Community The Agaran Menace

You miss understand, Agaran Preserve Initiative and after the recent events id imagine there would be a sudden decline of people who would want to preserve them but otherwise I agree with you.

The spores seem to only appear at the beginning of their life cycle meaning that the current biped Agarans probably aren't infectious however we know that the spores can at least reanimate a old corpse after being dormant for just as long so what else could it infect? The infection argument is based of their hosts (are they sapient?, do they need a specific build?) but if they can reanimate an age old dried mummy and really only need the biochemicals of the host to infest them, then theoretically, it could infect any life form without a natural vaccine.

Still cannibalistic savages ,but the quote you referred to was used to clarify the meaning of a cult and had nothing to do with Florans in the first place unless your implying that Floran ideology is a cult in which case that's an entirely different thread=http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/do-florans-have-a-religion.63028/#post-1896302

 

I meant that about the imprisonment and stuff.

 

Millennia old corpse? Read it again.

Millennia old corpses are never considered "still-fresh".
Also, they did not reanimate the Sunborn.

 

http://playstarbound.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/sparrow3.html
My opinion is still that it was survival on the part of the fungi.
“Do not allow yourself to be blinded by fear and anger. Everything is only as it is.”

 

First, Agaran "Preserve" Initiative.
Secondly, I think the Agaran is sapient because it was able to recognize how to do things in the ship quickly, like turn off life support. Also, this disproves penguins being Sunborn. A penguin template would result in a short, waddling Agaran. (My favorite!)

 

That was kinda disproved by the fact that avians claim Sunborn can fly, and penguins kinda... can't...
I'm sticking to my theory of giant, flying mushrooms coming to conqure the universe, if that's fine with you guys.

 

I'm not fine with that. I wouldn't be able to take giant flying mushrooms seriously and would get killed by them while I laughed.

 

Giant flying mushrooms... wearing fancy hats and monocles? How about then?
All jokes aside, I would personally find flying agarans terrifying... if they didn't carry iron swords and deal no damage.

 

I think you misunderstood. I posted last page why I think that some Agarans might still be peaceful.

Also, the Sunborn corpse wasn't a millennia-old. It certainly wouldn't be called "still-fresh" if it would. This Sunborn corpse most certainly wasn't one of the Seven Sunborn, the original gods, but an Avian Ascendant maybe?
If the case is that this is one of the original Sunborn, Avians have pretty epic methods for body preservation. I find it interesting that nobody paid special attention to the appearance of the corpse, if indeed this was one of the Seven Sunborn, which are a completely unknown race. Nobody really cared about it, thus I presume it was an Avian. If not, then I fear we have a plothole right here. Where is Charlton when we need him?

 

My personal theory is that the original sunborns may have actually been Novakids. Sun Born

 

(source)

p.1 The Avians have perpetrated a wonderful deception. The rumour that the corpses of their gods - their gods! - rest in their tombs has spread throughout the universe. Such rumours attract looters, and said looters make for a handy, never-ending source of live sacrifices, to use in their silly rituals. It is genius, even by my standards.

p.2 Of course, the corpses of the Sunborn do not rest in random tombs. They are hidden away, together, in a place known to a select few. If all goes well, that information should be in my possession in due course. I would very much like to study the biology of a god.

Novakid don't leave behind corpses, only the emblem.
Plus, the original sunborn could fly, so...

Well, seeing as there are no records of any avians successfully acending, because Kluex probably had everyones' wings clipped to prevent this sort of thing, it may be that it is one of the original sunborn. I must have missed the lore that said there was only seven sunborn. But the avians kind of assumed all of the sunborn were dead when they dissappeared... which they may have had reasons to do.

I noticed, the agarans don't seem to actually be infecting the living. According to Charlton's account, the sunborn was used as food for the fungus after he died. The spores were inside it, but it wasn't alive when the spores multiplied. Additionally, the spores traveled through the ventalation; infecting everyone onboard the Restless Sparrow. However, the agaran(s) still killed everyone onboard even though they were carrying spores.
I believe this fungal infection only takes effect after the victim has died, kind of like the zombies in Walking Dead.

