Blue Darrians

[rancke]

Imaginary and fantasy are one and the same, Traveller per se is not literature, so it does not fall under the title of speculative fiction.

Yes, it does. Check out the article on Fantasy on Wikipedia. The genre covers a multitude of media, RPGs among them.

No, that is incorrect. From the wiki article posted:

The hemocyanin found in Concholepas concholepas blood has immunotherapeutic effects against bladder and prostate cancer. In a research made in 2006 mice were primed with C. concholepas before implantation of bladder tumor (MBT-2) cells. Mice treated with C. concholepas showed significant antitumor effects: prolonged survival, decreased tumor growth and incidence, and lack of toxic effects.[5]

What's the difference between a drug and a toxin? Dosage. Quinine has beneficial effects on Malaria patients, but it's still not a good idea to replace all the blood with Indian Tonic water. I'm confident that "treated with C. concholepas" does not mean "had all blood replaced with C. concholepas blood".

In a literal sense, yes, science fiction is fantasy; however as a genre of literature you are correct in the definitions, but Traveller is not literature, it is an RPG based on science fiction.

No, in a literal sense science fiction is not fantasy. They are two distinct genres characterized by different tropes. And the same genres are, unsurprisingly, found in RPGs.

Every cell of the body would need to be radically different to work with hemocyanin instead of hemoglobin.

How do you know this? It would be my pleasure to read the source, it has been quite interesting reading about hemocyanin as is.

Because the chemistry would be different. To quote the wikipedia article: "Although the respiratory function of hemocyanin is similar to that of hemoglobin, there are a significant number of differences in its molecular structure and mechanism" (Emphasis mine). Unless you can find me a quote about an organism that has had its blood replaced by hemocyanin-based blood and continued to function, I will continue to regard this notion as pure unadulterated gibberish. I really don't feel the need to prove that you can't replace ordinary blood with crustacean blood and expect anything other than a rapid and messy cessation of all life functions.

No, not at all, as a matter of fact emigration would be the last act of desperation, because they would be abandoning their property, wealth and power that they had built up.

It looks like we shall have to agree to disagree on this one. If you really feel that restructuring one's genetic makeup to cut oneself off from almost every other member of one's species is preferrable to emigrating to a world that supports human life without such drastic measures, then all I can say is that I disagree with you.

No, with their domes failing, their homes would be abandoning them as it were, but there is no reason to say they would be unable to survive in their old enviornment, maybe just uncomfortable in the same way Sherpas are at lower altitudes.

In their old environment their new blood would be only one fourth as efficient as their old blood. Since the reason you gave for doing the switch was to get blood that was more efficient, this means that they would have to go live where this was, in fact, the case. [Note: This argument is not to be taken as evidence that I believe such a switch would be feasible in the first place.]

From the wiki article:

Species using hemocyanin for oxygen transportation are commonly crustaceans living in cold environments with low oxygen pressure. Under these circumstances hemoglobin oxygen transportation is less efficient than hemocyanin oxygen transportation.

'These circumstances' being cold environments with low oxygen pressure. In other words, places where humans can't survive. And the very next line says, "Most hemocyanins bind with oxygen non-cooperatively and are roughly one-fourth as efficient as hemoglobin at transporting oxygen per amount of blood."

Having the hemocyanin would give one an edge over an unaltered human, esp if you retreated underground where there would be higher temps and oxygen pressure.

No, it gives an edge if and only if living in conditions of extreme cold and low oxygen pressure.

No, not the horseshoe crab's, its hill coeficient is as high as hemoglobin; though I've been writing of neo-hemocyanin for quite a few posts, it's even better. It's irrational to believe they would chose the worse hemocyanin over the better.

Why do you think most organisms on Earth use hemoglobin instead of hemocyanin or neo-hemocyanin? That's because that unless you live in the kind of environment those crustaceans thrive under, hemoglobin is superior.

But this whole line of argument is moot, because it presupposes that you can just substitute blood based on one set of chemical reactions with blood based on a different set of chemical reactions.

You are mixing individuals with nations and I don't think any nation is without violence, humans are humans, and we are violent, very much so.

Denmark hasn't fought a war in two generations now, and we're not feeling the urge to do so. And it's been 145 years since we started one.

No one is talking parallel evolution here. The postulate is that everybody is descended from the same ancestral species (Homo sapiens antiquus and that those human races who remain Homo sapiens do so because they have not diverged enough to be a different species. All perfectly scientifically sound.

No it is contrary to science (and exactly the concept of parallel human evolution); only one group of hominids evolves to be modern Humans, all others go extinct.

