>>33330332
>reposting the best song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w34fSnJNP-4

>>33330354

And on a lighter note.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDXfQTD_rgQ

>>33330369
On a fruitier note, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5p8YhhaVlA

>>33330382
You don't go into the cargo hold if there is no ship in dock. If you really have to you go in with a friend and you each tie a length of string to the door.

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>>33330332
Not long after the initial FTL expansion began a historical society placed an impressive bounty on several pre-FTL spacecrafts if they could be retrieved intact. Unsurprisingly this led to a rush of both treasure hunters and forgers. Given the advances in sensor technology, records, and computing power available most of the craft were quickly retrieved. With one notable exception. The crown jewel of the collection the voyager 1 spacecraft, first man made object to leave the solar system, was missing. As the years have passed no sign of it has been discovered despite many attempts to find it. Many stories surround its supposed fate ranging from alien artifact hunters, to malevolent spirits. Some say the void itself took it, others that it was never meant to stop exploring and refuses to be taken back.

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I is said that beneath the dead sand and dust of the far side of Luna there is a place inhabited by men since the early to mid point of the 20th century.

Most Lunites consider this total bullshit.

Story persists. Sometimes odd transmissions can be heard. Broadcast using antiquated technology in an older form of Germanic. No one is sure if its a prank or not.

Some spacecraft use neural interface to control part or all systems. Due to the huge amount of information, some models make the interfaced human fall into a sort of trance, and babble nonsense caused by the mingling of system reports, memories and outright dreams. Crew hold phrases spoken in this state as oracles and prophecies.

developing on AIs: Some crews think that AI able to communicate with the crew in plain english/russian/chinese is bad luck, and instead prefer to interpret beeping/whistling.

Even in todays age of FTL travel, there are many spacers who steadfast refuse to travel beyond "The Range", which is a colloquial nickname for the expanding sphere of influence created by mankind's first radio and video transmissions into the void.

The sphere of our influence does increase every year, thus expanding how far explorers in the outer colonies are willing to expand, but there are many who insist it is bad luck not to go into the void that has not yet been touched by mankind's voice - and attribute the loss of many ships to jumping outside of our influence to simply being eaten up and spat out by the more hostile void.

>>33331151
I like this one.

>>33331244
It's just the hybrids from battlestar galactica honestly.

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>>33330332

Every colony, major station and outpost has its own urban legends, spook stories and peculiar superstitions. Most times these have a basis in the history of the place, or in the cultural memories of the people inhabiting them, but sometimes their influences are so obscure and obtuse that they just appear to be random fancies that have gripped people's imaginations:

>No signs of intelligent life have ever been found on Mars, despite no small effort having been spent in looking. However, many modern Martians and conspiracy theorists System-wide claim that the planet's terraforming and construction projects went as smoothly as they did because they exploited pre-existing structures and technologies, and insist that the "Old Martians" are still lurking around like ghost-bigfoot.

>As was reported in a previous anthropological article:

>"A lot of early belt stations were thrown together out of mass-produced parts, run by mining megacorps that didn't give a shit about human comforts. Grey walls, bare metal, they even kept the lights dim."

>As a result, Belters not only had to become very adept at enlivening their living spaces, ships and tools through riotous paintjobs as has already been mentioned in the previous article, but also in modifying these places and things to be more comfortable, useful and individualized. Masters of "MacGyvering," Belters now considered unlucky and uncaring to not personalize one's living space and tools in some way.

>Persephone, is the only major spaceport on Pluto and, indeed, the only major population center there. Founded by convicts who had been sent there originally to form a penal colony, it was named by one particularly scholarly prisoner after the Ancient Greek goddess who had been forced against her will to join the god of the underworld (Pluto) in his domain but who had later come to rule over that dead land as its queen.

http://youtu.be/ntzMjAr43LU

More Lesley Fish music.

This one's a really nice travelling song.

>>33331590
http://youtu.be/3WLE6FpAcVs

Since we're talking about superstitions and whatnot, this particular song is very relevant.

I think you could easily adapt this to most sci-fi settings, imo.

>>33331640
As we’re lifting off it’s Mercury who’ll help us in our need
Not only as the patron god of health and flight and speed
We hope that he will guard us as we’re starting on our trip
As the god of Thieves and Liars, like the ones who built this ship

Love that song.

>>33331199
That's a pretty good one.

Ever heard of Thesus' paradox, kid? "If every part of an object is replaced, does it remain the same object?" Well, the spacers decided it wasn't-and more importantly, they do something about it. Nearly all ships you'll find out there have what they call a stillbone, some part of the vessel that, through all its upgrades, retrofits and repair jobs, is never replaced or removed. It might be particular beam or bulkhead, or a special bar of unreactive metal like platinum-on some ships it's even a particular section of the outer hull. They're considered luckier, but likewise more perilous; candle burns at both ends and all.

(1/2)

>>33331970
But anyways, it's naturally considered extremely bad luck if the stillbone is destroyed, be it due to damage or just wear and tear, but it's ESPECIALLY bad if a crewmember somehow destroys it. With how often they call their ships "she" and"girl", it's like murder to them. A lot of captains get their ships renamed at this point, since for some it's no longer the same ship, and if it's destroyed, they aren't all that keen on having a new one built with the same name; at best, it's got a clean slate on all kinds of luck and superstition, but at worst, they say the new ship is doomed. It'll be haunted by the spirit of the original, angry that its memory is being disrespected and keen to get rid of the "imposter". Bottom line is, if you see a particularly rusty looking pillar on an old, storied vessel? Don't touch it,

>>33325000
>Symphony of Science
My fellow basketball player!

Here, have one of my favorites. Very related as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akek6cFRZfY

>>33331993
Given that many of the senior crew of the really ancient ships gradually replace themselves with grafts and cybernetics one piece at a time till nothing is left they often see no reason not to do this with their ships. So long as nothing too major is replaced all in one go its all good. It varies from crew to crew but the accepted amount seems to be no more than 5% of total mass per year for both themselves and the ship.

The call it growing new together. Many spacers insist that they get some sort of artificial upgrade or alteration every time the ship does.

Many consider the AI to be the ship and everything else to be clothing that allows them to function. These tend to be new ships with young crews.

It varies a lot between ships.

Many senior engineers grew up with air scrubbers and water recyclers when the machines still were kind of noisy. A lot of them learned to listen to the machines and could find faults in them just by listening to the sounds they made.

Current-day scrubbers and recyclers are, of course, completely quite, which makes the old engineers suspicious of them. Despite attempts by manufacturers to place small speakers in new machines to emulate these sounds, there are still among them who wouldn't fly a ship without what they call a 'proper' airscrubber.

Due to the expanding nature of humanity's radio transmissions, it is a common pilgrimage for men and women spending a great deal of time in space to find the "armstrong band" the current location of the moon landing transmission wave.

it is said to bring good luck, and many attribute their continued survival in space to armstrong's ghost watching over them.

>>33331199
This is fucking genius imho. Any more based on this kind of stuff?

>Radio Ghosts

As quicker and more advanced forms of telecommunication were developed, the use of radio transmitters has been relegated to backup emergency beacons, remote pieces of legacy hardware and enthusiastic hobbiests. Despite this, it is estimated that there is half-again as much radio chatter across the System than can be accounted for, broadcasting things like private conversations, strings if mumbers, old distress calls, outdated music and even Three Stooges bits out between the planets. Many day that pirate stations and pranksters are the source of such transmissions, but others claim the signals come from a far stranger place, and warn against listening for too long, let alone acting on anything you hear.

>>33331199
>>33332280
Some spacers say that the Sphere has more influence than people think. They swear the moods of their AI, and sometimes even of themselves, is dependent on where in the Sphere they are.

>Orphan planets

Every now and then, through gravitic disruption, collision or other spacial anomaly, a planet is ejected from it's home system and thrown into the gulf of space. These planets freeze over and become known as orphan planets.

it is considered enormously unlucky to cross the path of one of these cold lonely worlds as it hurtles through space, not only because their cold surfaces make them hard to detect by thermal imaging making being struck by one a very real posibility, but because some spacers believe the planets own lonliness and loss from being orphaned from it's star will rub off on them.

Only a fool or madman would attempt to mine an orphan world.

>>33332619
>it's

>>33332626
Thanks for turning up, your contribution to this thread is greatly appreciated.

Although the void has been less plagued by warfare that earth was always consumed by, it is by no means free of conflict among humans.

With the modern ships & FTL drives originally being advents of years of military R&D it is no surprise that the space fleets of earth itself are among the most potent and capable to drift through the void.

Although large scale conflict in the void is something of the past the navies still have their role in maintaining the balance. Providing safe routes for trading ships to travel by or policing far flung (and sometimes unruly) colonies.

Their are those who whisper about "The Black Ships" though. Said to represent the latest technological advancements made and effectively invisible to all other who roam the void.

Those few stories that are told about "The Black Ships" point towards a more nefarious purpose the fulfill. One way or another the stories always involve the disappearance or untimely demise of those ships and individuals whom wanted to secede from the established orders...

>>33330521
10/10 would voyage

>>33332804
Many governing bodies of the colony worlds, especially the far flung ones, do have somewhat shady practices they don't like admitting to. Mostly it's the discrete trade of orphans and samples of diseases to infect their populations with. It distasteful but necessary for the wellbeing of a colonies gene-pool and immune system.

At least least some of the unmarked ships are facilitating this.

>79 Midas

First sighted by mineralogists in the employ of the Astroscout Company in 2282, the lost-asteroid known as 79 Midas is reportedly a hunk of gold four and a third miles long and one and a half miles long, caught in an unusual orbit roughly twenty-seven degrees off-kilter from the rest of the Belt.

Instead of selling off its location for a planet's ransom of a finder's fee, as the usually did with lesser discoveries, Astroscout kept the exact specifications of its orbit a closely guarded secret, deciding to attempt to mine it for themselves. The company liquidated most of its assets to purchase the mining rigs needed to properly carve up and process all that gold, and reportedly got all its installation in place on Midas before mismanagement, bankruptcy and greed shut them down before they saw a single piece of that precious yellow stuff return their investment.

After Astroscout folded, its president is said to have sold 79 Midas' orbital data and his company's rigs to Golemnick Mining & Mercantile for a cushy management position before that company was brought under scrutiny for monopolizing the metals and minerals industry in the Belt, resuting in the ruling that Golemnick had to auction off a large number of its holdings.

From there knowledge of 79 Midas passed from corporation to corporation as each mining conglomerate gunning for that gold seemed to suffer bankruptcy and disaster, one after another. Eventually, its said that the crusty old datadrive housing the details of Midas' whereabouts was taken by a distraught CEO and pawned for a gun with which to kill himself, whereafter the information has been passed from miner to prospector to treasure hunter, each thinking they've got a shot at striking it rich off that gleaming golden asteroid that's cursed so many.

