EVOLUTION COMPLETE! - musings on StarCraft stuff

[Shroom Man 777]

At the same time, though, a marine in Iraq doesn't have to source the energy required to bring in new equipment locally either, and nor would they have the equipment to do so even if they had to.

We know that the Protoss can warp things across great distances without require resources at all. We also know that Protoss probes are just as capable of gathering environmental resources as Terran SCVs or Zerg drones are.

The Protoss are very isolationist and hesitant to go to war, so it very well may be that unlike Earth nations they do not keep on hand the material budget to expand their war machine, and rely almost entirely on pre-built materiel left over from their expansion phase. Given the in-field capabilities of Protoss logistics robots (Reavers for example are merely a specialized form of mobile factory) it makes sense that they would take advantage of the need to establish fortified base areas to also uptake necessary resources to sustain future use of their existing military.

At this point we're just pitting our own pet "pure conjectures" against each other lol. ANYWAY...

It would actually make most sense not to hamper frontline forces with foraging duties unless necessary, like in the case of isolated far flung colonial Terran forces and Zerg "splinter swarms" or whatever. In the case of Protoss with ridiculous FTL and teleportation tech, the foraging duties could easily be done by space probes harvesting asteroids...

Besides, it's ridiculous to assume that a base - Protoss, Terran or Zerg - would need to consume entire canyons worth of ore to "pay" for a carrier, battlecruiser or swarm of gribblies. I think that just like how Protoss probably just require minerals/gas to power the warp-process... for larger scale projects, those Terran factories probably don't fabricate the entire warship or even starfighter or tank from scratch - they probably come in kits and the mineral/gas expenses are probably just from the welding/assembly and whatever few "procure locally as needed" components there are (like, in the case of a spacecraft... the reactors are probably included in the kit that's shipped from Tarsonis or Korhal or Dylarin... whereas the glass canopies/windows are probably processed from local minerals).

Even in the case of the Zerg, I bet a lot of the giant gribblies could be dormant and "dessicated" or shrunk-shriveled creaturoids that require "just add water minerals/vespene" to sprout.

EDIT:

Maybe in the case of the Protoss, it's also kinda like this. Maybe a lot of the units that warp in, or even the structures and vehicles and whatnot, aren't exactly complete. Structures or robots or vehicles from storage might still be short on some components require "just add minerals/vespene" to completely activate.

Hurm... this is very haphazard. It'd suck to be a naked Khalai warrior jumping onto a teleporter pad, arriving at a forward operations base, and accidentally being bereft of gear because the local fabricators malfunctioned... But still, not EVERYTHING can or should be warped in. Presumably the local logistics units disassemble the minerals/vespene, reconstitute them into equipment and outfit them - via sparkly nano-warping effects - onto the arriving units.

[Imperial528]

The materials could also be used for localization purposes.

Equipment that works on Aiur may not be suited for Char, for example.

[Shroom Man 777]

The materials could also be used for localization purposes.

Equipment that works on Aiur may not be suited for Char, for example.

Indeed! So we can assume that, even for the Protoss, a lot of the locally processed resources would be for all the UPGRADE COMPLETE-s that need to be done. These wouldn't be warped in from Aiur/Shakuras/wherever but would be locally attached (via local-warping or nanites) to whatever units there are.

Also I edited my post... added:

Maybe in the case of the Protoss, it's also kinda like this. Maybe a lot of the units that warp in, or even the structures and vehicles and whatnot, aren't exactly complete. Structures or robots or vehicles from storage might still be short on some components require "just add minerals/vespene" to completely activate.

Hurm... this is very haphazard. It'd suck to be a naked Khalai warrior jumping onto a teleporter pad, arriving at a forward operations base, and accidentally being bereft of gear because the local fabricators malfunctioned... But still, not EVERYTHING can or should be warped in. Presumably the local logistics units disassemble the minerals/vespene, reconstitute them into equipment and outfit them - via sparkly nano-warping effects - onto the arriving units.

[Vendetta]

Listen all of this is interesting I am sure, but Shroom is maybe the only person qualified to answer a more pressing question.

Why do the Protoss have nipples? Which they do.

