Ideas for polities, worlds, and organisations
- Thread starter Klaus
- Start date
Sigg Oddra said,
As you know the OTU has a few thousand years of history and a Dark age as well. If something happened during the Long Night to explain this ringworld, then their would be few surviving records of it.
Yes, I've heard, but its unfinished. You can put more stuff on a finished one. I think the thing to do is place a ringworld and then worry about its origin later. Part of the adventure is finding out where it came from and who built it. The ringworld is there and active, has robots to maintain it, but the robots aren't talking. I like having dinosaurs on it and other dangerous things. A bit different from Niven's ringworld. I think the Ringworld works well as a lost World setting. Finding the control room is going to be hard. My time traveling explaination is one possible history, but the GM can write others. Maybe first concentrate on what's there then worry about how they got there.
As you know the OTU has a few thousand years of history and a Dark age as well. If something happened during the Long Night to explain this ringworld, then their would be few surviving records of it.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Some of the systems which suggest themselves as places for the ringworld IMHO are 1613, 2109, 2113, 3010, and 3109.
They are all non-aligned worlds, and all bar 1613 are at least jump 2 from their nearest neighbouring system.
They are all non-aligned worlds, and all bar 1613 are at least jump 2 from their nearest neighbouring system.
Here's why it has not been discovered until now. A computer virus keeps that star from appearing on all official databases of the Spica Sector. A virus propigated by some entity searches all databases it comes in contact with, and whenever it finds data on star 1414 in a computer file, it erases it. The PCs can discover it by noticing a discrepency between the computer database and what their ship's sensors are telling them. The ringworld's star is just an ordinary star in the night sky. An observer who notices it from one of the other nearby systems might just assume its a much larger and brighter star that is further away in some other sector. But PCs in a scout ship might discover otherwise when doing an official survey. They notice that this star has been left out of the database. The database they have usually comes accompanied with the delete virus, except the copy onboard the PC's ship is non-functional. So when the ship's computer records the position of the star, it stays on the PC's computer database as a new entry. A nuclear explosion, cosmic ray, or some other even corrupted the file that the virus resided on, and it no longer works. This remains true until the PC's ship computer links with another computer. The PCs might want to make a hard copy of that star's position and enter the data manually into the ship's jump computer. A 2 pc jump can either be made from hex 1416 or 1613. The pc's discover also opens up a new jump-2 route between those two systems. What put out that virus? The virus doesn't say, and that's just another mystery that the PCs will have to uncover.
Another way to get there is to have the PC's misjump to that hex. Lets say they are a Free Trader and they are being pursued by pirates in one of the neighboring systems, they are out numbered and outgunned and the only way to escape is by making a jump, the onlyu problem is that they are too close to a planetary mass. The misjump takes them beyond the normal Free Traders range and they are pretty much stranded in the ringworld's hex until they can off load their cargo and install and extra fuel tank so they can make 2 successive 1-pc jumps instead of one, but they have to unload their cargo and find fuel first and the only source of jump fuel is on the ringworld itself. The Free Trader's fuel processors are not working, so they have to land on the ringworld, repair the fuel processors and then process the fuel, probably from some body of water, and while this is happening, they can have some encounters on the ringworld's surface.
Another way to get there is to have the PC's misjump to that hex. Lets say they are a Free Trader and they are being pursued by pirates in one of the neighboring systems, they are out numbered and outgunned and the only way to escape is by making a jump, the onlyu problem is that they are too close to a planetary mass. The misjump takes them beyond the normal Free Traders range and they are pretty much stranded in the ringworld's hex until they can off load their cargo and install and extra fuel tank so they can make 2 successive 1-pc jumps instead of one, but they have to unload their cargo and find fuel first and the only source of jump fuel is on the ringworld itself. The Free Trader's fuel processors are not working, so they have to land on the ringworld, repair the fuel processors and then process the fuel, probably from some body of water, and while this is happening, they can have some encounters on the ringworld's surface.
