Return-Path: Received: from johnny (johnny.poky.srv.net) by mhv.net (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA21853; Tue, 12 Mar 1996 16:39:15 -0500 Received: from ras10.poky.srv.net by johnny; (5.65/1.1.8.2/02Oct95-0952AM) id AA27805; Tue, 12 Mar 1996 14:37:06 -0700 Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 14:37:06 -0700 Message-Id: <9603122137.AA27805@johnny> X-Sender: hwkwnd@johnny.poky.srv.net X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 To: maelstrom@csnet.net From: hwkwnd@poky.srv.net (Alan D Kohler) Subject: Re: NET SF: Ground work [960312-1] Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 >First of all, the reason I didn't like the STL travel to the other planet >to find the derelict starship is because of the time involved. The >closest star to Sol is around 3 ly away, right? That means that it would >take the ship around 4 years to get there. Once in the system, how would >the ship be found? Long-range scanners picking up metal in open space? >How long would that take? It would take another 3 or so years for the >message to get back to earth. Would the derelict have to be transfered >back to the Sol system to be broken down for reverse-engineering? It >just takes so long... What's the rush? If we start at 3250, this is going to be a LONG time in the future. Even if we optomistically assume the first probe to a nearby star travels at .1 c, the nearest star is 4.2 ly away, that's 42 years each way - objective time. Assume it's an unmanned probe. Assume the derelict is somewhere the probe is designed to look anyway - say around a planet in the habitable zone (the band around the star that could reasonably provide the kind of temperatures that would support earthlike-life). Then say we have good evidence that this ship is capable of FTL travel, so the data arrives 4.2 years later, and everyone is really hyped. Either a signal is sent redirecting the probe to explore the derelict, or a new (possibly manned) probe is commisioned to do the job. This would come to about 50 years if the probe alone is sufficient, 100 years if a new probe has to be sent to collect data, or 150 years if the new probe has to return here with physical specimens from the ship. A significant chunk of history to be sure, but it's just history, and it adds a certain flavor to the background - like "In the ol' days, it took us a 150 years to make the trips to alpha centauri to explore the derelict, now it only takes us 150 hours to make the same trip..." >Also, do we have any kind of agreement on what kind of planet generation >system we will use when we get to that point? I am very partial to the >system given in the Journeyman game. it's not long, but it is very good >for a "hard" sci-fi setting, mainly because of the results. Humans as a >species are not tolerant of much variances in our ecology, and planets >similar to earth will not be common. Oooh- rough one. I've assumed that habitable planets would be thin, but out there. In my population model, I've used a lot of assumptions drawn from the GURPS Space world generation system. I also like a lot of stuff in the system sent out by maelstrom. But I think someone said earlier that we were not going to stick ourselves to a singular system, rather make - or decide on - a system to use after we have a better idea where we are going. And I agree. But send a copy of your system if you care to - I'll see how what you have works with the assumptions that I've made thus far on population growth, etc. >Another point regarding the q-drive: > >if we're assuming it works best near a large mass, then why can't it >be used from a planet's surface? Okay, so even if we say that range >achievable from the surface of an Earth-like world is limited, this >can still gives us effectively a teleport device. > >Is this sort of effect wanted? Or are we going to want to make sure >that the q-drive can't be used in this way? Well, I assumed that the central mass that your jump would be based on would be near stellar proportions. Planets just aren't big enough. And a planetary gravity feild would have to be figured into your calculations. As anyone who's ever done any computational work for NASA would tell you, a second or third gravitational feild convolutes the computations for detrmining the tajectory of a spacecraft immensely. I can hardly immagine how such complicated things as hyperspace calculations would be affected. In addition, I was at a loss to explain how the Q-drive might actually propell a ship on it's intended hyper-trajectory. What I finally settled on was an immense feild (of immense energy - enough that distinctions between the 4 basic forces - gravity, electromagnetic, weak nuclear, strong nuclear - blurs) that the drive projects around the ship. The geometry of the feild determines where you want to go, but it would have to be very precisely calculated. This field "pinches off" the bubble of normal space that includes the ship, and sends it into one of the various "quantum levels" needed for FTL travel. If we use those assumptions, dealing with the effects of the atmosphere and magnetic feild associated with a planet would also be problematic as it would interfere with the feilds integrity. Of course, if the planet in question has no atmosphere or magnetic feild to speak of, then it is more likely. But there is still the gravity feild problem to attend to... >> Not wildly enthused at assuming everyone has windows let alone Works. > >Or even (Intel) PCs... We're not all followers of Bill Gates :) Huh - I never made the assumption, I just was saying what autocad was capable of exporting. Like I said, I can make a plain text file. Speaking of which, I've been fibbling around with autocad's export features, and they SUCK. The bitmap export chokes my computer. I don't know of any platform other than autocad that uses WMF. The postscript is seeming like the best option, as it has a TIFF compatable "preview screen", TIFF seems to be about the most widely convertable graphics format of any of these. >> True, but we have to keep this in perspective. 