Re: Random encounters...in wildspace?!?

On Feb 20, 2007, at 4:01 AM, tauster wrote:

> One thing that I never could wrap my mind around:
> How can you have random encounters during a voyage at spelljamming  
> speed?


One point that comes to mind is that, in space, even if you are an  
immense distance from something else, it is still possible to see  
it.  Even Renaissance telescopes could see the moons of Jupiter from  
Earth;  modern binoculars can see lunar terrain features, even with  
an intervening atmosphere.  Consequently, if you have (for the sake  
of argument) a "trade route" between Toril and the Tears of Selune,  
and, as you pointed out, a ship can quite easily sail a couple  
hundred thousand miles "off course" and still be going in the same  
general direction, said couple hundred thousand miles is still only  
the distance from the Earth to the Moon, and a canny pirate might be  
able to spy the victim in a telescope and adjust course to  
intercept.  (Especially considering that many spelljamming vessels  
would tend to be in gaudy shapes and colors, and to be giving off  
light.  Granted, without relativity, there may be an immense visible  
speed differential between two ships moving in opposite directions.)

I think that if it were any *easier* to see ships from afar, piracy  
would make commerce impossible.  With it merely difficult to find  
other ships, and not impossible, the risk becomes an actuarially  
manageable one (i.e. one in the realm of random adventure).

Obviously, trying to mix a fuzzy grasp of real-world scientific  
concepts with fantasy space is not a surefire recipe for a convincing  
explanation.  Fallback explanation:  finding another ship should be  
pretty easy for divination magic, even with the great distances  
involved, because space is so empty.

-  Benjamin Winkler