SPOILERS - Storyline proposal

[Kaslak_CG]

This post is not a brand new storyline proposal, it aims to deepen the current one. I will write my explanation in orange and in italics the edits. Of course the edits are modular and can be singuary taken or rejected.

TIMELINE


- Roughly 1,000,000 years ago and subsequent years

The beginning is quite short-cut. The base idea is goot, and I expanded to a struggle. And i changed a little the nature of the organism - instead of a virus (so destroying cells and weakening the target, with immunitary responses and so on) is a genetically programmed biological nano-bot, created engineriing a virus or bacteria wich replicates using raw biological materials introduced with food. And it didn't born as a psionic intelligence, the nanobots are the branches of a central executive. This is not "Nemesis" from Asimov anymore, and the advantage is that the Hivemind now has it's personal struggle toward perfection.

Also, a more detailed explanation of "how psionics work" can be helpful for the psionic warfare tech description!

On a remote planet in our galaxy called Antares, a viral life-form is engineered in a bio-weapons lab of one of the largest nations on the planet. This blood-borne organism -- not a virus anymore-- was programmed to infiltrate living beings, replicate and change the neural structure of the victim. Then it would have infected others in the traditional way a virus does.

The politicians of this nation begin founding of this technology to subvert Antareans of opposite viewpoints. However, the first experiments were a failure. Since the static nature of the programs, nanobots were to take control only for a few time, while external stimula changed the only things nanobots were to leave behind them were just psichic disorders. The next project involved the  theoretic study of neural networks and information theory, and the nanobots were given an unique capability for devices of such a small scale - long range bulk communication using Low Frequency EM signals, and an improved short-range coordination capability (bulk groups of nanobots compute the EM LF signals and behave properly in the brain). Using a device to send information as crypted low frequency signal they were able to give new instructions to large groups of infected population. The device itself was using a biological neural computer, as Antaresians were using from centuries. As the Network grew in numbers there was an unpredicted result - the Network centers - the infected individuals - were able to coordinate between themselves, and they soon replicated and overcame the control imposed from the Device. At the end, the roles were exchanged and the feedback signals from the network were able to re-adjust the Device purpose, from control device to Central executive of this new extended brain. The central executive was necessary to coordinate the centers - if left alone, the moviments of people on the planet would have led to a chaotic continuos reassembly of the network, making it less efficient. The central executive device role was to re-adjust cognitive paths as people moved through the Network, to keep trace of stored information and integrate them for  decision-making. The politicians weren't aware of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontal_lobe

The virus gains enough intelligence to become self-aware, developing a will of its own as well as a powerful need to grow and survive. It starts to think of ways to shake its masters' control. In the shadows, it begins using its hosts to subvert innocent Antareans. It is cloak-and-dagger work; the virus spreads by directly injecting intended hosts with infected blood. Meanwhile, the Antarean state grows more and more totalitarian, absorbing other nations into itself with the help of XVI -- which is now using them to gain more hosts.
Then the virus manages to infect the first of its masters. With his knowledge and direct access to the other rulers, the rest of the masters quickly suffer the same fate. Within two years after this event, the virus takes possession of 98% of the planet's population. Conflicts and resistance cease as the hive mind assumes dominance over the planet.

- Roughly 998,000 years ago
Antares has become overpopulated to the point where the planet's resources cannot sustain the growing number of hosts anymore. Yet the hive mind must keep growing, this is its most basic instinct and its only desire. It sees only one way out: up.

Strip-mining the planet's remaining resources, the virus starts to build a massive starship in orbit around the alien homeworld, on which to transport its hosts to other sources of metal and energy in faraway star systems. It has a reason: The ark must be big enough to house the entire planetary population of hosts. All of them are coming along.

The viral mind cannot voluntarily divide itself for more than a few days, much like a sane human being wouldn't voluntarily lobotomise himself. After a few days the XVI organisms in the hosts' blood will begin to re-organize an independent neural network and resist reassimilation into the original mind, growing their own new mind instead. If left alone, these could grow more powerful than the original whilst outside supervision, and would undoubtedly come into conflict with the original over the same resources, or worse take control of the entire network with altered cognition, such as the original did few years before on the Device. The original is well aware of this and has no intention to be anything but number one.

