Comments on Librium Universe Infodump thread

[Marcao]

I have only skimmed over the thread but here are some of my thoughts on the matter. I am relatively open to making some concessions for the sake of internal consistency and good story but there are some red flags that pop up as I have glanced over this thread.

1. Hyperspace: I am not keen on the idea of ships incurring damage while traveling in hyperspace. As Hotfoot has already mentioned, it makes some things rather difficult. The way I was led to believe hyperspace worked, you needed X amount of energy to enter it, and Y amount of energy to stay there. Is a damage over time dynamic really needed? Does it add anything of note to the story?

2. Capital Weapons: I am a fan of every weapon having some relevant role in combat. Traditionally, there are three weapon types mounted on space ships kinetic kill, energy, missiles. Fighters/Bombers are another system, but I am happy enough where they are. I am not keen on the idea on the missile dominating combat and being overall the most flexible weapon system.

If we are going to stick by energy weapons scaling poorly and being reserved predominantly for point defense and smaller vessels, where do kinetic kill cannons fall in? Why would I bother building a railgun when I can have a missile without a warhead?

In most sci-fi that I have been aware of, energy weapons have longer ranges than railguns at the cost of damage. so we have a logical hierarchy usually as follows.

1. Missiles: longest range, have to deal with countermeasures (PDS/ECM)

2. Fighters: next to longest range, have to deal with countermeasures

3. Energy weapons: long range, do not deal with PDS,

4. Railgun/Coilguns: moderate range, do not deal with PDS.

5. PDS: short range

Typically, the longer the range you have the lower your damage. This is what I am familiar with, and by and large I don't see too much of a reason to rock the boat. If the consensus is to make this universe mirror the Honorverse and make the missile the central weapon system then so be it, although I think we would lose some fleet differentiation if that is the case.

[Hotfoot]

On a completely different tangent, here's an idea that Marcao and I bandied about for a multinational police force. In a similar theme to INTERPOL, each division would have a minimum of one senior officer from each of the major nations, plus one from any minor nation if in a minor nation's area, plus a staff largely pulled from the division's local police forces.

Thoughts?

[Comrade Tortoise]

Here I was laboring under the assumption that while missile systems existed and were used, it would be as standoff weapons and not the primary means of attack, same with fighters, because they do have to deal with active defense.

One that that we can do however is to use only two classes of weapons (other than fighters)

Railgun torps, and lasers.

Railgun torps. One can get around some of the problems with missiles by not having them be totally self powered. For one, without FTL sensors, which has been the agreement so far as I remember, the ability to keep your weapons hidden unless your enemy is looking directly at it will be a big bonus. The torpedoes are fired by a railgun with minimum enenergy released externally so EM snesors do not pick up the discharge as easily as they wood a missile engine firing constantly. So they are propelled in the general direction of an enemy, and only use the onboard drive systems once they have to correct course, or chase the enemy ship if detected. If an antimatter drive system is used for these torps, the antimatter left over from the drive on impact, if any could contribute to the destructive yield. So they would be utterly devestating at close range, and would drop off in destructive powr until they reach their max range and are reduced to a kinetic impact, or a thermonuclear blast. These would not be great against shields however. Partially because the energy is mostly wasted becauewe it will radiate away from the target. Per unit energy put into the missile, it is not as good as lasers. Good ship/crew killers though once shields are brought down.

Lasers would function at short to medium range, we are talking a lightsecond. After that actually tracking the enemy ship would become to difficult, especially oif they have means of masking teir actual location. We are using EM radiation sensors, decoys would probably used to mask everything but visible light... Their output and rate of fire would be limited only by how much energy a ship could pour into them. These are great for bringing shields down, because it is a direct energy transfer. Most of the energy used to power the weapon hits the target. Less effective against hulls because materials can be made that are much better at negating damage from heat than kinetic impacts. Composite ceramic and tungsten armors for example.

1. Hyperspace: I am not keen on the idea of ships incurring damage while traveling in hyperspace. As Hotfoot has already mentioned, it makes some things rather difficult. The way I was led to believe hyperspace worked, you needed X amount of energy to enter it, and Y amount of energy to stay there. Is a damage over time dynamic really needed? Does it add anything of note to the story?

I like the idea of hyperspace being very limiting. It is not so much damage over time to the shields, the shields we think can shurg this off easily. It is the unshielded ship that we conceive of as being screwed.

[Hotfoot]

CT, the more difficult you make hyperspace to traverse, the harder it becomes to create interstellar entities. Hyperspace is limiting enough in that if you lose track of the beacon, you get lost, and that there are limits to how long a ship can be in hyperspace. The damage aspect adds nothing to the story and in fact makes it much more laborious to justify these vast interstellar nations. How do FTL comms continue? How do the hyperspace beacons survive? For any of that to work, they would have to constantly be refueled or be destroyed, and I don't see how you could refuel something with its shields up. I don't see a point to it, and I'd rather not just toss something this major into the setting because it sounds keen to someone. We have to make it work and flow well.

