Transhuman 2300

[Libris]

I've been reading Transhuman Space from SJG and it's quite awesome. The spacecraft don't quite work for me though; all accurate Delta-V stuff with very fudged orbital mechanics. Why not fudge the mechanics totally and fit a stutterwarp?

The background isn't 2300 but it's still pretty good and easily extrapolated.

I'm busy converting the THS design system to my own metric hybrid GURPS Vehicles/Advanced THS and it seems to be slotting into place quite nicely. A couple of issue have cropped up with weapons and radiators but nothing major so far.

 

[Erik Boielle]

Originally posted by Libris:
all accurate Delta-V stuff with very fudged orbital mechanics.

Care to explain yourself before I summon the rest of the Transhuman Space Mafia?

The TS skin for 2300 would kick ass though.

 

[Anthony]

THS ignores a lot of orbital mechanics because when you have delta-V significantly exceeding orbital velocity you can afford to do so. Other than that, not sure what you're talking about -- sure, no-one uses hohmann transfer orbits, but that's because they don't have to.

 

[Libris]

True the Delta-V of most vessels are very high (by today's standards) but it isn't just straight line mechanics despite that. Getting to Mars orbit is fine, getting from GSO Earth to GSO Mars is a bit more complex. Of course, with stutterwarp it *is* just straight line mechanics

 

[Libris]

I'm not knocking THS; I've got it all. It is totally cool but I just can't leave things alone...

One of the fundamental things about my THS2300 is the concept of old, new and advanced technology. Old and New is as per THS and advanced is well, the advanced new stuff; like stutterwarp, improved lasers, emags etc. Oh, and Fusion Rockets and Air-Rams but with a minimum size relative to the size of available fusion powerplants; I can't see how a powerplant has to be several tons whereas a Fusion Air-Ram can be a couple of hundred pounds and, if you can build a fission air-ram, how difficult is a fusion one once you've sorted out some details.

 

[Erik Boielle]

Shrug.

Close enough for roleplaying work.

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And the Authors, knowing how offputting many people find things like GURPS vehicles and FFaS, wanted to simplify things so you can easily make stuff without a spreadsheet. In doing so they lost some stuff like varying efficiency with size.

Except the bits that are just wrong, which are obviously typos.

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Personally, I've got these ideas for using a collimator to turn the fusion drive in to a big assed cannon, or have big coilguns throwing missiles at things.

Don't think lasers would cut the mustard, see.

 

[Erik Boielle]

And it doesn't talk about aerobraking, which I think is a shame as that could lead to some interesting looking spaceships, since, in my quest to produce Transhuman spacecraft that don't look like tin cans (and keep alive the memory of Shy*) I have produced

Bad Art!

A Herman Oberth LSDV!

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul_gylyan.boielle/lsdv.jpg

An AKV (Designed for deployment from rotary launcher - toblerones stack better under armour)!

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul_gylyan.boielle/AKV.jpg

A Sunlance fast courier!

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul_gylyan.boielle/sunlance.jpg

A Chinese Killer Butterfly, from back before I thought on fusion drive nozzles or required laser mirror sizes (although I still like the radiators)!

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul_gylyan.boielle/butterfly.jpg

*He who had Style (Forever praise his name)

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Erik Boielle:
And it doesn't talk about aerobraking

Mostly because building in aerobraking capability to a ship would be really expensive in design terms, isn't that useful (you have to be going pretty slow for aerobraking to be effective without being fatal), and only done if you have a specific need for it (e.g. landing). In which case, build your ship in a delta configuration.

 

[Erik Boielle]

Pah!

These arn't your wimpy ships of today.

A modern warship already carries a meter thick plug of nanocomposite armour and is stressed to withstand substantial hits from kinetic energy weapons.

Computer simulations have shown that the additional possible mission envelopes provided by aerobraking will be critical in the coming war.

What with the advanced hull shape being trival to manufacture using modern techniques, and the shaping required remarkably similar to the ideal shaping for laser resistance,

I recking it could look pretty cool.

Additional armour from the atmosphere during attack runs maybe? And Mr. Pulver says that he feels some AKVs are streamlined due to their secondary roll as kinetic energy weapons for use against targets on planets.

 

[Libris]

This is more complicated than I thought... but not impossible.
I'm not a big fan of the French being at the top; Chinese fine, Americans fine, Russians fine, French or Germans no (its a cultural thing ). So I don't have any real issues with redistribution of power and plot. Otherwise known as throwing most of the 2300 history as we know it out the window and starting again. Kind of THS background meets Kafers et al.

I still have a dilemma. Do I simply use the THS background as is, add stutterwarp and arbitrarily make the date the same or 50/100 years in the future? Or do I extrapoloate the current THS background 50 to 100 years, adding more advanced tech etc?

The first option is the easiest to integrate and is really just an alternative universe THS while the second is much more work with perhaps a few unforseen pitfalls.

I started off with the second option but I'm coming around to the idea that the first might be easier to develop and play. Thoughts?

 

[Jame]

Just as an aside, Transhuman Space is what TSR's Alternity tried to be, albeit more biological.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by Jame:
Just as an aside, Transhuman Space is what TSR's Alternity tried to be, albeit more biological.

