08-24-2015, 04:19 AM
The entire problem isn't that you should've, but that you shouldn't have. In fact, I am literally surprised, since my critique said the exact OPPOSITE of what you were implying: that heavy attention to detail has caused you to paint yourself into a corner.
Lets start with their chemistry.
-Okay, now that that's through, how do you fix this part? The main problem is that you wanted a Special Biology, with capital letters, mind you, without considering that maybe it wasn't needed in the first place. Unless you are trying to truly tackle the issue of having a biology that would react with the most common elements of the universe, all you succeeded in doing was causing immense difficulties in trying to put them on other planets, basic habitation, food and energy consumption. In fact, you could easily put them on an iceball without necessarily needing to make their biology unique. Hell, they would have easily worked with a water (or water/ammonia hybrid) solvent and oxygen breathing. The same reason why the planet is an ice-ball could be used to explain the weather patterns, their eyes and ears and body shape, and even their culture. In your rush to make things special, you over-complicated what they were and caused their biology to appear as a schizophrenic mess.
The biggest example of this? Making a species that would be chemically burned by water then placing them on a ball of ice.
Now for their physiology
I pretty much crammed the solutions in the critique, but I have a bit more to say. You shouldn't over-focus on trying to make their biology work. If you wanted a fantasy race, then you should have gone for that. A healthy portion of fiction is withholding details and letting people fill them in for themselves. I believe your problem is, that on some level, you want them to be real. That's okay. It's okay to have some wish fulfillment and self indulgence, but you need to be aware of this and embrace it or overcome it, rather than trying to marry reality and fantasy together. If you aren't careful and don't know where to draw the line, it becomes hard to tell what details are needed and what is just excessive fluff.
Leading example: Trying to fit in flight when it would be utterly impossible.
Now for tech.
-Your tech planning certainly has many flaws, but there are two easy solutions you can execute, ideally, without changing much of the feel of the progression. You have to either accept your tech as mere fantasy and embrace it as such, or you would have to do hard work and actually research and plan it out. Accepting their progression as fantasy has many benefits, and you can even explore normally unfeasible bits of science, without having to bear the burden of explanation. Be aware though, that using phlebotium-type shenanigans can get out of hand if you do not keep the internal logic of your special exceptions to the laws of physics consistent. Planning progression as close to reality does provide benefits, however. The technology makes considerably more sense, and the science is extremely easy to keep consistent, and the immersive potential of the concept goes way up. But you would actually need to put in vast amounts of effort into keeping track of what is actually possible and not nonsense. Even with realistic science, you would still need to keep in mind to avoid revealing the exact mechanics of your tech, as science marches on, and making it close to real will eventually culminate in it eventually becoming outdated and very much laughable.
Leading example: Giving them a Latin taxonomic designation. Are you serious?
Finally, sociology.
To be honest, it's actually rare when someone messes up societal conceptualization, mainly for two reasons: They base some of their society on a human example, leading it to be easily create-able and infinitely believable, or their society is created from them slowly laying down the foundations of their core thoughts and reasoning, allowing it to organically arrange itself into something at least semi-believable. The main issue is that you attempted to create a pack based society without realizing there already is a society based on pack hunting and coordination: us. If you wanted to truly make something unique and not base it on humanity, you would need to do a great deal of work just to distance it properly. Selecting a pack based society for a hypothetical societal exercise was perhaps a very poor choice. Over-centralizing their form of governance in a space-based society is also incredibly inadvisable as it could easily be crippled with kinetic bombardment or relativistic missiles.
Leading example: calling the in-jokes and rituals that persist only within a pack a meme when it is closer to a shibboleth.
(bonus plot examination might be coming)
Look dude, I didn't spend all this time just to stomp on your paracosm. I truly enjoy the core seed of your concept, but I believe it requires considerably more polish. I want to see it succeed, and if I have to be a little rough, so be it. There are more issues with how you write, but that's a tad bit too personal. That sort of thing can be discussed in private. I want to see this be used in other realms than starbound. I want the concept to endure past that incomplete mod.
