The story of Galactic Civilizations II

Ok so are the new 2 civilisations the precursor civilisations (Forgot the names but it is the insectoid race and the creators of the Yor) ?

No, the precursors are not a playable civ.

maybe they should be unlockable by completing the campaighn at lik 95%-100%

Drachir, more like one is a similar race to the 'Flood" from halo and the other is a precursur civ

The two new races -- thanks to my great memory [never mind the fact I searched for them] -- are the insectoid hivemind Thalan and the bizarre-looking Iconians. The Iconians are not Precursors, but are from around the time of their existence. They created the Yor, who rebelled like in all our favorite Rise of the Robots-type novels and forced them into hiding. So, yeah, not entirely sure if that's quite correct, but it's as much as I know.

thanks, lucian.

You know, you don't need a robotic race to rebel. Just have the creator race go through some major collapse, leaving behind the robots. If the robots have the ability to advance themselves (ie, just need some long laster AI with very large memory capability), they could become fully self-aware and continue their "evolution". And find itself in quite a quandry when if finds it's original creator race, just clawing its way back to the stellar or galactic stage.

A much more gentle and the less used road for robotic/digital races to gain their independance.

That's what happened with the Yor. The Yor started out as servants of the Precursors.

So the Yor didn't rebel. They just got left behind and evolved on their own? Cool!

Crap. Sorry, I read that wrong then. At least that's cleared up...

Do the Yor consume organic lifeforms for fuel. Ie do Yor eat and have generators that process organic matter into energy by combining it with oxygen (ie by burning it). I guess if that were true the Yor would have to expel ash (defecate) and produce smoke (breath out), ie Your breath in air, breath out smoke. I guess they probably also have closed systems populated by robot nanites (equivilant blood cells) as well as wires and such running alongside them. Yor probably have two digestive systems, one for organic matter ie fuel that produces elecricity in the power generator by converting heat into elecrical energy for the motors and the other for non-orginic silicans and iron ores which are converted by the nanites into repairs or whatever is needed and into insulation for curcuits along with many other things (including more nanites).

The evolutionary pressures on the Yor would be less to aquire organic fuel and more to aquire rare non-organic materials and this would have quickly led to a system of long-distance trading (the same minerals aren't present everywhere) and most likely raiding, warfare and cannibalism (ie eating certain parts of other Yor to aquire rare minerals that are in deficit). This would explain the Yor's attitude towards organic lifeforms, as the sole non-organic lifeform on a planet full of organic life, they are in their minds superior to organic lifeforms and they exist purely to serve the Yor as fuel and as a source of rare minerals ie iron starved Yor "drinking" blood to gain iron, this might have led to the Yor rating their superiority to the other creatures on the basis of their squishy organic nature, rather than their intelligence. So when they come across squishy organic creatures that are as intelligent as they are, they still see them as inferior and destined to be their slaves on the basis of that organic nature.

I don't mean to be insulting, but that sounds about as plausible as how humans were used as batteries in the Matrix. It doesn't seem terribly efficent to get power and rare minerals by eating people. Much easier to do this more convientially. In any case, I'm not sure why it would matter.

Okay they probably mainly just use Organic lifeforms as fuel in their generators. The Nanites extracts useful minerals from non-organic compounds that the Yor have consumed and then slowly construct and repair the internal workings of the Yor as they have been programmed to do (by some electronic version of the genetic code perhaps?), Organic lifeforms are simply burnt, the heat energy powers the electricity generator in the Yor's body and then the Nanites see what useful materials they can extract from the ash before excreting it, waste not want want not as it were. The Yor could quite happily live off coal I guess, but then coal is an organic substance. They could also be solar powered, but then that would mean the Yor would have to little else than lie on a hillside all day and absorb the sun, making them the mechanical version of plants. How is this any more or less feasable than an organic creature, I'm just trying to create a non-organic creature which functions along similer principles.

The Yor may just slurry organics, and turn it into its base elements and hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are our choice of power because they yeild the same energy as the equivalent mass of hydrogen. (For examples of how to process anything back to hydrocarbons, look at: Link - Anything into Oil)

Now, why would anyone choose to not use "free" solar power, if they can? The answer is: energy yeilded. If you were to have a 100% efficent solar light to electrical current (which you then could use immediately or store), you end up with the needing between 4 to 8 hours (depending on the cloud cover and other atmospherics) down-time (doing nothing but absorbing power/powering up) for 1 hour of up-time at normal mammalian activity rates. That's presuming Earth-Sol conditions. If your solar light to electrical current isn't 100% efficent, and is, say, only as efficent as the best plants on Earth, you need to spend ~20 hours downtime (absorbing sunlight) to have and use the energy for 1 hour of up-time at normal mammalian activity rates. Note that.

