The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Yes, this thing bugged me for some time.
Why did you take all the precious devices aboard with you to their destruction?!!
Or were they aboard the Escape Pod too?

Most of the devices were probably too large to put in the escape pod. For example, the Portal Spawner includes a large chunk of Dreadnought and the Taalo Shield weighs a ton. The Sun Device is likely to be quite big for heat dissipation reasons alone, and the casters appear to be quite bulky. The only one definitely small enough for the escape pod would be the Neo-Dnyarri, and there are good reasons for blowing that one up with the Sa-Matra. ;D

What worries me more is that these things don't seem to take up any space in the flagship. Are the bolted to the sides or something?

Wimbli's Trident should fit on board :P

Well, you need the Spawner to get to the Sa-Matra--at least if you don't want to go through lots of enemy territory--so you can't leave that at home.  Taking it with you would entail uninstalling it (and, who says you know how to do that?  The Arilou installed it for you) while you're being chased by Ur-Quan.  Also, who's to say it would be needed afterwards?  The Arilou could presumably make you another one from any Dreadnaught that was sufficiently intact, if you really needed another large portal spawner.

The Taalo shield is definitely something you need to keep with you as long as the Dnyarri's on board.  Can't leave that behind.

The Sun Device and the Casters are trickier.  Maybe they just forgot about them.  :-\  (Although the casters, at least, have potential use even after you have the bomb installed, since you might want to call the Melnorme.)

I imagine the Chmmr can build any toys you lose. Heck, they might have already built you more sleek versions once you get back to Earth. I mean, cracking an inpenetrable slave shield is peanuts for them... Furthermore, I take it that people were smart enough to download the blueprints of the tug, thus being able to create more after the Sa-Matra blows up (hey, unlimited RU, what's keeping them from doing it?).

In the great war for the liberation of our tiny little corner of the galaxy, sacrifices must be made.

Undoubtedly, the destruction of the portal spawner is considered good fortune for the Arilou, as I think they really only gave us Humans a spawner so we could battle the Ur-Quan, and not interact with potenial other creaters in that plane.

The loss that makes me the saddest is the Taalo shield. I mean lord only knows how many other psychic aliens are around.

No, there aren't any other Dnyarri-like creatures, as the Arilou can tell you (in the PC version only):
So you do, my clever child!
You must have obtained some sort of psionic nullifier, am I right?
What a fine weapon the Dnyarri will be against the Ur-Quan, your enemy.
But I warn you, beware! You now possess one of the most powerful creatures in the history of your galaxy
and also one of the most evil... as you judge evil.
We warn you, do not believe anything the Dnyarri says.
It speaks only the lies it believes will convince you to set it free
and that you must NEVER do.

And the blueprint of the tug is not enough to rebuild it - who knows what advanced production techniques must be employed to build it! And the factory on Vela has been certainly destroyed by that pesky Dreadnought that slave-shielded the planet, as any buildings older than 500 (or was it 5000?) years are.

The Casters weren't unreplaceable pieces, of course - they're just casters of races not more advanced than the Alliance races.

But the Sun Device, the Glowing Rod and Wimbli's Trident?! (Well, especially the Sun Device, since the others are way too... dangerous.  ;))
So the Sun Device is the only artifact that could be saved. But who says it wasn't?! The escape pod was supposed to fill the space the landers would have normally occupied, as we can see from the Outfit Starship picture. So it was larger than the landers, which were capable to transport the Sun Device. That means that the Device was taken with you for any case and dumped into the Escape Pod.
Or even let home from the first instance, and its presence in the "Devices" list a simple oversight of FF. Not PR3, only FF.

But "one of" implies that there are more powerful creatures and more evil ones (although not necessarily embodied in the same creature(s), of course)--or at least that it's fairly close.

Besides, "incredibly powerful and evil" and "has mind control powers" aren't necessarily one and the same.  The shield is useful against the second (assuming it works against all/most such powers and isn't specifically tailored to the Dnyarri), but the Arilou specify the first.

Well then, what do you say of this:
The Dnyarri were the most inimical race this galaxy has known.
In other dimensions, other *times* there are far, far worse beings
but they do not threaten you at the present time.
During their reign, the Dnyarri possessed absolute power over all intelligent species in this region.
They used their slaves for all menial tasks and many forms of depraved entertainment.
If the Talking Pet we gave to the Umgah has attained the coercive abilities of its ancestors
we must assume that other Talking Pets can do likewise.
Therefore the creature must be considered the most dangerous being in the galaxy.

