Natural Selection Inside Of Ns
The_holy_headcrab
Join Date: 2003-09-08 Member: 20677Members
Join Date: 2003-09-08 Member: 20677Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Did you ever wonder?</div> This one will be alittle tricky to understand, but I will explain my ideas as easily as possible. These are unofficial theories, but they have alot of practical truth to back them up. Judge them as you will.
NATURAL SELECTION INSIDE OF NATURAL SELECTION.
Did you ever wonder what purpose fades and onos's served before the Kharaa met the human race? I belive they didn't exist before they met us. Let's start with the hive.
There is one major difference between the Kharaa and the human race. How we think. A human has the ability to think for itself, and it can rationalize. To some extent, the Kharaa can also perform these tasks, but I would view the perfect game of NS as human marines versus alien bots. Why? Bots, no matter how much time you spend developing them, will only follow what they are programmed to know. This is what the Kharaa are like. They rely one a single structure: The hive. The hive is their center of operations. They rely on it for information and orders. Without it, the Kharaa are nothing. What does this mean? Alone, a Kharaa can not beat a human because it can not think for itself. It must be relient on the hive to guide it's actions against the human marine. Add a hive to control that Kharaa, and the human marine suddenly discovers he is fighting a thing that is being controlled from a centeral location - the hive. When that hive is destroyed, the Kharaa not only deteriorate, but in reality, they would become vegitables. Their brains are obviously not developed enough for Kharaa to think on an indevidual role like we can. remove the hive, and a Kharaa is useless. As with our species, we rely on a commander for supplies and intelligence. BUT we can survive without him: that's the major difference between us and the Kharaa.
When the skulk Kharaa probobly first met the marines, they were easy targets for the machine guns. But the data they gathered would be processed inside the hive, and a new generation of Skulk would evolve from simple reconecense and defence to a marine killing machine. Granted, alone these aliens will rarely be sucessfull in a kill, but with the proper upgrades skulks can become one Kharaa armies. Now for a while the Kharaa have no need to evolve because the marines haven't brought in their bigger guns. How do I view the skulk's suicidal weapon? It's acceptible in emergency situations, but a skulk wouldn't waste itself like a grenade if it could do more damage with it's teeth. Parasites? No. Parasites would work if they burried themselves under a marine's skin, but why would it stop there? If you can spit a small burrowing virus into someone's skin, you could have it do more than just act like a homing becon. I would develop parasites to cause organ failure and system-wide havoc instead of acting like homing becons. But the marines would figure out how to remove these parasites eventually. Once a marine was aware he had a parasite eating away at him, treatment would be costly and time-consuming: just the things you need if you want to slow your enemies down.
I'm guessing the lerk started out as a transportation alien and left fighting to skulks. Lerks are adept little flyers, and two of them could carry something heavy like a gorge or a membrane sac full of nutruents used for the hive's survival. The Lerk "could" have evolved a long distance weapon (the spike) as a countermeasure to marines picking lerks off from a distance, but spikes would HAVE to remain small - small enough to cause marines to retreat if hit, but not powerfull enough to cause serious damage and weigh the lerk down. A lerk doesn't require a large supply of recorces to surive. It's small and effecient, and it doesn't need defenceive countermeasures like talons or spikes (or even spore organs) to defend itself if the lerks know the skulks will defend them. So if it went from a transportation alien to a fighter, the Gorges would become severaly impared without their transports. Lerks, saddly, cannot function as fighters. They aren't designed for it. And for lerks useing spore weaponry: Marines would eventually issue chemical suits and gas masks to protect themselves from spores. Problem solved. And what really happens when a lerk loaded with spore organs is hit? it EXPLODES, and sprays spores everywhere. What would happen if the marines came up with a chemical that had an explosive or flabible reaction with the spores? Lerks would become flying time bombs. A lerk perched on it's hive could spell doom if shot with a dart full of this chemical. Spore organs do not work with lerks because they would cause too much damage to friendly Kharaa, or worse, a hive.
Gorges are constructors. They fortfy the hive, clean it, and build organic calcium-deposit spike launchers to protect their hive, not their teammates. The gorges first loyalty is to hit's hive. They would never be caught outside of the hive's perimiter. Gorges are the last thing that would fight a marine. Now I have no problem with gorges growing acid organs. They can use their internal acid to burn through the marine's armor and weapons and cause them to retreat ASAP. Their acid wouldn't come out in globs: it would have to come out in a sort of short range sneeze. The gourges would cough or sneeze their acid out of their bodies in a mucus membrane structure. When it comes in contact with steel or titianium, it reacts hostle with this material and starts to burn through it. If gorges only shot out a small globish projectile, marines could freeze the area hit with a counter-chemical easily. But if it came out in a larger area and in a huge quantety, the marines would have to spend more time with their injured buddies becuase now it's not just on one spot: the acid is all over their bodies. MUCH more effective. This not only causes wide-spread damage, but causes more panic to the poor sap hit. This acid organ would come with one disadvantage: when the gorge dies, firy hot bullets puncturing it's acid organs would probobly cause them to explode like spore lerks. Luckly, the healing spray the gorges use on their hive to clean and repair it would have already rendered it immune to the more potent version used against marines. And a gorge would become an acid timebomb that would damage every marine near it when it exploded and coated everything around it in acid. Gorges should never be used for offence: It's just not what the hive wanted them to do.
