Post-human species

[Junghalli]

Why don't the Simini just give their soldiers a powered refrigerated armor suit? That should be easily within the capabilities of a civilization that can build starships.

I don't mean to be a dick, but I have to agree with what others have said: this whole thing just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I can think of a way for the kokome to be reasonably plausible, but it's not this. Here's my suggestion:

The Simini had no external enemies but were divided into a number of kingdoms/noble houses/whatever that fought wars with each other. These wars were fought according to agreed-upon conventions that all the combatants could be relied upon to abide by (presumably, the ones that didn't got pasted by everyone else with the Family Atomics). Since the Simini were enslaving racist bastards, they denied high technology to everyone but an elite class consisting of themselves and their most trusted slaves. The wars were, by agreement, fought with primitive weapons (swords, spears, bow & arrow, maybe primitive firearms). This might be a convention to make sure none of the Simini themselves would be harmed, as they would have access to modern means of protection. However, while the technology was restricted there were no restrictions for how much you could enhance your soldiers biologically. So nobles looking to get an edge on each other exploited this loophole to produce ever more crazily souped-up supersoldiers. The conflicts were more like mass duels than real wars, the combatant armies would basically meet at an agreed upon open field and fight it out and the result would determine who won, so the fact that said supersoldiers quickly became superspecialized monstrousities that could only be kept alive by feeding them all day wasn't a problem.

There, now in that context something like the kokome can actually make sense.

[avianmosquito]

Sure you can. Just drop a pile'o nukes from orbit.

You can't fight a war without infantry if you have to consider collateral damage. For everything else, there's nukes.
(or similar devices)

I've nothing left to say here. They're concerned about damaging the planet and its ecosystems, as these are important (all at least mildly) to their endeavours, be they of agricultural, industrial or scientific value. As such, they will minimize collateral whenever possible.

If there is anything left to grab, you need bigger bombs.

bombs that airbust generally don't have much effect on things under the ground except for right under where they detonated, and it's still possible to pick usable items out of a pile of rubble. It's called "salvage." Also, they were not using nuclear weapons because it blew the point of fighting in the first point.They avoided going nuclear at all costs, until the 512th year rolled around and they were required by law to use nuclear weapons, although these orders were delayed and didn't actually result in a nuclear detonation on the surface of the ferroningen homeworld for another 8 years.

And if any spacefaring civilisation is not getting at least a 100:1 kill ratio against a bunch of primitives, they are doing something seriously wrong.
Yours is.

Either that, or the species is a legitimate, if minor, threat due to having been severely underestimated from the beginning. (And truth be told, it's both.)
The simini screwed up by thinking the same way you did. Seriously, the most inbred redneck fool could take you out with weapons a lot less advanced than that if you don't take them seriously. "Crossbows and maces? No problem, we'll just shoot..." (thunk) "Hey Bubba, what are these things?" "I don't know Cletus, looks like some monkey-dogged shit, but let's get the hell outta here before more show up." "Hangon a sec, Bubba, I'm goanna grab sommma them there shiny things, they's is pretty." Jokes aside, not taking your enemy seriously is the first fatal error of every failed emporer. Wether they be equals or blind-folded one-legged chimps with rusty knives is irrelevent, taking them too lightly will get you killed.

Not that much, considering that the aircrafts are in no danger at all.

You consider atmospheric re-entry to be safe? What about storms, when I have already stated that this planet has horrible weather that includes heavy wind even with all the sun? What about takeoff and landing, which result in most aircraft crashes? How about the occasional hi-jacked surface-air missile? What about the very idea of setting the vehicle down in places where there are people with weapons that want you dead? Are these things really "no danger at all?" Or did you just forget about them?

[/quote]Besides, using another planet for food production is already inefficient as hell. You have to haul the whole stuff out of the gravity well - and then you need to transport it to it's destination.
Even if your FTL is cheap as hell, you still have to do the planetary lifting.[/quote]

It's better than shipping them in from another star system. Local resources go to local purposes, as their systems are seperate and can go on without one another. It's called compartmentalization, and it eliminates the need for FTL travel. (Which the simini DID NOT HAVE.) Good packaging can keep most of their food fresh enough to reach every simini in the system only to sit in the back of the fridge for 6 months and still be passable when finally eaten. Rice, in particular, can be easily stored in loose bags that take no technology and last for ages provided it doesn't get wet... although it probably won't taste so good after a while.

Also, infantry are an integral part of any organized military force. You simply can't work without them for very long. If you can't understand why, why don't you read a few books on military tactics.

See above.

It isn't a matter of sheer heat resistance, it's a matter of water retention. Ferroningen evlolved to retain water well, their scales absorbing heat slowly. Also, their blood vessels are deeper into the body, meaning they lose less fluid from burns than a softer, warmer creature, like a mammal, would.

Wow, you truly ARE a moron.
There is just no way that a biological organism can survive temperatures that melt steel.[/quote]

You don't know what you're talking about.

Do you really think that it matters? You need to deal with thermal energy transfer, not temperature. Lighting bolts are hotter as the surface of the sun, but when they strike a human, it doesn't incinerate them, and in fact them usually survive. A spray of sparks from cutting a piece of metal is always at extreme temperatures, but they seldom do any real damage, even upon contacting skin. In fact, I myself have taken half a second of such a spray, where my gloves were not covering, and took no significant injury, just some minor burns.

Napalm is much cooler and leaves grevious injuries, but usually leaves almost all of its victims alive, even if their burns are terrible and crippling. The difference? Area of contact and time. The more contact, the more material is heated, the more time, the hotter it gets as the materials attempt to reach... wait a minute, why should I have to EXPLAIN this to you? We've got a species that needs more extensive burns to die than humans do, and you're questioning my logic that a weapon that doesn't usually kill humans should be even less capable of killing them? And, if you really think humans can't survive napalm, go to the VA, they'll set you straight real quick.

So what if it burns up?
It still releases the exact same amount of energy. Job done.

The atmosphere absorbes zettajoules of energy every day from the sun alone. Adding a few burning objects isn't going to mean a damn thing. The only way these objects are going to matter is if they manage to hit something, preferably a building, not the ground, and still have enough force to do some damage.

And collateral damage is NOT a bad thing. You have areas the size of whole continents that you have absolutely no need for. Just killfuck them from orbit and you wipe out most of the enemy.

Collateral damage is ALWAYS a bad thing. It is ALWAYS bad to destroy ANYTHING you didn't want or didn't need to destroy.

Also, the only unuseable areas on their planet are a single desert at one end and a sheet of ice at the other. These make up only 25% of the planet's land, and 10% of the planets population, most settling into the (mildly useful) savana and (moderately useful) rainforests. A small but sizeable fortion lived in the swamps, but this is only about one million.

Bullshit. Kinetic impactors can easily get into the megaton range. That's going to bury any tunnel entrance under hundreds of feets of rock. And tunnels digged by a bunch of primites aren't exatly that solid.

You read too much scifi. The cheap, gravity-based kinetic energy penetrators you describe are limited by aerodynamics to ~7km/s. To reach a single megaton, assuming 100% efficieny, which is by nature impossible, you're looking at a tungsten spike weighing in at well nearly 171,000t. That's entire too much mass, especially for such a rare, and therefore expensive, material to justify the expense. If you want a megaton, you might as well just nuke them. It'll be cheaper, more efficient and won't require pulling 171,000 tons of tungsten out of your ass. It'll just require up-scaling the existing design.

