[Game] Generate a military sci-fi setting

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by (E)

Question 45
Aside from the splicing of alien DNA is there any other way a human might gain Psi abilities?

Answer 45

Gain? not really. Use? That's a different matter. Psionic brains devoid of true intelligence and capable of being directed via electrical signals have been grown. This action has debatable morality, but now its here and its available to most powers.

Question 46:
How good (or bad) is virtual reality? is it useful? just a toy? Do people try to live there?

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Question 46:
How good (or bad) is virtual reality? is it useful? just a toy? Do people try to live there?

How idyllic or torturous a virtual reality is depends on the designer, though the inept can make very shallow realities can suffice for the short term. The main limitations are that running at speeds faster than 1 second/second causes strange effects on most minds, and alternative physics models aren't well supported. It was originally developed as a toy, but the march of technological progress has allowed it to become a tool for training. Some uploads and artificial intelligences have taken to living in artificial realities, but biosophonts usually don't due to the cost of hiring someone to take care of their body.

Question 47
After getting paid, what do mercenaries do with their money?

[(E)]

Current Species List
1) Bahz (Gamblers)
2) Khorchon (Complicated Dominance System)
3) Chekta (Uplifted Rabbit-Like)
4) Cicads (Insectoid Gas Giant Dwellers)
5) Klaflhan
6) Kusegu
7) Morlay
8) Jardbwi (cyborgs with silicon bioware)

Four more.

Question 25, open
Several factions and groups have been around since the twentieth century, how have they adapted to the current environment? Tell us about one.

Question 27
I've used a naive average growth rate of 1% for the human population to reach 1 trillion by 2500 AD. This also assumes that the alien population isn't a significantly large proportion of the population. Should we take these numbers as is, or go with a more conservative growth rate- due to the many challenges of building a deep-space civilisation- and thus set the current year at a later point?
And incidentally, what is the alien population?

Question 35
What weapons are used on space craft and Mechs?

Question 39
The Khorchon have been mentioned as a savage but intelligent species prone to eating foes and slaughtering children. What do they actually look like? what density is the medium they breathe? tell us what you can about their Physiology!

Question 40
What was the last major conflict in the system?

Question 41
What are earth's most notable uplifted animals? or does it not have any?

Question 43
How common are AI's?
What level of intelligence do they have?
Do they run on large supercomputer installations or smaller mobile platforms?

Question 44
Which manufacturers are known as the best for different classes of weaponry and armour?

Question 47
After getting paid, what do mercenaries do with their money?

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Originally Posted by (E)

. . . Question 47
After getting paid, what do mercenaries do with their money?

The dumb answer is spend it. Why invest for the future when you're in a high-fatality profession?

More to the point in a world with bionics upgrading yourself might well improve your life expectancy. Both defensive (better underskin armor, spare heart & lungs, improved coagulation to minimize blood loss, perhaps powdered blood substitute, etc.) and offensive (hidden weapons, better senses, etc.)

And, to a professional soldier, such expenses are likely to be tax-deductible.

Wine, pleasure, & song are also traditional & I don't think this will change in 500 years.

Family expenses will be an exception to the "investment is futile" concept. Perhaps a merc is fighting to get a child a better education or other life-improving item -- buying his/her way into a higher social class, for example. Or -- to buy a farm. (Keep up those insurance premiums, soldier!)

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by (E)

Question 27
I've used a naive average growth rate of 1% for the human population to reach 1 trillion by 2500 AD. This also assumes that the alien population isn't a significantly large proportion of the population. Should we take these numbers as is, or go with a more conservative growth rate- due to the many challenges of building a deep-space civilisation- and thus set the current year at a later point?
And incidentally, what is the alien population?

The average growth of mankind has been about 1%, and it is indeed around 2500 AD.

I'm holding off on the alien population... mostly I'm requesting permission to resize the initial alien influx.

Question 27b:
What is the alien Population

Question 48:
Is artificial gravity in widespread use, or is spin gravity used on most habitats?

