So everything is organic

Panzer Dragoon
1

everything from the ancient age- no matter how mechanical it seems, is alive. in a thread from a ways back i randomly threw out the theory that humans were the mutant forms of drones. that theory was (as expected) thoroughly debunked, however it was established that it was possible. drones were monsters just like any of the other ancient creations and theoretically would be susceptible to whatever causes the mutations in other pure-types.

don’t worry, i did not make this thread to revive that idea, instead i have a different hypothetical idea.

the ancient ruins had the same characteristics as any of the other ancient creations. they were not static, hollow buildings; they showed just as much life and activity as any of the other creatures (well the active ruins anyway). in PDO in episode 6: legacy you can see small screens activate which each have an eye that tracks orta as the dragon flies. these do not appear in the encyclopedia as a separate creature or as any other object. that would support the idea that those eyes are sensory aparatus for the ruin itself.

if that was enough evidence to convince you that the ruins are actually yet another species of pure-type monster, great. if not, then just pretend it is so that you can dig the next part.

what if an ancient ruin mutated? or should i say… what could the lathum have mutated from?

2

This is the description for the sub-boss you encounter in the beginning of Episode 6.

[quote]"< Atish >
A biological structure, this building-like
creature selectively filters out
intruders.
In fact, this structure is a fixed part of
the ruins themselves."[/quote]

And another creature found in the ruin:

[quote]"< Churook >
A turret that automatically engages
targets when they draw near.
They are found within ruins of
the Ancient Age and are capable of
melding into the very walls of ruins in
which they operate.
It is unclear whether the turrets are
individual organisms designed for
defense, or a part of the ruins as
a whole."[/quote]

This does seem to suggest that the ruin itself could be more like a pure-type creature than a building. But to be honest, I highly doubt a mutated ruin could exist. There’s still a huge difference between a Lathum and a ruin.

3

but the differences between pure types and their mutated descendents is also quite large. i’ll list similarities and you can counter them with differences if you wish :slight_smile:

  1. size. we never get a great sense of how big a lathum is since the time spent with them is limited, however the cutscene in orta shows that it could be nearly the size of the ruins in episode 3. you can tell from the size comparison and location of the worm rider village. it seems to be able to sustain its own ecosystems.

  2. surveilance. the eyes in the ruins trace your movement, and there are indeed (giant) eyes that follow orta on her approach. they shape of the eye is even similar.

  3. purpose. the ruins at some point in history were inhabited by the ancients (which are mostly accepted as being human). the lathum does more than allows, it encourages humans to live atop it. perhaps the lathum controlled its mutation to mimic the environment that humans were now used to. it felt lonely and unfulfilled without having its purpose actualized.

new idea: the worm riders have in some ways become the new ancients. they do not only live in harmony with the mutated creatures- they command fleets of them. these creatures would not hesitate to destroy anyone else, yet they heed the call and protect the worm riders. you can almost see how the ancients might have lived if you pretend all of the mutated creatures were pure types and the worm riders were not green (unless the ancients actually were green…)

4

Lathum being a mutated ruin? Err…
Ruins were simply buildings, the lathum is far from a building, it’s just so massive that it acts as a land mass or to put it better actually carries land on it and that’s what allows people to live on it rather than the fact the lathum wants to act as a building or whatever. Though obviously it doesn’t want to get rid of them either since it can easily do it as seen in PDS. perhaps this lathum is tamed in the same way the baldors are, the Lathum in PDS was certainly VERY aggressive unlike this one.

However the lathum has nothin to suggest it was a ruin at all, what would it’s purpose be? There’s nothin to indicate ancient technology on it at all. I seriously doubt the Ancients would live in a tribal way like the worm riders do. Else they would have never created all these technological biomechanical wonders we see scattered all over the PD world…

The humans aren’t mutated drones because their inner workings are totally different, Azel (or was it someone else) states that even tho in appearance she looks human, her “inside” is much closer to a pure type monsters whereas human anatomy is totally different.

None of the mutated monsters have undergone such massive mutations as a BUILDING would need to become a monster or a drone to become a full human.

