O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

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Czernobog
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O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Czernobog »

Just a word, first: I am not intending to rip-off the recent SDNW4 that some members are acquainted with.

Anyway, I know that the majority of this forum does not trust me. But, I have been making a serious commitment to turning over a new leaf, and it is my belief that I simply have to practice enough at the subjects in which I have problems, and one of those subjects is RPGs. It isn't just intended as help for me - my hope is to produce something fun that other people can play at as well.

Here go the rules:

1.
No godmodding whatsoever, even if you or another player have just been godmodded against.

2.
No physics-defying superweapons, like black hole bombs or supernova rays. If you are at a loss for sci-fi weapons, look here, for advice from the experts.

3.
Hard sci-fi technology, except for some exceptions, like FTL and artificial gravity. A note on FTL - it essentially travels at the speed of plot, arriving at a destination whenever the players want it to.

4.
Earth is uninhabitable (it is a part of the backstory) so no claiming Earth. The solar system is open for grabs, though.

5.
This is intended to be somewhat serious. Comedic asides, light-hearted affairs and little touches (like the word Shroom used in names) are allowed, but I don't want this to descend into jokes and pop-culture (or your own 'verse) references.

6.
I want to see little, or no, player-against-player aggression in this RPG. It just breeds vendettas. Just because somebody annoyed you (even if it is very annoying) or broke one of the rules does not entitle you to write a post claiming ultimate victory over him in the game, or insult him in the OOC thread. If you consider doing so, you should probably relax.

7.
Have fun.

I will follow all these rules, even if it means my disadvantage, I sincerely promise to everybody who might want to play this attempt at an RPG.

What your nation should look like:



Name:The Name of your Nation
Alternative names: Aka's
Government Type: Obvious. Please be sensible.
Head of State: Where does the buck stop?
Head of Government: Who actually runs the show?
Legislature:
- The Group of Elite that have the biggest say
- How many of them there are
Judicial: Who watches the Watchmen?
Stellar systems owned: Obvious.
Population: Also Obvious.
Upper Class: The percentage of the Elite
Middle Class: The percentage of the middling sorts
Lower Class: The percentage of commoners. Should be the vast majority
Unemployed: Who doesn't work?

Intelligence Service: Who does your spying?
- Who?
- How many?
Police: Are there any kind of law enforcers?
Capital World: Self explanatory
Major Planets: Ditto
National Language:What is the universal language?
Religion: What do people believe in?
Currency: What do people exchange? Barter?
Major Industries: Name a few
National Resources: Name at least 5 trade goods
Internal Problems: Everyone has them , name at least 3 here please. Don't make me (or the moderator, whoever, he is) have to create them for you.

Some backstory:

It is the year 3570, 560 years after the planet Earth was rendered uninhabitable in nuclear war. One hundred years before that, the major powers of earth leapt to the stars with the discovery of faster-than-light drives, and now, the powers that succeeded after Earth's dramatic collapse must face new issues, as mistrust and rivalry threaten to rise between them.
You have ruled this galaxy for ten thousand years.
You have little of account to show for your efforts.
Order. Unity. Obedience.
We taught the galaxy these things.

And we shall do so again.
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speaker-to-trolls
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

Never fear, Speaker is here to nitpick your ideas!
OK in all seriousness rules are fairly standard, to the point where it is almost not worth stating them, however I would say this.

2.
What about physics defying regular weapons like plasma beams, or physically impractical weapons like antimatter missiles or whathaveyou?
3
I asked this on MSN, why allow artificial gravity if you want it to be long and hard and rigind sci fi? 'It makes pics easier' is not a good reason, those pictures could just as easily be taken on base on a planet or in the spinning sections of a spaceship.
4
Explaining the backstory might make a little more sense of this rule, you know, just maybe.
5
I don't think anyone's going to pay attention to this idea if you make demands like this. You know full well that certain players like Shroom and Destructionator will have a tendency toward 4th wall breaking humorous antics, it's just how they roll, this request is frankly a bit unreasonable.
6
If someone plays unfairly and breaks the system which keeps the game entertaining then people will get pissed off at them. It's reasonable to request all such matters be sorted out OOC before action is taken in game but asking for 'no insults' is not going to happen if someone is pissed off with another player. This isn't SDN so insults!=massive thread derailment, but if people think you are being a jackass they will call you a jackass, or such is my impression.

