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Old 04-30-2021, 04:31 PM   #11
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Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

The I-Cops named the place "Cyrano". To them, it invoked 17th century swashbucklers. I'd run with that.

It was obviously a pastiche of Star Wars, specifically the prequel trilogy, which was still a thing at the time; "Voice of the Phantom" = Phantom Menace and all that. With Jansenist monks as Jedi.

The crystal and wire lattices that the Jansenists "occasionally" give to worthy people that include the marvels of their technology are holocrons, which means they are effectively computers. So the Jansenists maintain a monopoly on the building of computers, and issue them to the worthy - TL5+4, so hand-held, Complexity 4, 5 or 6 depending on options. Presumably the Jansenists have macroframes for their own use. Of course, once a necessary grace holocron has been issued, it may very well find itself with a new owner...in any case, there is certainly no widespread network of them, and this is probably one of the weak points that the Han and the Voice of the Phantom are exploiting...networked computers, and offering complexity 7 or better Spiral holocron computers, would surely be tempting to the wealthy but, er, unworthy, King Louis included. They're playing catch-up to the Jansenists but they don't have the same moral or aesthetic constraints.

They use steam cars, which at 5+4 are very efficient, but the fundamental difference between that and an IC engine is warm-up time. Turn the key on an internal combustion engine, it roars to life, and you peel out four seconds later. On an external combustion engine, you press the ignition switch and then go have a cup of tea while the pressure builds. Very useful for regularly scheduled hauls, freight and mass transit, inconvenient for personal and casual use. I suspect they have not completely replaced horses for that reason; business ship things by steam car, but sensible people still ride day to day. I note Louis has riding (hadrosaur). Perhaps the Venusian beast has replaced the horse in France Outremonde.

He also has skill in both beam weapons and slugthrowers (pistols for both). This implies both are in fairly regular use. He doesn't have any electronics or science skills, and he has survival (desert). All pretty consistent with a colony only started 100 years ago and then abruptly became home to a court in exile. And one where the Jansenists have tightly controlled the spread of technology, so that the way most people live is 17th century, but with better hygiene and vaccinations.

Speaking of, medical care seems like another thing the Jansenists would control. They'd teach psionic healing to as many people as they could, particularly within the Church, and while they would explain that it was a comprehensible and replicable process that happened to depend on the human mind, no doubt people treat it like miraculous healing. A Jansenist hospital might also be one of the few places where you find those complexity 7+ holocrons running things and performing medical analysis.

We have a mention of "Carnot lines". Carnot did a lot of fascinating things with engineering in his short life, but one of his major preoccupations was the idea of moving energy around as heat through solid and liquid networks. It looks like we have a power grid of sorts. A very dangerous one. But it implies a level of development for ordinary people, with household thermionic appliances but no computers, that says, yeah, 1956 to me.

A great deal depends on where in Cyrano you are, or course. It looks like the Americas, Han Eurasia, Mars and Venus all have VERY different lifestyles, and there was not a word on Africa.

But yeah, the Jansenists have pushed this world onto an extreme version of safetech. Highly restricted access to computers, medicine intertwined with psionics, computers and high-tech freight for the powerful but 1950s household tech and riding animals for the commoners.

I do note that one of those holocrons is sophisticated enough both to translate languages and to serve as a teacher for children. They'd be quite the heirloom. Grandad being worthy could change your family forever.

The lack of computerization strongly indicates to me that a lot of people still work in factories; at TL5+4 they're extremely efficient and productive but still fairly labor-intensive. One technology that I expect would be unrestricted would be the vapor farmer. I also note that you can have some really sophisticated sight, sound and smell equipment that is reasonably portable, you just can't hook it up to a network. Popup raves may not be Louis' thing but I bet they happen. And people trade songs and books As was done in the 80s.

So an average peasant lives in a 50s style house with a Carnot line powering appliances but an independent water-vapor system, rides a horse or hadrosaur into their factory job if they live in the colonies or catches the steam bus if they live in an urban core, and trades book and movie files after church with their fellow churchgoers (after taking the ones "provided and suggested" by the priest, or course). Burgers, divines and nobles will have more access to that sweet Jansenist psi crystal tech.

Just some thoughts.
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Old 04-30-2021, 07:21 PM   #12
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Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

They developed flash boilers for steam cars in the late 1800s that use either tubes of water in the flames or many heat tube exhausts running through the water that generate power in seconds. So steam cars would not be limited by startup time. It was 1908 when New York had more cars than horses. By the late 1920s the country overall was more car than horse.
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Old 04-30-2021, 07:37 PM   #13
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Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

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They definitely use energy weapons. h.
Of course they do. Louis has Beam Weapons TL(5+4).

This could be as simple as the TL9^ Flamers and Screamers in UT. Pyrokinesis is usually part of Psychokinesis and Sonokinesis is not unheard of (pun of course intended).

The Hand Flamer is slightly better than most Guns (Pistol})weapons (especially of tL5) but they do have Guns TL(5+4) as well. Those could be the equivalent of the TL9 Guns in UT or perhaps a PK-powered version of some of he Gauss weapons. Not sure how you'd do Electrothermal in TL(5+4). Liquid Propellant might be Steam/Crystal-punkish enough.
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Old 04-30-2021, 09:53 PM   #14
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Old 05-01-2021, 05:14 AM   #15
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Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

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As far as space travel, it sounds like it's TL4 sailing, just in space with psi-crystals.
Basically psi based Spelljammer (AD&D)

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Edit: I don't view "TL5+4" as hyper advanced steam tech, so much as steam tech was that last time reality and Cyrano had identical technology.
Well it would be "hyper advanced steam tech" but it would be hyper advanced TL5 on par with TL 9. The thing is TL5 doesn't start to being replaced by TL 6 until c. 1880 while Watt's improvement was in 1775 (firmly in TL5)

