The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

One of my favorite aspects of SC2 were the questions left open for sequels or speculation.  I wanted to put forward a list of unanswered or partially answered questions that may have been planned to be addressed in a sequel.  Of course, most of these questions have already been speculated about at length on this board.

Mysteries that looked like hooks for a sequel:

1) What happened to the Androsynth?
2) What are the Orz?
3) Where did the precursors go?
4) What were the precursors so concerned about when they visited the Slylandro?
5) Why are the Syreen so physiologically similar to Earthlings?
6) Who created the Mycon and for what purpose?
7) Who created the MmrnMmrms and for what purpose?
8) Why have the Arilou modified Earthlings?
9) How are Earthlings related to the Arilou?
10) Where and when was the Mark 2 discovered?
11) How have the Utwig changed the Druuge?
12) Do the Taalo still exist in some form?

Mysteries that were probably just inserted for flavor:

13) What are the Melnorme's ominous plans?
14) Why does the Melnorme's bridge turn purple?
15) What are *nnngn*?
16) Who are the Keel Verezy?
17) What is the Spathi's ultimate evil?
18) Is the Utwig homeworld related to the Faz?
19) What extra dimensional beings do the Pkunk communicate with?

Does anyone have more to add?

Simple..
Look at this quote (from the game):

Probably, purple lets them see their weapon consoles more clearly, purple probably intensifies the will to trade, and it shows that they are currently willing to trade! (or something like that)

I thought the Precursors made the Mycon and the MmrnMhrm, not sure though...

1,2,8,9 are partially answered in SC3
3,4,6,7, are answered in SC3
12, answered in sc2 as the orz reffer to them at present tense, and fred and paul confirmed it iirc. (the Taalo probably now live in the Orz's dimension)

also a nice question could be if the Mael-num of the Sentient-Milieu are actually the melnorme as described by the Kohr-Ah. But iirc Fred and Paul confirmed this, but I may be wrong.

and I dont understand what you mean on 11, 'changed' the druuge? if you mean about the ultron trade it was explained in SC2.

another question is What eventually happened to the Ilwrath\Thradash. And who exactly were the burvix race. You forgot another question about the rainbow world purpose, but I fear this too answered in Sc3.

Even tho SC3's answers for some questions of SC2 are considerd crap by most fans, it is offical, as much as I'd like to think it isn't.

Apart from sc3 I have some answers of my own.

The Ariloo obduced some humans a long time ago (b4 people started saying they were obdected) and put them on Gaia. This may have been an experiment or a prank, or maybe they had some devine purpose. Anyways the humans and syreen evolved differently.

The precursers were displaced by the orz, much like the fate of the androsynth. Why? I havn't the faintest idea. Maybe the ariloo know.

From the Utwig dialog:

With the Ultron in hand I could sense not only your motivations and desires, but your purpose.
I could act upon these things in ways that would most likely seem mysterious if not, well, daft.
Years later, you would herald our participation in your development as the turning point for your species.
The Druuge were only one of the few to benefit in this way.
Even now, they are puzzled by the way we rewarded them for the delivery of the Ultron to its correct place.
In twenty-four years, two months and three days they will all dance the dance of Jubilation.
Indeed, the Ultron has allowed us to change fundamentally the Druuge forever!
The Supox too received many benefits from our use of the Ultron.
They can testify to its power!

Of course, the Supox don't feel quite the same way.  So the druuge may not actually have been changed.



Well. we can make this thread about unsolved mysteries in SC2, so if SC3 is considered canon need not impact it.  I tend to disregard its existance as much as possible...


I agree about the additional unansered questions you proposed.  I can't edit my initial post, so...

Additional questions that may have been answered in the sequel:
20) Are the Mael-num of the Sentient-Milieu are actually the melnorme as described by the Kohr-Ah?
21) What eventually happened to the Ilwrath\Thradash?
22) What was the rainbow worlds' purpose?

Additional questions that were probably added for flavor:
23) Who were the burvix?

FACTS:
1) Orz are fish.
2) Orz fight ALL the time.
3) The purpose of the Orz is to flip out and kill people.

And they also stab. Just ask my friend Mark.

Depends on your definition of "official". Yes, it was a published sequel, but it was not created by the original creators of Star Control.

Plus it was crap.  :P

Whoa.....!

Question to the Orz: Uh... hi there. Nice to see you again... I think.

Answer from the Orz: That is *funny*. You think you *see* Orz but Orz are not *light reflections*.
Maybe you think Orz are *many bubbles* too. It is such a joke.
Orz are not *many bubbles* like *campers*. Orz are just Orz.
I am Orz. I am one with many *fingers*.
My *fingers* reach through into *heavy space* and you *see* *Orz bubbles*
but it is really *fingers*.
Maybe you do not even *smell*? That is sad.
*Smelling* *pretty colors* is the best *game*.

Based off that, I don't think that we can tell what they are, just what they look like.

I think its much more likely that the Precursors created the Mycon than the MmrnMhrm.  The Mycon seemed to have been created far in the past while the MmrnMhrm were sent on their colonization mission much more recently.  Also, no race recognized the MmrnMhrm as Precursor technology.

