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Other thread too long, so restarting here
DalekTek790
Committed SadGeezer
Member # 15
posted 24-11-2001 07:46 PM
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Originally posted by Headgehog:
Mantird Drones were Von Neumann machines. A Von Neumann is a machine htat takes raw materials and creates a copy of itself, to absorb more raw materials for future copies, and then eventually perform a certain task.
——————————————————————————–That must’ve been where I got von Neumann in my head. I still can’t believe I did that.
The idea behind the Weizsäcker object is that if a planetoid gets a hole punched in it (while in a fluid state), if the hole is beyond a certain range based on mass and rotation, then the center of gravity in the body would actually change, so its “core” would be a ring. alternately, a celestial body could theoretically form in that shape naturally because protoplanetary dust will form rings within rings, and if the mass is distributed right, a solid body can condense in a ring shape. But the proportions have to be exact in either case or it will be crushed into a sphere by its own gravity.
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Lee P. Sherman, code name DalekTek790
Whovian, Froudian, Lexxian, etc.——————————————————————————–
Posts: 760 | From: Iowa City, IA (college)/Davenport, IA (home), United States | Registered: Dec 2000 | IP: LoggedCat
Administrator
Member # 104
posted 24-11-2001 08:32 PM
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IF anyone’s still interested, the Lexx production drawings come from Splarka’s Basement, for some reason I put some diagrams on my Stuff page for someone, and they’re still there.
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Posts: 314 | From: Cardiff, Wales, UK | Registered: Feb 2001 | IP: LoggedHeadgehog
Committed SadGeezer
Member # 175
posted 24-11-2001 08:44 PM
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Originally posted by Hypatia:
Well, there is no center of the universe, but traveling to the center was a big thing (yes, that’s the Art School term ) in S2. Kai’s brain functions without oxygen or any sort of energy. The ‘Greater Uncertainty Priniciple’ is a very wierd twisting of the Hiesenberg uncertainty principle. Kai is ‘de-carbonized’, despite the fact that all known organisms are carbon based….the multitude of moons that have huge holes in them…
I wouldn’t worry about physics on Lexx——————————————————————————–
Haven’t we learned that lesson about 40 times from past science questions? Don’t get me wrong, I love discussing the physics of Lexx, but the beans obey the laws of the universe at their own leisure.
quote:
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Originally posted by Valdron:
Does the LEXX move like a 10 km object?
——————————————————————————–Not really! Something as massive and large as the lexx would require more then a few particle accelerators in its tail to move straight or even all that fast. Having such a weak propulsion system near its x-y center of gravity wouldn’t apply much of a torque ,for turning, as it would if it were located in other places, like on the body. Plus the propulsion system is to too off center in the x-z or y-z planes, so it will just cause the ship to torque in an upward direction. Other direction thrusters would be required.
Also sicne its so massive it gravitation attraction with other bodies would not be trivial.In the case of fire/water it would have lost its orbit almost immediatly without it firing thrusters at the right time and place! And since the lexx had no fuel or propellant at that time it couldn’t ahve corrected it orbit every few minutes. This wouldn’t be as much a problem around a single planet. But the pull of two near equal gravities in such close proximity would have twisted it orbit into instability.
In a single planet envioment, asteriods, comets and other space junk is routinely captured into orbit. Just look at Mars’ two “moons”. They were probably once space junk from the asteriod belt.Lexx would be so massive that it would attaract smaller bodies to it such as artifical satillites and space rocks. I imagin eit would be bombarded with crap regurarly. It’s massive size would also cause a tiny wobble in other plantes, moons, stars etc. It may even affect tides on a planet!
Finally, this has been mentioned before, but fire/water would have torn each other apart with their gravitational pulls, almost instantly, and have made another new single planet.
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You’re not paranoid, everyone really is out to get you.
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Posts: 175 | From: Albuquerque, NM (College) / Philadelphia, PA (Home) USA | Registered: Apr 2001 | IP: LoggedCat
Administrator
Member # 104
posted 24-11-2001 08:49 PM
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directional thrusters were shown when the Lexx was landing in Supernova.