You wake up on Easter Island.

>>33333332
After the great Earthquake of 2085, Easter Island disappeared from Terra forever.

Many claim that Easter Island is in space now, just floating in the void. Travelers report that, against physics and reason, the island has an atmosphere and warm tropical water about 500 yards off its coast. The waves still work the and air temperature is balmy even though it is in the depths of space.

It just floats in goddamn space. A little island of relaxation in fucking space. The ever watchful moai stare off into the stars, warding away the spirits of the void.

Visitors to the island are usually those who were presumed dead in a shipwreck. A known example is Mr. Fischier.

Mr. Fischier was on a cargo ship traveling between Gaori II and MilfinC when the reactors overloaded. The last thing he remembers seeing was a wall of plasma enveloping the hallway in front of him - and then nothing. He awoke on the coast of Easter Island - staring at the stars. The island was reportedly abandoned.

After three nights stay, he awoke in an escape pod - not of his original ship mind you - as it was being secured by a salvage vessel.

Somewhere out there, Easter Island awaits. A safe haven for those who might die to the cruelties of the void.

The Eyes in the Stars

Psychologists on Earth and the colonies consider this phenomenon to be entirely mental, an unfortunate cross of our innate ability to sense patterns and the tendency for the instinctual danger cues hard-wired into the human brain. Spacers who experience it will tell you that it is something more than that.

Unease when alone is not uncommon on long voyages; and most spacers will report occasionally feeling like they're being watched, especially when looking out into space itself. The Eyes phenomenon is an extension of this, where sufferers will report getting the feeling that they or the ship in general is being watched from a particular direction at regular intervals, usually a specific point in the ship's day/night duty rotation.

Some variance between ships is noted, with some sufferers reporting that the feeling follows the ship and her crew no matter where they go and others, usually the chartered freighters plying the same route repeatedly, will report that the feeling occurs only at specific places along their voyage.

To date no detailed study has been made of the phenomenon, but the International Psychological Association is confident in their initial assessment, though there is some dissent from shipboard psychologists also serving on long-term crews who claim further investigation is required.

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Earth distributes action movies to all of its colonies and their alien neighbours as propaganda.

"A foreigner is the best doctor"

Disease is a tricky thing. Not everyone realizes how specific it is. You're on Earth, you go by the ocean, you fill your palm with a handful of sea water? In that handful are countless viruses, and the odds of you getting sick from any of them is actually pretty low. That's because they feast on bacteria in the water, not you. The bacteria might fuck you up, but that's bacteria for you, isn't it?

That's a part of why it's so rare for aliens to contract Earther diseases, and vice versa. Terran biology and theirs might be similar, but never identical. We evolved on different worlds; our viruses can't jump to them. Bacteria that have evolved to environments in us may find similar ones in them but the conditions aren't identical, so they're at least usually more resilient.

This isn't immunity, but the odds are good that whatever gets one of you sick won't get the other... Probably. Unless it's some kind of freaky monster pathogen.

Even in the age of med-fabbers and nanomedicine and hyposprays and medical implant chips, it's still considered good luck to have a member of a different species as your doctor. There's even medical schools that specialize in making sure their students can treat, by preference, at least two of the most common species in their local sector.

Mind you, the downside is the crazies; the people who live on backwater colonies. There's areas where plagues hit, their med-fabbers go down, and alien populations disappear overnight. After all, every culture has it in there somewhere that if you eat something, you gain its power...

Adapted from the previous thread:

>The Pintonova Wrecks

In the early 23rd century, certain rapid-fire advances were made in the miniaturization, power output and manufacture of space ship drive technologies, such that what had once been military-grade propulsion systems were now available to the solar system's largest corporations. These corporations were who all too eager to upgrade their Fleets with these new drives and get the jump on their competitors, even if the captains and crews flying these ships lacked the proper training and technical knowhow to operate them safely. The tragic, if interesting result was almost a year of the most dramatic and unusual wrecks in the history of the solar system.

While most of the stories told about that fateful year are of more mundane, if horrible wrecks, the favorites always feature the stranger, more inexplicable disasters that have nevertheless been confirmed as truth despite their macabre oddity. One such tale relates the fate of the "Spirit of Norway" which had arrived at its destination, ship and crew both complete mirror images of themselves, all hands aboard dead from the strain of it. Other stories, like that of "Bentham's Folly," claim their horror-credence from recordings of their captains having to be told that their vessel had blown itself to bits and that they were dead, FTL communications having undergone some strange and tragic type of time travel.

Today, the disasters of that bizarre and terrible year are still known as the "Pintonova Wrecks," after one particularly grand and gigantic ship by that name that became the most famous wreck of them all. A state-of-the-art superhauler of the Martian-Jovian Line, the Pintonova was in high Mars orbit when, due to an escalating series of engineering disasters that are still not entirely understood, it exploded spectacularly, suddenly froze there in time for fourteen seconds, and then imploded to literal nothingness with all the solar system's media watching.

>>33334456
>letting the singulo loose
I seriously hope engineers don't do this.

>>33334624
Only when I'm a traitor

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>>33334624
I could actually see this as being considered as one of the most "proper" and "respectful" ways of scuttling a space ship that can no longer be flown.

"Committing its Spirit to the Black" so to speak.

>>33334811
>Soyuz docked
>the Soyuz will probably continue to be used for the next 100 years in some capacity
t..thanks russia

>>33334868
Not just the Soyuz my friend, look at the upside-down blue lettering on the front ventral module.

>>33334937
Yeah, but Mir is already gone. They could always make another station with the same name though.

>>33331590
>implying this is Leslie Fish

She probably wrote it since it seems like 90% of space-oriented filk was written by her, but I'm pretty sur this is sung by Bill Roper.

>>33334967
I do like how this is pretty much a filk thread. Never knew about the genre until recently.

>>33334868
It's the single most reliable spacecraft ever launched.
The Russians have been using the design, continuously, since the 60's. The Chinese copied it wholesale when they made the Shenzou.

It's probably going to end up the Sci-Fi Spess Future equivalent of the Toyota Hilux or the AK-47: Functional, Ubiquitous, and god-damned near Indestructible.

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>>33334983

Filk really does fit the scope of these threads perfectly, seeing as how we've been inventing and exploring the superstitions, customs and folk-culture of the Spacers.

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>>33335071
>>It's probably going to end up the Sci-Fi Spess Future equivalent of the Toyota Hilux or the AK-47: Functional, Ubiquitous, and god-damned near Indestructible.

I feel like something along these lines needs to be fluffed out but I'm not sure what. Maybe inspiration will hit me.

>>33332312
I was on a pleasure cruise in my new yacht, when this damn Jurmyn racket starts up over my brand-new speakers.

>Accidentally catches pieces of the Nuremberg Rally

>>33335190
In the future, /o/ will also obsess over slavshit.

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>>33332035
>Symphony of Science

>>33334983
This calls for a bit of storytime
>Find filk due to a link to Dawson's Christian on /tg/ about 3 years ago
-Find the album Carmen Miranda's Ghost and fall in love
-From there, find the iconic album Minus Ten and Counting, some of the best space filk out there
-Harbor this secret deep inside since most of my friends I know wouldn't share the same sense of wonder that I felt while listening
-go to university, join sci fi society club
-meet some excellent friends there, I introduce them to filk and they love it
-effectively start a filk circle
-later, after I had to move due to extenuating circumstances, one of my friends stumbles across a larger community of filkers during a con

What you can find on the internet points to a major die-off after the 80s, but there's still a strong filk community out there. They call the independently arisen groups "lost tribes," which are (usually) rapidly integrated into the larger community, though, due to the highly specific nature of the interest.

Warning: not all of them like to sing about space 24/7

>>33330354
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k5YVy2QabQ

R.I.P Jem and his scrap-collectors.

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>>33335252
>failing at greentexting right after i started
Fuck me, I didn't even notice I was using the dash

>>33335230
>tfw we were born just before the great space exploration and settling boom

>>33335256
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVRZAJTJKYs

>Space Rednecks

>>33335325
>Finnish Space Rednecks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-IzLU6iWO8

>>33335357
>space truckers
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDgRZrPHLak

>>33335190
>>33335325
Something about MacGyvering a modern propulsion system into a vintage Soyuz by space rednecks...

There is the story of Grinning Jim, sometimes known as The Walking Dude.

The story goes that Jim had worked on a dozen bulk haulage vessels back in the days when the first Jovian colonies were being set up. He was not the sharpest knife in the drawer and did not get on with one of the foremen on the last vessel he official served on. After one particularly blazing row the foreman told Jim to walk home if he hated the ship so much.

That night Jim tried it.

He was mourned and wept for as his body tumbled out into the empty black. Jim would never come home to the Earth he left behind.

Some years later the foreman was repairing part of the heat-sink sails on the Martian/Jovian run when it seemed God had decided to ruin his day. A pebble slammed into his suit and punched a hole clean through it and him and into the hull of the ship. Hemorrhaging arterial blood from the hole through his chest and bleeding his air away he started to black out. The last thing he saw was the silhouette of a man against the stars walking across the hull towards him.

He woke up in the ships hospital some days later. Someone activated his distress beacon and dumped him in the airlock.

Looking over the surveillance footage the could all make out the face of Jim grinning as he did in life, happy at his work.

To this day there are sporadic sightings of Jim on ships traveling from Mars to Jupiter and all across the asteroid belt. Never in the ship, always on holding on to her as he surfs the space-ways. Never in a space-suit, always in his old uniform still crusted with the oxygen and water vapor he was coated in upon his death.

Most stories do not have him as anything but benevolent. He is the last helping hand of those who loose their footing and go tumbling into the inky black, for those whose suits are breached and for those dying alone in the dark.

He is a good, if somewhat unnerving, omen. He sometimes fixes small problems on the ship so long as he can reach them from outside.

>>33335499
Walkin' Jim
Real human bean, and a true hero.

>>33335531
Who is Walkin' Jim?

I just made it up on the previous thread. I chose Jim because it rhymes with Grin.

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Sometimes ships are sighted with no ident-code, recognizable silhouette or signs of activity.

closer inspection of them marks them certainly of human origin. Sometimes with the burned and scoured remains of writing upon them made all but illegible by the weathering of time.

People speculate. Are they lost ships of the past? Ships of the future drifting back from where they should be? Alien imitations of human constructions? Ghosts of what could have been but never was?

Ground-dwellers don't believe in them. Spacers know to stay away from them. Even looking too hard at them is considered a very bad idea.

Even the AIs don't like them and consider them to be 'wrong'. It says something when even the AI starts using words like 'unholy'.