 

McVicar's latest report stretches my suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point. It requires too many cases of stupidity and improbability to be believable. And it deviates too far from our own reality, common sense, and scientific fact. Also, it gives the impression of a 'perfect storm' scenario that allowed this plague to spread.

There are so many holes in this story that I'll have to break up my response.

Fair warning: Spoilers ahead

Excerpts from "The Beginning of the End":

This would make the species very similar to Xenomorphs (aka, the "Aliens" franchise).

If creating gases to build up enough pressure to burst the hull and kill the crew is the main purpose, then the term "byproduct" is quite innacurate. The word implies something is a side-effect. So it's a poor word choice.

The ability to rapidly dissolve starship metals sounds extremely impressive for a fungus. (Again, very reminiscent of Xenomorphs. Namely, their cosmic blood.)

The ability to use this process to rapidly produce enough gases to burst a ship's hull is even more impressive! Actually, it's totally ludicrous.

For comparison: The volume of the pressurized cabin of the Space Shuttle is about 74.3 cubic meters, or 2,625 cubic feet. And it would require a substantial volume of extra gases to exceed the burst limit of an actual starship.

A common doctrine among engineers is to design important components with at least 50% additional strength or capacity beyond the "rated" maximum as a safety margin. And sometimes design specifications call for much more.

Example: Pressure vessels are subject to strict design and operation standards. DOT requirements state the burst pressure for propane tanks must be at or above 400% of maximum rated pressure. Also, many standards require such vessels to develop a leak rather than burst. And, typically, they will have a safety or relief valve to automatically reduce pressure before it becomes a danger.

Now consider the energy needed to produce a large volume of gases. This Wikipedia article on Hydrogen economy examines electrolysis methods and the energy costs. Consider:

And this HTE (high-temperature electrolysis) method is described as more efficient than many other types of electrolysis. Even so, that's a lot of energy! To convert that to layman's terms: Producing 108 megajoules of electricity over the course of 60 seconds would be equivalent to 1.8 million watts! Put another way: A common bolt of negative lightning has around 500 megajoules. (Source: Wikipedia on Lightning) BTW: It's the much rarer positive lightning bolt that can exceed 5 billion joules.

On the other hand, 1 kg of hydrogen is a significant volume. According to this page, it amounts to over 423 cubic feet at room temp (70°F) and 1 atmosphere. That's over 16% of the volume of the aforementioned Space Shuttle cabin. Though, I'd imagine this Avian starship would have a cabin significantly bigger than such small, cramped quarters.

As a thought experiment, let's assume the interior of the Avian starship is twice the volume of the Space Shuttle's crew cabin at 5250 cubic feet. And let's assume a cabin pressure of 1 atmosphere, which is what the ISS uses. Using this Ideal Gas Law calculator we can see that at a constant 70°F temp it would require about 6157 moles of an ideal gas to have 1 atmosphere of pressure for that volume. To double the pressure to 2 atmospheres would require double the gas or 12314 moles.

So, just to double the pressure would require roughly 5000 cubic feet of additional gas (besides cabin air), which is well over 10 kg of hydrogen. But 2 atmospheres is only about 29 PSI, which is a paltry amount for a starship designed for the rigors of interstellar travel.

We might assume a faulty hatch could leak at, say, 5 atmospheres. That's about 73 PSI. For the cabin in our example, it would require about 49.6 kg of hydrogen to produce 21,000 cubic feet and push it to about 5 atmospheres. And using HTE, that'd take more than 500 megajoules, or more than your average lightning bolt.

If you doubt a starship would be designed for 5 atmospheres: Humans have already built occupied pressure vessels here on earth that can handle 50 atmospheres. (That's about 735 PSI.) A submarine at a depth of 50 meters would experience almost 88 PSIA (Pounds per Square Inch Absolute) on the hull and at 200 meters the pressure would be over 306 PSIA. (Source: Answers.com)

But then, it might not be hydrogen. The story doesn't specify the gases that are produced. And while starships are fictional and the Starbound universe has some imaginary metals, it seems unlikely that the metal alloys used would contain large volumes of gaseous elements.

