The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

(Topic idea shamelessly ripped from Lukipela's "Serving your race, where to do so (http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/forum/index.php?topic=1398.0)" thread on SCDB)

So, let's say that you were killed on a Fury and given the choice to reincarnate as a captain of any race in SC2/SC1. What vessel would you captain? (As a member of its race, of course, i.e. if you choose Orz, it means that you are Orz guiding the ship with its *fingers*; if you choose Skiff, it means that you are an Arilou captain piloting that UFO.)

Argh, it's a GIANT WALL OF TEXT. The topic concept is pretty good in spite of that so I'll go along with it.

Commanding a Syreen Penetrator would be so fantastic I don't see why anyone would want to choose anything else. Eleven female Syreen subordinates who have had virtually no contact with the male gender? Yes please. Also, I get to turn hostile aliens into zombified slaves and make them do all the frustrating chores.

Of course it is. It's derived from the brain of the most handsome and dazzling individual on these or any other boards.


I'm going to crosspost my response from the SCDB here before everyone starts jumping the Syreen boat:

I'd pilot a good ol' Earthling Cruiser. Why, you ask? Well, starships need pilots of the same race as they were designed for. I'd pilot an Earthling Cruiser because at least I'd be able to fly it. :)

Anyway, here's another thing to think about with the Syreen ship: You'd have to wear the official uniform of a Syreen captain... 8) You silly males...

I really doubt they would make their men wear the exact same thing. Plus, I'm still a human captain so why not just wear a human officer's uniform?


Now that is a silly argument. Constant exposure to them would desensitize a person enough that they could concentrate like normal. And it's not a matter of "prowess", the Syreen have a major scarcity of males so one doesn't need to be the pinnacle of masculinity to appeal to them.

Pkunk or Spathi might be more practical (could run away from most fights), but personally I'd love to fly a Terminator. I dunno why, it just looks fun. It's like the space equivelent of a muscle car.

Id wanna be an Umgah captain. Seems like our mission would be to play pranks on people!!

And the most modest, I might say.  :P

and
Hey! You are the same race as the ship you command! Unless Syreen are lesbian, I don't see why you'd get that much sexual satisfaction aboard a Penetrator.

Well, if given a chance to serve aboard any given Alliance ship, it might be fun to serve aboard an Avatar. Must be neat aboard a ship with all that super-advanced technology.

The Syreen argument sounded good at first until I remembered the Syreen/Earthling crew exchange incedent mentioned in the SC1 manual:


If I were to pilot a ship, I'd go with the Spathi.

Thraddash Torch. It seems to be comfortable inside, and the ability to zoom around at ludicrous speeds while leaving behind fire seems cool. Though, I'll have to tolerate cigar smoke a lot.

Hello! You're a Thraddash! You tolerate that cigar.

Assuming that you are a human captain (apparently we're supposed to be aliens as well, unlike the original topic), I really doubt that. Sure, if they were just ordinary good looking women, most of us wouldn't have any problems. But these aren't just good looking blue skinned babes we're talking about here. They enchant and fascinate, hypnotize and dazzle.  Like Angus quoted:


Those boys didn't do too well at all, and they were just serving in a crew capacity. Being a Captain demands a whole lot more concentration than being an ensign, and I very much doubt anyone would last long before they cracked.


You might want to change the thread topic to "ATTN Captains: What race would you like to be part of and command ships for?". I'm betting that right now, most people are simply reading the topic (which doesn't mention that you are an alien), and then skipping your first post because it is incredibly long. That's why my original post was short and formatted, people don't want to start off by reading enormous amounts.

EDIT: Also in the first post before you begin rattling off every ship known to man, you actually just state that the person can be reincarnated as any captain of any race. So shouldn't people be able to choose Umgah Captain of a Skiff or Ur-Quan captain of a Jugger?

Arilou'la'lee'lay or Pkunk, existing in the so many different dimensions and stuff sound interesting :D, so it's a bonus if I get killed.

I wonder why no ones picked the Druuge.... :P

__________________________________________________________________________________
#Will you side with the renegade clones and blaze your way through the enemy Cruisers, all while shouting and yelling and cursing your Human oppressors?

