From: Robert P. Stefko [rpsst16@pop.pitt.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 2:41 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Fill 'er up with Premium! >I was thinking mass drivers. Comet catching sounds like an awful lot of work, tho, when you could just mine the hell out of a couple of moons.< Comet's have miniscule gravity wells, and they can be launched from one end of the solar system to another (or wherever they are needed) using ordinary rockets. The same is not true for a moon, even a small one. >But Jupiter is a lot less healthy to be near. You could probably put a station on one of Jupiters moons that's farther away from the planet, to maintain a robotic station mining 3He lower down in the gravity well (and EM fields).< Jupiter's radiation belts extend from just above the atmosphere out to three million kilometers, well beyond the orbits of most of its moons (and all of the big ones). So if living beings go anywhere near Jupiter, they're going to need extra shielding on their spacecraft. >Only useful if you're passing the sun. And building near the sun opens a whole new can of worms.< I already partially nixed this idea based on some commentary from Leif. It could still work for intrasystem spacecraft that have time to stop and refuel. >But there's also the "Finders-keepers" rule. If Dundalk could get there first, and then contract the actual mining out to, say, Atlas, the two could just thumb their noses at everyone else. The other's don't have to agree, they just have to be unable to contest the status quo in any way.< Sounds like a surefire way to start a war. >Great for fuel, but as far as routinely having a planetesimal in the right place at the right velocity at the right time, I still don't think there's enough to maintain a fuelling service. Still, handwaving takes care of a lot.< Comets can be moved where they're needed. All a captain needs is a radio and cash to set up a rondezvous, provided he doesn't wait til the last minute. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 1998 11:26 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - william hindmarch wrote: > > The result is very often not science fiction, but fiction about scientists > who happen to live in a year which has not yet passed. They are not > automatically agreeably the same. Thank you -- I've attempted to say this at least twice now, but never managed so intelligably. > The strict avoidance of technological imagination or speculation will > result in the death of a science fiction setting. For example: the > spacecraft propulsion thread is not simply trying to maintain internal > consistency (which is certainly necessary for a story, and must be clearly > communicated in an imaginary setting) but is attempting to force an > imaginary setting to obey strict, dry, real-world guidelines which hinder > the development of science fiction stories. I have watched five or six I don't get it. I don't think we're railroading all the innocent little space ships. On the contrary, I feel like I could actually use space as a setting in my game now, rather than before where I just didn't have a good enough grip on the problems involved. > ideas for science fiction ideas be eliminated in that thread because of > current scientific fact. Well, internal consistency can easily kill a story What's died? This is the second mention I've heard of things being killed, but I honestly feel that all that's happened is ideas have been opened up. I don't recall at all any being closed off. > - particularly science fiction - if the boundaries of the setting cannot be > stretched. Do we need to define the consistency for space travel in Blue > Planet? Sure. Should we do it as a collective, here on the listserve? Okay. It was my understanding that we (the participants of the threads, anyway) were already doing so. Got some input? Hop on in! If you're going to suggest something that isn't particularly in-line with the physics we're discussing, you might want to preface it with some mention that you're throwing it in for flavor or streamlining, rather than a mainline suggestion subject to Leif's awful numbers. (I'd have numbers too, but I'm too lazy) > Does it have to maintain strict adherence to modern, hyperaccurate physics? > Not at all. This is science fiction. Let's utilize the freedoms it allows I agree provisionally -- it has to adhere to something. I don't care if you're assuming that the luminiferous ether can be used as a medium for transfering energy -- just so long as there's some rule that's followed. -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Leif Magnar Kjønnøy [leifmk@pvv.ntnu.no] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 2:44 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Fill 'er up with Premium! On Tue, 1 Dec 1998, Robert P. Stefko wrote: > I got you. Instead of lining up stations along a path to the Wormhole, you > just set one up on either side, effectively halving the reaction mass > requirements for the Earth-Poseidon run. Much more practical. Not precisely halving, actually (on one hand, the Gamma Serpentis side of the run is much shorter since that wormhole end is much closer to the star and therefore requires less fuel; on the other hand, fuel requirements are strongly nonlinear). But the savings might very well be on about the same order as halving (say, if a thousand-ton ship needs 1.7 times its mass in fuel to get from Earth to WH-1, and 0.5 times to get from WH-2 to Poseidon, then that's a total of 2.2 times if you refuel at WH-2, but if you have to carry all of that fuel all the way from Earth then the fuel requirement for the first leg becomes 1.7 * (1 + 0.5) = 2.6 times the ship's mass, for a grand total of about 3.1 times -- you're actually only saving about 30% in this case, but that's still rather a lot. > But my model > could still be used for intrasystem traffic. Placing refueling stations at all major inhabited locations (by which I mean wherever ships have a reason to go) would be a good idea, yes. Placing refueling stations in the middle of nowhere wouldn't be, since in order to use them one would have to spend a load of fuel and some amount of time going somewhere you've got no other reason to go, and I'm rather dubious about whether that would sell. See, "slow" interplanetary ships will have pretty low fuel requirements, if their drives are built with anything even resembling the same tech as the fast ones have. If a drive can get a 1000-ton fast boat up to 4% of lightspeed in a month and at the cost of some 650 tons of fuel, then the same drive can get a million-ton interplanetary freighter up to about 16 km/s (which is ample for inner-system travel; two to six months to get from Earth to Mars) in the same amount of time and for the same amount of fuel. > > Aerobraking would work for slower intrasystem craft, though. Wouldn't it? Indeed, and it's already *been* used for probes to other planets, not to mention that of course it's used all the time to get the space shuttle (and other manned spacecraft) down from orbit. I'm not sure if actual "aerocapture" has in fact been used (that is aerobraking specifically in order to lose enough velocity to go into orbit around your destination planet rather than just passing by it), but it has been used to modify orbits, etc. > Let me say now that I shifted the focus of the discussion from intersystem > travel to intrasystem travel without any kind of transition, which has > apparently caused some confusion. I understand that the E-P transports will > be moving much too fast to benefit from grav assists and aerobraking, and > that they blow away light and magsails in terms of performance. I also know > that intrasystem craft will not be travelling nearly as fast, since they > have less time to accelerate, making these alternatives more viable (with > the exception of gravity assists). Indeed, at least for the slower freighters -- those might have velocities on about the same order as the escape velocities of nearby planets, which is when grav assists make the most sense and aerobraking is most likely to be surviveable and useful. Now, solar sails and magsails probably still won't be of much use, except for ships (probably not manned) that require an indefinite mission duration with prolonged but miniscule maneuvrability and only moderate top speed, or for station-keeping in weird places (with solar sails, for example, it is possible to make a space station "hover" above one of Earth's polar regions for as long as the sails are intact and operational). There will probably be a sizeable market for relatively fast intrasystem craft; say, if a given expenditure in terms of engine cost and fuel can get you from Earth to Mars with *either* a million tons of cargo and four to six months' travelling time, *or* with a hundred thousand tons of cargo and only 2 or 3 weeks' travelling time, then I think a lot (perhaps even most) of the passenger traffic would go by the latter method even if the cost per ton is ten times as high, while bulk cargo (and impoverished travellers) would take the slower boat. