The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I was just wondering why there is so little technology left from the precursors. Think about earth there are factories and shops everywhere. And when there's a factory there is usually a town surrounding it. Now why don't we see more Precursors factories and Precursors sporting good stores? You should be able to land one a planet find a store grab a gun and attach it to your hull. You could find a do it yourself solar system creation kit. Find a toy that really *smells*

Now what if they had some kind of learning machine e.g. attach to your head and learn everything.  

Why aren't there any Precursors graves?

Wonder if there are any precursors drifting in a colony ship in stasis?

Well, that is the mystery part isn't it? I seem to recall the game mentioning "mysteriously vanished" or some such.

Anyway, there are a few possible explanations :

1. The precursors left. And not just left a bit but left proper, what they couldn't bring with them they destroyed. They only overlooked a few things here and there.

2. The precursors only built some things to last. Most of their everday stuff was organically engineered, or made in some sort of light ecological material, so when they went away, they took a lot of stuff with them, and of what they left behind, most was bio-degradable.

3. The precursors actually left a lot of stuff, but diffferent alien races have been collecting stuff for so long that most of it is gone by now.

4. The precursors never had much of a presence in our part of the galaxy, they just had a couple of field bases here for study.

And so on...

I think number 4 is the best one.

DIsagree with that!!!! LOL ;D

maybe its that they are all buried so far down(do to erosion) that its hard to detect them. remember the site at vela was so hard to find it was pure luck.

But what about bases on planets that dont have an atmosphere, and therefore no erosion? I mean, a base on the moon could be left for a very long time, barring meteroiteshowers and such, and the Precursors build much better than us...

maybe they didn't like the idea of not having a freindly autmosphere where their base where ;)

Perhaps, but they seem to have been scientists. I doubt they'd confine themselves to ONLY the worlds that could support them naturally, until they terraformed new ones..

BTW, are we the only ppl left on this forum? imagine what ppl will think when they log in tomorrow :)

maybe what they were researching were only on planets the supported them natrualy e.g. life forms

RE: BTW: I started these conversations with you last night then i went to sleepgot up and you were still on ;) so for me this is tomarrow. and who know what they will think.

They built a lot of stuff that requires space research though, like the sun device, the bomb, spaceships, relics for upgrading spaceships... All of this stuff has to be tested in space. And to learn how to build some of it I imagine you'd have to spend a lot of time studying somewhere where atmosphere doesn't disturb you. Like the bomb, no testing that on a planet, and the energy inside? To get a stable formula it hass to be tested somewhere...

True but i dont think your going to find THAT test site. ;)
as for sun devices maybe they had orbital installations that lost there orbit overtime and either went hurdeling into space or burned up

Yes, but theyd need ground stations also, and on both planet with an atmosphere and ones without. You'd have tpo put the Sun Device into orbit and activate it, but in order to know exactly what ouput it will have on the ground you need research stations on the ground that measure this, how the device power interferes with other natural phenomena on the planet and such. If you do this in a place where there is no atomsphere you wont get any background disturbance (I think), Also the precursosrs strike me as at least moderately responsible, so testing the device on a world with an ecosystem and wiping out a couple of species becasue the atmosphere caught fire might be seen as "bad".

As for the bomb, the final testing sites wont be found, but surely they didn't just come up with a formula and build a huge bomb capapble of destroying planets. Our nuclear bombs demanded a lot of testing as well, before they were ready for use. And if you have the possibility to test this on a lifeless world instead of in an ecosystem, it might be easier. Then, once more you'd need ground stations.

Also, perhaps sometimes they had no choice? If there was something intersting in a sytem that thjey wished to observe and measure for several years, a base is nicer than a ship (although who knows, maybe they had huge research ships as well, they were certainly capapble of building large things)... And if said system had no Gaia worlds?

Their ground bases likely would have been temporary so when they completed their research they just packed it up. This is the real question where did they put all their "outdated" mothballed ships? It is a possibility that when they left they put all their major stuff on there home planet and their major colonies. After they did that they could have "hidden" the planets in some other diminution. Maybe the Arilou found one. But the tech was so advanced that they have yet to reverse engineer it. this could be a other storyline for the main plot of SC3 the remake as well as the story in the dynarri thread

Play SC3, that explains what happened to the Precursors.

