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Fire Shaping


Upon Mars.

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I have two "main questions":

 

What is the baseline used to create roamers?

 

Has the "drayk ship" affair been cleared up or is it still a complete mystery, especially when every Shaper seems headstrong on killing every one of them save for living crafts?

 

 

I was also wandering to what stock servant minds belonged to. Is it reptiles? They seem mammalian, but that was never quite clear to me.

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Has the "drayk ship" affair been cleared up or is it still a complete mystery, especially when every Shaper seems headstrong on killing every one of them save for living crafts?

 

I always assumed that the Drayk-Boats were heavily modified to the point of no longer retaining any intelligence, to the point where it's more like a big, floating Fyora.

 

I was also wandering to what stock servant minds belonged to. Is it reptiles? They seem mammalian, but that was never quite clear to me.

 

Reptiles is a good a guess as any. It seems like Reptiles have a high chance of developing intelligence in the Geneforge universe. Plus they totally look like frogs.

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I got the impression that the drayk ban was put in place as a response to the rogues and rebellion and thus was not a concern in G1. They probably stopped using drayk boats. Maybe that's how they lost the second continent.

 

—Alorael, who assumed that servant minds came from gross brain in a vat stock and have no particular basis in any realistic creature. It's likely that the Shapers have made some things largely out of whole cloth, or at least so far from the original form that it's not really relevant anymore. What stock would you use for living tools?

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I got the impression that the drayk ban was put in place as a response to the rogues and rebellion and thus was not a concern in G1. They probably stopped using drayk boats. Maybe that's how they lost the second continent.

 

I recall quite strongly that drayks are barred creations even before G1, possibly because of their increased intelligence. It's been a while since I've been through the game, though.

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Yes they were always barred because of the high intelligence and an equally high Rouge tendency.

 

The two are inter-related. :p Their having a high intelligence wouldn't matter if not for their tendency to easily turn rogue.

 

Funnily though, none of my drayks have ever turned on me. Must be the level of control I maintain. B)

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The two are inter-related. :p Their having a high intelligence wouldn't matter if not for their tendency to easily turn rogue.

Actually It does matter, Servant minds for example have little Rogue tendencies yet the shapers have made them with useless limbs due to the intelligence, they aren't exactly barred but it's a pretty strict check nevertheless, so I believe that even if Drayks were the obedient sort, they will still have strict checks on them.

 

Funnily though, none of my drayks have ever turned on me. Must be the level of control I maintain. B)

Ha, I'm even better, not even my DRAKONS turn on me. ;)

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I recall quite strongly that drayks are barred creations even before G1, possibly because of their increased intelligence. It's been a while since I've been through the game, though.

We don't know when exactly drayks were barred. Sometime in the 200 years after Sucia Island was abandoned but before the present day of G1. Despite this, a living craft appears in present day G1 and again (looking very reptilian, if not drayk-like) in G4. So the living crafts must have been developed from drayks sometime before the ban, and then were either controllable enough or too useful to get rid of and were so kept unbarred. Either that, or they were developed from some other reptile but resembled drayks enough that people just assumed they were created from drayk stock.

 

Roamers are definitely part dog. The graphics may not be particularly dog-like, but roamers are compared to dogs several times throughout the series, including roamers behaving like guard dogs would in the Spiral Pit in G1. So some sort of dog/reptile combo.

 

Dikiyoba doesn't remember anything about servant minds, but assumed from the graphics that they were mammalian.

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We don't know when exactly drayks were barred. Sometime in the 200 years after Sucia Island was abandoned but before the present day of G1. Despite this, a living craft appears in present day G1 and again (looking very reptilian, if not drayk-like) in G4. So the living crafts must have been developed from drayks sometime before the ban, and then were either controllable enough or too useful to get rid of and were so kept unbarred. Either that, or they were developed from some other reptile but resembled drayks enough that people just assumed they were created from drayk stock.

 

As far as the G4 drayk boat goes, it's worth remembering that that particular living craft was under the control of the Rebellion. Therefore, its being barred is irrelevant.

 

Roamers are definitely part dog. The graphics may not be particularly dog-like, but roamers are compared to dogs several times throughout the series, including roamers behaving like guard dogs would in the Spiral Pit in G1. So some sort of dog/reptile combo.

 

Dikiyoba doesn't remember anything about servant minds, but assumed from the graphics that they were mammalian.

 

In G4 at the Illya Safehouse, the PC encounters some Rebel roamers that are there for defense. The dialogue box makes some comment along the lines of them being heavily modified dogs. 'At some point, the Shapers decided that the only way to improve a dog was to let it spit acid. Or explode.' something along those lines. It's more direct than just saying that roamers look like dogs, and actually asserts that they are the base material.

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As far as the G4 drayk boat goes, it's worth remembering that that particular living craft was under the control of the Rebellion. Therefore, its being barred is irrelevant.

But if it were Barred, it would be a lot harder for the rebels to get ahold of. First, they seem rare, plus not intelligent enough to know to escape and hide, so if they were Barred, there wouldn't be any left alive (and even if there were, how would the rebels catch them?) Second, the rebels are very bad at creating new controllable designs (and the living craft we see in G4 is definitely under control), plus they wouldn't have had the resources to spend on recreating the living craft at any time prior to that point. Also, there's nothing about living crafts aside from their drayk ancestry to suggest that they would be Barred. They don't seem particularly powerful nor intelligent (the biggest indications of rogue tendencies), and both of the crafts we see don't ever do anything to indicate that they have rogue tendencies. Therefore, it's simplest to assume they are not Barred.

 

Dikiyoba.

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It's also quite possible that being Barred doesn't mean a creation is no longer available for research, just not allowed to be used. Maybe drayks could still be made in labs as long as they were reabsorbed shortly afterwards, or maybe shaping design can be done on paper or in silico (in this case, probably crystals rather than processors). Perhaps Shapers kept messing with drayk stock to try to iron out the kinks like the tendency to go rogue and ended up with a boat. Perhaps they were running low on money, the drayk research division was in danger of being dissolved, and they hastily created a very useful boat in order to justify further funding.

 

—Alorael, who thinks the rebellion manages to stay well supplied with material and knowledge from the Shapers. If drayk boats are Barred they've still been around for a long time and the research notes and papers are probably sitting around in all kinds of archives and libraries. The rebels have certainly gotten access to some of those in their conquests. It's possible that the drayks themselves know how to boatify themselves, but they probably wouldn't be thrilled about it.

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It's also quite possible that being Barred doesn't mean a creation is no longer available for research, just not allowed to be used. Maybe drayks could still be made in labs as long as they were reabsorbed shortly afterwards, or maybe shaping design can be done on paper or in silico (in this case, probably crystals rather than processors). Perhaps Shapers kept messing with drayk stock to try to iron out the kinks like the tendency to go rogue and ended up with a boat. Perhaps they were running low on money, the drayk research division was in danger of being dissolved, and they hastily created a very useful boat in order to justify further funding.

 

—Alorael, who thinks the rebellion manages to stay well supplied with material and knowledge from the Shapers. If drayk boats are Barred they've still been around for a long time and the research notes and papers are probably sitting around in all kinds of archives and libraries. The rebels have certainly gotten access to some of those in their conquests. It's possible that the drayks themselves know how to boatify themselves, but they probably wouldn't be thrilled about it.

 

There is some evidence to support the theory that there was research done. In G2, the loyalist camp beyond the initial Drypeak Vale has teachers who will instruct the PC in how to Shape a drayk. It's not the best evidence, but it does indicate that some research may have still been going on with the drayk stock.

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