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Ares Magazine 09 - DeltaVee - Text
Ares Magazine 09 - DeltaVee - Text
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THE MAGAZINE OF
SCIENCE FICTION
AND FANTASY
ADVENTURE GAMING
inU.S.A. All rights reserved. All editorial and general mail should be sent to
Simulation! Publicaimns, Inc., 3&7Park Auenue Souih, Naw, roik, N. V. 10010. FACTS FOR FANTASY SUSAN SHWART7, Ph.D 13
ARES is published b-i monthly. One yeer tsis issues! iubacri prions are 516 00
Please 5ena checks 01 money ciders, only.
SCIENCE FOR
FOREIGN SALES: GREAT BRITAIN Er EUROPE British and European SCIENCE FICTION JOHNB0ARDMAN, Ph.D
ENCLOSURES: d,/„^, ™ p . cnu ,e ,s,n fl , l,lo S; ,oadback Ca, l.. a ubsC ,lp,i n. , m .
will be a story by Harry Harrison to ac- to notice that the rules to this issue's game who are avid role-players. Predictable
company the game, Science for Science are printed as a separate booklet. The total enough But where does the wide spin in ac-
Fiction, Facts for Fantasy, reviews, and page count of the twin-booklet magazine is ceptance leave us vis-a-vis punting materiel
52 (a 30% increase overthenormal40 pages). not wanted by one group and highly desire-
much more.
This is due partly to The convenience of print able toanother? Redmond
When to Expect Nr. 10 ing all the Universe IDeitaVee rules at once.
Domestic Subscribers: If you have not It's also to allow you to buy the Basic Set of
received your copy of-4res nr. 10 by9 Oc- Universe {which includes the role-playing
tober 1981, notify our Customer Service material but not rbe tactical combat system)
Department. Please include your Custo- and thereby have a complete Universe game
mer Code and issue of expiration, both of with no duplicate components.
which should be found on this issue's We may very well follow this procedure
mailing label, just above your name.
Foreign Subscribers: Add eight weeks to
on all our Ares games in the future — i.e.,
print the rules separately — which ts not ex-
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New
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York, N. V. 1Q01Q
the above date to allow far the lymphatic actly innovative; it's the way Strategy & Tac- 12121673-4103
pace of international mail. tics magazine was configured over 10 years
On the Cover
John W. Pierard's representation of a
Dagger class ship from DeltaVee, the
ago. would think that this would be con-
I
also clear historically that Christianity owe their existence to wizards. Once in the took at it that way. Magic owes its powers to
ultimately conquers. In the subtext of the past,one wizard created dragons for reasons the understanding of a deeper meaning of
story, there is the clear implication that there no one understands — a wizard gone wrong the situation — you are tapping into some of
is something civilizing about Christianity and — and let them loose upon the world. Ulrich the powers gods have.
something useless about magic in spite of its is one of the last real magicians who "Yet there definitely is a problem in the
great powers. At the end of the film, it's the understands his craft in a systematic way; his magic trade. To get the serious attention of
revisionists of history who have taken over as teacher and patron, Balisarius, was much people around you, you have to entertain
to who killed the dragon. more powerful yet. One reason why the old them with parlor tricks, or they're never go-
"Our movie is definitely pre-medieval. man is willing to go up against the dragon, ing to understand when you're doing some-
No armor, no chivalry, no ladies in wimples and also why he hestates, is that he knows thing really important and impressive. It hap-
patrolling the parapets of high castles with about the history of dragons. In the subtext, pens to everybody. We occasionally give
their veils blowing in the breezes. ..there's no we imply that creating the dragon is beyond people tours of ILM where the special effects
courtly love. We feel that sort of material has him and, possibly, so too is getting rid of it. are done. They look at these absolutely
been used up over the years by various "It's always been a great regret of mine amazing things going on there and say,
historical costume melodramas. find very
I that dragons didn't actually fly through the 'That's nice.' So, you need something a little
little in such pieces to differentiate them from skies of earth. It's the same kind of nostalgia SHOWBI21 Even magicians need that. You
the Western. Certain stories like tvanhoe and you feel for blimps. There's something really have to go out there and leave 'em
The Master of Ballantrae work, but the prob- magnificent about such things. Why aren't laughing.
lem is that you can wind up with The Black they real? And isn't it a shame? "Of course, magic is hard to do even for
Shield of Fa/worth "Magic is something else I feel that way those who do it well. There is a certain kind
"We wanted something quite different: about. I'm interested in the alternate worlds of naturalness we designed into the magic in
to convince viewers that dragons are ab- where all the various tests to being human Dragonslayer, making it a mystic thing that is
solutely real and inhabit a world which is ap- that we apply to the ordinary world apply,, deep, and that has to be tapped into. It's not
propriate to their existence. We wanted a but with a set of circumstances which make so much that you have the power, but that
much stranger landscape that is much less everything clearer. I'm interested particularly you are somehow able to get into sympathy
civilized, where people have very strange in the kind of mythology you find in The Ring with some underlying power and act like an
values. The dragon is not the villain of the of Nibelung, which is my choice as the amplifier. In the movie if you want to bring
piece; he's a force of nature that's run ram- greatest single fantasy that has ever been put down thunderbolts on the monster, you
pant. The villains are the people running the together. It is Wagner's 19th Century version can't have them crackle off your fingertips;
kingdom of Urland who, because they can't of the German and Norse myths, in which he you have to summon up a storm and, once
figure out how to kill the dragon, try to buy it overlaid 19th Century humanism onto the old the storm is there with the power to generate
off by sacrificing a virgin on the solstices and and severe and strange stories from our lightning, you can then direct it out of the
clouds onto the beast. We've tried to give a Barwood finds no strange conspiracy in a been invested in the situation so that when
certain kind of reality to the magic, so that trend towards fantasy. Certainly the explo- you actually start play, you're full of all the
wielding it is a difficult process.. .and it sion in the technology for special effects craziness that goes on aboard theZnutar. It's
.
sometimes doesn't work realized in Star Wars, and the resulting wave very engaging and very adroit and you can
The genesis of Dragonslayer goes back of science fiction films, made both writers actually play wihout first having to take a
over two years. Bobbins and Barwood met realize that these same elements could be seminar. For the same reasons, my favorite
at the USC film school and have co-written adapted to fantasy, but neither man was SPI game is Creature That Ate Sheboygan.
movies such as The Sugar/and Express, aware of the new boom about to hit the fun to cook up your own monster and set
It's
MacArthur, The Bingo Long Travelling All market. "I didn't find out about these films him loose."
Stars and Motor Kings, and Corvette Sum- until after we had written our screenplay,"
While he does enjoy boardgames, Bar-
mer. Both men have a strong interest in fan- Barwood said. "For instance, was totally I
wood is far less interested in fantasy role-
tasy and science fiction. "My partner and I
unaware of the actual concept of Dungeons playing. "I'd rather write a role-playing
have been interested in fantasy and science and Dragons. was amazed to discover it
I
the process of making monsters charming, always been interested in games. There's One of the highest motives man has. The
such as the Drak Pack, a Saturday morning something of the thrill of the stories working world too much with us; there's an opacity
is
cartoon series, in which a vampire, were- themselves out in the process of playing the to actual experience that's boring and baf-
wolf, and Frankenstein's monster are por- game. Every time you sit down to play a fling at the same time. Drama and literature
trayed as heroes. "I find that perverse to tell game — it doesn't matter what kind of game try to liven things up and make sense of life,
you the truth, "he says. "Dragons are terrible it is — there is a shape and feel and drama to
but realism (though love it) has its limits. It's
I
creatures and ought to be thought of as it which is very much like a good book or a
much easier (and a lot more fun) to try to
such. Dragons are bad news. They snarl and wonderful movie. In a simulation game there understand the Human Condition if you're
smell bad, and if they blow fire over you, is even more emphasis on the storytelling
creating a perilous realm somewhere rather
you're a dead (and roasted) duck. They're aspect of the gaming. There's something than modeling reality — where one day you
surprisingly resourceful and very hard to kill. unique about simulation games in that you step into the street, get hit by a car, and
Watch out for them and don't let them injure move all your men and then you resolve com- you're dead before you ever figure out what
your heroes. That's my advice to young bat, which sometimes doesn't work. In it all meant. So, if you're going to escape,
America." chess, you move a man into a square and the
you might as well do a thorough job of it. I
He also dislikes the way many monsters enemy piece is gone. In a simulation game certainly don't want to be a trustee in the
are cheapened nowadays. "Sentimentalizing that doesn't always happen.
prison-garden of realistic fiction. Almost any
is one of the great bourgeois traits of the "Nor is it all skill that's involved. There's kind of Story which makes a bigger leap is of
world, and has gone on for centuries and will the mystical element of chance that enters interest to me.
go on for more centuries. There's simply no the game via the roll of the die, but it doesn't "I feel escapism is a truly noble impulse.
way around that. The point of Dragonslayer dominate the game, as in Yahtzee for exam- And think it operates just as well when
I
is to go against that trend. We went back to ple. The chance factor also tends to lower you're sitting there with your little counters
the basics. We take the view that dragons the combatic temperature and make the planning a laser attack on the Pandora or
were real and that the last one was dispatch- game enjoyable even when you're getting reading Midsummer Night's Dream, or out-
ed. ..and right away there was confusion creamed. Somehow even when the monster witting Vermithrax in Dragonslayer.
about what happened. The moment magic is stomping Sheboygan into the ground and As to the future, Barwood says about
goes out of the world, it becomes a rumor in all your tanks are destroyed, it's Still fun. planning a sequel, "I'm not planning
peoples' memories. Soon the horrible tales "1 also find exciting the idea that sides anything. I'm totally exhausted. I've been
become sentimentalized. Suddenly history aren't exactly mirror images of each other. working on this film for two years. Even
becomes legend and then myth and finally There is such an imaginative quality when though movies aren't going to solve the
silly cartoons. When you see a picture of you're sitting down playing a game. Your world's troubles, they are still awfully hard to
Pete's Dragon, it's as though you were look- brain sort of vaults into a storytelling mode make and they take a lot of work. I'm ready
ing at a beast which has gone through so and you begin participating in your own to go lie down.
many changes that people have forgotten it story as it unfolds. "One day my spirits will revive and I'll
was based on something real." "My introduction to wargames happen- wake up and look around and so will my part-
With the sudden spate of new fantasy ed about ten years ago. It was Kriegspiel by ner, and we'll figure out what comes next. If
movies released or about to open — Ex- Avalon Hill. My current favorite is Awful the movie turns out to be an enormous suc-
calibur. Clash of the Titans, Conan, Super- Green Things from Outer Space ITSR). The cess, perhaps it will plan something for us."
man II, Knightriders, and Dragonslayer — rules have a wonderful imagination that has
An exciting, new multi-player game
is now available.
A game designed to have great appeal
to the most advanced players
as well as those who've never before
played adventure games.
This July SPIES! players will compete
fora $1,000 First Prize
at the national adventure gaming convention, Origins.
SPIES! is now available nationwide
for $15 through retail outlets.
JSP"?
>
GAME DESIGN
within the organization a player controls as and chrome. The overall opinion was thai the discreet areas on a half-size map, the spiral
well as his Diplomatic Sector rating. The out- game was great; they played it often, they quadrant layout almost designed tself. I
come of a Confederation vote is determined never grew tired of it and they expected to made it such that the number of players in a
by a simple majority of votes. Once a player continue to play it indefinitely. Some of them game determines which part of the map is
is expelled from the Confederation, he may expressed unease when told them that I
I used during play.
not take part in any further negotiations in was working on a science fiction version of designed one scenario, called the Five
I
the Confederation until reinstated, a highly the game, they were afraid that would I
Empires Stalemate, and began testing the
infrequent event in our games. change the system for the worse. game. As we tested, began to rewrite the
I
Another unique aspect of the game is With my mind thoroughly steeped in the entire Empire rules booklet section by sec-
that players may vote 10 end the game after a opinions of actual Empires players and after tion. I fed the newmy testers as
rules to I
certain number of game turns have passed. my own appraisal, sat down to design my
I finished them. Immediately it became ob-
Most scenarios have two end times listed, game. My first basic design decision was to vious that the Confederation rules wrote in 1
one is maximum limit and the other is the change very little of the original design. I
(he beginning would have to be expanded-
number of game turns played until voting decided to modify the existing mechanics to With the help of my testers we thrashed out
begins. A player who is far ahead in the game fit an interstellar situation, but to keep real a kind of forum mechanic, or Holy Roman
can often vote an early end to play. This vote changes to a minimum. wanted Empires I Empire as they called it. We continued to
is open to all players, but Confederation players to be able to get into Sword with a work on this rules section all through
members receive more votes for each Con- minimum of effort and yet have a different development; indeed, the final additions to it
federation system they control. experience, notjusta rehash of the original. I
were made after the game had been turned
The Sword and the Stars offers players changed the names of mechanics which are into the art department. We were very happy
an interesting strategic overview of the dif- virtually identical in both games and with the rule for voting to end the game. I
ficulties inherent in building and maintaining modified the Haider and Magnate rules. also I have used a version of this idea in other
a galaxy-wide empire. Though it does have began to think about how could create a I
games have designed and developed, such
I
many similarities to Empires of the Middle diplomatic entity by modifying the existing as Bulge, Pea Ridge and The Alamo. In
Ages, it definitely has its own subtle dif- Church mechanics. created the Confedera-
I Sword, continued to explore another way
I
ferences that give it a unique flavor. The Em- tion of Worlds and began to write rules. to keep the players in uncertainty as to when
pires game system has proven well able to the game would end.
spawn an offspring with a distinctive science SAMPLE SYSTEM REGISTER During playtesting created the mvthos I
fiction character and interest. of the races and ideologies of the various star
Justin Leites systems and created the other scenarios,
with the help of Justin Leites. Towards the
end of testing we began to work very hard on
Designer's Notes the Galactic Cycle campaign scenario. The
scenario was very wild and didn't resemble
Empires of the Middle Ages was releas-
the other scenarios at all. couldn't believe
the spring of I960, The reaction of the
I
ed in
the strange empires which were being
public and game critics was immediate and
created when the players had the freedom to
enthusiastic. Unscheduled all night games of
Empires sprang up at Origins 80 and other
do what they pleased. Once the mechanics
for this scenario were finished, prepared the I
400, and reduce the map from full to half- drastically ihe I
John also recommended using circular stel- each Round until it again reaches 3. When
and study its rules until knew them back-
I
lar readouts as he had done in Freedom, the Oraka leave play, the Tech Level of
wards and forwards. Then Icalled several
which agreed was a good idea. thought Harvest is immediately reduce to a Level of
groups of gamers, who played Empires a lot,
l I
then began to work on the scenarios. It System and the Seat's Tech Level is 2 or 3
not have been optional in their opinion.
I
Lasers in Space
by John Boardman, Ph.D.
Ever since the origin of science fiction ammonia was chosen for the first maser
magazines in 1926, a popular weapon for because it has a fairly stable excited state at
spacemen has been the "disintegrator ray." 0.0001 electron volt above its ground state.
Small, hand-held models substituted for
Townes and his research group put to-
This energy corresponds to the emitted fre-
gether the first practical application of this
pistols in the son of space epic which was quency of 23,870 Megahertz.
really just a re-written Western romance,
principle at Columbia University in 1954. It
Since all the emitted photons have the
moved from the deserts of Arizona to those was called Microwave Amplification by
same frequency and are emitted by the same
of Mars and substituting greenskins for "red-
Stimulated Amission of fladiation, or
process, the emerging beam is highly coher-
"maser." The waves used had a frequency of
skins." Spaceships were armed with larger ent and of one frequency only, or "mono-
23,870 Megahertz - approximately 100
versions of the same blasters, and battles chromatic." This radiation can be concen-
times the frequency of channel 13 on a televi-
took place as spaceships tried to evade their trated into an extremely narrow beam, with
sion. The wavelength was 1.25 centimeters.
enemies' rays and get their own aimed pro- an energy concentration which can be as
Edmund "World- Wrecker" Hamilton Ammonia molecules were used to intensify
perly. high as 1 ,000,000 Megawatts per square cen-
the radiation by stimulated emission. In 1960,
weapon to its ultimate
carried this sort of timeter. Since most of the energy input of a
the principle was extended to visible light;
1947 novel The Star Kings; a ray
limit in his laser goes to keeping its electrons in an ex-
the resulting device was called a "laser" for
mounted on the spaceship of the Galactic cited state, the laser is a device of rather low
tight Amplification by Stimulated Emission
Empire proved capable of destroying space efficiency — 2.% at best. However, though
of fladiation.
itself, including an enemy battle fleet that oc- the output energy is only a few percent of the
cupied that space. In order for the laser effect to occur, input energy, it is very highly concentrated
The "disintegrator ray," or simply "ray," most of the atoms in the amplifier must have and coherent.
was badly overworked in the science fiction electrons in an excited state. Since the unex- There is even talk now of exotic forms of
of that era. Eventually fans began calling it cited, or "ground," state, is more usual, lasers, such as a X-ray and a gamma-ray
"something you can't see that turns such a situation Is called an "inverted popula- laser. The shorter electromagnetic radiation
something you can see into something you tion." As they are stimulated to give off is, the more energy it carries. The visible light
can't see." tn Astounding Science Fiction for photons of the same frequency as the inci- laser is much more powerful than the maser,
August, 1939, an exited German rocket ex- dent photons, the electrons in these atoms so it should seem that X-ray or gamma ray
pert named Willy Ley proved to the satisfac- fall to their ground state. Energy must there- lasers could carry more energy still. Re-
tion of most of the current science fiction fore be supplied to keep up the inverted search, much of it classified for military
readers that it couldn't be done anyway. In population, and this excited state must be reasons, is now going on in this particular
order to pack a wallop such as the pulp fic- stable enough to stay excited. For example. area of inquiry.
tion attributed to it, such a ray would have to
be made of coherent tight-beam radiation.
Some way would have to be found that
would take the originally random radiations
from the ray's source (usually "charges" in-
serted into the blaster-like shells such as are
loaded into a fieldpiece) and make them
coherent with one another. Ley wrote that
this would be impossible, and that space
warfare would probably take the form of
spaceships firing solid projectiles at each
other, much like contemporary battleships.
Considering the technological capabili-
ties of the time, Ley was quite correct, but a
1916 paper by Albert Einstein had already
pointed the way towards making rays of
coherent light a feasible weapon. Einstein "
showed that if a solid substance is struck by
a photon of a particular frequency, an elec-
tron in it can give off another photon of the
same frequency, thus reinforcing the inci-
dent beam of photons with another photon
of the same energy. IThe energy of a photon,
or unit -of electromagnetic radiation,
depends only on its frequency.) To do this,
the solid substance must be energized; some
of this energy will appear as coherent emit-
ted photons of the same frequency as the in-
cident photons
a second! ages. Information of the three-dimensional have to be lifted into orbit for each laser-
Humans are not the first to create this position of an object can be recorded on armed satellite, at an estimated cost of
effect for it has been observed that suitable film. A laser beam is then directed $12,000,000,000 for each one. And the re-
stimulated emission is going on in nature as through this film, and the image is projected cent experience of the US Armed Forces in-
well.Maser radiation has been detected by in space. The first really public application of dicates that such a cost estimate is never
radio telescopes, coming from hydroxyl "holography" took place in the window of likely to be in error through being too large.
molecules in interstellar space. The pumping Cartier, the famous jewelry firm, in 1972. Furthermore, a laser-armed satellite is
mechanism in this case is infrared radiation Crowds of usually unflappable New Yorkers vulnerable. It could be effectively blinded by
from nearby stars, which excites hydroxyl stopped traffic on Fifth Avenue to see a a laser beam, from another satellite or from
12
the ground- Alternatively, if a spy gets hold isting network of long-distance transmission which beams solar energy to earth and other
of the codes, false instructions could be sent lines. Several alternate target facilities might planets. The technology is taken for granted,
to it. Even though the United States broke be needed if the rotation of the earth carried and the story concerns the transfer of the
the Japanese naval code during World War one such site away from the range of the station from human to robot control. When
no one at Pearl Harbor would have satellite. A synchronous-orbit satellite
1
Fantasy enterprise.
been
Perhaps because his cult is said to have
instituted by Romulus, the founder of
reconquering Armenia. In 1071, they saw
their chance.
