"The entire ship just groaned. The sound of metal settling and stretching and dying. And then the alarms went off, while we crashed out of Hyperspace. Y'know, it's funny, back then all we could hear were the alarms. But in my dreams, I hear that second sound. The sound of Hyperspace falling apart around us, as it too got torn to shreds."— Account of a crewmember of the CS Ramses
"You know the hype of adrenaline which turns into shock eventually? We spent literal days fixing the ship, counting the dead, trying to get everything up and running again. Drugged up so we stayed awake, because nobody knew how long the ship would last if we didn't fix it at once. The shock came after and never left."— Account of a mechanic of the CS Ramses
Wow, this is a really unique and fascinating take on the challenge! Great work. I never would have thought of space as a river but this really works, these Hypersea lanes are really well thought out!
Cheers! The original idea is because I want space travel where you actually have to dodge objects, which has gone through a few iterations to arrive at the Hypersea. I like the way the challenge helped inspire me for the quiet areas and why not everyone uses them.
That makes sense! I'm glad you came up with this idea, it's really cool.
I really like how cleanly you explain everything. Awesome!
Glad that turned out well. I'm working on explaining well while using less words, so my articles are less dense.
It's cool you included the blurb on relativity. The context helped me understand that it was an important part of travel, similar to buoyancy, but the definition helped me understand a bit more deeply. I like that there's hinting at possible disasters that this 'river' could cause. Cutting worlds and systems off, ripping ships apart, there's so much that can go wrong. That makes for interesting stories.
The Ravmor cuts through the dense Aristosa forest. Hiding terrifying monsters beneath its deep, fast currents, and ignoring forgotten legends could end the world around it.
Yeah I figured I should include a bit of technical explanation, while also tying it to the Via Solaris, so that the article works well as a standalone intro to the setting. And Hypersea changes definitely are dangerous, so got to keep an eye out when you're in a rough patch.
A good reminder that a single route is not always so great
Yeah, downside of a single point of failure. So you need to make sure you can handle being supplied with smaller vessels for higher prices, and not face total system collapse in case of being cut off.
Good work, I love the sci-fi take on the challenge. Definitely a unique interpretation thus far.
Cheers! I was in doubt between this and a river in my fantasy world, happy with the choice I made.
A fantastic interpretation of what a river can be (and I greatly appreciate the background and variables explaining the key terms). I'll have to read more! <3
Glad you liked the tooltips and such. I try to balance between 'the tooltips are a nice addition' and 'the tooltips aren't needed'. I'll let you know when I have more! I intend to prioritize Stormfarers and Wanderers in Summercamp, they're new more-free-form settings. Other settings I tend to already have a detailed story in mind, with these I want to build the worlds more organically and offer myself room for both rpg campaigns and short stories.
Very cool take on hyperlanes and especially interesting how systems can become cut off from them! Depending on how far they are from the Via Solaris when that happens would they somentimes not be able to ever connect with the rest of humanity again? The explanation for relativity and tranquility were also quite interesting and really makes it seem similar to a sea.
As the CS Ramses proved, you could reach the nearest edge of the Via Solaris, drop out of Hyperspace and keep pushing your hyperdrive to still keep up decent sublight speed. Might take months to a few years to get to the cut off part, and over time it may become deeper and harder to reach... So yeah you might reach a point where it would take literal decades to travel there. Glad you liked the explanations!
Really a great article. I'm a huge sci-fi fan, and this interpretation of the Rivers challenge is really creative.
Thanks! When the idea came to me (inspired by what I already had planned for this new setting), I was real happy with it. I'm glad I managed to do my idea justice with the actual entry.
This is really well-done! A few people have already mentioned it, but I definitely appreciated the explanations for relativity and tranquility.
Glad you liked it! It was a nice challenge to balance that section, happy it worked out well.
This gives me so many Eve vibes... I love space and everything related to it. I used to be a big sci-fi nerd until I stumbled into medieval fantasy, actually. Loved the way you organized the text. Very interesting to imagine an "hypersea"-river would curve just like water ones.
Thanks for the compliments! Yeah, the meander idea came to me and I really like the consequences.
Very well done! You cover the bases on history, science, political, and personal. There are many stories that can be made from this article. I hope to read some of them soon. Check out my entry:
Definitely will do both! I used the challenge to basically introduce the new setting, and plan to work on it more during Summer Camp.
I love the visual aspects of this theme. I do wish there was more reference images though. I understand it may be difficult due to the nature of the article though. I'm enjoying all of the links to help explain the terminology and world. Definitely worth the read!
I did look for spaceship images on Pixabay, see if I could find something that fit, but unfortunately failed. Glad you like the tooltips, I tried to find a balance between informative and not being a mandatory read.
I love this! Such a delight to see a Sci-fi entry. Collapsing the curves and the quotes in particular will stay with me!
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For the amazing images. His Titanship Christopher Dravus of Ironrise Games, Our Revered Deity Basic Dragon / Rin & His Majesty Caeora
Always cool seeing a solid Sci-fi interpretation of the challenge! I know some have trouble scaling their worldbuilding when distances can span multiple planets instead of a Fantasy kingdom or two, so something like this is a joy to read! ---------------------------------------------------------------- Feel free to check out my Rivers/Waterways entry: Loch Mesner
Michael Chandra
What is a remote planet other than one man's kingdom? ^_^ I like going into the frontiers of these settings, same with Wanderers, but to go into frontier you also need a good contrast with the core.
Too low they build who build beneath the stars - Edward Young