From: Dane Johnson [email removed]
>If armor (Say, for example, Ballistic Weave) with an Armor Value of 1 is
>good enough to drop a die of damage off of a pen 1 weapon or completely
>negate damage from a pen NIL weapon, why does it only stop 2 points of
>sword damage? A sword does 2d6 damage, average of 7 points of damage,
>reduced to 5 points (granted, not much) with the AV 1 armor, while it
>will completely stop a 9mm TL6 autopistol with ball ammo. If anybody
>has a good 'realistic' explanation of this phenomenon I've got a player
>*eager* to hear it :)
Speculations: Because the, say, 75 lbs of force behind the sword
swing is distributed over an edge maybe a millimeter wide and the
sharp edge of the sword actually cuts the ballistic cloth fibers? 9mm
TL6 autopistol -- sounds like a Walther P-38 or other 9mm Parabellum
equivalent. Not anywhere near the muzzle energy of a rifle round, or
even .45 ACP. Or maybe TNE's rules are screwy? In GURPS, modern and
ultra-tech ballistic cloth stops melee weapons as well as bullets.
I understand that, in the Real World (tm), getting shot in the
ballistic vest gives you a heck of a bruise, if not broken ribs -- you
do take some damage. That damage is an improvement over having
bullets puncture your internal organs, however.
>On a similar front, the same guy would like to know if you could wear
>a Flak jacket over Ballistic Weave (For the laser protection:)? I
>ruled that it would be *possible*, but that it'd probably be like
>wearing a ski jacket over a snowmobile suit. Any comments?
Sure, why not? Yes, *jury-rigging* armor like that might be awkward,
but someone, somewhere probably sells an integrated C.E. suit with
ceramic inserts over the vitals -- it's a whole lot lighter and
cheaper than combat armor, and such armor was on the standard
equipment list in the 2300AD game.
From: [email removed]
>Why not a middle ground? Imperial Culture (capital letters, please)
>that had 1,000 to ingrain itself won't be wiped out by a 70-year
>gap. Even the entire Dark Ages didn't wipe away the influence of
>Rome on, for example, Northern Europe.
Good point. My idea was that most worlds NEVER HAD an Imperial
Culture ingrained; that *most* worlds had their own culture with a
"interface" layer of Imperial Culture among the nobility and the
starport personnel. It would be more reasonable to assume that the
Imperial Culture never *replaced* the original culture on these worlds
- -- even as the peasant cultures of France and England are more Gallic
Celt and Angle/Saxon/Celtic than Roman even in the 20th century. But
Imperial influence on Art, Religion, Philosopy, Architecture,
Literature, Language, and Technology might be as pervasive as the
influence of Roman and Greek cultures in the former Roman Empire.
However, I see the true Imperial Culture being as dead as the Roman
Culture is now -- a lot of wannabes shortly afterward, and a
pervasive, lingering influence on all the "liberal" Arts, but never
quite the same again.
>And look how long others tried to keep the "idea" of the Ceasars
>going - all the way up to the last Czar.
<grin> Even later than that -- Mussolini portrayed himself and the
Fascists as restoring the glory of the Roman Empire. Ever notice that
the Italians in WWII used the Roman Legionary standard? And Hitler
didn't use the Roman eagle clutching a swastika in its claws by
coincidence.
From: zcfbj00 [email removed]
> Seriously, I would appreciate some kind of reasoning behind
>condemning millions of people to live in a 750 atm pressure,
>radioactive Hydrofluoric Acid atmosphere with oceans that corrode you
>if you even THINK about them.....
> And no sneaky saying that the population actually live on the
>planet's moon! If they did that, then the more habitable moon should
>be listed in the UPP, and not the hellhole it orbits!
I put 'em in orbital habitats, myself. Humans just don't live on
worlds like that. Of course, aliens who are native to the environment
are another case entirely... Some of those high-pop hellholes may be
inhabited by the local equivalent of Chlorans, or Mesklinites.