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Old 03-22-2021, 04:51 PM   #2201
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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Try this one...

The Long Voyage

With all of that the freak storm the ship was caught in was decidedly unnecessary. The strange purple light in the sky showed up just as the seas turned mountainous, threatening to break-up the ship, and somehow lifted the ship out of the sea. After that, the ship seemed to travel through a rainbow. Some hours later the ship was placed in the sea near a tropical island. The night before we were on the latitude of Ireland.
Here's another twist. Move to a point twenty years after the Voyage and have a group of explorers that were between 12 and 14 when the ship was taken. I'd base these explorers on period characters that were supposed to be around that age in 1939.

Try a party based on Dick Grayson, Tintin, Little Orphan Annie, Dorothy Gale, and Adhemar Heiremans . Dick can be the leader, Annie the lancer, and Dorothy both the Chick and the brawn (she's a Kansas farm girl, she's got brawn).
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Old 03-26-2021, 07:31 PM   #2202
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Try this one...

This is a Science Fantasy setting. In the 2060s a new source of electrical power generation was invented using recently discovered aspects of quantum entanglement. These generators were cheap, clean, easy to mass produce, and they had an extra quality no one figured out for years. That extra quality was that they increased the Mana level.

In this setting the default Mana level planetwide was Very Low with a minus ten to skill to cast spells. The average Quantum Entanglement Generator (QEG) creates areas of Normal and Low Mana for tens of kilometers around the generators.

Slowly but surely magic was rediscovered.

Basically, GURPS Technomancer in a world with the technology of Transhuman Space. As the QEGs are vital to space flight, astronauts are astromancers. And as they've discovered spells to warp space, this is Transhuman Technomancer Stars.
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Old 03-29-2021, 09:41 AM   #2203
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Try this one...

In the year 2025 the West Antarctic ice sheet collapses. The world of the late 2020s is experiencing rapid sea level rise. Now in 2027, the seas are already up three feet, New York's sewers don't work, Bangladesh and the Delta of the Nile are uninhabitable, the Netherlands are in full collapse, Shanghai, Miami, Legos, Venice, and London are being abandoned, and hundreds of millions are seeking new homes. Seventeen more feet of sea-level rise is going to happen by 2033.

Basically, today's world in mega crisis mode.
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Old 03-30-2021, 05:52 PM   #2204
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Try this one...

In the 2030s superpowered people finally show up, but the don't act like comic book characters. First off, other than a few loons, no supervillains. For some reason the traditional link between superheroes and America holds somewhat. In the USA superpowered people are one in a million, this holds up in English speaking and predominantly English speaking countries. In the rest of the world superpowered people are one in fifty million. Massive research is being invested into this.

One of the most prominent Supers is The Gatekeeper! this Super creates stable portals to other worlds. He doesn't seem to have a distance limit, but 13 at once seems to be his limit. Four of his portals lead to uninhabitable but mineral rich worlds, treasure houses of industrial resources. Eight of the worlds are garden worlds open for settlement. The last world has both The Gatekeeper's private estate and the lands he sells to finance refugee resettlement on Garden worlds.


This last world, New Arcadia, has become a cross between Maui, San Maritz, the Riviera, Bali, and Cancun. Because both his mining interests and his real estate interests have made the The Gatekeeper fantastically rich (Multimillion-7), and he was always a culture vulture, The Gatekeeper has sent tens of billions bringing the Arts to New Arcadia.

The main area that takes on the role of the new playground of the superrich is a cluster of continental islands like a broken and partly submerged version of the American Southwest. The region has a Mediterranean Climate with hundreds of areas of microclimate conditions, This area is called "The Corinthians."

Basically, your PCs are low level supers (600 points) who have been hired as police officers for the city of "New Sybaris." New Sybaris is filled with supers both partying and on the make, the mega rich, grifters, thieves, artists seeking patronage, major stars of all kinds, celebrities both washed up and active, gawkers of all types, and violent idiots out to become famous. It's a candy colored hell in many ways for police officers, even those with super powers.
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Last edited by Astromancer; 05-31-2022 at 04:46 PM.
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Old 03-31-2021, 04:07 PM   #2205
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Try this one...

The historians tell us that the world we landed on was being studied as an anomaly, it had three times the circumference of the Earth, nine times the area, and twenty-seven times the volume, but only the same gravity.

No one knows why the ship suddenly lost power. Still less do we understand the ship restarting and allowing a safe landing. In twelve centuries we haven't been able to restart the engines.

Some intelligence seems to want us here.

Well, we've grown in numbers and relearned many skills. We've built a great airship and built fusors to power it. It's time to go seek out our hosts.


Basically, this is exploration of a vast planet. Frankly, I'd go with whoever runs this place having gathered humans and other intelligent life forms to this both before and after the ancestors of the PCs. I'd make the setting a mixed tech level based on resources, TL12 computers and TL6 guns for example.
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Old 04-03-2021, 02:46 PM   #2206
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

This one is based on Star Trek but it steals an idea from a critique of Babylon 5.

The Ancient Grudge

The Norgalli were aggressive imperialists, and never really learned how to co-op the elites of their subject peoples. Most Norgalli colonies were more like the Belgian Congo than Egypt under the British or India. Around three hundred years before the "Next Generation/Deep Space 9" period a new Empire came through and crushed the Norgallian Empire. The Norgalli themselves would have been conquered except for two things, the new Empire having wars elsewhere and the struggles the New Empire had controlling their vast new conquests.

