From: james vassilakos <jimv>
Subject: SF-RPG
To: nv91-asa@nada.kth.se
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 23:55:28 -0700 (PDT)

>Hmm, if they wipe out humanity because it is too warlike, wouldn't they 
>appear warlike too? So it might be a good idea to do it subtly, and 
>maybe claim it was a human bioweapon (that would explain its deadliness, 
>and make the humans look even worse). 

That's a great idea. It'd also make them look like real creeps when
they get caught. Alternately, the players could catch them but not
get away with the evidence they need to prove it. All they'd have
to do is deny it, but the players would know the truth... :-)

>A small idea: Maybe you should add into the background other cases like 
>this in the remote past? Maybe there is a kind of unspoken policy to 
>stop too warlike creatures from developing far, maybe founded after some 
>very distant war. 

Perhaps even a spoken policy which comes under debate every time a
somewhat warlike race is on the verge of interstellar travel. And
maybe the central government (assuming there is one) is too weak
to enforce its will (kind of like the United Nations). Damn, but
this is drawing some cool parallels.

>In neutron stars, neutrons are squeezed together into a kind of liquid. 
>Apparently the quarks inside the neutrons could become squeezed together 
>into an even denser kind of matter near the cores of neutron stars. The 
>physics is over my head, but the interactions of neutronium and 
>quark-matter seems to be very complex, and reminiscent of liquid 
>crystals. Very exotic, and so unexplored that you could always handwave 
>a race based on neutronium-quark liquid crystals if you wanted.

Ugh... I'm gonna try to steer clear of the "really weird" for now.
Quark-matters sounds like the kind of stuff you'd find at the core of
a black hole. Too exotic for any sort of life. I'm not saying it's
impossible. Just that it's so weird that people won't buy into it.

>Here is an idea I got on the way here: an alien race which has created
>its own biology. Essentially they have created an union between
>technology and biology, where lifeforms are modular and more or less
>built by pre-produced parts. If something breaks down and it cannot 
>self-repair, you just replace the organ or limb with a spare part. 
>Essentially their "biology" is a kind of very advanced robotics, and since 
>they can design it to work in the environments they desire, they could 
>be a very flexible race. Although individuality would not be very 
>pronounced, of course. 

Sounds a bit like "The Multitude" you describe, only more on a
modular level. SF's version of "polymorph self".

>I have included some text I had lying around. They are IMHO not my best 
>works, but might be usable as a starting point for discussion. The 
>Multitude is a kind of alien confederation, very dynamic and paradoxical.

The main problem here is that they seem to be too many to describe
individually. Nice as a general idea, but it needs to be fleshed out
before it can really be used.

>The Outsiders are loosely based on Niven's outsiders, a race living in 
>the Oort-clouds outside planetary systems.

Very odd. Never really thought of anything like this before. I can't
imagine how they'd evolve naturally. Seems more like a living machine
built by some very powerful alien race which seeks info. These
Outsiders just hang out and gather radio waves or whatever other
sorts of transmissions are out there and then tight-beam the contents
back home through a network of other Outsiders. Just an idea.

>The Leeches are blood-sucking 
>(albeit rather civilized) beings who developed in the atmosphere of an 
>gas giant.

I liked these guys the best, perhaps because they were the most
down-to-earth of the four you sent. The only thing that grates on
me is this "secret plan" of the Visionaries. Assuming there are
enough of these Visionaries with knowledge of the plan, it would
be a relatively simple matter for the Conservatives to insert a
spy into their midst or find some way of finding out about this
plan. If they haven't been able to, it need to be explained why
not.

>The Unity could be used as an example why most races consider 
>transcension a Bad Thing.

I wasn't all that fond of the Unity, and I think the reason is
that I'm not all the fond of this "transcension" idea. I'm hoping
to limit technology in the game by hand-waiving a technology
ceiling (you can only get so far and then that's it... the next
big leap is basically insurrmountable without a *lot* of luck).
That way, races will be on a more even level with each other, and
races like the Unity can be pretty much avoided unless they've
somehow managed to make that next big leap.

I'm also thinking in terms of organization. What's the best way
to provide information to the players and GM. Maybe two separate
write-ups should be done on each race. One for the players...
perhaps some anecdotal account of someone who met up with the
race in question or heard about them. No doubt, some errors
will be present, and the info necessarily limited. The GM should
probably be given the real scoop. What's this race really like?
How are the players likely to be confused, and how to encourage
this misconceptions and then strike them down in the course of
an adventure where the players learn what's really going on.
Maybe some adventure hooks.

On the topic of electronic illustrations:

>Nice idea! I'll see what I can do (my drawings aren't that good). I also 
>happens to have a scanner, so if I manage to get some illustrations, I 
>can send them over the net. 

Okay. I'd prefer to get them in GIF format if possible. I have a program
which converts GIFs to executable files on the IBM. Once they're
executable, they can be easily called by any other program I write,
similar to the manner in which the TSR/Copyright debate write-up is
organized. I'd point you to a copy, but you'd need access to an IBM
w/ MSDOS to really get a feel for how it works.

Anyway, I did some work with that nystar data today, and it's shaping
up pretty well. I have to figure out which star system names are
real and which ones were invented by GDW, though. I'll probably just
compare against SPI's map which came with Universe (perhaps the most
incomprehensible game I ever bought, but the map's cool). Another
alternative is to just change them all. After all, assuming the
current premise, they're probably teaming with aliens who don't
call Alpha Centari Alpha Centari. Speaking of which, I seriously
considering putting Sol way far away from the map's origin and
taking a completely new length for the standard unit of distance
(after all, what's the point of measuring space in light years
when everyone knows the most commonly accepted unit of distance is
the "Googooruler"?  :-)

Well, I'll talk to ya later. I still got to sort out that nystar
data and then begin doing some aliens... not to mention the
character generation program which is sort of obligatory at
this stage... as well as the combat helper... ugh... this
could take a little while.


Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 16:13:47 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Anders Sandberg <nv91-asa@nada.kth.se>
To: james vassilakos <jimv@cs.UCR.edu>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG

On Thu, 1 Jun 1995, james vassilakos wrote:
> >Hmm, if they wipe out humanity because it is too warlike, wouldn't they 
> >appear warlike too? So it might be a good idea to do it subtly, and 
> >maybe claim it was a human bioweapon (that would explain its deadliness, 
> >and make the humans look even worse). 
> 
> That's a great idea. It'd also make them look like real creeps when
> they get caught. Alternately, the players could catch them but not
> get away with the evidence they need to prove it. All they'd have
> to do is deny it, but the players would know the truth... :-)

Ah, that would be a quite nice solution. In fact, there might be other
aliens who know or suspect the truth, but there are no evidence, their
superiors think they are just paranoid and the attackers have excellent
public relations. Maybe the remaining humans could begin a secret fight to
get the truth out. 

> Perhaps even a spoken policy which comes under debate every time a
> somewhat warlike race is on the verge of interstellar travel. And
> maybe the central government (assuming there is one) is too weak
> to enforce its will (kind of like the United Nations). Damn, but
> this is drawing some cool parallels.

Yes, this sounds quite good. In Bears books, the Beneficiaries (the aliens
who help mankind) have 'The Law': any race which sends out
self-replicating killer-probes is to be destroyed, regardless if it knew
the Law or not. They regard this as the only way to prevent races from
waging total genocide on the galaxy. Of course, this causes a lot of
ethical problems too. 

> Ugh... I'm gonna try to steer clear of the "really weird" for now.
> Quark-matters sounds like the kind of stuff you'd find at the core of
> a black hole. Too exotic for any sort of life. I'm not saying it's
> impossible. Just that it's so weird that people won't buy into it.

Yes, this may open up so many weird problems that it is best to avoid it. 
Maybe you could just have one alien mention in passing that there might 
be neutronium life, but so far nobody has ever found or understood it. 
This could show that while the aliens are ultra-advanced in some 
respects, they don't know everything. 

> >I have included some text I had lying around. They are IMHO not my best 
> >works, but might be usable as a starting point for discussion. The 
> >Multitude is a kind of alien confederation, very dynamic and paradoxical.
> 
> The main problem here is that they seem to be too many to describe
> individually. Nice as a general idea, but it needs to be fleshed out
> before it can really be used.

Yes, and almost every individual would be different. A bit hard to deal with.

> >The Outsiders are loosely based on Niven's outsiders, a race living in 
> >the Oort-clouds outside planetary systems.
> 
> Very odd. Never really thought of anything like this before. I can't
> imagine how they'd evolve naturally. Seems more like a living machine
> built by some very powerful alien race which seeks info. These
> Outsiders just hang out and gather radio waves or whatever other
> sorts of transmissions are out there and then tight-beam the contents
> back home through a network of other Outsiders. Just an idea.

Hmm, sounds like a quite elegant solution. In a way they are a kind of 
interstellar, very slow, spy-network which work for some unknown power. I 
like it, its both eerie and alien. 

> >The Leeches
> 
> I liked these guys the best, perhaps because they were the most
> down-to-earth of the four you sent. 

Yes, I like them quite a bit. I think aliens in a game can't be too 
alien, but should not be entirely human either. 

> The only thing that grates on
> me is this "secret plan" of the Visionaries. Assuming there are
> enough of these Visionaries with knowledge of the plan, it would
> be a relatively simple matter for the Conservatives to insert a
> spy into their midst or find some way of finding out about this
> plan. If they haven't been able to, it need to be explained why
> not.

Maybe because there are no secret plan? Maybe the founder had a vision
about a great plan, but it has been lost or shown to be impossible. So the
Visionaries continue the great work, while the inner circle knows that
there is really no goal, but they have to make it look like there is a
goal. The conservatives are of course desperate in trying to find the
non-existent plan, and are convinced it is very cleverly hidden... 


> I wasn't all that fond of the Unity, and I think the reason is
> that I'm not all the fond of this "transcension" idea. I'm hoping
> to limit technology in the game by hand-waiving a technology
> ceiling (you can only get so far and then that's it... the next
> big leap is basically insurrmountable without a *lot* of luck).

This simplifies things a lot. Where do you want to put it? One 
possibility is that AI is extremely hard to do; this means that you won't 
get uploaded people, the singularity becomes very unlikely, sufficiently 
complex systems are impossible to control and nanotech/super-fast 
hyperdrives/whatever are impossible. This could also lead to a situation 
where advanced races instead rely on extremely bright (computer 
augmented) individuals or engineered group-minds. 

Different races will have different "styles" of technology. We humans 
seems to be obsessed with creating smaller and more efficient machines. 
Aliens might instead want their machines to be as flexible as possible, 
or elegantly designed, or maybe even as fast as possible. Some races may 
base their technology on biotechnology (like the pentapods in 2300AD, my 
favorites), others on clever uses of normal materials. 

> That way, races will be on a more even level with each other, and
> races like the Unity can be pretty much avoided unless they've
> somehow managed to make that next big leap.

Yes, you could add some rumors among the aliens of the great minds of the 
Pleiades or other distant wonders, which may or may not be true. Imagine 
an alien cult/corporation which guards a transcendent artifact and 
exploits its glamour.

> I'm also thinking in terms of organization. What's the best way
> to provide information to the players and GM. Maybe two separate
> write-ups should be done on each race. One for the players...
> perhaps some anecdotal account of someone who met up with the
> race in question or heard about them. No doubt, some errors
> will be present, and the info necessarily limited. The GM should
> probably be given the real scoop. What's this race really like?
> How are the players likely to be confused, and how to encourage
> this misconceptions and then strike them down in the course of
> an adventure where the players learn what's really going on.
> Maybe some adventure hooks.

This sounds like a very good solution. The players will just know what
people have seen and understood/misunderstood about a race, not how it
really thinks. An anectdote about the race would be quite good at setting
the mood, and add further prejudices ("The Gool are beautiful, etheric
beings which seem to enjoy just being close to us." "The Gool cannot stand
the stench of humans, so they send their remotely controlled mating-organs
to deal with them, and then burn the organs to avoid the smell"). 

Hmm, what other alien races do I have ideas for?

One is a being which originally were an arboreal gatherer, not unlike a 
monkey. It has three legs/arms, which divide beneath the knee/elbow into 
two smaller arms/legs with gripping hands. Its body is ellipsoid and 
covered with long hair, with sense organs on small retractable stalks. It 
can move in lots of different ways depending on need and what it carried.

Another alien race developed on a planet with a dense atmosphere. It is 
essentially a large, thin disk with the vital organs in the center 
together with legs used to spring up in the air, and then it glides in 
the direction it wants. 

A race covered with large shells. The young develop inside the shells, 
and their brains are linked to the parent (which makes them learn from 
it). When they grow up, they spend much time tending to the rather 
sluggish parent, which functions as a kind of queen bee, until it dies 
and they form their own nests. Often the young have young themselves, 
which creates a kind of recursive hierarchy, where a young remains a 
helper until its parent dies, and then become independent. Different 
"tribes" would have different specialities, and the huge grandparents 
would function as coordinators and living computers.

A race of predators which has co-evolved with its prey, herbivores living
in herds, into a kind of symbiosis: the predators live in family groups
which herd the herbivores and protect them from other predators while
eating the old and sick (and maybe special neuter "sacrificial lambs"). 
Their psychology would be very centered about their clan and herd,
although they might see it in a larger perspective; maybe they want to
herd and help all other races in the same way. 

A race of social creatures living near hot springs on the seafloor; they
secrete/build structures around the vents to maximize the productivity and
get food. As they have developed, they have become experts in building
elaborate and optimal structures for all possible uses. They were unable
to develop metals and fire, but instead relied on ingenious uses of local
materials and biotechnology to develop a technology. Today they work
closely together with other races, designing and creating structures in
zero gravity. 

Do you want me to develop any of them further?

> Anyway, I did some work with that nystar data today, and it's shaping
> up pretty well. I have to figure out which star system names are
> real and which ones were invented by GDW, though. 

Here are a brief list of all the names which I know or think are made up:

Augereau
Berthier
Bessieres
Botany Bay (DM +33 2277)
Broward
Clarkesstar
D'Artagnon
Davout
Ellis (AC -48 1595 89)
Haifeng
Henr's Star (DM +38 2285)
Hochbaden (DM +2296)
Hunjiang
King (DM +2 3312)
Neubrayern
New Melbourne
Nyotekundu
Qinyuan (UV Ceti B)
Red Speck
Seurier
Vogelheim
Xiuning

The following names are written after the real name and should not be there:

Stark 
Klaxun
Dunkelheim
Pentapod
Austin's World
Kafer

 
> Another
> alternative is to just change them all. After all, assuming the
> current premise, they're probably teaming with aliens who don't
> call Alpha Centari Alpha Centari. Speaking of which, I seriously
> considering putting Sol way far away from the map's origin and
> taking a completely new length for the standard unit of distance
> (after all, what's the point of measuring space in light years
> when everyone knows the most commonly accepted unit of distance is
> the "Googooruler"?  :-)

Maybe the local center of commerce is Beta Canum Venaticorum, and thus 
one measures distances in light-years based on its orbit? Or its second 
moon's orbit? Another universally accepted standard of length on stellar 
scales would be 2^XXX times the Planck length... 

Good luck and have fun!


From: james vassilakos <jimv>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG
To: nv91-asa@nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 01:49:33 -0700 (PDT)
 
> > that I'm not all the fond of this "transcension" idea. I'm hoping
> > to limit technology in the game by hand-waiving a technology
> > ceiling (you can only get so far and then that's it... the next
> > big leap is basically insurrmountable without a *lot* of luck).
> 
> This simplifies things a lot. Where do you want to put it? One 
> possibility is that AI is extremely hard to do; this means that you won't 
> get uploaded people, the singularity becomes very unlikely, sufficiently 
> complex systems are impossible to control and nanotech/super-fast 
> hyperdrives/whatever are impossible. This could also lead to a situation 
> where advanced races instead rely on extremely bright (computer 
> augmented) individuals or engineered group-minds. 

Yeah, limiting AI would probably not be a bad idea. That can lead into
the SF-version of power-gaming rather quickly. Traveller's tech-level
13-15 is probably a good upper range. Best to stay clear of Mr. Fusion
and C3-POs and "beam me up, scotty". However, going a little more
lenient on medical technology might not hurt, depending on the
specialization of the race (a few aliens might have perfected
selective memory erasure or even transfer). Don't know... what do you
think?

> Different races will have different "styles" of technology. We humans 
> seems to be obsessed with creating smaller and more efficient machines. 
> Aliens might instead want their machines to be as flexible as possible, 
> or elegantly designed, or maybe even as fast as possible. Some races may 
> base their technology on biotechnology (like the pentapods in 2300AD, my 
> favorites), others on clever uses of normal materials. 

Yeah, there may be entirely new areas of technology we haven't even
considered yet. A hundred years ago, not many people anticipated
computers or nuclear power generation. They're only on our minds
now because we've made such tremendous advances. It comes down to
imagining what's possible and then rationalizing the applications
and various ramifications thereof. Easier said than done. But perhaps
genetics will go from offering us Brocoflower to such new oddities
as cats and dogs who do our dishes and take out the trash :-)

> Pleiades or other distant wonders, which may or may not be true. Imagine 
> an alien cult/corporation which guards a transcendent artifact and 
> exploits its glamour.

Yeah, a stargate is one obvious choice ala Deep Shit 9 or Babbling 5.
Maybe an ancient self-aware starship that floats about, spacing its
crew everytime it gets into a snit (ala the Hal 9000). Or if we want
to get really wild, a laundry machine that doesn't lose socks!

> beings which seem to enjoy just being close to us." "The Gool cannot stand
> the stench of humans, so they send their remotely controlled mating-organs
> to deal with them, and then burn the organs to avoid the smell"). 

The Gool are Cool.
 
> Hmm, what other alien races do I have ideas for?
> 
> One is a being which originally were an arboreal gatherer, not unlike a 
> monkey. It has three legs/arms, which divide beneath the knee/elbow into 
> two smaller arms/legs with gripping hands. Its body is ellipsoid and 
> covered with long hair, with sense organs on small retractable stalks. It 
> can move in lots of different ways depending on need and what it carried.

Sounds more like an AD&D monster at this point. What about society,
technology, politics, achievments?

> Another alien race developed on a planet with a dense atmosphere. It is 
> essentially a large, thin disk with the vital organs in the center 
> together with legs used to spring up in the air, and then it glides in 
> the direction it wants. 

There's a book by Wayne Barlowe in which he describes and illustrates
the alien ecosystem on one particular world he is writing about. There's
no society or technology on this world. Just a bunch of weird animals
fighting for survival, but it's a very interesting work. I'll try to
dig up the title if you're interested.
 
> A race covered with large shells. The young develop inside the shells, 
> and their brains are linked to the parent (which makes them learn from 
> it). When they grow up, they spend much time tending to the rather 
> sluggish parent, which functions as a kind of queen bee, until it dies 
> and they form their own nests. Often the young have young themselves, 
> which creates a kind of recursive hierarchy, where a young remains a 
> helper until its parent dies, and then become independent. Different 
> "tribes" would have different specialities, and the huge grandparents 
> would function as coordinators and living computers.

Sounds interesting. Basically substituting a direct brain-link for
the usual loads of instinct. Creates a creature which is mentally
more adaptive without having the usual long "helplessness" period
which human young suffer. Scientists trying to figure out how to
create an artificial brain link might study these creatures.
Alternately, if these creatures are sufficiently advanced, they
might be studying how to technologically extend their ability so
as to work with other species. They could, in effect, become the
translators between species and, hence, the best diplomats and
deal forgers (in a similar manner as Babylon 5 was attemping to
use telepaths at first... speaking of which, there's another
chiche this game should probably steer clear of... comments?).

> A race of predators which has co-evolved with its prey, herbivores living
> in herds, into a kind of symbiosis: the predators live in family groups
> which herd the herbivores and protect them from other predators while
> eating the old and sick (and maybe special neuter "sacrificial lambs"). 
> Their psychology would be very centered about their clan and herd,
> although they might see it in a larger perspective; maybe they want to
> herd and help all other races in the same way. 

The problem here is that as the race advances and grows larger, so
will the herds have to. There will be some severe overcrowding on their
world. Eating meat exclusively might result in a race never being able
to attain the population it would need to step up the technological
ladder quickly enough to avoid self-extinction. Further, other aliens
seeing this behavior might decide that this is a good candidate for
extermination if it looks like they might make it.

> A race of social creatures living near hot springs on the seafloor; they
> secrete/build structures around the vents to maximize the productivity and
> get food. As they have developed, they have become experts in building
> elaborate and optimal structures for all possible uses. They were unable
> to develop metals and fire, but instead relied on ingenious uses of local
> materials and biotechnology to develop a technology. Today they work
> closely together with other races, designing and creating structures in
> zero gravity. 

One trick here is just how much can you do if you haven't harnessed fire?
If you don't have fire, you don't have metalurgy, which takes away a huge
class of materials right off the bat. And if you don't have those materials,
can you realistically develop biotechnology or virtually any technology
for that matter?

> Do you want me to develop any of them further?

I want you to develop _all_ of them further :-)
The mindlinking one interests me more than the others, but they all
have potental. You have quite a few good ideas. I guess you weren't
kidding when you said alien races was your specialty :-)

> Here are a brief list of all the names which I know or think are made up:

Okay, thanks. I did more work on that nystar data today. There are
some minor snags that need working out. I'm gonna get some sleep
and maybe figure them out in the shower tomorrow morning. If that
doesn't work, you can expect a holler sometime tomorrow.

> Maybe the local center of commerce is Beta Canum Venaticorum, and thus 
> one measures distances in light-years based on its orbit?

Yeah, this is how it'll be handled, more or less. Only I think we may
have to step it up to a galaxy-wide interstellar community with
various degrees of local autonomy from the central leadership. Maybe
a couple wars going on. Or perhaps two or three very large galactic
nations with lots of sub-states beneath them giving tribute and
hoping they don't get noticed too much. Actually, I like this idea
the best, but it's at such a huge level that it probably wont have
much effect on the local area around Sol.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Sol resides between galactic arms and
hence is in a very sparcely cluttered area of space (meaning that
stars are few and far between in this neck of the woods). I want
to be right about this if I use it as part of the premise, but from
what little I've gleaned so far, I'm thinking that it might be a safe
guess. In that case, we're in the middle of the Earth eqivalent of
a pretty big desert. Not much happens out here, and what little does
happen doesn't make the galactic headlines. Wars could me fought.
Whole species exterminates. And the greater powers (primarily
in the galactic arms and core) might never raise an eyebrow. If
so, than this "local group" of aliens which Sol is surrounded by
probably have a great deal of self-autonomy. Of course, for all
the Earthers would know, these "local group" aliens are in charge
of the whole galaxy. Just another misconception to foster and then
dispell over the natural course of roleplaying.

Ideas welcome... :-)


Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 13:31:48 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Anders Sandberg <nv91-asa@nada.kth.se>
To: james vassilakos <jimv@cs.UCR.edu>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG

On Sat, 3 Jun 1995, james vassilakos wrote:
> Yeah, limiting AI would probably not be a bad idea. That can lead into
> the SF-version of power-gaming rather quickly. Traveller's tech-level
> 13-15 is probably a good upper range. Best to stay clear of Mr. Fusion
> and C3-POs and "beam me up, scotty". However, going a little more
> lenient on medical technology might not hurt, depending on the
> specialization of the race (a few aliens might have perfected
> selective memory erasure or even transfer). Don't know... what do you
> think?

