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Old 05-22-2014, 10:24 AM   #141
PTTG
 
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

How do the PCs come into that setting? It sounds amazing!
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Old 05-22-2014, 04:45 PM   #142
Dargaron
 
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

Largely, the conflict on Magog-1 is a case of Infinity attempting to block Centrum's efforts to turn it into a new base of operations. Infinity would like to get its hands on a trove of Gogite tech, but probably wouldn't devote too many resources to it: perhaps a small team of sufficiently plucky individuals would be employed to sneak into the (mostly) abandoned Gogite facilities in Eastern Germany, historic Armenia and Siberia! But the main idea is to meddle in the local politics to keep pro-Centrum politicians on their toes.

A potentially interesting background event is the inevitable power struggle between the (now-very-much-weakened) Stalin and Trotsky for control of International Communism. The almost-complete collapse of the Soviet Union gives Trotskyites much more of a leg to stand on, now that Stalin is hiding out in Russian Finland.

Reich-5 is interested for different reasons. Aside from their distaste of seeing a potential allied Reich getting om-nom-nomed by space creatures, the Raven Division is taking a different tack: they're looking for an echo that is currently before Gog and Magog awaken, so that they can secure the area, bring in a sufficiently powerful undercover force and recover one or both of the creatures alive, for use in Nazi weapons, Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark-style. Naturally, neither Centrum or Infinity are particularly interested in allowing Reich-5 to pull off a stunt like this...
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Old 06-26-2014, 11:31 PM   #143
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

Sufficient

A TL8^ alternate that diverged about a year or two ago, local date [insert current year]. A freak accident resulted in the development of a new power source- a kind of total conversion power plant that directly converts iron (or any other sufficiently conductive material) directly into electrical energy through a process that is completely explicable and rational and requires several PhDs to understand.

The device can be built with surprisingly simple tools (Though the actual theory is impossibly complex, a hard-core electronics hobbyist could build the device in a garage from an assortment of legal, though unusual and expensive components) and turns the source mass into the equivalent amount of energy at about 80% efficiency. It is fully scalable above a minimum size of about six inches in diameter. Besides this one "miracle," no other superscience exists... but this is more than enough.

Most "cool" things in science fiction are limited by energy density. From spaceships to mech-suits to jetpacks to laser pistols, the limit is always the battery, not the gadget. This invention changes this.

Sufficient is seeing a tech boom fueled entirely by these power cores. Though it is technically TL8, many gadgets from TL 9 or even 10-11 are being developed - but exclusively those that simply require a great deal of power.

At the current local date, [current year+2], there are already youtube videos of people hooking these up in cars, and one fellow is working on making an arc-ramjet in his backyard which would basically make jet engines obsolete.

The stock market is in chaos, of course; the formerly-unstoppable energy titans are still fighting to ban some of the more esoteric components of the device "for public safety," and are strange bedfellows with solar and nuclear power attorneys, but the device is so cheap to manufacture (provided you have a production line) that the companies that manufacture the power cores (about one each in Mexico, Brazil, China, Poland, Russia, Italy, Canada, and Great Britain) are able to reap huge profits while undercutting competing energy prices enormously.

A certain charismatic space pioneer has already embraced the new power supply and recently demonstrated a rocket engine that operates for about 20% the cost of older, chemical-propellant designs. A second economic revolution is already in the wings, because soon cheap spaceflight will provide vast quantities of materials from asteroid mining...

There is an uncertain future ahead: In a few years, this immensely dense energy source will be put to work for weapons and defenses. Conventional firearms will be rapidly replaced with electrical weapons- lasers and railguns based on modern experimental models that are currently wall-powered. It's becoming possible to wear practical armor once more, because hydraulics and servos can bear the weight of bullet-proof metal. Most importantly, political changes are happening very quickly, as once-secure economic powers crumble. What form these last political struggles take will depend on the people involved. A cyberpunk future of corporate militaries is one potential...

Crosstime Actions:
Of course, everyone wants a power core. It's even better than Homeline's fusion power, since it is far more powerful and requires a more stable fuel. However, the GM is welcome to say that this device functions only in Sufficient, though that feels like cheating. It could work equally well to say that Big Fusion is keeping this dimension quiet, or that there's relatively little economic benefit over fusion, and that the risk of Centrum finding one of these things is too big.

Last edited by PTTG; 06-27-2014 at 10:02 AM.
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Old 06-27-2014, 05:14 AM   #144
Randyman
 
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

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Originally Posted by PTTG View Post
Sufficient

A TL8^ alternate that diverged about a year or two ago, local date [insert current year]. A freak accident resulted in the development of a new power source- a kind of total conversion power plant that directly converts iron (or any other sufficiently conductive material) directly into electrical energy through a process that is completely explicable and rational and requires several PhDs to understand.

The device can be built with surprisingly simple tools (Though the actual theory is impossibly complex, a hard-core electronics hobbyist could build the device in a garage from an assortment of legal, though unusual and expensive components by) and turns the source mass into the equivalent amount of energy at about 80% efficiency. It is fully scalable above a minimum size of about six inches in diameter. Besides this one "miracle," no other superscience exists... but this is more than enough.

Most "cool" things in science fiction are limited by energy density. From spaceships to mech-suits to jetpacks to laser pistols, the limit is always the battery, not the gadget. This invention changes this.

