New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Is there a truly flavorful year for Denver that won't undermine the setting?

Oh, those were observations and not complaints. If what you want is excitement, 1898 is a good choice. The Indians were mostly all gone, but the gold and silver mining towns remained lawless and violent; people killed each other for irrigation water; and conditions at the coal mines were steadily worsening and would eventually result in the Colorado Coalfield Wars and the Ludlow Massacre.

So, 1898 is a good time for adventure and, to be honest, there has never really been a better time to live in Denver than right now.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

I've just watched a Utube documentary on the film Snowpiercer. The whole film seems to fail any logic test. But many a good story does. Still, one part of the premise works. A society working under brutal restraints to survive.

Picture a colony on a distant planet. Due to a strange accident, they don't understand, they are lost somewhere in the galaxy. At least they hope they are in the same galaxy.

They were lucky that they got stranded near a world they could terraform. However, the society of the survivors is very poor. More than 70% of the population lives in desperate poverty. Worse, they are made into cyborgs against their will in order that they can do terraforming work more effectively. The cost of these changes is shortened lifespans and a certain misery. Among those spared being forced into being cyborgs, there is a strict hierarchy with comfort and luxury limited to the few.

It was worse earlier on, and as the terraformation of the planet goes forward those that must be made into cyborgs will be fewer. Even the children of the present generation know that only half of them will be made into cyborgs when they leave middle school. And they won't have as many problems as the generation before them. The leaders really are striving to make a better world.

Problems are in the way. First, society has been a Meritocracy for a longish time now. Those higher in the hierarchy tend to forget that "Merit" in their case is fitting into the structures that were built for the crisis. It's a limited sort of merit. It's also likely to be a type of merit that won't be all that useful when society needs to change after the terraforming is done. Second, there is a constant risk of a Crisis of Rising Expectations. The poor suffer hard and make big sacrifices in most societies. And it is brutal in this society. Worse, because this society is a meritocracy, the poor often believe they are being punished and mocked for their misery. Sadly, they are right.

These problems split the society into two groups, those who desperately fear change when they might not have merits that fit the new society, and those who can't bear to wait for change because of their misery. The highest tier of the elites have to keep the lid on and also prevent the mid-level elites from jamming the system to prevent change.

[AlexanderHowl]

In the Cyprus System, an astronomical anamoly resulted in the abundance of iron and copper being switched and the abundance of nickel and tin being switched. When the Sol Empire first explored the system two hundred years ago, they encountered the K'royl, an eight-limbed exothermic species whose biological used copper in place of iron, who had achieved a TL(1+9) civilization. The plant analogies of their homeworld used tin in place of nickel, so their ecosystems possessed a witch's brew of organotin compounds that made them as deadly to humans as cyanide. After a brief war with the K'royl, in which the K'royl showed the Sol Empire the wonderful variety of organic weapons that they possessed and reverse engineered the human hyperdrive, the Sol Empire decided to seek peace and established a 25 ly territorial zone around the Cyprus System.

Since then, the K'royl have expanded into the territorial zone, though the majority of their colonies are mining colonies or scientific colonies. Due to their unusual requirements, the K'royl are rarely settle outside of their territorial zone due to the lack of abundant copper and tin sources required to support their ecosystems. They have an established mercenary force of one million K'royl though that has gained an impressive reputation for discipline, effectiveness, and loyalty, and K'royl mercenaries can be found throughout the Orion Belt, working for anyone who can afford their steep fees.

[Astromancer]

A group of PCs gets into nanostasis to go to a nearby star emigrating to a thriving colony world. They wake up thousands of years later on a world that knows vaguely of Earth, the same way most modern Americans know vaguely of Summer, Ur, and Tyre.

This is a simple classic sleeper wakes scenario. Slavery has been abolished, and the slaver had to release his stock held in nanostasis. People were shocked to learn how long the PCs were held under. The language is derived from English, all PCs had to learn to speak it. Although the PCs left a time when Psionics were fully and finally disproved, Psionics are commonplace and normal here.

The PCs are pretty much lost and desperate to find out where and when they are. They might also want to know about any other people they went into nanostasis with.

The planet they are on was terraformed twenty-five thousand years ago. The PCs have been told all the life forms here are of Earth origin, but genetic engineering is fairly advanced in this setting.

Think of settings like Dying Earth or The Book of the New Sun. That's the kind of strangeness you're going for.

[PTTG]

I did one of those. I went too big, though; I wasn't prepped to really run an open-world game, and a supertech interstellar empire (or even star system) turns into that really fast.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

I did one of those. I went too big, though; I wasn't prepped to really run an open-world game, and a supertech interstellar empire (or even star system) turns into that really fast.

