Different TLs in different fields

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

The way around that would be to create a sealed bubble of sterile air or water over the area where you're operating, with all the tools you need inside, and use the equivalent of a glove box or "waldoes" to allow the surgeons to operate. If you have a water-filled bubble, you circulate sterile water through the chamber to carry away blood and other stuff. Done right, it could be more sterile than a human-style operating theater.

Surgical wounds would have to be glued together or sutured up tight to prevent liquid from getting in. Surgical dressings would be replaced by glue-like stuff impregnated with antibacterial agents, possibly with something water repellent on the outer surface to keep the drugs from being carried away by water currents. Alternately, certain types of small marine creatures could be used to debride wounds in the same way that blowfly maggots or leeches are used in modern surgery.

Sorry for the digression, but I've recently been thinking how exactly sapient aquatic species would perform surgery for a project I've been working on.

Imagine you're an aquatic being. Just imagine how hard it would be to do ANYTHING in an air filled space.

It would be just as hard as a surgeon trying to perform a surgeory underwater. Or try to patch the hand of someone inside of a bucket of water.

This would be INSANELY hard to perform. Probably harder than for a human to do it underwater!

To begin with, aquatic beings dont have to deal with gravity the same way as terrestrial ones do. Everything under water is easier. I dount an aquatic being would even be able to manipulate instruments in an air filled space, without all the easiness that the water gives them - they never evolved for that! Most likely their bodies wouldnt even be able to sustain their bodies without the flamboyancy of the water!

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Of course, the Creep needs to get the nutrients from somewhere. I don't know if what it is was ever explained, but my guess would be a sort of plant-analogue (more akin to mold of some sort, really) that absorbs nutrients from the environment and energy from photosynthesis, radiosynthesis, etc.

By the lore, the Creep is a bunch of symbiotic microorganisms that are generated from the zerb "bio-buildings" that use photosynthesys and other sources (like chemical and termal from the environment) for energy, and decompose the soil for the chemical building blocks, segregating very very rich and high energetic organic matter into the ground, that the Zerg units can absorb by their skin. I remember reading that, over time, those microorganisms could even decompose metal.

Also, the Zerg are insanely adaptable; if they went into a surface made of plastic, those microorganisms would kickly mutate to be able to decompose it.

It is highly superscience after all (borderline pure magic)

Originally Posted by Varyon

That's not really medicine, honestly. The Cerebrates, Overmind, and Queen of Blades (and, later, Hybrids, and I believe Stukov and some other unique Zerg units) basically innately have something akin to GURPS' Unkillable 3 trait - when they "die," they immediately start regrowing a new body somewhere in the swarm, and their mind moves to and inhabits said new body, so long as they aren't slain by their Achilles Heel (Void energy, like that used by the Dark Templar... at least for the Cerebrates and Overmind, I'm not sure even that would be enough to stop Kerrigan).

That's not to say they have no understanding of medicine, however. They have a good enough understanding of biology - their own, as well as that of other species - that I suspect they could easily have access to advanced medicine in rather short order (say, if their leadership caste permanently lost their Unkillable 3, and/or if they opted to join the Protoss and Terrans in the galactic economy*). It's just that, as you note, they don't really have a good reason to pursue that particular subfield of biology, given their innate gifts.

Yes, it is Unkillabe. They actually transfer memories to clones.

There is one instance thou where they use medicine thou. In Heart of the Swarm, on SC2, Kerrigan is impaled by the Cthulhesc Nerud, and is left on the brink of death. She is taken by her Queen Zagarra to her Leviathan-Spaceship-Bug, and inside there she is dumped into a regeneration pound - a sort of pool with regenerative nutrients.

In a single day she is brought from "almost dead" to "perfectly healthy".

So they do have medicine - possibly the best in the universe. It's just that this is not for their expendable biorroids armies.

Originally Posted by Varyon

But, yeah, most likely a purely-aquatic creature would be restricted to using its natural gifts and what it could harvest from other creatures (shell, coral, bone, etc). They'd probably have beautiful tapestries woven from various marine plants, at least. If the world has landmasses, however, they may well figure out ways to survive and function, at least for short periods of time, outside of the water, potentially allowing them to (slowly) make their way up the tech tree.

I had a teacher that always said "dolphins and whales are super smarts; due to the sound waves underwater, whales can communicate with other whales in the other side of the globe. They are probably very refined and sofisticated bards; however, while whales can be great phylosophers, astronomers, mathmaticians and poets, they can never be engineers".

Originally Posted by Varyon

*When I was musing over a potential StarCraft campaign setting, I thought the ideal time would be perhaps a century or so after StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops (and basically ignoring pretty much all the lore outside of the games... and modifying some of what was in the games), with a semi-cosmopolitan galaxy where Terrans, Protoss, and Zerg can be seen working together, although typically like would stick to like, and there'd be plenty of fighting within and between the groups. The Zerg using their extensive knowledge of xenobiology to produce medicines (and other medical services) for sale to the others would certainly fit.

Oh, I did entertain similar ideas. I even thought about the Zerg opening "embassies" on bot Terran and Protoss space, and requesting the Terrans to teach the Zerg the art of "Diplomacy", with Queen Zagara recognizing that perhaps the Swarm had to expand their bag of tools. I also had her creating several "Broods" and keeping them all in constant warfare between one another, to keep the Swarm in constant evolution and avoiding stagnation, while being at peace with Terrans and Protoss