Yes, it's a genetic modification to make them more resistant to cold and low oxygen pressure.
What's the deal with blue Darrians?
- Thread starter alveric
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Yes, it's a genetic modification to make them more resistant to cold and low oxygen pressure.
lol did they ever explain why vulcan blood was green?Kind of like Prestone antifreeze
mbrinkhues
SOC-14 1K
Too much vegetables in the food, not enough meat, also visible in the scrawny figures and dour faces. But it's only a male thing, the females are better fed
I like. :devil:
copper based hemoglobin analogue.
More treknobabble ... no more scientifically legit than Traveller technobabble.
Dragoner, calling on Trek as precedence, you can promote your Blue Darrians for at least 30 years without really have to explain the blue blood and skin. Have fun with it.
Dragoner, calling on Trek as precedence, you can promote your Blue Darrians for at least 30 years without really have to explain the blue blood and skin. Have fun with it.
Except that, in the case of hemoglobin analogues, there are several different ones present in earth life... including a copper based one, hemocyanin, which, whilst not green in the oxygenated state, is well documented. (It's blue when oxygenated.) It also is used as a cancer treatment.
Yes, well, that's why I wondered about the blue hemoglobin in the blood.
On the other hand, so long as they bleed lots of it when shot at the color is just stage dressing. So bring on the blue pointy-eared babes!
The problem isn't alternate forms of blood per se. The problem is alternate forms of blood in a species supposedly closely enough related to humans to have live offspring. (Or, in the case of the Blue Darrians, humans themselves).
Hans
Dragoner,
Just to say, and as I have suggested before, when you find yourself in a hole it is time to put down the shovel.
Hans is referring to the canonical fact that Darrians and Solomani are interfertile while humans with an iron-based hemoglobin and a copper-based hemoglobin would not be interfertile.
Stop trying to come up with plausible biological, geneering, and/or other excuses for your oh-so-twee Blue Darrians because nothing you suggest will do the trick. All that matters is they work for you and your setting. Nothing else matters and that's all you should be concerned about.
Blue Darrians work In Your Traveller Universe. Blue Darrians do not work in the Official Traveller Universe. YTU is all that counts, don't worry about the OTU.
Regards,
Bill
How is that in anyway a reply to what I wrote? Yes, Blue Darrians do work in the OTU. Care to prove how they would not be interfertile? They are a little more interesting than running adventures about shipping containers. *yawn*
wtf is twee?
Maybe, but that's not how I wrote them, nor is it very sci-fi IMO.
The complete chemical composition of whatever any being uses to transport oxygen/cyanide/ammonia/ or whatnot through their person along with antibodies and such notwithstanding - I figure if want them to be blue they can be blue.
I was only curious about it because the chemical composition of the blood may not only have something to do with the general color of the guys, it also might create some other issues: what atmosphere they breathe, are certain element fatal to them, or is some part of the chemistry that benefits them in a way unique to them that lends the color?
Sci-fi sort of stuff, hard and interesting enough for a biology major like me who worshiped at the altar of evolutionary biology while getting his masters, but not so hard that it takes all the fun out a game that doesn't need a lot of details that won't effect play unless you just enjoy creating them for yourself. Like I do when I design critters and ecosystems....far too many of which the players don't really care about so long as the thing trying to eat them or their campsite can be killed.
After all, the OTU certainly has it's reality-check issues given the kind of major races in it. Giant talking starfish
o:
I was only curious about it because the chemical composition of the blood may not only have something to do with the general color of the guys, it also might create some other issues: what atmosphere they breathe, are certain element fatal to them, or is some part of the chemistry that benefits them in a way unique to them that lends the color?
Sci-fi sort of stuff, hard and interesting enough for a biology major like me who worshiped at the altar of evolutionary biology while getting his masters, but not so hard that it takes all the fun out a game that doesn't need a lot of details that won't effect play unless you just enjoy creating them for yourself. Like I do when I design critters and ecosystems....far too many of which the players don't really care about so long as the thing trying to eat them or their campsite can be killed.
After all, the OTU certainly has it's reality-check issues given the kind of major races in it. Giant talking starfish
o:
The complete chemical composition of whatever any being uses to transport oxygen/cyanide/ammonia/ or whatnot through their person along with antibodies and such notwithstanding - I figure if want them to be blue they can be blue.
