Sprocket Posted April 20, 2003 Share Posted April 20, 2003 Heya, folks- ::smiley5 Looking through my collection of Trinity books, I've found what appears to be a glaring threat to the Earth that was either never noticed on any fan forums or was simply ignored once Trinity (and the Aeon gamelines in general) was cancelled.The thing is this: according to the second Alien Encounter adventure book, the Ark of the Coalition has been effectively taken over by the Tainted Coalition breeders and their aberrant allies. Tainted Coalition phyles are said to suffer from serious mental dysfunction, and that would include the sasqs, who keep the Coalition's tech up and running.Why is this important? Because the Coalition ark is powered by a SYNTHETIC BLACK HOLE!!! ::crazy ::crazy ::crazy I have a hard time believing that someone at White Wolf wasn't drooling over the possibilities offered by this combination of circumstances. All it would take is one screwup by a Taint-addled sasq, and that black hole would be free! After gobbling up the Coalition Ark and everything aboard it, it would then proceed to devour much- if not all- of the Solar System, including Earth.Possible? Or am I just full of hot air? Feedback, please! ::halo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanseg Posted April 20, 2003 Share Posted April 20, 2003 Way cool idea. I guess that would encourage your players even more to find some way of stopping the Coalition/Aberrant alliance.The Coalition always kind of reminded me of the Tyranids in WH40K and also Species 8472 in Star Trek Voyager. I wonder if it would be possible to develop some kind of biological weapon, which has to be released in the core of the Coalition ship...Alternatively perhaps the players would have to try to disrupt the synthetic black hole.Actually it will be some time before my gaming group gets to the stage where they have to deal with the Coalition. I will hopefully be running my first Trinity game in June. However I am interested in finding out if anyone ran a game where they dealt with the Coalition successfully?Apologies if I am going off-topic.Regardskanseg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictorHFrost KSC Posted April 20, 2003 Share Posted April 20, 2003 actually, it also aludes tot he fact that uch of coalition tech has been unused for generations and that thee kowledge of how it works has been lost. if the ark enters sol system and gets torn to shreds, there might be noone that can stop the black hole from escaping.jake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knave Posted April 21, 2003 Share Posted April 21, 2003 A good reason to send your group off looking for Divis Mal to beg for his help... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictorHFrost KSC Posted April 21, 2003 Share Posted April 21, 2003 i see it as a picture perfect way to remove mal and mercer, the two more deus ex npc's of the line in an apporpriate cinematic fashion. they band together to do something nifty like grab the black hole and send it through time, maybe to start the paradox that initiates life on earth or something along those lines thereby embodying the principles of the trinity universe "hope sacrifice unity". cool neh?jake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sprocket Posted April 21, 2003 Author Share Posted April 21, 2003 Thanks for the straw that broke the camel's back, Victor! ::laugh Once you add in the fact that the Coalition's technology has become decadent, it makes the situation even bleaker... ::devil Frankly, the destruction of Trinity-era Earth and the Solar Sytem via the Coalition's escaped black hole is starting to sound more and more likely. And frankly, it sounds like the psi orders don't really stand a chance of surviving that threat without outside help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictorHFrost KSC Posted April 21, 2003 Share Posted April 21, 2003 hence why i suggestied pitting one dues ex machina device against another. mutual annihilation and all is well in the end.jake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moving_target Posted April 22, 2003 Share Posted April 22, 2003 you guys know that a BH that has to be carried around by a ship, even a ship as large as the arcship, can't be very massive, and in order to keep it under control it must have been fed a large quanity of charged ions. so what we'd have is a small (a few thousand metric tonnes), ellectrically charged blackhole the size of say a softball? it would prob be damn easy for a clear to home in on, then you strap a pair of giant electromagnets to one of the ships designed to transport ice-teroids, and bam, you have a BH chatcher. admittilly it would take a while for the ship to move it around, but as long as you had a few weeks to a few months notice, no problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finbar Posted April 22, 2003 Share Posted April 22, 2003 Backing up a few steps, dealing with the Coalition is easy as long as you think it out before hand. It only took a couple of Quantum Inferno cannons.... ::rolleyes However, a teleporter with a WEAR and Warping 5 could take out the engines, and a biokinetic with sufficient speed could nail a lot of them via pheromones (probably your safest bet). ::cool But that black hole...Sheesh...That could be fun if you could capture it..."Oh, Mr. Cassel, what would you be willing to give me for