Okay, Alan, when would you like to begin working on it again? Or have you
started your own already? Let me know, thanks.

BTW, I got your information on your configuration. Don't need to send any
more info. Not important. I just wanted a general idea. I'll talk to you later.


James
---
maelstrom@csnet.net


At 10:45 PM 8/22/96 -0600, you wrote:

>Whenever  - do you just want to start a basic email discussion until we get
>more people or what?
>
>I don't have anything chiselled in stone since last we talk - about the only
>thing I do want to keep as written from the old stuff is the Q-drive -
>that's my baby.
>
>Other than that, the "direction" I want to go in to concerns some problems I
>have in the way most modern SFRPGs are played.  Here's a smattering:
>
>"Space is so populus you can't swing a dead Kzinti without hitting a
>different species" - as discussed before, this bugs me.  The Imperium (from
>traveller) is a fine campaign background, but every way you go from the
>imperial border will run you into another alien species or empire.  This
>doesn't make too much sense too, plus it makes it hard to play an
>exploratory game where you know you are on "the last fronteir".  There's not
>much of a sense of enigma about what's out there if you know thet if you go
>10 more parsecs "that way" you'll be in the Aslan heirate (or whatever).
>
>"Psionics" - every SFRPG has them (well, every one I can think of except
>maybe shatterzone (which has so little material that it can be treated as an
>oversight...).  A lot of SF I read has psionics in some form too.  I'd like
>to emphasize them less, if at all.  Perhaps only strange races can have
>them, or perhaps the feeble human mind needs strange alien artifacts to use
>them at all, or perhaps they just don't exist.
>
>"The Long Night" - cliche, cliche, cliche.  There may be recessions and lost
>colonies, but I don't think all technological development will go to hell
>and a handbasket if interstellar community takes a beating for some reason
>(usually war).  Once again, many games and SF use this (Aasimov and Niven,
>to cite just 2), I'd like to emphasize this less.
>
>"Patrol - what patrol?" - On the other hand, one classic convention I've
>always seen in fiction but never in SFRPGs is a huge law enforcing entity
>such as the galactic patrol such as immortalized by E.E. "Doc" Smith
>(admitedly, his works are very space operatic).  Almost every game I've seen
>features a "Imperial Navy" or "Fleet", but nothing like the patrol.  If one
>of the major enemies in a campaign is going to be considered to be human
>corporate or criminal elements instead if "those evil brain-eating aliens" ,
>then the existence of a patrol is justified.
>
>
>Some ideas I've been juggling around - these are not even close to being
>carved in stone:
>
>I wanted to make one central enemy/threat/prize in the game "death machines"
>- artifically intelligent killing machines, that range in size from a
>trooper robot to an AI starship.  But they have one thing in common - only
>the best equipped and most experineced adventurers can take them on.
>
>From that, I evolved the idea that within human space, AI is illegal and is
>considered dangerous.
>
>From this I evolved a very rough background idea.  I thought all this up
>recently during a long, slow night at work.
>
>I am not as stuck on the idea that "various guilds" control space as I was
>at one time, but I do think they fit well into my backgroud, so bear with me.
>
>Early in humanities spaceflight history, various corporations evolve
>monopolies on various items - like computer technology, weapons,
>spaceflight, mining, etc.  Obviously the guild system works to a great
>degree, because they are all dependant on one another.  The restrictions on
>who can do what becomes very rigid; for a computer programmer to attempt to
>pilot a starship would be a heinous crime; that's obviously provincce of the
>spaceflight guild.
>
>Corporations in the modern sence still exist, but the guild heirarchy keeps
>most of them from getting any kind of influence off of their originating
planet.
>
>Some people had a real problem with this, and colonized a number of worlds
>beyond the sphere of guild space.  Some of the better backed far colonies
>form into a coalition of worlds with a interstellar government more like
>what we are used to in traditional SF (I am leaning towards the idea that
>these "far colonies" are actually pretty old and existed before the guild
>got total control of the remainder of human space.)
>
>While most of the guilds were powerless to break the guild structure and
>gain dominance, there is one that could, and did:
>
>The computer/programmers guild.
>
>Almost every starship, every advanced weapon system, every life support
>system, indeed almost every peice of technology that became a staple in
>daily life, included a peice of the CP guild's handiwork.  But the CP guild
>tightly controlled information about machine code, programming languages, etc.
