Elephants can be famous for their paintings. In real life. A couple of groups have trained retired elephants to paint. And the elephants love to do so (and will paint some rather random things, not just the scene.) (Could have sworn that I saw some paintings done by an elephant that were fairly crude approximations of cave art, but the only thing I could quickly find is some sketchy impressionist work.)
Well given this is a first contact scenario they wouldn't do any practical jokes. On the other hand I would love to see the Citadel FC team reaction when they learned that all of the species aside from humanity are all uplifts by humanity.
Found some information regarding the canon uplifting: And regarding the Council's stance on things: Bolding mine. Really, all that would have to be changed is for the uplifts to be more towards the 'sapient being' end of the spectrum and you'd be good to go. It may be illegal under Citadel law but I'm pretty sure that pre-existing examples would be exempt. On a mostly unrelated note, here's couple of other interesting GM related tit-bits: Anyone else wonder what would've happened if they hadn't passed that law?
This is not about using swords against a modern army but using organically grown creamic swords and armor against swords and armor. Or Kryptonian metahumans against a modern army without glowy green rocks, take your pick. Scientists are currently making stuff like algae batteries, silk wiring and artificical cells made of plastic; as the technology advances the distinction will lessen, if you include inorganic items made by use of biotech, things like computer chips can be called "organic" too. So your biotech is not good enough to power your teleport organ by digesting food, so what? That's what phostosynthesis is for. Or you can implant a fusion core, that makes your ship a cyborg, not inorganic. It's not like humans qualify as inorganic because our blood is made of iron. Changing the goalposts is my whole point, as arguments against bioships are essentially "human flesh is weaker than steel, therefore a Vorlon bioship is weaker than steel, therefore NASA's Apollo rocket made of steel is more advanced than Vorlon starships" and "we currently cannot build it so it is impossible for magic-using species million years more advanced in an universe where different laws apply, because I say so". With few expections the species using biotech in various media are noted to be old and extremely advanced so when everything they have is already Clarketech, why would living starships being more powerful than humanity's first flying bricks be implausible? It's not like a ship psionically drawing infinite power from hyperspace is any less science fiction depending on whether you build it from wood or stone.
Didn't this whole discussion start with someone suggesting that humanity might go the biotech route and somehow trounce the Reapers, thus rendering the above argument completely invalid regarding the subject under discussion? Or is this discussion no longer even pretending to be on-topic anymore?
re: Uplift The divide between property and sapient being is the big sticking point....I don't trust the ME corporations NOT to try and screw over any sapient life they create...The corporations in Me have way too much power to begin with IMO.
Honestly I would be nervous about uplifting in general. Is an uplifted animal property or a sapient being? If your pet is uplifted for instance, is it considered slavery to be its owner? Would new laws have to be created to deal with uplifted animals? We already have laws against animal abuse, but how should an animal that's been uplifted be treated? Would it fall under human abuse laws now?
It would likely be a oneshot chapter thing but what if an Asari scout ship lands on post Third impact Earth near Shinji and Asuka (original series not movie)
So unit one is a reaper entity that has not be indoctrinated to their party line? no worse: Black moon uses Reapers in the same way the white moon uses angels and most cycles are filled with white moon races.
Three possible ways that will go, depending on the Otech level: 1. "Son, sit down before you hurt yourself." As interesting as introducing random mutations to TM DNA is, idea of making a bioship is far beyond anyone's biotech and remains science fiction of less realistic kind. Obviously nobody sane will try, the unsane will likely cause a plague of mutant Tresher Maws somewhere. Imagine the flying tanks and walking jeeps US army was designing in 1950's. Or the Gay Bomb, what the hell were those people on? 2. "You want to what with what?" One random mutation actually produced a giant TM with a ME core. Studies continue to viability as a terror weapon as you can breed more of them reliably but making an actual ship is a "let's see what happens" project. While it proves that making one into a spaceship is NOT impossible, the main point of the project is large-scale nonhuman cybernetics and studying how to make the TM obey orders properly... Well, that's what reads in the reports, but actually these bioengineers just wanted to try their crazy idea. You could use the TM ship to travel to other planets and bomb them with spores, but unless the thing can use ship-scale biotics it's not a plausible design for combat. Of course if this is a Cerberus project it will escape and Shepard has to hunt it down before someone else finds it. Think of current walking vehicles and robots under research, they are not combat mechs but certainly prove the idiots who claim the concept is impossible just because Evangelions are not possible under our physical laws are wrong. This is my beef with the argument, the "no organic tech" crew has all the scientific plausibility of those naysayers who claimed humans cannot survive the incredible speed of a 40mph train and that flight with a heavier than air vehicle or to the Moon is plain impossible. It's not just that they refuse to admit that advanced technology may make less plausible ideas like bioships possible in the future, they refuse to admit current working examples of organic tech exist. 3. "Behold my secret weapon!" If square-cube law actually prevented organic spaceships, it would prevent inorganic ones too, a.k.a. "Yes, a 10m tall human would be crushed under his own weight but that's why my mecha is obviously made of light materials 10.000 times stronger than human flesh and bone AND DOES NOT HAVE THAT PROBLEM!" Unless designed by an idiot, the biotech is sufficiently advanced to not only make TMs into ships but code them so they grow most of required mods by themselves. They are sentient, biotic, FTL capable and able to face off with Citadel warships of equal size, and as soon as some Rachini samples are available, they will also have a groupmind. In fact I'd limit them to gunship size just to give opposition a fighting chance as humanity will have mass-grown a fucking zillon of them by time of the games, so it might give them a chance to slow down the Reapers. Likely weaknesses include inability to grow ultradense armor or upgrade to Thanix cannons by itself and growth rates slower than Citadel's fastest projected ones*. Then again you need Supreme Commander style replicator beams to produce ships faster than some of those fastest calcs, but E0 cannot be as rare as claimed if every gun and civilian car can have some so if humans have enough for a giant fleet, Citadel races can have bigger fleets. (*:Growing one bioship can take years to decades, althought unlike inorganic ones they can continue to grow. Growing lots of them only takes equal time and a larger field.) Also, you just know they'll either get indoctrinated or become sapient and rebel like Geth. You know those fics where humans are so advanced they had tech equal or better than Citadel before they ever met them? This is one of them, it's just biotech flavored. And again I have accidentally spawned a plotbunny: Experiments with Rachini give some other species access to the groupmind or makes them into a new one.
