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Author Topic: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.  (Read 18068 times)
Shiver
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Re: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #60 on: March 03, 2004, 06:27:25 am »

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I rather doubt a "kiddie table" would be effective due to the fact that morons like you would probably not confine themselves to posting there.


He's been scolded already. Please don't pick fights.
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Re: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #61 on: March 03, 2004, 10:57:06 am »

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Here's where we get to apply household physics!  And these are always fun but even though I'm going to describe this, I still feel compelled to add; 'Don't try this at home, kids!' as the Melnorme inside me yells for me to do.  After all, I don't wish to be sued and I really wouldn't be able to deal with the sheer guilt of someone harming themselves.  ButthisisALLbesidethepiont... take a glass of water and apply a flat surface to it, then make a large hole in that surface and apply an absolute vaccuum.  Since we don't have an absolute vaccuum a vaccuum cleaner will have to do.  What happens? SSHH-LOOOOP!  All the licquid finds itself returning from whence it came.  The Pre-Orz possessing some level of cleverness managed to avoid being sucked back in after the wave blew outwards, and was then sucked back in as the Universe apparently hates 'gaps' and fills them with anything as quickly as it's able, even with surrounding space!

I'm not sure what you mean by "apply a flat surface to it," but when I attached the high school vacuum pump to a flask of water, it just boiled until the vacuum petered out and the water cooled enough.  And on TV when Hewitt did it with a big vacuum it boiled till it froze.  So I guess you're talking about something else.
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Re: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #62 on: March 03, 2004, 06:01:33 pm »

My only guess is that American vaccuum cleaners work via severely different means than British vaccuum cleaners, perhaps you steam clean your work to death.  Indeed, now I shall be stuck with the imagine of a steampunk mecha vacuum cleaner robot for the rest of the day, without doubt!
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Re: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #63 on: March 03, 2004, 09:44:20 pm »

OK, you two are talking about different effects.

If you use a vacuum cleaner to suck air out of a flask (i.e. a depressurizer setup), that will cause the effects Rib rdb described.

If you stick the hose of a vacuum cleaner into water which has contact with unaffected atmosphere so its overall pressure is maintained (i.e. a wet-vac setup) you get the effect that Picowoof described.

Which of these is more like the situation at hand?
Rib rdb's principal result relies on adiabatic cooling, which I think would be pretty unimportant given the strong thermal contact between the picobots and ordinary matter which is not being sucked in.
Picowoof's water analogy relies on air on the other side of the water to maintain atmospheric pressure; but I do not see any analogue to air here.
I think it would end up being rather complicated and different because of the strong pico-nano-matter interactions, with only the pico-matter being attracted. Probably a good portion of it would stick around, being stuck inside the other matter.

BTW, Picowoof, denser does mean more massive, if you are holding the volume constant.

Lastly, to question a point made earlier -- I don't see why there wouldn't be dense planets in a space entirely filled with fluid.
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Re: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #64 on: March 03, 2004, 10:27:30 pm »

"BTW, Picowoof, denser does mean more massive, if you are holding the volume constant."

Indeed, I'm not entirely sure but wouldn't (by the standards of 'RealSpace') such a dense/massive body also bring about a gravitic 'weight' (as in, heavy)?

"Lastly, to question a point made earlier -- I don't see why there wouldn't be dense planets in a space entirely filled with fluid."

Don't get me wrong, not at all.  I wouldn't deny this fact.  'Tis true, I am one of those folks who would happily believe that anything is possible.  I like believing that all things are possible and then making wholly silly comments about them.  As a matter of fact, this is the regards with which I hold myself and the entirety of the Universe around me.  It's all but a curiousity to poke, ponder about and then offer up silly ideas in regards to.  It's fun.  Not altogether taken in utmost seriousness but believed nonetheless.

So I am in vehement agreement that any kind of fluidic space could have solid planets, verily.  Yet let's work with the cohesion of my theory for a moment.  Let's say that perhaps the licquid nature of their dimension somehow didn't allow for truly hard planets and that things 'licquified' before they truly solidified, perhaps the gravities of their dimension were 'off' somehow, I don't really know (I haven't given it too much thought).  If that were true then 'heavy'/'hard' 'playgrounds' dense supermasses such as planets might be new to them.

