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Was reading PaladinDemo's thread and it got me wondering. What if you took a spaceship to another plane? Is that plane another essentially infinite universe or are you caught in some bizarre gravity well that becomes impossible to escape at a certain point?
Probably depend on the plane/dimension.
Elemental - depending on the element itself. Fire - overheating, water - engines drowned, earth - probably stuck in a strata of rock, air - no problems, electric - emp hazard.
Heaven/Hell/Godrealms - occupant hazards primarily, might get weather and gravitational problems.
Pocket dimensions - another one depending on the dimension itself. Hyperspace - no problem or gravitational problems, prison realms - not exactly gravitational problems but might ensure you stay for a while.
Wormholes is from what I've seen same space FTL. Hyperspace usually a pocket dimension. Jumping depends on the type of jump drive, Galactica roughly a week recharge to a month with BattleTech's tech.
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I want to talk about one other aspect of the setting that I really love, which is the way we handle faster than light travel. Hyperspace is a classic concept. You jump through some otherwhere and end up where you need to be. And so, in this game rather than breaking physics, we said that you jump in this space we call The Drift, and that takes you to where you need to be. The interesting thing about this, and it’s relatively new technology in the setting, is that it was actually given to them by this machine god when they ascended to godhood. Somebody built an A.I., it got super powerful, figured out that there was this dimension that always existed that was unreachable by magic, which is why nobody from the Pathfinder timeline ever discovered it. And then it gifted this to the sentient races. But the interesting thing about this dimension is that every time you jump through it, it tears off a little chunk of one of the other dimensions, like the plains of the afterlife, and adds it to itself. So basically, you’re in this situation where the farther you jump, the farther you go, the more of another planet rips off, which means that you might have a little chunk of hell that gets ripped off, and now there’s devils floating around in there who are super pissed that they can’t get home. You’re ripping off chunks of heaven, and so even though this is a huge boon for mortals who can now travel everywhere, the other gods are a little bit concerned, because their planes are actively shrinking, and this hyperspace dimension ruled by this bizarre machine god is constantly expanding. And so there’s kind of this weird dimensional tension there as well.
This details their travel system. It would make everything even more bizarre too, break off a piece of a plane on your way to it.
If you're traveling across an infinite plane, what happens when you try to teleport an infinite distance?
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If you're traveling across an infinite plane, what happens when you try to teleport an infinite distance?
You still have to clean up after all the typewriter monkeys.
You still have to clean up after all the typewriter monkeys.If you're traveling across an infinite plane, what happens when you try to teleport an infinite distance?
But if the monkey have an infinite quantity of time to clean up after themselves, do you ever really need to clean up after them?
But if the monkey have an infinite quantity of time to clean up after themselves, do you ever really need to clean up after them?You still have to clean up after all the typewriter monkeys.If you're traveling across an infinite plane, what happens when you try to teleport an infinite distance?
They're too busy randomly generating all possible novels by E.L. James.
You're welcome.
-Consortium of Infinite Monkey Typists
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But if the monkey have an infinite quantity of time to clean up after themselves, do you ever really need to clean up after them?You still have to clean up after all the typewriter monkeys.If you're traveling across an infinite plane, what happens when you try to teleport an infinite distance?
They're too busy randomly generating all possible novels by E.L. James.
You're welcome.
-Consortium of Infinite Monkey Typists
We must consider the possibility that it's actually an infinite number of monkey GOBLINS. I guess we know what really happened to golarion. It became the planet of the money goblins. You maniacs, you blew it up, Desna damn you, Desna damn you all to the abyss!
At what point of infinity do the monkey goblins start translating the books into infinite languages?
In infinity, all languages are the same language.
On the whole "Infinite Planes" point, the planes as described in the Outer Planes Guide (if I recall) are implied to be finite in size, but growing exponentially, save for two exceptions that are explicitly infinite.
The abyss, and the maelstrom.
This becomes fairly clear when you note Utopia, the entire city of it, being physically moved away from a section devoted to one (dead) god, and yet it doesn't end in a "infinite hotel paradox"... Also the city has drawn in borders, so yeah.
As for the ripping parts of planes off point, keep in mind that despite the literally astronomical numbers of inhabitants to these planes, from what we can only assume to be a universe with roughly 7 to 9 inhabited planets per star, each planet having populations ranging from several million to several billion, in a universe with trillions of stars in a galaxy, and trillions of galaxies in the material plane... All of which have populations that are growing exponentially.