In that year the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan
Rome, or Numa Pompilius, his successor, (= Mountain Lion) set out for Syria and at-
by Susan Shwartz, Ph.D. the Romans placed his rituals at the forefront tacked, along the way, several Byzantine
of all their religious observance — even towns. His lieutenant Afsin did the same
God of Beginnings ahead of Jupiter. He was honored on the thing and took the fortress of Manzikert in
first day of every month. January of that year. Then the Sultan's forces
As most people know, Janus was the
His temple in the Roman Forum had became snowed up in the Tzamandus Pass,
Roman god whose name provided the root
for themonth of January. But he had many gates which were open in time of war and unable to move until the spring thaw.
other meanings in Roman mythology as well.
closed in the occasional time of peace — After he let Alp Arslan advance, the
To start with, not even the Romans once during Numa's reign, three times under Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes prepared to
knew the origin of his name. One of the most Augustus, and then under Nero, Marcus attack the Seljuk's rear in force. He assem-
Aurelius, Commodus, Gordius III, and in the bled a huge army at Erzerum, some eight
inspired guesses suggested that its root form
Fourth Century. Given that Rome was miles from Manzikert. While historians argue
was Jana, also used sometimes instead of
Diana (for the goddess of the hunt). Because allegedly founded in the early Eighth Century on the size of this army (estimates range
jana derives from dius (the same root as the B.C., we can see that it was very seldom at from 200,000 to one million men — and even
Indo-European Dyaus meaning Zeus, god of peace. accounting for artistic exaggeration and
the lightning), scholars tend to think that
Larousse Encyclopedia ot Mythology boasting, that's a big armyl), we know it con-
Janus was a solar god before he was sisted of Byzantines, Russians, Khazars,
anything else.
Manzikert Alans, Uzes, Armenians, Germans, and Nor-
For centuries, the Byzantine armies mans. The Emperor was accompanied by
His functions in Roman mythology and part of the Varangian guard (principally
were the most powerful on earth. Byzantium
politics were wide. He was first of all the god had the reputation — and deservedly so - Scandinavians, with some English) and with
of doorways, whether of public gates or for hiring the best mercenaries, equipping cavalry of the Tagmata, aristocrats among
private doors. Since he was commonly the Byzantine regiment.
and paying them well, and using them skill-
depicted with two faces, he could observe fully, All this came to an end in the Eleventh Along with the army came a vast
the interior and exterior of a house or city. number of engineers, laborers, and servants
Century.
His emblems were the key to open and close The Empire's principal recruiting ground to operate the siege-engines. So perhaps on-
ell doors and the rod to
drive away interlopers. had been Armenia. After its thematic, or pro- ly forty percent of this force were actual
Since he was god of the gates, he vincial,armies were disbanded, however, combatants. Of this number, only a fraction
became the god of departure and return, and Armenia fell into the possession of the Seljuk were Byzantines or regular army. The rest
therefore, the god of all communications. He Turks by 1067. From this point on, the Turks were poor in quality — ill-trained, ill-
both men, the object turned out to be a mere n and accounted for the anomaly in
Mercury's motion. The objects which the
Unpredicted irregularities in the motion 19th Century astronomers had seen against
of Mercury were responsible for another the Sun's disk were almost certainly small
"phantom planet." A century after Sir Isaac sunspots.
Newton put forward his law of universal 1 he only other place in the Solar System
gravitation. Mercury's motion seemed not where there is "room" for another planet is
by John Board man, Ph.D.
precisely to obey it. The French astronomer beyond Pluto. Unless someone is so for-
Urbain J.J. Leverrier. who had predicted tunate as actually to see it, such a planet
The Phantom Planets Neptune's existence from irregularities in the could be found only from its gravitational ef-
The
usual astronomy text will list the motion of Uranus, tried to do the same thing fects on known planets or on comets. Since
nine planets of the Solar System in their for Mercury, and in 1859 claimed that a comets are so much smaller, the effects on
known order outward from the Sun, from planet, or group of planets, closer than Mer- them would be more obvious. As far back as
Mercury to Pluto. Yet from time to time cury to the Sun was responsible. This planet the mid-19th Century, an 18-year-old Brazili-
others are reported, or their existence is in- was given the name "Vulcan," and efforts an military cadet named Sousa wrote a paper
ferred by their presumed effects on the were made to find it. Shortly afterwards, a suggesting a search for comets whose orbits
known planets. Only three times have these physician and amateur astronomer named would have been affected by a trans-Neptu-
reports resulted in the genuine discovery of a Lescarbault claimed to have seen Vulcan as it nian planet. This idea was later taken up by
full-fledged planet; Uranus in 1781, Neptune made a passage across the solar disk After the flambouyant French astronomer Camille
in 1846, and Pluto in 1930. Sometimes the examining Lescarbault's rather primitve Flammarion 11842-1925).
object has been too small to be a planet in equipment and calculations, Leverrier an- The discovery of Pluto in 1930 did not
good standing, and is determined to be a nounced that Vulcan had a mass about one satisfy everyone; it was considered too small
mere planetoid (or "asteroid"); the first of three hundreths of the Earth's and went to have caused the observed effects on
these was Ceres in 1801 and the most recent
, around the Sun once every 19.7 days. When Uranus and Neptune, and there were still a
was the eccentric Chiron, which was found this was announced, an English astronomer few left-over comets whose orbits had ob-
in 1977 in an orbit between those of Saturn named Scott said that he had discovered this viously been perturbed by a planet, but not
and Uranus. planet in 1847, and that its mass was nearly by any of the known ones. Shortly after
Many other such reports have not held as big as Earth's. There followed over twenty Pluto was discovered, William Henry Picker-
up on further examination. In 1723, a Ger- years of controversy, mostly in the tone of "I ing predicted the existence of a tenth planet,
man astronomer found an object in the Big saw ill" "No, you couldn't have!" larger than any other except Jupiter, with an
Dipper which he proclaimed to be a newly The controversy faded with the deaths orbital period of 656 years (compared with
discovered planet, and which he named of the major participants, but was not finally 248 for Pluto), at an average distance of 75.5
Sidus Ludovicianum in honor of his patron resolved until 1916. In that year, Albert Ein- times the Earth's distance from the Sun
Landgraf Ludwig V of Hesse- Darmstadt. Un- stein published his general theory of relativi- (compared with 39.4 for Pluto). In 1950, Karl
fortunately for the celestial reputations of ty, which modified Newton's law of universal Schuette announced that eight comets were
14
equipped troops from the themes, a sign of ed. Soundaq was forced to withdraw, the take revenge by seizing the kittens, killing
the way that Emperor Romanus' anti-military Byzantines pursuing wildly, until the Turks them, and thus causing the females to go
predecessors had allowed the military counterattacked. The Byzantine generals look for mates... and, therefore, more kittens.
establishment to decline. For example, were wounded, and one was captured. Another story he tells about cats con-
before the battle, the German contingent of By now Alp Arslan's army, though it still cerns burning buildings. When a house
the awny mutinied, and the rest of the army was smaller then the Byzantine force, had catches fire, he says, the most extraordinary
had to be called out to put the Germans the advantge. The Sultan offered peace, thing happens. No one attempts to put out
down. which could not be accepted; Romanus the fire because the house does not matter.
In May of 1071, Alp Arslan, camped knew he would not again be able to raise so What matters is the cats. Everyone available
before Aleppo, heard of Romanus' advance. large an army. He had to force the issue. The stands in a row about the burning house, try-
Abandoning his plans to take Damascus, he actual Battle of Manzikert took place on 18 ing to protect the cats who attempt to slip in-
withdrew, losing unreliable Iraqi auxiliaries August. In it, Andronikos Oukas, an enemy to it and die in the flames.
and a vast number of horses. It looked like a of Romanus, spread the rumor that the Among the Egyptians, when a cat dies a
rout. Emperor had been killed. The Byzantines fell natural death in a household, everyone
This made Emperor Romanus overcon- into chaos and panicked; Dukas withdrew shaves his or her eyebrows. (When a dog
fident. He decided that instead of trying to his reserve forces, which might have saved dies, they shave their entire bodies, including
restore the old frontier defenses he could at- the day; and the army was cut to shreds. The the heads.) Cats, after their deaths, must be
tack in force. He divided his force, sending Emperor himself, surrounded by his Varan- embalmed, placed in sacred receptacles, and
Franks and Turks under a Norman com- gians, was ultimately taken prisoner by a Sel- taken to the shrines of Bubastis.
mander to lay waste the area around Man- juk slave-soldier. The Histories, Book II, Herodotus, Penguin, 1972
zikert. Hearing of this move, Alp Arslan mov- The end had come to the myth of
ed rapidly to interceptRomanus. He had Byzantine military greatness.
with him only 4,000 of the mamluks, but he Byzantine Armies, Ian Haatti; London: Osprey Trade Routes
summoned the rest of this army from the Yavanas were what the people of India
heart of his own lands and recruited ten called men of the west. Generally they meant
thousand more men from among the Kurds. Herodotus on Cats Greeks and Egyptians who dominated the
Romanus, learning of the Sultan's call Herodotus tells how
cats are held
of trade between the Mediterranean and India,
to arms, sent 20,000 men to intercept him. sacred to Bubastis, the cat-headed Egyptian but they also might have referred to Rome,
Meanwhile the rest of the Byzantine army goddess, but another one of his more color- which conducted trade and diplomatic rela-
retook Manzikert after only a brief siege, as ful tales — which may or may not be true las tions with India as well as China.
the Seljuk relief force began to arrive on is typical with Herodotus) — shows how During the reign of Augustus, India sent
the scene. Egyptians as a whole regarded them. several ambassadors to him. One came from
One of Alp Arslan's finest officers, Egypt, Herodotus says, has in it many Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) to Claudius, and
Soundaq, defeated a large Byzantine forag- domestic animals. It would have more if it they kept coming until the reign of Constan-
ing party. The Emperor dispatched the were not for some very strange feline tino the Great.
general Nikephorus Bryennius, who was in- customs. For example, when the females Chinese records contain accounts of
itially repulsed until his reinforcements arriv- have kittens, they avoid the tomcats, who how people lived in Rome's eastern pro-
known whose orbits were consistent with comets as they pass near the Sun is affected Compared to animals, plants have very
perturbations from such a planet. Schuette by other things than the gravitational attrac- slow reflexes. This makes the mechanism of
claimed that no other comets indicated per- tion of the Sun and the planets. As the com- the Venus fly-trap well worth study. Stephen
turbation by an unknown planet, which sug- et warms up, it emits jets of gas which Williams and Barbara Pickard have recently
gests that this tenth planet is also the last. change its motion — changes that Brady had found that the trap closes because cells on
In 1972, J.L. Brady claimed to have apparently attributed to the agency of his the opposite sides of the trap's motor organs
found decisive evidence for the existence of Planet X. expand at different rates. This reaction is
this tenth planet, which he rather unoriginally Although Brady's calculations have not regulated by minute electrical signals which
called "Planet X." He restricted his calcula- held up on examination, those of Schuette are triggered when an insect blunders into
tions to the effects such a planet would have still suggest that a tenth planet is out there. the trap.
on Halley's comet, which is now ap- Pickering, however, predicted its position to The Venus fly-trap seems to have
proaching the sun and will pass by it in be in the direction of the southern constella- developed something of an analog to the
February, 1986. But Brady's predictions were tion Indus, which is not conveniently located nerve cells of animals. Animals move their
quite different from Pickering's and for examination by northern hemisphere muscles by such signals, triggered either by a
Schuette's. His Planet X had an orbital observatories. Getting observation time on a reflex from a local stimulus or, in more ad-
period of 464 years, and a mean distance southern hemisphere telescope, for such a vanced forms, directed also from a central
59.9 times that of the Earth from the Sun. systematic search as this, is very difficult. So controlling mechanism such as the brain.
Furthermore, the orbit of Brady's Planet X far, the last word on Planet X is a set of 1973 The independent development of such a
was tilted at 60° to those of the other calculations by D. Rawlins and M. Hammer- structure in a plant was quite unexpected.
planets, and the planet revolved around the ton, based on its presumed effects on Nep- That venerable hoax, the "man-eating tree of
sun in a sense opposite to that of the other tune's motion. They make this planet much Madagascar," may come a little closer to
nine. And Planet X was supposed to be near- smaller than either Pickering or Brady had reality; when humans begin to explore other
ly as massive as Jupiter, though why an ob- suggested, indicating that it is so faint that it planets it might not be too good an idea to
ject that size had never been seen before was will not be found easily - if at all. stand too close to the larger vegetation until
unexplained. Watchers of the Skies, Willy Lev: Monsters in the Sky, its capabilities can be assessed.
Nothing remotely like a tenth planet was Paolo Muffin The name "Venus fly-trap" sounds
seen in the region of the sky to which Brady's mystifying if you have not ever seen one. But
calculations pointed. Other astronomers the name, a credit to Victorian euphemism,
calculated that a planet this size would have
Beware of the Plants is quite justified by the appearance of the
had effects on the motions of the other Several different varieties of plants have hinged traps. This plant is decidedly X-rated.
planets which simply were not observed. adapted to poor soil by evolving ways of sup- New Scientist, 8 January 1861
Moreover, ancient Chinese observations of plementing their diets with insects. The
Halley's comet showed that Brady had been Venus fly-trap \Dionaea muscipula) has hing- Stay Tuned for the
using less precise figures for the ancient mo- ed traps which can close on an unwary in- Earthquake Forecast
tions of that body. Finally, the motion of sect, and hold it as the plant digests it. In recent years, various parts of the
vinces, written uy peoplewho based their ac- pellets and threads for detail, and a wax fun-
counts on an ambassador's report from A.D.
Metal in the New World
nel was added so that the metal could be
ambassador says that
97. In this report, the At least two thousand years before the poured into the wax mold.
the Romans "are honest in their transactions conquistadores conquered Peru in 1532, Then the mold was coated with an
and there are no double prices" — which metal was used in South America. As with emulsion of water and powdered charcoal to
came as a great surprise. One group of the natives who lived by the North American insure a smooth surface. The Aztecs called
westerners must have come to China itself, Great Lakes, Peruvians first used metal in its this charcoal water teculati, modern
for the same account reports that in A. D 166 .
native state, without smelting. In Peru, goldsmiths use sodium or potassium silicate
("the ninth year of the Yen-hsi period, during however, the metal was not copper but gold. and graphite instead.
the Emperor Huan-ti's reign") the King of Ta- The earliest Peruvian metal artifacts Once the model was coated, it was
(Rome) An-tun (the Chinese form of
ts'-in were ornaments cut out of gold that had covered with a shell of moist clay and crush-
Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius' family name) been beaten into flat sheets. Later Andean ed charcoal and left to dry. Then the metal
sent an embassy which offered them ivory, metal-workers, however, did not need to was poured in. After it solidified, the mold
rhinoceros horn, and the tortoise shell, thus restrict themsleves to gold alone. The was broken. Where the wax had initially
opening up trade. development of huairas, cylindrical furnaces been was the gold artifact which was now
made of terra-cotta with a series of openings freed of excess metal and given its final
After the Pax Augusta in Rome, as may along the sides, enabled them to smelt a polish.
be imagined, trade between East and West variety of ores. New World Archeology. W.H. Freeman and Company,
flourished. One of the most valuable com- They charged the three-foot high 1874; "Early Metallurgy In the New World,"by Dudley
modities was pepper. It arrived in such huairas with ore and charcoal, then ignited T. Essby, Jr.
amounts that the Emperor Vespasian sec- it. At the base of the furnace burnt other fires
tioned off an area in the heart of Rome. This which kept oxygen and carbon dioxide cir- A Knight and H«b Dog
was called the horrea piperaria, or pepper culating as the ore heated. As the molten When Tristan left his lover Isolde in
sheds, and was for the exclusive use of spice metal settled at the bottom of the furnace, it England and sailed away to a place called
merchants. And when, in 408, Alaric the was drained off by a tap. In order to insure Swales, he was very lonely. Duke Gilan of
Goth had to be bought off at the gates of efficient ventilation, Andean smiths general- Swales, who was young, wealthy, and an
Rome, part of the price was three thousand ly placed their furnaces on hillsides. admirer of good knights, noticed Tristan's
pounds of pepper. Emperor Tiberius in the Though the ancient tradition of ham- loneliness and tried to assuage it. One day he
First Century A.D. grumbled that Roman mering objects into shape from plate gold sent for his little dog, Petitcrieu, which was
ladies' passions for foreign wares were
continued up into the times of the Incas, supposed to have come from Avalon — that
transfering all their money to foreigners. metalsmiths in Meso America also perfected magic kingdom to which Arthur would one
Pliny the Elder worried that imports from
the method of lost-wax casting. An artist day be transported to await his future return.
Arabia, India, and China cost Rome would make an exact wax mold of the object Servants spread a rich purple fabric down
550,000,000 sesterces annually - a problem he wished to cast. The wax came from the before Duke Gilan and Tristan and placed the
in balanced payments that is, indeed, stingless bees of the rainforest and was mix- tiny dog upon it. Its breast fur was composed
nothing to sneeze at. ed with gum or some other resin to give it of so many colors that from a distance it
The Ancient Mariners, Lionel Casson. MacMMan, 1959 resiliency. The model was decorated with looked white, but its loins were green. One
world have been afflicted by several very Judgement of Jupiter, that in 1982 the other 16, none of whom was using an oral
destructive earthquakes. But, as the mech- planets will be aligned in a manner that will contraceptive or was living with another
anisms of earthquakes have become better cause widespread earthquakes. His "author- woman, each received a drop a day of
understood, methods of forecasting these tities" include the 17th Century French oc- alcohol on the upper lip; for eight of the sub-
shocks may be developed. cultists who wrote under the collective jects the alcohol was laden with sweat, while
Brian Brody and William Spence of the pseudonym Michael Nostradamus, but they the other eight, the control group, received
US Geological Survey have gone out on a also include articles by respectable scientists the alcohol only. None of the subjects knew
limb with the most detailed prediction yet. of our own time. Wh3t "Tilps" hadn't realiz- to which group she belonged.
Though numerous astrologers and occultists ed is that these articles were written as At the end of five months, all but one of
have tried to get into this act, Brody and parodies, or for April Fool issues of popular the women who received the sweat were
Spence are working from less dubious scientific journals. beginning their menstrual periods within one
assumptions, which have led them to predict New Scientist, 1 and 29 January 1961; Now York Post, day of the sweat donor. The average for
the biggest quake of the 20th Century will oc- 8 January 1981 them was 3.4 days, down from an initial 9.3
cur sometime around the 10th to the 15th of days. For the control group, the time interval
August in 1981. The afflicted region will be actually rose, from 8.0 to 9.2 days.
Peru and northern Chile, with the center near Synchronize Your Hormones! This seems to be the first attempt to in-
Lima. A second quake will follow the first by There are persistent rumors that if a vestigate this phenomenon. The hormones
37 days. -
number of adult women live in the same or pheronomes involved still have to be iden-
The region of Peru and Chile is par- household for several months, their tified, and there is certainly room for specula-
ticularly subject to earthquakes. A tectonic menstrual cycles will come into synchroniza- tion as to what evolutionary advantage there
plate under the southeastern Pacific Ocean is tion. A research team at Sonoma State was in this synchronization.
presently being "recycled" back into the Hospital now has evidence that this actually New Scientist, 8 Janauary 1361
earth's mantle as the currents in the mantle happens, and seems to have dis-
are pushing it towards and under South covered the means by which the syn-
America. Such situations, where an oceanic chronization is brought about. Some women
Science City
plate is being subducted under a continental are apparently capable of triggering this pro- Many of the older science fiction stories
plate, produce many earthquakes, and one cess by their sweat. were set in a futuristic "science city," a
seems to be forthcoming now. The researchers, Michael Russell, metropolis devoted entirely to scientific
Less scientific approaches are also be- Genevieve Switz, and Kate Thompson, research and populated by its research work-
ing used. In January, the stock market worked for five months with 17 volunteers. ers and technicians. Indonesia, however, is
analyst Joe Granville branched out and One woman, who had allegedly previously beginning to turn this dream into a reality,
predicted that Los Angeles would be triggered this phenomenon, was instructed and is building such a city south of Serpong,
destroyed by an earthquake in May 1981. to use no underarm deodorant, or to even a suburb of Jakarta, the country's capital. It
And a British author who prudently uses the wash there. Her sweat was absorbed in pads will be a National Center for Science,
pseudonym Richard A. Tilps predicts, in his which were then saturated with alcohol The .
