Diplomacy

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UesugiKenshin
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Re: Diplomacy

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Twilight Zone
A Small Talent for War
(1985)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fbT1fCHOjfI
An alien threatens Earth and then ends up laughing at our efforts.
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Re: Diplomacy

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Consider the scale of 20 light year sectors where one sector has a star and planets and so is labeled a system.

We think of one minor or major race owning a system. How wrong would that be?

Think outside the box and look not just at the X,Y coordinate system, but the Z axis.

The distance from the Sun to Pluto is an elipse so variable,but at its furthest point is 3,670,050,000 miles. That is almost unfathomable.That is equal to 0.0006243041131251 light years.

5,906,380,000 kilometers is equal to 0.0006243041131251 light years.

Let's say you had a fast vessel and the captain and crew's task was to watch every distance in height along the Z axis for that fraction which is Pluto's maximum distance. How many ships would be required above and below the horizonal if each vessels is guarding the integrity of that fraction?

1,000 vessels above and below the horizontal (so 2,000) could surveil 0.6243041131250826 light years above and below the horizonal. So you would need 32,000 vessels to adequately monitor 20 light years. Rather a lot, no?

The enemy could arrive at any Z axis, but presume for security what a reasonable number of vessels would be to monitor that very short distance in galactic terms, but huge to us.

An enemy could slip in undetected and especially with cloaking technology.

Other than a Cray supercomputer or better a quantum computer, I don't see realistic galactic modeling in a space game in our futures.

Imagine being tasked with ploting an intercept course. Good luck.
Zuletzt geändert von UesugiKenshin am Sonntag 3. Mai 2020, 22:35, insgesamt 2-mal geändert.
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Re: Diplomacy

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This is why realistically speaking, it's implausible even for the heavily armed Xibren with their battleships to truly monitor their entire system. And that is one sector of space around their home system.

A tiny scout could easily enter undetected. And so recall the opening of Aliens where Ripley is in a tiny ship in suspended animation and she drifted past the populated regions into deep space as nobody noticed her vessel. It was just blind luck anyone noticed. She's akin to a grain of sand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnYlcVh-awE&app=desktop
It was 57 years before anyone noticed her vessel.
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Re: Diplomacy

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That is why when an airplane crashes after drifting off course, it requires a miracle for rescuers to relocate it as it's like finding a needle in a haystack. And that is apples and oranges in terms of a galactic scale.
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Re: Diplomacy

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The closest analogy would be the brilliance of submarine commanders hunting for a sub using steath technology and trying (probably in vain) to detect them and intercept them so they turn back around.
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Re: Diplomacy

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I've played games, either board, strategy tabletop war games, roleplaying, and computer games for more than 40 years. But while BotE is compelling during battles, it's the least interesting aspect of the game.

Why? Because the idea of traveling the galaxy and learning about 156 extraterrestrials is far more compelling. What do they believe? What are their cultural practices? What do they hope for? How could human beings learn from them and help them? What answers do they have, or what would be supremely tragic and humorous...are they as mixed up and confounded by life as we are?

Think of the tremendous opportunity for answers to the greatest scientific, philosophical, and theological questions. Or maybe they are worse off or even more struck by the absurdity of existence?

Why would winning be conquering the galaxy? If anything Hurt by Nine Inch Nails, and sung so poignantly by Johnny Cash sums up the fallacy of a bigger pile of dirt ("an empire of dirt")as being "winning".
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8AHCfZTRGiI
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0xIPdcXAdE

To me winning is the journey, not what everyone thinks it is as a goal. And largely altruism is the most important aspect of that journey and that almost nothing to do with war.

War is the result of the cessation of diplomacy and what an absurdity to fight over a just about an infinite galaxy as far as human beings can imagine.

Life is about sincere friendships and romance, at least in this temporal life.
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Re: Diplomacy

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In spite of our best efforts, few of us can maintain meaningful romantic relationships even as long as seven years. Sincere friendships wax and wane. And so we feel alone even on a planet of 7.8 billion people. Why do you think loneliness is such a major topic in Art forms?

Find a single ballet performance devoid of expressions of alienation. Or even within classical music and the wistful sounds of oboes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui91q7Y9xPk&app=desktop
The Mission (1986)

So with trillions of extraterrestrials in 156 species, is it worse or better?

Very meaningful questions and missions could be aspects of BotE rooted in the heroes and heroine's journeys.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero's_journey
Joseph Campbell's classic writing, among others, is a pervasive theme to postmodern forms of Art. You cannot listen to music, or read a poem, or open a book, or watch television or film, and escape the hero's journey.

All of science fiction deals with it. And nothing has changed since Norse myths and Viking sagas.
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Re: Diplomacy

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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LwPpwLy4UIU
In the movie Arrival, the brilliant linguist Louise has mastered elements of the extraterrestrials' language, but also unlocks her sense of "time" so she no longer is bound by it. And knowing that she will make mistakes in love and her relationships, and that to some degree love is marred by horrible tragedy, she still makes the same choices.
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Re: Diplomacy

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Human beings would be irrevocably changed by even one verifiable contact with extraterrestrial life. There was a famous I believe RAND think tank study, and they feared a total collapse of society from such an event.

