Johannes wrote:
Say the monopolists have limited industrial capacity. They produce hardly
anything but FTL drive modules. For reasons of policy, they don't want to
permananetly sell a module to anyone else. They are happy with the status
quo, and have an overall conservative and risk awerse outlook.
If they are are so risk averse, won't they put their own people
into the stardrive modules, and give them a maneuver-capable
ship to make them safe?
Risk awerse with regards to power and wealth of the group. They want to
keep their monopoly, because that way it is very hard to make a move
against them for anyone else. And they don't want to expand their power or
give other groups the impression, that they are going to be superfluous
soon, because that might spook thoose other groups. They might even
engeneer a minor ecconomic dependency on other grouops to make them feel
secure and content with the status quo. (And there would have been some
dependency in the beginning at least, otherwise the other groups would not
even be informed of FTL travel)
Thoose other groups will want to have FTL traffic. If you let them have
their own ships, with their own crews and rent them FTL units for moderate
fees, thoose who are ambitious or adventerous get something to do. The
only thing that is barred from them is the technical knowledge of how the
FTL drives work.
The more blatant the dominance of the monopolists is, the more effort will
be put into toppling them from their throne.
Wouldn't that lead to the Heighliners of Dune, rather than
modules?
I think it can lead to both. I always assumed that in Dune there is some
technical or ecconomic reason to make FTL ships big. Take that away and
you can have an FTL module setup, with the same basic dynamics of power
and ecconomy.
You can have small and large FTL transport. The key thing about
those Guild ships is that a FTL ship carries complete STL ships
inside, sealed from the FTL crew.
If you don't need monopolists as FTL crew, but there is user interface for
FTL travel, that does not require knowledge of how the drive works, the
guild could rent out FTL modules, rather then having their members travel
around with every FTL transport.
If the leasing time of the module expires by a certain margin, it will
stop to work. It will contain some communication device, that helps the
monoplolists to locate a lost module. If someone starts to tamper with it,
it likely explodes, after sending a distress signal.
The drive might also be very sensitive towards getting the wrong amount of
power at critical moments. Which does not really make a case for building
a power source right into the unit, but at least for the ship having a
power source soley dedicated for the drive, rather then plugging it into
general ship power. Power cells most likely. Maybe you can argue, that the
drive needs to be calibrated to it's power source at the shop too, so if
the power source is not particulary large, you can build it in too.
If the STL drive uses power, too, you have two separate power
plants. Doesn't sound economical.
I am thinking about a setup like for a flash for photography. You have 2
batteries there, the proper battery and the capacitor. Needing only one
would be preferable, but technical restrictions make it impossible for
either to be used alone. You could use some technobabble explaination for
having powered FTl modules.
Contemporary ground cars have lead acid batteries too, if built with
vehicles, even though with regards to vehicle stats, they are only dead
weight. You can have the same with sf scenarios, as long as you are
consistent about it.
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