Xeelee vs. the rest of Science Fiction

[ChosenOne54]

Simple question, as the Xeelee are one of the most powerful races in Sci-Fi: what can beat them? Obviously omnipotent beings should be left out, but apart from that, what race or being in Science Fiction is capable of matching or defeating the Xeelee in an all-out, no holds barred war? The only one I know of at the moment, because of a previous thread of mine, is the Time Lords. So, who else?

[ThomasP]

Photino Birds.

[VarrusTheEthical]

Xeelee are gods in all but name, so any discussion is basically alien demigod vs alien demigod. But I'll play anyway.

One candidate I would forward is the C'tan from 40k. Like the Xeelee, their origin dates to shorty after the birth of the universe, so they would be about as old. They also like a steady diet of stars, so are probably as much a threat to the Xeelee as the Photino Birds were.

[ChosenOne54]

What else do we know about the C'tan? How numerous are they? How do they fight?

[VarrusTheEthical]

There's only four active in the current 40k cannon. The Night Bringer. The Deceiver. The Void Dragon. And The Outsider. There were apparently more in the distant past, but the Outsider ate them.

They typically fight through proxies, specifically the Necrons. I'm not sure about their personal combat capabilities, but the are apparently nigh unkillable.

As I recall, a C'tan's natural form is a big living cloud, big enough to completely envelop a star for feeding. They also like to eat life for dessert. Not to sure how fast a C'tan can eat a star, but it could be fast enough to cause the Xeelee problems. The C'tan may also take a liking to eating the Xeelee themselves.

[ChosenOne54]

I'm not very familiar with the 40K universe, but from what you're describing, they don't sound all that capable to defeat the Xeelee. The reason the Photino Birds were effective was not only because they aged stars, but because they did this across untold trillions of galaxies. They were aging every star in the universe, and they were capable of lobbing galaxies when they got pissed off. Xeelee, likewise, were capable of using cosmic string or somesuch to scatter entire galaxies, as well as using galaxies as building material.

Four C'tan likely isn't going to cut it.

[VarrusTheEthical]

Well, I should say that there are four in the Milkyway, and those four are a credible threat to everything, even the Chaos Gods. And though there are only four C'tan, they have innumerable Necrons to do their bidding. And there could be more in other galaxies, the 40K fluff says very little about what's going on in the rest of the universe.

Now I believe if the C'tan had been allowed to multiply, and didn't suffer interference at the hands of other ancient races, then over the history of the universe they could have likely spread over the universe, munching stars and any less advanced life they happened across. Over the timespan of the Xeelee sequence, I think they would make a credible threat, warranting at least the same response from the Xeelee that the P-birds did.

Now the thing with Xeelee is that the their natural environment is the event horizon of a black hole. If you have enough C'tan running around unchecked, there won't be any stars left to collapse into black holes because the C'tan ate them all. Eventually, the Xeelee's blackhole homes are going to evaporate into Hawking radiation and they wont have new ones to move to. They would be SOL unless they pulled the same trick as they did in Ring.


Note: I don't know what happens to the matter that C'tan eat. I like to pretend they just eat stars and crap dark matter.

[ChosenOne54]

Even still, they would require mind-bogglingly large numbers to pose a credible threat to the Xeelee. I'm working under the assumption that the C'tan can be killed through brute force, and with their massive Closed Timelike Curve, the Xeelee could essentially re-direct their entire civilization to fight the C'tan in the most effective way possible. Do the C'tan have time travel in any form?

[VarrusTheEthical]

On the issue of C'tan being killed, from what I understand, though they can be defeated, they never stay dead permanently. They will always reform after some time. Even the ones that were eaten by the Outsider didn't really die. They were basically absorbed into one incredibly powerful, and very insane being. Now I will say that 40k fluff can be inconsistent, but about the only thing that truly could harm the C'tan was the Warp itself, which is 40k's equivalent to Hell. Since the Warp is magic, probably not something the Xeelee would have.

On time travel, there's nothing that I have read that says that they did, so I assume no. However, I don't believe that the Photino Birds had time travel either, they were just too many for the Xeelee to defeat, timetravel or no.

Now C'tan are a similar threat to the Photino birds because the destroy what baryonic life needs to survive, stars. Now you mention that Xeelee like to throw Galaxies and such at their enemies. Well, to me, trying to fight C'tan by throwing Galaxies at them is like trying to fight a Grizzley Bear by throwing a happy meal at it. You're just throwing food at them. Xeelee may be able to disperse or even impression individual C'tan. But I don't think they could kill them permanently. I think if the C'tan get above a certain critical mass like the Photino Bird did, then they have a real chance of ruining the Xeelee's party.

[Ford Prefect]

Stephen Baxter's Downstreamers are on an impliedly much larger scale than both the Xeelee and the Photino Birds.

I suppose the Anti-Spirals from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, given that they were able to spontaneously create the Cho Granzeboma, could match or exceed the Xeelee. Though I guess whether they cross the line for quote unquote omnipotent being is ambiguous, given that you surpass God two giant robots below the Gramzeboma. :v

[Number Theoretic]

Unfortunately, i haven't read any of the novels featuring the Xeelee, but what i have picked up so far is, that they are really badass: They have whole galaxies at their disposal and they have absolute control over baryonic matter.
Nevertheless, i would suspect, that the Culture, (despite being far inferior in numbers?) could be a worthy opponent.

[Ford Prefect]

The Xeelee effectively control the entire non-dark matter universe. Individual galaxies barely register on their scale, which is probably why they've actually used them as thrown projectiles.

