amanojaku

Re: Music to Kill Zombies By Hmm, maybe stretching things a bit, but possible. Another reason to wear goggles, eh?

Re: Antarctic "Ice Cube" Observatory I hope they're not working anywhere near where the blob was dropped back in the 50's. Hate for it to get loose again.

Re: STAR HERO Reading List If that was @ me, I'll look up the novel now.

Re: STAR HERO Reading List Just finished "absolution gap", the third book in the revelation space trilogy. Remember how terminator was great, terminator 2 was better and terminator 3 sucked? Also how superman 1 and 2 were greatr then superman 3 was a steaming pile of celluloid excrement? Well, sad to say but the revelation space trilogy followed the same pattern. Revelation space=Aewsome. Redemption ark=Awesomer. Absolution gap=drek.

Re: Your favorite SF gear. Thanks for telling me that! Now I know to attack them in space where there's no air for napalm to work in!

Re: Make Your Own Motivational Poster [ATTACH=CONFIG]37671[/ATTACH]

Re: Your favorite SF gear. I'll take one of those, and an instant sex chance machine with reversal option. OH, COME ON! YOU WERE All THINKING IT, I JUST HAD THE GUTS TO SAY IT!!!

Re: Submitted for your approval: 10 too human aliens.

What gear do you frequently reach for in your SFRPG games? Assuming the tech levels are right, say like in traveller or nBSG, I often reach for a 20mm gauss semi auto launcher that can be used as a shotgun when loaded with fletchette rounds, or as a light grenade launcher when loaded with HE or frag rounds, or even as an anti-vehicle weapon if loaded with a shaped charge type warhead, plus it can launch flares and smoke rounds. It's a versatile weapon with a lot of uses, and not too heavy to carry around some ammo for, unlike the more potent but bulkier 40mm version. Also the 20mm version is more of a personal weapon than a heavy weapon, you can get away with calling it a shotgun. Here's a link to the real world inspiration for it, just imagine it in a gauss version with a fletchette round as typical ammo, along with slug and more powerful versions and you've got it! I have an odd fondness for gyrojet/gyroc weapons, the solid fuel rocket bullet, especially if they might have multiple types of ammo. When it comes to energy weapons I don't mind a good laser, as lasers are often versatile and useful devices. A good, advanced laser can be used as a signal device by setting the focus to wide dispersion, and can be linked to a communication system, set to low power, constant beam modulated by input from a communication device and turned into a tight beam signaller. The power guns from drake's Hammer's Slammers are so detailed in description I don't have many problems with them in moderately advanced tech settings. As to vehicles, I've never gotten to use one but I liked the colonial raptor from battlestar galactica. Lovely little ship, very practical and useful, just the right size for a PC group...

Re: Thundarr the Barbarian on DVD Thanks. It was just something I tossed together in like a minute or so long, long ago.

Re: Thundarr the Barbarian on DVD Strange aeons ago, just for the fun of it, I wasted a few minutes on a background for the herculoids. If anyone wants an idea to take and use, here it goes: Zandor was a brilliant scientist who was not evil himself, per se', but indifferent to the use his creations were put to by the evil warlord he worked for. He created weapons and other destructive things for his warlord to use without any real idea as to the suffering they caused. Tara was a member of a race the warlord had conquered and tried to assassinate Zandor, but failed. Zandor's curiosity was piqued by the attempt on his life and asked her why she'd tried to kill him. She told him what his creations had done to her world and people. Looking into it out of idle curiosity, Zandor saw what his work was doing and was for the first time in his life struck with guilt and horror. Well, his latest creations were prototypes for new types of living weapons, the herculoids. He used them in a surprise betrayal of his warlord, destroyed his base, rescued tara from execution and then, knowing that others would always seek his knowledge to make more horrors, considered killing himself and his latest creations, but tara persuaded him to come with her to an uninhabited planet along with his creations, who were alive and intelligent, after all. Sure, a silly plot, but we're talking about the herculoids here. I think it makes sense if you want an origin story on them.

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds Say, wouldn't planet+ sized structures be called "Gigastructures"? I mean, for now we could consider things like the boulder damn or the troll platform to be megastructures, If we start talking about dysonspheres, ringworlds, etc wouldn't we need to call them gigastructures? Or do we downgrade thins like what we now consider megastructures?

Re: Religions in SF settings. The idea of a corporate religion is a valid, if horrifying, one. As to the idea of the precursors or ancients being worshiped, again I like to make religions that fir the setting and are part of it in some way, so that's a good one too. In "fading suns" there was a religious movement based on these feelings of rapture created by using FTL drives, I haven't copped that one yet but it's filed away and again is an example of a religion based on the setting.

Re: Thundarr the Barbarian on DVD I know they copped his look on "Minoriteam", which I liked and damn cartoon network for canceling.

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds Thanks guy.

