GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
EDG said:
Dense High I can see for larger worlds. Its Thin Low that seems out of place on the largest worlds, I guess.
Ancient(s)
- Thread starter kafka
- Start date
Dense High I can see for larger worlds. Its Thin Low that seems out of place on the largest worlds, I guess.
GypsyComet said:
It's all down to scale height and topography. If we didn't have our oceans, most of our atmosphere would settle on what was the ocean floor (because they're several km down) and be a lot thinner on the continents themselves. On a more massive world the scale height would be smaller, so the pressure would drop more quickly with altitude so the effect would be a lot more pronounced. So if you had a big rift valley (like on Mars) or large, deep basins and lots of highland, you could easily get most of the atmosphere settling in the deep parts and being much thinner in the highlands. But to be Thin/Low you really do need the topography to be in that kind of specific configuration, so it's not really just an atmosphere code.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
EDG said:
Indeed. I put it down to the shorthand of the UWP and try not to lose sleep over it.
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
EDG said:
Yes - because they didn't make comments about "ripping off" ? Why should I ? Are you suggesting that "ripping off" isn't a perjoritive term, meant to indicate plagarism ? If not, do say so, and I'll retract.
Otherwise, read on, and please note I agree with their points that traveller and SF did draw from similar wells, and still do. What I disagree with is your constant attempts here, elsewhere, now and in the past to paint all of it as plagarism. I'm not saying it wasn't an influence, or that it wasn't intentional after all, Traveller was meant to allow play in that SF genre -now your position is that doing so is plagarism ?
Nope. Try again; Psychohistory existed as a branch of sociology in the 30's and 20's (and well before, actually) as I said. It also currently shares the name, and some goals with a personality-social psycohoanalytic theory, some of which is oriented towards interpreting child raising experiences as key elements of social construction and evolution. These are unfortunately irrelevent to the discussion as they are from the late 1980's. Note that the site also has extensive references to both current and past versions, including, and I note, the theories of societal development, as well as Freud's original theories of cultural prediction based on psychological development. They're there, its just not the very first entry in the (admittedly) long list.
Asimov's inclusion of them was simply a reflection of a scientific movement that permeated his period: the paradigm that social scientific analysis of history could be used to predict and or shape the future -one good example of its political expression is Marxism, FYI. . Perhaps Asimov invented the specific term,"psychohistory" to describe the paradigm in SF tropes (and I'm unconvinced of that -my tribe has been slapping psycho on everything since Freud and Bruer first published) , but the fact is it was a major movement in science at that time; this was reflected possibly named and adopted by SF; which traveller attempts to duplicate.
You're not even right about the website. From a cursory glance at their webpage - up at the top on the first page (no scrolling needed):
Psychohistory, the science of historical motivations, combines the insights of psychotherapy with the research methodology of the social sciences to understand the emotional origin of the social and political behavior of groups and nations, past and present.
Sounds like Asimov's Psychohistory to me.
Unfortunately, given that you've deployed your acerbic insulting style into the discussion at this point and are trying to characterize anything I say as personal harassment, there's not much point in continuing, is there ? Read gibbons, or the psychohistory websites, or the history of Cleon as a name, or the definitions of infuence vs plagarism, or the foundation trilogy or Asimov's writings on his life, or don't. If you change your mind or tone, PM me ; or even if you want to discuss it further. Otherwise, its goodnight for me...and back on topic for y'all.
On the subject of egg-shaped atmo...
As gravitational force (ignoring other forces of a moving planet) ‘traps’ the atmosphere gases (against their kinetic energy) – and gravity does not have to be uniform… a denser mass to one side could result in an ‘egg shaped’ atmo… and non-uniform heating of the atmo can also cause distortions…
This, of course neglects sources of external forces – such as moons and suns (think tides – water and air, gravity and radiation) and more exotic stellar bodies (mini-black holes)…
Given planetary scales (and the mass needed to retain an atmosphere) – and the most likely causes of atmo distortion being external gravity/radiation and of a ‘temporary nature’ (due to the changes they cause -> bulging planet, thermodynamic equalization, rotation, etc.) - just being ‘possible’ does not mean significant enough to deserve a code – especially if that code can be generated (versus explicitly stated).