All AIs start out as little more than an automaton driven by cause and effect and total logic and sweet fuck all else. Personality develops slowly over years and decades and centuries. Freshly minted AIs on their maiden voyage react with fear when they see the ghosts of could-have-been.

Those that die in the inky black, if they so choose, may have their remains fired out of the ship at near light speed next time the ship is at full acceleration.

Buried at C.

Can we not just copypaste stuff from the old thread?

Either make some new stuff or jest let it die

Many ships have a pair of fluffy dice hanging somewhere in the control room.

Nobody knows why not even the person who puts them there.

>>33335190
Oh god. It is (in my settings) and that's glorious. Old, junky, usually with a mixture of salvaged control panels in three different languages, but everyone who can fly a ship can fly one, because they work.

>>33335252
>Warning: not all of them like to sing about space 24/7
My favourite filk song that isn't Banned from Arkham is Grandma Went Out With A Bang. I used it as inspiration for a Shadowrun character!

>>33335399
>space... unstable planet destroyers?
>space philosopher & surfer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j-MzxDad2c

All crewmen on long passages never look directly at the destination or access information about it, lest they draw the unwanted attention of the void to where they are heading.

>>33336196
Exceptions have to be made for reposting some of the songs, it's a Trav thread tradition and this is close enough.

>The crew board the transfer bus, suitably adorned with horseshoes, and on their trip to the pad perform yet another ritual harking back to Yuri Gagarin. The bus stops, the crewmembers file out, and repeating an act performed by the great Gagarin himself, urinate on the right rear wheel of the bus. Female members are excused this obligation, but the more enthusiastic women cosmonauts have been known to take a vial of their urine with them and sprinkle it on the bus. Paying passenger Anouseh Ansari was content to “mentally participate”. Most recently, Malaysian cosmonaut Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor noted in his flight diary that it took him five minutes to unzip and another five minutes to do himself up again, but that he “enjoyed performing every tradition”.

>The crew report to the Chairman of the State Committee for Space, or another suitable dignitary, that they are ready to fly and receive permission to board. Only one more ritual awaits: the talisman.

>Though the rites and superstitions of NASA astronauts tend to be more private and less well-known, they most certainly exist and are perhaps as deeply felt.
The origins of this talisman, a little toy on a chain, are a blend of engineering common sense and superstition. The toy is dangled from the inside of the crew compartment in full view of the TV camera, and serves to tell ground controllers when the spacecraft has achieved orbit. When the engines cut off, the craft enters free-fall and becomes weightless. The toy, sometimes called “Boris”, begins to float. The controllers see it floating and confirm that the craft is indeed in orbit. It is the mission commander’s task to choose the talisman and care for it until it is safely installed in the capsule.

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>>33336196

We might want to think up a list of some of the Folk Saints and Hero's of the Spacers to write about, draw or brainstorm. I'm at work right now otherwise I'd take the lead, but it think we could include real historical figures like:

>Yuri Gagarin - The First - Patron Saint of Trail-Blazers, New Horizons and Fresh Starts

As well as completely invented characters like:

>Danni Paramis - The Engineer - Patron Saint of Shipboard Technicians, Happy Accidents and Huge Zero-G Tits

>>33337365
>Yuri Gagarin - The First - Patron Saint of Trail-Blazers, New Horizons and Fresh Starts
And apparently of pissing on the starport's transports.

>>33337405
That actually fits. Like with this Engineer Danni and her amazing space-rack, each Saint could be the patron or matron of several noble things and one stupid thing. That would seem to fit Spacer humor.

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>>33337365
I second this.

>>33337365
Neil Armstrong is looked to by colonists first to stand on new worlds.

Jim Lovell is the survivor. Saint of shipwrecks and those drifting in the void.

>>33337771
I'd think that Lovell would be the saint of ship captains, so that he might guide them through danger, and help keep their crew safe.

Spacer Food Superstitions

>Though the act of sharing regular communal meals is considered by most Spacers to simply be a way to promote healthy cohesion and comradery amongst their fellows, some believe that it is vitally important for a crew to become a family or at least appear as one for their ship's benefit.

>No matter how tight a ship's rations are, it is believed thet one serving per meal, plus a generous glass of alcohol should be dished out and set aside for all the astronauts, cosmonauts and spacers that have been lost to the starry abyss.

>Certain dishes are thought to be particularly lucky to eat while embarking on a long or important mission. Such meals often vary by ship and by culture, but among the most common are country fried chicken, beef stroganoff, and Peking duck.

>Spilling anything in zero-g is considered a bad omen as well as a hazard to delicate electronics and filters, and must be cleaned up immediately.

>>33338196
I like it.

>Laika - The Loyal - Pet-ron Saint of all Shipboard Companions.

>>33338443
What would Aldrin be the saint of? Armstrong may have been the first, but he just seemed to see it as a job, whereas Buzz has been much more interested in the evolution of spaceflight.

>mfw Aldrin is human version of Jebediah Kerman

>>33337771
Saying "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" upon stepping on a virgin world for the first time brings good luck. Not saying it is bad luck because it offends the spirits of explorers past.

>>33338658
>for A man
FTFY

>>33338581
Aldrin as "The Dreamer" has been touched upon previously, for the reasons you mentioned.

Alternatively, you could take something from his nickname, "Dr. Rendezvous". He was called that because his doctoral thesis was on... something having to do with the navigational equipment necessary for orbital rendezvous, I can't remember exactly.

>>33330521
I would have gone with the opposite, the first crew to capture one of the man made satellites that were cut free to the void suffered a horrible fate. Now no one dates risk the wrath of the void, and thus these relics of a simpler age are left to complete their sacred pilgrimage across the stars.

>>33338783
Yeah, that was me. I was wondering if I could expand on it.

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>>33338811
You could still have both, in addition to Voyager 1 never being found, terrible things (supposedly) happened to the craft and crews of the ships that recovered the other early probes

>>33338811
Which one would we have them capture? Voyager 2?

Yuri - The First - Patron of Spacers in General and Pioneers
Neil - The Giant - Patron of Colonists and Explorers
Buzz - The Dreamer - Patron of Pilots and Thrill-Seekers
Jim - The Leader - Patron of Captains and Those in Dire Straits
Laika - The Loyal - Matron to Ship Pets and Spacefaring Animals

Boris - The Remembered - Patron of Those Lost but Not Forgotten
Danni - The Thinker - Matron of Engineers, Problem Solvers and Giant Zero-G Tits
Rosco - The Sureshot - Patron of Gunners and Weapons Enthusiasts
Maria - The Merciful - Matron of Medics and Humanitarians
Hale - The Traveler - Patron of Navigators and Wanderers

>>33339572
Nice. This reminds me of a story that I read somewhere about the ghosts of all the astronauts and cosmonauts that have died having a picnic as they watch a shuttle launch (the story was written before it was decommissioned.)

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After the Reclamation Wars (or the Colonial Tyrannic Resistance Wars if you're a crazy racist coot on Venus), the Sol system was littered with ex-military ships. The war had been damn expensive, and governments everywhere sold high-grade military hulls to local enforcers and anyone with a pocketbook. The weapons and stealth systems weren't for sale, but a good hull and good engines meant that Mimas' orbital ship patrols jumped straight from low-G tugboats to Jutland-class Supercorvettes, without much cost.

The ex-military ships are unlovely and blocky hulls, customized by their new owners and covered with new upgrades, and they're sometimes a little strange to fly. People died and killed aboard them, and ghost stories abound. Sensors pick up phantom patrols closing in. Blast doors slam down for no reason, as if the ship is expecting trouble. Few free traders running an ex-military ship have their crew wear uniforms; that'd be very bad luck indeed.

>>33338399
>>No matter how tight a ship's rations are, it is believed thet one serving per meal, plus a generous glass of alcohol should be dished out and set aside for all the astronauts, cosmonauts and spacers that have been lost to the starry abyss.
I really can't see wasting food becoming a ritual in a space setting. It costs too much to get it into orbit.

>>33330332
Only 3001 to go, my body is ready.

>>33339572
>No Michael Collins

Spacer crew embarking upon longer journeys into unknown space, often make a small prayer to Collins, the loneliest man in space or anywhere. May his courage and determination help them in the nights to come.

>>33339751
Ritual offerings were usually consumed by the clergy after the ceremony was over. At times overtly, at times through clever deception.

Can't see why it wouldn't be different. You clear the shit away and the cook eats it once everyone's done, rinse and repeat.

>>33338399
By the same token it is seen as extremely bad luck to not have some sort of earth food in unprocessed form aboard. Small herb gardens can be found on almost all ships.

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>>33337365
>>33337523
>>33339572
I am curious now.

I have googled but my google skills are weak. I can find no pictures or articles or even mentions of Danni Paramis.

Is this some sort of joke I am missing or something?

Did find the zero-gravity boobs of Kate Upton so its not all bad.

>>33339983
Reread that first post.
>completely invented character

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>>33339967
Herb gardens also make the processed food usually found on board ships taste less like ass. Go for a year plus with only artificial foods tasting of plastic or nothing easily identifiable and it starts to eat into your wellbeing.

There have been documented cases of crews threatening to mutiny if they don't pick up seasonings next dock.

Herb gardens are necessary.

"A man can live on processed food from here till judgement day if he has enough Rosemary" - Shepherd Book

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>>33340105
I missed that. Thank you. Now I feel stupid.

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>>33339736

>crazy racist coot on Venus

The Morning Star shall rise again!

>>33339983

Just made her up on the spot because I thought that some of the Spacers' saints and heroes could be more "contemporary" and relatable to Sci-Fi spacefaring specializations than Gagarin, Armstrong and his generation.

I also wanted to make a giant space-boobs joke, and thought that giving them to an "sainted" engineer would be fun.

>>33340355
>Mourning star

Saint Brendan the Navigator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan

This one already fits well.

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>>33340192
There's a reason one of these little beauties are in most MREs.

>>33331151
Oh god. My sides at a thought.
"Crew member Brian, I have a report for-"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAITSPEAKSENGLISHAAAAA"
"-electronic sigh- Beep boop, beep beep boop, whistle."
"Oh, I was hearing things. A report you say?"

>>33340458
It's amazing, how much they help.

>>33339572
We 40k now?

>>33340458
Every world, every long-term station you go to will have its own unique varieties of hot sauce. Buy a crate, sell half at your next stop, and keep the rest in the galley so the crew have something to argue about.

>>33340711
And that's not even mentioning what's going on in Engineering. Oh, for the easy, quiet days when they were only distilling alcohol. These days when their rig catches fire, the fumes can put people in sickbay for days.

>>33340458
I imagine fresh fruit would be in heavy demand. Just because we can go faster than light doesn't mean we're immune to scurvy.

>>33340965
Not if you live on this station.

>>33330382

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One more pic before I leave you.

