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Escaping Earth and Exsurgents

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ExTaron ExTaron's picture
Escaping Earth and Exsurgents
First of all, I'd like to say I'm new to the game, and I find it really promising and unique, so keep up the excellent work! Now, to the meat of the matter: 1) How can someone physically leave earth without having insane connections (Ozma/Consortium)? We know that many scavengers do it to move their loot and, as far as I can tell, the tech to completely hide your rocket's signature when escaping gravity does not yet exist. 2) Are there any exsurgent pics around? I think of them as visually impressive/terrifying, but forming a mental image of them is quite hard, how do I convey their forms to the players? My initial idea was to show a couple stages of the transformation, so when the see an amorphous blob they know it used to be a guy who had his skin gradually turn into a smart, malleable, metal, which eventually turned cocoon-like that burst* to reveal his new nano-bioswarm form. Thanks in advance! (*they are going to do some the bursting themselves: "Hey, did you see that? He completely exploded! I didn't know rail-guns could do that... Should his gore still be flying?.... RUUUN!")
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Escaping Earth and Exsurgents
Escaping the gravity well is indeed a huge issue. Sunward describes this a little. Egocasting is easiest. Short of that, you need someone who has spent a LOT of time studying the satellite net so you know when to expect openings, or perhaps knowlege about a major meteorological events such as solar flares which may add a degree of camouflage against sensitive senors. It's possible also there are launchers on Earth which could be used to get sufficient speed to simply 'blast out', or some of the space elevators may be semi-functional (as is described in the fiction). Ultimately though, it comes down to your GM, insider information and your creativity. As for exsurgentsd... Consider them an experiment in uncontrolled evolution. Any movie monster could be a sample 'exsurgent'. Go crazy :)
ExTaron ExTaron's picture
Re: Escaping Earth and Exsurgents
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Escaping the gravity well is indeed a huge issue. Sunward describes this a little. Egocasting is easiest. Short of that, you need someone who has spent a LOT of time studying the satellite net so you know when to expect openings, or perhaps knowlege about a major meteorological events such as solar flares which may add a degree of camouflage against sensitive senors. It's possible also there are launchers on Earth which could be used to get sufficient speed to simply 'blast out', or some of the space elevators may be semi-functional (as is described in the fiction). Ultimately though, it comes down to your GM, insider information and your creativity.
Actually the GM is me, I am looking for a realistic, and not too convenient (deus-ex machina) way for the players to escape from Earth, and egocasting is not as exciting +they would need to smuggle a TITAN artefact as well, so no Consortium help either. The launcher is a pretty good idea, it could blast you fast enough to outrun the missiles and interceptors, assuming the acceleration doesn't turn you into paste. Space elevators do sound a bit dangerous, it seems obvious to me that it would be guarded, even one dedicated satellite with an strong payload could shoot you down.
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
As for exsurgentsd... Consider them an experiment in uncontrolled evolution. Any movie monster could be a sample 'exsurgent'. Go crazy :)
I was talking about the "vanilla" types in the core book, as they are alien and scary enough. Btw, I think typical movie/game "tooth+claw" monsters are better suited for those crazy exhumans' morphs, I prefer to use unfamiliar, alien (or uncanny) stuff for the exsurgents.
Draconis Draconis's picture
Re: Escaping Earth and Exsurgents
If you want the most amusing escape method have your players look for an unlaunched nuclear ICBM and ride that out to orbit for pickup. I'm sure advanced missiles have some sort of stealth or defensive capabilities, ECM, drones, etc, to squeeze or damage the target's satellite defense grid. Yes you'd be riding a nuke all Dr. Strangelove style. }; ) As for exsurgents. I'm partial to Giger's aliens, but that's just me. It's pretty much up to GM fiat. Sounds like you'd prefer a more Call of Cthulhu bent.

