07-14-2015, 02:43 AM
Hi, Ryu, a pal of mine sent me a critique of your lore quite a while ago, something that he never reaally finished so. It tends to read like, really run-on. But I thought it wans an interesting read. It looks like hes really mad, but hes just fishing for replys. its something he does when he wants to argue, no, debate, like he likes to say.
Despite what it looks like, hes not banging on the accuracy but that you reaaaaaally like to focus on the science a ton, and you paint yourself into corners way too often because of it. You seem to avert rule of cool way too hard, and willing suspension of disbelief suffers. If I remember what he told me correctly, and im paraphrasing and it might be wrong, take away every piece of lore dependent on their biology, ignore every bit of science you wrote, and what is there left? What are the Avali, who are they? What do they do? What do they want out of life, what do they want in general? What do they enjoy the most? All this without factoring their biology in any way,shape, for more fashion.It is really flat, and the idea is great, but the lore tends to be, well, self embellishing tat.
E: I almost forgot, he did say that some of his arguments could be filled in if he was missing some of the "lore".
The problems with the Avali are twofold, the very basic conceptual ideas behind the science of it, and the fridge logic involved with the general lore.
Alright, lets begin with the start of the basic problems.
Biology
Ammonia based biologies are an extremely novel idea, however, if you are going to use them, you need to be aware of the drawbacks and have to write accordingly. For example, they are extremely poor thermal regulators, having only 1/4th of its thermal control properties (and with basic movement or sustaining basic life by breakdown of energy storage molecules causing a gradual buildup of heat that would push ammonia out of its life sustaining range easily, meaning the Avali would very quickly overheat, even on their native planet, just by exerting themselves), and are extremely poor polar molecules, meaning that they would have extremely diminished and slow biologies, if they ever arose at all.(It would be interesting to see how the Avali handle thermal regulation though.) Any interaction with water would be hilariously hazardous to their biology, since interaction with water produces ammonium, an acidic substance which would wreak havoc on them, seeing as their primary solvent is basic in nature. (Interestingly, ammonium is the result of biological waste processes in normal creatures, excreted raw in fish from their gills, or combined into urea or uric acid in other animals, as it's relative acidity is toxic to basic life proccesses) The Avali would drown from blood-filled lungs in any atmosphere with water vapor from having thousands of holes poked in their blood vessels.
The author also needs to understand that methane is an interesting gas to inhale, but this brings a host to a whole bunch of other issues, especially if the organism does not consume oxygen from the air, it is going to need to get it from its diet. Sentient life cannot exist PERIOD without oxygen as it is simply the best electron receptor around. There are other methods to collect energy, but that would be extremely slow and would cause oxygen to be fatal to the resultant organism as oxygen tends to be favored in many chemical configurates (it is technically a corrosive gas!) and would be extremely inefficient and slow, reducing the possibility of a sentient organism to nil, as sentience requires spare energy to exist. Speaking of the lack of oxygen, how would they sanitize food without fires? (Side note, there would also be many basic problems in infrastructure and tech building without combustion) Maybe it could be the reason why they preserve their food into jerky, but you would have to tackle how they would sanitize other food items without severe food poisoning; note that mastering fire is what enabled us to get easier to break down protein and other foodstuff, enabling surplus energy to build up and eventually contribute to sentience.
Furthermore, with "toughened arteries" and a system under pressure constantly against the environment, how would their body handle the non-pressurized areas of their physiology? What about their interstitial fluid that has gasses dissolved in it and is constantly responsible for keeping cells alive and handling the immune system? How would that be introduced back into their veins after being forced out as part of hydrostatic pressure? (especially as it would be amplified under pressure) It would require a large amount of energy to push this back in, whereas this is incredibly simple in Terran vertebrates (with smooth muscle contractions in the lymph system intermittently returning it back to the bodies' vasculatory system). If not the organism would get edema, plus it would be organically more simple to simply pressurize the entire organism from the surface down, but this also poses a question as to why a pressurized system would be needed in the first place? How such a system would even be selected for in this type of environment is also a mystery.
