Set the controls for the heart of the galaxy
Again Phil Plait provides an imagination pump for me. Check out that picture (and follow Phil’s advice: click on it to make it huge).
You should read Phil’s post to understand what that is. But let’s talk about why it’s cool and why it should drive your brain towards adventurous Diasporan ideas. In the middle there is a black hole. It’s a tiny speck of nothing that masses millions of times the mass of the sun, and the shape that mass creates is that whole picture. Arguably, in fact, it drives the shape of the entire galaxy and that picture, vast as the space is in reality, is still only a small chunk of the galaxy.
Originally I wrote “chaos” up there instead of “shape”. I changed it because it’s not chaos at all. If anything it’s order. The enormous mass creates not a vortex of unpredictability but rather changes what would be an unordered mass of undifferentiated gas into a shape and colours. Its gravitation gets converted into energies that light the sky and create whole new suns. Its relationship to other masses in the galaxy imparts (requires) motion and therefore dynamism. The universe is about decaying order, certainly, but foremost order.
So in your game a black hole (and that’s a big one, but they all have impact vastly beyond their “size”) is not an empty spot of nothingness. It is actually surrounded by high-energy activity. It’s beautiful and dangerous. The region is lit up with forming and dying stars, reflecting their spasms off dust that scatters blues and golds and purples. And in all that is richness too — for the risk you’re paid in heavy metals, elements that need high energies to come into existence in the first place. Elements that are naturally rare because of the hostility of the space that creates them.
An impending doom rarely has the chance to be so startlingly beautiful. Make sure, when you game this space, you sell that image. The terror and the awe.
–BMurray
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9 Comments
17:15
Well, if your suit visor has the right kinds of enhanced optics, a lot of space might well look like that! And it probably pays to see in IR and gamma if you’re working outside a lot.
20:51
Ahh, good point! Not to gush, but I think that’s something I really liked about Diaspora, which attracted me to it once I got a chance to read some of it (SRD for the win); I like that it makes hard sci-fi sound fun. Normally hard sci-fi seems to take away more than it enables, but Diaspora comes across as very positive, very full of things to do even with (or even because of!) the limits of practical science coming in.
20:57
Chris, so true! It’s a rare hard sci fi that’ll grab me in fiction. It’s EVEN RARER to find hard sci fi in gaming that I’m gung-ho for. Diaspora pulls it off.
21:04
Chris, please, feel free to gush. Seriously, it is not a problem for us.
We really wanted to sell our profound (I mean, really, a 30 year love affair) enthusiasm for Travellerishness and so I’m delighted it comes across. When we wedded it to Fred and gang’s work, we just about stroked out with glee. We wrote that down.
21:07
Oh can I ask, Chris (and feel free to lie), based on your comment — did you read the SRD and then buy or the other way around or read the SRD and not buy? I’m curious about how the SRD gets used because as an intro to the game I think it really sells it short. That was deliberate — we wanted the SRD to be a taste only (though a complete reference) and not the whole game — but I worry that there’s some backfire in that strategy,
00:30
I’d rate a combination of factors really, if you’ve got a drink and chair, I’ll lay it out as best I can recall.
I remember seeing something about the game through RPG.net a while back, when the playtest draft was floating around, and actually got my hands on that. I skimmed it a bit, thought it clever, but wasn’t really into the FATE system at the time. We were probably playing 4th edition (D&D) around that time.
Later on, I picked up Mongoose Traveller and we had a good run of that, though I eventually got bored with the game. Just felt so bland, nothing to really excite me there, no space stories that I felt compelled to tell. In the last month or so, I started catching buzz on Diaspora again. This eventually got me reading the SRD, which was pretty bare bones but I expected as much.
Still… there was a lot of good stuff there! That combined with reading some of your posts around the web got me excited about the game: here was Traveler with an exciting system, with an exciting premise that didn’t just drop the players off with a ship, a debt, and a thousand stars to explore or whatever. Diaspora was like, “Here’s the only 6-10 stars that are actually relevant, because you and your friends made it so and now we’re going to tell an awesome story set there!” So I decided to buy Diaspora so I could get the full deal: I waned the hard copy book, but I especially wanted the examples because the SRD was tantalizing and I need to see how this thing actually worked.
Plus, not to diss on Fred because he’s got a great game but, Diaspora boiled down FATE in a way that made me understand it in a way that SotC didn’t. Rereading SotC now, it makes a lot more sense because of Diaspora. It’s a combination of simplification (stunts especially) and the sort of… pragmatic tone in which everything in Diaspora is written. I saw one quote describe it as a good read in a technical manual sense, but I find the straight forward text to be very accessible.
So anyway, to cut a ramble short, I read the SRD and got hype from the teams’ posts around the web, and decided I needed this book. I think the SRD does a pretty good job of selling it, in that it certainly provides some juicy peeks at the system. A lot of it did leave me scratching my head until I finally got the book. Then it all makes perfect sense. Like uh… probably the way zones are laid out for Social Conflict or even platoon combat was pretty hazy to me. Then I open the book, see a picture and go “oooh, like that. Makes sense now.”
10:07
Thanks, Chris! That’s basically what we hoped would happen with the SRD. :D I’m glad you’re happy with what you got — our worst fear, honestly, is selling the game to someone who doesn’t actually want it.
We are pretty crappy capitalists.
12:19
Oh, to address the topic again, thank you for the new wallpaper. The burning heart of our galaxy makes a very attractive desktop for dual widescreens. :D
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Comments
- J B Bell on Getting back in the game :
Brad, you are such a cock. You've RUINED EVERYTHING. Sinc... - Ben on What would be in Highport? :
I love this idea. Makes me want an iPad even more.... - boulet on Getting back in the game :
Actually I gave it a second go and it flowed easily. I'd com... - walkerp on Grass, going to seed, and competition :
Oh and you too showed such promise. [dispatches ninja bears... - halfjack on Getting back in the game :
Thank you for the compliment! I apologize for the language -... - boulet on Getting back in the game :
Loved this piece man. Loved the jokes, loved the CPR method ... - halfjack on Grass, going to seed, and competition :
Even if you weren't, i am tired of his dirty hippie ways.... - clash bowley on Grass, going to seed, and competition :
If I had a lawn, I'd pump it full of chemicals just to piss ... - walkerp on Grass, going to seed, and competition :
The argument goes that short cut grass actually allows weeds... - halfjack on Grass, going to seed, and competition :
I'm not sure what that would accomplish, though it seems lik...
Brad is one author of Diaspora and is keenly interested in interesting things. The writing here, consequently, might vary widely as his focus flits from shiny to shiny.
A latecomer to VSCA, JB works as a systems administrator to support his severe bicycle-riding addiction. Designing games is an outgrowth of his inability to let well enough alone.
15:45
Damn, that’s beautiful. I know it isn’t quite accurate, but I love to visualize THAT as the backdrop of space. It’s an intriguing image, doing something in space suspended over a sea of fire like that, perhaps with a different nebulous image to act as a “sky.”