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Siege wrote:Yes, but that's my point: it would make things easier to have two or more warp gates, it's why the Solarians have two, but how many other nations have actually done this kind of thing?

I have my default one in my home system, and another 2 sectors away in my core sector on the oher side of the Shoals. I feel nifty!

I have no objection to Steve adding a few port-worlds here and there, provided he obtains permission from the folks he wants to place them close to.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Maybe for the sake of fairness, he could allow other players to do so as well within reasonable constraints? So Shepistanimerica can have Guam and Puerto Rico. Just call them... Guano and Puta Chica.

Perhaps the amount of off-system colonies optionable can be determined by the amount of extra dice roll NPCs? Or something?

Speaking strictly for myself, I have no interest whatsoever in adding Solarian holdings outside the K-Zone. But then I'm not sure why this would need to be a matter of points either; Steve could just stick with the excellent mechanism Simon proposed earlier:

Simon_Jester wrote:When talking of far-flung protectorate 'empires,' I think that like the historical British empire, it might be best to consider them a wash in net economic terms, at best: the profits you gain from the empire are roughly offset by the costs of maintaining it, to the point where it doesn't really gain you anything.

This proposal is brilliant in its simplicity. Steve (and anybody else) can have fleet bases (provided, again, they stick with the "obtains permission from neighbours first" clause): they're not providing any economic benefit (or for that matter disadvantage), they're just a place with a few warships and/or soldiers that folks can write fluff about. Doing it this way would eliminate the need to reshuffle, rewrite or redistribute anything, we wouldn't have to roll any more dice, we wouldn't have to add more annoying game mechanics, and it would just be altogether easier for everybody.

Hrm, I'd never thought I'd see the day I'd propose something pointlessly pointy.

Yeah, Simons' suggestions is also alright and hassle free (which is goods). But Shepples was angers.

The Feelipeens with Shroomarcos is sort of like a Shepistani colony anyway, and there was never points-picking with that.

Does this mean the perfidious French and other powers can also have their own colonies, if the players make agreements and such?

The existence of far-flung colonies would make the cosmopolitical landscape more interesting, to say the least.

Anglian colonies also gives me an opportunity to make:



The Spinward-Outback Trading Company!

Now I think a reasonable amount of time had passed for CN to actually get the ball rolling, so I decided to do it for him in a not entirely unreasonable way.

Hell, I will even let him respond to the Monolith's request himself!

Tanasinn wrote:Simon:

Note that if you don't particularly want a terrorist trying to flee to your nation to escape pursuit, I can retcon it.

Don't trouble yourself about it, it's fine.

And if he's smart he'll stick to the fringe; there's a lot of government-run surveillance in most of the well-populated cities of the Core, and he'd be at considerable risk of tipping off the face-recognition cameras and such as soon as the extradition paperwork came through. Big Sciencebrother is watching...

MKSheppard wrote:Been taking a break from this but here's my two cents about Steve's proposed rewrite of his nation to have more Hong Kong and Singapore like colonies at vital strategic points:

NO. HELL NO. You should have thought of that during the planning phase, not when the game has been running for x months and already gone through several storylines.

Who said they'd be at vital strategic points?

Honestly, I don't give a shit about this one way or the other, so I'm not quite sure why it strikes others as a big deal one way or the other.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:The existence of far-flung colonies would make the cosmopolitical landscape more interesting, to say the least.

See, that's kind of what I think. The sheer scale of the game map (twenty days' or more travel) means that you have to go a long way out of your way to find any reason in-game that justifies interacting with anyone but your immediate neighbors. That's not a good thing, in my opinion.

Plus, I don't think a Singapore or Hong Kong equivalent is going to be a huge military asset (if anything, it'll be a liability; you'll need some troops there to show that your government is in charge, but you won't have nearly enough to stop an even half-way determined foe from snatching up your colony), while also not changing our GDP in any appreciable form.

