Why Tiberium Doesnt Work Article
Please use this thread to argue over this article!
BY TOCSINOFWRATH:
First off, anyone who dares say that Tiberium is just a miniscule and feeble detail in the C&C is obviously an idiot, a Generals-kiddy and in general just deserves a smack.
Tiberium is the BASIS of the C&C story in TD, I could go into a very long list on how it is a part of the story in the storyline and critically important to not only the game play but the feel of the game. I'd just like to say this about it though, this new Command and Conquer game is being called Tiberium Wars yet they've gone and changed everything about Tiberium ... Alright, we know that it's Tiberium, but if you just edited out the rest of it and showed a picture of just those crystals to someone who'd played TD and TS and asked them what that is, I don't think they'd recognize it instantly. (Show them a screenshot of classic Tiberium and even a blind man could tell you what it is.)
What does it lack? It lacks the most CRITICAL part of Tiberium; THE POD. Tiberium forms Tiberium Crystals, and Tiberium itself is a plant. Yes, you heard me, it's a plant. I was going to find a very clear screenshot of it from TD, but I couldn't find one quickly enough, and it is clearly shown that Tiberium itself is a plant that grows roots and spreads by way of maturing and growing further roots underground that push upwards eventually and grow new pods.
The pod part of Tiberium is the actual plant, I've no clue about the properties of it (beyond it growing, maturing and growing out further with roots), but it is a plant. It's not said, but it is clearly established in TD that Tiberium is plant life that is taking over the world.
What does Tiberium do? It leeches all materials from the soil, creates crystals (a by product), and releases poisonous gases (probably a by product also). Essentially, Tiberium has a very effective way of feeding itself, instead of being picky and only choosing a few nutrients from the soil to use in its growth, it leeches all the materials from the soil and uses the ones it really needs to keep growing bigger (It's an alien plant, so it might not even use the same nutrients as earth plants.) Now, the materials that the plant can't use to grow, it will excrete into the middle of the pod (I imagine, a hollow chamber that is closed off at first) and somehow as these materials (metals and so forth) start to build up in the middle of the pod, they form into crystals and these crystals eventually get so big that they cause the pod to open and grow out of it. (The crystals, in this case are a by product of the plants way of feeding.) So, the Tiberium crystal that grows out of the pod is all the minerals that have been leeched from the soil and the plant didn't need formed into a crystal. I imagine the toxic gases Tiberium plants release are also a byproduct of some similar process.
See absurd that it's a living plant that has a crystalline formation WITHIN itself as a by product? It'd not that absurd at all, think about how pearls are formed naturally inside sea-shells (If I remember my biology, a sea shell sucks in water to feed on small plankton and in the process sucks in sand and the sand eventually forms into a pearl)
So there you have it, if you really require it, I think I can find a screenshot of the tiberium show in Tiberian Dawn online (If not I can fire up XCC viewer and take one.)
Summary so far: Tiberium is a plant. Tiberium crystals are a by product of that plant.
The Tiberium that has been shown lacks the pod, essentially they haven't even show us Tiberium yet. What have they shown? Tiberium crystals, a by product of the alien plant Tiberium.
I'm actually even fine with the size of the tiberium, it bothers me to a great extent that the way Tiberium works has been changed completely from the way it was made in TD. Westwood already laid out how Tiberium works in TD and you could see that Tiberium was an alien plant (I think in one of the Tiberium Info briefings EVA even calls it a form of alien plant life) and all of the sudden Tiberium has been turned into some sort of random crystalline formation with no basis.
I don't know what sort of MIT scientists you have had working on the Tiberium concept, but their ideas are obviously lacking and not even needed considering that the way Tiberium works has already been established by Westwood in Tiberian Dawn.
Just to re-affirm my original point: The pod that houses a Tiberium Crystal is a plant and seems vital for Tiberium crystals to even exist.
This new Tiberium does not make ANY sense when looking at the old Tiberium.
(I know, I repeated myself a bit, I just like to get my point across.) "
PICTURE SHOWING TIBERIUM WITH PODS, SHOWN BY GENSTRAVOS:
http://www.fansiteads.com/tiberiumsu.../tiberium1.jpg
ADDED ARGUMENT BY NEVERRAILING:
Tiberium is a mineral: The original C&C, the first version, the oldest C&C game, has a plant that 'soaking [sic] up minerals and nutrients from the soil like a sponge' creating a crystalline substance from which these minerals could be extracted 'at a minimum of mining expense'.
Mineral? False.
Tiberium is a plant: Tiberium exhibits the qualities of life, not geology. Tiberium forms both underground, on the surface, and in other living structures, by all accounts, identically. It functions the same way, and exhibits the same growth patterns. Minerals are geological formations that are the result of SPECIFIC ENVIRONMENTS. But when a material process has the ability to respond or adapt to its changing environment in such a way as to maintain and reproduce its original characteristics, we call this LIFE.
Plant? True.
Tiberium is cooler the original way: Zelda has crystals. FF has crystals. Harvest Moon has crystals. BLIZZARD PLEASURES ITSELF WITH A DOZEN FLAVORS OF CRYSTALS. Every two- bit piece of crap entertainment crap has crystals. And when I was a little girl back in Cali, shiny crystals were ok. But parasitic alien life forms that mutated and killed all forms of terrestrial life, spewed toxic fumes, AND created radioactive crystals, were a real treat. I found them special. Cooler? Definitely.
It's way cooler the original way. And I want that way. I want it to continue. I don't want it to be murdered in its sleep to make way form another concept that - quite frankly- *****. Transmutation? No. Because this necessitates transmuting it back into useful forms. Chemical absorption, like, a plant, (maybe not a plant, but a fungus?) or, to use The Lady�s (The C& C narrator girl-thing) term, a �sponge�.? Sure. It sounds neat.
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