novi

Re: World-building: When what works for the heroes works for everyone? Why does everyone always say that? In this world, they wouldn't have any notion that it is anything but the way the world works? At least, as long as we keep the physics-busting consistent.

Re: World-building: When what works for the heroes works for everyone? Yeah, that's pretty much what I was trying to say. If it helps anyone understand my thought process.

Re: World-building: When what works for the heroes works for everyone?

Re: World-building: When what works for the heroes works for everyone? Well, yes. But truth be told, I was wondering about effects outside the traditional scope of comics, aka, crime, superheroing, supervillainy, and bleeding-edge technology.

Re: World-building: When what works for the heroes works for everyone? True enough. The most convincing explanation I've run across for the uselessness of Reed Richards is that the gulf between being able to make something at any price and being able to make it at a reasonable price. Such as the difference between a Bugatti Veryon and a Toyota Camry. Also along that line, someone who can transmute matter, a la Dr. Manhattan, will be set for life/a valuable national asset. Gold is worth over $30,000 per kilo, and is far from the most valuable element/mineral out there.

Many superhero settings include the premise that things are just like real life, except those things specific to the plot. But, this is a world with different laws of physics. Or at least altered biology. Just how would that affect the world? No, seriously. That's the point of this thread. Brainstorming! What would the world be like if superheroes could exist, and the world really did work like it does in comics and movies, and it did so for everyone? For the sake of argument, let's make this a single origin setting, though with relatively unlimited powers. It all goes back to the Empyreans (or Eternals, or whatever), functionally immortal beings with superpowers due to experiments by ancient astronauts. They have small numbers, and have decided to hide the truth from the rest of humanity. But they walk among us, leading false lives, siring many bastard children, all seemingly human. However, by the 20th century, there had been enough interbreeding that clear signs of the Empyrean heritage started to appear. The humans called them superheros and supervillains. It started with people suffering otherwise fatal accidents, but surviving and gaining strange powers. Then, teenagers started to develop powers in puberty. However, powers weren't the only thing. Many more people showed smaller talents, abilities seemingly in line with normal human abilities, or subtle enough to escape notice. (i.e., how are we to say that Michael Jordan or Pamela Anderson aren't actually mutants? Or centenarians who smoke and drink and cook with lard?) And, perhaps, powered humans had shown up earlier in history, but rarely, and their true nature distorted with the passage of time? Also, for the sake of argument, two more guidelines: First, by and large, broad strokes of history remain the same as our world. If just to keep this from becoming an alternate history thread. Second, assume that the world contains all shades of morality from pure white to darkest black, but with the bell curve centered a little white from the middle. (Which is how I would classify the real world. Not the "real world" from the Iron Age, but the world we live in. Let's not argue this one too much, 'kay?) In any case, here are some starter ideas. 1) Humanity is generally more attractive, in the sense that the world looks more like it does in movies and tv. Not a big deal, since everyone is used to the new standard, though someone from our world might notice it at some point. 2) Full grown men and women can perform Olympic-class gymnastics, as the reference point used for many trained normals goes. Among other things, this means that Women's gymnastics would have actual women, and not just teen girls, in it. Again, not a big change overall, but it's the little changes that add to the verisimilitude. 3) In keeping with the last point, another visual change you might see is in American football. With the extra agility possible, jumping/flipping over defensive linesmen might be a valid tactic. Depends just how strong the Rule of Cool is. What other things would we see? Strictly speaking, this is a reconstructionist concept.

Re: Galactic Champions: Federated Super Teams Sorry for the delay, but I kept hoping for the inspiration to completely write-up the character to strike, and it never has. Here's what I have so far. Champion The first known appearance of Champion came shortly after the start of the Vhan invasion. Catching a falling fighter plane right before it crashed into the crowd of evacuating people, and saving thousands of lives, he earned many style points before joining the battle and helping to turn the tide. Since then he has been a model of superheroism, doing what he can to aid others. Champion is a tall, well-muscled man, with blue-black hair and blue eyes. He wears a white bodysuit, with azure-blue gauntlets and boots, and a non-ironic instance of briefs-over-tights, in the same color. He also wears a knee-length cape. Champion is a classic flying brick - he's superstrong, supertough, and can fly at high speeds. While he still needs to eat, sleep, and breath, he needs less of them than normal, and can hold his breathe for long periods. While he has little need of them, he has shown proficiency with every weapon and vehicle that he has thus far used. He is also excellent at teamwork. Curiously, he also seems to know the name and theme/power set/archetype of every superhero or villain he's run into, before they've introduced themselves.