I was only curious about it because the chemical composition of the blood may not only have something to do with the general color of the guys, it also might create some other issues: what atmosphere they breathe, are certain element fatal to them, or is some part of the chemistry that benefits them in a way unique to them that lends the color?
Sci-fi sort of stuff, hard and interesting enough for a biology major like me who worshiped at the altar of evolutionary biology while getting his masters, but not so hard that it takes all the fun out a game that doesn't need a lot of details that won't effect play unless you just enjoy creating them for yourself. Like I do when I design critters and ecosystems....far too many of which the players don't really care about so long as the thing trying to eat them or their campsite can be killed.
After all, the OTU certainly has it's reality-check issues given the kind of major races in it. Giant talking starfish
I actually find the Aslan to be too anthropomorphic for aliens, but eh whatever.
Blue darrians get around that by being humans, is the hemocyanin thing perfect? No. But it is sci-fi and AFAIK, it is different. I figure if it is a genetic modification for low oxygen pressure and cold, then the converse conditions must be tiring for them at least (then again those blue darrians babes might not ever need much clothing haha). Also they might be a little more resitant to the vector of blood borne diseases, but on the otherhand be more likely to be anemic and hemophilic.
The subject of blood is interesting in itself particularly if you follow people like Lance Amrstrong and the issues he has faced with the Tour D'France committee accusing him of blood doping to get a higher hil coeficient. Which after testing he seems to have this naturally? All of this is very fascinating to me. How do the sherpas of nepal deal with lower altitudes?
Another thing I have thought of is about oxygen content of different atmosperes. At what point is the oxygen content too much? If IIRC you are given pure oxygen you will go blind? So at what percent is it poisonous? Regular air is only 21% O2, and that begs another question about the corrosive effects of a high oxygen atmosphere on equipment. One question leads to another.
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As far as toxic oxidation and oversaturation is concerned you would have to look at how a species evolved within its environment to answer that one. On alien worlds things are not going always be like here on Earth anyway so the sky's the limit for these things.
There are animals here on this planet that have evolved over millions of years as the planet went through its various stages of development atmosphere-wise among others. If you went back to the Cambrian Era and brought forward a critter from there it would likely die from a lack of oxygen. Likewise if you went back there you'd die from the higher content of oxygen burning out your lungs.
All those things are relative to so many factors that this why you can range all up and down the "hard sci-fi scale" and get away with it most of the time. In a book you might not, but that depends on the target audience and you can be surprised how much weight some lamps will support anyway.
As far as your Traveller game goes: do thou what thou wilt.
Mine is entirely non-OTU (except for the rules) and has an evil (as far as humans are concerned anyway) repitle-like mammalian race that is constantly fiddling with its own genetics to create a race that can better compete with its opposite: the Terran Empire and those darned versatile humans. It is a caste society and clones human psi-talents to use as spies among the humans.
A race of felines that were artificially uplifted by one supertech race a long time ago in order to use them as soldiers to fight against their supertech rival...and then when millennia ago both of those races moved elsewhere these cats came up with their own myths and culture and continued advancing (though only at TL-11 so far). The best part is that they don't know the real story of their origins, but they have heretics who come along once in a great while who stumble across it while researching certain inconsistencies in the species' makeup. They look more like a cross between a lynx and a cheetah, and are much smaller than an Aslan (which I abhor more than those talking dogs and starfish), but the clans/families have been selectively breeding for bloodline-specific psioinc talents for generations. While they are imminently capable of fighting to defend themselves, they have developed a peaceful society that emphasizes trade and inter-family cooperation. They construct vast "scent-story" gardens (some on the homeworld are the size of cities and tell th onstantly advancing story of thier race), the warriors wheel about in huge manadala-like formations to the sound of kettle drums and chants to practice coordinated maneuvers in a tradition of individual close combat over mass tactics, and the race uses different drive tech than everyone else. Currently that's stutterwarp.
A race of hyena-like marsupials who were nocturnal omnivores that evolved to have semi-intelligent females, a certain racial inferiority complex and strong desire to spread out through all of known space by means peaceful or violent. Due to the violent approach not working too well most of the time (except when picking on the colonists settling among the worlds formerly contained within the now-defunct Terran Confederation) they are changing tactics to use cunning and guile. They also have some of the best mercenary legions for rent, but it's hard to get them to fight each other. They prefer not to but relish fighting human mercs; it has a lot to do with the racial inferiority thing.