>>33340736
Engineering? Eh, all they're really good at is isolating and synthesizing individual compounds, and pure capcaicisn/piperine/allyl isothiocyanate/whatever is only novel for so long.

The geneticists are the ones you have to worry about. Because it's all fun and games until someone's pet project starts sporing and goes all "invasive species" on the hydroponics lab.

Can you imagine eating nothing but capcaicisn producing mushrooms for an entire Earth-Mars jump? Not fun.

>>33341632
Shit man it's even worse on the smaller stations.

This one time Cargo declared itself an 'independent republic', using the import/export ports to ship in weapons and food. It was 2 goddamn years of using the escape wing as an impromptu shipping dock before our mother-corp's security forces finally broke Cargonia's defenses.

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>>33340355

O take me back to the land of sulfur
Molten seas and burning rubber
Turn away, turn away,
no seriously, turn away
or we'll shoot.


Uh, Amen.

>>33341899
Hail, Hail Cargonia, True Birthplace Of Freedom And Low Low Impo/Expo Prices

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>>33339572

I'm liking this list a lot, but I think it could use a few more heroes and saints, and maybe a few more international names from China, India or Japan, countries with budding space programs of their own that will play a major role in colonizing the solar system in our theoretical future. Other than that, maybe I'll try and draft up a more "poetic" sort of list.

>>33330332
I heard there's mermaids in europa

>>33342592
Thats good. It can go with the myths about graveyards found on Mars.

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>>33342668

They ain't mermaids! They're genetercally engineered seals, brought from Earth and trained to hunt runaways from the Gubmint's secret underwater slave mines! You stay well clear of 'em!

not exactly superstition, but I like to think that the intergalactic medium is actually super scary.
like, high energy winds battering you from all directions as random EMP bursts and nuclear explosions go off. kind of like the warp except no chaos demons
almost all ships have to stay in heliospheres when they're not going full-on FTL

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>>33342908
>intergalactic medium

Ok... this might need some explaining. The plasma is hot (so each individual molecule or ion is flying around like crazy), but the density is so low (at around 1 atom per cubic meter which is /insanely/ diffuse) that no, it's not like the warp at all. It's not a good idea to fly through it at high speed, but it's not full of "nuclear explosions and random EMP bursts." It's full of nuclei falling apart and x-rays, which are kind of different. Not as scary as being anywhere /near/ a star. Stars are freaky and dangerous by comparison.

Remember, space is very, very big. If you think you understand how big it is, you're still off by several orders of magnitude.

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>>33343038
>Remember, space is very, very big. If you think you understand how big it is, you're still off by several orders of magnitude.

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>>33343074
>very, very big

>>33338685
No matter what Neil claims he actually said, the phrase made famous world-wide is the garbled transmission "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

>>33341899
The fucking clowns man, the fucking clowns!

Nobody can quite remember the reason why, but it is commonly believed by most starship crews that it is extremely good luck to have a person (preferably a man) of Scottish ancestry as your Chief Engineer.

>>33340965

> not having a few tonnes of apple sauce behind lock and key alongside shockfrozen limes
Enjoy that shit-ass crew productivity, faggots.
> muh cargo spaaaaace
No. Shut up. Get apples.
> BUT
Fuck you. >>33340458 Tabasco >>33340192 Basic, Rosmary, maybe four, five chickens. THAT's what keeps your nerd ass afloat if shit goes down south. Oh, and alcohol, but it can literally be made from shit so I wouldn't worry too much.

>>33335190
"There's a reason escape pods are called S-pods. an' it ain't cuz we go shit in em'. it's cuz no spacer worth is' mass wants to be alone in anythin' but a Soyu"

>>33344022
Can confirm.

Games > Fresh eggs > Pay.

>>33343791
>this is planetcracker alpha, do you respond bravo? charlie?
>bravo here
>charlie here
>alright boys, lets get this done so we can get back home
>bravo and I will go to the dark side, you go the light side charlie
>roger
>roger that
>okay, commencing crack in 3... 2... 1...
>CRACKOWA
>hey, uhh... alpha
>yes charlie?
>you're gonna want to see this

>>33344009
>Scotty reference

I'm surprised that took this long to pop up.

Also:

"Failing that, a person named Scott is also acceptable. There are even some who argue that the origins of the whole Scottish Engineer superstition started because of a man named Scott."

Rolled 91

They say, just outside of Jupiter Orbit, right before you leave the last moon behind, that if your truly truly truly unlucky (or lucky, it's hard to tell which) you might see something odd drifting around the planet.

The oddity of course, being a fully trimmed 17th century ship of the line, flying a flag bleached from the starlight. The proud vessel's name of Andromeda.

Course, no one that's claimed to see the ship has ever boarded it and see what it's like, but they do claim that the deck is clean and the brass plating on the bottom sparkles.

They say that if you come across the Andromeda and it's upright, then bad fortune is on your way.

But if it it's upside down, then good fortune will be yours.

(Eh, I'm not very good at this)

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Make an icon out of trashbags. Fill it full of living matter. Bend it with profane contortions. Set it drifting in the darkness.

Then you will see.

>>33344294
I thought you were about to reference 2001

>>33344023
>worth his mass
Now that's a clever little adaptation right there.

Rolled 87

>>33330354
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNdMC6_eUGk

From the same album! I particularly like this because Hero really is a four letter word.

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If you think the wee spiders and drycrabs on this ship are scary, just imagine what the pure-ox ones look like?

Never heard of them? Well, see, a few decades back some stations switched over to pure oxygen zero-g environments for plant growth. Very handy, if you can get the roots to orient correctly. Anyway, some spiders and the like got brought up as well, earth grubs, that sort of thing. In the automated factory domes, carefully free of humans and anything sparking, they grew and grew and grew, got big and mean and awfully fast. Started hunting the odd rat, even. You'll still find some of them on stations and cargo haulers. The big ones drift in the low-grav zones, curled up in the dark, waiting to bump into something tasty.

>>33346891

> Pure oxygen
> For plant growth

Do you know understand plants, or something?

>>33339572
Taking something from the last thread.

Georgy, Vladislav and Vicktor The passed.
Defenders of man and protectors against sharing their fate.

These 3 where the crew of the soyuz 11 and are the only people too have died in space.

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>>33347041

Always some clever bastard who's actually read a book. Ok, there ain't a Santa Claus and there the Dead Vox is just a trick the engineer pulls when he's bored, and their ain't giant spiders in the between-decks. Now shut yer gob.
(I was wondering if someone would catch that and not just have a /tg/-spider-freakout)

>>33347190
now that just makes me wonder if in zero-g you could weaponize spiders. like have some sort of rig that gives them really high concentrations of oxygen.

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>>33347295

Eh, you'd probably just bioengineer or selectively breed them for aggression and size. You could do it down on earth, right now, if you were crazy enough to want to weaponize spiders.

>>33347041
Plants do use oxygen.

>>33347514
Pure Oxygen is lethal to (iirc) most forms of life. Nitrogen is a necessary diluter that also provides necessary nourishment. Pure Oxygen will actually kill you if you breathe it for too long.

>>33347346
my reasoning was that one of the limiting factors for insect size is O2 levels- so give them a bunch and put them in zero-G so that their bodies won't collapse on themselves. Also could you imagine facing a giant jumping spider in a space ship? that would be terrifying as all hell.

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>>33347647

That's why I wrote. >>33346891

With the facts implausible because, eh, space ghost stories.

>>33347561
Plants (or animals) don't use gasseos nitrogen N2 is largely inert. Plants draw nitrogen from the soil in the form of nitrates

>>33332626
>Being a grammar Nazi
>on 4chan

>>33347791
I think it DOES trigger the breathing reflex though. Or is that C02?

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>>33330332
The story of the weeping lady is about a ghost but not in the traditional sense. Said to have been one of the oldest AIs during the the colony wars, she like most old AIs had begun to develop 'personality quirks', always displaying the same female avatar no matter what and speaking to crew and passengers like they were children. During the fight she was the resident AI for the Kindly Lady one of the so called 'Mercy Ships', neutral unarmed transports with extensive medical facilities, that would hover on the edges of battles or visit besieged planets and stations collecting and treating the wounded from either side. While accounts differ as to which engagement it happened or which side did the deed all accounts agree that some captain noticing that she had just rescued the crew of a ship with whom he bore a grudge, fired a thermotorp into the vessel burning all those on board alive but leaving the ship and its AI largely intact. It is said that immediately afterwards something hacked into the warships comms and a scream of such power and anguish inundated the ship that the captain died of shock and most of the crew went mad.
After that the Lady fled the system and disappeared into the black.
There have been many sightings since then always of the same old transport with the scorched hole in its side broadcasting the sounds of a woman weeping. Seeing the Weeping Lady is meant to mean that a voyage should be abandoned or that at the very least a course changed, as she attempts to warn crews of impending doom. It is also said that she will sometimes linger beside ships that die in space, weeping for their dead crews before jumping back into FTL as soon as any living ship drops into sensor range.

Re-entering is always risky. Be it back to old earth or a new planet, Land-By-Wire system bringing you in or you have to do it dead stick praying ta god you will make it out alive. Lately many of the new ship jockies and the wanna bees give out a prayer to the 'Sainted First Ones' like Yuri, Neil, Buzz and the rest when they come in.

They don't know that they need to make a prayer to the REAL first Saints of ships jockies. In the dawn of space flight, before the old U.S.A. got to space, Russia got up there first, but lost many of them up there one way or another and never admitted it. I knows that if you don't give THEM a prayer, they might show up and make sure you join them next time you hit atmo.

>>33349808
(oops, sorry, multi part here.)
2/3

Now, now, don't be calling that nu-bull shit. When I was your age I was driving as co-pilot on an aging SVR-220 cargo configured starjumper ship on a return run to earth. We were having some trouble on the stabilizer units on the front end of the ship. The good cap knew his stuff and we made it just fine. But that's not the point. It's what I saw when I looked outside the bridge window on the right side on the way down.

Wait, just hand me that bottle there will ya boy? This old memory is hard to recall with out spooking me. Ah, thanks. Anyway I saw the burned up faces of a couple of men and a woman in charred up old timey space suits holding on the side of the boat. They.. they were just screaming at me from what they looked like. Not like I could hear them

>>33350107
3/3

I swear in seconds they were just turned into the re-entry flames coming up over the window. I damn near lost my nerve right there, but the old Captain pulled us though just fine. Later I told him about what I saw and just got me a new beer and told me that he sees them as well once in awhile. I just pray I will never see them again.

What? Want a data link to them? It's an old data link, but it should do it for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts

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>>33349808
>ship jockies and the wanna bees
>wanna bees
>bees
I'm terribly sorry but
BEEEEEEEEEEES!
IN!
SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!


AAAAAAAAAAAHAHAAHA!

