Traveller Ringworld

[savage]

Or it would sent a 1000 preconstructed decoys, close off all access to the facility, and suck the air out. A sector computer might be a bad thing to cross.

Savage

 

[TKalbfus]

Here is a webpage I put up detailing the ringworld along with a graphic.

http://hometown.aol.com/tkalbfus/myhomepage/index.html

I will add more to this if further details are needed.

 

[savage]

Nice start Tom. Now you can build on it based on input. And improving understanding of what the world looks like. Some Refs might include it in their universes...

Refs what info would Tom need to add for clarity before it could be added to a universe?

I figure there are probably a few of these monsters in our galaxy's spiral arm?

Savage

 

[savage]

Clarification. When I wrote a few I meant different efforts to build them. The nice thing about having a Niven HighTech Ringworld, Miller Unfinished Ringworld, and Kalbfus MediumTech Ringworld is the variation of efforts. It builds depth.


Savage

 

[TKalbfus]

As far as creatures are concerned, one could borrow some normal animals from the D&D Monster Manual, and add on to them from there. Who ever build the ringworld has been to Earth in the remote past, and has probably gathered some animals from their as well. The climes would include the Tropics with a dense atmosphere; the temperate zone with a standard atmosphere; and the arctic and subarctic with a thin atmosphere. On the ringworld instead of latitude you have altitude. It works out nicely if you divide up the ringworld into 360 sectors each covering one degree of the ringworld's circle. This sector would in turn be divided up into 10,000 subsectors, (Not to be confused with the Traveller sectors and subsectors. Each sector is 2,181,661 km by 1,600,000 km. Each subsector has the dimensions of 21,816 km by 16,000 km and is the equivalent of 1 planet's worth of land area. Around the perimeter of each subsector is the tropical low land surrounded by tropical ocean. As one moves toward the center of a subsector, the elevation increases and the atmosphere gets thinner and cooler going from dense to standard. There are a number of land locked oceans in a rough concentric ring around the center of the subsector with salt water rivers flowing into out of them. As one approaches the center of the subsector, the atmosphere goes from standard to thin as the elevation increases some more. There are some land locked arctic oceans near the center of the subsector and at the highest altitude of all, their is an ice cap or an ice covered ocean. This whole setup is to accomodate migrating animals to give them a place to migrate to as the seasons change. The climb is nearly imperceptible. What appears to be flat land is actually a gentle slope, the rivers meander and flow down hill slowly. Change in climate is gradual just as if one were traveling to a planet's poles. Of course their are mountain ranges and canyons along the way as well as deserts, forests, jungles, praries, and swamps. Mountains and all topology is roughly 50 meters of dirt and rock, below which is the ringworld floor. There are some beams and trusses underneath the topology at the bottom of which is the actual bottom of the ringworld. The ringworld bottom is smooth and flat, it could be many km below the upper surface of the ringworld. We don't want the ringworld to be too heavy. In the mountainous regions there are often large clusters of caves, each with a number of chambers and the interior space of a single family home. The landscape offers some other convenient features as well such as ladder rungs built into the sides of cliffs. Such strange "natural" formations occur quite often on the ringworld.

 

[TKalbfus]

I've added some animal encounters to my ringworld web page:

http://hometown.aol.com/tkalbfus/myhomepage/index.html

The are Terran based, part of an Earth biome that is set right up against the north rim wall of the ringworld. There are humans living here as well. There are other alien biomes on the ringworld as well, but I thought I'd start with an Earth biome since I have the Monster Manual for resource material already. Also this provides a jump off point for starting off a Traveller campaign from a ringworlder's point of view. The biome is about the size of a ringworld subsector, the altitude of this biome ranges from 0 to 6 km. The warm regions are from 0 km to 1 km, the temparate climes are from 2 km to 4 km and the cold climes are from 5 km to 6 km. The atmosphere is dense from 0 km to 1 km, standard from 2 km to 4 km and thin from 5 km to 6 km. It is breathable at all levels and more breathable in the actic regions than it would be at the top of Mount Everest.

 

[savage]

Great direction. Perhaps you can define a location and get it T20 official...

