New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

In the deserts of Australia something astounding was found. A crashed spaceship (actually a time-space ship but that wasn't understood until much later).

A team of engineers from Australia, the USA, and the UK, examined and reversed engineered the fusors. These were cheap stable and easy to produce, and batteries based on silicon with about 75 times the energy density of Lithium-Ion batteries.

By 2030 fusion generated energy has replaced all carbon spewing energy sources except home fireplaces and grills. Nations like Russia, Iran, Suadi-Arabia, and Venezuela, have collapsed leaving failed states.

Basically, a cross between espionage and post-apocalyptic. Russia is often described as being like a "post-apocalyptic wasteland" now. Eliminate the Russian oil industry and "like" becomes "is." The same would apply to a elimination of the Middle Eastern oil industry. But Russia still has nukes and might be willing to sell them. Certainly, there are those in the near east that would love to buy nukes.

The PCs would be traveling through a post-apocalyptic hellscape to find and sequester WMDs. Or except the whole world becoming a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The PCs would be traveling through a post-apocalyptic hellscape to find and sequester WMPs. Or except the whole world becoming a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Weapons of Mass Production? I know, not what you meant, but the image is potentially interesting. Grey goo, maybe (though one would need superscience or GM fiat to make nanomachines reproduce fast enough to make a grey goo scenario plausible).

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Weapons of Mass Production? I know, not what you meant, but the image is potentially interesting. Grey goo, maybe (though one would need superscience or GM fiat to make nanomachines reproduce fast enough to make a grey goo scenario plausible).

Grey goo is to overwhelming for me. But your game your fun. Total economic collapse is more than brutal enough.

[PTTG]

Decrypting a message encoded in gravity waves reveals advanced new physics to scientists. They find a library of hub worlds, described down to atmospheric conditions and gravity, and a breakdown of how to connect to a FTL network spanning the milky way.

Despite all precautions, the first attempt to connect to the network goes catastrophically wrong. It seems that some kind of ancient sabotage disrupted the core portal network. Instead of the single, stable, and controllable portal the scientists were expecting, tens of thousands of uncontrolled portals sprang into being around the Earth's surface. Fortunately, they all connected to the same earthlike "hub" world. Unfortunately, the sabotage seems to have disrupted all the other attempts at connection to the hub, meaning that the planet is now crawling with the most invasive species out of tens of millions of worlds. There's no sign of an advanced alien society on the other side waiting to greet us.

Even as rats, tardigrades, and zebra mussels pour into the portals, a strange and incredibly diverse alien biosphere pours out onto Earth. The wildlife alone is incredibly deadly, both flora and fauna... and other things not so easily classified.

There are four chapters to this saga:

1: Incident. This starts when alien monstrosities rampage down semi-modern city streets and ordinary people attempt to defend themselves. In time, the begin to centralize and determine what the hell even happened. Social structures collapse gradually as the supply chain is disrupted, and whatever arises in their places will be shaped by the circumstances.

2: Investigation. Having finally stopped the collapse of the biosphere, society, and the human species, and built defenses on an Earth that is now much more dangerous, humans attempt to figure out the scale of the problem and discover massive new complications (such as an explanation for what happened to the other technological societies that opened the portals).

3: Exploration. Now understanding the new cosmos, humanity enters the still-standing portals for lengthy voyages through the (exponentially more hostile) hub world, and even into the other worlds of the network. Each new alien world has at least the ruins of an alien society that was powerful enough to detect the signal.

4: Manifestation. Humans are sometimes considered the most invasive species of all. (After all, what other species ventures into radiation-seared vacuum? Aside from the tardigrades.) Once humans have mastered the hub world, travel to the other planets connected thereby only makes sense; these worlds have resources and conditions that are superb for humans, at least compared to Mars. But like all new homelands, those who dwell there long are no longer the same.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Decrypting a message encoded in gravity waves reveals advanced new physics to scientists. They find a library of hub worlds, described down to atmospheric conditions and gravity, and a breakdown of how to connect to a FTL network spanning the milky way.

