Why did your bridge turn purple?

[pyrrhocorax]

I just met the Melnorme in Starcon2, and have fallen in love with them (probably because they tried to sell me things). But I can find no art or information about them at all. I know they reveal nothing in game (or at least not to me yet?), but is there anything in the strategy guide or other material that I don't own? I can't see the pictures on

Comments

[zarla]

There's very very little info on the Melnorme. :O Possibly because they sell it at such high prices.

WOW OH MAN YOUR SKETCHES ACTUALLY MAKE THEM MAKE SENSE I could never figure out how the Melnorme worked outside of their talking screen, like how their body was shaped, and that totally makes sense. :O I can't believe I thought of those things being legs before. A DURR.

Uh let's see...I think I have the strat guide around here in a PDF file, but I'm not entirely sure. There isn't a lot of art of them around though, and what info is out there is a bit fragmentary. How much do you know about the Ur-Quan's history? I don't want to spoil anything for you. :O

[pyrrhocorax]

That's what I figured. Darn. But with that amount of freedom, why not more fanstuff? I'M LOOKING AT YOU, INTERNET.

I spent so long staring at the little Melnorme captain in super melee stabbing at the keys and trying to figure out how the legs would work. The wikipedia entry said they were orange and starfish like, but five legs sounded a little difficult to walk on when the front two are sort of cheeks. I dunno. I JUST DRAW THIS STUFF.

I haven't got very far, I only know about the two races and their Doctrinal War, no real details.

[zarla]

WHY ISN'T THERE MORE FANSTUFF FOR SC2 IN GENERAL IF YOU ASK ME

I know, it drove me nuts as a kid. I usually figured that they were kind of like...amorphous globs stuck together into a shape, but that didn't really make a lot of sense. It was the only way I could make sense of their portrait picture though. :O
The wiki said that about them? I don't remember reading that anywhere. I wonder where they got that? I'll have to go check that out. :O

Hmmmm...then I can't really tell you anything about their history, what little is known about it. Unless you already know it?

[pyrrhocorax]

I must have baleted the tracking email for this because I never noticed you replied :B Wups.

I think I got it from the wiki, it might have been someplace else. MAYBE they come from a planet with a really thick atmosphere and they sort of float. More substantial than the Slylandro but less than most other life. Or perhaps they're gas bags? I need to stop spending all my time thinking about this stuff and actually BEAT THE GAME I am so stuck on beating those stupid probes. We come in peace my grandmother's boots.

I know nowt, so I guess I'll just have to find out :)

[pyrrhocorax]

I feel really bad about my urge to snuggle them becuase they're so serious and dignified.

Thanks!

[pyrrhocorax]

THEY ARE QUITE CUTE.

I never thought of them as tall, but that could actually make more sense! The legs could be long and go down underneath the viewscreen, and the bumps are just sort of prehensile blobs. Oh wow now I need to draw that.

[pyrrhocorax]

DRAWWW IIITTT.

[melaniedavidson]

Welcome! :D The minimal information we have on them is collected here... I think it's from the strategy guide. Here:

Manual (pdf)
Resource Guide (pdf)
Tips and Controls (pdf)
Starmap with spheres of influence and constellations marked (492 KB jpg)

I forget which is which; I know one of them is just answers to the puzzles (you can open it safely; the first few pages are just listing the puzzles and you have to scroll down more to see the spoilers) and I think one talks about the alien races and their ships in more detail.

Is this the site you were on? It has some fanart (though, glancing through I don't see any Melnorme fanart).

And I like your interpretation. :) They actually have a way to get around! I always saw the higher bumps as arm-analogs... like maybe they're curled around behind or under them so you just can't see the manipulative part and they just look like bumps. The most "problematic" thing, I think, is the way their mouths go over what might be legs--just look at the picture in either wiki entry. :O

[melaniedavidson]

Oh, ps, I think you can only download one file at a time from MediaFire. But YSI was acting up.

[pyrrhocorax]

Yeah, this is the exact page I was trying for.

Thanks for the files, I'll download them when I get onto my own computer tonight.

Yeah, the mouth confused me too. Maybe their jaws are really really stong, and hinged, and they walk on that? Or perhaps their bodies are sort of jellylike and rubbery.

Some of the races, from what I've seen, are totally under-represented. Could there be some sort of monthly...post your own interpretation of (race) thing on here, perhaps? I get ridiculously excited about seeing how other people backwards engineer something, but that could just be me.

[melaniedavidson]

Ahhhh. Yeah, the pictures aren't loading for me, either. Looks like they moved/deleted the pictures and didn't update the pages that used them--if you copy image address, paste it into the location bar, and delete the /starcontrol/ part (http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/starcontrol/sc2/images/mel1_sc2.jpg becomes http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/sc2/images/mel1_sc2.jpg ) you can see the pictures.

Or maybe the part they walk on is below the screen? That's less fun, though.

Sure! Do you want to just make a monthly (or more frequent) post saying "Here's my interpretation of x, post yours in the comments!", or what?