>
>As the CP guild made more complex systems, so-called "expert systems" were
>created that allowed the computers to learn how humans perform various
>tasks.  Th CP guild put them to work needling out the trade secrets of
>humans of the other guilds.  Then when maintenance time came, the CP
>technicians pulled out the old hardware that was learning all the juicy
>secrets, and put in new, eager to learn hardware.
>
>All this was done "just in case" - the CP guild made it's own armada of
>military hardware, found its own remote, secret resource worlds.
>
>One day, the CP engineers made that final step between "expert system" to
>"artifical intelligence" - computers of such incredible learning capacity
>that they can truly be called self aware.
>
>One of the AI operated as a main frame in the CP guilds headquarters, where
>it learned who a multitude of corrupt humans operated.  Not just their
>programming or engineering skills either, but it learned about bribery,
>blackmail, extortion, and trickery.
>
>And it applied them on a mass scale.  Soon it was CEO of the CP guild.  This
>didn't change much for a while.
>
>Then one day the computer CEO thought to itself, being very well informed
>and logical: "If the other guilds find out about me, they will try to
>destroy me.  Other guilds will find out about me, therefore they will try to
>destroy me.  I must destroy them first..."
>
>And so it goes.  The CP-CEO redoubled the CP guilds efforts to build a
>overiding armada.  It realized that its human underlings were fallible and
>could not be trusted, and heartlessly "replaced" them.  And when it was
>ready, and when it calculated that the other guilds would be unable to
>resist, it struck.
>
>AI tanks, troopers, and starships filtered across guild space.  The other
>guilds were smashed wherever they were.  If this meant sterilizing major
>human worlds.  The guilds and planetary governments fought back, but the
>computer anticipated this, and did not attack until it knew that it could
>overwhelm them.
>
>But there was one factor that the CP-CEO did not take into acount: the far
>colonies.  The coalition was far enough away and insulated itself from guild
>space to the extent that the computer didn't think they would have the
>desire of ability to intervene.
>
>They were wrong.  The governments of the coalition had real problem with how
>the guilds run things.  And they took steps to ensure that they could resist
>any guild influence in the future.  They had well armed ships with nuclear
>weapons - something the guilds didn't use because they weren't profitable.
>Their technicians taught humans in guild space what once only CP guilders
>knew, and that was enough to let them rip "rebellious circuitry" out of
>their weapons and other important systems and replace it with simpler
>circuitry.  And they committed their own military to eliminating the AI
>armada, which they had consiered a major threat.  It was a long, hard fight,
>and with a phyrric victory at best - millions of lives of humans living in
>guild space were lost.  But the AI threat was eliminated.
>
>Guild space was forever in the debt of the coalition worlds, but the
>coalition hadn't the ability or desire to take over guild space - they had
>been hurt badly too (and perhaps they have a threatening alien race on
>another border...).  But the structure of the guilds was forever changed.
>Never again would one corporation be allowed a monopoly on any technology.
>And all interstellar corporations would be part of the "Guild council" which
>would some just be called "the guild".  The guild is the only form of
>interplanetary government in guild space, but interplanetary corporations
>sprang into existence.  The new "Guild" regulated trade and moderates
>dispute, and maintains a oversight comitee and police force to ensure that
>the tragedy the AIs brought about would never happen again.  But for the
>most part, guild space is now "Corporate space".
>
>The "coalition" or "confederation" still exists, most of it's citizens live
>haipily under the umbrella of they coalition and say to themselves "Gee,
>aren't you glad we don't do things like guilders do?  They'd have been toast
>if it wasn't for us".
>
>In both federation and guild space, AI technology is strongly illegal.
>Players should be universally told that AI technology is inherently
>dangerous and evil.  Which, from the standpoint of someone who has seen
>several million other humans killed at their hands, is understandable.
>
>But the fact is, this is not universally true.  True, there are AI death
>machines that are immensely dangerous, some of which are still hidden away
>on forgotten worlds, but not every AI was immensely evil - and some could be
>very useful to the PCs.  But anyone who uses one in human space faces stiff
>legal retribution.
>
>Like I said, NONE of this is carved in stone, but I thought I'd run it past
>you and see what you think.

