The Pak vs. the Empire!!!

[Nova Andromeda]

--Okay, here is the setup. A derelict Pak ship finds its way into the Star Wars galaxy. It is discovered in the outer rim by a human family looking for a new home. These humans search the ship, come in contact with the tubar that changes a human of the right age into a Pak, and several of the family members develop into Pak.
--What do you think the impact on the Star Wars galaxy would be?

[Nova Andromeda]

--In my opinion, this would be the beginning of the end of the Empire. The Pak wouldn't be anything unusual in the outer rim and could spend all the time they wanted learning Star Wars tech., improving it, and building their power base. It would only be a matter of time before the Pak grew too powerful and decide everyone else was a threat.

[Mr Bean]

I have no idea what a Pak is...

[Nova Andromeda]

--The Pak are basically another branch of humanity from Larry Niven's universe. There are really three stages to human life: childhood, breeder, and Pak. However, a specific plant is needed for the last transformation (simbiotic relation). The pak form is extremely intelligent and highly adapted for developing tech., as well as being generally much stronger than a breeder. The only draw back is that the Pak are chained to their instincts and MUST defend their genetic purity at all costs.

[Diamedes]

I wouldn't call them a branch. We're the branch, they're the trunk.

To add on what Nova Andromeda said, it's from a Larry Niven novel called The Protector. The basic idea is that near the center of the galaxy is a planet where humanity evolved, in the classes above. Earth is a lost colony where the tuber, Tree of Life, couldn't be grown. The soil lacked an element. Then a pack travels the thousands of years necessary to check on us (at sub-light speeds, they're long lived to), and finds that we're very wrong. We've mutated enough that we no longer smell like Pak. Enough of that though, it's basically one of the first stories in Niven's Known Space.

The Pak might not win, but they would be mothers to beat. They would all fight to the death and have about as many qualms against collateral damage as Tarkin. Mass destruction wouldn't be an issue to them, it would be the norm. This would throw the Empire into anarchy. Even human elements that survived would probably be exposed to Tree of Life and touch off brushfire wars across the Galaxy. Even sniffing the stuff would cause riots. Non-humans would be killed with even less remorse, and the Pak would probably have no problem BDZing every non-human world, or using Eclipse-class superlasers on them, which is pretty much the same idea.

It'd be amusing to watch.

[omegaLancer]

actually this and interesting line, cause the Niven universe has several interesting races, their are the puppetter, the ultimate salemen, and their indestructional hulls ( other than exposing it to anti matter)

How would a ship build around one of their indestructional hulls with a 10000 G thruster, gravity polarizer, and host of xray lasers and fusion bomb stand up to a star destroyer. since the Puppetter would have no problem saling their wares to the Pact

[Mr Bean]

Except the Eclispe is not somthing they just tote out and in case you missed it crazy anti-alien humans are far outnumbered by crazy anti-human aliens


Mon Cals might take offense to the whole gotta kill em all

Oh and would they be hostile towards speciese who can't breed with humans(Few can, unlike ST)

[Diamedes]

Oh and would they be hostile towards speciese who can't breed with humans(Few can, unlike ST)

That's pretty much the point of the Pak. Anything that is not a breeder class Pak related to the Protector, or a Protector of the same clan, is the enemy. Anything not related to them, any sapient neighboring aliens, are viewed as possible enemies and efforts are made to exterminate them. After all, they might threaten the breeders. But the Pak can also be cautious, a lone Pak in the SW galaxy might just dispose of himself and try to erase all knowledge of our Galaxy to protect the Pak homeworld, without ever fighting. He might run for his life in fear of the SW galaxy.

Except the Eclispe is not somthing they just tote out and in case you missed it crazy anti-alien humans are far outnumbered by crazy anti-human aliens


Mon Cals might take offense to the whole gotta kill em all

I'm not saying the Pak would win, I haven't thought about it that far. But whether they win or lose, if they had time to examine and learn on an outer-rim world, they would probably leave scars.

