Need help with world: Hard Sci-Fi

[Dr. Roboto]

I'm looking for fluff for a hard sci-fi world I'm trying to build. Right now, I only have a vague idea as to what I'm going for. The "bones" of the setting I have listed below.

-The world is possibly not near-future, but has the feel of it. No interstellar travel outside of cryogenics or generation ships, no laser/energy weapons.

-There are no recognizable factions from the present day. No USA, no UN, not even companies like Ford or Colt are still around. Instead, new factions will have replaced them.

-Scandinavia (Finland, Sweden, Switzerland) had taken over the quality goods market. Even though the countries themselves aren't around anymore, their influence is still felt in brand names, architecture, dominant language, and social mores.

-The setting does not take place in the original Solar System.

-Melee and ranged combat are equally viable choices. In other words, you'll have dudes with battle-axes taking on assault rifles.

I can take care of the crunch. I'm wondering, what's some good fluff to explain all this, especially the last one? Perhaps some Applied Phlebotinum (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinum)?

Also, what would be a good way to remove the setting from our solar system? I hate to go all Firefly and say that the Earth was "used up", and it's not far-future enough to have the sun go supernova.

If you have any answers, or anything meatier than the bare bones of the setting I have here, or even just random suggestions, I'd appreciate if you helped me brainstorm this out.

[Bobby Archer]

-Melee and ranged combat are equally viable choices. In other words, you'll have dudes with battle-axes taking on assault rifles.

This is the bit I see being the biggest hurdle in terms of fitting it into a hard sci-fi setting. With the exception of a few specialized situations, a trained combatant with a gun will beat an equally trained individual with a melee weapon. The advantages of a gun are huge and hard to overcome. Even if you have ridiculously souped up melee weapons (vibroblades, lightsabers, etc) such that they have the same destructive force as an assault rifle, the advantages of range and rate of fire still win out. The only real downside to most modern weapons is that they still do require ammo, which is heavily mitigated by expanded clip sizes and easy reloading methods.

The only real fluff solution I can think of right now is the one Dune used: personal force fields which stopped high velocity impacts cold. Melee training basically consisted of learning to keep your attacks below that speed threshold until you passed through the force field.

As for why the game is set in another solar system: your limitation to sub-light travel helps solve that. The nearest star to Earth is over 4 light-years away; the fastest interstellar spacecraft currently is Voyager 1 which is going about 5% of the speed of light. Even assuming a relatively close star and faster ships, travel to another solar system would take almost a whole human lifetime, would be a matter of massive expense and wouldn't be taken lightly. Even contact through transmissions would have a delay of years between call and response.

As far as anyone out there is concerned, the Earth does not, from a practical perspective, exist. No help can be expected within a reasonable timeframe. Any colonies out there would be on their own. Any problems would have to be handled by the people at hand. These people would have to be competent, adventurous folks. That sounds like PC fodder to me. Focusing on the people out in the colonies is more interesting than focusing on the people on Earth.

[gkathellar]

-Melee and ranged combat are equally viable choices. In other words, you'll have dudes with battle-axes taking on assault rifles.

As the previous poster mentioned, this is problematic for hard sci-fi, at least insofar as hard sf usually implies realism. Unless your default assumption is simply "impossible fencing skills" (which is fine! plenty of systems do it!) it's not going to work out with some kind of pseudo-magical tech advantage.

[Omeganaut]

I'm looking for fluff for a hard sci-fi world I'm trying to build. Right now, I only have a vague idea as to what I'm going for. The "bones" of the setting I have listed below.

-The world is possibly not near-future, but has the feel of it. No interstellar travel outside of cryogenics or generation ships, no laser/energy weapons.

-There are no recognizable factions from the present day. No USA, no UN, not even companies like Ford or Colt are still around. Instead, new factions will have replaced them.

-Scandinavia (Finland, Sweden, Switzerland) had taken over the quality goods market. Even though the countries themselves aren't around anymore, their influence is still felt in brand names, architecture, dominant language, and social mores.

-The setting does not take place in the original Solar System.

-Melee and ranged combat are equally viable choices. In other words, you'll have dudes with battle-axes taking on assault rifles.

