GURPS Alpha Centauri

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Phoenix42

Naturally - the fungus/Planetmind/mindworms kills off all sapient life on the planet as a matter of interest.

It's not just sapient life - apparently, a Flowering more or less kills of all life on Planet besides the fungus, barring some small relic populations that manage to avoid getting eaten. That's why there's no large lifeforms. They simply never have time to evolve between Flowerings.

[Phoenix42]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

It's not just sapient life - apparently, a Flowering more or less kills of all life on Planet besides the fungus, barring some small relic populations that manage to avoid getting eaten. That's why there's no large lifeforms. They simply never have time to evolve between Flowerings.

Granted - but the flowerings occur every 100 mill. years or so (according to Deirdre, just rooted out her quote). This means that, since Planet is now nearing its next cycle, we can assume a roughly 99 million year timespan for life as it is to have evolved. If we compare that to earth, that is even longer than man and all other mammals took to evolve from the rat-like mammals that survived the dinosaurs 60 million years ago. Of course, sapient animals are kept from evolving by the mind worms and friends. But that doesn't keep the rest from evolving, right?

Again, my biology skill is not really good enough for all this, so feel free to correct me. :)

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Phoenix42

Granted - but the flowerings occur every 100 mill. years or so (according to Deirdre, just rooted out her quote).

Ah, I see. I was going by the text in GURPS Alpha Centauri, which just said "every few million years". I was picturing something like a 2-3 million year cycle, which limits things a bit more. Not hugely, of course - 2-3 million years is still plenty of time to evolve a full ecosystem. But at least we could assume that the larger animals took longer, or something.

I think we have to chalk this up to Planet's active encouragement of symbiosis. Large animals, presumably, are harder to weave into the symbiotic web. Large herbivores would be likely to eat the fungus, and large predators would have to either eat large herbivores, or eat a lot of the little symbiotic animals. So mindworms just ate anything that was getting too big.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Phoenix42

Granted - but the flowerings occur every 100 mill. years or so (according to Deirdre, just rooted out her quote).

I have to dispute Deirdre's estimate. The fact that a few of the boreholes from before the latest Flowering still exist and Planet is still geologically active makes a hundred million years a wild overestimate. Also it's not a coincidence that that there's a flowering just a few hundred years after humanity shows. It's our fault.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I have to dispute Deirdre's estimate. The fact that a few of the boreholes from before the latest Flowering still exist and Planet is still geologically active makes a hundred million years a wild overestimate.

Not sure of the logic here. If Planet is as old as Earth, 100 million years means there could have been 6 flowerings in the same time period as the existence of multicelluar life on Earth, 20 since the evolution of nucleated cells, or 30 since the first records of simple bacteria. Since we know that Planet was engineered, that's not unreasonable.
I don't think the boreholes are good evidence either, since they are apparently using superscience to maintain themselves against geological forces.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

I don't think the boreholes are good evidence either, since they are apparently using superscience to maintain themselves against geological forces.

If you've ever triggered an earthquake in their vicinity, or reshaped land, not really.

[Phoenix42]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Ah, I see. I was going by the text in GURPS Alpha Centauri, which just said "every few million years". I was picturing something like a 2-3 million year cycle, which limits things a bit more. Not hugely, of course - 2-3 million years is still plenty of time to evolve a full ecosystem. But at least we could assume that the larger animals took longer, or something.

I think we have to chalk this up to Planet's active encouragement of symbiosis. Large animals, presumably, are harder to weave into the symbiotic web. Large herbivores would be likely to eat the fungus, and large predators would have to either eat large herbivores, or eat a lot of the little symbiotic animals. So mindworms just ate anything that was getting too big.

Quite possibly. According to the Supplement, and there I'm inclined to agree with it, literally all of Planet's life is somehow symbiotically linked to the fungus. Of course, this can be symbiosis by default, for instance I have one type of funnel-shaped plant around my UN HQ that lives off the droppings of the local bat-like creatures, offering them a nesting ground in return in the funnels; the bat-creatures then migrate over fungus regions in their final life phase, and die there, leaving clusters of funnel-spores which the fungus then uses to grow certain proto-tower formations. (I like to give my biologist players things to puzzle over :) ). And since such "default symbiosis" should reasonably be possible even for larger lifeforms, if you're creative enough, I think there's room enough for a few species at least.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I have to dispute Deirdre's estimate. The fact that a few of the boreholes from before the latest Flowering still exist and Planet is still geologically active makes a hundred million years a wild overestimate. Also it's not a coincidence that that there's a flowering just a few hundred years after humanity shows. It's our fault.

If you've ever triggered an earthquake in their vicinity, or reshaped land, not really.

