Talk:HorizonVirtual:Places

Groupthink

Wireless Space

As mentioned on the main project page, I'd like to get some group input on the coversion of the AstralPlane into Wireless Space, mainly to provide background material for the conversion of the "Astral Projection" spell to the "Wireless Projection" rewrite. the basic information on Astal Space is presented below, taken from the "Planes" RTF on the D20 SRD website:

THE ASTRAL PLANE

The Astral Plane is the space between the planes. When a character moves through an interplanar portal or projects her spirit to a different plane of existence, she travels through the Astral Plane. Even spells that allow instantaneous movement across a plane briefly touch the Astral Plane.
The Astral Plane is a great, endless sphere of clear silvery sky, both above and below. Occasional bits of solid matter can be found here, but most of the Astral Plane is an endless, open domain.
Both planar travelers and refugees from other planes call the Astral Plane home.
The Astral Plane has the following traits.

• Subjective directional gravity.
• Timeless. Age, hunger, thirst, poison, and natural healing don’t function in the Astral Plane, though they resume functioning when the traveler leaves the Astral Plane.
• Mildly neutral-aligned.
• Enhanced magic. All spells and spell-like abilities used within the Astral Plane may be employed as if they were improved by the Quicken Spell feat. Already quickened spells and spell-like abilities are unaffected, as are spells from magic items. Spells so quickened are still prepared and cast at their unmodified level. As with the Quicken Spell feat, only one quickened spell can be cast per round.

Discussion is welcomed!

--IMAGinES 01:01, 21 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Conditions

Terrain

NOTE: As even PCs can be maintained, upgraded or even reformatted, Program Space is to a degree mutable. The overall theme is unlikely to change, but individual buildings may suddenly move (reboot after upgrade). Then again, if a User minute equals a Program day, and a de-fragmentation or antivirus scan often takes half an hour to run, a borough or town may be undergoing a slow shuffling process while the players are present. Any maps they have will probably stay constant, as the File Allocation Table updates itself.

It’s also worth noting that a User’s scheduled weekly virus scan happens just over once a Program year.

• Broken Terrain or Hills indicates disorganised, fragmented data. (Earthquakes as de-fragmentation, overclocked PC or virus attacks?)
• Steep, thin valleys through hilly regions – low-bandwidth connections, i.e. dialup?

Weather

Rain and fog: system effects like defragmentation, or perhaps a result of system congestion.

---

Some sort of regular darkness MUST be present, as webcrawlers have low light/darkvision capabilities. Perhaps representative of low power/sleep modes on a server?

--IMAGinES 08:35, 17 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Timekeeping

Personal Time

The Horizon: Virtual text establishes a unit of Program Space time in the section on the Programmer class: a "cycle". It is described as the length of time required for a programmer to rest in order to regain the capability to execute rewrites. For the purpose of the Waker Dictionary, I've linked that length of time to the standard Wizard rest time of eight hours.

No real day or night. Anywhere from ten to twenty-four Program hours to shut a given computer down; an evening’s use of a home PC can equal up to eight Program Space months of up-time.

Usage cycles for "always-on" PCs such as web, corporate or government servers - where usage increases during "business hours" and drops off at other points during the day - would probably be analogous to seasons.

--IMAGinES 22:08, 12 Jun 2005 (PDT)

See also Waker Lifespans.

--IMAGinES 01:04, 21 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Planes

I wonder whether it's worth developing the idea of a mirrored web site as a sort of "alternate plane" to an existing server. It might not be feasible, as I imagine the back-end would probably make the actual System itself different enough that it's still easily identifiable as somewhere else, but it might meet the criteria for a spell/rewrite that shifts players to "alternate" planes.

--IMAGinES 18:58, 10 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Would the OS level be a sort of sub-plane on every system? Perhaps a substitute for the Plane of Shadow?

--IMAGinES 07:44, 17 Jun 2005 (PDT)

I somewhat find the idea of the PCs continually messing up and forcing a User to pull out a backup again and again, ala a Virtual Groundhog Day, somewhat amusing. Maybe they stay themselves while everything changes due to their Sentience?

--Igtenio

Language and Labelling

The text makes clear in several places that, barring programmers, wakers have no grasp of a written language and cannot read. However, it then goes on to mention how data access poarts in major systems are "clearly marked" with destination information, and that maps exist. The question is, if DAPs are labelled and wakers have no understanding of (presumably) symbolic langauge, how are they even capable of understanding what said labels mean?

My personal theory is that, while DAPs are not labelled with actual names or descriptions, they are labelled with the IP address of their destination. I think that, while wakers may not be able to rea a written language, they have no problem with numbers, and would be able to read an IP address and think, "Ah; that's the IP address for New York Hub!"

--IMAGinES 08:31, 17 Jun 2005 (PDT)

You could even take that one step further and say that Wakers can find their way around Systems with Internal IP Addresses. After all, I'd imagine every building would be given one, just for record keeping and locational purposes.

Plus, it'd give me an excuse to have a Character say "There's No Place like 127.0.0.1". ^_^

--Igtenio