The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Do you recall the exhilaration of blasting off from the tiny planet where you were born - and the sheer terror later? Three days out, as you approached the perimeter of that cursed Oort Cloud, you found the Tobermoon - derelict and tumbling through space. The deep burns along her hull were mute evidence she'd seen combat. And lost. The discovery was, of course, a great shock to Captain Burton. Unconsciously she chewed her bottom lip, and for the first time her handsome face showed the awful strain of the past twenty years. She'd been engaged to Captain Chi. Through the decades she'd clung to the hope she'd see him again, kept alive the dream they'd shared of marriage and children and a life together. Now the dream was shattered. She knew he was gone, even though there was no body to mourn over. Strangely, there were no bodies at all on board. And most of the important ship systems were intact. Do you remember how Burton wondered, tears brimming in her blue eyes, if Officer Chi and the other crew members had been taken prisoner? How her words conjured up a picture in your mind of the Earthlings being tortured - their ordeal provoking mirth in the soul-less Ur-Quan. With a few days work, the engineers brought the Tobermoon back to life. What came next changed your life forever. With Captain Burton the only one aboard qualified to pilot the Earth Cruiser, you were put in command of the Precursor starship. Admit it. Standing on the bridge - those epaulets the grieving but bravely smiling Captain Burton pinned on gleaming from your shoulders - you felt proud, sure of yourself. Hey, truth be told, at that moment you thought you were invincible.
        Your confidence didn't last long, did it? With the Tobermoon leading the way, you and Burton pushed your ships out into HyperSpace - the parallel dimension where distances are fantastically compressed and interstellar travel feasible.

This excerpt from the SC2 manual tells the story of the Cruiser Tobermoon, which was sent to bring help from Earth, but ended up dead in the Oort Cloud. (The entire story is here (http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/sc2/sc2_hist.shtml))

Now, the symptoms of the Tobermoon are SO similar to those on the Androsynth homeworld...
What could have happened? How would have "They" attacked the ship if the crew weren't conducting any IDF research? And there were no Ur-Quan in the area to attack the ship (and anyway, how to board it?!)
And if "They" attacked the ship, why aren't there any Bukowski-like happenings on the ship afterwards?
A very plausible explanation would be that the Dreadnought that slave-shielded the planet was responsible (the Tobermoon had surrendered in the face of such a powerful opposition). But no - the ship was attacked way before the Dreadnought showed its Battlestar Galactica-like face around...

I was under the impression it was a probe that did it. But thinking more about it, from a story tellers point of view, there would seem to be more to the story than setting up reader, or player, for an encounter with the probe threat. It's too simple, yet subtle.

This is all based on the the fact that, in the game, the probe destroys your crew not the hull of the your ship. This is where long debates get started on which is an actual representation of hull strength and which is crew. And if it's only the crew that gets killed, then why isn't there a ship left drifting ala Tobermoon that would support the probe theory. But I've drifted a ways of topic. Carry on.

Hmm... the Tobermoon is once again attacked by a probe later, in HyperSpace, on the way to Sol.
So two attacks so close one after another seem unlikely - especially considering that there weren't many probes back then.

But deep burns... yes, they look like probe attacks. I think we should remove this "mystery" from the list in the Ultronomicon:
http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Mysteries_left_by_Star_Control_II (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Mysteries_left_by_Star_Control_II)

If it were a probe, though, wouldn't the it have hung around to... can't think of the word... mine the ship for resources?  I mean, it's not in battle mode; it's in resource-harvesting mode.  It doesn't make a difference to the probe whether the ship is still functional or not at that point, so it shouldn't change its behavior when it defeats a ship, just carry on zapping until there's nothing left.

Right! Plus, as Fyzixfighter said in http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Talk:Mysteries_left_by_Star_Control_II (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Talk:Mysteries_left_by_Star_Control_II), the attack was WAY BEFORE the Slylandro bought the probes, and before the Orz came!
Perhaps the Androsynth made some IDF experiments on the Tobermoon? Huh? :-\

And by the way, what caused the probe to flee after killing Captain Burton, after the Tobermoon was recrewed (in the voyage to Sol)? Perhaps the energies left in the place interfered with the Probe's program?

It has been speculated that the probe encountered in the manual's story was something entirely separate from the berserk Slylandro version we're all familiar with. Can't say I'm anything other than ambivalent on the matter, however; I recognize the fact that games and manuals are often written by two entirely different sources, and as such sometimes don't jive well with each other. It seems like that's what happened here, and this is hardly the first or last example in gaming.

Tobermoon fires off two missiles. They land. Probe closes in. Tobermoon fires a missile away from probe so it avoids lightning. Probe destroys Tobermoon. Missile curves around and hits, destroying probe.

That's not only the best explanation I can figure out, it's not all that unreasonable an outcome for the probe-vs-cruiser matchup with the AI as it is.

That description sounds more like the descriptions of stuff having been blasted by Dreadnoughts than the descriptions of stuff being attacked by Them.

I don't think it could have resulted from normal battle (unless, as it suggests, they were taken prisoner).  I mean, the ship's intact (though scarred) but there aren't any bodies or anything?  What?  It even says it's strange; I don't think it's a "hole got blown in the hull, causing explosive decompression" situation, or the answer would be obvious to them.

So, either the crew was taken prisoner (by an enemy who didn't care about salvage) or Something Freaky^(tm) happened.

How about time irregularities?  They get caught in something that makes a million years, whatever, pass for them, while twenty years pass for everyone else.  They eventually run out of supplies and die, and the bodies just decompose, leaving nothing.  The scars could be from a fight they won, not one they lost.

This explanation in no way brought to you by Red Dwarf.

About the second attack: Perhaps an asteroid came by, which the probe destroyed, after which it had no "current target" anymore, so it resumed its programming. The tobermoon, now disabled, may not have qualified as a "Space Vessel" anymore, or perhaps the probe's close range sensors were damaged, so the probe found a new target; a Transmission Source perhaps (which was the next priority).

Ah, meep-eep! This is really the reasoning of a specialist.  ;D
I have but one objection: Close range sensors being damaged would simply mean that the Probe can't locate precisely the Cruiser, but nevertheless sees it. Rather, all its sensors broke.
As to the Tobermoon not qualifying as a Space Vessel - no, it is in fact its qualification as a RU source that made the Probe attack it, and even if it were damaged, it still could be harvested.

No, decomposers do not exist in space, and if so much time would pass, the Cruiser would be smashed by micrometeorites.
Being taken prisoner - then why wouldn't the one who took them prisoner locate and conquer the Vela colony just as that Dreadnought did some years later?

