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

Wow - I didn't even THINK about visibility ...or divinations! :o)

I don't want to consider relativity (doesn't feel spelljammerish), but I 
lean more to "distances are TOO big and ships TOO small to be seen with 
telescopes". 

Also, there are no "canon" tales about groundlings observing spelljamming 
ships between Selune, her tears and Toril - so we can deduce that they are 
most of the time(!) not even visible at such a short distance. 

Of course I know that arguing like that (i.e. using "missing" canon 
references) is not "fair" because there's just not much canon. Think about 
the following "logic": if Spelljammers were easily visible from the ground, 
knowledge of it would be far more widespread. ...and Halruaan mages would 
wonder what all those ships want at barren Moon. *grin*


Divination, on the other hand, is entirely possible and true to the 
settings theme. I think there should be spells developed just for divining 
a ships course and coordinates.

Oh, and then there are psionic powers that might as well be able to locate 
someone on a ship...

Still I don't see a solution to the problem of not being able to close in 
on a ship moving with spelljamming speed...


On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 14:27:55 -0500, Asa Benjamin Winkler 
<abwinkler@???????????????.com> wrote:

>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
>
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