RimWorld Lore Discussion!

[Granitecosmos]

Check out the long sleep revival brief. About half of it describes what rimworld inhabitants are not. You could get an occasional transanimal colonist in an escape pod, or maybe a faction of optibears. But these are mostly on other planets.

This is just a case of "you have to know the bad in order to appreciate the good". It's a bit reversed for RimWorld but you get the point, right? Besides, where does that document state that the person it was given to did actually wake up on a Rim World?

Please don't tell me that you have a problem with a document people took their time to make for fun, just because it doesn't contain what you want. 

I would be more interested about what techniques are commonly used for terraforming, how do the machines or microbes look like or behave.

But that's easy to answer. Magic! Why? Because any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Even if there was a thorough description, it would all be pseudoscience bullcrap that's obviously wrong for anyone who knows what it tries to tell. This is a sci-fi game incorporating futuristic technology, you can't explain that technology because it doesn't exist. If I told you that the air-spewing terraforming algae mentioned in the documents were blue, would it make you more satisfied? It's irrelevant information that's sometimes left out intentionally to stimulate the reader's own imagination. Sure, Tynan could take his time and write proper lore but do we want him to waste his precious time with that?
You know what's also like this? Dwarf Fortress. If you have zero capabilities to imagine all the data that's before you, you won't enjoy Dwarf Fortress. Someone sees a "g" next to a smiley, I see an epic battle between an Axelord and a Swordsgoblin.

Or, you can come up with your own ideas for those technologies and add it to the lore!

What sorts of technologies are easy to produce on rimworlds, and what not. Not all technological advances need a high level production chain.

Wait, what? That's already there! Read the documents again, maybe you've missed it or something.

As for mechanoids, you can find some tidbits of info in some colonist backgrounds. For example 'spaceship janitor' mentions that such a person takes care of the ship while others are in cryosleep and 'oils the mechanoids'.

It probably would be best if someone took the effort and went through all the backstories to gather additional lore information. Don't look at me, I have other things to do.

[Bozobub]

The thrust is in the micronewtons, but the "EM drive" ("RF resonant cavity thruster" apparently DOES work, and requires *no* propellant.  Yes, really, it's been pretty soundly proven by repeated experiments, although there's still a bunch of controversy.

Nothin' stopping you from stapling a LOT of these together, either, if you want more delta-V.  As long as you have a power source, it simply works.  No moving parts to wear out, either, I'll note.  It would, however, be useless at the very bottom of large gravity wells, so it's also *not* a launch vehicle.

[grrizo]

Whenever you notice something like that... a wizard did it.

[b0rsuk]

Waving away all consistency "because it's all basically just magic" is a good way to end up with science fantasy (or space opera). I would prefer Rimworld to be closer to science fiction. A scientific approach to science fiction is to make some fantastic substitutions (like "time travel exists", or "FTL travels exists", but extrapolating from that in a logical manner. Fantasy doesn't care about that, it explains inconsistencies with another made up thing.

[Granitecosmos]

Waving away all consistency "because it's all basically just magic" is a good way to end up with science fantasy (or space opera). I would prefer Rimworld to be closer to science fiction. A scientific approach to science fiction is to make some fantastic substitutions (like "time travel exists", or "FTL travels exists", but extrapolating from that in a logical manner. Fantasy doesn't care about that, it explains inconsistencies with another made up thing.

Point taken. So, since we've mentioned propulsion several times already, how about coming up an idea for that first?

We need something that can travel at ~30-40% c speed average. If we take into consideration the engines we can build for our spacecraft in-game, what could it possibly be?

Since the EM Drive might not actually work let's say that it does and it can be miniaturized enough so that the energy required for leaving orbit isn't crippling (obviously talking about the extra mass of EM drives, not using EM drives for leaving orbit, that would be beyond fantasy). So these miniaturized EM drives could be built-in in those huge engines we see in-game, while most of the engine is solid/liquid rocket fuel plus engine required to enter/exit orbit. However, even if we have miniaturized EM drives, I doubt we could reach ~30-40% c levels of average speed. Remember, if EM drives would work in this case, it would go like this:

• EM Drive steadily accelerates.
• Ship is halfway to it's deatination. EM Drive stops.
• EM Drive steadily decelerates.

