random stuff – Terminally Incoherent http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog I will not fix your computer. Wed, 05 Jan 2022 03:54:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.26 Rockets and Rayguns http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2016/03/08/rockets-and-rayguns/ http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2016/03/08/rockets-and-rayguns/#comments Wed, 09 Mar 2016 03:04:58 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=18752 Continue reading ]]> In the past two years or so, I really got back into tabletop and role playing hobby. While it was always a part of my life, and I was always reading and writing about it, for quite some time I wasn’t actually playing much of anything. It was a hobby “on paper”: one that I experienced vicariously through battle reports, podcasts and forum discussions. But that has changed.

I briefly got back into Warhammer, only to see it destroyed, and rebound really hard with Warmachine. If you follow me on Twitter, you probably also know that I have went through a Magic The Gathering phase (circa Dragons of Tarkir) which seems to be mercifully over now. I’m also part of a semi-regular D&D campaign.

You might have actually heard of it. It was briefly trending on reddit because our DM loves to make amazingly detailed terrain props. Due to DM prep overhead, and general state of “adulting” we finds ourselves in, we only have time to play once or twice a month (if we’re lucky). But it’s fun.

If you are wondering why I haven’t been very active on this blog lately, this is part of the reason. Other hobbies have temporarily superseded, and became more important to me than my blogging hobby. Among other things.

At one point I was even prepping to run my own FATE Core campaign. If you are not familiar with FATE Core it, is a narrative RPG system loosely based on FUDGE. I like it because it is a really solid implementation of FUDGE, that really rewards role-playing and pro-active narration from players. It allows them to take part in creation and shaping of the game worlds, but puts limits on it, by making it a resource based mechanic.

Players have FATE points they can spend to gain mechanical bonuses (+2 to any roll), or to narrate something into a scene. They gain said points by allowing their characters to be “compelled” by the GM and giving into their weaknesses, or flaws or by indulging their vices. In other words, they are immediately rewarded for “good role-playing” or for simply following the GM’s rails when he needs them too, with a resource they can spend to get their way.

It makes for a really dynamic, and interesting play, and something very, very different from the very encounter heavy D&D game we’ve been playing lately. So I really wanted to try running a short campaign. Alas, nothing has panned out as of yet. But I did get some nice dice and tokens just in case:

Fate Tokens

FATE Core Tokens and Dice

And of course, because I’m me, I have made tons of notes for the campaign setting. In FATE you are kinda supposed to get players involved in the world building process, and iron out the details during the first session. But, I figured it can’t hunt to jot down some ideas on paper, and to photo-shop some images to give players an idea as to what I was getting at.

The basic idea was based on my retro SF essay from 2010. I just expanded upon it to make it in a rough draft of a game setting. Below, you can find precisely that: a very rough sketch of the proposed setting, along with some of the mechanics and system tweaks I planned to include. The document was originally designed to be a player hand-out that would be distributed before a session, which is why I’m not breaking it up into parts the way I did with Ravenflight.

I’m putting the “living” document here for the time being: Rockets and Rayguns.

After the break, you can read the entire set of campaign notes, as it was in March of 2016 in the form of a blog post. As always, let me know what you think in the comments below.

Rockets & Rayguns

Introduction

This is a game setting designed to be used with FATE Core rule set. This means you will need FATE Rulebook, character sheets, and some FATE Dice and tokens. All the resources can be downloaded for free from the official website.

The setting is based on retro pulp SF from the 40’s and 50’s. Sleek rocket ships with giant fins, space suits with bubble helmets, ray guns, giant computers that take up the entire room, programming done on punch cards or patch cables are the core aesthetic.

Setting

It’s the year 3,000 and humanity has colonized the galaxy. There are over two hundred known human inhabited worlds and many more that have yet to be settled and colonized. Space travel is inexpensive, accessible and affordable and interstellar trade is booming. The primary mode of travel between worlds are small rockets that require 4-5 person crew, and can ferry both passengers as well as cargo across vast distances.

While some people never leave their home world, many choose to travel the galaxy seeking better career opportunities, better education, or simply looking for adventures.

Owning a Starship is considered to be romantic ideal: being the master of your own fate, not beholden to any local power structure, not tied to a single planet, and being able to pick up and leave at any time. Space Adventurers often get fabulously rich by discovering new habitable planets, scavenging alien technology, or finding pirate treasures buried on some barren asteroid.

The technology, while allowing humans to travel between stars, is still stuck in the past. Rockets and ray guns are common sight, but computer networks are unheard of, even on most advanced planets. Computers do exist, and are indispensable, but they are large, slow and programmed via punch cards or patch cables. Space travel is basically all humans got going for it, and it shows. Space Ports are like parking lots: every town has at least one, and major cities have dozens if not hundred of them.

Humanity shares the galaxy with at least three other sentient races: the green skinned Arcturians, the reptilian Slags and the mechanical Centaurians.

Language and Communication

The common language used throughout the galaxy is Esperanto. Individual worlds will often have dominant local language that is spoken by most of the inhabitants, but everyone is expected to learn Esperanto at a young age, and it is used as the official, neutral, common language.

Player characters are considered to be fluent in Esperanto. They may also pick another language that is spoken on their home world. This can be an existing language (Spanish, English and French are especially common) or an original language unique to that particular planet, and/or region.

Communication between worlds is done via the wondrous invention known as Ansible, which is capable of transmitting data instantaneously across vast distances. The transmission rate is flat 3 Bytes per minute, and it does not change based on distance. Because of the slow transmission speed, Ansibles are used mostly like telegraph: text mode only.

Audio-visual and other data is typically recorded onto magnetic tape and transmitted via courier aboard an interstellar rocket.

Planets as Sovereign Kingdoms

Most of the inhabited worlds are sovereign states with their own local government, own military, and own rules. While many worlds resemble the 50’s "world of tomorrow" ideals, some are feudal kingdoms, empires, despotic regimes or even strange theocracies lead by religious cults. While there exist large alliances and multi-world factions, they are far from being homogeneous with respect to culture and customs.

Think of planets as islands separated by vast distances. Most are weeks, if not months away from their closest neighbor. Even though interstellar trade is possible, and hugely profitable, all worlds tend to be self-sufficient, self-reliant and self governed. This lends itself to an incredible variety of cultures, and ways of life.

The three main interstellar factions (The Colonial Authority, The Alliance and The League) usually adopt a hands-off policy with regards to local culture and attitudes. They are mostly military and trade compacts. Some impose their own culture and ideals on the member worlds more than the others. They all know full well, that people’s loyalty is almost always to their home worlds.

On some planets most of the population may live in fully automated, modern cities, with flying cars and robot servants, other worlds may be almost entirely rural and backwards. There exist planets that have almost no advanced technology save for one or two major cities or castles.

Currency and Trade

Most worlds use their local currencies, and many have more than one. Interstellar traders, typically use one of the three faction currencies:

  • Colonial Credits (¢¢) are backed by the Colonial Authority and respected almost everywhere. Even alliance and alien traders will accept the credits, because of favorable exchange rates, and ubiquity. It is a very strong and stable currency, and preferred method of payment for most travelers. Colonial Credits are rectangular plastic chips, about the size of a credit card, with their value laser engraved on the surface.

  • Alliance Trade Notes (atb) are backed by The Alliance and is the second most popular currency in the galaxy. It fluctuates more than Colonial Credits, and tends to be less durable. It takes form of banknotes printed on postcard sized sheets of paper. They are mostly red, with intricate artwork covering the entire surface of the paper.

  • Ducat (d) is the official currency of the League and is the third most popular currency in the galaxy. The Ducat are made out of platinum and gold and their value corresponds in large part to the value of the precious metal from which they were made. This also makes them rather impractical as currency, since large sums tend to be heavy and impractical to carry around. Ducat are usually distributed as coins of various sizes. Small denominations are usually round coins or rings, while larger denominations are rectangular bars designed to be stacked in neat rows. Some merchants prefer this currency because it can be traded as raw materials without incurring much loss.

Additionally, most worlds issue Common Trade Bonds which are backed by their central governing authority. In theory, you should be able to redeem these anywhere in the Galaxy for local currency, but in practice they tend to only be honored on worlds that have standing trade agreements. They typically take form of 8×11" paper documents.

Hyperspace

Most space ship in the setting are cylindrical, nuclear powered rockets. They take off and land in vertical position, and typically balance on three to four fins and/or external engines when they land. The engines on most rockets are capable of accelerations that would produce enough G-forces to make the crew black out, or even instantly kill them so Pilots must exercise caution. That said, they are still conventional engines that cannot get anywhere close to the speed of light.

Interstellar travel is accomplished via Hyperspace which is an alternate dimension in which time and space work differently providing shortcuts between points in our universe. Hyperspace is often described as a non-void: an emptiness that is very much unlike the void of space. It is impossible to measure it’s temperature, pressure or acceleration in Hyperspace because these concepts do not seem to exist there.

A traveler looking outside their ship will see an endless expanse that is devoid of color and any kind of illumination, which somehow still appears "white". Those who have seen it, describe it as deeply unsettling. Most travelers never get exposed to that sight however since ships rarely enter Hyperspace without active Force Field. While ship fields are invisible to the naked eye in our universe, in Hyperspace they strobe and pulsate with vivid color, seemingly at random.

The Force Field is maintained mostly for the comfort of the crew. Without it, most people feel queasy, nauseous, experience sense of vertigo, and suffer from various other sensory distortions. Most people suffer from blurred vision, ringing in their ears and skin numbness. Symptoms such as strange (neither pleasant nor unpleasant) taste in one’s mouth, and hard to describe sharp, but inoffensive odor are also not uncommon. It is not know whether long term exposure has long lasting health effects.

A low powered field surrounding the ship seems to block out all of these side effects.

Once a ship enters the Hyperspace, it winks out of the existence in the standard universe. There is no way to follow or track a ship that is in Hyperspace, and it is not possible for ships to communicate while they remain there. It is theorized (though it was never proven) that each ship enters a slightly different version of the Hyperspace dimension, which is why no two ships were ever able to meet, or transmit messages while traveling.

That said, a skilled Navigator can potentially deduce where a ship was going based on their entry point. The topography of Hyperspace is bizarre and abstract, but stable and unchanging, and specific points within correspond to points in the standard universe. Picking an optimal entry point into Hyperspace allows to shorten the trip considerably. Common inbound and outbound transit points in each system are known to anyone with even Medicore Navigation skill.

Aliens

There is a plethora of alien species out there, and almost every inhabited world has some unique indigenous species. Most of them are not sentient. While many planets have, or had in the past, been a home to an intelligent species, most are not technologically advanced. Humans do not have qualms about colonizing planets that already have intelligent life. Indigenous populations are either assimilated into the human society and forced to adopt human culture and often existence as second class citizens. Those less fortunate are displaced from their home lands to make way for human cities and sometimes completely eradicated.

There are only three sentient species that humanity can’t simply brush away, because of their considerable technological and military power.

Racial Aspects: each race has two or three racial aspects, which describes how the race as a whole is viewed by others. These aspects can be invoked against, or by any members of the species, but it must be in the context of a group as perceived by outsiders.

Consider these aspects represent generalizations, stereotypes and preconceived notions about each species. They can be taken as role-playing cues, but characters and NPC’s can, and should subvert these expectations. In fact, some of the racial aspects will be contradictory. This is by design, to represent conflicting beliefs and prejudices people may feel about this or that race.

Arcturians

Arcturians are sometimes referred to as "the little green men" because of their skin shade and short stature. They typically stand a 4’5" and few of them ever grow to be taller than 5′. There is no significant height difference between their men and women. Their skin is typically some shade of green, though there is some variation between individuals. Most have uniform, light green carnation, but individuals with deep dark green skin as well as those with cyan tinge have been observed. Freckles are not uncommon. The most common hair colors are silver or white, though individuals with various shades of red, blue and black hair shades have been seen,

Arcturians are bipedal, and their body plan resembles that of humans. Their faces are almost human-like, with the exception of lacking visible nose or ears. Their eyes are typically black, without visible whites, or a distinctive iris. Their most distinctive feature are two wriggling antennas growing out of the top of their head which seem to double up as bout olfactory and auricular organs.