Ahhhh, good point.  I'd forgotten about that bit.  I think my second point still stands, though--not to mention it might be a good idea to be prepared in case more telepaths of that variety develop in the future, never mind what exists right now.  (And specifying "at the present time" implies that they might be a threat later.)

Wonder why *times* is an imperfectly-translated word.

Because it must be a very complex concept.

Oh, probably.  But it seems like an instance where they'd simplify/dumb down the explanation anyway, so why not just use a straight equivilent?

Perhaps there is no such an equivalent - other than "times", of course.
Who knows what might "*times*" mean...

I don't see why the Arilou would know everything about the galaxy. Yes, they are quite advanced and knowledgeable but that doesn't mean they know every race, and all that stuff. I prefer to think of the endless possibilities :P

I was just going to say. The Arilou may have a much greater level of understanding about places and races that we will never see or know of, but that doesn't mean they know everything.

Also, it seems to me that the Taalo shield actually is specifically tuned to block the Dnyarri. While it may seem a bit ambiguous when it gives the folks on the starbase with high psychic potential headaches, it also does nothing to prevent the Pkunk from using their precognitive powers, or the Syreen from using their ship's special. I think it's fair to say that the Taalo were only focused on stopping the Dnyarri, not making their shield able to nullify any type of psychic powers.

*Time* is a best-fit every time the Arilou use the word, not just in this one instance. It seems to imply that they have a different perception of time than we do, and that the very concept works differently for them.

The casters you get are no more or less advanced than their Old Alliance equivalents (barring the Chejesu's natural version, which was specifically stated to be much more sensitive than anyone else's). It just seems as if it's not possible for you to manufacture one of your own aboard the starbase, probably because they don't have any blueprints aboard; if they had the ability to make a long-range caster like those, I suspect they wouldn't have been in that sorry state in the beginning of the game, and would have called for (and received) help long ago. Also, you don't take the casters aboard your escape pod (along with your other devices) because you can't; the casters in particular are enormous. The Burvix caster is set up in a similar fashion to a radio beacon, and thus must be pretty large to begin with. The Umgah caster, just sitting there on its own, is apparently large enough to generate an anomolous energy reading on the planet's surface, implying that it's pretty huge as well.

It's also worth mentioning that the escape pod is not that big. Just because it appears to take up all your lander space in the shipyard screen, doesn't mean it actually does; more than likely, most of that space was occupied by the bomb. Odds are, there's room for only one thing in that escape pod: you.

Incidentally, it must suck to be one of the people crewing the ship for that final mission, knowing that there's only one escape pod on board. I suppose the Shofixti might be eager for that detail (blowing themselves up is nothing new for them), but I can't imagine any of the other races being particularly eager to accept that assignment.

I've always thought that the Pod also carries your shipmates.
About the Taalo Shield, it was specifically designed against compulsion.
And the Sun Device - I'd say that it was in fact let at the StarBase, though it still stays in the list due to FF's error.

Also, the Portal Spawner could be easily removed. Think of how the Druuge remove it (they call it a "Vortex Spawner". Wonder where do they know of such devices?...).

I wonder how Dnyarri could get out of the locked storage room and save himself at the last second.

The credits are not to be taken as canon.

As such, it's silly that the Utwig would break the Ultron for the second time, or that the Dnyarri escaped.

I think you mean the 'Utwig break the Ultron'.

This doesn't change the fact that it's a very large piece of equipment (since it's based on an entire Dreadnought warp pod), and there is no room for it in the escape pod. Not to mention that you'd be crazy to try to get to the Sa-Matra without it...

Ah, you mean that it's better to deprive Mankind of such a remarkable device rather than fly your way through Ur-Quan ranks (you can outrun them easily)?!
You're better off leaving it at the StarBase.

"Brave warrior, we have a mission of honor for you.  You and your crewmates must face the slimy Ur-Quan, stay alive long enough to deposit  "the package", after which you all get blown to kingdom come. Are you up to the task?"

Shofixti: Uh, ok!

Yes. I suspect the Arilou would have wanted it that way. No need to attract unwarranted attention (because you know someone's going to extrapolate the technology eventually) and get us all turned into Orz. Besides, it's just going to sit around begging to be examined more closely, anyway; it's not like it could even fit on a Cruiser, or even an Avatar. It was custom built for a ship that is much larger than any one normally used by the known races. Leaving it behind is creating a scenario that could only lead to a disaster.