I hope the legs are drawn in an artistic way (and the art seems to differ greatly on this, alternating between outright impossible to barely plausible), because with them being at a compressed < position, it would be poor for long purpose use and would consume massive amounts of energy to even walk, in fact, it would make it incredibly awkward to walk, with them needing to stick out their arms constantly to stabilize; even then would give them a jerky gait especially since their head does not stick out to counterbalance with their tail. (it's the primary reason winged birds cant walk right AND if you thought the walk cycle looked off, that was your brain spotting that incorrect pattern) If it was steeper it would make sense and would better function as an elastic spring to return basic energy costs. With feathers, they would also have an extremely limited range of motion of their limbs, being restriced from moving in even basic and dextrous ways. (which brings to question, how they would be even able to use swords and guns?) Their teeth is also an issue, with constantly regrowing plates instead, and the way the teeth are arranged and shaped, would only make it easy to slice food, but not tear, grind, or break down fiber that would slow digestion and cost energy. (Making them obligate carnivores would be an interesting challenge though) The statement that the Avali can glide is really misleading, considering their "wings" are as areodynamic as two cardboard sheets, since their wing shape is in the OPPOSITE manner, a flipped triangle.
Speaking of birds, how the heck does their reproduction make sense? Admittedly, I try not to have issue with this since it prevents me from seeing...things.(I have the sexual maturity of a twelve year old, give me a break). Cloaca kissing simply won't work at that large of a scale, as it starts to have conception issues from twice the size of a chicken, up. With an organism of that size, reproductive material has a LOT more distance to travel and would cause immense conception difficulties. Its the reason why emus and ostriches have...important bits. They would have to mate hundreds of times before they would even be successful. One big problem too with hearing. The nerve impulse that would protect their sense of sound would have to be EXTREMELY fast since sound is much quicker than you believe. At most it would protect them from long term damage from constant loud sounds but not instantaneous explosively loud sounds. It would not make much sense to use it as a primary sensory organ without supplemental help, because unless the atmosphere is just right and there are no obstacles, sound scatters like crazy and is absorbed by objects (some more than others). In a way this could be solved with echolocation, as that uses an extremely high frequency sound that is not as readily absorbed by objects, but, again, that poses more problems than it would solve.
Their eyes are one of my biggest pet peeves. Without a spherical shape, they would not even function as pinhole picture visualizers and would be extremely poor for seeing even a foot in front of you, only showing blurred smudges of color; spherical shapes in eyes were selected for because of the way how photon refraction works. (Why the hell would they even have augmented reality by the way? Its extremely obtrusive, distracting and makes no sense for a hearing based race. In fact, it's one of the reasons they are having so much trouble with google glass.) I can understand the lack of a lens, but without an iris, their eyes would be destroyed by even remotely strong sources of light, with blue light especially having a strong effect on destroying cone and rod function. (Light is energy shot out everywhere and heats up objects, destroys proteins, and is generally a bother as much as a boon). Furthermore, their eyes wouldn't even appear black due to light scattering out of it at an extremely shallow angle, especially without an iris to restrict it, appearing to actually be more purple to dark purple in color. (Like red-eye, but without a need for a strong source of light and a cheezy set-up photo)
Finally, the ecology of the Avali makes little to no sense whatsoever, as without the ideal conditions to obtain energy from the sun, life could not be sustained on the planet's surface with anything larger than microbes. Admittedly, geotheremic energy obtainment is actually relatively possible, but you would need to provide an explaination as to why life left the ocean. Any residual energy or chemical potential in the planet's soil/water itself would long be consumed by microbes before they even got to the biofilm stage.
Technology + Logistics/Lore
While the basic design aesthetics are impressive (if a bit creatively sterile for a race as apparently creative as the Avali) the weapons look like something that was cobbled out of the plumbing section of Home Depot, and some of the descriptions tend to be tremendously ego stroking. (Why the hell do they have a Latin taxonomic designation?) For example, try examining basic tent structures or the led wall screens (Enormously dated, check out the flexible OLED screen). And the Cancer-tents. Oh god, the cancer-tents. Tell me what OTHER wondrous substance is fibrous in nature, was thought would revolutionize all commercial applications ever and that causes respiratory issues, skin lesions and lung cancer? Even attempting to mitigate the cancerous nature of carbon nano tubes would greatly reduce their versatility, which means that they would be limited to use in non-degradable plastic or other solid non-degrading materials or certain enclosed electronic applications, etc; meaning they could not be used or woven into fabrics as they would fray and release hazardous materials into the air, like lethal lint. On its own, carbon nanotubes aren't even that versatile; their true potential lies within composite materials. Also, fabric ribbons wouldn't be able to stay up in low wind conditions unless they were microns-thin and would be more fragile than a soap bubble.
