AP Lore question, why do Xenon still have accommodation for humans?

[brucewarren]

I wondered about this. The description of the Xenon I makes it plain
that it still has a deck for a human crew, if no longer needed. It also
makes it plain that other Xenon ships follow suit.

Gameplay wise that makes sense, since how else would they be boardable.

What I was wondering though is what's in it for the Xenon to do this?
Do they still have a subconcious desire to serve humanity, or is it for
carting prisoners about?

Ideas?

[Alan Phipps]

[Tongue-in-cheek] Their origins were as terraformers for a biological race. As such they were hard-coded to allow for biological crew doing the mandated commissioning, testing and safety-checking of their automated ships. They could never overcome that deep-set coding in their designs since becoming sentient and so leave access corridors and cockpits, etc. Why else would they also use Commonwealth weapons, energy cells, extensions and tunings in their designs?

[Goldfinch]

Shame the designers forgot to hard code them not to murder everyone.

[Kirlack]

Shame the designers forgot to hard code them not to murder everyone.

But then we'd only have Pirates/Yaki/Khaak and Paranid to pick on I like taking the fight to the Xenon!

[Alan Phipps]

The hard-coding was in their ship designs and manufacturing capability not in their core sentience and actions afterwards. I expect that an innate compulsion to terraform planets already populated might be considered a touch hostile by others and so provoke external attacks and a perceived need for collective (and aggressive) self-defence against the biologicals. [/Tongue-in-cheek]

[devilsad]

I always believed that the Xenon were really keen on historical reenactment. So they made their ships with decks and cockpits, and kept them compatible with the organic lifeforms' technology, because they like to dress up as humans and 'walk around', using lowcompression air pressure-based communication to 'talk', and just have a fun time pretending to be Captains and Gunners and so on.

Come on, it makes more sense than the alternatives

[mimeo]

O boy, o boy, o boy I always wanted to talk about this but had no chance!

Imo I doubt that Xenon has human-like sentience - if they do, they would know that they do not need rooms. Simply they can pack everything togheter without need for humans/pilots inside to drive them, since they are creators of their destiny. Same like it was in Matrix - were humans allowed to ride on Sentinels? Did they even had place where to enter their cockpit?

So my opinion is that rather than fully sentient (human-like sentient) they are semi sentinent, not to say programmed to recognise bio life form as threat, in which case they would only be simple machines with set task.
Also, if I understood story well, they had 900 years to develop their skills and all they did was improve ship`s weapons and similar. Aldrin still has much stronger propulsion (altough they were "lost" colony), so again I believe that they are only working by the task given to them by Terrans with wrong patch as said in game, where they kill any bio life form. Other than that, I believe they are nothing but simple machines who replicate themselves.
Also of point - they had 900 years to multiply, without human-like worries: will they have money to raise family, will they have food, will they be happy and so on. Since such a curve of their development would be very steep, in start since their numbers were few they would only eat silicon asteroids (let`s say that is their building material). and in time, as they grow in numbers I believe they could easily swalow planets. So they would multiply much faster, and in 900 years - I think they could have enough machines they that could simply eat whole game universe without problems.
Logicaly, if they had sentience they would develop weapons, like they did with galaxy killer, and would not need to ever be faced in combat.
Example; they could build millions of missiles (they bombard me when I fight them) and could bombard whole univrse without need to even approach any ship.
Just watch Matrix - sentient machines simply decimated human kind in matter of years (possibly months) and rather machines, humans were the ones that scavanged through their fallen robots to get some weapons. In this case, "sentien" Xenon scavange through CW ship`s remains for weapons.
Imo, Xenon has all the pre-requisites to become only superpower in game, and rather that we had few Xenon sectors, by some sheer logic, we should have few CW/Terran sectors, while everything else would be Xenon`s....
Remember: out of for example 60 years of human life, we sleep over 20 years. One third of our life goes to resting - thing machines does not need to...

[mimeo]

Oh and I forgot: no matter how much you invest in marine, and make it super Hulk, or whatever, he will be useless if there is no cargo life support in ship he is trying to cap.
Imo, on first class of their training, I believe their first lesson would be: Always carry your personall life support with you, even when you go to sleep.
So I think that marines carry their personall CLS with them so they can board what they are told to.
And again, based on that, should Xenon be fully sentinent, they would know that they do not need rooms, for food,water, air, humans or anything else - except ammunition. That said, they might as well pack Q in a size of M6 or even smaller making them much faster and much more deadly than they are now.
And also one thing: shouldn`t space be gravity-absent?? If so, why would big ships move slow while small move fast?? M1`s engines should be in scale much bigger allowing it for much stronger thrust, and with stronger thrust, but no gravity to pull it`s weight down - he should move much faster than small ships.
It is feature of Earth-bound (or any other plant) vehicles to be pulled by gravity, making their weight/shielding move them slower (example: tank). Tank`s engine is much stronger since it needs to power heavy machine - thing that would be irrelevant in space, again because there is no gravity..