The Tobermoon was found and attacked by a Dreadnought before it could leave Vela. The Tobermoon's crew, after being singed by a warning shot, decided they were outmatched and surrendered. The Ur-Quan took them aboard, and was about to prepare to tow the Cruiser away and explore where it had originated from, when its long range sensors detected the "hunting cry" of the approaching Kohr-Ah fleet. The Ur-Quan commander instinctively knew the meaning of this, and abandoned its now unimportant salavge and investigation duties, immediately retreating to Ur-Quan space to prepare for the coming Doctrinal Conflict. The abandoned Cruiser was quickly forgotten, and was assumed to simply be a rogue vessel, so no further follow up was carried out.

So, why does a Dreadnought slave shield Vela later on? Because this time it was tracking a much more dangerous and powerful adversary: a unique Precursor Service Vessel. Since such a ship could not possibly be operating in a rogue capacity (and its trail through Hyperspace was lost), the Ur-Quan commander felt it much more important to trace its route back. Consequently, the Vela colony was discovered and slave shielded.

The long range sensors may not be able to distinguish one type of object from another. Just the fact that something is there. Given the choice between an "object", and a "Transmission Source", the Transmission source could take precedence.


You're missing part of the way the probes malfunction. The reason that it attacks is that the current target is used for the new behaviour. When there is no current target anymore (the asteroid was destroyed), the probe selects a new target. This part is not broken, so the probe prefers a Transmission Source over a source of replication materials (which btw, it only looks for on planets normally). Only after the probe has moved to its destination will it begin executing the behavior that goes with the target (which gets overridden very shortly after with the "break down target into component materials).

Not outside in space, no, but they could easily exist on board.  It wasn't necessarily a sterile environment.


Unless it was an emptier place than TrueSpace.  They get "somehow" sucked into a place that doesn't have a lot of stuff (at least stuff that can interact with the ship) floating around, but where time is highly accelerated.  Eventually they get spit back out.

Or--consider that "most of the important ship functions were intact".  Maybe it has automated navigation that lets it avoid anything that would cause major damage, and automated systems to repair minor damage.


Oh, hey, I like this explanation!  Especially since the Kzer-Za seem to have abandoned other things when they detected the Kohr-Ah.


Or how about this: There's a battle, the Tobermoon loses, the enemy doesn't care about salvage so just leaves it, corpses and all.  Later, the Melnorme come along and take the bodies (they are interested in biodata, after all...) but leave the ship (maybe they didn't consider salvaging it a good use of their resources, maybe they don't have room, whatever).

Interested in biodata, yes, but no more than one from a single species.
They've got info on humans, that's sure - even before our first meeting, they knew of us. And they won't accept buy human biodata - another proof that they already have it.

Have you considered that battle starships are sterilized before usage? It would be very bad for its fighting capacity to let microorganisms thrive inside and cause diseases to the crew.

Plus, how would they get in another dimension without IDF?!
I prefer Draxas' explanation. It's much more logical.


But the second attack is still mysterious. I mean, the sensors explanation is weird, since the Tobermoon didn't fire.
And the not-Space Vessel-anymore explanation is still improper, since the Tobermoon was only hit once.

No, you mean "so long as it isn't millions of time more densely packed with rock than truespace."


Rereading the story, I see that this happened a long time ago, not recently. Well, in that case, it can't very well be attributed to probes.

"No more than one from a single species"?  Untrue.  Even if you're assuming that the pictures of lifeforms are purely symbolic and don't actually mean that you're finding the same lifeforms everywhere, there's still the Evil Ones.  You can get... I don't know, ten or so?... of them, and sell them all to the Melnorme.

As for not accepting human biodata, perhaps they just don't want to mention it because they think you'd be angry at the suggestion.  But if they happened upon a ship with a bunch of corpses and no-one to see.... Well, that might be a different matter.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned that we only know the Melnorme want living creatures (They seem to only be stunned and in suspended animation--at least, you can tell the Spathi Council that you have the Evil Ones in suspended animation) so they might not have any use for corpses.


Even if they normally do this (and I don't think there's anything in canon that says they do) they might not have the facilities at Unzerwalt.


I told you!  "Somehow". ;)  Besides, there's a natural opening into QuasiSpace, so there could be natural openings into other dimensions.

While it may have been this way, I don't think it's such a slam dunk explanation.

First there is still a problem of timing. The Kohr-Ah don't enter this part of the galaxy until about 2145 (they destroyed the Gg in 2142). According to the Thraddash, the Kzer-Za didn't zoom off for the doctrinal conflict until about 2140, and the Kzer-Za certainly didn't have problems visiting earth a couple times to restaff the starbase (Hayes was put in about 2147). So even if they detected the Kohr-Ah in 2135, they wouldn't necessarily have dropped everything that instant to go fight. Also, the Kohr-Ah were in route to the Utwig sometime after wiping out the burvixese before they changed course for the doctrinal conflict.

Second, and only a minor point, we don't have any evidence that the Kohr-Ah let out a hunting cry like the Kzer-Za. The Utwig, the druuge, and the Burvixese records don't mention it, but one could argue that it is a Ur-Quan thing and no-one but the Kzer-Za would have had the technology to detect or recognize it.

So only waywardocaton's explanation it's possible - but it's extremely unlikely since it happens only once in... 10¹⁰⁰ times.

But what about... the VUX or Androsynth found the Tobermoon and it surrendered? (no, not the VUX, since they can only defeat cruisers by zero-warping, and this wouldn't let the Cruiser enough time to surrender - but it would explain the deep burns!)
Hmm... the VUX are more likely, though, since Androsynth bubbles can't possibly cause "deep burns", nor their Blazer form. Or...
NO! The 'Synth! A Blazer would certainly inflict damage under the form of deep burns, since it hits the ship multiple times and in different locations with a great deal of concentrated energy!
So a Guardian attacked the ship. The crew surrendered after a while. The nasty clones took the bodies and the remaining shipmates and tortured them. BADLY BADLY!!!
This should be it.


Hmm... "I'd chalk this one up to game balance." Like those strange crew transfers with the Nemesis.
Or maybe there are multiple subspecies of the Evil Ones.

Maybe - since you would need to give the humans alive.
But my other point with their past visits on Earth / information got from one of their sources about us stands still.

