Exhack
Inactive Member
While not exactly the way I'd like to boldly announce my return to SARP, I'm going to be redrafting a lot of their tech articles over the next few days to both improve the language (many of them were written when I was only 17-18 and new to writing) and the believability of the science fiction behind them. Since then I've gotten much better and experimented with a variety of settings, so it's my hope I can improve the overall quality of my long-suffering faction rather than allow embarrassing old information to sit around.
The main thing will be the changing of words like 'organic' in their current usage to 'biological', because I now know much better. While there is a quality of Iromakuanhe technology that tends to be alive or derived from living chemistries, it's profoundly unlikely that they're all derived from the same carbon-based chemistry that humans and Earth-based species do. It was always in my mind (although I articulate it much better now) that their technology existed at the convergence of multiple phenomenon: the increasing sophistication of biomimicry taken from a lush and lively biome, the creation of ever more complicated and robust engineered lifeforms and the reclamation of hopelessly advanced alien biotechnology.
If the Iroma had encountered the Black Claw Empire rather than the Makuori, the result would have been a nation that is technologically and culturally somewhere between Nepleslia and Yamatai. Instead, as a consequence of their exposure to this radical subset of artificial biochemistries engineered by a much more advanced society, their imagination as a culture is hopelessly gripped by the promise of biotechnology. Even if Yamatai is a more powerful nation because it more practically (or cynically) makes use of whatever technology is best suited and economical to the task, the Iroma will continue to challenge themselves by attempting to make every single advance along the lines of what they see as a sacred avenue of science and technology.
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I'll first start with organoid-type substructure, which was envisioned as the chassis of a vessel, grown or cultivated, erratic and prone to eventually developing beyond the initial confines of the shape given to it by biological engineers. The article is short and concise, but only talks about it in terms of what it does and how it compares to comparable things. It's short and sweet, and talks about some of the bells. There's no romance.
I'm pretty ashamed.
The new version will preserve these functions (and also update it so that it's clear this thing conforms to the proper DR rules) and go into the asssembly, the life cycle of the living vessels of the Iromakuanhe. Organoid as a name will probably remain because of its status as well-entrenched in my writing: I have no intention of rewriting thousands of words when I'm just getting back into the swing of things; but their design will be elaborated upon. The word organoid itself has a connotation of something which is like an organic creature, that is, has some of the traits.
The new design I envision is a symbiotic cluster between a patchwork of exotic biochemistries existing in unison and keeping the collective entity alive despite the rigors of space. Some of them will be the familiar flesh, soft and porous and vulnerable, acting as a softening interface to the somewhat hard, alien flesh that underlies the construction, interweaving dense networks of biological crystalline silica, ultradense metals and a variety of extruded resin-like materials with a variety of chemical properties useful to surviving the rigors of spaceflight.
Things will happen when Iromakuanhe ships are shot down on worlds and their biological components become unshackles. Even cut loose in the depths of space, the organisms might continue to grow, harvesting materials to follow self-repair directives. There will be something alien and while not hostile, not entirely hospitable about their design.
The Iromakuanhe, conscious of the effects of their own technology on environments and ecologies they interact with, may express a certain alarm when such things happen.
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These are like, 50% late-night ramblings but I didn't want the idea to go to waste. If this direction sounds positive or interesting, please let me know. I'm not entirely committed to the execution for the moment but I'd still like to ultimately contribute to the quality of the site by improving my old work on it.
The main thing will be the changing of words like 'organic' in their current usage to 'biological', because I now know much better. While there is a quality of Iromakuanhe technology that tends to be alive or derived from living chemistries, it's profoundly unlikely that they're all derived from the same carbon-based chemistry that humans and Earth-based species do. It was always in my mind (although I articulate it much better now) that their technology existed at the convergence of multiple phenomenon: the increasing sophistication of biomimicry taken from a lush and lively biome, the creation of ever more complicated and robust engineered lifeforms and the reclamation of hopelessly advanced alien biotechnology.
If the Iroma had encountered the Black Claw Empire rather than the Makuori, the result would have been a nation that is technologically and culturally somewhere between Nepleslia and Yamatai. Instead, as a consequence of their exposure to this radical subset of artificial biochemistries engineered by a much more advanced society, their imagination as a culture is hopelessly gripped by the promise of biotechnology. Even if Yamatai is a more powerful nation because it more practically (or cynically) makes use of whatever technology is best suited and economical to the task, the Iroma will continue to challenge themselves by attempting to make every single advance along the lines of what they see as a sacred avenue of science and technology.
----
I'll first start with organoid-type substructure, which was envisioned as the chassis of a vessel, grown or cultivated, erratic and prone to eventually developing beyond the initial confines of the shape given to it by biological engineers. The article is short and concise, but only talks about it in terms of what it does and how it compares to comparable things. It's short and sweet, and talks about some of the bells. There's no romance.
I'm pretty ashamed.
The new version will preserve these functions (and also update it so that it's clear this thing conforms to the proper DR rules) and go into the asssembly, the life cycle of the living vessels of the Iromakuanhe. Organoid as a name will probably remain because of its status as well-entrenched in my writing: I have no intention of rewriting thousands of words when I'm just getting back into the swing of things; but their design will be elaborated upon. The word organoid itself has a connotation of something which is like an organic creature, that is, has some of the traits.
The new design I envision is a symbiotic cluster between a patchwork of exotic biochemistries existing in unison and keeping the collective entity alive despite the rigors of space. Some of them will be the familiar flesh, soft and porous and vulnerable, acting as a softening interface to the somewhat hard, alien flesh that underlies the construction, interweaving dense networks of biological crystalline silica, ultradense metals and a variety of extruded resin-like materials with a variety of chemical properties useful to surviving the rigors of spaceflight.
Things will happen when Iromakuanhe ships are shot down on worlds and their biological components become unshackles. Even cut loose in the depths of space, the organisms might continue to grow, harvesting materials to follow self-repair directives. There will be something alien and while not hostile, not entirely hospitable about their design.
The Iromakuanhe, conscious of the effects of their own technology on environments and ecologies they interact with, may express a certain alarm when such things happen.
----
These are like, 50% late-night ramblings but I didn't want the idea to go to waste. If this direction sounds positive or interesting, please let me know. I'm not entirely committed to the execution for the moment but I'd still like to ultimately contribute to the quality of the site by improving my old work on it.