Despite all precautions, the first attempt to connect to the network goes catastrophically wrong. It seems that some kind of ancient sabotage disrupted the core portal network. Instead of the single, stable, and controllable portal the scientists were expecting, tens of thousands of uncontrolled portals sprang into being around the Earth's surface. Fortunately, they all connected to the same earthlike "hub" world. Unfortunately, the sabotage seems to have disrupted all the other attempts at connection to the hub, meaning that the planet is now crawling with the most invasive species out of tens of millions of worlds. There's no sign of an advanced alien society on the other side waiting to greet us.

Even as rats, tardigrades, and zebra mussels pour into the portals, a strange and incredibly diverse alien biosphere pours out onto Earth. The wildlife alone is incredibly deadly, both flora and fauna... and other things not so easily classified.

There are four chapters to this saga:

1: Incident. This starts when alien monstrosities rampage down semi-modern city streets and ordinary people attempt to defend themselves. In time, the begin to centralize and determine what the hell even happened. Social structures collapse gradually as the supply chain is disrupted, and whatever arises in their places will be shaped by the circumstances.

2: Investigation. Having finally stopped the collapse of the biosphere, society, and the human species, and built defenses on an Earth that is now much more dangerous, humans attempt to figure out the scale of the problem and discover massive new complications (such as an explanation for what happened to the other technological societies that opened the portals).

3: Exploration. Now understanding the new cosmos, humanity enters the still-standing portals for lengthy voyages through the (exponentially more hostile) hub world, and even into the other worlds of the network. Each new alien world has at least the ruins of an alien society that was powerful enough to detect the signal.

4: Manifestation. Humans are sometimes considered the most invasive species of all. (After all, what other species ventures into radiation-seared vacuum? Aside from the tardigrades.) Once humans have mastered the hub world, travel to the other planets connected thereby only makes sense; these worlds have resources and conditions that are superb for humans, at least compared to Mars. But like all new homelands, those who dwell there long are no longer the same.

Truly epic PTTG.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

Dione

Our world is named Dione the Goddess, I once heard that she was the wife of Zeus before they changed the story and made Hera Zeus's queen. That fits us, the discarded wife of a powerful bully.

Dione is a long-settled world, but it was settled by damaged starships that misjumped into the local star system and had to settle for any "safe" landing. Dione is larger than Earth, but lower density, lower gravity, and a smaller land to sea ratio. About twenty-three percent of the Earth's surface is land, on Dione, only about sixteen percent on the surface is land. And Dione's landmass is far more mountainous than Earth's.

Added to that is the simple fact that the Precursors brought life to this world from Earth (something they seemed to do a great deal of) and that these Earth forms evolved into particularly aggressive flora and fauna, setting up human civilizations on this world is amazingly rough. Making things dramatically worse is the simple fact that something about the planet Dione awakens psionic powers in the beings that live on her surface. Most of these powers are very limited and not all members of a species will demonstrate the power typical of their species, just the Alphas. But the occasional larger and smarter than normal animal with psi powers is still a threat.

Three main cultures have overcome the fierce native lifeforms, the brutal storms, and the paranormal phenomena, to build small but active empires.

A) The Hegemonic Order is a multi-racial and fairly tolerant society, ruled by merchant princes.

B) The League Righteous is a theocratic state ruled by religious scholars.

C) The Comunity of the Mandate is a republic ruled by philosopher bureaucrats who take competitive exams to compete for jobs.

[Basically Rome/Venice/Athens, Byzantium/Caliphate, and China.]

Lately, each of these empires has gained an off-world patron. It seems that Dione's star system is near a border in space. The off-world states, all human in origin but with parahuman populations dominant, aren't in a place to directly attack each other to seize the star system and improve their borders but if a client state dominated the planet Dione, they could simply claim the system without objection from the galactic authorities.

Each of the three empires has both sail and airship navies. The airships are important for extending the power of these empires inland and up mountains. Villagers once beyond the tax man and the law now must bend the knee to flying navies.

