New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Earth had a much larger population than 5 million in 1000 BCE (China had a larger population than 5 million in 1000 BCE).

Rechecks sources, 5,000BCE then.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

This idea is based on the extensive use of Telepresence. Pragmatically telepresence would allow both extensive work in isolated areas like Mariculture facilities in the deep oceans or dangerous areas like mines. However, with telepresence comes the ability to be anywhere on Earth or circumlunar space without necessarily being recognizable. Now in normal circumstances, people have ways of knowing who using a telepresence rig. However clever hackers could slip into a secure area and attack. This could be as subtle as taking over an automated surgical robot the size of a mouse to create a fatal accident during surgery or as blatant as taking over a bulldozer and using it to collapse a school building during the prom.

The PCs would be detectives with the job of tracing and arresting those that use telepresence to commit violent crimes. Occasionally, this job would require extracting criminals from failed states or dictatorships.

[dcarson]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The PCs would be detectives with the job of tracing and arresting those that use telepresence to commit violent crimes. Occasionally, this job would require extracting criminals from failed states or dictatorships.

And by extradite we mean sneak in and kidnap them. Definitely sounds like a PC job.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

Cold Spring

In the year 2063, a comet, which must have come from outside of the plain of the Elliptic (and thus from outside of the solar system) broke up near the Earth and the fragments rained down on the Earth. This created a "Nuclear Winter" type global cooling effect.

The disasters hit in January. This meant there was no spring in the Northern hemisphere that year nor for the rest of the decade. By 2064 even the USA and Australia can't send food aid. Between Mariculture and Vertical Farming, both viable because of a mixture of commercial fusion, advanced robotics, and Telepresence, neither the advanced Western nations, Japan, South Korea, nor Indonesia experienced a full state collapse. Most of the rest of the world did.

It's now the year 2085, although the world has warmed up since the worst of the 2060s, temperatures still resemble the Little Ice Age at its worst. The USA, which now includes Canada and most of the Caribbean Islands, is organizing missions to bring aid to devastated lands. Sure North America isn't fully recovered, but someone has to help.

Basically, the Peace Corps in a post-apocalyptic world. You're bringing new crops, needed medicines, and other aid to the wretched survivors. Mind you, the post-apocalyptic world is chaotic, brutal, and paranoid. Offering honest help isn't going to be easy nor always safe.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

In the year 2063, a comet, which must have come from outside of the plain of the Elliptic (and thus from outside of the solar system) broke up near the Earth and the fragments rained down on the Earth. This created a "Nuclear Winter" type global cooling effect.

That´s is a likely possibility, not only in scifi but also in reality, since we have literally no effective defense against it, and we are very bad at spotting even large chunks of rock in space nowadays. This will be a good setting for a apocalypse / survival campaign, as well a rebuilding scenarion in the decades afterwards.

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The disasters hit in January. This meant there was no spring in the Northern hemisphere that year nor for the rest of the decade. By 2064 even the USA and Australia can't send food aid. Between Mariculture and Vertical Farming, both viable because of a mixture of commercial fusion, advanced robotics, and Telepresence, neither the advanced Western nations, Japan, South Korea, nor Indonesia experienced a full state collapse. Most of the rest of the world did.

To get a nuclear winter from a comet you need a big one, that it´a possible Extinction Level Event or short before it. I´ve done some research about apocalypse scenarios and would suggest hat you use a super vulcano, you get the ash ,the cooling, bad harvest and additionally acid rain, and important for your scenario where the USA help others, there are several over the world, and you can choose the region where it happens. Just to add some spice, what about Yellowstone, it´s big and accordind to experts a long time since the last eruption. That would make the USA the one needing help a seldom used scenario.
Mariculture is good if you can afford the food for your food, because mariculture is mostly done this way, there is a variarity that is about harvesting from free floating and not additionally feed fish, but that doesn´t produce as much, to keep mariculture you need a working fish industry. vertical farming sounds nice, but needs a lot energy, which is probably needed to keep people warm.
By the way most western people ear a lot more food then is needed, so smaller rations will be enough, europe has sadly a lot of experience with how little food peolple can live and still work, it´s much below from what WHO advices.
There is a big question how the weather changes, and how cold it get´s. The USA have enough room to make new farms to the south, but many food ecporting countrys don´t have this possibility. But changing rain patterns, and a cooler climate for decades can make country to food exporters who now import. A big problem anyway will be disrupted shipping, there was in middle of this year a mostly unnoticed info about chinese restaurants who where asked by the chinese goverment to serve smaller rations to keep people healthy and reduce waste, officially there was no shortage, but there where problems with quarantine of ships etc. All countrys will have to adapt because common seeds optimized for the soil and region, will have problems.A lot of experimentation on the fly is to be done.

