Exploration
It's with some trepidation that I step through the portal.
We sent a golem...
It's with some trepidation that I step through the portal.
We sent a golem...
Standard Uplift Protocols [GURPS/ASOIAF]
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Exploration
dhasenan
always lowercase
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Exploration
It's with some trepidation that I step through the portal.
We sent a golem through, and it reported that the local magic levels were acceptable – relatively low, but not enough to mandate blanketing the world with mana enhancers. I'm coming through with a decent amount of equipment and a squad of helpers, but no actual people to share the burden. Sadly standard these days. There are just too many worlds and not enough people. The Guild is relatively small, only about fifteen thousand total.
As a practical matter, a partner or two wouldn't speed things up, and it would tie up a whole second person for years. Instead I have golems, which only take like three hours to produce, and too many magic items to properly use myself, which each take between two and fifty hours for a golem to create. It's simple economics.
At least these days there are interplanar communicators. Before they made those, I hear the attrition rate for field operatives was pretty damn high. The number of abandoned posts, the people killed while astral projecting themselves back home (which was quite contrary to the Book, but still happened).
This is my first solo mission, so I'll be checking in often. – For that matter, I should take stock of my surroundings and report that I've landed.
I'm in a clearing in a wooded area. Temperate forests, vegetation pretty similar to home. In fact, those trees look pretty much like oaks, and there's a squirrel visible in one of them. It happens more often than I would have thought, initially.
There's a smell of woodsmoke in the air. Something is burning and not too far from here. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It depends on how controlled the burn is and whether I'm in the path. I do have a bunch of fireproof tarps that I could spread out, but if one of those trees fell across them, it wouldn't help me much.
"Get the generator working," I tell the golems. They nod in unison and begin coordinating between themselves with hand signals. I can cast spells on my own, but if I need to extinguish fire in a hundred-meter radius, I'll need help.
The generator is in two parts. There's the wind shaft, which is a toroidal lump of metal that fits in my hand. It's shrunk significantly, of course. And then there's the generator proper, which attaches to the wind shaft at the turbine and converts the mechanical work into electricity.
The golems are busy moving boxes and crates around the clearing, stacking them to the side, so we have space to unshrink the wind shaft. It's not going to be quite enough, though. I'm going to need to enlarge the clearing. But we've got plans for this.
"Hold on," I tell the golems. "We're going to plant it upright in the ground. Right here." I point to where I want it. There are a few trees in the way, but I'll only have to deal with a few of them.
The golems confer for a few minutes while I root around in my kit for the right tool. Finally I find it: gloves enchanted with Reshape. I walk up to the first tree, don the gloves, and start clawing out clumps of wood as if it were clay.
This is a surprisingly common thing for us to have to do, and I've both trained in it and had practical experience in my training assignments. The trick is to keep the tree roughly balanced, stay away from the direction it's going to fall, and by god make sure you've got decent armor on.
(The people at the Central Planning Office considered sending axes and saws instead. In fact, there are several scattered among the crates. But they determined that, on average, it's safer to use Gloves of Shaping.)
Two minutes gets me through the first tree, a mid-sized oak, and then I rend it down to parts small enough for pairs of golems to carry. My golems are pretty strong, aside from the dedicated enchanters, but they can't carry whole trees.
In an hour, I've trimmed down five trees and the golems have a good-sized pit ready for the generator. I dig out my pocket surveyor and verify the pit's dimensions quickly. Not entirely correct, but it's good enough.
I slowly enlarge the wind shaft, working with the golems to keep it oriented properly and in the pit. Once it's large enough, we attach ropes to stabilize it. Finally the shaft reaches its proper size – a torus fifty meters in diameter, five meters thick, with a bit of a knob just above ground level.
The golems get busy attaching the generator to the wind shaft and filling in the pit. It wouldn't do for me to trip and fall onto the unyielding mithril hull of the wind shaft.
Meanwhile, the smell of smoke is still increasing. It's a little worrying, but I estimate that it won't reach be before the generator starts.