I do think it might be wise to start up a thread for creating retroactive colonies, though. Perhaps dice rolls for us to determine a random number of them, should someone actually want them? Just an idea.

I have never really bothered to detail things, but as one could guess from the two recent Karlack incursions, the Imperium maintains a number of protectorates etc. in the buffer zone between the Karlacks and the Imperium, for the obvious reasons...

Akhlut wrote:I do think it might be wise to start up a thread for creating retroactive colonies, though. Perhaps dice rolls for us to determine a random number of them, should someone actually want them? Just an idea.

Maybe a thread so there's one place for everyone to see it, but I don't see the point of dice rolls. I think the current plan of "ask nearby nations" and the long-standing "don't be a dick" cover it. Or, IOW, be reasonable. You won't have little specks of "colonies" all over the black squares on the map. Well, I guess you could if you went around planting flags on any random planetoids you found, but you'd never be able to really control them, they'd be paper territories and most people won't even know you "own" that chunk of space rock. And saying that someone setting up shop there would be an act of war would be rather dubiously received, I expect.

If you're worried about, run your idea by the mods. Heck, you could even have more than one of these mini-colonies of different nations in the same sector. It is pretty much just one system (probably even a little less) and sectors are kinda big, after all. So, if there are questions or even complaints, just PM the mods and we'll work out.

They don't have to be strategic, and indeed I don't see how they would. One little system in a sector? People can just fly around that pretty easy. Plus, as Simon says, it does give a reason to interact with nations beyond your immediate neighbors.

That said, I think it's important that we bear in mind that:

-The size of fleets that can be maintained based off of something like these colonies is limited. Think more like the China Station and less like the Mediterranean Fleet. Steve's battlecruiser-sized Star Cruisers should be about the largest ships these protectorates ever see.

-Possession of such colonies is unlikely to be a critical political issue on the home front, and (as always) you're at the end of a long pipeline when it comes to supplies and reinforcements. Operating with even a bit of sophistication and resolution, it should be entirely possible for local forces to pry one of these colonies loose from the nation that keeps it as a protectorate. Having to fight something like the Falklands War over the place could easily not end well for the Anglians.

[Steve, I think it's important that you keep this in mind; if someone decides to really push at one of your colonies, particularly if their push is political as well as military, it might be best and most grown-up for you to take the hit.]

Depends. He could contest it and it might come out his way. Or not. The UK won the Falklands, after all. But then again, if the Argentinians had better fuses for their bombs, a lot of those duds that hit the Brit boats might've exploderized. Or so Shepples' graephs say.

It makes for interesting stories at least.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Depends. He could contest it and it might come out his way. Or not. The UK won the Falklands, after all. But then again, if the Argentinians had better fuses for their bombs, a lot of those duds that hit the Brit boats might've exploderized. Or so Shepples' graephs say.

Right. The really critical issue, though, is that even the weaker nations on the map (the 21 and 22 NCP states) are powerful enough relative to Anglia that a war in their backyard could go very badly for the Anglians- arguably more so than the historical Falklands War. They could win... but it would require a very large-scale commitment of their fleet to defend a remote imperial outpost.

If the conflict over the colony is a naked land-grab, of course, the Anglians (based on national character and reasons of state) are likely to contest the issue and might very well win. But that's why I mentioned "sophistication" along with "resolution:" any military threat to Anglian rule over the colony is likely to be accompanied by political unrest, pro-independence movements, and the like. That combination poses a much more significant risk to Anglian control than a nearby country rattling the sabre alone would.

It makes for interesting stories at least.

Exactly.

I don't have a problem with the far flung colonies idea, I think it's pretty cool actually because as everyone has been pointing out it gives more reason to interact with people. In fact you could have protectorate/colonies close to the protectorate/colonies of someone to far away to really feasibly interact with normally. Like Hiigara and the Centrality, there's no real reason for us to interact especially come into conflict unless we have little colonies that happen to be neighbors and cause problems.