 >:( Nnnnnngaaaa!!!! I am *squeezing* the *juice*.
You have become too close. You are *sick* for the last time!
Nnnnnnggggaaaaaa!! It is not enough for *happy days* I am sure. More and more *juice!*
>:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(
Nnnnnggggaaaahhhhh!!!!!! It is *dancing*!!!! >:(

Its Best not to talk about SC3 in this forum  

He spoke the forbidden words!!!!  Get the infidel!!!

SPOILER WARNING FOR zoqfotpik AND ANYONE ELSE WHO HASNT PLAYED SC3 AND DONT WANT TO FIND OUT A SIGNIFICANT PART OF THE STORY!!!!









True, we really don't consider SC3 canon here, but I would like to reply to this oner comment with the simple fatc, no it doesn't, it has no bearing on what we are disussing here. SC3 only states that the Precursors devolved, what happened to the actual ppl known as precursors. Whereas what we are discussing here is what happened to all the artifacts and machinery the Precursors should logically have left behind when they disappeared, seeign as they were a high tech civilisation. Unless you believe that the precursors advanced technologies devolved into grass, then citing what happned to them really has no bearing whatsoever on this conversation.

That said, not even that said, as this is not a SC3 thread, but a SC thread, which, as you may have noticed from ppl reactions to your reply, isn't the same.

Lukipela/Bioslayer - don't forget that the Precursors lived and vanished a LONG time BEFORE even the Sentient Milieu.. and the Sentient Milieu covered a much bigger area than the space quardent of the game. During these many thousand centuries, there had probably been many discoveries by hundereds of spieces, so there's no wonder you hardly find anything about the Precursors in the game.

but i realy doubt that it would be destroy. but no many how many species search the city the city would still be there. unless they were afriad of it falling int the wrong hands.

That raises another interesting point. If other civilsations, pre Milieu and post Milieu ave indeed scavenged all this cities, orbital installations and so on, then where did they go? We know (or believe) that no race in our quadrant today has a lot of knowledge about the precursors. Nor do we know much about the Taalo, who were the only Milieu guys (or the only major ones?) in our parts of space. So if the precursors were here, left, and other cultures then scavenged most of the stuff they left behind during the millennia, shouldn't we find some traces of this cultures as well? Maybe it's just never mentioned in the game, but if there were other cultures you'd think they'd be mentioned at least once or twice???

WHERE ARE THE CITIES?

cities from eygpt and nazca are still around and are a good enogh condition to reconize

This depends on where these cultures were located, I would think.
*) If they were/are located in "our" quadrant of space (the same one SC2 is set in), you find most of them during the game anyway.
*) If they were/are located in a "coreward" direction from our quadrant, they probably still haven't been contacted by most of the races we are familiar with (that's also true if they're located in the opposite direction). Also, it is indicated in the game that when the precursors left this quadrant they moved towards the galactic core; thus, it's even more likely to find precursor artifacts in that direction.
*) If they were located in a "galactic-spin-wise" or "counter-galactic-spin-wise" direction from our quadrant, then they were either wiped out by the Kohr-Ah (along with any precursor artifcats which they might have had, unless those artifacts could somehow survive in a recognizable form when the entire planet is being burnt and melted), or slaveshielded by the Ur-Quan (again, along with any artifacts they might have).

If they were located in our quadrant you'd find most of them anyway? Excuse me, but how many histories about elder races did you hear? The Taalo, the Burvixese and the Gg (not even in our quadrant) seems to be pretty much it. My point was, that if the precursor sites and cities in OUR quadrant had been raided by other races, that came before the current races, but after the Precursors, there should be some traces of them left. And you don't hear about any of those do you. If these races are the current races, then shouldn't we know a lot more about the precursors? We'd have cities and stations galore to examine, and the other races would have examined them for thousands of years already! With the exception of the Chenjesu, none of "our" races seem potential candidates.