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) I do so enjoy when everyone gets their physics wrong. In particular, nothing in general or special relativity prohibits particles from traveling faster than the speed of light, or even things from traveling at the speed of light. What it does prohibit is particles with a non-zero mass from traveling at the speed of light, due to needing an infinite amount of energy to go that fast. Photons, aka light, have zero mass, which is why they can travel at the speed of light. Now, while it is impossible to accelerate a particle from sub-light to faster-than-light speeds, due to being unable to reach the speed of light, relativity does have a loophole concerning a particle that would always move faster than the speed of light. Such a particle is perfectly fine, just so long as the particle can have an imaginary rest mass (which, since the particle is always moving, and never at rest, will always invoke a mass-squared term and become a real number when the math is done). And that's rather iffy. There's no evidence that it is allowed, but at the same time, there is also no evidence that it is prohibited. Oddly, this isn't the first time that neutrinos have teased us about being tachyons. 20 years ago, other experiments made the suggestion, though further research suggested mostly ruled it out. I'll let an actual physicist explain better: http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw54.html But neutrinos are just plain weird, in general.

Re: Galactic Champions: Federated Super Teams Okay. I was just bringing it up since I'm one of the people who has lamented that the opportunity to challenge DEX inflation was wasted on the switch to 6ED. I just wanted to see if you were looking at any deviation from published material, and I've got my answer.

Re: Galactic Champions: Federated Super Teams I prefer 6ED, but I can work in either. But what I meant when asking about DEX is what did you plan to have as the typical range of DEX among the heroes? For instance, in the Galactic Champions book, the typical range appears to be DEX 20-30, with a few characters on either side. Or in the 6ED Champions book, most characters have DEX 18-25. Also, should we post ideas here, or should we message them to you?

Re: Galactic Champions: Federated Super Teams Quick question about the everyman skills - Shouldn't the native language be idiomatic, rather than just completely fluent? And another thought - what kind of DEX range are you thinking of? You know, since it now has no relation to CVs?

Re: Federated Super Teams (Galactic Champions) Sure, I can probably help out. My only question, though, is precisely what kind of characters are you looking for? Heroes, Villains, neutrals; powered or not; npc who might get involved in the action, or just plot hooks? I'm not quite sure what you want, other than characters. Also, should I assume that unless otherwise specified, that you are using the "Champions 3000" setting from the Galactic Champions book?

Re: More "Dwarf Planets"...... It basically comes down to an issue of how many planets you can accept having in a solar system. 8 of the objects in the solar system are unequivocally planets. After that, there are at least 10 more round objects orbiting the sun. Possibly 100 more. Maybe even more than that. And I'm not sure I want a solar system with 100 planets, especially when 90 of them are ice cubes 10 billion miles from the sun. Those are obviously something more than your average asteroid/comet, but they just don't strike me as full planets. The problem is how you draw the line. While a hard and fast definition is hard to find, i think the pictures here put things in better relief. When you look at how small Pluto really is, I think the dwarf planet moniker really starts to fit. But beyond that, as time goes on, I find that I like the "clearing the neighborhood" criteria used to distinguish full planets from dwarfs. As a measure of how much a body dominates its orbital zone, it makes it clear just how much the 8 planets dominate the solar system. And while Neptune has not cleared Pluto from it's area literally, Neptune is some 10,000 times more massive than Pluto. Also, Pluto's orbit is locked to Neptune's, in a 2:3 resonance. You don't see that between any of the other planets. And Pluto is just one of many bodies locked to Neptune. Anyway, dwarf planets come up for good, real reasons. It's just that the rational answer to keep things neatly organized is not the answer people like. Nor is it going to be science's final answer on the subject.

Re: Mars Colony? Well, that partially ignores the fact that there was already 30 years of development on liquid fuel rockets, plus development on everything else... If you want a better number, try: May 25, 1961 - JFK gives his famous speech on going to the moon January 27, 1967 - Fire happens in first manned capsule, killing 3 and forcing major redesign of crew capsule July 20, 1969 - "One small step..." So basically 8 years from deciding that the US will do it to a successful landing. And I would argue that they were further away from their goal in 1961 than we are from a Mars lander, at least on the technological and operational end of things. Now, I'm not saying we will be there by 2021. I am merely saying that we could if we real wanted to. Compared to Apollo, most of the hardware for the mission is available off the shelf. And even a big fancy mission to Mars will likely cost less than Apollo as a share of GDP. Things might go wrong, and technology isn't perfect. But almost everything I can see that we would need appears to be within reach of a decade or less of R&D. Can we all at least agree that the biggest barrier to this is the will, not the way?

