So here I am in the shower, thinking about all the devilish things to do to my players this coming weekend. When we left off, they were on Tatooine and had just stolen a pod racer from an Evil Team of Racers. Now the driver, they have a clear escape route, but the rest helping in the heist, they have to make it on their own power. So follow this train of thought:

"Well, they can just escape through the sewers!"

"Wait, that wont work. Mos Espa probably doesn't have a sewer network."

"Hold on - if they don't have sewers, where does the poop go?"

"Into a septic tank, I guess."

"Naw, moisture is way too valuable in a desert climate to let it sit in a tank like that. Poo is 75% water (give or take)!"

"So where does the poo go then?"

"Probably in a very efficient water reclamation system."

"Oh god, Luke grew up drinking pee water!"

"Hmmm, how can I make the fact that they're drinking pee water in the local cantinas known to the more delicate characters. . . ."

And so now you get a look into the mind of how Desslok writes adventures. Your welcome. . . .

. . .

It's times like these when I question every single action I have taken regarding joining this community, and then realizing that I wouldn't change a thing.

10 hours ago, Desslok said:

"Oh god, Luke grew up drinking pee water!"

Surely nobody thinks they carry around giant tanks of fresh water on starships?

But big whoop, if you've ever smelled a fart you're right there with them. We're filthy animals, we humans!

Supresses rant about how Tatooine is overused

12 hours ago, Desslok said:

So here I am in the shower, thinking about all the devilish things to do to my players this coming weekend. When we left off, they were on Tatooine and had just stolen a pod racer from an Evil Team of Racers. Now the driver, they have a clear escape route, but the rest helping in the heist, they have to make it on their own power. So follow this train of thought:

"Well, they can just escape through the sewers!"

"Wait, that wont work. Mos Espa probably doesn't have a sewer network."

"Hold on - if they don't have sewers, where does the poop go?"

"Into a septic tank, I guess."

"Naw, moisture is way too valuable in a desert climate to let it sit in a tank like that. Poo is 75% water (give or take)!"

"So where does the poo go then?"

"Probably in a very efficient water reclamation system."

"Oh god, Luke grew up drinking pee water!"

"Hmmm, how can I make the fact that they're drinking pee water in the local cantinas known to the more delicate characters. . . ."

And so now you get a look into the mind of how Desslok writes adventures. Your welcome. . . .

Being a hard core fan of Dune, this doesn't really tweak my triggers at all. When all the Fremen walk around in their urine and feces (yes it gets processed, but they still have to do it in their clothes), the idea that they have a waste treatment facility (something we have today, and use quite a lot) doesn't seem that bad to me. Also they do have an interstellar commerce, so it's likely the import a lot of water, along with other goods from more aquatic worlds, to supplement their recycling systems. Plus they have some kind of animal that produces blue milk, which means they likely have herd beasts for drinking as well as meat.

As to how to get this point across to your players, I'd probably have them have some kind of scene, where they hear a city wide notice, perhaps in one of the cantinas "Temperatures on surface at peak levels, water restrictions in place." And then have someone jokingly make a comment about taking his pee home with him, instead of wasting it at the public restroom. Or have someone say "hope your reclamation device is up to standard bartender! I've got 5 liters of your jomba juice to give back to the city! Drink up lads! Drinks are on me!!" *and then he grabs his crotch or something before wandering off to the bathroom* Stuff like that would probably work pretty well to make them consider that.

4 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

some kind of animal that produces blue milk

Bantha

28 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

Bantha

Doesn't really matter, but I understand the star wars fan's inability to let a bit of trivia go unresponded to.

15 hours ago, Desslok said:

So here I am in the shower, thinking about all the devilish things to do to my players this coming weekend. When we left off, they were on Tatooine and had just stolen a pod racer from an Evil Team of Racers. Now the driver, they have a clear escape route, but the rest helping in the heist, they have to make it on their own power. So follow this train of thought:

"Well, they can just escape through the sewers!"

"Wait, that wont work. Mos Espa probably doesn't have a sewer network."

"Hold on - if they don't have sewers, where does the poop go?"