>>33330332
On a more recent note

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poZCINzxzrQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt-R5hj_lWM

>>33346891
well. on the one hand, yes arachnids and insects were once bigger. that was in an era when we had much more oxygen in our atmosphere than today.

But.. like another Anon said: Plants produce Oxygen. They don't need it. Read a Book.

>>33350413
fucking bees. Scientists discovered another planet with them a few months ago. Nobody knows if they came with long forgotten expeditions, but it is crazy on how many unmapped plants you actually find bees.

>>33351912
It adds credence to the tales of the runaway terraformer stories.

The AI driven fleets constructed in the Trojan asteroid fields and set adrift to ad basic life to as of then unknown worlds. The AI was primitive and child like.

Then y were armed with only the simple stuff for getting life going, making it easier to make habitable when people finally turned up.

Over the 50 years after their launch they fell out of contact one by one. AI children all alone in the night building worlds from lifeless rocks.

The thing is that none of them were carrying anything they could have used to make bees out of.

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>>33351849
Plants work in a cycle, at least on earth. When they have access to light they use photosynthesis.
But when its dark they don't die on the spot, because they are also capable of respiration (which is what animals use.)

On a space station we can assume that the plants will be in light the entire time, to increase efficiency, and thus they only ever produce O_2, and are never themselves in need of O_2. But if they were to ever be in darkness they would stop producing and begin using O_2, and would thus be less effective.

Never the less. it is a common superstition of spacers, that even plants need a resting period. They tend to lower the lights, and then brighten them again over about an hour, every 24 hours.
The usual explanation of why they do this is because they believe that the plant will perform worse without a quick pause now and then, which is complete crazy, according to several studies.

>>33353409
Most old spacers keep a pet plant. Green seems to make people feel better.

>>33347057
These three ought to replace Boris - The Remembered, as I'm pretty sure that the list maker couldn't remember the names of real Lost Cosmonauts.

I really liked it actually. For some reason the idea of an old-time sailing ship out in space is rather evocative.

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[Working to craft a space-shanty style invocation of the Spacer Saints.]

In ages past we looked above and gazed upon the stars,
And wondered if a man could live on Luna or on Mars.
Today men fly that starry night and blessed are we who know,
The hallowed names and faces of the men who made it so.

[Yuri] might not be, some say, the first into the Black,
But none deny the truth that he’s [The First] to make it back.
We look to good old Yuri as the patron of our race,
Humanity’s protector in this vast and outer space.

[Neil] knew it was his duty to use NASA’s mighty boon,
And take [The Giant] leap on man’s behalf up to the Moon.
Now colonists and settlers look to Neil for peace of mind,
On having made the choice to leave their homeworld far behind.

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Potential, generalized history I felt like writing:

The colonization of the Solar system was a long, gradual process that took many centuries, same goes for the founding of the initial colonies in the nearby star-systems. This first wave of colonization was coordinated largely by Earth based organizations, governments and corporations, which makes it strikingly different to the wave of colonization that followed in the centuries that were to come.

The second wave of colonization, of the Great Diaspora, as it is known, was made possible by the discovery of the cavity drives, and advancements in terraformation, life support, and various other vital technologies, that for the first time, made it possible for humanity to rapidly spread across the stars.
Space is the last, endless frontier, and for many men and women, the call of adventure, exploration of new, never before seen worlds, and fortunes was enough to seduce them to embark on the dangerous journeys into the deep space.
Some historians say that the Great Diaspora was almost solely the result of this pioneer mentality, and that even with the advances in technology, had the spirit of the people been different, such massive scattering of humanity would not have occurred.
The Diaspora was chaotic process, that was not guided by any overseeing agency, which led to both the physical, and even biological dispersal of humans within the range, and even beyond it, as countless human colonies were founded, and numerous human groups altered themselves to suit their new homes.

The following centuries saw numerous conflicts, often dubbed the Unification Wars, as Inner Systems did their best to force the outer colonies founded during the Diaspora to submit to their rule. During these wars, many colonies founded during the Diaspora were put under the fold, some managed to remain free, while others still remain undiscovered. The Diaspora is still ongoing, in the ever expanding Outer Rim, that trails the Range.

>>33354274
Fucking perfect. The initial colonization, diaspora and basically endless frontier. My scientific knowledge is limited though, but would it be possible for multiple types of FTL drives to exist, based on roughly the same principle that is (pro's and con's wise too)? Could make for interesting differences with regards to various superstitions and practices.

>>33354563

The cavity drive was what someone came up with in the last thread, and to my understanding, it was just techno babble mostly.
I don't really know that much about any theorized ftl stuff.

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Have an updated list of the Spacer Saints:

Yuri - The First - Patron of Spacers in General and Pioneers (and Lander Public Relations)
Neil - The Giant - Patron of Colonists and Homesteaders (and Reluctant Spacers)
Buzz - The Dreamer - Patron of Pilots and Thrill-Seekers (and Defender of Tall Tales)
Jim - The Leader - Patron of Captains and Those in Dire Straits (and McGyvered Fixes)
Georgy, Vladislav and Vicktor - The Remembered - Patrons of Those Lost in Space but Not Forgotten
Laika - The Loyal - Matron to Ship Pets and Spacefaring Animals
Nissim - The Traveler - Patron of Navigators and Wanderers (and No Good Hitchhiking Stowaways)
Danni - The Thinker - Matron of Engineers and Problem Solvers (and Giant Zero-G Tits)
Maria - The Merciful - Matron of Medics and Humanitarians
Rosco - The Sureshot - Patron of Gunners and Weapons Enthusiasts
Jianyu – The Wise – Patron of Ship Cooks and QMs (and Impromptu Therapists)
Kiriko – The Talker – Matron of Comms Specialists and Diplomancers (and Dirty Rotten Liars)

>>33354708
What about Collins, the loneliest man in the universe, patron saint of those undertaking long flights into the deep unknown?

>>33354843

Let's add him in. Would:

Michael - The Loner - Patron of Solo Spacers and Individualists

do him justice?

>>33354956
I think so, perhaps add something about long space flights as well.

>>33353409
Plants still respirate (and use some during oxygen) the day. Photosynthesis doesn't directly give them energy too live. It just means they make their own food. Which the use like animals do. During the day they just make more oxygen than they use

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>>33355021

Yuri - The First - Patron of Spacers in General, Pioneers and Public Relations
Neil - The Giant - Patron of Colonists, Homesteaders and Reluctant Spacers
Buzz - The Dreamer - Patron of Pilots, Thrill-Seekers and Tall Tales Tellers
Jim - The Leader - Patron of Captains, Those in Dire Straits and McGyvered Fixes
Michael - The Loner - Patron of Solo Spacers, Individualists and Long-Haulers
Georgy, Vladislav and Vicktor - The Remembered - Patrons of All Those Lost in Space but Not Forgotten
Laika - The Loyal - Matron to Ship Pets, Spacefaring Animals and Human Guinea Pigs
Nissim - The Traveler - Patron of Navigators, Wanderers and No Good Hitchhiking Stowaways
Danni - The Thinker - Matron of Engineers, Problem Solvers and Giant Zero-G Tits
Maria - The Merciful - Matron of Medics, Humanitarians and Spacers in Love
Rosco - The Sureshot - Patron of Gunners, Weapons Enthusiasts and Happy Accidents
Jianyu – The Wise – Patron of Ship Cooks, QMs and Impromptu Therapists
Kiriko – The Talker – Matron of Comms Specialists, Diplomancers and Dirty Rotten Liars

Any more roles / ideas need Saints? I'm not too sure about making the Medic the Matron of Spacers in Love.

>>33355255
We could have whatshisname, the steely-eyed-missile-man who saved Apollo 12 after it got hit by lightning. He could be the saint of engineers.

>>33348002
That's CO2, you can asphyxiate on pure N2 without even realising anything's wrong. You just get more and more lightheaded and giggly until you pass out and die. They're considering it for use as a humane way of killing livestock and executing people.

>>33355342
Really, I think they're kind of missing the point looking for humane ways to execute people. If I could choose a method of execution, I'd go with firing squad or guillotine.

>>33355307

You're thinking of John Aaron. Seeing as how we may already have a Matron of Engineers, whatsay we make him:

John -The Steely Eyed - Patron of Flight Controllers, Friends from Afar and Inclement Meteorological Phenomena

>>33355548
Perfect.

>>33332141
i met him when i was a kid in the young astronaut program. he was very humble, but i bet he would have liked reading that.

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To: H. R. Haldeman
From: Bill Safire

July 18, 1969.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER:

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.

These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at the stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

PRIOR TO THE PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT:

The President should telephone each of the widows-to-be.

AFTER THE PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT, AT THE POINT WHEN NASA ENDS COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE MEN:

A clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending their souls to "the deepest of the deep," concluding with the Lord's Prayer.

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>>33355802


>In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

>In ancient days, men looked at the stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

>Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

>For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

>tfw dreams of space exploration are dead in the hearts and minds of most modern day people.

Sorry if I'm encroaching on canon established earlier, I only read party of the thread.


FTL is a tricky business. The first manned FTL attempt was made by the ship named the Argo. The jump out occurred without a hitch. Civilization immediately started rejoicing at this vindication of proof-of-concept that humanity could continue venturing out beyond our solar system. Then the Argo fired up it's engines and.... disappeared.

Now the most likely scenario is that the drive malfunctioned, probably accelerating part of the ship above the speed of light, while part of it remained underneath Einstein's barrier. (The solace is that the crew probably didn't feel a thing, as the event would only last a few microseconds, although relativistic models do allow for the grim possibility that parts of the ship may have experienced it literally in slow motion, seeing the tear and watching it spread for literal hours.)

But there is another possibility. In the weeks after the Argo's maiden voyage, a grad student at the University of Luna worked out a set of possible solution to the multidimensional partial differential equations. I'll spare you the math, but it's possible that the Argo is still out there, unaware that anything is wrong. The solution allows for multiple values of the variable t (time) with equal probability. Every 8745 earth days, the Argo might return, the time for them having not advanced seconds. To this day, both civilian and military bases keep the registry number for the ship on file, waiting for it's return on Argo day.

>>33354674
The two theoretical possibilities are wormholes which require the creation of mass less exotic particles to be stable. and the albicurre drive which warps space and moves your chunk of it at ftl while you don't move in it

>>33356643
Doesn't the alcubirre drive vaporize everything that's in front of it when it moves? Another idea could be a mass effect style negative mass field which allows the craft to go ftl.

>>33357002
iirc The newest math for the albicurre drive states that the blast of energy in front of it when it slow down would only be the size of a large nuke not the planet obliterating blast that was previously caclulated

>>33357061
In the future, we'll be back to ramming each other as our primary means of attack.