They do not even have mouths.

[Shroom Man 777]

Listen all of this is interesting I am sure, but Shroom is maybe the only person qualified to answer a more pressing question.

Why do the Protoss have nipples? Which they do.

They do not even have mouths.

Holy shit.

Those are atrophied remnants. Perhaps once upon a time they had milkbags. And presumably mouths to suckle from teats.

But this shows us that while mouths can be lost as a species evolves psionic sustenance... MILKBAGS will atrophy at a slower pace, traces remaining even though the mouths are totally gone!

MILKBAGS was something the Protoss had before the Xel'Naga touched them!

PURITY OF MILKBAGS.

This is why the Zerg overcame the Protoss only AFTER they infested Kerrigan who had MILKBAGS.

Post-Overmind and post-Cerebrates Zerg, we see the upgraded Queens and Broodmothers also have milkbags!

[Shroom Man 777]

Sweet mother of crap.

Zeratul made Razagal bleed blood from her milkbags!

[Sea Skimmer]

The Terran Medic's lack of weapons and bulky gear might be due to the burden of bearing all these sensory equipment and medical nanite projectors...

Probably. Also IV bags add weight and bulk like crazy and I see no way around that except a device to convert alien/enemy blood into usable fluids ect... we don't have dedicated medics in RL just for the sake of training, they physically do carry a large amount of gear.

But for the Protoss? They warp everything in from Aiur or from Shakuras or from whatever logistics worlds they've got (I presume aside from Aiur and Shakuras, they've got moons dedicated to warehousing these facilities)... so why do they need Probes to mine resources?

Aside from the obvious game mechanics requirements...

You mean the military bureaucracy paperwork sir? No sorry we can't bypass that or they'll dock our pensions! Only officers on G series orders can request free consignments above standard allocations. Which means use your starting units only or get back shoveling!

Maybe, presumably, the warping process isn't "for free" and both ends need to expend certain amounts of power or something. So harvesting minerals and gas might be part of this. We know vespene can be combusted for power. The mineral crystals might also generate energy?

Well for slightly more novel idea, maybe they use a teleporting system which is simultaneous and requires an equivalent material mass be on hand to send back to keep the universe balanced. Nothing says it can't require that, and ones assumes the teleports aren't simple since the humans still don't have them even after centuries of space travel. Somewhere though I do still have my original Starcraft booklet, and I kinda wonder if it said something more specific on how this was supposed to work.

Also I approve of any future in which all ammunition becomes uranium. We just need space lakes of mercury to put our uranium battleships on and show those pesky Zerg who knows how to dig a hole.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well for slightly more novel idea, maybe they use a teleporting system which is simultaneous and requires an equivalent material mass be on hand to send back to keep the universe balanced. Nothing says it can't require that, and ones assumes the teleports aren't simple since the humans still don't have them even after centuries of space travel. Somewhere though I do still have my original Starcraft booklet, and I kinda wonder if it said something more specific on how this was supposed to work.

Hurm... I think the facility levels of SC and Brood War had teleport pads... but those are within large installations, not like probes that just drop random doohickeys and warp whole buildings in. Or what Arbiters do with their mass recalls.

[Imperial528]

Well for slightly more novel idea, maybe they use a teleporting system which is simultaneous and requires an equivalent material mass be on hand to send back to keep the universe balanced. Nothing says it can't require that, and ones assumes the teleports aren't simple since the humans still don't have them even after centuries of space travel. Somewhere though I do still have my original Starcraft booklet, and I kinda wonder if it said something more specific on how this was supposed to work.

I considered something similar to this, since wormholes (mathematically at least) need to be "charged" with mass to actually be able to put things through them. But Protoss demonstrate several forms of teleportation that don't at all follow the rules of wormholes, and in the case of a wormhole there's no need for the material involved to be anything specific. It can be dirt, rock, air, dead zerg, etc.

And as Shroom mentioned, there are Terran teleporters but they rely on fixed installations. There are two examples of Terran teleporters that didn't require fixed pads, but one was incredibly unreliable and both were destroyed.

