Mike asked: > I do have to remember this is a "company" list and ideas might be > misinterpreted as violating copyrights...
So make sure that there is no obvious misinterpretation. Fan fiction tries to tell stories within an established, copyrighted setting. If I turn a setting into an inspiration for GURPS vehicles, my analysis strips enough specifics to keep me safe (at least I hope that). Consider my TL8 Sky Carrier back in July. It has as many differences from the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier as there are similarities, and the differences were not just tacked on to disguise the similarities. They followed from the requirements of a roleplaying setting with GURPS. > GCU? Banks' Culture setting. My "Exploration Cruiser Mk.IX" is no GCU, of course. It is a GURPS TL16 design, not a Culture design. > I m more an idea person but put up and shut up (me). I noticed, but I believe that you should finish some of your work. Your ideas want out, but if you let them go too quickly they are hard to understand. Regarding fantasy and tech, I would prefer to keep it a "normal" science fiction setting with primitives who misunderstand normal technology for magic or miracles. Using technology like nanotech to simulate the typical RPG magic changes the setting too much. Take a world with TL0 hunter-gatherers and TL1 farmers. Earth in 3000 B.C. Superscience alien "precursors" arrive and build bases for their own alien reasons. They teach some humans some skills. Why? Perhaps as pets, perhaps to make them better workers. Soon humans can be found on many worlds. A small elite can use alien technology. Then the aliens leave for their own alien reasons. Earth has it best and worst. The relatively small tech enclaves are all overrun, but Earth is also the world most suitable for human life. The real history turns into half-forgotten myths. By 2000 A.D. the human population on Earth reaches billions and TL7 to TL8. Meanwhile the Tech Lords can hold on some of the other worlds, but climate and ecology cripple their economy. They need many farmers to support a few techs. On other outposts the Tech Lords are defeated and small human populations "go into the bush." Tech Lords raid each other and the small human worlds for artifacts, skilled workers, and even dumb peasants. They avoid Earth because they are too scared of the large numbers. Then somebody on Earth unearths a stargate or a starship. The situation which had been unchanged for five millenia suddenly changes. So we have - Earth, a high-population world with a solid TL7, reaching into TL8. Guess which superpower runs the Starship Program. - The Tech Lords and their few skilled workers, one million or less at TL12 scattered on hundreds of worlds. - The serfs ruled directly by the Tech Lords, perhaps twenty or fifty million at a fairly uniform late TL3 (serfs may not have guns, sailing ships, or similar gadgets). - The wild humans, one hundred million or more, on hundreds of worlds. They range from TL0 to mid TL5. The Tech Lords destroy any electrical power plant or steel furnace from orbit. The Tech Lords raid the wild humans for more serfs, and a sloppy or defeated raider might leave "wands" (pistols) or "staffs" (rifles), "amulets" (computers with useful apps) or "potions" (medicines). Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
