Recovery Procedure

“He arsed it up!” Shouted Foley at Dank orange and green dreads waiving in the air with the briskness of her statement, coal black wrinkled skin shining with a slippery membrane.

“Customer knew the risks; everyone is told don’t Junk yourself too often or you end up being Junked. We just have to begin recovery procedures; he then has to pay for the alterations again.”

Dank calmly drank dark rum out of an old Blackmore’s coffee cup, his white hair seemed natural and his good looks could either be Junked in or natural. Dank slowly bushed the ash from Foley’s cigarette of his khaki pants and stood up only coming up to the bottom of obsidian giant’s breasts.

“That’s balls, and you know it why don’t we just squirt the shit right in there and alter the main template. That way, we can get them to try stuff and roll back to where they last saved their template.” She waived salami sized hands at Dank, the calm almost dead expression in his eyes told her he was not in the slightest bit intimidated by her.

“That’s a great idea, why haven’t I thought of that being the genius who made the technology you would think I would have. Grow up Foley, and sit down”

Foley slumped in the couch, a hurt expression in her deep red eyes.

“We keep their original code for a very specific reason; a species is defined by its ability to bread with other members of its species. The original code is what allows that to happen; it’s the template for our human species. If we squirt into the templates, people will drift the separation will be almost total within two generations. It’s also been shown that culturally we tend to become conservative every 2nd or 3rd generation, and this swing leads to a great shedding of new thinking and values and a return to grass roots. Such a swing is getting likely now; we have seen the movements of people like the naturals; return of the faiths etc. The truth is your client is going to want to reproduce at some point and to do so we have to assist them as their genetic code is so radically different from that of whomever their partner is that a union could only happen with created material derived from the template.”

Dank began to pace behind his desk and picked up an old pipe, and began sucking on it as if he was some scientist in an old movie.

“Why can’t we have two templates for each client? I mean we could get them to pay for more storage isn’t it all just data?” She shouted still angry that her requests were rejected, and defiant that he had made her sit down.

“There is a component which is just data, however a complete copy of all genetic material is kept on every human world, the cost to replicate that and the time to replicate altered versions is too prohibitive. We physically send the original template to each planet.”

“So what’s the recovery procedure; I have never done one and this client is a VIP” Foley started to get up but then thought better of it.

“VIP, you client is the owner of an advertising company that spans one world. Sure maybe on that world he is rich but he is hardly important. The fact that he is now some sort hard cartilaginous mass sprouting copper hairs, made of real copper I might add and oozing a strange viscous green mucous suggests to me that you have not been recording all alterations, and this is maybe his one hundredth or more. There is a reason we record each alteration and send it back to planetary HQ.”

Dank put the pipe down on the shelf and played with some of the items there. His rumpled shirt made him look like some sort of painter from the impressionist period mixed with a sardonic Jazz musician from the 1970’s. The delusions of reality had faded from his ancient frame replaced by a calm grace that only came with complete understanding of human frailty.

“He will have to be reverted to this point here, just when he got his gills, new liver and mucous and he will have to stay that way.” Risking anything else will mean that we would lose his mind; his genes can be Junked to that point but no further.

“That’s like only thirty procedures, he will be ruined everyone will call him norm. That’s fashion from five years ago when water sports were in.”

Dank swept his hair back and calmly sat at his desk he punched in a few key strokes on his ancient computer. “That’s all I can do for him. Genetics is not fashion, it’s who we are it’s a fundamental.”

He gazed at the giant sitting on his couch, his clear grey eyes studying the upgrades she had, maybe close to fifty Junking sessions.

“Foley, you do another unlisted procedure ill strip you of all your upgrades. Now please leave my office and get this paper work done, he is likely to die in a few days if we don’t recover.”

Spaceships and Awsome images

The allure of skillfully painted fantastic pieces of a vision of the future or fantasy world has always been incredibly appealing. It started at an early age my dad had a huge sci-fi paperback collection thousands of books. Two awesome books I still have Mechanismo by Harry Harrison, and Views by Rodger dean. I still have those two books and pour over the images still.