Of course, its curious...there must have been engineers aboard the Flagship. I know if it was me, I'd spend a lot of free time analyzing this portal device and trying to figure out how it works....maybe with this knowledge that the 'Synth didn't have, we will be able to build devices for our Cruisers...

1. It's dangerous to study IDF unprepared.
2. Some devices are too complex to be able to be copied.

Aha, so the Arilou were the masterminds behind the Spawner's nonremoval? Yes, it's a plausible explanation - Ah! I have a solution! The Arilou somehow made you forget to tell the Chmmr to remove the Spawner, and after the Upgraded Bomb was fitted in, they couldn't remove the Spawner anymore.
As to the Spawner not fitting into smaller vessels - what if you build a skeleton structure to "enlarge" a Cruiser so that the Spawner fits in?!

Or, more likely, the device was just too useful where it was to go through the trouble of removing it, and would have sat in storage or a research lab (much to the Arilou's chagrin; mysterious sabatoge may follow shortly thereafter) since it's too large for any other ship.


What would you like to remove in order to make room? How about the entire standard engine, since that's one of the only places on the Cruiser that would be big enough to feasibly hold it, even after enlargement. The others would be the bridge, or perhaps the missile storage bays. Or maybe you would want to mount it on an allied ship instead? I'm sure we could clear up some room on a Nemesis for it. ::)

Do you suppose that the technicians aboard the starbase would have been able to install it correctly themselves on another ship (especially one that's jury-rigged like you're suggesting)? Personally, I doubt it; if they managed to keep their portal spawner technology out of the hands of both the Hierarchy and the rest of the Alliance for the entire Slave War, then they're not likely to just let an easily transplantable version fall into the hands of anyone, despite (or perhaps especially because, given the potential implications of IDF exploration) it being in the hands of their favorite "children."

Also, I like to think that the Arilou's warnings may have hit home with Zelnick, and he wouldn't allow the starbase engineers and scientists to study the spawner in much detail. By the same token, he probably insisted that it be included on the final mission, not only to make the final assault simpler, but also because he knew that the final net effect would be the destruction of the artifact.

Ah, a good point.
Except the "make room on the ship for the Spawner" - no, I wanted to say that the Spawner is mounted OUTSIDE the ship.

Which would make it even more of a technical nightmare, and that much more prone to damage.

Or the Chmmr left it installed because they had only one objective in mind: destroy the Sa-Matra and do that as quickly as possible, whatever it takes.

The fate of the galaxy is at stake! If sacrificing one of these devices just gives the captain a *slightly* higher chance of succeeding in his extremely risky mission, it's worth it.

And really, the improvement in the chances is not slight.

Huh? It's so simple to avoid all those Ur-Quan ships!

How long would it take to travel through Hyperspace to the Sa-Matra?

How long would it take to travel through Quasispace to the Sa-Matra?

What are your chances to meet Ur-Quan in Hyperspace?

What are your chances to meet Ur-Quan in Quasispace?

What kind of being the 'Sa-Matra' himself is? Is he an Ur-Quan like the rest of them?

Huh? How long ago have you played the game? Or have you not finished it?!
SPOILER:




The Sa-Matra (meaning in Ur-Quanese "The Great Trophy") is a huge Precursor battleship capable of annihilating entire starfleets with the push of a button from the far edge of a solar system (it can't destroy planets, though).
The Kzer-Za and the Kohr-Ah are fighting a Doctrinal Conflict to decide who will take the Sa-Matra and proceed to implement his doctrine in the Galaxy.
However, they have the Sa-Matra deactivated, probably to keep them from the tentation of using it in the Doctrinal Conflict. So it is very vulnerable.
HINT: Use the Ultronomicon (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki)





SPOILER END.

Heh heh, well, but "meeting" them is not the same as fighting them. You can evade them in HyperSpace.
Also, your ship is already very powerful and can destroy them.
Plus, what's wrong with the explanation that the Chmmr didn't take it off, on purpose or out of a "mistake"?

The Chmmr do not strike me as a race that go "oops, we forgot!" Everything they do is with purpose and intent.

Furthermore, my questions weren't answered, allow me to answer them myself:

How long would it take to travel through Hyperspace to the Sa-Matra?