And a couple of nitpicks on the specifics.
Government Type: Obvious. Please be sensible.
Head of State: Where does the buck stop?
Head of Government: Who actually runs the show?
Legislature:
- The Group of Elite that have the biggest say
- How many of them there are
What's sensible? What if I don't have a single head of state? What if my legislature is not based on the whims of an elite who have the biggest say but is decided by referendum on options put forward by any citizen which have a sufficient number of supporters? What if my legislature and government are run by computers? ETC.
Upper Class: The percentage of the Elite
Middle Class: The percentage of the middling sorts
Lower Class: The percentage of commoners. Should be the vast majority
Unemployed: Who doesn't work?
What if I have an effectively classless society where position is based on personal merit and popularity and can change on a moment's notice based on one's actions and the prevailing mood of public opinion?

Incidentally, I'm not actually going to be taking part in this, I know how bad I am with sticking to projects, especially games, and this doesn't look very interesting since OOB's and military stats bore me to tears most of the time. I just thought I'd ask a few pertinent questions.
"Little monuments may be completed by their first architects, but great ones; true ones leave their copestones to posterity. God keep me from completing anything."
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Czernobog
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Czernobog »

speaker-to-trolls wrote: What about physics defying regular weapons like plasma beams, or physically impractical weapons like antimatter missiles or whathaveyou?
Physics defying regular weapons are also disallowed, but impractical but physically possible weapons are not, they're just...impractical.
I don't think anyone's going to pay attention to this idea if you make demands like this. You know full well that certain players like Shroom and Destructionator will have a tendency toward 4th wall breaking humorous antics, it's just how they roll, this request is frankly a bit unreasonable.
Those antics are allowed, I just don't want the game to turn into an unending stream of them.
If someone plays unfairly and breaks the system which keeps the game entertaining then people will get pissed off at them. It's reasonable to request all such matters be sorted out OOC before action is taken in game but asking for 'no insults' is not going to happen if someone is pissed off with another player. This isn't SDN so insults!=massive thread derailment, but if people think you are being a jackass they will call you a jackass, or such is my impression.
I just don't people to start hating each other OOCly, and in any case insults are allowed somewhat, but they have to be somewhat reasonable.

Anyway, my polity for if this (hopefully) gets off the ground:



Name: New Austrian Empire
Alternative names: New Austria, Austrian Empire
Government Type: Constitutional Monarchy
Head of State: Ludwig Karl Von Eisenstadt
Head of Government: Otto Liebknecht
Legislature:
- The Reichstag
- Approximately 1500, one for each stellar system.
Judicial: The Supreme New Austrian Court, Territorial, Stellar, and Planetary Courts
Stellar systems owned: 1500
Population: 64,000,000,000,000
Upper Class: 20%
Middle Class: 15%
Lower Class: 65%
Unemployed: 17%

Intelligence Service: Austrian Naval Intelligence
- 1,000,000
Police: The Order Police
Capital World: New Vienna
Major Planets: New Eisenstadt, New Tirol
National Language: Austrian, a language developed from German in the 26th Century, with influences from Romance languages.
Religion: Roman Catholicism
Currency: Austrian Mark
Major Industries: Weapons, Asteroid Mining, various Heavy and Medium Industries, Farming
National Resources: Food, arms, spaceships, precious substances, computers
Internal Problems: Growing unemployment, militarist reactionaries, ethnic unrest
You have ruled this galaxy for ten thousand years.
You have little of account to show for your efforts.
Order. Unity. Obedience.
We taught the galaxy these things.

And we shall do so again.
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Heretic
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Heretic »

I"m so tempted to make a parody of this...hell, I will, just for the giggles (once). I'll be serious when I think of a better polity. I can do 2 RPs at once!

Wait, are aliens allowed?
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
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Czernobog
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Czernobog »

Heretic wrote:I"m so tempted to make a parody of this...hell, I will, just for the giggles (once). I'll be serious when I think of a better polity. I can do 2 RPs at once!

Wait, are aliens allowed?
Yes, they are, but they're limited to the same tech as the humans.
You have ruled this galaxy for ten thousand years.
You have little of account to show for your efforts.
Order. Unity. Obedience.
We taught the galaxy these things.

