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Forging Ahead (GURPS Interstellar Wars/Celestial Forge)

Reader mode
cliffc999 said:
Note: She still has everything she learned about nanotechnology design from studying the sample in her perfect memory, before anyone screams 'wasted points!'. But it's not a story where the protagonist doesn't make significant choices, even if that means she risks being wrong. And she was just never going to go for the 'push a button, kill all Vilani everywhere' solution and still be herself.

As to why burn the sample? She refers to it in her inner monologue, but I'll restate it in even plainer English - she was well aware that even if she wasn't willing to ever use that kind of bio-weapon, somebody else might. And that if they had physical possession of the Ceph nanotech it was possible - not likely, but still actually possible - to reproduce her research without her, even if it would obviously take a lot longer and be notably more expensive of a project.​
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Here's a thought on an unconventional use for nanotech that I've only ever seen in one science fiction:
Vacuum crops.

It was described as a colony of nanotech and genetically engineered cells based off of extremophile organisms, that could then grow and reproduce in a manner inspired by conventional plants, and do manufacturing or refinement that would be slow, and thus benefit most heavily from being massively parallel.
Getting material from the ground, and energy either from the sun, or from contact with an electrical feed to a fusion reactor.

It was used for things like slowly nanotech-manufacturing microchips, or metamateriels that are supposed to push the limits of what characteristics(ie. Durability) physics allows via precise positioning of atoms, or also quite complex manufacturing of biological food crops from non-organic material, or slowly sifting all the ground for trace quantities of valuable elements which it would collect into nodes for harvesting.
And once the finished products had fruited a robot or person in a space suit would come by and pick it up.
 
Doc Sithicus said:
If you don't survive all your principles are meaningless at that point
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If you survive without principles then you are nothing better than an animal.
Doc Sithicus said:
You can tell that to Uyghurs in China and see if it'll make them feel better.
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Dude you can't have it both ways, the uygurs are being killed because they refuse to give up thei culture aand principles. By your logic it would be beter to survive by capitulation, after all survival is more important than principles.
 
Honestly she did the smart thing. Keeping hypertech black nano from a unknown source is a very bad thing and frankly was a bit horrified she bought it just to then hide it like that. Still she got what she needed from it. Its not like she could show it to people without having to answer some very awkward questions anyway like where she got it from. Now she can use what she learned to give her people all sorts of advantages. Crack open bare basic nano tech. Better miniaturization of parts. Innovation of circuits. There are so many things that can come from this and it would be far better for them to make their own tech than try to copy ceph tech.

Though a interesting thing does the confederation know something? She is the sort of diamond and anomaly they would want to keep a eye on just to see what she does next and study so there is a good chance that lab and equipment was bugged and now some very freaked scientists are trying to grasp at what she had then destroyed in apparent horror. She probable will have to confess something eventually especially if she keeps buying samples like that. As she provides more and more the confederation is going to consider her a alpha priority VIP. Bodyguard details and full surveillance of her everything because they cant afford anything to happen to her.

I pity that guy who attacked her because by the time he gets out of jail he is going to be carrying the stigmata of assaulting Sophia the hero of the confederation pushing science a thousand years in a lifetime. Suicide or exile to some outer rim colony might be mercy.

Hopefully feel better soon Cliff.
 
Honestly if she keeps quite of the forge and does not do anything totally physics breaking she could pass everything off as being a completely off the charts once in a billion years comic book genius.

Past a certain point incredulousness will just pass of as acceptance.

She already surpasses every metric of measuring intelligence that they have after all.
 
Well, the dentist said that there's no infection or problem with the implant, and that it was a serious case of gum irritation caused by food pocketing. They cleaned it out. So, the stress level, she is enormously lowered by finding out that I face neither a serious health problem or a serious expense that I'd be hard pressed to meet.

Time to get back to work.
 
cliffc999 said:
Well, the dentist said that there's no infection or problem with the implant, and that it was a serious case of gum irritation caused by food pocketing. They cleaned it out. So, the stress level, she is enormously lowered by finding out that I face neither a serious health problem or a serious expense that I'd be hard pressed to meet.

Time to get back to work.
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Thank god! I'm all too familiar with that kind of stress, worries of a serious issue or a serious expense (or both) hanging over your head, and likewise familiar with that relief. I'm very glad you got to experience that relief, and quickly.

I'm also very glad the story can continue sooner rather than later, mind you, but I empathise with you regardless :)
 
cliffc999 said:
Well, the dentist said that there's no infection or problem with the implant, and that it was a serious case of gum irritation caused by food pocketing. They cleaned it out. So, the stress level, she is enormously lowered by finding out that I face neither a serious health problem or a serious expense that I'd be hard pressed to meet.

Time to get back to work.
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Glad to hear it was something minor cliff, feel free to take the holiday off if you so wish.
 
So, something I gotta ask, but what are the setting's you've limited yourself to in this version of the Forge? Because V2 of the Celestial Forge is fucking massive in terms of perk count.

Second would be if Psionics count as Magic under your definition of what isn't allowed?
 
Narwhale said:
So, something I gotta ask, but what are the setting's you've limited yourself to in this version of the Forge? Because V2 of the Celestial Forge is fucking massive in terms of perk count.
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I am deliberately keeping knowledge of exactly what's rotating on and off the available perk list to myself so as to avoid the sort of second-guessing of choices that has helped run earlier fic threads of mine into the dirt.

Narwhale said:
Second would be if Psionics count as Magic under your definition of what isn't allowed?
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The Traveller tabletop RPG had psi powers in it, so it's entirely possible there.

You haven't seen or heard of any psionics in the story because in the Interstellar Wars prequel part of the game timeline - i.e., where we are now - the existence of psi powers had yet to be discovered by scientists. IOW, every person with psionic potential in either the Terran Confederation or the Vilani Imperium is operating entirely untrained and unaware of what they are. And since the native psi powers generally need training to be useful...
 
cliffc999 said:
I am deliberately keeping knowledge of exactly what's rotating on and off the available perk list to myself so as to avoid the sort of second-guessing of choices that has helped run earlier fic threads of mine into the dirt.
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That is entirely fair for you to do, thanks for the answer.

Also really enjoying the fic thus far, MC is an enjoyable person to follow around.
 
cliffc999 said:
The Traveller tabletop RPG had psi powers in it, so it's entirely possible there.
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I have to ask as Sophia is a Star Wars fan. Would The Force end up considered as Magic or as Psi Powers? Because even if she didn't go for it? Her reaction to seeing a perk that makes one say, a Jedi Knight, would probably be extremely fun.
 
Breaking the setting in one potential perk: Macross Fold drive.
1 light year per 6 minutes in optimum circumstances. Can fold from anywhere to anywhere, but should be above LEO to do so safely.
 
Faralis said:
When the new Galactica's drives are better than yours, yours royally suck.
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Yeah. Jump 2 means, what, 2 Parsecs in a single jump, total? Over about a week or so? So it's about six-ish light years in a week at Jump 2.

So yeah, if these guys have better FTL than you, your FTL is shit.

Actually, come to think of it, I can't actually recall any SciFi settings with slower FTL than them.
 
Note that as slow as Traveller jump drives are, they are superior to basically every other form of stardrive mentioned today except Macross - you can use them much closer to large gravity wells than the rest.

For example, to reach a suitable Battletech jump-point, you have to travel all the way out of the ecliptic (barring your finding an extremely-difficult-to-find 'pirate point', and even those aren't much closer, just in a much-harder-to-anticipate direction). To use a Traveller jumpdrive, you only have to past the "100D limit"... or 100 times the diameter of said large mass.

Well, more accurately you cannot let the straight line formed between your entry and exit points of a jump cross any volume of space within the 100D limit of a large gravity well, which means that depending on what direction you're going you sometimes have to travel far enough insystem to get out from 'behind' the sun. But if your intended route didn't have that that complication, then you'd have to reach 1.27 million kilometers away from Earth before you could enter jumpspace. That's only a little over four light-seconds.

Of course, the fastest Traveller maneuver drive ever built can only push at 6-Gs of constant acceleration, so even they take a while to reach the 100D limit. The Beowulf, as an example of a no-frills civilian-model tramp freighter, has an STL accel of 1.5 gees.

I'm not saying that Traveller jumpdrives aren't slow as fuck, because holy damn, are they slow as fuck. The designers of the game wanted a setting map that took X years to cross from end to end, but they didn't want it to cover so much of the Milky Way that they'd have to create millions and millions of inhabited star systems or else have habitable planets be harder to find than a xenophile in Warhammer 40k. I'm just saying, everything has its own particular strengths and weaknesses.
 
