09-22-2020, 02:07 PM | #11 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Rearranging the setting.
If you have an interstellar object traveling at 300 km/s, perhaps kicked out of a system by gravitational interaction with a neutron star, could cross 50 AU in ten months. If it was a M-class asteroid with a density of 8 grams per cubic centimeter and a radius of 10 km, it would possess 1.5 YJ of kinetic energy (three times as the KT extinction). The THS civilization might be capable of detecting the object a decade out and might be capable of deflecting the object. It would probably require a minimum of 10% of global GDP for a decade to be able to deflect the object though.
Now, the above scenario would be fascinating in the THS scenario because there are significant numbers of people who live off the Earth who might not care and, in the case of the Duncanites, might see it as an opportunity to finally destroy their statist enemies. In addition, digital intelligence might not support the sacrifices required to save biological life on Earth, as they can easily leave the Earth. In fact, they might push for uploading as an 'affordable' alternative to deflecting the object, and they might actively resist efforts to deflect the object as an unnecessary expense. |
09-22-2020, 02:51 PM | #12 | |||
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Rearranging the setting.
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09-23-2020, 04:51 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: U.K.
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Re: Rearranging the setting.
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I'm sure they'd love to have the "statist sheeple" off their necks sometimes, but that's not the same as wanting most of the human race to die. Subtract Earth, and the Duncanites (and other spacers) are living perpetually on the edge, with no one to trade with and a lot fewer new ideas to "borrow". Anyhow, much more fun to provide space engineering advice on the deflection project (for a fair fee) and then gloat about it for the next five or ten or two hundred years.
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09-23-2020, 06:35 PM | #14 |
Join Date: Sep 2014
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Re: Rearranging the setting.
One alternate THS setting I’ve toyed with is basically keeping everything the same except not having SAIs and uploading. Keeping the bioroids, parahumans, swarms, LAIs/NAIs all over the place, but in this universe either safetech concerns or some quantum whatever makes infomorphs rare or nonexistent. If LAIs sort of fill any SAI NPC roles, there aren’t THAT many differences, but the PCs have to be meat.
I think (with no evidence) most PCs are meat anyway, so maybe it doesn’t matter. |
09-24-2020, 02:31 AM | #15 | |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Rearranging the setting.
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In the two campaigns I've seen, probably 40%-50% PCs were infomorphs of some kind. IIRC other people's campaigns also tend to have the number hover at the 20%-60% values. |
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09-24-2020, 03:32 AM | #16 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Rearranging the setting.
Quote:
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The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. Last edited by johndallman; 09-24-2020 at 11:53 AM. |
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09-24-2020, 06:59 AM | #17 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: Rearranging the setting.
Somewhere in the space between shadow and fragment, but with a stronger belief in its own identity than most.
There are probably people who care about the difference between humans and parahumans.
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09-24-2020, 11:54 AM | #18 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Rearranging the setting.
True, edited.
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The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. |
09-25-2020, 05:45 AM | #19 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Rearranging the setting.
I've run two Transhuman Space campaigns, and no one ever chose to play an infomorph. Well, unless you count the one character who was a ghost rather than an AI, and occupying a bioshell cloned from his own former body. No AIs at all.
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09-25-2020, 06:36 AM | #20 | |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Rearranging the setting.
Quote:
(Now, the spiritual successor Eclipse Phase uses the term very differently, denoting state rather than essence, but I'm not sure why an EP-like exclusion of ghost-hosted-by-bioshell be in play.) |
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