Star Trek Weapon

Hi,
How would you represent the weapon TR-1(or what ever it was, from
ST:DS9) in
DS2/SG2, it has a very long range, does not need a LOS to the target,
you can put the bulled into the targets most vital spot, auto kill? auto hit?
all board? very dangerus. Think about it in space battles, point and click and
the fleet commander is dead. What do you think?
-Stephen

> DracSpy@aol.com wrote:
all
> board? very dangerus. Think about it in space battles, point and

Well, my two cents is that it sounds jazzy, but it makes for a boring game.
Both sides take turns announcing which enemy unit they automatically kill til
they run out of units.

Star Trek is famous for not examining the consequences of the powerful gadgets
they introduce.

In Larry Niven's "The Theory and Practice of Teleportation" he points out that
a transporter teleportation device
        which does not need a transmitter/receptor pair
will destroy the civilizations that make them.

If you create a teleporter that does not need a receptor, then you immediately
start teleporting nuclear weapons over the vital areas of any enemy nations.
Until the enemy develops or swipes the secret from the first nation. Then they
proceed to bomb each other until they are reduced to a technology level
insufficent to keep the teleporters (or their civilization) working.

        If the enemy takes too long to develop/swipe teleportation
technology, they'll become sufficiently frightened to push their big red
button and trigger mutual nuclear armageddon.

Shield that prevent enemy teleporting will just ensure that anything not
covered is targeted. Since you cannot shield

> Well, my two cents is that it sounds jazzy, but it makes for

If this is like the TOS tantalus field then I agree, its a story device and
not appropriate in a competitive game.

> In Larry Niven's "The Theory and Practice of Teleportation"

Ah the SFB T-bomb rules NOT.

> Hi,
all
> board? very dangerus. Think about it in space battles, point and click

Personally, I think Plot Device Weapons (TM) such as this (from your
description above - I haven't seen the episode) are best left where they
came from - in TV plots. Superweapons and supercharacters will badly
unbalance any game system, as has been shown all too well by Warhamster 40K
and Warzone....;)

> On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Nyrath the nearly wise wrote:

> In Larry Niven's "The Theory and Practice of Teleportation"

this is incorrect. in niven's example, teleporters are used as nuclear warhead
delivery systems. big rockets can also be used in this role, in a way that is
essentially the same as teleporters. our civilisation has, i

understand, invented big rockets; why, then, has our civilisation not been
destroyed?

Tom

> On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Thomas Anderson wrote:

> On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Nyrath the nearly wise wrote:

I haven't read the Niven article (sounds like I'll have to dig up a copy) but
it sounds like his take on transporters is as deniable delivery systems. As
follows:

Big Rockets are fairly conspicious, to the right systems. These days, you
probably can't launch anything ICBM-like and not get a lot of attention.
Cruise missles are different, but also detectable.

With a transporter, you can just slip a small nuke through, then be
sympathetic about your enemy's "terrible lab accident". "What, you say there
wasn't a nuke lab at that location? You're obviously lying, sir, as the whole
world knows about the mushroom cloud."

No sattelites detecting launch signatures. No cruise missles to crash and
leave embarrasing hard evidence. No radar tracks of 'something' inbound. No
surviving witnesses saying they saw a Tomahawk stream go overhead. Nada. Just
your enemy with a glowing hole in the ground, a state of paranoia, and that
Big Red Button.

Sounds like Niven has a point. This has been mentioned by various people
w/ regards to Star Trek, as well: Why don't they just transport a few
grams of anti-matter into their ship? Who needs photon torpedoes,
phasers, and similar? (scriptwriters...)

In a message dated 99-02-15 07:29:22 EST, you write:

<< Well, my two cents is that it sounds jazzy, but it makes for a boring game.
Both sides take turns announcing which enemy unit they automatically kill til
they run out of units.

Star Trek is famous for not examining the consequences of the powerful gadgets
they introduce.

In Larry Niven's "The Theory and Practice of Teleportation" he points out that
a transporter teleportation device
        which does not need a transmitter/receptor pair
will destroy the civilizations that make them.

If you create a teleporter that does not need a receptor, then you immediately
start teleporting nuclear weapons over the vital areas of any enemy nations.
Until the enemy develops or swipes the secret from the first nation. Then they
proceed to bomb each other until they are reduced to a technology level
insufficent to keep the teleporters (or their civilization) working.

        If the enemy takes too long to develop/swipe teleportation
technology, they'll become sufficiently frightened to push their big red
button and trigger mutual nuclear armageddon.

Shield that prevent enemy teleporting will just ensure that anything not
covered is targeted. Since you cannot shield everything, the slide into
barbarism is merely slowed down a bit.

If you create a teleporter that does not need a transmitter, you can steal
anything you want from the enemy. And soon he will push his big red button.

