New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by malloyd

This does kill the moral issue though. If the rest of the people of Earth are actively resisting your efforts to save them by fixing the climate, why would you even consider saving them by lifting them to your other worlds?

Because they are also human and flawed. Just because someone is in the wrong and acting stupidly doesn't invalidate their humanity or the loss to all humanity at their deaths. Even if a fool forced the issue, as did the Nazis, and forces people to kill them, it's still a loss to all.

[AlexanderHowl]

I hate to say this, but there is more utility in the individual species at risk rather than the individual humans. Humans can naturally replace humans very quickly, the process of naturally replacing other species is much, much slower. I would be much more focused on rescuing the animal and plant species from the collapsing ecology of Earth than rescuing the teaming masses of humanity.

While we have an ethical obligation to help people when we can, people have the right of autonomy, and we do not have the right to force people to accept our help. Now, we have the right and duty to keep them from hurting other people, to the point where we can potentially use lethal force to protect other people, so there is an argument to be made to use lethal force to change behaviors that would harm others, but that can be a really slippery slope. It must be applied equally, and it must not exclude any harmful person, as any form of discrimination could easily transform necessary action into oppression and even genocide.

The easiest way to encourage the majority of people to move would be to provide job opportunities on other planets. If you purposefully have 90% of your recruits being women of reproductive age, then you are shifting the reproduction of humanity from the Earth to other worlds. Without women of reproductive age on the Earth, the majority of the men will choose go into move into space to seek mates, so the Earth starts to empty out very quickly as the economic center shifts from the Earth to the offworld colonies. At that point, older folk will choose to migrate offworld because they want to be close to their relatives.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

The Aliens arrived in 2025. The Aliens demonstrated they could block 100% of sunlight from the Earth. The few attempts to fight or attack the Aliens ended in comedy. Humans couldn't hurt the Alien's robot ambassadors and these robotic envoys could render humans helpless with no effort.

The Aliens explained that they were on the order of a million solar years more advanced than humans. They see humanity as a pot-bound plant needing more room. So they plan to remove the vast bulk of humanity from the Earth. The few remaining Hunter/Gatherer groups are to be left behind and small groups of scholars and scientists would be allowed to visit the Earth to study it. Everyone else must go.

As written, the Aliens are what they say they are and have terraformed one hundred worlds to take humanity to. Several campaigns can come out of this.

A) Scholars and/or scientists on the deserted Earth. Anthropologists visiting the few remaining tribes folk. Archeologists studying the remains of human societies. Ecologists studying the Earth''s healing processes. The empty Earth is a wilderness and filled with dangers typical of wildernesses.

B) The PCs could be in the resettlement authority. The possible campaigns are many. Example: Many religious groups would be bitterly opposed to leaving the Earth, their helplessness to stop it would only make them more bitter and volatile. Peacefully settling these groups would be profoundly difficult.

C) The PCs could be part of a group or groups that are still trying to fight their removal. Since they can't do anything to the Aliens they seek to force other humans and human groups to side with them.

D) The PCs could be part of a human group or groups who have decided to make the best of things and build a decent life for themselves on this new world. This campaign would be about diplomacy and politics.

[AlexanderHowl]

Humanity would have 100 new worlds to destroy. The problem with humanity is not a lack of space but, instead a lack of vision. Regardless of how much space you give humans, they will have a lack of vision that will make them an insignificant species for the next million years unless they are forced to take care of their problems themselves.

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Humanity would have 100 new worlds to destroy. The problem with humanity is not a lack of space but, instead a lack of vision. Regardless of how much space you give humans, they will have a lack of vision that will make them an insignificant species for the next million years unless they are forced to take care of their problems themselves.

As I see it, the "repotting" is an attempt to establish 100 separate petri dishes in order to give humans a chance that one of them will succeed.

[AlexanderHowl]

Perhaps, but I see it as the old 'garbage in, garbage out' problem. Until humans actually learn to be better, it will not matter where they are living, they will still lack vision. That was always the appeal of Star Trek, humans had actually learned to be better, so they had vision.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

The 2030s looked like the world had hope. Several different nations cracked commercial fusion in the late 2020s. The US made major breakthroughs in robotics and Vertical Farming (which, because it uses 90% less water than outdoor agriculture. was needed to deal with drought). It looked as if the world had turned a corner, then the zombies showed up.

It was assumed to be something the Russians cooked up since the first reports came out of Yekaterinburg. It was assumed to be some kind of Russian military project gone wrong.

Eurasia got hit first and hardest, Tibet seems to be the only remaining nation on mainland Asia. Mainland Europe is as dead. Britain had multiple outbreaks and collapsed after a few years. Ireland and a few other nations remain.

Someone brought zombies to Argentina in 2043 and they got loose. By 2050 South America was dead. Until 2055 the US and its remaining allies maintained barriers in southern Panama. Then in 2054 gangs of drug-runners brought the zombie infection back to Nicaragua after failed attempts to recover money weapons from a mob warehouse in Columbia.

The USA and Canada, having had decades to plan their defenses, still survive in 2090. People live in fortified cities. There is limited transport between the cities, but only essential goods and personnel travel between cities.

The non-zombie population of the USA and Canada combined is about seventy million. Although Cuba, Trinidad, and Haiti/Dominican Republic all fell to Zombies, most of the rest of the Caribbean is clear of Zombies. And they are teamed up with the US Navy to keep it that way at all costs.

The world Zombie population is still high, although about 2% of zombies rot away in any given year, the remaining zombies seem to become more dangerous over time.

More later.