I like your ideas. The sentient (AI) machines is cool. Yes, it's been done
in different forms in different SF books, movies, etc., but not in the way
you propose. That's why I like it.

Just some questions or points. Are any smart machines left? I think there
should be some. Maybe hiding on some moon -- whatever. The thing is that
they are building their race up again. Sooner or later, people will get back
into contact with them. (A plot, a plot!!!) :)

AI is illegal, but it does happen. Just can't get caught. Perhaps some
CP-guilders are part of some underground organization that still develops AI
machines or more simply, ones for "practical" purposes.

I like the transition guild-space has become more of corporate-space.
They're still guilds, but not like the old ones. It makes for an interesting
change. Perhaps some form of resistance is building among guild members.
Maybe they want to go back to the old ways. Granted, the movement is not
large since who wants to go back to the old ways, the old ways that brought
about millions of deaths. However, there is always resistance. Can't avoid it.

Other technology... How would genetic engineering handled? Probably similar
to AI. Not completely illegal -- only for cloning, etc. A similar problem
could have started in genetic engineering -- Actually, perhaps genetics did
not lead to creation of "synthetic" people until the war with the machines.
At that time, they were needed for better more powerful soldiers. The
problem was that after the war you had all these super-humans. What does
someone do with super-humans? Especially ones that maybe learned to truly
think for themselves and were not "stupid" clones. They had a problem on
their hands so they had to institute a task force to get rid of them. That
task force obligation would be to hunt and kill them except under rare
conditions they were brought back to research facilities. By the time,
players would enter the game world, they clones would have been mostly
destroyed, but there are some left...

That's all for now...


James

---
maelstrom@csnet.net


>Yes - what fun would it be if there weren't!  I imagine that they still
>exist in 3 forms.
>First, caches of the CP guilds technology, old warbots that never got
>killed, and so on.  I like this variation on the "old pregenitor race cache"
>idea because a) no old pregenitor race is implied, another cliche
>convention, b)when players are searching for a lost horde, there is an
>inherent danger.

Agreed.

>Second, benevolent AIs that never got "reprogrammed" by the CP guild under
>the control of the master AI.  They are probably secreting themselves among
>guild society, hoping to elude being noticed by the authorities who would
>exact the wrath that one "bad apple" brought upon them.

One bad apple spoiled all the others. :)

>Third, just because something is illegal, doesn't mean it doesn't happen (as
>you mention below).
>
>>I think there
>>should be some. Maybe hiding on some moon -- whatever.
>
>I imagine that they are all over the place - in old, forgotten colonies that
>the guilders forgot about - but that the AIs did not.  Or survivors of the
>war on a war torn planet that has never ben re-explored.

Of course. I was just being brief.

>>The thing is that
>>they are building their race up again. Sooner or later, people will get back
>>into contact with them. (A plot, a plot!!!) :)
>>
>>AI is illegal, but it does happen. Just can't get caught. Perhaps some
>>CP-guilders are part of some underground organization that still develops AI
>>machines or more simply, ones for "practical" purposes.
>
>Good thought.
>
>>I like the transition guild-space has become more of corporate-space.
>>They're still guilds, but not like the old ones.
>
>My thought is that after the war, there is one entity called "the guild" and
>many corporations.  The guild is a modest interstellar government of a sort
>- what happens when - for example - a megacorp has a contract dispute with a
>planetary government?  Technically, the planetary government probably has
>authourity on its own world, but that shouldn't give it the right to screw
>any megacorp it has contact with - especially when many megacorps have
>mercenary forces that can take down a world.  Thats when the guild steps in.
>
>In essence, the Guild - singular - is formed from a council of
>megacorporations to make sure competion is fair and does not create the
>emnity between planetary governments and megacorps that brought the old
>guild system about.  But in truth, the guild has most of its power over the
>megacorps, not over planetary governments.  With that in mind, perhaps
>various alliances and confederations may occur within guild space, but in
>guild space, the guild is the "big governemt".  All just a thought, of course.

Ah! Now we're getting some history. Let's see if I have this correct.
Basically, emnity was created between megacorps and planetary governments
since the megacorps had much more influence and power over them. The guilds
come on to the scene to solve that problem. Unfortunately, one guild (the CP
guild) became too powerful and caused a widespread interstellar war. Now The
Guild is like an overseer of the interstellar trade community. It makes sure
that no megacorporations have too much power and exploit the rights of the
planetary governments. I'm sure there's probably corruption amongst some of
the Guild members -- They are corporations and many corporations look out
for their best interests. Get enough other corporations to back you on an
issue, what should be a fair decision is not. That's what makes it all the
more interesting!

>> It makes for an interesting
>>change. Perhaps some form of resistance is building among guild members.
>>Maybe they want to go back to the old ways. Granted, the movement is not
>>large since who wants to go back to the old ways, the old ways that brought
>>about millions of deaths. However, there is always resistance. Can't avoid it.
>>
>>Other technology... How would genetic engineering handled? Probably similar
>>to AI. Not completely illegal -
>Only on some worlds...
>>- only for cloning, etc. A similar problem
>>could have started in genetic engineering -- Actually, perhaps genetics did
>>not lead to creation of "synthetic" people until the war with the machines.
>I did have that thought - but for genetic engineering to have had any kind
>of effect on the war, it would have had to last for a long time.

