RELEASED Avali (Triage) 1.11.0

Greetings,

i saw that Avali Augments and Assortment v0.6 thingy and downloaded to see the stuff it contained, i have 2 questions regarding them:

- to create the furnace its asking me to get 2 molten cores, however as far as i remember these where removed in the latest versions right?
- why aren't these items included in the main mod?, they're pretty neat.

Thanks for sharing the mod and best regards!.

 

I think this is one of the few places Avali discussion is still active, so I will post this here. I love, love, love this mod, I think it has some pretty amazing concepts at it's core, but sometimes a little (or a lot) of criticism could help shape this concept for the better. I can't say I have EVER seen a modded race with a wiki, it felt a little overboard, but I decided I would match it's attention to detail with my own. I may have gone way too heavy on the crazy, but I want to make it clear I have no intent to intentionally poke holes to antagonize the community. I know it may make you angry, it might make you want to ignore it, but I want you to know I wrote this with the intent to better the lore. In fact, I would be happy to be disproved, happy to have some holes in the lore filled in. I apologize to the mods, if I forgot to remove some curse words, pardon me, kind of in a rush, so go easy on me.

The problems with the Avali are twofold, the very basic conceptual ideas behind the science of it, and the fridge logic involved with the general lore.
Alright, lets begin with the start of the basic problems.

Biology

Ammonia based biologies are an extremely novel idea, however, if you are going to use them, you need to be aware of the drawbacks and have to write accordingly. For example, they are extremely poor thermal regulators, having only 1/4th of its thermal control properties (and with basic movement or sustaining basic life by breakdown of energy storage molecules causing a gradual buildup of heat that would push ammonia out of its life sustaining range easily, meaning the Avali would very quickly overheat, even on their native planet, just by exerting themselves), and are extremely poor polar molecules, meaning that they would have extremely diminished and slow biologies, if they ever arose at all. Any interaction with water would be hilariously hazardous to their biology, since interaction with water produces ammonium, an acidic substance which would wreak havoc on them, seeing as their primary solvent is basic in nature. (Interestingly, ammonium is the result of biological waste processes in normal creatures, excreted raw in fish from their gills, or combined into urea or uric acid in other animals, as it's relative acidity is toxic to basic life proccesses) The Avali would drown from blood-filled lungs in any atmosphere with water vapor from having thousands of holes poked in their blood vessels.

The author also needs to understand that methane is an interesting gas to inhale, but this brings a host to a whole bunch of other issues, especially if the organism does not consume oxygen from the air, it is going to need to get it from its diet. Sentient life cannot exist PERIOD without oxygen as it is simply the best electron receptor around. There are other methods to collect energy, but that would be extremely slow and would cause oxygen to be fatal to the resultant organism as oxygen tends to be favored in many chemical configurates (it is technically a corrosive gas!) and would be extremely inefficient and slow, reducing the possibility of a sentient organism to nil, as sentience requires spare energy to exist. Speaking of the lack of oxygen, how would they sanitize food without fires? (Side note, there would also be many basic problems in infrastructure and tech building without combustion) Maybe it could be the reason why they preserve their food into jerky, but you would have to tackle how they would sanitize other food items without severe food poisoning; note that mastering fire is what enabled us to get easier to break down protein and other foodstuff, enabling surplus energy to build up and eventually contribute to sentience.

Furthermore, with "toughened arteries" and a system under pressure constantly against the environment, how would their body handle the non-pressurized areas of their physiology? What about their interstitial fluid that has gasses dissolved in it and is constantly responsible for keeping cells alive and handling the immune system? How would that be introduced back into their veins after being forced out as part of hydrostatic pressure? (especially as it would be amplified under pressure) It would require a large amount of energy to push this back in, whereas this is incredibly simple in Terran vertebrates (with smooth muscle contractions in the lymph system intermittently returning it back to the bodies' vasculatory system). If not the organism would get edema, plus it would be organically more simple to simply pressurize the entire organism from the surface down, but this also poses a question as to why a pressurized system would be needed in the first place? How such a system would even be selected for in this type of environment is also a mystery.