Take a look at these books you can just search for the titles or the artists. Recently in my hunt for spaceships came across this http://conceptships.blogspot.com/ collection of space images.

Some Aliens

http://jeradsmarantz.blogspot.com/

Have fun and merry Christmas.

Colonisation

Power is a drug, and like any addict I was jonezin' bad by planet side. The world was pretty enough, but I didn't really care about the magenta sky and pale blue mountains covered with soft grass, edible plants and herbs.

The colonists must have given the natives divs of Samurai movies; like all first colonies past the wall this one had probably failed. The natives some form of Bastazi cat derivative approached me with Katana in their black lacquered scabbards. These ones looked almost human, either we could indeed breed with their species or they had become more human like with the colonists.

File note priority 50: Take one of the Gaisha girls back to Mars.

They spoke perfect Japaneses with a large amount of English words, probably the standard of 2104 or when-ever the place was founded.

I responded, the auto-tran forming the words in my brain. Hearing everything in English but the sounds were in language I was speaking. I explained that I was a merchant from a distant family, and I had things they would need. They were never going to get a better deal than mine.

Surveying the traditionally dress party using my ir-las monocle to measure the standard dimensions of their group. About 172cm in height, small build waist, legs and arms barrel chested, thin neck. Standard template pattern 60 colloquially known as the iron waif (Chinese factory magnates gave things weird names back then).

Note to computer: remove the colloquial anecdotes and facts plug-in from the template manager, takes too long to remember the fact, could be working. Wasted too much time filing this note in the first place.

Job added 8974: owner dislikes cultural reference in factory equipment, scrub and rebuild scheduled for 22:00 removing offensive waste ware.

Message to computer: Shut up! I'm working.

I disconnected from the ship, microwaves must be eating my brain I'm sure but I can't really tell. The constant chatter from the ship seemed like a bus of school girls going to a movie after being let out of school early. I was really pissed at the ship, machines shouldn't make snide remarks in coms with their owners.

Jess my ship started fabricating the Levis pattern of Jap fashion from 2450, one of the most successful revivals of nylon. Kimonos festooned with logos from the companies I represented, arranged in patters subtle and beautiful were presented by the dented white and gold chassis of my Marvin.

File note priority 700: Marvin looks pretty bad, should get a new one.

The fabric was addictive, they loved it; the touch the quality, the subtle way the thread felt against their fingers, the perfect precise micro stitching. The fabricator had done a better job than any human hand. The natives were in total awe at the quality.

My mind was cast back to the time before all my implants, my childhood I remembered my father telling me that all those worlds out there that stopped responding must surly be worth something. I felt small and insignificant, that was the turning point from consumer to explorer. I asked were they human. He said no one knows. I was determined to get out there and find out, to cross the void between stars, to trust in alien technology and human ingenuity.

In the time of colonization, we had cast our ships adrift like chaff to the void. Now, the worlds were very different the United Nations was everywhere, thousands of agents, millions of troops all mobilized to keep humanity in. Stopping humanity from diverging, worried about a second Titan or Callisto uprising. Remember Titan had been the words of rhetoric in the day politicians telling people what to think and what to believe. If I knew then what I knew now, corporations lobbying government to stop rampant colonization so that their consumer based companies could remain relevant. Things never change.

Like branches in a tree we had spread out; the trunk was so far that we had changed radically from what we once were. On Titan they were reluctant to adhere to a capital system which would ultimately fail. They thought they were better, more free and more creative. Remember Titan was what the Anarchists said when they died in the millions as the plagues ravaged the colonies and mines.

Sibel brought me in his lithe form and pinstriped suite made him look like some predatory fish or eel. Glasses because he was myopic even though he could get new eyes. He told me that the only way I would get past the wall or UN interdiction was to join with the corporations. His marketing company Sibel and Dawn had a plan, they had begun lobbing the UN for licenses to travel beyond the wall to the further stars of the galaxy. They would send ships, capable of fabricating goods from their clients, the genius was that they would make the goods in orbit and sell all the old and unfashionable items to the natives of those worlds made from their very own resources. All you have to do is get them to sign this United Nations Sanctioned contract. Your time is your own!

