My spaceship is my home. My home, and that of others who live here. There are a dozen of us, and we've got specialized jobs. 8 of us are in couples, the other four are single.
There's the engineer and an assistant. There's a trade officer. A cook, and an assistant; cooking for 12 is somewhat time consuming. We buy and sell cargo, and keep ourselves flying.
We've got no weapons or armor. Ours is essentially a flying RV with cargo space.
My spaceship is where we all live. It sinks, though. It sinks through space; it sinks through the blue sky. It sinks through the green sea too, but not all the way down to the bottom.
My spaceship is a coffin-sized bullet, accelerated to light speed through a series of electromagnetic rings the length of a solar system. I am unconscious during the trip. It's how I commute to work everyday.
My spaceship is a religious caravan. I and 15000 other followers of The Broken Way are on pilgrimage to a destination we can never know. The ship is a massive disc and we live on the side that faces forward, our constant acceleration is our gravity. We fill our days with prayer, which we've been told by other cultures looks like we're drifting from group to group getting high and talking philosophy.
My spaceship is my left leg. I generally send it on errands on its own, as tugging the rest of my body is wearisome. Yesterevolution, I was forced to disintegrate some aggressive fleas with my hand. They were trying to colonize my face. Gross.
My spaceship is mostly liquid, although you wouldn't know it to look at it. It grows it's own food which is useful but I think the life support might be on it's last legs. It moves through space super fast but didn't seem to get anywhere, I think it might be stuck in 'park'. There are enough crew that we are organised into towns, cities, nations. The animals outnumber the seven billion humans and the insects way outnumber the animals. While we wait for someone to come and fix our ship we mostly play role playing games or kill each other.
There's also my cargo pusher; requiring a crew of just 2 (though, best with 8 or so), the air scrubbers can keep a dozen people in fresh air, and 18 people in not so great air.
We've got a few dozen kiloquads of unused memory capacity, too.
So, we can push a thousand kilotons of cargo, or take on a dozen passengers, or haul data. We're useful that way!
I love the concept of data haulers. Imagine an enormous tanker filled with quantum data storage. It drops out of hyperspace in high orbit of a populous world, immediately extends dozens of antenna and starts broadcasting. Over the next ten minutes every virtual inbox in filled with news reports, banking transactions, emails, legal documents, art, music, obituaries, tax demands and late birthday greetings.
No sooner has the vessel started unloading than it starts the process of filling back up on fuel, supplies and more data. If it's heading back the way it came people have an hour to reply if they want to, otherwise a simple conversation could take months. The ship loads up with up to date news, which is less and less current the further it has already traveled.
Some crew stays, some new faces join. Finish running diagnostics and back to hyperspace before the data gets cold.
William Nichols This is why people like to live in the major space lanes, where you can get daily interstellar updates. As soon as you move off the beaten track though it quickly drops to weekly or even monthly and then the ships can only carry the priority data because a monthly dataliner just doesn't have the bandwidth to carry everything.
Independent couriers carry data boxes and they will deliver whatever you ask for for a fee but it isn't secure or reliable.
I'm thinking of applying all of this to my next Star Wars campaign. This is why the Empire can't control the Outer Rim. It's also why the Outer Rim can't work together.
Also, just picture an Imperial Data Cruiser dwarfing it's escort of four Star Destroyers, and then imagine that your mission is to get on board and steal some data vital to Rebellion efforts.
In Diaspora the fate RPG, spaceships have three weapon systems: Lasers, Torps, and electronic warfare. Lasers have a -2 at range, torps have a -2 close up, EW has no minuses. It was obviously the data way to attack other ships, especally as it doesn't directly harm the ship.
I do love the idea of starships operating like the pony express. My concern with the setup: 1. Planets should have relay stations, holding onto messages from their citizens to go out on the next one going somewhere. So, the time limit to post seems dubious. 2. To speed things up, it'd also make sense to have data byouys close to the hyperspace (or whatever) point, so that as ships come in and leave they get updated data.
Traveller has the X-boat network which is basically a very functional but quite dull version of this. Small ships which can do no more than jump, transmit and receive. When they arrive on the outer edge of a system they are met by a tender which resupplies it so that it can jump back. That's it, they bounce back and forward. Not a lot of potential for fun.
That sounds boring. And like exactly what you'd have for the inner planets.
Getting information to and fro the outer rim, like you point to, is the harder/more fun part. Planets and systems that don't have modern comms systems, so you have to bring packets of information right to them.
Easy enough to setup as a fight against a totalitarian regime, too. One that's is blockaging information, and the PCs are fighting to bring the news, letters, and even sports and stock information to planets that are behind an iron curtain.
That coul be neat. Easy enough to do in star wars world and some handwaving. We know Droids can carry, say, the stolen plans to a battlestation and there seems to be no reason they couldn't also have the news. Especially if it was stored as holograms.
So ...
ReplyDeleteMy spaceship is my home. My home, and that of others who live here. There are a dozen of us, and we've got specialized jobs. 8 of us are in couples, the other four are single.
There's the engineer and an assistant. There's a trade officer. A cook, and an assistant; cooking for 12 is somewhat time consuming. We buy and sell cargo, and keep ourselves flying.
