Imagine an eight to ten story tall structure about the size of a small factory - but on Mars and its somehow part of a large-scale operation that will eventually terraform Mars.
There are at least 5 to 6 tents nearby, and each tent looks like its big enough that 6 to 8 adults could comfortably sleep in them.
How do you work that into an RPG campaign?
If it was your campaign - how would you feature such a location for an encounter?
Whats in the tents?
Who is using the tents or sleeping in them?
Have you ever been in an RPG campaign that featured Mars in the near future?
Ever wanted to be?
If you're wondering - I'm describing an illustration that I saved to my computer - I just can't find the website that I saved it from. The view in the artwork is about from low-flying helicopter height looking down and across at the terraforming station.
- Ed C.
Is there a specific campaign for which you want to use the thing? If so, what kind of game is it, what genre? Hard sci-fi? Space opera? Sword & Planet? Does it HAVE to be Mars, or can it be Planet Stygia in the Dragon Galaxy?
Quote from: Koltar;367301Imagine an eight to ten story tall structure about the size of a small factory - but on Mars and its somehow part of a large-scale operation that will eventually terraform Mars.
There are at least 5 to 6 tents nearby, and each tent looks like its big enough that 6 to 8 adults could comfortably sleep in them.
How do you work that into an RPG campaign?
If it was your campaign - how would you feature such a location for an encounter?
Whats in the tents?
Who is using the tent or sleeping in them?
Have you ever been in an RPG campaign that featured Mars in the near future?
Ever wanted to be?
If you're wondering - I'm describing an illustration that I saved to my computer - I just can't find the website that I saved it from. The view in the artwork is about from low-flying helicopter height looking down and across at the terraforming station.
- Ed C.
I've been in one as a player - run over IRC by our own Johnnie Wannabe using one of my favorite games, The Terran Story - and run one using Cold Space/FTL Now, where terraforming Mars is a big part of what's going on.
-clash
I re-found a version of the illustration on the web!!
Take a look:
http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/exploringspace-terraform-big.jpg?w=400&h=225
(http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/exploringspace-terraform-big.jpg?w=400&h=225)
Thats the picture I was talking about.
- Ed C.
EDIT: Found the same artwork, maybe better resolution on a different website:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/image/47421
(http://spectrum.ieee.org/image/47421)
The terraforming project was going smoothly, but recently something went wrong. A few workers have contracted a mysterious illness. It could have been sabotage by the Russians or some native (i.e. Martian) microbe released by the project. The disease works quickly because of the enclosed environment and recirculated air. A few top-dogs at the facility have notified the authorities, but the best they can do is keep the disease hush-hush and hide the bodies in tents outside (there are no windows facing that direction, at least from what I can see).
If the secret gets out, the workers will panic.
If help doesn't arrive in time, everyone is dead anyway.
If it was the Russians, they'll have hell to pay.
If it wasn't the Russians, maybe the disease can be weaponized.
If the alien disease actually makes the corpses into zombies, they're all fucked no matter what.
What do you do? :)
It would have to be quite far along in the terraforming process for people to be able to live in tents instead of permanent buildings. So the question is, WHY are there tents next to a terraforming station (assuming that's what it is, for the sake of argument).
Maybe it was an automated station, so it didn't need permanent crew quarters, and the tents are the "closers" who are there to wind down the operation.
Alternately, if part of the station's process is to drill down to a sub-surface ice layer for volatiles to spew into the atmosphere, maybe it encountered problems and this is a repair crew.
Or maybe it Found Something Of Interest, and this is the science/military team sent to investigate...
Have you read the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson? Plenty of ideas in there.
I think the tents are more likely science stations or unwelcome guests than a part of the local living quarters. Maybe they are monitoring the changes in the local environment. Maybe the factory is on the fritz and the tents are check points for the investigation.
Waters of Mars.
RPGPundit
Where are you guys seeing tents?
I can see how they might be tents, but they might also be something else. If they are tents, I would doubt anyone would actually be living out of them because it's frickin Mars. Maybe shading some sort of equipment. Or, they aren't actually tents. Maybe Solar energy collectors.
Quote from: pspahn;367776Where are you guys seeing tents?
Because they
ARE tents.
In the version that I saved to my computer more than a year ago - the resolution is so good that I can zoom in on those white rectangles in Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Photo viewer.
