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Old 06-27-2019, 09:35 AM   #1091
malloyd
 
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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You're good at being sane. I like that. However, the transition would be rough, transitions involving transphers of power away from people not yet ready to give it up aways are. And that would be the campaign.
But you are having this happen over the course of multiple generations. That's not a sudden transition, and indeed given the supers aren't *actually* a separate species doubtless involves quite a bit of genetic exchange between them and the current elites, so in some senses they aren't even giving power up, they're handing it on to their superhuman grandchildren.

There's still plenty of space for interesting stories in there, probably with a lot of the themes of Transhuman Space, which also has the transition to a post-human world coming relatively slowly.
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Old 06-27-2019, 11:25 AM   #1092
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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But you are having this happen over the course of multiple generations. That's not a sudden transition, and indeed given the supers aren't *actually* a separate species doubtless involves quite a bit of genetic exchange between them and the current elites, so in some senses they aren't even giving power up, they're handing it on to their superhuman grandchildren.

There's still plenty of space for interesting stories in there, probably with a lot of the themes of Transhuman Space, which also has the transition to a post-human world coming relatively slowly.
Malloyd, like tshiggins, you tend to do sanity, at least on these boards. When I look at the circulation of elites in Europe and the English speaking countries, in the 1600 - 2000 period, I don't see serenity, I see struggle, strife, and bitterness. Sure they'll try to keep their kicks under the table and maintain a facade of calm and manners, who wouldn't prefer that stratagem. But the high stakes will cause issues.
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Old 06-27-2019, 12:52 PM   #1093
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Try this one...

In the distant future, something like the 127th century AD, if anyone kept tract of those things, a new time scanner was focused on the planet Earth. The beam, in order to remain stable had to be split into six temporal waves. The head researcher, for her amusement, chose, 48 BC (the first meeting of Caesar and Cleopatra), 429 BC (assumed date of the first performance of Oedipus Rex), 1592 AD (first year that Shakespeare's plays are known to be on the English stage), 1697 AD (the year Ichikawa Danjuro stared in his new play Shibaraku), 1891 AD ("A Scandal in Bohemia" published in the Stand), and 2047 AD (Barazoku {Rose Tribe} the greatest mid 21st century rock band releases its first hit album).

The scanner shorted out and transformed a nearby star system into a copy of the Earth's solar system. But a copy with six EARTH"S orbiting the sun.

Somehow the orbits seem to be stable. Each world is a duplicate of the Earth on the day the scanner was looking at. This dangerous accident has created a chance to explore Earth's history in wild new ways.

The PCs are explorers from a TL12^ space faring society with the chance to explore six periods in Earth's history. The whole Earth was duplicated for that event. Thus if your PCs are interested in China in 48 BC and not Egypt, they can go where they please.

Alternately, a decade or two after the Event PCs could be Earth-folk from the recreated pasts exploring the galaxy.
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Old 06-29-2019, 01:11 PM   #1094
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Try this one...

Rosamund

The city of Rosamund is in a whirl. It seems that a History Professor (Dr. Fiona Murphey {cast a 1979 Elizabeth Montgomery in the role) has proved the existance of "Outside." The physics community is in shock! Further, Dr. Murphey, her Mother, her three children, and her son's boyfriend, have all left through the door to "Outside" and are...beyond the physical limits of the known universe!

At this time we can't confirm rumors of Dr. Murphey's Uncle and several of her children's friends having followed them out to bring them back.

Dr. Patrick Kelly (Dr. Murphey's former husband and the father of the children) is seeking to start a search party to find all these people and bring them home!
[Note: In this society sons get the father's surname and girls get the mothers.]


What lies beyond the city of Rosamund? That's up to you. As written a starship much like in the TV show The Starlost. The PCs are all 350 point characters. They can't have combat Martial Arts styles, only Art styles are known in the city. Similarly fencing with epees and Kendo are the only know weapons skills in the city. And only very formal art styles of each. These people are healthy and fit but they live very cerebral lives. Pleasantly sensual folks, but deeply cerebral in a limiting way.

Dr. Murphey is in her late thirties. Her Mother (Rosheen Murphey) is an MD in her early sixties (cast Maureen O'Hara). Her son is 15 as is his boyfriend. The older girl is twelve and the younger girl is nine. The Uncle is alone, he told his son to go back and get help, he is a strongly built man in his late sixties (cast Stewart Granger but make him workout first) he is a dancer, acrobat, musician, actor, playwright, and singer/songwriter. Anyone telling Dylan Lloyd he can't rescue his sister, his niece, and his niece's kids will have to fight a tough old man with something like real combat skills. As to the friends tracking down the Murphey party, cross the Scoobies, with the other Scoobies, the Little Rascals, the Goonies, and those English kids that had a club in a Double-Decker London Bus and you see the trouble the PCs will have rounding them up. [Note: Think about five teens and six younger kids.]

