Star HERO with... not magic, really, but...

[Kristopher]

I'm in the early stages of trying to come up with a science fiction campaign. It's going to be interstellar in scale, with FTL. While I'm not going for space opera or epic, one element I do want to include, I think, is more mysticism than typical science fiction settings or games. What I'm thinking of mixing in is a sort of "otherspace", that allows things like FTL, psionics of a sort, and other strangeness. There's also the possibility of "horrors from otherspace" if I want to go that way, even if it's just for a session or two. (Maybe even eldritch things that feed on "psionic" energy, lurking in wait...)

So, does anyone have any thoughts on this sort of thing? Any resources or references or experiences they could share?

[Thia Halmades]

I'm in the early stages of trying to come up with a science fiction campaign. It's going to be interstellar in scale, with FTL. While I'm not going for space opera or epic, one element I do want to include, I think, is more mysticism than typical science fiction settings or games. What I'm thinking of mixing in is a sort of "otherspace", that allows things like FTL, psionics of a sort, and other strangeness. There's also the possibility of "horrors from otherspace" if I want to go that way, even if it's just for a session or two. (Maybe even eldritch things that feed on "psionic" energy, lurking in wait...)

So, does anyone have any thoughts on this sort of thing? Any resources or references or experiences they could share?

Well, this is a common theme, and there's a number of sub projects I'm working on that involve similar elements, but:

Deep Space 9, Babylon 5, Descent Freespace, there's a ... Cthulu Giant Robot game out there, as well. It really depends on what feel you wanna nail. I don't think anyone has done true magic... woops.

Spelljammer. Space 1889. it's a widely explored topic, I can go on like this for hours. You'd need to be more specific before I can offer something more concrete. You're too generic right now, Kristopher.

[phookz]

Spelljammer had magic, but Space 1889 didn't, to my knowledge, have any magic. It was more of a Victorian Era science fiction with Victorian Era science.

The idea is cool - the DOOM video games had magic for the baddies. I don't know if there was any space travel in Shadowrun but magic and technology mixes a lot in that game.

[Hierax]

ICE's Darkspace was a game ahead of it's time that had a lot of great stuff in it that might help.

Oddly enough I don't see the .PDF on ICE's website but, like the truth, it's out there.

Here's a brief description:

http://www.icewebring.com/ICE_Products/RM2/RM2_1301_DarkSpace.php

http://www.icewebring.com/ICE_Products/RM2/images/RM2_1301_DarkSpace.jpg

Rolemaster and Spacemaster
Dark Space
Author: Monte Cook
Stock #: 1301
ISBN 1-55806-140-1
Published 1990 by Iron Crown Ent.
Cover Price: $16.00
Page Count: 160

Cover/Jacket Text:
Mankind's very existence is threatened by a horror from before time and beyond space. Alien entities called the Elder Worms in days long
passed are seeping down once again from their lairs in the Dark Nebula, and the people of the Twenty Worlds are their first prey. To stop these beings before their evil plots come to fruition, brave heroes must use all at their disposal: magic, telepathy, and high science.
come to them worlds of...
DARK SPACE is a complete campaign setting well as a unique combination of science fiction,
fantasy and horror. Contained within are detailed descriptins of twenty different worlds and the society that binds them together. Organizations, religions and governments of this fantasy/high tech
society are included as well as a number of new races and beasts unique to the setting.
DARKSPACE includes:
• A complete campaign setting compatible with Rolemaster; Space
Master, or both games together. Dark Space can also be worked into
any existing campaign (fantasy or science fiction).
•Comprehensive rules for the biological science of Softech, along with
hundreds of items and uses, such as specifically engineered creatures,
biological starships and vehicles, physical enhancing microorganisms, grafts which can give any character wings, claws, natural weaponry, and much more.
Softech is a science which can do anything conventional "hardtech" sciences can and things unimagined until now.
•Rules for creating metamorph characters with super-human powers. •Rules for bio-ships with layouts and diagrams, and bio-ship combat.
skills and a new profession, the Softechnician.
•New spells and psion lists as well as magic rules for dealing with technology and space travel. Dark Space can be used as a guide for adding technology to Rolemaster and magic to Space Master.
detailed description of the creatures from the Entities From Deep Space section of Creatures and Treasurges II, with new entities, their leaders, their insidious plots and motivations, and their foul airworld.
•Non Player Characters and creatures both high and low level, and guidelines for creating a player character at any level for this unique environment.

[Kristopher]

OK, definately not going for CthuluTech or Spelljammer or Space 1889. Also not going for a Star Wars or Star Trek feel. I want the science and technology to be neither window-dressing nor one of the main characters of the thing.

I want one group of systems to be full of asteroid miners living in hollowed-out major asteroids and facing the dangers of working the rocks (think the Belters in Niven's Known Space, for example), who've done this kind of work for generations; there's also a native species in the region of space that they don't like that has a claim. But a week away by FTL there's system with a lush terraformed planet and lots of resorts for the rich. And so on.

I want a fairly conventional starship and tech feel, but navigating in "otherspace" (whatever I end up calling it) requires a Talent, and there are other, mainly minor, abilities, based on ability to tap into "otherspace", that would in general be called psionics.

Some little-known or remote species might have mystics or shaman or priests and believe that their talents are magic.

[Curufea]

I also recommend Metascape II - it mixes scifi with magic and is a free resource. I've been playiing in this campaign (http://www.arthwollipot.com/games/metascape-ii).

The website for the publisher is still down, but I have all the files available on my website here (http://www.curufea.com/Wikka/wikka.php?wakka=Metascape)

[Nyrath]

one element I do want to include, I think, is more mysticism than typical science fiction settings or games. What I'm thinking of mixing in is a sort of "otherspace", that allows things like FTL, psionics of a sort, and other strangeness. There's also the possibility of "horrors from otherspace" if I want to go that way, even if it's just for a session or two. (Maybe even eldritch things that feed on "psionic" energy, lurking in wait...)
"The Game of Rat and Dragon" by Cordwainer Smith
In SPI's RPG "Universe", psionic adepts are the FTL drive. In A. Bertram Chandler's "Grimes" novels, psionic adepts are the FTL communication system.

And if you want something gritty but "Traveller" flavored, with lotsa psionics, run, do not walk, and dig up a copy of the novel THE SHATTERED STARS by Richard S. McEnroe. http://www.bookfinder.com is currently showing about 25 used copies for under $6

[AmadanNaBriona]

The Warhammer 40K setting could be mined for some ideas as well

[Kristopher]

The Warhammer 40K setting could be mined for some ideas as well

I thought about that while trying to answer Thia's post. "The warp" does share some features with what I'm going for, but it's a lot darker and nastier and more dangerous and "magic" than I'm looking for.

[Lucius]

OK, definately not going for CthuluTech or Spelljammer or Space 1889. Also not going for a Star Wars or Star Trek feel. I want the science and technology to be neither window-dressing nor one of the main characters of the thing.

I want one group of systems to be full of asteroid miners living in hollowed-out major asteroids and facing the dangers of working the rocks (think the Belters in Niven's Known Space, for example), who've done this kind of work for generations; there's also a native species in the region of space that they don't like that has a claim. But a week away by FTL there's system with a lush terraformed planet and lots of resorts for the rich. And so on.

I want a fairly conventional starship and tech feel, but navigating in "otherspace" (whatever I end up calling it) requires a Talent, and there are other, mainly minor, abilities, based on ability to tap into "otherspace", that would in general be called psionics.

Some little-known or remote species might have mystics or shaman or priests and believe that their talents are magic.

How about mining Dune for some spicy ideas?

You can use Talents instead of drugs, or have drugs enhance natural Talents, or drop drugs entirely but use the idea of Precognition being a prerequisite to Navigation. Some version of the Mentats and Bene Geseret (under different names and with different trappings) might fit with what you imagine.

Lucius Alexander

The palindromedary is pondering

[The Rose]

Chronicles of Riddick?

La Rose

[Lord Liaden]

Suppose "otherspace" is in some ways a dimension of the mind. It's accessed, and to some extent manipulated, by conscious or subconscious thought. Ships can travel faster through it than through normal space, because the pilots able to take a ship through it believe that they can travel faster. And some of that dimension "leaks through" back to those touching it, allowing them to shape it in this world according to their will, or else causing spontaneous, uncontrolled phenomena.

How is otherspace accessed? By the same methods that mystics have employed for millennia to reach a "higher plane" of consciousness. Meditation. Sweat lodges. Ritual drug use. These and other tools and disciplines let mystics on Earth touch otherspace briefly and in small ways, but in outer space, without the psychic clatter of Earth distracting them, the connection is stronger and easier to achieve.

Otherspace has always responded to the thoughts of people contacting or visiting it. Those who consider otherspace merely a scientific phenomenon perceive it as similar to normal space (although subconscious images may occasionally manifest), but to someone approaching it as a mystical plane it takes the form of places or creatures of myth and folklore. People who use drugs or similar methods long-term end up twisting otherspace to conform to their worst drug-induced nightmares. For most people it may just produce brief visions or phantoms, but those with greater talent or stronger will can form it into solid-seeming manifestations that others can interact with. And after contact by many people with the same cultural background -- or frequent contact with one person -- some of these places and creatures have become permanent... or even alive and sentient.

[csyphrett]

You could always do what Roger Zelazny did and take something mystical and convert it to an almost scientific thing like Lord of Light and Creatures of Light and Darkness.

Demigods could be examples of ways to tap your Otherspace concept maybe.
CES

[Ian Mackinder]

Fading Suns -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fading_Suns

http://www.redbrick-limited.com/cms/index.php?categoryid=19

http://fadingsuns.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

[Kristopher]

How about mining Dune for some spicy ideas?

You can use Talents instead of drugs, or have drugs enhance natural Talents, or drop drugs entirely but use the idea of Precognition being a prerequisite to Navigation. Some version of the Mentats and Bene Geseret (under different names and with different trappings) might fit with what you imagine.

Indeed.

I like the enhancement idea. If someone has the full Talent to navigate for otherspace travel, they don't need the drug(s). People with the "latent" Talent need the drug(s), but it's also psychoactive and hard to resist becoming addicted to. No Talent at all, you either can't or need so much drug that you're going to burn yourself out in a one or two trips. (Hey, I made a pun there, you see?)

If your navigator is injured or killed, it becomes a desperate situation -- someone has to take a megadose to get the ship somewhere safe, hopefully with the medical facilities needed to save that person.


I also like the idea of guilds and insular societies, just not with the dominant power that they had in the Dune setting. Oh, and there will be AIs and such, no Butlerian Jihad here.

[Kristopher]

I'm also likely to lift an idea seed from Niven for the nature of otherspace.

It's non-Euclidian, non-Einsteinian, and intensely foreign to the human mind. Those with the full Talent can comprehend it well enough to do their job.

Others, well, it's like the movie The Abyss. There's a risk of psychological trouble, as the movie said there is in long-term pressurized deep-sea operations. Not everyone has an issue, but you never know who will until they're out there. Try to avoid looking out any windows, too, that makes it worse for most people -- most ships button up completely for this and other safety reasons when making otherspace trips.

[Nyrath]

If your navigator is injured or killed, it becomes a desperate situation -- someone has to take a megadose to get the ship somewhere safe, hopefully with the medical facilities needed to save that person.

Cordwainer Smith: "The Burning of the Brain"

[Lawnmower Boy]

Some ideas: It has been suggested that the oracular elements of Battlestar Galactica (2005) were due to some minds having a broadened perspective in the space experienced in FTL "jumps." . I guess what I'm trying to say is that jumpspace doesn't need to be a psychic medium in itself. It's more like climbing a hill. At the top, if you happen to be farsighted or have brought along a telescope, you can see further.

C. J. Cherryh plays with the idea that some people/species have more functionality in "hyperspace" than others in a number of ways. But at the end of Tripoint, she suggests that the navigator of the ship the protagonist ends up on can actually sense Earthlike planets. She can also move around the ship and otherwise function while everyone else is in a coma, which is a pretty useful thing to be able to do from any perspective, and one of the most typical-player-abuse-prone feats I can think of in a typica game.

[director13]

CS Friedman wrote good (and applicable) stuff too, from the holy cow psi intensive* "In Conquest Born" to the all the aliens are mutated humans in "This Alien Shore".

The latter added to the psis are crazy element to make the otherspace navigators effective paranoid schizophrenics. The drugs were for the majority of their lives that weren't in otherspace.


* Hyperbole - no Geush Urva Psychokinetics, that I know of.

[Nyrath]

Some ideas: It has been suggested that the oracular elements of Battlestar Galactica (2005) were due to some minds having a broadened perspective in the space experienced in FTL "jumps."

In Clifford Simak's "All The Traps Of Earth", an intelligent robot hitches a ride on a starship, but it travels outside on the hull. The exposure to raw hyperspace gives it all sorts of cosmic powers, which it uses for the benefit of mankind.

[Chris Goodwin]

Suppose "otherspace" is in some ways a dimension of the mind. It's accessed, and to some extent manipulated, by conscious or subconscious thought. Ships can travel faster through it than through normal space, because the pilots able to take a ship through it believe that they can travel faster. And some of that dimension "leaks through" back to those touching it, allowing them to shape it in this world according to their will, or else causing spontaneous, uncontrolled phenomena.

How is otherspace accessed? By the same methods that mystics have employed for millennia to reach a "higher plane" of consciousness. Meditation. Sweat lodges. Ritual drug use. These and other tools and disciplines let mystics on Earth touch otherspace briefly and in small ways, but in outer space, without the psychic clatter of Earth distracting them, the connection is stronger and easier to achieve.

Otherspace has always responded to the thoughts of people contacting or visiting it. Those who consider otherspace merely a scientific phenomenon perceive it as similar to normal space (although subconscious images may occasionally manifest), but to someone approaching it as a mystical plane it takes the form of places or creatures of myth and folklore. People who use drugs or similar methods long-term end up twisting otherspace to conform to their worst drug-induced nightmares. For most people it may just produce brief visions or phantoms, but those with greater talent or stronger will can form it into solid-seeming manifestations that others can interact with. And after contact by many people with the same cultural background -- or frequent contact with one person -- some of these places and creatures have become permanent... or even alive and sentient.

Repped for awesome.

[Kristopher]

Cordwainer Smith: "The Burning of the Brain"

I can't find a synopsis online -- can you sum this one up for me?

[Kristopher]

Suppose "otherspace" is in some ways a dimension of the mind. It's accessed, and to some extent manipulated, by conscious or subconscious thought. Ships can travel faster through it than through normal space, because the pilots able to take a ship through it believe that they can travel faster. And some of that dimension "leaks through" back to those touching it, allowing them to shape it in this world according to their will, or else causing spontaneous, uncontrolled phenomena.

How is otherspace accessed? By the same methods that mystics have employed for millennia to reach a "higher plane" of consciousness. Meditation. Sweat lodges. Ritual drug use. These and other tools and disciplines let mystics on Earth touch otherspace briefly and in small ways, but in outer space, without the psychic clatter of Earth distracting them, the connection is stronger and easier to achieve.

Otherspace has always responded to the thoughts of people contacting or visiting it. Those who consider otherspace merely a scientific phenomenon perceive it as similar to normal space (although subconscious images may occasionally manifest), but to someone approaching it as a mystical plane it takes the form of places or creatures of myth and folklore. People who use drugs or similar methods long-term end up twisting otherspace to conform to their worst drug-induced nightmares. For most people it may just produce brief visions or phantoms, but those with greater talent or stronger will can form it into solid-seeming manifestations that others can interact with. And after contact by many people with the same cultural background -- or frequent contact with one person -- some of these places and creatures have become permanent... or even alive and sentient.

That's a bit like the warp from Warhammer 40K (only without the almost inherent evil).

But it's an excellent overall idea.

[Nyrath]

I can't find a synopsis online -- can you sum this one up for me?
In "The Burning of the Brain" by Cordwainer Smith, ships are navigated by use of "lock-sheets". These are sort of route maps of the journey. In the story, by some colossal mistake, the ship makes the first jump, then discovers that instead of having thousands of lock-sheets for all possible permutations of the journey, they have thousands of copies of one lock-sheet.

