The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

The Ur-Quan have nigh-Precursorian levels of technology and access to a great number of ancient devices, and their ships are powerful enough to be called "Planetary Siege Units" (SC1) even unsupported. Hasn't it been considered odd that the red fighters the Dreadnought launch are utter deathtraps?

The fighters are weak, just maneuverable enough to avoid planets and have a very limited source of not only fuel, but life support. The Orz marines have radically better results without even using spacecraft. So why this huge disparity? I've come to one conclusion:
The fighters are crewed by the slave races. When launching, they're arming non-Ur-Quans and placing them in close proximity to their own ships.

So when your plasmoid plows through a swarm of the red craft because they move too clumsily to get out of the way, consider that this is a demonstration of how much power the Ur-Quan are willing to give the other races, even when larger amounts could radically increase the power of their craft, even when they're losing the second Doctrinal Conflict.

I found that interesting.

I think it's fairly obvious that the fighters are slaved by crew races once you know the fact that there is only one Ur-Quan aboard each dreadnought. My personal theory is that dreadnoughts are staffed with the members of former thrall races from other sectors of the galaxy. I doubt that the 'quans would want to leave autonomous thrall races alone, so they can either slave-shield them or use them to crew dreadnoughts (or perhaps a combination.)

The fighters could be unmanned, and remote-controlled by one slave each aboard the Dreadnought.

That's a bit counterintuitive... how would you explain the death of said crew member upon annihilation of his fighter?

I suppose the Ur-Quan could have a policy of executing slaves that get their fighters crashed.

Right. It's common knowledge/assumption that slaves crew the fighters; what intrigued me is that the Ur-Quan are (seemingly) driven to cripple the effectiveness of their own ships by their paranoia and xenophobia.

No need for that. The crew member would just have become useless (having nothing to do anymore) and wouldn't count anymore.

Again, not a terribly logical principle to act by... what if there are only 10 crew left when the first fighter is launched?  Any slave who loses a fighter would still be valuable, since there are more unused fighters he could remote-control.

Well, they're slaves, aren't they? Probably chained to their terminal, controlling just one thing. :P

One hit and *kpow* sparks explode in their face and -1 crew. I like it.

Except for the issue that living fighters don't count as crew on-board the dreadnaught.

That's just a matter of administration.

It's just another instance of "Why does the captain get killed last?". "Why does the Ur-Quan captain gets killed when there are still fighters pilots left?"

I don't see why there's any reason to think that the fighters must be remotely piloted, since the crew lost/regained thing makes *way* more sense if you assume the crew leaves on the fighter. Why is a crew member "useful" when he's not piloting a fighter *before* the fighter blows up, but then no longer "useful" and now counts toward how long the ship has before it explodes? Not that the abstraction of crew = HP makes much sense in the first place, but it makes a lot more sense if you assume it's literal, and take the game at its word when it says that something that makes the ship lose crew literally causes it to lose crew (launching a fighter, launching a Space Marine, abandoning ship for a Syreen call).

In any case, I don't see why it's necessarily true that remotely piloting the fighter is a better explanation for the clumsy fighters than the simple explanation that Ur-Quan Lords don't want to give their slave races too much power and purposely made the fighters as crippled and cheap as they could.

Noone said it was a good explanation, let alone that it's "necessarilly true" that it's better than some other explanation.
You shouldn't take this whole matter so seriously. It "is" the way TFB wants it to be. And chances are they haven't given this much thought at all.

Excuse me?!!! (Yes im back) They are not slaves,heres very deffinite proof. What do u think happens to the Thraddash when u send them to help the Kzer-ah fight the Kohr-ah. They got obliterated by both sides cause the Ur-qaun will not allow other Races to intervene thier doctrinal war. Fighting slave or not. Meanin thier Ships would be practically useless when the 2nd doctrinal war came along cause they would have to either kill or send away 2.9 of every 3 pilots they had. Which would be dumb and the 2nd doctrinal war wouldnt even last for a week then.

Having slaves is having slaves--it's part of the Kzer-Za advantage. As long as they fight with their own Dreadnoughts and ensure that it was an Ur-Quan that gave the orders to kill, I can't see how they would have any objections with using slaves on their dreadnought.

Additionally, I'd imagine the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za could plausibly crew their own dreadnoughts. I see no reason to believe that there would be more Kohr-Ah by default, although it is possible.

On fighters being flown to start with:


Autonomous could mean any number of things. In this case, it seems to say, essentially, that the fighters are not glorified torpedoes--the "departing crew member" bit similarly implies that fighters are crewed to some extent. Besides, assuming convoluted things to get around fighters being directly flown violates Occam's Razor. It would be nonsensical to execute slaves for getting their fighters destroyed, or preventing them from flying other fighters after that one's gone, and the Ur-Quan aren't like that. Their "logic" may leave a bit to be desired in some fields, but they generally have good reasons for everything they do. It doesn't seem likely that they would purposefully do stupid things here just to prove "something" to their slaves.

