 April 27, 2011 - 7:09pm | Star Trek was famous for these: giant space omeba's, energy clouds, and mechanical dooms day cones Farscape sort of had this with the living space ships. Empire Strikes Back had mynock and asteroid space worms variations of this theme would be minefields and probes that do things to the PC's ship (all done by Star Trek one time or another) Whats your favorite space monster? What space monster's might work for Star Frontiers? elements of the Bugs in the System module could qualify for this, sort of. Would the sathar, with their advanced bio-engineering create a living ship? Could rogue mechanons develop planet eating dooms day devices to erradicate the biologicals in the Frontier? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 27, 2011 - 7:10pm | Iron Crown's Silent Death ship combat game had a supplement introducing a sort of space bugs race that grew living "bug" fighters I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 30, 2011 - 9:13am | I always liked these adventures. They certainly can be great problem solving puzzels scenarios as the monster is almost always way more powerful than the PC's capabilities. However, creating a realistic space monster is nearly impossible and there is always the power issue where the game is always one sided. I believe it is worth serious consideration but has anyone devised a "realistic" space monster? |
April 30, 2011 - 2:04pm | ... has anyone devised a "realistic" space monster? As I remember the planet killer in Star Fleet Battles was not that powerful in the 1 person scenario they had and I was able to defeat it with even a Klingon frigate or Federation Destroyer though I think the little Kzinti Frigate was too fragile and its weapons too short ranged to survive taking it on. Point was that it didn't seem much of a challenge and the challenge became how small of a ship could you use to defeat it. The issue with making something realistic is that you usually need something real as a measuring stick to compare it too and sadly I've had very little experience with Real space monsters. So I guess that the thing to do is to accept the fact that what you create is probably not going to be all that plausible and just get on with having fun. Though a dooms day device would certianly be plausible as powerful ancient tech left over from the ancients who had realized that the sathar (another of their creations) were too dangerous to let live. Accept that the dooms day devices let loose on the sathar have imprinted on the sathar psyche a pathological fear of other space faring races causing them to attack them mercilously. So while the sathar were potentially dangerous to the galazy at large the ancient's attempt to wipe them out was the catalyst to make them so. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 1, 2011 - 6:53am | I always liked the Doomsday Machine from that classic Star Trek episode. I also liked the alien probe that visited Babylon 5 (where it transmitted some high tech level questions, and if a species was able to answer the questions correctly, it would then blow up destroying the potential future rival. I was playing with the concept of a hull size 20+ Mechanon robotic vessel; get too close to it and its "arms" rip your ship apart piece by piece. Perhaps it was originally designed to tare apart enemy space stations, and perhaps just maybe it has gone berserk, and perhaps maybe possibly... it's now headed for a UPF space station. Characters need to get aboard before munch time. Hmm...  My SF website izz: http://ragnarr.webs.com |
 May 15, 2011 - 4:08pm | ... has anyone devised a "realistic" space monster? - AZ_GAMERin rational objective realism, But I can tell you anyhow... I'd rather be, than see one!!! [adapted from the poem by Gelett Burgess] It would be nice to see a "realistic" space monster, but what that is objectivly, is a problem. Rationaly there are ways to extend theory to encompass it, but there is still the 'risk' that some part will have to be subjectivly hand-waved. So, do whe define 'realisim' as objective to reality, or as objective to a particular consensus reality? The Mynocks of SW:EpIV, and the Crystiline Entity of ST:TNG, are technically realistic, within theory with few 'leaps of faith', but have not been fully 'proven' to be possible. The Giant Asteroid-Worm of SW:EpIV, and the Classic Space Ameobae of ST:TOS, have been considered unrealistic in theory, outside of the reality specifics of the parent cosmos laws, without grand 'leaps of faith'. At least, in so much as the last time I saw, any serious consideration for these theoretical space creatures. Realize that in both SW and ST there is an estabilished allowable 'other-verse', and powers that are beyond the scope of observable 3d/4d spacial objectivity, and beyond the scope of the 'true' objective rationalism of provable realisim. ........... or something like that  ("It's an elephant!", cried the pencil to the eye. Yet still, the ear saw nothing, but the silent ripples of a running thought.)Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
 May 15, 2011 - 5:30am | Spaces workers cutting into asteroid are "attacked" by giant space monster! The spacers are now in the bar recanting the events earlier that day. A man sits in the corner of the room, one of his legs has been replaced from the knee down with a metal cylinder, looking much like a modern "peg leg". Space worker, "Ya, that's them. You heard of them?" Emerson, "I've been hunting them hither and yon across the galaxy laddy." Space worker, "Who are you?" Emerson, "Emerson Mylocks, captain of the SS Milville. At your service." Space worker, "Really? Can you get rid of these things?" Emerson, "'Tis me sworn duty to do so." Space worker, "That's great!" Emerson, "Now I must take me ship and be after the monster." Cut to Triad, Tetrgram Mining Corp Geodorn Bigalow, "Leaping lasers Walsh, what are your people doing about these vicious monster attacks? We've been shut down for days!" Commander Walsh, "Mr. Bigalow, our people are still studying the data." Geodorn Bigalow, "Data, schmada, these things are eating away at my bottom line." Background; Silicon Gigantus (Space Whale) digest asteroids and converts to power. The spacers encountered them while mining. Mylocks is after the space moby, a huge space whale that took his leg a few years ago. He will not stop hunting the moby. |
May 15, 2011 - 4:36pm |  I Like It!  But like I said, wtf is objectivly realistic?! Space Elephants (Elephastraximus)? Asteroid Whales (Cetacea Astroidochelone)? Nebula-ray (Manta Neburostellaris)?The Paradoxodon Enigmaximus Celestimicae (Seemingly Realistic, Large and Strangely Oversized, Space Creatures [I love latinized lingo-modularity]), should be treated as rare, imho. Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
May 15, 2011 - 7:34pm | What do you guys thinks players will be able to swallow (not members of this site)? I know people who have had a hard time with sand sharks, rollers and magma monsters and those arent' even in space! |
May 15, 2011 - 7:54pm | What do you guys thinks players will be able to swallow (not members of this site)? I know people who have had a hard time with sand sharks, rollers and magma monsters and those arent' even in space! What? I love sand sharks, who wouldn't love them? besides players. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 15, 2011 - 10:19pm | @W00t, I really think it depends on the group there, some groups prefer more realistic approaches than others... some players that don't show or express any concern with realism, will come back years after when they get information that makes something they did seem atrociously silly, and try and ret-con the GM's game... and some others that express strong feelings in more casual venues, will let it all slide till things get too greasy and slip out the back door. It has been my experience, that any indication of what the 'public' will consume, is largely illusionary mechanics in a quantum like flux. It is easier to gauge where a quark will be 10-minutes from now, than to determine how players 'as a whole', and often even as individuals, will react to a new 'land-shark-space-amoeboid' style creature. Maturity and knowledge works both ways on that issue as well, so it isn't even an age or education based determinate, it is apparently entirely, or at least largely, a 'mood' oriented reaction. Either it fits a persons current abstract, or it doesn't. And what does fit, I have watched in many people, be fluctuating and chaotic, and expressed in abstracts and ambiguities, over long term observation. The few, are the camps, that desire a specific style over any other, or desire a specific genre in purity. The many are the masses that take in stride where the wind blows, or never find a comfortable niche, but often settle somewhere for a time, before moving on. Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