50 Million is a LOT of >> people, and even today, it would be a major economic expenditure to ship the >> many people across the ocean, if it could even be done in a credible period >> of time. Just look at "DESERT STORM" - I don't have exact figures, but it >> was much less than 50 million people. From what I understand, the navy had >> significant problems shipping that many army divisions over there. > >Remember that those army divisions probably included vehicle support >as well as troops. In the time scales we're talking about (a couple of >hundred years into the future), cryo-freeze will allow us to pack >lots of colonists into a small volume True, but colonist would have to be provided with start up supplies. If the colonists are expected to produce a technologically capable colony withing a reasonable amount of time, the will have to be given start up factories / fabrication equipment (perhaps VN machines?), survey / mining equipment, vehicles, shelters, etc, which would make the volume & weight commitment per person equal if not exceeding that of a desert storm soldier. >It may make sense to have the drive of the ship seperable from the >living quarters. At the destination, the living quarters detatch and >once everyone has disembarked, can be dismantled and used for raw >materials. This (depending on the exact workings of the drive) may >allow for a faster return journey for the drive sections. I agree - from an economic standpoint that makes a lot of sense. But perhaps the drive sections are exremely valuable and don't make it home... (more adventure ideas...) (About daedelus and orion drives) >Both are STL, since _any_ reaction drive is going to be STL (unless >you use some other widget to get around relativity). I don't think any ship with a FTL drive installed would go to the trouble it takes to whiz around at relativistic speeds - or even be designed to do such. >> I've always thought that anti-matter would be a nigh unacheivable >> technology, (SNIP) >Apparantly, anti-matter production is increasing by a factor of ten >every two years. (SNIP) >> One thing that broke me of the notion of antimatter as a vialbe wource of >> power is the notion of "wilderness refueling". (SNIP) >It's worse. Since no process is 100% efficient, any energy used to make >anti-matter won't provide enough anti-matter to match the amount of >energy originally expended, so anti-matter will always be more expensive >than fusion, solar or chemical power. True, and making anti matter is automatically < 50% efficient, since to make anti matter, you have to provide 2 protons with the kinetic energy equal to the equivalent mass of 2 more protons and collide them. And what you get out is 1 more proton and an anti-protons. Big deal about the extra proton, you can get monatomic hydrogen anywhere! >OTOH, anti-matter is _very_ energy dense. True, but there is still the wilderness refueling thing. Perhaps super-liners near the core can refuel at every stop with anti-protons. But for shoestring-merchants and frontiersmen, it's damned convenient to just fuel up with hydrogen at any given gas gient or ocean. But I was thinking anti-matter may be needed to attain the incredible energy levels needed to produce the feild required to send the ship into Q-space. For all other purposes - except exremely custom made ships - fusion is used for onboard power an STL propulsion. Use for any other purpose is simply too dangerous and too expensive. Of couse, you could have the "Presidents / COE's / Whatever" "Elite naval guard" be a contingent of solely anti-matter powered ships. This would make these ships seriously kick-ass compared to any fusion-powered ship, but worthless at operating away from refueling stations for any period of time. >btw, one idea I had for anti-matter production facilities was huge >particle accelerators orbiting as close as possible to the sun. Large >solar panels can then be used to power the facility, giving very cheap >anti-matter. I like that idea. Perhaps it was poorly accepted at first, but one incident in one major worlds history catapulted it into acceptance: " Used to be that the old contra-terrene production centre was out on those shores there. Nothin' but a huge string of fusion plants that would suck hydrogen outa' the ocean water, fuse it, and use the power to make anti - matter. Then the terrorists came along, set of one itty bitty fission device - which killed all the containment feilds, releasing all that anti- matter. Yeah those were the good ole' days, when the world had a atmosphere... But sheez, the loss of 10 billion lives - tha' worst in human history, to be sure..." >But put a big laser behind the solar sail, and use that as the light >source, and you can get half-decent