Date: Sat, 2 Dec 1995 15:34:04 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: A forwarded posting I found this on rec.arts.sf.science. Maybe interesting for our antigravity discussion? From: wbaird@nmsu.edu (William Baird) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science Subject: Energy Shields Date: 1 Dec 1995 20:20:18 GMT The thought occured to me after having chewed on Albucequire (sp)'s (my apologies to Miguel) drive proposal that *IF* you could build the drive, you ought to be able to build a force field of sorts with it. Specifically what you would do if possible would be to through up a shell of the negative energy around you craft. You would then be able to use it in conjunction with another positive energy shell on that for manueavering and propulsion (increase a local negative and it's opposite positive energy field to get thrust in any direction). Back to the shields (sorry about the digression). "Just" crank up the negative energy density in a major way and you have a repelling force. IFF, you have a uniform, spherical shell you can and will have no net force internally..thus you "could" crank up the energy (-) level to massive levels and repell projectiles and with sufficient energy (-) even light...without harming the individuals inside... For me, this seems *IDEAL*. Defensive shields, maneuaverng thrusters, and propulsion all rolled into one...Now you'd need one *MASSIVE* energy source for this, but...;) Will Baird InterNet: wbaird@nmsu.edu chpwpbai@arriba.nm.org #include disclaimer.h Web Page: http://essex.nmsu.edu/~scomputi/ Creator of the KU, "After All This Time", Jordanite, Ranma 1/2 Addict, & More "The Creator made women to please the eye and trouble the mind" -RJ, tFoH From: Bertil Jonell Subject: Re: Map of Local Stars? To: jimv@corsa.ucr.edu (james vassilakos) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 22:15:29 +0100 (MET) O 0.00002% B 0.09% A 0.6% F 2.9% G 7.3% K 15% M 73% That's for main sequence. Non-main sequence is 0.8% of the total population. (This is from an 'intelligent life in the universe?' book (c) 1994 that is used in physics/astronomy courses here on Chalmers) From: james vassilakos Subject: sfrpg: maps & stuff Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 12:10:48 -0800 (PST) Hi again... Well, bet you all thought you heard the last of me. Unfortunately not. The main reason I've been so inactive these past few months is this. I was dinking around with the mapping program I had developed for the sf-rpg, bemoaning the fact that I didn't have a decent data file for nearby stars to let it play with, when the realization struck me that my program could be converted, relatively painlessly, into a fantasy world mapping program. To make an long story short, I did that. Those of you who are interested can find the final version of this monstrosity at ftp://ftp.cs.pdx.edu/pub/frp/util/worldmap.zip (make sure you read worldmap.description before getting it). Oh, and if you are in Europe, you *might* want to try this url instead: ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/doc/games/roleplay/programs/mapping/worldmap.zip (just make sure you pkunzip it with the "-d" option, keep it away from windows, and be sure you're computer/graphics card is really fast). Of course, in writing worldmap, I came up with some good ideas for the star mapping program, so it looks like more delays are in the works. However, I figured that in the meantime, I should probably share with you some stuff that's been going on that may have an impact on the sf-rpg project, particularly as concerns the old question of star data. I've been exchanging some email with Jo Grant and Ben Lin, who were the two guys who did the CHVIEW project. Jo was the programmer and Ben, the data guy. Since I'm the kind of weirdo who likes fowarding email back and forth, I'll share with you some semi-recent corespondence rather than simply trying to summarize: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Subject: Near Star Data To: blin@mailstorm.dot.gov Date: Tue, 5 Dec 1995 13:01:31 -0800 (PST) Cc: jo_grant@crd.lotus.com Hi Ben, Jo told me that you were the data-guy for the "chv" archive. As it turns out, I'm on the lookout for some near star data. I'm currently involved (along with some friends on the net) in a SF-RPG project. We're essentially designing a setting for a 3d-universe set in the vicinity of Sol, and we were hoping on using some semi-real data. What I'm looking for, more specifically, is a file that has the following info: * Star Name (and/or numeric designation, though actual name is preferred where available) * Star Type/Color (O,B,A,F...) * Star Class/Luminosity/Size (Ia, Ib, II, III...) * X-Coordinate * Y-Coordinate * Z-Coordinate I'm looking for a file that goes out at least 50 light years, preferably 100, preferably further, but which is completely uniform with respect to what stars are represented (not any of that ignoring the dim stars beyond X # of light years). Finally, since we want to distribute our work over the Internet for free, the file needs to be something we are allowed to redistribute. One of our members typed in the Trav-2300 data. Aside from the problem of invented star names, which is easily correctable, it seems that the 2300 data may have other problems. It is based on old (1969) Gliese data, and we have reason to suspect that GDW (the publishers of Trav- 2300) did a lot of guesswork around the holes in the Gliese data. They have too many ~1st generation stars than current theory tends to allow, or so I've been told by people on sci.astro. I've also heard that they invented stars in particular cases in order to make interstellar travel easier (by allowing convenient refueling points). The most difficult problem about the Trav-2300 data, however, is that if GDW made lots of guesses, then their guesses may be copyrighted material, and they may get rather upset at us redistributing their data as part our free sf-rpg setting. After the TSR/Copyright problems on the net, I want to try to avoid using GDW-invented data if at all possible. We've also looked at the preliminary Gliese-1991 data (CNS3) which goes out to 25 parsecs (Trav-2300 data only goes out 50 lightyears). The main problem with the Gliese-1991 data are the inordinate number of holes. When Gliese can't figure something out, he doesn't guess. He just leaves it blank. That means that we're left with lots of guessing to do, and when you consider that the number of stars is in the thousands, that could take considerable time. Of course, Gliese also doesn't provide star names (just his numeric star designations). Further, he doesn't provide Star Class data. That is left up to us to deduce. If you want to take a look at the Trav-2300 data or the Gliese-1991 data, check out my home page at http://cs.ucr.edu/~jimv and go to the SF-RPG section. I also took the liberty of looking at 100-ly.lst which was part of the "chv" archive which you and Jo composed. According to the documentation, it goes out to 85-100 lightyears, however, I was confused in that it only seems to contain about 2600 stars whereas the Gliese-1991 data which goes out not quite as far contains more (around 3800) stars. That discrepancy made me wonder what you were using as your data source for 100-ly.lst. Further, I'm not sure what all the fields represent, and it doesn't appear that any star class info is present (which, as I previously mentioned, is also the case with Gliese-1991). In any case, Jo mentioned that you were working on a file which would go out to 250 lightyears and contain around 6000 stars. While this seems like way too few stars for such a great distance, I'd be interested in learning more. How soon do you envision completion, what is your data source, will star class info be provided, and can my group make use of it? I've completed a 3d-starmap viewing program which runs on the IBM under MS-DOS. I'd be happy to provide it as an alternative to Jo's Windows 3d-viewer for those people who don't have windows or just prefer to run under dos. In any case, I really need a decent data file, and I'm not sure as to the best way to go about getting one, so I thought I'd see if you have any suggestions. From: Ben Lin Subject: Re: Near Star Data To: jimv@corsa.ucr.edu (james vassilakos) Date: Tue, 5 Dec 1995 17:35:27 -0500 (EST) Hi, James, The new star file, mostly debugged, incorporates the Gliese 1991 preliminary (with missing cross-references from Wooley,et al), the electronic Ochsenbein and Halwachs for "bright" stars (brighter than magnitude 5.01 and up to 250ly away); a 1991 print version of Hirshfeld, Sinnott, and Ochsenbein of stars at least as bright as visual magnitude 3.5; various other print sources; and electronic sources collected by myself and one other star collector. Deciding between the most up to date information and elminating duplicates has been a bear. Hope to be finished soon -- some possible duplicate dim stars left from Wooley's that were not always cited in the 1991 Gliese. I have not notified Jo Grant, as yet, of a bug in the "Goto" feature of CHVIEW which will prevent me from viewing the few hundred stars between 141.8 and 250.3 light years away, in my effort to root out a few remaining duplicates. > * Star Name (and/or numeric designation, though actual name is preferred > where available) Yes (e.g., Kaus Media for "Place Name", Delta Sagittarii for "Star Name", and many catalogue numbers under "Notes" -- many left out or not readable in CHVIEW due to lack of space.) > * Star Type/Color (O,B,A,F...) Yes, CHVIEW provides default colors and allows custom mixing as well as extra palette choices. > * Star Class/Luminosity/Size (Ia, Ib, II, III...) Mass estimated based on spectral type and luminosity (sometimes estimated from absolute magnitude). "Notes" field provides information on Supergiants (Ia or Ib, if known), Bright Giants and Giants (IIa,b or IIIa,b; if known), Subgiants, Dwarf and"Subdwarf" (low metal) stars, as well as other information available (e.g., variable, dust, planets (includes 1995 "first" confirmation), brown dwarfs (includes 1995 "first" confirmation), two x-ray sources within 250ly, etc.). Main sequence stars are identified by default. CHVIEW sizes the display of stars (except for subgiants -- I assume too much variance between spectral types) -- impossible to size to scale for display anyway, so CHVIEW allows you to change the default. An additional field provides the constellation of position (where known for dim stars) and for most bright stars. > * X-Coordinate > * Y-Coordinate > * Z-Coordinate In light years from Earth, with minor perturbations to facilitate viewing for multiple star systems (unless data already provides a positional differences, in a few cases). Positions of bright stars and 14 nearest star systems have been updated to Year 2000; most dim stars, however, still have Year 1950 positions. > I'm looking for a file that goes out at least 50 light years, preferably > 100, preferably further, but which is completely uniform with respect to > what stars are represented (not any of that ignoring the dim stars beyond > X # of light years). I presume that many dim stars beyond 50 ly light years remain to be discovered. Based on available data, the data base is now as complete as I can make it -- I would presume that it is very complete on known stars to within 100ly. > Finally, since we want to distribute our work over the Internet for free, > the file needs to be something we are allowed to redistribute. I think that Jo and I are still in agreement about distributing a version 1.0 for free. > I also took the liberty of looking at 100-ly.lst which was part > of the "chv" archive which you and Jo composed. According to the > documentation, it goes out to 85-100 lightyears, however, I was > confused in that it only seems to contain about 2600 stars whereas > the Gliese-1991 data which goes out not quite as far contains more > (around 3800) stars. That discrepancy made me wonder what you were > using as your data source for 100-ly.lst. Further, I'm not sure what > all the fields represent, and it doesn't appear that any star class > info is present (which, as I previously mentioned, is also the case > with Gliese-1991). Yes, the earlier data files do not include the 1991 Gliese. I hope by New Year, everything will be cleaned up. I notify you when it's done. Feel free to contact me for any other questions not addressed in old CHVIEW.doc. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Oh, before I forget, a small warning about the chview archive is in order, in case any of you decide to go looking for it. It seems that Bertil Jonell, using a virus detection program called F-PROT, shareware version 2.20, detected a tai-pan virus in the executable. Needless to say, I didn't chance running the damn thing. Also, Bertil created an analysis program which reads data in the format that Tony provided us. Bertil wrote: I did a check on the number of stars divided into 10ly thick shells around Sol. Since some faint ones are missing in the Gliese 1991 it seems likley that more were missing far away than close, and the distribution I got seems to confirm that: Total: Shell close # of Shell Range (ly) Stars Volume (ly^3) ly^3/star 0 11 4188.7902 380.79911 10 87 29321.5314 337.029097 20 165 79587.0139 482.345539 30 292 154985.238 530.771362 40 501 255516.202 510.01238 50 630 381179.909 605.047474 60 784 531976.356 678.54127 70 771 707905.545 918.165428 80 291 908967.474 3123.59957 90 73 1135162.15 15550.1664 100 44 1386489.56 31511.1263 110 35 1662949.71 47512.8489 120 41 1964542.61 47915.6733 130 14 2291268.24 163662.017 140 17 2643126.62 155478.036 150 9 3020117.74 335568.638 160 8 3422241.6 427780.2 170 8 3849498.2 481187.275 180 0 4301887.54 #DIV/0! 190 0 4779409.62 #DIV/0! Sum 3781 I cut away some (<20) far stars from the calculations. Taking 600 ly^3 as a average value (anyone got the average value for our area of the milky way? I tried to calculate it and got around 2000 ly^3 per star) of space per star (it has to be checked with a 3d program. Too sparse and there won't be any s=D8stutterwarp/jump/potential routes, too dense and there will be too many) the Gliese 1991 lacks about 26000 stars within 50 parsecs. IMHO most of them dM's (cool M stars on the main sequence), and including 1 inside 10 ly! Some enterprising astronomer can get a neighbour star named after themselves... And here is the data divided into spectral classes (preliminary, the program isn't reliably debugged yet): Dist O B A F G K M Tot 0 0 0 2 0 1 1 7 11 10 0 0 3 1 3 16 60 87 20 0 0 7 5 13 24 105 165 30 0 0 7 10 24 46 180 292 40 0 1 20 25 50 97 274 501 50 0 0 27 47 70 134 307 630 60 0 0 40 63 107 197 323 784 70 0 2 39 63 117 195 306 771 80 0 2 13 27 50 88 102 291 90 0 0 1 7 22 25 14 73 100 0 0 0 4 13 21 5 44 110 0 0 0 5 7 9 9 35 120 0 0 0 4 9 12 7 41 130 0 0 0 1 3 5 5 14 140 0 0 0 1 2 6 3 17 150 0 0 2 0 4 1 0 9 160 0 0 1 2 1 1 0 8 170 0 0 1 1 0 2 1 8 180 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 190 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 163 266 496 880 1708 3781 Dist: 0.00% 0.13% 4.31% 7.04% 13.12% 23.27% 45.17% Textbook dist: 0.00007% 0.09% 0.6% 2.9% 7.3% 15% 73% The textbook is course litterature on life in space from the physicist/ astronomy major (I'll probably have to buy it, even though it costs $70:( BTW: Traveller tend to assume that life is possible on K G & F main sequence. The book on the other hand claims that F type stars might be too short-lived to allow life to develop. This makes K type starts seem more inviting than previously. On the other hand, M types are possible too, as they have extremely long life spans. And on the grasping hand, transplanted live, wether by Grandfather, Ziru Siirka, Rule of Man, 3I, RC or Regency ignores how long a given star stays on the main sequence. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The gist I got from Bertil was basically what I already knew... that the Gliese data is incomplete... to say the least. Ben, of course, is very aware of this, and that seems to be why he's using multiple sources for his data file. He writes: I have already processed all of the data that James mentioned and have added the Yale Bright Star catalogue -- only 4-6000 of which have good parallax/distance information. I don't know what information you're interested in, but the CHVIEW format includes what James needs plus notes, constellation, and additional star name/catalogue data. You may wish to download the older data base to see the format -- check CHVIEW.DOC, which provides the two sites (NASA and U. Strasburg, France) where I'm getting the data that is in ascii format. I am currently merging in the best of the Yale data, which means that I must add what appears to be new or recently corrected information, as well as make other adjustments for names and positional perturbations for members of multiple star systems that do not have positional differences in RA and DEC. Unfortunately, I must do this star/system record by record by hand. All of the "automated" analysis has already been done. I am limiting the new data base to 250 ly from Sol/Earth (500 ly sphere) and expect the data base to total between 7,000-9,000 individual stars -- hopefully finished by February. To somebody else's email, Ben replied: The new data set (as yet unreleased) includes: data cribbed some assorted sources by myself and Harry Erwin (which have mostly been updated by more recent sources); Gliese's 1991 and Wooley's (somewhat updated 1970) catalogues of dim stars within 25 parsecs (with revised distances up to 203 light-years); Ochsenbein(et al)'s updated 1984 electronic and a 1994 cooperative print effort with Hirshfeld and Sinnott; and assorted data from various print sources. I use a 123 spreadsheet/database functions for processing the data and then print an ascii file for CHVIEW. CHVIEW may eventually use a binary format for creating star system and "world" files, but I think that retaining the ability to read ascii files will be useful. I hope to do a quick job with Yale's Bright Star (1991 preliminary 5th version) which would add distant G (maybe K) stars as well as update Ochsenbein data -- for stars brighter than magnitude 6.5. I'll probably add only new stars within 250 light-years (a sphere of 500 ly). The problem with adding in catalogues has been with determining which data (of which type) is better and in identifying and combining duplicates. Dim stars (mostly M-type), understandably, are not popular catalogue projects for astronomers. If you can make any recommendations from NASA's ADC catalogues, please do. Most of my dim star positions are 1950 Epoch/Star Date. If you want to develop your own catalogue, you can view it in CHVIEW -- and I, among others, would be very interested in what you found. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Anyway, that's where things stand currently. Despite all the progress in this area for people who are more interested than I, I am growing increasingly of the opinion that finding "good" data will be next to impossible, and that we may just want to pull a "GDW" and fudge it for all we're worth. I'm going to do some more work on that software I put together (the 3d-mapping software) and hopefully have something ready in another month or so (thinking wishfully here). Oh, as for the big tech-debate which you guys had back in November, being a lover of GDW's Classic Traveller, I'm tending to side with Tony on most of the items (I think, after pbeming for so long, we must have suffered some sort of mind-meld). Still, nothing is set in stone, as far as I'm concerned, as we have a long way to go in developing this setting. I'm going to try to give the starmapping program somewhat the look and feel of the worldmapping program I mentioned at the top of this email. If you have access to a bitchin' IBM, go ahead and take a look at it and let me know what you think. Once I get that program updated, we'll be in much better position to move forward. See you all later... and if you want me to nix you from this list, just let me know. I've let things linger for so long that I don't blame you if you've lost interest. Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 14:30:16 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: sfrpg: maps & stuff Hello everybody! On Sun, 4 Feb 1996, james vassilakos wrote: > Of course, in writing worldmap, I came up with some good ideas > for the star mapping program, so it looks like more delays are > in the works. I assume you know the word "Creeping featurism"? :-) > Anyway, that's where things stand currently. Despite all the progress > in this area for people who are more interested than I, I am growing > increasingly of the opinion that finding "good" data will be next to > impossible, and that we may just want to pull a "GDW" and fudge it for > all we're worth. I'm going to do some more work on that software I > put together (the 3d-mapping software) and hopefully have something > ready in another month or so (thinking wishfully here). Probably the best solution. Use the real data, and where it gets too sparse start adding "fudge stars" (aha! *thats* where the dark matter comes from! :-), according to statistics so that the starmap works. Are the stars distributed homogenously in the 100 ly sphere we are talking about? There are some inhomogenities already in the 50 ly GDW map, and I would assume there are even larger ones farther out. Any info on this? > Oh, as for the big tech-debate which you guys had back in November, > being a lover of GDW's Classic Traveller, I'm tending to side with > Tony on most of the items (I think, after pbeming for so long, we > must have suffered some sort of mind-meld). Still, nothing is set > in stone, as far as I'm concerned, as we have a long way to go in > developing this setting. OK, but I think we should try to avoid adding too many new assumptions or physical effects to the world (left to myself, I would probably try to come up with a Forwardesque ultra hard sf world that would be unplayable). Maybe we should list the fundamental kinds of ultratech we want? From: james vassilakos Subject: Re: sfrpg: maps & stuff Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 22:28:46 -0800 (PST) Anders sez: > Probably the best solution. Use the real data, and where it gets too > sparse start adding "fudge stars" (aha! *thats* where the dark matter > comes from! :-), according to statistics so that the starmap works. I'm probably going to program it like worldmap in the sense that just as multiple worlds (up to 100) are allowed in worldmap, so too will multiple "universes" be allowed in the star mapping program (tenatively called starmap). That way we can do our sf-rpg setting for just one of these universes, but leave the option wide open and encouraged for other people/groups to take off in a completely different direction. > Are the stars distributed homogenously in the 100 ly sphere we are > talking about? There are some inhomogenities already in the 50 ly GDW > map, and I would assume there are even larger ones farther out. Any info > on this? Yeah, star distribution is usually pretty heterogeneous, but I haven't run any correlations or whatnot (the closest I've seen of this is the work Bertil has done). > > Oh, as for the big tech-debate which you guys had back in November, > > being a lover of GDW's Classic Traveller, I'm tending to side with > > Tony on most of the items > OK, but I think we should try to avoid adding too many new assumptions or > physical effects to the world (left to myself, I would probably try to > come up with a Forwardesque ultra hard sf world that would be unplayable). > Maybe we should list the fundamental kinds of ultratech we want? Okay, give me a day or two to get back to you on this. I want to re-read the tech-debate and think about it a little more. By the way, if you guys want archives of some of the back-discussions, let me know. It would be pretty easy for me to make this available since I've been keeping archives of most everything. Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 00:38:31 -0800 From: llvogel@teleport.com (Allan Hayes Vogel) Subject: Ultra-tech in SFRPG Hi all- I'd like to add my 2=A2 here on the subject of ultra-tech in= response to: >> Maybe we should list the fundamental kinds of ultratech we want? Be conservative as to the kinds of ultra-tech! There is a difference between what is theoretically possible and what is engineeringly feasible. A futurist science fantasy is not the same sort of game, or story, as a science fiction one. "Gee Whiz" stuff lacks nuts and bolts. That-is-to-say, have a justification for your technological marvel. For me as a scientific researcher and avid SF fan (i.e., IMHO - :-) ), I can buy FTL (though personally I wouldn't ever use it in a story or a game because I follow DeCamp's reasoning), an orbital elevator, and Snow White (drugs for suspended animation, i.e., cold sleep) for SubFTL, but in general predicting the future in detail is probably going to miss badly. It's better to stay as vague as possible, or else you'll end up dated. I got too specific one time and ended up with egg on my face. Humans also have a way of refusing to use the latest piece of technology despite getting their rears kicked good on occasion, so you should have bi-level tech as well. My caution should not be taken as rejection of amazing inventions or game elements, but rather as a caution to avoid creating such thing in the absense of logic or reason. I recommend basing your marvelous inventions upon sound current science and technology and you won't get in future trouble. In conclusion, as always, please take my comments with one (largish) grain of salt. Good luck with the game. Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 15:37:38 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: Ultra-tech in SFRPG On Thu, 8 Feb 1996, Allan Hayes Vogel wrote: > Be conservative as to the kinds of ultra-tech! There is a > difference between what is theoretically possible and what is engineeringly > feasible. A futurist science fantasy is not the same sort of game, or > story, as a science fiction one. "Gee Whiz" stuff lacks nuts and bolts. > That-is-to-say, have a justification for your technological marvel. Exactly what I want too! I can accept hyperdrives, but they have to be internally consistent. > For me as a scientific researcher and avid SF fan (i.e., IMHO - :-) > ), I can buy FTL (though personally I wouldn't ever use it in a story or a > game because I follow DeCamp's reasoning), an orbital elevator, and Snow > White (drugs for suspended animation, i.e., cold sleep) for SubFTL, but in > general predicting the future in detail is probably going to miss badly. This level sounds reasonable. > It's better to stay as vague as possible, or else you'll end up dated. Like the ultra-advanced executive laptop in Cyberpunk 2020: 40 MHz and 8 megabytes of internal memory? :-) > I got too specific one time and ended up with egg on my face. But we have to describe the technology anyway, otherwise the scenario will feel very empty. I think there is a fine line between being too conservative (and getting into the Cyberpunk 2020 error) and too wild (which would make the game very hard to play). But I think there is enough room to describe plausible, advanced technology, especially if we postulate that progress gradually becomes harder. > Humans also > have a way of refusing to use the latest piece of technology despite > getting their rears kicked good on occasion, so you should have bi-level > tech as well. Not to mention that different species might have very different ideas for what technology should be used for. The Ikaddju (remember them? I will try to finish my writeup) has a civilization held together by a huge Net-democracy, but they don't use that advanced computers for it. On the other hand, one group among the Mothers see it as a philosophical imperative to develop faster and more powerful quantum computers. And the Gools regard computers as very distasteful, and prefer to drill their secondary bodies to do the math. From: jimv Subject: SF-RPG: Tech Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 14:39:31 -0800 (PST) I said some eons ago that I would get back to Anders ("in a day or two") about the technology issues raised during what I'm now calling the great tech-debate. During my review of this aforementioned brouhaha, the reason for all the fuss and consternation suddenly came to me in a blinding flash of insight from which, incidentally, I am still recovering. Power Generation: Tony: Portable fusion available. Anders: Fission in suitable environments. Antimatter for spaceships. No (portable) microfusion generators (i.e. ghostbuster packs). My opinion: I think the staple power source for planetary industry should be fusion generators, but that they should be way too large to carry around. Let's say something like 10000 displacement tons minimum. Perhaps higher. Of course, this will tend to make spaceships rather bulky unless antimatter is available as a power source, in which case the ships can be quite small by comparison since they won't need a fusion reactor or space to store all the deuterium. Antimatter, when it is used, will typically be stored either in magnetic bottles or some hi-tech crystal which has special properties prohibiting an A/M reaction. Where the crystals come from and A/M manufacturing happens can be a source of initial mystery, but we should have a decent explanation ready with appropriate quantities of techno-babble. Anti-gravity: Anders: Anti-gravity systems are possible but very energy-consuming, making them impractical except for only a few limited uses. Otherwise, a lot of interesting things become possible: gravitic buildings, antigravity-assisted launches, antigravity vehicles, remote manipulation or even flying suits. This could have interesting effects on architecture, daily life and technology. My take is that antigravity is energy consuming, limiting its use to larger structures (buildings, ships). Tony: It should be relatively cheap and portable. As a corollary, we should also have, artificial gravity, inertial damping fields, tractor/pressor beams. Antigrav vehicles more common than wheeled vehicles due to road maintenance expense. As for gravitic buildings, antigravity-assisted launches, etc... would it be a problem for these things to exist? I don't think that cheap anti-grav is a problem. Also, the energy costs and difficulties would scale with size. It's cheap to build a car or a go-cart, but to put an entire building on wheels is hard and expensive. Why not the same with anti-grav? Smaller craft up to say aircraft sized or even small spacecraft would be cost effective, but then it would taper off. Joerg: Personal anti-grav