From: james vassilakos <jimv>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG
To: nv91-asa@nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 09:06:06 -0700 (PDT)
 
> > Odd. Very odd. And you know how I hate very odd, don't you. *Sigh*
> 
> But the surf-drive would avoid this kind of weirdness by sweeping it 
> under the quantum rug. While the ships would move forward surrounded by 
> warped spacetime, the true weirdness just takes place on the particle 
> level where we can ignore it (or rather, on the quantum scale this kind 
> of weirdness is completely normal).

Yeah, but I'm still concerned about where the various races are going
to acquire esoteric matter from, and how they're going to store it
and refine it. I mean, if we're talking about heinously dense matter,
this could be a problem.

Traveller solved this by calling upon "Lanthanum", but that doesn't
seem quite "exotic" enough for our purposes.
 
> Here is an idea: esoteric matter may exist, but is on the "no-no" list of 
> the Galactics. Actually, the inner workings of vacuum polarization might 
> be so advanced, that it cannot be extended by most civilizations. I got 
> this idea while reading about quantum gravity: the best theory could be so 
> utterly complex or alien that no human could ever imagine it. Maybe most 
> races are able to use a few "safe" results or recipes which has trickled 
> down from the Galactics or are easy to discover, but cannot use the full 
> theory. 

So what you're saying here, if I read you correctly, is that the Galactics
"mine" it and sell it to the minor races in return for whatever... their
undying love and allegiance. I dunno. This may be giving the Galactics
too much power. Bears some thought, though.

> Hmm, what could we call them? The Powers? (a bit too much like Vinge, I
> think) Them? (Makes them more mysterious). The Great Ones? The Eight Races?

The Big Hairy Phumphs! :-)

"You're looking very phoomphy today, gentlebeing."

"Gee... thank you."
 
> * Solar power (might work especially well inside a solar system when driving
> FTL)

Maybe just a personal prejudice, but solar always seemed sort of weak
to me. I mean, the amount of power it generates isn't all that much
compared to other forms.
 
> * Microwave antennas (space stations or planets beam a microwave beam at the
> antenna, powering the ship. This could perhaps be scaled up into the
> visible light or even UV range). 

Right. And hope you don't incinerate the ship in the process.
 
> * Fission
> * Fusion (bulky, but provides a lot of energy. Could be fueled by a scoop
> of some kind)

Of course, this is the old stand-by in Traveller.

> * Matter-Antimatter reactions (requires antimatter, which is very expensive
> and hard to come by. Probably in the realm of very powerful civilizations,
> most races only dream of it). 

Well, if you can manufacture it and contain it, then you're in business.
As it happens, we can do both at the present technology (just not in
very high quantities).

> Energy requirements seems to increase with the square of the speed and
> linearly to the size of the ship. If you need 1 unit of energy to reach
> the speed v, you need to 4 units of energy to reach 2v and 9 units to
> reach 3v. You can cut some corners by making a smaller ship or accepting
> tidal forces inside it. 

Thanks. This is a fairly easy rule to follow, and it helps because it
follows the rule of diminishing returns.
 
> Maybe a few very large supernovae in a short span of time? (This might 
> have been the result of Galactic intervention). 
> 
> > 67 million years is not really all that much time. I'm not saying
> > that its "yesterday", but in terms of the galaxy's total age, it's
> > a small fraction, and hence qualifies as fairly recent.
> 
> I wonder if this has anything to do with the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Hmm... good thought. The timing seems right. I happen to have a copy
of Cosmos on hand. Sagan writes a little tidbit on this notion...

"No one knows what wiped out the dinosaurs. One evocative idea is that
it was a cosmic catastrophe, the explosion of a nearby star -- a supernova
like one that produced the Crab Nebula. If there were by chance a
supernova within ten or twenty lightyears of the solar system some
sixty-five million years ago, it would have sprayed an intense flux of
cosmic rays into space, and some of these, entering the Earth's
envelope of air, would have burned the atmospheric nitrogen. The oxides
of nitrogen thus generated would have removed the protective layer of
ozone from the atmosphere, increasing the flux of solar ultraviolet
radiation at the surface and frying or mutating the many organisms
imprefectly protected against intense ultraviolet light. Some of these
organisms may have been staples of the dinosaur diet."

Just an alternative to the meteor-theory.
 
> Well, it is rather simple to remap the data, so humans would probably
> remap it around sol anyway. The same goes for star names, they might exist
> in several languages ("Arcturus; Nice-Orange-Shadowcaster; Ghtttt-99). 

Okay. The only other problem with using Sol as the center is that
I'm then pretty much locking myself into using either a lightyear
or a parsec as the standard unit of distance. With a lightyear,
the map tends to look too vacant, and with a parsec, it looks
too full. I think I'll go with a light year, though, and just
deal with it. No biggie.
 
> How much contact does different races have with each other?

Well, I haven't written anything down on the topic just yet. I guess
it would depend on the race. I imagine there might be areas of the
races freely comingle (a sort of neutral or free-enterprise zone)
and other places which are considered to be more of less sacred to
a specific species.
 
> How large do you want to make the ships?

This is a good question, and I've been putting it off. On the
one hand, with fusion power comes cheap energy, which means that
production is increased by alot, and you can start thinking about
building these million ton behemoths... and in a way, I kind of
like that. On the other hand, I also like use reality as a basis
whenever possible, and currently, the best basis I can see is
using "flying saucers" as the example. I've already written some
background concerning them, and I'm basically going to assume
for purposes of the game-fiction that they're real. What this
means if that you've got ships in the 100-ton range, assuming
these are interstellar vessels and not simply shuttlecraft.
Then again, this may be the whole difference between one-way
and two-way vessels. Stick a powerplant Triton and you can
have one-way ships traveling back and forth. The two-way
ships, which you don't see very often, might be humongous.
Just some ideas.

> How much long-range travel are there?

I'd imagine there's lots of trade and postal work (just as in
Traveller). Are you looking for a range on the surf-drives?
 
> What do races trade with each other?

This would come down to economics. What does it cost to
ship a kilogram X number of lightyears? Is it economical
to ship food, and can you realisitically only transport
luxury items? I'll try to get some work done on this.
Lots of aspects to this whole thing.
 
I got a bit of work done this weekend (mainly on some
background fiction). It may be a few weeks yet before
I've got anything presentable.

jimv@cs.ucr.edu


Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 20:40:20 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Anders Sandberg <nv91-asa@nada.kth.se>
To: james vassilakos <jimv@cs.UCR.edu>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG

On Mon, 19 Jun 1995, james vassilakos wrote:
> Yeah, but I'm still concerned about where the various races are going
> to acquire esoteric matter from, and how they're going to store it
> and refine it. I mean, if we're talking about heinously dense matter,
> this could be a problem.

Actually, we don't have to deal with this if we assume that the 
polarizer units employ some unknown principle of quantum gravity to 
cause the polarization; the negative energy fields would be created when 
needed, and there is no real need for esoteric matter.

> Traveller solved this by calling upon "Lanthanum", but that doesn't
> seem quite "exotic" enough for our purposes.

Well, it is a rare earth metal, but not that exciting. 

Here is an idea I got in a dream tonight: super-heavy elements. 
According to some theories, the element directly below Lead in the
periodic system would be more or less stable (at least it wouldn't
desintegrate within microseconds). Maybe it is really stable, but it is
so heavy that some new bizarre quantum effects come into play. For
example, the nuclei would form a lattice where nucleons can flow almost
like in a superconductor (and it might be a normal superconductor too). 
Combine this with a lot of energy and a complex electromagnetic field,
add some technobabble and we have a hyperdrive! 

The superheavy element would of course be created in minute amounts in 
supernovae, but it might be so heavy it only accumulates inside the 
cores of stars and planets, making it very hard to find. 

> > Here is an idea: esoteric matter may exist, but is on the "no-no" list of 
> > the Galactics. Actually, the inner workings of vacuum polarization might 
> > be so advanced, that it cannot be extended by most civilizations. I got 
> > this idea while reading about quantum gravity: the best theory could be so 
> > utterly complex or alien that no human could ever imagine it. Maybe most 
> > races are able to use a few "safe" results or recipes which has trickled 
> > down from the Galactics or are easy to discover, but cannot use the full 
> > theory. 
> 
> So what you're saying here, if I read you correctly, is that the Galactics
> "mine" it and sell it to the minor races in return for whatever... their
> undying love and allegiance. I dunno. This may be giving the Galactics
> too much power. Bears some thought, though.

Maybe the Galactics run a franchise operation? 

> > Hmm, what could we call them? The Powers? (a bit too much like Vinge, I
> > think) Them? (Makes them more mysterious). The Great Ones? The Eight Races?
> 
> The Big Hairy Phumphs! :-)
> 
> "You're looking very phoomphy today, gentlebeing."
> 
> "Gee... thank you."

"Have I ever told you that you humans look so beautiful when you explode?"

> > * Solar power (might work especially well inside a solar system when driving
> > FTL)
> 
> Maybe just a personal prejudice, but solar always seemed sort of weak
> to me. I mean, the amount of power it generates isn't all that much
> compared to other forms.

It probably won't do for powering up the drive, but a large solar 
receiver can proved a lot of energy, especially at FTL. It is probably 
used a lot for in-system crafts.

