Tales of the Solar Patrol musings

[LoneWolf23k]

On a lark, I browsed through my Tales of the Solar Patrol pdf again, and was struck by a few thoughts...

#1 - Mirror, Rorrim: The "Cynical Revisionism" version of the Solar Patrolvese just screams "Mirror Universe" to me. One could build one or more adventures based on the concept of Heroic Solar Patrol heroes suddenly finding themselves stuck in a universe where the Patrol is a tyrannical organisation trying to conquer the peaceful Jovian Lord Protector, whom they soon find themselves allied with, as disturbing as it may seem to them.

#2 - More Races: The alien races presented in the PDF are fine, but I can't help it, I want more. Adding more, minor species to the setting could be justified, either making them yet more primitive Venusian inhabitants, further slaves of the Martian Mind Masters, more subjects of the Jovian Overlords, or even making them alien beings from Beyond Jupiter's Orbit. Maybe the Riders (GURPS Aliens) are the real secret behind the Red Hive?

#3 - Mutants and Human Variant Races: Related to the "more Races" concept, I'd like to see some Human variant races. The Red Hive War provides ample justification: In addition to Hyperbombs and Tesla implosion fields, the loathsome Red Hivers also deployed chemical and biological weapons, as well as old-fashioned atom bombs, in it's campaign to terrorize Earth's population. While those weapons killed millions, it was later discovered that the children of the survivors developped genetic mutations of numerous sorts.

This, it would later be discovered, was intentional, as part of the Red Hive's plans for their "perfect society" involved creating "caste races" of human subspecies for specialized tasks; many such exemples had been created in Red Hive bases, and had been used as cannon fodder in battles against Earth League forces. After the Red Hive's defeat, the "Pan-Humans" gladly accepted their liberation, and joined the Earth League, eventually becoming full citizens.

This gives us an opportunity to use both "unique" mutants with rare abilities, and actual Gengineered Human Racial Templates from Bio-Tech.

#5 - Blasters and Battlesuits: ...And many more toys out of Ultra-Tech, while we're at it. Being a huge fan of Atomic Betty and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, I feel that Solar Patrol style is perfectly compatible with more modern conceptions of Ultra-Technology. Besides, who wouldn't want to see a Patrolman clad in a 1950s-style bubble-headed Battlesuit, engaged in a force sword duel with a Jovian Battle Cyborg Commander?

#6 - Robot Characters: While we're on the subject of Technology... Cool, 1950s style Robots. Monotone voice, clanky bodies, sassy attitudes, "do anything" style gadgetry... Need I say more?

...That pretty much covers all my musings for this post. I may expand on them later.

'Till then, farewell, from the thrilling world. . . OF TOMORROW!

[David Johnston2]

Expanding Solar Patrol isn't difficult. After all it's only a matter of time before they get faster than light drive.

[LoneWolf23k]

Since there's another TotSP thread, I decided to bump this one. Had a new idea, inspired by playing Bioshock recently.

#7 - 50s-style Genetic Engineering: Namely, stuff like the game's Plasmids, which people can inject into themselves to acquire fantastic abilities. Likewise, mutants and such would be the creation of Mad Scientists.

...And while I'm at it, I think a place like Rapture could easily be adapted to the Solar Patrol setting, as a retro-tech sci-fi space station, or still as an underwater base, either on Earth or perhaps on Venus...

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Solar Patrol is Atomic Horror plus a hundred years. Why not use some of the stuff from Atomic Horror? There are human settlements all through the Solar Patrol system - use the Venusian humans as a city-state in some isolated corner of Venus (Beast-Men and Amazons interested in "this Earth thing called kissing"! :D ) The Arendians (bodiless critters who live on acomet and possess people) would make a nice addition. Not to mention the giant monsters! The Solar Patrol fights pirates in space - and kaijuu on Earth! Or better yet Space Kaijuu!!

I had noticed that the Overlord sounds an awful lot like the alien Loi from Atomic Horror - superhuman power, immortality, from a distant star system, prehistoric colonies throughout the solar system, etc. The Overlord and his spawn could be Loi mutants. Which means that spaceships from the Outer Dark could descend on the Solar System - as friend or foe? (cue creepy music)

One interesting possibility I've looked at is a significant revision of Venus by using the Planet Krishna sourcebook. The entire explored area of Krishna is 4%, so the entire setting could be plopped down on Solar Patrol Venus without only a few minor twitches! Or it could replace the Solar Patrol version entirely - turn the Earth enclave on Krishna into Venusport, twitch the timeline a bit, and you could have the SP trying to stop technology smugglers from contaminating the low-tech city-states of Krishna, despite the Krishnan's eagerness to be contaminated. It also gives a great excuse for having sword skills. And the Krishnans, coming from advanced societies (albeit low-tech ones) could be members of the Patrol. (Besides which, green-skinned space-babes with feathery antennae who have trouble with the concept of clothing - what's not to love?)

[LoneWolf23k]

Oooh, Excellent suggestions! I was already considering adding new alien species to Venus to expand things a bit, fudging them in as "newly discovered people". I do like the idea of using Atomic Horror's Amazons of Venus, and likewise adding elements of Planet Krishna to Venus; perhaps as a continent?

And Atomic Horror is full of the kind of 1950s Pulp Sci-Fi Goodness one would expect from the universe of Tales of the Solar Patrol; like the sidebox on the Biefeld-Brown Effect, which could be the explanation for anti-grav devices...

Edit: What about the Vortun? Would they be from a far future timeline of Earth, or perhaps a parallel Earth?

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf23k

Edit: What about the Vortun? Would they be from a far future timeline of Earth, or perhaps a parallel Earth?

Both are likely. Another possibility is that they're simply aliens who are lying about their origins for some diabolical reason.

Krishna would make an excellent continent on SP Venus - it is barely explored, and some Venusian exploiter - er, explorer might try to get a jump on a competitor by doing a blind drop on the opposite side of the planet from the explored regions. Surprise! He finds a TL 3/4 civilization already there! Then fifty or sixty years later the Solar Patrol discovers what these boys have been up to and muscles in on the operation.

One potential Krishnan/Venusian mystery - the Three Seas of Krishna have tides. In the Krishna sourcebook, this is no mystery as Krishna has three moons. But on SP Venus, which has no moon, there should be no tides. What's causing this? A scientific expedition of head-in-the-cloud scientists with a stalwart Patrolman along as security could unravel the mystery...

[David Johnston2]

And of course you could always add Lovecraft to the mix. You guffaw? Read Northwest Smith. I think a version of the Mi-Go for example would make a pretty good thing to place beyond Saturn.

[Voltron64]

You know, I recently learned of a book series known as The Lords of Creation. How useful do you guys think it would be for a Solar Patrol game?

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Voltron64

You know, I recently learned of a book series known as The Lords of Creation. How useful do you guys think it would be for a Solar Patrol game?

Awesome books, an excellent modern treatment of the Planetary Romance genre.

They have a completely different mood and tone, over all. Much more gritty and plausible. Like the wild cards universe, they take an over-the-top unrealistic assumption and ask "what if this happened in the real world. How would people react, etc...". Runs exactly contrary to the innocent spirit of the Solar Patrol.

That said, the alternate treatments of Venus (an anachronistic "cavemen and dinosaurs" jungle world) and Mars (filled with an ancient and decadent people in the decline of their civilization) would work fine in any Planetary Romance since they're drawn from some of the same archetypal sources as the Tales of the Solar Patrol. The [Spoiler] powerful alien intelligence responsible for creating such an implausible solar system[End Spoiler] could be a nice assumption changer for any pulp space campaign.