Since EM Drives would output a constant acceleration value, that would mean a top speed close to ~60-80% of c which is pretty damn high in a universe where FTL travel is supposed to be impossible and considering the spacecraft has "only" ~800-900 years for each acceleration and deceleration phase (based on data we already know from the lore documents), that's nigh impossible unless we take into consideration some form of extreme, outright fantasy miniaturisation which has no trace whatsoever in-game anyway.

So... any other ideas?

[CiceroThePoet]

I'm probably a complete piece of garbage for watching my own thread, but not replying to it. I wanted to see exactly how people interpreted what I said before I got into anything further. Granitecosmos seems to understand what I am trying to do here. I am trying to get the community to add to the lore, and if we are satisfied with the end product, we run it over to suggestions where Tynan or the other really happy guy who's name I can't seem to recall at the moment, can take a look at it and do what they will with said information.

I will propose a variety of things now, some in the realm of science-fiction, some in the realm of science-fantasy. I am taking some liberties with some of the things I will be posting here, and would like some feedback on what I am writing down. I will be following five rules whilst "creating" some of these technologies and solutions, and would ask that those who wish to contribute to follow the same rules. Not mandatory, as I don't really care as long as we are contributing ideas to one another.

1. Keep it interesting.
2. Stretching a current scientific theory can be played with.
3. Have fun, be creative, but stay somewhat realistic.
4. Nothing can go at, or faster than, the speed of light.

How do we get from Point A to Point B?

I had some fun with this one, and it may also explain why crashes are so common. Follow with me as best you can, as I combine a few ideas together here, for maximum fun. My method for achieving maximum velocity is simple, I cannot do the math on it, as it is far beyond my realm of understanding, however you might get what I mean. Highly theoretical stuff going on here, but not disproven (yet!).

Combining both the Oberth Effect, and the theoretical Aerogravity Assist, in addition to the primary engine being one of the anti-matter variety. The general function would work as follows, an asterisk will denote times when failure of a flight is relatively high.

1. Ship departs using chemical rockets to escape gravity.

2. Chemical rockets are shed, falling back to the planet.

3. Human crew activates the A.I., shuts down all non-critical systems, and buckles up for the long-sleep.

4. A.I. takes over command of the ship, and proceeds to chart a course to the desired destination.

5. Ship approaches the local star, gaining velocity for the gravity assist.

6. Upon reaching maximum speed gained, the anti-matter rocket lights off in a pulse-jet fashion, this allows for maximum velocity to be attained for system exit, the anti-pulse jet then continues to fire until a velocity of .05c-.15 is reached.

7. A.I. calculates the location of an ideal harvest-ground to acquire additional anti-matter, this is typically in the Van Allen belts of planets with magnetic fields. (Gas giants are ideal for this.)

8. Upon approach to the harvest ground, the A.I. prepares to compensate for another Oberth maneuver, whilst "collecting" anti-matter (using a method that I have yet to think of, given the speeds involved.)

9. Oberth maneuver executed, and additional anti-matter is collected, while the anti-matter pulse jets fire, allowing additional velocity, this is done with as many planets in a system as the A.I. considers possible. Allowing for the maximum velocity to be reached. (Variable, ideally .30c-.40c)

10. Interstellar travel.

11. System approach expected, A.I. analyses system, and given the data acquired, extrapolates a flight-path to the ideal location. At this point, the ships speed is mostly unchanged, and the A.I. will bleed speed through various reverse-oberths, and aerogravity assists when possible, using the outer atmosphere of a planet to provide lift, and drag slowing the ship.* (Imagine a stone skipping on water. Where the stone is a ship, and the water is this atmosphere.) The ship, once reaching a targeted velocity, will depart to it's intended destination, or will land. Occasionally, the ship is torn to pieces by the extreme forces involved in some aerogravity assists.

The next question is why would humanity use a system so prone to failure?