While I think you might nanotechnology and similar things for the most
extreme forms of hi-tech medicine, certain races might have developed very
advanced medicine using biotechnology (why use nanites when you can use
trained bacteria and tailored drugs?) or other methods. This might be
highly specific for their own or very similar species ("Sorry, but we
cannot do anything. Our method of freezing the patient solid and then
repair it won't work on you humans"). Hmm, cryonics might work and have 
interesting effects. 

I think you should think a bit about what kinds of space-travel you have. 
My suggestion is that you have some kind of limited-range travel a la the
stutterwarp of 2300AD (the best FTL drive I have ever seen); maybe based on
the recent ideas of Alcubierre about how to use negative energy densities
to get FTL. The benevolent aliens who gave mankind the drive just provided
the essential part: how to create a negative energy field.  This can have
a number of restrictions, for example computer power (you need huge
computer power to be able to travel in FTL, and the calculations are so
complex and dangerous in strong gravitational fields that the drive won't
work), energy (it requires lots of energy to travel, and human ships might
lack the more efficient reactors other aliens use) and safety. 

You might also want to limit the possibilities of FTL communication. 
Maybe the only way to communicate is through courier missiles a la 2300AD,
which would make it limited by the hyperdrives. This could keep the
distances large. 

> > Different races will have different "styles" of technology. We humans 
> > seems to be obsessed with creating smaller and more efficient machines. 
> > Aliens might instead want their machines to be as flexible as possible, 
> > or elegantly designed, or maybe even as fast as possible. Some races may 
> > base their technology on biotechnology (like the pentapods in 2300AD, my 
> > favorites), others on clever uses of normal materials. 
> 
> Yeah, there may be entirely new areas of technology we haven't even
> considered yet. A hundred years ago, not many people anticipated
> computers or nuclear power generation. They're only on our minds
> now because we've made such tremendous advances. It comes down to
> imagining what's possible and then rationalizing the applications
> and various ramifications thereof. Easier said than done. But perhaps
> genetics will go from offering us Brocoflower to such new oddities
> as cats and dogs who do our dishes and take out the trash :-)

Exactly. And this blurs the line between tools, pets and ourselves. 

Other aliens might develop even stranger technologies. Even if we
disregard such things as technologies based on psionics or mysterious new
forces, there is still room for very different styles of technology. One
race might not care that much for efficiency, as long as it works and is
simple. Another race might want faster machines instead of smaller, or
design their systems according to aesthetic principles (imagine a
technology based on hacker aesthetics, in the hands of the few who can
understand it). 

> > Pleiades or other distant wonders, which may or may not be true. Imagine 
> > an alien cult/corporation which guards a transcendent artifact and 
> > exploits its glamour.
> 
> Yeah, a stargate is one obvious choice ala Deep Shit 9 or Babbling 5.
> Maybe an ancient self-aware starship that floats about, spacing its
> crew everytime it gets into a snit (ala the Hal 9000). Or if we want
> to get really wild, a laundry machine that doesn't lose socks!

Now *that* is a transcendent artifact! Another good and mysterious
artifact would be a drifting city/spaceship, revered by people as a
messenger from "Them". It is apparently intelligent, and provides oracular
answers to some questions. 

> > beings which seem to enjoy just being close to us." "The Gool cannot stand
> > the stench of humans, so they send their remotely controlled mating-organs
> > to deal with them, and then burn the organs to avoid the smell"). 
> 
> The Gool are Cool.

I have begun to write them up, the idea was too fun to pass up on. 
Essentially the real Gools are worm/walrus-like digging beings living
under the surface of their planet. As an adaption, their
mating/manipulative organs are semi-independent lifeforms, which can move
on the surface and gather food, scan for dangers and mate with each other.
Gradually the Gools have learned how to train them to become messengers,
extra limbs and tools; modern Gool also use simple radio-links to
manipulate them remotely. Humans will probably never encounter the real 
Gools, they keep to themselves and regard privacy as sacred. 

It is fun inventing alien races and trying to get them believable. In 
this case it just started as a simple idea, but it has grown quite a bit. 
Once I figured out how the Gools evolved and worked, their societies and 
psychology began to take form. 

> > One is a being which originally were an arboreal gatherer, not unlike a 
> > monkey. It has three legs/arms, which divide beneath the knee/elbow into 
> > two smaller arms/legs with gripping hands. Its body is ellipsoid and 
> > covered with long hair, with sense organs on small retractable stalks. It 
> > can move in lots of different ways depending on need and what it carried.
> 
> Sounds more like an AD&D monster at this point. What about society,
> technology, politics, achievments?

I don't know yet. I usually start with a simple idea, and then gradually
let it grow. In this case it was mainly the anatomy I was thinking of, the
rest will probably take shape when I start writing about them. A few
initial ideas: since they are arboreal, they have a quite good sense of
spatial relations (think of gibbons and their skills at jumping from tree
to tree) and probably hearing too. They might be quite social (quite
probable if it is a gatherer species, but it will depend on the way they
procreate). Since they are quite dextrous and flexible, they might regard 
skill at moving as an art-form...

How much of their technology do you want me to develop? 

> > Another alien race developed on a planet with a dense atmosphere. It is 
> > essentially a large, thin disk with the vital organs in the center 
> > together with legs used to spring up in the air, and then it glides in 
> > the direction it wants. 
> 
> There's a book by Wayne Barlowe in which he describes and illustrates
> the alien ecosystem on one particular world he is writing about. There's
> no society or technology on this world. Just a bunch of weird animals
> fighting for survival, but it's a very interesting work. I'll try to
> dig up the title if you're interested.

Sounds quite interesting. Another good book is "After Us" (don't remember
the name), which describes the fauna in 50 million years. Many species are
descended from the rodents and birds, some with quite fun adaptions (like
a bird which sits gaping, looking like a flower, to catch bees, or a
tiny weasel-like animal which can walk on water using the water-repellent
hairs on its feet and tail). 

> > A race covered with large shells. The young develop inside the shells, 
> > and their brains are linked to the parent (which makes them learn from 
> > it). When they grow up, they spend much time tending to the rather 
> > sluggish parent, which functions as a kind of queen bee, until it dies 
> > and they form their own nests. Often the young have young themselves, 
> > which creates a kind of recursive hierarchy, where a young remains a 
> > helper until its parent dies, and then become independent. Different 
> > "tribes" would have different specialities, and the huge grandparents 
> > would function as coordinators and living computers.
> 
> Sounds interesting. Basically substituting a direct brain-link for
> the usual loads of instinct. Creates a creature which is mentally
> more adaptive without having the usual long "helplessness" period
> which human young suffer.

I don't think it will completely replace the instincts, but learning will 
be much simpler. The young will only be helpless during their development 
stage, and then they will be at least somewhat able to handle the world. 
I'm not entirely sure how much information they can transmit, it might 
depend on the time they remain linked (a young just interfacing for a few 
minutes can only transfer its emotions and speak with its parent, while a 
young remaining interfaced for several days will have full neural 
connection to the parent). 

> Scientists trying to figure out how to
> create an artificial brain link might study these creatures.

Interesting idea. They might also regard the idea as a computer-brain 
link as a very natural step, and not develop computers very far until 
they have discovered how to do it. 

> Alternately, if these creatures are sufficiently advanced, they
> might be studying how to technologically extend their ability so
> as to work with other species. They could, in effect, become the
> translators between species and, hence, the best diplomats and
> deal forgers

Yes, they might be quite skilled at that. I also envision this species as
very specialized; each "clan" will of course have roughly the same skills,
so they tend to specialize themselves and trade expertise with each other.
One family would deal with brain-computer interfaces, while another with
construction of the necessary hardware and a third with trading it. When
the grandmother dies, a family divides into a set of new families, which
gradually define their areas of expertise (one parent concentrates on
development, another on design and a third on testing etc). I think they
might get along fabulously with the Gools for various reasons. 

One problem I have with them is that I don't have a good name for them 
yet - it complicates writing about them. Any good ideas? 

> (in a similar manner as Babylon 5 was attemping to
> use telepaths at first... speaking of which, there's another
> chiche this game should probably steer clear of... comments?).

Yes, telepathy and psionics in general has been overused and has no good 
explanation. Perhaps one could introduce "telepathy" induced by 
brain-computer links linked by radio instead? This could be one of the 
most important exports of the race above.

> > A race of predators which has co-evolved with its prey, herbivores living
> > in herds, into a kind of symbiosis: the predators live in family groups
> > which herd the herbivores and protect them from other predators while
> > eating the old and sick (and maybe special neuter "sacrificial lambs"). 
> > Their psychology would be very centered about their clan and herd,
> > although they might see it in a larger perspective; maybe they want to
> > herd and help all other races in the same way. 
> 
> The problem here is that as the race advances and grows larger, so
> will the herds have to. There will be some severe overcrowding on their
> world. Eating meat exclusively might result in a race never being able
> to attain the population it would need to step up the technological
> ladder quickly enough to avoid self-extinction. Further, other aliens
> seeing this behavior might decide that this is a good candidate for
> extermination if it looks like they might make it.

Yes, these are severe problems. Maybe this race could be used as the old
example cited by the aggressors to stop mankind? A friendly civilization
found the Herders, realized that they were headed for an evolutionary and
ecological cul-de-sac, and helped them by giving them advanced technology.
Which they began to use to "herd" other species for the glory of their
clans... 

> > A race of social creatures living near hot springs on the seafloor; they
> > secrete/build structures around the vents to maximize the productivity and
> > get food. As they have developed, they have become experts in building
> > elaborate and optimal structures for all possible uses. They were unable
> > to develop metals and fire, but instead relied on ingenious uses of local
> > materials and biotechnology to develop a technology. Today they work
> > closely together with other races, designing and creating structures in
> > zero gravity. 
> 
> One trick here is just how much can you do if you haven't harnessed fire?

I have been toying with the uplift idea; their technology essentially
reached stand-still when they had harnessed all their native resources. 
For several thousand years they had a complex civilization on the ocean
floors, developing very advanced mathematics and philosophy but unable to
develop the necessary tools to get above the surface. As I have written
about them, they are essentially holistic thinkers, very good at
manipulating whole systems but not very skilled at details. Then another
race encountered them, and realized their potential. The aliens helped the
builders to get into space and gave them technology, in exchange the
builders are planners/systems consultants/artists/philosophers for hire. 

> If you don't have fire, you don't have metalurgy, which takes away a huge
> class of materials right off the bat. And if you don't have those materials,
> can you realistically develop biotechnology or virtually any technology
> for that matter?

Maybe, it all depends on if you can find ways to change organisms so much
they can do almost anything. For example, if you could develop or find an
organism which secretes metals or similar substances, it could be used and
manipulated to grow tools. The problem is changing them, we need to use
sterile laboratories, microscopes and pure enzymes to do it. It might be
possible to do to some extent by clever breeding, especially if you were
willing to spend a long time working on a project. But it is rather
doubtful that you could create totally new traits. 

> > Do you want me to develop any of them further?
> 
> I want you to develop _all_ of them further :-)
> The mindlinking one interests me more than the others, but they all
> have potental. You have quite a few good ideas. I guess you weren't
> kidding when you said alien races was your specialty :-)

To my extrasperation of my players... you should see the weird spirits 
and beings they encounter in Mage! 

> > Maybe the local center of commerce is Beta Canum Venaticorum, and thus 
> > one measures distances in light-years based on its orbit?
> 
> Yeah, this is how it'll be handled, more or less. Only I think we may
> have to step it up to a galaxy-wide interstellar community with
> various degrees of local autonomy from the central leadership. 

This depends on how travel works. For example, if you use something like
the stutterwarp to travel, it would take decades to travel across the
galaxy.  A bit hard to control even for an advanced civilization. If the 
advanced civilizations had much faster travel (like wormholes placed at 
strategic points or super-fast hyperdrives) they could dominate the 
galaxy, but it is still so large they would have trouble controlling it. 

> Maybe
> a couple wars going on. Or perhaps two or three very large galactic
> nations with lots of sub-states beneath them giving tribute and
> hoping they don't get noticed too much. Actually, I like this idea
> the best, but it's at such a huge level that it probably wont have
> much effect on the local area around Sol.

As I envision it, there might exist the Galactics, the almost-mythical
federation of extremely powerful races which runs the galaxy... or rather,
*could* run the galaxy. They are however mainly uninvolved in local
affairs, and spend their time in the core or at certain strategic
locations doing whatever super-civilizations do. Everybody more or less
acknowledges their power, but most races have never even encountered them. 

Then there is a patchwork of federations, empires and nations of powerful
races and groups. Some are very large, others are just a few stars. They
might war against each other, but would not dare do anything which might
upset the Galactics (they might have laid down some rules, like "No
playing with the space-time-continuum. No attempts to make stars go
supernova."). And then there are lots of races, some which have spread far
and wide, some which still remain close to their system of origin.  The
whole thing is not that unlike the galaxy in Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep
(which is held together by a galactic internet). 

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but Sol resides between galactic arms and
> hence is in a very sparcely cluttered area of space (meaning that
> stars are few and far between in this neck of the woods). I want
> to be right about this if I use it as part of the premise, but from
> what little I've gleaned so far, I'm thinking that it might be a safe
> guess. 

Yes, we are on the inner edge of a spiral arm. I'm not sure if this means
the stars are fewer, there just might be fewer bright stars. I'll look it
up. The more advanced civilizations might keep to the spiral arms since
there is more energy available there; they might be interested in building
Dyson spheres. 

> In that case, we're in the middle of the Earth eqivalent of
> a pretty big desert. Not much happens out here, and what little does
> happen doesn't make the galactic headlines. 

Probably a good idea. 

> Wars could me fought.
> Whole species exterminates. And the greater powers (primarily
> in the galactic arms and core) might never raise an eyebrow. If
> so, than this "local group" of aliens which Sol is surrounded by
> probably have a great deal of self-autonomy. Of course, for all
> the Earthers would know, these "local group" aliens are in charge
> of the whole galaxy. Just another misconception to foster and then
> dispell over the natural course of roleplaying.

Fun! Just when the players think they have understood how things worked, 
they find that everything is just a tiny speck in a vast unknown. It 
would fit well with the mood of your game; the universe is a bigger place 
than humans ever imagined, and nobody knows what threats are out there.

I'm working on writeups of the Gools, the Builders and the Family-beings. 
Hopefully they will be finished soon. 

Have fun, and good luck!


From: james vassilakos <jimv>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG
To: nv91-asa@nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 12:16:10 -0700 (PDT)
 
> I think you should think a bit about what kinds of space-travel you have. 
> My suggestion is that you have some kind of limited-range travel a la the
> stutterwarp of 2300AD (the best FTL drive I have ever seen); maybe based on
> the recent ideas of Alcubierre about how to use negative energy densities
> to get FTL.

Hmm... sounds almost strange enough to be believable. How can I find out
more about this negative energy idea? Are there any articles for Joe-
"I got a 'C' in Science"-Schmoe?

> computer power to be able to travel in FTL, and the calculations are so
> complex and dangerous in strong gravitational fields that the drive won't
> work), energy (it requires lots of energy to travel, and human ships might
> lack the more efficient reactors other aliens use) and safety. 

I also need to explain how meteors accellerated to .9c can be deflected
and how reaction mass can be avoided so that ships don't incinerate the
starport every time they take off.

Does the negative energy idea link into these at all?
 
> How much of their technology do you want me to develop? 

Well, I'm hoping on making technology in the game fairly standard across
most worlds. I.e., the minimum level is high... much higher than in
Traveller. No worlds stuck in the 1950s. But at the same time, it would
be interesting if some races could use certain technologies at a greater
level of expertise than others, simply by virtual of innate abilities or
the way in which their society has directed their behavior.

> gradually define their areas of expertise (one parent concentrates on
> development, another on design and a third on testing etc). I think they
> might get along fabulously with the Gools for various reasons. 
> 
> One problem I have with them is that I don't have a good name for them 
> yet - it complicates writing about them. Any good ideas? 

Their name for themselves may not even be a word. Judging from the way
they are able to communicate, it may be a feeling. "The warm-fuzzies?
You guys called yourselved the warm-fuzzies?! That's it. I'm outta here!"
 
> Yes, telepathy and psionics in general has been overused and has no good 
> explanation. Perhaps one could introduce "telepathy" induced by 
> brain-computer links linked by radio instead? This could be one of the 
> most important exports of the race above.

That's quite an outstanding idea. Of course, it's assuming some pretty
high tech. Any device that could translate thoughts to radio signals and
then back to thoughts would have to be pretty heinously high-tech.

What would be the repurcussions of such technology? Would people cease
talking altogether?

> > The problem here is that as the race advances and grows larger, so
> > will the herds have to. There will be some severe overcrowding on their
> > world. Eating meat exclusively might result in a race never being able
> > to attain the population it would need to step up the technological
> > ladder quickly enough to avoid self-extinction. Further, other aliens
> > seeing this behavior might decide that this is a good candidate for
> > extermination if it looks like they might make it.
> 
> Yes, these are severe problems. Maybe this race could be used as the old
> example cited by the aggressors to stop mankind? A friendly civilization
> found the Herders, realized that they were headed for an evolutionary and
> ecological cul-de-sac, and helped them by giving them advanced technology.
> Which they began to use to "herd" other species for the glory of their
> clans... 

That's a great idea. Makes a nice fit with why the aggressors are so
aggressive.

> As I envision it, there might exist the Galactics, the almost-mythical
> federation of extremely powerful races which runs the galaxy... or rather,
> *could* run the galaxy. They are however mainly uninvolved in local
> affairs, and spend their time in the core or at certain strategic
> locations doing whatever super-civilizations do. Everybody more or less
> acknowledges their power, but most races have never even encountered them. 

Yeah, perhaps trying to rediscover the truly heinous technology of the
"Precursors", or is that too cliche?
 
> Then there is a patchwork of federations, empires and nations of powerful
> races and groups. Some are very large, others are just a few stars. They
> might war against each other, but would not dare do anything which might
> upset the Galactics (they might have laid down some rules, like "No
> playing with the space-time-continuum. No attempts to make stars go
> supernova."). And then there are lots of races, some which have spread far
> and wide, some which still remain close to their system of origin.  The

Exactly. I don't like the idea of making the "galactics" to advanced that
they are totally mysterious, however. That always seemed more like a copy-
out, to me. Perhaps they send representatives to the various minor nations
to keep tabs on what's going on and send reports back home. This might tie
in with your idea of the "Outsiders", though I imagine that the Galactics
would use a faster form of communication.

> Yes, we are on the inner edge of a spiral arm. I'm not sure if this means
> the stars are fewer, there just might be fewer bright stars. I'll look it
> up. The more advanced civilizations might keep to the spiral arms since
> there is more energy available there; they might be interested in building
> Dyson spheres. 

Yeah. It would help to know what sort of area we are situated in,
astrographically speaking. Always helps believablity if you tie things
into reality here and there.
 
> > probably have a great deal of self-autonomy. Of course, for all
> > the Earthers would know, these "local group" aliens are in charge
> > of the whole galaxy. Just another misconception to foster and then
> > dispell over the natural course of roleplaying.
> 
> Fun! Just when the players think they have understood how things worked, 
> they find that everything is just a tiny speck in a vast unknown. It 
> would fit well with the mood of your game; the universe is a bigger place 
> than humans ever imagined, and nobody knows what threats are out there.

Well, somebody knows... but they see no reason to advertise it.
"Huh... you mean you guys don't run the galaxy?"
"Well, not exactly."
"What do you mean, not exactly?"
"Trust me... you don't want to know."

> I'm working on writeups of the Gools, the Builders and the Family-beings. 
> Hopefully they will be finished soon. 

Oky-doke. I'm still working on the nystar data. There's gonna be a
long period just of renaming stars and doing starsystem writeups.
Of course, it'll be impossible (well, impractical) to do writeups
on all of the star systems the starmap program will cover. But it'd
be nice to get 25-50 done. I'll send you one for comments once I
get this rest of this data organized.

Later...   jimv@cs.ucr.edu

PS: Thanks for the enthusiasm & ideas. Your emails are really helping
    me stay on track. :-)


Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 18:11:41 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Anders Sandberg <nv91-asa@nada.kth.se>
To: james vassilakos <jimv@cs.UCR.edu>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG

On Wed, 7 Jun 1995, james vassilakos wrote:
> > I think you should think a bit about what kinds of space-travel you have. 
> > My suggestion is that you have some kind of limited-range travel a la the
> > stutterwarp of 2300AD (the best FTL drive I have ever seen); maybe based on
> > the recent ideas of Alcubierre about how to use negative energy densities
> > to get FTL.
> 
> Hmm... sounds almost strange enough to be believable. How can I find out
> more about this negative energy idea? Are there any articles for Joe-
> "I got a 'C' in Science"-Schmoe?

I'm not sure. A lot of people have discussed it, but most discussions 
have been too simplified (it has just been described as a warp-drive and 
compared to Star Trek). The original paper is on the net, but it is 
*heavy* (I know a bit of General Realitivity, and it is still mainly 
incomprehensible). 

Here is my attempt at an explanation: It is not allowed to move faster
than light *relative to space itself*, but if you can make *space* move
(or rather expand/contract), you can be at rest relative to the space
around you, but this space can move very fast. The Alcubierre drive
essentially makes space in front of the ship contract and space behind it
expand using some magic forcefield (how to create it is not known,
Miguel Alcubierre have just described what is required to create FTL, not 
how to do it). Essentially you need matter or electric fields of the size 
that they distort space itself. The ship just surfs on a wave of 
distorted space-time.

Some problems/possibilities: 

Negative energy: You need to create a volume of space which has *less* 
energy that vacuum itself! This is may be possible, but it is uncertain. 
If such negative densities exist, they could (theoretically) be used in 
many fun ways, such as to hold a wormhole/stargate open.

The energies to distort space are huge, but the hyperdrive might work by
moving a lot of energy from one volume to another, creating the potential
difference the drive needs without having to produce all the energy. The
secret of the drive is not how to move FTL, but how to achive this
polarization effect. 

Energy requirements: To polarize space, you will need a lot of energy, but
maybe not as much as you would need to add to create the fields from
scratch (such energies are *huge*, probably beyond the energy-budgets of
most races). It will of course be released when you let go of the fields,
but probably in the form of gravitational waves or other fun forms of
energy.  There might also be the problem that leakage into vacuum tends to
slowly weaken the fields, making them less efficient. The ship needs to
keep them strong during the flight, but this will not require as much 
power as the initial charging. 

In this scenario, a departing ship will be charged by a local
space-station or use its own energy reserves, use the energy to polarize
space around itself, and speed off. During the flight it will just have to
keep the fields strong using its own power, and at the destination slowly
discharge the space around itself and slow down. 

Gravity: I think the fields around the ship will have trouble with other 
gravitation; they might be disrupted if they pass too close to a planet 
or other strong source of gravity. Its probably a good idea to avoid 
activating the drive close to a planet. The ship itself is in free fall 
all the time. 

Tidal forces: Around the ship there will be a "bubble" of distorted
spacetime. Anything which gets into it will be subjected to intense tidal
forces and ripped apart. If the fields get unstable, they will probably
break down and rip apart the ship and/or the polarization units. Changing
destination while moving FTL is probably not possible. 

You might want to look up the page about FTL in the World Wrights Web for 
some other ideas: http://www.cs.tu-bs.de/~rhiemeir/ftl.html

> I also need to explain how meteors accellerated to .9c can be deflected
> and how reaction mass can be avoided so that ships don't incinerate the
> starport every time they take off.
> 
> Does the negative energy idea link into these at all?