-Bob

Occam's Razor is no law to be violated. It's a guideline for producing theories.

I'd say they're crewed. 'Departing of a crew' seem to indicate they're crewed, and 'autonomous' could also mean independent (from UrQ/player control). Then there's the use of the word 'fighter' (which are mostly crewed in sci-fi) instead of 'drone' (a pilotless aircraft operated by remote control) or some other word like that.

btw, I wonder, with the UrQ species being very territorial, if the Marauders only have one Kohr-Ah pilot. If so, what are their crew? I'd guess robots with lots of pointy nasty bits. With my scale I must go for something like that anyways since I can't stuff 40 ten meter worms in a 60-80m ship. Of course with a much larger ship scale, the chances of two Kohr-Ah running into each other is slim. They're also genetically modified, although the 'territorial' gene was apparently kept intact in the Kzer-Za atleast.

Edit: Although the Dreadnaught is probably about the size of a Marauder and still only can have one UrQ onboard, so only the genetic modification issue remain.

Edit, Gagaga now I have an irresistable urge to draw an UrQ Marauder interior and their robotic crew... I'm thinking  something with tentacles and little buzz saws... scalpels...

The Syreen song doesn't work on robots, but it does on the crew of an Ur-Quan ship.

The only thing that means is that the crew onboard on Marauders aren't Slylandro probe crew. Maybe those are mounted in the ship? The Marauder crew robots could have organic brains, if that's required to be susceptible to the syreen lure.

Whether it works on Ur-Quan is unknown, since the pilot always stays on the ship.

Edit: does it say anywhere that the song doesn't work on robots specifically? I need to look this up. Edit : Maybe sentience is the requirement here?

Edit: Syreen song works on Mmrnmhrm.

Edit: Kohr-Ah wouldn't be terribly keen on having other sentient life onboard though. 'Sentience'  is such a retarded and vague term btw.

The SC1 manual speaks of a "hypnosis field".

Personally, I think the Song only fails against probes simply because they're built to not need a real crew. It's all composed of 16(?) dedicated, fixed emplacement, sub-sentient robots that are progammed to perform a specific task onboard, ie. replication-construction, communication, particle disruption control, etc. So, not only are they non-sentient (unlike the Mmrn and non-canon Daktaklakpak), they're also likely welded in place in many cases, if they're even separate entities from the probe machinery to begin with.

It's also a game balance issue, so that you have to look for more difficult targets (or perhaps, just so you can't sit atop Sol and wait) to supply you with free crew once you can buy Penetrators. :P

The probe "crew" might not actually even be separate units, attached to the inside. Each could represent a portion of the machine's processors and data storage. Brain cells, if you will.

Yeah I have always imagined them being placed in sockets like lightbulbs. Sort of like vacum tubes, but each one is a mini computer... an idea I used for another project of mine.

In my story one of these Probe Bulbs become 'sentient'... that's a rule to sci-fi, give anything enough time and it becomes a sentient species. In this case it was bound to happen due to the massive amount of replicated Probes.

Now I must draw this.

Reply to C.bob's comment. Umm I dont think the Ur-Qaun would permit other species on thier ships Cause the sight of another life form puts them in a urge to kill the being. (cept for the rock beings cant think of the name)But hey they do have the Dnarri on thier ships as communicators i might be wrong.

The Ur-Quan are capable of handling these instincts, evidently, though with great difficulty.  Nobody said it would be easy.
 Additionally, nobody said the Ur-Quan necessarily have to be in direct contact with the thralls--they could simply operate from a special division and give orders over intercom. This may even be possible with the Talking Pets--you always see them in a separate box on the screen.

-Bob

I thought the Ur-Quan were only territorial when it came to other Ur-Quan. Ten meters from each other is as close as they can get but they really don't like it at all. Just the thought of sharing ship with another Ur-Quan is obviously too much for them. 

I don't think the slave/thrall species represent a territorial threat of the same kind. There's even an image of an Ur-Quan pretty close to its slaves, shouting orders.

I'm pretty sure that's correct. One actual Quanny per ship, the rest are red shirts. Slave thralls are no threat to their power.

Perhaps there's another choice they offer some races, apart from Battle Thrall and Fallow Slave: Dreadnaught Drudge. The function only being offered to species who meet specific requirements.

The Ur-Quan are a species very, very disdainful of menial tasks. Their most hated enemies are used to translate their speech. They look down upon their other slaves. They view the slaves as expendable. So, for their fighters, they make the cheapest ships possible - utter deathtraps - because they care more if a ship is lost than if a slave is lost.

You write stories?

Are they online so any one can read them?
If so where?
Practically the Star Control ones.

I don't write fanfic stories, but I did do a background story draft (http://itchstudios.com/psg/sce/intro_story.htm) for my own version of SC2 (somewhere else on my site).