Now, as for weapons, I think I have a possible solution that will hopefully make everyone happy. If we have laser point defense arrays be extremely effective over range, firing missiles from long ranges becomes less viable, because they will be more easily shot down by lightspeed defenses. However, at shorter ranges, the point defense doesn't have as much time to respond to larger quantities of missiles, and thus can more easily be overwhelmed. This means that we could keep missiles as a viable and dangerous weapons system without totally invalidating direct fire. It's an odd way of handling things, but it can make sense and be internally consistent with the rest of the universe. This could also go quite a way to justifying the UP naval design philosophy of big, tough ships with lots of missiles. The idea could be to get the ships in, let them take a beating until they get to close range, then unleash hell on the enemy. Obviously this is pending Frigid's approval, but I think it could work well.

This way, railguns and lasers could still be used, and combat would be kept in the under 10,000km range, which keeps all sorts of things nice and easy. Trust me, much more than that and you start needing all kinds of crazy stuff to keep combat faster than a snail's pace.

Thoughts?

[frigidmagi]

Hotfoot, Nitram and myself have hammered a rough compromise on how Hyperspace works. When we have all the details laid down that will be the new post on the infodump.

Also y'all should keep an eye on this thread, Marcoa has sworn that any day now we shall see an expanded Hispainic Union (that's right, we're putting Latino's in space) entry for everyone to peer at and discuss before making it offical.

Any national or species entry will end up here first no matter who wrote it in order for discussion and such.

[General Havoc]

Ladies and gentlemen, my proposal for a race to be added to this lovely thing you have going on. I assume that many aspects will be completely unacceptable, and look forward to working them out with you all:


Zytik Combine


The Combine is the unified world-government of the insect species known to humans officially as "Zytik", though almost uniformly called 'bugs', dominant life-form of their home planet. Their true name, as well as the rest of their language, is unpronounceable by most other species, and Zytik is merely the closest approximation in English to what their species name sounds like. Noted for extreme paranoid isolationism, the Combine is a quasi-communistic strongly-hierarchical and oligarchical system, though without an overt left-wing political base, and directs the actions of the entire species as well as the resources of the Combine's territories. The Combine claims sovereignty over their entire star system, as well as all space within three light years thereof, but in practical terms, does not exercise control beyond the outer limits of their own solar system.


Anatomy:

Zytik, as the name would tend to indicate, are bipedal humanoid insects. The typical Zytik stands between 3' 6" and 4' tall, making them midgets in comparison with many races of the galaxy. Zytik are protected by a chitinous exoskeleton with the approximate tensile strength of human bone (slightly more brittle), covering their entire body in a series of joined plates. Zytik have four arms, one pair each at what would be shoulder and chest height for a human, and are naturally omnidextrous, or capable of using all four limbs with equal capacity. Stronger than they look, they are not however generally capable of the feats of improbable strength that their earthly cousins are, and cannot lift thirty times their own weight at a dead lift, as a normal ant can.

Bipedal, Zytik feet are soft and malleable, and shaped like suction cups, enabling them to walk on walls and ceilings if need be, though they tend to avoid doing so in mixed company. As with many insects, Zytik can fly by means of the fragile but strong membranous insect-wings on their backs, and are able to hover, fly backwards and forwards, up and down, and move in all three dimensions as easily as a more typical humanoid race can walk. Their heads are shaped more traditionally as humanoid heads, resembling a cross between an ant and a human, with a mouth, tongue, vocal chords, and teeth. Zytiks utilize a language with sounds that no other race can accurately reproduce, but fortunately they are capable of speaking Earth languages at need, and their diplomatic corps will have representatives fluent in the relevant tongues. They have no nose, and their ears are internal to their head. Their eyes are compound, with thousands of lenses, and oversized. Zytik have two antennae on the top of their heads which serve as olfactory and echolocator organs, and are able to sense pressure and temperature changes with great accuracy. Without exception (save for the occasional mutant), Zytik are uniformly black in color.

Zytik are cold-blooded creatures, and must receive exterior heat sources in order to survive. Their home planet is a lush, wet, warm world, and serves this purpose admirably, and when off-world, all Zytik ships, facilities, and equipment is equipped with heaters as well as humidifiers, for the Zytik's exoskeleton tends to become irritated if subjected to dry weather for an extended period. The only natural weapon a Zytik has, is their stinger, a foot-long resin spike that can be extended from their lower bodies in the manner of a wasp or bee at will. This weapon, useful in an evolutionary sense, is utterly useless in a modern context, though the sport of stinger-fencing is still practiced among Zytik, and masters of the art can be quite impressive to behold. Nevertheless, it is not considered a useful means of defense, if only because a simple bar of wrought iron is sufficient to break the stinger, to say nothing of the materials all modern races have access to.

Young Zytik are hatched as larvae, and are cared for communally in hatcheries and nurseries deep within the hive-cities of their home planet. At age 1, they pupate, and emerge several months later as fully-formed but immature Zytikd children. Through a physical process that is not completely understood, Zytik and their exoskeletons grow following their pupal stage, achieving full size by about age 12, at which point they are considered adults. Zytik have an approximate lifespan of 45-50 years, though rare cases of extremely long-lived individuals have been documented.