They are lost in space, and will slowly die as the power runs out.

But one of the pin-lighters, who are telepaths, notice that some of the lock-sheets are in the go-captain's memory. These can be used to navigate the ship to safety. The problem is that the process of reading them will gradually burn out the go-captain's brain.

The go-captain sacrifices himself for the good of the crew and passengers. He winds up being an imbecile.

However, in a twist, as his brain is burnt, his knowledge of starships and navigation is telepathically transferred to his niece. She becomes the greatest go-captain of all.

[Kristopher]

In "The Burning of the Brain" by Cordwainer Smith, ships are navigated by use of "lock-sheets". These are sort of route maps of the journey. In the story, by some colossal mistake, the ship makes the first jump, then discovers that instead of having thousands of lock-sheets for all possible permutations of the journey, they have thousands of copies of one lock-sheet.

They are lost in space, and will slowly die as the power runs out.

But one of the pin-lighters, who are telepaths, notice that some of the lock-sheets are in the go-captain's memory. These can be used to navigate the ship to safety. The problem is that the process of reading them will gradually burn out the go-captain's brain.

The go-captain sacrifices himself for the good of the crew and passengers. He winds up being an imbecile.

However, in a twist, as his brain is burnt, his knowledge of starships and navigation is telepathically transferred to his niece. She becomes the greatest go-captain of all.

I assume that the go-captains are "hyperspace pilots", but what is the meaning or origin of the title "pin-lighter"? Or does it just mean "telepath"?

PS: Thanks for the synopsis.

[Kristopher]

Also found this old thread (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48289).

[torchwolf]

The old Ringworld RPG had some limited Psionics incorporated, as well as the idea that Hyperspace Pilot was a psionic skill; i.e., they sat mentally interfaced to the hyperdrive anomaly detector through the trip just to avoid anomalies in realspace that had repercussions in hyperspace geometry. Dull, but necessary. I'm not sure if the hyperdrive itself was inoperable without a psionic pilot, but it was so insanely dangerous to try it that nobody did.

An astral hyperspace generating living entities/embodying psionic energy in the form of entities and psychic phenomena is intriguing, if only to keep players guessing when ghosts, vampires, and/or mythological entities appear. To keep it suspenseful, there should probably also be some twists to it - Star Vampires, Colors Out of Space and Byakhee, instead of vampires, ghosts and demons? You could mine Cthulhu Rising (http://www.cthulhurising.co.uk/) for ideas.

Personally, I think I'm going to hunt down Dark Space.

[Steve]

One sci-fi series I'd recommend for the total package: aliens, weird tech, psionics, extra-dimensional horrors, AIs, swords & planet adventure, intrigue, interesting characters.

Deathstalker and the sequels (by Simon Green) :thumbup:

[Kristopher]

The old Ringworld RPG had some limited Psionics incorporated, as well as the idea that Hyperspace Pilot was a psionic skill; i.e., they sat mentally interfaced to the hyperdrive anomaly detector through the trip just to avoid anomalies in realspace that had repercussions in hyperspace geometry. Dull, but necessary. I'm not sure if the hyperdrive itself was inoperable without a psionic pilot, but it was so insanely dangerous to try it that nobody did.

Niven is one of my favorite authors.

[Nyrath]

I assume that the go-captains are "hyperspace pilots", but what is the meaning or origin of the title "pin-lighter"? Or does it just mean "telepath"?

The stop-captain is in charge of the ship up to the first jump. They are in charge of maintenance of the ship and keeping the passengers happy. The go-captain is as you surmised the hyperspace pilot.

The pin-lighters are described more fully in Cordwainer Smith's "The Game of Rat and Dragon." You see, in the deep space, far from the light of any sun, there are hideous monsters. They basically eat your soul.

The dragons are vulnerable to light, so the pin-lighters use photonuclear devices to kill them. The pin-lighters are assisted by their partners, the "companions." The human pin-lighters provide the brains, the companions provide the lighting like reflexes.

WARNING: spoiler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_Rat_and_Dragon

from
http://www.troynovant.com/Franson/Smith-C/Game-Rat-Dragon.html

I read "The Game of Rat and Dragon", and another early story in the Instrumentality of Mankind series, "The Burning of the Brain", near the very beginning of my SF reading when I was quite young. Both stories impressed me powerfully, stayed with me, and after re-readings over the years still impress me.

"The Game of Rat and Dragon" is probably also one of the deep roots of my early conviction that the extra-Solar or interstellar spatial environment may be quite different from the Solar spatial environment. We should expect surprises.

[torchwolf]

Niven is one of my favorite authors.

Mine too... my old Traveller games were kinda Niven-esque. :)

Some nice details about the Ringworld RPG was the inclusion of Dolphin and Orca characters with special environmental suits, and some setting-specific psi as the Kzinti telepathic drug and Plateau Eyes.

[Kristopher]

Some ideas: It has been suggested that the oracular elements of Battlestar Galactica (2005) were due to some minds having a broadened perspective in the space experienced in FTL "jumps." . I guess what I'm trying to say is that jumpspace doesn't need to be a psychic medium in itself. It's more like climbing a hill. At the top, if you happen to be farsighted or have brought along a telescope, you can see further.

C. J. Cherryh plays with the idea that some people/species have more functionality in "hyperspace" than others in a number of ways. But at the end of Tripoint, she suggests that the navigator of the ship the protagonist ends up on can actually sense Earthlike planets. She can also move around the ship and otherwise function while everyone else is in a coma, which is a pretty useful thing to be able to do from any perspective, and one of the most typical-player-abuse-prone feats I can think of in a typica game.

So most people pass out in "hyperspace" in that setting?

[Kristopher]

I really like where this discussion is going in general, it's been very helpful.


Off in another direction, I like the idea that spacers form their own unique culture, with humans and aliens who make their lives and livings in space, especially in interstellar travel, having something in common that they don't have with their respective planetside cultures.

Otherspace can be creepy, ships sometimes disappear, people sometimes go crazy. It's never happened to anyone you know, probably, but you hear stories. Voices, apparitions, nightmares, even... something moving out of the corner of your eye, out there, if you're one of those who can stand to look out into otherspace. Most spacers try to dismiss the weirder tales as hyperboly and paranoia and halucinations, but they also carry their lucky objects, knock on the bulkhead three times, and so on... just in case...

The Dark (space way out between the stars where people rarely go) is almost more unsettling when you have to make a stop out there because it's so unknown and so empty and so quiet and so serene and so far from everything. Imagine that it's somewhat like the era of seaplane routes in the Pacific. The seaplanes could land in the middle of nothing in the deep open Pacific, but unless something went wrong, or you had a special reason, why would you ever do it? If someone really wants to get lost or lose something, they do it out there.

Most planet dwellers don't have to worry about vacuum and radiation and protective suits if they need to go outside to make a repair. Even most spacehab dwellers don't understand what trip after trip out there is like, they spend their whole lives living in the glow of the same star.

Some of the aliens, on the fringes and in pockets here and there, are strange. Sometimes their navigators wear robes or carry ritual staves or whatever, and chant as the ship makes the shift. There are cracy rumors of an alien species that doesn't use otherspace because they produce no navigators or maybe because they can't enter it at all, and so they use some other kind of drive that no one understands to travel between stars -- some even say that they're machines or living metal. A ship supposedly had to stop to make repairs out in The Dark and against all odds ran into an alien species that lives out there.

Humanity keeps running into aliens that seem awfully human. Not every alien species, but enough to defy pure chance. Some aliens believe in an ancient race, or gods, or whatever, that spread the seeds of life on many worlds. Other aliens believe that the entire universe is alive and that of course the same forms keep appearing in intelligent life, because all intelligence is the universe experiencing itself. Crazy aliens. Still, it's quite the mystery.

[Kristopher]

I'm not sure about the time scale for travel yet. I need to find a nice balance where a trip from Sol to Bernard's star isn't an afternoon "drive", but visiting more distant worlds doesn't take weeks or months.

Even a lightyear a day means that the center of the Milky Way is almost 75 years away. How many stars are within 100 light years of Sol?

Of course, if you have to get some distance from the nearest gravity well before making the shift to otherspace, that adds a minimum time on to the beginning and end of every trip, doesn't it?

[Nyrath]

Some ideas: It has been suggested that the oracular elements of Battlestar Galactica (2005) were due to some minds having a broadened perspective in the space experienced in FTL "jumps."
Ah, how could I forget. In Gilpin's Space by Reginald Bretnor, some people who travel in starships gain somewhat psychic powers. They are generally women, they basically become high priestesses.

This is good because some sectors of space are unhealthy. Such sectors are under the influence of ethereal hyperadvanced entities who are malign, basically evil deities. These can drive unprotected humans insane, but high priestesses can provide protection.

The enabling premise of the novel is some whimsical mad scientist invents an FTL drive that can be assembled in a garage. He transmits the blueprints over the internet to everybody he can find. All you need to do is mount the drive inside, say, a submarine, and you have instant starship.

Of course the various governments of Earth become very angry at this, but there is little they can do to stop the flood.

[Nyrath]

How many stars are within 100 light years of Sol?
Approximately 10,000 stars (about 2.45 x 10^-3 stars per cubic light year).
As a rough guess, about 2,000 stars could possibly host a planet that humans could live on with no artificial aid. Aliens are another matter.


Of course, if you have to get some distance from the nearest gravity well before making the shift to otherspace, that adds a minimum time on to the beginning and end of every trip, doesn't it?
It can add a huge amount.
Traditionally, SF FTL drives have to be some distance from a gravity well. But if you have to be on the rim of the solar system in order to go FTL, this could add months or years to the start and end of every trip.

This is why in his game Attack Vector: Tactical, Ken Burnside postulated that to enter FTL, you had to be within the orbit of Mercury. This made the transit time at the start and end more resonable.

In Traveller, you only have to be a few diameters away from the planet, which only adds an hour or so to the trip.

[Ian Mackinder]

In Traveller, you only have to be a few diameters away from the planet, which only adds an hour or so to the trip.

In fact, one can use Traveller's Jump Drive closer than the recommended distance - just with a considerably heightened chance of misjump.

[Kristopher]

Approximately 10,000 stars (about 2.45 x 10^-3 stars per cubic light year).
As a rough guess, about 2,000 stars could possibly host a planet that humans could live on with no artificial aid. Aliens are another matter.

So hypothetically you could have 1000 to 2000 inhabited planets and 1000s of other systems with mining habs and science stations and so on, in an area you could cross in 100 days at just 1 ly/day FTL?

And the galaxy is about 100000 ly in diameter.

Once again, we are reminded that space... is big.

You could have "The Thousand Worlds" in an area 1/1000 the diamter of the galaxy (unless my math just failed me).


It can add a huge amount.

Traditionally, SF FTL drives have to be some distance from a gravity well. But if you have to be on the rim of the solar system in order to go FTL, this could add months or years to the start and end of every trip.

This is why in his game Attack Vector: Tactical, Ken Burnside postulated that to enter FTL, you had to be within the orbit of Mercury. This made the transit time at the start and end more resonable.

In Traveller, you only have to be a few diameters away from the planet, which only adds an hour or so to the trip.

Something like Traveller, along with the simple facts of scale, sounds about right.

If I can't find players for this, I'm still going to have to write the damn thing up and get it out there, it's starting to sound really sweet (and I'm humble, too).

[Cancer]

Keith Laumer's "End as a Hero" enemy race, the Gool (IIRC), could fit in nicely as your psionic alien enemies in the Dark.


So hypothetically you could have 1000 to 2000 inhabited planets and 1000s of other systems with mining habs and science stations and so on, in an area you could cross in 100 days at just 1 ly/day FTL?

And the galaxy is about 100000 ly in diameter.

Once again, we are reminded that space... is big.

You could have "The Thousand Worlds" in an area 1/1000 the diamter of the galaxy (unless my math just failed me).

A lot depends on what you choose for the other Drake equation factors (that is, the fraction of stars with habitable planets). We have almost no data about what that factor might be, though to get that ~1000 within 1000 ly is toward the optimistic end of the scale.

As a minor quibble, remember that the Galaxy is disk shaped. The quibble is minor because the scale height of the Old Disk (to which the Sun belongs) is about a thousand parsecs, so treating space as uniformly filled with stars is OK as long as your Sun-centered sample volume is no more than a couple thousand light-years in radius. Stack another factor of 10 on that, and you'll be overestimating the number of stars, because the space density of stars falls off as you go out perpendicular to the plane of the Galaxy.

[Nyrath]

So hypothetically you could have 1000 to 2000 inhabited planets and 1000s of other systems with mining habs and science stations and so on, in an area you could cross in 100 days at just 1 ly/day FTL?

And the galaxy is about 100000 ly in diameter.

Once again, we are reminded that space... is big.

You could have "The Thousand Worlds" in an area 1/1000 the diamter of the galaxy (unless my math just failed me).
If you accept my value for the average density of human habitable solar systems, you could fit 1,000 habitable solar systems into a sphere with a radius of about 170 light years. Which if you mapped it on a map of the galaxy would look like a bb shot sitting on a dinner plate.

[Nyrath]

A lot depends on what you choose for the other Drake equation factors (that is, the fraction of stars with habitable planets). We have almost no data about what that factor might be, though to get that ~1000 within 1000 ly is toward the optimistic end of the scale.

As a minor quibble, remember that the Galaxy is disk shaped. The quibble is minor because the scale height of the Old Disk (to which the Sun belongs) is about a thousand parsecs, so treating space as uniformly filled with stars is OK as long as your Sun-centered sample volume is no more than a couple thousand light-years in radius. Stack another factor of 10 on that, and you'll be overestimating the number of stars, because the space density of stars falls off as you go out perpendicular to the plane of the Galaxy.
I'm not using the Drake equation, I'm (mis-applying) Jill Tarter and Margaret Turnbull 's HabCat dataset (http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/436/habstars-speeding-up-in-the-zone).

This is a list of stars for which is is not totally out of the question that they could host a planet with some kind of life on it. Many of these stars probably do not host any "habitable" planets, and "habitable" does NOT necessarily mean "human-habitable."

Using a simplistic comparison of the number of stars within 50 light years of Sol (15.3 parsecs) to the number of HabCat stars within 50 light years of Sol, I arrived at a (suspicious) figure of 5.14 x 10^-4 HabCat stars per cubic light year.

This implies an average separation between HabCat stars of 15.48 light years.

I talk about this in more detail on my website
http://www.projectrho.com/smap05d.html

[Kristopher]

I can play with the numbers some, maybe say that there are 1000 inhabited worlds within a radius of 1 full year's travel, or something easy like that.

[Nyrath]

I can play with the numbers some, maybe say that there are 1000 inhabited worlds within a radius of 1 full year's travel, or something easy like that.
There are implications for maximum size of an interstellar empire, depending upon what values you chose.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ac.html#empires

[Yansuf]

So hypothetically you could have 1000 to 2000 inhabited planets and 1000s of other systems with mining habs and science stations and so on, in an area you could cross in 100 days at just 1 ly/day FTL?

No, with the figures used that is the number within 100 LY of Sol. To "cross it" would be a distance of 200 LY, so to do it in 100 days you need 2 LY/day. That would allow you to get just about anywhere in the zone from Earth in 7 weeks or less.

Also note, it you allow exit from FTL only 10 diameters from a planet, that would allow a warship to attack the planet with kinetics effectively as soon as it arrives.
Such a ship would exit FTL just over 120,000 Km from the surface of Earth. If the ship can fire projectiles (with a gauss weapon spinal mount perhaps) at 50 kps they will take 35 to 45 minutes to reach the surface.

If you want the Navy/Space Force to have a chance to intercept attackers you will have to give them more time.

[Kristopher]

No, with the figures used that is the number within 100 LY of Sol. To "cross it" would be a distance of 200 LY, so to do it in 100 days you need 2 LY/day. That would allow you to get just about anywhere in the zone from Earth in 7 weeks or less.