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 3:06 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Hard sci-fi wil liam hindmarch wrote: > > >That consistancy and reasoning is exactly the same reason to use hard > > See the last paragraph of the post you quoted. Ya, I know, but you were raising objections in the paragraph I wanted to respond to. > >Actually, it's better; no scurvy, no rats, and the passangers aren't > >going to be causing trouble. > > Sounds dramatic. Uh-uh. This is reaching into logical fallacies. My comments here were in response to your saying that space travel was well-nigh on impossible. I was contending that it was not only quite possible, but in fact less dangerous than voyages attemped a couple of times a month in easily verifiable history. My comments on dramatism of space travel were later. > I took some offense at that. I tried not to because of your disclaimer at > the top of your message (which I should have put on this one), but I took > some anyway. Well, I can't stop you, I suppose. Everyone's got their things; I got set off by the "average gamer" comment. It's a pet peev (how do you spell that, anyway) with me. For whatever it's worth, that wasn't my intention, and I apologise. > > > That's not what I've been seeing on the list these days.The process I was > witnessing was a repeating cycle of: > > "This would be a neat story!" > "Yes, but impossible. Here's why:" Like I said: I'm kinda bewildered. That was done a couple of times, but usually with "unlikely" or "inefficient" or "too expensive" If you're attached to the story idea, you've got a couple of options. Either you read the reason it's difficult or unlikely, and suggest an alternative, or you just say, "Screw 'em all," and run it anyway. > I know that. Freedom isn't lost necessarily in BP, but it can be lost. See > the story about an asteroid blown out of the belt which was not allowed > because of rigid science. I'm not going to lose freedom in BP when I run it > because I'm not going to worry about all this stuff. Actually, I was saying that nukes would be dangerous in the belt, as it could dislodge something. Leif gave me a metaphorical smack to the head and reminded me of the sheer amount of SPACE the asteroids are scattered through. Problem solved -- the belters can use nukes. In point of fact, this makes the story more possible. Since the presence of players astronomically increases the odds of bad things happening, all that has to happen is players being on a belt colony, and any nukes fired *will* knock that extremely unlikely asteroid onto that extremely unlikely intercept path. It the GM is feeling particularly viscious, it'll be a captured hunk of rock that's orbiting retrograde, and it'll be blown into fist sized chunks that scatter. Now everyone on the belt station has maybe 6 hours to live. Of course, there are probably some ships in dock, but remember the lifeboats on the Titanic...? > Yes. It can. But pages and pages of scientific data seem to be suggesting > that we disallow the ability to suspend disbelief. See above disaster movie > plot. Actually, the discussion is largely a theoretical one about how exactly space travel in BP would work out -- it started as a discussion about travel times and energy requirements, and kind of progressed from there. Regardless of the topic, so far it's been very general, and pretty focused. A new thread that's come up involves intrasystem travel and certain specific systems to support it. I'm following that one too, though I don't see moving any game I run into Sol anytime soon. These are (as I see it, anyway) for the benefit of those involved, as we're the ones who really care. If you don't, kill the messages unread. Hopefully, BZG will find some of our little discussion meritorious, and incorporate it into any releases they make on space. I'm going to use them no matter what. That's about the only totally unequivocal statement I'm willing to make here. > I can't speak intelligently (at all some you seem to say) about gamers > across the whole as I don't have an accurate survey of gamers across the > globe. Between the 45+ here on campus, those at home, and those at GenCon I > think I've seen a decent variety, but certainly not necessarily an accurate > sampling. And you're saying...? My point was that a lot of gamers I've met were rather mediocre, and that I've got some real problems with them. It's a personal thing with personal things behind it. Hence the rant tags. Feel free to rant back, if you like. > I don't let it happen. Many gamers will. I don't see a significant > difference between rules lawyers and those who choose to pile on scientific > data until the story is no longer visible. One is arguing the rules of the > game, the other the setting (which is an element of the story, which is - > everyone now - half of an RPG). My point exactly. However, in a setting that offers so much detail, I didn't want to just bulldoze over it, so I used my resources. When something came up in play, I smoothed it over, and got on with the adventure. Everyone had fun, and I learned more biology than I'd ever intended to know. > I get defensive on this subject (duh!) because of the exclusionary, > best-for-everyone attitude which I occassionally perceive in scientific > discussions on the list. Am I just perceiving this attitude myself? Beats me. I tend to just assume that if I get shot down, as I've been several times, that I was wrong. I'm still not sure about Neptune, but I can't find any data that backs up what I remember, so I guess Robert's right. I don't let it get me down, and I don't get offended, I just hop in next time I see something I want to jump on. Like most of the other people I know, I assume pretty much everyone else is going to react the same way. And I don't think it's best for everyone. However, if you're that bothered by it, don't read the posts and don't participate. It, like all threads, will die eventually. > Probably. But it still bothers me. These hard SF elements don't cause any > trouble in my games because I manage them to the extent I want. For some Which is exactly the point. We're just trying to establish what the science of the matter is; if after that, you want to ignore it, or you want to set the norm somewhere else for your games, go crazy. It's just a place to start. > games I get very realistc, for others less so. I simply take offense at the > notion that hard science fiction is proper science fiction, which is a > stance not rarely taken on the list. This is what my Star Trek vs. B5 post I just don't get this at all. As far as working out the physics and logistics of the Earth-Poseidon (actually Earth-WH1-WH2-Poseidon) run, yeah, we're staying pretty hard. The physics provides a baseline, numbers, comparisons (which always seem to come to nukes. I guess we're pretty violent people or some such). If you want to take a tangent off it, go for it. I've already got a couple planned tangents. For one, chaff rockets are all any bulk transport is ever getting in my little universe, regardless of what's published. But while painting in broad strokes, we need a canvas. > was in reference to. It's the same condition. "I can't like hard science > fiction without disliking other forms." Am I generalizing? Sure. But I'm > trying to make a point. And yet it seems like I never do. You're making your point. I'm disagreeing, and attempting to make my own. It's refered to as discussion. Well, okay, I tend to end up taking a more dialectic (sp?) stance on this one. Call it debate. I see your point. But I've got one too, and don't see any good reason to keep it to myself. > Consider me scared away from this topic. If you wanna be. À bien tôt. ("A bien tot", if the characters were goofy) -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Leif Magnar Kjønnøy [leifmk@pvv.ntnu.no] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 3:29 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Spacecraft Propulsion in BP On Tue, 1 Dec 1998, Robert P. Stefko wrote: > >Um, bad assumption. Imagine this scenario instead: Some misanthrope has a > ship, and is willing to spend a few years preparing to die if he can take > the Earth with him in a blaze of glory. He takes the ship out to the Kuiper > Belt in a "normal" fashion (i.e. travelling rather more slowly than a > worhole express, taking perhaps a year or two just to get out to where he > can find a nice juicy KBO with lots of ice). Then he sits there for however > long it takes to refine as much fuel as he needs. *Then* he invokes Cthulhu > (or whatever) and lights the drive, starting the acceleration from a > relative near-stop perhaps a hundred AU out from Earth, and accelerating for > most of that distance. None of that going out at high speed and then > "somehow turning around without losing velocity" (which you can't do anyway; > the *only* way to turn around in deep space *is* to lose all the velocity > you don't want any more and then accelerate in the direction you do want to > go; gravity assists are right out since you'd need something like a long > series of black holes in just the right places, which aren't there, and even > if they were and you *could* use them to slingshot around you wouldn't > survive the maneuver).< > > I said "somehow" knowing that it's impossible. And while some maniac could > try a stunt like the one you describe, he'd be vaporized by space traffic > control (or whatever) the minute they figure out his trajectory. (If the > space cops are good, and they'd have to be to monitor all intrasystem and > intersystem traffic, they'd have the guy pegged and burned before he got a > few AU.) Pegged, yes; it'd take a bit longer to hit him, since you'd need to get a weapon somewhere close to him (unless the cops actually have lasers with interplanetary ranges). Still, you'd really only need to hit him some days before he hits Earth (or whatever). This does demonstrate the need for planetary defenses, does it not? > Hmm. I'd imagine some kind of remote detonation device (probably several as > a failsafe) would be installed in all intersystem spacecraft to prevent just > such a scenario. Ugh, that sounds unpleasant; getting people to ride on what they know to be a bomb to which someone else (whose butt isn't on the same line as theirs) has the trigger could prove troublesome. Besides, it has a couple of weaknesses: 1) That which is installed can be uninstalled or disabled; that which relies on an incoming signal can be jammed *or* triggered by mistake. 