Quote from: HinterWeltBruised, Bruised, Bruised, Hurt, Hurt, Wounded, Wounded, Wounded, Damaged, Damaged, Critical and Dead.

Those are my initial thoughts.

Bill

Not bad except for this--is there a way to make risk dice, essentially result in success/fail/fail and hurt?

Because this way someone can engage in combat, and walk into a stray beam trying to get a good shot, or rescue someone, built into the dice?

Just musing really.

Quote from: flyingmicePercival Lowell was Right!

Mars is a cool, dry world, with canals. Venus is a steamy tropical paradise. Both teem with life! I could do this one of two ways - totally hard science, or rayguns and rockets. Either one would be fun! Entirely in-system stuff.

Ah. Planetary Romance is in the air. :cool:

Quote from: flyingmiceBut John - that's so pulp you can make paper from it! :O

Well, sure, and you can use it that way, too.  It was from a Spirit of the Century inspirational art thread, after all.  But the vehicle looks pretty hard so I thought it could be taken that way, too.  

So far, the thread still leaves me with two questions:

(1) Even if the consensus is to go pulp, what's the period going to be?  1930s Buck Rogers with Nazis just coming up?  1940s WW2 with Nazis ala Raiders of the Lost Ark?  The 1950s and 1960s Cold War with Communists and evil Chinese conspiracies instead of Nazis optimistic science (e.g., atomic cars and von Braun's spaceships)?  Something later?

(2) Why can't you mix pulp and fairly hard science fiction?  I think that painting pulls it off.  Basically, things like Dick Tracy played with technology that was plausible, if just beyond the reach of current technology.  Is it possible to make the situations pulpy but the science fairly hard?

If you go with Communists, think "Vietnam War on Venus".

Or you could do a Red Orchestra type setting. Soviet agents operating in the highest echelons of the Nazi leaderships.....on Mars!

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David ROr you could do a Red Orchestra type setting. Soviet agents operating in the highest echelons of the Nazi leaderships.....on Mars!

Or you can do both.  Venusian Communists and Martian Nazis.  They could call it "Nazis are from Mars and Communists are from Venus".

Um, isn't the Lowell idea basically Space 1889?

If you were doing it, I'd vote hard science, but history would be very different as you note.

I can't find your emails, Clash and Bill, comes from crashes of Thunderbird. Zap me an email, and I'll reply with the rules.

Alt History would be fine with me too. I can go that route as well.

Thinking would be more like so:

What critters live deep in the canals of mars?

What eco-system would there be? I assume a thicker atmosphere deep in the canals with thin atmosphere deserts above.

How warm would it be?

It is entirely conceivable that a sentient race has risen and fallen in the time of the dinosaurs. We had a big set-back to 0 with the impact. At that, we could even say that before their fall they seeded the earth with modern man.

As to Venus, jungles and primitives? Would we still go there? Assuming that they have not risen to higher technology, why? Limited resources? Hostile environments? Super diseases? Killer molds?

Making it a wet and hot environment could make it a great breeding ground for all manner of exotic life.

Kyle, my email is bilbo AT hinterwelt DOT com. I am not sure I ever had yours.

Bill

There's an interesting animation, arrows on a world map with text explanations, showing that humanity has a very long history and most of it was very much Stone Age.

Technological advancement is the exception in human history, not the norm. Essentially we're talking about evolution - if you're already very well adapted to your environment, if you have everything you need in food, clothing and shelter - why change?

Also remember that at the time the pulp stories were written, "savage" was a much broader term than today. They'd have included the Aztecs and Maoris, for example, both of whom had very sophisticated civilisations and relatively little use of metal.

Quote from: BalbinusUm, isn't the Lowell idea basically Space 1889?

If you were doing it, I'd vote hard science, but history would be very different as you note.

I suppose it's a non-steampunk Space 1889 of sorts. It's really based on some of the concepts behind Space 1889 - common concepts of Mars and Venus as being worlds very likely to hold life - concepts which lasted up to the early 60s and space flight.

-clash

Here's my idea. You know that "human journey" thing I linked to earlier. So, they tell us that from mDNA evidence they know that 85,000-75,000 years before present, humans were all across Africa, and had spread across south Asia.

Then, 74,000 BP, whammo, super-eruption of Mt Toba, Sumatra, causing a 6 year nuclear winter and instant 1,000 year ice age with a dramatic population crash to less than 10,000 adults. Volcanic ash from the eruption up to 5m deep covered India and Pakistan.

So how's this for an alternate history, plausible to UFO nuts and the like: From 85,000-80,000 BP a great civilisation arose in the Indus Valley. They were monogamous and believed in universal education and equality of women, so they were never very populous, and thus had not great motivation to settle the whole world; but they did love to explore. This civilisation by 76,000 BP had developed industry, by 75,500BP they'd travelled through the solar system. Then a split appeared in the civilisation, new religious groups who wanted to go forth and multiply. Prevented by the powers that were from doing it on Earth, they began terraforming Mars and Venus.

Then whammo, the super-eruption happens, and the civilisation is wiped out, leaving Mars and Venus to themselves. The cultures that developed there...?

In 1958 archaeologists digging outside New Dehli find under 7m of volcanic ash a very well-preserved crashed spacecraft with a stunningly efficient chemical rocket design. This design revolutionises space travel making it much more affordable. And...?

Just random thoughts

Quote from: John MorrowWell, sure, and you can use it that way, too.  It was from a Spirit of the Century inspirational art thread, after all.  But the vehicle looks pretty hard so I thought it could be taken that way, too.  

So far, the thread still leaves me with two questions:

(1) Even if the consensus is to go pulp, what's the period going to be?  1930s Buck Rogers with Nazis just coming up?  1940s WW2 with Nazis ala Raiders of the Lost Ark?  The 1950s and 1960s Cold War with Communists and evil Chinese conspiracies instead of Nazis optimistic science (e.g., atomic cars and von Braun's spaceships)?  Something later?

(2) Why can't you mix pulp and fairly hard science fiction?  I think that painting pulls it off.  Basically, things like Dick Tracy played with technology that was plausible, if just beyond the reach of current technology.  Is it possible to make the situations pulpy but the science fairly hard?

If you go with Communists, think "Vietnam War on Venus".

I like the idea of going with the concepts that were common at the time being true. This way we can write it STRAIGHT - no irony, no self-conciousness. My original idea was to use concepts current in science of the turn of the last century, but set much later - like around 2200 AD. That means no Nazis, and Communists are a joke. The scientific concepts of the time have been developed into technologies which exploit them.

It looks like - however, the push is on for Nazis and Commies in Spaaaaace!

-clash

It's an old tradition, Clash. Don't you remember that Heinlein story where the nutty professor and his kid friends together build a space rocket and go to the moon, and there they find a Nazi base, and beat them up? :cool:

Honestly Clash, there's nothing wrong with new villains.  Why do pulp when you can do noir?  Instead of Nazis, why not a hindu or buddist menace or even Aztec?  Venusian Aztecs would be way cool...

Also, Kyle, I really like your idea, lots of fun there.

Clash, don't feel bound by my silliness. Lay out what you were thinking. I am a bit unsure as to what you want. Is it 2200 AD and it will be a modern sci-fi alt-future-history kind of thing? So, like we would be mucking around with super-tech, modern sci-fi and the whole pulp thing is a misunderstanding?

So said considering I just whipped this up...


Bill