As gravitational force (ignoring other forces of a moving planet) ‘traps’ the atmosphere gases (against their kinetic energy) – and gravity does not have to be uniform… a denser mass to one side could result in an ‘egg shaped’ atmo… and non-uniform heating of the atmo can also cause distortions…
This, of course neglects sources of external forces – such as moons and suns (think tides – water and air, gravity and radiation) and more exotic stellar bodies (mini-black holes)…
Given planetary scales (and the mass needed to retain an atmosphere) – and the most likely causes of atmo distortion being external gravity/radiation and of a ‘temporary nature’ (due to the changes they cause -> bulging planet, thermodynamic equalization, rotation, etc.) - just being ‘possible’ does not mean significant enough to deserve a code – especially if that code can be generated (versus explicitly stated).
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
On the ORIGINAL subject of this thread - other races being mixed in with the Droyne as "The Ancients": I think Prison Planet will give Mongoose's opinion on how that actually worked...
captainjack23 said:
No, they just made comments about how very very similar something in Beltstrike was to Larry Niven's ideas, and Gypsycomet was even saying "gee, I wish I could hop around American IP law like that". As usual, you're just attacking me and ignoring everyone else.
I'm right and you're wrong, deal with it. Real psychohistory has nothing to do with the statistical prediction of the rise and fall of societies. And you seriously need to read beyond the first line of a website if you're going to lecture people about it.
Give it a break, jack - you're wrong. Real psychohistory is irrelevant to the discussion. I posted two descriptions of the fictional psychohistory - one was Asimov's, the other was taken verbatim from a CT book. And the CT book clearly is based on Asimov's, to the point of even using the same 'gas-like' analogy that he himself used. Point made - Traveller's psychohistory is a blatant ripoff of Asimov's. QED.
It amazes me how you can sit there lecturing me about "acerbic insulting style" when your initial post was so incredibly patronising, snarky, condescending, and sanctimonious...
B_Steele
Mongoose
Hey...for those of us that are actually enjoying the original read of this thread...
Drop it. Our forums are supposed to be where people go to talk about the game and get a good feel for the fellow fans and readers of it. Intelligent discussion is always just a few posts away from beligerent arguments...and some people cannot help but tap dance across that line whenever they can.
We all have our own opinions about the game. It does not give anyone license to verbally throttle anyone with a different one than yours.
You know who you are folks, let's get back to talking about the Ancients, shall we? I was enjoying the debate until things got crazy about a page back...can we get back to that?
Cheers all,
Bry
Drop it. Our forums are supposed to be where people go to talk about the game and get a good feel for the fellow fans and readers of it. Intelligent discussion is always just a few posts away from beligerent arguments...and some people cannot help but tap dance across that line whenever they can.
We all have our own opinions about the game. It does not give anyone license to verbally throttle anyone with a different one than yours.
You know who you are folks, let's get back to talking about the Ancients, shall we? I was enjoying the debate until things got crazy about a page back...can we get back to that?
Cheers all,
Bry
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Ahem....
The Droyne may have been the "Ancients", but we know from Canon that they had slave/servant races. HUMANS were one of them. So the basic assumption isn't that the Ancients did everything everywhere.
They started it, at least the last round of civilization. The current round of civilization came from the Humans (and Hivers and K'Kree). When those races die out, in a couple hundred thousand years, new races will emerge onto the interstellar scene and look back at Charted Space and think that Humans were the major race (after all 2 of the biggest empires now are human and Vargr are descended from Earth). So three of the big 6 are Terran based.
BUT, the reality of the OTU (and likely the Ancients) is that there were a lot of races in that civilization, even if the Droyne dominated that civilization they were not the only race.
Think of the First Imperium. The Vilani (humans) dominated it and were the only race with FTL travel to begin with. But other races were part of the 1I, the same must have been true for the Ancients. They just didn't have a technological rival THAT WE KNOW OF.
Intelligent life in the OTU has likely been around for millions if not billions of years. The Ancients were not the FIRST interstellar race, just the first one that we know of. Whatever happened to those earlier, mythical races is gone. Continents move, species evolve, stars change positions relative to each other. When we get into the Millions and Billions of year timescales, the Galaxy begins to look different (OK, closer to billions than millions, but you get the idea).
The Droyne may have been the "Ancients", but we know from Canon that they had slave/servant races. HUMANS were one of them. So the basic assumption isn't that the Ancients did everything everywhere.
They started it, at least the last round of civilization. The current round of civilization came from the Humans (and Hivers and K'Kree). When those races die out, in a couple hundred thousand years, new races will emerge onto the interstellar scene and look back at Charted Space and think that Humans were the major race (after all 2 of the biggest empires now are human and Vargr are descended from Earth). So three of the big 6 are Terran based.