Research and Technology, and will provide
16
sidewas red, the other saffron, and the belly The Hippodrome was 1,300 feet long and claim, he had withdrawn it, claiming that his
was azure. Petitcrieu's back, however, seem- originallydesigned for chariot races, with a support in the form of an oath had been gain-
ed to be made of no color at all because so great central spina around which the horses ed under false pretenses.
many blues, greens, yellows, reds, and ran. However, it also witnessed mock hunts, So Harold managed the trip in four
purples were intermixed in its fur. acrobatics, mystery plays, and during the days, arriving in London by 5 October. The
The wonderful dog wore a chain of gold time of the Crusades, western-style jousts. rest of his troops followed him more slowly,
upon which hung a bell that rang so clearly The Emperor, sitting in the royal box, probably joining their king by 9 or 10 Oc-
and sweetly that Tristan forgot all his sor- presided above the arena as many Roman tober. For five days after Harold reached
rows. He put out his hand and the dog, emperors had done in the Circus Maximus. London, he prepared to deal with the Nor-
which neither ate nor drank, permitted him Like the Roman circuses, the circus of mans who were camped on the Hastings-
to caress it; Petitcrieu never barked or bit. Constantinople had political overtones. Dur- Pevensey peninsula. His plan was to block
8ut when Gilan's servants took the dog ing triumphal entries, the Emperor might free William'sarmy in land Harold knew well, land
away, Tristan was as sad as before. captives in the Hippodrome, or people might that had, in fact, been part of his original
He knew that Gilan would never part take advantage of the Emperor's presence to earldom.
with the dog unless Tristan performed some protest oppressive taxes; they might also The battlefront he would have to guard
marvel. Consequently, he freed Swales from witness the execution of public officers who was no more than a thousand yards in
the terrifying raids of the giant Urgan the Vile had been discovered to be corrupt. The Hip- length. His plan was to wait until the English
and claimed Petitcrieu as his only reward. podrome was sometimes taken over by winter forced William to turn around and sail
Gilan would have preferred, he said, to give rioters. During the Nika rebellions of 532, the home. However, Harold underestimated two
Tristan half his lands and his beautiful sister army trapped and killed 30,000 citizens who things: that William could take the military
in marriage. had almost succeeded in ousting the co- offensive as quickly as he did; and that he
Tristan sent the magic dog to Isolde rulers Justinian and Theodora. In 1185, the could bring a force, especially a force of
who marvelled at it greatly and had made for Emperor Andronicus was slowly executed
I cavalry, across the Channel that would be of
it a rich golden kennel. She never Jet it out of on the sands of the arena. sufficient strength to oppose him.
her sight. She cherished the little dog as a Byzantium, by Philip Sharon). Time-Life Books, 1966 On 13 October, Harold "dug in" on
reminder of Tristan, but the bell around his Senlac ridge. The next day he was dead with
neck brought her no solace. Saying that she an arrow through his eye, and England had a
could not be happy when she was miserable, On 1 October 1066, Harold Godwineson new king.
she broke it off the collar and it never rang left York after defeating Harald Hardrada and The Enigma of Hastings, Edwin Tettow.
sweetly again. his Norwegians and led his Housecarls St. Martin's, 1974
Tristan, by Gottfried von Strassbery, Penguin, 1370 (household guard) on a forced march from
York to London. The reason for this extraor-
The Hippodrome
Modelled on Rome's Circus Maximus,
the Hippodrome of Constantinople lay
almost in the shadow of the
Sophia and very near the imperial palace.
dome of St.
dinarily swift journey so shortly after the bat-
tle of Stamford Bridge was very simple —
William, Duke of Normandy, had landed and
was claiming the English throne. Although
King Harold had initially supported this
A
one center for the various projects now scat- residence. The foot shapes differ from those The Reception Committee
tered around the far-flung islands that make of all living humans but one - the native in-
up Indonesia. The science city will house the For about 22 centuries, astronomers
habitants of the southwest Pacific island of
National Standards Laboratory, the National New Caledonia. Anthropologists have long have marked the regular return of Halley's
Data Center, and research facilities in atomic known that the foot skeleton of the New comet, which passes near the sun every 75.8
energy, geology, statistics, and even years. Halley was the first to realize it was a
Caledonians resemble that of Neander-
periodic comet in 1682, he predicted that it
aerospace. Indonesia's second nuclear reac- thalers. Apparently there was some inter-
tor will be located there, as will a permanent breeding between the two radically different would return in 1758, which it did, making its
exhibition on the history of science and stocks of Homo sapiens, or maybe the same first appearance just one week before the
technology. The science city is expected to foot shape developed separately. end of that year. It has since returned in 1835
and 1910. and will make its closest approach
be ready by 1985. The Neanderthalers use of the cave was
/Vew Scientist. I January 1981 indicated by the remains of small clay balls,
to the sun next in February, 1986.
obviously scooped from the cave floor and This will be the occasion for a project
"Today I Am a Man!" hurled at a target at the wall. The target, to planned by the first international agency to
judge from a pair of deeply indented foot- develop a space program The European
Almost every culture the world has a
in
prints at the wall, was a young Neanderthaler Space Agency will send Spacecraft Giotto to
"manhood" ritual, which marks a boy's who stood there for some time Some of the intercept Halley's comet during its 1986
achievement of adult status. How far back clay balls had struck a wall projection that passage. No landing on the comet is plan-
this goes was revealed by Professor Alberto ned, but the spacecraft will measure the con-
looks a little like an animal; these were
Blanc in 1957, with the discovery of a cave in carefully scraped off. centration of gas and dust around the head
northern Italy. The local people called the of the comet, and try to get photographs of
Professor Blanc's analysis of this
place Basua, or Witch Cave Whether or not evidence suggests that, to show his initiation the nucleus. These photographs are ex-
this name implies in distorted form an in- pected to verify the best present ideas about
into manhood, a youth was taken into a cave
herited knowledge of its ritual use is
where there was an image of a totem animal, the composition of a comet's nucleus, the
arguable, but the ritual itself is unmistakable. and subjected to a bombardment of clay snowbank" theory of F.L.
so-called "dirty
If this guess is correct, then the local legend
pellets by his elders. Presumably he would Whipple. The nucleus is probably composed
grew on very little material evidence,
failthe test by flinching, since a man who and other frozen gases, plus a small
of ice
because the cave was closed by a landslide cannot stand a barrage of clay pellets would amount of dust and rock. As the comet ap-
many thousands of years ago. and only un- not be a good companion in a hunting party proaches the sun, the increasing temper-
covered recently. ature causes the gases to melt, to drift away
when a wild bull or rhino charged.
The clay floor of the cave shows This presumption indicates that the from the nucleus as a tail, and to glow.
numerous prints of naked feet, and the re- Neanderthalers had fairly complex rituals and This will be the first venture of the Euro-
mains of torches used for illumination, but a social life in which they were embedded. pean Space Agency beyond the immediate
no tools and no garbage This would indicate This qualifies them as being fully human vicinity of theearth.
that the cave was used for ritual, not The Ice Age. Bjorn Kurten, 1972 New Scientist, 8 January 1981
FICTION
1 gr
I i
H
-fit'"
The Embracing
by David J. Schow
After Tillyard and Althea were in-
jected with the drug, they were re-
leased into the labyrinth and no one
heard their names again.
18
time for a single liquid squeal before its re- to sorrow, into heartbroken loss and utter
flexes were severed. Tillyard knew how to frustration. But the spirit still burned there, in muscles in Tillyard's knees suddenly
time the swing, how to place the blow to kill
and
her eyes, even though it was the end. T*e went to rubber and he crashed face-first
instantly properly. They slammed her against the wall and onto the courtroom floor. He fell down
The thing collapsed to the stone floor, vinyl gloves caught her throat in a choke- the funnelling rabbit-hole of his own mind,
its blood and brains rivuleting away into hold, forcing her to watch as per command. swimming in alien colors, tumbling, his feet
moist crannies of rock. Tillyard sensed where To watch Tillyard. unconsciousness.
striking his face, into
the corpse had fallen and straddled it, his He was efficiently immobilized by "Now her," said the Adjudicator, and
legs registering the tingle of residual body another Stockboy. The burly mutant held Tillyard heard it before he passed out.
heat. He cast quickly around and, assured him fast as he struggled — thecords jumping Abruptly it seemed terribly important to
that he was alone (in this chamber of the redly out from his neck. Done now with his show Althea they could not best him with
and for the time being), he
labyrinth, at least, frittering and spot-checking, the medico of their drug, to say Hove you against its riptide
knelt and used the stone to puncture the the court approached. Tillyard noted clinical- of disorientation, and he tried to force the
chest of the creature on the floor. Its heart ly that the medico had some sort of spinal words out, past his inoperative vocal chords
was warm and slick. Tillyard slipped the defect that forced him to walk with a crablike and numb lips. He marshalled his draining
heart into his bloodbag; he could eat it later. shuffle, body averted sideways, and that his strength and pushed — she had to hear it as
The cavern here was too open and danger- left hand seemed partially paralyzed. When he was going down; she had to. Now it was
ous, and he had to get to close walls and nar- not in use, it drew up against his chest, like important. He pushed and felt the words
row tunnels. the claw on a child's digging toy. leave his body. His mind floated for a sec-
All that was in his mind was her face. Across the room she was now silent, ond, giddy with victory.. .and having suc-
The last thing he had ever seen was her face. fighting to stop the tears that came involun- ceeded, he let oblivion suck him down
A pair of burly Stockboys had whip- tarily at first and then coursed down her and away.
sawed her against the courtroom wall to face. Neither had done anything of which to Althea watched Tillyard collapse in a
restrain her. She had always been more be ashamed; that no one present in the court heap, as though all the bones had been with-
visceral in her reactions, while Tillyard — cared either way was more reason for emo- drawn from his body without ceremony. He
ever the artist, therefore removed from the tion now. Of all the truths that might have crumpled without a noise, and for a second
fantasy existence most people thought of as punctuated this moment, of all the declara- even the Stockboys holding her were stun-
the real world — had been defeated by his tions Tillyard wanted to hear but did not re- ned by the grotesque sight.
limitless capacity for rationalizing even the quire of her, nothing was heard. She had She wrested loose and managed to
outrageous. He came to his feet but could decided not to give the bastards any more. reach the huge courtroom doors before they
not move; his very senses were stunned by Tillyard felt a pang and tears generated in his battered her down with their truncheons.
the impact of the verdict. Across the room - own eyes. Blood flowed copiously from a split and
they had not been permitted a single mo- He was watching her, cataloging the swelling eyebrow, and the medico sprinkled
ment together since their apprehension — beauties of her face as he was jabbed. He felt some powder into the wound before jam-
Althea was up and moving before Tillyard the steel penetrate the crook of his arm; his ming herwith the needle.
reacted. muscles were tight against the hold of the The officials of the court had no way of
Stockboy. The demon brew was, as he ex- perceiving the massive hallucinations that
pected, hot and burning. He imagined his accompanied the prime function of the drug,
flesh scorching and blackening with its
the removal of sight. Almost like some sort
On reflection, tillvard
in his
found woe even
loving admiration for her more
basic expression of humanity. She had
passage. Gritting his teeth, he did -ot take
his eyes off her. Physically denied, they lock-
ed onto each other with lines of sight and
of bizarre compensation, the show it provid-
ed was spectacular.
When she was gone, the Stockboys, en
known instantly the verdict would doom them caring. The chemicals mingled darkly with
masse, looked expectantly up to the bench,
both, while Tillyard's mind had to eliminate his blood and made the circuit of his heart
like greyhounds awaiting a table scrap. The
loopholes first, convincing itself. He stood once, twice, and in the very distant back- Adjudicator pondered a moment, then said,
frozen, thinking. She determined immediate- ground Tillyard could hear the natter of the "You may run her through the Stockboy bar-
ly, so fast that perhaps it was on a subliminal court officials but ignored it, with tears racks once or twice before taking her to the
level of instinct or chemistry, that since they cascading freely down his face. He blinked labyrinth." The mutants looked to each other
were doomed, the removal of a single Ad- them away to focus on Althea, and for that and grinned.
judicator from the world could not damn moment they were united. Neither said any- Three hundred and five — no, six.
them any more seriously. She had leapt from thing about love; it was not necessary. In a place where there was no day, no
her berth in fury, twisting around the guards And then the gray blotches blossomed night, no time and no change whatsoever,
clogging her, and went for him on the dais. on Tillyard's corneas. They were like patches Tillyard had a number. Three hundred and
Of course, the Stockboys intercepted of ice, with crystalline borders that expanded six. How many he had killed. Killed and
her — that's what they were there for. She and began to bleed into each other, linking eaten.
Crouched like a neanderthal man within claws to shred. They fixed on motion to at-
a tight, secure niche of rock, Tillyard wolfed tack — theirs were keen, bestial senses
down the scraps from his bloodbag, the left- rather than human capacities enhanced by
overs from the creature he had battered to mutation - and so Tillyard did not breathe,
death almost an hour before. A subjective did not twitch.
hour, purely - in the labyrinth there was Rather than actually feeling the impact
no time. of the blow, Tillyard heard the fat paw whis-
had been long ago, an eternity ago he
It tle through the air prior to the sudden strike
had come to consciousness sprawled on the that numbed his entire body to further sensa-
rock floor. Water, from somewhere above, tion. The pain had no time to localize.
patted onto his forehead in tortuous synco- Tillyardhad been hit; he knew he was falling
pation bap bap bap. The water smelled like from his hiding place, but was aware of
chalk. He coughed and the convulsion sent nothing except the white veins of lightning
Shockwaves slamming through his brain; the etched across his mind's eye, and the im-
afterburn of the drug was agonizing — so perative to escape, to avoid contact....
agonizing that at first he did not realize
something was feeding on his left arm.
Something with evil little rows of teeth had
torn the flesh and was Twisting and hitting the rock floor of the
busily lapping up
Tillyard's blood with a cat-like sandpaper cavern caused the roar of blood in his
tongue. ears to subside. He heard the phlegma-
protected him from the things in the tic respiration of the beast as it advanced on
Tillyard did not need to see it. Hearing it
labyrinth and their devilish form of low-grade him, could smell the oily reptillian stink of it,
eatwastoomuch.
telempathy. They were not creatures of could feel its bulk cutting across the thick at-
"Aahhh!" He lashed blindly out in the
specifics, yet, for the total darkness of the mosphere of the room. Agony lanced up his
dark and heard the thing scuttle angrily back.
labyrinth, and using some baffling furrow of legs - landing on his knees, he had manag-
Thought you were dead, mate, sorry.... It
their mutant brains, they were able to detect ed to break something and could only flop
sounded too small to be a part of the genetic
Tillyard's emanations. The love they forward onto his face. He groped for the bone
trash periodically flushed away into the
registered for the unnamed female blanked
labyrinth, and so possibly was a denizen knife sheathed next to his bloodbag and
of
out the more crucial message — that Tillyard found it had clattered away in the fall. One of
the harsh place, a native, living in the tunnels
before there were Adjudicators and medicos
was a carnivore, intelligent, cunning, the Shuffler's taloned feet slapped the damp
and mutant Stockboys.
physically stronger.The creatures absorbed stone inches away from his face.
the dominant emotion and assumed the per-
Angry with himself now, Tillyard could The creature gathered Tillyard up into
sona of the female as bait. Tillyard reasoned mitt-like forepaws, rearing back on its
only think that the first thing he had done in its
that names meant nothing. He exploited his hind legs and sweeping him up into the air
the labyrinth was
utter a primitive noise, take
advantage ruthlessly; her face was in his
a violent action. The essence of irony — Tillyard braced his arms against the thing's
mind as he bludgeoned and killed. He
wielded in terms of punishment and sculpted hot snout, trying to push away in vain, for
thought only of her laughter as the ichorous
by the expert mind of an Adjudicator. next would come the scrabble of paws that
blood of the creatures crept past his elbows, would open his guts up and then the slow
"Since your favorite term for us in your
drenching him. And he remembered her leaking away of his life into the darkness
rabble-rousing is 'barbarian,' and you will not
name, hoping that somewhere in the laby-
desist, will become as one with us, a
you A foreign object blasting through with
rinth she had managed to be as canny.
savage, that you may perceive the dif- enormous force almost ripped Tillyard's arm
He bent to the trickle near his head and away — it seemed to be a pole or crude spear
ference. You wrongly believe us cruel and
sniffed. The flow was clear; he drank first
primitive, this causes unrest and dissatisfac- about four inches in diameter. By the sound,
tion. We will show you what cruel and it had homed in on the Shuffler's throat and
primitive are. We will show you what it is to was imbedded well, but the creature did
There was a disturbance. Mentally he nothing to indicate the injury was anything
be a barbarian."
logged a heavy movement in the chamber more than an annoyance. It clutched its din-
had a following in the arts, and
Tillyard below him and he froze like a pup on scent, ner, Tillyard, firmly There was movement
that was both dangerous and frustrating. listening. He recognized the wet slap-and-
elsewhere in the room, but Tillyard was in-
Dangerous because it gave him an intelligent drag motions of one of the huge creatures he capable of discrimination.
audience; frustrating because it was an had indexed as Shufflers. They were dense Abruptly the Shuffler lurched sharply
audience that could not be counter-propa- and massy, almost impossible to kill with forward, surprised or pushed from behind by
gandized — his followers would never buy a their reptilian plating and tusklike teeth its new attacker. It shrieked, hot saliva splat-
sudden conversion of viewpoint. The judg- Their leaden movements were misleading - tering Tillyard. He felt the sickening vertigo
ment became necessary because it was a when angered or frenzied with hunger, they of its fall and realized he was sandwiched be-
personal coup for the Adjudicator; he had reared up on their hind legs, using teeth and
tween the massive beast and the floor. The
decided to make Tillyard a myth-object air rushed. Tillyard gave vent to a shriek of
lesson. They would remember what happen-
his own, abrading his ragged vocal equip-
ed to Tillyard.
ment with his own absolute terror. It
And they would take a cue from what reverberated in the cavern but he never
would also happen to his overly vocal com-
panion, Althea. Yes. They would learn that
His shoulderblades crunched onto the
association was as evil as provocation. The
floor and the Shuffler was on top of him. Its
pair of dissenters was blinded in the pre- teeth sank into his flesh, and Tillyard merci-
scribed fashion. They were consigned to the
fully blacked out.
labyrinth according to law, to survive, bar-
barically, forever. There was no time
The place to which he wafted dreamily
in the
labyrinth.
down was pleasant; his pain was filtered out
figuring I'd get back to it someday." Story: Mario Puzo For one thing, Jor-EI (Marlon Brando) is
Production finally began in 1980, with Cast sorely missed. Although Susannah York does
the film being released this summer. For Christropher Reeve , ... Supern a fine job of filling in the spots which would
those who love those "good-clean-fun" type Gene Hackman have been Brando's, she is obviously pinch-
of pictures. Raiders is definitely their movie. hitting; the scenes are evidently meant for
Lucas chose to set his story in 1936 in Jackie Cooper Brando. The tension between the "Father
order to take advantage of some intriguing Ned Beatty and the Son," the finely done God and Christ
facts. Adolf Hitler, an avid student of reli- Valerie Perrine Eve Teschmacher
Ev imagery of the first film, is gone. The lack of
gious doctrines and artifacts, believed in Geoffrey Unsworth's photography is also ap-
astrology and the power of the occult. parent (even though he is credited on the
Before and during the war, he commissioned film, very little of the footage shot before his
professional investigations into all manner of death remains). Finally, Richard Lester's
. ThePr directing style conflicts too sharply with that
religio-occultist claims.
V 5P.-'
Using these facts as a jumping-off of Richard Donner's to allow an even flow
point, Lucas weaves his tale, beginning it in Every summer of late, movie goers seem between the two films.
Egypt. American Intelligence establishes to take part in an existential drama — Throughout Donner's work, there is a
that the Nazis may have found the lost city of Waiting for the Sequel. As they wait, they conscious attempt to keep the comedy to a
Tanis. Apparently their mission is to find the always debate the same question: "Will it be minimum. He is a serious director. When
Ark of the Covenant, lost since 980 B.C. The better than the first?" The controversy over directing Superman Donner took the essen-
Old Testament states that the Ark will be the question grows in direct proportion to tially simplistic material of a comic book, a
rediscovered at the time of the coming of the the first movie's popularity. Last year, story everyone in the world already
literally
True Messiah, a designation Hitler desper- everyone waited for The Empire Strikes knew, and gave it a surprising amount of
ately craves for himself. Back, wondering how George Lucas could depth and power.
ever top Star Wars. Most of the potential au- Lester, however, is another matter. He,
dience was convinced he couldn't. When in reverse, has always had the ability to
Empire turned out even better than Star lighten a serious subject by showing us the
Wars, it gave us high hopes for future fan- humor inherent in it. Here though, where a
tasy sequels. .like Superman II.
