Sentient Hive Ships? Hive Ship's OS? Questions about Hives?

[thekillman]

i think it would be odd to have a person in a bed at the centre of a hive.... i rather think it builds a new "host" and eats the original+ the bed

[Sparrow_hawk]

i think it would be odd to have a person in a bed at the centre of a hive.... i rather think it builds a new "host" and eats the original+ the bed

I agree that the body of the host is incorportated into the ship (no little cocooned bed in the central computer!) , but I wonder is part of their brain or consciousness or intelligence is still intact to give the ship a unique nature or personality. The ship is sentient and will be given a unique "designation" by which it is addressed, so I don't think it is totally out of the question that could have a unique voice and personality.

I also agree that they would use Wraith rather than humans as the base material for the central intelligence of the ship. And from what we have seen so far, the ship is controlled telepathically.

I wonder, since Keller isn't telepathic, if the change had reached its ultimate form and she had finally become an actual Hive Ship, would a Wraith have been unable to establish a telepathic link to control the ship? Would all commands have to be verbal?

[Crazy Tom]

Telepathic I think, since the agent was reqrigtign her DNA it should have no probelm sequencing in the telepathy genes.

Also, teh braqin and personality of hte host i blieve will be ebtirely disgardedonce the fetus (?) has developed enough to grow its' own neural strata. It;s simple neded in the begining to overlook the early stages of deveopement.

Darn, Atlantis as a hive ship..........they ought to do a tiem travel epi on this.

[Maedhros_Sea]

Do we know this is how all Wraith ships are grown? Keller didn't seem to be growing in an organised way.

So, they must need some guidance or an open field. As well as a power source. It was said early on that a special group (keepers?) maintained the fleet. This may have been an entirely new way of procuring ships. Or an effort to recreate the existing process?

[thekillman]

dunno. but the organism did grow organized. it just didnt start creating chambers and such.first, it expanded. i think it wouldve enveloped the whole of atlantis, and have absorbed it, before chambers and systems were made. as long as there arent such things, they dont need maintaining. and besides, its structural intergrity depended on atlantis. starting to make all kinds of stuff would make atlantis weaker, and the ship stuck. the entire tower had to be enveloped at first, for it to move freely

[SoulAssassino]

I think they do it this way:

Build the non-organic skeleton of the Hive.

Put down the bio-compound somewhere. It must have somekind of intelligent core, maybe not the way we saw it in the Seed, because that one was modified by Mikey. But maybe these cores are human/wraith, who later become the keepers, or maybe just somekind of computer. And of course it needs a power source.

The hull growes over the skeleton the way the core orders it, establishing the basic form of the ship, and the inner corridors, structures. As we have seen, wraith computers look organic too, so maybe those are grown, or those are installed later, with other systems, including life support hyperdrive, weapons, generators, engines etc...

I could believe that the inner computer system of a hive is basically the neural net of the ship itself, only interfaced for the use of the crew.

[thekillman]

i think the thing grows entirely. no built pieces.

1: the pathogen builds a basestructure. most likely to extract minerals.

2: the basestructure grows. it becomes a large organic blob.

3: the blob is held together by the skeleton of the hive, being made by the creature.

4: all kinds of metals and minerals are transported through the creature, and are used to build the non organic pieces of the hive.

5: with sufficient support, the blob now grows in the general shape of the hive.

6: the inner structure is made. more support is created.

7: the outer hull of the hive is made.

8: hive is ready.


if you think this is impossible to programm: DNA is terribly efficient at that. it would just have more chromosomes

[peragrin]

if you think this is impossible to programm: DNA is terribly efficient at that. it would just have more chromosomes

Insect queens like ants produce offspring based on what is needed, workers, warriors, slave girls, sex slaves for the queen.

Now that is done with simple intelligence of an ant can you imagine if you put Einstien's brain in there? Combine it with pathogen skills and it can certainly becomes possible. Sure it would take a while for the first one, but once built you could litterally grow fleets of ships. Mining wouldn't be needed as much as the organism could leech what it needs out of the ground.

though i still maintain that the reactors, hyperdrive, and communication equipment are separate sub installs.