Here I made XVI more intelligent, more "Chessy", instead of a disordered-growing-allconsuming cancer, as you would expect from something with frontal lobes

- Roughly 997,980 years ago
The ark is complete and sets out at sublight speeds to the next star system, intent on finding new resources to maintain the host population and producing new hosts so that the hive mind may keep growing. Also the Central Executive Device was expanded to have more computational power



- Roughly 860,000 years ago
XVI, foreseeing the weight of population manteinance took complete control of breeding procedures, mantaining his neuronal centers to an optimal level between computational power and resource consumption. However,the travel time between star systems is taking too long; shortfalls and famines loom on the horizon.

As everything, this part is optional but makes XVI a more cool and reflective guy... and it justifies why the technological leap of wormholes came just now. And give a dramatic background to Ortnoks

In a relatively nearby Star System, for the first time in its long trek, XVI finds another inhabited planet, bearing an intelligent species -- Ortnoks -- in its Dark Ages. While the necessity of new resources was starting to be the first priority, XVI calculated some loss and developed a different plan. Using a cautous approach he studied then infected part of the population. Such a primitive host would have made good work force and strong soliders but nothing best on the long run. After mapping the Ortnok genome and adjusting for their physical irregularities XVI studied the primitive societies of that race, recognized theyr priests and leaders, selectively infected them and use them to puppet the efforts of the population toward technology and religion. While this was happening, XVI archieved something new - he moved the important information from some infected individuals to others, leaving useless ones behind, then brought two/thirds of population into death, saving theyr genetic codes for future cloning. So he ensured the remaining resources would have been enough for a millennia. Then he waited, weakened. The Ortnoks evolved at a very high rate with the benign assistance of XVI, but still indipendently. They created theyr own social structures, theyr own scientific method and approach. But still they were waiting the "Gods" from the sky, as XVI plotted once he taken control of the first spiritual leaders. After a few centuries the Ortnoks were beyond the modern era, and theyr race was worth assimilation. So the Ortnoks welcomed the invaders as theyr Gods, drank theyr holy blood for the sake of salvation, and the nanobots spread and replicate themselves in the whole population in a matter of weeks. This assimilation compensated the loss of many network centers. And those who were once post-modern scientists, philosophers, thinkers, politicians, workers begun excavating theyr own planet as acquired slaves, and XVI had new resources. XVI merged the almost closed scientific path and knowledge of Antaresians with the Ortnoks' fresh scientific method. The old knowldges merged with the new method allowed XVI to a huge technologic leap: The Whormhole FTL drive.
The ark can now travel to new resource centres in weeks instead of centuries; a new fleet of scout UFOs is sent all over the galaxy to find hot spots. When XVI resumes its nomadic trek, it takes the Ortnok hosts with it, leaving only a barren, lifeless shell.


More to come, if you liked it

[H-Hour]

Hi Kaslak! You may be interested in this post.

[Kaslak_CG]

Hi Kaslak! You may be interested in this post.

I did read, do you mean that i should contribute instead of giving ideas, or that i went too much on science rather than sci-fi atmosphere?

[H-Hour]

I did read, do you mean that i should contribute instead of giving ideas, or that i went too much on science rather than sci-fi atmosphere?

No, your post is fine. I just wanted you to be aware in case you don't get much feedback.

[Kaslak_CG]

Oh i see very well, then i will keep on deepening the rest of the story regardless of feedback in spare time

[Kaslak_CG]

- Until Roughly 700,000 years ago

XVI keeps on with technological advancement. During this time period XVI morphs his hosts' brains to specialize them, then using the network cohordination becomes able to have a large "thinking group". On the other side, studying Ortnoks' anatomy and genoma, XVI sees theyr potential of growth as powerful soliders. Engineering theyr genoma XVI improves theyr phisical strenght at the cost of reverting theyr individual minds to a primitive level. In few generations, the only thing remaining of former Ortnoks race is a genetic record, and an Hulky engineered being. During that time period other beings are creating, both crossing Ortnoks genoma with Antaresians' , and crossing animal species genomas of both theyr planets. Almost all of these experiments were incompatible with life thus terminated upon creation. Very few of these experiments were actually new species adept to various tasks. <- This is to justify the more species the player will encounter, without having to create a planet for each of these. Now more races could be added in game as genetically enginered creatures without having to change the story plot. The virus develops also a powerful psionic projector device, an offshoot of the wormhole FTL technology, allowing itself to maintain its hive mind over colonies several lightyears away, working like a repetitor.. Unfortunately, the hard limits on the projectors' range restricts the virus to merely ravaging several systems at a time.

[NicAdi]

I don't get it; how is this *slightly tweaked* storyline of yours any better than the "official" one?!