[ChosenOne54]

@Varrus

Though I'm not a hundred percent sure about this, but I think the reason the Xeelee could simply use time travel to defeat the Photino Birds at the beginning of time was because they existed in massive numbers from the very beginning to the very end, the Xeelee just noticed them later. In this case, you are suggesting that the C'tan multiply over time basically alongside the Xeelee, which means they may be vulnerable, as the Xeelee could go back in time to when they were small in number and kill them then.

[ChosenOne54]

Nevertheless, i would suspect, that the Culture, (despite being far inferior in numbers?) could be a worthy opponent.

Yeah, while they may put up a good fight individually, even if they manage to scan and replicate some Xeelee tech, they wouldn't have anywhere even remotely close to the numbers required.

[VarrusTheEthical]

Well I think part of what made the Photino birds so unmanageable for the Xeelee was the fact that they were not made of baryonic matter, and thus not vulnerable to most Xeelee attacks. C'tan are not made of baryonic matter either, their pure energy. So the Xeelee are presented with a similar problem because like with the Photino birds, they cant be directly attacked. The only thing that I think the Xeelee could do to the C'tan is throw them into a Black Hole, or throw the Black Hole at them. But I doubt that would be very efficient, otherwise they would have used that trick against the Photino Birds.

[ChosenOne54]

But the Xeelee did devise a way to effectively combat the Photino Birds. The Starbreaker beams were based on some gravity technology which were specifically designed to fight the Photino birds. If these weapons don't work on the C'tan, then most certainly the Xeelee will find a way to fight them. That's the beauty of the huge time loop they live in; if they encounter an enemy, and study the enemy for a while, they can then send back information, or even alter their existence from the very beginnings of their existence to effectively combat said enemy.

[VarrusTheEthical]

Yes, I'm aware of the Xeelee's ability to make a mockery of causality. But the only thing that ever really hurt the C'tan was the Warp and those who could wield it.

So essentially in a universe without the Warp, I don't think that the Xeelee would ever find the tools needed to hurt the C'tan. In a universe that does have the Warp, I'm sure that the Xeelee would find a way to use it effectively against the C'tan. They would also learn that in the 40k universe, there are far worse things than C'tan.

[ChosenOne54]

If they can't actually kill the C'tan, they could simply trap them in a pocket dimension, like they did with the remnants of humanity in Vacuum Diagrams.

[VarrusTheEthical]

That could work if you could catch them. But like with trapping them in black holes, that probably not very efficient, otherwise they would have done that to the Photino Birds.

[ChosenOne54]

But the Photino birds were almost retardedly numerous, which is probably why the Xeelee had difficulties. If the Xeelee go back in time to when the C'tan are not numerous, then they could probably do all manner of horrific things to them.

[VarrusTheEthical]

Maybe, but the thing about C'tan is that they are not limited to just eating stars. Any Xeelee that's not careful risks getting eaten itself and therefore passing on it's knowledge to the C'tan. This could allow a C'tan to learn many Xeelee secrets, such as the location of one of their closed-time loops. Or, the Ring. So you could have the problem of having a C'tan force it's way through one of the Xeelee's loops, thus having a veritable buffet of proto-Xeelee to snack on.

[ChosenOne54]

Well, I've only read Exultant, but I was under the impression that the loop wasn't actually 'physical.' It was formed because the Xeelee at the end of their existence would travel all the way back to their beginnings to alter their development, creating a sort of time loop. That's how I understood it anyway.

As a side note, this is why debating with the Xeelee is so enjoyable.

[VarrusTheEthical]

Glad you're enjoying it. This is all good fun for me too. Not easy to try and find a match for a race as stupendously overpowered as the Xeelee.

[ChosenOne54]

Heh, true. Baxter does love writing stories on a massive scale. That's what I love about his novels.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Stephen Baxter's Downstreamers are on an impliedly much larger scale than both the Xeelee and the Photino Birds.

I suppose the Anti-Spirals from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, given that they were able to spontaneously create the Cho Granzeboma, could match or exceed the Xeelee. Though I guess whether they cross the line for quote unquote omnipotent being is ambiguous, given that you surpass God two giant robots below the Gramzeboma. :v

Well keep in mind that truly Silly stuff like the Cho Granzeboma and the Super TTGL, happened in "The space between the 11th and 12th dimension or basically a place where Thought/Spiral Energy could manifest instantly into things. Depending on who you talk to, those could never exist in the "Real World" so the claim that the Anti Spiral are all nigh omnipotent only applies in their pocket universe.

Now in terms of how it relates to the Xeelee, well consider something else.

In the first Spiral war, The Spiral and Anti Spiral forces had fought to a stand still. In fact depending on who you asked the Spiral forces would have defeated the Anti Spiral, but couldn't deliver a finishing blow because they could not locate their homeworld. They may have indeed found it in time, but as we know Lord Genome turned on them and activated the Cathedral Terra into robot mode. Now here is something to consider...

The Entire Spiral Armada pushed back the full weight of the Anti Spiral forces. Yet... The Cathedral Terra in Robot mode One Ship was able to surprise and wipe out the whole of Spiral Armada. Now the largest forces the AntiSpiral had were their moon sized "faces of despair" Which the Gurenn Lagann forces fought two of. In the OVA showing events of the Spiral War, we see the Spiral forces defeating Many of these things. In the events of the show, when Cathedral Terra once more goes into Robot mode, it handily defeats the two they are up against with barely a scratch.

So the REAL question is not weather the Xeelee can face the anti spiral, but if they can take out a Cathedral Terra in Robot mode. Because unless they go to the Anti Spirals pocket dimension, thats the most powerful thing in the GL universe.