So when designing a background for an SF story (or game),
        adding teleportation without transmitter/receptors
creates a planet reduced to Road Warrior technology or reduced to a glassy
ball that glows blue in the dark. >> Good point, maybe for another genure it
would work, but not for
FT/DS/SG, it
is the ultimat assasion's weapon.
-Stephen

In a message dated 99-02-15 09:48:39 EST, you write:

<< Personally, I think Plot Device Weapons (TM) such as this (from your
 description above - I haven't seen the episode) are best left where
they
 came from - in TV plots. Superweapons and supercharacters will badly
unbalance any game system, as has been shown all too well by Warhamster 40K
and Warzone....;)

Jon (GZG)
> [quoted text omitted]
I agree, but the orginal weapon (with out the transporter) would be
interesting, it is very acuret with its targeting, I assume that other weapons
will have simular ideas, as they have been seen in other places. On your other
point I agree, and try to minimize, exsept for plot nessity.
-Stephen

So I guess my Teleporting Power-Armored Ninja Sturmtruppen (TPANS) for
SGII are right out....(sigh)

(Whack! Whack) "Warleader W'kan! come to your senses!!"-Commander, Narn
Bat Squad.

Michael Wikan Game Design Slave Zero Accolade, Inc.
http://www.slavezero.com
mwikan@accolade.com wikan@sprintmail.com "We sleep safely in our beds because
rough men stand ready in the night to
visit violence on those who would do us harm."-George Orwell

> -----Original Message-----

In a message dated 99-02-15 13:54:49 EST, you write:

<< this is incorrect. in niven's example, teleporters are used as nuclear
warhead delivery systems. big rockets can also be used in this role, in a way
that is essentially the same as teleporters. our civilisation has, i
understand, invented big rockets; why, then, has our civilisation not been
destroyed?

Tom >> 'Cus missiles take time, in the US launched an Alpha strike on Russia
it would have time to fire back, with a teleporter it does not give the oponet
time to fire back.
-Stephen

> Ground Zero Games wrote:

> >Hi,
all
> >board? very dangerus. Think about it in space battles, point and

My take on the usual Plot Device Weapons (TM) and Star Trek (especialy
ST:TNG+):

It sounds like Munchkinizem. Everytime the Fed boys meet someone new, the
newbys always have some new weapon which can carve up the heaviest Fed Dread
like
it was make of paper.  The only solution, of course, is the "5-Minute
Quicky Ending" (TM) Where everything is ended just before the credits roll.

I stopped watching Star Trek the Next Gen, ect. after I realized this. Babylon
5, Battlestar Galactica, ect. may have their problems, but they are not
suffering
from Munchkinizems(TM)  or 5-Minute Quicky Endings (TM)

In a message dated 99-02-15 15:42:55 EST, you write:

<< I stopped watching Star Trek the Next Gen, ect. after I realized this.
Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, ect. may have their problems, but they are
not suffering
 from Munchkinizems(TM)  or 5-Minute Quicky Endings (TM)

Donald Hosford >> I agree that B5 is much better than the Star Trek shows, the
plot line is much more complex and the alians much more devloped.
-Stephen

> I stopped watching Star Trek the Next Gen, ect. after I realized this.

I think you are missing the point about ST - its not a technology
show its really about people and the human condition.

Compare and contrast two similar episodes in B5 & trek, the one where Picard
is tortured and the one with Sheridan. Both powerful episodes but the quality
of Stewarts acting made the trek one better and the final point that they had
broken him I continue to find haunting. Not the same effect with the b5
episode.

Plus there is a *really* good reason to watch Voyager, Jeri Ryan.

Anyway this just went off the OT meter.

> On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Brian Burger wrote:

> On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Thomas Anderson wrote:

this is true in 1999. it wasn't so true in 1950.

> With a transporter, you can just slip a small nuke through, then be

you assume it's not possible to detect the use of a transporter. this is
sort of the equivalent of missiles in 1950 (or in 3226ish - A Canticle
for Leibowitz, anyone?); who's to say that a few years down the line,
transporters aren't detectable?

> No sattelites detecting launch signatures. No cruise missles to crash
inbound.
> No surviving witnesses saying they saw a Tomahawk stream go overhead.

or a tachyon refraction pattern recorded in particle observatories the world
over. this all depends on the details of the technology.

> Sounds like Niven has a point. This has been mentioned by various

in ST, transporters don't go through screens. i believe that SFB had
transporter bombs at one stage; i assume they can only be used against targets
which no longer have shields.

> On Mon, 15 Feb 1999 DracSpy@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 99-02-15 13:54:49 EST, you write:

depends. if i scatter my teleport-bomb launchers all over the country
and
the ocean - and they don't have to be big - and wire them up to
computers, i can get a strike in after yours, because you won't have killed
all my
transporters. plus, if i get flashy-light effects during beam-in, like
in star trek, that's plenty of time for the automatic defence system to hit
the smite button.

furthermore, in the absence of sophisticated detection and control systems,
four minutes warning is not enough time to get a counterstrike out. this time
falls even further with Fractional Orbital Bombardment Systems. now, we do
currently have such automatic control systems, but we didn't always: i believe
this applies to teleporters as much as it does to missiles.

anyway, i stick to my central argument that the capacity to do something does
not necessarily lead to it being done. the us could currently nuke russia and
get away with it, given the state of the russian strategic rocket forces. that
they don't is because they have more to gain by not doing it. in most cases,
if a nation blows up under teleporter fire, it will be pretty clear who did
it, from the current political state.

Tom