You're only making minor changes to the initial wording (i.e. " [...] and subsequent years " -- isn't it obvious that a *historic/background* timeline will cover a stream of events from some past moment in time to the "present time" of the epic?!), or adding complexity without any insight or depth (i.e. " [...] not a virus, but a genetically programmed biological nano-bot " -- I'm not even sure what all that pseudo-techno babble was supposed to mean, or what are the implied differences from the "original description" of XVI), thus only confusing the reader and shattering the "suspension of disbelief".

By the way, why are you doing this? As I remember, there was a post from the authors, some good time ago, which clearly stated that no more suggestions/alterations will be accepted to the current storyline, as it is final (own views on this issue notwithstanding). So why bother at all?!

P.S. Should you choose to continue this endeavour, to whatever end and for whatever reasons, let me give you a bit of (free) advice: do use a spelling checker, OK? (e.g. it's 'their', not 'theyr'; 'genome', not 'genoma' etc. etc. )

[BloodMagus]

There is a far more simpler point.

The timeline of things that happened before the game starts, does not need to be edited or explained any better than what Winter has. There absolutely no point

Why? - The player will never know. It exists simply as an unseen foundation for the storyline in the game, and is perfectably capable of doing so provided it makes sense. Winter could have wrote "The spacefaring Tamarians found/made a mind controlling parasite and infected themselves, which caused them to find and then to infect the Ortnoks, now they both are going to try to infect earth".

This is not a book, this is a game. The player has a limited perspective of whats going on storywise, and its that perspective you should aim to polish.

If you going to use words like "genetically programmed biological nano-bot", have the decency to do some basic research - thus realising what you're talking about was essentially genetically engineered bacteria and viri - which has not been science fiction in a long time.

[Kaslak_CG]

I don't get it; how is this *slightly tweaked* storyline of yours any better than the "official" one?!

You're only making minor changes to the initial wording (i.e. " [...] and subsequent years " -- isn't it obvious that a *historic/background* timeline will cover a stream of events from some past moment in time to the "present time" of the epic?!), or adding complexity without any insight or depth (i.e. " [...] not a virus, but a genetically programmed biological nano-bot " -- I'm not even sure what all that pseudo-techno babble was supposed to mean, or what are the implied differences from the "original description" of XVI), thus only confusing the reader and shattering the "suspension of disbelief".

By the way, why are you doing this? As I remember, there was a post from the authors, some good time ago, which clearly stated that no more suggestions/alterations will be accepted to the current storyline, as it is final (own views on this issue notwithstanding). So why bother at all?!

P.S. Should you choose to continue this endeavour, to whatever end and for whatever reasons, let me give you a bit of (free) advice: do use a spelling checker, OK? (e.g. it's 'their', not 'theyr'; 'genome', not 'genoma' etc. etc. )

-It's not better, it is the same with some more details.

- About "subsequent yrs": you didn't get the point i was aiming at, but it wasn't obvious. If you write "Roughly 1,000,000" it means that you can't give events with a much detailed time resolution. So it is a formal mistake to give events "roughly 1,000,000 -> R. 999,999". "Subsequent" was referred to the fact i have merged the first steps of storyline in a single step of less-than-thousand years.

-Pseudo-techno babble? First of all, it's not pseudo-techno but in part is reality. And when the alternative explaination is "psionics", which means nothing but is part of "sci-fi culture" i think you can't say my idea is "babble".

-I have read that post about altering the storyline. If i remember correctly it was in response to more radical changes. I repeat, i not going to change anything, just strenghten the structure. And if devs don't like it, they just leave it and no offense is made.

There is a far more simpler point.

The timeline of things that happened before the game starts, does not need to be edited or explained any better than what Winter has. There absolutely no point

Why? - The player will never know. It exists simply as an unseen foundation for the storyline in the game, and is perfectably capable of doing so provided it makes sense. Winter could have wrote "The spacefaring Tamarians found/made a mind controlling parasite and infected themselves, which caused them to find and then to infect the Ortnoks, now they both are going to try to infect earth".

This is not a book, this is a game. The player has a limited perspective of whats going on storywise, and its that perspective you should aim to polish.

If you going to use words like "genetically programmed biological nano-bot", have the decency to do some basic research - thus realising what you're talking about was essentially genetically engineered bacteria and viri - which has not been science fiction in a long time.