If the Tobermoon's destruction occurred in 2135, then it's still possible that the "rogue Cruiser" explanation holds up, even without the timely intervention of the Kohr-Ah. I can't imagine that the Ur-Quan's conquest of any race's homeworld means that every colony and combat vessel is out of commission. 2135 means that probably less than a year has passed since Earth was slave shielded, and so I imagine that the Ur-Quan were still finding quite a lot of scattered ships and colonies that were cut off from communications (or perhaps simply refused to acknowledge the surrender). The Tobermoon was likely considered to be just another rogue ship, and the colony at Vela wasn't found because it was small, hadn't really been established yet, and had no telltale signs of its existence detectable from obrit (hyperwave transmissions, a starbase, etc.). The Ur-Quan probably did check the planet out from orbit, but found no anomolous readings and didn't pursue the matter further.

Also, the Kohr-Ah were not enroute to the Utwig, but the Druuge, as evidenced by the fact that they are always the first to die once the Kohr-Ah win the Doctrinal Conflict. They seem to be pretty keen on completing their unfinished business there, and the Druuge's ruse with their caster probably wasn't complete; the Kohr-Ah simply wanted to pursue the easy target that would be difficult to find again later.


Remember that the only race that was able to detect the initial Ur-Quan hunting cry was the Chenjesu, because of their much more sensitive natural hyperwave receivers. So we really have no way to know for sure if the Kohr-Ah broadcasted a hunting call, since the Chenjesu were already slave shielded by the time it would be relevant. However, if they did, you can be sure that the Ur-Quan would be certain to have their hyperwave receivers tuned to hear it; the Doctrinal Conflict is probably the biggest deal of all to them, and they would want as much advance warning as possible.

Yes, in fact an Ur-Quan Kzer-Za Lord would be too proud to salvage the remnants of a Cruiser. Instead, he would let the derelict floating in space as a sign of their superiority.
However, the scars aren't those of a Fusion Blast attack - that ones would be much bigger and badly looking.
Though - if the Dreadnought started firing the Cruiser wouldn't have time to surrender.

I've just come with another explanation: The Cruiser surrendered before the Dreadnought fired any shot. However, after taking the crew into custody, the slimy Lord scarred the Cruiser with a few Fighter lasers before keeping it there...

A LITTLE BIG PROBLEM! An Ur-Quan Lord would have probably also let a recording or something to certify the punishment they had administred to the rebellous rogue Cruiser! Then it had to be a VERY absent-minded 'Quan...

Don't forget! We also have the realms of  "unusual spatial phenomina" answer as well, although I personally like the absent minded Ur-Quan answer...hmmm....Ilwrath maybe?

The Cruiser was never hit with direct fire, but skimmed with a warning shot or 2 before surrendering. Though, without the Kohr-Ah to distract the pilot, there really is little reason not to salvage the ship; as the Syreen say, the Ur-Quan waste nothing (so they wouldn't, in fact, leave behind the derelict vessel). Unless, there was another pressing concern that prevented the Ur-Quan from finishing the job right away, say, he was enroute to Delta Gorno...

You mean, they waved the white flag and the Dreadnought still shot them?
Or they didn't surrender until being shot at?!!

Is using the derelict ship as a warning wasting it? I don't think so. It can be quite useful.

Timeline mismatch.

Yes we do, but it's VERY VERY unusual - 1 in 10¹⁰⁰ times, as I said.

I was knocking off my own theory.

Another possibility is that the ship was defeated by combat thralls, who would not need to be as efficient as Ur-Quan.

Mycon? No. VUX? No. Androsynth? No. Spathi? No.
Ilwrath? Possible, but kind of out of place.
Umgah? Same.
Well. That didn't help much.

"Surrender or die" carries a lot more punch when a fusion bolt shears off your upper layer of hull.


But as a warning against who? As far as they know, nobody is anywhere nearby Vela.


How so? I thought the Tobermoon was launched again shortly after the colonists landed, to report back to StarControl about their situation.

I like the argument that whoever did attack the Tobermoon wouldn't necessarily find the Vela colony since those who stayed behind on Unzervalt hid in the cave for six months after the Tobermoon took off. Also, looking back at the manual, the Tobermoon actually left Unzervalt on Aug 11, 2134 and it looks like earth surrendered 2135, so if it was attacked by Hierarchy, my bet is it was before earth's surrender. In fact, the Tobermoon left soon after the Hierarchy had broken through the mira-indi line, which means that the hierarchy was likely mopping up the Chenjesu and Mmrnmhrm around this time (they say they took slave status in 2135).

While I like an Hierarchy attacker, either Ur-Quan or Thrall, the mystery still is the derelict ship. Notice that the Ur-Quan destroyed all Cruisers when they subjugated Earth. I have trouble seeing them leaving one behind, especially for twenty years. And the other thralls, VUX wouldn't have taken survivors (unless if it was ZEX, but then why does he want the Captain if he already had some humans...). The 'Synth hate humans too much to take survivors. They operated in hit-and-run squads - not very likely to even let a ship get off a surrender (or acknowledge it if a Cruiser did). And the Mycon, they Void anything not Juffo-Wup. Like Valaggar said, the others like the Spathi, Ilwrath, and Umgah are too out of place, and the Ilwrath is the only one of those three that I would think would take survivors and leave a ship. So if it was an Hierarchy attacker, my money is on an Ilwrath doing a rearward reconnaissance mission.


Um, no. The Kohr-Ah were heading from the Gg to our space because of the Druuge, but then the Druuge played their little trick to get the Burvixese destroyed. And then the Kohr-Ah went after the Utwig:
The reason they probably went after the Druuge first after winning the Conflict is that the Druuge had once again broadcasting advertisements assuming they had successful avoided the Kohr-Ah threat.

And one last thing (really I promise) just so we don't embellish the combat scars - the description of the battle damage is "deep burns along [the Tobermoon's] hull." I don't know if it's significant (it does seem almost as strange as the lack of bodies) but we also know that "most of the important ship systems were intact" - in fact the engineers from The Flagship got her up and running in a few days (dang good engineers), though that might explain why the Probe knocked it out so easily.

 8)
WOW!!! Spectacular reasoning, FyzixFighter!
And you re-gifted live to the mystery. On behalf of the Arilou Research Team, I thank you.  ;)
Though you also solved (maybe!) the second attack mystery.

Hmm... let me think about it (2nd attack) - a disabled Space Vessel is still a Space Vessel, most likely, since there could be survivors. Then the second attack is still a Mystery for my Team.