Yeah, but which one causes the goverment to give you more money? "We need R&D money for a statistically negligible amount of food to be produced in space." or "We need supply money, so we can go throw some savages off of their land and use it to further improve the economy."

You honestly have no bloody clue how politics work, do you?
Tell me, have you ever voted?[/quote]

Politics doesn't work, that's the point.

A goverment looks what's done with the money. They just don't throw billions of it in an arsenine project.

Oh yes, they do. The american government is doing it right now in a dozen fields. Iraq, afghanistan, drug control, our sorry excuse for health care, none of these things amount to ANYTHING, yet they all soak up immense amounts of government funding and keep most of it for themselves. At least the simini have the decency to use more than half of the money for its original purpose.

Besides, which company is going to make more money?
The one acquiring goverment funding and then wasting it on some outback planet without any real value, or the one building profitable space habitats and plantations?

Both companies get partial funding from the government, and they only spend about 75% of it on the task at hand, the rest goes to more important things, like owning the newest private jet. As such, the more funding you can aquire, the more money you save, the more money you save... you get where this is going. The employers care about THEIR paychecks, they only maintain the company to keep them coming in. Therefore, it's more the one that can spend the most government money that they find ideal, as it means a bigger sum snuck into their pocketbook without actual work.

Okay, let's make this nice and slow:
Any civilisation that can travel between stars should be able to wipe the floor with medieval thugs without breaking into sweat. Especially if it doesn't care about their lifes.

Yes, but you're assuming a species advanced enough for FTL travel, we're dealing with sleepers here. They are not that advanced. They travel at sublight speed, and simply stay in cryo for the entire trip, so space travel is hardly a qualification. On top of that, in their culture, everything takes so fucking long. (Really, they fought the ferroningen for 600 years and didn't go nuclear until 520, 8 years after they were supposed to because they took so damn long to mobilize their force. Really, it took them centuries to agree that they were small, all other intelligence species were not large.)

Greater physical strenght and the occasional stolen RPG is NOT going to cut it against tanks and aircraft. Guerillias can be ingnored if you do not care about the life of your enemies families. Just killfuck every village in a radius of, say, 100 kilometers.

But, this is not the case. They want to cause as little environmental damage as possible, and that means they need to lay off the biological and chemical weapons (which weren't very effective anyway) and try to keep the massive explosions, wildfires, and orbital bombardments to a minimum.

The strength doesn't really matter. The speed does, as it allows them to put as much distance as possible between them and the scene of the attack before the support shows up. Also, every infantry squad had two infantry with rocket launchers. This means 2 launchers+ammunition every time they ambused a squad. It typically takes a single shot to the back of a light tank to kill it, so that's plenty.

Furthermore, any spacefaring civilistation is capable of mass destruction with sniveling ease. You completely ignore that, claiming that collateral damage is bad. In your szenario, the enemy settels a huge open desert that you do not want anyway. Thus, collateral damage is NOT an issue. Just blow it up, problem mostly solved.

Don't damn the enire planet over the 10% that is actually useless. (No, i'm not counting the ice, but a sea's worth of fresh water is not useless. It's not particularly useful either, but it's better than manufacturing water or using condensation.) you've got another 20% savana, 20% tundra, 10% rainforest and 25% marshland. The rest is ice. More of earth's land is useless than of this world, is earth useless? Would an intelligent species not want earth because of a few deserts and ice caps?

[avianmosquito]

Why don't the Simini just give their soldiers a powered refrigerated armor suit? That should be easily within the capabilities of a civilization that can build starships.

I don't mean to be a dick, but I have to agree with what others have said: this whole thing just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I can think of a way for the kokome to be reasonably plausible, but it's not this. Here's my suggestion:

The Simini had no external enemies but were divided into a number of kingdoms/noble houses/whatever that fought wars with each other. These wars were fought according to agreed-upon conventions that all the combatants could be relied upon to abide by (presumably, the ones that didn't got pasted by everyone else with the Family Atomics). Since the Simini were enslaving racist bastards, they denied high technology to everyone but an elite class consisting of themselves and their most trusted slaves. The wars were, by agreement, fought with primitive weapons (swords, spears, bow & arrow, maybe primitive firearms). This might be a convention to make sure none of the Simini themselves would be harmed, as they would have access to modern means of protection. However, while the technology was restricted there were no restrictions for how much you could enhance your soldiers biologically. So nobles looking to get an edge on each other exploited this loophole to produce ever more crazily souped-up supersoldiers. The conflicts were more like mass duels than real wars, the combatant armies would basically meet at an agreed upon open field and fight it out and the result would determine who won, so the fact that said supersoldiers quickly became superspecialized monstrousities that could only be kept alive by feeding them all day wasn't a problem.

There, now in that context something like the kokome can actually make sense.

But, again, kokome soldiers used in a real war, armed with modern firearms, but they were of limited practicality due to their status as heavy (IE: machineguns and hand-cannon shotguns) or "specialist" weapons (sniper rifles, rockets, etcetera), and that makes more sense to me than noble houses using some kind of bio-gladiators to play with each other.

[Jeremy]

You have a planet, it is large. Wreck a small area (maybe a few square miles of land) and build a base with defenses there. That's your foothold, move out from there.

[Samuel]

It's better than shipping them in from another star system.

Hydroponics. Heck, if you have a slave species you can use that god awful synthetic paste for a food supply.

The atmosphere absorbes zettajoules of energy every day from the sun alone. Adding a few burning objects isn't going to mean a damn thing. The only way these objects are going to matter is if they manage to hit something, preferably a building, not the ground, and still have enough force to do some damage.

Unlike the Sun, this energy will be deposited in a short period of time and a small area. In short changes will be extreme and deadly.

You read too much scifi. The cheap, gravity-based kinetic energy penetrators you describe are limited by aerodynamics to ~7km/s. To reach a single megaton, assuming 100% efficieny, which is by nature impossible, you're looking at a tungsten spike weighing in at well nearly 171,000t. That's entire too much mass, especially for such a rare, and therefore expensive, material to justify the expense. If you want a megaton, you might as well just nuke them. It'll be cheaper, more efficient and won't require pulling 171,000 tons of tungsten out of your ass. It'll just require up-scaling the existing design.

Or just random rock which you keep throwing until things on the surface stop moving. Or just have Ceres pay them a visit.

Politics doesn't work, that's the point.

No, politics is inefficient. It does work, it is just bad at achieving "great good of society". Incredibly stupid decisions that obviously hurt everyone will not get made.

Yes, but you're assuming a species advanced enough for FTL travel, we're dealing with sleepers here. They are not that advanced.

Actually, STL is harder. It means they are good enough to make machinary that can last for centuries without maintainance which implies incredibly good material science. Also a large orbital infreastructure in order to make the ships in the first place.

Would an intelligent species not want earth because of a few deserts and ice caps?

An intelligent species that wanted Earth would ally with the People's Republic of China, provide ABM cover and then use their new allies to rule the planet in their stead, providing them with all the yummy rice they need. Oh and free power curtosy of the orbital stations which they control in order to prevent backstabbing.

Or just buy it on the open market.

[Norade]

These things all matter very little when you fight from inside a climate controlled metal box on treads with a massive gun resting atop it.

We're talking about the infantry. Can't fight a war without them.

You can if you only need to kill every living thing that isn't you in a given area.

They can't hide forever and from the air you're going to spot their cool bodies as they step out to catch some sun and then you nail them. If they can't go out to get food without being shot they die.

Take a tunnel, go grab another pack of salted meat out of the basement of a bombed-out local butcher shop. At the same time, if they can kill one simini for every 99 ferroningen, they're winning.

