Thalassa (Science Fiction Setting)

[rust]

24 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Say, does that rule scale for other skill ratings? For instance how well would a pilot with a 49% rating do?

No, it does not scale, it is just a simple rule to avoid unnecessary skill rolls and to encourage the players to put at least 50 skill points into the important skills of their characters' careers. A pilot with a 49% skill would have to make a normal skill roll for all tasks - provided that he would be allowed to fly a shuttle at all.

[Atgxtg]

I don't think I like the rule then. I never thought that characters should be rolling against their skill every time. If they did that, then something like 5% of the people on the road would get into an accident everyday. And I don't think most people drive at 50% or better. 

[rust]

4 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I don't think I like the rule then. I never thought that characters should be rolling against their skill every time. If they did that, then something like 5% of the people on the road would get into an accident everyday. And I don't think most people drive at 50% or better. 

In the case of the Competence rule we are talking about professionals dealing with tasks of their professional field, where their career training - resulting in a skill level of at least 50% - enables them to deal successfully with all Standard problems. Characters from other careers without that professional training may have to make skill rolls for Standard tasks of another career, no matter how high their level in the relevant skill may be.

To return to the pilot example, the pilot with a skill of 49% is either not a professional shuttle pilot and gained his Pilot (Aerospace) skill outside of that career, or his training did not result in a skill on the Competence level. Under normal conditions he should not fly the shuttle at all, but in an emergency he may be the only pilot available. But since he lacks the proper training and experience of the right career he has to make a skill roll.

As for skill rolls in general, I completely agree with you. Skill rolls should only be requested for important activities where a failure would have major consequences, not for everyday tasks. For example, driving a car on a normal road in average weather does not normally require a skill roll. 

 

[rust]

Finally a few informations about weapons on Thalassa, and then I think I have posted all the currently designed potentially interesting stuff ...

Thalassa is not a nice setting for characters who love guns, the laws concerning weapons are very restrictive. Any weapon which could damage one of the vital systems is prohibited, and introducing any weapon which could cause a hull breach of a domed habitat is a serious criminal offense.

This limits Thalassa's usual combat style, called Diver Style, to only a few readily available weapons.

The most common weapon on Thalassa is the Sonic Stunner Rifle (SSR). It is non-lethal in open spaces, can cause minor damage in confined spaces and usually causes serious or even lethal damage underwater. It is mostly used by the Thalassa Rangers, the local police force, and also for example by aquafarmers and dolphineers for underwater hunting.

The other common weapon is the speargun. It is a much less expensive underwater hunting weapon than the SSR, but it requires more skill to hit a target, and many Thalassians dislike it because they consider its use to be a rather cruel way to kill animals.

The dive knife, the third weapon covered by Thalassa's typical combat style, is actually more a diver's tool than a weapon, and very rarely used in any kind of fight.

[rust]

No, this is not a Thalassian aquaculture floater, I know that, but I think it can give an impression of the approximate size and shape of such a floater: huge, flat, two keels with a work platform inbetween, aquaculture equipment below the platform, landing pad for VTOL-aircraft, and so on.

Edit.: Meanwhile I found a better picture of something similar to a Thalassan floater, it is on the next page.

Edited July 11, 2016 by rust

[rust]

A little bit of Thalassan native biology ...

The deep sea of Thalassa has not really been explored, there have only been some rather short scouting missions near the Archipelago Region, down to a depth of approximately 1,000 meters, using remotely controlled scientific drones. Other regions and greater depths, for example the region of the Abyss with a depth of approximately 6,500 meters, have not yet been explored at all. Only two types of complex native creatures have been discovered near hydrothermal vents of the seafloor, named „filters“ and „crawlers“, and currently not much is known about them.

Filters

Filters are spongelike coldblooded sessile creatures of medium size. They have no body armour and no limbs, probably also no natural weapons (although some species could be poisonous). They may have a chemical and / or electric sense. Filters use chemosynthesis for their metabolism and reproduce asexually by external budding.

Crawlers

Crawlers are crablike coldblooded mobile creatures of small size. They have some body armour, their bodies have radial symmetry with five limbs with claws. They are carnivores and may have a chemical and / or electric sense enabling them to find their prey, sessile filters. Crawlers reproduce asexually by egglaying.

 

 

[clarence]

The local critters don't seem too threatful to the characters. Unless there are surprises deeper down...

[rust]

49 minutes ago, clarence said:

The local critters don't seem too threatful to the characters. Unless there are surprises deeper down...

Since this is a public forum where players can read the posts, too, there are some things I am unlikely to post here ... 