accelerations. Destinations will >tend to be limited though. Yeah - reckons back to the classic "Mote in Gods Eye". Things get ugly when a laser that big gets used as a weapon... Alan D Kohler AKA Hawkwind hwkwnd@poky.srv.net "Asps. Very dangerous. You go first." Sala to Indy in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" "As I got hit by a car there was a message for me; As I went through the windshield, I noticed something; Subliminal" They Might Be Giants "Subliminal" ---- Return-Path: Received: from pukeko.gns.cri.nz by mhv.net (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA15969; Tue, 12 Mar 1996 15:42:13 -0500 Received: from lhn.gns.cri.nz (lhn.gns.cri.nz [131.203.40.1]) by pukeko.gns.cri.nz (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id IAA08589 for ; Wed, 13 Mar 1996 08:39:59 +1200 Received: by lhn.gns.cri.nz (MX V4.1 VAX) id 8; Wed, 13 Mar 1996 09:40:10 NZST Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 09:40:08 NZST From: "Phil Scadden, Scadden Research" To: maelstrom@csnet.net Message-Id: <0099F449.87E126C0.8@lhn.gns.cri.nz> Subject: RE: NET SF: Ground work [960312-1] Content-Type: text X-Mozilla-Status: 0010 Much comment about the "planet generation system" - since we are working on a campaign setting in limited space (wthats what I thought anyway) rather than a set of SF rules, I would expct every planet to be detailed. Isnt that the point of making a campaign setting? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phil Scadden, Scadden Research 55 Buick St, Petone, Lower Hutt New Zealand ph (04) 568-7190, fax (04) 569 5016 ---- --- "Now shout 'Does anybody know how to read a manual?" - Dogbert's Tech Support excerpt from Dilbert maelstrom@csnet.net Here's the next digest. I held onto this hoping for some more replies, but as I thought about it that holds off the replies! Anyway... ---- Return-Path: Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 16:07:42 -0600 (CST) From: Thorne Aaron W To: maelstrom@csnet.net Subject: NET SF: Back from Spring Break Alright, I'm back and ready to go. I'm willing to cede Alan's point about finding the derelict spaceship. I'll never like it, but I can deal with it and work with it. About the star system generation system. I can't send anybody a copy of it, (It's copyrighted) but I'll make up 3 random systems with it and mail it out so that you all can see the results that it gives. About the way that the Q-drive works, here's a related, but different idea: FTL drives are based on the assumption that tachyons are described by a set of quantum numbers similar to those that describe particles in our normal universe. By enclosing a vessel in a matter-wave field that reproduces these quantum numbers, a spacecraft can be disguised as a single tachyonic particle. This allows a ship to break the light-barrier, or actually just jump beyond it, assuming that relativity is true. You can't go the speed of light, but there's nothing stopping you from going faster. Tachyons cannot exist in normal space, so as soon as the matter-wave field is formed around the ship, it undergoes a quantum shift into hyperspace. Inside the matter-wave field, a pocket of normal space with normal-space physical laws is maintained. To reenter normal space, the quantum numbers of the matter-wave field surrounding the vessel are altered to configure to a normal-space particle. The vessel then makes a quantum shift back into normal space, and the field can be collapsed. Collapsing the field while a ship is in hyperspace would be disastrous, because each individual subatomic particle composing the vessel and the crew would make its own uncontrolled quantum shift back into normal space. This would kill any person, as each cell in the body would shift in its own way, destroying every cell. The structural integrity of the craft would also be destroyed for the same reason. I don't know much about anti-matter, so I'll leave that debate alone. To answer Phil Scadden's question about the planet generation system, considering the vast number of stars in the area we are looking it, we couldn't detail every planet. Obviously, a planet with humans (or significant aliens) living on it will need to be detailed to some degree. Major political centers, major population centers, planets like that will be fleshed out in good detail, but minor planets or outposts will probably be left to the individual GM to decide. And the purpose for the planet generation system is to give us a place to start. The system takes a known star type (information we have), and then gives the GM the number and type of planets in the star system, along with any special attributes to make the system unique. But hey, I want to start discussing Aliens! What kinds do people like, how many do we want, what kind of tech do they have, do they like Earthlings, do they have religion, and other questions like that should be addressed. I'll start; I want at least one race to be essentially predatory. Something like the Kzin would work, or maybe a race with canine-like features. I personally like the idea of a cold-blooded Saurian-style race. Maybe they are strictly carnivorous and are always searching for new sources of food (like yummy humans, come in light and dark flavors). Maybe they are deeply religious, but their beliefs are being challenged and they feel a need to strike out. Let's say that their beliefs say that they are the highest race in