Traveling the Strange Stars

Perhaps the greatest legacy of the Archaic Oikumene is the hyperspace travel network. Though the means of the network's engineering—even much of the basic science science behind it—has been lost, current civilization is still able to make use of it to travel the stars faster than light. The rediscovery of a lost node is a major find, potentially introducing uncharted systems to interstellar civilization.

In the present era, the topology of the network appears to be much simpler than in ancient times. In most cases, nodes only connect to one or two neighboring nodes. The technology behind the nodes is at least partially psionic in nature. Specially trained psi-sensitives (or specially gengineered sniffer animals) can detect inactive nodes. Re-activating one requires brute-force hacking and psionically transmitted passcodes. Experts in hyperspace net architecture believe there is a quantum encrypted strata that at one time connected individual worlds—maybe even individual citizens. This higher end network is inaccessible in the current era.

Active nodes have exit and entrance gates fitted to them and terminal stations, located a safe distance away. Most of these structures date back centuries; a few even to the Oikumene. In civilized areas (particularly those once under the control of the Radiant Polity) tolls are often charged for network access and every ship passing through must have an identification transponder. So-called “black gates” exist, hidden in out-of-the- way systems that provide access without going through the public nodes. Military controlled gates sometimes exist, built near and accessing public nodes, but are given priority.

The conduits through the hyperspace are like latticework tubes of exotic matter. The distance between two points in normal space has very little to do with transit time through hyperspace. Instead, congestion and poorly understood conduit properties ("bandwidth") play a greater role. Terminal traffic control authorities try to manage congestion, but nodes deliver faster travel times to other destinations regardless—and this can vary over time.

While starmaps tend to represent the network as composed of simple lines between nodes, the internal workings of the network are considerably more complex. Most cultures rely on advanced computers to perform the rapid and complicated computations necessary for navigating hyperspace, though, some cultures have engineered biologic minds with intuitive abilities in these areas.

The poorly understood relationship between psi and hyperspace has led to more than a few fringe and paranoid memes, as well as legitimate scientific inquiry. So far, no theory is satisfactory. Psi-sensitive individuals tend to find hyperspace travel a bit uncomfortable. Many report the strange sensation of being watched.

Iron Men

I saw Iron Man 3 last night. It was enjoyable; along the level of Iron Man 2, I would say--so judge that how you will. It certainly took an interesting approach in that there was a lot of "iron" and a lot of "man," but seldom did the two come together in the usual way.

The Anthology Crawl

News of Andrew J. Offutt's passing on April 30 got me to thinking about the Sword & Sorcery anthology he edited (Swords Against Darkness) and fantasy anthologies in general. It seems to me you could use such an anthology (or anthology series) for inspiration and nonrandom "random placement" of encounters/things of interests in a hexcrawl or dungeoncrawl.

Simply pick an anthology. Read every story in it (even the duds--but skimming is ok) and pick some interesting element out of each, be it a monster, encounter, location, or item. Place these on your map in order, or arrange them to taste. You could even get more "madlibs" about it and predetermine what you were going to take from each story (an item, a place, an encounter), before you read (or re-read) the story, forcing you to stretch your creative a bit more to fit it in.

Warlord Wednesday: Scavenger of Souls

Let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Scavenger of Souls"

Warlord #124 (December 1987)

Written by Michael Fleisher; Pencils by Jan Duursema, Inks by Tom Mandrake

Synopsis: Morgan goes running across the devastated and burning city of Shamballah to the palace and his mate, Tara. He finds her in the ruins, trying to rescue a girl stuck under a timber. Together Morgan and Tara free her but then find themselves surrounded by flames. Kara aka Power Girl swoops in to rescue them.

Meanwhile, Jennifer thinks something more than a natural disaster is going on. In her sanctum, she summons “benevolent elementals” to query them:

While our heroes fight the fires and advancing lava in Shamballah, the three inhuman sorcerers swarm around a golden, skull-adorned casket—the thing that was inside the crystal egg. Their Mistress has survived the crossing. “Let evil rejoice.”

To revitalize herself, she sucks up the energy of one of her lackeys. Then she tells them to go out and find more fools to serve her.

After hours of dealing with the disaster, Morgan and Tara return to their bed chamber. They’re still filled with a sense of foreboding—and they should be, because at that moment, two-bit Aquaman foe, the Scavenger is shooting his way past their guards and into the palace. He uses his scorpion ship to bust into the palace vault.

Morgan’s awakened from sleep. His keen plot senses detect that something’s afoot. He and Tara surprise the Scavenger mid-theft. Scavenger knocks out Tara and grazes Morgan’s shoulder with a shot. He thinks he’s free and clear to escape in his craft. He’s mistaken:

The ship crashes. Morgan beats the hell out of the Scavenger and would kill him, but Tara intervenes. Scavenger may have lost the battle, but he’s just the kind of scum the sorcereress Khnathaiti needs. She transports him to her lair and offers him a job.

The Scavenger isn’t impressed by her magic tricks or her offer. He’s a bit more impressed when she syphons the energy from another of her servants, and transforms herself from an old crone to a beautiful younger woman. Has she moves closer to him, the Scavenger asks if she’s going to “waste him.” The sorcereress replies: “No part of you is going to be wasted, Scavenger. It shall all be…used.”

