Slylandro
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The Slylandro are a fictional race of beings featured in the sci-fi Star Control computer game series.
| Slylandro | |
|---|---|
| Ship | Probe (from the Melnorme) |
| Homeworld | Beta Corvi4 ("Source") |
| Contacts | Humans, Precursors, Ur-Quan, Faz, Yuli, Drall, Mael-Num, Melnorme, Taalo |
| Quote(s) | "Goodbye, human fluid sack!" |
The Slylandro are a race of ancient and friendly gas bag people that inhabit a gas giant planet they call Source. They are ancient and long-lived enough to have records of contact with the Precursors prior to their disappearance. Since the Slylandro have no methods of physically recording history, long chants of past events have to be memorized in order to preserve the past, and it is this method that is used to recall the Precursors when the Captain inquires about them.
The Slylandro are restricted to a narrow band on their surfaceless world. Below their inhabited area are "the Depths", which grow darker and more hostile as one ventures deeper. When a Slylandro sinks deep enough into the depths, their gas bag is almost ruptured by the pressure, causing scarring to occur which is believed to attract potential mates. Above is "the Void", which when ventured into, causes a Slylandro to "grow giddy and behave inappropriately."
The Slylandro have no technology and no means of obtaining any. Attempts to construct any devices have resulted in them becoming too heavy and dragging their inventor to the Depths. The Slylandro play very little part in the greater scheme of things and have been discovered and rediscovered by several subsequent civilizations. Due to Source's low-stimuli environment (leading to over 800 expressions for clouds alone) and the Slylandro's inability to venture off-planet, they have become intensely curious about other worlds and races.
The Slylandro see on a spectrum band where they are opaque to each other and are very shy about humans seeing their "glowy bits" (presumably their reproductive organs). The standard measurement of time for the Slylandro is the Drahn, which is equal to 4 million rotations of the planet, or about 6460 Earth years.
[edit] Slylandro Probe
Since they cannot create tools, much less spaceships, the Slylandro purchased a model 2418-B self-replicating Probe from the Melnorme using data about their own unique biology to pay for it. Their intent was to use the Probe to peacefully explore the universe. They made an error programming it, however, setting the priority of the self-replication activity too high (Priority Setting: 999) in an attempt to maximize their return on investment. As a result the Probes would seek out alien spacecraft (their highest priority target for exploration), transmit a standard greeting declaring their peaceful intent, and then immediately switch to replication mode instead of trying to collect data. The first stage of this involved attempting to break down the nearest source of raw materials - the alien spacecraft - with a lightning cannon for use in the replication process. While this may be unpleasant to the target ship, the alternative is a little more horrifying (particularly to fledgling players in the early stages of the game) — the Probe ship is supposed to be armed with a missile battery for defensive purposes, but which are never utilized due to the Probe considering ships to be resource sites, not threats.
The Probes spread rapidly and terrorize the quadrant until the protagonist contacts the Slylandro homeworld and explains their mistake to them, at which point the deeply apologetic Slylandro provide a self-destruct code for the probes to make dealing with them easier. They also reprogram returning probes with instructions to transmit the code to any of the misprogrammed probes they encounter.
The Probe is an exceptionally fast ship. Like the Arilou Skiff, it is unaffected by gravity; it is also incapable of acceleration or deceleration, travelling at a constant speed. In combat, its primary weapon is the lightning discharge, a self-directed short-range weapon which is capable of rapidly burning down the more fragile ships in the game. Its secondary weapon is, in fact, not a weapon at all: utilizing the secondary weapon when near an asteroid allows the Probe to consume it, thereby gaining energy to power its lightning weapon. This is vital when using a Probe in combat, as its energy reserves do not recharge on their own. The standard Probe tactic is to immediately close to point-blank range, expend a full charge of its lightning weapon, break off to make a beeline to the nearest asteroid, and then (having consumed it) return to the attack.
The speed and somewhat erratic movements of the Probe can make it a frustrating opponent. Most ships cannot outrun it, and unless it can be destroyed before it closes in, the Probe is virtually certain to inflict at least some damage. The payoff for defeating a Probe is considerable, though, as after-battle scavenging will yield a higher amount of RUs (resource units) per capita - 550 - than any other ship in the game.
In the early game, the best Probe-killer is probably the Spathi Eluder, which can use its own impressive speed to stay at range from the Probe while launching B.U.T.T.s to gradually wear it down.