> > * Microwave antennas (space stations or planets beam a microwave beam at the
> > antenna, powering the ship. This could perhaps be scaled up into the
> > visible light or even UV range). 
> 
> Right. And hope you don't incinerate the ship in the process.

Makes for a wonderful source of "accidents". 

> > * Matter-Antimatter reactions (requires antimatter, which is very expensive
> > and hard to come by. Probably in the realm of very powerful civilizations,
> > most races only dream of it). 
> 
> Well, if you can manufacture it and contain it, then you're in business.
> As it happens, we can do both at the present technology (just not in
> very high quantities).

To make it at an industrial scale, you need *lots* of energy.

Some news: according to what I have read, the spiral arms are not denser 
than the rest of the galaxy, just much brighter. They contain lots of 
young, bright stars, and seems to be a kind of slow-moving waves of 
stellar formation. The bright stars will quickly run out of fuel and 
explode, leaving the dimmer stars behind.

This opens up some possibilities for the spiral arm civilizations: they
use bright stars as energy sources for their mega-engineering, antimatter
production and superelement mining. They also have to deal with the
occasional supernova and stellar burp. The areas outside the arms have 
much less potential, and generally plod along in a low-energy society 
trading with the arm-civilizations and each other. And the Galactics 
reside in the core (it is said), where the energy is most concentrated.

Power = Wealth = Energy

> > How much contact does different races have with each other?
> 
> Well, I haven't written anything down on the topic just yet. I guess
> it would depend on the race. I imagine there might be areas of the
> races freely comingle (a sort of neutral or free-enterprise zone)
> and other places which are considered to be more of less sacred to
> a specific species.

Hmm, trading routes might form long chains of interacting civilizations 
(a bit like the Silk Route on Earth), while large areas are more or less 
empty. Since exploration requires a 2-way ship, only young, adventurous 
or wealthy civilizations explore their surroundings very much, the rest 
are quite content to be in the network. 

Territorial demands may vary a bit between different groups; some want to
have the exclusive right to all stars within a certain volume (hard to do
unless they have bases everywhere, since a ship in FTL is very hard to
detect over interstellar distances), others just the systems they inhabit
or even just the planets/asteroids they use. Large regions may be
commons, never used by anybody and probably unimportant (but sometimes
they contain unexpected treasures, such as uncatalogued habitable planets
or new races). 

> > How large do you want to make the ships?
> 
> This is a good question, and I've been putting it off. On the
> one hand, with fusion power comes cheap energy, which means that
> production is increased by alot, and you can start thinking about
> building these million ton behemoths... and in a way, I kind of
> like that. On the other hand, I also like use reality as a basis
> whenever possible, and currently, the best basis I can see is
> using "flying saucers" as the example. I've already written some
> background concerning them, and I'm basically going to assume
> for purposes of the game-fiction that they're real. What this
> means if that you've got ships in the 100-ton range, assuming
> these are interstellar vessels and not simply shuttlecraft.
> Then again, this may be the whole difference between one-way
> and two-way vessels. Stick a powerplant Triton and you can
> have one-way ships traveling back and forth. The two-way
> ships, which you don't see very often, might be humongous.
> Just some ideas.

Maybe the flying saucers are just smaller scouts carried by a bigger 
mothership? They are probably from a very advanced civilization using 
extremely compact energy sources (like antimatter) to make them small 
and efficient. Do they belong to the race which gave mankind the secret 
of the drive, or where they someone else? Maybe one fairly wealthy 
civilization had found Earth, and was exploring it before deciding what 
to do. 

I like the idea of making the ships huge, heavy and expensive, so that 
they will be sufficiently rare to be noticeable. A bit like in 2300AD. 
I'll try to see what I can invent out of the system and the energy 
demands of the Surf-drive.

> > How much long-range travel are there?
> 
> I'd imagine there's lots of trade and postal work (just as in
> Traveller). Are you looking for a range on the surf-drives?

I think the range depends on how fast the fields dissipate, which depends
on technology and amount of energy used. They have no real range limit,
although longer ranges are uneconomic except for 2-way ships. 

> > What do races trade with each other?
> 
> This would come down to economics. What does it cost to
> ship a kilogram X number of lightyears? Is it economical
> to ship food, and can you realisitically only transport
> luxury items? I'll try to get some work done on this.
> Lots of aspects to this whole thing.

Yes, its quite fun to build a world. Since the energy needs of the drive 
seems to be independent of the mass of the ship, but increase with 
larger sizes, I think dense cargoes are more economic, but if you accept 
slow travel the ships could be *immense*. 

Some items to trade: 

Antimatter and other dense energy sources
Advanced technology
Services 
Information
Animals/Plants/Minerals
Rare substances like superelments

And of course many very special objects - the Gools would want spices, 
the Y343 dead bodies of various species, and so on. 

> I got a bit of work done this weekend (mainly on some
> background fiction). It may be a few weeks yet before
> I've got anything presentable.

I'm writing up the Mothers (when I get the time, my current summer-job 
is rather demanding), but their culture is very complex. In the 
meantime, you might want to look at this minor race:

The Hidden Ones

The Hidden Ones are one of the most enigmatic races encountered 
so far. Nobody has ever seen their bodies, or even got close to them. 
They are apparently both xenophobic and territorial, and refuse to 
communicate with anybody else. Despite this they have colonies on 
many planets, distributed over a huge volume of space. The race 
seems to have been active in this region of space at least for a 
million years, if not more. At the same time their behavior and 
technology seems to be extremely constant over time and space, 
and many experts think they are a totally static race.

The Hidden Ones seems to prefer moons of gas giants before all 
other environments. The colonization process is very regular: A 
huge colonization vessel appears among them, splits into a number 
of irregular pieces which land (or rather crash) on the larger moons, 
preferably moons with plenty of ice, ammonia, methane or other 
volatiles. From the fragment something grows across the surface 
under a period of several years, until it reaches a diameter of 
several hundred kilometers. The growth is khaki colored, and 
usually textured in subtle ways, different on every moon. 
Apparently it is some form of artificial plant, able to absorb 
infrared radiation and possibly microwave emissions from the giant 
planet. It is believed that the Hidden Ones live beneath the growth, 
which may stretch several kilometers into the moon.

Once the beings have begun colonizing around a planet, that planet 
and its moons are off-limits to anybody else. The hidden ones 
seems to regard any intrusion as an attack, and retaliate 
immediately using weapons hidden among the moons. They don9t 
give any warning, just a swift and deadly attack. On the other hand, 
as long as they are left alone they don9t care the least about what is 
going on in the rest of the system. 

Their behavior have in the past led to many confrontations with 
other races, sometimes with tragic consequences. If attacked in 
force, the hidden ones defend their moons ferociously, and if all is 
lost blow up the growths and their installations using powerful 
thermonuclear charges. There are no known records of anybody 
being able to capture a ship or habitat alive. If the attackers 
withdraw, the hidden ones destroy any installations left by the 
attackers and begin to repair the damage. There are no vengeance 
actions, no attempts to communicate. Most civilizations leave the 
hidden ones alone, they don9t seem interested in colonizing any 
system used by other beings, and they are silent but apparently 
predictable neighbors. Attacking them is costly and never seems to 
lead anywhere. 

There is no known communication between the various planets 
colonized by the hidden ones. But there seems to be some kind of 
narrow beam laser links between the habitats on the moons, and 
the hidden ones sometime send spaceships between them. These 
ships are covered in something similar to the growths, and their 
shapes are random and irregular. They are not particularly fast, but 
surprisingly sturdy - most of their landings would have been 
catastrophic on larger planets. After striking the surface they 
vanish beneath the growths in a matter of minutes. 

The hidden ones have colonies in many systems scattered over the 
galaxy, apparently without any planning. In some regions there are 
colonies in neighboring solar systems, in other regions there might 
be hundreds or thousands of lightyears between them. They don9t 
seem to have any overall plan in their slow expansion, and most 
races ignore them, since they usually colonize uninhabited systems 
and planets of little use to anybody else. Nobody knows how long 
their colonies last, or their true purpose.

There are many theories about the nature of the hidden ones. Their 
preference for cold moons seems to imply that they might be based 
on a cold biochemistry, like liquid ammonia or methane, but their 
habitats could be much warmer. The intense accelerations during 
their landings seems to imply that they are extremely sturdy 
beings or that their ships are unmanned. It has even been 
suggested that the khaki growths are the hidden ones themselves, 
vast plantlike organisms slowly spreading through the galaxy. Their 
technology seems to involve control of some kind of (possibly 
artificial) lifeforms which are able to grow in the cold environment, 
but nobody has ever managed to sample the khaki growths or their 
ships. Surprisingly for such an ancient race, their technology isn9t 
very advanced, in many areas it seems to be behind many other 
races, and there is no discernible progress. 

One theory says the hidden ones are really some kind of automated 
system which has gone haywire over the eons, perhaps some kind 
of automated defense or terraforming program. Another theory is 
that the hidden ones have a very stable and static society based on 
some unknown goal or philosophy, which absolutely refuses to 
interact with anybody else. A third (slightly more paranoid) theory 
is that the hidden ones are slowly preparing for the day when they 
will use the vast resources locked in their systems to attack all 
other races simultaneously. Nobody knows.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg			 	  	     Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@hemul.nada.kth.se   http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y


From: james vassilakos <jimv>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG
To: nv91-asa@nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 1995 10:29:13 -0700 (PDT)
 
> > Yeah, but I'm still concerned about where the various races are going
> > to acquire esoteric matter from, and how they're going to store it
> > and refine it. I mean, if we're talking about heinously dense matter,
> > this could be a problem.
> 
> Actually, we don't have to deal with this if we assume that the 
> polarizer units employ some unknown principle of quantum gravity to 
> cause the polarization; the negative energy fields would be created when 
> needed, and there is no real need for esoteric matter.