My solution is in the following, in 2100AD when humanity first left the Sol System, it was due to extreme resource starvation. Humanity had to depart, or die. This method allowed for acceptable speeds from system to system, but also resulted in a system that was somewhat flawed in that not all ships would make it to their final destination. Perhaps better methods were devised later, but given the separation and diffusion of humanity, this remains the most common system.

Why does this fit with game mechanics so well?

Traders come and go, perhaps using the aerogravity method to slow down in preparation for a different maneuver, and in that brief window until the desired speeds are reached, they are open to trade, when the desired speed is reached, they depart. This would also explain the core concept of RimWorld which is ship crashing onto planets.

Some of these people don't actually make it, some die from being burned alive in a gas-giants atmosphere, or from being spaced when the ship rips itself apart, some happen to land on perfectly habitable planets. These are the lucky ones, these are our pawns. The A.I. sensing failure of the hull would immediately awaken the crew to eject them.

Sometimes they get ejected over nice rimworlds.

Sometimes they get ejected into a blazing atmosphere the hellish likes of cannot even be spoken of here.
All their family died long ago.
Nobody alive knows them.
They are forgotten.

Tell me what you think! Feedback is appreciated as always, guys!

I know my formatting is garbage. I tried though, I swear!

[BeastNips]

Could the anti-matter fuel be fired in the path of the ships by relativistic rail guns, decades before the launch? Because there wouldn't be a crew, they could be accelerated very quickly using an anti-matter explosion (effectively, a giant musket). The same couldn't be done for the crewed ship as they would be turned into soup.

The fuel would travel slightly slower than the ship at whatever stage of the journey the two would meet, allowing the ship to refuel at relativistic speeds. I've seen this theory before but with a ramscoop propulsion system and the fuel being hydrogen, which seems a lot more practical than antimatter. The fuel needs to be already traveling at relativistic speeds in order to decrease the 'drag' a conventional ramscoop would create when harvesting background hydrogen.

I don't see how the ship could harvest anti-matter from a stellar body without slowing down.

[BeastNips]

The thrust is in the micronewtons, but the "EM drive" ("RF resonant cavity thruster" apparently DOES work, and requires *no* propellant.  Yes, really, it's been pretty soundly proven by repeated experiments, although there's still a bunch of controversy.

Nothin' stopping you from stapling a LOT of these together, either, if you want more delta-V.  As long as you have a power source, it simply works.  No moving parts to wear out, either, I'll note.  It would, however, be useless at the very bottom of large gravity wells, so it's also *not* a launch vehicle.

The issue with this is that it doesn't seem to work; we have observed data that seems like it's working but we can't reproduce it consistently. It seems to violate conservation of momentum; it's like pushing yourself on the back to make you go forward, or pulling your own hand.

I'm not blindly following Newtonian physics, but if this EM drive works then we'd need to rethink our current understanding of the universe.

[Granitecosmos]

First of all, remember that humanity is spanned across 1.200 LY. So don't forget that:

...the slowest way we can reach this distance is with a spacecraft launched in 2100 AD that travels 3400 years at the speed of ~52900 km/s, roughly 17,6% of the speed of light.

That is the average speed during the whole flight. The closer we go to c the more energy it requires to accelerate further. This effectively defines the top speed of an engine, based on the propellant and energy required.

So let's say that a spacecraft launches from Earth and takes half the distance which is 300 LY (since the Sol system is probably the center of the 1.200 LY human-inhabited space since it's the origin point, it's "only" 600 LY to reach the edge from there) and decides to colonize the target planet there.
This means they'll waste time with hundreds of years of colonizing before they reach the stage of being able to send a spaceship themselves that can continue the tradition. It's highly unlikely that every and all spaceship was sent from Earth, after all. So our spaceships already have to reach a top speed higher than 17,6% c, in fact, probably more like 20-80% of c all depending on acceleration as well as considering more than one stop to build a colony. That 3400 years we have is pretty damn low for that 600 LY considering additional colonizing and sub-FTL speed.