Also, if they re beinglocated in a coreward direction. Yes, the precursors would have been through there and left things behind, seeing as they were heading corewards, BUT. At that stage they woyuld be on their mysterious journey, so they porably wouldn't have left a huge amount of stuff behind. Most things indicate that the Precursors either came from this part of space, or were at least resident here for some time. One leaves more traces behind were one lives than where one just passes through.

For the Spinward-anti spinward comment, I'd say the quan would proably be on the lookout for precursor tech, and attempt to salvage it where possible. The Kzer-Za definetly wouldn't leave it on a slaveshielded planet anyway

So, where are the traces? Or the traces of those who did away wioth the traces? Or the traces of those who did away with the traces of those who did away wtih the traces. There should be some sort of trace.

Frankly I think the traces got lost in one of TFB's paychecks :P they wanted to make them mysterious, so they didn't bother too much with artifacts and traces..

But for arguement's sake, there are so many reasons for traces to disappear - over few thousand centuries (that's a pretty lot of time), our quardent could have had been raided numerous times, the precursors' artifacts could be buried deep within planets avoiding scanner range (Inside Earth, as Commander Hayes hints), destroyed by time, etc.,...

Many valid arguments, but none to explain the extreme lack of evidence. Only a few things have been found. I mean, sure, raiding could explain it, but I seriously doubt that there has been a race (or several)  in the nextdoorquadrant that had  large enough fleets and the resources to visit every world in our quadrant and scan it all the way through and then just go back home. Wouldn't they have vuilt at least temporary bases here?

Precursor artifact buried only applies to artifacts on planets where than happens, there are loads of places where things dont get buried.

Destroyed by time, well it is possible, but all the precursor tech we find seems to be in good working condition, so they did build to last...

I don't think you realize how LONG 100,000 years is.

the entire face of this quadrant was fundamentally altered in a mere 30 years, and you think tons of precursor stuff would survive a time period that is 4 orders of magnitude longer?  I don't.

Sorry, don't follow you there fundamentally altered? Unless you mean the war, but things that get destroyed leave parts behind.

But your point is very good. It is a very looong time...

I am talking about the war.  You are correct that the war wouldn't kill off all Precursor stuff, I was just using it to show how much change has taken place since the Precursors were here.

Yeah, but no matter how many sociopolitical changes, the artifacts would remain, unless intentionally destroyed (by the Arilou perhaps?). It'd take something REALLY major to wipe clean every planet the precursors ever visited (assuming that there were lots on the,).

On the other hand, during SC1, I did scavenge quite a lot of precursor tech, so maybe...

hahaha

you're contradicting yourself; we find what they built to last; what we DON'T find is what they DIDN'T built to last.. it's as simple as that :P

That's a theoretical point. What i meant was that the few things we find are in perfect working order (or appear to be).

So from this I delude a few things:

1. The precursors built things that last a long time, IF they wanted them to last for a long time (Example, the Slylandro Caster, The Vela Factory, Both Precursor Bombs, The Sun Device, Sa-Matra)

2. The Precursors also built things that weren't virtually indetructible, and could brake. Logically, for day to day items and things that weren't needed for a long period of time they would spend extra resources on making them virtually indestructible. Example, the Ultron. (Ok, one example is weak, but all I can think of:

From these two facts I delude that:

1. The precursors built some things not to last, of which most are gone, but some  of which amzaingly have survived, whereas most have not

1. When building larger installations or objects for long-range agendas, the brecursors did indeed build to last.

Now, we have so far found only a few of these things, but if the Precursors were really as endlessly curious as we hear that htey were, then shouldn't there be more?

And that brings us neatly back to the thread without any more contradictions.

Meaning what, you don't concede it?



Well, I coulda told you you were deluded.  All you had to do was ask.  ;D



I agree that some things were built to last.

However, I really don't see where you get this idea that there should be more stuff that was built to last.

I'm an engineering major, and let me assure you that more things are designed to wear out than are built to last!

The amount of precursor stuff floating around makes perfect sense to me.

Regarding the theoretical point thing, I kinda thought I used the rest of the point on clarifying the reasoning behind it... What I meant was that it is all true and very logic, but that doesn't necessarily make it the right alternative.

