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Topic: Thoughts about the Ur-Quan... (Read 32934 times)
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Art
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Although I'm inclined to agree with your Kohr-Ah theory I'd rather subscribe to my own theory that they would use sophisticated robots cannibalised from "filth" technology to fill in the holes in their labour and free up more Kohr-Ah for other more important roles, IE, Orbital bombardment and trophy collection
Well, unless the Kohr-Ah go for powering their robots with sentient AIs like the Mmrrnrrhrrm, which seems highly out of character for them, the crew of a Marauder has to all be taken up by living Kohr-Ah. They're green dots, and the manual makes it pretty clear that green dots mean sentient crew members; the only ship with non-sentient crew is the Slylandro Probe, which is populated by gray dots.
The only difference this makes is that the internal robotic mechanisms of a Probe are immune to Syreen hypnosis. Since Kohr-Ah crew can be hypnotized, they are sentient, or at least capable of experiencing emotion, and are therefore probably Kohr-Ah.
In any case I can't really see Kohr-Ah using anyone but themselves to work for them; they appear thoroughly disgusted by the whole system of Kzer-Za slavery and very proud of the fact that they do *all* their dirty work themselves. They probably do have advanced automated technology (or building and maintaining their death fleet would be impossible) but, given their pride in their heritage as lower-caste laborers, I'd imagine any work that can be done with their bare claws is.
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Sander Scamper
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First off, I would like to say that you, Art, are a very intelligent person, and i enjoy reading your theories on this, and the Evil post =p
Your views on the Kohr-Ah production, especially the dense metal projectile weaponry, are brilliant, and tie in well with the Kohr-Ar. I think that the Kohr-Ar probably have huge engines that could strip mine planetary ore deposits, leaving a planet dead, in about a month. They could then process this into ships and weaponry aboard huge space stations that travel with them. I agree with pretty much all of your views, here.
The Kzer-Za were the technitians and the Scientists. The Kohr-Ar labourers. I use this comparison. The Kzer-Za are the Electrical Engineers, that plan and designate power to a building, mess around with all of that stuff, the really complex systems are set up by them inside a building or mine or whatever. The Kohr-Ah are the Electricians, they mantain and modify it slightly.
Only innacuracy i see with the weapons matching the species, it is seems to me the Fusion Blast the Kzer-Za use would be pretty innacurate on a planet. (radiation, fire spreading, etc) which isnt as surgically deadly as a giant spinning blade =p.
Mind you, maybe the Kzer-Za and the Kohr-Ah use different weapons for planetary bombardment. (The Kzer-Za dont bombard, really, they 'surgically' remove all the elements they dont want (buildings older than 500 years).
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"Oops!" KA-BOOM!!
"Space is a dangerous place where wimps eat flaming plasma death" -The Zot....or is it the Fot?? We may never know...unless the guy in the back tells us!
UQM/SC2 = World Peace.
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Cronos
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It's possible that the Kohr-Ah use the blades to knockout planetary defense systems and then go on to use FRIED blasts to "cleanse" the planet. Of course they then go about deploying those drones to get at the underground population if any once they're done cleansing the surface.
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bobucles
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Only innacuracy i see with the weapons matching the species, it is seems to me the Fusion Blast the Kzer-Za use would be pretty innacurate on a planet. (radiation, fire spreading, etc) which isnt as surgically deadly as a giant spinning blade Fusion does not create hazardous radiation. It's effective at destroying all of those "ancient" sites, especially the precursor ones.
A giant spinning blade may be effective for planetary mining, but if it were to come across a tough precursor relic, it would break the blade. Sending more blades won't really help, since they'd hold up just as well as the first one. Also, what about little things like nanites? A blade would be completely unable to do anything about them.
If a single fusion blast doesn't destroy a historic site, how about 10000 fusion blasts? The effects of energy weapons easily stack together. As the site heats up from the constant bombardment, eventually it'll melt or be destroyed. Enough heat will destroy anything, even down to the microscopic level, so you can rest assured that all ancient technology has been destroyed.
