The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I think that the Taalo Shield was, in fact, properly installed. The Dnyarri, however, said that you don't have it properly installed because he wanted to make you to lose your confidence in the Shield for a while, thus distracting your mind's attention and basically making it actively seek the Dnyarri's mind (or making it to lose its connection to the Shield out of auto-suggestion that the Shield did not really work). In the short interval of confusion, he was able to bring the light of reason to The Captain's mind, making him to understand that he needs the Dnyarri.

Doesn't this fit?

I don't think you "install" the Taalo shield like you would, say, a hard drive on your computer or something. It's just a big rock after all. Just plunk it down in one of the storage bays and you have an instant psychic shield

But its protection isn't perfect, as demonstrated when you ask the Dynarri about its "mental powers".

You can say that simply dumping it on the ship means installing it. As opposed to also activating it somehow (which the Dnyarri wants you to think you should have done).

There does seem to be some kind of installation process for the shield, however; the science report indicates that it doesn't start working until current is applied. Then again, I suppose it could be argued that current simply amplifies the effect, but if that's the case, why not simply "install" the device into a small circuit?

According to the Starbase commander, running electricity through it makes it more effective. So maybe there are other similar methods that should be employed?

EDIT: Damn, beat by such a short period of time because I wanted to check the Ultronomicon.

EDIT 2: Well, at least I can link the relevant page (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Taalo_Shield). Also Valaggar, nice new name.

Ah, yeah, how could I forget... though the Dnyarri still says it's not properly installed no matter you know about having to feed a current through it or not (and the Shield works just as well no matter if you have analyzed it or not, i.e. if you know that you have to feed the aforementioned current).
Maybe the current just extends the effect to paranormal occurrences that are not related to mental compulsion (i.e. psychon interaction is flatlined).
See also:
SUMMARY: If you keep this Taalo rock device thing on board your vessel
I'll bet you are immune to any form of psychic attack
or at least mostly immune.

Running a current through it might be one of the first things one would do actually, to test electrical conductivity of the substance. You wouldn't need a big honkin' starbase to figure that out.

However, on The Flagship you wouldn't have devices with which to test the psychon level of people around the Shield, so you wouldn't realize that running a current through the Shield activates it.

True enough, you wouldn't know that the device is indeed active/inactive/partially active, but then again, how much did you expect to meet a mutant frogdog in space with mental compulsion?

This is a rather god explanation which could be used further along the line. That the Taalo shield protects you against psychic compulsion such as the Dnyarri without any fixes is quite reasonable. After all, it was designed with Dnyarri in mind, and as such the Taalo probably wanted it to be as easy to use as possible. So just the shield protects you, albeit not completely. Maybe some sort of exposure is needed to bring it up to full gear, like a certain radiation, vacuum, or anything else that there is plenty of in space. When you stick it in your ship, this doesn't work.

On the other hand, when you run a current through it it protects against the paranormal. Maybe the Taalo had some early inkling of what the Orz where, or simply designed it to work against multiple threats. This could be useful in a sequel, where a fully chrged shield allows you to fight the Orz, whereas a lack thereof means they can *see* you.

What I think about that incident is that, because The Captain was talking about the Dnyarri's psychic powers (so he wanted to see them/learn more about them), his mind was basically actively searching the Dnyarri's powers, so the Dnyarri didn't need to face the Shield anymore.

Er what? When I think about you, my mind doesn't probe you in any way, it's all within my skull. Unless you are suggesting that the Captain is both psychic, and unable to control his powers, that makes very little sense.

No, I was saying that The Captain's mind was opening itself to the Dnyarri because, subconsciously, The Captain wanted to see the Dnyarri's powers in action. The Shield stops incoming psychic powers, but not the psychic powers of the beings inside its radius; this specific mental compulsive action originated in The Captain's mind, so it was not blocked by the Shield.

Or the Captain was visiting the hold in person and didn't realise that psi powers decrease with the square of the distance like a lot of other stuff. ;)

Speaking of the Dnyarri, what happened to him at the end of the game? Did he get blown up with the ship?

Yeah, it's pretty certain he got blown up...

...UNLESS !!


(that's pretty much the whole answer right there ;))

Although a bit of a *Spoiler*;






Finish the game and watch the credit roll... You'll know then.

It's only a spoiler if the outtakes during the credit roll were considerred canon, which they aren't. The very fact that they were made to be funny proves it. Want more proof? Why would the Thraddash, Druuge, Dnyarri, and Yehat all treat the game as if it was all staged if the outtakes were canon?

I think it's called breaking the 4th wall.