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Jayngfet
2008-09-08, 12:27 AM
As the trope(on a psp so no link) I was making a space dnd game when I decided on a planet of machines based on humans(meaning human DNA in them), and have most details worked out except:

1:Faces?(think toonami).

2:Sexual reproduction?

I made them completly different from warforged and behave very humanlike.

Stupendous_Man
2008-09-08, 12:44 AM
....

gives a new meaning to artificial insemination.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-08, 01:02 AM
I'm not sure what you're looking for in faces; you might as well just make them expressive like human faces unless you have a compelling reason not to.

Sexual reproduction for artificial life forms is nicely handled by Howard Tayler - feel free to steal (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20030320.html).

PS - it's "Ridiculously." Is misspelling ridiculous a meme or something? This is slowly becoming an "irregardless" level irritant to me :smallannoyed:

Oh my god... the spellchecker doesn't flag irregardless. :smallfurious:

TheOOB
2008-09-08, 01:19 AM
I did a similar thing in a shadowrun game once, there where androids(and gynoids, we support general equality here in the sixth world) that where to almost all but the most careful observation human, and some of the later models could even reproduce (but only with humans, all androids had the same DNA, even though their physical features differed, two androids reproducing was like identical twins having a child, there simply isn't enough variety in the DNA for it to turn out quite right).

Anyways, a great source for handle the blurred line between man and machine is the Ghost in the Shell series(several manga, three movies and two anime series last time I checked). When it starts becoming hard to tell who is a human in a robot shell, and who is a robot meant to be human, how can you be sure which you are, would it even matter? In particular, the tachikoma from the anime series while a little light-hearted and obviously designed for comic-relief take some very insightful looks on what it is to be an artificial sentient.

Randel
2008-09-08, 01:25 AM
Sort of like the Carbons from the MegaMan Legends games?

They are basically like humans, organic and they eat food but seem a bit more resistant to injury and may be easier to hook up to cybernetics than regular humans. Characters like Tron Bonne were able to survive getting flung out of exploding mechas and vehicles with little more than some singed skin (though the fact that she's an anime character would help. civilians in the game seem sturdy as well). Alot of the Diggers (basically adventurers who hunt through ruins to look for ancient technology) have armor of some kind and a few look like they have cybernetic limbs.


Their in-game purpose seems to be that they were created to populate the Earth, make farms and and cities and the infastructure of the planet, and then some exterminator robots could come and kill all the Carbons and repopulate the planet with cloned humans (who had gone extinct).

I suppose that biologically they would be organic (so they can eat and digest food) and would reproduce much like regular humans do. However, they would have cybernetic components (possibly nanobots in their blood and reinforced metal on their skeletons and such) so that they are more resistant to injury, don't tire as much, and their medics/engineers can easily integrate cybernetic components to replace lost limbs.

Their organic components might be made up of some artificial organic tissue... possibly they don't have DNA and instead have something incompadable with humans and most creatures. So any diseases they get woudn't effect humans and vice versa. They would also evolve slower (or not at all) but have enough diversity to fit in pretty much all human niches.

So... they don't tire as easily as others and are instinctively motivated to build things. They resist damage so one finds that alot of their buildings and mechas seem to blow up before the pilot does and if they do get injured then its fairly easy to patch them up with construct parts.

A few interesting ideas to run with:
their organic tissue contains some bioelectric tissue that generates power for their naturally cybernetic parts, thus parts added to them don't need much of an external power supply. some might have crude implants in their palms that let them shock people with a touch or power up devices using their bodies electric energy (perhaps they refer to electricity as their 'life force' in some martial arts).

they are weak against poisons since they were designed to make a hospitable planet for humans. Thus they are much more environmentally sensitive than most races due to toxins effecting them more. In fact one poison that doesn't hurt humans might be their 'kill switch' that could exterminate the whole civilization when their job is done.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-09-08, 07:41 AM
How do robots have DNA in them? If it's organic, it's not a robot - it's a cyborg, at the most.

Reproduction obviously happens by way of nanomachines emitted by both parents that work together to build the new model, which therefore has traits from both parent models.

Ascension
2008-09-08, 07:52 AM
Oh my god... the spellchecker doesn't flag irregardless. :smallfurious:

It's been around since 1912, at least. I'm fairly conservative when it comes to our language, but seriously, if a word has survived 96 years worth of English teachers trying to kill it, I think it deserves a little official recognition. It's not like it would be the first word in English that etymologically makes no sense. It would also hardly be the first to make the leap from colloquial to formal speech.

Misspelling ridiculous is an entirely different issue, though.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-08, 11:08 AM
It's been around since 1912, at least. I'm fairly conservative when it comes to our language, but seriously, if a word has survived 96 years worth of English teachers trying to kill it, I think it deserves a little official recognition. It's not like it would be the first word in English that etymologically makes no sense. It would also hardly be the first to make the leap from colloquial to formal speech.

A quick usage note:


Usage note: Irregardless is considered nonstandard because of the two negative elements ir- and -less. It was probably formed on the analogy of such words as irrespective, irrelevant, and irreparable. Those who use it, including on occasion educated speakers, may do so from a desire to add emphasis. Irregardless first appeared in the early 20th century and was perhaps popularized by its use in a comic radio program of the 1930s.