Originally Posted by Astromancer

now the year 2085, although the world has warmed up since the worst of the 2060s, temperatures still resemble the Little Ice Age at its worst. The USA, which now includes Canada and most of the Caribbean Islands, is organizing missions to bring aid to devastated lands. Sure North America isn't fully recovered, but someone has to help.

Basically, the Peace Corps in a post-apocalyptic world. You're bringing new crops, needed medicines, and other aid to the wretched survivors. Mind you, the post-apocalyptic world is chaotic, brutal, and paranoid. Offering honest help isn't going to be easy nor always safe.

A peace corps sounds nice, makes an interresting and rewarding campaign, but somehow i doubt, that in reality it´s done so. The USA are far of from countrys who need help, and the ash still there in the atmosphere make jet turbines a risk, and before you can use harbors you will need to repair them. Combustion engines of all types will have suffered badly, so there is probably a lack of motorized transport.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Willy

That´s is a likely possibility, not only in sci-fi but also in reality, since we have literally no effective defense against it, and we are very bad at spotting even large chunks of rock in space nowadays. This will be a good setting for an apocalypse/survival campaign, as well as a rebuilding scenario in the decades afterward.

Thank you

To get a nuclear winter from a comet you need a big one, that it´a possible Extinction Level Event or short before it. I´ve done some research about apocalypse scenarios and would suggest hat you use a super vulcano, you get the ash ,the cooling, bad harvest and additionally acid rain, and important for your scenario where the USA help others, there are several over the world, and you can choose the region where it happens. Just to add some spice, what about Yellowstone, it´s big and accordind to experts a long time since the last eruption. That would make the USA the one needing help a seldom used scenario.

I am picturing a large comet breaking up and hundreds of Tunguska Event sized impacts, mainly in Eurasia and the Sahara.

Mariculture is good if you can afford the food for your food, because mariculture is mostly done this way, there is a variarity that is about harvesting from free floating and not additionally feed fish, but that doesn´t produce as much, to keep mariculture you need a working fish industry. vertical farming sounds nice, but needs a lot energy, which is probably needed to keep people warm.

I'm envisioning Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion as the basis for the Mariculture complexes.

A peace corps sounds nice, makes an interesting and rewarding campaign, but somehow i doubt, that in reality it´s done so. The USA are far of from countrys who need help, and the ash still there in the atmosphere make jet turbines a risk, and before you can use harbors you will need to repair them. Combustion engines of all types will have suffered badly, so there is probably a lack of motorized transport.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I am picturing a large comet breaking up and hundreds of Tunguska Event sized impacts, mainly in Eurasia and the Sahara.

You mean like a meteriorite swarm ? I had a similar idea myself, but abandoned it. Basically it was about a very large rock, they are mostly not so massives as they appear, and in an unified attempt of earth it´s hit with nuclear weapons, triggered to explode below surface. The result would be similar, but in my scenario you would have also radioactive polution, in several places ranging from ok to really deadly. I dropped this scenario for 2 reasons. First, it would damage whole regions, with all that what would happen. Like people who know that they are about to be doomed try to leave the area - by any means. Because the rain of rocks would be over hours and be pretty good to calculate when and where. In such a scenario when after the first hit every nation with nukes will try to survive you could as well bomb the planet with them. Yes it is obviously that nuking a incoming rock at close range is nearly useless, but a man who fights for his live is often beyound reasoning. And maybe the basic idea is, ok the rock will hit, but maybe I can alter the course in a way that´s hitting my neighbour.
Second some of this rocks inevitable will drop into the ocean, and the tsunami in indonesia will be a cakewalk against that biblical floods. Literally every coast in the north atlantic will hit in such a way, along with the biggest centers of population. Because of this you will nevertheless have an ELE.
That´s why I ended up with the supervulcanos.You get all the effects you wanted, but spare the problems that a meteriorite swarm will make. At least in my scenarion, I called it shot gun. I tend to develop my scenarios backwards, what is it I want, and then how could I make that happen.

