Genetic Templating in Averum?
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| Author | Topic: Genetic Templating in Averum? |
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Shaper
Member # 7420
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written Saturday, November 11 2006 20:53
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I support crossbreeding. How else are we supposed to bring about the master race? Edit: Great, next thing you know, people will be picketing to have Vahnatai Creationism taught in our schools. [ Saturday, November 11, 2006 20:54: Message edited by: Emperor Tullegolar ] -------------------- You lose. Posts: 2156 | Registered: Thursday, August 24 2006 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Saturday, November 11 2006 21:33
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Requiring Vahnatai Creationism would be a sure way to get the Intelligent Designers to reconsider their approach. Having to accept other possibilities is one thing they don't want. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Saturday, November 11 2006 23:07
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quote:He's a furry, so the answer to this is probably yes. [ Saturday, November 11, 2006 23:07: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 7614
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written Saturday, November 11 2006 23:17
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I'm gonna have to suggest that anyone wanting to experiment with crossbreeding in the Avernum setting needs to get themselves BoX and start designing. It is really the only avenue, as everything else is just open for reinterpretation. Posts: 143 | Registered: Sunday, October 29 2006 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 3428
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written Saturday, November 11 2006 23:26
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Du willst haben mein lebensraum? Nein, Schmutziger Mensch! Wurfel! Heh, I never really got the whole furry nazi thing. I'm a furry, and from first hand experience most of them are fairly cool, laid back people, the ones that generate the nazi stereotype are the same ones that are the cause of the whole yiff stereotype. Drama Queens, and yes, unfortunately we have an inordinately high ammount of them. This is almost as bad as that whole R.G.W.S. thing thats going around O.o. Well now that Tyranicus has blitzkrieged his way through the rheinland of general insult, back to the matter at hand. :P It seems that at least two of the four acceptably sentient humanoid species native to the Avernum setting has a strangely high level of genetic compatability. For two seemingly unrelated species. [Since the world seems to view goblinoids in the avernum universe as nothing more than psychotic, mentally deficient pests, with little potential to be anything else :P ] [Unless he's a horrible horrible mutant, or has scabies or something, possibilities I've accounted for by stating that they're very real posibilities. If thats the case though, there isn't really anything to talk about, its the end of the line right there.] [ Saturday, November 11, 2006 23:29: Message edited by: Ezrah, Kitty of Wonder. ] -------------------- HIHI!!!! *hugs indescriminantly* take that, FEEL THE LOVE!!!! Posts: 47 | Registered: Wednesday, September 3 2003 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Saturday, November 11 2006 23:43
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quote:Your word-order could use some work, or else I am direly misinformed. quote:Thank you. I didn't really want to be able to sleep comfortably any time in the next several days. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 7614
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written Saturday, November 11 2006 23:47
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quote:Hey. I looked up yiff. As a result I have to touchtype and continuously wash out my eyes with saline solution. How's that for an advisory? Posts: 143 | Registered: Sunday, October 29 2006 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 1934
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written Saturday, November 11 2006 23:49
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quote:I told you not to. -------------------- You acquire an item: Radio Free Foil Posts: 1169 | Registered: Monday, September 23 2002 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 4153
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written Sunday, November 12 2006 00:04
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quote:FYT. :P -------------------- Gamble with Gaea, and she eats your dice. I hate undead. I really, really, really, really hate undead. With a passion. Posts: 4130 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 7614
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written Sunday, November 12 2006 00:11
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quote:I was just wondering who it would be, and how long it would take. I'll add a few other suggestions, so that maybe this gets pushed to BoA. Ezrah. Use BoA to create a Geneforge style system for adjusting genetic makeup. The mad scientist genre works well given the common perception of the furophile. Posts: 143 | Registered: Sunday, October 29 2006 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 5360
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written Sunday, November 12 2006 04:52
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Wow. Current record for a topic deviating from the actual topic : three posts. -------------------- May the fires of Undeath burn in your soul, and consume it. Posts: 1636 | Registered: Wednesday, January 5 2005 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Sunday, November 12 2006 04:56