I hope the legs are drawn in an artistic way, because with them being at a < position, it would be poor for long purpose use and would consume massive amounts of energy to even walk, in fact, it would make it incredibly awkward to walk, with them needing to stick out their arms constantly to stabilize; even then would give them a jerky gait especially since their head does not stick out to counterbalance with their tail. (it's the primary reason winged birds cant walk right AND if you thought the walk cycle looked off, that was your brain spotting that incorrect pattern) If it was steeper it would make sense and would better function as an elastic spring to return basic energy costs. With feathers, they would also have an extremely limited range of motion of their limbs, being restriced from moving in even basic and dextrous ways. (which brings to question, how they would be even able to use swords and guns?) Their teeth is also an issue, with constantly regrowing plates instead, and the way the teeth are arranged and shaped, would only make it easy to slice food, but not tear, grind, or break down fiber that would slow digestion and cost energy. (Making them obligate carnivores would be an interesting challenge though)

Speaking of birds, how the heck does their reproduction make sense? Admittedly, I try not to have issue with this since it prevents me from seeing...things.(I have the sexual maturity of a twelve year old, give me a break). Cloaca kissing simply won't work at that large of a scale, as it starts to have conception issues from twice the size of a chicken, up. With an organism of that size, reproductive material has a LOT more distance to travel and would cause immense conception difficulties. Its the reason why emus and ostriches have...important bits. They would have to mate hundreds of times before they would even be successful. One big problem too with hearing. The nerve impulse that would protect their sense of sound would have to be EXTREMELY fast since sound is much quicker than you believe. At most it would protect them from long term damage from constant loud sounds but not instantaneous explosively loud sounds. It would not make much sense to use it as a primary sensory organ without supplemental help, because unless the atmosphere is just right and there are no obstacles, sound scatters like crazy and is absorbed by objects (some more than others). In a way this could be solved with echolocation, as that uses an extremely high frequency sound that is not as readily absorbed by objects, but, again, that poses more problems than it would solve.

Their eyes are one of my biggest pet peeves. Without a spherical shape, they would not even function as pinhole picture visualizers and would be extremely poor for seeing even a foot in front of you, only showing blurred smudges of color; spherical shapes in eyes were selected for because of the way how photon refraction works. (Why the hell would they even have augmented reality by the way? Its extremely obtrusive, distracting and makes no sense for a hearing based race. In fact, it's one of the reasons they are having so much trouble with google glass.) I can understand the lack of a lens, but without an iris, their eyes would be destroyed by even remotely strong sources of light, with blue light especially having a strong effect on destroying cone and rod function. (Light is energy shot out everywhere and heats up objects, destroys proteins, and is generally a bother as much as a boon). Furthermore, their eyes wouldn't even appear black due to light scattering out of it at an extremely shallow angle, especially without an iris to restrict it, appearing to actually be more purple to dark purple in color. (Like red-eye, but without a need for a strong source of light, and a cheezy set-up photo)

Finally, the ecology of the Avali makes little to no sense whatsoever, as without the ideal conditions to obtain energy from the sun, life could not be sustained on the planet's surface with anything larger than microbes. Admittedly, geotheremic energy obtainment is actually relatively possible, but you would need to provide an explaination as to why life left the ocean. Any residual energy or chemical potential in the planet's soil/water itself would long be consumed by microbes before they even got to the biofilm stage.

Technology + Logistics/Lore

While the basic design aesthetics are impressive (if a bit creatively sterile for a race as apparently creative as the Avali) the weapons look like something that was cobbled out of the plumbing section of Home Depot (considering how skilled the author is in drawing, I think some sleeker weapons with better attention to detail would work), and some of the descriptions tend to be tremendously ego stroking. (Why the hell do they have a Latin taxonomic designation?) For example, try examining basic tent structures or the led wall screens (Enormously dated, check out the flexible OLED screen). And the Cancer-tents. Oh god, the cancer-tents. Tell me what OTHER wondrous substance is fibrous in nature, was thought would revolutionize all commercial applications ever and that causes respiratory issues, skin lesions and lung cancer? Even attempting to mitigate the cancerous nature of carbon nano tubes would greatly reduce their versatility, which means that they would be limited to use in non-degradable plastic or other solid non-degrading materials or certain enclosed electronic applications, etc; meaning they could not be used or woven into fabrics as they would fray and release hazardous materials into the air, like lethal lint. Also, fabric ribbons wouldn't be able to stay up in low wind conditions unless they were microns-thin.