[AlexanderHowl]

Vertical farming is not nearly as good as everyone makes it out to be (otherwise we would already have replaced traditional farms). The cost of the infrastructure is enormous, you are literally building skyscrapers to grow carrots, and the inputs of energy and water are insanely large. Ventilation and cooling are likewise problematic, as you need to artificially increase carbon dioxide levels and to deal with the waste heat generated by the lighting requirements.

As for the scenario, the USA and Canada crash back to TL6 with that population and are at a high risk of falling to TL5. While they have the leftovers of the TL8 society, they are incapable of replacing them, which matters after thirty years, so they are in real trouble. TL8 versus zombie hordes in one thing, TL6 versus zombie hordes in another thing entirely.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Vertical farming is not nearly as good as everyone makes it out to be (otherwise we would already have replaced traditional farms). The cost of the infrastructure is enormous, you are literally building skyscrapers to grow carrots, and the inputs of energy and water are insanely large. Ventilation and cooling are likewise problematic, as you need to artificially increase carbon dioxide levels and to deal with the waste heat generated by the lighting requirements.

In 1903 most engineers would have told you powered flight was impossible. As late as the 1920s most respectable engineers would have said that regular transatlantic flight would never be commercially viable.

I was told in the 1980s that solar would never be commercially viable. Now, the only reason solar hasn't totally replaced more than 90% of fossil fuels is that we massively subsidize fossil fuels and throw regulatory hurdles in the path of solar. It's only the wealth and political power of the fossil fuel industry that's maintained that and its power is waning.

I proposed major breakthroughs. Moreover, with Zombies in the farm fields, many of the basic issues of Vertical farming would seem small compared to starvation.

As for the scenario, the USA and Canada crash back to TL6 with that population and are at a high risk of falling to TL5. While they have the leftovers of the TL8 society, they are incapable of replacing them, which matters after thirty years, so they are in real trouble. TL8 versus zombie hordes in one thing, TL6 versus zombie hordes in another thing entirely.

That's your scenario, I want to do my own. Have fun with your game.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

The 2030s looked like the world had hope. Several different nations cracked commercial fusion in the late 2020s. The US made major breakthroughs in robotics and Vertical Farming (which, because it uses 90% less water than outdoor agriculture. was needed to deal with drought). It looked as if the world had turned a corner, then the zombies showed up.

It was assumed to be something the Russians cooked up since the first reports came out of Yekaterinburg. It was assumed to be some kind of Russian military project gone wrong.

Eurasia got hit first and hardest, Tibet seems to be the only remaining nation on mainland Asia. Mainland Europe is as dead. Britain had multiple outbreaks and collapsed after a few years. Ireland and a few other nations remain.

Someone brought zombies to Argentina in 2043 and they got loose. By 2050 South America was dead. Until 2055 the US and its remaining allies maintained barriers in southern Panama. Then in 2054 gangs of drug-runners brought the zombie infection back to Nicaragua after failed attempts to recover money weapons from a mob warehouse in Columbia.

The USA and Canada, having had decades to plan their defenses, still survive in 2090. People live in fortified cities. There is limited transport between the cities, but only essential goods and personnel travel between cities.

The non-zombie population of the USA and Canada combined is about seventy million. Although Cuba, Trinidad, and Haiti/Dominican Republic all fell to Zombies, most of the rest of the Caribbean is clear of Zombies. And they are teamed up with the US Navy to keep it that way at all costs.

The world Zombie population is still high, although about 2% of zombies rot away in any given year, the remaining zombies seem to become more dangerous over time.

More later.

It's later.

Although they've lost the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, Indonesia is still a functioning nation. Their population is around 200 million. The Philippines is at present Zombie free, but the nation is afflicted with multiple civil wars including Islamic separatists. Sri Lanka is stable but deeply nervous. Japan is stagnating with a declining population. On the other hand, they still have an interesting arts scene. Taiwan, like Sri Lanka, is nervous, but stable.

Australia is focused on vigilance but it and New Zealand remain the most pleasant places for Working Class and Middle-Class people to live.

Hawaii is the most pleasant place to live in the USA. Honolulu is the present US capital. Compared to the years before the zombies rose life in the USA and Canada is impoverished. On the other hand, life is very egalitarian. Everyone has a place to live (generally a smallish apartment), food (if meat is far less common than in the past vegetables are more abundant), and healthcare (with a certain amount of required cooperation, "You will go to the gym citizen). There is a small upper-class, those who got there by inherited wealth are fading fast (between high taxes and the collapse of real estate, bond, and stock markets they lack the means to hold or recover their wealth) but those who got there by earning their wealth (performers, entrepreneurs, national politicians) are more stable, but far less rich than their counterparts of the late 20th century. Education is free through grad school. It is secular and very compulsory ! Everyone has broadband, being hooked up is a requirement. Taxes pay for these things, but the population excepts this as just and proper,

The Caribbean islands that are still populated are pleasant places to live. There is less poverty, or at least better social services and more regular employment. Many islands that weren't abandoned because of Zombies or economic collapse are now abandoned because of rising sea levels (4 to 5 feet). The City of Havana has been cleared of Zombies and a strong defensive perimeter has been established. There is a plan to clear the island of Zombies and resettle populations from Europe, the Caribbean, and Africa there.

Many islands around Europe are still populated. Many of these, the Orkneys, the Shetlands, the Faroes, Malta, the Balearic Islands, and others. Ireland is by far the largest and most populated of these.

There are other highly isolated islands that retain their human populations. But the economic collapse has made life on many of these brutal.

More later.