Organic ships

Blaster

Blaster

Rear Admiral
The enemy ships in prophecy are described as being organic and a lot of people seem to assume this means that the bugs are flying around in living ships, but, as some people have pointed out, something can be organic without being alive. Is there any evidence, either way, on whether or not the alien ships are living?
 
The ships seem to have no life or ability to act without their pilots. Organic does not mean that they are alive WHEN THEY ARE FLYING. After all, wood is normally considered organic--so if the ships hulls are carved out of a material similar to wood or chitin (the shell material of arthropods) or mother-of-pearl, then that would count as organic as well. The ships need not be organisms in and of themselves--they only need to be made from biological materials instead of minerals or synthetics.
 
The other point - the fact that they ar living, doesnt mean they are sentient beeings. I never hear of horses going to war without the riders :D also, remoras almost certainly dont have pilots. The one point is that the inside of the gates tower, does look like a stomach :D

o and BTW any substance based on coal chains is considered organic including polymers
 
Secret Ops *really* gave the impression that if the alien ships are not alive, then they are certainly inhabited by living things.

"Spyder: [...] Intel believes that the disease is only related to alien cap vessels that are dead. The organic make-up of the alien hull begins to decay once the main power plant is shut down. This decay is the birth-place of the disease. Micro-organisms from within the structure begin to eat the ship’s armor."

the microbes that cause the skin rash apparently live within the hull of alien capships, which really strongly suggests that at least the capships are made of some kind of living tissue. The capships may not be animals but they do seem to be biomechanical.
 
The quote from secret ops definitely seems to suggest that at least part of the ships are made out of living material. At the very least the hull needs energy from the reactor to keep from decaying.

Another question, are the Micro-organisms something the bugs put in their ships on purpose to infect anyone who tries to salvage them, or is that an unintended side effect?


Mancubus said:
I never hear of horses going to war without the riders :D
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That’s because you’ve never heard of those, secret, black ops horses.;)
 
ok maybie i misused sentient (my bad english) i meant like animals (perhaps primitive) rather then intelligent species like human, cats or bugs, like ships of yuzan vong from new jedi order books

Edit The word i was looking for was self-concious
 
Oh and one mmore theroy. perhaps the ships resemble coral reefs - they are built by the micorobs, witch are somehow fed by power. While the power shut off, the microbes begin too eat their exoskeletons, wich form a ship, in the same way that we burn our own fat. And the dsease is just a side effect.

Just a speculation, but i quite like it, what do you think?
 
Mancubus said:
ok maybie i misused sentient (my bad english) i meant like animals (perhaps primitive) rather then intelligent species like human, cats or bugs, like ships of yuzan vong from new jedi order books

Edit The word i was looking for was self-concious
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"Sapient" also works.

Don't feel bad about the "sentient" thing, though. Even some SF writers that deal with non-human intelligent species tend to get that wrong. :)
 
It only states that it eats the capship's armor. It could be that the armor is biological, but at a very basic level, so that way over extended periods of time it can repair itself.
 
Lt.Overload said:
The caps are totally living things, thet were grown like plants, coral, etc.
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We don't know that. We know they use some kind of bioarmor and some level of organics for their ships.

We have mentions of things like Reefs, but we don't know what they are exactly and what they do.
 
I think it's covered in armor... But under the armor is all living tissue. Then when it's destroyed the tissue decays and bactierca causes the known desise in SO.
 
Here are some comments from Syd Mead's book about the ships: https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/3772 Specifically, he refers to them as being bio-mechanical... which is a lot stronger than just 'organic.'

But to echo what everyone else is saying: if they didn't intend for the ships to be living' in Wing Commander Prophecy, they certainly have since... both Secret Ops and Star*Soldier have strong indications that 'organic' means alive-ish.
 
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Bandit LOAF said:
Here are some comments from Syd Mead's book about the ships: https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/3772 Specifically, he refers to them as being bio-mechanical... which is a lot stronger than just 'organic.'

But to echo what everyone else is saying: if they didn't intend for the ships to be living' in Wing Commander Prophecy, they certainly have since... both Secret Ops and Star*Soldier have strong indications that 'organic' means alive-ish.
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It could be the Nephilim ships and their pilots are symbiotic in some sense... Either that, or the ships grow like Coral and go extremely hard when harvested and "dried" off the reef like a big armor shell that they outfit afterwards. The way snails carry their shells around might not be a bad analogy either... Also I believe most crustaceans like shrimp, crab, and lobsters molt as well.
 
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It could be the Nephilim ships and their pilots are symbiotic in some sense...
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I think symbiosis is a given when you're talking about a sapient creature controlling an organic machine... but not in the common sense. It's commensalism at best -- the Nephilim pilot is in the drivers seat and the fighter is following his instructions. Remember that we actually have a little bit of background on how the bugs control their fighters, generating electricity or other energy through claw inputs to give orders directly to the ship.

(Another note from the ICIS manual, on what the Nephilim ships are made of: the recovered artifact was a solid crystalline matrix composed of silicon and other trace elements. It's also described as a "complex polymer chain." It's been a long time since organic chemistry, but my understanding is that that just indicates what we already know - that it's organic but not necessarily living.)
 
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