Forums of the Cape Union of Adventurers and Wargamers
Put your ideas and requests here.
For inspiration, check out:
* Larry Niven's Known Space series
* George R R Martin's sf stories
* Frederik Pohl's Heechee series
* Iain M. Banks
* Ursula K. Le Guin's sf
...and many more that I can't think of right now.
Avoid magic. Some scientifically dubious gimmicks are acceptable, but I want to keep the numbers down.
In no particular order, here are some of my thoughts on this:
Will there be cloaking? Both ship size and personal?
For the alien races, can we try to have some non humanoid shaped ones? The one thing that I disliked about star trek was that all the aliens were basically humans with funky make up. We're not on a special effects budget so how about a few weirdly shaped aliens?
How about an alien races that feeds off heat or energy instead of normal food?
What's the consensus on light speed, relativity, etc? Does time dilate as you approach the speed of light? Can you go faster than light? What about wormholes and teleportation?
* Cloaking: maaaybe camouflage of some kind. Probably imperfect.
* Alien races: I agree completely. They will come in numerous shapes and sizes. I'm thinking of grouping some races into families of evolutionary "cousins" who were seeded from genetically similar stock by a precursor race; then we could still have humanoids and it wouldn't be completely stupid.
* Energy/light feeding: sounds good.
* FTL: what I have in mind are huge gateways in space (made by the aforementioned mysterious precursor race) which let ships "teleport" between star systems. There are no FTL drives, only reasonably fast impulse drives.
I don;t think we need to have the whole "aforementioned mysterious race" thing for the gateways/wormholes. I don't know what FTL stands for but I'm guessing its some srt of inter-star/galaxy drive engine thingy. I'd much prefer the fact that Worm holes can be created its just the fact that they are hugely expensive to A - set up and B - use and C - you have to wait for the right tme for stuff to align. So Couldn't we have it that there are wormhole gates controled by interplanatry governments instead of the whole "aforementioned mysterious race" thing?
Could i play a sentient robot?
Fr a glimpse into teh idea:
I'd prefer that true AI only really has very rudamentry levels of usage at ths point in time but basically my rogramming came under attack from either nanobots/a virus/ a partial EMP that now when ever my system is "rebooted" I am sentient.
Re: FTL
FTL stands for Faster Than Light. :)
I don't like the idea of the currently active races having mastered wormhole technology enough to create their own wormholes -- the possibility of new pathways being established (expense notwithstanding) has too much of an undesirable ripple effect on the universe (where can they be opened? Can they be used as a weapon? etc.) You could limit them to particular points in a solar system (very special gravitational conditions), but then you might as well have limited stationary gates.
This is all mostly moot, since I intend to keep the campaign in one system (having star systems which only have one interesting planet each is as silly as having planets with uniform climate).
The precursor concept fits in with the seeding idea (which would allow for the existence of aliens which are only slightly different to us, in one or two interesting ways, as well as aliens who are vastly different). In general, having ancient, advanced technology which is used to a limited degree but not fully understood is a good way to introduce weird gimmicks which would potentially break the setting if people could use them in *anything*, but which are a desirable plot device in one particular place.
Re: Robot
* I'm happy with you playing a sentient robot, the only one of its kind (as far as you know...).
* I'm confused by "...now when ever my system is "rebooted" I am sentient" -- when are you not sentient? Do you gradually become less sentient until rebooted?
* Nanobot attack sounds like a promising origin story. Perhaps you were developed by AI researchers. Your brain was capable of improving itself, by rebuilding itself with nanobots, but since they themselves were limited by the technological sophistication of your creators, you were not expected to progress past the intelligence level of a small child. Then you came into accidental contact with other, more advanced nanobots (maybe your creators worked at a university, and a neighbouring experiment got loose -- many years after you were created and forgotten? Maybe your creators were military, and their base was overrun by aliens?) which remade your entire structure, including your brain, allowing you to attain sentience. Then you escaped (were you assumed to have been destroyed in the accident which ate half the university? Did the aliens let you loose, not understanding your worth)? Most interestingly, you could have had some or all of your memory wiped and have little or no recollection of how you came to be this way.
