New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

This is like the Alternate Reality Seeds Thread but it's for futures out in space or Sci Fi concepts that don't fit in the Infinite Worlds setting.

If you're strictly cannon, neither time travel nor FTL travel have any place in the Infinite Worlds setting. So this is for the infinities that setting can't contain.

[Astromancer]

The planet Astraeus, named for the Titan of Dusk and the spouse of the dawn, orbits a star hidden from Earth by a minor dust cloud. Although reachable by the jump links, it's to far from Earth to reach by Skip-Warp.

The planet wasn't slated for terraformation but some one accidently, or so they claim, spilled blue-green algae into a stream leading to the nearby ocean.

Once they decided that it was hopeless trying to clean up the spill, large amounts of terraforming organisms were dumped into the planet's ecosystem.

Astraeus did have a fragile ecosystem. None of the planet's original ecosystem is now known to survive. Many groups cry foul, others seek to stake claims on a new planet which is a blank slate.

Three main groups contend to dominate the planet.

A) A large Anglophone group mainly from North America. These folks are social democrats seeking to build a good life for themselves and their descendants.

B) A Chinese group. Utopians seeking to achieve a viable form of Communism balancing Marxist ideas with Taoism and Ren.

C) A group founded on the ideas of Hayek and Rand. They seek a true pure capitalism.

There are other groups on the planet. Mainly religious in nature.

Various "Green" groups, bitter about the destruction of the planet's ecosystem, want the colonies punished. They maintain constant harassment campaigns.

The ratio of land to sea is somewhat lower on Astraeus than on Earth. 21 percent land. However, the landmasses are arranged differently and there is 40 percent more arable land than on Earth.

There are no continents on Astraeus. The largest landmass is only a little bigger than Madagascar. There are no large arid areas or sandy wastelands. The largest uninhabitable areas are in the polar regions.

The tech-level of this campaign is nine. FTL drives and Anti-gravs for getting to orbit are supertech. Otherwise this setting is straight TL9.



More Later....

[Astromancer]

This world is linked to a supers setting. I'll try to make it fit a variety of settings.

The planet was named New Avalon by the mid 19th century Wizard that built the link to it. He pulled a Mars sized world out of its orbit around a gas giant to be a moon for New Avalon. He named this moon Ophir.

He used Alchemy and a limited knowledge of biology to bring both worlds to life.

In the early years of the 20th century a Wizard who traveled the world righting wrongs and fighting off demons found the portal to New Avalon and a community the older wizard had created on the planet. After chasing off a diabolic threat to the settlement the Wizard took the portal under his care and brought it to New York City so the settlers could reconect with the modern world.

In the late 1920s the remnants of Mars' dying civilizations tried to invade Earth to survive the death of their world. The wizard controling the portal, and his allies, a group of masked mystery men and women, many with strange powers, persuaded the Martians to settle on Ophir instead.

Over the decades this band of heroes remained active, many groups chose to pass though the portal to New Avalon. The planet was home to many strange and wonderful communities. Then, when the headquarters of the band of heroes who protected the portal was destroyed, the portal was lost.

Now, after the defeat of a powerful Warlock, the portal has been rediscovered.

Careful examination shows that while the portal had been lost for twenty years Earth time, New Avalon and Ophir had seen the passage of eight hundred years.

What will the heros find on the far side of the portal?

[Steve Jackson]

Were the colonies in place before the spill? If so, why, on a barren world? If not, why are they getting blamed? Surely the Green groups have something better to do with their money. Maybe personalities have become involved?

[doctorevilbrain]

What do wizards have to do with science fiction? Why can't we keep this in science fiction? Why does everything have to turn into the same old fantasy garbage? I'm so sick of it.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain

What do wizards have to do with science fiction? Why can't we keep this in science fiction? Why does everything have to turn into the same old fantasy garbage? I'm so sick of it.

Because the title is misleading: this appears to be meant for worlds in Infinite Worlds that break one of the major setting premises: no FTL or interstellar empires. Pieces of IW get used for all sorts of projects that are similar but not quite the same.

The ironic thing is that fantasy has a lot more space to explore than science fiction, but people usually don't usually put much thought into actually exploring it, falling back on the old staples.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain

What do wizards have to do with science fiction? Why can't we keep this in science fiction? Why does everything have to turn into the same old fantasy garbage? I'm so sick of it.

