Questions Regarding the Xeelee

[theski]

How do you pronounce "Xeelee"?

Zeeleee

[The Nomad]

What unfortunate species did the humans curbstomp? Are there proper descriptions of these events or is it kept typically vague?

Every living thing (and some not) in a Galaxy rife with diverse life forms was either conquered or exterminated. This may include millions if not tens of millions of life forms. The two mentionned are IIRC the Silver Ghosts ( masters of physical constants alteration bar the Xeelee ) and the Snowmen (who could fuck up inertia at will). No other is mentionned but considering the abundance of life in the Xeeleeverse and the extreme expansionism of the Druz doctrines...

What exactly were the humans throwing everything at exactly? Was it automated Xeelee defences or actual Xeelee creatures?

They attacked mainly Xeelee facilities around the central black hole of our Galaxy, as well as "Sugar Lumps", cubes thousands of kilometres wide containing sleeping Xeelee travelling to the past. No actual Xeelee "creature" has been seen ( spoiler : the Xeelee are in fact their own symbiotic-lifeform ships. The first spacetime defect Xeelee make up the wings, and the second ultradense matter Xeelee make up the hull ). Xeelee combat drones have been observed, though. It requires a lucky strike in their weapon ports to destroy them.

Why did it take so long for the Xeelee to take heed of humanity snapping at it heels?

They have bigger worries to focus on (dark matter creatures outnumbering them and fighting them since the Big Bang)

And how did the Xeelee punish humanity?

They steamrolled Humanity's galaxies, and gathered the survivors in a pocket space prison at the location of former Earth. Several million years later, the survivors were allowed to use the Ring to escape the decaying universe, now at the hands (or whatever they have) of the Photino Birds.

How do you pronounce "Xeelee"?

I pronounce it "Kzilii" out of habit, but the book IIRC say it's "Zee-lee".

[NecronLord]

If a StarDestroyer Net wanker reads the novel Ring, the room will be flooded when they find out the weapon the Photino birds use to destroy the Xeelee ring.

Which one? I know of hucking galaxies at it and doing some bizzare shit to alter its drag constants...

[Dahak]

Why did it take so long for the Xeelee to take heed of humanity snapping at it heels? And how did the Xeelee punish humanity?

How long would it take that someone notices ants scrapping at Mount Everest?
They're simply so vast, so powerful that humans are less than ants to them.

And they punished them by locking them away, for the good of the galaxy as well as humanity's own good.

[Xon]

Was it automated Xeelee defences or actual Xeelee creatures?

There really isnt much difference between the Xeelee and thier technology.

[Xon]

If a StarDestroyer Net wanker reads the novel Ring, the room will be flooded when they find out the weapon the Photino birds use to destroy the Xeelee ring.

Which one? I know of hucking galaxies at it and doing some bizzare shit to alter its drag constants...

The Photino birds planned on destroying the Ring a very slow but energy effcient way They setup photons bouncing inside the ring itself, the massed photons would bleed energy out of the hundred thousand lightyear ring eventually causing it to collapse. However when a human-derived naked soul tricks the Photino birds into thinking the Xeelee might be coming back, the Photino birds destroy the Ring in a matter of days/minutes by swarming in such huge flocks in a single point they causes pin-point sections of the ring to be cut

The real wank is the number of Photino birds required to achieve such a feat

[The Grim Squeaker]

The real wank is the number of Photino birds required to achieve such a feat
Don't the Birds outmass the Rest of the universe 6:1?
Also didn't the Xeelee escape the ring despite that, or did they make another ring?

[Dahak]

The real wank is the number of Photino birds required to achieve such a feat
Don't the Birds outmass the Rest of the universe 6:1?
Also didn't the Xeelee escape the ring despite that, or did they make another ring?

Most did escape it prior to its destruction. An unknown amount of Xeelee also traveled back in time to start their own evolution (again).

[Surlethe]

How long would it take that someone notices ants scrapping at Mount Everest?
They're simply so vast, so powerful that humans are less than ants to them.

And they punished them by locking them away, for the good of the galaxy as well as humanity's own good.

I'm thinking that to grasp this by analogy, imagine a remote area of Nevada during World War II; every once in a while, a person traveling through there disappears, but nobody really notices anything until finally, somebody in the bureaucracy puts 2 and 2 together and sends some state troopers out to investigate; they arrest the criminal and lock him up. Is that something like what went on (though on a much smaller scale)?

[Dahak]

How long would it take that someone notices ants scrapping at Mount Everest?
They're simply so vast, so powerful that humans are less than ants to them.

And they punished them by locking them away, for the good of the galaxy as well as humanity's own good.

I'm thinking that to grasp this by analogy, imagine a remote area of Nevada during World War II; every once in a while, a person traveling through there disappears, but nobody really notices anything until finally, somebody in the bureaucracy puts 2 and 2 together and sends some state troopers out to investigate; they arrest the criminal and lock him up. Is that something like what went on (though on a much smaller scale)?