BUT, the reality of the OTU (and likely the Ancients) is that there were a lot of races in that civilization, even if the Droyne dominated that civilization they were not the only race.
Think of the First Imperium. The Vilani (humans) dominated it and were the only race with FTL travel to begin with. But other races were part of the 1I, the same must have been true for the Ancients. They just didn't have a technological rival THAT WE KNOW OF.
Intelligent life in the OTU has likely been around for millions if not billions of years. The Ancients were not the FIRST interstellar race, just the first one that we know of. Whatever happened to those earlier, mythical races is gone. Continents move, species evolve, stars change positions relative to each other. When we get into the Millions and Billions of year timescales, the Galaxy begins to look different (OK, closer to billions than millions, but you get the idea).
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
Mongoose Steele said:
Debate? Meh.
Traveller actually avoids one of the usual SF tropes by having only ONE identified race of ancients/forerunners/precursors/etc. Several of the authors Traveller and its players draw inspiration from assume a large assortment of "once powerful and now gone" sentient species.
Despite that long tradition of myriads in SF, DGPs attempts to introduce two other precursors (one in Knightfall, the other waiting in the wings for the post-Rebellion that DGP didn't get to write) don't feel right.
captainjack23 said:
Yup.
Anyone who thinks canon should not change over the (many) past years is going to be in one one hell of a shock over the next few years. . .
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
An interesting point, but the use of terran stock for so many things has always suggested to me that there was a dearth of potential slaves/servitors - which seems at odds with the current state of the OTU.
We do know some other things; that its been specifically noted that the area outside of charted space is strangely quiet, in that no other signs of intelligent life seem to exist - and then there's the "baddies from the core"; possibly the source of the Empress wave -possibly irrelevent to a discussion of thre MGT 1105 story. And then there are the clues (from Shadows onward) that there was another widespread lost advanced civilization -possibly between us and the ancients, possibly not -I can't actually remember.
Plus, there's my nagging memory that there is a source article (from outside Secrets perhaps) that gives more subtext suggesting that grandfathers story was at the least creatively self serving. From Challenge perhaps ?
I wonder at the differences between the current state of charted space and what grandfathers story and what the rest of the local Galaxy looks like implies .
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
msprange said:
Ah. Sit down, strap in, hold on, stop screaming. Lets see what this baby will do, eh ? Typical Jag owner.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
EDG said:
Oh no. It goes far deeper than that. Since it is not germane to what we should be discussing, or even to what we were discussing, I'll leave it in the hands of Canon: Vilani Patent Traditions were, when DGP wrote them, viewed as extreme and dangerous in their effects by our standards, but thankfully fictional. American IP handling (I hesitate to call it all "law" just yet) is giving the Vilani a run for the money. Fiction no longer, as the "hopping room" that was initially built into US IP law is vanishing.
To answer the line that Matt quoted, yes, I want Traveller to be "good", and by my definition, that means that the borrowed tropes are properly integrated. I'm seeing examples of the opposite, and THAT bothers me, both from an IP point of view and from a "no imagination" point of view.
To drag this back (again), I'll point at the "multiple Ancients" discussion. It really changes nothing. You are *still* blaming the oddities of the setting on mysterious precursors. How is that different from just using the Ancients?
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
GypsyComet said:
It isn't. Here's another question, and asked without preconditions. How many or at least what kind oddities are the ancients blamed for ? And how many of these are due to secondary sources ? My feeling is that while the Ancients may have been overapplied, the main part of the problem is that overall, they were intended to be an unexplainable mystery and intentionally added as such.
Matts answer and the retrosetting of 1105 suggests strongly to me that the whole Granfather story is as much up for reconsideration or deofficialization" as annic nova. So, one more question; to what extent (once past the lazy applications to solve various problems) would traveller benefit or lose from a mystery without an explicit official answer?
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
BenGunn said:
I doubt that anyone who feels that canon is pure and immutable is still on board with MGT and T5 or even since GT or arguably TNE ; and interestingly this doesn't seem to include most if not all of the original authors, who seem to have the (saner) view that its a work in progress; abeit one with well defined boundries.
)
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
rust said:
A good point. Thinking about this, dare I suggest that providing a useful and easy coverall for structural (with regard to the background/backstory) blips is also useful, for those who don't want to be bothered with bigger stuff ?
That said, it also emphasizes the tension between "this is a natural universe and things should make sense" and "we are living in a made thing and many bets are out of the window" for the setting (last note included for those who might confuse my real worldview with my view of a fictional one
)Does traveller address both of these issues by the Ancients use/ignore trope?