The thing with the Protoss is that they can fit their teleporters into man-portable armor (Zealot and Templar on-mortal-wound recall for example) and seem to be able to integrate them into basically any platform, up to arbitrary target sizes relative to Terran technology.

I would guess that the Protoss' advantage in the case of a lot of things is in power generation and miniaturization rather than the underlying physics involved. Especially with how stratified Protoss society is, I expect more of their brilliant minds in the later years of Protoss civilization prior to the fall of Aiur were more concerned with improving their technology than in making new discoveries and inventions. Of course the fall of Aiur changed that attitude significantly.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, if the Protoss have emergency on-mortal-wound recall, they're presumably being teleported TO somewhere. Maybe there's a receiving station that has a big pile of rocks waiting on the transporter pad. So a zealot gets stabbed through the lung by a Hydralisk, their teleporter activates, they disappear and are replaced by a pile of rocks?

[Shroom Man 777]

Just like ninjas.

[Imperial528]

Well, if the Protoss have emergency on-mortal-wound recall, they're presumably being teleported TO somewhere. Maybe there's a receiving station that has a big pile of rocks waiting on the transporter pad. So a zealot gets stabbed through the lung by a Hydralisk, their teleporter activates, they disappear and are replaced by a pile of rocks?

Thing is, we have no evidence that Protoss teleportation requires reciprocity, and every cinematic depiction shows that it likely doesn't.

However, I did have an interesting idea.

The lore states that they warp in equipment, soldiers, and structures from Aiur (later Shakuras) directly. Yet it is never really stated that these things are pre-built at warp in either, as we have been more or less assuming.

Perhaps the warping of resources is the first step in a just-on-time logistics sequence. Resources get warped to Aiur when a unit is ordered, where they are received by rapid fabrication facilities well beyond the scale any Protoss outpost could achieve, and components are warped in as produced for local assembly, which explains the structures and units which begin as a simple warp portal but as take shape in a sort of ghostly manner as the warping process finishes.

They may even be assembled during the teleportation itself.

This also fits neatly with why Protoss mechanical units and structures cannot be repaired in the field: they were put together in a process that can't be readily duplicated without dedicated facilities. For example, if you are assembling a structure or mechanism by literally materializing pieces at the place they are meant to be, suddenly components can be made in solid pieces that would under conventional means need to be many, and machine housings only need openings for connectors, outputs and inputs, but those can all be smaller than the actual pieces inside.

To a field mechanic this is naturally a nightmare, manufacturing ease be damned.

[Shroom Man 777]

We don't see Arbiters require minerals to warp in units though...

But sans the "harvesting and sending minerals" inconvenience that beyond gameplay mechanics just doesn't make sense... I like the idea that in the "storage" state, a lot of the Zealot, Dragoon, heck spacecraft and whatnot, have the mechanical components in some kind of disassembled and de-materialized phase. Assembly's done instantaneously during the warp process... but while this somehow makes storage or warp-transmission easier, less burdensome, the consequence is as you say, on-site equipment can't really fix battle damage...

I think the minerals and gas is just used to power the warp process.

[Imperial528]

Arbiters warp in units that are already on the field though.

I am suggesting that the warp-in mechanic we are seeing for production and construction is actually just the output end of the Protoss on-demand manufacturing chain.

[Shroom Man 777]

Arbiters warp in units that are already on the field though.

I am suggesting that the warp-in mechanic we are seeing for production and construction is actually just the output end of the Protoss on-demand manufacturing chain.

I'm good with that, your explanation of the on-demand fabrication combined with the teleportation across space process.

I just don't like the notion that the vast Templar storage and warp facilities on Aiur, or later on Shakuras, require a bunch of rocks mined from the ass end of Mar Sara or something in order to start fabricating. It's far more convoluted than the Terrans' and Zergs' methods. Partly precisely because the Protoss can effortlessly bend space-time and such.

Though that might be understandable post-exodus when the Protoss are reorganizing stuff at Shakuras... THAT is a sensible explanation for why the Protoss need to forage.

[Imperial528]

My interpretation pre-fall is that the Protoss weren't focused on military buildup, so the majority of the resources they had were already allocated elsewhere.