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Question 48:
Is artificial gravity in widespread use, or is spin gravity used on most habitats?

The older original generation of orbital and Lagrange Point habitats are indeed spin gravity. This is mostly the habitats in the inner solar system, several of which were already under construction before the influx of alien technologies, dating to about 2100-ish. These are the Stanford Torus and O'Neill Cylinder style colonies. The newer habitats - including ones built to replace the older aging designs - are built with artificial gravity, and are built more vertically in regards to their orientation, with a definite "top" and "bottom" rather than spinning on a horizontal axis. At least one of the latter is designed to resemble the title station of Deep Space Nine, but some people suspect the architect was a classic sci-fi geek.


Not going to add a new question as we still have so many pending answers or further clarification.

[Daigoro]

Rumours & Conspiracies #1

Time for a history lesson, you algae sucking asteroid jockeys! Planet Earth, the ancestral home, the cradle of humanity for 1 million years- one day its magnetic field goes bollocks. The sun, source all of life, starts cracking off coronal mass ejections, right at the Earth. Life on Earth becomes untenable for 120 billion souls. And then... a star ship collecting alien races from around the galaxy shows up saying, "We will save you!"

So what do you think? Three events, each of infinitesimal probability, never happened in all the thousands of years of recorded history… all come together in the space of three decades… by coincidence?

No, friends. This was the Collectors' plan. How could they make a planet-wide civilisation want to abandon their home world? They engineered its destruction and then gave us the tools to escape.

And how? I'll tell you. A monopole cannon. They bombarded the Sun with relativistic magnetic monopoles from light years away, and when they'd tracked the Earth's orbit, they hit it too. You talk to one of the Geo-Reform lads, and they'll tell you there's still something weird orbiting around inside the Earth's mantle.

And that's why the Cicads were so quick to take Jupiter! They're sitting on the Collectors' most powerful weapon, waiting for who knows when to use it. That's why we have to take back Jupiter, and soon!

[(E)]

As to the alien population, the numbers I picked out were based loosely on what I eyeballed as a reasonable living population for the Arc. That said multiply it by ten or a hundred or more for cold sleep etc. Feel free to change it completely if that works better.

Answer 44 Weapons (partial answer)

Cased slug throwers
For various reasons, some of which have little to with the physics of weaponry, some manufacturers continue to produce cased firearms. In general terms newer cased firearms have larger calibers to cope with modern armour. The increased calibers are usually combined with recoil compensation systems that make the guns bulkier and heavier as a result. "Victory arms" is one of the leading producers of cased weapons and produces both the "Grace" and "V-25" rifles, the former is a bullpup semiautomatic that fires a round comparable to the old .50 browning, the V-25 is a multiple ammunition 25mm that relies on having a range of specialized rounds available.

Caseless Slug throwers
In general caseless weapons use the benefits of Exotech to manage heat buildup better, this has allowed an increase in rate of fire. The larger magazines this has necessitated results in a bulkier and heavier weapon. The Red Star Armory has led the field in caseless technology for some years, based in a Russian/Nigerian city state in the UMCS they make the XK series caseless weapons. The XK-42 "Wrath", the XK-38 "Rage", the XK-27 "Fury" and the XK-102 "Berserk" are the most well known and frequently seen, several other manufacturers make similar versions of these popular weapons. These weapons are frequently used with "stacked" magazines that are loaded with a wide assortment of ammo types.

Gyrocs
A range of gyrocs exist, Beretta has a solid reputation based on several excellent models.

Laser weapons
Favoured by several groups due to the not relying on a "slow" projectile, a problem in some of the long range combat situations away from a planet's surface. Phillips and HG are the two big players in this field. Sniping weapons and Machine gun equivalents are the two areas that lasers seem to be dominating. Emplaced laser weapons are common as their effectiveness is greatly improved when hooked up to a reliable power grid.

