-- Ack. I was just pondering bioships as a way around some of the void restrictions and you bring up this ... yeah this is complicated (questions arise as to if this would only "kick your astral body out" if you project, whether it would prevent any dual-natured assessing or spellcasting, summoning, etc.)
-- I don't think Shadowrun quite has the biotech capability or desire to create voidlife though (Shadowrun biotech is great at creating hyperspecialized organs and tinkering with existing things, and cybernetic organisms don't work out so great (a space critter would be more than a bit like a cyberzombie/cyborg).

-- People carrying around their own little bubbles of gaia is an interesting concept to play with -- literally points of light in the dark of space.

-- I don't think resleeved people would even have Essence as there is no more a connection with their body than an AI has. In fact, digital humans are really just delusional AIs even in Transhuman Space/Eclipse Phase when you think about it But that's really something more topical to an alternate universe/future Shadowrun. It makes mages even more special in such a setting though, and gives a reason for "natural born" humans to stick around.

I thought clones had their own Essence? I was thinking you would end up with a person who should have been a separate individual who has been brainwashed into thinking they are someone who is dead. You could get some interesting play out of one of the clones figuring it out and removing the Personafix chip before the personality was fully seated. I really do love working with the transmission of consciousness problem that always crops up with "immortality."

Image the place with a Kirilian Camera (I think SR may call them something else, but their based of that idea), and have a trained mage analyze the image. Would at least give a decent idea of what the astral environment is like.

Lcuy

call a spirit you bound from the planes to you. If it poofs, it is not safe. Or make an image with one of these mage-o cams. As Lucy says.


I was more thinking along the lines of integrating canals with algae and fungus livng in layers in the walls as part of the ship's life support system, organic components that also generate a de-void-warping field, like a miniature gaiasphere. Crew would help too. Though aug pp100 says that space exploration is largely done by robotic components for safety, cost and convenience reasons. Which, again, makes economic sense, but I didn't want to have y'all be unhappy by pointing out that manned space flight makes no sense (that'd kind of kill the point of the whole thing even for me).


I would think so. Kind of like Farscape, only less high tech.


No, an aura can be within another aura. It'S just uncomfortable. It'd still be messy, and it'd still make mages squirm, but it'd be no no-magic-zone anymore. Though I am not so sure whethert there really is no magic at all in the void, as stellar bodies seem to have magical effects through the void on the gaiasphere (see Halley).


Maybe even an integrated on-ship ecosystem would already do the trick?


I'd make the clones have essence loss due to a mismatch in patterns. They'd just die without any due explanation. Treat it as severe BTL addiction for the effects on the clone.


Actually, it just is a concept as terrifying as the cyberzombie (within the setting; personally and in another setting, I have been in love with the concept for quite some time).


Like I said, severe BTL addiction effects.

If you like this idea, maybe you'll want to read the draonhgeart books. Between the cheese there are interesting looks into exactly those thoughts.

Maybe mages could perceive and project on the ship, but face the Astral equivalent of explosive decompression if they poke their heads outside? The ship having it's own aura would make it harder to bounce outside on accident. Just don't name it Moya.

Actually, that makes me think. If you had a cyborg pilot that ran the ship, like in the book The Ship Who Fought by Anne McCaffrey and SM Stirling, could it count as alive? Or would you have to find some way to make the ship into a biodrone? Great material to work with.

It would be as alive as a cruise ship (the water-oriented kind) piloted by a jar brain. in other words, no, it wouldn't.


Oh, that is easy, you just take a tyranid hive ship and cyber it up ...

No, no, no, that how Horrors make a Biodrone ship.

Ok, so directed by a living mind doesn't make it alive, which I should have known from the Cyborg section of Augmentation. So you would need something alive that you could put a Stirrup Interface into, and there isn't anything like that at all in SR at the moment. You can't use Biofiber, because it's dual natured and dies if it's astral barrier is disrupted, which it would be by the astral void. Leech constructs don't provide a barrier of any kind, Awakened Ivy is dual natured, and Heavenly Lily can't grow in voids. The only thing to work with is in the description of astral voids, which points out that in deep space "the astral plane is a singular void with small pockets of weak mana located at orbital stations and lunar colonies."

That lends some support to the Garden of Eden style of spaceship.

