Saturday, May 16, 2015

Fold Space?

Been thinking about interstellar travel. I never liked the fixed duration of Traveller's "7 days per jump, regardless of distance" rule (and I think it falls apart if you look at the canonical ship designs). But I am fond of the speed of communication being the same as the speed of travel.

Folding space appeals to me. There is an Origin point and a Destination point. We can consider those in the same plane. Imagine that piece of paper folded so the two points touch. Jump the small distance on one point to the other - boom - interstellar travel. So goes the standard metaphor.

But folding space should be hard. Instead of making the points 'touch', let's just shorten the distance by curving space  - put a slight curve in the plane.

To travel along this shorter curve, and not the full, long, scenic, realspace path, you exit realspace and enter a new type of space - "fold space. In the lower right of the image below, this is the region around D.


The amount of time the trip takes depends on how far away the target is - and probably on how good your fold drives are? More advanced fold drives would presumably let you get farther from realspace, shortening the trip further. This would allow one ship to catch another in fold space, and probably precipitate both into realspace.

Fold space is kind of like skimming through real space, you're not in realspace, but you're right next to it. Some things would precipitate you out of fold space: large masses (stars), black holes, quasars, fold drive failure, etc. The better your fold drives, the greater a mass you can ignore.

I think I'd like ships in fold space to be detectable at the destination, or along the way, by ships or sensors in fold space. For example: a sentry ship (or really a station or automated fold space buoy or something), who totally aren't pirates at all, enters fold space and monitors for inbound ships. Incoming ships detected, take notes, back to real space and broadcast a warning

Change destination while in fold space? Or fold, drop, realign, fold, repeat?

Is this just the Star Wars system?

Is this metaphor helped by the idea of a Holographic Universe? Sure. Why not?

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Science Fiction Requires Science

Another survey to see if there's any consensus of opinion on technology stuff. Teleporters, Replicators, AI, Clones, Robots, Etc.



Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Setting Inspirations

Merely for seeing if there are any unconscious leanings to or away from various flavors, scents, and rhythms. I'm keeping my feelings out of these. I have intentionally omissions some popular sci-fi themed media examples because I am kind of annoyed by them and others because I am forgetful. Don't analyze my sorting biases - just react on your own.

Take a look at the following images, watch the videos, listen to the music. I'm pretty certain none of you have seen or heard all of them.

Because I am too cheap to pay too much for surveys that would let me embed or even have proper links to things, this round use the number and title to respond to the survey link.

(Note: there is no order to these except how my poor memory dredges things up with help from webtron. Webtron is your friend. Listen to Webtron.)

Lord Weird Slough Feg




Blue Oyster Cult: Veteran of the Psychic Wars

Wally Wood


Spacegirl




Buck Rogers:




(for the intro music)

Why not Gil Gerard 1980s version of Buck Rogers?
THAT BUCK ROGERS SCARRED MY MOTHER!
LITERALLY!
ON HER LEG.
THERE IS A SCAR!

Symphonies of the Planets




NASA <BEEP> Talk <BOOP> Over



20 Minutes of Oxygen

Star Blazers

2001 Daft Punk


2001 Straight

Actually, 2001 was pretty damn trippy

Alien


Aliens: with marines


Forbidden Planet


Outland


Last Starfighter



Hunter Prey



Legend of the Galactic Heroes




Awkward fan dub

Slingers


In case the video doesn't work: vimeo link.


Friday, May 1, 2015

"Borrowing" from Shadowrun

I've recently learned of the Priority system that Shadowrun uses in its lastest incarnation or two. Character generation ("chargen") is divided into several categories and the player assigns each category a priority. You can see it here. The categories there are: Race (and Special Points), Attributes (Strength, Dexterity, etc.), Magic/Resonance, Skill Points, and Resources. You pick one for your highest priority, another category for second, etc.

The way it is set up, if you want to be a full-on Wizard, you must assign Magic as your top priority. You want to be a Shadowrun Troll with all the trolly advantages, you must choose Race as your top priority. (So you can't have a Full Troll who is also Full Wizard, which shapes the world a bit, but this is also just the starting place in an hopefully balanced way between players).

This appeals to me. With some fiddling, it should work well with other settings.
Feudal (or Active Military) rank could replace Resources, or supplement it. More generically Organizational Power. Psionics or Powers can replace Magic, etc.

Just throwing up a quick hypothetical:


Priority Attributes Skill Points Rank Organization/Affilation Resources Powers
A 58 34 Head Interstellar Mega Org. (Fleets) Gigabucks Kwisatz Haderach!
B 53 28 Senior Level Interstellar Medium Org. (Battalion) Megabucks Veteran of a 1000 Psychic Wars
C 48 22 Junior Level Interstellar Small/System Large Org. (Squad) Kilobucks You have one trick
D 43 16 Veteran NCO System Medium Org. (Sidekick) A few bucks You can sort of sense something, maybe
E 38 12 None None / System Small Org. No bucks You got bupkis
F 32 6 Stripped Outcast from something Major debts You got worse than bupkis.

Keep in mind, this would be a starting point for players - things change. The goal is interesting choices and all players start with the same options.

The parentheticals in Organization/Affiliation is an idea that a character might control other characters to some degree. Han Solo has Chewie (or vice versa), but Admiral Thawn commands Fleets. Commander Apollo commands a Squad (which is effectively a "gang" in combat).

Also worth noting, I use the term "command" specifically. It isn't pure "control". A command gets interpreted and sentient entities have the ability to override or ignore them. Or fail a morale or discipline check. Or be influenced by others.

Setting Survey

A brief survey for getting your feedback on the feel of a sci-fi setting.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RJXMC5V

  • How to choose or define the setting
  • Interstellar travel style
  • Interplanetary combat style
  • Technology diffusion