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Old 08-01-2020, 08:45 AM   #1801
Astromancer
 
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Try this one...

This takes ideas I've used before, but I switched the point of view.

Captain Church: What does your database say about this planet?

Lt. Commander Somme: This world is unmapped and unknown, but the emergency beacon on the planetary moon is from the Gaivota,a ship that was built five years ago and went missing seven months ago. But the emergency becon shows signs of being about 1,500 years old.

Commander Gerber: Could this be proof of a backwards time-jump.

Lt. Commander Somme: I'm inclined to think so. But I want more proof. Still, astrometrics until a few months ago suggested a terraformable planet. Not a full lush biosphere like this world has.

Counselor Knossos: My empathic senses would have told me if this world had had a biosphere suddenly slapped on. This biosphere isn't ancient, but it is established. Fifteen hundred years seems about right.

Captain Church: If they've been settled here for a millenium and a half, were are their spaceships?

Lt. Commander Somme: The Gaivota crew and passengers, at least from the records I've got, don't seem like good canidates for survival and terraforming. I assume they strecthed what they had as far as it could go. We may be dealing with a retrograde culture.

Commander Gerber: A retrograde culture would make this a first contact situation.

Counselor Knossos: But they might be aware that we exist, even if that knowlege has become distorted.

Captain Church: So it's a tricky misson full of landmines. Well, let's go earn our pay people.


Basically, exploring a world that's both exotic and familiar. Societies on this world could be at every tech level from zero to seven. Any type of society might have grown up. At the same time, these people are Earth humans, familiar details can be freely and logically blended in. History books can be raided for interesting and viable societies.
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Old 08-01-2020, 11:49 AM   #1802
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Wait... how is the beacon still operating after 1500 years?

Really interesting premise, having to deal with a culture that originated contemporarily but then had over a millennia to percolate and diverge. The tales and legends of the old world, where they still exist, would probably be horribly distorted.
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Old 08-01-2020, 12:50 PM   #1803
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In 2041 NASA discovers an unusual interstellar object traveling to the Sol System at 57 km/s, which would pierce the elliptical plane between Earth and Mars in 2059. Unlike the previous interstellar objects discovered during the previous quarter century, the is no doubt about its artificial nature, as the composition and shape of the object indicate its artificiality. It is also very, very large, 30 km long, 3 km wide, and 3 km tall, with multiple 1 km spars projecting from its surface.

The velocity of the object makes it barely possible for the USA to send a mission to intercept the object with TL9 fusion technology. While a robotic mission would be safer, TL9 robots are too limited to effectively deal with the unknowns of the situation. Instead, NASA intends to send a massive manned mission to the object, as does China, the EU, India, and Japan (each independently).

The Excaliber-Class Deep Space Vehicle will be a massive SM+12 spacecraft. Using a TL9 fusion engine, it will possess enough delta-v for 180 km/s of manuevers, meaning that its crew will be able to intercept the interstellar object and return to Earth without assistance. Its size also allows for a spin gravity of 0.5g and decent radiation protection, and allows for carrying a massive array of people and equipment.

It is now 2057, and the Excaliber is months away from leaving its L4 construction yards. It will accelerate for two weeks and intercepted the object six months later. Ideally, the astronauts will be capable of activating the object and return it to the Earth as property of the USA. If not, they will have a year to explore it before the two year trip to return to Earth.

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Old 08-01-2020, 02:32 PM   #1804
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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Originally Posted by Kale View Post
Wait... how is the beacon still operating after 1500 years?

Really interesting premise, having to deal with a culture that originated contemporarily but then had over a millennia to percolate and diverge. The tales and legends of the old world, where they still exist, would probably be horribly distorted.
You got it. Or at least one way to go. As for the beacon, it's a TL10^ piece of electronics with incredibly durable solar panels.
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Old 08-01-2020, 05:33 PM   #1805
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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Time travel, where you cannot make changes that contradict what you know. For example, if you know JFK dies, you can't save him. If you don't know the masked man is your past self, you can kill him, paradoxes be damned.
Kage Baker's Company stories had something like that. They could only change things in the time shadows. There were some good stories in that series.
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Old 08-02-2020, 06:21 PM   #1806
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Try this one...

Bruce Baugh, a long time writter for SJ Games, also wrote for White Wolf and he had a major hand in creating Adventure!. Adventure! and the whole line it is part of is getting a relaunch. On one of the Onyx Path Bulletton Board I posted this...

One good idea for a one off book might take the trope of the "Lost Colony" and blend in the idea of being timelost. Have the castaways from a badly lost colony ship surviving on a distant planet. Civilization collapsed because of irresolvable struggles among the castaways, who were never meant to go to the same world.

