The Solidarity Wars reboot

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Malchus
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Malchus »

Booted Vulture wrote:Although everyone's idea of cool will be differently.
Truer words have never been spoken, and I actually find hard-sci-ish combat systems much cooler than the Rule of Cool of usual sci-fi fare. Something about ships slugging it out, sensors only, from well beyond visual range just seems epic to me. Of course, that probably would make for poor TV/cinema/comics, so I understand why it's not prevalent in such media. In literature, however, we don't have that limitation.

Still, I have no problems with "soft" sci-fi either. Whether we decide to set this hard-sci-ish or with Star Wars style uber -shields, teraton-range beam weapons, and starfighters galore is fine by me. I can adapt to either setting just fine.

Although, what does everyone think of the translator idea I pitched in the last page? I think it got overlooked in the recent weapons discussion. I think it has merit, and my personal suspension of disbelief gets really strained when it comes to Star Trek-style universal translators.

EDIT: As an aside, this thread is awesome. All these members in such active discussion, and it's just the setting up. The 'verse hasn't even been created yet. Reminds me of the more active Old OZ (well, at least the active Old OZ when I joined in).
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Booted Vulture »

I quite like the ideas you put forth Malachus; although the idea of mechanical translation devices is good as you presented it, I have to wonder about the general state of technology among the populace ie) how expensive and wide spread would such devices be? Would they be a military/govenment department only device or would the common man on the street have one on his palm pilot?

If they are quite rare, the solution would be an artificially devised trade language, a simple code comprising of the few notes and sounds that the majority of people have in common.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Malchus »

Booted Vulture wrote:I quite like the ideas you put forth Malachus; although the idea of mechanical translation devices is good as you presented it, I have to wonder about the general state of technology among the populace ie) how expensive and wide spread would such devices be? Would they be a military/govenment department only device or would the common man on the street have one on his palm pilot?

If they are quite rare, the solution would be an artificially devised trade language, a simple code comprising of the few notes and sounds that the majority of people have in common.
Well, from all the trade and proliferation as presented in the premise, I should think that they'd be relatively common (especially for interstellar vessels and way stations). And considering that this is the future, maybe there are compressed Palm Pilot-like versions available to the creature on the street. Maybe these would be the less capable ones, and would use the most basic of language structures in translation. That, and the cheapest versions might even lack the Language Acquisition Device, which means they are only limited to their pre-programmed language package and can't do the two-way language acquisition exchange capabilities of the more sophisticated models.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Czernobog »

I personally find soft sci-fi more cool. Something about dramatic space opera really makes me enjoy myself. The idea of these ships dramatically firing on each other, not shooting till they see the whites of their eyes, psychic powers, energy beings and such is good to me.

As an aside, I dislike the idea of psychic powers coming from cybernetics. Why then call them psychic powers? This isn't some place like 40k where it's stagnant and the laymen are ignorant of technology. People should know that these powers aren't really psychic. Psychic powers become something you can buy, and that irritates me a great deal. Perhaps humans can use these cybernetics to compensate for their lack of such abilities, and some aliens are able to use them without cybernetics. But saying 'zomg teh psychics are really cyborgs' greatly annoys me.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Malchus »

Kamin997 wrote:As an aside, I dislike the idea of psychic powers coming from cybernetics. Why then call them psychic powers? This isn't some place like 40k where it's stagnant and the laymen are ignorant of technology. People should know that these powers aren't really psychic. Psychic powers become something you can buy, and that irritates me a great deal. Perhaps humans can use these cybernetics to compensate for their lack of such abilities, and some aliens are able to use them without cybernetics. But saying 'zomg teh psychics are really cyborgs' greatly annoys me.
Since the cybernetic devices are linked to the mind, why the heck not? It'd just be a case of Our Psychics Are Different. Just because they're not completely the classic literally mind over matter psychics, doesn't mean they won't be dubbed "psychics" by laymen. They do still do things with their mind, just with mechanical help. If that does make it into the TSW revival, then go without them for your race. And if you must refer to them when talking about other members' races (if they have them), then call them neuro-cybernetic manipulators or somesuch if you dislike labelling them as psychics. Simple as that.