Hmm, meteors accellerated to 0.9 c might be stopped quite easily if they
are shot a long distance; If I fire it at you a light-hour away, you will
still have around 6 minutes to stop it. But at higher speeds they are hard
to stop, I have to admit it. You could simply say such weapons are
unusual, since they require huge energies to accellerate them. A
hyperdrive as the one above could accellerate them to FTL speeds, which
would make them impossible to dodge. Fortunately, they wouldn't have any
large momentum, and if spacetime polarizations discharge themselves into
gravity waves, the result would be just a nasty disruption around the
target, not ultra-destruction. 

The drive system could be used to avoid the need for reaction mass, but 
it would still require lots of energy. What about beanstalks, catapults 
and similar constructions?

> > How much of their technology do you want me to develop? 
> 
> Well, I'm hoping on making technology in the game fairly standard across
> most worlds. I.e., the minimum level is high... much higher than in
> Traveller. No worlds stuck in the 1950s. But at the same time, it would
> be interesting if some races could use certain technologies at a greater
> level of expertise than others, simply by virtual of innate abilities or
> the way in which their society has directed their behavior.

Yes, this could be interesting. If we say there is no true AI and no
super-nanotechnology (although biotechnology and limited nanotech may be
possible), there is still a lot of room. Here are a few ideas: the
builders I mentioned are extremely good at designing systems of things
which works as a whole; they might be unable to build a computer or write
a program, but they can direct others to create huge networks which are
flexible and safe. The Gools (I have included them below) are very good at
mechanics and chemistry, while being hopeless at biology and bad at
electronics. The family-beings could be masterful cyberneticists. The
Outsiders are of course excellent mathematicians but doesn't know/care
about most technology. 

What about this tech-level:

Energy production: Maybe fusion power. Antimatter might be created by the 
high-powered civilizations in the galactic arms, but it is rare in this 
region (otherwise, it is a perfect weapon or energy source). 

Computers: Biocomputers are possible, but true AI is not solved (some
species use brains linked to the computers, others use advanced expert
systems). The main problem is getting complex systems to work well. 

Communications: FTL ships which require lots of energy, laser or radio.

Medicine: Varies a lot depending on species. Cybernetics possible, some
species have developed cryonic suspension, anti-ageing and super-surgery
("Yes, we could only save half of his brain. But we have given him a new
body, and a biocomputer replacing the lost part"). 

Chemistry/Materials: Some races are able to build materials with extremely
complex or flexible properties, synthetize diamond in large quantities or
design chemicals with properties close to advanced nanotechnology (an
"enzyme" which breaks down metals, a poison which seeks out only a single
person). Nanotechnology exists, but is not all-powerful. 

> > gradually define their areas of expertise (one parent concentrates on
> > development, another on design and a third on testing etc). I think they
> > might get along fabulously with the Gools for various reasons. 
> > 
> > One problem I have with them is that I don't have a good name for them 
> > yet - it complicates writing about them. Any good ideas? 
> 
> Their name for themselves may not even be a word. Judging from the way
> they are able to communicate, it may be a feeling. "The warm-fuzzies?
> You guys called yourselved the warm-fuzzies?! That's it. I'm outta here!"

:-) Yes, their own names will be very strange. But the humans will
probably call them something, perhaps based on their appearance. I think I
have the explanation for the Gools name that way: humans encountered the
mating-bodies, which constantly made a sound not unlike 'goool'. This was
of course their radio-links... 

In the same vein, a race might call the humans for the 'Aargh', since that
was the first thing they said when the aliens met them. "And then we have
the Aarghs from Earth. Strange critters which change color to green or
white when you look at them too closely..." :-)

> > Yes, telepathy and psionics in general has been overused and has no good 
> > explanation. Perhaps one could introduce "telepathy" induced by 
> > brain-computer links linked by radio instead? This could be one of the 
> > most important exports of the race above.
> 
> That's quite an outstanding idea. Of course, it's assuming some pretty
> high tech. Any device that could translate thoughts to radio signals and
> then back to thoughts would have to be pretty heinously high-tech.

It would probably require a good brain-computer interface (advanced
medicine, possibly simple nanotechnology, or a brain amenable to this kind
of thing). The link would of course be species-specific, but could
probably be reworked for some other species, provided they were not too
alien (imagine trying to build one for the Outsiders, who are based on
superconducting polymers, or the Gools which won't let you see their main
bodies). 

> What would be the repurcussions of such technology? Would people cease
> talking altogether?

I originally thought about this in connection with the family-beings, who
probably didn't use much speaking anyway. In their case, their families
could be linked together all the time now, even while far apart. They
would probably also use it to talk to each other (althogh the social 
implications are a bit complicated too). 

It all hinges on the bandwith; if the link just transfers surface thoughts
it is no better than a radio, but might be useful to communicate with
computers. If it transfers deeper emotions or thoughts, it might have some
emotional problems for beings not used to such deep communication. If it
is total, then it can create a group mind. 

> > As I envision it, there might exist the Galactics, the almost-mythical
> > federation of extremely powerful races which runs the galaxy... or rather,
> > *could* run the galaxy. They are however mainly uninvolved in local
> > affairs, and spend their time in the core or at certain strategic
> > locations doing whatever super-civilizations do. Everybody more or less
> > acknowledges their power, but most races have never even encountered them. 
> 
> Yeah, perhaps trying to rediscover the truly heinous technology of the
> "Precursors", or is that too cliche?

Maybe. Some races might think the Galactics seeded the galaxy and watch 
over it, while others scoff at the notion and suspect that any race could 
become Galactic if it is advanced enough... or powerful enough... or have 
reached mystical union with Grjjjj-88. 

> Exactly. I don't like the idea of making the "galactics" to advanced that
> they are totally mysterious, however. That always seemed more like a copy-
> out, to me. Perhaps they send representatives to the various minor nations
> to keep tabs on what's going on and send reports back home. This might tie
> in with your idea of the "Outsiders", though I imagine that the Galactics
> would use a faster form of communication.

The Outsiders may or may not work for the Galactics, I think its best to
leave it as a mystery. Maybe there is a galactic embassy somewhere in the
vicinity, essentially a tiny consulate but to the local races it is power
personified. It might be fun making the Galactics extremely mysterious,
not because they are mysterious themselves, but because everybody else
thinks they are so great. The representative might just look like a pile
of dead leaves. Or maybe the Galactics have realized that the less the
others know about them, the better. So they never leave their embassy,
communicating using computers and radio. 

> > Yes, we are on the inner edge of a spiral arm. I'm not sure if this means
> > the stars are fewer, there just might be fewer bright stars. I'll look it
> > up. The more advanced civilizations might keep to the spiral arms since
> > there is more energy available there; they might be interested in building
> > Dyson spheres. 
> 
> Yeah. It would help to know what sort of area we are situated in,
> astrographically speaking. Always helps believablity if you tie things
> into reality here and there.

Hmm, we are living just 8 parsec from the galactic plane, and the disc is 
around 100 pc thick here. I don't think we are that close to any 
spectacular objects. The Pleiades are 400 light-years away, the hyades 
somewhat closer. 

> Oky-doke. I'm still working on the nystar data. There's gonna be a
> long period just of renaming stars and doing starsystem writeups.
> Of course, it'll be impossible (well, impractical) to do writeups
> on all of the star systems the starmap program will cover. But it'd
> be nice to get 25-50 done. I'll send you one for comments once I
> get this rest of this data organized.

Have you seen the 2300AD system for creating planets? It is very hard sf, 
and quite fun. The results are quite close to realistic simulations.

> PS: Thanks for the enthusiasm & ideas. Your emails are really helping
>     me stay on track. :-)

Thanks yourself! I really enjoy being able to help you create an entire
world. 

Here are my writeup of the gools. It is not completely finished, but might
give a feeling for them. As I mentioned, their system of specialized
communities might complement the family-beings quite well. I have not
written much about their home system, I leave that to you. 


Gools

The Gools originated on a low-gravity world orbiting a somewhat unstable
star. From time to time great storms or climatic changes wracked the
surface, making most life aquatic or adept at hiding underground when the
weather turned dangerous. Many species spent their entire lives in tunnels
beneath the surface, emerging only to snatch down food into the safer
underground. The surface was gradually dominated by fast-moving or flying
predators, some which lived in symbiosis with plants that they protected.
In response, underground species developed elaborate ways to avoid
detection and exposure. One solution was to have expendable appendages
which were used to explore the surface. This gradually evolved into a
situation where some species had almost independent organs which could be
used for exploration, gathering food and mating, not unlike the workers of
earthly social insects. 

The Gools evolved from a digging species living beneath the extensive
plains on the largest continent. Their main bodies are spindle-shaped and
covered with shovel-like appendages used for digging. In a slit along the
side their secondary bodies grow folded inside pouches; to explore the
surface one or more of the lesser bodies unfolds and scurries away. Unlike
the main body they are thin and graceful, adapted to fast movement in the
open and even limited flight. They were mainly controlled by instinct and
complex chemical traces from their main body, although they had some
limited intelligence on their own. 

A few hundred thousand years ago a new species of predator appeared on the
continent, digging hunters working in packs who could attack the
previously safe main bodies of the Gools. Faced with an evolutionary
pressure, the Gools became more and more adept at inventing clever ways to
evade the predators, both by using the secondary bodies and simple tools.
Gradually the Gools became an intelligent species, and eventually drove
the hunters to extinction. 

The gools invented agriculture, using their secondary bodies to spread
seeds and guard them from herbivores, and they began to grow plants which
attracted symbiotes they ate. In time most of the plains were cultivated.
However, development was quite slow, since young gools started their lives
without training and protection; they had to seek out older gools to learn
from them, and this was not always possible or appreciated. 

The first true gool civilisation developed after a group of gools on a
somewhat isolated island learned how to control their mating bodies so
well they could make sure they fused in roughly the same place all the
times. This made it possible to gather the young while they were newly
hatched in an ordered way. Gradually a community emerged, where some gool
would gather food and some care for the young. The latter category also
developed better and better ways to use the secondary bodies, and taught
it to the young.  In time the island culture spread to the main continent,
dividing the plains into a large number of more or less independent
societies, often in conflict for land or resources. However, since the
gools themselves moved slowly, and never developed techniques for riding,
the warfare was mainly local. The societies also had trouble growing large
as long as the main force holding them together was the mutual care for
the young, the mating bodies had a limited range of flight. 

Gradually, the plains became covered with an artificial ecosystem, centred
around their agriculture, and the ground beneath was gradually
criss-crossed by tunnels and underground pests were eradicated.
Unfortunately, the cultured areas also lost much of their vitality and
often were ravaged by unexpected ecological disasters.  Many gools choose
to explore new regions, in search for new land or wealth. As the gools
gradually spread across their planet they encountered environments where
they were unable to live underground, and they had to develop new forms of
living. Since the gool severely dislike being out in the open they
developed buildings, often filled with loose material and linked by
covered crawlways. As their technology advanced, the single buildings
became whole cities, often covered with dense vegetation and brightly
coloured poles designed to help secondary bodies navigate.  They look
quite like decorated overgrown ruins, with very little visible over the
surface. 

The old societies gradually turned into nation-like confederations of the
smaller units, held together by faster communications, military and
economic power. However, they never truly lost their independence, and
often had quite distinct attributes. This both caused some friction
between different societies inside one nation, and in many cases
encouraged specialisation. One area specialised in farming and the
development of ecology, while another area perfected the methods of
training secondary bodies. By travel, consultancy and the exchange of
members many societies became tied together, not only inside the nations
but also between them.  Some very specialised societies became just as
powerful and wealthy as whole nations, while others were powerless in
their mediocrity. 