If the spaceship has to periodically stop in order to extract fuel for the engine the required time to reach the destination further increases. Therefore it's safe to say that:

• Spaceships probably won't travel to targets more than 100 LY away at once. They stop, build a colony which either destroys itself or continues the tradition of sending a spaceship to colonize a not-too-far-away target.
• Interstellar engines are very fuel-efficient or don't need fuel at all. They don't stop for refueling.

This further implies why Rim Worlds are so dystopian; that they are in less star-dense locations. This would also support my theory that the human-inhabited space is like an ellipsoid, expanding quicker in the star-dense central areas of the galaxy arm.

If we want to keep to realism a bit then I can't help but notice:

Ship departs using chemical rockets to escape gravity.

Chemical rockets are shed, falling back to the planet.

First one implies the antimatter engine is not suitable for "low-speed" maneuvers. Latter implies the crew is doomed as with the engine, they shed their only option to safely land the ship on the surface of another planet too. Periodic stops for fuel would also be out of question without precise maneuverability.

Ship approaches the local star, gaining velocity for the gravity assist.

Upon reaching maximum speed gained, the anti-matter rocket lights off in a pulse-jet fashion, this allows for maximum velocity to be attained for system exit, the anti-pulse jet then continues to fire until a velocity of .05c-.15 is reached.

Now, I understand what you want to say here but it's just impractical. When your engine can easily reach 5-15% of c, the extra speed you gain from the gravity assist of any of the stars we know about (including RW Cepheli and friends) wouldn't mean jack shit and would only waste your time. You need a close supernova explosion to reach ~1% c velocity, gravity assists won't do anything unless it's a black hole or a neutron star, both being extremely dangerous for such maneuvers and reaching them alone wouldn't be feasible in such low timeframe unless you have sufficiently fast engines to begin with. See Dyson slingshot for more info.

...Allowing for the maximum velocity to be reached. (Variable, ideally .30c-.40c)...

...System approach expected, A.I. analyses system, and given the data acquired, extrapolates a flight-path to the ideal location. At this point, the ships speed is mostly unchanged, and the A.I. will bleed speed through various reverse-oberths, and aerogravity assists when possible, using the outer atmosphere of a planet to provide lift, and drag slowing the ship.* (Imagine a stone skipping on water. Where the stone is a ship, and the water is this atmosphere.) The ship, once reaching a targeted velocity, will depart to it's intended destination, or will land. Occasionally, the ship is torn to pieces by the extreme forces involved in some aerogravity assists.

This isn't "prone to failure", this is literally suicide. At the speed of 30-40% c you'll pass by stars' gravity wells in a way that even if you pass directly by the star all you'd achieve is slightly turning your ship in that direction. Slowing down is out of question. Aerobraking with speeds commonly used by spacecrafts today is already risky, imagine aerobraking with even 0.01% c (a.k.a. 30.000 km/s), that has zero percent survival rate! Furthermore, aerogravity assist is NOT used to slow down, it's used to change direction. Thre is no other way but to fire the retro-antimatter engines which boosted you to 30-40% c at the first place. Just make sure you start decelerating in time unless you want to spend another year or decade correcting your maneuver. Also, 30-40% c maximum speed is simply not adequate, unless you speak of a ship that starts from Earth and stops after 300 LY of travel. But according to the documents, colonies are being established at 20-50 LY distances or less. As I've said, if you incorporate periodic stops as well as colonization in your journey it will increase travel time exponentially.

So, how to fix it? First off, the fundamental problem is that we have a 600 LY distance to be traveled in 3400 years, along with many, many stops for establishing colonies. This is borderline impossible without FTL travel, unless we come up with a bullshit engine that can reach 99% c max speed AND reach that very fast. Even if we come up with, say, something like "early prototypes from 2100 were bad, yes, but Glitter Worlds have vastly improved the technology", we still have to get to Glitter tech first. Imagine a ship made in 2100 that travels 20 LY with an average speed of 20% c. The travel time is 100 years, we have 3300 more. Now add, let's say, 500 more years for terraforming and reaching Glitter tech levels. We have 2800 more. Let's say that they come up with an engine that can run at 80% c. So now they also send out a spaceshit to a target 30 LY away. Travel time is 37,5 years. Colony establishment and terraforming is another ~100. Let's say that they finish building up the new Glitter World in an additional 50 years, ready to send a starship. So now we're at 2612.5 years remaining to jump an additional 550 LY distance. Remember, spaceships will ALWAYS be sent to the closest and most promising targets possible. It's just logical. The problem is, that developing a planet to the point that said planet's population starts to consider building expensive ships to colonize other worlds, decades of years away both for communication and travel, takes time. This takes the most time out of all, probably more than traveling between stars.

