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Old 02-19-2018, 10:47 AM   #211
PTTG
 
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Ever see a public minecraft server with free resources? The starting area is a wasteland of monuments and half-built artless attempts to troll the place. On the other hand, once you're far from there, there are great wonders, too.

Presumably we'd see something similar, with Earth being a trampled sandbox (and likely Mars as well), but perhaps Alpha Centauri or other stars would have wonders...
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Old 02-19-2018, 11:53 AM   #212
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Ever see a public minecraft server with free resources? The starting area is a wasteland of monuments and half-built artless attempts to troll the place. On the other hand, once you're far from there, there are great wonders, too.

Presumably we'd see something similar, with Earth being a trampled sandbox (and likely Mars as well), but perhaps Alpha Centauri or other stars would have wonders...
Seems reasonable, but that puts us in a situation where we've just moved the scarcity to a different place. There's lots of stuff and manufacturing, but you've still got scarce brainpower (?) and scarce space. We also need to consider how the all powerful benefactors will react when everyone is fleeing their Utopia as fast as they can build ships.

Then there's the problem of inhabitable places. Depending on the levels of tech, we might just be able to build habs, and then we get a Dyson swarm. That might be the ideal solution for The Authority. Everyone lives a billion miles away from each other and their mega-scale arts and crafts, but in range of TA's power.

However, I really can't see The Authority letting the Earth be devastated by mega-projects. It's much more likely they'd use force to stop such things.

Last edited by Gedrin; 02-19-2018 at 11:56 AM.
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Old 02-19-2018, 12:05 PM   #213
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I am not sure that a Dyson Swarm is possible, considering that the energy requirements to move that much matter would already require a Type 2 civilization, and why would people want to leave the Earth if they have the power to stay on the Earth? Without the economic or ecological reasons of scarcity to evacuate the Earth, I think that a much more likely scenario would be war over the geography of Earth rather than a war over the resources of Earth. A few groups might be able to leave before war consumed the Earth, but you would be numbering the surviving humans in the millions rather than the billions.

In addition, if every human being is a superhuman, then the jealousy and pettiness of 'normal' people become the sparks for bitter feuds that could wreck entire cities. Bigotry and nationalism would not disappear with the spread of superpowers, and I can only imagine that the inhabitants of the largest nations would start to try to use their superior number of supers to bully their smaller neighbors. I would imagine that such a world would end up a burned out cinder within a decade of the spread of superpowers.
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Old 02-19-2018, 12:38 PM   #214
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I am not sure that a Dyson Swarm is possible, considering that the energy requirements to move that much matter would already require a Type 2 civilization, and why would people want to leave the Earth if they have the power to stay on the Earth? Without the economic or ecological reasons of scarcity to evacuate the Earth, I think that a much more likely scenario would be war over the geography of Earth rather than a war over the resources of Earth. A few groups might be able to leave before war consumed the Earth, but you would be numbering the surviving humans in the millions rather than the billions.

In addition, if every human being is a superhuman, then the jealousy and pettiness of 'normal' people become the sparks for bitter feuds that could wreck entire cities. Bigotry and nationalism would not disappear with the spread of superpowers, and I can only imagine that the inhabitants of the largest nations would start to try to use their superior number of supers to bully their smaller neighbors. I would imagine that such a world would end up a burned out cinder within a decade of the spread of superpowers.
I think the idea is that "normal" people have access to utopian nano-tech that enables the heights of luxury and eliminates physical wants. Energy isn't really an issue at that point, except as a matter of time.
As for reasons to bail out, your second paragraph pretty much sums them up. A large number of nations simply collapse because they aren't useful to their own power structure any more. Individuals who were common felons last week suddenly have the power to build anything. People who were normal tinkerers now have access to orbit. That doesn't even factor in the billion or so people who ask,"Can I really have a million cheeseburgers made?"

To be honest, I suspect a more rational examination renders saner results. Law and force restrict people. The Authority either is omniscient or needs troops/cops. Brains and discipline still will rule the world because ingenuity is limited and time is finite. It won't take long for the hated power elite, deprived of their advantage of physical capital, to realize they can pool nano-construction time in exchange for immediate goods. "You give me one hour of your nanites next week, and I give you a cheeseburger right now," isn't very different from current banking/loan systems. World class talent will still demand world class incentive. In under a generation you'd have a new elite that looks roughly the same as the old, but with vastly more physical power. Pretty much industrialization, but as a sudden shock.

