Ultimate Bio-Tech Showdown:

[2000AD]

Which Bio Technology using race would beat the others down in a massive free for all fight. The main competitors I see are:

The Yuuhzan Vong - from Star Wars

The Zerg - from Starcraft

The Tyranids - from Warhammer 40,000

These are just a few of the SF races that use bio-tech. and if anyone thinks any of the other bio-tech races (eg. species 8427, the Beast from Howeworld:Cataclysm) would stand a chance then feel free to discuss them on this topic as well, the more the merrier. (and the more carnage)

Personally I think that the Tyranids from 40K would win. Like the Zerg they are implaceable and will never retreat and like the YV they can adapt and evolve new creatures fast. While their fleets don't travel as fast as the other two they don't really need to. They don't try to conquer and hold worlds, they just devour them. Rather than be wasteful and just destroy a planet, they strip it bare and leave nothng but a barren husk of a planet.

[David]

Have you never heard of the Shadows or Vorlon from B5!

[The Episiarch]

Speaking of biological starships, it would be a mistake to exclude the great Spline armed with their starbreaker beam weapons.
Each Spline a planet destroyer, how's that?

Of course, referring to Mike Wong's article, there's also Lexx (I have actually seen much of it, probably about three and a half episodes before it completely turned me off as it gave me the impression that it was unimaginative tawdry B-grade crap) which was biological.

Anyway, I would like to pit the Spline fleet into this bout.

[David]

B-grade? You have a much higher opinion of it than I do.

[The Episiarch]

Well for me, B-grade translate to 'miscellaneous crap' that in other people's opinion can range from anything from B to Z grade, I just don't want to make things to complicated by making to many levels.
Anything crap is basically 'B-grade' and if you want to get specific talk to me about it and ask for a review from me and I don't think you want to do that.

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

My money is on the Vang, a race of super parsites that are very smart, use technology, (from within their host bodies) can geneticly reengineer themselves through concious thought, reengineer their host bodies the same way, and breed like bacteria. They are also masters of stealth, and the first thing they do on site is use computer viruses, and good old sabotage to stop all comm traffic. Give them 1 week, and the only way to stop them is planetary sterilisation. This doesn't always work, as they have their own FTL tech base. In the books, whole sectors were cooked, to make SURE they were gone. They just don't understand why we resist so forcefuly!

[His Divine Shadow]

The only biotech I want to see is the one that gets vaporized under the iron heel of real tech.

[2000AD]

While I agree that Lexx is powerful it is just one ship and would get seriously squished by the fleets of other ships in the other races mentioned.

I have heard of the SHadow's and Vorlan's, but having never watched B5 (it's on at like 3 in the morning over here last time I checked, and I don't have cable) I do not know of their capabilities.


And I still think that the Tyranids would beat the Vong. While the YV have excellent espionage and sabotage capabilities these are rendered virtually useless by the Tyranids methods of communication and support. They are in a hivemind, but unlike a hivemind where just one creature is the link there are many. Given that in an average land battle ( 2000pt 40K battle) a tyranid army will have approx 8 "synopsis" creatures (1 Hive Tyrant, 1 Zoanathrope, 6 Tyranid Warriros) the smallest, Ty. Warrior, being about 15-20 foot tall, with a hard carapace and carrying some nasty weaponry which it is bred to use. Even if a YV agent was able to infiltrate the 'Nids I'd like to see him try and take down one of these, let alone the squad of three that they normaly travel in.
This leads onto the point about YV actuallt infilitrating a Tyranid army. Here's what i think would be the 2 biggest problems :
1- Almost all of the Tyranid creatures have 6 limbs and those that don't are either much smaller or much bigger than the average YV. Ooglith Maskers are great, but can they grow you two new, fully functional arms/legs.
2- The hive mind. Given that all Tyranid creatures are connected to the hive mind any unusual behaviour from an organism would be noticed almost immeadiatly. The infiltrator would have to learn how to predict what will happen and react with it, which is impossible.
And since the Tyranids have no logistical train as such you cannot cut off their supplies. All they do is go to the next planet, eat it, and move on. Their ground creatures survive by using Ripper Swarms. A ripper is a large worm like creature that can eat just about everything. All the material eating is then dumped at reclamation pools which provide nutrients for the ground creatures and also serve as storage facilities for when the Hive ships want to take the food up. To "starve" a Tyranid army you would need to destroy all it's Rippers, which is not easy considering that they number in the thousands, if not millions, and most of them follow the ground force AFTER THE BATLLE with only a few joining in the fighting.

[Skelron]

My money is on the Vang, a race of super parsites that are very smart, use technology, (from within their host bodies) can geneticly reengineer themselves through concious thought, reengineer their host bodies the same way, and breed like bacteria. They are also masters of stealth, and the first thing they do on site is use computer viruses, and good old sabotage to stop all comm traffic. Give them 1 week, and the only way to stop them is planetary sterilisation. This doesn't always work, as they have their own FTL tech base. In the books, whole sectors were cooked, to make SURE they were gone. They just don't understand why we resist so forcefuly!

While quite impressive they are no match for the Tyranid's I think. The Tyranid's have that whole infiltration thing going for them, (Genestealer Cults, they infect the body of a host subject with a Gene virus, it alters the reproductive system of the host to add in Stealer genetic code, within four generations Pure Stealer's are produced. They at the same time Psyically control the person to protect their children and accept genetic oddities as beutiuful, despite it quite likely the kid has three arms or something. infected human's are 100% loyal to the stealer cause, and filled with a need to reproduce. The Stealer's are the first wave for the Tyranid's they usually rise up in as a Hive fleet approaches, either conquoring the Planet or causing havok and destruction to the Planetly defence corps.) Genetic reenginering is the forte of the Nid's The first Hive fleet encountered by the Imperium of man was had nothing that could approach the shear firepower and size of a Titan, and so was eventually destroyed, by the next fleet the Nid's had designed several new breeds of Giant creatures able to go toe to toe with a Titan. Their method of communication has also already been given..