Savage

 

[TKalbfus]

Any suggestions? I have the Spinward Marches map; there is the Solomani Rim; How about Gateway? If the ringworld is not on any of these maps, it could be just beyond the edge of one of them. On a map, I'd represent the ringworld as a blue circle around a yellow star, there would be no gas giants. The circle is blue because there is water present. I'm had some different ideas about the topography of ringworld. I think it should have a layer of rock and dirt 1 km thick, its bottom is not flat, instead in undulates in a sinoidal fashion along the circumference of the ringworld. The lower support ring matches this topography exactly stayin about 1 foot below the upper ringworld. Starting from the North rimwall going south the land averages 8 km high with arctic conditions, the land decends into a linear ringworld girdling ocean dotted with islands at about 7.5 km. The land rises to 8 km again going south and then drops to 7 km. At 6.5 km their is another linear ocean with rivers flowing into it from the upper most ocean. The land rises to 7 km and then drops to 6 km descending further to 5.5km to meet a third linear ocean. This progression continues until you reach the tropical valley ocean at 0 km. this ocean is about as wide as the Pacific and then meets another shore where the land rises following this same progression to eventually meet another ice capped ridge and then descend into another linear ocean valley. The distance is about 20,000 km from ridge to ridge. The climb and descent is not very steep and is in fact barely perceptible. Along the way there are mountains, forests, deserts, swamps, praries, hills, rivers, and lakes dotting the landscape providing a variety of different terrains and climates.

 

[TKalbfus]

I'm also considering having a TL7 human civilization along this first valley up against the north rimwall. There are about 200+ nations from the north rimwall to the first ridge to the south, the civilization extends from the east to the west for about 40,000 km. Most things about it are similar to Earth of today culturally except the the ringworld builders wisely forgot to include fisionable elements such as Uranium in the construction of the ringworld and in the soil and bedrock they introduced to it. Consequently the humans here can't make atomic bombs or fission reactors, they haven't mastered fusion either although they have laboritories that can produce fusion at a net energy loss. The nations here consequently have no brink of nuclear destruction to pull back from and they have no reason for not going to war with each other. Massive World War II scale wars are quite common and there fought with jet fighters, air craft carriers and rockets as the nations fight each other for power and influence. Total wars are fought and cities aren't spared either. the whole modern arsenal except nuclear weapons are at their disposal. The ringworld is build and maintained by nanotech devices that are invisible to the naked eye, they don't do anything except maintain and defend the structural integrity of they ringworld from these destructive humans and other intelligent creatures on the ringworld. Just a few ridges over is a civilization of vargr are the same level of technological development as the humans.

 

[savage]

Dangerous place. I suspect that the ringworld would be able to circulate and clean air in individual regions.
I assume you've put math into your ringworld's sizes. The crust of the earth varies but is roughly 50 mi if I recall my geology. 1km seems thin since ocean depths can exceed that here.

Locations.... there are 3 options.
1 Outside the imperium is a good idea. perhaps vagr space since their tech level is lower. And ability to talk over is unlikely.
2. between two superpowers (protecting it from intrusion). Perhaps aslan and solmani.
3. Or open space several jump 6s. Perhaps deepspace telemetry from a research center at the nearest world has found an ice asteroid from which to produce fuel. The system might have been obscured by parsec sized dust clouds between it and the imperium.

Savage

 

[TKalbfus]

Sorry about my bad grammar. I tend to start my sentences before I've decided what to say, and I was in a hurry to get to work.

"Dangerous place. I suspect that the ringworld would be able to circulate and clean air in individual regions."

There are 80 such valleys across the breadth of the ringworld band. The arctic region is at 8km where the air is thin as defined by Traveller, it is still breathable by humans without respiratory devices, but the thin air holds less heat with less greenhouse effect, this produces the artic effect since there is no latitude. A curious side effect is that there are no real dark skinned humans native to ringworld, their ancestors were taken from Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago and their skin color has adapted to the U.V. poor environment. In the tropics where you might expect to find dark skinned humans you find pale ones instead because the thick dense atmosphere down their blocks out most of the UV. In the arctic regions people have darker skin as more UV gets through, but since they cover themselves up to stay warm, their skin doesn't get darker than light brown. The air circulates fine from one valley to the next, but water tends to rain and snow out before getting over the ridge. The air rises in the center of each valley and then decends over the ridgetops and down the slopes again toward the valley. The ringworld's motion causes a slight corriolous effect. rising air is pushed north or south and tends to move in the direction of the ringworld's spin which I define as east. The cardinal directions I use on ringworld are as follows:
N
E+W
S
I've reversed the direction of east and west because on the outer surface of the ringworld the directions would be:
N
W+E
S

