Surviving Barotyn OOC

Right. Obviously somebody has to actually run things, but they're doing it according to the autocrat's rules/dictates/whims. There'd be no council, no advisors, no nothing in regard to actually coming up with the decisions.

At least that's how I figure it is, to distinguish it from a dictatorship or a monarchy.

To have an autocracy at all, I figure you need a strong, intelligent, and driven individual. Whether they're strong, intelligent, or driven in the right ways or the wrong ways is the question, I suppose.

In a monarchy you can have weak kings, but in an autocracy, I imagine the figure can be replaced if they're not up for it. Basically the autocrat's word and whim is law, and they have to be the kind of person that can command all that and tie everything together. So if you can't, there's either a revolution or a coup.

Autocracies work best when religion is involved, I would imagine.
Or rather, dictatorships would.
If to be an autocracy means you can change things on the fly, then religion might hold you back. Just depends.

Gadreille seems to be thinking of a more or less secular state that has an autocrat that deserves to be an autocrat. They're able to fill those shoes. They're driving their country, not being driven by it.

If Somhai has been an autocracy for a long time, as I suspect, then the culture would be well used to adapting to change. They'd be more submissive, if the autocrats over the years have played their cards right. I imagine the people's perspective would be that it doesn't matter who's in charge, as long as they get to keep living their lives in relative peace. Whoever's strongest will be the autocrat, so they just leave the big decisions to the big people and do what they do.

That's all just brainstorm, though, working from the simple autocracy idea.

I'm sure the tropical area would be a large part of this, too.

I like the omnipotent idea. I mean, the ruler is already super-intelligent to keep everything running. It's hardly a leap to bring it to crazy impossible smart.

He/She could be the master of batman gambits. Or super computers and a population that lives on the grid, could be helping. (How wicked would it be if you could run the world from your laptop? Like Sim City.) Maybe the ruler harvests brains from the population to help augment his own. That'd be a little dark. I'd like to see a master ruler be someone totally nice for once. Maybe that's how they do it -everybody eagerly does whatever he/she thinks is best because they all trust him/her implicitly. You have to have hearts and minds if you want to get a nation on their way to Barotyn. (Bet there's something in the fruit juice.)

Yes, I prefer a somewhat more functional leader. The way I imagined it was almost that this country's religion and politics are nearly one in the same. They revere their leader almost like a god. This leader would be a person whose sole interests would be to keep the country thriving and help it grow. This person would be strong, intelligent, and serving solely for the country as the country serves solely to him/her. If the country begins to fail, this leader would be expected to step down. Perhaps a Samurai type code of honor: if you fail, fall on your sword.

Of course Somhai must have run into rulers who were failing and refused to relinquish power. Like Kalon said, I think at this point there would be a revolt, or perhaps even an assassination. Then a new leader would be elected.

How the leaders are elected....vote? trials? I almost like the idea of there being this impossible political race, literally speaking. Where men and women compete to see who is the smartest, strongest, who shows most understanding and deference to their country.

Since intelligence is so important in Somhai, I don't think it's too farfetched to think that there might be a super computer tucked away somewhere for this leader to use in the utmost of need. However, the juice is fine.

So not so much an election as a... contest?

And there could be something in the juice. ^_^ Tropical climate and all? Eh? Eh?

I'm halfway through a post and was wondering...how long do you think the shuttle would take to get to Barotyn? I don't want it to be years but I'm not sure how long it should be.

Four space-months. Thank goodness the developed their ships for speed, huh?

Uh...space months? Lol.

Like any unit of measurement isn't basically arbitrary? There are ten space-months in a space-year, which is measured by the length of time you can live in space without eating birthday cake.

I wasn't sure what length that was compared to Earth month.

So it's like... seven months. Are we good for this? Are we going to role play it, or time skip?

How about we have a go, and time skip when it seems boring? We weren't gonna play however many months of space travel anyway. The time skip would take place in-post or between.

I don't know if you want to keep Team A and B temporarily congruent while disconnected, but I'm sure we can manage it either way.

As much as we can, but I'm not super strict about it.

Alright, after work I'll see if I can write up to the point of the shuttle launching. I wrote in that there are 44 members on board...I wanted there to be a sizeable team but not too much. Hopefully this seems reasonable, and hopefully I'll get this post up tonight!

We HAVE to RP the trip!

Research how long a probe takes to reach Venus and calculate from that. ^_^

I agree, we NEED the trip

sorry guys, I tried really hard, but the post is not yet finished. I'm going on vacation, so expect it to be up on monday or tuesday at the latest!

Our probe from Earth to Venus took 5 months to arrive. That sounds like a perfect amount of time.

We could shorten it or lengthen it as we desire using 2 methods.

1. Increase technology for faster travel.
2. Modify distance between planets for longer travel.

The planets are orbiting the sun at different speeds and have to be close to alignment for there to be a short path between each other. Each launch window would be between 1 and 2 years. Depending on when the paper was published on Xatl, there could be a super rush to launch if the planets are close, or there could be some preparation time if they still have to approach alignment.

The rush idea sounds like how the RP was building up, 'cause they seemed to organize a launch almost as soon as the paper was released. Of course it could work either way, or anywhere in between. It's possible that they couldn't make it during the first launch window after the paper was released and had to wait a bit more than a year.

