I'm in the middle of interviewing Al, who has a really interesting history. More on that later. For now, while we are having lunch, I thought I'd post something about the new Rating System I had to study for.
The old system that I was using was apparently before the... "company reformation." It was based on the anatomy and the function of said parts by the creature and then given a score between 1 and 20. This system was thrown out about a month before I started publishing the findings, but the policy is not retro-active. This means that anything I posted before Al's introduction of himself is out of date. I'm working on getting those files updated, but it doesn't look like I'll get around to actually publishing their data on here. Not like it matters since 90% of the information needs to be updated anyway.
In any event, here is how the new rating system works.
Alien creatures come in two different groups: animal and sentient. The rating systems are different for each.
For animals, they are given a basic Low, Medium, or High rating for both their danger and social levels. This rating is based on what anatomical parts the creature has adapted. However, this rating system is rather arbitrary and is loosely based off of the old system. It's just that instead of saying a creature has a social rating of, say, 15, we now put that the creature has a high social rating. Animals that have a predatory nature are indicated as such under their danger level. Most commonly, this will only apply to any creature with a high danger level, but with the wild Zelidor, that wasn't really the case. This labeling will also apply to any creature that is a pack hunter with a number assigned to indicate the multiple in which to determine the pack's collective threat. So if a creature has a low danger rating but hunts in a pack of 5, that creature should be considered a medium to high rated threat as a group.
For sentient creatures, this rating is expanded to include a culture rating. This is broken into two sections with three different labels each. (Total of six possible labels to be assigned.) For primitive cultures, the rating is assigned to their general social behavior as either friendly, aggressive, or industrious. The third is rarely used, as very few tribes keep to themselves to advance their local social network and technology. Cultures with technology are then given one of three ratings based on the bulk of their planetary culture. These ratings are Military, Religious, or Economic. These are pretty much explain themselves.
Finally, if a race is one of the many that travel space, they are given yet another classification based on a Galactic Code of Conduct. This acts like a universal (literally) identity for the race's home world and/or empire. Humans don't qualify for this rating as of yet, as we have yet to set up colonies on other planets. Apparently, that technology is beyond us at this moment.
A special requirement for me involving sentient races involves posting their evolutionary stages if they are available. This applies to animals as well, but most of these creatures cannot be tracked for one reason or another. You know, kind of like how on our planet we cannot figure out how a penguin can be related to a dinosaur outside of the tool kit genes. However, any alien creature or race with an evolutionary timeline will have a longer post, as there will be more information available to publish.
There are separate rating systems for the various alien technology that I'll be covering later.
~Zeek Slider
