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Old 02-05-2018, 04:32 PM   #151
malloyd
 
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
A contracting economy doesn't generate new jobs.
It doesn't generate capital investment to buy new robots either.
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Old 02-05-2018, 06:20 PM   #152
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Mist: Strange impenetrable mists have been appearing around the world. Initially in unpopulated areas but that's changed recently.
When the mist dissipates all life but human are gone. No bodies or sign of violence. Just gone.

What makes this sci fi rather than horror is the cause. It's interdimensional entities wishing to save earth life from an oncoming planet-killing disaster. But they have decided that humanity is too dangerous, not worth the effort, etc.

What happens when mistakes are made and a few humans are taken?
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Old 02-05-2018, 08:18 PM   #153
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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Originally Posted by mr beer View Post
Conspiracy theorists tend to perform this horrible kind of pseudo-science, where they start with the premise and then look for 'facts' that support their position.
The sad thing is, most people do something like this, it's just that conspiracy theorists work harder at it. Scientists try to avoid cognitive bias when they notice it in themselves, because they know how dangerous it is, but humans in general still tend to be more likely to notice facts that seem to agree with what they already 'know to be true,' or think is probably true, and to interpret facts in ways that agree with same. Conspiracy theorists, whether pro-gun, anti-gun, or 'don't care about guns, but look at how the aliens are blah blah blah,' have raised this to what could almost be called an art form (if you're a psychology student, you could write a doctoral thesis on it), even if it's some pretty sad art. People with phobias also do this, though with far less enthusiasm (and usually putting in far less effort, unless one is trying to prove that one's fear is totally rational).


Speaking of aliens, though: Shortly after Apollo XIII suffers a fault that contributes 'evidence' to trideskaphobes, the mated craft encounter a large, glowing, saucer-shaped vehicle, which catches them in a tractor beam, and returns them to Cape Kennedy within about an hour. The aliens make no attempts to communicate, nor do they respond to same, and the saucer leaves once the vehicles are safely on the ground. The landing is viewed by far too many people to cover it up.
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Old 02-05-2018, 11:15 PM   #154
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Seed: A UN observer team investigating accusations of the use of chemical weapons in Syria (they may be exceeding their purview depending on the story agreement between players and GM) instead discover something far more serious: The gas bombings are instead actually devices forcing people into the Outer Astral Planes (Psionic Powers p27).
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Old 02-06-2018, 12:26 AM   #155
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Why do you need a traditional economy in the proposed post-scarcity-sufficiently-advanced-robots setting?

If the robots can do everything (mine for resource, run power plants, produce robots, luxuries for the robot magnates, bread and circuses for the masses, etc) then can't the masses also be excluded from the robot economy?
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Old 02-06-2018, 12:37 AM   #156
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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
A robotic economy only works in a leisure society, and only if the society pays everyone a wage for creative work. Of course, that means that you end up with a lot of trash, but it is better than having everyone revolt and destroy the infrastructure.
Your ideas have merit. The setting would in some ways have to resemble Robots of Death. Luxury and an air of decadence. Speciall talents like the Captain's or Dask, would be the only way from the crowd to the elites.
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Old 02-06-2018, 02:09 AM   #157
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A dystopian future where immortal ducks secretly battle each other in the shadows.

The winners take the loser's heads and a portion of their knowledge and power.

This is called... the "quackening".

I'll show myself out....
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Old 02-06-2018, 04:11 AM   #158
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

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Originally Posted by tanksoldier View Post
A dystopian future where immortal ducks secretly battle each other in the shadows.

The winners take the loser's heads and a portion of their knowledge and power.

This is called... the "quackening".

I'll show myself out....
The finalists cannot be named Huey, Dewey, Louie, Donald, Daisy, Daffy, or Howard.

Howard would win, being a master of Quack Fu. :)
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Old 02-06-2018, 05:55 AM   #159
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

The Ducklander 2 may barely qualify as Sci Fi, but the first one is solidly fantasy.
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Old 02-06-2018, 08:08 AM   #160
malloyd
 
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Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bengt View Post
Why do you need a traditional economy in the proposed post-scarcity-sufficiently-advanced-robots setting?

If the robots can do everything (mine for resource, run power plants, produce robots, luxuries for the robot magnates, bread and circuses for the masses, etc) then can't the masses also be excluded from the robot economy?
The fundamental problem is if the robots don't produce more stuff for the masses in aggregate than they could make themselves without the robots, they don't actually put the masses out of work. Lots of people can still be "poor" of course, because humans are really good at redefining poor. People living at the poverty line in modern industrial economies tend to live lives of luxury compared to even most of the wealthy a millennium ago.

In a way the extreme separate robot economy that excludes them entirely simply makes that point clearer. That could be the case *right now* with a completely robotic economy somewhere failing to put humans out of work because it doesn't ship anything to Earth. An entirely separate economy (robotic or not) located on Earth might want to keep the resources for itself and not share them with humans, but that's an interspecies war setting, not an economic transition one.
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