They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Created

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

WH40k: Dosent trow "thousands of men" at a problem, they trow billions of men at a problem until it goes away. :lol:

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

I meant it as more of an average Probably should have used Hundreds of Thousands

Yes the Imperial Guard, Orks, Tyranids & Chaos Cultists can easily die in those numbers, but the Space Marines (Loyal & Traitor), Eldar, Tau would find it impossible to fight and die in those numbers

I'm not refuting what your saying as your further strengthening the point I made to Jurgen, I probably should have worded myself better

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

I am just going to say that the lore for SupCom and TA isn't bullet proof either.

Why send von neumann berserker when you can also sen a bunch of MIRV nukes through as well?

Just make enemy world inhabitable and SupCom would have ended in a week, and TA would be in the state of the end war by a few days conflict.

Really If your looking for a full on reason for the logic why things are what they are then you might as well stick to real life, and even then, humans don't know everything.

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

We can comprehend digitising a brain, the issue is merely one of degree. The Tyrannids have units with psychic powers, also known as magic. We cannot arrive at a Zoanthrope by extrapolating existing technologies.

They're controlled by cerebrates which can only be killed by Dark Templar Energies (read: Magic). Both of their major opponents deploy psychics.

There are several massed battles in the films. They do not feature sensible tactics, but you're missing the point. On the ground their weapons aren't significantly better than ours. In space even the secondary weapons on a troop transport put our entire nuclear arsenal to shame and they have guns capable of one-shotting planets. The battle of Hoth is a particularly silly example, because a single X-Wing is supposed to outgun all of the AT-ATs deployed to Hoth.

Rough Riders aren't Space Marines. Also thank you for admitting that 40k is intentionally inconsistent.

So, you're saying the only use of biological technology in Total Annihilation is magic? Thanks for agreeing with my point.

In 40k, civilisations have industrial complexes and ship units to combat and have populations they need to defend. There are buildings to go inside and sometimes people have to live on the planets after the battle is over. In TA, all units are manufactured on site and the only things that matter are commanders, and nothing is lost by reducing planets to bedrock.

There are living humans in 40k. In TA, everyone is dead. In 40k humanity is fighting for its survival. In TA it's already over, humanity lost. There's nothing to fight for. There is some hope in 40k. There's none in TA. In 40k in theory most sides are fighting for something other than war itself. In TA, there really is only war. No sentient beings exist in the galaxy that have any goals other than war.

You miss the point. Unenhanced humans are viable in your examples. That alone shows that organics in those places is viable. In TA and SC, an unenhanced human isn't just nonviable, it's a nonissue.

You clearly haven't read the TA manual. The "plasma cannons" are time-frozen nuclear explosions. The missiles? Antimatter. The lasers? Focussed onto microscopic areas and have time-dilation-boosted intensities. I said "nuclear weapons", but actually, in TA, nukes are obsolete and the standard weapon is considerably better. In SC it's not quite so crazy, but UEF artillery is antimatter and a ridiculous caliber, so most of their guns, by virtue of needing to be competitive with antimatter weapons are superior to our tactical nukes.

That you think that "hundreds of thousands" is how many casualties the Guard take just shows how ignorant you are of 40k lore. The Guard number in the trillions at a low estimate. But even this isn't much when you consider that it takes 18 years for the guard to replace a lost man. The guard can only really take about 5.5% casualties a year. With TA's production rates, their yearly casualty rates could be as high as 300,000%, due to the lack of a need to actually maintain standing armies.

SC was actually a pretty low-intensity conflict. There were only a few billion casualties in a thousand years, which actually makes sense because there's little reason to attack civilian populations as the only things that matter are ACUs. Depopulating a planet won't actually help your war effort, because the ACUs can retreat and they're the only important things, but it will make your opponents inclined to do the same to you out of revenge. And your unfamiliarity with TA's lore shows clearly in that second statement. How could TA's war be over in a few days if it takes weeks to make a single jump with a Galactic Gate?

The whole point is that even sending a single Commander takes weeks' worth of energy. Send some MIRVs through and blow up some stuff, and in the weeks it takes to send through something else your opponent has completely rebuilt.

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

So what about the other 99.9% of the Tyranid forces? are they null and void because The Zoanthrope is Psionic?

Also digitising a brain? We can also guess that we'll unlock the rest of the human brain and all beable to communicate via brainwaves... Just because someone thinks it could be possible doesn't make it true.