This is a logical fallacy called the Converse accident.

You're arguing that because here on Earth Homo sapiens wiped out all other hominids, it is a law of nature that only one species of every genus will survive the evolutionary process, which is obviously not true. I'm also puzzled as to how you imagine Homo sapiens sapiens on Earth would be able to wipe out Homo sapiens darrianus on Darrian.


Hans

 

[Ishmael]

'These circumstances' being cold environments with low oxygen pressure. In other words, places where humans can't survive. And the very next line says, "Most hemocyanins bind with oxygen non-cooperatively and are roughly one-fourth as efficient as hemoglobin at transporting oxygen per amount of blood."

No, it gives an edge if and only if living in conditions of extreme cold and low oxygen pressure.

Why do you think most organisms on Earth use hemoglobin instead of hemocyanin or neo-hemocyanin? That's because that unless you live in the kind of environment those crustaceans thrive under, hemoglobin is superior.

While I have no interest in arguing about Darrians and the OTU, I thought this bit of info would be of interest as it might be useful for making an alien race/sub-race that can exist in an oxygen atmosphere and be biologically compatible enough to eat the same foods. Please note what I italicized. Besides, a tech-1 race of architeuthis-like beings might be neat.

Because of the large size of hemocyanin, it is
usually found free-floating in the blood, unlike hemoglobin, which
must be contained in cells because its small size would lead it to
clog and damage blood-filtering organs such as the kidneys. This free-floating nature can allow for
increased hemocyanin density over hemoglobin and increased oxygen
carrying capacity. On the other hand, free-floating hemocyanin can
increase viscosity and increase the energy expenditure needed to
pump blood.

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Hemocyanin

 

[Whipsnade]

Dragoner,

When you find yourself in a hole it is always best to put down the shovel.

Over the last few pages you've slowly gone from responding to Hans' actual comments to responding to what you think are Hans' comments. That's always a sure sign of one's emotions beginning to overwhelm one's objectivity. I know that because it happens to me too often.

Do your twee Space Drow work in your Traveller universe? Are they and the circumstance that led to their creation both plausible and logical in your Traveller universe? Naturally the answer to both those questions is Yes.

However, simply because they work IYTU and seem plausible to you, it does not automatically follow that these Blue Darrians work in the OTU and are plausible to others.

No one is suggesting that the Blue Darrians are "wrong" for your game or the games of others. All that we are saying is that the Blue Darrians are wrong for the OTU.

Let's clear up a few continuing misconceptions you're continuing to labor under:

- In Traveller - and not in actuality - Homo sapiens arose 300,000 years ago.
- In Traveller, the 46 some odd human minor races all continued to evolve and/or were geneered by the Ancients on their scattered homeworlds after being removed from Earth. This post-removal evolution and/or geneering means that different human minor raced have different levels of interfertility with the Solomani.
- "Geneering" is a common sci-fi term. Hans neither made it up and it is not particular to Traveller.
- Mire is an "underground world" for esthetic reasons and not because Darrians perfer to live in that manner. The world's surface is reserved for both nature reserves and agriculture.

I'm going to leave all your ideas about hemocyanin, the desirability of drastically geneering one's offspring, and the rest alone because those conclusions are yours to make. I will point out however that your conclusions do not fit the OTU by any stretch of the imagination.

In the end, your game is yours to play as you see fit. The Blue Darrians work for you and that is all that matters. The fact that they do not work for others and do not work in the OTU is of no consequence.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Dragoner]

If this is getting too upseting to you guys, I'll stop. meh I was just having fun myself.

:devil:

 

[rancke]

If this is getting too upseting to you guys, I'll stop.

I wasn't getting upset. I had noticed that the discussion had reached a point where I would be able to respond by cutting and pasting from past posts, which is usually the place I begin to consider dropping out.

Not that I'm dissatisfied. I got some good ideas for the history of Entrope. And I might even be able to come up with a viable version of those Blue Darrians :devil:.


Hans

 

[Dragoner]

Stiring things up a bit is good IMO, though I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings, that is not what I am trying to do. Yes, I could say the same about repeating myself, it does get tiresome. Personally I just think, that certain viewpoints between us are opposite, a basic weltanschauung as it were.