I'm just thinking that it would be interesting. Especially since it appears humans are the dominant and most populous sapients in the Galaxy. Any human who comes in contact with tree of life is going to go made trying to eat it, and those who are too young or old will die, and those in middle age become Pak. The fun part is that they won't be loyal to the Pak's that are invading, they'll be loyal to their own bloodline, and would fight against aliens and Pak Invaders alike.

In the end though, I think the Empire would win. The Pak are mainly on one planet that is half-dead from numerous nuke wars and as in most battle, the Empire has the resources, even with some of humanity going loony. The Pak also don't often work together very well. Plus, Stormtroopers wouldn't be that affected by Tree of Life since the suit can be a partial spacesuit, which has saved characters from Known Space as well.

It'd just be fun to watch though, what with all the rebellions that would happen anywhere Tree of Life could grow around humanity.

Ewww. Pak-Jedi. I wonder how that'd work out.

[Shadowhawk]

A Protector probably wouldn't have any Jedi powers. Remember, Protectors are effectively emotionless, and emotions play a big part in being a Jedi.

As for who would win...it would depend entirely on how many Protectors are created, what the status of their bloodline is, how they can manage their instincts, how much time they have, and how many resources they have.

Also remember that Pak breeders were non-sentient, or near enough. Humans are quite sentient, and it seems to make the Human Protectors much more intelligent than Pak Protectors. A Human Protector can more easily take a larger worldview and has somewhat better control over its instincts, like Brennan.

[Nova Andromeda]

--The way I have setup the senario there would only be one pak bloodline and it would be from the Star Wars galaxy. After that happens I seriously doubt the new pak would let other humans be exposed to the tree of life unless they could guarantee the new pak would not be a greater threat in the long run. Due to the level of pak intelligence and the fact they will be able to hide their presence I just don't see how they could lose without severe bad luck. The way I see it there is no tech. or skill the pak couldn't easily pick up. In addition, the pak would not initiate any conflict that would probably result in the destruction of its bloodline. What this means is the pak would hide, use politics to weaken its enemies, build up its powerbase, and in the end take over the galaxy.

--Don't forget the pak would almost certainly use cloning and droid tech. to accelerate its power base growth.

[Gil Hamilton]

Also, what needs to be stated is the Protectors incredible ability to build cool shit very very quickly, once they discover what principle they work under. The Pak Protectors that were chasing Brennon built a gravity drive for their ship after they saw one on Brennen... despite being a more than a light-year away IIRC. Once they built a gravity drive, he built a weapon to destroy their gravity drive. Note, this is on the fly, heading for Home. I would not be suprised at all if the Protector deduced how a hyperdrive worked shortly after being exposed to one, especially if it could tinker around with the one that the family had.

Of course, the Protectors would probably recognize that they couldn't destroy the Empire by themselves, so they'd probably pull a Home. Find a small colony, and introduce some Thallium Enriched Tree of Life crunchies to the local population. The local population would recognize what a threat the Empire is to their family, so they'd work together long enough to destroy the Empire. Several thousand Protectors would be more than enough, in my opinion, especially when they are protecting their family. Of course, all bets are off once they destroy the Empire, even though human Protectors work much better with other people than Pak do.

The Empire can win, but they'd have to do it quick. If the Protectors don't get destroyed quickly, it would be too late.

[Nova Andromeda]

--I agree, the Empire could win if it discovered the pak and their intentions in time. However, this is unlikely due the pak's obsence intelligence. That same intelligence that allows them to figure out and copy complicated tech. so easily.

[Veers]

Pak are too smart. Especially if a human becomes a Pak, which would be a visting Pak's only choice for infection as I haven't seen any Earth animals except for ducks and especially not Pak offshoots like Gorillas or chimps.

[Pablo Sanchez]

The Pak will die. Despite their super-intelligence, there just aren't enough of them to win. The Empire has the whole galaxy, and the Pak have only those planets which are rich enough in thallium to support the tree of life, and those will be pretty unusual (IIRC they built the Ringworld specifically to create a large thallium-rich soil base for the whole race to live on, because they couldn't find enough naturally occurring planets to colonize).