Except that as a primitive race they won't be able to store food forever and using mobile drones you can spot the cold body as it pokes out of one of the finite number of tunnels and then blast him with a rocket that not only kills him, but closes a tunnel. The primitives can dig out, but that wastes energy they can't afford given that they can't gather much food while hiding underground.

See the above suggestion of climate controlled planes and tanks. You needn't fight outside if you're not retarded which both you and your creations seem to be.

At what cost? How much more are aircraft going to cost than infantry? These people do have to make money, after all. A planet covered in arable land is big, and they aren't going to exceed that, but isn't it best to do it with as little company money as possible? (Government money, on the other hand...)

Get the government to give a a grant to build new fighting vehicles with the promise that you'll return them when you're done. You won't lose a single one and the cost of paying for bullets and fuel is less than feeding things that eat 20x, or more, more than you do.

Also, infantry are an integral part of any organized military force. You simply can't work without them for very long. If you can't understand why, why don't you read a few books on military tactics.

Not in a war of extermination between a space fairing race and some primitives with melee weapons and bows.

No, that 60 or so degree difference in climate will provide no safety against an FA bomb burning you to a crisp before sucking all the air away to cause a powerful implosion. You would know this if you did any research at all. Not to mention the 'Redox' so stupid it hurts blaster should be canned as well as it plainly sucks.

Wow, you're an even bigger dick than Terwyn.

It isn't a matter of sheer heat resistance, it's a matter of water retention. Ferroningen evlolved to retain water well, their scales absorbing heat slowly. Also, their blood vessels are deeper into the body, meaning they lose less fluid from burns than a softer, warmer creature, like a mammal, would.

Napalm and fuel air bombs won't give a shit about a few extra litters of water not when the blast can melt steel and then burn off all the stuff you need to breath as well. Frankly your entire idea is retarded top to bottom.

So they had enough medical wank bio-tech to change a whole race around, but not enough to figure out how to burrow a bomb into a cave or drops rods from god? They must be dumber than we thought. The author by extension as well.

They could bury a bomb, but the yeild is limited. Burying it limits the yield further. (Simini explosives are usually thermobaric, requiring air around them to work. As for drpping things from orbit, most debris will be destroyed by re-entry, so they cannot do something so ludicrous as drop their own sand on them, or use bits of scrap metal. They would need something bigger, which means more cost, and it can't be too big because, as you fools always seem to miss, collateral damage is a BAD thing. As for more standardized kinetic penetrators, they did use them, but they were incapable of causing significant damage to a large, complex connection of caves and tunnels, and any damage they do can be easily repaired or bypassed. They were not cost effective. In the end, the best would of been to get at this diplomatically, despite the obvious difficulty with communication.

Are you saying there isn't air in the tunnels then? Or are you unaware that thermobaric devices have been tested as potential bunker busters in real life.

What do they do against tanks and fighter jets?

Avoid the tanks or hit them with a stolen rocket. It's not hard to work a rocket launcer. As far as jets, keep your head down, they won't be there long.

100 million is still hard to do for pure carnivores living in a hostile environment, but they are are at a rennaisance level of technology. Pradators are not an issue when you have a crossbow and good aim, their environment is perfect for cold-blooded reptiles that don't sleep, and they have a lot of livestock, which provide eggs and meat. There is no reason not to have a large population. (Except maybe that they'll go to war on the drop of a har.)

Why are you sending infantry with anti-tank weapons for them to get their hands on? You send in tanks with main weapons designed to hurt infantry only and keep your planes in the air or docked with their space craft. The locals never get the chance to arm themselves this way. As for aircraft, I know I said jets, but even a helicopter will be impossible for them to kill and that can loiter and keep killing. So try again dumbass.

So what is keeping the enemy from killing their massive herds of livestock?

Why not mine comets and use them to make marshes in space habitats? It's easier than invading a world and exporting food out of a gravity well anyway.

Yeah, but which one causes the goverment to give you more money? "We need R&D money for a statistically negligible amount of food to be produced in space." or "We need supply money, so we can go throw some savages off of their land and use it to further improve the economy."

They should give money to the idea that makes sense and pays for itself many times over. One rock the size of Ceres can build habitation for 2 trillion people, then you just need the comets to give you atmosphere and water.

Example: A 500m by 1000m cylinder with walls 10m thick would have an internal volume of 180,956km^3 and a lateral surface area of 1870km^2 if we say that only half of this is able to be used and have a population density of 4,000 per square kilometer occupied you get a population of around 7.5 million. This is pretty conservative given the tech levels. If you assume that an object like Ceres is totally mined and 1000th of that is useful in building space stations you could build 255,000 of them from that one body and have the asteroid left over. It takes 120 million tons of ore to make one station of solid steel. Also modern ore production for iron alone is 1 billion metric tons per year, enough to build 8 stations per year, in space with better technology that number could rise dramatically.

You can also also harvest ice from a body like Ceres. From this we get oxygen for our stations as well as water with hydrogen being common and nitrogen being easy enough to find we have all that we need to live comfortable lives in space. At current earth Tech level we could build stations such as these if there was the will, so there is no reason to assume that a people more advanced couldn't do far more.

With our tech we can mine the resources for 8 stations a year each of which provide enough space for 7.5 times more people than the Simini have due to your retarded low population numbers.

This lizards of course understand the Simini symbols for things right? A diagram that we understand may be impossible for another race to make heads or tails of.

Point taken, but simini are even lazier than humans. A lot of "noble" simini can't even walk. These diagrams are going to be easier to understand. The text will be in size 32 font. The manual will be 30 pages long, only 10 pages worth of text.

So you make them into lazy tards who can't even take basic steps to defend themselves. Then you wonder why we rip on them...

They didn't put a fail safe three strikes and the aircraft doesn't turn back on until you hard reset function in the damn things?

8 strikes. Also, ship captains tend to keep it written down because they're too lazy to memorize it.

Really? That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of...

You certainly seem to qualify for the last bit shit stain.

You aren't so great youself. Didn't even cinsider that a good conqueror generally does NOT destroy his prize.

Except that my way needent destroy the bits you actually want, doesn't require bio-wanked 'super' soldiers, and might actually work.

[Raxmei]

Comprehensively unsuitable for the stated purpose. Revelation of the intended mission makes the supercharged metabolism an even bigger liability than before. Metabolic activity produces heat. I expect this would kill a kokome even in temperate conditions, and their intended mission is to fight in an exceptionally hot climate. Heat issues also preclude use of armor, which traps body heat and whose weight causes muscles to work harder and produce more heat. Sweating makes it necessary to supply much additional water and is ineffective in the humid conditions of the marshes where they are meant to fight. Kokome are in fact much worse suited to combat in this environment than their masters.

The increased food requirement runs counter to their stated mission, which is to secure food supplies. A division or two of Kokome soldiers consume more food than the entire Simini population. Those ten kilo meals weigh about as much as two gallons of fuel, btw.

Incidentally, metabolic activity consumes oxygen. The physical description does not mention massively widened air passages or increased lung capacity, both of which would be necessary to prevent perpetual shortness of breath. That would in part explain why they're so bad at swimming, they'd asphyxiate almost immediately when air supply is restricted. In open air this won't be as much of a problem, but if they ever have to rely on stored oxygen or have to breathe through a gas mask it will be a major pain in the ass. Another incidental, the amount of body heat produced would interfere with their IR sense. Such receptors in terrestrial life are found in cold blooded animals who try to find things warmer than themselves and their environment. Warm blooded animals trying to do this would effectively be shining flashlights into their own eyes. The opposition that this creature was designed against is, of course, cold blooded and not much warmer than its environment.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I'm a bit discouraged that my points keep getting ignored, probably because he won't address them.

