Helmet capabilities

[Caligostro]

Just what are the capabilities of Dougs Helmet? What are its limits? So far I know
- it contains a computer with
- an (at least) vaguely Unix-flavoured OS
- hosts a database on the UN
- hosts a lyrics database
- a sh*tload of music files in MP4
- multimedia capabilities, at least two audio channels
- speech recognition
- wireless LAN
- probably a software development environment of some sort
- it is sound proofed, has separate internal and external speakers
- visor HUD as a monitor for the helmet computer
- radio telecom
- tactical display? What tactical data (apart from music title and playtime does it offer?)
- is shock resistent and anti-static
- comes with an amazing power supply. Does it ever run out of power? Does it give off heat?
- any extras like light aplification / flare comp?
Greets,
Cal

[Bob Schroeck]

It has a lot of non-volatile memory in an extremely compact form factor Doug invented -- the same memory design he pulls out of storage for IDEC once he's on their payroll, and which he earlier fabricated at Ganbare. (Back home he's been making some nice money on the royalties from that I'll tell you.) A lot of the remaining computer technology is merely bleeding-edge Warriors' World tech -- stepped down a little in order to make it fit into the helmet.
The database on the UN isn't all that large -- maybe 10 Mb at most. It's really a copy of the UN charter, the Warriors charter, relevant international law, and a rather broadly-painted history.
There's no software development environment in there. Although that might be a good idea.
The voice recognition is rather simpleminded. It's optimized for about two dozen commands and all the words in his songbase. When searching the songbase it's basically using a Google-like engine.
Tactical display is a little vague; I always had an image of the kind of targeting we see in the Terminator movies, but there's really no need for it.
It's got a starlight scope in the goggles, and some flare compensation.
Power supply... Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Seriously... Fully explaining the power supply would mean I would have to describe to the world at large one of the sillier aspects of the game circa the late 80s, but in short, it's running off a power cell that itself uses a substance that Doug refers to as 'drillium (that's not an unbalanced quote, but an apostrophe indicating that that's a shortened version of the real word). He makes mention of 'drillium in one of the early chapters when he mentions power cells for his motorcycle. His cycle "back home" may be based on a 1936 Harley Davidson chassis, but it doesn't run on gasoline. Anyway, 'drillium is, um, well, we never did exactly quantify it; it's a vaguely radioactive element we got from a culture in a parallel universe with whom we have some regular contact. (That's we=The Warriors, not the UN or anyone else.) It does have a measurable lifespan -- Doug's cycle at home goes through its power cells on a regular basis -- but in something as low-drain as the helmet, a cell will last for decades if not longer.
As for a need to recharge the helmet, well... my prereader list had a long, long discussion about whether I should need it, and how to handle it if I did -- you should have seen the technical discussions about how Doug could build a primitive dynamo in Valdemar in order to charge the battery, etc. etc. But I decided that getting into that level of detail was getting far more complex than the story needed.
For the most part, the helmet really is nothing more than a fancy MP3 player built with electronics technology about 10 or 20 years in advance of where we are now (even more than that for the memory/storage).
Oh, and one other thing it is, is armored. There's a layer of polykev underneath its outer finish.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[offsides]

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Oh, and one other thing it is, is armored. There's a layer of polykev underneath its outer finish.

---

And if Doug was really smart, he would have added a micro-sized thermal generator to the helmet to take that heat and recharge...
Offsides
Drunkard's Walk Forum Moderator and Prereader At Large

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

>Anyway, 'drillium is, um, well, we never did exactly quantify it; it's a vaguely radioactive element
>we got from a culture in a parallel universe with whom we have some regular contact.
...Oh good lord, it IS what I thought it was.
So the Warriors are in contact with Third Earth?
(Could be worse. Could be the Limbo Galaxy...)
--Sam Ashley
"I never seen a cow eat a guy that fast."

[Ebony]

Could be worse. Could be Zrbite.
Ebony the Black Dragon
aka Draco Draconis Ebenium
known to Microprose as Aaron F. Johnson
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
www.lrgames.com
(Shh, the Ethereals will hear you)
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

[Bob Schroeck]

---

...Oh good lord, it IS what I thought it was.
So the Warriors are in contact with Third Earth?