What does kind of bother me is the re-structuring of the OOBs. In my opinion that sets a bad precedent for "I have a cool new idea, but I need to change my OOB.". Retroactively change the 3400 purchases perhaps( I don't even like that idea), but in my opinion the OOBs were locked many moons ago and should stay that way. Yeah that could make it hard on a player who want's colonies, but a capable player can figure out how to work around it and come up with reasons why their OOB doesn't accurately reflect the need to protect colonies. Perhaps even use that as the launch point for a story that revolves around the colonies being upset at the lack of protection afforded them.

My $.02

Well, this is an overall game change, which were not covered by the initial rules. So, it's not a matter of merely having a cool idea, but rather, a major retcon to the game story (since the colonies had always been there). If you're retconning in the colonies, you might as well retcon the OOB, as long as the points values stay exactly the same.


EDIT:

For those wondering why Resolution didn't simply warn itself of the catnapping attempt on its boat, the reason is that to send messages to the past requires a lot of temporal disruption that requires a lot of power, so it could not have sent a message far enough to have made a difference.

EDIT2:

Yes, Unreal Time is real! It actually exists!

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

I can't help but suspect this 'can send messages to the past' mechanic is going to be a pain in the ass to explain away as you write more on-the-fly interactions with other people. I was of half a mind to incorporate a similar thing in the functioning of Solarian CI's (because they can supposedly "think faster than the speed of light") but I haven't bothered with it so far exactly because at some point someone's going to do something that in-context you shoulda been able to see coming but didn't (because we can't actually phone home to the past when we're writing our posts), and then where does that leave you?

Mind you I'm not opposed to the idea, in fact I rather fancy it, I just suspect in the future it's going to become increasingly difficult to explain why in a given situation your guys didn't make use of this ability to the point where it might as well not exist. Like Simon's technarch who can send herself the right answer to a question from the future to pro-retroactively avoid multiple tries, it will work wonderfully when you're writing tightly plotted self-contained storylines... But probably not so well outside of them.

Siege wrote:I can't help but suspect this 'can send messages to the past' mechanic is going to be a pain in the ass to explain away as you write more on-the-fly interactions with other people. I was of half a mind to incorporate a similar thing in the functioning of Solarian CI's (because they can supposedly "think faster than the speed of light") but I haven't bothered with it so far exactly because at some point someone's going to do something that in-context you shoulda been able to see coming but didn't (because we can't actually phone home to the past when we're writing our posts), and then where does that leave you?

Mind you I'm not opposed to the idea, in fact I rather fancy it, I just suspect in the future it's going to become increasingly difficult to explain why in a given situation your guys didn't make use of this ability to the point where it might as well not exist.

That's why I limited it to very short periods of time for all but the most powerful worldships. It's good for things like tactical precognition, but less so for important decisions.

In any case, I try to work with the player I'm interacting with, so that we both at least have an idea where the story is going, even as we're often trying to screw each other over. So, I can always warn him when something occurs that we should have seen coming.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Kartr_Kana wrote:I don't have a problem with the far flung colonies idea, I think it's pretty cool actually because as everyone has been pointing out it gives more reason to interact with people. In fact you could have protectorate/colonies close to the protectorate/colonies of someone to far away to really feasibly interact with normally. Like Hiigara and the Centrality, there's no real reason for us to interact especially come into conflict unless we have little colonies that happen to be neighbors and cause problems.

What does kind of bother me is the re-structuring of the OOBs. In my opinion that sets a bad precedent for "I have a cool new idea, but I need to change my OOB.". Retroactively change the 3400 purchases perhaps( I don't even like that idea), but in my opinion the OOBs were locked many moons ago and should stay that way. Yeah that could make it hard on a player who want's colonies, but a capable player can figure out how to work around it and come up with reasons why their OOB doesn't accurately reflect the need to protect colonies. Perhaps even use that as the launch point for a story that revolves around the colonies being upset at the lack of protection afforded them.