-About the "player-centric" viewpoint i don't agree except at a superficial level. Ok, you just give some sense somehow, such as there is notihing more than the player sees. Fair enough, it works. What do you get? Since the aliens are put there just to entratain the player, they entratain the player. Terror mission, terror mission, perhaps some other missions, they get tchnology stolen and get destroyed.
Don't XVI have a "B plan"? All he does is to try infecting? Nothing more, such as weaken the enemy before exposing? Don't XVI, while humans study him, try to study human weakenesses beyond adapting the virus to the human race?
http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=5084.0
And as greever said, perhaps in the next century there will be an alien campaign.
See, it's not for the player entretainment to build a solid and deep storyline beyond the player capability to know it. It's about design. If you have a strong backbone story you can introduce more interesting features. What about give more paths to victory? One researching the FTL drive, the other understanding XVI "psionic" abilities. It would be interesting, but you can't do it in a convicning level if you think only about "player". And what about having more paths to lose? XVI may have different plans and surely if he will ever know humans may counteratack, he may try to destroy humans instead of giving them the chance to destroy him.

- The decency to do basic research, i see. Do you think i didn't know nano-bots are actually enginered bacteria and viri?
"genetically programmed biological nano-bot, created engineriing a virus or bacteria wich replicates using raw biological materials introduced with food. "
So i knew about this, have the "decency" to read carefully (i know my writing style in english is painful to read). Why then i made this modification? Well, once a virus is re-programmed to serve, i don't think is a virus anymore but a nano-bot. And, I eliminated the replacement mechanism similar to the one of virus which weakens the host attacking his cells (would be a conter-productive plan). This is the difference.
It's not much advanced the idea of nanobots, as you pointed, but the idea of organizational capability both short (inside body) and long range (what magical interaction could be responsible for signal transmission regardless of medium? gravitational?).

Now the polemical part. When "psionic" capability was used do you think somebody made a research on parapsichology journals? I don't think so, the idea of distributed intelligence is in our "sci-fi culture" from "Nemesis" written by Asimov and perhaps before (but i don't know). Also do you think that FTL wormholes were called after studying formally the General Relativity? I don't think so. The concept of "wormholes" and "curvature of space and time" are also in our "sci-fi culture" (think about "Star trek"). I took biological nanobots (real) imbued them with the concept of organization (I recall an episode in Star Trek:TNG where a race of mechanical nanobots with a collective intelligence is accidentally created, giving ordinary service nanobots the capability of communication). So i made somethig already part of "sci-fi culture".

Anyway, back on topic.. i don't intend to change the storyline, just to deepen it, hoping that it somehow will give ideas for nonlinear developement, psionic warfare and perhaps a future alien campaign.
For example, with the idea of engineered races dev can create lots of new alien types in the future. If instead my ideas will die here no problem.

[Hertzila]

Besides the fact that Winter said he doesn't take suggestions for the storyline, one thing about your storyline IMO: too much technobabble.

You keep talking bout a sci-fi culture but please realize that UFO: AI (at least, to my knowledge) is hard sci-fi. Realistic sci-fi. That means minimal amount of technobabble and a very self-consistent world, usually with the physics being close to ours. IMO you keep saying things in complicated, technobabblish ways. Just name the damn thing gene-manipulated or artifically created bacteria or virus, instead of "genetically programmed biological nano-bot". It may sound flashier but it's unnecessarily complicated.

Also, yes, they were called wormholes after studying general relativity. It was coined by a physicist in 57, Star Trek came 66. I'm not sure whether space curvature came from it or not but I think yes, it came from it based on the Idea of space-time. (Also, IIRC, the curving thing was retroactively put into the Star Trek series.)

This might be sci-fi but don't flood it with all sorts of useless complications and factoids/facts.

[Kaslak_CG]

Besides the fact that Winter said he doesn't take suggestions for the storyline, one thing about your storyline IMO: too much technobabble.

You keep talking bout a sci-fi culture but please realize that UFO: AI (at least, to my knowledge) is hard sci-fi. Realistic sci-fi. That means minimal amount of technobabble and a very self-consistent world, usually with the physics being close to ours. IMO you keep saying things in complicated, technobabblish ways. Just name the damn thing gene-manipulated or artifically created bacteria or virus, instead of "genetically programmed biological nano-bot". It may sound flashier but it's unnecessarily complicated.

Also, yes, they were called wormholes after studying general relativity. It was coined by a physicist in 57, Star Trek came 66. I'm not sure whether space curvature came from it or not but I think yes, it came from it based on the Idea of space-time. (Also, IIRC, the curving thing was retroactively put into the Star Trek series.)

