From: nuny@bid.nes   
      
   On Friday, March 3, 2017 at 2:54:34 PM UTC-8, MrAnderson wrote:   
   > Ok, so in original variant the humans on Arda are not connected any way to   
   > Earth, they are more like... Fantasy humans? You don't see a mention of Earth   
   > colonizating the planets in LOTR, Skyrim, Witcher and all that stuf :p   
      
     When I first read LOTR I could accept it as far history that ignored   
   traditional Biblical and other similar stuff. I'm too old to buy that now, and   
   I *need* a believable backstory so Skyrim and so forth fail to interest me.   
      
     I'm one of those guys who needs *something* to suspend my disbelief from.   
      
   > In the sf-copyright-friendly variant, these humans were seeded by some   
   > Engineer aliens (3 meter high albino humanoids I am looking at ya:D), seeded   
   > in a star system that strangely keeps balance between it's three rocky   
   > planets, maybe by some alien artifacts (I feel that this option is cooler   
   than   
   > gas giant with big moons), and, or mutated them so that there are dwarves,   
   > elves etc, or made a mistake in lab and created diferrent races by accident   
   > (Sabotage? Sudden extinction of aliens leading to loss of control on their   
   > creation?   
      
     That's workable.   
      
   > Or, maybe these Engineers are just us, Earthers, who got bored in our   
   > immortality and make eon-long experiments just for entertainment?)   
      
     Also workable. For that matter you could leave some ambiguity in whether the   
   Originators were aliens or demi-god-like humans.   
      
     A mention of legends of them having something to do with a mythical source   
   world named Urth or Irth might be fun, and the less detail, the better. Let   
   readers choose between aliens and bored immortals.   
      
     (Asimov used Urth as the name of a far-future Earth but I don't recall ever   
   seeing Irth. Feel free to use that if it's original with me.)   
      
   > As for rockets, I don't intend chemical ones to accelerate at 1g, these are   
   > used only for first exploring and colonizing missions to the two planets,   
   > then get replaced by more advanced nuclear and then, fusion engines.   
   > The cargo shuttles and barges are what I imagined for interplanetary travels.   
      
     Okay, so I anticipated what you already had in mind. Maybe you already   
   mentioned something about it and I forgot. Whatever.   
      
   > The arms manufacturers and Tech lords seem ok to me, but I still want it to   
   > play out with the division between Ardian Triangle, Loyalists and colonials   
   > who are kept on their planets like in cages, not knowing a lot about rest of   
   > space.   
      
     How many separate planets do you really need? Earth itself is a large place   
   with continents that can't be easily accessed one to the other without great   
   investment in tall sailing ships. If one continent names itself (and the   
   planet by arrogance) Arda    
   and maintains a lock on high tech on its own continent, the rest of the planet   
   can be kept 17th or 18th century rural, mining, and farming-level by force.   
   Anything the Ardans consider too high tech gets inspected and destroyed by   
   drones (built to    
   resemble dragons? Mistaken for dragons by the peasants?) that also patrol   
   their coastlines and sink any brave explorers out to see the world. Eventually   
   people would get the hint. The Ardans would land suborbital shuttles with   
   great fanfare to accept the    
   food and smelted ore tributes from the peasants. Maybe accompanied by dragons   
   to remind the peasants who's in charge.   
      
     The same would work for outsystem colony worlds- some are kept primitive,   
   others are allowed early industrial age, one or two permitted say mid-20th   
   century tech. Remember, at that time Apollo, Orion, and Bussard craft were   
   already thought up. With    
   sufficient motivation they'd have been built. That world could be the first to   
   rebel, and enlist others behind the Ardans' backs.   
      
     Anyway, an Ardan subcontinent could have been appropriated by the weapons   
   dudes, or they could have picked the semiarid world leaving the tundra planet   
   to what, cattlemen? I think that would work better. The weapons dudes are so   
   well armed the Ardans    
   won't screw with them even from orbit but they don't have their own long-range   
   space travel- the Ardans also control the transshipping of cargoes like   
   weapons from world to world and interstellar, but they're running into   
   competition from one of the    
   outsystem worlds. The weapons are shipped in sealed containers the Ardans   
   agree not to inspect because the weapons dudes pay big taxes but also would   
   refuse to arm the Ardans if they peeked, who are aristocratic assholes who   
   disdain actual work    
   themselves.   
      
     That can be the cause of your war, which I meant to ask about- what's the   
   war over? It can't be living space because your different races had enough   
   time to become different and have stabilized their populations. If one of them   
   in another system    
   decided they didn't like Arda having a lock on interstellar trade and wanted   
   to sidestep Ardan taxes, that's always a good reason for the Ardans used to   
   being in charge to go stomp the shit out of the ingrates.   
      
     Then they find out about starjammers (Bussard ships) and so forth that they   
   can't fight as easily as they though they could. That reminds me; the Ardans   
   have to spec and buy ship-mounted weapons from the weapons dudes. Who supplies   
   such big items to    
   the rebels? The Ardans might not be willing to allow the weapons dudes to do   
   that kind of business with them. Rifles and such, fine but not ship-killer   
   missiles and laser cannon. The outsystem rebels would have to invent railguns   
   or something.   
      
     Or, the weapons guys figure out a way to disguise or part out and smuggle   
   warship weapons outsystem. The Ardans would try to stop that, but how? They   
   don't want to end their own weapons supply.   
      
     Lots of possibilities for interplanetary political and economic intrigue   
   leading up to and during the war.   
      
      
     Mark L. Fergerson   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)