Carbon-based organic matter, including foodstuffs and most plastics, would indeed produce copious amounts of gases when burned or broken down. But most terrestrial metal alloys do not. They can often be oxidized, but that absorbs oxygen (a gas), which would reduce pressure.

There are many metal oxides. And it is possible to reduce them to produce oxygen gas. But oxygen binds tightly and that would require enormous energy. Anyway, these are fine or brittle materials, making them ill-suited as a construction material. (Often, they're used as a paint pigment or as an abrasive grit.)

Metal hydrides do exist and they do contain hydrogen. Nickel-metal hydride batteries are common. And iron titanium hydride makes for economical and safe hydrogen fuel tanks. Though, I would point out that this would be the equivalent to Stone Age tech for Starbound. And Avian lore suggests they have energy storage methods that are different from Human tech.

Point is, metal hydrides are uncommon and not used in construction materials. Indeed, exposing certain metals to hydrogen can lead to hydrogen embrittlement, which is a bad thing.

Metal carbides, however, are not that uncommon and find much wider usage. Tungsten carbide has wide applications in industrial machinery, cutting tools and armor-piercing rounds as it is extremly hard.

And there are carbon metal alloys. Steel is an iron-carbon alloy. But the carbon is less than 2.1% of its weight, often much less.

One could oxidize the carbon to produce carbon dioxide gas. But to do this would absorb oxygen. It's basically changing O2 to CO2, which would have an impact on gas volume and pressure, but only a little as the type of gas only slightly deviates from the Ideal Gas Law. (Source 1. Source 2.)

Aside from these calculations of energy and pressure, and facts on various materials, this story is still quite implausible for other reasons. Namely:

1) The only way such a ship would have enough raw materials to produce at least 21,000 cubic feet of gas would be if the fungus decomposed or vaporized the stores of fuel and/or water. That, or the ship itself must be mostly organic. Metals? Ha! Not buying it!

2) There's just no way this fungus could produce that much gas that rapidly. A biological process would require days or weeks to do this!

3) A significant change in atmospheric pressure would cause the crew's ears to "pop", possibly even cause pain. That is, even if the ship failed to alert them their bodies would notice it.

4) Producing that much gas that quickly should make some sort of sound, if not a draft of air. Imagine dumping a train car of baking soda into a swimming pool of vinegar. Or maybe a metric ton of alkesizer tablets into a swimming pool. I would imagine it would be rather loud.

5) A chemical process that rapidly dissolves metal, particularly one that produces large volumes of gas, should be exothermic. That is, it should produce a lot of heat. And smoke. Enough to have thermal sensors trigger an alert, possibly even a fire alarm.

6) Producing large volumes of hydrogen creates a huge fire and explosion hazard. And producing enough hydrogen to exceed onboard oxygen would turn the ship into a giant bomb!

7) Producing enough hydrogen (or any gas besides oxygen) to drastically change cabin pressure would make the air unbreathable. The entire crew would asphyxiate long before the point enough gases are created to force explosive decompression. Atmospheric oxygen on Earth is about 20%. Humans will pass out at a concentration of around 10%. And below 5% is fatal. (Source: The Naked Scientist)

8) To dissolve enough metal to produce tens of thousands of cubic meters of gas would surely dissolve a hole through the hull. So why shouldn't that be the plan? It would be much faster and more efficient.

9) There are much more plausible and efficient methods for this lifeform to take over a ship. Why expend many millions of watts of chemical energy? A plan to trigger an explosive decompression, followed by an attempt to repair the hull? Risk themselves getting hurt or killed by "flying debris"? Instead, why not have their humanoid units do something? They even have the element of surprise.

10) As I pointed out, to produce large volumes of gas usually requires enormous amounts of energy. This energy has to come from somewhere. A fungus, indeed all known forms of life, would be hard pressed to rapidly store up and then rapidly release the chemical equivalent to a bolt of lightning.

An electric eel can generate dangerous voltages (up to 600 V). but it's short duration (less than 2 miliseconds) and low current (1 amp). That's only about 600 watts. And this eel already functions as a sort of living battery to store that much.