This might be sci-fi but don't flood it with all sorts of useless complications and factoids/facts.

Realistic and closer to our physics? So you say that psionics are nearer to our physics than EM signals are?

About wormholes i meant that since somebody have already done the research, and they are part of that "culture", nowadays that concept can be recalled without much pain. As the concepts of collective intelligence and psionics.

About the organism you missed the point - you can "call" it as you like virus, bacteria - even "Mikey Mouse" for what i could care - but the replication mechanism should be the smartest possible to keep the host in good health and not the one of an "ordinary virus". For the sake of the "very consistent world", i suppose antaresian politicians weren't fools

[BloodMagus]

-Pseudo-techno babble? First of all, it's not pseudo-techno but in part is reality. And when the alternative explaination is "psionics", which means nothing but is part of "sci-fi culture" i think you can't say my idea is "babble".

I deal with some of these concepts where I work, and it strikes me as uninformed babble or jargon. You're using overly complicated terms for very simple concepts. It demonstrates misunderstanding, and serves only to confuse others. Its like someone calling water, dihydrogen monoxide.

-About the "player-centric" viewpoint i don't agree except at a superficial level. Ok, you just give some sense somehow, such as there is notihing more than the player sees. Fair enough, it works. What do you get? Since the aliens are put there just to entratain the player, they entratain the player. Terror mission, terror mission, perhaps some other missions, they get tchnology stolen and get destroyed.

It worked for XCOM. Case in point. Further, the underpinning advice in all fiction - show, don't tell.

Don't XVI have a "B plan"? All he does is to try infecting? Nothing more, such as weaken the enemy before exposing? Don't XVI, while humans study him, try to study human weakenesses beyond adapting the virus to the human race?

If XVI was higher functioning, prehaps it has alternative strategies. But unless these strategies are going to be employed in the game mechanics, its a waste of time to consider them. To my knowledge the only mechanics so far to be included are: terror missions, ufos, bases, XVI infection.

http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=5084.0
And as greever said, perhaps in the next century there will be an alien campaign.
See, it's not for the player entretainment to build a solid and deep storyline beyond the player capability to know it. It's about design. If you have a strong backbone story you can introduce more interesting features.

The strongest structure is the most simple one (a triangle in real life). What you've proposed is akin to scoleosis for the story's backbone.

What about give more paths to victory? One researching the FTL drive, the other understanding XVI "psionic" abilities. It would be interesting, but you can't do it in a convicning level if you think only about "player". And what about having more paths to lose? XVI may have different plans and surely if he will ever know humans may counteratack, he may try to destroy humans instead of giving them the chance to destroy him.

This is an issue of game mechanics, and needs to be addressed in the code or the campaign scripting. I've yet to see whether complex 'game over' conditions are possible.

- The decency to do basic research, i see. Do you think i didn't know nano-bots are actually enginered bacteria and viri?

Research, from which I see, you still haven't done. Bacteria generally sit on the lower micron scale, or the very very high nano scale - so they're really not at a nano scale. Viri are generally nano particles, but can't be programmed like a robot and are only capable of replicating DNA/RNA. Hence genetically engineered bacteria & viri are not considered nanobots and its foolish to refer to them as such.
Most proposed nanobots are essentially very tiny mobile computers. However any nanorobot would need to be constructed using bacteria or complicated self assembly. In fact some literature suggests a self replicating robot may not be possible at nano scale. Control of these nanobots would be based on swarm intelligence.

"genetically programmed biological nano-bot, created engineriing a virus or bacteria wich replicates using raw biological materials introduced with food. "
So i knew about this, have the "decency" to read carefully (i know my writing style in english is painful to read). Why then i made this modification? Well, once a virus is re-programmed to serve, i don't think is a virus anymore but a nano-bot. And, I eliminated the replacement mechanism similar to the one of virus which weakens the host attacking his cells (would be a conter-productive plan). This is the difference.

I'm prepared to accept that if English is your second language, it accounts for for your inefficient vocabulary and poor comprehension. But English is my native tongue, and it is plain as day that 'genetically programmed biological nano-bot' is nonsense. If it genetically programmable, its gots genes - and that means its not a nanobot but something with DNA. Also the words biological and robot are contradictions, and the word nanobot is an extension of robot - some of that contradiction carries over.