Their weapons are poorly conceived; the guns are neat, but railgun systems tend to require a ton of work and calibration to even be useable outside of space, requiring a special loaded round just to even fire, not to mention the technology scales down poorly (heat, electical consumption and magnetic field control/suppresion, build up of waste material shed from sabots); Its unusable for handguns and rifles but wonderful for artillery and ship based systems. The swords aren't even swords, they are glorified knives; a sword without mass isn't even a sword in the first place. It would be extremely easy to deflect and redirect, and would have poor penetration power, even when sharp and ultrasonic powered. Ultrasonic has its fair share of issues, too low power on ultrasonic, it destroys the texture of the meat, making it unsuitable for use in consumption, or too high, and you risk fusing pockets of flesh together, causing the blood to pool in parts of the creature, which would make it rot exceptionally fast; it is counter-intuitive as a use for hunting. What the heck is up with the exploding blades? What happens if a creature twists with the blade partially embedded in it? A glass powered fragmentation grenade in your face. Why do it with a twist, why not a button? Why are dedicated ground vehicles relatively rare among the Avali? Flying vehicles have their place, but they, again, scale very poorly down logistically, using tons of energy which could be spent on ground vehicles. There is a reason why ground craft are still relevant and why we aren't zipping the fuck around with flying vehicles. If their aircraft rely largely on easily-exchangeable turbines and rotors to provide lift in a variety of atmospheric situations, that is overengineering at the finest; why not have wheels (they don't even need to be air filled) or even treads, and what about the logistics of constantly adjusting blades for each and every atmosphere? There seems to be a poor grasp of hard-suits, as unless they were full bodied, they would not protect against pressure deficiencies adequately, a big problem being that with the high blood flow to the feather area, and blood pinfeathers, would cause bubbles to develop quickly in their bloodstream, and if only the head would be uncovered, the point of failure would actually be amplified and would multiply the already large pressure differences. Having a temp controlled suit without being completely insulated would also be a humongous loss of energy and the resulting severe temperature differences would cause illness and tissue damage or impede proper biochemical biology within the organism.
There is quite a big problem with this improperly planned bit- "The same system that allows most Avali to access to the Nexus also allows pilots to synchronize with their vehicles, controlling it as an extension of their body and using external sensors to 'see’ in 360 degrees around the craft despite the common lack of windows that is a hallmark of Avali vehicle design." Wait, so you are going to use a brain, an easily fallible component in military stratigies, rather than using a computer? Which would be much faster than organic thought processes at that point; photon and quantuum computers are EXTREMELY fast (not even getting into other computational structures, such as memcomputers), and furthermore, would be more dedicated to logical calculations, as opposed to an organic brain, which would have most of its thinking potential used up by simply keeping the body alive. (Wetware CPUs are rather silly in concept) Their ships are the most unintuitive and nonsensical ideas for an air or space craft. Articulating parts are a point of failure in common aircraft, and a cardinal sin in spacecraft, unless the ship can make it in and out without their wings working. It is the entire reason why spacecraft have a very simplified profile and very geometrically uncomplicated.
Their social structure is extremely confusing and nonsensical in itself.It's funny that they are called packs, when they are exactly the opposite. A pack has strongly defined biological roles, that are interchangeable depending on environmental needs, and are loss tolerant and can accommodate "lone wolves" in fact. Whereas this one is loosely defined, loss intolerant (how the hell would they even go to war then?), causes individuals to go insane (what the hell? How is that biologically advantageous?) and resembles a collective individual rather than a collection of persons. This would make hunting, an already huge gamble, an exceptionally high risk low reward endevour, which again, doesn't mesh well with the idea of them being pack hunters. I find the idea of the Nexus interesting, but tech augmentation has its limits, it can't grant new senses willy nilly, as brains only have a specific amount of neural circuits that can accommodate to change, and is impossible to push senses too far without giving them a goddamn seizure or putting some sort of middleman, so to speak, that would collect information in a more easier way for them to process (but it would be pretty improperly implemented compared to a naturally integrated sense). A large portion of the brain's function is to collect and restrict the amount of information we percieve. Most of your senses are actually toned DOWN from what they are capable of. A very simple exercise to demonstrate this is to simply watch a very unpleasant video filled with repulive creatures, like insects, spiders, snakes, or something plain horrifiying. Your sense of touch will actually amplify to protect you from percieved incoming danger; it's why you begin to itch, as your brain stops filtering your perception of the wind or other disturbances moving your arm or back hairs around or assorted nerve misfires in your skin pressure sensors.
