David replied to me: > Parachutes. Seriously: put a bunch of the critters in a box, drop it with a > 'chute. A timer opens the door after it's landed. At TL10, guidance for > this sort of thing will work well and be dirt cheap.
You could even skip the guidance if the shuttle is low enough. That kind of delivery won't depend on pinpoint accuracy. Added a rear cargo ramp. > Reactionless thrusters are super science. Yes. > and setting breaking. No, for two reasons: * Many science fiction settings include the basic assumption that space travel, even interstellar travel, is relatively easy, certainly no more difficult than intercontinental travel was in the 19th century. When I talk about ways to transform a world in years, not centuries, I'm obviously in the cheap starflight paradigm, and it would actually BREAK the setting to deny it decent drive technology ... * My concept of the mothership was inspired by Independence Day and V, so it needs reactionless thrusters to hover at low altitude. That means the setting is already broken as far as hard science fiction is concerned. I have nothing to loose and a bit of consistency to gain by making the shuttles reactionless as well. And Susan replied to me: > Lifeless rocks still have an ecology in mineral terms - but > it sounds like you're looking more at the barren rock > scenario then the introducing bacteria to an anerobic > ecosystem that produce oxygen and cause a mass extinction > in the process (which was the first known mass extinction > event on earth) type terraforming. Call it three stages, two of them optional: If volatiles are missing, or the world is in a serious ice age, or there is too much atmosphere, the first step means gross mechanical terraforming by dropping comets, building solar mirrors, etc. That calls for a large factory ship to build and maintain robot tugs and smelters. If the atmospheric composition is wrong, either because of anaerobic life or because the first step just dumped stuff at random, the second step means introducing a tailored lifeforms to change that. The step could even start while the first step is still running, and help a bit with algae to change the albedo or the like. The step will probably include a variety of GM critters, but all of them relatively small, and most worlds would follow a standard sequence. So the second stage requires only a few geneticists, in a small base or tucked away in a corner of the factory ship. The Terraforming Support Ship and Shuttle come in when the second stage is either finished or not necessary. It tries to build a relatively stable ecology with small and large lifeforms, ready for colonists to work and live. Building an ecology from scratch or invading an existing one are quite different tasks, but both call for the same kind of ship -- big, with many GM labs, test habitats, lifebanks for existing lifeforms, lots of support staff to do the legwork. "Good morning, my name is John Doe, and all of you should be assigned to team 140-08. Right? Our task is to introduce freshwater crabs in lakes of the northern temperate zone. We will cooperate closely with Jane Doe, team 143-17, and Jim Doe, team 141-03, who are working on fish and seabirds." _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