I'm more hopeful. But the idea of waging war in the cosmos is diverting but simultaneously repulsive.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WyNFY1R-d8w
Starman (1984)

We can't even get along anymore with each other, yet claim to respect diversity. 'Quite a conundrum.
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Re: Diplomacy

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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rYGWG2_PB_Q
War of the Worlds (2005)

It doesn't have to be War of the Worlds. It would actually be strange to travel immense distance to the Earth just to wage war.
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Re: Diplomacy

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Re: Diplomacy

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Then sometimes you have this problem.

I do and I don't want to contact the Sevar.
http://bote2.square7.ch/en/wiki/Test1
The Sevar are a semi-organic life form and advocate an occult teaching about the dark matter of the universe. Little is known about the Sevar, they are half myth, half legend. You will never meet visitors to their barren worlds again. Rumor has it that the Sevar are working on a secret plan to completely fill the universe with dark matter, just as they are trying to do it on their own bodies. Before the cult formation, life on Sevar was said to have pulsated and lively trade with the surrounding systems had ensured great prosperity. There must have been a few among them who managed to poison the entire planet with everything that goes with it in the truest sense of the word. They were not deliberately hostile or evil, but their values ​​are incomprehensible and they do not recognize the so-called bright material prosperity of this universe as worth protecting.

Home system: Sevar

Technological progress: normal

Special ability: martial

Bribery: difficult to bribe

Spaceman nation: own ships

Special building: Temple of Sevar: +40% internal security, +2 morale in the system
It's turn 373+ and the Omega Alliance are doing fine and stable and the Sevar are in their midst. My scout is of such low caliber that when set to avoid, and navigating through the Sevar system would likely be interdicted. But they are out doing long range scans. I have a medium range Frigate and when they are set to avoid, but being higher quality, then can slip through. So it means rerouting my Aleph class low end scout who is doing an admirable job and the crew is highly experienced, but far away.

It's the one time I wish I could just get picked up by the Sevar's fleet to make contact, but can't. They will likely just shoot down either regardless.

BotE would be so much better with a hailing system.
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Re: Diplomacy

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With sabotage fixed and modded and the diplomacy balanced by modding major and minor races, it would be riveting to play by modding some space-faring minor race/species the ability to colonize. Some would end up terraforming their systems and beyond.

The galaxy would be very dynamic as not just the major races/species would be spreading, but mini-empires too. You could mod some species to be very prolific with inexpensive colony ships. That would assuredy arouse the ire of some major races as those particular minor race mini-empires would likely be poorly defended juicy morsels to nibble on.
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Re: Diplomacy

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I clicked directly on the Sevar and the red indicator estimates a 2 % chance of winning the battle. Luckily since I had my Aleph class frigate set to avoid, and they took pity on me (probably they laughed in high mirth that some damned fool or extremely brave Omega Alliance crew had the audacity to enter their home system). They let me go, and after two gifts of 2500 credits, their anger subsided. Trade was established, and the Sevar offered friendship.

BotE is an excellent challenging game. All it needs in minor modification by bright young people and talented writers to explain what is transpiring.

How in the world did this game stay hidden for so long?
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Re: Diplomacy

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If you're an old fan of science fiction, and especially in America, you watched as largely two voices emerged from Hollywood versus the science fiction world.

The earliest voices used science fiction as a dogma from the technocrats who felt technology had all the answers. That's futurism and largely was optimistic and felt that in time, all of humanity's issues could be solved by humans themselves.

As opposed to that, paranoia and legitimate concern about the Iron Curtain and subversion by communists created a niche for invasion films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Even films like The Day the Earth Stood Still portray a more powerful and dangerous extraterrestrial who can subvert human free will for our own good.

It wasn't until Spielberg (of all people given Jaws) created both Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET that two seemingly opposite viewpoints were met in the same director's vision.

Roddenberry's humanist progressive vision in Star Trek the original series was updated in The Next Generation, and Patrick Steward, once comfortable with the role and life in Hollywood, began to exemplify human beings as the super diplomats of the galaxy.

That went awry as the crew of Voyager were willing to entirely act in unethical ways just to solve their own problems. Then worsened as the antiheroes of Deep Space Nine were willing to embrace evil to win in the Gamma Quadrant.

Star Trek Enterprise walked this back by a more retrospective look as bumbling humans prior to a Prime Directive realized how correctly the Vulcans had limited their diplomatic actions. It was a wonder the Federation was born at all.

That was in 2005 when at least we all gave lip service to diversity. Fifteen years later and human beings are so polarized, not just in America, but across eastern and western civilization. It seems peculiar to present Terrans as superdiplomats in 2020.
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