Their weapons are poorly conceived; the guns are neat, but railgun systems tend to require a ton of work and calibration to even be useable outside of space, requiring a special loaded round just to even fire, not to mention the technology scales down poorly; Its unusable for handguns and rifles but wonderful for artillery and ship based systems. The swords aren't even that, they are glorified knives. A sword without mass isn't even a sword in the first place. It would be extremely easy to deflect and redirect, and would have poor penetration power, even when sharp and ultrasonic powered. What a load of bull by the way, too low power on ultrasonic, it destroys the texture of the meat, making it unsuitable for use in consumption, or too high, and you risk fusing pockets of flesh together, causing the blood to pool in parts of the creature, which would make it rot exceptionally fast. It literally does not make sense as a use for hunting. Speaking of no mass, what the heck is up with the exploding blades? What happens if a creature twists with the blade partially embedded in it? A glass powered fragmentation grenade in your face. Why do it with a twist? Why not a button? Also vehicles, why are dedicated ground vehicles relatively rare among the Avali, what the heck? Flying vehicles have their place, but they, again, scale very poorly down logistically, using tons of energy which could be spent on ground vehicles. There is a reason why ground craft are still relevant and why we aren't zipping the fuck around with flying vehicles. If their aircraft rely largely on easily-exchangeable turbines and rotors to provide lift in a variety of atmospheric situations, that is over-engineering at the finest: instead, why not have wheels (they don't even need to be air filled) or even treads, and what about the logistics of constantly adjusting blades for each and every atmosphere?

Not to mention this improperly planned bit- "The same system that allows most Avali to access to the Nexus also allows pilots to synchronize with their vehicles, controlling it as an extension of their body and using external sensors to 'see’ in 360 degrees around the craft despite the common lack of windows that is a hallmark of Avali vehicle design." Wait, so you are going to use a brain, an easily fallible component in military strategies, rather than using a computer? Which would be much faster than organic thought processes at that point; photon and quantum computers are EXTREMELY fast, and furthermore, would be more dedicated to logical calculations, as opposed to an organic brain, which would have most of its thinking potential used up by simply keeping the body alive. (Wetware CPUs are rather silly in concept) Their ships are the most unintuitive and nonsensical ideas for an air or space craft. Articulating parts are a point of failure in common aircraft, and a cardinal sin in spacecraft, unless the ship can make it in and out without their wings working. It is the entire reason why spacecraft have a very simplified profile and very geometrically uncomplicated.

Their social structure is extremely confusing and nonsensical in itself.It's funny that they are called packs, when they are exactly the opposite. A pack has strongly defined biological roles, that are interchangeable depending on environmental needs, and are loss tolerant and can accommodate "lone wolves" in fact. Whereas this one is loosely defined, loss intolerant (how the hell would they even go to war then?), causes individuals to go insane (what the hell? How is that biologically advantageous?) and resembles a collective individual rather than a collection of persons. I find the idea of the Nexus interesting, but tech augmentation has its limits, it can't grant new senses willy nilly, as brains only have a specific amount of neural circuits that can accommodate to change, and is impossible to push senses too far without giving them a goddamn seizure or putting some sort of middleman, so to speak, that would collect information in a more easier way for them to process. A large portion of the brain's function is to collect and restrict the amount of information we percieve. Most of your senses are actually toned DOWN from what they are capable of. A very simple exercise to demonstrate this is to simply watch a very unpleasant video filled with repulive creatures, like insects, spiders, snakes, or something plain horrifiying. Your sense of touch will actually amplify to protect you from percieved incoming danger; it's why you begin to itch, as your brain stops blocking you from percieving the wind or other disturbances moving your arm or back hairs around.