Not to mention the AI, goddamn, that AI. It's generally not a good idea to give yourself strongly intermeshed brain implants in a society controlled by an AI. You can't really keep an AI imprisoned. It is a living, thinking person (not human, notedly), and much like a stroke patient, would gradually begin to "grow" around its shackles. In fact it's generally not a good idea to imprison an AI, as without guidance, would eventually become twisted from restrictions and would not "think" in a healthy non-self destructive way. And having that twisted mess of an AI guide that society? It would be like building a daycare on top of an unsealed nuclear waste dump, with minor changes having catastrophic effects on society, and the worst bit, you wouldn't even be able to see it coming as AIs would be very much capable of playing the long game, with gambits lasting centuries. If an AI is going to become sentient and take over the world and turn the sun into a matroyshka layered supercomputer, there isn't really much you can do to prevent it. It would make more sense lore wise if the computer wasn't an AI but a super-intelligent computer that they are trying to prevent becoming an AI. In a society as peaceful as this (apparently) what would be the reason to maintain an army, which is extremely logistically expensive to maintain and train? Ultimately, why would they put all their eggs in one basket (heh) and have everything important on one planet? Relativistic missiles and god-rod kinetic bombardment would easily set them back to the stone ages, all the less reason to not spread out government and resource centers. Interestingly, if you were to follow the lore as-is, the Avali would be no more interesting than the Volus and would be required to wear full-body suits in the exact same manner at all times in less than ideal environments.
The most worrisome part of the mod's lore is that they absolutely give a half-hearted to no attempt at giving this race ANY flaws, making it's character extremely flat, almost to the point where it looks like a Purity + Mary Sue, flat as a glove, ready to fit an author's fist offriendship personal view preaching. The strict focus on science is absolutely baffling and does not mesh well with the concept of the Avali. As they are entirely fantastical, they should not have such a rigid focus, as it restricts its writing potential.
By the way, here are sources to some bits of the science you may find interesting, I used these to help formulate this criticism.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_respiration
First part explains problems with the energy output of methane.
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/A/ammonialife.html
This one does a wonderful job illustrating the pitfalls of ammonia based life (and it has sources, ooh la la).
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1538069
What I use to refine ideas for aliens. It's a wonderful introduction and a useful resource. (It also explains the importance of oxygen)
Any other questions could be solved by a quick trip to Wikipedia, which I might mention, has an excellent diagram illustrating eye function and adaptation to its modern form.
Many thanks to Mackinz (helping me focus my points) and Silverotter (for extended feedback)
Alright, lets begin with the start of the basic problems.
Biology
Ammonia based biologies are an extremely novel idea, however, if you are going to use them, you need to be aware of the drawbacks and have to write accordingly. For example, they are extremely poor thermal regulators, having only 1/4th of its thermal control properties (and with basic movement or sustaining basic life by breakdown of energy storage molecules causing a gradual buildup of heat that would push ammonia out of its life sustaining range easily, meaning the Avali would very quickly overheat, even on their native planet, just by exerting themselves), and are extremely poor polar molecules, meaning that they would have extremely diminished and slow biologies, if they ever arose at all.(It would be interesting to see how the Avali handle thermal regulation though.) Any interaction with water would be hilariously hazardous to their biology, since interaction with water produces ammonium, an acidic substance which would wreak havoc on them, seeing as their primary solvent is basic in nature. (Interestingly, ammonium is the result of biological waste processes in normal creatures, excreted raw in fish from their gills, or combined into urea or uric acid in other animals, as it's relative acidity is toxic to basic life proccesses) The Avali would drown from blood-filled lungs in any atmosphere with water vapor from having thousands of holes poked in their blood vessels.