Another problem you can throw at them, is that the Free Trader has an areodynmic lifting body, that uses a grav unit to normally land vertically on a planets surface. Since the Ringworld uses a pseudo-force with the ringworld pushing up against the ship's inertia instead of gravity,(Centripetal Force) the grav unit does not work. When the Free Trader slows to stall speed upon landing approach, it crashes if the PCs don't realized that the grav units won't work here, if they do, the Free Trader would require a runway and it doesn't have landing wheels. Either way, the Free Trader is going to sustain some damage when it lands, or it could land in water which has its own dangers. However the PCs get the ship down, they are going to have to do something to get it to take off again. They'll notice that the ringworld's floor is a superconductor and that if they PCs can build their own superconductor coils and install it in the ship and repair other damage, the ship can takeoff again. The maneuver drive pushes the ship sideways from the back rather than underneath and to top it off, it has only 1-g of acceleration, it can slowly pull away from the ringworld's surface if it is ballanced on its tail, the wind might knock it over before it reaches flight speed though, so some pilot skill checks will be required.
Meanwhile while getting the ship ready for flight, they can have some "friendly" encounters with some of the ringworld's inhabitants.
Meanwhile while getting the ship ready for flight, they can have some "friendly" encounters with some of the ringworld's inhabitants.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
1413 or 1414 are a nice distance fron surrounding worlds.
There's also a nice mini-rift between subsectors A and B that you could hide a ringworld in nicely
Let me try a little Ringworld history by rist establishing a few facts.
Ringworld 2.0
Radius: 149,604,905 km (92,960,000 miles)
Width: 1,609,347 km (1,000,000 miles)
Period of rotation: 8.838 days
Rotational speed: 4,431,599 km/hour (2,753,663 miles/hour); 1,231 km/sec (764.9 miles/second)
Angular speed: 40.733 degrees per day
Centrifugal Force: 0.976-g (due to Sun’s gravitational pull opposing centrifugal force)
Angular Size of the Sun: 0.53 degrees
Period of daylight: 12 hours
Period of darkness: 12 hours
Total length of day: 24 hours
Twilight: morning twilight begins at 5:49:24 am and ends at 6:10:36 am every day
Twilight: evening twilight begins at 5:49:24 pm and ends at 6:10:36 pm every day
Shadow Squares
Number of Shadow squares: 10
Radius of Shadow Square ring: 57,904,308 km (35,980,000 miles)
Period of rotation: 76 days
Rotational Speed: 199,303 km/hour (123,841 miles/hour) 27,037 kmph above orbital velocity (16,800 mph above orbital velocity)
Rotational Speed: 55.4 km/sec (34.4 miles/sec) 7.52 kmph above orbital velocity (4.67 mph above orbital velocity)
Angular speed: 4.733 degrees per day (0.642 degrees above rate at orbital velocity)
Relative angular speed of ringworld to shadow squares: 36 degrees per day
Angular Length of each shadow square: 18 degrees.
Angular length of gap between squares: 18 degrees.
The functional UPP Code for ringworld is:
Spica Sector
Ringworld 1414 A866E70-H S N No External Trade R 500 Non-aligned G2 V
For the ringworld, some of these digits require special intepretation:
A: The Ringworld has a class A starport, in that its capable of making repairs and even building all jump drive ships, but its location is not readily apparent. The starport is fully automated and their are 6 of them separated at intervals of 120 degrees along each rim wall, 3 on the north rimwall and 3 on the south. The Starport is staffed by robots who will try to seize any starship that lands there. PCs, if captured will be drugged, knocked out and placed on the ground of the ringworld environment and revived. When the PCs awaken, there are no robots in site. The robots meanwhile build android models of the PCs to crew the captured ships. The entity that controls the Ringworld's environment wishes theRingworld to remain a secret for the time being, they will uses PC android look alikes to infiltrate the OTU society in the Spica sector in order to spread some more of their non-detection viruses. If the PCs land somewhere else or don't find any of the starports, the robots will not interfere.