It would be a curiousity, "Look, a... SOLID thing, we've never seen something this dense before.  It draws us!  We've never felt this pull."  It could all literally refer back to the same idea, that in their space, things were rarely 'heavy or hard' but indeed, their space might've been 'lightweight' after a fashion.

I also realize that the Orz might've been a biological virus, naturally occurring or made but it seems more likely for the speed in which the Orz created things, they were probably machines.  I'm talking within the confines of my theory now, not the actual game.  I'm also trying to see this from other points of view.  Whilst my theories about the Orz utilizing the Androsynth are far-fetched by most standards though, I don't believe my theories of fluidic space would be.  I think they're quite happily believable.

But then, this of course comes from an entity that usually considers all things believable.  So I'm not exactly the best person to be working with such things.

Nonetheless, thanks for your Scientific input Death (and I still push back the urge to call you Sir Death because it seems more frivolous and not unlike Terry Pratchett's Death when I do), it's an appreciated, respected, refreshing and ironically 'solid' addition to this thread of dreamers.
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Re: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #65 on: March 04, 2004, 01:00:38 am »

My theory is that the Orz are some type of ID beings that
were attracted to the Androsynth because they were synthetic
beings, and not human. They had a different smell than humans,
something the Orz desired. This might be why the Orz are in
suits... maybe there's some connection between them and
technology, which seems to be a great theme in the SC
universe (the Mrnhmrnmmm, oh whatever). The Orz obviously
wanted the Synth for some purpose.  Nefarious or not, we do
not know, but we can assume it may be innocent to the Orz,
but perhaps detrimental to the Synth.  As for the battle on
the Synth home planet, I would guess that they fought with
the Orz (or some other ID race), but their weapons were
ineffective being that they were trans-dimensional--"ghosts"
or "phantoms" to the Synth. So the Synth did what they
thought would save them--use nukes, which obviously didn't
work.  After the dust settled (they might not have been
nukes, since the game says "within the last 5 years," and
it wouldn't be safe for anyone to walk around a 5 year-old
nuke site), the Orz stole or borrowed or assimilated the
Synth.  I think "below" refers to their dimension, perhaps
sinister (humans would interpret "below" as maybe Hell,
whereas Quasi-Space would be "above", or heavenly... just
a notion from a linguists POV).

What my question is, though, is why did the Ur-Quan
eliminate all those historical sites, and does it have
anything to do with the Arilou and their visiting Earth?
I think this concept was borne out of people thinking the
Pyramids or Stonehenge are of cosmic significance, maybe
beacons for other creatures or a source of power, divine
or otherwise.

I guess to bottom-line my theories, I think the Arilou and
the Orz have more of a connection than just being from ID
realms. I think it's obvious by reading between the lines
that the Orz are sinister and the Arilou are benevolent.
Or that the Arilou are what humanity evolves into in the
future and the Orz are what the Androsynth evolve/hybrid
into in the future.  Once upon a time I had a Star Control
II hint book that came with a big starmap and details on
every race, including the Taalo and the Gg (does anyone
else realize on a kindergarten letter chart that Gg is
just the example of how to write an uppercase/lowercase
"g"?).

Again... all theories... but fun to speculate. The best
forms of fiction are when we DON'T know the real answers,
or there are 1,000 possible explanations but all seem
to contradict, leading to an unexplained mystery. Hey,
it worked with The Matrix movies and The Sandman comics.

Oh yeah, and Picowoof needs to chill out. You DON'T know
because you didn't write the story and therefore everything
in this forum is all theory and suppositions. There are
no facts in fiction. It's just a game, and this is just
a message board. Show some maturity and stop attacking
other people.
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Re: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #66 on: March 04, 2004, 02:15:12 am »

Ahem the Orz are wearing suits because they use liquid ethanol as their gas exchange medium and as far as I know most other ships don't have aquatic enviroments of liquid ethanol... Hence they kinda have to wear the suits. Also their going out into space and most races probably wear suits while in space...
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, IRe: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #67 on: March 04, 2004, 03:21:10 am »

Quote

What my question is, though, is why did the Ur-Quan
eliminate all those historical sites, and does it have
anything to do with the Arilou and their visiting Earth?
I think this concept was borne out of people thinking the
Pyramids or Stonehenge are of cosmic significance, maybe
beacons for other creatures or a source of power, divine
or otherwise.


