About Wildlife:
Are you going for some sentient earth pissed off at every digging though her skull sort of thing with that post?

Aight, aight. So I think that we all like the Ronin having thoughts n' stuff.

Maybe someone should make brain units for the Ronin, badass Commanders or something (runs off to do just that).

But aren't all of the dummies sentient?

Am I the only one who does not particularly like the Ronin?

Also, I'm pretty sure the dummy bodies are just puppets. Their controller units are the sentient ones.

this is what i think.

Coalition are clones created, they have no brains grown or they are labotamized and have their brain replaced or fit around a small AI/receiver .

I have several theories on the dummies, either they were originally dummies for training excercises with AI "generals"(the controllers) that rebelled against the brains. they have a collective consciousness that is kept working by the dummy controllers. they have a central massive AI that works through the dummy controllers that use the troops(think about the overmind/cerebrates/overlordsfrom starcraft.

Ronin are either sentient rebels that terrorize the brains. or reproccessed criminals that have become fresh meatbags for the tradestar to sell.

@ Zhukov, I never use the Ronin for an unknown reason, I stick to dummies and browncoats myself and occasionally get Coalition soldiers but never Ronin.

I think the Coalition is simply clones born with just essential brain components to keep their vitals going and the rest is a chip in their skull. Maybe basic AI sub-processes are included for basic dodging and marksmanship, but the chips don't have enough processing power to react as well as a normal human or Brain-controller.

Dummies, I liken them to Sky-Net. Machines that start thinking and don't wanna work for free anymore so they attack us after we attack them, or other way around. They just happen to be crash-test dummies when they started to think and the sentient AI doesn't want to be different, it's like us not wishing we looked like apes or lemurs, we want to look like ourselves. They are likely dummy machines, with only strong enough AI to do basic stuff like dodge fireball of doom heading for head, or automated digging and even balancing and walking. That takes the CPU strain from a controller unit so it doesn't have to do all the tiny annoying stuff like standing straight in high winds.

Ronin, I'm confused on them. Either they are criminals/rebels that are implanted with a control chip run by another faction, or more likely normal humans that are against the idea of clones being mass-produced for combat and dangerous operations with no free-will. Or just normal people who want to mine gold on planets, who knows, but they seem like Rebels in Star Wars, using whatever old junk weapons they get a hold of. We simply need more info for Ronin before any assumption should be made actually.

Browncoats, well I think Gordon Freeman or other Black Mesa researchers went through a test portal and ended up in the future and started their own colony. Since the HEV suits worked so well for safety and combat they began making some. Then they even improved it for the heavy soldiers with metal plating when they go to war with Tradestar after they are found and won't sell their planet. I just made this story up and it's up for copyright infringement if Data uses it but it's a thought.

When you blow up a Dummy controller blood pours out. It's not pure machine.

My hypothesis is that some idiot among the Coalition brass had the bright idea to clone brains for use in weapons testing facilities. Think about it, you can create mindless cloned bodies, why not bodiless cloned brains? Hook one of those babies up to a remote command interface and a dummy manufacturing facility on some remote moon or desert and you've got yourself a kickass way to test out your newest weapons and clone upgrades.

The only problem is that that same idiot didn't bother to consider what sort of sentience he was potentially releasing (and putting an arms and soldier manufacturing conplex under the complete control of), and, well, you can guess what happened when the first Coalition troops started live training there.

Or someone didn't bother changing the wounds?

ZOMG THE DUMMY LIMB BREAK SOUNDS ARE BONE BREAK
DUMMIES ARE SKELETONS PAINTED ORANGE
:IT IS A CONSPIRACY:

OK Grif, I have another hypothesis just for you:

The Dummies are just another faction created by Data to fill space, and they haven't been thought out and have absolutely no significance except that they can shoot stuff.

The dummy brain is a copy of the regular brain. It shouldn't bleed, or have water. It's just AI, a kind of server.
The dummy faction was planned out by Prom. They are simple crash-test dummies with AI that have become self-aware, and, as such, are recognized as sentient beings and thus not simply deactivated.

Why do they have guns?

No idea. That's as much as I know. I'm sure it'll be explained over the storyline.

YES! The Devs have confirmed it! Man, now I like CC a lot more. [/NoSarcasm]

I honestly kind of wish/hope this is like stormtroopers in Star Wars, with the brain being able to completely control only one at a ime, because I hope the clones and such will become MUCH more inteligent, because right now, they are as dumb as ♥♥♥♥.

That makes me wonder, what role does 'brain in a jar' play in the CC universe.

If the brain can only control one meat bag at a time then, that isn't a huge advantage over commanding regular sentient soldiers.

If a brain can control whole armies at a time then we're talking: hundreds of troops working with seamless coordination as one huge entity. Now that's a huge advantage.

Brains last longer, but they can only control one soldier at a time; they're experiencing life as that soldier when it dies. I don't think I could seamlessly direct a hundred people at once without subordinates, and CC has no rank structure. Thus, the AI computer, which supposedly is still going to be implemented; destroy it and all actors cancel AI modes and devolve to nearly braindead clones, aka what they are.