But people are rebuilding society. They are relearning ancient skills and technologies. Rediscovering who and what they are. I'd prefer the PCs to be like the PCs from 1e Adventure! I'd add in some extra Knacks like a Mind speach ability for each basic type. The Mesmerist knack should be the most flexible. But each form of the knack should allow easy two-way communication. Even between those that don't share a language.

I see the setting as Planetary Romance with extra helpings of Swashbuckling and Gold Age Sci Fi paradigm breakthroughs.

As I said I see this as a one off.

It might be called "Ascending!'


To make this clearer to those who don't know the game system, basically I'm blending a pulp supers setting with Planetary Romance, Swashbucklers, and the Golden Age SciFi stories about rebuilding society either from nuclear wars or lost colonies because they are climbing out of a cultural colapse.

There are Daredevils (supernormals), Mesmerists (pulp psions), and Stalwarts (low powered supers) in Adventure! Similar types with limitations to achieve the right flavor could be defined.

PCs would be cinematic heroes struggling to build a future or prevent someone else's vision (I assume because they find it intolerable). Treasure hunts for relics of the ship that brought then to this world or ancient scientific knowledge. A quest to build trade or diplomatic ties. Wars to liberate your people from oppressors or to build an empire.

Yes, this is like a recent idea, but it is far more pulpy/over the top.
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Old 08-04-2020, 06:21 PM   #1807
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

I added this to the idea...



A few things to help...

1) The ship that misjumped went through a realm of flux and came out about 30,000 light-years from Earth and in or close to the year 16,000 BCE.

2) Most of the passengers and crew were in stasis cells for two thousand years for the ship to terraform the planet with their limited resources. The world has a full eco-system, but one where many animals have been touched/mutated by flux. This world has dragons, griffins, and unicorns, as well as stranger beasts.

3) The passengers were from multiple different Earth cultures that don't actually respect each other. Example: The North Americans that were on the ship were Social Democrats seeking to restore American democracy in an interstellar colony. They were generally assumed to be agents of the FSA there to disrupt and destroy. They were always treated as outcasts. The colonists were culturally incompatible and deeply hostile to each other. Their society collapsed because of bigotry, anger, and paranoia. Chauvinistic worldviews dominate this world and limit communication.

4) This is a highly maritime world, there is slightly more land area relative to ocean area than planet Earth, But this landmass is scattered in islands and small continents. No landmass is more than three-fourths the size of Australia, landmasses as large as Britain aren't common.

The climate is more moderate than Earth because it is more maritime than Earth. There are ice caps and the deep oceans are oxygenated.

5) No society has achieved industrialization. However, there are enclaves where technology is more advanced, these generally have a good source of electrical power, most are linked hydro-power dams. These rarely have better than mid-20th century technology. However, some do better. Most of these sites are universities and teaching hospitals. All of these are archives.



I might do more on this, maybe recreating the Adenture! rules in GURPS. Flux is an empowering/dangerous froce behind paranormal powers in the Trinityverse.
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Old 08-05-2020, 08:03 AM   #1808
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

A couple of points. You do not really need time travel if they jumped 30,000 ly away, something like 50 billion systems are within 30,000 ly, so no one is likely to find them. In general, there should be a really good reason for divergent groups to travel together, perhaps the Sol System was being invaded by aliens and they were the last spaceship out (maybe a random shot from an alien destroyer damages their jump drive right before their jump, causing the jump drive to toss them to their current position).
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Old 08-05-2020, 12:04 PM   #1809
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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A couple of points. You do not really need time travel if they jumped 30,000 ly away, something like 50 billion systems are within 30,000 ly, so no one is likely to find them. In general, there should be a really good reason for divergent groups to travel together, perhaps the Sol System was being invaded by aliens and they were the last spaceship out (maybe a random shot from an alien destroyer damages their jump drive right before their jump, causing the jump drive to toss them to their current position).
In GURPS you are right, although I often add a timelost element to lost colonies to make rescue totally beyond hope. This setting is riftting off of 1st ed Adventure! Which was a White Wolf Trinityverse game. So some of it comes from that. Basically, it is pulp supers blended with pulp Planetary Romance. It also has lashings of pirate stories and Sinbad the Sailor.
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Old 08-05-2020, 09:16 PM   #1810
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I added this to the idea...

[B][I][FONT="Book Antiqua"][COLOR="Indigo"]
Astromancer: Please don't do this font-thing again. Even increasing the font-size several times I couldn't read this. Yes, I could make out the letters, barely, but the indigo text and yellow/orange background was rather nauseating to me.
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