2M2 is kind of OK, but looking for some improvement. They decide to swap. After things settle down, C1M2 is really pleased, but C2M1 is utterly miserable. If there is no obligation to go back, C2M1 is in a bit of a bind. If there IS an obligation to return, then both C1M1 and C2M2 will be able to judge, having both felt both sides of the issue. And if they deem C2M1 unacceptable, then they will both go looking for other Chmmr (C3M3, C4M4, etc.) to pair up with C2 and M1.

Alternately, C2M1 could just decide that things aren't working out, and become two beings, C2 and M1, who might be happier. Neither of the new beings would perceive a termination of their consciousness from before, but a change in perspective, as they lost half of their ways of thinking about things. This loss may be beneficial for both parties, if before it kept on trying to take a line of thought in two directions at once.

edit: I don't know about Chmmr reproduction. They may be created full-size. There may be more or less phylogeny (distinct parentage) involved.

What _could_ they have been?  The Living Procyon, born under a slave shield, with little Chmmr (Brain Cells) running the whole show.  Tidal pressures from the orbiting Avatar Satellites cause the crystal planet to produce massive piezo-electrical discharges, strong enough to power the Hyperbeam Canon which they would have used to destroy the Sa-Matra.  The Avatars would also be used to artificially lower the gravity of Procyon so that the entire planet could travel through hyperspace.

Because the Process was completed for the Chmmr so quickly (and probably on only one side of the planet), they didn't have time to make the Avatars into Satellites, so they made them into combat vessels instead.

What's all this "they could've done *this* if they weren't interrupted" stuff? The sun device finished the process early. If you had waited 70 years instead, they would have come out the exact same way. I thought this was implied.

The most baffling thing about the Chmmr is how they would reproduce. Of course, the Chenjesu themselves were impossible--how would they move around or do anything at all if they're big ol' crystals? My answer to these questions is simply this: it's a game. Not the most satisfying answer (which is really just a guess), but it's the best you'll get out of me.

Yeah, why do we keep claiming that the Chmmr aren't fully baked?  ;)

You always have to ruin for everyone Nic, don't you?

Well, he did save me the bother of looking it up. And ease up DJ, look at Nic as sort of the big Uncle of this forum. You know, the one who always has a rational and reasonable solution for everything, and who will actually look for the answers to his own questions and then present them, long before we others think of even asking them.

Back on topic I'm ion too much of a hurry to add anything today what with exams coming up, but I'll be back!

Well here's my take on it. Kinda like some ideas and kinda not.

The Chmmr are in their own eyes a failed project but still damn superior to other races. I also think they can't really change back now that they are Chmmr. They had to do it so fast they could not implement a way to reverse the process. They can make more Chmmr easily, though probably quite artificially, without combining a Chenjesu and a Mmrnmrhm also. There are also probably a few Chenjesu left who can breed as they always have, and literally a handful or Mmrnmrhm who still have no Mother Ark and unlike Chmmr are not reproducable without one. If they had a precursor factory like the one on Vela and a lot of time they might be able to program it to build a new Mother Ark to make more Mmrnmhrm and begin a new slow process with the remaining Chenjesu to create something truly spectacular. Meanwhile their already merged Chmmr cousins watch over the races who will one day surpass them.

Picking up Culture20's idea:

What if in app. 50 years, another Chmmr race will emerge. The sundevice was brought so close to the planet that it can have lit only 1/3 of the planet, increasing the speed on another 1/3, changing nothing on the last 1/3.

Without the shield, it would pass faster for the rest, but still, they have not yet merged completely. That might be finished within the next 50 years, delivering us maybe Mmrjesu.

Maybe someone could implement this into another SC3-version.

Energy transmission networks could spread the solar power around -- it would be a major stress on their grid but it seems to have been accomplished.

I don't think that there would a remaining Chenjesu population left behind. It just seems wrong. Now, if the Chmmr are capable of splitting back but generally prefer not to, that would also make sense. Or if they all transformed... though that seems peculiar. Wouldn't there be ANY left over who disagreed? Or were some transformed against their will? That seems rather out of character for both races.

If the Kohr-Ah hadn´t been perhaps the whole process of enslaving the galaxy by the Kzer-Za would have been much smoother and faster and the Chenjesu would have not been able to even create the Alliance of Free Stars, so that they would have been imprisoned alone.
bye
Michael

Welcome!

