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Topic: Kohr - Ah Crew (Read 16819 times)
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2Bad
Zebranky food
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May I be the first person to mention the concept of "suspension of disbelief", or "the suspension of realism for the sake of gameplay", I mean "crew" in SC is really more of a measure of hull strength anyway, as in real life if you fired a weapon at a ship you'd damage its hull, not necessarily kill a set number of crew. Kohr-ah need to have the same "strength" as kzer-ah ships for game balance. It does leave a rather interesting plot hole though, doesn't it...
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Art
Frungy champion
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You're assuming that the Builders and Doers of the Slave Empire aren't better at tolerating cramped conditions than those "effete bureaucrats and scientists".
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2Bad
Zebranky food
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The Kohr Ah dont kill each other because the eternal doctrine. Orignally the Ur-quan were slaves and the reason that the Kzer-Ah and Kohr - Ah are killing/slaving other races is so that they will never be slaves again Dude didn't you read the bit about ur-quan having such strong territorial instincts that they have to have their own ships and maintain a distance of a few metres or they kill each other?
We are assuming then that if there are 42 kohr-ah on a marauder, then the kohr-ah were genetically modified by the Dnyarri to have this instinct removed, so they can work together in cramped conditions as a team.
Any race as sentient as the Mmrnmrhrm would not be allowed to live by the Kohr-ah, let alone trusted to run their ships. The kohr-ah have low tech shit, metal discs and a ring of flame, it is stated that the kohr-ah aren't technologically advanced like the kzer-za, and rely on their numbers and brute strength to destroy other races. They are also extremely paranoid and non-trusting of anything non-kohr-ah, so would not use precussor tech or robots (who could turn on them).
The kohr-ah outnumbering the kzer-za 40-1 also makes sense, as was stated ealier by Zeep-Eeep . Perhaps dreadnaughts have exactly 42 slave crew to match the original kohr-ah 42 crew, but then how did the kzer-za conquer their first slave race with only 1 crew per ship? (when a hit takes off crew...) As I said originally not very realistic but a good story anyway.
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« Last Edit: June 16, 2006, 01:24:35 pm by 2Bad »
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Draxas
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Any race as sentient as the Mmrnmrhrm would not be allowed to live by the Kohr-ah, let alone trusted to run their ships. Probably true, but...
The kohr-ah have low tech shit, metal discs and a ring of flame, it is stated that the kohr-ah aren't technologically advanced like the kzer-za, and rely on their numbers and brute strength to destroy other races. I don't remember this ever being stated in the game anywhere. Source?
They are also extremely paranoid and non-trusting of anything non-kohr-ah, so would not use precussor tech or robots (who could turn on them). But the Sa-Matra is OK for some reason?
The kohr-ah outnumbering the kzer-za 40-1 also makes sense, as was stated ealier by Zeep-Eeep . Couldn't find that in anything he said, care to clarify?
Perhaps dreadnaughts have exactly 42 slave crew to match the original kohr-ah 42 crew, but then how did the kzer-za conquer their first slave race with only 1 crew per ship? (when a hit takes off crew...) Actually, they have 41 slave crew and 1 Ur-Quan on each Dreadnought, and this is stated in the SC1 manual at the very least, and probably other sources as well.
The Ur-Quan (and several other races, ie. Melnorme) actually state that they enslaved their Milleu allies, the Faz, before beginning the first doctrinal conflict over the Mael-num homeworld. This was probably done using their old 1-crew scout ships from the Milleu days (or perhaps whatever vessels the Dnyarri forced them to design and construct during their time of enslavement), which is itself quite a testament to their ferocity and battle prowess. However, once the Faz were conquered, it's likely they the Ur-Quan used members of their species as their first batch of slave crew for their vessels, since it is not likely that they had thought through the Path of Now and Forever in enough detail yet to differentiate between fallow slaves and combat thralls. They simply took whatever population from the Faz that was necessary to crew their vessels, and encased the rest under a slave shield before setting off for the Mael-num homeworld to subjugate them.
Personally, I'm a proponent of the Kohr-Ah having sub-sentient robotic crew filling in the 41 extra slots in their vessels. This is in no small part because I like Arne's rendition of them. Adunaphel's theory fills in any potential holes in the idea nicely, in my opinion; I imagine that the Kohr-Ah don't wear excruciators on a regular basis.
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Adunaphel
Zebranky food
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lol, I defended the whole "robotic crew" idea for the very same reason =P
Honestly, the Kohr-Ah may be the warrior race, but since they're doing battle in capitol ships, I don't really see why they'd need to outnumber the Kzee-Za 42 to 1. Maybe for ground battles where they'd incur massive casulties and would need extreme numbers on their side, but still...I don't see a 10 meter long caterpillar being too terribly effective in a ground war. Talk about a massive target...