So now you're saying that we don't need esoteric matter.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I need some technical
gobbledy-gook to justify it.
 
> Here is an idea I got in a dream tonight: super-heavy elements. 
> According to some theories, the element directly below Lead in the
> periodic system would be more or less stable (at least it wouldn't
> desintegrate within microseconds). Maybe it is really stable, but it is
> so heavy that some new bizarre quantum effects come into play. For
> example, the nuclei would form a lattice where nucleons can flow almost
> like in a superconductor (and it might be a normal superconductor too). 
> Combine this with a lot of energy and a complex electromagnetic field,
> add some technobabble and we have a hyperdrive! 
> 
> The superheavy element would of course be created in minute amounts in 
> supernovae, but it might be so heavy it only accumulates inside the 
> cores of stars and planets, making it very hard to find. 

Good idea. Races would either have to get very lucky and find it
in asteroid belts, or they'd have to do some planet-busting
(a possible no-no), or they'd have to find some way to manufacture
it with nuclear reactions (not easy).

Here's another thought for you, on a related topic. In the ufo-folklore,
the aliens supposedly use some form of matter as their "power-rods".
This matter decays under certain conditions and releases antimatter
which mututally-cancels with normal matter in the decay-chamber and
releases lots of energy.

Can you think of any way to justify this scheme? In startrek they
came up with "dilithium" in order to channel antiparticles (if
I remember my treknology correctly). I think mirroring some of
this ufo-folklore would be cool because it would provide some
form of "real-world" basis which readers might be able to relate
to. This trick, as always, is in explaining the pseudo-physics
in a semi-believable manner.

> > So what you're saying here, if I read you correctly, is that the Galactics
> > "mine" it and sell it to the minor races in return for whatever... their
> > undying love and allegiance. I dunno. This may be giving the Galactics
> > too much power. Bears some thought, though.
> 
> Maybe the Galactics run a franchise operation? 

The thing is, if they control this material, then they're gonna have lots
of economic leverage. Without a continual influx of this material, the
stellar community would collapse. Actually, though, this does make a
bit of sense. We can suppose that the Galactics are mining this
"super-lead" or whatever from starcores. If a less advanced race from
the local area wants to get it's own super-lead, it can bust some
planets and hope to find some in the core, but the odds are against it,
and planet-busting is highly frowned upon.

What do ya think?

Solar receivers:
> It probably won't do for powering up the drive, but a large solar 
> receiver can proved a lot of energy, especially at FTL. It is probably 
> used a lot for in-system crafts.
Depends on how big the receiver has to be. Whether or not it's
economical to carry one around. What I'm gonna have to do is
come up with power requirements for various systems and then
figure out/guestimate how much a solar receiver could pull in
versus what it costs to have the thing onboard.

Antimatter as a power source:
> > Well, if you can manufacture it and contain it, then you're in business.
> > As it happens, we can do both at the present technology (just not in
> > very high quantities).
> To make it at an industrial scale, you need *lots* of energy.
Well, if you have controlled fusion, and I think this is pretty much
assumed, then you have *lots* of energy.
 
> Some news: according to what I have read, the spiral arms are not denser 
> than the rest of the galaxy, just much brighter. They contain lots of 
> young, bright stars, and seems to be a kind of slow-moving waves of 
> stellar formation. The bright stars will quickly run out of fuel and 
> explode, leaving the dimmer stars behind.
Hmm... this is news. I always assumed the number of stars per cubic
area increased in the arms and core. You're pretty sure on this?
 
> This opens up some possibilities for the spiral arm civilizations: they
> use bright stars as energy sources for their mega-engineering, antimatter
> production and superelement mining. They also have to deal with the
> occasional supernova and stellar burp. The areas outside the arms have 
> much less potential, and generally plod along in a low-energy society 
> trading with the arm-civilizations and each other. And the Galactics 
> reside in the core (it is said), where the energy is most concentrated.
> Power = Wealth = Energy
Sounds good to me. I'll try to get something written up on this.
So much to do. This is gonna be one heck of a project.

> Maybe the flying saucers are just smaller scouts carried by a bigger 
> mothership? They are probably from a very advanced civilization using 
> extremely compact energy sources (like antimatter) to make them small 
> and efficient. Do they belong to the race which gave mankind the secret 
> of the drive, or where they someone else? Maybe one fairly wealthy 
> civilization had found Earth, and was exploring it before deciding what 
> to do. 
This may be going off the deep end, but I'm gonna be potulating that
we accidentally shot down one of their saucers (which was already in
bad shape due to some rather electrifying weather). I'm writing some
background fiction right now to hopefully explain this relationship
in an entertaining and hopefully half-believable way. I'll send you
some of this if you're interested.
 
> > > What do races trade with each other?
> > 
> > This would come down to economics. What does it cost to
> > ship a kilogram X number of lightyears? Is it economical
> > to ship food, and can you realisitically only transport
> > luxury items? I'll try to get some work done on this.
> > Lots of aspects to this whole thing.
> 
> Yes, its quite fun to build a world. Since the energy needs of the drive 
> seems to be independent of the mass of the ship, but increase with 
> larger sizes, I think dense cargoes are more economic, but if you accept 
> slow travel the ships could be *immense*. 

Yeah, that makes sense. Price would be a function of speed. Of course,
really bulky slow ships would be a good target for homeless humans in
need of food and supplies. I imagine we could piss-off quite a few
neutral governments in this way. Likewise, a neutral government might
say, "Go ahead and rob this ship, but don't tell those other aliens
we said it was okay. We want to help you guys, but we can't afford to
*look* like we're helping you guys."  :-)

> The Hidden Ones are one of the most enigmatic races encountered 
> so far. Nobody has ever seen their bodies, or even got close to them. 
> They are apparently both xenophobic and territorial, and refuse to 
> communicate with anybody else. Despite this they have colonies on 
> many planets, distributed over a huge volume of space. The race 
> seems to have been active in this region of space at least for a 
> million years, if not more. At the same time their behavior and 
> technology seems to be extremely constant over time and space, 
> and many experts think they are a totally static race.

The thing here is that this is good as player info, but it would
be useful to also supply some GM info. What is the race really all
about? You provide plenty of options, but it would help the GM to
provide the actual facts, just in case he wants to use the race in
an adventure. Likewise, adventure hooks would also be useful. This
race seems to be interesting as backdrop, however, if there is no
way the PCs can interact with the race, then what's the point?
It's like saying, here's this neat thing, but there nothing you
can do to learn more about it. Players aren't going to like that.
And in a way it seems like sort of a cop-out, because if they
can't poke it here and there, then the GM doesn't really have to
put any work into it to make it consistent with the overall setting.

Anyway, that's my overall criticism of all those "mysterious"
races. In the case of the Galactics (I guess the name seems to
be sticking), we can at least have them interact it terms of
supplying this "super-lead" or whatever through a franchisee
race. Plus, there would naturally be lots of rumors circulating
about them. In that sense, they aren't totally mysterious, and
the players can look forward to perhaps one day meeting one
face to visually-adapted-appendage.

Later...   jimv@cs.ucr.edu


Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 18:50:54 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Anders Sandberg <nv91-asa@nada.kth.se>
To: james vassilakos <jimv@cs.UCR.edu>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG

On Wed, 28 Jun 1995, james vassilakos wrote:
> So now you're saying that we don't need esoteric matter.
> I guess what I'm getting at is that I need some technical
> gobbledy-gook to justify it.

Well, here is a run-down of the drive. I would suggest that you try to
avoid these technical details, but they exist in the background: 

The most important part of the drive is the polarizer units, which are
essentially magnetic bottles holding monocrystaline rods of trans-lead
surrounded by superconducting coils. When the coils are charged, the
resulting magnetic field will initially be repulsed by the rods, but when
it reaches a critical threshold it will force a kind of phase transition
in the trans-lead, where the "superconductivity" of the nuclei are broken
in an asymmetrical way. This leads through little understood quantum
gravity interactions to the formation of a distortion of spacetime, whose 
shape can be modified by aligning the polarizers in various ways. To keep 
the distortions active, the coils have to keep the magnetic fields above 
the threshold, and also compensate for conversion of electromagnetic 
energy into distortion. When the drive is turned off, the magnetic fields 
sink below the threshold strength and the trans-lead reverts to its normal 
superconductive state; the spacetime distortions radiate away as 
gravitational radiation. 

One problem is cooling; there is a lot of energy in here, and it has to 
go somewhere. This is especially true after powering down, the ship has 
to get rid of the remaining energy in the coils without turning it into 
heat (which could fry the ship). One method would be to discharge coils 
into the "recycling units" at space stations, or use them instead of the 
powerplant. Of course, you could just keep them running (they are 
superconductors after all) if you can stand the magnetic fields. The 
trans-lead rods also have to be kept cool enough, maybe by using the 
Peltier effect or superfluid helium. The drives are probably covered with 
cooling fins.