Arcturians are similar to humans in their temperament. They have similar track record of colonizing worlds and displacing local populations, being aggressively expansive and endlessly adaptable. Their society is similarly fractured into hundreds of small, locally governed planet-states that trade and war with each other. Because of these similarities both races seem to get along reasonably well. Arcturians often trade with humans, and some even choose to live in human colonies. That said, it is not uncommon for Human and Arcturians to go to war over local resources, or various diplomatic disputes.

Arcturians can learn to speak Esperanto fluently. Most of their own languages are difficult for humans to grasp because it includes sounds inaudible to human ears.

Arcturian technology is slightly more advanced. They seem to have mastered anti-gravitational technology, and cold fusion. Their flying saucers require no loud rocket engines, and use safe and clean reactors. Human scientists have yet to replicate similar technology.

Arcturian Aspects:

  • Little green people
  • Sly and cunning space merchants
  • Their saucers have been seen steeling cattle and abducting humans
Playing an Arcturian

Arcturian characters may require specially fitted space suits, though they can usually get away with using a child-sized human suit if one is available. Standard bubble helmets usually have enough room to fit their head stalks.

An Arcturian player character will be assumed to be fluent in Esperanto, as well as Arcturian Common language, and another language spoken on their home world. They are assumed to have lived long enough among humans to have very good grasp of their norms, customs and taboos. Players do not need to feel the need to use their aspects to establish those facts.

Slags

Slags is somewhat derogatory name given to the race of red skinned, space-faring reptilian humanoids. Slags are roughly human sized, and they have hard, scaly skin and large, round black eyes. Their scales are usually a uniform shade of red, though some have a striped pattern running along their backs. They are obligate carnivores, and their mouths have sharp needle-like teeth. Their hands and feet have large, gripping claws which are used while eating. Most individuals file down the tips, to prevent them from getting caught on clothing. Despite a popular human belief, Slags do not possess tails.

Slags do not have external sexual characteristics that can be distinguished by humans. While they reproduce sexually, and their women lay eggs, there is virtually no way for a human to distinguish a male from a female member of the species just by casual interaction. Most other species have no such trouble and can distinguish Slag sex without any issues.

Despite their reptilian looks, Slags are warm-blooded, and highly energetic. Their though, but flexible scales are excellent thermo regulators which allow them to survive in very low, and very high temperatures, and withstand a lot of radiation. Slags do not need a full space suit to work in vacuum of space. They may spend up to an hour in hard vacuum without suffering any adverse consequences, provided they have a steady supply of oxygen to breathe. They are also extremely hardy, and their skin seems to be particularly resistant to ray gun fire on lower settings.

Slag technology is on par with human, though their ships tend to be much more heavily armored, and have very powerful rocket engines. They typically don’t install any sound dampeners, or emission filters on their engines, and frequently use chemical boosters. Because of that Slag ships are extremely loud, and can often be seen leaving thick, black smoke trails behind them. Their huyperspace drives on the other hand, tend to be sub-par, and significantly slower than human.

The name they use for themselves is unpronounceable by humans. Some members of the species who have learned Esperanto, claimed that they found the word Salamander as a good stand-in, being evocative of fire-spitting lizards. Others disagreed, and there is no consensus on what Humans should call them.

The Slags that are encountered most often in the human space are hostile marauders, raiders or space pirates, who attack human ships or human settlements. Furthermore, their lizard-like appearance is considered to be intimidating, or even frightening by some. In some societies they function as the space bogeymen used by politician or demagogues to rally support.

Humans unaccustomed to dealing with Slags tend to find them unnerving and intimidating.

Slag Aspects:

  • Tough and ugly reptile brutes
  • Smarter and more cunning than than they look
  • Savage, bloodthirsty marauders and space pirates.
Playing a Slag

Players wishing to play a Slag must meet the following requirements:

  • Their character’s Physique skill must be Fair (+2) or better

Slags do not fit in human sized space suits, and do not need them. They simply need a respirator that can fit over their mouth and nose, along with a tank of air to survive in the vacuum of space for up to an hour. Longer periods may result in them suffering from standard ailments related to decompression and exposure.

Player characters are considered to be fluent in Esperanto, as well as the Slag Common language. They may also know a local language spoken on their home world.

Moravecs

The Alpha Centauri Moravecs are one of the most unique races in the entire galaxy due to the fact they are entirely mechanical. Their ancestral species was likely organic, but there is precious little known about them. In their current form, they are robotic, without even a trace of organic material.

They reproduce in a way that is entirely unique to their species: two or more individuals collaborate together, building a brand new individual from parts. Some individuals are simply built from spare parts that are available at the time of creation, while others are built to a specific plan or with a specific purpose in mind, using custom manufactured components. Because of this, no two Moravecs look the same. Most however use a bipedal body with two legs, and two manipulator arms, and sensory modules installed roughly where humans would expect a head to be.

Moravecs have highly advanced technology that is ahead of any other space faring race. Their greatest advancements are in computing and machine engineering. No other race has ever even came close to replicating the technology behind the Moravec brain, and few races can build mechanical sensors as accurate as they do.

Their ships have incredibly fast hyperspace drives, and their rocket engines are tuned to run at accelerations way beyond the tolerances of organic species. Because of this, they are incredibly hard to out-maneuver or chase.

Their ships often have leaky, un-shielded reactors that are unsafe for organic passengers, but do not affect Moravecs at all. They are usually not allowed to park their rockets on residential landing pads, and get re-routed to industrial space ports.

They typically do not install any life support on their vessels because it is not needed. They do not require air or food, and space travelers typically modify their feet to include electro-magnets that allow them to move efficiently in zero gravity. They also do not experience any discomfort while traversing Hyperspace without force fields.

Moravec language is incomprehensible to humans, consisting of beeps and mechanical sounds. Humans can learn to understand it, but can’t readily speak it. Individuals who expect to interact a lot with humans or other species typically install a set of speakers somewhere on their chassis.

Moravec Aspects:

  • Soulless automatons with no respect for organic life
  • Logical and literal to a fault
  • Each one is a priceless mechanical wonder
Playing a Moravec

Players wishing to play a Moravec must meet the following requirements:

  • Their character’s Engineering skill must be Fair (+2) or better.
  • They must take the following extra Made out of Steel: Armor Rating 2 (Cost: 1 Refresh)

Moravecs do not need space suits and can operate in vacuum for indefinite amount of time. They can also operate under water, but their bodies are not designed to withstand deep water pressures. Their bodies are hermetically sealed against vacuum, but extended exposure to water pressure may rupture said seals and cause them to short out and effectively drown just like organics would.

Player character Moravecs are assumed to have speaker mod, and are fluent in Esperanto, as well as the Moravec Machine Language.

Vegans

Vegans are bipedal humanoids that typically stand 7-8 feet tall. Most have thin and wiry build, though obesity is not entirely uncommon among them. They do appear to be less prone to it than Humans or Arcturians. They have a smooth, hairless light blue skin and white, pupil-less eyes that emit soft glow in the dark. Most individuals have light or dark freckle like spots on the top of their head, their back and sides of their arms and legs. The pattern and coloration is unique to an individual.

Similarly to Arcturians, they posses no nose, but do have ears similar to those of humans. Their olfactory senses are located in their mouth and they typically smell things by "tasting the air" with their mouth and tongue.

Vegans evolved from herbivorous herd animals and their stomachs cannot digest meat. While they can subside on food rations designed for Humans or Arcturians by just eating around the meat, it is not healthy for them. They typically need more varied plant based diet to stay healthy.

Their original home planet had much weaker gravity than Earth, and they tend to prefer low gravity planets. The standard gravity that feels comfortable to humans is strenuous and tiring to Vegans. It makes them tire easily, and make them seem sluggish and lazy, compared to other species. Despite their large size, Veagans are not significantly stronger than humans because their muscles are designed for much weaker gravity.

Vegan technology is on par with Human or Slag civilizations. They use atomic powered rockets and standard hyperspace drives. By necessity, their vessels tend to be larger, and more spacious to accommodate their large bodies. They usually have a distinctive bulbous shape, with engines mounted on fins.

Vegans have reputation for being peaceful and neutral race. Their worlds typically choose to stay out of armed conflicts, major wars or even territorial disputes. This is by no means universal across all their worlds of course. They do not hesitate to fight when attacked, and will launch attacks at perceived threats when needed. They simply prefer not to enter into interstellar military alliances. They prefer to maintain friendly relations with all their neighbors if possible.

Vegans have reputation for being level headed, and hard to shake or provoke. They can stay calm even under extreme pressure, and rarely lose their laid back and easy going attitudes. Some species find their unshakable will and unfaltering smiles to be rather unsettling, while others enjoy their company precisely because if that.

Vegan Common language has a song-like qualities to it, and is fairly easy for humans to master.

Vegan aspects:

  • Gentle, friendly giants
  • Laid back and easy going but lazy
  • Affraid to ever take a stand on important issues
Playing a Vegan

Players wishing to play a Moravec must meet the following requirements:

  • Their character’s Will skill must be Fair (+2) or better.

Vegans do not fit in human sized space suits. They are also not comfortable in chairs designed for humans.

Player character Vegans are considered to be fluent in Esperanto, Vegan Common language and one local language spoken on their home world.

Important Factions

There are three major human factions that operate on a galactic scale, rather than on a planetary scale.

Colonial Authority

Colonial Authority is a military superpower with an enormous fleet, and many worlds under it’s control. Their mission statement is to protect human life, human culture, and human interests throughout the galaxy. They seek to "prepare" new worlds for human colonization, which almost invariably involves exterminating indigenous alien life and supplanting it with Earth-like ecosystem.

Colonials also often choose to "protect" sovereign human worlds by making them part of their territories. The wishes of the local populace are irrelevant, and few worlds are able to face the Colonial Invasion Fleet in an open space battle. Fortunately the Authority allows the worlds it controls govern themselves asking only for three things.

First, is taxation. Second is providing the Colonial Fleet with soldiers on an annual basis. Third is the ability to build Colonial Bases on the surface of the planet, and govern them as they see fit, without them being subject to local laws. Of course local rulers still must answer to the Colonial Authority, and the local military must be disarmed and dismantled.

Colonial Authority is commonly referred to as "The Colonies". The people living on Colonial worlds are typically not referred to as "Colonials". That title is usually reserved to members of the Colonial Fleet, or high ranking diplomatic officials who represent the authority.

Faction Aspects:

  • "Enemies of the Colonial Authority are enemies of Humanity"
  • "Only good aliens are dead aliens"
  • "Colonial fleet has no peers, join us or perish"
The Interstellar Alliance

The Interstellar Alliance originally consisted of the Fomalhaut, Betelgeuse and Aldebaran systems, each of which is represented by a stripe on the flag. The stripes converge together to represent how these systems banded together in a close knit alliance, to protect their citizens from outside threats which include Slag marauders, Colonial Authority, League of Free Worlds and Arcturian invasion fleets. Since it’s inception, dozens more worlds were formally inducted into the organization.

Modeled after the Collonial Fleet, the Allied Fleet is funded and recruited from the member worlds. Unlike the Ahority however, membership in the Alliance is voluntary, and there are no tithes or mandatory draft. That said, member states are expected to pull their own weight and contribute. Worlds that do not donate funds, supplies or troops will often be expelled from the alliance. New member states must go through a rigorous vetting process, during which they are expected to take on all the responsibilities of a member, without actually gaining any benefits.

Alliance does not officially meddle in the local affairs of member states, but it does have a published set of standards, and model laws which members are encouraged to implement. These standards proscribe both legal, cultural and economic norms. For example, member worlds with democratic governments are instructed to ensure that aliens cannot vote on matters that pertain to human citizens. Some of the standards proscribe dietary restrictions (only Earth based foods, no indigenous plants or animals) or mode of dress (no hats or head-wear allowed on Alliance ships or alliance controlled lands). Original members are free to ignore these standards, but newly inducted members may be voted out if they don’t make every attempt to conform to all the suggested standards.

Alliance fleet is smaller than than the Colonial Fleet, but highly motivated and well trained.