Recoiless
Several recoiless rifle style weapons are used by stronger than human combatants.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Every solid body that's obtained a hydrostatic equilibrium classified as a terrestrial planet, moon, or dwarf planet in the system has at least one pressure/environmental dome colony, save for Venus. In addition, there are O'Neill cylinder and/or Stanford torus stations in every L4 and L5 position for the major planets, and possibly a few of the minor ones.

This is jumping back a bit, to Question 5, but I stumbled across this handy page:
List of gravitationally rounded objects of the Solar System
It gives 38 terrestrial objects for people to sit on.
Also useful:
List of Solar System objects by size

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by (E)

Question 40
What was the last major conflict in the system?

Answer 40
Battle of Proxima Terminus
Extreme spacesuit operations at the Sun-Mercury L1, and combined tank war on Mercury's sun-side

Background:
Mercury has been settled for 150 years, where "settled" means "mined and industrialised." Mining products are He-3 for fusion power and heavy minerals from the planet's dense regolith. Due to Mercury's extreme daylight temperatures of 700°C, standard procedure is for a mobile mining head facility to operate a shaft for most of the 176 Earth days of a Mercury night, then relocate across to another shaft on the opposite terminator and work it for the next night-period. So apart from the permanent polar settlements, Mercury's surface is peppered with open mine shafts on the dayside, and crawler mounted mining settlements on the nightside. In general, mining companies operate along a particular latitude band, with a number of mobile mining heads operating simultaneously.

Politically, Mercury's had a perennial issue with territoriality and sovereignty. Mining companies have been essentially working unclaimed territory. Extra-territorial governments try to lay claim to sectors of the planet's surface, but corporate security and rival exo-government forces drive them off in alternating waves. Alongside this, the populace of mining staff, who originally were just contractors shipped in for multi-year stints, after several generations of native residence on the planet, have started agitating for their own native sovereignty. Earlier movements were soon put down, but now sovereignty groups have been gaining off-world governmental support to hopefully bring stability to the planet, and the agitators have learnt that it's more effective to pay someone else to spill their blood for your cause rather than risk your own.

One disruptive tactic the partisans would use is to occupy mine shafts after the mine heads move off them, and hold them for the duration of the day-cycle, hiding deep down in the cooler depths of the mines. Then, after 6 months of habitation, the squatters could try to claim territorial rights against the mining companies or disrupt their operations. This of course just led to bloodier and nastier battles, and companies started taking the precaution of stationing guards in the empty shafts for the sunny season, which led to battles with partisans on the bright sun-scorched plains in 700° weather, fought over empty holes in the ground.

Proxima Terminus Station
Launched 40 years ago, Proxima Terminus was the closest inhabited human settlement to the Sun, stationed at the Sun-Mercury L1 at an altitude of 300,000km as a solar observatory and comms platform. With successive military actions occurring on the landscape below, however, it gained strategic value as well.

Thus, in the last round of military action, Mercurial partisan group Warriors of Nabu, with backing from a faction of the UMCS, attempted to oust the garrisoned Ares Network forces operating on behalf of United Mercury Mineral Extractions. The action was complicated by Nabu forces entrenching anti-orbital rail guns deep inside mining wells to lend artillery support against ships approaching the station. This then necessitated a ground battle with an Ares tank division specially adapted for the unique extreme combat environment, fighting against entrenched Nabu forces in adapted mining mechs with UMCS-supplied arms.

While Ares Network contractors eventually successfully held Proxima Terminus, there is a significant amount of political fallout continuing back on Mars, with many seeing the action as a proxy battle between the Martian states of UMCS and IDMS, both of whom have high stakes in the outcome of Mercury's territoriality.

Question 49
On the Ark, what relationship did the passenger races have with each other?
Were they all isolated, incommunicado from each other, or could they interact, trade and mingle?
Do any rivalries, alliances or collusions exist now from their time on the Ark?

Belated edit:
Question 50
For this kind of scenario to play out on Mercury, there would have to be some body that territorial claims could be made to- like the old International Court of Justice, a treaty body, or even just the court of public opinion. There would also need to be a way to enforce decisions or bring punitive measures against a defendant. So what's the situation?