* The reason you haven't been carted off to be experimented on by the first person who saw you is that your true nature is not apparent. To a casual observer you look like someone with lots of cyber-prosthetics. If someone x-rays you, they can see you're full of metal and plastic components, but there are full-body cyborgs whose flesh has been reduced to a brain in a heavily shielded box, although they are rare -- and this is what you would pretend to be if someone pried. Only a full dissection would expose you.
* Maybe you wear a meat-suit over your metal body, and even try to pass for human.
* Maybe you've told some trustworthy people what you really are -- and maybe nobody knows the truth.
* If you've lost your memory, perhaps you have begun to doubt yourself, and sometimes wonder if you are just a delusional cyborg.
[nothing is final; delete/modify as appropriate]
Update: I wrote up some stuff related to technology. More to come later, but I think that's enough for tonight.
Re:Robot
You have very cool ideas of which some fit into my idea fully. I intentionally left the idea vague and was more just asking "If it would be posible to:" and seeing as the answer has come back a pretty resounding yes I can think about further deatails.
My ideas so far. My original purpose was a mobile defensive unit stationed at some military/high science research facility. The actual research is of no consequence to me as it more than likely couldn't benefit a robot/droid. During a routine patrol (the scientists prefered to see what was defending them) some absent minded professor forgot some or other protocol and went into the wrong laboratory. Seeing as I was in the area I was sent to investigate. The only problem was that when I entered the Laboratory the prof didn't notive me due to my small size and tripped over me knocking over a supply of these research Nanobots. Normally this wouldn't be a problem as the defense unit (this case me) would be powered down and have all foriegn Nanobots removed by mean of electromagnetic scanning and retrieval. However by the time i reported back into station I had developed some hybrid rudamentry AI. This new source of sentiance had a first reaction of self-preservation and I simply dumped some of the new nanobots in my shut-down unit for temporary storage. After I had my foreign Nanobots removed I returned to my shut-down unit for repowering and hence allowed myself to be "re-infected" by the new nanobots - regaining the sentiance.
During the next time period the research nanobot intergated with my systems and I managed to access data related to what was happening in some of the other AI systems. I eventually also managed to get some upgraded AI to allow myelf to interface with a wider variety of programmes including most "normal" computers. This was suffienct for me and I was happy doing my job until one day a super keen student mechanic decided to look into me and noticed that I had foriegn Nanobots. This then retriggered my need to survive so snapped closed and rolled into the closest docking facility where I boarded a interplanetary ship just as it was leaving. the ship was not recalled because it had some other more important cargo and one misguided and misplaced defense droid so the ship was not recalled. When the ship landed for a fuel stop I disembarked and was in a new world. Dazed by this strange place I walked around and begun to put out my sensors looking for some source of power and materials as I had sustained minor damage in all my ramping about. This is when i over heard (insert groups ship name) and I send a authorisation request to teh ship for my required materials in return for my services a mobile defensive unit.
Because of my class of defence I had sevral dufference Nanobots already in my system.
Most of the original nanobot were the to perform minor repairs to my sytem on a both electronic and physical level. Because of these nanobots I am resistance to most EMP attacks as those may shock my system after a few seconds teh bots would rebuild my configuration and I would be up and running again. Also if I have access to the correct materials a different set of Bots can perform physical repairs of actual damage taken. For movment I have two modes: Walking and rolling. Walking is very slow but I can get around alomst any terrain that has at least some grip. Rolling is much quicker but i need to have a electronic map of the area I'm rolling in to know what not to hit and how not to bump into stuff. Maps can made via accessing the plans of a building/ship etc or making scans of the area whilest I'm stationary. Also whilets in combat I have a personal force field designed to deflect small ammunition rounds and small energy beams etc but if anything is of sizable damage it gets through.
This is all I can think of for the momment. I'm sure more will come but thats the base idea. If you want an idea what I look like my inspiratin came from some of the defensive robots in Star Wars (later releases) of those robot that rolled into combat pt up defensice shileds and started shooting at the two Jedis. Cant remember which movie or which two Jedis they were but I think they were trying to infiltrate the BB's base.