EDIT: Personally, I find the more traditional depiction of psychics lame when applied to sapce opera and aliens. It's just seems old and handwavium-ish to me. Of course, that's my opinion. Being a collaborative effort, if the majority do decide to use more traditional psychics then I bow to house rules.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Artemis »

Here's my thoughts as far as how "hard" we ought to be with this stuff. We need to focus on two things above all else - plausibility, and practicality. Can it be done, and should it be done. If it has flaws which might keep it form being used by one polity, there might be others out there with better engineers/fewer scruples who'll have no problem using it.

In the case of lasers, despite the drawbacks that Blackwing pointed out, I'm sufficiently convinced that lasers can be used as an effective weapon in space combat - hell, the drawbacks just make it more interesting, I think, and is all the more reason to keep them. And I think we can all agree that lasers have several distinct advantages in space combat that any self-respecting space navy would want. So, it's plausible, and practical, and I say that's enough reason to use it. Likewise, concerning artificial gravity, if it's got some basis in scientific fact and/or logical conjecture, and someone in this universe will have a use for it, I'm OK with it. I personally probably wont use it for the polities I've got planned, most because they're very low-tech the other because they're very straightforward and economic, but I've got no problem with others having them.

We can't let suspension-of-disbelief be a monkey on our backs stifling what could be a very creative and fun universe - on the other hand, I see where the problem arises where everyone's idea of "realism" is gonna be different. With Comix! we didn't have this problem because we all agreed that realism had a great big Archwind-shaped hole punched through it. This was because we wanted a universe full of superhumans, super science, magic, drastically-altered history, and a healthy dollop of cheese. I think we need to figure out what we want from this universe, and tailor our technological conjecture around that. Here's a list of things I'd love to see in TSW:

Cultural interaction - trans-galactic trade, multi-species polities, how does a race of people who've survived a thousand years of nuclear winter and only just united to escape into space react to a polity that makes its economy off selling nukes to the highest bidder?

So we're gonna need technology that's gonna allow this kind of thing to take place. Malchus was talking about translator technology, and I think along with just a language translator, we should also need cultural translators - this kind of tech would be a huge deal, as it's what makes diplomacy, commerce, and cross-species military endeavors possible. I think we should have a mixture of computers and people translators working on this.

Similarly, we need to examine interstellar communication. I do think we should be able to send messages through graveddies, either through lasers or plain old radio beams, or to pack messages onto a ship or probe, send it through, and have it start transmitting. However, once in-system I'm fine with communication being confined to 'mere' lightspeed. It's realistic AND a good storytelling theme.

And let's not forget political intrigue. We're gonna probably have a LOT of polities going on here - I personally am planning three different polities for my Sylphs as well as a human polity, and I'm sure you've all got lots of ideas sparking off. All these different nations interacting is, I think probably one of the main themes of this universe. I'd love to see nations defusing Cuban Missile Crisis-style events, political enemies maneuvering behind the curtains of fleet movements and graveddy fortifications to get the upper hand on one another, etc. This also requires the communications technology and techniques I was referring to earlier, but I'm also talking more "fun" technologies, things that would be involved in intelligence gathering and espionage. I'm not thinking so much James Bond as I am CIA/MI6 in THE FUTURE, but things like personal stealth suits and similar gadgets might be worth looking into.