Mars year is about 1.8 times Earth's, so if Barotyn is beyond Xatl, we can expect a similar ratio. We can adjust this time to get the time we want, or we can just have the time we want and let the calculations deal with themselves. xD We can have technology make up the difference.

Xatl has obviously progressed past rocket fuel systems, so that should help.


But yeah, we neeeed the trip. The trip is what sets the stage for our characters, defines the relationships, and establishes the world, cultures, and technology they use.

I sort of imagine the Legacy as a steampunk spaceship. xD That is, a vessel that feels a little more down to earth than some pristine, sleek sci-fi ship.

I posted. I just made up details as we go, so please don't hesitate to critique or suggest changes. Scifi is not my strong suit.

Just putting it out there: the name of Somhai's ship is Leona's Fear. Moon Ray and I came up with it.

I would like public opinion on this one. I decided that I would like Leona's Fear to be a space-born ship. That means it wouldn't hold up in atmosphere. The occupants will have to take shuttles down to the surface of Barotyn. My question is this: is a space tether on the surface of Xalt too much? I mean, they've progressed beyond rocket engines. They've got bases on their moon. They are advanced beyond the current technology of Earth, and some speculate that space tethers are no more than a century away for us. The Somhain's would use the tether to be ferried up to the ship in orbit (which would have to be highly protected against threats from B.T.N.). They would also, obviously, use it for a large variety of other reasons, not the least of which is a cheap way of ferrying supplies up to the shipyard in which Leona's Fear is being constructed.

Opinions?

Am I correct in imagining a physical cable running from the planet to the ship? (could also work vice versa?)

If so, I guess I don't see why not. It's like a Space Anchor. :>
The idea is to keep a ship tied to the same spot on a planet, as opposed to moving around in orbit, yes?

It would make sense for that to be invented on Xatl, because of the rival countries. They'd want to keep their ships in their airspace (or space-space? xD) and keep foreign ships out.

So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'm for it.
They'd figure out a way to make the cable work. Whether it has current in it or electromagnets or whatever.

I posted!
If we don't want to mess with colors and sizes, just let me know and I'll put the countdown display back to normal.

Anything I should change or could improve?


Edit:
Here's a loose concept of what the Legacy might look like, according to my sparse description and the vague image in my head.
Obviously it'd be cooler than this. ^_^



This is more of a starting point, really. Mostly just to provoke discussion.

This conception incorporates some sort of enormous coil generator in the wall of the middle round section. The command bridge is top-center of the circle piece, with operational rooms and crew radiating out. The two large squarish sections would be for crew bunks, kitchens, storage, animals, equipment, and whatever else. Probably two to three levels. The cylinders are the large atleric units. The way they work--loosely put into earth lingo--is through enormous, super-electromagnetic U-shaped or J-shaped pistons. There are multiple of these, arranged in a radiating circle inside the cylinders. They basically transfer kinetic energy to the ship to propel it upward.

I'm thinking it might be possible to angle the cylinders so that the craft can slide a bit sideways if it wants to.

The big ones take a LOT of energy to use, though.
There are tons of tiny ones in the ceiling of the round piece, and these are used in space to create 1 g-force of constant acceleration or deceleration.

The only thing I imagined different about the legacy was the cargo bay. I imagined it vastly larger than the rest of the ship. For example, in your design there, cargo would make up at least half of that circle, with the crew rooms on the squares.

You have to remember, they are taking not only themselves and their research belongings, but also enough materials for colonization on Barotyn if it's deemed worthy.

I love the big yellow countdown. Your post was awesome, I like how it came in right after mine instead of backtracking the entire preparation!

The space tether would not be directly attached the ship, but rather a space station. If it was attached to the ship, then once the ship launched the tether would collapse on itself. The space station would provide a counterbalance. The ship would, however, be docked to, or at least near, the station.

The Legacy looks pretty cool, Kalon! I'm off to read your post now.

Edit: Great post, Kalon! I'll be working on my post later today, but no promises.

I'm on board with Yso's concept of Leona's Fear. It never really occurred to me that the whole ship could be launched from the ground, so the shuttles sound normal. And the tether just sounds awesome.

Lovely posts. *bounce bounce bounce bounce*

Gadreille wrote:The only thing I imagined different about the legacy was the cargo bay. I imagined it vastly larger than the rest of the ship. For example, in your design there, cargo would make up at least half of that circle, with the crew rooms on the squares.

You have to remember, they are taking not only themselves and their research belongings, but also enough materials for colonization on Barotyn if it's deemed worthy.

I love the big yellow countdown. Your post was awesome, I like how it came in right after mine instead of backtracking the entire preparation!

Version 2.0, added cargo bay. ^^



Better?

How's the scale, looking at the size of the people?

Much better. I think the scale is pretty close. The only typo is that the crew size is actually 44. In my post, she says there are forty-three other passengers, her being the 44th.

Oh, sweet! I like that better, because it lets me do all 4 people colors apart from the group. xD

Version 2.0.0.1

Now just sketch me up something movie quality and we'll be ready to go. XD

I've posted. Please give me some constructive criticism in terms of typos, name spelling changes throughout the post, and anything you would like changed in terms of... well.. anything.

Holy crap. That was something.

I like it. It teases for further investigation of Somhai, without being annoyingly vague -it's very natural. I'm peaked to know what Zeum is gonna get up to. Plus it leaves a lovely opening for me!

But since you asked for it... You misspelled waste twice. =]