2300AD - Any News?

[TrippyHippy]

I'm actualy really looking forward to this, but we have heard very little about it recently.

My understanding is that it will be a a physically attractive, uplifted design in its presentation. Do we know if it will require the Traveller book still, or be standalone? Will there be new material or will it be primarily a reprint with a new layout? What supplements and support are we likely to get?

 

[MongooseMatt]

Hey there,

The new 2300AD has been completely re-written from the ground up, and is currently undergoing editing. We did consider having the core rules in the book, but it was growing too large!

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Hey there,

The new 2300AD has been completely re-written from the ground up, and is currently undergoing editing. We did consider having the core rules in the book, but it was growing too large!

There are 281.46 years to 2300 AD. With no World War III, the World would be a radically different place from what it was in the original 2300.

I think something could be done with straight warp drives, instead of the old stutterwarp.

 

[GJD]

There is still a Twilight in 2300AD, so whilst not technically a 3rd world war (or maybe it is) there is still a 100 year or so mini dark age.

Also, Alcubierre warp drives have a ton of problems with them (not the least of which is potentially requiring a mass of exotic matter - material which as far as we know does not and can not exist - greater than the mass of the observable universe). THe stutterwarp is a core component of what makes 2300AD the game it is. It's effects and limitations are well known and are integral to the background. Whilst you could easily make a hard scifi game without Stutterwarp, it wouldn't be 2300AD.

G.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

There is still a Twilight in 2300AD, so whilst not technically a 3rd world war (or maybe it is) there is still a 100 year or so mini dark age.

Also, Alcubierre warp drives have a ton of problems with them (not the least of which is potentially requiring a mass of exotic matter - material which as far as we know does not and can not exist - greater than the mass of the observable universe). THe stutterwarp is a core component of what makes 2300AD the game it is. It's effects and limitations are well known and are integral to the background. Whilst you could easily make a hard scifi game without Stutterwarp, it wouldn't be 2300AD.

G.

There is no Soviet Union, who would we go to war with? Wars are started by people who think they can win, so who would think they could win World War III and conquer the World? Also why would they think that? The Soviet balloon has been popped, there is no putting it back together. I don't think Russia would do it anytime in the near future, they know if they launch those missiles, they are going to be dead, they can create a World War III disaster by launching those missiles, but they have no motivation to do it, because they'd know they would lose by being dead along with their enemies, and Russia is a weak power anyway, it is weaker that Germany, with an economy the size of New York State.

Lets look at China, would they start World War III? China's economy depends heavily on exports, what benefit would it be to them to launch World War III? They can't conquer the World, even if they built up their conventional forces, and some point, someone with nuclear weapons would stop them, and when that happened, China would be a lot worse off than before they started, it might even be dead or broken up. I can't see the Chinese leadership wishing that outcome on themselves, and any outcome where they win would require that the rest of the World allow themselves to be conquered without using nuclear weapons

There is North Korea, but it doesn't have enough nuclear weapons to destroy civilization, but the World would destroy them in response. I also can't see Iran starting World War III.

There is another possibility, but I'm not sure you'd want to use it. The Terminator scenario. You remember the Terminator movies, when Skynet seized control of our nuclear arsenal to star World War III in order specifically to wipe out humanity? I'm not sure you'd want to go with that scenario. It would require advanced Artificial Intelligence.

Another possibility is that our Sun gets really nasty, and erupts a solar flare which destroys our power grid, fries our electronics, cars don't start, cities go dark, millions of people starve as the transportation networks can no longer deliver their supply of food. The population rapidly declines due to starvation and disease before enough hardware is built to restart our 21st century civilization with fewer people, maybe one billion in total with a lot of empty cities. Are we going with that scenario?

 

[GJD]

2300AD is, as I am sure you are aware, based on the extension of the Twilight:2000 background. It's an alternate history based on there being a conflict at the tail end of the millennium.