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Posts: 314 | From: Cardiff, Wales, UK | Registered: Feb 2001 | IP: LoggedI suppose the start of all this was my quest to know as much as possible about the Insects. I wanted to know how big the Insect that burrowed into the Cluster at the beginning of Mantrid was, to get a rough idea of the race’s general size (of course we don’t know if that Insect was a typical specimen, what stage in its life cycle it was in, or if it is one of many castes or varieties). First I’d have to know how big the Cluster was (I had arbitrarily assumed that the Cluster was somewhere between the size of Vesta and Pluto, but that was of little help). So I went to Lexx.co.uk to check out the vidcaps for The Giga Shadow. I was inspired by this guy at TheForce.net who figured out the relative sizes of all these Star Wars craft just with film stills, a ruler, and a calculator (I actually had left my calculator at home, so I had to borrow my roommate’s, and he probably thinks I’m nuts for spending over an hour calculating the sizes of computer generated ships in a show he’s never heard of). There were no direct size comparisons for the Lexx and the Cluster, but there were shots of the Lexx next to the Gigs Shadow. I was able to ascertain that the segment that was the same distance from the viewer as the Lexx had a radius of 3.5 times the length of the Lexx. Then there was the tendril. The tendril could’ve tapered in size from the orifice to the part that impaled the Lexx, but working from it I came up with the same size difference as before: that the diameter of the Giga Shadow when rolled up was 6.5 times the length of the Lexx. Then I looked at screen captures of the Giga Shadow bursting out of the Cluster, and after careful pixellated measurements was able to ascertain that the Cluster’s diameter was 3 times the width of the Giga Shadow’s head. So its diameter would be 11 times the Length of the Lexx. But I still didn’t know how long the Lexx was, so I had to depend on trusty fans. The first figure I heard was about 45 kilometers, which would make the Cluster 490 kilometers wide, or close to the same size as Uranus’ moon Miranda. Pretty small. Then I heard that the Lexx was officially 10 kilometers long. So the Cluster would be 110 kilometers wide. Very small, as in a medium-sized asteroid.
Now, we knew that the Cluster would need artificial gravity and imported atmosphere, and was rather insignificant in the scope of things (physically), but that seems almost too small. Then again, the Cluster could’ve taken on a significance akin to the Holy Land. Rock Hound, a simple asteroid surveyor, was overcome by a divine essence on that mysterious planetoid, a true miracle. The essence was thought to be a metaphysical being, like Prince only good (in their eyes). Rock Hound would’ve been nothing short of a messiah (and we don’t even know his real name, lousy keep-us-in-the-dark Beans). This was about 16 millennia after the Insect Wars, so few people remember that the Insects could account for His Shadow, and those people were treated as heretics or conspiracy nuts. Now, I’m guessing Rock Hound gave up his asteroid prospecting job and attracted a David Koresh-like cult following. After he died, the essence was passed down to one of his followers. And it went on like this until there was a very large group of people who believed this (vaguely defined) religion. Eventually they attracted followers in high places, sent evangelists to 20,000 planets, and came to control the government of the League of 20,000. The Divine Order went from being like the Branch Davidians to the Taliban to the U.S. government (not to be unpatriotic). So the Cluster became more than a sacred spot, it became the new capital of a star alliance.
This was precipitated by my passion for things Insect, but I decided to use the stills at Lexx.co.uk to scale other ships and objects besides what was needed to find the Insect size. I figured Sad could use those figures if he ever made a Lexx ships section. I still haven’t figured out the size of a moth, since I have no really good pictures of one to use for size comparison with either cast members or the Lexx’s features. And other fans might want to know, if they crave information from the Lexx universe as much as I do.
By the way, the Lexx’s enormous size would not necessarily attract other objects. it has artificial gravity, so its overall external gravitational pull would be significantly less than would be assumed. Plus its gravity has been show to affect other objects, such as Arnot Lashot’s cryopod in Super Nova and the Trade War debris in Eating Pattern.