8: The environment is equivalent to standing on a size 8 (8,000 mile) diameter world with regards to simulated gravity, it is much bigger of course, the 8 only refers to the gravitational equivalent of a size 8 world.
6: The Ringworld has a standard atmosphere at 1,000 bar of pressure at sea level
6: The Ringworld has 60% hydrographics overall, though many of the continents are connected to each other and its possible in many places to walk from rimwall to rimwall without crossing an ocean.
E: The population is estimated to be 5 x 10 to the 14th power or E. Roughly the same population density as mideaval Europe the equivalent of population 7 for a size 8 world, this varies from place to place with wilderness areas in some places and more densely populated regions in others.
7: There is no single government and their are many many nations and kingdoms. The robots in the control center do not rule, they mostly just observe and don't interfere.
0: As there is no single government, there is no single law level so I place the digit 0 here.
H: The tech level of the robots is 17 or H, but the robots don't share this technology with the inhabitants, so this is not the tech level PCs will encounter unless they land at one of the starports.
S: There are scout bases here operated both by the robots, for observing the inhabitants and by the nations that exist here for exploring the ringworlds adjacent wilderness territories
N: There are naval bases here, the robots operate a naval base here with Tech level H starships, but they usually don't come out unless there is a dire emergency facing the Ringworld system. (A major invasion) but even a fleet carrier group doesn't warrent much of a response, the robots prefer to observe what happens. There are also other naval bases on the surface, but that is of the maglev and water navies operated by the living inhabitants
There is no external trade, the civilizations here don't have jump capable spaceships, maneuver drives, artificial gravity or grav vehicles. The have been isolated from the rest of the OTU for quite some time.
The star is a Sunlike G2 V spectrum star.
Ringworld 2.0
Radius: 149,604,905 km (92,960,000 miles)
Width: 1,609,347 km (1,000,000 miles)
Period of rotation: 8.838 days
Rotational speed: 4,431,599 km/hour (2,753,663 miles/hour); 1,231 km/sec (764.9 miles/second)
Angular speed: 40.733 degrees per day
Centrifugal Force: 0.976-g (due to Sun’s gravitational pull opposing centrifugal force)
Angular Size of the Sun: 0.53 degrees
Period of daylight: 12 hours
Period of darkness: 12 hours
Total length of day: 24 hours
Twilight: morning twilight begins at 5:49:24 am and ends at 6:10:36 am every day
Twilight: evening twilight begins at 5:49:24 pm and ends at 6:10:36 pm every day
Shadow Squares
Number of Shadow squares: 10
Radius of Shadow Square ring: 57,904,308 km (35,980,000 miles)
Period of rotation: 76 days
Rotational Speed: 199,303 km/hour (123,841 miles/hour) 27,037 kmph above orbital velocity (16,800 mph above orbital velocity)
Rotational Speed: 55.4 km/sec (34.4 miles/sec) 7.52 kmph above orbital velocity (4.67 mph above orbital velocity)
Angular speed: 4.733 degrees per day (0.642 degrees above rate at orbital velocity)
Relative angular speed of ringworld to shadow squares: 36 degrees per day
Angular Length of each shadow square: 18 degrees.
Angular length of gap between squares: 18 degrees.
The functional UPP Code for ringworld is:
Spica Sector
Ringworld 1414 A866E70-H S N No External Trade R 500 Non-aligned G2 V
For the ringworld, some of these digits require special intepretation:
A: The Ringworld has a class A starport, in that its capable of making repairs and even building all jump drive ships, but its location is not readily apparent. The starport is fully automated and their are 6 of them separated at intervals of 120 degrees along each rim wall, 3 on the north rimwall and 3 on the south. The Starport is staffed by robots who will try to seize any starship that lands there. PCs, if captured will be drugged, knocked out and placed on the ground of the ringworld environment and revived. When the PCs awaken, there are no robots in site. The robots meanwhile build android models of the PCs to crew the captured ships. The entity that controls the Ringworld's environment wishes theRingworld to remain a secret for the time being, they will uses PC android look alikes to infiltrate the OTU society in the Spica sector in order to spread some more of their non-detection viruses. If the PCs land somewhere else or don't find any of the starports, the robots will not interfere.