Actually, I'm wondering what they blasted deep below the polar ice cap (I don't remember if it was the north or south one). What do you suppose could have been hidden there? I'll bet those sneaky Arilou know.
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Re: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #68 on: March 04, 2004, 07:50:05 pm »

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Oh yeah, and Picowoof needs to chill out. You DON'T know because you didn't write the story and therefore everything in this forum is all theory and suppositions. There are no facts in fiction. It's just a game, and this is just
a message board. Show some maturity and stop attacking other people.


First of all, he knows he doesn't know. The very first thing he said was that he was speculating and positing a plausible explanation that is amusing. This sounds like the very definition of a discussion board conversation.

Second, I can only find two vaguely offensive things that he said. The first was basically telling me to reread what he had written. Given what he had written, my misinterpreting it and his thinking he had put it all in there were both reasonable.
The second was implying that Rib Rdb was making an absurd assertion when he had not (and in fact Pico had gotten it wrong, under the system description he provided).

Certainly I cannot think of ANYTHING to justify, say, Shiver's calling him an avatar of hatred (perhaps a lesser elemental of prolixity)...

But I might advise him thus: the backspace key can be your friend; also, designing your statements to be more fault-tolerant would be wise.
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Re: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #69 on: March 05, 2004, 06:52:29 am »

At ikcizok, I sigh... but it's probably a happy sigh full of bouncing rabbits, who knows?

I thank (Sir) Death (sorry!) for pointing out that I would would have in more wordier terms.  That indeed I proposed no knowledge on anything and that my ideas are rooted in fun and silly.  I wish people to not take me so seriously, they can believe me me and my ideas if they like.  They can throw them around and have silly dreams about them, they can form their own copylefted or copyrighted stories or visions from them if they so desire.  But don't take me seriously, whatever you do.  It can only lead to spasms and aneurysms.  I'm not mature, no but nor am I foolhardy or arrogant.  I wouldn't even begin to presume I knew anything about this game, I only have ideas, the kinds of ideas which are classified as "Ooh, fun, look at this idea.  It's neat, probably!" and so on.  So there you have it and facts?  Who in the ninety-nine levels of psychic-advancement (and beyond there by just a tad) was talking about facts?  Of course, I might not understand because my ideologies tend to shy from such labels.  I might have used these facts but I don't recall it, at least not as far as I know.  Nonetheless with second-helpings of regardless, sorry if I did!

I suppose I might have made a jab or two but they weren't in anger.  They were just me being... assininely silly.  "Go back, read it again.  Go on.  Again.  And three more times.  It's there, really!  But I'll say it again anyway!"  Of course, it came over as worse than I'd actually intended but I find this happens to me a lot.  The more posts I've made the more careful I've been as I try to tailor myself to those around me.  It's wise to walk into unknown territory with at least some defenses, so I wholeheartedly admit that I might have... what is that strange old term?  Leaping firearms and whatnot, I did something to that end anyway.  To this I admit.  So there's that you can pin to my behind if you so desire.

Regardless, if we wish to speak of maturity then this really shouldn't be as public as it is, should it?  If ikcizok really wishes to continue this then he's welcome to either contact me personally (I'm rather sure I provided lots of contact information) or use the board's own personal-message-relaying-system-thingy.

And once more, I have to say with utmost humility that Mr. Death (?) is absolutely correct!  I've made a few mistakes and indeed, I'm trying to tone down my ability to be... creative.  Yet since I like it, sometimes I'm just going to go overboard with words or ideas.  It's fun!  That's really all there is to it.

Oh and backspace?  I speak in honesty when I tell all now that I rarely use it, I believe if someone originally had something to say then it should probably be said and the consequences dealt with, in reality one doesn't have a backspace key in conversation so I shun using such things to correct my mistakes in other walks of life (including the digital, as wondrous as it is) too.  Why, certainly I'll correct typos or little misnomers I've made but generally, what I've said I have said and the ramifications... I shall deal with with probably further amounts of silly when they happen to wander in my general direction.

Short version (summary): They were theories, theories are fun, I'm a tad defensive and my writings weren't always as eloquent as I'd intended (sometimes verging on callous, curse my inabilities to express via text) but I never outright attacked anyone.  I only stood my ground when I was told that there was a certain way that I, as a being, should act or be.  I don't take kindly to authoritarians.  People are able to just ignore me after all if they don't happen to like what I'm saying.