. sharp balance between the comic book and
Unfortunately, these great expectations the film should have been maintained, Lester
are not to be met this time around. Super- opted for the broader antics and sometimes
man If has very little to recommend it over its silliness of the comics, reducing Superman II
predecessor. It is a good film, well worth the to the level everyone feared the first film
watching, but it is not touched with the same would be.
kind of greatness as was Superman. Unfortunately, in almost all ways, the
The film open with a recounting of the sequel is not up to snuff. Although
Kryptonian villains being sentenced to the everyone's acting is still right on the mark,
Phantom Zone; then follows another set of the editing, directing, and the special effects
fantastic credits. While being visually more are not. Superman II, though highly appeal-
stunning than the original Superman credits, ing, is not what it could have been. By offer-
they also manage to recapture the first film ing us little difference, especially where it
matters, Superman II falls into the category The film works at multiple levels at once,
of sequels containing such films as Jaws II - each of them pointing back to Boorman's
KNIGHTRIDERS
highly absorbing and entertaining, yet better main theme. Executive Producer: Salah M. Has sane in
films only if you never saw the original. Producer: Richard P. Rubinstein
Each facet of the production adds to Ex-
Director; George A. Romero
Christopher John calibur's excellence. Borrowing some of its
Screenplay: GeorgeA. Romero
sound track from the music of the Middle
Ages, Trevor Jones has crafted a moving Cast
EXCALIBUR combination of moods into his composition Ed Harris Billy
Robert Addie Vordred ing. Boorman's England is a verdant blaze of performers who Renaissance
travel with a
ferns and vines, a rich, opulent nature which Fair, a movable pageant extolling the Mid-
John Boorman has been entranced with
blesses Arthur and his knights until they dle Ages. Their caravan pulls into small
the legend of King Arthur and his knights of
forget their connection to it. Subtly, as Ar- American towns; local people stand and
the round table throughout his entire film-
thur forgets his oneness with the land, it stare as they parade down Main Street in full
making carreer. Bits and pieces of it can be
found in much of his BBC work, and becomes brown and grey, dying in mud and medieval garb, selling tickets to their
dead grass, though finally to be reborn with weekend event. After the parade they set up
throughout most of his films. He wanted to
Arthur by the end of the picture. camp a few miles out of town where the peo-
tell the story of what he calls "...our most
ple will come to feast on Saturday afternoon.
endearing legend" for over a decade, but his
The troupe sells food and drink, and artisans
screenplay and his arguments were ignored
sell leather goods and ceramic pots. Musi-
by most parties. Finally, after Star Wars prov-
cians play, clowns gambol, tumblers tumble,
ed that indeed there was a market for fan-
and the crowd watches with disdain or
tasy, he suddenly found that backing for Ex-
amusement, waiting for the main event, the
calibur was easily obtainable. Taking several
tournament.
years to finish, heavy in mood and imagery,
The tournament is a full medievel joust,
stunning in its execution, Excalibur is the
combatants in full armor, wielding axes, bat-
finest sword and sorcery film ever made — a
tleaxes, maces and broadswords, attacking
brilliant tribute to Camelot and her once and
each other not on horseback, but on motor-
future king.
cycles. It is the smell of mechanical death
We all know
the story. Arthur frees the
which draws people to the weekend events,
sword from the stone to become king. He
the same ploy the film hopes to use to draw
weds Guenevere, only to have her cuckold
people into the theaters.
him with his best friend Lancelot. Shortly
Over the two years the troupe has been
thereafter, internal strife nearly ruins the
together, it has grown to a size where it is
round table. To hold it together, Arthur sends
beginning to have financial troubles (too tittle
his knights on a quest for the Holy Grail.
money split amongst too many people), and
Perceval discovers it in time to remind Arthur
also where it has begun to receive con-
of what the king had forgotten, that he and
siderable attention from the press and televi-
the land are one. Armed with this know- There is more than just scenery for the
sion. Pressure grows within the group as
ledge, and the power which comes from it, eye, however. Boorman's action sequences
their king. Sir William (Ed Harris), tries to
hd rides into final battle against his bastard are sharp, savage and unpredictable. They
keep the publicity down, while other
son, Mordred. They slay each other, and Ex- are not the courtly duels of Errol Flynn and
members of the troupe encourage.it. Sir
calibur is returned to the Lady of the Lake to Basil Rathbone; these combatants are a
William wishes to follow his own code, keep-
be held for a future king who may be worthy grunting, bashing, bleeding lot, filled with a
ing the troupe pure. No drugs are allowed in
of it. violence and a hating tension seldom found
their camp. Everything is kept clean and
Boorman is basically faithful to the on the screen these days.
above board so that no trouble can break out
legend, taking his interpretation from For the most part, the performances
between the troupe and the locals wherever
Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. Telling Boorman has drawn from his cast are ex-
they are.
his story through Metlin's eyes, Boorman cellent. Nicol Williamson's Merlin is the high
Morgan (Tom Savini), Sir William's
paints a picture of an England still in the point of the film. His interpretation of the
strongest knight, wants the recognition, the
hands of small feudal kings. Magic and character is as open to debate as is the film
glory, and the money which publicity will
Christianity struggle against one another, itself. Filled with nuances, his portrayal of
bring. Morgan alsoseeks Sir William's crown.
Merlin being presented as the last agent of Merlin is one which, if taken in parts, seems
Thus, the group splinters, some wishing to
the dying gods. Part magician, part con- contradictory, but when taken as a whole,
remain true to Sir William's dream, the
man, he uses trickery and true magic to med- offers an amazing display of a writer's
others following Morgan's ambitions.
dle in men's affairs and to toy with history. acumen and an actor's genuis.
Nicol Williamson portrays the ancient mage Also excellent are Nigel Terry as King Knightriders is a lavish celebration of
with great versatility. At times he is charged Arthur, and Helen Mirren as Morgana Le Fey. honesty and truth, a rediscovery of middle-
with lightning, a terror to the minds of men; As Lucas did with Star Wars, Boorman has America's values as reflected through the
at other times he seems "thin and thread- also populated his fantasy land with, for the codes of the knights of the round table.
bare," filled with the knowledge that the end most part, unknown faces, augmenting the Romero's knights are attacked by everything
is near for him and his kind. film's realism. which is evil in our society: payola cops, in-
This, of course, is Boorman's point. The Excalibur is a shockingly large film, an stant fame, drugs, and insensitivity. The
film is an allegory for our times, speaking of incredibly intricate and fascinating piece of allegory continues as the devil lays more
modern man's loss of magic and, more cinema. It is a fine prologue for the spate of temptations out before them; cheap sex,
tragically, his loss of unity both with nature fantasy films waiting in the wings for release easy money, glittering costumes, fame amd
and with the universe which surrounds him. this year. Christopher John power can all be theirs. All they have to do is
turn their backs on their code and their stakes favored by publishers who seem to
dream.
The
clusion,
Some do, some don't.
film could actually stop at this
but it does not.
those knights who leave, showing their treks
con-
Romero follows
Mediq want nothing more than
the next winner.
to hurry onward to
er" relationships, the loss of love from a the rock and roll record industry in that
may exempt publisher's warehouse stocks
culture, the dehumanizaion of the "know-it- residual sales are meaningless. One album is
— but for now the danger does exist.
Inthe meantime, a lot of Poul Anderson
all" television society, and, of course, man's given one promotion for a return of one peak
oldies might hit the shredder in order to pro-
loss of identity and lost place in nature are sales figure. Each release has a limited time
Romero's themes. Hitting strongly, pulling vide space for quicker-return items. Fill in the
to peg a certain sales quota or it is deemed
no punches, he covers these and other ills, less than successful; after that initial return, name of the popular sf author of your choice.
never dwelling too long on any one, never it is largely forgotten. The gravy that comes Also in the meantime, Stephen King
even making value judgments. The audience from sales months or years after release is in- wrote that "the handwriting is on the wall for
is left make its own choice. Many of
alone to significant to the parent label company. the hardcover book, think..." Paperbacks,
1
the evils Romero puts on the screen are so "Supermarket novels" are the book born of WWII economization, are now the
familiar that is hard to recognize them as
it equivalent of rock albums. You'll notice dif- mainstay of the industry (the paper has not
such, which is, of course, Romero's point. If ferent "blockbusters" dangling from that gotten much cheaper but the binding pro-
you can't tell something is bad while you rack by the checkout stand almost week-by- cesses sure have). Hardcovers now compete
watch it happen to a character up on the week. Most are flops, but enough blast off to with the aforementioned rock albums for the
silver screen, how are you supposed to re- balance the tally in a system where one such most outrageous list price, making hard-
cognize it in real life when someone waves blockbuster can support twenty miscalcula- cover-sized paperback "originals" inevitable.
the apple under your nose? tions. These novels have no shelf life what- The Sword of Shannara came into the world
Romero delights in spotlighting the soever, and the publishers know it. They this way along with countless others all later
trials and everyday problems of middle- become much like those TV shows that get reproduced as "mass-market" paperbacks
America. Also, however, not one to merely three weeks to establish an audience - not a (normal size) at the usual prices. The dif-
show the problem and then walk away, second more - before being introduced to ference here is that the original larger edition
Romero offers hard alternatives, all of them the dumper. has a pricetag somewhere between S5 and
tied up with honor and being true to one's Science fiction book sales in toto de- S7; more than the usual paperback, but
self, if no one else. Furthermore, as has hap- pend heavily on the slow but steady move- about half the cost of a version between hard
pened in most of Romero's films, the presen- ment of books over long periods of time. Sf covers, which may be reserved in the near
tation works well. rarely rhymes with "blockbuster" (though in You
future for best-sellers or favorites only.
Knightriders is George Romero's tour de recent years the genre has been represented know: Childhood's End and Stranger in a
force. Passing no judgments, he says, inthe high-sales category — mostly by pretty Strange Land rather than The Mind Game or
"This is life; this is the good and this is the pallid, low common denominator stuffl, and Gloriana.
bad. Sometimes the good guys win, some- their stately generation of money is parsecs And if this sounds overly distressing...
times the bad guys win. Sometimes they distant from the one-week novel sweep- there'salwaystelevision. David J. Schow
/cowman/ on pojwM/
makes no attempt to consider the philo-
Savage Empire, Jean Lorrah, The political structures of the two lands are neth Roberts these days? He was one of my
Playboy Press, $2.25 more convincing, the Empire being a con- mother's favorite writers when she was an
Masks of the llluminati. stitutionally limited autocracy, and the adolescent, and consequently read most of I
Robert Anson Wilson, Pocket/ Timescape barbarian lands a set of feudal domains. his books when in my teens. He wrote histo-
Books, $2.95 However, one element which Lorrah in- rical novels, usually dealing with the Ameri-
The Shadow of the Torturer and troduces to justify the actions of her can Revolution or the young Republic. His
The Claw of the Conciliator, characters is an entirely gratuitous and rather concern with liberty was paramount, and his
Gene Wolfe, Pocket/ Timescape Books, the annoying Nietzscheism. Because her plots were first rate. Most interestingly, he
first $2.50 in paperback, the second
$12.95 characters are more powerful mages and had a talent for villains, who were motivated
in hardcover
psychics than her countrymen, they deserve by greed and stupidity, and hence were en-
Sword of the Lamb, M.K. Wren to rule — that is, the superior man has the tirely believable. Nonetheless, Roberts was
Berkley Books, $2.75
right to dispose of the lives and property of able to compel the reader to hate them or at
Others. A frightening concept, and one least the stupidity and greed with which they
which Lorrah tosses off without in- were attached. Regardless, h\s Arundel and
There is a peculiar subgenre lhat lies at vestigating the consequences. Oliver Wiswell must be considered two of
the intersection of fantasy and science fic- On the whole. Savage Empire isan enter- the best novels about the Revolution.
tion. It is written almost entirely by women, taining though flawed first effort, good
deals with a society whose members possess The reason that mention Roberts is
I
devoted fans, and there are even fan organi- with different names for the machineguns.
The Concord is an oligopolistic feudal-
zations and conventions devoted to this kind ism which the only right permitted the
in Rohan's Planet, having won its indepen-
of literature. Personally, enjoy the genre,
I
serfs freedom of religion. The thirst for
is dence from Earth, establishes a British-style
though find the claims of some of its practi-
I
Liberty is the one historical force which can- government. During the first election, the
tioners overblown. not be denied, and consequently the society self-styledFreedom Party wins a majority of
Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Brad- is subject to discontent and rebellion. The the chamber and rapidly plunges the planet
ley, and Jacqueline Lichtenberg are perhaps leaders of the oligopoly are faced with a into economic disaster through leftist
the best known writers in the field. Jean Lor- choice between reform and oppression, and economic policies. Partially to pay its debts
rah, author of Savage Empire, is a new entry. are divided as to which policy to pursue. In and partially to expropriate the "creditor
Her book is an obvious attempt to write with- the past, the Concord quashed a separatist class" which it feels has wrongfully acquired
in the conventions of the field, and her love Republican movement that arose in the Cen- wealth through manipulation during the
for similar writers is clear. tauri system, the only human-inhabited Revolution, it embarks on a conscious policy
The world of Savage Empire is divided system outside Sol; a revolutionary under- of hyperinflation. When the economic sys-
into two societies: the Aventine Empire, ob- ground known as "The Phoenix" remains tem begins to break down, it institutes a law
viously modeled on the Roman, and the from the scattered forces of the Republic. requiring creditors to accept currency at its
lands of the barbarians. The Aventines are Alexand, the eldest son of the House of face value. The result is that creditors are
possessed of the power of Reading, appa- Dekoven Woolf, is rapidly caught up in pursued and tracked down by debtors who
rently psionics of some kind; the barbarians political intrigue among the ruling families, mercilessly repay them in worthless paper.
are Adepts, apparently practitioners of with his love, Adrien, as the prize. His (Precisely this situation occured in Rhode
magic. From time immemorial, they have younger brother. Rich, secretly joins the Island under the Articles of Confederation;
been warring, with the barbarians gradually Phoenix; while Alexand, like all members of Planet in Anns is filled with similar historical
pushing back the borders of the Empire. A the aristocracy, is conscripted for two years parallels. Meanwhile, the Freedom Party is
I
Reader once exiled from the Empire has in the military, whose main job is massacring taken over by a would-be dictator, and
found service with the barbarians, and his striking serfs. repression ensues. The major characters
powers, combined with those of the bar- Sword of the Lamb the first in a series
is therefore stage a revolution to restore fiscal
barians, threaten to overwhelm the Empire. of novels which will continue the saga of the sanity to the state.
Thus the protagonist, a Master Reader, House of Dekoven Woolf. It is fairly well The theme of libertarian revolution is a
enters the barbarian lands to try to find the written, but it is science fiction only in that it common one science fiction, but has rare-
in
exiled Reader and stop him from siding with takes place in the future; the technolgy is lit- ly been as The only
deftly handled as by Barr.
the barbarians. Instead, he receives an edu- from today's, save the existence
tle different complaint have is that he does not ade-
I
cation in the ways of the world and finds and the replacement of sub-
of starships quately deal with the philosophical dimen-
tove. By the end of the novel, it is clear that machine guns with more arcane weaponry. sion of political conflict; but since he deals
the conflict between the Empire and the bar- Though of necessity a political novel, it very well indeed with almost every other
aspect of the novel, this amounts to a petty Wilson is a writer whose work has re- plot in and of itself is not an uncommon one,
complaint. A Planet in Arms is a superb ceived little attention, but whom I consider but the writing and themes are. This is fan-
book. to be one of the best SF authors now writ- tasy as it should be written; portentous
ing. He explores essentially philosophical events, marvelous beings, wielders of great
"The most SF mind on any
brilliant themes as does Dick in Valis, but his prose is powers, a land of terror and delight. If Wolfe
planet" says Rolling Stone on the cover of spectacular and filled with a dark sense of never writes another word, he will have
one wonders how they
Philip K. Dick's Valis; humor. He writes, as you will, as Vonnegut made his mark.
know. The quote is representative of, how- might write if Vonnegut were a libertarian Mildred Downey Broxon's Too Long a
ever, the recognition and acclaim which Dick warlock with a firm acquaintance with Sacrifice is a strange and touching novel set
has received both within and without the SF science, arcana, and the problems of epis- in Northern Ireland. Tadgh MacNiall, a bard,
ghetto. Despite critical and academic ac- temology. His best-know work is the lllumi- becomes enchanted by the Sidhe, and goes
claim, Dick continues to sell rather poorly, natus trilogy, co-authored with Shea, but his to live eternally with them in a city beneath
the fault lying in the cerebral and often con- best novel is probably the marvelously am- the waves. His wife, bereft, joins him and
fused nature of his prose. biguous Schrodinger's Cat. they live unhappily and dreamily among the
Masks of the llluminati deals with a Sidhe for centuries. Then the waters of the
Dick may not be the best SF mind on
any planet, but he is certainly the most idio-
young Victorian nobleman who joins the elfin city begin to fill with blood, for the land
Order of the Golden Dawn to pursue his above is torn apart by bloody conflict; and
syncratic on this planet. The themes he
studies in the arcana and shortly finds him- the Sidhe, about to die, free the two humans
chooses are bizarre in the extreme, as loony
as some explored by Heinlein in the last few self in a magical duel with the evil wizard, to return to their world. Upon leaving, how-
years. For example, one novel deals with a
Aleister Crowley. Pursued by horrors, he ever, the two become separated; and Tadgh
world in which objects begin regressing in flees across Europe until he finally meets falls in with a group of IRA terrorists, while
Albert Einstein and James Joyce in a bar in his wife makes friends with a pacifist Catho-
time: look away from the fridge, and five
Switzerland. One expects that Wilson will lic girl. They become the pawns of powers
minutes later it will have turned into a 50's
leave the fantastic elements of his plot in am- they cannot control; and the Goddess and
vintage fridge with rounded corners and a
biguous limbo, but in fact there is a rational the Wild Hunt contend while the bombs
level handle; five minutes later it will be an
explanation for all events — save, perhaps, blow in Belfast.
1890's tin-plated icebox. As a result, much of The main strength of Too Long a
where Crowley got the LSD. At the culmina-
Dick's fiction is either poorly thought out or
tion of the novel, Joyce, Einstein and Sacrifice is Broxon's firm grip on the Irish
simply incomprehensible; but much of it is
Crowley take LSD together in what must mythos and an ability to evoke its power and
extremely good.
surely be one of the most bizarre scenes in a a mood of wonder in the reader. Its main
The protagonist of Valis is Horselover
recent novel. weakness is the prose, which is no more than
Fat, a German translation by way of Attic
Masks of the llluminati is an essentially competent and rather stilted in places. On
Greek of Dick's own name. Fat is a middle-
minor work by a master, but for all of that the whole, however, it is head and shoulders
aged man who has experienced a nervous
makes amusing and thoughtful reading. above most of the fantasy being published
breakdown and used LSD for an extended
Those unacquainted with Wilson's work today, and well worth reading.
period. At some point, he believes he sees
would do well to pick up a copy. Greg Costikyan
the divine light of God, and starts to develop
I've never been much of a fan of Gene
a weird cosmology of his own. This universe, Vermithrax, the last and most feared
Wolfe, a writer whose work has been highly
he believes, is an essentially flawed and evil dragon, has migrated from his turf in Greece
touted within the genre, but The Shadow of
one, but an entity from a more perfect uni- to the once peaceful hamlet of Swanscombe
the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator,
verse has invaded and is seeking to bring in post-Roman England. The local residents
the first two books in what will become a
love and justice. This entity is alternatively have reached an oppressive accommodation
tetraology entitled The Book of the New
Jesus Christ or a secret satellite manned by with the dragon; a young woman selected by
Sun, are more than enough to make a
three-eyed aliens from the future. Eventually, lottery is offered at each equinox and Ver-
believer out of me. This is fantasy as it should
Fat ha If- persuades his friends of his vision, mithrax restrains the urge to prepare village
be written. Forget the sword and sorcery, the
and then meets another group who have flambe for another six months.
mighty thewed warrior, and the colorless
come to similar conclusions independently. A small band of villagers sneaks off to
prose of Le Guin and imitators; forget
In essence, Valis is a novelistic explora- Cragganmore to beg Ulrich, the last sorcerer
Tolkien, for that matter. Wolfe is the master
tion of questions of epistemology and solip- in the area, to exterminate the dragon. The
of the genre.
sism — the sort of thing which Robert Anton king doesn't want Vermithrax annoyed with
Wolfe's prose is mellifluous, complex,
Wilson does but without, perhaps, Wilson's such efforts; the last attempt provoked the
and rhythmic. SF and fantasy have produced
sense of the absurd. It is one of Dick's more dragon to an awful rampage. Tyrian, the
more writers of power than of elegance in
coherent novels and is certainly worth king's agent, follows the band to apparently
prose, but Wolfe is both. His command of
reading for those who don't mind a little demonstrate Ulrich's impotence by skewer-
the English language and the nuance of style
mental work in their leisure time. While ing the ancient sorcerer. To Galen, Ulrich's
Dick's ideas are intriguing and he does
are breathtaking; his ability to provoke mood
apprentice, falls the burden of slaying the
and emotion profound.
manage, at times, to transmit a sense of un- dragon.
