Doc

Hi, I just felt over this while reading the alternative biochemistry wikipedia page to have ideas about "realist" alien life forms... I was shocked . They found some fungi in the remains of the Chernobyl reactor core that can synthetise Beta and Gamma rays into chemical energy, just like plants do with light... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_biochemistry#Alternative_energy_sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin#Melanin_in_other_organisms So, beside being shocked , I thought it could be usefull to some people for some inspiration about space or post-nuclear environments...

Re: GMing STAR HERO at UK Student Nationals Tournament - yay! Such a pitty I'm a mere Canadian, unable to get there...!

Re: Star System Generation (Now at the RIGHT place :/) Definitely worth rep. I'll keep an eye on this.

Re: Need ideas for Steampunk Over-The-Top Game My favorite would be based on Anno's Nadia, the Secret of Blue Water, with a Neo Atlantean empire trying the seize the world at the end of the 19th century. Another cool inspiration would be a sea monster hunt à la Jules Verne.

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea If human kind has colonized the entire galaxy, the cause of extinction would probably be a "inner" one. To my knowledge, no astronomical event could possibly destroye life at the same time over the whole galaxy without destroying it outright (or transforming it a way we could regonize it anymore). You'd better look for something of human scale. Was there a terrible epidemic? Maybe a species just has some natural lifespan it cannot overrun. Human beings could thus have been more and more sterile, a generation after another, to the point when no new generation was born. Or maybe human kind just evolved into some other species. This species could still exist with the other spaient beings, knowing, or without knowing, it is the remnent or the child of the human race.

Re: Airlocks are for losers Radiations are a considerable hazard too. If it doesn't kill you outright, you will suffer some metabolical damages the rest of your life, wich may then be much shorter. Most of radiation damages are done when water in the body gets ionized (as it represents about 75% of a human body's mass). Water then go to H+ and OH- wich are very nocive for any other molecule of the body. It has roughly the same effects oxydizers have. Tissues "corrode" and "get older". The presence of a protein that shields from the negative effects of H+ and OH- could cancel much of radiation poisoning effects, besides, it would probably allow human beings to naturally live longer, like 120 or 130 years, and in better health. To avoid cancers and mutations that occur when the DNA molecule is damaged by radiation, a cell could tap into the genetic material of another, sane, cell to fix its own DNA instead of fixing it more or less approximately. Advanced Human Metabolism, the name given to genetically modified human beings...

Re: Ravenloft conversion Thanks guys. It's all very interesting and usefull.

Re: Ravenloft conversion Thanks. Just one thing, I went on the site through the link, but I found nothing about Ravenloft. Well, I didn't really take the time to read it, but is it general conversion tips or is there something precise about Ravenloft? Anyway, thanks guys.

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea

Ji everybody, I was wondering if any solid conversion for the D&D Ravenloft world was available somewhere. Does anybody know about this? (TH, maybe? ) You see, Ravenloft is the only thing I'll miss about D&D (I decided never to play D&D again, now that I learned the existence of Hero...) but I don't want to lose my campaing... Well, maybe the Darksun setting would be fun to converse, too. But anyway... Thank you very much.

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea Sounds cool, only, though, if robots actually felt some guilt. Maybe, and that's the way I prefer them, they don't... But anyway, even a robot society will probably have an incomplete collective historical memory. Even with a permanent hardware memory immune to data corruption, information will probably not be accessible or known to every individual. Some facts may be lost in the huge database Thus, I'd say that robot history would be as approximative than ours is now, wich alows for the genocide to have been "normally" forgotten. Anyway, that's the way I'd define this.

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea I don't agree with you on this, Nyraht (once again? ). First, two species aren't lost on a desert island, but in the vastness of (potentially) infinite space. Thus, as you wrote, there is no competition at all for anything (land, ressources, etc.). One can always go a little farter to find anything. Even by considering the additional cost of travelling farter and the "real" laws of physics, the ressources needed will probably be cheaper than the ones accaparated by war. Second, it is impossible to get a 0% chance to extermination. Anything can happen and blow you in dust. another species is just one of those potential risks. Moreover, as Clonus mentionned, war itself is a great risk. One cannot be sure to exterminate every single being from another species in one shot. It is also probably as hard to even be assured that all the industrial, military and strike capabilities of the targeted species are all destroyed in one shot. What if the war goes on and on...? There is also something I don't understand. In the other thread about tac nukes vs strategic warheads, we argued a lot about the possibility to attack without warning in space and you upholded the point that it is impossible to move a fleet so that it cannot be detected. Why is this that a fleet moving at .90c is detectable, while a r-bomb is not?

Re: Population Of Island Three Colonies

Re: Hypothetically and unofficially, what would you like to see in a Mecha Hero book? This is SO very true.

Re: Idea for a robot campaign

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea About what you still have to understand in BSG: I really, really like this idea. In fact, it was beginning to form in my mind before I read your post. Repped. I'd add that humans are also "genetically dating back"... I mean, new races could have some new abilities or intellectual capacities that humans didn't get from their natural evolution. It could be a shock for those new races to discover that the species they consider like gods are in some way half animals to them...

Re: Population Of Island Three Colonies Exactly. Even by letting aside a little of this gritty realism by supposing futurist solar panels could feed the station in energy, matter doesn't appears from nowhere. Even by pushing this farter again by supposing the colony is fully equiped with manufacturing chains and fully autonomous, it would still have to get minerals from somewhere before to process them. But anyway, I'm not trying to crush your fun. This is just my second psychological limitation: can't resist debating over technical realism issues in fiction...

Re: Hypothetically and unofficially, what would you like to see in a Mecha Hero book?

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea My favorite forerunners are the Mazones from Space Pirate Captain Harlock (1978) in wich they come back to Earth to retake their "gifts" and "wisdom" form human kind who didn't understand nor respect them. Maybe humanity could come back in your game to take revenge on some other race it has created, replace itself to power, etc. This idea and TH' post made me think about Battlestar Galactica in wich humans created cylon robots who revolted against them. Humanity was almost completely wiped out. In that case, humanity could be considered the forerunner of cylons. Hope that helps.

Re: Population Of Island Three Colonies

Re: Idea for a robot campaign

Re: Idea for a robot campaign Sure, that's what it's all about... Of course, human character would be allowed too.

Re: Renaissance Fantasy

Re: Renaissance Fantasy Can I join the board too? Here's my CV. I was GM of three different Ravenloft campaigns over about 7 years. To be honest, though, I only played with the second edition boxed set, never updating my knowledge of the world even after passing to ed. 3.5... But I read a lot about it official and unofficial publications and, as I didn't lie on my CV, can I still join, pleeaaaase??? More seriously, Ravenloft is the only thing I'll miss from D&D... All my games were set in a Victorian age. One of my scenarios even took place around the construction of the Trans-Darkonian railway... I played a lot with the Kargat too, making it a British style secret police, you know, with police officiers wearing suits and bowler hats... I also gave it a clear "Lovecraftian" feel. Well, sorry for my rambling, good old memories, you know... Have fun!

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads