Landers and OTVs
- Thread starter garrowolf
- Start date
Shades of Green
Explorer
I join this recommendation; these are almost a sourcebook for Fusion Age interplanetary play, planetary colonization, terraformation and more-or-less feasible technological development. These books are also an excellent read.
Do you remember if they had the Space Elevator attack? Considering I've named 2 of the best fusion age novel series, I'd be surprised if I was attributing the plot of a third series to one of them.
Sepulchrave II
Legend
The space elevator on Mars is attacked in Green Mars, IIRC. The series is awesome hard SF. Although KSR's prose can be a little dry at times, it's chock full of goodies. In terms of the process of colonization of the solar system, I would heartily recommend this series to the OP, as he makes a very plausible case.
Deciding on the order in which gravitics, fusion power and FTL travel become available (and how long between each milestone) leads to some interesting possibilities:
1) Fusion -> Gravitics/FTL is the standard, Traveller-esque model.
2) Fusion -> FTL -> Gravitics is the Foundation series order by Asimov. Gravitics come late, millennia after hyperspace is discovered. Also the case in Babylon 5, where you see ships with spin habitats and hyperdrives, and Traveller 2300AD, where gravitics are absent.
3) Gravitics -> Fusion -> FTL might be interesting, I guess the implicit assumption would be manipulation of gravity makes fusion economically feasible.
4) FTL -> Fusion/Gravitics. For some reason, I like the idea of fission-powered hyperdrives.
To garrowolf - I've found your inquiries interesting because they touch on many ideas I've been using in a 31st-century Traveller campaign.
Deciding on the order in which gravitics, fusion power and FTL travel become available (and how long between each milestone) leads to some interesting possibilities:
1) Fusion -> Gravitics/FTL is the standard, Traveller-esque model.
2) Fusion -> FTL -> Gravitics is the Foundation series order by Asimov. Gravitics come late, millennia after hyperspace is discovered. Also the case in Babylon 5, where you see ships with spin habitats and hyperdrives, and Traveller 2300AD, where gravitics are absent.
3) Gravitics -> Fusion -> FTL might be interesting, I guess the implicit assumption would be manipulation of gravity makes fusion economically feasible.
4) FTL -> Fusion/Gravitics. For some reason, I like the idea of fission-powered hyperdrives.
To garrowolf - I've found your inquiries interesting because they touch on many ideas I've been using in a 31st-century Traveller campaign.
Well what I am working on is the idea of what happens if FTL is not discovered early. I've got the first FTL as the Hyperspace Age once they figure out how to get into and make use of Hyperspace on their own. Then Warp Drive comes later based on antimatter energies and being able to bend space around the ship.
Now I think that most settings have us in FTL much earlier then makes sense to me. Star Wars is at what I would set as the Gravitic Age but they got their Hyperdrives from a previous culture and they don't seem to understand it that well.
Babylon 5 has many tech levels. The Earth Alliance is at the Fusion Age but they got their Hyperdrive tech from the Centauri. The Centauri got it from someone else as well as the Centauri and the Narns seem to be at the Gravitic Age. The Minbari seem to be at the Hyperspace Age and the Vorlons and Shadows at the Antimatter Tech Level but it gets vague at that point.
Star Trek makes no sense in terms of tech levels to me. I am working on creating a version that does follow these tech levels as an alternate Star Trek setting with most races using Hyperdrives and only a few races using Warp Drive. I was going to allow them to mix the drives and use Warp Drive in Hyperspace to create a Transwarp Drive. That would be at the Antimatter Tech Level.
I am separating off the Transporters as the last Tech level because I think that any culture that had that would be able to create ridiculous things all the time such as recreating dead crewmen if they are killed in battle. They could scan them in during the red alert and if a section is destroyed the ship would beam the missing parts back and recreate those crewmen in that section. They might have some missing memories of the battle but who cares?
Once I get the damage levels and technology worked out for each tech level I will create conversions for major scifi settings like Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Farscape, and the Honorverse. I will also be able to create variations on each of the tech levels like what happens if you have high magic at this tech level, what kind of culture forms. What about a horror setting? Mix it so that you could have the remains of one tech level with a post apocalyptic setting that pushes the rest to a steel age setting.
Now I think that most settings have us in FTL much earlier then makes sense to me. Star Wars is at what I would set as the Gravitic Age but they got their Hyperdrives from a previous culture and they don't seem to understand it that well.
Babylon 5 has many tech levels. The Earth Alliance is at the Fusion Age but they got their Hyperdrive tech from the Centauri. The Centauri got it from someone else as well as the Centauri and the Narns seem to be at the Gravitic Age. The Minbari seem to be at the Hyperspace Age and the Vorlons and Shadows at the Antimatter Tech Level but it gets vague at that point.
Star Trek makes no sense in terms of tech levels to me. I am working on creating a version that does follow these tech levels as an alternate Star Trek setting with most races using Hyperdrives and only a few races using Warp Drive. I was going to allow them to mix the drives and use Warp Drive in Hyperspace to create a Transwarp Drive. That would be at the Antimatter Tech Level.
I am separating off the Transporters as the last Tech level because I think that any culture that had that would be able to create ridiculous things all the time such as recreating dead crewmen if they are killed in battle. They could scan them in during the red alert and if a section is destroyed the ship would beam the missing parts back and recreate those crewmen in that section. They might have some missing memories of the battle but who cares?
Once I get the damage levels and technology worked out for each tech level I will create conversions for major scifi settings like Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Farscape, and the Honorverse. I will also be able to create variations on each of the tech levels like what happens if you have high magic at this tech level, what kind of culture forms. What about a horror setting? Mix it so that you could have the remains of one tech level with a post apocalyptic setting that pushes the rest to a steel age setting.
This thread got bumped recently, and it occurred to me that it actually has some ideas for adventures that would be appropriate for Europa.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/other-...adventure-ideas-campaign-based-antarctic.html
http://www.enworld.org/forum/other-...adventure-ideas-campaign-based-antarctic.html
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