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Solomani
''Traveller'' is a science fiction role-playing game first published in 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop. Marc Miller designed ''Traveller'' with help from Frank Chadwick, John Harshman, and Loren Wiseman. Editions were published for ''GURPS'', d20, and other role-playing game systems. From its origin and in the currently published systems, the game relied upon six-sided dice for random elements. ''Traveller'' has been featured in a few novels and at least two video games. ''Traveller'' is a tabletop game where characters journey through star systems, engaging in exploration, ground and space battles, and interstellar trading. The game is influenced by various literary works and emphasizes commerce, sociological stratification, and a mix of low and high technology. The setting is centered around the human-dominated Third Imperium, a feudalistic interstellar empire. Despite the focus on humans, the ''Traveller'' universe is cosmopolitan and features various other sophont peop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marc Miller (game Designer)
Marc William Miller is a Wargaming, wargame and role-playing game Game design, designer and author. Early career After serving in the United States Army, U.S. Army, Miller continued his studies at Illinois State University in 1972 under the G.I. Bill. There he joined the ISU Game Club, created by Rich Banner and Frank Chadwick.DiceCast Special Holiday Interview Episodby Polymancer Studios. Podcast, includes interview with Marc Miller Banner obtained a grant that funded the printing of blank Hex map, hex sheets (suitable for making war-game maps). Adding new members Loren K. Wiseman and John Harshman, the ISU Game Club drafted a variety of designs. Some of these designs were derivatives of existing games, and had generic names like ''Guerre'' and ''Swamp''. while others were amalgamations, such as ''Triplanetary''. In 1973, after being convinced by Miller, Chadwick and Banner, Illinois State University created SimRAD (Simulation Research, Analysis, and Design), a college progra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D20 System
The d20 System is a role-playing game system published in 2000 by Wizards of the Coast, originally developed for the Editions of Dungeons & Dragons#Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition, 3rd edition of ''Dungeons & Dragons''. The system is named after the Dice#Common variations, 20-sided dice which are central to the core mechanics of many actions in the game. Much of the d20 System was released as the System Reference Document (SRD) under the Open Game License (OGL) as Open gaming, Open Game Content (OGC), which allows commercial and non-commercial publishers to release modifications or supplements to the system without paying for the use of the system's associated intellectual property, which is owned by Wizards of the Coast. The original impetus for the open licensing of the d20 System involved the economics of producing role-playing games (RPGs). Game supplements suffered significantly more diminished sales over time than the core books required to play the game. Ryan Dancey, Brand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Character Creation
Character creation (also character generation / character design) is the process of defining a player character in a role-playing game. The result of character creation is a characterization, direct characterization that is recorded on a character sheet. This may include a representation of the character's physical, mental, psychological, and social Attribute (role-playing games), attributes and skill (role-playing games), skills in terms of the specific game's Game mechanics, mechanics. It may also include informal descriptions of the character's Human physical appearance, physical appearance, Personality psychology#What is personality?, personality, personal back-story ("background"), and Personal property, possessions. Games with a fantasy setting may include traits such as fantasy race, race, character class, class, or species. Character creation is the first step taken by the players (as opposed to the gamemaster) in preparation for a game. Character advancement Character a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subspace (Star Trek)
The fictional technology in ''Star Trek'' has borrowed many ideas from the scientific world. Episodes often contain technologies named after or inspired by real-world scientific concepts, such as tachyon beams, baryon sweeps, quantum Slipstream (science fiction), slipstream drives, and photon Weapons in Star Trek, torpedoes. Some of the technologies created for the ''Star Trek'' universe were done so out of financial necessity. For instance, the transporter (Star Trek), transporter was created because the limited budget of ''Star Trek: The Original Series'' (''TOS'') in the 1960s did not allow expensive shots of spaceships landing on planets. ''Discovery Channel Magazine'' stated that cloaking devices, faster-than-light travel, and transporter (Star Trek), dematerialized transport were only dreams at the time ''TOS'' was made, but physicist Michio Kaku believes all these things are possible. William Shatner, who portrayed James T. Kirk in ''TOS'', believes this as well, and wen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ansible
The term ''ansible'' refers to a category of fictional technological devices capable of superluminal Faster-than-light (superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light in vacuum (). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero ... or faster-than-light (FTL) communication. These devices can instantaneously transmit and receive communicative and informational data streams across vast distances and obstacles, including between star systems and even across galaxies. As a name for such a device, the term ''ansible'' first appeared in a 1966 novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. Since that time, the broad use of the term has continued in the works of numerous science-fiction authors, across a variety of settings and continuities. Related terms are ''ultraphone'' and ''ultrawave''. Coinage by Ursula Le Guin Ursula K. Le Guin first used the word ''ansible'' in her 1966 nove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faster-than-light Communication
