New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

Astromancer: Please don't do this font-thing again. Even increasing the font-size several times I couldn't read this. Yes, I could make out the letters, barely, but the indigo text and yellow/orange background was rather nauseating to me.

Is it better now?

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

During a battle involving several superhhero teams fighting off a alien invasion of Earth, an emotionally unstable Supervillain, terrified that the cities his family lived in would be destroyed, teleported the cities of London, Dublin, New York, San Francisco and the Bay area generally, Aukland, Cardiff, Quimper, Montreal, Freemantle, and Chicago, to a safe planet. The cities were stored in stasis for several years while robots terraformed the planet and built energy, transport, agriculture, and other infrastructure, to insure the survival of the population. Although with the cities, he sent the local equivalent of the Justice League/Avengers, also in stasis.

The heroes have now awakened. The cities are temporarily safe, but the Earth has been enslaved to alien overlords for decades. The surviving human population is only about three quarters of a billion people.

Basically, take a supers campaign and toss in the need to be involved in building a new national government. There's also increasing the local tech level in order to improve security in a environment were invasions from space happen. The liberation of Earth could also campaign.

[AlexanderHowl]

That would be one high powered super. For example, New York City alone covers over 784 square kilometers and probably masses in the neighborhood of 160 billion metric tons when you include the bedrock containing the support systems. In fact, I am not quite sure why he would not just teleport the alien fleet to another system (or into the Sun).

I would suggest an alternative scenario. What happens if some of the alien spacecraft that crash into the listed cities have their jump drives tear a permanent hole in spacetime to another habitable planet? Each city would become the gateway to a completely different habitable planet, each with its own biospheres and mysteries, just waiting to be explored.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

That would be one high powered super. For example, New York City alone covers over 784 square kilometers and probably masses in the neighborhood of 160 billion metric tons when you include the bedrock containing the support systems. In fact, I am not quite sure why he would not just teleport the alien fleet to another system (or into the Sun).

I would suggest an alternative scenario. What happens if some of the alien spacecraft that crash into the listed cities have their jump drives tear a permanent hole in spacetime to another habitable planet? Each city would become the gateway to a completely different habitable planet, each with its own biospheres and mysteries, just waiting to be explored.

That sounds like a great campaign in and of itself. Not much like mine you've come up with your own serious coolness there.

[adm]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

During a battle involving several superhhero teams fighting off a alien invasion of Earth, an emotionally unstable Supervillain, terrified that the cities his family lived in would be destroyed, teleported the cities of London, Dublin, New York, San Francisco and the Bay area generally, Aukland, Cardiff, Quimper, Montreal, Freemantle, and Chicago, to a safe planet. ...

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

That would be one high powered super. ...

He may have been working on doing this as his "Evil Plan®" intending to set it off once he used a crises to have most of the Supers out off town. The alien invasion forced his hand. As a planned event, he wouldn't have to do the power all at once, particularly if he was a Lex Luthor type that uses technology.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I would suggest an alternative scenario. What happens if some of the alien spacecraft that crash into the listed cities have their jump drives tear a permanent hole in spacetime to another habitable planet? Each city would become the gateway to a completely different habitable planet, each with its own biospheres and mysteries, just waiting to be explored.

That is a great idea.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by adm

He may have been working on doing this as his "Evil Plan®" intending to set it off once he used a crises to have most of the Supers out off town. The alien invasion forced his hand. As a planned event, he wouldn't have to do the power all at once, particularly if he was a Lex Luthor type that uses technology.

You read my mind. It's mean to be a one off to set up the campaign.

Originally Posted by adm

That is a great idea.

It is isn't it. But AlexanderHowl might spread the cities further across the Earth, my list was meant to cover cities were one villain might have family members.

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Is it better now?

The italics is a pain, but by increasing the size I can read it. The problems that come with old age suck.

[YankeeGamer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

You read my mind. It's mean to be a one off to set up the campaign.

It could be, in part, a superpowered version of a kamikaze run. He/she/they have some form of reality altering powers, and with the right handwavium and the last reserves of unobtanium, saved these cities.
Unobtanium can be obtained at great risk from the Wolfman, and shipped out on the White Mountain Central to the railhead in Lincoln, NH)

[Astromancer]

As I think I said, you can freely alter the list of teleported cities to your tastes. I had my Supervillain rescuing his family. Maybe like Magneto (whose entire family was killed in the Holocaust) the villain has no family and he chose the cities to save a range of Earth's cultures or maybe he focused on one or two favored cultures. Just make sure there will be splits among the cities so they don't form one government.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

Another superhero based one, but the supers can stay off-stage if you like. The basic idea is simple, a guile/charisma focused super focuses all of his charm and persuasive gifts on a gadgeteer focused villain and simply got him to see that he could sell his technology and make billions. Moreover, with the fame and money the gadgeteer would gain, he could fight the injustices the gadgeteer hate's far more effectively. The Charmer gets a critcal sucess or whatever, the gadgeteer in a mere fifteen years (2020-2035) takes Earth's Tech Level from a mature TL8 to an early TL10 (think Transhuman Space).

Basically, the planet is undergoing vast social and cultural changes. Cheap modular small scale fusion power is rapidly electrifying the planet. Eco-friendly genetically engineered farm crops are feeding the developing world. Vertical Farming is becoming dominant in the developed world. Robots are rapidly taking over the scut work, leaving vast numbers of unemployed. Governments are being profoundly generous with those whose skills were rendered obsolete. But there is still vast simmering frustraition.

In the developing world, young women are leaving the rural villages for any job they can get in the city and taking their children with them as soon as possible. The village elders see their world withering and dying before their eyes. Unemployed young men with no prospects in the cities or the villages are easily swept up into extreme movements with easy answers. The wrong answers, but easy.

PCs play agents of governments and quasi governmental organisations typical of supers settings. The goal is to keep the peace long enough for the world to absorb the transformations. Remember, most of Asia and Africa is going through the social changes Europe went through in the years 1848-2020 in the present and at brutal high speeds in this world. The pain, like the hope, is real.