The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

The Ur-Quan Masters Re-Release => General UQM Discussion => Topic started by: Uor-Koan Captain on July 01, 2010, 09:46:02 pm



Title: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: Uor-Koan Captain on July 01, 2010, 09:46:02 pm
Hello. I have explanations of some basic things about Arilou/Orz some players can't understand, as well as for Syreen-human genetic compatibility. (admins, feel free to remove this topic if you find it is a duplicate).

1) Some can't understand what's "Arilou are from above, Orz are from below".
Itis fairly simple in religious "planes/layers" of the world (7 skies, 9 "levels" of hell, etc). Sounds like Arilou pretend to be angels.

2) Catch Nggn, "not solid enough".
Nggn - some ghost-like form of pseudo-life. you must be black-hole solidity/density grade to catch those (only possible in a certain "plane" or quasi-space). (or a more simple explanation, "solid" is a mistranslation, they meant "concentrated").

3) What did "fish-folk" Orz do to "clones" (Androsynth)?
They punished Androsynth in time, mutating them (hence the Syreen, with human-compatible genome).

Those are just common-sense/religion explanations, and 3rd one also explainss a biological impossibility of Syreen-human genetic compatibility. Feel free to discuss other such "plot holes" of Star Control series here.


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: Draxas on July 01, 2010, 11:47:39 pm
That third explanation is rediculous, especially since most Androsynth were "male" and the entire race was sterile. So the Orz sent them back in time, evened out the gender distribution, gave them the ability to breed, turned them blue, and wiped their racial memory? Come on.


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: Uor-Koan Captain on July 02, 2010, 12:41:58 am
Another explanation would be (also weird) that Arilou took all the kidnapped humans into the past and started a retarded experiment to create a race that would be easier to use to "fix genome anomalies" that Arilou have because of quasi-space.


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: storyyeller on July 02, 2010, 05:17:48 pm
Don't forget that the Druuge and Shofixti are also somehow genetically compatible.


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: Draxas on July 02, 2010, 06:10:50 pm
It's pretty clear that SC plays fast and loose with the idea of genetic compatability and hybrid offspring. Why try to introduce convulted explanations for it? I think it's easiest to say that the Syreen were probably failed experiments of the Arilou, which they abandoned and then moved on the Earth to try again. May not be true, but explains things in a neat and easy way that doesn't contradict the existing lore.

Or it's just a huge coincidence. Or the work of the Precursors like so much else. Those work too.


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: onpon4 on July 02, 2010, 08:51:22 pm
Don't forget that the Druuge and Shofixti are also somehow genetically compatible.

Not necessarily. The Druuge claim that they have the means to fertilize the Shofixti maidens artificially.


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: Uor-Koan Captain on July 03, 2010, 04:30:13 pm
It sounds like Orz were at their stone age when someone gave them space technologies without uplifting their language to something possible to translate properly.
Stone-age fishes are surely "below" Arilou in means of both biological and mental evolution, which is another explanation for "Arilou are from above, Orz are from below".


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: Alvarin on July 03, 2010, 04:56:49 pm
It sounds like Orz were at their stone age when someone gave them space technologies without uplifting their language to something possible to translate properly.
Stone-age fishes are surely "below" Arilou in means of both biological and mental evolution, which is another explanation for "Arilou are from above, Orz are from below".
More primitive language would be easier to translate, not harder.
About uplifting - the Orz is said to be singular being, so "space technology" is just our perception of this extra-dimentional being, not really technology. The "above and below" is referring to the layers of reality or other dimentions.


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: Steve-O on July 08, 2010, 11:02:20 pm
1) Some can't understand what's "Arilou are from above, Orz are from below".
Itis fairly simple in religious "planes/layers" of the world (7 skies, 9 "levels" of hell, etc). Sounds like Arilou pretend to be angels.

I don't think the Arilou are trying to draw parallels between themselves and angels when they say they are from "above."  I think they're just trying to explain the metaphysical geometry of alternate dimensions in a very (very VERY) simplified manner that us poor humans might understand.  In other words, "above" and "below" are two different parallel dimensions from which the Arilou and Orz respectively originate.  It's not about religion at all, although I admit there are religious connotations to the comparison, that's outside the game world.