Seriously, your reason for WHY your super-race lost the war is 'Because they're stupid'. Stupid races don't build space ships, they get eaten.

In this thread, Skeeter has shown a fundamental inability to grasp biology, physics, politics, logistics, military doctrine, and common sense.

Please, write this book. I need something to level my kitchen table.

[Simon_Jester]

Why don't the Simini just give their soldiers a powered refrigerated armor suit? That should be easily within the capabilities of a civilization that can build starships.

I don't mean to be a dick, but I have to agree with what others have said: this whole thing just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I can think of a way for the kokome to be reasonably plausible, but it's not this. Here's my suggestion:

The Simini had no external enemies but were divided into a number of kingdoms/noble houses/whatever that fought wars with each other. These wars were fought according to agreed-upon conventions that all the combatants could be relied upon to abide by (presumably, the ones that didn't got pasted by everyone else with the Family Atomics). Since the Simini were enslaving racist bastards, they denied high technology to everyone but an elite class consisting of themselves and their most trusted slaves. The wars were, by agreement, fought with primitive weapons (swords, spears, bow & arrow, maybe primitive firearms). This might be a convention to make sure none of the Simini themselves would be harmed, as they would have access to modern means of protection. However, while the technology was restricted there were no restrictions for how much you could enhance your soldiers biologically. So nobles looking to get an edge on each other exploited this loophole to produce ever more crazily souped-up supersoldiers. The conflicts were more like mass duels than real wars, the combatant armies would basically meet at an agreed upon open field and fight it out and the result would determine who won, so the fact that said supersoldiers quickly became superspecialized monstrousities that could only be kept alive by feeding them all day wasn't a problem.

There, now in that context something like the kokome can actually make sense.

This is pretty good. A good writer back in the Golden Age of science fiction could have made a low-end classic out of this; I suspect that avianmosquito will reject it out of hand.

The human brain deteriorates over time. Hence why people go senial over time. The simini modified the brain to the point where this takes 8 times as long (maybe a little more, but 8 was their goal) and gave it better protection against damage from drugs such as alcohol. This way, their minds will last far longer than human minds. As a result, where a human will drop at least 40 points from infancy-adulthood, (from ~140-100) kokome will drop about 5. (In the end, 135 is a lot better than 100.) Furthermore, humans usually drop another 40 points every 40 years after that.

I'd like to see a citation for your claim about deteriorating intelligence.

Also, you missed something. Why modify these slaves for extreme longevity? Why not simply let them be dumb, or modify their brains for higher baseline intelligence?

You seem to be adding mods to these guys because it makes them "better." That ignores the essential fact: these are engineered lifeforms. They were not created to be awesome; they were created by competent engineers to serve a purpose. Form follows function. First you must identify their function, then decide what specific traits will make them good at it. Do not add random functions.

Imagine that you are designing a car. You have an engine, wheels, and so on. Do you add a bathtub? A flowerbox? A pile of rocks? You do not. Because while any of these things might be "nice" in some sense, they are not necessary to the function of the car. Adding them costs resources and makes the car less cost-effective.

Likewise for longevity mods. Why use long-lived slaves instead of slaves with normal life expectancies who breed at a reasonable rate?

Yeah, but what about their digestive tract? Bones? Leg muscles, which are useless in flight? Sure, these guys' flight muscles may be powerful enough to lift themselves, but they're carrying so much extra mass. Birds are pretty well optimized to be a pair of wings, a digestive tract, and not much else. These guys are carrying hundreds of pounds of extra weight.

Same deal. Their tissue averages 80% greater density. (By the way, i've made a change for the winged kokome, making them a seperate subspecies incapable of breeding with kokome. This species is shorter in stature, and significantly thinner, for an overall weight only 75% of the average. Is this satisfactory, or does it need to drop more?) Hence why kokome generally weight about 60% more than humans. (80% more density, sure, but kokome are smaller.)

An optimized winged humanoid would be a lot like a bird, and very little like a humanoid kokome-type. Light, preferably hollow bones, relatively little muscle mass in any body part not necessary for flight, and so on. Very little stored body fat or other reserves, because they need every ounce of weight savings they can get just to get airborne. Without heavy optimization a winged humanoid simply won't get off the ground, literally, because they can't fit big enough wings to haul around all that extra mass penalty in the arms and legs. The humanoid shape is very inefficient for flying- that's why there aren't any humanoid flyers in nature.

Keep in mind that you cannot steer a parachute, you are at the mercy of the wind, and a parachute will not help you get over trees, gorges or rivers. Climbing gear is good for mountains and ravines, but what about gorges, rivers and dense foliage?

Real special forces units tend to manage. They manage by walking and swimming and climbing, things the humanoid frame is very good for. They do not manage it by flying, which is an inefficient means of locomotion unless your body is built like a bird or bat.

In comparison, gliding above it under cover of night is safe and easy, and it doesn't attract unwanted attention. (Especially when fighting enemies that don't even have rifling, let alone proper anti-aircraft weaponry... unless they're using hijacked simini equipment, in which case it's still safer than walking through the minefield.)

If they don't have rifles, where the hell did they get land mines?

I see a pattern in your thinking that is very unwise. You're trying to justify your old decisions by slapping new patches on them. That doesn't work, because the old decisions were bad for deep, fundamental reasons. Adding another handwave doesn't make it better, because you don't fix the fundamental problem, and you add the possibility of new mistakes, new questions.

You need to stop and start over by thinking "how should supersoldiers be designed to accomplish a specific, well understood mission?" instead of thinking "how can I justify the existence of awesome supersoldiers that have all the features I desire?"

They did arm them with firearms, they wre just all way too "specialized" to be used in most situations.

WHAT? WHY?

That makes less than no sense. You've got these genius genetic engineers who can't design a freaking AK-47. It's ridiculous. You're turning your concept into a bad joke by using "the Creators screwed up" to explain every plot hole in the setting. Did the sisimi ever do anything right?

They stop anything up to any including a .45 jacketed hollow point. Any non-expanding pistol round will penetrate them. Buckshot also penetrates them. Rifles aren't even slowed down. This is why I use hollow points and birdshot for target practice. For rifles, I head outdoors and use a better backstop. (Like a hill.)

So, as armor, material equivalent to this (like your guys' skin) is useless against non-expanding bullets. It will also be useless against spears in the hands of strong opponents, being mauled by wild animals, and so on. It just isn't thick or solid enough to take a beating. It's nice, and it will probably make them somewhat more durable, but it doesn't make them bulletproof.

They did have all these things, but not for kokome. A simini squad used 8 simini infantry with assault rifles...

So they HAD assault rifles, but couldn't be bothered to design big ones to be held by their supersoldiers? And the supersoldiers themselves, despite having superhuman intelligence because they don't have "brain degeneration" and despite fighting alongside their masters all the time, never thought to ask for them or build their own?

That is just... that is just too retarded to believe at all.

Clearly you have no idea how either the human brain or aging work.
Or anthing else in biology for that matter.

Biology isn't my forte, but I wouldn't say I know nothing about it.

You wouldn't. But the people here who DO know biology would... that might be a warning sign, you know.

[Junghalli]

This is pretty good. A good writer back in the Golden Age of science fiction could have made a low-end classic out of this; I suspect that avianmosquito will reject it out of hand.

Thanks. And yes, he already has done more or less exactly that.

