SDNW5 Preliminary Discussion Thread

[Simon_Jester]

Actually, that's worth exploring further - not necessarily the Old Spice guy; wouldn't philosophy move up a notch on the academic totem pole in a galaxy where people really can rearrange matter by thinking at it?

It depends. Umerians would call the study of that "parapsychology." Then again, happy-River might agree with you, and I don't want to argue with her.

[Beowulf]

Hmmm... Interestingly, KhorneFlakes has nulled out his OOB. Anyone who was planning on doing a trade route with him might want to reconsider, and find alternate partners.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Clearly, the Old Spice guy is a rogue Centralist ESPer who got mixed up with a tough crowd of Hellenic philosophers and has been messing with the Forms of things ever since.

Does Isaiah Mustafa really have to be a Centralist?

[Simon_Jester]

No. Speaking of which...

Klavostan gets a 3.

[Akhlut]

Hmmm... Interestingly, KhorneFlakes has nulled out his OOB. Anyone who was planning on doing a trade route with him might want to reconsider, and find alternate partners.

So, no Grue? It would be nice to get something official from him, but, if he doesn't want to play, we can't really force him.


Anyway, I'll see how the map develops a little more before placing myself. I should probably be relatively close to the Bastian Star Empire and Krypton, though.

I also have trade routes open, if anyone wants one. I'm using one with Umeria, but I still have 2 or 3 open (I'll have to check, but I have to get ready for work right now).

[KhorneFlakes]

I'm indecisive. My "outburst", if you really must refer to it as that, was not properly worded, meaning that it had absolutely nothing to do with what I actually meant. I expected some kind of bad joke from Simon, given how during a chat about the last game Simon dropped a reference to putting MLP in as a joke nation.

But to be truthful, at the time I was tired and trying to type out some response. Instead, I put out something highly aggressive in tone, which I was not trying to do at the time. Because really: I didn't lost my shit or anything really. I just outright baffled by RogueIce's post out of nowhere, and I instantly thought "Simon is probably a factor in this." But I've had bad experiences with bad April Fool's jokes, (heh) and so in my tired state tried to type out something that came across as being disapproving. Instead, as a testament to how tired I was it came across to Simon as being some stupid "HOW DARE YOU AIJOESNGI".

Otherwise known I should stop posting late at night. And as a general rule, I'm not sure if I want to play as the Screworlders anymore. I might drop out, but who knows? Let me decide about it.

[cadbrowser]

I have two trade routes open, so I'd like to be somewhat close to whomever I am trading with (unless they have a warp gate?). The OMNI nation make autonomous mining equipment for extracting from asteriods, moons, comets, and planets. Don't worry, they do have manual shut down and override capacity.

OMNI is your one stop shop for turn key mining operations, from raw material extraction, to refining, to finished product; yes, we have it all. Let OMNI make your world a better place.

[Simon_Jester]

I have two trade routes open, so I'd like to be somewhat close to whomever I am trading with (unless they have a warp gate?).

I would normally deem warp gates to be too cost-inefficient to make for good trade routes; remember that a trade route represents a ludicrously profitable exchange of goods. There might be individual exceptions, but part of the fun of a trade route is having it wend its way through space where interesting things are going on!

[Imperial528]

Just a general question: How do people feel about visitors from "far away"? I was thinking of potential storylines and I came up with a few interesting ones that involve Cerna gaining limited contact with its parent nation, although this contact would be one-way (As in, Cerna gets something sent to them, but are unable to send anything back, even a message.)

[cadbrowser]

Ahhh...I see. "zee plot sickins" hahahaha!

[Simon_Jester]

I don't care much. The edge of the map is not the edge of the universe; it's just the boundaries of the region of space I care to track. It's not even like there are voids off the edges, either- at worst you're looking at the spaces between the spiral arms, which have fewer stars but not zero.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I know a similar question was asked by Simon, but who else is playing with self aware AI's and is cadbowser currently the only one laying as an all "AI" race?

[Simon_Jester]

The Umerians have self-aware AIs, some of them playful, but the existence of such AIs does not dominate their civilization. The overall flavor of Umerian culture is something you might have gotten out of 1950s or 1960s SF if the USSR had been a known quantity instead of a boogeyman, in my opinion; on the specific topic of vastly superior computer intellects and posthumanism, the Umerians might reasonably glance up and go:

"Huh? Singularity? What Singularity?"

Rabid said that his own civilization has AIs, and uses them extensively.

Eleventh Century Remnant is playing a culture of self-aware terraforming robots ("Move that planet a little to the left! Who put that meteor there?") who have become essentially independent of their creators.

I imagine there are some others who just don't consider the idea central to their play concept.

[cadbrowser]

Can I have my Navy/Troop/Trade ships be entirely composed of robots linked together? I am thinking that there will be several "species" of robot types built to handle a dual purpose. Take for instance...tank/hull robots would act as any given ship's hull (battle cruiser for instance) and yet also break apart to serve as tanks or artilary during a planet/moon seiz. Or if "x" amount became damaged under fire, they could break apart and provide thousands of tiny space soldiers that would attach to the hull of another ship and start "mining" it.