"Into a septic tank, I guess."

"Naw, moisture is way too valuable in a desert climate to let it sit in a tank like that. Poo is 75% water (give or take)!"

"So where does the poo go then?"

"Probably in a very efficient water reclamation system."

"Oh god, Luke grew up drinking pee water!"

"Hmmm, how can I make the fact that they're drinking pee water in the local cantinas known to the more delicate characters. . . ."

And so now you get a look into the mind of how Desslok writes adventures. Your welcome. . . .

Just have the bar tender tell em, 'sorry folks, no ice for drinks, waste reclamation is working at lower power levels, until fixed, no extra processed urine for non essential water use.'

Of course the reality, particularly in a setting with Star Wars tech, is that there would never be water shortages on any planets. Too easy to grab enormous quantities of ice in a system and move them.

35 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

Just have the bar tender tell em, 'sorry folks, no ice for drinks, waste reclamation is working at lower power levels, until fixed, no extra processed urine for non essential water use.'

Of course the reality, particularly in a setting with Star Wars tech, is that there would never be water shortages on any planets. Too easy to grab enormous quantities of ice in a system and move them.

And yet the Lars family squeaks out an existence as moisture farmers - so that implies that even though there might be giant chunks of ice floating around in the system's oort cloud, there's no money in bringing them to the planet despite the high demand.

3 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

where they hear a city wide notice, perhaps in one of the cantinas "Temperatures on surface at peak levels, water restrictions in place."

The funny thing was? I rolled my "What is the weather like" die when they got there, and it was a heatwave. So I accidently set this up last session!

3 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

And then have someone jokingly make a comment about taking his pee home with him, instead of wasting it at the public restroom.

Or perhaps something like a bottle deposit. Drinks with water and/or ice in them have a 2 credit deposit added to the price. When you take "care of business" on site instead of taking it home with you, you get a claim ticket. Turn in the claim ticket and get a refund/discount on the next round.

You know, I threw this out as a WTF moment that just flitted through my brain, but I kind of like using it as background color.

56 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

Of course the reality, particularly in a setting with Star Wars tech, is that there would never be water shortages on any planets.

True that. But if we start replacing the Flash Gordon pulp aesthetic with actual science and how it would really work, things would start to fall apart quickly. I simply choose not to pull on that thread.

19 minutes ago, themensch said:

there's no money in bringing them to the planet despite the high demand.

I always thought that a smuggler with specialized cargo space (and some filters) could make a killing hauling water from somewhere close to Tatooine - but I chalked it up to the Hutts being richards by keeping the populace under their control by strictly regulating something like that.

5 minutes ago, Desslok said:

True that. But if we start replacing the Flash Gordon pulp aesthetic with actual science and how it would really work, things would start to fall apart quickly. I simply choose not to pull on that thread.

You could have an oppressive militaristic regime control all traffic to and from a planet with massive space guns and use the water as a control tool for a beat down oppressed population with no other choices for survival, which in turn might lead to a galactic wide revolution to cast down the tyrannical heartless thugs, maybe, if you could find that sort of thing in Star Wars............just a thought.........

18 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Or perhaps something like a bottle deposit. Drinks with water and/or ice in them have a 2 credit deposit added to the price. When you take "care of business" on site instead of taking it home with you, you get a claim ticket. Turn in the claim ticket and get a refund/discount on the next round.

You know, I threw this out as a WTF moment that just flitted through my brain, but I kind of like using it as background color.

That's what's kind of neat about the similarities between Dune and Tatooine. You can easily see how an arid planet would revolve around water in very serious ways. But yeah having a sign "Use of public toilets will provide discount on drinks, just show pee chit to bartender for your discount" would be a nice way to bring that point home.

Another good example of how culture would differ from ours, that's very scifi, is The Expanse book series (show is good, but books REALLY elaborate on space cultures and how they would evolve). How life support for a society that lives entirely on life support, has a zero tolerance policy for people who mess with it (they will space your butt for messing with the essentials). How they have different ideas about spatial awareness having spent a lot of their life in low-g, etc. Can make for some very interesting micro-cultures for your game setting.

