Isotope

These Dark Stars

Looking forward to IC.

I'll probably spend some some time detailing Akamar for my sheet before we get to it.

These Dark Stars

@Drunken Conquistador's plot idea sounds like a winner.

Dozens of pretenders? A traitorous junta? Count me in.

These Dark Stars

I think it's good, after all the preface says:

Welcome to These Dark Stars, a roleplay taking place during a crucial time in Imperial history. Players will take control of powerful men and women and the factions they lead in the struggle for the fate of the Empire. Here, science and sorcery mix. Humans are the predominant species in the galaxy and alien hordes threaten the frontier provinces.

Seems to fit like a glove.

BTW Poly, IC next week?

These Dark Stars

Ohhh ahhhh.

So Cognition Engines would require a psychic brain that's hijacked as a sort of antenna to see into the void? Maybe the reason they are expensive is that they require a mature brain and the cloning process doesn't always reproduce a Vacare's psychic potential? We could say accelerating the growth of a clone would exponentially increase the chance the clone lacks psychic potential. So any number of the brains, probably a majority, would be useless. You'd first have to make the Cognition Engine, then wait for a cloned brain to reach natural maturity in a minimum of eighteen years. You could have hundreds of clones going at any time but even then only some of the brains would be useful and if you try to speed the process up none of them are.

I like it. Clever @Flagg.

EDIT: Also totally possible. We're basically just discussing the fluff at the moment anyway, we have the FTL system more or less down if @Polybius agrees.

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@FlaggThat works too!

Either way I'm happy.

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@GreivousKhan

<Snipped quote by Isotope>

I for one like it. Makes sense, explains a few things also adds alternatives, even a method outside of predicted hyperlanes for travel, though, it is appropriately dangerous. The only thing I'd like to add is that those Cognition engines (which probably use V.I in place of A.I) probably require a unique material, hell maybe something directly from the void that allows it to make predictions based on changes within the void itself. So in a way their both require somewhat finite resources even if one does have the money and know how to make Cognition engines.

(Also, FTL communication likely also uses the void, could probably call it void-casting. Another role that might be filled by sorcerers or a different kind of void engine.)

@GreivousKhan

Sure, though in lieu of handwavium maybe Cognition Engines brute force a sort of 'bridge' to see into the void. The Cognition Engine would then be needed immediately in order to stabilize the 'bridge' but due to the nature of machine learning only some of the time would the Engine arrive at an optimal solution before the bridge destabilizes and destroys it. Thus making Cognition Engines would be very expensive as you'd have no guarantee you'd get any functional machines out of a given batch and each machine would be quite the investment just to lose the vast majority of them to chance. AI, being sapient, had a sort of affinity for the void that made the process far less dangerous.

So a Vacare is just the far cheaper and less costly option. Those who manufacture Cognition Engines do so explicitly to avoid relying on Vacare and accept the random nature of the manufacturing process and the cost of losing so many expensive VI machines. Just a thought, mostly had because I couldn't think of a name for whatever unobtanium we would have needed haha.

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@SierraConsidering the edge to edge rule is there solely for the sake of gameplay, and we're talking about literal sorcery, there's really no real science to be rained here imo.

Superluminal travel is always fantasy anyway, even the 'scientific' methods are just straight up conjecture.

These Dark Stars

So here's what I think we've more or less got, with some fluff explanation.

-Superluminal travel is 'Edge to edge' and doesn't work inside the gravity wells of stars.

-Superluminal travel is normally only possible along star lanes, though extremely powerful Vacare may be able to see into and navigate along the void itself. This is dangerous and possible only for smaller ships capable of quickly reacting to fluctuations in the fabric of the void.

-Travel along the star lanes either requires a Vacare navigator or a Cognition Engine, generally speaking Cognition Engines are very costly and do the job of an AI without the capacity of originality or introspective thought.

-AI Navigators were common before the Machine Wars.

Correct me if I got anything wrong there? Now my assumption for how machines can navigate starlanes is that they can use a sort of advanced predictive math to plot a course along a fluctuating star lane. Vacare would be able to see the fluctuations in the void directly and peer ever so slightly into the future to follow them. Now the most powerful Vacare would be able to see the very fabric of the void and follow rapidly changing currents to get where they want, but the ship would have to be nimble enough to match the course the Vacare plots. Even then, it's an exceedingly dangerous game to bypass hyperlane.

Anyone want to add to or dispute that?

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@Flagg's idea is cool too! Though there'd have to be some reason why everyone doesn't just use sorcerers if they aren't burdened by the limits of hyperlanes.