Midas

Re: Fantasy uses for the North Pole I don't recall the name of the Christmas special, but in one there was an off the cuff slang for what happened to elves who were screw ups. "Sent South." "To our polar opposites?!!" (tone of horror) The implication that some kind of Unseelie court was located at the South Pole.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares What's really scarey? Doohan looks like a pretty good Sailor Jupiter!

Re: Music to Kill Zombies By I'm simple - I'll go with a trench gun. Interesting that no one took the obvious yert: Flight of the Valkyries (We are harvesting the slain, right?) (I thought about Cameron Bot but...) Rommie, Andromeda's avatar. (6D6 RKA, area effect radial, selective).

Re: White Dwarfs I was considering setting up the ecosphere on the outside - Either Tolkien's Age of Stars, or Drow-world depending on preferred Eldar*. Because the gravity on the inside of a Dyson sphere is zero, everything on the inside would slowly or quickly head off toward the central star. What would the gravity be on the outside of a Dyson shell at 0.35AU? Is the submarine trench ecology rather than a standard solar radiation one viable? Note: I've got another post perculating on the tonnage of the dyson shell. let's just assume it has the volume from Cancer's first post. How about crystals something like giant FO cables channeling dwarflight from the interior? A place for all that neon floating around. BTW, unobtanium is an exotic compound of hydrogen and nitrogen. Neon functions something like carbon in steel, giving the unobtanium greater strength. On one of Tasha's links, I found the concept of Statites. Interesting idea. How about puting huge solar sails/photovoltaic collectors at the tips of those pylons (can't call them "Weapon Pylons see post #3 for obvious reasons) on the inside of the shell. I think that those could be manipulated to adjust shell drift. Midas *Though I prefer the Eli to anything Wallethammer has put out. The Eli et al were the Space Elf Vikings of the old Starguard universe.

Re: White Dwarfs OK, re the debris available: As I understand it, a white dwarf is the third stage of a large main sequence star. The main sequence star changes into a supergiant when it reaches a proportion of fuel. Then it collapses into a white dwarf at another tipping point. In the first event, the star expands out into the gas giant orbits, and absorbs anything within its diameter. Does it vaporise the rest of the planets out to the Kuyper belt and the comets in the Oort cloud? If not, at the second "lifechange" when the nebular cloud is expanding, same question. Where I'm coming from is whether our high tech aliens can harvest the outer plutoids and comets or have to go with the more difficult task of rounding up and condensing solid elements out of the expanding gas envelope. Midas

Re: White Dwarfs "Variables won't and constants aren't!"? I'm working my way through the math and physics involved, slowly (Unsophisticated hick think MIT something to catch ball with, not something to assign for stellar volume computation - Should not have two "t's"?). I tried answering post by post, but it's almost like trying to transcribe a chat session. I'll try to post my thoughts line by line, instead. The reason I chose a white dwarf was because of the obvious problem with a DysonSHELL (thanx for that BTW, useful distinction ) around a main sequence star: The huge tonnage involved in making a sphere 1AU in radius. Drop the radius down to 0.035 and you get a reasonable volume, comparatively. Midas

Re: White Dwarfs For a WHITE dwarf, that is about right. One has to be wary of the superficially similar WIGHT dwarf, around whom a 100 square meter circle is completely uninhabitable. Midas

Re: White Dwarfs That's the one I was going for. Didn't Clark also promote "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."? Apropo, but not as much as the tech=magic one. Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful replies. I'll give a longer reply later when I've masticated the info. Midas

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/82196-Ally-McBeal-s-creator-chosen-to-adapt-Wonder-Woman-for-TV 'nuff said (oops, wrong franchise) Midas

