Why not just allow people to travel at arbitrary speeds in "subspace" or something? Unless this game is marketed towards physicists I doubt if anyone really cares if your travel mechanism is plausible.

The question should be what will work and what will be fun, not what is reality. We live in reality already.

If you have limited resources, spending them thinking about how to realistically explain space travel is not time well spent.

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Original post by Wavinator
Just curious...

Which do you guys think is better when coming up with how FTL works? Something plausible, or something wildly fantastical but consistent?

I guess this is maybe the difference between science fiction and science fantasy, but since it was being discussed here I thought I''d ask...

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According to Asimov, good science fiction involves a cardinal assumption (such as manipulation of the temporal dimension) and consistency from that point forth. In other words, plausibility is not mandatory for good sci. fi. (in his, an my, opinion).

Extrapolating from that, the difference in science fiction and science fantasy seems to be that science fantasy doesn''t necessarily require consistency, even given a cardinal assumption.

Just my opinion...

That said, I think the most convenient (and entertaining, and probably the most common choice) method of FTL travel is "space warp," where space is _bent_ to bring the origin and destination points together. As for an explanation of how that occurs (and how it can be so accurate), I like the what I see in Farscape - space warp is essentially random (but the current location can easily be determined) because controlling which direction space is bent in, and how much of it is bent, is an inherently imprecise operation. This means it''s great for exploration, but useless for freight and commerce (which makes perfect sense...)

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Original post by TheThief
SPACE TRAVEL

Let''s say it''s the year 2024, and scientists have built the first ship capable of travel at speeds faster than light. It''s very big, completely un-maneuvarble and can only fly relatively short distances. After several years of innovation the scientific community sees two big problems with the classic space travel design(small thrusters for short distances, "hyperdrive" for light-speed and higher):

1. It''s expensive
2. It''s too slow

The second problem is the most important. If mankind makes a spaceship capable of traveling 10 times the speed of light (9,460,800,000,000 km every 36 days), it will be able to get to Alpha Centauri(4.4 ly away) in 829 days or 2.2 YEARS.

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Hmm. Surely you mean .44 years...

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I hope you agree that this isn''t practical. OK, fine, let''s say we make a spaceship that can travel 100 times the speed of light. At this point, time starts to significantly change in respect to the spaceship.

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I assume you''re thinking about relativity? This happens at sub-light speeds (from a relativity point of view, there''s no such thing as faster-than-light speeds).

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The solution:
In the year 2054, people invent a machine that is capable of creating a wormhole in space. This reduces the distance from any two points in the universe to 0. This method has two important points:

... people ... establish RELAY stations there. When you want to get somewhere, you have to connect two relay stations together and then generate the wormholes

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Like a big old Stargate. This is, I believe, a pretty well established idea in sf.

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Now, it''s 2062 and this alien race has discovered our system of relay-travel ... they''ve discovered a solution to the time warp problem of traditional space travel.

ALIEN RACES

mankind has established contact with five so far:

2062 - The Apsaa (planet: Apsna)
2120 - Inkurians (planet: Inkuria)
2131 - The Thyaf (planet: Fnarzuthyaf)

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Hmm. Otherwise known as The Planet Of Random Letters?

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2143 - Xetharnags (planet: Xetha)

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Pronounced Zetha or Khetha?

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2257 - Hrushgarians (planet: Hgara)

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Hgara (at least the way I pronounce it it) is the name of the homeworld in Sierra''s Homeworld (written Higgara or Higarra, I think). That''s no reason not to use it, but I thought it was interesting.

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EARTH

In the years after interstellar travel has been established, the Earth has become overpopulated and diseased.

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That doesn''t add up. If exoplanetary travel is well established, there shouldn''t be an overpopulation problem.

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Most humans much prefer life in the many big colony space ships orbiting earth and other planets. In 2089, a huge asteroid was detected on a collision course with Earth, so a weapon was sent into orbit to destroy it. It partially worked and split the rock into 6 pieces. They crashed in various places causing minor damage to cities, but causing the entire ecosystem of Earth to change. 3,000 species of plants and animals died and the weather changed significantly.

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You may want to up that number: 3,000 species is nothing.

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Anyway, the current population on Earth has been approximated to 8,000,000,000 people which actually is just 2,000,000,000 over the current population, because of massive factories that produce various spaceship parts and systems. 3/4 of the workforce of mankind is in these factories. 10% are unemployed, 5% are criminals/rogues/mercenaries and everybody else works for the government.

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So. The apparently relentless march of Industrialisation stopped suddenly, and 6 billion people are needed to build spaceships because we have no robots?

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GOVERNMENT

Due to the fact that all of the alien races have completely different laws and customs, a ''galactic government'' had to be established. It has a somewhat traditional pyramid structure with ''presidents'' from each of the five races. Policing in space is very complex, so it was decided to implant an electronic ''tag'' into EVERY person/being''s brain at birth. It is impossible to remove/counterfeit and if somebody needs to be located, it is fairly easy to just use a special scanner found in every Police station.

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How is the tag implanting enforced? Why aren''t social and economic forces used to combat crime, rather than restrictions upon the liberty of the citizens? Why is it impossible to remove? (Perhaps it also replaces an important brain function?)