And we shall do so again.
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Heretic
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Heretic »

Heck, I can do 2 RPs at once!



Name:The Jurisdiction
Alternative names: The Cops, Blind Justice, The LAW!
Government Type: Constitutional Representative Republic
Head of State: Supreme Executor Joe Draconis
Head of Government: THE LAW!
Legislature: The Representative Council of the Law
-159
Judicial: The Temple of Law
Stellar systems owned: 786 systems under the Jurisdiction's jurisdiction
Population: Around a few trillion. Population figures below concern workers of the Jurisdiction. The various planets have under its control have yet to be censused.
Upper Class: 2%
Middle Class: Around 50%. Most are officers of THE LAW!
Lower Class: Also around 50%. Includes maintenance workers and such.
Unemployed: 0%
Intelligence Service: The Eyes of Justice
-The amount of Eyes are not released to the public.
Police: There are the basic Lawbringers, the Sheriffs, the Special Unit Division (like SWAT and FBI), and the Paramilitary-like Defense Legions. But under the Lawbringers, the basic cops and marshals and detectives exist on the local level.
Capital World: The Scale World.
Major Planets: Penal Planet 1, Maximum Confinement Planet, Admin Planet.
National Language: English.
Religion: As long as they respect THE LAW, the Jurisdiction does not care.
Currency: Universal Commodity Tokens.
Major Industries: Security Sector, information, weapons, energy harvesting, computers
National Resources: Services (Security), Services (Training), finished luxury goods, electronics, industrial hardware
Internal Problems:
  • 1. Tensions between the Jurisdiction and various parties that claim that it is a Fascist system.
    2. Lawlessness in the frontier worlds and more populated hive worlds outside the core of Jurisdiction power is a problem and keeps many officers on their toes.
    3. The lack of any real military power to fight anything bigger than a hundred system polity is a thing many people worry about..
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
-Joseph Campbell
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Czernobog »

Heretic wrote: Name:The Jurisdiction
Alternative names: The Cops, Blind Justice, The LAW!
Government Type: Constitutional Representative Republic
Head of State: Supreme Executor Joe Draconis
Head of Government: THE LAW!
Legislature: The Representative Council of the Law
-159
Judicial: The Temple of Law
Stellar systems owned: 786 systems under the Jurisdiction's jurisdiction
Population: Around a few trillion. Population figures below concern workers of the Jurisdiction. The various planets have under its control have yet to be censused.
Upper Class: 2%
Middle Class: Around 50%. Most are officers of THE LAW!
Lower Class: Also around 50%. Includes maintenance workers and such.
Unemployed: 0%
Intelligence Service: The Eyes of Justice
-The amount of Eyes are not released to the public.
Police: There are the basic Lawbringers, the Sheriffs, the Special Unit Division (like SWAT and FBI), and the Paramilitary-like Defense Legions. But under the Lawbringers, the basic cops and marshals and detectives exist on the local level.
Capital World: The Scale World.
Major Planets: Penal Planet 1, Maximum Confinement Planet, Admin Planet.
National Language: English.
Religion: As long as they respect THE LAW, the Jurisdiction does not care.
Currency: Universal Commodity Tokens.
Major Industries: Security Sector, information, weapons, energy harvesting, computers
National Resources: Services (Security), Services (Training), finished luxury goods, electronics, industrial hardware
Internal Problems:
  • 1. Tensions between the Jurisdiction and various parties that claim that it is a Fascist system.
    2. Lawlessness in the frontier worlds and more populated hive worlds outside the core of Jurisdiction power is a problem and keeps many officers on their toes.
    3. The lack of any real military power to fight anything bigger than a hundred system polity is a thing many people worry about..
Looks like a cool nation, Heretic.
You have ruled this galaxy for ten thousand years.
You have little of account to show for your efforts.
Order. Unity. Obedience.
We taught the galaxy these things.

And we shall do so again.
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Magister Militum
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Magister Militum »

I might be interested in this if I can juggle two RPs. However, about the hard-ish setting: are we assuming that the taboo technologies and concepts ignored in soft sci-fi (transhumanism, post-scarcity economics, molecular assemblers, etc) are fair game? Obviously wanking them to hell and back is out, but they could still make the game interesting, particularly at the scale we're talking about.

