Rough details.

Classic battle for Earth. Aliens invading. The differnce is the two sides are both alien races hostile to each other, and humanity.

Why would advanced races seek to displace us? Earth is a life world! Can you think of anything MORE valuable in the gulfs of space? Nobody wants to "terraform" if you don't have to. Why wait a thousand years if all you need to do is a little pest control?

Team one is a race similar to the "Autobots" from the "Transfomers" movie only toned down a bit more to my level of liking for a role playing game. Semi-organic as opposed to non-organic though.

But even the ability to grow a weapon over a period of hours would be "novel". Nor do they directly imitate Earth vehicles, (as yet). As a standard, Blackout, the decepticon that destroyed the base at Qatar would be an inexpensive light scout unit. Wouldn't be mistaken by an aircrew as a helo though. More of a dragon-fly like method of using its rotors.

Boo is this sides "production mother". They operate on the fewer, stonger, tougher method of getting over.

Their primary landing site rolled out to be smack dab in the middle of the Indian sub-content. Looking like a meteor coming down if anyone saw it.

Boo does not know about team two yet. The race she belongs too doesn't really plan campaigns per se as much as merely disperse themselves. Would have been just as happy crash landing on Mars. They don't hate humans, they just don't care. If interfered with they will defend themselves. She has to role play a basic ignorance of human organization. (I give extra points for good acting in character)

They do have a basic directive to remain hidden until a certain level of production complexity is acheived. Like ants, different production groups in the same solar system with be hostile until there is only two. Their version of sexual selection for fitness.

Team Two is who I'd like help with.

Straight up and flat out plagerized. Team Two is the Zerg adapted to this game.

Boo's older sister is a "Queen of Swords" caste Zerg.

Been standardizing the caste units for the game. A basic unimproved Zergling will weigh 500 pounds. Uber mondo ones will weigh 1200 and have a carapace that will stop all pistol and most rifle rounds, plus be able to close at 35 miles an hour on solid ground. But those will take about two years two develope.

Unlike team one, team two spent the last twenty years monitoring Earth, learning all they could and capturing and altering a dozen children. Only one was selected. They rest recycled. They know Team One is on Earth but not where. She speaks seven major Earth languages plus her own. They are a true hive mind. Boo's team just communicates well.

Team two came down smack on top of the North pole. (The axis) They don't know it yet but hell is coming to Prudhoe Bay. God must not like those people. First vampires, now Zerg.

Now here is what I need help with, if none of you real chemists mind.

The stats I came up with for the Zerg units assume a glucose/protein diet.

But the Zerg are special. They can alter their internal metabolism to digest and utilize hydrocarbons or any organics.

So assuming an efficiency of 98% like a cell burning glucose, how much more energetic would the Zerg be if the started comsuming gasoline, methane clathrates and natural gas? If sugar = 1.

I'm going to increase their growth rates by the same margin. One unimproved Breeding pool will produce 30 units every three days on "sugar". After several levels of improvement output can be increased to 60 every two days. You can have more than one breeding pool.

Does anybody know the caloric differences?

__________________
In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

Crude oil has 41.9 megajoules per kilo. Glucose has 15.9 megajoules. The hard part apparently is getting the energy out of the hydrocarbon. Perhaps the aliens are steam powered and simply burn the hydrocarbon in oxygen.

Carbohydrates are yummy and digestable for us because they have -OH hydroxls in their structure. Hydrocarbons are just hydrogen and carbon, not so yummy. There are bacteria that digest hydrocarbons but it seems to be a long slow process. The bacteria turn the hydrocarbon into alcohol, water and carbon dioxide. (Maybe the aliens get drunk when they eat oil? Or maybe they drink gasoline and pee vodka?) To break down something tough like cellulose, animals on earth rely on big guts and symbiotic relationships with bacteria. If your aliens follow a similar path they may be more like herbivores than carnivores.

Zerg can produce cellulase themselves. Breaks wood down to beta-glucose.

Zerg as a race "consume" other races and consiously select the best genetic traits to insert into their own genome. They have a wildly varied caste system because of this.

__________________
In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

Oh thanks Mr Brak. I didn't really know the difference between hydrocarbons and carbohydrates.

__________________
In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

go eat a bowl of spaghetti noodles and wash it down with a cup of 87 octane- i bet you'd know the difference then...



kids: don't do this. it was my weak attempt at humor before going to bed for the morning..

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

Oh I see how it is.

A whole board full of scientists and noone can tell me the coloric difference between a 5 grams (a teaspoon) of sugar and five grams of gasoline.

If you fish gets sick, see if I help YOU guys.

__________________
In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

Well, sugar is white, and gasoline is clear. :-)

One Joule is about 0.239 calories, or 0.000239 food Calories. Mr. Brak gave you energies in Joules above. (And my value is correct this time. )

(BTW, I still haven't read your initial post. Sorry, Don.)

Yeah, sorry. I don't think in calories. Joules are cool.

If you go look at my recent foul-up in Don's Uncertainty thread, you'll see that I agree. I just posted the conversion because he said calories.

Yeah sorry, just saying sorry to Don for not giving it in calories.

No I have to apologize here!

I didn't see Ron's reply!

I don't know how that happened!

Please read all posts of mine after his marvslous reply with an eye toward being cranial/rectal inversion induced.

__________________
In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

I'm just going to kick up their production, strength and speed X 2.5 on a petrolium diet.

Thank you Mr. Brak. I don't know how I missed the paragragh above the -OH paragragh.

Did you sneak it in on me?

__________________
In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

When I wrote it I probably wrote the second paragrah, hit quick reply, looked up the figure for oil, added it in and hit quick reply again.

And the figure for gasoline rather than crude oil is 44.4 megajoules a kilogram or 34.8 megajoules per liter.

What about aliens that breathe hydrocarbons and eat oxygen--in chilly environments?

Just think of carbohydrates as half-burned hydrocarbons and you'll do all right. And I tend to think in calories per mole, so there.

The problem with digesting hydrocarbons of any chain length is that they have no handle to get started on. We can digest long-chain fatty acids just fine because they have that carboxyl group to latch onto (fats are just mostly glyceryl esters of long-chain fatty acids). Maybe the aliens first unsaturate the hydrocarbon end, form an epoxide, then oxidize it through a couple of steps to fatty acid; then eat as usual.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.