Author Topic: Is Eden Responsible For The Blight?  (Read 14403 times)

Offline Sirbomber

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Is Eden Responsible For The Blight?
« on: December 01, 2005, 07:55:08 PM »
Is Eden (the colony) responsible for the blight?

I say no. I say its corrupt government and some of its scientists are responsible for the blight. Most of the colony did not know about the microbe, and the only scientist that noticed and warned people about the risks was ignored. The leaders/scientists knew the risks and continued anyway. I doubt that Eden's colonists would have approved if they knew how dangerous the terraformation experiments were, if they knew that the microbe attacked humans, structures, and vehicles. Even some of Eden's most promininent people (Axen) didn't know what was going on, and he continually tried to find out what they were doing and stop it.
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Offline Starfox00000

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Is Eden Responsible For The Blight?
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2005, 08:15:33 PM »
Eden was a republic which means they elected their leaders. The goal of the ENTIRE colony was to terra form the planet. "eden planned to tame its new home to conquer it and terra form it into a new earth using advanced biotechnology" - straigth from the intro. The entire whole of eden knew they were trying to terraform the planet "eden leaders make brave promises" - about terraforming.  It dosent take a big IQ to realise that terraforming a palnet going to be dangerous (advanced labs explode because they do dangerous expirements, and a "hot lab" thats like an advanced advanced lab). Plus they suppiled the people (scientists) and resources. Also, why didn't the scientists say something if it was so dangerous. Im not saying that Eden tried to create the blight on purpose (who would?), but they are resopnsible. Sure there were protesters, but when is anything ever unamious in a big population? Reguardless, Eden is responsible.

Offline Sirbomber

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Is Eden Responsible For The Blight?
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2005, 08:28:13 PM »
Somebody (Eden 1) did say something, and they were ignored. And stop using quotes everyone knows out of context. Where did it ever say the "brave promises" were about terrafroming? In fact, it said that the terraformation project was a secret!

Quote
"Elder, I don't have much time.  I'm setting this message to record and repeat.  Something went wrong with the test well.  I told them the organisms we were using were too dangerous."
...
She continued, either unable to hear him, or unwilling to stop talking.  "It grows too fast, but Nguyen wasn't willing to wait.  'An atmosphere in our lifetime,' he said."  She shook her head as though to clear it.  She brushed her hair out of her face, and he could see that she was trembling.  "Not enough time to explain.  Attacks organics, even protein units in boptronic computers, even the plastics in our environmental seals."

They knew how the blight worked, and as betaray said, "the microbe works by breaking hydrogen and oxygen bonds, if they didnt realise that it would effect people and technology, they shouldnt be scientists."

The Hot Lab exploded because they were screwing around with microbes and playing god.
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Offline CK9

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Is Eden Responsible For The Blight?
« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2006, 12:17:24 AM »
I blame it on human nature.  Humans are the only creatures on Earth that do not adapt to their environment, but instead adapt the environment to them
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Offline lordly_dragon

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Is Eden Responsible For The Blight?
« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2006, 11:02:56 PM »
Quote
I blame it on human nature.  Humans are the only creatures on Earth that do not adapt to their environment, but instead adapt the environment to them
true and thats why we destroy our world... atm

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Offline dm-horus

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Is Eden Responsible For The Blight?
« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2006, 03:26:36 AM »
noooo, dude. i used to be in the biotech field. something "hot" means it contains hazardous, contagious, otherwise virulent, nasty, toxic micro organisms. the modifier "hot" is only applied in two distinct situations in all of science; in reference to radiation and in reference to microbiology. think of the term "hot zone." an area that is contaminated by dangerous organisms. if the everyday eden citizen was calling the advanced lab a "hot lab" they would be aware that genetic, biological work was going on there and that they organisms they were dealing with where highly dangerous. since the colonies consist of either highly skilled workers and scientists, its likely that nearly EVERYONE in eden knew what a "hot lab" reference implied. the exact details and day-to-day going on in the hot lab likely were top secret but im sure that almost everyone in the colony knew some kind of dangerous biological work was going on in the lab. from what i know as a scientist, someone who works with sometimes dangerous organisms and someone who has worked closely with other scientists, i can say that what happened in the hot lab when the microbe escaped is a case of underestimating their subject. the scientists wanted to create something that broke down molecules into their basic components and reformed them into useful material suitible for organic life. what they didnt consider (at least not before it was too late) is that the organism they engineered would also break down already existing complex organic materials. this includes plastics since most polymers are made using complex chains of molecules which are present in organic material. some plastics are organic polymers which are directly derived from micro organisms, so the leap from killing people to breaking down plastic isnt very far. having this ability, the blight broke down any seals that were in its way and eventually ruptured its container, and finally the seals in the lab itself where it escaped onto the surface of new terra. having already made test drills with the blight, it was already spreading through the deeper crust possibly through underground aquifers, less dense rock and materials and following mineral deposits. breaking down all of these things as it progresses. consequently, there are organisms here on earth that do the EXACT same thing as the blight, but more slowly. it is likely the blight is simply an advanced iteration of something similar.