See, I had a reason to think that my math might be off. Duh, radius vs diameter. Thanks.


Also note, it you allow exit from FTL only 10 diameters from a planet, that would allow a warship to attack the planet with kinetics effectively as soon as it arrives.
Such a ship would exit FTL just over 120,000 Km from the surface of Earth. If the ship can fire projectiles (with a gauss weapon spinal mount perhaps) at 50 kps they will take 35 to 45 minutes to reach the surface.

If you want the Navy/Space Force to have a chance to intercept attackers you will have to give them more time.

Something to think about, thanks.

[Lawnmower Boy]

So most people pass out in "hyperspace" in that setting?

More like some kind of hynogogic state in which time passes, but not really, and maybe people can eat and drink and not remember it. Or something. It's all weird and stuff so people need drugs to keep from going crazy.
(While I dream of being able to write like Cherryh, with virtually no exposition at all, it's not always an easy read.)
The salient point is that people who remain functional in hyperspace jumps have a week or so to themselves to steal things, look at the instruments and make nookie.

What I like about all of this is that you don't have to go down the "reality is an epiphenomena of consciousness" route where hyperspace is inherently a psychic space, or maybe even the collective unconsciousness. "Magical" functionality in hyperspace flows largely from the simple fact that hyperspace is hard on normal minds.

[Steve]

This sounds a lot like how star travel works in "Fading Suns" on a ship without shielding. Gate travel gave people visions and altered states of consciousness, until the government started putting shielding on ships.

[Ian Mackinder]

This sounds a lot like how star travel works in "Fading Suns" on a ship without shielding. Gate travel gave people visions and altered states of consciousness, until the government started putting shielding on ships.

... And the Church started burning the people who didn't want this shielding.

[Kristopher]

Religion is going to be fragmented and diverse, I think. No monolithic Church.

(Although I could always have one that's trying to become the dominant monolithic entity.)

[Kristopher]

Another implication: requiring a living, sentient pilot who possesses a relatively rare talent for the only known method of FTL flight means no FTL missiles and no FTL probes.

You also won't have hordes of small FTL-capable warcraft; even if you want "fighters" for localized use, you'll have to have interstellar carriers if you want to take them with you.

[Cancer]

Well, a probe could be handled if they are limited to snapshots taken in the millisecond before the probe disintegrated, if you posit that the FTL talent is one required for surviving an FTL jump rather than making the jump altogether.

[Nyrath]

Another implication: requiring a living, sentient pilot who possesses a relatively rare talent for the only known method of FTL flight means no FTL missiles and no FTL probes.

You also won't have hordes of small FTL-capable warcraft; even if you want "fighters" for localized use, you'll have to have interstellar carriers if you want to take them with you.
In SPI's old paper-n-cardboard wargame StarForce Alpha Centauri
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2524
both the FTL drive and the FTL weapons were actually teams of psionic women. They were all in the same guild. Many know each other.

Which means that if you are one of these psionics, you are not going to destroy a ship with some of your guild-sisters on it. Even if it is officially an "enemy" ship.

Combat became very bloodless and ritualized. The main weapon was a sort of telepathic compulsion to do a random FTL jump into the wild blue yonder. The affected ship was not harmed, it just suddenly found itself on the far side of known space, and would be spending quite a few turns slowly crawling back to the battle zone.

Destroying planets was out as well. The only real source of wealth was the psionic women. And the only way to produce them was to have large populations. So destroying the people on a planet would eliminate the only source of value of the planet.

[Kristopher]

Well, a probe could be handled if they are limited to snapshots taken in the millisecond before the probe disintegrated, if you posit that the FTL talent is one required for surviving an FTL jump rather than making the jump altogether.

I was thinking more along the lines of sending probes out via FTL to other stars and the like. You'd need a manned scouting vessel for that.

[Kristopher]

In SPI's old paper-n-cardboard wargame StarForce Alpha Centauri
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2524
both the FTL drive and the FTL weapons were actually teams of psionic women. They were all in the same guild. Many know each other.

Which means that if you are one of these psionics, you are not going to destroy a ship with some of your guild-sisters on it. Even if it is officially an "enemy" ship.

Combat became very bloodless and ritualized. The main weapon was a sort of telepathic compulsion to do a random FTL jump into the wild blue yonder. The affected ship was not harmed, it just suddenly found itself on the far side of known space, and would be spending quite a few turns slowly crawling back to the battle zone.

Destroying planets was out as well. The only real source of wealth was the psionic women. And the only way to produce them was to have large populations. So destroying the people on a planet would eliminate the only source of value of the planet.

Huh. Very different settup.

For a game setting, though, that's not necessarily where I want to go. What sort of effect did it have on smaller scales of conflict, interpersonal strife, etc?

[Kristopher]

Ah, how could I forget. In Gilpin's Space by Reginald Bretnor, some people who travel in starships gain somewhat psychic powers. They are generally women, they basically become high priestesses.

This is good because some sectors of space are unhealthy. Such sectors are under the influence of ethereal hyperadvanced entities who are malign, basically evil deities. These can drive unprotected humans insane, but high priestesses can provide protection.

The enabling premise of the novel is some whimsical mad scientist invents an FTL drive that can be assembled in a garage. He transmits the blueprints over the internet to everybody he can find. All you need to do is mount the drive inside, say, a submarine, and you have instant starship.

Of course the various governments of Earth become very angry at this, but there is little they can do to stop the flood.

First, I've noticed that one of the areas where Wiki has very little is in the area of genre novels, shorts, etc. Even if there is an article about the author, most of his/her stories won't have one. These plot/concept summaries you give are very helpful.

Second, I've read a lot, and yet I'm amazed at how you have a reference to an existing story or game setting for about every other idea mentioned in some of these thread.

[Kristopher]

I'm also starting my list of alien species. I'm going to have some "humans with makeup" aliens (and a lot of in-setting speculation as to how that could happen, I'm not going to just gloss over it), and some really alien aliens, and the whole landscape between.

List of "archetypes" I have so far:

The species that evolved from big batlike creatures, no longer fly, still have sonar & nightvision, and poor distance vision, easily handle zero-G / freefall environments and 3-D manueuvers.

The "mysterious hunters"

The "dwellers in the dark", enigmatic traders who live out between the stars and give spacers the creeps.

"Metallic chemistry" aliens who can't use "otherspace", are immune to any of the Talents related thereto, and have an unknown technology for FTL travel.

"space nomads" (could be aliens or a "near-human" subculture)

The species where esper/"otherspace" Talents are the norm.


Any thoughts on those? Any others that you think would add to the setting, that players would like to play, or that players would like to interact with?

[Kristopher]

After some discussion in the chat earlier today, it seems that the archetype that people might find the most overused and in need of a rest is that of "the warrior race."

I think I agree. If nothing else, you can't all be warriors. Someone has to tend the farms and make the weapons and fix the appliances and drive the delivery vehicles and... At the very least, a "warrior race" would need someone to be the "hellots" to their "Spartans".


And that brought up an idea for a different kind of alien -- the former robotic slaves of a warrior race (or decadent race), who rebelled against their masters/creators. (Or might do so during the campaign.)

It was then suggested that the robots, who probably can't possess the talent to access otherspace and thus FTL, might be the sort to raid "the bios" and kidnap navigators for their own use, and would be feared and hated. The robots would "logically" justify their treatment of bios as reasonable given their past treatment by their masters/creators.

On the other hand, "the robot / cyBORG" meanace might be another too-common trope.

(Thanks to those who helped me with these ideas earlier today.)

[Yansuf]

After some discussion in the chat earlier today, it seems that the archetype that people might find the most overused and in need of a rest is that of "the warrior race."

I think I agree. If nothing else, you can't all be warriors. Someone has to tend the farms and make the weapons and fix the appliances and drive the delivery vehicles and... At the very least, a "warrior race" would need someone to be the "hellots" to their "Spartans".


And that brought up an idea for a different kind of alien -- the former roboting slaves of a warrior race (or decadent race), who rebelled against their masters/creators. (Or might do so during the campaign.)

It was then suggested that the robots, who probably can't possess the talent to access otherspace and thus FTL, might be the sort to raid "the bios" and kidnap navigators for their own use, and would be feared and hated. The robots would "logically" justify their treatment of bios as reasonable given their past treatment by their masters/creators.

On the other hand, "the robot / cyBORG" meanace might be another too-common trope.

(Thanks to those who helped me with these ideas earlier today.)

Or the robots could hire merc pilots.

[Kristopher]

Or the robots could hire merc pilots.

See, I like that idea.

[Ian Mackinder]

Or the robots could hire merc pilots.

Or they could come up with a really nasty spin on the idea, if thus inclined. How much of a suitable human being is required for said job, after al? I'm thinking of David Weber's 'The Apocalypse Troll' here.

[Kristopher]

Or they could come up with a really nasty spin on the idea, if thus inclined. How much of a suitable human being is required for said job, after al? I'm thinking of David Weber's 'The Apocalypse Troll' here.

Haven't read it, I'll look it up.


But yeah, ugh. If the only thing needed is the central nervous system, then you have an especially nasty version of the "brain in a jar".

"We control your sensory inputs, biothing. Pain, pleasure, deprivation, it matters little to us. Perform well in your function, and you will have much reward. Fail, and agony shall be your world. Ponder this while the shiftcoils charge."

[csyphrett]

you can also have a version of the matrix to make things easier on the navigators, training, control systems, that sort of thing.

The one scene where the control are running the docks in Zion is essentially what I am thinking about, but other uses could be found.
CES

[Kristopher]

you can also have a version of the matrix to make things easier on the navigators, training, control systems, that sort of thing.

The one scene where the control are running the docks in Zion is essentially what I am thinking about, but other uses could be found.
CES

Hell, being used as otherspace navigators by a robot space horde would have been a better reality behind the Matrix than what the actual movies used.

[SCUBA Hero]

I'm not sure about the time scale for travel yet. I need to find a nice balance where a trip from Sol to Bernard's star isn't an afternoon "drive", but visiting more distant worlds doesn't take weeks or months.

Even a lightyear a day means that the center of the Milky Way is almost 75 years away. How many stars are within 100 light years of Sol?

Of course, if you have to get some distance from the nearest gravity well before making the shift to otherspace, that adds a minimum time on to the beginning and end of every trip, doesn't it?My advice: decide the result you want, then figure out a way to get there. Some possibilities:

* Minimum distance from a gravity well (as you mentioned above)

* FTL acceleration/deceleration are not equal; perhaps you can keep accelerating at some rate, then a planetary gravity well allows almost instantaneous deceleration

* FTL acceleration/deceleration is not linear, so maybe the first parsec takes a week, then to 50LY is two weeks, then to 100LY is three weeks.

[Kristopher]

My advice: decide the result you want, then figure out a way to get there. Some possibilities:

* Minimum distance from a gravity well (as you mentioned above)

* FTL acceleration/deceleration are not equal; perhaps you can keep accelerating at some rate, then a planetary gravity well allows almost instantaneous deceleration

* FTL acceleration/deceleration is not linear, so maybe the first parsec takes a week, then to 50LY is two weeks, then to 100LY is three weeks.

Faster per LY the farther you're going might help too.

[Kristopher]

Couple of things:

1) With all the science fiction gamers and readers here, I really thought I'd get more input on what kind of aliens, and/or human cultures, people thought were done to death, or that they'd like to see in more settings.


2) I had a thought for "otherspace" that might make FTL travel time more variable and good navigators very valuable. As part of it being unlike normal space, it has an extra dimension. Every point in otherspace roughly corresponds to a point in normal space. The "deeper" you go in otherspace along the "v axis", however, the closer those points are together. Hypothetically, if you went "all the way down", you'd be able to travel anywhere in the normalspace universe instantly. But the "deeper" along the "v axis" you go, the more likely things are to get... strange. And what I said before, about otherspace being non-Euclidian and non-Einsteinian, would still apply.

Again, just brainstorming, let me know what you think.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Couple of things:

1) With all the science fiction gamers and readers here, I really thought I'd get more input on what kind of aliens, and/or human cultures, people thought were done to death, or that they'd like to see in more settings.


2) I had a thought for "otherspace" that might make FTL travel time more variable and good navigators very valuable. As part of it being unlike normal space, it has an extra dimension. Every point in otherspace roughly corresponds to a point in normal space. The "deeper" you go in otherspace along the "v axis", however, the closer those points are together. Hypothetically, if you went "all the way down", you'd be able to travel anywhere in the normalspace universe instantly. But the "deeper" along the "v axis" you go, the more likely things are to get... strange. And what I said before, about otherspace being non-Euclidian and non-Einsteinian, would still apply.

Again, just brainstorming, let me know what you think.
nicely pondered, me likey

[Nolgroth]

Again, just brainstorming, let me know what you think.Responded with rep. I like the Otherspace idea a great deal.

[Nyrath]

Second, I've read a lot, and yet I'm amazed at how you have a reference to an existing story or game setting for about every other idea mentioned in some of these thread.
Because I've read a lot but have probably been doing for longer than you. If you check the publication dates on the various stories and games I suggest, you'll see that most of them are really old.

[Nyrath]

I'm also starting my list of alien species. I'm going to have some "humans with makeup" aliens (and a lot of in-setting speculation as to how that could happen, I'm not going to just gloss over it), and some really alien aliens, and the whole landscape between.

List of "archetypes" I have so far:
You may or may not find this useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extraterrestrials_in_fiction_by_type
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlienTropes

[Tom Carman]

Haven't read it, I'll look it up.


But yeah, ugh. If the only thing needed is the central nervous system, then you have an especially nasty version of the "brain in a jar".

"We control your sensory inputs, biothing. Pain, pleasure, deprivation, it matters little to us. Perform well in your function, and you will have much reward. Fail, and agony shall be your world. Ponder this while the shiftcoils charge."

Oooh, flashback to Bertram Chandler's Commodore Grimes novels. Early on, the FTL communication system was trained telepaths, and they used disembodied brains as amplifiers. These brains were usually from dogs or cats, and the telepaths treated them as "pets", which everyone else considered rather creepy. Several stories involved crossing into alternate universes (which was apparently easier out on "The Rim"). In one, some rats got an evolutionary boost from a malfunctioning FTL drive and took over in several sectors. Obviously, evolved rats are not going to get along with cat or dog amplifiers, so they used humans instead. The FTL drive in those stories has been loosely described as "going astern in time while full ahead in space".

[Ian Mackinder]

Couple of things:

1) With all the science fiction gamers and readers here, I really thought I'd get more input on what kind of aliens, and/or human cultures, people thought were done to death, or that they'd like to see in more settings. .

Much as I love the Trekverse (and I do!), there has been a tendency to portray some of the best-known alien races as embodying (or being caricatures of) one particular facet of human behaviour / culture. There is some individual variation (or exceptions), but most Klingons are Vikings / bikers, Vulcans are UberGeeks, most Ferenghi are carpet-baggers, Bajorans in general are (arguably) the Israelis, and so on.
Guess what I am saying is to try not to do, or overdo, this. That famous line from Mr Campbell comes to mind - "Give me something that thinks as well as a man, but not like a man....".



2) I had a thought for "otherspace" that might make FTL travel time more variable and good navigators very valuable. As part of it being unlike normal space, it has an extra dimension. Every point in otherspace roughly corresponds to a point in normal space. The "deeper" you go in otherspace along the "v axis", however, the closer those points are together. Hypothetically, if you went "all the way down", you'd be able to travel anywhere in the normalspace universe instantly. But the "deeper" along the "v axis" you go, the more likely things are to get... strange. And what I said before, about otherspace being non-Euclidian and non-Einsteinian, would still apply.

Again, just brainstorming, let me know what you think.

Somehow reminds me of how star travel is handled in David Weber's 'Honour Harrington" books.