Oh frell, I just found one example of a possible Kohr-Ah hunting cry, granted it was after they "cleansed" the ZFP. Hayes relates that "We did receive an alien broadcast however -- it rang through space like an electronic howl. I think the best way to describe it would be exultant." if you don't respond in time to the ZFP call for help. Call me stubborn, but I'm still skeptical of that scenario (Kzer-Za attacker getting distracted by a Kohr-Ah transmission) due to the timing issue - we don't know how close the Kohr-Ah were in 2134-5 or if they wiped someone out in that time frame; and the behavior pattern - we don't know if a Kzer-Za would be utterly distracted by the howl. I'm totally comfortable though with shrugging my shoulders at the whole mess and going "meh".

Okay, let's recap *briefly*.

 Our possibilites are:
 
 1)A Kzer-Za Dreadnaught, upon disabling the cruiser, became distracted by a Kor-Ah battle cry.

 2)An Illwrath, either as a recon or out of boredom, attacked the cruiser and accepted their surrender. Consdering presidence from some of their earlier posts(See: Luna), we can safely assume that they grew bored and left to torture their newest victims. Since they may or may not have been supposed to e there, they may not have reported it.

 3)Opps(otherwise kown as Act of God or some freak of nature). We've more or less ruled this one out because it's improbable, see Douglas Adams, and it's les entertaining than the other two.

 I think that's it. I miss any?

Yes, you missed the Androsynth hypothesis - since Blazers may be deep burns too. And they might only damage the outer layers of vessels, leaving internal systems almost intact.

Except the Androsynth would more than likely ignore the Tobermoon's surrender, and go on to destroy the ship. Similar story with the Ilwrath; I can't imagine the crew of the Tobermoon would have an opportunity to surrender (or be willing to, knowing the fate that was in store for them) if an Avenger decloaked off their bow and started incinerating their hull.

As for the timing of the Ur-Quan hunting call, according to the timeline the Chenjesu first detected the Kzer-Za's hunting call somewhat before 2100 (which is when they enslaved the Thraddash). That's approximately 5 years before they enslaved the Umgah, which is the first race the Chenjesu were actually aware of in the sector. Given that timeframe, it's probably unlikely that the Kohr-Ah had anything to do with the events surrounding the Tobermoon, which occurred in 2134.

Here's a revised scenario: The Tobermoon encountered a Dreadnought (which is the only Hierarchy vessel it would be likely to surrender to, as well as create the hull burns), or perhaps even a fleet of Dreadnoughts, originating from either Androsynth or VUX territory. They were enroute to a battle near Raynet (since the Indi-Mira line had recently been broken), and detected the Tobermoon on the fringes of the Vela system, preparing to push into Hyperspace. They intercepted, and the Tobermoon surrendered after being singed by a warning shot. The Ur-Quan proceeded to search the system for colonies, but because Unzervalt had not yet been established and all of the future colonists were examining the Precursor facility underground, the Ur-Quan did not detect any activity. They left to continue to the battle site, the derelict Cruiser soon forgotten amidst the decision to push toward Procyon with the Sa-Matra and end the war for good.

Of course, it is possible that the Ur-Quan DID detect a hunting call at that moment; why else would they have suddenly decided to use the Sa-Matra shortly after, despite having kept it in reserve for nearly 15 years of pitched battles with the Alliance? The only reason I can think of is that the Ur-Quan have even more sensitive hyperwave receivers than the Chenjesu, and detected the distant hunting call of the Kohr-Ah as they cleansed another species. Knowing what was approaching, and what the arrival of the Kohr-Ah entailed, the decision was made to hasten the inevitable, and finish the war so that they could focus all of their attention on the Kohr-Ah's imminent arrival in the sector.

Maybe. But why would an Ur-Quan fleet with a determined target stop in a small star system like Vela?
Perhaps a damaged Ur-Quan needed repairs?

And, anyway, if they saw an Earthling Cruiser departing the system, the rational conclusion would be that probably the Earthlings have a base there! And they would scan the planets and DETECT the colony - don't forget that scans reveal ruins too.
Energy scan means scan for anomalies - plus, the Prekkie installation probably radiated some energy.

The VUX are a good hypothesis too... though I don't think they would ACCEPT their surrender. Imagine how repugnant would it be for a VUX to... yuck! To have an ugly human freak-face onboard! I think I'm going to be sick.
No, the VUX don't work. Only the Ur-Quan.

More likely because they detected the presence of an Alliance ship. The Oort cloud lies on the very fringe of a solar system, which implies that the Tobermoon had probably just made the jump to Hyperspace, but had lousy timing and was intercepted immediately, landing it back in the Oort cloud.


The installation wouldn't radiate energy, because it was both underground and shut down. That's why it went undetected for so long in the first place. And unlike all of the other ruins you can detect with energy scans in the game, the Precursor installation was not bombarded from orbit nor the site of a ground war. There's no energy for it to give off, or if there is, it's far enough underground that those readings are not detectable from orbit.

Maybe the Prekkie installation won't radiate energy - maybe - but not all ruins do, anyway.
The Pkunk ruins left after their... assimilation by the Yehat, or the Ilwrath ruins left after their defeat at the BigBoomHands of the Thraddash are detectable, even if they don't radiate energy.

Why don't they radiate energy? The Pkunk just picked up and left, and probably weren't too concerned with turning off all their technology or collecting all of their power crystals or whatever (working!) new-agey junk they left behind. And the Ilwrath... Well, their cities were destroyed by a massive weapon, and considering the Thraddash seem to like their weapons thermonuclear, I imagine they'll be radiating energy for some time to come.

Here's an alternative explanation:

About the time the Tobermoon was attacked, the Alliance's defeat was beginning to look likely.

We know the Melnorme have reason to want to see the two Ur-Quan factions defeated.  We know they have devices with some limited degree to glimpse the future.  We know they explore on their own (as well as getting the human captain to do so) because they came across the Slylandro.

Suppose they knew about the human colony?  Suppose they also knew about the Precursor ruins on the colony?  Might they have attacked the Tobermoon to ensure that the Kzer-Za didn't detect and slave-shield the colony, with the expectation that they'd set into motion events which would lead to the destruction of the Sa-Matra and an Ur-Quan defeat?

A quick confusion ray hit followed by a few of the weakest attacks would probably account for the battle damage, and explain why no bodies were found (as the Melnorme weren't trying to kill anyone, just isolate the colony).

Narsham

So when they discovered the ship did anyone think about checking the logs?