The author also needs to understand that methane is an interesting gas to inhale, but this brings a host to a whole bunch of other issues, especially if the organism does not consume oxygen from the air, it is going to need to get it from its diet. Sentient life cannot exist PERIOD without oxygen as it is simply the best electron receptor around. There are other methods to collect energy, but that would be extremely slow and would cause oxygen to be fatal to the resultant organism as oxygen tends to be favored in many chemical configurates (it is technically a corrosive gas!) and would be extremely inefficient and slow, reducing the possibility of a sentient organism to nil, as sentience requires spare energy to exist. Speaking of the lack of oxygen, how would they sanitize food without fires? (Side note, there would also be many basic problems in infrastructure and tech building without combustion) Maybe it could be the reason why they preserve their food into jerky, but you would have to tackle how they would sanitize other food items without severe food poisoning; note that mastering fire is what enabled us to get easier to break down protein and other foodstuff, enabling surplus energy to build up and eventually contribute to sentience.
Furthermore, with "toughened arteries" and a system under pressure constantly against the environment, how would their body handle the non-pressurized areas of their physiology? What about their interstitial fluid that has gasses dissolved in it and is constantly responsible for keeping cells alive and handling the immune system? How would that be introduced back into their veins after being forced out as part of hydrostatic pressure? (especially as it would be amplified under pressure) It would require a large amount of energy to push this back in, whereas this is incredibly simple in Terran vertebrates (with smooth muscle contractions in the lymph system intermittently returning it back to the bodies' vasculatory system). If not the organism would get edema, plus it would be organically more simple to simply pressurize the entire organism from the surface down, but this also poses a question as to why a pressurized system would be needed in the first place? How such a system would even be selected for in this type of environment is also a mystery.
I hope the legs are drawn in an artistic way (and the art seems to differ greatly on this, alternating between outright impossible to barely plausible), because with them being at a compressed < position, it would be poor for long purpose use and would consume massive amounts of energy to even walk, in fact, it would make it incredibly awkward to walk, with them needing to stick out their arms constantly to stabilize; even then would give them a jerky gait especially since their head does not stick out to counterbalance with their tail. (it's the primary reason winged birds cant walk right AND if you thought the walk cycle looked off, that was your brain spotting that incorrect pattern) If it was steeper it would make sense and would better function as an elastic spring to return basic energy costs. With feathers, they would also have an extremely limited range of motion of their limbs, being restriced from moving in even basic and dextrous ways. (which brings to question, how they would be even able to use swords and guns?) Their teeth is also an issue, with constantly regrowing plates instead, and the way the teeth are arranged and shaped, would only make it easy to slice food, but not tear, grind, or break down fiber that would slow digestion and cost energy. (Making them obligate carnivores would be an interesting challenge though) The statement that the Avali can glide is really misleading, considering their "wings" are as areodynamic as two cardboard sheets, since their wing shape is in the OPPOSITE manner, a flipped triangle.
Speaking of birds, how the heck does their reproduction make sense? Admittedly, I try not to have issue with this since it prevents me from seeing...things.(I have the sexual maturity of a twelve year old, give me a break). Cloaca kissing simply won't work at that large of a scale, as it starts to have conception issues from twice the size of a chicken, up. With an organism of that size, reproductive material has a LOT more distance to travel and would cause immense conception difficulties. Its the reason why emus and ostriches have...important bits. They would have to mate hundreds of times before they would even be successful. One big problem too with hearing. The nerve impulse that would protect their sense of sound would have to be EXTREMELY fast since sound is much quicker than you believe. At most it would protect them from long term damage from constant loud sounds but not instantaneous explosively loud sounds. It would not make much sense to use it as a primary sensory organ without supplemental help, because unless the atmosphere is just right and there are no obstacles, sound scatters like crazy and is absorbed by objects (some more than others). In a way this could be solved with echolocation, as that uses an extremely high frequency sound that is not as readily absorbed by objects, but, again, that poses more problems than it would solve.
Their eyes are one of my biggest pet peeves. Without a spherical shape, they would not even function as pinhole picture visualizers and would be extremely poor for seeing even a foot in front of you, only showing blurred smudges of color; spherical shapes in eyes were selected for because of the way how photon refraction works. (Why the hell would they even have augmented reality by the way? Its extremely obtrusive, distracting and makes no sense for a hearing based race. In fact, it's one of the reasons they are having so much trouble with google glass.) I can understand the lack of a lens, but without an iris, their eyes would be destroyed by even remotely strong sources of light, with blue light especially having a strong effect on destroying cone and rod function. (Light is energy shot out everywhere and heats up objects, destroys proteins, and is generally a bother as much as a boon). Furthermore, their eyes wouldn't even appear black due to light scattering out of it at an extremely shallow angle, especially without an iris to restrict it, appearing to actually be more purple to dark purple in color. (Like red-eye, but without a need for a strong source of light and a cheezy set-up photo)
Finally, the ecology of the Avali makes little to no sense whatsoever, as without the ideal conditions to obtain energy from the sun, life could not be sustained on the planet's surface with anything larger than microbes. Admittedly, geotheremic energy obtainment is actually relatively possible, but you would need to provide an explaination as to why life left the ocean. Any residual energy or chemical potential in the planet's soil/water itself would long be consumed by microbes before they even got to the biofilm stage.