When activated, the fields are either slowly built up which doesn't allow
that much conversion of energy into speed, or created as a shock-wave,
which requires advanced technology and is quite risky, but allows much
greater speeds. Such "shock-drives" also require some kind of huge 
capacitators to keep the energy before discharging.

> > The superheavy element would of course be created in minute amounts in 
> > supernovae, but it might be so heavy it only accumulates inside the 
> > cores of stars and planets, making it very hard to find. 
> 
> Good idea. Races would either have to get very lucky and find it
> in asteroid belts, or they'd have to do some planet-busting
> (a possible no-no), or they'd have to find some way to manufacture
> it with nuclear reactions (not easy).

Blowing up planets require *huge* amounts of energy, so its probably just
possible for the richest races and the Galactics. The rest just dream
about it and mine asteroids or interstellar dust (run a ship equipped with
a ramscoop through the cloud and extract the precious atoms). Or perhaps 
try to scavenge among ruins of extinct races...

> Here's another thought for you, on a related topic. In the ufo-folklore,
> the aliens supposedly use some form of matter as their "power-rods".
> This matter decays under certain conditions and releases antimatter
> which mututally-cancels with normal matter in the decay-chamber and
> releases lots of energy.

Interesting. This sounds almost like some form of stable 
matter-antimatter mixture, a bit like positronium (an electron and a 
positron orbiting each other).

> Can you think of any way to justify this scheme? In startrek they
> came up with "dilithium" in order to channel antiparticles (if
> I remember my treknology correctly). I think mirroring some of
> this ufo-folklore would be cool because it would provide some
> form of "real-world" basis which readers might be able to relate
> to. This trick, as always, is in explaining the pseudo-physics
> in a semi-believable manner.

Maybe the weird nuclear superconductivity of trans-lead could trap
antiparticles in a stable state? But it sounds a bit implausible. A better
explanation would be that trans-lead could be fashioned into magnetic
bottles able to hold antimatter, and these look like rods or crystals. 

> The thing is, if they control this material, then they're gonna have lots
> of economic leverage. Without a continual influx of this material, the
> stellar community would collapse. Actually, though, this does make a
> bit of sense. We can suppose that the Galactics are mining this
> "super-lead" or whatever from starcores. If a less advanced race from
> the local area wants to get it's own super-lead, it can bust some
> planets and hope to find some in the core, but the odds are against it,
> and planet-busting is highly frowned upon.
> 
> What do ya think?

Sounds fine. Of course, the "galactics" around the local area are probably 
from the spiral arms, poor by the real standards of the galaxy, but still 
powerful and rich by local standards. 

Trans-lead could be the another valuable thing to trade; it would 
probably have a few odd uses beside drives. So the galactic economy would 
revolve around trans-lead, energy and information. 

> Solar receivers:
> > It probably won't do for powering up the drive, but a large solar 
> > receiver can proved a lot of energy, especially at FTL. It is probably 
> > used a lot for in-system crafts.
> Depends on how big the receiver has to be. Whether or not it's
> economical to carry one around. What I'm gonna have to do is
> come up with power requirements for various systems and then
> figure out/guestimate how much a solar receiver could pull in
> versus what it costs to have the thing onboard.

Good. Then we can start designing things for real. 

> Antimatter as a power source:
> > > Well, if you can manufacture it and contain it, then you're in business.
> > > As it happens, we can do both at the present technology (just not in
> > > very high quantities).
> > To make it at an industrial scale, you need *lots* of energy.
> Well, if you have controlled fusion, and I think this is pretty much
> assumed, then you have *lots* of energy.

No, just plenty of energy, not *lots* of it. 

Here is a thought: the Galactics are Kardaschev II civilizations, they
control the energies of entire solar systems. All civilizations around
earth are just level I, they control their planets and some minor orbital
installations. Earth right now is level 0. 

> > Some news: according to what I have read, the spiral arms are not denser 
> > than the rest of the galaxy, just much brighter. They contain lots of 
> > young, bright stars, and seems to be a kind of slow-moving waves of 
> > stellar formation. The bright stars will quickly run out of fuel and 
> > explode, leaving the dimmer stars behind.
> Hmm... this is news. I always assumed the number of stars per cubic
> area increased in the arms and core. You're pretty sure on this?

I think so. I'll look it up.

> Sounds good to me. I'll try to get something written up on this.
> So much to do. This is gonna be one heck of a project.

Yes, it seems to be growing in all directions. Before you know, you have 
written a trilogy. :-)

> This may be going off the deep end, but I'm gonna be potulating that
> we accidentally shot down one of their saucers (which was already in
> bad shape due to some rather electrifying weather). I'm writing some
> background fiction right now to hopefully explain this relationship
> in an entertaining and hopefully half-believable way. I'll send you
> some of this if you're interested.

Yes, I would be delighted!

> Yeah, that makes sense. Price would be a function of speed. Of course,
> really bulky slow ships would be a good target for homeless humans in
> need of food and supplies. I imagine we could piss-off quite a few
> neutral governments in this way. Likewise, a neutral government might
> say, "Go ahead and rob this ship, but don't tell those other aliens
> we said it was okay. We want to help you guys, but we can't afford to
> *look* like we're helping you guys."  :-)

Nice! I really like it!

> > The Hidden Ones are one of the most enigmatic races encountered 
> > so far. Nobody has ever seen their bodies, or even got close to them. 
> > They are apparently both xenophobic and territorial, and refuse to 
> > communicate with anybody else. Despite this they have colonies on 
> > many planets, distributed over a huge volume of space. The race 
> > seems to have been active in this region of space at least for a 
> > million years, if not more. At the same time their behavior and 
> > technology seems to be extremely constant over time and space, 
> > and many experts think they are a totally static race.
> 
> The thing here is that this is good as player info, but it would
> be useful to also supply some GM info. What is the race really all
> about? You provide plenty of options, but it would help the GM to
> provide the actual facts, just in case he wants to use the race in
> an adventure. Likewise, adventure hooks would also be useful. This
> race seems to be interesting as backdrop, however, if there is no
> way the PCs can interact with the race, then what's the point?

I intended them as an near-impenetrable enigma, something even the 
"advanced" civilizations the players will meet scratch their heads (or 
whatever) over. While I want clear descriptions of most races and 
backgrounds, a few openings are often very useful. A creative GM can use 
them for a lot of things, and they show that not everything is known. 
Just defining them would make them an injustice.

But I think I can provide some more information, especially adventure 
hooks. For example, suppose the players are in desperate need for more 
hydrogen. There is a nearby gas giant, but it belongs to the Hidden Ones 
- somehow they have to elude them and get the hydrogen. 

> It's like saying, here's this neat thing, but there nothing you
> can do to learn more about it. Players aren't going to like that.
> And in a way it seems like sort of a cop-out, because if they
> can't poke it here and there, then the GM doesn't really have to
> put any work into it to make it consistent with the overall setting.

Yes, I think the players should be allowed to poke at the Hidden Ones, 
its just that they will bite back with force. When we get a bit more hard 
data on ships, technology, etc, we could define their capabilities.

> Anyway, that's my overall criticism of all those "mysterious"
> races. In the case of the Galactics (I guess the name seems to
> be sticking), we can at least have them interact it terms of
> supplying this "super-lead" or whatever through a franchisee
> race. Plus, there would naturally be lots of rumors circulating
> about them. In that sense, they aren't totally mysterious, and
> the players can look forward to perhaps one day meeting one
> face to visually-adapted-appendage.

Exactly. I think most of the races we have discussed are quite mysterious
to humans, but some are obviously stranger or more inaccessible than
others. A race should not be mysterious because we just don't care enough
to develop it further, explaining away things with "Well, they are
mysterious and just do things like that for no apparent reason", but
because it is truly alien.  Most weird things have an explanation,
although it is often just as strange. Just wait till you see the Orbs, who
were designed as ceremonial computers (!) by an extinct race, or another
recent idea of mine, a race of rolling, social predators. I'll send them 
to you (together with the Mothers) when they are finished.

Have fun!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg			 	  	     Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@hemul.nada.kth.se   http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y


From: james vassilakos <jimv>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG
To: nv91-asa@nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 1 Jul 1995 09:08:46 -0700 (PDT)

Fantastic physics/gobbledygook in that last email. You succeeding in
making my head spin, and that's basically what I was looking for. :-)

UFO Folklore & Contained Antimatter:
>> This matter decays under certain conditions and releases antimatter
>> which mututally-cancels with normal matter in the decay-chamber and
>> releases lots of energy.
>Interesting. This sounds almost like some form of stable 
>matter-antimatter mixture, a bit like positronium (an electron and a 
>positron orbiting each other).
>Maybe the weird nuclear superconductivity of trans-lead could trap
>antiparticles in a stable state? But it sounds a bit implausible. A better
>explanation would be that trans-lead could be fashioned into magnetic
>bottles able to hold antimatter, and these look like rods or crystals. 

Well, I think we can have it be used for warping space-time as per
your first example and then perhaps use some other material (positronium)
as a highly advanced powersource. Whichever the case, the economics of
the whole situation have to be plausible.

Antimatter as a power source:
>> Well, if you have controlled fusion, and I think this is pretty much
>> assumed, then you have *lots* of energy.
>No, just plenty of energy, not *lots* of it. 

