What happens next?

[Ennui]

Yeah, but I was thinking they where still slug like in the first place. Things don't randomly evolve like that.

It wasn't random. Everything else used to make their bodies function became vestigial and eventually disappeared.

 

[ríomhaire]

Like the way everyone nowadays is fat, needs glasses, is diabetic or needs to take tablets to stop themselves having heart attacks (exaggeration). People are becoming more and more unfit and more dependant on technology. The Combine are the same, just much more extreme.

 

[Cheomesh]

Eh, I liked my version better, where they've always been psychic.

 

[ríomhaire]

Where did I say that they weren't always psychic?

 

[function9]

So they engineer themselves to be totally dependent on their technology?

And we're not?

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

And we're not?

Exactly - a while back vegeta posted some videos about how dependant on tech we are - our entire society and economies are based of technology - without it we would be back in the 16th century.

 

[Narvi]

The thing is we have these wonderful things called limbs.

It's not total dependence. Though most of the population would starve if all the tech disappeared tomorrow.

 

[RNEvermore]

Now, from what I've read from this thread, I think we can all agree that the Advisors are the original race of the combine, but we are having trouble coming to an agreement as to why they are sluglike, and how they became that way.

I agree with Cheomesh here. I believe that the Advisors were always sluglike creatures with advanced psycic abilities. For proof of this, or at least, speculation, we can delve into the philosophy of evolution.

What is the point of evolution? Why do we evolve? We evolve, as a race, to give ourselves an innate advantage that we didnt have before. If, in 16 trillion years, the human race has evolved to the point where we all have gills, it would point that the human race spent allot of time in the water, and now has an advantage there.
Another point of evolution is to shed unnessesary bits and pieces. In 20 million years, perhaps the human race will be free of the appendix, the most worthless organ in the body, which exists only to exlode and kill us.
Dispite what anyone says, there would be no evolutionary advantage, physical or mental, to shed ones limbs. They are in no way unnessessary, and i couldnt imagine even a psycicly gifted race to find limbs largely useless enough to evolve beyond them.

For this reason, we can conclude that the combine would have originally been sluglike creatures, but, rather than evolving past limbs, simply evolved BEYOND them, as they never had a distinct NEED for them.

As for the advisor's climb to greatness, a race with psycic abilities like the mind blast, telekenesis or even some control would have no problem climbing to high rank, or even controlling another race or organization like the combine.

 

[Narvi]

Now, from what I've read from this thread, I think we can all agree that the Advisors are the original race of the combine, but we are having trouble coming to an agreement as to why they are sluglike, and how they became that way.

I agree with Cheomesh here. I believe that the Advisors were always sluglike creatures with advanced psycic abilities. For proof of this, or at least, speculation, we can delve into the philosophy of evolution.

What is the point of evolution? Why do we evolve? We evolve, as a race, to give ourselves an innate advantage that we didnt have before. If, in 16 trillion years, the human race has evolved to the point where we all have gills, it would point that the human race spent allot of time in the water, and now has an advantage there.
Another point of evolution is to shed unnessesary bits and pieces. In 20 million years, perhaps the human race will be free of the appendix, the most worthless organ in the body, which exists only to exlode and kill us.
Dispite what anyone says, there would be no evolutionary advantage, physical or mental, to shed ones limbs. They are in no way unnessessary, and i couldnt imagine even a psycicly gifted race to find limbs largely useless enough to evolve beyond them.

For this reason, we can conclude that the combine would have originally been sluglike creatures, but, rather than evolving past limbs, simply evolved BEYOND them, as they never had a distinct NEED for them.

As for the advisor's climb to greatness, a race with psycic abilities like the mind blast, telekenesis or even some control would have no problem climbing to high rank, or even controlling another race or organization like the combine.

Mmm, that's a bit of a misconception in what evolution is about, actually. Evolution isn't about "levels", it's about what works in your environment sufficiently for you to reproduce, and your progeny to reproduce. The appendix is unlikely to be evolved away, because by the time it has inflamed people have generally reproduced.

By the way, unless you think snakes have no evolutionary advantage, limbs can disappear through evolution.

But that's not the point. We don't have enough details, but the advisor species might have had limbs in the past, but decided to engineer them away in favour of telekinetic powers or larger, better brains. There's no need for them to have lost them naturally; they might have chosen to replace them in favour of other traits, depending on their technology to make up for the lack.

 

[RNEvermore]

By the way, unless you think snakes have no evolutionary advantage, limbs can disappear through evolution.

Ahhhhh now here sparks a serious religious debate... which i dont want to get into seriously because religion sends people way too far. I will remain as detached as possible.

According to christianity, in the book of Genesis, the Snake was the guise used by the Devil to tempt mankind into a life of sin. As a punishment, God cursed the snake, and removed the limbs it had, and cursed it to slither along the ground on it's belly for all eternity.

