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Silverhawk

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Posts posted by Silverhawk

  1. Percy Jackson and the Olympians

    in Other Genres

    Posted

    Re: Percy Jackson and the Olympians

     

    The setting stuff starts out mostly the same as the books, but the stuff about monsters is never made explicit, and the plot diverges more and more as the movie goes on.

     

    The plot divergences made both my wife (an elementary school librarian) and me indignant because they really didn't seem necessary.

  2. Toons

    in Other Genres

    Posted

    Re: Toons

     

    How do you emulate the "walking on air until you look down" ability?

     

    Oblivious to situation until it's pointed out to you?

     

    sounds right

     

    IIRC there was a Road Runner cartoon where Wile E. held up a sign wondering about the Road Runner doing that in defiance of the Law of Gravity. The Road Runner holds up his own sign in reply saying that He'd never studied law.

     

    :D

     

    So I'd leave something like that to a GM ruling based on situation.

     

    Alternatively is to buy flight with limitation Only when unaware of flying.

  6. Instantaneous Communications plus Time Dilation Equals ???

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: Instantaneous Communications plus Time Dilation Equals ???

     

    It is not so bad to receive comms from 5 years in the future' date=' if you are more than 10 ly from the source, as long an you have no FTL and can only communicate back to that period.[/quote']

     

    Reminds me of a story called Beep by James Blish.

     

     

    Apologies for not being able to hide the Spoiler below.

     

     

    Instantaneous communicator with messages that can be received by every communicator that is ever made. The time differential causes all future messages to be received as a beep.

  7. Accretion Disk Civilizations?

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: Accretion Disk Civilizations?

     

    on a tangental note: imagine gaming in an environment like Larry Niven's "The Integral Trees"

     

    I actually have started on a world/campaign that was inspired by Integral Trees/Smoke Ring. Really can't say more since a number of my potential players might be lurking around here.

     

    :)

  9. Genre-crossover nightmares

    in Other Genres

    Posted

    Re: Genre-crossover nightmares

     

    Heh. Now I'm seeing Darth Vader trying to get something off eBay for Palpatine.

    "What is thy bidding, my master?"

     

    I foresee the need to bid one billion credits for that rare Barussian crystal that will allow for completion of the Death Star.

     

    :D

  10. How do you build Drives?

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: How do you build Drives?

     

    I'm also partial to Weber's system. I've been working on a 5th edition version to use for a campaign that I am slowly developing.

     

    Partial to David Weber's system in his Honor Harrington series.

     

    In a solar system, impellar bands (focused gravity planes above and below the ships) are sublight with a need to turnover the ships 180 degrees for deceleration. Fantastic sublight speeds take time to reach and negate.

     

    Outside a solar system (defined as a distance from a significant gravity well), you have your hyperspace drive punch through various bands of hyperspace to compress travel distance. The "higher" a band you can reach and sustain, the faster you travel. At least until you want to stop or hit a gravity wave.

     

    At a gravity wave (a current of intense gravity affecting hyperspace), impellar bands will destroy the ships when reacting to them. You reconfigure the bands into Warshawski sails to draw power from the waves and impart motion. You effectively sail in a river at much higher speeds than you could reach via hyperspace alone.

     

    Lastly, there are wormholes. This is where gravity waves somehow connect two points in space, allowing for instant transit via Warshawski sail. The more mass you transit in a short time, the longer the wormhole is destabilized. Jump a fleet through the hole at once, and you lock down reinforcements for 18+ hours.

     

    For the most part, there are no FTL communications (later books allowed FTL via gravitic pulses from satellite relays in a "morse code" manner in a solar system), so you send a courier ship to its destination to relay news. Intercept the courier, and you can lock out news.

  18. What effects would you see on a terrestial planet in a binary system?

    in Star Hero

    Posted

    Re: What effects would you see on a terrestial planet in a binary system?

     

    Fiction-wise maybe look at Brian Aldiss's Helliconia series apparently it's based in a binary star system and I've heard that it's a good read (haven't got around to it yet myself so I can't confirm).

    :(

     

    I've read the first two Helliconia Spring and Helliconia Summer. They were enjoyable enough that I got the third volume Helliconia Winter. Unfortunately, its been a couple of years and I still haven't read it.

     

    And I seem to recall that Aldiss had scientific consultants in developing Helliconia.

     

    I guess I'm going to have to make this my next book. :)

  20. Brainstorming an alternate Europe

    in Pulp Hero

    Posted

    Re: Brainstorming an alternate Europe

     

    A few thoughts...

     

    Without WWI and the granting of League of Nations mandates over former German possessions, Imperial Japan would be less able to dominate the Pacific. Its plans against China would be largely unaffected, though. It might even offer itself as wild-card support foe various factions in Europe, as a way to gain influence and connections. (Samurai and Ninjas on Zeppelins! Total Win! :D)

     

    Again, this is something that is hard to definitively say. Much of the interwar thinking by Imperial Japan was influenced by the fate of Germany during the Great War. They realized that the limited sources of certain strategic resources by Germany and the vulnerability to blockade by Britain led the Japanese to decide that they needed supplies of these resources that could not be interrupted by a hostile power.

  21. Brainstorming an alternate Europe

    in Pulp Hero

    Posted

    Re: Brainstorming an alternate Europe

     

    Thanks, everyone, for the thoughts.

    One more question, though. From what I've read of history, it seems as though war between Russia and Austria-Hungary was fairly inevitable. Would a war between them be possible without dragging the rest of Europe into it?

     

    It's probable without a unified Germany but by no means certain since Prussia would still be a player in European affairs.

  22. Brainstorming an alternate Europe

    in Pulp Hero

    Posted

    Re: Brainstorming an alternate Europe

     

    Of course, one could go a little further back and postulate a Europe where instead of dissolving the Holy Roman Empire to form the Confederation of the Rhine, Napoleon I might have forced Emperor Francis II to cede the crown to him.

     

    This would leave Germany fragmented into 300 some odd 'states' some no larger than a single town.

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