the Quaz's creation. But then they meet the humans (or they met another race) who are just as good, if not better than them, at everything they do. Instead of changing their theory, they decide to embark on a holy war against the offending race so they can keep their doctrine "pure". Anyone else have any alien thoughts? - Aaron Thorne ---- Return-Path: To: maelstrom@mhv.net From: Samuel Penn Subject: Re: NET SF: Ground work [960321-1] Reply-To: sam@bifrost.demon.co.uk References: <1.5.4b12.32.19960321194525.00663034@pop.csnet.net> Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 20:24:49 GMT Organization: Somewhere in Aldershot Seems to have been quite recently. Is everyone still alive? A quick point: I think someone should sit down and start work on a bible for the campaign. The q-drive and number and extent of colony worlds would be a good start. After that, we can start veering off to discuss other areas. I'm away for the next week btw, though going by current levels of discussion, I probably won't miss anything... In message <1.5.4b12.32.19960321194525.00663034@pop.csnet.net> you wrote: > >Also, do we have any kind of agreement on what kind of planet generation > >system we will use when we get to that point? I am very partial to the > >system given in the Journeyman game. it's not long, but it is very good > >for a "hard" sci-fi setting, mainly because of the results. Humans as a > >species are not tolerant of much variances in our ecology, and planets > >similar to earth will not be common. Humans are both adaptable, and more importantly, good at adapting the surrounding ecology to match them. If the planet has oxygen and surface water, then I think we'll be able to make it suitable (even if it means living in domes for a few centuries). > >Another point regarding the q-drive: > > >if we're assuming it works best near a large mass, then why can't it > >be used from a planet's surface? Okay, so even if we say that range > >achievable from the surface of an Earth-like world is limited, this > >can still gives us effectively a teleport device. > > > >Is this sort of effect wanted? Or are we going to want to make sure > >that the q-drive can't be used in this way? > > Well, I assumed that the central mass that your jump would be based on would > be near stellar proportions. Planets just aren't big enough. And a > planetary gravity feild would have to be figured into your calculations. Why is this latter point a problem? It's no harder than figuring for a stellar gravity field. Remember, the surface gravity of the sun is 'only' about 30g, and jump capable starships aren't going to get even as close as that. Depending on the equations used (and _something_ has got to be worked out, even if it's only along the lines of "square root of gravity field in lightyears for distance of jump"). > > As anyone who's ever done any computational work for NASA would tell you, a > second or third gravitational feild convolutes the computations for Orbits for three bodies are in fact impossible to work out exactly. > detrmining the tajectory of a spacecraft immensely. I can hardly immagine > how such complicated things as hyperspace calculations would be affected. They don't necessarily need to get more complex (any more than for normal trajectories at any rate). Remember also, that _all_ planets in the system are going to affect the jump somehow. Even a very small error over distances of many lightyears could mean the difference between a day and a weeks STL journey time at the end. Or worse. > In addition, I was at a loss to explain how the Q-drive might actually > propell a ship on it's intended hyper-trajectory. What I finally settled on > was an immense feild (of immense energy - enough that distinctions between > the 4 basic forces - gravity, electromagnetic, weak nuclear, strong nuclear > - blurs) that the drive projects around the ship. The geometry of the feild > determines where you want to go, but it would have to be very precisely > calculated. This field "pinches off" the bubble of normal space that > includes the ship, and sends it into one of the various "quantum levels" > needed for FTL travel. New Scientist, 23rd March, has a nice article on wormholes. It is possible to make a magnetic wormhole using very powerful magnetic fields. To create one with a curvature of 1 metre (thereby pinching off a region of space that big), would require a magnetic field of a billion billion tesla. The biggest field we can currently create in a lab is around 10 tesla. We've a way to go on that front... Oh yes, and the required level for the Grand Unification Energy (the level at which the four forces behave similarly) is around a thousand million million Gev (the largest energy we can create in particle accelerators is a hundred GeV, with a thousand GeV in the near future). (the last was taken from a Brief History of Time). Just thought I'd through a few 'real' numbers into the pot... > would interfere with the feilds integrity. Of course, if the planet in > question has no atmosphere or magnetic feild to speak of, then it is more > likely. But there is still the gravity feild problem to attend to... Magnetic fields of the intensity we're talking about would fry most of the planet probably. Ecological rather than engineering reasons for not using q-drive near habitable planets... > >Remember that those army divisions probably included vehicle support > >as well