Ironically, I still don’t know how long the original Insect was, since I have no vidcaps of the grub and the Cluster from Mantrid. There seems to be a metallic tract covering the hole where the Insect burrowed in, but I haven’t been able to measure its dimensions compared to the Cluster’s overall size, and it would be an indefinite indicator since the wriggling Insect grub would’ve loosened up the rock around its body and ended up making a hole bigger than itself and differently shaped. So my original goal has still not been reached.
And none of this would matter if I had a girlfriend.
quote:
Originally posted by DalekTek790:
And none of this would matter if I had a girlfriend.
unless, of course, she likes lexx too!(i always find libraries and bookstores good places to meet likeminded people…hey, you can at least have coffee and talk about science fiction 
)You’re complaining about being pathetic? I’m married, for pete’s sake.
On the subject of Moth’s, I’ve seen production sketches that give the dimensions. I’m pretty sure those sketches were once posted on the US Sci Fi Board. Or perhaps check Splarka’s site.
There’s nothing in the series canon that actually contradicts your size estimate for The Cluster and the Gigashadow. The one verbal reference in Mantrid was to a ‘tiny planet’ or ‘small planetoid.’ Of course,
if The Cluster really was that small, I’d
expect more curvature on the horizon for ships coming in, a la, TV World. But who
knows.I still think its impressive work, and I’ll make a note to ask someone about it sometime.
quote:
Originally posted by D.G. Valdron:
There’s nothing in the series canon that actually contradicts your size estimate for The Cluster and the Gigashadow. The one verbal reference in Mantrid was to a ‘tiny planet’ or ‘small planetoid.’ Of course,
if The Cluster really was that small, I’d
expect more curvature on the horizon for ships coming in, a la, TV World. But who
knows.
Like I said, we need to wait for “The Divine Order Sourcebook.” Why can’t I find any Lexx books, anyway?
When The X-Files was in its fourth season there were at least three books out about it. 
When I get into a sci-fi show, I want to collect some tie-in literature (I have 6 Doctor Who books, 9 X-Files books, and twenty-some Star Trek books ). I mean, come on, “The Dark Zone Companion,” “The Lexx Chronology,” “The Heretic Cookbook,” something! 
quote:
Originally posted by FX:
unless, of course, she likes lexx too!(i always find libraries and bookstores good places to meet likeminded people…hey, you can at least have coffee and talk about science fiction )
I’m not the smooth operator you might think I am.
quote:
Originally posted by DalekTek790:
I’m not the smooth operator you might think I am.
hmmm, not exactly an issue of being a smooth operator; easier just to talk about the books you are looking at
As to why no books. Salter Street isn’t one
of these giant interlocking media companies,
it’s sort of a small regional film company. So book deals and merchandising wasn’t really
an area of expertise.Also, I think it has something to do with the
constituencies that LEXX was sold too. Essentially, the movies were orphaned by
Showtime in the US, they did them, didn’t like them, aired them and forgot about them.The second and third seasons were made without American participation. The second
season wasn’t even sold to the US until
2000 literally as production on the third
season was finishing. This made for huge
gaps of time.The trouble is that the big marketplace
for merchandising is the US. Without a US
market sale, they figured at Salter that there wasn’t enough of an international
market for merchandise, and even that market
was too scattered. Sell a few books in
Canada, a few more in Australia, a few more
in New Zealand, England, Lithuania, Spain…The American sales made them rethink, but
the US Sci Fi wound up burning through the
first three seasons in a relatively short
time.It wasn’t until they got a commitment for
a fourth season that they started thinking
about doing a book or books again, and hired a licensing agent.Ahhh, but I forget myself. Actually, there
were LEXX books, both planned and realized.
These came from the movies, apparently there
were two german language LEXX novels written,
fairly crappy from what I’ve heard, and
essentially novelisations of the first season
movies.Paul Donovan also planned and might have had
a real publishing opportunity to write a LEXX novel. I don’t know too much about it, I believe that it was planned to take place
during the ancient Insect Wars.Donovan eventually got busy doing the series,
and pretty much gave up on the novel.There was one other report of a LEXX book.