Where could a fungus get that kind of energy, anyway? There's not that much heat or light energy to absorb on an Avian ship. And since it's not a plant, it shouldn't be able to absorb light. A fungus gets energy from decomposition, or biochemical processes. But could it get enough for this from digesting the ship's food stockpile and a few corpses? And that's not counting the energy it also needed to survive, multiply, spread its spores, and create a small army of Agaran footsoldiers.

Decomposition does generate gases. Given enough organics and enough time, a fungus could do that. But it's doubtful these Agaran spores had either. Even then, it doesn't fit McVicar's story as he claims it was the ship's metals.

 

Aeons ago, before Kluex, there were many Sunborn - kind, benevolent gods who ruled over the Avians. These gods were not simply ascended, chosen Avians. They were born from the sun itself; celestial entities who shone with the brightest fire and flew through the skies like angels. They gave our species life, and in return we gave them our unending devotion. But like all lights, the Sunborn eventually went out...

by K'arn Hollowbeak Avian scholar

There are many forms of Avian burial, and the method often comes from the last will and testament of the deceased. Some Avians choose to float off attached to large balloons, while others favour cremation. Many simply opt for burial, but it is only the most important Avians who end up interred in tombs.

Our tombs are vast and many, and the Sunborn through the ages are said to rest in many of them. Of course, the locations of the Sunborn's corpses have never been disclosed due to potential looters, but any tomb one steps in could hold the body of a god.

It is strange to think that our deities lie entombed amongst mortals. Strange to think of our gods dying, and yet all that remains is Kluex. May he live forever.

^There has been many "Sunborn through the ages".

by K'arn Hollowbeak, Avian scholar

Avian theology has changed much over time. The Clipped Council and the Stargazers have done their best to shed old customs, and many records have been lost in time.

But some still exist, charting the history of our species, back to the days of the original Sunborn. To understand modern Avian life is to understand Avian history, and although my attempts to convince the Council of this fall on deaf ears, it is my belief that our history should be chronicled.

We have but one god; Kluex, the almighty Sunborn. He who touched the stars. But before Kluex came many more, and none more important than the Sunborn Children, our seven original gods.

Here is the most important codices about the Sunborn. Abridged History of the Avians is also a good thing to read.
Also, some of the codices are disappearing from the codex list in the wiki. Shonky business...

 

I'm not sure that you can lay claim to that theory as your own. It seems safe to assume some other Starbound players believe that or suspect as much (myself, included).

And that discrepency is the only significant flaw in the Sunborn -> Novakids theory. How many space-faring races in the galaxy do you think there are that could be described as celestial sun beings? Plasma-based life must be pretty rare as I don't think we've seen any planetary critters which fit this category.

The Avian accounts of Sunborn go back millenia. They considered them living gods and worshipped them. Back then, the Avians must have been rather primitive, both culturally and technologically. These primitive tribes saw the Sunborn arrive in their starships and/or beam down in front of them. They displayed advanced technology beyond their understanding.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke

My theory is that, millenia ago, the Novakids were different. They were glowing beings and were probably a bit like the Human Torch. Or, better yet, they were like the Taelons in Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict. That is, while they were partly energy, they were still fleshy and left behind a corpse when they died.

(I can also imagine the Ancient Greeks, Vikings, or Incans seeing a ship of Taelons land. They'd consider them gods and worship them, probably calling them "Shining Ones" or some such thing.)

But then, something happened. They may have evolved as a species to a purely energy state of being. (Ala, Taelons.) That, or they used their vast technology and intellect to change themselves - much like how the Apex Miniknog researched how to "improve" themselves and devolved their physical form as a tradeoff for superior intellects.

It would explain so much!

This would explain why the Sunborn suddenly disappeared millenia ago. And it will probably explain why the Avians will not recognize Novakids as Sunborn when they finally get introduced. (Though, I bet many Avians will suspect a connection, treating them with reverence at the least.)

That may even explain why Novakids tend to be hyperactive and forgetful. Those traits could be either side effects of their transformation or it could have been intentional. (Perhaps they did something awful millenia ago and want to forget all about it or even how they did it?)

You don't really believe they could levitate around like Superman, do you? Oh, wait... Maybe they had a Gravity Bubble or Bubble Boost tech equipped?