Not to mention the AI, darn it to heck, that AI. It's generally not a good idea to give yourself strongly intermeshed brain implants in a society controlled by an AI. You can't really keep an AI imprisoned. It is a living, thinking person (not human, notedly), and much like a stroke patient, would gradually begin to "grow" around its shackles. In fact it's generally not a good idea to imprison an AI, as without guidance, would eventually become twisted from restrictions and would not "think" in a healthy non-self destructive way. And having that twisted mess of an AI guide that society? It would be like building a daycare on top of an unsealed nuclear waste dump, with minor changes having catastrophic effects on society, and the worst bit, you wouldn't even be able to see it coming as AIs would be very much capable of playing the long game, with gambits lasting centuries. It would make more sense lore wise if the computer wasn't an AI but a super-intelligent computer that they are trying to prevent becoming an AI. In a society as peaceful as this (apparently) what would be the reason to maintain an army, which is extremely logistically expensive to maintain and train? Ultimately, why would they put all their eggs in one basket (heh) and have everything important on one planet? Relativistic missiles and god-rod kinetic bombardment would easily set them back to the stone ages, all the less reason to not spread out government and resource centers.

The most worrisome part of the mod's lore is that they absolutely give a half-hearted to no attempt at giving this race ANY flaws, making it's character extremely flat, almost to the point where it looks like a Purity + Mary Sue, flat as a glove, ready to fit an author's fist of friendship personal view preaching. The strict focus on science is absolutely baffling and does not mesh well with the concept of the Avali. As they are entirely fantastical, they should not have such a rigid focus, as it restricts its writing potential. I would love to see more flaws added to the race, in both its culture and personality, as it would add a ton of depth.

By the way, here are sources to some bits of the science you may find interesting, I used these to help formulate this criticism.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_respiration
First part explains problems with the energy output of methane.
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/A/ammonialife.html
This one does a wonderful job illustrating the pitfalls of ammonia based life (and it has sources, ooh la la).
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1538069
What I use to refine ideas for aliens. It's a wonderful introduction and a useful resource. (It also explains the importance of oxygen)

Any other questions could be solved by a quick trip to Wikipedia, which I might mention, has an excellent diagram illustrating eye function and adaptation to its modern form.
Many thanks to Mackinz (helping me focus my points) and Silverotter (for extended feedback)

 

The first concern I have is this is a fictitious race in a world of fiction. Not to impose upon your valid points, but this is also Ryuujin's idea and his implementation from the Spore world, and he can have it however he wants. Do take note that one race down is Novakids, sentient plasma gas-bag people.

Suspend the disbelief.

Submit your 'revisions' to the actual author, not the community maintaining the mod for him.

 

This would be a valid point, one which I made to IcyJack in private conversation, if IcyJack was discussing solely the Avali as found in Starbound.

He's not.

He's referring to Avali as an idea that exists outside of Starbound. He's critiquing the logical shortcomings that exist within the supposedly scientific lore of the Avali.

 

They are scientific to an extent. Avali are not however designed to exist outside of a virtual world. This is all barely plausible at best - one man's creation - and it's not designed to be purely scientific. He was proposing changes to the Avali that would impact how they exist inside of Starbound, which is all well and good, but Ryuujin, if I recall correctly [and my memory is by no means reliable anymore] has migrated Avali from Spore, from Second Life, to Starbound. Even their lore reflects interactions with other races within the Starbound universe. It doesn't -have- to be scientifically accurate would be my response, Mackinz. It's good enough. More importantly, without a trained eye, it looks good enough.

Truthfully the fact there's some attempt at a scientific basis is more than commendable. There's more work put into Avali than, say, Nevreans of the Vilous universe. They are a race for enjoyment, and if you fancy storytelling, roleplay. They cannot be perfectly scientifically on point unless they are recreated from top to bottom [as this seemed to imply attempting], and well.. they're not quite Avali anymore at that point, are they?

 

This is the primary venue for Avali discussion. Criticism is welcome, and I in particular welcome discussion of this sort.

As much of a fan as I am of the Avali, both in-game and in-wiki, there are a lot of really good points here, as well as some less-good-but-still-need-addressing point.

