Quote:Ah, I took that a bit differently but I can understand that. You can just say its a matter of control freak jerks are universal. So you may want to soften up the damage done to Earth say thats what they were trying to do and have them just not be as militarily capable.
*sigh* Yeah, fairly so. I just wanted to make it clear that the parallel wasn't something I was shooting for out of a desire to make any kind of social commentary so much as a lack of originality.
Its a mining colony so just make it a pack of Fanatical miners lobbing asteroids instead of military grade weapons. Perhaps add in a few dozen random worlds where the civilization never quite got to industrial age levels and instead are at the hunter gather or agricultural community levels. The standard Paladin protocol is to actually explain what they are trying to convert people to. An Allow your new gods to elevate you to their level scheme, which would fit the main point of their religion.
Instead these miners got huffy over some incoming transmissions (radio waves can cross through jump points killing the travel time through intervening space down to months instead of millennia). They took matters (and the cargo ship) into their own hands. Thus a few cities can get thrashed (the first volley of lopped asteroids hit water mostly, maybe Africa or China or the Yukon got hit. A few went into deep space or hit the hit the moon. Nothing more than a few dozen feet across though, large enough to be dangerous, while too small to do more than be noticeable. The miners were running on hate and forgot the lack of armament thing, so they improvised with what they had available. Speed up with a rock on the front of the ship, hit the brakes and let the rocks fly.
Then they came personally following the second wave, for aiming calculations and discovered that the locals had planned for a asteroid glomping the Earth. Or its just IBCMS used as an improvised defense over this random storm of space rocks. So Earth IDs them as one of that larger chunks and the ship (or better a rock near it) eats a missile the shockwave of the hit kills most on board. Someone checking on the effects of the missile notes a rather ship shaped rock. Maybe the US has a functional shuttle up to the ship or a private company managed to get a ship up there. Either way the mining craft is between the Earth and the Moon.
Which ever does it the ship is taken into a more stable orbit and reversed engineered well the power source is based on something they cant replicate or even hope to understand. They can get it to move and while the prisoners (if any, if there are they arent enjoying Earths gravity). So through reverse engineering and the mostly functional restored mining ship (trial and error, dumb luck, plus some spliced in controls) Earth gets some materials from the asteroid belt build a ship with more conventional power. Then a few more.
The no weaponizing space rules of Earth are ruled suicidal and revised to only internationally controlled weapons. So by the time the Paladins figure out that they are missing a mining jump capable mining craft. While investigating this disappearance the absolutely massive ship jumps into the system and drops off some faster armed crafts. Some people on Earth with clear heads decided that yelling at the race ahead of time and actually stating the offenses there mad at would give them the high moral ground if nothing else. That and the question of why a basically unarmed, mining vessel was attacking an entire planet on it own.
So the Earthlings transmit footage of the attack and the damaged mining ship in Earths orbit. The mining ship boarding by an obviously relatively lower tech vessel. The ranting guys the took off the ship. Tossed in are text blocks with the complaints in the Paladins language pidgin Paladin anyway. The more mainstream Paladin look at the broadcast and decide that these complaints look rather legitimate. So after many messages its agreed that the Earthlings can have the basically unoccupied system as a buffer (the Paladins have one already). That and the Earthlings can beat them by numbers they also dont realize that the jump ship is mostly engines and think kilometers long battleship/carrier giving us a chance to take these miners and leave or we can try to beat that enormous gun-laden abomination.
After a few days the miners are taken back to the more Paladin occupied space to explain the whole with starting a war, without telling anyone. They can come back later with more firepower later if they want the system but they arent fighting that thing. So the war is more the Paladins ship getting yelled and weapons pointed at them, than massive death matching. The Earthlings are off the warpath for now, but willing to retaliate if provoked. The Paladin government involved are rather annoyed, with all the parties involved, each faction has different reason. Some that the miners attacked a random planet. Some that they lost the fight. Some that they lost the system. Some that there are known people they cant convert anytime soon or even attempt.
This will also give the Earthlings valid reasons to take over a buffer zone of systems and cover the main points of your time line.
