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Topic: What happened to the Tobermoon in Oort's Cloud? (Read 19545 times)
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Valaggar
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A cruiser can easily defeat an Ur-Quan? Just keep on the edge of the screen, opposite the Ur-Quan. Your acceleration is clumsy, but your speed is superior, and this is enough. Keep away from the planet - the Ur-Quan are better at gravity whipping.
You mean Melnorme. I had already shut down the hypothesis with the Melnorme that attacked the Tobermoon. I was shutting down the hypothesis of a Melnorme defeating the Ur-Quan (another argument against that explanation would be that the Melnorme are just extremely poor against Dreadnoughts).
They most certainly would erase the logs. Surrendering would be a desperate bid for their survival, but bear in mind that the Ur-Quan had not enslaved any of the Alliance races yet. The crew of the Tobermoon would not be concerned with how the Ur-Quan punished their slaves; they have no point of reference for that. They had the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za's psychological profile, and the punishment is not hard to derive from that. Of course, they were desperate and had no other choice.
Why would the Ilwrath start a civil war? They seem to be happily united in following whatever pronouncements come from channel 44, the discontent generated by the priest caste is a thing of the past. Because some clever spiders had the idea that Dogar and Kazon are powerless, seeing how their fleet was defeated (of course, they just wanted their replacement with another gods of evil). And other, sillier spiders still believed in D&K.
Also, why is the Ilwrath's weaponry primitive? The Ur-Quan upgraded their technology significantly when they became battle thralls, especially in the area of combat. Even if they had rather primitive weapons before that, they've had several decades to reverse engineer and adapt new technologies from the Ur-Quan designs. At least space weapons. Plus, the incinerators they'd use are not thermonuclear devices.
The Syreen had shaky relations with humankind during the old Alliance years, actually. There were several major incidents leading to some bad blood between the two races, including the Syreen using mental compulsion to keep human crews serving aboard Penetrators against their will. From what I remember, human shipmates serve aboard the Penetrators by their own will.
Nevertheless, after I spent so much energy nitpicking the Ur-Quan - now, theory -, and after you have spent so much energy/time/fingertop atoms/whatever defending it, I'd say this is the best theory.
Of course, some other exciting explanations like time loops are intriguing... but lack evidence.
The Ur-Quan theory still has one little problem: Fusion Blasts are too large to cause "deep burns" (which are something more concentrated on a single spot) or not to damage too much vital ship systems. Just look at the SC1 DataBank picture...
And fighters don't make sense - before the surrender they'd get shot by Point Defense, afterwards their use is pointless.
What about Arilou coming and repairing the Tobermoon after the combat for you to use it? A clumsy explanation, but the only one so far.
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Draxas
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At least space weapons. Plus, the incinerators they'd use are not thermonuclear devices.
Reverse engineering of Ur-Quan tech would allow the construction of new terrestrial weapons as well. Besides, I can't help but wonder how a race could manage to reach the stars on their own, yet completely overlook atomic technology.
From what I remember, human shipmates serve aboard the Penetrators by their own will.
There is a quite different story told in the description of the Syreen from the SC1 manual.
The Ur-Quan theory still has one little problem: Fusion Blasts are too large to cause "deep burns" (which are something more concentrated on a single spot) or not to damage too much vital ship systems. Just look at the SC1 DataBank picture...
And fighters don't make sense - before the surrender they'd get shot by Point Defense, afterwards their use is pointless.
The fusion blast was a warning shot or near miss (probably punctuated with "Submit or die!"), which was enough to cause the deep hull scorching, but not destroy ship systems.
What about Arilou coming and repairing the Tobermoon after the combat for you to use it? A clumsy explanation, but the only one so far.
The Arilou seem perfectly content to allow humanity to languish on the surface of worlds, rather than explore space. After all, if all humans are concentrated on a particular world or worlds, then they're much easier to keep tabs on, and it lessens or eliminates the possibility of discovering something that could lead down the road to ruin that the Arilou seem to have such a vested interest in avoiding; just look at what happened to the Androsynth. So I can't figure why the Arilou would bother with the Tobermoon; they more likely would have simply ignored it, expecting it to remain derelict indefinitely, and inaccessible to the colonists on Unzervalt.
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Valaggar
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The Arilou seem perfectly content to allow humanity to languish on the surface of worlds, rather than explore space. After all, if all humans are concentrated on a particular world or worlds, then they're much easier to keep tabs on, and it lessens or eliminates the possibility of discovering something that could lead down the road to ruin that the Arilou seem to have such a vested interest in avoiding; just look at what happened to the Androsynth. So I can't figure why the Arilou would bother with the Tobermoon; they more likely would have simply ignored it, expecting it to remain derelict indefinitely, and inaccessible to the colonists on Unzervalt. I said it's a clumsy explanation.
The fusion blast was a warning shot or near miss (probably punctuated with "Submit or die!"), which was enough to cause the deep hull scorching, but not destroy ship systems. Do the Ur-Quan have such accuracy? Maybe.
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Valaggar
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But a warning shot, even a near miss, won't cause "deep burns", but a single, deep and wide burn.