Fades were a likely and risky evolution to the Kharaa when marines armed with jetpacks were used to counter skulks. Lerks obviously offored no resistance because they need their energy to fly and lift things, not to attack marines. And when marines could land ontop of hives and blast down into the roof, I would have no problems with a fade growing an acid rocket launcher. Rather than have it "magically" defy gravity, they would climb sticky membranes made just for them and skulks so they could fire one of these rockets into the marine's face and probobly kill him instantly. An acid rocket wouldn't come out like the gorge acid snot: It would make sense for it to come out as a small and fast projectile. This little glob of death would be more high powered than a gorge's acid, and I would guess that the gorge acid would be designed to go through a marine's armor, so the fades would have acid designed to burn through exposed skin and cause HUGE ammounts of very fatal damage, but saddly this type of acid wouldn't harm armor. Solution for marines? wear chemical suits. Problem? gorge sprays acid all over your suit, and when most of it's burnt away, a single rocket to your torso or face would flat out kill you. The acid would melt through your skin, bone, and organs like they weren't even there, and yet it wouldn't touch the shreds of chemical suit left over. The one problem with this theory is that a fade would become more of a defender relient on gorge acid to burn through a marine's armor or chemical armor. Here's where a fade would change it's DNA for offence: along with it's claws, a fade would produce enzimes on it's claws designed to stick to a marine's armor or chemical suit and is designed to have an armor-eating effect like gorge acid. All a fade has to do is claw a marine to burn his armor or chemical suit, and when he runs for cover, the fade would go for the kill with it's acid launcher. Now something this big is going to REALLY tax the hive's abilities, so it's going to stop fade production as soon as it can so it can get back to lerks, gorges, and skulks.
So a fade is a temporary solution, but what happened when marines appreared with heavy armor? fades were still produced. So now the marines have a problem: they need something to go through a fade before it can claw them and release the enzyme on their armor. Solution? Grenade launchers, flame throwers, or heavy machine guns. Grenades could knock fades off balance, or ignite their acid organs inside them and turn them into motiv cocktails, flame throwers would force a fade to keep it's distance (and if it's acid rockets can't get through your shiny heavy armor or chemical suit, mister fade is really up a creek.) so a marine has no worries about claws and armor-eating enzimes. Heavy machine guns would pack bigger bullets rather than more ammo: I could see them as belt-fed 100 caliber death machines. Pelting a fade with a lmg-based MG would irritate them, but it wouldn't have enough UMPH! to push them away fom you. They still get close enough to burn your armor with their claws, and then your fodder for their acid rockets. So a 100 caliber bullet would not only cause huge damage, but this bad boy could knock a fade back senseless. would such a weapon be hard to manuver? you bet. a 100 caliber round would require a long barrel to control and aim it's fury. So you just have a buddy pack a flamethrower or something shortranged, and whala! your indestructable! right?
This is where the onos eveloved. It has nothing to do with light marines or jetpackers at all. It's an even more temporary measure used to frag heavies and heavily fortified bases. Onos's would resemble tanks: titanium-like armoring around their heads and sides would allow them to take a 100-cal round with no pain or injury, and if an onos weighted enough, it could simply roll over a heavy and squash the poor sap inside their metal coffin. Eating marines would only expose an onos's internal organs to un-nessesary damage. Unless if the armor eating enzimes were combined with the flesh eating acid inside however, an onos eating a marine would become much smarter. Now what about the onos's rear section? a fade or a few skulks could cover the onos's weak spots. The onos charges in head first, does what it can without exposing it's unarmored areas, and leaves backwards. It's head and side carapiece would need to be incredibly thick for such an assault to work. An onos might also require it's own hive to control it. Going from a small organism like a skulk to something like an onos can really occupy your processing power, so a hive would have to spend more time on a single onos than a whorde of skulks. Onos's would be rare, very very rare, and would be designed to be easy to replace, and would come with short life spans so they will not overload their controlling hive. And what about 3,000 gun turrets? look at their legs... their not even secured to the ground. An onos could knock one over and step on it. Perfect solution to fades clawing turrets with armor-eating enzimes.
I am not a huge fan of how the game works now becuase there isn't enough interaction between the alien classes. it's designed now so aliens can act like individuals instead of simple pieces of the hive's clockwork.
