On Sun, 3 Jan 2010, Onno Meyer wrote: > My initial question lacked some important information, I think, because > I'm writing this to explore VE and Spaceships, not for an upcoming game > with a predetermined setting. > > * Why evacuate the planet? And is it Earth in a recognizable future or > somewhere completely different? >
<snip> An other possibility would be in a gigantic galactic empire setting. They might even build one or two such ships without custombuilding it for specific evacuation. It might be that high population "third galactic arm" planets occasionally require evacuating or there are humanitarian catastrophes. But forcing local kleptocrats to adopt policies in time that avoid thoose problems in time is politically difficult. (or it might be that empire voters rather foot the bill for shiney empireship that help backworlders in distress, then development aid, that does not in that way demonstrate empire superiority) Or they might indeed have the fleeing from imminent alien invasion motivation, just with "if any of thoose neighbours attack we might need to evacuate one or two border planets". Or they might build it in case of a catastrophe on one of their own planets. It would be enough that a very unlikely event where such a ship would be usefull had happened, that they build one. > Johannes replied to me: <snip> > > Basically i don't think large amounts of people without some sort of > > police or quasi police works good for long. > > > > Some or all can be done with sophisticated enough robots. But then > > depending on background specifics you might need include costs for enough > > computing power. > > Besides, people who don't believe what their boarding-pass-display > says might also refuse what a robot or computer terminal says. The > ratio of citizens to police is usually around 300:1, but this is a > high-stress situation, so call it one steward or service crew per > 50 colonists. They'll have to dispense rations, find lost kids, > and mediate conflicts. > If AIs are good enough that they can deescalate conflics and have robots/drones that can restraint humans, they can be used as effective police force. But such AIs might have other effects on the setting. An other possiblity is that in part the passangers police themself, if they already come with an authority structure. It would cut down the number of stewards neccessary, but it can lead to interesting situations at the interface of ship and passanger authority. > > > In Traveller, cryo-revival requires a qualified medic. Vehicles points > > > to Space, which gives time requirements but no skills. > > > > My idea is to cryo them on their source planet and uncryo them on the > > destination planet. > > So the problem is shifted from the high-tech ship to the primitive > colony? (See above for possible conditions on the destination world). > I had mainly thought at huminitarian aid by the grand galactic empire. In that case qualified aid and high technology at the destination is less of a problem then at the evacuated planet, because either the destination is an empire world, or the empire can bring techs to the destination. While the evacuated planet at least has some problems that require evacuation. > > > How does that solve anything? You replace boarding hatches with shuttle > > > dock hatches ... > > > > The shuttles don't need to start all from the same spaceport, so you don't > > have the logistics to move all passangers to the same place on ground > > first. And you are less likely to have all the passangers waiting (and > > complaining about waiting and requirering food ect while they wait) in one > > place, if your schedules don't work that well. > > But unless the passengers stay on their shuttles (a variant of the pod > idea), you have to get them off the shuttle and onto the ship, in time > to turn the shuttle around for the next flight. > Shuttle to ship would likely be one of the most easy operations. shuttles have typically simple floorplanes and there is only one way to go, there are very few reasons to stay on the shuttle (looking for lost luggage and going to the toilet). There is little place and reason to wander off. And if you have many shuttles, you might not need to make many runs with each of them. If thats realistic depends on the exact setting. One mans groundfloor is an other mans earthmissle @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Johannes Trimmel @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