The newer Mongoose version of 2300AD updated this to be less explicit about the causes of Twilight, leaving it open to individual GM's to detail or not. There was a period of severe unrest lasting around 100 years, including some limited nuclear strikes, famine, plague, drought and ecological collapse leading to social and economic upheaval. The sources could be a bunch of things - global climate change triggering mass migration, oil wars in Africa, Gas wars in Europe as a newly nationalist Russia flexes its muscles, rising tensions in the South China Sea from China's literal land grab and expansion over territories claimed by other nations - if critical resources are found out there it's not a huge stretch to think there could be a shooting war that expands to draw in the US. Any and or all of these could be the source of Twilight.

Or the robots rise up and turn us all into batteries. I'm definitely a D-cell.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

2300AD is, as I am sure you are aware, based on the extension of the Twilight:2000 background. It's an alternate history based on there being a conflict at the tail end of the millennium.

The newer Mongoose version of 2300AD updated this to be less explicit about the causes of Twilight, leaving it open to individual GM's to detail or not. There was a period of severe unrest lasting around 100 years, including some limited nuclear strikes, famine, plague, drought and ecological collapse leading to social and economic upheaval. The sources could be a bunch of things - global climate change triggering mass migration, oil wars in Africa, Gas wars in Europe as a newly nationalist Russia flexes its muscles, rising tensions in the South China Sea from China's literal land grab and expansion over territories claimed by other nations - if critical resources are found out there it's not a huge stretch to think there could be a shooting war that expands to draw in the US. Any and or all of these could be the source of Twilight.

Or the robots rise up and turn us all into batteries. I'm definitely a D-cell.

Kind of depressing to think we all need to die to make this future. Are they planning on remaking Twilight 2000? If not, then I don't see a reason to include a twilight war to make 2300. The fact is Twilight 2000 didn't happen, the collapse of the Soviet Union made that improbable. The main reason is that back in the 1980s, the two superpowers thought of themselves as equals to each other, thus the Soviet Union could imagine a scenario where it defeated the United States and ruled the World. I don't think the current ruler of Russia believes that any more, especially since it is obvious that Russia is not the other Superpower any more, and there really isn't another superpower at this time. Russia can nibble on a few small countries on its border, but there really isn't an East Bloc anymore, it is just straight Russian Imperialism, and no one is under the illusion that it is anything else. I think Russia realizes that the West isn't going to blink, and an attack that results in a nuclear war will just result in destruction of both sides. Its hard to make a believable case that Russia is going to attack and that everyone is just going to surrender without a fight. The scenario that happened Twilight 2000 can't happen anymore. US troops are already in Poland, the Baltic states are a part of NATO, Russia gave up the Eastern Bloc and they aren't getting that back, and everyone knows what nuclear weapons can do, and there is no desire to start a nuclear war.

I don't see why you need to have a Dark Age in order to have a future. Just because someone is starving doesn't mean they want to start a nuclear war.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I think there are circumstances in the world today that could, conceivably, lead to a cataclysmic nuclear war of some sort - or even just a series of other events that could lead to a 'Twilight' as we know it. It's difficult to discuss it as a topic, however, without becoming explicit about political perspectives - which I don't really want to do.

This, to me, is besides the point anyway. The best way to allow for the near future projections made in 2300AD is to create a handwavium event that brings history to a halt, for a period of time, and then allows the creators to project from there onwards. Keeping the actual events leading up to a world war, fuzzy and 'lost in time' makes this possible.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

I think there are circumstances in the world today that could, conceivably, lead to a cataclysmic nuclear war of some sort - or even just a series of other events that could lead to a 'Twilight' as we know it. It's difficult to discuss it as a topic, however, without becoming explicit about political perspectives - which I don't really want to do.

This, to me, is besides the point anyway. The best way to allow for the near future projections made in 2300AD is to create a handwavium event that brings history to a halt, for a period of time, and then allows the creators to project from there onwards. Keeping the actual events leading up to a world way fuzzy and 'lost in time' makes this possible.