First of all, I have a problem with the fact that you say no current factions like the USA, UN, and major companies exist, yet have Scandinavia as taking over the market. You would need a good explanation as to why no current faction exist, yet the world is still recognizably similar (and still earth) Also, Switzerland is not in Scandinavia, the main connection is the famous neutrality in modern wars (Switzerland is in the European Alps).

I agree that by having spaceflight low-tech, colonies could easily be isolated from earth, although there should be a way for them to communicate near-instantaneously, perhaps by discovering a particle that can move faster than light?

Melee=Ranged is just not going to happen. Either Melee will have to be Jedi-esque for every trained warrior, Ranged would have the danger of opening the ship to the vacuum, or guns will simply own melee. Not even taking gunpowder and newer replacements out of the equation can fix the problem, as we can now use compressed air to fire lethal weapons.

[Dr. Roboto]

First of all, I have a problem with the fact that you say no current factions like the USA, UN, and major companies exist, yet have Scandinavia as taking over the market. You would need a good explanation as to why no current faction exist, yet the world is still recognizably similar (and still earth)

Scandanavia had taken over the market. Therefore, its influences were felt worldwide, and when colonists travelled to a new solar system, they left behind social structures (ie the US, UN, etc.) and created new ones, like the United States of Awesomeness or whatnot. However, the people kept the Scandinavian-esque culture that they had before. Essentially, Firefly with China replaced with Scandinavia.


Also, Switzerland is not in Scandinavia,

Thanks for letting me know. I was thinking of Denmark, but typed Switzerland.

Everyone, thanks for your responses. Can anyone think of a good fluff for melee being equivalent with ranged? Right now I'm thinking of saying that armor has progressed a ton, and can deal with the low force of a bullet somewhat but not the high force of a melee attack.

[gkathellar]

That depends on how hard you want your SF, and how high you want your tech levels. If you're fine with vibrating, monomolecular swords cutting through inertia-dampening nanoweave armor that requires sharp things to reliably penetrate, then there's a load of inane nonsense to solve your problem right there. (For reference, the obvious "weapon of the future" would then become a shuriken-gun, but you can ignore that.)

If you want truly hard SF, then no, guns beat everything, and innovations in armor development aren't going to adversely effect guns more than they adversely effect blades and blunts.

[nihil8r]

if guns are very expensive or very illegal then melee weapons could still be used by the masses. martial arts or ritual dueling could even promote the popularity of melee weapons. however, swords should never be as effective as rifles for obvious, obvious reasons.

[erictheredd]

Tell me if the following works:

earth wasn't "used up" so much as there was a bunch of baggage left. Its still there, its just a generation ship away. If you want a heavy scandinavian influence say that they primarily financed the expedition.

As for weapons being as viable as guns---

I had one hard scifi setting where I actually pulled it off, but it was due to weird constraints:

I had them on an ice world. This does not mean its covered in snow, it means they are living on a world like some of jupiter's moons which had a mantle of ice rather than rock. When I say Ice, I mean solid water, Ammonia, and methane, (This type of celetial body occurs much more commonly than earth-like planets, though its more common of moons and over grown comets than planets)

This meant any thing heavier than sulfur was pretty rare, and you didn't want to go shooting it at your enemies. Combat has done from afar with explosive shells (which could be exploded with laser anti-missle/shell tools, the US military has shot done 80% of shells in a test run, or with light bullets, which wouldn't have much penetration power. Since temperatures where around those of jupiter, suits were always worn outside and soldier wore armored suits and carried massive metal core swords. The suits also worked as a combination power armor and targeting/healing/physical augmentation platform.


That doesn't quite fit what you want, but it shows how far you have to go to get to the situation where physical weapons are better than ranged.

And no, the point of that world was not to have melee weapons be effective, it was a side effect of the rules I set up when I first created it.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

-The world is possibly not near-future, but has the feel of it. No interstellar travel outside of cryogenics or generation ships, no laser/energy weapons.

So, no interstellar travel? Is there interplanetary travel? Are there space stations or mining colonies, or just one planet?


-There are no recognizable factions from the present day. No USA, no UN, not even companies like Ford or Colt are still around. Instead, new factions will have replaced them.

I like this. Simplifies things. It works especially well with this:


-The setting does not take place in the original Solar System.

This is easiest to pull off since if the original colonists got there via generation ship, who's to say anyone really remembers what Earth was really like? Anything they'd know after a while would just be fairy tales.


