93 replies to this topic

[guardiandashi]

in starcraft the zerg have a bunch of specialized "breeds" each breed has special charactoristics some such as the overlords (and varients therof can carry other zerg that cannot fly )

when the zerg want to travel from planet to planet they form a big swarm ... and "fly" betweeen planets.

[Catamount]

Okay, so they don't build ships, they just re-purpose themselves, in a sense.

I wonder exactly what advantages and disadvantages that would confer. I suppose they'd be at least somewhat vulnerable to attack moving between planets, since I assume they can erect neither shields, nor bear weapons that would work in space (from what I've seen, Zerg don't use "weaponry" in that sense, anyways; they're much like Borg drones in that sense), but if they're numbers were great enough, maybe that wouldn't matter

I wonder exactly what would happen if they were attacked in space. Would they try to swarm the attacking ship?


Also, can I assume the Zerg do have some sort of ability to cross large distances quickly like that?

Edited by Catamount, 06 March 2012 - 05:40 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

Catamount, on 06 March 2012 - 03:19 PM, said:

So yeah, how about them Borg and Zerg?

Just how do Zerg travel between planets? Do they have some kind of fleet or something? (admittedly, I'm Starcraft stupid)

Apparently, "The zerg are able to create rifts into warp space to transport themselves at faster-than-light speeds. These rifts have been utilized multiple times."

So, it's kinda like the Arachnids/"Bugs" from the movie version of Starship Troopers (by contrast, the original novel indicates that they have spacecraft), but they shoot themselves into hyperspace rather than normal space...?

[Catamount]

That makes sense. I figured they had to have some means of FTL.

So basically they swarm a planet until it's theirs, then pack up, warp to another, and repeat. So potentially it sounds like they could be pretty darned efficient.


It would still be interesting to see how they'd deal with space-based threats. I assume they must have a way to.

Edited by Catamount, 06 March 2012 - 05:54 PM.

[guardiandashi]

with the zerg traveling some of the zerg are ground and melee forms which would be essentually useless in space. there are others who are organic missiles, acid spitters, some of the combat forms are flying and can survive just fine in space its mostly the ground and melee ones that would have issues when traveling

[Catamount]

So the Zerg wouldn't be as helpless against a largely space-based power as I originally was thinking, they'd probably just have to adjust by having a greater number of flyers.

Knowing more about Zerg numbers might help. Borg are incredibly numerous from what we've seen. They span the better part of a quadrant, and they seem to have absolutely hyper-developed it. That's what they do (Soylent Green would be a vision of success for them )

[Adridos]

Catamount, on 06 March 2012 - 02:45 PM, said:

I think your math is just slightly off there

27 billion cubic meters (not kilometers) is the size of a cube 3km on each side. (3000m*3000m*3000m).

27 billion cubic meters is after /1 000 to make it into kilometers -> 27 milliards of cubic kilometers.

Yeah, I love to prove people proving I am wrong, wrong.

That small cube you quote to must be some smaller one (27 millions of cubic kilometers), because it has only one thousandth of the one he mentioned (the 27 billion meters one).

[Catamount]

Adridos, on 07 March 2012 - 07:08 AM, said:

27 billion cubic meters is after /1 000 to make it into kilometers -> 27 milliards of cubic kilometers.

Yeah, I love to prove people proving I am wrong, wrong.

That small cube you quote to must be some smaller one (27 millions of cubic kilometers), because it has only one thousandth of the one he mentioned (the 27 billion meters one).

LOLWUT? Sounds like someone needs a refresher in dimensional analysis


27,000,000,000m^3(1km^3/1,000,000,000m^3)= 27km^3 <- note how the m^3 must go on the bottom to cancel, leaving km at the end.


What does that mean?

First off, you don't divide cubic meters by 1000 to get cubic kilometers; you divide it by a billion, or 1000^3.

27 billion cubic meters (3000m^3) is only 27 cubic kilometers (3km^3), not "milliards" (which is another word for billion) of cubic kilometers. When you make the unit bigger, you have less of them, not more of them.


Here's Wolfram Alpha's conversion: http://www.wolframal...ubic+kilometers

27 billion cubic meters to cubic kilometers inputted, output: 27 cubic kilometers (not 27 "milliard", just 27).