8: The environment is equivalent to standing on a size 8 (8,000 mile) diameter world with regards to simulated gravity, it is much bigger of course, the 8 only refers to the gravitational equivalent of a size 8 world.
6: The Ringworld has a standard atmosphere at 1,000 bar of pressure at sea level
6: The Ringworld has 60% hydrographics overall, though many of the continents are connected to each other and its possible in many places to walk from rimwall to rimwall without crossing an ocean.
E: The population is estimated to be 5 x 10 to the 14th power or E. Roughly the same population density as mideaval Europe the equivalent of population 7 for a size 8 world, this varies from place to place with wilderness areas in some places and more densely populated regions in others.
7: There is no single government and their are many many nations and kingdoms. The robots in the control center do not rule, they mostly just observe and don't interfere.
0: As there is no single government, there is no single law level so I place the digit 0 here.
H: The tech level of the robots is 17 or H, but the robots don't share this technology with the inhabitants, so this is not the tech level PCs will encounter unless they land at one of the starports.
S: There are scout bases here operated both by the robots, for observing the inhabitants and by the nations that exist here for exploring the ringworlds adjacent wilderness territories
N: There are naval bases here, the robots operate a naval base here with Tech level H starships, but they usually don't come out unless there is a dire emergency facing the Ringworld system. (A major invasion) but even a fleet carrier group doesn't warrent much of a response, the robots prefer to observe what happens. There are also other naval bases on the surface, but that is of the maglev and water navies operated by the living inhabitants
There is no external trade, the civilizations here don't have jump capable spaceships, maneuver drives, artificial gravity or grav vehicles. The have been isolated from the rest of the OTU for quite some time.
The star is a Sunlike G2 V spectrum star.
Old records prior to the "Long Night", establish the existance of the Ringworld's star, records subsequent to that do not. An Earth Explorer visited the system during the time of the second Imperium. During the decline of the second Imperium a ship carrying a large inventory of biologicals visited the system, it was not heard from again. Old isolated records of these incidents may still exist on some planets, but the robots where very determined to eliminate as many of the records as they could, but they were not perfect. The PCs can still find something as an adventure hook.
The Ringworld was apparently an artifact left over by some alien civilization. The aliens died out in a nanotech war and their native biology was thus eliminated. The Ringworld was devoid of life. The first human explorer was altered by the remaining nanotech, and she arranged for a shipment of boilogical organisms, DNA, and even some old fossil DNA to be shipped to the ringworld. From that the ringworld's nanotech devices constructed an ecology and a population of humans and other creatures. the nanotechnology is inactive now, its work done. The destructive nanotech which eliminated the alien tech is long gone, as it used the alien biology that then existed to propigate, when that ended so did the hostile nanotech. The builder nanotech remained dormant until the arrival of its first biological creature since them. The nanotech then altered the shadow squares and the rotation rate of those squares to produce earthlike tropical days and nights of equal length.
The Ringworld was apparently an artifact left over by some alien civilization. The aliens died out in a nanotech war and their native biology was thus eliminated. The Ringworld was devoid of life. The first human explorer was altered by the remaining nanotech, and she arranged for a shipment of boilogical organisms, DNA, and even some old fossil DNA to be shipped to the ringworld. From that the ringworld's nanotech devices constructed an ecology and a population of humans and other creatures. the nanotechnology is inactive now, its work done. The destructive nanotech which eliminated the alien tech is long gone, as it used the alien biology that then existed to propigate, when that ended so did the hostile nanotech. The builder nanotech remained dormant until the arrival of its first biological creature since them. The nanotech then altered the shadow squares and the rotation rate of those squares to produce earthlike tropical days and nights of equal length.