Xen
Here's an idea for a 'space troll' race which I'd be interesting in playing.
An offshoot of the human seed (assuming the whole seed thing) which were silicone based instead of carbon (thanks Terry Pratchet). They feed off heat and light instead of food, and are long lived. Their bodies are crystalline/rockish and they don't need to breathe as humans do. This means that they can surivive in space without a space suit.
Their bodies could be roughly humanoid shaped (maybe slightly larger than humans), except for a more lanky build and the fact that their forearms are much longer in relation to their bodies than humans' are. This means that they often walk around on their knuckles like gorillas do.
Any thoughts?
If they're an offshoot of the human seed race, then they're not going to be crystalline or silicon-based lifeforms. And vice versa.
Also, "silicone-based" doesn't mean "rocky" or "crystalline" (except in Star Trek), any more than "carbon-based" means "made of coal". It just means that the basic building blocks of the alien's body are made from chains of silicon, instead of chains of carbon. They'd probably be just as squishy as we are. Pratchett's trolls work as a fantasy concept, but in a science fiction setting it's not very plausible to have humanoid bodies made of rocks. How do the rocks move?
Which part of the concept do you like the most: the idea of a humanoid much tougher than a human, or the idea of an alien race which is actually mostly made of rocks? Either of those is potentially OK, but probably not both at the same time.
Two Words:
Space Dolphin
Well, there is room for a (mostly) aquatic race... :)
Some questions for Confluence:
Will there be Extra dimensional space technology and if so how common is it and how much can it usually hold?
Will there be an experience system to try improve our skills or will you award us skill upgrades based on our actions?
If there is no set XP system can I create a preposed system for discussion?
Do you have any comments/questions abour my character concept?
If no-one is teh pilot will there be an NPC pilot?
as it is going at teh moment it look like we are really going to be rag taging it out
Xen
Re space troll:
I like the idea of a race that doesn't need to breathe and can exist in space without a space suit (hence the feeding off light/heat). To that end I'd prefer the rock body over extra toughness.
How about the body moves through electrostatic forces interacting with the silicone's semi conductor-ness?
@Xenaroth:
* No extra-dimensional space.
* Yes, experience to be spent on skills recently used.
* Regarding your character concept: start thinking of more things your character is good at and bad at. What are its motivations? What does it want? What does it like? What does it dislike? What does it fear? From a mechanical point of view, I will have to review the proposed technological abilities more carefully, but that's something to do in the final character generation stages.
@Astral_Daemon:
* You can not need to breathe, and survive in vacuum without a spacesuit, and not necessarily have to be rocky. You could *look* rocky. You could have a very tough carapace and very resilient internal organs, and not have to breathe, requiring only a frequent intake of materials to eat. You could be silicon-based, have very strong teeth, and eat stuff that contains silicon (like gravel).
* Hmmm. I have thought of a way to plausibly make you humanoid and explain away the weirder parts of your biology: the precursors could have engineered your race to mine airless asteroids for them. They made you vacuum-proof, and powered by the by-products of mining. Your natural habitat would probably be various moons and asteroids. It's likely that other people now hire you to mine stuff for them, since it's cheaper than taking care of more fragile air-breathing crew.
OK, cool. That all sounds fine by me.
By the way, what sort of political situation is the campaign world in? Peace? War? Independent governments for each world? One overarching government for known space?
Political situation: many, many factions, some bigger and some smaller, some at peace and some at war. There is no overarching government, any more than there is on Earth today. Although there are many factions that have ambitions of becoming such a government (at least within their own species), and hold massive power in certain systems. The system the campaign will actually be set in is not likely to have any single faction controlling it.
More setting information at http://claws.uct.ac.za/TheTome/SpaceOperaXenobiology
Now with alien races! Including space trolls. ;)
This does not mean there aren't other races; I've just realised that I forgot about the energy-eaters. I'll put them in later. They can be librarians.
Are you still accepting ideas for alternative races?
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