Re: FTL: ON TOPIC!!!

Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:
> 
> Samuel Penn writes:
> @:) In message <8625650F.00690B5A.00@notes.vastar.com>
> @:)		"Chris McCurry" <CMCCURR@vastar.com> wrote:
> @:)
> 
>   Just to throw my spare change in on the matter, I think I would
> categorize this stuff as follows:
> 
>   Fast: you go where you're going quickly.  Maybe you ignore
> relativity, maybe you just travel sub-light, whatever.  You are moving
> through normal space.
> 
>   Hyperspace: means you are moving, but not in normal space.	You're
> in some kind of alternate dimension.	This includes Star Wars
> hyperspace, Warp / Sub space, and B5 hyperspace, although that has
> something of the portal effect to it as well.
> 
>   Portal: includes wormholes, Iconian transport devices, the Stargate,
> etc.	Folding space would also be included in this category.	You step
> into something and come out somewhere else.  You feel like you are
> moving through normal space at all times, but in fact you cross some
> kind of discontinuity that gets you where you're going.
> 
>   Quantum: you simply increase your probability of being somewhere
> else to more than your probability of being here.  Voila.  The
> Infinite Improbability Drive worked this way.
> 
>   Teleportation: you convert yourself into a signal and transmit it.
> The signal is received somewhere else and your are reconstituted.
> Just make sure you are deconstituted at the sending end or all kinds
> of annoying legal problems will ensue.  Star Trek beaming is exactly
> this kind of system, in fact Riker actually got duplicated.
> 
>   I'm not sure whether I consider systems that leave you where you are
> but move the universe to be any different than ones that move you
> around.  I don't know what to do with the Stainless Steel Rat "big"
> drive that somebody mentioned.  The time travel idea is interesting,
> although it's obviously not _really_ space travel.  It did occur to me
> that if you just travelled in time, never moved at all in space,
> everything would be somewhere else (since everything in the universe
> is moving).  You could possibly use this technique to travel to a
> select set of destinations.  Similarly, it might be interesting to
> find a way to stop yourself completely from moving (this statement has
> no meaning in an Einsteinian universe but this is fiction we're
> talking about) and let the stars come to you.  Again you don't control
> where you're going with this technique.
> 
>   OK, so how can this possibly be on topic?  Because it could be used
> as the basis for a set of FT rules.  Right now there's one way to
> travel interstellar distances in Full Thrust.  For a strategic game,
> it might be interesting to have multiple methods of travel, to add
> variety.  In particular I think it would be cool if aliens did not use
> the same methods to travel FTL that humans do.  So I think if a
> general enough set of travel techniques could be assembled, they might
> make an interesting rules addition.
> 
> -joachim

There was a game a few years back called "Web and Starship".  A board
game.  Earth was stuck between two alien powers.  One had FTL starships,
and the other had stargates, and sublight ships.  It sounded very cool! 
Never had the chance to pick it up though :(

Try to imagine several players, each with his own FTL method. 8)

Donald Hosford