TML nightly: Msgs 4530-4532 V43#5 (fwd)

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> [email removed]
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>                                                  Science-Fiction Adventure
>                                                          in the Far Future
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> Bundle: 378
> Archive-Message-Number: 4531
> Date: Sat, 8 Aug 92 14:16 GMT
> From: PAVEWAY [email removed]
> Subject: c
>
>    The point I am trying to make is that some of the discourses on some of
> the more technical aspects of the MT universe do tend to get a wee bit, well...
> nit-picking and dare I say it longwinded.  MT is an SF game and as such it has
> some of the standard props of Sci-Fi eg. FTL in the form of the jump drive and
> a reactionless drive, your friend and mine the Thruster plate drive.  Now from
> my days as a failed A-level physics student I recall that these devices are in
> the light of most accepted theory Utter Tosh.  The thing is that there seems to
> be a lot of time and energy going into trying to come up with ideas for said
> props that conform to our current view of reality, Why?  Is it because for a
> physicist it is a grate on the nerves to see bad pseudo-scientific gobbledygook
> used to explain the Drives, and you want to explain it better yourselves?
>    Why not just accept the drives for what they are.... necessary impossiblities
> ?   Scott 2G makes the point that the long physics discussions serve to clarify
> the effects of technologies.  (I hope thats the point you were conveying I ain't
> too perceptive today! :) )      This is all well and fine but I have never had
> that much trouble with the technology in MT needing over much explaination,
> You have a jump drive that you put fuel in and push a button.... fine
> The M-drive takes fuel in one end and pushes you along..... Why gild the lily?
>   I am lucky though as not one of my party is an Engineer or a Physicist and
> therefore there is no-one to really cringe at the howlers in the 'physics' used
> to explain the drives.
> 	In reply to the point about Physics being easier to discuss than Biology
> due to the comparative complexity of the latter....
>  I franky disagree,  life is complex, yes  BUT is IMHO easier to deal with in a
> SF game than physics.  The Physics in SF deal with acheiving either the
> impossible or doing stuff we can't manage Yet.  Xenobiology is easier surely? we
> have seen what life can do on a planet that can support it (given enough time)
> and given the universal rules that govern life we can speculate on what we'd
> find on another world.  I always had my doubts about the Alien in ALIEN, but
> if there is a niche to fill then evolution will most likely fill it.  2300ad
> is quite good with its Xenobiology, the fact that there is a left or right hand
> version of molecules with 'assymetric' carbon skeletons means that the proteins
> and sugars on alien worlds have a 50% chance of not being any use to a terran
> lifeform.  Consider the problems the Vilani had with the life on Vland, I reckon
> that they had it as good as you can expect.
>   I shall start throwing the odd alien into the TML for people to peruse as well
>  as a few more whinges on what I don't like about the MT universe.
>
> 		PAVEWAY
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>  PS. Scott? How much space on a disk would you entire 4.5th frontier war
> story take up?   And what format is it in?
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> Bundle: 378
> Archive-Message-Number: 4532
> Date: Sat, 8 Aug 92 14:36 GMT
> From: PAVEWAY [email removed]
> Subject: Alien romance
>
> My party once annoyed a certain imperial personage sufficiently to be worthy
> of being the target of a terminator, basically a TL15 pseudobio with AI.
>   The T-1000 was stopped in its attempt by a 3rd person who reprogrammed it
> with the Algorithms used in the ships main computer.  Keith (the computer AI)
> was rather please with actually having a corporal body that did not displace
> 2000tons and could also juggle, eat, smell, dance and (in the case of one young
> lady in the crew) find out how real the pseudo actually was.  The AI still had
> much of its old programming and therefore defered to organics as a reflex.  The
> crew were a pretty liberal lot and made it an official human.  The heuristics
> in the program made the change in outlook possible.   The crew were surprised
> when the droid spent all 'his' booty share on becoming a 'her'!  A new set of
> cloned skin.... some extra width on the hips and some work with an orbital
> sander on the face et viola! Voici Karan!  Ok the lass is still 6'2" and built
> like Arnie but hell so was Taura Satana!
>   One of the crew asked how well she had been converted over..... the poor man
> was excused duty as a consequence.
>   The crew contained some people who felt uncomfortable with a synthetic that
> acted like a human..... this 'upset' Karan.  Later that year an aslan joined the
> crew and she began to load up software on that race to act as a liason.  The
> fact that aslan accept one for the pattern of ones thought not for your physical
> nature has made Karan begin to 'become' aslan.  She does have emotions....
>    As I said   Go figure....
>
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> End of TML Biweekly
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>


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 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!uknet!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian   |  ARPA:   [email removed]