3) What did "fish-folk" Orz do to "clones" (Androsynth)?
They punished Androsynth in time, mutating them (hence the Syreen, with human-compatible genome).

That's a bit of a stretch, to say the least.  The Orz clearly did something unspeakably horrible to the Androsynth, sending them back in time and transforming them into blue females (from a race of mostly cloned men) seems to fall a bit shy of unspeakably horrible to me.  Although it would make the whole "syreen are sexy space girls" thing take a disturbing new twist. =P

It's pretty clear that SC plays fast and loose with the idea of genetic compatability and hybrid offspring. Why try to introduce convulted explanations for it?

I think most sci-fi these days plays fast and loose with genetic compatability.  Frankly, most sci-fi these days have entirely too many near-humanoid races.  It's something you hand wave to maintain suspension of disbelief.  What I'm saying here is that I agree with your suggestion that introducing explanations is mostly pointless.  As far as the Syreen go, I personally fall into the "it's all a huge coincidence" camp myself.  The game is otherwise tongue-in-cheek enough that I can accept a race entirely composed of blue girls with overpowered libidos somehow beat the bajillion-to-one odds to be genetically compatible with an entirely alien race.

It sounds like Orz were at their stone age when someone gave them space technologies without uplifting their language to something possible to translate properly.

+1 for Alvarin.

The Vindicator apparently has some sort of onboard computer program capable of interpreting and translating entirely alien languages it has never heard before this minute into understandable English in a fraction of a second.  A "universal trnaslator" if you will.  An under-evolved stone age language would be primarily composed of instinctive feelings and basic ideas, which should be simplicity itself for a program like this to translate.  The Orz language cannot be properly translated because it's just too weird.  Their ideas are too alien for the program to understand, being as they come from a different dimension and all.  It's less about how complex their language is and more about the necessary cues the program needs not being present - whatever those might be.


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: Valos Cor on July 09, 2010, 03:16:19 am

1) Some can't understand what's "Arilou are from above, Orz are from below".
Itis fairly simple in religious "planes/layers" of the world (7 skies, 9 "levels" of hell, etc). Sounds like Arilou pretend to be angels.
Arilou in no way pretend to be angels and I don't think the Orz pretend to be devils (though they ARE silly/creepy)

2) Catch Nggn, "not solid enough".
Nggn - some ghost-like form of pseudo-life. you must be black-hole solidity/density grade to catch those (only possible in a certain "plane" or quasi-space). (or a more simple explanation, "solid" is a mistranslation, they meant "concentrated").
I don't quite understand.   The Arilou are almost as dense as black-holes?  We'd kind of be sucked into them (and they would kind of crush themselves).   Ghosts are just the opposite of being more-solid/more-dense than we are (I don't believe they exist).  If I recall correctly, the Arilou came to our plane of existance to catch them, not to catch them in some other "plane" or dimension.  I have little idea of what "solid" means but I'm pretty sure that is the wrong explanation.
Hello. I have explanations of some basic things about Arilou/Orz some players can't understand, as well as for Syreen-human genetic compatibility. (admins, feel free to remove this topic if you find it is a duplicate).


3) What did "fish-folk" Orz do to "clones" (Androsynth)?
They punished Androsynth in time, mutating them (hence the Syreen, with human-compatible genome).

Those are just common-sense/religion explanations, and 3rd one also explainss a biological impossibility of Syreen-human genetic compatibility. Feel free to discuss other such "plot holes" of Star Control series here.
The Orz punished the Androsynth for revealing themselves...likely.  I don't think the Orz would mutate a genderless Androsynth into an attractive Syreen (that is if both genders are attractive) (very different...) and send them to a perfect Eden world where they were perfectly happy. 
I'd have to say that isn't common sense because very few probably came up with such explanations - making it uncommon sense.(I may be wrong...)  Hm... to make that theory SLIGHTLY more plausible...so the Androsynth gave the Orz the chance of detecting our cool plane of existance by sticking their scent into Orz's home dimension...the Orz are so grateful that the Androsynth are given a reward by getting genders and being sent to an Eden world back in time but have to have their memory erased.  Therefore Orz get their own space and the Androsynth can't stop them if they remembered anything...Still very unlikely (very...very...unlikely...)