Sufficient is seeing a tech boom fueled entirely by these power cores. Though it is technically TL8, many gadgets from TL 9 or even 10-11 are being developed - but exclusively those that simply require a great deal of power.

At the current local date, [current year+2], there are already youtube videos of people hooking these up in cars, and one fellow is working on making an arc-ramjet in his backyard which would basically make jet engines obsolete.

The stock market is in chaos, of course; the formerly-unstoppable energy titans are still fighting to ban some of the more esoteric components of the device "for public safety," and are strange bedfellows with solar and nuclear power attorneys, but the device is so cheap to manufacture (provided you have a production line) that the companies that manufacture the power cores (about one each in Mexico, Brazil, China, Poland, Russia, Italy, Canada, and Great Britain) are able to reap huge profits while undercutting competing energy prices enormously.

A certain charismatic space pioneer has already embraced the new power supply and recently demonstrated a rocket engine that operates for about 20% the cost of older, chemical-propellant designs. A second economic revolution is already in the wings, because soon cheap spaceflight will provide vast quantities of materials from asteroid mining...

There is an uncertain future ahead: In a few years, this immensely dense energy source will be put to work for weapons and defenses. Conventional firearms will be rapidly replaced with electrical weapons- lasers and railguns based on modern experimental models that are currently wall-powered. It's becoming possible to wear practical armor once more, because hydraulics and servos can bear the weight of bullet-proof metal. Most importantly, political changes are happening very quickly, as once-secure economic powers crumble. What form these last political struggles take will depend on the people involved. A cyberpunk future of corporate militaries is one potential...

Crosstime Actions:
Of course, everyone wants a power core. It's even better than Homeline's fusion power, since it is far more powerful and requires a more stable fuel. However, the GM is welcome to say that this device functions only in Sufficient, though that feels like cheating. It could work equally well to say that Big Fusion is keeping this dimension quiet, or that there's relatively little economic benefit over fusion, and that the risk of Centrum finding one of these things is too big.
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Old 06-27-2014, 12:12 PM   #145
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

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Skylark of Space!
No, X metal was far, far more than 80% efficient.

I'm hoping that "6 inches in diameter" referred to the size of the mechanism and not the amount of iron converted. Changing 20% of such a sphere into waste heat (or black body radiation) would make a multi-megaton bomb.

As a general thing the efficiency is very likely to be too low. You've improved the efficiency of internal combustion engine by a factor of between 2 and 4. So without a radical new waste heat radiation technology you've increased the amount of power available to a car or similar machine by a factor of 2 to 4/

You might also have decreased the weight of the car and this will turn some of the dials to 11 but will not generally enable superscience outputs.

Boosting the efficiency will help matters but by itself is still not enough. The power-to-weight ratio of known electrically powered reaction engines is so low that they really won't replace chemical rockets for lift off.

Note that Doc Smith's X metal did a _lot_ more than generate electricity. Almost all of those functions were necessary to produce the results seen in the Skylark series.
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Old 06-27-2014, 02:00 PM   #146
Randyman
 
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
No, X metal was far, far more than 80% efficient.

I'm hoping that "6 inches in diameter" referred to the size of the mechanism and not the amount of iron converted. Changing 20% of such a sphere into waste heat (or black body radiation) would make a multi-megaton bomb.

As a general thing the efficiency is very likely to be too low. You've improved the efficiency of internal combustion engine by a factor of between 2 and 4. So without a radical new waste heat radiation technology you've increased the amount of power available to a car or similar machine by a factor of 2 to 4/

You might also have decreased the weight of the car and this will turn some of the dials to 11 but will not generally enable superscience outputs.

Boosting the efficiency will help matters but by itself is still not enough. The power-to-weight ratio of known electrically powered reaction engines is so low that they really won't replace chemical rockets for lift off.

Note that Doc Smith's X metal did a _lot_ more than generate electricity. Almost all of those functions were necessary to produce the results seen in the Skylark series.
You're right. "Allotropic iron" was Lensmen, not Skylark. My thinking is muddy and turgid...
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"Despite (GURPS) reputation for realism and popularity with simulationists, the numbers are and always have been assessed in the service of drama." - Kromm

"(GURPS) isn't a game but a toolkit for building games, and the GM needs to use it intelligently" - Kromm
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Old 07-05-2014, 12:50 PM   #147
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Default Re: What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

Beaufort I - 1885
"It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world" - Chaos Theory

Earths Axial Tilt sits between 27 to 30 degrees (Homelines is 22 to 24 degrees), leading to consistently severe and extreme weather patterns, Hurricanes with 200mph wind frequently ravage Atlantic and Pacific coastlines.

Oceanic travel is extremely hazardous leading to limited human migration, Australia has no European settlement, Irelands West Coast is uninhabited, the US was eventually reached in 1860 by European Ironclads and limited settlement of the East Coast has occurred.

Conflict between Europe and the Middle East have been largely restricted to armies travelling overland.

Most nations coastal areas are sparsely populated or possess significant coastal defences.

The European powers now compete to construct ironclads and expand their bludgeoning populations, behind the scenes the tipping point could be the development of submarines.

However Europe's colonial ambitions may be doomed to failure as Amerindian nations subjugated in OTL are powerful and have developed their own technologies from the handful of explorers who reached the East coast.
Similar empires and kingdoms may await them within the African continent and Far East.

Last edited by arcanus; 07-05-2014 at 01:02 PM.
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