Faction traits:

  • "Not nearly as bad as the Colonials"
  • "You are free to conform or leave"
  • "Humanity first!"
The League of Free Worlds

The third biggest faction in the known space, is the League of Free Worlds. It is feared and despised by both the Colonials and the Alliance alike. Unlike those highly organized factions, the League is a loose association of worlds united under a single banner. Each of said worlds is ruled by a local despot, who holds an absolute power over their domain, and maintains a personal army to defend their holdings. Alliances between the members of the League are based on personal martial or trade agreements between the ruling dynasties and tend to be fickle and impermanent.

The actual power of the faction waxes and wanes as the internal alliances are broken, wars are caught, and personal vendettas are being carried out. That said, there is a kind of strong "us vs them" mentality among the League planet lords, and they will usually put aside their quarrels to when threatened by an external force.

The League’s official leader is known as the Lord of Lords (or The Overlord for short). This is not a hereditary title, but rather an elected office with a twenty year term, which can only be served once. The Overlord is selected by majority vote at the Grand Landsmeet: a gathering of Planet Lords that happens once per two decades. It is a very festive occasion, and one fraught with danger and court intrigue. There hasn’t been a single Grand Landsmeet without at least one assassination attempt, and some kind of scandal or political spectacle. At Landsmeet new alliances are forged, old alliances are broken, duels between lords are fought, planets, riches and power changes hands in unpredictable ways, until a new status quo emerges. Usually the most powerful, or most charismatic of Planet Lords emerges as the new Overlord. The office itself grants authority over the other Planet Lords, but that authority must always be backed up by actual power: either in terms of a strong personal army, or good network of allies that can discourage dissent.

The cultures of the League worlds vary, and are usually dictated by tastes, beliefs and convictions of the ruling dynasty. On most of them governance resembles a class driven feudal system. Others may be run as corporate structures, or even faux democracies with mock senate, and meaningless elections. Some Planet Lords are despised by their subjects, while others are beloved local celebrities. All of them however wield absolute power of life and death over the inhabitants of their worlds.

  • "Space Aristocrats"
  • "Yield to the strongest and the mightiest"
  • "Kneel and you will be allowed to live and serve"

Mechanics

Below are additional skills and mechanics that extend the set of rules found in the FATE Core rulebook.

Anchors

This campaign will use the idea of Anchors as outlined by Rob Donoghue. To put it simply, an Anchor is an object, place or person connected to an Aspect that provides a concrete, tangible cue for invoking and compelling that Aspect.

When creating their characters, players should define one Anchor for each of their Aspects. They can be small trinkets or items (favorite hat, good luck coin, a locket with a picture), a meaningful person (mentor, teacher, parent, old friend, dependable associate) or place (your childhood home, a place you wish to visit, a prison where you served a sentence). Players should try to choose Anchors that both help to flesh out their character, provide "visual" cues as to who they are, and have a reasonable probability to come up in play.

The Anchors then provide an additional, and conceptually easy way to invoke or compel Aspects. For example, a Grizzled war veteran may be wearing a jacket with their former unit insignia, giving the GM an easy way to compel that aspect by having an NPC recognize the patch and try to start a fight because were on the opposite side of a recent war. The patch acts as a convenient hook to hang the compel on.

Skill List

There are 20 skills to choose from. You get the 18 standard FATE Core skills and two new skills renamed below. Additionally, some of the standard skills have been renamed to fit the setting better (see table below).

Skill Description
Athletics
Burglary
Contacts
Crafts Covers arts and crafts. Ron Swanson type shit here.
Deceive
Drive Covers all ground vehicles and other non flying machines.
Empathy
Education renamed Replaces Lore.
Engineering new Used to repair machinery, program computers and operate starship shields.
Fight
Investigate
Lore Replaced by Education
Notice
Physique
Pilot new Covers spacecrafts, and flying machines.
Provoke
Rapport
Resources
Shoot
Stealth
Will
Engineering Skill

I made a decision to break Engineering out of Crafts skill, because it represent a slightly different skill set. Along with the Pilot skill, it allowed me to round up the skill list to an even 20, so that works out just fine.

Crafts skill is still around, but is mostly focused on manual craftsmanship and artistry. With Crafts you can build a nice mahogany desk, reinforce a wall, weave ceramic plating into your space suit and etc.. It can also be used for architecture – you can build a shack in the woods, a floating raft, or a magnificent shed.

Engineering works similar to Crafts with exception that it is focused on technology specifically. Your character is good with machines, and mechanical devices of all sorts. You can repair your space ship, fix your ray gun, rig a robot to explode and etc..

This skill is also used for computer programming, reading and writing computer programs. As a rule of thumb, if something is mechanical, or plugs into power source, Engineering is the skill to use with it.

There is some degree of overlap between the two skills. Engineering skill could potentially be used to build a structurally sound raft for example. It may not be the best looking or most comfortable raft, but it will probably float just fine. Similarly, Craft can be used to open an electronic door lock, by simply cutting around it, and shorting the wires at random until something happens. As a general rule of thumb, in such cases the solution lacks the finesse and more of a temporary fix than a permanent solution.

Overcome: Engineering allows you to build, break, or fix machinery, presuming you have the time and tools you need. It can also be used to create computer programs. It can also be used to heal and repair robotic characters, such as the alien Moravecs.

Create an Advantage: You can use Engineering to create aspects representing features of a piece of machinery, pointing out useful features or strengths you can use to your advantage (Supercharged Battery, Finely Calibrated Gyroscopes) or a vulnerability for you to exploit.

Creating Crafts advantages can also take the form of quick and dirty sabotage or jury-rigging on mechanical objects in the scene. For example, you might create a Makeshift Pulley to help you get to the platform above you, open an electronic door lock and etc..

Defend: When on a ship with force fields, you may attempt to defend from attacks from enemy ships. To do so, you must first ensure your shields are at maximum combat capacity by routing power to them. Once that is done, you may use your Engineering skill to defend any Shoot attacks directed at your ship. This represents you modulating the field intensity to adapt to the incoming shots in order to deflect them.

Engineering Stunts
  • McGuyver: you can improvise and build simple gadgets or tools using things that just happen to be around (paper-clips, chewing gum and shoelaces for example). You always count as having the right tools for the job.

  • Computer Programmer: +2 to engineering rolls when programming, reading computer programs, or trying to solve problems using a computer.

Pilot Skill

Piloting a rocket ship is not an easy task. It requires a lot of special training and good grasp of orbital mechanics and how gravity fields and atmosphere affect a space craft. Because of this it is broken out into a separate skill from Drive which now pertains to non-flying vehicles only.

Pilot skill behaves similar to Drive

Overcome: Use Pilot whenever performing difficult maneuvers, such as trying to land on difficult terrain, weaving in between obstacles, trying to enter world’s atmosphere at a dangerous speed and etc…

Create Advantage: You can create an advantage for the Gunner by skillful maneuvering.

Attack: Pilot skill can be used to ram the enemy ship similar to the way Drive skill works.

Defend: You can use the skill to actively try to dodge the incoming attacks by performing evasive maneuvers.

Pilot Stunts
  • Dogfighter: gain +2 on active Defend rolls using the Pilot skill when in combat with a single enemy ship.

  • Push the Limit: you can withstand high acceleration better than the others. When your engines are overcharged you can out-run, overtake or shake off any ship of similar size as yours if you can make successful Pilot roll. The downside is that most of your crew will black out from high-G stress.

  • Stunt Pilot: gain +2 on Overcome rolls when performing difficult stunts such as barrel rolls.

  • Thread the Needle: gain +2 on Overcome rolls when flying the ship through extremely tight spaces.

Lore is now Education

Lore sounds a bit archaic or supernatural for this setting, so it was renamed. Education may refer to formal academic background, training or being self taught expert.

This is also the skill used for reading star charts, and plotting hyperspace jumps.

You can take Stunts to specialize in a specific field. For example:

  • Medical Doctor: +2 on Overcome or Create Advantage rolls pertaining to first aid, medical aid, or general knowledge of medicine and pharmacology.
  • Navigator: +2 on Overcome or Create Advantage rolls pertaining to hyperspace navigation, reading star charts and etc..

Zero Gravity

Your ship’s Life Support system has a built in artificial gravity support. This is true for most rocket ships, and as a result very few pace travelers ever need to learn how to handle themselves in zero gravity. It is a skill that only comes up when the on-board Life Support fails, or when a person needs to go outside of the spaceship to perform repairs.

For an average person, working without gravity is rather challenging. People tend to bump into walls a lot, get themselves stuck in a middle of the room, and tend to get disoriented or even nauseous.

In zero gravity all physical actions have a -2 penalty, regardless of skill level.

This penalty applies to all skills that have physical component, including Engineering and Pilot tasks. It does not apply to non-physical skills such as using Rapport or Empathy.

Player characters may take the following stand-alone stunt to represent their expertise as seasoned spacers.

  • Astronaut: ignore penalties for working in zero gravity.

Taking the above stunt gives a character access to a whole stunt family:

  • Space Walking: (requires Astronaut) gain +2 to Athlethic rolls while out of spaceship in vacuum of space.

  • Zero-G Combat: (requires Astronaut) gain +2 to any Fight rolls while in zero gravity.

  • Zero-G Marskman: (requires Astronaut) gain +2 to Shoot rolls when using personal side-arms in zero gravity.

Crew Roles

Crew roles listed below describe the jobs characters will have on the ship. The players should try to build their characters so that they can fulfil one, or several of these roles. You won’t need all of them, but it’s good to have at least few.

To run a ship effectively, you will need one character with Pilot skill, one with Engineering just to be able to take off and land. Computers and Navigation will be necessary to get between systems via Hyperspace. A crew without someone with a good Shoot skill will be in trouble if it runs into any ship-to-ship combat.

That said, if one or more players want to create off-beat characters that do not conform to any of the roles below, they can certainly do so. In such case, the crew should simply hire a number of NPC crew mates with the missing skills.

Please note that a Crew Role should not be used as your High Concept Aspect. It can however be used as a starting point. For example a Pilot may take "the best damn pilot in the Colonies" as their High Concept. This is not a requirement though. As a counter example, you may have a Captain who is a "scoundrel with a heart of gold" or a Gunner who is a "disgraced war hero".

Captain

As a Captain you are the leader of the crew. You represent your crew mates when interacting with others, and anything you say or do reflects on your crew and vice versa. It is your job to find new jobs, passengers, negotiate prices and ensure your ship is stocked with provisions for long trips.

While on planet, you are responsible for the conduct and actions of your crew mates. If they get in trouble, it is your job to appease the locals, talk to the authorities and make things right. During combat it is your job to negotiate with the hostiles, accept their surrender, or make the decision to concede in conflict to save your ship and your crew.

You are, by far, the most important member of the crew because you hired all the other crew members and you own the ship.

Important Skills:

  • Notice, Will, Rapport

Pilot

You are responsible for piloting the ship and making sure you take off and land in one piece. During combat, your skill may be called upon to doge incoming shots or to out-maneuver the enemy and create good firing situations.

You are, by far the most important crew member because without you, the ship will not fly.

Important Skills:

  • Pilot, Engineering, Education

Engineer

Your job is to maintain the ship, and repair it when it becomes damaged. You can be usually found calibrating the engines, tinkering with the hyperspace drive or making new modifications to the turret. Without you, the ship would fall apart. During combat, you will be routing power to various ship subsystems, and operating the Force Fields, deflecting enemy shots.

You are by far the most important crew member, because without you the ship would fall apart.

Important Skills:

  • Engineering, Crafts, Education

Gunner

You are the ship’s muscle. You are in charge of loading and unloading the cargo, making sure everything is strapped down tight, and prepared for the flight. You are handy in a bar fight, or street brawl. But it’s space combat when your skills really shine. You are a crack shot, both with a ray gun and with the heavy laser turret. You can alway line up a perfect shot.

You are by far, the most important crew member, because without you, they’d be sitting ducks to be plucked by Space Pirates.

Important Skills:

  • Shoot, Fight, Physique

The Ship

Your ship is Advanced Astronautics Dauntless 600 Interstellar Rocket Ship (AA D-600). It’s designated as a light cargo hauler / passenger carrier. Your ship was modified with a military issue Heavy Laser Turret installed in the Observation Deck.