Yeah... Its almost impossible for the planes to remain under capacity without the ability for those planes to expand.
Still, assuming I'm wrong in my logic somewhere and the other planes ARE shrinking... It occurs to me that on one hand it implies it happens to the material plane to, and second, if it somehow doesn't affect the material plane (or the outer planes just get fully absorbed first), it would lead to some meta-physical questions:
Like, would the dead still be able to reach the afterlife? Or would they have to stow away on a ship to get there? Would it mean that the ghosts of the dead would be doomed to walk among the living for eternity? And would it mean that the only risk of demons/devils etc getting into the material plane be from wayward starships getting boarded mid-drift? It would be safer in some regards but scarier in others.
Also, assuming constant use of the drive, it might wind up with a situation that all the stars end up so close together that a hyperspace drive wouldn't be nessacarily to reach them... Also meaning all risk of demonic incursion would be null, since nobody would need to use the engine.
So much navel gazing.
On the whole "Infinite Planes" point, the planes as described in the Outer Planes Guide (if I recall) are implied to be finite in size, but growing exponentially, save for two exceptions that are explicitly infinite.
The abyss, and the maelstrom.
This becomes fairly clear when you note Utopia, the entire city of it, being physically moved away from a section devoted to one (dead) god, and yet it doesn't end in a "infinite hotel paradox"... Also the city has drawn in borders, so yeah.
As for the ripping parts of planes off point, keep in mind that despite the literally astronomical numbers of inhabitants to these planes, from what we can only assume to be a universe with roughly 7 to 9 inhabited planets per star, each planet having populations ranging from several million to several billion, in a universe with trillions of stars in a galaxy, and trillions of galaxies in the material plane... All of which have populations that are growing exponentially.
Yeah... Its almost impossible for the planes to remain under capacity without the ability for those planes to expand.
Still, assuming I'm wrong in my logic somewhere and the other planes ARE shrinking... It occurs to me that on one hand it implies it happens to the material plane to, and second, if it somehow doesn't affect the material plane (or the outer planes just get fully absorbed first), it would lead to some meta-physical questions:
Like, would the dead still be able to reach the afterlife? Or would they have to stow away on a ship to get there? Would it mean that the ghosts of the dead would be doomed to walk among the living for eternity? And would it mean that the only risk of demons/devils etc getting into the material plane be from wayward starships getting boarded mid-drift? It would be safer in some regards but scarier in others.
Also, assuming constant use of the drive, it might wind up with a situation that all the stars end up so close together that a hyperspace drive wouldn't be nessacarily to reach them... Also meaning all...
Space is BIG. Space is really really big. Imagine the biggest thing you can think of, and then imagine the smallest thing you can think of next to it. That small thing is your imagination of how big space is. Galaxies have millions upon millions of stars. and on top of that you have billions upon billions of galaxies.
I'm pretty sure that Paizo won't be able to cover it all in sourcebooks.
As for the ripping parts of planes off point, keep in mind that despite the literally astronomical numbers of inhabitants to these planes, from what we can only assume to be a universe with roughly 7 to 9 inhabited planets per star, each planet having populations ranging from several million to several billion, in a universe with trillions of stars in a galaxy, and trillions of galaxies in the material plane... All of which have populations that are growing exponentially.
Space is BIG. Space is really really big. Imagine the biggest thing you can think of, and then imagine the smallest thing you can think of next to it. That small thing is your imagination of how big space is. Galaxies have millions upon millions of stars. and on top of that you have billions upon billions of galaxies.
I'm pretty sure that Paizo won't be able to cover it all in sourcebooks.
Yep. Part of me suspects they'll supply a few tables on the Game-Master's edition or section, along the lines of a random planet generator for that very reason, just so GMs can deal with players going in random directions where nothing established is.
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"from what we can only assume to be a universe with roughly 7 to 9 inhabited planets per star"
I thought so too until I found this awesome database. Still a horrible sample size for the galaxy, let alone universe, but so far our solar system is the weird one. This video is pretty good to visualize the differences.
I agree with what you said above though, a random planet and solar system generator would be much appreciated.
"from what we can only assume to be a universe with roughly 7 to 9 inhabited planets per star"I thought so too until I found this awesome database. Still a horrible sample size for the galaxy, let alone universe, but so far our solar system is the weird one. This video is pretty good to visualize the differences.
I agree with what you said above though, a random planet and solar system generator would be much appreciated.
Keep in mind I was using Galarion, and the other planets around the same star as a reference point, not Earth and Sol.