Wolfe does not make the mistake, how-
expected and chill syzvgy, this is not enough Galen is a high-potential underachiever;
ever, as so many of SF's best stylists do, of
to fill the gap caused by abandonment of the plenty of Talent but no discipline or con-
abandoning the strengths of science fiction
The plot is
traditional tools of storytelling. sistency. His spells frequently fizzle or go
as he attempts to integrate the strengths of
minor, the characterization poor, and the astray. Ulrich's now-white raven is an exam-
mainstream fiction. Excellence of prose does
prose unexciting; philosophy and deft ple of Galen's level of achievement. Galen
not, in Wolfe's novels, mean loss of vision or
manipulation of mood are not enough to returns to Swanscombe with the villagers
lack of powerful themes. Though the books
carry the book. and conjures a landslide to seal the entrance
are hypnotic in tone and lazy of pace, they
One suspects that the title of Robert An- to the dragon's labyrinthine lair.
are filled with action, events of awesome im-
ton Wilson's Masks of the tlluminati contains The celebrations end when the earth
port, and ideas.
the word "llluminati" only to draw in readers trembles; the king imprisons Galen as Vermi-
familiar with Wilson and Shea's landmark II- Sevehan, the protagonist of the series, thrax breaks loose in a vengeful fury. Galen is
luminatus trilogy. While the novel deals with is born into the torturer's guild in a decadent sprung and this time goes after Vermithrax
Crowley's Order of the Golden Dawn, which world of the far future whose resources have with a charmed lance forged by the village
may be considered to have some relation to been exhausted and whose technology is smith. He fillets three dragonets waddling
the llluminati, the llluminati per se have little slowly dying. He falls in love with a through the caves and harpoons Vermithrax,
to do with the book. Similarly, one suspects noblewoman confined in the prisons of the succeeding only in enraging the dragon.
that the book is published by Pocket/Time- torturers and, upon her death, sets out to Galen is finally led by an omen to
scape as "fantasy" only to get it on the SF wander the world. There he meets diverse sprinkle the ashes of Ulrich's pyre on the
shelves; in fact, it is a sort of pseudo- adventures and, it seems, becomes by the underground lake of flames at the heart of
historical novel. fourth book the autarch of the world. The the dragon's lair. Ulrich is resurrected and,
fconttnutdm* page 191
rapidly diminishing bastion of serious ships faster than the amoebas can replace
player dogged by bad luck had better be War of the Worlds The Martians want to destroy as many
prepared for long bouts of frustration. city hexes as possible and preserve the max-
De«lgn: Allen Eldridge. with Stephen Cole
Nowhere is this more obvious then when a imum number of tripods and cylinders. A city
Retail sales only
player is ready to attack Saestor and go for hex is destroyed when a Martian unit enters
Task Force Games. $9.95
the win. Saestor, ostensibly because it's the The middle part of the game usually sees
When game designers used to talk it.
central planet of the Empire and practically the Martians playing a furious game of tag,
about famous science fiction or fantasy
because the designers wanted to make trying to move through as many city hexes as
novels which could be turned into games,
players sweat for a win, counts as six possible, with human kamikazes holding the
H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds was always
planets. (Of course, when played the game lineand once in a while wiping out a tripod.
conspicuous by its absence. Not much could
I
for the first time, it took 15 separate tries The game would be a human walkover,
be done with a Martian romp dramatically in-
before one ptayer breached Saestor's except that the Martian player decides when
terrupted by a fatal susceptibility to Earthly
defenses. He did it on a tie die-roll, and lost to initiate hostilities.The human reinforce-
bacteria. A simulation of these plot elements
all his attacking ships. We promptly sur- ment rate is limited until the first Martian unit
would have the Earth player frantically mov-
rendered en masse to the amoebas, who moves out of its landing hex or attacks a
ing his pieces to the far ends of the playing
could not be less merciful then the game surface, hoping that as many as possible human unit, and the humans cannot attack
system.) Strategy purists dislike this par- the Martians until then. The best Martian
could escape the deadly attentions of the
ticular mechanic, allowing that though the strategy is to land his first through fifth turn
Martian tripods until the Martians succumb-
high numberof die-rolls tends to average
ed to the disease. complement on one side of the major mass
out, individual players can be stymied or dis- of city hexes, and to land the sixth through
So when Task Force announced that it
proportionately successful on the whim of tenth turn complement on the directly op-
was to release a game based on H.G. Wells
the die. Those same purists are quick to whip posite side. The best attack turn varies be-
classic, the reactions varied from yawns to
out the very same theorem to explain away a snickers. Designer Eldridge, no newcomer to
tween the third and the sixth (the last only if
loss, but have been known to conveniently one of the first cylinders was eliminated).
the game field, anticipated this problem and
forget it after a win.
"solved" it by revoking the late Wells'
The human combat results table gives
At the end of a player's turn, he gets a dramatic license. The new humans discover- results by the type of attacking unit(s).
freemove, with which he can. reposition one ed a weakness in the vaunted Martian tripod,
Somet'mes it is advantageous to attack with
of his fleets. This time-honored mechanic and the tripod's ability to wreak havoc was only one type of unit (artillery, cavalry or in-
fantry); other times, with particular com-
has made appearances in games as diverse limited to the immediate London area. If the
asRiskand ThirdReich. binations. The designers' notes claim that
emasculation of the previously fearsome
Martians wasn't enough, the bacteria of because there is no mathematical difference
Acurious omission in the design is a Earth suddenly lost their power to fell the
between the six possible tables, there is no
lack of diplomatic rules. Though it is not ex- not sure about this; a
tactical difference. I'm
Martians, or at least for the period covered
plicitly stated, players cannot cooperate with by the game. In a comparatively minor
tablewhich favors combinations of types
one another, except by attacking a mutual over single units gives the human player
change, the Martians decided that their ob-
enemy during their turns. There is no reason problems, for he has to experiment to find
jective was only to take out London, for once
could see for preventing players from com- the best combination. (My calculations were
I
that city had fallen, the rest of the world was
bining forces, making diplomatic agree- to follow.
somewhat confused during the first play-
ments, or jointly occupying systems other through, when my opponent discovered one
Can these changes be accepted? Not
then Saestor, except that the extremely brief die had a blank face, a 2, a 3, two 5's, and a
really. If, for instance, the sameliberties were
rules would then be merely brief. Experimen- 6. The Martian combat table is a variation on
taken with J R R Tolkien's The Lord of the
. . ,
)
tation with the incorporation of diplomacy that of PanzerBlitz. A Martian unit must
Rings, the One Ring could become no more
into the system leads ms to believe that the disrupt or destroy a human unit when it at-
than a CrackerJacks prize, the Free Peoples
game could only profit from the inclusion. tacks, or else its way will be blocked. Since
would invent the Gatling gun to compensate
for Mordor's superior numbers, and Gandalf the table depends on the number of units in
The rules are no paragon of clarity, the defended hex, and the human stacking
though they could have been without an in- would want to conquer Mordor as part of the
limit is two, the Martians have a 65% suc-
crease in length. The text was written to Valar's imperialistic grand plan. The designer
who tried to pull such a fast one over the cess chance with a median attack. This is
minimize legalese, probably because the not enough, think, to give the Martian
writers believe that instructions are more gaming public would be lucky to escape the I
English-speaking world with tar- and -feath- player a good chance of victory against a
easily stomached when so disguised. While human player familiar with the tricks of the
the Amoeba War rules do not approach the ers. Since Wells is not as revered as Tolkien,
the game of War of the Worlds can be game.
classic obfuscation of War of the Ring, they If the players can accept the radical revi-
will not exempt the writers from a thorough
evaluated as something with resemblances
to the book of the same name.
sions to the plot of the novel, they have a
refresher course in Freshman Comp. game which should prove tense for the first
If the designer is inventive with the plot,
five or so plays. After that, War of the
he is also imaginative with his use of some of
The rules deficiencies are minimized by the components. The human reinforcement
Worlds is a solved puzzle. But how many
a well organized play aid card. Even the prob- (called depot) hexes and combat result table
people play a single game even that many
abilities for success and failure for all possi- are secretly selected from six cards by the
times any more?
ble attacks are worked out for the players. human and Martian players, respectively,
The map is above the usual Avalon Hill stand- before the Martians land. The rest of the
High Fantasy &
ard, and could have been marginally more design rehashes some of the more popular Adventures in High Fantasy
functional if separated into two, rather than rules of the last ten years. Design: Jeffrey C. Dillow
four, sections. The cards are unremarkable, The Martians land like paratroopers.
except for a whimsical picture of an amoeba The Martian player chooses his landing Reston Publishing Company. Inc., S13.95 each
being zapped. The counters are pretty and hexes, and then rolls to see if his units land The fantasy role-playing game glut has
easy to read. on target. If a Martian cylinder misses, it not yet produced a product which is entirely
scatters up to six hexes away. The Martian satisfactory as an introductory vehicle. (For
Amoeba Wars could do with less of a player is advised to keep well away from that matter, there isn't a completely polished
luck influence, and a little more imagination cities and large rivers, because his units have intermediate or expert level set of rules
injected into the background. The amoebas, a large chance of being eliminated in those either. ) The Fantasy Trip, Tunnels and Trolls
theDoomsday Machines and the cards lend types of terrain. Each cylinder contains three and Basic Dungeons and Dragons each have
thegame needed color, and there are many tripods, and only ten cylinders enter play their own idiosyncratic pitfalls, though all
worse ways to spend an afternoon. As an in- evenly spaced over ten turns, so the loss of three have been the entry level game for
vestment, Amoeba Wars is a good risk, just one can spell disaster. (If the Martians quite a number of players. Now High Fantasy
whether or not the reader groans and par- lose two cylinders outright by the seventh makes a serious bid to be included in this
dons the pun. turn, don't play the game out.) select group.
GAMES RATING CHART I !
SCIENCE FICTION 6 SCIENCE FANTASY
3 S.4 ffl 5.B 11. SwasTtMCker *P 60 T 6.7 16 1.5 1 6.0
* 5.3 29 6.0 ID u M
S3. Kung Fu 21 DO 3 Si 16 63 15. S«n* & Sorcery SPI 701 2D U 35 60 1 U
10 53 21 ra 16. Bust** TYR tt 7 5 1.0
37 SworrJouest TFG 12 73 I 55
MGC 71 LI 15 IH 9 1.0
(JUKI, [k(lS
Timeag
Superhero 20*4
3.7 32 55 2 1
SO 6 59 3 30
50. Shooting Stars
EG 9
IP
[Hi
m
n
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i LI
( TSR
AW
71
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ru
m
13
2.9
IS
2.3
A W :t DC na 20
NPI VII w I ss
MM: 3 s» 24 It TC 0(76 7.4
MVC A 1 li n u
11: 111% n bl i ra na 4. War of the Rh SPI 11(77 26 7.0
w» U ii u
Mi 5. H 5h V Si EG 00 25 6.3 If 0.5 6 1C
(HIV. Sft U ft bi MGC 79 3 6.9 39 59 1 SO
IHi HI 4 hi 1 TC IMS 10 67 10 SO 3 SO
mm; m Sti 11 u 9. Chivalry 8 Sorcsrv FGUI ra 10 6.7 27 7.0 6 ID
AH mi A u 11 n SS S \H pcaatbM tt
High Fantasy, previously published by other three. Spells are divided by planes, used to resolve all damage (though it is never
Twinn-K in 1978, will gain sufficient notice, which are achieved once every four levels explained whether armor is damaged in
but not for any merits of the game system. The magic item list, from all indications, is magic as it is in combat).
Reston, the new publisher, is a division of taken directly from notes prepared for the The characteristic rolls are crucial; if the
Prentice- Hall, and can push this mediocrity author's world. I'm sure Dillow can make player does poorly on his initial rolls, he
into a huge number of retail outlets. Reston these items interesting and all-inclusive might as well throw in the towel. The rules
has no illusions about the target; their pro- when he runs an adventure, but my copy of have the usual advice about how much fun it
motional brochure declares it to be "in the the rules came without him. can be to play a challenging character (in that
tradition of Dungeons and Dragons"... but, The system redeems itself with one its values stink), but this is certainly untrue
of course, much superior These claims are a basic concept; almost every action taken in when the whole game system is stacked
bit more realistic, though less amusing and the game is resolved with the single roll of against you (this a linear progression percen-
grandiose, than Twinn-K's original pro- the percentile dice. Thus, magic resistance is tile system). The pervasiveness of the D&D
nouncements in which they stated that the subtracted directly from a magician's chance influence upon High Fantasy tells even here,
game "taught important math concepts" of casting a spell, a defender's defensive for many of the problems of the original D&D
and did just about everything (per the ad rating from an attacker's offensive rating in are repeated. fFor example, an otherwise
copy but cure the common cold
I melee, and so forth. Only one set and shape well-rolled character who craps out on his
The philosophy behind the High Fan of dice is needed, and the most complex rjl money roll wili go literally naked 10 his
lasv design is in slavish imitation of D&D. charts (for combat) is not cloaked in mystery world. A list o! talents is fresh change for
I
though the actual mechanics are often quite by cumbersome procedures. the system, but once again heavily rewards
different A
plavei character is one of four Whenever a number can serve for more the best man with the dies-,.
character classes (warrior, wizard, alchemist than one purpose, it does. The offensive and The monster lists are to be commended
or animal master), though the magical frater- defensive raiings also reflect the damage a for their succinctness, though there is not a
nity is much superior to members of the character can sustain The combat chart is hint as to how the beasties appear. The
/raawiriM dji pur* JO/
me that unless ole Slippery Jim starts turning tribes of Eastern Ireland and the growing
a better Derformance in play-testing, we tribes of men — the Celts, Pictsand Britons).
Designer's in
may have to call In Angelica and the kids.
David James Ritchie
According game's rationafe, it is this
to the
war which so weakens the Faerie Kingdoms
that they are unable to resist the further en-
Notes GalacticTrader
began design work on Galactic Trader
I
game's systems and charts, but the intent of small portion of the midlands are dominated
department, yet we are already in
into the aft
the design has been decided upon: Galactic by a score of Fomorian towns, huge hollow
the concept stage for the project's first Sup-
hills (called Brochs in the game! where an en-
plement The 64-page book will include: Trader is going to be a game in which the
tire clan will be based. The Borders, Kent,
players compete only indirectly, wrestling
• A detailed study of three entirely unique, part of Devon and Somerset are the abodes
with the system as much as with each other,
intelligent alien races, with rules for of men, those poor beasts once hunted for
working for their own profit, rather than
generating characters and NPC's in each. sport who -are rapidly becoming a military
specifically trying to do each other in. think I
• An adventure thai sends the characters to this form of design is the truest way of force to be reckoned with. A few enchanted
the source of mysterious radio signals. The roads and trails link the Elven communities,
simulating the spirit of competitive trade-
GM may use any of the above races as the After all, a trade baron's only real goal is profit and the Fomorian Brochs are connected one
power behind the transmissions, and may for himself; knocking off his competitors is to another only by wild Hightand paths. As a
use the others as races that the primary only away to the end. protection against both Fomorians and men,
civilization knows of; thus creating a star- Imean to give the impression that
don't the Elves have raised a chain of fortified posi-
spanning multi-racial empire |ust beyond the the game will have the same pace when tions linked by great dikes along their north-
bounds of the human federation. played solitaire as when played with other ern and southern borders, in the same way
• Newprofessions and Skills for Universe players, however. The players will constantly that the Romans would later raise Hadrian's
characters. Special attention will be paid to be reacting with each other, and those who Wall to protect themselves from the ravages
anthropological, psychological and mystical of these same men.
are anti-social will be able to sabotage com-
areas, as they apply to contact with alien peting ships, subvert the crews of opposing Scattered about the map at such loca-
intelligence. players, and even engage in piracy, they if
tions as Stonehenge and the Isle of Mona are
desire. The game will not focus on these Places of Power, areas of High Mana where
" New equipment derived from alien
technology and experimental work by the aspects, however, and frequently the most magic is extremely powerful and which
profitable way for one player to interact with serves as openings to other dimensions.
federation. JohnH. Butterfield
another will be through peaceful trade. Some of these exist even in the midst of
Return of the Stainless Steel Rat The core of the game will be its model of human-occupied areas (which are consider-
trade and the fluctuations of various mar- ed "Mundane" in the game. ..that is, non-
Only a part of the manuscript for this
kets. If possible, however, will also include magicall.
game is in hand, but it includes all of the rules I
systems forsuch activities as selling shares in The game system, itself, is a rough ex-
necessary for play. The remainder of the
trading ventures, and engaging in financial trapolation of SPI'sWar of the Ring system
rufces booklet will consist of a series of pro-
speculations. At the very least, some form of with strength points equalling 100 men and
grammed loops in the form of paragraphs
banking system will be included. Nidi Karp each hex equalling 12 miles of terrain. No
which wilt take the piayertsl through the
cards are included in the game (due to the
game to one of half a dozen possible con- Land of Faerie difficulty of handling such components in a
frontations with one of half a dozen possible
The time is 400 B.C. Camillus is dictator magazine game), but a paragraph system
villains thoughtfully written into the game by
similar to that used in Voyage of the Pandora
the creator of the SSR, Harry Harrison. in Rome. Dionysius reigns in Syracuse. In
is used to provide some of the flavor. The
The loops themselves are currently the far-off port of Trapezus 6,000 weary sur-
design is halfway completed at this point ir>
being generated by the games designer, vivors are arriving at the end of Xenophon's
time and expect to put the game in develop-
Greg Costikvan {creator of the infamous Anabasis. Throughout Europe a wave of
I
system (the highest-rated and, think, mostI of menace at all, he is likely to think only of Visa): 1-800-221-8502 or 1-800-221-8503. The
innovative system ever to appear in one of the Fomorians of the Highlands or the toll free numbers will only be available for
our magazines) as- the basis for Return of rne Gnomish Hearthstead occupying the south- customer orders if there ia a postal strike.
SSR. Needless to say, those of us connected western peninsula of his fair land. So it is in Customers in the New York metropolitan area
with the project are having palpitations in the year 2680 of the Realm. Little do these may also use (2121673-4103.
'air lords imagine in their folly that 300 years
Our New York sales office will also be
anticipation.
from this day they will be destroyed; Faerie open trom Sam to fipm Monday through Fri-
The situation confronting the Rat is fair-
day, and 10am ro 5pm Saturday. Our address
ly straightforward. "All" he has to do is will have disappeared and only the Druids
is: SPt, 257 Park Avenue South, (between 20th
penetrate the automated defenses of a sup- will remember.
and 21st streets, 3rd floor).
er-computer which is currently doing kinky The foregoing sets forth the basis for In the event that the New York unions re-
things to the environment of the space sta- Land of Faerie as the design has been main on strike and the rest of the nation set-
tion it controls, shut down the maddened developing to date. The scenario which ac- tles, you can send your orders directly to our
machine and find out who programmed it to tually makes up the game is the great Third New Jersey warehouse. Write to: SPI, 150 Bay
go "crackers" in the first pJaoe. Nothing to H, fomorian War between the Dark Elves of the Street, Jersey City. NJ 07302.
All orders sent out during a postal strike
you say. Certatnlv. Except that the last half midlands (aided by their cousins in I/Vales
go via UPS, UPS cannot deliver to a POG
will
dozen gentlemen wno attempted the feat De- and present-day Ulster! and Imnc Troll- Lord's
number.UPS will net be able to service Cana-
fore the Rat have all managed to meet unaes- Confederation of the North (aided by the dian customers.
thetic ends in the process. In fact. Greg tells Gnomes of Cornwall, the allied Fcrmcrian
FILM ft TELEVISION tort***from pa* 221 Before he can stumble out into battle, Zeus attention to the important things, and too
both win. Which one are you?" It is a simple gives him a magical sword, shield and helmut much attention to those things not worthy of
statement, to be sure, but somehow one
— he loses them all before the picture is over. import. Clash is not a terrible picture; it sim-
which very rarely makes it to the screen, pri- When he is weary and cannot go on, the ply does not live up to what it should have
marily because it is too difficult for most di- gods give him strength. He captures Pega- been.
rectors to remove themselves enough to avoid sus, only to lose him. It takes a gift of the Clash of the Titans is still one of Har-
interposing their own values upon the film. gods to bring it back. He allows this gift of ryhausen's best works. It has a decent script,
For this reason alone, despite the excep-
the gods (a cutesy mechanical owl which a fine cast, and a lot of good effects. The
tional soundtrack, excellent photography, makes such obvious tweets and whistles it problem lies in the little things. If, in truth, it
sharp writing, directing and editing, let alone should have been called Owl-2D-2) to be lost was to be a clash of the titans, then that is
Andromeda, it is an action-filled tale of the Laurence Olivier's Zeus is perfect, a ver- turning the pages, anxious to learn the
petty and jealous Greek gods quarreling and powerful portrayal of a god from
satile resolution of the well-placed minor conflicts
among themselves and involving the help- legend. His Zeus is blustery, pigheaded, that keep the Story moving.
less humans below at their discretion. It's willful, petty, vain, childish, and yet he The most interesting characters in the
just the sort of thing to fill out the summer emanates strength and awesomeness. He is Book — Princess Elspeth, the king, the
fantasy schedule, except for one small flaw: Zeus; the mask never falls. village smith — are those about whom Drew
the Greek stories show little regard for the All of the film's performers do well. says the fewest words, leaving most of the
individual; human beings are only chess Burgess Meredith as the poet Ammon is character to imagination and implication.
pieces to be moved about the board. So it is outstanding. He is a near perfect picture of Author Wayland Drew is at his best when he
in Clash. what we think an ancient poet and play- hints at histories unwritten and mechanisms
The hero, young Perseus (Harry Ham- wright should act and sound like. Maggie undefined, expertly tantalizing and teasing
lin), seems only to be able to do one thing
Smith, Claire Bloom, Judi Bowker, Jack the reader to speculate and conjecture.
well: be handsome. From beginning to end, Gwillim, and all the rest turn in more then suspect Dragonsiayer will be best en-
I
despite the words he spews, his destiny is adequate performances; they are stunning joyed if you read it before you see the film. It
firmly in the hands of the gods. Perseus — they are the gods and the mortals manipu- is a diverting novel and enjoyable on its own
hardly accomplishes anything on his own. lated by them. merits regardless of the Story's germination.