By happy coincidence I study engineering as well :) And we don't build things to last a 100.000 years that's true, but we do at least attempt to build things that will last a reasonable amount of time, until they are worn out. But I think that  for us, a reasonable time is a lot less than it is for the precursors. We don't have any idea of how their stuff works, nor for how long they needed it to last. You design and plan your equipment according to what you need. So if they needed transmitters, sun devices and such, that had to last a very long time, I think it's feasible that they would attempt to create selfsustaining apparatus of some sort.

And if you look further up in the thread, you'll see that we theorized on wether the Precursors would have a lot of installations for their scientific research on barren worlds where they might last a lot longer. I believe they would, seeing as the precursors are described as technologuically very advanced which you don't become unless you do at least a moderate bit of field studies. And they seem to have thought in long intervals. So their experiments would take a long time, and it would be handier if their facilities didn't need to get patched up all too often. We have found one or two projects abandoned, but there ought to be many more, I think.

Heh, small confusion between delude and conclude there I think  :-[

Now, here's a couple thoughts I've had about this question, and some related ones.

What makes us all so sure that "the Precursors" were one race?  They could have been several, which existed at about the same time, and which may or may not have all gotten along.  "Precursor" only means "those who came before us", so it could equally apply to one race, a couple races, or even a rather large number.  Consider that in 100,000 years from the time of SC2, many of those races would have died out, moved on, or become unrecognizeable...then the ancient Humans, Syreen, VUX, Spathi, etc., would be "Precursors" to the starfaring sentients of that era.  (The Chmmr, I imagine, would still be around.  Those guys seem "built" to last.)

Even if all of the technologies that are "Precursor" origin are from one race, who is to say that there were not some others in the distant past, who fought against the Precursors?  You might have noticed that their ships, while useful in a general, workhorse capacity, are loaded for bear...and that's just what we saw with the Vindicator, a Precursor tug!  The Sa-Matra is an example of how extreme the firepower on Precursor ships could get...so why would they NEED it, if they were the only highly advanced race around?

And, finally, who's to say that quite a LOT of Precursor tech isn't still around, and that present-day sentients can't recognize it for what it is?  The Taalo shield was hard to figure out; Chenjesu technology was pretty weird, and humans would have a hard time puzzling it out if the Chenjesu (and now Chmmr) weren't around to help.  Who is to say that a lot of the Precursor technology that's been discovered, and used, is not the more primitive Precursor technology?  If a primitive society found Earth, and found an old, actually working UNIVAC 1180 computer (mid-1960's mainframe machine), they might think it was incredibly sophisticated...never knowing about Sun Blade systems.  (A hackneyed analogy, but I think you get the point.)

Given the above, there might be a number of possibilities besides the ones already mentioned in this thread:

1) The Precursors were several races, some of whom warred upon the others.  A lot of their technology was destroyed, along with populations, cities, bases, planets, stars, etc.  What's left over is the remnants of several mighty cultures.  This would explain why, for example, the technology found on the Vindicator is pretty "standard" mechanical and electrical tech, while the Mycon (apparently a "Precursor" creation) are bioengineered, and have a completely different "feel" to them.

2) There were several other powerful races that were contemporaries of the Precursors, who we haven't discovered yet.  The above war and such happened, after which the Precursors left, and most of their technology that wasn't taken with was destroyed by their enemies or captured.

3) The Precursors left a lot of things around that we haven't yet figured out are actually devices, and not other things: stuff that looks like moons, asteroids, organisms, planets, perhaps even a star-like object or two.  We know about the Rainbow Worlds, so apparently this level of engineering wasn't beyond them.  (What the Rainbow Worlds are for is still a mystery, The Unfortunate Third One notwithstanding.)  Humans, Yehat, Chenjesu, et al, have blundered into, and even colonized, several Precursor artifacts without even realizing it.

4) The Precursors are really ortogs.   ;D

well they must be cannibals because no advance race cannot eat BEEF. ;D

BioSlayer, you are WIERD.  I too like eating beef, but at least I don't misspell "cannibal"...

