The Progenitors

[MercantileInterest]

The Caretakers and the Usurpers hate each other so greatly, they cannot even speak with each other. They will battle each other tusk and claw until only one remains. So why is it they can conquer Progenitor cities without all the populace fleeing from the despised new overlords? Does most of their kind consist of low intelligence workers easily bent to the will of the ruling elite?
 
Advanced species though they may be, they're not immune to drone problems but they suffer zero negative consequences for nerve stapling, as if they have no moral objections. In fact, if you play as a human who suffers defeat at alien hands, the final Book of Planet entry shows the creatures placing you into an enhanced Punishment Sphere, as if they enjoy inflicting pain.  They designed the xenofungus as a collective mind, doubtless as a consciousness they could relate to, and the xenofungus designed mind worms.

They not only favor planned economy, they praise humans for implementing similar measures, although it wouldn't occur to them to criticize humans for murdering an entire base. Individual lives don't seem to matter to them at all.

[Buster's Uncle]

They're a herd species like cattle with a much more rigid pecking order than humans, is my theory.  Hold on and I'll link my article with the reasoning that touches on this...

[Buster's Uncle]

The Progenitors, and an introduction to the challenge of Xenopology Pt.1

...I've needed to write up Part Two for four years now, where I go over the leaderheads in detail...

[MercantileInterest]

An excellent working theory. In fact, one of the Progenitors (Kri'lan) does defect to the Planet Cult. Cha Dawn mentions him a few times in his quotes. The need to demonstrate dominance would explain their cruelty but they probably wouldn't be totalitarian in the same way as humans. Our dictators forbid their subjects from laughing at the goose step or force them to rehearse elaborate parades for months to appease the dictator's vanity. They do this because such an unnatural level of control requires constant reinforcement.

As a herd species, the Progenitors would naturally submit to authority without elaborate rituals and onerous private obligations. Their only method of subversion would be to challenge the leader directly. How would the different groups interact? After all, each city would consist of its own herd.

Would like to see the second article.

[Buster's Uncle]

Herds and troops where fighting for dominance is the mode never go a really long time without some sort of challenge.  Those would be dangerous times to be their neighbors, and/or opportunities - the herd/troop is miserable when who's in charge is up in the air, according to Jane Goodall.  At any rate, the reinforcements would be different, but I don't know that I'd buy there being less of them.  An Alpha Male's gotta make his regular dominance displays...

I did have Kri'lan in mind when I said that, but recalled him as I came to the conclusion anyway, not the other way around.  -He didn't fit the timeline the article was written for before anyone had actually talked to progs worth mentioning...

[MercantileInterest]

Marr's profile says he distinguished himself in the Succession Wars leading to the Usurper-Caretaker schism. The use of the term "succession" is interesting, as is the fact that the Progenitors fought each other before splitting. Since they developed a complex civilization, perhaps they usually conducted ritual combat and after the disaster of the Tau Ceti flowering, the combat became a bit less ritual. The manual explains that the aliens have in 'recent millennia' been at war. Marr is at least several thousand years old.

Alpha Centauri is not far from Tau Ceti. The flowering and the war must have been pretty bad to make them lose the location. "the herd/troop is miserable when who's in charge is up in the air" On a grand scale, that's what's been wrong with the Progenitors for thousands of years.

[Buster's Uncle]

Hmm.  Tau Ceti is 11 ly away to AC's 4 and a hair - are they in more or less the same direction from here?

This is a very interesting line of thought.  I wonder if Marr is from some sort of long stasis or a slower than light trip?  There's some indications that the schism was tens of thousands of years ago or more, if the marked difference between Marr and H'mnee isn't gender dimorphism...

[MercantileInterest]

H'mnee is from Ursa Prime. If that means Alpha Ursa Majoris, its 147 ly from Earth. Alpha Centauri is more than 10 ly from Tau Ceti (http://www.solstation.com/stars/tau-ceti.htm). Can't find the exact distance. Deirdre claims that the flowering takes place every few hundred million years. By her calculation, the fungus has been the dominant lifeform on Planet since the lower Paleozoic. That's five hundred million years ago. Marr and H'mnee most likely hail from different subspecies.

Still, we know that the ancient Progenitors were not clinically immortal. Both factions refer to them as ancestors, so they are no longer present.

Speaking of subspecies: "If you squinted, you might mistake them for Progenitor younglings--but with diseased,
shrunken heads. They look like the entertainment story conjurations of primitive tribal feeders in the dark parts of the homeworld. They look disgusting." Something comparable to Neanderthals may exist on their home world.

[Buster's Uncle]

?  I don't recognize that last quote.

[MercantileInterest]

All the Progenitor portions of the Book of Planet can be found in interludea.txt

That's part of the text shown after the discovery of humans.

[Buster's Uncle]

AAHHH.  Played the Caretakers through a couple times, and never the super-evil ETs at all.  Easy to miss this and that in only a few plays...

[MercantileInterest]

They're just too powerful. You can stomp the AI even more easily than with a human faction. Playing them with a self imposed base limit of six makes them a bit more interesting. A multiplayer match setting two players of equal skill in command of the xenos would make life fun for the other human players.

[Lord Avalon]

Hmm.  Tau Ceti is 11 ly away to AC's 4 and a hair - are they in more or less the same direction from here?
....

It looks like they could be in the same quadrant per the pic here.

[MercantileInterest]

Firaxis messed up. There is no way the Progenitors knew the location of Tau Ceti but couldn't find Alpha Centauri, not when given thousands of years to do so with faster than light technology. They wouldn't even need to build a beacon. The stranded ships could just send an ordinary radio signal and wait a few decades. We can do that with our current technology.

Or, the probe teams sifting through the alien data links mislabeled an entirely different star as Tau Ceti.

[Yitzi]

Firaxis messed up. There is no way the Progenitors knew the location of Tau Ceti but couldn't find Alpha Centauri, not when given thousands of years to do so with faster than light technology. They wouldn't even need to build a beacon. The stranded ships could just send an ordinary radio signal and wait a few decades. We can do that with our current technology.

Or, the probe teams sifting through the alien data links mislabeled an entirely different star as Tau Ceti.

Or the fact that Tau Ceti and Manifold 6 were fairly close to each other wasn't considered relevant enough to make mention of.  (And a radio signal wouldn't help, given that there are probably no other Progenitor forces close enough for the radio signal to be clear; we have no reason to think there are any actual forces on Tau Ceti any more.)