Nyrath

Re: Lessons from Byzantium Noted SF author Ken MacLeod said "History is the trade secret of science fiction." Another useful history book in this regard is Edward Luttwak's other work: The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. It is available online here: http://books.google.com/books?id=fIzyfXF1gh0C&dq=the+grand+strategy+of+the+roman+empire&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=UPtWFza806&sig=dsh99vptw3zszA8Nfm0YiGQTF20#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Re: Duke Saturn & The Astro Commandos (6e) GURPS Lensman is worth it. The author is a Doc Smith scholar (I did give him a couple of tid-bits of data and managed to get a mention on the "acknowledgements" page). There is lots of stuff useful to a space opera campaign in general. And as an added bonus is an amusing space opera starship combat system. It is simplistic, but it is good enough for an RPG and it captures the flavor. Copies of out-of-print books can be found at http://www.bookfinder.com

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority And not even fudge. The original analysis is working with a very small sample size.

Re: Duke Saturn & The Astro Commandos (6e) Excellent! Brilliant concept.

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2009/01/hellish-weather-on-other-planets.html (dunno if this is a re-post or not, it's from a year ago) Just imagine the look on the faces of your stable of players when they see the death-trap planet you are sending them to.

Re: The Singularity?

Re: The Singularity? You can read the gory details here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity http://hanson.gmu.edu/vi.html

Re: Instantaneous Communications plus Time Dilation Equals ??? http://www.xkcd.com/675/

Re: The Singularity?

Re: The Singularity? SF author Charles Stross rakes the Singularity over the coals in his "Tough Guide to the Rapture of the Nerds" http://web.archive.org/web/20080622142427/http://www.antipope.org/charlie/toughguide.html (this is a tiddly-wiki, you have to explore it)

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority On my galactic map poster I do have marked the boundaries of the galactic habitable zones. Sadly you have to purchase the map to see this. http://www.projectrho.com/smap12.html#map04

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

Re: Terran Empire changes It's like what I said here: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ab.html#technologicalprogress When it comes to futures histories in various SF novels, the main failing I have noted is a failure of scope. While you may read novels with orbital beanstalks, immortality drugs, virtual people living in digital cyber-reality, nanotechnology, transhumanity and post-humans, Dyson spheres, teleportation, zero-point energy,matter duplicators,time travel, cloning,and cyborgs; you almost never find an individual novel that has all of these things (although Greg Egan's DIASPORA comes close, and the Orion's Arm project comes even closer). This is because future history SF novels are not meant to predict the future, so much as they are meant to illuminate a specific point the author is trying to make. Jeff Patterson said:

Re: Duke Saturn & The Astro Commandos (6e)

Re: Time Travel in Sci Fi and Games....The Good, The Bad, and the Oh so Ugly... Well, in many ways, time travel can become the ultimate weapon. In Doctor Who, hostile alien races have to be very careful if they intend to try to conquer Gallifrey (planet of the Time Lords). If you fail, suddenly you and your entire home planet never existed...

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=10934 New astronomical data suggests that solar systems like ours are only found in 1 in ten stars. I find this to be very undramatic, and am going to ignore this result for my campaigns.

Re: Time Travel in Sci Fi and Games....The Good, The Bad, and the Oh so Ugly... Yes, END OF ETERNITY is worth a mention, but what a dull story. DINOSAUR BEACH for me is the best at capturing the flavor of a good time travel campaign THE CORRIDORS OF TIME is an interesting time war. The Rangers are working towards a male-dominated rational mechanistic future, while the Wardens are working towards a female-dominated intuitive organic future. As you look through historical conflicts dating back to the dawn of time, you can see which sides were backed by Ranger time agents and which were backed by Warden time agents.

Re: What Happened to the Hominids Who Were Smarter Than Us? The debunking story is now part of the main link. However, since the debunking story gets in the way of an awesome Star Hero campaign, it is obviously a Boskop disinformation plot.

Re: Duke Saturn & The Astro Commandos (6e) I'm curious as to what powers populate the slots in the Saturn ring. One of the important powers of the Lensman's lens was "universal translator."

Re: Hole in the ground Sorry Basil. I scooped you on this one. Back in October. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/76155-Lunar-Cave-Discovered

Re: Time Travel in Sci Fi and Games....The Good, The Bad, and the Oh so Ugly... You have me interested, I'm going to have to check out Continuum. Other inspirational time travel novels THE FIRES OF PARATIME (Timegods' World ) by LE Modesitt, Jr. The inhabitants of Quest are organic time travelers. As you read the novel you realize that Norse mythology is based on the Questians. And the strongest of all is Loki. This novel grabs your interest at the start, but near the end you can't put the book down! THE CORRIDORS OF TIME by Poul Anderson. Time war! http://www.sfreviews.net/corridors.html THE BIG TIME by Fritz Leiber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Time ALL OF AN INSTANT by Richard Garfinkle. Review here: http://www.sfsite.com/10b/all67.htm and don't forget DINOSAUR BEACH by Keith Laumer

http://www.isegoria.net/2010/01/lessons-from-byzantium.htm http://visionsofempire.wordpress.com/2010/01/02/lessons-from-byzantium-survival-amid-weakness-and-eternal-war/ [1] Get this book from the library [2] Skim through it and make quick notes [3] In the notes, replace "province" with "galactic sector", "city" with "planetary colony", "armies" with "star fleet", and so on [4] You suddenly have the background history for your galactic empire campaign Notice how pathetic little Byzantium cleverly used underhanded tactics to survive a thousand years longer than the great Roman empire. These ploys would make nice complicated-intricate-deadly situations for your stable of players to be caught up in.