Re: World without horses I'd add to check out Empire of the Petal Throne for thirty years of discussion on the subject. EPT is set on a planet without *riding* beasts, but they do have wagon pullers. The chlen (a kind of six legged dinosaur) can pull heavy loads, but is actually *slower* than a train of pack bearers. Porter slaves are a major commodity in EPT. The main effect in warfare is that purely infantry armies cannot overrun an enemy nation a la the Mongols. The Sakbe roads (combination highways that the Incas would have envied and Great Walls) connect every city channel and hold invaders. And the general wouldn't be the guy on horseback, of course. As for communications and scouting, that would depend on tech/magic. A no magic world would depend on something like the Inca runners and old fashioned scouts. A high magic world would have the crystal ball equivelent of our satellite recon and cell phones. Midas As for scouting

Calling upon the massed HERO wisdom: What is the habitable zone of a white dwarf? What would be the surface area of a Dyson Sphere (the solid kind) around a White Dwarf, at said habitable zone? Assuming a depth large enough that tree roots wouldn't stick out the other side, (say 1/2 mile) what is the volume, in earths, of such a sphere? Is there enough debris around a WD to consider such a project? What is the life expantancy of a stable white dwarf? Any other things I need consider without calling upon Clark's Maxim? Thanks in advance, Midas

Re: More Areas for the Genie's Prison. Decades ago, I was kicking around a genie in a tesseract idea. The cube was a 1 cubic kilometer tesseract with each of the 3d cubes being a different environment. I forget what the "outside" cubes were, but the top cube was the genie's palace, a pavilion set in a desert around an oasis. The center cube was a huge community center with living areas, shops, and entertainment establishments. The basement cube was a 3d dungeon, in which adventurers could LARP their way through, and spectators could bet on the outcome. Orcs were people who had lost money, it was sort of a debtors prison setup for the Black Hats. The main idea with the tesseract was to have some fun with curved gravity. I planned a central river that would run through all the cubes, with two specific sights worth seeing. First, on the dungeon level, the river would run through its bed on the floor of the main cavern, and through its bed on the ceiling of the main cavern, floor and ceiling being chosen by which way the adventurers followed the river. Second was having a fountain - the river falling "up" from the floor of the residential cube, all the way to the pavilion in the top cube, and on into the next cube.

Re: Sherlock Holmes? In October '84 White Dwarf published a Champions scenario called Strikeback, based on a Saberhagen Berserker short story. The heroes travel back in time to team up with Holmes and Dracula against Frankenstein the 3rd, Nemo, and a time travelling Berserker. Here is the (1st ed) stats for Holmes as given in that scenario.

Re: News Story/PlotHook: Post Apocalyptic Gas Explosion Hee! Glad to know some people still know what's *important*! I was hoping the blast would trigger the Yellowstone Caldera.

Re: Pulp Figurines Here's one I just found. http://www.sbarber-models.clara.net/html/25mmprohibition.htm

Re: What would be involved in using Hero system to run a wargame? The problem is the +5/x2 logrythmic rule as written. For 20 points you can field a 100 point knight follower. For 30 points, you can match him with a 100 point destrier. For 70 points you can field a force fo 500 such mounted knights. (Yes, I know these are almost superheroic "followers", but it still supports my point). You could consider going with a straight point to point conversion. Or you could consider limiting the exponents involved: Say one Lance - A knight, his squire, two men at arms, two destriers, and two nags - and requiring another such lance to be bought as a second follower, rather than a doubling. My 2cents, Midas

Re: Mountains of Madness?!? Not any more. A dinosaur stepped on it. (Saturday afternoon serial from a couple of years back. Time travelers from the present left one behind. The Challenger expedition didn't know what that strange noise was. ) However, Maple White Land is in the interior of South America. I doubt that Challenger's Plateau is either Leng or Kadath. Midas

Re: Mountains of Madness?!? Well, keep in mind that Barsoom is the Dreamland Mars. The best way to get there is by Cat Express from Ulthar. Midas (And Dream Mercury is inhabited by horned men stuck in a time loop!)

