New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

We are told not to cross the streams, so I'll do that. The steams I'm crossing are Fray which is a cyberpunk take on BtVS and Firefly which is a sci fi take on Westerns and Pirate stories. The basic idea is to take GURPS: Monster Hunters, a classic sci fi frontier area, and a dollop of Eldritch Skies, blend and enjoy.

If you want to use the Firefly Characters, Kaylee is the slayer, and River is more powerful/dangerous.

[Astromancer]

A long time ago I read Walkers on the Sky. Not a great novel, but the world in the book is lively.

The setting is post-apocalyptic, one of those last remnants of humanity escape in an experimental starship and settle a new world in the stars. We don't learn this at first. The planet is only a little larger than the moon. The atmosphere is held on the planet by a TL12^ "Woven" force field. There are three levels of this woven field. The lowest holds in a higher than Earth normal air-pressure, the second level is about Earth normal air-pressure, the highest level has an air-pressure like Nepal or Denver. These Woven force field tents don't cover the whole planet...yet. We don't go to the edge of the sky in the novel.

The lowest level has wonders like lakes were the oxygen content of the water is high enough for people to breath underwater. People can wear wings and fly on the lowest level. The Tech Level is mainly Neolithic zero to one.

Most of the story takes place in the second level. The setting was mainly tech level two/three. The "Woven" force field could be walked on. If the field was cut/broken it quickly rewove itself. The Force Field can be walked on. Ships cut through the force field and hang a keel below the ship and sail across the sky. The force field is the sea in this section. Along with regular islands were mountains or hills poke through the force field, there are sandbar like islands on the force field. Steams flow across the force field and sometimes small lakes fall through the sky causing wild rains below. Note: Horses hooves rip through the field if they run. However, dog drawn chariots work just fine and camel's hooves don't tear the field.

The third level isn't visited in the book. Human scholars and scientists are taken there by the "Gods." The "Gods" are immortal space travelers who built this world. These immortals seem to be hypocrites whom embrace Ultra-tech for themselves and feel that most people should live "simple, natural, low-tech" lives.

The Gods have created replays of different Earth cultures they think are cool. This means Samurai can meet Vikings or Aztecs and if fits the setting. Many of these cultural replays are romanticized versions of the society in question.

More later if I remember more useful details. Ask questions if you want to.

[Astromancer]

Here's parts of a review of the book.

"The back of the book makes this whole thing out to be a lot more weird and experimental and original than it is. Whoever wrote that for DAW didn’t read the book, which is not unusual, but they also didn’t read Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light, from which this text cribs a bit heavily in some places.

There’s got to be a term for a narrative that features humans with godlike powers (due to technology) lording it over humans that are stuck in a sort of cultural and technological stasis because of it. It’s a plot similar to the idea that gods are aliens with high technology, but different enough to be notable. The former is a little less trite, at least.

No, this book has a different set of cliches:

People left Earth on a colony ship
The people who ran the ship kept all the Sufficiently Advanced Technology
They keep the colonists in what amounts to a zoo
And they set themselves up as gods
Once you get past that, though, the rest of the book is pretty solid, actually.

Our hero is a dude named Signi Signison. Like everybody else in the book, he’s from a place that is a direct analogue to someplace in Earth’s history. I guess he’s some kind of neo-Viking. He makes frenemies with a guy who is a sort of neo-Celt, and they arrive at one point in some sort of neo-Rome, and it goes on.

At least in this book those things are given a reason. It’s not a great reason, but at least its there. We don’t get the lowdown on the gods of this world until very late in the book, but we can skip ahead a bit. The crew members of the ship who kept all the technology basically each picked a culture they liked and modeled their followers after it. After many, many years, the cultures they were emulating were forgotten but the customs remained pretty much the same.

But wait, there is something original about this book! This is where the real meat comes in. This is the part I like. See, this planet, Melior, was pretty crappy when they found it. It was about the same size as Earth’s old moon, and about as hospitable to boot. The scientist gods terraformed the crap out of it using some unknown techniques, but one thing they did essentially defines the planet. They put up a sort of force field to keep the atmosphere in. This is where it gets good.

See, the force field is somewhat pliable. It doesn’t bend much, but you can cut it. You can also walk on it. Society got stratified so that some people live on top of the force field and others live on the ground below. After a while the two societies began to diverge evolutionarily. The people on top of the field consider themselves denizens of the Middle World, while the gods live above in glory and the Neathings live below in depravity.

Ships ply the force field between nations. This is where Signi comes in. He’s signed up for a ship to earn his lot in life. Said ship, a trading vessel, sets out. Signi thinks things are going pretty well. He meets up with a guy named Tamlin, a member of some rival civilization to Signi’s, and they swear eternal enmity to each other until it turns out that they’re both being duped. They get sold off to slavers so that the ship can pass. Tamlin goes down fighting but Signi gets sold off again to some guy named Darya, a son of the emperor of a place named Nasron. Things go okay for a little while until Darya’s brother takes the throne and gets all crazy. Darya is a good guy, he’s against slavery and stuff like that, but his brother, Naresh is a nasty character. There’s some fighting and Signi decides to escape on an aircraft designed by this guy Augrim.

The gods of Melior expressly forbid developing technology. One of the commandments of the church is something like “Thou shalt not know too much.” Augrim has been developing his airplane in secret, but Signi knows about it and forces Augrim to fly him away. They don’t get very far until the middle of the book happens and they fall through the force field into the world below.