A back story on the creation of the Blue Darrians which I've been mulling over for the past few days is that when the Darrian colonists rescued the criminals from Torment, among them was a mad scientist type, the rogue genetic engineer. Someone who had been shipped to Torment precisely because of bizzare experiments on humans, and he had a lab ship hidden which the authorities never found. The chaos of the Maghiz opened this up to the possibility of him enacting the progression of his work. He worked his evil scheme on the leaders of the Blue Darrians original dome, for they were naturally reticent to abandon all their work that they had done up to this time. Using the desperation of the chaos the Leaders of the Domed City used this as an excuse to enact an authoritarian regime, creating a police state. This was not seen as evil by the other Cities of Entrope at first, but later as people began to disappear suspicions were raised. They gave him license to create this neo-hemcyanin, which was done by the creation of a hybrid hemoglobin-hemocyanin compound, but using human subjects against their will, many died in extreme angony before the process was perfected. This was done in secret at first and when some of the original ruling junta found out they objected, but by this time it was too late, the other leaders moved against them and using the first of the secret Blue Darrians as shocktroops, they eliminated those that objected in one night.


The first Blue Darrians were created in secrecy, some born of it and others voluntarily going through the process. Eventually though many were forcibly put through the conversion, in this time a leader arose amongst the Blue Darrians who overthrew the ruling junta, supposedly creating a "new way", as by now the Blue Darrians had a strong supremacist ideology. Thus in this way a new "war state" was created and the rogue geneticist had his revenge. However the geneticist was not only honored as the father of the Blue Darrians but feared as well by the Leader. Thus the geneticist was drugged and locked away, only brought out to wave and smile on official occasions. This war state was economically unviable though, and the Leader sought a way to distract the people from their declining standards of living. So he proclaimed that the other two domed cities had been plotting against them, and used this excuse to start what he represented as a defensive war against them.


Aggressive as the Blue Darrians had become, they had not become more intelligent, moreso the Leader was afraid of rivals arrising from his own confederates, so he gave no distinct chain of command, doling out titles and responsibilities as he saw fit. This kept them disorganized in many ways and all responsible to the Leader, but these inefficiencies became their doom. They were defeated by the other Domes, and the Leader was killed, but the various seperate organizations and their individual heads often did survive. They fled away or underground, this laying the groundwork for their fractured existence today, only meeting and cooperating when the need arises, but working against one group becoming too strong.


Today the Blue Darrians are a dying breed and while still have some of their aggressive philosophy, they are cowards and have become accustomed to running. They do know this, ultimately the experiment was unsuccessful, but they still harbor a desire for revenge against their kin. "From hells heart I stab at thee" has become their unofficial motto and it would be devestaing if the Blue Darrians ever were to get a hold of the secret to the Star Trigger. Though for now they barely sustain themselves as pirates, stealing what they need and using the crews as slave labor (their birthrate is low, barely replacement level), or serving as forward observation points and spies/sabotuers for the Zhodani, Sword Worlds and Vargr.

 

[rancke]

Here you go. My version of the Blue Darrians:

Blue Darrian: A member of a mythical offshoot of the Darrians, usually described as completely antithetical to ordinary Darrians. Also referred to as Anti-Darrians, Nega-Darrians, Bizzarrians, and Drowarrians.

The myth originated on post-Maghiz Entrope as a childrens' horror story. The Blue Darrians were supposedly former inhabitants of Ldenilenyibh, a residental dome that had been shut down in -887 and cannibalized for spare parts to keep the other domes in repair. The conceit was that these inhabitants had refused to be evacuated and fled into the wilderness where they nursed their hatred of the despoilers of their dome and plotted revenge. To survive the deadly cold and inadequate oxygen pressure, they had replaced their own blood with a super-scientific hemocyanin-based synthetic blood; it was this blood that gave them their eerie blue color. At first Blue Darrians were the subject of scary campfire stories, but they soon became popular for masquerade costumes and as media villains.

When Entrope came back into contact with the other Darrian worlds, the story of the Blue Darrians spread. They now acquired a fleet of Old Darrian ships, complete with cloaking and teleportation devices and planned to conquer and take over whichever world the story was set on. They also began to kidnap children, spouses, and lovers of protagonists and turning them into Blue Darrians to bolster their numbers. The process was, naturally, irreversable except with the help of a serum stored in their secret base. Blue Darrian spies disguised themselves to look like ordinary Darrians by the use of skin dyes, or they had their blood replaced with natural blood, leaving them impossible to identify by any scientific means, thus making it necessary for the protagonist to identify them using only pure deductive logic.

Blue Darrian villains have appeared in a number of literary works, including Aneres Behlene Zgenik's classic thriller "Blue Murder" and Ryihlayr Nyonolz Pehneh's famous juvenile adventure story "Zgoter and Co."
​

Note: I know, I know, Entropan youth camps are unlikely to have campfires, but they will still have late-night scary story sessions. Can anyone think of another term for 'campfire story'?