The Avians of today wear armor that allows them to glide. If the Aztecs or Celtics witnessed alien bird people glide around along cliffs or jump off towers or tall buildings, would they not describe such beings as being able to fly?

Or maybe the Sunborn wore jet packs? Or rode around on hoverbikes?

Maybe the Sunborn had the galaxy's most advanced embalming technology. Maybe their methods could make the mumification techniques of the Ancient Egyptian pharoahs look like child's play. Who knows?

We don't know how old the corpse is. I've never seen a Sunborn corpse and I wouldn't pretend to understand their biology. It might have been a silicon-based form of life, for all we know. So it may not be safe to assume their bodies decay at the same rate as ours or even that they decay at all.

For that matter, it may not be safe to assume that Mr. McVicar or the graverobbers knew much about Sunborn biology. They might have incorrectly concluded that it was "fresh" based on appearance alone. Fact is, there have been some millenia old bodies found frozen in ice that are extremely well preserved. And in the vacuume of space bodies do not decay.

 

Im thinking that the G1 agarans cama from that sunborns corpse and that they kill any meat based beings and the fungus eats the corpses to make more G1 agarans. But the reason they don't try to kill you is because they only do this when they are exactly sure that they can kill all of the witneses. Like when they left no survivors on that ship, and even if you are alone the think that they couldn't win you in fight.

 

Would have thought that the spores would spread randomly and not really have any conciousness until they have a body.

 

At first I was "Eeeeeyyy...! Mushroom people! Cool! Reminds me of that knock-off Mario Bros movie I one saw! Quite awes- Are they submerging a Floran in lava?" And then, well, I realized they drop hats. [XENOCIDE INTENSIFIES].

 

Your name is 333. You cannot claim to have any rights.
But that is irrelevant.

 

Please explain lol. My name is 333 because I do not adapt, but change the paradigm.

Remember, King Kong died for our sins.

 

As I said in my post about McVicar's report, I had to break up my response. Last time I nitpicked how they vented the ship. There's so much more wrong, though:

First, it seemed strange that the racial origin of the Sullen Remembrance was not specified. One could assume that it was an Avian ship, considering that it was described as a tomb-ship and given the context. But still...

Excerpt from "All Aboard":

Hard to believe that Avians don't take even basic precautions against exo-pathagens. Our own astronauts and cosmonauts had to go through quaranteen proceedures. This was standard proceedure.

Think about it: They find an alien corpse on a dead ship and decide to take it aboard... But no precautions? Maybe lock it in an airtight container until traded or studied in a controlled environment? Maybe use an innert gas or keep it cold to preserve it?

Visiting a derelict ship without a spacesuit is stupid, anyways, even if it has a breathable atmosphere. And if you regularly engage in grave robbing ships, then you should be in a habit of scanning for infectious agents.

Avians have FTL travel, teleporter tech, rapid mind-body cloning, and matter manipulators. This indicates a very advanced level of science and technology. Do they not have microbe sensors?

Also: They stored a corpse right next to their supply of fresh fruits and veggies? Ewwww!

Excerpt from "Start":

If this derelict ship was in such good condition, then why didn't they just salvage it? Surely, a starship must be worth at least as much as a Sunborn corpse. And space salvage is hardly any worse than grave robbing.

The idea of a starship designed to be a tomb is hard to fathom, considering how expensive they must be to build. (It'd make more sense to repurpose mothballed, older ships for burial. That, or hide a tomb inside an asteroid. Nobody would find it there!) Even then: It's a freak'n starship! One could retrofit it to haul cargo or at least scrap it for parts and raw materials.

Excerpts from "The Beginning of the End":

Avian starship engineers must be idiots not to have a loud air pressure alarm. Or the captain and crew must have been high to have ignored it. The most important consideration for a spacecraft is life support. And the most important aspect of life support is maintaining atmospheric pressure. If you loose that, then you're all dead.

