5.8 KiB
Terra Formars
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Author: u/None *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/7o8mew/terra_formars/
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Score: 4
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Created: 2018-01-05T04:02:47
Post:
[removed]
Comments:
u/EthanCC [+8] (25 minutes later)
Well ok, good luck with that. I'll admit I haven't seen the anime/manga but from your description and browsing the tvtropes page it doesn't look promising. There are certainly better ways to modify yourself to fit in an alien environment than splicing in animal genes, among other problems, so the fundamental premise would have to be changed to the point where you have something that looks entirely different. Something like Vigil crossed with xcom from the ethereal's perspective maybe.
"Terraforming life forms fight off a human invasion" sounds like an interesting premise from either side, but honestly it would probably be better if it was outright original fiction.
u/EthanCC [+3] (58 minutes later)
To elaborate on what I mean by problems in the premise:
- Humanimals as an effective biological weapon.
- Anything larger than a bacterium as an efficient biological weapon (if the cockroach people adapt to it, see the bioweapon developed on this legendary spacebattles thread for a biologist who worked up a bacteria that eats almost anything and excretes paint thinner- you don't need a disease to biobomb a planet)
- I'll give a pass on the moss/cockroaches terraforming the planet since they could be heavily modified, but they're going to have a lot of trouble with any sort of earth-based life given the lack of water unless they're willing to bombard the planet with comets.
- Anything with a human-ish body having 50x human strength, without having some amazingly complicated organs to do things like synthesize fullerene tubes, regardless of what the creature they evolved from can do at a much smaller size
- I think I need to say "humanimals" again to express how bad that idea is as far as military strategy goes, and my hope that it all turns out to be a twist and that this is actually some sick future reality tv show in-universe
- Not many living things (bacteria aside) can survive being immersed in chlorine gas, and any adaptions that would help them against chemical attacks would slow them down in other ways (less efficient metabolism, extra organs, etc).
- If the company knew they would be attacked by humanoid cockroaches why did they send a quirky cast of anime characters as opposed to a ship with a big laser that can cook the bug people from orbit? A conventional army is pointless, you're basically fighting Kryptonian cavemen by way of the Tyranids.
- Square-cube law
Some better military strategies:
- Robot drone soldiers.
- "rods from god" weapons
- Flying drones with sniper cannons...why do they fight with infantry again?
- Big (megawatt range) laser from orbit, which is probably the best option: minimal environmental damage and relatively precise
So...it doesn't look good. It's basically impossible for the cockroach-people to be a threat to rational humans, the worst they could be is a Motie situation: less advanced but rapidly developing aliens who are on the way to eclipse you (which I understand they are in series, but a military threat? no). If you tell a rational story based on this it's probably going to have to be something exploring the moral questions involved in the premise. Any fight scenes would be the humans turning on their big laser to cook the natives from orbit.
u/Noumero [+1] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (10 hours later)
Also, for what possible reason could cockroaches evolve into two-handed five-digited bipeds, of all the bloody forms? They even have human musculature. That's insane. If I was writing a ratific of this, I would... leave the roach!people as they are, have the characters be hopelessly confused about their anthropomorphism as well, make it a plot point, and then come up with some fascinatingly convoluted reason for that. Is that a human conspiracy? An unknown convergent-evolution law? Did they overtook us in biotechnology and changed their forms to exploit our empathy? Are they capable of shapeshifting? Is this a plot of a crazy AI? Is this a plot of crazy interstellar aliens? Are we trapped in a simulation? Is this evidence that the story is being written by a human author? The imagination runs wild!
A well-chosen reason here could also double as the reason for why the humanity didn't just nuke the enemy.
"rods from god" weapons
The technical term, my friend, is "Relativistic Kill Troll".
u/None [+1] (30 minutes later)
Me personally I’ve always been a big fan of anime and I’ve always wanted to write my own anime type of story but yea there’s much better ways to prepare yourself for an alien environment then splicing animal genes into your own. I’ll be making the procedures much more sensible and easier to understand.
Speaking of works of original fiction I have a story called MASKS that follows an alternate universe watchmen type of story. I can tell you more about it if you’d like.
u/ABZB [+3] Count of Real Numbers (9 hours later)
But... cockroaches are tropical bugs.
They only survive in temperate climates because we invented central heating.
u/None [+2] (13 hours later)
Like I said flawed I’m trying to improve on that.