Forums of the Megaverse®

Do Mechanoids have the ability to send info via FTL? Or do they have to send a ship with the message? Do they have a psionic way of transmitting info across space?

I would think so. Considering they can build Jupiter sized ships, tear apart and harvest stars and create billions of death dealing psionic-cyborgs... yeah, pretty sure they've figured out FTL comminucations... with tech or psionics.

I agree that they would have to have some sort of FTL system. Luckily for us they don't have interdimensional communications. Yet!

We'll probably never know (unless Mechanoid Space comes out). At the moment we like to think of FTL communication as "standard" in spacefaring Palladium stuff, but we forget that Palladium doesn't exactly have a million and one space settings (especially when you discard ones that are out of print like Robotech, Mutants in Orbit, and Manhunter).

For all we know, Mechanoid Space could be a setting where FTL travel is the only form of FTL communication, and information via fast courier doesn't travel much faster than an advancing fleet (sort of like the good old days when a mounted courier wasn't that much faster than a marching army).

And since there's so little deviation in the way Mechanoids think, the lack of uber-fast communication wouldn't be much of a handicap. Let's say a council of Oracles and Brains on Planet X hatch a cunning plan, and put some of their group in charge of an expeditionary force to a world a thousand light years away. They can be certain that if nothing unexpected happens, their colleagues leading hte force will stick exactly to the plan. And if something does come up, they can be reasonably sure that their colleagues leading the force would make almost exactly the same decisions that the council itself would have. After all, they all share exactly the same moods, beliefs, and motives. They're all cloned from exactly the same templates, and their mastery of genetic engineering and psychic indoctrination guaruntees that different life experiences will only allow individual personalities to change and develop within certain rigidly defined parameters.

Throw in the fact that a large force of Mechanoids is pretty much self sufficient (they'll be carrying what they need to strip all the resources they find along the way and build whatever's necessary for the cause), and the need for rapid communication between Mechanoid forces operating in different areas is kind of limited. Throw in the fact that they're supposed to be an ever-expanding horde that tends to think of conquest as something you do a whole galaxy at a time, and you've got a race that doesn't need to be able to get in touch in a hurry. The only time a lack of instant communication would put them at a disadvantage is when they accidentally bump into a ridiculously huge threat, and even that's no big deal, since they can afford to lose dozens or even hundreds of worlds while they get the news out and rally their forces for a counterattack.

Certainly a different situation from, say, the Transgalactic Empire in Phase World, where the dubious loyalty (and sometimes the dubious command ability) of individual leaders and the relative power of outside threats means that staying up to date with rapidly transmitted news is absolutely vital.

According to Carl Gleba aftrer he finishes the Minion Wars he is going to work on the Mechanoids Space book. We just have to have some patience. Palladium is still on the road to recovery.