We're not dead yet! We don't want to go on the cart!

San Francisco Giants: 3
San Diego Padres: 2

There can be no greater motivation for the Giants in this border city than preventing the Padres from clinching the National League West in their presence, as the Dodgers did nearly one year ago.

"Hopefully we can break their hearts," Barry Bonds said before leaving Colorado.

That's exactly what the Giants did Monday night, scoring two runs with two outs in the ninth inning, against surefire Hall of Fame closer Trevor Hoffman, to beat the Padres 3-2 before a stunned crowd of 31,569 at Petco Park. It was Hoffman's first blown save since April 29.

Randy Winn tied the game with an RBI triple, his fourth hit, and J.T. Snow drove in the go-ahead run with a single. Armando Benitez retired the Padres in the ninth, completing a win the Giants stole when they absolutely had to do so. They reduced the Padres' lead in the division to three games with six to play, keeping San Diego's magic number at four.

Ryan Klesko hit a two-run homer two batters into the first inning, and Padres ace Jake Peavy (one run, six hits) made it stand for eight innings. The Giants scored a run in the fifth on doubles by Winn and Snow. It came down to Hoffman in the ninth, and he had converted 38 consecutive saves -- until Monday.

Mike Matheny singled with one out. After pinch-hitter Edgardo Alfonzo flied out, Winn delivered his biggest as a Giant. He blasted a ball to dead center that would have gone out in most parks. Here, Brian Giles chased it to the wall, where he leaped and seemed to catch it. But the ball popped out of his glove.

Winn had a triple, and pinch-runner Jason Ellison scored the tying run from first. Hoffman then walked Omar Vizquel before Snow singled Winn home for an improbable 3-2 lead.

3 back with 6 left to play.

It's not the size, it's what you do with it that counts.

Get your minds out the gutter, I'm ranting about Terran Empire again.

In this book, the Empire covers roughly 1/5th of the galaxy. Let us ponder that for a moment. Our galaxy contains roughly 400 billion stars. 20% of that number is 80 billion. 80 billion stars in the empire. Way too fucking big.

Let's look at the local region, out to about 50ly from Earth. According to my sources, that gives us 998 stars, 211 of which are considered to be good candidates for life-bearing systems.

Map of all known stars within 50 light years

A thousand star systems should be plenty big enough for anyone!

Now let's play with some assumptions. Let's say that only 1% of those probably habitable systems has a world that humans can live on without much aid (garden worlds, much like Earth.) Another 5% or so fall into the "close, but no cigar" realm.. one or more factors renders the place less than ideal for humans, but still livable (extremes in temperature, high/low O2 levels, high surface UV exposures, whatever) That gives us 2 twins of Earth, and 11 near-misses. There are you core systems, the ones that will grow quickly and become the population centers.

Not that I'm being extremely conservative with these numbers.

Now, travel times. During the Roman Empire, no place the empire controlled was more than six months away from the capital. Sounds like a good goal. To get out to 50ly from Earth in 6 months will take an engine that moves you (somehow) 100 times faster than light. Call this the average cruising speed of military vessels. So how long to get from Earth to Luyten's Star?

The distance is 12.388ly. Dividing by 100 gives us 0.12388. Multiplying by 365 gives 45.21 days. A month and a half. Good. Starships in this setting are going to be akin to the luxury liners of a bygone age. Of course, the Captain could order full power (130c) and cut nearly two weeks off the journey.

Yes, my game setting is starting to gel nicely...

Ack. *thud*

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Boo!

My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul
gridlore goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as an Imperial Marine in battledress.
1star_pita gives you 19 yellow coconut-flavoured gummy bats.
aurictech gives you 3 blue evil-flavoured nuggets.
collie13 gives you 15 blue cherry-flavoured gumdrops.
eleri tricks you! You lose 17 pieces of candy!
fimbrethil gives you 13 blue raspberry-flavoured gumdrops.
jarlsberg71 tricks you! You get an eraser.
madelineusher gives you 1 red-orange tropical-flavoured pieces of chewing gum.
sammy_grrrl tricks you! You lose 1 pieces of candy!
soldiergrrrl gives you 9 pink orange-flavoured pieces of chewing gum.
valkyrwench gives you 6 white banana-flavoured jawbreakers.
gridlore ends up with 48 pieces of candy, and an eraser.
Go trick-or-treating! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.