We've got no weapons or armor. Ours is essentially a flying RV with cargo space.
My spaceship is where we all live. It sinks, though. It sinks through space; it sinks through the blue sky. It sinks through the green sea too, but not all the way down to the bottom.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it is yellow.
How many of us live there, Isaac Kuo?
ReplyDeleteMy spaceship is a coffin-sized bullet, accelerated to light speed through a series of electromagnetic rings the length of a solar system. I am unconscious during the trip. It's how I commute to work everyday.
ReplyDeleteMy spaceship is a religious caravan. I and 15000 other followers of The Broken Way are on pilgrimage to a destination we can never know. The ship is a massive disc and we live on the side that faces forward, our constant acceleration is our gravity. We fill our days with prayer, which we've been told by other cultures looks like we're drifting from group to group getting high and talking philosophy.
ReplyDeleteMy spaceship is my left leg. I generally send it on errands on its own, as tugging the rest of my body is wearisome. Yesterevolution, I was forced to disintegrate some aggressive fleas with my hand. They were trying to colonize my face. Gross.
ReplyDelete#spaceiswierd
ReplyDeleteBasically it's like a much more lavish Vegas and I'm the house, baby
ReplyDeleteJay Treat ? I adore you, and your games. Do i get to see you at Dreamation?
ReplyDeleteMy spaceship is mostly liquid, although you wouldn't know it to look at it. It grows it's own food which is useful but I think the life support might be on it's last legs. It moves through space super fast but didn't seem to get anywhere, I think it might be stuck in 'park'. There are enough crew that we are organised into towns, cities, nations. The animals outnumber the seven billion humans and the insects way outnumber the animals. While we wait for someone to come and fix our ship we mostly play role playing games or kill each other.
ReplyDeleteThere's also my cargo pusher; requiring a crew of just 2 (though, best with 8 or so), the air scrubbers can keep a dozen people in fresh air, and 18 people in not so great air.
ReplyDeleteWe've got a few dozen kiloquads of unused memory capacity, too.
So, we can push a thousand kilotons of cargo, or take on a dozen passengers, or haul data. We're useful that way!
I love the concept of data haulers. Imagine an enormous tanker filled with quantum data storage. It drops out of hyperspace in high orbit of a populous world, immediately extends dozens of antenna and starts broadcasting. Over the next ten minutes every virtual inbox in filled with news reports, banking transactions, emails, legal documents, art, music, obituaries, tax demands and late birthday greetings.
ReplyDeleteNo sooner has the vessel started unloading than it starts the process of filling back up on fuel, supplies and more data. If it's heading back the way it came people have an hour to reply if they want to, otherwise a simple conversation could take months. The ship loads up with up to date news, which is less and less current the further it has already traveled.
Some crew stays, some new faces join. Finish running diagnostics and back to hyperspace before the data gets cold.
Yes, Brian Ashford!
ReplyDeleteIf spaceships are the only ftl and there's no space byouys or whatever, then this starts to make sense. And I love it.
William Nichols This is why people like to live in the major space lanes, where you can get daily interstellar updates. As soon as you move off the beaten track though it quickly drops to weekly or even monthly and then the ships can only carry the priority data because a monthly dataliner just doesn't have the bandwidth to carry everything.
ReplyDeleteIndependent couriers carry data boxes and they will deliver whatever you ask for for a fee but it isn't secure or reliable.
I'm thinking of applying all of this to my next Star Wars campaign. This is why the Empire can't control the Outer Rim. It's also why the Outer Rim can't work together.
ReplyDeleteAlso, just picture an Imperial Data Cruiser dwarfing it's escort of four Star Destroyers, and then imagine that your mission is to get on board and steal some data vital to Rebellion efforts.
In Diaspora the fate RPG, spaceships have three weapon systems: Lasers, Torps, and electronic warfare. Lasers have a -2 at range, torps have a -2 close up, EW has no minuses. It was obviously the data way to attack other ships, especally as it doesn't directly harm the ship.
ReplyDeleteI do love the idea of starships operating like the pony express. My concern with the setup:
1. Planets should have relay stations, holding onto messages from their citizens to go out on the next one going somewhere. So, the time limit to post seems dubious.
2. To speed things up, it'd also make sense to have data byouys close to the hyperspace (or whatever) point, so that as ships come in and leave they get updated data.
Traveller has the X-boat network which is basically a very functional but quite dull version of this. Small ships which can do no more than jump, transmit and receive. When they arrive on the outer edge of a system they are met by a tender which resupplies it so that it can jump back. That's it, they bounce back and forward. Not a lot of potential for fun.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds boring. And like exactly what you'd have for the inner planets.
ReplyDeleteGetting information to and fro the outer rim, like you point to, is the harder/more fun part. Planets and systems that don't have modern comms systems, so you have to bring packets of information right to them.
Easy enough to setup as a fight against a totalitarian regime, too. One that's is blockaging information, and the PCs are fighting to bring the news, letters, and even sports and stock information to planets that are behind an iron curtain.
That coul be neat. Easy enough to do in star wars world and some handwaving. We know Droids can carry, say, the stolen plans to a battlestation and there seems to be no reason they couldn't also have the news. Especially if it was stored as holograms.