It seemed then like the opportunity of a lifetime. I like many others of my generation was raised to work, to buy and live for the corporations or take them down in my case. The ideals of humanity, liberty and egalitarianism were shammed and rammed into a pseudo rebellious fashion known as Junker. They sold an image, a belief and way of life I like many bought it. Bands, Movies, Books, Games people sold it and added fries on the side. Cyborgs tore up streets only to have some council order a new one a few days later. After some senator was killed Levis changed the label to Peace; they bought it, Bands and Movies followed. This made me sick, I thought I was a Junker! When Sibel showed me the plan, some 20 years in the making I couldn't believe the scale of sham. "We make the rules Dean, join us". And with that I signed on as a partner, got the money off my dad for my license.

My augmentations were standard issue to most corporate sales men. It took me ten years to get my license, five years to get my education, twenty years to get my ship. Everything had been bet on the single roll of the dice, humanity was out there and they were cut off from humanity and humanity would bring them home to buy and prosper.

I would have them signing over their ore by lunch time. This was what I did, the black streaks through my soul would never come clean in 20 years this place would be another client world beholden for hundreds of years to companies on Mars and Earth. Like all good addicts, I knew full well the rewards and described in graphic detail the effect this brand new laser rifle was going to have on the Shogun on the other side of the mountain, his internal organs exploding as flesh turned to charcoal and steam in an instant. I recalled tales of worlds I had saved, from barbarism, from civil war uniting them under their one government. The progress which would make all their lives better, from fast cars to fast food. The Holos of ads showed the true allure of all that was decadent and stale on earth which would be reborn and re-licensed to a new crowd of people who would cherish and love the movies, music and culture of our past.

I basked in the glory of the natives needing to acquire everything from me. In so doing choosing my version of civilization over theirs. All their pseudo Japan culture would be washed away in a sea of skin products, medicines, pop music, pop vids, computer games, fast food and fine dining. All ready to swarm over the world like a plague of locus fabricated in the ship in high orbit.

It was a good day.

House of Cards

This story is inspired from a dream I had. Please feel free comment in the comments section. I intend to write some more chapters for this story and get it to about 5000 words.

House of Cards
By Morgan Lean

Admiral Dirk Grombru gazed out on the lilac ocean, his mind in turmoil as he watched the mirror-calm waters on the southern side of his castle. Thoughts of his ancient lineage bore ponderously on his mind, and its coming collapse left a bitter taste of loss in his mouth. He felt elated at the idea of freedom from rules of court and kind, yet terrified at the prospect of becoming an un-augmented species. After two centuries of life and service to the anachronistic rules and regimes, his line would end where it had began, merely human.

A short walk along the gantry between the shore and the island which was the ancient spire of the pre-flood castle would take him to the chamber of voices, he knew he would commune with the great and noble line of his family for the last time before he sent his poor and wretched, though antique and proper gift to the new patron of house Grey-Star, who resided orbiting distant start Tau Ceti. His vision took hold of what must be a small holographic recorder, placed at an odd angle by its owners agents. Grombru pondered his fate and let the words form in his head for his formal greeting.

Chimes in castle Grey-Star rang out as servant and master bustled along the metal and glass corridors, which appeared to be strung along the sea bed like abandoned jewels on a chain. Outside, great luminescent fish swam in the warm equatorial waters of the surelian ocean. The castle was once an old colony, founded millennia ago by the ancestral people of terra. They had been a mixed colony of all the genotypes of Terra and give rise to a people who spread out among the stars in ships that broke a hole through space and time and appeared orbiting distant gravity wells. That time was long passed mused the young lord Grey-Star. I have trained all my life for this day; my first meeting with a founding house, he thought as his servant busily pinned roses to his tunic. Today I meet The Admiral Grombru of the house S-kali, today will be a great day in the long history of our house.

Grombru stood statue like, his fine cloth waving in the wind ever so slightly the replication from the holographic projector was superb they don’t make them like they used to he snorted, not since the nano wars. Grombru looked up as the young lord of house Grey-Star entered, he was wearing the traditional garb of his house a tunic with trousers and a rose pinned in the tunic. The boy looked no older than fourteen his facial hair had been trimmed recently and his checks looked flush from probably his first shave.