I don't see why it has to involve nuclear war at all. We may be about due for a super solar flare anyway, One occured in 1862 I believe, Northern lights were seen as far south as Fredericksburg Virginia, and if we had a lot of electronics to fry back then, it would have been a global catastrophe. I can think of an improbably scenario that starts World War III, but no one would believe such a scenario even if it could happen, it would be much easier to believe that a Super Solar Flare could happen as one happened before. World War II was an extremely improbably event for example, as it depended on one man rising to the top of one nation and then building that nation into a temporary Superpower by borrowing money and annexing a few states peacefully, and then by launching an invasion of Poland and the Baltic States with the cooperation of his avowed enemy the Soviets, and then him turning around and invading France, and the French Soldiers and generals acting as a bunch of incompetents by being defeated easily, Practically western and central Europe was handed to Adolf Hitler on a silver platter, now who would have predicted that? Something similar could happen to start World War III, but the scenario involved would seem so improbable that few people would believe it, and that would make it hard to sell as a Twilight scenario. Twilight 2000 had very few surprises, all the pieces on the board of a predicted future war were all set up and easy for people to see, there were troop build ups in Germany, Soviet Bases in Eastern Europe, and a Cold War, and it was easy to see how World War III could happen through miscalculation, but not in our stand down situation in Europe as it exists today. We lack a suitable Superpower Enemy, someone is going to have to quickly make one like Hitler did, by taking a series of extreme gambles and having "beginners luck" the way Hitler did in assembling his Third Reich.


If there was a global conflagration in Europe, what happens if the United States did what France did in the Twilight 2000 scenario? Seems like we have a US President which may have a mind to do just that. the Russians would lack an excuse to nuke US cities. The British and the French would give them quite a beating and have nuclear arsenals of their own, Now I could imagine a scenario where Russia sort of "wins" and then collapses bringing the rest of Europe down with it while the United States watches from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.


But we don't need a nuclear war, things are developing now which could easily be projected as an expansion into space.

What if SpaceX invents the Stutterwarp Drive?

 

[Hopeless]

Pardon my language but what if they successfully build a jump drive or a stutterwarp drive?

First to reach the orbit of say Mars then further?

How would people react, more importantly how would it be revealed if at all given the political climate?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Pardon my language but what if they successfully build a jump drive or a stutterwarp drive?

First to reach the orbit of say Mars then further?

How would people react, more importantly how would it be revealed if at all given the political climate?

One interesting thing to note, While the BFR is a fully reusable 2-stage vehicle, the upper stage is a single stage to orbit vehicle, the upper stage can also make verticle landings. Now imagine if it was fitted with a stutterwarp engine! It could make a trip to Alpha centauri, it could land on an earth sized planet, then it could refuel using local materials, and then blast off again to low orbit, leaving its fuel processor behind, the stotterwarp will then take it out of low orbit, bring it back to earth for a soft landing on a landing pad at Cape Canaveral.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Pardon my language but what if they successfully build a jump drive or a stutterwarp drive?

First to reach the orbit of say Mars then further?

How would people react, more importantly how would it be revealed if at all given the political climate?

Elon Musk or whoever runs SpaceX Corp will probably be the richest man on the planet or very close to it!

If there is a Twilight War, it will probably occur in the late 2030s or 2040s, which is approximately the 100th anniversary of World War II. I figure the game designers wouldn't want to have the War in the 2020s because that is when they will be selling their product, so place it 20 years in the future if it happens at all. What if there is a small colony on Alpha Centauri when the Twilight War happens, will the colonists be able to survive? The most probably adversary in the Twilight War might be China for example, what would the war be about? Possibly over space assets, control over the various colonies etc. I would put a very Earthlike planet in orbit around Alpha Centauri A just to give them something to fight about. What do you think of this idea?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Here is an article on the BFR Rocket.
https://www.space.com/40243-spacex-mars-spaceship-elon-musk-photo.html

I think Elon will be very upset if there actually was a Twilight War, as you can see from the article, his company has plans for the 2020s. A World War would be such a rude interruption of his colonizing Mars!

 

[Sigtrygg]

One correction - the upper stage of the BFR is only SSTO from a world with much lower gravity than Earth, that's why the first stage is necessary to get it off Earth. (e.g. Mars).

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

One correction - the upper stage of the BFR is only SSTO from a world with much lower gravity than Earth, that's why the first stage is necessary to get it off Earth. (e.g. Mars).

