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Topic: Ur-Quan... Hierarchy? (Read 10082 times)
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Art
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Someone had an interesting theory up a while ago about how the "real" Ur-Quan that we see are all females, and the Ur-Quan hives are controlled by single, intelligent females with a bunch of male mates that act as mindless slaves.
It was pretty well done, though there was almost no evidence actually supporting it in the game.
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Kaiser
Zebranky food
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Posts: 39
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
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No, telling the rebel their command structure would be bad.
Reminds me of what happened in a SW sim I'm in. A Sith previously killed a government's King and his queen/XO. A few days later he asks who their third in command is and some of the idiots started to tell him. They deserved to be gutted. 
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Art
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But then why would he talk to himself about his *own* opinion of whether or not to warn the Kohr-Ah Primat? Surely if he had a commanding officer, he'd be relieved to leave that decision to his leaders...
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Art
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Somehow I doubt even with really great technology the Kzer-Za could hold a conference about this issue over such long distances in the time it takes to pause in a conversation with you.
By the way, what's with the consistent misspelling of "annihilate"? Is it a reference to the Kohr-Ah joke in the credits?
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FalconMWC
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Well, the Druuge DO know that you "stole" the bomb from them as fast as the your ship can get to them via Quasi-space, so it would not be that bad. The Ur-quan would probably have better tech too.
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Art
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Um, where the heck does it say Ur-Quan are telepathic? They communicate telepathically with the Talking Pets, but that's because the Talking Pets are (extremely) telepathic and can be trained (or genetically engineered) to pick up their thoughts while they speak. It certainly seems like the neo-Dnyarri has no trouble reading anyone's mind, regardless of how telepathic its target is.
I think it's actually pretty unlikely that they'd be telepathic; why would a species so radically individualistic and asocial evolve something like telepathy? And it seems to me that the way SC2 classifies "psi abilities" as a sort of general level of talent, a more telepathic species would be *less* vulnerable to attack from a telepathic mind-controller like the Dnyarri, not *especially* vulnerable to it.
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Art
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I think that in the UQM universe, some forms of communication are near instant. Which sort of makes sense, the Starbase Commander tells you
about the Pkunk moving as soon as they begin their journey.
The Syreens know of their victory over the Mycon before the fungus
even make it home again.
Well, certainly long-range Hyperwave exists -- it's the means by which you contact the Melnorme, after all. It just doesn't seem common, given how expensive the Umgah and Burvix casters are.
Anyway, there are very simple explanations for both of these. The Syreen probably got their information from the Syreen captains who came *back* after the Mycon defeat -- a sphere of influence obviously doesn't contain every single ship belonging to that species within it, and it also seems obvious that a quick assault fleet of Syreen could move faster than a big Mycon fleet shepherding Deep Children (besides which Penetrators are faster than Podships).
And the game *gives* you an explanation for how Hayes detects the Pkunk's journey. There's a huge series of disturbances in Hyperspace, all in phase, as though a fleet of ships were moving, remember?
All this means is that waves moving through Hyperspace can be detected from pretty far away, which makes sense, and that what limits the range of Hyperwaves is random events that break up the signal and make it less coherent, which also makes sense. You can detect the Pkunk *moving* from far away, because of the big burst of energy that comes from their motion, but you can't send messages back and forth from that distance because the signal gets too garbled. Remember how Hayes specifically tells you that they can clearly pick up some sort of signal from Rigel, but because of the distance it's impossible to clearly read what it says from Sol?
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Zeep-Eeep
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Good Grief
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Um, where the heck does it say Ur-Quan are telepathic? They communicate telepathically with the Talking Pets, but that's because the Talking Pets are (extremely) telepathic and can be trained (or genetically engineered) to pick up their thoughts while they speak. It certainly seems like the neo-Dnyarri has no trouble reading anyone's mind, regardless of how telepathic its target is.
I think it's actually pretty unlikely that they'd be telepathic; why would a species so radically individualistic and asocial evolve something like telepathy? And it seems to me that the way SC2 classifies "psi abilities" as a sort of general level of talent, a more telepathic species would be *less* vulnerable to attack from a telepathic mind-controller like the Dnyarri, not *especially* vulnerable to it.
Since you obviously weren't paying attention while playing the game, let me give you some examples of psi and telepathy from the Ur-Quan.
1. There is something wrong here... something which makes my sheath retract and my talons ooze.
I sense the ugliness of a thousand evil thoughts
and I have located the source of these fetid emanations.
They come from aboard your vessel!
Foolish renegade human, why have you come here? All that you have found
is your inevitable punishment.
2. We sense... something... something ancient... a sickly smell... a chilling wind. My ancestors scream from within their chambers in my mind
but I cannot understand their words.
3. We, the Ur-Quan who could not tolerate the presence of others...
4. Of all the species we have met, only the Taalo did not trigger our instinctive territoriality. They were the only people we could stand with, or talk to, without the hunter inside us screaming `Kill the interloper! Rip out its life!'
We believe that the same factors that made the Taalo non-threatening to us
their unusual rock-like biology also gave the Taalo natural immunity to the Dnyarri's psychic compulsion.
Also, here are an examples of the Ur-Quan talking about a leader, or primate:
1. "Perhaps we should contact the Kohr-Ah Primat, explain to her."
2. "We had slave-shielded one world, when we learned that the Black Ur-Quan under a new leader, Kohr-Ah, had devised the Eternal Doctrine
which called for the `cleansing', the annihilation, of all non-Ur-Quan sentient life."