Quote:This is the planning stage so these problems are suppose to be ironed out at this point anyway. Dont let it discourage you.
*sigh* Right, yeah, okay, that's too long - the driving idea behind that timing was mostly that it should be long before any hint of recorded history... I refuse to give any hint of legitimacy to the saucer nuts, see, even if their delusions would be convenient for my purposes.
Okay, so if these precursors are running around seeding worlds and are still around (so they are doing random or scheduled check ups as the run through a cycle of different sectors of seeded worlds) how about they modify the transplanted humans to function chemically in the new systems. Only their projected schedule was off and the humans evolved tech faster than expected. This meaning a random scout ship or drone can come by and dealing with it is a plot hook.
The biological weapon (more likely one of many) of the nekojins homeworld was in part a devolutionary retrovirus. Only it was using a local catlike tree dweller as a model and not Earths primates. Thus while most of the population altered according to plans, some didnt. They were probably the secondary ranked people (worker classes or less advanced countries) the ones that didnt mess with their genetics. So the already altered peoples (altered with more features of local fauna) are the ones the virus was traditionally effective on. The unaltered people (as the bio-chemical adaptation doesnt really count at this point) are the nekojin. This was a dispute between a few countries and the others got caught in the crossfire.
Who among other problems found that the can now only eat some species of their homeworlds animal life. The animals break down the substances in the plants and act as a one step filter (like how cows can make their own vitamin C from eating not vitamin C containing plants). The precursors also altered some animals to ease their bio-chemical altered bodies into the ecosystems. They are back more or less to the half integrated biochemistry of old.
This would also allow them to eat some vegetation from Earth, a new experience for anyone not really old, unless the getting off the warped homeworld was a centuries long goal. Maybe its only a few types, but food that doesnt need to be fought first is novel enough to end up their version of junk food. Not all that good for them, but they like it.. Start off the eating as a random dare like thing they think it will make the dared sick, but some of them get the types they can digest. Even if its only a few decades sense doomsday, vegetable matter wll be new to most.
The cross breeding only works with 2-15% of the neko-jin, so even a few decades after first contact they are rather rare, but known of. The oddity that crossbreeds are even possible combined with the ability to eat some vegetable matter is going to make people wonder. Im not sure what type of game your adapting this too, but in dice RPG terms everytime a coupling occurs (birth control free sex without offspring is a casual sex invite) they have a 8% chance of pregnancy (for the session) that decreases by 1%evertime. This will allow for offspring but make it random enough to cause confusion. After that those that can impregnate/get pregnant have a percent chance that make increase with each pregnancy so that some just can crossbreed automatically. Another chart should be for if the offspring are reproductively viable and which parent they more resemble.
Quote:Species all have their strong traits, with humans its hands eyes, brains. Humans arent exempt from genetic evolution, they just for different traits. Tool use is also not a man exclusive trait. Sea otters wrap themselves in living seaweed as an anchor and bash open shellfish with handy rocks. Some bird build nests rather than dig holes weaving isnt a human only invention either. Some apes have figured out they can chew on a grass/weed and stick it in a termite nest meaning those candy sticks with the sugar powder are echoed in nature. Some endangered monkeys in Japan have discovered the wonders of plastic shopping bags, which makes the guys who grow the orchards of insanely expensive oranges very, very cross. This is an example of animals using the laws of man against man. Ive seen a new article about a fox that used a train as an anti hound pack weapon . The fox led the dogs to the tracks an timed it so it ran across the tracks safely and the chasing dogs all managed to be in front of the train. This was as embarrassing for the hunter as the Italians losing to the Ethiopian spearmen while they had tanks.
Complaining, no. Telling their kids how to cheat their way around a particular problem, yes. The idea being that evolution requires that a particular genetic trait have an impact on an individual's ability to raise children, which event becomes much less common when cooperation and tool use so drastically increase the chances of everyone in the tribe doing so.
These are examples of other species using tools. I saw a case of an injured fox who spent the winter with a family bring its kids with it to stay the winter the next year. This worked. Ive had cats go to the vet and come back suddenly able to operate doors. They didnt learn from the vets. Animals teach their offspring and each other survival behavior also dont thing these are human only traits.