Cybernetics and A.I. - So it seems like we can all agree that cybernetics should be present, even fairly common. It's already both plausible and practical in our own society (yeah, we don't have matrix plug-ins, but we're already headed down the right path with things like pacemakers and diabetic insulin pumps), so it should be even more so in the future. Siege was making a connection to Full Metal Contact, where the crews of ultra-high-velocity "hot ships" might be entirely post-baseline in order to survive just living on their ship, and I'm alright with that to an extent - now, I love the idea of post-humanity, and enjoy writing about it, but it's not what I personally want this universe to really be about. I truly do think they should be present because they fit the plausible/practical rule, but let's keep them rare, specialized, and still relatively new. Trans-baseline, on the other hand, where they have some new/enhanced capabilities but are still recognizable members of their original species, could be all over the place - I've got no problem with that at all.

Now, A.I. is a really tricky subject I think. I personally am I love with the idea, but I'll be the first to admit I'm not really well-versed in A.I. theory besides really basic concepts like the Turing Test. This is one technology that I'm totally willing to let my far-better-educated colleagues hash out. I personally would like to see A.I. with personalities, which could be characters in and of themselves, but I'm sure I'd be opening a can of worms with that one. On the other hand, referring to the fighter discussion we were having, it doesn't seem like anyone has a problem with autonomous computers capable of enough logic, memory, and problem-solving ability to perform dogfighting maneuvers, and really high-end computers are probably necessary for things like navigation, engineering, and fire control on starships. Whether these things are 'intelligent' or not is where I'm not sure we're all in agreement.

Finally, there's one thing we really need to take into account - all the people writing this have different levels of science education, have different styles of writing, and are gonna be focusing on different aspects of TSW. For example, I always get Cs in my science classes - even though I love the subject I'm just not that good at mathematics and biology - and while I think I can write fairly realistic stuff in Universal Constants, it's all in service to the themes of that universe, not necessarily because that's the way I think technology will actually be in four hundred years (in actuality, I have no idea), and I plan to focus on the cultural/political side of things rather than the technological one, though you better believe I'll be writing me some starship combat and planetary invasions. This is, I think, noticeably different than Siege, who knows a shit-ton more about science and is a lot better at writing about it than I am, and who I know for a fact has a different style of writing a space battle than I do (Marathon 723, right man? ;) )

We need some way so that anyone here can write about anything if they need to. The easiest way to do this is the Keep It Simple, Stupid rule, but that's not terribly respectful to either our Laser Gods or the rest of us. I suggest we have a subforum where behind-the-scenes tech discussion and explanation can take place outside of the fictional stories and articles. Guys like Mobius, Heretic and I can go to people like Siege, Blackwing and Ford to get advice about a particular technology, and we can reach some kind of consensus about how it could work, or whether it could work or not. I think we should keep something like a Master List of approved and "outlawed" technologies, which can of course be modified if we change our minds later. This would mostly just be to keep anyone (not that I'm accusing anyone here of this, just using an example) from writing about how their polity has a black hole generator that they're using to hold all the star systems in the galaxy hostage. More practically, so that when one of us is writing about one another's polities, we've got a good idea of what's there as opposed to their own polities.

P.S. I don't really think we've established a time setting for this. Considering the time necessary for the races to spread across the galaxy, for all those graveddies to have been explored and mapped, and for alliances, grudges, and international rap sheets to have been formed, we'd need a few hundred years - just look at all the shit that led up to WWI. Plus there's the question of when humanity gets into space, how quickly we established ourselves, etc. etc. I personally have been thinking of this being in the 27th or 28th century, but I'd like to hear what everyone else has got for ideas.

AND: thanks for reading, I know it was a little long-winded :D
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Malchus »

Well, again, I'm not that strongly opposed to anything. I will willingly work within whatever setting we eventually agree for all. Every time I bring up suspension of disbelief it's just for things that really get me rankled, but I can work around that if the final setting calls for it. I have very few problems with the weirdness in our collaborative other 'verse, Comix.
So we're gonna need technology that's gonna allow this kind of thing to take place. Malchus was talking about translator technology, and I think along with just a language translator, we should also need cultural translators - this kind of tech would be a huge deal, as it's what makes diplomacy, commerce, and cross-species military endeavors possible. I think we should have a mixture of computers and people translators working on this.
Yeah, I'm not saying all inter-species communication is machine only. If their vocal systems are similar enough (or if they have the right enhancements) then I'm sure there would be actual living interpreters too. After all, face talk can be pretty influential in diplomacy and whatnot. It's just that it may not be an option for everyone. Lomwun communication with others, for example, would be solely by machine translator since the only sounds Lomwun can produce are "o", "u", "l", "m", "n", and "w" sounds. And I'd imagine other races would have difficulty picking up and reproducing all the highly subtle nuances Lomwun would place on each sound that can affect meaning in the most radical ways.

