New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Thanks muchly. You just hand waved an issue I had in my nascent near future AtE campaign setting.

Glad to be of help. I love knowing bits and pieces of what I imagine can be used to facilitate others people's imaginings.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Let me guess.

You needed a way for the world to end, and it works pretty well to use a nuclear war triggered by toddler temper-tantrums from a bunch of so-called "leaders" of single-commodity extraction-economy nations suddenly deprived of wealth to which they feel entitled?

Works for me. :)

(I'm so tired of waiting for commercially viable fusion. It's been a promise, my whole life.)

It's a reasonably probable nightmare. Especially as both Russia and Pakistan act like they've got PhDs in national suicide.

As for fusion, it seems like material sciences, computer tech, and fluid dynamics, have come together to get us closer than ever before.

[SimonAce]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

Fusion becomes commercially viable at stunning speed. By 2025 fusion is generating 10 percent of US power. By 2030 it's 55 percent. The rest of the world is only a little behind the USA.

As the fusors are very low radiation, most ocean going ships convert to fusion power. Fusion powered airships for cargo and passengers become commonplace. Oil prices plunge.

This last point is the source of conflict. Nations like Russia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi-Arabia, Venezuela, and Nigeria, all lose massive revenues. Many of these nations have large militaries and unstable governments. Russia, Iran, and Saudi-Arabia combine these traits with both a strong cultural sense of destiny and a deep cultural insecurity ( or at least that seems to be a common consensus).

Russia has long wanted a warm water port and free access to the sea. They are allied with Shiite Iran. Iran is unfriendly with Sunni Saudi-Arabia and Pakistan. Both Russia and Pakistan have nukes as does Saudi-Arabia's new friend Israel. Desperate nations striking out under unbearable pressure would make a good techno-thriller setting. Some points of my setting might fail your plausibility test, still, it's the world of only a dozen years from now and a great setting for spies and covert operations.

Its an interesting scenario though you might need an extra ten to twenty years forward to make it something other than .alt history. No way can we have working reactors in 6 years. We couldn't get a permit for test plant in that time.

The US political system is not find of change and there are a lot of vested interests out there liable to put the breaks on such tech

It might not also be physically possible to build a power plant that fast since you'd have to address distribution at the same time

This setting is cool and is kind of the hoary quote attributed to Bastiat "When goods don’t cross borders, Soldiers will." write large

It's a very scary scenario as well since my understanding of the Russian foreign policy is that it is extremely nationalist and if Russia doesn't exist, no reason for anyone else too. Yike.

Doubly scary with the tritium crisis and the issue with sourcing electronics for triggers threatening the US nuclear arsenal .

This setting basically over time does make shipping and heating houses cheaper but its effects on day to day life for Americans say are minimal. A few bucks a month saved on electricity isn't much and the upfront costs might be very high

You could end up with much less money is people's pockets from fees and taxes as well as rolling blackouts as the society struggles to convert

GURPS Power Plan Techs is very doable, GURPS Electricity and Electronics showed up today in fact if a bit niche.

Otherwise unless the PC are playing soldiers or mercs or maybe spies, there isn't much for them to do that they can't do now.

[adm]

If China builds a working fusion plant, I suspect that there will be test plants approved here nearly overnight.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by adm

If China builds a working fusion plant, I suspect that there will be test plants approved here nearly overnight.

That's true. And the vested interests of all kinds have ignored the average person in the streets in this nation ( the USA) for long enough to get some wild political swings. This isn't mere opinion nor partisan, just look at how the terms of debate have switched in the last few years. Socialism used to be nearly a swear word, now one of the top three canidates for a major party presidential nomination proudly proclaims himself one. Having members of congress call themselves "White Christian Nationalists" used to be something from a dystopian horror film. I've read speeches by at least three congress people proudly proclaiming themselves just that. If fusion shows up in a viable form, the pressure to adopt it won't be something the vested interests will be secure enough to stop.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by SimonAce

Its an interesting scenario though you might need an extra ten to twenty years forward to make it something other than .alt history. No way can we have working reactors in 6 years. We couldn't get a permit for test plant in that time.

The US political system is not find of change and there are a lot of vested interests out there liable to put the breaks on such tech

It might not also be physically possible to build a power plant that fast since you'd have to address distribution at the same time

This setting is cool and is kind of the hoary quote attributed to Bastiat "When goods don’t cross borders, Soldiers will." write large

It's a very scary scenario as well since my understanding of the Russian foreign policy is that it is extremely nationalist and if Russia doesn't exist, no reason for anyone else too. Yike.

Doubly scary with the tritium crisis and the issue with sourcing electronics for triggers threatening the US nuclear arsenal .

This setting basically over time does make shipping and heating houses cheaper but its effects on day to day life for Americans say are minimal. A few bucks a month saved on electricity isn't much and the upfront costs might be very high

You could end up with much less money is people's pockets from fees and taxes as well as rolling blackouts as the society struggles to convert

GURPS Power Plan Techs is very doable, GURPS Electricity and Electronics showed up today in fact if a bit niche.

Otherwise unless the PC are playing soldiers or mercs or maybe spies, there isn't much for them to do that they can't do now.

Part of the scenario is fusion becoming commercially viable at amazing speed and catching the world off-guard.

Mind you, in a world of really cheap electricity, especially as electric cars seem to be the future, many things that run by gas or oil would get switched to electricity. Let me say it again, if electricity is cheap and more ecologically sound, while gas and fuel oil remain dirty and expensive, then people will switch to electricity. Heck, there might be government programs to aid them.

