Johannes replied to me: > With freighters or liners i was thinking about a scenario, where someone > had populated the area before, but does no longer (or has only reduced > population and technology anymore). A bit like the Asimovs foundation > background, or the ancients of traveller.
Hello Johannes, I wonder just how large and how long ago the ancient civilization was. There would have been more freighters and liners than scouts, since there is no need to explore what one can never exploit, and if the same percentage of the ships survived, that gives more surviving freighters. On the other hand, a freighter may be more likely to end by recycling, while scouts are wrecked and not recovered. And just how fast are the searchers expanding? Do they go one system at a time, and explore/exploit it completely before they go to the next system, or are they passing through, make a quick estimate of the main world, and then go to the next star? A rapid search into the area of the ancients could perhaps pass the "exploration frontier" without any finds, and only when the searchers get into the "industrialized heartland" they'll find any artifacts -- ruined worlds, and if there are ships they're freighters rather than scouts. A slow, methodical expansion would look at each system in the "exploration frontier" with enough effort to find a wreck in the inner system. So if there are wrecked scouts, they'd be found ... > For large scouptships you could take Star Treck as inspiration. I was thinking of a mix between two rather obscure series for week 901 to 905, with jump drives. The astro-archaeologist in week 900 has a hyperdrive. So maybe a warp ship to round things out -- "I can find no hyperdrive, just those weird lithium allotropes." > Take all > experts you will most likely never need, like historians for every era of > your own history. Propably it is politically neccessary to include experts > of the "lesser" fields, to get funding. Take families of crewmembers and > similiar extras, and all the people necessary for managing the extras with > you. Or think Iain Banks' Culture ships. A GCU is not just a scout, she is also an embassy, representing her culture. > Propably officers need a household staff or a harem of a certain size > as status symbol. :-) Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