2) You could still threaten Earth (or whatever) by carrying a great deal of deadweight cargo (rocks, beer, old Beatles albums, whatever) and dumping that out of the hold at a moment when your vector just happens to be on a collision course with Earth. After that, it doesn't matter what happens to your ship; the cargo is now a deadly threat in its own right and must be intercepted by other means, so the destruct device hasn't helped. > >Which is already the case for the fastest civilian transports (most of > their initial mass *is* fuel, they spend something like 1/3 of the > Earth-WH1 trip burning that fuel and the rest in coasting, and piling > on more fuel is pretty pointless due to exponential growth in fuel > requirements).< > > True. But you've already established that interceptors are impossible to > employ against rogue intersystem spacecraft. They can be used against > intrasystem craft, though. Yep. So piracy, counter-piracy etc. are all *possible* among the slower- moving ships; whatever piracy may occur probably does so in Belter country where there are many small autonomous political units and GEO has little presence, and where most travel is pretty slow (and there is a lot of travel going on as well, so it's easier to sneak up on others). If pirates are going to have any hope of surviving (both literally and economically), though, I think they're pretty much going to need a policy of not killing other ships' crews (since any useful ship's drive is a lethal weapon, no prey is defenseless; if you think you're going to be robbed and left to live you're much more likely to surrender than if you think you're going to be murdered). > >Um, holed hulls and decompression isn't really going to be much of a > concern with high-speed (as in thousands of km/s) kinetic impactors. > Assuming that you're able to dump a significant fraction of the impactor's > kinetic energy into the target, what you'll get is more akin to a small nuke > blasting the whole thing to vapor and shrapnel. Even one kilogram coming in > at ten thousand km/s has the same energy as a 12-kiloton nuke, and that > energy has to go somewhere; even if 90% is lost to punch-through, you've > still got a kiloton or so going off *right on top of you*. That will not > simply leave a neat little entry hole and a neat little exit hole (unless it > only hits something like a wispy solar sail or something, rather than the > actual ship).< > > As I said in an earlier post, I switched the focus to intrasystem travel > (and here combat) without noting the transition, so I see why you > misinterpreted my remarks. You're not going to have space battles in orbit > around planets taking place at these velocities. In interplanetary space, > things will be moving faster, but still not at tens of thousands of > kilometers per second (maybe tens of km/sec, which will still make for a big > bang). Tens of km/s for slow interplanetary transports, hundreds (or possibly even thousands) for the faster ones. And purpose-built shipkilling missiles can easily go from rest to about a thousand km/s in a couple of days; that's enough to approach small-tacnuke-hood. Orbital battles, if they occur, would be among the more surviveable ones I think (combatants are presumably moving rather slowly with respect to each other, which means you need self-powered weapons -- bombs, slug throwers, beams, whatever; many of which could be likely to inflict disabling but non-fatal damage to ships). Rescuing trapped survivors within hours or even minutes could be feasible. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 3:39 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - wil liam hindmarch wrote: > > >Same with sailing on the Spanish Main. Most of the time it was boring as > >hell, but when a pirate corsair appeared on the horizon, things got > >interesting real fast. > > But not in hyper-accurate space travel. The battle will be over in seconds > as characters are vaporized by nuclear devices. Dramatic for fiction, > aggravating for gamers who spent 40-90 minutes creating characters. Not at all. On the contrary, the battles are going to last for days. It's not entirely unlikely that noone gets killed. Defensive technologies could to some real good in space. Now, you'd be in danger again from your own chaff when you started to brake in for docking, but that's just another one of life's little challenges. And most of the projectiles we're talking about bear more resemblence to shotgun pellets than nukes. > >Ehem?! Have you never seen Alien and Alien Resurrection? Or Lifepod? Or read > >anything by Larry Niven? > > Alien has nothing to do with the spacecraft. It is a setting and is not a A spaceship can be a setting; in this role it's the same a pressurized undersea habitat. It can be a lot of things. > reflection of hard science fiction. Alien Resurrection even more so (it's a > very poor story, Joss Whedon does not understand how the Alien films were > designed to function, and it wouldn't even be a very good game scenario. YES!!! ANOTHER TRUE BELIEVER!!! *ahem* What I meant to say is, I too did not much care for Alien: Resurrection, and think the director in particular was a witless moron. Although the reborn Ripley was nice. Someone had the cajones to change her character. I strongly suspect that it was Sigorney Weaver, tho, as I'm biased by my aforementioned opinion of the director. But I digress. > Not that I have a gripe with it or anything. ) Lifepod, granted. Larry > Niven, granted. They still have only somewhat useful applications to most > roleplaying games, wherein everyone must be author, audience, and scholar. Okay, Lifepod. Book or movie? Anyway, some of the stories could be stolen, tho. Alien could be adapted to have the players as the crew on a Biogene, or perhaps GenDiver. Neither of those companies strikes me as being much concerned over the fate of the crew in an unplanned field test. What would happen if Junior had to come out of IMSS without the benefit of medics? > My goal is not to shut my players up. I'm not trying to illustrate how > much research I did or how likely my story is to take place when space > travel becomes a reality. But when they get distracted by the theoretical discussion of the science behind a minor plot point, you have to steer them back to the game. That's what we mean by shut them up. > story and half game. A need to sit down and make sure everyone understands > the complex workings of a fusion drive doesn't seem to support either the > story or the game. Most players would rather play than read. Likewise, the Right. The players don't have to know. If I'm GMing, I want to know, but the primary point is to keep it in mind when designing the ships. Then you just lob a sidebar in so anyone playing an engineer can have some technobabble to spew. What's an engineer without technobabble? > more detail there is in the science, and the more rigid it is, the fewer > options players without extensive scientific training have. I play with a > lot of anthropologists, english majors, sound engineers, and loan agents. > They get frustrated when they try to come up with a solution to a problem > in-game and keep getting shot down (and then given a scientific lecture). 1) Don't lecture. They don't listen anyway. 2) Have a character with an apropos skill make a roll, and then prod him in the right direction. I have, in the past, purely by luck, done this just at the point where they were about to become frustrated, and managed to give a hint that took them just the right amount of time to figure out. The result of this is more good feeling and mutual admiration amongst the players than I often see. Now if I could only do this on command. > A smart gamer will have done all of his homework and reading and know how > to keep from being vaporized. It will be very dramatic. The (stupid?) gamer > who read the rulebook, or at least the character creation information and > some setting info, with a great character, good imagination, and a desire > to have a good time will instead see his character vaporized as a reward Nah. Prod them in the right direction. Have an NPC whip out a bad idea with a big part of the answer in it. Let an automated backup system kick in. If all else fails, fudge the dice rolls. Then, club the guy did all the reading, unless it's in character. I'm a cynical embittered gamer who's gone to great lengths to develop a Machievallian (sp?) mindset. Now I'm playing a couple of characers in a couple of games who are wrenchingly naive. THAT takes effort -- they never cover their behinds, they trust who they're told, and think tactics is a kind of breath mint. But when my effort to be in character pays off, it's a blast. The point I'm trying to make here is about in character knowledge. It doesn't matter how many books the first guy's read about space battles. If he's a medic, all he can do in character is run around wringing his hands and getting in people's way. > My point: Hard Science Fiction is a setting, like any other. Realism as a > staple of the setting or a