That sounds like the kind of action an Umgah would take instead of an Arilou.

I wonder how long the Umgah have been space faring and what potion of the galaxy they explored.  Perhaps, Umgah ships went on multi year missions to play pranks and, of course, shape the evolution of civilizations all over the galaxy

2) was answered by TFB (not in a game though, so it's still sequal fodder).  Orz is one entity that can span realities.

24) What did the Druuge want with the mycon egg sacs?

Flavor:
25) Did the Ilwrath really wrap around to evil?  If so, can you make them more evil and wrap them back?
26) Where is that moon-sized mask the Utwig are building for the Captain?
27) Who were the Gg?

That's a good question; I hadn't thought about it before.  Perhaps the Druuge want the mycon egg sacks for the same reason they wanted the Shofixti maidens.  Namely creating a fast breeding race of druuge/mycon hybrids to man the furnace.

The deep children also make excellent weapons like the Utwig's precursor bomb.

If I remember correctly, the egg sacs are not apart of the actual Mycon. I think that they are like errrr,.....  one-time use atmosphere reentry units.  I don't think that they could have been used to make hybrids.

No, but the Crimson Corporation could take the fungal mats, extract the genome, inject it into a bunch of third-world kids, and produce a super-high-temperature-resistant lining for their furnaces.

It wouldn't seem too out of character for them, anyways.

If the druuge put a deep child in their furnice it would grow as fast as it burned.
Can you say mauler with sweet fuel regeneration (kinda scary actually)

If the deep child uses the heat energy to grow, then it would extingiush the fire, not feed it.
And if the mycon are heat resitant, then it means that they would burn rather badly, so they wouldn't give much energy.

As for the unsolved mysteries, you have to be careful about some of them (in my opinion: Precursors, Orz, Androsynth and Arilou), some questions are best left unanswered and sometimes the only acceptable answer is... MORE QUESTIONS!

IIRC, in the 3DO verison of SC2 (which so happens that UQM is based on) the Druuge mentioned that they wanted the egg sacs for ultra-high resistance fibers. To use for crew that are put into the furence.

You mean for like heat-resistant suits?

yes: that way they don't need to burn the suit with the crewmember, they can hand it down to the next one.

They also referred to making it harder to escape.

Whatever happened to the Shofixti once you gave him the maidens?

What Happened to the Kzer-Za and Kohr-Ah after the Sa-Matra was destroyed? Did they side together to beat back the alliance? Were they defeated? Did they continue their doctrinal wars and forever cripple each other?

If the process had been allowed to take decades without the use of the sun device, would the Chmmr have been even more powerful?

Whatever happened to that Dnyarri anyway? Did he survive the explosion after all and is waiting for his time to strike?

What ARE the Umgah doing during all this? Watching and laughing (har har har) or going on to outdo themselves in ultimately prankish behaviour?

The Kzer-Za alluded to protecting races from dark and potentially evil forces, were they alluding to something more sinister then their twisted cousins the Kohr-Ah?

Just stirring the pot a little bit =)

Going along that timeline though, there would be no shofixti. I don't think that is what the desighners had in mind....

Maybe the Druuge need the Egg-case-fragments to make the walls of their furnace chamber more heat resistant. That way they could go with higher temperatures, which could lead to a higher efficiency, at least to a lower repair-need of the furnace.

nontheless,
enjoy!

17) I believe the Ultimate Evil (which is different from the Evil Ones) wasn't even real. Read the conversation carefully.


In other words, the Spathi have no indication at all that The Ultimate Evil exists (as they have never detected it before) which they feel is proof that it must be evil because otherwise it would show itself. This is just typical Spathi fear projected onto the unknown.

20) This was confirmed in the F&P chatlog.
<Deep-Reep> who are the mael num, realy?
<Fwiffo> The mael num are ancestors of the Melnorme

You can download the whole log at The Pages of Now and Forever (http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/).

23) The roleplaying resource guide provides some more detailed information about the Burvixese.

The text can be found at The Pages of Now and Forever (http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/) under "Other Races". Actually, it seems that a pdf of the Roleplaying Resource Guide is available there too, under "Files".

There was one mystery that was never fully explained if I recall correctly.  The rainbow worlds.  
Now I can't remember if their existance was explained, but I do recall that when I plotted the location of all them on the old map they made an arrow that pointed towards the upper right corner of the map.  Did we ever learn what was out there?

It was:

SPOILER!!!

Groombridge  -  The makers of the game were going to do something special with it. Maybe put a conversation with them, or a special artifact or something. But it was taken out when they were pressured to finished making the game so they took it out.

But that's not IN the game, not canonically at least. The in-game explanation is that the layout of the rainbow worlds represents the fate of the precursors in some way -- probably that they went toward the core of the galaxy...

You know, I have a thought about the Melnorme. Completely off on my own tangent here, but remember that they told you for free why their bridge turned red, so that can't be trusted as fact, just intimidation. What if the reason that the bridge turns blue, red, purple, etc is because that's what happens when a Melnorme changes moods. They change color.