The Empire will eventually find out about them, and crunch most of them with superior numbers. The Pak will be intelligent to escape in some numbers and spread out, so there will be a galaxy-wide Pak-hunt for some time, at least until the Empire figures out the thallium connection. At which point they fan out and investigate every planet with the proper conditions, in order to exterminate the Pak.

I don't think the Pak will ever be completely be destroyed, but if the Empire is able to remain vigilant, they can prevent them from becoming too great a threat.

[Nova Andromeda]

--Well that's the thing about being super intelligent. You can find ways around difficult and complicated situations. That is not to say they can get out of impossible situations though. However, the situation I've presented basically makes the pak just one among a million other sentient species.
--As far as early extermination by the Empire, what makes you think the pak would do something to bring the rath of the Empire down on themselves before they were prepared. In fact, the pak would be very careful to avoid such an occurance until they could destroy the Empire. They might, however, start proxy wars and engage in other activities to undermine the Empire so long as those activities cannot be traced back to the true intentions of the pak. For instance a few pak might join a rebellion and you can bet your @$$ these pak would make sure not to be caputured alive.
--Thallium is not an issue is Star Wars either. It could almost certainly be mass produced using the same tech. used to mass produce all the other rare materials seen in Star Wars. You also have to remember that the pak only have to procude enough to support perhaps a few hundred to a million other pak. In Star Wars such numbers are really quite insignificant, but for pak even several hundred is huge number. In addition, it would probably only take a few pak to program all sorts of droids and train lots of breeders to take care of tasks that don't require super intellegence.
--What kept the pak in check in Niven's universe was that they were constantly fighting against each other and losing tech because of it. Earth was also lucky that Brennen viewed all humans from Earth as his family.

[Pablo Sanchez]

However, the situation I've presented basically makes the pak just one among a million other sentient species.

Except that the Pak are infinitely more dangerous and aggressive. Which is exactly the sort of thing the Empire would be on the watch for.

--As far as early extermination by the Empire, what makes you think the pak would do something to bring the rath of the Empire down on themselves before they were prepared. In fact, the pak would be very careful to avoid such an occurance until they could destroy the Empire.

The simple fact that they are super-intelligent and they hate everybody would be more than enough to provoke the Imperial Smackdown (tm). The Empire is interested in maintaining stability and their own power structure. They vaporized Alderaan, an important planet even on a Galactic scale, because of suspected, essentially unproveable rebel sympathies. What makes you think the Empire wouldn't take one look at the Pak and decide to kill them all?

--Thallium is not an issue is Star Wars either. It could almost certainly be mass produced using the same tech. used to mass produce all the other rare materials seen in Star Wars.

You can't "mass-produce" raw materials. You can't just make iron ore, and I'm pretty sure that Thallium is in a similar way. Star Wars gets raw materials the same way we do--by digging them out of the dirt. They aren't quite advanced enough to just take a rock, rearrange the protons, neutrons, and electrons, and end up with depleted uranium.

In addition, it would probably only take a few pak to program all sorts of droids and train lots of breeders to take care of tasks that don't require super intellegence.

How would this help, exactly? The moment they swallow enough territory to produce that sort of thing in any numbers, the Empire will spot them and they get killed.

Also, you seem to forget that Pak are also fond of killing breeders that aren't from their genetic bloodline, i.e., almost every being in the entire galaxy.

--What kept the pak in check in Niven's universe was that they were constantly fighting against each other and losing tech because of it. Earth was also lucky that Brennen viewed all humans from Earth as his family.

Let's say that the first Pak goes out and converts a few other Breeders to Protectors. Why would these Pak, with completely different bloodlines, work together?

[Nova Andromeda]

--"Except that the Pak are infinitely more dangerous and aggressive. Which is exactly the sort of thing the Empire would be on the watch for."
-You completely ignored my point. The Empire is not aware of this fact and only exprience will reveal it. By then, it will be far too late.