That's all, enjoy and keep thinking.
NATURAL SELECTION INSIDE OF NATURAL SELECTION.
Did you ever wonder what purpose fades and onos's served before the Kharaa met the human race? I belive they didn't exist before they met us. Let's start with the hive.
There is one major difference between the Kharaa and the human race. How we think. A human has the ability to think for itself, and it can rationalize. To some extent, the Kharaa can also perform these tasks, but I would view the perfect game of NS as human marines versus alien bots. Why? Bots, no matter how much time you spend developing them, will only follow what they are programmed to know. This is what the Kharaa are like. They rely one a single structure: The hive. The hive is their center of operations. They rely on it for information and orders. Without it, the Kharaa are nothing. What does this mean? Alone, a Kharaa can not beat a human because it can not think for itself. It must be relient on the hive to guide it's actions against the human marine. Add a hive to control that Kharaa, and the human marine suddenly discovers he is fighting a thing that is being controlled from a centeral location - the hive. When that hive is destroyed, the Kharaa not only deteriorate, but in reality, they would become vegitables. Their brains are obviously not developed enough for Kharaa to think on an indevidual role like we can. remove the hive, and a Kharaa is useless. As with our species, we rely on a commander for supplies and intelligence. BUT we can survive without him: that's the major difference between us and the Kharaa.
When the skulk Kharaa probobly first met the marines, they were easy targets for the machine guns. But the data they gathered would be processed inside the hive, and a new generation of Skulk would evolve from simple reconecense and defence to a marine killing machine. Granted, alone these aliens will rarely be sucessfull in a kill, but with the proper upgrades skulks can become one Kharaa armies. Now for a while the Kharaa have no need to evolve because the marines haven't brought in their bigger guns. How do I view the skulk's suicidal weapon? It's acceptible in emergency situations, but a skulk wouldn't waste itself like a grenade if it could do more damage with it's teeth. Parasites? No. Parasites would work if they burried themselves under a marine's skin, but why would it stop there? If you can spit a small burrowing virus into someone's skin, you could have it do more than just act like a homing becon. I would develop parasites to cause organ failure and system-wide havoc instead of acting like homing becons. But the marines would figure out how to remove these parasites eventually. Once a marine was aware he had a parasite eating away at him, treatment would be costly and time-consuming: just the things you need if you want to slow your enemies down.
I'm guessing the lerk started out as a transportation alien and left fighting to skulks. Lerks are adept little flyers, and two of them could carry something heavy like a gorge or a membrane sac full of nutruents used for the hive's survival. The Lerk "could" have evolved a long distance weapon (the spike) as a countermeasure to marines picking lerks off from a distance, but spikes would HAVE to remain small - small enough to cause marines to retreat if hit, but not powerfull enough to cause serious damage and weigh the lerk down. A lerk doesn't require a large supply of recorces to surive. It's small and effecient, and it doesn't need defenceive countermeasures like talons or spikes (or even spore organs) to defend itself if the lerks know the skulks will defend them. So if it went from a transportation alien to a fighter, the Gorges would become severaly impared without their transports. Lerks, saddly, cannot function as fighters. They aren't designed for it. And for lerks useing spore weaponry: Marines would eventually issue chemical suits and gas masks to protect themselves from spores. Problem solved. And what really happens when a lerk loaded with spore organs is hit? it EXPLODES, and sprays spores everywhere. What would happen if the marines came up with a chemical that had an explosive or flabible reaction with the spores? Lerks would become flying time bombs. A lerk perched on it's hive could spell doom if shot with a dart full of this chemical. Spore organs do not work with lerks because they would cause too much damage to friendly Kharaa, or worse, a hive.
Gorges are constructors. They fortfy the hive, clean it, and build organic calcium-deposit spike launchers to protect their hive, not their teammates. The gorges first loyalty is to hit's hive. They would never be caught outside of the hive's perimiter. Gorges are the last thing that would fight a marine. Now I have no problem with gorges growing acid organs. They can use their internal acid to burn through the marine's armor and weapons and cause them to retreat ASAP. Their acid wouldn't come out in globs: it would have to come out in a sort of short range sneeze. The gourges would cough or sneeze their acid out of their bodies in a mucus membrane structure. When it comes in contact with steel or titianium, it reacts hostle with this material and starts to burn through it. If gorges only shot out a small globish projectile, marines could freeze the area hit with a counter-chemical easily. But if it came out in a larger area and in a huge quantety, the marines would have to spend more time with their injured buddies becuase now it's not just on one spot: the acid is all over their bodies. MUCH more effective. This not only causes wide-spread damage, but causes more panic to the poor sap hit. This acid organ would come with one disadvantage: when the gorge dies, firy hot bullets puncturing it's acid organs would probobly cause them to explode like spore lerks. Luckly, the healing spray the gorges use on their hive to clean and repair it would have already rendered it immune to the more potent version used against marines. And a gorge would become an acid timebomb that would damage every marine near it when it exploded and coated everything around it in acid. Gorges should never be used for offence: It's just not what the hive wanted them to do.