-Scandinavia (Finland, Sweden, Switzerland) had taken over the quality goods market. Even though the countries themselves aren't around anymore, their influence is still felt in brand names, architecture, dominant language, and social mores.

The Scandinavian influence would work better if you used erictheredd's reasoning and had them finance (or even design) the expedition.


-Melee and ranged combat are equally viable choices. In other words, you'll have dudes with battle-axes taking on assault rifles.

Like Bobby Archer said, you may have to resort to Dune rules for personal shields. For example, the shields are kinetic barriers that can absorb a certain amount of kinetic energy before backfiring horribly on their user. Thus, the shields would have a built-in shutdown mechanism for when damage got too heavy and shut off for a minute to disperse the collected energy.

Perhaps there's also a little bit of genetic modification on this world? Even if it's just a bit ahead of our own technology, it's fairly easy to justify a slight increase to reflexes and hand-eye coordination.

Combat, following these two ideas, would be highly strategic. Melee fighters would concentrate on closing the gap to their target swiftly, and Ranged would try to connect with enough shots quickly to overwhelm the enemy's defenses.


Also, what would be a good way to remove the setting from our solar system? I hate to go all Firefly and say that the Earth was "used up", and it's not far-future enough to have the sun go supernova.

Population strain. 9 to 18 Billion people do not fit comfortably on one planet. 18 billion wouldn't fit on two planets.

I love the idea, and I'll watch with interest.

[Dr. Roboto]

If you want a heavy scandinavian influence say that they primarily financed the expedition.

I love it. Much simpler and more understandable than my explanation.


So, no interstellar travel? Is there interplanetary travel? Are there space stations or mining colonies, or just one planet?


The more I think about it, the more this setting seems derivative of Firefly. Yes, the setting, at least the part that I care about, spans a whole solar system. Interplanetary travel takes several days, tentatively. If that's unrealistic, let me know.



Perhaps there's also a little bit of genetic modification on this world? Even if it's just a bit ahead of our own technology, it's fairly easy to justify a slight increase to reflexes and hand-eye coordination.

Combat, following these two ideas, would be highly strategic. Melee fighters would concentrate on closing the gap to their target swiftly, and Ranged would try to connect with enough shots quickly to overwhelm the enemy's defenses.


I'm liking this. I don't want to Rule 0 in effective melee combat, but the more I think about it, the better I like a generic excuse explanation like this. Shields or super advanced melee weapons that limit the melee to only prepared individuals, putting a damper on any improvised weapons or prison escape missions.



I love the idea, and I'll watch with interest.


I love to hear that. I'll make sure to post here again once I more-or-less fully flesh it out.

Speaking of, there's much more fleshing out to do. It's become clear to me that I don't want truly hard sci-fi, but I don't really have a good way to describe it, so I'll leave it for now.

Also, I'm thinking GURPS as a tentative system, due to flexibility and amount of material to draw from. Does anyone have a different suggestion?

Thanks to everyone who has posted. I love to hear different suggestions as to how melee can match ranged, so keep them coming!

[Bobby Archer]

The more I think about it, the more this setting seems derivative of Firefly. Yes, the setting, at least the part that I care about, spans a whole solar system. Interplanetary travel takes several days, tentatively. If that's unrealistic, let me know.

That's heavily dependent on how much interplanetary transport technology has advanced since the present day. According to this article (http://www.universetoday.com/14841/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-mars/), travel to Mars takes just over 7 months. Getting to planets even further out starts to be measured in years.

The issue is (as far as I understand it) that all the planets are in moving reference frames, which makes things more difficult than taking the straight-line, shortest distance between two points method. A ship leaving Planet A has to contend with the fact that they already are experiencing velocity originating from Planet A's orbit. The most cost-effective method is apparently to have two velocity changes: one to break Planet A's orbit and put the craft on an orbital trajectory around the sun and one to put the craft in orbit around Planet B once their orbits coincide.

Taking a shorter path than the one described in the article I linked to may be theoretically possible, but it would raise the amount of fuel needed by some ridiculous amount (because you'd have to kill all the velocity you had from Planet A, then accelerate to match Planet B) and would likely be practically unfeasible without adding in zero-point energy or something else along those lines.

[Omeganaut]

Well, there would definitely be some improvements in engines and fuel that would make space travel better, but not traditional sci-fi level. Maybe up to 5-10% of the speed of light?