I see a pattern in your thinking that is very unwise. You're trying to justify your old decisions by slapping new patches on them. That doesn't work, because the old decisions were bad for deep, fundamental reasons. Adding another handwave doesn't make it better, because you don't fix the fundamental problem, and you add the possibility of new mistakes, new questions.

This. He seems unwilling to acknowledge that his ideas have serious fundamental problems.

Avianmosquito, again I don't mean to be a dick, but at this point all I can say is this. Everybody commenting in this thread seems to think your ideas need serious revision. That should tell you something.

[Ritterin Sophia]

That solves the metabolic problem, at the cost of rendering them sterile.

Not if you saturate their bodies with lead.

[Simon_Jester]

Which also renders them sterile.

[Lord Relvenous]

Which also renders them sterile.

Shush. If you hadn't have mentioned it, Skeeter might have considered it, leading to more hilarity.

[avianmosquito]

Revised version of the plot:

At ~1200bc, The simini, who have a total population of ~134 million of a small planet and facing overpopulation issues, selected 4 different systems to invade. (Kakara, Sentrus, Anod, Centauri. The force deployed to kakara was originally intended for Sol, but Kakara was a superior target.) They scouted out each, and found nobody had any kind of advanced technology, none were even industrial. This filled them with confidence. However, centauri was unsuitable, and that threw a wrench into their plans. As such, they sent those forces to kakara as well.

They sent ~2 million personnel to each planet. These trips were taken in sleeper ships, as it was 70-90 light years, a 700-900 year journey. This was mostly infantry and civilians (for logistical purposes) but including a mild amount of armoured and air support, as the enemy would bend as soon as a city or two was hit with biological weapons, and if not, they brought a small number of nuclear weapons with them to finish the deal. All in all, they wanted the enemy to surrender so as little time would be spent fighting as possible, and their ~16 million people (per system) coming in slower ships were expecting them to have cities set up for them in ~120 years.

Kakara was easy, the only intelligent species on the land didn't really care. The simians response was universally "As long as you're pleasant, and we'll be glad to have you as neighbors." while the dragons, being nomads, had nothing at stake in the matter. The sea-mammals were overlooked due to their aquatic nature, and were too primitive to mean much anyway. Even later, when they started raiding simini cities, they never amounted to anything.

Anod wasn't hard, but it wasn't easy either. It was rough, mauntainous, and covered in dense foliage. The local creatures were hostile, but were also a bronze-age culture that only posed a threat due to terrain, and not where trees were cleared to make room for cities. (The rest of the planet simini could care less about.) The locals were a nuisance, no more, and only half of them were hostile, the rest were neutral.

Only Sentrus posed them problems. It was an unusual planet, the north side of the planet facing their star, the south away. This lead to a strip of marshland around the equator that was perfect for the simini, but nothing more. They had to essentially destroy the swamp, and that didn't go well with the locals. The locals were a feudal age civilization, (no longer rennaisance) not much of a threat, but they had been fighting constant wars since their inception, so they were very good at what they did. They had tough, but not impenetrable, immune systems, were resistant to thermal weapons, and weren't as susceptible to chemical weapons due to their low metabolisms and inability to absorb them transdermally. (On top of that, the simini didn't have access to enough equipment to allow them to produce nerve gas in sufficient quanitities for a while, and had to rely on industrial toxins and the non-lethal toxins they had brought for crowd-control.) This was not a good combination.

The simini force sent was ~500,000 infantry, 1,000,000 logistical troops. The other 500,000 were mostly crewmen to their sizeable navy. They had ~4000 land vehicles, only 500 of which could be described as armour. That's not much for a planetary invasion force. They also only had 1000 aircraft, most of which were helicopters, and the only 200 useable fixed-wing aircraft they had were the strike fighters, transports, and cargo aircraft in their navy, only 8 bombers.

Their enemies were ferroningen, reptiles 100 million in number, a 200-1 numbers advantage for their infantrey, used mostly bows and other primitive weapons. They also used seige weapons, including ballistae small enough to be carried and set up by a single ferroningen, and catapults that could be assembled on-scene and carried in a backpack. (Shoot&scoot. You know how it works.) They could bombard simini bases and get the hell out of dodge in a heartbeat. Either by using tunnels and man-portable weapons, or by using forest and weapons carried by their equivalent of horses. (Domesticated mammals used to haul a larger catapult at higher speed, at the cost of taking longer to set it up and pack it away.) These bombardments were followed up by infantry and cavalry raiding them, stealing everything that isn't tied down, and destroying everything that is.

The larger ferroningen powers tried conventional warfare against them, using infantry, cavalry, artillery, and the ferroningen armoured coach.

Mass: 10 metric tons
Construction: Iron
Armour: Iron, 10cm
Drive system: Harnessed to a large beast of burden inside of the armour that could pull the tank quite well.
Speed: 12m/s
Cross-country speed: 6m/s (equal to the average human's sprint, pathetic, ain't it?)
Armament: Single medium-sized ballistae designed to rotate 360 degrees, 10 firing ports for onboard infantry with bows
complement: 20 infantry

This didn't work worth a damn. Armoured coaches, although too much for most infantry, were no match for simini tanks, and were usually killed in a heartbeat, even if their ballistae could pierce the armour on the simini tank. Only 2 simini tanks were killed by these vehicles, 64 armoured coaches were destroyed by simini tanks.

They would ambush patrols of infantry, hitting them from behind and usually either killing them before the patrol could return fire. Against small patrols, a quick volley at a distance with bows was sufficient. Against larger patrols, they would sneak up to point blank and engage them with mellee weapons, which simini were defenseless against due to their small, frail bodies and lack of physical strength. (Rifles are useless at that range.)

For light land vehicles, bows could do a significant amount of damage, (shoot a car with one, you'll see what I'm talking about) and a single hit from a rocket or ballistae would often immobolize or destroy them. (Which is what happens when you "immobilize" a wheeled vehicle while it's moving.) They weren't much of a threat until they knew you were their, in which case they would just light you up with the machinegun or autocannon they were carrying.

When dealing with armour, the ferroningen were smart. They set an ambush in the swampland, where the warm mud made it so they didn't need sunlight, and used a ballistae or rocket (they did have them, after all) to shoot the tank in the back of the turret, the 1kg bolt or cannonball penetrating the thin armour on the tank's rear and causing a casualty, killing the gunner or disabling the cannon. Either way the turret wasn't much threat to the weapon implacement anymore. Then they would have a small squad of infantry kill the simini manning the pintle-mounted gun, climb on top of the tank, pour oil on it, and set it on fire. This did little real damage to the tank, but the crew suffocated. This only had a 50% success rate, as 50% of the time the emplacement failed to hit the tank right or the squad was gunned down, but that's enough.

Helicopters were a bigger threat, as they could clean up an artillery site in less than a minute and weren't vulnerable to their fire, however, they were rarely armoured significantly to defend from ferroningen shooting them with bows or even throwing fucking rocks. (Not to mention the molotov coctail and the ferroningen sticky, a hand grenade coated in adhesive, which stuck to the helicopter and exploded.)

Fixed-wing aircraft could only be destroyed with stolen weapons (surface-air missiles) while they were in the air, as they were nearly invulnerable to ferroningen weapons. All they could do is shoot blunderbusses at them in a vain attempt to damage them. As a result, they developed a simple strategy that worked on almost all of them. They would locate the airfield, and do to it what they always did to simini bases.