For example, the Pathfinder equivilents of Mars and Venus are distinctly inhabited by life, as in Space Elves; as are many of the other planets. Heck, I recall one of those planets being essentially a giant round ship the size of a planet, full of mutants. Another planet had space amazons riding giant cats. And so on.
You do have a point though... If Earth and Sol aren't indicative of the galaxy at large, then what's to say Golarion and its star are indicative of theirs?
In pretty much any planar condition short of "inside a star" (also deep fire-elemental zones) the ship itself should be able to handle itself just fine, or that means someone's cut some serious corners in the design: That's what you get for buying Flaypple products assembled in Caina by nervestapled halflings who can no longer kill themselves, for coppers on the platinum, and still paying top-latinum for the thing because of the brand name.
I was thinking in terms that the Prime Material has space, most things live on planets and those planets are in a void space that the ship is designed to operate in. i dont know if its been said yet if Starfinder ships can readily operate in atmosphere for long periods but it has been my impression from the planar material presented so far that space does not exist outside of the Prime Material, the elemental planes are effectively infinite permutations of their elemental theme. the outer planes are really weird but i have the impression that they also do not exist as planets in space. I haven't given it much thought before but i suppose if you flew "up" in an outer plane you would never see curvature of a planet beneath you, just more and more "flat" ground and you wouldn't exit the atmosphere, just more clouds and bird and angels and all.
The other planes are like universes that operate under their own rules. So even a super advances space ship might not work so well as an airship or hovercraft moving through giant tunnels in an unending universe of rock. But building specialty planar capable spacecraft with a bunch of gear that is pointless in space could be a lot of fun for some campaigns.
I seem to recall the Outer Planes Guide pointing out some trippy as hell geometry for the Outer Planes, and its relation to the others. From what I can remember from memory, from a certain perspective the Outer Planes is essentially a hollow sphere with most of the Planes existing with "Up" being the inside of the sphere, with the tip of a spire leading to the Boneyard (and the astral sea) in the centre. Meaning, if you did do this hypothetical flight, the ground would appear that way at first... Until you realized you could see the curvature of the outer planes and eventually crash into the other side of the sphere as you would the ground. The outer planes are basically a giant hamster ball.
This brings up the "technically finite" point again. While the amount of space in the inside of that hollow sphere is measurable, and thus finite, the outside of that hollow sphere... Or should I say, the "Ground" effectively continues downward forever, and THAT is what's infinite. Largely because under the ground there is the Abyss and the Maelstrom, of course that's how that works. Meaning as long as they keep digging, and consecrating the ground, the sphere can increase in size as much as they want... Likely after using that ground to build more buildings or something.
Granted, this is all going off of memory. I'm probably not doing this justice.
In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis describes how the 'grey town' (Purgatory or Hell) is actually very tiny compared to the vastness of Heaven.
Someone once answered the old question of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" with "as many as want to".
The outer planes can be infinite and also finite, when they can also be endlessly divisible, retreating further and further into themselves by separating into infinitesimal fragments.
Space is BIG. Space is really really big. Imagine the biggest thing you can think of, and then imagine the smallest thing you can think of next to it. That small thing is your imagination of how big space is. Galaxies have millions upon millions of stars. and on top of that you have billions upon billions of galaxies.
I'm pretty sure that Paizo won't be able to cover it all in sourcebooks.
This may be hearsay, but according to Dr. Alan Guth, the rest of the universe is at least 10^23 times as large as our observable universe, so yeah, that's going to be a lot of sourcebooks.
I'm not using the Drift in my campaigns. Just different solutions to the FTL problem. Hypothetically:
Greyhawk -- Hyperspace travel; by Eldritch Machine (see Eberron)
Eberron -- An Eldritch machine that allows for teleportation (essentially a jump drive)
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I'm not using the Drift in my campaigns. Just different solutions to the FTL problem. Hypothetically:
Greyhawk -- Hyperspace travel; by Eldritch Machine (see Eberron)
Eberron -- An Eldritch machine that allows for teleportation (essentially a jump drive)
I've been debating the same thing, simply just wanting to focus on the space battles and exploration of different systems. Been considering using something like the EM-Drive, Kugelblitz drive, or Alcubierre warp-drive.
On the flip-side, I have also been toying with some Drift focused campaign ideas because it is a pretty cool mechanic. I'm just scared it'll be distracting for some campaigns/stories.. as Matthew Shelton pointed out above, one Universe is already more than enough to handle.
A "use it when it adds value" kind of argument.