On 5/18/2017 at 5:33 PM, Nytwyng said:

If you want the ship to be a PC, but have that player included, give the ship the ability to either transfer consciousness to a droid body or to remotely control a droid body. Problem solved.

But I guess I'm the odd man out on Babylon 5 here. They lost me in the first five minutes of the pilot, and despite several attempts at watching it again based on recommendations of friends whose tastes I generally trust and share, just never warmed to it.

It did, however, provide great, funny anecdotes for comics writer Peter David to share about his association with the show.

B5 is my favorite scifi show and if Crusade had actually gotten a chance I thin it would have become my favorite scifi tv based franchise. Sheriden is my favorite scifi captain followed by Sisko from DS9.

That said the first season was one of the weakest IMO though it set up a lot of points that led to great things later. Season two was better, three and four were awesome and five backslid though I think a large part of that was due to the number of filler episodes they had to put in it. They literally weren't sure they were going to be able to make a fifth season until the last minuite, in fact the series finale was filmed as part of season four then they had to rush out a season four finale when word came they were going to get to make season five. Because of this an ongoing arc which became the main focus during season four and was originally planned to continue into season five got changed so it ended at the end of season four to make sure that it got finished and the writers were left scrambling to fill in the gap when season five was confirmed.

Glad you enjoyed it.

I just never found anything "for me" in it. JMS's later run on the Spider-Man comic has since cemented the notion that his output and my tastes will intersect very rarely at best.

But, to quote Bruce Hornsby and the Range: that's just the way it is.

10 hours ago, RogueCorona said:

B5 is my favorite scifi show and if Crusade had actually gotten a chance I thin it would have become my favorite scifi tv based franchise. Sheriden is my favorite scifi captain followed by Sisko from DS9.

That said the first season was one of the weakest IMO though it set up a lot of points that led to great things later. Season two was better, three and four were awesome and five backslid though I think a large part of that was due to the number of filler episodes they had to put in it. They literally weren't sure they were going to be able to make a fifth season until the last minuite, in fact the series finale was filmed as part of season four then they had to rush out a season four finale when word came they were going to get to make season five. Because of this an ongoing arc which became the main focus during season four and was originally planned to continue into season five got changed so it ended at the end of season four to make sure that it got finished and the writers were left scrambling to fill in the gap when season five was confirmed.

Jonathan Archer of Star Trek enterprise was my favorite starship captain, halfway between Kirk and Picard... the sweet spot

Enterprise was my favorite trek series

On 5/23/2017 at 11:37 PM, EliasWindrider said:

Jonathan Archer of Star Trek enterprise was my favorite starship captain, halfway between Kirk and Picard... the sweet spot

Enterprise was my favorite trek series

Sorry for the very late reply

Many of my rpg characters are Officer: Commodore/Shipwright or Engineer: Shipwright/Commodore hybrids like Sisko was so I'll always have a soft spot for him.

Vulture droids are droid starships.

Moya, from the Farscape series (my favourite sci-fi space series, with Firefly), was a large transport ship that... got pregnant! Althought she needed a pilot with whom she was in symbiosis and was not fully independent to go where she wanted. Also Farscape does a good job in the feeling of "advanced technology in a decadent part of the universe" (we can call it "fringy style"?)

The Arcadia, from manga/anime Captain Harlock, is a battlecruiser with the consciousness of its creator inside the supercomputer that is the brain of the ship.

The Normandy, from Mass Effect 2 and 3 videogames, had an IA called EDI that eventually possessed a droid to go and see the world outside in a more... acceptable size to interact with humans XD. The Reapers are another example of living large ships, but they... well... they will make a Sith Lord blush.

An idea that has come to my mind: if you want it to make the ship more "mystic/misterious/creepy" and less "ship with an IA", you can draw the concept of awakened objects from animistic cultures. That is, the use given to the "object" and the experiences, emotions and believes of its users resonates with the dormant spirit of the "object" until it awakes. Only objects passed from generations or objects used by really skillfull or with a powerfull aura people, or objects given a very special symbolism or relevance, could awake, and the awakening could be trigered slowly or by an event (a ritual, a tragedy, etc.).

For example, the Enterprise from Star Trek could have cultivated a kind and protector instinct due to the powerfull aura of its relevant crew members that loved and cared for the ship, and also because there is power in the name "Enterprise", that has been given to very special and unique ships (and with similar dessign, the next an evolution of its predecessors) with special crews and similar resonance, and after five generations of Enterprises, the last one awakens defending the crew from a fatal romulan attack. Maybe she can even comunicate ideas, emotions or short messages to the people she cares.

Mix it with the mythology of the force, and you have an "awakened starship", or vibrosword (Stormbringer comes to mind), with no other spirit than its own.

Of course, some Dark Side users could try to perform the most horrible acts inside a ship and try to give it a relevance to make its name get power, and with dark rituals awaken the ship from the movie "Event Horizon"....

Star Wars has a couple of AI ships, or at least partially incorporate droids to make them function.

• Katana Fleet
• IG-2000 could be considered automated due to its "sophisticated programming" and it was piloted by IG-88
• The Millennium Falcon had 3 different droid brains wired into the ship's systems.

So If you were going to crew a ship with droids, do you think 1 droid per 3 crew would be a good ratio?

The series Killjoys has a great example of a sentient ship in "Lucy", the main characters' ship. "Lucy" is a snarky AI with a quick wit, dry delivery, sarcastic quips, and something of a crush on the ship's main engineer, all of which contribute to her being a fun extra character in the series.

For what the ship can do, I'd think about taking a leaf out of the "Star Trek Adventures" game, by Modiphius. A ship has a set of stats similar to a PC, and when a character is using their skills to accomplish something - say, the doctor diagnosing a disease - the character might roll a Reason + Medicine task, while the ship itself rolls a Computer + Medicine task to assist the character. I could see something similar in SWRPG where the sentient ship might make a roll and success could add a BOOST dice or two to the PC's attempt.