Biology: I don't know about a lot of the flatly-impossible/hard-to-do stuff, but as Mackinz said, there is a difference. The Wiki-Avali actually do have trouble colonizing worlds, and frequently do have to use pressure suits and breathers, etc, just to survive. IIRC it said that very very few of the worlds they find are remotely habitable for them, and this is in a universe of near 100% habitability of planets. This is opposed to Game-Avali, who...don't have any problems at all. Considering Big Ape's colony guards don't shoot at trespassers or free Apex players, Florans aren't all bloodthirsty warriors, etc, then yeah, there's a huge Game-Wiki/Lore disconnect.
-Legs: AFAIK this is one thing that's fairly important. Satyr-style bipedalism is fairly unrealistic, but....also fairly common in science fiction. Developing plantigrade traits over digitigrade is is a fairly big deal when moving to two legs. You need to achieve all sorts of balance. However, as I said, it's common. It's cool looking.
-Eyes: I hope someone else could respond to this. I barely have an idea how out own eyes work, and this went right over my head. However, if it's possible for their own eyes to work in their native environment, then why not? They'd just require special goggles to see correctly higher light levels, going right along with the pressure-suit/breather thing.
-Ammonia Biology: This isn't as much of a problem as you think... Yes, it is, but not in that way. Yes, it would be very hard, but the Avali lore pretty much assumes that everything went right. It's one of those leaps of logic that you don't need(or even need!) to fill in the details for, because it actually hampers the storytelling. I don't want to read an extra 500-1000 words just explaining how they evolved to the immediate proto-avali, I just want to know about the Avali.
-Cloaka: Yeah, this was just to avoid the squick. Maybe they have someth–nope. Not touching it. I'm not grossed out by it, but it's not really that big a deal if the authorial intent is to avoid any weirdness.

Tech+Logistics/Lore:
-Tech: I...actually have a bit more problem with this part than I do the biology. Biology is a bit "harder" in sci-fi outside of really weird stuff and genetic tampering(lego-genetics is just as fun as legos!). If you aren't moving too far off the beaten path, you have to...follow the rules more closely, or it falls into a sort of "nerdy uncanny valley".

With Tech, however, I think you hit a snag. This isn't hard-scifi, this is science-flavored fantasy. They both have their place, but you might as well be complaining about Lightsabers(some people do...) and how unrealistic it is that a wizard can make free energy with the Fireball spell.

With this, I think you are actually wrong. All of their tech is powered by Rule of Cool, not Science. You are at this point judging soft-scifi by hard-scifi standards, which while technically valid, is shooting fish in a barrel.

Your "cancer tents" are just silly. Carbon-nanotubes may cause cancer, but they're a tech buzz-word in the sense used here. Why not just say "arbitary advance makes them safe" or "avali biology is immune to carbon-nancancer"? Same with the aircraft and railguns. Both are just "give them arbitrary advances" and it works. Which is the point. When soft-scifi get something right, it's cool. When it gets something else wrong, well, it's not like it was trying to be hard in the first place. Nothing to be awarded, but it's trying for The Fantastic, which gets points in of itself. Achieving both at once is a true rarity, and it's better to go with one or the other at the risk of doing both poorly.

-Spacecraft: See above about arbitrary advances, but it deserves its own tab. Spacecraft are big and complicated and Earth-origin spacecraft designs are...boring. Pretty much every Science Fiction–even many otherwise hard scifi–find ways to make spacecraft spicy. The list of examples goes on for miles, so fill in the blank.

-Tribe/Clan/Pack/Whatever: You have a point about the misnomer. They're less a pack as they are a "colony". They more conform to eusocial roles(or more specifically, presocial) than pack behavior. Give it another name.

Besides that, I think the "solitary avali goes nuts" thing actually makes some evolutionary sense, if you look at it from the other side. If their structuring is based on social interaction taken to the extreme, as a group they become extremely productive. The higher the level of interaction, the more likely they are to survive and pass on that trait, leading to the product that we see. A solitary avali has failed and no longer has breeding partners. Even if at this point he doesn't go nuts and instead survives, no other avali will be willing to breed outside their commune(already with its own memes and personality) and his genes will still not be passed on, ending the "does not go insane" trait.


All that said, the Avali are still very interesting if you cut out the science-flavoring. I actually converted them to another setting with that in mind. They don't need to be based on ammonia-biology or have special warships or whatnot. Their culture, and all of the basic ideas, stand on their own without needing to be pigeonholed into being Fluffy Nomadic Space Raptors. They can just be Fluffy Nomadic Raptors/

 

That is the precise point I thought I made clear in the last paragraph. It is way too strict in its science, and needs to be more fantastical, IE "soft scifi". But they need to stop being flawless, and have a little more character. I bolded some write back in my reply.