In other words, that thing you see before you with they eye and teeth isn't the Melnorme at all. The Melnorme are light! That thing you see before you is just some meat puppet they dangle infront of the screen to facilitate communication and trade. Their weapons are light based. They discovered the Sylandro so they're open to other manifestations of life. (You only discovered them because of the communication satelites that the Melnorme places in orbit around their world.) So who knows.

As far as i remember, the communication satelites were mentioned by the slylandro that they were postioned by the Shaggy Ones. So that they could make contact whenever they wanted, no matter the distance.
And now the satelites are no more.
Only the Slylandro Speaker hovering in Source.

I agree, and here is the quote:

Were there any other visitors here besides the Melnorme and Milieu races?

Yes, there was another race... a highly sophisticated species of shaggy giants
who made repeated trips to our world over a period of several Drahn.
They even installed a broadcasting satellite in orbit around our world
which let us talk with them whenever we wanted. They were called the
the
I'm sorry, I can't remember their names. It was a long, long time ago.

Thanks FalconMWC.
I've just been too lazy to seek it up myself.

Just think about it....

Has there ever been a explanation on how the melnorme found the Slyrandro? Obviously the tranmitters the precursors set up are not there any more.

How is that obvious?  As it isn't mentioned, the Precursor communications satellite may be how you're able to talk with them at all.

Well, look at the broadcasting statment made by the Slyrandro. First, I doubt the precursors used the tech we did and second. It says that it was for Slyrando to Precursor, not Slyrandro to anybody. It says that quite specific.

I don't think your doubts are well-founded; in the Star Control universe, hyperwave is a ubiquitous technology -- the Chenjesu are able to speak it naturally for goodness sake -- so it stands to reason that if the Precursors built a hyperwave broadcasting satellite, anyone who came along would be able to use it (e.g., the Ur-Quan).  And we know that the Precursors built to last (starship factories, battlecruisers, Ultrons, etc.) so it's not unreasonable to expect one of their broadcasting satellites to remain in service for 40 drahn or so.

Also, without the Precursor satellite as an explanation, you're left with a minor plot hole:  how else are you able to talk with a bunch of gas bags who have no physical technology?

Also, the Slylandro obviously talked to the melnorme somehow, lending further credibility to the idea that the Precursor satellite allows them to talk to pretty much anyone. They talked to the Quans and the Milieu as well as I recall,  which could be construed as even more proof, unless the Milieu built their own satellites.

I don't know...

See the statement from the Slyrandro imply that they could only talk with the Precursors.

On the otherhand, you two bring up valid points.

So my thoughts are now that the comm device is not working/not compatible and that the desighners of the game simply overlooked that particular fact.  

Well,





implies that they talked to the Quan as well. Furthermore,



Implies that they've talked to several Milieu members, and the Melnorme. Now unless all of these people set up different satellites outside of the planet, and independetly happened to be looking close enough at a nondescript gas giant to notice there was intelligent life down there, it'd stand to reason that whoever comes close to the planet gets hailed by they Slylandro. as the slylandro cannot construct technology on their own this means that they can talk to people either because.

a) The precursors did find them and put some sort of satellite in orbit, and some sort of contraption in the band where the Slylandro dwell, thus allowing them to talk to others.

b) They can use hyperwaves naturally, just like the Chenjesu

My money is on a), as they aren't chrystalline lifeforms and I have the distinct impression that this has something to do with the Chenjesus inborn ability.

Well, you have convinced me, except for the fact that woukld not the game show the comm device in orbit? And that the Vindicator would have to "drive" up to it - instead of the planet?

Well, you don't actually fly up to a Comm device when communicating with any planet do you? Signals sent between your ship and the surface (or their own satellites) take care of that.

As for why you can't see the device.. Well, you can't see any satellites orbiting any home planet can you? Alternatively, Prec. technology might be small enough to pass unnoticed, or it might be cloaked to ensure that the Slylandro would always have mean of communicating, without another Reliccollecting race making off with their artifact. It might even look like somethign completely different, like a moon.

Hey, guys. You know, I think this is a really great example of brain-storming, problem solving and logic application. However, I feel the need to point out that this debate/brain-storm is about the contents of a 10+ year old computer game featuring a simplified universe with talking blobs of light.

That being said, the little blobbies did say that they "Set" dials and varibles on their probes. I assume that means that they can interact with objects. So, perhaps they have their own, very light weight, transmitter?
Either built from gasses or given to them by another race.

Or maybe they had a modified probe that they used....

Indulge us, at lerast we're having fun ;)





Some sort of contraption they can either only talk through, or manipulate. DFoesn't matter really, the result is the same.

I'd say there are two possibilities here:
1) They didn't physically touch the probe, but they set a few variables by sending commands via the satellite. Saying that they "set dials" was just a figure of speech.
2) The probe was in the Source, using a thruster or something to keep it from falling while the Slylandro could examine the thing all they wanted.

One thing I remembered: the Slylandro mention afterwards that they managed to recall one probe and reprogram it to seek others and transmit the self-destruct sequence. How did they do that (particularily the recall bit)?