...the smoke is getting pretty intense. It won't impact the golems, of course; they don't breathe. But I breathe, and the smoke's already irritating my eyes. I head over to the stack of thoroughly labeled crates. There's one, red with blue markings, that has my personal safety equipment in it. In just a moment I've grabbed out a Necklace of Purify Air and put it on. Immediately I'm surrounded by a bubble of clean air.
Finally the golems have the generator hooked up. I turn it on and then activate the wind enchantment on the shaft. The diagnostic display ticks up as the wind picks up inside the shaft and the generator starts producing power. It's rated for three megawatts, which is plenty to get started, normally.
As soon as it's spun up, I start drawing on it, fireproofing the area around the clearing with the help of a Rod of Fireproofing. I exclude the center of the clearing – I might need to light a fire – but I include all the crates and the generator in the area. Drawing power from the generator, I can handle a 12m radius area every second; it takes me five minutes to fireproof a large enough area for me to feel safe.
Finally! Time to set up a house. This is a surprisingly simple process: I've got one shard of brick taken from a copy of the standard field house, packaged with a Rod of Rebuilding. I just set the brick on an empty piece of ground, tap the generator for energy, and start applying the Rod to it.
Half an hour of concentration and the house is built. It's more of a warehouse with a living space as an annex, but it's the place I'll call home for the next year or more.
And then I notice that I have an audience.
It's with some trepidation that I step through the portal.
We sent a golem through, and it reported that the local magic levels were acceptable – relatively low, but not enough to mandate blanketing the world with mana enhancers. I'm coming through with a decent amount of equipment and a squad of helpers, but no actual people to share the burden. Sadly standard these days. There are just too many worlds and not enough people. The Guild is relatively small, only about fifteen thousand total.
As a practical matter, a partner or two wouldn't speed things up, and it would tie up a whole second person for years. Instead I have golems, which only take like three hours to produce, and too many magic items to properly use myself, which each take between two and fifty hours for a golem to create. It's simple economics.
At least these days there are interplanar communicators. Before they made those, I hear the attrition rate for field operatives was pretty damn high. The number of abandoned posts, the people killed while astral projecting themselves back home (which was quite contrary to the Book, but still happened).
This is my first solo mission, so I'll be checking in often. – For that matter, I should take stock of my surroundings and report that I've landed.
I'm in a clearing in a wooded area. Temperate forests, vegetation pretty similar to home. In fact, those trees look pretty much like oaks, and there's a squirrel visible in one of them. It happens more often than I would have thought, initially.
There's a smell of woodsmoke in the air. Something is burning and not too far from here. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It depends on how controlled the burn is and whether I'm in the path. I do have a bunch of fireproof tarps that I could spread out, but if one of those trees fell across them, it wouldn't help me much.
"Get the generator working," I tell the golems. They nod in unison and begin coordinating between themselves with hand signals. I can cast spells on my own, but if I need to extinguish fire in a hundred-meter radius, I'll need help.
The generator is in two parts. There's the wind shaft, which is a toroidal lump of metal that fits in my hand. It's shrunk significantly, of course. And then there's the generator proper, which attaches to the wind shaft at the turbine and converts the mechanical work into electricity.
The golems are busy moving boxes and crates around the clearing, stacking them to the side, so we have space to unshrink the wind shaft. It's not going to be quite enough, though. I'm going to need to enlarge the clearing. But we've got plans for this.
"Hold on," I tell the golems. "We're going to plant it upright in the ground. Right here." I point to where I want it. There are a few trees in the way, but I'll only have to deal with a few of them.
The golems confer for a few minutes while I root around in my kit for the right tool. Finally I find it: gloves enchanted with Reshape. I walk up to the first tree, don the gloves, and start clawing out clumps of wood as if it were clay.
This is a surprisingly common thing for us to have to do, and I've both trained in it and had practical experience in my training assignments. The trick is to keep the tree roughly balanced, stay away from the direction it's going to fall, and by god make sure you've got decent armor on.
(The people at the Central Planning Office considered sending axes and saws instead. In fact, there are several scattered among the crates. But they determined that, on average, it's safer to use Gloves of Shaping.)