After third season, when they weren’t sure
there’d be a fourth season, Paul thought about doing a novel to wrap the story lines
all up.quote:
Originally posted by D.G. Valdron:
The trouble is that the big marketplace
for merchandising is the US. Without a US
market sale, they figured at Salter that there wasn’t enough of an international
market for merchandise, and even that market
was too scattered. Sell a few books in
Canada, a few more in Australia, a few more
in New Zealand, England, Lithuania, Spain…The American sales made them rethink, but
the US Sci Fi wound up burning through the
first three seasons in a relatively short
time.It wasn’t until they got a commitment for
a fourth season that they started thinking
about doing a book or books again, and hired a licensing agent.Ahhh, but I forget myself. Actually, there
were LEXX books, both planned and realized.
These came from the movies, apparently there
were two german language LEXX novels written,
fairly crappy from what I’ve heard, and
essentially novelisations of the first season
movies.Paul Donovan also planned and might have had
a real publishing opportunity to write a LEXX novel. I don’t know too much about it, I believe that it was planned to take place
during the ancient Insect Wars.
Actually, I wasn’t talking about novelizations so much as supplements. Something to Lexx as “The Star Wars Technical Journal” is to Star Wars, or “The Star Trek Compendium” is to Star Trek, or “Doctor Who: The Eighties” is to Doctor Who. Y’know, like a compendium of information on the making of the show or background details. Lexx is really deserving of a few books like that.
An original Lexx novel would be good, though, especially if it has INSECTS.
quote:
Originally posted by FX:
hmmm, not exactly an issue of being a smooth operator; easier just to talk about the books you are looking at
I can’t even do that.
I’m not very sociable, especially in settings like that where the people I see are total strangers. Heck, I’m scared just to say hi when I pass someone I know on the street (unless they say hi to me first ).quote:
Originally posted by DalekTek790:
I can’t even do that.
I’m not very sociable, especially in settings like that where the people I see are total strangers. Heck, I’m scared just to say hi when I pass someone I know on the street (unless they say hi to me first ).
*sigh*…well, get over it! (and do as i say, not as i do
)Well, I started off talking about books of
any sort, rather than just novelisations.So far, its been a matter of economics and
a lack of merchandising agreements.Currently, ECW has an agreement in principle
for LEXX licensing. They’re a small publisher, but they do “Unauthorized”
Buffy, X-Files, Planet of the Apes, Wrestling
books. So essentially, they know the media
field.A big publisher which already had the Star
Trek or X-Files franchise might well leave LEXX to languish in some corner of a junior editors desk. These guys are small, fast
and opportunistic. I’m hoping that if they
get the deal sealed, they’ll just go wild
to wring every drop out.The trouble is that right now, the first
LEXX book, if any, is going to be published
well after the series finishes its run.There’ll be the DVD releases, and there’ll
be syndication. But it’s going to be a real
question as to what or how much of a market
there’s going to be.Bottom line is that the boat might have
sailed.I’m not terribly thrilled…
quote:
Originally posted by D.G. Valdron:
So far, its been a matter of economics and
a lack of merchandising agreements.Currently, ECW has an agreement in principle
for LEXX licensing. They’re a small publisher, but they do “Unauthorized”
Buffy, X-Files, Planet of the Apes, Wrestling
books. So essentially, they know the media
field.Bottom line is that the boat might have
sailed.I’m not terribly thrilled…
seems like lexx has never had the money/interest/knowledge about marketing behind it…it just seems to get made, with no real thought about promotion,or what happens to it once it is sent out…that’s the impression i got from speaking to different people about it anyway…
I just figured that the merchandising vultures haven’t discovered the carcass of Lexx yet. Sooner or later, somebody is going to notice who has what rights to the show’s merchandising. Then they’ll start circling…
Val, you could actually *order* the first (English) Lexx book from Amazon at one point.. the release date went back a couple of times then it vanished..