[Kristopher]

Much as I love the Trekverse (and I do!), there has been a tendency to portray some of the best-known alien races as embodying (or being caricatures of) one particular facet of human behaviour / culture. There is some individual variation (or exceptions), but most Klingons are Vikings / bikers, Vulcans are UberGeeks, most Ferenghi are carpet-baggers, Bajorans in general are (arguably) the Israelis, and so on.
Guess what I am saying is to try not to do, or overdo, this. That famous line from Mr Campbell comes to mind - "Give me something that thinks as well as a man, but not like a man....".

I do want to avoid the "single type of person" cultures as much as possible.


Somehow reminds me of how star travel is handled in David Weber's 'Honour Harrington" books.

Under the "no new thing under the sun" department, after posting that idea, I followed someone's link to Weber's The Apocolypse Troll and read the first few chapters, and I was like "wow, this FTL sounds somewhat familiar." :straight:

I guess "otherspace" ends up being halfway between Warhammer 40K's "the warp" and the the Honourverse's multidimensional drives.

[Cancer]

Long ago I had the bizarre idea that FTL was done by popping into another dimension, changing position there, then popping back. Shifts in the other dimension were much smaller Over There than here, by something like a factor of 10^11, so that the Galactic Center could be reached by popping a ship over there, dragging it about 10 km, then popping back. Inanimate and living but nonsentient or unconscious things were much smaller relative to human figures in the alternate dimension than they were in our own, so that a kilometer-size ship full of people in sleep tanks turned into an automobile-size boulder in the alternate dimension. The problem was that there was no technology in the other dimension, except the "drive" which could pop between dimensions. So, the other dimension was full of people who dragged automobile-size boulders around by brute muscle power, and a smaller group who did surveying tasks so that ships got to where people wanted to be.

I think I still have that story around somewhere, but it's been 30 years since I thought about it.

[Nyrath]

Long ago I had the bizarre idea that FTL was done by popping into another dimension, changing position there, then popping back. Shifts in the other dimension were much smaller Over There than here, by something like a factor of 10^11, so that the Galactic Center could be reached by popping a ship over there, dragging it about 10 km, then popping back.
An interesting implication is that any error in moving your ship to its final destination in the other dimension will be magnified by the same factor of 10^11.

So if you position your ship one millimeter off target, it will arrive in real space 100,000 kilometers off target.

[Cancer]

An interesting implication is that any error in moving your ship to its final destination in the other dimension will be magnified by the same factor of 10^11.

So if you position your ship one millimeter off target, it will arrive in real space 100,000 kilometers off target.
Yeah, I recognize that also; it means, in all reality, that you can count on spending a lot of time going from wherever you pop back in to your final destination, since manhandling a big rock on a flat surface is unlikely to do much better than 10 cm using eyeball and empty hands techniques.

Further, it also relies upon the coincidence of projection of the plane of our Galaxy with the surface of the ground in the other dimension. (Digging a hole to make a detent for your rock to sit in when it's in the right spot means you'll end up being below the plane of the Galaxy when you pop back.)

The story as I wrote it didn't address either of these issues (I saw they were there, but they were "out of scope" for the story that was the course assignment), but they were things to revisit. (I focussed on the incongruity of FTL travel via brute human strength.)

[Kristopher]

Oooh, flashback to Bertram Chandler's Commodore Grimes novels. Early on, the FTL communication system was trained telepaths, and they used disembodied brains as amplifiers. These brains were usually from dogs or cats, and the telepaths treated them as "pets", which everyone else considered rather creepy. Several stories involved crossing into alternate universes (which was apparently easier out on "The Rim"). In one, some rats got an evolutionary boost from a malfunctioning FTL drive and took over in several sectors. Obviously, evolved rats are not going to get along with cat or dog amplifiers, so they used humans instead. The FTL drive in those stories has been loosely described as "going astern in time while full ahead in space".

Reminds me of the ship used to explore the galatic core in Niven's Known Space. The hyperdrive and the normal drive run in opposite directions, which the pilot says is typical of the Puppeteers -- "***-backwards into the unknown."

[Kristopher]

I'm thinking of David Weber's 'The Apocalypse Troll' here.


Haven't read it, I'll look it up.

I've been reading it on Baen's site. Very good read so far. Thank you sir.

[Ian Mackinder]

I've been reading it on Baen's site. Very good read so far. Thank you sir.

You're quite welcome, and I'm glad you are enjoying it.

Mr Weber has a real penchant for VERY high-powered female characters, but he carries it off well.

[Kristopher]

You're quite welcome, and I'm glad you are enjoying it.

Mr Weber has a real penchant for VERY high-powered female characters, but he carries it off well.

Yeah...

...but so far the writing is good enough that I'll forgive him the slight "wish-fulfilment" setup with Richard and Milla.

[Kristopher]

Pondering what sort of "sublight drives" rubber science I want to use, at the moment.

[Nyrath]

Pondering what sort of "sublight drives" rubber science I want to use, at the moment.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3a.html#advice

[Kristopher]

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3a.html#advice

If ships have potentially very dangerous reactors, I could actually see it being very illegal to do anything to the reactor unless you're a government-certified highly-trained engineer.

If drives are big and dangerous (see also, "the Kzinti lesson"), I could see orbital tugs and orbital pilots being required.

Not sure how either really works out for an RPG setting, though.

[Kristopher]

For the sake of a playable setting, I'm trying to come up with a way to have reactionless drives that are limited in some way as to not make every ship into a WMD.

[Curufea]

A good start would be to have rules that any powered re-entry is going to destroy the ship.
Forcefields don't work in atmosphere, and armour ablates.

Another thing to add is a power source that isn't nuclear and won't poison a planet when the ship explodes.

[Nyrath]

For the sake of a playable setting, I'm trying to come up with a way to have reactionless drives that are limited in some way as to not make every ship into a WMD.
Off the top of my head the best way is to come up with some technobabble reason that limits the maximum speed of any object using the drive.

Of course real physics does not allow for something like that, but neither does it allow for a reactionless drive, so it is a wash.

[Nyrath]

A good start would be to have rules that any powered re-entry is going to destroy the ship.
Forcefields don't work in atmosphere, and armour ablates.
Well, in this case, that would not help.

If the ship is moving at 90% the speed of light, it will do the same damage to a planet if it is solid, or if it has been converted into fast moving vapor.

It does not matter if the atoms are connected together in the form of a ship or are moving separately as a fast cloud. They are still going to pasteurize the planet.

If the ship had the same mass as a submarine (about 13,900 metric tons) and it was traveling at 90% c, it is going to hit the planet with a force of 380,000,000 megatons, or with a force almost five times as great as the asteroid that killed all the dinosaurs. Regardless of whether the ship was solid or vapor.

[Ian Mackinder]

Well, in this case, that would not help.

If the ship is moving at 90% the speed of light, it will do the same damage to a planet if it is solid, or if it has been converted into fast moving vapor.

It does not matter if the atoms are connected together in the form of a ship or are moving separately as a fast cloud. They are still going to pasteurize the planet.

If the ship had the same mass as a submarine (about 13,900 metric tons) and it was traveling at 90% c, it is going to hit the planet with a force of 380,000,000 megatons, or with a force almost five times as great as the asteroid that killed all the dinosaurs. Regardless of whether the ship was solid or vapor.

Once again proving that it ain't the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[Kristopher]

Off the top of my head the best way is to come up with some technobabble reason that limits the maximum speed of any object using the drive.

Of course real physics does not allow for something like that, but neither does it allow for a reactionless drive, so it is a wash.

I guess I didn't realize that a reactionless drive (ie, no reaction mass ejected out the back) automatically allowed accelleration to any physically possible velocity.

[Nyrath]

I guess I didn't realize that a reactionless drive (ie, no reaction mass ejected out the back) automatically allowed accelleration to any physically possible velocity.
A reaction drive can only accelerate your rocket until the reaction mass is all gone.
A reactionless drive obviously does not have that limitation.

Presumably it does require electricity or other power, but that is a much easier limit to overcome.

[Kristopher]

A reaction drive can only accelerate your rocket until the reaction mass is all gone.
A reactionless drive obviously does not have that limitation.

Presumably it does require electricity or other power, but that is a much easier limit to overcome.

Isn't the other limit on the reaction drive that it can only accelerate the vehicle to the same velocity forward as the velocity of the exhaust out the back? Or am I thinking of something else?

[Nyrath]

Isn't the other limit on the reaction drive that it can only accelerate the vehicle to the same velocity forward as the velocity of the exhaust out the back? Or am I thinking of something else?
You are thinking about the Bussard Interstellar Ramjet. The ramscoop causes drag.

A reaction drive with no ramscoop is not subject to such a limit.

[Kristopher]

You are thinking about the Bussard Interstellar Ramjet. The ramscoop causes drag.

A reaction drive with no ramscoop is not subject to such a limit.

Or it came from someone trying to give a quick and dirty version of what's being talked about in this discussion (http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/553833.html).

EDIT: So it's not that there's a fundamental difference beween a rocket and a reactionless drive that makes the latter more dangerous, it's just that the former runs out of reaction mass and that limits its maxiumum velocity.

[Nyrath]

EDIT: So it's not that there's a fundamental difference between a rocket and a reactionless drive that makes the latter more dangerous, it's just that the former runs out of reaction mass and that limits its maximum velocity.

Yes, but that is putting it mildly. Using a reaction drive to accelerate something to 90% c with a super-duper technomagic antimatter beam core rocket still means that your rocket will be 99% reaction mass and 1% rocket

[Kristopher]

Yes, but that is putting it mildly. Using a reaction drive to accelerate something to 90% c with a super-duper technomagic antimatter beam core rocket still means that your rocket will be 99% reaction mass and 1% rocket

Hmm.

Unless a ship with a reactionless drive is powered by wishes, it still has a "burn" limit based on how much fuel it carries for its powerplant, right? (Even though it's not tossing it out the back.)

[Nyrath]

Unless a ship with a reactionless drive is powered by wishes, it still has a "burn" limit based on how much fuel it carries for its powerplant, right?
Yes, as I said here:

A reaction drive can only accelerate your rocket until the reaction mass is all gone.
A reactionless drive obviously does not have that limitation.

Presumably it does require electricity or other power, but that is a much easier limit to overcome.

[Kristopher]

Yes, as I said here:

You did; sorry. By the time I responded the last time, it had completely slipped my mind. That's what I get for posting while taking quick mental breaks from in-depth work projects.

[phookz]

Since you're talking about using handwavium technology anyway, I think it's easy enough to make a reactionless drive that can't be a planet buster.


The drive requires a powerplant to move
Top speed is based on the amount of energy supplied to the powerplant
If you cut power to the drive the ship comes to a stop - you can have it coast if you want since that's cooler
The drag on the drive is inversely proportional to the gravity well the drive is in. That is, the drive doesn't really work in a gravity well, or works very inefficiently. The deeper into the gravity well you get, the slower the drive goes, regardless of the amount of energy supplied.
You can still use this to power missiles and the like, but they only really work well in deep space.

You just have to add some more handwavium (yes, I know, it's a slippery slope). Just my 2 credits.

[IndianaJoe3]

For the sake of a playable setting, I'm trying to come up with a way to have reactionless drives that are limited in some way as to not make every ship into a WMD.

If you have teleportation, you can rig a ship that teleports to its own front end. Your speed is limited by the speed of the teleportation process. However, there's no actual motion - when the drive is turned off, you simply stop.

(I don't know who thought of the concept originally, but Larry Niven explored it in, "The Theory and Practice of Teleportation".)

[Kristopher]

Let me put things another way when it comes to the issue of the "sublight drives": I don't think that my probable players would be interested in a setting that involved detailed calculations of delta v, fuel remaining, burn times, etc, or in taking days to travel between planets in the same system, or in waiting a week to get to "safe FTL distance".

So what I want is something that has a "real" feel, but doesn't disinterest those players. I hope that makes more sense and clarifies what I'm going for.

[Yansuf]

Let me put things another way when it comes to the issue of the "sublight drives": I don't think that my probable players would be interested in a setting that involved detailed calculations of delta v, fuel remaining, burn times, etc, or in taking days to travel between planets in the same system, or in waiting a week to get to "safe FTL distance".

So what I want is something that has a "real" feel, but doesn't disinterest those players. I hope that makes more sense and clarifies what I'm going for.

Then I suggest that you use some form of "micro-jump" drive.
See post 99 above for the basis. I don't know if it was Larry Niven or Poul Anderson who first showed such a thing, but the idea goes back 50 years or so.
Star Cruiser and 2300AD used a variant of this.
And until you let it go FTL, it does not violate any known physical laws!

[Kristopher]

Then I suggest that you use some form of "micro-jump" drive.
See post 99 above for the basis. I don't know if it was Larry Niven or Poul Anderson who first showed such a thing, but the idea goes back 50 years or so.
Star Cruiser and 2300AD used a variant of this.
And until you let it go FTL, it does not violate any known physical laws!

Teleportation that doesn't violate physical laws?

A "microjump drive" isn't really the feel I'm looking for.

[Nyrath]

If you have teleportation, you can rig a ship that teleports to its own front end. Your speed is limited by the speed of the teleportation process. However, there's no actual motion - when the drive is turned off, you simply stop.

(I don't know who thought of the concept originally, but Larry Niven explored it in, "The Theory and Practice of Teleportation".)
Yes, that would have the advantage that the ship is no longer a weapon of mass destruction. Good call.

You see, the devastation we have been talking about is caused by momentum. If you remember Newton's laws, F = MA or momentum equals mass times acceleration.

But with this drive, the ship's acceleration is zero. The act of teleporting the ship changes its position, but it does not accelerate it.

So you can zip through the solar system really fast, but you cannot destroy planets by ramming them.

[Yansuf]

Yes, that would have the advantage that the ship is no longer a weapon of mass destruction. Good call.

You see, the devastation we have been talking about is caused by momentum. If you remember Newton's laws, F = MA or momentum equals mass times acceleration.

But with this drive, the ship's acceleration is zero. The act of teleporting the ship changes its position, but it does not accelerate it.

So you can zip through the solar system really fast, but you cannot destroy planets by ramming them.

Force=Mass x Acceleration
Momentum=Mass x Velocity

[Nyrath]

Force=Mass x Acceleration
Momentum=Mass x Velocity
They are related:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum#Linear_momentum_of_a_particle
But it does not change the fact that a teleport drive would not create a kinetic energy weapon

[Tom Carman]

Since you're talking about using handwavium technology anyway, I think it's easy enough to make a reactionless drive that can't be a planet buster.


The drive requires a powerplant to move
Top speed is based on the amount of energy supplied to the powerplant
If you cut power to the drive the ship comes to a stop - you can have it coast if you want since that's cooler
The drag on the drive is inversely proportional to the gravity well the drive is in. That is, the drive doesn't really work in a gravity well, or works very inefficiently. The deeper into the gravity well you get, the slower the drive goes, regardless of the amount of energy supplied.
You can still use this to power missiles and the like, but they only really work well in deep space.

You just have to add some more handwavium (yes, I know, it's a slippery slope). Just my 2 credits.

This isn't too far from the aether propellers of the Space 1889 game. It didn't even discuss issues like acceleration or what happens if the drive is turned off (or gravity aboard ship). You just determined your drive, its power requirements, and the mass of your ship; then you derived the speed in millions of miles per day, and finally rolled on navigation skills to see how efficient a course you could plot. Aether propellers didn't function in atmosphere denser than about 25000 ft altitudes, and the solar boiler power plants could reach into the asteroid belt but not beyond it.

[Tom Carman]

Then I suggest that you use some form of "micro-jump" drive.
See post 99 above for the basis. I don't know if it was Larry Niven or Poul Anderson who first showed such a thing, but the idea goes back 50 years or so.
Star Cruiser and 2300AD used a variant of this.
And until you let it go FTL, it does not violate any known physical laws!

I'm pulling a blank on the author and book title, but a somewhat similar notion is the "skip drive". It depends on "quantum space": instead passing through each and every point of space, you could skip along touching every 10th spacial quanta, covering 10 times the distance with no increase in true velocity. The kicker in the novel was that you needed really high skip factors for practical interstellar travel, and then you started to "jump the track" (because you were not touching down in your reality often enough) and drift into parallel universes.