Or if math doesn't work, how about a reductio ad absurdum? A 3,000m cube on each side is 3000m*3000m*3000m = 27,000,000,000m^3, so you're claiming that a cube, 3km on each side, is the size of a planet. In other words, you're claiming a cube that's substantially smaller than Mount Everest in volume is as big as a planet.


But hey, I know a skilled troll when I see one; you got me

Edited by Catamount, 07 March 2012 - 08:49 AM.

[Strum Wealh]

Adridos, on 07 March 2012 - 07:08 AM, said:

27 billion cubic meters is after /1 000 to make it into kilometers -> 27 milliards of cubic kilometers.

Yeah, I love to prove people proving I am wrong, wrong.

That small cube you quote to must be some smaller one (27 millions of cubic kilometers), because it has only one thousandth of the one he mentioned (the 27 billion meters one).

Firstly, why are you using terms from the long scale ("millards" being the term for "billions") when everyone else is using the short scale?

Secondly, as milliards and billions are synonymous, 27 billions ("milliards") of cubic meters cannot be equal to 27 milliards ("billions") of kilometers.
A cube with sides one kilometer in length has a volume of one cubic kilometer.
One kilometer is equal to 1000 meters, so the same cube (with sides of 1000 meters) has a volume of one billion cubic meters.
Thus, as one billion cubic meters is equal to one cubic kilometer, 27 billion cubic meters is equal to 27 cubic kilometers.

Also:

Quote

The Borg cubes encountered at System J-25 and Wolf 359 were extremely large in size, measuring 28 cubic kilometers in volume, with each side measuring more than three kilometers.

As we already know the volume, we can take the cube root of it, which gives each side of a Borg Cube a length of 3.03659 kilometers, or 3036.59 meters (or 9962.57 feet).

(I just saw that I was "Ninja'd" by Catamount... )

Moreover:

Quote

Borg cubes were typically manned by "thousands of drones," and could vary in capacity anywhere from 5,000 to 64,000 to 129,000 drones.

So we know how big the Cubes are, and how many drones they have.

So...
1.) How resistant are Borg Drones to physical damage? They may be immune to directed-energy and projectile weapons, but how well do they fare if one, say, removes their head with a solid blade, or a set of teeth?
2.) How adaptable is the assimilation process - can the Borg assimilate the Zerg, or might the latter be immune to assimilation (Species 8472 is a biological species that is immune to assimilation, so such immunity does happen)?
3.) How resistant might the Zerg be to the Drones' weapons?

[Catamount]

Strum Wealh, on 07 March 2012 - 08:46 AM, said:

Firstly, why are you using terms from the long scale ("millards" being the term for "billions") when everyone else is using the short scale?

Secondly, as milliards and billions are synonymous, 27 billions ("milliards") of cubic meters cannot be equal to 27 milliards ("billions") of kilometers.

Divide by 27 billion on each side, and you end up finding he's claiming that kilometers and meters are the same

That's an even better reductio ad absurdum than I gave.


Also, it seems I was off by a billion cubic meters, shame on me

I just remembered it was ~3000m a side; silly rounding errors...

Strum Wealh, on 07 March 2012 - 08:46 AM, said:

So...
1.) How resistant are Borg Drones to physical damage? They may be immune to directed-energy and projectile weapons, but how well do they fare if one, say, removes their head with a solid blade, or a set of teeth?
2.) How adaptable is the assimilation process - can the Borg assimilate the Zerg, or might the latter be immune to assimilation (Species 8472 is a biological species that is immune to assimilation, so such immunity does happen)?
3.) How resistant might the Zerg be to the Drones' weapons?

1.) Borg seem to be vulnerable to slow-moving weaponry, much like ME kinetic barriers, and probably for the same reason (to allow normal interaction with objects). So a Zerg should be able to inflict physical damage, and they are presumably stronger than Borg drones (who seem to not outstrip Klingons by much, maybe particularly large/strong humans?). Worf was easily able to harm drones.

