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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

CTD - Satyrian


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EDIT: PLEASE NOTE THE XENOCIDE NAMES HAVE NOT BEEN DETERMINED YET FOR EVERY ITEM OR UNIT IN THE GAME, REFERENCES TO NAMES WHICH ARE THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF ATARI OR OTHER COMPANIES BY INDIVIDUAL PROJECT MEMBERS IS NOT CONDONED BY THE PROJECT AND THE PROJECT DOES NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR SUCH ACTIONS. INDIVIDUALS SHOULD REFER TO ENTRY NAMES AGREED TO BY THE PROJECT, AND IF SUCH A NAME DOES NOT YET EXIST THEY SHOULD USE A SUBSTITUTE IN [bRACKETS]. THANKS!

 

For the non-rtf people here is the description that I have so far. Opinions always welcome. Forgot to run a spell check on this version, but I'll have it in the next.

 

--------------------------

 

This unusual creature seems to be at least partially an artificial construct. It’s reflexes are very quick and it seems to have sharp visual acuity, but only rudimentary senses of touch and taste. The [Floater]’s language consists of a complex mixture of grunts, moans and subvocal sounds. It shows a good mechanical aptitude, able to quickly disassemble and reassemble simple devices it has, presumably, never been exposed to before. It also showed great interest in the shotgun subvocal microphone that was used to capture a sample of it’s speech patterns.

While it is obvious that the [Floater] could not have evolved naturaly into its current state, there are still clues that indicate what the home world of this bizarre alien may have been like. Due to the oversized claws and extended horns and fangs of the [floater] it can be assumed that it was a pronounced predator. The hands are not structured to be used as paws or motive digits, so it can be concluded that the [floater] evolved as a bipedal hunter, probably in a region of low undergrowth, perhaps plains or light forests. Also the lightweight construction of the bones and organs (what few are not replaced by the life support/levitation device) indicates that the home world of this alien had less than Earth standard gravity.

It is unknown whether the cybernetic implant was developed by the [floater] specie or by one of the other species, however, given their natural aptitude with machines, it would not be surprising if this race was cybernetic before its alliance with the other alien races. It may even be possible that the [floater] species is the primary introducer of the advance cybernetics that are used in [reaper]s that have been reported.

floater.rtf

Edited by Breunor
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It needs more. More data about their culture, and it needs some nice fluff text like

 

"These little pink b@stards aren't that tough to kill!"

 

And you need a basic description of what a floater is in your first paragraph, like

 

"The 'floater' is a relatively dangerous alien that can hover and move through the air, giving this insidious creature a great tactical advantage. It is reccommended that all X-Corps agents pay attention to the skies during a confirmed 'floater' sighting.

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Version 2.0

 

RESEARCH COMPLETED: [FLOATER]

 

HEAD OF RESEARCH PROJECT: [JAMIE HILLSDEN]

 

SPECIFICATIONS:

COST:_____________________ N/A

WEIGHT:___________________ [150 lbs]

SIZE:______________________ [5’ 6” on average]

DAMAGE TYPE:____________ N/A

TYPE:_____________________ ALIEN LIFE FORM

POWER:___________________ N/A

ACCURACY:_______________ N/A

RANGE:___________________ N/A

FIRE RATE:________________ N/A

OTHER:___________________ Able to independently fly for extended periods

 

The 'floater' is a relatively dangerous alien that can hover and move through the air, giving this insidious creature a great tactical advantage. It is reccommended that all X-Corps agents pay attention to the skies during a confirmed 'floater' sighting.

 

This unusual creature seems to be at least partially an artificial construct. It’s reflexes are very quick and it seems to have sharp visual acuity, but only rudimentary senses of touch and taste. The [Floater]’s language consists of a complex mixture of grunts, moans and subvocal sounds. It shows a good mechanical aptitude, able to quickly disassemble and reassemble simple devices it has, presumably, never been exposed to before. It also showed great interest in the shotgun subvocal microphone that was used to capture a sample of it’s speech patterns.

While it is obvious that the [Floater] could not have evolved naturaly into its current state, there are still clues that indicate what the home world of this bizarre alien may have been like. Due to the oversized claws and extended horns and fangs of the [floater] it can be assumed that it was a pronounced predator. The hands are not structured to be used as paws or motive digits, so it can be concluded that the [floater] evolved as a bipedal hunter, probably in a region of low undergrowth, perhaps plains or light forests. Also the lightweight construction of the bones and organs (what few are not replaced by the life support/levitation device) indicates that the home world of this alien had less than Earth standard gravity.