Not really. At least that's my opinion
It took the humans real, hard, effort to even register. They had to work to be noticed

[Big Orange]

How long would it take that someone notices ants scrapping at Mount Everest?
They're simply so vast, so powerful that humans are less than ants to them.

And they punished them by locking them away, for the good of the galaxy as well as humanity's own good.

I'm thinking that to grasp this by analogy, imagine a remote area of Nevada during World War II; every once in a while, a person traveling through there disappears, but nobody really notices anything until finally, somebody in the bureaucracy puts 2 and 2 together and sends some state troopers out to investigate; they arrest the criminal and lock him up. Is that something like what went on (though on a much smaller scale)?

Not really. At least that's my opinion
It took the humans real, hard, effort to even register. They had to work to be noticed

Although I never read the book, I get the impression from this thread that the humans were a particularly nasty breed of army ants that kept on attacking the Xeelee (who were like people living in a big town). The human "ants" got so nasty and numerous, they overran a few houses and the Xeelee sent an extermination van to get rid of the infestation.

Is that an adequet enough comparison.

[Shinova]

They didn't sent an extermination van, so much as put a glass cup over the ants.

[andrewgpaul]

Big O.. at some point you are going to be told to JUST GO READ THE BOOKS.. so you might want to start now..

Annoyingly, it doesn't appear to be that easy; At least in Glasgow, I can only find the Destiny's Chldren trilogy, not the earlier works; Timelike Infinity, Ring, etc.

[Ar-Adunakhor]

Although I never read the book, I get the impression from this thread that the humans were a particularly nasty breed of army ants that kept on attacking the Xeelee (who were like people living in a big town). The human "ants" got so nasty and numerous, they overran a few houses and the Xeelee sent an extermination van to get rid of the infestation.

Is that an adequet enough comparison.

You are surrounded. The Red Army cut off your food train months ago, and you have been out of rations for days. Bitterly cold and utterly tired, you try to recall how long it has been since you last slept, but cannot. Your watch was shattered by a sniper's bullet days ago, and since then hours of gut-wrenching Hand-to-Hand combat have taken their toll on your memory and stamina. Now, as is your luck, the sniper has identified the hole you are hiding in. Every so often you toss out a pebble to see if he is still waiting for you, and every time a bullet strikes home within a second. While you weigh your options, the thunderous roar of an artillery barrage comes pounding down around you, and you can see the Reds forming up for another of their damned pushes into the city. Through all this, unbeknownst to you, a gnat has been trying to get through your trenchcoat, and in an act of desperation flies straight into your eye. You blink, crushing it, and then slowly reach up, brushing it away along with the crust of ice that your bitter tears have formed.

The time to fight is now, and you burst forth, managing to leap into the shattered edifice beside you before the rifle trained upon you sings it's sputtering song of death. The harbingers of death sail past and kick up snow, but you have little time to notice such things; for crouching in the shattered effigy is a frightened teenage Russian. Upon seeing you, he haltingly brings up his bayonet and charges, shouting in his gutteral tounge some foreign warcry. You snap up your own weapon, a sharpened spade, and barely manage to knock away the deadly point thrusting at you. The boy, off balance, drops his rifle and cowers back as your spade decends toward him... and the world suddenly turns blindingly bright.

"You alright, sir?" the American standing beside you asks, his Nikon lowering and a worried frown beginning to form on his face. "Ja ja," you wave it off, "I was just remembering my last journey here. So long ago, it was." The man's countenence turns knowing, "Yeah, there was some pretty tough going here. Rough stuff. 'War of the Rats', they called it, I think." "Ja," you reply as you turn from the memorial, "rough."

That gnat is Humanity fighting the Xeelee.

[Big Orange]

Big O.. at some point you are going to be told to JUST GO READ THE BOOKS.. so you might want to start now..

Annoyingly, it doesn't appear to be that easy; At least in Glasgow, I can only find the Destiny's Chldren trilogy, not the earlier works; Timelike Infinity, Ring, etc.

Don't worry guys, I have already bought one of Stephen Baxter's novels just today at WHSmiths. The Baxter novel is Exultant. It is playing out like a relatively conventional space opera so-far, however I like it that way since anything that dwells too long on hard science seems a bit too dry and dense for my tastes.

I've read the first few chapters where you have this human pilot meets a future version of himself following the successful capture of a Xeelee nightfighter and is also introduced to Nillis (who was mentioned earlier in this thread).

And the war events are going as described earlier; humanity has turned the outer core of the Milky Way into a gigantic military base and they are pouring trillions upon trillions of warships, troops and asteroids towards Chandra (seemingly an impregnable Xeelee fortress). The Xeelee fight back with nightfighters that detatch from the weird Xeelee superstructures (the "sugar cubes").