That is a VERY good probe to work all that time....

Funny, the Vindicator is a precursor ship. Seems quite likely to me that it would use the same basic tech.

The only thing that I remember that was the same was the fuel. Al the rest was modified.

Regarding the Slylandro situation here:

The first quote explicitly says, that the Slylandro does speak through a Speaker hovering with him.
So, someone gave them hovering Speaker technology. Probably the Precursors.
The broadcasting satellite was in orbit, the speaker was supposely meant to transmit to the satellite, the satellite via HyperWave or whatever to the precursors. The Hovering Speaker probably cannot reach far out into space.
At least, that is what i read out of these two quotes.
So, according to me, the Precursors gave the Slylandro 2 artifacts, the Speaker and the Satellite. The Satellite broke down, but the Speaker remained.


Crowly: regarding the probes:
They did not recall the probe. The probes were programmed to return after a certain amount of time:



So the probe either returned, because its' data cache was full and/or the 500 rotations were over.
It was never called back.
For me it was always clear, that the Slylandro to not have the means to signal into HyperSpace or anything further than their solar system.

How the Slylandros "turned the dial", i do not know. Likely, they used their hovering Speaker to transmit command to the probe in orbit. But that is my opinion.


And yes, the Slylandro have spokern with other Milieu members:BTW: This also tells us, that the Slylandro can become very old beings, indeed. ("I was only a nymph then").
The individual seem to live as long as other civilizations are spacefaring-cultures. Amazing.

I read that to mean that Content to Hover is the name of a Slylandro individual whose job is to speak for the species.

Of course, your conclusion, that there must be some sort of receiver/transmitter setup floating around in the clouds, is necessarily correct.

Maybe, but how did they build and upkeep it? There is no way a transmitter would be working for 200,000 plus years and not bust without upkeep.

But a space ship factory (which I assume is more complicated than a transmitter) can?

It's a "human thing" to make things that eventually break down. We should be very careful to judge other alien races by our 'normal' standards. For example the Mycon 'technology' is all biological.

But, the precursors DO make mistakes, just take the mycons for example (pardon my SC3). I just don't think that a transmitter can work without breaking for 200,000+ years. Now the reason I think that factory did was because it was underground, closed off and all the parts were still. Also there might be a time that the robots had to get a LITTLE help from the  team....

OK, pardon the last idea, but the rest are legit.

I concur; the term "Slylandro Speaker" is capitalized, indicating that it is a title as opposed to an object.

The Precursor's transmitter might not need a speaker/microphone in Source's atmosphere; it could use some sort of psychic or holographic/telescopic technology (holographic/telescopic more likely if the slylandro speak via skincolor modification).


The Ur-Quan found the Sa-Matra in working order, and used it in their first doctrinal war.  If an entire battleship can survive intact, I'd think a simple transmitter would too, especially if the Precursors were giving it as a gift to the obviously long lived Slylandro before they disappeared.

...and the Precursor factory that built your ship.  We know there was no maintenance preformed on that...stalagtites were forming on the machinery, but with the flick of a switch the whole thing came to life good as new (except for the lack of raw materials.)

Well, would it be the same if it was operational all the time?

Even if the tranmitter was not tranmitting, it would still have to be on.

Apparently, it did. I can think of no other explanation for our ability to communicate.

I guess they just don't make them like they used to... :'(

in the core of gas giants pressure is so maniacly high that gases are squashed to solid matter. Living so long on gas giat, wouldnt slylandro been evolved to last eaven n those horryfying pressures? there they could then build some machine from the solid gas, wich would be able to communicate and keep its molecyles tight-packed so it would remain solid. or then they just use telephaty :P

Evolution requires non-replicative reproduction, and the more generations per unit time, the more mutations can occur.  It doesn't look like the Slylandro would have changed that much since their lifespans appear to be measured in eons.

Even if they had children at a pace equal to humans (filling up Source with Slylandro), that's still a drastic mutation you're asking for; sort of akin to saying that since humans have been around so long, we've got to have water-breathing cousins at the bottoms of the oceans who can control their pressures so well they can swim to the surface.

I can't believe we had a 4 page thread over whether the slylandro had a speaker/satellite or not.

My $.02, everyone should stop thinking so realistically and start think science fictionaly (emphasis on fiction) If we start questioning something simple like how the slylandro are able to communicate, we must as well start talking about why the Arilou can change through dimensions, why the translator only has trouble with the Orz, and can translate flawlessly 10 other alien languages. If a device that intensifies the suns energy takes down a slave shield, wouldn't the sun that the planet is orbiting eventually take down a slave shield as well?

Let's face it, there's bound to be illogical stuff in a game like this, because it's not real. And who's to say that just because we aren't able to accomplish something as humans, that it's impossible.  

Ah, but the sun device does not remove the CHMMR slave shield, the CHMMR themselves have the power and technology to do that, and they do. The sun device only completes the process of turning Chenjesu and mrrnrhrm into CHMMR.