I'd also like to point out that NuBSG Jump Drives are ridiculously overpowered when you look at it, they can jump every 33 minutes and we don't see that as the limit of how long time you need them to jump. They can jump in and out of an atmosphere, (ADAMA MANOEUVRE!). They depend on computers for longer range, but you can plot out a jump with someone using simple basic computers or even plotting it out by hand. And that the Galactica can jump 5 light years per jump.

If you don't care about sleeping? There are 1,440 minutes in a day. So if we call that 43 jumps in a day at 33 minutes per jump at 1,419 minutes, at five light years per jump? That's 215 Light Years Per Day. If we make it a nice round 30 minutes, that there is no indication a Colonial BSG Jump Drive can't do? That's 48 Jumps per day. Or 240 light years per day.

Now, as you can't sleep through a Jump? If you say made it 12 hours of Jumping and 12 hours of not? That's still a 120 Light Years Per day.

And that's if you're using Cylon War Era Colonial Computers.

What tech the Colonials do have is scary. Even if they're not a high end civilisation. I mean, Colonials can build FTL Capable Vipers out of any old parts that are also Stealth Vipers to Dradis (BLACKBIRD!). The Cylons are even more ridculous with their Jump Computers and Jump Drives. If you took the Cylon Tech Base, then you could easily build instead of Nuclear Armed Jump Fighters, just Jump Nuke Missiles and nuke someone from another system while calmly drinking tea.

Traveller Jump 2 tech when compared to that? Please leave poor Traveller alone, I know this is QQ, but this is the SFW part of it and that's all kinds of mean what you're doing.

Also, unless you want to break the setting? That is why you don't give your characters NuBSG Jump Drives.
 
cliffc999 said:
Note that as slow as Traveller jump drives are, they are superior to basically every other form of stardrive mentioned today except Macross - you can use them much closer to large gravity wells than the rest.

For example, to reach a suitable Battletech jump-point, you have to travel all the way out of the ecliptic (barring your finding an extremely-difficult-to-find 'pirate point', and even those aren't much closer, just in a much-harder-to-anticipate direction). To use a Traveller jumpdrive, you only have to past the "100D limit"... or 100 times the diameter of said large mass.

Well, more accurately you cannot let the straight line formed between your entry and exit points of a jump cross any volume of space within the 100D limit of a large gravity well, which means that depending on what direction you're going you sometimes have to travel far enough insystem to get out from 'behind' the sun. But if your intended route didn't have that that complication, then you'd have to reach 1.27 million kilometers away from Earth before you could enter jumpspace. That's only a little over four light-seconds.

Of course, the fastest Traveller maneuver drive ever built can only push at 6-Gs of constant acceleration, so even they take a while to reach the 100D limit. The Beowulf, as an example of a no-frills civilian-model tramp freighter, has an STL accel of 1.5 gees.

I'm not saying that Traveller jumpdrives aren't slow as fuck, because holy damn, are they slow as fuck. The designers of the game wanted a setting map that took X years to cross from end to end, but they didn't want it to cover so much of the Milky Way that they'd have to create millions and millions of inhabited star systems or else have habitable planets be harder to find than a xenophile in Warhammer 40k. I'm just saying, everything has its own particular strengths and weaknesses.
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This actually makes me wonder if there wouldn't be a place for in-system FTL systems that can't get to the 5ly a week capacity but can be active wherever the hell you like. Something like an Alcubierre drive that can only get up to 3 or 4C would make not only getting in system much less of a pain but also help with inter planetary industry. It also would open up the possibility of surpassing the jump drive if it can get to even a tenth of the speed by simple dint that it wouldn't be gated behind the distance to the nearest gravity well.
 
ryune said:
This actually makes me wonder if there wouldn't be a place for in-system FTL systems that can't get to the 5ly a week capacity but can be active wherever the hell you like. Something like an Alcubierre drive that can only get up to 3 or 4C would make not only getting in system much less of a pain but also help with inter planetary industry.
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With some kind of Jump Drive FTL, you don't really need FTL Alcubierre Drive. If you could hit 25% of C with even Jump 2? For Earth having a 4 Light Second Jump Bubble? That's 16 seconds to get in and out of Earth's Mass Shadow (to steal a term from Star Wars)

If you could get that 5 light year per seven day capacity, even with the Traveller limits of a Mass Shadow? Then you have something that can let you get to and from there in sixteen seconds. I mean at 25% of light speed the moon is only 5.2 seconds away. And you can run around Sol with still decent legs around that.