Re: Alternate Settings: Rules to villany If you haven't already watched Venture Bros., do so. It pretty much runs on this concept, with the Guild of Calamitous Intent being the organization organizing things for the villains. Governments put up with it partly because of bribes, but also because it keeps the villains playing by the rules. Death-traps, non-gun weapons, no indiscriminate killing, and so on. The show also hits upon being a henchman is a way of life, and so on. And if it wasn't obvious, your setting needs to be a cynical one (as opposed to idyllic) to support that kind of grey morality. Still, could be fun.

Re: Mars Colony? Well, back to the original question, the biggest problem is finding a loose several billion dollars to do it with. But let's gloss over that and look at technical details. The single biggest problem is radiation shielding - interplanetary space can be filled with a lot of ionizing radiation (the bad kind). The only way to stop it for sure is a few meters of rock, but that would require a prohibitively heavy spacecraft. However, since we've got sun-watching satellites today, we get a little help here. We just have to make a small part of the spacecraft protected from the worst levels of radiation, and design the rest for lower levels. Now, stepping into slightly speculative territory, it may be possible to use magnetic fields for radiation shielding. That would cut the weight a bunch, but it's not proven science, and I don't know how much engineering you want to add into this. At the risk of adding complexity, we probably want a fair sized crew (6?) for redundancy and safety, which keeps adding mass to the mission, so we're kinda stuck with multiple heavy-lift launches to build the ship in orbit. Though, at that point, we might as well design it to withstand multiple trips between worlds to get better payback on the investment. In any case, fuel and water tanks, and cargo is arranged around the living area to as to make our radiation shielding multitask. And at the center of our ship is the crypt, a room just big enough for the crew and with just enough radiation shielding to protect against a large solar flare (there is still the risk of an extra-large solar flare, but there is no way to make this ship perfectly safe). The next problem is the engine. We could make it work with chemical rocket engines, though that's a last resort if we can't get something better. The most desirable choice would be nuclear power, of the conventional fission variety. I don't have numbers handy, but my gut feeling is that a straight up nuclear thermal rocket would work the best. You lose some performance, but the simplicity and power density should make up for it. IIRC, some of the Mars Direct lit mention that a nuclear thermal rocket is powerful enough to be used in an SSTO on Mars. To me, this suggests that we bring along a separate landing craft with another nuclear rocket, which gives the mission a spare engine that could get them home Now, a middle option, which probably requires a bit more engineering, would be to use a VASIMIR or similar engine for the mission. It has the highest performance of any realistic engine, at the expense of more complexity and lower acceleration. It would also be pickier about the fuel it uses, and probably require all the fuel for the mission to be brought from Earth. The nuclear thermal rocket is nice that way, in that it is not picky about it's fuel at all (well, as long as it's well designed). With all respect due to Dr. Zubrin, I'm not sure that the direct ascent modules he's proposing could have adequate shielding or house enough people for that length of time. I welcome actual numbers to answer that question, but until then, I'm going to have to throw in for actual spaceships. Anyway, to sum up my ramblings, your basic problems are: radiation shielding ~2 years of supplies and/or hydroponic equipment reliability and redundancy carrying enough fuel to get there & back (well, there is some cheating allowed on this one) also, other issues that might come up: X people living that closely for that long without killing each other contaminating the Martian biosphere with Earth bacteria and so on a better EVA suit for our astronauts (though MIT is working on that one. As it turns out, skintight spacesuits do have practical value in addition to the fan service ) is it worth landing people on Mars, or do they stay in orbit and use drones? are you able to use aerobraking on this mission to save fuel, or is it all rocket based? I'm sure there's more, but I'm getting tired. And I probably need to elaborate on some of what I said, but I'll wait until I'm told what that is.

Re: A galaxy of humans I still maintain that people in this thread are drawing results that assume many facts not in evidence. How fast are the ships? How expensive is interstellar flight? How much contact is their with other systems? How organized is the expansion program? Are large organizations doing it to return a profit? Is it a mass of individual people looking for a better life elsewhere? Are religious groups leaving to practice their religion without interference? Is Europe exiling the Serbs to another planet to finally just be rid of them? What is the availability of spare parts or specialized materials? A tractor is more useful than a team of horses, as long as fuel, oil, and spare parts are reasonably priced. Otherwise, horses eat grass. Also, what are people colonizing? Are there a lot of planets with breathable atmospheres out there? Are there planets that are easily terraformed? And if so, how long does it take? Are nice planets rare, and most people are living in space stations near mineral deposits and sources of energy (asteroid belts near stars)? How good are our robots and AIs? Can we send them out ahead of the colonists to start developing the system? Or do we need humans to oversee them and make all the important decisions? Everyone so far has given answers that are correct if you make certain assumptions. Unless people are more specific with their assumptions, I don't know what meaningful answers can be derived. Yes, I'm that kind of cranky guy. Deal with it.