As for Planetary Sterilasation... The IoM has that down to an art form, they have a catch all term for such needs.. Exterminus.
Also the Nid's have number's having already devoured at the very least the entirety of one Galaxy, the Milky way is next... a Quote from Spacebattles by White Rabbit there (I think it was him) I think gets over the shear scale, an Average Nid fleet, so average it dosn't even have a codename attached to it by the IoM contains wait for it 1.6 Billion vessels

[Howedar]

If the Beast got much of a foothold I think it would win.

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

HMMMM. The Tyrnids sound like Vang x1000. Besides, the Vang are all but gone. (Don't go into the dead zones, as they are not ALL gone, and can hibernate for mileneum in their life pods.)

[IDMR]

HMMMM. The Tyrnids sound like Vang x1000. Besides, the Vang are all but gone. (Don't go into the dead zones, as they are not ALL gone, and can hibernate for mileneum in their life pods.)

Just to clear up a little confusion, your Most August Majesty, could you inform us where the Vang came from? It would appear that a few of our members mistook this parasitic race for the Vong.

[2000AD]

Whoops. I thought that Vang was a typo and ment Vong , as in Yuuzhan Vong. Can anyone enlighten me about who/what the Vang are?

[Kosh_The_Vorlon]

Yeah..If the Beast managed to eat some of the ships from each race, it'd be over..They'd just fall faster and faster and faster as the Beast fleet grew larger.

[Master of Ossus]

Hmmm.... Well, I think that the Vorlons, individually, are the toughest race using biotech. They are telekinetic and really cool. The Zerg have a huge numbers advantage, but I think that the battle would eventually go to the Yuuzhan Vong. Their warriors are tough, and they have immense resources at their disposal.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Can I bring in a Berzerker and show all that Badlife what Microwaves and X-Ray laser's do to Biotech?

[Admiral Griffith]

The Beast has Ion Cannons, railguns, and a sensible military at its disposal. IIRC, it is a biological entity making use of machines, like realistic sci-fi cultures. I doubt that it should count here, actually. Because of that, I figure it'll cream the other races.

[Tatterdemalion]

Hmmm.... Well, I think that the Vorlons, individually, are the toughest race using biotech. They are telekinetic and really cool. The Zerg have a huge numbers advantage, but I think that the battle would eventually go to the Yuuzhan Vong. Their warriors are tough, and they have immense resources at their disposal.

Trust me the Tyranids have the advantage in numbers. Allow me to repeat the magic number:

1.6 BILLION ships

Now I can't remember the zerg fleet stats from the starcraft manual, but I'm pretty certain that the zerg don't even come close to the Tyranids numberwise. (Especially considering that their transport ships are the patheticly small overlords)
Acoompanied by the whole '1.5 trillion tonnes of spores' planetary bombardment thing that makes them a ground force to be reckoned with.

Really, if you're gonna beat the Tyranids you're gonna have to do it in space, the traditional 40k weakspot, though attacking them in space generally depends on what kind of fleet you're facing. For instance, Hive Fleet Behemoth attacked en masse, with around three billion ships, whereas Kraken split up into hundreds of smaller sub-fleets. Obvioslly if you're trying to attack 1.6 billion ships at once you're going to get your ass handed to you if you're anything short of omnipotent.[/b]

[SirNitram]

Beast wins for one reason:

Cold, hard steel.

The Beast's ships seem to merge the upsides of biotech and normal tech beautifully. They are certainly as hard to crack as metal ships, and visibly appear to be metal for the most part, but are capable of regenerating rapidly. Not to mention the construction rates they get from having the Phase Dissembler Array..

In the end, the answer is obvious.

We are legion!

[Veers]

The Zang of Brin's Uplift Universe are the ultimate Bio Techers! Their ships are big organic jelly masses and range from weaker than a kitten to god like.

Course, their biology is based off hydrogen, methane, and the like. They have an unorthodox approach to combat, to us.

[Master of Ossus]

I think the YV would win. Their warriors are VERY powerful and they have IMMENSE resources at their disposal. In only a few years they have conquered a galaxy with technology far more powerful than in either of the other examples you brought up.

BTW, while winning awards for being very cool, the Shadows and Vorlons would not stand a chance. Their technology is inferior to the other groups here.

[SirNitram]

I think the YV would win. Their warriors are VERY powerful and they have IMMENSE resources at their disposal. In only a few years they have conquered a galaxy with technology far more powerful than in either of the other examples you brought up.

BTW, while winning awards for being very cool, the Shadows and Vorlons would not stand a chance. Their technology is inferior to the other groups here.

The Vong? You must be joking. One Infection beam and the Coralskippers would be panicing because the Worldship is now attacking them.

[2000AD]

Last time I played Cataclysm the Infection beam didn't work too well against big cap ships. Though it did work fine against fighters and small cap ships. (eg. Multibeam frigates)

[SirNitram]

Last time I played Cataclysm the Infection beam didn't work too well against big cap ships. Though it did work fine against fighters and small cap ships. (eg. Multibeam frigates)

The explanation for this is something called the Naar Directive. Apparantly, big caps flush themselves with plasma from their drives to cleanse the infection. But last I checked, the Vong don't use plasma-based engines...

[2000AD]

don't their main ship-to-ship weapons use plasma though? And given the immense amount of energy they need to generate wouldn't they be able to do something simular?