genre is good, it defines the setting, helps out > the players and the audience (the same in an RPG). Take it too far and only > an exclusionary few can participate. Take it a little farther and it can > become a strangling limit to storytelling and strongly limit gameplay. I agree completely. But when you're working out the setting, or at least when I am, first I do my absolute best to figure out what the hardcore, relentless science of the situation is. Then I filter it through a little realism, and then the local game politics (doesn't matter *how* good an idea they'd be, there are *NO* nukes in Lambda Serpentis), and then fudge what little science is left. But you still don't usually end up more than a stone's throw from reason, and the players never have to know what a pain in the butt it was. > Lastly: we would all do well to consult BP 001.5 "Good Gaming," and BP > 100.7 "Making the Game Your Own." I'm afraid of this discussion > transforming from an exchange of idea to an unfriendly debate. Unfriendliness develops when people start taking offense. Just take a couple of deep breaths and jump back in. As a very wise man once said (well, okay, it was only Dennis Leary), "Life sucks. Get a *censored* helmet." -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Leif Magnar Kjønnøy [leifmk@pvv.ntnu.no] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 3:58 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Fill 'er up with Premium! On Tue, 1 Dec 1998, Auberon wrote: > Hey, BP guys! Think there's a station above or below the planetary > plane to watch the sun? Anything over the poles would tell us all kinds > of cool stuff! Also, is Mercury being mined (the dark side or the > terminator, obviously). Point: Mercury doesn't have a dark side; it's got a day-and-night cycle of several weeks (weirdly, it rotates exactly three times per two orbits). This means that all of the surface is hot part of the time, except for the floors of some craters in the polar regions -- since the planet has little axial tilt, these areas are always in the shadow of the crater walls, and amazingly enough there's some evidence that there may be permanent *water ice* in them (just like there may be in some polar craters on the Moon). A permanent base on Mercury would either have to be some ways underground (with surface operations mostly limited to the dark weeks), or located on the floor of one of those polar craters. (In KSR's _Blue Mars_, there's a permanently moving surface city on Mercury -- continually circumnavigating the planet on a looping track, just ahead of dawn, powered by sunlight collected from towers that are high enough to see the sun over the horizon). > Great for fuel, but as far as routinely having a planetesimal in the > right place at the right velocity at the right time, I still don't think > there's enough to maintain a fuelling service. Still, handwaving takes > care of a lot. Robot ships could slouch around the Kuiper belt searching for icy planetesimals to push to the fueling station at the wormhole. You wouldn't need *that* much thrust (or fuel) to get a suitable ice chunk to where you needed it if you were willing to wait a few years. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Tun Kai Poh [t_poh@hotmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 5:43 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Hard sci-fi Heh. I've been letting my BP games turn into John Woo movies since I started GMing it in 1997. Main reason was that my group had just gotten off a long run of Feng Shui, and ever since, they've managed to turn EVERYTHING we play into Feng Shui... Now, in a mercilessly realistic system like BP's, two-gun action against a polypod don't work too well, but it's a more fun way to go out than waving arms and screaming. Kai >> A few weeks ago, I was on rec.games.frp.industry, and a game retailer, >> commenting on his demo room, said something like: "Right now, there's a >> bunch of teenagers back there apparently turning Blue Planet into a John Woo >> movie. It's really rather scary." Of course, this made me very happy! And I >> doubt they were sweating the scientific detail overly much... ;-) > >I read the same post and thought, "Why does this guy find them turning >Blue Planet into a John Woo movie scary?" I think the Internet >community(including us on the mailing list) has built a little niche for >Blue Planet that maybe is narrower than it deserves. That might be why >all these ideas for adventures are getting "shot down."* > >* I for one haven't seen them shot down, merely tweaked, as Greg said(I >think) > >> Greg Benage >> Biohazard Games > >Enough for tonight, > >-Andy >*************************************************************************** >To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line >'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 6:11 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Fill 'er up with Premium! "Robert P. Stefko" wrote: > > Comet's have miniscule gravity wells, and they can be launched from one end > of the solar system to another (or wherever they are needed) using ordinary > rockets. The same is not true for a moon, even a small one. Actually, I was thinking wrangling them would be a lot of work. First you pick one out, then you have to get near it, match velocity, and approach, probably from in front of it, to avoid any garbage trailing it, though that's mostly a problem once it gets way insystem. I'm not saying it isn't worth it, just that if you know you're going to need approximately x amount of water every y period of time, mining it off a moon and flinging it would be easier. As far as fueling ships goes, I agree completely that comets would be the way to go. As I remember, the mass is usually less water and more hydrogen and methane, though I may be all wet on that one. (Sorry, I've been hanging out with friends that pun.) > Jupiter's radiation belts extend from just above the atmosphere out to three > million kilometers, well beyond the orbits of most of its moons (and all of > the big ones). So if living beings go anywhere near Jupiter, they're going > to need extra shielding on their spacecraft. But the farther away, the better, I'm assuming. That's just general principals, though. Most of what I know about radiation belts has to do with the aurora borealis. > I already partially nixed this idea based on some commentary from Leif. It > could still work for intrasystem spacecraft that have time to stop and > refuel. That'd work. The other way to do it could be ships orbiting the sun in an elliptic pattern, pointed toward Earth, so that ships could dock with them. The handy thing about this is that if the ship doesn't have to stop, it can do a power dive through the sun's gravity well, and really whip up some speed. That'd even work on the wormhole run, for the four or so months a year that wormhole is occulted by the sun from Earth. > >But there's also the "Finders-keepers" rule. If Dundalk could get there > first, and then contract the actual mining out to, say, Atlas, the two could > just thumb their noses at everyone else. The other's don't have to agree, > they just have to be unable to contest the status quo in any way.< > > Sounds like a surefire way to start a war. Nah, veiled hostilities at best. The Icarus accords would be part of it (the GEO would *love* to have to stop an interplanetary war between Incorps), expense would be another part, but also Atlas or Dundalk could calm everyone else down by agreeing, for instance, to leave a few other moons alone. Also, the only winners in an outright war between Incorps would be the ones that didn't join either side. Wars cost money, and take time and manpower. Why bother? Just express your unhappiness by making sure that 1 in ever 6 or 7 transports full of materials on the way insystem has an accident, until you're cut in for the deal. There's a lot more politics there screaming to be let out, but my brain hurts and it's 3am. > Comets can be moved where they're needed. All a captain needs is a radio and > cash to set up a rondezvous, provided he doesn't wait til the last minute. Ah, nevermind. I thought you were talking about supplying all takers. If you're talking about fuelling up specific ships on specific missions that you could be ready for months in advance, well, that's not gonna be a problem. I wonder if it'd be worthwhile to trade delta-v? You know, Corp A tells Corp B "Your freighter is going to be beaten to Mars by Corp C's, but we've got a comet in place that could top off that freighter so that it could get to Mars before Corp C's. However... we saw a comet we want, and it just so happens that one of your ships is less than 150 hours from being able to aim it where we want it. Nevermind how we know where that ship is... Is it a deal?" I see a lot of calculus, accounting, and corporate espionage going on. I like it. -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 6:16 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Fill 'er up with Premium! Leif Magnar Kjønnøy wrote: > > Indeed, and it's already *been* used for probes to other planets, not > to mention that of course it's used all the time to get the space shuttle > (and other manned spacecraft) down from orbit. I'm not sure if actual > "aerocapture" has in fact been used (that is aerobraking specifically in > order to lose enough velocity to go into orbit around your destination > planet rather than just passing by it), but it has been used to modify > orbits, etc. I'm pretty sure that's how NASA's Mars Global Surveyor