Here are a few theories I thought up:

1. The umgah attacked them disabling the ship, but instead of killing the crew they captured them and planned to use the ship as part of a “GOOD JOKE!! Har! Har! Har!” But were ordered out of vela by the ur-quan and forgot to come back for the ship since they thought of better one using a hyper wave caster. The crew’s fate was a sad affair though. They were slowly killed as the butt of one umgah joke after another. Some died in space jeopardy where the losers were spaced. Some died in a live action version of hangman. The umgah thought they were hilarious the humans did not. 

2. The hyper drive malfunctioned during the shift to hyperspace causing the ship to be shot back into n-space while the crew and a few parts were shot into hyperspace. With no hyperspace spoor to protect them the crew died a quick and painless death of being instantly converted into hyperspace particles.

3. They ran into a kohr-ah scouting party and when the kohr-ah disabled the ship they boarded it and took trophies for their bone pits. And before they could destroy the ship they detect an ur-quan fleet and having orders to not reveal themselves, they move away quietly.

4. A group of syreens suffering from a neurological disorder attacked it and called all the crew off the ship, then left.

5. They all went mad after a flaming asteroid filled with a weird telepathic material the Taalo mind shield is made of glanced their ship. And in their state of madness the entire crew decided to go outside the ship in space suits to play astro-ball. And with no one at the controls the ship automatically did a course correction throwing the entire crew into the abyss of space.

Draxas: I knew you'll say that for the Pkunk... but the Ilwrath ruins, I'd think, were abandoned, not destroyed - like the Pkunk ones.
Their fleet in Thraddash space was weak, so they had to send their last spiders.
The Thraddash don't even know of the Ilwrath homeworld, probably, and anyway they would be too silly to send a retaliation strike there.

Narsham: The Melnorme are VERY peaceful. When you converse with Greenish for the first time, try picking aggressive replies.
You will see then.
I'd agree with your explanation, however, with a little variation: the Ur-Quan took the crew aboard, then the Melnorme came and annihilated the Ur-Quan. Since they probably are so angry with the 'Quan - and since this is the RIGHT thing to do - they'd attack them.
AH, NO! TIMELINE MISMATCH! The Melnorme weren't in the area at that time.

BioSlayer:
1. A good explanation, and the deep burns would be explained by a joke the Umgah played. I like this one.
3. Timeline mismatch.
4. All Syreen have been imprisoned on Betelgeuse.
2. and 5. Working, but very improbable. Just like the time loop explanation a few posts above.

So we'd have left these explanations:
A. An Ur-Quan fleet, passing through - en route to  Raynet - detected a Cruiser - the Tobermoon. It surrendered. The Ur-Quan checked the ship's logs, but their warning shot had destroyed them (fortunately). They checked the planets, but the Precursor installation didn't radiate energy. (Draxas) LIKELY
B. The Umgah were the cause (BioSlayer) VERY LIKELY
C. Some sort of weird and unlikely phenomenon. EXTREMELY UNLIKELY

Ever see what the lander crew has to say if you visit the Ilwarth homeworld after the Thraddash and Ilwarth mutually exterminate each other? It's pretty enlightening.


Says who? The Melnorme visited the Slylandro during the events of SC1, and plenty of other races (Spathi and Shofixti, in particular) have had dealings with them before. Obviously they stayed well hidden from the Ur-Quan during this time, but that doesn't mean they weren't in the sector.


Timeline mismatch. Assuming the Tobermoon was disabled in 2134, the Syreen were still active members of the Alliance, along with all the other members. The Ur-Quan had not yet used the Sa-Matra (though they would in the near future).


How so? I don't think the Tobermoon would have surrendered to a Drone; a much more likely scenario has them blasting it into particulates.

As for the logs, a well trained crew would erase everything to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. I have no doubt that the crew would do this if they were preparing to surrender.

I didn’t say they surrendered, I said the ship was disabled.


And the capturing of the ship was not the great joke. The great joke would have been making the ship run on automatic and have it return to a base and do something diabolical like self destructing after docking with the base. Or something like that.

So the logs were destroyed and the Umgah couldn't make their great joke, right?
Well, but how come that the Cruiser was disabled? Their antimatter cone would not disable a ship.
Maybe they used a trick to come aboard (e.g. use a fake Cruiser)? But then the logs would have been intact and the Umgah could make their great joke. This explanation doesn't seem to work, as such.

Yes... but I'd say that rather the Ilwrath fought amongst themselves (a new revolution) and, so, there are some survivors still.
As I said, it seems unlikely that the Thraddash would attack their homeworld.
And if the destruction was because of the Ilwrath themselves, they would have used primitive weaponry, anyway something that won't result in cities radiating energy.
But, anyway, let's say that the energy scan really is scan for energy.

Ah, indeed. But, anyway, Syreen don't suffer from such disorders, since they're such a healthy society. Of course, it's possible, but fits in the "weird and unlikely phenomenon" category.

If the crew surrendered, they wouldn't erase the logs. Else they would get a BIG punishment from the Ur-Quan - so it's better to fight and get blasted. Still, a lucky shot hitting the ship's computer is not only improbable, it's downright impossible - the ship systems were almost intact.
This means that the crew intended that the colonists find the Tobermoon and use it? They didn't know that the colonists will be able to do that - they didn't know of the Precursor installation.

Yes, they were in the sector. It means that the explanation is valid after all - who knows what the Melnorme are capable of... but the Ur-Quan Master would then have to be a very poor pilot to get killed by a Melnorme. Especially since, in open space, the Melnorme won't have any means to surprise the Dreadnought.

So:
A. An Ur-Quan fleet, passing through - en route to  Raynet - detected a Cruiser - the Tobermoon. It surrendered. The Ur-Quan checked the ship's logs, but their warning shot had destroyed them (fortunately). They checked the planets, but the Precursor installation didn't radiate energy. (Draxas) LIKELY
B. The Umgah were the cause (BioSlayer) UNLIKELY
C. The Melnorme were the cause (Narsham) VERY UNLIKELY
D. Some sort of weird and unlikely phenomenon. EXTREMELY UNLIKELY

Also, a Cruiser can easily defeat an Ur-Quan. This means that there were many, coming from different directions. So the Melnorme don't work.

A. An Ur-Quan fleet, passing through - en route to  Raynet - detected a Cruiser - the Tobermoon. It surrendered. The Ur-Quan checked the ship's logs, but their warning shot had destroyed them (fortunately). They checked the planets, but the Precursor installation didn't radiate energy. (Draxas) LIKELY
B. The Umgah were the cause (BioSlayer) UNLIKELY
C. Some sort of weird and unlikely phenomenon. EXTREMELY UNLIKELY

About Cpt. Chi's surrender - maybe, the punishment for erasing the logs applied only to him as a commanding officer? So he sacrificed himself to save his crew?

