The horatio are much like the tyrannids in the hammer of war. They devour living beings to make the universe more perfect. Absorbing a race makes the Universe more perfect and Horatio more strong than this race, because Horatio now owns all the feature of the absorbed race and still has his unmatchable beauty (Although I'd prefer it more if horatio had been female ;) ), while on the other hand reducing the number of this lesser species so that they can't defile the universe with their imperfection anymore

Pluvinage wrote:

Simone de Horatio: "You aren´t born an Horatio, you become one".

I suppose Horatio society is a bit different from Horatio Prime on the mind level. Horatio Prime is the survivor of bullying and scorn. He is set to prove he is beautiful and perfect when everyone called him a freak. 

But his clones are created in a non-bullying society where being Horatio is the norm. In that society their main problem is not that they are different, the problem is that they are all the same, so individuality could be a bigger concern for then than it would be for Horatio Prime (who is already in love with his own personality).

Jean-Paul Horatio: 'Hell is other Horatios.'

Rene Horatio: 'I think, I am Horatio.'

I could do French philosopher Horatio all day.

I would think every Horatio would himself be victim and purveyor of bullying, being bullied by people closer to Horatio than he is, and bullying the less perfect clones in turn. Or even just modeling their behavior on the man himself.

Simone de Horatio: "You aren´t born an Horatio, you become one".

I suppose Horatio society is a bit different from Horatio Prime on the mind level. Horatio Prime is the survivor of bullying and scorn. He is set to prove he is beautiful and perfect when everyone called him a freak. 

But his clones are created in a non-bullying society where being Horatio is the norm. In that society their main problem is not that they are different, the problem is that they are all the same, so individuality could be a bigger concern for then than it would be for Horatio Prime (who is already in love with his own personality).

UndeadPuppy wrote:

Frogsquadron wrote:

It is my understanding female Horatio didn't make it into Endless Space 2.

Which makes me curious about their social relationships in the absence of a second gender.... do Horatio's form families? Do they get married? 

Doubtful. If being "more Horatio" is the ultimate form of accomplishment, why settle for anyone who isn't Horatio Prime?

This does raise interesting questions about Horatio society, and whether they still experience physical attraction, or if it is bred/conditioned out of them. If the latter, then this means you are not born Horatio, but you become him?

Space sociology would be a fascinating area of study...

Frogsquadron wrote:

It is my understanding female Horatio didn't make it into Endless Space 2.

Which makes me curious about their social relationships in the absence of a second gender.... do Horatio's form families? Do they get married? 

There are a few Horatio in the ES2 art that look like they MIGHT be female Horatio, but the race is somewhat androgynous as it is.

It is my understanding female Horatio didn't make it into Endless Space 2.

There are female Horatios. At least they are present in Endless Space 1. 

"The Horatio had established a beachhead outpost on an asteroid belt in a system coveted by the Amoeba. Sparop -AE, at the time an administrator of a cloning facility, led a successful defense and counter-attack to secure their position. As a result, Horatio granted her a Dust augmentation for service to the Siblings."

It´s not that complicated if Horatio has advanced genetic machines. All he needs to do is clone a version of himself, but change the Y gene for a copy of his X gene.

Hi! 

I wonder why Horatio need genes of lesser beings if they are already perfect.

Sotnik wrote:

Well, I hope that it is somehow explained in the questline, but at first glance it looks like instead of turning the Universe into gorgeous Horatio (what they are supposed to do due to their lore), Horatio are turning themselves into the ugly Universe.

That's an interesting take on it. I suppose that Horatio Prime must see some value in the other peoples of the universe, or He (or should I say, They?) wouldn't bother experimenting with their DNA. Maybe the ideal of Horatio is perfect; but, as usual, you don't spend most of the game having achieved the ideal, instead you are striving for it. And reaching that ideal means splicing, splicing, splicing. I wonder: is there an achievement for having spliced every population in a game? Because in every Horatio game, that is definitely my goal.

In any event, I don't think that Horatio is changing His form by taking what is 'best' from other peoples; rather, He is taking what works best from them in Horatio, because surely there is something from everyone that is applicable within the Horatio template.

On the other hand, maybe 'splicing' populations doesn't necessarily mean taking their genetics, but just some trait that is inherent to their people and adapting it to Horatio. That's what I think of whenever I splice Riftborn or Vodyani, because there's no way either of those factions (or any robotic minor faction) has DNA to be spliced into the Horatio genome.

Well, I hope that it is somehow explained in the questline, but at first glance it looks like instead of turning the Universe into gorgeous Horatio (what they are supposed to do due to their lore), Horatio are turning themselves into the ugly Universe.

Well, if some poor wretches are unfortunate enough not to be uplifted during the splicing, there are always the vats.

stl0369 wrote:

It's not genocide if you are uplifting their genes and adding them to your own.

In case no minor pop remains (by number of pop you need for splicing) it can be some kind of genocide. Anyway, I don't see any kind of cannibalism here.

I thought it was all about the humanitarian work.  It's not genocide if you are uplifting their genes and adding them to your own.

I suppose that Horatio has some sort of anthropophagic view of "becoming stronger by eating the strenght of your enemies".

That´s a common theme in some very specific Brazilian indigenous tribes (the Tupinambás for example) that adopted cannibalism as a ritual (these practices are from the past but they are well documented in Brazilian history). Why did they eat human meat? They believed that when you eat someone´s body, you "inherit" the strengh of that body - think of it like an analog to the Highlander movies where each warrior could become stronger by absorbing the spirit of their enemies. That´s why during wars with other tribes they would look forward to take strong enemies and eat them. They also would refuse to eat people who they would consider weak and coward, because they would also inherit their weakness if they ate these people.

One interesting book about this subject is "Two travels to Brazil" from Hans Staden, a German mercenary from the XVI century. He was caught by the Tupinambás and was going to be eaten. He was a prisoner for 9 months but managed to scape, recued by a French corsair ship.

Anyway, I suppose the same logic can be applied here, Horatio wants to inherit the strenght of all other species he views as worthy and therefore he will become the de facto and undeniable strongest and worthiest being of all reality.

UndeadPuppy wrote:

It's more like decorating your genes with fancy extras... and what Horatio doesn't like decorating with fancy things?

How can I upvote your comment?))

It's more like decorating your genes with fancy extras... and what Horatio doesn't like decorating with fancy things?