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I'll state the obvious:
What about the infamous "criminal group". People who either hate someone, broke a law, or were forced to practive the "dark arts" for simple survival. This group consists of everything from the common purse-snatchers and drunks to the lethal assassins (probably a great tool to rival groups). Perhaps we could even have some renegade mercenaries here, who just follow the money.
I think these people would be crucial to the story, as it provides the public "big groups" (for lack of a better name - perhaps ruling "barons"/"families") a way to keep their hands clean and accomplish "dirty" tasks.
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Originally posted by Captain Pharris: ** Missiles would be long ranged. They wouldn't need much fuel as all they'd need to do is small bursts until their final "Ramming Speed" phase of their flight.
**
Suppose we get 2 kinds of missiles. The normal missiles would have an atomic based warhead and fuel for moving a few thousand kilometres. Then you could get 'rammers', very large missiles with a small tactical warhead and an absolutely huge amount of fuel and a booster. It would accelerate to a ship with a stasis field and target it's stasis generator - using enormous boosting power to make it through the stasis field without being deflected by the pd weapons.
Food for thought, and also, another idea:
Perhaps there could be more than 1 defense, what about 'reflection fields'. This would be to prevent laser weapons (presumably with no dissipation) from being fired across the solar system at enemy ships. The reflection field (using tachyon scanners), if given enough time would detect an incoming burst and adjust the frequency of the shield to repel it. At anything except very large ranges (where the light takes over 5 seconds to hit) it would be effective.
I'm not sure if this is possible of course, but I do remember an article saying that weapons used to destroy sight can be deflected by goggles that detected the light frequency and employed a 'visor' over that frequency. I might assume this could be a future technology on the same idea.
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(This message has been edited by Joveia (edited 12-14-2001).)
Or the ultimate defense against the laser: The mirror!
------------------ Time is the best teacher, yet it kills all of it's students.
Mirrored hulls would be good, but even the best mirrors don't reflect 100% of what you throw at them. A powerful laser would burn through the backing of mirrors relatively quickly. Perhaps ships captains would need to keep moving, so that the laser moves along their hull rather than burns through their armor at one point.
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pardon me for interrupting your jam session here folks. Going back to the plot:
There's a "master" species that has ruled over the galaxy for aeons. Through terraformation of hundreds upon hundreds of worlds and the insertion of and manipulation of species on them, this "master" species has changed the galaxy from largely desolate to an area of space with large numbers of "inhabitable" planets.
But alas it is the curiosity and experimentality that destroys this masterspecies. They had decided to try to recreate the evolution of their own species (accelerated, of course), on another planet. Things went smoothly at first- they saw vivid recreations of their species' first bipedal movement, of the discovery of fire, to their first city. Encouraged by the results, they began expirements with creating sentient life on other planets with different environments, leading to the rapid development of several advanced civilizations.
The master species liked to mingle with its children, once they were somewhat developed enough. The client species always revered them as gods, and subsequently all species heard the same tale of the creation and of the powers of their masters.
But internal conflict was tearing the master species apart. Roughly half thought the manipulation of lesser species was immoral, the other half argued on behalf of science. The tension escalated as the practice continued, eventually leading to a devastating civil war. Nearly 70% of the master species was whiped out in the conflict before it ended in truce and compromise. The master species would no more interfer or intervene in the affairs of "lesser species".
Several millenia pass, and what was left of the master species had mysteriously disapeered from the galaxy. The Client Species all manage to take to the stars only centuries apart from each other. And even after all that time, there's still many in each species that believe the old myths and legends of the gods from the heavens above. Many ambitious individuals from each species have set their goals to find "paradise - the birthplace of the creator" in the sea of stars- a placed known only as "Earth". As each species hears of the location of this "Earth", it is soon to become the epicenter of the greatest war in all the heavens...
------------------ (erich)
That sounds a little bit cliched Vegeta.
I mean, I think the Master/create new races thing has been tried a little bit too much. It's in the current RPG, it's also in several games, and it's prevalent in too much sci-fi fiction. I think we should leave out super races for this RPG... relegate God to a more background role. Also, I believe that humanity is the only race in this RPG. One thing I like...
Heh, those names remind me of a site...
Originally posted by Joveia: ** Teledrill: A large, lumbering hulk outfitted with a powerful laser. It's purpose would be to disable the stasis fields on an enemy ships to allow more powerful weapons to destroy it.
Fusion Heat: A small cruiser with a limited supply of torpedoes. These ships would use the long-range of the torpedoes to assist in the destruction of enemy ships.
This is true, but the heat is lost quickly.
Originally posted by Joveia: **There is nothing to diffuse light energy in space. **
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Originally posted by Talon Karrde: **Heh, those names remind me of a site...;)
Same here. We must be twins!
** This is true, but the heat is lost quickly.
In atmosphere, it would be lost fairly quickly, but space is a fantastic insulator. This is why astronauts need space suits with coolers. Anyway, I'd like someone to thoroughly investigate the whole matter with lasers and space, just to clear this whole thing up
Hmm, wouldn't the laser begin to lose focus over great distances and therefore be somewhat ineffective at extreme distances
Originally posted by Slug: **Hmm, wouldn't the laser begin to lose focus over great distances and therefore be somewhat ineffective at extreme distances
After a point, enough of the energy would dissipitate that it would not be effective at all.
They use lasers to measure exactly how far away i.e. Mars is from Earth. I believe the laser is reflected back and they pick it up.
The whole laser dissipation thing really depends on what you want the laser to do. A laser that produces a tiny dot when fired from Earth to Mars could probably cut through a person instantly at ranges of a mile or more.
