Difference between revisions of "Nephon Sector Pseduoscience"

Revision as of 15:31, 8 March 2007

Disclaimer

Again, I'll repeat my caveats from earlier. This guide to pseudoscience ("the Pseudoscience") is:

• Not Comphrehensive; it does not cover all extant technologies in the Nephon System. The GM, or the Players, may add to it at any appropriate time.

• Not Debatable; the science foundations of the Pseudoscience are admitted to be shaky at best. Internal consistency and speculative accuracy are neither goals nor products of the Pseudoscience. Debate over classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, string theory or quantum-loop gravity and their application to the Pseudoscience will not be tolerated during a session.

• Not Consistent; the GM may see fit to introduce new wrinkles to the Pseudoscience, or attempt to put the players in a disadvantageous position with the Pseudoscience. Defensive activities related to the use of previously defined clauses of the Pseudoscience as counterexamples to the proposed situation will not be tolerated. The Pseudoscience is a shifty and tricky beast, and even the best Scientist may not remember everything beforehand (though perhaps after the Combobulation Module has hyperextended, the memories will come flooding back).

• Not a Goal of Itself: The Pesudoscience, above all, is a tool to serve the needs of the story. If the Players or the GM would like to further the story but the Psuedoscience is somehow in the way, then they may propose ad-hoc changes to the Pseudoscience to better serve the drama of the situation.

I'll describe an example: The good ship Lady Murasaki is ferrying its contraband cargo (old NES cartriges of "Contra") out of the Koto Cluster towards the frontier. They are harrased by Antwerp Drakauge, a notorious vintage collector and vicious pirate. They are not armed.

Dieter the Bold Mechanic knows that the Lady Murasaki is underarmed for a confrontation, and that Drakauge's ugly jalopy is in fact fast enough to overtake the Lady even at full burn. He hatches a desperate plan, which the Pseudoscience has not described: He knows that the old Contra cartriges have a decaying silicon isotope in their EEPROMs, and that if roasted with a neutron gun, become a highly unstable ad-hoc fissile material. He figures that if they prep half their cartriges and throw them into the nuke drive, and pray they don't all die in a fiery radioactive inferno, they stand a chance of escaping.

The Pseudoscience says nothing about this, beyond the fact that the Nuke Drive is the large engine that provides fast acceleration. This is deemed an appropriate addendum to the Pesudoscience, because it's entertaining and provides decent drama given that the process of preparation involves everyone, and that it's not risk-free. Further, while the Pseudoscience may be appended to indicate the success of this trick, the GM will look with disdain upon attempts to stock up "ad-hoc fissile material" for future problematic encounters, and a similar attempt in the future would likely not succeed.

That brings to a close this Disclaimer.

The Pseudoscience

Travel Technology

Ship Attitude and Atmospheric Thrusters

For atmospheric use, and for maneuvering in vacuum, most ships employ chemical thrusters, using a fuel such as hydrogen peroxide passed through a reactive screen to cause a reaction. Some ships that spend a lot of time in "atmo" have thrusters that can either use an atmospheric or solid-state reactant; this usually results in better fuel economy in atmo but less power from the thrusters.

Chemical thrusters aren't the rule; there are magnetic, ionic, and may other types as well, with their varying strengths and weaknesses.

Long-Distance Travel

For acceleration to travel (near-light) speeds, most free ships use several closely timed nuclear detonations of fissile material, relatively close to the blast shield in the rear of the ship.

For reasons of safety and to prevent the weaponization of such drives, fuel by law must be stored as non-fissile, and then spun up in the ship's centrifuge before being fed into the reaction initiator. The reaction is initiated, the material is ejected, and the detonation takes place shortly afterward. Deviance in the storage method or the tolerance in delay between ejection and detonation is not permitted by law; the detonation must occur close to the propelled vessel for use of a "nuke drive" to not be considered hostile.

For ships along the magnetic corridors common in the Nephon System, travel is a gradual, effortless acceleration; it takes much longer to get up to speed, but practically no fuel. Their drive systems rely on redirecting ambient ions along 'caterpillar' systems driven by energy generated by movement through the magnetic field. An initial launch velocity is required to initiate the reaction, but after that the ship's movement is mostly self-sustaining as long as the Noble Sail is deployed.

Life-Support Technology

Worlds that would otherwise be uninhabitable do exist; atmospheres in the Nephon System range from perfectly habitable to corrosive and deadly.

The challenges of carving out a living space in a hostile environment depend on the hostility of that environment.

Strangely, most of the planets in the Core sport hospitable environments that need little adaptation. On the fringes, it gets more difficult; on Naga, the planet has essentially no atmosphere, and the cities are little more than glorified crash-landed spaceships. In the distant tributary Rukku system, the residents of Okay have built floating cities, really more like lashed-together rafts, as their planet, though rich in ocean life, has no landmass.

Some technology is common among hostile environments, though. Oxygen recirculators and enrichment facilities, stocked with algae tanks or hydroponic farms, are a neccesity, on planets with a non-breathable atmosphere. Protien synthesizers are required on planets that cannot produce good farming conditions. Efficient reuse and collection of heat energy is a concern on Sephore, for instance, as the ambient temperature hovers around -40C. Many planets have unique challenges to building a spaceport, but when broken down to first principles, they all involve finding a way to slow or stop a huge, fast-moving object in as little time as possible without damaging vessel, cargo, crew, or surrouning area.

Weapons Technology