---

Worse. One of the main team members for the second half of the 1980s was a character from the show.
I want to emphasize that this is not my fault. One member of the gaming group was a rabid fan, for reasons I could never understand, and insisted on playing him. Worse, she played him (yes, she played him) in a way that was substantially inconsistent with his character in the original source material. But she had fun, and we had fun, and it didn't really matter at the time, although there was some eyerolling behind her back when the characterization warps got especially egregious. (Literally "tomcatting" around with human women was one of the worst; then there was the double-zero she got on his "did I get my girlfriend pregnant?" roll...)
Anyway, when I wanted to tell a serious story using the Warriors' World setting as my root background... Well, I have tried very hard to obscure the parts of the series that became anchored in WW, and to avoid mentioning this character in the story; where I do, I use the name I gave a very loose analogue to him that appeared in my book GURPS International Super Teams: "White Tiger" (or "Whyte Tyger", depending...).
Yes, that means what it implies about the Meeranon. God help me.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Bob Schroeck]

---

And if Doug was really smart, he would have added a micro-sized thermal generator to the helmet to take that heat and recharge...

---

Doug is really smart, but Bob isn't... That's an idea to remember.
Mind you, the heat-radiating properties of polykev are not from the game world -- I added them to balance the higher armor value I gave him for the stories.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Bob Schroeck]

---

Could be worse. Could be Zrbite.

---

That's one I don't know...

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Scrambler]

You're all making this more complicated than it is. All he has to do to recharge it is a simple "lightning's hand" used properly.

[Caligostro]

I think the only things he should be able to sell in shadowrun (or any other sufficiently advanced society) might be his memory design, the fuel cell, the nanofac and maybe the boomer brain designs he copied (he may not want to do the latter for ethical reasons). Consider that a large MP3 player with some voice recognition in a helmet is no problem even now. It should be easy to fit a PDA into a helmet. And now consider what this tech will be able to do some 5-10 years from now ... when does Shadowrun play? 2010? And BGC? ...
Anyway, since Doug wrote loonix and is responsible for (IT-) security *and* has written a short program for capturing and analyzing the traffic between the sabers I would expect him to have some sort of IDE installed on his helmet.
After your answer to my post I thought a simple chemical battery would have done the trick on Valdemar ... but Lightning Hand would be somewhat more elegant ... :-)
Greets,
Cal

[Ebony]

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Quote:
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Could be worse. Could be Zrbite.
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That's one I don't know...

---

It's from Microprose's X-Com series of computer games. An alien energy source. Sort of a source of humor for my gaming group.
What's Third Earth? It doesn't sound familiar.
Ebony the Black Dragon
aka Draco Draconis Ebenium
known to Microprose as Aaron F. Johnson
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
www.lrgames.com
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

[Bob Schroeck]

The setting of Thundercats -- a typical example of late 80s bad American TV animation. For some reason, our friend (who will remain nameless) loved it. So much so that her Mercury Cougar car had a "Thundercar" sign in the back window (made from a hand-jiggered xerox of the series logo -- whose cat-head emblem was a mirror image, almost, of the Cougar emblem).

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Rod.H]

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>>>Could be worse. Could be Zrbite.
>>That's one I don't know...
It's from Microprose's X-Com series of computer games. An alien energy source. Sort of a source of humor for my gaming group.

---

Zrbite! Zrbite!!! Zrbite!!!! Not in my book it's not. As a X-Com groupie and EPU-fan your wrong.
It's Element-115 or Elerium that powers everything of Alien design or human reverse-engineered/developed toys. It makes a great explosive too
Now it might change in X-Com: Terror From the Deep to Zrbite, but that's because the half-life of refined Elerium isn't that great, plus it's affected by salt water. 'Sides, Zrbite is technically a Protoculture variant.
Rod.H
Avenger flying through space;
Eightteen Squadies in Flying Armour;
All loaded with Heavy Plasmas and Plasma grenades;
Those Sectoids are gonna go splat!