this?" ::hehe FR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knave Posted April 22, 2003 Share Posted April 22, 2003 The Coalition ark was something like 1/3 the size of the moon. Now granted, that's got engines and stuff in it, but if you think that we only live on the outside of our planet then that is a lot of space to inhabit - there could potentially be more 'creatures' on the ark than in say the Americas. Biokinetics could have a bit of trouble turning them all with pheromones... they could start something - sure. And yeah, a WEAR user could do some damage - assuming they could get a 'lock' with all the residual taint from the Furies- nevermind the Psi vibes that the black hole is giving out. I wonder if the gravitation is enough to suck Psi particles in too? hmmmm Actually, thinking about it, if Gravitons are types of Psi particles, then maybe all the psi particles in the area are having graviton spin put on them? -Knave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slagheap Posted April 22, 2003 Share Posted April 22, 2003 I assume the Black Hole would disrupt Psi because it has a Quantum Singularity. I know that's kind of an abuse of tearms, but the science for this world setting is a little hinky if you look at it too close. anyway it makes sense to me that a black hole would disrupt Psi, so I figure between the hole and the tain, not to mention anyother anti-psi tech the Coalition might have just porting the engines seems out of the question.-Slag Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix Posted April 22, 2003 Share Posted April 22, 2003 Actually, thinking about it, if Gravitons are types of Psi particles, then maybe all the psi particles in the area are having graviton spin put on them?I thought gravitons were quanta particles, along with the particles for the other four basic forces of the universe. Come to think of it, if psi is the fifth basic force of the universe, wouldn't that make the psion particle a form of quanta? (which isn't necessarily to say quanta users can manipulate it).As for 'porting the ark engines, isn't teleportation based on mass, not volume? That would definitely throw a wrench into Atwan's gears.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finbar Posted April 22, 2003 Share Posted April 22, 2003 1) It's sorta been fun to sit back and watch the Coalition Ark get bigger with each post... ::tongue 2) Not if I'm using Warping 5: Transportal. In this case, the 'port is based on volume (with a Psi 10 giving a 1.28 K (just under a mile) radius....Affecting 2 K^3, at 1 ton per cubic meter, that's roughly 2 billion tons the Ark will be missing....Oh yeah, baby! ::smokin ....Assuming solid metal, of course.... ::sarcasm FR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix Posted April 23, 2003 Share Posted April 23, 2003 1 ton per cubic meter? For something that can suck in photons, that sounds pretty light... (score! what a pun! ::smiley1 ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sprocket Posted April 23, 2003 Author Share Posted April 23, 2003 Sometimes I've got to wonder if I shouldn't've kept my big trap shut... ::hehe Sorry, folks- no matter how much psi-augmenting bioware you load down your hordes of psions with, I still can't see them being able to divert/relocate/safely dispose of a black hole. Synthetic or not, that thing is still likely to gobble down the entire Solar System, and to consume all those psions (and whatever aberrants are in-system at the time) as a tasty garnish. ::devilangel No, what I had in mind was that Aeon (and humans/psions in general) would have to eat a big helping of crow and ask the sane, relatively non-tainted novas living somewhere out there in the rest of the galaxy if they could lend a hand with this little problem.(Ducks head, awaits inevitable storm of vitriol and fireworks. ::devil )Seriously though, black holes are a fair bit beyond the capabilities of psions to deal with, even en masse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moving_target Posted April 23, 2003 Share Posted April 23, 2003 although I agree that a black hole, no matter how small, would play havoc whit any porter crasy enough to try to teleport it, and possiblly psionics in general in it's immediate area, there are plenty of theiories in current science of how to capture and move an sigularity. in the trinity era, a ship mechanic should be able to slap something together in no time.and a singularity sutible to be used to power a ship of any size needs to be small so it will radiated large amounts of power. (one of the ultimate ironies, black holes get hot as they shrink ::blink ) and black holes are only as distructive as their gravity field allows. a black hole with the gravity field of a small asteroid would only be dangerious if you got within a few kilometers of it, or it was on a direct collision course with the planet you were standing on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knave Posted April 23, 2003 Share Posted April 23, 2003 Yeah - doh - misremembered - Gravitons aren't a type of psion - which would make sense given the number of abbies who can manipulate gravity. Still - could be enough to send some nasty ripples through the medium for both Psions and abbies.