It's just basic power economics.

As for self repair and self replication, they do not need to be the same mechanism. So, you could have all Yor capable of self-repair, at various levels. Consider, self-contained micro-machines to maintain/repair the delicate internal circuitry, and larger macro structures (ie, specialized robotic arms) that they use to repair the larger structures of their body. But the average Yor may be incapable of making another independant unit (reproducing). As an originally manufactured beings, perhaps they have to construct some form of "creation" machine, which then takes various inputs (data and possible core material), and outputs a new Yor conscious brain and seed self-maintenence micro-machines. And that package is then placed into the "final" construct. Be it a standard individual Yor worker body, or perhaps into a Yor star ship or dozer or whatever else the Yor society deems it needs. With advanced Swarm OS, it would be possible for all machinary that perform complex jobs to all be self-aware Yor individuals. Whether its a self-aware assembly line or an radio telescope array or an orbiting solar power station. Indeed, it would be possible that all the individual Yor form a collective super mind, so that a developed Yor planet is itself just one self-aware Yor. The possibilities are truly only limited to our imagination. So, in that sense, the Yor could form local "hive-minds", but still function well when seperated from their home hive. That is, in essence, what many research projects in reality are after (Swarm OS being just one such example).

They could have a "matrix" like relationship with the organic life forms. They use them as fuel - but in a re-usable way - which is effcient - rather then "burn" through them like fuel.

Why do people want the Yor repeating the Matrix? Or do you want the Yor livestocking ignorant humans? Which is it? Do you know the amount of energy that would waste? The Yor aren't retarded, unlike the premise and the "science" of Matrix.

The Yor can go out and harvest all the hydrocarbons they want from any source of normal matter! That's nebula, worlds (rocky and gas giants), comets, asteriods... everything in the universe! Why would the Yor bother to "husband" any living creatures, when they can just process the entire universe into base material and fuel? Answer: They wouldn't. Only some left over "caretaker" prejudicial order or ancient memory from when they served their creators could possibly get them to forgo efficency for "pet keeping". And they aren't going to let that get out of hand... it isn't efficent.

The Yor can do things we could never do. For instance, the Yor could harvest all the frozen methane located in the sea floor on Earth (see: Link), and never worry about the destruction of the world environment using it would unleash. They could drain the Earth's oceans, using a bit of solar power as the seed energy to split up all the water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and burn that Hydro! They could move the Earth 50% closer to the sun, so that solar power systems could provide tremendously more power from the big fusion engine in our sky! We couldn't dare, but the Yor? Their survival is not constrained to the same narrow environmental envelope that we require. They might prefer Earth type worlds for easy access to resources and the low cost of maintaining their physical bodies on such worlds, but it isn't the only option available to them.

Remember, whether it is using humans or cows, it is still a matter of economics. We continue to use cows because there is a market for the meat and cheese and leather (and everything else we use them for). But if the economics turns against it we will stop. If it was cheaper for us to mix a few chemicals in a big vat to produce the meats, cheese, and leather equivalent, without wasting all the time and land and energy on raising the cows, we'd switch to that. In the long term, economics determines the behavior of a society. The Yor would never use organic life as their fuel, unless that was the cheapest economic source of power available. As long as they have access to hydrocarbons, it isn't. As long as they have access to an ocean, it isn't.

Note that. You want the Yor growing pigs and using the pigs and their wastes as power? Then you have to make the economics for that work better then everything else available to them. Consider, we could power the world right now purely on corn, but we are not. Why? Economics. It's cheaper to go drill in the ground and use that (the oil and natural gases) then it is to grow all the corn and process it into energy (even if its just collecting all the husks and burning them!).

Reusable isn't more efficent. "Reusable" implies sustainability. But if the economics doesn't support sustainability, you will not choose a reusable methodology as your primary means of powering anything until it is more economical then the alternatives.

What's the cheapest source of power? Harvesting sunlight. The star is releasing free energy, and there are mydrid of ways to convert that output into useable energy. Heck, to harvest the power of sunlight, you could just use long metal poles with wires attached at either end. With one part of the pole "closer" to the sun, this will create an electrical current when the sun warms the pole. You cannot beat that for "efficency" (cheapness). It works so long as there is light. No muss, no fuss, no having to worry about keeping your organics alive and healthy, and then process them into a fuel later. The rods are generating power, consistantly, for extremely minimal maintainence. They just generate a very low current. Or you can hang out several hundred meters of arial, and harvest ambiant (that means, free) radio waves. As there is always radio waves, this is a power source that works 100% of the time, regardless of if its night or day! But again, this generates a very low current.

Remember, economics. If the economics doesn't favor it, then they aren't going to do it.