Advanced Civilizations here have fusion rocket spaceships, that can operate out of the atmosphere for up to 1 hours, these are used to travel from place to place on the Ringworld and serves as a means of rapid transportations, they use the equivalent of Traveller standard starships with regards to acceleration and atmospheric maneuvering. Only those listed as starships can actually leave the atmosphere, as they space alloted for jump fuel instead goes into reaction mass for their fusion rockets, Small ships just fly around in the atmosphere as fusion powered airplanes, they use fusion jets with the atmosphere being sucked in through vents to be used as reaction mass, they can't fly out of the atmosphere, but their fusion reactors give them tremendous range between refueling stops. The typically have a duration of 4 weeks when operating within the atmosphere.
I've just finished Larry Niven's Ringworld's Children, its a good read. In some respect, the ending is similar to how the Ringworld 1.0 got here. Basically, a giant hyperdrive is mounted on the ringworld and it moves someplace else. Why, I won't say, let me just recommend that you read the book to find out. that puts me in mind to do something else here.
How about this? I place the Ringworld in hex 1414 and give it two possible histories.
Ringworld version 1.0 is the time traveling ringworld built by humans 50,000 years in the future.
Ringworld version 2.0 is the alien built ringworld devoid of life until a human explorer from the 2nd Imperium encounters it. The nanotechnology interacts with the explorer causing her to bring a ship filled with life to the ringworld so that it's nanotechnology can replicate it from DNA samples so Earthlife can cover its entire surface.
Both versions of ringworld lead to the same result, a ringworld in hex 1414 of the Spica sector. Both versions of the ringworld have the human explorer from the 2nd Imperium, in version 1.0, the explorer's role is not as significant, and neither is that ship carrying genetic material. Robots are in both versions as is nanotechnology, although in version 1.0 history, nanotechnology is simply in a maintenace role, repairing meteor strikes and the like.
The GM can decide which is true and which isn't, it ultimately doesn't matter as the same result comes about. The important thing is that the ringworld must be a mystery for the PCs to solve when first encountered.
How about this? I place the Ringworld in hex 1414 and give it two possible histories.
Ringworld version 1.0 is the time traveling ringworld built by humans 50,000 years in the future.
Ringworld version 2.0 is the alien built ringworld devoid of life until a human explorer from the 2nd Imperium encounters it. The nanotechnology interacts with the explorer causing her to bring a ship filled with life to the ringworld so that it's nanotechnology can replicate it from DNA samples so Earthlife can cover its entire surface.
Both versions of ringworld lead to the same result, a ringworld in hex 1414 of the Spica sector. Both versions of the ringworld have the human explorer from the 2nd Imperium, in version 1.0, the explorer's role is not as significant, and neither is that ship carrying genetic material. Robots are in both versions as is nanotechnology, although in version 1.0 history, nanotechnology is simply in a maintenace role, repairing meteor strikes and the like.
The GM can decide which is true and which isn't, it ultimately doesn't matter as the same result comes about. The important thing is that the ringworld must be a mystery for the PCs to solve when first encountered.
I wrote this in the Imperial Scout service thread,
I hope to move this discussion here or have a ringworld thread here to discuss it or its impart on the region. Although the ringworld is big, I hope to keep its footprint small by leaving it primitive with the exception of 1 billion individuals in mobile magnetically levitating city states and in communities in the spill mountains alongside the rim walls. Since most of the 500 trillion inhabitants are at TL 2 or less, they don't have spaceships. The 1 billion advanced inhabitants do have spaceships and soon aquire jump drive starships of their own when outsiders make contact with them. The abandoned 6 class A starports are soon occupied by humans or whatever intelligent creatures and are opened for business to receive visitors from the stars. Because of the vast number of inhabitants very little changes, as you can't build high tech items for them without importing vast amounts of metals from outside the system. The effect is similar to having a planet with 1 billion inhabitants at around TL 13 to 15 or there abouts.
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