-Knave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictorHFrost KSC Posted April 23, 2003 Share Posted April 23, 2003 uhm, not to mess things up here, but the coalition does have psionic dampners/dispersers. this pretty much nullifies the options of both biokinetic interference and teleporter engine nappers. they put the dampners at any key structural points and the upeo option is null, they put them at the airlocks and at various points around the ship and even the bio-k plan won't work. and its not like a good enough roll will get around it, the only powers that work are ones that don't require a psi expenditure. hence earth is going to have to nail the coalition the good old fashioned way, or get abbys to help. neat how they made the aberrants so key to humanity's victory isn't it?jake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawn Falcon Posted April 23, 2003 Share Posted April 23, 2003 (hi I'm new yeah...)As a note, a black hole that size is - ironically - not a threat by itself. A tiny black hole which could be trapped by Earth's gravity yes, because it would slowly eat the Earth from the inside (if it was big enough to survive at all...David Brin's _Earth_ has a nice discussion on it).A BIG black hole would destroy Earth, but the one on the Arc isn't going to be THAT large. So, if it hit Earth, it would go straight THROUGH Earth without stopping. Sure, it would cause some damage on entry and exit but NOT of world-destroying magnitude. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bahamut810 Posted April 23, 2003 Share Posted April 23, 2003 Anything that needs to be done to bring michael Donagal back into play ::devil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reighnhell Posted April 23, 2003 Share Posted April 23, 2003 I can see it now...Somewhere on Mal-World, Divas Mal enjoys a afternoon of peace and quite, being fed blood and mango's ( his favorite) by one of the beautiful nova boys that surround him.His afternoon is interrupted by one of his servants...Servant-Sir, Telephone.Mal- Telephone? I don't remember giving out this number.Servant- He says his name is Max.Mal- ****, tell him I'm Busy.Servant- He says a run away black hole is going to eat the solar system.Mal- Let the monkeys handle it.Servant- He says you still owe him from that poker game in 1924, and it's been collecting intrest.Mal- Alright, Alright, somebody gimme my shirt..*grumble, grumble* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knave Posted April 23, 2003 Share Posted April 23, 2003 Hmmm - where in Canon are Coalition Psi Dampeners mentioned?-KnaveNormal... the Dampening... sucks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slagheap Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 Um Falcon, you may be right that the actual impact and exit of a Black hole might not do much, but if any object were to bore a hole all the way through the Earth I imagine weather paterns and at the very least seismic systems would be greatly disrupted causeing untold damage and death.Beyond all that isn't the destructive force of black hole based on MASS and not SIZE? So, regardless of how small the hole is, it's size is what must be considered.-Slag Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictorHFrost KSC Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 whoops, sorry there folks, misread a bit in the last adventure book, its norca tech, not coalition. nevermind fnord fnord fnord.jake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 Yeah, if a meteor could wipe out every significant species on the planet, it seems odd that a meteor wouldn't do a thing. I would say that extinction of the species would still be relatively certain.. if it actually hit the Earth, and there's a whole lot of room out there in which to miss it. There would probably be some pretty weird stuff going on on Earth, though...Knave, I know gravitons aren't psions. But they are quanta, right? So are psions another form of quanta, or are they a fundamental particle, or what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knave Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 VictorHFrost KSCwhoops, sorry there folks, misread a bit in the last adventure book, its norca tech, not coalition. nevermind fnord fnord fnord.Thought so... (and thank God I'm not the only one doing it ) It wouldn't make sense for the Coalition to have Psi Dampeners cause their tech is based entirely around hard tech and Dampeners are always biotech. The progenitors have some pretty funky gengeneering tech, but it seems highly unlikely that they could produce something as complex as a psi dampener since they're missing a whole field of study. They couldn't reproduce aberrants correctly, it seems even less likely that they'll be able to produce Psions since they are even harder to trigger - and the genetic stock they'd be using doesn't tend to trigger itself anyway.phoenixKnave, I know gravitons aren't psions. But they are quanta, right? So are psions another form of quanta, or are they a fundamental particle, or what? Lol... we had a bit of conjecture about this in TFR: Noetics. Explanations vary, but I think you can boil it down to this: Psi is the stuff that the Rules are written in. So Psi is like a mould for quanta - both more powerful and less powerful than the tool it produces. Are gravitons quanta? Good Question. Its been a while since I read A brief History of Time - but I suggest that the question is better answered there. Are Psions fundamental particles? Yes - until they find something smaller. (those would