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: storyyeller on July 10, 2010, 01:31:28 am
Yeah, I don't think anyone else has been insane enough to come up with "explanations" like this. Maybe the SC3 devs


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: Alvarin on July 10, 2010, 10:45:45 am
Before producing more Orz explanations of this kind, play the game again and visit several androsynth sities ( I think it was three or four) then compare what happened there to what you are proposing.


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: scorpio803 on July 13, 2010, 01:15:09 am
I get that the orz are manifestations of them in true space, so they aren't really a race but a single entity, but then how are you able to build Nemesis ships at the starbase?  :P


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: Draxas on July 13, 2010, 06:57:05 am
The Orz themselves are the manifestations. The technology is just that: technology. It can be built by anyone.


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: scorpio803 on July 13, 2010, 07:27:07 am
About uplifting - the Orz is said to be singular being, so "space technology" is just our perception of this extra-dimentional being, not really technology. The "above and below" is referring to the layers of reality or other dimentions.

...


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: Draxas on July 13, 2010, 05:33:13 pm
*sigh*

In case you hadn't noticed, much of what we "know" about the Orz is fairly open to interpretation. Hence this topic.


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: chenjesuwizard on August 08, 2010, 12:49:11 pm
The Orz themselves are the manifestations. The technology is just that: technology. It can be built by anyone.
But they need ship captains...


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: cloneof on August 17, 2010, 10:37:22 pm
The Orz themselves are the manifestations. The technology is just that: technology. It can be built by anyone.
But they need ship captains...
Even though they are a single entity, it could be possible that the single entity expresses itself in multiple forms in our universe.


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: Dabir on August 18, 2010, 12:01:00 am
a hand has five fingers

pop some bubbles on a sheet of bubble wrap, push your fingers into the clingfilm that remains

looks a bit like bubbles huh

weird bubble, but the same sort of shape

basically, that's orz


Title: Re: Plot holes and mysteries
Post by: gt24 on September 07, 2010, 10:50:39 pm
My theories on a few things...

1) Some can't understand what's "Arilou are from above, Orz are from below".
Itis fairly simple in religious "planes/layers" of the world (7 skies, 9 "levels" of hell, etc). Sounds like Arilou pretend to be angels.
I disagree as others have said in that this likely means that they come from two different "dimensions".  The quote marks are explained below...

2) Catch Nggn, "not solid enough".
Nggn - some ghost-like form of pseudo-life. you must be black-hole solidity/density grade to catch those (only possible in a certain "plane" or quasi-space). (or a more simple explanation, "solid" is a mistranslation, they meant "concentrated").
I think it is more along the lines of existence in multiple dimensions, at least how I see it.  If you have 3 dimensions A B C and you have a being that exists in two of them B C and you who exist in B, how can this be easily explained without a long sentence like this one?  To them, you are "not solid enough" because you simply put do not exist in half the dimensions they do.  Since they observe multiple dimensions at once, you seem "not solid enough" since you are missing in some of their perceptions (one of the dimensions) yet exist in other parts of their perceptions.

If they don't quite understand the science behind dimensions then they likely are explaining it as best as they can.  You seem to not be "solid enough" whereas the planet, existing in all their dimensions, seems quite solid.

3) What did "fish-folk" Orz do to "clones" (Androsynth)?
They punished Androsynth in time, mutating them (hence the Syreen, with human-compatible genome).
I think this one ties into the dimensional problems.  Imagine that air and water are two separate dimensions.  A fish lives in one dimension (water) and you can go in either.  You, to punish the fish, put it in another dimension (air) where it cannot survive and observe the effects.

From the descriptions of the one planet (been a while, maybe I got this wrong), it seemed like the population vanished.  Well, if the Orz exist in multiple dimensions then to punish the Androsynth they might have forced them to go into another dimension where they summarily died.  Maybe the Orz physically did it, maybe they used a "not solid enough" item to do it, or who knows.  They somehow did it and like a fish out of water each being died.  That would be rather horrific.  That would fit.  Plus, it ties all these thoughts together.

Kinda sorta maybe not.  It is open to interpretation and there is no right answer.  However, above is at least the answers I saw in these cryptic lines.