Virus themselves can't be programmed. All they do is replicate through the host DNA/RNA or its intermediates, creating copies of themselves by modifying the DNA - their only application is to inject new genes. The XVI described so far by Winter is not a virus, but a cellular parasite - of which there are tons of real life examples (Giardia, Cryptospordia).

Furthermore, weakening the host is only an issue if there is no reproduction of hosts. Otherwise all the real life diseases and viruses would never have survived. Furthermore, you can't get something for nothing. Everything has a trade off, so its most realistic to have a complimentary virus weaken its host.

It's not much advanced the idea of nanobots, as you pointed, but the idea of organizational capability both short (inside body) and long range (what magical interaction could be responsible for signal transmission regardless of medium? gravitational?).

Who needs signal transmission. Swarm intelligence will account for any apparant organisational behaviour. Go play the Conway's Game of Life.

Now the polemical part. When "psionic" capability was used do you think somebody made a research on parapsichology journals? I don't think so, the idea of distributed intelligence is in our "sci-fi culture" from "Nemesis" written by Asimov and perhaps before (but i don't know). Also do you think that FTL wormholes were called after studying formally the General Relativity? I don't think so. The concept of "wormholes" and "curvature of space and time" are also in our "sci-fi culture" (think about "Star trek"). I took biological nanobots (real) imbued them with the concept of organization (I recall an episode in Star Trek:TNG where a race of mechanical nanobots with a collective intelligence is accidentally created, giving ordinary service nanobots the capability of communication). So i made somethig already part of "sci-fi culture".

Imbued them? With organisation?
Your proposed ELF communication is impossible according physics, as it requires tranmission antenna half as long as the wavelength (the lower the frequency, the longer the length of antenna), which is impossible at nano scale. At least Psionics COULD be possible by some unknown method of communication.

Anyway, back on topic.. i don't intend to change the storyline, just to deepen it, hoping that it somehow will give ideas for nonlinear developement, psionic warfare and perhaps a future alien campaign.

You haven't made the story deeper, just more complicated & haphazard with no real gain.

For example, with the idea of engineered races dev can create lots of new alien types in the future. If instead my ideas will die here no problem.

The current proposed XVI could easily assimilate other races, so you haven't added anything new. All Winter needs to do is rewrite a section of text no player ever gets to see.

Rather then sit here trying to rewrite the bible, how about putting the same effort into translating the game into italian, or what ever your native tongue is.

[Hertzila]

Realistic and closer to our physics? So you say that psionics are nearer to our physics than EM signals are?

I meant realistic as in the literature style, realism.
And at least they're consistent which is the thing we should strive for. Realistic (as in, close to our reality) physics might/could/should be a good bonus objective but it isn't the main one.

About the organism you missed the point - you can "call" it as you like virus, bacteria - even "Mikey Mouse" for what i could care - but the replication mechanism should be the smartest possible to keep the host in good health and not the one of an "ordinary virus". For the sake of the "very consistent world", i suppose antaresian politicians weren't fools

You, sir, missed the point. Don't call it unnecessarily complex. Use more understandable ways to say what you want. You don't call water dihydrogen monoxide outside talks about chemical formulas, do you? Neither should you call something "genetically programmed biological nano-bot" outside one remark in a research text when there's a simpler way of saying it (and according to BloodMagus, it's also a wrong term).

[Kaslak_CG]

I deal with some of these concepts where I work, and it strikes me as uninformed babble or jargon. You're using overly complicated terms for very simple concepts. It demonstrates misunderstanding, and serves only to confuse others. Its like someone calling water, dihydrogen monoxide.

It worked for XCOM. Case in point. Further, the underpinning advice in all fiction - show, don't tell.


If XVI was higher functioning, prehaps it has alternative strategies. But unless these strategies are going to be employed in the game mechanics, its a waste of time to consider them. To my knowledge the only mechanics so far to be included are: terror missions, ufos, bases, XVI infection.
 The strongest structure is the most simple one (a triangle in real life). What you've proposed is akin to scoleosis for the story's backbone.

 This is an issue of game mechanics, and needs to be addressed in the code or the campaign scripting. I've yet to see whether complex 'game over' conditions are possible.

Research, from which I see, you still haven't done. Bacteria generally sit on the lower micron scale, or the very very high nano scale - so they're really not at a nano scale. Viri are generally nano particles, but can't be programmed like a robot and are only capable of replicating DNA/RNA. Hence genetically engineered bacteria & viri are not considered nanobots and its foolish to refer to them as such.
Most proposed nanobots are essentially very tiny mobile computers. However any nanorobot would need to be constructed using bacteria or complicated self assembly. In fact some literature suggests a self replicating robot may not be possible at nano scale. Control of these nanobots would be based on swarm intelligence.