Slowly but carefully the gools developed their science and technology. The
taming of fire was a slow process, since it was by its nature
unpredictable and dangerous. It had been known for millennia, but it was
not until a group of gools managed to train their secondary bodies how to
handle fire and not flee in panic from the heat, that fire became useful.
The discovery of ceramics and later metals accelerated the developments,
and was soon followed by the development of complex mechanisms. For a long
time the gools developed the science of mechanics to perfection, building
wind and water-powered factories, digging machines and mechanical
computers. Electricity was known, but not used for much. This went on for
a long time. 

What propelled the gools out of their inertia was a series of violent
solar eruptions, which disrupted the climate and ecology planetwide.
Titanic storms and unpredictable rainfall destroyed much of gool
civilisation, and turned parts of the ancient plains into an inland sea.
Millions of gools were killed or died of starvation.  After having rebuilt
their cities and repaired their machines, the gools began to worry about
the possibility of a second cataclysm.  Many societies began to study
meteorology and how it related to the sun and moons. They discovered the
law of gravity, and determined the structure of their solar system. But
they were unable to understand exactly how the sun worked and what
controlled it. The fear of ignorance and chaos forced the leading nations
to temporarily unite to find a solution. Several of the most skilled
societies were called upon to form an artificial nation to find out how to
control the sun, or how to prevent another cataclysm. 

For quite some time the societies of the nation developed and tested its
theories about the sun. They soon realised it was not based on any known
chemical or electrical process. Following the gool tradition of sending
out secondary bodies to scout, they developed small rockets carrying
measurement packages and radio systems. As they gained expertise, they
invented a radio-link which could be used to communicate with a secondary
body remotely, and sent out bodies into space (this technique
revolutionised planet- bound communications and social life). They gave up
on trying to change their sun, since they realised that its titanic
energies were far beyond their technology. Instead they concentrated on
predicting its eruptions and the effects on the planet. After some years,
they had developed simple space-stations where secondary bodies controlled
from the ground watched over the sun and the weather. They realised one
fundamental problem: to keep the station manned they had to send up new
bodies from time to time, as the old wore out or broke down, and this was
both expensive and inefficient. In order to protect their planet, gools
had to live in space. 

Over the next centuries the gools created their first space habitats and
began to expand into space. They hollowed out asteroids (to make sure
flares from their sun was no threat) and filled the interior with air and
a thick layer of gravel. Light was seldom needed, and the huge interior
spaces were devoted to life support and other machinery. Each asteroid
station became its own community, and gradually many of them became
nations in their own right. The gools explored their system using the huge
but slow asteroids, eventually colonising the asteroid belts to a large
extent (today the space-living gools outnumber the planet-bound gools by
at least 10:1). The reason for this expansion was never clear even to the
gools themselves. While they were obviously ensuring the survival of the
species and finding vast new resources to exploit, there was something
else driving the gools outwards. Somehow they couldnUt stand the thought
of unexplored places. 


Physiology

The main bodies are about 2 to 3 meters long and at least half a meter
thick, spindle shaped and covered with slick black scales; to a human it
would look somewhat like a walrus. Some of these scales grow into large
shovel-shaped extremities used for digging and moving, usually in a
regular pattern around the body. In the front end there is five
scales/teeth covering the mouth, which can also fold outwards and
manipulate things. The slit where the secondary bodies are kept are
usually tightly closed, and runs along most of their length; an adult Gool
can have up to 10 mature secondary bodies inside it at one time, and often
several under development.  Old secondary bodies are eaten. 

The main bodies of the gools are extremely sensitive to smell, especially
the skin between the scales. They are quite able to detect smells from
different directions and how old they are. In fact, the gools often
communicate using smells, secreted by glands inside the mouth. In
dangerous situations they can exhale an intense smell to confuse an
attacker or even SblindS it. The scales are also sensitive to vibrations,
both vibrations in the ground and sounds in the air in the tunnels. Their
sense of touch is naturally quite good, especially in the ends. However,
the Gools are quite blind. 

The secondary bodies are disc-like and dark when folded. They grow in
pouches, gradually developing until they are fully grown (around 15-20
centimetres in diameter when folded tightly). They are nourished and
protected by a syrup-like secretion of the main body. When they are
needed, they are pushed out from the pouch and slit, and gradually crawl
away until they get into enough space to fold out. When unfolded, they
become around a meter in diameter, a graceful irregular construction of
very thin and translucent insect-like limbs, covered in hairs which form
feathers.  They are extremely nimble, and are able to fly/jump quite well
in the low gravity of the planet. These bodies have quite good hearing and
a somewhat developed sense of sight, but they mostly navigate using smell
and touch. On the surface they mostly gather food, watch for predators and
scan the surroundings; when they return they transmit what they found to
the main body using a mixture of signs and smells, a bit like bees in an
earthly beehive. They are not really intelligent, more like trained
animals. 

From time to time they form mating bodies, secondary bodies with brightly
coloured feathers which climb to the surface and seek out other mating
bodies. When they meet, they quickly build a burrow where they enmesh and
spin a cocoon around themselves. They gradually merge, and after a few
days a young gool breaks free and starts to dig its way into the ground.
The gools are able to decide which type of secondary bodies to grow, and
mating bodies are usually regarded as a more refined way to do something.
Normal secondary bodies are used for personal tasks and business as usual,
while mating bodies are often sent as messages/gifts/snacks or used to
perform certain social functions. 

The gools can partially control the development of their secondary bodies,
both by mental and bodily control, certain drugs, selective breeding and
training. This is regarded as the highest art by most gools; it is a
mixture of self-discipline, animal training, cosmetics and etiquette. All
gools can control whether to spawn mating bodies, and most are able to
create partial mating bodies (which are somewhere in-between real mating
bodies and normal secondary bodies) and to control how the development
occurs; some gools prefer to grow many small bodies, while others create
very few and big. Much of their appearance and general behaviour can be
controlled by the ingestion of certain chemicals and foods and the
conscious control of body odour. The most subtle part of the art is
however the training to make the bodies respond as the gool wants to
signals and orders; this is an extremely complex task which has been honed
by special trainers for millennia. Most gools have specialised some of
their secondary bodies, especially for speaking or handling objects. 

The gools have several forms of speech. The most common form is by shaking
their bodies, which is used to communicate through vibrations in the earth
(or today through televibrators, which transmit vibrations and sounds).
They also can communicate by changing their odours, a more personal form
of communication usually reserved only for the young or close associates.
Over longer distances gools speak by sending secondary bodies carrying
smell and vibration. These discussions can often become quite complex, as
several bodies are involved and skilled gools can program them with
several possible responses. 

One recent development is remotely controlled bodies, where the gool can
send signals to the bodies and receive responses from them. This allows
trained gools to reprogram their secondary bodies when they are far away. 

Psychology

The Gools are extremely individualistic, and have an intense feeling for
privacy and property. They dislike even the thought of another being in
the close vicinity, preferring to signal to each other using vibrations or
bodies. Anything getting too close to them are regarded as an intruder,
unless it carries exactly the right smell- patterns and behaves somewhat
predictably. Secondary bodies of other gools are usually acceptable, as
long as they keep their distance from the main body. The etiquette of
privacy is exceedingly complex, and most gools are very careful not to get
too close to each other using any of their bodies. However, some secondary
bodies are bred for their taste or smell as gifts (some murderous gools
have used poisoned secondary bodies against their enemies). 

The gools are still not asocial; most prefer to feel the protection and
kinship of their community. This is especially pronounced after hatching;
they young are gathered by their teachers and protected by them. This is
the only time gools are physically close, and the mystique/taint of
closeness isolates the teachers from most other gools; while doctors
sometimes have to touch patients, the teachers touch the young freely.
Today even the teachers can help the young without physical contact, but
the symbolism persists. They are in a way the force holding community
together, and are often regarded as its symbolic (if not practical)
leaders. It is not uncommon for their collective smell to be seen as the
smell of the community, of unity and safety. 

The relationship between gools and their secondary bodies is very complex.
In most societies the bodies are regarded as extensions of the main body,
but not the true self. The self is seen as the clouds of odour around the
main body, and the mouth is the noblest organ.  When a secondary body
misbehaves it is regarded as having lost the connection with the true self
of its owner, and while most gools find it both irritating and
distasteful, it is not really the fault of the owner except in discipline.
To be able to control and predict the actions of oneUs bodies, and to
train them to work together, is one of the best expressions of a pungent
self. The secondary bodies contribute to the self, and by training them
well a gool can become more pungent. 

Something all gools dislike is unpredictability and surprises. The
secondary bodies are good at handling situations they have been trained
for, but faced with something unexpected they tend to scurry back to the
main body for advice and orders. Since it is impossible to predict every
possible problem and train the secondary bodies for it, the gools either
have to rely on general guidelines for the limited intelligence of the
secondaries, or try to divide all problems into simpler tasks, preferably
problems which they have already been solved. This reflects in their
thinking: gools prefer to reduce all problems to previously solved
problems. This sometimes makes them miss elegant solutions, but they are
very good at finding a way, however tortuous, to make things work.  When
someone finds a simple new solution this is greeted with admiration, but
most of the time everybody is using the old and proved methods. 


Society

The central unit in gool society is the community, a group of around
100-1000 gools centred around a team of teachers and a central mating
ground (the mating grounds are specially prepared by the teachers so that
mating bodies will seek them out; most commonly they are surrounded by
highly reflective poles and certain traditional smells). Each community
essentially runs itself once it has been established. Most are governed by
one or more leaders and their staff, usually selected by the other leading
gools in the community. Once the teachers usually held this function, but
today professional politicians and technocrats are more common. 

Each community controls a very defined area of land, and does not tolerate
another community encroaching without proper permissions, even if it is
friendly. The borders are clearly marked with poles smelling of the
teacher-union of respective community.  The teacher-union is the social
core, and highly respected. Today it no longer solely includes the
teachers who take care of the young, but also experts on various sciences,
especially the social arts. Most politicians still have to crawl lightly
not to upset the teachers; if they officially pronounce their dislike for
a leader, he will be in for a very rough time. 

Each community is usually specialised towards certain areas. There are
farming communities, industrial communities, scientific communities and
aesthetic communities. While membership is usually by birth, it is not
uncommon for gools to seek admission into a new community to learn or
work. If they are accepted, they are brought before the teachers and
formally initiated into the community smell. The cultural differences
between different communities are often surprisingly large. They employ
different smells, have different methods of training the secondary bodies
and other social rules. Prejudice against other communities is quite
widespread in many places, but many communities are so well renowned that
their pungency are above all reproach. This includes a few extremely
famous teaching communities, the remains of the artificial nation (today a
set of closely linked scientific, political and industrial communities)
and the exclusive communities of body- trainers. 

The communities have been linked together into nations, sometimes by
conquest, sometimes by politics and economics. The nations are not as
defined as earthly nations, and often just loose confederations of
communities. Some of the old nations still persist, ruled by a small elite
controlling all the communities through military and social force, but
they have gradually been replaced by confederations run as generalised
communities themselves. These are controlled by leaders chosen among
community leaders, and have a ceremonial group of nation-teachers.
However, it is not uncommon for communities to simply change side and join
another nation, or proclaim themselves free. It has become rarer, but
still occurs. 

Another odd social structure are the artificial nations. Often they are
created by several nations who wish to solve a mutual problem, as a token
of peace, a buffer state or for economic reasons.  Communities are simply
gathered into a new nation, with its own rulers and economy (although the
parent-nations often place certain restrictions on its activities or even
a time-limit for its existence). The most famous artificial nation was the
nation which developed radio and spaceflight, but there are also nations
devoted only to trade or culture. One of the most unusual artificial
nations is a kind of UN located on a peninsula of the main continent. It
consists of communities from most nations, and seek to unify them into a
single world-community. 