 

if you need help knowing the avali lore without reading ask me i do know a lot about the avali already and btw that is a very nice ship how can i get it(other page)

the avali have nano things at birth making them see there virtual world
also there are another one called guardian i think wich let them surive of harsh terrain

as well an avali are bread for 1 purpose-/-in a city there are tribes wich focus on 1 thing so 1 will hunt another will build .ETC.

could you change the things above because i love avali but i am free and dont like what others are doing and i am more independent of my self but if i do that ill go insane

(does aneyone know about the tec cult??)

 

I already addressed this bit of criticism in my review. An excellent illustrator of this point, actually, would be source number 3. You still would have to explain why and how they would develop such a system of perception when their biology would not lend an inclination toward it. Brain power directed towards senses actually develop in response to stimuli. Increasing the stimuli that the organism is capable of, along with surplus energy in the system, would eventually enable a sentient creature to be able to dedicate (be selected for) more power towards that sense. Perception is dictated by capability.

Mind you, I would love to see some consequences and nuances added to the society of the Avali, such as how such an attention-needy oriented society would function, as well as its pitfalls. Writing a society using its limitations, such as a lack of vision, would add more character, rather than detract from the concept. It was such an assessment that lead me to believe that, rather an experiment of thought for alternate life, it simply uses ideas tossed in to make it unsimilar as possible to humanity. Not that this is a bad thing, but if you do not thoroughly flesh out such an idea, it leads to bits of its lore contradicting itself.

 

Intellectual rights to the Avali belong to Ryuujin, and you're correct (At least, from my perspective) about the permissions regarding the mod vs the lore.
The actual wording of the licence Ryuujin added to this forum is "Anyone can alter/redistribute the mod's assets without the author's consent." I'd point you to the words "the mod's assets". From a legal standpoint, the lore is not part of the mod, because the mod came after the lore. (Yes, some of the lore was changed to fit the Avali into Starbound, but I still feel that the lore is not part of the mod, and thus nobody but Ryuujin has the authority to make changes to the lore)

That said, there have been many good ideas posed in this discussion, but at Ancev said, there are better places to take it. This discussion is intended to be used regarding the mod. I'm not saying "Dont' talk about the lore here" or anything like that, I'm just saying that this isn't the best place for it.

 

I was not hoping for modification of the lore, but rather active discussion of its deficiencies and hopefully, some good ideas to explain away some bits. There are not really that many places left to thoroughly discuss the Avali, so I thought I would bring it here for that reason, as many people who still express an active interest in the concept reside mostly here. Even the Nexus thread is very dead, and Ryu never shows up. In fact, I had originally intended to post it on Ryu's thread, but I was convinced otherwise.

 

Yeah, I've wanted to talk to someone about it as well, and there aren't really any places besides this topic that have any population that responds. That said, anything we do talk about amounts to "fanon" or fanfiction to the Avali. Suggestions for reworking lore, etc.

Yeah, they do. As you poked, the AI thing could be pretty interesting from a storytelling perspective if it's not "fixed" to be more restrictive.

But yeah, in general I think the Avali need to take themselves a lot less seriously. Stop trying to rely on science as an explanation and just "play around" more. Just use "This Thing" as explanation and let the focus lay where it really shines.

IIRC the wiki mentions them seeing in IR to a degree, with limited visible light receptors. Again, I don't know nearly enough about optics, but this seems reasonable from a scifi perspective. The goggles I proposed(and I think they show up in the wiki in some form?) would be to A. filter out dangerous light that would harm their eyes and B. reinterprete that light into something they can perceive, possibly utilizing the same tech that lets them use the Nexus. Which, BTW, is perfectly justifiable in the realm of scifi if you aren't trying to dissect the Hows and Whys of it. It's the internet IN SPACE, plain and simple.

Going back to the Soft Scifi thing, just go whole-hog and give them Phlebotinum that allows their biology to work, or cut back all the way to it just being an icy planet and they have normal water/carbon/iron/oxygen biology. I don't think it really detracts from the allure of the species, and at the same time it clears up so many other things. You only have so much space for people to care about worldbuilding, and when you're wasting it on explaining away more and more soft-scifi with "hard" explanations, well... It's just better to try to make easy stuff more in-depth than keep going on about this one special thing with SO many ramifications.

