 February 9, 2015 - 4:26am | I've been thinking about the sathar habit of tubing brains to operate a facility and or ships but what about fighter craft? We have to ask why and for what purpose they would do this. There has been no indication that they tube a significant number of brains but there is probably no reason why they cant. NOTE: I know that this is the story in the new BSG but I wasn't coming at it from that direction. So I would propose that they developed a fighter that was smaller, faster and consequently more fragile than standard star fighters. Lets say its armed with laser pods and is 1ADF faster than a std fighter but with a hull point reduction and a DCR reduction. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 9, 2015 - 6:33pm | It's an idea I have thought of as well, but I wasn't stopping at just fighters. I considered the Sathar would be doing this with tanks and possibly robots as well. I just considered the Sathar form doesn't lend itself to the use of powered armor very well, much like a Dralasite. So instead a Sathar brain or slave brain placed inside said robot suit for that purpose. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
February 9, 2015 - 8:10pm | I think that its largely a sathar clan thing- a clan focuses on a direction and when the tech of that direction is proved valuable then its exported to other clans. there is also the article on Von Neuman machines (Polyhedron or Ares ? I can t remember) what if the factor that churns out tanks is run by the sathar brain? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 9, 2015 - 8:58pm | It's a good plot hook, knowing the Sathar's heavy use of tech for many things. I'd like to see the article on this, using just the tech we have now. I can just see the Sathar going wild with stuff like this, a Sathar command drone to command troop units around. Linked right to a mid or high class Sathar officer. It's right up their alley as something the Sathar would do. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
 February 9, 2015 - 9:09pm | Besides the brain in the artifact on Volturnus (which my kids just blew up) is there another instance in any of the other material of this practice. I'm racking my brain and not recalling any but that may just be old age setting in. If not, you could also argue the other way. That brain is 900 years old. Maybe it was something that was done but has fallen out of practice in the intervening centuries for one reason or another. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 February 9, 2015 - 11:31pm | I'm using the Sathar brain concept here in my current kids campaign. http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/8493 The Sathar in this adventure brained himself as a survival measure. I imagine some Sathar view being brained as a form of imortality. Burbal is actually doing some secret stuff for government types. The brain is a means to accomplish these efforts. Next up is getting into a Sathar listening post. But first he has to get this brain drugged up so he can use it and not keep it on ice all the time. This means he needs some drugs that supossidly don't exist. The players need to heist said drugs from a megacorp lab that shouldn't be. -iggy |
 February 10, 2015 - 4:22am | OK apparently I was the only one to see the BSG episode about Scar the Cylon fighter who was the bane of Starbuck's existence. As explained in the episode the Cylon fighters were also recycled Cylons or Cylon brains inside fighter craft. The reason they did this was simple training and experience. Both are the most expensive parts of any military since both cost alot in either money or lives. Wonder if anyone has thought to try the Cylon reincarnation device with Sathar brains? Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
February 10, 2015 - 12:14pm | OK apparently I was the only one to see the BSG episode about Scar the Cylon fighter who was the bane of Starbuck's existence. As explained in the episode the Cylon fighters were also recycled Cylons or Cylon brains inside fighter craft. The reason they did this was simple training and experience. Both are the most expensive parts of any military since both cost alot in either money or lives. Wonder if anyone has thought to try the Cylon reincarnation device with Sathar brains? I saw the BSG episode and remembered Scar. And would love to run a BSG campaign based out of the Frontier as i think that would be fun. I believe that the Volturnus Campaign is the only example of a tubed brain. Thus you could go both ways: tubing is rare or tubing is not rare amongst the sathar. I like the tack that each clan has gone in a particular direction with a tech focus- thus tubing can be rare if the sathar clan in ascendance does not use it or common if it does. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 10, 2015 - 5:28pm | Well the key to remember about any brain is proper stimulation. A human being in solitary confinement will go insane so we can guess a brain locked in a case will go insane if not given enough stimuli to keep it occupied. Also as pointed out by the first Robocop movies the individual who is locked in the brain case must have a Batman sized sense of duty so that it will remained focused despite the changes in the input devices. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
February 10, 2015 - 10:22pm | Given that sathar brains are like human brains. Maybe sathar brains are not like human brains and life in a jar is quite tolerable. -iggy |
February 11, 2015 - 12:00am | Well one way that sathar brains are not like human brains is that they are not encased in a skull. In fact removal from the body aught to be a fairly straight forward surgery. And then there is the sathar hypnotism ability which seems to be tied to their speach. Is there a psychic element to it? does freeing their brain from the body give them a greater sense of freedom? Does it it increase their ability to sense the environment? No doubt there is a very grisley sathar lab someplace where curious sathar have taken prisoners of the core four and experimented on them- tubing their brains. Dralasites would have had such prominse and humans & yazirians would have presented a challenge due to their boney skulls. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 11, 2015 - 4:20am | Does beg the question where is a Dralasite's brain? Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
