Page 134: For Science!

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saint of m
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by saint of m »

boldilocks wrote:So alex is seeing her baby-alarm going off 24/7?

Anyone else feeling a Spaceballs joke coming? No? Only me thinking about the Virgin alarm

koliup
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by koliup »

My theory is that humanity (and presumably anywhere from "all" to "some" of Earth life as well*) is psionic - albeit in a way best described as 'submarine warfare' - a focus on being undetectable, but being able to detect, and presumably low-bandwidth low-energy telepathy which is received and interpreted by the reptile part of the brain (if any telepathy). My guess is this would probably be due to culling (no human extinction event I can find neatly lines up with the timeline) or directed evolution on the part of the precursors.
Of course if humanity can detect (albeit only clumsily it would seem) psionic entities - why can Alex only notice Fireblade (power 17)? Why not Tempo (power 15)? And most importantly - why not Beryl (power 8)? My only real thought is that Tempo is using lotai for some reason (which would explain why Beryl was so surprised when she got on the shuttle) and Beryl is somehow too low-power for Alex to notice her - but I don't feel like that lines up neatly with everything else we know.
I'm interested in seeing what the truth of the matter turns out to be.

*: I think how early psionic power would have evolved matters, although it may not. Humans in the comic can't control their psionic abilities (and are not aware these abilities exist - similar to how your heart beats without you thinking about it), which to me suggests human psionic power exists in the reptilian part of the brain - a thought supported by the lower limit of 'mind' (frog and reptile) that can be detected according to the Insider. This doesn't explain the lack of psionic predators unfortunately - except perhaps that most creatures only retain psionic predation skills as a psionic appendix because most/all prey became invisible.

Krulle
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by Krulle »

Let me hook on that, koliup.

If the telepathy is latent in the Humans brain part inherited from the reptiles, then the change could've been introduced in times of the Dinosaurs.
Easy way to make sure your genetically modified specimen have a real chance vs. the nature: introduce a catastrophe, and a while after that introduce your modified reptiles and other modified species to Earth. From there, they can spread all over the world, because most niches are actually empty after they dropped that asteroid on Earth.

That would place it all about 66m years ago, far earlier than the Soia-Empire, even earlier than the Bulan Conflicts. Arioch's timeline doesn't reach that far back.
Vote for Outsider on TWC: Image
charred steppes, borders of territories: page 59,
jump-map of local stars: page 121, larger map in Loroi: page 118,
System view Leido Crossroads: page 123, after the battle page 195

novius
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by novius »

Krulle wrote:Let me hook on that, koliup.

If the telepathy is latent in the Humans brain part inherited from the reptiles, then the change could've been introduced in times of the Dinosaurs.
Easy way to make sure your genetically modified specimen have a real chance vs. the nature: introduce a catastrophe, and a while after that introduce your modified reptiles and other modified species to Earth. From there, they can spread all over the world, because most niches are actually empty after they dropped that asteroid on Earth.

That would place it all about 66m years ago, far earlier than the Soia-Empire, even earlier than the Bulan Conflicts. Arioch's timeline doesn't reach that far back.
We were sort of touching that question in this story thread - the driving force of evolution is to produce individuals and species best fit to the given environment, and a possible explanation for humans to develop such a strong shield against telepathic influence (and maybe a primal fear against them, too), would be because there existed another species on Earth with psionic powers and an appetite for proto-humans. Said predator species could have used psionics to sniff out other creatures or to subdue them... so Alex's ancestors needed to develop a defense against that. Make said predator to be too strong to fight back, hiding is the only option that remains.

Of course, that is a working theory without taking into account an alien species tinkering with genetics. Place the Soia into the picture, for example, and all bets would be off.

Absalom
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Re: Page 134: For Science!

Post by Absalom »

Here's a thought. Most or all of the extra-bubble expeditions were looking for the fabled remnants of a far earlier psionic weapons development project, including the Bulan Conflicts (someone objected to someone else looking). When the Soia arrived, they (and presumably noone before) found precisely that: all of Earth's sufficiently complex biosphere, which itself was essentially the psionicly silent wasteland of a weapons development & testing facility. After developing the Loroi, they had proof that they had understood the necessary concepts, so either someone else came in and wiped them out, or they bombarded the local development centers (post-experiment hygiene & such) and simply left. The other Soia-Liron were the product of experiments intended to determine whether they had actually found the remains of the experiment(s): until the Loroi, the answer was simply "No", so they set the lot of them to productivity tasks to support further investigations. The original experiments might have occurred as far back as part of the way through the Oxygen Holocaust (presumably for the sake of the higher-energy availability), for the ever-pressing criteria of "hey, this meets the specs, let's use it" at the right time.

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