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Orzy-man!
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It HAS to be robotic crew. They probably bought it from the Melnorme. Here are the reasons.
#1. Who would WILLINGLY fight in an Ur-Quan fighter without flying away in it? If they were robots they would fly the ships because they were programmed to. Also, why do you think they are called AUTOMAT FIGHTERS?
#2. Robots won't necesarilly NOT be affected by Syreen. What if the hypnosis feild not only hypnotizes living things but also reprograms robots?
Those could explain how the crew COULD be robots.
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Draxas
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It HAS to be robotic crew. They probably bought it from the Melnorme. Here are the reasons. Instead of finishing the job they tried to start (but were so rudely interrupted) before the first Doctrinal Conflict? No way.
#1. Who would WILLINGLY fight in an Ur-Quan fighter without flying away in it? If they were robots they would fly the ships because they were programmed to. Also, why do you think they are called AUTOMAT FIGHTERS? We're talking about Kohr-Ah ships, not Kzer-Za (which are the only ones that launch fighters). Besides, it's rather well documented that those fighters are pilotd by the Ur-Quan's battle thralls.
#2. Robots won't necesarilly NOT be affected by Syreen. What if the hypnosis feild not only hypnotizes living things but also reprograms robots? Well, probe crew isn't affected by the Syreen, and thus the logic is extended from there. It's also surmised that because the Mmrn are sentient robots, they can be affected as normal, while the computers that control a probe are obviously not sentient in the least, and so are immune. Since the Kohr-Ah would never willingly create sentient robots (and would likely exterminate their creations if they discovered that they had in error), this debate is more or less about how those non-sentient robots could be affected by the Syreen, assuming they exist at all.
Bah, that was way too much explanation for a topic that is entirely speculation by fans, to account for the idiosyncracies of a game system that was never meant to be realistic in the first place.
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Elerium
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To be honest I think the Kohr-Ah DID outrank the amount of Kzer-Za, the reason is due to the Shofixti exploding their star system with about 25% of the Dreadnoughts in the entire fleet being in that system at the same time.
The Mrns are sentient robots which is why they can be affected by the Syreen. Slylandro however are just programmed bots who wander around the galaxy, say 'we come in peace'! and fry you because they were programmed wrong.
Robotic Crew? Bought from the Melnorme? I'm sorry but that is funny... The Kohr-Ah would just obliterate the Melnorme, I mean the Kohr-Ah don't bargain with anyone. Also, the Robotic Crew would be blue, but it's green (indicating sentience).
Now a point I want to make is that the Melnorme said that in the Ur-Quan's brown time, towards an atomic-age spacecraft they managed to forcibly overcome their territorial aspects. However this aspect didn't affect to other races, until they came across the Taalo. The Taalo (being rock creatures) didn't count territorially so they became the best of friends. All what I can say is that the Dynarri toned down their territorial aspects for the Kohr-Ah so that they would be better soldiers, or made them more tough to fight their territorial instincts better.
Also, a while back someone mentioned the Ur-Quan having 1 scout ship fighters back in the day. But the Melnorme said that the Dynarri packed into the ship in their hundreds before flying off to the capital Milieu planet.. Therefore, the Ur-Quan scoutships had to be reasonably BIG
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« Last Edit: June 22, 2006, 05:45:24 pm by Elerium »
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Draxas
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...Or, the Dynarri, being pretty small creatures in general, just had to put up with some cramped quarters for a while. The reward of an entire intergalactic civilization to conquer was plenty motivation, I'm sure.
In one of Arne's art threads, the size of a Shofixti Scout was discussed, and it turned out that the ship was, in fact (at least according to the conclusions reached, based on some assumptions about the game), reasonably large. So I don't see too much trouble fitting a couple hundred aliens the size of a small dog inside one, assuming the Ur-Quan scout was roughly the same size. However, this brings up the question of how they had enough food, etc. to survive the trip...
As far as the numbers issue, I don't think the Shofixti incident would have much of a significant impact, unless the Kzer-Za had a very small population to begin with. After all, there is only one Ur-Quan per Dreadnought, so (assuming they don't have a ludicrous number of ships in their fleet; they are nomadic after all, and it would be that much more difficult to travel quickly with a larger fleet. Considering the power of a single "planetary siege unit," they probably don't need a huge number of ships) you have to figure that maybe 1000 Ur-Quan perished in the nova, tops. On the other hand, that equates to approximately 41,000 members of assorted slave races, to say nothing of any battle thralls present in their own ships...
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Orzy-man!
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The gas-bags said they couldn't remember, they may have been talking about the Shofixti. seriously.
"brown"
"found on their SCOUTING missions."
Could have been mistaken for Shofixti. They may have remembered them being Ur-Quan because of the Shofixti's constant blabbering about killing the Ur-Quan.
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