5 replies to this topic

[rotor911]

yes, I'm slow but it slowly dawned on me that the most common feature on many planets of Supernova, the living crystal, was totally unknown to me. According to Wikipedia, crystals can be ionic, molecular, networked or metallic. No living ones. And I don't remember a sci-fi world either with "living crystals". The answer is probably embarrassingly easy to find but please, are "living crystals" just a quick invention to give some colors to Supernova terrains or do they have a (more or less) detailed description somewhere which would help me to better imagine what "crystal plain" look like? Thanks as always.

[chairman lar]

rotor911, on Jul 22 2008, 04:23 AM, said:

yes, I'm slow but it slowly dawned on me that the most common feature on many planets of Supernova, the living crystal, was totally unknown to me. According to Wikipedia, crystals can be ionic, molecular, networked or metallic. No living ones. And I don't remember a sci-fi world either with "living crystals". The answer is probably embarrassingly easy to find but please, are "living crystals" just a quick invention to give some colors to Supernova terrains or do they have a (more or less) detailed description somewhere which would help me to better imagine what "crystal plain" look like? Thanks as always.

The only description I've found is the Terrain Types section of the rules[p.7-9]. I'm just getting started in rote, but I seem to remember from older SN games that they are miserable to fight in, but may yield certain benefits if explored correctly. 'Living Crystal' is their way telling you they're self-replicating, much like liberals.Think StarTreks silicon based life forms.

You can also build a penal colony so the inmates can stare at all the pretty colors after you've erased their minds.

[WKE235]

chairman lar, on Jul 22 2008, 02:07 PM, said:

rotor911, on Jul 22 2008, 04:23 AM, said:

yes, I'm slow but it slowly dawned on me that the most common feature on many planets of Supernova, the living crystal, was totally unknown to me. According to Wikipedia, crystals can be ionic, molecular, networked or metallic. No living ones. And I don't remember a sci-fi world either with "living crystals". The answer is probably embarrassingly easy to find but please, are "living crystals" just a quick invention to give some colors to Supernova terrains or do they have a (more or less) detailed description somewhere which would help me to better imagine what "crystal plain" look like? Thanks as always.

The only description I've found is the Terrain Types section of the rules[p.7-9]. I'm just getting started in rote, but I seem to remember from older SN games that they are miserable to fight in, but may yield certain benefits if explored correctly. 'Living Crystal' is their way telling you they're self-replicating, much like liberals.Think StarTreks silicon based life forms.

You can also build a penal colony so the inmates can stare at all the pretty colors after you've erased their minds.

Probably just game fluff. Living crystals appear throughout sci-fi thought. In Star Gate, they appeared on a planet vistied by SG-1 and called themselve "Unity", living crystals the Go'uld destroyed. In Star Trek, who can forget the Crystalline Entity that destroyed the world Data came from (and was the basis behind the Starship Titan book "Orion's Hounds"). Trek has many living crystal references, such as the episode "Home Soil" in ST: TNG where terraformers upset a crystalline lifeform existing in a thing layer of water below the planets surface.

My favorite book with this topic is Sentenced to Prism by Alan Dean Foster. A world where even the tiniest creatures are living jewels, and a very dangerous world indeed. Alan did a great job in this book talking at times on how the living crystalline creatures functioned and ran off heat or sunlight. One of the few books I've read multiple times (hence my jumping around on this topic ... this seems to fascinate me for some reason).

[Krelnett_of_Kraan]

Anne McCaffrey has a great series based around living crystal. I forget if the first one is "Killashandra" or "Crystal Singer" but they're fun.

[chairman lar]

Krelnett_of_Kraan, on Jul 23 2008, 06:56 AM, said:

Anne McCaffrey has a great series based around living crystal. I forget if the first one is "Killashandra" or "Crystal Singer" but they're fun.

Crystal Singer

[looker]

Not only that, the crystals said WKE was "an ugly bag of mostly water" if I remember the historical reference correctly. That did not sound like a complinent. Those guys probably had rocks in their heads