Two minutes gets me through the first tree, a mid-sized oak, and then I rend it down to parts small enough for pairs of golems to carry. My golems are pretty strong, aside from the dedicated enchanters, but they can't carry whole trees.
In an hour, I've trimmed down five trees and the golems have a good-sized pit ready for the generator. I dig out my pocket surveyor and verify the pit's dimensions quickly. Not entirely correct, but it's good enough.
I slowly enlarge the wind shaft, working with the golems to keep it oriented properly and in the pit. Once it's large enough, we attach ropes to stabilize it. Finally the shaft reaches its proper size – a torus fifty meters in diameter, five meters thick, with a bit of a knob just above ground level.
The golems get busy attaching the generator to the wind shaft and filling in the pit. It wouldn't do for me to trip and fall onto the unyielding mithril hull of the wind shaft.
Meanwhile, the smell of smoke is still increasing. It's a little worrying, but I estimate that it won't reach be before the generator starts.
...the smoke is getting pretty intense. It won't impact the golems, of course; they don't breathe. But I breathe, and the smoke's already irritating my eyes. I head over to the stack of thoroughly labeled crates. There's one, red with blue markings, that has my personal safety equipment in it. In just a moment I've grabbed out a Necklace of Purify Air and put it on. Immediately I'm surrounded by a bubble of clean air.
Finally the golems have the generator hooked up. I turn it on and then activate the wind enchantment on the shaft. The diagnostic display ticks up as the wind picks up inside the shaft and the generator starts producing power. It's rated for three megawatts, which is plenty to get started, normally.
As soon as it's spun up, I start drawing on it, fireproofing the area around the clearing with the help of a Rod of Fireproofing. I exclude the center of the clearing – I might need to light a fire – but I include all the crates and the generator in the area. Drawing power from the generator, I can handle a 12m radius area every second; it takes me five minutes to fireproof a large enough area for me to feel safe.
Finally! Time to set up a house. This is a surprisingly simple process: I've got one shard of brick taken from a copy of the standard field house, packaged with a Rod of Rebuilding. I just set the brick on an empty piece of ground, tap the generator for energy, and start applying the Rod to it.
Half an hour of concentration and the house is built. It's more of a warehouse with a living space as an annex, but it's the place I'll call home for the next year or more.
And then I notice that I have an audience.
Andrew5073
Thinks too much
Well, this is interesting, if somewhat ambiguous.
My first thought was that our protagonist was sent to do as the title suggests; uplift the native population to become part of the Greater (galactic?/inter-planar?) Community. Re-reading seems to have clarified things; he/she/hi doesn't expect to encounter anyone there.
At all.
Seriously; they're on an unknown world, they can tell there's a fire burning nearby and at no point does it even occur to them that someone might have lit one deliberately? Going by the lack of golems/spells for scouting/defense, or any mention that they might need such things, this seems to be a common state of affairs for them. They act more like some sort of pioneer; setting up an outpost and surveying the world for resources in preparation for exploitation/colonisation.
So; what we have here looks like some sort of unexpected First-Contact-with-primitives situation, something that neither he nor his organisation is remotely prepared for, and promises to snowball into some sort of political snafu for both sides.
While the Guild may attempt to keep things quiet to avoid trouble ("You sent one inexperienced operative to a newly discovered planet and didn't bother to check for inhabitants first?"), I suspect word will leak out and lead to all sort of repercussions on their end.
On the Westeros end; well, the details depend on who found them. The climate seems to rule out Dorne, the North is heavily forested but there's no mention of the climate, so there's still a few possibilities there.
My first thought was that our protagonist was sent to do as the title suggests; uplift the native population to become part of the Greater (galactic?/inter-planar?) Community. Re-reading seems to have clarified things; he/she/hi doesn't expect to encounter anyone there.
At all.
Seriously; they're on an unknown world, they can tell there's a fire burning nearby and at no point does it even occur to them that someone might have lit one deliberately? Going by the lack of golems/spells for scouting/defense, or any mention that they might need such things, this seems to be a common state of affairs for them. They act more like some sort of pioneer; setting up an outpost and surveying the world for resources in preparation for exploitation/colonisation.