The simini established a hold on the southern hemisphere, the ferroningen kept control over the northern hemisphere, the equatorial marshes were contested. Neither side could be moved, and when the simini civilians arrived the planet was unsuited for their usage. The simini decided that they needed to control the marshed then and there, but couldn't take them. The ferroningen decided that the simini could never have the marshes (partially out of spite for their long-time enemies) but couldn't drive them out. It was a stalemate. Neither side was interested in the other's hemisphere, but that was irrelevent, the simini were facing a perpetual war against an enemy advancing technologically faster than they were and outnumbering them greatly, and it was impossible to get reinforcements from their homeworld, as the homeworld was 73 lightyears away. The simini saw three solutions:

1. Settle this diplomatically, make concessions. They had been trying this for over a century, and it didn't work. They had made many a reasonable offer and all had been refused. The one they stuck with, in the end, that was to devide the planet in two. (metaphorically speaking) The simini would get everything south of the equator, the ferroningen would get everything north.
2. Bombard the northern hemisphere into oblivion. They didn't have that kind of firepower, as they had long since used up all their nuclear weapons trying to get the ferroningen to yield, manufacture of nuclear weapons anywhere but Canabi (their original system) was illegal until 512 years of war had passed. Even if they could, they couldn't obtain enough uranium to nuke the planet, let alone enough to nuke the planet and fly their ships. Dragging asteroids to impact the planet was unsatisfactory, as it would consume more fuel than they could produce, and doing that kind of damage would ruin the environment of the entire planet they were trying to capture.
3. Take the swamps long enough to cut the enemy off from them. (A wall would be best, but they would settle for a fence.) They chose this, and worked quite hard on it.

They didn't have the heavy machinery required to make enough tanks to do this with their current military, their infantry were being killed left and right, and air support isn't sufficient to do the job without the other two being strong to begin with. As such, they decided to redesign their military. They needed better infantry, that could better handle the swamp's humidity, detect ambushes better, and defeat the ferroningen in CQB, as opposed to just at a distance.

They launched a competition for who could create the best supersoldiers using any species except simini, and the Qoc clan won, with the design of transhumans, the precursors to kokome. Transhumans came in three forms:

1. Necros, (a human nickname given to them over 2200 years later) introduced in ~200bc, were designed to be virtually indestructible. They were the first design made, and by far the cheapest. The initial design, the cadavre, could take 4.5 times the punishment that regular humans could, didn't bleed as much from damage to the liver or kidneys, had 10 times the physical endurance, slept only half as much, and felt no pain. To top this off, they had a toxic saliva that swiftly blew out the target's renal system in large amounts, worked on almost all forms of carbon-based life that had such a system, wouldn't harm the necros in the small amounts that entered their blood and could not be treated by ferroningen technology. Their design blew out their adrenal system, ruined their health, and caused them to never last more than a few years before they died. Their health deteriorating lowered their physical strength, they suffered serious brain damage due to the chemicals responsible for their mutation, were rendered sterile, and so forth. In the end, they were no more capable than regular humans, (possible less) and were therefore deemed unfit for combat and used simply as slaves, humans handling the more complex tasks they were incapable off, simini commanding them.

2. Nosferatu, (also a nickname they didn't have for millenia), introduced in ~140bc, were designed for speed. The initial design, the feral, was a little tougher than a regular human, was a little stronger, but averaged speeds normally seen in world-class human athletes and could maintain them for longer. They were also smarter than cadavres, but still brain damaged to the point of being animals, (cunning animals, but animals) and had a different venom, a fast-acting sedative that could knock out a human in 10 seconds, a ferroningen in a minute, allowing ferroningen to be taken alive or killed at their liesure. They also managed to mutate humans into these in such a manner that it didn't render them sterile, blow out their adrenal system, destroy their renal system, or give them cancer. However, the design was based entirely around the female body and attempts to create male versions proved unsatisfactory. They therefore made them entirely female and worked around the breeding issue creatively with usage of the third class.

3. Teras, (same deal as the last two nicknames) were introduced alongside nosferatu, and were the male equivalent, built for strength instead of speed. The initial version, the beasts, were a little tougher than humans, (and a little tougher than nosferatu due to being a little larger) and a little faster as a byproduct of their strength, had dead nerves, and immense physical strength and greater endurance allowing them to carry more equipment, wear heavier armour, use higher-firepower weapons and move longer distances on foot with all this weighing them down. However, they were no more intelligent than nosferatu, and tended to let their testosterone take control of them in battle. They were designed around the male body, female versions would be unsatisfactory, so they were entirely male.

The nosferatu and teras were designed to breed with one another, when they had a male child it resulted in a teras, when a female child it meant a nosferatu. Both failed 25% of the time, but when the genes failed to carry properly it created a human, who was cheaply converted into a necros. (who could also be created by breeding humans and converting the children) Both nosferatu and teras naturally produced a small amount of a mild aphrodesiac, to increase the rate at which this occured. All three versions had their senses sharpened, but in necros this caused them to deteriorate over time from the stress and eventually fail. The system was ingenious, and, combined with simini and unaltered humans, allowed cheap access to a large number of troops, and this allowed them to take the southernmost 200km of the swamp, but the northern half remained beyond their reach.

About 600 years later, all of these creatures were upgraded, the upgrades more intelligent, could convert humans into the original grade of their subspecies, and were tougher, faster and stronger, but where nerves were dead before they are now only suppressed to 1/2 sensitivity. As a result, normal humans were phased out of their military and used only to produce necros slaves. However, they still had poor aim, so simini remained in the military. They were, however, rather expensive and were less effected by the small quantity of aphrodesiac in their system as their brain developed tolerances, unlike the original version, so the originals were maintained as well.

Finally, over 400 years later, the final version was introduced. This version was ever harder to produce, but was the strongest, fastest, most durable, and could create the second grade by mutating normal humans. They had no disadvantages compared to normal humans. As such, for slaves, they phased out normal humans. Also, nerves are normal. On top of that, grade 3 necros could reproduce, but not very well. They had a longer gestation time, only produced a single child every time, and had a low success rate. Result: few children, and it leaves the female incapable of manual labour for nearly a year. Humans were still neccesary to churn out the lower grades.

However, only 40 years later, when the simini had realised they couldn't take the northernmost 400km part of the swamp with these creatures, held a contest for their replacement (or supplementation). The winner was the Zkeo house with the kokome.

Kokome were not as effective as grade 3 transhumans, but MUCH more cost-effective. (Their design has been altered somewhat, feel free to ask questions where neccesary.) As such, they supplemented, but did not replace, transhumans. (Only in combat, not slavery. Thank you all for pointing out how rediculous the idea was.) They were between the first and second grade of necros in tolerance to damage (5x that of humans) and healing rate, (25x that of humans) met the second grade of nosferatu in speed, (~15-18m/s) and met the second grade of teras in strength. (2-3kn) To top this off, they were more resistant to penetration, blunt trauma, had better senses, and had many other advantages. They had no body hair to cope with the increased temperature of their bodies and the heat of the northern swamp. (They could even shed the hair on their scalp if it became a hinderence, but normally retained it.) The colour of their hair determined the noble house they belonged to when a primary colour, (red for Qoc, blue for Zkeo, yellow for Xokkav) and the noble houses that their semi-noble house belonged to when a mixture of two. (You should be able to figure this part out.) Females also produce milk as soon as their breasts develop, (sidenote: this milk is harder to digest, but is more nutritious) so that kokome infants will have more women to nurse from to cope with their greater nutritional requirements. (This should make sense.)

