24 Aug, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 1st comment:
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I've been thinking about creating a military science-fiction themed MUD for a while modeled after Heinlein's Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie).

One thing I wonder about is if there is an interest in the hard/military scifi genre, and if there are any interesting MUDs out there with this theme?

I think humans vs insects would make for a cool player vs environment setting, players could create Assault-MUD like bases on Bug Worlds, mobile infantry missions could be played as well (players get dropped off on an hostile planet wearing heavily armed exoskeletons, creating a trail of destruction on their way to the pick-up location), some human vs human base combat could be added as well, and spaceships would make for good places to concentrate players for roleplaying purposes. Not too sure about actual space flight/combat/exploration, but it's an option.

Not sure about the legal status of Starship Trooper fanfiction, anyone knows?

Regardless, it'd be fairly easy to create an inspired hard military science-fiction game that only hints at the book, and this is probably what I'll do as I'd like to incorporate concepts like anti-matter, though I'm on the fence when it comes to how to establish FTL travel. One concept I like is the use of wormholes that are created at the speed of light, so while travel through a wormhole is instant, bending space still occurs at the speed of light, making the creation of a wormhole that covers 4 light years take 4 years, or maybe 2 years if the generator is in the center of the tunnel.

Politics wise I'm leaning toward a libertarian spaceborn free-state, and a Starship Troopers military government, with religion unlikely to play a substantial role.

Feedback and ideas are welcome!
24 Aug, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 2nd comment:
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Not sure about the legal status of Starship Trooper fanfiction, anyone knows?


Here we go again XP

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One thing I wonder about is if there is an interest in the hard/military scifi genre, and if there are any interesting MUDs out there with this theme?


I can think of some Star Wars-themed MUDs, and a few other ones - Tears of Polaris for example - but I cant say I know of any ones that currently exist that have that militaristic feel. Closest I can think of is some Warhammer 40,000 themed MUDs that are now defunct.

Maya/Rudha
24 Aug, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 3rd comment:
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Not sure about the legal status of Starship Trooper fanfiction, anyone knows?

I'd google for copyright and fan fiction. You can also use this as a starting point. I think it's generally accepted that you can gently use general thematic elements and names of major places. (Just look at all the LotR/SW fanfiction/MUDs out there. Or maybe they're all violating the law, strictly speaking, but the copyright holders do not care to sue.)
24 Aug, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 4th comment:
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Derivative works infringe on copyright. Whether the copyright holder does anything about that infringement, is up to that person. Many people/organisations don't pursue legal action against infringements - others do - and even others wholeheartedly encourage fan fiction.

Whether or not something is a derivative work is a judgment call.

The definition from the Creative Commons Legal Code is the best 'canonised' example I could find easily:

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"Derivative Work" means a work that produces or reproduces the Work or any substantial part thereof in any material form. Derivative works include:

1. Translations of the Work;
2. Where the Work is a dramatic work, conversions of the Work into a novel or other non-dramatic work;
3. Where the Work is a novel or other non-dramatic work or an artistic work, conversions of the Work into a dramatic work by way of performance in public or otherwise;
4. Where the Work is a literary or dramatic or musical work, making a sound recording, cinematograph film or other mechanical contrivance by means of which the Work may be mechanically reproduced or performed; and
5. Where the Work is a literary or dramatic or musical or artistic work, reproductions, adaptations or public presentations of the Work as a cinematographic work.


Im sure there's a definition in US copyright law as well.

Maya/Rudha
24 Aug, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 5th comment:
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I'm not sure what the copyright holder's stance is on fan fiction, but there shouldn't be any problem creating something with a similar feel - there are quite a few other works inspired by Heinlein's novel. And this is copyright we're talking about, so copying ideas and concepts is fine.

You could also try incorporating concepts such as instantaneous communication or quantum teleportation, perhaps in combination with the idea of transferring personalities as binary dat.... That way you wouldn't need to transfer the entire ship - players could simply download into new bodies at the destination. This would also provide a good thematic excuse for character respecing and no permadeath, should you desire such features.

I think it'd make a great setting for a nomadic PvE/PK mud. Had I chosen to go with a sci-fi theme, I think I'd have probably picked something similar.
24 Aug, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 6th comment:
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Yeah, though I would advise taking some care not to just look like it in everything but name, there's definetely a lot less headache in doing something similar but not directly set in that universe.

Maya/Rudha
24 Aug, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 7th comment:
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Derivative works infringe on copyright.

The interesting question is not whether or not derivative works infringe on copyright because, by definition, they do. The interesting question is whether or not something is a derivative work. Merely copying ideas and concepts is not creating a derivative work; using original names brings you into derivative work territory. However, quick research indicates that the law is unclear on how special a name has to be for using it to make a work a derivative.

The Creative Commons definition of derivative work does not apply here, because US copyright law has its own definition (which you can find with fairly quick research). Of course, its definition leaves some questions open to interpretation, such as the one I mentioned just above.
24 Aug, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 8th comment:
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Its not explicitly defined in Canadian Law, which I'm a little more resourceful about finding out, but the Canadian Law is very similar to that CC quote. I would not be overly surprised if they took their definition from the Copyright Act of Canada, of 1921. Relevant link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_A...

