The heiroglyphs say "Christopher and Adam."
The heiroglyphs say "Christopher and Adam."
Are you being serious? Because that's funny.
Invoking the power of the Creators should not be done without good reason, or in understandable languages. - Ra , Through the Fourth Wall #3
Yep! 
But... what about Paul?
Resurrecting an old thread here…
I know that Tempest's gender is carefully not specified, but how do we know Tempest's world has multiple genders? It seems entirely plausible, I just haven't seen this anywhere else.
Tempest, by the way, has noticeably bigger breasts than you would expect on a human male. Take a look at Cleansing Downpour, for instance.
Perhaps Tempest can change sex, like some amphibians can. Presumably he/she isn't a mammal though, so I don't see why he/she would even have breasts.
They aren't breasts... they are respiratory filters that allow him to regulate the chemical composition of whatever substance he breathes to the correct concentrations he needs for survival. Sometimes they swell up as too much oxygen or nitrogen is stored and they form breast like humps
I had forgotten that Tempest wouldn't be a mammal. Of course, they are also an alien, so human physiology wouldn't apply.
Nice, I like it!
And here's another unnecessarily picky bugbear of mine - aliens that for no reason are human-shaped. It's not really that efficient a design that multiple creatures evolving in vastly different environments would all converge on that particular form.
Well, it's efficient enough that it gave us an advantage over other species on this planet... so maybe the aliens we are from similar worlds (as far as gravity and atmospheric composition goes).
Maybe we can go as far as saying that the advantages and limitations of our physical evolution are what ultimately ends up driving humans and these other anthropomorphic alien species to create the technology for space exploration and conquest. Kind of like capacity for thought + limbs + thumbs = tools/weapons => technology => rapid growth => destruction of resources => space conquest. So in the end we always end up competing with those that are like us.
Heck, maybe Voss evolved from humans in the future after they colonized another planet (same as Tempest) and he is traveling through time conquering human descendants everywhere... but he really is just US.
"You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"
mOK. This really went off topic now...
I just find it highly unlikely. We're this way because of a long series of random (mutation) events - evolution tends to cull the ones that don't work and favour the ones that do, but ultimately it's just random that this particular design's the one we ended up with rather than a different, similarly-efficient one that perhaps doesn't involve bilateral symmetry or the pentadactyl limb or whatever. We just rolled "standard vertebrate shape" on the random form table way back when and went with it, so to speak.
Even in an identical environment, the fact that the variation that allows evolution to work in the first place is created by random mutations means that you'd be likely to see a different form than ours rise to become the "dominant species". We're not so special, we were just lucky.
But yeah, we've digressed somewhat. Tachyon's still awesome. ;)
But you understand why it's done, right? Because, since we're human-shaped, we empathize better with other human-shaped characters. It's not science, it's fiction.
Yeah, it makes complete sense. I know I'm being unreasonable in terms of game design (hence my admittance that it's an unnecessarily picky bugbear), but I can't help but be a scientist at heart. Doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game, but I have to comment on things like that occasionally.
Similar thing occurs when we're playing online and using the "everyone fill in your own stuff" Google docs spreadsheet. When the Enraged T-Rex comes out I have to type it correctly, T. rex, italics and all. I manange to restrain myself from insisting that the name be written out in full the first time, Tyrannosaurus rex, because everyone already knows what the T stands for. I am laughed at for this.
@Silverleaf
For what it is worth, I completely agree with you. It is one of the reasons why GSF is blatantly "space fantasy" instead of "science fiction" - it avoides the problem of "realism vs empathy for/understanding of the characters".
Who knows, perhaps one day we'll release a game with what I'd consider to be "realistic science fiction species". That would be thrilling to me :)
Will there be dice?
Will it involve four Ras?
It'd better!