Seeking advice: TL6+1 pulp sci-fi setting

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'm very fond of the idea of the asteroids as the ruins of a destroyed planet, whether in the Lowellian sequence (Venus is a younger Earth, Mars is an older Earth, and the asteroids are the remains of a dead Earth) or as the result of an interplanetary war.

Me too. I'm very fond, in some ways, of the Golden Age SF and pre-Golden Age Solar System, or at least some versions of it. One of my long-ago favorite SF stories involved a skeleton and an emerald ring in a cave on an asteroid, and some time travel.

Jack Williamson did an interesting version of the 'broken world' asteroid belt in his old Seetee stories.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by DataPacRat

I'm stealing most of my initial technobabble from this theory, in which the galaxy rotation curves that led to the postulate of Dark Matter are instead the result of a slight modification of inertia which results in a minimum possible acceleration, and the inflation that led to the postulate of Dark Energy are instead the result of, again, that minimum possible acceleration.

I'm afraid to say, this strikes me as being overly well-thought out for a pulp scifi setting.

[Ultraviolet]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I'm afraid to say, this strikes me as being overly well-thought out for a pulp scifi setting.

I was wondering about that as well.
I play in a pulp campaign which has run since '94, although with a reboot when switching from 3rd to 4th ed.
It's normal late 20's pulp but with anything-goes weirdness happening to the characters: magic, zombies, space aliens, time travel (although just the one time), other dimensions, weird super-science etc.
We just roll with it as it comes, and live with any inconsistencies.

Also, the talk started with mentioning pulp and TL6, why is steampunk entering the discussion? Surely TL6 has seen the transition from steam to combustion?

[AlexanderHowl]

You can have divergent TL without superscience. Since you are not using FTL, you just need a more habitable solar system. You could introduce a habitable Venus and Mars by changing their parameters using Space (a standard or large planet instead of a small planet for Mars could be quite habitable, for example)

[warellis]

Originally Posted by Ultraviolet

I was wondering about that as well.
I play in a pulp campaign which has run since '94, although with a reboot when switching from 3rd to 4th ed.
It's normal late 20's pulp but with anything-goes weirdness happening to the characters: magic, zombies, space aliens, time travel (although just the one time), other dimensions, weird super-science etc.
We just roll with it as it comes, and live with any inconsistencies.

Also, the talk started with mentioning pulp and TL6, why is steampunk entering the discussion? Surely TL6 has seen the transition from steam to combustion?

In fact wouldn't TL6+1 be sort of dieselpunk?

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by warellis

In fact wouldn't TL6+1 be sort of dieselpunk?

The notation 6+1 tells you that there is a divergence from our technology path between TL6 and TL7, but it doesn't tell us what causes that divergence. If, for instance, science discovered in TL6 that peanut butter could be made into a superconductor, TL6+1 might be a world in which new, peanut butter superconductor devices are becoming commonplace.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by warellis

In fact wouldn't TL6+1 be sort of dieselpunk?

Well, yes. On one hand, I mentioned Steampunk and Steam-Tech because some of the technologies they describe could work fairly well in a dieselpunk campaign. On the other, both those books were written with 3/e TLs, under which the Age of Steam included 1880-1900 devices such as the telephone and the generator; in 4/e such devices are classed as TL6. So "steam-tech" devices that take off from those, such as Tesla's wireless power transmission idea, would now be TL(6+1) rather than TL(5+1).

[DataPacRat]

Originally Posted by a humble lich

I put together a similar setting a while back. I was all ready to send you what I had put together, until I realized that it was a lot less fleshed out than I thought it was.

Here are some ideas that I used that you might want to consider:

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'm very fond of the idea of the asteroids as the ruins of a destroyed planet, whether in the Lowellian sequence (Venus is a younger Earth, Mars is an older Earth, and the asteroids are the remains of a dead Earth) or as the result of an interplanetary war.

I've played with the idea of explorers finding a capsule that contains an infant with amazing powers, in suspended animation, who is the last survivor of the shattered planet. . . .

I've also played with the idea of a campaign where there are no or almost no computers, but Science developed techniques for inducing special abilities in human beings: photographic memory, perfect mimicry, mathematical intuition, heightened senses, and so on. Could be based on hypnotic hyperesthesia, drugs, or both. Take this pill and you're Sherlock Holmes. . . .

All snagged for the idea-pile. :)

Originally Posted by a humble lich

Atomic Rockets --- It looks like you are looking at some form of reaction less thrusters, but if you haven't seen it you might want to look at http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/. He has a lot of information of realistic atomic rocket engine, realistic space travel, and a lot of great 50s era science fiction pictures.

One of my favourite references - especially this one. :)

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I'm afraid to say, this strikes me as being overly well-thought out for a pulp scifi setting.

I'm planning on using that particular babble to be roughly the equivalent of explaining how subspace works in classic Star Trek. That is, it's good to know that there /is/ an explanation, and when somebody breaks out the Weird Tech being able to spout such babble may be worth a bonus on a die roll, and it'll be handy for when the PCs overhear some engineers gabbing in a bar, and it'll let the Smarty-Pants PC look down their nose and exclaim "Don't be silly, warp drive is just science-fiction!", and so on. Even Doc Smith got maybe that much of an explanation of inertialess drive in, before his Civilization started using FTL antimatter planets as ammo.