#Will you command a Skiff and abduct cows and humans, conduct strange experiments, jump across the galaxy through dimensional doorways which are at your beck and call, and cut the enemy Podships in half with your laser?

#Will you minutely plan your every thrust as a slow and prudent Chenjesu captain of an even slower Broodhome?

#Will you tear apart the most powerful Ur-Quan Eterna-tech-reinforced Dreadnought while cowardly hiding behind your ZapSats for protection against small projectiles, as a Chmmr Avatar captain?

#Will you comfortably hang in chains in a Druuge command chamber and order your subordinates to fulfill your every command, including "To the furnace!" and "Take control of the ship, I want to rest a bit"?

#Will you rather be one of the two twins (one male and one female) that traditionally command Earthling Cruisers, launching recycled MX missiles and hoping not to suffer the same fate as the Tobermoon in the Oort Cloud (whatever that was)?

#Will you incinerate Furies and Cruisers in the name of Dogar, The Dark Beast With a Thousand Young and Kazon, The Hungry Lurker in the Night, ready to rip your highly regenerative limbs if you fail even by one pixel to follow the path set for you by your Dark Gods, as the captain of an Ilwrath Avenger?

#Would you rather avoid combat and trek between the stars making deals with juicy information and not forgetting to denigrate the Druuge's name at every step, in the shoes of a Melnorme Trader (and on his comfortable pillow covering the MetaChron) bearing the name of your favourite colour?

#Will you serve your unknown master in the flexible X-Form starships, defeating virtually any ship with enough skill (i.e. Tiberian skill)?

#Would you spread Juffo-Wup, the hot light in the darkness, and Void the Non for the time when your Creators will return, in the resilient Podship vessel? (And be part of a Birthing Fleet while implanting a Deep Child beneath the crust of a new world, a cold rock, spinning silently in the Void)

#Would you rather not take risks and just put your *fingers* in peril by *dancing* around *heavy space* *gravity centers*, launching *GO! GO!*s and *dissolving* the *silly cows* (in an Orz Nemesis of course)?

#Will you command a ship whose maneuverability has no equal, whose speed is bested only by the spirits in the highest astral planes, and whose survivability is infinite should you care to reincarnate, as the captain of a Pkunk Fury?

#Will you sacrifice for honour, glory and your race as the fearless marsupial captain of a Shofixti Scout vessel (Note: No Tanaka/Katana - in case you like to procreate wildly - and not the Scout sent to the Yehat as proof of the rebirth of the Shofixti species)

#Would you rather not captain a ship, but BE a ship as a Catalog Item 2418-B... Remote Self-Replicating Robot Explorer Probe, seeking sentients and anomalies and, best of all, breaking targets into component compounds?

#Do you prefer the safe haven that is the fast and smart Spathi Discriminator, not risking your life pointlessly for stupid things such as honour and glory or the future of your race and praying each morning "Oh God... please don't let me die today! Tomorrow would be SO much better!"?

#Do you want to embark on a crusade against vegetarians on a Supox Blade, visiting curiosities such as the firefalls of Nalnar (Theta Hyades I) and the servants of Mali (Gamma Leporis VII) and thrusting virtually towards any direction while launching super-powered carnivorous green globs which spell doom for the best armoured ships?

#Are you a perverse zoo/xenophile who likes to "motivate" hypnotized spiders and caterpillars by your own... umm... "special ways" aboard the pleasurably-ribbed Syreen Penetrator?

#Do you prefer hurling MASSIVE bolts of super-sharp coloured rocks at enemy ships, using your Reeunk Afterburners against retarded enemies and teaching lessons to any trespassers in the indestructible "Trads Torc", as they spell it?

#Or are you rather the type of being who likes to invite Mycons on your ships for dinner and then clonk them in the head, annihilate their vessel with antimatter and escape with your high-speed retropropulsion system to the safety of Beta Orionis I... or is it safe anymore? (STOP. THE. HUMAN. DESTROY. VESSEL.)