Besides just cos the buildings have organic components doesn’t mean they are actually alive and can mutate, they are still just buildings and much less organic than we believe propably, I don’t think we saw any deactivated (Dead?) ruin rotting away like organic things do when they die :slight_smile:
Recently scientists merged organic proteins with computer chips or something like that, does that mean that that computer is now a creature and can mutate/evolve/think for itself/do whatever that indicates it’s ALIVE? Ofcourse not…

5

what do you mean by just a building? they’ve exhibited many things that indicate them to be alive, they even talk to you. they are made out of the same organic material as the rest of the ancient technology so at the very least they are lilke vegetables. but the way the actively track you and organize countermeasures indicates a possible consciousness.

i think the lathum does more than just carries land on top of it. the eyes look too well integrated into the landscape to not have been created that way. also in the original FMV of orta approaching the lathum, you catch a glimpse of a volcano erupting. that gets skipped over in the actual FMV but you can still see it in the title screen montage FMV. now i highly doubt there could be a layer of magma sitting between the lathum and the surface dirt, let alone enough to build the pressure needed to expel such mass. so i propose that that was done at the lathum’s command.

i do not understand what you meant in your second paragraph but let me clear up that i did not mean that the ancients were tribal. just that the lathum acts as a kind of harbor/carrier for smaller mutated creatures which the wormriders command and ride the way i imagine the ancients would do with pure-types in the ruins.

i don’t believe that humans are mutated drones and i didn’t mean to bring it up as a topic for discussion. i only mentioned it to show that it is thought possible that drones were just bio-engineered monsters like the rest and COULD potentially mutate the way the ruins COULD potentially mutate.

you think the other mutated beasts more closely resemble their pure-type counterparts? do we even know which mutated creatures came from what pure-types? i don’t think ANY of them look at all like ANY pure-types. the only thing i consider a valid indicator is the creature’s behavior. meaning that i think that a mutated type creature is still trying to follow its basic pure-type programming.

what have we seen rotting away? almost all of the ancient creations are basically intact after all the time since the fall of the ancient age. i’m sorry, i don’t see the relevence of the real world analogy you gave… maybe i’m not in touch with reality enough :slight_smile:

6

The ruins definitely have integrated living components, such as those enemies from PDO Episode 6 that D-Unit pointed out. The ruins are definitely counstructed out of many organic substances and elements, predominantly that (usually white) shell- or bone-like substance that pretty much all of the Ancients’ creations are coated with. However, what strikes me as the main difference between the ruins (in fact, the ruins, float engines and other relics of the Ancients) and the pure-type monsters is that they do seem to have a heavily mechanical component that pure-types do not.

It’s the golden or brassy gears that aparently make up in the internal workings of a ruin (which Orta gets a really good look at during PDO Episode 6) that seem to set the ruins apart. They seem to confirm that a ruin is not a living whole like a pure-type or Drone is, although the structures are certainly constructed out of several mechanical components and several organic ones - apparently because they were the superior components for the job.

As a ruin is largely not organic though, it’d presumably be unable to have its whole “body” mutate in the way that a pure-type’s could. I’d say that the living components of a ruin might realistically be able to mutate, given the correct conditions, but it seems unlikely that a whole ruin could do the same thing; I wouldn’t think all that internal metalwork would be susceptible to the same flaws as a living organism.

A ruin filled with mutated organic components would make a pretty good level for a future PD game, though.

7

And did it occur to you that those things are purely TECHNOLOGY, and ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE integrated into the ruins for them to function in the ways they were meant to function? By calling them buildings I don’t mean that they are houses, walls and nothing more, but just that they are not alive, they are structures, tools, technological wonders, whatever you wanna call them.

So what? The lathum in PDS has those “volcanoes” as well and yet noone’s living on it, in fact it was quite tiny for anyone to live on it. I don’t see how the “volcanoes” mean that it doesn’t carry any land on it.
In PDS the small lathum “jumps” us by coming out of the ground, I imagine this HUGE lathum in Orta took a chunk of land with it the last time it did that… Surely you don’t think it mutated it’s body into fertile ground? I think we’d see that in it’s info in the encyclopedia as well… (Do we? I don’t know)

I don’t think the Ancients would do anything like that at all, they’d propably let drones and pure types do ALL the work rather than live with them and guide them in any other way other than programming. And, again, NOTHING on the lathum indicates that it was once a ruin…
It looks more like a kind of fish if anything, this fish called “sole” (or solea or tongue sole or whatever) hides itself in the sandy bottom of the sea much like the lathum does in PDS.
Here’s some info on it: habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/news/chek … xt/349.htm
(Quite spectacular if you think about it, the way the one eye “moves” to the other side and the fish from then on always lays on it’s side, burried under the sand instead of it’s “proper” “standing” position)
The “doversole” especially (atleast one variation of it) looks too much like the lathum imo, here’s a pic: freepages.family.rootsweb.com/~s … ersole.jpg

Well, scratch that, I haven’t thought about this too much in a while so I got confused and considered some of the creatures “normal” with their mutation being the different types we see throughout the games, like desert or forest variations. Wrongly ofcourse. So, yeah, ignore that. We also don’t have anything that says they have changed that much though. Look at Lagi’s mutation, he still looks pretty much like a dragon :slight_smile:
And all the Lazaras and similar creatures in PDS look a lot like pure types too. Same goes for the very first enemies you encounter in it. There’s others too I’m sure.

