vendredi 30 janvier 2015

Sufficiently Advanced 2e édition (1) New Worlds, New Civilizations

Article sur http://anniceris.blogspot.com/2014/12/sufficiently-advanced-2e-edition-1-new.html

[J'ai sur ce blog plusieurs douzaines de posts inachevés qui ont fini par devenir interminables. J'ai décidé de prendre une perspective plus détachée en n'attendant plus d'avoir le temps d'écrire une sorte d'article publiable (en suivant ce judicieux conseil de Duncan Idaho). Je me contenterai désormais plus d'ébauches de work in progress pour mettre fin à cette procrastination]

J'avais fait une recension de la 1e édition de Sufficiently Advanced et je vais être plus épisodique sur cette 2e édition. C'est vraiment un excellent jeu, plein de concepts stimulants pour la science fiction et Colin Fredericks est un auteur brillant - même si je crains de ne jamais trouver de joueurs, tout comme pour Eclipse Phase ou Mindjammer
Cette édition est bien plus étendue et a plusieurs différences avec la 1e. 
(1) Tout d'abord, cela est devenu un système sans dé, changement qui me gêne un peu comme je suis très "tychéo-phile" (une des parties essentielles du plaisir de jeu est pour moi de lancer les dés - même les autres randomizers comme des cartes m'embêtent un peu). De plus, je n'ai jamais testé de jeu sans dé (il faudrait quand même une fois que je fasse l'expérience d'Amber) et c'est donc assez exotique. 
(2) L'univers de la 1e édition avec son Bureau des Brevets (The Patent Office) devient maintenant seulement un des 5 cadres, les quatre autres étant :
(a) To the Stars (un univers plus fragmenté où la Diaspora a échoué à former une civilisation interstellaire, où la majorité des mondes sont des Cultes de Cargo régressifs et où on essaye de remettre en place le contact - un peu comme dans le concept de Mindjammer avec son "Second Âge d'Exploration", en fait).
(b) The Divide (une guerre froide idéologique entre plusieurs blocs à choisir, avec des aventures plus diplomatiques ou d'espionnage). Un peu comme certaines histoires de The Culture, peut-être.
(c) The Powder Keg (une guerre plus chaude entre les blocs plus militaristes)
(d) Sublight (le voyage FTL n'est possible que sous forme d'ondes et les mondes sont donc encore plus isolés que dans le cadre To the Stars). Les PJ sont des agents téléchargés sur des mondes parce qu'ils ont déterminé par leurs prévisions de psychohistoire que ces mondes entrent dans une Crise et que la faction des PJs veut intervenir - un peu comme les Progresseurs dans l'Univers de Midi). 
Les enquêtes scientifico-cosmologiques de The Patent Office demeurent parmi les plus originales mais ces cadres pourraient aussi se mélanger comme Sufficiently Advanced utilise une sorte de méta-cadre avec plusieurs Civilisations et Sociétés qu'on peut sélectionner pour sa campagne. 
(3) Dans la recension de la première édition, j'avais décrit une douzaine de Civilisations et Sociétés (sans vraiment bien distinguer d'ailleurs les deux termes). Il y a au moins ces quatre ajouts originaux dans les Civilisations (plus une vingtaine de "Sociétés" idéologiques qui ne sont pas que culturelles) :

(a) Les Bâtisseurs de l'Au-delà (p. 205) tentent de créer une sorte de "Paradis" d'information pour archiver tous les Morts. Ils cherchent à créer assez de capacités de calcul pour former un univers d'éternité et abolir définitivement la Mort. Leur culture a l'air d'utiliser des références à l'Asie du Sud-est et plus précisément à la péninsule indochinoise (p. 38).

(b) Les Daoine na Realta Foraois (p. 214, en gaélique "Peuple de la Forêt des Etoiles") sont des sortes d'Elfes néo-celtiques de l'Espace qui manipulent des réseaux de végétaux interstellaires autour d'étoiles ("Arbres de Dyson" ou "Yggdrasils"). On pourrait peut-être aussi utiliser The Integral Trees ?

(c) Les Gaians (p. 228) croient à l'Hypothèse Gaia et considèrent donc les écosystèmes comme des sortes d'Individualités comme la planète Solaris. Ils utilisent des références polynésiennes.

(d) Les Nanori (p. 242) ont choisi de développer la nanotechnologie au point que leurs systèmes sont des mondes saturés de nanotech en compétition avec les systèmes biologiques. Ils considèrent donc qu'il faut "semer" plus de nanotech pour cultiver la Vie artificielle dans l'Univers. Leur culture prend des noms plus persans.