It is unknown whether the cybernetic implant was developed by the [floater] specie or by one of the other species, however, given their natural aptitude with machines, it would not be surprising if this race was cybernetic before its alliance with the other alien races. It may even be possible that the [floater] species is the primary introducer of the advance cybernetics that are used in [reaper]s that have been reported.

The [floater]s society is organized in a highly militaristic style, amazingly similar to X-Corps. There is a Commander who answers directly to the “Overlord”. Orders are passed down by the Commander to each Unit Leader and from there down to the individual squads. It appears that most of the [floater]s view their assignments, especially terror and abduction raids, as personal leave to enjoy themselves. They seem to derive great pleasure from using their flying abilities to surprise and terrify their “prey”.

 

“Its darn near creepy how those things will just float up on you, the only sign their there is when you teeth start vibrating from the hover thing they use.” – Unknown X-Corp agent

floater.rtf

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I guess I'll be the counterpoint to Facehugger here regarding the cultural part of the description. I think coming up with ideas about all the aliens' backgrounds and cultures will be good for future writing and relatively "fictional" storylines, but for the X-Net description I think there's a bit too much info. Having the short summary paragraph is good, we need that right after the stats, and then the detailed info would be specifically what the researchers could gather from a creature that doesn't speak human, and is probably very scared or combative. There is no universal translator, and you can go the whole game without researching psi powers, so mind reading info isn't an option. And since it's not the autopsy report, not much info about what's inside either really.

 

With all of those limitations, you can write as much as you like or can think of, as even then you're looking at a fairly short entry. Making assumptions about a possible homeworld based on just physical characteristics is good, as is the alien's reactions to the X-Corps people poking and prodding. It might be interesting to have a line or two that's identical for every alien, like "the [floater] was intrigued by our endoscopy hardware, even when we were examining it." A Grey on the other hand might have the same sentence this way, "the [sectoid] responded rather vigorously when we approached it with the endoscopy hardware, trying to move so it was always facing the researcher. One of the staff commented that it might be used to being on the other side of the examination table."

 

This text is looking good so far!

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"I could swear one of them told me it was my father!" ~Resigned xcom soldier Edited by mikker
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"I could swear one of them told me it was my father!" ~Resigned xcom soldier

aaaaahhahahahahh :D

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There is a Commander who answers directly to the ?Overlord?.

 

Does that mean, that there is one leader for the whole Floater race?

 

On a general note, I think you should give it a bit more of a darker, scarier feel. To convey the twisted nature of the aliens.

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There is a Commander who answers directly to the ?Overlord?.

 

Does that mean, that there is one leader for the whole Floater race?

I think each commander communicates with the brain. The specimen could talk about his own commander.

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No, so far we have working concepts for the snakeman, chrysallid, muton, sectoid, and sectopod. That obviously makes it really hard to physically describe them at this point doesn't it? :(
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Actually we have a concept on the muton by fuxxor

 

Edit by Facehugger: Bruenor is saying that we have concepts (no models) for those aliens. (Except the chryssalid, and very recently, the snakeman.)

 

 

We can't physically describe the others, because we haven't decided on them.

 

Yes, I'm abusing my mod ability. :D

Edited by Cpl. Facehugger
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Can you give me a little more idea of what you mean by make them darker? I realize that my text may be a little analytical and that it is hard to project sinister evil through a dry analysis, but I was writing it from the view point of a Xcom researcher filing the final findings report for general perusal. You don't want to be creeping out the soldiers and commanders that are going to read the report looking for an edge in battle, you want to present the facts directly and without a lot of colorful appelations that might lead the reader to expect a certain kind of behaviour due to their personal definations of your adjectives and fluff.
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latin name?
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I like Breunor's point about their interest in the endoscopy equipment. Remember, the scientists can't really know what the floaters do in their spare time... all the know is what is evident in their autopsy (and live observation later).

 

A way to make it gritty is by throwing all kinds of facts at the reader about the extreme surgical mutilation that the species undergoes and its lack of natural fuction. From what I gathered in the original game, the floaters were kind of like doctor frankenstein and his monster rolled into one.

 

Another way to go about it would be to describe the terror sites that were visited by the floaters and note the malicious maiming and terrible atrocities that are committed by the floaters.. perhaps you could reveal a pattern whereby the floaters will massacre an entire family before the eyes of one of the members and then only badly maim the last member... and how they seem not to waste ammo on the weaker specimines but rather beat them to death (infants, the elderly, etc).

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Damn fux, those are some great ideas!

 

Hmm, the sectoids try to capture as many civies as possible in terror sites.