“My lord Grey-Star”, the speaker boomed in ancient commanding voice that smacked of all the authority of a commander ships and armies. The boy, was startled perhaps not expecting such volume and force from the walls of the chamber. “My name is Lord Admiral Grombru Harker S-kali, patriarch of house S-kali and ruler of the cloud of Magellan. I humbly must decline the invitation to the funeral of my great friend your father, and so must send a gift in my absence”. Grombru held up two simple rings of gold, and placed them in a box of ebony. "Antique rings from distant Terra, hopefully they may bring you some comfort in the long years of your reign as they did myself in mine."

“I accept this most excellent gift, Lord Grombru, I’m sure in the long years ahead I will call on you for your wise council as my father did” The boy spoke softly, jarred into saying something of the proper etiquette his lips and mind moved and said the words as a gracious host should.

“Thank you my Lord, I bid you farewell”. Grumbore spoke into the microphone and removed the deck of cards from the console. In castle Grey-Star the boy saw the splendid holographic projection of Lord Admiral Grumbore, wearing the military uniform of his houses Navy shimmer and flicker as the Admiral moved out of view.

Richard Harkrek Vompire stood in his viewing chamber, and addressed the ancient cameras and microphones. They looked like a spiders web with droplets of crystal spun in odd places. The red and green and blue dots from the crystals scanned his form before the transmissions. Buffering the tri video image and sending it in advance, so only a 32 bit audio transmission and the negligible vector transformation information was sent real-time.

Richard has chosen to appear in a diaphanous gown with many tiny lights and micro crystal reflectors. He was the consummate showman, always trying to display his wealth on his person regardless of who he was speaking too.

Today, he was to address the newly appointed Baron of Tau Ceti, an ancient family of a superb bloodline. He was so excited that his aids were having a difficult time adjusting the equipment of the tri recorder, as he jittered and flashed the loud “Ding” of the machine started to get on his nerves. “What’s the meaning of that infernal machine!” he shouted in a raucous voice like waves smashing into a rocky headland. “Please sire, stop moving the machine is having difficulty acquiring your image” sniveled the assistant. “Well of course it does, it can’t possibly capture the spender of the Duke of the Crab nebular! Make it work! Do it now I don’t have time to do this, I must transfer my credits and pack my gifts for the Baron just past.” The Duke continued to jigger and vibrated as if he was shivering in a cold wind or trying to keep his balance on a tight rope.

Sir please sit still the image is recording now. “Oh it will be fine, I will be captured for all to see in my sledded robes of gold and white."

At the other end, the tri video projector fired into life and image was downloaded, to castle Grey-Star of Lord Richard, Duke of the crab nebular.

Young Jasper Grey-Star waited as the image arrived, this took a lot longer than Grumbore he thought.

Raucous laughter and shouts cracked out of the speakers and a strange polygonal star emerged in the projector with sections of clothing, coloured lights and pale almost luminous skin coming into view. The image was garbled, strange textured triangles jutted out showing black or grey spaces in-between as the three dimensional shape of Duke came into view.

Jasper stood perfectly still knowing that on the far side his image would appear in front of the Duke.

“Nice flower my boy,” yelled the red and green triangle in front of Jasper. “Sad about the old man" shifting two dimensional three eye head roared.

“Welcome to house Grey-Star, my Duke I hope to see you soon at my fathers funeral."

“Yes, about that! I decided that as the old man was a dear friend of mine, that I will pay for the funeral and the broadcast across the network a paltry sum of 4 trillion credits.”

“Your highness is too kind indeed.”
“Not at all, I have these gifts for you too.”
Still pictures appeared as if frantically spliced in by the technicians on the other side, two dimensional pictures of a book bound in leather bearing the words Applied Politics 2031. A small case with two silver rings, and two full decks of transactor cards.

“Thank you sir, these are indeed fine gifts, and thank you for the gift of money.”
“No problem my boy” Said the 3 dimensional star with shooting jagged lightning flashes across its stretched and distorted face. “Welcome to the Nova Court, call me Dicky and call any time I’m always here.”

