Re: [SGII] Furry troopers

G'day Steve,

>Well, I wasn't concerned too much about whether or not the behavior
made
>sense in the long term, because I wasn't trying to create well-adapted
>species.  Rather, my goal was to be able to handle as many classic SF
>creatures as possible.  And not all SF creatures are well adapted to
>long-term survival.

OK, I do take your point about trying to recreate existing SF races. On
the
other hand they must have existed for quite a while to get to be SF in
the
first place so could it really hurt to round them out and make them make
sense - after all if I suddenly proposed some weapon or device like say
teleporting bombs you'd want some damn good explanation for them right? 

>>>Proud warriors (Kzinti, Klingons, etc.)....
>>Watch out on thsi one, a race/species with this kind of attitude ain't

>>going to last long in an evolutionary sense.
>Of course, that's exactly what starts to happen to the Kzinti in
Niven's
>books....
>Again, I'm just trying to classify pre-existing SF creatures, not to
>decide whether or not they "make sense".

OK first up I must admit I've never read Niven's books <yeah you can
decapitate me for treason later>, Derek has so I do have some idea here
though. Its fine to have proud warriors just don't make them victim of
their own pride, give them some common sense and rationale - to pick up
on
your 2nd e.g. the Klingons, thats exactly what they have, they have some
saying like "To lose a battle to save an Empire is honourable" or
something
like that.

>>>-Logicians (Vulcans, maybe Moties). 
>I suppose how difficult they'd be to play depends on the personality of
>the gamer playing them.  Personally, I find that the more dispassionate
>I get, the better I do tactically; but there's often a tradeoff in how
>fun the game is.

OK, maybe it'd be hard for me to play them ;)
Using total logic above all else (even hunchs/gut instincts etc) is
(often)
hard for humans to do seeings as those gut instincts have helped us an
awful lot in the past.

>What do you mean about large-scale cultural misunderstandings?  They'd
>dismiss much of human culture as irrelevant, but once the humans
>understood that they were rationally self-interested, they'd be
>relatively easy to understand.

I was thinking inital contact at least and then maybe beyond, I know it
became a game in the end, but look how many arguments Bones and Spock
had
as this as the fulcrum.

>>>-Automatons (robots, undead).  
>> Not sure I agree wholey with this one either as even the AI of today
is
>> being programmed to learn/adjust at least on a simple scale...
>
>I wasn't thinking about extrapolating current, real, technology - I was
>thinking along the lines of Krikket (sp?) robots and so forth - dumb
and
>unrelentless.

OK, so are these a weapon or a race?

>You could also have smarter robots, but if they got too smart, they'd
>turn into Logicians.  So how would you deal with robots of
>middle-of-the-road intelligence?

In some senses like a hive mind, in another sense an ever expanding
drone
that really only wants to take over new resources so they can self
replicate. There is no society as such just endeavouring to reproduce
and
adapting where necessary to do so. The goal always remains the same its
just they may jump stream if they can't get there in one way. I
personally
see this different to logicians (OK this is probably more a matter of
degree thing), as logicians would have a society and all the trappings
too,
with wider goals and reasoning etc.

>given that I spent some of last summer working on tiny (3cm cube)

>military scout robots that are supposed to be able to join together to
>overcome obstacles.

Cool!
 
>>>-Hive Mind (Buggers, Starship Troopers bugs).  
>
>Good ideas.  Of course, a smart Hive Mind would avoid putting its Queen
>in danger if at all possible (see Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card).

Very true, but I was thinking more the "us going to them" trick - we
hunt
down the queen/central node and blow it sky high! There's also the
possibility of hierachical or subminds - ship/region/sector/whole kind
of
thing so you only refer locally until you need to go to a higher level
for
the answer etc.

>>>Fanatics. 
>
>OK; but you could also have an army of Fanatics (Arab Conquest, WWII
>Japan) or individual groups of Fanatics in armies with a different main
>psychology type (Berserkers in Viking armies, Ghazis in Turkish
armies).

The later I definitely agree with, the first I'm not so sure (were those
armies fanatical or is that just how we think of them). I agree that
they
can have strong (even potentially overriding) motives, but that wouldn't
be
all they had.
  
>>>-Cowards 
>Good questions.  The Puppeteers just freaked out and would revert to
>their hidden "violent maniac" mode where they'd strike out quickly and
>effectively until they could get away.  In terms of decoy behavior,
>maybe we should split this into Individual Cowards (or whatever) and
>Collective Cowards (or whatever), with the Collective Cowards leading
>you away from vital positions and the Individual Cowards just caring
>about their own personal survival.

Sounds pretty good, the difference between mallards and
echidnas/opposums I
guess.

> >>-Carnivores (Dreenoi).  They're just looking for lunch.  
>
>I was thinking specifically of how I've heard Dreenoi described.  So we
>could have Oblivious Omnivores and Predators; the latter would make
>kills, but not carry them off or start eating unless they felt safe.

Once again this comes down to my desire to have well rounded SF aliens.
An
'oblivious omnivore' probably wouldn't have made it thsi far anyway.
Maybe
a suitable compromise would be that they ritually tear the throats out
or
something after each kill, but don't actually start to feed as the
battle
winds down and their position is secure.

>> -A parasite (be they cyborg or biological) which 'infects' its
victims so
>> they slowly switch sides or are permanently immobilised.
>
>Interesting.  This could be combined with any of the other
psychological
types.

Yep, though it could work under its own asupices too - as malaria or the
'aliens' do.

>> -Hoka-like which take everything literally and adopt 'roles' very
quickly
>
>I'd appreciate it if you'd explain this a bit more - I don't know what
>the Hoka are.

The Hoka are from the book called Hoka! Hoka! Hoka! by Poul Anderson and
Gordon Dickson, well lets just say that "one Hoka is a threat to human
sanity. Two Hokas are a menace to civilization. And three Hokas . . .
Heaven help the galaxy"! Basically they're VERY susceptable to images
and
role play at the drop of a hat, and as humans happen to have been some
of
their first contacts you end up having to do your police work with a 3
foot, furry Sherlock Holmes etc. They make the costumes, adopt the
speech
and names etc of whatever period they're playing (pretty much like small
children with bigger budgets). Even if you don't like the concept of
them
as an alien, the book is hilarious, well worth the read!

>> -Ones that use conditioning/psychology/education and infiltration
rather
>> than straight out weapons...Your Sgt is in't going to be too pleased
to
>> hear "Oh those colours are sooo pretty I think I'll just sit here for
a
>> while and watch..."
>
>I'd put that more under the category of weapons, because it affects the
>enemy rather than the behavior of the troops.

OK, maybe these are just a different kind of your "coward" group as they
really on infiltration and non-physical means.

>>Different lifespans wold also add flavour to this - beings who think
on the
>>scale of 100s years are vastly different to thos working with a few
decades.
>
>I could see this being valuable in background information, but I'm not
>sure how it would work for tactical situations.  Perhaps caution and
>acceptance of losses would be partly functions of age. 

I would probably effect aggression, the desire for expansion, the
ability
and willingness to take losses for example. It would have some effect,
though you're right it probably be best placed as background material.

Have fun

Beth

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Elizabeth Fulton
c/o CSIRO Division of Marine Research
GPO Box 1538
HOBART 
TASMANIA 7001
AUSTRALIA
Phone (03) 6232 5018 International +61 3 6232 5018
Fax (03) 6232 5199 International +61 3 6232 5199

email: beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au