New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by ronwit

I wondered if "...And I Feel Fine." was involved somehow. I love that article by the way. What if the aliens are really only interested in the "fairies", like the cetaceans from David Brin's GURPS:Uplift. Somebody says, shouldn't we move the humans too? This way we aren't the center of this but an afterthought. If this is being done by a coalition of aliens it could justify anything from one colony being given Clarkean "magic tech", to being dropped off with the contents of your pockets or having weird or horrifying experiments done to you before being dropped off. All at the same time.

You have lots of juicy ideas. My article was only very slightly involved, humanity leaving Earth with Aliens as Deus ex Machina is one of my tropes. Yes, you can freely play with how important the "Faeries" are to the whole thing. And also play with what the "faeries" are and/or their relationship to Earth/humanity. Similarly, the nature of the trip and the support once there can be played with to create a variety of play styles. As written, I assume that the trip is dull but not soul-crushing and that the infrastructure and support are good. That sets up further games as humanity moves out into space to meet the neighbors and find our lost relatives.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Experiments could be done to "improve" humanity to be more like the fairies seeing as how they come from the same planet and thus are related somehow. This is of course regardless of what the humans feel.

It could be like rescuing chimps and "uplfiting" them along with saving humans, in the aliens' minds at least.

You could play that for everything from comedy to horror and strange blasphemous mixtures of the two.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

You have a Holodeck Malfunction of course.

Maybe it's even a feature: some players got so bored with the predictability that they illegally hacked the holodeck systems to cause it to spit out a random malfunction every time they sign up. Not only do the PCs have to deal with this week's curveball but they have to keep the "captain" from finding out what they're doing.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Or a SAW style manipulator intentionally removing safety features while trapping the players in "the game".

It's interesting to think about this in the context of a "everyone has backups" transhuman future whether this would be considered legitimately horrifying or more on the lines of a Scooby-Doo mystery.

[Astromancer]

{The Far Argosy}


A vast generation starship is built, humanity is seeking to flee a dying Earth and sun. The twist is that the sci-fi setting has a Clark Ashton Smith/Olaf Stapledon/Cordwainer Smith buzz to it.

The ship is truly vast and from a distance looks like a thin reed with a cobweb covered in dew drops wrapped around it. The dewdrops are vast habitat domes back to back, these spheres are one hundred kilometers in radius, and thus the surface area of the two "floors" of each sphere are roughly half again the size of Wales. The domes and corridors of the ship have more surface area than the Earth. And where the Earth had vast oceans, ice fields, and deserts, much more of the ship is habitable. Exploring the now lost and derelict ship carrying the remnants of humanity is going to be as challenging as exploring the Earth itself would have been for the ancients.

Many of those who built the ships had Pulp Fiction style superpowers. Men of steel, no go, try Bronze instead. Pcs are basically Cliffhanger-style low level supers exploring the ship ala The Starlost, but with much more of a lost world sort of feel.

Because of violence at the time of the shipbuilding, psionic straight jackets were developed. These were used by the crew to keep the populations in the spheres from destroying the ship or each other. What good is any ark if war turns it into a hearse?

These psionic straight jackets basically prevented the sphere populations from realizing there was an outside or engaging in warfare. They often had other effects as well to limit technological growth or habitat destruction. In addition, many promoted certain delusions that benefited the local cultures in different ways.

Inspired individuals( basically, PCs with powers of some kind, whatever the GM deems will grant immunity ) are immune to these influences. However, the mobs that might come after them and the local individuals they might rely on, are still under control and may act in hard to predict ways because the psionic straight jackets are still trying to protect their charges and restrain people from destroying the ship.

As set up, no culture extends beyond its half of a habitat dome or other limited territory. In an alternate game, various groups could extend to multiple areas. Remnants of the ship's medical or police services could still function. A secret brotherhood of repairmen and janitors, eternally struggling to keep the ship alive might be fun patrons.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

{The Far Argosy}

Because of violence at the time of the shipbuilding, psionic straight jackets were developed. These were used by the crew to keep the populations in the spheres from destroying the ship or each other. What good is any ark if war turns it into a hearse?

These psionic straight jackets basically prevented the sphere populations from realizing there was an outside or engaging in warfare. They often had other effects as well to limit technological growth or habitat destruction. In addition, many promoted certain delusions that benefited the local cultures in different ways.