[rust]

This time I have some domed habitat construction mathematics for you. I know, I mentioned that I want to keep the technology in the background in this setting. My apology for the mathematics is that in order to describe the domed habitats I really needed some data about their size and interior design.

The domes used on Thalassa have a relation between base diameter and height of 3 : 1, so a dome with a base diameter of 90 meters has a height of 30 meters.

The volume of a dome is base radius x base radius x base radius x 3.6, so our previously mentioned dome with a base diameter of 90 meters has a total volume of 45 x 45 x 45 x 3.6 or approximately 328,000 cubic meters.

The average height of a habitat level inside the dome is 3.5 meters, with 2.5 meters of useful height and 1 meter of deck thickness, including technical installations. When we divide the height of the dome by the height of one habitat level we see that the dome has 30 : 3,5 = 8.5 habitat levels, which we can round down to 8 habitat levels.

To get the useful area of a dome we can divide the volume by the height, in our example 328,000 cubic meters by 3.5, resulting in a useful area of approximately 93,500 square meters. Half of that area is used for various purposes, like technical systems, hydroponics, restaurants, holography theatres, and so on. The other half, approximately 46,500 square meters, is used for the residents' apartments.

We want to see happy colonists, so each person gets 50 square meters of living space, which means that a family has an apartment of at least 100 square meters – quite comfortable. With apartments of 50 square meters each our dome can house approximately 930 inhabitants.

Port Rose was built for 15,000 inhabitants. Would they all inhabit a single dome with apartments of 50 square meters each, we would need a dome with a diameter of more than 200 meters. This would be technically possible, but Thalassa's habitat engineers decided to design Port Rose as a city of several smaller domes („city quarters“) of different sizes which are connected by tunnels. This enables the colonists to expand their settlement by adding more domes whenever required.

 

 

Edited July 1, 2016 by rust

[rust]

And here we have the Thalassa characters' careers in the Mythras system:

Aquafarmer

Standard Skills: Athletics, Boating, Brawn, Endurance, Locale, Perception, Swim

Professional Skills: Commerce, Computers, Craft (Aquaculture), Electronics, Navigation, Science (Marine Biology), Seamanship

 

Diplomat

Standard Skills: Customs, Deceit, Influence, Insight, Locale, Perception, Willpower

Professional Skills: Commerce, Courtesy, Culture (any), Language (any), Lore (Interworld Law), Oratory, Politics

 

Dolphineer

Standard Skills: Boating, Endurance, First Aid, Insight, Locale, Perception, Swim

Professional Skills: Craft (Dolphineering), Craft (any), Language (Aquasign), Medicine (Dolphin), Navigation, Survival, Teach

 

Engineer

Standard Skills: Boating, Endurance, Influence, Insight, Locale, Perception, Swim

Professional Skills: Computers, Electronics, 2 x Engineering (any), Mechanics, Research, Science (Physics)

 

Hardsuit Diver

Standard Skills: Boating, Brawn, Endurance, Locale, Perception, Swim, Willpower

Professional Skills: Craft (Hardsuit Diving), Electronics, Engineering (any), Language (Aquasign), Mechanics, Navigation, Survival

 

Mariner

Standard Skills: Boating, Customs, Locale, Influence, Insight, Perception, Swim

Professional Skills: Commerce, Computers, Electronics, Engineering (Watercraft), Mechanics, Navigation, Seamanship

 

Merchant

Standard Skills: Boating, Customs, Influence, Insight, Locale, Perception, Willpower

Professional Skills: Bureaucracy, Commerce, Courtesy, Computers, Lore (Trade), Oratory, Streetwise

 

Official

Standard Skills: Boating, Customs, Endurance, Influence, Insight, Locale, Perception

Professional Skills:Bureaucracy, Commerce, Computers, Lore (Law), Oratory, Politics, Streetwise

 

Physician

Standard Skills: Boating, Endurance, First Aid, Influence, Insight, Perception, Willpower

Professional Skills: Bureaucracy, Computers, Language (Latin), Medicine (Human), Lore (Medical Field) Science (Pharmacy), Streetwise

 

Ranger

Standard Skills: Boating, Customs, Influence, Insight, Locale, Perception, Swim

Professional Skills: Bureaucracy, Computers, Lore (Law), Navigation, Research, Science (Psychology), Streetwise

 

Scientist

Standard Skills: Boating, Customs, Influence, Insight, Locale, Perception, Willpower

Professional Skills: Computers, Electronics, Lore (any), Research, 2 x Science (any), Teach

 

Seabed Miner

Standard Skills: Boating, First Aid, Influence, Insight, Locale, Perception, Willpower

Professional Skills: Computers, Craft (Seabed Mining), Demolitions, Electronics, Mechanics, Science (Geology), Science (Robotics)

 

Teacher

Standard Skills: Boating, Customs, Influence, Insight, Locale, Native Tongue, Perception

Professional Skills: Computers, 2 x Lore (any), Oratory, Research, Science (any), Teach

 

 

[clarence]

Good work. 

