Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 07-26-2021, 07:56 AM   #51
patchwork
 
patchwork's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

So glad someone recognizes that phrase ;)
patchwork is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-27-2021, 11:02 PM   #52
warellis
 
Join Date: Jan 2014
Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

Quote:
Originally Posted by patchwork View Post
Audiovisual stuff is where we have some head-scratching and hand-waving. Computers are restricted (in a half-assed manner caused by the collision of a strong desire to prevent social change and an almost-as-strong desire to affirm the judgement and authority of the nobles, divines and elect to do as they like), and there is clearly no fixed computer network, (and comms would be wired, not wireless) but everyone has a portable device that can read book files and play music and movie files, and when you get down to it that's a computer that was deliberately rendered Turing-incomplete. A clever person should be able to study such a device and 'expand' it into a true computer, but apparently this didn't happen. Even if you decide they don't have portables and the home theatre/vidphone is another fixed appliance in the home, it's still something a person could tinker with in unacceptable ways. I don't have a good example for how Cyrano file readers work, so I'd lampshade it and say that's one of the things Infinity is interested in, starting with whether or not they work according to standard physics or some local wrinkle. Heat-sensitive proteins as memory/display devices that nevertheless can't be made in some rando's garage, they require a very complex biomechanical plant to produce, anchored around a very small Complexity 1 crystal computer? Still only half a solution, could buy seventeen file readers and perhaps cobble them together...hm. Maybe the heat-sensitive proteins require a sealed environment you'll break if you disassemble the thing? In terms of 'we're really not in Kansas anymore' I particularly like the fact that this means in an emergency you can eat your file reader and files, perhaps...
Those son't quite sound like smartphones.

Heck would Cyrano computers even have GUIs?

As for these heat-sensitive proteins as a display device, are they like biological OLED screens?
warellis is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 07-28-2021, 11:53 AM   #53
patchwork
 
patchwork's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

Quote:
Originally Posted by warellis View Post
Those son't quite sound like smartphones.

Heck would Cyrano computers even have GUIs?

As for these heat-sensitive proteins as a display device, are they like biological OLED screens?
They aren't, because we have no indication of any wireless communication whatsoever on Cyrano, save for Jansenist telepathy. The technological path they're on would seem to preclude it. We're talking about a mega-iPod, with a very good microphone and camera that allow it to be used as a recording device, but moving the recording from one device to another is a pain in the butt.

I expect Cyrano computers are primarily voice-activated, with a haptic-holographic backup interface; remember the information about how these things actually work is tightly controlled, so they have to be as idiot-friendly as possible.

I'm deep in the weeds speculating about how Cyrano file readers work; if you want them to work like an OLED, sure, why not.
patchwork is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-29-2021, 04:43 AM   #54
warellis
 
Join Date: Jan 2014
Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

The Jansenists control the tech for French Outremonde.

But, what is the control of the tech like in the Han Empire? Since it was originally triads who first reverse engineered it, before kicking out the Europeans and then conquering all of Eurasia (including Europe itself), do ever wonder how the Han Empire treats its populations, both native & conquered?

Because I notice its government structure is "clan/tribal" (possibly due to the fact its origins lay in the triads?)

Last edited by warellis; 09-03-2022 at 10:53 PM.
warellis is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 07-29-2021, 10:25 AM   #55
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

Quote:
Originally Posted by warellis View Post
But, what is the control of the tech like in the Han Empire? Since it was originally triads who first reverse engineered it, before kicking out the Europeans and then conquering all of Eurasia (including Europe itself), do ever wonder how the Han Empire treats its populations, both native & conquered?
Genre convention would say that the triads jealously guard their secrets as a key to power, and take great care to kill any Jansenist who might spread the secrets of power to the oppressed masses. They should probably have an order of some sort that keeps that power. This may be triads, kept operating even after they achieved domination over half the world. It may look more like an aristocracy now. Or they could recruit candidates through a twisted version of the imperial examinations.
__________________
Be helpful, not pedantic

Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog

Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!
ericthered is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-29-2021, 01:17 PM   #56
patchwork
 
patchwork's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

Huh. I just noticed the mention of "crystalwave communicators", so there appear to be some sort of wireless communications after all, although how small they can make them and at what bandwidth and range is GM's fiat I'm sure. Smartphones after all.