I would expect some parts to be modular: a propulsion system for example. But even still that could be a specific robot "species".

Thoughts please.

[Rabid]

Can I have my Navy/Troop/Trade ships be entirely composed of robots linked together? I am thinking that there will be several "species" of robot types built to handle a dual purpose. Take for instance...tank/hull robots would act as any given ship's hull (battle cruiser for instance) and yet also break apart to serve as tanks or artilary during a planet/moon seiz. Or if "x" amount became damaged under fire, they could break apart and provide thousands of tiny space soldiers that would attach to the hull of another ship and start "mining" it.

I would expect some parts to be modular: a propulsion system for example. But even still that could be a specific robot "species".

Thoughts please.

Like that ?

[Imperial528]

I know a similar question was asked by Simon, but who else is playing with self aware AI's and is cadbowser currently the only one laying as an all "AI" race?

I have self aware AIs, although usually only on installations or large warships, and even a few brain-in-vat type enhanced intelligences.

[cadbrowser]

Like that ?

OMG! YES...like that...Dude...that's totally badass! (I know, I know...I'm a super-geek.)

[Skywalker_T-65]

I don't have AI's myself (yet) but they may come into play later. In case you haven't noticed by now, Arcadian's are one of two types...cautious people who don't like change, or fanatics who hate everyone who isn't an Arcadian. The Furlings are more moderate in that regard, thus they will be the first people to use AI's (they are the counter to Arcadia getting too isolationist or expansionist). Incidentally I don't have any trade routes open myself, but I'm open to someone sending one my way. No idea where on the map I will be though.

[Rabid]

I'm debugging a world-building idea, could people help me on it ?

Here it is :


My military Navy number in the thousand-ish of manned ships. All ships are totally automated and piloted by their on-board, self-aware AIs. To “pilot” the ships, there's only The Captain, and one or two Ensigns (trainees), depending on the ship's importance.
The Organics have very long service lives, due to the ubiquitous use of mind-upload technologies in the military – the worse that happen when you kill a Doxa's soldier is that he lose up to few days of memory, and have to adapt to a new cloned body (and apparently it can be a bit itchy for a while...).

Given the really tiny size of the Navy personnel pool compared to the size of the Community, they recruit only the very best.

Now, I was thinking : “If they are supposed to be so badass by requirement, why not give them psionic powers (natural or engineered) ?”


So here's the question : How powerful should I make them ? Would they just use their psionic abilities in a “divination” way, enhancing their 'sensor envelope' (so to speak) and give them an edge as far as reaction times go ? Or should I give them something more powerful ?
One thing is certain : no-one of my pilots is going to be as powerful as someone from the League of Thoughts.

Another point is that the Doxa has the habit of giving their AIs biological interfaces, to give them the opportunity to feel closer from the Flame. In practice, this mean that somewhere deep in these starships, there's some form of brain in a vat the AI can interface with, possibly giving them some limited access to psionic powers.


What are people's feels on these ideas ?

[Skywalker_T-65]

I don't have any problem with it. Having low-level psionic powers isn't really a bad thing as long as they are...say...Jedi like. Limited Pre-cog isn't a bad thing for a ship captain after all.

[cadbrowser]

Are constructs immune to psionics? They are in some other RPG's I've played. Is there a precedent set for this and I may have missed it?

[White Haven]

Psionic mind reading would be a bit dubious, but they're certainly not immune to a psychically-lobbed Big Goddamned Rock or any such nonsense. As far as pointed combat, nobody's immune to anybody just because that way lies silly powergaming. As far as writing, that's another story, just use your head and think things through and nine times out of ten that avoids problems.

[Rabid]

"psionic" is a very vague term basically encompassing what we would ordinarily call "magic" if we were in a Fantasy setting.

If a psyker can lower/heighten the temperature of metal, or use some sort of fancy telekinetic powers, there's no particular reason why inorganic materials wouldn't be affected.
On the other hand, if your psyker is supposed to be telepathic, it's likely (but not assured, though) he won't be able to read the mind of a robot.

It depends on what you intend thematically speaking, I'd say.



@ White Haven :

Basically, I was thinking about giving the pilots heightened perception and VERY VERY limited precog as far as space-combat go, and out of the ships some limited mind-reading capabilities. The ship AI itself, with its brain-in-a-jar, would have similar capacities.

[cadbrowser]

Well, of course...I guess I should've been more specific. A construct couldn't be mind read...because they do not have a mind; on the other hand, they (like a rock) could be launched with psionic force.

The other thing I plan on implementing is the idea that the OMNI AI's have developed an interface that allows the beings in the bio-electric cells to transfer their "essence" (?) to one of the robots (as a shell) so that they can serve a purpose. (Yeah...it's slavery)

Thanks!

[Vanas]

Does Isaiah Mustafa really have to be a Centralist?

Old Spice Guy is a physical constant of the universe. He always has those tickets to that thing your Empire loves and a horse.