Games in Spaaaaace!

[PyTom]

Kind of, but without the whole relativity thing. Mars is in an interesting place for a story like this - between 4 and 20 light-minutes away. Double that for the round-trip time, and add another few minutes for recording the reply, and the delay between messages could be anywhere between 10 minutes and an hour. That's long enough that the light-time factors into things - but it means one could pull off a playthrough in an evening, or at least a weekend day.

Why without the relativity thing? I think time dilation would be the most interesting aspect here. She could be circulating around the earth, at a speed near the speed of light. She would feel that only a day has passed, while it could be a month for the observer on the earth.[/quote]

A couple of things.

Scientifically, solar system escape velocity is 0.00014% of light. When moving at that speed, relativity slows time down by 0.0000001% or so. That's hardly noticeable, at least according to human timescales. By the time your perceived time is half of that of an earth-based observer, you're moving at 86.6% of light speed. Long before relativity is substantial, you've flung yourself out of the solar system.

You can come up with Mazer Rakham-ish solutions in which you boost out and come back again - but it's tough to think of a compelling reason for this.

Double Star, along with Voices of a Distant Star and other works, pointed out a problem with this - at a high percentage of c, communication could become difficult to impossible, as the thinking of the traveler slows down to the point where it takes him a long time to reply to a message.

From a games perspective, Mars is interesting because it's close enough that someone could plausibly carry on a long distance relationship with a character there. People are talking about reducing the price of Mars travel to the point where upper-middle class people could afford to make the trip. (See Elon Musk's most recent National Press Club talk.) This makes a VN somewhat interesting.

Plus, Mars is unique among the planets insofar as there is a ton of high-quality photography of it, all in the public domain. That could help in illustrating a game.

Mars is far enough that one could use the time-based mechanic to create a game about isolation - but it's close enough that such a game could have a happy ending.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Plus, scientifically speaking, moving at near speeds of light for anything of mass, eg: a human, is... difficult to say the least. E=mc2 kind of puts a dampner on that.

Stories revolving around relativity are not new. From a long time ago there are stories of immortals falling in love with mortals and stories of people going to the world of the fae, or other otherworlds, only to return and find everyone dead. It's a fascinating concept, but I agree that if you are sticking it in space and you are building a relationship, you can't push the relativity too far. Though you could do it from the perspective of the person in space and have them develop relationships with different people for small glimpses of time, instead of doing it from a standard perspective maybe.

[Sapphi]

I would sooo play this game if it were made... I love science fiction, but I lack the proper education to even write semi-hard SF. ;_;

People are talking about reducing the price of Mars travel to the point where upper-middle class people could afford to make the trip. (See Elon Musk's most recent National Press Club talk.)

It would be cool to see a story where the Martian girl was a rich, privileged "star" of sorts (ahh, what a bad pun) and the Earthian guy was just one of her many fans... a poor kid from a desolate neighborhood in a forgotten, trashed city...

Because if Mars could be populated, and the upper-middle class could afford it, I bet a lot of them would jet up there and leave the lower classes behind. But... somehow... love bridges all gaps; time, space, and social standing... hnnnnngh so romantic =w=

[leon]

I get it now. I knew there are other issues, but didn't consider that the brain would also slow down.

So what we need is a girl, using brain effecting stimulants, traveling in a malfunctioning rocket orbiting earth, with mass effect on her rocket... OK, It's a stupid idea.

@Auro-Cyanide:
Planet of the Apes.

If you would do it from the perspective of the person in space, you would need to limit yourself to online dating or something. Or you would need to stop every time your girlfriend dies of old age to start a new relationship.

[HigurashiKira]

It would be cool to see a story where the Martian girl was a rich, privileged "star" of sorts (ahh, what a bad pun) and the Earthian guy was just one of her many fans... a poor kid from a desolate neighborhood in a forgotten, trashed city...

Because if Mars could be populated, and the upper-middle class could afford it, I bet a lot of them would jet up there and leave the lower classes behind. But... somehow... love bridges all gaps; time, space, and social standing... hnnnnngh so romantic =w=

That sounds like Utatemeguri...in SPAAAAAAAAAACE!