got itself into an orbit, and is adjusting it's orbit. As I understand it, it dipped into Mars' atmosphere to end up in an elliptical orbit, the close end of which dips it back into the planet's atmosphere. I gather the breaking is a real slow process, as Mars hasn't got much of an atmosphere, but there you have it. -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 6:22 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Spacecraft Propulsion in BP Leif Magnar Kjønnøy wrote: > > Yep. So piracy, counter-piracy etc. are all *possible* among the slower- > moving ships; whatever piracy may occur probably does so in Belter country > where there are many small autonomous political units and GEO has little > presence, and where most travel is pretty slow (and there is a lot of > travel going on as well, so it's easier to sneak up on others). If > pirates are going to have any hope of surviving (both literally and > economically), though, I think they're pretty much going to need a policy > of not killing other ships' crews (since any useful ship's drive is > a lethal weapon, no prey is defenseless; if you think you're going to be > robbed and left to live you're much more likely to surrender than if > you think you're going to be murdered). Absolutely. The only question is, exactly what would it cost the crew economicly? If you facing resisting and maybe getting shot and dying quickly, vs. starving to death after they repo your ship to pay for the lost cargo, you're probably still going to resist. Independant carriers could add a clause in their contracts (which also adds the tantalizing possibility of collusion with the pirates), but Incorp wage slaves would be screwed. -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 6:28 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Fill 'er up with Premium! Leif Magnar Kjønnøy wrote: > > Point: Mercury doesn't have a dark side; it's got a day-and-night cycle > of several weeks (weirdly, it rotates exactly three times per two orbits). I was thinking the side that's *currently* dark, as in not where it's what, 400+C? > This means that all of the surface is hot part of the time, except for the > floors of some craters in the polar regions -- since the planet has little > axial tilt, these areas are always in the shadow of the crater walls, and > amazingly enough there's some evidence that there may be permanent *water > ice* in them (just like there may be in some polar craters on the Moon). Hadn't hear the water ice bit. That's just too cool. > A permanent base on Mercury would either have to be some ways underground > (with surface operations mostly limited to the dark weeks), or located > on the floor of one of those polar craters. (In KSR's _Blue Mars_, > there's a permanently moving surface city on Mercury -- continually > circumnavigating the planet on a looping track, just ahead of dawn, > powered by sunlight collected from towers that are high enough to see > the sun over the horizon). I was thinking something more along these lines, actually more like the carryalls from Dune -- build a ship that's a self-contained mining operation, and just relocate every couple of weeks. As I remember, (theoretically) you wouldn't have to dig very much; Mercury is supposed to have a lot of minerals close to the surface. > Robot ships could slouch around the Kuiper belt searching for icy > planetesimals to push to the fueling station at the wormhole. You > wouldn't need *that* much thrust (or fuel) to get a suitable ice chunk > to where you needed it if you were willing to wait a few years. Granted. I tend to think in terms of crewed ships. Holdover from MegaTraveller, I think. -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Leif Magnar Kjønnøy [leifmk@pvv.ntnu.no] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 7:27 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Spacecraft Propulsion in BP GURPS, Harn, CORPS | when I peered inside it was small, dark and empty." On Tue, 1 Dec 1998 Rnjarra@aol.com wrote: [snip] > A general problem with fragmentation warheads are the fragments themselves > which will continue to travel beyond the intended target, endangering other > ships. The wonders of vacuum allow us to use frozen liquid such as water, if > sufficiently shielded against radiation (UV-VIS-IR) as fragments. The liquid > would be dispersed in its gaseous form AFTER impact posing no danger to manned > or unmannend vessels. The only fragments remaining would be those of the ship > which will impact harmlessly on a large area of its intended target causing no > to minimal damage. [more snip] Wonderful idea! Water is abundant, easy to handle and store as ammo, *and* harmless after use (assuming you hit, that is); one main advantage of using scattershot is obviously that it's quite easy to hit the target with at least *part* of the attack, but in practice even successful attacks would normally also be partial misses -- so the ice that missed would continue on its path and be a potential traffic hazard, at least if it's used far enough from the Sun that it doesn't melt/evaporate -- actually, it might be just as good an idea to melt or vaporize the ice on purpose when the warhead is fragmented; if the target is coming in at something like 10^7 m/s and hits a relatively dense concentration of matter it shouldn't make much difference if that matter is solid, liquid or gaseous. Come to think of it, we just now came up with *snowballs* as a viable planetary defense weapon! > Would a linear accelerator able to project a large enough > warhead at a sufficient velocity be feasible? The snowball needs sufficient velocity to meet the incoming rogue ship at significant range. This means that actually tossing the snowball from near the home team's goal (Earth, say) probably isn't optimal, since the speed of the snowball will be very small compared to the incoming rouge's speed. We might be able to toss it at somewhere between 10 and 100 km/s, but if the rogue is coming in at about 10 thousand km/s that means it's not hit until it has covered over 99% of the distance left at the time of the toss. We want to blow up the rogue and make the pieces scatter enough so that by the time they reach the target they're scattered over an area that's much larger than the target so that only a small fraction of them actually hit (ideally, we'd want to just nudge the ship gently onto a different course and keep it in one piece, but we can't do that; it's much easier to hit it hard than to nudge it gently). Kamikaze ships can possibly have so much kinetic energy (on the order of 10^20 J, which is tens of gigatons) that they might do some real damage to an Earthlike planet even if they were blown to vapor before impact (okay, it's only about one millionth of what you need to blow the atmosphere into space, but it might be enough to upset things a bit; it *is* enough to move the entire atmosphere at several m/s if deposited evenly (and it won't be, it's only going to hit one side; might upset weather patterns a bit)). Likely scatter speeds for the debris after impact are on the order of 10 km/s, perhaps. So in order to make the debris scatter across a cross-section as large the disk of the Earth, you'd need to hit about ten minutes before planetfall; if the rogue is coming in 1000 times faster than you can throw your snowball then that means you have to throw when it's a week out. Preferably you'd want it to scatter significantly more than that so that only a small part of the energy was deposited into Earth's atmosphere, so you'd want to hit earlier; with one month's warning and a near-immediate toss, the bits would scatter across about 4 Earth diameters, so only about 1/16 would hit, etc. Of course, this would mean that everything *close* to Earth would also be bombarded; assuming complete vaporization and even distribution of the incoming matter you might get something on the order of 10^4 J per m^2, all delivered over the space of a second or so. This would probably kill or damage lightweight satellites and spacecraft, but thick-walled habitats should survive (not to mention underground Lunar installations, etc) and a week to a month of warning should be enough to evacuate those installations that need evacuating. Some small fragments of solid matter would likely remain; one would simply have to hope that none large enough to cause serious damage happened to hit anything important. It would be better to hit it at a larger distance; perhaps placing the snowball launchers on mobile platforms here and there throughout the solar system would make that feasible (you'd need a lot of launchers to cover all directions and *still* need backups close to Earth to ensure a hit -- *some* scatter is much better than *no* scatter). Or a launcher could of course be mounted on a ship that rushes out to meet the rogue, in that case you should be able to hit it somewhere around halfway to three-quarters of the way between the detection point and the planetary impact. > let us take a look at the second class of targets. Most encountered asteroids > weigh less than 100 kg [I don't actually know this and am to lazy to look it > up] and have speeds not in excess of 10 km/s. They nonetheless pose a serious > threat to human settelments in locations devoid of a sufficient atmosphere. If > they are directly hit by a projectile as described above they will seize to > move in their prior direction thus rendering them harmless. Larger asteroids > can be targeted with as many as three projectiles. A colission avoidance > system [what a great euphemism] of