SLYNES - Swirly Lights Yonder, a Never Ending Story

[Anonymoose]

Woot! I'll keep this concept in mind. As a biology major, I thoroughly enjoyed that first section about the Hletho evolution. I really like the method of locomotion; it kind of reminds me of an inverted rotifer. Do they ever need to use the larger tentacles for feeding? Really good stuff! It will be interesting to see how they handle alien species as well.

Edit: Kevin J. Anderson had some interesting races in his "Saga of the Seven Suns," If anyone wants to check those out. The races are god-like, but they could be modified for some more original and, in this case, relevant species.

Edit Edit: The Distopterans will be using a warp bubble system that will most likely be powered by tritium, or perhaps another super-high energy fuel that I will conjure up. Here's the link to explain it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Hahah, my system's based off of the Alcubierre drive too, albeit with a different name.

The larger limbs are used mostly for hunting and locomotion, but it would take skill to feed with them, as a Hletho would need considerable flexibility to touch their tips to its mouth.

And what was wrong with the second half? I'm an aspiring first-year student doing biology (among other things) and am wondering if I'm doing something wrong.

 

[kill fire]

you might wanna check your locaiton Iggy

 

[Lord_Iggy]

I know it's empty, I'm mapping out where everyone else is relative to me to see where I'd like to start.

 

[Anonymoose]

I just especially like the first half. No offense was intended. Bestshot9 and I and a few friends of ours were talking about your species. They're really interesting. I saw that your method of locomotion was Alcubierre-like, but your description made it seem more linear than the bubble-wave that Alcubierre has. I see the Distopteran ships as riding on the more dense wave of space-time on the back of the bubble, whereas yours seems to be on the front, being pulled forward by the less dense spacetime; kind of like if you have an empty soda can and you blow air beside it, the can will move into the moving air, where the lower air pressure is. My angle on the idea is that the can is being blown on almost directly, except there is not air, just the cold unforgiving vacuum of space! Lol.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Yeah, that is my picture of it- I think it's cool how our two species have developed two different approaches to similar technologies.

 

[Bil]

It's not the speed of expansion that I'm worried about, it's the idea that (on a realistic level) every civilization will be inhabiting probably a few million worlds before they ever even make contact with an alien species (which throws things quite out of perspective for the fact that I want the game to flow quickly and fluidly). The only reason I thought of something like "jump gates" is because it will limit where the species can go, thus explaining why they might only have control over a handful of stars instead of a couple hundred thousand. If I just use star-dots on the map without a jump network, it makes me think, "Why don't they do anything with the thousands of stars inbetween?" But I want it to be a galactic scale because, 1) the galactic scale is exciting, and the idea that one could dominate the whole of the galaxy is more exciting, and 2) on a realistic scale, it would be likely that sentient species are loosely scattered about the whole of the galaxy, apart from each other.

Let me know if I'm just over-thinking this and should use a simpler method.

And regardless, I like your tripods! Quite a bit, in fact!

 

[Lord_Iggy]

You could use a far simpler method and just say that there actually aren't that many planets that are habitable for carbon-based lifeforms. Either that, or you perhaps our transportation systems have trouble bringing us into particular high-density regions of space (Alcubierre drives running into solid or even slightly thicker gaseous regions are not pretty events), so many regions are out of reach for our still-limited spacefaring prowess.

At any rate, I lean towards the former, because we don't want to have so many planets that they simply become dull statistics- this is a story, after all.

 

[Bil]

I'll have the new map up probably later tonight. The grid is a little larger, so it's lacking the 'L' coordinate, and anyway there are star-dots on the map now as well. I'll come up with my explanation soon for why there are only a handful of systems accessible to colonization (despite the distances between them). Once the new map is up, you'll not only need to determine your coordinates, but which star in that grid space is your home system. I think I'll be allowing people to travel anywhere at all from any starting point, but the advantages of that would be fairly limited compared to the amount of time it would take to travel between them.

Oh, and don't worry, I'll be keeping the majority of the stats and stat-related decisions behind the scenes so as to not interrupt the story environment.

 

[Anonymoose]

That's the Knight of the Distopteran species, a dark brown color, but flightless?!?!

The rest of the populace looks like the second picture, with the workers, nobles, and thinkers having different levels of hue. The Nobles have flamboyant oranges and reds, while the Thinkers are gray and dull brown. The workers are colorless, that is to say, that their flesh is translucent.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

 

[Bil]

New map is up! I hope it serves us better. Please make note of not only your coordinate location, but also which star in that sector is your home system ("the one in the top-right corner," "the one on the left," etc.).

Digging the images, guys!

 

[bestshot9]

I'm definitely joining this NES, just working on my species info and background.

 

[Anonymoose]

The Disopteran home world will be in (F,G.)

 

[Bil]

F/G, left or right? Or do you mean G/F (which only has one)? The coordinates are X/Y, so use the letters on the top of the image for X and the letters on the side for Y.

 

[Anonymoose]

F/G, left or right? Or do you mean G/F (which only has one)? The coordinates are X/Y, so use the letters on the top of the image for X and the letters on the side for Y.

Sorry, I did indeed mean G,F. I was aiming for one that only has one solar system.

 

[Fuschia]

I have a fairly good idea of what I'll be playing, although I currently have no time to post as much as I'd like. For know, let it be know that I would like location B-H. Hopefully I'll have time to fill out the template today, but it will be up by tomorrow at the latest.

 

[kill fire]

Well, because of the changed rules, I'll move mine to C/C left.

 

[Megaman_zx]

yeah, i won't have so many cool pictures. but i have either updated, or am in the process of updating my info.

i'll work on an evolution story later today, my species mainly prefers jungles, but can survive in deserts and grassland too. they are very well adapted. unfortunately they are cold blooded, and for some reason still have the less chambered hearts of normal reptiles, making them extremely vulnerable to cold. Most of them use technology to offset this, which is why the scientists are so high on the caste system of a warrior culture. (the high priests are also high ranking scientists, the normal priests are mainly acolytes and freelance scientists)

 

[North King]

Seems like a species would be able to survive in most any environment. Can you think of any area besides underwater that humans don't inhabit to some degree?