[gekiganwing]

A huge number of stories about life on planets not far from Earth have been written. You can use these familiar planets to talk about possible future societies. Or you can take a space opera approach, and write about things which are not scientifically possible, but which are entertaining.

There's a memorable film from 1990 which features a Mars with a containment dome that makes life possible. It has battles between a sinister corporation and a resistance movement. But it may be better known for lines such as "Two weeks... two weeks..." and "Get your ass to Mars!" (The novella that it's based on is rather different.)

[Crocosquirrel]

I'm currently leading up to a completely spacebound game, and distances are something to think about. A few things of interest:

Lengthening the communication times by way of distance makes it more and more imperative that you have a crew on board if you need to do anything complicated with the ship out there in the Black.

Relativistic speeds (Einstein notwithstanding), is going to get you out of the system in a matter of a few hours, and at that point it's going to become impractical to use standard EM methods for communications. If you can find a reliable FTL communications method (some of which have already been conceptualized), then you have a lot fewer concerns.

Last, the Reader doesn't always have to know how some things are accomplished, as long as the writer knows the method they're using. All sci-fi needs one thing: Internal consistency. If it takes ten minutes to get a message from here to Mars now, it should still take that long at the end of the game without a really good reason.

[Taleweaver]

Relativistic speeds (Einstein notwithstanding), is going to get you out of the system in a matter of a few hours, and at that point it's going to become impractical to use standard EM methods for communications. If you can find a reliable FTL communications method (some of which have already been conceptualized), then you have a lot fewer concerns.

FTL communications open an entirely new can of worms, one which is best described by the following joke:

"Sorry," says the barkeeper, "we don't serve your kind here."
Two faster-than-light neutrinos come into a bar and order drinks.

Yup. FTL communications means receiving a message before it has been sent.

[leon]

@ Taleweaver:
I could be completely wrong of course, but I don't think it works that way... I think it may be possible to theoretically send a message backwards in time, but the conditions for time dilation (vacuum?), also exclude the possibility of particles traveling at FTL.

Let's say we send a message at a speed of light to a receiver that is 1 light second (300,000 km) away. The message will travel exactly 1 second.
If we send the message twice as fast, it will arrive in 0.5 seconds. Increasing the speed to c times 1000, would still take 0.0001 seconds for the message to arrive. The message will never be instant or travel backwards.

[Taleweaver]

@ Taleweaver:
I could be completely wrong of course, but I don't think it works that way... I think it may be possible to theoretically send a message backwards in time, but the conditions for time dilation (vacuum?), also exclude the possibility of particles traveling at FTL.

Let's say we send a message at a speed of light to a receiver that is 1 light second (300,000 km) away. The message will travel exactly 1 second.
If we send the message twice as fast, it will arrive in 0.5 seconds. Increasing the speed to c times 1000, would still take 0.0001 seconds for the message to arrive. The message will never be instant or travel backwards.

Consider something else:

Synchronize two clocks. Fly one clock to the moon. Now send up an astronaut to observe that clock. Send him the exact time of the clock on Earth via FTL and he will tell you that he received the message before you sent it - his clock will show an earlier time than the one you sent. Why? Time dilation! Both clocks are in the same reference system; in that reference system, time dilation means they are not only 300,000 kilometers apart but also a second apart. FTL communications would make a message travel back in time that second. In the reference system of the two clocks, the message is received before it was sent!

[leon]

@ Taleweaver:
I could be completely wrong of course, but I don't think it works that way... I think it may be possible to theoretically send a message backwards in time, but the conditions for time dilation (vacuum?), also exclude the possibility of particles traveling at FTL.

Let's say we send a message at a speed of light to a receiver that is 1 light second (300,000 km) away. The message will travel exactly 1 second.
If we send the message twice as fast, it will arrive in 0.5 seconds. Increasing the speed to c times 1000, would still take 0.0001 seconds for the message to arrive. The message will never be instant or travel backwards.