The book does a lot to take a fantasy setting and set it up using technology and futuristic evolution and stuff like that.

Signi also meets a guy named Weldon who is also a god. Weldon explains to Signi the whole deal with the gods, which we’ve already been over. They’re effectively immortal and have some crazy tech that lets them get away with whatever they want. They’ve been running this show for ten thousand years. Weldon tells Signi (and us) about what led them to this planet. It’s your basic “Earth got crappy because of people being people” story. For a while they all lived on the Moon, but that got crappy too, so a colony vessel set out and found Melior. The crew members set up societies based on their own preferences and, for the people’s own good, set restrictions on technology. The gods don’t interfere directly with goings-on, but they do send down commandments and do things like mating with regular people that they find attractive. That last bit comes into play later.

Oh, and Signi meets up with Tamlin again. He fell through the force field earlier and has set up with the Neathings and learned their ways. He no longer has a blood feud with Signi, which makes things easier, and they go from frenemies to just pals. It’s from him that we learn a lot about what’s going on with all the regular people.

Signi and Zilith, a woman who can fly with wings fastened to her arms, learn that the Nasronites have gotten interested in coming down to the surface to round up slaves. Such a thing is supposed to be forbidden, but apparently the gods of Melior care about as much about their commandments as the gods of Earth, so they get away with it for a while. Signi and Zilith wage war against them, however, and that’s essentially the end of the book. Signi and the Neathings (a good band name) win the war, as you’d probably expect, and it’s revealed that Signi is Weldon’s son so he gets to go to live with the gods if he wants to. Pretty nice.

Signi was a pretty believable hero. He wasn’t all-powerful (even if he was half-god), but he was at least competent.


There was a lot going on in this book and a lot of it was handled competently. It’s just a shame that there wasn’t much going on that was relevant to the story, such as it was. It flowed well and was very readable. I do recommend the book if you’re into this sort of thing. If you’re into well-built worlds that make a good amount of sense even as they toe the line between magic and technology, then this is a book for you. If you’re into characterization and story, which is where I tend to fall, then maybe less so. Still, I’d kind of like to steal some of the elements for a homebrew RPG campaign. I think the setting has a lot to offer."

He's right, not a great novel but a good setting for an RPG campaign.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I don't remember you offering this before. Let me praise you for this idea. It's a highly flexible frame that can be dropped into so many sci fi and fantasy settings. Your idea is simple brilliance.

Thanks....

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

The anomaly glows green in the visible spectrum, so it was given the name Elessar to cover the color and its strange properties. The Elf or Eagle Gate is the most stable wormhole in the known universe and the only known jump point between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Thus the airless worlds of the nearest star-system (the star is called Doorstep) are valuable places to hold bases both to set up Entrepots and bases to protect trade or prey on it.

The small worlds of the star Doorstep are the most massively cosmopolitan places in the galaxy, mainly because everyone who trades needs to come here.

The PCs are part of the local security force. Their job is to prevent war and riot. They are surrounded and radically outnumbered by vast numbers of aliens from thousands of worlds.

You might want to read this comic or maybe this comic. No, just read both and get wilder from there.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

In the year 2077, in late October, while performing an experiment which required three triangulation points Something happened. What isn't understood, most of the people who understood the experiment were outside of the triangle working at what they called the focal point. The Triangle was equilateral and 250 miles on a side. One point was inland far behind a University town with a large State University with a fine Library. One point was on a small island a couple of miles off the coast. The final point was on a headland jutting out into the sea. A small manufacturing city, two large towns, productive farmlands, a large fusion power plant, a boatyard, and other useful things, were within the triangle.

From the point of view of those within the triangle, nothing happened. Beyond the triangle, the world is a post-apocalyptic wilderness. The radiation level is higher than it should be out there. So far there is no evidence of pathogens or other problems. In trips made by some of the members of the ROTC, there was evidence of at least a century of time having passed outside the Triangle. The Astronomy faculty pined it down to a passage of 137 years.

There have been sightings of survivors, but no contact yet.

The Tech Level before the event was nine. Sustaining that will be hard. Putting together what happened will take time. Holding society together is also going to be a problem.

[adm]

Astromancer;

You have a lot of interesting ideas, that I generally enjoy reading.

[jason taylor]

The Long Night is coming and the empire is crumbling. A federation of border communities explores and finds a planet harrassed by raiders. They cut a deal. The planet will let them build a Starport on barran land. In return they must agree to keep off the raiders.

The first immigrant fleet sets out, lands and builds and fortifies a starport, then more and more come. Generations later you will be hero worshiped by children until a sourpuss steps up and claims you were all just thieves and scoundrels. Thus your names will live on as the founders of a civilization.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

The Long Night is coming and the empire is crumbling. A federation of border communities explores and finds a planet harrassed by raiders. They cut a deal. The planet will let them build a Starport on barran land. In return they must agree to keep off the raiders.

The first immigrant fleet sets out, lands and builds and fortifies a starport, then more and more come. Generations later you will be hero worshiped by children until a sourpuss steps up and claims you were all just thieves and scoundrels. Thus your names will live on as the founders of a civilization.

Where have I heard a story like this before?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Where have I heard a story like this before?

I may have, certainly others have. It is not a new one. Though the details of the treaty allow for more family-friendly native relations while the part about the immigrants agreeing to high guard justifies having constant warfare embedded in their constitution.

The Ihaiti often make similar treaties.