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Night's Dawn series.

N

notagoodusername

SOC-13
Hey y'all,

Have any of you fine fellows out there tried doing a setting based on the Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F Hamilton (The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist, and The Naked God)?

I'm curious for some ideas/reports.

I'm suprised nobody has licensed this yet, as it is a great setting (especially wihtout he whole souls thing).


Shane
 
I'd considered introducing a limited version of it as follows.
PCs (the usual Free Trader crew) take on some passengers. One is a fugitive psionic, while two others are bounty hunters, cops, whatever, and a few others are red herrings thrown in.
To cut to the chase, in jump the cops start a fight with the psionic, only to have the near death psionic try to teleport to safety. This lets "jump space demons" in, which start to possess the passengers and crew.
Develop as you see fit...

I've also used the setting as a background to a Traveller game that I haven't got around to running yet (it actually began as an Alternity campaign idea about a year ago, as I tried to convert ships and tech, I picked up my old Traveller books for inspiration and quickly switched systems, began searching the interweb for add ons to Traveller and ended up here). The ship conversions etc are easy enough, and there is plenty of scope for Traveller like adventure before the events in the books.
I'm now looking at a possible T20 version with bits taken from Alternity as a system option, but that's still a way off. I've a CT/house rule game to get started before that.
Who knows, the two may merge after a while, using the idea I originally mentioned
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I don't mind the whole souls thing. What I did mind was the quite-literal Deus Ex Machina ending to the whole trilogy. Spoiled my fun somewhat (I think the first book was the best - especially when no-one knew what exactly was going on at Lalonde, and also because Laton was cool - too bad he died...)
 
I got Peter F Hamilton to give me permission to do a RPG on it for non-profit one of the times I met him. Unfortunately we all know the worth of a verbal contract.
 
I just started reading the Reality Dysfunction, partly because of this thread and partly on the high recommendation of my lead artist.

I absolutely love it! I have to agree, this setting is just gagging to be set to Traveller rules.

I'm only on Chapter 7 and allready it's chock full of ideas. The Edenists, the VoidHawks, the description of how Lalonde was established - the settlement company buying the rights to the planet from the Scout company that found it and how the colony ship dropped a 15km line of the conical landers chock-full of heavy plant traffic to clear the jungle and establish the starport and then using the landers generators to power the colony buildings.

and so on and so forth. I love this stuff. Just enough science to be interesting and the rest is just simply a sumptuous setting.

Can anyone recommend the Confederation Handbook? Is there anything in there that isn't covered in equal detail in the novels? Does it have illustrations?

Crow
 
Can anyone recommend the Confederation Handbook?
Click to expand...
If you realy like the books then it may be worth it to you for the extra system details, but most of the technologies can be understood from the books. Sadly there are no illustrations :(
 
Well, I'm over half way now and to be honest, I'm not so enthusiastic. What began as an enjoyable and well thought out hard sci-fi tale has degenerated into a zombie horror which is not what I wanted. The entire middle section of the book was mind numbingly tedious. It ran something like this:

Several likeable characters are killed by zombies.
Several likeable characters are killed by zombies.
Joshua Calvert has lots of sex.
Several likeable characters are killed by zombies.
Several likeable characters are killed by zombies.
Joshua Calvert has lots of sex.
Several likeable characters are killed by zombies.
Several likeable characters are killed by zombies.
Someone else has lots of sex.

The whole piece set around 'Norfolk' and the Louise Kavanagh character seemed to be somewhat irrelevant and time-wasting. Also, if I want 'Pride and Prejudice', I'll read Jane Austen - it'd be better written for starters.
I was on the verge of giving up when it cut back to Father Horst (one of the few characters I actually like) and the children on Lalonde and started getting interesting again.
I'm not keen on the way he writes women either. As with TV and a great many Hollywood movies, Men come in all shapes and sizes but the women (with one noteable grotesque exception) are all stunningly beutiful and appear to be there purely for sexual purposes. And on that note, I do wonder if Hamilton has ever had sex. He seems to have a juvenile fascination with the act that one commonly associates with virginal teenagers and his knowledge of the act seems to derive entirely from ⌧o fantasies rather than actual experience.

I'm at page 950 and it seems to be going somewhere again now, but I don't feel compelled to read the other two books, sadly.

Crow
 
Keep going, the end of the first book picks up again. The mercenaries on Lalonde, the space battles, the... ;)
And then give book 2 a try. It doesn't have as many flat spots ;)
 
Well... maybe. I was pretty negative in my last post. I stand by what I said, but I do still think it's a pretty well thought out and believeable hard-sci-fi setting. I love the idea of the Edenists and their habitats and voidhawks and blackhawks. I may give book 2 a try but not for a while.

Crow
 
I think it's book two that has the amazing land battles in the Kingdom, or maybe it's book 3. Well that entire sequence where the Federation and the Kingdom take back their land is well worth reading all three books for. Keep going.

I'm not keen on the way he writes women either. As with TV and a great many Hollywood movies, Men come in all shapes and sizes but the women (with one noteable grotesque exception) are all stunningly beutiful and appear to be there purely for sexual purposes. And on that note, I do wonder if Hamilton has ever had sex. He seems to have a juvenile fascination with the act that one commonly associates with virginal teenagers and his knowledge of the act seems to derive entirely from ⌧o fantasies rather than actual experience.
Click to expand...
Well having met the man several times I can tell you he has a rather attractive wife, and if he hasn't done it with her then he is sorely missing out.
 
Try Another Chance at Eden, lots of short stories set within the same future history. Some nice snappy pieces of work without the huge rambling opera. Also worth looking at by the same author is Fallen Dragon, a piece about a corporately owned infantry unit in powered/bio armour that assault colony worlds to reclaim resources in return the years of investment put into them (great idea for a campaign setting).
His Mindstar series is quite good too.
 
I am very tempted by 'Another Chance at Eden' actually. I like the Night's Dawn universe an I think it might be more enjoyable in smaller helpings.

Crow
 
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