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Old 10-23-2010, 07:11 PM   #31
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: [Space] Baseline Universe

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Often, yes. But the higher the level of technology the harder it is to wipe out a society completely. I just don't see how you could wipe out a TL12 interstellar society plausibly.
One idea I've had is for a setting where healthy/active interstellar states are TL11 with isolated "hermit kingdoms" at TL12 where the residents are either waiting to Ascend or to die from boredom and having made themselves redundant.

I will acknowledge that this part borrows from Uplift.

Various immortal aliens who are the last representatives of vanished races would wander around sightseeing. At least three of them will have started covering their ships with rectangular panels of blue wooden veneer and traveling with human "companions".

This part of course is completely original.
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Old 10-23-2010, 08:21 PM   #32
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Default Re: [Space] Baseline Universe

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Suppose you were going to run an (interstellar) Space game. Or in fact are.

What would your Tech Level be?
My Oriichalcum Universe has a future 'space setting' as well as a setting ~30,000 years in the past for non-Earth-related uses if need be.

My 'future space' setting has uses a 3e scale, but the basic Terran tech level is 3e TL9 and TL10, (probably about 4e TL10), with a lot of TL8 gear still around, and a smattering of 'special' gear that could be treated as 3e TL11 and TL12 (probably 4e TL11). I make a lot of mods to the scales, though, and I work on the assumption that the laws of physics are such that 3e TL10 represents a 'natural plateau', it takes a lot of effort abd resources to get any higher (it partly has to to with the scale gap in physics between the electroweak and strong nuclear forces).

(This helps explain why different societies might operate at the same tech level even though one is much older than the other.)

Certain people and groups have access to 'exotic' technologies that for special-case reasons are equivalent to some forms of 3e TL11-12 gear, at extraordinary expense in money and effort and resources. But for the most part it's 3e TL9 and TL10 technology for the advanced peoples, with modifications to things like AI and robotics and medicine.

Quote:

Would you have spacefaring alien rivals to humanity or just genetic variants of humanity?
Variant humans (meaning subspecies of Homo sapiens) and near-humans (other non-interfertile species of genus Homo) exist all over the Milky Way, all evolved from Terran stock and spread there thousands of years ago by dei ex machina entities. They're already out there when Terrans reach the stars. These variant-humans and near-humans fuifill the role of 'rubber suit aliens' Star Trek style, enabling friendships, romances, personal animosities, etc, beteen beings just different enough to be fun, while remaining basically enough like us to be interesting.

(Their home environments were reshaped to be enough like Earth that humans can operate there easily...usually. This is natural, since these 'aliens' are our close genetic cousins, so their native environs have to be much like Terra and thus comfortable for Terrans...though some some fun special cases exist.)

There are also 'alien aliens', biochemically of the same basis as we (their anestors too were once Terran, but the most recent common ancestor might have lived 100 million years ago), they can be very different, with evolutionary histories that shape them to be veyr much unlike us. Fungal intelligence, cephalopod intelligence, sapient rodents, avians, cetaceans, etc. For complicated reasons, most of this second group also has a few freaky things in common with us, and most of their cultures are very young.

Then there are the 'reallly alien aliens', with non-Terran origins, alien biochemistry, totally different. There is cryogenic life, including sapient life, based on liquid helium, and there are even more alien entities which fulfill the campaign of role of angels/gods/plot devices.

But precisely because the more alien creatures are more alien, they interact less often (usually) with Terrans than our near-cousins and half-slblings.

Why all this? Because it lets me have a plausible excuse for lots and lots and lots of worlds where unprotected humans can live, adventure, and operate without heavy protective suits, and interact face-to-face with aliens who are still enough like us to be interacted with usefully.

(What do a cryogenic helium-based alien and a guy from Chicago have to fight over, trade for, or talk about? And how can they interact in any way save while wearing heavy protective suits, since their natural environs are 100% instantly fatal to each other? A Human is to a Helian as a being with blood made of liquid iron and breathing rock-plasma is to a Human. If you have to wear such protective suits, why not just use teleoperated machines in the first place?)