Re: A galaxy of humans On the issue of how fast we can colonize the galaxy, at least one limiting factor is how fast are spaceships. Unless you have FTL, it will have to take at least 100,000 years to colonize the galaxy, give or take a few years depending on the true radius of the galaxy. Possibly much longer, depending on how fast ships can go.

Re: A galaxy of humans I'm not thinking of any other settings than those already mentioned that fit your criteria. If you want to explore the concept a little more, you have to decide how far transhumanism extends. How far can you mod things and still be human? Or is humanity based on having a mind? And if your humans start to speciate, are they all human, or something different? And many other philosophical issues. Another issue to consider is that modern research is making it look as though sentience is not a binary condition, but rather a spectrum of self-awareness and tool-making behaviors. How much of that range is covered by alien life? And in defining sentience, are we including tool-making proclivities and the ability to develop interstellar travel? And possibly other things my sleep-desiring brain is overlooking? As always, I'm here to help out and ask questions that get at what you really mean.

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation? Hmm... can't unthink this idea now. I rather like it; it fits the facts we have and explains thing in the least complex way possible. And I could believe that the seeming technological plateau of the universe is the point where single planets run out of R&D potential. Well, to use a Civilization the game reference, where the research times get ridiculous for the resources of a single planet.

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation? For one, I don't think they ever showed us space-Milan. But it could just be that we manage to catch the universe at the exact moments in which fashion has cycled around to the same things again. And just be glad we didn't have to look at their space-Disco phase.

Re: Setting, really: Corporate Champions?

Re: Setting, really: Corporate Champions? I'm going to waffle on it and say that Secret IDs vary from company to company. Just like it varies whether the hired super keeps his own super-persona or adopts one the company provides. As to payment, it probably depends on how much info the hero wants to reveal to the company. Some need cash, others have direct deposit, other just happen to have a no limit Am Ex card. I imagine most companies prefer enough info to just give them a paycheck, but others might put up with silly games. I guess it depends on just where you fall on the plausibility of secret IDs question. Personally, I'm okay with the notion that people would be able to keep a secret ID for an extended period, as long as they take reasonable precautions.

Re: Setting, really: Corporate Champions? I appreciate the thoughts so far. One thing I would like to ask, though, is that people focus on this concept and not try and make it something else. Superheroes do superhero stuff, but they also have to deal with being walking advertisements. Please assume that is how things are, and that things have somehow happened to make that work. There are many reasons why things shouldn't work that way, but the same can be said of all superhero stories. While shadowrun-style espionage or OCP or Hollywood stunt people will happen in the background, that's not what I want to focus on, anymore than people playing Shadowrun are going to play a team of superheroes in Seattle, even though they totally could. Like I said, most people with superhuman abilities aren't superheroes or villains; not that many people with abilities are nearly powerful enough to be one, either. But for the ones that are, some do it because that's what you're supposed to do with superpowers. And while most superheroes working for the corporations are doing it for the money, fewer do it just for the money. They have a gift, and this is a way to earn a good living off of it. Also, look at how many people these days want to be famous. This is one way. And as to the corporations themselves, whether or not it's the best/realistic/sensible reason to do it, they employ supers as advertising vehicles. Even if it costs them a few million a year, it pays for itself (ideally) in things like free tv time ("Also tonight, Team Pepsi stopped a daring daylight robbery..."). And while supers with non-damaging powers should theoretically not have to pay anything/very little, I'm going to say that they only get a small break. The insurance is more being superheroes and being a brightly colored target for lawsuits than real culpability. I don't want to go superheavy into what the exact details are; I'm not a lawyer, and as a gamer, energy blasts are far more interesting than what the correct deductible or liability limits are. Also, the way I'm seeing things, using powers does not automatically get someone in trouble. Courts have generally held that good Samaritan laws cover the use of powers, though only to the extent that those laws cover actions (i.e., in the lack of 'imminent peril', actions that cause injury can be considered reckless and not protected by those laws).

Re: Setting, really: Corporate Champions? Now, I doubt that police departments have disappered; you need someone to handle parking violations and disturbances of the peace. For all the showy, dangerous crimes that a superhero would be needed, there are many more minor incidents and actions that need to be dealt with. But I will give you that SWAT teams are likely less common, since they can just call in superheroes to handle those cases. As to the military, I think you would see supers mostly confined to special operations outfits. Supers are useful, but there are two things to remember: one is that there is no draft, not even for mutants. Two is that no matter how cool they are, officers still like to have as many men or planes or tanks under them as they can get, and that is easier with conventional forces.