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nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Escaping Earth and Exsurgents
I don't think there are any 'vanilla' exsurgents. Maybe the critters in Mind the WMDs? But every instance I've seen of exsurgents has been different from the last, so pick your favorite book or movie and steal liberally. Launching a missile would probably kill any biomorphs on board, as well as possibly causing major damage to your goods. They run about 7 km/s, which is around mach 20. I'm sure given the technology at the time, there are probably some pretty sweet missiles with all sorts of anti-detection equipment on board, so locating this sort of gear could be the easiest solution. The railgun solution is more amicable to biomorphs, but not inline with canon. Following what's described in (iirc) The Case for Mars, building a giant coil gun under Mt. Killamajaro could be a pretty cost-effective way of launching stuff into space. Modify it to ramp up the speed and you could probably match the ICBM without squishing all your meatbags with the gs (plus you can stow more stuff in it). However, you need a lot more power and you'll still be a loud, hot target. Another option is the 'mysterious benefactor' trick. As the GM, you set it up so the group somehow gets information from a dark and mysterious agent who either passes on a passcode, or says that this route will be safe at this time. No matter how you cut it, the party now has to deal with the fact that someone else clearly knows that they're up to and is interested in it, for whatever reasons. Also worth mentioning, the amount of mass you're sending up is important. If you're just sending up a few stacks and a DVD, you can make do with a very small, fast rocket without doing much work. If you're sending up five biomorphs and your grandmother's bureau, you're talking about something akin to the Saturn V rockets in regards to acceleration if not size.
root root's picture
Re: Escaping Earth and Exsurgents
root@Escaping Earth and Exsurgents [hr] For no particular reason I was researching railguns recently, and since I love this game I ended up looking at non-rocket launching systems. There are a few difficulties with them on Earth, but they are pretty much awesome anywhere with a smaller gravity well. A manufacturing facility on Luna could launch payloads directly into Earth orbit with existing technology, for example, and with some better targeting algorithms I expect the Independents living in the Trojans would use them as mass drivers to shoot goods back and forth to each other as a shipping system. Escaping the Earth gravity well is possible, but there are some practical considerations to take into account, the most important of which for passengers is as how many gee's your payload can handle. The limit on g-force tells you how fast you can accelerate, which in turn tells you how long your rail needs to be. This length (hundreds of kilometers) introduces another fat set of problems, such as where to put it. The rail is hundreds of kilometers long, and you want it to point upwards as much as possible to minimize spending energy to get over atmospheric drag. In short, we can't do it now for any number of expensive reasons, but the TITANs wouldn't have the same property-line problems that a country trying to do this would have, and would have fewer problems digging holes with nukes, so they could have built one that is angled and buried as much as possible, and they could have kept it well hidden. I also think breaking into a facility that is essentially a hundred kilometer long gun would have some entertainment value.
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Draconis Draconis's picture
Re: Escaping Earth and Exsurgents
Well that's the thing, I think in ease of escape it'd go: Infomorph Synthmorph Biomorph So if you wanted to bring physical items back as the OP is suggesting your options are launch payload then farcast somehow, or unscrew your synthmorph head and toss that in there with the payload. }: ) Hmm there's the challenge, getting biomorphs off at least completely intact anyway. If you don't want to just cut off your head and cryo it offworld it looks like it's good old acceleration gel suspension for you. From Wiki's Liquid Breathing article, space travel subsection (too busy to dig up direct sources), "Liquid immersion provides a way to reduce the physical stress of G forces. Forces applied to fluids are distributed as omnidirectional pressures. Because liquids cannot be practically compressed, they do not change density under high acceleration such as performed in aerial maneuvers or space travel. A person immersed in liquid of the same density as tissue has acceleration forces distributed around the body, rather than applied at a single point such as a seat or harness straps. This principle is used in a new type of G-suit called the Libelle G-suit, which allows aircraft pilots to remain conscious and functioning at more than 10 G acceleration by surrounding them with water in a rigid suit." Seems you can manage about 15 to 20 G that way especially if your biomorph is designed to handle more G than usual. Higher if you fill all your body cavities with liquid.

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root root's picture
Re: Escaping Earth and Exsurgents
root@Escaping Earth and Exsurgents [hr] While liquid immersion is fantastic for handling g-forces that would otherwise be lethal, it tends to be heavy, and requires more power to launch. Since we are working with TITAN tech, this isn't so much a problem as a setting feature. You could have the whole barrel flood with plasma or arc lightning to represent the power consumption of a small city going off in a fraction of a second.
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Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Escaping Earth and Exsurgents
Remember the Kimanjano beanstalk. You can always climb.
Extropian
Lowsow Lowsow's picture
Re: Escaping Earth and Exsurgents
How about TITAN technology? Maybe a hidden rocket, the next gate, an anti-gravity device, a 3rd level psi ability... Getting past the satellites is something that should be done on the way to Earth (unless you really don't know how to land). If you're quick, or discrete, you can use the same hole.
Wyldknight Wyldknight's picture
Re: Escaping Earth and Exsurgents
Who's to say they need to get off the planet? They could have come down with a broken down rocket that could get whatever they came down for off the planet plus their egos in some Spares. Those seem light and small enough to fit in a weak off world ride.
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Camillus Camillus's picture
Re: Escaping Earth and Exsurgents
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Launching a missile would probably kill any biomorphs on board, as well as possibly causing major damage to your goods. They run about 7 km/s, which is around mach 20.
7 km s[sup]-1[/sup] is only a problem if that's your acceleration. Escape velocity from Earth is 11.2 km s[sup]-1[/sup] and low Earth orbit needs about 8 km s[sup]-1[/sup] so you need to be going faster than that anyway. The burn times I could find for ICBMs were about 250 s which is an acceleration of about 3 g - equivalent to the space shuttle.
ExTaron ExTaron's picture
Re: Escaping Earth and Exsurgents
Thank you all guys, I like your ideas, I think what suits me best is a TITAN/Promethean escape rocket that was left behind, it makes sense to have both some stealth/countermeasure capabilities and enough space (to fit all their hardware) and with a few modifications it could be made to support bios.
Wyldknight wrote:
Who's to say they need to get off the planet? They could have come down with a broken down rocket that could get whatever they came down for off the planet plus their egos in some Spares. Those seem light and small enough to fit in a weak off world ride.
Good point, all the smugglers need is to get their loot in orbit, they could fill a bunch of cheap, fast rockets with all the trash they found on Earth and launch the at the same time from the same spot, a coupe of them are bound to reach their destination. There's enough earth "relics" to go around, besides, they don't want to flood the market, to maintain their insanely high prices.