Well except all the things we’ve seen are either ruins or ALIVE things therefor they have no reason to show any signs of rotting or anything similar.
The destroyed boss that we catch a glimpse of at the start of episode 6 (I think it was 6 atleast) and everyone was wondering what it is looks quite different than when it was alive and barely any time has passed…

And I’ll ask again: Does the recent merge of organic proteins with computer chips mean that the computers using those components are alive and not just tools but something more? They have organic parts and they are still computers able to do any task normal computers can, and there is programs that make computers talk or control robots connected to them and basically with programming you can make a computer do anything you can imagine. Does the fact those computers now use an organic component mean that they are alive??? Just cos they can do all those things and also have those organic components???

8

[quote=“Al3xand3r”]We also don’t have anything that says they have changed that much though. Look at Lagi’s mutation, he still looks pretty much like a dragon :slight_smile:
And all the Lazaras and similar creatures in PDS look a lot like pure types too. Same goes for the very first enemies you encounter in it. There’s others too I’m sure.[/quote]

I think you might be thinking of something else there Al3x, as Lazaras actually were pure-types. Despite the fact that all mutant strains apparently descended from the pure-types, no mutated monsters that we’ve come across so far - except Coolias, which realistically could have descended from dragons - seem to bear any real resemblance to them. If anything the mutated monsters look far more like distorted animal and plant life, whereas the pure-types look very stylised and abstract and artificial. I assume it’s meant to be implied that the mutations / evolutions have been going on for an extremely long time, possibly many thousands of years, so that the creatures have become unrecognisable from what they once were.

9

Oh? The lazaras were pure types? So how were there different variations depending on the environment? Weren’t there the ones with a head like hammer or something and some others with a more aerodynamic look?
Ah well guess I’m wrong >_>

How can we tell what’s mutated and what’s “natural” anyway… Or is it stated somewhere that every single “monster” we’ve seen is a mutation and all the “natural” creatures have been extinct (except possibly for the birds and the whales seen in PDS?)
Also… If the coolias are mutated… how do the classify the coolias with the blue white light as “mutated” ? Doesn’t that imply that the “original” coolias are “natural” and not mutated from some pure type?

10

[quote=“Al3xand3r”]Oh? The lazaras were pure types? So how were there different variations depending on the environment? Weren’t there the ones with a head like hammer or something and some others with a more aerodynamic look?
Ah well guess I’m wrong >_>[/quote]

Here’s what a Lazara looks like; they’re one of the pure-types that appeared at the Forbidden Zone, and (if I remember correctly) they turned up at Mel-Kava and over the Forest of Zoah too. There was a variation called a Lazara Skimmer that moved across the surface of the water, but a lot of pure-types do have mutliple variations.

Basically, every monster that we’ve faced in the games that hasn’t been a pure-type has been classified as a mutated monster so far. I expect that the whales (Kinoshita whales?) seen around Uru in Panzer Dragoon Saga were a docile variety of mutated monster too, as they certainly fitted in with PDS’ mutant designs. The birds and the small fish are the only things in the PD world that appear to be “normal” animals; presumably most of the planet’s natural inhabitants were wiped out when the global environments were decimated in the distant past.

Although the mutated monsters did descend from pure-types, they’ve clearly settled down into distinctive animal-like species and subspecies in the present PD world. The “mutated” name only seems to refer to what they are in relation to their ancient ancestors, so although a normal mutated monster is the distant descendant of a pure-type it is now a valid creature in its own right. PDO confirms that Coolias are a species of mutated monster, and that they are thus the distant relatives of pure-types; the greenish light that those “mutant” Coolias from PDZ had was clearly a new mutation though, something that was not normal for a Coolia.

11

So it’s stated they are all mutated? Hmm… Can you paste the phrase from wherever it is? I need to check something…

Oh, and, what makes you think the birds and fish are “normal” but the whales aren’t?

12

Not alive, and not everything. I doubt every piece of ancient technology is organic in nature. For a start, many pure type creatures are “bio-mechanical” and the Towers are “machines” with power lines and interior lighting.