They had something called a reactive metabolism, (new feature) their metabolism changing to fit the circumstance. (Like humans, but MUCH more so.) Normally, they have twice the metabolism of humans, (like an athlete, not hard to handle) but when malnourished they could drop to a quarter of a human's normal rate. Also, when in combat or injured, their metabolism goes up to 16 times a normal human's, allowing the body to free up resources and energy to improve their athletic performance in combat and heal faster. Naturally, they still require more food than humans, slightly greater thermal efficiency doesn't change that, but the food they eat is more nutritious, which helps, and they drink a tea that improves their heart health and blood pressure more than normal tea, as to deal with the issues presented by their increased metabolism. However, they still need to eat twice as much as their food provides barely any more energy. This is an issue in the military, even though they shovel down their food like a chinese orphan in a shoe factory during lunch break. They cannot afford them so much time to eat, so they made it more convenient. They gave them a larger stomach, (new feature) and more elastic tissue (also new) that could stretch out to allow them to fit half their body mass in their stomach (at a lower density, at that) as to reduce how often they would need to be fed. They also sped digestion, increased the efficiency of their digestive tract to 35% (from 20%) and gave them a similar system for their throat, and an unhinging jaw. (both new as well) This way, they can swallow it all at once, although they prefer to take their time and enjoy their food when it is reasonably practical to do so.

Kokome also had tails added, although not for all of them. The addition of a prehensile tail meant they were to be used in the special forces, (shock troops and commandos are both counted in this) and served as more than a marker. It added an extra limb, afforded them better mobility in forest and jungle environment (like a monkey) and their hairs acted as a sensory organ. When air moves through the stiff hair it is moved by the force, and nerves at the base of these hairs pick it up, as well as the direction. These hairs are confined to the tail because having such sensitive nerves covering the body is a disadvantage.

Kokome have a single new sensory organ that acts as a form of thermal vision in the forehead (new feature, it used to be several, and in the sinus cavity) This is thin, and replaces the skin in this area, while it is covered by tissue with no blood vessels that is almost transparent to infrared radiation (but reflects the same part of the visual spectrum as regular skin, for aesthetic purposes) and is the same thickness as the epidermis in the area and starts at the same depth. (In fact, it would be hard to tell them apart.) However, this is retractible, like an eyelid, allowing this third eye to open, and therefore be more acute at a distance. This is rarely done, as this eye's mucous glands are undersized and underpowered, not to mention kokome do not find these eyes to be very appealing. However, this is essential for using the eye at long range, making it could for snipers to use for target aquisition, especially since it is seperate from the other two, both physically and mentally, and can therefore search for targets over a wider area than the scope allows, without the kokome ever taking their eyes off the scope.

While it is true that this shouldn't help kokome find ferroningen, it helps them find the beasts of burden ferroningen use to move supplies, and the hot spots ferroningen choose to set up ambushes in. (Since they cannot be exposed, and therefore cannot get sunlight for heat, when setting an ambush.)

Kokome were designed entirely partially for usage on Sentrus, but also saw use on other planets cecause a couple hundred years before the ferroningen decided to reveal they had spent the last thousand years in their little tunnels using stolen simini equipment to build a naval fleet bigger than the simini one, and simini simulators to train a crew. (Although they couldn't reverse-engineer much of the more advanced stuff because of their low intelligence and lack of creativity, with enough study they figured out how to use it, and how to read simini characters.)

At this point, the ferroningen took off, destroyed the simini fleet in orbit, and started to spread.

This was a long war, and in the middle of it the kokome rebelled and took the rest of the Simini's genetically engineed species with them. I can go into more detail later, but I'm out of time now.

[avianmosquito]

Which also renders them sterile.

Shush. If you hadn't have mentioned it, Skeeter might have considered it, leading to more hilarity.

No, I wouldn't of.

[Feil]

Keep in mind that you cannot steer a parachute, you are at the mercy of the wind, and a parachute will not help you get over trees, gorges or rivers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24617833/

[Samuel]

The simini, who have a total population of ~134 million of a small planet and facing overpopulation issues, selected 4 different systems to invade.

If you have overpopulation problems, wouldn't it be easier to put people in orbitals? Or are engines and cryogenics simply that cheap?

They also used seige weapons, including ballistae small enough to be carried and set up by a single ferroningen, and catapults that could be assembled on-scene and carried in a backpack. (Shoot&scoot. You know how it works.) They could bombard simini bases and get the hell out of dodge in a heartbeat.

Than you go the Israeli method an put concrete arches over buildings. Also catapult accuracy isn't great and lacks penetration power- just cover walkways and you will be fine.

These bombardments were followed up by infantry and cavalry raiding them, stealing everything that isn't tied down, and destroying everything that is.

Barbed wire/electric fence would halt such attacks. And that is the minimum you'd have to cover everything on the planet.

even if their ballistae could pierce the armour on the simini tank.

Simini tanks... are they converted cars?

They would ambush patrols of infantry, hitting them from behind and usually either killing them before the patrol could return fire.

Why would the shimi use patrols? They can simply use tanks and APCs to check out problems.

Against small patrols, a quick volley at a distance with bows was sufficient.

Bows are good fired by large numbers targeted at packed groups. This would not be the case.

Against larger patrols, they would sneak up to point blank and engage them with mellee weapons, which simini were defenseless against due to their small, frail bodies and lack of physical strength. (Rifles are useless at that range.)

Flamethrowers- because when your allies are fireproofed, burning everything is a viable option.

Fixed-wing aircraft could only be destroyed with stolen weapons (surface-air missiles) while they were in the air, as they were nearly invulnerable to ferroningen weapons.

Why would the shimi bring anti-air weapons with them?

Dragging asteroids to impact the planet was unsatisfactory, as it would consume more fuel than they could produce, and doing that kind of damage would ruin the environment of the entire planet they were trying to capture.

In space there is no fuel requirements. Only delta v to get out of the atmosphere and the required fuel to turn around. As long as you have some fuel you can get to your destination (although it may take a bit longer).

Plus doomsday rock overhead that can be seen at night is a great way to get your opponents to the bargaining table.

I'll let the biologists deal with your designs.

[Jeremy]

A max population of 134 is going to put a lot of radical changes on society. There will probably be a lot of things they never discovered just because of the lack of manhours available.

What about the Stargate approach? That would solve a lot of the problems.

[avianmosquito]

If you have overpopulation problems, wouldn't it be easier to put people in orbitals? Or are engines and cryogenics simply that cheap?

Which would you prefer? A planet, or a space station? Which supports more people? Which has a lower long-term cost? Which is better for your health?

Than you go the Israeli method an put concrete arches over buildings. Also catapult accuracy isn't great and lacks penetration power- just cover walkways and you will be fine.

Catapults can hurl bombs as easily as rocks. Or lead balls. Or firebombs. Or... You get the picture. It would help, but it wouldn't stop them for long.

Barbed wire/electric fence would halt such attacks. And that is the minimum you'd have to cover everything on the planet

Maybe, maybe not. Electric fences would fail if the power went out. (which it would if the plant was hit. Backup wuoldn't last very long. Barbed wire should help though. How about riding a transport coach over it, (a bigger armoured coach without the ballistae, used to carry 50 infantry) which would carry the infantry. (Cavalry, on the other hand, would be useless.)

Simini tanks... are they converted cars?

No, they're just small. (Like their drivers.) Ballistae have good penetration, so one that size should penetrate the defense. (Which is the same as in the original draft.) Although I doubt it could penetrate at a distance or a bad angle.

Why would the shimi use patrols? They can simply use tanks and APCs to check out problems.

