David Johnson writes:
>but again just because some GDW product says such and such doesn't
>necessarily make it gospel.
Ah, but it does! GDW products ARE what create the TNE background. So,
except where they switch themselves (as "Reavers" became "Star Vikings"
which became "Path of Tears", producing kinder, gentler Vikings), GDW's
products ARE the gospel. Unfortunately, as you point out, they are not
always self-consistent, sensible or logical.
>How would being in possession of *Path of Tears* or any other TNE
>product better help one to understand these sort of issues except
>to be able to say, "But GDW says so on page XX"?
You would certainly save us all a good deal of time and space by
reading an explanation and then commenting on it instead of holding
forth on a topic in ignorance, waiting for a correction, and then
replying to the correction, prompting responses (usually more detail
that you could have read in the first place) before getting to the
heart of the discussion.
I, like you, however, choose not to buy TNE nor its supplements.
>A nice excuse but if the RCES is `benevolent' then abuses will be
>minimized as the `abusers' are not retained or disciplined and other
>potential `abusers' learn that abuses won't be tolerated.
Ah, but man is a political animal: if my planet or faction with
RCES hired say my nephew's group, I won't let you come down overly
hard on him, nor will I let you publically discipline him as it
would make me look bad.
Not to mention the process for investigating an abuse:
1. Abuse occurs.
2. Raiders return with report slanted in their favor, especially if
they bring back good profits.
3. Some time several months later, someone returns to site of abuse
and reports it.
4. A few (or many) months later, reports of such an abuse get back to
RCES HQ, which sends out an investigation team.
5. A few months later (assuming transport is available & that the
investigating org has a team available), a report suggesting
disciplinary action appears.
Meanwhile, during the year (or more), the abuser has gone out for two
or three more missions....
>On the
>other hand, if abuses *do* continue and become the pattern then one
>has to question the motivations of the RCES itself.
Roger Sanger says:
>Come on guys, lets DEVELOP the background rather than just
>discuss it!
Sure - as long as you remember the caveat that GDW will ignore most
of what is said here and will eventually sweep it all away with a
sourcebook.
>This situation eventually led to the development of
>extremely light but well-insulated vacc-suits, which were
>much more cost-effective to heat and pressurize than
>entire habitats, yet not so cumbersome as to restrict
>movement and comfort. So each individual became isolated
>in his or her own tiny habitat most of the time. For
>daily hygiene and intimacy, one could retreat to the
>fresher which could be heated and pressurized once you
>entered, so you could desuit.
You may want to think this through again. I don't mean to stifle
your creativity, but this is kinda silly. There is a lot more to
life than comfortable movement. Let's discuss air. Carrying around
your own air supply for the day is heavy, regardless of how comfy the
suit itself is. Not to mention the dangers of sleeping on a limited
air supply. Then there is food - these people ONLY eat food from
a tube through a helmet chowlock? Not to mention the waste of
heating up a fresher only to vent it all during EACH individuals
daily (weekly? monthly?) shower run.
What a herrless existence these people lead! They suffer from sensory
deprivation.
Their skin ONLY gets to feel their undersuit.
They smell ONLY themselves.
They hear ONLY what comes in over their headphones and their own
mutterings
They taste ONLY prepared mushy food they get through a tube.
Considering that well before TL15, insulation is good enough to build
space environments, I can't see why building an insulated house on a
planet is difficult. With good insulation, you won't lose much heat
to the outside, so there goes the cost/efficiency problem.
>This was the state of affairs on Pallique when the Virus
>came to be. It was here that it was discovered that the
>Virus does not thrive well in very low temperatures.
Uh, considering that hardware runs BETTER in cold environments,
that software isn't affected by temperature at all, and that the
Virus doesn't seem to have a problem operating on ships open to
space, I'd suggest that the Virus would have no problem operating on
a cold planet's computers.
>This allowed the planet to progress
>without devoting much of its resources to combating the virus,
Except for the spare resources taken by the Regenecy gov to shore up
other planets (zero spares above subsistence).
Consider - the Regency needed to maintain a larger fleet than before
(say during the 5th Frontier War) in order to maintain the blockade,
and yet had to do so ONLY with local resources; the costs of such a
fleet could not be supported by resources of the 3I interior. To do
so, every spare resource would need to be spent just to maintain the
status quo.
>the Virus
>shocked them back into it when it caused one of their
>great floating cities to come crashing down from the sky.
You may want to re-read how the Virus operates. If the Virus had
gotten this far into the operating system of one major system (a
floating city), it would have infected MOST major systems on a planet
and then manifested itself over the course of a few days. Scratch
one of the Darrians planets. Not to mention those planets on the
path from Deneb TO the Darrian worlds!!
>They adapted immunity to electronic viral
>infection by progressing beyond silicon-based computer
>technology to fiber-optic and direct energy transmission
>(DET) computing systems.
This won't help against self-evolving software as GDW describes the
Virus to be. It didn't help the Aslan (with different hardware &
software from Imperial systems).
>noticed several high-tech worlds in the sector
>data, including a couple TL16 worlds. Since the stats were dated
>1120, those worlds are bound to be even further advanced by the
>turn of the century!
And what of the trade that fed these worlds that kept them as hi-tech?
The trade cut off due to the Rebellion and Hard Times? Like
stopsville? As these places lost their markets (no one to sell to),
their economy declines. Like lose a couple tech levels?
It's all there in GDW's books.
Mark Watson says:
>why no aristocracy in
>the RCES? The easy answer is that there's none in Twilight:2000 either,
>so given that this is the same game ...
There isn't? Should we discuss the King of Silesia in one of the
Modules? And if you read some of the notes between T:2000 & T:2300
there are several small kingdoms that pop up only to be swallowed...
And BTW, there are aristorcracy in the Regency, and that IS in the
same game.
>By the way, I get the impression that most of the Imperial nobility was
>not of long standing.
Only about 1000 years or so (available from several sources).
>Finally, anyone spotted Path of Tears in the UK? Challenge 72?
Anyone spotted Challenge 72 in the US? It was promised to be mailed
out by the end of March (but then, it was to be at the printer by
mid-jan & then out by the end of Feb, too). Its now April 6 and no
mag.
Daniel T. says:
>Since average travel time from planet to 100 diameters is 85 hours
>(assumes 1G acceleration and a 13000 km diameter world), making the
>minimum bridge crew 1 must mean that the ship can fly itself for the
>most part. So what happens if something unexpected comes up while the
>pilot is asleep?
Travelling through empty space on a known course is not that difficult
at all. A bridge crew of 1 can do it, and simply sleep when he feels
like it - as long as he doesn't run into any problems. I had no
problem rigging the alarms into the in-ship intercom system to wake a
sleeping pilot for emergencies. Of course, if something happened in
time it took the pilot to wake and run to the bridge (if he wasn't
sleeping there), he was up the creek w/o a paddle.
Ted7