Faster-than-light communication, also called superluminal communication, is a hypothetical process in which information is conveyed at faster-than-light speeds. The current scientific consensus is that faster-than-light communication is not possible, and to date it has not been achieved in any experiment. Faster-than-light communication other than possibly through wormholes is likely impossible because, in a Lorentz-invariant theory, it could be used to transmit information into the past. This would complicate causality, but no theoretical arguments conclusively preclude this possibility. A number of theories and phenomena related to faster-than-light communication have been proposed or studied, including tachyons, neutrinos, quantum nonlocality, wormholes, and quantum tunneling. Proposed mechanisms Tachyons Tachyonic particles are hypothetical particles that travel faster than light, which could conceivably allow for superluminal communication. Because such a particle woul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Viking
''Space Viking'' is a science fiction novel by American writer H. Beam Piper, set in his Terro-Human future history. It tells the story of one man's search for his wife's murderer and its unexpected consequences. The story was originally serialized in ''Analog'' magazine (November 1962 – February 1963), then published by Ace Books in 1963. Background Ten thousand refugees from the losing side of The Big War (The System States War of ''The Cosmic Computer'') fled far beyond the boundaries of the Terran Federation and colonized the planet Excalibur. By the beginning of ''Space Viking'', they had expanded to a handful of Sword Worlds (so-called because they are named after legendary swords) and had grown to a total population of three and a half billion, organized in a feudal system of kingdoms, duchies, and other small states, ruled by frequently warring noblemen. Despite their isolation and the political instability, the inhabitants managed to retain a high level of technolo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William H
William is a masculine given name of Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will or Wil, Wills, Willy, Willie, Bill, Billie, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie). Female forms include Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the German given name ''Wilhelm''. Both ultimately descend from Proto-Germanic ''*Wiljahelmaz'', with a direct cognate also in the Old Norse name ''Vilhjalmr'' and a West Germanic borrowing into Medieval Latin ''Willelmus''. The Proto-Germanic name is a compound of *''wiljô'' "will, wish, desire" and *''helmaz'' "helm, helmet".Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxfor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Drake
David A. Drake (September 24, 1945 – December 10, 2023) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy literature. A Vietnam War veteran, he worked as a lawyer before becoming a writer in the military science fiction genre. Biography Drake graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa, majoring in history (with honors) and Latin. His studies at Duke University School of Law were interrupted for two years when he was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he served as an enlisted interrogator with the 11th Armored Cavalry (the Black Horse Regiment) in Vietnam and Cambodia. After the war, from 1972 to 1980 he worked as the assistant town attorney in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In 1981 he transitioned to full-time writing of science fiction literature. With Karl Edward Wagner and Jim Groce, he was one of the initiators of Carcosa, a small press company. He lived in Pittsboro, North Carolina. In 2019, he announced that he may be suffering from Parkinson's diseas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hammer's Slammers
''Hammer's Slammers'' is a 1979 collection of military science fiction short stories by author David Drake. It follows the career of a future mercenary tank regiment called ''Hammer's Slammers'' after their leader, Colonel Alois Hammer. This collection, and other novels and stories in the same setting, are collectively called the ''Hammer stories'', and the setting is called the ''Slammers universe'' or the '' Hammerverse''. Each of the stories in the novel follows various members of the Slammers, starting with the regiment's creation by the government of the planet Friesland to put down a revolt on the Friesland colony world of Melpomene, in which Colonel Hammer is the focal character, and who transforms the unit into an independent mercenary organization. The reader is also introduced to recurring characters such as Joachim Steuben, Hammer's bodyguard and later commander of the Slammers' military police, a gay sociopath and master marksman devoted to his colonel; Sergeant (later ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keith Laumer
John Keith Laumer ( – ) was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an officer in the United States Air Force and a diplomat in the United States Foreign Service. His older brother March Laumer was also a writer, known for his adult reinterpretations of the Land of Oz (also mentioned in Laumer's ''The Other Side of Time''). Frank Laumer, their youngest brother, is a historian and writer. Early life Keith Laumer was born in 1925 in Syracuse, New York. He attended Indiana University, 1943–44, and then served in the United States Army Air Forces in the Second World War in Europe. He later attended Stockholm University, 1948–49, and then received a bachelor's degree in architecture in 1950 from the University of Illinois. He served twice in the US Air Force, 1953–56 and 1960–65, attaining the rank of captain in the latter tour. In between the two terms in the military, Laumer was a member of the US Foreign Service in Burma. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edwin Charles Tubb
Edwin Charles Tubb (15 October 1919 – 10 September 2010) was a British writer of science fiction, fantasy and western novels. The author of over 140 novels and 230 short stories and novellas, Tubb is best known for The Dumarest Saga (US collective title: ''Dumarest of Terra''), an epic science-fiction saga set in the far future. Michael Moorcock wrote, "His reputation for fast-moving and colourful SF writing is unmatched by anyone in Britain." Much of Tubb's work was written under pseudonyms including Gregory Kern, Carl Maddox, Alan Guthrie, Eric Storm and George Holt. He used 58 pen names over five decades of writing, although some of these were publishers' house names also used by other writers: Volsted Gridban (along with John Russell Fearn), Gill Hunt (with John Brunner and Dennis Hughes), King Lang (with George Hay and John W Jennison), Roy Sheldon (with H. J. Campbell) and Brian Shaw. Tubb's Charles Grey alias was solely his own and acquired a big following in the early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