History:

Zytik are native to a planet with a name unpronounceable by humans and designated by a scientific notation among human astronomers, a lush, jungle-like planet second from their star, and the only naturally life-bearing planet in the solar system. While the warm and calm weather, spectacular vistas, and lush rain forests of their planet may seem like paradise to some, the planet is also home to some of the most vicious and deadly predators in the known galaxy, among them the carnivorous dinosaur-sized "Leonid", a fifty-foot long armored behemoth with the ability to spit acidic enzymes up to two hundred yards.

Small, frail, and weak by the standards of the planet, primitive Zytik found themselves stalked as prey for most of their adult lives. The savage and monstrous nature of the predators of their planet meant that unlike most sentient species, Zytik did not fully attain the status of dominant species on their planet until well into their industrial age, when the weaponry and technology necessary to beat back and destroy their would-be predators was finally available to them. Many speculate that the famous Zytik racial paranoia stems from this shared legacy of being unable to protect themselves from larger and more vicious monsters.

Zytik lived initially in tribes or "hives" on the surface of the planet, but as their numbers increased and construction technology became available, their hives evolved into massive hive-cities, each one its own independent fortified bastion against the monsters in the wilderness. With the advent of globalizing technology however, communication and transportation between the cities became easier, and the various independent provinces and city governments coalesced naturally into a single unified governmental command structure. All this was accomplished without war, for with the exception of the rare deranged, sick, or depraved individual, no Zytik has ever been known to kill another Zytik. The reasons for this are speculative, and discussed below.


Zytik Psychology:

At first impression, Zytik are an oddity, particularly to experienced galactic travelers. Unlike the prevailing stereotypes of insect races, particularly ones famed for their xenophobia and paranoia, Zytik are almost uniformly polite, cordial, nonthreatening, and eager to please. When confronted with aggression, they tend to display apologetic, almost deferential behavior, even in the face of direct insult or galling provocation. Their small stature and frail physical form, combined with their apparent reticent and compromising natures, have led many races to dismiss the Zytik as a weak, cowardly, and servile people. Those who know the Zytik better however, know, as they do, that weakness is relative, cowardice is in the mind of the beholder, and that even a servile wasp has a stinger.

The reason for the apparently contradictory behavior in the Zytik as individuals and as a whole is due to the unique psychological nature of the race. Due perhaps to their history as prey animals (whereas most sentient beings are descended from predators), Zytik one and all suffer from a constant and omnipresent terror and dread of other races and of the unknown. To them, the universe is a place filled with mortal terror and peril, most notably in the form of aggressive, invasionary races of interstellar predators. Though most Zytik would not put it quite so literally, they are oppressed by a constant fear of being invaded, conquered, and devoured one and all by any number of eldritch horrors, real or imagined, that they picture to be waiting for them just beyond the periphery of their fortified defenses. This fear is not a planted or imagined fear in the sense that it is engineered by a government to control the populace, or generated by external factors magnified for political gain, but instead is an integral and omnipresent part of the life of every single living Zytik, from the most menial laborer to the Presiding Chairman of the Zytik Oligarchate. It is the root of practically every major action of the Zytik Combine, and the key to understanding their behavior, which if this fact is not constantly borne in mind, seems almost perversely insane in its single-minded obsession with providing, if only for an instant, peace of mind.

In consequence of this perpetual state of fear, irrational or not, Zytik simply do not value such abstract concepts as "honor", "valor", or "prestige". While they do understand such things, to them, they represent intellectual luxuries which take a secondary place to their own fears. It is for this reason that Zytik will quite willingly suffer the verbal abuse of others, ignore slights to themselves or their nation as though they never occurred, and go to extreme lengths diplomatically and personally to avoid any sort of conflict. When reproached for their apparently cowardly actions, or their air of deference to those who may treat them with contempt, Zytik are fond of reciting a common saying: "Never claim to fear no darkness if you have not seen the night." This admittedly cryptic phrase is usually explained as meaning that those people who have never experienced the true soul-crushing nature of perpetual paranoid fear, cannot possibly understand the meaninglessness of mere honor and face-saving. As one can expect, the intricacies of this position are often lost on many races, and there are many who consider the Zytik as barely worth the effort to kill, cowardly sheep without the will or stomach to defend their own interests.

There exists however, a flip side to the Zytik coin. While they are able and even eager to tolerate such abuse up to a point, one should never lose sight of the fact that the most dangerous enemy in the universe is one terrified to the point of desperation and panic. Zytik live their lives precariously balanced on the edge of just such desperation, and too much of a push, too much of an overt threat, can cross a line that it is wise not to cross. Zytik can, in the blink of an eye, transform into savage beasts, flailing wildly and incoherently, overcome with wild-eyed desperate fear in the face of a perceived threat to life-and-limb. While their small size and stature makes such a display useless, even comical in most individual circumstances, when this same reaction is applied on a species-wide level.... the result is nothing short of apocalyptic.