Hans

 

[Andrew M]

Note: I know, I know, Entropan youth camps are unlikely to have campfires, but they will still have late-night scary story sessions. Can anyone think of another term for 'campfire story'?

Nice story. Not only will they have campfires, their version of a campfire will be skillfully crafted into the shape of a woggle.

Now that it's fair game to muddy the waters, this is my version.

The blue Darrians are really more of Solomani stock. Their ancestors used genetic engineering to give their children Darrian like features, to gain a social advantage. Consequently, when the disaster happened the geneering route to survival was a natural next step. The result were mixed and often horrific. Most Blue Darrians actually have more hemoglobin than neo-hemocyanin. They then started geneering again for social advantage. Most have blue tinted skin. Many have gene-mod blue skin. The aristocracy actually have blue/black protruding veins, making them look like Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars.

Also, male Blue Darrians have responded much worse to the treatment. None have ever survived puberty, although they are fertile for a very short period of time. This makes their mothers very sad . If you ever meet a Blue Darrian you should make it a point to sympathise with her plight while she lasers you in the throat. Strangely enough, when they pick out captives to mate with they always seem to go for sickly adolescent boys.​

All these (mine and Hans'), will make it into the rumours section, I am sure.

If I am right about where Dragoneer is going with the starfleet, this will be very fine too, but deserves to stay secret. Having made one psychic spoiler I am reluctant to comit another.

 

[mike wightman]

So darrians aren't space elves?

Check out the picture on page 13 of the latest mongoose signs and portents:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/sp74.pdf

I think mongoose may well be very interested in blue darrians...

 

[aramis]

So darrians aren't space elves?

Check out the picture on page 13 of the latest mongoose signs and portents:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/sp74.pdf

I think mongoose may well be very interested in blue darrians...

Possibly because they would tick off the canonistas.

 

[rancke]

So darrians aren't space elves?

Check out the picture on page 13 of the latest mongoose signs and portents:

It's someone with pointed ears. The important question is, how are they described?

I think mongoose may well be very interested in blue darrians...

I wouldn't be at all surprised.


Hans

 

[Dragoner]

So darrians aren't space elves?

Check out the picture on page 13 of the latest mongoose signs and portents:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/sp74.pdf

I think mongoose may well be very interested in blue darrians...

I'd work with them if they wanted, I have all sorts of adventures in mind.

Here is the cover for a adventure called "Entropic Corrosion" that I did:

 

[Dragoner]

Anybody care to proofread my Entropic Darrians pdf would be most welcome, I will post it in the file library as well, a Christmas gift to the Traveller world.

edit: reformatted a bit, moved the story from the end to the beginning and the picture in the front to the end.

 

[Dragoner]

The secret of Blue Darrians at last:

http://gma.yahoo.com/fugates-kentucky-skin-bluer-lake-louise-200247843--abc-news.html

The most detailed account, "Blue People of Troublesome Creek," was published in 1982 by the University of Indiana's Cathy Trost, who described Benjy's skin as "almost purple."

But at levels of between 10 and 20 percent a person can develop blue skin without any other symptoms.

 

[rancke]

The secret of Blue Darrians at last:

http://gma.yahoo.com/fugates-kentucky-skin-bluer-lake-louise-200247843--abc-news.html

The most detailed account, "Blue People of Troublesome Creek," was published in 1982 by the University of Indiana's Cathy Trost, who described Benjy's skin as "almost purple."

But at levels of between 10 and 20 percent a person can develop blue skin without any other symptoms.

Nothing new there. The Blue People of Troublesome Creek were brought up a good way back in the discussion.


Hans

 

[Dragoner]

Nothing new there. The Blue People of Troublesome Creek were brought up a good way back in the discussion.


Hans

It is a new article.

 

[Hyphen]

Actually, Dragoner is quite right and I was wrong. The original Drow were black. I don't know if any subsequent Drow-copies may have been blue, but if they were, I don't think I ever read about them. My memory played a trick on me.


Hans


PS: Irrelevant bit of trivia: The four original human races in my fantasy world were Milk white, tomato red, canary yellow, and sky blue (And placed equidistantly from each other on the world by the gods). Eventually the red and white race mixed to produce pinkish, the red and yellow faded, the white turned greyish, and the blue turned blackish.

Ach, I can see the novella coming out now: "50 Shades of Grey Elf".

<runs>