If someone in the city has a really old painting, don't blow up the whole building. Send in the fighters. The little fighters are perfect for polishing off anything that the fusion blasts would do too much collateral damage to.
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FalconMWC
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Kind of makes Fwiffo look like a liar when he talks about the ur-quan turning some of his planet into radioactive dust.....
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Death 999
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But fusion does produce radiation, and quite a bit of it. Maybe you mean it produces little SECONDARY radiation (i.e. few nucleus-destabilizing neutrons)? If the fusion is done using Tritium, I'm afraid there'll be quite a bit of that too.
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Art
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We're told explicitly that the worlds destroyed by the Kohr-Ah have been scorched by fusion blasts, and the Kohr-Ah's fusion technology probably isn't incredibly different from the Kzer-Za's. I find it hard to imagine being able to effectively use the shuriken against ground targets; they seem like great weapons for ship-to-ship combat, being able to intercept fast-moving targets and slice up their delicate machinery. But for the raw power to blast cities, the Kohr-Ah most likely use modified FRIEDs.
I don't see any reason to assume, after all, that the weapon configurations used in ship-to-ship combat must be used for attacking planets as well. The two tasks of dogfighting and bombing ground targets are very different, and the best engineering solution probably involves converting the ships from one mode to another. Thus, fusion weapons that would appear to be very efficient at heating and melting ground targets have a key weakness against enemy ships, the energy cost of maintaining continuous fire making it difficult to track moving targets, requiring them to invest in other weapons for ship-to-ship combat (autonomous fighters, shuriken). Hence a Kzer-Za Dreadnaught capable of destroying an entire planet's ground defenses (according to the SC1 manual) takes a while to destroy, say, an Earthling Cruiser, because in order to target the cruiser it has to jack up the firing rate of the cannon and reduce the power of its shots.
My theory is that Kohr-Ah care a lot more about ship-to-ship combat than Kzer-Za, since they have no Battle Thralls to take up the slack and they have a much harder time replacing lost ships given their nomadic lifestyle. So instead of trying to make their city-bombing fusion cannons into a rapid-firing ship-to-ship weapon, they prefer to use them defensively in the form of FRIEDs.
But in any case either fast firing rate or defensive orientation of weapons can be ignored when bombing planets. Then all you need to do is point all the emitters downward and let loose. I think it's unlikely that anything more precise is necessary for either Ur-Quan subspecies' purposes -- Kohr-Ah just blast the whole crust until everything's dead, and Kzer-Za seem to prefer to bomb cultural centers indiscriminately rather than wasting time seeking out particularly valuable targets, since the overall impact is greater if all of Old Paris is lost than if just the Louvre is lost.
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Sander Scamper
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Not if you blast the ocean and that causes massive tidal waves, killing thousands (Ala day of tomorrow).
But yes, i agree with you that the Kohr-Ah probably do not use the blades to decimate planetary surfaces.
And who says the two races fusion are similar?? The ships that the brown Ur-Quan used during the Dynarri wars were definately very different from nowadays, I'm Sure! The gene split occured much later, and they still used their same brown ships to attack the Mael-Num, when the first Doctrinal Wars began. They have had 15000 years, plus constant exploration and exposure to new technology, to upgrade and refine their ships. Dont forget that all Ur-Quan are very intellegent, just because the Green are designed to be scientists doesn't mean the Black are thick as bricks, if they were, they surely couldn't fly.
I doubt, also, that the F.R.I.E.D attack is fusion. I think its superheated helium, like Babylon 5's PPG shots.
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"Oops!" KA-BOOM!!
"Space is a dangerous place where wimps eat flaming plasma death" -The Zot....or is it the Fot?? We may never know...unless the guy in the back tells us!
UQM/SC2 = World Peace.
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