RELEASED Avali Race Mod, The second thread!

Actually, war IS good for pressurizing R&D of all kinds.... look at what came out of WWII: Penicillin, computers, Atomic power ( and weapons), Jets, the knowhow to launch the space race, the list goes on.

 

If I'm going to say another thing, it's gotta be something unwritten in lore, right? (Since it seems I'm called out for not reading the Avali 101 textbook.)
Concerning relations with the vanilla races.
Apex, Glitch, and Novakids are all open for discussion.
Since the Avali are a highly advanced race, I could imagine the Avali having certain relations with the Apex concerning their high intelligence and ability to advance very quickly in the technological industry.
Though seeing as the Apex would have a resemblance to humans, would it be easy to think that they also could be the ones responsible for what they blame the humans?
I'm leaving Glitch and Novakids for speculation.

 

Not sure about that; Apex and Humans are different enough physically that accidentally mistaking one for the other would be hard... unless its that whole "You Primates all look the same to me!" syndrome....

 

The only way I can see an Avali making the conclusion that the apex could have been responsible for their hardships years ago is if they found out that apex used to have much more resemblance to humans, and if they believe the humans who adamantly claim (against the Avali's indoctrination in the matter) that humans had nothing to do with the Avali's hardships.

 

Well, its not exactly a secret that they used to be near-human in appearance, is it? Then again, it doesn't exactly say how long ago the Apex started their whole "De-Evolution" thing, so I SUPPOSE if the Apex started that project AFTER the Avali "Cargo Cult" incident, there could be confusion between if the Apex or Humanity was responsible....

....Hmmn. This could account for Humanity adamantly denying being responsible despite there probably being extensive data records left behind by the colonists on Avalon... I mean, unless you still had a sample of a Colonist DNA, AND a sample of pre-devolution Apex DNA, telling if it was Humanity or a Apex would be kinda hard... Assuming my assumtion of the timeline of the Apex de-evolution project is correct...

 

I wouldn't call it indoctrination, really. But upon reaching space only to find a xenophobic trigger-happy group of aliens who also happen to look a lot like their old, old enemies, it's completely understandable that the Avali don't much like humans.

The whole problem is that there's not any real timeline for the rest of Starbound. Incorporating Avali history into the broader framework first requires that we know what that framework is. Better to just keep their history sort of fuzzy in the meantime.

 

Meh, true... But I'm a stickler for details; leaving things vague just....irks me.

Anywho, reading up on the Avali Biology.... it mentions that they require methane to breath. Wouldn't they then need something like a Unggoy breathing mask in a oxy-nitro atmosphere, as well as a pressure suit since they evolved in a atmosphere that's under greater pressure than our own? I mean, I've heard of cases of deep sea creatures that split open when brought to the surface due to having evolved to deal with crushing pressure? wouldn't something similar occur,, or does their biology account for this?

Also, a methane/nitrogen/hydrogen atmosphere? what is the percentage of methane and hydrogen, and how much oxygen is present? because it occurs to me that with a atmosphere with any large amount of flammable gasses present would have some interesting problems occur with any sort of large scale ignition event , such as a fire, explosion, or especially, any testing of atomic weaponry; Literally "burn the sky", like how Enrico Fermi took bets at Trinity that the test of "The Gadget" that the test would ignite the Earths atmosphere.

 

Humans: We swear we didn't try to kill you guys, why won't you believe us!
Apex: We solemnly swear we are up to no good.

 

Hahahahaha.... Kinda be like what'd happen if the Reboot BSG Cylons attacked.... for all intents and purposes, the Organic Cylons ARE humans with added tricks. Be hilarious to see the aftermath if a Human visited Avalon after the Cylons had left!

Also, I'm not sure if this is a bug, but when I put a Avali on the Normandy ( I'm using the ME mod), they keep getting stuck in the damn sliding doors and triggering them insanely fast. Can anyone else verify this?

 

Yes, lore-wise they need respirators in oxygen atmospheres. Just like their cold resistance, it's not something Starbound can really do yet.

....

As far as rupturing in lower pressure environments? That only happens under shifts in pressure much, much greater than are likely to be encountered on habitable planets. Let me work this out for you. According to Wikipedia, Earth's atmosphere puts ~14 pounds of pressure per square inch of surface area. Avalon's atmospheric pressure is ~50% higher than Earth's according to the wiki, for an estimated surface pressure of ~21 pounds per square inch. Avali pulmonary systems operate at about "two atmospheres" of pressure. This could be atmospheres of Earth pressure, but I'll assume that it's twice Avalon's already increased pressure, for an internal pressure of ~42 pounds per square inch.

Those deep sea creatures you're talking about? They live under absurd pressure. Every thirty five feet or so adds another Earth atmosphere of pressure (~14 pounds per square inch). At the bottom of the ocean, the Marianas Trench, the pressure is 15750 pounds per square inch. Of course deep sea creatures rupture at surface pressures: their systems are designed to resist several thousand times the pressure in pounds per square inch they experience on the surface.