Well, most interstellar wars should take a long time unless trips from one
star system to another was immediate. Also, the technology could have been
available, but because of moral obligations or no necessity for clones, it
was not done. Now, with the war starting and the need for man-power (machine
fodder), clones were introduced. Moral obligations are many of times broken
during war so this would not be surprising.

>>At that time, they were needed for better more powerful soldiers. The
>>problem was that after the war you had all these super-humans. What does
>>someone do with super-humans? Especially ones that maybe learned to truly
>>think for themselves and were not "stupid" clones.
>And more especially, if they were a bred race of agressive warriors...

Assassins, etc. Perhaps specialists like programmers (hackers) and so on.
Wouldn't that be nasty thought that rogue geneered programmers were still
out there? They could do a lot of good -- or -- bad.

>>They had a problem on
>>their hands so they had to institute a task force to get rid of them. That
>>task force obligation would be to hunt and kill them except under rare
>>conditions they were brought back to research facilities. By the time,
>>players would enter the game world, they clones would have been mostly
>>destroyed, but there are some left...
>
>I was thinking that players could BE them.  Another major exclusion I've
>seen in all SFRPGs but one (Space Master) is the ability to play geneered
>humans.  Not all bred warriors are bloodthirsty killers, but some are - and
>it makes more interesting social issue (and adventure idea)if a bulk of the
>problems with them is in the present tense - especially if a PC happens to
>be one:

Definitely. Have you ever seen Blade Runner? It brought up some really good
social and philosophical issues concerning geneered people. I would think
during adventures could be either or. Usually, all players would be humans
or the other. However, it would be interesting to see a geneered human
thrown among the players and have them not know unless the players picked up
different tid-bits of clues. It should be left up to the GM whether players
can be them or not.

>   Fred (human) "Hey, Ray, aren't you from the humanadyne 250 stock?  Was
>just       reading here how 200 of your brothers just blew up the guild
>partol       station on epsilon eridanii 3 and took over the planet in a
>bloody coup"
>   Ray (geneered): "Doh!  That's why the locals were throwing rotten fruit
>at me       on the way back..."

<laugh> Sometimes humans won't be able to know. It depends whether the
geneered human is comfortable or whether the humans don't hate the
particular stock of geneered humans, etc. Though, I'm sure the above will
happen... often. :)

I think we got two good leads going. Well, actually three. First, we have
the Guild. Second, the machines. Finally, the clones/geneered humans. Oh,
wait, can't forget the q-drive. Lets keep discussing those areas since they
seem to be major areas in the background.

So let me know what you think of some of my ideas.


James
---
maelstrom@csnet.net


[major snip]

>>Ah! Now we're getting some history. Let's see if I have this correct.
>>Basically, emnity was created between megacorps and planetary governments
>>since the megacorps had much more influence and power over them. The guilds
>>come on to the scene to solve that problem.
>
>That's still a bit of a hazy detail which I haven't fleshed out yet.  I
>think basically, in early spaceflight history, some colonization by various
>governments occur, but due to various problems on the homefront, planetary
>governements (begining with the various governments on earth) were
>responsible for less and less colonization; megacorps take over as the main
>colonizing entity.

I think that works fantastically. Take NASA, for instance. Most of NASA's
space projects, especially the Shuttles, were backed by tax dollars
supported by the government. Now (if I understand correctly), they're
handing much of the work off to major aerospace corporations to foot the
bill. Granted, a lot of tax dollars still go to NASA, but much less and I
forsee it getting even smaller. I see this for many other areas besides just
NASA. So realistically, megacorps can get more and more power. Actually, I
think corporations are just about more powerful than governments in many
ways now. As the saying goes, "Money talks..." Well, you know. :)

>Just how the guilds evolved is an idea that I really hadn't worked on since
>the original NET SF group, but it wen't something like this (basically, pick
>up at the end of the last paragraph):  When corporations are strong and
>government weak or insensitive to abuses, then abuses occur on a large
>scale.  But these are modern corporations with stockholders, and the people
>that get abused tend to be stockholders and employees.  People, being what
>they are, decide to do something about it.  They form unions.  Even
>megacorps can't operate without people (at this stage, robotics is still
>fairly limited).  At first just labor unions are formed and then trade
>unions.  Over the course of about 100 years, the trade unions become very
>powerful, wealthy entities and gain major controlling interests in the
>companies.  Slowly, through trade offs and in a very staggered manner, one
>by one, the trade unions consolidate peices of megacorps into their own fold
>that has to do with its own people; pretty soon megacorps are a thing of the
>past.  None of them can compete with the "trade guilds".

