Anteworld - Outerra Game > Game & gameplay discussion

My problems with the story

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PTTG:
First off, I want to say I'm not exactly a professional writer, so I acknowledge that what follows is probably rather poorly written anyway.  Still, as a fan of hard science fiction, I would find it impossible not to complain a little bit. So here's what bugs me. The Outerra spacecraft was a giant ship built to travel between multiple stars in the near future and start several colonies, each of which failed, and then returns to earth and recolonizes it as well.

1.) One massive spaceship puts all eggs in one basket. Although, yes, there may be a marginal increase in efficiency as only one starship engine is required, there's a reason that Columbus had three ships (The Ninja, the Piña Colada, and the Santa Malaria).

2.) One massive spaceship going to multiple destinations is extremely inefficient. When you are traveling to the first star system on the route, you have to carry everything you are going to take to that system, plus everything you are going to take to every other system you plan on visiting! This might be excused if you plan to refill at each stop, but then you stay at each planet for decades! What's more, we know that that isn't the case- humans that visit earth on the return trip mention that they've remained in stasis the entire time. If they were loading and unloading people at each stop, they surely would have had need for a skilled doctor such as the one mentioned in the prologue.

3.) How can a colony fail? The ship carries enough supplies to start six or seven colonies! If they arrive at a planet they can't easily colonize, then they skip it, assuming they the mission planners were idiotic enough to plan a multi-system colonization attempt in the first place. If they settle a good planet and find that there's a bad harvest or something, then they just use some of the remaining supplies to cover the deficit. If a planet is good enough to try colonizing, it's good enough to try again.

4.) Perhaps the colony ship simply dropped a few million tons of supplies on a planet and left. While slightly sane- since the colony ship wouldn't even need to enter orbit or decelerate much depending on the destination star- but if that is the case, then EVERY ton of supplies would have been dumped on one of the destinations or the other; they wouldn't even be able to collect leftover supplies like tractors or pointless APCs or whatever.

5.) Good lord the reaction mass! I don't know what propulsion system your ships are using, but they need either fuel or reaction mass which gets consumed. You need enough fuel to accelerate the ship, then decelerate the ship, not once, not twice, but once for every single stop on the route! That is madness!

Now, the natural response to critique of a creative project is "Well, let's see you do better." Well, OK:

In the near future, following a chaotic few decades which featured some major political changes and, among other things, the development of functional fusion power generation, a newly unified humanity finally finds itself in the position to reach out to the solar system and the stars. While many commercial groups set about the colonization of the moon and mars, and the Jovian moons, the international space agency plans to send missions to the nearest star systems. These extra-solar missions will consist of three spacecraft using magnetoplasma drives to accelerate at several G to various nearby stars. Five such missions will be launched to likely nearby stars- Alpha Centauri b, Tau Ceti, 40 Eridani A, Delta Pavonis, and HR 7722.

The various missions travel for many decades. Besides the constant drone of the engines and the occasional footsteps of the operations crew down narrow maintenance corridors, all is silent. The Delta Pavonis crew arrives in system to a disappointing sight- despite all evidence to the contrary, the star system has no truly habitable planets. There is a plutonic body well outside of the system which has a great deal of ice- much-needed fuel.

Rather than risk the lives of the crew on traveling to some other system, the colonization mission leaders turn to the emergency plan- turning to broadcasts from earth, which should have updated star charts with good destinations. They set up the massive radio antenna- a huge wire mesh with an area of several kilometers which is stretched between the three vessels. They are confused, then shocked, to realize that they receive no communications from earth whatsoever. After months of waiting, they realize that earth simply isn't transmitting anything.

With few other options, they finish refueling and set out to return to earth.

Several decades later, Delta Pavonis Mission Vessel B and DPMV C arrive in orbit of earth- DPMV A suffered a faulty navigational thruster and was unable to rotate into deceleration position, instead ending up drifting out of the solar system after a failed attempted realignment. B and C look upon an earth that has been abandoned for centuries for unknown reasons.

cameni:
Thanks for your opinion!