So when compared to deep sea creatures, Avali pulmonary biology is practically identical to our own. So how do humans react to exposure to vacuum? According to NASA, human bodies do not split, rupture, or explode even if exposed to hard vacuum. A person, human or Avali, exposed to hard vacuum would die of suffocation before the lower pressure caused any major concerns. So no, the Avali would have no problems walking around in the same pressure environment as the other races. The Hylotl however...

Now, what can be a concern with sudden pressure shifts is contracting "the bends" or decompression sickness as gasses come out of solution inside the body. The trick to this problem is to decompress slowly and in stages instead of doing something silly like, say teleporting straight into an alien atmosphere...

....

The Avali have practically no free oxygen in their atmophere. Oxygen in Avalon's biosphere is contained within organic molecules, while carbon is obtained from the atmosphere. Basically the reverse of Earth's biosphere. So no, they cannot ignite their atmosphere no matter how hard they tried. In fact, they wouldn't have even been able to ever learn how to work metal if they hadn't been uplifted by their originally-friendly "benefactors" since things don't burn very readily in the low temperatures and less-accessible oxygen.

 

Remember that an atmosphere is a standard unit of pressure, which is about 14.7 pounds per square inch.
Y'know. Just as an aside.

 

It no doubt came as quite a shock when they discovered on oxygen-rich worlds, stuff can spontaneously burst into flames if it gets too hot. I guarantee the Avali have no analogue to the fire department; fire only occurs on avalon with a lot of effort, and short lived at best (once the oxidation source has burned out or if it isn't burning hot enough to sustain ignition point, it'll put itself out)

 

So uh... what do they do when they have a fire on an oxygen-planet colony?

 

Well obviously on THOSE colonies they have countermeasures in place. It'd be considered an environmental hazard like toxic surface liquids, radiation or lava flows. I'm not so sure they'd even want to colonise worlds like that, not permanently at a civilian level anyway.

"Colony Special Notice:
Oxidising atmosphere in effect. Rebreathers MUST be checked for for leaks before leaving facilities. Refer to area plan for extinguisher facilities. Portable methane canisters to be treated as class B explosives and stored appropriately, leaving unattend canisters in public is a serious infraction"

 

As Avali originally had no major knowledge of fire, what would be considered their "fire"? Akin to Humans and their use of fire as a tool in their evolution.

 

It seems quite probable they didn't have any equivalent until they had heaters for cooking and electric reducing furnaces for forging. Food preservation could be done with drying and curing, weapons would have been made of stone, bone, wood, and fiber.

Keep in mind that we don't know how long they were stuck at basically a tribal level of civilization before they essentially skipped the industrial revolution by getting alien tech imported.

 

I'm still curious to see what what happen if a nuke was detonated in Avalons Atmosphere, though.

Couldn't they have used volcanic hotspots for metal processing?

 

Considering Avalon doesn't have a (very big?) molten core, volcanoes aren't exactly something you see on the surface.

 

There's no reason it should react significantly differently that I can think of. Nuclear weapons don't so much react with the composition of the atmosphere as just dump lots and lots of energy into it, a mechanic that'll be the same in just about any gas. So you'd get the bright flash and direct radiation burns, plasma near the core of the detonation, a rapidly-expanding shockwave, and the classic mushroom cloud from the powerful thermal updraft caused by the plasma. The same basic events happen with fusion and antimatter weapons (though at increasing scale), as all of these weapons operate by dumping absolutely tremendous amounts of heat and electromagnetic energy into the environment at an extreme pace.

The key is that you seem to have this misconception that methane is unstable. In reality, it's oxygen (and its close partners fluorine and chlorine) that are unstable, and in the absence of those three big offenders, things won't explode, burn, or even corrode very easily or often. The materials that would be truly dangerous fascinating in Avalon's atmosphere aren't the explosives, but the oxidizers.


While it's not mentioned in the snippet there on YouTube, that accident was caused primarily by the oxidizer ammonium perchlorate. Given the fact that Avalon's entire atmosphere counts as fuel to any respectable oxidizer, it stands to reason that they'd controlled substances and the closest thing to a conventional explosive you're likely to find in an oxygen-free atmosphere. With the interesting twist that it's the reactant supply that will run out before the fuel, instead of the opposite which is the case here on Earth.

Stupid Discovery, faking the explosion sounds. Shouldn't hear those until the shockwave hits. Here's some unedited footage with the sound untampered. Note the the guy saying "that's gonna be loud" well before the blast hits.

As well as, molten is relative. Titan, for instance, has a core of molten ice. We'd call it cold water, and it certainly isn't very useful for metalworking.

 

If you think of the "fire triangle", you need energy, an oxidiser, and a fuel source. Earth's entire atmosphere is an oxidiation source, and it has fairly high initial temperature - so any fuel source has a potential to burn. On Avalon, the entire atmosphere is what we'd consider a fuel source, but it has no oxidiser - where an oxidation source is available though, fire could occur quite easily.

Interestingly a similar incident to PEPCON occurred in Europe in a more built up area with even more significant damage and casualties (And may have been a deliberate attack, the suspect's girlfriend inexplicably destroyed all his possessions before investigators came). But you never hear about it in US media because it happened on September 21st 2001 - so most news channels were still talking about another incident 10 days earlier in New York