They are definitely large tents with at least 6 tide-down ropes per tent (3 per each long side), with the typical fron flap or rectangular door. They look like the type of tents that you see in movies or TV shows as part of a military exercise or being used at an archeological dig.
- Ed C.
If Mars is not inhabitable then tents are probably used to cover equipment that needs protected from the elements when not in use. Even today's Mars has weather (dust storms) Probably external maintenance items. In an uninhabitable mars it would not make any sense to use unpressurzied tents.
Even if terraforming got the point that all you need a mask feeding you breathable air (i.e. no pressure suit) you still need an sealed enclosed area for sleeping, easting, etc.
If anybody interested in a near future Mars I recommend Red Mars and the rest of the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. The later books get kinda of preachy but the first is great at painting a picture of Mars in the process of being Terraformed. Green Mars is slightly further along the process. Blue Mars the terrforming is ongoing but much of the lower altitude is inhabitable without special equipment.
If the terraforming isn't far enough along for there to be people "camping" on the surface I would up the scale just enough that the tents could be temporary shelters for vehicles.
As far as what they're doing there, I'm a bit of a cornball and would go with a Doom scenario: something bad has gone down at the facility and those in charge need some dudes who ain't got time to bleed to go in and take care of it. Oh, and if they find any survivors, maybe rescue them, you know, if it doesn't damage the facility too much.
If it's a star trek type game replace "dudes" with "away team." and add a distress beacon.
IF we got our asses off this planet and got to the point shown in the pictures in my first few opening posts of the thread - just what year or decade would that likely take place?
In other words, in some future magazine or History book what would be the " circa year XXXX" for thast picture?
- Ed C.
Quote from: Sigmund;367781I can see how they might be tents, but they might also be something else. If they are tents, I would doubt anyone would actually be living out of them because it's frickin Mars. Maybe shading some sort of equipment. Or, they aren't actually tents. Maybe Solar energy collectors.
That's what I was thinking. More like tarps covering six-wheeled tractors, piles of rusting, stacked piping, and some metal crates with corporate logos on them. The structure itself is much bigger than it looks, since it goes down into the planet another mile or so, with a huge geothermal reactor down there. With no gasoline or obvious solar paneling, this'd be how they would power the whole place, I'd think.
I love threads like this. Creative shit.
-=Grim=-
I've always thought of using that pic as the location for some future game session. At some point I'll even try to draw a regular or hex map version of it.
The terraforming situation I think would be a nice backdrop or 'B' storyline for my Martian Civil War/Rebellion for Independence idea if I ever got that campaign to happen.
The terraformers & terraforming corporations involved would be one of three or four main stories or groups interacting and conflicting in the campaign setting.
- Ed C.
I doubt it's terraforming, since to keep an atmosphere on Mars you'd have to increase the gravity. If it is terraforming it's after we developed the technology to shoot a solid iron asteroid the size of Mount Everest into the core of Mars and not destroy the planet. :D
Quote from: CRKrueger;416850I doubt it's terraforming, since to keep an atmosphere on Mars you'd have to increase the gravity. If it is terraforming it's after we developed the technology to shoot a solid iron asteroid the size of Mount Everest into the core of Mars and not destroy the planet. :D
Not necessarily true - you could teraform Mars *if* you could somehow keep pumping out enough atmosphere to balance the sublimation loss.
I'd say if you wanted to have a "blue Mars" it'd probably be at least 500 years from now, conservatively.
Quote from: Werekoala;416949.................
I'd say if you wanted to have a "blue Mars" it'd probably be at least 500 years from now, conservatively.
So, circa 2505 to 2515 then ?
Damn.
Was hoping to set things a tad earlier in the timeline than that.
For the factions or groups in the setting I 've got : 1)Colonists, 2) Earth Colonial office & their troops, 3) The Terraformers, 4) Religious types with homemade spacesuits, 5) 'Rebel' colonists
(Small at first in the campaign but their numbers grow over the course of things), 6) various scientists in small groups exploring Mars - including some Archeologists hoping to find ruined structures.
- Ed C.
Quote from: Koltar;416952So, circa 2505 to 2515 then ?
Damn.
Was hoping to set things a tad earlier in the timeline than that.
For the factions or groups in the setting I 've got : 1)Colonists, 2) Earth Colonial office & their troops, 3) The Terraformers, 4) Religious types with homemade spacesuits, 5) 'Rebel' colonists (Small at first in the campaign but their numbers grow over the course of things), 6) various scientists in small groups exploring Mars - including some Archeologists hoping to find ruined structures.