The Snakemen will try and herd them into one place for their chryssalid pals.

The Mutons will just start chowing down on civilians.

The Etherials will...Erm...Uh...mind control civilians to kill each other (Xenophage-The only blood sport for the alien hordes!)

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ok. here is a rewrite of the last paragraph and the flavor text. This creepy enough for you?

 

The [floater]s society is organized in a highly militaristic style, amazingly similar to X-Corps. Each Commander answers directly to the “Overlord”. Orders are passed down by the Commander to each Unit Leader and from there down to the individual squads. It appears that most of the [floater]s view their assignments, especially terror and abduction raids, as personal leave to enjoy themselves. They seem to derive great pleasure from using their flying abilities to surprise and terrify their “prey”. It has been noted in battle reports that [floater]s will often attempt brute force fusions of handy earth technology with civilians. They seem especially likely to do attempt these horrific experiments on infants and children during abductions. While they do not seem interested in the after effects of this mutilations, they do seem to derive great pleasure from the reactions of other captives to these operations.

 

“I’ll never forget the screams of the little girl we found on the [floater] ship. The monsters had implanted a microwave emitter in the base of her skull, and wired it to fire whenever she made noise. Every time she screamed, it fried her scalp and brain a little more, causing her to scream again. I can still hear her and smell it in my dreams.” – Cpt. John Moreau

floater.rtf

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?I?ll never forget the screams of the little girl we found on the [floater] ship. The monsters had implanted a microwave emitter in the base of her skull, and wired it to fire whenever she made noise. Every time she screamed, it fried her scalp and brain a little more, causing her to scream again. I can still hear her and smell it in my dreams.? ? Cpt. John Moreau

 

Yes, er, that was the kind of dark, twisted feel I was talking about, now excuse me... :puke:

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yes that seemd a little over the top
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Ew... that would be pretty sadistic alright, but see the abductor CT thread regarding explicit graphic details, we can suggest such nastiness, but should avoid actually laying it out on the table. There's still lots of details that you'd really only learn after a long chat over some tea with your friendly neighbor floater. When coming up with details as to behavior and social structure, consider it along the lines of "a caveman we were able to unthaw, and he survived" scenario. How would you know what his social structure was like? Same for the floater, it's smart enough to know it's a prisoner, would it defer to what it thought was the enemy leader to garner favor or less punishment(ethereal), would it try to attack anything that got close enough(chrysallid,snakeman), cower in fear of anything that moved towards it(sectoid), etc? Perhaps to show it's interest in surgical tools and mechanical devices, you could mention that when being examined, the floater took as much interest in the human's tools as they did in the floater. When they moved it around to look at various parts, the floater starting almost "showing off" various bits when it became apparent they weren't going to dissect it. Almost like a scientist trying to point another researcher along the path it took type of thing. That would certainly suggest the floater's curiosity, so the researchers might have left the floaters with some devices to "play with", see what it did with them. It immediately focused on the most "aggressive" tools, dissection type devices.

 

These are the kind of things a researcher might find out from an alien they can't speak to or communicate very well with IMO, considering the circumstances. It's not like a friendly meeting or two species where they sit down and work out how to talk like the movie Alien Mine IIRC. Does all this make sense, or am I alone on this one?

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"Aww, look at him play with the scalpel. It's like he's a hideous surgeon. Can I keep him?" Dr. Richards, moments before his live 'autopsy'.

 

"I.. I never knew.. that an endoscope could be used.. that way." Dr. Connors, upon the unfortunate discovery of the Floater's sadistic tendancies.

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you're all sick, sick people

 

 

and i love it :LOL:

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Ok. Another shot :beer:. I'm ready to tweak this a bit, so it might actually get mentioned next time the CTD assests list is updated.

 

___________________________________________________________________

RESEARCH COMPLETED: [FLOATER]

 

HEAD OF RESEARCH PROJECT: [HARRY DRESDEN]

 

SPECIFICATIONS:

COST:_____________________ N/A

WEIGHT:___________________ [150 lbs]

SIZE:______________________ [5’ 6” on average]

DAMAGE TYPE:____________ N/A

TYPE:_____________________ ALIEN LIFE FORM

POWER:___________________ N/A

ACCURACY:_______________ N/A

RANGE:___________________ N/A

FIRE RATE:________________ N/A

OTHER:___________________ Able to independently fly for extended periods

 

The 'floater' is a relatively dangerous alien that can hover and move through the air, giving this insidious creature a great tactical advantage. It is recommended that all X-Corps agents pay attention to the skies during a confirmed 'floater' sighting.