--- Quote from: PTTG on April 03, 2012, 03:14:00 pm ---1.) One massive spaceship puts all eggs in one basket. Although, yes, there may be a marginal increase in efficiency as only one starship engine is required, there's a reason that Columbus had three ships (The Ninja, the Piña Colada, and the Santa Malaria).
--- End quote ---
Yes, that's true. On the other hand, we have only one ISS. Amount of resources a space program requires is enormous. If we are going to Mars, it will be one ship initially, to test it. And it will be bloody expensive. Technically, Outerra ship is an experiment of the same kind. But read below.


--- Quote ---2.) One massive spaceship going to multiple destinations is extremely inefficient. When you are traveling to the first star system on the route, you have to carry everything you are going to take to that system, plus everything you are going to take to every other system you plan on visiting! This might be excused if you plan to refill at each stop, but then you stay at each planet for decades! What's more, we know that that isn't the case- humans that visit earth on the return trip mention that they've remained in stasis the entire time. If they were loading and unloading people at each stop, they surely would have had need for a skilled doctor such as the one mentioned in the prologue.
--- End quote ---
The ship gains speed initially and never really stops anywhere - that would take too much energy. It's been sling shot from our system, utilizing gravity of other stars to change the course after each POI. When approaching a POI, several (hundred) colony pods detach from the frame and eventually land on the planets and moons, while the mothership continues uninterrupted. I think it's quite reasonable way of doing the journey, if you don't count with some very futuristic engines and huge amounts of energy. On the contrary, I think it's much more efficient than sending 5 ships, similarly to the probes that visit several planets on their way.

Another thing is that as the ship approaches, it can measure and detect habitable zones better, and decide where and how many pods to deploy. It would all affect the planning of the whole journey, changing mass, recomputation of the trajectory and all.


--- Quote ---3.) How can a colony fail? The ship carries enough supplies to start six or seven colonies! If they arrive at a planet they can't easily colonize, then they skip it, assuming they the mission planners were idiotic enough to plan a multi-system colonization attempt in the first place. If they settle a good planet and find that there's a bad harvest or something, then they just use some of the remaining supplies to cover the deficit. If a planet is good enough to try colonizing, it's good enough to try again.
--- End quote ---
This isn't actually a part of the Anteworld story, and here Shawn's got his hands more free. It's not very important if the colonies fail or don't: in fact, not all fail. But you ask: why would they fail? Science fiction hardly ever deals with the one most important factor: existence of other life forms, mainly the bacteria and viruses existing on other planets suitable for colonization (note, we aren't talking about terraforming naked planets here, the colony pods are way too small for it and it would take eons). It's expected that colony pods would live in isolation at the beginning for hundreds of years, adapting to the environment and biotesting etc.

There are other factors that could contribute to a fail - but these are more or less of artistic character.


--- Quote ---4.) Perhaps the colony ship simply dropped a few million tons of supplies on a planet and left. While slightly sane- since the colony ship wouldn't even need to enter orbit or decelerate much depending on the destination star- but if that is the case, then EVERY ton of supplies would have been dumped on one of the destinations or the other; they wouldn't even be able to collect leftover supplies like tractors or pointless APCs or whatever.
--- End quote ---
Um, not sure what part of the story this addresses.


--- Quote ---5.) Good lord the reaction mass! I don't know what propulsion system your ships are using, but they need either fuel or reaction mass which gets consumed. You need enough fuel to accelerate the ship, then decelerate the ship, not once, not twice, but once for every single stop on the route! That is madness!
--- End quote ---
Precisely! As explained above, it doesn't stop :)


That said, your story is pretty good as well, though it requires more of the futuristic essence. However, some weaknesses:
[*] If the Mars and Jovian moons are colonized, the humanity wouldn't likely be wiped out. However, this may not be necessary, and the colonies may be just small and enclosed, and they can be used in the story as well
[*] Communication with the ship that's several light-years away is quite .. delay-full, how to say it. They would be awaiting for the response much longer time. It could be incorporated into the story though. Another thing would be that such a ship would probably have antenna set up for communication for the whole journey, so no sudden shock from a late realization that Earth is not transmitting. But it may be timed accurately for the purpose of the story ...