--"The simple fact that they are super-intelligent and they hate everybody would be more than enough to provoke the Imperial Smackdown (tm)."
-There you go projecting human breeder emotions onto the pak. Just another reason why the breeder run Empire will get its butt kicked.

--"What makes you think the Empire wouldn't take one look at the Pak and decide to kill them all?"
-For the same reason that it didn't exterminate all the other non-human species. Just in case you have forgotten, the Empire won't know how dangerous the pak are due to lack of experience with them and the fact the pak can and will keep that aspect a secret.

--"You can't "mass-produce" raw materials."
-That's just stupid. Coal mines produce coal! The pak could set up thallium mining opperations to mass produce thallium ore which in turn could be used to mass produce thallium.

--"How would this help, exactly? The moment they swallow enough territory to produce that sort of thing in any numbers, the Empire will spot them and they get killed."
-They don't need to swallow to much territory that anyone is very interested in. They can get all the resources they need from the outer rim. In addition, they can spread their assets outs in areas not currently near other occupied areas. I'm sure they could keep things like R&D well hidden due to the speed of hyperdrive and the vastness of space.

--"Pak are also fond of killing breeders that aren't from their genetic bloodline"
-They won't do so if it threatens their bloodline and provoking the Empire too soon by causing such problems would do just that. You need to stop projecting breeder characteristics (such as stupidity) on the pak.

--"Let's say that the first Pak goes out and converts a few other Breeders to Protectors. Why would these Pak, with completely different bloodlines, work together?"
-First of all the intial pak probably wouldn't do that, but instead find, reproduce, or clone there own bloodline to produce more pak. Second, if they did the new pak would immediately realize that working with other pak would be the best way to ensure the survival of their own bloodline (of course after the external threats were taken care of these pak would start fighting amongst themselves).

[Pablo Sanchez]

[snip discussion on secrecy]

Oh, wait! I guess I forgot that the Empire is moronic, and they won't bother to find out anything about this new alien race that has just appeared.

--"You can't "mass-produce" raw materials."
-That's just stupid. Coal mines produce coal! The pak could set up thallium mining opperations to mass produce thallium ore which in turn could be used to mass produce thallium.

Mass production is the wrong term, because it implies production of a raw material, which is physically impossible. The term "raw material" precludes the possibility of production, because it is the base substance that has to be refined, so that it can be used in industry.

You seem to think that the Pak will be able to take entire planets on the outer rim and gain access to all SW technology without anyone being the wiser. I doubt that, and I also doubt that we'll be able to agree on this point.

[Luke Hares]

My money would be on the empire (though I'm pleased to see that some bods have also read their classics!) Pak are good, a fantastically bright at copying stuff (and naturally immortal), but are also very single minded - a lot of them in one place tends to lead to a civil war. Also remember that their single biggest construction - the ring world - is not massively far in advance of SW engineering - and they never invented FTL travel themselves. At no point in their history do they have been especially aggressive. I think if they found the empire they'd just avoid it and hid, and maybe start building another ringworld far far away from everybody (like last time)

[Veers]

The Pak will die. Despite their super-intelligence, there just aren't enough of them to win. The Empire has the whole galaxy, and the Pak have only those planets which are rich enough in thallium to support the tree of life, and those will be pretty unusual

In Protector, Brennan countered the need for Thalium by tranforming the virus in the Tree of Life Tuber into a self replicating airborne virus. Thalium is only required for the root to grow.

Thalium isn't required for the tranformation. The virus is.

[Nova Andromeda]

--"... they won't bother to find out anything about this new alien race ..."
-You seem to forget the pak are still human and should be able to either hide themselves (by using body armor or breeders as go betweens) or pass themselves off as a mutants. Why would the Empire be proactive enough to study a human mutant who could easily pass itself off as rather mundane. Why would the Empire even find out about their existance?