Tried to find a link to it from the Justice Ministry's website but apparently it's in the process of moving and the search engine isnt working at the moment.

I try to avoid commenting on anyone's laws but my own country and after that patent thread I'm not getting suckered into it again D:

Maya/Rudha
25 Aug, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
Rudha said:
I can think of some Star Wars-themed MUDs, and a few other ones - Tears of Polaris for example - but I cant say I know of any ones that currently exist that have that militaristic feel. Closest I can think of is some Warhammer 40,000 themed MUDs that are now defunct.

I always assumed Star Wars muds to be science-fantasy, though some of them might lean toward hard sci-fi. Tears of Polaris looks like a space trading game, could be interesting if it was modeled after Donaldson's Gap universe which I'm planning to draw inspiration from as well.

KaVir said:
You could also try incorporating concepts such as instantaneous communication or quantum teleportation, perhaps in combination with the idea of transferring personalities as binary dat.... That way you wouldn't need to transfer the entire ship - players could simply download into new bodies at the destination. This would also provide a good thematic excuse for character respecing and no permadeath, should you desire such features.

Other than wormholes (which probably would only exist outside major gravity wells) I am trying to avoid FTL as with instantaneous transportation the world to the player becomes very small, no matter how big it is, and distance based economic systems are no longer an option.

Altered Carbon reminds me a lot of P. Hamilton's Commonwealth saga. I was leaning more toward Forever Peace's soldierboy technology which uses a virtual reality simulator to control remote combat robots, mainly because I worry that the concept of transferring organic data to digital data and back is too much of a stretch for a solid hard sci-fi setting. It is tempting to go for faster than light communication as that would deal with permadeath nicely. One other idea I had are two starships build on earth from two political factions fighting over a foreign solar system's resources. Players would be safe in the close to indestructible starships, remotely controlling various ships and robots.

Quantum teleportation sounds like a cool technology for remotely controlling robots at light speed.
25 Aug, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 10th comment:
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Given that Tears of Polaris is an IRE mud, I will be very exceedingly surprised if it doesn't turn into a combat-fest.

As an idea, I always liked the idea of BattleTech having neuro-interfaces - complete with feedback when bad things happen - to control giant robots. Now that's not really a novel idea in and of itself, but the idea of some sort of negative feedback in things. Perhaps this could explain why you don't just pop back up, to a certain degree, in another robot, if you have some sort of timer for death; it could also explain a death penalty, were you to implement one.

On a more .. thematic level, or background level, it explains how you'd know when your robot is doing something it probably shouldn't. When we lean on a very hot surface, it hurts. But robots dont really have "skin" that provides that feedback, unless you stuff them with a few tonnes* of sensors and stuff.

Maya/Rudha

* may be slight exaggeration.
25 Aug, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 11th comment:
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One thing that'd make sense to me is if the human brain needs some time to adjust when switching between different robot types, the whole negative feedback idea never made sense to me, I'm perhaps a little too picky when it comes to that. Logistics could be an important drawback of robo-death however, when attacking an enemy you may only have 3 backup robots, and if you die you'd re-spawn at a different location, which in turn might force your group to re-group, or force the team to be one man short while you hurry back. This also adds the option for the opponent to find out where the backups are stored and do some damage.
25 Aug, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 12th comment:
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Scandum said:
Other than wormholes (which probably would only exist outside major gravity wells) I am trying to avoid FTL as with instantaneous transportation the world to the player becomes very small, no matter how big it is, and distance based economic systems are no longer an option.

Yeah, I think I'd prefer sticking with instantaneous communication too - that would allow you to see the trading prices across the galaxy, but you'd still need to ship the stuff normally. The interesting part (for me at least) is when you combine that with Altered Carbon's concept of transmitting a digitally stored consciousness. You'd keep your mental skills, but you'd be jumping into a new body each time, and leaving all your old gear behind. That might even provide an interesting basis for mud-to-mud character transfers.

A bigger economic concern would be things like molecular nanotechnology. In combination with instantaneous communication you'd be able to send instructions for assembling any object (or even a copy of your body) at the other end. But even without instantaneous communication, there would still be little benefit in shipping anything physically, unless it was either cheaper to ship than produce, or was something that couldn't be reproduced through nanotechnology.

Scandum said:
Altered Carbon reminds me a lot of P. Hamilton's Commonwealth saga. I was leaning more toward Forever Peace's soldierboy technology which uses a virtual reality simulator to control remote combat robots, mainly because I worry that the concept of transferring organic data to digital data and back is too much of a stretch for a solid hard sci-fi setting.

Remote controlled bodies - or even remote controlled ships - would work too. This would also avoid the question of cloning, which could potentially occur if personalities were transmitted as data.

