New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Admittedly the Old Elites were fools to think the world was dependent on them and would collapse without them. Even if the world they returned to was a post-apocalyptic wasteland, they wouldn't be all that likely to run things. The Bob the Angry Flower cartoon was the most succinct explaination of why. Rand assumed the elite were the winners of society because they were somehow the "fittest." Evolution is about adaptation and opportunity not "fitness." And the elites are almost always insulated from evolutionary pressures

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

The real stupidity of Atlas Shrugged is that it assumes that elites have some kind of non-interference principle, as opposed to flinging money at the government like real life.

[SimonAce]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Still, the fight when the old elites get back would be epic.

It will make for good gaming that's for sure, However its very possible that Galt and his people will have come back to a work with massive amounts off technological regression as resources are used, the ecology is damaged and so on.

A group of plucky older elite all actually quite superior people (big point totals basically) now caught in a world with very limited resources , oil mostly gone, rampant climate change, collapse of the thiamine cycle and worse.

You'll need that inexhaustible supply of robots toot sweet.

The whole mess would be complicated by the fact that Rand's heroic model was essentially points in selfishness, greed and other very negative traits balanced by a slight code of honor something akin to "keeps contracts, respects superior people." Its not without reason Anton LaVey cribbed her work for the Satanic Bible.

This means the now postindustrial groups of hard men and women who favor group loyalty and honor above all else will make a nice contrast to the selfish Randians and create some nice tension as the PC's start saying "Wait are we the baddies?"

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

Ys, Rising

Of course we know are ancestors came from the Earth 17 generations ago. We aren't ignorant. We came here to live by our ancient customs and laws. We strove for generations to be true to the ways of our ancestors why change that now because you are afraid?

Basically, long stranded colonists on a world thousands of LYRs from Earth are going through dramatic changes. In the southern oceans of this world the New Celtic Union has achieved a return to industrialization. Given their knowledge base, computer pods of vast content, they could rapidly advance to the Tech Level of the original colonists (TL12).

Although the New Celtic Union is peaceful and mainly isolationist, others are terrified. Throughout the northern continents almost all the major powers are desperately struggling to catch up or face total vulnerability.

The problem in your nation is that large portions of the population refuse to even allow the attempt to advance technologically. The coastal cities are run as semi-independent republics barely acknowledging the sway of the monarchy or the state church (one nation, several systems). Inland the kingdom resembles a cross between the political systems of the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and rather more stable and functional than that sounds. The Coastal Cities embrace change, the powers of the wider kingdom deeply fear it. The monarchy, the aristocracy, and the church, all fear being made irrelevant or swept away completely.

At its core, this is a political game. All the players are afraid of being wiped out. Events like an airship from the New Celtic Union visiting one of the coastal cities and bringing the vast gulf between a TL4 city and an airship on the borders between Tech Levels six and seven into brilliant focus, could destabilize the nation. Threats of war with a nation that now has TL5 or TL6 weapons could terrorize the nation. Over coming bitterly entrenched opposition while keeping the nation unified would be an epic struggle.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

...And Be One Traveler.

This is a steal from Doctor Who and Star Trek. A space pilot involved in advanced secret projects aided a mysterious Traveler, a Traveler in Time and Space. The Traveler is well known by the Earth's ancient investigative agencies to have been visiting Earth and driving off alien menaces from at least the Renaissance (the Traveler was painted by Titian and Poussin) until the twenty-fifth century. The pilot left with the Traveler, but he soon returned. He gave a report involving adventures in distant parts of the galaxy and in Earth's past (he even brought back lost plays by Shakespeare and Euripides).

That was seventy years ago. Lately the pilot, now an admiral has been seen with the Traveler again and a young man that not only looks identical to the Admiral but scans show he's genetically identical, even more so than a clone or a twin.

What's going on? A Psion working for the Earth intelligence services claims the two men are the same man reconnecting. Two men split apart and coming together again. If this is true, who will the new combined man be loyal to? And what is the goal of the Traveler?

It's an Espionage and Detective game. The Traveler could be like the Doctor or the Traveler or even Missy.