-- Edit --

And here I am, correcting typos!  If I'm going to say something, I might aswell say it properly.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2004, 06:56:35 am by Picowoof » Logged
Mitrovarr
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Re: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #70 on: March 05, 2004, 01:33:22 pm »

Here's my idea as to what happened:

The Androsynth, while experimenting with IDF, explored both *higher* and *lower* dimensions.  While exploring lower dimensions (purely for scientific reasons, they are useless for travel) they caused the Orz, a single intelligence with a completely different form then the fish-Orz in SC2, to notice them and to notice the dimension they came from.  The Orz, having some difficulty surviving due to something (possibly the IDF predator mentioned later) immediately set off to develop technology to colonize this dimension.

While the Androsynth were exploring higher dimensions, they discovered a dimension higher then true-space but lower then hyperspace.  This dimension has a unique property - it is close enough to true-space that if a sentient with sufficient *sliding* potential (humans and Androsynth qualify) knows enough about the dimension or observes it, they will instinctively *slide* partway into that space and operate multidimensionally to a slight degree, able to observe that space and be observed from it.

Unfortunately, this dimension was also occupied by some sort of race of strange extradimensional predators.   If these predators senses any sentient energy, they immediately flock to the source and attacks, trying to consume what the Orz term *people energy*.  Alternately, they may simply feed on the organic matter.  No one knows, or even knows if the predators are sentient.

The Androsynth's discovery of this dimension and subsequent expansion into it were enough to allow the predators to sense them, and they immediately started stalking them, but not attacking them wholesale yet - mostly observing.

After the predators started stalking the Androsynth, the Androsynth understandably freaked out, and started arming the population wholesale with the best weapons they could design - micro-nuclear rocket launchers and other, stranger weapons.  They recalled all of their ships to assist in the defense of their homeworld.

At this point the Orz succeeded in punching through the dimensional fabric and focused its *people energy* into a pre-sentient race of fish-like creatures which lived on what they later termed their *house*.  Unable to maintain a single intelligence in this dimension and facing death in its native plane, it instead set up a hive-mind, although this caused severe distress for the Orz and caused some mental and personality irregularities.  The hive-mind immediately started developing technology for this dimension.

The Orz made contact with the Androsynth once they had successfully adapted their technology to true-space.  Observing what was about to happen, they searched for a solution.  When the creatures finally attacked, dragging the Androsynth into the higher plane they originated in (and the Androsynth destroyed their cities trying unsuccessfully to kill them) , the Orz did the only thing they could think of and used their technology to drag some surviving Androsynth back into their dimension, hoping they would survive but unwilling to follow.

The predators dispersed in the face of the Androsynth disappearance.  Fortunately, they did not detect the Orz during this attack - the Orz are far better *sliders* then Human or Androsynth, and are able to prevent from appearing on predator's plane.

At this point, the Arilou appeared in this space, having detected the Orz pushing up into this dimension.  Seeing the Androsynth gone and their homeworld surrounded by Orz, they assumed the obvious.  The fact that when they tried to communicate with the Orz, they recieved bizarre and incomprehensible responses from the newly fragmented hive-mind, didn't help.

This brings us to the beginning of the game in SC2.

Explanations:

The Arilou are distrustful of the Orz because they believe they destroyed the Androsynth.  They didn't, but the Arilou don't know that (while the Arilou are aware of the predators, they blamed it on the most obvious threat, and were not allowed to approach the system for close examination.)  The Orz are irritated at the Arilou because they foil their attempts to get up into higher dimensions - because of this, the Orz lack hyperspace or quasispace technology.  This explains their tiny sphere of influence - although they have superior sublight engines, their intersteller technology is much inferior to hyperspace travel.

The Orz are not multiple organisms, but one connected mind among many bodies, hence the talk of not being 'many bubbles' but just being Orz with 'many fingers'.  The fragmenting of the central Orz personality to the many bodies of its new hivemind has caused a lot of personality strangeness and behavior issues.