February 11, 2015 - 4:41am | Considering a Dralasite physical make up, it would be their nuclei rather than a brain. As I understand the source it also has multipule small hearts around it, so all contained together. That would make it really more complex, because your not just tubing a Dralasite's brain but all it's hearts as well. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
February 11, 2015 - 5:43am | I always assumed that their brain was in the center of mass. It sort of begs the question of would a dralasite wear a helmet? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 11, 2015 - 10:22am | Dralasite body armor almost contradicts Dralasite physiology because they are so fluid that any rigid system of protection would probably make them feel constrained. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
February 11, 2015 - 10:46am | I've always wondered how a dralasite flattens out given the size of it's nucleus / brain in the AD drawing. Maybe it is not as dense as a human brain and can withstand deformation. As for tubing a dral, I'd think the many small hearts would be replaced with external pumps and tubes into the jar direct to the arteries the hearts were feeding. -iggy |
February 11, 2015 - 2:35pm | I am now envisioning a Dralasite character named Flubber, which given their sense of humor would be appropreate. I'd agree iggy, no need to tube a Dralasites entire nucleus/brain and hearts. You know if you campaigned any games where the tubed Sathar was taken intact, maybe the brain killed itself. But the tech could also be examined and now the UPF has it and can do like wise. Now this makes full cyborg characters possible, General Grievous like chareacters. Or even Bolo tanks in games. Maybe even a plot hook where the super rich do this to their brains while thye secretly wait for new cloned bodies. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
February 11, 2015 - 5:26pm | Cue Anne McCaffery and "The Ship Who Sang" I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 11, 2015 - 7:39pm | There is another approach which might work. Instead of one brain there could be many. Each would have specific functions and possibly some overlap for redundency. this could really be interesting in a few aspects. Of course a fun switch could be a reversing. Let's say a being is bad but instead of being sent to jail they are encased in a brain tank. But they can get bank in their body after they complete their sentence.
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 February 27, 2015 - 10:27am | They may still prefer that to the holes being poked in their fluid bodies by the bullets. Dralasite body armor almost contradicts Dralasite physiology because they are so fluid that any rigid system of protection would probably make them feel constrained.
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 February 27, 2015 - 4:35pm | My SFU doesn't have "manned" fighters since "realistically" a biological being would be squished by the G forces. (Ironically the "best" biological race for use as fighter pilots would be the Dralasite due to their body make up but I decided to avoid the whole issue :) ) Federation uses "Tactically Autonomous Robotic Platforms" (TARPs) using "artificially sentient" positronic (I have two levels of "robots" computer based "robots" and positronic based 'droids) brains which "learn" from experiance as most sentients do. The Sathar use "tubed" brains, their own and of other species to run their fighters. This also effected my "Volturnus" campaign as the three species "uplifted" by the Erona were originally extensions of a bioweapons program that after the defeat they were no longer in the position to carry out. In my SFU the "new" Erona are quite bit more militant as well as xenophobic regulating contact with the Federation and other than some of the uplifts that were transplanted to the Federation enclave of Anchor (which in my SFU is not on Volturnus) most were repurposed as brain units for automated fighting platforms by the Erona. It kindof ties into my take on the Zurraquor whom I have as a self-biologically engineered species. Randy |
February 27, 2015 - 9:15pm | Of all the life the Eorna uplifted, why they didn't do this for the Yernoids I can't figure. You think it would have looked natural seeing them as a primative Eorna like lifeform. Thinking if you've gone that far with the Sathar using tubed brains that much. Why not even have a tubed brain directly run some of the more important weapons? The Cybodragons, or maybe those could have been already done like that. They acted very much like the slavebots. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
February 28, 2015 - 5:59pm | Of all the life the Eorna uplifted, why they didn't do this for the Yernoids I can't figure. You think it would have looked natural seeing them as a primative Eorna like lifeform. Off hand I'd say they didn't BECAUSE they were to "Eorna" like :) Specifically fits with them being intended as weapons and not really "uplifts" until later... Or that's my take anyway. Thinking if you've gone that far with the Sathar using tubed brains that much. Why not even have a tubed brain directly run some of the more important weapons? The Cybodragons, or maybe those could have been already done like that. They acted very much like the slavebots.
The thing with the Sathar was they had a really scatter-gun operation on many levels with cyborg-bioengineered-slave aspects at seeming random. That's part of the way they were coopted as the villians, the writing styles and the number of other factors along the way the game was made but on the other hand it "fits" rather well with multiple clans viying for power and what seemed (to me at least) as a species that was using found rather than developed technologies. Randy |
