Johannes replied to me: > >> So thoose frolicking in astereoid belts on their own, > >> without a mission will likely be rare. Though the longer bioships > already > >> exist, the larger the chance, that some subspecies has formed by > ordinary > >> evolution. > > > > Even if they like being around humans, why shouldn't they look for > > fun-loving and risk-averse crews? > > > > In that case it isn't on their own without a mission. I only got > interested in the thread, when i saw that it was about bioship society, > rather then stats, so i might have missed something from the beginning, > and rplied to an assumption that was not here there.
Hello Johannes, this series started out as sparring partners for the TL15 ships I posted a few weeks/months/a year ago, so I came from the tech side of things -- organics instead of metal, as far as Vehicles can do that, and sentient robot starships with human passengers, not human commanders and crews. However, I think that the design decisions imply something about bioship society as well. The Spaceships variants by Kenneth have no bioship womb, even if the rulebooks allow that (because there was no way to make that in Vehicles, and Vehicles came first, but that doesn't change the fact). The bioships need human help to reproduce, unless we're looking at the males here and there are different female bioships. The bioships are sentient, and they are designed to go into harm's way. The weaponry takes too much space for mere defense. What does it say about a society if there is a sentient warrior caste, deliberately designed so that it depends on the help of others to reproduce? And what would it say if they were designed to instinctively ENJOY that!? On the other hand, what happens if a society grows bioships (at some expense, even if that was just guarding and feeding the seedling), arms them with heavy weapons, and then the ship can say "thanks, but I don't feel like fighting, and I don't like those sour officers, I'd rather go joyriding with a constant party in the crew section"? My interpretation from the stats is no more valid than yours, of course. > > * Even if the bioship doesn't get delusional, what would the shock > > of finding out about the sim do to the personality? > > > > Unless you intentionally want shock, the natrual thing to do, would be to > tell them from the beginning, that they are now in a simulation, but will > be let out into reality later (if/when they behave and get good marks and > all). The 3,000-ton ship is the smallest ship in the series, so a 1,000-ton or 300-ton bioship might be in simulator training, unable to go FTL. > And tell them, where reality differes from the simulation especially > what the additional dangers in reality will be. Make the sim more dangerous, not less, except that there are extra lives. > You can even combine the idea with brains growing in the ships. if the > ships grow in "dry docks". A joint artificial reality for all the ships in the dock? Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