Okay, they only have 500 tanks, in fact, only 1000 vehicles capable of operating at all in the swamp. (Most simini vehicles are wheeled, wheels don't work in swamps, they get stuck in the mud.) Do you really think that's enough for a 1600km wide strip that goes all the way around a planet?

Bows are good fired by large numbers targeted at packed groups.

The deer on my wall would beg to differ.

Flamethrowers- because when your allies are fireproofed, burning everything is a viable option.

Already use this idea. There's a few issues. Simini armour is carbon fibre-reinforced polycarbonate. Polycarbonate burns. Furthermore, turning a lizard with a mace into a flaming lizard with a mace doesn't really help your odds of survival.

Why would the shimi bring anti-air weapons with them?

It's for a philosophy that has long been military's doctrine: better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

If simini rebel, you're supposed to be ready to shoot down any aircraft they may have. It also helps if the ferroningen steal an aircraft, or you need to kill a large airborne creature. (Not a problem on Sentrus.)

In space there is no fuel requirements. Only delta v to get out of the atmosphere and the required fuel to turn around. As long as you have some fuel you can get to your destination (although it may take a bit longer).

Actually, there are. The longer you're in space the more energy is needed for life support. This can be quite a bit. Also, there's a minimum to the power you can get out of a nuclear reactor. (Which is the source of the ship's power.)

Plus doomsday rock overhead that can be seen at night is a great way to get your opponents to the bargaining table.

With ferroningen xenophobes? I doubt it. It, combined with nuclear weapons, nerve gas and a boiweapon that actually worked on reptiles in such a dry emvironment as the northern hemisphere might get them to say "Okay, how about 50/50?" but not just asteroids, and they won't give up the northern swamp.

I'll let the biologists deal with your designs.

And let's hope they respond sometime soon.

[avianmosquito]

A max population of 134 is going to put a lot of radical changes on society. There will probably be a lot of things they never discovered just because of the lack of manhours available.

What about the Stargate approach? That would solve a lot of the problems.

134 doesn't produce too bad of a lack of manhours, and simini are an old species. (Over 2 million years.) But yes, this is true. This is why their biotech is so advanced, but their mechanical tech is only early-21st century, they only have so much manpower to work on such things, so more went to medical and biological research (originally due to the dire need to quickly respond to the health problems caused by an overpopulated post-industrial society) instead of meachanical research.

As far as stargates, simini simply lack the technology for FTL travel in general.

[Dark Hellion]

How the hell are they suffering overpopulation pressures with 134 million people? Seriously?

[Grif]

Must have been a really small planet for 134 million to be considered overcrowding. Or they just have larger requirements for space?

[avianmosquito]

How the hell are they suffering overpopulation pressures with 134 million people? Seriously?

Canabi's 2nd planet is only the size of mars, and the surface is 95% water. They have maybe 5% of the land available to them that we do. 134 million is plenty to cause such issues.

[Dark Hellion]

Not really dude. Japan has a population of 128 million people and it sure as hell ain't 5% of the land area. Especially with the species having good genetic engineering skills they can turn some of that ocean space into food production as well.

The number is just really small as far as any space going population is concerned, so small as to be rather absurd and horribly implausible with out a lot of ass pulling.

[Norade]

Revised Even more retarded version of the plot:

Fixed that for you.

At ~1200bc, The simini, who have a total population of ~134 million of a small planet and facing overpopulation issues

Your planet would need to have less and landmass than Japan for that to be even close to true. Once again you show you understand nothing about scale.

...selected 4 different systems to invade. (Kakara, Sentrus, Anod, Centauri. The force deployed to kakara was originally intended for Sol, but Kakara was a superior target.) They scouted out each, and found nobody had any kind of advanced technology, none were even industrial. This filled them with confidence. However, centauri was unsuitable, and that threw a wrench into their plans. As such, they sent those forces to kakara as well.

Not as retarded, but it would still be cheaper, easier and just as nice to build orbitals. The only reason to build sleepers is to send them to a new unihabbited system is to reduce population of a system which is projected to run low on resources to quickly at full population. Or to insure your race survives an event that destroyers your home system. In either event you simply build more orbitals there and explore the planet as desired for science or maybe tourism.

They sent ~2 million personnel to each planet. These trips were taken in sleeper ships, as it was 70-90 light years, a 700-900 year journey. This was mostly infantry and civilians (for logistical purposes) but including a mild amount of armoured and air support, as the enemy would bend as soon as a city or two was hit with biological weapons, and if not, they brought a small number of nuclear weapons with them to finish the deal. All in all, they wanted the enemy to surrender so as little time would be spent fighting as possible, and their ~16 million people (per system) coming in slower ships were expecting them to have cities set up for them in ~120 years.

This makes as little sense as the rest of your dumb ideas. Why send anything not designed to end the war quickly in the first wave? They can already live on their ship, even if many need to be frozen again, so they won't need habitats nor will the other colonists as you simply let the military guys unthaw them when the world is ready.

If you only bring things such as armored vehicles, planes, and WMD's you should win rather quickly with your enemy not killing a single of your combatants. That is if you don't simply drop rocks on them from space.

Kakara was easy, the only intelligent species on the land didn't really care. The simians response was universally "As long as you're pleasant, and we'll be glad to have you as neighbors." while the dragons, being nomads, had nothing at stake in the matter. The sea-mammals were overlooked due to their aquatic nature, and were too primitive to mean much anyway. Even later, when they started raiding simini cities, they never amounted to anything.

So clearly some primitive races weren't a threat? What were these sea mammals even more physically crippled or mental handicapped than the Simini?

Anod wasn't hard, but it wasn't easy either. It was rough, mauntainous, and covered in dense foliage. The local creatures were hostile, but were also a bronze-age culture that only posed a threat due to terrain, and not where trees were cleared to make room for cities. (The rest of the planet simini could care less about.) The locals were a nuisance, no more, and only half of them were hostile, the rest were neutral.

If your space faring races takes any loses to a bronze age society you fail. You have things they can literally not hurt and no incentive to send in infantry until every threat in a given area is killed.

Only Sentrus posed them problems. It was an unusual planet, the north side of the planet facing their star, the south away. This lead to a strip of marshland around the equator that was perfect for the simini, but nothing more. They had to essentially destroy the swamp, and that didn't go well with the locals. The locals were a feudal age civilization, (no longer rennaisance) not much of a threat, but they had been fighting constant wars since their inception, so they were very good at what they did. They had tough, but not impenetrable, immune systems, were resistant to thermal weapons, and weren't as susceptible to chemical weapons due to their low metabolisms and inability to absorb them transdermally. (On top of that, the simini didn't have access to enough equipment to allow them to produce nerve gas in sufficient quanitities for a while, and had to rely on industrial toxins and the non-lethal toxins they had brought for crowd-control.) This was not a good combination.

The simini force sent was ~500,000 infantry, 1,000,000 logistical troops. The other 500,000 were mostly crewmen to their sizeable navy. They had ~4000 land vehicles, only 500 of which could be described as armour. That's not much for a planetary invasion force. They also only had 1000 aircraft, most of which were helicopters, and the only 200 useable fixed-wing aircraft they had were the strike fighters, transports, and cargo aircraft in their navy, only 8 bombers.

So barely gunpowder age people in a constant state of inter tribal war were a threat to your forces? Even with only 500 tanks they could have built temporary space stations and waited while their small force kills and they slowly build the industrial base to build more weapons. Your race is literally too dumb to believe.

I'm going to stop here, because everything beyond here is even worse.