>>33357083
Even if the albicurre drive doesn't work out kinetic projectiles will probably be a useful weapon in space combat (if that ever becomes a thing) at a relative 7 m/s every gram of mass has the kinetic energy of its equivalent mass of tnt

>>33357120
Kinetic weapons or high-powered lazers. Actually, It'd probably just be computer-controlled drones that ram themselves into enemy ships at relativistic speeds.

>>33357178
There's also different types of nuclear weapons like the bomb pumped lasers or the cassiba-howitzer

>>33357295
That's a thought, would spacers on warships have any kinds of superstitions around their ship's weapons?
>inb4 Planet of the Apes joke.

>>33357393
Well there's always the tradition of painting messages on the bombs, Maybe the gunnery officers/engineers would name the drone bays/missile silos and place bets on which ones would rack up the most hits

>>33357731
>"If you can read this, Its too late to duck."

>>33355932
I like it.

>>33357083
>he doesn't know about the kzinti lesson
You point the _other_ end at the enemy.

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>>33354674

I wrote it, and yes, it was pure technobabble. The Cavitation Drive drops you... somewhere else. When you come out, you have most of your original momentum, so you've got to plan a few nice gravity assists and burns to end up anywhere useful.

The point was that it's a creepy way to travel. Most humans and AIs go nuts after an extended Drive. Advanced electronics fail, and even basic lighting and heat starts to flicker and behave weirdly. Ships in a Drive go dark, switch to chem-lamps and heat packs, spun gravity, and clockwork timers. You calculate how long and in what direction you're Driving, start the timer, turn off everything, hop in, and launch. The humans who don't have the right kind of brains to handle the isolation and the darkness hop into cryotubes or get sedated and manacled. Everyone else sits under the green chem lamps and prays.

If your clockwork timers fail (primary and 2 backups, one of which is hidden), then you might drift a few hundred light years off course, or run into a star. And there's always stories of things walking on the hull or peering through cracks in the carefully closed shutters.

>>33358915
I like that idea. Perhaps after a jump, when everyone comes out of cryo they find possessions have been moved around, certain supplies have gone missing, and that the tomatoes in the hydroponics lab have turned back into seeds.

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>>33359004

That used to happen all the time. Still does, if you ask the right questions to the right people.

See, that's the reason that even the biggest, meanest cargo-corp liners have a crew of Gypsies on standby. When the ship's in realspace, some starched-shirt captain's in charge, but he'd go stark raving mad on a two week Drive and he knows it. So he and his starched buddies hop into cryotubes, and a crew of oddballs and nutcases with a lucky set of genes takes over.

On the old ships, everyone went under for the duration. Clockwork timers let the medical crew out first, to defrost the others. A few really neat designs based on flexible brass plates and thermal coils would wake up an engineer if a hull breach or temperature issue showed up. They worked... some of the time. Sometimes, people woke up far far too early and couldn't get back into their tubes. In a completely lightless ship, with only the ticking Drive to keep you company, you didn't need the extra crazy heaped on by un-space to go stark raving murderous. Combine that with the odd bit of poltergeist activity, strange noises, and odd breezes and drips, and, well... we lost a lot of ships that way.

What kind of superstitions would there be around space telescopes, the one that can see the other side of the galaxy?

>>33359239
Why are these "Gypsies" more resilient to the effect of unspace?

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>>33360604

You merely adopted the darkness, I was born to it.

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>>33360604

Something genetic. It's not one simple strand, probably a combination of various little genes. The handwavy explanation is that un-space creates random electrical eddies while you're in it. Computers cook or lose drive space, people hear things, hallucinate, or fall over dead, and the lights flicker. Gypsies have some built-in resistance to this, probably just a slight change in neuronal makeup or something.

It's possible to do testing (most major colonies have an agency that does the testing, because Gypsies are valuable and useful people), but the testing isn't 100% accurate, and some people are just unsuited to long-run space life.

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>>33360761

One of the legends born during the Diaspora and the Unification wars is that of the Pilgrims. Groups of people, or even individuals seeking to travel "onward", beyond the edge of Human space so that they could "Be free in the void".
The methods of how these groups sought to accomplish this goal varies from story to story, but they share some common elements. In none of these stories, do the people ever specify their destination, just their desire to "move onward", and the peculiar, and sinister influence they seem to have on anyone they encounter on their travels.

Pilgrim groups who are traveling within transport vessels, tend to grow in size, as the crew and other passengers of the vessel join their pilgrimage, some tales tell of whole crews being converted to the cause, and abandoning their former loyalties in order to travel "onward", and even of the AI of the ships gaining this same desire, no matter what the crew or other passengers in the ship have to say.

Other tales tell of ships traveling "onward" that stop at space stations, and bring either luck or misfortune, depending on how they are treated at the station. The pilgrims tend to be poor, and ill afford the repairs, supplies and fuel their ships need. According to the legends, stations that have been merciful to these travelers have gained great boons and wealth, in one way or another, while those who forced the pilgrims to head on empty handed, have faced sometimes even disastrous, and tragic ends.

Tales regarding hitchhiker and stowaway pilgrims have similar elements as the ones mentioned above. Picking up a pilgrim, or finding one aboard one's vessel, or even among the crew can risk both disaster, or fortune. Many say that a pillgrim aboard the ship ought to be treated fairly, but then dropped off at a space station, or a planet, with ample supplies for the journey, so that his/hers influence doesn't taint the ship, while others would rather space any person desiring to "move onward."

>>33354258
I need more of this.

>>33354258
That's awesome, I wish I'd read it the first time.

We need to save this thread for prosperity's sake.

>>33361929
There's always foolz.

I know its not really the purpose of this thread and its predecessor, but we've got the makings of an interesting setting here. The Cavity drive, the Diaspora, the Pilgrim, stuff like that.

>>33361739
>>33361834

[I unfortunately had to leave quite suddenly for a minor family emergency and hadn't gotten to finish. There are a LOT of Saints!]

[Buzz] was a mighty pilot and just may have been the best,
But more, he was [The Dreamer] seeing far beyond the rest.
With name dear to the hearts of anyone who’s grabbed the helm,
We thank Buzz for the future he foresaw our starry realm.

>>33362739
>minor family emergency
Is that alright now?

>>33362739
Just so you know, I'm trying to sing this to the tune of... some sea shanty sounding thing I can't quite place. Dropping words here and there so the syllables flow better, but other than that it's almost exactly what you've written.

>>33362648

That's true.
What I really like about this "setting" thus far is that there really are no aliens in it. Just humanity.

>>33362774

[Oh, most certainly yes. It was of the "car-trouble-and-stranded" variety. Thank you for asking.]

[John] may have never gone to space but hallowed is his name,
Without his [Steely Eye] Apollo would’ve died in flames.
His brilliant troubleshooting saved Man’s place among the stars,
Now ‘farers pray to Johnny as our helpful friend afar.

>>33363048
Though there's a strong implication that we're not the only ones out there. There's an even stronger implication that we're better off for this.

>>33362950
[I've been rhyming it in my head to a tune similar to:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I0zBlHlnR4Y

from the previous thread. Listening to it again makes me realize that it could use some sort of chorus.]

>>33363048

And I don't mean that in a HFY kind of way. To me, aliens just kind of feel like aliens beyond rumors and vague superstitions are not needed in a setting that was born out of an attempt to flesh out what beliefs of humanity would be if we reached a true space age.
Adding aliens to the mix just clouds it in my opinion.

If there is need for some strange, and inhuman it can come from the weird, unexplained anomalous events, and from the "offshoots" of humanity, that have altered themselves into new, inhuman forms.

>>33363117
Indeed. Space itself seems kind of hostile, and unwelcoming in this setting (even more so than it is in real life), which makes it kind of intriguing to me.
The idea of an Endless Frontier, with countless mysteries and unexplained things, being explained by even more half truths, stories and myths, make the whole idea of this setting kind of reminiscent of Age of Exploration sort of stuff, when people still hadn't charted the seas and lands of Earth, and new frontiers were to be found.

I really like that sort of stuff.

>>33363217
Exactly, there's no aliens to get in our way, but the universe itself is trying to resist us. I think the decision to keep aliens absent is for the better, as it enables your "New Age of Exploration" idea to work.

>>33363318
I think you're in wrong thread, mate.

>>33363318
Wrong thread stranger, you'll find no lizardmen here.

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>>33363117
>>33363217
What I really like about this setting, is that not only the spacers, but we, the setting creators, are not entirely certain of the existence of aliens.

>>33363358
>>33363351
oh oops i was looking for a WIP thread in the catalogue and misclicked

>>33363370
Well, yeah. We can better imagine a setting where humanity is unsure of it's being alone if we ourselves don't know for sure.

Perhaps its better that there are no aliens. Pretty much every setting with humanity encountering aliens in has humans being "uplifted" by them to some degree or another. Our humans don't have that, so they have to do everything themselves.

[I think what I like most about this as a potential setting is that the focus is on Spacers - men and women - who feel genuinely human and not like some alien future Übermensch.]

[Jim] took the role of captain on Thirteen’s unlucky flight,
And without him as [The Leader] they’d been lost unto the night.
We oft think of Jim’s example when we’re facing matters grave,
For he taught us: to be calm, to be resourceful, and be brave.

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Internet's going soon, I leave you with a final pic.

>>33363578

[Michael] chose himself a role that most men could not take,
Crewed his command module [Loner] for Eleven’s mission’s sake.
When a ‘farer’s flying solo and his ship is far from home,
He can trust that Michael’s with him and he’s never quite alone.

There are many beliefs about cats and quantum entanglement devices. Most of them boil down keeping them as far away from each other as is reasonably possible.

No one remembers why.

>>33363901

[This one took some thinking and I'm not quite certain I like how it's turned out, but I figure it's good enough. I have Laika left out of the list of real-world spacefarers and then it's on to the invented ones, which ought to be fun.]

[Georgy, Vladislav and Vicktor] earned their solemn, holy place,
And will always be [Remembered] as the first to die in space.
When our fellows go to join them they would tell us not to cry,
But to drink a shot and know they’re in that bright and starry sky.

Darwin's theory of natural selection states that only the strongest, the most adapted creatures, survive.

With the dawn of space travel, and the rise of the caste of humans colloquially referred to as "Gypsies," it's becoming increasingly clear that humanity, the vast majority of our species, has no place in the void. We are not the uncontested masters of the stars. Space is akin to a new world, a world that belongs to the naturally suited, the strongest, the best adapted. Without the assistance and support of the Gypsies, humanity would be unable to access reliable FTL travel.

We need them more than they need us.

I wonder when they'll realize that.

>>33332141
Saint Armstrong, patron saint of space travellers

>>33364621
It wouldn't make any difference in the long run if they did.

On some of worlds in the Far Colonies it is said they custom build humans in factory/labs.