ErekLich, No you are weird because I don't misspell weird. you gonkiluna!  ;D






BTW gonkiluna is not a word

You seem to forget about the Rainbow Worlds.  Perhaps those were the only worlds in which they inhabited.  When they left, they used some sort of 'Precursor device' that basically nuked the planet (and everything on it) which in turn, created the Rainbow World.  They ARE very rich in minerals as well.  True, they also point towards the center of the galaxy, which may or may not been a sign for others to follow.

I do NOT consider SC3 a sequel, thus SC3 did NOT happen.  Which means that I am still waiting for the true sequel (as is everybody else).  Perhaps someday...perhaps.

Cyclone Jack

I must say that Flewellyn makes an excellent point. Perhaps there are lots of artifacts left, we just might not recognize the ones that have lasted this long for what they are..

Yeah, the really sophisticated installation is the one we're standing on...
a la HGttG

Lets hope it doesn't get demolished for a highway then... The mice would be so upset

Incidentally, I think the fact that the Precursors might be more than one race is supported by the fact that the Sa-Matra and the Precursor vessel you pilot are almost NOTHING alike.

Though we've never found a Precursor body, or even a picture of one
we can conjecture what they looked like by examining the scale and layout of their equipment
Such an analysis indicates that they were giants, say 5 to 8 meters tall and twice as wide.
I don't know if they looked more like a brontosaur or an elephant.
Anyway, about three thousand years after the Precursors made their dramatic appearance
they vanished, poof! As far as we can tell, it took less than a decade to happen. - Commander Hayes

your vessel shares some similarities in design to the ur-quan's battle platform -Chenjesu/Mmrnmhrm under the slave shield

Although the Human and Chenjesu xeno-ergonomoligists* never got a chance to study the Sa-Matra up close, the Chenjesu think that it was built by the same aliens that the Humans call Precursors.  To further fuel the "one-race of Precursors" idea, the "Shaggy Giants" of the Slylandro flew a ship which looks metallic like the Mark I, but has organic shapes, like the Sa-Matra: The Mark II (assuming this was the giant round ship).  The precursor designs might have changed over the 3000 years from Mechanical to "Organic feel" to Biological.

An extra thought of my own:  What if the Precursors were one race, but of two scientific factions: mechanical and biological?  The Mycon and possibly the Sa-Matra are the creations of the Bio faction, the Mark I clearly the Mech faction, and if the Mmrnmhrm are of Precursor origin, they could be creations of the Mech faction too.

*xeno-ergonomoligists:  Made up word meaning a scientist that studies the ergonomics of alien devices.

I doubt that;

Of course the Precursor vessel and the Sa-Matra are completely different; couple of reasons:
1) as someone mentioned before they two have totally different purposes
2) as someone (else) mentioned before they might have been designed at different times
3) us hunams built it on Vela, we OBVIOUSLY built it upon our needs, and in a way we can pilot it! that means a few adjustments, perhaps even to exterior look.

Also, I believe the Precursors are one race, throughout the game there are hints for that, e.g. the Slylandro say "Shaggy Giants" which refers to the Precursors as if they're all alike (same race)

The rainbow worlds are:
(Slylandro) "The Shaggy Ones either discovered these planets or... this is garbled.. assembled them? We were told the planets were... again this is confusing... organized (?) in some pattern which in some way alluded to the Shaggy Ones' ultimate fate. "
(Thraddash) "We suspect that this is one of the so-called `Precursor Dumps' "

WOHA!! LISTEN CLOSELY..
I just read this while going over Slylandro speech..
They say the first saw the Shaggy Ones 41 Drahn ago, and last seen them 39 Drahns ago, that's when they disappeared. When asked how long is a Drahn, they say "four million rotations of our planet". Yea, that helps. But, they also say, "The Ur-Quan?! The long brownish guys from the Milieu with all the eyes and arms? They used to come visit us regularly about three Drahns ago."

The Kohr-Ah and Kzer-Za tell you they were in the Milieu for 3,000 years (supposed Earth years), and in the Path of Now and Forever for over 20,000 years, and under Dnyarri compulsion for a few thousands of years. Let's make it 30,000 years?
So, three Drahns are about 30,000 years. That means the Precursors vanished about 390,000 years ago, all this considering these are Earth years! That's a pretty LONG time for artifacts to disintegrate, civilizations to stand and fall and all kinds of things to happen..