[gkathellar]

Well, there would definitely be some improvements in engines and fuel that would make space travel better, but not traditional sci-fi level. Maybe up to 5-10% of the speed of light?

Oh god, not relativistic speeds. This is absolutely the best way to light your setting on fire. FTL settings dodge this bullet beautifully with their wormholes and their magical non-physics, because if a ship moving 5-10% the speed of light crashes into something ... boom.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Oh god, not relativistic speeds. This is absolutely the best way to light your setting on fire. FTL settings dodge this bullet beautifully with their wormholes and their magical non-physics, because if a ship moving 5-10% the speed of light crashes into something ... boom.

Hmm, too true. I once found an admittedly tongue-in-cheek way around Relativity for a Sci-Fi western I did once: The ships utilize the Einstienian Anti-Relativity Star Drive!

A bubble of Anti-Relativity envelopes the ship, the ship hits 5-10% lightspeed, but the observer and traveler don't have to re-synch their watches afterward. :smalltongue: The Universe just sort of ignores how silly physics are for a bit.

It's madness, true. But if you're looking for less Hardness to your Sci-Fi, something like this might help.

[erictheredd]

The ships utilize the Einstienian Anti-Relativity Star Drive!

This is not an Einstienian Anti-Relativity Star Drive, this is a Newtonian Anti-Relativity Star Drive --- or did einstien have smart great-grandkids?


Oh, and I have to ask, what are the limits of medical technology?

can they clone your hand? can they replace it with a seven fingered mechanical hand? Can they re-attach your hand? how much equipment does it take to do this? Can they take your hand and clone a brain-dead twin brother? can they take your hand and "clone" a thinking twin brother? does he have to grow up or can he be "grown" in hours?

have people messed with the human genome? has it actually worked? is it socially acceptable?

ect. ect.

[Dr. Roboto]

can they clone your hand? can they replace it with a seven fingered mechanical hand? Can they re-attach your hand? how much equipment does it take to do this? Can they take your hand and clone a brain-dead twin brother? can they take your hand and "clone" a thinking twin brother? does he have to grow up or can he be "grown" in hours?

have people messed with the human genome? has it actually worked? is it socially acceptable?

ect. ect.

Those are all excellent questions, and I'd love input on them, but here are my initial thoughts.

Tissue regrowth is fairly simple with the advanced medical technology available. It's harder, however, to form the tissue into anything useful. With the cloning of hands, taken as an example, there are two ways to create a new hand. You could simply clone a full hand; however, this is incredibly expensive and time-consuming, taking a team of surgeons and geneticists to decode your DNA and regrow it into a hand. It would take about two weeks with a full team, state-of-the-art medical tech, and no complications.

Alternatively, you could grow tissues individually, ie skin, nerves, muscle, bone, and sculpt them into a hand as they grow or after they're grown. This can be done by a single individual in about a week, using equipment available in any dedicated medical facility (on a spaceship's medbay, but not at the drugstore.). However, complications are much more common here. If the nerves are attached incorrectly or the bone is sculpted wrong, the hand could work incorrectly or not at all. Commonly, thugs and spacers will have an "ugly" limb, prone to tics and numbness.

Cybernetics as a whole are rare. It's considered a faux pas to have an obvious inorganic attachment, even in the lower classes. Exceptions are mercenaries and thugs, who are ostracized from general society anyway, and spacers, who are usually far from society's judgement. Cybernetics are always made from scratch, and it's relatively hard to find a dealer or creator, and harder to find someone to install it; approximately as hard as to find someone to sell automatic weapons in most first world countries. If you have connections, you can get it, but it's out of the hands of the general public.

Cloning is possible. With state-of-the-art equipment and a skilled team, it has an almost 100% chance of success. Thinking clones and braindead clones are equally easy to make. However, the growth process cannot be sped in any way; clones grow normally. Cloning has about the same social and legal status as abortion in modern-day America (not trying to make a statement); it's tolerated by the law and by many people, but there are groups trying to get it outlawed. It's uncommon, with little practical purpose, since clones have the same legal rights as "natural" humans; most often used by the rare sterile parents who cannot be surgically helped, and by eccentrics looking to live on through their younger clones.