On the other hand, the Bugs in Starship Troopers have organic technology, including space travel, plasma weapons and telepathy. If such technology existed, perhaps it could be stolen and adapted - so even if human personalities were transferred as data, it wouldn't necessarily need to be digitalised.

Scandum said:
It is tempting to go for faster than light communication as that would deal with permadeath nicely. One other idea I had are two starships build on earth from two political factions fighting over a foreign solar system's resources. Players would be safe in the close to indestructible starships, remotely controlling various ships and robots.

I think you'd really need FTL communication if you wanted bodies to be controlled remotely over long distances. Although I suppose you could use it as an IC justification for lag and link-death…
25 Aug, 2010, Dean wrote in the 13th comment:
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Scandum said:
One thing I wonder about is if there is an interest in the hard/military scifi genre, and if there are any interesting MUDs out there with this theme?


That's the genre I'm more or less aiming for in my next project; it's definitely something that I'm interested in (personally) and wish there was more of on the market (that weren't Star Wars in theme :tongue:).
25 Aug, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 14th comment:
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KaVir said:
A bigger economic concern would be things like molecular nanotechnology. In combination with instantaneous communication you'd be able to send instructions for assembling any object (or even a copy of your body) at the other end. But even without instantaneous communication, there would still be little benefit in shipping anything physically, unless it was either cheaper to ship than produce, or was something that couldn't be reproduced through nanotechnology.

One thing I had in mind would be nano-reinforced alloys, the idea being that nano technology is used to organize the molecules in metals in the most optimal way, it'd be a slow and expensive process. It could also be an option for people to control a nano forge to craft items in combination with blue-prints, and create a little mini-game around the crafting process to make it somewhat challenging. This under the assumption that the process is too complex and error prone to automate fully, it's well possible information processing won't advance much beyond this point as software quickly gets too complex to manage.

KaVir said:
I think you'd really need FTL communication if you wanted bodies to be controlled remotely over long distances. Although I suppose you could use it as an IC justification for lag and link-death…

I could use a form of limited FTL so someone on the moon would have instant communication to earth, and someone on Mars would have a 2 second latency, with interstellar communication requiring too much energy, forcing the use of wormholes.
25 Aug, 2010, Ssolvarain wrote in the 15th comment:
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If you had multiple forms of communication delivery, it could lead to some very interesting and unique situations. Line of sight transmission would probably be the most efficient thing for long distances, but it could be disrupted by any number of things. Local public and private broadcast channels with varying degrees of encryption.

Were there bugs, you could invent a whole new means of communication. Message integrity based on proximity to a psy bug, who relays all messaging appropriately.
25 Aug, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 16th comment:
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The easy solution in my mind for communication as regards FTL, is to say it's possible (somehow) but that its too expensive, takes too much energy, or otherwise is unfeasible for any but the most extenuating circumstances.

Maya/Rudha
25 Aug, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
Ssolvarain said:
If you had multiple forms of communication delivery, it could lead to some very interesting and unique situations. Line of sight transmission would probably be the most efficient thing for long distances, but it could be disrupted by any number of things. Local public and private broadcast channels with varying degrees of encryption.

Were there bugs, you could invent a whole new means of communication. Message integrity based on proximity to a psy bug, who relays all messaging appropriately.

Could have psychic players capable of snooping on bug communication. For interstellar communication I was thinking of a communication form that uses gravity waves, gravity waves travel at the speed of light and reach everyone without giving away their location, and encryption would make it reasonably secure. Lasers and radio can be used if you know the target's position.

Rudha said:
The easy solution in my mind for communication as regards FTL, is to say it's possible (somehow) but that its too expensive, takes too much energy, or otherwise is unfeasible for any but the most extenuating circumstances.

In Niven's known space hyperspace can be traversed at 0.3 light years per day, and hyperspace cannot be entered within a gravity well. 4.2 light years would take 2 weeks, which might be slow enough to discourage its use, but fast enough for an interstellar economy to work.
26 Aug, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 18th comment:
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Given that commerce today works quite well on container ships moving around stuff at a relatively slow pace, presumably a mere two week delay between solar systems would not be a problem at all…
26 Aug, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 19th comment:
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I don't think many players would enjoy sitting in hyperspace for two weeks, so that'd require the capability to have NPCs piloting ships, one advantage is that this would allow piracy, which thinking about it is an interesting form of PvP.
26 Aug, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
I don't think many players would enjoy sitting in hyperspace for two weeks,

I don't think they'd mind so much if they could remotely control artificial bodies on various planets at the same time. It'd become almost a dual-game then - like those real-time browser games that run 24/7, you'd need to log on to buy some trade goods and set your destination, then once you'd reached your destination you'd need to log on again to sell your cargo and repeat the process. If you wanted 2 weeks game time to also be 2 weeks real time, you'd probably want to have pit stops along the way.

But in addition to that, you could also remotely control an artificial body at any time. Perhaps the trading would even give you credits that could be spent on upgraded bodies, and/or bodies could be used to perform jobs on different worlds (such as digging, killing native species, etc) that would earn credits for spending on your ship.
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