It never even occured to me that this would be a viable means of communication. You have expanded my horizons a bit and I thank you. :)

ChainiaC: I wanted to be the first one to say that.  :-/

Arilou can change dimensions because they've been civilized for tens of thousands of years before humans, therefore hava MUCH superior technology. The translator only has trouble with the Orz because, despite the fact that it is an excellent translator that has all the known languages of the universe programmed in, no words in English can accurately describe what the Orz are trying to say. Why the shield wasn't knocked own was already explained.

Despite the fact that it this game is science fiction, it is a damn accurate science fiction. My $.02, is that this thread is an entertaining read and you should shut up and let it continue. It's not hurting anyone, and people are just trying to have fun with some whacked out discussions.

...

Are you allowed to swear in these forums? This post is horribly weak without profanity...

The post doesnt strike me as particularly weak despite its lack of obvious profanity :P

What is profanity?

Well it is for example using words such as ****** or ***** or even ****** and dare I say... ******!!!

In short, dirty words, foul language, etc. Posting certain types of links or images would also qualify if you get my drift :P

K.

Speaking of profanities, the word spoon is censored over at PONAF. No idea why.

As for the thread, well everythings pretty much been answered. I suppose there are no more unsolved mysteries...

YUCK! you said spoon!!!
ADMIN!!! ban Lukipela!!!!  ;)

|  SPOON!  |
 \
(http://www.thetick.ws/images/atickup.gif)

how's about this, you can go **** my ****, telling me to shut-up. I was just trying to state that we've had a discussion going on about something we don't entirely understand. For you to get all hostile towards me about it, shows some real maturity. BTW, what is accurate science fiction?

To everyone else, my post was ment as a joke, and I am sorry. Guess I got a strange sense of humor, and I will try to refrain from using it again. Regardless, carry on with the discussion, I myself am enjoying reading it.

Erm. Star Control 2 is not by any means particularly "accurate" science fiction, in the sense of being hard science fiction that sticks close to known physical laws. Just about everything in Star Control 2's basic operating premise is classic space opera that gleefully ignores real science for the purpose of telling a grand, powerful story. A great deal of the story is funny because it makes hardly any sense but is still darn cool. SC2 is light, airy "science fantasy", and it wouldn't be a quarter as much fun if it weren't.

SC2 does make a pretense of being very *detailed*, of course, and goes to great pains to explain its story in logical-sounding terms, which is part of its genius compared to other science fiction/fantasy game universes that vaguely and incoherently make things up as they go along. But anyone who thinks there's a shred of solid scientific backing behind a story with FTL travel through a hyperspace and truly simultaneous FTL communication through "HyperWave", the mostly made-up or misused names for the scientific-sounding "exotic" minerals (no, you cannot find magnetic monopoles lying around on random planet surfaces), Lovecraftian invisible demons, the Pkunk's array of psionic powers, the Ultron's precognition, a mineral-based life form like the Chenjesu, a giant arthropod like the Ilwrath, and talking plants like the Supox (even *they* admit it's implausible) is being silly. Scientific *jargon* like "dimension" and "psionic radiation" does not hard science fiction make.

I'm surprised you skipped alien mind powers in that
post. I mean, it strikes me that ESP, pre-cogition and
mind control play a big part of UQM. You did mention a few,
but it seems much of the story and history of UQM revolves
around the mystical super natural.

So, to open a new can of worms, does anyone want
to debate the realism or (lack there of) of ESP?

[warning: long post]

1) What happened to the Androsynth?
2) What are the Orz?

No real answer given, obviously, but my interpretation of the ambiguous Orzese is that the Androsynth somehow *became* the Orz, or became mortal hosts for the ineffable Orz mind, that allows it to have a physical foothold in the world.

Of course, it altered the Androsynth's physiology and technology based on its own tastes. Human beings becoming possessed by incorporeal beings and then mutating into disturbingly alien physical forms is a hallmark of Lovecraft's fiction (to which the scenes on the wreckage of the Androsynth homeworld are pretty obviously referring).

3) Where did the precursors go?

This was, of course, answered by Star Control 3, but SC3's canonicity is shaky. Nonetheless I think the answer given in SC3 is pretty clever.

In any case, the clearest interpretation of the Rainbow Worlds as they ended up in SC2 is that they form an arrow in Hyperspace pointing Coreward, indicating the direction the Precursors went when they left. (Attempts by other folks when planning Timewarp to claim that the *real* pattern of the Rainbow Worlds is only observable in Truespace would, first, be an annoying insertion of new information into a sequel that'd undermine the feeling of discovery from SC2. Also, it's bloody unlikely, given that, as the shameless reassignment of old constellation names shows, Truespace astronomy quickly becomes irrelevant for a spacefaring species.)

4) What were the precursors so concerned about when they visited the Slylandro?

According to SC3, the Eternal Ones. Even if it isn't just like the Eternal Ones from SC3, I imagine that whatever might make them flee would probably have to be some similar sort of transcendent, pan-galactic threat to all life.

5) Why are the Syreen so physiologically similar to Earthlings?