My $.02

Hmm, actually I second this.

Steve, would you really need more battlecruiser-range units to patrol colonies? Why not make do with squadrons of the existing destroyers and cruisers? Or have fewer of the big 225-pt Star Cruisers normally deployed in your home space? Even given the size of your fleet, 200-pointers are a bit on the bulky side to be used in large numbers for deep-space patrol.

fgalkin wrote:EDIT:

For those wondering why Resolution didn't simply warn itself of the catnapping attempt on its boat, the reason is that to send messages to the past requires a lot of temporal disruption that requires a lot of power, so it could not have sent a message far enough to have made a difference.

Well, I can't complain about sending messages into the past by technological means, since I already invoke the notion of doing so by psychic means. That said, the limit on this sort of thing is pretty profound. You need any message you send into the past to create a closed timelike curve- you can only change events in your own future if it doesn't matter whether the messages you receive from the future are accurate or not.

But it is, for example, one hell of an aid to predictive gunnery if you can keep it up on second timescales. And that might help explain Lost ships' ability to punch above their tonnage (as distinct from their point values). They can put the same amount of fire on target from half a light-second away that a more ordinary ship would be able to deliver at much closer ranges, because they can see your evasive burns before you make them.

EDIT2:
Yes, Unreal Time is real! It actually exists!

Lo, it is written, talking is a free action.

Siege wrote:I can't help but suspect this 'can send messages to the past' mechanic is going to be a pain in the ass to explain away as you write more on-the-fly interactions with other people. I was of half a mind to incorporate a similar thing in the functioning of Solarian CI's (because they can supposedly "think faster than the speed of light") but I haven't bothered with it so far exactly because at some point someone's going to do something that in-context you shoulda been able to see coming but didn't (because we can't actually phone home to the past when we're writing our posts), and then where does that leave you?

Again, there's a difference between cognitive speed and the ability to deduce facts based on data that you don't have yet. This setting ignores the interaction between FTL and causality, and I am totally glad to keep doing that... but that means we do have to accept that there's a difference between being able to send signals between different parts of a computer at FTL speeds and being able to make the computer read its own future processor-state.

Being able to think very fast is not the same thing, qualitatively, as precognition or clairvoyance. Most AIs in this setting have the first but not the second, and you can achieve really amazing mental feats with only the first.

Mind you I'm not opposed to the idea, in fact I rather fancy it, I just suspect in the future it's going to become increasingly difficult to explain why in a given situation your guys didn't make use of this ability to the point where it might as well not exist. Like Simon's technarch who can send herself the right answer to a question from the future to pro-retroactively avoid multiple tries, it will work wonderfully when you're writing tightly plotted self-contained storylines... But probably not so well outside of them.

Heh. There, the limiting factor is that the time horizon for metacognition is measured in tenths of a second, on the same scale as normal human thoughts. You can't use it to grab answers to a question you haven't asked yet, or deduce something from information that won't be revealed until a minute from now.

The discipline has a great deal of untapped potential so far as (literally) expanded consciousness goes, but there are a lot of things it can't be used to do. Normal precognition is far more of a problem for plotting purposes than Doctor Susie (or Dora), because the Second for Ecology (or Dora) won't be able to tell you anything she couldn't deduce by normal means. She just takes less time to deduce it than an ordinary person would- and even then, it's not perfectly reliable, more a form of supercharged intuition than anything else.

In and of itself, metacognition is more like a method for giving a human being the mental powers of a high speed computer than it is a method for seeing into the future in the classical sense of "gaze into my crystal ball and I will tell you the winning number for next week's lottery."

Also the metacognition isn't necessarily correct, either. Remember Doctor Susie asking if the Collectors could possibly have ships larger than the monoliths. Granted, the good doctor isn't as well trained in it as Dora so her ability to skip the wrong/bad/dumb thoughts isn't as great. Instead of having to do A, B, C, and D, Susie can skip straight to C, but that still leaves D. Don't know how far Dora would go in comparison.

