# TWERPS New Sun *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 24 Nov 1998* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### m.driussi *24 Nov 1998, 02:25* Ack! I should've know that Paul Duggan would be the one to know "Fading Suns"! Good points, too, btw. But under "active interstellar empire" we should list the qualifiers: "Urth" [sic] is not the capital of this nation, some place called Byzantium Secundus (hmmm) is; and while yes, all the stars are fading, when the new emperor gained the throne a new star appeared . I'm sure the same was said for every Roman Emperor! (There does seem to be some sort of Yesodic government of Briah, but would that be an Empire, if it even exists? If it doesn't exist, if all of the galaxy is in anarchy, then that puts a bit more weight on the whole "black hole in Old Sun keeps Urth and Empire down" thing.) The jumpgates and the lack of time-travel are probably just nods to gaming reality--it is simply too hard to factor in STL travel and the passage of time for rpgs (imagine all the worlds of the Traveller imperium being just sequential iterations of two dozen planets within forty lightyears of Urth). That planets and towns will change so much between interstellar visits appears to be too much work for the game master--lovingly crafted societies vanish after one visit--all visits are one-shots. If it weren't the case, then maybe there would be more multiversal games like the few tried by Chaosium based upon Moorcock's work (Hawkmoon, Elric). Same's true with time traveling--the small number of time travel games revolve around "Time Tunnel" type set-ups, rather than having time travel as just another feature for all games, another mode of travel, like horseback riding. Wshoo--good thing "Fading Suns" didn't cross that bobbit line ("hobbit" being owned by Estate Tolkien like "Tarzan" is owned by Estate ERB)! (Like how "Arduin" escaped being a "D&D" clone? Legally speaking.) And sure, it's pretty much "goths in space." If they did have a bibliography, somewhere (one of the suppliments?), it would be neat to see them list Silverberg's NIGHTWING, Beckford's VATHEK ("so beautiful in the original French"), and "everything by Chip Delany." Or whatever it is that inspired them. Still, I didn't know that the suns were fading due to some spiritual crisis--was that mentioned in the core rule or in one of the numerous suppliments? Ah, Scott Haring was hired back? As editor of the now-only-online magazine? Well, good for him, I guess. It must have been hard after he moved out of the house on Steve's property . . . or maybe I've got that part wrong, too. I'm still more concerned about the downsized employee on maternity leave--any word on her? Well, maybe she can go work for Origins. So Paul, when are =you= going to do some game design? (Egad, look--now I've probably done it--it will turn out that you are the creator of one of those fabulously popular "German" games!) As for Sarcos, well, at the moment I'm a tad more burned out than usual, and Project Sarcos is currently one of the cinders. You can see this, no doubt! =mantis= --- ### Peter Stephenson *24 Nov 1998, 08:42 · follows m.driussi* > m.driussi at genie.com wrote: > ... and while yes, all the > stars are fading, when the new emperor gained the throne a new star > appeared . > > I'm sure the same was said for every Roman Emperor! When beggars die, there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. Julius Caesar, II.ii. ok, it doesn't quite work. ``` Peter Stephenson Tel: +39 050 844536 WWW: http://www.ifh.de/~pws/ Dipartimento di Fisica, Via Buonarroti 2, 56100 Pisa, Italy ``` ---