I guess I'm not too cognizant of the difference. I imagine that fusion
converts something like half a percent of its reaction mass into
energy (correct me if I'm way off base... I'm thinking of dueterium
fusion here... never ran the equation for other forms). That means
that you need 200 grams of readily available reaction mass to get
the same "pow" as one anti-gram. Depending on the efficiency of
manufacturing antimatter, it seems like it shouldn't be too costly
once you have the basic process worked out. After all, all it'll
cost you is a little bit of deuterium or whatever. I mean a little
bit in terms of your supply (an ocean or a gas giant should have
an unlimited supply by these assumptions).

# of stars per volume of space same in core, arms, and local area:
>I think so. I'll look it up.

Let me know if you still come back with the same answer. This
hurts the great Sahara of Space idea.

Background Fiction & Flying Saucers:
>> This may be going off the deep end, but I'm gonna be potulating that
>> we accidentally shot down one of their saucers (which was already in
>> bad shape due to some rather electrifying weather). I'm writing some
>> background fiction right now to hopefully explain this relationship
>> in an entertaining and hopefully half-believable way. I'll send you
>> some of this if you're interested.
>Yes, I would be delighted!

Okay... here's the intro piece. I'll be sending some more stuff
once I get the rest of these re-edited. I'm gonna try to proceed
with the story-line all the way to the initial date of the
game setting (still haven't stuck a date on it yet). Comments
are most welcome, of course.


                       01-July-1947 at 8pm
                    United States, New Mexico


"Unidentified craft bearing northwest. You are in restricted
airspace. I repeat, you are in restricted... holy shit!"

Captain Mark Hayes banked left as fast as he could, trying madly
to avoid the distant speck which suddenly grew to fill his entire
cockpit window and then darted away, all in a matter of seconds.

"Holloman Control. Holloman, this is Panther. Do you read me?
Over!"

"Panther... we do not show unidentified craft on radar. You are
the only one up there. Over."

"The hell I am!" Hayes shook his head and he angled his fighter
upward to follow the strange speck, its silvery sheen nearly lost
in the dim evening light. "Climbing to forty thousand. I'm
telling you, he's right in front of me. And he's fast!"

"Captain, have you been drinking?"

Hayes blinked at the sound of the Colonel's voice. Just his luck
that Mitchell would be in the tower. "No sir. He's not showing on
my radar either, but he's right there, sir. I'm staring right at
him."

Some eight miles below, Colonel Mitchell took a deep breath,
rubbing his nose as he watched the single blue dot blink on and
off with each sweep of the array. Thunderclouds had been moving
in, making the radar contact somewhat touch and go, but that
didn't explain why he could see Mark's fighter perfectly well and
yet this other craft was as good as invisible.

"Terry, get me White Sands."

"Yes sir."

Mitchell chewed his lip until the sergeant came back with a phone
hanging by one hand and a receiver by the other.

"This is Colonel Mitchell at Holloman? Who am I speaking to?"

"Major Chase. What can I do for you, Colonel?"

"Are you folks running tests over my property?"

"Uh... no sir, we aren't running any tests today."

"No rockets flying."

"No rockets, sir. No nothing. Why?"

"Never mind," Mitchell let the receiver drop back into its
carriage. He didn't have time for a long explanation. There was
only one thing this bird could be. Russian.

"Panther, can you hear me?"

"Yes sir, I read you loud and clear. Over."

"Has the unidentified craft responded to radio?"

"No sir. He just slowed down and he's hanging right in front of
me."

"Does it look like one of ours?"

"No sir. He doesn't even look like a plane."

Mitchell took another deep breath, hoping like hell he was about
to make the right call. "Okay, Captain. I'm directing you to
unload."

"Sir?"

"You heard me. Fire everything you've got."

"Yes sir."


Date: Wed, 5 Jul 1995 17:01:11 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Anders Sandberg <nv91-asa@nada.kth.se>
To: james vassilakos <jimv@cs.UCR.edu>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG

On Sat, 1 Jul 1995, james vassilakos wrote:
> Fantastic physics/gobbledygook in that last email. You succeeding in
> making my head spin, and that's basically what I was looking for. :-)

Maybe I should write together a manual or essay for lay-men (i.e. 
players) about how the drive works? 

> Well, I think we can have it be used for warping space-time as per
> your first example and then perhaps use some other material (positronium)
> as a highly advanced powersource. Whichever the case, the economics of
> the whole situation have to be plausible.

Yes, that is important. Positronium is probably not a good idea, it is 
too unstable and low-density. What we would like is some way to either 
store antimatter safely (maybe suspended in intense magnetic fields) or 
keep it stable (perhaps inside a crystal lattice, I think I have read 
somewhere that antihydrogen could in theory be kept inside a hydrogen 
lattice somehow).

> Antimatter as a power source:
> >> Well, if you have controlled fusion, and I think this is pretty much
> >> assumed, then you have *lots* of energy.
> >No, just plenty of energy, not *lots* of it. 
> 
> I guess I'm not too cognizant of the difference. I imagine that fusion
> converts something like half a percent of its reaction mass into
> energy (correct me if I'm way off base... I'm thinking of dueterium
> fusion here... never ran the equation for other forms). That means
> that you need 200 grams of readily available reaction mass to get
> the same "pow" as one anti-gram. Depending on the efficiency of
> manufacturing antimatter, it seems like it shouldn't be too costly
> once you have the basic process worked out. After all, all it'll
> cost you is a little bit of deuterium or whatever. I mean a little
> bit in terms of your supply (an ocean or a gas giant should have
> an unlimited supply by these assumptions).

The problem is that creating antimatter is probably not very
energy-efficient (today we use huge particle accelerators to create
minuscule amounts). So you may have to spend (say) a 1000 times the amount
of the energy stored in antimatter to create it. Its rather heavy,
especially if you use fusion (you will need *huge* plants to create
siezeable amounts of antimatter, and a lot of deuterium). In this case
solar collectors could become useful; create thousands or millions of
solar collectors orbiting the sun, gathering energy and converting it into
antimatter. 

As I see it, antimatter is perfect for powering starships and anything 
that requires a lot of energy, but very inefficient for anything else.

> # of stars per volume of space same in core, arms, and local area:
> >I think so. I'll look it up.
> 
> Let me know if you still come back with the same answer. This
> hurts the great Sahara of Space idea.

Actually, we might still get this due to energy shortages. Maybe many 
civilizations move to the arms where everything happens, leaving the rest 
of the galaxy rural or semi-deserted. Something I have wondered over is 
where all old races go... 

> Okay... here's the intro piece. I'll be sending some more stuff
> once I get the rest of these re-edited. I'm gonna try to proceed
> with the story-line all the way to the initial date of the
> game setting (still haven't stuck a date on it yet). Comments
> are most welcome, of course.

Interesting piece, it really have the feeling of an UFO documentary. 
Quite impressive!

> "Panther... we do not show unidentified craft on radar. You are
> the only one up there. Over."

This implies quite good stealth technology. By the way, what kind of 
propulsion do the aliens use in an atmosphere? 

I'm finishing the Mothers, the Orbs and starting on a third race, the
Rollers (we might have to get better names for them later). The Rollers
might be a good candidate species for initial contact, they are extremely
curious, have an odd tendency to be both cruel and benign depending on
circumstances (which fits with many UFO accounts) and they are not
*completely* alien (just very weird; imagine packs of ball-shaped
predators rolling over their prey, whistling excitedly). 

Have fun!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg			 	  	     Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@hemul.nada.kth.se   http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y


From: james vassilakos <jimv>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG
To: nv91-asa@nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 1995 21:39:20 -0700 (PDT)
 
> > Fantastic physics/gobbledygook in that last email. You succeeding in
> > making my head spin, and that's basically what I was looking for. :-)
> 
> Maybe I should write together a manual or essay for lay-men (i.e. 
> players) about how the drive works? 

Go for it. You can even quote parts of Mr. A's paper.
 
> > Well, I think we can have it be used for warping space-time as per
> > your first example and then perhaps use some other material (positronium)
> > as a highly advanced powersource. Whichever the case, the economics of
> > the whole situation have to be plausible.
> 
> Yes, that is important. Positronium is probably not a good idea, it is 
> too unstable and low-density. What we would like is some way to either 
> store antimatter safely (maybe suspended in intense magnetic fields) or 
> keep it stable (perhaps inside a crystal lattice, I think I have read 
> somewhere that antihydrogen could in theory be kept inside a hydrogen 
> lattice somehow).

Dang... where do you read this stuff? I got start subscribing the same
magazines you get.

> As I see it, antimatter is perfect for powering starships and anything 
> that requires a lot of energy, but very inefficient for anything else.

Unless, of course, you somehow manage the up the efficiency of the
process. However, even if it is inefficient, you still end up with all
sorts of "waste" energy which you can try to capture and redirect.
For example, an antimatter production facility which happens to double
as the planetary powerplant.
 
> > Okay... here's the intro piece. I'll be sending some more stuff
> > once I get the rest of these re-edited. I'm gonna try to proceed
> > with the story-line all the way to the initial date of the
> > game setting (still haven't stuck a date on it yet). Comments
> > are most welcome, of course.
> 
> Interesting piece, it really have the feeling of an UFO documentary. 
> Quite impressive!
> 
> > "Panther... we do not show unidentified craft on radar. You are
> > the only one up there. Over."
> 
> This implies quite good stealth technology. By the way, what kind of 
> propulsion do the aliens use in an atmosphere? 

