codrus

Yet another game brainstorming post. It'll be a while before I run anything new, with my Four Worlds game expected to take up my time for at least a year or two. Anyway, this post is for a Science Fiction game.

While I'm considering some ideas for a modern era Science Fiction game (e.g. X-files, War of the Worlds, or some other form of odd science), that's for another day. This post is for larger, more space-worthy setting.



In the old days of Traveller, one of the gotchas was much of the game universe was "explored". Player characters rarely opened up new frontiers, and the universe was a very big place. While there's a lot that can be done in the Traveller universe (e.g. set it in a different era, as the next major GURPS Traveller book is going to do), I think I want my own background this time out.

My current thought is that there are one to two dozen human worlds, with very little in the way of extra-terrestrial contact. Where the humans came from and the populations of the worlds are not important at this point. That is, one of the worlds could be earth, or this whole thing could take place in a "galaxy far far away".

In any case, the high concept for the game is that the worlds up to this point have been relatively self contained, but something is suddenly opening up a new frontier for exploration. In many ways, you can think of this as the great gold-rush/migration setting, with other explorers/exploiters being amongst the groups rivals.

Possibilities:

• Technological: An improvement to existing space drives, or a new drive technology. In this situation, the number of rival groups is probably small, with the backing of larger entities. As the game progresses, the number of rivals would likely increase as the technology spreads.


• Political: A shift in government from a conservative government to one that has decided to open a previously closed frontier. The frontier has probably already been scouted by government forces (which rich factions may have access to). The frontier itself could be completely open or still under significant control by the government.


• geographic: There has been a shift in the cosmology of the universe, and routes previously unavailable have been opened. Under this background, the frontier is very open to traffic, but it is still a widely unknown frontier.

Culturally, I'm thinking nothing wildly different from modern culture, save with some additional technological considerations. The idea is to be able to do both adventures in the developed worlds as well as explore the great new frontier.

At the moment, I'm considering the technological/geographic options:


There is a natural topography to the Universe that can best be described as nodes and tunnels. Nodes appear around sizeable gravitational sources, and are connected by tunnels. Nodes are physically large enough that it is difficult to blockade an entire node. In fact, a single 'node' may actually consist of multiple physical volumes within an single area.

A tunnel is defined by a quantum resonance. Humanity has been able to measure three different quantum levels of tunnels, and travel along the first two of them. A particular tunnel can be one-way or two-way. In rare cases, two one-way tunnels at different levels of resonance may connect a pair of nodes (that is, level 1 in one direction, and level 2 in the other). Spacers refer to this as 'climbing the tunnel.'

Jump Travel: Tunnel drives allow a ship to travel along the node. A drive is rated for the highest resonance level it can travel. Jump travel takes advantage of the natural energy inherent in the tunnel itself — it would be almost impossible for a ship to generate enough energy on its own. Instead, a ship's drive is tuned to the resonance of the tunnel and is fired (almost like striking a chime). Surveying an node requires specialized sensors and computers. Survey data is well known for all of the existing jump routes (and is periodically recomputed), but for future exploration, it could be a campaign issue.

Rumors exist of pirate nodes, and nodes that have proved difficult to map out completely. Hidden military bases.

Once you have survey data for a node, you need to plot a final jump profile, essentially taking into account position and velocity of the ship, stellar variables and the current state of the jump tunnel. The closer to the middle of the jump node, the easier it is to plot. Pirates are more likely to plot dangerous jumps at the periphery of a node because it reduces their chance of detection. Jump-1 routes are usually relatively easy to calculate; in an emergency even a simple hand-computer could be slaved to make this computation. Jump-2 routes must be computed by a larger ship's computer. Within a quantum level, there are variations on computational difficulty. That is, there can be easy jump-2 routes and difficult jump-1 routes. A jump transition takes roughly 30 minutes to an hour.

Consequences for a failed plot: (in order from least significant to most significant)

• disrupted sensors upon reentry
• miscalculated exit point (always within the same system)
• damage to the ship
• catastrophic failure (ship destroyed)
• disruption of the tunnel

When a ship travels, the tunnel vibrates, like a string on a musical instrument being plucked. A ship with survey sensors, sitting within the node, can attempt to detect incoming and outgoing jump travel. While a small ship's signature is barely detectable, it is usually clear when larger ships are much easier to detect. If a ship is large enough, the signature can be detected by normal ships sensors; in fact, the vibration of the tunnel impede jump traffic for a period of hours. This puts an upper limit on both ship and fleet sizes. While common and synchronized jumps of multiple ships can be computed, a common solution to this is the dedicated jump ship. Smaller ships attach to the larger jump ship, which computes and executes a single jump.

A ship's jump engines pick up a vibration, similar to that of the tunnel. After a jump, a ship must damp out this signal for a period of time before being able to start another jump. Typically this is a period of 2 to 6 hours. Multistage ships and dedicated jump ships are a partial solution to this problem. After the larger ship jumps, the parasite ship detaches, computes a jump and continues on to a further system. This is generally only done when time is absolutely of the essence.

Communication along a jump line: At a significant expenditure, stations can be emplaced within two connected jump nodes. With huge sensor arrays, they can easily detect any ship travel along the tunnel. A modified engine can transmit a signal through the tunnel to the other station. Size of these transmissions is relatively small; for large transmissions, it is more efficient to configure a dedicated mail ship and send it through to the other system. Traffic is generally kept to urgent messages, since significant message traffic can also cause minor fluctuations making it more challenging to plot a course.

Altering a jump line: As previously discussed, misjumps and communications can disrupt the jump tunnel. Larger disruptions are possible. One common approach is a fire ship. Detonating a ship's engines within a node will cause the complete loss of the ship, but will block travel for 20 or more hours. Military capital ships often carry dedicated ship missiles with calibrated tunnel-drive warheads. These can block travel for days. Disrupting a jump line does not affect ships in transit (another reason why a single jump transit is the most common military tactic.

No one has found a way to permanently disrupt a jump tunnel. Disruptions are self-healing (that is, extraneous signals fade over time). Given time and computing power, smaller disruptions can be compensated for by the jump calculations.

Scientists theorize that a jump tunnel can be permanently altered by the addition of energy to the nodes. In effect, this would allow a jump-2 node to be converted to a jump-1 node. Thus far, no government has allowed such research to be put into production.


The known worlds: The roughly two dozen surveyed systems are connected via jump-1 and jump-2 routes in a closed environment. Two known jump-3 routes out of this closed system have been discovered and mapped, but no one has successfully built a jump-3 capable drive. Some speculate that the prototype drives actually worked, but that all jump-3 routes are one-way trips. (obvious plot possibilities)

Comments? Any pieces of my pseudo-science spark your interest? :)