[Ian Mackinder]

I'm pulling a blank on the author and book title, but a somewhat similar notion is the "skip drive". It depends on "quantum space": instead passing through each and every point of space, you could skip along touching every 10th spacial quanta, covering 10 times the distance with no increase in true velocity. The kicker in the novel was that you needed really high skip factors for practical interstellar travel, and then you started to "jump the track" (because you were not touching down in your reality often enough) and drift into parallel universes.

'All These Earths' by F M Busby, briefly mentioned earlier.

[Nyrath]

Then I suggest that you use some form of "micro-jump" drive.
See post 99 above for the basis. I don't know if it was Larry Niven or Poul Anderson who first showed such a thing, but the idea goes back 50 years or so.
I dunno if Poul was the first, but I did read about such a drive in his short story "Margin of Profit " which was published in 1956.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Teleportation that doesn't violate physical laws?

A "microjump drive" isn't really the feel I'm looking for.

I know what you're say, Kris. It doesn't sit right to me, and raises questions about how teleportation might be used otherwise.

So let me argue my corner, present you with an option you might like. This is just a fanwank of C. J. Cherryh, btw. (Point vii is where I get to game-specific consequences of all the wanking.)
i) Hyperspace jumps conserve energy. The more (power plant) energy you pump into hyperspace, the more (kinetic+potential) energy you have when you come out of hyperspace.
(ii) Jumping just puts you in hyperspace. The only way to get out is for a gravity well to pull you out.

(iii) A good analogy here is that You go into hyperspace and "coast downhill." If you need to go a long way in hyperspace, you're going to end up going very fast indeed when you come out. (Like relativistic velocities.) You need a way to slow down. and the sign of velocity change is defined by the grav well. You automatically come out pointing at the well, and the only delta vee allowed is negative.

(iv) Conversely, if you jump inside a gravity well, (the value of gravitational potential energy for your point in space is sufficiently high) you will get pulled out instantly, and all of your engine power will be converted into kinetic energy, and by definition it will be outwards with respect to the gravity well. Strictly this is a reactionless drive, although if you want your players to feel grav pulls, it might be worked in somehow. Maybe it is just the ship's sails ("vanes") that actually transition through hyperspace, and they haul the rest of the ship around? Moreover, the sign of the velocity determines where you can go, and how much delta vee.
(vi) Conservation of energy dictates that you come out of hyperspace with exactly as much kinetic energy as you put through your engine. The absolute magnitude of your change in potential energy may be small, but it is hard to deal with, and maybe there are some inefficiencies, because it looks like it is easy to jump to brown giants close at hand, and increasingly difficult to jump straight through to other star systems. There's also some uncertainties here. That's key to preventing the planet buster problem.

vii) So, you start out on a planet. You cycle your vanes. You're going faster. But your vector is out from the gravity well, albeit not necessarily precisely orthogonal to the field, and how much delta vee cycling can give you depends on how far you are from the system's centre of mass. Kinetic energy kill vehicles are impossible because the system doesn't let you get up to that kind of speed on a planetary intercept course. From Earth you might be able to bomb Mars at multiples of solar escape velocity, perhaps, say, 100km/sec at conjunction, but that's not out of range for conventional weapons of mass destruction, so who cares?

Conversely, you come into system very fast. But the further (faster) away you come from, the more random your trajectory is. And the only way you can change your trajectory is by cycling your vanes, and the only velocity change vector is downwards. And the further in you go, the smaller the delta vee that cycling gives you. So you have to dump speed fast.
So, yes, you can have a kinetic kill energy weapon, but the ship is popping into space 50 AUs out with a random trajectory. (Not completely random, to be sure, but even a small cone of uncertainty in actual time elapsed in transit will make the intercept for a planet an astronomically small range of the total possible courses.) If you need a crew to make a ship go, they have to appreciate that their chances of kamikazing Jupiter are vastly greater than of hitting Earth. Demoralising, that. And, in fact, the vast majority of would-be kamikazes will just bomb through the system, and run into the sun, if not space junk on the way.

[Cancer]

A complication on that theme can come if you recognize that different stars have different space velocity vectors, and to get from System A to System B successfully means you need to match both position and velocity vectors. The velocity vectors of stars do not change on a human-noticeable timescale (until you are Much Too Close to the black hole at the galactic center), so that's simply a look-up table of fudge numbers for one star to the next.

If your drive is limited in its velocity alteration capacity, it provides a rationale why, for example, two stars with a small distance between them cannot be reached from each other in one jump. The delta V is too great for a single jump with existing tech; you have to go "the long way around" through one or more other steps of intermediate velocity.

[Nyrath]

Of course, Larry Niven in his THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF TELEPORTATION did include a clever way of turning a teleport drive into a weapon of mass destruction.

Ordinarily, when you turn off the teleport drive, your ship becomes quote "stationary" unquote (actually, it reverts to the same relative velocity it had before it turned on the teleporter, which can be difficult to explain to non-technical people).

So Niven said do the following:
[a] move your ship near a planet with high gravity (e.g., Jupiter, but any planet will do)
[b] Aim the nose of the ship at the planet
[c] Let the ship fall to the planet a distance equal to one ship length
[d] teleport the ship backward one ship length
[e] go to step [c]

The ship is constantly accelerating towards the planet, but it never reaches it. By keeping this up for a month or so, your ship will acquire quite a huge velocity. The larger the planet's gravity, the faster the ship will accelerate.

Now you can use the teleport drive to move the ship over to the target planet, turn off the teleport drive, and the ship promptly crashes into the planet with civilization destroying force.

Of course, according to the law of conservation of mass-energy, you'd expect that the energy required to run the teleporter drive would be a larger than the energy of velocity that the ship has acquired.

[Yansuf]

They are related:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum#Linear_momentum_of_a_particle
But it does not change the fact that a teleport drive would not create a kinetic energy weapon

Of course they are related. But they are not the same thing.

Naturally I agree about your last point.

[Nyrath]

Of course they are related. But they are not the same thing.
Yes, I stand corrected on that.

[Kristopher]

Has anyone done any work on a somewhat simplified presentation for spacecraft and vehicle combat?

[Kristopher]

Here's a rough draft of the material for my players regarding otherspace. Let me know what you think.


Otherspace

Most simply refer to it as “otherspace”, even though the formal scientific name of amongst human cultures is “Waldhausen – Kurakimichi space” in honor of the scientists who first described the strange dimension.

Depending on whom you ask, otherspace exists alongside, behind, above, or below “normal space”. None of these explanations are truly accurate. Conventional descriptions fail; accurate understanding requires complex abstract mathematics, and/or a certain… gift.

Otherspace is non-Euclidian and non-Einsteinian, and some would even say non-objective. While the perceptible universe of human experience is commonly understood to consist of four dimensions – width, height, depth, and time – otherspace is five dimensional. That fifth dimension can most easily be understood as “distance” or “separation”; the farther along that “v axis” one goes, the closer points are together.

While this is interesting on a theoretical level, it wouldn’t have been world changing without one last fact: every point in normal space coincides with a point in otherspace, and the “mapping” of those points is roughly the same. Because those points can be closer together in otherspace than they are in normal space, two points that are separated by vast distances in normal space can effectively be right next to each other in otherspace.

The Waldhausen – Kurakimichi Drive (WK Drive, dim drive, otherspace drive, “shortcut drive”) generates a transition field that allows a ship to enter and exist in otherspace. By accessing otherspace at a certain “depth” on the v axis, the ship crosses between points faster than the speed of light would allow. According to theory, a ship could, by accessing otherspace “all the way down”, travel instantly to anywhere in the universe. There are two problems with attempting this, however.

First, masses in normal space cast “shadows” in otherspace. The more massive an object is, the more tangible its shadow is. Planets and stars have very tangible shadows, and if a vessel is too “deep” upon transitioning, the mass shadow will overlap its current position, with potentially disastrous results.

Second, as noted, otherspace can be described as “non-objective”. The “deeper” one is in otherspace, the more pronounced this becomes. The strange phenomena that are occasionally reported at the commonly used depths become intense and constant.

Otherspace can be creepy, ships sometimes disappear, people sometimes go crazy. The stories are always told in the style of “something that happened to a friend of a friend” or “what an old spacer buddy of my dad told me”. Voices, apparitions, nightmares, even... something moving at the edge of sight, out there beyond the windows, if you're one of those who can stand to look out into otherspace at all. Most spacers try to dismiss the weirder tales as hyperbole and paranoia and hallucinations, but they also carry their lucky objects, knock on the bulkhead three times, and so on... just in case...

Navigating in otherspace takes a certain knack or talent… a Gift. For some, it expresses itself as an intense mathematical talent for mental calculation and interpreting numbers on the fly. In others, it manifests are a sort of limited precognition while in otherspace. While not a rare enough ability to stifle interstellar travel, possessing it does guarantee one a well-paying job for life, and both governments and corporations will provide a free education to anyone with the ability to navigate in otherspace.

Most people are at least unnerved by the nature of otherspace, and for this reason, ships typically “button up” during otherspace transits. Viewports and windows are closed, and some passengers even retreat to the comfort of sleep-inducers for the duration of the transit. Militaries and shipping companies are always looking to recruit those who are able to endure or ignore the sight of naked otherspace outside the ship… beyond the WK drive field.

Travel times in otherspace vary, depending on the strength of the drive and the skill of the navigator. Typical transits run at 1 to 2 light years per day, and this is the speed of most large cargo and passenger vessels. Combat vessels are somewhat faster. Couriers, elite military intel/scout vessels, and research ships will top out at about 1 LY per hour, with their relatively massive dim drives and crews made up entirely of highly-trained Gifted.

[phookz]

Sounds interesting. I'm curious what the potentially disastrous results are - its a little vague on that. What might go well with this would be a crib sheet of otherspace rumors - examples of things that have happened to people in otherspace (true or not), to prime the imagination. That would be a great handout for players to help set the expectation for what their characters have heard about otherspace.

[Cancer]

Sounds like a powerfully effective sabotage technique is to slip a navigator something hallucinogenic or psychotropic in some less obvious way. The adjective "spacey" seems likely to take on entirely new connotations.

[Ian Mackinder]

Here's a rough draft of the material for my players regarding otherspace. Let me know what you think.


Otherspace

Most simply refer to it as “otherspace”, even though the formal scientific name of amongst human cultures is “Waldhausen – Kurakimichi space” in honor of the scientists who first described the strange dimension.

Depending on whom you ask, otherspace exists alongside, behind, above, or below “normal space”. None of these explanations are truly accurate. Conventional descriptions fail; accurate understanding requires complex abstract mathematics, and/or a certain… gift.

Otherspace is non-Euclidian and non-Einsteinian, and some would even say non-objective. While the perceptible universe of human experience is commonly understood to consist of four dimensions – width, height, depth, and time – otherspace is five dimensional. That fifth dimension can most easily be understood as “distance” or “separation”; the farther along that “v axis” one goes, the closer points are together.

While this is interesting on a theoretical level, it wouldn’t have been world changing without one last fact: every point in normal space coincides with a point in otherspace, and the “mapping” of those points is roughly the same. Because those points can be closer together in otherspace than they are in normal space, two points that are separated by vast distances in normal space can effectively be right next to each other in otherspace.

The Waldhausen – Kurakimichi Drive (WK Drive, dim drive, otherspace drive, “shortcut drive”) generates a transition field that allows a ship to enter and exist in otherspace. By accessing otherspace at a certain “depth” on the v axis, the ship crosses between points faster than the speed of light would allow. According to theory, a ship could, by accessing otherspace “all the way down”, travel instantly to anywhere in the universe. There are two problems with attempting this, however.

First, masses in normal space cast “shadows” in otherspace. The more massive an object is, the more tangible its shadow is. Planets and stars have very tangible shadows, and if a vessel is too “deep” upon transitioning, the mass shadow will overlap its current position, with potentially disastrous results.

Second, as noted, otherspace can be described as “non-objective”. The “deeper” one is in otherspace, the more pronounced this becomes. The strange phenomena that are occasionally reported at the commonly used depths become intense and constant.

Otherspace can be creepy, ships sometimes disappear, people sometimes go crazy. The stories are always told in the style of “something that happened to a friend of a friend” or “what an old spacer buddy of my dad told me”. Voices, apparitions, nightmares, even... something moving at the edge of sight, out there beyond the windows, if you're one of those who can stand to look out into otherspace at all. Most spacers try to dismiss the weirder tales as hyperbole and paranoia and hallucinations, but they also carry their lucky objects, knock on the bulkhead three times, and so on... just in case...

Navigating in otherspace takes a certain knack or talent… a Gift. For some, it expresses itself as an intense mathematical talent for mental calculation and interpreting numbers on the fly. In others, it manifests are a sort of limited precognition while in otherspace. While not a rare enough ability to stifle interstellar travel, possessing it does guarantee one a well-paying job for life, and both governments and corporations will provide a free education to anyone with the ability to navigate in otherspace.

Most people are at least unnerved by the nature of otherspace, and for this reason, ships typically “button up” during otherspace transits. Viewports and windows are closed, and some passengers even retreat to the comfort of sleep-inducers for the duration of the transit. Militaries and shipping companies are always looking to recruit those who are able to endure or ignore the sight of naked otherspace outside the ship… beyond the WK drive field.

Travel times in otherspace vary, depending on the strength of the drive and the skill of the navigator. Typical transits run at 1 to 2 light years per day, and this is the speed of most large cargo and passenger vessels. Combat vessels are somewhat faster. Couriers, elite military intel/scout vessels, and research ships will top out at about 1 LY per hour, with their relatively massive dim drives and crews made up entirely of highly-trained Gifted.


Very interesting. Reminescent of the FTL used in a book I should have recommended earlier - 'Starliner' by (I think) David Drake.

[phookz]

An interesting take on the Gift for navigators would be to do some type of autistic-savant thing. Maybe the Gift only (or usually) manifests in people with Autism or Asperger's syndrome. This would make interpersonal dealings with them more difficult, and would also mean training them would be more difficult. I'm reminded of the Hybrids on the Cylon ships in Battlestar Galactica.

This was something I started thinking about recently when I read an article how a gentleman has created a business where he's hiring autistic people because they are very good at certain jobs (especially math and engineering work). I can't find the link now, unfortunately, but it was pretty interesting stuff.

[BlackSword]

Has anyone done any work on a somewhat simplified presentation for spacecraft and vehicle combat?
Since I have not had much time to game recently, I haven't had time to crunch the numbers or see how it fits in with Hero. That said, you might take a look at Starmada (http://mj12games.com/starmada/). Its a generic system for ship building and combat. I believe SCUBA Hero played it some at a local con and may have some comments about the system.

[Kristopher]

An interesting take on the Gift for navigators would be to do some type of autistic-savant thing. Maybe the Gift only (or usually) manifests in people with Autism or Asperger's syndrome. This would make interpersonal dealings with them more difficult, and would also mean training them would be more difficult. I'm reminded of the Hybrids on the Cylon ships in Battlestar Galactica.

This was something I started thinking about recently when I read an article how a gentleman has created a business where he's hiring autistic people because they are very good at certain jobs (especially math and engineering work). I can't find the link now, unfortunately, but it was pretty interesting stuff.

I probably won't make this true of all with the Navigating Gift, but I like the idea of the rate being higher, and it would make for an interesting NPC.

[Kristopher]

Speaking of Gifts and the Gifted, (working name, will take suggestions), that's what I'm writing up next.

[Cancer]

You might consider "the Ability" and "the Able" in place of Gift/Gifted. Mild difference in implied society importance and power.

[IndianaJoe3]

"Touched" also works, especially if there are personality quirks associated with it. There could also be different permutations ("space-touched", "void-touched", etc).

[Kristopher]

"Touched" also works, especially if there are personality quirks associated with it. There could also be different permutations ("space-touched", "void-touched", etc).

I like.