Finally, genetics play a vital role in this setting. The vast majority of people in the setting were either genetically enhanced during gestation or descended from those who were. The result is that the average human is faster, stronger, better-looking, more healthy, and more perceptive. Feti to be genetically enhanced are taken from the womb during pregnancy, technobabble is applied, and they are put back into the womb or continue growth "in vitro", according to the parent's choice. Some parents choose to enhance their child non-generically, resulting in smart but sickly offspring, or strong but ugly, etc. Extraordinary traits, such as night vision or claws, can only be administered by highly skilled geneticists.


I guess that's the end of my rant on that. Any other questions about that, go ahead and post them.

I've been thinking about the theme(s) of the setting. I hope you know what I'm saying; the themes in Star Wars were (for example) "good triumphs over evil", "technology is irrelevent", and "some people are born to rule". I'm thinking that the setting should have an underlying theme of artisanship vs. mass-production, kind of a duel between fantasy and cyberpunk. Some hands are grown in a vat, while others are lovingly sculpted by skilled individuals.

Any comments, questions or suggestions?

[Recherché]

I'm wondering what the role of computer's and AI are in this setting. How smart do they get? Without FTL internets have to be confined to a single planet, but how important are they? If cybernetics are possible, could you plug your brain into a computer, reprogram your brain, upload your memories, or none of the above. I don't have many suggestions but I'm curious.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Cybernetics as a whole are rare. It's considered a faux pas to have an obvious inorganic attachment, even in the lower classes. Exceptions are mercenaries and thugs, who are ostracized from general society anyway, and spacers, who are usually far from society's judgement. Cybernetics are always made from scratch, and it's relatively hard to find a dealer or creator, and harder to find someone to install it; approximately as hard as to find someone to sell automatic weapons in most first world countries. If you have connections, you can get it, but it's out of the hands of the general public.
...
I've been thinking about the theme(s) of the setting. I hope you know what I'm saying; the themes in Star Wars were (for example) "good triumphs over evil", "technology is irrelevent", and "some people are born to rule". I'm thinking that the setting should have an underlying theme of artisanship vs. mass-production, kind of a duel between fantasy and cyberpunk. Some hands are grown in a vat, while others are lovingly sculpted by skilled individuals.

Hmmm... just had an idea. You say you want there to be a Fantasy vs Cyberpunk element? Well then, why do cybernetics have to have a stigma? One part of cyberpunk is an overbearing authority, so why not equate cybernetics with the upper classes? If they have the money, why not flaunt it with glorious half-machine-bodies? The poor make do with the mass-produced discount prosthetics while the fabulously wealthy and well-connected possess personalized, handcrafted cybernetics.

[lothofkalroth]

As far as making guns balanced against melee:

Make everything close-quarters.

On a ship, everything is built to take up as little room as possible, the same goes for a space station. Only rich people could afford to have a room that took up any kind of decent floorspace. And probably only planetside at that. Also, as far as planetside goes, make everything in some kind of sealed-off compounds and say that it's because the atmosphere is unbreathable. The combination of gasses that we breath is a pretty specific mixture that's not likely to be found on another habitable planet (habitable meaning temperature and rotation).

By making things tightly-packed with lots of twists and turns, you eliminate a lot of a gun's effectiveness. Also, as was mentioned earlier, shooting indoors is a huge no-no if you want to live to see tomorrow. Explosive decompression is a very real problem, which would probably cause structures to be built in seal-offable chambers, rather than large open areas, further enforcing the cramped feel of the construction.

This is not to say that guns are ineffective. Likely gas powered weapons would be the norm, possibly with low-speed poisoned darts. This also opens up a whole new kind of ranged fighter who specializes in various toxic darts. Tazer-guns, likewise would probably be popular.

Hope this helps!

[Frozen_Feet]

The Scandinavian influence would work better if you used erictheredd's reasoning and had them finance (or even design) the expedition.


Or maybe the astronauts simply were scandinavian.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Or maybe the astronauts simply were scandinavian.

True though it depends on how big the populations are in this new star system. I was led to believe this was a major colonizing effort, so it would make sense to me for the largest monetary contributer to have the most influence, sort of how like English is the language of business nowadays and French and Spanish before that.

