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Old 01-09-2014, 10:14 PM   #21
Anthony
 
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Default Re: [Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

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Originally Posted by Michael Cule View Post
I couldn't possibly comment but look here.
I find Ken Burnside (adastragames)'s games somewhat unplayable, but there's no question that he had a reasonable amount of cooperation with David Weber -- he's actually responsible for some errata in the tech sections of the actual HH books (with original sizes, superdreadnaughts were lower density than air...).
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Old 01-12-2014, 02:01 PM   #22
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Default Re: [Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

Technology Timelines: Honorverse vs. Mine
I've always found the timeline below to be a bit stetched out and (largely due to my own "grav screen" tech sequence) in dubious order. Of course DW wanted a well settled galaxy with lots of history for HH to play in, but twelve centuries of STL colonization (with a bit of high-risk FTL scouting for the last five) seems a bit much.
Quote:
“The first manned interstellar ship departed the Solar System on September 30, 2103. Although no other ship followed for almost fifty years, 2013 ce, became accepted as Year One of the Diaspora, and January 1 of that year became January 1, 01 pd for purposes of interstellar dating.”
"The Universe of Honor Harrington", More Than Honor
725 PD:
The first crude hyper drive is tested in the Solar System.
731 PD:
Development of the first "hyper log" (known as the "HL" by spacers) allowing hyperspace navigation accurate to within no more than 10 LS per light-month. By 1900 PD, HLs are accurate to within .4 light-second per light-month.
1246 PD:
The first phased array gravity drive, or impeller, is designed on Beowulf in the Sigma Draconis System.
1273 PD:
Adrienne Warshawski, of Old Terra, develops grav Scanners and “alpha node” arrays to produce circular, plate-like gravity “sails.” *
1384 PD:
Shigematsu Radhakrishnan develops the inertial compensator.
1447 PD:
First wormhole junction is discovered.
1502 PD:
The first practical counter gravity generator is developed by the Anderson Shipbuilding Corporation of New Glasgow. *
1581 PD:
Dr. Ignatius Peterson, building on the work of the Anderson Corporation, Dr. Warshawski, and Dr. Radhakrishnan, mates countergrav technology with that of the impeller drive to created the first generator with sufficiently precise incremental control to produce an internal gravity field for a ship.
1903 PD:
Grav pulse communicators developed by Naval R&D of the Star Kingdom of Manticore are used for the first time by recon drones during the Battles of Blackbird and Second Yeltsin. Maximum range is four light-hours with a pulse repetition rate of 9.5 seconds. ("The Honor of the Queen")
If you are interested in using a different tech sequence applied to the same cosmology, here is mine (intervals between inventions should increase geometrically):
  1. Gravitic Screens - Developed accidentally while trying to invent a radiation proof force field for long duration space habitation, a grav screen can cut off up to 100% of the gravitational attraction between masses. This allows low cost space exploration and utilization by reducing thrust requirements as well as planet-based zero-G manufacturing and medical procedures.
  2. Gravitic Sensors - Created to examine artifical gravity phenomena like grav screens and derivative technology.
  3. Gravitic Accelerators - An open tubular grav screen can create a positive gravity field perpendicular to its walls. This can be used to improve reaction drive efficiency (by increasing exhaust velocity), as a fluid pump with no moving parts, or as a mass driver to launch missiles or kinetic energy weapons.
  4. Artificial Gravity - A totally enclosed grav screen can be adjusted to generate an internal gravity field in any direction. If a grav drive (below) is used, the permeability of the screen can be adjusted to add the drive's acceleration to the internal gravity as a grav compensator option.
  5. Gravitic Shields - Enclosed grav screens generating several hundred thousand internal gravities can be projected outside a ship to block or deflect incoming missile or energy fire.
  6. Gravitic Penetrators - "Penaids" are intense grav screen projectors attached to missiles and energy weapons designed to let them penetrate grav shields. There is a constant tech race between shield and penaid developers.
  7. Gravitic Drive - Intense grav shields projected behind a ship can create a negative gravity field that pushes the ship forward. These also create vibration in the hyperspace "wall" that can be detected by grav sensors at interplanetary distances.
  8. Gravitic Communication - When grav sensors detect drive activity at FTL speeds, ultrafine controls are added to the drive to permit FTL communication.
  9. Hyperspace Generator - a precise configuration of projected grav shields used to translate a ship from one hyperband to another or between N-Space and the first hyperband. Once in hyperspace, the ship must use a grav drive or sails (depending on whether the is outside a grav wave or not) to move.
  10. Hyperlog Nav System - “analogous to the inertial guidance units first developed on Old Earth in the 20th century ce. By combining the input from extremely acute sensor systems with known power inputs to a vessel's own propulsive systems and running a continuous back plot of gravity gradients passed through, the HL maintains a real-time "dead reckoning" position.” (UoHH)
  11. Gravitic Sails - Projected grav shields that permit a ship to “sail” a hyperspace grav wave. If a star system lies entirely in a grav wave, the sails must be set when translating from N-Space or the ship will be destroyed.
Dalton “who wonders if his tech sequence has sufficient gravity Spence
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Old 01-12-2014, 04:27 PM   #23
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Default Re: [Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