--"... it implies production of a raw material,"
-Production doesn't mean creation via nuclear reaction. One can create a pile of raw thallium. By extension one can create raw thallium by refining it from whatever ore it occures in. This isn't really important, but I like to be on the same page (as far as english is concerned) with people I chat with.

--"You seem to think that the Pak will be able to take entire planets on the outer rim and gain access to all SW technology without anyone being the wiser."
-What are a few unihabitted systems out of 400 billion? In addition to that, there is all sorts of interstellar junk that can be utilized. Since the major tech. of Star Wars like hyperdrive, sheilds, ion cannons, and turbolasers are relatively accessable it will be no problem at all for the pak to obtain such tech and remain unnoticed. Worse yet, they will certainly be able to improve it.

[Diamedes]

They don't need to even pretend to be mutants. They look different enough to pass themselves off as aliens, and I doubt anyone would care much about 1 new species amongst the 20 million that are said to be in the Galactic Empire.

As for aquissition of resources, they don't have to even be territorial. They could just set up a corporation. They could make money selling benign improvements to existing technology and eventually use that to aquire the necessary resources. They could do that slowly, for thousands of years.

Really, if I were the Pak though, I'd back to the Milky Way with turbolasers, repulsiors, hyperdrive, and all the other goodies I could carry. After a few thousand years of insane expansion into the Milky Way, then maybe they could try for SW Galaxy, if they even cared anymore.

[Howedar]

If these were protector-stage humans, the GE would be fucked. But they aren't. They're Pak. Infighting and backstabbing would become second nature as soon as there is a rift in the bloodline. I don't think the Pak could stop fighting themselves long enough to threaten the Empire, rather like Israel + Syria vs. Argentina.

Again, human protectors would be something else entirely.

[Nova Andromeda]

--Howedar, in this senario GE humans are converted to protectors. However, humans are pak. Since we can interbreed we are the same species. In addition, the pak have always dropped their feuds when a larger threat was at hand.

[Moonstone Spider]

Human Protectors would rape the Empire (I'm a huge fan of Niven and have read almost all his stuff). Consier, they don't tend to invent things but if a Protector even sees a piece of technology, it will be able to reverse engineer said technology in it's head and build a prototype within a couple of hours, and in a couple more hours it will have improved on that tech beyond anything imaginable. For instance, Teela Brown as a protector was dodging three humans and a PO'ed Kzinti with a Pupeteer feeding them info. From seeing a Pupeteer teleportation disc in operation, while avoiding everybody attacking her, she on the fly reverse engineered the teleportation discs, slipped past every safeguard the pupeteer had (and they put so many safeguards in their stuff it's insane) and broke into a Pupeteer ship in a matter of hours at most, probably minutes. If a single Protector sees a Lightsabre in action, in an hour it's going to have a lightsaber with a blade 50 feet long that is able to cut cortosis ore. If it sees a Ship go into hyperspace, it will go build a hyperdrive 10,000 times faster out of scrap in Watto's junkyard. Let it see an ISD and it will build a single-person ship that will blow the ISD apart with 200 Exaton Turbolasers and Yottaton shielding in a matter of weeks. That's how they operate. Add to this they are incredibly strong creatures (as in, the greatest human alive can survive a few minutes against an average K'zinti. The Greatest K'zinti alive can survive a minute or two against an average Protector hand to hand.), live forever unless they choose to die or are killed, and have no problem putting a plan into motion that will take a century to finish, and you've got a recipe to topple the Emperor himself eventually. The only thing that could slow a Protector down in the SW universe is the Force, and I wouldn't bet against a Protector figuring out a way to synthetically give itself force powers. These things are just place lethal. Starting with bare hands, Louis Wu commented that if Two Protectors began fighting over the Ringworld and one didn't die in the first confrontation they would start an arms race that would end with the Entire Ringworld shattered and flying into space in chunks. That's if the Protectors started barehanded and had to invent all their weapons from scratch, and the highest level of tech available from the natives was steam-age.