I'm prepared to accept that if English is your second language, it accounts for for your inefficient vocabulary and poor comprehension. But English is my native tongue, and it is plain as day that 'genetically programmed biological nano-bot' is nonsense. If it genetically programmable, its gots genes - and that means its not a nanobot but something with DNA. Also the words biological and robot are contradictions, and the word nanobot is an extension of robot - some of that contradiction carries over.

Virus themselves can't be programmed. All they do is replicate through the host DNA/RNA or its intermediates, creating copies of themselves by modifying the DNA - their only application is to inject new genes. The XVI described so far by Winter is not a virus, but a cellular parasite - of which there are tons of real life examples (Giardia, Cryptospordia).

Furthermore, weakening the host is only an issue if there is no reproduction of hosts. Otherwise all the real life diseases and viruses would never have survived. Furthermore, you can't get something for nothing. Everything has a trade off, so its most realistic to have a complimentary virus weaken its host.


Who needs signal transmission. Swarm intelligence will account for any apparant organisational behaviour. Go play the Conway's Game of Life.
Imbued them? With organisation?
Your proposed ELF communication is impossible according physics, as it requires tranmission antenna half as long as the wavelength (the lower the frequency, the longer the length of antenna), which is impossible at nano scale. At least Psionics COULD be possible by some unknown method of communication.

 You haven't made the story deeper, just more complicated & haphazard with no real gain.

 The current proposed XVI could easily assimilate other races, so you haven't added anything new. All Winter needs to do is rewrite a section of text no player ever gets to see.

Rather then sit here trying to rewrite the bible, how about putting the same effort into translating the game into italian, or what ever your native tongue is.

First of all... of course when i wrote that i considered "maybe this part won't do... perhaps they won't take this part but they will like the more planning behaviour of XVI... i will write everything anyway"

- That can be reworked, i see your point. I thought that once a virus is modified to not replicate attacking the host's cells it isn't a virus anymore. Since it is somehow "programmed" for a specific task a term "biologial bot" would be more appropriate. So "engineered virus" is the correct terminology, i got it?

- Conservative.

- XVI strategies must be thought based on XVI's objectives, which are stated in the back story. If XVI objective is just to grow and he can't even consider a basic strategy as controlling the reproductive rate of his hosts i can't see what else could XVI do except what he does now. I know it has no impact in game now (and ever, i suppose).

-The concept of simple itself is relative. I didn't even describe Antares geographical map, the political parties of the state which has started it all, nor the Ortnoks religion in detail. C'mon, just kidding! I got your point.

-The same as before on XVI strategies. Anyway you would agree that at least for the path to victory there could be more ways in the future.

-High nanoscale and low microscale boundaries are quite ... blurry. it should be between 10 and 100 nanometers.

-the -bot fact is simpler anyway yes, english is my secondary language. I confused the role of DNA in biocomputers (it's not my invention)  with the role of dna in viria and bacteria, that are essentially different. I tried to think about a modified being wich incorporates DNA as information for computing. A swarm of these beings could load much information. That was my mistake. Anyway, from a philosophical standpoint, aren't we machines - made of biological matter?.The  Brain is a computer, our DNA is just storaged information. Soul? nah!
About the reproduction as the solution for weakening i thought about it. For humans in western countries with 1-2 offspring each couple it would be not good. Plus, the virus should infect the fetus that share blood with mother, and the child born already infected. Perhaps Antaresians worked in a different way? (remember: XVI took power only later, the original plan of politicians was different)

-I thought about it. A dense bulk of nanobeings could be the missing antenna, provided they are organized to do so. But there are several other problems, such as the inefficency both to receive and to send signals and back noise would keep it from functioning. I already thougt about it. See, i don't believe in "unknown forms of communication".
Also, if "unknown" can be taken as a valid argument i could tell that Antaresians' technology was more advanced than ours in complex systems and they were able to do the things i said in an "unknown way".

-i will play it, then i shall understand what you mean

-we are not here for gain i suppose

-I rewrote only the Ortnoks bible. Besides jokes, i could put my effort elsewhere. During the time i answered those posts i would have finished anyway,and started to propose things aout the campaign. But ithat was the first thing to do, right? Start from what the player can see.