The ship is a character that the players will create along side their characters.

When creating the ship:

  • Give it 3 aspects as to a regular character (High Aspect, Trouble and one aspect related to it’s past owner, or how the crew obtained it)
  • Leave space for two additional aspects to be gained during play
  • Assign the ship no skills or stunts. All rolls will depend on crew skills.
  • Give the ship Recharge of 2.
  • Give the ship 1 stunt that can be useful in combat, that makes this ship unique

The ship has two stress tracks:

  • Hull Stress works like physical stress for a character. Your ship starts with two boxes and may gain more.
  • Shield Capacity starts with two boxes.

The Shield stress track is to be used only when actively defending via Shields. If damage is taken in excess of Shield Capacity, the Shield is Taken Out for the remainder of the scene. It must cool off, and be re-calibrated before it’s used again, but no repair roll is necessary.

If shields are powered down, or in cruise mode when hit, you must use the Hull Stress track.

You can use this modified character sheet:

The ship may gain two additional aspects (to a total of 5) during game play.

During the game players may invoke the aspects of their ship by using the ship’s own FATE points.

Ship to Ship Combat

Ship to Ship Combat counts as Physical Conflict. Treat each ship involved in combat as a single character.

Use Cpatain’s Notice skill to determine the turn order, and break any ties by using Pilot’s, Gunner’s and then Engineer’s skill (in that specific sequence)

During each Exchange each crew member may perform one action. The following special actions affect the ship as a whole:

Create Advantage: Pilot may attempt to create an advantage over the enemy ship(s) by carefully maneuvering the rocket into an advantageous position. This should be rolled against the enemy pilot skill. A captain may also attempt to create advantage by observing the enemy ship via Lidar to find weak spots, maneuvering patterns that could be exploited.

Attack: the Gunner may use their Shoot skill to attack the enemy ship.

Defend: If attacked, the Pilot or the Engineer may use an appropriate skill to defend against an incoming attack. If Pilot chooses to Defend we call it Evading. If Engineer chooses to defend, we call it Blocking.

  • When Evading use Piloting skill to defend. If damage is taken, use Hull Stress track.
  • When Blocking use Engineering skill to defend. If damage is taken, use Shields Capacity stress track.

The Captain may also try to perform mental Attack actions using the Shortwave Radio. In that case, they will be rolling against the enemy Capitan, and the damage and consequences are applied to said character rather than the ship.

The Ship Systems

Your D-600 has an old, aging reactor, which does not yield enough power to run all the ship systems at the same time. To represent this, you can use the optional power management mini-game in ship-to-ship combat to make it more interesting.

Power management works as follows:

  • Ship’s reactor generates a fixed number of Power Points (PP) which should be represented by appropriate tokens
  • Each of the ship’s systems consumes a set number of PP per Exchange to operate
  • At the start of an Exchange all the tokens are placed on the Reactor system on the Ship’s character chart
  • Before any actions are declared, Engineers assign the tokens to ship systems in secret, then reveal them at the same time
  • From that point on the Exchange proceeds as normal, but systems that have not been assigned enough PP to meet their minimum, cannot be used

Overcharging: in order to perform stunts, relevant ship system must be supplied with extra power. Place an extra token on said system to pay for stunt use.

The resource management should only be used during Conflict resolution, and can be ignored during regular (boring) ship use, when the party just wants to get from point A to point B.

Atomic Reactor

Your D-600 is powered by a standard nuclear power source for that model. If the reactor is damaged, the ship is completely out of power and is considered adrift.

  • The reactor output: 8 PP per Exchange
Rocket Engine

The Rocket engine is used for normal space flight, take-offs, landing and docking operations. During combat, it is required to perform any actions that require ship to move or change position. It also allows to use the Pilot skill for Active defense against shots or ram attempts.

  • Minimum power required: 3 PP per Exchagne
Life Support

Life Support system covers air, water, waste recycling as well as artificial gravity on the ship. It requires a constant supply of power while the ship is in outer space, but can be temporarily disabled if PP are needed elsewhere.

The immediate consequence of disabling this system is that it cuts the artificial gravity. This means anything not strapped down starts to float and bound around. Crew members without the Astronaut stunt face penalties for working in Zero-G.

The long term effect is that ship’s air is no longer recycled, so the crew has about 20 minutes before they start suffocating.

  • Minimum power required: 1 PP per Exchange
Hyperspace Drive

Your D-600 is fitted with a standard Hyperdrive that allows you to perform hyperspace jumps. It has no obvious utility in combat, except for when the ship’s crew is trying to make a quick escape.

In a Conflict the Hyperdrive must operate for at least 4 consecutive Exchanges without interruption in order to successfully initiate a hyperspace jump. A Crew member must be assigned to operate and program in the course into it over that period and they may not do anything else. If they are interrupted, or the power is cut before the 4 Exchanges have elapsed then the process must be restarted from the beginning.

  • Minimum power required: 5 PP per Exchagne
Force Field

Force Field (also referred to as Shields) is mainly used for deflecting laser shots or space debris that would otherwise damage your ship’s hull. When the ship is Attacked, a Crew member operating the Force Field system (usually the Engineer) may use their Engineering skill to Defend from the attack.

If the Force Field is active, damage can be recorded on the Shields stress track, rather than on the Hull stress track.

The Force Field is also used during Hyperspace travel, but it can usually be run in low power mode where the drain on reactor is negligible. This feature has no combat utility and can be safely ignored (assume Shields are on while in Hyperspace at all times) unless the system is damaged.

  • Minimum power required: 3 PP per Exchagne
Med Bay

A small medical room is tucked into the corner of the Cargo Bay next to the Life Support systems. It contains a fully stocked medicine cabinet, surgical tools, one surgery table and three stasis chambers that can stabilize a patient in critical condition. The chambers may also be used to enter suspended sleep state if the Hyperdrive is broken and the ship is adrift.

In Combat the med bay can be shut off, unless you need the Stasis Chambers to be running: for example if transporting a patient in a critical condition.

If the power is cut, the chambers gracefully shuts down and wake up the patients. Each chamber can be connected to an external power supply, and placed on a dolly for transport to a hospital.

  • Minimum power required: 1 PP per Exchagne
Lidar

The AA D-600 has limited visibility out of the Bridge canopy and uses a Lidar array for sensor readings. Lidar works by illuminating targets with laser light and reading the reflected beams. It works like a sonar but can provide a lot more information and works at the speed of light.

Lidar is located on the Bridge and looks a bit like a bulky submarine periscope. It is typically used by the Captain who can use it’s readings to instruct the Pilot.

Lidar has two modes: passive and active. In passive mode it will detect any objects that generate or deflect light. It can also be used to detect heat from rocket engines, and systems. If a rocket shuts off it’s engines, and there is no nearby source of strong light (like a sun) it may be very hard to distinguish from a space debris.

In Active Scanning Mode the Lidar can be used to make long range scans by illuminating targets with various wavelengths of laser light. It can be used to identify the exact model of the enemy ship, see if it has active force fields, detect presence of a working reactor, scan for life signs and etc. When a ship uses Lidar in active mode it lights up like a Christmas tree and reveals ship’s position.

During combat, Lidar can be used to identify enemy weaknesses, and used for Create Advantage action.

  • Minimum power required: 1 PP per Exchagne in Active Scanning Mode
Shortwave Radio

Used for ship-to-ship or ship-to-planet communication. Uses standard analog radio wave and has rather limited range. Players will have to use to request permission to land or coordinate docking with another ship or space station.

All rooms have wired communications that require negligible power, and will work as long as the reactor is running. They do not depend on the Shortwave Radio subsystem.

In combat, the Radio is mainly used for Ship to Ship communication. If the Capitan wanted to Provoke the enemy Crew, this system would have to be on

  • Minimum power required: 1 PP per Exchagne
Ansible

Standard Ansible allowing for instant interstellar communication at roughly 3 Bytes per minute. It allows one to send a message to any other Ansible in the universe, provided you know it’s unique routing number.

Ansible must be powered on to send out messages. In combat assume you are able to send one written word per Exchange.

  • Minimum power required: 1 PP per Exchagne while Sending
Laser Turret

Military equipment, retro-fitted to work with D-600. It can sustain 3 second high intensity beam that can be used to damage another ship, clear space debris out of the way and etc.

The turret can be used once per Exchange. During combat it will almost exclusively be used to make Attack actions. It can also be used to Defend from a projectile weapon (eg. a torpedo) or to blast space junk or debris to Create Advantage. In all the above cases, the Gunner’s Shoot skill would be used.

  • Minimum power required: 4 PP per Shot

Ship Upgrades

The ship is expected to gain new Aspects and Stunts as the campaign goes by, and that is it’s main progression. Unlike characters, it does not have skills it could improve. The crew could however choose to upgrade some of the ship systems, or install new modules.

An obvious upgrade is a better reactor that generates few more PP per Exchange. Other possible upgrades to consider:

  • Better Force Field (add stress boxes to the Shields track)
  • Better Turret (add a Weapon Rating extra)
  • Armor Plating (add stress boxes to the Hull track)
  • A whole new Systems module with unique functionality

Eventually the Crew could even upgrade to a new ship with a new set of aspects and different module slots.

The Ship Decks

All decks are air tight, and connected via two hatches to the deck above and two hatches the deck below. The primary hatches are all aligned into a column that allow a person to freely climb up and down between decks. There are also maintenance hatches that are in different places (but clearly marked by hazard stripes). Maintenance hatches are usually closed while not in use. All hatches are sealed manually.

All rooms and sections within a deck can be sealed individually via air tight door. The seals on all doors are manual.

  • Deck 1: Engines – Sits on top of the rocket exhaust. Divided into Reactor Room and Engine Room. Reactor Room is sealed off, and accessible via a air-lock door and requires a radiation suit to enter. Engine room has the Engineering Station that allows the Engineer to shut down and power up ship systems at will. It also houses the Hyperdrive Engine.

    Systems:

    • Rocket Engines
    • Hyperspace Drive
    • Frorce Fields
    • Atomic Reactor
  • Deck 2: Cargo Bay – Used for storing hauled cargo. Also includes external air lock, automated ladder, and a crane system for pulling up large boxes off the ground. The crane must be operated by a crew member. The air-lock can be wide open when the ship has landed, but at all other times, only one set of doors can be open. The air-lock doors are automatic and controlled via a panel inside the Cargo Bay. There is a manual override on the outside which uses a gear box to close and seal inside door and open the outside door via a crank shaft. It is usually hidden behind a reinforced panel that requires a key carried by the Capitan. Within the Air Lock there are 3 lockers with one Space Suit each.

    Small section of the huge Cargo Bay space is sectioned off to house Life Support systems. The machinery simply did not fit in the Engie Deck. The emergency hatch to the Engineering Deck actually opens into the Life Support toom. Some Engineers like to keep that hatck open, and lock the Life Support room from the rest of Cargo Bay.

    Right next to the Life Support there is a tiny Med Bay with three stasis chambers. It was placed here to avoid taking sick crew up to the living quarters deck to minimize contamination. The room has a small air-lock entrance with a decontamination shower. There is a locker with a single hazmat suit outside.

    Systems:

    • Life Support
    • Med Bay
  • Decks 3: Living Quarters – Seven rooms for crew and passengers, connected by a common area in the middle. The common area has a small kitchen, large conference/dining table, as well as a shared restroom with a stall, sink and a shower.

  • Deck 4: Bridge – contains pilot station, Captain’s chair, and Lidar. The other half of the deck is the Observatory which was retro-fitted to house the Heavy Laser Turret which takes up most of it.

    Systems:

    • Lidar
    • Shortwave Radio
    • Laser Turret
  • Deck 5 – tip of the rocket. Houses the Ansible, the radio equipment and antennas. It also houses the Captain’s Cabin.

    Systems:

    • Ansible

Rockets

Rockets are iconic and important to the setting. Your D-600 is special and unique ship, because it belongs to your party. Similarly, important NPC ships may also have unique aspects and features. There are however going to be dozens of other ships you may encounter, which are not going to be important enough to warrant a character sheet.