2.) We have no idea, sadly. The only species that was non-assimilatable that we know of is Species 8472, however, in Enterprise, it was shown that Phlox's race was very resistant. Presumable, borg nanites can adapt generally to new species, but whether Zerg would be too advanced for such a method of assimilation... I'll have to look into any hints on tha tlater.

3.) The Borg possess typical energy weapons, but drones don't seem to use them. That seems to be something the ships are used for, while drones just assimilate (since it's probably assumed it'll work on all species, and it usually does). Presumably, Borg could be adapted to carry traditional weaponry, so the Zerg should be vunerable. I'm guessing each would be vulnerable to the others' attacks.


So we have to resolve point two.

Edited by Catamount, 07 March 2012 - 08:59 AM.

[Adridos]

So, first, you use different measures than me.

And then, you are right about the unit conversion rate.

Also, it goes milion (6 - 0s), miliard (9 - 0s), billion (12 - 0s), billiard ([Yeah, like that game] 15 - 0s), etc.


And last, but first one on topic. If the biggest is just that funny 3km one, then Wh40k rolls over them.

[Catamount]

You could just leave it at "I was wrong; 3km cubes are not the size of planets as I asserted".

Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliard

10^9 is Billion, or milliard, if you insist on using long-dead words. 10^12 is trillion, not billion.

I know some European nations use the system you suggest, but the English-speaking world does not, and this is an English-language forum, ergo, we use the short scale, not the long scale. The misunderstanging is understandable, but either way, 27x10^9m^3 cubes are only 27km^3. Even on the long scale you wouldn't be right, because 27x10^12m^3 isn't nearly as big as you were claiming either.

Even on the long scale, that's only 27,000km^3 http://www.wolframal...ubic+kilometers

It is NOT "milliards" of cubic kilometers, under any definition.

It's also not the volume "of a small planet", as you claimed. Even pluto is orders of magnitude larger (about 6.4x10^9km). So either way, your math is unjustifiable.

Quote

And last, but first one on topic. If the biggest is just that funny 3km one, then Wh40k rolls over them.

bare assertion fallacies are hardly the best way to end a post...

Also, if you want to discuss 40k, take it to the vs thread. I'm not going to take part in people derailing this thread any further. There is a thread for that discussion, already, and it is not this thread.

We'll see you there

Edited by Catamount, 07 March 2012 - 10:20 AM.

[Adridos]

Catamount, on 07 March 2012 - 10:19 AM, said:

You could just leave it at "I was wrong; 3km cubes are not the size of planets as I asserted".

Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliard

10^9 is Billion, or milliard, if you insist on using long-dead words. 10^12 is trillion, not billion.

I know some European nations use the system you suggest, but the English-speaking world does not, and this is an English-language forum, ergo, we use the short scale, not the long scale. The misunderstanging is understandable, but either way, 27x10^9m^3 cubes are only 27km^3. Even on the long scale you wouldn't be right, because 27x10^12m^3 isn't nearly as big as you were claiming either.

Even on the long scale, that's only 27,000km^3 http://www.wolframal...ubic+kilometers

It is NOT "milliards" of cubic kilometers, under any definition.

It's also not the volume "of a small planet", as you claimed. Even pluto is orders of magnitude larger (about 6.4x10^9km). So either way, your math is unjustifiable.

First of all, I never heard of different measures in my life.
I've been told that meter is basic, you go up by (as in my previous post) and down by mili, micro, nano, piko, etc and that it's international.

And I assumed the 3km cube is just a simple example, because the measures didn't fit and 3km cube is nothing races of Wh40k would have any problems dealing with. Therefor, my only mistake was the conversion of cubic measures part, but because I actually never converted them myself, we were just told how to convert them about 5 or more years ago, I think it's not that bad mistake, actually (I'm too, just a man).

But I must apology for not doing something with it, because after all, I love math and all things inclouded and I should be the first to see the mistake.

[Catamount]

We didn't discuss metric prefixes, just named numbers. If you're going to make a math argument, make sure you're doing the math; it saves embarrassment later

And as I said, I'll not discuss 40k further, except in the proper thread. Your arguments have already been addressed there; I won't derail this thread further by repeating it here.

Edited by Catamount, 07 March 2012 - 11:14 AM.