C. Shawn Smith:
*Edit 2* And I concur with Cameni: Thanks for your opinion!!!  I don't mind a little criticism.  (You should have seen how much of the original story I had outlined that Cameni squashed :P)

Cameni's correct on all points :).

As much as I'm trying to keep things within the realm of reason, I like many other writers have taken a few artistic liberties to try and tell a compelling story that will intro the game.

Also, as Cameni said, the colonies don't have to fail.  The Outerra Initiative is told from the perspective of the crew, so once the Outerra leaves a system to get to the next one, the previous colony is only touched upon a bit, if at all (you can only do so much with a novella).  The failures become situations where a planet is not as suitable as once believed, or something goes wrong.  Perhaps the colony on Epsilon Eridani contracted a plague that wiped them out.  Or perhaps there is some sort of life form there that causes an issue.  Or perhaps .... well, that's a secret ;)

As for #4: When the Outerra drops its collection of colony pods at a particular world, EVERYTHING that is sent is utilized.  Everything.  Nothing is ever wasted or discarded.  Future RL colonies will have to be the same, since there is such a long window before more supplies could be sent.  For a colony around another star system, this is critical for survival.  You take only the necessities, and manufacture anything else you may need on the planet itself.  There's no need to "pick anything up" because nothing is discarded.  I've already wrote key notes on the first colony, in which even the waste is recycled (Humanity finally becomes 100% green).  Also note that some materials or supplies that are brought may not be what you think.  For instance, a single box carries dozens of DNA sequences and/or embryos that will be "grown" to maturity during the course of the colony's maturation.

And one last thing: As far as it being one ship and one ship only, that's not exactly the case.  Chapters one and two hint that the ISA isn't planning on just one ship, but perhaps dozens.  The problem is how long it would take to build and then crew such a ship, not to mention the resources and finances that would be necessary to do it again and again.  There is a very brief section in which the main character ruminates on Outerra's sister-ship going even further out, but that won't take place for another 10-30 years.

*Edit* ahh, forgot about the reaction mass issue.  Yeah, this is the worst part of the "science" here, and freely admit that.  Although the ship uses a type of fusion reaction to generate thrust, that's not all that there is to it.  I'm also adding a bit of artistic license to that fusion technology, though I'm not really explaining it in-depth in the novella.  Not much need to.  Ask yourself: Do you know how Rama actually moved?  What was its thrust mechanism?  It's not explained, although it is hinted at.  I'm not terribly worried about it (at least at this point, anyway).  If it becomes necessary, then I'll figure out a better way to do it.

I do like the story you put into place, however.

@Cameni: The last few factors you discussed (losing comms with Earth, and how they accomplish it) I worked out a bit a while back.  My current line of reasoning is that communication would generally have to be one-way.  Outerra -> Earth.  Earth comms would probably be short sequences, since Outerra would have to be entirely self-sufficient and self-governing due to the distance (Hey, Earth!  Guess what we found?  A Xenomorph living on Gliese 581b!  Please advise me on how to remove the face-hugger from my colleague.  K?  TYIA!).  However, I do make a case where the Earth broadcasts a short beacon sequence at regular intervals (taking into account Outerra's motion), so that Outerra can always "lock-on" to Earth for data-transmission.  If that beacon ends for whatever reason .... well, they just lost communication with Earth :)

*Edit 3 typos*

C. Shawn Smith:
And one more thing to add:

One of the things that helps writers is critique.  Some writers prefer to work in writing groups, where other writers make suggestions to help flesh out a story.  Although it may not be used, it gets the writer thinking, and it may alter the way a story is presented.

Carl Sagan's scifi novel, Contact, was written from a scientific perspective.  But the original story was bad.  He turned to other scientists and writers to help him flesh it out.  Kip Thorne, Arthur Clarke, etc.  Although he used some of their suggestions, he didn't use them all, but it got him to thinking about more clever ways to do what he'd already written, making the final version the gem that it is.

Fabo.sk:
Just a small thing.... Taiwan is not a city, Tai-Pei is...

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