Remember, no one in any of these groups knows anything about exploration or taking logical precautions. Uncle, because he is vastly well read in ancient fiction and literature, has some ideas and a few good instincts. He is a Common-Sense free zone however. Meanwhile, his sister and niece do both have Common Sense and Intuition. Dr. Murphey's son(Morgan Kelly) has just discovered he has Danger Sense but no idea how to convince his mother and grandmother of this fact. Morgan's boyfriend (Tom Moran) is an athlete (ST 17 DX 14 Ht 15) with high levels of acrobatics and track and field skills. The older daughter (Maeve Murphey) has Empathy. The younger daughter (Deidre Murphey) has Ridiculous Luck and four levels of Serendipity.

Have fun.
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Old 07-01-2019, 09:08 AM   #1095
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Try this one...

Rosamund
The PCs are supposed to have high stats and lots of skills but are supposed to be fish out of water. The city of Rosamund was meant to be closed off for the duration of the journey. If they aren't on a Generation Starship, they they were to be locked up for a long time for other reasons needed to keep them safe.

The city of Rosamund is in a dome forty Kilometers in radius(Three times larger than London, six times larger than New York City). The population is about five million people and they live in a TL12 city. However, you can assume there are large areas of TL12 they know nothing about. Heck, they live a sheltered life, there are large areas of any tech level they don't know about.

A complex memetic process was needed to make the people of Rosamund forget the outside could exist. If anyone could do that again is up to the GM.

Assuming the GM goes with the Generation Starship idea, then the ship is off course, lost, and in danger. The PCs and the people they are looking for will need to resolve that. But first they'll need to understand the problem in the first place.
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Old 07-01-2019, 05:57 PM   #1096
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Assuming the GM goes with the Generation Starship idea, then the ship is off course, lost, and in danger. The PCs and the people they are looking for will need to resolve that. But first they'll need to understand the problem in the first place.
I've always rather disliked that story frame - isn't it lucky the heroes have discovered the Outside for the first time in n-thousand years just in time to avert the ship being lost or the recycling of the cavern breaking down or whatever. Why is the story never everything is going fine and if the heroes don't do anything to screw it up the ship will arrive or the vault will open or whatever on schedule in 1400 years? Accept that your 50-times-great-grandparents made the right decisions for the way you and your next 50 generations of your descendants should live and everything will probably work out more or less to their plan. That seems both more reasonable - everything has worked for centuries, why would it just happen to break down at the exact moment we discovered it? - and a more interesting ethical question - did they have the right to decide that for us in the first place?
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Old 07-01-2019, 06:07 PM   #1097
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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I've always rather disliked that story frame - isn't it lucky the heroes have discovered the Outside for the first time in n-thousand years just in time to avert the ship being lost or the recycling of the cavern breaking down or whatever. Why is the story never everything is going fine and if the heroes don't do anything to screw it up the ship will arrive or the vault will open or whatever on schedule in 1400 years? Accept that your 50-times-great-grandparents made the right decisions for the way you and your next 50 generations of your descendants should live and everything will probably work out more or less to their plan. That seems both more reasonable - everything has worked for centuries, why would it just happen to break down at the exact moment we discovered it? - and a more interesting ethical question - did they have the right to decide that for us in the first place?
Does anyone have the right to decide where their posterity grows up? It really does not matter because that is what they are going to do whether or not there is a such thing as generation-starships.
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Old 07-01-2019, 07:45 PM   #1098
dcarson
 
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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I've always rather disliked that story frame - isn't it lucky the heroes have discovered the Outside for the first time in n-thousand years just in time to avert the ship being lost or the recycling of the cavern breaking down or whatever.
Same way the volcano explodes destroying the isolated island with dinosaurs just after the heroes escape.
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Old 07-01-2019, 09:04 PM   #1099
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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I've always rather disliked that story frame - isn't it lucky the heroes have discovered the Outside for the first time in n-thousand years just in time to avert the ship being lost or the recycling of the cavern breaking down or whatever. ?
Hey just because the ship's off course doesn't mean it's in any kind of immediate peril. It's just not going to reach any destination.
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Old 07-02-2019, 08:16 AM   #1100
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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I've always rather disliked that story frame - isn't it lucky the heroes have discovered the Outside for the first time in n-thousand years just in time to avert the ship being lost or the recycling of the cavern breaking down or whatever. Why is the story never everything is going fine and if the heroes don't do anything to screw it up the ship will arrive or the vault will open or whatever on schedule in 1400 years? Accept that your 50-times-great-grandparents made the right decisions for the way you and your next 50 generations of your descendants should live and everything will probably work out more or less to their plan. That seems both more reasonable - everything has worked for centuries, why would it just happen to break down at the exact moment we discovered it? - and a more interesting ethical question - did they have the right to decide that for us in the first place?
Play it your way. As for the story frame, it's taken from the original source material. But it was stated as optional at the start.

Was anything in the idea tolerable at all? Could I have more than simply negative feedback?
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