The room went quite as the technical difficulties on the other end must have finally caused the recorder to crash.

Jasper day dreamed about the great man on the other side shouting at his subordinates. To be a noble meant you must communicate, and make strategic decisions concerning whole worlds.

Since the collapse of the wormhole technology which allowed man kind to travel to a myriad of distant stars nobles had held the empires of Terra together in peace through a system of etiquette, communication and the network.

The warp ships that remained in service were so slow that to contact all aspects of the empire was so expensive and daunting that most elected to simply stay home and send gifts on the fast postal ships rather than travel. Of these gifts chief among them were the Decks, cards that recorded thoughts and feelings from their owners’ weather they handled them or not. Nobles initially could purchase many hundreds of decks at a time, however now the cards had become scarce, as their method of manufacture was lost in antiquity.

A system of etiquette had formed around the Nova court, just after the destruction of Terra. They would send the cards as gifts to truly convey their feelings and emotions to distant nobles orbiting distant stars. A gift of money, was considered crass as anyone can send goods of value or money but only the nobles of the Nova court had the cards, sending a gift of cards meant that you were sending yourself your inner most thoughts and desires and this had brought ever lasting peace for no one would dare send a gift to an enemy and everyone would quickly find out about such strife and put a quick stop to it.

This made the nobles supreme rulers of the stars, no one could challenge their power and many tried over the thousands of years they had held the empire together. If a noble had no more cards, he had no purpose within the court, as sometimes cards were lost the court shrank ever so slightly over time.

Jasper was started by the arrival of his first gift, two simple gold rings, and a simple deck of cards. He saw the distant lilac oceans and the pelicans of blue and gold and the warm and determined feeling of a man who would no longer hold the responsibility of court and the fate of worlds. Jaspers' own feelings flooded in, the sorrow and loneliness of long century or two of service without the truly great man, the Admiral of the Imperial Navy Grombru. How he wished, the Admiral would remain at court, and so his first gift meant more to him that the bawdy and brash state funeral supplied by the Duke of Crab nebular. His first gift was the last the Admiral had to give. He knew why his father had lived for so long and respected the man from the distant star.

Gentic Chimira Collective creature flavour story

This story takes a really humorous approach especially like the swearing dog, sounds like me when I'm tired or Damien when he is coding on the poo phone.

http://escapepod.org/2009/07/11/ep206-rogue-farm/

Play Test results of Blood of Sol

The GM managed to run a Blood of Sol Scenario for 3 players with Pre-generated characters. One of the players had never played before and he loved the settings gritty noir feel.

Most of the systems are well defined now, however we are reworking the way weapons are constructed to allow players to add customization.

The game went for 6 hours, longer than we expected but we had pizza while we played. The system works, so I guess its now a lot of editing and then some more content.

The world was well defined and the players felt comfortable with it, because it was familiar yet futuristic.

Visualise your way out of global warming fuckers or how to bullshit yourself up your own arse

Last one I promise next post will be happy!

Relevance to space game, I got a comment from my flatmate that the previous post didn’t link too well to space game. That may be true but he still didn’t use the comment thingy which infuriates me more than the lack of salt and vinegar chips in America. Space game has two powers, which are important, the collective represent a command economy free market (which can turn to a non free market in the blink of an eye) the UN represent a company driven free market.

Both options sort of work, however I did get side tracked on the boomers selling me down the river for some lattes and supposed rising temperatures so they can get me to buy their totally shit solar panels, yogurt, free trade coffee and some shit house free trade itchy clothing. Hmm free market to rip me off you 60 something bitches. Give me my friggen space age pants that curse the environment never break down and will last longer than David Letterman (I hate that guy). This same group of people are telling us to imagine, that we can be successful, imagine this rip off your kids and you too can be successful! I got emailed this blog about the problem with positive thinking, and I thought there may be some more juice in my spleen to vent.

The chaser did a great “The Secret” segment, really funny. Maybe they can imagine that the global warming will provide them with a magical land of mangoes honey, bananas and lattes.

Now imagine your head going up your own arse so far that you think that buying someones free trade coffee is good and that you have truly made a difference.