[SolemnGolem]

I ran a sci-fi setting (Pearl of the Ebon Orb) that took place about 700 years hence, several centuries after the collapse, and set on the western coast of modern-day Gabon. The Collapse involved some significant debris field, which lowered sunlight levels from tropic to tropic (save for a sliver of sunlight to the west, visible at sunset), as well as lowering global temperatures. Humanity fell back to medieval era tech, although random reentry events would cause advanced personnel and tech to fall to earth in and around the old Gabon area - sometimes surviving.

The Truth: The Collapse occurred largely due to failure of orbital shipments, leading to impacts around the Equator and also a dangerous debris field in orbit. The pre-Collapse powers seeded LEO with reentry tech to safeguard rebuilding efforts, and these gave rise to periods of sudden leaps forward in tech Earthside when these assets were recovered. To the west, near 0°0° and San Tome et Principe, the old world's Space Elevator is anchored, and its automated deflection systems repel a clear field in the debris (coincidentally causing perturbations in the eastward field, occasionally causing orbital assets to fall to earth, pelting Gabon).

The PCs are such reentry personnel, woken after untold centuries of cryosleep, facing a new world with a broad variety of tech, ranging from the barely-stone-age to future AIs and a cybernetic society at the top of the Space Elevator.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

The setting of a vast Generation Starship is one I've used before, but this take is different. We've already gone through a long journey and have gotten to the new star system. Seed ships run by AIs have terraformed three worlds in the star system. Each world is rich and lovely.

This brings to mind a line of poetry, "...Though every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile?"

The ship has more than a hundred different societies, each society will want an optimal setting for its growth and the most tolerable neighbors. No one wants to share a planet with a warmonger, or, sadly, a nation that spent decades keeping warmongers at bay. A Mercantilist nation needs markets. However, no one wants to have their industrial base ravaged by a mercantilist economy. Certain religious faiths can't tolerate each other.

Basically, the struggle to get a good place to refound a nation is going to be hard.

Besides the diplomatic game, PCs could do espionage to see what other nations/communities really want/need/would fight for. It would be vital to the bargaining strategy. Of course, everyone wants to know these things about others and keep their own secrets.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

This twists the standard Cyberpunk world in a very rare way.

The Corporate Elites ruled North America with an Iron fist from the borders with Columbia to the Queen Elizabeth Islands. But iron rusts and the people cracked their codes and overthrew them. Now those that ruled North America and the Caribbean control only what used to be Panama, Costa Rico, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. All the rest is the Democratic Union of North America.

The new society is a liberal democratic state with a form of socialism based on its advanced robotics and fusion power generation. Not only are they rapidly rebuilding, but they are also cleaning up the environment and radically rising living standards.

However, the neighborhood has problems. First, entrenched elites the planet over are as hostile to this new revolution as they were to the American Revolution of 1776, the French Revolutions of 1789, 1848, and the Paris Commune, or the Russian Revolution of 1917. Although the Democratic Union is a new state and the old corporate elites rule most of Central America, most of the planet's bankers demand the Democratic Union pay all the debts of the old Corporate Dictatorship and reparations both for the actions of the Dictatorship and for the inconvenience caused to the planetary corporate elites by the revolt against the Dictatorship. Plus they demand to set economic policy for the Democratic Union or they will embargo trade. They also threaten war if trade is suspended.

Basically, the corporate oppressors have been overthrown and now the real trouble begins. PCs are former cyberpunks discovering that you can't be a clown if you have to run the Circus.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

Some years ago Larry Niven wrote a book of short stories The Flight of the Horse which included the story Flashcrowd. This setting robs that story.

Basically, it's 2080, and teleportation from teleport booth to teleport booth is cheap, supersafe, and everywhere. This has brought many benefits and some issues. One issue is Flashcrowds. These are caused by large numbers of people suddenly wanting to go somewhere and outrageously vast mobs forming in mere minutes. Many of these Flashcrowds get unruly. Certain types of criminals including terrorists have formed gangs to exploit this, these gangs are called "The Permanent Floating Riot Club" by the authorities.

The players are an elite Interpol task force that hunts these criminals.

It's an action/adventure setting with the PCs hunting criminals including terrorists all over the world.

[DangerousThing]

To think that Flashcrowd was written before the true rise of social media.

I think that if the story were written today, the crowds would be much worse.