EDIT: On a related note, I was thinking of making another race that communicated primarily with highly complex bioluminescent patterns. I think that would make for some interesting stuff.
Last edited by Malchus on Fri Feb 20, 2009 7:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Artemis »

A cool concept I took from a book I read last year (can't remember the title, unfortunately) was the idea of "subtitles," where a computer "wrote" a translation over your vision by beaming really low-powered light over your eyes. Would that be a logical concept for this translation software?
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Malchus »

Artemis wrote:A cool concept I took from a book I read last year (can't remember the title, unfortunately) was the idea of "subtitles," where a computer "wrote" a translation over your vision by beaming really low-powered light over your eyes. Would that be a logical concept for this translation software?
Seeing as how there'd be varied models, I think some versions may have that. As long as the translation isn't near instantaneous, though. I think there'd be a lag of at least a sentence or two behind since such translators would need to translate complete sentence by complete sentence. After all, there is a difference between "I will not trade" with "I will not trade with you today, maybe later." Given differing possible syntatic structures that would exist between languages (especially between differing species), if the translator decided to render the first part without waiting for the second the contextual and lexical changes might give it a disastrous subtext when translated.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Czernobog »

Note: this is a rough draft, so not all of this information may be accurate by the time TSW gets its forum.

The Republic of Starkland

Full Name: The United Republic of Starkland.
Systems governed: 16.
Population: 23 billion.
Government Type: Liberal democracy.
Derogatory names: Pinkskins, Blunderers, Human Idiots, Starkland Scum.
Motto: ‘Freedom for all, or injustice for none’.

History:

The Republic of Starkland has a long history, beginning with the twilight years of the Diaspora and the War of Revolution. For decades the colonists had been tired of sending immense taxes to an Earth that gave them no representation in its government, as the Diaspora slowed down and gloom began to hang in the air. It began with a protest in Welford Park, in the colony capital, unimaginatively named Capital, as the people demanded the right of representation on the UN Council. The protest began to turn into a riot, until all hell broke loose.

The military immediately responded, mowing down the protestors with machineguns and sending in tanks and artillery. When news of this struck, the colony Governor, named John Adams, was forced by public pressure to declare independence. The military, many of them natives, split, with half its members joining the revolt and half deciding to fight for Earth. The fleet orbiting the planet also made its decision, the entire navy joining the fledgling country. The result was war. For five years the system was contested, the UN eventually giving up the nation because of the sheer difficulty of attacking a far-away colony (both in physical space and the graveddy network) and the not inconsiderable drain of the war on their economy. This inspired a wave of similar revolts, some successful, others not, that resulted in the end of the Diaspora and the many human polities scattered throughout space.

For John Adams though, he inherited a country damaged by war, its people bloodied by the fighting and still on the watch for guerrilla and terrorist attacks caused by the remnants of the UN military forces, who had been abandoned by the UN at the end of the war, trapped on a world they had originally guarded and protected.
His government saw a massive economic increase and the driving out of the last remnants of the UN army, but the relations between Starkland and the UN's successor are still bitter to this day.

Starkland rapidly expanded, claiming 16 systems and jumping at the chance to join the OAS. For them, the OAS was the guardian of liberty and freedom throughout the galaxy, and Starkland was founded on liberty and freedom, so why not join?

Organisation:

Starkland is governed by a President, who is head of the Executive Office. There are two other offices, the Forum and the Court of Justice, each with checks and balances to ensure that power is not concentrated into one office or the other.