Mayabird wrote:Also the metacognition isn't necessarily correct, either. Remember Doctor Susie asking if the Collectors could possibly have ships larger than the monoliths. Granted, the good doctor isn't as well trained in it as Dora so her ability to skip the wrong/bad/dumb thoughts isn't as great. Instead of having to do A, B, C, and D, Susie can skip straight to C, but that still leaves D. Don't know how far Dora would go in comparison.

Actually, that was a perfectly reasonable thought, and a good question. Umeria has no direct observations of Monoliths from their own high-end sensor suites (or didn't until the Great Stealth Clusterfuck over in C-6, anyhow). Susie, specifically, doesn't know enough about naval engineering to be able to deduce anything really significant about what the Collectors might be capable of.

Though you'll note the relevant passage:

At her end of the table, Dr. Gerber, Third for Research, looked across the table at what she’d been drawing... a series of giant black boxes next to what looked like one of their own dreadnoughts, with question marks over the biggest one.

“I was wondering, what if they have ships bigger than this? I mean, maybe these Monoliths are just their idea of a cruiser or something, and their real battleships are even heavier than that. We wouldn’t really know, would we?”

Dr. Lanning's eyes flashed; that was certainly possible, and it was something no one in MiniSec really enjoyed thinking about. “Good question, Susie. I wish I had a better answer- as a preface to what I’m about to say, we really can’t rule that out.”

“Even so, we’re... cautiously optimistic that the Collectors have no ships larger than these Monoliths. Design Directorate believes that the sheer tonnage of those things approaches a number of theoretical limits in hyperdrive design, even allowing for the unusual techniques we speculate they use for shoal-space propulsion. To do much better than that they’d need to reach a whole new level of performance in high energy density engineering... in which case their firepower per ton ought to be even higher than it already is. Though that is, of course, speculation on our part, we do not expect to see anything larger than these Monoliths in known space- though it’s conceivable that they have heavier system defense platforms in their own space, much as the NenAltKik home system’s defense monitor outmasses any of their other capital ships by a great margin.”

Now, the Umerians' calculation on this issue may be correct (or not), but the point is that they have no hard evidence one way or the other as far as Umeria is concerned. The mere fact that Monoliths are huge does not mean, in and of itself, that the Collectors can't have other, huger ships.

Out-of-game, we know that's impossible- PeZook doesn't have enough points to be slinging around 50000-pointers, or even large fleets of 10000-pointers. But in-game, no one can know that, not even a metacognitive.

Again, metacognition isn't a magic "pull the truth out of the air" button. What it is is a technique that allows you to collate facts, examine possible explanations, and form gestalt pictures of a situation much faster than an ordinary human could do. The speed boost varies greatly depending on exactly what it is you're trying to do: it's useless for guessing the code of a combination lock,* but can be immensely helpful when trying to do mathematical proofs.

Basically, a good metacognitive at work in top form is like Sherlock Holmes, not the Oracle of Delphi.

*In theory, if you could examine your own brainstate a few seconds from now, after you'd tried a code to see whether it would work, you could use it that way. In practice, that's impossible, because of the timescale limit.

Ah, characters who steal from all the movies the original character was based off of.

Wait'll you see what von Mückenberger's chief of staff gets up to when the shit starts flying...

Nisa's Solarian Adventure continues!

Fulcrum is one badass mother feathe-

SHUT YO MOUTH

But I was only talking about Fulcrum!

WE CAN DIG IT!


Also, man. Little New Holy Terra! ARMANENTORIUM! ALIENIGENA!

Man, the Ziggies. Lizards versus CEID, FIGHT!

Solaris is the greatest place ever.

If the nations that are mentioned from my latest story post are unnecessary for whatever reason, I can edit my post.

This is gonna be fun.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:This is gonna be fun.

Uh oh, I know that attitude...