The Triads are Ming "loyalists" who refused to acknowledge the new Qing dynasty. The Ming will have collapsed on schedule on Cyrano, the replacement dynasty may or may not have been the Qing but whoever it was, the Triads opposed it; and it collapsed 100 years ago. European thuggery prevented a new dynasty from arising and organizing, so that China has been more of an idea than a reality for about a century on Cyrano. The Triads went on their world tour 60 years ago; it looks very much like they destroyed governments and didn't form replacements on any scale. I expect "shouldn't we formally designate a new Imperial family?" would occasionally come up in conferences these days, but not everyone is interested. Conquerors' grandchildren are often very different from conquerors. CR 4-6 suggests to me a wide range between well-run city-states and despotic hellholes, often only a few miles apart and unfriendly to each other now that the Christians are mostly out of reach. But that sort of limits the scale of Triad operations; clever beasties, but they're used to working in small scale and in secret, and even now they don't really work on a scale larger than the city.

The selection of a new Emperor for a New Ming Dynasty would be the next shoe dropping on Cyrano, I suspect. And the Voice of the Phantom is probably part of that nonsense.

I note that the mana level on Cyrano is low. Do the Triads have sorcerors? I bet they have sorcerors.

Last edited by patchwork; 07-29-2021 at 01:22 PM.
patchwork is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-29-2021, 01:24 PM   #57
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

Quote:
Originally Posted by patchwork View Post
I note that the mana level on Cyrano is low. Do the Triads have sorcerors? I bet they have sorcerors.
Maybe they have some syncretic Asian voodoo. Whoever kicked off the great expansion certainly sounds like a reincarnation of Hulagu Khan.
__________________
Fred Brackin
Fred Brackin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-29-2021, 04:05 PM   #58
dcarson
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

Siberia, the Manchu and Korea all have shamanistic groups. So a mixing of those could be interesting.
dcarson is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 07-30-2021, 08:14 AM   #59
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

Quote:
Originally Posted by patchwork View Post
CR 4-6 suggests to me a wide range between well-run city-states and despotic hellholes, often only a few miles apart and unfriendly to each other now that the Christians are mostly out of reach. But that sort of limits the scale of Triad operations; clever beasties, but they're used to working in small scale and in secret, and even now they don't really work on a scale larger than the city.
That doesn't sound like a potential threat though. That sounds like a bunch of folks that can be picked off one by one. I was imagining a cliches built of warlords ruling "provinces" the size of a European country.

Perhaps there was a great leader who lead the conquest but who no one has managed to equal in control.
__________________
Be helpful, not pedantic

Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog

Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!
ericthered is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-30-2021, 09:35 AM   #60
patchwork
 
patchwork's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Default Re: [IW] What does the world of Cyrano look like?

We have three names for the great push westwards 60 years ago, Kiang Ho, Prince Tsa and Yue-Liao. If we take the Mongol analogy further, perhaps they divided the realm between them as Russia/Chinese Heartland/Western Europe. I expect they are all dead these days, of course, but perhaps one of them lingers, more machine than man now.

I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of picking them off bit by bit; were I running a prolonged game in Cyrano, I'd want that to look like a high-risk option but perhaps the best one on offer. But I see your point, the Eurasian Han need to seem like a great threat. It seems we really have a blind spot as to what these "Triads" are, since they have to be rather different from the ones in our worldline. I would personally just use it to emphasize that the window of opportunity is rapidly closing; the men who sacked Paris 60 years ago were basically anti-Christian anarchists, but they are dead, and their grandchildren are trying to organize into real nation(s). If they succeed, France Outremonde is doomed.
patchwork is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 07:33 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.