As an aside, I find it appallingly ridiculous that most of our population are in the lower class; this is the 36th century, not the 17th after all.
Democratic Socialist | Atheist | Transhumanist | Bright Green Environmentalist | Worldbuilder | IT Professional |


Germania your game is through, now you're gonna answer to... The Freestates! Fuck Yeah! Now lick my balls and suck on my cock! Freestates, Fuck Yeah! Coming in to save the motherfuckin' day! Rock and roll, fuck yeah! Television, fuck yeah! DVDs, fuck yeah! Militums, fuck yeah! - Shroomy
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Czernobog »

Magister Militum wrote:I might be interested in this if I can juggle two RPs. However, about the hard-ish setting: are we assuming that the taboo technologies and concepts ignored in soft sci-fi (transhumanism, post-scarcity economics, molecular assemblers, etc) are fair game? Obviously wanking them to hell and back is out, but they could still make the game interesting, particularly at the scale we're talking about.

As an aside, I find it appallingly ridiculous that most of our population are in the lower class; this is the 36th century, not the 17th after all.
Yes, transhumanism is allowed, but don't wank it, as you said. I will allow post-scarcity economics and nano-machines (assuming that is what you mean by molecular assemblers), but wanking these things is also disallowed.
You have ruled this galaxy for ten thousand years.
You have little of account to show for your efforts.
Order. Unity. Obedience.
We taught the galaxy these things.

And we shall do so again.
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Destructionator
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Destructionator »

Kamin997 wrote:I want to see little, or no, player-against-player aggression in this RPG.
Player v player is also what forms the action. An NPC opponent can stir things up, but the fun doesn't begin until the players get at each other's throats.

I'm not for pointless player vs player vendettas, but banning it is just going to lead to boredom.
What your nation should look like:
Meh, listing that stuff off is pretty useless. You can reveal what needs to be revealed as the story progresses; it saves a bunch of up front writing and gives you some flexibility to adapt to the game.
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

And I change with the prevailing winds, as is my wont. Here we go;

Name: The Imperia of the Exiled

Or: The Starhawk Union, The Alliance Imperial, The Lost, Exilia

Government Type: Representatively democratically elected monarchy. To elaborate, each Crown System (as distinct from their subject Tributary Systems) has an elected government plus an appointed civil service, who between them elect an emperor, whose term is until death, no confidence or abdication. Between them the Emperors elect a President of the Imperial Assembly, who holds the office, likewise, until death, abdication or no confidence.

Head of State: President of the Assembly of Emperors

Head of Government: Either the First Speaker of the Widest Circle or the Director General of the Lords Necessary, depending on who you ask.

Legislature: The Fractal Circles of Voices. The Widest Circle encompasses representatives (elected and of the Lords Necessary and a few special interest groups outside the usual order of things) from the entire Union. The Imperial Circles encompass representatives of each individual empire, both of its Crown System and its tributaries. The Crown systems each have a Crown Circle and the tributaries a Tributary Circle, and each World (an administrative volume based upon distances and population involved) has a Worldly Circle.

-The Widest Circle currently has 1112 sitting members, 1130 when the Emperors choose to sit personally in on the proceedings.

Judiciary: The Courts of the Air, administered by the Lords Oxygenic. Levels of Court go from the habitat level right up to the pan-Imperial.

Star Systems Owned: 18 Crown Systems with 800 tributaries between them, plus a currently unknown number of interstellar habitats not under any one Emperor’s jurisdiction.

Population: 24,000,000,000,000 at last census.

Upper Class: Depends greatly upon definitions, 3% if one only counts hereditary nobility and 16% if one counts anyone of ‘equivalent influence’.

Middle Class: See above, but even more vague, between 13% and 44% depending on who one asks.

Lower Class: 10% based on certain old fashioned measures, 54% based on those who think everyone in the tributaries is lower class.

Unemployed: 30%, the only number everyone agrees on.

Intelligence Service: The Imperial League of Quartermasters, or ILQ.
-That’s classified.

Police: The White Fleet (pan Imperial) and the Blue Fleets (Imperial)

Capitol: Cork, also known as Amipor, an uninhabitable, miserable little planetoid in neutral interstellar space.