A cruiser can easily defeat an Ur-Quan? ???
You mean Melnorme.


Deletion of the logs is one of the principal duties of a ship's captain, in the event of the ship's capture. And especially in this case!


You include 'Umgah' but have not included 'Ilwrath'. They would love prisoners, wouldn't they?

Why would the Ilwrath start a civil war? They seem to be happily united in following whatever pronouncements come from channel 44, the discontent generated by the priest caste is a thing of the past. While I admit that it's unlikely that the Thraddash would successfully attack the Ilwrath homeworld, it IS the explanation given by the game.

Also, why is the Ilwrath's weaponry primitive? The Ur-Quan upgraded their technology significantly when they became battle thralls, especially in the area of combat. Even if they had rather primitive weapons before that, they've had several decades to reverse engineer and adapt new technologies from the Ur-Quan designs.


That would make sense, after all. And everything you would detect on an energy scan in-game has a good reason to radiate said energy. The Precursor installation, however, would not; it has been shut down and dormant for many thousands of years.


The Syreen had shaky relations with humankind during the old Alliance years, actually. There were several major incidents leading to some bad blood between the two races, including the Syreen using mental compulsion to keep human crews serving aboard Penetrators against their will.


They most certainly would erase the logs. Surrendering would be a desperate bid for their survival, but bear in mind that the Ur-Quan had not enslaved any of the Alliance races yet. The crew of the Tobermoon would not be concerned with how the Ur-Quan punished their slaves; they have no point of reference for that. Instead, they would be interested in keeping heavily classified information (regarding a top-secret Corridor Nine scientific mission to Vela to investigate a massive subterranean Precursor complex, among other things) out of enemy hands.

Why would the Tobermoon's crew expect the people on the surface to recover the Cruiser? More than likely, they expected the Ur-Quan to tow it off as salvage after their surrender (though not before perusing the log files).


The hull burns on the Tobermoon attest to the fact that there were either a fleet of Dreadnoughts that a single Cruiser could not handle alone, or a lone Dreadnought that ambushed the Cruiser (AKA, warped in pretty close at the start of combat. As we all know, a Cruiser needs to keep distance from a Dreadnought to have any chance at all).


They would also probably decloak and incinerate the Cruiser so quickly that surrender would never be an option.

Just keep on the edge of the screen, opposite the Ur-Quan. Your acceleration is clumsy, but your speed is superior, and this is enough. Keep away from the planet - the Ur-Quan are better at gravity whipping.

I had already shut down the hypothesis with the Melnorme that attacked the Tobermoon. I was shutting down the hypothesis of a Melnorme defeating the Ur-Quan (another argument against that explanation would be that the Melnorme are just extremely poor against Dreadnoughts).

They had the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za's psychological profile, and the punishment is not hard to derive from that. Of course, they were desperate and had no other choice.

Because some clever spiders had the idea that Dogar and Kazon are powerless, seeing how their fleet was defeated (of course, they just wanted their replacement with another gods of evil). And other, sillier spiders still believed in D&K.

At least space weapons. Plus, the incinerators they'd use are not thermonuclear devices.

From what I remember, human shipmates serve aboard the Penetrators by their own will.

Nevertheless, after I spent so much energy nitpicking the Ur-Quan - now, theory -, and after you have spent so much energy/time/fingertop atoms/whatever defending it, I'd say this is the best theory.
Of course, some other exciting explanations like time loops are intriguing... but lack evidence.

The Ur-Quan theory still has one little problem: Fusion Blasts are too large to cause "deep burns" (which are something more concentrated on a single spot) or not to damage too much vital ship systems. Just look at the SC1 DataBank picture...
And fighters don't make sense - before the surrender they'd get shot by Point Defense, afterwards their use is pointless.

What about Arilou coming and repairing the Tobermoon after the combat for you to use it? A clumsy explanation, but the only one so far.

Reverse engineering of Ur-Quan tech would allow the construction of new terrestrial weapons as well. Besides, I can't help but wonder how a race could manage to reach the stars on their own, yet completely overlook atomic technology.


There is a quite different story told in the description of the Syreen from the SC1 manual.


The fusion blast was a warning shot or near miss (probably punctuated with "Submit or die!"), which was enough to cause the deep hull scorching, but not destroy ship systems.


The Arilou seem perfectly content to allow humanity to languish on the surface of worlds, rather than explore space. After all, if all humans are concentrated on a particular world or worlds, then they're much easier to keep tabs on, and it lessens or eliminates the possibility of discovering something that could lead down the road to ruin that the Arilou seem to have such a vested interest in avoiding; just look at what happened to the Androsynth. So I can't figure why the Arilou would bother with the Tobermoon; they more likely would have simply ignored it, expecting it to remain derelict indefinitely, and inaccessible to the colonists on Unzervalt.

I said it's a clumsy explanation.

Do the Ur-Quan have such accuracy? Maybe.

But a warning shot, even a near miss, won't cause "deep burns", but a single, deep and wide burn.

We know for certain the Melnorme were around, but hadn't revealed their presence generally.

But I guess, given that the Melnorme state themselves that they hate violence, that this is conclusive evidence that they wouldn't do anything like that... assuming you believe everything they say is the absolute truth.

The dialogue in question:  "We reel with inchoate fear, and are thrown into a sudden panic.
Being peaceful by nature
we would no doubt be unprepared for your sudden hostility
were it not for the excellent weapon system we bought from the Keel-Verezy just last month.
A weapon system which is fully locked on your command bridge, by the way."

So "peaceful" isn't the same as non-violent.

And this conversational nugget suggests the Melnorme are perfectly willing to be ruthless:
""We have no fear of you, Melnorme!"
You should.
Once the Dramya thought they could steal from us.
You don't see too many Dramya around these days, do you?"

But perhaps the Keel-Verezy provide a useful alternative?  The Melnorme pretty clearly know who the Captain is and know how he got a Precursor ship, among other things.  That suggests either they directly gathered information about the colony, or were sold it.  But who else would have sold them the information?  Nobody in the Hierarchy; no sign anyone in the Alliance had officially encountered the Melnorme yet.

The Keel-Verezy may have cloaked or dimensionally shifted ships (or maybe they're very small, or impossible for human sensors to detect for some other reason).  If we trust the Melnorme, then they have ships present in the area during the game.