Fades were a likely and risky evolution to the Kharaa when marines armed with jetpacks were used to counter skulks. Lerks obviously offored no resistance because they need their energy to fly and lift things, not to attack marines. And when marines could land ontop of hives and blast down into the roof, I would have no problems with a fade growing an acid rocket launcher. Rather than have it "magically" defy gravity, they would climb sticky membranes made just for them and skulks so they could fire one of these rockets into the marine's face and probobly kill him instantly. An acid rocket wouldn't come out like the gorge acid snot: It would make sense for it to come out as a small and fast projectile. This little glob of death would be more high powered than a gorge's acid, and I would guess that the gorge acid would be designed to go through a marine's armor, so the fades would have acid designed to burn through exposed skin and cause HUGE ammounts of very fatal damage, but saddly this type of acid wouldn't harm armor. Solution for marines? wear chemical suits. Problem? gorge sprays acid all over your suit, and when most of it's burnt away, a single rocket to your torso or face would flat out kill you. The acid would melt through your skin, bone, and organs like they weren't even there, and yet it wouldn't touch the shreds of chemical suit left over. The one problem with this theory is that a fade would become more of a defender relient on gorge acid to burn through a marine's armor or chemical armor. Here's where a fade would change it's DNA for offence: along with it's claws, a fade would produce enzimes on it's claws designed to stick to a marine's armor or chemical suit and is designed to have an armor-eating effect like gorge acid. All a fade has to do is claw a marine to burn his armor or chemical suit, and when he runs for cover, the fade would go for the kill with it's acid launcher. Now something this big is going to REALLY tax the hive's abilities, so it's going to stop fade production as soon as it can so it can get back to lerks, gorges, and skulks.
So a fade is a temporary solution, but what happened when marines appreared with heavy armor? fades were still produced. So now the marines have a problem: they need something to go through a fade before it can claw them and release the enzyme on their armor. Solution? Grenade launchers, flame throwers, or heavy machine guns. Grenades could knock fades off balance, or ignite their acid organs inside them and turn them into motiv cocktails, flame throwers would force a fade to keep it's distance (and if it's acid rockets can't get through your shiny heavy armor or chemical suit, mister fade is really up a creek.) so a marine has no worries about claws and armor-eating enzimes. Heavy machine guns would pack bigger bullets rather than more ammo: I could see them as belt-fed 100 caliber death machines. Pelting a fade with a lmg-based MG would irritate them, but it wouldn't have enough UMPH! to push them away fom you. They still get close enough to burn your armor with their claws, and then your fodder for their acid rockets. So a 100 caliber bullet would not only cause huge damage, but this bad boy could knock a fade back senseless. would such a weapon be hard to manuver? you bet. a 100 caliber round would require a long barrel to control and aim it's fury. So you just have a buddy pack a flamethrower or something shortranged, and whala! your indestructable! right?
This is where the onos eveloved. It has nothing to do with light marines or jetpackers at all. It's an even more temporary measure used to frag heavies and heavily fortified bases. Onos's would resemble tanks: titanium-like armoring around their heads and sides would allow them to take a 100-cal round with no pain or injury, and if an onos weighted enough, it could simply roll over a heavy and squash the poor sap inside their metal coffin. Eating marines would only expose an onos's internal organs to un-nessesary damage. Unless if the armor eating enzimes were combined with the flesh eating acid inside however, an onos eating a marine would become much smarter. Now what about the onos's rear section? a fade or a few skulks could cover the onos's weak spots. The onos charges in head first, does what it can without exposing it's unarmored areas, and leaves backwards. It's head and side carapiece would need to be incredibly thick for such an assault to work. An onos might also require it's own hive to control it. Going from a small organism like a skulk to something like an onos can really occupy your processing power, so a hive would have to spend more time on a single onos than a whorde of skulks. Onos's would be rare, very very rare, and would be designed to be easy to replace, and would come with short life spans so they will not overload their controlling hive. And what about 3,000 gun turrets? look at their legs... their not even secured to the ground. An onos could knock one over and step on it. Perfect solution to fades clawing turrets with armor-eating enzimes.
I am not a huge fan of how the game works now becuase there isn't enough interaction between the alien classes. it's designed now so aliens can act like individuals instead of simple pieces of the hive's clockwork.
That's all, enjoy and keep thinking.
Comments
Aliens really have become individuals... not a team.
I think you did a good job of writing that.
They do have their own wants and feelings, but they realize the hive is important.
They are not automatons, they can think for themselves.
Also, the idea that they are all individuals is to further vary the playing style of the gameby contrasting the strong teamwork needed for the marines to win.