 

This unusual creature seems to be at least partially an artificial construct. Its reflexes are very quick and it seems to have sharp visual acuity, but only rudimentary senses of touch and taste. The [Floater]’s language consists of a complex mixture of grunts, moans and sub vocal sounds. It shows a good mechanical aptitude, able to quickly disassemble and reassemble simple devices it has, presumably, never been exposed to before. It also showed great interest in the shotgun sub vocal microphone that was used to capture a sample of its speech patterns, as well as the more invasive medical instruments that were used in the physical examination. Condolences should be sent to Dr. Connor’s family.

While it is obvious that the [Floater] could not have evolved naturally into its current state, there are still clues that indicate what the home world of this bizarre alien may have been like. Due to the oversized claws and extended horns and fangs of the [floater] it can be assumed that it was a pronounced predator. The hands are not structured to be used as paws or motive digits, so it can be concluded that the [floater] evolved as a bipedal hunter, probably in a region of low undergrowth, perhaps plains or light forests. Also the lightweight construction of the bones and organs (what few are not replaced by the life support/levitation device) indicates that the home world of this alien had less than Earth standard gravity.

It is unknown whether the cybernetic implant was developed by the [floater] specie or by one of the other species, however, given their natural aptitude with machines, it would not be surprising if this race was cybernetic before its alliance with the other alien races. It may even be possible that the [floater] species is the primary introducer of the advance cybernetics that are used in [reaper]s that have been reported.

While detailed knowledge of the [floater] society is not possible without further advances in communication between our race and theirs, from the battle reports that the [floater]s, while having a definite hierarchy seem to operate fairly independently of each other during a mission. This also lends credence to the theory of their evolution from solitary predators. It appears that most of the [floater]s view their assignments, especially terror and abduction raids, as personal leave to enjoy themselves. They seem to derive great pleasure from using their flying abilities to surprise and terrify their “prey”. [Floater]s will often attempt brute force fusions of handy earth technology with civilians. They seem especially likely to do attempt these horrific experiments on those individuals that appear weakest or that are being obviously protected by others during abductions. While they do not seem interested in the after effects of these mutilations, they do seem to derive great pleasure from the reactions of other captives to these operations.

 

"I.. I never knew.. that an endoscope could be used.. that way." Dr. Connors, upon the unfortunate discovery of the Floater's sadistic tendencies.

floater.rtf

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Good job! :beer:

I don't know how much is there supposed to be text? Has someone ordered a fixed number of words or something? :) This has a lot of irrelevant blaablaa information which is interesting to others and blaablaa for others. Guess it's good to have it though. You can stop reading it if you aren't interested.

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That's looking pretty good, I've updated the list with the text too. One of the things that you might want to change would be the references to abductions/certain mission types, isn't it possible that your first encounter with a floater could be a farm crash site? So you might not have "seen" these behaviors yet. But you could say that as part of a psychological test the floater was shown various images, ranging from fluffy bunnies to -not so nice pictures... The floater seemed much more interested in the latter, even making cooing sounds when looking at the nastiest.

 

I'm not trying to be intentionally nit-picky, sorry if it comes off that way. I just wouldn't assume what the situation was when a live floater was caught, etc.

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The way I had figured it, since Xcorp knows the various actions that the aliens have been attributed with, they would be able to surmise some of the various mission types. But I can change that.

 

You weren't coming off as nit-picky or anything. Sorry if I came across as rough or rude earlier, I had just wrapped up a nasty crisis at work and was still a little worked up.

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Just one:

 

the cybernetic implant was developed by the [floater] specie or by one of the other species

 

 

should that be be "[floater] specieS" ?

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It also showed great interest in the shotgun sub vocal microphone that was used to capture a sample of its speech patterns, as well as the more invasive medical instruments that were used in the physical examination. Condolences should be sent to Dr. Connor’s family.

 

This comes right out of the left field, and leaves the reader wondering what did you mean by that, especially since Dr. Connor is still around to leave a quote at the end of the CT...

 

How about something like:

"It also showed great interest in the shotgun sub vocal microphone that was used to capture a sample of its speech patterns, as well as the more invasive medical instruments that were used in the physical examination. Also, the [Floater] exhibited a sadistic liking in invasive surgery, as evidenced by the unfortunate and brutal death of Dr. Connor."

 

and for the fluffie, just change it to some other scientist and have it be them viewing a video as I doubt the idea that X-Corps personel in a base would not react to a violent attack on a scientist, so we can assume that perhaps Dr. Connor was working with the [Floater] alone at night when that happened.