Zytik have a binary conception of war. Either one is at peace, or one is engaged in a total, absolute, eternal, genocidal struggle for the survival of one's very species. There is nothing between these two points. It is an all or nothing matter. On a purely intellectual level, they understand that some races do make so-called "limited war", but this is a mere curiosity to them, a practice so alien as to defy its inception. A single attack, a small raid, a minor skirmish for the purposes of showing the flag or probing defenses, will be interpreted by the entire Zytik Combine in the same manner as would a thermonuclear bombardment of their home planet. There is simply no middle-ground. And once the panic takes hold, the Zytik will fight like cornered wolverines, like primordial gods, like beings who truly fear nothing but defeat, and will do so for as long as it takes to absolutely annihilate every last trace of their implacable and eternal foe. They do not do this out of malice or cruelty. They do it out of mortal terror.



Government and Society:

As befits the name, the Zytik Combine is ruled by a vast, hierarchical, bureaucratic government. The apex of this government is the Oligarchate, a council of some two dozen ministers responsible for every facet of life on the Zytik homeworld and in its environs. Membership in the Oligarchate is by appointment only, with Oligarchs (as the members are called) serving lifelong terms, which are filled only upon the death of the previous occupant. The Oligarchate is a combined Legislature and Executive power, issuing decrees and orders to the massive Combine bureaucracy which controls the society as a whole. Every Zytik Year (approximately 18 Earth months), an Oligarch is selected by lot to serve for the next year as the Presiding Chairman of the Oligarchate. The Presiding Chairman serves as a head of state for the Zytik Combine, and chairs the meetings of the Oligarchate, as well as breaking ties in any votes put before the committee.

The Combine government itself is an elephantine bureaucracy, massive and pervasive throughout the society. While it operates more efficiently than most any other bureaucracies found in the universe, it is still, with some noted exceptions, subject to the same idiosyncrasies that have made satirists jobs so much easier in a thousand corners of the galaxy. This however does not overly trouble most of the Zytik population. Their concern is not how well the government works, but that it works at all. Its pervasiveness and mindless attention to order are a re-assuring comfort to the Zytik, rather than the nightmarish headache that they might be to another race. To them, the government's failings are amusing and endearing rather than unforgivably stupid, and the predictability and stability of the system is a counterpoint to the omnipresent dangers "out there". Obviously the above represents only the majority opinion, and there are those who consider the Combine to be an albatross around the neck of Zytik society, but even the most radical revolutionary Zytik does not advocate its abolition, but merely its reform, for without the Combine, there would be nothing to stand between the Zytik and "The things out there in space."

Despite what one may read in science fiction magazines, Zytik do not possess a "hive mind", nor is there a queen directing their every move. Nevertheless, Zytik do live a very communal existence, with the government responsible for everything from food distribution to social support and public works. Within the hive-cities of their home planet, millions of Zytik live in what would be considered fairly cramped conditions by most other races (though to be fair, Zytik are fairly small, and live in three dimensions rather than two). Cultural events tend towards the all-inclusive and communal as well. Team sports are common, while individual ones are almost unknown (with the perennial exception of stinger-fencing). Music, literature, and art is produced on a mass-scale, by large numbers of Zytik simultaneously, each one adding a small piece to the overall production. In some cases the scope of such endeavors can be stunning. A standard Zytik orchestra contains over four thousand musicians, while the most popular sport (a three dimensional variant of rugby) has two hundred players to a side and is played on a three-dimensional "field" a half mile long, twelve stories tall, and a hundred yards wide. All Zytik feel a natural attachment to "Community", weather it be local, regional, city-wide, or planetary (or often enough, all of the above). Perhaps there is safety in numbers, or perhaps the only solace for those who live in perpetual fear, is the company of their own fellow sufferers.

Being exoskeletal creatures, as well as inhabitants of an hot and humid climate, Zytik do not typically wear clothes, save for practical purposes such as flight suits or work belts and pocket sashes (pockets are as useful to them as to anyone else). Instead, Zytik wear elaborate body paint over their entire bodies save for their feet, hands, and heads. Multicolored and stylized, Zytik body paint serves as uniform, community identifier, and hierarchical insignia all in one, and is extremely elaborate. All colors (save black for obvious reasons) are used in the paint, and it is worth noting that despite the millions and billions of Zytik, no two Zytik have EXACTLY the same body paint patterns, though in some cases the differences can be quite hard to detect.

Lurid tails of devouring swarms of insects descending on a planet and consuming the inhabitants alive notwithstanding Zytik are vegetarians by culture and habit, though their bodies ARE capable of metabolizing meat in a pinch. It is practically unheard of for them to do so however, as, being prey animals themselves, they regard the consumption of meat (by Zytik) as a barbarity and a matter of absolute last resort. They do understand that other species do not hold such compunctions, and as usual, do not enforce this dietary restriction on others, indeed they rarely even mention it. Still it is not unheard of for younger members of Zytik diplomatic staffs to become physically ill or even pass out during official functions and banquets where meat is served by or for other species. Ironically enough for a species of sentient bugs, Zytik cuisine is considered quite superior by most alien species, as Zytik food tends to favor vast amounts of sugar and fruit (Zytik adore sugary foods), even if a common complaint is that everything tastes as though it were made in bulk. Zytik confectioneries and desserts are considered delicacies on many nearby worlds, and represent a common "gift" during ambassadorial and diplomatic procedures where such things are expected.