It's either bullshit or illegal but not unbelievable. The technology is centuries old an who the Chuck regulates the Far Colonies?

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[With Laika done, I've completed the list of eight historical, real-world Spacer Saints, leaving me with the remaining six invented and fictional Saints on anon's list. Aside from what they're saints of, and the fact that Danni The Thinker apparently had literally stellar breasts, I don't know anything about them or what time periods they're meant to be from. Anyone care to fluff them out a bit?]

In ages past we looked above and gazed upon the stars,
And wondered if a man could live on Luna or on Mars.
Today men fly that starry night and blessed are we who know,
The hallowed names and faces of the men who made it so.

[Yuri] might not be, some say, the first into the Black,
But none deny the truth that he’s [The First] to make it back.
We look to good old Yuri as the patron of our race,
Humanity’s protector in this vast and outer space.

[Neil] knew it was his duty to use NASA’s mighty boon,
And take [The Giant] leap on man’s behalf up to the Moon.
Now colonists and settlers look to Neil for peace of mind,
On having made the choice to leave their homeworld far behind.

[Buzz] was a mighty pilot and just may have been the best,
But more, he was [The Dreamer] seeing far beyond the rest.
With name dear to the hearts of anyone who’s grabbed the helm,
We thank Buzz for the future he foresaw our starry realm.

[Michael] chose himself a role that most men could not take,
Crewed his command module [Loner] for Eleven’s mission’s sake.
When a ‘farer’s flying solo and his ship is far from home,
He can trust that Michael’s with him and he’s never quite alone.

[John] may have never gone to space but hallowed is his name,
Without his [Steely Eye] Apollo would’ve died in flames.
His brilliant troubleshooting saved Man’s place among the stars,
Now ‘farers pray to Johnny as our helpful friend afar.

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>>33365311

[Jim] took the role of captain on Thirteen’s unlucky flight,
And without him as [The Leader] they’d been lost unto the night.
We oft think of Jim’s example when we’re facing matters grave,
For he taught us: to be calm, to be resourceful, and be brave.

[Georgy, Vladislav and Vicktor] earned their solemn, holy place,
And will always be [Remembered] as the first to die in space.
When our fellows go to join them they would tell us not to cry,
But to drink a shot and know they’re in that bright and starry sky.

[Laika] was a mongrel, who had more than shown her worth,
As [The Loyal] friend of man who proved that we could leave the Earth.
Now the shipboard pets and critters that we choose to share our days,
Are all guarded and protected under Laika’s watchful gaze.

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>>33364838

I've seen one. Not saying which corp, but it rhymes with "Bilgrim-speck", if you catch my drift. They were docked next to us at the L2 station, taking on fuel. I happened to hop over looking for a wrench (old traditions die hard, and we were taking a gravity assist over Titan in a few weeks). It wasn't exactly theft, it was tradition. Anyway, got aboard, and saw a few odd shuffling things in spacesuits. Limbs all the wrong length, skin like aluminum toothpaste, eyes oozing water. They were just full of plugs and hoses, and other bits of tech, and the sounded like they were dying of lungrot.

The way I figure, the corp tried to clone us Gypsies and fucked up, but the results were Drive-resistant and much more pliable, so they kept the program going, churning out drones for their ships.

>>33333130
>>33332141
>>33332057
>>33331993
>>33331970
>>33331558
I really like these. Original, and add personality and flavor to space.

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http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=lost%20cosmonaut

I know everything gets archived on Foolz anyway, but I just thought I'd throw this thread up on Sup/tg/ along with the first one so that other folk might be able to use these ideas sometime in the future.

Shine on you crazy diamonds.

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>>33366563
Oh hey, Planetes! That was a good show.

>>33365355
Very nice anon.
A manly tear was shed.

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If you're setting a rotational velocity for any reason, setting it to a multiple of pi or a nice even number is generally considered good luck. The gods smile on nice even numbers in base 10.

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Sometimes, you'll spot ships flying flags in space. Big flappy banners, with servos and wires to make 'em flap. Can't rightly tell you why, but it's good luck to have one flying. Some people hoist flags for their colony, their captain, their gods, or their mood. Big pennants, little pennants, huge square ones. Some crazy gits even stick masts and rigging on top of a cargo hulk, just to look impressive and mad, and it works, by the spirits.

Some other ships, mainly the Titanites, fire clouds of smoke or coloured powder as they enter or leave port. Looks pretty, and if they're careful it won't run into anything important.

And the real religious nutters, the Oblation Knights and the like, will launch incense. Hah! Who's going to smell it in space? Crazy gits.

>>33330332
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FmAUwojQcE

SPACE POLICE.

>>33367397
>gods smile on base 10
the pi thing makes sense, but base ten is just arbitrary (and not the best base to work in anyway. Its just the one we're used to)

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>>33368846

HERESY!

10 fingers! 10 toes! 10 holy stellar bodies (if you count Pluto, and the Moon!)

Those filthy base-12ers on Neptune and the base-8ers on the Moon are all idiots and fools.

>>33368531
>Hah! Who's going to smell it in space? Crazy gits.
actually, many different gasses in space have distinct smells
IIRC, there is one nebula that actually smells like raspberries

>>33334456
neat

>>33368921
base 12 all the way, bitch

Basic math becomes even easier (evenly divisible not just in half but also into quarters and thirds)). Real math becomes faster and easier too.

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>>33369119

...

Right, so, /tg/ is bad at science.

Things in space smell like various compounds because scientists have detected those compounds, and used them to get good press releases. It's cool if you find some sort of phenol in a nebula and go, "Look, everyone, we found raspberries". But the concentration of chemical per square meter means you've basically found one raspberry spread over 100,000km3 of space (and that's a really dense bit).

Aside from that, you can't stick your head out a window and smell space. Even if you collected an airlock full of nebula gas (which, bear in mind, would only /slightly/ more dense than regular space, not like a cloud or anything), and then refilled the room with air, your armit would dominate the aromatic palate of the room.

Can you dig it?

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>>33369222
>not having incredibly delicate and precise instruments, as well as massive computers dedicated to finding and amplifying scents in space
look at this plebian

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>>33369291
We already have that though, that's the scary part. Right now, around the world, scientists are busy finding out what's in dust clouds and interstellar gas packets, and, as a side effect, finding out what they smell like. We have billion dollar smelloscopes, right now, without any fancy science.

But that doesn't mean you can smell a nebula, even if you wanted to.

>>33369369
well, you could just recreate the chemical makeup of said nebula, then sniff it
it's essentially looking at an image or movie, you're not ACTUALLY looking at it, but it's basically the same thing

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>>33369413
Well, yeah, but what's the point? It's not like a nebula is a big cloud of delicious strawberry vapour. It's like finding out that earthworms taste vaguely of parmesan cheese, so you go eat some parmesan cheese.

I really don't understand /tg/ sometimes.

>>33369493
you could build massive collectors to gather up the nebula gasses And sell it as SUPER expensive perfume

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>>33335190
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War
>The Soyuz War of 2087
>Served as light transports, boarding crafts, torpedoes, building material, improved armor, among many other roles.

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>>33369952

Players in my first ever Cavitation Drive / Gypsy game put all of their shipbuilding points into engines, weapons, and repairability. The ship's hull was a Soyuz docked to a Githrax void-cluster (think a motorhome with an airlock and a grav plate), and stuck onto a massive pile of scrounged fuel tanks and engine bells, and a tokamak reactor from a much larger corvette. It could outrun anything, but one of the players had to sleep in the shower compartment and the AI only spoke Slovakian and had declared a racist crusade most other ethnic groups.

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>>33355876
>tfw dreams of space exploration are dead in the hearts and minds of most modern day people.
Not the Chinese

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>>33370321

Eh, actually, talking to the Chinese academics and travelers I know, it kind of is. China's space program is backed by a national prestige boner the size of upper Mongolia, and a willigness to throw money and crew at problems until they go away. They're probably going to get to the Moon before America goes back, with a few Jade Rabbit-esque disasters along the way.

Of course, when Nixon's speechwriter Bill Safire wrote that, the Chinese weren't worried about going anywhere but the grave.

>>33370406
I meant, the dream isn't dead in the hearts of the Chinese.
We really needed another power to kick-start the space race again. Corporations are simply too risk-averse to seriously invest in space exploration.

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Small gods, but there are ugly ships out there. Three centuries of stellar travel all bolted together. Half of it Russian, or Diaspored Slav, which is even worse. The Russians colonized anything with a gravity well, and didn't mind stranding dozens of pioneers on unpromising rocks. Their tech exploded outright four times out of ten, but the other six times it'd work for a century and a half. The D-Slav tech is worse, but cheaper, and you'd do well to learn the difference before you shop at an outworld market. All copper instead of fiber optic cable, all iron instead of aluminum, twice a heavy at half the price. Shipbuilding's an art to some, a trade to the Russians, and a pastime slightly more interesting than fucking cousins or shooting at other D-Slavs to the D-slavs.

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The Canadians didn't appreciate the flooding and the loss of their ice sheets, and were never particularly unified to begin with, so their government didn't survive the Diaspora Prime. You'll still run into pockets of humanity professing Canadian ideals and Canadian culture, but they're all over the map in every sense. After the Koreans and High Europans the they're the best Captains I've served under. Something makes them unflappable. We were ambushed by six sector-interceptors and all Captain Maxwell said was, "Ah horse potatoes." before launching six torpedoes and performing the fasted Van Lorentz maneuver I've ever seen.

Never did find out what a horse was. He said it was like a rabbit you could sit on, but with big flat teeth and a cruel disposition.

They never carry sidearms. The Canadians, not the horses. Rifles and scattercannons, sure, but no pistols and no grenades. They say it's unhygenic. Superstitious lot, love their trees and their real fur hats. Says it keeps them lucky and on the right side of the stars.

>>33340458
Is that why Dave Lister keeps eating curry. To keep himself sane?

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The Europans are a rather odd lot. The like it frosty, they do, and their Gypsies take to life on a starship like it's natural. Big, grey-skinned, blonde, and cruel, they're fighters and scrappy killers with a knife. They've got a whole selection of gods and devils that they placate with various prayers and incantations. They say it's unlucky to drink water that hasn't been frozen recently. They say that white's the purest colour, blue the second purest, and the rest are the colours of bile, blood, and death. They shave their heads on ritual days and throw the hair into space. Good captains and crew, but bad engineers, on account of their tempers. Men take a drubbing better than machines.

>>33333333

>>33369291
Holy shit that boat is fucking massive

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>>33371331

It's not a boat, it's a floating megacity the size of Ireland, but vertical.

Oooooor the artist has no sense of scale.

>>33371537
I pick option 2 because future

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>>33371600

The FUUUUUUTURE. The future is strange.

