Sci-Fi hardness and sacred handwaves

[BluWolf]

The refueling from GG topic got me thinking being a newbie on the topic of "how hard is fun"?

Being new to this world, what are some of the REALLY big scientific handwaves people that enjoy this game need to swallow in order to keep the game fun and not an exercise in advanced math?

Distance? Time? Governmental? Racial/Biological??

Where are the slippery slopes located?

 

[phydaux]

FTL. That, and the "One parsec thick universe." The rest of it is hard sci-fi.

 

[trader jim]

I have to be honest here!!! darn it!!!!....an awful lot of this stuff on/in this forum/board...i take with a grain of salt!!!....i read ALL of it daily....and i say to myself...YEAH...RIGHT....everyone uses all of it...I DONT THINK SOooooo.....

 

[tjoneslo]

How much physics, Economics, sociology, physiology, and any other hard science do you know?

Physics Handwavy stuff:
Jump Drive (obviously), Grav and maneuver drives, Meson guns and comms, Plasma guns, space based lasers, space missiles, lack of near-c rocks, and others.

Economics handwavy stuff:
The Trade system in T20 complete hogwash, GT:Far Trader is better, but still a simplification. The link between an item's cost and the TL system.

Sociology handwavy stuff:
The entire Imperium is a giant handwave. The balance between the Nobility, Armed forces and the worlds isn't stable. The slow advancement of technology. Pirates.

Physiology handwavy stuff:
Psionics. Most of the aliens are at least plausable given the current understandings, but there are exceptions. Dryone are pushing it.

Most of the really badly broken bits are either labeled "Handwave" or are hidden unless you know the subject in question. Good SciFi is allowed to break the Hardness barrier under two condition: 1) The author is aware of it and makes the reader aware the rules are being broken delibertly. and 2) Doing so makes for a better story.

My problem with most SciFi (rpg and novels) is "cool stuff" is added just because it's cool and not because it makes for a better story.

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

I invoke Rule #9:

"Good Roleplaying should never get in the way of Good Roleplaying"

If you can have fun and include some physics and plausible things into your universe then great, but if you're taking more time using calculators and looking up social histories than letting someone RP, then let it slide.

Like Elton John said in 'Rocket Man' : "....And all the science, I don't understand...it's just my job five days a week...."

 

[mikeryan]

Originally posted by N.I.C.E. Labs:
If you can have fun and include some physics and plausible things into your universe then great, but if you're taking more time using calculators and looking up social histories than letting someone RP, then let it slide.

Yeah, this rule applies to both sides of the screen. I personally don't like to get too bogged down in science, while a friend of mine does. At one point I was using an adaptation of Shadows. After crashing the group on the planet, and establishing some of the niceties of a fluorine atmosphere, my friend turns to me and asks "what's the exact composition of the atmosphere?" in a serious, rational tone of voice. After seeing my panic-stricken expression (it has become a classic to this day) and my stammering "umm... I don't know...", he apolgized and said that he thought the atmosphere content was part of the mystery. I said it wasn't, and he let the question pass.

 

[DaveShayne]

Originally posted by BluWolf:
The refueling from GG topic got me thinking being a newbie on the topic of "how hard is fun"?

Being new to this world, what are some of the REALLY big scientific handwaves people that enjoy this game need to swallow in order to keep the game fun and not an exercise in advanced math?

Distance? Time? Governmental? Racial/Biological??

Where are the slippery slopes located?

Jump drive is the first. It blows relativity all to hell but you need it if your going to get around the galaxy at anything other than a snails pace.

Second is reactionless thrusters. The last thing I want to have to worry about in my games is fuel efficiency. So what if thrusters are the second biggest spit in the eye of the 2nd law of thermodynamics ever imagined. (The biggest of course being the central premise of the Brin book, "The Practice Effect")

Thirdly hand held laser weapons. Or indeed laser weapons at all. I like ray guns in my spaceship stories thankyouverymuch.

 

[themink]

Technology in general - Welcome to the future, it's now 1975. The origional rule set (which everyone has pretty much kept in contact with) didn't really have any "culture shock" internal to it. You could have dropped a 1970's person into the traveller universe and everything was pretty much the same.

Because future shock is from things you can;t predict, it is eminantly reaosnable that you will never be able to incorporate it into your universe so playing "without" technology is th eobvious solution. It still annoys me though.

I also hate the entire "population pressure doesn;t happen" - In every other example you can think of, a population breeds upto its maximum carrying potential of the land and then starts leaning on the edges.