vehicles are probably a luxury rather than standard issue. Anders (again): As I see it, having portable, cheap antigravity and dense energy sources will lead to *lots* of changes that could easily make the world too confusing to deal with. Some ideas off my head: Antigravity missiles (since they don't leave hot exhausts they are very hard to find with IR). Personal antigravity suits (bulky, but safer than jetpacks. Now you have to lock your windows against burglars). Antigravity toys. Antigravity elevators. Crushing things with increased gravity. Worldwide very fast travel (say good bye to any nation state you don't like; there will be too many vehicles in the air to stop them at the border). Bizarre forms of massage/virtual sex using antigravity arrays. Weapons (if you have antigravity able to lift a car, you can easily rip out a human heart). My opinion: I think antigravity technology should be widespread, non-power-intensive, but somewhat limited in terms of effect. I have no problem with antigravity missiles (better forms of target acquisition will develop to counter this). Personal antigravity suits aren't a problem for me (so you have to lock your windows... big deal). Antigravity toys aren't a big problem. Elevators would be an obvious use of the technology. Crushing things might not be possible if we throw in the right limitations. Worldwide travel isn't going to bug me too much (after the war there won't be much in the way of a world anyway). Bizarre forms of massage/sex is actually a plus. Weapons can be handled via the same mechanism as crushing is handled. Here's a more concrete idea. Suppose that you can create "null plates" which effectively cancel and/or reverse the gravity which would normally be pulling them, so that by switching them on, you could get up to 200% compensation, in effect, casting a "feather fall" (90%), a "levitate" (105-95%), or going up at up to an acceleration of 1 Gee (200%). This would transform society, granted, but as long as we can hand-wave a non-projection principle, we no longer have to worry about most gravity-based weapons. FTL: Anders: FTL is essentially a hi-fi antigravity system used to warp spacetime even more, and thus requires prodigious amounts of energy. Joerg: I think FTL starships are very expensive, and only *very* few individuals may afford even the smallest one! Tony: I'm thinking of small starships being equivalent to aircraft or ships of today. They're not cheap but, with a little backing and luck, nearly anyone can buy a ship or a plane and begin a cargo or passenger route. Especially if they can get some government subsidies or a nice 'cash cow' to help them during the early stages. I'm not talking about a starship in everyone's garage any more than large airplanes or ships are common today. I just don't like the idea of making them super hard to get. My opinion: We can compromise on this, perhaps, and say that A/M powered starships are relatively cheap, but that the fuel is rather hard to come by. If you've got a source, then great. If not, you're screwed. As for fusion-powered starships, these would probably be more common, since the fuel is easy to come by, but they would be more expensive and harder to maintain (you'd need a staff of fusion reactor techs on every ship). As for orbit-to-surface shuttles and whatnot, we can say that these are powered by electric battery and maneuver by use of antigrav technology ("null plates"). Computers/Robots/Communications: Tony: Somewhat low-level AI (robots and computers which are starwarsish in intelligence). Holographic and/or molecular storage systems (lots and lots of data). Natural language interface. Light speed is the limit, however. Robots commonplace. Lifelike Androids. Completely automated ships. Joerg: Each planet has its own global high-speed network, and these networks might be interconnected through tiny wormholes. Hence, FTL communication. Anders: With starwars-like robots, robots/computers could do simple clerical or routine work. And you could make as many of them as you wished, changing the way administration and industry works completely (and removing lots of people to new jobs or unemployment). Everybody could have a few specialized AI advisors, helping them or doing supporting tasks. Intelligence amplification is not far away. Do we really want this sort of setting? My opinion: I've got a bias against sustained wormholes for FTL communication, but it's largely due to ignorance (I just don't know much of anything about it, and maybe if I read a few good articles about it, I'd change my mind). As for intelligence amplification (i.e. knowledge modules), I think these might be beyond human technology, but perhaps are a commodity other species could supply. As for memory recorders (ala "Strange Days"), I don't mind that too much, but it would probably on the fringe of human tech, and might require that a person's brain be "wired" to accept the input. I have a hard time buying into fully-virtual cyberspace, simply because it would be a nightmare to program, and it wouldn't necessarily help you get to what you're looking for any faster than just typing on a keyboard or moving a mouse pointer or even asking the computer for the info verbally. As for artificial intelligence, I don't think anything would change things more rapidly than that. Of course computers will be better in the future. Of course there will be specialized systems for illness diagnosis, robotic construction, education, language translation, clerical tasks, games/entertainment, etc. In fact, we already have these to some extent. But as for true intelligence, I'm very leery of letting a C3PO out of the bag, for instance. He's a good character, but the repercussions of that sort of intelligence available in a machine would have the result of rendering biological life obsolete. We can go that way, but that would be the result, and do we really want to accept all the probable repercussion (cloning one's mind into a machine, for example, and then back to another body, perhaps... all sorts of strange things become possible)? Weapons: Tony: Particle beam weapons, laser weapons, stunners, mini-rocket launchers, as well as high-volume slug throwers. Powered armor and combat robots would be common. Joerg: Beam weapons are not efficient enough to be a vital rival to missiles and slug throwers. Anders: Prefer slug throwers over particle weapons. Antimatter bombs possible for blowing up in the stratosphere and forming an expanding cloud of ambiplasma after the initial detonation. This will remain several seconds (or even minutes if the air is thin) and bathe everything in line-of-sight with hard gamma rays. Good way to sterilize a planet (of course MIRVs could do the job, but then you would have much more radioactivity left). My opinion: I imagine that straight slug-ammo would be less weighty than carrying around a battery, but if we assume vastly improved energy storage, then I don't have a problem with portable lasers, etc. I really don't see it as a big deal one way or the other. The state of technology will be that offense is vastly superior to defense, no matter how you look at it, so the best defense naturally becomes a quick and bloody offense. Medicine: Tony: Artificial limbs and organs. Most 'simple' illnesses are cured easily. Some limited success with artificially grown replacement organs (for the all natural you) perhaps cloned from the host body for maximum compatibility. Microsurgery is common place and most surgery is done via computer/robot/surgeon combinations. Anders/Joerg: Remember that various races have different biology and hence will be at different stages of medical technology. My opinion: I feel that medicine should be vastly improved such that limb/organ regeneration is a snap. Otherwise, the game would be unplayable, given the state of weaponry and whatnot. I'm not talking about healing potions, necessarily. Simply fast recovery, given a decent sickbay or some close approximation thereof. As for cyberwear, we have two choices. (1) melding nerves onto input jacks is no problem. (2) you can't do it. I'm more inclined to go with #1, meaning that cyberwear would be available, but I'd recommend that it be prone to failure whenever a piece gets "jarred" sufficiently that a nerve/jack connection might get strained a bit too much. As for more exotic forms of cyber- engineering, I'd say that you'd have to go to the aliens to get that stuff, meaning that the GM has a convenient means to control what's available in any given campaign. From: jimv Subject: SF-RPG: Star Data Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 14:43:46 -0800 (PST) Hello all... Well, as you know, I've been holding tight, waiting for a big pile of good near star data to fall on top of me. Alas, I'm now of the opinion that "good" data out to any reasonable distance simply does not exist at this time. Ben Lin (blin@mailstorm.dot.gov), the "data guy" for the CHVIEW program which Jo Grant (formerly known as Jo Jaquinta, jaymin@maths.tcd.ie) has been working on, probably has come up with the best near star data to date. He writes: The star files for CHVIEW are finally ready. After much prodding and guilt, the data files now contain not only print sources and the electronic 1991 Gliese and earlier Wooley but also the electronic Ochsenbein (1984) and Yale (1991) bright star catalogues. In short, he's been going to every source he could find and has been rummaging them all. However, a problem which Bertil Jonell (d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se) noticed with respect to the Gliese data still exists with Ben's combined data. That is, the further out you go, the less stars the astronomers have physically been able to see (and measure). To illustate this problem, consider the following table: radius ben's # of estim. % of of observed number current data sphere stars expected completeness ----------------------------------------------- 25LY 240 240 100% 50LY 1390 1920 72% 100LY 5150 15360 34% 250LY 7730 240000 3% Basically, assuming that stars are relatively evenly distributed (i.e., that the density of stars within 25 light years is roughly equal to the density of stars within 50, 100, and 250 light years respectively), and assuming that there are actually 240 stars (including major extra solar objects) within 25 light years, then the farther out you go, the less we've actually observed and cataloged. Added to that is the fact that the holes-in-the-data problem which exists in Gliese also exists in Ben's combined data, so that for many of the stars that we've actually observed, we can only guess as to their color and magnitude. These are sad facts, indeed, but after waiting around several months, and seeing the situation not improve, I think we're just going to have to live with them. In any case, here is what I propose to do. After Anders posted directions to Winchell Chung's webpage for 3d starmaps, I learned about all about how to convert right ascension, declination, and parallax data to celestial coordinates and from there to galactic coordinates. Then I wrote up a little program to isolate named stars (that is, stars that have names you might recognize) from the Gliese data. The next step is learn how Gliese is expressing parallax in his data (because it looks kinda screwy), and then come up with some algorithm to isolate the data we need if its there and randomly make it up if it's not. Then, I just tell the program to generate lots of new stars to make up for the ones which haven't been observed yet, and we should be set. This is the output my "named star" separator currently comes up with. Can one of you astronomer-types help me with the first step and explain why the parallax numbers are so high? What are they being expressed in? Seconds of a degree or something? 162 "Named" Stars from the Gliese-3 Data resulting absolute color Star Name parallax magnitude & size 61 Cygni 288.7 7.51 k5 ve Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) 49.4 -0.68 k5 iii Alpha Arietis 46.6 0.34 k2 iiiab Alpha Caeli 44.8 2.7 f2 v Alpha Centauri 749 4.38 g2 v Alpha Cephei 67 1.57 a7 iv-v Alpha Chamaeleontis 57.4 2.86 f6 iv Alpha Circini 54.2 1.86 f0 vp Alpha Corvi 70.7 3.27 f2 iii-iv Alpha Fornacis 72.7 3.26 f7 iv Alpha Gruis 39.8 -0.3 b5 v Alpha Hydri 39.6 0.85 f0 v Alpha Indi 44.8 1.4 k0 iii Alpha Mensae 114.1 5.37 g5 v Alpha Ophiuchi 64.6 1.13 a5 iii Alpha Pictoris 50.9 1.80 a7 iv Alpha Serpentis 49.7 1.12 k2 iii Alpha Trianguli 53.4 2.06 f6 iv Alpha Volantis 49.4 2.5 a5 v Altair (Alpha Aquilae) 201 2.29 a7 iv-v Arcturus (Alpha Bootis) 91.2 -0.30 k2 iii ep Barnard's Star 545.3 13.23 m5 v Beta Andromedae 48.7 0.49 m0 iiie Beta Aquilae 74.3 3.07 g8 iv Beta Arietis 59 1.49 a5 v Beta Caeli 56.9 3.8 f1 v Beta Canum Venaticorum 114.7 4.57 g0 v Beta Cassiopeiae 69.2 1.47 f2 iii-iv Beta Ceti 54.5 0.72 k1 iiie Beta Circini 51.6 2.6 a3 v Beta Comae Berenices 119.8 4.65 g0 v Beta Crateris 52.3 3.1 a2 iii Beta Hydri 155.4 3.76 g2 iv Beta Pictoris 59.8 2.73 a5 v Beta Reticuli 43.7 2.1 k0 iv Beta Trianguli Australis 82.1 2.41 f2 iv Beta Virginis 98.8 3.58 f9 v Capella (Alpha Aurigae) 79 0.20 g5 iii Castor (Alpha Geminorum) 68.3 1.11 a1 v Chi Cancri 63.8 4.16 f6 v Chi Draconis 132.6 4.18 f7 v Chi Herculis 57.5 3.41 f9 v Delta Aquilae 72.5 2.66 f0 iv Delta Capricorni 68.1 2.0 a6 m Delta Eridani 103.5 3.60 k0 ive Delta Geminorum 62.4 2.51 f1 iv-v Delta Hydri 48.1 2.5 a3 vn Delta Leonis 45.6 0.9 a4 v Delta Pavonis 175.2 4.78 g8 v Delta Ursae Majoris 56.5 2.06 a3 v Delta Velorum 49.8 0.51 a0 v Denebola (Beta Leonis) 78.9 1.63 a3 v Epsilon Cygni 52 1.03 k0- iii Epsilon Eridani 305.6 6.16 k2 v Epsilon Indi 288.9 6.99 k5 ve Epsilon Phoenicis 64.5 2.9 k0 iii Epsilon Reticuli 67 3.57 k2 iv Eta Bootis 104.7 2.78 g0 iv Eta Capricorni 53.5 3.7 a5 v Eta Cassiopeiae 168.4 4.58 g3 v Eta Cephei 76.1 2.84 k0 ive Eta Coronae Borealis 59.6 4.50 g2 v Eta Corvi 54.8 2.99 f0 iv Eta Crucis 51.6 2.71 f2 iii Eta Draconis 46.2 1.1 g8 iii Eta Leporis 73.4 3.05 f1 iii Eta Ophiuchi 51.1 1.56 a1 v Eta Scorpii 57.5 2.13 f0 ivn Eta Serpentis 54.9 1.96 k0 iii-iv Eta-1 Pictoris 39 3.33 f2 v Fomalhaut (Alpha Piscis Austrini) 153.7 2.09 a3 v Gamma Apodis 54.1 2.6 k0 iv Gamma Cephei 66.5 2.32 k1 ive Gamma Coronae Australis 68 4.03 f8 v Gamma Leporis 124.9 4.06 f6 v Gamma Pavonis 115.5 4.53 f8 v Gamma Serpentis 84.1 3.47 f6 v Gamma Virginis 98.7 3.43 f0 v Groombridge 62 9.77 dm0 Iota Centauri 60.6 1.66 a2 v Iota Horologii 68.3 4.58 g3 iv Iota Microscopii 49.4 3.57 f1 iv Iota Pavonis 51.6 4.04 g3 iv-v Iota Pegasi 79.9 3.27 f5 v Iota Persei 92.4 3.88 g0 v Iota Piscium 72.5 3.43 f7 v Kapetyn's Star 258.3 10.91 m0 v Kapppa Ceti 104.5 4.92 g5 ve Kapppa Fornacis 83 4.80 g1 v Kapppa Phoenicis 71.2 3.20 a7 vn Kapppa Reticuli 56.9 3.49 f5 iv-v Kapppa-1 Tucanae 50.7 5.7 g5 Lambda Arae 42.7 2.92 f2 v Lambda Aurigae 69.5 3.92 g2 iv-v Lambda Sagittarii 59.7 1.70 k1+ iiib Lambda Serpentis 83.9 4.05 g0 v Lambda-2 Fornacis 55.2 4.49 g5 iv Mu Arae 103 5.20 g5 v Mu Capricorni 45.7 3.38 f1 iii Mu Cassiopeiae 134.5 5.81 g5 vi Mu Fornacis 63 4.3 a2 vn Mu Herculis 115.1 3.73 g5 iv Mu-1 Cygni 43.2 2.96 f4 v Mu-2 Cygni 43.2 4.27 g2 v Nu Canis Majoris 54.7 2.65 k1 iii Nu Indi 70 5.21 g0 v j Nu Octantis 51.5 2.31 k0 iii Nu Phoenicis 82 4.53 f8 v Nu-2 Columbae 49 3.75 f5 v Nu-2 Lupi 63.1 4.65 g2 v Omicron Aquilae 59 3.96 f8 v Phi Virginis 44.6 3.08 g2 iv Phi-2 Ceti 61.8 4.12 f7 iv-v Phi-2 Pavonis 55 3.82 