Offline Arklon

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Is Eden Responsible For The Blight?
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2006, 12:51:46 PM »
I wonder why the Blight never popped out of fumaroles in OP2.

Offline dm-horus

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« Reply #7 on: January 15, 2006, 08:18:45 PM »
i dont know. by all rights it should have. fumeroles are basically a direct pipe to either hot rock (deep) or magma (even deeper). right where the blight is most active (earthquakes). Im guessing its just a plot hole nobody wanted to worry about fixing.

Offline Arklon

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Is Eden Responsible For The Blight?
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2006, 09:05:40 PM »
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i dont know. by all rights it should have. fumeroles are basically a direct pipe to either hot rock (deep) or magma (even deeper). right where the blight is most active (earthquakes). Im guessing its just a plot hole nobody wanted to worry about fixing.
And, according to the OP2 novella, the Blight spread extremely fast underground, way faster than on the surface (so they would have to use caution when digging with robo-moles).

Offline CK9

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Is Eden Responsible For The Blight?
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2006, 12:17:38 AM »
is it possible that the temperature differences could have had a hand in preventing it?
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Offline dm-horus

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Is Eden Responsible For The Blight?
« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2006, 06:10:17 AM »
to a point, but the fact that the blight is spreading through deep rock suggests it can survive in extremely high temperatures. remember black smokers on the ocean floor: organisms there can thrive in temperatures far above the boiling point of salt water. dingoflagellates break down rock at every depth humans have been to, so they most likely go much farther down than this. since blight would basically be similar to organisms that live in these two places only on serious steroids, the blight could live in environments we might think organic life cannot survive. the temp difference between 7 miles down and 1 is VERY different. if the blight can survive 1 mile down and 7 miles down, it is obviously not limited to a single temp environment.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2006, 08:32:01 AM by dm-horus »

Offline CK9

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Is Eden Responsible For The Blight?
« Reply #11 on: January 16, 2006, 01:53:22 PM »
Not quite what I ment...

Every living organism is effected by temperature.  The way I was meaning was that, with how much drastically colder it is on the surface, the blight's swarm intelligence brought it to learn that it was better to remain underground where it could spread faster until it had gotten a certain distance away from a point, then keeping the furmols from spewing te blight up.
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Offline Arklon

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Is Eden Responsible For The Blight?
« Reply #12 on: January 16, 2006, 02:43:48 PM »
The blight itself has no intelligence. The blight-infected savant computers do.

Offline CK9

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« Reply #13 on: January 16, 2006, 04:44:10 PM »
Arklon, it's called swarm intelligence.  Swarm intellegance is based on set rules within the genetics of the organism.  This allows stupid creatures to look smart in large groups.  A good example is how Zebras cluster together to confuse a predetor.  All they are doing is following an instinctual rule for the situation: get close to the others.

Now, when I said "blight's swarm intelligence brought it to learn that it was better to remain underground," I mean the set rule for it in the situation is to find the best conditions for thriving.  After a while, the area is too crowded, and thus they would need to start going into the less-ideal layers, and thus the fumeroles would be under the same rules.  The only difference is that, because it is open to the surface, the layers are cooled down, thus the blight would not go up it, the area is less ideal.
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Offline dm-horus

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« Reply #14 on: January 16, 2006, 05:13:23 PM »
i doubt the game makers gave it that much thought. bacteria have NO (zero) intelligence. people often mistake for intelligence is actually a set series of genetically programmed reactions. for example, bacteria know to go dormant when cold weather comes. for someone who didnt know this, theyd see the bacteria going away as the weather got colder and come back as it got warmer. to them, it would seem like the bacteria chose to leave and then come back when in fact it is designed to do this on its own with no thought. bacteria do not react to one another. as far as bacteria is concerned, it is on its own completely. human cells stop dividing when they are touching other cells on all sides, but bacteria (especially engineered ones) do not do this. they eat and divide. thats all. they dont choose when to do so. they do not swarm. the reasons they thrive in one area or another is merely due to environmental variables. as i said earlier, not all crust is the same and the blight could be following less dense minerals in the ground, following veins of salts or it may have a preference to higher temps. keep in mind tho, preference doesnt indicate necessity. even though we might not like water, we can still swim and survive there. we might not like the snow but we still live in it. the blight might not prefer the surface, but they still multiply, but perhaps not as fast. I have the belief that the blight is following some sort of underground aquifer which may or may not be dried up (we can debate what makes up the aquifer later) or is following lava tubes or veins of minerals which it has a particular taste for. I think these things can account for the novellas observation that blight extends beyond its outermost boundary underground. the only creatures with swarm intelligence are higher animals like fish, insects and birds. bacteria cannot have this. the tendancy of bacteria to form into colonies is also not an aspect of intelligence. the organisms simply identify a food source and do not move on because no more is present. if the food runs out, they will remain in the last place food was and will remain in a colony either until they all die or a nearby food source is found (by nearby i mean nearly touching the colony).