Once again you disregard everything else because it has "magic! Oh noes!" As before digitising a human Brain (Not AI an actual Human mind inside a computer) might be just as impossible as unlocking Psionic powers in people once the Human brain is fully mapped.

Where are the massed battles over open ground that could be compared to Napoleonic Warfare? Ermmm theres Hoth... And oh yea Hoth is the only one. Endor is in a Forested area and although its over a large area its basically CQC due to the tree cover. The A-Wing Skywalker uses doesn't outgun the AT-ATs it dodges them and trips them up before finding a plot hole in the AT-ATs armour, he then passes the message onto the other pilots. It never once out guns them.

Don't know what your referring too with the secondary weapons on the troop transports... Yea there is Turbo lasers which would be our entire Nuclear arsenal to shame but not the bog standard lasers the small ships use.

Rough riders... Aren't exactly the banes of armour you made them our to be, they are Imperial Guardsmen on Horses.

No i'm saying that TA has magic too... I fail to see how that is agreeing with you.

So basically the actual fighting is exactly the same except the 40k races ship there forces in and the TA/SupCom Commanders build theres.

You mentioned Combat not logistics oh wise one.

Hmmm its been a while since I played TA I was under the impression that Humans were still alive with the Arm but the Core had everyone in the Machine so to speak.

Still I'd rather be just plain dead than live through a Black Crusade.

Yes lots and lots of unenhanced humans are viable, backed up by the Imperial Navy they are a force. One on its own is a non-issue millions is not.

"Time Frozen nuclear explosion" and you call Tyranids magic... lol the fact that you can capture a nuclear explosion and freeze it in time to be released at will seems like a stretch.

[/quote][/quote]

"Yes the Imperial Guard, Orks, Tyranids & Chaos Cultists can easily die in those numbers" as in millions. I know fully well the Imperial Guard die in there millions everyday in WH40k.

I'm anything but ignorant of Lore. Maybe try reading what I put and taking in the context next time?

I don't know if you mean too but you really come across as one of the most pompous self-rightous people i've ever had the displeasure of debating with.

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

Jurgen, I'll point out that being long dead is probably a far better fate than the one of most of W40k factions and individuals. At least after a Core or Arm victory, the winner will rebuild a civilisation.
And no, when your "good guys" are genociding Space Nazis or brainwashing Space Communists (depends on who you're asking), then no there's no hope.

Also, the inconsistency in TA isn't that they don't send MIVRs (though it is probably one in SupCom, as an engineer can build a new stargate in a few minutes). The real inconsistency is that the occupied planets aren't covered with high-end units. After all, it would take only days to turn the entire planet into a factory, and they have no reason to not do it.
The inconsistency in W40k is pretty much anything. But the prize is probably due to the new Necron superweapon, who can make any star of the galaxy instantly die several millennia sooner. I still wonder if it was a translation problem or if the writer tried to come up with the most useless superweapon ever...

In SupCom, they don't depopulate planets because population is an asset, as a workforce and as scientists to support more and better ACUs. Also, the Cybran are trying to free symbiotes, not kill them (and Brackman probably doesn't like the idea of genocide), and the Aeon are trying to convert people. Though when they (and later the Seraphim) decide to Kill Them All, they really have no excuses.

Wait guys, you are actually discussing about whether TA or W40k has the most inconsistent background... What was the argument about, again?

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

He does. Dunno why, just how he is. Makes talking with him a massive pain when he puts you down because he's not interested in having a discussion so much as bodyslamming "another noob with a bad idea". *shrug* you get used to it. Or use the ignore feature.

(I really have no comment on the rest because WH40k was never my thing)

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

I just know I'm going to regret this, but I can't help myself.

1. Anything beyond a civilisation's comprehension can be considered magic.
For example, electricity. Go back far enough in time and the way that glass ball (AKA light bulb) lights up is going to seem pretty magic to anyone you talk to.

2. I always thought that was one of the beautiful things about TA lore: When one side finally won they would have absolutely nothing left to exist for. They had already lost everything they were fighting for, so in the end all they had left was to fight. And once that was gone... Ctrl+D maybe?

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

Well they do have access to nano lathe technology, The Arm in the Core contingency were said to have been rebuilding civilization (Being all clones, likely that the remaining civilian population was genetically stored on Empyrrean until the war was over so they could be rebuilt.)

And the core turned civilization into engrams......so essentially core civilization never fell and was simply streamlined into the central conciseness for the war....until the ARM won that is.

So really, there was always hope, if the war ever ended.