24 minutes ago, Desslok said:

I always thought that a smuggler with specialized cargo space (and some filters) could make a killing hauling water from somewhere close to Tatooine - but I chalked it up to the Hutts being richards by keeping the populace under their control by strictly regulating something like that.

The question remains how expensive water really is compared to some other things you could smuggle in relation to the size it takes up in the hold. Grabbing a few ice asteroids via tractor beam and holding them outside the ship would likely be more lucrative, even if you have to process them in orbit and ferry them down as water.

@KungFuFerret

Quote

That's what's kind of neat about the similarities between Dune and Tatooine. You can easily see how an arid planet would revolve around water in very serious ways. But yeah having a sign "Use of public toilets will provide discount on drinks, just show pee chit to bartender for your discount" would be a nice way to bring that point home.

True. I'm not sure if it's actually canon, but I've seen a Let's Play of the beginner box adventure where the GM gave Teemo the most extravagant display of wealth possible on Tatooine: a wall-size aquarium.

1 hour ago, Cifer said:

@KungFuFerret

True. I'm not sure if it's actually canon, but I've seen a Let's Play of the beginner box adventure where the GM gave Teemo the most extravagant display of wealth possible on Tatooine: a wall-size aquarium.

Sounds like the session where Sam Witwer ran the cast of Rebels through the beginner game. They decided to go talk to Teemo, so Sam took a break and figured out what he wanted to do. The entry to Teemo’s palace had a “regular” aquarium along one length of wall and a Mon Cal ballet tank along the other.

Yup, that was the one.

What if all the ice asteroids in the system have been depleted, or they’re now too rare to be profitable? Keep in mind, galactic civilization has been going on for thousands of years.

5 hours ago, 2P51 said:

You could have an oppressive militaristic regime control all traffic to and from a planet with massive space guns and use the water as a control tool for a beat down oppressed population with no other choices for survival,

If memory serves me; the old, old Han Solo novel trilogy opened with Han smuggling water to a planet under exactly that situation

1 hour ago, Yaccarus said:

What if all the ice asteroids in the system have been depleted, or they’re now too rare to be profitable? Keep in mind, galactic civilization has been going on for thousands of years.

http://www.businessinsider.com/water-space-volume-planets-moons-2016-10

" The next time someone asks you where the biggest ocean is, point toward Jupiter. While Earth harbors about 320 million cubic miles of water, our planet is practically a desert compared to the rest of the solar system. A moon of Jupiter called Europa , for example, which is roughly the size of our own moon, likely hides a subsurface ocean with more than twice as much water as there is on Earth. Yet even that pales in comparison to Europa's neighbor Ganymede; more than 39 times as much water as our home planet is thought to reside there, though mostly as ice."

Water is everywhere in the universe.

In the galaxy? Yeah, it’s everywhere. In the Tatooine system? Not necessarily.

And if there’s no water in the solar system, it might be too hard to import from further away.

Aside from Tatooine, you’ve got two gas giants, so no water there. Of Tatooine’s three moons:

All seem to be rocky. The other seven moons in the system, we don’t know.

Another thing to consider is that Tatooine has just 200,000 sentients. Over an entire planet, that’s quite rural. Far Horizons lists the Darklighter homestead as having around a thousand square kilometers. That means the average farm could be 50 kilometers out.

Now, considering how much water you need to operate a farm, how far of a speeder/pipe journey it would be to get water there, how you would need a decent hyperspace commute to reach sizable amounts of water...

It’s not unreasonable to say that importing water would be expensive enough that moisture vaporators would be more efficient.

On 4/25/2018 at 2:51 PM, Dayham said:

. . .

It's times like these when I question every single action I have taken regarding joining this community, and then realizing that I wouldn't change a thing.

Welcome to the world, pal.

On 4/26/2018 at 9:49 AM, Yaccarus said:

In the galaxy? Yeah, it’s everywhere. In the Tatooine system? Not necessarily.

And if there’s no water in the solar system, it might be too hard to import from further away.