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GAMEPLAY

Basically, the player flies around, talks to NPCs, and plays various quests. The initial goal of the player is just to make money, but eventually, he uncovers a a huge conspiracy involving the corruption of Earth government, and its alliance with the Apsaa. I''m not yet sure on how this part is going to work, and it''s the area where I need the most help.

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Corrupt governments are old news. I''d suggest that the goverment should at least be in alliance with (or, indeed actually IS) the Xetharnags. Perhaps the tags are used by the Xetharnags to monitor/control you?

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Just Plain Wrong

Thanks for finding the holes in my idea

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Original post by Mayrel
Hmm. Surely you mean .44 years...

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Yeah, uhm...whoops. :o

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Original post by Mayrel
I assume you're thinking about relativity? This happens at sub-light speeds (from a relativity point of view, there's no such thing as faster-than-light speeds).

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Yes of course...but if I break the laws of physics, I might as well break them in as few places as possible

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Original post by Mayrel
Like a big old Stargate. This is, I believe, a pretty well established idea in sf.

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Yeah, but I thought it would be slightly more practical than the usual [hyper/super/ultra/mega]-drive

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Original post by Mayrel
Hmm. Otherwise known as The Planet Of Random Letters?

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Heh, you try and invent plausible sounding names! I admit, I used one of those random name generators and then screwed with the output a bit...

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Original post by Mayrel
Pronounced Zetha or Khetha?

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More like...Ksetha...but it doesn't really matter.

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Original post by Mayrel
Hgara (at least the way I pronounce it it) is the name of the homeworld in Sierra's Homeworld (written Higgara or Higarra, I think). That's no reason not to use it, but I thought it was interesting.

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Really? I never really played Homeworld, so I don't know. It doesn't really matter, I could change it.

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Original post by Mayrel
That doesn't add up. If exoplanetary travel is well established, there shouldn't be an overpopulation problem.

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Ah, but exoplanetary travel is very expensive. Not everybody can afford one of them new-fangled "Chevrolet Star-cruisers"

Seriously, though, think about it: Right now, what percentange of the world population has access to cars?

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Original post by Mayrel
You may want to up that number: 3,000 species is nothing.

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You're right, I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote that. Let's say that 80% of mammals died, and say...60% of reptiles/amphibians died, because maybe they were better suited to handle that kind of impact.

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Original post by Mayrel
So. The apparently relentless march of Industrialisation stopped suddenly, and 6 billion people are needed to build spaceships because we have no robots?

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Yeah, I'll have to think about that...

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Original post by Mayrel
How is the tag implanting enforced? Why aren't social and economic forces used to combat crime, rather than restrictions upon the liberty of the citizens? Why is it impossible to remove? (Perhaps it also replaces an important brain function?)

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Whenever somebody is born in a hospital, they are implanted as soon as possible. Then, the implant kind of...burrows into the brain(think tentacles), so removal is fatal. By "social and economic forces", do you mean police and the legal system? Well, when the asteroid struck there was a world wide panic and chaos, so most countries were forced to mobilize their armies to at least stabilize society. After that, there was a population boom(kind of like after WWII), and there wasn't enough police to deal with minor crime, so the world government decided on this 'tagging' system.

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Original post by Mayrel
Corrupt governments are old news. I'd suggest that the goverment should at least be in alliance with (or, indeed actually IS) the Xetharnags. Perhaps the tags are used by the Xetharnags to monitor/control you?

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OK, to state the idea I'm currently going with:

The Apsaa are the bad guys. They are parasitic beings that always require a host body to live in. (Yes, yes, I'm 'borrowing' from "Stargate"). A long time ago, they enslaved the Xetharnags. When the Xetharnags almost died out, the Apsaa went to search for a new race to enslave and found Earth. However, we humans have something which can destroy the Apsaa, except we don't know it. The Apsaa are afraid of us, so they decided to ally with us so they can...destroy us from within so to speak...

A few Xetharnags who have managed to build a colony on another planet somewhere find out about the plan of the Apsaa. They know they can't defeat the Apsaa head on, and warning us will not work(The Apsaa will know about it, plus, we won't trust them). They also know about the Apsaa's weakness, and that humans have the weapon to destroy them. So, the Xetharnags are constantly trying to steal this 'weapon' from us, and the Earth government considers them enemies. Confusing? Yes, but it makes sense...kind of

Then, there are the Inkurians and the Thyaf. The Inkurians are another race the Apsaa enslaved and then left to die. However, they were left a long time ago, and their race has since recovered. They have just discovered interstellar travel, and they know nothing of Earth. Some time later, it turns out that that all life on earth came from an Inkurian colony ship, and humans will ally with them to battle the Apsaa. (This will be built up to some huge multi-race battles. Whoo, that will be fun!)

Finally, the Thyaf. (I'm throwing out the Hrushgarians, they're pointless ) The Thyaf are a kind of watcher race. They are very secretive and none of the races know about them. The player will meet them later and acquire some rather...kickass technology.

Whew. Long post. Er...don't be afraid to mention any glaring holes in my story, in fact, mention them, so my game idea will be better!

-TheThief

(P.S. The engine is coming along great. I'm not working on the game yet, but I'll start as soon as I flesh out this story a little more. If you want to see screenshots, go here.)





[edited by - TheThief on June 28, 2002 6:31:43 AM]

I like the plot. Go humans!

Thanks! Any suggestions?

-TheThief