#Will you cleanse the galaxy of filth in the bulky, yet gruesomely powerful, Kohr-Ah Marauder, clinging above a Bone Pit containing a skeleton from each race you have personally exterminated?

#Would you rather just enslave any non-Ur-Quan sentient life with your indestructible Dreadnought, which is in fact fourty-two vessels in one?

#Would you follow your fate as the Ultron-appointed captain of a Jugger, using your powerful salvo of lightsabers to blast Marauders into oblivion and your impenetrable shield to protect yourself from the most powerful weapons in the world (don't forget to don your mask of Valor and Derring-Do)?

#Would you turn off your viewscreen (rather than bear the look of those disgusting Humans longer) and press the Big Red Button with no remorse to obliterate the grotesque monster that is your enemy (plus, luckily, you spawn right next to the enemy ship, so you don't have to endure their limitless ugliness too long), in a VUX Intruder, the last word in lifeform destruction?

#Or would you hack and slash your way through the enemy lines with your steady and stylish Yehat Terminator?

#Or would you be clever and pick the best of the ships, the Zoq-Fot Stinger! Frungy field and a big Frungyvision included.
____________________________________________________________________________________________

(For one, I would pick the Orz Nemesis: I hate risking my life, I prefer playing to fighting.)

Umm... it sounded a bit ambiguous, indeed.

Congratulations for actually understanding the topic! You should feel free to don the mask of Confident and Lofty Posture.

Someone here is forgetting that to pilot an alien ship you need an alien captain. The controls of a Broodhome were never designed for human fingers.

If, however, I could be in any ship, I'd have to pick the Broodhome for early alliance, and Avatar for the later alliance. I'm safer in a big ship, and no ship alone is a match for the Avatar when its piloted right.

Oh, and by the way, I have yet to find any redeeming qualities for the Drones. Those ships are weak beyond weak.

Orz, obviously!  I mean, they're fascinating, and I'm just incredibly curious. :D  They're a huge unknown; any opportunity to learn more would be welcome--especially if I could remember my previous incarnation, and perhaps come back as something else for the next one.


...Wasn't that just gone over a few comments ago?

I don't know why, but everybody's forgetting that the race to whom the ship you captain belongs is also your race, i.e. if you choose Orz, it means that you are Orz guiding the ship with its *fingers*; if you choose Skiff, it means that you are an Arilou captain piloting that UFO.

I don't know why, but this thread seems to have turned a lot of people illiterate. Maybe it's just human nature though, we automatically assume that we will reincarnate as ourselves. I know I did. I suppose that would make for an interesting psychological experiment.

Question! Do you remember your past life?

For example: After your mysterious reincarnation, do you just kind of "wake up" inside a different body with your old memories intact and no idea how to control your new body?

I dunno about you guys, but that would entirely freak me out. Oh, I'd get over it eventually, but I don't think I'd be fit to captain anything for a while.


I automatically assumed that I'd be a member of another race, even before Valaggar made the post more clear on the whole thing. I wonder what that says about me? :-\

The reincarnation of a Fury thing was a rudimentary plot device to put everything in motion (i.e. to explain why you can choose between races); however, the idea is that even if you remember or not your past life, you surely can control your new body, since the neural/whatever connections are in place and ready to be used, and your new brain is a brain adapted for your new body.

Hmm? But that doesn't...

Are you so sure that simply being in a body and having all the neural connections there means that you know how to use them? After all, when people are born as a baby they don't automatically know how to talk, walk, or efficiently use fine motor functions, right? I imagine that if your consciousness/soul/whatever is just plunked into a body you wouldn't know how to use it right away.

I mean, geez, most of these aliens are so different physically that it would be a total shock to have such a body switch.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my answer would depend a lot on what the circumstances of this reincarnation or whatever are.

If I have no memory of my life as a human, I don't think it would really matter which I was. I, personally, won't gain any knowledge from the experience because I, as I am right now, cease to exist the moment that I become something else. I'm not "CeeVee" anymore, I'm now, for example, Reep-Yeep the Yehat and as far as Reep-Yeep knows, they've always been a Yehat.

So it would be kinda pointless to me if I get to pick which alien species I want to be if I'm, personally, never going to get the experience. Kinda depressing too.