[hydroplatypus]

lothofkalroth has a good idea with making everything close quarters. As said this makes guns less effective. Likeways with the darts, they make sense as they avoid decompression. That being said the darts IMO would only be justifiable on a spaceship. On a planet there are environmental dangers (earthquake etc.) that would necessitate thick walls/domed enclosures/whatever. The important part is that the walls of anything on the surface would be thick and armored. This would allow for more powerful ammo then darts.

My idea is that you have there be armor that can be worn that is very powerful compared to average bullets. For instance you could call it carbon nano-fiber as this is being researched now. any nano-material could be technobabbled into the setting in order to make this armor effective. These could withstand average bullets, and make melee respectable at fairly short ranges. In order to make this armor not to powerful, tell the players that the material is very rigid, and thus there have to be gaps on the joints/joints made of weaker material in order to move. This also has the advantage of making the armor not act like an invincibility suit.

On interplanetary travel, if the colonists have ships that can get to other stars they therefor have very powerful engines, and no technobabble is necessary to justify faster travel, as an engine powerful enough to travel interstellar distances in reasonable time will have no trouble taking the direct route to planets. In order to justify these engines not being terribly effective weapons (crashing into a planet/moon etc.) Simply have any significant body protected by a defense satellites, which would destroy any incoming objects that have too high a relative velocity.

Hope this helps

[Ninjadeadbeard]

In order to make this armor not to powerful, tell the players that the material is very rigid, and thus there have to be gaps on the joints/joints made of weaker material in order to move. This also has the advantage of making the armor not act like an invincibility suit.

Alternatively, the whole armor could be a flexible body-glove, just not impossibly good. Example: Smaller caliber bullets won't get through, but a particularly large rifle round (say, a sniper or something) would go through you like butter.

Thus, the shield ideas mentioned above could be a viable backup for when armor just won't cut it.


In order to justify these engines not being terribly effective weapons (crashing into a planet/moon etc.) Simply have any significant body protected by a defense satellites, which would destroy any incoming objects that have too high a relative velocity.

Isn't it easier just to say that people aren't that crazy? During the Cold War the nuclear powers had every capability to fire their stockpiles. But it never happened because most human beings will probably hesitate to touch that particular threshold. The first person who hits a planet with a ship opens up that option all over the place.

Of course...PC's ARE that crazy, :smalltongue: so maybe having one or two anti-orbital guns will be alright. If that fails, just say that all ships are constructed in orbit and can't handle re-entry. If someone hits an atmosphere, the ship turns to dust and a few scraps of hot metal.

[hydroplatypus]

Isn't it easier just to say that people aren't that crazy? During the Cold War the nuclear powers had every capability to fire their stockpiles. But it never happened because most human beings will probably hesitate to touch that particular threshold. The first person who hits a planet with a ship opens up that option all over the place.

Of course...PC's ARE that crazy, :smalltongue: so maybe having one or two anti-orbital guns will be alright. If that fails, just say that all ships are constructed in orbit and can't handle re-entry. If someone hits an atmosphere, the ship turns to dust and a few scraps of hot metal.

When I suggested that ships are weapons of mass destruction I wasn't thinking of nations using them as such. MAD would stop that. But I assume that in this setting an individual, or reasonably powerful group can purchase a starship. This leads to the possibility of fanatics, or terrorists using ships as such. The orbital guns were to justify why the government even allows ships to be purchased at all.
That being said I like your idea about ships not being able to handle re-entry. Although this changes the setting a bit, as a different vehicle is needed to land on the planet, it largely reduces the effectivness of a ship's engine as a weapon. A combination of this, combined with a few orbital guns would likely be the solution that makes the most sense.

[Dr. Roboto]

In order to justify these engines not being terribly effective weapons (crashing into a planet/moon etc.) Simply have any significant body protected by a defense satellites, which would destroy any incoming objects that have too high a relative velocity.

I'm not sure I understand this entirely. Why would a ship be a good weapon in the first place? Are you thinking that they would be able to go fast enough to knock a planet out of orbit?

In other news, with the melee vs. ranged issue, I've decided to go a Snow-Crash-esque route. Fibrous armor that hardens on impact is enough to lessen the impact of a bullet, but the weight of a melee blow is enough to bruise and break bones.

Also, I'm thinking about the political situation of the setting. Should there be one dominant government with other, lesser factions, as in Star Wars or Firefly, or should there be many equally powerful factions?

