GURPS New Space Opera Setting Idea

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by whswhs

You've got an entire sapient race that has only one culture on its native planet?

Note from the title of the threat that this is space opera. One culture per species is par for the course. Objecting to this would be like me bringing up the Fermi paradox, or how practical interstellar STL spacecraft would make the war described very, very short. Sit back, enjoy the special effects, hope it has a good plot and engaging characters, and ignore the dictates of science and logic.

Luke

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Note from the title of the threat that this is space opera. One culture per species is par for the course. Objecting to this would be like me bringing up the Fermi paradox, or how practical interstellar STL spacecraft would make the war described very, very short. Sit back, enjoy the special effects, hope it has a good plot and engaging characters, and ignore the dictates of science and logic.

Luke

Remind me again what the Fermi Paradox is? If that's the one with "why is everyone humanoid?", I think I have that one nixed.

[Langy]

The fermi paradox is 'where is everybody?' Basically, wondering why we can't detect aliens. Fortunately, the solution is rather simple - we'd only be able to detect our own radio emmissions from Earth at up to 0.3 light years away with our largest radio telescopes. Just assume nobody else is putting out obscenely large amounts of radio emmissions and you're fine.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Remind me again what the Fermi Paradox is? If that's the one with "why is everyone humanoid?", I think I have that one nixed.

Nope, not that one. The basis of the "paradox" is that if other species on other worlds regularly develop interstellar travel, why are they not already here? Once life figures out how to expand into a new niche, it normally expands very fast, with the usual exponential growth and rapid colonization front. Given the minuscule amount of time our species has existed compared to the age of the universe (or even age of stars that might have habitable planets), and the short time scale for colonization of the entire galaxy given interstellar (even STL) transportation (compared to the life of said stars) then our planet should have been overrun by aliens long ago.

Consider, for example, that in your setting you have, what, either two or three species of life, independently evolved on separate worlds within a few dozen light years of each other. This implies that life is very common, and statistically you would have civilizations on other worlds that developed before humans and pondrur and k'hissh that developed interstellar travel, then the first one to do this would go on to colonize the whole galaxy in just a few million years (and probably pre-empt the development of other sapient species or at the very least introduce ecological disasters as they brought their own planet's life forms to the worlds they colonized). We don't see this.

The Fermi paradox is not strictly speaking a paradox. There are several resolutions
(A) Life might be very rare. Earth might be the only planet with life in the galaxy. Science fiction with this solution would have human explorers finding a galaxy full of dead, barren, inhospitable worlds.
(B) Life might be common, but sapience might be vanishingly rare. Humans are the only intelligent life out there. In this sense, we are the first, about to unleash ecocide on all those planets we colonize and pre-emptive, unwitting genocide on all the intelligent species not yet evolved. With this solution, we find worlds rich in life but with no friendly natives. You can interpolate solutions between (A) and (B) - common bacterial life, for example, where explorers find planet after planet with seas of yeast and algae, where the most advanced life form is a coating of slime in damp areas; or maybe common lower life forms like simple worms, but nothing as advanced as a fish or insect.
(C) Life may be common, intelligence may be common, but interstellar travel is simply impractical, well night impossible. No sapient species ever has the economy to pull off an interstellar mission. This makes for rather boring and somewhat depressing science fiction.
(D) Technological civilizations may always be short lived, burning through their non-renewable resources and over-exploiuting their renewable resources on a short time scale until a planet-wide collapse occurs, preventing future industrial societies. This is a very bleak setting for science fiction.

Note that none of these solutions to the Fermi paradox are amenable to space opera, with lots of advanced sapient beings sharing the galaxy. That's okay, it is genre convention to simply ignore this. If you are making a space opera setting, it is an unwritten contract between the GM and players that the Fermi paradox is simply not brought up. Make wild and flamboyant alien races and run with it! Have fun! Have star spanning adventures full of daring-do! That's what space opera is about.

Cheers,

Luke

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Langy

The fermi paradox is 'where is everybody?' Basically, wondering why we can't detect aliens. Fortunately, the solution is rather simple - we'd only be able to detect our own radio emmissions from Earth at up to 0.3 light years away with our largest radio telescopes. Just assume nobody else is putting out obscenely large amounts of radio emmissions and you're fine.

Ah, right.

Plus there's essentially the one century we've been broadcasting radio, as opposed to the roughly six thousand years of civilization before that where we didn't have that technology. Factor in that we're essentially shifting away from radio for long-range communications to tight-beam satellite relays, reducing the power of our radio transmissions. If we assume (due to lack of evidence to the contrary) that this is standard, that leaves a very short window for detecting anyone by radio.

In short, the method used to detect the Glrrü was a complete one in a million fluke.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Note from the title of the threat that this is space opera.

It said "new space opera." There is in fact a science fictional subgenre called "new space opera," whose conventions are rather different from those of "space opera." I took the thread to be about doing that genre as an RPG. See for example Vinge's A Fire upon the Deep or Stross's Singularity Sky.

Bill Stoddard

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by whswhs

It said "new space opera." There is in fact a science fictional subgenre called "new space opera," whose conventions are rather different from those of "space opera." I took the thread to be about doing that genre as an RPG. See for example Vinge's A Fire upon the Deep or Stross's Singularity Sky.

Well, unfortunately, the intent was to declare the setting as a new "space opera" setting, not the setting as "new space opera" setting. I was not actually aware that there was a subgenre with different conventions.

I really should try and put all my notes into one location one of these days....

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

I bounced back and forth on this myself, and it ultimately came down to, "What if as a practical joke someone slipped a Glrrü some acid? Would the drug have the same effect on a Glrrü as it does on a human?" As the answer was "No," I decided to give them the trait.

That's the same situation as different specialties for medical skills. If they have their own industrialized society that produces its own equivalent of acid that can be slipped to them, the difference is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage.

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Hmm... that'd work better, and be closer to what I imagined anyways. Price it about the same, though, or would it be a mere -5%?

Depends on how common the right conditions are. It'd be -20% if they could expect to be able to fly about half the time, less if it's more common.

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Good point. How would you stat that? A racial Pacifism (Reluctant Killer) Disad that can be bought off, or just a racial Cautious Quirk (or possibly even full-fledged racial Cowardice)?

I was thinking more "worthy of comment" than "worthy of a Disadvantage" with the exoskeleton comment. With DR 2, bleeding out from an accidental cut or puncture would probably be rare, but any intentional laceration has a high potential for deadliness so it's not something they do lightly except in the case of individuals with a very cavalier attitude toward killing to begin with. In other words, every normal individual thinks a broken exoskeleton is very serious, but that can range from "seriously terrifying" for a squeamish pacifist to "seriously cool!" for a young adolescent male (if they have such a thing).

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by whswhs

There is in fact a science fictional subgenre called "new space opera," whose conventions are rather different from those of "space opera."

Huh... Learned something that otherwise would have slipped right by me. Thanks!

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by whswhs

It said "new space opera." There is in fact a science fictional subgenre called "new space opera," whose conventions are rather different from those of "space opera." I took the thread to be about doing that genre as an RPG. See for example Vinge's A Fire upon the Deep or Stross's Singularity Sky.

Huh. You learn something new every day.

I'm not familiar with Stross, but it doesn't seem like the OP is going for Vinge-like rationalism. If he is, I'll happily weigh in with ways to make the setting more plausible (and eat my words to you, as well).

Cheers,

Luke