Basic Strange Stars Tech

Art by Don Maitz

Despite its somewhat retro trappings, the actual technology of the Strange Stars owes more to modern science fiction. Across worlds and habitats it varies, of course: some places are at a Stone Age level while others border on post-scarcity. Here's a rundown of the common technologies available to the average citizen of the "standard" world or habitat:

Metascape: Most people experience the world through an augmented reality overlay. It contains useful information for travels, social media messages, and lots and lots of spam. Nobody walks through a public square without their filters on, lest they be bombarded by all sorts of virtual messages. Clothing is enhanced--or even sometimes completely generated--in the metascape. Some jurisdictions make it a crime to view the world infiltered by metascapes as this is seen as an unwarranted invasion of others' privacy.

Noosphere: The cyberspace of the far future, essentially, encompassing traditional internet activities, the metascape, and the living environment of infosophonts.

Implanted Cyberware: brain-computer interface is as common as smartphones are today and used for similar purposes. The typical pre-programmed software allows metascape interface, noospheric connectivity, communication (where messages can either be read or heard as read by an avatar or the sender or anyone else), chronometry, basic calculation, and interface with most modern devices. Most individuals don't navigate their own apps, but use a personal daemon--a nonsophont ai--as an advanced "Siri" and an answering service. Some cultures (like the Vokun) find implanted devices distasteful as do some individuals. They use wearable devices for the most part.

Fabber (or mini-fabber): A nanofabrication unit--essentially an advanced 3D printer--assembling at a molecular level, finished products from raw materials. These aren't exactly portable, but they are near ubiqitous household and shipboard items and public units can be used for a fee. Anything from foodstuffs (though this would only be done on long space voyages) to starship parts can be made given enough substrate and the necessary "blueprints." Commercially available models can be "jailbreaked" to make illicit drugs or weapons, but its generally easier just to buy or steal such common items.

Biosculptor

A biosculptor is a limited form of bio-assembler, made for the purposes of plastic surgery. It's alterations are not as extensive or as customizable as those available with a trained technician and a full surgical suite (for instance, genetic alteration only of the grossest sort can be performed), but it has the advantage of being portable and easy to use. 

The biosculptor can reduce mass (up to 40%), but not add it appreciably (5%). It cannot create new subcellular assemblies (like chloroplasts in a nonphotosynthetic organism), lay down neural pathways involved in complicated behaviors, or alter body plan extensively (e.g. four-limbed to six-limbed). In general, it's changes will not alter attributes (GM discretion).

The biosculptor folds up to about the size of a briefcase, and self-extends as soon as it's booted up. The operator simply chooses the desired template from the devices library (or downloads another template) and uses the key pad or voice command to add further specifications.

Once that's done, the patient enters the biosculptor and applies the appropriate sensors. The unit anesthetizes the patient and fills compartment with a gel-like nanotech solution. The nanites begin the task of disassembling then reassembling the patient's body into the desired form.

[Inspired by the device appearing in the images above from the comic Lost Horizons by Juan Zanotto.]

Mapping Hyperspace

Star charts of the Strange Stars exist, but they are not as usual for travelers as diagrams of the area hyperspace network. The travel distances through hyperspace have only a slight association with the distances in regular space and the spatial relationships of two systems matter not at all.

Above is a simple, 2D download of a hyperspace map of the primary member worlds of the Alliance. By convention, worlds are typically named for the primary habitation (either natural or artificial) rather than the star, though there are exceptions--Altair being one here. The connections between nodes are typically color coded, based on the baseline human visible spectrum. (Other colors or other sensory stimuli are employed by beings with differing visual discrimination.Some spacer cultures refer to the two ends of the travel time continuum as "hot" and "cold." ). For a given length, redder connections indicate faster travel times and bluer ones slower. Red connections, for example, typical denote average travel times between 18 and 90 ks, depending on length of the connection and other variables. Violet connections might take 7 Ms or more.

For comparison, the normal space distance between the primary of Smaragdoz (Lurline, a K0V star known in ancient records as Alsaphi) and Altair is approximately 5.54 parsecs, taking 18.09 years or 570,490 ks for light to travel between the two. The sublight trip from a habitation to the terminal station (typically located at the edge of systems) in many cases takes longer than traversing a red connection.

Smaragdoz's hyperspace node is unusual in that it has multiple connections. This does not require a separate gate for each connection; there are only two pairs of gates in this case. Connections are accessed on a rotating timetable. The delay in access is typically in the range of 1-1.5 ks before a new connection can safely begin to be used, however delays 2-3 times that are not unheard of. The connection timetable can be changed on the fly, but this is seldom done as periodicity in connection changes has been found to lead to shorter stabilization delays and fewer "dropouts" (requiring a hard reboot of the gate).