*Also, they were in our region of space (with the Slylandro) for 3 Drahns, about 30,000 years.

can someone go to Beta Corvi and check the Slylandro's home planet's statistics? maybe we can check how many or four million rotations..

yea, even the artifacts shouldnt have survived 390,000 years, but o well

I don't think so. The Precursors built to last. Most of their stuff we either can't understand period or seem like magic. Weaponry with longer range than the "infinite range" Chenjesu, a tug that can plow through any modern-day ship like a hot knife through butter, whole worlds supposedly created, bombs that can trigger a near-nova, and so on. Obviously they are much more technically advanced than us, and there is no question that rock or metal can survive less than a half a million years. We have, in fact, found rocks that are 2 or 3 billion years old, I believe, and the tug can theoretically take (50*16+1) 801 damage to destroy, or over 32 nukes, it's reasonable to assume that the Precursors had more durable materials as well.

Sorry, over 200 nukes. That's a lotta nukes, ain't it?

dont forget what spathi council said, that they think they just used their technology to create a huge invisibility shield... also for the sc3 stuff, i decided not to play it, i heard it sucked bad and didn't wanna ruin the sc2 classic story

You says the Percursors had planets, maybe they just lived in ships and traveled everywhere.  Theres a quite a bit of artifacts left over from all the games: sc1?  every 6-7th world/system had an artifact , sc2: all over the place, sc3, even more then sc2.  Who the heck says that they coloenized everyplanet?  Who says they were even on planets.  Who says some native elephant didn't just smash 'little-blinky precursor toy' some time during the half million years.  I find that theres TOO much precursor goodies left all over the quadrent, 3 giant precursor ships, at least 3 directly created races, dozens of dozens of artifacts just laying around on the ground of various random planets.

There could be just as many underground or under a ocean, or just got smashed along the way.

Honestly, I think that the technology is there, but most of it is hard to discover. My guess is that a lot of it is buried underground, out of range of the energy scans (rock can block a whole lot of radiation), like the factory at Vela was. My guess is that most of the easy-to-find artifacts have been found and taken elsewhere by various alien races, but that there is still quite a bit of undiscovered, buried technology. The factory is one example; the Mark II is another (Okay, we don't know for sure that the Mark II was a Precursor ship, and we don't know that it was underground, but we do know that nobody discovered it before the captain, and I think it's safe to assume that it was made by the Precursors). So, I think that there's stuff that's still out there; you just need to look carefully.

You know, if you play SC1 there were alot of percursor artifacts lying all around. Somehow they weren't sun devices or bombs. Thrusters and dynamos (hmm, don't the melnorme sell you dynamos and tech for your precursor ship? Wonder were those mel-naum,  er,  melnorme got them) and stuff were all over the SC1 full game. Just cause sc2 didn't have you finding them every two seconds doesn't mean they weren't there. Your precursor ship didn't seem to have under surface scanners. The ships in SC1 might have before the Ur-Quan leveled galactic civilization. (okay, that's a weak excuse,  but still plausable.)

Don't forget that in SC1 you can find precursor mines and colonies (don't have any special effects in the game, but they're free mines and colonies w/o any need to build them), so they did live on the planets  - or at least made colonies that others might use in the future.

Remember when the Ur-Quan sent a beam of destruction down onto the Antarctic to destroy whatever was hidden below?  Hehe.  Draw your own conlusions.

The precursors' remains are legendary.  Not only did they leave the galaxy with rainbow planets and artefacts of the sort, but they were the ones who 'pioneered' space travel and technology.

In fact, even though Star Control 3 destroys much of the precursor myth in the story, Star Control 2 hints that the Precurors left their technology around so as to defeat some "greater threat"...  I like to think that the Precursors were amazing scientists who were confronted with the idea of war and were forced to build the Sa-Matra, the Precursor Bomb, etc... other than that, they seem like your average, god-like alien race that everyon looks up to.

Now, didn't someone on a different thread (different board?) mention that the blast of the Ur-Quan in the Antartic,  along with a few other "odd" targets, might be inline with the Cthulu (sp?) mythos. Perhaps they were targeting sites of precursor artifacts, and perhaps Ur-Quan artifacts. I don't know.