[Kristopher]

The following quote is sampled in the self-titled UNKLE song, U.N.K.L.E, and I have to find somewhere to use it, probably as the inspiration for an NPC and a story arc:

"There were too many of us. We had access to too much money.. too much equipment. And little by little we went insane."
-- Francis Ford Coppola (whether he's commenting on the Vietnam War, or the making of his war movie Apocalypse Now, is unclear.)

[Ian Mackinder]

Francis Ford Coppola (whether he's commenting on the Vietman War, or the making of his war movie Apocalypse Now, is unclear.)

Always has been.

[csyphrett]

I have always liked to use gravity as a weapon as well as for transportation.

The genetics and cybernetics does lend itself to living weapons like the Xmen and Ghost in the Shell.

If you are using Otherspace as a means to FTL, can you use it for in system teleportation of cargo?
CES

[Kristopher]

I have always liked to use gravity as a weapon as well as for transportation.

The genetics and cybernetics does lend itself to living weapons like the Xmen and Ghost in the Shell.

GitS, perhaps. Nothing so crazy as comic book mutant powers.


If you are using Otherspace as a means to FTL, can you use it for in system teleportation of cargo?

For many situations, it's not worth it, by the time you clear enough of one planet's gravity well, make a shallow transit to avoid overshoot, etc.

[Kristopher]

Otherspace

Most simply refer to it as “otherspace”, even though the formal scientific name of amongst human cultures is “Vandersar – Kurakimichi space” in honor of the scientists who first described the strange dimension.

Depending on whom you ask, otherspace exists alongside, behind, above, or below “normal space”. None of these explanations are truly accurate. Conventional descriptions fail; accurate understanding requires complex abstract mathematics, and/or a certain… gift.

Otherspace is non-Euclidian and non-Einsteinian, and some would even say non-objective. While the perceptible universe of human experience is commonly understood to consist of four dimensions – width, height, depth, and time – otherspace is five dimensional. That fifth dimension can most easily be understood as “distance” or “separation”; the farther along that “v axis” one goes, the closer points are together.

While this is interesting on a theoretical level, it wouldn’t have been world changing without one last fact: every point in normal space coincides with a point in otherspace, and the “mapping” of those points is roughly the same. Because those points can be closer together in otherspace than they are in normal space, two points that are separated by vast distances in normal space can effectively be right next to each other in otherspace.

The Vandersar – Kurakimichi Drive (VK Drive, dim drive, otherspace drive, “shortcut drive”) generates a transition field that allows a ship to enter and exist in otherspace. By accessing otherspace at a certain “depth” on the v axis, the ship crosses between points faster than the speed of light would allow. According to some, a ship could, by accessing otherspace “all the way down”, travel instantly to anywhere in the universe. There are two problems with attempting this, however.

First, masses in normal space cast “shadows” in otherspace. The more massive an object is, the more tangible its shadow is. Planets and stars have very tangible shadows, and if a vessel is too “deep” upon transitioning, the mass shadow will overlap its current position, with potentially disastrous results.

Second, as noted, otherspace can be described as “non-objective”. The “deeper” one is in otherspace, the more pronounced this becomes. The strange phenomena that are occasionally reported at the commonly used depths become intense and constant.

Otherspace can be creepy, ships sometimes disappear, people sometimes go crazy. The stories are always told in the style of “something that happened to a friend of a friend” or “what an old spacer buddy of my dad told me”. Voices, apparitions, nightmares, even... something moving at the edge of sight, out there beyond the windows, if you're one of those who can stand to look out into otherspace at all. Most spacers try to dismiss the weirder tales as hyperbole and paranoia and hallucinations, but they also carry their lucky objects, knock on the bulkhead three times, and so on... just in case... especially when feedback through the dim drive field makes the ship groan and creak like a WW2 submarine.

Most people are at least unnerved by the nature of otherspace, and for this reason, ships typically “button up” during otherspace transits. Viewports and windows are closed, and some passengers even retreat to the comfort of sleep-inducers for the duration of the transit. Militaries and shipping companies are always looking to recruit those who are able to endure or ignore the sight of naked otherspace outside the ship… beyond the WK drive field.

Navigating in otherspace takes a knack or talent… it takes a certain touch. For some, it expresses itself as an intense mathematical talent for mental calculation and interpreting numbers on the fly. In others, it manifests are a sort of limited precognition while in otherspace. Perception in otherspace is markedly more subjective than in the world most people are familiar with, and not everyone is able to adapt. While not a rare enough ability to stifle interstellar travel, possessing the ability to do so does guarantee one a well-paying job for life, and both governments and corporations will provide a free education to anyone with the ability to navigate in otherspace.

Travel times in otherspace vary, depending on the strength of the drive and the skill of the navigator. Typical transits run at 1 to 2 light years per day, and this is the speed of most large cargo and passenger vessels. Combat vessels are somewhat faster. Couriers, elite military intel/scout vessels, and research ships will top out at about 1 LY per hour for short periods, with their relatively massive dim drives and crews made up entirely of highly-trained Gifted.

[Kristopher]

The Touched

The barrier between worlds does not, it seems, prevent all contact. Theories vary, and the names vary between cultures, but the fact remains that some people are Touched, usually understood in spacer parlance to mean “touched by otherspace” or “touched by the void”. Some prefer the term “Gifted”.

The most important and accepted Touch (or Gift) in the modern interstellar age is the aforementioned ability to guide a ship through otherspace. There are other ways to be Touched; most are subtle. For example, a person might almost unconsciously evade danger or dodge blows. Another might be very good at reading people, bordering on empathic. Far more rare are abilities such as telepathy, clairsentience, and inherent mind-machine interfacing.

Being Touched isn’t always a blessing: hearing other people’s thoughts is more of a curse if it’s constant, and uncontrollable, and rarely more than collections of unintelligible whispers and mutterings. Some show no signs of being Touched, make their first transit, and forever have vague nightmares.

[Kristopher]

The Dark

In some ways, the Dark – deep space, way out between the stars where people rarely go – is more mysterious and unsettling than otherspace. It’s largely unknown, vastly empty, achingly quiet, oddly serene, and so far from everything. Imagine that it's somewhat like the era of seaplane routes across the Pacific. The seaplanes could land in the middle of nothing on the deep open Pacific, but unless something went wrong, or they had a special reason, why would anyone ever do it? If someone really wants to get lost or lose something, they do it out there, in the Dark.

[Kristopher]

Important Technologies

In the medical field, genetics has come a long way from its 20th century roots. Cloning has been perfected, and lost limbs and organs can easily be replaced. Genetic engineering of people is still a somewhat controversial subject, with deep ideological divides between those who would have it restricted to curing individuals, those who would see it used to modify the germline to eliminate disorders from the entire species, and those who wish to see the entire species improved. Bioenhancement is also available, replacing organs with upgraded but fully organic replacements, such as nightvision eyes, livers and kidneys that protect against lethal poisons, and so on. Longevity drugs, commonly known as “Methuselah shots”, are available to those of at least moderate wealth, and even the poorest can expect to live over 100 years, 80 of those in fairly active condition.

Cybernetics has also come a long way. Replacement limbs are not an uncommon sight, although medically-necessary replacement is widely viewed as more acceptable than enhancement, and flesh-and-blood replacements are seen as preferable in many places. The entire body, other than the brain, may be replaced in extreme instances. On many worlds, those with full-body replacement are looked upon with suspicion, pity, or disdain.

Computers are staggeringly fast and powerful, and often seem to be intelligent, but for the most part are not genuine “artificial intelligences”. A machine with ideas of its own isn’t worth the trouble in many cases. Quantum computing, optronics, and high-temperature superconductors are three of the more important breakthroughs allowing for the continuing increase in computing power.

The development of gravitics – the science of artificially generating, negating, and manipulating gravity – was a major improvement in the comfort and health of space travelers. It also allows for non-aerodynamic flight, routine transatmospheric operations, and the classic “hovercar”.


Trade, Travel, and Communications

Interstellar trade is dominated by massive container ships, carrying hundreds or thousands of sealed containers along established routes. Safety and economy are more important than top speed, and transits for these ships average less one light year per day. These ships also carry bulk mail and other packages in a designated mail container, which is always loaded last and unloaded first.

The bulk carriers service major worlds and other hubs, but from there, smaller container vessels and light freighters service routes to local destinations, minor systems, and colony worlds. Smaller dedicated carriers also make faster package and mail runs between systems.

The most urgent materials are carried by fast charter couriers; rates are steep, but considered well worth it by the government agencies, corporations, and wealthy clients who pay for the service. For non-material communications, there also exists a network of otherspace communication relays; the signals are somewhat faster than the fastest courier ships, but its capacity is finite, the equipment is massive and requires immense amounts of power, it requires a Touched navigator to tune the equipment on a regular basis, and only major systems and hub worlds are covered. The exact layout of which stations are connected and what priority a message will receive change over time as the relationships between various governments change.

Travel between star systems depends entirely on what one can afford. Large liners ponder along regular routes, often the same routes as the bulk cargo carriers, and these slow trips are all that most people can afford. Passage on faster ships, chartering a vessel, and personal “yachts” are all options for those of more substantial means.

[Kristopher]

Cultures, Movements, and Factions


Spacers

Spacers form their own unique culture, with humans and aliens who make their lives and livings in space, especially in interstellar travel, having certain things in common that their respective planet-side brethren don’t share. Most planet dwellers, or down-siders as some spacers call them, don't have to worry about vacuum and radiation and micrometeors just outside the walls. Even many of the dockworkers and spacehab dwellers don't understand what trip after trip out there is like; they spend their most of their lives living in the glow of the same star, with help and rescue nearby.

Nomads

There are humans (and aliens) who are born, live, and pass on, in ships traveling long circuits across space, moving from one system to another, trading and smuggling doing odd jobs to get by. Some groups travel in a single, giant ship, while others move in somewhat rag-tag fleets of random small freighters and liners.

Traders Guild

This wide-ranging union of interstellar merchants and couriers defends what it perceives as the interests of its members, using its influence with regional and system governments to push an agenda of free movement and open trade (especially for its paying members).

Perfectionists

There are those who believe that the human species must improve itself through direct manipulation of the gene pool. Genetic cures for individuals, cloned organs, and bioenhancements are acceptable, but doing away with the need for such things by “perfecting” the species is their ultimate goal. Cybernetics are considered inferior and misguided at best, anathema at worst – the goal is to perfect the being, not replace it with dead things.

Adventists

Adventists believe not just in the use of computers and cybernetics, but in the deliberate transcendence of mankind through becoming one with machines. In a past age, they would have been called “transhumanists”. Rare is the Adventist who does not at least have brain upgrades and a computer uplink port implanted in his head, and they are disproportionately represented among those with full body replacement cybernetics. They doggedly advocate for AI and mind-machine-interface technology, and full mind upload is their holy grail.

[Kristopher]

Alien Species


Humanity keeps encountering alien species that seem awfully human. Not every alien species, but enough to defy pure chance. Some aliens believe in an ancient race, or gods, or someone, who spread the seeds of life on many worlds. Some believe that the entire universe is alive and that of course the same forms keep appearing in intelligent life, because all intelligence is the universe experiencing itself. Most humans would say “Crazy aliens”. Still, it's not a mystery that’s not going away.

Other “aliens” really are human, at least in origin, but have adapted to new environments through genetic manipulation and cultural changes, until they’re really a new species or subspecies, not always able to interbreed with other humans, especially other derivations. Many of these peoples have their origins in the early days of human exploration and colonization, when travel times between distant stars could be measured in months and terraforming was in its infancy. Two examples would be heavies and lighters, people from high or low gravity planets respectively, or of one of those heritages.

Alien species of note (not of known human descent) include:

Flaer

Believed to have descended from large arboreal or flying predators, the Flaer are small, slight humanoids with large eyes and long pointed ears. Because of their sensitive eyes and their need for a lower-oxygen atmosphere, they are usually seen wearing goggles and a breath mask. They are known to retain the stunning scream of their ancestors, although they are said to find it taxing to use. Their companies are well known for excellent environmental systems, and top-notch sonic weapons.

Skavish

The Skavish are renowned hunters, and are rarely encountered outside of that role. They may be hired to capture or kill a target, if the price is right and it suits their arcane moral code. Few in their right mind would push the issue, or challenge a Skavish in combat. They are said to make the finest sliver guns available. Each carries a sacred knife that is unique in design and viciously sharp – only the most honored non-Skavish may so much as possess one without issuing grave insult to all Skavish, and those who are known to actually carry one with Skavish blessing are generally left in peace.

Dwellers

Out in the Dark, in the eerie quiet between the star, where even spacers try to never go, there are said to be enigmatic traders who wander the galaxy in black ships. Little is known about them, save that occasionally a crew will come into port with some new technology or strange artifact that they swear was obtained from the Dwellers for either an exorbitant price or an inexplicable barter. Nothing is known of their culture, biology, or motives.

Sinvat-hoc

These aliens long ago took total control over their own genome, and they are widely considered the masters of biotechnology. They are divided into a multitude of forms, all artificially cloned and born from vats to fulfill a specific role. Their otherspace pilots, for example, are almost entirely brain, live in nutrient-tanks, and exist only to fulfill that role. Their diplomats and traders are adapted to deal with whichever species they are assigned to. Humans, for example, would almost always encounter Sinvat-hoc who appear and act very human.

Dewin

Unlike all other known species, for whom the Touch is rare, over 95% of all Dewin are Touched in some way, at least latently, with minor telepathy being the most common talent. Dewin otherspace pilots are in high demand, and can be found on the commercial spacecraft of several other species.


Propiet

Out beyond the fringes of human exploration, there is reportedly a race known as the Propiet, who define their culture and worth through martial prowess and success alone. It is said that they have long used robotic serfs to fulfill all of the roles they consider beneath them, in the way that the Spartans had their helots. In recent years, rumors of lost contact with Propiet worlds, the sudden withdrawal of their forces from combat, and small groups showing up on non-Propiet worlds looking for mercenary work have begun to circulate in intelligence circles and spaceport bars.

The Others

Their actual name is unknown, as is the location of their homeworld. Few have seen the face of an Other, but from what is known, they appear to have some form of metallic composition, despite their humanoid forms. They keep their own council and do not tolerate interference. Said to be invisible to and unaffected by the talents of the Touched, it is unknown how they travel between the stars, as under current theory this would leave them unable to navigate in otherspace. Their technology might be far ahead of that possessed by the known species.

Hmyzu

Certainly not a humanoid species, the Hmyzu resemble 3-meter long centipedes with two pairs of arms near the front of their body; each arm ends in a hand with four opposed fingers. The head features two pairs of eyes and two pairs of antennae, and a complex mouth with four pairs of mandibles and a rasping tongue. Despite what humans might find a fearsome appearance, Hmyzu are typically friendly, open, and peaceful.

Lesniroh

Largely humanoid, the most immediately obvious physical feature of a Lesniroh would be the smooth, elongated skull, extending back and slightly upward. The physiology inside the skull gives them their most famous feature however – their deep, resonating singing voices. In areas dominated by human cultures, they’re valued as entertainers and artists. Within their own territories, they’re struggling to overcome their clannish nature and Balkanized, Byzantine political structure.

Veer

Appearing almost human, the veer have two striking differences in appearance. First, they possess feather-like adornment instead of hair, with a full crest on the head and downier feathers along the spine to the small of the back, and feathers on the forearms. Second, their eyes have no visible whites, with large irises of striking colors and vertical slit pupils. Their lack of sexual dimorphism and seemingly casual attitude about sexual relationships have also been noted by outside observers, but they are intensely private about the details.

Libenje

Vaguely squid or octopus-like, the Libenje are rarely seen outside their encounter suits when dealing with other species. Having attained interstellar travel before most known species, they regard themselves as wise elders, an attitude with a variable relationship to reality, much to the exasperation and occasional humor of others.

[Kristopher]

Well, there's the setting (in rough draft form, at least), split up for easier reading. I'll post major updates as they come, but for now I need to work on the crunchier bits.