This is one of the place where the GURPS TL kind of breaks down - just what is the difference between a TL5 steam engine and a TL6 one? Also TL 5 saw the development of DC batteries and even early AC generators (1832)
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Old 05-01-2021, 08:38 AM   #16
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Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

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This is one of the place where the GURPS TL kind of breaks down - just what is the difference between a TL5 steam engine and a TL6 one? Also TL 5 saw the development of DC batteries and even early AC generators (1832)
I don't want to get into a TL tangent, but TL5 is when you start needing tools from TLX-1 to build TLX technology, and lacking them will hard stop your TL improvements. This means the difference between TLX and TLX-1 can be TLX has the same principals, but is just better in lots of little ways because of TLX-1 tools and techniques, which were not available to make TLX-1 technology.
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Old 05-01-2021, 11:39 AM   #17
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Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

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I suspect they look like steampunk boats. Going steampunk on every aesthetic is probably wrong for Cyrano, but it feels correct for boats.
If "steampunk" means "Disney 20,000 Leagues Nautilus" or maybe "multiple generations-on derivative of Fulton's Nautilus" rather than "historical early submersibles", I'd agree. I'd maybe look for a clockpunk aesthetic (rather than steampunk as such) in the vehicle designs.

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I'm struggling to reconcile the extreme high tech level with the control the Jansenites have over technology. Its hard to put a crystal powered lamp in every house if they all have to be made by one religious order.
My impression is that the Jamsenites control release of the knowledge, but once it's legitimately out, anybody can manufacture devices based on it. Modulo a bit of classic pre-Adam Smith monopoly licensing, of course. Come to think of it, industry may even have a nigh-cyberpunk tendency to monolithic corporations once you get past the fancy costumes and nice language. (But then, who does the manufacturing in the Star Wars universe?)

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I'd give them TL10^ weapons, no problem. Force-fields don't feel out of place. I can't decide if they should be used to allow battles to continue to be fought at melee ranges, or if they should be limited to large installations.
I'd go for building-sized forcefield generators only. Again, Star Wars is a clear reference point for this setting, and you get the big force field generator as a plot point in one of the movies, but no personal shields. And after all, if you had personal shields, Louis d'Antares would have one.
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Old 05-01-2021, 12:43 PM   #18
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Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

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I'm struggling to reconcile the extreme high tech level with the control the Jansenites have over technology. Its hard to put a crystal powered lamp in every house if they all have to be made by one religious order. And I'm not sure that giving them a simple TL5 existence with a layer of marvelous tech on top works either... though I am starting to lean that way.
They can't have that much control. After all the Han don't have them and they have plenty of technology.
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Old 05-01-2021, 02:37 PM   #19
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Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

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They can't have that much control. After all the Han don't have them and they have plenty of technology.
The Han (or rather, a few triads) explicitly broke the monopoly from studying janesite devices they got their hands on, and shortly after conquered half the world. Until then china was helpless. Too bad the tech is in the hands of what was recently organized crime.

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My impression is that the Jamsenites control release of the knowledge, but once it's legitimately out, anybody can manufacture devices based on it. Modulo a bit of classic pre-Adam Smith monopoly licensing, of course. Come to think of it, industry may even have a nigh-cyberpunk tendency to monolithic corporations once you get past the fancy costumes and nice language.
Its might be corporations, but guilds and estates could work just as well. Or communities that explicitly are the company you with for.

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The I-Cops named the place "Cyrano". To them, it invoked 17th century swashbucklers. I'd run with that.
Wait, looking at the reference... Ok, that's interesting. Thanks for making me look that up.

Quote:
We have a mention of "Carnot lines". Carnot did a lot of fascinating things with engineering in his short life, but one of his major preoccupations was the idea of moving energy around as heat through solid and liquid networks. It looks like we have a power grid of sorts. A very dangerous one. But it implies a level of development for ordinary people, with household thermionic appliances but no computers, that says, yeah, 1956 to me.
Ok, Carnot lines had me completely confused, and I looked the guy up. This really helps.

Quote:
But yeah, the Jansenists have pushed this world onto an extreme version of safetech.
That's a really nice thought: safe tech with a 17th century baseline.

[/Quote]Just some thoughts.[/QUOTE]
Hey, that's a pretty complete image. Complete enough fl that is mostly head cannon for me now.

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A TL5+4 setting should have the same Starting Wealth (and, by implication, per-capita GDP), life expectancy, game-mechanical medical effects, etc., as a TL9 setting. That might be a place to start.
Its a good starting place, but a terrible ending one. If everything ends up with the same stats you either missed the point or you are intentionally invoking a Fred flintstone effect.
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Old 05-01-2021, 03:18 PM   #20
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Come to think of it, industry may even have a nigh-cyberpunk tendency to monolithic corporations once you get past the fancy costumes and nice language.
The Dutch East India Company, one of cyberpunk's prototypical "corporate states," receives prominent mention.

Quote:
(But then, who does the manufacturing in the Star Wars universe?)
I don't recall any specific names, but in Last Jedi didn't we hear that they sell arms to both sides and gamble the earnings at Canto Bight?

Quote:
I'd go for building-sized forcefield generators only. Again, Star Wars is a clear reference point for this setting, and you get the big force field generator as a plot point in one of the movies, but no personal shields.[
Small craft (Millenium Falcon and x-wing fighters, certainly) carry deflectors, so the cut-off is probably closer to microwave-sized than building-sized. Still no personal shields, though.

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Wait, looking at the reference... Ok, that's interesting. Thanks for making me look that up.
Note that the historical Cyrano de Bergerac is often credited as one of the earliest science fiction authors, which may shore up the reference.
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