Talana makes it clear it's not "mere coincidence"; Humans and Syreen are so similar as to be cross-fertile, meaning Humans and Syreen must be actual genetic relatives. The obvious culprits in any sort of transplantation that took place would be the Arilou, and, since the Arilou are intimately involved with Humans but seem to care jack-all about Syreen (callously abandoning them to their fates after Earth is safely slave-shielded) it's probably safe to say Syra is some sort of control group or backup plan for the Arilou for whatever experiment they're conducting on Earth.

The transplantation has to be quite recent for Humans and Syreen to be close enough to mate with each other; the Arilou' s dialogue suggests their interference with Humans begins at the start of Human recorded history, when Humans first became Human. Talana tells us the divergence of Human and Syreen development comes with the timing and nature of the agricultural revolution. Presumably, whatever Arilou did to Humans caused them to damp-down their psychic capacities (to protect them from the Others) and force them into an expansionist, industrial, warlike society. It seems to have worked, since Humans end up doing a much better job of surviving a hostile universe and being the seed of... whatever the Arilou want them to be than the Syreen.

As far as whether Earth or Syra is the original birthplace of the two races, it's a toss-up. My inclination is to say Earth, both out of home loyalty and because it's implied that Earth is a far more lively and dangerous place than Syra, more likely to have the conditions necessary to cause us curious monkeys to evolve. My impression of Syra is that it was a place to stash the Human genome where it'd be unlikely to wipe itself out if the first experiment was a failure.

6) Who created the Mycon and for what purpose?

I'm going to say it probably was the Precursors; the Mycon seem to be advanced so far beyond anything else that it's most likely to be them (the creators of SC3 thought the same). Also, given the sophistication of the Mycon programming, the time it would take for it to distort itself this badly would be insane.

In any case, the Mycon are sort of like the Slylandro Probes on a gigantic scale. It's hardly likely that their original purpose as terraformers was to terraform green worlds into boiling cauldrons of magma, since the only life form we know of that prefers such environments are the Mycon, and they're artificial. Most life seems to come from vaguely Earth-like environments, and the Mycon's mission was probably to find worlds that had the potential of becoming Earth-like and prepare them for further life by tunneling deep in the mantle and adjusting the climate and plate tectonics. However, as time went on the fine details of their mission got lost in the noise, and Darwinian selection eventually caused the Juffo-Wup of the Mycon to be finding the same Earth-like worlds they'd been designed for, but modifying them to be *all* mantle for the simple purpose of creating more Mycon.

A *lot* like the Probes, really; the Probes are meant to contact starships and speak to them, and make more Probes along the way; instead they contact starships and destroy them to make more Probes. Mycon are meant to find life-bearing worlds and colonize them to adjust them to seed life, making more Mycon along the way; instead they find life-bearing worlds and devour them to make more Mycon.

7) Who created the MmrnMmrms and for what purpose?

Uncertain. Probably no one from this quadrant; likely to be someone from the Kessari Quadrant or its equivalent (if SC3 isn't canon). They came after the death of both the Precursors and the Sentient Milieu, so it can't be any known players; whoever it is must've been fairly close by or else very powerful to escape the notice of the Kzer-Za and Kohr-Ah.

Hayes is probably right: their purpose is as colonizers and terraformers. Their high adaptability (their ships and their appearance indicate some sort of multifunctional modular technology) and their expansionism (pushing out as far as Spathi space before the war) both indicate this. Their creators must be very, very powerful, though the Mrrnrrhrrm's lack of memory and breakdown of the Mother-Ark perhaps indicates some sort of failure on the creators' part, maybe because of an upcoming crisis or breakdown in their society that would explain their need to have a bunch of planets to move to in the near future.

The final arrival of the creators and their reaction to the Chmmr would be a great plot element for a sequel.The one thing we do know about them is that their physiology must be quite different from that of most races, if they speak without true vowels.

8) Why have the Arilou modified Earthlings?
9) How are Earthlings related to the Arilou?

My impression is that Humans are going to be some kind of successors to the Arilou. Arilou constantly refer to Humans as their "children" and make remarks about aspects of Arilou experience (the various tourist attractions on Falayalirafali, the game of *NNGNN*-hunting) that you're just "not ready yet" for, implying that someday you *will* be ready.

The intimation that Arilou may actually be responsible for the existence of the Human race ("You might even say... we knew the *first* Human") adds credence to that point of view. For whatever reason, the Arilou seem to want spiritual offspring, a race to inherit their wonders, and their concern seems to be based around making sure Humans survive long enough to evolve to the Arilou's level.

10) Where and when was the Mark 2 discovered?

The Captain says it -- it's a "different story altogether". My vague guess is that it'd fit well in the story if the Mark 2 were found somewhere on Unzervalt, in a factory similar to the one that produced the Mark 1. The background in the 3DO movie looks consistent with the Mark 2 being on the same planet as the one we see in the 3DO intro.

Since the story of Captain Zelnick's eventual marriage to Talana seems to be part of the same story as the discovery of the Mark 2, I'd give it a few years after the war to give the two crazy kids' romance some time to mature, and for the Humans to have time to crack Unzervalt's slave shield and organize a new expedition.

11) How have the Utwig changed the Druuge?

