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Old 03-28-2023, 05:01 PM   #27
Cyclone
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Default Re: Transhuman Space/Avatar

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
The greening of Mars is indeed a problem of credulity but massive improvements in space technology that somehow don't affect the balance of power in the Solar System wouldn't help.
A) It wouldn't affect the balance of power in the Solar system that much, since, again, people in THS do not try to wipe all life off the planet - indeed, this is one of the core premises of the setting, right back to the Designer's Notes: "My purpose in writing Transhuman Space was to break away from the prevailing medieval paradigms that dominated past science-fiction roleplaying games [such as] [...] that there will be a dark age, global war, or fall of civilization, often with billions of dead, before the new order is rebuilt on its ashes." Being able to accelerate an object to 0.2c with a huge price tag is useful to wipe out all life on the planet, go to a distant star, and basically nothing else.
B) It doesn't matter if it "affects the balance of power," since the players will be in Alpha Centauri so if the TSA now has a theoretical world-ender, that doesn't really matter. Bully for them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
I'm not really sure what you want the Transhuman Space background for but as nearly as I can tell it does not fit what you want it for. You're changing so much you might as well go original. If all of your campaign action s going to be on Pandora you no more need detail on where the PCs came from than the movie did.
To me, the interesting and cool part of Transhuman Space, and why I would want the PCs to be from THS specifically, is the various political factions and their well-developed and realized cultures, ideologies, advantages, and interests.

Not the specific nuances of THS's space exploitation projections. Which I think are substantially inaccurate [1] and don't matter if you're in another solar system with a single highly expensive ship anyway.

[1]: I think more realistic projection in THS's time frame, even assuming the wild successes in AI and gengineering, is for there to be asteroid exploitation and a bit of manned (or "manned") exploration, no actual colonies or long term civilian habitation.
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