the above specifications is now available > to certified buyers from Hanover Industries. Fortunately, most of those settlements which are at risk from small asteroids are themselves in orbits which are pretty similar to those asteroids, so relative speeds are likely to be fairly low -- most such settlements are namely asteroid cities; the only ones that are on celestial bodies with significant gravity of their own (i.e., enough gravity to contribute much to impact velocity) are on Luna or other airless moons. (Remember, Mars has been terraformed enough to at least have a significant atmosphere, so isn't at risk from small asteroids.) This means that impacts aren't likely to be that powerful, and there will probably be a good amount of time between hazard detection and impact. > For a discussion of principles: As all of you should have noticed by now there > are a fair amount of very technical discussions going on on this board. This > happens if you give techno geeks like myself numbers to play with. BP is the > first RPG I know that is based on physically sound linear (sometimes not even > that) extrapolations of todays technologies. Actually, apart from some > notable exceptions it is not based on any significant technological > breaktroughs in the (not so) near future. Yea verily. The tech stuff shouldn't be allowed to eclipse the story or the background world, but it's nice to know what's possible and not, and I at least get a strong satisfaction from having convinced myself that the world of Blue Planet doesn't require anything that violates conservation of energy, for instance. Even though I've now spent quite a bit of time going over the possibilities and impossibilities of space travel & combat, it's quite likely that I'll never directly use that in a game (except for background color, news reports etc.) -- to me, spaceship combat for a setting such as Blue Planet is about as interesting as nuclear weapons are for a present-day campaign ("nobody ever uses them, but everyone thinks about them"). Both eventualities *might* be good to use as a central part of some important plot (witness the endless movies about terrorists trying to get nukes, for instance), but even in a campaign where violent conflict is common and every session has at least one fight I find it's rather more conducive to roleplaying if the violence is kept on a more personal scale. It's quite possible to scare and/or motivate your players without threatening to blow up the world every fortnight.... *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: dpink@chill.org Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 10:34 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - >> Hard science often doesn't work for the same reasons that it sometimes >does. Most gamers I know aren't going to want to know EXACTLY how the fusion >drive works because it becomes work instead of play. Still, to that extent, >Star Trek is hard sci-fi. I've read the tech manual, I know how the warp >drive works, and I could come up with a reason it's broken and needs to be >fixed if a story dictates.< Well, what are we doing, gaming or engineering? The focus should be on the story, not the wiring. The purpose of this hobby is to enjoy it, to have fun and (for me) to get away from work and university for a while. Yes, there needs to be thought and consistency, but none of my players will ever be asked how to fix their ship and require a manual to answer - they'll need a mechanics or engineering roll. I like the technology that was present in The Prisoner - it's purpose and function is explained briefly, it looked cool, and when something went wrong it belched smoke... and no one had any tools more complex than a wrench. When the wapr drive breaks just tell 'em the warp drive broke. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Matthew McInnis [angelgabriel@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 10:56 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - "Beautiful Game" From: wil liam hindmarch >It's a good sci-fi game, especially for classic sci-fi adventure stories. > To be honest, while I like really hard science fiction as a medium for >fiction, I don't think it works terribly well for an RPG most often. >Stories are best about people, not formulas. I'm only interested in how the >spacecraft operates so that I know how it appears, sounds, smells, and >moves the characters. What do they have to do in a crisis to fix it, etc. >I've seen several gamers flee from the hard SF elements in BP because it >can feel very exclusive. To me, science as a basis for fiction is good, but >I also like a good warp drive and space fighter. Call me a romantic. > Hear, hear!! While science is interesting and provides the informational foundation for science fiction, there is still a lot to be said for science-fantasy. The thing I like best about Blue Planet is that the science feels good. It isn't "hard," it's just... well... firm. It makes sense, it's not too confusing, and it sets up great stories. Aren't great stories the whole point of roleplaying in the first place? Archangel *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: dpink@chill.org Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 10:50 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Hard sci-fi >In my experience, the "average" gamer has *no* friends, little social >interaction, hasn't quite figured out personal hygene, drools on >himself, and plays D&D in some form. Ha! I helped run a con in BC last year (ConSpiracy 97) and we tried to get Mennen to sponsor us. They refused, so then we tried Colgate, who also refused... our idea was to include sampler size deodorants in our conventioneer packs... Alas, we ended up with only the usual ads, posters, and pencils. This list is safe from those >people until man-portable fusion guns, "blasters", or invulnerable power >armor enters the game. While the game is somewhat at risk of their >presence by the existance of the Marshalls and Super Troopers, I think >they all flock to Shadowrun. It is not safe, however, from the min maxers who take physics and try to talk their GM into something based on real world math. Some power gamers don't need a fireball or a built in laser, they just need to comforting rules of reality to hide behind, and when they know more about, say, space propulsion than I do, the game becomes a hand waving experience. "Nah, it doesn't do that 'cause I said so." > >Yes, I am that annoyed by some of the gamers I've met. Don't get me >wrong, I think a *lot* of gamers are intelligent, interesting, educated, >and remarkably well adjusted people. They are also a font of creativity. And most gamers are brighter than your average person, I find - this is because gaming forces you to think (if it's done right) and thinking makes you a better thinker. I just get annoyed very >easily by a lot of things, and one of them is the suggestion that all >games should be written with built-in protections against the "average" gamer. It is nice to have balance, especially when you're dealing with newbies. However, what a lot of people don't realize is that having an unbalanbced creation system is more hazardous for the player than a balanced one! For every advantage it gives (I can have a 90 in strength, and screw my charisma!) it adds a severe penalty (sorry, they shoot you because you have a 10 charisma and your attampt at fast talk utterly fails). The more min maxed a character is, the more vulnerable it becomes. Maybe not to physical attacks, but to challanges of wit or personality. As a GM I find it ridiculously easy to thwart the min maxed players by simply throwing them something they can not deal with. A well rounded character can usually deal with a little of anything, and while they may not excel at any one task, they are able to take what life deals them in a much more realistic and practical manner than the min maxers. in some ways that's harder for me as GM. By the way, to the person I am responding to: your ideas for events that can take place on the space shuttle were excellent. I printed tham out and I plan to use them. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: dpink@chill.org Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 10:54 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - >At 06:06 PM 12/1/98 EST, you wrote: >>The #1 rule for any science fiction is that it must maintain an internal >>consitancy. > > This is the number one rule of fiction. Regardless. All stories must >identify the rules of order when they begin, so that an audience is >prepared for them to be followed or broken later. > This is my problem with Philip K. Dick. Great writer, love him (love cyberpunk), but the rules change. Fortunately for us, the rules change in, well, plausable ways. "Of course it changed, the original rules were wrong!" is my frequent exclamation while reading. This style has a certain charm because it is unexpected. You never know what you're going to get and that can be a relief after you've been Star Treked to death. Sometimes spontenaity, even unrealistic spontenaity, can be a good thing. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: dpink@chill.org Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 10:51 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - >Don't get me wrong, I like Niven, but I don't know if I'd go so far as >to call him hard sci-fi. As for the others, a really great resource for >the kind of space adventure you could do in BP would be 2010 -- >politics, science, the unknown, and cool aerobraking scenes. Niven not hard sci-fi? Go get the book Playground of the Mind and read the story about world generation (I think it's the first) for a glimpse into hard sci fi. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: dpink@chill.org Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 10:57 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - >>However, roleplaying games are (stop me if you've heard this before) half >>story and half game. A need to sit down and make sure everyone understands >>the complex workings of a fusion drive doesn't seem to support either the >>story or the game. > >Why would the players need to do this? I can understand a player with a >spacecraft engineer character wanting to know how fusion drives work, for >example. If nothing else, it will help him or her to roleplay the character >more effectively. Otherwise, why do this? As I see it, whether the >propulsion systems in BP are based on scientific fact or fancy makes no real >difference in this regard. Could you elaborate? That makes sense. Engineers should spout technobabble when appropriate ("It's the coaxial warp connector. I think it's overloaded.") regardless ofwhat the player knows or what the reality of the machine dictates. Car mechanics in my game give all sorts of explanations besed on only a few years of tinkering that may be incorrect, but sound reasonably good and serve the purposes of the game. I love playing lawyers because I fget to invent fictional last names to justify my actions.. in the case of Williams versus Crisp, the precedent was set that... Reality in excess amounts has no place in what is essentially a fun and escapist hobby. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Robert P. Stefko [rpsst16@pop.pitt.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 12:31 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Spacecraft Propulsion in BP >actually, it might be just as good an idea to melt or vaporize the ice on purpose when the warhead is fragmented; if the target is coming in at something like 10^7 m/s and hits a relatively dense concentration of matter it shouldn't make much difference if that matter is solid, liquid or gaseous.< Um, wouldn't liquid water flash vaporize in vacuum and then just freeze again? You'd end up with an expanding cloud of water ice crystals. A solid ice projectile sounds like it'd have a better chance of hitting full force. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Matthew McInnis [angelgabriel@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 12:51 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - "Beautiful Game" From: Chris L'Etoile >there are a number of things which attracted me to >BP. First and foremost was the jaw-dropping detail the world was >laid out in. I probably know more about Poseidon than I do China - >and I try to keep up on China. When I try to turn people on to BP, >my intial pitch is along the lines of; "The book's over 300 pages >long, 10 point font, and probably 2/3 of that is pure background >material." The sheer depth of the world - no pun intended - left >me gobsmacked. Absolutely! Not only is there an unprecedented depth of detail, but it all makes sense. It is the best thought out, most thoroughly conceived, and well produced background material I have ever read for a roleplaying game. >If BP were a movie and not an RPG, it would've been >directed by Ridley Scott. Or by me! As I was reading it, I kept saying to myself, "I want to direct this movie!" > I'll be honest with you; overall, I despise anything smacking of >cyberpunk. As a genre, I rate it about one notch above the 50's Giant >Nuclear Monster stuff. BP obviously has a lot of cyberpunk. But it >really says something (to me, at least) that I was able to look past >the punky flavors of the world and grow to love it. > > - Chris That speaks to me as well. I had grown tired of the trite and predictable guns-with-humans-surgically-attached, style that the cyberpunk genre had become. Now I know what cyberpunk was supposed to be. Archangel *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Matthew McInnis [angelgabriel@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 1:20 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - hard vs. soft By the way, the "technobabble" you have been speaking of has another term to describe it. Usula K. LeGuin coined it (to the best of my knowledge). She called it PseudoScientific Gobbledygook, or PSG. I like this term so much that I often use it in normal (well maybe not _normal_, but everyday) conversation. Archangel *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Ml10@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 1:20 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: Re: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Like I mentioned in my last post, most people today have grown up watching Doctor Who and Star Trek in which technology often saves the day. As a result, too many people assume that in SF, technology can do anything. Just look at the number of ways that people can travel through time in ST. Their is the sling shot method, the beam-me-up method, the modulate the warp field method, ect... Heck, even Quark's kin figured out a method of time travel: the blow it up method. This mindset is then brought into SF RPGs by the players. By setting a game in the Hard SF arena, the amount of hand waiving that is possible is reduced and players have to think of other methods of solving the problems that they face. Does this mean that the players have to be science geeks in order to play? Of course not. Science does not have to be even brought into the game session. All the players have to know is that if isn't possible in the "real world", then it most likely isn't possible in the game world. In the campain that I run, the players are members of a detective agency. They run all over the Blue Planet solving mysteries and getting involved with the political stuff. They use the same methodologies and techniques as if the game was set in the 20th century. (Gather evidence, shake down contacts and suspects, do research to look for trends, ect...) As long as the players remember that they can't modulate some piece of technology to solve their problems, everthing runs quit smoothly. One of the strengths of this mailing list is that there a number of talented profesionals here. Science and technology is such a large field that no one person can expect to know even a 1/10 of it. This list allows a GM with a question or idea to run it up a flag pole to see how it would work. To date (this is the important part), only ideas have been attacked, not people. A GM can take the discussion to heart and modify his or her idea or a GM can ignore the discussion. If someone posts an idea to the list seeking only praise and not a constructive debate, they are going to be in for a rather rude shock. Mike Z *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Heivilin, Jim [banzai@missouri.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 2:05 PM To: 'blue_planet@MPGN.COM' Subject: RE: [BLUE PLANET] - Hard sci-fi > -----Original Message----- > From: Greg Benage [mailto:gbenage@ix.netcom.com] > Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Hard sci-fi > > A few weeks ago, I was on rec.games.frp.industry, and a game retailer, > commenting on his demo room, said something like: "Right now, there's a > bunch of teenagers back there apparently turning Blue Planet into a John Woo > movie. It's really rather scary." Of course, this made me very happy! And I > doubt they were sweating the scientific detail overly much... ;-) > This is exactly what I thought the very first time I read Jason's story about Peter Church "In the Service of Justice ...". It was a scene from a John Woo movie waiting to happen. To say a little about the thread I want to point out that another rule (perhaps more important than ... well, let me say at least as important as internal consistency) is the suspension of disbelief. This is a failing point of many movies, some books and a *LOT* of TV. For RPGs it's a slightly different matter. Falling back to the ST:TNG reference, they have all this consistent background material their technical consultants have created and their fans have read. Then the writer, who hasn't remembered that his story only has forty some odd minutes to get resolved, throws in some technobabble to resolve everything. I see that as a sign of poor writing skills or a lack of imagination. I don't mind quite so much if the technobabble is so far outside the realm of REAL science that it can't be refuted. But when the technobabble directly contradicts science as we know it now, that pisses me off. (re: the Trek episode where everyone "de-evolved". Not knowing ANY biology, even I could ask the question 'Why don't ALL the humans de-evolve into apes?') For RPGs the matter is both more pressing and less important depending on the GM and the players. If the focus of the game is on storytelling then the science can be treated less seriously. More detail does give the feeling of being there more strength (again the suspension of disbelief). In a game where the rules are more important than the story, the focus is entirely different and the science must be handled with more care. Jim H. VoiceID: Peotr A. Kasprov Captain, GEO PeaceKeeping Forces Commander, Detachment 142, Dyfedd Poseidon, Lambda Serpentis II kasprop@commcore.dyfedd *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Heivilin, Jim [banzai@missouri.