Early Starfire Material

Has David ever published his early Starfire scenarios or writings online? I'm an old fan of the game and have some of his early Nexus writings. Would love to see the early stuff as new work in this series.

I'm also a fan of the old Starfire material. My fist Starfire experience was the timeline in nexus 6 from 1983. To the best of my knowledge none of the early material is available online or at least not easy to find.

Given the dearth of material and the lack of any real writings of the pre crusade era, I've decided to try my hand at writing a Starfire novel. I'm focusing on the time preiod stretching from 2053 when FGE Hermes stumbled on the warp point to Centauris through the end of the first interstellar war. At this point I've written through Hermes return to our solar system and the preparations for a full survey of the Centauris system.

In addition to the story I'm planning on including the ship control sheets for the FGE (and later TFN) survey and transport ships that were in use prior to 2205. These sheets will be created using 3rd edition Starfire rules.

Once I finish the novel through TFN Discovery's first trip to VX-134 I'd like to find a way to get input as to how well I've kept to the old starfire timeline and wether continuing would be worthwhile.

I wanted to post my first 2 ship designs for comment

FGE Hermes ES (2) AX(I)(BBs)HLhQ(I) (4) 8 Hull Spaces
FGE Galicia ES (2) AX(I)(BBs)HHQs(I) (4) 8 Hull Spaces

As you can see Hermes and Galicia are near sisters. Hermes being first off the line was built with larger crew accomodations for two reasons. First as this was Earth's first true long duration mission spaceship (Prometheus being designed as a test bed for the ion engine), actual crew needed was open to debate. Second, even if a smaller crew was needed, the additional space available would allow for more scientists. Once the actual crew size was determined, Galicia was converted to have a larger cargo hold to allow it to be used as a resupply vessel as well as a survey ship in it's own right.

I also decided that Hermes and Galicia were constructed in orbit and since they were designed to survey the outer planets that atmospheric landing capacity was unnecessary. In compensation both ships were equipped with short range orbital tranfer shuttles.

As I envision my story I'm planning on keeping this design philosophy for the following generation of survey ships. It's only with the class immediately preceding TFN Discovery that atmospheric landing capacity was added and the boat bay deleted. Also, Discovery's immediate predecessor class was the first armed vessels designed by the TFG. They were armed as in addition to their survey duties, they also doubled as Customs Patrol ships in frontier systems.

Just a quick update. One of the problems I've had to face in writing this story is the invention of the ion engine by Earth. People familiar with the old Starfire game system know that the ion engine is what marks the transition from an industrial level society to a high tech society. The problem with this is that you essentially can go from effecively stop to .1c in one fell swoop. Part of my story shows Earth's incremental development of the ion engine from FGE Prometheus with a top speed of .017c through Hermes/Galicia at .067c to their replacements with .1c top speed. In fact my story opens with Hermes hitting .05c in stress tests just before stumbling across the Centauris warp point. When Galicia is sent out on the search and rescue mission it's crew redlined the engines to .067c. The way I'm trying to portay this is by effectively making the early engines a hybrid of the familiar commercial/millitary engines seen in the existing novels. These engines are full millitary but with safety interlocks designed to prevent overuse. The best analogy I can think of offhand is HMS Apollo's trip from Grayson back to Manticore in The Honor of the Queen, where Apollo bounced off the iota wall.

One other area that I'm exploring in the early chapters is the ecology of Centauris A-2. Othet than the length of the day and the size of the moon (really a double planet) I haven't read of the planets indigenous lifeforms or ecology. I've decided on a climate similar to holocene optimum Earth, but with the most advanded creatures being roughly late permian (i.e. amplibians and cynodonts on land, fish and early marine reptiles in the water, insects in the air with the predominant flora being ferns and early conifers. I'm also dealing with the adapations that the native flora and fauna have made due to Centauris being a binary system.

I'll post furthur updates as time allows. Feel free to comment as I'm early enough into this project that major rewrites are very doable.

Hi, has this progressed any further at all?

I'm an old Starfire player from way back (I've still got the 1st Edition ziplock bag edition somewhere), and I've always loved this game and the universe it lived in.