New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Depending on your opinion on intra-party conflict, having them start out as a rag-tag group of rebels ranging from "I-just-want-my-slice-of-the-pie corporatist" to "motivated reformer" to "academic leftist anarchist" to "setting things on fire anarchist," and eventually having them disagree on how far to take things could be a fantastic story builder.

You majored in mind reading, right?

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

The Plague Wars are assumed to have started in the 2040s. Luckily both Thorium based power and Algae base fuel had become commercially viable by that point and Fusion was advancing swiftly. So the total collapse of trade wasn't the total collapse of civilization. Nations quarantined themselves to survive, which seems to have been a goal of whomever started the wars.

As technologies like robotics, Vertical Farming, nanotechnology advanced, populations moved into cities which could be more effectively quarantined and maintain a decent standard of living. The rural areas slowly emptied. This led to resentment. Rural cultural values simply started dying off. Cultural and political conservatives, normally much stronger in the rural areas and suburbs than the cities, find themselves fading out of power throughout the West and other technologically advanced nations. This caused deep bitterness.

Welcome to 2090. Society is only about a mid Tech Level Nine, but in the cities of the West, most people feel life isn't so bad. Sure, you ca't travel anymore, only a very small number of elite researchers and diplomats can do that and most cities have become insular and uninterested in the outer world. But the outer world is desperately interested in them. The remnants of the rural population generally stay put and the Law tends to back this, but some young people still take any risk they can to run off to the wicked city. People from other lands, desperately seeking a better life also come. As do fugitives from the law in other cities.

The PCs could be either desperate people trying to get into a city in spite of the quarantine, or officers assigned to keep them out before they cause plague outbreaks.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

Assume that both the cost of rocketry and the ability to build fully reusable spaceships declines at high speed. We'll also assume fusion comes online at low prices but needing rare minerals, which, if not much more common off planet, are out there.

China, the USA, the EU, India, and Japan, all go out into space in search of minerals now becoming either scarce or impractical to reach/exploit. It's a competition for prestige and resources, much like in the 19th century on Earth.

With improving robotics and what's called "close enough AI" (basically, it isn't really AI but it functions enough like AI to be economically useful) and Vertical Farming the work load on planet Earth is greatly reduced. Workweeks are often as little as three days and fifteen hours, and such workweeks allows one to raise a family in reasonable comfort and security. However, it is very hard for working class people to get ahead on Earth and unemployment is serious, but not so much in space. In space novel problems are commonplace, sure you're in an office running drones (you're only in space because staying on Earth makes the light-speed time lag to great to supervise the machines effectively) but in space pay is much higher and work weeks longer. People with space experience can get ahead in the world.

Basically, it's working class life among the space miners and interplanetary long haulers. It's the struggles of the working class in the later 21st century solar system.

[PTTG]

Other interesting challenges in this world are things like the intense competition among young people to be space-capable. With such high unemployment on top of the rigors of space travel, you need to be a nigh-olympian polymath polyglot... or at least have the connections to certify yourself as such. PCs as students or teachers in such an environment would be fun characters with a lot capability and a lot to lose, and a lot of rivals trying to sabotage them.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Other interesting challenges in this world are things like the intense competition among young people to be space-capable. With such high unemployment on top of the rigors of space travel, you need to be a nigh-olympian polymath polyglot... or at least have the connections to certify yourself as such. PCs as students or teachers in such an environment would be fun characters with a lot capability and a lot to lose, and a lot of rivals trying to sabotage them.

Good call.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Other interesting challenges in this world are things like the intense competition among young people to be space-capable.

Which will also create "Space Walts", people who pretend that they have been in space, but aren't now because of retirement, injury, or unfair management.

("Walts" is British Army slang, short for "Walter Mitty", people who claim they were in the SAS rather than their actual service as, for example, army cook, or not having served at all).

