Re: [GZG] FTverse colinies

[Nyrath the nearly wise <nyrath@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Robert Mayberry wrote:
> Half of the fun is knowing that the the thing wasn't intended for
> this, and yet making it all work out anyway. I'm reminded of Larry
> Niven's essay about creating the Mote in G-d's Eye (it's in either
> Playgrounds of the Mind or N-Space), and how he extrapolated from a
> model a whole series of assumptions about the underlying tech base and
> society.

 From "Building the Mote in God's Eye" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, 
collected in N-Space and A Step Farther Out.

Long ago we acquired a commercial model called “The Explorer Ship Leif 
Ericsson,” a plastic spaceship of intriguing design. It is shaped something 
like a flattened pint whiskey bottle with a long neck. The “Leif Ericsson,” 
alas, was killed by general lack of interest in spacecraft by model buyers; a 
ghost of it is still marketed in hideous glow-in-the-dark color as some kind 
of flying saucer.

It’s often easier to take a detailed construct and work within its limits than 
it is to have too much flexibility. For fun we tried to make the Leif Ericsson 
work as a model for an Empire naval vessel. The exercise proved instructive.

First, the model is of a big ship, and is of the wrong shape ever to be 
carried aboard another vessel. Second, it had fins, only useful for 
at­mosphere flight: what purpose would be served in having atmosphere 
capabilities on a large ship?

This dictated the class of ship: it must be a cruiser or battlecruiser. 
Battleships and dreadnaughts wouldn’t ever land, and would be cylindrical or 
spherical to reduce surface area. Our ship was too large to be a destroyer (an 
expendable ship almost never employed on missions except as part of a 
flotilla). Cruisers and battlecruisers can be sent on independent missions.

MacArthur, a General Class Battlecruiser, began to emerge. She can enter 
atmosphere, but rarely does so, except when long independent assignments force 
her to seek fuel on her own. She can do this in either of two ways: go to a 
supply source, or fly into the hydrogen-rich at­mosphere of a gas giant and 
scoop. There were scoops on the model, as it happens.

She has a large pair of doors in her hull, and a spacious compartment inside: 
obviously a hangar deck for carrying auxiliary craft. Hangar deck is also the 
only large compartment in her, and therefore would be the normal place of 
assembly for the crew when she isn’t under battle con­ditions.

The tower on the model looked useless, and was almost ignored, until it 
occurred to us that on long missions not under acceleration it would be useful 
to have a high-gravity area. The ship is a bit thin to have much gravity in 
the “neck” without spinning her far more rapidly than you’d like; but with the 
tower, the forward area gets normal gravity without excessive spin rates.

And on, and so forth. In the novel, Lenin was designed from scratch; and of 
course we did have to make some modifications in Leif Ericsson before she 
could become INSS MacArthur; but it’s surprising just how much detail you can 
work up through having to live with the limits of a model.

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