f8 v Pi Arae 55.1 3.96 a7 v Pi Hydrae 50 1.76 k2 iii Pi Piscis Austrini 50.2 3.6 f0 iv Pi-1 Ursae Majoris 72.2 4.93 g1 v Pollux (Beta Geminorum) 100.3 1.15 k0 iiib Procyon (Alpha Canis Minoris) 285.8 2.66 f5 iv-v Proxima Centauri 771.8 15.49 dm5 e Psi Capricorni 77 3.56 f5 v Psi Draconis 54.9 3.28 f5 iv-v Psi Serpentis 50.6 4.38 g5 v Psi Velorum 64.2 3.16 f3 iv Psi-5 Aurigae 66.2 4.34 g0 v Rho Capricorni 52.1 3.36 f2 iv Rho Coronae Borealis 60 4.30 g0 v Rho Geminorum 59.1 3.04 f0 v Sigma Bootis 64.1 3.5 f2 v Sigma Coronae Borealis 44.4 3.88 f8 v Sigma Draconis 178.2 5.93 k0 v Sirius (Alpha Canis Majoris) 380.4 1.47 a1 v Tau Bootis 74 3.85 f7 v Tau Ceti 286 5.77 g8 vp Tau Cygni 51.4 2.37 f0 iv Tau Ophiuchi 58.3 4.07 df3 j Tau Piscis Austrini 59 3.77 f6 v Tau-1 Eridani 73 3.78 f6 v Tau-3 Eridani 61.6 3.03 a4 iv Theta Antliae 52 4.03 f6 v Theta Bootis 81 3.60 f7 v Theta Centauri 58.5 0.9 k0- iiib Theta Cygni 54 3.14 f4 v Theta Draconis 48.7 2.45 f8 iv-v Theta Persei 79.3 3.63 f7 v Theta Ursae Majoris 69.1 2.37 f6 iv Upsilon Aquarii 44 3.42 f3 v Vega (Alpha Lyrae) 129.6 0.59 a0 v Xi Bootis 149.1 5.57 g8 ve Xi Geminorum 50.2 1.86 f5 iii Xi Ophiuchi 59.8 3.29 f2 v Xi Pegasi 50 2.7 f6 iv-v Xi Ursae Majoris 96 4.24 g0 ve Zeta Doradus 73 4.03 f7 v Zeta Herculis 99 2.89 g0 iv Zeta Leporis 48.7 1.99 a3 v Zeta Serpentis 46.7 3.0 f3 v Zeta Trianguli Australis 92.4 4.74 g0 v Zeta Tucanae 139 4.94 f9 v Zeta-1 Reticuli 93.6 5.40 g2 v Zeta-2 Reticuli 87.5 4.95 g1 v From: Jim Vassilakos Subject: Re: I can't hear you Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 10:42:55 -0800 (PST) Joerg wrote: > There seems to be something wrong. I seem to miss most of the posts, > only receive an occasional message perhaps once per month. Anders responded: > I think that may be partially due to the recent lull in traffic on this > list. Let's see if you can read this. Lull isn't quite the word. This list has been downright dead lately. My apologies for ignoring things for the past few weeks(months?). I get sidetracked way too easily and frequently end up taking prolonged vacations from things (just ask Tony). Fortunately, this latest wait was rather useful on two counts. First, it resulted in the firm realization that decent star data out to a resonable distance simply doesn't exist and most probably won't exist for quite a long time (until we're old and feeble). Second, that 3d starmap page which Anders recently pointed out was great assistance. I ended up talking with Winchell Chung about it, and we wrangled a bit with the celestial-to-galactic coordinate conversion formulas (which were intially incorrect, but I think he's fixed them now), and now I know how to convert from RA/Dec/Parallax to X/Y/Z coordinates which relative ease. So all in all, I'm now in a position where I can read and actually use the Gliese CNS3 data. The only problem is that I'm not sure in what units Gliese is expressing parallax, so if anybody could find the answer to this, that would be helpful. From: Jim Vassilakos Subject: SF-RPG: Star Data (revised) Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 15:54:55 -0800 (PST) Okay, I took a look at the old program Tony wrote in C which he used to pick apart the Gliese CNS3 data, and he seemed to suppose that Gliese was expressing parallax in thousandths of arc seconds, so I went ahead and made that assuption, and then used Winchell's formulas to compute galactic (not celestial) coordinates in light years (Xg,Yg,Zg), and this is what I'm left with as far as the "named" stars go: Xg Yg Zg Dist Color/Size 61 Cygni 1.5 11.1 -1.2 11.2 k5 ve Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) -62 -1.1 -22.9 65.9 k5 iii Alpha Arietis -46.1 32.7 -41.4 69.9 k2 iiiab Alpha Caeli -22.1 -49.9 -48.3 72.7 f2 v Alpha Centauri 3.1 -3.1 -.1 4.3 g2 v Alpha Cephei -9.2 47.1 7.7 48.6 a7 iv-v Alpha Chamaeleontis 17.9 -49.7 -21 56.7 f6 iv Alpha Circini 41.9 -42.9 -4.9 60.1 f0 vp Alpha Corvi 12.9 -34.5 27.8 46.1 f2 iii-iv Alpha Fornacis -16.4 -16.3 -38.5 44.8 f7 iv Alpha Gruis 49.1 -8.7 -65 81.8 b5 v Alpha Hydri 16.1 -45.9 -66.4 82.3 f0 v Alpha Indi 57.4 -7.5 -44.1 72.7 k0 iii Alpha Mensae 6.7 -24.1 -13.8 28.5 g5 v Alpha Ophiuchi 37.7 27.3 19.3 50.4 a5 iii Alpha Pictoris 1.9 -58.5 -26.2 64 a7 iv Alpha Serpentis 45.6 11.5 45.6 65.5 k2 iii Alpha Trianguli -39.2 34.4 -31.9 61 f6 iv Alpha Volantis 14.1 -62.8 -14.9 65.9 a5 v Altair (Alpha Aquilae) 10.7 11.8 -2.6 16.2 a7 iv-v Arcturus (Alpha Bootis) 12.3 3.3 33.3 35.7 k2 iii ep Barnard's Star 4.9 2.9 1.4 5.9 m5 v Beta Andromedae -36 47.5 -30.5 66.9 m0 iiie Beta Aquilae 29.8 31 -8.5 43.8 g8 iv Beta Arietis -33.7 26 -35.3 55.2 a5 v Beta Caeli -21.8 -37.5 -37.6 57.2 f1 v Beta Canum Venaticorum -5.2 4.9 27.4 28.4 g0 v Beta Cassiopeiae -21.8 41.7 -2.7 47.1 f2 iii-iv Beta Ceti -3.6 9 -59.1 59.8 k1 iiie Beta Circini 49 -39.9 -1.3 63.1 a3 v Beta Comae Berenices 1.5 1.4 27.1 27.2 g0 v Beta Crateris 4.2 -51.2 35.3 62.3 a2 iii Beta Hydri 9.2 -13.3 -13.5 20.9 g2 iv Beta Pictoris -9.5 -46 -27.8 54.5 a5 v Beta Reticuli 8.6 -53.4 -51.4 74.5 k0 iv Beta Trianguli Australis 30.9 -24.4 -5.2 39.7 f2 iv Beta Virginis .1 -16.2 28.7 32.9 f9 v Capella (Alpha Aurigae) -39.3 12.3 3.2 41.2 g5 iii Castor (Alpha Geminorum) -43.8 -5.8 18.2 47.7 a1 v Chi Cancri -42.4 -12 25.9 51 f6 v Chi Draconis -5.1 21 11.5 24.5 f7 v Chi Herculis 13.7 33.4 43.6 56.6 f9 v Delta Aquilae 34.4 28.5 -4.9 44.9 f0 iv Delta Capricorni 26.3 20.2 -34.5 47.8 a6 m Delta Eridani -20.8 -6.8 -22.7 31.5 k0 ive Delta Geminorum -48.3 -13.9 14.2 52.2 f1 iv-v Delta Hydri 16.9 -43.6 -49.1 67.7 a3 vn Delta Leonis -20.2 -19.7 65.7 71.4 a4 v Delta Pavonis 13.5 -8 -10 18.6 g8 v Delta Ursae Majoris -19.9 21.6 49.6 57.6 a3 v Delta Velorum 2.3 -64.9 -8.4 65.4 a0 v Denebola (Beta Leonis) -4.5 -12.9 39 41.3 a3 v Epsilon Cygni 15.1 60.5 -6.3 62.6 k0- iii Epsilon Eridani -6.9 -2 -8 10.6 k2 v Epsilon Indi 6.9 -3.1 -8.4 11.2 k5 ve Epsilon Phoenicis 14.3 -10.3 -47.4 50.5 k0 iii Epsilon Reticuli .1 -35.9 -33 48.6 k2 iv Eta Bootis 9 .8 29.7 31.1 g0 iv Eta Capricorni 42.4 22.6 -37.4 60.9 a5 v Eta Cassiopeiae -10.4 16.2 -1.8 19.3 g3 v Eta Cephei -5.8 41.5 8.6 42.8 k0 ive Eta Coronae Borealis 20.2 22.1 45.7 54.7 g2 v Eta Corvi 18.1 -36.8 43 59.4 f0 iv Eta Crucis 29.8 -55.7 -2.4 63.1 f2 iii Eta Draconis -2.4 53.2 46.2 70.5 g8 iii Eta Leporis -32.4 -27 -14.1 44.4 f1 iii Eta Ophiuchi 61.4 7.2 15.4 63.7 a1 v Eta Scorpii 54.5 -15.3 -2.3 56.6 f0 ivn Eta Serpentis 52.7 26.7 5.5 59.3 k0 iii-iv Eta-1 Pictoris -16.5 -64.2 -51.1 83.5 f2 v Fomalhaut (Alpha Piscis Austrini) 8.4 3.1 -19.3 21.2 a3 v Gamma Apodis 38.2 -41.5 -21.2 60.2 k0 iv Gamma Cephei -23 41.3 12.9 49 k1 ive Gamma Coronae Australis 45.3 .1 -15.4 47.9 f8 v Gamma Leporis -16.3 -17.4 -10.8 26.1 f6 v Gamma Pavonis 18.2 -11.4 -18.3 28.2 f8 v Gamma Serpentis 23.9 12.6 27.7 38.7 f6 v Gamma Virginis 7.4 -14.1 28.9 33 f0 v Groombridge -45.3 6.6 -25.9 52.5 dm0 Iota Centauri 30.7 -37.5 23.4 53.7 a2 v Iota Horologii -.6 -25.1 -40.7 47.7 g3 iv Iota Microscopii 51.1 -2.9 -41.6 65.9 f1 iv Iota Pavonis 52.7 -27.9 -20.8 63.1 g3 iv-v Iota Pegasi 5 36.8 -16.8 40.7 f5 v Iota Persei -28.6 20.2 -4.6 35.2 g0 v Iota Piscium -1.2 27 -35.9 44.9 f7 v Kapetyn's Star -3.5 -9.7 -7.5 12.6 m0 v Kapppa Ceti -22.8 .7 -21.4 31.1 g5 ve Kapppa Fornacis -12.3 -6.8 -36.8 39.2 g1 v Kapppa Phoenicis 10.1 -9.1 -43.8 45.7 a7 vn Kapppa Reticuli 5.7 -39.5 -41.2 57.2 f5 iv-v Kapppa-1 Tucanae 21.2 -37.4 -47.9 64.2 g5 Lambda Arae 71.5 -23.4 -13 76.3 f2 v Lambda Aurigae -45.9 10 1.2 46.9 g2 iv-v Lambda Sagittarii 53.7 7.2 -6.3 54.6 k1+ iiib Lambda Serpentis 26.8 7.5 27 38.8 g0 v Lambda-2 Fornacis -12.8 -20.2 -54.1 59 g5 iv Mu Arae 29.1 -10.6 -6.4 31.6 g5 v Mu Capricorni 36.6 32.8 -51.7 71.3 f1 iii Mu Cassiopeiae -13.9 19.5 -3.4 24.2 g5 vi Mu Fornacis -10.6 -12.3 -49.2 51.7 a2 vn Mu Herculis 15.5 20.2 12.2 28.3 g5 iv Mu-1 Cygni 11.7 70.6 -23.8 75.4 f4 v Mu-2 Cygni 11.7 70.6 -23.8 75.4 g2 v Nu Canis Majoris -38.6 -43.9 -12.2 59.5 k1 iii Nu Indi 25.7 -24.2 -30.4 46.5 g0 v j Nu Octantis 36.1 -37.1 -36.5 63.2 k0 iii Nu Phoenicis 4.4 -12.2 -37.6 39.7 f8 v Nu-2 Columbae -35.6 -47 -31 66.5 f5 v Nu-2 Lupi 43 -27.9 6.6 51.6 g2 v Omicron Aquilae 35.7 41.3 -7.9 55.2 f8 v Phi Virginis 43 -11.4 58 73.1 g2 iv Phi-2 Ceti -8 12.7 -50.6 52.7 f7 iv-v Phi-2 Pavonis 43.4 -19.4 -35.4 59.2 f8 v Pi Arae 53.3 -22.4 -12.4 59.1 a7 v Pi Hydrae 43.5 -32.9 35.7 65.2 k2 iii Pi Piscis Austrini 26.4 3.7 -59.2 64.9 f0 iv Pi-1 Ursae Majoris -32 18 26.3 45.1 g1 v Pollux (Beta Geminorum) -29.2 -6.4 12.9 32.4 k0 iiib Procyon (Alpha Canis Minoris) -9.3 -6.2 2.5 11.4 f5 iv-v Proxima Centauri 2.9 -3.1 -.2 4.2 dm5 e Psi Capricorni 32.3 11.7 -24.6 42.3 f5 v Psi Draconis -11.5 49.5 30.6 59.3 f5 iv-v Psi Serpentis 47.2 8 43 64.4 g5 v Psi Velorum -2.9 -50.3 6.9 50.7 f3 iv Psi-5 Aurigae -46.6 6.2 14.8 49.2 g0 v Rho Capricorni 48.7 24.6 -30.6 62.5 f2 iv Rho Coronae Borealis 21.2 28.7 40.9 54.3 g0 v Rho Geminorum -51 -6.4 20 55.1 f0 v Sigma Bootis 13.7 14 46.8 50.8 f2 v Sigma Coronae Borealis 29.4 41.5 52.9 73.4 f8 v Sigma Draconis -3.4 16.6 6.8 18.2 k0 v Sirius (Alpha Canis Majoris) -5.8 -6.3 -1.4 8.5 a1 v Tau Bootis 12.2 -.3 42.3 44 f7 v Tau Ceti -3.3 .3 -11 11.3 g8 vp Tau Cygni 7.8 62.3 -8.3 63.4 f0 iv Tau Ophiuchi 52.1 19 6.6 55.9 df3 j Tau Piscis Austrini 30.8 7.7 -45.2 55.2 f6 v Tau-1 Eridani -19.3 -7.4 -39.7 44.6 f6 v Tau-3 Eridani -21.9 -14.5 -46 52.9 a4 iv Theta Antliae -10.4 -58.4 20.4 62.6 f6 v Theta Bootis -1.4 20.2 34.7 40.2 f7 v Theta Centauri 38.6 -33.1 22.7 55.7 k0- iiib Theta Cygni 7.4 58.1 14.4 60.3 f4 v Theta Draconis -.2 47.6 46.9 66.9 f8 iv-v Theta Persei -31.6 25.4 -6.9 41.1 f7 v Theta Ursae Majoris -32 8.2 33.7 47.1 f6 iv Upsilon Aquarii 31.1 23.5 -63 74 f3 v Vega (Alpha Lyrae) 9.1 21.9 8.2 25.1 a0 v Xi Bootis 9.6 4.1 19.1 21.8 g8 ve Xi Geminorum -60.6 -23 5 64.9 f5 iii Xi Ophiuchi 53.7 3.3 8.4 54.5 f2 v Xi Pegasi 7.5 49 -42.3 65.1 f6 iv-v Xi Ursae Majoris -11.7 -3.2 31.7 33.9 g0 ve Zeta Doradus -2.5 -35.8 -26.7 44.6 f7 v Zeta Herculis 15.2 19.9 21.2 32.9 g0 iv Zeta Leporis -48.4 -39.8 -23.9 66.9 a3 v Zeta Serpentis 63 27.7 11.6 69.8 f3 v Zeta Trianguli Australis 25.9 -22.2 -8.9 35.2 g0 v Zeta Tucanae 8.9 -11.4 -18.5 23.4 f9 v Zeta-1 Reticuli 3.7 -23.4 -25.6 34.8 g2 v Zeta-2 Reticuli 3.9 -25 -27.4 37.2 g1 v My next step will be to stick this into a format my starmap viewer can read along with all the other gliese stars (making up names for those on the fly), and then throwing in lots of extra stars at random in order to make up for the ones which haven't been observed yet. This may take awhile, but I will finish it eventually, rest assured :-) If I get stuck, I'll give you guys a holler. In the meantime, maybe there are things some of you can work on individually. Anders has put together some aliens, and I have two essays from Joerg on alien intelligence and planetary evolution. I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for on this count, but if you have any ideas, feel free to send them to the list. We should probably come to terms with our "tech-debate" disagreements and put together some rules on starship design/combat. I'm still not sure we're getting the right "feel" that we should be aiming for, but then I'm not sure either what that right feel should be. I don't want to do a GURPS approach (too shotgun). I don't want to have a Traveller look-alike either (regardless of how much I liked the original setting). I guess I'm just looking for inspiration. If you come up with any, please be generous with it. Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 18:01:34 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: SF-RPG: Tech On Thu, 14 Mar 1996 jimv@e2.empirenet.com wrote: > Power Generation: > > My opinion: I think the staple power source for planetary industry > should be fusion generators, but that they should be way too large > to carry around. Let's say something like 10000 displacement tons > minimum. This sounds reasonable. > Of course, this will tend to make > spaceships rather bulky unless antimatter is available as a power > source, in which case the ships can be quite small by comparison > since they won't need a fusion reactor or space to store all the > deuterium. This fits in with the two kinds of ships we have discussed, the one-way ships that use antimatter to move along trading routes (where they refill with enough am for the next leg), and two-way ships that have fusion reactors. The latter are of course quite bulky and expensive, and might work as carriers for smaller ships. > Antimatter, when it is used, will typically be stored > either in magnetic bottles or some hi-tech crystal which has special > properties prohibiting an A/M reaction. Where the crystals come from > and A/M manufacturing happens can be a source of initial mystery, > but we should have a decent explanation ready with appropriate > quantities of techno-babble. What about a combination of antigravity and a magnetic bottle? By adding some active control (sensors adjust the fields when the matter moves) it could possible become quite usable. Handling and storage of antimatter is probably regulated by the Coalition and most races, to minimize the risk for accidents or terrorism. > Anti-gravity: > > My opinion: I think antigravity technology should be widespread, > non-power-intensive, but somewhat limited in terms of effect. Yes, this sounds reasonable. Maybe it will be limited as long as you don't use the heavy-duty antigravity units used in spaceships that guzzle energy (those would be able to do some rather nasty stuff, but are perhaps too slow to be good weapons). > Here's a more concrete idea. Suppose that you can create "null > plates" which effectively cancel and/or reverse the gravity which > would normally be pulling them, so that by switching them on, you > could get up to 200% compensation, in effect, casting a "feather > fall" (90%), a "levitate" (105-95%), or going up at up to an > acceleration of 1 Gee (200%). This would transform society, > granted, but as long as we can hand-wave a non-projection > principle, we no longer have to worry about most gravity-based > weapons. A nice solution, but with a slight problem. If you place a wheel half above a null-plate set at 0 g, it will start rotate (the parts outside the plate will have weight), and this could be used as an energy source. Obviously energy has to be supplied or the law of conservation of energy goes out of the window. However, suppose you place 1 kg on a plate and send it out into space using this system, then you still have to supply it with the necessary potential energy (quite a few joules). But it would make a nice launch system. Perhaps the plates could be manufactured using lots of smaller generator units. My idea is that plate technology is quite high-tech and requires minaturized gravity generators, while large lifters and FTL require crude but powerful devices. So mankind has to import the plates from more technologically advanced aliens. > As for intelligence > amplification (i.e. knowledge modules), I think these might be > beyond human technology, but perhaps are a commodity other species > could supply. Yes, this sounds good. Although such alien technology may have very odd side effects ("Don't worry, doctor. That thing in my spinal cord is an auxillary brain... it says hi."). > As for memory recorders (ala "Strange Days"), I > don't mind that too much, but it would probably on the fringe of > human tech, and might require that a person's brain be "wired" to > accept the input. I have a hard