Star Trek: Relic site update! (ICON)

[Owen E Oulton]

I've updated my Star Trek: Relic website with new rules, races and overlays.

Included in the update are rules for beginning Renown values, Negative Renown; the Elaysian Species Template; and Overlays for Federation Interstellar Police Agency and Starfleet Search & Rescue charaters. These changes can be found on the <a href="http://www.coldnorth.com/owen/game/startrek/universe/newrules.htm">House Rules</a> page.

More updates to come, including Templates for Federation member races from STIV:TVH. The main page can, as always, be accessed by clicking on the banner below.

[Phoenix]

YES

[Diamond]

Nice work Owen. Your rule about Beginning Point Totals has the same effect as the house rule I've had for a while now. Why, oh WHY didn't I think to track negative renown separateley! That so solves the total problem. And earlier I was pleased to adopt your hose rule regarding Psycology being a separate skill. Having all those specalizations listed gave the players ideas about the sorts of things they could actually USE they psycology skill for.

[Robbert Raets]

W00t!!

[Phoenix]

gone over your new house rule items,

With the beginning point totals, been doing that sense day one in ICON...a hold over from the Hero point based system.

The beginning renown, never thought of that *swipe* I'm going to start using it now though.

The negitive renown, I've gone a step past that (I think). The group argued it makes no sense for a person to become less famous if an event lower his, lets say, skill from a 10 to a 7. We instead keep track of the 5 renown aspects as normal, but the total renown is an absolute value of all the changes, so a loss of 3 skill will net you a 3 point positive change in your overall renown.

The Template, didn't find any thing wrong, other than a typo: "Athletic Ability (Acrobatics) 1 (2)". Athletic Ability is an advantage, the skill is Athletics. Other wise, it looks good.

And with the overlays; S&R, good job should have thought of that one myself.

[Owen E Oulton]

"We instead keep track of the 5 renown aspects as normal, but the total renown is an absolute value of all the changes, so a loss of 3 skill will net you a 3 point positive change in your overall renown."

Actually, that part is explicit in the rules and is really the reason for tracking negative Renown separately. In the rules, if you have +3 Skill Renown and later get -3 Skill Renown, you would have a 0 Skill Renown but Skill would still contribute 6 points to total Renown. Way too confusing, but it would make a good riddle: "when does 3-3=6?"

[Dan Stack]

Coolness. Always one of my favorite sites. Any chance of a d20 conversion? (Dan dives for cover) My players have gotten familiar with all the deckplans there at one point or another. I rather enjoyed the battle with the Deep Ones trying to board their shuttle as they tried to escape the planet Miskaton...

[Diamond]

I've been happy to use the deck plans too. The crew did their cadet cruise on an Obereth, and defended that space station from a dominion boarding party while simultaneously dealing with a "Day of the Dove"-style anger-eating energy being. And just this Monday I used one of the shuttle deck plans for the other campaign.

[Sheliak Bob]

Just gotta tell ya' Owen, the "Relic" campaign is brilliant! The materials are top notch. The whole thing looks like a box set that should have been published.
In truth, I like it so much, I sort of, well, PRINTED THE WHOLE DAMN THING OFF while at work. (ah, the joys of an unguarded color jet printer.... )
I'm seriously thinking of running some of this in lieu of any of my own campaign ideas in the near future. (Dibbs on the "Red River" runabout!)
Since I'm plotting to "assimilate" your campaign, I gotta ask--any ideas on just who is responsible for the Dyson? What it's purpose is? And who the HECK were those androids?
Inquiring minds!

Meantime, I think it'll be fun to run a game that is Exploration heavy and light on dark political plots (for a change. I usually go for the latter.)

Great stuff! Indeedy!

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by Sheliak Bob
Dibbs on the "Red River" runabout!

That's the Colorado River, Bob. Don't you ever forget that!



Owen, the way my group read that, was you renown is alway the total of your current aspects.

[Owen E Oulton]

While doing the new material for the site, I decided that it needed a minor cosmetic update, so I've spent the last couple of evenings working on it.

Also, the Stellar Cartography section has been returned to the page - it seems to have got lost at some point. The material was all still there, but the link got deleted during one update or another. And no, SIR SIG, it hasn't been updated or corrected, and probably won't until after I acquire a copy of the Star Trek Charts book, which is unfortunately not a high priority with cash flow the way it is. Maybe if that $25 million comes through on the Lotto...

For those looking for small cuivilian cargo ships, some good news - deck plans and game stats will be available for my reworking of the FASA Mission Class Courier and Tavares Class Light Freighter will be on line in the next week. The Tavares will have both stock and Starfleet Intelligence (There is no such thing as Section 31! Would I lie to you?) versions.