The non-elite would be better off as well, providing they had a clue about what was going on, but that didn't stop the post industrial jealousy that drove The Authority to smash the world economy the first time. Either they'd do it again (eventually their tech upgrades run out?), for the same reasons (this time it'll be different!), or abandon the project (this has not been the historical norm). The nasty bit starts up again when people realize they can't make their lot better. The Authority will just smash things about the time a new "system" emerges.

Last edited by Gedrin; 02-19-2018 at 12:42 PM.
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Old 02-19-2018, 12:52 PM   #215
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The problem is the assumption of rationality within a fundamentally irrational species. What would prevent white supremacists from targeting the members of a hated minority and what would prevent the members of a hated minority from retaliating? What would prevent radical nationalists from targeting the institutions of a hated nation and what would prevent the institutions of a hated nation from retaliating. What would prevent thousands of formerly powerless young men turning their superpowers against innocent children at their former schools and what would prevent the parents of those children from targeting suspicious young men in their grief and rage?

Without limitations, humans can become monstrous, and the humans who are willing to kill for their own pleasure are more vicious and more inventive than the 'normal' people who they victimize. With unlimited power, serial killers will be able to indulge in slaughters of phenomenal brutality before they are brought down, and mass murderers would destroy entire cities before they are stopped. Of course, this is one of the many reasons why superhero comics do not make much sense, as a world with supers should end up being an empty world.
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Old 02-19-2018, 02:10 PM   #216
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You guys got it. Good intentions, noble deeds, and superpowers, mix in human cussiness, and watch the chaos. Mind you I see eliminating poverty and oppression as profound goods. However the pre-Authority supers led by the High (a Superman reworking) didn't bother much with asking if people wanted to be liberated or lose their illusions. What should have been wonderous and beautiful looks a little more like rape.

Freedom can be given, but you can't force it on people without pain and violation. These supers, you can't call them heros, didn't ask anyone if they wanted help. Frankly, if I'm a super tearing down the whole wide world's power structure, I'd find some people who want my help. Working with them would let me start a slow revolution that would grind the old order to powder with minimal pain. But this senario is more about impatience and the price of total rapid transformation.
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Old 02-19-2018, 02:26 PM   #217
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I agree. I think that giving a limited number of people superpowers would allow for a controlled explosion, but there are always going to be unintended consequences. If I found myself in that setting, I would find a group of like-minded people, build an Ark, and head for the stars before the Earth exploded in genocidal conflict.

I think that would make an interesting science fiction setting though. The Guardians, the sane humans who fled the Earth after Humanity's Awakening, have terraformed and settled a few hundred planets within 500 ly of the Solar System. They have allied with alien civilizations against the Ravagers, the insane humans who destroyed the Earth through superpowered conflicts within a decade of the Awakening. The Ravagers enslave primitive aliens to serve them and raid advanced alien civilizations for technology while they fight for status among their ranks.
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Old 02-19-2018, 02:37 PM   #218
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Of course, this is one of the many reasons why superhero comics do not make much sense, as a world with supers should end up being an empty world.
Eh, most of us already have access to machines and weapons fully as destructive as low end superpowers. Sure actually *invulnerable* crazies would be a problem, but lots of power not so much, especially lots of power that the defenders of society have too. Relatively few supervillains appear harder to kill than a tank, and the existence of tanks hasn't depopulated the world.

On the original topic, sure in the short term the unregulated introduction of lots of power (or wealth, or knowledge or whatever) could be a mess, but that's a property of sudden transitions, not so much whatever you are introducing. There probably is an equilibrium state on the other side. The key to not having a mess is to roll it out slowly enough for the regulating and coping mechanisms (formal and informal) to have time to be organized or evolve.

Of course if it rolls out slowly enough for society to adapt, it may also fail to produce the radical change that seems to be part of the point. I suspect it is the idea that you can have radical change without at least risking considerable bloodshed that is the idealist fantasy in play here.
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Old 02-19-2018, 06:20 PM   #219
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I think over in the Hells/lucifers thread one of the ideas was just "everybody gets superpowers at once."
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Old 02-19-2018, 06:28 PM   #220
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Don't we already all have superpowers(hypercognition)? Not to imagine associated ones: Cinematic Gadgeteer, Sonic and Luminous thought communication, Faux-eusociability, etc?
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