[Pragmatic]

Originally Posted by Magehound

Heh, I'm almost as bad as you

Heh. Keep in mind, that's my REBUILT collection. I originally had something close to 30 boxes of stuff. To break my collection addiction, I had to hire someone to sell all that stuff privately and on eBay (and the blankety-blank walked off with about a third of it, grumble grumble...)

Back before WOTC stopped doing PDF scanning (and LONG before the Hasbro suits made them do "cease-and-desist" orders on all the sites selling their PDFs...), I rebuilt my D&D collection (Basic, AD&D 1E, AD&D 2E, and some other out-of-print TSR/WOTC items) with PDFs. And I bought some of the d20 stuff I liked. And picked up a few other gaming systems. I'm currently sorting through what made it up here on the move, deciding if I'm going to purge more. (I'll likely reduce by another three or four boxes. But they're NOT getting my GURPS or Forgotten Realms 3E stuff...)

(And yes, I have, Brin's dolphins and Uplift themes had a heavy hand in how I regulate my dolphins in game-play, it makes for much more interesting writing, I'll tell you that, when the dolphins can just as easily drown sailors as save them.)

I draw stuff from all over the place. GURPS Uplift (the issues of environmentalism, species preservation, the collection of knowledge, and the uplift of biological and digital species; not to mention I like imagining the ur-species of some of the aliens listed), GURPS Alpha Centauri (starting with the neo-ascetic movement, but also some of the faction ideologies), Battle Tech (I'm fond of the Taurian Concordat and the Diamond Sharks, as well as portions of another half-dozen factions), Star Drive (there are several factions that appeal to me, plus I like some of the aliens), and Transhuman Space (so much...). Plus various books I've read. Basically, if you pull from one source, you're a plagiarist. If you pull from MANY sources, it's "research." :-)

I have a "Mary Sue" mini-space empire society that is way too ideal. I'm in the process of fleshing them out, and in tossing in undesirable elements to make them a little more plausible...

Lately, I've been applying it to an PbeM-RP wiki resource I have, based on a book series on an alien planet that never sufficiently fleshed out any of it's fauna to my taste (and when GURPS comes out with a PLANTS! sourcebook, I'm sure I'll find things to desire in the flora too).

Do tell. What book series is that? And have you read Julie Czerneda's Species Imperative trilogy?

There were only about two or three "hard" rules about the animal life there, and basically none of it past that was ever described. I thought it a pity, because there was a lot of room for interaction with the local wildlife. The ur-species system is wonderful for filling up the niches, just yesterday I rolled out a mole-like, hive-minded, tropical jungle burrowing species. The fun part now, will be turning the numbers/results into "real" details.

Aside from having my "Mary Sue" society bringing in early-Uplift (slow-and-safe biotech) chimps and dolphins, I also have them bringing in gorillas, orangutans, and pygmy elephants (Borneo elephants).

Not to mention a veritable "Noah's ark" of remnant populations and DNA catalogs of various species. (Thus, they start from existing animals, but rebuild diversity by using their DNA catalogs and a little genespliced mutations.) On their several worlds, they've built various "domed biomes" of the various regions of Earth, recreating everything possible.

I also imagine them having ur-species of Gubru, Jophur, Kanten, and Tytlal to discover. (Interesting groups to Uplift and societies to craft...)

Then I toss in unusual and interesting creatures I've found. For instance, the Future Predator of the now-canceled Primeval series. It would be interesting to have a "bat sonar" form of "vision" creature, but having to reduce their natural aggression.