02-06-2018, 09:39 AM | #21 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
It is worth remembering that David Pulver has written that his goal in the setting was to create a setting which emphasized some themes (transhumanism, space advocacy, anime), tried to avoid blatantly contradicting what we know about how the world works (so no force screens or rubber-mask aliens), and was palatable to American gamers (so the geopolitics are conservative and the United States is still a powerful country throughout the setting, because getting the setting across is hard enough without making players adapt to a completely different geopolitical setup). It is not meant as a prediction of the shape of the future, because 4000 years of writing and science tell us that its impossible to know that.
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02-06-2018, 12:52 PM | #22 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
Changed geopolitics seems to be a source of complaints for all near future SF. Look at how many people can't accept the French in 2300 AD.
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02-06-2018, 04:09 PM | #23 |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
There are over 300 million Americans. It's not possible to make any sentence let alone setting palatable to most of us.
TS already has loads of changes from today creating a usually playable culture shock. At what point adding more changes becomes unplayable is going to be very individual.
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02-06-2018, 04:56 PM | #24 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
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After all, about half the great powers in 1900 no longer existed in 2000 (and the relative ranks of the survivors are very different) so it is likely that the top power in 2000 will be gone or much weaker in 2100. I think that David Pulver specifically said that he chopped a zero or two off the time required to terraform Mars so that Mars would be available to have adventures in. I never looked at theories of terraforming, so I don't know which direction estimates have shifted in the past 20 years.
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02-06-2018, 09:18 PM | #25 | |
Computer Scientist
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dallas, Texas
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
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02-07-2018, 02:02 AM | #26 | |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
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02-07-2018, 08:08 PM | #27 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
Depends on what the miracle material's properties are. A space elevator needs high tensile strength and low mass, rocketry needs things like extreme temperature and pressure tolerances and low mass, etc.
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02-08-2018, 08:56 PM | #28 |
Join Date: Feb 2018
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
Not quite. If we could find a way to make mass amounts of metallic hydrogen and use it for fuel, then there is our miracle SSTO engine. But it doesn't get us a beanstalk. If we could find a way to make large scale carbon nanotubes that meet all the requirements for a beanstalk, then we have our beanstalk. But it doesn't get our miracle engine.
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02-08-2018, 09:09 PM | #29 |
Join Date: Feb 2018
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
People really complained about that? Given that Traveler 2300AD is a continuation of Twilight 2000 timeline and France was the only large European country survive WWIII intact, then it makes perfect sense that France would be a world leader. I kind of remember people passing on Traveler 2300AD because there really wasn't a lot of material published for it and the various aliens were very weird. There was the Kafer stuff, but if shooting bugs really wasn't you thing, then it was kind of meh. It was a good attempt at a hard sci-fi game.
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02-08-2018, 09:16 PM | #30 | |
Join Date: Feb 2018
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
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