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 2:14 PM To: 'blue_planet@MPGN.COM' Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - Roleplaying > -----Original Message----- > From: dpink@chill.org [mailto:dpink@chill.org] > Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - > > That makes sense. Engineers should spout technobabble when appropriate > ("It's the coaxial warp connector. I think it's overloaded.") regardless > ofwhat the player knows or what the reality of the machine dictates. Car > mechanics in my game give all sorts of explanations besed on only a few > years of tinkering that may be incorrect, but sound reasonably good and > serve the purposes of the game. I love playing lawyers because I fget to > While I agree with this, the problem I have is when I know absolutely nothing about the field my character is supposedly an expert in. And always having a character whose an ex-Army Combat Engineer-computer-fencer-sci fi-gamer-technoweenie is boring. But on the other hand I feel a little out of my depth when asked to play a paranormal investigator. And if I don't feel like I'm doing it "right" from a role playing perspective then my enjoyment goes down. The only saving grace is that our GMs are good storytellers (one did a crack-junkie that looked like he came right off the street corner down the block!). > invent fictional last names to justify my actions.. in the case of Williams > versus Crisp, the precedent was set that... > When I run Deadlands I keep the phone book next to me to "generate" NPC names on the drop of a hat (or a scattergun). > Reality in excess amounts has no place in what is > essentially a fun and escapist hobby. > That entirely depends on the players and the GM. If that's what they enjoy, more power to them. Jim H. ________________________________________ | Jim Heivilin, Help Desk | "Gunner, target left, 1600 | Campus Computing, (573) 882-5000 | meters, Iraqi T-72, ..." | University of Missouri at Columbia | Unknown M1 TC, | ccbanzai@showme.missouri.edu | Feb, 1991 ------------------------------------------ *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Heivilin, Jim [banzai@missouri.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 2:17 PM To: 'blue_planet@MPGN.COM' Subject: RE: [BLUE PLANET] - "Beautiful Game" > -----Original Message----- > From: Matthew McInnis [mailto:angelgabriel@earthlink.net] > Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - "Beautiful Game" > > From: Chris L'Etoile > >If BP were a movie and not an RPG, it would've been > >directed by Ridley Scott. > > > Or by me! As I was reading it, I kept saying to myself, "I > want to direct this movie!" > If you can wrangle Kathy Ireland as "Special Assistant to Mr. Barber" your in! (or was it Tia Carrera?) But let's have Pixar do the animation and ILM do the special effects (don't forget about the drop ship and the shock troopers!). Jim H. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: BIOHZD@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 6:22 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Hard and Soft /Sci Fi Hey Andy, As per your question, the next Undercurrents is rapidly coming to a boil and should be ready to serve by mid-month ; ). From the depths... Jeff Barber Biohazard Games *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: BIOHZD@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 6:22 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - "Beautiful Game" Hey Archangel, You wrote: >>>>Or by me! As I was reading it, I kept saying to myself, "I want to direct this movie!" Nah nah nah - you'll need to get in line behind me! We'll be happy to put you on the production staff though ; ). Jeff "I killed it, I'm going to eat it!" Barber Biohazard Games *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 6:47 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Pink/Dungate wrote: > > This is my problem with Philip K. Dick. Great writer, love him > (love cyberpunk), but the rules change. Fortunately for us, the rules > change in, well, plausable ways. "Of course it changed, the original rules > were wrong!" is my frequent exclamation while reading. This style has a But even so, there's a certain consistancy to his writings (I'm a big PKD fan). My favorite thing about it is I find myself examining all the details of the story, 'cause the hints of what's the really real truth (the next one, anyway) are always there. Usually, the result is a resounding, "Doh!" when I realize what's up. -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 7:02 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Hard sci-fi Pink/Dungate wrote: > > Ha! I helped run a con in BC last year (ConSpiracy 97) and we tried to get > Mennen to sponsor us. They refused, so then we tried Colgate, who also > refused... our idea was to include sampler size deodorants in our > conventioneer packs... Alas, we ended up with only the usual ads, posters, > and pencils. That is quite possible the coolest thing I've ever heard (or at least, heard in the last couple of months). Where's ConSpiracy, anyway? I have to go to a con with a name like that, if only for the pins. > It is not safe, however, from the min maxers who take physics and try to > talk their GM into something based on real world math. Some power gamers > don't need a fireball or a built in laser, they just need to comforting > rules of reality to hide behind, and when they know more about, say, space > propulsion than I do, the game becomes a hand waving experience. "Nah, it > doesn't do that 'cause I said so." If they've got a point, I usually either meet them half way, or shoot down their idea based on their own argument. (Hmmm, the thing probably could fly ground-effect over water with one fan down. Add two parts weather and one part pepper sauce, and shake). If they're just being gimps, I either handwave, or whip out my I'm-the-GM-and-I-said-so hat. Admittedly, the latter is a cheap shot, but sometimes it's the fastest way to keep thing moving for the other players. > It is nice to have balance, especially when you're dealing with newbies. > However, what a lot of people don't realize is that having an unbalanbced > creation system is more hazardous for the player than a balanced one! For [snip example] Hey, I've got the strangest character right now -- I'm running a rich whitebread doctor in Tarrask's game, and his phyisical states are not to be believed! The amusing thing is that he'll never use any of them. All I wanted was a sleightly higher than average intellect, which I ended up double disadvantaging Constitution to get, 'cause I didn't want his Con that high anyway. Those rediculous stats were just the result of some biomods I got for other reasons (e.g. -- the multiglands were so he could do double shifts and so his hands wouldn't shake during surgury). > physical attacks, but to challanges of wit or personality. As a GM I find > it ridiculously easy to thwart the min maxed players by simply throwing > them something they can not deal with. A well rounded character can In this game, that works. I've even done it to people in Shadorun. One of the best instances in good character role playing I've ever seen was a dumb troll in a group that was facing riddles from a dragon. He even lived. > usually deal with a little of anything, and while they may not excel at any > one task, they are able to take what life deals them in a much more > realistic and practical manner than the min maxers. in some ways that's > harder for me as GM. Another thing to keep in mind is character. Above said pretty-boy naive doctor is being put into a PR position, and I keep having to remember not to cover his butt, 'cause he wouldn't. > By the way, to the person I am responding to: your ideas for events > that can take place on the space shuttle were excellent. I printed tham > out and I plan to use them. That's the very best compliment I could have recieved on them. Thanks. -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 6:48 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Pink/Dungate wrote: > > Niven not hard sci-fi? Go get the book Playground of the Mind and read the > story about world generation (I think it's the first) for a glimpse into > hard sci fi. Granted. I guess my objection is more in the role the tech takes -- usually Trekish. Not that it's bad, I love the writing, particularly the characters, but feel is different for me than with, say, Pohl, Brin, or Pournelle. -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Robert P. Stefko [rpsst16@pop.pitt.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 8:27 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - "Beautiful Game" A BP movie? Probably not. A BP television series. Now that'd be interesting. Roleplaying settings have had mixed succes on TV. Kindred (title?), that short-lived WoD series, wasn't well received; Battletech was, even though it was a cartoon. Who knows how BP would fare given a decent production crew and time slot. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Steven Sweeney [stevenrs@cybersurf.net] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 1998 9:25 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Hard sci-fi Auberon wrote: > Well, I can't stop you, I suppose. Everyone's got their things; I got > > set off by the "average gamer" comment. It's a pet peev (how do you > spell that, anyway) with me. Whoa! Something on this list that I can understand! It's "peeve"... *going back to my english books, muttering "Physics" and shuddering* *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message.