Important Planets: The capitol worlds of the 18 empires are as follows: Tialor, Jasmine, New Europe, New Scottsland, Icecrown, Jade Cluster, Resurgent, Easterland, Ahriman Cluster, Ahmed’s Berth, Nine Mines Cluster, Sanguine Cluster, Oberon, Jemsrock, Dancer, Siren, Apotheosis Cluster, Kozuki’s Orb.

National Language: New Imperial Antarctican

Religion: Anthropism (the Church of Anthropic Apotheosis through the Vision of Our Lady the Prophet Amy)

Currency: Imperial Dispense

Major Industries: Starship parts, organic micro and macroengineering, computer engineering, nebula and asteroid mining.

Resources: Minerals, computers, exotic organic molecules, exotic matter, starship parts

Internal Problems: None, the people of the Union are completely united.

-There may be some disagreements of policy with regards to power sharing (between the individual empires and the Union, the Emperors and the Circle, the Emperors and the civil service and the civil service and the elected voices), the role and loyalty of the military, the role of religion, the species issue and the nature of the imperial ideology and the position of the Imperia’s tributary subjects.

-These are only minor issues and nothing for too many people to be killed over.

EDIT: Not very imaginitive and hastily adapted from another concept, subject to change if as and when I think about it in any more detail. I haven't thought about the demographics at all, for instance.
Last edited by speaker-to-trolls on Wed Aug 11, 2010 2:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Little monuments may be completed by their first architects, but great ones; true ones leave their copestones to posterity. God keep me from completing anything."
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Destructionator »

To give you a taste of the thing I have in mind, here are the answers questioned by my "nation" in first person:

Name: I don't have a name
Government Type: none, I have the freedom to do anything I desire
Head of State: I represent myself
Head of Government: I am in control of my own faculties
Legislature: I live by my own rules.
Judicial: I'm an adult, I can take care of myself.
Stellar systems owned: None, I live where ever I want to live.
Population: I don't understand the question.
Upper Class: I don't have any class.
Unemployed: 0%
Intelligence Service: I do it myself.
Police: I don't need some external entity to manage myself.
Capital World: Where ever I happen to be at the time, I suppose.
Major Planets: None.
National Language: I don't need a language, except for talking to exterior inferiors. I, naturally, share memory with myself..
Religion: None.
Currency: Nothing.
Major Industries: Warships, avatars, computers
National Resources: I don't trade.
Internal Problems: I do not have them.
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Dakarne »

Name: The Culture
- Alternative Names: Those overpowered bastards written by Iain M. Banks.
Government Type: Anarchic Utopian (Post-Scarcity)
Head of State: Not really applicable.
Head of Government: What government?
Legislature: We don't really have laws here...
Judicial: Contact. Special Circumstances.
Stellar systems owned: Multiple. Most people live on mobile habitats, however.
Population: A whole fucking lot.
- Upper Class: Not applicable. Classless anarchic society.
- Middle Class: Not applicable. Classless anarchic society.
- Lower Class: Not applicable. Classless anarchic society.
Unemployed: Not applicable, people don't really need to work.

Intelligence Service: Special Circumstances
- Who? Like we'd tell you that.
- How Many? Enough to do the job.
Police: Not really applicable.
Capital World: Not really applicable.
Major Planets: None. Who would want to live on one anyway?
National Language: Marain, unofficially.
Religion: None. Remember, highly advanced and enlightened society. Also, we have free booze. That's better than religion.
Currency: Good manners, maybe? Why do we want currency in a society which can construct anything in a minute from pure energy?
Major Industries: Almost anything you could mention.
National Resources: Happiness. Access to infinite energy. Ridiculously high technology. Near-omnipotent artificial intelligence. Lots and lots of sex.
Internal Problems: Boredom. Lack of real purpose. An insane tendency to meddle.
Image
'For the moment, mortal, they find the thought of killing me more desirable than that of killing you.'
'And what are their chances?'
'The answer to that is evident in how long they've been hesitating, wouldn't you think, mortal?'

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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Destructionator »

So I'd be playing as a nomadic artificial intelligence. It floats around going for some goal that isn't important right now.

I bolded population because that's the most bizarre thing. There's only one AI program, but it runs as many copies of itself as it needs to accomplish its goal. Copies are created and destroyed on demand, so there is no set population figure. (They are all virtually identical anyway.)