For someone who has just started reading HH (on book 6 now), this thread is awesome (and informative; I admit I never quite understood how the whole "band" thing worked).

But, if this is another setting, I see no reason to adhere to the HH timeline as stringently. To me, it feels a bit like a joke, and driven primarily by genre conventions and metatext reasons - mainly to get a "ye olde"-looking year that calls back to age-of-sail fiction from which HH draws inspiration, even though the plot is actually occurring around 4000 AD. And the technology can't really be said to be "developing" as much as "having fits", depending on the system - computers might as well still use punch cards for all the good they do; naval history is preserved in detail, yet people don't know what "samurai" are and think they're just characters in movies; even though personal weapons can level a building, people are still impressed with a M1911 .45 ACP; duels and trial-by-combat are a-ok, but genetic engineering is a taboo that has endured for millennia, etc. etc.

Really, any of the technological (non-)developments in HH might have equally plausibly occurred in a century or two as they did over two thousand years, especially seeing how closely they resemble our own society.

EDIT: Also, I'd like to say, DaltonS, you have really prettily-formatted posts.

Last edited by Seneschal; 01-12-2014 at 04:30 PM. Reason: brown-nosing
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Old 01-12-2014, 05:42 PM   #24
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Default Re: [Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

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people are still impressed with a M1911 .45 ACP; duels and trial-by-combat are a-ok, but genetic engineering is a taboo that has endured for millennia, etc. etc.
Uh...what? The setting has lots of genetic engineering.
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Old 01-12-2014, 06:55 PM   #25
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Default Re: [Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

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Uh...what? The setting has lots of genetic engineering.
Perhaps he means no one is running around like some sort of transhumanistic supersoldier? I guess he regards the genetic engineering done to Honor Harrington to not really be genetic engineering?
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Old 01-12-2014, 06:56 PM   #26
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Default Re: [Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

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Uh...what? The setting has lots of genetic engineering.
Huh? I'd say it's probably more conservative than in most sci-fi. "Lots" relative to what? They're 2000 years in the future and the most I've seen is TL 9 longevity treatments. The only planet where it's remotely acceptable to mod yourself is Beowulf, and even they follow a strict code of staying far away from transgenic modifications. When it does crop up, it's never casual or commercialized, and only accepted on a societal level if needed to adapt to a hostile environment. If it becomes the focal point in the later books, I stand corrected.

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Originally Posted by warellis View Post
Perhaps he means no one is running around like some sort of transhumanistic supersoldier? I guess he regards the genetic engineering done to Honor Harrington to not really be genetic engineering?
Oh, it is genetic engineering, I think it's stated outright that the Prolong treatment is genetic, not just pharmaceutical. It's just "safe-tech" genetic engineering, that's why I said there's a taboo.

Last edited by Seneschal; 01-12-2014 at 07:03 PM.
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Old 01-12-2014, 07:43 PM   #27
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Default Re: [Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

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Originally Posted by Seneschal View Post
For someone who has just started reading HH (on book 6 now),.
....and this is why the gentleman thinks there's almost no genetic engineering. It would be "Spoilers!" to tell you how much genetic engineering there is later in the series but trust me it is there. :)

You've mentioned Prolong and even that is more than TL9. It'd have to be at least a TL10 Proteus Virus and there have been three generations of it so third gen Prolong might be TL11.

Even first gen Prolong might be more than 1 level of Extended Lifespan. Or at least EL + Longevity. Third gen obviously does more and seems to be lacking the full levels of the Early Maturation feature (at least for physical traits).

I think even only as far as you've gotten a careful reading would have come across Honor's ancestors having been engineered to live on a high grav planet. That's why she's so strong. There are other Heavy Grav types in the series too.

But more than that there's an enormous amount of genetic engineering later in the series and this is why your comment has confused some other people. I will say no more because of Spoilers.
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Old 01-12-2014, 07:56 PM   #28
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Default Re: [Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
....and this is why the gentleman thinks there's almost no genetic engineering. It would be "Spoilers!" to tell you how much genetic engineering there is later in the series but trust me it is there. :)

You've mentioned Prolong and even that is more than TL9. It'd have to be at least a TL10 Proteus Virus and there have been three generations of it so third gen Prolong might be TL11.

Even first gen Prolong might be more than 1 level of Extended Lifespan. Or at least EL + Longevity. Third gen obviously does more and seems to be lacking the full levels of the Early Maturation feature (at least for physical traits).

I think even only as far as you've gotten a careful reading would have come across Honor's ancestors having been engineered to live on a high grav planet. That's why she's so strong. There are other Heavy Grav types in the series too.

But more than that there's an enormous amount of genetic engineering later in the series and this is why your comment has confused some other people. I will say no more because of Spoilers.
Oooh, okay, thanks! That passage about Beowulf ethical codes made it look like they had survived something like Trek's eugenics wars, got all "WE'VE GONE TOO FAAAR" and cracked down on the mutants and supersoldiers. Wasn't expecting to see any of that, guess I'll have to keep reading.
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Old 01-12-2014, 09:34 PM   #29
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Default Re: [Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

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And the technology can't really be said to be "developing" as much as "having fits", depending on the system - computers might as well still use punch cards for all the good they do;
Don't see anything about the computers that implies they underperform modern technology. Admittedly having ~0 improvement in AI over that time is not really plausible, but that's 'safe-tech' for you.
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naval history is preserved in detail, yet people don't know what "samurai" are and think they're just characters in movies;
Graysons don't know what samurai are. Graysons don't know a lot of things. The University of Manticore probably knows more than that (unless the book explicitly contradicted that), and records on Earth certainly would cover it.

Honor is a naval history buff. Admittedly, the references to 20th century and earlier wet-navy stuff rather than the space navies of the next several centuries are a bit silly, but making historical references to history your readers don't know is questionable writing even if it's good worldbuilding.
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Originally Posted by Seneschal View Post
even though personal weapons can level a building, people are still impressed with a M1911 .45 ACP
People aren't any more resistant to either bullets or loud noises than modern people.

The things about it that impress people are its loudness and its recoil, not its performance.

The fact that it's an M1911 in particular is, of course, rather silly fanservice.
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Originally Posted by Seneschal View Post
duels and trial-by-combat are a-ok, but genetic engineering is a taboo that has endured for millennia, etc. etc.
Duels and trial by combat are both ridiculously backward customs.

Manticore and Grayson both have a rather silly tendency to maintain and cherish their ridiculously backward customs. It is rather questionable why Manticorans consider themselves obligated by dueling custom even if they and all their friends think it's stupid.
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Originally Posted by Seneschal View Post
Oooh, okay, thanks! That passage about Beowulf ethical codes made it look like they had survived something like Trek's eugenics wars, got all "WE'VE GONE TOO FAAAR" and cracked down on the mutants and supersoldiers. Wasn't expecting to see any of that, guess I'll have to keep reading.
Oh, that's exactly what happened.

But...
On the one hand, they did have their eugenics wars first.

On the other, there is more modern genetic engineering. Not just prolong. Honor's status as genetically augmented is well-documented, but not unique.
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Old 01-13-2014, 01:48 AM   #30
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Default Re: [Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

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Honor is a naval history buff. Admittedly, the references to 20th century and earlier wet-navy stuff rather than the space navies of the next several centuries are a bit silly, but making historical references to history your readers don't know is questionable writing even if it's good worldbuilding.
There are several references to the history of space navies. Saganami is the great naval hero, prior to Harrington, of the RMN. Several other ships and classes are named after people other than royalty. I'd guess the honored people are naval paragons or something similar. Haven and Anderman do the same. I imagine SLN does as well, but they go for about a few hundred years without a serious competitor, which might make heroes harder to find.
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