I was thinking of powerful antigravity, but if you have other ideas...

Here's the next chapter, BTW.


                           The Witness


"You mean... you actually saw one? First hand?"

The old man shrugged like it was no big deal, then bent over and
balanced the pool queue between two hairy knuckles. Two seconds
later there was one less ball on the table. I took another sip of
my beer, wondering if I needed to get my hearing checked.

"You're joking, right?"

"No. No joke."

He had a tired dullness about his eyes, like he actually didn't
give a fart what I thought. I decided then and there that he was
either perfectly crazy or one of the greatest liars I had ever
met. Perhaps both.

"C'mon, what happened? I mean... how did you..."

"See an alien?" He glanced toward me to take stock of my
expression, then lined-up his next shot with the calm ease of a
man who knows he's got plenty of time. "Not much to tell, really.
Besides... it was awhile back."

"When?"

He took his shot, sunk it with ease. The game was ending up
pretty lopsided.

"Summer before last. Oh... about thirty miles north." He nodded
toward one of the walls, like he knew which way north was without
even having to think about it. "All I can say is that it was,
without a doubt, the weirdest day of my life." He circled the
table toward his next shot, glancing up at me as he lined-up for
the kill. "Eight ball, corner pocket."

I nodded, and five seconds later the game was done.

"You want to play again?" He looked up.

"How about we sit down and you tell me this story."

He made a weary expression. "What's the point? You're not gonna
believe me anyway."

I laughed, "Sure I will. I'll buy you a beer, okay? What'd you
say your name was?"

"Hank," he shrugged, finding his way to the closest table. When I
finally brought him a bottle and he'd had a chance to down a
sizable gulp, he wiped his whiskers with the back of his sleeve
and stared at me, as though the story he had in mind was one he
had a hard time telling.

"You sure you want to hear this?"

"Absolutely."

"I don't want you to call me a liar."

"I'm not going to call you a liar."

"I don't care if you think it. I just don't like being called it.
You understand?"

I nodded. He sighed.

"What happened... it was like something out of one of those old
H.G. Wells novels. It was so unbelievable, so weird, that
nobody... and I mean nobody... has ever believed me." He took
another gulp, setting the bottle down a moment later. "You know
at night... sometimes you can hear a chopper around here... going
up and down the canyon? The night before it happened... actually,
I guess it was the morning... there must have been a dozen of
those things right in the area around my trailer. I mean, they
were buzzing around like crazy, big searchlights blazing down,
and if that ain't weird enough, this is in the middle of a
thunderstorm, okay? I thought there was some fugitive running
around outside. You know?"

I nodded, not really knowing what to say.

"It must have been around four in the morning. My dog, Harley...
he was going nuts. He'd must've figured we were under attack or
something, cause he kept running outside and barking up at the
sky and then running 'round and 'round. I went out to drag him
back inside, but I figure he got spooked or something, 'cause he
went hightailing it into the stream bed which runs by my place.
It goes right down into the canyon and branches off all over the
place, and when it rains, which ain't too often, it's a mess. A
big muddy mess. Harley would go down there all the time, but he
was so spooked, I didn't like the idea of him racing off with
some weirdo out there. I know it was dumb for me to do. I
probably should've just stayed home, but the rain was pretty much
dying down, so I grabbed my shotgun and went out to have a look."

"Yeah?"

Hank took another long sip from the bottle, wiping his lips
again. "So there I was, out in the middle of the canyon soaking
wet, screaming for my dog, right? And I hear the son-of-a-bitch
barking, and it sounds like he's... oh... I dunno... maybe a
quarter mile or so. By this time, the sun is starting to come up
a little. Not to where you can see it, but where there's just
some blue off in the east. So I hike through the brush up this
hill, just basically making a beeline for the noise, when I see
this long piece of metal on the ground."

He made a motion with his hands to indicate the size.

"It was about three feet, I suppose, but only about an two inches
thin. You know? And I look around, and there's a whole bunch of
these things, and when I finally get to the top of the hill, I
can see this big metal... I mean... what else can I call it? It
was a flying saucer, all smashed up against the rocks down toward
the other side. I shit you not. I mean, at first, yeah... I
wasn't sure what it was, really. But when I saw the two
little..."

"Aliens?"

"Exactly. There were two of 'em. They were huddled against the
saucer, or really what was left of it, and I as I got closer, I
could see that Harley was just ready to go to town on these guys.
I mean, he was one very upset dog. He didn't know what these
things were, but he sure as hell didn't like 'em. Y'know?"

"So what happened?"

"Well, one of 'em was hurt. I could see that by the way he was
bending over holding his side, and I figured I might have gotten
there too late. So I called Harley over. I had to hike halfway
down the hill before he'd listen to me. The two aliens... they
were watching me, just staring at me."

"What did they look like?"

"Grey skin... eyes like a cat's but darker. At the time, though,
it was hard to see much of anything. It was still real dark. I
could tell they were kinda small. For a minute I thought they
might be Japanese or something. I didn't like that very much. I
mean, we just got done kicking their ass in the Pacific. What the
hell were they doing in New Mexico? But I had my shotgun,
remember, and as I got a little closer, I could see their faces,
even though the light was dim, and I could tell these guys were
definitely not human."

He took another sip from his bottle, then set it back on the
table. For a moment, I thought the story was over. It was sort of
a let down, to be honest. My girlfriend works for the Times in
Santa Fe, and it sounded to me like a story she might be willing
to cover, but without any sort of evidence save for this man's
word and no other witnesses...

"Did you get any other witnesses?"

He made a gloomy face, shaking his head. "What I did, in
retrospect, was about the dumbest thing I could have done."

"Which was?"

"I took Harley back to the trailer and locked him in. Believe me,
it was a struggle every step of the way, but I couldn't very well
try talking to these guys with him barking like crazy. Then I
went to the market and called the police on a pay phone. Told
them what I found. By the time I returned to the saucer, the sun
was up, and there were some people there... mainly young
people... about ten or so."

"Then there are other witnesses. Did you get their names?"

"Names?" He shook his head like it was a stupid question.
"Listen, we weren't exactly exchanging pleasantries, you
understand? I know I should have, but with everything happening
so fast..."

"What were they doing?"

He shook his head, this time glumly. "By the time I made it back,
that one feller who'd been hurt was dead. The other one was just
sitting there in a state of shock while these kids were trying to
talk to him."

"I don't suppose it spoke English," I winced.

"They were even trying Spanish, but nothing was working. I got
there just a few minutes before some MPs showed up. They took the
alien into protective custody... their term, not mine... and then
they stuck us all in a couple jeeps and drove us up to Holloman.
We got yakked at for a couple hours, basically a stern warning
not to say nothin' to nobody or else."

"Or else what?"

"Or else nothing. How the heck should I know? Look, they were all
acting like a bunch of headless hens. They didn't have any idea
what they were gonna do, but they sure as hell didn't want a
thousand reporters descending from every city in the nation. They
basically told us all to just pretend it never happened."

"Pretend it never happened?"

"For the sake of national security," he shrugged. "They kept
saying that over and over again. Let our elected leaders figure
out what to do. Until then, this is classified. Yada yada yada.
You get the gist."

I smiled, scarcely able to believe a shred of what I'd heard. "So
how many people have you told?"

"Lots. Hell, I wasn't gonna listen to that bunk. I even went back
there that same day. They had a bunch of dump trucks out there in
the canyon, and there were choppers flying around, and I pretty
much figured they were cleaning up the whole place. Some more MPs
stopped me and turned me around. Said that a plane had crashed. A
plane, for Christ's sake. Anyway, that was pretty much the end of
it."

"Nobody got any pictures?"

"Not that I know of."

"No evidence whatsoever."

He shrugged, "I had some evidence, but my place was broken into
about a year back. They ransacked it. Y'know?"

"What did they take?"

"One of those metal shards, you remember?" He motioned with his
hands again. "I was showing it to all my friends, but I don't
have it no more."

I sighed, "That's too bad. My girlfriend... you remember how I
was telling you she's a reporter?"

"Oh... newspapers won't touch this. Don't you think I've tried?"

"She might, but not without hard evidence."

"Even with evidence, somebody will come out and say it's some new
material the military is working on and confiscate it. That
happened with another shard I had. That was before the break-in,
by the way."

I stared at him, eyes narrowing, "How many shards did you take?"

"A couple. That was the one and only smart thing I did that whole
morning."

"And they're all gone?"

"Well... you sure you can get this in the papers?"

Based on a hunk of metal, no I wasn't, but I wasn't about to tell
him that.

"Sure. This could make front page. But I've got to see the
evidence first, just so I know you're not pulling my leg."

I ended up following Hank out to his trailer and helped him dig
up what he said was the last remaining shard. It looked to me
more like a long piece of silver colored glass than anything
else, but it was very thin, about the width of aluminum foil, and
very light, like picking up a piece of plastic. Hank's dog came
out and growled at me for a little while as he leaned the shard
against the mounting lock on his trailer and handed me a crowbar,
"Now whack the hell out of it. Don't worry. You can't break it."
And he was right. It was tough as hell. I shook my head,
wondering what it could possibly be made of.

"Now, when you leave, I'm gonna bury this somewhere else, so
don't you bother trying to sneak back out here and dig it up,
because if you do, I'll shoot you full of holes, and don't think
I won't."

