06-17-2019, 05:38 PM | #1071 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
The release could be accidental. It's almost impossible to keep a base completely self contained. Depending on the environment, Earth microbes might thrive and start to take over.
An interesting thought on the system: Are the organisms on the two worlds distantly related, or not? |
06-17-2019, 06:05 PM | #1072 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
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Also, as written, someone was sloppy and the authorities have evidence of deliberate contamination of the environments of both planets. The evidence is far better for Pollux than Castor. Add in the fact that people don't seem unhappy about the start of terraforming however it happened, and you see why the authorities are unhappy. Maybe I should add that a rather Mystical offshoot of the Greens is a major political force back in the Solar System. Corperate Capitalists don't want real substantive changes, so they ally with these Greens and social and religious conservatives to fend off the serious Greens and the Left. So the Mystic Greens, who hate both extra-solar colonies and terraforming, have exaggerated levels of influence in extra-solar affairs. No administrator would dare cross them. Their influence is seen as an affort by everybody in the extra-solar settlements.
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Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo Last edited by Astromancer; 06-19-2019 at 07:10 PM. |
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06-18-2019, 01:14 PM | #1073 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
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1) Conspiracy: A group from Earth and the solar system (I'll make them Irish and Irish-Americans because I like doing that) has decided they want to found a new extra-solar colony in spite of a long standing and unpopular ban on new extra-solar colonies pushed by the Mystic Greens. They've infiltrated the base and although they aren't represented in the upper administration (those appointments are Way political) they're everywhere else. If you use this one, the PCs are in the Upper Administration or are important assistants. This Irish-Mafia has taken control of communications and none of the Administrative Elite's messages have gone out. The Irish-Mafia is planning to deliver a message announcing mysterious attacks on the Home System (Sol/Earth) and requiring a communications blackout and work on building up the local economy and population. Such a ruse wouldn't last for long. But isolated as this Star System is, it could work for long enough for the Irish Mafia to simply take over. 2) Aliens or Alien relics. YankeeGamer asked if the lifeforms of the Dioscuri were related. As written no, but why go with that if it doesn't amuse you? Aliens could have seeded both worlds. Having the aliens come back and find humans in charge could be an unpleasant shock to both sides. Another twist might be relics that created a gate between the worlds. From here you could freely steal from Stargate. More later.
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06-18-2019, 08:42 PM | #1074 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
The life could be transported from one to another via natural means. A big meteor strike could toss spore-bearing debris across the void, and perhaps the spores would survive entry into a new world's atmosphere.
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06-19-2019, 05:30 AM | #1075 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Given that it might have happened between Earth and Mars, the much lesser distance between Castor and Pollux makes that more likely. But how to spin it into a game scenario?
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06-19-2019, 10:46 AM | #1076 |
Join Date: Feb 2011
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
A big asteroid impact on a troubled colony on the far edge of known space... it'd be easy to assume that the colony's dead and gone. Who's going to spend multiple years going out to double-check the first freighter's report?
Our plucky band of impact survivors, missed by the last trading mission, are going to have to rebuild on twin planets that are rapidly self-terraforming (throw in science fantasy "fast evolution genes" to give the planets hostile new life forms, or focus on The Martian style hard-sci marooning). Scavinging supplies, searching for other survivors, fighting those who turn out to be too hostile, etc. With luck, you could build a simple craft that could fly you to the twin planet, where your FTL spacecraft was landed and you can hope to return to civilization. |
06-19-2019, 11:31 AM | #1077 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
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This gives two (at least) political camps among geoengineers. The naturalists want to restore Pollux to its natural state, and might be able to use material from Castor to inoculate Pollux. The experimentalists want to make the most of the situation and go all out with terraforming, dreaming about all the scientific papers they'd be able to publish.
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06-19-2019, 11:35 AM | #1078 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
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06-19-2019, 11:36 AM | #1079 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
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06-21-2019, 02:42 PM | #1080 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Try this one...
A Scout base on the planet Lampetia named for an Epimeliad or Apple Tree spirit, a fairly isolated world has been there a couple of centuries in an area left undeveloped by the local stellar government. The area has many anomalies and was the territory of an older society that disappeared mysteriously, so caution was preferred. Early in the Base's history it kicked off the terraformation of Lampetia was started by the Base and given that the Planet already had unicellular life, tectonic activity, and open water, went very well and quickly. Small groups of settlers came to Lampetia and built farming comunities on the same continent as the Base (which gained the name Allantide Base in keeping with the apple theme, earlier it simply had a number). In the last century small groups of settlers, mainly humans and parahumans, have settled widely over the planet. Now the local sector is being opened up to intensive exploration and discovery. A hostile interstellar power is threatening the home government. In order to be able to afford the needed military build up the government needs to expand its tax base and resource base. An unexplored sector so near the core worlds was simply to good to be passed up on. Basically this is a new frontier built over an ancient empire setting. Allantide Base has a sort of Baghdad on the Thames vibe. It's the normal small (your nationality here) city except otherworld strangeness pours in from the landing field. The scouts, often locals, are sent out to deliver mail and supplies to explorers and other colonies as well as to map large areas. As scouts the PCs are combination Postal Carriers, Mounties, Messengers, and Rescue Workers.
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