Who knows? They haven't changed the Druuge *yet*, but the object that will be the key to changing the Druuge would be among all the other weird Precursor relics/junk the Utwig gave them. Since the Ultron has some sort of power to amplify an individual's basic nature, maybe there's some other device in there that has the power to modify said nature.

But Paul & Fred did leave the question open concerning whether the whole Ultron business and all the Utwig's insights were anything but a lot of hokum, so who really knows?

12) Do the Taalo still exist in some form?

The Orz's dialogue implies that the Taalo did escape their fate; it's made pretty clear that when the slaughter began they escaped and spread through "PrettySpace" where the Orz have been harassing them ('playing" with them and having "parties") ever since. The fact that the Orz mention the Taalo in the same breath and in the same context as the Orz and Androsynth implies they really are still around, rather than just being a victim of the Orz's use of present tense for everything.

Though the claim that the Taalo are making "Time jokes" is a bit puzzling, implying that the connection from wherever the Taalo are to Truespace involves a distortion in time as well as location. Perhaps they haven't come back yet because, to them, very little time has passed?

Besides, it makes for a much more interesting story if the Taalo still exist. The ripples it'd send through Ur-Quan society would make the Yehat Civil War look like a wet firecracker.

Mysteries that were probably just inserted for flavor:

13) What are the Melnorme's ominous plans?

No one can pay them enough for them to tell you. I do get the impression they're purposely helping you defeat the Ur-Quan -- Ur-Quan dominance is bad for business, after all, and there may still be hard feelings about that whole vanishing act they pulled back when they were the Mael-Num. But they do offer you, unsolicited, all manner of merchandise specifically geared to be invaluable in helping you win the war, and appear to make no such overtures toward your enemies. Like various other wealthy political people throughout history, they help you in the form of sales rather than gifts, because of the mercenary nature of their society and because it probably makes it much easier for them to claim neutrality to whatever authority governs their actions.

And their long-range plans? Aside from defeating the Ur-Quan, I think it has something to do with some sort of survival project similar to the Precursors'. They probably aren't up to Precursor tech levels, but the fact that they're willing to pay such exorbitant prices for Rainbow World locations indicates they get information out of the Rainbow Worlds beyond just mineral resources. Also, I notice that the credit value placed on data from a single life form spikes sharply for one particular kind of widespread life form, a weird thing with tiny limbs, a bulbous body, and *one eye*. The suspicious part of me thinks that they're degenerate relatives of the Melnorme. The really suspicious part of me thinks they want tons of bio information because they're aware there's something fishy about certain nonsentient species existing in tons of star systems (including their own relatives) and they want to know about the patterns in which these species exist, to compare to the patterns in which Rainbow Worlds exist, because somehow the Precursors are intimately tied into some sort of secret regarding the spread of life.

The Rainbow World/nonsentient species connection brings up, of course, a very important Star Control 3 plot point. A plot point that the Melnorme would probably sell you their entire fleet for... :)

14) Why does the Melnorme's bridge turn purple?

There is some sort of color-coding going on. Red is the default ship color, blue the alert color, and purple the trading color. The theory that trade is some sort of mix between social greetings and combat in terms of attitude has been advanced, but note that purple is only a "mixture" of red and blue because of how our eyes work and how we mix pigments. In reality, red is simply the low-frequency end of the visible light spectrum, blue high-frequency, and "purple" (violet) at the very end of the high-frequency band. If Melnorme are so sensitive to color, it makes sense that their ambient light is red, low energy, during casual conversation, amps up to blue when they're fighting, and goes all the way up to violet when they're doing their *real* business.

Of course, it may be that the color-changing can actually be used to *affect* the Melnorme's mental state -- they do develop a radiation weapon that stuns aliens using a particular pattern of light, after all. Maybe visible light directly affects their brains somehow. That'd be a good reason to keep the secret of the purple bridge really secret. The blue bridge they could explain to you, since you probably have alert lights for battle on your own bridge, but describing how the purple lights work might put ideas in your head...

15) What are *nnngn*?

Some sort of little nonsentient animal-like flying ghost things that the Arilou seem to catch for fun. Like catching butterflies.

"Ghosts" is probably the wrong word; they probably exist in some sort of higher-dimensional form, just like the noncorporeal part of the Arilou does. Hence the Arilou tells you that you're not solid *enough* yet to touch a *NNNGN*...

Any identification between the *NNNGN* and the Others who kill the Androsynth is really stretching it. The Others are most likely noncorporeal Orz.

16) Who are the Keel Verezy?

Only the Melnorme seem to be aware of them. For whatever reason they seem incapable of directly helping you even though they're sympathetic to you.

They won't talk to you because they're afraid of disturbing you (though, to be fair, you don't seem to be that encumbered by prejudice against weird-looking aliens through the game, the VUX excepted) and they seem to have some really great cloaking device that they can't or won't turn off, putting them in danger of having their ships shattered by yours.