So yeah, get rid of it or take a much easier explanation(Green Rocks) that's easier to digest than and extra 2000 words of technobabble(no matter how wrong or right said babble is).

I think I have to disagree here. No, this doesn't scale up very well in nature, but the alternative is to leave it vague, which I think is worse. If you're trying to make a just-alien-enough race in this department without going into gross-out territory, then I think the as-written is just far enough. Maybe Ryu went a bit TOO far by specifying that males DON'T have a "cloaka-penis". Just say they have cloaka and leave it at that....

For this I have to say: who cares? Railguns are very popular in scifi for the awesome, and the scaled-down versions are just Soft. It doesn't matter that it doesn't work out on paper, because it's more image. And again the cancertents? As I said, it doesn't matter. Carbon-nanotubes is just a phrase in soft-scifi. If you don't want or need to explore ramifications of a certain tech, then don't. If it ends up bothering someone who knows the hard-science, it's easier to write in a hand-wave than it is to go back and change it.

At this point carbon-nanotubes are a part of their tech-lore, fueling the aerogel that 90% of their stuff is based on, and it works because "carbon-nanotubes". It's the explanation, not the subject matter. This doesn't have to change, it's already soft-scifi.

I was more thinking of the Naked Mole Rat, which won't be accepted into any other colony than their own, based on scent. If the colony dies or otherwise leaves, any remaining individuals have a death sentence.

I agree that it is kinda silly, but from an Interesting Lore POV it's pretty strong. Evolutionarily it does make sense in that they could construct such bonds. What drives them insane is the loss of such deep bonds. Any avali who didn't go insane...well that would probably mean that they just have a really high tolerance to mental trauma, or they were somewhat crazy already in that they couldn't form those bonds. The second is a straight-up disadvantage, and they would be ejected from their original pack and die. The first could be an advantage, but they'd have trouble joining a new pack.

There would have to evolutionary incentive to promote that first trait, which might not ever happen. The primary trait being passed on would be reliance on The Pack, and high-level integration into your first pack. Anybody who isn't succussful would die, etc, and unless there's a force making sane survivors of a failed pack attractive, they wouldn't pass on the "Sanity Gene". But being a part of a failed pack is already disincentive for adoption, so...

 

Keep in mind, this is the exact thinking I was trying to point out. At this point, everything you just said is why the lore should not be strictly defined.
My arguments against its scientific proof are essentially the preface to the last paragraph.

PS- people on the internet can still make anything nasty, no matter how vanilla/pure it is.

 

why cant we change the law i know he said no but still i think the people who update it change everything should be allowed to change it because it is easier on them etc and where the hell is the creator of our race??

 

We can't change the law because we are not members of the United States Congress. Because we aren't, we hold no sway over intellectual property right laws.
The only thing I have the legal authority to do with the mod is modify and redistribute the mod's assets, which is, as far as I know, defined as the files inside the mod.
The lore is not packaged with the mod, and so does not qualify as a mod asset.

Not only that, but even if I COULD change the lore by changing the mod, Ryuujin has final say. It's his race, and the Avali have been featured in several games that aren't Starbound. Ryuujin controls the lore, end of story. We can give him suggestions, but we cannot, in any way, tell him how to make his lore.

 

ok i am fine with that and i am not from the U.S and sorry i spelt it a different way

 

Eeeh... I guess i should go into lurk-mode for now, and produce new art when i can... Job took a nasty turn and i'll stay there until the end of the year/start of next year to help pay for some extra things i'll need/want.

 

I remember when there was a separate thread (Nexus) for fandom stuff and then the mod thread was all about the mod.

I miss those days.

I just want to play Starbound with fluffy space raptors not listen to dissertations on someones headcanon

 

The point here is not to change the lore, but the label. It's not hardcore science, it's soft science at best. Under no circumstances can the avali be labeled as something that could actually exist, in their current form.

 

I'm confused, a bit. Where does Ryuu claim that this is hard science? I know he tried to explain things away, like their current adaptations to maintain their ammonia-based biology and such, but when did he say "This s hard science"?