Sapient Ships: Variations on an idea.

[jason taylor]

This is one I thought of from Andromeda with it's ship and robot avatar. Instead of an AI it is a personality of an actual biological Sophant downloaded into the computer.
The Avatar is an actual ships officer and serves a status equiv to the Rommie android in Andromeda. Avatars are trained from childhood for the Linking and to be declared fit for it is a high honor in this society. Those sophants that serve as Avatars are also psionically linked with the captain of their ship by an arranged match and the avatar and captain are considered a mated pair and attend social functions as such. Children of such a link often go on to be Captains or Avatars themselves.
The destruction of a ship is naturally traumatizing to both the captain and avatar and they usually require treatment from psionic healers before returning to their duties which may include commanding a second ship or training the next generation of Captains and Avatars.

This might be an appropriate custom for a Minbari like race of Space Elves but I haven't developed it much past that.

What does everyone think of this idea? Or do they have ideas themselves?

[thrash]

The concept has some similarities to Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang.

[jason taylor]

It does, though I was disappointed in the book myself; it was a romantic idea but the plot(s) kind of lost me.

It wouldn't fit into the TL of either OTU or IMTU. Nor would it fit in the in-verse culture or ideology I had worked out. Because of this I was thinking of putting it IMTU as Mythopoeia as part of a Prester John like tale of Space Elves in an unknown and mysterious place rather then as a primary story. It does seem a good idea the way I arranged it; but it just wouldn't fit except as Mythopoeia.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

It does, though I was disappointed in the book myself; it was a romantic idea but the plot(s) kind of lost me.

It wouldn't fit into the TL of either OTU or IMTU. Nor would it fit in the in-verse culture or ideology I had worked out. Because of this I was thinking of putting it IMTU as Mythopoeia as part of a Prester John like tale of Space Elves in an unknown and mysterious place rather then as a primary story. It does seem a good idea the way I arranged it; but it just wouldn't fit except as Mythopoeia.

Actually, it's well within Traveller Tech Levels to use a pseudobiological robot body and a tanked person in the ship. That kind of cybernetic tech is canonical; it's just not done much in the OTU as it provides little benefit.

Even the hologram is doable around TL 15.