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Um, that record is probably zero posts, with a huge tie for it, too. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, November 12 2006 08:45
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quote:The die is cast! -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 7472
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written Sunday, November 12 2006 08:50
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I'm not even going to try to translate the last few posts. Maybe I can get TM to do it for me... Maybe not. -------------------- I tried to think of something witty to put here. Needless to say, I failed. Posts: 2686 | Registered: Friday, September 8 2006 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Monday, November 13 2006 10:59
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quote:Just like someone made black people out of mud, right? The biggest problem I have with Vahnatai Creationism is exactly that: it's creationism. It robs the gravity and dignity a race can draw from emerging from random circumstances. I mean, if the Sliths and Nephils were preordained by the big, bad Vahnatai, so what about any of their personal or social problems? We can just start over with a better model. The theory only satisfies anyone because they have boners for the Vahnatai (looking at Drakey here). 'Human Creationism' would be every bit as chauvinistic and dull, it's just that it doesn't have the romantic tinge of VC and so that isn't excused away. Given what we know about the Vahnatai, really, isn't human creationism more realistic? Hell - unless you count the half-assed throw-ins in A1 (which I refuse to), humanity has no evidence of Vahnatai presence before the War! Yeah, they emerged from crystal coffins - but isn't it perfectly possible those were incubation chambers? It's many times more plausible, given what the canon supplies us, that some human wizard - maybe even one we know of, like Garzahd - created the Vahnatai from whole cloth, and gave their culture apparent age to hide his or her perfidy. (Their structures and artifacts are transcendently magical in origin - whether or not Human Creationism is true, their edifices were created mostly by magic.) I don't like the theory that much - it'd be mostly good as a twist ending, and now I've put it out in the open it's ruined for even that. But it's more plausible and every bit as attractive than the asinine VC theory. quote:Avernum is for savages, and Blades of Avernum is horrible. Not only has it failed to produce a compelling body of work, but its presence essentially strangled the BoE community. Convenient enough for Vogel, because the BoE community was always the one clearest on exactly how devoted he is to his customer base - forcing it out of business was probably the best career move he ever made. Nethergate taught Jeff that he has a large enough fanbase who want OMG VANHATAI~~~ badly enough that anything novel or compelling is a threat. That's why he's been making two games over and over since Nethergate came out. (Exile 3 ... in three dimensions!!! Valley of Dying Things... in real-time!!!) And you're going to keep up lining up and liking it because no one ever taught you to respect the Goddamn classics. To you, Avernum is prettier and more yifftastic than Exile. To anyone who was around for both, Avernum is nowhere near better enough to justify several years' worth of it. And don't even get me started on Geneforge, you faddish morons. --- In response to Vahnatai Creationism, I offer that my own canon isn't much better - hell, if anything, it's worse. But it's worse because I can tell a hell of a story with it being worse; the only story you can tell with VC is OMG VANHATAI~~~, and that gets old after a while if you are not Drakey. Still, I prefer biological causes in fiction for the exact reason I prefer them in reality - plausibility. As all potential life becomes food for life the moment abiogenesis occurs, all potential sapients become food for sapients the moment intelligence develops. There's a window of a few thousand years there, which is far too little for any meaningful evolution in that regard. Humans never developed into subspecies in any serious way ('races' are less distinct than any animal subspecies, in spite of public perception), but that's partially because the human population has been more or less contigious for most of its long history. How could we change that? Well, make the pre-tool-age longer, for one; make the territory less fertile so more nomadic behavior is necessary before the intelligence develops to create complex tools and social mechanisms. So instead of a number of interrelated tribes wandering around a small area, you have tribes of Sapiens antecessor spread to the far winds and developing under different conditions. How exactly you get Nephils and Humans and giants and trogolos is a tricky question, and one I don't have the exact capacity to answer. But the reason that they all exist, and later coexist and are genetically compatible, is that Sapiens antecessor took a lot longer developing higher intelligence than Homo sapiens, and was allowed more time to diverge at the edges. The surviving progeny of S. antecessor include S. titanus, S. felidus, and S. homo; possibly goblins and gremlins as well. More complex is the cave system. I'd propose another single ancestral species, arising under much the same conditions - and with the waterfalls and pits and such, it'd be very easy for tribes to separate from one another more or less permanently and develop in dramatically diverging fashions. Draconis antecessor is a common ancestor to dragons, drakes, sliths, hydras, and Vahnatai, with hydras being the closest to D. antecessor in terms of intelligence. Obscure sapients can be considered extreme isolates (e.g. aranea and GIFTS), and if all else fails otherworldly (e.g. fairies, demons) or magical constructs (e.g. intelligent roaches and unicorns). However, and here is my prime maxim for the canon: Never invoke the supernatural until all natural means have been exhausted. 