as troops. In the time scales we're talking about (a couple of > >hundred years into the future), cryo-freeze will allow us to pack > >lots of colonists into a small volume > > True, but colonist would have to be provided with start up supplies. If the > colonists are expected to produce a technologically capable colony withing a > reasonable amount of time, the will have to be given start up factories / > fabrication equipment (perhaps VN machines?), survey / mining equipment, > vehicles, shelters, etc, which would make the volume & weight commitment per > person equal if not exceeding that of a desert storm soldier. Not necessarily. If VN (Von Neumon - self replicating machines) and AI technology is available, all you need is a few small robots. They can build the rest when they reach the destination. Remember, if such technology exists, it will be _cheap_ (as will most things, except possible anything requiring materials that can't be created by synthetic means - such as 'exotic matter' for the q-drive for example). > >Both are STL, since _any_ reaction drive is going to be STL (unless > >you use some other widget to get around relativity). > > I don't think any ship with a FTL drive installed would go to the trouble it > takes to whiz around at relativistic speeds - or even be designed to do such. But speed is useful. If it takes 1 second to go from Sol to Epsilon Eridani, you don't want it to take six months to get from the star to the planet. As said in one of Niven's books, about how pointless a really fast hyperdrive was - it would take 12 months to go nowhere, and 13 months to go practically anywhere you wanted. > >OTOH, anti-matter is _very_ energy dense. > > True, but there is still the wilderness refueling thing. Perhaps > super-liners near the core can refuel at every stop with anti-protons. But > for shoestring-merchants and frontiersmen, it's damned convenient to just > fuel up with hydrogen at any given gas gient or ocean. If you have to make unplanned stops, then you're either a scout exploring new systems, or a bloody stupid pilot. I'm of the opinion that after a few centuries, anti-matter is going to be dirt cheap. But then I'm a firm believer in _at least_ a linear growth in technology. > Of couse, you could have the "Presidents / COE's / Whatever" "Elite naval > guard" be a contingent of solely anti-matter powered ships. This would make > these ships seriously kick-ass compared to any fusion-powered ship, but > worthless at operating away from refueling stations for any period of time. Why? Remember, ships in space can coast without expanding energy. The energy needed for running normal shipboard operations is minute compared to that needed for the drive (and possibly weapon) systems. They could even carry their own anti-matter production facility around with them - just a small one, with foldable solar sails ready for deployment around a star. Remember, we seem to be talking 1000yrs+ in the future. There are going to be *lots* of advances. Things thought to be possible today should be cheaply available. Expensive technology will be things like the q-drive which are really stretching the bounds of science. Be seeing you, Sam. ---- --- "Our will and fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown, Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own." -William Shakespeare, Hamlet maelstrom@csnet.net Hello, Haven't heard from anyone. I posted a digest on the 30th of March. Is everyone still interested or not? If not, that's okay. Also, if you wish to go off on your own that also is okay. Just let me know. Thanks... James --- "This world is but a thurghfare ful of wo, And we ben pilgrimes, passinge to and fro; Deeth is an ende of every worldly sore." -Chaucer, "The Knight's Tale" maelstrom@csnet.net First off, I'm glad to see that most of you are still interested in working on NET SF. Just a couple of things... 1. A couple of you are quite busy. That is okay, so am I. We make do with what we can. Also, I think when we get a little further down the road we'll be able to have different individuals handling certain areas. In doing that, development will be easier. 2. I'd like to apologize again with the update to my computer. I do know that caused us to loose some of our steam that we built up. 3. Finally, with the advise of Phil Scadden (P.Scadden@gns.cri.nz), I'm going to go over *all* of the digests and come up with some concrete ideas so our discussion can go on. I'll be devoting much of my time to that this week. When I'm finished, I'll be making "official" posts of my findings. Until then, feel free to post and discuss whatever you feel, or wait until I'm done. I am not expecting it to take longer than this week, especially if I put in atleast 6 hours a day. :) With that aside, I have question for all of you. I've been looking into setting up a Web page for NET SF. I would like to know what kind of access, if any to the Web are. Also, what browser software do you use? What OS? Etc. Just so you know my capabilities, I'm running Win 95 and I browse with Netscape 2.01. If everyone has different browsers, I am willing to either generalize it to run on all or I will include the enchancements of each one. Of course, that is more work. :) Anyway, if you have any questions, suggestions, or flames, feel free to write. Until next time... James --- "This world is but a thurghfare ful of wo, And we ben pilgrimes, passinge