The 'middle-aliens', evolved from Terran stock in the anicent past, but far from Human, enable closer interaction with creatures still very unlike us, but who can share environments clement, or at least tolerable, to each other, or who can use each other's environments with a breather mask instead of a full-coverage suit of armor. Since we have a common biochemistry, and need some of the same resources, there's more to talk about and fight about, too.

The common ancient-Terran heritage also gives me an evolutionarily-valid excuse for 'animal people' aliens like the Kzinti, if I want to use it, or to have Mongo-like worlds where megalodons and tyrannosaurs still roam, waiting to interact with the hero(ine) from Terra, and to produce alien environments extrapolated from Terran ones.

Quote:

What would be your preferred propulsion model?
Nuclear rockets are common (fission mostly), along the lines of NERVA and its cousins, antimatter-fueled rockets (not photon drives, but ships using tiny amounts of seetee to react with tons of propellant) exist, but are uncommon and very expensive.

Physics advances have enabled FTL travel, and also allowed the creation of drives are appear to be (but are not) reactionless, and have been combined with traditional propulsion to make nuclear-lightfield style rockets of extreme efficiency and enormous ISP and thrust.

The 'reactionless' drive actually exchanges momentum with other bodies by suiperscience means, which limits it in some ways and helps prevent R-bombs, but the same drive can be used for both FTL and sublight propulsion, efficiency falls near stars and moreso near planets, more local mass makes the drive less efficient. (Thus, sometimes the same ship might be able to go from Sol to Alpha Centauri in, say, a week, but also need three or four days to get from Earth to Mars, since in the inner System it works less well).

The 'reactionless' drive requires a McGuffin material, orichalcum, to work. That makes stardrives fantastically expensive (orichalcum goes for aruond 90 million dollars a gram), and leads to the practice of building FTL drives into huge 'barge carrier' ships that transport smaller shuttles and other ships from star to star. Having your own internal star drive is a major luxury...and can make you a very tempting target for less-than-entirely-honorable sorts.

Quote:

How far in the future would it be?
The setting is roughly 2055-2125. This is far enough off to be useful, but close enough to keep enough continuity to make nations, peoples, languages, etc, familiar and useful. Several major new political powers have risen on Earth, but many familiar nations are still there, too. Foods from other star systems can be purchased in the markets, but you can still get a traditional Philly cheesesteak (wi or wit-out as you please) or Chicago hot dog, too.

The Caribbean Union is the wealthest polity on Earth per capita, and Argentina is a military superpower, but the Scots and the English still can't quite decide whether they want to be one state or two. The USA still has fifty States, but they aren't exactly the same States, Saint Louis is the Federal capitol city...but the Cubs still play at Wrigley, Texas and California are still rivals, and America still can't make decent cheese...according to the French.

And so on.

Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 10-23-2010 at 08:34 PM.
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Old 10-23-2010, 11:23 PM   #33
Phantasm
 
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Default Re: [Space] Baseline Universe

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Suppose you were going to run an (interstellar) Space game. Or in fact are.

What would your Tech Level be?
That depends on the game. I've got one game on my prospectus which is a TL9 Conservative Hard Science setting, and another two which are TL 11^; one is a retarded progression SafeTech setting set in A Galaxy Far, Far Away, the other is set in Earth's future and is closer to modern thoughts of scientific progress in a medium progression.

Quote:
Would you have spacefaring alien rivals to humanity or just genetic variants of humanity?
Hmm... Yes. ;)

If I might clarify. The TL9 setting and the far-future-Earth setting both have human variants (one of which I derived from SPANC). The far-future-Earth also has some rival alien races, most of which are not even humanoid. I'm with whoever said "No half-Vulcan races"; humans and other humanoid races should not be able to interbreed unless they all originated on the same planet and have similar enough genetic codes (like orcs, elves, and humans - and occasionally giants, trolls, and ogres - in most fantasy settings). In the Galaxy Far, Far Away, aliens are quite prolific.