I would like to point out that the Doctrinal Conflict began AFTER the war of the Hierarchy with the Alliance of Free Stars, so I don't see how Kohr-Ah presence or absence would speed things up.

You meant to say "resumed" instead of "began".
They were having the same conflict when they were freed from slavery.

I think the Chmmr would have turned into a supercomputer mastermind with enormous extension all over the galaxy.
Silicon and servo mechanisms are a good base for this.
Furthermore, if they have been allowed to complete the process I think the Ur-Quan menace would have been paled compared to their deeds afterwards.

After both Mmrnmhrm and Chenjesu were slave-shielded within the same planet, and gone through the entire Process...

(note that I removed caps because they annoy me.)


Given 35 (not 70) years, the Chmmr would've simply turned the Ur-Quan Hierarchy and the Sa-Matra into ashes. This is, I assume, a given.

D999:


True. Their entire planet IS them. If you peek at Procyon, it's a Sapphire World. Breeding then, would lead me to believe, that the Chenjesu would instill (somehow) sentience within crystalline formations. Crystals grow naturally (just the way minerals work), and they'd be concious, cognizant crystals to boot. Or would they bud, like plants/sponges do? However they breed, I would wager it's asexual...but that would make all Chenjesu clones. Hmmm... There'd have to be a sexual way of reproduction, but then again, it does note in the SC2 manual that the Chenjesu as a race had "stagnated", although how wasn't mentioned.



Mmmm...doubt it. They got Bifrucated, and that knocked both subraces into a coma, so I really doubt they could separate back into Mmrnmhrm and Chenjesu. However, I like the "swap" idea, but I believe it would be quite painful for robotics to pass through and into/around crystalline structure. You could switch parts, but it'd be a last/near-last resort.

Gill:


How? Why? If they could do as Culture20 said, make Procyon into a moving planet, they would just bring themselves where ever they please. No need to wire up the entire galaxy. Since the Chenjesu ARE Procyon, and Procyon IS Chenjesu, this seems more logical.

Question: If the Chenjesu/Chmmr are supposedly motile, how do they get around? Would it be through their own electrical discharges they can create, or...?

A) SC3 is so far from canon it's not funny.
B) even IN SC3, the device didn't do its job right. It was probably based on a poor understanding of the Chmmr (though a clear understanding of the Mmrnmhrm).
C) having bifurcation imposed on you is quite one thing, and being able to do it voluntarily as a somewhat arduous but carefully controlled and reliable procedure on an individual is quite another.



Not if they were designed with this in mind.

Assuming the Process was allowed to go to it's natural end, correct? If it was just the Chmmr we know now, they'd swap rings or something.  :P

ADD

Even if it was allowed to go to it's end, how would they accomplish such a thing? Drill holes in the crystalline form to allow "plugs" of M:Bot technology, or an intricate, spiderwebbing catacomb system throughout the Chenjesu to allow M:Bot part transfer?

That sounds like simple symbiosis to me, not an honest-to-God fusing of two races.

1) From the appearance in SC3, the Chmmr look pretty well separated-out to me.

2) Well, if you take symbiosis to a close enough level, it begins to blur. Current cellular evolution theory suggests that mitochondria are actually symbiotic inhabitants of our bodies. REALLY CLOSE symbiotic inhabitants. If the Chmmr had swapping, they could be close enough when joined that the mind would be the same. This would effectively make them one being for the time at least, even if they were capable of separating.

3) One of the strengths of the crystal structure is its capability of executing holography -- i.e. the storage and manipulation of data in three dimensions across a two dimensional interface. It seems like a bad idea to break up the solid expanses of crystal with mechanical parts, when you don't have to.

So where then would all the M:Bot parts go? Would they simply be exterior additions to the Chenjesu, and a few inserted pieces here and there?

Hmmm...If you think about it in that sort of way, the Chmmr would be very adept at defending themselves. The Chenjesu naturally manipulate electricity, as shown in the Broodhome Captain's use of the control panel.
What do you get when you wrap wiring (M:Bot wiring, specifically) tightly around something that can create electricity? Just put M:Bot parts on the top of the Chmmr, and wiring all around the outside, and you'd have something that would make Nikolai Tesla scream "Hallelujah!" from his grave.