My wild theory? Keel-Verezy are really, really, *really* small. Little tiny colonies of sentient microorganisms that split and recombine (hence the Melnorme's choice of the pronoun "he/she/they" for the Keel-Verezy captain). This'd be a cute explanation for why you can never see them and why being aware of them might disturb you (they might be floating through your own ship right at that moment, or floating through the air as an invisible cloud spying on you; their "ships" would be big but still hard-to-detect spaceworthy conglomerations of whatever dust and bacteria form their physical bodies).

The Melnorme, having more spacefaring experience, better technology, and a less physiology-based outlook coming from appearing to live in their ships all the time and communicate to outsiders only by screen would be less bound by your prejudices, of course.

17) What is the Spathi's ultimate evil?

Oh, that? It's pretty obvious that the Ultimate Evil is the closest thing the Spathi have to a religious belief. It, by definition, is completely impossible to detect no matter how good your sensors are and refuses to reveal its existence no matter what you do and can never be destroyed or driven away and no one knows it's there until the day it *STRIKES* and some horrible, unimaginable apocalpyse results.

The Spathi, therefore, can never detect or describe the Ultimate Evil, and take its existence on faith, a faith born of the pathological congenital paranoia that defines their psychology.

The Ultimate Evil shouldn't be confused with the Evil Ones, the big Spathivorous teddy bears probably made by the Umgah to screw with the Spathi. The Evil Ones are probably what *caused* the Spathi to evolve into paranoid freaks, and *caused* the Spathi to develop their religious concept of the Ultimate Evil, hence the use of the same word (in Spathi) to describe them. Just like how God is a King of Kings, or Hell is the Second Death.

18) Is the Utwig homeworld related to the Faz?

Ooh, good call. The Sky-Canopies of Fahz may well be a reference to the slave shield over the Faz homeworld that somehow, eventually, fell. The Utwig would either be a new species that evolved on the planet or, more likely, since they've retained the name "Fahz" in their language, a degeneration of the Faz after the installation of the slave shield. (Total collapse of civilization, "cavorting about our world oblivious of any higher value" and all.) I'm inclined to think that the "Chimt" responsible for taking down the Veils (slave shield) was some sort of device created by the ancient Faz, but it could've been some other phenomenon. It's a history so long ago and so obscured by ravages of war and time that the Utwig don't appear to be sure of the details either, given the mechanical way they recite their history.

Anyway, the ancient racial memory of the slave shield and its symbolism of an assurance of safety from the wrathful Ur-Quan probably made a deep, deep impression on the frightened Faz, and would be the reason why the resurgent Utwig had such a deep ambivalence about emerging from the "Veils" and building a new civilization, and why their culture became so focused on order, propriety, and universal morals, based on a continuing need to mask themselves from a dangerous sky.

Of course, this is all speculation, and the creators probably wanted this info to be nothing but a brief glimpse into the Utwig's history. But it is a cool explanation for their weird culture, and an intriguing possible instance of the Kzer-Za's fallibility (though it's telling that the only one of their slave shields we know of that ever went down was the very first one they ever built).

19) What extra dimensional beings do the Pkunk communicate with?

They are played off as a bit of a joke, but I see no reason not to take them seriously given the fact that their powers do, disturbingly, work. They mainly talk about generic "spirits", though it seems that most of the time these are spirits of the dead (who have not yet reincarnated or "ceased") who run around as the astral messengers of the living out of good will. Of course, during the game said goodwill runs out and the Pkunk stop giving you prophecies, thanks to the union contracts they've had to negotiate with their dead ancestors.

They also claim to be in contact with real gods, or godlike beings, who all exist on some higher dimensional plane (they like to hang out on the 4th Astral Plane), though it's not clear if they can talk to them directly or just interact with them through the "spirits". In any case that's their main proof for Dogar and Kazon being merely myths, besides the whole "Umgah-like-giggling-on-the-tape" argument.

They aren't relatives of the Melnorme. They're Spathi! The Melnorme know about how tasty the Spathi are.  It's better than *caviar*, *ice cream*, and *chocolate* combined.  They offer so many credits because it's so valuable to them. ;)

Not very hard to taste better than that. Caviar and icecream do not go well ttogether, esopecially if chocolate is added.

Everything tastes better with chocolate. ;D

Everything?  O_o

Mmm. "Sweet Spathi flesh", indeed. (Well, I always liked clams...)

Scientifically speaking, that's difficult. Then again, scientifically proving that God exists is difficult too, and that doesn't really stop anybody. I've personally had a few precognitive dreams myself, as has at least one friend of mine. Just short sniplets of everyday situations (but not so everyday that you couldn't differentiate them). Also speaking of ESP, many people say they get an uncomfortable feeling or sort of feel a presence if someone is staring at them from behind, even if your other five senses have given no indication of anyone being there.

I have a theory why the translator has trouble with Orzese.

Orz live in ethanol. That's alcohol. Conclusion = they're drunk 24/7. And all drunk people are incomprehendable. Enough yet?  :P

Also, we didn't adjust for medium, like Spock did in Star Trek 4. It turns out that the Orz are actually speaking teletubby, but it comes out sounding kind of like English because they're speaking in a fluid.

That explains why their language is completely understandable to my young sister? =p

what, she's drunk too?
*burp*