Aside from Tatooine, you’ve got two gas giants, so no water there. Of Tatooine’s three moons:

All seem to be rocky. The other seven moons in the system, we don  ’t know.

Another thing to consider is that Tatooine has just 200,000 sentients. Over an entire planet, that’s quite rural. Far Horizons lists th  e Darklighter homestea  d as having around a thousand square kilometers. That means the average farm could be 50 kilometers out.

Now, considering how much water you need to operate a farm, how far of a speeder/pipe journey it would be to get water there, how you would need a decent hyperspace commute to reach sizable amounts of water...

It’s not unreasonable to say that importing water would be expensive enough that moisture vaporators would be more efficient.

Understandable in practice, but water ice is amongst the most common materials in solar systems (unless the Star Wars Galaxy is radically different in composition to almost every other galaxy we've gotten spectrometer readings from). While Tatooine itself might be relatively free of water, the rest of it's solar system - especially those two aforementioned gas giants - would have enough water to drown the whole planet several thousand times over.

The issues here is that Star Wars is 1) is likely on the the worst franchises in existence when it comes to scale and 2) is from a time when space was still a big unexplored and misunderstood expanse and automation was a pipedream, but the simple fact is the moons of those gas giants and any potential rings, as well as any asteroids in the system probably have enough water to sustain Tatooine's minuscule population for millennia - if not lengths in the millions of years and it wouldn't take much to have a few droids and cheap freighters haul back some ice for sale (or go even easier, just tow a water rich body (a comet or asteroid) back and toss it as the planet.

4 hours ago, BipolarJuice said:

Understandable in practice, but water ice is amongst the most common materials in solar systems (unless the Star Wars Galaxy is radically different in composition to almost every other galaxy we've gotten spectrometer readings from). While Tatooine itself might be relatively free of water, the rest of it's solar system - especially those two aforementioned gas giants - would have enough water to drown the whole planet several thousand times over.

The issues here is that Star Wars is 1) is likely on the the worst franchises in existence when it comes to scale and 2) is from a time when space was still a big unexplored and misunderstood expanse and automation was a pipedream, but the simple fact is the moons of those gas giants and any potential rings, as well as any asteroids in the system probably have enough water to sustain Tatooine's minuscule population for millennia - if not lengths in the millions of years and it wouldn't take much to have a few droids and cheap freighters haul back some ice for sale (or go even easier, just tow a water rich body (a comet or asteroid) back and toss it as the planet.

Assuming the Hutts, who control that sector of space, cared enough, and thought it profitable enough to bother setting up such an infrastructure. I mean you can see examples of that IRL, for drought-stricken areas. The 1st World countries could easily set up systems to keep them in water for centuries, but more often than not, they don't. Because there's no money in it.

So setting up an inter-planetary water system, while possible in Star Wars, it probably wouldn't be very likely. If Tatooine was in the Republic controlled zones, and this was during the height of the Republic's Golden Age, then yeah, I'd say they probably would have such a system in place. But during the Empire? Under Hutt control? Nah, nobody gives a shite about what happens to a few fringers on a sandball in space. And if anyone did set that up, the cost of water would be so high, it would likely be out of the price range for the common Tatooinian.

Of course, it could be a fun market for a group of enterprising PC's to try and corner, if you have a party with a Trader in it. Not sure what they'd get as payment, but it could make for some fun roleplaying if nothing else.

Another thing I forgot to mention would tariffs. Jabba could have made those insanely high.

So for those of you on the edge of your seats, wanting to know how the "Ewww, pee juice!" reactions went down - it landed with a thud. The bartender that ran the place that the players were working from mentioned the pee chits, and there wasn't the hoped for reaction of "gross!!!" - nobody blinked.

Ah well, there will be other instances of nasty color in the future.

On 4/25/2018 at 2:53 PM, themensch said:

And yet the Lars family squeaks out an existence as moisture farmers - so that implies that even though there might be giant chunks of ice floating around in the system's oort cloud, there's no money in bringing them to the planet despite the high demand.

That's because everybody there just pisses into the wind and waits for evaporator farms to collect it.