While the sorceress does her evil work, Jennifer and Kara are making their good-byes. The elementals told Jennifer that Kara was needed back on earth. Reluctantly, Kara leaves to return to the DCU proper.

Meanwhile, Khnathaiti’s work is done:

Things to Notice:

• Morgan thinks (for some reason) that Skartaris doesn't need superheroes.
•  Khnathaiti is even worse on henchmen than the usual evil mastermind.

Where It Comes From:
The Scavenger (Peter Mortimer) first appeared in Aquaman #37 (February 1968). He was always looking for an ancient alien device called the "Time Deccelerator." Apparently, he eventually found it and that's what ultimately landed him in Skartaris, where he shows up in issue #118. He went from a couple of other changes and retcons beyond the one here before getting killed in Hawkman #15 (1994).

Kara does indeed return to Earth, and next appears a few months later in Infinity, Inc. #50.

Queen of Diamonds

Like a jewel on the Rim of known space, the Fortuna system and its casino stations beckon. It’s one of the most glamorous destinations in the Strange Stars: Where else can fortunes be won (or lost) on a roll of the dice in view of a planet made of diamond?

The casinos, bordellos, and other pleasure stations are mostly found at lagrange points in the orbit of the gas giant, Fortuna IV. While the gambling houses are independently owned, they all rely on the keen Minds of the Gaming Comission. This ai collaborative ensures no one cheats and monitors all gambling aspects of casino operation as a service to the owners. No one knows the location of the Comissions’ primary minds, but it’s rumored to be deep within the atmosphere of Fortuna IV.

The most famous of the Fortunan casinos is the Wheel--a station designed to look like an Old Earth roulette wheel. It's rumored to be owned by Alys Eldorose, a famous gambler in her own right. Some say Alys was one of the original colonizers, whose mind sailed out on a lightship at 10% of the speed of light back in the Age of Human Expansion. If so, she would be thousands of years old. Alys is never known to have responded to these rumors, one way or the other.

Alys also owns the diamond planet, Solitaire (Fortuna I). She leases parts of it to mining concerns, but mostly uses it for entertainment and gambling. Bot races take place on the planet’s darkside with feeds for teleoperation and telepresence for the casinos' patrons. It’s rumored Alys may also have a data vault buried deep underground along the terminator, where the heat starts to climb to metal-liquefying temperatures.

Getting There is Half the Fun: FTL in Sci-Fi Settings

Faster-than-light travel is a staple of most science fiction: It’s hard to get strange new worlds and strange new lifeforms without it. There are a lot of different methods that turn up in fiction to get around, and the method that is the one “that works” in a given setting has implications on how adventures play out and even what sort of adventures are possible.

In Star Trek (and a number of other sci-fi universes), for instance, warp drive is the way it’s done. While the theory doesn’t always reflect the way it appears in story, warp drive is essential a means for going superluminal but just kind of ignoring Einstein. Ships still seem to interact with things around them as if they were traveling at “normal” sort of velocities.  This makes high-speed space battles do-able, and FTL travel itself doesn’t play a part in where bases or settlements will be put. Space travel is easily (maybe a little too easily) analogized to earthly exploration and warfare.

On common method is via hyperdrives or jump drives. Essentially these provide FTL via transfer to another dimension (“hyperspace”) where the usual physical laws don’t apply. This sort of travel comes with a lot of variants, but there are two factors that make the most difference: instantaneous vs. noninstantaneous and gates vs. no gates.

In the instantaneous variety, not much time (if any) is spent in hyperspace; it’s essentially teleportation. This means no FTL battles and perhaps no FTL chases. The tense moments are the ones leading up to the “jump,” because once that’s accomplished pursuers are lost and getaways made. (There is a variant where jumps might be short, defined distances, in which case you could have a sort of stuttering chase.) Like with warp drive, most of your adventuring time is spent in normal space, so the implications for setting design are pretty similar.

Noninstantaneous travel means ships spend some time in hyperspace. This allows chases (and possibly battles) in hyperspace, but also means that stuff can go on onboard a ship while the travelers maybe out of touch with the rest of the world. Also, hyperspace can have exotic hazards and even life. It becomes another interesting place to visit, not just a means for travel.

Nongated jumps mean a ship can do it on it’s on, whereas gated ones required specific structures or locations. Here, gates become places to meet and places to fight. Interstellar travel has choke points and routes like interstate highways. This can move space travel away from being like “ships at sea” to “like longhaul trucking.” Maybe (like in Cowboy Bebop) gates have tolls, so you could be stuck in one place until you’ve got the cash to proceed.

Anyway, there are other variables to consider (like whether people are awake in FTL or have to go into some sort of suspended animation). My purpose it not to give an exhaustive coverage of them all, but to suggest that these things aren’t just color or window dressing, but have implications for how the setting plays out and its feel.

It's Fun-Sized

Thanks to the largesse of Tim Shorts, I received the toy mini-comic sized adventure that is the Mini-Manor: Faces Without Screams in the mail last week. Small in size, perhaps, but not small in adventure. It's got face-stealing guys, naked goblins, and a merman berserker. If that list doesn't get you intrigued, you're probably just too jaded to be playing old school games altogether.

Check it out along with other fine GM Games products.