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Narsham
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Narsham: The Melnorme are VERY peaceful. When you converse with Greenish for the first time, try picking aggressive replies.
You will see then.
I'd agree with your explanation, however, with a little variation: the Ur-Quan took the crew aboard, then the Melnorme came and annihilated the Ur-Quan. Since they probably are so angry with the 'Quan - and since this is the RIGHT thing to do - they'd attack them.
AH, NO! TIMELINE MISMATCH! The Melnorme weren't in the area at that time.
We know for certain the Melnorme were around, but hadn't revealed their presence generally.
But I guess, given that the Melnorme state themselves that they hate violence, that this is conclusive evidence that they wouldn't do anything like that... assuming you believe everything they say is the absolute truth.
The dialogue in question: "We reel with inchoate fear, and are thrown into a sudden panic.
Being peaceful by nature
we would no doubt be unprepared for your sudden hostility
were it not for the excellent weapon system we bought from the Keel-Verezy just last month.
A weapon system which is fully locked on your command bridge, by the way."
So "peaceful" isn't the same as non-violent.
And this conversational nugget suggests the Melnorme are perfectly willing to be ruthless:
""We have no fear of you, Melnorme!"
You should.
Once the Dramya thought they could steal from us.
You don't see too many Dramya around these days, do you?"
But perhaps the Keel-Verezy provide a useful alternative? The Melnorme pretty clearly know who the Captain is and know how he got a Precursor ship, among other things. That suggests either they directly gathered information about the colony, or were sold it. But who else would have sold them the information? Nobody in the Hierarchy; no sign anyone in the Alliance had officially encountered the Melnorme yet.
The Keel-Verezy may have cloaked or dimensionally shifted ships (or maybe they're very small, or impossible for human sensors to detect for some other reason). If we trust the Melnorme, then they have ships present in the area during the game.
What if the Keel-Verezy were responsible for the attack on the Tobermoon? They could then sell the data they gathered (and perhaps the humans as well) to the Melnorme.
Narsham
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« Last Edit: March 29, 2007, 05:43:38 pm by Narsham »
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Valaggar
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Maybe tomorrow.
Right now, there was my objection with the near miss.
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Draxas
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Multiple Dreadnoughts, multiple shots, maybe they were grazed by the shell, who knows.
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Valaggar
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A rather clumsy explanation.
I'd say this one is really a mystery.
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Valaggar
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Also, in regards to the second attack on the Tobermoon - the attack of the Probe - meep-eep's explanation with changing targets doesn't work, since there was another Space Vessel around who would have gotten attacked, as the top priority target - the Vindicator.
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Valaggar
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Also, the Ur-Quan don't fire "warning shots" if the crew surrenders - see their reply if YOU surrender to them.
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Valaggar
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Maybe a single Dreadnought appeared, the Tobermoon thought it could win, then some other Dreadnoughts warped in as well, shot the Tobermoon, and they surrendered?
Why shot the Tobermoon with a "warning shot", again?
Additionally, the Ur-Quan wouldn't have left a valuable piece of equipment behind (especially since the war was not over). They'd have blasted it into oblivion.
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« Last Edit: April 03, 2007, 07:07:39 pm by Valaggar »
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Draxas
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Also, the Ur-Quan don't fire "warning shots" if the crew surrenders - see their reply if YOU surrender to them.
You are initiating communications, not them.
Maybe a single Dreadnought appeared, the Tobermoon thought it could win, then some other Dreadnoughts warped in as well, shot the Tobermoon, and they surrendered?
Seems reasonable enough.
Why shot the Tobermoon with a "warning shot", again?
"Submit or die" carries a great deal more impact with a show of force preceeding it, especially if the Tobermoon initially tried to run.
Additionally, the Ur-Quan wouldn't have left a valuable piece of equipment behind (especially since the war was not over). They'd have blasted it into oblivion.
Rogue vessel, all alone, no colonies detected in the system, more important places to be and things to do. The Tobermoon's position was marked in the squadron's logs for later retrieval, and the entire Dreadnought squadron was subsequently destroyed during the battle of Raynet before they could relay that information, leaving the derelict Tobermoon right where it was abandoned.
<Shrug>
At with that, take it or leave it. I'm spending an awful lot of effort defending a theory on a small subsection of a story that appears in the manual, and wasn't even written by anyone who actually worked on the game itself (as per usual with game manuals), and thus has a great deal of inconsistency with the game universe as we know it. If you're still not satisfied with my best-fit explanation at this point, then you never will be.
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Valaggar
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At with that, take it or leave it. I'm spending an awful lot of effort defending a theory on a small subsection of a story that appears in the manual, and wasn't even written by anyone who actually worked on the game itself (as per usual with game manuals), and thus has a great deal of inconsistency with the game universe as we know it. If you're still not satisfied with my best-fit explanation at this point, then you never will be. Yeah, I guess we have just two alternatives - this a bit clumsy explanation and a far, far-fetched one such as "time loop".
You're right, it's an inconsistency. That's why I've added it in the http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Discrepancies_in_the_Star_Control_universe article.
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