First of all, thanks for the major, spammy input! XD Lots of good points made (especially on spirit tech). Along those lines, lately, Chris and I have been watching Thundercats (the 2012 series) and Mighty Orbots, both of which display sci-fi that when you think about it, is silly (or sometimes, doesn't even require thought to realise "wha?"). Great example is the latest episode of Thundercats had a flashback to Mumra's earlier years.
////Spoiler Alert!////
Mumra implodes an entire Galaxy in order to create an evil, powerful sword. Initially, my thought was "how creepy, cool, and amazing is that?", but on my way to work, I realized "Wait... if you have the power to implode a galaxy, why waste energy doing that just for a sword that, while powerful, doesn't remotely match that kind of power?"
////Spoiler Alert!////
In both Thundercats AND Mighty Orbots, there is spirit tech. Granted, Thundercats makes it a bit magitech while Mighty Orbots just makes no bones about it being pure tech that tampers with spirits/souls.
Examples include:
1) In Mighty Orbots, space pirate turning a character's soul into a titan to fight the Mighty Orbots and then empowering that same spirit-titan with an anti-matter engine.
2) In Thundercats, the Book of Omens is a technological database that has holographic tech, tracking tech, and is infused with magic and spiritual properties.
3) In Mighty Orbots, the Galacic Patrol (basically the space police) have a manual override system for their automated defenses that involves 5 officers doing an "Aura scan", which can be interperated various ways, but if in aura isn't related to the soul, it at least can be interperated as such.
So in summary on spirit tech, keeping it tame such as "well we can sort of detect there is a soul" and such SHOULD be OK. Heck, it could be the main "ethical" argument over such tech would be that some would claim it's solid proof the spiritual exists while others would roll their eyes about it, saying it's nothing more than electrical pulses at best and snake oil at worst. Kind of like how people feel about Hypnosis and Lie Detectors today. Which in itself could be fun and even allow the audience to believe what they want about such technology while only I know for sure whether it actually "sees" souls or not. :) Even then... I could keep myself guessing rather than say for sure whether the tech can do such a thing (though I've very much made up my mind the spiritual exists in Faction).
////Side thought////
While I don't believe in the Big Bang or Evolution, it still makes for very cool fiction material (sci-fi or otherwise). It has its own ominous and awesome implications. Faction, however, has always been from a creationist perspective and I intend to keep it that way. Maybe I'll introduce a deity who isn't Jehova/Jesus/etc, but may as well be in purpose (created the universe). But regardless of what I decide in the end, I will enjoy writing the stories to have thousands of religions, atheism, the whole nine yards. And as I pointed out, on matters like this, nothing says even *I* have to know for sure who God is or whatnot in the setting. Though deciding the universe's age is relatively important since that dictates things like "is this relic really 400,000 years old?"
////Side thought////
Good point about Star Wars vs Star Trek. Though the ships and hovercrafts certainly put the sci-fi into Star Wars, you're still very correct.
Joe Darkthorne:
I can hear Rick now, explaining why he can totally deflect a Death Star laser with his Lightsabre
Chris and I laughed. :) But sadly, it's true. People argue about Death Star vs Unicron. Meanwhile, Rick argued his Marty-Stu could solo Unicron. I'm not kidding.
I like the idea of teleportation being expensive, high-energy devices that make it only cost effective when you're talking "beaming up" people out of danger (aka the emergency use I mentioned with the ambulance). Or in the case of long-range, it might be the ONLY way to get from one galaxy to the next (though some serious ships could have space-folding tech on board that allow the ship to teleport without the need of a gate).
Joe Darkthorne:
Though 'Blissians do not use Gene mods' makes Zero Sense for the race that created sentient beings as a hobby.
True, at first glance, it makes zero sense, but I've always had it that way. It's part of "bone wings" Carla's backstory. Blissians frown on "experimenting on a living sentient person", which includes yourself. Once you create something that is clearly sentient, it becomes immoral to experiment on them too. Think of it like this: You create Johnny-5. But since he has gained sentience, it feels akward to do any modifications lest your tampering mess him up or change him forever. The part that doesn't make sense is "but if they can't experiment on living things, how did they learn to make sentient life?" Well that's where the "living" part comes in. If the creature in question isn't alive, it's fair game for disection and such. And you can learn a lot from living specimens without experimenting on them (such as pet-scans).