Yes, it is hinted that Earth has Precursor technology buried within its depths.



Eh?
I hope I misunderstood the context of this paragraph.

The Spathi are xenophobic creatures, well, they fear everything actually. It's not unreasonable that they'd conclude the Precursors invented an invisibility shield. But it's obviously fiction. The Precursors never did such thing; they travelled towards the center of the galaxy for some unknown reason.

(and ""sc3"" doesn't exist! :P)

I think every race has their own unique explanation as to the fate of the Precursors.  It's funny to see the Spathi's explanation, which obviously paints them as creatures similar in thought path to the Spathi.  I think P&F are trying to point out how each race has their hypotheses and the Precursors effect them in different ways.

True, but aside from the exaggerating Spathi, the rest of the races scientifically point out that the Precursors disappeared - towards the center of the galaxy.
They sure as hell didn't create an invisibility shield.

Mm. Maybe the Precursors became *slippery* and found some *fingers* that they weren't supposed to, nessisating the need to flee or become *happy campers*?

If the Precursors knew anything about the Orz it was because they travelled to other dimensions. The Orz make it obvious that TrueSpace is completely new to them.

I like the idea that a lot of Precursor tech could just be disguised as regular stuff. Maybe as they progressed technologically they tried to see if they could make things more and more like the galaxy around them, which is why they "made" the Rainbow Worlds. Heh, their trip to the galactic core could've been an attempt to ascertain whether they could make a galaxy! Ha, that's highly unlikely but thought provoking nonetheless.

And about Spathi fear... it goes beyond merely everything. Every Thing implies all that exists, but the Spathi even fear things that don't exist. The classic example:

As yet, the Ultimate Evil remains largely unmanifest, and its powers and exact intentions are still a bit obscure since it lurks just outside the range of even the most sensitive, long-range detectors which we feel gives conclusive evidence as to The Ultimate Evil's nefarious intent.
So they've never seen it and they don't know anything about it... and so whatever it is it must be EVIL! Gotta love those Spathi, they're one of my favorite races. =)

Actually, it is implied in and reassured by different conversations you have with the Slylandro and others, that the rainbow worlds are actually waste-disposal planets, specifically arranged by the Precursors in a manner where they point to the center of the galaxy.

It's a strange idea for it to be waste disposal - after all, if you're building a communication to the future do you make it out of trash?

Alternately, the arrow pattern could be for practical reasons at the time like they are used for a propulsion system, and to get started they need to launch from the apex of a point. Maybe a long time ago, billions of Precursors surrounded Groombridge and suddenly zipped off into the middle of the galaxy...


OR -- do precursors make their arrows backwards, and they went outside the galaxy instead????

Most Translations of Precursor Text are fragmented; maybe they're a waste disposal system, and anything in between their arc gets pulverised every 300,000 years.

I think you just came up with an alternate path to victory for SC2 version 2 ;)

Well, it would be an ecological way of building communications to the future, out of trash. Maybe the precursors were enviromentalists?

hahah

yea

an idea by a Precursor green peace activist :D

What surely wouldn't surprise me is if they left a cache of dangerous and important devices within a secluded and shielded subterrean area of each planet, and called each of them 'disposal planets' to dissuade their peers of looking for them. And of course, littered the surface and near-surface with plenty of misleading junk and radioactives.

And I refuse to believe that Precursors looked like shaggy cows. I prefer to believe they were huge wooly bipedal humanoids with three eyes and four arms.

I've always figured the rainbow world were not some magical messenger to the future, but just a useful, incidental hint of their final fate.  The slylandro paint a picture of very desperate precursor, trying to escape something, and the rainbow worlds, instead of being an arrow pointing to the center of the galaxy, may just be three trails from three major escape routes converging on a single point.  I figure a super race that desperate on a fleeing course may happily do things they wouldn't normally do, like say use technology that produced so much waste that entire planets worth of waste would be created.  The rainbow worlds might just be points where the three major branches of the evacuation stopped to drop off the trash that their super engines were producing.