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Old 05-24-2013, 04:50 PM   #11
isf
 
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Default Re: Transhuman Space and Star Trek

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Surely the OP is planning to have that! He's going to need some monster generators next to his transmission stations, but it's still drastically more cost-effective than building laser launchers. Indeed, the need for building expensive spaceships basically vanishes; the few necessary orbital stations can just have fresh air transported up, saving lots of money.

There is an SF series that's pretty much based on this idea, only with portals in place of transmitters: Peter F Hamilton's novel Pandora's Star starts it off.
I haven't decided what to do about that particular issue; I may just describe the tech and not get into too much detail. I do want them to be pseudo-velocity effects. You couldn't beam up air by itself since the warp/transporter bubble would pop outside the station unless you were using a transporter on each end.
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Old 05-24-2013, 04:53 PM   #12
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Is there any way to:
  1. Block transportation into an area?
  2. Tell where a transport came from?
Without (1), you have a world of many-polar mutually assured destruction. Without (2) you have a world of perfect anonymous terrorism.
1) Sort of, you could cause the transporter bubble to pop early causing the contents to appear at the edge of the blocked area.
2) yes, they are linear los devices; like firing a warp bubble that pops into normal space at the end of its journey.

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In the only Star Trek I'm familiar with, TOS, we only saw transporters in the hands of a sort-of military with very strong ethics and even stronger plot guidelines. Niven's Theory and Practice of Teleportation points out some of the problems when less constrained people have them, but there's plenty more ways they can be abused.
I'll have to look that up.
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Old 05-24-2013, 05:14 PM   #13
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I haven't decided what to do about that particular issue; I may just describe the tech and not get into too much detail.
Are you sure you aren't taking the Hollywood approach?
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2) yes, they are linear los devices; like firing a warp bubble that pops into normal space at the end of its journey.
So having something solid in the way stops the effect? Air has mass, you, know. What actually determines the blockage?
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Old 05-24-2013, 05:47 PM   #14
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Are you sure you aren't taking the Hollywood approach?
Yes, I do want to play by the rules and the consequences thereof, but the miracle tech violates hard science by definition :).

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So having something solid in the way stops the effect? Air has mass, you, know. What actually determines the blockage?
I haven't nailed down an exact percentage but I'm thinking that encountering about 1% of the bubble's mass at any given time will cause it to pop. It could be a function of warp bubble charge; when the warp bubble and its contents are in equilibrium wrt energy conservation, the bubble pops.
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Old 05-24-2013, 06:20 PM   #15
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I haven't nailed down an exact percentage but I'm thinking that encountering about 1% of the bubble's mass at any given time will cause it to pop.
The mass being moved by the bubble, or does the bubble have some mass of its own?

"At one time" is a complicated concept for movement near the speed of light, and may be hard to justify.
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Old 05-24-2013, 06:41 PM   #16
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The mass being moved by the bubble, or does the bubble have some mass of its own?

"At one time" is a complicated concept for movement near the speed of light, and may be hard to justify.
The mass within the bubble. It could be cumulative; as long as you can beam to the surface of a world but not through much material (deep in a building or underground), I"m okay with it.
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Old 05-24-2013, 07:50 PM   #17
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The mass within the bubble. It could be cumulative; as long as you can beam to the surface of a world but not through much material (deep in a building or underground), I"m okay with it.
Earth's atmosphere has as much mass to beam through as ten meter deep water, or about 2 meters of generic stone.
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Old 05-24-2013, 08:54 PM   #18
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Earth's atmosphere has as much mass to beam through as ten meter deep water, or about 2 meters of generic stone.
Thanks, that saves me trying to find it and is about what I was hoping for.
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Old 05-27-2013, 02:52 PM   #19
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In ST, the devices are plot-provided magic, and asking what else one can do with them, or create based on them is impolite. Further, if they are used to do additional things, even ones that break the normal rules, for plot purposes, it is rude to try to use those capabilities in other stories.

In THS, none of these rules apply. If your players find something plot-breaking that they can do with the new technology, that's good work on their part, and the GM needs to suck it up and smile, unless he can find an excuse for it to be deeply illegal - which will take time for the laws to get passed.
I'd say that this is true of RPGs in general, not just TS. In a TV series, the writers can always make sure that the characters are incurious, or at least don't make the key mental connections to turn a utility device into a civilisation-destroying terror weapon. In an RPG, you can't do that without explicitly warning the players and breaking suspension of disbelief. To some extent, I think RPGs are about solving problems by finding unexpected uses for the capabilities or items you already have, where lazy TV can get away with bringing in a new capability or item when it's needed.

Actually I'm rather curious as to what benefits the OP expects to get by melding TS and Trek over playing just TS, or just Trek. (I'm not trying to put anyone down, here -- I don't see it, and I'd like to know.)
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Old 05-28-2013, 03:14 PM   #20
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Actually I'm rather curious as to what benefits the OP expects to get by melding TS and Trek over playing just TS, or just Trek. (I'm not trying to put anyone down, here -- I don't see it, and I'd like to know.)
On Rpg.net, there was a really neat reimagining of Star Trek (Federal Space) that I really liked except for its explicit rejection of transhuman elements though the author did cite Transhuman Space as an inspiration.
I like Star Trek despite the glaring plot holes, inconsistent tech and near complete lack of actual military ability.

TS is my default optimistic hard sf setting though I haven't ever gotten to run a game in it. I'd change a few things if I ever run it (ai rights rather than bioroids, slower mars terraforming, more capable TSA).

It seemed logical to consider mixing the two if I wanted an hard(er) sf version of Star Trek; that it would also involve a game of TS where I don't have to track delta-v is a plus.
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