None of the ancient ruins are alive in the conventional sense of the word. Apparently, they are buildings constructed out of both organic and technological components.

13

Do you remember how PDS and PDO both have enemy galleries with 3D models, statistics and information on the various monsters and ships you’ve faced in the game? The creatures are distinctly categorised as either “pure-type monsters” or “mutated monsters” in each case. On top of that, many passages in PDS and especially in PDO elaborate on the nature of these mutated creatures. Here’s one that springs to mind:

All of these adaptations that
the mutated types have acquired brings
up a perplexing question:
have the mutated types “un-evolved”?
It appears that they are forgetting
their initial purposes as weapons and
are slowly becoming more and more like
the natural organisms of the world,
in contrast with the pure types who do
not fear death and serve only to destroy.

(Incidentally, that does state that there are some naturally occuring creatures still left in the world.)

Because those “whales” are huge amorphous deformed beasts that don’t really look anything like whales; I’m guessing they’re just called that because they’re large water-dwelling creatures, as by all accounts they seem to be just another kind of mutated monster. Uru is populated by mutated monsters, after all; Lumids, Neo-Stryders, Dracoylths, Kolbas, etc.

14

Thnx for the quote, where’s it from?

They are not really amorphus, they look a lot like whales except for their head… Still the PD world is not OUR world so we can’t judge creatures like that can we? Just cos it’s not a whale like the whales we know in real life…

15

It’s from the encyclopedia in PDO’s Pandora’s Box; I think I grabbed it from the mutated monsters’ own entry.

True, we can’t be certain that it’s not a naturally occuring creature; for all we know the “normal” animals of the PD world could look like anything. The impression I get personally is that this thing is likely to be a mutated monster though, simply because it’s surrounded by an ecosystem of mutated monsters and it would fit the description of one just fine.

So although it certainly could be a mutated monster, it seems harder to say whether or not it could be one of the normal animals of the PD world, as we know next to nothing about them. After all, for all we know the PD world might be intended to have natural creatures no more interesting than those in our own ecosystems; the birds and fish that definitely live in it are certainly nothing special. That could equally not be the case, though; there’s no way to be sure.

16

sure, sure but couldn’t the same be said about any pure-type? i mean how do we classify something as “alive”? uh oh, too philosophical! :wink:

i’m sure it is carrying some land atop it, but i also think a lot of that ecosystem is controlled by the lathum. i was saying that the volcano was not a natural eruption; it had to have been one of the lathum’s (evolved?) functions. my basic idea was that the lathum wanted people to live on it and made a landscape to nurture and protect them. it did not just happen to surface while some caravaners had set up shop on top of it :slight_smile:

we’ve seen no other ancient structures that indicate that the ancients resided elsewhere. we don’t know the purpose to many of the ruins we encounter. perhaps they are just monster factories but maybe some were amusement parks, movie theaters, dance clubs, and bistros :slight_smile:

i think that is just defined as cybernetic. now if they made a computer chip solely out of proteins, that would make me think twice :slight_smile:

anyway, lance has me convinced the ruins did not turn into lathum. i had forgotten about the metal interiors in episode 6… but what if the lathum just carried that inside it? or what if that bit was discarded when it finally decided to up and go… ok, ok, i’ll stop :slight_smile:

17

Besides, if the ruins were alive why would they allow access to people harming TWOTA? Why would the Ancients bypass such an “ability” and make them work like machines when they could so easily have them be another loyal slave, giving it the ability to control things like doors and gates by itself so that no trespasser would EVER have a chance of getting in jus by overriding some switch?

Ofcourse not, like I said, maybe the wormriders tamed it. Or even if it didn’t need taming on first place, they just saw it and thought it would be a fitting place for them to live on, rather than the “lucky” incident you describe.

[quote=“Megatherium”]
We’ve seen no other ancient structures that indicate that the ancients resided elsewhere.[/quote]

We’ve seen no structures that indicated they lived in ruins. We’ve been through so many ruins, it just happened they were all weapon factories and laboratories while in fact there’s also ruins with living quarters?

Why would they need to make a computer solely out of proteins? The ruins, as Lance explained and you acknowledged, are not made solely out of organic parts either.

18

By the way, the term “organic,” from a strictly scientific point of view, really only means “containing carbon compounds.”

19

I’m prety sure beeinga like the Atish (ep.6’s creature) can’t evolve in the same fashion as other pure-types simply because it can’t travel.

It is confined to that space.For a puretype to evolve they would have to be in contact with nature or soemthing…

Does that mean diamonds are organic…? :stuck_out_tongue:

20

Technically, yes.