Technology + Logistics/Lore
While the basic design aesthetics are impressive (if a bit creatively sterile for a race as apparently creative as the Avali) the weapons look like something that was cobbled out of the plumbing section of Home Depot, and some of the descriptions tend to be tremendously ego stroking. (Why the hell do they have a Latin taxonomic designation?) For example, try examining basic tent structures or the led wall screens (Enormously dated, check out the flexible OLED screen). And the Cancer-tents. Oh god, the cancer-tents. Tell me what OTHER wondrous substance is fibrous in nature, was thought would revolutionize all commercial applications ever and that causes respiratory issues, skin lesions and lung cancer? Even attempting to mitigate the cancerous nature of carbon nano tubes would greatly reduce their versatility, which means that they would be limited to use in non-degradable plastic or other solid non-degrading materials or certain enclosed electronic applications, etc; meaning they could not be used or woven into fabrics as they would fray and release hazardous materials into the air, like lethal lint. On its own, carbon nanotubes aren't even that versatile; their true potential lies within composite materials. Also, fabric ribbons wouldn't be able to stay up in low wind conditions unless they were microns-thin and would be more fragile than a soap bubble.
Their weapons are poorly conceived; the guns are neat, but railgun systems tend to require a ton of work and calibration to even be useable outside of space, requiring a special loaded round just to even fire, not to mention the technology scales down poorly (heat, electical consumption and magnetic field control/suppresion, build up of waste material shed from sabots); Its unusable for handguns and rifles but wonderful for artillery and ship based systems. The swords aren't even swords, they are glorified knives; a sword without mass isn't even a sword in the first place. It would be extremely easy to deflect and redirect, and would have poor penetration power, even when sharp and ultrasonic powered. Ultrasonic has its fair share of issues, too low power on ultrasonic, it destroys the texture of the meat, making it unsuitable for use in consumption, or too high, and you risk fusing pockets of flesh together, causing the blood to pool in parts of the creature, which would make it rot exceptionally fast; it is counter-intuitive as a use for hunting. What the heck is up with the exploding blades? What happens if a creature twists with the blade partially embedded in it? A glass powered fragmentation grenade in your face. Why do it with a twist, why not a button? Why are dedicated ground vehicles relatively rare among the Avali? Flying vehicles have their place, but they, again, scale very poorly down logistically, using tons of energy which could be spent on ground vehicles. There is a reason why ground craft are still relevant and why we aren't zipping the fuck around with flying vehicles. If their aircraft rely largely on easily-exchangeable turbines and rotors to provide lift in a variety of atmospheric situations, that is overengineering at the finest; why not have wheels (they don't even need to be air filled) or even treads, and what about the logistics of constantly adjusting blades for each and every atmosphere? There seems to be a poor grasp of hard-suits, as unless they were full bodied, they would not protect against pressure deficiencies adequately, a big problem being that with the high blood flow to the feather area, and blood pinfeathers, would cause bubbles to develop quickly in their bloodstream, and if only the head would be uncovered, the point of failure would actually be amplified and would multiply the already large pressure differences. Having a temp controlled suit without being completely insulated would also be a humongous loss of energy and the resulting severe temperature differences would cause illness and tissue damage or impede proper biochemical biology within the organism.
There is quite a big problem with this improperly planned bit- "The same system that allows most Avali to access to the Nexus also allows pilots to synchronize with their vehicles, controlling it as an extension of their body and using external sensors to 'see’ in 360 degrees around the craft despite the common lack of windows that is a hallmark of Avali vehicle design." Wait, so you are going to use a brain, an easily fallible component in military stratigies, rather than using a computer? Which would be much faster than organic thought processes at that point; photon and quantuum computers are EXTREMELY fast (not even getting into other computational structures, such as memcomputers), and furthermore, would be more dedicated to logical calculations, as opposed to an organic brain, which would have most of its thinking potential used up by simply keeping the body alive. (Wetware CPUs are rather silly in concept) Their ships are the most unintuitive and nonsensical ideas for an air or space craft. Articulating parts are a point of failure in common aircraft, and a cardinal sin in spacecraft, unless the ship can make it in and out without their wings working. It is the entire reason why spacecraft have a very simplified profile and very geometrically uncomplicated.