[Astromancer]

When watching a YouTuber's video on a NASA designed Interstellar Drive It seemed to me that it was a sort of Reactionless Drive. The main limit/flaw the YouTuber found was the energy requirements.

Still, this would give a Transhuman Space game a viable hard science interstellar drive.

[SimonAce]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Part of the scenario is fusion becoming commercially viable at amazing speed and catching the world off-guard.

Mind you, in a world of really cheap electricity, especially as electric cars seem to be the future, many things that run by gas or oil would get switched to electricity. Let me say it again, if electricity is cheap and more ecologically sound, while gas and fuel oil remain dirty and expensive, then people will switch to electricity. Heck, there might be government programs to aid them.

The issue isn't the idea. It's actually really cool. It's the time frame. It's completely contrafactual though its a cool alt history if you make your breakthrough about 2000 or so.

The problem with such a change starting as of 2020 say is that it is physically impossible to produce enough electric cars in few years to switch over. Also most American households struggle to afford new vehicle and the market for used EV's is very small as of yet.

The average age of a vehicle is 11 years according to RL Polk and most people keep a car for 6 years . So you'd need time to change manufacturing , note here that most US companies don't make electric vehicles in any numbers if at all.

So a period of time for change over, a period of time for to build up a supply.

On top of that the US electric infrastructure isn't up to par. California where I live has to turn off the grid during high winds . There are a lot of reasons for it but the big one is lack of infrastructure maintenance.

To bring the creaky old grid of ours up to modern standards would cost an estimated 5 trillion dollars . I'm going on the cheap here, a fusion ready grid might cost much more than this.

Assuming a fusion plant costs around the medium low cost of a nuke plant , there would also have to be another 5 trillion in investment to replace the power plants.

The entire US non defense/social security budget by comparison is around 600 billion per annum. Let's round down to 500 for ease.

Its 20 years of every single discretionary penny in the US and note we already borrow about a trillion a year.

Too cheap to meter was thought to be a thing in the 50's but our friends the atom didn't pan out and we never got there.

Your take on fusion power doesn't have the waste issue or safety issues of nuke plants but it's going to cost vast fortunes to set up.

It certainly could be discovered in rapid time but it would be forced to have a long period of testing to make sure the plant is safe. For purposes of course it's the real deal but the people in the setting don't know that.

On top of that that most power is natural gas and many people, myself included prefer it to electric for cooking . natural gas would still be there

Lighting breakthroughs of large scale infrastructure can't easily happen with high sunk costs.

As for a a massive government program to do it isn't possible.

Everyone in the developed is at the ragged edge of how much in taxes can be collected without a depression and near borrowing limits

Each power plant would take say 3 years which is fine but to make a dent you'd need enough people to put up a lot of them, hundreds all at one.

Also unless this is something than can be made at home, there aren't enough technicians on the planet to do this quickly or to build electric cars or to rebuild the infrastructure quickly.

No one is trained to do this and no one is experienced as of yet.

The we got lucky bare bones minimum ten trillion costs for the whole thing are simply unfathomable over less than a decade or two

Worse the savings are not all that much. All costs/taxes/fees and such would have to be less than the electric bill and cost of auto fuel to pencil out for a household less than $400 a month on average

It's a cool idea but it's something that would require decades to come to fruition not a few years and I can't think any way that could change

A more sound timeline, IMO discovery 2020 , tests completed 2025 , trial plant 2030 , infrastructure overhaul done by 2040-2050 .

That 2040 to 2050 timeline is where the interesting things happen as the nations you mentioned might not have been able to adapt by than.

Now life in the developed world won't change very much, costs will remain the same mostly though pollution will decline. This might cause global cooling though so watch out.

The biggest change comes with scaling . Depending on how fusion power works in your setting there are more robots, gadgets, 6 or 7g wireless , data centers , surveillance and oppression tech requiring power , society can scale up subject to whatever is wanted and keep up with the Red Queen Race for a change.

That is when the game changes and you get an even more cyberpunk setting.

[SimonAce]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

When watching a YouTuber's video on a NASA designed Interstellar Drive It seemed to me that it was a sort of Reactionless Drive. The main limit/flaw the YouTuber found was the energy requirements.

Still, this would give a Transhuman Space game a viable hard science interstellar drive.

It might make for souped up ion drive though you'd be limited to roughly the solar system and it would also require some serious breakthroughs in space tech.

In this setting the 2070's or so would be pretty interesting although unless the players want to play astronauts or belters in a low conflict game, there won't be much to do out there. Add a few more decades and you might be able to have a frontier of sorts though my guess is that it will mostly be bot wranglers

Global population probably will have stabilized and old people will outnumber young ones most places . US median age will be well over 40.

The thing about fusion is that for most people it just means more electronics and gadgets, not a higher standard of living . That's driven by land costs and quality of life, These won't change and having more power won't help.

In fact if coupled with AI it could create vast poverty and instability as unemployment rises. Talk about unintended consequences!

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

When watching a YouTuber's video on a NASA designed Interstellar Drive It seemed to me that it was a sort of Reactionless Drive. The main limit/flaw the YouTuber found was the energy requirements.

Still, this would give a Transhuman Space game a viable hard science interstellar drive.

This is a long way short of hard science. New Scientist has a more comprehensible description.