It ouldn't need to be integrated into the ship's systems so as to be able to perform some essential duty. Having an on-board ecosystem for supply, oxygenation and possibly waste disposal and recycling would suffice, without any of that beoing hooked into the ship somehow, I would think snce it is the presence of life that counts.

So, yes, garden of eden ship. Given the travel distances, this also makes for a more pleasant surrounding for crew and passengers.

The idea of a Garden of Eden ship reminds me of the spaceship in Sunshine. Such a brilliant movie.

-- The void reduction is probably proportional to the amount of biomass and complexity. An area pumped full of algae is going to reduce the warp by a lot less than a "bio dome" with simple and complex organisms. The best situation would be lots of humans in a small area but you would probably end up reducing the warp with aspected mana zones and not "clean" astral space.

The aspected mana zone idea is neat. It would make breaking into an Eden ship very interesting for your mages. Do you think that the aspects could be manipulated by appropriate selection of population? A cabal of druids with oak trees and holly featured prominently might give something close to a ley line?

oh dear all this talk of living space vehicles makes me think of something from a series I read long ago... http://nightsdawn.wikia.com/wiki/Voidhawk

hi hi

I don't think there is any skill for operating in free fall, but if a GM wanted to assign a dice pool modifier for physical skills while weightless, it might help mages feel not quite so screwed when they go into space.

I think you could do a lot of cool things with the background count on space habitats, different parts of the station could have drastically different background count numbers, forcing the team to alter their tactics on the fly.

-----
I read one estimate that pegged algae cultures at about 200 liters per person, so for a habitat with a crew of 10,000 there would be about 2,000,056 kilograms of living algae cultures to help with the whole living energy thing. Of course depending on how they harvest it, the number could rise and fall on a daily basis, possibly effecting the strength of the mana void.

and maybe have an edge one can buy to negate the modifier.

Living ships would also be limited to the inner part of the solar system where there is enough light for the algae unless the vehicle has a big nuke to power some lights for the algae. Which might not be too bad by using LEDs to very closely match the spectrum the algae does best with.

Some things I've thought about to reduce food and other requirements for long distance trips where humans are needed:

- artificially induced sleep. since humans use much less energy when asleep put passengers in a slumber for 16 hours a day.

- go for broke and hook up the passengers to a medical unit to keep the blood slowly circulating and oxygenated enough to prevent tissue damage. Then put them in a deep slumber and chill them down to a workable temperature. Gain energy savings from not needing to keep cabin temperature as high and not needing so much food.

Another benefit for long voyages with the crew mostly asleep is the lack of boredom, and lessening the chance of psychological problems. That includes having a riff with the other members and not wanting to work with them.

hi hi

With the existence of VR and BTLs, I think people spending too much time totally stationary might actually be a problem for long duration habitats. Without exercise or being subjected to external force, the body starts to atrophy. There are probably nanotech treatments or something, but those cost money. One possibility is subjecting the entire body to a constant low level vibration, but that takes up electricity which in anything without a fusion reactor is going to be at a premium.

You wouldn't want your whole crew on a long distance voyage to turn into BTL junkies.

Hence why I said sleep. I can't seem to find it right now but I know there is a devise that lets the user sleep less per day, so I'd think something to do the opposite wouldn't be out of line.

The thing about cooling the body down is it shuts down. So atrophy probably wouldn't happen too fast. Course there might be other problems.

-- Note that the space rules in Augmentation range from dead wrong to misleading (for example, the ROUND TRIP communications lag from Earth-Moon is a Combat Turn, not one way). In fact pretty much all the space stuff in Augmentation needs a heavy-handed rewrite top to bottom.
-- There are some listed modifiers for combat skills and the like in low gravity (Arsenal, p. 166, most administative tasks shouldn't have any particular penalty once you become acclimated to how things work.

-- Read my mind

-- The "emissions" that reduce background counts are probably very weak in standard non-dual natured algae (and presumably don't extend far beyond the organisms -- sort of like gravity).

-- Couldn't you just replicate the metabolic stasis effect of the Metabolic Arrester (Augmentation, p. 66)? If you can Hibernate someone before they go into space that also works great.

Medkits can be loaded with an expert pilot system and get enough dice to make sure you were appropriately dosed on Slab to keep you in suspended animation. Or you could get the microgravity adaptation, along with Vegsin (-10% living expenses), digestive expansion (-20% living expenses), and the digester endosont (half food intake, can go 48 hours without water).