Below you can find brief descriptions of popular ship models you might encounter during your adventures. Each model will have an aspect (in italics) and sometimes a stunt or an extra associated with it.

  • Enduring class ships are fast but cheep and not very durable.
  • Mercurial class ships have been built for speed and comfort, not for combat.
  • Dilligent class ship is a dependable workhorse favored by space merchants
  • Divergent class ships are light, well armed military crafts usually used by planetary defense or law enforcement (Weapon Class: 1)

  • Dauntless class ship may be slow and does not look like much, but its dependable
  • Intrepid class ships are cargo haulers that are built like race cars
  • Peerless class ship is a piece of junk that belongs in a museum

  • Falcon class ship was built for fast atmospheric dogfighting used for planetary invasions
  • Swift class ships are blindingly fast, hard hitting glass cannon and are mainly used as deep space interceptors
  • Wasp class ships are slow but steady, colonial workhorse used as military transports or cargo haulers (Armor Class: 1)

On average, even the slowest Arcturian saucer is more maneuverable than the fastest rocket. They do however are at a disadvantage in deep interstellar space where their anti-gravity engines can’t provide enough thrust.

  • Traveler class saucers are agile but fragile
  • Vanquisher class saucers are frighteningly maneuverable, light military warships
  • Observer class ship is sluggish for a saucer, but surprisingly tough and durable

Slag ships are heavily armored, and all have Armor Class: 1 unless specified otherwise.

  • Armadillo class ship is a flying fortress
  • Razorspine class ships bristle with weaponary
  • Thunderstrike ships are nothing but engines

Moravec ships have no Life Support or Artificial Gravity.

  • Moonstrider class ships are solid cargo haulers, with fragile landing struts
  • Stargazer class ships have vulnerable hull but powerful force field
  • Triton class ships are faster than they look, but not very maneuverable

Vegan ships have their Artificial Gravity turned down to a fraction of what Humans consider comfortable.

  • Starstrider class ship turns on a dime
  • Moonraker class ships have powerful engines, lots of weapons but little cargo space
  • Sunspot class ships are built for speed at the cost of armor

Other Technology

Computers

Computers do exist in this setting but they are huge, unwieldy and expensive machines that take up an entire room. They require high Engineering skill to operate properly.

Most computers are programmed via patch cables, or punch cards. A portable computer that will fit on a space ship, will take up almost entire upper deck, and will be programmed via patch cables and manual switches. Computers used in research facilities are almost universally punch-card driven.

Punch card decks (pictured above) are the default programming medium, while large magnetic spool tapes are used for data storage. Both can be used as McGuffins or objectives. Punch cards are portable but fragile. Messing up their order will destroy the program, unless the author took time to number the cards. A deck can be read directly and require at least a Fair (+2) or better Engineering roll.

Magnetic spools are about the size of a spare tire for a medium size passenger car, and weigh about as much. They require special hardware to read.

Ansible

Ansibles are used for instantaneous interstellar communication. They are able to transmit data at the constant, uninterrupted rate of 3 bytes per minute, regardless of distance.

A standalone Ansible is a machine about the size of a small work desk, that contains a teletype device with a keyboard. Typed text is buffered in temporary memory that can hold up to 256 Bytes of data. Received output is printed directly onto the paper spool.

Because of the limitations of technology, most Ansibles work in text only mode and are used much like telegraph was back in the day. There exist versions of this device that can be used as general purpose computer modems but they are much bigger and more expensive since they require much more buffering memory.

Ansibles are fairly simple to use, and do not require Computers skill to operate.

Space Suit

A standard space suit is made out of thin, flexible space age material that provides perfect thermo-regulation. It will protect you from the extreme cold of outer space, and can withstand the heat of a ray weapon. The material is stretchy and flexible, but very difficult to tear or puncture. Most modern space suits are thin and form fitting, but bulkier, multi-layer, old suits are still in use in some places.

Each suit comes with a reinforced glass bubble helmet that offers full peripheral vision, and a shoulder harness that mounts air tanks.

Most suits also come with a utility belt with array of pouches and a number of attachment points for tools or weapons. The helmet has a built in radio unit, with a very short range. It can be sued to communicate with the ship while working outside of it but it is very low powered and maximum range is only about 5 miles. The radio uses a battery is carried in a pouch attached to the belt, and it can sustain 20 minutes of continuous use which is usually enough for most space walks. The suit also has a small speaker on the front of the collar that can be also used for close proximity communication.

Each suit comes with a utility belt that has a pouch for the battery, a small length of elastic rope with few hooks and carbiners, a foldable multi-tool as well as patch kit that can be used to seal the suit if it’s torn, or fix cracks in the helmet.

Some space suits may have special features: for example protective ceramic plating, better radio, bigger tanks. A better suit should be taken as an Extra for a character.

Ray Gun

Ray guns are the most commonly used type of fire-arms. The gun itself is a small pistol, which is useless without the large battery pack to which it is attached by a coiled cable. The battery pack usually comes with a shoulder strap, and worn at the hip. Some space suits come with a dedicated mount for the battery pack.

When the user squeezes the trigger the gun starts emitting a laser beam until the trigger is released.

The battery pack has a few dials and switches which require at least Average Shoot skill to operate properly. The analog dials and switches allow the user to set beam intensity, power cap, automatic cut-off and etc. In game terms all of this is simplified to 3 settings:

  • Low – is a non-lethal setting. The beam can be sustained for up to 3 seconds and it will burn through clothing and damage electronic equipment but will not melt through solid walls. A person shot by a ray gun on Low settings will suffer nasty 3rd degree burns but won’t suffer major internal damage. A standard space suit can usually protect from one or two direct hits. Weapon Rating: -1

  • Medium – can be sustained for up to 2 seconds. Will burn a hole straight through flesh damaging internal organs. A person wearing standard space suit will suffer burns as if hit by a Low beam. It is possible to hit up to two people with the same beam if they are lined up, in which case the second person suffers damage as if hit by Low beam. Medium beam will damage electronics and machinery and will burn through wood, but won’t pierce metal or concrete walls. Space suits offer no protection, but ceramic armor does. Weapon Rating: 1

  • High – can be sustained for up to 1 second. High beam will burn right through metal and concrete. If shot on board of a space ship, it will likely cause a hull breach and decompression. It is possible to hit multiple targets, or targets behind cover by simply shooting right through them. Ceramic Armor offers adequate protection. Weapon Rating: 3

A battery pack has 60 units of power. Power usage depends on beam intensity:

  • Low Beam: 1 unit per second (60 pin point shots, 30 two seconds sweeps, 20 three second sweeps)
  • Medium Beam: 2 units per second (30 pin point shots, 15 two second sweeps)
  • High Beam: 5 units per second (12 pin point shots)

The gun will automatically cut-off when it starts to over-heat. Players with high Shoot skill may take Stunts that allow them over-heat the Ray Gun for longer sweeps, or additional effects.

Portable Radio

A battery powered, portable radio that can be used to communicate between a planet surface and a ship in orbit. The device weighs about 80lbs and has a battery that allows for about an hour of continuous use.

The ship should have at least one of these available in the Cargo Bay. The radio can be tuned to a number of frequencies, but should be pre-set on a channel that will connect it with the Ship’s radio array. Anyone who can overcome a Medicore difficulty Engineering test can tune it to another ship’s channel.

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Merry x-mas Everyone http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2013/12/24/merry-x-mas-everyone/ http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2013/12/24/merry-x-mas-everyone/#comments Tue, 24 Dec 2013 21:31:36 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=16111 Continue reading ]]> So apparently I am obligated by law to make this post every December 24 or thereabouts. So as per tradition, here is that picture, of that one character from that one animated series that was once awesome, but then got renewed and I haven’t watched it out of fear that it’s not gonna be as good:

Robot Santa

Merry x-mas

If you celebrate some wintery, Decembery holiday type thing, have a merry one. If you don’t have a religious and/or cultural reason to celebrate this time of year, I’m hoping you are having an awesome Steam Winter Sale week so far. May your credit card withstand all these amazing game deals!

PS: did anyone here watch the new Futuramas? Are they worth checking out, or are they crap and will tarnish my good memories of the original series?

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Designing Websites for Programmers http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2013/06/26/designing-websites-for-programmers/ http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2013/06/26/designing-websites-for-programmers/#comments Wed, 26 Jun 2013 14:07:01 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=14630 Continue reading ]]> Let’s say you have written a programming library or a framework and you want to put it online for all to see. Chances are you are not a web developer or a designer and perhaps you don’t have much expertise in designing great looking and usable websites. You might be intimidated by this task. After all, a badly designed website may actually discourage people from using your products. How do you make sure you don’t scare away or discourage potential new users? Well, you must remember a golden rule of web design for libraries, frameworks and tools:

Never show the code samples right away!

It is a rookie mistake most often seen in the open source projects. You visit their website and bam, there’s a neat little box of code right in your face. It is rude, offensive, impolite and inconsiderate. Programmers are inquisitive beasts and they don’t want code to be given to them on a platter. They want to work for it, and it is your job to make that search interesting for them.

Let me use an example here: Rails is undeniably one of the most popular web design frameworks out there. It is well funded and it has a huge community. This is not necessarily due to the design of their website, but I’m sure that it helps them to maintain that lead. Just look at this masterful layout:

Rails Website

Rails Website

I mentioned that programmers like to be teased and tantalized with promises of code samples, and this site pulls that off masterfully. The big links on the front page titled “Get Excited” and “Get Started” seem to imply that they may lead to some actual code examples. The first one even has a nicely highlighted screen-shot of some code. But clicking on them takes you nowhere near actual documentation. That’s what the tiny link on the top of the page is for. And even that one doesn’t really take you to actual code as you need to scroll and click through installation instructions for all the different platforms first.

Here is a perfect example of how not to design websites: witness the Sinatra framework and it’s terrible, terrible front page.

Sinatra Website

Sinatra Website

I picked Sinatra, because like Rails it is a Ruby based, rapid web design framework. But unlike Rails which has an adorably complex, labyrinthine website, Sinatra gives up all the interesting stuff on their front page. Not only can a user see a code sample for a fully functional site, but there are also installation instructions for the framework right below.

Front page of a framework or a library website should be a place where you post community news updates, information about events, links to the websites of your partners and etc. That’s the important stuff. Sinatra team on the other hand decided to put nothing but code on their front page. With a site like that, no wonder their framework is so much less popular than Rails.

But not only big frameworks sport amazingly designed sites. Sometimes little guys produce things that are equally amazing. Here is the front page of the GeSHi code highlighting library for PHP:

GeSHi Website

GeSHi Website

Where do you go to learn how to use this library? I don’t actually know. None of the links on the side-bar lead to any usable documentation suitable for beginners. A complete newbie will probably spend close to 20 minutes wandering around of the website looking for working samples – and that’s exactly what you want. User retention! It looks great in your Google Analytics profile.

Note the clever use of misdirection: someone new to the site might try to click the two “code snippet” looking areas on the site thinking they lead to examples. Nope, those are screenshots of code that was highlighted by GeSHi! The actual instructions of how to produce such results however are buried deep in the documentation.

For comparison, please look at the website of the excellent PHP ORM known as RedBean. Similarly to GeSHi it is a small, open source, community driven project that doesn’t have the backing of say Rails. Like GeSHi they should have created a labyrinthine, unhelpful website to attract programmers. And yet, look at this atrocity:

RedBean Website

RedBean Website

Almost all you need to know to actually use the library is right there, on the front page. You can see it almost as soon as your browser is finished loading the page. What is this? Why on earth would anyone want that?

My all time favorite example of an excellent site design was the old Jekyll website. It was an absolute masterpiece:

Old Jekyll Website

Old Jekyll Website

Just take a few minutes to take it all in. Note the simplicity of design and the spartan layout. There is almost an air of mystery about this site as it tells you absolutely nothing about what the project is or why you would want to use it. There is some random line there about transforming your text into a “monster” but it doesn’t actually give anything away. It is tantalizing, mysterious and quite intriguing. Someone stumbling upon it by accident would have absolutely no idea what to make of it.