It is still recorded at http://www.staples1.freeserve.co.uk/music.htm with the cover picture from Amazon (scroll down a bit)
quote:
Originally posted by DalekTek790:
(of course we don’t know if that Insect was a typical specimen, what stage in its life cycle it was in, or if it is one of many castes or varieties
I’ve often wondered about this. My theory is that there were indeed many different castes or even species of Insect, suggested in part even by the fact that they were known as the ‘Insect Civilisation’ this (to me, anyway) suggests a colony-type affair. Also, the Brunnen-G craft (of which we only ever saw one type, there may have been others) were, I seem to remember, created using modified Insect DNA. As the Lexx and moths were eventually developed from the remains of Kai’s craft, this suggests there was at least one other species of Insect aside from the mite/woodlouse/beetle Gigashadow type; one that would have looked something like a cross between a scorpion, a moth and a dragonfly (and would have been none too bright either, if the Lexx is anything to go by J)
Alternatively, they may all have been separate species of Insect (moth, dragonfly etc.) that after forming their civilisation combined their DNA in some way, so that the Bio-viziers were able to decode all the different types just from the couple of manky bits of flesh they got from the Foreshadow.
Interesting to note the ‘different species pulling together’ aspect of the Insect Civilisation, as this draws parallels with the humans in the Light Universe (drawn together under the leadership of the Brunnen-G.
Perhaps the Insects even evolved on separate planets, as it was suggested some of the human races had done. But now I’m just randomly speculating.
quote
I figured Sad could use those figures if he ever made a Lexx ships section.
There is a Lexx ships section! I did it, in the Glossary. Sad always refused to give me a link from anything other than the main Lexx page, though, because he hates me more than Satan. I didn’t do anything technical such as size and propulsion or weapons , though. And yes! I know loads of it is wrong; I already had this American dude e-mail me about 80 times to tell me how stupid I am. (actually, the real reason is that I’d only seen Series 3 and a couple of the movies when I wrote it, so some of it was guesswork)
Cool stuff about the Cluster; I love the idea of this tiny, unterraformed moon ruling over all these supposedly civilised planets!
You’re right when you say it’s frustrating that the Beans don’t provide more background information, but this is one of the things I love about Lexx; we are left to fill in the gaps with our imaginations (Unlike Star Trek, say). It’s also what I like about Star Wars; the thought of those 25,000 years or more of Galaxy-wide activity before Luke was even born. Even before this time, when the first explorations and contact between the species was made, and before even this, right down to the individual histories of the planets. Although sometimes this makes my head feel like it’s gonna explode.
Also: I really should shut up now.
“Stan’s plight wasn’t helped by the fact that Gubby smoked crack and electrocuted himself.”
L.O.L.!
Sorry, I never noticed that section before. There’s some semi-serious Insect discussion under “Wish list for the remainder of the season.”
I’ve worked out some more sizes to add-
Moth length: 6m
Moth height: 3.8 m
Moth wingspan: 20 mLarva width: 2.1 m
Larva height enrolled: 5.2 m
Larva length unrolled: 7.9 mI also have some basic observations made from the Giga Shadow larva-
-Outer carapace purplish brown
-Underbelly red
-14 segments altogether
-Head: 2 segments
-Thorax: 11 segments
-Abdomen: 1 segments
-22 legs
-14 eyes
-3 scolices
-2 mandibles
-1 maxilla
-12 dorsal spinesCompare that to the adult-
-Outer carapace gun metal grey streaked with silver
-Underbelly dark grey
-7 segments altogether
-Head: 1 segment
-Thorax: 5 segments?
-Abdomen: 1 segment?
-Hundreds of silvery bumps in 8 major clumps (eyes?)
-1 aperture (mouth?)
-2 large orifices
-2 medium orifices
-12 small orifices
-12 facial spines
-About 130 silvery-white spheroids attached to thorax; 14 are exposed when enrolled
-A couple hundred smaller purplish-brown spheroids attached to abdomen (larvae?)