to and fro; Deeth is an ende of every worldly sore." -Chaucer, "The Knight's Tale" maelstrom@csnet.net Here's a little something to hopefully help tide you over until I finish coming up with some of the concrete ideas. Oh, on how it's coming along. It was coming along pretty well until I got sick which threw a snag into my progress. I'm hoping to have most of it still completed by Sunday night. I'll keep everyone update on how it's coming. Anyway, here's a "mini-digest"... ---- Return-Path: To: maelstrom@mhv.net From: Samuel Penn Subject: Re: NET SF: Ground work [960330-1] Reply-To: sam@bifrost.demon.co.uk References: <1.5.4b12.32.19960330211409.00671948@pop.csnet.net> Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 19:58:40 GMT Organization: Somewhere in Aldershot In message <1.5.4b12.32.19960330211409.00671948@pop.csnet.net> you wrote: > Return-Path: > Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 16:07:42 -0600 (CST) > From: Thorne Aaron W > To: maelstrom@csnet.net > Subject: NET SF: Back from Spring Break > > But hey, I want to start discussing Aliens! What kinds do people like, > how many do we want, what kind of tech do they have, do they like > Earthlings, do they have religion, and other questions like that should be > addressed. Okay, here's some brief descriptions of two alien races I tend to throw into most of my SF campaigns: The Scree. An avian race, with serpentine body and six limbs (two of which being their wings). Their heads consist of an axe-shaped bony thing, with two eyes (geared for long distance vision) set to the top of their heads. Underneath and just behind the head, set into their neck, is their 'mouth' which is a flexible wormlike protrusion. Two more eyes are set next to the mouth, geared to short range vision. The biggest social handicap of the Scree is that they find it very hard to trust anyone other than their mates, and their direct children. This inability to trust anyone else isn't as bad amongst modern Scree society as it was in pre-industrial times, but it is still there. Scree governments normally consist of a male-female pair. Agreements between governments/organisations etc are 'signed' by mating between the two groups. If they've had sex, then they can trust each other. Of course, this requirement of sex before trust has pervaded the entire Scree society, and any ruling body (be it government, company or social group) is often made up of close family members. Since few Scree like to take part in risapthra (or however it is you spell Niven's word for sex with an alien species), Scree don't generally get on well with other races, generally keeping to themselves. They are loyal to those they trust, and tend to ignore, rather than be violent towards, those they don't. Society is clannish, with many complex inter-relations between clans. Scree come from a low gravity (0.8g) world, with an atmosphere with a high oxygen content. They are almost totally athiest, a fact which makes them unique amongst all the starfaring races. The Xarn on the other hand, come from a high gravity world, quite inhospitable to humans. The chlorine atmosphere would be unbreathable to us, and the hydrochloric acid oceans would kill us just as quickly. Xarn are six limbed, with three squat heavy legs, and three tentacles for manipulation. They originally eveolved from starfish like creatures. They have three eyes, each eye near the top of their oval torso, above their manipulative arm. Arms and legs are staggered. The mouth is on the underside of their torso, directly below the stomach, and doubles as a waste disposal system as well - something most other races find utterly disgusting. They have pale blue, semi-translucent skin, seven hearts and a plastic like flesh, which is resistant to HCl. Each tentacle ends in a diamond shaped pad, which is really three flat fingers. They speak through membrams on their wrists - their language makes full use of this tri-stereo capability, making it impossible to learn for most other races. Apart from that, to humans their voices are soft and beautiful, totally at odds with their outward appearance. The Xarn believe almost exclusively in the 'Goddess', who dwells at the end of Time. With the ending of Time, she will choose a favourite among the races, and raise them to godhood. This religion become dominant after a series of very brutal crusades by its followers a few centuries before space travel, and aliens were met. Some more militant members of the Church believe that of course the Xarn race will be chosen (before First Contact, the Chosen race was going to be one of the Xarn nations, after First Contact it became the entire Xarn race), but they see nothing wrong with stacking the odds in their favour by bumping off other contenders. Then there's the Quan, a race many hundreds of millions of years old, whose idea of a tactical strike is to take out the offending solar system. The Tlal, an advanced machine race. The Huri, a carniverous plant race (I've always found it amusing that plant races are so often depicted as being peaceful vegetarians. The Huri consider eating other plants to be barbaric. And dwelling in a forest? What a disgusting thought! Huri would no more want to live in a forest than humans would want to live in a farm amongst the animals). -- Be seeing you, Sam. ---- --- "that which does not kill us, makes us stronger." - friedrich wilhelm nietzsche maelstrom@csnet.net