Humans screw people over all the time, if the Boomers can screw their kids, then they have no problem about screwing the third world. Now imagine that the power of positive thinking can make it all go away. That’s how I see the UN they have edicts rules, laws, proposals, sanctions etc but what they should really do, is do what I would do fuck all those guys and buy a coffee because it’s not my fault it’s my parents who changed the world and gave me a steamer.

They knew in the 50’s about global warming, the same people are now calling it climate change. Just because they can’t get the math right doesn’t mean it won’t happen does it? Think positively global warming will make our kids scared and buy our shitty itchy shirts and shithouse coffee. Global temperatures have been falling since 1998; sun spot activity is at its lowest in recorded history. Sun spots matter more than carbon dioxide suspected of causing the medieval warm period where green land was colonized; so what’s the truth? the model, the science, certainly not, we haven't moved to a law from a theroy yet, all the expirments are not done so why impose a new market? Truth is irrelevant, it’s all about selling. If there’s a problem then we will solve it with technology, in the immortal words of Dave Chappelle "Mars Bitches, the united states of Space" lets just build a friggen colony there or some super sun blocker technology or fusion.

In the sci-fi setting, its important to know why things work even if all the players don't it adds the realism.

In my sci-fi settings, selling is just as important as it is now, unless you are going to have a Utopian society which has surpassed the need for individual wealth;

I see that oneday humans work together for the good of all, these are lofty ideals and good goals but in the short term unachievable. This however is the dream of the Tau Ceti Collective; at the moment in the setting they are in their honeymoon period, they have created their world, their cities and their economy is booming primarily because they are selling to the less fortunate Earth economies.

They can out-compete them because resources are cheap, labor is cheap, and who are they ripping off? They create robots, infants that reach sentience after 5 years. During this 5 year period the robot is property; sold for a low cost to people who want to use it. So the collective the beacon of hope and light for mankind, is really the master of slaves what game masters and designers do with this is up to them but it provides a huge number of story hooks. Robots that start waking up earlier what to do, what are the legal ramifications, illegally keeping the robots indentured by wiping their minds, robots burn their programs (like the burning bras) and decide to strike out on their own and discover that it’s an unforgiving unfriendly world, come up against glass ceilings etc. Its nice to have everything balance up and everything has a cost, their prosperity is at the expense of their children the robot brains that they create.

Awesome Sci-FI videos

Game update Questions?

Well,

This is a short blog update, space game has been edited some more. I'm writing a few short stories to add some flav. What types of sci-fi stories work best for gamers, do gamers prefer the personal stories of people moving through a gray, Dystopian society where they struggle and against all odds sometimes come out on top; E.G: Anarchistic stories about the struggle against big companies and big government.

Or do game players prefer a space opera which is more epic on scale with ships and particle cannons, black hole bombs and wide spread panic. Or do players like a focus on the ideas that make the setting work, the meta physics of a sci-fi setting sometimes lead to stories of their own.

You decide!

The Quantum Surgen

I have decided that I have to create some more fiction, not just for my games but to get better at writing in general. Sam Jensen is one of my friends and he has helped inspire me, he is a fifteen billion times better writer than I but I still want to give it a go.

This is an idea I have for a Sci-fi story, I'm not really sure what form it will take but the basic premise is that if we followed quantum theory or string theory or any of the modern unification theory we would get to a point of engineering, we could then alter lives, ignore space time, and completely shape reality.

This story is set at the cusp of the technology, a old professor has just perfected a technique of enhancing peoples lives by quantum manipulation and he is out seeking funding from a venture capitalist. The story is probably not hard Sci-fi but more comedic as this doctor gets involved the capitalist try's the machines out and gets richer and richer to the point that he is a dominating power in the world. He owes it all to the Quantum Surgeon but rather than reward the doctor he takes the machine and enhances his life and removes the Surgeon from reality, and the resulting paradox is is interesting to say the least.