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

I suppose from the CORE perspective, initially at least, it wouldn't matter too much about the whole galaxy getting decimated in the war. For the ARM it's a bit different.

I take your point, but in the end, what had they really saved? They lost their humanity and everything they were fighting for. Winning became meaningless. They were, as you say - just clones and digitised consciousness.

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

Wow this exploded somewhat. Can we get this thread back on topic? I have probably made all the points I am going to make on Organics in PA. Both from an aesthetics POV and a biologists POV, but it is a shame to see the thread turn into a lore battle between TA SupCom and 40k.


Okay well I'll comment on this because this could link back to the idea of having organics or not in PA.

This is true but if we are working with a sci fi that usually means extrapolating from contemporary concepts that the audience can use to connect themselves with the lore and create the suspension of disbelief. Good Sci Fi generally only asks the audience to believe in a few bits of sci fi magic and works on the implications and techs that can come from that. Mass effect for instance (although that is heading pretty close to space fantasy) asked us to make a leap for mass effect fields, and most of the tech seen in the game was an extension of what could be done if we accept the existence of that effect.

You could say that there is some kind of tech beyond our understanding that allows a wholly organic army (or partly organic machine army) to be viable against a wholly machine army in direct confrontation. But that requires an inconsistent leap in comparison to the rest of the background provided in PA, as there is no connection between the contemporary and the future like there is with the mechanical army and therefore it isn't a core part of established lore that extends to the whole game. This is aside from the inconsistent aesthetic that would be required when it comes to partially organic units which was what the OP wanted to discuss.

I know that wasn't what your comment was directed at wolfdogg, and I am not disagreeing with you, I just wanted to use your statement to highlight my thought processes when I am talking about why I wouldn't want partially organic units. This logic applies better when it is appropriate to the whole context (like 40k).

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

Actually, you're not far from where I was going with that anyway. I concur and I don't see how organics have a place in PA.

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

Well, I wasn't even necesarily saying organics have a place in PA.

I was saying that even common organic structures can have a place. Like I said before, neuron systems and muscular structure. Besides the fact some robots will be bipedal.

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

I think we can all agree there will be lore and gameplay segregation in PA.

They won't explain everything because that would make fun gameplay things looks stupid.

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

Well mine and Jurgens was basically me saying Biotechnology could advance as far as Mechanical technology and me using a few examples in gaming history of pure Biological (Tyranids and Zerg) or Organic armies backed up with biotech like Cloning (The Empire in Starwars).

He then countered saying Tyranids are Magic because of the Warp in WH40k and thus should be purged from the argument and the Zerg are null and void because the Cerebrates can only be killed via Magic from the Dark Templars.

Basically what he saying is that any possible advancement that "COULD" happen in Biology is Magic but any advancement in Mechanics is fine because its conceivable.

I've made my my point in that the T-Rex in Supcom 2 was out of place because it was tacked onto to a Cybernetic Army and thus looked stupid and that I doubt an Organic army would happen in PA because of the influences of TA/Supcom and I'm fine with that to be honest.

But I then went on to say it wouldn't be too stupid to imagine a completely organic army standing toe to toe with a Mechanical Army, I then provide references to Infantry and Vehicles in other games.

TL;DR Jurgen thinks any form of Biological advancement couldn't contend with the Mechanical Advancement shown in TA/Supcom.

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

I believe that's what was supposed to have happened during the galactic war. We don't see it during the game because the entire galaxy has been depleted of resources, and neither side has enough metal to go truly exponential. Obviously we don't see this resource depletion during the game, but that's game mechanics needing to be fun on human timescales winning over being accurate to the backstory.

I believe the situation on the populations is this: After 4000 years of nonstop fighting, where even being killed doesn't offer respite, as your pattern is just resurrected and stuffed in another unit, all the patterns/clones are completely insane, and none of them would be considered 'human' by any well-adjusted modern human. Humanity is truly dead, even if there are some beings evolutionarily related to humans still around.

It's just the tip of the iceberg, the most obvious piece of handwavium on a pile of other handwavium. The entire hive mind works on psionics. Genestealers have psionic claws. The very notion of crossing interstellar distances for biomass is thermodynamically untenable.

Where's your proposed mechanism for psychic powers then? Digitising entire brain states is just an outgrowth of existing research into neuroscience. Psychic powers are an entirely new field operating on entirely unknown principles.