I agree with Kelly - the Boreholes are maintained by Superscience - the fact that the gameplay engine simply didn't support the concept of indestructible landmarks is not really much to go by, I think. The geological re-formation of certain landmarks via earthquakes etc. was not really perfect in the game, to say the least. Either way, no manmade structure could survive a million years, let alone 100 million. So if something survived a few million years by probability mechanics, then it stands to reason that it could well survive a hundred.

As for the our fault thing, you're most definitely right; which is why humanity speeded up the process by around a million years in my rough estimate (and let's face it, that's a heck of a lot). But even assuming that humanity's influence was even greater, say 10 million, that would still leave 90 million years of free evolutioneering.

At any rate, it's up to the GM to decide the exact age of Planet, the Fungus etc. depending on the flavour of his or her campaign. I think both can be produced quite easily without distorting the actual idea of AC. The point is, I hold in my campaign that something that allowed the evolution of sealurks (which, I believe, are not part of the original Progenitor programming, but more an offshoot of psionic interference by the Fungus) is going to allow for other larger life-forms as well. The question is, what kind of animal lifeforms can be reasonably expected after 100 million years, in a nitrogen-high, carbon-low, oxygen-meagre environment with two suns and massive psionic interference? And that's the part I'm still grumbling about.

[cjbeiting]

Originally Posted by Phoenix42

Hey Guys...




Oh ye of little faith ;) - Let me just say, for one, you're right... for another - I AM YOUR MESSIAH - BOW DOWN TO MY GEEKDOM!!

Well, or something to that end ;)

At any rate, I have been spending (and my head spins at the thought) the last four years GMing Gurps: Alpha Centauri, and I'm just opening up a new group. And yeah, you hate it for the work and you love it for the benefits.

At any rate, since I in no way wish that kind of ordeal on anyone else, I here humbly offer up my documents and files so far, for all those interested. I really don't want to brag, but I have an Alpha Centauri file on my PC, size 678MB and growing. Contact me if you would like some of it, here are some of the more

Impressive prospect! Count me in as an interested party. How may someone get access to some of these files?

CJ Beiting
CJBeiting@aol.com

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Phoenix42

I agree with Kelly - the Boreholes are maintained by Superscience - the fact that the gameplay engine simply didn't support the concept of indestructible landmarks is not really much to go by, I think.

It did. The monoliths are indestructible by anything you do to the geology. You can raise mountains, lower them to to the bottom of the ocean, hit 'em with earthquakes and volcanoes, and they'll still be there. The only thing that can destroy them is using up the power that sustains them.

[Phoenix42]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

It did. The monoliths are indestructible by anything you do to the geology. You can raise mountains, lower them to to the bottom of the ocean, hit 'em with earthquakes and volcanoes, and they'll still be there. The only thing that can destroy them is using up the power that sustains them.

Which is because they programmed the monoliths to be that way, but forgot or couldn't do it with the boreholes (I'm thinking because if they had allowed the boreholes to be indestructible, all progenitor-built boreholes would have been indestructible)... AC programming isn't perfect - If you land a singularity Planet Buster on fossil-fuel ridge, it's still there... If you lower and then raise Sunny Mesa or Pholus Ridge, the area is the same, but the bonuses remain gone. Loads of inconsistencies, and especially so in the programming of SMAX. I don't think that you can take the game mechanics that were developed on the fast track as a sequel to a very good game, with quite a few bugs and, let's face it, even glitches in the factions themselves (am I the only one who thinks the new human factions are nowhere near as believable as the old ones?) to be as set in stone when it comes to their implications for the world.
Also, the silly boreholes can be destroyed in the game simply by random fungus growth; if that were true they wouldn't have made it 1000 years, let alone a couple of million.
And speaking of monoliths, if the game mechanics were perfect, a monolith at -5ft sea level would still provide benefits, which it doesn't (I tried, because it's one of the things the pirates really lack, but sadly, no such thing possible ingame. But don't think that stops me from doing it in the Gurps campaign). I'm not trying to wisecrack, I'm just attempting to illustrate that the game had/has its glitches, and that one can't take the game mechanics themselves as being 100% representative of how AC should be. Indicative= usually, 1:1= not always.

At the risk of repeating myself: Though I love a good discussion any time of the day (and this has become increasingly literal considering the time of postings I've had), I was actually looking for animal suggestions. Since my starting date for the group is drawing closer, I would again like to ask anybody who has any ideas (like the goat, which I still really dig) for planetary fauna to post it up. I'm not looking to turn Chiron into Jurassic Park, just a few animals that make the place more interesting, and give the players more options (ever considered taking out the enemy outpost with a stampede?). Pleeease...