3400 years is simply not enough for 600 LY when the documents tell us of worlds being as close as 20-50 LY or even closer. Either increase the time or decrease the distance. ~400 LY radius could be feasible, would still incorporate some of the local galaxy arm's less dense regions but anything lower than that would effectively destroy the concept of Rim Worlds.

The issue with this is that it doesn't seem to work; we have observed data that seems like it's working but we can't reproduce it consistently.

Exactly, like I've already pointed out, the EM Drive might not even work. As far as I know, tests in orbit are planned, might shed some light on this. Although I'm highly sceptical about it.

However, we can't have proper sci-fi without some science fantasy. Quantum vacuum thrusters are an intresting subject, whether it works or not. It also implies a positive feedback during acceleration, while decelerating would probably be harder exactly because of that.

But then again, I'm not a rocket scientist/physician/astronomer.

[b0rsuk]

What bothers me a bit is that so many people dislike the premise of the game - that this is a Rimworld, a backwater planet. There are countless mods which add high-tech gizmos, but are there any which put emphasis on the remote, rugged part ? Many players really want to play Glitterworld.

I think we should look at our own world for influences. In some ways, Rimworld is like a third world country. And these countries are affected by progress in surprising ways. For example, poor African countries lack good telephone lines, power lines, plumbing, healthcare, stationary computers, laptops... but they often have wifi internet access via cell phones ! I remember reading about boys earned money by charging cell phones with stationary bikes. Then there are corrupt warlords. That's what you get without strong central government.

Soviets dumped many old tanks and combat vehicles in Africa to fight a proxy war. Tanks are notorious for needing lots of maintenance. The end result is tank graveyards. We should find something like that on rimworlds.

Look what technology, what devices are available in third world countries. What their societies look like. Draw parallels to Rimworld and try to extrapolate from there.

[Granitecosmos]

What bothers me a bit is that so many people dislike the premise of the game - that this is a Rimworld, a backwater planet. There are countless mods which add high-tech gizmos, but are there any which put emphasis on the remote, rugged part ? Many players really want to play Glitterworld.

I think we should look at our own world for influences. In some ways, Rimworld is like a third world country. And these countries are affected by progress in surprising ways. For example, poor African countries lack good telephone lines, power lines, plumbing, healthcare, stationary computers, laptops... but they often have wifi internet access via cell phones ! I remember reading about boys earned money by charging cell phones with stationary bikes. Then there are corrupt warlords. That's what you get without strong central government.

Soviets dumped many old tanks and combat vehicles in Africa to fight a proxy war. Tanks are notorious for needing lots of maintenance. The end result is tank graveyards. We should find something like that on rimworlds.

Look what technology, what devices are available in third world countries. What their societies look like. Draw parallels to Rimworld and try to extrapolate from there.

This, but let's not forget that 3rd world countries have one problem that Rim Worlds definitely don't. Overpopulation. Rim Worlds were described in the documents as sparsely populated.

Raiders are pretty much warlords already.

I like to imagine Rim Worlds as a dystopian post-nuclear-apocalypse world. Except for the radiation and extinction of most flora and fauna. In the Fallout universe there are tribes, raiders and larger communities too, coexisting while often representing vastly different technological levels. It has a lot of things that resembles Rim Worlds.

[BeastNips]

Exactly, like I've already pointed out, the EM Drive might not even work. As far as I know, tests in orbit are planned, might shed some light on this. Although I'm highly sceptical about it.

