Post by mythusmage on Aug 18, 2004 22:22:29 GMT -5
Probably my favorite part of Changeling was that huge, abandoned starship abuildin out beyond Jupiter. I got to thinking about it once, and came up with...
Building was started orbiting Jupiter. Later, with advancements is astronautics etc., construction was moved out to the Oort cloud. The ship itself consisted of a numbe of modules for such things as life support, propulsion, environments and so on and so forth. Gave it the look of a grave vine with fruit of various sizes and stages of development.
The upset came in the middle of construction, right when Urth was supposed to send the instructions to switch over from construction to trip preparation. The ship was essentially done. But with no orders the construction robots and nanites kept on building. With the result that the ship has become substantially larger than it was supposed to be. Large enough tobe visible under good viewing conditions from Urth. Large enough to folow the curvature of space-time at its location.
The (one time) ship is starting to become an open work Dyson Sphere.
In the meantime the Oort Cloud has been stripped of material to support construction. Which has led to the builders looking elsewhere. Into the inner system where asteroids and small moons have disappeared (The larger moons and planetoids are off-limits according to the original instructions). In addition, they have researched and developed FTL drives, allowing them to go to other stars for material to build an STL ship they have effectively made obsolete.
Which last has led to a lot of questions among the builders. The most advanced of which are most certainly sentient, and indeed sapient.
When thinking of the beast think of something with more living space than the whole of the inner planets. This includes Jupiter and Saturn. Mostly in the form of cylinders of various sizes that rotate on enormous gimbals. Though there is one Urthlike world suspended in an experimental gravitatic web connected to the mainship.
Also note that the Urth Computer has been in contact with the builders for centuries now, and so the builders have and are experimenting with different human societies, and in recreating certain genres of fiction. Their journeys to other stars has added non-humans to the mix, leading to environments for those species, and environments with mixed species. In other words, gigatons of adventuring opportunity.
And that's as far as I've gotten with it. You're welcome to expand upon it as you wish.
Building was started orbiting Jupiter. Later, with advancements is astronautics etc., construction was moved out to the Oort cloud. The ship itself consisted of a numbe of modules for such things as life support, propulsion, environments and so on and so forth. Gave it the look of a grave vine with fruit of various sizes and stages of development.
The upset came in the middle of construction, right when Urth was supposed to send the instructions to switch over from construction to trip preparation. The ship was essentially done. But with no orders the construction robots and nanites kept on building. With the result that the ship has become substantially larger than it was supposed to be. Large enough tobe visible under good viewing conditions from Urth. Large enough to folow the curvature of space-time at its location.
The (one time) ship is starting to become an open work Dyson Sphere.
In the meantime the Oort Cloud has been stripped of material to support construction. Which has led to the builders looking elsewhere. Into the inner system where asteroids and small moons have disappeared (The larger moons and planetoids are off-limits according to the original instructions). In addition, they have researched and developed FTL drives, allowing them to go to other stars for material to build an STL ship they have effectively made obsolete.
Which last has led to a lot of questions among the builders. The most advanced of which are most certainly sentient, and indeed sapient.
When thinking of the beast think of something with more living space than the whole of the inner planets. This includes Jupiter and Saturn. Mostly in the form of cylinders of various sizes that rotate on enormous gimbals. Though there is one Urthlike world suspended in an experimental gravitatic web connected to the mainship.
Also note that the Urth Computer has been in contact with the builders for centuries now, and so the builders have and are experimenting with different human societies, and in recreating certain genres of fiction. Their journeys to other stars has added non-humans to the mix, leading to environments for those species, and environments with mixed species. In other words, gigatons of adventuring opportunity.
And that's as far as I've gotten with it. You're welcome to expand upon it as you wish.