- Ed C.
Well it doesn't have to be 500 years if we don't create the tech ourselves, remember Total Recall. :D
Quote from: CRKrueger;416850I doubt it's terraforming, since to keep an atmosphere on Mars you'd have to increase the gravity. If it is terraforming it's after we developed the technology to shoot a solid iron asteroid the size of Mount Everest into the core of Mars and not destroy the planet. :D
The estimates I've read said that after Mars had a significant atmosphere, it would last about 250 years without further work.
I actually had an idea for how to get around that for a short story that i never wrote. If we can terraform Mars, why not just dome the bitch? Or, rather, build struts all over the whole planet to hold up roof made of flat panes of something like a more elastic diamond, which in turn holds in the atmosphere. Dot it with periodic docking stations, and ships land on the roof.
You could go a few ways with the concept; a nanotech-built seamless crystal sphere, or a lower tech (as per your illustration) latticework where you see the carbon or whatever frames between the panes. The second one might have a uniform height over the terrain- maybe just high enough to allow for weather and precipitation so it doesn't have to be regulated by people or bots.
It could be engineered to give a good greenhouse effect, and since Mars doesn't (as far as I know) have ANY tectonic activity, the only things to worry about would be meteor strikes and space dust. Bots could be deployed to repair them and clean up.
Now, an engineer is probably barfing on himself at this "stupid" idea, but it passes the plausibility test for me; the low gravity on Mars should allow for higher structures, etc.
Quote from: Monster Manuel;416976Now, an engineer is probably barfing on himself at this "stupid" idea, but it passes the plausibility test for me; the low gravity on Mars should allow for higher structures, etc.
Doesn't sound stupid to me. Aside from the sheer scale and requirements of futuristic materials. It would be able to retain heat and possibly block out harmful radiation that Mars' lack of a magnetosphere would otherwise let in. (for a brief summary see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars)
Terra-forming Mars sounds all nice and cool, but like there is a major hitch, one that I've not seen addressed in games or very many science fiction books.
Mars' gravity is 1/5 of Earth's, so bone loss and muscle loss will occur in even the first generation.
After several generations, "Martians" will have far weaker skeletal structure and muscles, and any weakling "Earther" could kick their ass any day of the week, and twice on Sundays. A strong Earther could probably crush a Martian's face with one blow; as in, totally smashed and dead.
No, without increasing Mars' gravity, there's no point to it. More likely would be a collections of O'Neill style colonies, with workers going down to the surface for 1 to 6 month work "tours", then back home for a year to recover.
Just IMO
Something one might wish to consider when thinking about this kind of stuff is the design philosophy behind the internal arrangement of the structure. In the West, today, most architecture is all about access (or so it seems to me) in some past societies, however, that was not the case, for example in the Peruvian city of Chan Chan elite compounds were designed in such a way as to be nearly impossible for an unfamiliar visitor to find their way in alone. The point of this was to restrict access to and protect the elites, of course.
I have always imagined that if you had a facility like a terraforming station that you would design it the same way, making it extremely difficult fro the uninitiated to find their way from place to place, not to mention finding the vulnerable/important stuff.
Quote from: Aos;416998Something one might wish to consider when thinking about this kind of stuff is the design philosophy behind the internal arrangement of the structure. In the West, today, most architecture is all about access (or so it seems to me) in some past societies, however, that was not the case, for example in the Peruvian city of Chan Chan elite compounds were designed in such a way as to be nearly impossible for an unfamiliar visitor to find their way in alone. The point of this was to restrict access to and protect the elites, of course.
I have always imagined that if you had a facility like a terraforming station that you would design it the same way, making it extremely difficult fro the uninitiated to find their way from place to place, not to mention finding the vulnerable/important stuff.
Shit. After reading this post, I finally understand my old University's Biological Sciences building.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;417231Shit. After reading this post, I finally understand my old University's Biological Sciences building.
RPGPundit
That also might explain three buildings on the University of Cinccinnati campus. We always joked the initials " U.C." stood for 'under construction'.
During the late '80s/early '90s there was a building that had stairwell that went up one floor and stopped at a dead end wall - the staircase to nowhere.
It was of course the Engineering Department building.
- Ed C.