There is an election every five years, the two main parties being the Conservatives and the Liberals, called Cons and Libs colloquially. There are other parties of course, but are so insignificant they do not matter much to the government, and are quite obscure, so much that barely any people vote for them.

Corporations exist in Starkland, but are not allowed lobbyists, to prevent the fate of America, which collapsed economically to the point where millions of dollars became small change and former billionaires starved in the streets, their business empires having collapsed overnight.

The Constitution of Starkland is quite long, and is revered in Starkland as the ‘cornerstone of liberty’, being enshrined in the country’s National Library.

Culture:

Starklandic culture is quite self-consciously based on Old America, but has evolved quite differently in some areas, most notably the suspicion of corporations and the distrust of guns. Guns are forbidden in most systems, the authorities not willing to take the risk. A strong atheistic streak runs through the country, with 45% of the population being atheists. Most of the remainder are, in order of percentages, Christian and Muslim. There is a great respect for and idolisation of the military, and diplomatic solutions are mostly ignored in favour of violence.

Starklandic clothing focuses on fashion first and foremost. Military dress clothing is bright red and gold, covered with medals and gaudily over decorated, while civilian fashion mostly focuses on sober colours and dark clothes, in contrast to the military style. The teen subculture makes heavy use of long leather dusters and other such clothes, over black (most often with the name of a Burning Metal band) T-shirts, with blue jeans.

Starkland has a massive holo-vid industry, which is mostly used to make war movies and propaganda films of dubious quality. Action movies also predominate, and virtuo-games, which have never quite caught on amongst other polities, are popular in Starkland.

The current predominant Starklandic music style is Burning Metal, which focuses on loud music, references to certain obscure horror, high technology, more loud music, and frankly incomprehensible lyrics. Examples of bands that use this style are Necronomicon Alpha, Nyarlathotep Number Nine, and Cthulhu 666.


Military Doctrine:


Starklandic military doctrine focuses on heavy use of powersuited soldiers. Known as the Pioneer Corps, these are used to assault an enemy position, followed by tanks and under the rolling thunder of ortillery. The core of this doctrine can be easily summed up in a few words: ‘there is no overkill’. Then, normal soldiers deploy and consolidate territory, while the Pioneer Corps continues its constant and steamrolling advance.
Psychological warfare is heavily used, and propaganda broadcasts are common, containing memetic viruses that drive enemies insane, as well as other weapons. When occupying territory, Starklandic troops use ‘non-lethal’ weapons, such as hallucinogen grenades, guns that manipulate the nervous system to cause intense agony, ‘softball’ ammo, and other such devices of dubious legality, justifying their use by claiming they’re what is needed to keep the peace. When defending, Starklanders use all kinds of dirty tricks, like nuclear landmines, meme-blasters, auto-defence drones and suddenly-appearing laser fences. Indeed, they often claim that fair fights aren’t actually fair, because you haven’t been stacking the deck in your favour. Starkland is one of the few polities to have energy shields, and uses them on all its capital ships while jealously guarding the secrets of their operation and construction.

Starkland makes incredibly use of neuro-cybernetic manipulators in its forces, to the point where practically every NCO has one, while they are forbidden to civilians. Cybernetics are often heavily used as well, being an easy way to restore a lost limb, compared to the slow-process of vat-growing and the lost functionality of reattachment.

