11-26-2022, 04:14 PM | #2571 | |
Join Date: May 2022
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
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Consider the advances in micro-manufacturing and user-friendliness. All of a sudden, a single cargo ship full of equipment, a few trained experts and advisors, and some scavenged raw materials can turn a desperate rabble into an armed military force within a few months. It may very well be that the confluence of technologies at this point will make it easier to arm people en-masse, than to feed or provide for them en-masse. I think it's equally likely that these starving, uneducated, dispossessed masses facing extinction from climate change and the collapse of their corrupt, ineffectual governments will be armed, and looking for quick, violent solutions to their problem, especially with the seductive narrative that all their problems are the fault of the rich nations. Of course, all these disparate dispossessed groups somehow welding themselves into a coalition capable of taking on the global superpowers is unlikely, but not impossible - which means that those great powers will be devoting their efforts to playing the armies of angry young third-world revolutionaries, springing up throughout Africa and Southeast Asia like the mythologicald dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus, off against one another. Basically, a WW3 that would (will?) make the previous world wars look small in comparison. At the risk of exaggerating, some might look at the state of the world today and say that the opening shots of this conflict have already been fired. |
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11-26-2022, 08:54 PM | #2572 |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
They were fired more than twenty years ago, possibly more than thirty depending on how you count it.
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Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted. |
11-26-2022, 10:00 PM | #2573 |
Join Date: May 2009
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
This is getting into more reality than should be on here. If I can't talk about stuff like this, than why can anyone else?
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11-27-2022, 12:55 PM | #2574 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
I have to second this notion. It is very important we not get dragged into political discussions here, and I really do not want to see this thread locked.
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11-30-2022, 03:48 PM | #2575 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Side Trips
My theory is that your experiential past is written in stone. So no one can visit their own past. We go to weirdo pasts that no one ever experienced. Well, at least not until we get there. This campaign is inspired by Larry Niven's The Flight of the Horse. Time machines are all unstable. They always skip to other happen tracks. Unanchored time machines are always lost, period. The PCs are in anchored time machines. Thus they go to alternative pasts or futures, but never their own past or future. Basically, this is wild and woolley action comedy.
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Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo |
12-02-2022, 10:51 PM | #2576 | |||
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: UK
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
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Looking for online text-based game at a UK-feasible time, anything considered, Roll20 preferred. http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=168443 |
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12-03-2022, 06:40 AM | #2577 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
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Second, the whole setting is simpler. You can't return to the places you've been. It's only exploration. And like the Niven short stories it's comedy. Infinite Worlds is meant to be an awesome grand opera. Side Trips is beer and pretzels silliness.
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Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo |
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12-03-2022, 07:33 AM | #2578 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: MO, U.S.A.
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Quote:
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Xenophilia is Dr. Who. Plus Lecherous is Jack Harkness.- Anaraxes |
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12-03-2022, 08:50 AM | #2579 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Greenmantle is set in WWI.
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Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo |
12-05-2022, 02:18 PM | #2580 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Good Fences
Carrhae used to be our enemy, or we were their preferred prey. They nearly crushed us, but the Tazzoult Merchantile Alliance conquered their home world while their fleet fought us. We each were broken backwaters after that. But the Tazzoult saw no profit in us, so Garumna was left free. Free, but isolated from trade and our cities shattered. We had spaceflight before Vulcan but we were centuries behind the Federation when they offered us membership. We jumped at the chance. Garumna has never been so prosperous and stable. But now the Carrhae are back. The Tazzoult Merchantile Alliance lost a major war and most of their captured worlds broke free. But surely Carrhae knows that Garumna is part of the Federation and protected by Starfleet. They do, it makes things worse. Garumna is an isolated border world on the side of the Federation away from the Klingon and Romulan empires. They've long been content and productive members of the Federation. They are distinguished in art, letters, the physical and biological sciences, and in the design of recreational and educational games. They've been willing supporters of Starfleet but very few Garumnians ever serve in any military service, except when the Federation is attacked. Then the Garumnians serve loyally and with valor. But Garumna always said they joined the Federation to be free of war. The Carrhaens are a warrior people, at least by culture and training. The Tazzoult Merchantile Alliance used them as shock troops and for occupation duty. The Carrhaens are now thoroughly sick of war. But the only way the Carrhaens know to establish governments is through the military. Carrhae knows it can't beat Starfleet. They'd like to be conquered. Being conquered would free them from the burdens of honor and tradition. If they remain unconquered, the disgrace of not having conquered Garumna when they had completely destroyed the Garumnian fleet would be unbearable. Mass suicides are highly likely. The Garumnians have proposed to bring Carrhae into the Federation. This would both make the border with the Tazzoult Merchantile Alliance more secure, and it could free the Carrhaens of the burden of tradition. By any standard the Carrhaens are a poor choice for Federation membership. Added to that, the complex burdens of their systems of honor and duty make them asking for what they desperately want and need wildly difficult. Their religious scholars ( think of them as Cannon Lawyers, Mediums perform religious rites and ceremonies) fear losing all social standing if the Honor system is set aside. Basically, this is a delicate diplomatic mission. Both agents of the Tazzoult Merchantile Alliance and the Carrhaen Religious Scholars will actively try to sabotage the negotiations.
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Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo Last edited by Astromancer; 12-05-2022 at 02:21 PM. |
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