"Don't worry. When I come back out here, I'll bring my girlfriend
and another witness. If there's anything that'll make people
believe your story, it'll be this thing."

jimv@cs.ucr.edu


Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 18:51:00 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Anders Sandberg <nv91-asa@nada.kth.se>
To: james vassilakos <jimv@cs.UCR.edu>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG

On Thu, 6 Jul 1995, james vassilakos wrote:
> > Maybe I should write together a manual or essay for lay-men (i.e. 
> > players) about how the drive works? 
> 
> Go for it. You can even quote parts of Mr. A's paper.

I'll see what I can do, but I have very little free time right now (as 
you may have noticed from my slowness in producing anything).

> > Yes, that is important. Positronium is probably not a good idea, it is 
> > too unstable and low-density. What we would like is some way to either 
> > store antimatter safely (maybe suspended in intense magnetic fields) or 
> > keep it stable (perhaps inside a crystal lattice, I think I have read 
> > somewhere that antihydrogen could in theory be kept inside a hydrogen 
> > lattice somehow).
> 
> Dang... where do you read this stuff? I got start subscribing the same
> magazines you get.

Scientific American is quite good, especially the small notices. I also 
read the Daedalus column in Nature, which contains more or less bizarre 
physical ideas. But don't forget the net, one can find the strangest 
things here...

> > As I see it, antimatter is perfect for powering starships and anything 
> > that requires a lot of energy, but very inefficient for anything else.
> 
> Unless, of course, you somehow manage the up the efficiency of the
> process. However, even if it is inefficient, you still end up with all
> sorts of "waste" energy which you can try to capture and redirect.
> For example, an antimatter production facility which happens to double
> as the planetary powerplant.

Yes, you would need some initial energy source (say huge solar collectors 
beaming gamma-ray lasers at the plant), which is used for the creation of 
antimatter packages. Excess/waste energy is then used for other things. 
Big problem: this will produce an awful amount of heat, which can cause 
ecological damage if done on a planet, and is hard to get rid of in 
space. 

I think the high-energy civilizations are rather extreme places. Whole
systems criss-crossed with beams of energy, dyson spheres, antimatter
storage plants, immense space colonies, terraforming and ultra-tech. See
the awesome civilization in "The Anvil of Stars" by Greg Bear as an
example. Civilizations around here are small and rather unassuming, and 
might complain that the best and brightest races quickly move away to the 
arms to try to make it...
 

> > This implies quite good stealth technology. By the way, what kind of 
> > propulsion do the aliens use in an atmosphere? 
> 
> I was thinking of powerful antigravity, but if you have other ideas...

Maybe I should develop some additional uses for the trans-lead rods? 
Maybe if you vibrate them in an sub-critical electromagnetic field they 
produce gravity waves, which can be used for propulsion, cause weird 
distortions to some objects when in resonance (crop circles?) and the EM 
fields of course tend to disrupt machinery in the vicinity (the UFO is of 
course shielded). This could explain their extreme accelerations.

Another possibility, which might be on the "no-no list": making black 
holes. If you can just squeeze enough energy into a set of rods in the 
right way, they might create a black hole. Should we explain it away, 
make it a forbidden possibility, or have advanced civilizations actually 
making tiny black holes? They would be extremely powerful energy sources, 
provided you could harness them... Here is an idea: the Galactics are the 
civilizations who have learnt how to do this, and have unlimited energy 
and an awesome destructive potential (they can destroy entire solar 
systems!). They keep this knowledge to themselves, but advanced races 
might "join the club" when they get there (unless they are perceived as 
dangerous, in which case subtle meddlers misdirect them).

By the way, I see that you use the humanoids as the aliens. Here is an
idea: the "greys" are really robots/telepresence units used by the real
aliens in space , who are unable or don't want to work on/around Earth.
The UFOs are scout crafts, and the aliens might want to interact with
humans on a roughly similar basis, so they made them humanoid (small
details like size, skin color and size of the eyes were regarded as
unimportant). 

> Here's the next chapter, BTW.
> 
> 
>                            The Witness

Nice! I really like the X-files-like feeling of paranoia... maybe the
aliens actually let the humans get some technology to see what would
happen? 

Have fun!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg			 	  	     Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@hemul.nada.kth.se   http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y


Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 20:07:53 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Anders Sandberg <nv91-asa@nada.kth.se>
To: james vassilakos <jimv@cs.UCR.edu>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG

Here is the description of the Orbs. I'm still working on the Mothers, 
but their culture(s) is so diverse I have a hard time deciding what to 
write...

The Orbs

This little understood race is one of the most successful ones in the
region. Their mental flexibility has made them essential as living
computers, problem solvers and advisors to just about anybody. 

History: 

The Orbs were created by another race, the Relinquishers, as a kind of
living ceremonial computers. Exactly what the Relinquishers used the Orbs
for has never been completely understood, although it seems that it
involved immense logical deductions done as a kind of ritual or game,
where the previous results were used to determine new problems according
to complex rules. The Relinquishers was by all accounts a deeply
philosophical civilisation, and eventually they committed total racial
suicide for some obscure reason. During a span of just a few years they
shut down their civilisation, set their servants free and finally killed
themselves. 

The Orbs were left behind in their space habitats. They still continued to
observe the prescribed rituals, but they were also mostly inactive. They
had been created to serve other beings with their mental powers, and
without any masters they were completely passive. When other races entered
the domain of the Relinquishers, the Orbs immediately began to seek ways
to find employment. Today the Orbs have spread along trading routes to
many systems, where they form orbital colonies and work as minds for hire. 

Physiology

The Orbs are featureless black spheres around 70 centimetres in diameter,
covered with 20 slender tentacles up to four meters long arranged in a
regular icosahedral pattern. The tentacles end in flexible suction cups,
which help the Orbs move around in their weightless habitats. They lack
internal skeletons, and are very sensitive to accelerations; even 0.5 G is
enough to hurt them. 

The central body contains mainly their large brains, a fractal structure
of extremely complex tangles of fibres, which also extend into the
tentacles. Their circulatory system is based on peristaltic veins moving
their black body liquids around. The skin is quite thick and has a complex
internal structure, involving not only a sense of touch but also secretion
and nutrient absorbance. Through mental commands the Orb can regulate its
permeability, so that it can absorb materials from the surroundings or
become vacuum proof. 

The suction cups also serve as primitive eyes and a means of
communication. They can detect ultraviolet light, although with low
resolution, and also emit bursts of it. When two Orbs communicate, they
link up a few tentacles and send pulses and symbols to each other. It is a
very quick and efficient form of communication, able to reach speeds of
2000 bits per second per tentacle, much faster than the speech of any
other race. It is common for several orbs to link up into a network,
becoming a single distributed mind. This is especially used during the
ritual calculations, where the Orbs gather into precise patterns and spend
hours in intense concentration.  Beside their sense of touch and their
cup-eyes, they lack any other senses. 

The Orbs were designed, not evolved, and thus lack many of the
evolutionary vestiges other races have to deal with. They live off a
nutrient mixture produced in their habitats, which is released as a mist
in special chambers and absorbed through the skin. Waste is removed as
black dust from the skin. They don9t need any oxygen or other atmosphere
to function since their nutrient compounds contain all energy they need,
although they usually pressure their habitats with inert gasses like
carbon dioxide or nitrogen. They can survive in a vacuum for a quite long
time, but they require a gradual depressurization and protection from the
heat and cold to survive. 

Reproduction is not done by the Orbs themselves, but by their habitats.
Genetic material from the inhabitants recombine within the semi-biological
walls and gradually grow to proto-Orbs. These remain in cysts until they
are needed (they are also used by the habitat as a kind of computer
network), and then quickly grow when given enough nutrients by the
habitat. Within a few hours they hatch as adult Orbs. 

Psychology

The Orbs have large minds, but very little individuality. While they are
flexible in the extreme, they also have hardwired constraints left by the
Relinquishers. The most important difference from other races is their
complete lack of drive; an Orb without a goal won9t seek another goal,
just wait for a new duty to appear while doing ritual calculations. They
never grow bored or impatient, and seem to lack practically all common
emotions. One emotion they do have is a will to fit in; an Orb will do its
outmost to fit in with whatever society or place it happens to be in. This
has simplified collaboration with other races immensely. 

The Orb mind is usually practically blank, an empty sheet of paper waiting
to be filled. Only a tiny part is used to process personal information.
When given a task, the Orb quickly learns it, reorganising its mental
structure to deal with it. This flexibility combined with the lack of
individuality has made the Orbs very popular among many races as problem
solvers, expert systems or living computers; their discretion is
apparently total. While some races has tried to use the Orbs as slaves,
the consensus is that they think much better when treated well. They seem
to have a desire to work for a master, probably another part of the
Reliquisher programming. 

The Orb minds are quite accurate, and while they can forget things if they
want, they usually have eidetic memories. In fact, they have several
possible ways of storing and accessing memories, not to mention numerous
2built in2 mental techniques for problem-solving and deduction, which
makes their mental processes extremely quick and efficient. When it comes
to problem solving, a single Orb can usually beat just about any other
race. They are not as creative as other species, but they make up for it
by testing all available possibilities, including the very bizarre. 