Anyway i realized the fundamental point of your critics (i didn't find them much constructive, but interesting the last one from a field specialist). You essentially told me that if you have to use lots of fantasy it's better using a simple concept like "psionics" than a "sort" of explaination which leaves anyway a lot of opened questions. The problem is not solved that way. I agree about this critic.

Ok, let's take away the "nanites" part (perhaps that name fits better, doesn't it?). What about the rest? It could work anyway. About XVI having the possibility to move information inside the network, the use of genetically altered beings, the exact role of the "Control device" as the new cohordination center? This last one could lead to one of victory paths in game.

I meant realistic as in the literature style, realism.
And at least they're consistent which is the thing we should strive for. Realistic (as in, close to our reality) physics might/could/should be a good bonus objective but it isn't the main one.

You, sir, missed the point. Don't call it unnecessarily complex. Use more understandable ways to say what you want. You don't call water dihydrogen monoxide outside talks about chemical formulas, do you? Neither should you call something "genetically programmed biological nano-bot" outside one remark in a research text when there's a simpler way of saying it (and according to BloodMagus, it's also a wrong term).

- I agree about realism in that way, but I don't see the connection then. Realism in that way should be paying attention to explain why things developed as they did, and explain why they could'nt evolve in a different way. I tried. Perhaps failed, but i tried in that way if you leave the techno-thing aside and look carefully to XVI behaviour.

-I should have pinted that the primary issue of my change was about the replication method. This could have avoided some misunderstandment.

[NicAdi]

<1>- It's not better, it is the same with some more details.

<2>- About "subsequent yrs": you didn't get the point i was aiming at, but it wasn't obvious. If you write "Roughly 1,000,000" it means that you can't give events with a much detailed time resolution. So it is a formal mistake to give events "roughly 1,000,000 -> R. 999,999". "Subsequent" was referred to the fact i have merged the first steps of storyline in a single step of less-than-thousand years.

<3>- Pseudo-techno babble? First of all, it's not pseudo-techno but in part is reality. And when the alternative explaination is "psionics", which means nothing but is part of "sci-fi culture" i think you can't say my idea is "babble".

<4>- I have read that post about altering the storyline. If i remember correctly it was in response to more radical changes. I repeat, i not going to change anything, just strenghten the structure. And if devs don't like it, they just leave it and no offense is made.

<1> Then *WHY* do it at all?!? What's the point in changing/adding stuff it, if you're not providing any sort of improvement to the overall story, or to certain story elements? Just so you can have some different "bling" words in there, and/or an overly complicated array of details upon details upon details? Who cares about those anyway?!?
Hang on a minute... Is this, perchance, a rerun of the «Pimp My Story» TV-show?
<2> You're absolutely right. I did not get your point at all; and I still don't. So what the hell is wrong with just saying "Roughly [insert some random figure here] years ago"?! (well, as long as the number used makes some sense -- but that's another issue) Why do you feel you need to say more than just that?
<3> This Wiki article explains what "technobabble" means in context: Technobabble (Wikipedia). You should have researched the term yourself -- since it obviously was unfamiliar to you -- rather than making assumptions and getting defensive... until someone points it out to you.
I chose to add the "pseudo-" (Lat. "false") suffix to it because... well, yours is even worse than the normal brand -- proof that, no offence, you don't really know what you're talking about. By the way, have you ever wondered why all our current, modern wireless communication systems operate within the High and Very High frequency range (i.e. "microwaves"), and why we continuously struggle to get even higher? Just a thought...
<4> Umm... I'm pretty sure it said *ANY* changes/suggestions will no longer be admitted. But that's not really important; what I'm still having a hard time understanding is what is it that you think you're doing here...

Besides the fact that Winter said he doesn't take suggestions for the storyline, [...]

Funny enough, not too long before that he was complaining nobody made any suggestions to his story... But what can you say?!
I guess that's just another reason why I generally prefer summer...

Also, yes, they were called wormholes after studying general relativity. It was coined by a physicist in 57, Star Trek came 66. I'm not sure whether space curvature came from it or not but I think yes, it came from it based on the Idea of space-time.

• Wormhole, also known as the Einstein-Rosen Bridge: a particular solution to the field equations developed from the General Relativity theory --> Read more
• Spacetime^{(N.B. not just 'space')} curvature: a core concept within the General Relativity theory (together with that of 'spacetime' itself) --> Read more

@ *ALL*

The correct English plural for "virus" is "viruses", not "viri" (or the alternatively spelled "virii") -- a common mistake.
This article explains why is this so...