He does not even enter the fight by choice; In a way, it would be a better picture if The book succeeds in the first and basic re-
the gods take him from his easy carefree life, their story had been the film's center. Like quirement of any novel: it is entertaining.
and transport him by magic to the action. Superman II the movie does not pay enough DavidSt. Marie
time. The writer just cannot contain his en- The Embracing t™*tinued from we >9!
is a curious mix of predominantly
thusiasm for the system and burbles on
selection puncture in the fabric of his existence, had
Greek and classical myth, with a "balro" and about how easy it is to learn. We, however, removed everything from him, had made him
note the lack of substance and discount all
an "ehnt" or two. A nice touch can be found a threat no longer to the regime that
his claims.
in the investment rules, which describe how employed Adjudicators and Stockboys and
powerful characters can further flesh out High Fantasy tries to negotiate the fine the rest — or so it was designed. His art, his
and sub-classes.
their character classes
line between the simple and the simplistic, friends, his lover, his vision had been hacked
"...withwords can teach you to [pluck
I
but on the wrong side. The game should
falls
rudely away. His sight remained. Totally
clouds from the sky and shape them with
work well when played with the designer and blind,he was enabled to see the regime for
friends, which does not help the several
your hands]. The first of these words is im- the real monsters they were, could see
agination..."
thousand who have not had the luck to meet himself as the barbarian they had forced him
Mr. Dillow. Twenty-eight or so dollars can be
Dillow's imagination is one of his to become, and could see that as an enemy
better invested in equivalent little Golden
strongest assets, as can be deduced from a of that regime he had ceased being a pam-
quick, perusal of his adventure rationales as
Books or copies of RuneQuest and The Fan- phleteer and so might school himself in the
tasy Trip, Eric Goldberg
shown in the Adventures in High Fantasy more ancient, essential arts of killing and
book. I was particularly drawn to Moor- survival.
guard, which takes place in a building com- Of course he could lay down and die.
plex constructed about the giant skeleton of Defeat their purpose. Althea was some-
Feedback Results. Arcs 7
a long-dead god, and Terra Ash, a journey where in the labyrinth. That was why three
underneath the earth's surface to a buried Rank Item Rating hundred and six had died so violently. Hedid
temple. The dependence on single- solution 1 Gallery 6.88
not do it to perform for his jailors. . .
conclusions as the climax of each adventure He was a machine. One like him could
can mar the imagery evoked by the fantasy
2 Rescue from the Hive (game) 6.32 evoke widespread terror. Ten, moving in
settings. That type of rigid story line often 3 Designer's Notes 6.29 total darkness, hearing with touch, seeing
prevents the gamesmaster from doing any- with sound, practicing their killing art, might
4 Games 6.27
thing but killing the player characters or cause enough panic to disrupt the regime's
dropping hints broad enough to span an 5 Science for Science Fiction 5.99 control; a hundred could topple the regime
Abscam defendant's credibility gap. The 6 Rescue from the Hive (story) 5.96 itself. Even the canine senses of the Stock-
solo adventure provided at the end of High boys did not allow stalking by air density, or
7 Facts for Fantasy 5.89
detecting an oncoming blow by smell. Stock-
Fantasy is the best I've seen, and is recom-
mended for any system (obviously a little 8 House of Kurin 5.73 boys were not trained inside the labyrinth.
conversion work will be required). Tillyard awoke to the feel of a cool hand
9 Media 5.72
The rules style reminds one of an on his forehead. His body tensed like a spring
10 Dragon Notes 4.96 and he made automatically for the knife no
earnest basset hound who has finally per-
formed a trick correctly on the hundreth Ares 7 Overall 6.25 longer at his side. Then the pain gripped him,
S<
DoWn in ttte^DliHgeons?
B
Restor) publishing GontpaHy.
set of rules for 25 m.m. fantasy wargaming.
A prentlce-Hall Gonfparjy
Iflc-
ACTNOW! DON'T DELAY:
Go to your favorite hobby store and
Restoit,VlnUrtla 22090
demand the HIGH FANTASY GAMES.
curling him up fetally, weak sound
forcing a "Come to me." It hurt to speak, as his breath out quicker to compensate. She
to bleed past his lips. The hand had been though his throat glands had modified to had shown him the way out of the labyrinth;
withdrawn; there had been no killing blow to other purposes and would no longer permit what was in front of htm was topside.
follow its contact. the old way. "I can sense you're here But she was not behind him.
The chamber was heavy with
air of the with me." He could smell the air; air moved by
the odor of scorching meat. Tillyard fixated When there was no verbal response, breezes and carrying with it the forgotten
on it and spent several moments meditating Tillyard felt relief. She came and crouched smells of the outside world. It was like per-
the pain down to a less sensitive level. close, just out of reach — perhaps she was fume, seductive, holding Tillyard in unmov-
The hand returned, making no hostile watching him. ing awe. He turned and picked his way with
motions, but offering a chunk torn from the And when he was able to walk, she led infinite care back down the slope, slipping on
Shuffler. Steaming juices dribbled down him. He did not touch her again. The picture, the shale chips and finally reaching the bot-
Tillyard's arm, making the meat almost too likea mezzotint on the inside of his skull, tom in a noisy, ass-sliding scatter of loose
hot to hold. He ate and swallowed quickly. burned. Once again, Tillyard's mind was rock. His scabbed legs did not seem to mind.
Back in an almost totally dead section of his convincing itself, working logically toward Beyond the cleft, she waited.
mind, he felt the absurd urge to ask for salt. a reality. "It's the way out," he said in his hoarse,
When the food hit his stomach, The creature that led him had to be nearly useless voice. "Come with me; it's the
Tillyard's brain swam blackly and he finally Althea. But she would not speak — perhaps way out!"
vomited onto the cavern floor with such the best argument for her identity. The
force that he lapsed back into unconscious- hungry tunnel dwellers always talked to him She moved, but not toward the cleft.
ness. Sickness or incapacitation of any kind, first. Their route was a new one to Tillyard, Her hand traced lightly down his cheek in a
he thought as he was pulled down, usually which brought his caution rushing up quite caress that seemed to web his lungs in elec-
cycled back to the only end product there unbidden. His automatic defenses were tricity; it became difficult now to breathe.
was in the labyrinth - death. He cursed humming, like small, terribly costly mech- She pulled him toward her.
himself for his weakness, his inability to hang anics or incredibly intricate dermal implants. "It is you," he said.
on. Escaping from the Shuffler's belly had His natural senses were better than Touchme. Loveme. I've been so alone.
most likely depleted any reserve of luck he machines. His arms went around her and he found
had stored. The pathways through which she led that one of her own was missing at the
him were uninhabited by any of the usual oc- elbow. Like his severed fingers. You lost
But when he came back up
a second pieces of yourself in the labyrinth, and if you
cupants of the labyrinth. Occasionally he
time, he found himself neither eviscerated survived its denizens, it would consume you,
recorded non-natural metal implants in the
nor dead. Wildly he thought that perhaps he rock walls — possibly an abandoned in-
absorbing your soul and being into the rock
had been killed by the Shuffler, and was in a dustrial adjunct to the maze of caverns and walls. It might rob you of your voice, even as
state of fugue between hells or limbos or it had spent endless, painstaking time rob-
tunnels. Their significance was noted but
whatever awaited him past death in the bing Tillyard of his, though he still retained
lost; she led him onward. Deeper.
labyrinth. It was highly possible; he was sick that selfish remnant of speaking ability. It
and in shock, reeling with disorientation - might rob you of other things. . .
until the cool hand returned as well, to ten- Tillvahd'slefthano never lost contact with "Althea." He said it only once. It was a
tatively stroke his forehead, leaving cool little the haft of the bone knife she had re- whisper, sucked quickly into the stone walls
trails through the fever-sweat that had turned. She rushed ahead of him, ap- without an echo. She held him tighter, her
d there. parently unaware or unconcerned about the tace now buried in the hollow of his neck. He
Tillyard's grip on the only concept of traps that might lie before them," and Tillyard could feel her tears running down his chest.
time available to him was lost during his grudgingly allowed a bit of trust — she had, She made no sound.
achingly slow recuperation. He was fed. The afterall, neatly dispatched the Shuffler that Takeme. Loveme.
remains of the Shuffler would last a very long had intended to lunch on him. His paranoia He forced it out, tears now welling up in
time. Time stood in stasis at three hundred eased back a notch; just then the tunnel his own eyes; "I love you." He said it quietly,
and six. dead -ended out. Shestopped. his teeth clenched together as though he
There were no cooing words of promise Not quite; he registered a narrow cleft in was in great agony.
from his benefactor; no verbal bait. Tillyard the rock but she did not continue through it. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut as
could not escape the unease that came from Rather, she came to him and tugged his arm, he buried the bone knife in her back up to the
the lack of a palpable threat. He waited, but indicating that he should precede her now. hilt. She stiffened in his embrace and he
he never relaxed - the very concept, like So this is the game, his mind nagged. could feel her blood pumping out. slicking
salt, was absurd. He was poised on a deadly He and with no
jerked the knife free his fist. With a gutteral rasp of air that sound-
edge, he felt, unwillingly submitting to some hesitation whatsoever stepped through the ed vaguely like a sigh, she slumped and he
sort of game alien to the labyrinth. split in the rock wall. She hung by it. not supported her. She was dead in an instant.
Until he touched her for the first time. following. Waiting, it seemed. knew how to time the swing, how to
Tillyard
The hand was gently swabbing his brow There was no life inside. Instead, there place the blow tokill instantly and properly.
with a scrap of hide or cloth, when, totally on was a gentle upward slope scattered with Hewasamachine.
impulse, Tillyard reached out and found her shale chips that had cascaded down from He laid her corpse gently down at the
shoulders. She was startled, and with a gasp above. Tillyard worked his way up the incline mouth of the cleft and spent some time
attempted to pull away, but he held her lock- for awhile, sniffing for trouble. His leg squatting near her, touching her face with
ed — not letting her free, yet bringing her no muscles, recently pressed back into service, his calloused fingers. She had scars and bat-
closer. She was smaller, more finely boned stung in protest, and his back was soon tlemarks to match his own. It was her right
than him. His thumbs traced the line of her lubricated with sweat. What he caught was arm that was gone. Their eyes were still
collarbones and distant memory slammed in- no threat, but it stopped him short in good, he thought crazily. They still made
decorously home in his brain. He broke the surprise. tears.
contact after only a few seconds and she Thehad changed, subtly. There was
air He had spoken her name once three in
retreated, not to come near him again until a greasy sheen to its odor, a tinge of metal, hundred and six kills, now three hundred and
his belly growled from a lapsed feeding of solvents and moisture. He took a few seven. He could whisper that, and the other
schedule. more stops upward. Various carbons and a things, to himself as he climbed, the eva-
Her. sweeter tang he did not immediately recog- porating tears streaking backwards in the
The memory of her face and touch nize. He cocked his head; there was an open dust coating his face, but he did not. Smell-
became sharp-edged and distinct, almost space not too far up and the weighty ing the air. he decided he had no further use
painfully clear. It never left Tillyard's mind moisture of the cave air seemed to dwindle for speaking.
now, and so it was only a matter of time behind him. The wind was very cold, and the redly
before he took his life in his hands by speak- began to thump heavily
Tillyard's heart setting sun reflected off Tillyard's dead eyes
ing to her, alone for now in their dank pocket and an sweat broke out over his entire
icy as he crawled, at last, out of the earth to
of the labyrinth. body. He began trembling lightly and blew resume his work.
ard" science fiction adventure; 3 = Problem -solving EG. Divine Right ITS Rl
Feedback 7 =
wave");
Time-travel; 8
9 = Other
= Soft science
(please
fiction la.k.a.
write in the
"new
category
56.
67.
TravellerlGDW)
The Beastlord IYP)
68. StarfalllYP)
description).
Reader Survey, Ares nr. 9 69. Melee (GDW)
Your opinions directly affect the editorial content of Ares 31. Pick the one area about which you would most like to
60. Cosmic Encounters (EP)
Magazine. We invite you to participate in this, our regular see science fiction games done: 1 = Strategic space con-
flict;2 = Tactical space conflict (ship against ship); 3 = 81. Magic Realm (AH)
Strategic planel-bound conflict (army against army); 4 = Dune (AH)
How to use the Feedbeck Response Cerd: After you've
Tactical planetbound conflict (man against man); 5 =
62.
finished reading this issue of Ares, please read the Feed- 63. Ogre(MGW)
Alternate history conflict; 6 = Conflict in a contemporary
back questions below, and give us your answers by writ-
setting; 7 = Role-playing adventure; 8 = Economic/ 64. War of the Ring
socio logical /political conflict; 9 = Other (please write in
boxes which correspond to each question number See 66. CreatureThatAteSheboyga
the category description!
payability in Ares games
write anything in th
z label Incompletely filled-ou
ca dscann ot be processed 4:5 = 5 to 10; 6= 1
26. What is the average number ot hours you spend by their original enemy, the wizard Isslvan. As they jump
play-
around - visiting the Bazaar at Deva, being bored to
death on Klad, dropping in on the Gnomes of Zoorik -
less; 2 = 2-5 hours; 3 = 6-9 hours. 4=10-15 hours;
taofUnt arth(MGC) they must collect enough allies to beat Isstvan lor. at
5 = 16-20 hours; 6 = 21-25; 7 = 26-30; 8 = 31-40; 9 = 41 or
least, throw him off their track for a timet. The Mythfits is
MGCt a two-player game of wild fantasy. The game would in-
i. Death TeStlllMGC) clude a 22" x 34' mapsheet that contains tactical displays
you possess? 1 = 1-10; 2 = 11-20; 3 = 21-30; 4 = 31-40. of houses, streets, and battlefields where magical or
5 = 41 -50; 6 = 51 -60. 7 = 61-70, 8 = 71-80; 9 = 81 or more. J. GrailQuestlMGC)
military confrontations occur, as well as the mutli-
28. What level of complexity do you prefer in games? '. Security Station [MGCI dimension display. All the madcap characters from
t. Mage A rchaeron Game System)
I
Asprin's novels - the lovely Tanda, thedragonGleep, the
Imps Higgens and Brockhurst, and all the rest - will ap-
4= ). Bright Face/Mission on MithriHGDW)
as guidelines Work/Killer, 7 = BaltleFleet: Mars. pear in the game. Will include 200 counters, rules
1. StarfirelllTFG) (possibly using an adapted Voyage of the Pandora story-
f. The Compleat Fantasist (Dimension6l paragraph system), end playing aids To sell for S15,
*. LandoftheRisingSunfFGUll
60. Fantasy Flux. By the mid-21st Century, the human
I. Bushido (Phoenix Games) brain-computer interface is commonplace Plug yourself
= Space opera/sc
is Iweapons. si ,, al Iplus basement andaiticlano 16 pages of rules. A
work. The favorite pastime ot people is Fantasy Flux - =hidea22"x34"map
the ultimate role-playing adventure system. Trie compu- of the system (including planetary sub- displays I, 200
diverse supptomem Bil-
ter controls each player's senses, actually giving them the counters representing agents, settlements, installations
ling tne existing equipment lists and adding new
feeling that they are exploring a magical castle or lighting and ships, and 16 pages of rules and paragraphs lor use in
:,fields of study, and professions The additional
a terrible dragon In one group of players, however, there randomly generating the planets of the system anew each
anient would be more exotic and specialized and in-
is a malevolent spirit present, these players are suddenly game Ophiuchi Rush would sell boxed for S12. A possible
caught up in a nightmare of shifting fantasy scenes and
rders. translators, etc Vehicles detailed would in-
g-sw ry/lhun
i, the v 86. Wayof thaHoraaclans. In post- holocaust America,
there is only one law. .that which a man wears suspended specialized militaryand scientific craft. The new skiHs
group of players may meet its untimely end Fantasy Flux .
revised package would includes new 32-page rules boi and, ultimately, destroy the Land Foul would be representing all r if the skill classes available n i
Dragon
let, two 22" x 34" mapsheets, and 600 counters Itheexi a variety of characters taken from the book and i ills of 010.
ing 400 counters plus 200 more for use In new scenario in the game via character cards. These would in
D20 and D100 wo uldbeused to randomly sele. :l Treimgs
Invasion America II would sell boxed with tray for $18. Ravers, among others. Supporting Foul and hi
S3. Invasion America Quadrlgama. Four battles fror
IAQ s. Cove;
t of the Bloodguard. the Lords of
level using a deri ir Fulda Gap S\ Pevelstone and others (though Covenant's supporters A DragonQuesi
Standard Rules would be backpnnted with a turncoat side to indicate the ni giving GM's a detailed descnp
possibility of them being suborned by Foul). The focus of it Aiusia
-i. These 50 wou
would appear only in moments of intense danger. Ap-
ents all Skills, Spells and Colleges would
game events or results on a Combat Results Table and the 1 in varying Rank so player characters co
actual manner which the wild magic was applied would iwledge and teachers Somi
can Campaign; Drive on Reno, the PAL Rocky Mountain in
be determined randomly (by a card pick, for example) to
n NPC's
US-Canadian counterattack which cost the PAL 160.000 eGMci
The game would include
i. a 22" x 34" r
)f the details
ny supported by elemeni
Gu ard, March on Atlanta, Co TibinedESC and SAU for.
.. Soon
the companies are struggling to establiy stories together One 196
s on the planets in order to discover, gather and ex $12-15.
the available resources. Ophiuchi Rush would be ;
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Each player controls his spaceships by Each player uses one Spaceship Log for
issuing Maneuver Commands (so that the each of his spaceships in play. There are two
Read This First ship may alter its velocity or direction of types of Spaceship Logs. Type I is used for
The rules to Delia Vee are organized by movement) and Battle Commands (so that small ships, and Type 2 is used for large
major topics arranged in the order in which weapons and other systems aboard the ship ships. The log used for a particular spaceship
they occur in the play of the game. Each such may be prepared for use). A spaceship's com- is stated in the scenario instructions.
major lopic is given a number and a name be- Photocopies of the Spaceship Logs must be
bat abilities include laser fire, particle fire,
low which is given (usually) a General rule or
four types of missiles, and battlecraft (two- made for repeated play.
Description which summarizes the rule in that
man fighter craft launched from larger
section. This is usually followed by numbered (2.4) The playing pieces represent the
ships). The attributes of each spaceship are
paragraphs called Cases, which give the specif- spaceships, battlecraft, and missiles
ics of the rules. Note that the numbering of the
recorded on a Spaceship Log before begin-
that may be used by the players.
Cases is a decimal form of the major Section
ning play. During the game, energy expend-
The game also includes Velocity
number. Players should examine the map and ed, missiles launched, and damage incurred
markers, Planet markers, Asteroid Field
counters and [hen quickly read the rules (with- by the ship are recorded on the ship's log.
markers, and other game markers.
out trying to memorize them). Then the game DeltaVee is the tactical space combat
should beset uptoplayanda"trialrun" made. system for SPl's science fiction role-playing ]2.5] The spaceships, battlecraft, and
game. Universe. Although there is little open missiles are assigned to the players by
warfare in the vast human interstellar empire the scenario instructions.
of the 24th Century (contact with another These three types of counters are collec-
Rules Questions
space-faring race has yet to be established), tively called units.
Should you have any difficulty interpreting
there are many types of illegal ship traffic
the rules, please write to SP1, phrasing your ques-
and disputes among self-governing worlds.
tions so that they can be answered by a simple
These types of small conflicts form the back-
sentence, word, or number. You must enclose a
ground for the scenarios in DeltaVee. In-
stamped, self- ad dressed envelope. We carinoi
terstellar travel in Universe is accomplished
guarantee a proper answer should you choose to
phone in your question (the right person is not by hyperjumping with the aid of a psionic
always available —
and since SPI has published navigator. In DeltaVee, hyperjumping is very
hundreds of games, no one individual is capable of rare, since all its battles occur within the con-
answering all questions). Write to: fines of a star system, where hyperjumping is All spaceship counters are identical, ex-
impossible. cept for an idenlifying letter. The specific at-
SPI
tributes of each spaceship are detailed in the
Rules Questions Editor for Delta Vee Note: One 20-sided die isnecessary for play-
scenario instructions, the Spaceship At-
257 ParkAvenue South ing DeltaVee. When using the die, always
New York, NY 10010 treataresultofOaslO.
tribute Chan, and the Pod Attribute Chart.