be subsubquantum particles ) Does that mean that Quanta is now a misnomer? Yes. What are we going to do about it? Do you like alternative music? -Knave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finbar Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 So that means by Upeo engine-nappers are back on-line? ::dontgetit Oh, yeah....Anyone want a slightly used, roughly spherical Coalition engine, sans black hole? ::bigsmile FR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictorHFrost KSC Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 well, we're still talking about a quantum singularity, and since nodes of quantum energy (m-r nodes by another name) tend to have disruptive effects on psions i'd still guess simply teleporting away the engines would be nigh impossible. besides that, say you do teleport the engines away, now you've got an object a third the size of our moon traveling in whatever path it was before hand. if its on an earth intercept orbit, or even an earth parrallel orbit, we have huge new problems that arise. its not like you can simply crash something that big without it making a mess, and the kind of mess we're talking about with this thing is global killer scale. even if it doesn't hit the effects on tides siesmic vibrations and the like would be catastrophic.jake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knave Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 Yup - as far as I can see the problems with the ark are as follows.1) It's Really Really Really Big - associated problems like the gravity it exerts on other objects, the amount of forces on board etc.2) When its not slowing down / speeding up its going faster than light / near light speed and nothing we have can track it accurately / hope to match its speed. All we can hope to do is predict when and where it might go or what state it is in relative to the outside world... We know that even Herzog has trouble keeping track of teleporters - could be a similar problem here.3) The Quantum singularity might cause some sort of psi ripples? Probably fairly contained in the engine room - but it could be giving out ripples that stop anything locking on it. Another possibility - the singularity is very small while it is contained - say the size of one molecule. How hard would teleporting one molecule be?4) Even more likely - the amount of taint the furies are pushing out will cause some sort of visual disruption.5) The ark is a warzone between furies and progenitors and abbies.I ran the Alien encounter 2 missions quite a while ago. In my chronicle Norca set up a follow up mission working under the assumption that the ark was going to Earth next. The Pai had two objectives - 1) Buy some more time 2) Gather data. So he sent in Technokinetic specialists along with some traditional shifters. The technokinetics were there to try to get hold of whatever kinds of databases the ark had, whilst the shifters had several missions including the capture of several members of each phyle for study, fanning the flames of the insurrection and finally placing several briefcase nukes in as many of the Ark's port side steering thrusters / engine necelles as possible - the idea simply being to mess with their ability to steer. The players managed to pull off the mission of course - although the casualty rate was high (especially amongst the red shirted support team ). They're still analysing the data searching for answers to the questions - who built it? why? and how can it be stopped? My chronicle is creeping into 2124... high time for another coalition story i think -Knave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bahamut810 Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 Ok...I have said before...but im not 100% about trinity (im getting the book soon *still*)...but from what I know about ABerrant...Why not just have a Momentum control Aberrant, a warp aberrant, a M-Str and a ForceField/Flying Aberrant work together?Warp in...FF around the the others so they can breath...M-STR picks the sucker up...warp out somewhere else...momentum control stops it on a dime and starts it going to the closest...ummm....second black hole in the area...then warp back ot whereever.Like I said...this is from Abby knowledge, not Trinity. If im that far off...oops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictorHFrost KSC Posted April 25, 2003 Share Posted April 25, 2003 thats a great idea, and i think that was kinda the purpose of the battle being set up as it is. it forces humanity to seek the help of novas once again in a time of need. i think what we were debating over was whether or not trinity canon humanity/psions could do it on their own, which i think we can agree would at least be a daunting task, especially if the colony main force arrived at the same time (something i think was probabaly planned to happen). personally i think the solution is most elegant if it involves bringing the series full circle, letting the earth forces take care of colony, and a combo of edenites and the two primary deus ex machina characters deal with the coalition. in my head this sorta thing reaches battle of endor proportions and as a means of wrapping up most of the major dangling plot threads i think it should be that big. it leaves a lot of room for pc characters to interact with the conflict, even making decisions that will affect milions of lives, while also