"I assume you've put math into your ringworld's sizes. The crust of the earth varies but is roughly 50 mi if I recall my geology. 1km seems thin since ocean depths can exceed that here." {/QUOTE]

The ringworld crust does not rest on magma as it would on most normal planets. The pressures and temperatures get very high 50 miles down, making it difficult for nanotech devices to operate, they are what makes up the ringworld floor. If some of those TL7 humans drill too deep, the nanotech devices will dissolve the drill bit, they also transport rock material from the bottoms of oceans to the tops of mountians, counteracting erosion. The nanotech underneath manufactures all sorts of minerals as they would appear on a natural planet. The one exception is Uranium. The ringworld builders didn't want their guests nuking holes in their ringworld. Holes that are made in the ringworld gets repaired by the nanotech, but quite a bit of air escapes while that is happening.

"Locations.... there are 3 options.
1 Outside the imperium is a good idea. perhaps vagr space since their tech level is lower. And ability to take over is unlikely."

Or if it is in Imperial space it might be in a rift beyond jump-6 range. This ringworld eventually comes to the attention of the imperium when a radio signal eventually reaches the nearest Imperial outpost along the first, most likely a scout base. A crude radio broadcast is detected and its source pinpointed. Telescopes focus in on this star and the ringworld is discovered. The scout base then mounts a mission, a jump fuel supply depot is left at several points along the way to the ringworld system until jump fuel along the way for a scout/courier to refuel while making multiple jumps through the rift and then return making multiple jumps back. The ringworld might contain some technology that the Imperium would be interested it, and the expedition would be well worth the trouble and expense. The nanites are probably what the Imperium would be after, but they have all sorts of self defense mechanisms and resist being removed from the ringworld.

 

[savage]

I thought about the rift. its a good alternative. Coreward is another possibility.

So the arctic levels are on the side walls?

Savage

 

[TKalbfus]

Yep, each rim wall, north and south has arctic landscape adjacent to it. This is at 8 km altitude, it also discourages intelligent creatures from lingering there for too long. There are 80 such valleys from wall to wall and 81 arctic ridges, only two of which are next to the walls. Each valley has a separate ecology, the first valley next to the North Wall has a Terran ecology, well Terran as of 20,000 years ago. Any Imperial explores here may find some species that are extinct on Earth. Also I've completed the animals encounters tables for this first valley. I haven't done the NPC encounters yet as this varies by tech level. I think TL7 will be the highest tech level thus far achieved by the ringworld inhabitants, there is nothing else in this system anyway that can't be reached by a TL7 civilization, they have everything we have today except nuclear bombs and communications satellites. Instead of satellites, the humans have managed to climb to the top of the rimwalls and have placed manned communications stations on top. the communication's range is effective all the way to the first ridge 20,000 km from the North rim wall and 20,000 km to the east and west along the human occupied valley. About 3 or 4 valleys south of the human zone is a TL7 Vagyr civilization, they have no rim walls, and their communications system is poorer. The humans also have access to space and they don't To the east and west of the human civilization are more primitive human civilizations ranging from TL0 to TL6 and a few other TL7 humans interpersed along the ringworld A few tribes of Neandertals linger around in the human valley, they still work their flint axes and knives and build their fires and have a few metal implements they have aquired from humans. There is potential for conflict between the humans and the other races on the ringworld such as the vagyrs and others. The most technologically advanced species trouble the humans the most.

 

[TKalbfus]

Here is the webpage address again:
http://hometown.aol.com/tkalbfus/myhomepage/index.html
I just updated it again, I've filled out all the terran animal encounters and I've started a list of NPCs. I've borrowed equipment liberally from the D&D player's handbook for the TL1 characters. Among the treasures of ringworld is a substance called regenerex, its listed among the NPCs possessions, this stuff is not all that common so not everyone will have it. Regenerex is a nanotech fluid that repairs tissue damage such as is caused by combat, it is produced by a number of closely guarded artifacts left by the ringworld builders, it is sold by merchants who in turn buy it from "high priests who know how to operate the artifact and get it to produce regenerex. regenerex defies analysis, it too has a self defense mechanism against the overly curious. the stuff works in proximity to the ringworld and ceases functioning 1 week after it is removed from the ringworld system. Single strength rebuilds 1d8 St/1d2 Lb of tissue, double strength rebuilds 2d8 St/1d4 Lb of tissue. A character cannot end up with more St or Lb than he started out with.