Quote:
What would be your preferred propulsion model?
In the near-future TL9 campaign, chemical rockets, ion drives, and lightsails/mag-sails are the most likely candidates. In the far future setting, I've traded out for reactionless drives. The GFFA setting uses reactionless pseudovelocity drives.

For FTL travel in the far-future setting, I prefer using a "hyperspace onion theory" drive. Using this model, think of RealSpace as being the "skin" of the onion, with hyperspace being "layers" "under" the "skin". The deeper into the "onion" you go, the less time it takes to go between two points on the "skin". However, there is an adverse effect on the human body and mind if you go too "deep" into the "onion"; this makes unmanned probes faster than manned flight, as well as serious regulations as to how fast civilian and military craft are permitted to go. Also, it is impossible to maneuver in hyperspace once your course is set, although anything unexpected can drop you back to RealSpace.

Quote:
How far in the future would it be?
TL9 hard science: 2100 AD
TL11^ future-earth: Looking at about 2500 to 2700 AD or so.
GFFA: Earth doesn't exist in that galaxy; although it may exist in one that's visible in the night sky or in telescopes. Senator Grebleips will fund a mission composed of his race in the waning days of the Republic to that particular galaxy, where one of the Force-sensitive members of his race will befriend a juvenile native.
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Old 10-24-2010, 12:37 AM   #34
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Default Re: [Space] Baseline Universe

TL 10ish, though other stuff can exist and things. For instance lightsabres, must have lightsabres. Also the AK-47 and RPG-7 are eternal, they never grow old and are still used in TL 10 (mostly by mooks), ships and such are mostly based off Star Wars or Spelljammer or Treasure Planet (Jedi exist and revere George Lucas as the prophet who foretold their coming . . . . why exactly made X-Wings and Ties etc are never fully explained (OOC because it started in D6, and stats existed for Star Wars ships, so of course people used them))

I mostly just steal various fantasy races, though occasionally some aliens show up to though are mostly just anthro animalish (such as Steggoids - Anthro Stegosauruses' and Porcupineans (anthro porcupines from the planet Porcupinea)) and also stuff from Star Wars, but primarily elves, dwarves, orcs, demons, dragons, fairies etc. Genetically modified (to the point where its noticeable) people are rare and unusualish. Though species doesnt play a huge role, your much more likely to fight the Purple Piranha Gang or the Cult of Foom or Evil Megacorp Inc which all are equal oppurtunity employers than you are 'the Orks' (well, sorta . . . Im a lazy DM, so you often fight 'a dozen orks with AK-47s' compared to '3 orks, 1 elf, 4 humans, 2 halflings, a dwarf, and a sentient rhododendron with AK-47s' (but also common to fight 'a dozen mooks with AK-47s'). Pokemon also exist, and may be genetically engineered based on the popular TV show from the past

Hyperdrive because Im so used to playing Star Wars . . . . though I have an alternate flavor text involving 'Fast Gear' for FTL, 'Slow Gear' for non FTL, magnetic propellors, revolutions, Tokomak Boilers for power, and ships having wakes. Culturally getting a captains license is viewed as an important thing for teenagers to do, just like a drivers license is now

21XX or 'sometime in the future', the current day time period is called 'The Weather Balloon Era', based on the notion the people of that era dismissed aliens and magic and such as weather balloons
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Old 10-24-2010, 12:24 PM   #35
David Johansen
 
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Default Re: [Space] Baseline Universe

I'm thinking it might be useful to work from the angle of making the setting as broad as possible.

The baseline universe needs to be open to playing the widest possible range of games.

It needs higher and lower tech areas. Areas that are primarily human and areas with a space opera mix. Areas where hard science is more prevalent and areas where super science is the norm. Psi needs to exist but be sufficiently below the radar to be ignored if you don't like it.

I'm thinking a two drive setting may be the answer. The hyper drive is great for short distances but the jump drive is better for crossing the galaxy. Jump gates are expensive and huge and ultra high tech. This gives us the potential for large backwaters of lower tech without entirely throwing away hyperdrive. Yes hyperdrives are good. Go read Insurrection and the other Star Fire based novels by David Weber and Steve White. Choke points make for absolutely nasty naval battles.