True. Lost in a big universe is tricky. I'd start with them trying to deal with a backwater first. Sound out what intrigues them and work from there.

[AlexanderHowl]

In 2100, humans encountered their first alien species, the C'ta, a species that resembled a hybrid of a hedgehog and milliped who visited Sol on an exploratory mission. After a decade of peaceful contact, the C'ta discovered that...certain human fluids were a natural anagapic for their species when released during interspecial sexual encounters, slowing their aging to one-quarter normal. After the discovery, the C'ta quickly conquered the Earth (their Empire consists of 16,000 stars) and upper class C'ta keep humans for their required monthly anagapic treatments.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

After the discovery, the C'ta quickly conquered the Earth (their Empire consists of 16,000 stars) and upper class C'ta keep humans for their required monthly anagapic treatments.

You mean anagathic, right?

--

I have no idea what to do with this setting as written. I'd probably just drive the C'ta power down relative to humanity (16k to 1 is a bit much), and use it as a big revelation for an alien conspiracy or invasion campaign.

[Astromancer]

Hot Times

This thread on The End of the World suggests a setting to me, basically, an extension of my Posting from a comment to a setting.

The year is 2150AD. Global warming is harsh and brutal, wars have been fought. Luckily for the planet, Russia's neglect of maintenance for their nuclear missiles meant that their attempt at a surprise attack on China and the USA resulted in their missiles exploding in their silos without the bombs going off in most cases. Famine and plague have ravaged the planet. The USA is one of the few large nations that has not had a civil war. That doesn't seem to be likely to hold.

The rise in sea levels is about 40 feet. Western Antartica and Greenland have both collapsed. Still, the USA is more harmed by drought as the Hadley Cell deserts had expanded and Kansas is barren. However, a wealthy crank in the 21st century invested much of his fortune into Vertical Farming. He brought the costs down and introduced efficient robotics to the process. One fifty story tower can produce enough food for 300,000 people. Sixty towers are in New York City alone, with fifteen under construction due to come online this year and twenty-five more have had their foundations laid. Problem, New York City now has forty million people.

Meanwhile, the rural areas are in turmoil. Crop production has collapsed and the weather has gone haywire. The Vertical Farms are the only hope to produce the needed food but the rural areas fear losing their markets. Because the urban population is dense and the rural population is spread out, the rural population controls the Senate. The House of Representatives is dominated by the Urban population. The Electoral college is warped enough to give the Rural population more weight than their numbers merit. The national government is gridlocked.

Corporations are torn. They have vast amounts of extra-constitutional power and untaxed wealth, but they need to use the Rural voters to keep the Urban voters from voting in Socialism. However, the Corporations need the wealth and education of the Urban voters to survive.

Food supplies are on the edge, riots are spreading, politics are polarised, and bitterness is everywhere.

On the other claw. This is an early TL9 society with fusion generators and advanced biotech. Carbon emissions have plunged. The USA's last great project was the building of Sea Thermal power generators that brought large amounts of cold mineral and oxygen rich water to the sunlit surface, thus creating vast sinks for CO2. But no one cares or notices. Hope is considered vulgar and trite.

The PCs would be political operatives of various stripes and goals. They'd take on jobs from political dirty tricks to wetwork. They're working for a consortium of corporations that fear a civil war. They also fear both socialism and a right-wing dictatorship, seeing both as bad for business. The consortium is amoral at best, but it wants to buy time to hold off what it fears.

Note: My sympathies are with socialism, but the consortium is paranoid about socialism in the same way as most American corporations are.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Hot Times

This thread on The End of the World suggests a setting to me, basically, an extension of my Posting from a comment to a setting.

New York City is transformed in this setting. Manhattan is largely sealed off both from the sea and most of the population. Sections of the inhabited area of Manhattan are underwater. The subway system is fully sealed and opperational as well. Manhattan, along with sections of Brooklyn, is functionally a gated community. Although some areas, like Times Square and the Theatre District, are open to outside visitors. There is a sixth borough of New York City called Ys.

Ys is a series of platforms out in the shallower areas of New York harbor. Ys is luxurious and fully closed off to unauthorized personnel. If you neither live there nor work there, you need a pass to even be on the streets or get on the trains that go there. Being vetted to have any pass, resident, worker, or visitor, is not a minor thing. Worker and Visitor passes have clearly marked time limits and expiration dates. Ys is totally secure or at least advertises itself as secure, and wildly decadently lavish and luxurious.

Staten Island is the upper-middle-class area in this setting. The Island is closed off behind dikes that protect it from the sea. Brooklyn, outside of the gated sections, and Queens are the middle and working class areas, The Bronx, and the newly incorporated into the city as the seventh borough Yonkers, are working class and poor.