That's not what I heard Elon Musk say about it. He said it was a single stage to orbit vehicle in an interview, he did not say from the planet Mars, he said the first stage would have to be filled to capacity with fuel, the second stage is for getting anywhere else other than low earth orbit. So in theory, if a stutterwarp engine was of little or no weight, then a BFR could be turned into a starship, if there was a planet which was Earth sized or smaller orbiting Alpha Centauri, then after producing more fuel on the planet's surface, the BFR could then get into orbit once again. I imagine the fuel processor would then have to be abandoned on the planet's surface to save weight on the ascent. The fuel the BFR runs on is liquid methane and oxygen by the way, so on any planet where there is life, those two fuels could easily be obtained and processed. Alternatively Alpha Centauri Colonies could be one way, sending back a smaller missile with a stutterwarp engine to deliver the message that the colonists safely arrived. Probably unmanned probes would be sent first to check if conditions are hospitable enough for humans to live there.

 

[steve98052]

A plausible cause for a nuclear war in a future without the Soviet Union is the collapse of a nuclear state that allows nuclear weapons to fall into the hands of people who were indifferent to retaliation.

For example, if the government of Pakistan were to collapse without a unified military to take over, military factions could end up in control of portions of its nuclear arsenal. If any such faction lacked the usual restraint that has prevented nuclear war so far, there could be a limited nuclear war inside Pakistan -- and a limited nuclear war doesn't necessarily remain limited. There may be enough that can burn in Pakistan to trigger a nuclear winter, even if such a war remains confined to Pakistan.

It's also possible that North Korea will continue to build up its nuclear arsenal, to the point that the eventual end of Kim Jong Un leaves some or all of its nuclear arsenal under the control of people who are indifferent to consequences.

There may even be a small possibility that armageddonists could gain control of a nuclear weapons base in the US, cut off communications in a way that places the ICBMs under local control, and launch an attack intended to bring about a worldwide nuclear war.

Yet another possibility is that a natural comet impact is mistaken for a nuclear attack, and that the victim of the natural disaster launches its nuclear weapons at the presumed aggressor.

Also on the theme of a natural disaster, a large-enough comet impact could bring about a global twilight without any nuclear war.

None of those possibilities are individually likely, but they're possible, and the more low-probability events are considered, the larger the risk that one of the events could happen.

 

[Sigtrygg]

One correction - the upper stage of the BFR is only SSTO from a world with much lower gravity than Earth, that's why the first stage is necessary to get it off Earth. (e.g. Mars).

That's not what I heard Elon Musk say about it. He said it was a single stage to orbit vehicle in an interview, he did not say from the planet Mars, he said the first stage would have to be filled to capacity with fuel, the second stage is for getting anywhere else other than low earth orbit. So in theory, if a stutterwarp engine was of little or no weight, then a BFR could be turned into a starship, if there was a planet which was Earth sized or smaller orbiting Alpha Centauri, then after producing more fuel on the planet's surface, the BFR could then get into orbit once again. I imagine the fuel processor would then have to be abandoned on the planet's surface to save weight on the ascent. The fuel the BFR runs on is liquid methane and oxygen by the way, so on any planet where there is life, those two fuels could easily be obtained and processed. Alternatively Alpha Centauri Colonies could be one way, sending back a smaller missile with a stutterwarp engine to deliver the message that the colonists safely arrived. Probably unmanned probes would be sent first to check if conditions are hospitable enough for humans to live there.

The upper stage can only do SSTO from Mars - go read the engineering and technical guides rather then Elon's hyperbole.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

One correction - the upper stage of the BFR is only SSTO from a world with much lower gravity than Earth, that's why the first stage is necessary to get it off Earth. (e.g. Mars).

That's not what I heard Elon Musk say about it. He said it was a single stage to orbit vehicle in an interview, he did not say from the planet Mars, he said the first stage would have to be filled to capacity with fuel, the second stage is for getting anywhere else other than low earth orbit. So in theory, if a stutterwarp engine was of little or no weight, then a BFR could be turned into a starship, if there was a planet which was Earth sized or smaller orbiting Alpha Centauri, then after producing more fuel on the planet's surface, the BFR could then get into orbit once again. I imagine the fuel processor would then have to be abandoned on the planet's surface to save weight on the ascent. The fuel the BFR runs on is liquid methane and oxygen by the way, so on any planet where there is life, those two fuels could easily be obtained and processed. Alternatively Alpha Centauri Colonies could be one way, sending back a smaller missile with a stutterwarp engine to deliver the message that the colonists safely arrived. Probably unmanned probes would be sent first to check if conditions are hospitable enough for humans to live there.