Any social/political group within a traveller universe which maintains a higher birth rate than the rest will very quickly (300 years is 15 generations) outpopulate the rest. Every world should be a seething mass. Every species/political grouping should be trying to expand their range - Tose that don;t succumb to those that do. It's a very Heinlienian Universe - but I feel it is much more accurate than canon.

If you changed either of these, the entire feel of the universe changes and it isn;t the Consensus Traveller Universe that we love.

So I play it - Handwaves and all

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by thrash:
Unlike Hunter, Martin, and the QLI crew, I've made quite a hobby of trying to find ways to fix these and other related problems while remaining true to the spirit of Traveller.

Nothing wrong with that, if that is what you like and want to do. I can suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy the discrepancies in Traveller canon. I personally don't want to deal with the headache of three-dimensional starmaps and travel. For those who enjoy that stuff, I say go for it!

There is no right way or wrong way to play the game. If there are changes you feel need to be made, you will have my 100% support in your endeavors. But as a Traveller publisher, I must try to stay as faithful to the original lines as possible. If you can show me ways to 'fix' what you think is broken without contradicting or invalidating 25 years of material, I am willing to listen and listen closely. I don't promise anything but I will listen.

Hunter

 

[Uncle Bob]

Jump drive hasn't bothered me since van den Broek published his modifications to Alcubierre's warp drive.

Maneuver drive hasn't bothered me since I read Woodward's paper on Mach's principle.

Gravitics hasn't bothered me since I read Dr Forward's book "Indistinguishable from Magic"

Ignoring thermodynamics does bother me.

We know a lot more about planets than we did thirty years ago. And I never really liked 2D mapping.

 

[MJD]

Traveller is a game I play for recreation.

I can suspend my disbelief so long as it's fun.

I've been a real scientist and a real engineer; I've dealt with the intricacies of certain sectors of the economy (the arms trade), etc etc. These things are realistic, but not all that much fun.

So I'll always go for believable (ish) and fun rather than spending my life looking for fixes to something that needs tearijg down and completely redesigning if it's to be relaistic.

You can do that if you like, but it won't be Traveller any more.

 

[MJD]

Correction.

Not the Traveller we've played for the past 25 years.

 

[DrSkull]

Originally posted by DaveShayne:

Thirdly hand held laser weapons. Or indeed laser weapons at all. I like ray guns in my spaceship stories thankyouverymuch.

I don't know why you find laser weapons to be hinky. The Air Force is set to deploy air-craft mounted laser weaponry in the next few years.

 

[BluWolf]

Does Traveller EVER address relativity and the whole age question? (I've never read any Traveller books).

 

[PapaGolfWhiskey]

There are characters with two ages. bio and chrono. but...

It's not due to relativity so much as 'cold sleep'

 

[tjoneslo]

Unless you spend a lot of time cruising around a near light speed, the time dilation effects from relativity are very small. On a Earth->Jupiter run you may loose a few tens of seconds. Over a lifetime the total may be a few minutes at most.

One of those "it's too small to a difference" issues.

 

[Uncle Bob]

The technology of the jump drive in Traveller by-passes relatavistic effects, so there is no need to discuss it in the core rules.

 

[BluWolf]

Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
The technology of the jump drive in Traveller by-passes relatavistic effects, so there is no need to discuss it in the core rules.

Ahh, OK. I did not realise this. I just assumed jump technology was based on FTL travel.

So I take it jumps are made by entering some sort of "extra-dimensional" space and then popping out at a destintaion on the other end? Transit times are relative to a constant time stream?

So can I assume that communications technology is more or less based in "theoretical science" and is limited to STL speeds?

 

[DaddyDragon]

BluWolf writes:

So I take it jumps are made by entering some sort of "extra-dimensional" space and then popping out at a destintaion on the other end? Transit times are relative to a constant time stream?

So can I assume that communications technology is more or less based in "theoretical science" and is limited to STL speeds?

Jump create an extra dimensional pocket that a ship falls into. 168 hours (plus or minus) later, it drops back into real space regardless of distance.

Communications technology in Traveller obeys the light speed limit. So the X-Boat routes operated by the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service sends a constant stream of ships back and forth between inhabited systems carrying the news and e-media. And of course, for those situation where discretion is necessary, a traveller may be approached to deliver a message....which can lead to an adventure.

Regards,
Larry

 

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

Essentially, the fastest way to get a message somewhere in the Traveller universe is to put it on a jump-capable vessel and send it there. Much of Traveller's flavor (regarding the setting), in my opinion, stems from this simple fact.

As for the "one parsec thick universe", the handwave I use is that, in the same way that jump is adversely affected by proximity to a gravity well, jump is only possible (at Imperium TL) along the plane of the galaxy. This doesn't really make much sense, but is as fine an excuse as any if you don't squint at it.