[Sheliak Bob]

A thought or two on the purpose of the Dyson Sphere:

Way back in the 1980's, I was at a Con where Larry Niven was the GOH. We'd all just come out of a panel on "Macro-structures", Ringworlds and Dyson Spheres and such, and I ran into Mr. Niven in the elevator. He recognized me from the discussion (mostly 'cause I came through the wrong door and blundered behind the guests' table, instead of entering through the audience doors). He smiled and asked me how I liked the discussion. I paused barely a moment and then blurted out, "I think Dyson Spheres are the SILLIEST DAMN THING I've ever heard of! Anybody capable of building one, wouldn't have any need for one!"--I was afflicted with overmuch zeal and honesty in those days. (I'm much better now. Honest. really...)
Larry Niven grimaced, then put on his best GoH smile and asked me if I was an Engineering Student. I had to say no, I was majoring in English and History. He smiled inscrutibly and nodded. "Well. That explains it then." He said, as he stepped out.

True story.

So. Why would anyone bother to build such an outrageously impractical structure?

Think about it! The usual "reason" given for Dyson Spheres is that they allow 100% utilization of their star's energies. BUT! Building even a SMALL Dyson would require moving planetary masses of matter, probably more than any one or even a dozen solar systems would contain. Anybody capable of shoving planets around through interstellar space wouldn't be needing to conserve a few solar outputs of energy! By diggity!

So. Why is Trek's Dyson there? What purpose does it serve?

some ideas....

[Sheliak Bob]

Okay, this is what I can think of:

PROTECTION: what with super dense shell material and controlled entries, a species could protect itself fairly well from inside a Dyson. On the other hand...that is an awful, awful lot of vulnerable hull structure to have to protect. You'd think a planetary forcefield would be cheaper!
Still, I could easily envision a "fortress Dyson", designed by an adanced race to keep out the local "barbarians".

CONCEALMENT: Stars are really, really bright pretty things. You can see them from waaaaaaay off. Now, suppose you didn't want your super-civilization to be spotted by the local barbarians. You could try to Cloak the whole system. Or, you might just surround your star with a big ol' shell of non-glowy stuff and settle in for a long couple thousand millenia of peace and quiet.

SANCTUARY: I considered having the Dyson in my games be a product of the T'Kon Empire, a huge construct designed to shield and protect the entire population of a vast interstellar civilization after their major system blew up. But the T'Kon aren't nearly old enough. Ditto for the First Federation (who, after all, have a proven talent for building really, really big things in space!).
Still, the Dyson could have been built as a Sanctuary from some sort of danger, be it natural like super novae or other mega-wave front anomaly thingies, or artificial, like a planet-eater or barbarian horde of battlecruisers.

PRESERVE: This is the one I'm leaning toward. Imagine that the Dyson was built by a super-advanced race of Preserver types to house those species that didn't quite make it. The "Also-Rans" of galactic Evolution. During the development of life on any world, nature tries out a number of options for sentient life forms. Usually one species will have the advantage and competing species will fall to the wayside, never developing to their full potential, or just going extinct outright. I see the Dyson as a place where species that the Preservers/Builders determined would someday become sentients, but which were not "destined" to achieve that status due to environmental factors or competing more successful species, could be transplanted to develop under controlled conditions. Sort of a galactic insurance for sentience, a "B Team" of species that could be seeded back to their homeworlds, should the more successful species manage to exterminate themselves on the road to the stars.
That would make the Dyson chock-full of lots and lots of primitive sentients, near-sentients, pre-sentients, proto-sentients, and, well FOOD animals, all in reserved local environments, about the size of a continent or so.
Oodles of Prime Directive fun ensues!

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

Well Owen, even though the site isn't in CODA, and I don't have ICON I still frequent it just to read the story behind it all, and man do I have to say it is excellent.

[Diamond]

Think about it! The usual "reason" given for Dyson Spheres is that they allow 100% utilization of their star's energies. BUT! Building even a SMALL Dyson would require moving planetary masses of matter, probably more than any one or even a dozen solar systems would contain. Anybody capable of shoving planets around through interstellar space wouldn't be needing to conserve a few solar outputs of energy!

Sorry, no. The greater your technology, the greater your desire for energy. Think about it: we're technologically advanced compared to any other time in human history, and our energy usage has gone up steadily. The more you CAN do, the more you'll want to actually do.

Nevertheless it's fun to think of other reasons for a Dyson sphere. But the energy argument holds water.