I agree with the sentiment, though I probably wouldn't have used this wording.

I think there's room for fantasy-inspired sci-fi setting seeds, but magic should be replaced by psionics in those settings. (*coughortheforcecough*)



But getting back on target:

Ukufinyelela Okude (Zulu for "The Far Reaches") is a sednoid in the Sigma Draconis system which is noted for being a source of a chemical that is easily and cheaply refined into fuel, though the fuel itself tends to wreak havoc on ship engines and reactors that use it for sustained periods. However, the chemical tends to explode at high temperatures; thanks to an incident several years back, Ukufinyelela Okude now has a major crater reaching down into the middle mantle, and a new ring composed of rock and ices the explosion knocked into orbit - yeah, it was that big an explosion.

Mining now takes place in the asteroid ring surrounding the sednoid; the usual mining base has about a hundred miners and three times that many drone robots, using low-tech mining tools such as jackhammers and diamond-tipped drills rather than the plasma cutters most other mining facilities use.

However, the largest mining station has gone silent. What happened?

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Because the title is misleading: this appears to be meant for worlds in Infinite Worlds that break one of the major setting premises: no FTL or interstellar empires. Pieces of IW get used for all sorts of projects that are similar but not quite the same.

I read the first post somewhat differently: that these are worlds that are not part of the IW framework, mostly because of IW's own limitations preventing them from existing in the IW setting.

[YankeeGamer]

I wrote up this planet long and long ago, for a Star Wars campaign using the old D6 system. Change the name and file off a few serial numbers, and it works in any far ranging interstellar campaign with mystic powers. File a bit more, and it works even without mystic powers.

Feel free to use, adapt, and edit; I would love to know what people think of it.

In times long ago, long before the great Sith war, a small group of settlers set off from the Core World of Terak Nor, seeking a less hectic pace of life. Unlike the colonists that became the Expansion Region, these colonists wanted to insure that they would remain isolated, and went further into the unexplored areas of the galaxy than anyone else would have considered. The voyage took over 5 years using the primitive hyperdrives of the time, while fast scouts ranged on ahead. Eventually, a rich planet was found in a vast abyss, and the people landed.

Technology was deliberately allowed to regress, and the ships were cannibalized—all but one scout, which left to register the colonist’s claim on Coruscant. It never returned.

As the decades and centuries passed, Newope’s population began to increase, and the planet progressed from a late medieval technology level to a late 21st century technology. Like most worlds, there were occasional wars, and eventually 2 superpowers emerged. It was at this time when Republic scouts found them, and some limited trade began. The scouts also discovered that Newope’s sun was gradually cooling off; the increased CO2 was masking the changes from the locals. By this time, Newope had developed extensive in-system space flight, and rudimentary force fields. Newope’s studies of physics had gone in different directions from the Republic’s, due to isolation. There was only a short period of contact with the Republic before the Sith Wars began, but Newope did become the furthest flung member. Some technical assistance came for building a planetary sun shield, keeping more of the sun’s heat inside. The great shield towers were placed across the planet, and were working well, but were not trusted.
Meanwhile, in a secret lab devoted to teleportation, a major breakthrough let to a way to actually move the planet, and preparations were begun. This was kept secret from the republic, as well as from the general population of both nations. The drive worked, but a Sith saboteur destroyed the massive installation needed to shut it down. Without that facility, the energy release would have smashed the planet into debris, so the planet continued to slowly accelerate. There was only a little time to prepare, and the civil defence shelters filled as the sun shrunk. By the time the drive was safely shut down, it was too late—Newope was a loose planet. When the Sith war was over, the Republic was baffled by Newope’s disappearance. It became a legend of the spaceways, but it was never found
The shelters had been designed for decades occupancy after a nuclear war, and some managed to become self sufficient, eventually expanding downwards. The Republic and the Jedi are only legend now, thousands of years later, and the surface is only known through holovids from that distant era. A few maintain the traditions of the military and orbit watch, but it’s a ritual, not reality. There is no combat more vigorous than a boxing match—there are no grounds to risk damage to the life support, and there’s always room to expand. There are no weapons—even the military’s ceremonial rifles can’t fire.
There is now a thriving society of several billion, perhaps tens or hndred of billions of people living their lives beneath the surface, secure in their peaceful lives, unaware of the great war raging, and not aware that they have technology that may turn the course of the war drastically. (A planet is BIG; a planet where civilization can tunnel down for miles anywhere is VERY big! High tech power, or just thermal converters from the heat of the core, will last for a million years or more…likely MUCH more.)