Re: Darth Vader vs. The Hulk

Re: Darth Vader vs. The Hulk Jean Gray's first incarnation? "OH, pretty! Hulk twirl finger in pretty girl's hair!" No, because sooner or later she would get tired of holding him in the air, and then it would be over. Break free how? I'm not using TK as a grab or entangle, merely removing any convenient shoving off spots for those power leap and grapples that Hulk would use first. It would depend. On a ship, the obvious thing to do would be to place Hulk out the airlock (with a bubble of air) until he cools down. Then Vader could practice his seduction techniques*. "Dr Banner, consider that The Dark Side could end your curse..." Planetside it would be more difficult: "LOOK! The Goodrich blimp!" ** But actually, I agree with you. Unless Vader came up with something, sooner or later he's going to look like more like R2D2. But unless it was a sudden encounter with no recon, it wouldn't be over between one pane and the next. The only one who could stand up to Hulk is Superman, and he is -usually- in another universe. BTW, you still haven't touched Vader's most powerful secret weapon: Jar Jar Binks. "Me sey sorry big green friend trip on beach..." Midas *OK, either out of the gutter or back to the Thing thread, you maroons. You know what I mean. ** OK, how old are you to remember that joke?

Re: Darth Vader vs. The Hulk Ha ha. Repped. OK, since we are discussing one fantasy character (sub genre Space Opera) vs another (sub genre Superheroic), lets go there. Had to think about that one for a moment. Hmnn, as far as Vader's tk/ranged NND perhaps? Not familiar with this particular power. The Hulk is a walking mutagen "radiation accident"? Lord only knows what would happen? Vader regenerating would be...interesting. VRRRNNNG VRRRRRNNG probably deflectable, but what kind of knockback would it have? Happens to cousin Jen all the time. However, like Jen's underwear sometimes, the Purpleness may not be removable: Protected by Comic's Code . Hits lightsaber: BZZZZZZT: Now cloud of area effect incapacitating nausea. Midas

Re: Kill the Dude with the Thing Gollllld MEMber, He's the man with thiiiiiiing of gold... His THING is cold!

Re: Kill the Dude with the Thing

Re: Darth Vader vs. The Hulk Yep. Like I said in earlier, all Vader has to do is hold Hulk off the ground until he can find *something* to do to him. Except for the Sonic Clap and the occasional thing to throw, Hulk has no ranged attacks. Now that I think about it, is anybody else reminded of the "Captain Stern" story from Heavy Metal? Midas

Re: Darth Vader vs. The Hulk Well, just like the Enterprise vs Star Destroyer question, the setting needs to be established: So FTR: They are required to do combat, not just ignore each other, or one makes a pre emptive retreat. Neither is required by plot to win. Neither is in his own medium so his fan base can't expect an automatic win. This is not the final showdown, so Hero won't automatically beat Villain. It is Strong/Stupid Hulk (with the caveat that other personalities, mental defense etc as well) vs Vader alone, without his massive contact perk. OK, that set out, it still depends. IF Vader assumes he is facing some sort of green less shaggy whompa, then he loses at the first punch. However, I'm of the belief that The Force will instantly tell Vader that he is facing a principal, not a mook. Vader's best bet is to use TK to simply pick Hulk up off wherever he is standing. Hulk flailing around not being able to grab anything negates 90% of his abilities. Would Vader be able to withstand the sonic clap? Donno. I suspect he would. IF he survived that without being stunned and dropping the TK, his next step would be to use the Force to put Hulk in vacuum, which cancels that technique. Another trick would be to try the "choke at range" stunt (it won't work, all Vader's strength including his Force augmentation wouldn't even tickle Hulk's throat): However, he might try just blocking Hulk's airway. Does Hulk have life support? I'm guessing he does, since I'm sure he has been stranded in space at least once over his career. Another advantage Vader might have: If Hulk accepted Binks as a sidekick, how would that gangly massive pile of Unluck affect the fight? Midas