The Economics of Failure

Given a free market, the market will be self correcting. This is the argument for globalization, money is valuable based on the goods that you can get with it. What happens to solar system of planets, that become one market working hard to produce goods to sell, to buy other goods that they want to own when the seller of those goods, has a resource rich system, has labor which is virtually free and can make decisions and enact them faster than a large group of separate states and companies. When the flow of goods stops and the need to work hard diminishes, your states and companies are left languishing in a depression that they have no hope of getting out of.

Welcome to the situation in the colonies of Mars, Europa, Ganymede and Titan. The Collective could out-manufacture anyone else, primarily because they embraced cybernetics to a level unbelievable to other humans. The melding of a human social society, with socially minded AI's has lead to an evolution of the production line to the auto factory. The auto factory is in all sense and purpose a robot, capable of manufacturing any goods from its designs and raw materials. Materials are usually pre-processed items. To achieve maximum efficiency several auto factories are used, some to make the parts, some to assemble them, some to finish and package the goods. In essence The Collectives manufacturing might comes not from a small oligarchy of companies and CEO's which ruthlessly dominate one economic sector but from the masses of Collective citizens that make goods based on demand out of their homes and ship them off to earth on spur of the moment transports. Once this system started, no one could out manufacture the Collective, star ships we being built by the dozen by some citizens, churned out of orbital factories. At its height the Collective's trade surplus was the same size of Mars with a tenth of the population, it never borrowed money or swapped currency because it always traded directly with Universe Bank. The vast wealth of the Collective though is in its internal barter credit system; It is possible for a citizen of the Collective to never use the Universal dollar instead bartering, this is facilitated by the rapid communication of the Collective's citizens as they have instant access to any other citizen.

And when, the Collective out manufactures the entire solar system for fifty years, the ripple effect of that is that many are out of work, have no way of leaving their colony and generally are far worse-off than they had have been if the Collective wasn't there. The manufacturing giants toppled under an avalanche of high quality Collective goods. The only industries kept alive were the Star-ship, Health-care and food production and this is because of UNAF and Universe bank. The many small companies and the big giants that bought their goods have gone, leaving behind a tray of toxic cookies that no one will eat because they are worth nothing.

When the Collective was cut off from human space, the citizens accustomed to cheap goods continued to buy them till the supply ran out. The value of the dollar went down, sure the Collective lost trillions of dollars but the citizens of the earth Colonies can now only buy a few goods and mostly save what little money they had for food the Collectives safety-net means that their citizens although under siege can continue their existence, they continue to work for the Collectives survival and fight a war which will be brutal and bloody against a superior enemy.

So in essence the situation, now in the late 2000's is not dissimilar to the situation in 2500, except the effects are magnified by vast populations, the disparate dystopia of the Earth Colonies and the ravages of a series of wars which begins between the martian city states.

Some Flavr

Ok,

This is a really short post, mostly because I'm extremely busy right now. So I have some flavour links to some pod casts I thought were pretty nice. I especially like Chrysalis and how lonesome a life without nerve gas.

http://escapepod.org/2007/01/16/ep-flash-nightshift-in-the-automart/
http://escapepod.org/2009/01/09/ep186-chrysalis/
http://escapepod.org/2007/01/25/ep090-how-lonesome-a-life/

Morality in a dark future universe

Questions of morality arise from time to time in Space Game, good evil indifferent. Morality is a yardstick that a society measures itself by as a whole (good, bad, naughty and nice), over time morals shift and change.

In the Sci-fi universe of Blood of Sol, morality is in short supply to some but for others its in abundance. One world could have a moral code not unlike our own for example old earth is morally very similar to our own world they gloss over the bad things that their company's do, but rail against animal cruelty, infidelity and murder, and patent infringement.

The collective is in some cases more moral, taking very forward thinking view on personal freedom above all else, provide that you never hurt or impinge anyone else. This causes a dilemma in their legal system, were it not for the collectives vast network and constant discussions it would not work, however as they can change the laws very quickly people find that they become more moral on some aspects like murder, theft etc. At the same time, they don't believe that taking an idea is wrong, they copy peoples intellectual property and use it. The two societies although both moral polarise on some issues making a dynamic that means they can go to war over mining rights or theft of designs and plans.

Both sides agree that its morally wrong to kill humans (and AI's for the collective), but they do it anyway if it impinges there other ideals for their own greater goods.