So; what we have here looks like some sort of unexpected First-Contact-with-primitives situation, something that neither he nor his organisation is remotely prepared for, and promises to snowball into some sort of political snafu for both sides.
While the Guild may attempt to keep things quiet to avoid trouble ("You sent one inexperienced operative to a newly discovered planet and didn't bother to check for inhabitants first?"), I suspect word will leak out and lead to all sort of repercussions on their end.
On the Westeros end; well, the details depend on who found them. The climate seems to rule out Dorne, the North is heavily forested but there's no mention of the climate, so there's still a few possibilities there.
dhasenan
always lowercase
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The options are:
- Set up your base quickly enough to fireproof it right now, in case the fire's out of control. This has the salutory effect of giving you a source of power for defense against the locals, if they prove hostile.
- Leave your equipment here and scout. If there are locals and they stumble across your camp while you're gone, they deal with your golems rather than you. Golems have such disadvantages as Unnatural, Disturbing Voice, and Low Empathy, which make them poor choices for diplomacy.
- Plane Shift back home because you smelled smoke. Explain to your superiors why you wasted a hundred thousand hours of enchanting.
You'd think so, wouldn't you? Except the Guild is about as important in its homeland as the Society for Creative Anachronism and only a little larger. It's even using civilian-approved commercial off-the-shelf equipment, for the most part. Meanwhile, there's a mind-bogglingly large number of planes full of people with a frankly terrifying standard of living.
So the Guild will see almost no impact unless the protagonist teaches the Westerosi to Plane Shift and shows them the way to his home world, which would be a huge violation of the Protocols. Westeros, on the other hand, might be in for a bit more trouble. And while the protagonist is well equipped, that might not be enough to save them, should things go pear-shaped.
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- Yes
Interesting start, not enough to say much more although it's technically well written.
Looking forward to see how this develops.
Looking forward to see how this develops.
- Location
- PR
Unless they dont know about inhabitants either. They used a portal to travel through and the character seems to be using some freaky magical things in construction.
So unless super stupid advance were it seems magic then they are lazy for not exploring and only using a portal.
Wonder how this plays out.
Andrew5073
Thinks too much
I can understand being blind-dropped into some random location on the target plane; as a first solo mission, it may be a case of 'you're going in completely blind so we can see how you handle yourself', so that would cover why he didn't know there were people in the area before arrival.
My main issue is the fact that he did not, at any point, pull out some kind of scrying device and take a look around, particularly towards this fire he could smell nearby (and if anyone can come up with a reasonable argument for him not to possess any kind of remote viewing capability more reasonable than 'he forgot about it', I will be fascinated).
Taking an hour to enlarge the clearing as his first action does him no good if he's close to something that can kill him before he gets his defenses up. And this after explicitly ruminating on the attrition rate for field operatives! Even then, once he has power generation in place, he takes half an hour to build a house, via a method that takes his complete concentration; I'll assume his golems are at least designed to act as bodyguards in the event of an attack on him, but still...
Kataphraktos
Remove gringo from premises
Which GURPS setting are you using, Infinite Worlds? The only big factions I'm familiar with from that are the "Federation" types who mainly use technology and the multiversal Nazis.
dhasenan
always lowercase
- Pronouns
- She/Her
GURPS is pretty low on scrying options. You can find the nearest fire or water or earth; you can find a person you know; or you can fly or project yourself within line of sight to observe things directly. And the fire is not dangerous to the protagonist once their base is set up.
None. I have only a handful of GURPS books: basic set, Powers, Magic, Thaumatology, Magic Styles, and Biotech. None of these discuss settings in much detail.
I took some time recently to think: how could you make enchanting magic items a reasonable thing to do? And then I saw golems and the Draw Power spell, which (a) remove human labor costs and (b) divide enchanting times by a factor of 2400 compared to Slow and Sure enchanting, without dealing with such pesky things as powerstones. Add in Plane Shift and a minority with empathy toward people in other planes, and you get this. Magic items are pretty cheap (albeit not free); mundane items are outrageously cheap or free; and we should at a minimum make it so other people don't simply die all the time, of things as stupid as malnutrition and disease and age.