[Kristopher]

Speaking of crunch, I started a thread on a system question for one of the possible NPCs:

How To Build: AI with a "puppet" body (https://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75956)

[Lawnmower Boy]

You're missing two of my favourites, the incomprehensibly alien gas giant species, and the incomprehensibly transformed STL generation-ship descended civilisation. "She went through the market and the children cried....and came at last to the foot of Death's Head's Hill."
I don't think I've got the scansion right, though.

Ah hah:

"She walked through the gates and the children cried,
She walked through the Market and the voices died,
She walked past the court house and the judge so still,
She walked to the bottom of Death's Head hill..."

[Kristopher]

You're missing two of my favourites, the incomprehensibly alien gas giant species, and the incomprehensibly transformed STL generation-ship descended civilisation. "She went through the market and the children cried....and came at last to the foot of Death's Head's Hill."
I don't think I've got the scansion right, though.

Ah hah:

"She walked through the gates and the children cried,
She walked through the Market and the voices died,
She walked past the court house and the judge so still,
She walked to the bottom of Death's Head hill..."

The concept of the generation-ship descendants appeals to me in general, but I don't know how it fits into the past of this setting. I'm not certain if humanity would have sent any out before discovering the FTL method of the setting.


PS: If you search for that quote on Google, this thread is the second thing listed. If you search for "not magic really", it's the first thing listed.

[Nyrath]

You're missing two of my favourites, the incomprehensibly alien gas giant species, and the incomprehensibly transformed STL generation-ship descended civilisation. "She went through the market and the children cried....and came at last to the foot of Death's Head's Hill."
I don't think I've got the scansion right, though.

Ah hah:

"She walked through the gates and the children cried,
She walked through the Market and the voices died,
She walked past the court house and the judge so still,
She walked to the bottom of Death's Head hill..."
I want to say The Ballad of Beta-2 by Samuel R. Delany, but I'm not sure.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Indeed. Much more compelling and relevant than Beta-17.
The one gives you Sapir-Whorl, the other Clifford Geertz.

PS: Without the quotes, it's now number 1 on Google. With the quotes it goes to an online copy of Ballad of Beta-2. Geez, what's the fun in that?

[Nyrath]

Indeed. Much more compelling and relevant than Beta-17.
The one gives you Sapir-Whorl, the other Clifford Geertz.
Isn't that Babel-17? The language that proves the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis?

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ao.html#sapir

[Lawnmower Boy]

You're so right. Appparently I'm all about the typoes today. I blame Steve Sailer.*






*Because I don't like him, that's why.

[Kristopher]

Crunchy stuff is going well.

On setting stuff, working on a blurb about the various government and legal aspects.

[Nolgroth]

Well I'll say that the setting looks good so far. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread for ideas to blatantly rip off. :D

[Kristopher]

https://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75956

Started a thread over on System Discussion, trying to find the right build for an NPC (an big AI computer with a " remote puppet" body that's all but indistinguishable from an actual person, but simply a remote for the AI).

[Kristopher]

As part of forgoing the urge to stat up everything, I've decided to play the AI/remote NPC out based purely on the special effect for now. If it becomes necessary to stat it up for some reason, I'll have to come back to it.


Meanwhile, with the first session coming up, I only have the two players, as the others were all too busy in the coming months to make the sessions on a regular basis.

One is playing a somewhat-noir PI, who is a former member of the space forces military police of his homeworld and has a bioenhanced sense of smell. The other is playing a burned-out former prodigy with a prodigious gift for navigating otherspace, who sees otherspace in mathematical terms from what the player has told me.

I'm working on getting them into a story arc and together in the first session. For possible plot seeds so far, I have the following, some of them shamelessly "inspired by" other sources in fiction:


A special delivery to the private world or station of an eccentric, wealthy person -- unknown to them, they have a stowaway who is trying to find and kill said person.
A job to sneak onto a quarantined planet and recover something, and then get out without being detected, or at least without their ship being IDed.
A job to find someone's "missing relative", but their employer is actually someone seeking to do the missing person harm.
A job to rescue someone's teenage child from some fringe group, only they're not told the kid went willingly.
Trying to recover an artifact that only a highly skilled navigator or other "touched" person can open/access.
Hired to do something in the territory of one government that their another government can't be directly linked with.
Somehow discovering that one faction of the "robot horde" (former slaves of the now-shattered Propiet "warrior species") is kidnapping Navigators to use as the cores of "otherspace navigation biocomputers"


Neither of them has much at all in the way of engineering/advanced technical skills, so I'm hoping to hook them up with a particular NPC along the way, as well, who might be almost more trouble than she's worth. I have to do one more solo character creation session with each of them, but I'm pretty sure the burned-out navigator is going to have a ship of his own.

Any ideas or thoughts?

[Kristopher]

Music To Establish the Atmosphere - Arcane (http://www.google.com/url?q=http://s0.ilike.com/play%23Soma:Arcane:770686:s45249371.11662125.20304 699.0.2.90%252Cstd_6bce5eaf6bee4ac08ce8c28d81ba02d 3&ei=Wgw3S6WOM4yuNrSTkLwK&sa=X&oi=music_play_track&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=2&ved=0CAgQ0wQoADAA&usg=AFQjCNHy6R2LDln9S1T6gMuY7Dmo1OBQEA) by Soma

EDIT: I didn't realize that was only 30 seconds, I'll see if there's another link somewhere.

Try the one at Yahoo Music (http://new.music.yahoo.com/soma/tracks/arcane--59364840).

[Kristopher]

Leaded candidate for the first story arc is as follows:

First, the background. Through deceit and double-dealing, rogue elements of four factions, each for their own reasons, were lead to create a "synthoid" (artificial person) navigator -- Perfectionists (humans dedicated to the controlled genetic advancement of the species), Sinvat-hoc (alien species who mastered their own genetics to the point that all members of the species are created to serve specialized role), Dewin (alien species who almost all possess at least a minor "touched gift"), and android representatives of the former robot slaves of the Propiet warrior culture. None of the factions understood what the others actually hoped to get out of the experiment.

Of course, there was a quadruple-cross (at least), and the synthoid navigator and the ship she was being shipped on disappeared.

The player characters come in when they're hired to locate the ship, "all expenses paid", by one of the factions. Of course, they're not going to be told what they're looking for, but instead they'll be fed a story about a kidnapping or something.

As they follow leads, they're going to realize that someone has covertly installed a sort of beacon into their ship in such a way that they'll need a "spacedock" and probably a dim-drive engineer, to remove it without causing a lot of damage to the ship's dim-drive (which is what generates the field that allows the ship to enter otherspace and thus make FTL transits). This is going to link them up with the eccentric NPC who will become their ship's mechanic, hopefully.

When they finally find the ship they're looking for, it's wrecked and dead in space, having been fired on at exactrly the wrong moment as it made an otherspace transit. The crew is dead and the systems ruined. Luckily, the sythoid navigator is still in hybernation in her chamber, and a few other strange items can be recovered from the ship as well, including some kind of experimental biocomputer mainframe.

The synthoid navigator is actually mindlinked into the biocomputer mainframe. Even with data and samples from the Dewin to work with, the Perfectionist and Sinvat-hoc scientists had trouble creating an artificial Navigator, and neither the experimental biocomputer nor the sythoid is capable of functioning as a Navigator alone.

As noted, the PCs (and crew if any) don't know any of the truth of this, and as far as they know they've rescued a kidnapped young woman and salvaged some strange technology. And that's when the fun really begins...

PS: The PCs are told that the young woman's name is "Anna". On the hybernation chamber, the readout says "Anesidora". :sneaky:

[Lawnmower Boy]

With a PI and a navigator as your PCs, you're going to need scenarios that bridge the gap between the mean streets and space.
And with that in mind---

Trouble on the Docks


-The PCs are called in to meet with station administration. While they're away, someone slaps a quarantine seal on their ship. No-one can get in or off the ship, and no-one can explain why the seal has been put in place. The ship will be seized to pay docking fees soon. What's going on? (Someone with pull in the admin's office is trying to assassinate the PCs, and figures that it will be easier if they are staying in a hotel.)
--PCs are called away (again). When they return, something has been put into one of the ship's holds, and the hold has been sealed. They can't get at it, but they do have the port that it's consigned for. What's going on? Have they been dragooned into a smuggling operation? Is some pirate going to rendezvous with them at some dark jump point and pick up their load? (One possible solution: when they find out what the cargo is, they also discover that it is prohibited in all surrounding star systems. It is impossible to reach the quarantine station/recycling centre/research outpost where they can dispose of their cargo without passing through one of these systems. The only way out of the situation is for the navigator to find a new route/jump point. Which is exactly what the people who put the cargo aboard are trying to force the navigator to do. The PCs will be followed, and disposed of, in order to keep the new jump route secret.
--The PCs are jumped by assassins. The bodies (assuming they win) are tatooed with the marks of an outlaw order of killer monks that cannot possibly be in this sector of space. Once again the PCs are led to an unknown jump route (the one by which the monks evaded law enforcement), and, at some dark point between the stars, find a pirate station planet where dark secrets are concealed.
--The decompression alarm sounds on the docks, the doors come down, and as soon as the section containing the PCs' ship is isolated, a gang of dockland toughs leap out of concealment and charge the airlock doors. Opportunistic crime, or did someone arrange this with the help of dockyard administration.
--The old standby: the dock authorities board the ship, search it, and claim to discover contraband. The ship is seized, and the PCs are turned out on the streets to find out why they've been framed.

[Kristopher]

Your ideas have been added to the list. Thank you.

[Kristopher]

Here's a rough draft of many of the weapons for the setting/campaign; if Effect lists more than one line, then there are multiple ammunition types or settings. I still need to include the sonic weapons, the big continuous laser "slicer" weapon, and a couple of exotics.

(I tried to use a spoiler to keep the list from stretching the page, but long spoilers drop the list behind the following posts.)

Bolter Pistol, Light
Effect: 6d6 Normal or Stun
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic
Range: 10/20/40 m (80 in vacuum)
Ammo: 50 (per energy cell)
Concealable: J
Cost: 600 (50 / energy cell)
Availability: 2,R
Notes: Also known as "packet guns" or "blasters", bolter weapons fire self-contained packets of coherent energy. The main advantages of bolters are freedom from ammunition constraints, lighter weight, few moving parts, relatively quiet operation, and a "stun" setting on most models. The brightly visible energy packets tend to give away the shooter's position, and lose power over distance because atmospheric interference.

Bolter Pistol, Heavy
Effect: 8d6 Normal or Stun
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic
Range: 20/40/60 m (120 in vacuum)
Ammo: 40 (per energy cell)
Concealable: J
Cost: 800 (50 / energy cell)
Availability: 2,R
Notes: Some models of bolter pistol trade in efficiency for heavier hitting power and greater range.

Bolter Carbine
Effect: 9d6 Normal or Stun
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic
Range: 25/50/100 m (200 in vacuum)
Ammo: 80 (per energy cell)
Concealable: T
Cost: 1000 (100 / energy cell)
Availability: 2,R
Notes: Heavier hitting power and greater range than a pistol, but more easily carried than a rifle.

Bolter Carbine, Military
Effect: 9d6 Normal or Stun
Rate of Fire: Autofire 3
Range: 25/50/100 m (200 m in vacuum)
Ammo: 80 (per energy cell)
Concealable: J
Cost: 1250 (100 / energy cell)
Availability: 2,X
Notes: Designed for military use, and capable of firing three-packet bursts.

Bolter, Sport
Effect: 8d6 Normal or Stun, Reduced Penetration
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic
Range: 25/60/120 m (250 m in vacuum)
Ammo: 30 (per energy cell)
Concealable: T
Cost: 600 (30 / energy cell)
Availability: 2,R
Notes: Designed for affordable hobby and amateur target shooting, the sport bolter severely lacks in penetration, making it far less likely to kill a target. Against an armored foe, “sporters” are all but useless.

Bolter Rifle
Effect: 10d6 Normal or Stun
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic
Range: 25/100/200 m (300 m in vacuum)
Ammo: 100 (per energy cell)
Concealable: N
Cost: 1250 (100 / energy cell)
Availability: 2,R
Notes: The bolter rifle brings a heavier punch and far better range.

Bolter Rifle, Military/Assault
Effect: 10d6 Normal or Stun
Rate of Fire: Autofire 3
Range: 25/100/200 m (300 m in vacuum)
Ammo: 100 (per energy cell)
Concealable: N
Cost: 1500 (100 / energy cell)
Availability: 2,X
Notes: The military version of the bolter rifle, capable of automatic fire. Civilian possession of such weapons is illegal in most systems.

Bolter Squad Support Weapon
Effect: 10d6 Normal or Stun
Rate of Fire: Autofire 5
Range: 25/100/200 m (300 m in vacuum)
Ammo: 100 (per energy cell), or 500 (per powerpack)
Concealable: N
Cost: 2500 (100 / energy cell)
Availability: 2,X
Notes: Capable of faster, sustained automatic fire.

Bolter, Triple
Effect: 11d6 Normal or Stun
Rate of Fire: Autofire 10
Range: 25/100/200 m (300 m in vacuum)
Ammo: 500 (per powerpack) or backpack generator
Concealable: N
Cost: 5000
Availability: 3,X
Notes: Triple-bolters are heavy, awkward weapons, and when on the move are typically fired from the hip and aimed using a gunlink, or simply "walked" onto the target. Most people require a full sling/harness, or strength-augmenting armor, to carry a triple-bolter in combat. Some heavy-modification cyborgs or upgrades are able to carry a triple-bolter by hand. The combination of external power, extra cooling, and three barrels firing in rapid succession allows for a blistering rate of fire.

Pistol (Caseless), Light
Effect: 2d6 Killing
1d6+1 Killing, Armor Piercing
1d6+1 Killing, +2 STUN multiplier
6d6 Normal
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic
Range: 10/30/60 m
Ammo: 20 + 1
Concealable: P
Cost: 600 (5 / 100 ammo)
Availability: 2,R
Notes: The firearm of the future. "Caseless" refers to the ammunition, which actually uses a non-metallic case that is consumed when the round is fired. With no case to eject, the weapon can maintain a higher rate of fire, and the action can be closed to the outside elements.

Pistol (Caseless), Heavy
Effect: 2.5d6 Killing
1.5d6 Killing, Armor Piercing
1.5d6 Killing, +2 STUN Multiplier
8d6 Normal
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic
Range: 10/40/80 m
Ammo: 20 + 1
Concealable: J
Cost: 750 (5 / 100 ammo)
Availability: 2,R
Notes: A heavier version, with more hitting power and greater range. The larger frame and heavier ammunition necessary make the weapon less concealable.

Pistol (Caseless), Assault
Effect: 2d6+1 Killing
1.5d6 Killing, Armor Piercing
1.5d6 Killing, +2 STUN Multiplier
7d6 Normal
Rate of Fire: Autofire 3
Range: 10/30/60 m
Ammo: 30 + 1
Concealable: J
Cost: 1000 (5 / 100 ammo)
Availability: 2,X
Notes: An assault pistol is capable of firing single shots or three-round bursts. Very illegal in most systems.

Rifle (Caseless), Light
Effect: 2.5d6 Killing
1.5d6 Killing, Armor Piercing
1.5d6 Killing, +2 STUN Multiplier
8d6 Normal
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic
Range: 20/50/150 m
Ammo: 30 + 1
Concealable: N
Cost: 900 (5 / 100 ammo)
Availability: 2,R
Notes: A lightweight civilian firearm for hunting small game or casual target shooting.

Rifle (Caseless), Heavy
Effect: 3d6+1 Killing
2d6+1 Killing, Armor Piercing
2d6+1 Killing, +2 STUN Multiplier
10d6 Normal
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic
Range: 25/75/200 m
Ammo: 20 + 1
Concealable: N
Cost: 1200 (10 / 100 ammo)
Availability: 2,R
Notes: Models of heavy rifle range from civilian hunting arms to military sniper weapons.