Technology
Newope’s technology has gone in a different direction from the rest of the galaxy. Teleportation was discovered before the Cataclysm, but its limitations prevented it from becoming practical for most needs.
A practical disintegrator has been developed, and it has made tunneling cheap, and also has useful applications for mining and power generation. Weaponizing it might not be too difficult.

Power Groups

Air Corps
This is a highly prestigious group that goes up certain special tunnels to gather frozen air and water as the tunnels expand. Some rare few have even reached the surface and seen the unearthly beauty of the stars and the frozen landscape, although some have gone insane from the experience, and Corps regs discourage it. They have the most mysterious job on the planet, and have the “Fighter jock” mindset. The job isn’t extremely dangerous by standards elsewhere, but it IS the most dangerous job on the planet,
and the Air Corps bases have a few new names engraved on the wall of heroes each year.

Army
The Army is the actual world government of Newope. This dates from the Cataclysm, when the Army ran the shelters, and as they re-established contact, the senior officer assumed command. Today, it is largely ceremonial, although it does resolve issues of who owns which volume of space (Which shelter, not which person) Each community has a senior officer, who reports up a conventional chain of command. The army also runs the mag-lev lines that tie the world together, and the communication system, keeps the census, and coordinates between the shelters.
The High Command is almost uninvolved, Colonels and lower doing the work. The High Command is almost a priesthood, keeping the history of the ancient times alive, carrying out rituals that have little meaning, such as the hourly orbit status report, even though most of the skywatch positions are non-functional. Almost every citizen makes a pilgrimage to Planetary Defense Command at least once in their life, and the heroes who kept the shelters sealed when the sun started to fade are honored every day—the fact that they annihilated thousands in defense of the shelter has been forgotten.

Sons of the Jedi, et al
These groups preserve the history of Newope, and keep it popular. There are always remakes of the films and books of the grand old days, and these people do most of them. They are dedicated to keeping them accurate, and do a reasonable job. The ancient tales are of many sorts, including some about the great Sith war, daring interstellar explorers and traders, to stories of Knights in shining armor, castles and magic. These tales are loved by a certain portion of the population, much as science fiction and fantasy are on Earth. Some among the Army and Air Corps are even interested in seriously trying to colonize the surface, or build new space ships—plans for sublight craft, and even hyper capable craft are in the old libraries, but no one has done so—yet. Some have built new simulators and used ancient software, so they might be able to maneuver a ship without crashing.

The True Defenders
This is a splinter of the Sons of the Jedi. They believe that the old tales are more important than any realize, and secretly prepare for the day when they will have to defend their home against the dread Sith. Some are actual Jedi, maintaining the old tradition, while others drill for combat in the tunnels. The disintegrators used for mining have been converted into infantry small arms as well as crew served weapons. Their tactics are questionable, since they haven’t had to fight, and learned from books only, but they do know the tunnels well, and their weapons are deadly.

Conservative Association
These people see the ancient myths as dangerously wasteful of time and resources. They want to disband the army and put practical people (themselves) in charge. They consist of two main groups. The first one is people who have power and wealth, and want more of both.

The second group is of the poorer folks, who the wealthy and powerful have convinced would do better if the regime changed.

Newope Residents will universally have poor nightvision, as the tunnels and caverns are all well lit. They are almost all at a penalty for any action done at a range of over 100 yards or thereabouts, as it is rare to find unobstructed sightlines that long, except for the occasional stadiums and auditoriums,

They are also sensitive to temperature changes; this is a cavern environment where a change of 3 degrees is unusual.

[Phantasm]

I like Newope, and am tempted to use it in my own space opera setting, only replacing the Force-using Jedi with the psionics-using Knights of (New) Camelot (a non-stop Ren Faire planet, basically), putting it out just beyond the frontier (say, 100 ly or so from Earth). I'm not sure I'd use the matter transmission/teleportation aspects, though. I don't have a Sithy psionics faction in the setting, though - yet.

If you had to pick a side, would you go with them preferring to side with a "unite everyone under our banner" United Earth faction, or a "we don't need the homeworld telling us we're 'bloody colonials', doggammit!" Self-Determination League (some members may share the "unite everyone" ideal of the United Earth, but under their own terms, not Earth's) faction? Or would they stay independent?