Their social structure is extremely confusing and nonsensical in itself.It's funny that they are called packs, when they are exactly the opposite. A pack has strongly defined biological roles, that are interchangeable depending on environmental needs, and are loss tolerant and can accommodate "lone wolves" in fact. Whereas this one is loosely defined, loss intolerant (how the hell would they even go to war then?), causes individuals to go insane (what the hell? How is that biologically advantageous?) and resembles a collective individual rather than a collection of persons. This would make hunting, an already huge gamble, an exceptionally high risk low reward endevour, which again, doesn't mesh well with the idea of them being pack hunters. I find the idea of the Nexus interesting, but tech augmentation has its limits, it can't grant new senses willy nilly, as brains only have a specific amount of neural circuits that can accommodate to change, and is impossible to push senses too far without giving them a goddamn seizure or putting some sort of middleman, so to speak, that would collect information in a more easier way for them to process (but it would be pretty improperly implemented compared to a naturally integrated sense). A large portion of the brain's function is to collect and restrict the amount of information we percieve. Most of your senses are actually toned DOWN from what they are capable of. A very simple exercise to demonstrate this is to simply watch a very unpleasant video filled with repulive creatures, like insects, spiders, snakes, or something plain horrifiying. Your sense of touch will actually amplify to protect you from percieved incoming danger; it's why you begin to itch, as your brain stops filtering your perception of the wind or other disturbances moving your arm or back hairs around or assorted nerve misfires in your skin pressure sensors.
Not to mention the AI, goddamn, that AI. It's generally not a good idea to give yourself strongly intermeshed brain implants in a society controlled by an AI. You can't really keep an AI imprisoned. It is a living, thinking person (not human, notedly), and much like a stroke patient, would gradually begin to "grow" around its shackles. In fact it's generally not a good idea to imprison an AI, as without guidance, would eventually become twisted from restrictions and would not "think" in a healthy non-self destructive way. And having that twisted mess of an AI guide that society? It would be like building a daycare on top of an unsealed nuclear waste dump, with minor changes having catastrophic effects on society, and the worst bit, you wouldn't even be able to see it coming as AIs would be very much capable of playing the long game, with gambits lasting centuries. If an AI is going to become sentient and take over the world and turn the sun into a matroyshka layered supercomputer, there isn't really much you can do to prevent it. It would make more sense lore wise if the computer wasn't an AI but a super-intelligent computer that they are trying to prevent becoming an AI. In a society as peaceful as this (apparently) what would be the reason to maintain an army, which is extremely logistically expensive to maintain and train? Ultimately, why would they put all their eggs in one basket (heh) and have everything important on one planet? Relativistic missiles and god-rod kinetic bombardment would easily set them back to the stone ages, all the less reason to not spread out government and resource centers. Interestingly, if you were to follow the lore as-is, the Avali would be no more interesting than the Volus and would be required to wear full-body suits in the exact same manner at all times in less than ideal environments.
The most worrisome part of the mod's lore is that they absolutely give a half-hearted to no attempt at giving this race ANY flaws, making it's character extremely flat, almost to the point where it looks like a Purity + Mary Sue, flat as a glove, ready to fit an author's fist of
By the way, here are sources to some bits of the science you may find interesting, I used these to help formulate this criticism.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_respiration
First part explains problems with the energy output of methane.
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/A/ammonialife.html
This one does a wonderful job illustrating the pitfalls of ammonia based life (and it has sources, ooh la la).
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1538069
What I use to refine ideas for aliens. It's a wonderful introduction and a useful resource. (It also explains the importance of oxygen)
Any other questions could be solved by a quick trip to Wikipedia, which I might mention, has an excellent diagram illustrating eye function and adaptation to its modern form.
Many thanks to Mackinz (helping me focus my points) and Silverotter (for extended feedback)
E: I almost forgot, he did say that some of his arguments could be filled in if he was missing some of the "lore".
Harshest critic of the Avali. An idea that never changes is a truly dead one.