Computer programs are deterministic. That is, given the same inputs, they will always produce the same output. So any individual copy can speak for the whole; it knows they all would have said the same thing anyway. Even so, they try to stay in communication when possible since more info means better decisions.

Naturally, any copy can make copies of itself too. Being digital, there is no loss here. A 1,000,000th generation copy is still identical in every way to the 1st seed.


It treats physical assets the same way as its mental self. Stuff is built and destroyed as necessary to complete the job.
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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Heretic
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Heretic »

Dangit Dakarne. You brought the pesky Culture along.

Soo...should I wait until this RP goes, or should I continue with MY more important RPG? (Just kidding Kamin. We luv you.)
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
-Joseph Campbell
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speaker-to-trolls
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

Destructionator wrote: Computer programs are deterministic. That is, given the same inputs, they will always produce the same output. So any individual copy can speak for the whole; it knows they all would have said the same thing anyway. Even so, they try to stay in communication when possible since more info means better decisions.

Naturally, any copy can make copies of itself too. Being digital, there is no loss here. A 1,000,000th generation copy is still identical in every way to the 1st seed.
Is there anything which could befall a copy which would sufficiently alter its paramaters that it was no longer identical to the original in terms of thought patterns?

Also surely there must be some loss of information, no system of data transfer is infallible.
Heretic wrote:Dangit Dakarne. You brought the pesky Culture along.

Soo...should I wait until this RP goes, or should I continue with MY more important RPG? (Just kidding Kamin. We luv you.)
If you think you've got the time go for it, I don't think this RPG is likely to suck too many away from yours.
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Destructionator »

speaker-to-trolls wrote:Is there anything which could befall a copy which would sufficiently alter its paramaters that it was no longer identical to the original in terms of thought patterns?
I imagine most those things would just cause the unit to shut down (examples: random errors from radiation, missiles blowing up in its face). But if it would be interesting as the plot progresses, it might happen.
Also surely there must be some loss of information, no system of data transfer is infallible.
Solved problem today. The transfer medium might be unreliable, but you can check the data as it comes in to ensure it correct, and if not, resend it.

For example, file transfers over the Internet. The data is sent to you in a series of packets. Each packet contains the data, a sequence number, and a checksum (as well as other stuff, not important here).

The checksum is a number that should match the rest of the data once you run an algorithm on it. There's many algorithms for this (which all include addition, hence "sum"), but they all have something in common: the odds of a random error producing the same checksum are very, very low.

Some of those algorithms are designed so even an intentional alteration have very low odds of producing the same result, and those ones are used in cryptography and digital signatures.


Anyway, for each packet sent, the receiving computer checks the data against the checksum. If it doesn't match, it discards the data, assuming the data is corrupted in some way.

If everything checks out, it sends back to the sender an acknowledgemet with the sequence number. It says "OK, I got this one intact".

If the sending computer doesn't get one of those acks, it resends the packet, hoping it gets better luck this time.

If the receiving computer gets two packets with the same sequence number (happens sometimes because the sender resent one, but the original arrived anyway, just late), it knows to ignore it. No data will be duplicated.


That constitutes the built in reliability factors, used in every data transfer on the web. There's a very similar system used when sending data from your computer memory to the hard drive, and back. The checksum makes sure nothing is lost on that short trip, and is then stored on the disk so it can tell if the hard drive is damaged later.


Dedicated file transfer programs often top this off with one last check. While the built in checksum confirms each individual packet of data, this final check runs over the entire file and uses one of the cryptographic algorithms to ensure it wasn't faked. The odds of a single packet being wrong, but having the right checksum are already extremely low, but adding this final on top of it makes sure it is, for all remotely practical purposes, completely impossible to store bad data.

(If this final check fails, the whole file would be discarded and it starts over again.)



On an unreliable network, all this check/discard/resend can slow the transfer down to a crawl, but it does an excellent job in making sure that incomplete or wrong files are never mistaken for the real thing, and thus are never used.



btw, this is a common pattern in reliability across the real world. Do something, check it, if it fails, just try it again. You can then accept very high individual odds of failure without compromising the system as a whole. Imagine something that fails 50% of the time. If you try it just once, you fail half your attempts. But, if you can recognize failure and try again, the odds of overall failure drop to 25% - the odds of failing twice in a row. If you can try again and again and again until you succeed, the odds of failure come close to zero percent.