Basically, although Egon said not to cross the streams, I'll do it anyway. This setting blends Sword and Sorcery, Planetary Romancer, Golden Age Sci Fi, and Swashbucklers. This world can be good for Connan adventures or Buck Rogers adventures, and averages out at John Carter of Mars. The PCs are living in Tech Level 3/4 societies, although the rich and powerful live a Tech Level eight lifestyle with access to Tech Level 10/11^ biotech and medicine. The rural poor are far worse off. The local elites are rarely either respectful of the masses or even prudent enough to care about their reactions. The poor have swords and pikes to attack with, the rich have machine guns and tear gas to defend with. Although each of these societies has certain egalitarian ideals, these rarely affect practice all that much.

Many humans born and raised on Dione develop Psionic powers. Many of these psions see themselves as wizards and prophets. Those that choose to work with the elites become trusted and wealthy servants. Those that prefer to aid the poor and downtrodden are accused of demon worship and slain. Many keep their gifts secret and seek their own path. A good PC option.

Another campaign would be exploring the planet. Dione is, of course, mapped completely by the off-worlders, and stealing their maps would be a great adventure, but the native populations have little knowledge of their world. This would be an ocean-going campaign as Dione is mainly islands.

Dione has thousands of little cultures spread over the whole planet. Visiting these can be a fun Island of Hats romp, or gothic horror ala Sinbad.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

Dione

Our world is named Dione the Goddess, I once heard that she was the wife of Zeus before they changed the story and made Hera Zeus's queen. That fits us, the discarded wife of a powerful bully.

Dione's gravity is 0.8997G. This, combined with Dione having a radius of 8,043 kilometers. The atmospheric pressure at Sea Level is 18 psi. (124106 hPa).

Dione's year is half again as long as an earth year, and their calendar is divided into sixteen months. Which makes them, like Earth months, close to the length of a lunar cycle. In this case the furthest out and dimmest moon of Dione, Atopos. The nearer and brighter moons are Lacheis and Clotho.

All the moons are known to have alien bases on them, Lachesis especially has lights on its dark side from all the mines. Many people who run afoul of those allied with one or more off-worlder factions have been taken as slaves to those mines.

Except for Atopos the moons have atmospheres and are cold arid wastelands. Many powerful Wizards(psions with a ritualistic focus) have isolated homes on the moons.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

Dione

Our world is named Dione the Goddess, I once heard that she was the wife of Zeus before they changed the story and made Hera Zeus's queen. That fits us, the discarded wife of a powerful bully.

Some examples of Psi Powered animals:

A tiger a large alpha male that has psionic invisibility. This is a purely instinctive thing. The tiger is as stealthy as any other adult tiger. So, even if you have the ability to detect psi powers, this cat can sneak up on you. Note: tigers bathe, but they still have a scent. Tigers also leave tracks. Also, like any other cat walking through a house, the tiger will knock things down. The basic threat, a tiger that can just walk into town unnoticed and strike at will.

In Arab folklore, hyenas are supposed to be able to call out in a copy of the voice of the last corpse they've eaten part of. In the stories, they dig up graves and after eating the corpse, go to the homes of their loved ones and lure them out to their brutal deaths. This sort of thing modeled with psionics is spooky and disturbing.

A gestalt of songbirds. These birds are carrion eaters, like crows. They've developed a psionic lure to bring animals, including humans and domestic animals into situations were they become carrion.

Animals like these are seen as demon pocessed, or occasionally demons. More than 99.9% of the locals believe all psionics are magic and behave accordingly. Note, some good luck charms and wards work because of a psion's genuine belief. But this is spotty.

[AlexanderHowl]

A gravity of 0.9 and a radius 1.25 indicates a density of 0.72, which indicates a small iron core. Proxima Centauri b possess similar measurements, depending on which assumptions of radius you go with, so we may have an equivalent planet right next door. When we are talking about alien planets nowadays, it would take a planet being made of honey or wax to really be considered exotic.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A gravity of 0.9 and a radius 1.25 indicates a density of 0.72, which indicates a small iron core. Proxima Centauri b possess similar measurements, depending on which assumptions of radius you go with, so we may have an equivalent planet right next door. When we are talking about alien planets nowadays, it would take a planet being made of honey or wax to really be considered exotic.

Break my heart.;-) Thank you, I never had a course on planetology.

Well, other than that, how do you like the setting?