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Post by kesher on Mar 1, 2012 16:00:47 GMT -6
The Scale of the UniverseThis seemed like the appropriate spot to post this. How do we GRASP this? I mean, it's not too hard for us as humans, the way our brains are wired, to conceptualize these scales, but how do we really understand their implications (temporal as well as physical, though these aren't necessarily separate things...) And then, how do you work it into a kickass Traveller campaign??
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Post by coffee on Mar 2, 2012 11:49:51 GMT -6
There's also this: xkcd.com/482/But the one you linked to is probably better for scale.
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Post by kesher on Mar 2, 2012 12:45:57 GMT -6
Ha--I liked "Comet that will destroy Earth in late 2063."
I mean, unless it's true, then I'm somewhat conflicted...
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Post by geoffrey on Mar 4, 2012 0:32:46 GMT -6
That is amazing. Thank you for the link!
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 4, 2012 22:50:49 GMT -6
And now for the important question:
When you first looked at it, did you go larger or smaller first?
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Post by geoffrey on Mar 4, 2012 23:02:59 GMT -6
I myself went smaller first.
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Post by kesher on Mar 5, 2012 16:51:05 GMT -6
I went larger.
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Post by coffee on Mar 10, 2012 19:37:17 GMT -6
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Thorulfr
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 264
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Post by Thorulfr on Mar 21, 2012 14:00:22 GMT -6
How do we GRASP this? I mean, it's not too hard for us as humans, the way our brains are wired, to conceptualize these scales, but how do we really understand their implications (temporal as well as physical, though these aren't necessarily separate things...) And then, how do you work it into a kickass Traveller campaign?? I don't think you really can - not with Traveller, at least. “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” -Douglas Adams Go to www.travellermap.com/ - start with the Imperium and start to scroll out. By the time you see the galaxy in a recognizable form, 'known space' is a dot. I did some "back of the envelope" calculations, and it is like 3 one hundredths of one percent of the galaxy. It's hard enough to wrap your head around THAT, let alone the scale of the whole universe. I think the most ambitious "try to convey something beyond the player's ability to conceive" moment was in the Traveller 2300 adventure Bayern, ***SPOILER ALERT***where characters are briefly plucked entirely out of the 3-D universe by an immense, hyper-dimensional being, like the character 'A. Square' in Flatland. One of the characters is put back the wrong-way around, so everything in their body is reversed, from the placement of their organs to the chirality of their proteins.
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Post by nizrad on Apr 18, 2012 1:55:38 GMT -6
That link was great I'm going to have so much fun on that site!
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