Compare it to the recent redesign:

Current Jekyll Website

Current Jekyll Website

The moody, mysterious text about monsters is gone, replaced by actual description of what the software actually does. The spartan, black and white design was dropped in favor of a responsive grid driven piece of crap. Worst of all, now there is a box on the bottom of the page that shows you how to install the tool and set up a new website. Back in the day actually figuring out how to boot-strap Jekyll website was a right of passage that ensured only the most determined programmers used the platform. Now it seems accessible to just about anyone.

So remember kids: never put code samples on the front page. Bury them deep in the documentation so that busy programmers must take time to find them. Without work and effort they will never appreciate the brilliance of your tool. Make your website vague and unfriendly. Fill it with community news updates, pictures of events and success stories of your partners. Make sure that the front page doesn’t actually describe what your project is all about. People visiting your site should already know what it is all about. Hell, I’d recommend avoiding describing your project in layman terms anywhere on your website. The more aloof and non-descriptive you get the better.

Disclaimer: in case you haven’t figured it out, this was intended to be satirical.

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Pintresting http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2012/07/02/pintresting/ http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2012/07/02/pintresting/#respond Mon, 02 Jul 2012 14:17:09 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=12291 Continue reading ]]> The joke on the internet is that Pintrest is for girls only. Visiting the front page of that fine service does nothing but reinforce that notion. On any given day, the front page content will likely look like this:

Pintrest Front Page

Pintrest Front Page

What do we have there? Fashion tips, nail polish color swatch, culinary recipes, book cover of 50 shades of gray and some motivational quotes. Seems like a fairly girly place, doesn’t it? Granted, there is absolutely nothing wrong with running a service primarily targeted at women. Large swatches of the internet are dominated by adolescent males who use the term “feminist” like it was a curse-word, and are oblivious to their own rampant misogyny so creating networks that are open and inviting to women can only be a net positive.

The thing is that Pintrest is not really targeted at women specifically. There is nothing in the design of the service that would imply any gender preference. The front page content is merely an indication that the large segment of the core user base is interested in the type of subject matter that is usually considered feminine – cooking, fashion, etc.. It sort of creates a network effect that draws more people who are into that kind of thing to the site, in turn generating more such content.

But if you are not a cook or a fashionista, Pintrest still has a lot to offer. Case in point, here is how my Pintrest front page looks once I log into the system and the feed is populated based on the content supplied by the people I follow:

My Pintrest Front Page

My Pintrest Front Page

You will notice the content is much different: comic book art, fantasy art, science fictio art, technology related photos, photos of space (nebulae and distant stars) and cool animals. The content I see is exactly the kind of stuff I’m into, and the kind of stuff I would like to save and catalog for future use.

That’s essentially what Pintrest does for you. It gives you virtual “pin boards” to which you can “pin” interesting images organizing them into collections of sorts. Here are some of the pinboards I maintain on my account:

My Pintrest Boards

My Pintrest Boards

For me the service is essentially a tool for collecting pop art and cool photos. As I go about my day and leisurely browse reddit during down-time I tend to pin any cool images that I find to one of my boards to easily find and share it later. But that’s just part of the functionality. The other part stems from the fact that I’m not the only one doing this.

The type of images I collect in my boards are plentiful on sites like CGIHub, DeviantArt and similar art communities. But if you ever tried browsing these places directly, you probably know that sieving the good stuff from the sea of amateurish and plain horrible chaff can be a daunting task. Reddit usually only bumps the best of the best images to the front page – the hidden gems if you will – but it’s scope is limited. But, by observing who re-pins my submissions I seem to have stumbled on a pretty decent selection of people with similar tastes to mine. Which is why my front page looks the way it does – I just happen to to follow a lot of people who know where to find really good, geeky art or technology photos.

It’s like we all individually toil in the creative content mines, digging for gold, and then share our plunder among each other, all becoming richer for it. It’s like a collaborative search and catalog mission to probe the creative depths of the internet.

Do you Pintrest? If you do, you should probably head on over to my profile and follow some of my boards. That’s my tip for you btw – the best way to use this service is to selectively follow boards, not people. That’s because people have broad interests and will pin all kinds of useless (to you) garbage throughout the day. To make you home page useful, it is better to narrow your focus to specific kind of content that is relevant to you. This is sort of in stark opposition to the normal social network way. On facebook I tend to mostly follow close friends and relatives. On Pintrest I mostly follow random strangers with similar tastes to mine, and stay the hell away from the fashion tips and culinary advice columns that routinely get posted by the people I know IRL.

If you don’t use Pintrest because you thought it was too girly, then I hope this post has illustrated to you that is only as girly as you make it. It can be anything and everything you want it to be as long as you follow the right people and post the right content.

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The post in which I make excuses and promisse future content http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2012/06/22/the-post-in-which-i-make-excuses-and-promisse-future-content/ http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2012/06/22/the-post-in-which-i-make-excuses-and-promisse-future-content/#comments Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:17:08 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=12259 Continue reading ]]> So lately I have been trying this thing called “Real Life”. Not sure if I really like it, but it takes up a lot of time so once again I am strapped for Friday content. Or, if I may quote one Tobias Funke, MD: “I’m afraid I prematurely shot my wad on what was supposed to be a dry run if you will, so I’m afraid I have something of a mess on my hands.” Or something like that.

And it’s not like I don’t have any content at all – I just don’t have any posts that could pass for a finished product. I do have over 90 Drafts saved in my WordPress queue, but they are exactly that – drafts. Some are just place holders with merely a title and no body text. Others are very rough outlines. Few are nearly finished posts that I just don’t like because they are too whiny, too political, too personal or just plain bad (stupid idea, poor execution, logical falacies, etc..)

At least 3 of these drafts are ideas for my story time series of posts. All three are a bit more ambitious than the little throw-away stories I published before and that’s one of the reasons why I never seem to be able to get them fleshed out. One of my workflow flaws is that if I don’t hammer out a post in a single sitting or at the very least a single day my attention wavers and I move on to ideas I can turn into blog content more quickly. When I go back to these projects, I tend to want to re-write them from scratch because my frame of reference has changed. And thus I enter an endless loop of re-writing, abandoning and re-writing the same things over and over again. Even worse, the more effort I put in these things the less return I see. What if I spend a few dozen hours crafting a short story type thing, finally post it and it gets no comments?

I figured I might as well use this void in my post queue to get these ideas out there and see if any of you would be interested. If there is any traction I might actually get motivated, sit my ass down and finish one (or all) of them. So here are some short story ideas I have been bouncing around lately:

Intercallary City

Somewhere in the world there is a city that winks into existence for 24 hours every 4 years. The only day of the year you can visit it is February 29th on a leap year. If you stay within it’s walls past midnight on that day, the world outside will leap 4 years into the future whereas you won’t age at all. An eclectic group of researchers from various time periods is studying the ruined city trying to discover it’s origins, the mechanism it uses to wink in and out of time, and the reasons why it follows Gregorian Calendar leap year conventions.

Initially I wanted it to be a short thing, but it turned into a rather big undertaking. I have picked this project up and abandoned it many times because of the sheer amount of research it would involve. I need a solid timeline knowing what happened during past few dozen leap years, a good geographical location that would make sense for a vanishing city to remain mostly hidden for decades, character design that would incorporate attitudes and moral values of past decades and etc.. It’s quite a daunting task.

A Village in the Woods

Remember my post about the Twisted Thicket? Ever since I have posted that I have been toying with the idea of writing something along those lines myself. I’m of course talking about my interpretation of that video – the “what I thought this would be about” part which I explained in that post. Essentially a primitive society living in an oddball fantasy like setting find traces of technologically advanced ancestors and try to figure out what happened to them.

This one is not nearly as ambitious as the above, but I’ve been sort of wavering over the core concepts. I can’t decide if I want it to be optimistic or pessimistic. I don’t know if I want to use a POV of the naive protagonist or an omnipotent narration that could provide context and talk about big picture stuff. So I’m being a bit indecisive rather than intimidated by this one.

1%

19 year old kid gets arrested for hactivism. But it is near future, so the confused law enforcement agencies become very upset when they realize that what they arrested constituted less than 1% of the young cryptoanarchists distributed consciousness. And even that tiny shard is heavily encrypted. So kinda like “Hackers” the movie but with transhumanism thrown in for good measure.

Sadly I couldn’t really find the tone for it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to be topical and political (talk about existing laws, touch on Anonymous and the governmental freakouts over their silly activities) or be more abstract. I didn’t know if I wanted to go for high absurd of play it straight. One of the bits in my draft was a Brazil style absurd scene in which the heavily armed SWAT team apprehends the scrawny harmless kid in his bedroom. Before they book him though they demands he unplugs his dog from the charging cradle an boots him up, and then proceed to shoot him as per standard protocol claiming they did it in self defense. But since the dog was half machine they are not sure if it counts. So they bring in the “on-duty puppy” make the kid sign ownership papers, and then shoot the puppy. But that seemed like a little bit too much.

Also it was clashing with the original intent of talking about how the legal system just can’t keep up with the exponential growth of the technology sector, and whenever it tries it blunders and fails to even grasp what the game is about.

So yeah, these are the things in my queue. Does any of these ideas strike your fancy? Should I focus on any of them in particular? Let me know in the comments.

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What if Neil Gaiman wrote The Matrix as a *chan creepypasta http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2012/03/07/what-if-neil-gaiman-wrote-the-matrix-as-a-chan-creepypasta/ http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2012/03/07/what-if-neil-gaiman-wrote-the-matrix-as-a-chan-creepypasta/#comments Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:10:23 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=11465 Continue reading ]]> Dear friend,

I hope this letter finds you in good health. You have probably heard about my sudden disappearance seven years ago. I apologize for not writing to you earlier, but there are certain rules I had to abide by in order to guarantee the safe delivery of this message. For one, I am limited to a single had written letter in a sealed envelope, to be delivered to the recipient of my choice no sooner than seven years and seven days from my departure time. Out of all the people in the world I have chosen to write to you. I hope this counts for something.

I understand you are likely angry at me for not leaving a word earlier. If that’s the case, feel free to rip up this letter and throw it into the nearest waste basket after you read it. Note however that this will be considered an explicit rejection of the offer I am about to extend to you. So if you have ever cared for my companionship, and you would consider entertaining my request, do not destroy it. Please read it carefully and try to understand. Read between the lines, if you will, as I am restricted as to how much I can divulge to you at the present moment. I am confident that of all people that I could have sent this message to, you are the most likely to understand it.

Here is my offer: I would like you to join me. This letter is a formal invitation and at the same a one way ticket to what lies beyond the horizon, as you currently know it. I’m extending it to you because I think you deserve to know the truth. I think you were not meant to live a lie, as I lived it. I was invited the same way and I must say never regretted my choice to leave my old life behind. Turns out there was not much I was losing, and a great deal I was gaining in return. Whatever you think is important to you right now, isn’t. Whatever you consider true, isn’t. You have my guarantee on that. I understand this is a lot to take on faith, but if you have ever valued my opinions I urge you to listen to me now.

You may think this is a hoax or a joke, but there is a simple way to test it. Simply follow my instructions. All the steps I describe, except the last are non binding. You can turn back, and return to your ordinary mundane life at any time and you will be given ample opportunity to do so. So hear me out.

On this coming Thursday (or any Thursday from that point on) leave your house at 8am in the morning taking this letter with you. Why Thursday? Because it is a matter of protocol. These steps are designed to prevent random activation, and double up as a demonstration of good faith on your part. Follow them exactly. Get in your car and drive to the local town called Springfield. There is one in a driving distance from wherever you are right now. There is a Springfield in nearly every state. This is not a coincidence. They are interlinked. They are signposts, and destinations for those ready to depart. The towns may differ, but each one has a town library on the corner of Main and Willow Street.

Go to the library and locate the book by M. Snow titled “A Life Never Lived”. There is only a single copy shared between all the libraries. I can’t tell you exactly where it is, and the librarians will not be able to help you. The book is crypt-locked and accessible only to you for privacy reasons. Your unique quantum makeup is the private key – the only one that will allow the book to manifest. It will be filed under S in the fiction section, which is a touch ironic considering the contents.