Er, it's nothing remotely like Alternity at all. For one thing, Alternity was a generic sci-fi background, whereas TS is a specific sci-fi setting using GURPS. Second, Stardrive was more space opera than hard sf, more like Traveller than TS (which was hard sf set in the solar system).

 

[Whipsnade]

Evil Dr Ganymede wrote:

"... Stardrive was more space opera than hard sf, more like Traveller than TS (which was hard sf set in the solar system)."


Dr. Thomas,

We've had this discussion before. IMHO, TS has both Space Opera and Hard SF elements. TS projections concerning geneering; especially bioroids, personality uploads, and the rest, are space opera of the first order.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
We've had this discussion before. IMHO, TS has both Space Opera and Hard SF elements. TS projections concerning geneering; especially bioroids, personality uploads, and the rest, are space opera of the first order.

It's the way it's explained that matters, IMO. Yeah, you can have those in Space Opera, but if they're just an axiom of the background and no further explanation is given, then that's Space Opera. Hard scifi would attempt to slot those in more realistically, examining the effects on the setting, which is what TS does.

Also, I think another big trope in Space Opera is 'good versus evil'. In TS, there's no such thing, it's all shades of grey, like it is in the real world.

But regardless, comparing TS to Alternity is I think kinda like comparing D&D to Ars Magica. Yeah, they're the same genre, but they have very different 'feel'.

 

[Whipsnade]

Evil Dr Ganymede wrote:

"It's the way it's explained that matters, IMO. Yeah, you can have those in Space Opera, but if they're just an axiom of the background and no further explanation is given, then that's Space Opera. Hard scifi would attempt to slot those in more realistically, examining the effects on the setting, which is what TS does."


Dr. Thomas,

A extremely important point and a very accurate observation regarding those two genres. With your leave, I will stea^^^ (ahem) 'borrow' that explanation and use it from now on!

"Also, I think another big trope in Space Opera is 'good versus evil'. In TS, there's no such thing, it's all shades of grey, like it is in the real world."

Which is to TS' great credit. I, too, prefer the shades of grey motif.

"But regardless, comparing TS to Alternity is I think kinda like comparing D&D to Ars Magica. Yeah, they're the same genre, but they have very different 'feel'."

Oh yes. We are in complete agreement there. Alternity is nothing like TS at all. It's like comparing 'Spaceballs' with B5.

I was trying, and failing, to point out that, IMEHO, TS' biological technology has a higher percentage of 'wishful thinking' and fantastic speculation than its mechanical/electronic/etc. technology. The biological side of things was not held to teh same rigor as the non-biological portions.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Erik Boielle]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
We've had this discussion before. IMHO, TS has both Space Opera and Hard SF elements. TS projections concerning geneering; especially bioroids, personality uploads, and the rest, are space opera of the first order.

I dunno man. There isn't anything in there that violates our understanding of the universe, I think.

They are talking about making pigs with organs that can be transplanted in to humans. Its not a massive jump from there to cat people.

If you assume that the human brain is just a big neural net you ought to be able to copy it and run simulations of it.

It doesn't have to be easy, it just has to be doable.

The time frames are, well, who knows, everyone always gets this wrong, but hey its only got to happen once and it is fun and lets you ask deep philosophical questions with your roleplaying.

Its possible, and its cool, so its hard science.

Casual editing of personalities seems a touch optimistic to me mind, but hey.

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Oh, and no one who isn't frogish likes having the French in charge.

It does make the setting unusual, sorta like strong cheese with its initially unpleasant and yet eventually compelling taste.

I'd play TS2300 as moving the setting bodily 200 years in to the future (maybe then Mr. Whipsnade would find the tech curve more acceptable), add stutterwarp, make AKV's interstellar detmissile kamikazes', have fringe groups heading off in to space and duncanite colonies everywhere.

And replace the factions with US, EU, China + TSA and others.

 

[Libris]

Yup. That's what I'm thinking. Just move the whole setting 200 years further down the road. The same tech, the same background but stretttccchhheddd... out over a couple more centuries (just one or one hundred years; hmmmnn, THS2210). Lets me keep the same stuff except the ships which generally get ditched and replaced with stutterwarp versions. Keep radiators though, it's a good way of putting the dampers on uberstarships (or possibly not).

To work!!! (or possibly not )

 

[Libris]

Alternity was quite cool but I wasn't a fan of their task system. I think it works quite well for fantasy or sword fighting type games but isn't quite so good at modelling modern or science fiction (much like D20 IMHO )

The background though was excellent and I liked the Warship rules PDF. Nice quality of stuff as well.

 

[Jame]

I, too, like the Alternity: Star*Drive setting, too. But my comment on the similarities between it and TS was meant more as an aside - to *try* to get back on topic, does anyone know if there are plans to move the TS timeline up? Or any plans at all, since it seems to be going nowhere at the moment?

Alternity pretty much deserves its own topic, but I'm not sure where to put it just yet. It's late, and I have to go in to Boston tomorrow, so I'm not gonna worry right now.

 

[Anthony]

It's pretty implausible that people would want to do some of the things (particularly biotech related) that are done in THS. That doesn't mean a lot of the stuff is actually impossible, it just tends to be complex or pointless.

None of that really makes it count as space opera; it's got more in common with cyberpunk than space opera.