On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 6:43 AM, Onno Meyer <[email protected]> wrote: > DataPacRat replied to me:
>> The whole story covered around, mm, 5-6 years; I don't recall exactly, >> but there was about 1-3 years of development time before the Pigeons >> were deployed. > > Neighbourhoods full of terrorists, for several years? Shouldn't > you call them secessionist governments, then? The fighting against them was to prevent them from becoming precisely that. >> >> If such an enemy tank gets within range to lob shells at the base - >> >> then friendly artillery hasn't been doing its job... <ahem> >> > >> > Have you looked at the railgun of my sample tank? >> >> You mean the 20-30km range? > > Yes. It was designed as a high-power kinetic weapon, but the > side effect is an impressive range with shells. What sort of ranges are possible with TL8 railguns that don't have to fit onto a tank - that is, TL8 artillery? GVB is giving me 28km for a 60mm extreme range railgun, 42km with APS's... does that sound about right? >> That matches some other areas I want to push in this setting - the >> differences between oligarchs who want to control others and >> freedom-lovers who just want to be able to control themselves and >> their own property. > > I'm rather cynic about those freedom-lovers, too. Privatize > profit, socialize losses. Man is a social being, if that is > ignored then politics and society are working on incomplete > assumptions. There's a certain difference between "freedom-lovers" in the mold of classic liberalism, and "freedom-lovers" who would prefer to let people die than have any taxes at all - a difference which is probably tricky to discuss on this list outside of setting-specific discussion, and I haven't even posted anything to this list about the New Attican tradition of rock-stealing yet, let alone other setting-specific details. :) ... oh, alright, since I've already got it typed out: Simplicio: "What's this thing about the rocks I hear you folk keep stealing?" DPR: "Now that /is/ something worth knowing about. Short answer: counting coup. Want to hear the longer answer? Good. When it comes down to it, it's really just a game. The best sort of game - keeps you strong, keeps you smart. Gives the healthy young males something to do with all their excess energy, and a way to try to impress the girls. But those are all mostly just surface reasons. "Anyone who wants to play, gets themselves a rock - some perfectly ordinary rock, that has no real value in and of itself, or even any sentimental value, other than being their rock. Maybe put their name on it. This here's my rock. If you want... you can try stealing it away from me. "Yes, technically, since it's my rock, then taking it from me is a violation of my right to property, and in many forms of libertarian philosophy, I then have the right to use any amount of force in self-defense, including lethal force. But this here is the important part - to find out how people react when their rocks are taken. To test them. Some people are simply incompetent at most everything, even something as simple as keeping a rock from getting stolen, so if it's too easy to take your rock, then other people will be interested in finding that out. On the other paw, if, when your rock is taken, you take it too personally and use too much lethal force, then it's important to know that, too - because while avoiding infringing other peoples' rights is an important basis for a civilized society, it's insufficient in and of itself; if too many people use too much force in self-defense, that'll result in societal collapse just as surely as a kleptocracy, if not quite as quickly or in the same way. "Long ago, people used to do the same sort of things by hitting each other with special sticks, or raiding each others' cattle, or playing organized sports. Our habs are spread out a bit too thinly to arrange many decent opportunities for stick-poking, what cattle we have are vital parts of the life-support cycles, and we haven't really come up with sports that are popular enough. We don't want to involve anything that's potentially vital to life-support systems - which is pretty much almost everything. So... we steal each other's rocks. Or, at least, try to. And keep our own rocks from getting stolen - or try to. "We're still hashing out some of the details. Sometimes, the stealer will hold onto the rock so the original owner can try to steal it back. Sometimes, the thief will simply mail it back. Some people say doing one thing implies one thing about what the thief thinks, and the other the other, while others give practical reasons. Some people are suggesting groups get rocks, as well as individuals, others that that'll devalue the whole idea. I doubt any of it'll be settled in my lifetime, but it gives the people who aren't doing any stealing at the moment something to jaw over in the pubs." (As an aside - I just came up with an idea for how the junkbot-building wrench-wench could make some extra pocket change: instead of just building 'bots, she could also take the various processors in her orbital scrapyard and run a cloud-computing node, renting out computing power.) Thank you for your time, -- DataPacRat lu .iacu'i ma krinu lo du'u .ei mi krici la'e di'u li'u traji lo ka vajni fo lo preti _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
