Re: Sa'Vasku Ship Lifecycle

G'day guys,

I was thinking about this last night (inspired by yesterday's less than 
savoury image of a SV ship mating rush) and for biological and
censorship 
reasons <after Phalon-gate I really think we need to put the G back into

GZG ;P> I'd say the SV ships weren't sexually reproductive entities.

The ships are bioconstructs that the SV want to do their bidding when
they 
want them to do it - the last thing they want is the biological
imperative 
interrupting their battle plans, furthermore why risk the chance that a 
mutation will see batches of your ships non-viable (most fertilisations 
aren't only a small percentage are successful). Clonal reproduction via 
budding would be far more sensible as the SV maintain control of the
form 
of their constructs, you're assured they're not going to have other
things 
on their 'mind' at the wrong time and you know the design works. Even
the 
issue of lineage depression (no sexual recombination to spice up the
line 
so may be vulnerable to disease etc) isn't that much of a problem if the
SV 
are at the genetic helm anyway and can tinker for themselves.

Obviously the 'wombs' and 'birthing' of ships gave rise to the idea of 
sexual reproduction but you could put that down to a misidentification
by 
early xenobiologists brought in by UNDIA to consult. Personally I think 
that the drones/fighters/torps resemble (in function and production) 
the  pneumatocysts (jelly fish stingers), barbs (of gastropods),and
budding 
that are used by many marine groups. Just makes biological sense to have
a 
weapon in place you can regrow rather than risking your 'children'.

So I'd say the SV ships would be large asexual constructs that budded
off 
new smaller ships, used the interstellar equivalents of pneumatocysts
and 
that if they do grow they show slow but continuous growth (so will take 
many years to reach large sizes) but under very favourable conditions 
(known to their SV creators) they show remarkable growth spurts (you
don't 
want to your new battleline taking 3 centuries to grow if you need it 
yesterday) - this also fits with some existing marine invertebrates.

Just a few oddball thoughts.

Cheers

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 5053 International +61 3 6232 5053

email: beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au