The Operatives are the special forces of Starkland, highly trained, disciplined and given cybernetic enhancements, including neuro-cybernetic manipulators and experimental variations thereof. They have superb reaction times, what might be called telekinesis, access to Starkland’s best weapons, and highly advanced mesh armour making use of non-Newtonian fluids, all packed under a dusty black cloak. They are Starkland’s elite, the best of the best, sent to fight terrorists and assassinate enemy leaders. It is a rare mission indeed where they are not successful.
Last edited by Czernobog on Fri Feb 20, 2009 8:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Malchus »

Memetic viruses that drive people insane? Isn't that sort of like people-hacking in a sense? I thought we weren't gonna use people-hacking. Then again, I could be recalling wrong.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Artemis »

I was thinking, the best way to do this would probably be to have a professional translator with the software get the translation, apply what they know about that language and culture, and then just tell their clients in their own language what the other person said. It'd be cheaper, too, and would probably keep huge linguistic meltdowns from happening. This would mean that linguists would be all over the place, and would probably be pretty wealthy dudes dudettes and dudodites. Really good linguists could probably even do away with the software, cutting out the lag entirely - two linguists could speak perfectly well to each other in completely different languages.

"Brok morg flishrigm glaktu!"

"I know the trade commission won't agree entirely, but maybe you can get them to loosen their restrictions."

"Vork morg burgum fliggler."

"Yeah, I hear ya, buddy."

A good analogy is how most animes that come over to the US have a team of writers whose job is to take the literal Japanese translation and re-write it for American audiences. The essential meaning stays the same, though it might have different cultural significance - this would also be part of the linguist's job, to keep cultural faux-pas out of the mix, which would surely crop up otherwise.

Of course, linguist's cant be everywhere, and people with palm-top translators would just have to do the best they could if they met an alien on the street who wants to sell them something, until they could both track down a linguist.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Malchus »

Well, yeah, I don't see why not. But there's still the species vocal organs limitation. As I previously stated, some species vocal organs produce sounds that can't be properly uttered by others (trying to get a Lomwun to pronounce a simple "a" sound would be impossible, and a human trying to replicate all the dozens of very subtle variations of the Lomwun "u" sound is screwed). Or, in terms of the bioluminescent-communication species I'm planning, no utterances at all. I don't think linguist can do without translation tech entirely in that case, which was part of what I was trying to say in all my language-related posts.

Again, if the race they're talking to has a language with sounds well within human range (or if the linguists have mechanical vocal enhancements), then no problem with direct talk. As for the more... exotic languages, I'd think the translator would still be handy to have around. AS for the bilingual dialogue above, yeah, that works too. Of course, that would make such linguists an even rarer commodity due to all the education (and time for said education) they'd need for that, whereas a translator can be mass produced (and can be programmed with more languages in minutes or hours than what a guy can be taught in months or years).
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Czernobog »

Malchus wrote:Memetic viruses that drive people insane? Isn't that sort of like people-hacking in a sense? I thought we weren't gonna use people-hacking. Then again, I could be recalling wrong.
Not people getting hacked via computers, but a sentence being so constructed, the words inflected and pronounced just so, that it severely damages the sanity of people who hear and understand it. Not control, but insanity. And that's the way I prefer it.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Give your country a better name than just Starkland, mang.

Magic words that drive people nuts are also lame.

At least go with some CYBERPUNK. Nanomachines in the inner ear that translate alien languages! I must constantly upgrade my brain's language codec to keep up with the latest Lowrum slang phrases or else I will no longer be hip with their crowd!
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Artemis »

Kamin997 wrote:Not people getting hacked via computers, but a sentence being so constructed, the words inflected and pronounced just so, that it severely damages the sanity of people who hear and understand it. Not control, but insanity. And that's the way I prefer it.
I do like memetics, and plan on using them myself, but this seems a little far-fetched. You might want to reign it in a little.

You're still taking control of someone's mind in a way - you're messing with cognitive functions for the purpose of shutting that person down. That, to me, is malicious hacking, whether it uses a computer or not. I would do some in-depth research on memetics to better explain how something like this would work. Also, consider that such a thing would be nigh-impossible for use against alien species whose behavior and thoughts are gonna have radically different genetic history and internal "wiring" than humans, and therefore we'd have no idea how to affect them properly.
Malchus wrote:As I previously stated, some species vocal organs produce sounds that can't be properly uttered by others (trying to get a Lomwun to pronounce a simple "a" sound would be impossible, and a human trying to replicate all the dozens of very subtle variations of the Lomwun "u" sound is screwed). Or, in terms of the bioluminescent-communication species I'm planning, no utterances at all.
Right - I'm not saying we'd all be able to speak each others' language, just be able to understand them.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Czernobog »

Artemis wrote:
Kamin997 wrote:Not people getting hacked via computers, but a sentence being so constructed, the words inflected and pronounced just so, that it severely damages the sanity of people who hear and understand it. Not control, but insanity. And that's the way I prefer it.
I do like memetics, and plan on using them myself, but this seems a little far-fetched. You might want to reign it in a little.

You're still taking control of someone's mind in a way - you're messing with cognitive functions for the purpose of shutting that person down. That, to me, is malicious hacking, whether it uses a computer or not. I would do some in-depth research on memetics to better explain how something like this would work. Also, consider that such a thing would be nigh-impossible for use against alien species whose behavior and thoughts are gonna have radically different genetic history and internal "wiring" than humans, and therefore we'd have no idea how to affect them properly.
They use them on human attackers. And I will reign it in a little - it won't instantly turn a guy into a raving nutcase, but exposure over time is really dangerous to your sanity if you're human.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Artemis »

That's totally cool - it'd make for a nice siege-breaker and area-denial weapon.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Magister Militum »

After reviewing everything that's been said, I have no real objections. As long as we set some clear rules over what is and is not allowed, then I think we're pretty much ready to go. My only question right now is regarding the scope ot TSW. Namely, what type of limit are we going to set on polity size and the extent of exploration?
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Artemis »

In the write-up sketches I've been doing, I've kept my polities down to five major worlds at the most (major being defined as a population center, not counting moons, planets and asteroids that are little more than mining colonies or listening posts), but I can be flexible in that regard.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

Wow, three pages in the course of a day, even accounting for the tiny number of posts it takes to fill up a page on this board that's some impressive growth. Cool!

I'll throw my hat into the ring for making space combat as realistic as is faesable given that very few of us have degrees in physics or aerospace engineering. Space opera is all well and good in its place, I suppose, but my personal opinion is that space, being as it is a fundamentally different environment to our own, should be seen to have fundamentally different rules. I also think the Rule of Cool is not as universally applicable as is commonly thought, but as someone else noted, cool is an entirely relative concept.
Given the difficulties with lasers I'd imagine you could have more of them on larger ships, these things could play a part in mid-range combat, between the big long range missiles or missile bus launches and the small missile spam at short range. Or something. Also, on the issue of Stealth In Space I had two ideas; first you could have some kind of Very Very efficient, one sided radiator positioned so your enemy is unlikely to see it, then you coast to make yourself look like space debris with everything powered down, then you make sure there are other energy sources to get in the way. It's not a great strategy but it could work well enough to get from A to B. Second is that you could hide on an asteroid that takes you through a convenient orbit, takes a bit more planning but it could be a lot less conspicuous, especially if you nudge it into position with what look like asteroid-asteroid collisions.

Third is buy super-tech from one of those aloof higher races who are just too cool for the main galactic scene (the ones with shields and artificial gravity). OK, I'm a hypocrite, I don't mind technology that takes the laws of physics as suggestions, provided such technology is treated as the uncanny and impressive stuff that it is. Note: just because you buy the stuff does not necessarily mean you can reverse engineer it.

I think the issue of language is an important one, and basically agree with previous suggestions with the caveat (though I'm sure it's crossed peoples minds) that a lot of specialist translators would probably have implants or brain enhancements so they'd be more responsive to the nuances of one species or another. I'm not sure what was meant by the idea of culture translating machinery, would that be some sort of machine that checks against a database and extrapolates from known data what an alien might be referencing or what some gesture or another might mean?
One thing's for sure; intercultural studies and anthropology (for lack of a better term) would be areas of great importance, you'd have the universities of the solar system trying to get as many xenopolitics students out there as they could.