Religion and Philosophy

The gools are amazingly non-religious and practical. They have never even
considered the thought that there are anything supernatural. Instead they
lump all unknown and unpredictable things together into a big whole. In
the last few centuries this great unknown have become more threatening,
and several schools of thought seek to either discover what it is (and
thus render it controllable) or to find ways to completely avoid it. These
ideas are mainly discussed by scientists and teachers, the rest of the
gools simply avoid them. In fact, one of the main reasons the gools began
to explore space was simply to make sure it was not too threatening or
unknown. 

The teachers are the closest thing to priests the gool have. In addition
to their teaching duties, they also perform ceremonies for the community,
certain symbolic duties (like the scenting of border-poles) and generally
represent the community spirit. Their presence is reassuring on a deep
level. 


Technology

Gool technology is contradictory. On one hand it tends to be somewhat
inefficient and baroque due to their tendency to use complex solutions to
simple problems. On the other hand, it is often divided into simple and
elegant modules which have proven to be useful, and gradually reduced to
simple works of art. If there is any problem, the modules are checked and
changed, often with surprisingly good results. 

Tools are generally of two types: simple, rugged tools for personal use by
main bodies, and the frail, flexible and often computerised tools used by
the secondary bodies. The gools have never perceived the need to change
their direct environment, and still prefer real earth and rocks inside
their buildings and the classic plants and animals for food. The only
personal areas they have developed further are the production and control
of smell and communications. Gool cuisine/cosmetics involves the use of
spices, herbs and chemicals to improve or change the odours they produce
and perceive. Refined gools rely to a large extent on exotic smells, and
it is a status symbol to be able to afford the latest spices. The
manipulation of taste and smell is a appreciated art, almost on par with
the discipline and training of secondary bodies. 

The other main use of personal technology by the gools is communications.
Today almost all gools use a televibrator to communicate with other gools.
It is a machine embedded inside the walls of the home, which transmits
vibration-messages not unlike a telephone. It is controlled by a circular
panel which is manipulated by the teeth of the gool (this is a standard
arrangement for most gool equipment). A more uncommon but important system
are small radio modules which are placed on the secondary bodies.  With
some training, the gool can remain in contact with them even when they are
far away; by sending signals to the radio, it can release different smells
and vibrations which they obey, and signal back what is happening. This
requires a highly trained operator with skilled secondary bodies. 

Outside the home, the gools are quite industrious. They like to build
machines to help them, often imitating the secondary bodies or even
performing similar functions. While they have never even considered the
idea of an artificial intelligence, they are quite good at building simple
automata or machines with a set of pre- programmed behaviours. Many of
these are discreetly incorporated inside what looks otherwise like normal
walls or buildings, ready to be used whenever the gools need them. Many
buildings are actually machines, often combined factories and homes.
Transport systems have been developed which allows gools to travel in
relative comfort and solitude, not unlike railways or moving walkways. 
However, most gools prefer to conduct business from their homes. 

It is worth noticing that the gools prefer to use ingenious mechanics
before electronics, even if electronics often is faster and more
efficient. It seems that the gool simply regard it as soulless and eerie,
while mechanics is trusted. All forms of technology where they can touch
or sense the inner workings (at least in principle) are acceptable, but
electricity, fire, information and anything too small to touched is
regarded as too uncertain to be truly trusted. 

They are very skilled chemists, and have developed a wide array of
materials and chemicals with useful properties, ranging from medicines and
essences to extremely stable plastics and superconductors.  On the other
hand, they hopeless at biology; they only learned about ecology the hard
way when the ecosystems began to collapse around them. Biology is simply
regarded as too messy to deal with, and the gools prefer to simplify
ecosystems around them to suit their needs. They donUt see any inherent
value in diversity or complexity, so if a species is interfering or just
in the way, they exterminate it. 


Art

Gool art is quite incomprehensible to humans, since it relies mainly on
smell and texture and is based on a completely different aesthetics. They
seldom create individual artworks in the human sense, most gool art is
either just experienced once or built into other things. They enjoy to
touch complex patterns of textures, which artists cover their machines and
buildings with, and this is also the basis of their written language.
Practically all surfaces in gool society are covered with elaborate
patterns pleasant to the touch; tools and machines are adorned with
surfaces describing their use and hallways have patterns which subtly
shift as one moves along them (this also makes it simpler to orient
oneself). The patterns are both decorations and useful, like all gool art. 

The art of creating and controlling odours is very complex, and many spend
a large amount of time developing just the right smells for themselves,
their secondary bodies or their possessions.  Perfumes, spices and
chemicals are artfully combined into various mixtures, added to food,
applied to objects or bodies or just savoured by the connoisseurs. To a
human these smells range from the sublime to the disgusting, and even the
gools have disagreements about the interpretations of certain smells.
Different societies have developed their own smell-symbolism, often
disquieting or even irritating to other societies. The mating-bodies of
the gools are especially finely scented, representing the odour of their
main body at its most refined state, subtly altered and decorated. Of
course, a human would not notice it. 

Training of secondary bodies is the most revered art/craft of all in
civilised nations. Everybody is doing their best to learn how to master
their secondary bodies, and especially skilled individuals are often seen
as important for the well-being of the community as the teachers.
Techniques to control the development and use of the bodies are often
jealously guarded within a community. The methods range from
physical/mental discipline over psychological tricks to chemical and even
surgical modifications. The most complex part of the art is however how to
program the bodies to work flexibly. By teaching them different behaviours
linked to a code of smells and vibrations, a gool can build SprogramsS for
the secondary bodies, but it is very hard to make sure it will behave as
it should when on its own. That is the skill that distinguishes the
masters from the merely skilled. The introduction of radio links have
complicated things somewhat, but the psychological/programming skills are
still needed, maybe even more than ever. 


From: james vassilakos <jimv>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG
To: nv91-asa@nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 16:47:52 -0700 (PDT)

>Here is my attempt at an explanation: It is not allowed to move faster
>than light *relative to space itself*, but if you can make *space* move
>(or rather expand/contract), you can be at rest relative to the space
>around you, but this space can move very fast. The Alcubierre drive
>essentially makes space in front of the ship contract and space behind it
>expand using some magic forcefield (how to create it is not known,
>Miguel Alcubierre have just described what is required to create FTL, not 
>how to do it). Essentially you need matter or electric fields of the size 
>that they distort space itself. The ship just surfs on a wave of 
>distorted space-time.

Actually, it sounds very much like Star Trek. You sure this Alcubierre's
research assistant isn't named Zefram Cochrane? :-)

>Negative energy: You need to create a volume of space which has *less* 
>energy that vacuum itself! This is may be possible, but it is uncertain. 
>If such negative densities exist, they could (theoretically) be used in 
>many fun ways, such as to hold a wormhole/stargate open.

What are you supposed to do? Employ antimatter?

>The energies to distort space are huge, but the hyperdrive might work by
>moving a lot of energy from one volume to another, creating the potential
>difference the drive needs without having to produce all the energy. The
>secret of the drive is not how to move FTL, but how to achive this
>polarization effect. 

The problem with massive energies is that you have all sorts of massive
consequences. For one, every ship might have the ability to blow up an
entire planet. Don't piss off any spacers. Another thing is that things
are priced largely in terms of the energy they take to produce. If energy
is essentially free, then suddenly you can have massive amounts of
construction at much reduced rates. Transportation costs would be
much lower too. In fact, the world might be a virtual paradise, at
least for awhile. This is part of the reason the near-development of
cold-fusion was just a big headline grabber. It would litterally change
everything.

>Gravity: I think the fields around the ship will have trouble with other 
>gravitation; they might be disrupted if they pass too close to a planet 
>or other strong source of gravity. Its probably a good idea to avoid 
>activating the drive close to a planet. The ship itself is in free fall 
>all the time. 

Yeah, using gravity as a limitation would be a good idea. Otherwise, such
drives would be quite lethal as weapons.

>You might want to look up the page about FTL in the World Wrights Web for 
>some other ideas: http://www.cs.tu-bs.de/~rhiemeir/ftl.html

I'll look into it. In one of the guildsmans, somebody had an article
about FTL... basically, it listed the various ways it was explained
in science fiction, going author by author. It doesn't matter too much
what type of FTL is used, so long as the explanation for it fits with
the genre. I'd like to get something with some basis in modern-physics,
so this Alcubierre Drive may fit in.

>Hmm, meteors accellerated to 0.9 c might be stopped quite easily if they
>are shot a long distance; If I fire it at you a light-hour away, you will
>still have around 6 minutes to stop it.

Unless they have a form of sensor which keys on a faster-than-light
particle. That could also speed-up communications, by the way.

>But at higher speeds they are hard
>to stop, I have to admit it. You could simply say such weapons are
>unusual, since they require huge energies to accellerate them. A
>hyperdrive as the one above could accellerate them to FTL speeds, which
>would make them impossible to dodge. Fortunately, they wouldn't have any
>large momentum, and if spacetime polarizations discharge themselves into
>gravity waves, the result would be just a nasty disruption around the
>target, not ultra-destruction.

A planet's gravitational field is pretty huge. I suppose we could say
that gravity, even in minute amounts, totally kills the possibility of
such polarizations. The drive simply stops working, and since the
asteroid wasn't really moving (only the space around it) it has no
momentum to preserve.

>The drive system could be used to avoid the need for reaction mass, but 
>it would still require lots of energy. What about beanstalks, catapults 
>and similar constructions?

Catapults are fine for cargo that is totally non-fragile... not such a
good thing for anything that can't stand one heck of a lot of Gs. The
beanstalk idea is neat, and I've used it before in some fiction I've
written, but I'm not sure how realistic it is. I think building such
a thing would be really really really really hard. And then, you have
to ask yourself, how much energy is it really saving? And if energy
is cheap due to whatever revolutionary reactor is powering the FTL
drive, then why even have a beanstalk? It's just a big target for
terrorists.

One method I like a lot for surface to orbit is gravitic technology.
Suppose you could harness a planet's gravitational field and use it
to maneuver. Then you could have two drives, the FTL for
gravitationless (or smooth) space and gravitic for gravitional
(or stretched) space. No need for reaction mass in either case.
And the gravitic drive for atmospheric maneuvers could be totally
silent. You'd want to keep aerodynamic designs just for better
control and maneuverability, but even they wouldn't be necessary.

>In the same vein, a race might call the humans for the 'Aargh', since that
>was the first thing they said when the aliens met them. "And then we have
>the Aarghs from Earth. Strange critters which change color to green or
>white when you look at them too closely..." :-)

I like.

>personified. It might be fun making the Galactics extremely mysterious,
>not because they are mysterious themselves, but because everybody else
>thinks they are so great. The representative might just look like a pile
>of dead leaves.

"Why are you guys bowing down in front of a pile of dead leaves?"

"Do not mock the Great Ambassador! You will bring death and ruin upon
us all!"

"Well, _excuse_ me. Hey, Mike... can ya bring me that rake?"

>Hmm, we are living just 8 parsec from the galactic plane, and the disc is 
>around 100 pc thick here.

Hmm... this is news to me. I was guestimating about 400 parsecs on the
width. But that's easily fixable. The thing that isn't easily fixable
at this point is the galactic plane itself. I simply supposed that the
X-Y plane on the 2300 near star map was parallel to the galactic plane.
I bet this was a bad assumption. That X-Y plane is probably our solar
plane which is no doubt the same as the equatorial plane at equinox
and has nothing whatsoever to do with the galactic plane. Let me know
either way, if you have an answer to this. Also, based on the 2300
near star map, in which direction is the galactic core? I basically need
to come up with where this map is in relation to the rest of the galaxy
and where the galactic plane crosses through it. Probably not easy
data to find, but please let me know if you happen to have the answers
to all this.

>Have you seen the 2300AD system for creating planets? It is very hard sf, 
>and quite fun. The results are quite close to realistic simulations.