However, we can't have proper sci-fi without some science fantasy. Quantum vacuum thrusters are an intresting subject, whether it works or not. It also implies a positive feedback during acceleration, while decelerating would probably be harder exactly because of that.

But then again, I'm not a rocket scientist/physician/astronomer.

If you're familiar with Alistair Reynold's novels then that seems to be what he proposes in his 'Conjoiner Drive' engines. However, being a physicist and wanting to stick to 'hard' sci-fi, he is never too specific. In his books, these engines have the power to accelerate a 4-5km long ship to 99%+C in 1-2 years. I really recommend his work if you're into your hard sci-fi.

[SpaceDorf]

I like to imagine Rim Worlds as a dystopian post-nuclear-apocalypse world. Except for the radiation and extinction of most flora and fauna. In the Fallout universe there are tribes, raiders and larger communities too, coexisting while often representing vastly different technological levels. It has a lot of things that resembles Rim Worlds.

And this .. I always pictured the main construction materials being
Wire, Chewing Gum and Spit. And Duct Tape being a highly priced commodity.

Also Warhammer 40k's STC ( standard template construct ) is always the first thing that comes to my mind when things like construction or research are discussed.
In the timeframe colonisation is shown in RW things like resupply and waves of settlers are measured in generations.

[b0rsuk]

A few books by Ursula Le Guin have an ansible, a device which allows sending faster-than-light messages. As far as I remember FTL travel is still not possible, but communication is. Hybrid approach. But if that's possible, why not teleportation ? Depending on your philosophy, teleportation can be as simple as 3D-printing a human. As long as you're comfortable with the fact you are destroyed and your exact copy is created somewhere else.

* * *

If Rimworlds are so distant, how do glittertech devices end up on them anyway ? There are artifacts in danger rooms, but bionic body parts ? Glittertech medicine ? Where do they come from ? A glitterworld in the same solar system ?

[Granitecosmos]

A few books by Ursula Le Guin have an ansible, a device which allows sending faster-than-light messages. As far as I remember FTL travel is still not possible, but communication is.

Quoted from the RimWorld Universe Quick Timer:
"In the RimWorld universe, it takes years or decades to travel or communicate between stars."
So that's not gonna work. The lore of RimWorld says Einstein was right. Therefore every and all particle has some mass. Also, this means photons are the best you can get and even those will take years, possibly decades to reach the target.

Depending on your philosophy, teleportation can be as simple as 3D-printing a human. As long as you're comfortable with the fact you are destroyed and your exact copy is created somewhere else.

But without FTL information flow this doesn't make things any easier either.

If Rimworlds are so distant, how do glittertech devices end up on them anyway ? There are artifacts in danger rooms, but bionic body parts ? Glittertech medicine ? Where do they come from ? A glitterworld in the same solar system ?

Just because this particular RimWorld has such it doesn't mean all are like this. I believe the RimWorld the game takes place on was actually a Glitter World that blew itself back to the stone age for whatever reason. The tribals, outlanders and even the raiders are all more-or-less descendants of the original population. Different people, different lifestyles. Maybe the first tribals remembered that technology caused the downfall of their world and have chosen the primitive ways. Hundreds of years later, the current generation doesn't even remember these reasons anymore, they just live their lives in the way their ancestors did, abhorring technolog the way their ancestors did. This would also explain why it's hard to recruit tribals when you don't play as a tribal faction yourself.

Of course one may ask the question: If this is such a specific RimWorld, how comes the game can generate so many of it via the vast combination of seeds? The answer is easier than it seems.
Let's say that this is always the same planet. The place is the same, the time too but everything else can be different; because this is just another universe. The game conveniently picks one where this world evolved to Glitter tech, blew itself back to the stone age, fell into a dystopian state like many others, got classified as a Rim World, then exactly at the year 5500 a spaceship passing by is destroyed by any means and three survivors successfully land on the planet. Or five tribespeople survive a mechanoid raid and flee, trying to find a new home. Or one rich guy's ship blows up but he gets to the surface safely. Or <insertCustomScenarioHere>. Due to the many worlds interpretation the possibilities are literally endless. Bam, lore AND game mechanic explained.