The status of each spaceship during play is
1.0 Introduction
[2.0] Game Components the direction in which the spaceship is mov-
ing. Each spaceship counter must have a
2.0 Game Components GENERAL RULE: Velocity marker under it at all times. The
The game components consist of these back of each spaceship counter used when
3.0 Sequence of Play rules, including charts, tables, and logs; four
is
more spaceships about the game-map using a Chart, Command Summary, Relative Veloci- telligent, and MIMS (Multi-Intelligent
maneuver system that abstractly simulates ty Chart, Fire Results Table, Hit Table, Missile System). All missile counters of a
the laws of Newtonian motion. Each Missile Attribute Chart, and Missile In- single type are identical except for an identity
terception Table. number (each guided missile has a letter-
spaceship is composed of a hull with a vary-
ing number of attached pods. Each pod [2.3]Players use the Spaceship Logs to number that identifies it with the spaceship
represents a system that improves the ship's record the status of their spaceships, from which ii is launched). The attributes of
capabilities incombat, movement, and/or battlecraft, and missiles during the each missile are detailed on the Missile At-
some other aspect of spaceship operations. course of play. tribute Chan and explanations follow. The
status of a launched missile is recorded on the Asteroid Field. Placed on the game map in All of his eligible spaceships, bat-
appropriate Spaceship Log. Once a missile accordance with certain scenarios. An tlecraft, intelligent missiles, and MIMS may
has been launched, a Velocity marker must asteroid field presents a hazard to any units be issued Maneuver Commands. Each of his
be kept under it until the missile explodes or entering the hex (see 6.6). guided missiles may be issued Maneuver
is moved off the playing area. The back of Commands if the appropriate Battle Com-
each missile counter is kept face-up until the mand is issued to the spaceship controlling
missile is detected by the enemy player. the missile. An unguided missile may be
Back issued no Commands; however, the current
E
velocity of each of his unguided missiles must
now be increased by one.
Energy Units. Used on the Energy Unit
Track of each Spaceship Log to record the
3. FIRSTPLAYERFIREPHASE
The player may conduct laser and parti-
first
expenditure of the ship's Energy Units dur-
cle fire and/or launch missiles from each of
Unguided Missile. Once launched, an ing play(see 10.3).
his eligible spaceships and battlecraft.
unguided missile may receive no Maneuver Prepare Jump/Jump. atop a Placed The result of each laser and particle fire
Commands, lis velocity is automatically in- spaceship thai has been issued a Prepare is determined immediately, as each is
creased by one each friendly Command Jump or Jump Command (see 7.2). declared. Each launched missile is placed in a
Phase.
hex adjacent to the spaceship from which it is
launched. Each friendly battlecraft may be
E
available, these 10 chits can be placed in an 5.
opaque, wide-mouthed container (such as a The first player conducts the activities listed
coffee mug). Whenever a roll of the die is in Phase 2.
called for, blindly draw a chit to obtain a die
6. SECOND PLAYER FIRE PHASE
result. Always return a drawn chit to the con-
Intelligent Missile. An intelligent missile
The second player conducts the activities
tainer after noting its result, so that all 10
listed in Phase 3.
may be issued Maneuver Commands during chits are always available to be drawn from
each friendly Command Phase. One Game-Turn is now completed and
MIMS. A MIMS
missile
unguided
except
is
that
missiles
it may
launch four
during any one
itself
E
an intelligent
identical to
[3.0]
Game-Turn
Sequence of Play
DeltaVee
is
played in Game-Turns. Each
is
[4.0] Spaceships
GENERAL RULE:
friendly Fire Phase (see 9.9). After doing so,
players in a Game-Turn must proceed strictly The 12 spaceship Classes from which ihe
it is considered an intelligent missile.
according to the following sequence outline: players are assigned ships in DeltaVee vary
[2.6] A
Velocity marker is placed under 1. FIRST PLAYER MOVEMENT PHASE widely in size and quality. Each spaceship is
each unit in play to show its current The first player (as assigned by the scenario actually a hull with one to 12 attached pods.
velocity. instructions) must move all his spaceships, (Note: The two Terwilltcker ship Classes are
battlecraft, and missiles currently in play. considered battlecraft and do not carry
SAMPLE VELOCITY MARKER pods.) In addition to the information listed
Each unit is moved
a number of hexes
equal to its current velocity in the direction for each spaceship Class on the Spaceship
the unit is pointing, in accordance with the Attribute Chart, each ship possesses a sub-
moved light engine, a bridge with navigation equip-
restrictions of 6.0. If a unit is into a
hex occupied by a planet, the Phasing player ment, and living quarters for a crew
may and/or direction
alter the unit's velocity necessary to keep the craft tunning, Four in-
(see 6.5). If a unit is moved into a hex oc- dustrial concerns produce the spaccl: :;>*:
The values of the Velocity markers
range from to 9 and are presented in five cupied by asteroids, the Phasing player must Terwillicker Spaceworks. Inc. manufac-
denominations. The players place and adjust check for possible collision (see 6.6). If a tures the Terwillicker-5000, a high-quality
the Velocity markers under their units to missile is moved into a hex occupied by an two-person craft; and the TenvUlkker-X
show each unit's current velocity. No more enemy unit, or if a friendly unit is moved into fighter, an innovative adaptation of the 5000
than one Velocity marker is placed under a a hex occupied by an enemy missile, the designed for military use.
single unit at a lime. A missile or battlecraft Interception Routine must be conducted (see
Blades Research Institute produces
that has been prepared is not assigned a 9.6).
military craft under long-term contract. The
Velocity marker until launched. Both players 2. SECOND PLAYER COMMAND Dagger, Sword, and Spear Class ships are
may always inspect the Velocity markers PHASE their most successful models.
under all enemy and friendly units.
a. Detection Segment Harmonics, Inc. specializes in finely crafted
[2.7] The game markers are used on the The second player flips over every unrevealed ships for government and high level cor-
game maps and the Spaceship Logs to enemy unit within three hexes of each of his porate use. The Piccolo, Flute, and Clarinet
show the status of various units. spaceships. Once an enemy unit is revealed, it represent the top of their line.
Planet. Placed on the game map in accord- remains revealed for the rest of the game.
The Corco Group manufactures a large line
ance with certain scenarios. Spaceships may b. Command Segment of commercial vessels, often sacrificing per-
sometimes land on a planet or use its gravity The second player issues Commands to each formance for economy. The Gamma, Zeta,
well to alter the ship's velocity (see 6.5). and Mu Classes are well-suited for transport
in safe regions. The Iota is designed to appeal Tractor Beam. Allows the player to issue
lo merchants working in dangerous areas.
[5.0] Pods Maneuver Commands to another friendly or
CASES: GENERAL RULE: enemy spaceship or battlecraft during his
A pod is a compartment serving
a Command Phase, as if he controlled the unit.
The Velocity Rating represents the
[4.1] specific function that attached to or enclos-
is The player must issue a Battle Command to
maximum change in velocity a ed in a spaceship. Each spaceship is assigned use the tractor beam. If he does so, a Civ
spaceship may make at once. a variety of pods, in accordance with the Level 7 tractor beam may be used to issue one
Thus, a Sword Class ship may increase scenario being played. The number of pods a Maneuver Command to any one unit within
or decrease current velocity up to three
its ship possesses and the nature of those pods four hexes of the ship with the tractor beam.
levels in a singleCommand Phase, while a make each ship in DeltaVee distinct. All the A Civ Level 8 tractor beam may be used to
Spear Class ship may increase or decrease its major attributes of each pod are listed on the issue two Maneuver Commands to any one
current velocity by only one level in a single Pod Attribute Chart. Additional properties ship within six hexes of the ship with the trac-
Command Phase. of certain pods are listed in 5.6. tor beam, A
tractor beam may not be used to
issue Maneuver Commands to an enemy or
CASES: friendly missile. Each Maneuver Command
The Maneuver Rating is the
[4.2]
maximum number of Maneuver [5.1] Hunter, light weapon, heavy issued by using a tractor beam requires the
Commands that may be issued to a weapon, and arsenal pods may fire expenditure of a number of Energy Units
spaceship in a single Command Phase. laser and particle weapons and equal to twice the Energy Burn Rate of the
The actual number of Maneuver Com- launch missiles. target unit.
mands that may be issued to a ship equals its All four of these pods may fire laser and
Maneuver Rating minus its current velocity. particle bursts and barrages (see 8.0). The Battlecraft. Contains one Terwillicker-5000
number of missiles of the four types (unguid- or one Termllicker-X (as specified by the
The Energy Capacity and the
[4.3] scenario) that may be launched from the
ed, guided, intelligent, and M1MS) each pod
Energy Burn Rate are used to measure spaceship. To launch a battlecraft, Battle
carries is listed on the Pod Attribute Chart.
a spaceship's expenditure of energy. Commands must be issued in two friendly
Certain missiles require a Battle Command in
The total number of Energy Units a ship Command Phases (see 7.4). Once a bat-
order to be launched (see 9.1). No other pods
begins the game with is represented by its tlecraft has been launched from its pod, it is
may be used to either fire weapons or launch
Energy Capacity. Each time a ship is required treated as any other spaceship. However, a
missiles.
to expend an Energy Block (see 7.5), a separate Battle Log is not used; the requisite
number of Energy Units equal to its Energy [5.2] The number of Battle Commands information for each battlecraft is listed on
Burn Rate are expended. A ship that a player may issue to a ship in a single the "mother" ship's Battle Log. A bat-
possesses an energy pod has 144 extra Energy Command Phase is equal to the sum of tlecraft may
be returned to the ship from
Units at the start of play (see 5.6). the Battle Commands provided by each which was launched (only) during any
it
and has no effect on the ship's may conduct a hyperjump during the
Movement Phase.
When a ship does so, ins immediately
[6.4] A unit may be moved into and
removed from play. See 7.2 for details.
through hexes occupied by enemy or
friendly units.
The Interception Routine (see 9.6) is
conducted when a missile is moved into a hex [7.0] Commands
occupied by an enemy unit at any point dur- GENERAL RULE:
7 6 5 ing its any unit is moved into a
move, or if Each player issues Commands to his
hex occupied by an enemy missile at any units during his Command Phase. A player
point during its move. There is no limit to the may issue Maneuver Commands to all his
This is shown by orienting the 'unit
number of units that may occupy a single hex spaceships, battlecraft, and missiles (except
marker's arrow toward a hex side or a hex
corner. These directions may be equated to
at any given time. unguided missiles) in play. player may A
the numbers on a clock face. issue Battle Commands to all his spaceships
[6.5] The instant a spaceship or (only) that possess the requisite pods. The
battlecraft is moved into a planet hex, number of Maneuver Commands that may
the Phasing player may issue the unit be issued to a unit in a single Command
Maneuver Commands. Phase equals the unit's Maneuver Rating
The number of Maneuver Commands minus its current velocity. The number of
the unit may receive is determined as in 7. 1 Battle Commands that may be issued to a
Such a unit may immediately receive the spaceship in a single Command Phase equals
following Maneuver Commands only: Ac- the sum of the Battle Commands provided by
celerate, Decelerate, and Direction Change, the ship's eligible pods.
within the restrictions of 7.2. However, the
PROCEDURE:
unit's current velocity may not be reduced
The Phasing player issues Commands to
below 1 in this manner (but may be during
each (it his units individually, in any order lit
the Command Phase). A unit expends no
desires. For each unit, he calculates the
energy for Maneuver Commands received as
number of Maneuver Commands it may
a result of entering a planet hex.
receive and then issues those Commands to
If a unit's current velocity is altered
the unit by performing the appropriate func-
upon entering a planet hex, the number of
tion listed in 7.2. If the unit is a spaceship, he
hexes the unit has already traversed in its
calculates the number of Battle Commands it
move is subtracted from the unit's new receive and issues those commands to
may
velocity to determine the number of hexes the
the ship by performing the appropriate func-
If a unit that is pointing towards a hex unit must now be moved (in its new direc-
tions listed in 7.4. He then records the re-
corner is moved an odd number of hexes, a tion, if also altered). If this number is or
quisite expenditure of Energy Blocks (if the
Direction Reminder marker should be placed less, the unit is moved no further (it remains
unit is a spaceship) or Energy Units (if a bat-
in the hex immediately ahead of the unit's in the planet hex).
tlecraft or a missile).
final position in the move (i.e.., in the hex the A
unit with a current velocity of 1 that
unit would occupy if the length of its move occupies a planet hex is considered to be or- CASES:
were one hex more). This reminds the players biting that planet, and need not be moved [7.1] The number of Maneuver
which zig-zag hexrow the unit should be during the Movement Phase. Commands issued to e unit in a single
moved through in its next move, so that the current velocity of a streamlined
If Command Phase may never exceed the
"slippage" of the unit's direction to either spaceship or battlecraft in a planet hex is unit's Maneuver Rating.
The number of Maneuver Commands a augmented jump pod need not be issued a player may prepare the battlecraft for launch
unit may receive is further reduced by its cur- Prepare Jump Command; it requires only a by placing the appropriate battlecraft
rent velocity. Thus, if a unit with a Maneuver Jump Command (place a Jump marker atop counter (without a Velocity marker) face-
Rating of 7 had a current velocity of 4, it the ship). A Jump Command may not be down atop the spaceship. The battlecraft re-
could only receive three Maneuver Com- issued to a ship that has an active force field mains stacked with the spaceship (and is
mands. Exception: If a unit's current veloci- (aPrepare Jump Command may be issued to moved with the ship) until the player issues a
ty equals or exceeds Maneuver Rating, the
its such a ship). Launch Battlecraft Command to the ship in
unit may be issued one Decelerate or Ac- any subsequent friendly Command Phase.
celerate Command only. [7.3] The number of Bottle Commands
No Maneuver Command may be issued issued to a spaceship may not exceed
Launch Battlecraft. The player may launch
to a spaceship that possesses a Prepare Jump the allotment provided by its
a prepared battlecraft (that is, a battlecraft
or Jump marker, or that has an operating eligible pods.
placed atop a spaceship in a previous friendly
force field. No Maneuver Commands may be A light weapon, heavy weapon, or Command Phase) by placing the battlecraft
issued to a guided missile unless the ap- arsenal pod each allow a ship to receive one
in any hex adjacent to the spaceship. The
propriate Battle Command is issued to the Battle Command. A battle communications
battlecraft must be assigned a Velocity
spaceship controlling the missile (see 7.4). An pod allows a ship to receive two Battle Com-
marker equal to, one less than, or one greater
unguided missile has no Maneuver Rating mands. Thus, a spaceship with two heavy
than the current velocity of the spaceship.
and may not be issued Maneuver Com- weapon pods and a battle communications
Exception: A battlecraft must be launched
mands. However, during each Command pod could receive four Battle Commands in a
with a minimum velocity of 1. The bat-
Phase, the current velocity of each of the single Command Phase. The number of Bat-
tlecraft must be pointing in the same direc-
Phasing player's unguided missiles must be tle Commands a spaceship may receive has
tion that the ship is pointing when launched,
increased by one. no effect on the number of Maneuver Com-
or one of the two adjacent directions on
A
player is not required to issue a ship its mands it may receive, and vice versa.
either side (thus, a battlecraft may be point-
maximum number of Maneuver Commands. ing in one of five directions when launched).
However, Maneuver Commands may not be [7.4] An eligible spaceship may be
Launching a battlecraft does not require the
transferred from one unit lo another or ac- issued the following Battle Commands: expenditure of energy from the involved
cumulated from Game-Turn to Game-Turn.. Prepare Missile. If a spaceship has a light spaceship or battlecraft.
These restrictions apply to Battle Commands weapon, heavy weapon, or arsenal pod, the
as well. Phasing player may prepare a missile for Rendezvous. If a friendly spaceship or bat-
[7.2] An eligible unit may be issued launch by placing the appropriate missile tlecraftoccupies the same hex as an enemy or
following Maneuver Commands: counter (without a Velocity marker) face- friendly spaceship or battlecraft, the two may
down atop the ship. Consult the Pod At- be docked together. However, the two units
Accelerate / Decelerate. The Velocity tribute Chart to find which pods may launch must have identicalvelocities and must point
marker of the unit is changed for a marker missiles and which of those missiles require a same direction. This Command is used
in the
one greater or less in value. Thus, if a unit Prepare Missile Command. prepared A when a player wishes to dock a battlecraft in
with a current velocity of 3 is issued an Ac- missile may be launched in any subsequent the ship from which it was launched (see 5.6)
celerate Command, its Velocity marker is ex- friendly Fire Phase (see 9.4). Assuming a or when a player wishes to dock with an
changed for a 4 Velocity marker. If the unit spaceship has the requisite Battle Com- enemy ship to fulfill a requirement listed in a
were issued a Decelerate Command instead, mands, it may be issued any number of scenario. Two spaceships that are docked
it would receive a 2 Velocity marker. Assum- Prepare Missile Commands in a single Com- together use one Velocity marker only. Dur-
ing a unit has the requisite Maneuver Com- mand Phase. However, the maximum ing the Command Phase, the Phasing player
mands, it may be issued any number of Ac- number of prepared missiles that a ship may may issue Maneuver Commands to both
celerate or Decelerate Commands in a single carry at one time is limited to the number of ships as if they were one. If the expenditure
Command Phase, up to a number equal lo its pods the ship possesses.
missile- carrying of an Energy Block is required, a number of
Velocity Rating. Thus, a ship with two heavy weapon pods Energy Units equal to the Energy Burn Rate
Direction Change. The direction that the may carry no more than two prepared of both spaceships combined is expended. In
missiles at a time. Until a prepared missile is this way one ship may "tow" another.
unit is pointing is altered by one position
(from a hexside to an adjacent hex corner, or launched, it is moved with its ship and has no
from a hex corner to an adjacent hexside). effect on play. Trector Beam. If a spaceship has a tractor
Assuming a unit has the requisite Maneuver Control Guided Missile. The player may beam pod, the player may acivate its tractor
Commands, it may be issued any number of beam. The player then issues Maneuver
issue Maneuver Commands to a guided
Direction Change Commands in a single missile previously launched from the Commands to one other spaceship or bat-
Command Phase. explained in 5.6. A single tractor
tlecraft, as
spaceship. By issuing the spaceship one such
Battle Command, the player may immediate- beam pod may only be issued one Command
Weave. This Command may be issued to
per Command Phase and does not remain ac-
spaceships and battlecraft only (not to ly issue any number of Maneuver Commands
tive from Game-Turn to Game-Turn.
(within the restrictions of 7.1) to one of the
The unit is immediately moved to
missiles).
any adjacent hex. The unit's velocity and ship's guided missiles currently in play.
Activate / Deactivate Force Field, If a
changed (unless additional
direction are not Active Search. The player may over flip
spaceship possess a force field (Class I or 2),
Maneuver Commands are issued). Only one every enemy unit that is currently unrevealed
it may be activated by flipping the spaceship
Weave Command may be issued to a given within six hexes of the spaceship to which he
over to its forcefield side. When activated,
unit in a single Command Phase. unit mayA is issuing this Command. This range is
the force field provides protection against
not weave into an asteroid hex or planet hex. counted by including the enemy unit's hex
enemy missiles, but not against enemy laser
Prepare Jump Abort Jump / Jump. but not the searching spaceship's hex. Once a
/ In or particle fire. Furthermore, the only com-
certain scenarios, a spaceship with a standard unit is flipped over, it remains revealed for
mands that may be issued to a ship with an
jump pod may prepare for a hyperjump the rest of the game. If the spaceship to
active force field are Prepare Jump, Abort
away from the playing area. A Prepare jump which an Active Search Command is issued
Jump, Prepare Missile, Active Search, and
possesses a battle communications pod,
marker placed atop the ship. In the follow-
is Prepare Battlecraft. A
missile may not be
ing friendly Command Phase, the player every inverted enemy unit within 10 hexes is
launched (but laser and particle fire may be
must issue a Jump Command to the ship (the flipped over. Note: Active Search should not
conducted) from a spaceship with an active
Prepare Jump marker is flipped over) or be confused with detection, which occurs force field. An active force field may be deac-
issue an Abort Jump Command to the ship automatically at the beginning of the Com-
tivated by flipping the ship counter back to
(the Prepare Jump marker is removed). If a mand Phase and does not require a com- its normal side. A player may attempt to ac-
Jump Command is issued to the ship, it must
mand. tivate the force field of a ship that has been
be removed from play in the following Prepare Battlecraft. If a spaceship has a intercepted by a missile at the moment of in-
friendly Movement Phase. A ship with an pod containing a battlecraft, the
battlecraft terception (see 9.8).
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[4.91 SPACESHIP ATTRIBUTE CHART
[8.3] RELATIVE VELOCITY CHART
CLASS
BATTLECRAFT
Terwillicker 5000 2 7 15 1 Yes 1 1 7 -2
s™
0,1
0,1
1*
23456789
2
Current Velocity of Firing Unit
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Terwillicker-X 3 9 15 1 Yes 2 2 8 -4 2 2 3 4 4 5 6 7 8 9
SPACESHIPS 3 3 4 4 5 6 7 8 9 9
Dagger 2 2 6 48 4 Yes 2 2 1 8 -4 4 4 4 5 6 6 7 8 9 10
Sword 5 3 8 78 6 No 2 2 2 8 -4 5 5 5 6 6 7 8 9 9 10
Spear 8 1 4 144 12 No 2 2 2 8 -4 6 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 10 11
Piccolo 1 3 8 30 3 Yes 1 1 7 -2 7 7 7 8 8 9 9 10 11 11
Rute 4 3 6 66 6 Yes 1 2 1 8 -4 8 8 8 9 9 9 10 11 11 12
Clarinet 7 2 7 104 8 No 1 1 8 -4 9 9 9 9 10 10 11 11 12 13
Corco Gamma 3 1 4 54 6 Yes 1 7 -2
*[f thevelocit ofbothum sisO, the relative veloc it isO.
