Kristopher Posted September 16, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 16, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... Also found this old thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
torchwolf Posted September 16, 2009 Report Share Posted September 16, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted September 16, 2009 Report Share Posted September 16, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted September 16, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 16, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... The old Ringworld RPG had some limited Psionics incorporated' date=' 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.[/quote'] Niven is one of my favorite authors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted September 17, 2009 Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... I assume that the go-captains are "hyperspace pilots"' date=' but what is the meaning or origin of the title "pin-lighter"? Or does it just mean "telepath"?[/quote'] 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
torchwolf Posted September 17, 2009 Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted September 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted September 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted September 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted September 17, 2009 Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted September 17, 2009 Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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' date=' 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?[/quote'] 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Mackinder Posted September 17, 2009 Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... In Traveller' date=' you only have to be a few diameters away from the planet, which only adds an hour or so to the trip.[/quote'] In fact, one can use Traveller's Jump Drive closer than the recommended distance - just with a considerably heightened chance of misjump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted September 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... Approximately 10' date='000 stars [i'](about 2.45 x 10^-3 stars per cubic light year)[/i]. 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). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted September 17, 2009 Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted September 17, 2009 Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted September 17, 2009 Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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. 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted September 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted September 17, 2009 Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... I can play with the numbers some' date=' maybe say that there are 1000 inhabited worlds within a radius of 1 full year's travel, or something easy like that.[/quote'] There are implications for maximum size of an interstellar empire, depending upon what values you chose. http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ac.html#empires Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yansuf Posted September 17, 2009 Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... So hypothetically you could have 1000 to 2000 inhabited planets and 1000s of other systems with mining habs and science stations and so on' date=' in an area you could cross in 100 days at just 1 ly/day FTL? [/quote'] 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted September 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... No' date=' 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.[/quote'] 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawnmower Boy Posted September 17, 2009 Report Share Posted September 17, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted September 18, 2009 Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Mackinder Posted September 18, 2009 Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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' date=' until the government started putting shielding on ships.[/quote'] ... And the Church started burning the people who didn't want this shielding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted September 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted September 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2009 Re: Star HERO with... not magic, really, but... 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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