So in a Sci-fi setting morality varies depending on the society just as it does here and now, but what about the alien societies?

In space game, the aliens are pretty alien seraphims are really just ideas manifested in physical form ideas like justice, peace, unity, rebellion, chaos and order. Their physical forms exist in the universe and develop their own personality separately from the entity itself a sort of shadow not unlike the relationship between the super ego and the id with the id being the true form existing at the beginning of the universe. These aliens here, have guided mankind their super ego or the shadow appears to the humans and manipulates them through out time. The id or true form, is interested only in its idea law, chaos, death, life etc.

In essence morality for these aliens is so one sided only the slightest change is considered abhorrent. A Seraphim of law will consider any infringement chaotic and therefore will act accordingly. However the shadows will have a balance as they are a whole being, able to discern shades of grey in the universe. A life shadow is capable of killing if it will save more lives.

The other alien cultures have their own morals, Kruth consider it very strange to lie until they encountered humans they never even knew the concept of deceit. They follow a code of honor that involves bravery, splendor, rapture and community. Kruth believe in themselves and using thinking machines or computers is also abhorrent, why let a machine think for you when you can do the math yourself.

Drooge morality is very simple, they believe that killing other drooge is abhorrent, as they spawn or bud for reproduction they are extremely sexually promiscuous and have no morals about that. Taking a spawn away from the group is also abhorrent, unless that spawn is immature and has not awakened yet. Cannibalism of their own species is perfectly fine.

Space Game hits 1.5.4

Well with printing of the rules nicely on a nice printer im going to work more on space game. Basically I have started a set of scenarios for some mercenaries. They take place just after the big ship has left for Ishta, the mercs are involved in a multi layered plot.

I have tried to keep the scenarios to one session the first one Ganymede Stomp is a rescue mission where the underwater exploratory lab owned by Berkley Genomics is walking along the bottom of the under ice ocean on Ganymede. It has four massive legs so its nicknamed the Stomper. The characters break in to find themselves confronted not by a crazy captain but a virus that phases in and out of reality. How cool is that a quantum virus that exists in both light matter and dark energy.

The next scenario in the series is called Titan Calling, I'm running that on Sunday it should be very sweet. In this one they are sent to investigate derilict space ship and find more than they bargined for. (no its not an alien rip off you noobs)

Dark Energy and Blood of Sol

The void that binds, taken from Hyperion is basically in the Blood of Sol universe the Dark Energy. It’s a repulsive force that separated the celestial bodies of galaxies over time. So if you imagine the big bang pushing everything apart, the acceleration/speed would remain constant and not accelerate however we observe that the acceleration is increasing. We observe by looking at distant galaxies and we can see they are indeed accelerating by measuring the redshift of light.
This constant was first used by Einstein his cosmic constant (his greatest blunder). However, this constant is now shown that it may be dark energy repulsing everything apart. It’s called dark energy because it cannot be seen (funny that), but its effect is very prevalent. Its now very standard in cosmology.

Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy

Dark Energy Picture


Dark Energy and Dark Matter make up the bulk of the universe.

WTF does this have to do with the game world?

Well basically Blood of Sol is a hard Sci-Fi universe, yes it has things like warp drives but that’s to facilitated game play.

The Dark Energy is in Blood of Sol the total accumulation of information for every other piece of energy over time, hence its always expanding. This is the layer of quantum information, no need for different dimensions or realities it’s just a different state of energy, the oldest state from the beginning of everything. If you can read the dark energy you know the present and past locations of partials, if you can move it you can change it. In this universe time only runs forward, you can go back but not forward past now (because it doesn’t exist yet).

As I'm having trouble getting the document into google docs, ill have to delay it but I thought I would publish little bits here about it. This one was an idea I have been having for a time now, and wanted to share it.

Space Storys

There are some nice pod casts that I really like.

Tide Line is about a robot left over from a war. Chalcedony the war robot makes treasures for her fallen robot.

http://escapepod.org/2008/04/24/ep155-tideline/

Friction is a nice sci-fi pretty interesting

http://escapepod.org/2008/02/08/ep144-friction/