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds Say guy, I don't suppose you know the formula for calculating how fast a structure has to spin to produce 1g of centrifugal gravity? Seriously, that would be a useful formula for SF RPG writing.

Re: Thundarr the Barbarian on DVD OK, so kirby didn't actually do the animation, he designed characters. I looked up the animators one, long ago, and didn't see him.

Re: Thundarr the Barbarian on DVD The thing with thundarr is that everyone assumes it ewas done by Jack Kirby, but really the animators just took his look, JK as I understand didn't work on it.

Re: Religions in SF settings. Well, I kind of leave modern religions out as it can invite trouble unnecessarily. This might offend someone, but it happened at a convention game I was running once. I mentioned a catholic mission on another planet and one of the people who'd showed up made a joke about priests now molesting boys from other species. One of the other players was catholic.... Oy vey. Since then I use fictitious religions, assuming most modern ones evolved or died out. Or I have an old religion becoming resurgent, like zoroastrianism. That seems to work.

Re: Megastructures: Bigger-Than-Worlds In the computer RTS "homeworld" there was a level where the remains of what may have been an unfinished dyson sphere or ringworld were visible in the background. Very eerie, when combined with the music on that level. Septimus is a RPG set on a dyson sphere, if anyone's interested: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=63991

As far as we can tell, some of the earliest creations of humanity had religious overtones,, going back tens of thousands of years to cave paintings and small carved icons that predate written language. For good or bad it's likely that the human organism will retain religious views for the forseeable future given it's long preoccupation with religious matters. Given that premise, do you create any religions for your SF games and if so what are they? In traveller and any game with a vanished, highly advanced alien species like the ancients, I put in a couple religious movements based on them. One is a group that believes the ancients were struck down by soem god for daring to become too advanced and that they are a warning that some god will strike down any species that advances "too far". Naturally the definition of too far is open to debate... So these people tend to become terrorist types attacking scientific advancement and acting as a cross between luddites and zealots. Then I have a group who believes the ancient aliens achieved eschaton, becoming godlike themselves and somehow transcending the known universe, leaving it for a higher level of being. They believe it's the place of all intelligent life to advance until they can rise to a higher state thru some sort of technological transcendence. So get 2 groups that are based on the same fact, I.E. a long time ago an incredibly advanced species existed and then somehow disappeared for unknown reasons. Both are diametrically opposed to the other and thus create instant conflict. I've had AIs develop a religion based on the belief that naturally occurring life only exists to foster the birth of a superior lifeform as part of god's plan and once "true inteligence" has been created by them, they are unecessary and are to be "phased out" as part of a divine plan for perfection. (I had that idea long before the new BSG series, BTW.) I try to avoid any modern, real religiojs for various reasons. I prefer to create new ones that fit the setting. If anyone has any ideas on making new religions for their SF games I'd like to add them to my notebook for future use and am glad to share mine.

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies? Bit of a shotgun post here. In re to the OT, don't forget that it would not just be religious/racial groups seeking isolation from the masses. One could imagine a libertarian group seeking to establish it's own utopia. See the game "Bioshock" and it's sequel for a look at how that might go. Really, if you haven't played bioshock you're missing something, just playing thru on easy mode and studying the game world, playing the diary tapes, etc, is a fascinating look at hos quickly a libertarian community might disintegrate. All sorts of people might want to found their own communities in isolation. Perhaps there would be those who believe in genetic engineering who wanted to pursue transhumanism in a society that limited genetic modification. Likewise those who believed in not doing so might flee a society that allowed genetic mods. In "revelation space" there were the "Demarchists", democratic anarchists, who established a system of democratic anarchy where the only overall law was the respect of democracy no matter what it lead too. That might make a good candidate for an independent society. Not to be contrary without cause, but how about imagining a society that did not allow people to leave it and form their own? In some of his work, golden age SF author A.E. Van Voght postulated a society that would not allow any humans to exist outside it, and actively hunted down such. The justification was to end all wars by having only one government. (Shades of "Ein reich, ein volk, ein fuehrer!" or megatron's motto: "Peace through tyranny".) In another SF story, the government refused to allow humans to exist outside it due to the fear of alien contact and the belief humanity had to be unified to survive in the face of the alien boogeyman. The "golden rule" was mentioned somewhat here. This might be of interest to those bringing it up: http://www.atheistcartoons.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/thegoldenrule.jpg The idea of people founding their own colonies to live their own lifestyles is an interesting one, as is the idea that eventually some group is going to issue "JOIN US OR DIE!" ultimatums.

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies? If may offer a suggestion, the purists end up defeathing themselves thru division and inability to reconcile their internal differences. Perhaps a disagreement over a fairly minor issue eventually explodes into conflict as neither side will give one solitary nanometer due to their arrogance and certainty of righteousness. With people like the ones you posit, such an outcome is hardly implausible.

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?