The role of ceremonial mentation in Orb society is very unclear.  Beside
doing it when they have nothing else to do, they interface with each other
according to complex rules. Apparently each being has a part of the great
calculations to perform, and work on it until it has been completed. Then
it seeks out other orbs to give them the results, sometimes forming
complex groups doing manipulations together and then dispersing with their
new problems. This goes on on every level; teams of orbs sometime meet
other teams, forming very large groups, which in turn send representatives
to even greater gatherings, and so on. The exact rules they follow are not
completely understood, but it is known that their main duties are
controlled by the corollaries to a set of 54 axioms defined by the
Relinquishers. Among these axioms 5 are mutable depending on circumstances
and previous events, which complicates matters further. 

Beside the ceremonial thinking the orbs does not seem to have any real
culture. They don9t seem to regard the idea of changing their way of life
as desirable, or rather, they haven9t changed it despite the fall of the
Relinquishers, outside influence and a long history.  Perhaps their
lifestyle is hardwired, or their habitats (which are vital to them) are
unable to change themselves. Their only goal is apparently to keep on
performing their ceremonies and serve other beings. 

Technology

Orb technology is based on the designs of the Relinquishers, and is
apparently beyond their knowledge. It is largely based on what appears to
be extremely advanced biotechnology or nanotechnology, complex materials
able to adapt and change properties depending on need. Their machines
completely lack individual moving parts on a macroscopic level, and
instead grow, shrink or change shape when needed (while they normally are
very hard, they can become almost liquid). There are no corners anywhere,
and all surfaces are a very smooth black. Airlocks are spherical chambers,
where various parts of the walls may melt away into the surrounding hull
and the surfaces release or absorb gasses. Lights are podlike objects
shining monochromatic ultraviolet light. 

The orbs seldom use other tools than their space habitats, black
conglomerations of spherical chambers and tunnels which look a bit like
bunches of grapes from the outside. The habitats apparently collect solar
energy for their needs, and can absorb various compounds to use for
repairs or growth (this is one thing the orbs buy from other races). Some
have been equipped with FTL drives, allowing the orbs to travel freely,
although this is rare. A few others have been linked to space habitats
belonging to their employers. 

The habitats themselves seems to have some limited intelligence, based on
networks of proto-orbs, and can produce the few tools the orbs use. In
fact, most of these tools are just extensions of the habitat, like the
long ridges on the walls near the feeding sprays, where orbs can rub off
wastes and rub in nutrients. The orbs communicate with the habitats
through photo-sensitive patches, which work just like the eye-cups.
Apparently this form of communication also functions as a local phone
system and auxiliary mental storage. 

The habitats are necessary for the survival of the Orbs, but sometimes
they are not suitable for their work due to their size. In that case the
habitats can create temporary work pods, spherical chambers which function
as mini-habitats for the Orbs. 

Relations to other races

The Orbs have become an important economic factor among many spacefaring
races. They are able to solve problems which most computers would have
great trouble with, they can act as very secure data storage and numerous
other functions. Their habitats can be found close to many major colonies,
and in addition many orbs work alone or in small groups along with aliens
from their pods. Being neutral and with absolutely no axes to grind they
work for anybody able to pay their modest fees (another reason they in
some volumes have out-competed much of the local computer industry). 

When the Mothers encountered the Orbs, they immediately saw their
potential. Through diligent linguistic and medical work they developed an
Orb-Mother interface (a device shaped roughly as a human arm covered with
fractal grooves) which could link the Orb optical communications to the
mind-mind links of the Mothers. The resulting synergy have been a major
success for the mother cyberneticists, and have allowed the Orbs to deal
more simply with other species (Large Orb colonies often have Mother
managers today). 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg			 	  	     Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@hemul.nada.kth.se   http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y


From: james vassilakos <jimv>
Subject: Re: SF-RPG
To: nv91-asa@nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 17:01:20 -0700 (PDT)

Here's some more background-related fiction. Sorry for taking so
long getting this to ya. I'll try to step up the pace.


                   Meeting at the White House


The news hit him like an atomic steamroller right out of hell.

A Flying Saucer? And Aliens? On Earth?

President Harry Truman took a deep breath. He'd already been
called upon to make one momentous decision in his lifetime, and
he didn't particularly relish the notion of making a second.

"Are you sure?"

"Mr. President, we have one of the aliens already in custody, and
Colonel Mitchell at Holloman is putting the wraps on this as best
he can. He wants some direction from the War Department telling
him what he should do, and... well... I felt that maybe you'd
like to be in on this seeing as this is our first contact with...
with aliens from outer space."

The Secretary didn't like the way that sounded. It was almost the
sort of thing you'd expect from bad science fiction, but it was
true, and for the love of God, he didn't know what to do about
it.

"I would like to speak with this alien," the President finally
stated. "Does he... does he speak English?"

"No sir, I'm afraid not."

"I see." Truman leaned back in his chair, hoping the rest of the
day wasn't going to turn out this weird. "We're going to have to
find some way to communicate with him. You understand that, don't
you?"

"Yes, of course... but right now the doctors have their hands
full just keeping him alive. He's having trouble with our air.
With your permission, sir, I'd like to move him to Ohio."

"Ohio? What's in Ohio?"

"Wright-Patterson. We have a research facility there, plus one of
the best military hospitals in the nation."

Truman nodded, mainly for lack of a better idea. "Okay, go ahead.
But keep this out of the press until we figure out exactly what
happened. It won't do us any good if the papers find out our
first contact with space aliens results because we blew one of
their saucers out of the sky."


                    The Argument for Secrecy


First struck by lightning, then shot out of the sky, then taken
prisoner, and now strapped to a table while a bunch of ugly
humans in white coats poke her with their primitive instruments,
Ibikhok had decided upon a good name for this planet. She would
call it, "Place of punishment for being so stupid as to sign on
with this expedition in the first place!"

"How's it doing?"

"I have no idea," the doctor shrugged. "We don't have any clue
what's normal for these creatures. We just took a blood sample,
and the lab's doing an analysis. Beyond that... all we can do is
watch and learn."

General Phillips nodded, more than a bit worried about the status
of the hospital's newest patient. The President would be there in
a matter of hours, and if anything went wrong, it would be his
ass hanging out to dry.

"No more blood samples. Just leave him alone for now."

"Yes sir."

As the hours ticked by, more and more bits of the alien
spacecraft were brought in. Not enough to get a true picture of
its size, but enough to get a taste for their technology.

"These shards... what are they made out of?"

"We don't know yet, Sir, but we're getting there."

The General nodded, a little uneasy. We don't know yet? He dared
not imagine what might happen if the aliens took this incident as
an act of war. What if this had been a diplomatic mission they'd
shot down? There could be no telling the repercussions.

He was still thinking this over when the President's plane
landed. They were aiming for secrecy, so no red carpet was rolled
out. In fact, none of the airmen on the ground had any idea who
it was that the plane carried, and when Harry S. Truman came out,
he was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sun-glasses. Phillips
waited for the entourage of secret service officers and various
top aides to get to the hanger before he came out and introduced
himself. The President had smiled and asked how "his guest" was
doing.

It was about an hour later, after some failed attempts at
communication with this so-called guest, that they finally sat
down for dinner. Truman was tired, and the lines of worry on his
face weren't going away.

"The key question is how we break this to the press," he finally
stated over a cup of coffee. "How do we come out and tell people
that... that we shot down a flying saucer?"

There were a few embarrassed smiles, oddly enough, perhaps akin
to those the cavemen first had when they "accidentally" downed
their first mammoth. Phillips, however, wasn't amused.

"Mr. President... are we sure we should tell them?"

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is... well, we might be better off if we let this
rest for the time being. No doubt, the aliens are looking for
their lost ship by now. Perhaps, for all they know, it never even
made it to Earth."

The President smiled, then laughed, then wiped his lip and sat
back a little bit further so as to get a good clean view of the
man he was talking to. "General Phillips... that's the darndest
thing I ever heard."

"I'm serious, Sir."

"I believe you are," the President nodded, still smiling.

"Sir, if we tell the world we have a saucer... they're going to
want to know how we got it, and the truth is going to come flying
out. There is no telling what might happen. No telling. What if
these spacemen are communists? Or worse... what if they're
Nazis?"

"Nazi spacemen," Truman nodded, savoring the thought. "Have you
considered a career in comedy, General?"

"Sir, I'm not joking." Phillips ignored the laughter. He didn't
know these people and he didn't care to. What he did know was
that the U.S., indeed, the whole world, was on the verge of
something big, something they couldn't control, something that
could end up being devastating, and once they slipped over the
edge, no matter what happened, things would never be the same.

"Okay, everybody," Truman waved down the laughter. "Let the man
speak. No more jokes, alright General?"

"Sir, in the first place, we don't know anything about these
aliens or their technology. It might serve us to hold off on the
press announcements at least until we've had a chance to analyze
what little we have."

"And in the second place?"

"In the second place, the moment word gets out about the saucer
and the alien we're holding, the Communists are going to have
this place crawling with spies. Consider if the situation were
reversed. Wouldn't you try and prevent them from taking sole
advantage of their 'guest'... not to mention the saucer?"

That one stuck a sore spot, Phillips could see. Clearly the
President had considered this. Or perhaps he hadn't, and that's
why the notion came as such a shock. Truman put down his coffee
and looked around the table at his advisors. They were no longer
laughing. Not one of them.

jimv@cs.ucr.edu