Corco Zeta 6 1 3 80 8 No 1 6
IT the compared directions of the target unit and the firing
Corco lota 9 2 5 120 12 No 1 I 1 7 -4
unit do not fulfill the conditions of statements 1 or 2 in 8.3,
Corco Mu 12 1 4 176 16 No 1 7 -2 use this chart to determine the relative velocity of the units.
The current velocity of each unit is cross-referenced to yield
See4.0 for detailed exp anati nor use. their relative velocity.
TO 4f/#s 6 jS§? o*
1 Critical Hit. [f the unit is a
See 5.0 for detailed explanatio of use. Launch o siles requires Prcp, c M ssile 10 Pod 7, Pod 15
Command in previous Comman i Phase. See 8.7 for detailed explanation of use.
[8.6] FIRERESULTSTABLE
energy Target Value
cost Type of Fire 1 2,3 4.5 6,7 8,9 10,11 12-14 [9.5] MISSILE CHART
Laser Burst 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
2 Laser Barrage 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
V™
1
A: Hit
die roll
ble.
is automatic; no die roll is conducted. Proceed to the Hii Table. (-): Hit is impossible; no
is conducted. If the Target Value is greater than 14, a hit with any type of fire is imposi-
7 2 6 7
[9.7] MISSILE INTERCEPTION TABLE 12
8 2 7 9
Relative Velocity
1,2 3,4 5-7 8-10 11
is automatic;
7 2 6 6
A: Interception
the die is not rolled. See 9.6 31 8 2 7 7
' ' for detailed explanation of use.
7 9 7 5 3 2 1 See 9.5 for dets .led explanation of use.
8 A 8 6 4 3 2
raft energy levels: Number of Energy Units needed or
[7.7] ENERGY EXPENDITURE SUMMARY m of 15.
Action or Situation: Energy Expenditure Maneuver Docked Spaceship.;: Energy Units equal to sum of both ships'
Energy Burn Rate.
Issuing more than 1 Acceleration, Deceleration, or Direction Change
Maneuver Command per Phase; 1 Energy Block if spaceship; 1 Energy Particle Burst: 1 Energy Unit.
Unit if battlecraft. Laser Barrage: 2 Energy Units.
Missile Maneuver: \ Energy Unit per Maneuver Command. Particle Barrage: 3 Energy Units.
Weave Command: 1 Energy Block if spaceship; 1 Energy Unit if If Engine is Damaged: 1 Energy Block per each and every Maneuver
battlecraft. Command.
ActivateSpaceship force field: 1 Energy fl/oot. If Energy Pod is Damaged: -10 Energy Units each Command Phase.
Use Tracior Beam: Enrgy Units equal to twice the Energy Burn Rate or If Energy Pod is Destroyed: Total Energy Units expended immediately in-
target unit per each Maneuver Command. creased to 144.
:;::::::::
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IconlMiad/rompagrd) PROCEDURE: The number of fires a spaceship may
The Phasing and conduct in a Fire Phase should not be con-
[7.5] A
unit must expend Energy Units player declares
fused with the number of Battle Commands
or Blocks when issued certain one at a time. All fires con-
resolves each fire
ducted from one spaceship or battlecraft the ship may receive in a Command Phase.
Commands, depending on the
must be resolved before conducting fires Fires may not be conducted in the Command
type of unit
from another spaceship or battlecraft. For Phase, and Commands may not be issued in
The expenditure of Energy Units and
each fire conducted, the Phasing player the Fire Phase.
Blocks is recorded on the appropriate
undertakes the following steps, in order.
Spaceship Log (see 10.3). A unit that conducts any type of
(8.2]
• A
spaceship must expend one Energy 1. Declare what type of fire is being con- except a laser burst must expend
fire
ducted, from where the fire is coming, and one or more Energy Units.
Block and a battlecraft must expend one
Energy Unit when it is issued more than one which enemy spaceship, battlecraft or missile A
particle burst costs 1 Energy Unit, a
is the target of the fire. If necessary, note the laser barrage costs 2 Energy Units, and a
Accelerate, Decelerate and/or Direction
expenditure of Energy Units on the ap- particle barrage costs 3 Energy Units. The
Change Command in a single Command
propriate Spaceship Log. expenditure of Energy Units is recorded on
Phase. Regardless of how many of these
Commands (beyond one) a ship or bat- 2. Determine the range in hexes from the fir- the appropriate Spaceship Log (see 10.3).
tlecraft receives in a Command Phase, only ing unit to the target unit. Range is counted
[8.3] The relative velocity of the firing
one Energy Block or Unit is expended. A by including the target unit's hex and all
unit and the target unit is determined
spaceship or battlecraft that receives only hexes lying between the firing unit and the
by comparing the direction and current
one of the above Commands in a single Com- target unit, but not the firing unit's hex.
velocity of each unit
mand Phase expends no energy (although it 3. Determine the relative velocity of the two
may expend energy as a result of other Com- units, using the Relative Velocity Chart if
mands it receives). necessary. Subtract the Targeting Program
• A
spaceship must expend one Energy modifier of the firing unit from the relative
Block and a battlecraft must expend one velocity and then add the modified relative
Energy Unit when issued a Weave Com- velocity to the range to determine the Target
mand. This expenditure is in addition to any Value.
that may be required for other Maneuver 4. Refer to the Fire Results Table, cross-
Commands. referencing the proper Target Value column
• Amissile must expend one Energy Unit with the row matching the type of fire
each time il is issued a Maneuver Command. declared to find the Hit Chance. Roll the die;
Thus, if a missile is issued two Accelerate and if the die result is less than or equal to the Hit
one Direction Change Commands, three Chance, the target may have been hit. Pro-
Energy Units are expended. ceed to Step 5. If the die result is greater than
the Hit Chance, the fire has missed the target
• A spaceship must expend one Energy
and this procedure is concluded.
Block when issued an Activete Force Field
Command. 5. Roll the die again and refer to the Hit
Table to determine which part (if any) of the
• Aspaceship that uses its tractor beam
must expend a number of Energy Units equal
enemy unit has been hit. The non-Phasing
player must immediately apply the effects of
to twice the Energy Burn Rate of the ship or
the hit to the target unit.
battlecraft to which it is issuing a Maneuver
Command. This expenditure must be made CASES:
for each Maneuver Command issued 10 the
[8. 1] The number and types of fires a
target unit. A unit that is issued a Maneuver
spaceship or battlecraft may conduct
Command through a tractor beam does not
in a single Fire Phase depends on the
expend energy for that Command.
Class of its burster and the attributes
• During the Fire Phase, a spaceship or bat- of its pods.
tlecraft must expend Energy Units when con-
ducting a laser barrage, a particle burst, or a
• A Class 1 burster on a spaceship or bat-
tlecraft allows one laser burst each Fire
particle barrage (see 8.2).
Phase.
[7.6] A
unit that hes expended all its " A Class 2 burster on a spaceship or bat-
available energy may be issued no one laser burst or one laser
tlecraft allows
Command that requires the barrage each Fire Phase.
expenditure of energy.
• A hunter, light weapon and heavy
The Command Summary lists the
[7.7] weapon pod each allow one fire of any type
names of every Command that a player (or one missile launch, see 9.2) each Fire
may possibly issue to a unit. Phase. ire their directions on one of the following dis-
See charts and tables. • An arsenal pod allows two fires of any
arm. Use the first If the firing unit points toward a
>xsidaand the second if the firing unit points
type (or one fire and one missile launch, or ward a hex corner. The direction of the target unit
two missile launches) each Fire Phase. matched to one of the 12 arrows radiating from the
[8.0] Laser and • A battle communications pod allows
Particle Fire one additional fire of any type (or one addi-
tional missile launch) from any of the above
GENERAL RULE: Depending on the unit's relative direc-
During a player's Fire Phase, he may eligible items each Fire Phase.
tions, one of the following statements will
conduct laser and/or particle fire against All these items are cumulative. Thus, a
apply:
revealed and un revealed enemy units with all spaceship with two light weapon pods may be
1. If the target unit is pointing in the same
his eligible spacecraftand battlecraft. There used to conduct three fires each Fire Phase
(one from its burster and one from each direction as the firing unit, or an adjacent
are four types of fire: a laser burst, a laser
weapon pod). If the ship also possesses a bat- direction, their relative velocity equals the
barrage, a particle burst, and a particle bar-
difference between their current velocities.
rage. Successful fire may result in a pod or tle communications pod, it could conduct
other part of an enemy unit being damaged one additional fire from its burster or either 2. If the target unit is pointing in the opposite
or destroyed. Fire may be conducted in any weapon pod (for a total of four fires per Fire direction as the firing unit, or a direction ad-
direction. Phase). jacent to the opposite direction, their relative
conditions 1 and 2 apply in a singh The Phasing player rolls the die and
condition 2 takes precedence. locates the die result on the table. With the
pointing in any of the
3. If the large! unit is
exception of die result 1, each result lists two
Each spaceship and battlecraft
(8.5) parts of the target unit. If the target unit
six directions not covered in the above two
possesses a Targeting Program possesses neither of the listed parts, the hit is
statements, refer to the Relative Velocity
which modifies the determined relative a glancing blow that has no effect. If the
Chart and cross-reference the current veloci-
velocity. target unit possesses only one of the listed
ty of each unit on the chart to find their
The modifier is listed on the Spaceship parts, that part hasbeen hit. If the target unit
relative velocity.
Attribute Chart. If a fire is being conducted possesses both of the listed parts, the Phasing
Example: The firing unit has a velocity of 4 from a hunter, light weapon, heavy weapon, player chooses which of the two parts has
and the target unit has a velocity of 3. If their or arsenal pod, the Phasing player may use been hit. He can inspect the opposing
•directions apply to statement 1, their relative the Target Program modifier of either the player's applicable Spaceship Log before
velocity is 1. If their directions apply to state- pod or the spaceship. If a spaceship possesses choosing.
ment 2, their relative velocity is 7. If their a battle communications pod, a Targeting
directions apply to statement 3, the Relative Program modifier of - 6 is applied to all fire
If a 1 is rolled when using the Hit Table,
Velocity Chart is used to determine that their conducted from the ship.
a critical hit has occurred; the Phasing player
relative velocity is 5. If, after applying the Targeting Program
chooses one part of the target unit listed on
modifier, the relative velocity is less than
[8.4] The relative velocity and the range the Hit Table to receive the hit. He can in-
zero, it is treated as zero. The Targeting Pro-
between the firing unit and the target gram modifier is never used to reduce the
spect the opposing player's applicable
unit may be reduced if the positions of Spaceship Log before choosing. Exception:
range between the firing unit and the target
the two units fulfill either of the If the target unit is unrevealed, a critical hit is
unit. After calculating the modified relative
following conditions. treated as no hit.
velocity, it is added to the range to determine
If the target unit a revealed missile,
1. A straight line may be drawn between the the Target Value used with the Fire Results
is it
Class I active force field, the Hit Table is us- engine, and force field (that of the spaceship) Each time a spaceship expends an
ed three times when interception occurs. If and for each pod in the appropriate boxes. Energy Block during play (see 7.5) an Energy
the spaceship has a Class 2 active force field, During play, the Status box for the Block is marked. When all the available
the Hit Table is used once when interception bridge, engine, force field, and each pod is
boxes are marked, the spaceship has no more
energy (see 7.6).
takes place. used to record hits incurred, by marking a V,
Aplayer owning a spaceship that D,orXineaehbox(see8.8). Each time a spaceship expends one or
possesses an inactive force field may attempt
more Energy Units (for conducting fire or
to activate the force field at the moment of [10.2]Each Missile section of the operating a tractor beam) the Energy Unit
interception. When the enemy player has
Spaceship Log is used to note how marker is moved the appropriate number of
determined that interception occurs, the many missiles are available on the spaces along the Energy Unit Track. Each
player owning the spaceship rolls the die. If spaceship and to record the time the marker is moved into the space
the die result is more than one less than the
expenditure of energy by each missile matching the Energy Burn Rate of the
after launch. spaceship, the marker is returned to the
Civ Level of the spaceship, the force field is
activated; flip the spaceship counter over. On
To prepare each Missile section for play, space, and the expenditure of one Energy
count the total number of missiles of that Block is marked. Movement of the marker is
any other die result, the spaceship is
type available (the total of the amounts listed then continued (if necessary).
destroyed. No Command is required to ac-
tivate a force field in this manner. However,
on the Pod Attribute Chart for the ship's
an Energy Block must be expended (see 7.5)
missile-carrying pods). If this total is less [10.4] TheBattlecraft section of the
than the total number of missiles shown in Spaceship Log is used to record the
and a Battle Command is required to deac-
the section, cross out lines in the section status of a launched battlecraft.
tivate the force field (see 7.4).
(from the bottom up) until the totals match. The status of the battlecraft's bridge and
[9.9] Four unguided missiles may be Unless the Unguided Missile section is being engine (in terms of hits received) is recorded
launched from a MIMS that is currently filled out, consult the Missile Chart to find in the Bridge and Engine boxes. The expendi-
in play during any one friendly Fire how many Energy Units each missile ture of Energy Units by the battlecraft is
Phase. possesses (see 9.5). If this number is less than recorded by marking the Energy Unit Boxes
The player owning the MIMS declares the number of Energy Unit boxes for each (see 7.5). When all the Energy Unit Boxes for
this action and places four unguided missile missile, cross out boxes for each missile a battlecraft are marked, it has no more
counters in hexes adjacent to the MIMS, in (starting from the right) until the numbers energy. A docked battlecraft may receive
accordance with 9.4 (as if the MIMS were a match. Energy Units from its spaceship; erase marks
spaceship). He may use any of his unused When a prepared for launch or
missile is from any number of the battlecraft's Energy
missile counters of the appropriate type for is launched (if preparation is not necessary), Units Boxes and record the expenditure of an
this purpose. The launch of these missiles is the owning player notes the number of the equal number of Energy Units by the ship. A
not recorded on the Spaceship Log, but a pod and the identity number of the missile battlecraft may never possess more than 15
single MIMS may only conduct this special counter in the first available Pod/# box in the Energy Units.
SPACESHIP LOG EXAMPLE Player 1 Deployment: One Piccolo Two Corco Gammas (counters B and C),
See page 7. (spaceship counter E) with one hunter pod, each with one light weapon pod, one stand-
in hex A0207 pointing towards 3 o'clock with ard jump pod, and one standard cargo pod.
A
Spaceship Log for a Flute with a
a velocity of I . Use Spaceship Log 1 All pods are armor Class 1 Use two copies of
.
player assigned the four pods to the remain- Victory Conditions: The instant one 0. UseSpaceship Log Nr. 1.
ing boxes in the Compartment section and player's spaceship is destroyed, the opposing All four ships must be placed within one hex
noted the Armor Ratings of all the compart- player is declared the winner. Neither player of A0909. All must be placed in different
ments. He then consulted the Pod Attribute may conduct a jump. hexes and must point toward 3 o'clock with a
Chart to see how many missiles the heavy velocity of 2. Each spaceship has already ex-
weapon pod carries and crossed out four pended 3 Energy Blocks.
SCENARIO 2: The First Shot
unguided missile boxes, two guided missile Player 2 Deployment: One Sword (counter
lines, two intelligent missile lines, and one
Tensions were high between the oppos-
A) with two arsenal pods, one battle com-
MIMS line. The heavy weapon pod has a Civ ed governments of Venable and Laidley, two
munications pod and two battlecraft pods
planets in the Eridani system. When a
Level of 7, which means that the guided (each with a Terwitlicker-X); in any hex in
Venable light cruiser ventured into Laidley
missiles possess nine Energy Units each, the the 0100 hexrow of map A, pointing in any
intelligent missiles possess seven Energy
space to "test the waters," it encountered
direction with a velocity of 3. All pods are ar-
Units each, and the MIMS six Energy Units
two Laidley patrol craft. The smaller ships
opened fire and the brief Eridani War began.
mor Class 2. Use Spaceship Log Nr. 2.
(as noted on the Missile Chart); so the player
Victory Conditions: Player I wins if the
crossed out the rightmost columns of boxes Map Deployment:
Corco Iota or two Corco Gammas are able to
in each Missile section to indicate these
jump A ship may not jump until it
(see 7.2).
reductions.
The ship possesses 35 Energy Blocks (66
enters map E(to be placed during play as
Scenarios
[11.0] (counters A and B) each with a heavy weapon set upon by a pair of ruthless pirate ships
pod and an energy pod (armor Class 2); in looking for booty. A distress call is sent to
GENERAL RULE: hexes A0706 and A0705, pointing towards 3 Esata in the hopes that aid will come to the
Before beginning the game, the players o'clock with a velocity of 3. Use two copies of Corco Mu.
choose which of the following five scenarios
Spaceship Log Nr. 1. Map Deployment:
they will play. Each scenario provides a brief
description of the situation, how the maps Victory Conditions: Player I wins if both
are arranged, the forces that each player Daggers are destroyed. Player 2 wins if the
receives, how those forces are set up, the
deployment of planets and asteroid fields (if
any), and how each player may acheive vic-
Sword is destroyed. If neither player has
fulfilled his victory conditions and all oppos-
ing spaceships and battlecraft are more than
A B C
tory. Scenario 1 is recommended for those 25 hexes apart at any time, the game is
declared a draw. Player 1 Deployment:
playing DeltaVee for the first time.
In all scenarios, a spaceship or bat- One Corco Mu (spaceship counter B) with
tlecraft may be destroyed for purposes of vic- one light weapon pod, one battlecraft pod
tory. A spaceship or battlecraft is considered SCENARIO 3: Escape from Tau Cetl (with a Terwi/licker-5000), one standard
destroyed if it does not possess an active As four smuggler ships head out of the jump pod, one energy pod, one standard sup-
force field when intercepted by an enemy Tau Ceti system with a cargo of deadly drugs port pod, three standard cabin pods, one
missile; or if its bridge, engine and more than and escaped convicts, a federal heavy cruiser crew pod, and three buffered cargo pods; in
half of its pods are destroyed (remove the gives chase. The naval vessel's orders are to hex CI 406, pointing at 9 o'clock with a
unit from play). Unless specifically stated prevent the criminal ships from hyperjump- velocity of 2. All pods are armor Class 1 Use .
not be conducted.
Map Deployment One Dagger A) with one
(spaceship counter
SCENARI0 1: The Showdown heavy weapon pod and one energy pod (both
A
gang of cut throats flying a long range armor Class 2); in hex A0409 pointing at 3
pursuit craft stolen from a federal installa-
tion on a nearby planet are intercepted by a
similar ship manned by the local guard.
A B C D
o'clock with a velocity of 1. Use Spaceship
LogNr. 1. The Dogger may not move, fire or
be fired at until alerted. During each friendly
Command Phase, Player rolls the die; if the
Enraged by the theft, the military authorities I
order the complete destruction of the result is a 1 or 2, the Dagger has been alerted
two heavy weapon pods (neither pod has any One Flute (counter A) with one arsenal pod,
A B C
Abbreviated
Player 1 Deployment:
One Spear (spaceship counter A) with two
arsenal pods, one battle communications
Sequence of Play
pod, one battlecraft pod (with a Terwillick-
er-X battlecraft), one tractor pod (Civ
1. First Player Movement Phase
Level 8), one standard jump pod, one energy
pod, and one crew pod. All pods are armor 2. Second Player Command Phase
Class 2. Use Spaceship Log Nr. 2.
Three Corco Zetas (counters B, C and D) a. Detection Segment
each with one light weapon pod, one energy
pod, one standard jump pod, and three stan-
dard cargo pods. All pods are armor Class I.
b. Command Segment
Use three copies of Spaceship Log Nr. I.
One Dagger (counter E) with a hunter pod
3. First Player Fire Phase
and an energy pod. Both pods are armor
Class 2. Use Spaceship Log Nr. 2. 4. Second Player Movement Phase
First Player Command Phase
All five shipsmust be placed within one hex
of A0407. All must be placed in different 5.
hexes. Player I may choose any one direction
and any one velocity (from to 4) for the a. Detection Segment
ships, but all must point in the same relative
direction and have the same velocity. Each
spaceship has already expended 10 Energy
b. Command Segment
Blocks. Spaceship D has no guided missiles
remaining. 6. Second Player Fire Phase
Player 2 Deployment:
One Clarinet (counter A) with two heavy
pods, one battle communications pod, I wo
battlecraft pods (each with a Tenvillicker-X
battlecraft), one energy pod and one crew
pod; in hex B07I7. All pods are armor Class
2. Use Spaceship Log Nr. 2.
De/ta I're: The Universe Tactical Space Combat System Counter Section Nr. 1(200 pieces): Front
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