There are a few problems, though. The most obvious one at the moment
is the # of planets in a given star system. Granted, we have precious
little data to go on, but 2300 assumes the function is based solely on
spectral type (the color) and not on size. Compare this with the GURPS
system. 2300 assumes that O, B, and A stars don't have planets, per se,
only captured asteroids while GURPS gives the As and most of the Bs plenty
of planets. Is one game more correct than the other in this respect?

Fortunately, there are only four class A stars in the portion of the
near star data I'm using, and absolutely no O or B stars. Still, these
sorts of discrepancies make me wonder.

Another sticky point is determining atmospheric composition and the
effects thereof. Should've taken more chemisty, I guess. 2300 provides
some info for determining what gasses are present, but not in what
percentage quantities, nor are there any mention of the effects of
having an atmosphere composed almost entirely of, say, Carbon Monoxide
and Nitric Oxide instead of Molecular Nitrogen and Molecular Oxygen.
My guess, from what's provided in GURPS, is that Nitric Oxide would
make an atmosphere somewhat corrosive, and a high percentage of
Carbon Monoxide is a good indicator that there's no carbon-based
life present to break down that gas. Still, having all this stuff
fleshed out in greater detail would certainly be helpful.

>Here is my writeup of the gools. It is not completely finished, but might
>give a feeling for them. As I mentioned, their system of specialized
>communities might complement the family-beings quite well. I have not
>written much about their home system, I leave that to you. 

Okay. I'll see what I can do. Thanks!


Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 19:16:21 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Anders Sandberg <nv91-asa@nada.kth.se>
To: james vassilakos <jimv@cs.UCR.edu>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG

On Thu, 8 Jun 1995, james vassilakos wrote:
> >Negative energy: You need to create a volume of space which has *less* 
> >energy that vacuum itself! This is may be possible, but it is uncertain. 
> >If such negative densities exist, they could (theoretically) be used in 
> >many fun ways, such as to hold a wormhole/stargate open.
> 
> What are you supposed to do? Employ antimatter?

No, antimatter has positive energy too. Negative energy is extremely 
esoteric, and could perhaps be likened to an area where there is a strain 
on spacetime. It is not known if it can exist or not yet.

> The problem with massive energies is that you have all sorts of massive
> consequences. For one, every ship might have the ability to blow up an
> entire planet. Don't piss off any spacers. Another thing is that things
> are priced largely in terms of the energy they take to produce. If energy
> is essentially free, then suddenly you can have massive amounts of
> construction at much reduced rates. Transportation costs would be
> much lower too. 

Maybe the high-energy civilizations are in the spiral arms, using entire 
solar systems to gather energy for their immense societies and huge wars. 

Fortunately we could fudge things to make the energies somewhat more
manageable. You might need a few gigawatts to power up the hyperdrive, but
during the flight you just have to keep the fields stable (maybe a mega or
even kilowatt reactor will do). The energies in the fields themselves are
immense, but they are manipulated using smaller energies. 

More advanced races have more energy to spare, so their ships will move 
faster. A rather young or poor race (like the humans) would move more slowly.

> >Gravity: I think the fields around the ship will have trouble with other 
> >gravitation; they might be disrupted if they pass too close to a planet 
> >or other strong source of gravity. Its probably a good idea to avoid 
> >activating the drive close to a planet. The ship itself is in free fall 
> >all the time. 
> 
> Yeah, using gravity as a limitation would be a good idea. Otherwise, such
> drives would be quite lethal as weapons.

Here are some further ideas: the fields around the ship are not stable 
unless the systems of the ship keep them stable. If the stabilizer 
systems are turned off, the fields will become depolarized and the ship 
will stop - in the best case. If the fields become too inhomogenus they 
will collapse into each other, ripping the ship apart with tidal forces 
and gravity waves. The stabilizer systems are essentially big computers 
which constantly manipulate the fields towards a symmetrical shape; their 
work will become harder and harder near a gravity well. Advanced 
civilizations have powerful computers and are able to go closer, but it is 
very impractical for most purposes. 

Note that when a FTL ship collides with something using this drive, the
resulting damage is caused only by the fields collapsing (anything within
(say) a kilometer is subjected to extreme mechanical forces), probably not
by its kinetic energy (the ship is in free-fall even when its moving 
FTL). FTL missiles are possible, but probably very expensive and mainly 
usable against static targets (ships are too fast). 

> >Hmm, meteors accellerated to 0.9 c might be stopped quite easily if they
> >are shot a long distance; If I fire it at you a light-hour away, you will
> >still have around 6 minutes to stop it.
> 
> Unless they have a form of sensor which keys on a faster-than-light
> particle. That could also speed-up communications, by the way.

Yes. Do we want FTL-radio in this scenario?

> A planet's gravitational field is pretty huge. I suppose we could say
> that gravity, even in minute amounts, totally kills the possibility of
> such polarizations. The drive simply stops working, and since the
> asteroid wasn't really moving (only the space around it) it has no
> momentum to preserve.

Exactly. Although civilian drives might have built in cut-off systems to 
stop them from getting too close, a drive for a FTL-asteroid may lack 
one. But when the field gets too strong, the asteroid will be ripped 
apart as its fields become inhomogenus. That would make such weapons 
useful only against small targets like asteroids or space stations. 

Here is a short writeup of the drive:

The Alcubierre Drive

The drive consists of two different parts: the polarizer system and the
stabilizer system. 

The polarizer system uses stored energy to create the warp fields. It 
consists of tubes which are charged from the main reactor or by lasers 
beamed from a space station. When they are fully charged, the energy is 
released into their cores where little understood (that is, by humans) 
quantum-gravity effects causes a polarization of spacetime around the 
ship. In front of the ship space contracts, while behind it space 
expands. This causes the ship to accelerate to superluminal speeds (from 
the perspective of an outside observer), while from the reference frame 
of the ship it remains in free-fall. The more powerful polarization, the 
faster the ship will move.

During flight the stablizer system (which is essentially an advanced 
computer network) measures the space-time distortions and directs extra 
energy into the polarizers to keep it stable. The initial polarization 
will gradually decay due to vacuum interactions and collisions with 
interstellar dust, but the initial charge is calculated from the 
beginning to make sure the distortion will remain strong enough during 
the flight.

When the ship is close to the destination, the polarizers are 
gradually deactivated. This will cause the polarization to lessen, 
slowing the ship. If depolarization is done too fast, instabilities may 
result. The remaining energy locked inside the polarizers is discharged 
as heat.

A typical spaceship will have polarizers placed parallel to its axis, 
usually around the equator on long beams or fins. The polarizers have 
extendable cooling fins, and on some ships these double as laser 
collectors for the launch beams. The rest of the ship can look like just 
about anything, as long as it doesn't gets too close to the regions of 
warped spacetime around it.

During flight the sky around the ship will become extremely distorted, 
literally turned inside out and warped by the intense fields. Huge red- 
and blueshifts will make the sky very different. 

Limitations: 

Doesn't work near gravity wells.
Requires much energy to start, and dissipates most of it when it stops.
Speed depends on the amount of energy used.
Can collapse catastrophically if damaged or stabilizers fail.
The fields are weakened by interstellar dust and gas (nebulas may be a 
hindrance)
You cannot change destination once the ship is on its way (slight 
adjustments are possible, but no turning).

(Many of these limitations might be good for the game)

> Catapults are fine for cargo that is totally non-fragile... not such a
> good thing for anything that can't stand one heck of a lot of Gs. 

Some races might survive them.

> The
> beanstalk idea is neat, and I've used it before in some fiction I've
> written, but I'm not sure how realistic it is. I think building such
> a thing would be really really really really hard. And then, you have
> to ask yourself, how much energy is it really saving? And if energy
> is cheap due to whatever revolutionary reactor is powering the FTL
> drive, then why even have a beanstalk? It's just a big target for
> terrorists.

It is a very cheap way of getting into orbit, it saves the environment
from a lot of launches and could double as a large farm of solar
collectors. Building it isn't that hard if you can produce large
quantities of extremely strong cable in space (probably using simple
nanotech/ advanced biotechnology). All you need is to place the factory in
synchronous orbit and slowly unreel the stalk until it touches the ground. 

> One method I like a lot for surface to orbit is gravitic technology.
> Suppose you could harness a planet's gravitational field and use it
> to maneuver. Then you could have two drives, the FTL for
> gravitationless (or smooth) space and gravitic for gravitional
> (or stretched) space. No need for reaction mass in either case.
> And the gravitic drive for atmospheric maneuvers could be totally
> silent. You'd want to keep aerodynamic designs just for better
> control and maneuverability, but even they wouldn't be necessary.

Maybe you could use polarization of space a la Alcubierre if you did it 
carefully and in a purely radial way; if the cargo lost alignment it 
would be ripped apart. 

> >Hmm, we are living just 8 parsec from the galactic plane, and the disc is 
> >around 100 pc thick here.
> 
> Hmm... this is news to me. I was guestimating about 400 parsecs on the
> width.

Hmm, you might be right. I'll have to look it up.

> But that's easily fixable. The thing that isn't easily fixable
> at this point is the galactic plane itself. I simply supposed that the
> X-Y plane on the 2300 near star map was parallel to the galactic plane.
> I bet this was a bad assumption. That X-Y plane is probably our solar
> plane which is no doubt the same as the equatorial plane at equinox
> and has nothing whatsoever to do with the galactic plane. Let me know
> either way, if you have an answer to this. 

The coordinates on the map are based on declination and rectascension 
(sp?). The x-y plane would correspond to the celestial equator. 

> Also, based on the 2300
> near star map, in which direction is the galactic core? I basically need
> to come up with where this map is in relation to the rest of the galaxy
> and where the galactic plane crosses through it. Probably not easy
> data to find, but please let me know if you happen to have the answers
> to all this.

The z axis points at the celestial pole, so I would expect that the map is
inclined from the plane of the galaxy. But frankly, I don't think it
matters very much. The center of the galaxy is in the direction of
sagitaurius, but it is so far away that it doesn't matter here. 

> There are a few problems, though. The most obvious one at the moment
> is the # of planets in a given star system. Granted, we have precious
> little data to go on, but 2300 assumes the function is based solely on
> spectral type (the color) and not on size. Compare this with the GURPS
> system. 2300 assumes that O, B, and A stars don't have planets, per se,
> only captured asteroids while GURPS gives the As and most of the Bs plenty
> of planets. Is one game more correct than the other in this respect?

I think 2300 knows what it is doing (GURPS have never struck me as very 
scientific). Take a look at the texts about planetary formation at the 
World Wrights Web, they discuss this quite well, and also details about 
atmospheric chemistry (it is a terrific site)

http://www.cs.tu-bs.de/~rhiemeir/

O, B and A stars tend to be hot and rotate very fast, so they probably 
doesn't form any habitable or interesting planetary systems.

> Another sticky point is determining atmospheric composition and the
> effects thereof. Should've taken more chemisty, I guess. 2300 provides
> some info for determining what gasses are present, but not in what
> percentage quantities, nor are there any mention of the effects of
> having an atmosphere composed almost entirely of, say, Carbon Monoxide
> and Nitric Oxide instead of Molecular Nitrogen and Molecular Oxygen.
> My guess, from what's provided in GURPS, is that Nitric Oxide would
> make an atmosphere somewhat corrosive, and a high percentage of
> Carbon Monoxide is a good indicator that there's no carbon-based
> life present to break down that gas. Still, having all this stuff
> fleshed out in greater detail would certainly be helpful.

Yes, nitric oxide would form nitric acid together with water. Quite 
poisonous and corrosive (but might form the basis for some interesting 
life). Carbon monoxide is not stable together with oxygen, a planet with 
that in the atmosphere have to have unusually much carbon on the surface. 
I think the proportions of elements in space are not that different from 
here at earth; it would be unlikely for a planet to have as much chlorine 
as oxygen, for example. 

Bye for now, and have fun!