Military:

The Zytik Combine is comprised entirely of individuals who believe quite fervently that they are at risk of being attacked and devoured alive by monsters from outer space. Given this, it should come as no surprise that, considering their size on a galactic scale, the Zytik Combine is very, VERY well-armed.

Those investigating the state of the Zytik Combine's military would be well advised to maintain an open mind. One of the primary driving forces behind the Combine government is the maintenance of a series of planetary defense networks that defy belief in their scope and comprehensiveness. The Zytik home planet itself is entirely surrounded by a series of fortified "barriers" comprised of thousands and tens of thousands of fortified weapons platforms, planetary defense satellites, automated gun and missile batteries, energy weapon networks, orbital fighter bays, energy shield projectors, minefields, gravity well emitters, and forward targeting facilities. These extend around the entirety of the planet in concentric spheres, each one powerful enough to serve independently as the planetary defense network of a major capital world in any other empire. To this is added the fact that the planet itself positively bristles with anti-orbital and point defense weaponry of every sort. Even minor towns, outside the fortified hive-cities, will possess a full defense network, replete with missile batteries, long-range cannons, orbital uplink stations (for targeting purposes), and flak cannons for more immediate defense. Un-inhabited regions of the planet are nonetheless fully covered by the orbital defense networks, regardless of the practicality and costs involved. All of this is in addition to the orbital shipyards, energy generators, space stations of every conceivable sort and purpose, and assorted short-range space ships, from minor shuttles, to massive freighters that constantly move between the planet, its three moons, and the other planets and asteroids in the system. And on top of all of this, there is the Zytik Navy (covered below).

The important thing to bear in mind with the Zytik military is that practicality only rarely enters the equation. The Zytik do not construct vast defenses for the purposes of opposing some potential enemy, but instead for the purposes of protecting themselves from threats that are often wholly imaginary in nature. To them (though they would not admit it as such), the defense network, military, and fleet, are a means of acquiring some kind of re-assurance that they are in fact safe from being annihilated wholesale at any moment, even if the protection never seems adequate to them. It is for this reason that enormous expense and effort is made in protecting areas of the planet which are not only strategically useless, but naturally immune to attack themselves (such as the polar caps, or the oceans). It is for this reason why the Zytik population whole-heartedly supports the expenditure of incalculable resources in upkeeping, manning, and maintaining these defenses, as well as endlessly extending them. At present, there are no fewer than eight fortified layers of the Zytik defense network, making their home planet one of the most well-defended sites in the entire galaxy, and yet recently, work has begun on construction of the ninth layer.

As a practical side effect to all this work, the Zytik are well known for possessing among the finest military engineers in the entire galaxy. The depths and scope of the Zytik understanding of the arts of fortification, defense in depth, and military engineering reaches levels only dreamed of by most governments, and fortunately for them, the Zytik Corps of Engineers contracts its services out to other organizations. While far from cheap, Zytik engineers are in high and near-constant demand by any number of governments who wish to better their own defenses (a universal desire) or design and implement a new class of warship, space station, or military construction of any sort. While of course there are attendant risks to constructing such things for a potential adversary, these contracts, arranged by the Zytik Combine itself, are a vital source both of foreign currency and of rare or expensive materials that may be impossible to find domestically. And if the Zytik take advantage of their proximity to another race's military establishment to engage in a little industrial or political espionage... well... such is the cost of doing business, and a minor one in the long run.

Technologically-speaking, the Zytik are about on-par with the rest of the galaxy. Their technology is good, but not cutting-edge, and they do not possess ALL the most amazing and advanced trinkets that larger empires can amuse themselves with. What they lack in finesse however, they more than make up for in pure, uncompromising mass. Even if a mass driver is not as energy efficient or accurate as a hypervelocity slug-thrower (or whatever the most advanced weapons systems are in this galaxy), ten thousand mass drivers will still give one pause, particularly if many of them are a hundred times larger than the aforementioned hypervelocity slug-thrower.



(Author's note: A list of Zytik weapons, ships, combat tactics, and the like can be provided at need, but I fear to make mistakes with the technology level allowed here, so I shall leave it at this until such time as I get some feedback)

[frigidmagi]

I can only think that the United Protectorates would drive them into a spasm of pure terror.

[General Havoc]

May I ask why them specifically?

[frigidmagi]

About half way down

Basically the most militant humans on the block.

[Hotfoot]

The one problem I see here is their response to warfare. If they respond to a raid with genocide, several problems will arise:

1. The League will likely step in and take them on. The League ruins their day.

2. They get hit by dozens, if not hundreds of pirates and mercenaries. While they flail about trying to kill the hired guns, the nation that hired them blitzes in and ruins their day.

3. Every society spills its own blood over the course of history. Nuking your own planet is generally a bad idea. How does this mentality work on same race conflict?

4. How far does this go? If your soldiers get caught in a blue on blue with an ally, does that count? If some racists kill some of your citizens in a bar, does that count?