Starships in the Strange Stars

Though the spacecraft of the Strange Stars vary a lot in appearance and use, most of their systems are fairly standardized. Some of this similarity is due to the exchange of technologies through trade, but there is another reason. The level of technology across the known galaxy is lower than in ages past; many ships currently in use are the products of previous civilizations or at least built from parts scavenged from ancient vessels.

One example of a lost technology is superluminal drives. The vast majority of modern craft are sublight vessels that utilize the hyperspace network to short-cut interstellar distances. The most advanced current civilizations have a rudimentary understanding of the science behind some FTL travel methods, but they are are currently unable to build them. Some researchers have noted that the ancients made use of these other methods rarely, suggesting there was something that made the hyperspace network preferable.

The salvage of ancient derelicts or wrecks is an important (and lucrative) activity. Gravity generators and inertial suppressors are only two of the important technologies than many civilizations are able to exploit, but not necessarily manufacture themselves. Intact data systems are a particularly spectacular find. There is always hope of engineering schematic files executable in modern nanofactories.

New or improved weapon systems always find an enthusiastic market. The holy grail for salvagers would be one of the twelve great battleships of the Archaic Oikumene. These vessels were the size of cities and all possessed of sophont minds. Some of these great ships (like Terrible Swift Sword and Leviathan Smiles) are known to have been destroyed. Others (notably Achilles' Last Stand, Fearful Symmetry, and Conspiracy of Ravens) have disappeared completely from history, possibly restructuring themselves into vessels of different types.

City Automobile Enthusiast

The automobile is an important part of the world of Weird Adventures, though no specific automobile makes are mentioned in the book. Some of these after appeared in play; after all, adventurers like to get around town in style.

A modest new sedan (like a standard model from the Cord Motor Company) can be purchased for around $500-600. Fancier automobiles or sporty models will cost more--sometimes, much more. Here are a couple of high end examples that have appeared in my games:

5883 Raser "Dual Six" Fitzroy Sports Saloon
Engine: V12, 150 bhp
Top Speed: 100 mph
This is a luxury automobile; less than 60 exist and each was built to order at a price of $12,000+. Cornelius Doyle's has a silver elephant head hood ornament.

5885 Auberon 761 Series C Speedster
Engine: super-charged 8-cylinder, 150 bhp
Top Speed: 104 mph
This stylish roadster sales for $2245. Gentleman thief Don Diabolico is the proud owner of one.

Communication Breakdown

With human-descended cultures and associated xenosopohonts spread out over 3000 cubic parsecs, hundreds of thousands of forms of communication are in use. While regional trade languages exist, the problem is mostly side stepped by the use of translation software. Upon arriving in a new place and connecting to its metascape, any necessary translation software integrates itself seamlessly with a visitor's netlink. Only the most backward or isolationist habitats deny complete translation, and even most of those find it expedient to allow limited translation of signage, official communications, and the like.

The visitor will hear speakers in their native tongue (though their netlinks will note the actual languages used), unless they utilize more primitive visual-only links, in which case the translation will appear as "subtitles."   For those with a need to blend in, direct neurologic download of language software is employed. This was once more widespread, but it's susceptibility to hacking proved its undoing.

The most notorious of these attacks was caused by the "23 Enigma" virus in the time of the Radiant Polity. It is believed to have been perpetrated by a hacker collective called the Nova Mob, though there was never any official statement of responsibility. The virus was named for a quirk (or perhaps a signature) in its code that left its victims unable to speak the words "twenty-three." Instead, they would replace it with a close approximate ("twenty" or "twenty-five," perhaps). The virus was a bit of nanomachinery, phage-delivered into the microbial vector employed to carry the translator code to the brain of biologics. The changes caused a global aphasia and lowered stress tolerance, leading to explosive reactions when communication with anyone was (predictably) ineffective. This reaction was particularly pronounced against moravecs and infosophonts, likely by design.

The malware vector was aerosolized, so it spread quickly throughout habitats. Quarantines were put in place, but these were often policed by bots, which only intensified the anger of the populace. It was weeks before the virus was contained in the most places and civil order restored.

For years afterward, it was a frequent conspiracy theory in the noosphere that hacks of Enigma 23 existed that were more subtle, that shadowy forces were using it to surreptitiously shape the language (and therefore the thought process) of the populace.

Suit Up

art by Simon Roy

EXOSKIN: a vacc suit of programmable matter. An exoskin forms around a wearer as they pass through a suit membrane aperture found before the airlock on a spacecraft. Once a wearer is clear of the membrane, the suit takes only a few seconds to finalize its configuration. Exoskins come in various forms from skintight to bulbous and oversized. They can be programmed to have slightly different properties, including opacity, color, texture, and thickness. They typically have the features and attachments common to other sorts of vacc suits, other than armor. Suit membranes have supplies of programmable matter based on the crew compliment of the ship. Small ones can create 5 suits. Larger ones may be able to create 20 or more with less than a minute in between. [Essentially the same as the Vacc skin in Stars Without Number in game terms.]