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I'm envisioning Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion as the basis for the Mariculture complexes.

Sorry it´s a misunderstanding. I wanted to say that this certain form of indoor farming, will be use up to much heated space and energy.
About the mariculture you have to really serious problems. The harbors and coast will be badly damaged, including all ships which are in harbor or near coast when the rock hits. That´s one problem, the other is a bit bigger. The fish there is raised mostly by feeding him other fish and waste of fish factories. But a change in weather patterns and the extra polution is likely to break down some food chains in the ocean. I don´t think they will have an energy problem there. In fact in the open sea the cultures are likely to survive the initial rocks. Tsunamis are most dangerous at the coast. But keep in mind for mariculture it´s the same as for pigs. Everything they can eat, is something you can eat. It will not be tasty but feeds you, and you will have by this way a lot more energy - and a bad taste in your mouth.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

Cold Spring

In the year 2063, a comet, which must have come from outside of the plain of the Elliptic (and thus from outside of the solar system) broke up near the Earth and the fragments rained down on the Earth. This created a "Nuclear Winter" type global cooling effect.

At the peak of the crisis, there was frost on all of Earth's continents creating universal crop failures and famine. But now the tropics, with few acceptions, are tropical again. The "Temperate Zone" is still an ecological disaster. The Southwestern USA is an anomaly, as it in past ice ages, in that the climate is far better for agriculture. In many ways, the climate of the Southwestern USA resembles 20th century France. Cool and rainy in the North, warm and dry, but with regular enough rain for good crops, in the south.

The Mariculture stations were overwhelmingly in the topics, which makes sense because of the nature of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion. They have quickly evolved from workcamps to vital towns that are becoming cities. Although Telepresence was vital to setting these stations up, relatively little work is done by telepresence here now. Instead, the stations are centers of telepresence operation for working the deep seas.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

Cold Spring

In the year 2063, a comet, which must have come from outside of the plain of the Elliptic (and thus from outside of the solar system) broke up near the Earth and the fragments rained down on the Earth. This created a "Nuclear Winter" type global cooling effect.

Europe is still deeply messed up in 2085. Fusion energy has finally overcome cultural objections and the economy is finally growing again. Russia and most of Central Asia is a series of failed states. China is sealed off and profoundly isolationistic. Indonesia is booming and South and Southeast Asia are booming with them, but the scars of the famine are still deep. South Korea and Japan are stable but fearful of China. Australia and New Zealand are dynamic and prosperous and like North America, South Korea, and Japan, deeply invested in Mariculture and the Sea towns.

Kenya is the strongest nation in Africa with their ally the Union of South Africa as the second strongest. Both nations have industrialized and the
two allies have build a rail network that has bound Africa together.

Latin America is a chaotic mess with every nation in South America experiencing ongoing insurrections. Mexico collapsed and was occupied by the USA. The USA wants Mexico to reunite and take their independence back. The Chiapas and the Quintana Roo have both demanded either full independence or US statehood. Central Mexico demands the restoration of the old Mexican state. Northern Mexico is in the US courts demanding statehood, and Guadalajara has simply declared itself an independent city-state under US protection. As 90% of Canada's population was driven south into the USA they pretty much chose to join up and take over.

[adm]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Europe is still deeply messed up in 2085. Fusion energy has finally overcome cultural objections...

Europe is spending a lot of money on fUsion, it's fIssion they are avoiding.