one of the most common experiments i did was to culture bacteria. one time we arranged puzzles and even gladiatorial fights between colonies and although sometimes you want to think there is a rudimentary intelligence there, a simple set of genetic commands can do some amazing things without being intelligent. one of my favorites is when myself and the other lab mates cultured our best colonies over about a month. at the end, we took our best cultures and did a plate smear consisting of one persons culture on one side, another persons on the other with a line in between them drawn in sharpie on the underside of the plate. we put them into the incubator and took pictures of them every day. it was interesting to watch them "fight." once the colonies grew enough, they would attack eachother. their method was to grow a long tendril or vein going out of the colony and into the other. all bacteria produce toxins and when under attack, they begin to produce antibacterial toxins. the bacteria in the vein nearest the opposing colony would begin producing toxins to kill the enemy colony. one of the plates showed a vein attacking the other colony, but it had made a vein going around the vein attacking it essentially making a "left hook" sneak attack. while all of us were very impressed (myself most of all), all of this is nothing more than a series of reactions. it does not mean the bacteria decided to retaliate to an attacker to survive. When the bacteria detected substances that it and those of its type werent producing, a gene was triggered telling them to produce toxins. the bacteria were never aware they were under attack. the profile of the toxins they produce simply changed slightly. all they know how to do is eat and divide.

also, i dont remember reading about any blight-infected computers. the blight is supposed to destroy anything even mildly organic and savant computers are not just optronic in construction. In the game, ALL buildings and units go offline. This should apply to savant computers as well.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2006, 05:18:31 PM by dm-horus »

Offline CK9

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« Reply #15 on: January 16, 2006, 05:46:11 PM »
Quote
bacteria have NO (zero) intelligence. people often mistake for intelligence is actually a set series of genetically programmed reactions. for example, bacteria know to go dormant when cold weather comes. for someone who didnt know this, theyd see the bacteria going away as the weather got colder and come back as it got warmer. to them, it would seem like the bacteria chose to leave and then come back when in fact it is designed to do this on its own with no thought. bacteria do not react to one another. as far as bacteria is concerned, it is on its own completely. human cells stop dividing when they are touching other cells on all sides, but bacteria (especially engineered ones) do not do this. they eat and divide. thats all. they dont choose when to do so. they do not swarm.

Basically the same thing I said.  Swarm intelligence is just the name for it, not an implication that the organisms are swarming.
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Offline Arklon

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« Reply #16 on: January 16, 2006, 06:01:15 PM »
Quote
also, i dont remember reading about any blight-infected computers. the blight is supposed to destroy anything even mildly organic and savant computers are not just optronic in construction. In the game, ALL buildings and units go offline. This should apply to savant computers as well.
The infected laser lynxes worked in campaign mission 4 (either colony), just their protein-based friendly or foe indicators were contaminated. The savants use proteins and other organic compounds for computing, and savants are learning computers. At the end of the Plymouth novella, savant Frost gets launched back to the blight-infected surface of New Terra to become one with the blight.

Offline dm-horus

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« Reply #17 on: January 16, 2006, 06:33:59 PM »
i doubt the meaning of "becoming one with the blight" meant to actually merge. it was an analogy for death. when we die and get buried we dont become "one" with the earth but in a sense we do. i think that was the spirit of the phrase and shouldnt be taken literally.

the phrase swarm intelligence has two things in it:
swarm
intelligence

you said yourself theyre not swarming and arent intelligent. its a learning experience, dude.

Offline CK9

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« Reply #18 on: January 16, 2006, 09:13:38 PM »
Okay, I'll explain the concept ONE LAST TIME.  Let's see if I can quote you a couple of places so that you understand it better...

"people often mistake for intelligence is actually a set series of genetically programmed reactions. for example, bacteria know to go dormant when cold weather comes."

now, to add in multiple things of the same type.  The best example I can come up with at the moment is ducks flying south.  The formation they use reduces air resistance the further back in it you go.  This is quite simply due to the genetic programming of 'stay close to the duck in front of you without running into it' and 'be able to see where you are going'

This is known as swarm intelligence.  We all know ducks don't swarm, and they aren't very smart either.  If I remember correctly, the name is what it is, because it was first studied in bee swarms.
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Offline dm-horus

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« Reply #19 on: January 18, 2006, 03:54:57 AM »
i didnt explain myself, sorry. your logic is right, but the terminology is wrong. thats what i was meaning to say. the wording you used suggested you meant that the blight WAS intelligent and i was calling you on it. im not trying to be a perfectionist but it seemed like a pretty big discrepancy to me. if you told someone youre bringing over a cake but bring a pie instead, your friend wont accept one over the other just because theyre both baked in an oven and are cut into slices when eaten. the wording gets the idea across if someone read every post in this thread, but to someone just reading your post mentioning swarm intelligence would think that you and i think that the blight can think, and i didnt want ppl to assume this.

Offline CK9

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« Reply #20 on: January 18, 2006, 10:04:50 AM »
Would it help your mind relax if I put ' ' around it?  Swarm Intelligence is the name of it, it is not ment to imply swarming or intelligence, but rather that, in large groups, stupid organism will do things that appear intelligent.  Now, can we get off this MINOR detail and back on topic please?
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