[rust]

1 hour ago, clarence said:

Good work. 

Thank you very much indeed. 

[rust]

One of the most important tasks of a setting's referee is to give the players an impression of the (preferably unique) everyday culture of the setting's people. In the case of Thalassa this includes for example the descriptions of the common food (mostly fish and algae or hydroponics products), the common clothing of both genders (a light shalwar kameez* as protection from the sun over a dark skinsuit for swimming or diving) and the ways the people spend their spare time (available media, various watersports and thelike). A few typical proverbs or idiomatic phrases would also be nice (for example the phrase „He cannot tell“ as a shortened insult meaning „He is so incredibly dumb that he cannot tell a manta ray from a whale shark“).

*The Shalwar are loose pajama-like trousers, the Kameez is a long shirt or tunic.

[Belgath]

Looks like it's  coming together very well. 

[rust]

10 hours ago, Belgath said:

Looks like it's  coming together very well. 

Thank you.  

Yes, seems so - but on the other hand it is now my "nth" attempt to design a water world setting, and I should be able to get at least some things right. 

Still, I am not yet satisfied with the overall result ... 

[Belgath]

I also use OpenQuest Rivers of Heaven using Mythras rules there some more detailed ship rules, human augmentation rules, and  A bunch a good science professions and technical goodies that are easy to convert over. That might help round out your world. 

[rust]

3 minutes ago, Belgath said:

I also use OpenQuest Rivers of Heaven using Mythras rules there some more detailed ship rules, human augmentation rules, and  A bunch a good science professions and technical goodies that are easy to convert over. That might help round out your world. 

Thank you again. 

I have and like Rivers of Heaven, but it is slightly too transhumanist for my purposes, although it doubtless contains a number of good ideas I might borrow sooner or later - as soon as I find out where Thalassa's problems are (probably only once the players begin to take it apart...). Well, there is always the risk that I am not happy with a setting until I have written its capital's complete phone book and named all of its streets ... 

[rust]

So, money.

As mentioned in a previous post, I was not sure whether to use a Wealth Level as in BRP or a sum of money as in, for example, Runequest 6. In the end I took the money (ahem ...), named it "Interworld Credit (IC)" and decided that a character entering the campaign will own 3d6 x 500 IC in cash and earn a disposable income of between 1,500 IC and 2,500 IC per month, depending on his profession. The character will also have an apartment on a floater or in a domed habitat and own the usual personal stuff like clothes, a communicator and so on, plus the basic tools of the character's profession.

 

[Belgath]

I seem like you could set up your watter world like the old coal mines everything is owned by the corporation which charges for your rent food supplies and everything else so much so that your essentially a slave. Only way to get ahead is the underground money market. Or trying to game the system.

[rust]

4 hours ago, Belgath said:

I seem like you could set up your watter world like the old coal mines everything is owned by the corporation which charges for your rent food supplies and everything else so much so that your essentially a slave. Only way to get ahead is the underground money market. Or trying to game the system.

In the case of Thalassa it is a similar, but less easily visible, scheme. The Transworld Mining Corporation financed a major share of the colonization project and receives a major share of the rare earths and crystals mined in Thalassa's seabed mines in return. This seems fair enough, but TMC also controls almost all of Thalassa's trade, because the supplies imported by Thalassa are transported there on the TMC space freighters, which visit Thalassa approximately every 90 days. While this guarantees a regular freight (and passenger) service, it also gives TMC a strong influence on what arrives on Thalassa, and when it arrives there, plus an indirect influence on the prices of the imported goods through TMC's commercial connections with the suppliers on Earth and Bolivar. Moreover, TMC acts as the colony's friendly loan shark, constantly offering additional financial investment in Thalassian development projects ("We can give you five billions for that project, no problem" ...) in order to prolong the time Thalassa will need to repay the loans and therefore have to sell the products of the seabed mines to TMC at the low prices negotiated for the original colonization loan.

Thalassa's potential way out would be to reduce the borrowing, which would significantly slow down the development of the colony, and to improve its relations with the free traders operating in the region in order to use them as TMC's competitors, which proves difficult because few free traders would be willing to risk a conflict with mighty TMC. Otherwise Thalassa will just have to pay a major part of its export income to TMC for a very, very long time ...