What if the Keel-Verezy were responsible for the attack on the Tobermoon?  They could then sell the data they gathered (and perhaps the humans as well) to the Melnorme.

Narsham

You want to test that theory in PVP?

Maybe tomorrow.

Right now, there was my objection with the near miss.

Multiple Dreadnoughts, multiple shots, maybe they were grazed by the shell, who knows.

A rather clumsy explanation.

I'd say this one is really a mystery.

Also, in regards to the second attack on the Tobermoon - the attack of the Probe - meep-eep's explanation with changing targets doesn't work, since there was another Space Vessel around who would have gotten attacked, as the top priority target - the Vindicator.

Also, the Ur-Quan don't fire "warning shots" if the crew surrenders - see their reply if YOU surrender to them.

Maybe a single Dreadnought appeared, the Tobermoon thought it could win, then some other Dreadnoughts warped in as well, shot the Tobermoon, and they surrendered?
Why shot the Tobermoon with a "warning shot", again?

Additionally, the Ur-Quan wouldn't have left a valuable piece of equipment behind (especially since the war was not over). They'd have blasted it into oblivion.

You are initiating communications, not them.


Seems reasonable enough.


"Submit or die" carries a great deal more impact with a show of force preceeding it, especially if the Tobermoon initially tried to run.


Rogue vessel, all alone, no colonies detected in the system, more important places to be and things to do. The Tobermoon's position was marked in the squadron's logs for later retrieval, and the entire Dreadnought squadron was subsequently destroyed during the battle of Raynet before they could relay that information, leaving the derelict Tobermoon right where it was abandoned.

<Shrug>

At with that, take it or leave it. I'm spending an awful lot of effort defending a theory on a small subsection of a story that appears in the manual, and wasn't even written by anyone who actually worked on the game itself (as per usual with game manuals), and thus has a great deal of inconsistency with the game universe as we know it. If you're still not satisfied with my best-fit explanation at this point, then you never will be.

Yeah, I guess we have just two alternatives - this a bit clumsy explanation and a far, far-fetched one such as "time loop".
You're right, it's an inconsistency. That's why I've added it in the http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Discrepancies_in_the_Star_Control_universe (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Discrepancies_in_the_Star_Control_universe) article.

It does not have to be a discrepency. For instance, a new race with unknown motives could explain everything without being in conflict with the established facts in the SC universe.
That's why I've removed it from that Ultronomicon article again.

Yeah... but the one who wrote the manual wasn't involved in the making of the game too.
So he didn't mean to introduce an unknown race. He was just misidentifying the existing races' psychology.

While Paul and/or Fred may not have written the entire manaul, they certainly were involved in the creation of it. They at least have OK'ed it.
As for introducing a new race, they may just have wanted to keep it a mystery. Just like who created the mother ark, which similarly may or may not be a new race.

I don't think so. An Ur-Quan will pulverise an Earthling like it pulverises most other things. The Ur-Quan is faster. it will take a few hits but it will catch the earthing soon enough.

Ur-Quan faster?! :P
The Cruiser accelerates slowlier, yes, but its maximum speed is greater.

Oops... just tested it, and you're right.
Only in SC1 was the Cruiser faster.

The cruiser accelerates slower, but can reach a speed just as fast as the Ur-Quan. By this tactic, a human player can easily defeat an AI Dreadnought.

However, in human vs human melee, the Ur-Quan are decent at gravity whipping, while the earthlings are awful at dodging gravity whips.

Yeah, you're right.
In fact, the max speed of a Cruiser is not even equal to that of a Dreadnought - it's close, but still slower.

I have an idea for this, but I didn't read thru the WHOLE post, don't know if it's been said...

The Tobermoon heads out
Gets attacked by Androsynth, Tobermoon surrenders after getting deep burns from the acid bubbles
The Androsynth take the ship, along with the crew remaining alive
They begin some IDF research in a zero-G environment (in a captured ship that they didn't pay to build, so they can be careless with it)
and something takes the crew of the Tobermoon, be they Androsynth or prisoner human, causing the ship to become derelict
The Guardian, once it noticed the disappearance of all life on the Cruiser, chickens out and heads home

How's that fit?

No offense, but you miss a point in the Androsynth backstory: they used some Precursor artifacts found on Alpha Lalande for IDF. They wouldn't have risked such valuable equipment on a Guardian.
And I'm not very sure if the timeline is right (if the Androsynth hadn't been already snagged by Orz).

Nay, Ur-Quans are what the ones who wrote the manual wanted to be the answer - they even hint it by having Zelnick support the Dreadnoughts explanation. The problem is that this doesn't fit perfectly with the Ur-Quans' personality, with the stats of the Cruiser/Dreadnought etc.

Meh, perhaps they had imitated some of the tech.  I was mostly focused on the missing bodies.

Just thought I'd add in an interesting thing that I've learned in this last semester at school. Although I don't think it was the Androsynth, I'll give their proponents some support - acid burns. Drop some strong acid (like a nanostripper) on a paper towel and a nice little black burn mark appears, almost like someone took a hot match and singed it. The first time I saw this I was quite suprised. So anyways, the deep burns could have been caused by the acid bubbles of a Guardian, and not necessarily by the blazer-mode. Food for thought. And now back to the abyss...

I think like this:

The androsynth equipment just allowed the androsynth to see for the first time.  If it was only the equipment that made you vulnerable, only the Synth on the playground would've been fish food.  They're all gone though, and somehow I doubt every last one of them came running to see what wiped out the homeworld, especially after returning patrol craft started getting eaten too.

The impression I always got about it was that simply knowing that the Interdimensional soul eaters exist - or at least, knowing some of the specifics - was enough to allow you to *SEE*.  Once you can see, you'll be seen.  And then you die.

So, patrol craft returning home when the whole planet is getting eaten by ghosts isn't so likely.  Getting status and information from a desperate homeworld though, not realizing that it was knowing that made you vulnerable....I can see that happening.

Perhaps the Orz weren't so full of evil intentions when they told us to stop asking about the Androsynth.  Perhaps they knew that if we found out what really happened to them, we would *SEE*.  And that would be it for us.


What's this got to do with the Tobermoon?  Well, encountering a synth in synth space isn't that unusual, but you'd expect them to take at least some damage, either acid or blazer, to the hull.  But if they win, they'll almost certainly scavenge the wreckage for parts.  If that wreckage happens to contain an intact transmission log, and they should read about the IDF ghosts in it.....

It seems that there are explanations much more likely than the clumsy Ur-Quan explanation. Good!