The Orz are TERRIFIED of the predators, and are therefore unwilling to discuss them or the Androsynth (they also know that we will be attacked if we know about them, or their dimension.)  The reason they attack if asked about the Androsynth is partly because of this fear, partly because of some lingering guilt and worry about the Androsynth, and partely because the Orz hivemind is very immature (either because it was to begin with or because it was damaged in the conversion to a hive-mind.)  Also, the Orz have a little trouble understanding the concept of a non-hive-mind, and don't really see anything too terribly wrong with destroying a single ship.

Although most of the predators have dispersed from the Androsynth homeworld, there are still a few left picking over the ruins which will attack anyone they detect (Bukowski.)  He is not attacked later, in space, because in space, a single mind is insufficient for them to notice.

Regarding the theory that the Orz destroyed the Androsynth, it doesn't really make sense that the Orz did, because Bukowski is only attacked after researching on the planet, and he says that just knowing about them is enough for them to be able to detect you.  You can know about the Orz, though, and you don't get attacked until you research that specific facility.  It's pretty clear that the thing that attacks Bukowski is whatever destroyed the Androsynth.

The nature of the space the Orz come from is like 'true space', only more so - it's vast and empty, so travelling is harder (the speed of light is far lower for one thing, and inertias and masses are higher.)  Energy is more like matter here, and matter there is like matter here, only much more so.  I would speculate that the Orz was not a matter being in this plane, but an energy one, perhaps a cloud of ionized plasma the size of a large planetoid, or something.  They talk of 'smelling' because their native energy-senses were more akin to our sense of smell than anything else.
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Re: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #71 on: March 05, 2004, 10:28:28 pm »

Except that Orz does have hyperspace capabilities, and it can also **HYUIVBHJHG**, which Orz implies is faster than HS travel (and possibly QS if it knows you have the spawner):
Quote
Busy is because Orz have reason. It is secret for *campers*.
You must going quickly to my *house*.
It is too bad you cannot **HYUIVBHJHG** there
but flying the *heavy* ship is okay.
Perhaps next we will show you our toys. But do not look!!!
Now you will go to my *house*.


I'm still partial to my idea that "THEM" on the planet is a part of Orz that it does not have any control over (perhaps it can't even sense it), like its psychic-stomache or intestines, or maybe its psychic-immune system (If someone knows about the Orz, destroy them).
« Last Edit: March 06, 2004, 01:39:13 am by Culture20 » Logged
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Re: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #72 on: March 05, 2004, 11:21:20 pm »

Mitrovarr, you speak so casually of the Orz, which had been one entity, deciding to set itself up as a hive-mind. This isn't exactly something that you can just go out and do.

Designing a set of micro-rules so as to have the desired macro-effect is much harder than you might think... and attempting to re-implement your own mind in completely different hardware is much harder still.

I suspect that the orz are not a hive-mind in the sense of bees or ants, but they could be a centralized psychically-governed collective of a different sort.
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Re: The Orz, the Arilou and perhaps a New Idea.
« Reply #73 on: March 05, 2004, 11:55:44 pm »

I wholeheartedly support Death in his theories on this; in fact, being no small fan of psychology, the Orz psychology is one of those aspects that I've given much thought to.  With all assumptions on the physical laid aside, and concentrating on their mental state alone.  Their words give a clue to how their intelligence might work.  What their words say to me personally (and verily, this is the path that I trod along to the final realization that the Orz might be mechanical, after a fashion -- but that's merely just a theory of mine) is that their intelligence is distributed.

They're not bubbles but they are fingers of a hand.  So let's suppose for a moment that the campers they speak of (us) are individuals and they aren't, at least we can't see them as the kind of individuals they are.  They often accuse the humans of a lack of perception, as I understand it.  What I think the Orz might have as intelligence isn't a hive or anything like that but if you've ever seen a distributed computer network, this is what I believe the Orz to be like.

So I'd wager that they're not only not many bubbles, as they claimed but they're not one large bubble either.  They're many bubbles interconnected with the intelligenci (integrated intelligences) working together as a whole in an integrated fashion.  It almost reminds me of a mindship theory I heard once, a mindship of integrated memetic-sets.

This is how I believe the Orz to be, perhaps not a single intelligence but subsets of intelligenci (which I call them for reasons I know not why) which interact in an integrated fashion over a distributed system of 'fingers'.

Regardless of whatever they might be, all I really know is that they're happy little fishfellows and I like them.  Hopefully if there's a future Star Control game, we'll learn much more about this all too fascinating race.
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