So if there is ever a reason to have an audible alarm, it's to alert the crew of a loss of air pressure. Logically, instruments to detect this should measure any change in cabin pressure, whether it be a decrease or an increase. Moreover, there is a very real danger of spacecraft becoming punctured by debris or a micrometeorite. The crew may have minutes to find the leaks and make a repair. (Leaks, plural: Likely, there would be at least one entry and exit hole.)

Snippet from "Life Support" System Log:

It's not clear whether the "pressure alarm" was an audible claxon, or a small blinking light on a console in the cockpit. As I mentioned how important air pressure is to spacecraft, it had better be audible and darned loud.

Three separate warnings were issued, all of them ignored? Inexcusable.

Beyond that: I find it hard to imagine a faulty airlock leading to nearly instant decompression rather than developing a crack or small leak. Did someone idiot install it backwards or something?! Calling it "poor engineering" would be an understatement.

Excerpts from "The Beginning of the End":

Half of the crew killed by flying debris? Rediculous. What kind of debris? Did these idiots have shelves and racks filled with swords, knives, guns, and ammo along the length of the ship?

For that matter, I wonder how half the crew was killed by debris while the Agaran colonies and soldiers seemingly escaped unharmed. Sounds a bit like a racist tornado that chooses its victims.

Weren't as lucky? Maybe a poor word choice? I'd say none of the crew were fortunate.

The Agarans managed to turn off the emergency life support systems in just 60 seconds? WOW! Now that's efficient! I'd think it would take the ship's crew that long just to get to the control room where this system is located, much less figure out how to bypass any security measures to prevent this. How could the Agarans do that without an intimate familiarity with the ship and knowing their security codes?

Umm... Don't you mean "disabled" or "turned off"?

That doesn't say much. Is that all he could fit into the distress call? That's just... If I played Avians more often I would feel ashamed.

If you're limited to two words or less, why not "INFECTED", "DISEASE", "BEWARE FUNGUS", "PATHOGEN", or "QUARANTINE"?

Snippet from "Crew Journal":

All spaceships with an airlock should be designed so some fool can't accidentally vent the entire ship! Doing otherwise would be like putting a big red "self-destruct" button right next to a big red "start" button.

Even a child could design an airlock that prevents the inner hatch from opening when it is without atmosphere. Just have the inner hatch open outwards, into the ship instead of into the airlock. Example: You can't open the door of a car that's sinking in water without breaking the window because you'd be fighting against water pressure.

You may not be able to make a ship idiot-proof. But... come on! That's stupid! This just reinforces my statement that Avian spaceships are badly designed. No. They're deathtraps and accidents waiting to happen.

Snippet from "Timeline":

Strange. It seems likely that such a timely repair of a hull breach would require some familiarity with Avian ships in particular. (How did they know where to find the hull repair materials on the ship or how to operate their tools?)

Clearly, these "sentient fungi" have genetic memory and somehow breed Agarans and new colonies with starship maintenance and engineering know-how. Amazing that they can pass on such knowledge from one generation to the next via DNA.

For their colonies to cooperate like this means they had to communicate. Do they share a telepathic network? It seems likely they share a hive mind, like the Borg.

Clearly, both the Agarans and the fungal colonies can survive without life support and without an atmosphere - at least for a while. Explosive decompression? For carbon-based life with body fluids that are liquid at room temperature, that should do major tissue damage, if not make them blind. It should cause moisture in their skin to rapidly evaporate, freezing them in the process.

At the least, they would need the skin or exoskeleton equivalent of a spacesuit - which is no small feat. Or did their soldiers don suits without the crew's knowledge? Surely, though, the Avians wouldn't have any helmets that'd fit over their huge mushroom heads.

And something about Agarans has been bugging me: Are their soldiers "born" with an iron sword in their hand and armor on their chest? Do their colonies produce such for them? Maybe they have the fungal equivalent to nanites? (If so, that'd make them even more like the Borg.)

Still, if I could only change one thing about the story, I'd have them take over the ship by some other means. Maybe vent the ship via explosives. Or kill the crew by poison, poisonous gas, or fire. Or lock themselves in engineering while they disable life support elsewhere. Or remove part of the life support mechanism. Or any number of other solutions that make more sense.

Sorry, but... While we must accept McVicar's report as cannon, I cannot be made to like it.