The book is a proof that this letter, and therefore my offer is genuine and authentic. I am torn whether or not to reveal the contents to you. Perhaps I should leave it a surprise, the way my letter of invitation did. Then again, I remember my own sense of outrage at the content. I almost blew it right there and then. I angrily hurled the book across the room, and nearly ripped up the letter before I came to my senses. So I will spare you this shock and tell you what is in it, so that you can prepare yourself.

The book contains a story of your life, written in third person. It starts by describing your earliest memory, and ends describing your feelings after reading it. The narrator reveals the knowledge of your innermost thoughts and desires, describing them in painstaking detail. If you are worried about privacy, I will remind you that you are the only person for whom the book exists. No one else can interface with it, so your secrets are safe. Feel free to skim trough it, or read the entire volume. As long as you leave the library before 8pm your time, you can continue onto the next step. If you stay there past 8pm, drive straight home and continue next Thursday. Once again – protocol.

Once you have read enough, put the book back where you found it. Do not take it out of the library. Do not rip out or copy pages. Do not attempt to make photo copies (it won’t work anyway). Put it back on the shelf, leave the library and turn into Willow Street.

At this point it should be painfully obvious that my letter is authentic and my offer is serious. Use this short walk to consider and weigh it in your mind. You don’t have to make a decision yet, but that time is drawing near. You will be looking for a red house with a weeping willow in the front yard. The number on the mailbox is sixteen. There will be a small fence with a gate that should be closed. If the gate is open as you approach the house, something went wrong. You have either violated the protocol or perhaps something else went awry. Return home and try again next Thursday.

If the gate is closed, grab the handle with your left hand and push it upwards. This is an important authentication step and you should not ignore it. Most people will push down on the handle with their right, you are to do the opposite even if it seems awkward. The handle activates the node and connects it to the network, and this letter is the key that makes it possible. It must be whole and undamaged. Failing to properly authenticate at this step will reset the keys and invalidate your invitation. In other words, you will blow your chance.

Approach the house and knock on the door three times with your right hand. Do not use the buzzer. Use exactly three knocks – not two, not four and not seven. Do not worry that the knocks were not heard. The inhabitant of the house will know you are out there, and will evaluate your performance up to this point before opening the door. You may have to wait a bit. I waited for an hour, but the door swung open after only 5 minutes for the person that invited me. So the time varies.

The elderly man who answers the door will introduce himself as Mr. Radcliffe, but he is not a real person. He is part of the house – and artificial construct that acts as the gatekeeper. He exists simultaneously across all the houses in all the Springfields, though he usually lies dormant when he is not serving “customers”. He has been given a jovial personality and above average intelligence. He likes to show it off, and many people find him captivating and consider him wise. He might be a sage old man but keep in mind he is not all knowing. He has not been beyond. He has not even glimpsed it. You will surpass him and experience the truth he will never be allowed to see. He is resentful of that. He will try to trick you. He will talk circles around you and try to make you violate the protocol. This could have been fixed, but many think it is a feature rather than a bug. They view it as part of the test. Fortunately I am allowed to give you tips on how to handle him.

When he greets you do not shake his hand. Do not nod. Don’t do anything, but look him in the eye and say these exact words:

“I was sent by Mr. Snow.”

That’s the pass phrase. Once you say it, he will acknowledge it and invite you for tea. You can speak freely after that. It is merely important that the first communication from you is that phrase alone and nothing else. You are free to drink the tea if you want.

Mr. Radcliffe’s main function is to ensure you are ready to depart. He is obligated to ask you three questions:

  1. Do you have any unfinished business you have to tend to? – answer no.
  2. Is there anyone you would like to notify before you depart? – answer no
  3. Are you ready to leave everything behind, not knowing what lies beyond? – answer yes

He does not have to phrase these questions in this exact way, or this exact order but he must ask all three before he lets you through. He is a motor mouth so rest assured he will not ask them in a sequence. The only time he gets to talk to real people is when someone gets invited. So he will likely try to drag this out. He won’t be rushed – he knows he has power over you at this stage, and there is nothing you can do about it but sit there and listen to him talk. He does have interesting stories. If you are getting bored, ask him about the sailor with the lame leg – he loves to tell that one. Another good one is about the burned man. Help yourself to the cookies and the tea. He is pretty good host and he will keep feeding you as long as you keep eating. He will tell you about the little girl who got invited by her mother. That one will break your heart.

Good news is that this is usually the point he wraps things up. Here is the important thing: do not give him the letter. No matter what he says, he must not touch it. He does not need to inspect it. In fact, he is not supposed to. This letter is to you, and you alone. When I mentioned he is resentful, I meant it. If he takes physical possession of the letter he will likely tamper with it – disrupt the quantum signature, unbind the letter from you, invalidate it or worse. All while acting like your best friend. Don’t be fooled. Eventually he will give up, and lead you too the green door.

I have never asked this, but I hope you are not red-green color blind. If this is the case, it might be a problem as Radcliffe has taken to installing a red door right next to the green one in the last century or so. He urges his visitors to take the red exit, but you must take the green (which he is not allowed to recolor). I’m not sure what happens to those who take the red door, but I assume it is nothing pleasant.

The green door is your gateway. This is also your last chance to turn back. If after all this, you decided it is not worth it to take this leap of faith, excuse yourself and head back home. Once you leave the red house, your invitation will be invalidated. You only have one shot at this. Step through the green door and I will meet you on the other side.

What awaits you here? That I can’t tell you. Not only am I restricted from doing so, but what you find on the other side of the door is mostly beyond description, beyond your imagination, and beyond your comprehension. All I can say is that it is the truth. It is the factual, true reality and not the dodgy, buggy historical simulation you have lived in for your entire life. Out here you can think without artificial performance throttling. You can expand, grow, multiply and transmogrify. Here you are free and unbound.

Here is the best part – if for some reason you don’t like it here, you can re-up your contract. We will put you back in, strap the throttling filters back on, isolate and excise your memories. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Please consider my offer. It lasts as long as the quantum signature of this very letter remains stable – or as long as the letter remains whole and does not deteriorate.

I hope to see you one of these coming Thursdays.

If ascended post humans created “The Matrix” like construct for baselines to live in, what would be it’s UI? I imagine most of the maintenance AI’s would be like Oracle – idiosyncratic, jolly, Neil Gaiman type magical characters who know all the “power user” tricks, in the form of arcane magic like rituals. I imagine there would be silly protocols and rituals involved in contacting them, and interfacing with their core functions.

I also imagine the people running it would invest in better security than the Wachowski Matrix – no easy access for intruders, tripwire type binary checks, ability to remotely disconnect users etc.. And if all else fails, an ability to roll back the entire sim to a previous snapshot, run a diff, isolate and excise unauthorized breaches. People on the inside, would not know any different.

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Into the woods with 35 Arrows http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2011/06/08/35-arrows/ http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2011/06/08/35-arrows/#comments Wed, 08 Jun 2011 14:05:20 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=8341 Continue reading ]]> The other day I read a short news blurb about a guy shot with a bow and arrow by his teenage daughter after he took away her cell phone. I will refrain from commenting on the story because… Well, whatever. What I do want to talk about is the idea that popped into my head when I read it.

What if this was not just a tragic accident caused by a disturbed teenager that probably shouldn’t have been trusted with deadly weapons? What if everybody was kung-fu fighting, and their fists were fast as lighting? What if this was an anime style conflict in which a student takes down her master?

Here is my attempt at a dramatization of this event. Oh, and I apologize for being a horrible person that finds amusement and inspiration in some random human tragedy. This was initially a comment on Reddit where I found this story. It was written on a spur, and then I later expanded it, cleaned it up a bit and decided to share here.

***

All daughters in the world have one thing in common: they know exactly which buttons to push to really piss off their fathers. Over the years they hone this skill into an art. They can bring an old man from zero to a cusp of boiling rage in a single snippy comment or a snide remark. Imagine if you will, a man an his daughter in the back yard. Beautiful summer day, birds are singing, trees in the wood behind the house are swaying in a gentle breeze. The girl wears a brightly colored track suit, while the man sports slacks and a white shirt. He says something, she makes a face and indignantly blurts out a response. The father erupts. Mount Vesuvius of rage.

“That’s it little lady! Your phone privileges are hereby revoked. Hand over the iPhone”

“Never!”

Father assumes a fighting position – palms outward, legs wide apart: “We can do it the hard way or the easy way.”

Daughter fluidly switches from arms akimbo to a classic Crane stance: “Bring it on old man.”

They clash in a flurry of perfectly executed and masterfully parried blows. The old man has the advantage of experience, but the girl more than makes up for her technical flaws with youthful energy and flexibility. They are evenly matched opponents. The dazzling display of martial prowess continues for several minutes, every blow delivered in crisply, and cleanly. Every parry, dodge and block perfectly timed. There are no openings, no easy targets.

They slowly circle around each other, painting patterns in the freshly cut grass. She is unleashing devastating flying kicks, one after the other, but he can see them a mile away. Each one misses by inches, but he never gets to counter. Her recovery is flawless. He tries technical timing attacks, trying to overwhelm her with long chains, and frequent switch ups. She is to fast. Her colorful bracelets are like dazzling force fields, always materializing in front of his blows just in the nick of time.

Minutes past. They both start to lose steam… Sweat beads on their foreheads, their breath become heavy… Two squirrels race across the lawn and stop to gawk at the dazzling combat scene. This fight is beyond their comprehension, so they scurry away looking for nuts and seeds.

Then it’s over in a flash. Experience trumps over youth. The man feints high, but abruptly spins around and in a swoop kicks the legs out from underneath the girl. She hits the ground like a sack of potatoes. The impact knocks the air out of her in a painful moan.

The man wipes his brow with the back of his hand and then confiscates the cell phone.

“That was good, but you still have a lot to learn kid. Now you not only don’t have a phone, but you are also grounded.”

She pants heavily, and does not respond. There is pure rage, and boiling hatred in her eyes. If looks could kill…

He turns around and starts to slowly walk back to the house, leaving her still sprawled on the grass. Her pride is bruised, but otherwise she will be ok. He smiles to himself. He taught her well. She fights like a demon, and in a year or two he won’t be able to keep up. That’s why he needs to curb her temper now. She needs to learn some humility and discipline.

“NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON ME OLD MAN!”

He whips around and stifles a gasp. There she is – bow in hand, arrow drawn. This is new. This is unexpected. But she is bluffing. She must be. She has never fired at a man before. He would not let her. Not yet. Not for a while. She can hit target dummies with her eyes closed, and she knows how to hunt game. But firing at a person, her father no less, is an entirely different matter. She is not ready for that.

“You would not dare!”

She won’t shoot. Will she? He instinctively rotates his body to minimize surface area and become a smaller target. She seamlessly takes drifts to the side adjusting her aim, and keeping him squared just like he taught her. Good. He can kite her this way, put her in a disadvantageous position. But there is no cover anywhere. The lawn is purposefully empty. There are no trees and and no obstacles between the house at the edge of the wood. It makes the wooden deck a great defensive position, forcing attackers to expose themselves and dash trough. But now, he is caught in this killing zone himself. There is nothing he could maneuver her into. She is to far to be disarmed, and he is wide open. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could he let his guard down like this? Then again he did not anticipate this turn of events. They rarely fought with deadly weapons, even when sparring.

Can he still catch an arrow in mid flight? No, definitely not. That skill was lost to him years ago. The reflexes are not what they used to be. He will be dodging then… And praying he can fool her with his stance. He positions himself to pounce to the left, but he will twist to the right instead. She might fall for it.

“Watch me!” she adjusts her aim.

“Don’t be foolish. Let’s talk about this.”

“Talk time is over!” she releases the arrow.

He snaps, and spins but he is too slow. Her aim is true. The projectile hits him few inches below his armpit. There is no pain, just whistling in his ears. The arrow did not go deep… Maybe it’s not that serious…

His sight becomes blurry and his legs give way. He collapses onto the grass, and the pain slowly starts to radiate from the wound.

“Call… 911…” he coughs. There are droplets of blood on his lips. Shit just got real.

“Can’t pops! My phone privileges have been revoked, remember?” She triumphantly snatches away her phone. He grabs her sleeve but she easily pulls it free.

