Do the Arilou have Slave Shield technology?

[Lukipela]

So I was just idly wondering... When you meet the Arilou in the game and ask them to recount the war, they pretty much sum the end up "and then you lot went and got slaveshielded and were safe, so we were happy with that". But that doesn't sit right with me. I mean, the Arilou have been keeping tabs on us for a loong time. Slurely they must know that locking up all of us humies together means that sooner or later, we will wipe ourselves out. It's not like the Ur-Quan are paying a lot of attention to us. Locked in down there, pretty soon we'll start blaming each other for whatever. And then start killing each other.

So if the Arilou really want to keep us safe from ourselves, they must have some way of intervening when things look critical. That means getting through the shield.

Or maybe they just  have a bunch of MIA folks locked up somewhere in Quasispace.

[Draxas]

They certainly don't mention intervening in any of our previous wars; presumably they're satisfied so long as the bulk of humanity survives whatever petty conflicts they start among themselves. Ans since the Ur-Quan would never allow us to develop technologies allowing mass destruction while we were fallow slaves, they assumed we could look after ourselves for a while (and went to go visit the colonists on Unzervalt) and left it at that.

[oddSTAR]

I thought I remembered something about the Ur-Quan bombing slave worlds back into the stone age before erecting the slave shields...am I totally confused about that?  I can't seem to find anything to support that idea anymore, but I swear I remember reading somewhere that they would basically destroy a planet's infrastructure, major cities, technology and research centers, etc, presumably to render the fallow slaves from reverse-engineering the slave shield, regaining spacefaring technology and/or to keep them from annihilating themselves too quickly or easily.  Am I going crazy or mixing mythology here? 

Anyway, if that were the case, I would assume that the Arilou probably knew they had some time before humanity became a real danger to itself once more...  Possibly inter-dimensional travel might make the slave shields moot somehow, as well?

[Nuclear]

Going along with what Oddstar said, maby the Arilou are happy with Earthlings under the slave shield because not only are Earthlings protected from outside forces, but protected from ourselves. Im guessing that the Ur-Quan bombed whatevers worth feuding over so humanity doesn't destroy itself.

[Draxas]

The Ur-Quan blasted historical sites, anything more than 500 years old. That left the modern infrastructure intact (presumably so they could still be used as an asset to the Hierarchy if absolutely necessary) while obliterating any trace of history. The reasons for doing so are myriad, but not least of which is that it attempts to eliminate all trace of old cultural identities so that future generations may only be able to relate the history of the species to the Ur-Quan being lords over them.

[Alen]

If we wiped ourselves out the Arilou would probably just fix the situation and create peace. They might not have interfered with the other wars because they either tought us a lesson that needed to be learned or maybe it wasn't that large a threat to humanity.

[Lukipela]

Well, they may not have intervened in previous wars, but on the other hand those wars didn't bring us close to extinction. As was mentioned, fallow slaves can't have weapons of mass destruction. But what about other weapons? I mean, humanity has just been pretty much beaten down, had it's pride and future taken away and it's nose rubbed in the fact that there is no future but this godforsaken ball of dust. Unless the Arilou have changed us a lot over the last 100 years, there's going to be plenty of pissed off people around, people who are ready to take on the central regime that lost the war and the future.

So what if these people don't have real weapons of mass destruction? We are weapons of mass destruction. Sure, the Ur-Quan might come around and reset the balance every 7 years, if they care about the central government of a fallow race. But so what? New scum will always rise to the top. Eventually, we will have wrecked the planet again, only this time there is no place to go. Either the Ur-Quan finally gets annoyed enough to wipe us all out, or we make life on Earth so hard that we just don't make it.

Would the Arilou be satisfied with only the Vega colonists? Are they enough for whatever the plan is? Or would they have to step in on Earth every now and then and tip the balance towards order before we descend into complete chaos?

Or maybe I'm just being too pessimistic.

[Draxas]

Presumably this is the real function of the Earthguard; not so much to prevent us from escaping (though that is presumably a secondary function), but to keep an eye on us and call their masters if we get too unruly on the surface so they can give us a slappin'. Under normal circumstances (AKA, no doctrinal war on the horizon), the Ur-Quan would probably be a lot more attentive, especially to a race as steeped in bloodshed as ours.

[Rider]

The Ur-Quan keep close enough tabs on their fallow species to keep them from doing any real damage. Point in case, the Thraddash. If the 'Quan can keep them from destroying each other, humans will be fine.

Also, if the Arilou would have had this technology, wouldn't they have erected a shield of their own, to keep us safe from invaders?

[Kerma]

Maybe they wanted to keep the slaveshield down to stop the humans from overpanicking?

[Bleeding Star]

I don't think the Arilou really give a shit if we bomb ourselves back to the stone age (well, I'm sure they'd be upset, but put it down to our juvenile behaviour), but are more concerned with threats from *outside* that might destroy the human race entirely. As was mentioned, were it not for the doctrinal conflict, the Ur-Quan would probably prevent any more mundane physical wars in any case.

I'm not sure that the Arilous' confidence about our safety under the shield was justified, however, as there seems no reason why humans couldn't undertake IDF research while stuck on Earth, leaving ourselves vulnerable to an androsynth-type event. Unless there is something to suggest that the Slave-shield might be inpenetrable to creatures from *Below*? Or that IDF research can only be conducted in space?

As to the actual question, I don't think the Arilou have access to slave-shield technology, though they might be able to bypass it by shunting through other dimensions. If they can do so, however, it seems possible that other extradimensional entities can pull the same trick.

[Eth]

I'm not sure that the Arilous' confidence about our safety under the shield was justified, however, as there seems no reason why humans couldn't undertake IDF research while stuck on Earth, leaving ourselves vulnerable to an androsynth-type event. Unless there is something to suggest that the Slave-shield might be inpenetrable to creatures from *Below*? Or that IDF research can only be conducted in space?

I imagine that an "inpenetrable shield" designed by the Ur-Quan who are a very old and knowledgeable race, and obviously familiar with interdimensional travel (via hyperspace) would prevent travel via other dimensions, too.  The Ur-Quan aren't bumbling amateurs by any means.

[Alen]

Thats an interesting point Eth, but to think about it that way, why didnt the Ur quan look into different dimensions like the Androsynth?

[Eth]

"We will protect you from the hazards of this hostile universe, from dangers so hideous your simple minds cannot imagine their dark scope."

I think that the Ur-Quan are talking about things from *below* here.  That's one of the reasons they demolished so many ancient sites on Earth; these were places of mystic power, which could be used to contact entities from other spaces. 

[Dabir]

Or they could be talking about hostile spaceborne lifeforms with so many tentacles they look like IRL Cthulu. Hey, it's space, anything is possible.