You would probably want to grow food in an aquaculture where you grow kelp and fish at the same time, and you'd want to use the same aquarium as your water storage, relying on filtering to make it clean to drink. You would then need a sewage processing of some kind, but you can handwavium all of the air/water/power management stuff to the side by using large bricks of nanites in the filter systems. That also finally gives runners a good excuse for coming in through the air vents, as they can hack the resident nanite block and use it to produce cutters or diarrhea-inducing soft nanites or something.

Using the Lifestyle rules in Runners Companion gives you other tools for runners to use when they break in. Some of those would be the robotic gardeners and cleaners and whatnot that are needed to keep the place running. You would also likely end up with the Astral Repellant [+5 LP], Feng Shui (have it give it's bonus to the not-go-crazy roll) [+5], No Neighbors [+1 LP], and the Workplace (you would almost need a nanite maker [to use Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan term] for repairs, or not-go-crazy, or for the inevitable "Here's Johnny!" go-crazy-time)[+1].

Since one of our goals is to reduce the effect of the outside Astral Void, you might try to use the Feng Shui to make "areas of natural beauty" or "[area's of] emotional or psychological significance." You might do that by using Psychology and fancy arraignment of the aquaculture and indoor environment designed to provoke meditative calm in your passengers, and jack them up on Psyche, Zen, Trance, and Red Mescaline to try and provoke them into the sort of profound feelings and insights that might help develop the domain.

There is also ARE technology, so you can make people's perception of the inside of the ship differ greatly from what is there to keep them happy. And of course, for those flying coach, there are always moodchips.

You could always spend you trip in an immersion vat, getting some genetic work done. Your space requirements would be much smaller then.

-- I'm sure there's stuff from Earthdawn that can be adapted (reducing background count type of effects) but I have yet to really buckle down and read through those books.

-- A variation of Geomancy meta-magic (Street Magic, p. 56) may be required to properly "smooth out" the background count on a habitat (for example, requiring the facility be constructed in a mandala pattern, placing fish tanks at section connectors, and ensuring that new visitors dock on the side facing Polaris, etc). Shadowrun allows a rather radical reduction in mana void background count with even fairly small habitats (the moon habitats are -7 to -9 and that's just a few thousand people at best). If I was writing rules I would not allow anything but a self-sustaining habitat to have anything better than that, perhaps capping out at -5 as best-case as any such environment would be unnatural and simple compared to Earths environment. Completely cancelling mana void penalties is probably not a wise design choice in any case.

-- BTW it seems pretty clear that simply having an atmosphere doesn't mean you don't have a mana void. Mars should be a -12 mana void just like 'empty' space. Pointing that out as its not explicitely stated, and some of the shadowtalk comments about the Mars missions downplay it.

Mars has inhabitants. I can't remember if Evo or MCT has a habitat there, but one of them does.

-> There is a skill for zero-G combat and zero-G athletics is a specialisation. There also are special genetic infusions and geneware packages to ease work in zero-G.


... where the action should be contained. The outer regions are territory where drones and robots are much more useful. The eden ship might be cruising between mars and earth or be a resort ship thing for the ultra wealthy doing cruises around earth and the moon. Please keep in mind how conservative SR is with space development.


That's just not true. Humans consume almost as much energy when sleeping as they do when awake. Artificially induced coma by lowering body temperature is a viable possibility though.


Both would be a very viable possibility.


This is detailed in TW and 10 Jackpointers, which gives a brief overview of the orbital relaxiation and vice business. As for treatments, there are a number available, and their relative cost in comparison to maintaining a manned space installation anywhere is petty much neglible.


Sleep regulators have been in SR since 1st Edition's Shadowtech. They sure can be used to up the demand of sleep, but, being bioware, wouldn't come with a dial of sorts easily.


Going back to Neuromancer, this makes me think of the Rasta station.


Using the lifestyle calculations that assumes you live on earth to calculate the price of life in space is seriously pushing it. Also, how would Feng Shui work in space anyway, being magic and all?

Within a mana zone on some larger station or eden ship, it might work, but I'd still take cost times ten for supply cost, maintainance problems and getting ressources, energy and whatnot.



Sounds good. I'd go with this.


Mars has a manned base. So does RL Antarctica. Neither has inhabitants.