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Ah, I was thinking this was some kind of Technomancer - which is a GURPS setting that has magic come back in 1944 or so, so by 2000 there're NASA astromancers and titanium golems and suchlike.
If you can track down a copy, it has some interesting ideas about industrial enchantment and other high-tech magics.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Waiting warmly.
It's well written, but I'm more curious how you will handle future conflicts. He's just one person... who, it seems could trivially wipe out all life on the planet, but who probably doesn't want to do that. Trying to get along with everyone from SOIAF, and uplift them, will be somewhat harder. Heh.
It's well written, but I'm more curious how you will handle future conflicts. He's just one person... who, it seems could trivially wipe out all life on the planet, but who probably doesn't want to do that. Trying to get along with everyone from SOIAF, and uplift them, will be somewhat harder. Heh.
Interesting start, I look forward to learning more!
*consider yourself watched! *
*consider yourself watched! *
So I'm getting the impression, seemingly somewhat contrary to other commentators, that this guy was fully aware the plane was inhabited. He's here on behalf of his organization explicitly because of that, in fact. Working on the assumption that the planet was at least somewhat scouted by said organization, and it does mention they at least did some scans, it seems unlikely they'd deposit him right into the middle of a giant battle or something. I'm unclear on the specifications of his golems but, while I'm sure the combined armies of Westeros could pose a threat, I doubt anything less then a fairly serious force is going to merit immediate concern.
Under that logic I actually can see, "protect myself and my extremely valuable/important equipment from a nearby fire" as being a more immediate concern then "check that the fire isn't being caused by a force of bandits or something". I mean, granted, if I were this guy one of the first things I'd have done would have been to launch at minimum a UAV with a camera or something but still.
Under that logic I actually can see, "protect myself and my extremely valuable/important equipment from a nearby fire" as being a more immediate concern then "check that the fire isn't being caused by a force of bandits or something". I mean, granted, if I were this guy one of the first things I'd have done would have been to launch at minimum a UAV with a camera or something but still.
The golems are probably solid iron, possibly orichalcum (3x as strong as bronze), and about as durable as you'd expect from that. There's a lot of variety possible, and they seem fairly intelligent - in GURPS, it's essentially "here's a standard template, pay more energy to add more features", so they could be very dangerous.
The rest depends on his spell and item loadout. He almost certainly has a missile deflection spell or amulet, which can either negate or reverse anything fired at him. Add a simple flying carpet, and he's close to invulnerable in any situation where he can gain altitude.
It's a bit of a different matter when it comes to protecting a location of course. Given time he could fortify and disguise any location with earth shaping and transmutation, and could feasibly just go underground, seal off any entrances and use air magic to keep the atmosphere liveable. Again, depending on his loadout.
Is our intrepid explorer from a TL6+ world with magic, and just using magic because there aren't portable factories until a much higher TL, or are they uplifting the local populace with pure magic?
- Location
- US
Please not Starks. Anythone but Starks.
Subrosian_Smithy
endless
- Location
- Washington
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
What scrying device? You can have all kinds of exotic information-granting *advantages* (even gadget advantages) but those are a completely different beast from magic spells. What makes you think that he has access to scrying?
- Location
- Little Rock, AR
Seems like something basic you'd have on an uplift. Like the drones Stargate use.
... your kidding right? Information is power in basically all worlds so being able to tell where people are is going to be a major priority. It would definitely be included standard.
There may be some miscommunication here. I think Subrosian was talking about the actual availability of scrying magic in GURPS.
The default form of GURPS Magic doesn't have any kind of omniscient scrying spell. Information is, as you say, power - so while it has things like retro-viewing (and smelling and touching and tasting) and magical spy drone spells, it doesn't have any easy way of using "show me everything" scale divination or any kind of "locate city".
The best method for locating population centres is to use various movement spells to go high very up and have a look around and then cast Mapmaker, which creates a map of what you can see based on your own cartographic skill
- Location
- Classified
I'm going to second this. All of these types of story start in the North.
- Location
- world
Baratheon maybe? Temperate forest makes the north unlikely.