5 commentaires:

Je a dit…

The Integral Trees is a 1984 science fiction novel by Larry Niven (first published as a serial in Analog in 1983). Like much of Niven's work, the story is heavily influenced by the setting: a gas torus, a ring of air around a neutron star. A sequel, The Smoke Ring, was published in 1987.

It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1984, and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1985.

Je a dit…

Setting

The story occurs around the fictional neutron star Levoy's Star (abbreviated "Voy"). The gas giant Goldblatt's World (abbreviated "Gold") orbits this star just outside its Roche limit and therefore its gravity is insufficient to keep its atmosphere, which is pulled loose into an independent orbit around Voy and forms a ring that is known as a gas torus. The gas torus is huge—one million kilometers thick—but most of it is too thin to be habitable. The central part of the Gas Torus, where the air is thicker, is known as the Smoke Ring. The Smoke Ring supports a wide variety of life.

No "ground" exists in the Smoke Ring; it consists entirely of sky. Furthermore, the Smoke Ring is in orbit and therefore in free fall: there is no "up" or "down". Most animals have trilateral symmetry that allows them to see in all directions. The majority of Smoke Ring animals have evolved to fly on at least an occasional basis—even the fish. The Smoke Ring contains numerous "ponds," globs of water of various sizes which float free like everything else. While there are aquatic and amphibious animals in the Smoke Ring that live the majority of their lives in such ponds, these animals may find their habitat unsuitable at any moment. Whether their home pond drifts too far out of the habitable center of the Smoke Ring and into the gas torus, becomes too large and breaks up due to tidal forces, or impacts a large object such as an integral tree, aquatic animals must be able to propel themselves through the air sometimes in order to find a new place to live.

Most plants in the Smoke Ring are quite fragile because they do not need to support their own weight. A notable exception to this rule are the eponymous Integral Trees, which can grow up to 100 kilometers long. Tidal locking causes them to be radially oriented, with one end pointing in toward Voy while the other points toward space. The ends of the tree feel a tidal force of up to 1/5 ɡ0 on the largest trees. Each end of a tree is a green, leafy tuft.

An integral tree tuft is up to 50 kilometers from the tree's center of mass. Thus, a tuft is either orbiting too slowly (the "in" tuft) or too quickly (the "out" tuft) compared to the atmosphere, which is in orbit at all points. The ends of the tree are therefore subject to a constant gale-force wind that causes the ends to curve into the shape of an integral symbol ∫ and pushes water and food onto the tufts, or (less forcefully) onto the trunk, where the gravity-like tidal forces pull the material out towards the tufts.

Each tuft serves several main purposes for the tree. First, the green foliage is photosynthetic, providing the tree with energy from sunlight; second, the tufts are where the tree produces its seeds; and third, various plants, animals, and sundry other objects can become trapped in the tighter branches, which gradually migrate toward the "treemouth." The treemouth, a pit at the top of each tuft on the lee side of the trunk, is the integral tree's root; water collected along the trunk flows down due to tidal forces and is ingested by the treemouth. Tuft branches catch and capture various things and animals in the wind and gradually, over the course of years, migrate to the treemouth, where they and their catch are absorbed by the tree for nourishment. Many other large Smoke Ring plants have a scavenger/carnivore aspect similar to this, though with somewhat different mechanisms.

Je a dit…

Plot summary

Plot setup

Twenty astronauts aboard an interstellar "ramship" colonized the Smoke Ring five hundred years before the story begins. Their descendants have adapted their cultures to the free-fall environment. Without gravity, even those who live in integral tree tufts are much taller than Earth-average humans, having grown up in much weaker tides. Many people are able to use their longer, prehensile toes as another set of fingers. The small number of devices left from the original crew are coveted items in Smoke Ring societies.

Quinn Tribe inhabits the "in tuft" of Dalton-Quinn tree. They normally subsist on the tree's cottony foliage, augmented by hunting and a flock of domesticated turkeys. But since the tree passed near Gold six earth years ago it has been falling toward Voy, nearly dropping out of the Smoke Ring. As a result, the tribe suffers a severe drought. The tribe's leader, the Chairman, decides to send a party of nine up the tree, ostensibly to hunt and re-cut tribal markings into the trunk. The group consists mostly of cripples or people the Chairman dislikes, including the Chairman's son-in-law (and rival) Clave, and Jeffer, the Scientist's apprentice.

Plot conflict

When they approach the midpoint they notice that the tribal markings are different; upon reaching it, they are attacked by members of the Dalton-Quinn tribe who live at the other end of the tree. During the battle a massive tremor splits the tree in half, causing the in tuft to fall farther toward Voy (killing its inhabitants) and allowing the out tuft to find a new equilibrium that is closer to the Smoke Ring's median. The seven surviving members of the Quinn Tribe and one of the attackers jump clear of the shattered tree and are left adrift in the sky with only a few "jet pods" (high pressure seed cases that provide a temporary thrust when opened) as their only method of propulsion.