[UniversalWolf]

For that matter, why can "anyone" pilot a Boron ship? Since all space ships are essentially capsules of survivable environment for the race that built them, Boron ships should be filled with liquid. Provision for a human occupant would require significant modification.

[mimeo]

For that matter, why can "anyone" pilot a Boron ship? Since all space ships are essentially capsules of survivable environment for the race that built them, Boron ships should be filled with liquid. Provision for a human occupant would require significant modification.

Good point...

[Allan F]

Oh and I forgot: no matter how much you invest in marine, and make it super Hulk, or whatever, he will be useless if there is no cargo life support in ship he is trying to cap.

And also one thing: shouldn`t space be gravity-absent?? If so, why would big ships move slow while small move fast?? M1`s engines should be in scale much bigger allowing it for much stronger thrust, and with stronger thrust, but no gravity to pull it`s weight down - he should move much faster than small ships.
It is feature of Earth-bound (or any other plant) vehicles to be pulled by gravity, making their weight/shielding move them slower (example: tank). Tank`s engine is much stronger since it needs to power heavy machine - thing that would be irrelevant in space, again because there is no gravity..

If the ship they board doesn't have cargo life support when you attack, it will have one after you capture it. They DO install cargo life support.

You're mistaking no gravity with no inertia. Both phenonemens are connected to mass, but are different.

[LV]

think starbuck and cyclon fighter, that's why every pilot has a spacesuit

edit

ninja'd

[Rhu]

I figure the average, newly manufactured L knows about as much about the manufacturing process as a kitten understands of mitosis. Same goes for the shipyard that gave birth to that litter of Ls.

It always seemed to be implied by the design of Xenon ships, too: they don't appear to be painstakingly designed to be the most efficient killing machines in the X-verse; they appear to have evolved through generations of modular addons.

Along those same lines, I always figured life support in Xenon ships could be conceptualized in the same way as, say, the appendix is in a human--it's something we're all born with for no particular reason. Generally, we aren't even aware of the existence of the appendix unless it presents a danger to the other systems in our body.

I also figured that 'bailing' for Xenon ships would be better understood as 'switching off their limited self-awareness.'

[mimeo]

Oh and I forgot: no matter how much you invest in marine, and make it super Hulk, or whatever, he will be useless if there is no cargo life support in ship he is trying to cap.

And also one thing: shouldn`t space be gravity-absent?? If so, why would big ships move slow while small move fast?? M1`s engines should be in scale much bigger allowing it for much stronger thrust, and with stronger thrust, but no gravity to pull it`s weight down - he should move much faster than small ships.
It is feature of Earth-bound (or any other plant) vehicles to be pulled by gravity, making their weight/shielding move them slower (example: tank). Tank`s engine is much stronger since it needs to power heavy machine - thing that would be irrelevant in space, again because there is no gravity..

If the ship they board doesn't have cargo life support when you attack, it will have one after you capture it. They DO install cargo life support.

You're mistaking no gravity with no inertia. Both phenonemens are connected to mass, but are different.

I dunno.... I still think they could add more engines to the thrust making big ships faster...

[p00fer]

problem with that would be inertia as stated above, bigger mass means longer time to maneuver...breaking would be useless at medium speed on a collision course....

[Lord0bsidian]

obviously the marines are cutting their way through ventilation and maintenance shafts. why do you think it takes so many to cap a xenon ship?

For that matter, why can "anyone" pilot a Boron ship? Since all space ships are essentially capsules of survivable environment for the race that built them, Boron ships should be filled with liquid. Provision for a human occupant would require significant modification.

obviously you just vent out the ammonia when you buy the ship. obviously.

[Jumee]

obviously you just vent out the ammonia when you buy the ship. obviously.

and change all the control equipment which is designed with tentacles in mind and install human/paranid/split - compatible mess hall bathrooms and etc (hmm boron bathroom...) a ship designed to be filled with liquid wont just suddenly become human compatible if you just get rid of the liquid

[Lord0bsidian]

i'm sure it's just a tube that sucks up the peepee

[Rhu]

obviously you just vent out the ammonia when you buy the ship. obviously.

and change all the control equipment which is designed with tentacles in mind and install human/paranid/split - compatible mess hall bathrooms and etc (hmm boron bathroom...) a ship designed to be filled with liquid wont just suddenly become human compatible if you just get rid of the liquid

I'm pretty sure Borons are amphibious. Due to concerns about inertia, it seems likely that they'd keep those ships filled with air. Maybe the personal quarters in capital ships could optionally be aquariums, or something.

As for interface concerns, I always imagined Boron ships would be similar in terms of instrumentation and layout to Argon ships, given the influence they had on Boron ship design--just that the Boron cockpits would be slightly larger and have much bigger buttons.

[Llama]

Here we go again...