[EternalAlteran]

If the hyperdrive is grown along with the ship, then changes are possible.

Because:

Spoiler:

In No man's land there were two hives that had their hyperdrive changed in an intergalactic version

But if so, I wonder why hives don't use this ability more often. They could change their ships much faster than we could, that is certainly an advantage.

Also, according to Michael and his hive (allies), the wraith have created the jamming device (creates an electromagnetic field) not long before the civil war, which would lead to suggest that it is possible to adapt your hive, although this is maybe only possible for small purposes.

[thekillman]

eehm. wraith tech is easily made, but terribly hard to adapt.

[lord groovy]

eehm. wraith tech is easily made, but terribly hard to adapt.

It's probably related to their 10,000years slumber and the shortage of Keeper. Surely those people had a closer relationship with the Hive and managed to adapt it to various situations.

I think that the Wraith ship have the potential to change quite quicly but only on paper. We'll never see that in the show except if it is to show us a new model that SGA teams have to blow up before its completion.

It makes me think to a book I am currently reading : "The Swarm" by frank Schatzing.

Spoiler:

It talks about a unicellular enemy on Earth. It lived in deap sea since the beginning of life on Earth and is able to assemble to perform one action. Like the Goa'uld they have genetic memory and they update each other when they assemble. Like the Replicators, each one has the knowledge of all their history and since it is unicellular it reproduces by division (you kill them all or you are screwed.)Unfortunately, since they are not mechanical, our "projectile weapons" have no effect on them.

While we are an industrial species they rely on biotechnology. They modified the deadliest organisms of the sea to clean the coasts, were able to enter and control the movements of any sea animals (they have some fancy for sharks, dolphins, whales and so on). They use them like tanks. 4 or 5 whale can capsize a huge tanker.

How did they kick our a**?

They use worms to mine methane from the ocean floor. It disrupted its structure which resulted in series of quake which led to huge tsunamis. To those that survived, they send crabs full of a deadly amoeba that poisoned the air and the water. They also stopped the Gulf Stream to induce a new Ice Age. I think that everyone would agree that they are really pissed off about humanity...

I would have seen the Hive being made of creatures like this. Simple yet quite a pain in the a**.

[thekillman]

their technology isnt easily adapted, said on the show. while we were buisy with the retrovirus, they were builsy making adjustments

[Womble]

Of for crying out loud. That thing held conversations with the Atlantis crew via Keller. Not only is it sentient, it can verbalize thoughts.

Efficiency wise, it would make perfect sense to use the "seed host"'s brain as the basis for the Hive's computer mainframe. It is certainly sophisticated enough, so why invent the wheel when you can use what's readily available? All you need is to install safeguards against disobedience. House train them, pretty much. And given the "orgtech" previously seen in SG-1 (plant-based cold fusion and such), there is no reason why the Hive couldn't grow hyperdrives- hell, it could even lay dart eggs for all we know.

(Suddenly has a mental image of a mommy Hive ship taking a space walk with a bunch of baby darts and a few adolescent cruisers).

[thekillman]

apart from the cruisers, I do think darts are grown in Dart Hives.

cold fusion could very well be a wraith powerplant, seeing as they have a stationary output, and they are compatible with organisms [like you said].

and its totally and entirely possible the hive creates other pathogens and micro organisms to create the more delicate systems. and i for one think the host is absorbed entirely in the hive. the host's knowledge is used. the host is destroyed, and replaced by a powerfull central mind.

[SoulAssassino]

Altough, i still think that there is a metal skeleton that is built. It's too geometric to be grown, as we saw in no mans land, when sheppard hooked up to it. Or it was just put there, because someone blew a hole into the ship, and they needed a quick repair

I can imagine how darts and cruisers are grown out of the hive. darts in the dartbay, and cruisers in the big hole.