The Village as a source.

[Astromancer]

There are of course two villages. The first and greater one isn't the one I'm talking about here. It's a great idea though. No, I refer to a film by that name.

Picture an isolated space colony that believes that most life in the solar system has been wiped out by killer AIs and the machines they control. As with the community in Shyamalan's film, this was achieved by the founders of the community as a means of protective isolation. The founding generation is still alive but desperately paranoid about outsiders.

Other than distance, what would be their main shields. Who'd cause them the most trouble. And finally, how would you use them in your games.

The Village is sort of an opposite to the whole THS setting. The ice to THS's fire. So how would you cross the steams?

[johndallman]

I'm pretty sure THS technology is not adequate for a small group to remain isolated in space on a really long timescale - multiple decades. They're going to run out of things they can't make themselves.

The village in the film isn't totally self-sustaining, and my disbelief suspender went twang on the first sentence of the plot summary with "a large barrier of oil lanterns." Still, this is quite good going for an M Night Shyamalan film; he has a near-perfect misunderstanding of science fiction as a concept.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Other than distance, what would be their main shields. Who'd cause them the most trouble. And finally, how would you use them in your games.

Primary nemesis would be investigative media looking for human interest stories, followed by appalled do-gooders when the truth comes out. And of course, the initial investigation would probably be done by telepresence, since moving humans about is expensive, which will hardly help with their terror of AIs.

As for how I'd use them, investigative journalism is a perfectly respectable PC activity.

[whswhs]

You know, I actually used a slightly related premise in a campaign years ago, "Whose Woods These Are," though it was more based on the other Village. I had half a dozen people leading apparently normal lives in a small community "in America in the twentieth century"—except that there was only the one community, and nearly all its inhabitants were synthetic beings that could change shape to play multiple roles, and that weren't full self-aware (yes, they were P-zombies, though I didn't know the phrase then). The challenge was for the PCs to regain full awareness of their situation and find the way out.

The gimmick in this case was that there wasn't a single explanation for this gnostic micro-world. Rather, I had devised a different explanation for each PC, and whichever PC first found the door would determine which explanation applied.

And the other gimmick was the one of the six PCs was newly introduced as of the start of the campaign: He was an agent or therapist who had been sent in to disrupt the cyclic reality of the realm, and who had had his own memories partially wiped as he entered. But as he came in, we had scenes of his riding his motorcycle past the various female characters and his eyes meeting each of theirs. Very cinematic, you know?

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I'm pretty sure THS technology is not adequate for a small group to remain isolated in space on a really long timescale - multiple decades. They're going to run out of things they can't make themselves.

and

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

An isolated space colonoy is going to have an infra-red signature. THS technology is very good at looking for that sort of thing.

An answer to both these problems is a cover story. As far as the rest of the system is concerned, this is a station with a small isolationist population that does a minimum of trading with everyone else and doesn't let outsiders any further in than it has to. There are plenty of stations like that already.

But the mass of the inhabitants have been memetically conditioned to believe they are the last survivors of the solar system, and controlling the information that gets to them is easier.

You need an excuse for why they can't leave, which may link to what supposedly happened to everyone else: maybe it's solar radiation and ships can't carry enough shielding, maybe they've been told they're really on a generation ship…

[vicky_molokh]

This is THS. Why is everyone trying to place the village in space? Place it on some big server. Make the villagers Infomorphs. You can even make most of them not know they're Infomorphs. Streams crossed successfully, while adhering to THSsiness.

[capnq]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

.You need an excuse for why they can't leave, which may link to what supposedly happened to everyone else: maybe it's solar radiation and ships can't carry enough shielding, maybe they've been told they're really on a generation ship…

Maybe they are on a generation ship, but now that they're at their destination, the powers that be don't think they're ready for the rigors of planetside.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

This is THS. Why is everyone trying to place the village in space? Place it on some big server. Make the villagers Infomorphs. You can even make most of them not know they're Infomorphs. Streams crossed successfully, while adhering to THSsiness.

Add in some of The Matrix if you want some actual humans rather than just ghost programs. It would make much more sense than the movies' humans as batteries silliness.
Though your idea allows for near Lovecraftian existential horror. Everything we know is wrong; reality isn't real; WE AREN'T "REAL"!

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I'm pretty sure THS technology is not adequate for a small group to remain isolated in space on a really long timescale - multiple decades. They're going to run out of things they can't make themselves.

The village in the film isn't totally self-sustaining, and my disbelief suspender went twang on the first sentence of the plot summary with "a large barrier of oil lanterns." Still, this is quite good going for an M Night Shyamalan film; he has a near-perfect misunderstanding of science fiction as a concept.

The struggle to achieve self-sustaining status would be a great hook to pull people in.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by capnq

Maybe they are on a generation ship, but now that they're at their destination, the powers that be don't think they're ready for the rigors of planetside.

I think a better plot hook might be they are trying to become a generation starship, something within the reach of sanity in THS.