When the Empire was lost, most of the Imperial Family, Imperial High Nobility, and Imperial Court, were lost in a disastrous battle. The state religion tried to fill the void, but they were long since reduced to a minor branch of the state. This let the bureaucracy step in and put the middle classes in charge. Seeing a need to win over the masses, the Bureaucracy introduced reforms in sanitation, public health, education, and many other fields. The masses, who had been living about three tech levels behind the elites, saw their life spans increase by about 40%. Soon the Bureaucracy was far better regarded than the old kings ever were in spite of the lost empire and trade routes.

Slowly over the next few decades the Norgalli evolved into first a republic and then a democracy. About the time the Norgalli had become a democracy (if an unstable one) they got a chance to join the Federation. They jumped at it.

The Norgalli experienced a renaissance, or rather several renaissances, when they joined the Federation. With the placement of two star bases near their worlds, the Norgalli were able to cut military spending and reinvest in industry. That raised living standards dramatically. The Federation opened new trade routes to the ancient markets that the old Norgalli Empire had traded in. This made the Norgalli even richer. The Norgalli, who's cultural forms had been set in the early imperial period centuries ago, suddenly had an explosion of original art in every field. Contact with races like the Vulcans and the Betazoids led to a radical new understanding of Norgalli capacities. Previously the Norgalli thought psi powers were the mark of evil spirits or delusions. Soon most Norgalli were telepathic empaths.

The fly in all this onement was the fate of the peoples of their old empire. The New Empire which conquered these people finally got them to except their rule by playing on their hatred of the Norgalli, who's past rule was genuinely brutal and humiliating. When the New Empire abandoned these regions to face the wars that destroyed them, their erstwhile subjects brought themselves together for a slow rebuilding by oaths of vengeance against the Norgalli.

more later.
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Old 04-03-2021, 11:53 PM   #2207
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Try this one...

In the year 2025 the West Antarctic ice sheet collapses.
<Snipped for brevity>
Basically, today's world in mega crisis mode.
Sounds like the setting for a prequel for an AtE campaign.
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Old 04-04-2021, 08:21 AM   #2208
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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Sounds like the setting for a prequel for an AtE campaign.
Fun choice, it would certainly explain a lot of confusion and a reduced ability to cope.
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Old 04-04-2021, 11:37 AM   #2209
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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This one is based on Star Trek but it steals an idea from a critique of Babylon 5.

The Ancient Grudge

The Norgalli were aggressive imperialists, and never really learned how to co-op the elites of their subject peoples. Most Norgalli colonies were more like the Belgian Congo than Egypt under the British or India. Around three hundred years before the "Next Generation/Deep Space 9" period a new Empire came through and crushed the Norgallian Empire. The Norgalli themselves would have been conquered except for two things, the new Empire having wars elsewhere and the struggles the New Empire had controlling their vast new conquests.
To the present day Norgalli, the old empire is ancient history, the average present day American High School spends more time on the Social Wars or the Gracchi. Events from long before get far more attention. Even the old script and calendar of the Imperial period are mainly forgotten. Most modern Norgalli have no idea of why these aliens are angry at them.

The ex colonies of the Norgalli call themselves the "League of Righteous Reparation." Their common history of violation and tyrannical rule by the Norgalli is their common history and the legitimating narrative of their government.

The Norgalli look very Human, their features tend to look Slavic or Iranian. The Norgalli have very pale skins, only just barely able to pass as pale humans. The Norgalli have very dark brown or black eyes which also can pass as human. The Norgalli, when Humans first met them, were often described as the people with Anime hair. This was because it is normal for the Norgalli to have blue, green, purple, violet, or pink, hair. The Norgalli will tend to be taller and thinner than Humans or the same ST, but not dramatically so.

More Later...
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Old 04-09-2021, 07:37 AM   #2210
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
This one is based on Star Trek but it steals an idea from a critique of Babylon 5.

The Ancient Grudge

The Norgalli were aggressive imperialists, and never really learned how to co-op the elites of their subject peoples. Most Norgalli colonies were more like the Belgian Congo than Egypt under the British or India. Around three hundred years before the "Next Generation/Deep Space 9" period a new Empire came through and crushed the Norgallian Empire. The Norgalli themselves would have been conquered except for two things, the new Empire having wars elsewhere and the struggles the New Empire had controlling their vast new conquests.
The League of Righteous Reparation has had their cultures trashed/obliterated twice, first by the Norgalli Monarchy that simply decided to wipe out any preexisting cultures in their conquests, and then by the conquerors of the Norgalli who brought them into their culture as a means of cooption and control. Thus you have a group of twenty or so alien species with only one culture that isn't a good fit for any of them.

The members of the League want revenge on the Norgali and hate the Federation for getting in the way. When the Norgali point out they were victims of the Old Monarchy too, and that the Old Monarchy died during the conquest of the League's worlds by the New Empire, this simply infuriates the League. The League of Righteous Reparation desperately needs an enemy, they really don't think they have anything else.

Because The League of Righteous Reparation borders on Romulan Space, the Romulans love using the League as Catspaws against the Federation.
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