[rust]

 

A few more words about the Interworld Council …

For the Thalassians the Interworld Council Development Agency (ICDA) is the most important organization within the Interworld Council framework. The official task of the ICDA is the support of the cultural exchange between the member worlds of the Interworld Council. However, in a kind of bureaucratic mission creep the ICDA expanded its portfolio con-siderably, and today its definition of „culture“ includes everything from entertainment holotapes through technical libraries to terraforming equipment and even animals – whatever a colony wants to import from Earth or other Interworld Council planets has to go through the ICDA. The ICDA has its headquarters in Geneva on Earth and representatives on all planets, for example in Port Rose on Thalassa, and operates a small fleet of courier starships which regularly visit the colony planets.

Less important for Thalassa is the Interworld Trade Commission (ITC), which develops and monitors the rules for all interstellar trade. Its main importance for the Thalassians is that all free traders need an ITC license for a specific trade route. The idea behind this is to ensure that there is always at least some competition for the big shipping lines, but there is also the hidden agenda to keep the number of free traders on any specific trade route so low that their operations are profitable and they have no incentive to turn to smuggling or piracy.

The Interworld Interstellar Service (IIS) is the Interworld Council's „space patrol“ and the only organization which is allowed to operate armed starships. The IIS is an interstellar police force, an interstellar rescue service and an interstellar exploration service. However, the jurisdiction of the IIS covers only interstellar space and ends at the far orbit of any inhabited planet, the IIS personnel has no legal enforcement powers on any planetary surface. Since there is very little crime in interstellar space, those IIS crews which do not serve on exploration missions usually suffer from severe boredom.

Conflicts between the Interworld Council and a member world or between two member worlds of the Interworld Council are handled by the Interworld Court (IC). The rulings of the IC are legally binding for all parties of the conflict. If necessary the IC could enforce its rulings through commercial sanctions or even an IIS blockade of a planet, but this has never hap-pened.

There are several more Interworld Council institutions and organizations, but these are of little or no importance for Thalassa.

 

 

[clarence]

Which one of the organizations do you see characters having to interact most with? 

[Guest Vile Traveller]

After some initial excitement over the concept of abstract wealth systems, I have gone back to straightforward money. It simply is more immersive, easier to handle (apart from the basic accounting part), and seems to get players more excited.

On the lines of repayment of the colonisation debt, this reminds me of a somewhat more radical approach in one of Peter F. Hamilton's books, Fallen Dragon. In it, the funding megacorporation occasionally (and legally) raids colonies in what it calls "asset realisation" missions. Quite an interesting look at the cost and benefit of interstellar colonisation, given vastly expensive interstellar travel.

I always enjoy your build-up threads detailing how the setting works from the big picture and then drilling down to the details, rust, but if I may give voice to my lack of patience for a moment, what are your plans for the characters? Are they going to be the movers and shakers of the colony, or more humble technicians and workers further down the pecking order? What sort of adventures do you see them having? Will they be rubbing up against the system early on, or will they be more concerned with the physical problems of colonisation?

Edited July 5, 2016 by Vile

[rust]

10 hours ago, clarence said:

Which one of the organizations do you see characters having to interact most with? 

I think this will very much depend on the players' choice of their characters' careers and on the characters' goals. For example, while a Merchant may have to deal with the Interworld Trade Commission an Official is more likely to have to deal with the Interworld Council Development Agency. In the end it is up to the characters whether they will come in close contact with any of the organizations at all.

It is far more likely that the characters will have to deal with one or more of the "native" organizations of Thalassa, like for example the Thalassa Seascouts, but at the moment I am still working on this element of the setting - more perhaps later.

Edited July 5, 2016 by rust

[rust]

6 hours ago, Vile said:

I always enjoy your build-up threads detailing how the setting works from the big picture and then drilling down to the details, rust, but if I may give voice to my lack of patience for a moment, what are your plans for the characters? Are they going to be the movers and shakers of the colony, or more humble technicians and workers further down the pecking order? What sort of adventures do you see them having? Will they be rubbing up against the system early on, or will they be more concerned with the physical problems of colonisation?

Thank you very much indeed. 

I have to admit that I do not have any specific plans for the characters, their lives will be in the hands of their players. The characters can certainly reach leadership positions on Thalassa, depending on their ability to gain a high Reputation through successful service to the community, but they can just as well lead more average lives. As for the adventures, I think that the focus of the first phase of the campaign will once more be on the exploration of Thalassa, while later on - depending on the characters' interests - trade, politics or diplomacy may become more important. Thalassa is very much a "sandbox", and the players will have to decide what will happen within the framework I provide.