[PTTG]

I imagine one of these Walts being a Patron to a bunch of PCs. When they get a forged certificate and actually get in space, they can face all kinds of trouble that most crews would be much better prepared for.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

Rifting off the means by which the recent Planet of the Apes films depict the fall of mankind, a brain damaging virus that gives apes human level intelligence and humans the Bestial disadvantage, I switch it up this way. Most humans are afflicted with the Bestial disadvantage. However, some humans have a recessive genetic trait that offers immunity and tends them toward psi powers. Parahuman groups, rare at the start of the crisis seem to be immune.

Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and Bonobos become fully sophant, lose Bestial and have an average IQ of 11. Yes, the have the physical attributes of apes and they tend to be smarter than humans. Gibbons were also affected by the transformation virus. Most wild gibbons simply died. However, some genetic designers, whose goal was to design flying parahumans that could fly in Earth's gravity, had created large gibbons with many batlike traits including wings. These gibbons are alive and well. They also lost Bestial but they olny have and average IQ of 9. Basically, use the Bonobo stats with an IQ of 9 and Winged Flight (Limited use of hands during Flight) due to their batlike body structure.

Use Aquatic humans from THS for the most common type of parahumans. The sea folk are pretty neutral. They mean to be left alone. As the Apes see the sea folk as a threat, individual sea folk will be hostile to the Apes for past attacks. Look at the various THS parahuman templates for odd exotic tribes.

The largest groups of surviving non-Bestial humans, and the people most hated by the Apes are the Psion tribes. The Apes fear both their powers and that these humans might reclaim the Earth. (The leaders of Ape society exaggerate this threat, both to keep racism between ape groups down and to preserve their holdings in Bestial human slaves. After all, a cure to the plague that healed the humans would ruin the economy.) These Psions are basically normal PCs with 75-125 point of PSI powers. {If you have it use the Psis templates.} The most common power by far is Telepathy (Communications Hub being the most common form. Psychokinesis, is the second most common power, but where sixty percent or more of the Psions have Telepathy, only 35% have Psychokinesis. The most common form of Psychokinesis is Basic Telekinesis
is the most common form of this power. Probability Alteration, ESP, and Healing, are all in the 18 to 25% range in the population, all others powers are found in less than one in ten people. More than 90% of people have more than one type of Psi power. Almost all Psions have multiple Psionic Perks ( Let PCs buy three to seven Psi Perks, these can be in any power.)

The reasons why the Apes still rule the world are as follows. A) There are many more of them and they have the more developed economy. B) The Apes are in fact smarter and healthier. C) The Apes also can control large pacts of Bestial humans as attack beasts. D) The Psions are poor scattered, divided, and generally lack education and skills.

Note: Most Bestial humans are unconscious but moderately powerful anti-Psis. The most dangerous of these to Apes and Psions are the Wild Humans which the Psis cal Ogres.

[Astromancer]

Try this idea...

Powerful entities overwrite our reality. They replace the old reality with a kitbash of Fantasy and Sci Fi settings and archetypes. Basically, the present resembles a blend of Star Trek, The Orville, and Stargate. With something like the events of Stargate-SG1 (both in humans being spread all over the galaxy by the "Ancients" and the USA finding and exploiting a Stargate) as the moderately near past of the setting. A blend of Tolkien, Lovercraft, and Stargate explains covers the deep past. Magic, Psionics, and supertechnology are all part of the scene. Daily life for most Earth humans resembles what we've seen of Earth in Star Trek, The Orville, or the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson shows. That is to say, luxurious, sophisticated, peaceful, and egalitarian socialist democracies. However, large sections of the galaxy are zones of conflict and adventure. If Earth is Utopian in the good way, there are sinister utopias out there. Some worlds resemble Mongo or Arrakis. Others are clearly cyberpunk hells ranging from Alphaville to the latest sci fi hells.

The PCs are an anomaly in the setting. They remember the real past. They can see what a bazaar cobbled together patchwork this reality is. They need to know why? And how?

Basically, it a version of The Madness Dossier with a cheerier facade.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Powerful entities overwrite our reality. They replace the old reality with a kitbash of Fantasy and Sci Fi settings and archetypes.

. . . The PCs are an anomaly in the setting. They remember the real past. They can see what a bizarre cobbled together patchwork this reality is. They need to know why? And how?

If they're this powerful, what's the point in opposing them?