Someone mentioned multi species polities, an area that might be good to look at would be places where species try to share the same culture as well as the same laws. ONce again, I'm sure Artemis has thought of this, of course.

I don't think it needs to be that far into the future, really, maybe long enough for humans to get themselves into space, become contacted by some aliens or other (either they find a graveddy or see a spaceship turn up in the L5 point one day. The first message successfully translated is "We assumed you didn't mind if we let ourselves in"), get to grips with this and start dispersing through the universe just in time for everything to get a bit chilly. I think 250-400 years should easily be enough time, depending on the date of first contact. Of course that's a minimum number (well, actually I think a minimum would be more like 100 years if contact was the day after tomorrow), and you may disagree.

If I can get my good for nothing, lazy arse into gear and write something for this project when it gets into its stride I may try to bring back the Suesno if I can find a way to make them more interesting, complicated and plausible. Alternately I have many, many half formed shadows haunting my mind that could become full on powers.
I have to ask if there are any specific thoughts about the place of humanity in this new take? I suggested earlier Corist North Terra and Haloist South Terra or something along those lines, and I think that could make for a good idea. Not taking that exact idea of course, but maybe if there were more than one graveddy in our solar system, one leading to a place closer to one power, one to another, we could have the home star of man split against itself! Grand Jupiter (Solidarity puppet) against the Golden Solar League (tool of mechanical Blockist oppression), or, you know, something. I'm not sure where I'd draw the lines of allegiance.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Magister Militum »

Like I mentioned earlier, the allegiances of the various human polities will be determined by whatever bloc gives them the best deal. Starkland (which is a stupid name, by the way) would potentially be courted by one or more blocs due to its technological advantage in regards to shielding, which means that they'll definitely be trying to bribe them into joining, for example.

My question right now is the fate of Earth? Do we have any sort of idea as to how politics have molded the planet in the centuries that follow? Are they going to be highly aggressive in tyring to rope in the colonial polities or not? If so, then I could work this to my advantage in regards to one of my polities. Long story short, a group of colonies in Sirius, each one modeled after a nation or region on Earth, start to get the bright idea that if they pool their collective resources together they could be a real powerhouse in their region of space. Naturally, if Earth is going to be jealous of the colonial polities and decides to take them back, then that provides another good reason to unite.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Heretic »

Erm, not to be persistent or anything, but I still don't understand how ship defense system work for the average polity who doesn't have shields. Do they just keep shooting counter-missile missiles and shit until they run out? That would be interesting, as time and logistics would play a factor in space warfare. And, what type of lasers are we talking about here? If this is a concentrated beam of light, then wouldn't my heatproof mirror idea be plausible? Course, the laser debate earlier might have had that information, but unfortunately, you all talked in big words, so I just took snippits of info.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Magister Militum »

Heretic wrote:Erm, not to be persistent or anything, but I still don't understand how ship defense system work for the average polity who doesn't have shields. Do they just keep shooting counter-missile missiles and shit until they run out? That would be interesting, as time and logistics would play a factor in space warfare. And, what type of lasers are we talking about here? If this is a concentrated beam of light, then would my heatproof mirror idea be plausible?
Defense sytems would be things such as countermissiles, ECM and electronic wafare, point defense, and very good amror schemes. Lasers would, of course, be concentrated beams of light, in keeping with the pseudo-hard sci-fi setting we've decided on.
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Re: The Solidarity Wars reboot

Post by Heretic »

Isn't ECM and Electronic Warfare similar? They both seem to use electronic systems and tactics to stop enemies, though ECM seems to also use sound and heat countermeasures (checked it on WIkipedia).

And, I'm still sifting through the discussion on lasers earlier, but can someone give me a summary on why lasers are hard to use, being now that they are the typical concentrated beams? Is it an energy issue, or something more?

Edit: Actually, can someone summarize Troll's laser talk? Checked the sites he had, but being a unenlightened man, had it pass through my head.
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