-At least 1 tendril, possibly as many as 10
-Spinal cord on ventral surfaceNow, it is plausible that the Insect civilization consisted of a number of castes specialized for different jobs within the society. It is even possible that the essences of a single Insect could reside in more than one body based on the task at hand. On Earth, I believe insect hives can have as many as 6 different castes. Now, my theory is that the genetic code for all the castes resides in the D.N.A. of each and every Insect, like all the junk D.N.A. we have that codes for traits our ancestors discarded millions of years ago. All of this is in each larva, they are stimulated to grow into a certain type but the D.N.A. remains. Now, this would also mean that if you had a sample of the D.N.A. of any Insect, or possibly even Insect-based constructs, you would have the genetic material to create any caste, or even a new type of organism with different characteristics of different castes that do not normally exist together in one being. In other words, with just a tissue sample from the Giga Shadow or a stinger you could grow things as dimorphous as moths and the Lexx.
Now, if the caste theory is correct and if the synthetic constructs used are based directly on a single caste, then we can assign Insect(oid)s we’ve seen to a certain caste. Stingers would be warriors (well, duh) and moths would be workers. The Lexx’s nature is less clear. It is bigger than most craft, which would imply a royal caste. But size may not matter, since the builders of Insect craft could suppress growth so their ships didn’t get so big it required major resources to keep them alive. The Lexx has been identified as male, which would imply that it is based on a male/king/drone. In insect societies on Earth all of the non-royal castes are infertile females. But Insects may not be the same as insects. Now, warrior is also implied, by the fact that the Lexx can blow up planets. Maybe there are different subcastes of warriors, common “light” warriors like stingers and “heavy” warriors like the Lexx that have a special limited function, like to protect the queen. Now, what was the Giga Shadow? It had a bunch of larvae attached to it, so that would imply that it was a queen. But that was at the end of its life. In Earth insects, sometimes a normally infertile worker can develop into a queen if the colony’s queen has died. So the Giga Shadow would’ve been a pseudo-queen or quasi-queen, something different earlier in its life. I find it most likely that the last surviving Insect was just a minor work unit, something relatively insignificant to the Insect civilization and the human forces that exterminated them. Queens would’ve been the first priority for things to destroy. But if the Shadow (the young Giga Shadow) was a worker, we run into problems since we (I) have already assigned moths to the worker caste. But perhaps moths were a specific subcaste employed for work requiring long-range travel, so they would be “scouts” instead of plain “workers.” All of this is speculative, the idea of a caste hierarchy itself is merely theoretical.
We don’t know if the craft like moths, stingers, and the Lexx were even based directly on a specific type of Insect. Their D.N.A. could have active parts from several different castes. Moths seem to be grown by grafting a number of tissues onto a metal frame. The different tissues may come from different castes and have different genetic codes.
Finally, I do not believe the Net in the episodes The Net and The Web was an Insect (just to clarify my half-sane semantics, Nets are the species, Webs and Spiders are the components). I think it was a completely different species. The Net body plan was radially symmetrical, based on 8. The Insect body plan seems to be based on 3 and 7 and always bilateral. It does have similar characteristics, like an exoskeleton, enormous size, the capability of interstellar travel, and the ability to pass part of its intelligence to hosts of other species. So it’s possible that the Nets originally came from the same planet as the Insects, that they share the same evolutionary ancestry and may belong to the same phylum. Or this could all be the result of convergent evolution and the Nets and Insects could have arisen in different star systems entirely. Now, Insects could not have existed in vacuum (speaking metaphorically, of course). They must have been part of an ecosystem, with standard prey to sustain them and predators to keep them in check. The Nets may have been just such a predator. The Lexx is programmed to be afraid of the Web he sees. He also knows that where there’s a Web there’s likely to be a Spider. His instincts told him to turn but Stan told him not to, with disastrous results. This implies that the Insects and the Nets had previous contact, and, as with this situation, the Insect was the victim.
And so the rant comes to an anticlimactic conclusion.
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