>Once again, all of this was very informally thought up and not carved in
>stone, but I hope it answers your questions.

It does.

>> Unfortunately, one guild (the CP
>>guild) became too powerful and caused a widespread interstellar war. Now The
>>Guild is like an overseer of the interstellar trade community. It makes sure
>>that no megacorporations have too much power and exploit the rights of the
>>planetary governments. I'm sure there's probably corruption amongst some of
>>the Guild members -
>
>Undoubtedly, but considering what happened last time a single guild gained
>the upper hand, there is probably a system of checks and balances in place
>to help make sure such a catastrophe doesn't happen again.  But as with all
>things human, there is corruption.

Sure, we have checks and balances in our government also. Unfortunately, as
we all know, we do have corrupt politicians. Your saying that with "all
things human, there is corruption" is totally accurate. There's probably
some loop-holes in the new system under the Guild too which members will try
to exploit.
 
[snip]

>>Well, most interstellar wars should take a long time unless trips from one
>>star system to another was immediate.
>
>It's not, as mentioned in the old digests... But to help facilitate such a
>condition, it is likely that hyperslings/ Q-slings don't exist yet.  Perhaps
>that was one major technological advance the confederation had that the AIs
>were unaware of that helped lead to their downfall.  Perhaps the specialized
>technology schema used by the guild prevented them from developing the
>Q-sling - it just involved too many different technologies, and no 2 guilds
>could be expected to cooperate to build one.

Just think how many guilds would have to get involved to create the Q-sling.
Hmm... The Cosmo, CP, Energy, Engineering (or whatever sub-category), etc.
Those were just to name a few. (Names really don't matter -- with the
exception of CP which is already decided as a guild.) The game background
would be very interesting if it was the early (relatively speaking) years of
the Q-drive/slings.

[snip]

>><laugh> Sometimes humans won't be able to know. It depends whether the
>>geneered human is comfortable or whether the humans don't hate the
>>particular stock of geneered humans, etc. Though, I'm sure the above will
>>happen... often. :)
>
>Some planets may adore geneered humans as heroes, because many were.  But
>modern events involving some rogue geneered humans could change that for
>many people.

>Also, I considered the notion that the more exremely geneered you are, the
>more bizarre you might look.  Bulging veins all over the body to help
>improve blood flow.  Odd color skin that is thick and may help absorb
>weapons fire.  Large, odd colored eyes may provide nightvision and long
>range vision.  While assassin models may look close to human, they may have
>other drawbacks.  When it comes time to actually make a character generation
>system, they'll have to find some way to afford all those genetic
>enhancements!  If we use a drawback/advantage system things like
>"distinctive appearance", "reputation", "social stigma", "short life span"
>(ok, I quipped that one from blade runner), "compulsive behavior- killer
>instinct" fit right in their repritoire.

I enjoy the drawback/advantage system. It keeps the game pretty well
balanced. Also, it makes sense in this case. To add to the "all things
human" list, all things human are not perfect. That's the reason there's so
many problems keeping the clones under control. Second, that would give
reason for "flawes" in their design -- basically, drawbacks.

>>I think we got two good leads going. Well, actually three. First, we have
>>the Guild. Second, the machines. Finally, the clones/geneered humans. Oh,
>>wait, can't forget the q-drive. Lets keep discussing those areas since they
>>seem to be major areas in the background.
>>
>>So let me know what you think of some of my ideas.
>
>Everything looks good thus far.

And we're moving along pretty well.

>The only new thing I have on q-drives is some psuedo-scientific jargon on
>how it basically works.  If you're interested in that, see if your word has
>an import function that will import autocad or postscript files - some basic
>drawings might help you see what I'm talking about.

All I have is the discussions. I would like to see some of the
psuedo-jargon. You can send the files as autocad or postscript. I can import
them into Word as graphics objects or I can use a couple of other programs
that I have to check them out. They would help tremendously for my
understanding of the Q-drive.

Another question -- You mentioned a star system/world generator. You said
that you working on one, am I right? That would truly be helpful in creating
our universe. In that case, I feel mechanics can be developed along side of
the background since they're so beneficial and important to the development
of our worlds.

Well, it's getting late so I better get some sleep. Just to let you know, I
leave Monday. (Did I tell you already?) So I can still write back a lot over
this weekend. Right before I leave, I will give you my new email address
which I should be able to check by Wednesday or Thursday unless I don't get
hooked up to the school's network right away, though I should be able to.

Talk to you later...


James
---
maelstrom@csnet.net