Zeropoint Posted March 22, 2014 Report Share Posted March 22, 2014 So, a gaming buddy of mine just mentioned to me that she'd be interested in playing a game where the PCs are (or can be) starships, citing Anne McCaffery's "The Ship Who Sang" as a reference. I'm rather intrigued by the idea, as I've read plenty of stories with characters who are no longer, or never were, quite human, and I've done a bit of my own thinking about what a person could be if they didn't have to pass for a greasy Mark 1 Mod 0 homo sapiens sapiens. Therefore, I'm starting a thread here to ask for information, advice, and random thoughts on the matter. Has anyone here ever run a game with such a concept, or given serious thought to it? Are there any books/stories/movies/webcomics that I should definitely read if I'm going to run such a game? Any more-or-less on-topic thoughts you might have are welcome here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beast Posted March 22, 2014 Report Share Posted March 22, 2014 Kieth Laumer's Bolo books are about self aware tanksthere was an Outer Limits episode(new one) where the Ai's on starships killed the crews exept for a few to repair them(Human Operators) the star ship Andromeda from that series pretty much runs herself Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndianaJoe3 Posted March 22, 2014 Report Share Posted March 22, 2014 You may want to check out Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. Some of the characters are AIs and starships. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rstehwien Posted March 22, 2014 Report Share Posted March 22, 2014 Eclipse Phase is an RPG with a good number of transhuman ideas. There are many mechanical an biological "morphs" as well as the option of being a virtual infomorph. No FTL ships (something like a stargate) but there are some extreme morphs like the Suryas (Space Whales) And Salamanders which are both Coronal Morphs; they live in the suns out most layer. Books are Creative Commons (or pay if you find them worth it). Ideas there for the mining. http://robboyle.wordpress.com/eclipse-phase-pdfs/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sinanju Posted March 22, 2014 Report Share Posted March 22, 2014 Eclipse Phase is an RPG with a good number of transhuman ideas. There are many mechanical an biological "morphs" as well as the option of being a virtual infomorph. No FTL ships (something like a stargate) but there are some extreme morphs like the Suryas (Space Whales) And Salamanders which are both Coronal Morphs; they live in the suns out most layer. Books are Creative Commons (or pay if you find them worth it). Ideas there for the mining. http://robboyle.wordpress.com/eclipse-phase-pdfs/ I'll second the recommendation of Eclipse Phase as a source for good transhuman idea. Also, the GURPS Transhuman Space books by Steve Jackson Games. If you want actual PC-starships, you'll have to work that out for yourself, because Eclipse Phase doesn't have FTL (other than the Gates left behind by the departing Titans, which humans use but don't understand in the slightest). I don't think Transhuman Space does either. On the other hand, at least one Eclipse Phase book (Panopticon, I think) does discuss "sleeving"* into a habitat. The solar system in Eclipse Phase is chock full of artificial habitats, from floating cities on Venus (literally, entire cities built on/into/around giant gasbags/dirigibles that float on the upper Venusian atmosphere) to toroid (donut-shaped) habitats to O'Neill cylinders to more sophisticated habitats, and hollowed out asteroids, pressure vessels deep in Titan's oceans, and on and on. And in a universe where ubiquitous computing is, uh, ubiquitous, and the human mind can be copied, saved, hacked, uploaded into inert (or "cold") storage, into an artificial reality, or downloaded (sleeved) into various (or multiple) bodies of every sort...someone playing the part of the central control of a large habitat is certainly doable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csyphrett Posted March 24, 2014 Report Share Posted March 24, 2014 The ghost in the shell television series had several episodes dealing with this. One had an engineer downloading his brain into a tank and going walkabout. One of the antiheroes could hack cameras and internet so he was invisible to anyone who didn't have normal eyes. The Matrix could be said to be a case of superhacking depending on how you look at it. Maybe reverse hacking when Smith takes over one of the pills and escapes in the real world. Schlock Mercenary has dozens of computer brains getting control of ships and other things and defending the universe. CES Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawnmower Boy Posted March 24, 2014 Report Share Posted March 24, 2014 "Okay, imagine that it's way, way in the future, and technology has progressed towards an unimaginable level. Human beings have been altered by technology in unimaginable ways to do unimaginable things." "Plus, also, AI so intelligent that we cannot even imagine how they think. And aliens. Unimaginable aliens from unimaginable ecosystems. Now let's see your PC concepts!" Player 1: "I, um, I um, I... I'm playing a barbarian!" Player 2: "Wicked cool! Rogue!" Player 3: "Monk!" Player 4: "MU. I p0wns you, noobz!" Player 5: "Sigh. Cleric." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeropoint Posted March 25, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2014 Yeah, it's a bit much to get people's heads wrapped around. I can't see it working unless all the people involved have read a number of stories examining alternate modes of personhood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted March 25, 2014 Report Share Posted March 25, 2014 Yeah, I cant really wrap my head around it myself, the only one mentioned so far that I am both familiar with and liked was Ghost In a Shell. It has always kind of creeped me out. And, unlike a lot here, I would have no desire to do it in real life. Probably because, my own experience with electronics is often rather contentious to say the least. Note: If I downloaded myself on a computer, I see what happening next hearing an evil voice "We have you now, MWAHAHAHA!!", followed by me getting a sensation of the equivalent of internet hell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 If the starships had a humanoid drone body they could send planetside and/or to other ships to conduct "face to face" interactions, that might give one a handle on it. You could have one writeup for the drone and another for the starship. Perhaps the ships are an exploratory or peacekeeping task force, working together. Transhuman-->Posthuman-->Posthuman God or TH-->PH-->PHG is the progression. Transhuman is a being who still possesses a lot of human characteristics(and limitations), who is enhanced in several ways. Posthuman is a human who has evolved to a point where they are recognizably no longer "human". A Posthuman God is a post human who has attained a level of development where, to a less evolved or advanced being, they are functionally indistinguishable from a god. A TH PC would be someone who could interface with a starship and have their consciousness inhabit it, though they still have their human body. A PH PC would be someone who actually could be the ship, or they could be able to shift their consciousness effortlessly between the ship and a constructed biological form. A PHG could presumably be anything they wanted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clsage Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 If the starships had a humanoid drone body they could send planetside and/or to other ships to conduct "face to face" interactions, that might give one a handle on it. You could have one writeup for the drone and another for the starship. ... That idea stirs thoughts of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Ascendant and this: http://home.comcast.net/~mathewignash/csrommie.html -Carl- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeropoint Posted March 26, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 I've only had time for a cursory look at the "Eclipse Phase" stuff, but it sounds like it's on the right track, and, importantly, already laid out from a roleplaying game perspective. Thanks for the reference! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted March 30, 2014 Report Share Posted March 30, 2014 The ghost in the shell television series had several episodes dealing with this. One had an engineer downloading his brain into a tank and going walkabout. One of the antiheroes could hack cameras and internet so he was invisible to anyone who didn't have normal eyes. The Matrix could be said to be a case of superhacking depending on how you look at it. Maybe reverse hacking when Smith takes over one of the pills and escapes in the real world. Schlock Mercenary has dozens of computer brains getting control of ships and other things and defending the universe. CES All three are good sources and I can only second them. The Doctor of Voyager also had some of these Elements. He even became a temporal "Starship Guy" when they implemented the "Emergency Command Hologramm Functions" (and earlier during that Epsiode with the Prometheus). With his mobile emitter he was an avatar the could go (mostly) desolid. And then there was Alice (from Epsiode of same name). The TV Tropes links has a ton of stuff. Note that it might be a bad idea to give one player complete control over the ship - he could overrule the others. Andromade had the route with the AI being actually in 3 parts - and in one Epsiode the ship and the hologramm locked out the Android of control and refuesed to operate till she was memory wiped. A later one they had to repair the androds mind to get an override command through. In Farscape Pilot is close to a Starsip girl - except he is only liason between the living ship and the crew. The ship is a NPC with a mind of it's own and developed quite some character for someone who cannot talk. Pilot is essentially a fixed point translator between crew and ship. A simialr thing with "Alice" from ST Voyager - the human was a nessesary component, desireable to rusting around. But the ship had a mind of it's own (including being quite manipaltive). Stargate Universe had some elements with the Ancient Chair Beta version and early uploads. There was a strong hints at Eli would become the avatar for Season 2 (but he would have been shipbound, until fitting Phlebotion was found). Note that when there is a difference between playing the Ship, wich has an android body. And an android body wich also controls the ship. Mainly where the Focus lies for that Character. Also a real heirarchy is not adviseable (one being captain). They need a common goal (flee from the law, stop a certain foe) - Andromeda (excluding Captain and Ship), Farscape and propably Serenty are good choices for ideas. Consider adding fighters to the ship, espeically if it is unarmed. This allows some "daredevil piloting", covert operations and even small characters affected a space combat. Farscape and Andromeda went that route. DS9 used Shuttles and later the Defiant for ocassional mobility. Even voyager had the Delta Flyer and Shuttles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vondy Posted April 26, 2014 Report Share Posted April 26, 2014 Not a starship, but there used to be this comic book called.... R.O.M. It was, in THS terms, about a military hard-shell being driven by a real intelligence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted April 26, 2014 Report Share Posted April 26, 2014 How Marvel let the license lapse back to Hasbro is beyond me. Though the comic lagged in the latter third of its run, for a while the Dire Wraith stuff was a pretty "hot" storyline, and the character itself was pretty interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vondy Posted April 26, 2014 Report Share Posted April 26, 2014 How Marvel let the license lapse back to Hasbro is beyond me. Though the comic lagged in the latter third of its run, for a while the Dire Wraith stuff was a pretty "hot" storyline, and the character itself was pretty interesting. Its so bad that they can't even refer to previous appearances of ROM in new comics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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