The short version is, if you decide you don't want to stop until Genocide, keep in mind that can severely hamper diplomatic relations, since most civilized nations won't just let them commit genocide. It also pays to set a realistic trigger, because once you get to the Interstellar stage, things get nasty. If you flail madly at every threat out there, you'll bite off more than you can chew, and the nation falls apart or gets blown apart.

Otherwise, it looks pretty cool.

[Shark Bait]

I only have two little things that I am curious about
1) Exoskeletons, while I am always a fan of the idea of giant bugs I wonder about how their exoskeletons are constructed. Exoskeletons made of just chitin are not good for larger creatures because in order to be thick enough to effectively provide support and protection they become to heavy to move. Even in the history of earth large insects usually had a body construction that kept them relatively low to the ground rearing up is hard to do due to the strength of the shell. However this being an alien species perhaps a different protein matrix could be used that is somewhat more flexible and stronger. That or perhaps their planet has a slightly lower gravity.

2) Oxygen: again insects are not known for their gas exchange abilities the terrestrial arthropods that are best at this are spiders using a structure called a book lung however there is still a size limit due to this. Again in earth’s history large insects existed mostly during the carboniferous period when oxygen levels were exceedingly high, my question is would the Zytik need a higher oxygen environment? Or do they use a much stronger system of gas exchange perhaps more like a bird’s lungs or something, either way again your working with an alien species which offers many possibilities. I’m mostly just curious here as to how these things would work and how it may affect interspecies relationships.


EDIT: Side note, I'm waiting on some data about how to have organism function at -50 something degrees celcius (187K)

[General Havoc]

The one problem I see here is their response to warfare. If they respond to a raid with genocide, several problems will arise:

1. The League will likely step in and take them on. The League ruins their day.

2. They get hit by dozens, if not hundreds of pirates and mercenaries. While they flail about trying to kill the hired guns, the nation that hired them blitzes in and ruins their day.

3. Every society spills its own blood over the course of history. Nuking your own planet is generally a bad idea. How does this mentality work on same race conflict?

4. How far does this go? If your soldiers get caught in a blue on blue with an ally, does that count? If some racists kill some of your citizens in a bar, does that count?

In reply to these questions:

1: If the League steps in and takes them on, they will be blotted out of existence. That is not even in question here. The Zytik however are more than willing to go to every length they can to avoid a war with anybody, and CERTAINLY with an institution like the League. If they should go to war with the League however, it will probably be the most expensive single-planet campaign in League history, not that this will save them.

2: I should perhaps be more clear about this. The Zytik are paranoid ALL the time, not just during wartime. A Zytik ore freighter bristles with guns. A Zytik cargo ship bristles with guns. Both operate inside a network of unmanned defense drones. Both have Zytik fleet support standing by. Both do not dare leave the Zytik planetary defense network without an escort and protection that is simply absurd. Yes, this limits their trade and the like. No, they don't care.

Pirates and mercenaries have better things to do than raid the most heavily defended institutions in this part of the galaxy. Even if they did not however, the Zytik are paranoid, but not stupid. They would not flail wantonly at the pirates. Their style of waging war is to build and build and build. They would wait and defend and bunker down and construct more forces and more forces and yet more forces, and then they would launch an armada of stupefying power at the pirates and their bases and clobber them in a single decisive blow that would not hesitate at the mass-use of the most powerful weapons in existence. If the pirates were un-coordinated and in small groups, they would do this to each and every group, one after the next, no matter the expense and the time involved. If it takes a hundred years, so be it.

They are methodical, slow, and inexorable in war. They do not flail, and they NEVER leave their home planet anything less than totally defended.

3: Every HUMAN society does this. Zytik are prey animals. They have had murderers and conflicts and even occasional skirmishes back in the day, but never an open war with one another. Ever. Violence between Zytik is exceptionally uncommon to the point of near-nonexistence. They would not even be able to imagine such a thing. Encountering a race that DID fight itself would confuse them, as does the entire concept of "limited" war.

4: Ally? What's an ally? Are you saying there are races out there that would be willing to go to WAR on behalf of another race? That is a concept that would frankly totally mystify them. War is too important a matter to leave to diplomacy, after all. I'm not saying they'd be totally hostile to the idea, but someone would have to explain to them how this "ally" thing works before they'd ever agree to it. As to racists in a bar, you're assuming they'd voluntarily enter a bar like that. Assuming they did though, no, they would not see that as an act of war, for after all, they would be in someone else's space and planet, and thus consider themselves bound by their rules. The Zytik involved in the fight would panic however and begin opening fire with lethal weapons if they had any, no doubt causing a major diplomatic incident, but no, the Zytik would not consider this an act of war (the bar owners are another story).

What constitutes a war and what does not are sort of nebulous to the Zytik. On the one hand, they are eager, almost desperate to avoid wars at any price. On the other hand, certain actions, a hostile attack on their home planet or one of their ships, or even a too-overt threat delivered to them as a whole, can push them over the edge into war. It's a bit of a collective judgment call. War comes when they all decide it has, or at least when the Oligarchate judges it is war.

I'm aware that genocide is liable to provoke a terrible response, and once it does, lord knows what will become of the Zytik, but this was how I saw their collective psychology as playing out.