More than in Quasispace

How long would it take to travel through Quasispace to the Sa-Matra?

Less than in Hyperspace

What are your chances to meet Ur-Quan in Hyperspace?

More than in Quasispace

What are your chances to meet Ur-Quan in Quasispace?

Non-existent

Now, if you were to destroy something as soon as possible with as less risk as possible, would you wade through countless of lightyears of enemy space, possibly meeting/fighting your enemy and getting killed (however strong your ship is), wasting valuable time in the process, or would you slip through the backdoor and strike with surgical precision in a fraction of that time, taking out a non essential device?

Now, really, you CAN'T get yourself caught by Ur-Quan on the way to Sa-Matra.
But... yeah, what about the way back?! Without the Spawner, you'll attract the Ur-Quanss attention and they'll intercept your escape pod. With the Spawner, it's less risky.

I think its assumed that with the destruction of the Sa-Matra, the Ur-quan fleets fall into complete dissarray, and probably the alliance you spent so much time building are there to help escort you.

Then we stick with the Chmmr that kept it on to protect humanity from IDF - perhaps the Arilou even told the Chmmr to do so.

Says who? It would only take one gravity well to spawn right in front of the ship's nose without giving you enough time to react, and suddenly you're stuck in an endless string of battles as all the others you were evading and outrunning catch up to you. The chances of this are minimized if you have less distance to cover in Hyperspace.


First of all, the device is probably bigger than your entire escape pod by several orders of magnitude; this is an Ur-Quan warp pod we're talking about here. Second of all, the distraction caused by the combination of both the Dnyarri's mental compulsions and the destruction of the Sa-Matra will buy you plenty of time to put some distance between you and the bulk of the Ur-Quan fleet. Third, the timely arrival of the Yehat / Pkunk warfleet just before the final assault implies that your allies were able to break through whatever resistance the Ur-Quan put up, and are standing by not only to intercept the escape pod, but to fight of any Ur-Quan that attempt to do the same. Somehow, I don't think the Chmmr would entrust the fate of the Alliance to your hands, set you up with a means to escape the ensuing carnage, and then leave you hanging out to dry once your mission is accomplished.

Zelnick should get the right to say something in this direction... but well, let's say that Fwiffo made an intervention, pointing out how useful he was in the entire game... er, campaign. And he said to take the Spawner to minimize the risk.

The way I see it, it's quite simple:

1) The portal spawner is kept on board in order to shorten the trip to the Sa-Matra - the alliance is kinda itchin to get of those pesky Ur-quans

2) The spawner is quite large, having been built on the pod of a Dreadnaught, and is installed quite firmly, too firmly to be able to detach fast enough.

3) While we (Zelnick) are off destroying the Sa-Matra, other members of the alliance are fighting against the Ur-quan, and after the platform is destroyed, our escape pod is escorted back.

The Druuge detached it very fast.

But right, they wanted speed, probably, and increased chances. Fwiffo is certainly involved.
Maybe Arilou too.

How many Druuge were there, tools at the ready, hungry for a new piece of tech? IThey are a trader race that thrives on salvage, so I'm sure they're adept at dismantling.

But even then, I don't think thats a viable arguement. It takes the Melnorme the same amount of time to outfit 1 planet lander with modifications as it does to outfit a ship maxed with landers. It doesn't take time in the game, because theres a time limit to the game, and it would be a tad ridiculous.

Hey, I've just realized. Hayes says that the Spawner has a limited, self-contained power supply. Perhaps it was nearing depletion.

He also says that there is no way to tell how long it will last, so that hardly seems valid.

He says "we cannot estimate". The Chmmr, being mechanical beings themselves, would be better at this job.

Or perhaps not, since it's not their technology, and nobody would be particularly keen on having them disassemble it just to figure that out.

"Well, the good news is, we took apart the Portal Spawner and found out it has enough power to last 100 more years! The bad news is, we took the Portal Spawner apart, and have no idea how to put it back together."

What about a sci-fi-ish scan? You can scan an entire planet with the Vindicator, the Ur-Quan can too, there's no reason why the Chmmr couldn't scan a Spawner.

Except they don't know what they're looking for. Planet scans have 3 distinct items of interest. Artifact scans, as our science reports tell us, run the whole gamut, and still often wind up coming to incomplete or incorrect conclusions (Any Ultron repair artifact is a good example).

