The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I've done a cursory search on the forums here and on the web in general, and I think I have a new theory on why the Precursors fled this part of the galaxy.

They were in a really big hurry to leave this part of the galaxy.  But for a race that lived for millenia, what exactly constitutes a 'big hurry'?  Hundreds of years?  Thousands?  Perhaps whatever they were fleeing wasn't going to happen immediately, but at some point in the future, and they wanted to be absolutely sure they'd be good and gone.

Its just a crazy theory, but what if they were fleeing the Mycon?

While there is still some debate over whether they created the fun-guys or not, I like to think they did, with the obvious purpose of terraforming.  Maybe they just made them a little too well.   Perhaps the Mycon were created to adapt to different planets to aid in their job.  Thrown down on a world they are designed to survive, with no predators, and their evolution took off.  Soon sentience emerged.  With no history, no philosophy, no culture, it followed the cores rule of all life: self-preservation, reproduction, etc.  These actions are defined by other species as, of course, evil.  I don't think of the whole Juffo-Wup thing as a religion, really, so much as the Mycon's attempt at philosophy.  To them, sentience is no guarantor of rights.  There are predators and there are prey, if we're going to survive as a species, we have to destroy anyone else.

Perhaps the Precursors couldn't just destroy the Mycon for one reason or another.  This is where the theory starts to break down a little.  The Precursors obviously had very advanced weaponry.  The Mycon ships can be slaughtered en masse once a slightly modified Precursor cargo ship is thrown up against their entire fleet.  I have three options to explain this, and none are particularly strong. 

The first is a moral reason.  The Precursors knew the Mycon would eventually become a threat, but they couldn't bring themselves to destroy an entire sentient species.  Since reasoning with them was completely out of the question, they decided the moral thing to do would be to leave the area.   This begs the question why they didn't form some technology to simply contain the Mycon.  Perhaps their predictions saw the Mycon becoming more advanced than the Precursors sooner (and possibly with far worse consequences) than if they just left them alone.

The second option is the Mycon had already developed technology to fight the Precursors, but that obviously wouldn't wash, as you're using a Precursor ship. 

The last idea I had casts the Precursors in a somewhat less glowing light than how they are usually viewed.  The Slylandro describe the 'shaggy giants' as always running around, worried about a coming threat.  Perhaps, like every other race in the game, they have a prevailing racial characteristic that touches everything they do.  The Spathi are all cowards, and everything down to their ship design reflects this.  Maybe the Precursors, as a race, were incredibly paranoid.   A hyper-advanced race with no obvious enemies has to develop insanely powerful weapons for a reason.  Maybe there simply was no threat, but they had created new life to remake worlds and it got out of control.  A race-wide equivalent to a paranoid 'freak-out,' coupled with the above distaste for wiping out an entire sentient race, led to the decision to leave.

Your thoughts?

~G

Magic 8-ball says 'no'. Of course, magic 8-ball is wrong half the time, but I have a good feeling about this one.

I'd say that if the Kohr-Ah could wipe out the mycon in a month or two, then I dont think they'd be a threat to the Precursors.

Also, one theory is that the mycon were created by the precursors.

Also, AFAIK, the mycon only went crazy after years and years without supervision.

It might be possible they were facing Androsynth-Orz scenario and fled this area prior to extradimentionals finding their way to the Precursors.

The Precursors were insanely advanced, no doubt. They also had huge ships. What if they fled to a new area simply to find fuel for their giant ships? Think about the fuel consumption of Zelnick's precursor service vehicle. That thing was a gas guzzler, alright. Now, imagine an entire fleet of Precursor vessels, each much bigger than that. The fuel for such enormous spacecraft does not grow on trees, you know.

They left way too soon if it was just to avoid the Orz. They were a prehistoric race in galactic terms (however advanced). It would have been like the ancient Babylonians fleeing Iraq to avoid the US invasion of 2001. anyway, the chances are the the orz arrived because the Androsynth ripped a hoe into another dimension

Also, I don’t think the fuel theory flies. I don’t think their ships were that big….
And if they were that advanced then presumably they would be somewhat efficient and not dependent on exhausting the galaxy’s resources.

I didn't mean Orz specifically. What I thought is they might tried to develop IDF travel (maybe because of fuel shortage) but, unlike the Androsynth, stopped early enough before were seen fully, but enough to warrant worry.

Really? How do you rip a hoe? XD

There was a manual written for that. In London, circa 1888.

What if a disappearance of the Precursors is related to the Dnyarri? The Ultronomicon clearly says: "The Dnyarri were an ANCIENT, extremely evil, highly intelligent and lazy race capable of mental compulsion." I don't know of any literature which would determine exactly how ancient the Dnyarri were, but I think it's unlikely that they existed when the Perecursor were still present. Still, the Precursors might have been extremely sensitive to psychic compulsion similarly to the Ur-Quan and have no means of protection from it. I think it's fairly possible that the Precursors might have predicted the presence of the Dnyarri in a quadrant at some point of future, and fled to avoid ever meeting them.

If the Taalo could create an anti-Dnyarri shield, I don't think the Precursors would have much trouble doing so

Not necessarilly : the fish would never comprehend the technology of nails trimming or haircut.

Actually, the Precursors would have much more trouble creating anti-compulsion shields than the Taalo. The Taalo built the shield on the basis of their natural ability to resist mind control. I think the Precursors really had a good reason to be afraid of the Dnyarri. Both the Chmmr and the Ur-Quan claimed that if there is the devil, it is certainly the Dnyarri. Just imagine what chaos would emerge if the Dnyarri got their hands on the Precursor weapons and technology.

Considering they enslaved the galaxy just by gaining control of single Ur-Quan scout vessel, that's not too farfetched. Honestly, this theory is one of the less implausible ones, though it begs the question of how the Precursors knew the Dnyarri would be a problem without being enslaved, and why they didn't warn anyone if they did know.

As you might know the Melnorme posses the MetaChron, an alien artifact which warned them about the Kohr-Ah threat before the most of others knew about it. That device is the most likely of the Precursor origin and it might have been used by the Precursors to detect the Dnyarri threat. About the warning, they probably haven't known anybody who hasn't extincted before the events of SC2 except for the Slylandro who would have forgot about the warning over time just like the name of the race that warned them. Oh, and the Mycon too possibly, but they care only about the Juffo-Wup. Everything else is just the unfulfilled void for them, including the Dnyarri.

Now hold on, to be fair only those who have played the original PC game know that this thing ever existed as it is not in the the 3DO version that our communities game is based on.

For those who don't know about this, in the original PC game you had 9-10 years to do everything before the Kor-ah attack. The Melnorme on your second visit to them mention this device and use it to tell you that based on it becoming grey, they would be forced to leave this area of space in about 9 years. The 3DO version only takes place over 5 years but the movement of time was slowed down so because of this change, they cut the line about them leaving due to this devices prediction as it would cause a continuity error.

So in reality, do they have this device or don't they?

The device was an idea of the game developers and is undoubtedly a part of the game, but somebody obviously forgot to put it in while porting the SC2 to 3DO platform. There is no point in denying the existence of this device "in reality".

False. Time flows the same way across both versions (I'm pretty sure), and the time limit is the same.


Of course they do, SC2 DOS is most assuredly canon.

Yeah, we didn't have any 9 years to finish back in '93. We probably would have won on the first playthrough in that case.

That's right. I can confirm that since I still play SC2 on DOSbox quite often. The game strats on the 17th February 2155 and you have approximately 5 years to beat it, just like in UQM.

The only difference in time flow I (think I) noticed was that time moved much slower while in systems, if at all. Is this just me misremembering?