Consider something else:

Synchronize two clocks. Fly one clock to the moon. Now send up an astronaut to observe that clock. Send him the exact time of the clock on Earth via FTL and he will tell you that he received the message before you sent it - his clock will show an earlier time than the one you sent. Why? Time dilation! Both clocks are in the same reference system; in that reference system, time dilation means they are not only 300,000 kilometers apart but also a second apart. FTL communications would make a message travel back in time that second. In the reference system of the two clocks, the message is received before it was sent!

Confusing stuff...

Here's how I understand it:
The clock on the Earth shows 12:00:00. A message is sent from Earth to Moon at a speed of light. The message travels one second. When it arrives, the clock on the Moon shows 12:00:01. The same would apply, if the clock on the Earth would be viewed trough a telescope on the Moon.

The clock on the Earth shows 12:00:00. A message is sent from Earth to Moon at a twice the speed of light. The message travels 0.5 seconds. When it arrives, the clock on the Moon shows 12:00:005.

If that's how it works, the message is still sent forward in time, isn't it?

[Taleweaver]

Here's how I understand it:
The clock on the Earth shows 12:00:00. A message is sent from Earth to Moon at a speed of light. The message travels one second. When it arrives, the clock on the Moon shows 12:00:01. The same would apply, if the clock on the Earth would be viewed trough a telescope on the Moon.

This is where you're wrong.

When you move the clock from Earth to moon, if you look at the moon through a telescope (or send a radio message at exactly light speed), the clock will show the exact same time as the clock you synchronized it with on Earth. Time dilation causes it to become "unsynchronized" - actually, it isn't unsynchronized, it is just in the same reference frame as the clock on Earth so that light travelling from the clock to Earth will arrive at the "same" time it is sent from the moon.

I know, relativity is a major headache.

[leon]

Well, I still don't quite get it... But I do understand that bartender now. Stupid neutrinos...

[Taleweaver]

Well, I still don't quite get it... But I do understand that bartender now. Stupid neutrinos...

By the way, what do the neutrinos reply?

"Never mind, we're just passing through."

[vasudaprime]

Regarding the settling on Mars idea .. a few things to keep in mind (if you're aiming for something semi-realistic):

1) At the moment space travel (or rather, just getting into low-Earth orbit) is kinda expensive, so you'll need to factor some way of making cheaper...

2) Transporting the raw materials and then building a bio-dome on Mars is likely to be quite expensive, so there'd have to be some economic justification for it. Perhaps some useful abundant material there that is rare on Earth, that could be mined and sent back? Otherwise the only people who would live there would be wealthy retiree's and wealthy people who own holiday homes, plus the services necessary for those people: food growth (local small farms?) & production (bakers, butchers, etc), shops, restaurants, a hospital, and so on. You might be able to fashion some sort of tourist industry, but the current return trip time to Earth (12 months) is likely to be a problem. A plasma thrust rocket (40 days one way) or nuclear rocket (14 days one way) could cut that time down though.

3) Living in a bio-dome will only work for people who like living in a city. Anyone who likes the countryside probably wouldn't like living on Mars too much .

4) We're fortunate on Earth that our active planet gives us a magnetic field, which (combined with our atmosphere) shields us from the negative health effects of cosmic rays (cosmic rays are highly energetic particles passing through space). Mars has no global magnetic field and its atmosphere is thinner that ours so without adequate shielding in the bio-dome structure you'd be exposed to more ionizing radiation, and thus have a higher chance of developing cancer. Spending a couple of years there without any protection would probably be okay, but living there for a significant portion of your life without any protection built into the bio-dome wouldn't be a sound idea .

5) As leon said in the OP quote, a Mars-Earth radio signal would take ~4-20 minutes to be received (and again as long for a confirmation), so phone conversations, computer gaming, instant message conversations, IRC, and anything else that relies on 'real-time' communication between Earth-Mars can be ruled out. E-mail, social networking messages, and recorded voice messages would become the norm for planet to planet communication.