Not exactly Shakespeare. :smalltongue:

It should also be noted that it means "regardless." I can't think of another word in English which has a negative prefix attached to a base word... that is a synonym for the base word.

No, this word makes no sense, and serves no useful purpose in English. It is an abomination that must be killed with fire.

Glimbur
2008-09-08, 11:15 AM
I can't think of another word in English which has a negative prefix attached to a base word... that is a synonym for the base word.

No, this word makes no sense, and serves no useful purpose in English. It is an abomination that must be killed with fire.

Flammable v Inflammable.

Also, I'd second watching Ghost in the Shell for ideas on the human v machine boundary and how blurry it can be.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-09-08, 11:25 AM
Flammable v Inflammable.

Touche'. I blame Latin:


[Origin: 1595–1605; < ML inflammābilis, equiv. to L inflammā(re) to inflame + -bilis -ble]

Usage note: Inflammable and flammable both mean “combustible.” Inflammable is the older by about 200 years. Flammable now has certain technical uses, particularly as a warning on vehicles carrying combustible materials, because of a belief that some might interpret the intensive prefix in- of inflammable as a negative prefix and thus think the word means “noncombustible.” Inflammable is the word more usually used in nontechnical and figurative contexts: The speaker ignited the inflammable emotions of the crowd.

Irregardless has no such excuse - it's a useless, modern butchering of otherwise clear language. "In" after all, means both the opposite of (inexact) and into (insert or inflame), but "ir" always means the opposite of... except for irregardless.

I'm not wedded to older language usages, but irregardless just sticks out like a sore thumb in English.

...and that's probably more than enough on that :smallredface:

chiasaur11
2008-09-08, 11:26 AM
Flammable v Inflammable.

Also, I'd second watching Ghost in the Shell for ideas on the human v machine boundary and how blurry it can be.

Yeah. That one causes issues.

They both mean flammable. Having both just leads to second degree burns.

Jayngfet
2008-09-08, 08:43 PM
I think for faces I'll do: Underneath their "skin" is a series of fifty tiny shifting plates, their "brain" tells each plate where to go and forms expressions.

Human looking but still robotic.

Prometheus
2008-09-08, 08:50 PM
They could be sexy, sexy Van Neumann machines (http://xkcd.com/387/). Oh, for those who want the actual reference to Van Neumann machines, here's Wikipedia on Self-replicating machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine).

Randel
2008-09-08, 09:38 PM
Or if you want to emphasise their artificial nature, you could make them like Pod People where they are created in tanks or factories or something. There are no children, the factory just creates another person at adulthood with all the knowledge they need to perform their tasks (with maybe a little diversity in their systems to make the robot people adaptable enough to handle unforseen problems.)

The robot folk have the knowledge to repair and maintain the factories that make them. Or even build more factories.

How about the factories are sophisticated enough to manufacture just about anything, including the robot people and parts of the factory itself. However, the factory needs the robots to actually assemble the factory parts into another factory and to supply it with the raw materials to make stuff.

So its kind of like a factory that makes the workers to run it, along with being able to make any tools, vehicles, or furniture that they might need.

Jayngfet
2008-09-08, 10:38 PM
That was my first idea for them, a species who're made in giant factories(the planet and most moons are made to look like gears, where the planets six teeth are huge factory/cities).

But it would make sense to make them more organic given the premise of the larger campane, so I decided to give them faces.

The reroduction thing came from an imagined conversation between two NPC's?

Guy1: Hey check this out(blades shoot from his hand and lightning dances between them). Titanium with Mythril plating, adamantine blades and 9000K volts. Beast weapon upgrade ever.

Guy2:Jeez, put that away. You know I hate those things. Hey, you see that new girl, nice chassis(if you know what I mean (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IfYouKnowWhatIMean))

Guy1: I dunno, I hear you've got similar frames.

Meaning that they can replace body parts fairly easily and still breed, also I was amused.

Lord Tataraus
2008-09-08, 10:39 PM
Primary topic:
Have you ever seen the movie robots? Well, there's your reproduction (the innuendo is great!). As for faces, I would suggest nothing more than a simple radar/sonar device, communication is purely through radio transmissions and each bot has a specific static charge around him which changes with his mood. Computers are notoriously bad at vision, a single frame holds loads of data that needs to be processed and its just not worth it when sonar can detect movement and depth perception, infrared pings can detect heat and "color", actual human-like vision is just far too complicated and unnecessary with all the other sensory available.

Secondary topic:

Irregardless has no such excuse - it's a useless, modern butchering of otherwise clear language. "In" after all, means both the opposite of (inexact) and into (insert or inflame), but "ir" always means the opposite of... except for irregardless.

I'm not wedded to older language usages, but irregardless just sticks out like a sore thumb in English.

...and that's probably more than enough on that :smallredface:

Irregardless (http://http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irregardless) of how you think the language should be spoken, you can't change it from this path. Why do you think english is one of the hardest languages to learn? As english speakers it is our duty to keep breaking the "rules" of our language to keep those foreigners guessing!!

BizzaroStormy
2008-09-08, 10:51 PM
Yes, confusion is one of the few weapons we can wield against the sentient french toasters. The or we present them with a paradox which they mull over until they explode.

Collin152
2008-09-08, 10:56 PM
Yes, confusion is one of the few weapons we can wield against the sentient french toasters. The or we present them with a paradox which they mull over until they explode.

This statement is both true and false in its entirety.