I'd say cutting lasers of the future would be short range, because at really large ranges (Sun to Mars, say) really tiny shocks (somebody walking by the turret) could put the beam off-target. I'm pretty sure that those laser-measuring tricks used an auto-lockon system with the mirror somehow signaling its position, which I doubt the enemy would be considerate enough to do.
Further caste ideas -
The master class might not be quite as strong as possible, enabling the military class to more easily handle coups and drunken aristocrat spoiled brats. Also, they might have advanced tissue regeneration and organ regrowth technology, enabling them to survive (If I get Sarg right, the master caste's main fear is of death, and thus cling to life as hard as they can).
The millitary/hero cast might have a partial hive mind rigged cyberneticly for their communications purposes, somewhat like an internet inside their heads. The "central server", or leader of the millitary/hero caste, might accompany the Emperor/President/whatever around to recieve their orders, as well as supply protection. They might be a lot like Replicants, except their lifespans end when they age beyond peak functionality, which will be put off as long as possible via aging-slowing gene-altering. Also, some consideration should be put into if they have childhoods at all or not.
Further, they might have free will, but simply have an immense, all-overriding love of their masters (like dogs). This avoids situations, popular in speculative fiction, where the (usually evil) leader dies because his mindless army drones don't help without orders. Also, they might be as good looking as their masters, because they'd be what all sorts of people look up to (other, less pleasant reasons could be given).
The intel caste would most likely be nondescript and very adaptable, in order to appear in as large a variety of guises as possible. They might also have some sort of undetectable silent communications method. Further, they would have very little loyalty (there have been recorded instances of spies actually BECOMING whom they impersonated and opposing their masters). They would have as many wierd powers as the government could research, but as many of them as possible (most likely all) would be useless on the military.
The intel caste would be even more amoral (by our standards) than the masters.
I considered a "Courtesan" caste, but wondered if enough maturity was available on the boards for it. Something about "everything is for sale." put this in my head - maybe we could do an "actor" caste, which LOOKS like the master-caste, but has only ordinary powers. They're a sub-caste of the "average joe" caste. Just insert your own starlet joke here.
Also, I'm not sure the hard/dangerous labor caste is needed - couldn't robots do all that with much less expense and bother?
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And now for some ship ideas:
Since biological computers are now possible in theory, and it is also possible to make them as efficient as comparable metal/silicon ones, the mil-caste crew of warships might also serve as the ship's computer, in a sort of "Beowulf cluster" arrangement. A group mind refered to as the "ship mind" might be formed, coordinating the ship's activities.
Drones/Puppeteer - Basically, a puppeteer is a large ship that's devoted to storing and controling drones. The drones are armed with a small laser or two. Their purpose is to either fly over into the enemy fleet and blast sensor windows, stasis generators, and anything else small and vulnerable (think Luke vs Death Star) or to stay with their fleet and blast incoming drones. Drones are as small as possible, and are little more than ion engines strapped to guns. The puppeteer controls them - alternatively, the puppeteer might be all AI-run and break apart into drones.
Defense ships - These especially nasty bizaches string massive wires out in from of the fleet, and use large magnetic fields to deflect charged particle beams back at their sources.
That's all for now
------------------ Seen on a Claymore anitpersonell mine: "Do not eat"
Originally posted by Fleet Admiral Darkk: **Drones/Puppeteer - Basically, a puppeteer is a large ship that's devoted to storing and controling drones. The drones are armed with a small laser or two. Their purpose is to either fly over into the enemy fleet and blast sensor windows, stasis generators, and anything else small and vulnerable (think Luke vs Death Star) or to stay with their fleet and blast incoming drones. Drones are as small as possible, and are little more than ion engines strapped to guns. The puppeteer controls them - alternatively, the puppeteer might be all AI-run and break apart into drones. **
Also, perhaps there could be some "suicide attack drones" armed with explosives and a little larger than the 'ion engines strapped to guns' type. They'd try to ram the ship, the benefits behind this is that they are easy to produce so there can be a mass assault of them. Also, if enough puncture the hull of the enemy ships, they can seriously cripple it (or perhaps weaken the shields a tad). A creative pilot could also deploy these to cover a retreat, attempting to use the shrapnal from a screen of detonated drones to blind enemy sensors.
The drawbacks to these suicide drones is the fact that they are essentially harmless in a stasis field, being relatively easy to pick off when slowed down. Also, some ships might find a way to counter them, such as drones of their own or mass-spreadfire weapons. Finally, if something was to somehow detonate the drones before they are launched, it could cause severe damage to the ship holding them, but perhaps there is a workaround for this.
Originally posted by Fleet Admiral Darkk: **The whole laser dissipation thing really depends on what you want the laser to do. A laser that produces a tiny dot when fired from Earth to Mars could probably cut through a person instantly at ranges of a mile or more.
The laser used to measure between Earth and Mars is not dangerous to a person, except of course the person't retina, but an ordinary laser pointer will be dangerous to that anyway. Heat dissipates quickly, but the actual light is surprisingly cohesive in space.
Originally posted by Avatara: **(or perhaps weaken the shields a tad).
Everywhere I go I see shields, shields in sci fi, shields in RPG's, name me one sci-fi game that doesn't have shields!!!
No shields
Babylon 5
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But Babylon 5 sucked
(This message has been edited by Joveia (edited 12-16-2001).)
Originally posted by Joveia: **Everywhere I go I see shields, shields in sci fi, shields in RPG's, name me one sci-fi game that doesn't have shields!!!
Every one which calls shields "armor". Also, quite a lot of vertical scrollers.
No shields **
Oops, forgot about no shield policies here. Guess I'm so used to shields...