As to Shark Bait's concerns, I do not know the mechanics of exoskeletons, but I think that a different protein matrix makes the most sense. They are not particularly heavy creatures, and are naturally flight-capable. I also don't have the biological background to discuss oxygen requirements for such things, I believe that they can survive in a human environment, though as mentioned before they are cold-blooded creatures and would freeze to death in anything besides Earth's tropics. They require not just heat but also humidity, hence the very powerful temperature controls and humidifiers inside their starships and stations.

[frigidmagi]

3: Every HUMAN society does this. Zytik are prey animals. They have had murderers and conflicts and even occasional skirmishes back in the day, but never an open war with one another. Ever. Violence between Zytik is exceptionally uncommon to the point of near-nonexistence. They would not even be able to imagine such a thing. Encountering a race that DID fight itself would confuse them, as does the entire concept of "limited" war.

Every prey specis that gathers in organized groups has conflicts. Look at horses, they fight for status, resources or just plain dislike (anyone who claims the last does not happen has never actually worked or been around horses). Pigs are worse. Even Sheep the most docile prey species on the planet will slam it out amongst each other.

Also Havoc during the city state era, what happened when one city state had resources that an other needed? What happened when two city states had competing ideologies (No, we're not gonna pretend a sapient species would only develop one, if anything being in different environments would led to the development of different ideologies) How was that conflict of interest resolved?

I'm not trying to pick on you mind, it's just you're presenting a really fantastic and alien mindset and I think we should push a bit to see if it could actually work in a disunified setting leading up to the current day to make sure it works. I do find the idea interesting I just think we need to chew on it and think it all the way through.

Of course if the other writers decide to outvote me that is fine to.

[SirNitram]

There's honestly two too many 'big kids with sticks' on the block for a xenociding race to last. The Protectorates or the Wanderers would do something, and it would be devastating. The Wanderers would deny them hyperspace travel by intercepting every ship and making the crew's brains overload. The Protectorate, being based in realspace, are more likely to simply step on them.

Not to mention it generally doesn't make a lick of sense. They xenocide every outside opponent, but never fight each other? Not even ants do that.

[Shark Bait]

As to Shark Bait's concerns, I do not know the mechanics of exoskeletons, but I think that a different protein matrix makes the most sense. They are not particularly heavy creatures, and are naturally flight-capable. I also don't have the biological background to discuss oxygen requirements for such things, I believe that they can survive in a human environment, though as mentioned before they are cold-blooded creatures and would freeze to death in anything besides Earth's tropics. They require not just heat but also humidity, hence the very powerful temperature controls and humidifiers inside their starships and stations.

Well the humidity thing poses a little more confusion for me, see exoskeletons are good at stopping water loss, in fact thats basically why they evolved. wouldn't that mean that their exoskeletons are not as hard as earth insects and are more permeable to water? lastly keep in mind that exothermic animals can and do live in temperatures that are below that of the tropics including fish, arthropods, amphibians, and reptiles so cooler temperatures do not necessarily have to equate to death, however sluggishness would be a factor.

Additionally a question about reproduction, do they have a more human approach with one or two young at a time with a high level of parental investment? You mentioned that they are rased in nurserys but how many offspring are produced at one time, additionally do they follow the model of many ants, bees and wasps and have one queen with many sterile females or do they have some sort of mated pair system or what?

[Comrade Tortoise]

As to Shark Bait's concerns, I do not know the mechanics of exoskeletons, but I think that a different protein matrix makes the most sense. They are not particularly heavy creatures, and are naturally flight-capable. I also don't have the biological background to discuss oxygen requirements for such things, I believe that they can survive in a human environment, though as mentioned before they are cold-blooded creatures and would freeze to death in anything besides Earth's tropics. They require not just heat but also humidity, hence the very powerful temperature controls and humidifiers inside their starships and stations.

ytik are protected by a chitinous exoskeleton with the approximate tensile strength of human bone (slightly more brittle), covering their entire body in a series of joined plates.

Human bone is horrible at taking sheering forced, so anything with properties similar to bone, especially more brittle, is going to suck monkey balls. In order to function as an exoskeleton, it will need to be able to take sheering forces and compression. And it is not even the exoskeleton proper you need to concern yourself with. It is the joints, which will be even worse with a creature that size, and muscle attachments. Muscle attachments which are limited by the surface area of the exoskeleton. Remember, surface area scales to the 2nd power with increasing size. Volume, and thus mass (if density remains constant) scale the third power with increasing size. This means that there is a finite size that this creature can grow at earth gravity and still move.

Stronger than they look, they are not however generally capable of the feats of improbable strength that their earthly cousins are, and cannot lift thirty times their own weight at a dead lift, as a normal ant can.

These creatures cannot move. They would in fact be weaker than you would guess by their size.

Bipedal, Zytik feet are soft and malleable, and shaped like suction cups, enabling them to walk on walls and ceilings if need be

You will NOT be able to get something of this mass to be able to do that with van der waals forces.

As with many insects, Zytik can fly by means of the fragile but strong membranous insect-wings on their backs, and are able to hover, fly backwards and forwards, up and down, and move in all three dimensions as easily as a more typical humanoid race can walk.