But all that aside, I've been considering the "makes races" thing as a kind of "that's not normal for them" thing, even in a high-scifi setting. Mostly because I didn't dive too much into it beyond Bud and Lumin, who were created by two specific blissians.
Joe Darkthorne:
However, from a Game standpoint planetary Banzors for Gene mods are just as bad as the Racial Flavor 'Fairy's take three month long naps every so often'. Better hope it never, EVER comes up or oops that character is out of the game for the next RL year or so.
XD I keep *not* thinking from forum thread perspective and just thinking from story perspective. Thanks for the reminder. I *DO* want the Faction universe to be useable to gamers, both video-game style and roleplay style. So it's good you remind me that. So hmm... here:
The planets who don't use Genemod:
-Bliss
-Coal
-Fey
-Sharr.
The planets where Genemod is banned:
-Barrak
-Dachul
-Grenu.
The planets where Genemod is OK:
-Aqula
-Gamma
-Neplusultra
-Zarox
(Base 1)
-Pirace
-Tavern
-Tharia
-(Base 2)
-Base 3
-Greenery
-Mercury II
-Gog
-(Flood Planet)
-Lone Planet
The planets where Genemod is used a lot:
-Circus Planet
-Emporium
-(Desert Planet)
This list doesn't include the Nikto system's planets, but I'll deal with that another time.
Mittens:
Conversation on average height of races: /agree with idea of "short animals like mice should be short. Tall animals should be tall."
What he said. I plan to have it that bats are probably going to be the smallest bipedals at 2'6" or something while Barrakians will be the tallest bipdeals at around 7' to 8' or so on average. Granted, I'll have exceptions to the rules, like Fey and Giants, but for purposes of anthros, you can expect dogs to be larger than cats, who are larger than mice. It might not be as extreme as here on Earth, but it will be noticeable.
On the topic of hybrids, the idea of them being sterile makes sense AND helps with things like "well what's to keep a species from breeding itself out of existence?" heh. Which gives me an idea... an alien race that needs to breed with other races in order to have kids and they can't have kids from their own kind. XD But mad science ideas aside...
Mittens:
Selective Ban on gene mods: could be a great way for preventing unwanted "Colossus or Juggernaught strong?" type players. Think of the legit within-the-rules 25STR D&D 3.5 charsheet. If you take a Barakian, add some cybernetic enhancements and gene mods, you'll end up with charsheets like that.
Irony: The real world is completely unfair and unbalanced in terms of roleplay or game mechanics. If one player plays a couch potatoe and another player places a military helecopter pilot, guess who's going to win? YET! Real life has produced something in modern history that puts *everyone* on equal footing. Take that same couch potatoe and make HIM the pilot while the military guy is not in his copter. Now who's going to win? Put a gun in the hand of an old lady and pit her against a young man who works out. If she shoots straight, guess who wins?
Chris and I LOVE this one quote from "The Incredibles" that the main villain said: "If everyone is special.. then no one will be."
SO! In regards to mods, cybernetics, etc... for purposes of gaming, all I need to do is set a bar "no higher than this" and people can play "equal to or weaker than this" if they want. But I still want to make some obvious advantages / disadvantages to playing a given race. If everyone is the same strength, Barrakians would have issues with that. As it is, their society demands they all compete with each other to be strong and/or enduring. So that's going to take a lot of thought to figure out how to avoid "oh hi! I'm an undead cyborg ninja barrakian" minmaxing without stripping races of their identity. I may love City of Heroes for "race is purely cosmetic", but that doesn't quite work in Faction. Especially when you get into things like the Grenu, who are quadrupeds. They simply CAN'T play cats in the cradle. It's physically impossible purely from their shape. Nevermind how much size factors into things. And since the races are going to vary in size a lot...
Mittens:
Teleporting bits of star into your ship's engine for power/propulsion. Combining warp engines, warp gates, and various other ideas for FTL travel. No need to be stuck on one idea for getting from point A to point B.
I like where this is going. It makes sense that, one way or another, seriously advanced civilizations would take advantage of the massive amounts of excess energy being jetisoned into space should be harnessed and used. Also consistent with the fact energy needs for things like FTL travel needs "more energy than powers a city for weeks" when the dandruff flakes that fall off a star every SECOND equals or exceeds such energy needs.
I like.
Anyways... thanks again for the feedback. All stuff to think on.