Plus a myriad minor races in a universe I built from scratch in '77 and have been tinkering with, players or no, ever since. It's worked without a lot of whys and hows from players for all this time, with very few exceptions, so I think if you come up with Blue Darrians and fit them in what I consider a goofy OTU I think they'll work fine without you having to sweat all the minutia.
There are animals here on this planet that have evolved over millions of years as the planet went through its various stages of development atmosphere-wise among others. If you went back to the Cambrian Era and brought forward a critter from there it would likely die from a lack of oxygen. Likewise if you went back there you'd die from the higher content of oxygen burning out your lungs.
All those things are relative to so many factors that this why you can range all up and down the "hard sci-fi scale" and get away with it most of the time. In a book you might not, but that depends on the target audience and you can be surprised how much weight some lamps will support anyway.
As far as your Traveller game goes: do thou what thou wilt.
Mine is entirely non-OTU (except for the rules) and has an evil (as far as humans are concerned anyway) repitle-like mammalian race that is constantly fiddling with its own genetics to create a race that can better compete with its opposite: the Terran Empire and those darned versatile humans. It is a caste society and clones human psi-talents to use as spies among the humans.
A race of felines that were artificially uplifted by one supertech race a long time ago in order to use them as soldiers to fight against their supertech rival...and then when millennia ago both of those races moved elsewhere these cats came up with their own myths and culture and continued advancing (though only at TL-11 so far). The best part is that they don't know the real story of their origins, but they have heretics who come along once in a great while who stumble across it while researching certain inconsistencies in the species' makeup. They look more like a cross between a lynx and a cheetah, and are much smaller than an Aslan (which I abhor more than those talking dogs and starfish), but the clans/families have been selectively breeding for bloodline-specific psioinc talents for generations. While they are imminently capable of fighting to defend themselves, they have developed a peaceful society that emphasizes trade and inter-family cooperation. They construct vast "scent-story" gardens (some on the homeworld are the size of cities and tell th onstantly advancing story of thier race), the warriors wheel about in huge manadala-like formations to the sound of kettle drums and chants to practice coordinated maneuvers in a tradition of individual close combat over mass tactics, and the race uses different drive tech than everyone else. Currently that's stutterwarp.
A race of hyena-like marsupials who were nocturnal omnivores that evolved to have semi-intelligent females, a certain racial inferiority complex and strong desire to spread out through all of known space by means peaceful or violent. Due to the violent approach not working too well most of the time (except when picking on the colonists settling among the worlds formerly contained within the now-defunct Terran Confederation) they are changing tactics to use cunning and guile. They also have some of the best mercenary legions for rent, but it's hard to get them to fight each other. They prefer not to but relish fighting human mercs; it has a lot to do with the racial inferiority thing.
Plus a myriad minor races in a universe I built from scratch in '77 and have been tinkering with, players or no, ever since. It's worked without a lot of whys and hows from players for all this time, with very few exceptions, so I think if you come up with Blue Darrians and fit them in what I consider a goofy OTU I think they'll work fine without you having to sweat all the minutia.
Dragoner,
I'm suggesting again that you needn't explain, defend, or produce excuses for the Blue Darrians. Just use them. That's all.
They most certainly do not, but whether they do is of no importance. As long as they work for you, nothing else matters.
Care to explain how a mother with bone marrow that produces iron-based hemoglobin can carry a child that requires copper-based hemoglobin? Or vice versa? Blood and blood factors are exchanged between mother and child during gestation. In the real world, there are gestational complications when a mother and child have greatly differing types of iron-based hemoglobin blood types, adding different hemoglobin to the equation will only make matters worse.
However - and yet again - whether these sadly uncreative D&D rip-offs are plausible or not does not matter. They work in your setting and that is all that matters.
Different strokes. Some find the slapdash importation of prurient fantasy tropes into a semi-hard science fiction setting not only boring but laughable.
You've never heard of Dictionary.com? WTF indeed!
twee: affectedly dainty or quaint: twee writing about furry little creatures.
Regards,
Bill
P.S. Just in case I haven't got the point across yet, let me quote Sabredog's #39 in the hopes his phrasing works:
You don't need to sweat the minutiae. The details don't matter. They work for you. Nothing else needs to be said.
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