Rifle (Caseless), Military
Effect: 3d6 Killing
2d6 Killing, Armor Piercing
2d6 Killing, +2 STUN Multiplier
9d6 Normal
Rate of Fire: Autofire 5
Range: 20/50/150 m
Ammo: 30 + 1
Concealable: N
Cost: 1500 (10 / 100 ammo)
Availability: 2,X
Notes: A typical military weapon.

Squad Automatic Weapon (Caseless)
Effect: 3d6+1 Killing
2d6+1 Killing, Armor Piercing
2d6+1 Killing, +2 STUN Multiplier
10d6 Normal
Rate of Fire: Autofire 5
Range: 25/75/200 m
Ammo: 100 + 1
Concealable: N
Cost: 2000 (10 / 100 ammo)
Availability: 2,X
Notes: A heavier military weapon with greater ammunition capacity, longer range, and more hitting power. Very illegal in most systems.

Needler Pistol
Effect: 1d6 NND (Defense is LS: Poisons, or 3+ rPD), Does BODY (optional), Damage over Time (each Segment for 6 Segments)
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic
Range: 5/10/15 m
Ammo: 40
Concealable: P
Cost: 600 (10 / 40 ammo)
Availability: 2,X
Notes: Needlers fire crystallized poisons or drugs. The crystal becomes a tight cloud of tiny shards, capable of penetrating clothing, which dissolve almost instantly once embedded under the skin. The effect listed is for the standard ammunition types, but many other effects are possible. A hit from a needler stings, and tiny droplets of blood may appear on the skin, but the crystals do no significant physical damage on their own. The power cell for a needler lasts for several hundred shots.

Needler, Assault
Effect: 1d6 NND (Defense is LS: Poisons, or 3+ rPD), Does BODY (optional), Damage over Time (each Segment for 6 Segments)
Rate of Fire: Autofire 5
Range: 5/10/20 m
Ammo: 80
Concealable: T
Cost: 800 (20 / 80 ammo)
Availability: 3,X
Notes: A larger model, capable of spraying down a crowd with tiny poisonous shards at close range. Used by criminals, terrorists, and oppressive governments, but almost useless against prepared opposition.

Heater Pistol
Effect: 2d6 Killing Continuous
6d6 Normal Continuous
6d6 Stun Continuous
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic (special)
Range: 10/20/30 m
Ammo: 40 (per energy cell)
Concealable: J
Cost: 800 (50 / energy cell)
Availability: 2,R
Notes: Thermal induction weapons, or "heaters", fire a sustained beam that causes rapid, intense heating in the target. The lowest setting causes sharp pain (typically requires an EGO roll to do anything other than attempt to get out of the beam), while the highest setting causes severe burns and ignites flammable materials -- such as non-resistant clothing.

Heater Carbine
Effect: 2.5d6 Killing Continuous
8d6 Normal Continuous
8d6 Stun Continuous
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic (special)
Range: 10/25/50 m
Ammo: 40 (per energy cell)
Concealable: T
Cost: 1200 (50 / energy cell)
Availability: 2,X
Notes: A larger, more powerful "heater", easily capable of causing lethal burns in a matter of a second or two.

Heater Rifle
Effect: 3d6 Killing Continuous
9d6 Normal Continuous
9d6 Stun Continuous
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic (special)
Range: 15/30/90 m
Ammo: 40 (per energy cell)
Concealable: N
Cost: 1600 (50 / energy cell)
Availability: 2,X
Notes: Other than the relatively short range, "heater" rifles make for effectively military weapons.

Gauss Pistol
Effect: 2d6 Killing, Armor Piercing
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic
Range: 20/50/100 m
Ammo: 20+1 (66 per energy cell)
Concealable: T
Cost: 800 (50 / energy cell, 5 / 100 ammo)
Availability: 3,R
Notes: Gauss weapons use a superconducting magnet coiled around the inner barrel to hurl a super-dense slug at the target. Damage is caused purely by kinetic energy. Most gauss pistols mount the energy cell in the grip, and the ammunition magazine in front of the trigger assembly. Because of the need for both, most gauss weapons are not as concealable as their bolter counterparts. While they have no visible muzzle flash, there is a very distinctive and audible “crack” when a gauss weapon is fired, due to the hypersonic velocity of the rounds.

Gauss Micro-pistol
Effect: 2d6 Killing, Armor Piercing
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic
Range: 15/30/60 m
Ammo: 15+1 (32 per energy cell)
Concealable: J
Cost: 600 (30 / energy cell, 5 / 100 ammo)
Availability: 3,R
Notes: Gauss micro-pistols are intended for covert use and concealed carrying. With shorter barrels and smaller energy cells, they present a much less obvious profile when holstered.

Gauss Carbine
Effect: 2d6+1 Killing, Armor Piercing
Rate of Fire: Autofire 3
Range: 20/60/200 m
Ammo: 45+1 (138 per energy cell)
Concealable: T
Cost: 1600 (70 / energy cell, 5 / 100 ammo)
Availability: 3,R
Notes: Gauss carbines are larger, fully automatic weapons, useful for paramilitary and special unit deployment. They typically have close-range targeting gear, and a folding or collapsible stock.

Gauss Rifle
Effect: 3d6 Killing, Armor Piercing
Rate of Fire: Autofire 3
Range: 25/100/400 m
Ammo: 45+1 (138 per energy cell)
Concealable: N
Cost: 4,500 (100 / energy cell, 10 / 100 ammo)
Availability: 3,X
Notes: Gauss rifles possess long range, a high rate of fire, and lethal hitting power – enough to make up for their lower ammunition capacity relative to bolter rifles.

Gauss “Buster”
Effect: 6d6 Killing, Penetrating, CMWF
Rate: Semiautomatic
Range: 50/500/2000 m
Ammo: 10+1 (33 per energy cell, or from generator)
Concealable: N
Cost: 12,000 (500 / energy cell, 10 / 10 ammo)
Availability: 3,X
Notes: Short for “tank buster,” Buster is the common nickname of the Gauss Infantry Cannon. Busters are considered by many to be the ultimate man-portable anti-tank weapons. They are usually equipped with an enhanced wide-spectrum smart-scope, which negates range penalties for vision to just over two kilometers.

Sliver Pistol
Effect: 2d6 Killing Penetrating
6d6 Normal 1-hex AoE
4d6 NND (LS: Poison or rPD 4)
Rate of Fire: Autofire 3
Range: 15/30/60 m
Ammo: 64 (128 per gas cartridge)
Concealable: J
Cost: 1600
Availability: 3,X
Notes: Sliver pistols use compressed gas to propel the relatively diminutive sliver rounds. Because the only power required is for the trigger system and accessories, the power cells are actually of the same type typically used in wrist chronographs and similar gear, making the weapons indistinguishable from mundane items, as far as weapons scanners are concerned. Additionally, they are far quieter than bolters or firearms, and should be considered suppressed (sight and hearing) for purposes of noticeability when they are fired. The most common sliver round for pistols is 2.5mm x 15mm.

Sliver Rifle
Effect: 2.5d6 Killing, Penetrating
8d6 Normal 1-hex AoE,
5d6 NND (LS: Poison or rPD 5)
Rate of Fire: Autofire 3
Range: 25 / 100 / 400 m
Ammo: 192 (384 per gas cartridge)
Concealable: N
Cost: 3,000
Availability: 3,X
Notes: Similar to sliver pistols, these rifles use a larger 3mm x 20mm round, and larger gas cartridges. They are usually equipped with advanced targeting gear, such as computerized multi-spectrum scopes, to take advantage of their long range and stealthy characteristics. In the hands of a skilled marksman, a sliver rifle can be a devastating weapon.

Sound Pistol
Effect: 7d6 Normal, AoE (1 hex)
5d6 Normal, AoE (14 hex line), No Range
Range: 20/40/60 m (or none)
Ammo: 40 (per energy cell)
Concealable: J
Cost: 900
Availability: 3,RT
Notes: Sonic weapons use modulated ultrasonic beams to cause intense vibration in a target, resulting in intense discomfort, or even injury, depending on the power level. Due to the nature of the weapon, treat either setting as Armor Piercing against rigid armor with no padding.

Sound Rifle
Effect: 8d6 Normal, AoE (1 hex)
6d6 Normal, AoE (14 hex line), No Range
Range: 20/50/10 m (or none)
Ammo: 80
Concealable: T
Cost: 1400
Availability: 3,XT
Notes: Sonic weapons use modulated ultrasonic beams to cause intense vibration in a target, resulting in intense discomfort, or even injury, depending on the power level. Due to the nature of the weapon, treat either setting as Armor Piercing against rigid armor with no padding.

[Kristopher]

We had our first session on Sunday, it consisted of a sort of "getting to know the PC" session for each of the two players, and some progress towards getting them in the same place.

[Kristopher]

My hope for the general direction of the game is that by the time the PCs realize that they've been played, they'll be in too deep to get out. I never know,though, my biggest issue seems to be herding players in the general direction of where the story arc needs them to go. I can be flexible, but when the story goes towards A, I can handle B through F... but they're headed towards Z...

Worry One: getting the paranoid character to feel less threatened and/or more enticed by going with the PI character than he is by other choices. It's already clear that he doesn't trust anyone. He's also technically savvy and prone to checking for bugs and other "paranoia", which makes the initial plot of tracking his ship rather harder. We'll have to see if he checks his own ship for tracking devices before they depart the world he's on now.

Worry Two: keeping them on track once they realize they've been lied to to some degree. I hope to keep the lies a secret as long as possible, doleing out the truth one morsel at a time, so that they never get angry enough to say "Screw it, let's go to Bangkok!" ("What happens on Bangkok stays on Bangkok!")

Worry Three: Linking them up with the "eccentric starship mechanic" NPC, who is the link at least one story arc down the road, and is my favorite NPC so far. She has a lot of backstory and secrets of her own, and makes for a good way to slide another aspect of the setting material into the game. Neither of the PCs is trusting, and the paranoid prodigy made a last-minute change
to his character that makes one aspect of the NPC slightly redundant.

Worry Four: what do they do if/when they recover "Anna".

[AnotherSkip]

Haven't read it, I'll look it up.


But yeah, ugh. If the only thing needed is the central nervous system, then you have an especially nasty version of the "brain in a jar".

"We control your sensory inputs, biothing. Pain, pleasure, deprivation, it matters little to us. Perform well in your function, and you will have much reward. Fail, and agony shall be your world. Ponder this while the shiftcoils charge."

They could also be good guys offering essentially "the Ship who sang" concept to those who would qualify all sorts of good things like remote mobile forms (say, 'Androids' with total feedfack possibilities), ships, or even life/body changing surgery for indentured servitude.

Perhaps offering their (monopolized?) services to those who would otherwise be a physical/care burden burden but would have much potential.

[Kristopher]

They could also be good guys offering essentially "the Ship who sang" concept to those who would qualify all sorts of good things like remote mobile forms (say, 'Androids' with total feedfack possibilities), ships, or even life/body changing surgery for indentured servitude.

Perhaps offering their (monopolized?) services to those who would otherwise be a physical/care burden burden but would have much potential.

Interesting option for one of the "nicer" factions, if they go to more remote worlds where medical science hasn't caught up to the state-of-the-art.

[Kristopher]

I still don't have the two PCs together yet, after two sessions. The paranoid prodigy headed off to a system far off in the wrong direction before the run-in I had planned for the PCs could happen, after getting spooked by the incident that was supposed to motivate him to team up with the PI.

At least at the end of the night they were in the same area, a system known as Cold Harbor (that's actually the name of the station, orbitting above the ice/rock moon of a gas giant, but no one bothers to call the planet or the star by the catalog name).

After running off to the decadent resort world of Bangkok, the paranoid spent some time reading through the news archives looking for the next publicly-known "superstar pilot", which turned out to be a young woman from the Laconian Hegomony, making her name as a state-sponsored pilot on the FTL racing circuit. The player immediately asked "Where and when is her next race?" DING! Oh, in a place called the Vorin Expanse, the best place to go would be Cold Harbor, if you can get someone to hack a racing card for you.

Meanwhile, the PI started following leads on the "kidnap" he was supposed to be tracking down, and it lead him to... Cold Harbor. Heh.

[Kristopher]

Human Multiworld Governments/Cultures

Ideas, Roughs, Brainstorming, etc...

The Federated Worlds

Think Earth during much of Niven's Known Space future history, or some of the more oppressive interpretations of Star Trek's Federation, or something a bit like United World from Escape from Terra (http://www.bigheadpress.com/eft?page=1). Weapons and knowledge of combat skills are tightly regulated. "What it means to be human" is a huge concern, and cybernetic, genetic, and biological enhancement are heavily restricted and regulated. While technically a democracy, things are done to people "for their own good" and untreated "mental illness" is regarded as a crime.

The Laconian Hegemony

Loosely inspired by a mashup of classical and helenic Greek ideology. Inviduals are seen as subunits of the society/state, but individual excellence is encouraged and lauded, as it advances the condition of the whole. The legal system is more concerned with order and progress than with individual justice. The Hegemony is viewed as miltaristic, nationalist, and oppressive by most outsiders. Most people choose mates consciously based on perceived genetic fitness, looking for health, fitness, intelligence, innate talents, etc; recreational, romantic, and reproductive sex are viewed as more distinct and seperate than in other cultures.

The ?????? Coalition

Don't have a full name yet, but the idea is a confederation of worlds, in which defense, foreign affairs, external trade policy, etc, are handled by the multiworld government, but home rule for worls or systems is largely internal. Brought together by concerns for mutual defense and maintenance of independence, given the miltarism of the Laconians and the "for your own good"/"unity of mankind" expansionism of the Federated Worlds. More open and cosmopolitan than the other two mentioned so far.



More to come. Any thoughts or suggestions so far?

[Kristopher]

So... any suggestions?

[Lawnmower Boy]

The only thought I had was kind of a party-pooper, which is that dystopic settings should steer clear of making club-your-players-over-the-head statements. As compelling a picture of them as you might have in your head, do you want to have political discussions (or, vid your Laconians, discussions of dating philosphy) with your players?
Which is a real YMMV kind of caution, because that might well work perfectly with your group.
For bad guys who might work, what about old standbys like space communists, or limited access to immortality drugs, or armies of vat-bred genetic slaves swamping the frontier?

[Kristopher]

The only thought I had was kind of a party-pooper, which is that dystopic settings should steer clear of making club-your-players-over-the-head statements. As compelling a picture of them as you might have in your head, do you want to have political discussions (or, vid your Laconians, discussions of dating philosphy) with your players?
Which is a real YMMV kind of caution, because that might well work perfectly with your group.
For bad guys who might work, what about old standbys like space communists, or limited access to immortality drugs, or armies of vat-bred genetic slaves swamping the frontier?

It's a mature group, and I don't plan to do any anvil-dropping. I'm not trying to present any outright dystopias, either, those are just the three easiest examples to present in short form so far.

One of the players is actually from a vaguely Stalinist world, a very minor power with three neighboring systems officially refered to as "protectorates".

[Kristopher]

It's hard coming up with an idea seed for a culture/government form that hasn't been used before.

I'm not necessarily looking for "villain" cultures.

[Ian Mackinder]

If you haven't already done so, maybe check out the site for the 'Eclipse Phase' rpg.

http://www.eclipsephase.com

As well as the game background itself, there is a healthy-sized 'Resources' section with links and documents regarding Transhumanism and related matters (incuding politics and economics).

Inspiration is a possibility.

[Kristopher]

If you haven't already done so, maybe check out the site for the 'Eclipse Phase' rpg.

http://www.eclipsephase.com

As well as the game background itself, there is a healthy-sized 'Resources' section with links and documents regarding Transhumanism and related matters (incuding politics and economics).

Inspiration is a possibility.

I'll definately look into it. There's are multiple "transhumanist" movements in the game setting.

(Despite the timelines that real-life transhumanists like to give, they'd still be waiting around several hundred years in the future, in my setting.)