We take note that the snake is the only land creature that has no limbs. Interesting eh?

of course, this is only if you believe such things. Im not saying that I do or don't, I am simply stating what I know.

 

[Narvi]

Ahhhhh now here sparks a serious religious debate... which i dont want to get into seriously because religion sends people way too far. I will remain as detached as possible.

According to christianity, in the book of Genesis, the Snake was the guise used by the Devil to tempt mankind into a life of sin. As a punishment, God cursed the snake, and removed the limbs it had, and cursed it to slither along the ground on it's belly for all eternity.

We take note that the snake is the only land creature that has no limbs. Interesting eh?

of course, this is only if you believe such things. Im not saying that I do or don't, I am simply stating what I know.

Slugs. Snails.

However, it is true that only reptiles (among the vertebrate, land-dwelling animal groups) have species that have no limbs. However, it is not restricted just to snakes, for there are limbless salamanders and an obscure order of reptiles called the Caecilians. Incidentally, snakes have small, degenerate areas where limbs might have existed beforehand.

Of course why you would even start a debate on evolution about a fictional telekinetic species on a gaming message board is beyond me.

 

[RNEvermore]

Gah! Stop arguing with me! Your winning! I hate that!

I have no desire to start a religious debate. Those always turn messy.

 

[Narvi]

Gah! Stop arguing with me! Your winning! I hate that!

I have no desire to start a religious debate. Those always turn messy.

No worries.

 

[ríomhaire]

Now, from what I've read from this thread, I think we can all agree that the Advisors are the original race of the combine, but we are having trouble coming to an agreement as to why they are sluglike, and how they became that way.

I agree with Cheomesh here. I believe that the Advisors were always sluglike creatures with advanced psycic abilities. For proof of this, or at least, speculation, we can delve into the philosophy of evolution.

What is the point of evolution? Why do we evolve? We evolve, as a race, to give ourselves an innate advantage that we didnt have before. If, in 16 trillion years, the human race has evolved to the point where we all have gills, it would point that the human race spent allot of time in the water, and now has an advantage there.
Another point of evolution is to shed unnessesary bits and pieces. In 20 million years, perhaps the human race will be free of the appendix, the most worthless organ in the body, which exists only to exlode and kill us.
Dispite what anyone says, there would be no evolutionary advantage, physical or mental, to shed ones limbs. They are in no way unnessessary, and i couldnt imagine even a psycicly gifted race to find limbs largely useless enough to evolve beyond them.

For this reason, we can conclude that the combine would have originally been sluglike creatures, but, rather than evolving past limbs, simply evolved BEYOND them, as they never had a distinct NEED for them.

As for the advisor's climb to greatness, a race with psycic abilities like the mind blast, telekenesis or even some control would have no problem climbing to high rank, or even controlling another race or organization like the combine.

But humans have defeated evolution with medicine and technology. Nowadays we have heart diseases, diabetes, myopia and a whole mess of disabilities which are passed on to each generation. In my family alone there is a history of heart disease, short-sightedness, alcoholism and strange toenails (My right big-toe is brown and sheds, one of my father's has feeling (It ain't nice to cut it >_<)).

In nature my family would probably have been eliminated from the gene pool by now for such handicaps, but because of modern medicine we get on fine and spread our defective genes. In our society good mutations make no real difference to the likelihood of spreading our genes and bad ones usually don't make much more. Social evolution has replaced Darwinian evolution and genes make no difference any more. Thus, all mutations make it into the gene pool, good or bad. We progressively degenerate and the Combine advisor is the end result.

 

[Narvi]

But humans have defeated evolution with medicine and technology. Nowadays we have heart diseases, diabetes, myopia and a whole mess of disabilities which are passed on to each generation. In my family alone there is a history of heart disease, short-sightedness, alcoholism and strange toenails (My right big-toe is brown and sheds, one of my father's has feeling (It ain't nice to cut it >_<)).

In nature my family would probably have been eliminated from the gene pool by now for such handicaps, but because of modern medicine we get on fine and spread our defective genes. In our society good mutations make no real difference to the likelihood of spreading our genes and bad ones usually don't make much more. Social evolution has replaced Darwinian evolution and genes make no difference any more. Thus, all mutations make it into the gene pool, good or bad. We progressively degenerate and the Combine advisor is the end result.

Noooooo!

Misunderstanding of what evolution is!

As long as you manage to get kids and make sure you survive, those traits don't matter.

Modern medicine only showed up in the last two centuries. The problems you know of didn't show up after that. They were there before.

 

[dumba$$]

Ok, you see the general idea of games is that you DONT KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. therby ensuring you buy the next game made, thus giving moneys to valve so that they can pay their porn site subscriptions.

now go buy the game, dicksmurf.