Daniel wrote:

1. Hanar military ineptness

Why do the Hanar, for all their technological might and let alone being led by the military commander of the Ascended, seemed inept when it comes to military matters? From what I recall in the docs, their military doctrine is very simplified in hindsight. Also, how could have the Wars of Refusal weaken the military when Katha (as revealed in miscellany) can just reincarnate his experienced warriors.

Unless… this reincarnation method is cost-prohibitive godpower-wise.

The Hanar’s military doctrine is simplistic in most cases because of two factors:

a) Their technology in all areas is way beyond Council level tech. The Hanar tend to look at the Council races around the same way that a modern military unit would look at highly trained infantry from the Civil War era.

For the most part the Hanar simply have never needed to really develop good strategies. There wasn’t really a need to — they were not interested in conquest or in any conventional wargoals, merely slapping the aliens around until they stopped attacking.

b) Having Katha as a general would seem to be a bonus until you realize that Ascended warfighting was absolutely nothing at all like conventional combat. Most of it was tied up into warshouts, use of Godpower, and deployment of extremely high energy exotic weapon systems. To Katha, the entire idea of ‘combat’ as the races of the galaxy practice it is utterly out of his context. It’s like dudes in tactical gear playing Magic the Gathering to determine who wins a fight rather than using guns.

The Second Refusal War was not a strain on lives, exactly. Killed hanar were, as you pointed out, merely an irritant. The problem was fighting the war in a way that did not attract undue attention or tip anyone off that the Hanar were ‘too strong’.

It also nearly broke the Hanar’s logistics, given that they’d never deployed on that scale so far from their own space and had no experience in doing so. Neither did Katha, and a few times he made quiet Godpower ‘adjustments’ to keep things moving.

Ultimately, if pressed hard enough the Hanar would not be able to resist even with their superior tech simply due to fleet sizes. Katha has , since the Second Refusal, slowly expanded the hanar fleet and upgraded shielding and weapons systems, but has also been building Levi-tech level ships in case things go completely farking south.

Daniel wrote:

2. The Carcosans

Just how horrifying did Sharn and his friends warp the inhabitants of Carcosa? Did they infused the entire species with godpower abilities since they definitely inflicted significant damage on the Reapers to the point that even Harbinger was nearly wrecked? Also, between them and the Batarians, who is more evil?

The… things… on Carcosa were messed up in a lot of ways. They were not infused with godpower but their genetics and … existence were altered by it, multiple times. They were basically protobiological shoggoths mixed with limited abilities like a wheel priest and a psychic ‘taint’ that drove most biological creatures insane.

It can’t be understated how fucked up these things were. They preyed on other races for food and sport, and genocided over fifteen pre-sentient or sentient species (almost all pre-spaceflight) simply for the sick enjoyment of it. Like the batarians almost all their technology was a fusion of biotech and mutagenic slurry created from the remains of their victims.

They could use their mental abilities to torment and ‘extract’ the minds of living sentients and trap them in their biomatrix computers, an eternity of torment as they were living AIs unable to disobey.

The Reapers do not, as a rule, usually care much in any fashion about the races they destroy or Ascend, but even they were horrified by the Carcosai and risked a class four breach to incinerate the entire planet’s surface down a full mile to make sure they were very dead.

The Carcosai’s tech was Levi-level, with very tiny amounts of Godpower level tech powered by the Black Levis themselves.

Compared to those things, the batarians might as well be fucking magical ponies. Seriously, the very worst shit that has happened in our cycle wouldn’t even be ‘baby’s first atrocity’ for the Carcosai.

Daniel wrote:

3. Inutech

This question is very general and short but… how different is the technology of the Inusannon compared to the tech we use?

Eighty percent of their tech is biological in nature, and many parts of it rely on fourth dimensional alterations to work or even understand. The biggest differences are simple:

We build technology to primarily enhance our ability to interact with the world and to make our existence safer, more comfortable, or more survivable.

They used technology primarily to understand reality, to not have to deal with discomfort, and to amuse themselves.

The Inusannon tech varies in a lot of ways. I’ll give you an example. Council races came up with omni-printing and omni-gel and use it for all kinds of things, from making dishes and bed sheets to repairing armor and computers to building houses. The Inusannon version used biological elements that grew and were sentient, and were mostly used to create art, to alter the landscapes of the planets to be more interesting to look at, and for medical purposes.

The Inusannon didn’t see technology as an enabler or a requirement, merely a convenience. Their interaction with the Tho’ians blurred the lines further, as most Inusannon clothing was sentient and could talk and change shapes, their buildings were impermanent and could dissolve or reshape themselves to amuse themselves (or the owners), and most art was dual purposed, like their sentinel-statues that would defend them but also gather food, play games, or engage in trolling contests.

…I would not trust any Inusannon tech I came across. Just saying. It might try to troll you.

Daniel wrote:

4. Singularity

How exactly does achieving technological singularity radically transform society? I don’t see much changing save for the society being god-like.

This is something ethical researchers and trans-humanists have been debating for some time.

The bottom line is that it wouldn’t transform society so much as destroy it and make it … irrelevant. The singularity means nearly every human concern — sustenance, transportation, shelter, communication, interaction with physical reality — would be meaninglessly simplified. We can imagine what it would be like but the terms don’t mean anything.

Ultimately, a civilization that progresses beyond the singularity has enough computing power and ability to ignore (or change) the laws of the universe that we understand. Society as we know it — advertising, politics, business, money, even human interaction — would simply cease to exist.

Daniel wrote:

5. Teleportation issue

Can you tell me hos Teleportation via Godpower works?I’ve been researching about teleportation and it lead me to a video of Michio Kaku explaining such. He explained that for teleportation to be done, the original copy must be destroyed then reconstructed in another place. But the case of organisms would raise some ethical questions. Kaku said that if the person is indeed teleported, the question is if that person is the same as the one teleported, or just a copy having the personality and memories of the original.

The problem with Kaku’s points (which are, by the way, all exactly right) is that they relate to teleportation that follows the laws of physics and the rules of thermodynamics and relativity.

The Godstep does *not* follow those laws. At the most simple, the Godstep is two processes.

One, it makes it possible for a single bounded point (x/y/z/t) to exist in multiple places at the same time.

Second, it makes this point exist outside of the flow of the arrow of time.

From the observers viewpoint, it would look as if the user jumped from point A to point B instantly, even if the two points were miles, or light years, or fucking petaparsecs apart.

From the user’s viewpoint, literally nothing happened. They simply … are now somewhere else.

This is not a ‘valid’ method of teleportation because it perverts the singularity principle and butchers the idea of a single timelike curve for any bounded point in space.

The hanar teleporter devices are matter/energy conversion beaming matrices, and for the most part work pretty much like Star Trek Transporters, except that they can only beam ‘out’ and that every such trip inflicts minor but noticeable biological damage — two or three such beam-outs will usually cause cancers and other disruptions in the user, and five or more will almost certainly kill due to misaligned capillaries.

Daniel wrote:

6. Tech Just. Particle rifle

???

• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by Logical Premise.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by Logical Premise.