In what gravity and O2 concentrations can they do this? Because if they live on an earth sized planet with a similar atmospheric composition to anything earth has ever had, they will need to have the wingspan of a small plane and even then will be riding thermals. If not that, they will have to be able to generate a MASSIVE amount of food and have Uber mitochondria (or mitochondria analogues) And they will have to be able to flap mthose fragile wings faster than hummingbirds flap their wings, which will be impossible for their musculature and exoskeleton to take. They will literally shake themselves apart.

Zytiks utilize a language with sounds that no other race can accurately reproduce, but fortunately they are capable of speaking Earth languages at need, and their diplomatic corps will have representatives fluent in the relevant tongues.

There is no reason why other non humanoids would not be able to reproduce those sounds. And if humans cannot mimic their sounds, it follows that their vocal anatomy will be ill suited to reproducing human sounds. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Their eyes are compound, with thousands of lenses, and oversized.

Then their vision will be utter shit at detecting detail. COmpound eyes are great for detecting movement, but HORRIBLE at focusing a precise image.

Zytik have two antennae on the top of their heads which serve as olfactory and echolocator organs

No way they can pick up sound with that. Pressure changes yes, actual sound no. Not in a way that would be useful for echolocation.

Young Zytik are hatched as larvae, and are cared for communally in hatcheries and nurseries deep within the hive-cities of their home planet.

I am assuming they are haplodiploid and have queens that produce diploid females and haploid males, because if you dont have that you will NOT have ant-like eusociality.

Through a physical process that is not completely understood, Zytik and their exoskeletons grow following their pupal stage, achieving full size by about age 12, at which point they are considered adults.

Dude... that is just not reasonable. There is no reason they should not have had a field of developmental biology that cant figure that out in a few thousand years. We do, in fact we have extended it to other species on this planet in just 150 years.

[frigidmagi]

Dude... that is just not reasonable. There is no reason they should not have had a field of developmental biology that cant figure that out in a few thousand years. We do, in fact we have extended it to other species on this planet in just 150 years.

CT we haven't been in contact with their species for a few thousands years. Good lord, we're not going to write you a full bio entry on every bloody species!

[Comrade Tortoise]

Dude... that is just not reasonable. There is no reason they should not have had a field of developmental biology that cant figure that out in a few thousand years. We do, in fact we have extended it to other species on this planet in just 150 years.

CT we haven't been in contact with their species for a few thousands years. Good lord, we're not going to write you a full bio entry on every bloody species!

No no. How I read that was that they grew without themselves knowing how. And even so, even if you have not had contact with them for a long long time, you will have had the technology to store the data. Or if even a small genetic sample was obtained, to do some very interesting things and figure out how their development works. And then store the data

[Shark Bait]

See this is why i have spent two weeks on trying to find support for just the biochemistry for the species i wanted to write about, also why I was asking about oxygen concentrations and the like as well.

Dude... that is just not reasonable. There is no reason they should not have had a field of developmental biology that cant figure that out in a few thousand years. We do, in fact we have extended it to other species on this planet in just 150 years.

CT we haven't been in contact with their species for a few thousands years. Good lord, we're not going to write you a full bio entry on every bloody species!

And to play the devils advocate i kinda read that as other species in the galaxy (humans) don't know the process either. Maybe they don't want humans to know maybe they have a reason for keeping that kind of medical/biological data a secret, maybe they had a problem with something like DDT which kept their young from developing exoskeletons and now they fear a chemical attack.

[frigidmagi]

Okay, quick question for everyone to consider.

How long should a baseline human in the Librium Universe live assuming he has good access to medical treatment?

[Comrade Tortoise]

You have to define baseline. Thousands of years from now, humans will not be the same humans we have today, at least not genetically. Even if we are, we have not defined the extent to which medical care can say, fix cancer, which eventually everyone dies from. If nothing else does, accumulated mutations will.

[frigidmagi]

Good Lord, fine we'll do this Barney Style.

The Average Human Who Is Not A Member Of A Transhuman Sub-Species As Defined For This Fictional Universe.

What Should His Lifespan Be?

[Comrade Tortoise]

I will give a ballpark figure of 150 years, max. Average probably around 130-140. Functionally they will probably age much like we do, but with a looooong "twilight" period.

[Destructionator XV]

In my own hard-sf setting, I have humans living from between 80 and 300 years, depending primarily on the technology they have access too. Life extension is pretty common place, which lets them stay "young" for an extended period of time, and then the easy availability of things like organ replacement when something does go wrong means fatality can be pushed off for a long time after that.

The life extension that keeps them young has a genetic change component, but I don't see it as big enough to call them anything other than human (and since they can still reproduce normally with non-extended life humans really keeps them the same to me).

[rhoenix]

I think ComTor and Des15 (if you'll both pardon the shortening of your names as such) have the right idea. Given advances in medical science by then, the "twilight period" where cells are not yet showing signs of age, but are fully grown could last the majority of a person's lifetime on more advanced worlds, easily pushing the human lifespan past 150+ years.

On worlds with less advanced medical science, lifespans closer to how they are now, perhaps extended a bit would seem realistic to me.