covering the big questions still left to the imagination in the trinity universe. just my thoughts though.jake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knave Posted April 25, 2003 Share Posted April 25, 2003 The only danger with that scenario is that by bringing Max and particularly Divis into it you sideline the PCs both from a leadership perspective and from a pure power perspective - which would be a crying shame. I mean face it, Aberrant's Divis + 100 years could turn the ark into a cream pie without trying before he even bothered with his wheaties - and besides which - Max, unless I seriously miss my guess, is busy being Earth's 'hidden Imam' in the war against the Doyen.From a purely Trinity point of view I think the idea is good - and that stopping the ark should require the Edenites, Nihonjin, FSA, Chinese, UAN, Psi Orders etc etc all working in Unity... heh.Actually I'm sorely tempted to run a game where the defence fails... Change is interesting.-Knave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictorHFrost KSC Posted April 25, 2003 Share Posted April 25, 2003 my plot for divis is really just my way of disposing of the black hole issue. he takes care of that, and leaves the rest to humanity. he's not going to do it all for them, but removing the threat of mutual destruction means humanity can plot its own course, something i think he'd approve of. in such a fashion the human forces still have to figure out how to stop the arks motion and deal with the thousands of furies and coalition breeds inside. max being the front man against the doyen sounds like a fine idea as well. really i'd just like to see those two taken out of the spotlight in a way thats is both fitting yet not overshadowing of player opportunities. persoanlly i'm ok with the idea of my players not being able to handle a black hole, means they're still vulnerable and human. whereas i realize strictly speaking its probably possible within system to take down the black hole with the rules we've got in the books, but i just think thats a bit too much for players to just up and do on their own. and given that these two characters are so in need of closure and even more in need of disposal (simply for theme's sake) it seems an apt time to take care of all that.jake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sprocket Posted April 25, 2003 Author Share Posted April 25, 2003 Looks like I've really opened up a can of worms here... ::laugh From my point of view, this situation is starting to look more and more like the assorted battles, vendettas, and outright fiascos that led up to the Aberrant War. Instead of one big battle with well-defined sides and an enclosed battlefield, we get a whole spectrum of organizations/nations/powerful folks in an anything-goes free-for-all. No rules, no boundaries, etc. And so, we end up with a huge mess. All the Aberrant War covered was Earth, near orbit, and the Moon. THIS mess is gonna sprawl out over the entire Solar System.Nice how those Trinity developers came up with such a realistic outcome, isn't it? ::devilangel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictorHFrost KSC Posted April 25, 2003 Share Posted April 25, 2003 INDEED!!! gotta hand it to the prosjake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finbar Posted April 25, 2003 Share Posted April 25, 2003 Actually I like the idea of the PC's trying to convince Max and Mal to work together again.... ::bigsmile And I think Max would be harder to convince...It'd probably just take a cute male PC to convince Mal ::smokin , but it would take Mal and probably Herzog to convince Max....FR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix Posted April 25, 2003 Share Posted April 25, 2003 And if it's just the PCs trying to get the big guys involved, the rest of the world is probably aware as well, and trying like heck to deal with the problem on their own..Stop laughing. Anyway, it could lead to some interesting conflicts (if nothing else) when, say, Orgotek and the Upeo make peace in order to try to interfere with the ark at the same time that China decides to nuke the thing.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawn Falcon Posted April 26, 2003 Share Posted April 26, 2003 Slagheap - not really. Weather pattens might be affected for a really short period of time. Days. Maybe. As for tectonic systems, they'll laugh at the sort of black hole which we're talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix Posted April 26, 2003 Share Posted April 26, 2003 Dawn Falcon, I find that profoundly unlikely. I can't help but compare it to the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, and consider that such a black hole would have much, much, much more mass. I'd like to be able to give exact data on this (an impact of that sort would be as destructive as 10^63, or one vigintillion, atomic bombs), but I don't have the knowledge. I do know that anything that hit the earth with enough magnitude to punch a hole through it would cause some serious problems.Just how big, and how massive, a black hole are we talking about here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bahamut810 Posted April 26, 2003 Share Posted April 26, 2003 you know...I live on a college campus...mabey I should look up a physics major... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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