Hey, I`m back. Working on Tomorrow`s War story. Working on ways to beef up the other nations just so this doesnt end up as Americawank. Any ideas?
Germany: Better industrial base and economy. Russia: We have reserves. LOTS of them, and a military who's unofficial motto is KISS. Britain: The best tacticians come from here. France: No one can fault their courage, only their tactics. China: Again, we have reserves. Japan: Robots. LOTS and lots of Robots.
Chinese-Batarian alignment with tons of clones armed with a mix of Batarian and TW weapons sounds like it would be competitive. If you're worried about Amerircawank you probably already have a clear idea where you're going with the US. Russia has several times pursued technologies that the west dismissed as impractical and turned them into something useful- you may want to play with that along with the traditional Russian brute force engineering. No idea what direction the EU would go.
yeah, thats imilar to what I had in mind. Germany: First to build powered armor, and they have massive reserves of advanced powered armor. Russia: Simple tech, but every colony with a automated colony factory can build their simplisitic equipment without imports. the AK-200 puts the AK-47 to shame for its ruggedness and ease of design. Also, they have the largest colonial empire of Humanity. Britain: First to build cruisers, they have the best trained navy and the best counter-esponage teams to keep their tech out of other peoples hands. France: Surprisingly able colonial militas and rapid-respose destroyer squadrons. China: Cloned armies and large reserves. Of course. Largest navy and explorer fleet. Japan: Elite clones, robots, AIs, gundams (realistic variety) Australia: Several Krogan warlords decide to retire in Australia or its colonies, so they some mass effect technology dumped right in their laps. They have cutting edge black ops as well. Hmm. Will keep that in mind too. Main idea I had: Russia isnt up to anything. No superweapon programs, no neotech, no radical changes. Just constant, clockwork growth and expansion of conventional forces and colonies so it ends up being the largest Human nation in the galaxy, even if it isnt the most advanced. Newer technology is not always the best technology in their minds.
Significant lack of natural resources makes that mostly moot, the German industrial base also isn't superior to that of any other first world nation. No, they really don't. Russia's demographic problems are extreme and modern technology is not geared towards large family's. Again, not really true. Are you trying to make a joke? At least this is accurate, add significant natural resources as well. Japan isn't going to become a super power, it's demographic problems combined with a lack of natural resources means that isn't happening. --- There are five potential super powers on Earth; the US, EU, Russia, China, and a united Africa. Russia has massive demographic problems but has the territory, political will, and natural resources. The EU is disunited, lacks natural resources, but still has the potential. China has the territory, natural resources, population, and (at the moment) political will. Africa has the natural resources and territory but it is highly unlikely top unify and stop being a shit hole. The US has the natural resources, population, political will, and territory. It's also the only real currently existing super power.
Jeez. I know that all makes perfect sense, but still... Is it really so justified that America will dominate? Then again, that does explain why I seem to be turning the Tomorrows War Patton-class tank into some kind of hard sci-fi verson of a Baneblade.
They actually have a couple horribly demographic problems as well. Lack of females, plus an aging population that makes America's troubles with the Baby Boomers look small. Note that he said currently existing superpower. He gave you 4 others that could, in the future, rival it. None of them are there yet, though.
The problem is that there are simply only a handful of nations that have the possibility to be real super powers. A nation needs significant natural resources, significant territory, a large population, a competitive tech base, and a unified and established political system. The US, Russia, China, and Australia are about the only currently existing nations that have the territory and natural resources. Russia and Australia have population problems (Australia's population is simply too small). Russia and China have problems with both their tech bases and political establishments (although they aren't bad enough to keep them out of the running). Advances in technology might change the situation (robotics reducing the importance of population, for example) but if you want a story with Japan or Britain being super powers in a hundred years then you need to go out of your way to make that believable.
Oh yeah, everyone listed has problems and advantages. This was just a quick and dirty analysis. Australia actually probably stands the best chance of becoming a super power. If automation continues advancing as predicted then population will become a far more minor concern, in which case Australia is well positioned to become a super power. With China as a motivating factor Australia even stands a better than normal chance of having the political will to become a super power.