[Bobby Archer]

I'm not sure I understand this entirely. Why would a ship be a good weapon in the first place? Are you thinking that they would be able to go fast enough to knock a planet out of orbit?

In other news, with the melee vs. ranged issue, I've decided to go a Snow-Crash-esque route. Fibrous armor that hardens on impact is enough to lessen the impact of a bullet, but the weight of a melee blow is enough to bruise and break bones.

Also, I'm thinking about the political situation of the setting. Should there be one dominant government with other, lesser factions, as in Star Wars or Firefly, or should there be many equally powerful factions?

A kinetic energy weapon can be devastating if it has enough momentum. The giant craters that still exist from prehistoric meteor impacts can speak to that. Add to that a projectile that can add its own propulsion, guidance capable of avoiding bouncing off the atmosphere or other angular blunders, a hull specifically designed to withstand re-entry, and the detonation of whatever fuel source it's using and a sufficiently large spacecraft can be a devastating weapon.

As for your question about political makeup, that relies on how you want players to be interacting with the world of your game. One dominant government means that the players will likely be either acting either as agents of this government or supporting a faction that is opposing them. Either way, the setting revolves around the central government.

On the other hand, multiple competing factions gives several different points of view and options for who the players support. It also makes it easier for the players to be independent contractors in the world, selling their services to whoever needs them or can pay for them.

Either can be a great setup. The latter would take more work, as you'd need to create several equally important factions, while making the former involves spending most of your work on the main central government. It really comes down to a matter of opinion and what you already have in mind.

[Siosilvar]

I'm not sure I understand this entirely. Why would a ship be a good weapon in the first place? Are you thinking that they would be able to go fast enough to knock a planet out of orbit?

"A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive." - The Kzinti Lesson

EDIT: Also, John's Law (http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/prelimnotes.php#johnslaw). "Any interesting space drive is a weapon of mass destruction. It only matters how long you want to wait for maximum damage."

EDIT2: A bit of math (and cross-reference to the boom table (http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacegunconvent.php#id--Nukes_In_Space--Boom_Table)1) tells me that a 400 ton ship's impact at 5% of lightspeed would be the equivalent of a 25 megaton nuclear weapon.

1 - Atomic Rockets (http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/) is an amazing site for hard-scifi (and even soft-scifi) space flight. You can tell how much I like it, I've linked it three times already.

EDIT3: I suppose I didn't really answer the question.

Anything traveling at high speeds is a good weapon. This is because kinetic energy is proportional to the square of velocity, but only linearly with mass. 5% of c is a high speed, so ships traveling at 5% of c are good weapons (against stationary targets, anyway).

In fact, if you push it past a certain velocity, putting a warhead on a missile is pointless. I think it was in a Star Wars book I read that, of all places. Something along the lines of just dropping steel rods from orbit and letting the mass do the work?

[Science Officer]

Beat me too it on the close-quarters solution for ranged/melee.

Probably won't make much difference to the game, but I (for some reason) find embryo ships (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryo_space_colonization) more plausible than generation/cryo ships.

Might want to take a look at GURPS Transhuman Space for some inspiration...


Why no laser weapons? I mean, if it's near future, we already have laser weapons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed-energy_weapon). (They're just not quite what you'd expect)
Probably they're still inefficient, or ineffective against body armour, so you could marginalise them, if you wish. Still, I think fanners and electrolasers are pretty cool.

Atomic Rockets (http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/) is my go-to source for creating hard sci-fi (or it would be, were I to do such a thing). It'll sort you out on Relativistic Kill Vehicles and all such mess.


EDIT: And where might the players be in all this? What do you plan on them doing?

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Why no laser weapons? I mean, if it's near future, we already have laser weapons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed-energy_weapon). (They're just not quite what you'd expect)
Probably they're still inefficient, or ineffective against body armour, so you could marginalise them, if you wish. Still, I think fanners and electrolasers are pretty cool.

Cheap answer: Guns exist and are efficient. :smallsmile: Space and aerial combat might see some laser weapons, but I doubt ground battles would normally feature one. I heard once that real-life lasers do about as much damage to the human body as a gun. Dunno if that's true, but it would certainly marginalize energy weapons.

[Science Officer]

I heard once that real-life lasers do about as much damage to the human body as a gun. Dunno if that's true, but it would certainly marginalize energy weapons.