Then why did they visit Unzervalt? If they were motivated by the factors you evoke, Draxas, then they would have modified The Captain so that he doesn't leave Unzervalt, not in such a way that he develops tremendous Precursor technology skills, such as the capability of using the Prec. computer of the starship factory at Unzervalt or repairing the Ultron without knowing how it looked initially.
They want to protect us from earthly dangers too. They knew that the Kohr-Ah were approaching and acted accordingly.

The Keel-Verezy explanation is good too.

And there is the Androsynth explanation, clumsy too.

I'm enigmated by that mystery of this topic as well.
Imho - it must be somehow connected to the Androsynths and their IDF experiments, anyway... For Vela system and Vulpeculae constellation are rather closely related... And the sympthoms are very similar...

Btw, concerning those burns on the Tobermoon's hull.. I still don't know the way Orz mariners get inside the ship they boarding. Are they burning the hull completely to get inside (in this case the depressurization should be really a trouble to the attacked ship, and it would lose a lot more crew!), or they get inside by means of  "warping into", being parts of supposingly 4(or higher)-dimensional creature, so it's easy for them to "slide" inside a close 3-dimensional object along the 4th dimension axis...

And the other question is - how do they kill the enemy crew? With natural/artificial weapons built-in into their exoskeletons? Or by other means (like *pulling* the victims out of this world, using the "other parts" of their "upper-dimensional body", like they did to the Androsynths)? In the late case there will be no bodies left...
And in such a case might the burns on the outer hull of Tobermoon be inflicted by the Orz cannons?

ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!!!!!!!
Dimensions in Star Control are NOT the dimensions we know from geometry and physics, i.e. not width, length and height. They are REALMS OF EXISTENCE. Read http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Dimension (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Dimension)

Seems likely, of course.

Good point! Orz may have been the wrong-doer. Maybe he had already displaced the Androsynth, since they began the IDF experiments "over 10 years ago" and we don't know how long they lasted. The Tobermoon launched on August 11, 2134, so 20 years ago, but still... deep burns are the way the Orz marines get into enemy ships - they burn holes into their hulls (see SC2 manual). And it's clear that they mainly damage living beings, since they board the ship, thus allowing them increased accuracy. The bodies can then be evacuated, if they hadn't been completely disintegrated by the marines' weapons.

Artificial weapons. *Snagging* doesn't make sense, as it would deal much more damage and, also, could be used from *below* (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/*Below*), not necessarily TrueSpace (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/TrueSpace).

I do know that. :) The word "dimension" has two meanings - "a measure" and "a separate universe". I used the first while never forgetting about the second. I just used our well-known everyday equivalents to describe the process of the penetration so that unaware readers can understand what I'm talking about. While talking about "dimensions" meaning them to be "another universes" we can replace the "upper dimension" and "lower dimension" with *above* and *below*, "4-dimensional axis" with "difference factor value" respondent for the "difference value", or "length" of the "interdimensional barrier", and so on. Let it be so then. :) And Orz, for example, being an interdimensional entity has/have a higher number of "dimensions-universes"(not measures!) to control/spread into then humans do, for the late restricted only to one (this world). (Since Orz are *fingers* (parts) of "something" manifesting the part of itself in our world as many illusions of separate individuals, but _not_ separate individuals (*many bubbles*) like humans are). That creature can exist simultaneously in several dimensions (now meaning the "universes"), that what I meant.


Absolutely! The mariners burn holes, now I've found the line in the manual stating the fact. Thanks. :)


Yes, you are right, I think! :) Orz can't *pull* anybody unless he or she "sees" (and "is being seen", accordingly). Obviously, the Tobermoon's crew didn't "see" (it's very unlikely that they had had any information about "seeing" and the Androsynth "IDF" phenomenon), so they couldn't be *pulled*. In my opinion Orz *dance* with those who can't be *pulled*, so they *danced* with Tobermoon... Maybe its crew had chosen the wrong dialogue options... :)

But the the manual also states the damage to be "burns" and not "holes". That's a big flow in the theory of mariners disintegrating the crew (although the writers may have concealed the details, veiling the damage as "burns" to make the matter more mysterious). Who knows :)

And interfere with how their favorite experimental subjects turn out after all those modifications? The Arilou are never clear about why they visit and modify humans; perhaps their eventual goal is to allow our race to interact with Precursor technology on an otherwise unknown level. If that's the case, why would they undo a remarkable step in that direction?

Even if that has nothing to do with anything, the Arilou would be loath to attempt to interfere with Zelnick's development after he demonstrates his talent. In that moment, he instantly became the biggest celebrity on the planet, and all eyes were on him; the Arilou would have a very tough time paying him a visit without being detected, and there would inevitably be problems when his gift abruptly vanishes. While the Arilou may not have liked the idea of humans returning to space, it would have been an ill advised move for them to attempt to prevent it, and they wouldn't have had the joy of seeing their "children" develop talents even they were unaware of (perhaps).

... and especially when removal of said talents would make the survival of humanity nearly impossible.

Without the Tobermoon stopped at the Oort Cloud, the humans couldn't survive.
And that was after the Arilou made the necessary modifications to Zelnick/decided not to change his natural talent. Why would they change their doctrine so easily?
I mean, why wouldn't they help the humans with stopping the Tobermoon too, as they did with Zelnick?

What?

Abort/Retry/Fail

You're missing "Ignore".

If we're talking MS-DOS error messages, "Ignore" didn't always appear as a choice (I've seen "Abort/Retry/Fail" more, myself).

Hmm.  I like the Orz idea.  And I think I can explain the bodies, since the crew couldn't "see" and therefore be "pulled".  Simply, as the Orz are leaving the deserted ship, they cut huge holes in the hull and the bodies are sucked into space, and float off.

Later, the Arilou pop in and repair the ship so A: the resistance has a second ship to help out at the beginning, and B: the old captain of the Vindicator has to go over and pilot the Tobermoon back home, leaving Zelnick in charge of the huge Precursor ship.

How bout that one?

The following thing is also a good idea:
Maybe the Tobermoon has been attacked by the Black Spathi Squadron. You know, they're probably mad, otherwise they wouldn't be so brave Spathi.
The deep burns are caused by the main weapon (which really looks caustic), and the ship was boarded by the mad pirates (you know, they're fighting just ANYONE now, because of their insanity).

Don't be silly. The Black Spathi Squadron is just a myth, they don't really exist.

Why, just because they don't appear in-game? Who knows, maybe excessive adrenaline levels makes them wrap around to bravery.