Lets start with their chemistry.
-Okay, now that that's through, how do you fix this part? The main problem is that you wanted a Special Biology, with capital letters, mind you, without considering that maybe it wasn't needed in the first place. Unless you are trying to truly tackle the issue of having a biology that would react with the most common elements of the universe, all you succeeded in doing was causing immense difficulties in trying to put them on other planets, basic habitation, food and energy consumption. In fact, you could easily put them on an iceball without necessarily needing to make their biology unique. Hell, they would have easily worked with a water (or water/ammonia hybrid) solvent and oxygen breathing. The same reason why the planet is an ice-ball could be used to explain the weather patterns, their eyes and ears and body shape, and even their culture. In your rush to make things special, you over-complicated what they were and caused their biology to appear as a schizophrenic mess.
The biggest example of this? Making a species that would be chemically burned by water then placing them on a ball of ice.
Now for their physiology
I pretty much crammed the solutions in the critique, but I have a bit more to say. You shouldn't over-focus on trying to make their biology work. If you wanted a fantasy race, then you should have gone for that. A healthy portion of fiction is withholding details and letting people fill them in for themselves. I believe your problem is, that on some level, you want them to be real. That's okay. It's okay to have some wish fulfillment and self indulgence, but you need to be aware of this and embrace it or overcome it, rather than trying to marry reality and fantasy together. If you aren't careful and don't know where to draw the line, it becomes hard to tell what details are needed and what is just excessive fluff.
Leading example: Trying to fit in flight when it would be utterly impossible.
Now for tech.
-Your tech planning certainly has many flaws, but there are two easy solutions you can execute, ideally, without changing much of the feel of the progression. You have to either accept your tech as mere fantasy and embrace it as such, or you would have to do hard work and actually research and plan it out. Accepting their progression as fantasy has many benefits, and you can even explore normally unfeasible bits of science, without having to bear the burden of explanation. Be aware though, that using phlebotium-type shenanigans can get out of hand if you do not keep the internal logic of your special exceptions to the laws of physics consistent. Planning progression as close to reality does provide benefits, however. The technology makes considerably more sense, and the science is extremely easy to keep consistent, and the immersive potential of the concept goes way up. But you would actually need to put in vast amounts of effort into keeping track of what is actually possible and not nonsense. Even with realistic science, you would still need to keep in mind to avoid revealing the exact mechanics of your tech, as science marches on, and making it close to real will eventually culminate in it eventually becoming outdated and very much laughable.
Leading example: Giving them a Latin taxonomic designation. Are you serious?
Finally, sociology.
To be honest, it's actually rare when someone messes up societal conceptualization, mainly for two reasons: They base some of their society on a human example, leading it to be easily create-able and infinitely believable, or their society is created from them slowly laying down the foundations of their core thoughts and reasoning, allowing it to organically arrange itself into something at least semi-believable. The main issue is that you attempted to create a pack based society without realizing there already is a society based on pack hunting and coordination: us. If you wanted to truly make something unique and not base it on humanity, you would need to do a great deal of work just to distance it properly. Selecting a pack based society for a hypothetical societal exercise was perhaps a very poor choice. Over-centralizing their form of governance in a space-based society is also incredibly inadvisable as it could easily be crippled with kinetic bombardment or relativistic missiles.
Leading example: calling the in-jokes and rituals that persist only within a pack a meme when it is closer to a shibboleth.
(bonus plot examination might be coming)
Look dude, I didn't spend all this time just to stomp on your paracosm. I truly enjoy the core seed of your concept, but I believe it requires considerably more polish. I want to see it succeed, and if I have to be a little rough, so be it. There are more issues with how you write, but that's a tad bit too personal. That sort of thing can be discussed in private. I want to see this be used in other realms than starbound. I want the concept to endure past that incomplete mod.
Harshest critic of the Avali. An idea that never changes is a truly dead one.