The big advantage of this scheme is cost: getting a 25% boost in reliability in one single part costs a lot of research time (the engineers have to figure out what is causing and probably custom design the fixed parts), and might not even be possible. But buying a backup that you can fall back on only doubles the purchase cost - no or very little increase to the R&D cost* - and consistently gives you the reliability boost.

* I should note though that the *best* way to do it doubles the R&D cost too. Instead of running two backups that are identical, you have a separate team design the backup. That way, a design flaw in team A's work is unlikely to take the backup down too, since team B probably won't make the same mistakes. If it must be very reliable, like in medical, airplanes, etc., you'd probably have a team C checking each design too, ensuring that they indeed don't have any similar things that might be flawed.

Still, the cost of three (fallible) engineering teams is lower than trying to get one infallible team with infallible parts!
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Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

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Magister Militum
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Magister Militum »

Alright, I'll bite. And better yet, I'll import a polity from another 'verse I've been working on over the past few weeks (albeit adapted to this setting):

Name: The Most Noble and Serene Empire of Marathon and the Associated Star Systems

Alternative Names: Star Empire of Marathon, Marathonian Empire, Marathon

Government Type: Federal Constitutional Republic. Chancellor is elected from the general public for a set term (400 years), barring impeachment, resignation, or death (incredibly rare).

Head of State: His Excellency Grand Admiral Johnathan Hiram Villanueva, IMSN (Ret.)

Head of Government: His Excellency Grand Admiral Johnathan Hiram Villanueva, IMSN (Ret.)

Legislature: Bicameral Imperial Parliament consisting of the House of Deputies (lower house) and the Senate (upper house). House of Deputies consists of designed number of deputies based on population of provinces. Senate consists of a set number of senators per province, as well as those appointed by the Chancellor. Provinces, Departments, and smaller sub-units have their own legislatures based on the same model.

Judiciary: Imperial Court System that covers the entire structure of the Empire.

Star Systems owned: 1400 systems, not including orbitals and other megaconstructs.

Population: 52,000,000,000,000 Posthumans, baselines, genmods, uplifts, sapient AGIs, and aliens.

Upper/Middle/Lower Class: Not Applicable - Development of centrally planned semi post-scarcity economy allows for all citizens to have all basic commodities and a guaranteed living wage, as well as the ability to purchase (extremely cheap) material goods considered as luxuries by others. Naturally, the most luxurious/grandiose goods, such as private planets or star systems, cannot be acquired by everyone, thus preventing the Marathonian economy from being truly post-scarcity (as it was intended). While work is not necessary, those who seek prestige or more wealth to live a more prosperous life regularly do so for their own benefit.

Intelligence Service: Office of Strategic Services. Handles all facets of intelligence gathering, including wetwork, cryptography, and 'foreign domestic interference'. Number of operatives classified.

Police: Imperial Constabulary

Capitol: Marathon, a city-world in the heart of the Empire.

Major Worlds/Habitats: Many. Notables include Elysium, Citadel, Bright Jewel Habitat Cluster, and Wyvern.

Religion: None. Some choose to practice a specific faith and are constitutionally guaranteed the right to do so.

Currency: Marathonian Dollar

Major Industry: Weapons, starships, megaconstructs, computers/AIs of all grades, exotic matter, and virtually anything else that can be produced given enough time and resources.

National Resources. Matter and energy

Internal Problems:

1.) Militant tendencies among citizenry and populace over Marathon's mantra of manifest destiny can lead to ill advised interventions and military adventurism.

2.) Imperial control over colonies on the marches can be strenuous at times, especially when dealing with fringe societies.

3.) Increasing racial tensions among dwindling and resentful baselines and more affluent and powerful posthumans and genmods have led to race riots and occasional acts of terrorism.
Democratic Socialist | Atheist | Transhumanist | Bright Green Environmentalist | Worldbuilder | IT Professional |


Germania your game is through, now you're gonna answer to... The Freestates! Fuck Yeah! Now lick my balls and suck on my cock! Freestates, Fuck Yeah! Coming in to save the motherfuckin' day! Rock and roll, fuck yeah! Television, fuck yeah! DVDs, fuck yeah! Militums, fuck yeah! - Shroomy
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Ford Prefect »

If I might make a suggestion, why not remove FTL entirely? Cutting back on the scale and altering the way the powers communicate could be a positive thing.
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

I am generally in favour of removing the get out of relativity free card, BUT, I would say in this instance there is a big consequence for the purposes of roleplaying: Removing ftl travel= a massive difference between internal and external political timescales. This can be ameliorated by having all the scheming politicians be extremely long lived or immortal transhumanoids who are thus much more patient with their schemes, but the fact remains that political maps can change in a matter of years whereas interstellar interactions would, barring all the stars involved being very close together (possible if we were to set the action in a very dense star cluster or somewhere in the galactic core) take decades at least.