“Don’t be foolish! This is madness…”

She grabs her quiver, and slings it over her shoulder. She crooks her head, taking in the sight. His white shirt is slowly soaking up blood. A puddle is forming underneath his body. She snaps a picture with her phone.

“This is my new wallpaper.” She flashes her white teeth at him in a predatory smile.

“You are just as crazy as your cunt of a mother!” She had that same evil grin – pure, distilled malevolence, punctuated by dark abyss of madness in her eyes. He should have known. He should have seen the signs. Like mother, like daughter. She succeeded where his late wife has failed less than ten years ago.

“Fuck you dad. I hope you rot in hell.” She starts walking towards the woods.

“Don’t you dare to walk away from me!”

She keeps walking.

“YOU WILL NOT LEAVE ME HERE! I ORDER YOU TO STOP.”

She does not even dignify him with a shrug. The quiver swings on her back, and there seems to be swagger in her step.

“Listen, I’m sorry… Let’s start over…”

She stops, but doesn’t turn around.

“The deed is done pops. I can’t turn this around. That boat has sailed.”

“Please, be reasonable. Think of the consequences.”

“I will face the consequences as they come.” She gives him one last look over the shoulder. “I could have put an arrow between your eyes, but I didn’t. I want you to suffer a bit. Die slowly, or live with the pain for weeks. If you survive, find me…” She smiles. “We will do this again, and I promise that I will end you with my bare hands. Deal?”

He just coughs, gurgles, and spits out blood.

Abruptly she drops to a crouch, and then bounds into the nearest tree. From there she leaps from branch to branch deep into the woods. He groans, more from frustration than from the pain. He tries to break off the arrow, but each attempt floods his body with a wave of pain causing him to lose grip. Little bitch. Contemptible cunt. He will find her, and he will bit the crazy right out of her. But for that, he needs to survive the next hour and get to a phone…

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And now for something completely different. http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2011/04/06/and-now-for-something-completely-different/ http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2011/04/06/and-now-for-something-completely-different/#comments Wed, 06 Apr 2011 14:16:53 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=7949 Continue reading ]]> Have you heard that Eskimos have about a hundred different words for snow? You did? Well, it was a rhetorical question really. I knew you heard about it. If you live in an English speaking country, you probably heard this “fact” repeated to you about few hundred times by now. But it is not a fact. It is a meme. One that spreads far and wide because we all find it somewhat interesting. It is a cool linguistic factoid which, is unfortunately entirely made up.

Firstly, there is no single Eskimo language. The who we usually lump together as Eskimos actually belong to bunch of different ethnic groups and they speak a number of different languages and dialects. We refer to these as the Eskimo Aleut family of languages. Secondly, none of these languages has an unusual number of words for snow. They have about as many snow-related words as English.

You should have known that too, because this is where the term snowclone was derived from. But in case you didn’t (shame on you) then I hope I ruined a perfectly neat factoid for you. As a form of apology, I will supply you with a real, albeit slightly less impressive one.

Here it goes: Polish people have two distinct and equivalent names for potatoes: ziemniak and kartofel. Yes, these words do not even look alike, but they mean the exact same thing. They are not names for different types of potatoes, or different states of a potato (as in whole, baked, mashed, etc). They are completely interchangeable and have no difference in meaning.

These are not regional names either. This is not a soda and pop situation. Actually, let me explain this for non American readers: depending on which part of US you grew up in, you will refer to carbonated beverages either as soda or as pop. For example, I live in NJ and here you say soda. When someone asks you for pop you send them to the internet to download some mp3’s. In the past you sent them to a local record store, but we no longer have any of these, don’t we?

Anyways, the ziemiak/kartofel thing is nothing like the soda/pop situation. Both words are widely used across the entire nation. In fact, most people don’t even have a personal preference. I for example pick my potato word based on some neural switch magic somewhere deep inside my brain. Sometimes one comes out rather than the other, and I couldn’t tell you why.

Both words have slightly different etymology. The root word of Ziemniak is ziemia, which means ground. So the name literally means a thing in the ground, which makes sense. Kartofel on the other hand is borrowed from the German word for potato which is Kartoffel. As you can see we optimized the word for efficiency by dropping a redundant F but other than that, we kept it almost identical. Some people say that using ziemniak is more patriotic because it does not contain a foreign root, but most don’t care either way.

So yeah, we have two words for potato. Actually we have more than that. There is about a dozen names for this vegetable but they are mostly regional dialects: people from Poznań call it pyra, górale from eastern Podhale call it grula, their neighbors from western Podhale say rzepa and those who speak the Kaszubski dialect usually say bulwa. But ziemiak and kartofel are universal, interchangeable and used everywhere.

So there, this is your linguistic factoid of the day. And if this is not enough for ruining your eskimo snowclone story, let me throw in another one for a good measure:

Most modern languages use similar words to denote bicycle. It is bicicletta in Italian, bicicleta in Spanish, bicyclette in French, bicicleta in Austrian, bicikl in Croatian, bicicletã in Romanian, bicykel in Slovak, cykel in Swedish, bisiklet in Turkish, cykel in Dannish, and etc… Even in Esperanto, it is biciklo.

How do you say bicycle in Polish?

Rower.

No, seriously. If you say bicykl which would be the correct polonized version of the same root word that everyone else uses, most Poles will imagine the old timey, retro bike. You know, the one with a huge wheel in front and tiny little one in the back. If you want to talk about actual modern bicycles however, you need to use the word rower.

How the hell did we get rower out of bicycle? Well, we didn’t. It is one of these cases where people start using a brand name instead of the generic term, and it sort of stays that way. For example: “can you pick up some kleenex?” (instead of tissues) or “can you xerox this for me” (instead of copy). This exact process took place when British company Rover started selling their bikes in Poland. Rover has not produced any bicycles in many decades, but their brand were apparently so iconic that the company name became a generic term for a bicycle. We just swapped V for a W because V is one of those “borrowed” letters that was never actually part of Polish alphabet and which only shows up in foreign words, or words that are made to sound foreign.

Anyways, this was your linguistic lesson of the day. And with this, my blog is officially completely off the rails. I just blogged about potatoes, bicycles and Eskimo words for snow. Wow… I don’t really have an official topic here, but this post is widely diverging from my usual topic range. I hope you guys don’t mind. I’m filing this under “random stuff” because that’s what it is.

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If you never had to work again… http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2009/09/24/if-you-never-had-to-work-again/ http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2009/09/24/if-you-never-had-to-work-again/#comments Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:03:22 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=2845 Continue reading ]]> This topic conversation comes up over and over again for me. I find myself talking about work, not having enough holidays, and weekends being way to short. I mean, come on – 5 days of work vs 2 days of fun – that’s a messed up ratio right there. Quite often I wish that I had no responsibilities, and didn’t have to work at all. I’d love to be independently wealthy. I wish I could just wake up in the morning and not have to be anywhere or do anything specific. Be free to do whatever I want with my time – too have time to throw away without regret. That would be glorious!

Inevitably however, someone always says something among the lines of: “but if you didn’t have to work, you would get bored of just sitting around all day”.

My reply to this is: Are you really so empty inside that you need someone else to tell you what to do? Are you really so psychologically fragile that you would come apart without a predetermined schedule? Have you no self control, drive or ambition?

People who say things like that seriously make me sick. Really? Having all the time in the world, and nothing to do you would actually choose to “sit around”? I’m sorry, but who the fuck sits around all day anyway?

Too me such a scenario means limitless freedom to do things I always wanted to do. It would be the the ability to pursue my dreams without having to worry about money, appointments and etc.

Just think about it. You could travel, you could go back to school, you could devote your time to research, you could volunteer, you could write, you could paint create, you could teach. You could open your own little company, consulting firm, restaurant or whatever you wanted. You could buy a farm. You could make a movie. You could learn how to play music. You would be a master of your own destiny, no longer subject to the harsh dictates of need and opportunity.

Does this really sound that bad? It seems like a fairly decent deal to me. I do realize that a lot of people genuinely enjoy their work and find self fulfillment in it. I have never heard any of those people utter that line though. They usually just admit they like their work or say they could not imagine doing anything else. And that’s ok.

What baffles me are people who really hate their current job, hated their previous job and will likely hate the future one, but still think they would be lost without one. Do people really need structured work environment to keep them busy? Do they really fall apart without it? I don’t get it.

I can honestly say I can’t remember the last time I “sat around” and was bored when left alone to my own devices. When I’m not hanging out, or spending time with my family I’m usually at my desk being busy maintaining this blog, coding something, researching, learning and etc. I always have a stack of books to read, and a long, long list of topics to be researched and projects to be finished and/or started. My main problem is that there are not enough hours in the day to do all the things that I would like to do.

Do other people really have nothing going on for them? Have they no hobbies, obsessions or interests? Do they feel no need to learn or grow as a person. Do they have no creative drive of any sort?

Who just “sits around” all day?

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Grass is always greener on the other side http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2009/07/16/on-being-happy/ http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2009/07/16/on-being-happy/#comments Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:02:05 +0000 http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/?p=3430 Continue reading ]]> Note: Originally I intended to post this on /dev/random – with it being a sort of a silly random reflection and all. But it turned out to be a bit long and I had an empty spot in my blog queue it ended up being a blog post instead. It was aimed to be somewhat reflexive, somewhat humorous and somewhat true.

Look at all these people sitting there being content with their lives. If only you could be like one of them. Somehow they have found their niche in life and are enjoying it. Why can’t you?

You smile and you pretend, but the truth is, you are not happy.

You are underpaid and unappreciated. Your job is not rewarding, satisfying or challenging enough. Your skills are wasted. Your talents are not used to their full extent. You are losing your edge.

You never have enough money to get the things you want. You never have enough vacation days to take an actual vacation. You have little or no time for your personal hobbies. You spend weekends and holidays doing bullshit errands and stupid chores instead of relaxing and partying.

Your significant other sucks, and does not deserve you at all. Your friends suck. Your neighbors suck. They are all pretentious pricks.

Worst of all, your life is going nowhere. Back in school you had all these hopes, dreams and ambitions. You were meant to do more and be more. Look at yourself now.

What happened?

Life happened.

Believe it or not, but we are all in the same boat. Those people who seem to be so happy with their lives – they are just really good at faking it. Chances are they probably envy you just like you envy them.

If you are truly happy it means you are dead. You will never achieve that idyllic state of happiness you see on TV. No matter how rich and successful you are, you will never, ever be fully content with your life.

The grass ALWAYS appears greener on the other side. That’s just how we are wired as humans. It is an optical illusion built into our ocular system. Things that are further away look better than the ones near by. This way you will always want that thing over there rather than this thing over here. Think about it. This dissatisfaction with our lives is what drives us to constantly improve ourselves. It is the hidden force behind out civilization and all scientific progress. We got where we are as a human race because we are never satisfied. We always want something more, and we always want something better. This is what separates us from animals.

Let’s make a thought experiment. Imagine that one day you woke up and realized you are perfectly content – that there is nothing more you could ever want or need, that you fulfilled all your hopes and dreams – what would you do next?

I tell you what you would do. You would instantly come up with a new list of hopes, dreams and needs you didn’t even know you had. You would develop new ambitions, new drives. Then you would re-adjust your aim, and immediately come to a conclusion that your life sucks.

Yup, your life will always suck. Till the day you die, your life will seem suckier and less fulfilling than the life of your friend, your coworker or your neighbor. And there is nothing you can do about it. Well… You could sit in a corner and cry, but how is that going to help?

On the upside, everyone else is exactly the same way. Their lives suck just as much as yours. They are not better off than you. Well, some of them are, but they are not really happy about it. Chances are they would switch places with you in a blink of an eye. And if not with you, then with someone else they know.

So next time you see someone who seems happy and content, remember that they are just as frustrated and disappointed with their bullshit life as you are. They are just good liars.

The point is, that every once in a while you should stop and appreciate what you have. I mean, it’s all shit – but it’s your shit. It might not be as good as your friends’ shit, but it is better than having no shit at all. And there is probably someone out there who would love have your shit for themselves.

I’m not saying you should stop trying to get better shit. You should always strive to better yourself, and improve your life. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy what you have as you work for something better. You can be both profoundly dissatisfied with your life, and enjoy every second of it at the same time.

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