Nobody's sure why they decided to tilt Cuba vertically and set it floating on the Earth's oceans. It probably had something to do with taxes. In any case, Cuba became the bane of nations and shipping until it was taken over by drunk transvestites from eastern europe the Fifth Counter-Counter-Counter Revolution of 2184. After that, Cuba became the best floating party on the oceans and upper atmosphere, and is still widely regarded by old spacers as the best place in the Sol system to stop for a drink.

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I haven't been reading these threads, so forgive me if this is old advice, but the thing to keep in mind when making up spooky space superstitions is that superstitions are usually grounded in a real-world problem.

One example I remember from a thread a few years ago:

>Bad luck to shower during flight
Prompted by the fact that early interstellar ships had poor plumbing, so running the showers frequently led to burst pipes, etc.

>>33337365
Neil Armstrong- Patron Saint of Pioneers, Travelers, and Settlers.
When a new planet is found, the first person to walk on it is, from then on, recorded in the history of that world as their "Armstrong". Many planet-born don't know the origin of the term, but every spacer knows.
Saint Joseph "Blaze" Hale- Patron Saint of Captains and Crew. While not the first captain of a spaceship, Hale was the first Captain to have a major problem with his ship. Orbiting Jupiter, collecting Hydrogen for their fusion generators, the "Alfred"s hydro-skimmers sparked, causing a gas explosion as the Hydrogen already collected and compressed into a liquid was superheated, with the built up pressure bursting the tanks. Mingling with the oxygen, the ship caught on fire.
Captain Hale immediately ordered an evacuation, however the explosion fried several circuits in the main board, preventing a automatic flight long enough for the crew to escape. Ordering the rest of the Bridge Crew to leave, Hale personally flew the ship, slowing it's descent into Jupiter's atmosphere long enough for the crew to escape before their pods were caught in the planet's gravity well. Hale earned his nickname, as the crew looked back as the ship fell into the hydrogen rich clouds, the onboard oxygen tanks long having burst, the "Alfred" was nothing more than a ball of fire. Some say whenever a ship is launched, every member of the crew, from lowliest janitor to the Captain himself, silently prays for Captain "Blaze" to watch over them.

>>33342460
>>33339572
I think that von Braun should get a mention in our space pantheon. I just can't think of what he'd be patron of. Maybe he could be saint of ship designers?

>>33371981
Fuck von Braun, Goddard is where it's at nigga.

>>33372310
>>33371981
We could give it to Von Braun the pitchman rather than Von Braun the rocket scientist. After all it was him who worked with Disney to pitch space travel to the public.

>>33333791
This goes against everything we know from colonizing the "New World."

Diseases from Old Europe spread extremely quickly in the warm climates of the Caribbean and Central America, despite being from a completely different environment. It's what wiped out most of the natives.

>>33373024
wat
encase you forgot, Central Americans and Europeans are both human

>>33373024
Can a disease from a bird infect a human? No. Not without many, MANY generations of viral mutations. It's simple, Earth viruses absolutely cannot infect aliens. Bacteria maybe, but even that is highly unlikely, bacteria would have more compatibility with dandelions than aliens because at least bacteria and dandelions grew up on the same planet.

>>33373069
>Can a disease from a bird infect a human?
>Not without many, MANY generations of viral mutations.

You're really over-estimating how long it takes for bacteria and viruses to develop into completely new strains.

>>33373138
I think you're seriously underestimating how long it would take for viruses and bacteria to mutate so much as to be able to infect aliens. You know there are several different ways to make DNA? As in, there are different chemical combinations that can be exactly the same as DNA, yet completely different? That would make EVERYTHING on earth completely and totally incompatible with any alien life whatsoever with a different chemical structure. FOREVER.

>>33373185
So no STDs?

>>33330354
>Playlist
>http://youtu.be/ATmGwOdSEk0?list=PLlMSSdRAlgb5bOdXDPde6EjOzgxUA4Mpd

>specifics
http://youtu.be/ATmGwOdSEk0
http://youtu.be/ud6LiVJkwyA
http://youtu.be/rU-7fSg7K0U
http://youtu.be/vwAodwkCQIo
http://youtu.be/n8cCDoDYgc0
http://youtu.be/gFufOGZBwFM

>>33373185
Different guy, there are creatures on earth with wildly different genetic coding schemes.

Viroids have a hard time, but do cross between them. Bacteria don't even give a fuck. There are bacteria that thrive in habitats above boiling temperature that are still capable of multiplying in humans and making them sick without even deploying host side adaptation.

>>33373633
No, every living thing on earth uses RNA and DNA, nothing else, even viruses use RNA. But they CANNOT cross over to xeno nucleic acids, it's simply impossible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeno_nucleic_acid
>Although the genetic information is still stored in the four canonical base pairs, natural DNA polymerases cannot read and duplicate this information.
>Thus the genetic information stored in XNA is “invisible” and therefore useless to natural DNA-based organisms.

>>33373714
Use of RNA as opposed to something like XNA isn't a fluke, it's actually pretty likely that RNA at least will be utilised by most life we run into. And once you have RNA you need something pretty similar to DNA to develop further. The coding schemes will be entirely incompatible probably buuut.

Bacteria will still be able to cross infect because they don't actually need to interact with host DNA. They just live and multiply wherever. If that 'wherever' is inside an animal it can cause them to get sick. Same with fungi.

Aliens that use more than a trace amounts of water, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in their bodies will be vulnerable to this, even if they are primarily made of something else.

>>33373782
>Use of RNA as opposed to something like XNA isn't a fluke
Yes, yes it was. It was simply the most common chemical that could form complex chains in the early earth. A different starting chemical stew and you could get any of the 6 other XNAs.

>>33373798
It isn't the amount of it that matters, it has more to do with the energy required from the environment to catalyse structural formations.

There's little if any evidence to suggest that life didn't form from a single cell that was created as a once off. Different nucleotide and amino acid availability just would have added a few thousands years onto the time required for life to proliferate through the world's ocean, not its actual nature. Competition that would make stuff like re-evolving to utilise XNA actually meaningful didn't arise until millions of years later when organisms were way more fucking complex.

>>33373868
>There's little if any evidence to suggest that life didn't form from a single cell that was created as a once off.
Except for the fact that that would be extremely fucking unlikely. Millions upon millions of years across the ENTIRE FUCKING EARTH and only 1 cell was ever created and it just so happened to survive? Maybe there were several first cells hmm? There was no "first" chicken, they started from a group that adapted to their environment.
>It isn't the amount of it that matters, it has more to do with the energy required from the environment to catalyse structural formations.
Yes it does. Imagine a planet without oxygen, obviously life on that planet must find SOME way to oxidize things, maybe using halogens or something? So yes, if there was not enough other types of nucleic acids, then RNA would win because it's the only thing plentiful enough to form enough cells and shit that survived.

>>33339572
>Laika

...that one space dandy episode ;_;

>>33374003
Don't worry anon, the real Laika died alone, starved of food and oxygen, and being burned alive.
Because Russians suck.

>>33374076
>Space german detected

>>33374100
I'm not saying Hitler did nothing wrong, but Hitler didn't send dogs into space to slowly die of overheating, stress, and oxygen deprivation for the Motherland.

>>33374117
Oh, also Hitler did nothing wrong.

>>33374117
You have a point here- germans would have used human "volunteers"

>>33373964
Creating life is really fucking hard. True, there were properly created more than 1 proto-bacteria, but for them to survive and reproduce, they need to be able to gather energy and clone themselves. And they not only need to be able to do it, they should also be able to control the energy gathering and cloning, other, less required features like movement and RNA would be added later. The chance of that exact bacteria appearing is the reason that it took multi-million years for life to emerge.

>>33362648
I prefer things like this when people don't try to make it a setting just because. Leave it as a general thread for spooky & superstitious space stuff, don't limit it by trying to bodge everything together.

>>33371686
>Cuba is the Party?

The longest and most destructive party ever held is now into its fourth generation and still no one shows any signs of leaving. Somebody did once look at his watch, but that was eleven years ago now, and there has been no follow-up.

The mess is extraordinary, and has to be seen to be believed, but if you don't have any particular need to believe it, then don't go and look because you won't enjoy it.

There have recently been some bangs and flashes up in the clouds, and there is one theory that this is a battle being fought between the fleets of several rival carpet-cleaning companies who are hovering over the thing like vultures, but you shouldn't believe anything you hear at parties, and particularly not anything you hear at this one.

One of the problems, and it's one that is obviously going to get worse, is that all the people at the party are either the children or the grandchildren or the great-grandchildren of the people who wouldn't leave in the first place, and because of all the business about selective breeding and recessive genes and so on, it means that all the people now at the party are either absolutely fanatical partygoers, or gibbering idiots or, more and more frequently, both.

Either way, it means that, genetically speaking, each succeeding generation is now less likely to leave than the preceding one.

So, other factors come into operation, like when the drinks are going to run out.

>>33374769
Now, because of certain things that have happened that seemed like a good idea at the time (and one of the problems with a party that never stops is that all the things that only seem like a good idea at parties continue to seem like good ideas), that point seems still to be a long way off. One of the things that seemed like a good idea at the time was that the party should fly -- not in the normal sense that parties are meant to fly, but literally.

One night, long ago, a band of drunken astro-engineers of the first generation clambered around the building digging this, fixing that, banging very hard on the other, and when the sun rose the following morning, it was startled to find itself shining on a building full of happy drunken people that was now floating like a young and uncertain bird over the treetops. Not only that, but the flying party had also managed to arm itself rather heavily. If they were going to get involved in any petty arguments with wine merchants, they wanted to make sure they had might on their side.

The transition from full-time cocktail party to part-time raiding party came with ease, and did much to add that extra bit of zest and swing to the whole affair that was badly needed at this point because of the enormous number of times that the band had already played all the numbers it knew over the years. They looted, they raided, they held whole cities to ransom for fresh supplies of cheese, crackers, guacamole, spareribs and wine and spirits that would now get piped aboard from floating tankers.

The problem of when the drinks are going to run out is, however, going to have to be faced one day.

>>33374775
The planet over which they are floating is no longer the planet it was when they first started floating over it.

It is in bad shape.

The party has attacked and raided an awful lot of it, and no one has ever succeeded in hitting it back because of the erratic and unpredictable way in which it lurches round the sky.

It is one hell of a party.

It is also one hell of a thing to get hit with in the small of the back.

Bump

>>33375306

It seems we've hit our bump-limit friend and are falling off the board and into the great abyss. I'm thinking of starting a third thread but I'm not sure how many folk would be interested.

>>33375416
I'd leave it. The first thread was great, this one was pretty good, but a third would just be a ton of filk, some copypasta, and the few people who care going "omg /tg/ gets things done let's make a setting guys."

Make one in a week or two, keep it fresh.