It's all a matter of power (wattage or caliber, I suppose) (http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/sidearmenergy.php#laser). And of course, placement of shots. Lasers can also be used to induce temporary blindness, cause the sensation of intense pain (actually, those would probably be those weird microwave things), and have, aside from those capabilities, many other distinguishing characteristics (http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/sidearmenergy.php#laser).

If OP wants, it might be that circumstances and technology are not favourable to projected energy weapons. I just wanted to point out that perhaps laser weapons aren't quite what he thought they are, or that hard sc-fi could include them in a different way than is more common in science fiction.

[gkathellar]

I'm not sure I understand this entirely. Why would a ship be a good weapon in the first place? Are you thinking that they would be able to go fast enough to knock a planet out of orbit?

As I mentioned earlier, and as other people have expanded on, objects moving at a significant fraction of C are devastatingly powerful, and can easily wipe out the surface of a planet through sheer explosive force. In addition, they are functionally unstoppable due to their speed and the fact that where you see them isn't where they are.


Something along the lines of just dropping steel rods from orbit and letting the mass do the work?

"Rods from God" are usually theorized as tungsten. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment#Project_Thor)


"A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive." - The Kzinti Lesson

The Kzintzi Lesson, if I remember correctly, refers specifically to the idea that a rocket with powerful propulsion technology is going to release enormous quantities of energy from its tail. As a result, you can use said energy as a weapon.


In other news, with the melee vs. ranged issue, I've decided to go a Snow-Crash-esque route. Fibrous armor that hardens on impact is enough to lessen the impact of a bullet, but the weight of a melee blow is enough to bruise and break bones.

Not sure about the physics of that. I have a feeling a bullet might still do more appreciable damage (especially if firearms technology has progressed — armor piercing rounds even today are pretty crazy). In any case, people won't use edged weapons. They'll use hammers, clubs, jackhammers, sticky explosives, etc.

In fact, explosives will become much more popular as a result, focusing more on heat, concussion and organ-pulping than the shrapnel-based weaponry we tend towards today.

[Icedaemon]

Scandanavia had taken over the market. Therefore, its influences were felt worldwide, and when colonists travelled to a new solar system, they left behind social structures (ie the US, UN, etc.) and created new ones, like the United States of Awesomeness or whatnot. However, the people kept the Scandinavian-esque culture that they had before. Essentially, Firefly with China replaced with Scandinavia.

Assuming that the USA and EU collapse due to economic mismanagement, not at all a great stretch given the current situation, why would China not be important? Even if Chinese goods never reach the level of quality that Scandinavia can put out, surely they would still be at the forefront of the cheap goods manufacture? Unless China suffered greatly in a war, I can't see that nation getting too badly pounded in an economic crisis which any other civilization would fare all that much better in.


Everyone, thanks for your responses. Can anyone think of a good fluff for melee being equivalent with ranged? Right now I'm thinking of saying that armor has progressed a ton, and can deal with the low force of a bullet somewhat but not the high force of a melee attack.

I suggest going the exact opposite way. There are no perfectly habitable planets in this world - people need to use environment suits or live in closed biodomes and other sealed structures which will filter out undesirable elements of the local atmosphere. Powerful ranged weapons such as mass drivers exist, but are highly illegal, since a missed shot (or even one which connects and goes straight through) might depressurize the entire habitat. Melee weapons are easier to find and purchase and subject to smaller fines/jail sentences even in the most anti-personal-weaponry regimes. While energy weapons (there are pain-MASERs which work even now, miniaturization is not a stretch) that do not emit their rays at sufficient frequencies to damage bulkheads exist, they are less handy and harmful than melee weaponry. Ranged weaponry will still be greatly superior in the outdoors, where people will be in environmentally sealed armour. However, anything that might be used to assault and damage a building would still be greatly regulated. Flamethrowers, which would not damage metal or stone walls too badly, are still illegal on worlds where sustainable oxygen production is in its infancy.

Given that, as the people of Japan and other disaster-prone regions know, flexible structures are far more resistant to earthquake and such natural disaster damage than rigid and massive builds, walls vulnerable to high-caliber fire can still well be very commonplace. As was pointed out, spaceships and most installations tend to be composed of tight corridors and small rooms, long-ranged combat is less of an issue in biodome-like cities regardless of the walls' sturdiness.