I despair at Star Trek Warp going straight to Warp 1 at Lightspeed. Impulse Drive being a STL Warp Engine would make far more sense with how such engines are treated in a Non-Newtonian Fashion in Space.
 
Actually, here's a question I have about the Traveller Universe that Zofia is in. What are the average ship sizes? Like, are we talking less than 100 meters? 100-500 meters, a kilometre? Like, what is the max size of the setting's starships?
 
cliffc999 said:
Note that as slow as Traveller jump drives are, they are superior to basically every other form of stardrive mentioned today except Macross - you can use them much closer to large gravity wells than the rest.

For example, to reach a suitable Battletech jump-point, you have to travel all the way out of the ecliptic (barring your finding an extremely-difficult-to-find 'pirate point', and even those aren't much closer, just in a much-harder-to-anticipate direction). To use a Traveller jumpdrive, you only have to past the "100D limit"... or 100 times the diameter of said large mass.
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Sadly, Macross ftl doesn't seem to be in the jumpchain options. 240ly/d is pretty decent and it doesn't have many pitfalls.

BT drives have a lot of issues, but they would be faster than the Traveler drives, especially the longer the journey is. Major downside is that they come with all the baggage that Battletech is (in)famous for.

ryune said:
This actually makes me wonder if there wouldn't be a place for in-system FTL systems that can't get to the 5ly a week capacity but can be active wherever the hell you like. Something like an Alcubierre drive that can only get up to 3 or 4C would make not only getting in system much less of a pain but also help with inter planetary industry. It also would open up the possibility of surpassing the jump drive if it can get to even a tenth of the speed by simple dint that it wouldn't be gated behind the distance to the nearest gravity well.
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Elite Dangerous Frame shift drive is what you want. Up to a 1000c in system travel, but it slows down the deeper you are in a gravity well. Realistically you won't see anything that high unless you're very far away from anything.
Also power hungry and very thirsty if using it to shift between star systems. Bring a fuel scoop.
Intersystem range is 84 light years per jump, depending on quality of the drive and the mass of the ship. 84ly is with a ship completely stripped down with the lightest components and the best experimental drive.
Cool down of the drive is a couple of seconds.
 
SemiSaneAuthor said:
What tech the Colonials do have is scary. Even if they're not a high end civilisation. I mean, Colonials can build FTL Capable Vipers out of any old parts that are also Stealth Vipers to Dradis (BLACKBIRD!). The Cylons are even more ridculous with their Jump Computers and Jump Drives. If you took the Cylon Tech Base, then you could easily build instead of Nuclear Armed Jump Fighters, just Jump Nuke Missiles and nuke someone from another system while calmly drinking tea.
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IIRC cylons can jump every minute or so and at 100 light years a pop with good enough star charts and thats with any of their drives from raider on up so yeah a planet is a death trap with that tech. Inherently undefendable against anyone who just want to genocide. Though honestly her best bet for ftl would be to just improve her native drive. A jump 3 or even better jump 4 would open up so many options. It might even let them expand easily out of this odd cul de sac they are in. Still do get how that works when there should be plenty of stars to jump to...

Another thing could be figuring out how to shave at that time limit spent in hyper or perhaps finding a way to disrupt incoming hostile fleets. Those two key systems would be far easier to hold if incoming fleets could be made to praise the sun by jumping into or near it.

And if she can go psyker that would be a very big deal if she can tear open that branch as well. Dont know how long till the next war but the more options she can open up for the Confederation the better.
 
So, based on "at-work-phone-research" that I've done, I've found that 200 displacement tonnes is, quite frankly, kinda small at least in comparison to modern day cruise liners. Like, one cruise liner had a displacement tonnage of 64000 tonnes (I assume metric tonnes, because that's how it's spelled), and it had a length of 310.7 meters (1020 feet). Granted, 200 dtons is small in universe as well as it seems, but still.

On a side note, are there any good settings Zofia could get tech from that wouldn't outright ruin the balance of the setting just by getting it? Like stuff that'd help her complete her main mission but not something that's completely wipe the floor with humanity's enemies just by getting it?
 
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