'Cause there they couldn't see the big picture, 'cause everything was separated. This does not apply to the Spawner.
In fact, energy depletion would mean that something disappears from the Spawner, so you could measure it.
Unless the energy upon which the Spawner feeds is something extra-dimensional, and we are not solid enough to perceive it.

The don't-remove-it-to-increase-Zelnick's-chances explanation is indeed better, but the Chmmr are too calculated to take a risk so small into account (after all, Zelnick survived to much worse things), when a device so precious is in danger. I'd say that Fwiffo's certainly involved, rather.

Perhaps the Arilou were being purposefully vague. Infact, they set it to have a very specific time duration, their estimation for how long it would take to defeat the Ur-quan.
They spent all that energy changing our "smell" they wouldn't want us to suddenly start exploring quasispace. Furthermore, perhaps they discussed with the Chmmr the idea that we Humans should not be able to duplicate the tech, and therefore any information they glean from analysis should be kept hush-hush.

Who would want to test such a thing aboard the starbase? You'd risk stranding the entire platform in an alien dimension.


A possibility. Who knows what the fuel source for this thing is (besides the Arilou, and they're not talking)? While it does suck up fuel like nothing else, the implication from the text is that fuel only serves to initiate the reaction.


Or, if you're a slightly less skilled or less lucky pilot (or perhaps, not much of a diplomat), Fwiffo is very, very dead by that time. I think it's very hard to attribute a decision like this to someone who may not have even left Pluto in the first place (as you're never under any obligation to retrieve him in the first place).

Draxas:
1) They could make a little trip to HS (you can't use the Spawner in TS, it's too far from QuasiSpace)
3) Oops. I forgot that.

countchocula seems to have the right explanation here, IMHO.

I don't know which is more likely: That the device stops working around when we've eitehr won or been cleansed, or that the device keeps working for a very long time. The reasoning behind the limited life is obvious, as it stops us from using the device to explore Quasispace. The reasoning behind the long lifespan is a little more obtuse, but makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

The Portal Spawner is just one device, allowing us the ability to transport just one (very large) ship through Quasispace. Being a valuable piece of working technology, it is considered much more useful on board a ship and intact than disassembled on some researcher's workbench. However, what happens when the device breaks down? Most likely, in an effort to get it working again, it gets taken apart and analyzed very carefully (and much more thoroughly than if it were intact) in an effort to get it working again. As a consequence, it is much more likely that we will figure out how it works, thus unlocking the gates of IDF research. Now, what is the one thing the Arilou warn us about more than anything else?

This would only be true in the case of an emergency such as the war against the Ur-Quan. In times of piece, the Spawner'd be much more valuable as an object of study, as a matrix for the production of many Spawners.
Plus, who said that we can find out how the Spawner works? It may require abilities beyond our (current) potential.

Humans are remarkably resouceful, as the Arilou say. We'd find a way. The Androsynth did.

"Times of peace" is a relative term. Humanity will always have enemies, ones that persist even afte the Ur-Quan are gone. The VUX and Mycon certainly still want a piece of us. The Spawner would be immensely useful for speeding diplomatic missions, rescue efforts, or even surprise attacks. While this would generate quite a lot of interest in taking it apart for study, it would not be the most prudent action while it was still functional, especially since it provides the only opportunity to contact its creators on our terms, rather than the usual arrangement of them "visiting" us as they like.

The Androsynth found a way to USE those Precursor IDF artifacts.

As to the most prudent action - it depends. I'd say that both are possible in the same degree.
Also, maybe when the energy supply is empty, you can't study the Spawner anymore, since it's then just an inert bunch of useless materials, you don't have any way to see it working. The Arilou gave us the Spawner on their own will, so they surely knew that we won't be able to use it more than needed, and the most likely way to set this up is by limiting its power supply.

Plus, even if the energy supply is bigger, at some point the Spawner will STILL get dry, and then, the insidious dangers of IDF research will be upon us.

The Sun Device surely was left at the Starbase... it's an ancient Precursor artifact so it is very valuable.
As to the Spawner... Paul said in the 2007 IRC chat that Fwiffo will trigger the events in the sequel:
    23:11 <@Meep-Eep> Is there anything else can you tell us about your new game?
    23:12 <+PR3> I'd rather not say too much about the plot, except that Fwiffo's general paranoia, greed and lust for fame triggers the initial 'bad event' getting the player moving.

so he's alive and well and able to intervene to keep the Spawner onboard at the time of the end of SC2.