Before dying of thirst, they hook a passing "moby" (a flying whale-like creature) which takes them to a "jungle," which is a floating mass of plant life. They cut loose, crash, and find themselves in the middle of a battle between the Carther States, who live in the jungle, and slave-runners from London Tree. The group is split when six of them are captured by the slavers; the other two remain in the jungle.

Plot resolution

Carther States counter-attacks some weeks later, and the Quinn Tribe group is reunited. During the battle they steal London Tree's CARM (Cargo And Repair Module), a small spacecraft—a relic of the original settlers. The CARM is still functional due to careful management and its robust design; its solar panels provide electricity to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen, which it stores automatically and then burns for propulsion as needed. London Tree's bow- and spear-armed warriors use the CARM to conduct long-distance military actions and slave raids on a scale impossible for wingless humans in a zero-g environment.

Not fully understanding how to pilot the CARM, the Quinn and Carther warriors engage its main rocket motor, which accelerates the ship at several g, enough to prevent the crew from reaching the controls to turn the motor off. The CARM is propelled up into the thinnest part of the gas torus before running dangerously low on fuel. As a result, they become the first Smoke Ring inhabitants in centuries to see the naked stars.

Unknown to any of the inhabitants of the Smoke Ring, Discipline, the ship in which their ancestors arrived, remains in orbit, and its AI autopilot, Kendy, has been attempting to watch their progress. When Kendy sees the CARM dangerously far from the habitable area of the Ring he contacts them. With help from the on-board computer and after some interaction with Kendy, the occupants of the CARM eventually safely return to the Smoke Ring. Unable to reach any of the trees that they know, they decide to settle on a new tree, which they dub Citizens' Tree.

Je a dit…

A Dyson tree is a hypothetical genetically-engineered plant (perhaps resembling a tree) capable of growing in a comet, suggested by the physicist Freeman Dyson. Plants could produce a breathable atmosphere within hollow spaces in the comet (or even within the plants themselves), utilising solar energy for photosynthesis and cometary materials for nutrients, thus providing self-sustaining habitats for humanity in the outer solar system analogous to a greenhouse in space or a shell grown by a mollusc.

A Dyson tree might consist of a few main trunk structures growing out from a comet nucleus, branching into limbs and foliage that intertwine, forming a spherical structure possibly dozens of kilometers across.

Dyson trees in science fiction

Dyson trees are mentioned a number of times in science fiction, beginning in the 1980s:

- One of the first adoptions of the trope is Rachel Pollack's Tree House (1984).
- The concept is discussed in Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan's 1985 non-fiction book Comet, and several paintings of Dyson trees around Saturn and in interstellar space are provided in the book by Jon Lomberg.
- In Michael Swanwick's 1987 transhumanist novel Vacuum Flowers, "dysonsworlders" have established tree settlements in the Oort Cloud.
- Under the name of "Space Poplars", Dyson trees are described in Donald Moffitt's two science fiction novels, The Genesis Quest and Second Genesis. Here they are used as both habitats and spacecraft, propelled by reflective outer leaves used as organic solar sails.
- Dan Simmons, in Endymion (1996) and the Rise of Endymion (1997) - both part of his Hyperion Cantos - refers to dyson trees, and in the latter novel to a huge tree system that surrounds an entire star (reminiscent of a Dyson sphere).
- In Stephen Baxter's Manifold: Space (2001), Baxter's protagonist Reid Malenfant at one point finds himself inside a dyson tree.
- In the Orion's Arm shared universe (established 2000), dyson trees and dyson tree "forests" are called orwoods; these have been established in a number of star systems throughout terragen space. The word "Orwood" in this context was originally coined by Anders Sandberg.
- The Transhuman Space roleplaying game includes the beginning of a dyson tree endeavour on Yggdrasil Station (Deep Beyond, p. 70, 2003)
- In the Tenchi Muyo OVA series, the Jurai utilize trees that can live in space as ships, and in the temple of the goddess-like character Tokimi, a giant tree whose roots encompass a planet can be see .
- In the The Dirty Pair series, the episode "Run From the Future" is set on the Nimkasi habitat, an outlaw habitat that is a Dyson tree.
- The video game Eufloria is based on the Dyson tree concept.

Je a dit…

Quelques images :

http://www.orionsarm.com/im_store/OrwoodForest.jpg
http://www.orionsarm.com/im_store/highcyclers.jpg
http://www.orionsarm.com/im_store/dysontree.jpg