Once you've already taken the leap of making the entire basis of your force explicitly magical, which is the big difference between TA and Starcraft. While there are a few implausibilities about TA's setup, it tries to cover them up. Starcraft and 40k are upfront about magic. They come right out and say they don't care.

Every ground engagement in the prequel movies and the clone wars, which you seem to be suspiciously ignoring. And you clearly don't know enough about Star Wars to be arguing this point, since the vehicle tripping up the AT-ATs at Hoth was a Snowspeeder, not an A-Wing. There were X-Wings present at the battle, but they weren't used against the AT-ATs due to the Star Wars convention of keeping space firepower in space and ground firepower on the ground because there's no way of reconciling the two.

Looks like you haven't read the ICS. Acclamator (a small troop transport) quad lasers. 200 Gigatons per shot. Canon. It's ridiculous, I know, but that's Star Wars for you.

Exactly. We found that horses fare poorly against machine guns in the first world war. Most weapons in 40k are supposed to be far better than WWI machine guns, yet we still see horses. Why? Because 40k doesn't make any sense.

...and that particular instance is a big flaw in TA's lore that shows why you shouldn't try to shoehorn biotech into things where it doesn't belong. It's not helping your case that you can't find any instances of biotech making any sense.

Way to miss the point. In TA, combat is logistics, on-site resource gathering and manufacture completely changes the way you fight. You're basically saying "They're exactly the same except for this huge fundamental difference that makes the two function differently at every level".

This is not a counterargument, now you're just bashing out the first semi-relevant point you can think of. A large number of unenhanced humans are a relevant asset in 40k. No number of unenhanced humans could ever be a relevant asset in TA except maybe as reclaim fodder. If you can't see why that makes 40k battlefields so much less deadly than TA ones, I can't help you.

[quote"Time Frozen nuclear explosion" and you call Tyranids magic... lol the fact that you can capture a nuclear explosion and freeze it in time to be released at will seems like a stretch.
[/QUOTE]

This also isn't a counterargument. TA battlefields are far more dangerous places than 40k ones, so please demonstrate how your example of the Tyrannids is relevant to this discussion.

And again. You did not address my point. How is the Tyrannid's numbers advantage over a race which takes 18 years to reach maturity relevant to a 'race' that takes 18 seconds to 'reach maturity'.

Good. Anyone who openly flaunts their illiteracy like you deserves to experience displeasure.

It really can't. Biology is held back by chemistry. You're storing information chemically, transferring it electrochemically, storing energy chemically, and consuming energy chemically. There is a hard limit to how energetic chemical reactions can get. Once you start playing around with nukes, antimatter and anything more exotic, chemistry has nothing to say on the subject and you're doing particle physics. While it's sort-of semi-plausible for some naturally occurring evolving self-reproducing entity based on as-yet unknown aspects of nuclear physics to exist (although it would have serious issues with freezing to death under any conditions not similar to those inside the core of the Sun), such a thing would not be alive, and it would not be organic, by definition. You can't 'evolve' an adaptation that involves scrapping your entire system, including the very DNA on which your system is encoded and start again from scratch. That's not how evolution works.

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

And thus proving you have no point and are only here to aggravate people.

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

I'm glad my intention came across clearly, and glad you concur!

I don't have any issues with lessons being learned from biology, as I have mentioned we can have neural networks and bipedalism. Implementation of these lessons however do not necessitate organic tissue to be present. Neural networks in silicone, and bipedalism without flesh, and even artificial muscle which I've mentioned. If that is the point you were making then we are on the same page

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

I'm going to stay out of the epic clash for the time being- it's a nightmare trying to quote the text walls- but this was too painful to leave alone:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowspeeder
I'm ashamed of both of you.

Afraid I've got little to contribute to the actual topic; I'm not too fussed about it either way. (Whoops, almost left out an 'o' in 'too', heaven knows that would've invalidated my entire argument.) There's probably ways to incorporate an organic army, the trick is doing it without becoming either too remniscent of the Zerg/Tyranid/Borg*/Flood or an entire race of anachronistic Cybranasaurus Rexes. (in spirit, not literally.)

*only part organic, but same principle

Re: They Don't All Have To Be Robots, Lifeforms Can Be Creat

No need to be ashamed of jurgenvonjurgensen (well maybe there is, but not becuse he wrote x-wing). A single x-wing is able to outgun all the AT-AT. He never claimed that they used them in the battle.

Luke did however leave the planet on a x-wing later, so they did have some x-wings on hoth. Why didnt they use those in combat? Becuse starwars is extremly unlogical from time to time.