'A wizard did it' works only when a wizard obviously did it (how the hell could an animal whose clearest relative was domesticated evolve higher intelligence naturally?). Between the VC story and my story, one of them proposes twenty million years of life, death, and change; the other proposes a big, strong Vahnatai waving his big, strong Vahnatai hand and making everything as it is and ever shall be, amen. I know which I find more compelling. Even if every detail of my story were miserably wrong, I'd be far more satisfied with a canon established from the same basic maxim than any kind of 'creationism'. No waving of magic wands unless absolutely necessary. [ Monday, November 13, 2006 11:35: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 3513
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written Monday, November 13 2006 11:20
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*looks up yiff* *tries to chew own hands off and wait for sweet death* -------------------- Nobody appreciates me. It's all "Igor! Fetch some wine!" "Igor! Clean up this experiment!" or "Igor! Bury this in the garden, we're leaving town in 10 minutes!" —Alorael, who tried to become a deivore once. The priest gave him a funny look after the third wafer. Posts: 301 | Registered: Thursday, October 2 2003 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Monday, November 13 2006 13:03
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While what you say is very true, Alec, you are missing the point of vahnatai creationism. Anyone can apply the Occam's Razor of accepting the obvious and natural evolution of the world (except, I suppose, creationists). Creating and supporting an abstruse theory is a wonderful exercise in uselessness! Also, to nitpick, I think your theory of young vahnatai is even more complicated. What kind of wizard would or could fabricate memories for an entire race, or at least an entire clan? —Alorael, who prefers the Avernum engine but admits that BoE has shown itself to be the more successful scenario creation tool by several orders of magnitude. Neophobia is no less of a knee-jerk reaction than neophilia, and you can prefer one without loathing the other. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Monday, November 13 2006 13:26
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quote:I just want it noted that Alec said this. I find Alec about as interesting and compelling as I find Bill O'Reilly, but every now and then he comes up with a really zany one that would be hilarious were it not so pathetic, and this is definitely one such. [ Monday, November 13, 2006 13:27: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 7472
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written Monday, November 13 2006 15:13
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I just remembered 'yiff' from an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. So, in other words, it's a very tricky way to dodge the autocensor. -------------------- I tried to think of something witty to put here. Needless to say, I failed. Posts: 2686 | Registered: Friday, September 8 2006 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Monday, November 13 2006 17:14
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quote:Kel, your train of delicious irony is less impressive when you consider I reserve as much bile for LP as I do for Avernum. :P Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Monday, November 13 2006 18:00
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Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed. :P -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Monday, November 13 2006 20:26
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As to the Young Vahnatai heresy, you forgot the contradicting evidence. Motrax in Avernum 1 mentions that there is another race that the humans will soon meet. Also there are the ancient bodies found in various places that you explore in Exile and Avernum 1. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 7614
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written Monday, November 13 2006 22:56
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If Vogel had ever bothered to think that so many would waste so much time on something so small, he may have made it plausible. Instead he made a good quick story with few ingredients and a lot of room for user imagination. All the talk of VC and what have you is simply interpretation, and argument over viability thereof. Especially when the goo is the pregenitor of all life, and incubates all forms, releasing each type based on goo type, habitat, and temperature. Quite simple, really. Edit- Actually, Vogel likely made it just this way so that he could laugh all the way to the bank as generations of retro-gamers try to argue new theories on the origin of the species. [ Monday, November 13, 2006 23:00: Message edited by: Slippery Salomon ] Posts: 143 | Registered: Sunday, October 29 2006 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Tuesday, November 14 2006 03:13
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I think it was more an example of game designer fatigue. After sending off another email about a minor error that crept into the next game between beta versions, I think that Jeff never bothered for textual continuity. The testers were interested in the game playability and no one thought about the interpretations of the different bits of backround material. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Tuesday, November 14 2006 03:50
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quote:Transcribed from AOLer speak, of course. :P -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |