[Game] Generate a Space Trader Setting

[(E)]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Just a quick note here- that's an exceedingly short amount of time on astronomical time scales, I'm not sure there'd be any orbital stability yet, unless that's a feature you want to include.

I was aiming for some orbital stability but not complete stability. How about a billion years?

Pet/decoration
Solar Roses
This bonsai like plant grows up to 600mm tall and has mirrored "flowers" that follow the sun. The flowers are actually an insectoid that has a symbiotic relationship with the plant and when light is not present the "petals" sckitter down the branches to rest in folds in the trunk.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by (E)

Question 86
What powers the ships and worlds of the galaxy? Solar? Fusion? Antimatter? Something else or a combination?

As with most technologies there is no single right answer, with the single exception of antimatter (considered too volatile and expensive for general use) any reasonably advanced power source be it Fusion, Solar, Geothermal, OTEC even occasionally old style Fission sees use in a bewildering variety of combinations in planetary power grids.

Once you get out into space things get less complicated, amongst most spacefaring societies Helium three Fusion is the de-facto standard.

[(E)]

Pest
Jackbits

The trader Jack St Claire made a fortune selling Mustilids to the Xylysus. When that trend faded he had another idea and invested all his money and some from Rile's investment group in a new venture. Robotic copies of life forms that existed on the Xylysus home world. He.made hundreds of different species of robots and converted an old sphere style colony ship into a factory and showroom. The robots sold incredibly badly. Rile's called on their debt and Jack took great offense. He programmed the robots to chew on anything with the rile's logo and let a few hundred thousand go in every space station he visited as he ran away from his creditors. Rile's changed their logo and name several times since but Jack just keeps reprogramming his robots.

Small robotic creatures of varying shape though many resemble six limbed lemurs. The sneak around and hide like the small creatures they are programmed to be, but when they see a Rile's logo they wait until they can attack it unobserved. They also sneak out late at night to lap at unprotected power points. The problem is Rile's have had many logos and the Jackbits don't see that well

[ericthered]

arg! people keep on answering the questions and not asking new ones! I suppose I can feed more questions into the hopper:

Question 87
How expensive are orbital habitats? What are reasons people build them, or reasons they don't build them? Are they more likely to be in the middle of nowhere or clustered around already crowded planets?

[(E)]

Pet
Tacky
Tacky as they are known by humans are an arboreal mollusk from the home world of the Chetai. They have a vaguely disk like shape and four extendable tentacles with a sticky pad at the end, not unlike a chameleons tongue. They love zero G and with a small amount of training they will fetch small loose items and return them to their "nest". This ability plus a friendly nature means they are frquently seen on star ships.

Question 88
Are there any fashionable Melee weapons among the species of the galaxy? And the laser hammers from the recent "Transgalactic pitfighter" recsoft don't count.

Rumor: The Elegant Lark has found a Zeropoint Cetacean breeding ground.

[ericthered]

Pest

Space Rust
Space Rust is a metallic-scilicoid lifeform that gains sustenance from energy differentials. Oxygen kills it, but it clings to the hulls of ships and slowly damages them if not removed. Removing most of the rust is a pain. Removing all of it is near impossible, and the stuff has moved through the galaxy. Once the spores are in a region of space, there are at least some of them floating around in vacuum -- though ports are where the stuff really gets spread.

Its unknown exactly where space rust comes from -- the first ship to get it probably didn't know.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Question 85: What usually happens to would be Conquerors looking for glory? why haven't they put together 100+ sized empires?

Most would be conquerors plot one big invasion and get slaughtered. Really, when it comes to difficult military tasks, conquering a planet is one of them, unless they have a large advantage like technology or complete surprise. For those that do manage to conquer a planet, then comes ruling the planet; dealing with an incredibly angry population that wants nothing more than your head is difficult, and adding a usually powerful insurgency tends spoil the appetite of most wannabe Alexanders. Some take to enslaving or massacring the population, then moving in settlers. These types tend to last around 5 or 6 systems, until expatriates who weren't captured drum up enough support to eliminate these Hitler types. More clever ones take planets under the guise of liberators, usually ruling the planets with a velvet hand. Although in any case, most powers, be it governments and corporations, can’t allow such disruptions to the order of things, and tend to eventually make a move to contain the expansion of these governments and topple them if necessary.

Still, every now and then, personalist regimes emerge, backed by interstellar radicals, ancient technology or sheer charisma and force of will. These regimes are very brittle, usually rising and falling in spectacular clashes with each other, massive military defeats, assassination attempts, or seemingly the tiniest cracks against the regime. Few leaders live into happy old age, though some voluntarily resign. With the leader removed, most fall back down into a disorganized mess, though some remnant occasionally remains.

Consider one case: Iris Nesbitt was a mild mannered Xenologist, then she discovered a powerful Ancient artifact. She used the artifact (a powerful weapon capable of demolishing entire battle fleets and armies) to liberate a system of repressed Divergers. But what made her different from most conquerors was the rapidity and fervour that she roused in her new subjects. Again and again, system after system fell to her, and every one of them quickly became a staunch an ally as the last. Then, 40 years later, a stray missile destroyed her flagship (the artifact either was destroyed or went missing) during the conquest of Xi-Zita VII. The successor council, a theoretically strong leadership, fell within months after taking over. The chaos as it is called, saw each government that replaced the last be even less capable of preventing colonies from declaring independence. Three centuries later, the only trace left is the Nesbitt Empire, ruler of three systems, two scarcely populated, all filled with debris from great space battles fought during coups. The other was the capital, filled with monuments and grandiose administrative buildings.

Some suggest that these conquerors aren't merely regular people, but special in some way. Details vary on the why, but many consider the idea laughable. However, when you ask many people who were there about their leader, they’ll usually stare blankly at you, and quietly and increasingly desperately ask for instruction from them, some eventually collapsing to the ground, pleading.

Question 89: Can somebody stat one of the alien races?

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by (E)

I was aiming for some orbital stability but not complete stability. How about a billion years?

400 million? Actually, I probably keep forgetting it's a space opera and get too hooked on technical details. Also, I actually have no idea how long it would take a binary star system collision to stabilise, or in this case, a trinary system colliding with a solitary(?).

Originally Posted by ericthered

arg! people keep on answering the questions and not asking new ones! I suppose I can feed more questions into the hopper:

Actually, I think we have quite a few open at the moment.

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Question 77
Mid-jump, intruder alarms sound from the cargo bay. The jolting and jostling must've shaken the stowaway(s) from their hiding place? Who are they, how'd they get on board, where are they trying to go, and how will they plead not to be keelhauled?

Question 78
Who is the recsoft celebrity travelling in disguise on your freighter? Why are they travelling 4th class like this?

Question 79
You picked up a mail package in your last port of call to carry to the local network postal hub, but when you arrive in system, it seems the security/police/military or royal guard from the last system have beaten you there and are waiting to intercept. What's in the 160TB package, and how strong is your duty to get the mail through?

Question 81 by (E)
With many militaries changing to the Black Bess their old weapons are being sold off, What exactly is hitting the markets, legal or otherwise?

Question 87 by ericthered
How expensive are orbital habitats? What are reasons people build them, or reasons they don't build them? Are they more likely to be in the middle of nowhere or clustered around already crowded planets?

Question 88 by (E)
Are there any fashionable Melee weapons among the species of the galaxy? And the laser hammers from the recent "Transgalactic pitfighter" recsoft don't count.

Question 89: by TGLS
Can somebody stat one of the alien races?

BTW- We missed question 83 yesterday, with the minor numbering snafu. For completeness-
Question 83 by Daigoro
Get enough whackos, erm... people of a like-minded worldview... together, with sufficient funding or time to buy or build their own colony ship, and they can shoot of into the broad starry yonder to found a commune that embodies their own little socio-politico-religio view of utopia. Many of these are never heard from again- as they drifted stranded in deep space, empty of fuel, or were torn apart by internal squabbles, or just found a place and survived but no one else has stumbled upon them yet. How many of these "Lost Colonies" departed civilised space, how many of those are still functioning out there, and how many of that number has the Library of the Ashes documented? How many have been reunited with galactic society? Which ones would be best to open a trade route to?

[(E)]

Question 78
Who is the recsoft celebrity traveling in disguise on your freighter? Why are they traveling 4th class like this?

That would be Yuri Hail-e who was caught in flagrante with the daughter of the governor of New Oregon. He is lucky to have escaped with his hide intact, the Transom family can get away with murder while EATDP needs their off world vote to maintain its seat on the UGoH security council.

Question 90
I have just retired from my career as a tectonic engineer where should I go on holiday now I have finished slinging Psuedo-nukes and asteroids at uninhabited planets?

Rumor: Frontier-tech is the next big fashion trend, jumpsuits and badges are so 8 years ago

[(E)]

Question 58 revisited post 99
Average TL under 10?
Decimal TLs are for comparison purposes and are conservative. Feel free to vary by up to 0.5 ish on a case by case basis

Tech levels of the big nine

Humanoid
1. CyKoi
General TL 9, Naval Weapons TL 8.9

2. Sulth
General TL 9, Biotech 9.5 - Genetic Engineering TL 10

3. Human
General TL 9.25, Genetic Engineering TL 8.75 - Food production TL 8.75 Medicine TL 9 - Strict Cybernetic Limitations, Computers TL 9 - Strict A.I. Limitations, Weapons TL 9.5, Robotics TL 8.9
Notes: Powered armour only at prototype stage.

3.5. Diverger
General TL 8.5 - Large infrastructure shortcomings, Biotech - Genetic engineering 10 - Medicine TL 9 - Cybernetics TL 10, Computers TL 9.75, Robotics TL 9.5

4. Xylysus
General TL 8.75, Computers TL 9.5 - Robotics TL 10

Non-humanoid
5. Akriti
General TL 8.9, Naval Weapons TL 9.5

6. Rhii
General TL 9.25, Naval weapons TL 9.5
Notes: Technology well integrated into society, good improvisers

7. Chetai
General TL 9, Materials 9.5

8. Mar Kan
General TL 9.1, Shields TL 9.5, Q.M.I TL 9.5

9. Enclave Worms
General TL 9.2 Computers TL 8, Theoretical TL 9.5, Jump TL 9.5

Overall
Notes: Nano-tech is risky, Mono wire probably exists if not Structural reinforcement field would maintain skyhooks, artificial gravity does not seem viable, ships have exposed radiators, two types of shields projected and structural reinforcement, cylindrical cabin structures (internal or external) provide some escape from zero G though spin gravity.

Unresolved questions regarding tech, Gravity scanners? mono wire? Capabilities of nano tech

Thoughts on the reactionless drive. Quantum Momentum Inducer, it does not provide acceleration, it "merely" alters the vessels momentum relative to near by masses, the closer and bigger the mass the worse they work, when turned off the momentum slowly returns to that of the largest gravitational influence? or maybe it provides acceleration up to a certain maximum speed relative to the galactic core?