Not entirely sure, as it at least should have had a gaiasphere once (given there was life there and not just water). I'd give it a -8 warp and a weird aspectation that adds another -4 instead. It is no void, but so alien that it just might as well be.

Inner System games would get to include Mercury and Venus, both of which have some interesting attributes. You could always borrow from Sunshine, and have missions that go as near the sun as is technologically feasible (probably not to "jump start" the sun though, unless your game is of that type).

The Feng Shui would work pretty much like the Geomantic meta-magic, and would dictate how the garden was laid out, where sleeping quarters were, etc, etc. It wouldn't be able to have your front door facing the rising sun, or any of those bits of Feng Shui, but the internal organization could still be used. Consider it more of a flavor to the ship than anything else. The lifestyle advantage gives a bonus to Art rolls I believe.

There is a station near mercury, run by Ares and used for undisclosed purposes. Something must have gotten it there. So yes, manned missions to both planets would certainly be feasible. I'd rather not see any Halo style stellar engineering or any other such stuff. Again, keep it small and simple, please.


And doors slated in 45 degrees to the wall they pass through for the entrance, no toilet anywhere near the entrance, well placed plants and mirrors to keep wealth an luck streaming in and demons out, yes. I know what Feng Shui is. I just doubt it has any effect outside the gaiasphere, although you could try to make a case that certain arrangements of bodies in respect to one another focus astral energies anywhere and through the void, given how stellar conjunctions and stellar bodies seem to have a real (in the SR world!) influence on a variety of things. The relative position of the ship in space would then also be important, so every ship would have to maneuver to maintain a geomantically favourable position.

Given the limitations on Feng Shui you point out, I'm guessing the Aeropsychology Engineers would just have to use it as interior design that is meant to evoke the strong and pleasant emotions they would be trying to use for building a domain.

I don't play Halo, so I'm not sure of this stellar engineering of which you speak. I can say that the stellar engineering in Eclipse Phase is the only thing in the book that I dislike. I know David Brin used it in the Sundiver novel, but the tech for something like that is so far removed from all the rest of the demonstrated technology that it just hurt to read. So yea, no stellar engineering. Also, I think the base you are referring to is Helios, which is opposite Earth's orbit.

And the Mars project is Evo, and as you said, it's a base, not a colony.

Mass-producing ring worlds, a space station powered by a smaller star, and planet-sized planet-lookalike space ships (okay, they're relics of a long gone Ancient Elder Civilisation That Nonetheless Failed To Fight Things The Master Chief slaughters By The Thousands, but still, that was what came to my mind). I took 'jump-start the sun' as a project on this scale.


I see we agree on this.


Helios, right. Forgot the station's name, even if it was so plain and clear cut.


I can see that happening and having a notable placebo effect.

I think the term Aeropsychology Engineering is a decent source of handwavium. And yea, ringworlds can suck it. Until the SR universe is capable of harvesting every bit of matter in the solar system, not a chance. Putting a few square kilometer solar collector closer to the sun and beaming energy back, on the other hand, is still viable even with the 40% efficiency or thereabouts that we are at IRL. It just wouldn't work to beam it down through an atmosphere.

I don't recall - have the AAA's started looking at knocking asteroids into orbit for mining purposes yet, or am I confusing my universes?

All I know about is references to mining projects in space for various AAAs, and descriptions in the Nanotech section of Augmentation about the nanotech useages in space mining. There was one asteroid that got knocked into a stable orbit by the Apollo station, but that wasn't used for mining.

No, but they're looking to catch a comet that has a near-earth transition for an eventual use as a counterweight for a space elevator.


Various? For all I know, the only corp doing more than geosurvey level mining is Saeder-Krupp. They also use the nanites.

-- I don't own 10 Jackpointers, could you summarize what it says?

-- The magic thing may be entirely moot for all but a tiny subsection of ubermages because background count reduces Magic straight up AND adds its rating to the Force of the spells (Street Magic, p. 118). So unless your character has Magic 10+ he's pretty much SOL except in the most carefully configured, largest, habitats. Any mage who actually does anything in space has to be a MONSTER back on Earth. This brings to question what the writers mean when they talk about "manafields/manasphere" in Corporate Guide.