It wasn't until late in the Great War that the Protoss realized this would be more than what was essentially a police action anyway. And even then, several Protoss leaders still couldn't see the threat the zerg posed to them until it was too late.

[Shroom Man 777]

My interpretation pre-fall is that the Protoss weren't focused on military buildup, so the majority of the resources they had were already allocated elsewhere.

It wasn't until late in the Great War that the Protoss realized this would be more than what was essentially a police action anyway. And even then, several Protoss leaders still couldn't see the threat the zerg posed to them until it was too late.

Hmmm... and when Tassadar went rogue, our Player Character probably wasn't warping stuff in from Shakuras yet... so I guess aside from the shortage of stocks from the low-mobilization Protoss... it could be argued that aside from Aiur and Shakuras, mothership craft (like carriers and other more logistics-specialized vessels...) probably handled SOME of the warping-in duties. Now with Tassadar's rogue forces cut off from Aiur's supplies, one can imagine harvesting resources and doing on-the-moment fabrication...

[Simon_Jester]

Regardless of what you think of the rest of Imperial528's idea (and I'm not saying it's bad)...

I really like the idea that the reason it's impossible to field-repair Protoss equipment as that they routinely assemble things using teleporters.

[Imperial528]

If I recall correctly, the only in-game ways of repairing Protoss vehicles or structures were the ship/hero abilities in the Legacy of the Void campaign in SC2.

Which would make sense, given that the ship involved is quite capable of warping replacement parts directly into a vehicle.

This also explains why it's so difficult for the Terrans to reverse engineer Protoss technology. After you take it apart, you literally can't put it back together.

[Shroom Man 777]

Regardless of what you think of the rest of Imperial528's idea (and I'm not saying it's bad)...

I really like the idea that the reason it's impossible to field-repair Protoss equipment as that they routinely assemble things using teleporters.

If I recall correctly, the only in-game ways of repairing Protoss vehicles or structures were the ship/hero abilities in the Legacy of the Void campaign in SC2.

Which would make sense, given that the ship involved is quite capable of warping replacement parts directly into a vehicle.

This also explains why it's so difficult for the Terrans to reverse engineer Protoss technology. After you take it apart, you literally can't put it back together.

I like how Asgard it is. As in SG-1 Asgard. Protoss would have no idea what the hell wires and screws and bolts are, they'd probably see Terran tech as some primitive paleotechno Rube Golbergian contraptions that somehow work despite all the chances of failure each step of the way. Protoss tech is so advanced that part of it might just be... ingrained within them, not literally but metaphorically, the processes so second nature that the tech is created in a way that's more like a phenomenon... partly because Protoss minds through the Khala and through psionic coolness are probably so utterly used to mentally conjuring crucial components needed to make the tech work (be it psychic laser swords or just psychic laser... lasers). Heck, mentally creating those kill-implements count as subconscious or meditative processes.

[Vendetta]

If I recall correctly, the only in-game ways of repairing Protoss vehicles or structures were the ship/hero abilities in the Legacy of the Void campaign in SC2.

Terran SCVs can repair Protoss vehicles, but not structures. Likewise medivacs can heal protoss biological units. (Only affects health, not shields).

[Imperial528]

Huh, I don't recall vehicles being repairable. Did that change with LoTV or was that in HoTS or WoL?

Protoss biological units have been heal-able since BW IIRC.

[Vendetta]

P. sure that was the same all along. Mostly you'd only encounter it in 2v2 or greater multi though.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm gonna argue for treating that as a gameplay mechanic.

That, or weird clunky Terran 'quick-fixes' being hastily welded onto Protoss equipment.

[Shroom Man 777]

Maybe because Protoss are unused to protracted campaigns, with their warpgates and recalls allowing for near-instantaneous in-and-out deployments, their field logistics units like Probes weren't programmed for repairwork. And we don't see the artisan Khalai castes sending people out to the frontlines... even the Judicators are represented by the Arbiter. So that's why field repairs aren't a thang? The Khalai artisans just do the repairs after the missions, when the units return to Aiur or wherever. Whereas even Terran SCV personnel might be able to McGuyver some sealants and space duct tape to patch up damaged Dragoons, something Probes' limited brains can't think of?