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Old 12-24-2017, 08:25 PM   #11
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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Were the colonies in place before the spill? If so, why, on a barren world? If not, why are they getting blamed? Surely the Green groups have something better to do with their money. Maybe personalities have become involved?
There was a research base. It was supposed to remain only a base.

And yes, getting personalities involved is a great idea.
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Old 12-24-2017, 08:28 PM   #12
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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What do wizards have to do with science fiction? Why can't we keep this in science fiction? Why does everything have to turn into the same old fantasy garbage? I'm so sick of it.
New Avalon is a supers setting. Supers setting routinely mix sci fi and magic. I'll love seeing your Hard Sci Fi colony worlds.
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Old 12-24-2017, 08:30 PM   #13
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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I agree with the sentiment, though I probably wouldn't have used this wording.

I think there's room for fantasy-inspired sci-fi setting seeds, but magic should be replaced by psionics in those settings. (*coughortheforcecough*)



But getting back on target:

Ukufinyelela Okude (Zulu for "The Far Reaches") is a sednoid in the Sigma Draconis system which is noted for being a source of a chemical that is easily and cheaply refined into fuel, though the fuel itself tends to wreak havoc on ship engines and reactors that use it for sustained periods. However, the chemical tends to explode at high temperatures; thanks to an incident several years back, Ukufinyelela Okude now has a major crater reaching down into the middle mantle, and a new ring composed of rock and ices the explosion knocked into orbit - yeah, it was that big an explosion.

Mining now takes place in the asteroid ring surrounding the sednoid; the usual mining base has about a hundred miners and three times that many drone robots, using low-tech mining tools such as jackhammers and diamond-tipped drills rather than the plasma cutters most other mining facilities use.

However, the largest mining station has gone silent. What happened?
Nice, you gave the mine a serious reason to exist.
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Old 12-24-2017, 08:33 PM   #14
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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I read the first post somewhat differently: that these are worlds that are not part of the IW framework, mostly because of IW's own limitations preventing them from existing in the IW setting.
Yes. There a lot of fun ideas that don't fit the IW and couldn't be shoehorned in without maring the setting.
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Old 12-24-2017, 08:56 PM   #15
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Default Clarification on Newope

The device that sent the planet out of orbit was a teleporter. It simply teleported a large object up--it then falls through the gate at the bottom, coming out at the top. Something went wrong; they couldn't deactivate it--and then the mass was moving so fast that disabling the gate would, when the object, now at relativistic speeds, struck the bottom, BOOM!

By the time they were able to jurry rig something to send it out the oppoite pole and into space, the planet was moving...

A different technobabble method would be fine--the point is that the planet slowly accelerated towards deep space, so there was time to prepare, but, due to isolation, no one had a clue what happened.
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Old 12-25-2017, 12:06 AM   #16
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Stephen Hawking once said that the only thing he's invented that hasn't been co-opted and mangled by science fiction authors is "imaginary time," or in other words, the concequences of building time in the complex plane.

Of course, we could use that as babble to justify straight infinite worlds, but that's not really the idea of this thread. Here's a different one:

Just as there are many possible futures going forward from this point, there are also many possible pasts. Most of them are lower-entropy (as the only thing that gives directionality to time is the progression of entropy), and of course all pasts that lead to our present are by definition possible versions of our own.

Now, build a time machine that works on two axis and search the infinite past for the one that might lead to your present but will likely lead to a desired one. This is more difficult than it seems; the only backwards changes possible are quantum-scale; you need to use butterfly effects to get anywhere. But it is possible to dig through the potentials and arrive somewhere very strange.

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Old 12-25-2017, 03:16 AM   #17
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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Nice, you gave the mine a serious reason to exist.
There isn't one already? There is just as much minerals in the asteroids as in the primary but only the primary can handle massive agriculture or designated wilderness. If such things are any kind of priority and if intrasystem traffic is fast enough there is a good reason to shut down mines on the primary and open the ones in space. If nothing else no one cares if they stink.
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Old 12-26-2017, 07:06 PM   #18
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

This world has gotten the name Bermuda. It's an ironic name referring to Andrew Marvell's poem. A snarky comment on the idea of both refuge and providence.

The planet is very earthlike and even has a large moon that causes impressive tides. It has its own ecosystem. Bermuda's life forms are toxic to Earthlife and vice versa. Human activity tilts the balance in favor of Earth life forms. But the process is slow.

Under normal rules the planet would never have been settled. Worlds with multicellular lifeforms are protected by law. However Bermuda was settled by a lost ship that misjumped. It was a spectacular misjump. The colonists don't really know where they are or if they are even in the same galaxy as Earth. Some people, and not without evidence, suggest that time travel may have occurred.

The local star is weaker in the ultraviolet than Sol. However it's light in the visable spectrum is stronger in blue and violet. How that works out is unknown to the colonists.

There are large nearby nebulas which dominate the night skies of the Southern hemisphere. The Northern hemisphere has many brilliant stars rivaling Earth's Northern skies.

The planetary atmosphere is slightly thicker than Earth's. Sea level air pressure is 18psi. At any latitude the planetary climate is generally cooler and wetter than would be typical of the Earth at the same latitude. However there are still Hadley Cell Deserts and other significant arid areas. However a larger portion of this planet is forested.

In the two centuries since the involuntary colonists got to Bermuda, they've built three main areas of settlement.

The first is in an area roughly resembling Western Europe (very roughly). The main area of settlement is on an island fairly closely resembling Great Britain, especially if Dover were thirty miles always from Vigo in Spain rather than Calais. This "Europe" has two Irelands, one well south of where a similar island is on Earth, the other slightly north. Both have settlements. Albion, the island resembling Britain, has a "green" (Earth lifeforms ) area the size of the state of Maine. The nearby continent, and the two "Irelands" have green areas the size of Connecticut.

The Second is tropical and resembles southern India in climate. Like early modern Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, they get three crops a year. There are seven green areas the size of Connecticut in the area.

The third is where the involuntary colonists first landed. An area much like California in climate. This drier area hasn't been as easy to create green areas in. But it has four green areas the size of Connecticut.

More later.
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Old 12-26-2017, 08:21 PM   #19
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Light-speed travel is invented in 2045. It functions by "cycling" kinetic energy from the future to the present, accellerating the ship to near-light-speed. The ship travels the distance and then deaccellerates by dumping its excess kinetic energy into the past, when it needed it.

The time looping effect works because the ship itself experiences nearly no time during the jump; as a result, it's a fairly managable trick to have all the atoms shuffle the energy around briefly.

This all allows ships to effectively move at light speed (Well, within 10^-10 % of light speed). Protecting a ship from light-speed collisions with space dust is dealt with by a special arrangement. I recommend taking a basic course on relativity at your local university to fully appreciate the consequences.

Departing Earth orbit and arriving at Alpha Centauri takes no time at all from your perspective and more than four years from the perspective of someone at either star. Aside from everything else, the future is always two jumps away.
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Old 12-26-2017, 08:47 PM   #20
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

A massive war is going on between two empires. Tribes of Space Cossacks are caught on the frontier, living by trading, mercenary service or what not.

A Movement has begun among the Space Cossacks to find world of their own. They make an alliance. They deal with one empire for munitions and diplomatic recognition, and deal among themselves to write a constitution and prepare to set off to conquer one of the rival empire's worlds and defend it against all comers.
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