-- The orbital elevator counterweight is being dragged back to Earth by Saeder-Krupp and is scheduled to arrive in 2073 (Corporate Guide, p. 153).

I have to ask, what's the goal of coming up with all these rules? There really isn't all that much to do in space, despite the inexplicable and mind-boggling existence of the "shadowrunner" space port I seem to recall from Target: Wastelands. Unless there's a ton to do, the handful of rules that already exist are pretty much overkill already. I just don't see the point in putting so much effort into this without there actually being a goal for it beyond "coming up with rules for it."

Writing it.

-- The goal is to extrapolating what we know of Shadowrun space development into something cohesive, relatively realistic, and consistent with the 4th edition rules. There are no new rules being proposed so far (my initial post is a conversion to convert into existing SR vehicle stats for eample). Note the many references to existing books and rules in Arsenal, Augmentation, and Street Magic.
-- A secondary goal is rationalizing Shadowrun space in general so silly stuff doesn't creep in or get repeated. The influence of Transhuman Space and Eclipse Phase is pretty obvious in some of the recent books, and the orbital elevator plans (from Corporate Guide) are probably intended to 'open up' this area of the setting. Shadowrun has always adapted to trends in order to stay relevant.

-- I'm not sure if "tons to do" is a realistic design goal, or even necessary. Think "Can this be wrapped up in a 48pp PDF supplement" and not "This needs a 128pp spin-off."

Base on Mercury!? Care to give a source? I've gota read that.

Something to look at is fuel capacity and usage for any space vehicle. I just ran some quick and dirty numbers to remind myself and it doesn't take too long to get to stupid fast speeds even with seemingly low acceleration if there is unlimited fuel.

I'm fairly certain there isn't anything currently published about Mercury, but I can see a "Pink Mohawk: IN SPAAAAAAAAACE!" scenario where runners steal a spaceship with a nanoforge and run away to Mercury to set up their new life. It might even make sense if you needed somewhere to hide for a bit to get some genetics done before the coppers caught up. Deliciously ridiculous.

hi hi

I've thought of a number of runs that could take a team into space, but I'm sure there are plenty that I haven't thought of. It is just that when a team is going into space, it is likely going to be with the backing of some corp or nation in situations where they don't want to risk their own people. After all, if they die, you don't even have to pay them.

[1] Team is hired for a standard smash and grab, disguised as/hijacked/infiltrated a routine resupply transport. All regular tropes apply.

[2] Team is hired to determine why communications with a research/mining facility have failed and recover [insert MacGuffin here]. Team gets long needed down time in transit. Team finds lots of weird things going on at the facility and has to overcome:
• Crazed security drones for whatever reason
• Experimental manasphere generating technology spitting out angry spirits
• Workers actually terrorist group sleeper cell building mass driver
• Spacecraft AI when the corp decides the team knows too much
• or something really bizarre

[3] Team is on a routine suborbital that gets:
 • Hijacked by terrorists
• Nabbed in a skyhook maneuver, the team must escape from lockup in a corp space habitat
-----
Mercury is a cool place... well, not literally, but you know what I mean.

Ooooooh! Space prison! Where else do you stick those high-powered magical threats?

"Do you feel lucky, punk? Go ahead, astrally perceive. Make my day."

For runs in space don't forget not all players in space are AAA (and would thus have corporate assets with certain skills). There are AA and I think I have seen a reference or two for a A corp. Some corps that need muscle now and then have to use temporary highly skilled help, and their nuyen spends just as well as Ares'.

so I would include:

4) making accidents happen

5) help secure a site or item from competitors.

There is a reasonably high probability that my players will make it into space at some point in my current campaign (of whom SkepticInc and IceKatze are 2), so I'm generally interested in what people come up with for space. There are a lot of people out there who do not run their games strictly to cannon, and it's pretty easy to beef up the SR space presence just enough to make it viable for action, so having some ideas of ways to handle space is handy.

Dooood. Did you just out me? Harsh.

Care to share?

Due to the presence of said 2 players, my sharing is pretty limited at the moment, though one of the the players does have strong connections to the Evo base on Mars which is one of a couple possible routes up the gravity well for them (or if not a route up a reason to find a route up).

Lucy

Oh lordy do I have a billion reasons to get Simon off the rock. Don't worry about that part. Just dangle a jail-broken nanofax facility in front of me, and you'll be able to railroad me as much as you want.