time buying into fully-virtual > cyberspace, simply because it would be a nightmare to program, > and it wouldn't necessarily help you get to what you're looking > for any faster than just typing on a keyboard or moving a mouse > pointer or even asking the computer for the info verbally. Still, I think it might be used for leisure or by other races (like my Swimmers) for various reasons. However, this is quite variable. > As for > artificial intelligence, I don't think anything would change things > more rapidly than that. Here is an idea based on Hofstadter: Most minds are not able to understand themselves well enough to create a comparable intelligence, or a greater one. Uplifting helps a species fullfill its potential, but it is not easy to create a more intelligent species unless the starting material is very good (the Old Ones might have stumbled upon a few). It is however possible to create more specialized minds, or simple generalists. More advanced species can also help less advanced species, and intelligence increase is possible within some limits. However, a *few* species in the galaxy may have managed to breach this barrier (how is not known), and rapidly increased their intelligence towards godhood. The Galactics are said to be one such group. However, this is very rare and none of the Coalition races are even close to this. > Weapons: > > My opinion: I imagine that straight slug-ammo would be less weighty > than carrying around a battery, but if we assume vastly improved > energy storage, then I don't have a problem with portable lasers, > etc. I really don't see it as a big deal one way or the other. The > state of technology will be that offense is vastly superior to > defense, no matter how you look at it, so the best defense naturally > becomes a quick and bloody offense. Or stealth. Hidden installations. Deep space depots. FTL weapons, or subtle weapons that can be hidden in something else (like psychological weapons hidden in childrens cartoons). > Medicine: > > My opinion: I feel that medicine should be vastly improved such that > limb/organ regeneration is a snap. Otherwise, the game would be > unplayable, given the state of weaponry and whatnot. I'm not > talking about healing potions, necessarily. Simply fast recovery, > given a decent sickbay or some close approximation thereof. Let's say that bionics is quite usable, but that there are Hafaru methods (developed while they were plotting and from their abductions) that can do the regeneration too. > As for cyberwear, we have two choices. (1) melding nerves onto > input jacks is no problem. (2) you can't do it. I'm more inclined > to go with #1, meaning that cyberwear would be available, but I'd > recommend that it be prone to failure whenever a piece gets > "jarred" sufficiently that a nerve/jack connection might get > strained a bit too much. I like #1 too. Cyberwear might weaken the immune system of the wearer too, so that they become more likely to get infections or diseases (I had an over-cybered NPC in 2300AD who had a chronic cold). From: Jim Vassilakos Subject: Re: SF-RPG: Tech Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 13:15:08 -0800 (PST) A friend of mine (Hi Eric) recently joined our little group, and some of the ideas I'm going to post in response to Anders' comments are really ideas I recently got from him. > > Anti-gravity: > > > > My opinion: I think antigravity technology should be widespread, > > non-power-intensive, but somewhat limited in terms of effect. > > Yes, this sounds reasonable. Maybe it will be limited as long as you > don't use the heavy-duty antigravity units used in spaceships that guzzle > energy (those would be able to do some rather nasty stuff, but are > perhaps too slow to be good weapons). Eric's idea about antigravity, as far as a possible method of limiting its use, was to give it a negative by-product ("technology always has a downside"). His idea was that we could have grav plates shoot out some nasty radiation so that you wouldn't mind using a grav car in some remote and desolate area (like an uninhabited planet) but that you wouldn't want to use it in a city for fear of frying the people below you. He pointed out that this ties in to UFO-folklore in the respect that whenever you see UFOlogists on TV, they've always got their geiger counter pointing at some burn spot on the ground (I don't know if this is true or not, but it sounds halfway plausible). One problem I see with this is that I was hoping on making antigravity energy-cheap, but if you've got a huge radiation by-product, it will probably be a power-sucker. Second is that I still like the idea of being able to float your starship over a city nice a leisurely and gently set down at the park, pull out some wicker baskets, and have a picnic. I suppose you still could with radiation-leaky gravity technology, only you'd leave huge charred spots on the lawn. :-( Also, it would can most of the civilian aspects the technology could be used for: grav-cycles (the mitsubishi air-scooter), grav-toys (a birdy your cat will never get tired to chasing), grav-beds (for those aching back muscles), etc. In short, we lose lots of possibilities with this sort of assumption, but at the same time, it would make the day-to-day living conditions of the future a lot more like things are today. Maybe the best solution would be to simply compromise and say there are two technologies: one which is radiation-leaky but available at current tech, and the other which is environmental-friendly but only available from certain alien races which have a technological ogilopoly going (this more advanced technology using weird substances which humans can't yet manufacture for some reason). Comments? > > Here's a more concrete idea. Suppose that you can create "null > > plates" which effectively cancel and/or reverse the gravity which > > would normally be pulling them, so that by switching them on, you > > could get up to 200% compensation, in effect, casting a "feather > > fall" (90%), a "levitate" (105-95%), or going up at up to an > > acceleration of 1 Gee (200%). This would transform society, > > granted, but as long as we can hand-wave a non-projection > > principle, we no longer have to worry about most gravity-based > > weapons. > > A nice solution, but with a slight problem. If you place a wheel half > above a null-plate set at 0 g, it will start rotate (the parts outside > the plate will have weight), and this could be used as an energy source. > Obviously energy has to be supplied or the law of conservation of energy > goes out of the window. Yeah, I'm assuming it'll be eating electricity. The only question is how much? Also, it might be helpful to consider that gravity is also an energy source in this example (untapped for the most part, but protentially quite powerful). That brings up a rather odd question which I don't really want to get into, i.e. about the nature of gravity and all that. But I guess if we're designing antigrav technology, we need to come up with some explanation for gravity itself (gravitons vs warped space vs whatever). > Perhaps the plates could be manufactured using lots of smaller generator > units. My idea is that plate technology is quite high-tech and requires > minaturized gravity generators, while large lifters and FTL require crude > but powerful devices. So mankind has to import the plates from more > technologically advanced aliens. Hmm... this ties into the previous question over how to have to separate technologies, one enviro-friendly and the other a mess to work with. We could say something like, the smaller the individual grav-cells, the more radiation-absorbant you're able to make them, so that a human-tech, they are a few milimeters wide and radiate like hell, and at some advanced alien tech, they are micrometers wide and cause no problem at all. Does this work for ya? > > As for cyberwear, we have two choices. (1) melding nerves onto > > input jacks is no problem. (2) you can't do it. I'm more inclined > > to go with #1, meaning that cyberwear would be available, but I'd > > recommend that it be prone to failure whenever a piece gets > > "jarred" sufficiently that a nerve/jack connection might get > > strained a bit too much. > > I like #1 too. Cyberwear might weaken the immune system of the wearer too, > so that they become more likely to get infections or diseases (I had an > over-cybered NPC in 2300AD who had a chronic cold). This is another thing that Eric talked about. Apparently he saw some movie or something where all the cybered-folk had these problems associated with their cyberparts. For example, this woman who had a cyber arm or something like that had developed this weird "twitching" which turned out to be some type of nerve disease probably caught because of her exposed nerve tissue (hitching the nerve to an input jack on the cyberarm). Another guy was a decker or something like that, and he had so much data in his head that they had to erase a bunch of his memories. I know... very weird. I think he said the movie was Johnny Memnomic (I've never seen it myself). In any case, the important point was that there's always a downside, and that makes a certain amount of sense. You can't just start messing around with a machine as complex as the human body without sustaining some negative consequences. And that, by itself, makes for a good limitation against people who want to turn their character into robocop or something. From: "Tony L. Hayes" Subject: Re: SF-RPG: Tech Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 23:51:05 -0500 (EST) > A nice solution, but with a slight problem. If you place a wheel half > above a null-plate set at 0 g, it will start rotate (the parts outside > the plate will have weight), and this could be used as an energy source. > Obviously energy has to be supplied or the law of conservation of energy > goes out of the window. I don't have time for a long comment, that'll come later but I just had to comment on this. The wheel will not start rotating because the gravitational pull will be the same on all parts above the plate further, though you gain energy as the top part moves 1/4 turn to the side, you lose energy as the part on the other side move 1/4 turn to the top. In short, net gain - zero. All parts of the wheel below the gravitational plates would not change potential as they move as there is no gravitational field. The wheel should be stable and not tip over to either side. Finally, any such energy generation, should we allow it, would by definition produce less energy then is required to power the plates. Think about it. From: "Tony L. Hayes" Subject: Re: SF-RPG: Tech Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 12:36:09 -0500 (EST) Jim Vassilakos writes -> > > > Anti-gravity: > > > > > > My opinion: I think antigravity technology should be widespread, > > > non-power-intensive, but somewhat limited in terms of effect. > > > > Yes, this sounds reasonable. Maybe it will be limited as long as you > > don't use the heavy-duty antigravity units used in spaceships that guzzle > > energy (those would be able to do some rather nasty stuff, but are > > perhaps too slow to be good weapons). > > Eric's idea about antigravity, as far as a possible method of limiting > its use, was to give it a negative by-product ("technology always has > a downside"). His idea was that we could have grav plates shoot out > some nasty radiation so that you wouldn't mind using a grav car in some > remote and desolate area (like an uninhabited planet) but that you > wouldn't want to use it in a city for fear of frying the people > below you. He pointed out that this ties in to UFO-folklore in the > respect that whenever you see UFOlogists on TV, they've always got > their geiger counter pointing at some burn spot on the ground (I > don't know if this is true or not, but it sounds halfway plausible). Perhaps another negative that isn't so limiting could be fringe effects. The edges of the plates produce unpredictable results. For larger plates, the area is large enough that the fringe effects can be safely ignored and/or the structure of the car or ship strong enough to withstand the gravitational stress where a smaller plate (as in a gravbelt or a toy or a skateboard or the like) doesn't have enough surface area to compensate for the fringe effects (where the two fields intersect) or some such hogwash. Another thought that would be useful in limiting the effect. The gravitational field bends around the plate edges forming a "tear drop" shape above the plates, limiting the height of the plates effect, ruling out anti-grav buildings or cities. Additionally, perhaps, the plates only nulify gravity and don't produce a thrust so you would still need engines to "fly" the craft but they could be much smaller since they don't need to fight the gravity well only accellerate the craft. Then an anti-gravity belt would allow you to levitate but would require a jet-pack (though much smaller and simpler) to maneuver or fly. This would still allow all the antigrav toys but they would be slightly less fantastic. Just some ideas. > probably be a power-sucker. Second is that I still like the idea of > being able to float your starship over a city nice a leisurely and > gently set down at the park, pull out some wicker baskets, and have > a picnic. I suppose you still could with radiation-leaky gravity My thoughts exactly. I like the notion or mental image of the ship floating down to rest lightly like a feather without all the flames. Or the image of the ship gracefully floating up a few feet off the ground, spinning around then zooming off toward space. But that's all about the feel you are after. A cool advanced tech feel or a gritty today's tech feel. > Hmm... this ties into the previous question over how to have to separate > technologies, one enviro-friendly and the other a mess to work with. We > could say something like, the smaller the individual grav-cells, the more > radiation-absorbant you're able to make them, so that a human-tech, they > are a few milimeters wide and radiate like hell, and at some advanced > alien tech, they are micrometers wide and cause no problem at all. Does > this work for ya? This also depends on how much of a tech difference you want between the aliens and the earthers. If its a huge difference in all areas then earth is going to be hard pressed to do anything. They will have virtually no tradable commodity. Minerals and other raw resources are cheaper to mine on dead worlds or asteroids or comets. Food stuffs are too easy to grow in greenhouses or hydroponics to make for a viable export - especially from a war ravaged planet by a race on the brink of extinction. And, of course, from the game perspective, there has to be incentive to play a human. There has to be reasonable hope that the situation can be turned around in a reasonable period of time, for the players if not for the human race. I've done the underdog style games before. They can be very cool, struggling against overwhelming odds but I've found (not just for me but for virtually every player I've ever played with) that if you never get a head, all your victories become hollow, the game becomes boring. We need to keep that in mind (in my opinion) and not make the human condition too bad off! > > I like #1 too. Cyberwear might weaken the immune system of the wearer too, > > so that they become more likely to get infections or diseases (I had an > > over-cybered NPC in 2300AD who had a chronic cold). > > This is another thing that Eric talked about. Apparently he saw some > movie or something where all the cybered-folk had these problems > associated with their cyberparts. For example, this woman who had a > cyber arm or something like that had developed this weird "twitching" > which turned out to be some type of nerve disease probably caught > because of her exposed nerve tissue (hitching the nerve to an > input jack on the cyberarm). Another guy was a decker or something > like that, and he had so much data in his head that they had to > erase a bunch of his memories. I know... very weird. I think he > said the movie was Johnny Memnomic (I've never seen it myself). In > any case, the important point was that there's always a downside, > and that makes a certain amount of sense. You can't just start > messing around with a machine as complex as the human body without > sustaining some negative consequences. And that, by itself, makes > for a good limitation against people who want to turn their character > into robocop or something. I agree. I dislike the cyber-future. Perhaps in addition to various problems with the equipment or side effects there could be strong stigmas - perhaps even from the alien races. For that matter, perhaps it wasn't the aliens who devistated earth. Perhaps there was a war between cybers and naturals and the cybers were driven off world and are now living as fugitives (a self induced malidy). Perhaps the war devistated the planet and some of the aliens came to help or perhaps the cybers found sympathey with a group of aliens who wanted earth and prompted them to attack while the other aliens came to the naturals aid. Lots of interesting possibilities. Hmm...too many plots, not enough games! A question I've asked before but can't remember the answer to, are the aliens player characters or just NPCs? Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 19:47:22 -0800 From: Eric Edgeworth Subject: Re: SF-RPG: Tech Actually, I've been re-thinking it. I am now of the opinion that anti-gravity can have low radiation emissions, but is a heavy power-eater. I think most space-faring races would set up skyhooks (everyone familiar with them?) to escape the gravity well, but use dropships with enough power storage for anti-g landing/takeoff when an "unexplored" planet is being visited. This allows Jim's little mental image, but makes aircraft and helicopters still a good idea. My other idea regarding anti-g is that power consumption is relative depending on use. If you have an anti-g skateboard designed for someone under 200 lbs, only lifting the person a few feet above a surface, it's not much of a power drain. However, once you start lifting vehicles completely out of the well, etc, the power drain increases exponentially (you math types might be able to work something out using the inverse-square laws of gravity). The explanation behind it might be some sort of gravity "phase-shift;" i.e., it doesn't really "negate" gravity, it just creates a two-dimensional surface that is unaffected by the gravity well. This way you don't have an anti-g skateboard that you float off of every time you try to step onto it. I think this version works better than the polluting version; comments? > As for cyberwear, I suppose it would depend on what sort of stats characters have, but I would lower some health-associated stat if a person has cyberware installed. I think that having chunks of your body replaced by technology, no matter how friendly it is, results in lowered immune response, increased healing time, possible rejection by the host, shortened life expentancy, possible cancerous response, plus the fact that the human body heals (and can be accelerated), but a robot piece is not self-healing, and needs repairs, etc. Also you have to consider cultural taboos -- I'm not up to date yet on alien races, etc, but there are several possibilities here: 1) Aliens are heavy into cybering themselves up, but are hated by humans, so humans associate cyberware with the aliens, and cybered humans with alien sympathizers. 2) Cybered humans are weird. No two ways about it. Ever talk to somebody with a glass eye? Etc. I don't think cyberware should be wholly disallowed -- even today we have the beginnings of cyberware in our society; there are examples of blind people being hooked up to electronics so that they can recognize simple visual patterns, prosthetic arms reacting to electrochemical impulses, etc. If you eliminate cyberware, you'd need some sort of worldwide computer crash or such to explain it (a la Shadowrun). Also, for human/machine interaction (decking, etc.), I would allow it, but require that skills for cybernetic interface be bought separately from regular skills, thereby increasing the costs for the advantages that might exist for direct interfaces. I've also got ideas about interstellar modes of travel, but I'll shut up for now... From: Jim Vassilakos Subject: sfrpg: "d" vs "D" in gliese data (color/size field) Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 22:38:15 -0800 (PST) Well, I know I've asked this before, but I'm still not satisfied with the answer I got. In the Gliese data, the star color/size field is showing such monstrosities as: dM0 dM5 e dF3 J DC9 dM2 e dK6 e dG8 dM2 DA8 dM4 J DA7 DQ5 DQ9 DZ7 Now, somebody mentioned that they thought that when the "d" is lower case, what you've got is a red main sequence, but that when the "D" is upper case, then you've got a white dwarf. But if that's the case, what is a "dG8" doing there? Gs are supposed to be yellow, right? Or what about the "dF3". Fs are yellow-white, last time I checked. So I ask ya again... what's the difference between the "d" and the "D"? How should I tell the program to interpret these? From: Jim Vassilakos Subject: sfrpg: more gliese data questions Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 11:40:01 -0800 (PST) Welp, I've been analyzing the gliese data a bit more, and am somewhat gratified on certain counts, but somewhat mystified on others. First, the good news. One of the key problems with the 2300AD data was that there were too many type VI stars (subdwarfs). The reason we knew this was because Joerg said that nearly all type VI stars are 1st generation (this being the main sequence for the low metalic stars), and Ken Croswell (a guy who writes astronomy books) said that this population should only account for about 0.1% to 0.2% of the stars in our area. The 2300AD data gave a number closer to 5%, which we reasoned was way off base. Well, the Gliese-3 data has about 3800 stars, and of those, only 7 are reported as subdwarfs (which is right in that 0.1% to 0.2% ballpark). So, in short, the Gliese-3 data is looking pretty good on this count. Now here's the funny thing. GURPS:Space seems to indicate that F-VI stars don't exist, but Gliese-3 has two of 'em. I'm not too worried about this, because G:S also indicated that O-VI and B-VI don't exist either, but they do according to some people (such as Croswell and Dirk Husfeld) on the astronomy newsgroups... these stars are just exceedingly rare. Of course, such brighter subdwarfs aren't 1st generation either (even Joerg seemed to agree with this). So my question about the two F-VI stars which Gliese-3 came up with is, are they 1st generation or something different? Another curiosity came up with respect to A-IV stars. I think that Joerg mentioned (way back long ago) that they don't exist, but Gliese-3 seems to have ten of them. Joerg, can you double check this one and let me know if Gliese is screwing-up here? Also, the "d = M-V" proposition is still annoying me. There are a whopping 510 stars marked with the "d". Yet, I see other stars (74 of them) in the Gliese-3 data which are clearly marked as M-V stars but which don't use the "d" designation. Why would Gliese use the "d" designation on some M-V stars and not on others? Sorry to be so anal about all this, but I figure that once we have our starmap generated, we're not going to be able to go back and change these sorts of things (at least not very easily). Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 13:23:26 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: SF-RPG: Tech On Sun, 17 Mar 1996, Tony L. Hayes wrote: > Perhaps another negative that isn't so limiting could be fringe effects. > The edges of the plates produce unpredictable results. For larger plates, > the area is large enough that the fringe effects can be safely ignored > and/or the structure of the car or ship strong enough to withstand > the gravitational stress where a smaller plate (as in a gravbelt or > a toy or a skateboard or the like) doesn't have enough surface area > to compensate for the fringe effects (where the two fields intersect) > or some such hogwash. This would probably be a problem for most realistic fields. An antigravity car would have a field that lowered its attraction to the ground and pushed it upwards, a kind of dipole. If another car moves too close, the fields will interact and give rise to a torque, rotating the cars (and if they roll too much, their fields will no longer keep them up, they will fall while accelerating horisontally). Antigravity car chases might be very fun! > > probably be a power-sucker. Second is that I still like the idea of > > being able to float your starship over a city nice a leisurely and > > gently set down at the park, pull out some wicker baskets, and have > > a picnic. I suppose you still could with radiation-leaky gravity > > My thoughts exactly. I like the notion or mental image of the ship > floating down to rest lightly like a feather without all the flames. > Or the image of the ship gracefully floating up a few feet off the > ground, spinning around then zooming off toward space. But that's all > about the feel you are after. A cool advanced tech feel or a gritty > today's tech feel. There will be both, I think. There could be both beautiful and dirty ships, perhaps depending on power and design (I imagine sleek, antimatter powered yachts owned by the wealthy, covered by designer materials and graceful drive spines, and huge, utilitarian Nostromo-like behemoths moving minerals from system to system). > This also depends on how much of a tech difference you want between > the aliens and the earthers. If its a huge difference in all areas > then earth is going to be hard pressed to do anything. They will have > virtually no tradable commodity. I think this requires some ingenuity, there might be some interesting kinds of trade. Some ideas: spices to the Gools, Earth antiques, art and old weapons to collectors, mercenaries and some Earth organisms (since Earth has so far been off-limits, some biotechnological species might want samples). > Minerals and other raw resources are > cheaper to mine on dead worlds or asteroids or comets. Food stuffs are > too easy to grow in greenhouses or hydroponics to make for a viable > export - especially from a war ravaged planet by a race on the brink > of extinction. Not to mention that aliens might find earth-food poisonous. Hmm, selling a bottle of champagne to an alien who poisons its ghubb with it... > And, of course, from the game perspective, there has > to be incentive to play a human. There has to be reasonable hope that > the situation can be turned around in a reasonable period of time, for > the players if not for the human race. I've done the underdog style > games before. They can be very cool, struggling against overwhelming > odds but I've found (not just for me but for virtually every player > I've ever played with) that if you never get a head, all your victories > become hollow, the game becomes boring. We need to keep that in mind > (in my opinion) and not make the human condition too bad off! I think we should have some allies. I have already mentioned the idea that the Coalition is gradually, very slowly breaking down (the bureaucracy has become too complex, the old rules no longer work and several races chafe under unnecessary restrictions), and sooner or later things will change - for better or worse. This is in the game still in the future, but the rise of the humans might even trigger part of it (as the Hafaru had planned). Here are some ideas for allies and enemies: The Ikkadju in general are against humanity, but individuals might be friendly and supporting. The Hafaru wants to use humanity, but are having some trouble; they tend to send "diplomatic advisors" and generally behave like an overbearing neighbor. The Gools are honor-bound to help humanity, even if they find humans very distasteful. The Mothers doesn't like all the chaos, and think humans are dangerously insane, but won't do anything hasty. The Swimmers and Orbs don't care at all for humanity. > A question I've asked before but can't remember the answer to, > are the aliens player characters or just NPCs? NPCs. Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 13:26:36 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: SF-RPG: Tech On Sun, 17 Mar 1996, Eric Edgeworth wrote: > My other idea regarding anti-g is that power consumption is relative > depending on use. If you have an anti-g skateboard designed for someone > under 200 lbs, only lifting the person a few feet above a surface, it's not > much of a power drain. However, once you start lifting vehicles completely > out of the well, etc, the power drain increases exponentially (you math > types might be able to work something out using the inverse-square laws of > gravity). Sounds good. > Also you have to consider cultural taboos -- I'm not up to date yet on alien > races, etc, but there are several possibilities here: > > 1) Aliens are heavy into cybering themselves up, but are hated by humans, so > humans associate cyberware with the aliens, and cybered humans with alien > sympathizers. Could be a fine idea. In the background, the NATO was heavily influenced by the Hafaru, who might be into cyberware. And many blame everything that went wrong on them. > 2) Cybered humans are weird. No two ways about it. Ever talk to somebody > with a glass eye? I think some aliens find cyber distasteful or completely absurd, while others regard it as natural (like my Swimmers, who are almost entirely cybernetic). Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 13:36:34 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: SF-RPG: Tech On Sat, 16 Mar 1996, Jim Vassilakos wrote: > Eric's idea about antigravity, as far as a possible method of limiting > its use, was to give it a negative by-product ("technology always has > a downside"). His idea was that we could have grav plates shoot out > some nasty radiation so that you wouldn't mind using a grav car in some > remote and desolate area (like an uninhabited planet) but that you > wouldn't want to use it in a city for fear of frying the people > below you. He pointed out that this ties in to UFO-folklore in the > respect that whenever you see UFOlogists on TV, they've always got > their geiger counter pointing at some burn spot on the ground (I > don't know if this is true or not, but it sounds halfway plausible). This could be a possibility, but it isn't that good (why not place shielding on the agrav generator?). However, I have an idea based on this: The agrav units use energy in the form of coherent electromagnetic radiation, whose frequency depends on their size (macrosize generators use microwaves, microsized ones use light or even UV). In most cases this isn't a problem, but if the shielding or device is damaged, microwaves could leak out and be disruptive (especially to people with cybernetics :-); a agrav plate that breaks down may start to shine with ultraviolet laser light. A nice effect. > Second is that I still like the idea of > being able to float your starship over a city nice a leisurely and > gently set down at the park, pull out some wicker baskets, and have > a picnic. I suppose you still could with radiation-leaky gravity > technology, only you'd leave huge charred spots on the lawn. :-( I also like the idea of huge ships peacefully drifting through the sky. However, the field strengths near them might rip up the lawn, and tidal forces could be hazardous near powerful devices. > Maybe the best solution would be > to simply compromise and say there are two technologies: one which > is radiation-leaky but available at current tech, and the other > which is environmental-friendly but only available from certain alien > races which have a technological ogilopoly going (this more advanced > technology using weird substances which humans can't yet manufacture > for some reason). Comments? As I see it, large systems are easier to build, so humans can build FTL drives (the most powerful systems in normal use), gravity catapults and antigravity vehicles. Small simple systems are also possible, like gravity toys or other devices. The problem for humans is to combine them into more complex fields; placing a lot of dipole units on a plate will produce a rather bad agrav plate with a very wobbly field, and it is possible they might interfere in interesting ways (not to mention that driving them all using UV-lasers is hard for us to do). Aliens have much better knowledge of this, and some alien corporations might produce high quality antigravity plates where the agrav devices, control and energy supply systems have been integrated and microminaturized ("Shailschiik antigravity... so smoooooth..."). They are also quite good at creating more complex fields, using multipole devices and very complex control systems. > > A nice solution, but with a slight problem. If you place a wheel half > > above a null-plate set at 0 g, it will start rotate (the parts outside > > the plate will have weight), and this could be used as an energy source. > > Obviously energy has to be supplied or the law of conservation of energy > > goes out of the window. > > Yeah, I'm assuming it'll be eating electricity. The only question is > how much? I'll look into a bit of GR and see if I can come up with something. > Also, it might be helpful to consider that gravity is also > an energy source in this example (untapped for the most part, but > protentially quite powerful). That brings up a rather odd question > which I don't really want to get into, i.e. about the nature of > gravity and all that. But I guess if we're designing antigrav > technology, we need to come up with some explanation for gravity > itself (gravitons vs warped space vs whatever). We have to think of this a bit, otherwise we will get into trouble or throw physics overboard completely. As I see it, the explanation is that gravity can be quantized using a very complex GUT; gravitons and gravity-waves are just the same thing, although their interactions are highly nonlinear. Gravity fields contain energy (this follows from General Relativity; yes, it is possible for a field to be so massive that it collapses into a black hole). In the above example, the energy difference between the area above the plate and the outside is used to extract energy. In order to retain conservation of energy, we can only assume that this lowers the energy difference, i.e. the plate field weakens somewhat. That is what field generators need power for - to replenish the field when matter is accelerated by it (it might be possible to *strengthen* a field by deaccelerating matter in it). We should also remember that antigravity fields should have limited range. If we follow physics, a monopole field (an attractive "gravity generator") would fall off as 1/r^2 like normal gravity (this would be useful for spherical space stations), and higher order fields (like the repulsive-attractive dipole field) would fall off as 1/r^3 or more. A number of agrav units placed as a plate could create an attractive 1/r field. Note that tidal forces might become troublesome for strong fields, there is a risk that your system collapses under its own weight when run on full power (I just *love* dramatic failure modes, they are so good for the game: "Captain, if we go any faster the drive will collapse into a pile of neutronium!"). I think we should say that the creation of black holes, wormholes and stuff is regarded as possible, but nobody in the Coalition knows how to do it. Maybe the Galactics know (everybody assumes they do). > This is another thing that Eric talked about. Apparently he saw some > movie or something where all the cybered-folk had these problems > associated with their cyberparts. For example, this woman who had a > cyber arm or something like that had developed this weird "twitching" > which turned out to be some type of nerve disease probably caught > because of her exposed nerve tissue (hitching the nerve to an > input jack on the cyberarm). Another guy was a decker or something > like that, and he had so much data in his head that they had to > erase a bunch of his memories. I know... very weird. I think he > said the movie was Johnny Memnomic (I've never seen it myself). Yes, it was Johnny Mnemonic. It was an interesting film, although too late to be the ultimate cyberpunk movie. > In any case, the important point was that there's always a downside, > and that makes a certain amount of sense. You can't just start > messing around with a machine as complex as the human body without > sustaining some negative consequences. And that, by itself, makes > for a good limitation against people who want to turn their character > into robocop or something. Exactly. I have always disliked Cyberpunk 2020 for its idea of cyberpsychosis - that you become an impersonal/psychotic killing machine by having too much cyber. I would like a more biological approach, where having lots of cyber will make your body more and more screwed up. Some ideas: Weakened immune system (sine the body has been forced to accept alien objects) Neurological damage (both from the neurointerfacing and long term effects) Infection risk (for transdermal devices) General hormone imbalances (just chaotic side effects) Phantom pains from badly adjusted cyberarms Cancer. Aliens might have perfected their kind of cyberware ("Don't worry earthling, with your pace of development you will also learn how to build good cyber in a few centuries. It is just a matter of trial and error..."), but it isn't exactly compatible in most cases. Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 15:31:42 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: Hyperdrives and antigravity Here is a proposal for antigravity and FTL travel: Antigravity Antigravity is based on quantum gravity, which is regarded as rather complex even by most advanced aliens (it is not that hard to understand, it is just about self-reinforcing spacetime loops in dimensionless protogeometry; but the implications seems to be arbitrarily complex). Building an antigravity unit is actually not that hard, although it requires some precision engineering and powerful computer modelling. An antigravity unit can look like anything, but the basics is the same: energy in the form of electromagnetism is "squeezed" into protogeometry by an ingenious use of resonance and cavitronics. In microwave-units, most of the device is an elaborate onion of resonance chambers filled with vacuum and superconductors; in a gamma-ray unit crystals of heavy elements are used. The result of this is the creation of a gravity field. Energy is required to charge the up field on start, and in theory it could be restored when the field is deactivated; however, it is usually easier to let the field decay into gravity waves, the electromagnetic rebounce is usually an engineering problem. When an unit is activated, the field will loose strength if energy is taken from it (like things falling through it), which must be replenished. Otherwise the field will weaken and vanish. In vacuum this is usually quite slow, but it happens. Most units produce simple fields. Monopole units are only attractive, and produce a spherical field. Dipole units repel on one side and attract on the other, and are used in vehicles, weapons and FTL drives. Their fields fall off much faster than the monopole fields. Another kind of unit repels along one axis and attracts along the other two (or vice versa), and higher order units can have truly complex fields. However, complex fields have very short range. Units are powered by electromagnetic energy. Large units usually employ microwaves, while small units use higher frequencies like light or UV. Antimatter produces gamma radiation that can be focussed into very small and powerful units, which are used in the drive spines of antimatter ships. Large units often look like bulky cylinders, where waveguides focus energy and heavy reinforcing give them a slightly baroque look (at least in human designs). Small units are more like precision instruments, filled with optronics and microelectronics, and antimatter units are covered entirely in smooth lead shielding. Antigravity fields interact in complex ways, which may be undesirable. Another problem is tidal forces in localized fields, and that field strengths are limited by the sturdiness of the unit (larger units or completely solid units are usually more stable). FTL A FTL drive works by creating a large dipole field around the ship, as predicted in the 20th century by Miguel Alcubierre. In most cases the drive units are placed on spines or booms outside the ship to limit disruptive tidal forces, and radiation in the case of antimatter drives. A very common system is to place the units on spines that can be extended along the equator of the ship, and then remain extended using flight. The spines usually end in cooling fins and detector arrays. Fusion powered ships are much bulkier than antimatter-ships, which can be extremely sleek and quick. On the other hand, antimatter-ships require antimatter refuelling, which is only available in civilized systems. The energy requirements for travel are roughly: E = k r^3 v^2 l + Pot k konstant r radius of ship v speed l distance travelled Pot potential energy difference between start and destination Note that the mass of the ship is irrelevant. The radius r of the ship limits the size of the fields, and larger ships require larger/stronger fields (many ships are spherical to minimize the radius, and use a monopole unit for gravity). The drive also requires energy to move from one potential to another, this is usually irrelevant but can sometimes be troublesome if a ship appears too close to a planet - the electromagnetic rebounce can be damaging. Ships also avoid planets since their gravity will twist the fields; this could cause a devastating instability. The ship travels conventionally using low-powered dipole units or thrusters away from local gravity sources (which unbalance the fields too much). When it has reached a safe distance the ship activates the drive and begins to charge up a very poverful dipole field around the ship and a reversed multipole field inside it (to prevent the ship from being ripped apart by tidal forces from the main field). This requires huge amounts of energy that has to be balanced rather delicately; a disruption here can be disastrous. The ship begins to accelerate (as seen by an outside observer), and quickly becomes FTL. During FTL flight the ship has to maintain the fields, and balance natural energy losses and instabilities. If the fields become unstable, tidal forces can rip apart the ship into plasma. When the destination is reached, the fields are powered down, usually by allowing them to leak away as gravity waves (this is a common way to detect intruder ships; most systems have gravity wave detectors). Comments? I think this is logically consistent and doesn't break that many physical laws. From: "Tony L. Hayes" Subject: Re: SF-RPG: Tech Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 10:25:48 -0500 (EST) Anders Sandberg writes -> > On Sun, 17 Mar 1996, Tony L. Hayes wrote: > > Perhaps another negative that isn't so limiting could be fringe effects. > > The edges of the plates produce unpredictable results. For larger plates, > > the area is large enough that the fringe effects can be safely ignored > > and/or the structure of the car or ship strong enough to withstand > > the gravitational stress where a smaller plate (as in a gravbelt or > > a toy or a skateboard or the like) doesn't have enough surface area > > to compensate for the fringe effects (where the two fields intersect) > > or some such hogwash. > > This would probably be a problem for most realistic fields. An antigravity Most realistic fields I'm aware of have fringe effects if generated by a plate, which was my assumption. > car would have a field that lowered its attraction to the ground and > pushed it upwards, a kind of dipole. If another car moves too close, the > fields will interact and give rise to a torque, rotating the cars (and if The effect of bringing two field toward each other might not be that simple. First, it would depend on the field geometries and the relative positions of the two vessels. > I think this requires some ingenuity, there might be some interesting > kinds of trade. Some ideas: spices to the Gools, Earth antiques, art and > old weapons to collectors, mercenaries and some Earth organisms (since > Earth has so far been off-limits, some biotechnological species might > want samples). I agree there is almost always someone who will want something you have but not in sufficient quantities to constitute a trade commodity. Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 16:49:46 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: SF-RPG: Tech On Tue, 19 Mar 1996, Tony L. Hayes wrote: > Most realistic fields I'm aware of have fringe effects if generated by > a plate, which was my assumption. Let me see what happens if we use monopole antigravity as a plate: \ | | | / \ | | | / V V V V V ---> =======PLATE===== <--- A A A A A / | | | \ / | | | \ Near the edges, the field tilts, and you can actually walk over the edge to the other side. This system reminds me of the ships in _Sundiver_ by Brin and _Timelike Infinity_ by Baxter. A dipole field would be rather different, one part would be repulsive and the other attractive: -- | | | -- / \ | | | / \ | V V V V V | | =======PLATE===== | | / | | | \ | \ / | | | \ / -- | | | -- V V V In the center the fields are as they should, but near the edge there might form "convection currents" when used in air which guzzle energy. This might actually be used as for some kind of gravity helicopter? > > car would have a field that lowered its attraction to the ground and > > pushed it upwards, a kind of dipole. If another car moves too close, the > > fields will interact and give rise to a torque, rotating the cars (and if > > The effect of bringing two field toward each other might not be that > simple. First, it would depend on the field geometries and the relative > positions of the two vessels. Yes, this is something to play around with in simulation. > > I think this requires some ingenuity, there might be some interesting > > kinds of trade. Some ideas: spices to the Gools, Earth antiques, art and > > old weapons to collectors, mercenaries and some Earth organisms (since > > Earth has so far been off-limits, some biotechnological species might > > want samples). > > I agree there is almost always someone who will want something you > have but not in sufficient quantities to constitute a trade commodity. But are humans really a part of Coalition trade? I think there will be some trade, but it will be rather limited. Humans want to buy all the advanced stuff (quantum computers, antigravity plates, antimatter, nanotechnology, terraforming expertise) the aliens have, but have to find what others want or need. It is quite possible that some groups want to sell out as much as possible to get their hands on advanced technology. From: "Tony L. Hayes" Subject: Re: SF-RPG: Tech Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 11:06:16 -0500 (EST) Anders Sandberg writes -> > > > A nice solution, but with a slight problem. If you place a wheel half > > > above a null-plate set at 0 g, it will start rotate (the parts outside > > > the plate will have weight), and this could be used as an energy source. > > > Obviously energy has to be supplied or the law of conservation of energy > > > goes out of the window. > > > > Yeah, I'm assuming it'll be eating electricity. The only question is > > how much? > > I'll look into a bit of GR and see if I can come up with something. I don't think you need to be so elaborate. Cardinal rule of physics, don't complicate things. The minimum energy needed to would be equal to the energy required to support the mass of the ship (ie the energy requried to couteract gravity) which can be found using newtonian physics and classical mechanics. Then you will have to realize that no system is 100% efficient. And you need to remember to account for the mass of the air and the cargo/passengers. And this just supports the craft - no upward movement. Also remember, that if you truely counteract gravity (as opposed to producing a downward force as is done with helicopters or harriers) then the air pressure should cause your ship to float upward like a balloon. An interesting effect most people forget about. It all depends on how you are going to hand-wave through the anti-gravity. Personally, I kind of like the idea of using eletromagnetic fields to locally flatten space. This way you can have nice, simple idea with out invoking too much pseudo physics, after all, e-m fields can and do curve space so the foundation is laid already. All you have to do is explain it briefly as I just did and don't try too hard to explain the excact details of the mechanics. I feel that if you can ground a futuristic invention is a real, current, understood effect, its easier to swallow and it allows each group to come up with their own details which will be believable to them. > I think we should say that the creation of black holes, wormholes and > stuff is regarded as possible, but nobody in the Coalition knows how to > do it. Maybe the Galactics know (everybody assumes they do). Hmm...I would say everyone know _how_ to do it but few if any have the capability to act on the knowledge. Just think of the energy requirements. Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 17:49:32 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: SF-RPG: Tech On Tue, 19 Mar 1996, Tony L. Hayes wrote: > Which is my point. What do we have that is of sufficent value to > aliens that they will supply us with technology that we _will_ analyze > and reverse engineer. Duplicate if not understand completely. Hmm, just an idea: humans will desperately want to learn about how to build hyperdrives and everything, so they would be very eager to work for alien corporations for (by Coalition standards) minimum wages just to learn a bit... Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 17:54:30 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: Hyperdrives and antigravity On Tue, 19 Mar 1996, Tony L. Hayes wrote: > I have read this article - thanks for the reference, it was an > interesting read. The math appears correct as does the physics > but, as he points out, it requries negative mass - thus making it > non-physical - though no less interesting. But wouldn't an antigravity field be able to replicate this? > I think a more vague > explaination would fair better though I really don't care one too > much one way or the other. It is the perogative of the GM to drop > and replace any part they don't like and how many people will know > that this won't work in real world. Personally I like to use as much real physics or physical conjectures as possible, to give the game an air of realism. In this case it doesn't matter much, and it would be nice to have players talk about their Alcubierre drives. Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 18:00:47 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: SF-RPG: Tech On Tue, 19 Mar 1996, Tony L. Hayes wrote: > > I'll look into a bit of GR and see if I can come up with something. > > I don't think you need to be so elaborate. Cardinal rule of physics, > don't complicate things. Yes, but I'm a mathematician and computer scientist! :-) > The minimum energy needed to would be > equal to the energy required to support the mass of the ship (ie > the energy requried to couteract gravity) which can be found using > newtonian physics and classical mechanics. Probably a good start. > Also remember, that if you truely counteract gravity (as opposed > to producing a downward force as is done with helicopters or > harriers) then the air pressure should cause your ship to > float upward like a balloon. An interesting effect most > people forget about. It all depends on how you are going to > hand-wave through the anti-gravity. Sounds like a beautiful way to start a ship! I can imagine how a huge ship gently drifts up into the clouds before activating the main engines (this would be less damaging to the environment too). > Hmm...I would say everyone know _how_ to do it but few if any have > the capability to act on the knowledge. Just think of the energy > requirements. Sounds even better. Today we know how to terraform Mars, but we can't do it yet. Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 20:46:42 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: Hyperdrives and antigravity On Tue, 19 Mar 1996, Tony L. Hayes wrote: > Possibly depending on exactly how we postulate a-g working. The > question would be, could we warp space enough to achieve the > desired effect. And could we warp it correctly. More over, if > we allow a-g to be too powerful - ie strong enough to do this, > could we not use it to approach blackholes by locally flattening > space and what would the consequences of that be? An energy > geiser? Something more dramatic? Is this some thing we want to > happen? Then there is the question of energy, how much would it > take to warp space-time enough to allow the effect to succeed. > All good possiblities. Ah, this is the interesting part. I think flattening spacetime near black holes would not work that well, since the energy required would probably approach infinity. I wonder if black hole production should be on the high end of ability for Coalition members? A kind of "ultimate weapon" that is known but requires tremendous energy to be built (but it would be devastating, just drop it into a star). Maybe this was the last resort of the Old Ones, and one or two such devices are still left (carefully watched by the Coalition). I see the warping effect as rather energy-consuming, but not as energy consuming as actually creating the huge positive and negative energy densities needed. It would be a bit like pumping the vacuum energy from one side of the ship to another using the drive, which creates a wave to surf on (I actually like the analogy). I still don't know how much energy we need, but it is clearly up to us to decide. Enough to require a fusion plant or an antimatter reactor, I think. I imagine starting a ship like this: The drive spines fold out like the petals of a flower. Gradually the reactor fills large capacitor banks with energy, which starts to flow into resonators that in turn flows into the spines. In front of the ship the stars shift and distort, as if all of space was being squeezed together in front of the tip of the ship into a burning light. Behind the ship the last stars slink around to the front, leaving total darkness. On the bridge there is a slight tremor as a torsion component adjusts for an unexpected disturbance, but otherwise everything is quiet and still. For the next two weeks, the only view outside will be perfect darkness and a flaming sun in front of the ship. >From the outside, the start looks much more impressive. After the spines have activated, the stars behind the ship seems to flow, and the ship quickly accelerates surrounding by a bubble of twisted light. The sun briefly refract from the fields, which vanish into infinity leaving only a slight gravity wave. > I agree that we should ground the effect in real physics where possible > but if we at the same time leave vague the details, people can fill in > details that _they_ will believe. How many of us have read some over > technical description of some device in a game and tore it to shreds? Indeed. That is why I think it is safe to play with Alcubierre and general relativity, but we have to be careful with computers. > That's my only point. Enough physics to give the feel but enough > vagueness to allow individual interpretation that suits personal > biases. OK. It sounds good. Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 22:16:17 -0800 From: Eric Edgeworth Subject: Re: Hyperdrives and antigravity At 03:31 PM 3/19/96 +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote: >Comments? I think this is logically consistent and doesn't break that >many physical laws. It sounds good, but how do you prevent time dilation? Is that an after-effect of the method? (Actually, I'm not even sure what the typical time dilation would be for a short trip...) At 10:25 AM 3/19/96 -0500, Tony L. Hayes wrote: >I agree there is almost always someone who will want something you >have but not in sufficient quantities to constitute a trade commodity. Slave labor? Maybe humans breed more quickly and efficiently than other slave races, but only here at home -- on other planets we don't breed as quickly, so there's a constant demand for fresh bodies from Earth. From: "Tony L. Hayes" Subject: Re: Hyperdrives and antigravity Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 09:26:27 -0500 (EST) Eric Edgeworth writes -> > At 03:31 PM 3/19/96 +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote: > >Comments? I think this is logically consistent and doesn't break that > >many physical laws. > > It sounds good, but how do you prevent time dilation? Is that an > after-effect of the method? (Actually, I'm not even sure what the typical > time dilation would be for a short trip...) The amount by which time appears to shrink in the frame outside the ship depends on how fast the ship appears to be going in that frame. That's the simple answer. More correctly, you need to account for the effects of acceleration and deceleration to determine the net, effective time dilation, but that become a tad more complicated. In any case, the idea/reason behind using the FTL drives suggested by Anders is that it doesn't have temporal problems typically associated with near-light travel. Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 17:01:52 +0100 (MET) From: Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: Hyperdrives and antigravity On Wed, 20 Mar 1996, Tony L. Hayes wrote: > The amount by which time appears to shrink in the frame outside > the ship depends on how fast the ship appears to be going in that > frame. That's the simple answer. More correctly, you need to account > for the effects of acceleration and deceleration to determine the > net, effective time dilation, but that become a tad more complicated. I.e. we can just handwave it a bit, and possibly mention that the causal structure of the Coalition is slightly complicated. From: Jim Vassilakos Subject: SF-RPG: Gliese "d"/"D" problem answered Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 11:33:41 -0800 (PST) Welp, I asked sci.astro about the "d"/"D" question, and they gave me pretty much the same answer that Joerg provided some eons ago. Sorry for ever doubting you, Joerg. :-( David Knisely (dk84538@ltec.net) indicated that the "d" before the spectral type indicates a dwarf star and that the "e" at the end means that there are few emission lines in the star's spectra. I mentioned that Gliese uses both dM & MV and queried about whether the two were interchangable or whether the "d" indicated that the star might be a Subdwarf (class VI). He responded: > Usually a dM5 is M5 luminosity class V (main sequence), but > occasionally, you will see the same "d" designation given for sub-dwarfs. > That is why the I like the luminosity class better (also known as the MK > system). But watch out for the capital letter "D" in front. That usually > means a white dwarf (DA would be a white dwarf with spectral class A, ect). > I hope this clears things up a bit. John Gizis (jeg@astro.caltech.edu) got into even more detail: > A lower case d prefix means it's a dwarf (g is giant)-- it's > basically the same as a Roman Numeral V but is an earlier system. > Dwarfs are on the main sequence -- the Sun is a dwarf. > A DA star is white dwarf (Degenerate star) which shows Hydrogen > absorption lines, a DB is a white dwarf with Helium lines, > DC shows no lines. Often when viewed at higher resolution > or high signal-to-noise weak features become evident, like > metal lines (Ca,Mg, Fe) which is DZ or Carbon (DQ). So what I'm going to do about this is assume that all the "d" stars are class V, except for maybe one in a thousand which I'll make class VI. Still thinking about that. As for the "D" stars, I guess they'll all be categorized as white dwarfs. Let me know if any of you see a problem with this. Once it's done, and the data gets processed, that's what we'll have to deal with as far as the starmap goes. From: Jim Vassilakos Subject: SF-RPG: How much energy does fusion yield? Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 11:36:08 -0800 (PST) I'm starting to put together a tech write-up so we can finally stop bouncing around with the technology discussion and get down to something more concrete. I've run into a minor snag, however. Although we've pretty much decided on fusion and antimatter for our power generation, I still need to know how many MW-hours you can get out of a liter of pure deuterium by converting said substance into helium. Any takers? BTW, are there more economical substance we should use instead? I ran the equations way long ago and can easily dig up my results, but knowing that I'm pretty lousy when it comes to physics, it might help to have somebody more competant at this sort of thing run through the process just so we don't end up with something totally off-the-wall.