However, that all changes if I remember who I was.

Am I making any sense here?

In part. Maybe you are reincarnated as an infant destined to be a starship captain, and have time to get used to your new body? Or maybe, because you used to be a Pkunk, you automatically attain that mastery?

Or possible you're doing a very Valaggar-y thing and overthinking a simple premise. Now that would be amusing.

Ergh, you think so? :-[ Sorry for the annoyance, I'm just...like that. I have a tendency to put details into otherwise minor things.

But then again, if what you're saying is true, I don't see how this topic is any different from the one Valaggar himself posted a few months ago (http://uqm.stack.nl/forum/index.php?topic=3577.0). I guess I just assumed that we were supposed to go more in-depth with this one. :-\

Now I know how others feel when I do like that... :'(

The only difference is that in that case you were a civilian/all-arounder. Here you're a Captain.

You are going to get the experience, but as a casual thing, not as being part of another species - so you're not going to wonder at how cool/horrible it is to be the respective species.
(As to babies/neural connections: You are not going to reincarnate as a baby, but as an adult individual. That's how Fury reincarnation works.)
(Also, although this is not relevant, I just wanted you to know - you were a Human initially, not a Pkunk)

Ur-Quan. I'm just too territorial to tolerate anyone else on board : D

Congratulations Valaggar, you are the first uqm-forum member to become an actual verb. Not easy to achieve that!

Oxford English dictionary:
to Valaggar v.
1. to overthink a simple premise (particularly pertaining to Star Control)
2. to exhibit enthusiasm in generous proportion to value of a topic of discussion/issue (particularly pertaining to Star Control)

Valaggary adv.
1. a description of someone as above
e.g. "CeeVee is being Valaggary today" (i.e. exhibiting the above)

'Valaggarish' sounds better but I think we have to go with the original as coined by Lukipela

Has anyone else become a verb that you can think of?

EDIT: Noticed I wrote Lukipedia instead of Lukipela!

Well, Shiver is a verb in the first place...

Note how Cedric phrased it: "become an actual verb". "Shiver" was already a verb, so it couldn't have become one.

Also, long live to the verb "to Valaggar". May it rise and take over the world. May its reign be glorious and everlasting.

PS: Maybe you should add "Valagger" and "Vallagar" as "common misspellings"?

The Kzer-Za Dreadnaught is a fair match for the Chmmr Avatar any day, as the Dreadnaught's Fusion Cannon can cause significant damage at slightly longer ranges than the Avatar's Laser. With good pilots in both and assuming the Dreadnaught does not launch any fighters (as it loses crew that will be destroyed by the ZapSats) and that the Avatar doesn't waste any power tractoring the Dreadnaught in close that could be used to power the laser, mutual destruction is extremely likely - and neither vessel will escape unscathed.

I suppose the Dreadnaught's best tactic would be to use Fusion Blasts to pick off the ZapSats, then use it's fighters to finish off the mostly-defenseless Avatar whilst keeping out of the way of that laser.

The Kohr-Ah Marauder is also a pretty good match - it can use it's FRIED to take out the ZapSats, or skim around at range and fling the homing discs at the Avatar.

I would probably pick the Mmrnmhrm Transformer, as I've grown quite attached to it's Y-Form.

This is a very Valaggary post.

To contribute, I'd love to be reincarnated as a Chenjesu (or Chmmr). To live a long life and have time to ponder the universe. To speak through hyperspace and taste the sun. To share thoughts with other great thinkers, and solve the mysteries of the Universe, despite those meddling Pkunk.

EDIT: In order to not spam up the thread, you're over thinking whether you are the first board member to have something named after them by going into detail about how the word shiver existed before Shiver registered. It's not that serious.

No it's not.

Actually, in the conteext of UQM, Shiver most definitely is a noun (person place or thing). If he was to become a verb "to Shiver", it would mean...
actually, he was nice enough to make me Melnorme, so I won't go there.

Personally, the Chenjesu always appeal to me.  The raw power in that ship (despite its speed drawbacks), plus getting to BE what I consider the coolest idea in sci-fi: silicon-based life form!