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I don't know. It didn't flag in my spellcheck so I don't know if it is a real word or not. Would Specie not be the singular os Species? Or would it be Speci? Like Octopus and Octopuses/Octopi.

 

how about just using "...race, or another.".

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According to my dictionary. "Species" is a singular term so that would be the right answer. There's no such word as "specie"
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To clarify, I meant my quote to be a scientist watching the alien use the endoscope. :huh:? :blink:! :o.... :puke:

 

Please don't kill Dr. Connors, he's cool. Kill Dr. Smith, he's been selling out X-Corps secrets for years. Not to mention always trying to kill the Robinson children. <_>

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Ok. I've incorporated the changes that were recommended. Here is the (hopefully) last rewrite.

 

Changes:

 

Dropped unnecessary/irrelevant info listings at the top.

Changed the victim to Dr. Smith

Cleared up a couple syntax issues I found.

reran spellcheck.

Changed specie to species

Dropped specific mention of mission types.

 

The way I had originally seen the quote was as Dr. [Connors] last words. Also clarified the circumstances of the quote.

 

EDIT: forgot to add the file.

floater.rtf

Edited by Anthraxus
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It's looking good. Not too much but definitely enough info.
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I was working on the floater autopsy and came to a question that I didn't have a ready answer for. How could a creature, big and bad predator that it may be, possible stand the trauma have having the majority of its major organs removed and the lower half of its body cut off and replaced with a levitation unit?

 

There are only three solutions that I can think of:

1) Floaters regenerate. This would answer how they lived through it but then you have questions as to why they aren't continually regrowing extraneous organs and limbs.

 

2) The Floaters have an antiseptic, anastetic (pain-killing) bath that they submerge in and the operations happen in this bath where the trauma is lessened.

 

3) Or the Floaters have mastered cryogenics. They sever the head once the baby floater has become full grown and freeze it. They then do what ever they want to the body and simply reattach the head when they are done. This way the brain doesn't have to deal with the shock and trauma, and since the spinal column and most of the rest of the central nervous system is replaced with cybernetic enhancements, it is reattached and is none the wiser.

 

What do you think?

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Thumbs up!! :happybanana:
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oh i didn't see the problems post, I was just looking at the rtf generally.

 

Umm....

 

Well, we're talking about alien psyiology here. Shock and trauma are human reactions to stimuli, but in an alien species this might nessecarily be true. Some aliens might be insenitive to pain and can survive severe trauma to thier bodies (which is why they're so hard to kill). Look at an earthworms or Futurama's Dr Zoidberg.

 

You could just say:

 

"the floater's increadible pysiology allows the being to undergo severe trauma and still survive. Although relatively easy to render "combat inaffective", agents in the field have indicated the floater as being the most likely to still be alive after being incapacitated by a volley of fire:

 

'...the eyes didn't stop following me around for another three minutes, even though the head was in a different corner to the body! It totally freaked me out'

- Cpl. Jones

 

whoever implanted the cybenetic components of the creature must have recognised this increadible constitution before attempting the bizzare operations. Any other alien species would doubtless have died on the table."

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I would like the explanation number 3 but I don't like the idea that it's completely cybernetic except the head <_>
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Actually, I think it would be good if you mention that the cybernetic implants should leave massive trauma, but that the scientist have no idea so far that how do the Floaters survive this trauma...

That would give the player something to think about. I like that idea.

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Yeah, we have no idea how they did it, we just know they did...
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Intergalactic S&M Masters of the Universe!

 

Perhaps an explanation for the lack of pain/liking the pain could be that there appears to be some sort of organ breakdown (this would be for the autopsy report), and the cyborg implants are there to replace what no longer works. Nervous system damage would be evident in the autopsy report later on. Seniority can determine rank to some extent, so the more experienced officers are also experiencing more organ failure and thus more implants. Perhaps the floater could exhibit some sort of skin rashes or something else that would suggest some sort of low-level radiation poisoning, perhaps these guys don't do well in our environment, but they get by with "a little help from their friends"?

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That's not a bad idea. Of course you would really to have multiple autopsys to discover the ranking deterioration. And wouldn't this also mean that somewhere there are "brain in jar" floaters that are all robotic but their minds? I guess they could die before that point.

 

The change in gravity levels would definately have an effect. Maybe continual internal hemmoraging of organs that lead to need replacements. :huh?:

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And wouldn't this also mean that somewhere there are "brain in jar" floaters that are all robotic but their minds?

 

When proceeding down the path of cybernetic modification, a specie will find the brain a undesirable seat for the mind.

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