The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

This is a simple topic. If you could receive one genetic modification from the Umgah, and they wouldn't give you anything you didn't ask for, what would it be?

My choice would be an enhanced immune system. That would make me less susceptible to fatal diseases and, therefore, prolong my life.

I think I'd go for controllable metabolism rate.

I could use one of those :)

 I think I would ask for nanomachine enhancement like they did with the Dynarii though I would want them to enhance the entire body instead of just my brain.

I would like my insides removed and replaced with a complex system of organic cogwheels, weights, counterweights, sliders and pendulums. I feel this design would be more sleek and efficient, and a healthy repository of spare parts would ensure that I remain at optimum performance with a minimum of downtime.

I would like to have greatly increased regeneration rate of all tissues in my body. In this way, all of physical injuries would heal completely (without any scars left) and much faster, even the most severe ones like cut off limbs or broken spine. In addition, I could also use some grills to breathe underwater, but that's less important.

They'd just tell you to eat less

Knowing them, you'd wake up after a 6 hour surgery where they have done nothing but stitch into your chest "Eat less!"

But what if what you need is just to burn more? That's be a pretty good ability. I could see myself eating two pounds of butter and then standing in a crowded subway car, generating enough heat to make everyone around me uncomfortable. I'd heat that subway car up like an easy bake oven, mark my words. For once, I'd be "the hot guy" in peoples minds.

Okay...this is a hard one...give me a couple of days to do this.  Alright, the only reason I am posting this now is that  I monthly wish that I have an enhanced immune system!  Well, I'm not majorly sick or anything but most of the time I can hardly smell (stuffed/dry nose), I get minor illnesses seemingly almost every other month...headaches, coughs and the like.  Stupid body, WORK!

That would be quite an interesting trick. You would need a great deal of food to keep it up, though.

I can definitely see the Umgah doing this if you asked them to make you "hotter". Direct matter to energy conversion might be more efficient for something like that, though I'm pretty sure SC2 races can't actually do that (if they could, destroying Sa-Matra would be pretty trivial)

I'd eat butter and drink olive oil, plenty of energy there.

The Druuge can do that, but they mainly use it on living beings. They call it "Feeding the Furnace". It's strange how they use living creatures when inorganic matter should be just as useful. Maybe it's because they're just that evil?

I don't understand how direct matter-to-energy conversion would help with destroying the Sa-Matra. Care to elaborate on that hypothesis?

My fanon on this is given in Peeru fanfic chapter 26 (http://www.star-control.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=3445#p3445).

And my idea was here (http://www.star-control.com/forum/index.php/topic,1487.msg22349.html#msg22349) - first post I ever made. All about the motivation.

Clinical immortality, duh.


I also wouldn't mind running on a carbon-based battery instead of needing food. I would have solar panel cells for skin, as well as an ability to recharge myself from a power outlet.

I would like to be generally in a survivable body. Hence, I would like to have extra water storage inside of me, assuming my body still uses water. Walking through a desert for 2 weeks would no longer be a problem. To survive on a mountain, it would be nice to be able to quickly grow a huge fur coat or maybe a foam insulation so as to retain heat and conserve energy. An extra oxygen tank might also be nice, so that I could survive in a vacuum, another atmosphere, or under water for some time.

I'll bet the Umgah are hedonists who genetically engineered themselves to have endless orgasms. Have you ever noticed that the umgah basically spend their time fondling penises and breasts on the view screen? If you look at their control room, that's pretty much what their controls look like:
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080828091039/aliens/images/e/e2/Umgah.gif

What would you do for all eternity? Wouldn't you get bored eventually?


Also, thanks for that lovely mental image...

Anything you damn well wanted to do but were too mortal to do it before.

I would go for full immortality, just be a fixed point in time. Like Jack Harkness from Torchwood/Doctor Who but without aging.
That way I really could do whatever I wanted.

As long as video games keep getting made, I will be perfectly fine with eternal life. Every century or so I would change jobs and keep putting large amounts into trusts and savings so after a while, I could live off interest rates :)

Don't get me wrong. I like eternal life as much as the next person, but it has a price. How would you make friends or start families when, from your perspective, everyone else lives and dies in a flash? What would the government do to you if they found out about your immortality?

Friends and family I can get over.
Well the government doesn't need to know now do they.

I'd pay a nickle just to see them find both their hands with a map these days let alone worry about them finding out about me being immortal :)

If nothing else, the IRS will figure it out eventually, once you have 150 years or so of tax returns filed...

Maybe they don't NEED to know, but you can be damn sure they'd stick they're noses in it if they ever caught wind of something suspicious.
You can't just go on living forever with your real identity, because sooner or later someone would notice your birthday on file was 200 years ago and start asking questions.

"So I'll get a fake ID every few decades and no one's the wiser."
Maybe, but you'd need to get more than just a single fake ID card if you're serious about setting up a new identity.  You'd need to get birth certificates, social insurance numbers, etc, etc.  All of which is highly illegal, of course.  And expensive just for that reason, I'm sure.  And Heaven forbid that anyone from the government ever have reason to suspect your identity is phoney (from a random speeding ticket pull-over or something), because then they'll start digging for your REAL identity...  Which do you think is worse; having them somehow track down your legitimate identity as a person who should've died a couple hundred years ago, or having them dig themselves silly and not be able to find ANYTHING legit about you?

Some people live with secrets like this in the real world, but they don't live forever.  If they spend enough money setting up ONE fake identity, they can probably lie back and count on the odds to keep themselves hidden.  But if you live FOREVER, not only do you need go through this song and dance repeatedly every so often, but you also radically increase the odds that sooner or later SOMEONE will find a chink in your armor and start asking questions.

And as for banking all sorts of money and living off the interest... banks use your supposed identity to track whose money they're holding on to.  That means you not only have to change identities every so often, but you have to figure out a way to make sure your money gets transferred too.  That alone can leave a paper trail that might start raising some eyebrows.  And if your fake identity ever gets called into question, guess what?  All your money you've saved up over the centuries is gone.

Keeping your money under the mattress (so to speak) would be the safest road to avoid losing it due to your fake ID, but then you're not getting any interest.  You're just living day to day like everyone else.  I'm assuming you'd rather keep eating than starve yourself for eternity, anyway.


Of course, this entire discussion is moot anyway because seriously, the Umgah would never just give you what you wanted. =P

And you would very probably get very miserable and find life boring after 200 years or so. Then you would start looking for a possible means of suicide.