The upper stage can only do SSTO from Mars - go read the engineering and technical guides rather then Elon's hyperbole.

Okay, if you say so, it sounds reasonable. So far nobody has managed to make a SSTO, and the BFR is a Two Stage to Orbit with both stages reusable, what does that mean? Lets suppose for a minute that the same planets are orbiting the same stars according to the original 2300 material, so if I recall correctly, there was a planet called Truane orbiting Alpha Centauri A, however is history has SpaceX developing the Stutterwarp drive and mating it to its BFR, then I think Elon might name the planet something else. Whatever it is, the BFR if mated with a stutterwarp could probably make it to Alpha Centauri, and before it lands, it will probably release a few Stutterwarp probes in low orbit around Truane, and these will be messenger probes outfitted with their own stutterwarp engines, when activated they will stutterwarp back into Earth orbit carrying messages and data from the colonists, and SpaceX will send some more stutterwarp probes back to Truane for further communication with the colonists. The colony ships in this case will be one-way, once they land on Truane's surface, they can't get back into orbit again. Perhaps a Stage two could be lifted into Earth orbit and then refueled in orbit with another stage two booster, that stage would then be outfitter with its own stutterwarp engine and it could stutterwarp to Truane, and then land on its surface, bringing both stages of the BFR to the Truane colony, and now SpaceX can have two way travel between Truane and Earth. of course launch facilities will have to be constructed to properly launch the vehicle back into orbit.

This might be going on throughout the 2020s and 2030s if the Stutterwarp engine is invented a bit early. Do you think a Twilight War is still needed in this scenario? I think an isolationist America is a definite possibility given the current president in the White House, not to go into too many details. Do you see a Twilight War as a kind of colonial war arising out of competition between SpaceX and China perhaps?

 

[Sigtrygg]

I think by this point you can pretty much remove any reference to a Twilight War in the background to 2300AD.

There are plenty of other conflicts we could postulate:

break up of EU
India vs Pakistan
Israel vs Iran
China vs Korea
China vs Japan
China vs India
USA civil war 2

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

I think by this point you can pretty much remove any reference to a Twilight War in the background to 2300AD.

There are plenty of other conflicts we could postulate:

break up of EU
India vs Pakistan
Israel vs Iran
China vs Korea
China vs Japan
China vs India
USA civil war 2

The Twilight War in the original game was the result of miscalculation, it started because Eastern European countries wanted to be free of Soviet control, and the United States and NATO thought it was a good time to help them get out from under that control, the result was instead of a collapse of the Soviet Union as occured in our history, but World War III with a limited exchange of nuclear weapons, everytime one side appeared to be losing they used nuclear weapons, and when the other side appeared to be losing they used nuclear weapons, this was a cautions exchange of nuclear weapons, thus civilization and civil order collapsed, but it was not the total wipeout that would have occured if all the weapons in the stockpile were used, most remained in their silos and were not used. I do not like in particular some of the results of the Twilight War, particularly the United States losing the Southwest to Mexico's vulturing the US in its weakened state, and Texas became independent as well. This was the United States of the 1980s more or less projected onto the late 1990s, where probably Robert Dole was elected President instead of Bill Clinton, because the Cold War didn't end, the Soviet Union didn't collapse, it just continued right up to the brink and into the Twilight war, the Soviet Union did eventurally collapse, and I note there was not a "Russian Arm" in the 2300 near star map! So Russia was demolished pretty thoroughly I must say.


So what would happen instead if we add in our history substituting for that history of Twilight 2000? There is no near term World War we can see on the horizon, unlike in the 1980s when it seemed that both sides were getting ready to fight the big one. I think probably China would be a Superpower, the United States would continue to be a superpower, India would probably end up being a superpower by 2300 as well. So I would expect the new 2300 near star map to have a Chinese, and Indian, and an American Arm. the Europeans would probably settle in the American Arm.