Reactionless drives exist but require unobtainium that can only be handled with ultratech. This gives us a reason to use reaction drives in the backwaters. Alien races are fairly scarce. There's maybe 20 in the whole galaxy with only half a dozen having the ultra tech stuff. The back waters tend to be one or two races in broad area. Humanity is in the ultratech club but only an evolved, psychic variety. Ordinary base line humans don't have psi, nor do most of the lower tech races.

The mix of races would include the really alien stuff and furries but be set up so you could easily leave the furries out of your private backwater. Most of the races would map to popular media critters but there'd be plenty of room to plug in your own.

I'd probably go with Hyper Drives being TL 9 and the backwaters having limited amounts of TL 10 while the ultra tech jump gate neighborhoods would be mainly TL 10 with limited access to TL 11.
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Old 10-24-2010, 12:43 PM   #36
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Default Re: [Space] Baseline Universe

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran;
Often, yes. But the higher the level of technology the harder it is to wipe out a society completely. I just don't see how you could wipe out a TL12 interstellar society plausibly.
Law of Nature? There is always some bigger fish in the sea. Perhaps a powerful entity simply creates a pocket universe and removes a society from known existence? Sure, the society isn't destroyed per se, but it is certainly "wiped-out/gone as far as the crest of the universe is concerned.
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Old 10-24-2010, 01:58 PM   #37
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Default Re: [Space] Baseline Universe

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Originally Posted by David Johansen View Post
I'm thinking it might be useful to work from the angle of making the setting as broad as possible.
Reminds me of Orion's Arm
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Old 10-24-2010, 04:16 PM   #38
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Default Re: [Space] Baseline Universe

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Suppose you were going to run an (interstellar) Space game. Or in fact are.

What would your Tech Level be?
Probably TL 10 overall, maybe retarded or advanced in a few places for a bit of variety.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Would you have spacefaring alien rivals to humanity or just genetic variants of humanity?
The enemy need not be a different species. Nationalism works just fine in Battletech and the Honorverse (
Spoiler:  
)

So I'd either go for nations of similar humans, or outright aliens, or both.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
What would be your preferred propulsion model?
Pseudovelocity drive. For FTL, hyperdrive, or the same pseudovelocity drive can just be dialled up to way beyond the speed of light to be a warp drive.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
How far in the future would it be?
Just about anything works depending on the particular mood I'm after. For something leaning toward 'hard' I'd probably go for something in the range 2150-2400, for more space opera feel, I'd probably prefer something like SW, BSG, or Foundation where modern Earth history is functionally irrelevant.
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Old 10-24-2010, 09:12 PM   #39
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Default Re: [Space] Baseline Universe

Either G:Trav or GISW. Probably GISW, as its already 4e and its easier for new players (Earth vs the evil Imperials....)

Homebrew GSpace background?

Now + 500 years or so.

3 different human polities, no spacefaring alien species (yet....), and a handful of intelligent alien races (straight outta GAliens, yo. And one from Trav...the Jgd-II-Jag).

Starfire-reactionless drive (has built in nuke dampener), force fields (for the warships), contragrav, classic GSpace hyperdrive (from 3e Space), average TL 10^. Energy weapons for the military folks, civilians and lesser beings get by with guns, etc. No FTL comms.

Basically try for a Piperesque feel to it. Think of his Terran Federation stories and you pretty much nail it.
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Old 10-24-2010, 10:12 PM   #40
David Johansen
 
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Default Re: [Space] Baseline Universe

I lean towards the year 4000 so that humanity has had time to disperse and become common place thus allowing for lots of interesting little pockets.

Yes you can just do the earth as a lost colony thing but personally I'm tired of ancients, and ancient astronauts, and all that stuff.

If there are a couple hyper advanced races I'd want them to be a little removed from the whole lords of order and chaos thing we got in B5.
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