One interesting thing to do with the Psionic straight jackets is to ask what was the person who set up the psionic equipment like. Afterall their mind is impressed onto the psionic field that restrains the populace. Their quirks and hobby-horses would slowly sink into the minds of the people under the Psionic straight jacket's influence. Picture an obsessive-compulsive programmed the psi field. Now picture a whole society of obsessive-compulsives. Picture the playful (to quirk level) musically talented guy with a very new age-y romantic fascination with Irish culture, history, and myth. Can you say stereotypes?

By assuming the Psionic straight jackets all are sorely in need of being reset or turned off, you got tons of adventures.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

One interesting thing to do with the Psionic straight jackets is to ask what was the person who set up the psionic equipment like. Afterall their mind is impressed onto the psionic field that restrains the populace. Their quirks and hobby-horses would slowly sink into the minds of the people under the Psionic straight jacket's influence. Picture an obsessive-compulsive programmed the psi field. Now picture a whole society of obsessive-compulsives. Picture the playful (to quirk level) musically talented guy with a very new age-y romantic fascination with Irish culture, history, and myth. Can you say stereotypes?

By assuming the Psionic straight jackets all are sorely in need of being reset or turned off, you got tons of adventures.

That's a pretty cute explanation for the Planet of Hats phenomenon. I like it.

[Astromancer]

This idea is more Science Fantasy. Certain ancient pantheons (I chose the Irish, Greek, Norse, and Egyptian pantheons, but that's me) become aware of the modern world. Assume a cyberpunk setting about forty to fifty years forward of today. Climate change is causing chaos, the corporate elites are doing all they can to prevent a resurgence of democracy, dictators are striving to enrich themselves and their allies and doing so by impoverish and weakening those outside of their ally groups, and the ecosystem is dying.

Each of the pantheons seeks to save the world. The Gods of Egypt see a world that has lost Maat. They seek to bring a new unity to mankind. A Pharaonic lord to heal the chaos. The Norse gods see a world without true freedom, they seek paths from Libertarianism to anarchy to restore freedom. The Irish gods see a world without true community, they seek to restore this wonderful thing they have heard of, democracy. And this time the gods will make sure that it gets a real chance. Meanwhile, the Greeks see humanity as limited and blame themselves. They made humanity incomplete, they feel the Transhumanists might have the answer.

Basically a Cyberpunk world with a behind the scenes Godswar.

Looking back at this from a few years later each pantheon I chose has a key idea.

Egyptian Gods: Justice and Order

Norse Gods: Freedom and Equality

Irish Gods: Democracy and Fairness

Greek Gods: Redemption and Healing

[Astromancer]

While watching a video on the Triassic-Jurassic Extinction Event, specifically the Asteroid impact theory, it occurred to me, their scenario is a useful apocalypse. Basically, the sky around the whole world become a broiler set at 1200 degrees F, because of an asteroid impact.

A larger number of humans survive than dinosaurs, but with the mass destruction of crops, stored food, cattle, etc, famine stalks the land and wipes out many who survived the heat. One community survived intact. They were underground. And experimental station isolated in a group of caverns. They were basically working on life support systems for space stations in the Oort cloud. They were largely sealed and could grow their own food and manufacture most of the things they needed.

It is now the year 3047, a thousand years since the asteroid came suddenly out of the light of the sun and crashed into the Earth. The known Human population of the Earth is about five million people. The Republic, the government of those humans, is sending out explorers for the first time in centuries. What will they find?

Basically, I'm rifting off Xenozoic Tales, good old Gulliver, and post-apocalyptic fiction generally. I assume all those empty ecological niches will allow for rapid evolution. In this setting, I go hyper-cinematic and assume wild new life forms evolved from the surviving animals. If you can get the book After Man, steal their best stuff.

[PTTG]

Push the impact out fifty years from now, say that spaceflight stagnated (or caused the impact, for traditional science-fiction hubritical flavoring), and give the scattered enclaves advanced genetic engineering. Get your Moreau on.

[Flyndaran]

Even for small short life span animals, 1k years is very short to make new species that would look really different to non-biologists.
But with high cinema, one could just make the meteorite contain mysterious debris that causes "rapid evolution".

Though this is starting to sound like Fallout but with a big sky rock rather than nuclear armageddon.