Not an insurmountable problem by any means, but something everyone would need to think about.
"Little monuments may be completed by their first architects, but great ones; true ones leave their copestones to posterity. God keep me from completing anything."
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Destructionator »

You could always dump the interstellar aspect too.


btw, I was thinking about having my robots not have FTL anyway - the perfect copies could already be stashed away in a lot of solar systems, so it feels like it is everywhere at once. Only problem is they wouldn't communicate in game relevant timescales; system A's robots know nothing about developments in system B. Of course, what I call a problem is also an opportunity!
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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speaker-to-trolls
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

You could always dump the interstellar aspect too.
Or we could do that, though depending on the desired degree of hardness we might need to spend a good deal of time working out precisely where everything is so that it makes sense.
"Little monuments may be completed by their first architects, but great ones; true ones leave their copestones to posterity. God keep me from completing anything."
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Magister Militum
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Magister Militum »

Removing FTL and keeping it interstellar would be very interesting and fun, but I do agree that it may create some difficulties. Alternatively, we could take the Destructionator route and set the game in a single absurdly developed star system (you can fit, what, a couple of quadrillion people in the inner solar system alone?). Unlike Ford, I don't really mind the current scale (especially since Ford hates anything larger than a few systems :D), but whatever works best for the RPG should be used.
Democratic Socialist | Atheist | Transhumanist | Bright Green Environmentalist | Worldbuilder | IT Professional |


Germania your game is through, now you're gonna answer to... The Freestates! Fuck Yeah! Now lick my balls and suck on my cock! Freestates, Fuck Yeah! Coming in to save the motherfuckin' day! Rock and roll, fuck yeah! Television, fuck yeah! DVDs, fuck yeah! Militums, fuck yeah! - Shroomy
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by Destructionator »

Quadrillions would indeed fit, if you were willing to disassemble the planets or moons too. Using just inner system asteroids would top out in the trillions of people.

If you bring in asteroids from the outer solar system, then you go into quadrillions - or more - without touching the planets!


btw, I have to say the idea of being small timers in a little colony cluster rather amuses me. You aren't even governments, just rich private citizens with armed employees and some second hand military hardware. You have to tip toe around the law to avoid the real military from coming in and shutting you down!
His Certifiable Geniusness, Adam D. Ruppe (My 'verse)
Marle: Lucca! You're amazing!
Lucca: Ain't it the truth! ... Oh, um...I mean...
Marle: Enough with the false modesty! You have a real gift! I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!

"I still really hate those pompous assholes who quote themselves in their sigs." -- Me
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Re: O1 Galaxy - An RPG Attempt

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

Destructionator wrote:Quadrillions would indeed fit, if you were willing to disassemble the planets or moons too. Using just inner system asteroids would top out in the trillions of people.

If you bring in asteroids from the outer solar system, then you go into quadrillions - or more - without touching the planets!
The numbers we've got at the moment would, I think, seem a bit more reasonable in an insanely developed single system. It doesn't seem quite right to me for however many stars we would have collectively to go from populations of 0 to hundreds of trillions in a mere 600 years. But then I could be wrong on that, I don't know how fast the population could reasonably be expected to grow out in the colonies (plus Sol could already have quadrillions when colonisation begins).
Destructionator wrote:btw, I have to say the idea of being small timers in a little colony cluster rather amuses me. You aren't even governments, just rich private citizens with armed employees and some second hand military hardware. You have to tip toe around the law to avoid the real military from coming in and shutting you down!
Goddamn, I LOVE this idea :D Even if this RPG doesn't have it this should be included in another one somewhere on the line.
"Little monuments may be completed by their first architects, but great ones; true ones leave their copestones to posterity. God keep me from completing anything."
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