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What sound does a penguin make?
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Art
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...And you seem to have at least partly not been paying attention to my posts. So...
1. There is something wrong here... something which makes my sheath retract and my talons ooze.
I sense the ugliness of a thousand evil thoughts
and I have located the source of these fetid emanations.
They come from aboard your vessel!
Foolish renegade human, why have you come here? All that you have found
is your inevitable punishment.
2. We sense... something... something ancient... a sickly smell... a chilling wind. My ancestors scream from within their chambers in my mind
but I cannot understand their words.
These are the only two compelling arguments you have. However, all they indicate is that the Ur-Quan can tell when a Dnyarri is around, not that they themselves have telepathic powers. Recall that the Dnyarri, even when under the Taalo Shield, is still capable of actively reading the minds of others.
Though I'm going back slightly on my tentative hypothesis that a less-psionically-aware being is easier to control than a more-psionically-aware one, I advance that It's certainly possible that a species can be aware that its mind is being probed ("passive sensing") without being able to send telepathic messages itself ("active sensing"). Indeed, since the current two Ur-Quan subspecies were *designed* to be under constant telepathic surveillance and control, it may be that their brains are hypersensitive to being telepathically messed with. In no way does this indicate that they themselves can telepathically send messages, or are telepathic at all when the Dnyarri aren't involved.
3. We, the Ur-Quan who could not tolerate the presence of others...
4. Of all the species we have met, only the Taalo did not trigger our instinctive territoriality. They were the only people we could stand with, or talk to, without the hunter inside us screaming `Kill the interloper! Rip out its life!'
We believe that the same factors that made the Taalo non-threatening to us
their unusual rock-like biology also gave the Taalo natural immunity to the Dnyarri's psychic compulsion.
...Yeah, so? These don't say anything about telepathy. ("Territoriality" doesn't mean "telepathy", if that's what was confusing you.) It's pretty clear that the Ur-Quan just didn't like being around other life forms -- it says absolutely nothing about their having some ability to telepathically sense other life forms are around. Plenty of people in real life can't stand other people -- that means they can't stand to *look at* other people, *hear* other people talk, and in other ways detect other people with perfectly ordinary biological senses.
Yes, they say there's a link between the Taalo's biology and both their psionic immunity and their bypassing Ur-Quan territorial instincts. But I think the Ur-Quan are just saying that the Taalo, being made of rock, were radically different from other life forms in all ways, so it's not surprising that they not only look so different that the Ur-Quan don't feel instinctively threatened by them but that their brains somehow don't work in a way that the Dnyarri can exploit.
Also, here are an examples of the Ur-Quan talking about a leader, or primate:
1. "Perhaps we should contact the Kohr-Ah Primat, explain to her."
2. "We had slave-shielded one world, when we learned that the Black Ur-Quan under a new leader, Kohr-Ah, had devised the Eternal Doctrine
which called for the `cleansing', the annihilation, of all non-Ur-Quan sentient life."
*sigh* YES, dude, I *know* about the Kohr-Ah Primat. That's what this whole damn discussion was about. Is there any reason to assume that the Kzer-Za and Kohr-Ah societies are identical? Any reason at all, really, given that we see many, many ways in which they are radically different?
The whole point of my original argument was that the Kzer-Za captain talks about negotiating *himself* with the Primat, rather than contacting a corresponding Kzer-Za Primat to conference about it first, indicating that Kzer-Za individuals seem to have a heck of a lot of discretionary power. Add to that the fact that no Kzer-Za Primat is ever mentioned, that the Kzer-Za in general seem to make snap decisions pretty easily, and that the Kzer-Za in general seem a lot more wary and territorial against each other than the Kohr-Ah (one Kzer-Za per Dreadnought compared to Marauders full of cooperating Kohr-Ah) and you have a weak but tractable argument that the Kzer-Za don't have a hierarchical society.
Also, did you notice that the Kohr-Ah are named after their original actual leader, while the Kzer-Za are never mentioned as having a leader? The original Kzer-Za whom they named themselves after died at the very beginning of the Slave Revolt; by the time of the victory and the parting of the two Paths of Now and Forever, he would have been a historical figure, a symbol. I find it interesting that the Kzer-Za chose a storybook character to name themselves after rather than a living leader, and I think it also speaks to the difference between the two subspecies.
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meep-eep
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Two remarks:
We do not know for sure that the Kohr-Ah primat is some sort of leader. It could just be the Kohr-Ah embassador to the Kzer-Za. Note that while they say "explain to her", but then "they will not understand". This could be construed as that the Primat doesn't have the power on her own to agree to a cease-fire. (Then again it could be understood as "The Primat, like all other Kohr-Ah, will not understand").
The Yehat on one occasion also refer to a Primat:
"After the War, we learned that the Primat and the VUX High Council decided to move ZEX out of the picture,". It's clear that they're not talking about a Kohr-Ah. It could be a Kzer-Za, or it could be a VUX. But as they already mentioned the VUX High Council, that would make the Primat a seperate power within the VUX government. And the VUX High Council does seem to be the body within the VUX government that makes the decisions, if you go by the other references to it.
So I expect that this Primat is indeed a Kzer-Za. And also, this Primat apparantly can make decisions of her/his own, which would go against the embassador theory.
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“When Juffo-Wup is complete
when at last there is no Void, no Non
when the Creators return
then we can finally rest.”
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Pages: 1 [2] 3 4
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