New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[ericthered]

Why should an alien civilization have so few numbers as to consider Earth's paltry billions "Huge"? Also, the time scale is not mentioned. Its entirely possibly they have 100 years to ferry people back and forth between the safe locations, and to establish working infrastructure as well.



I have larger doubts about them just having five suitably terraformed planets lying around. If they're from earth, they might terraform worlds to be habitable enough, and even with the same biochemistry as ours. Its odd that they would no immediately start using them though: even if they're running a HUGE surplus of planets, its likely some fairy has claimed this one and been using it as a resort, wildlife refuge, or golf course. The former use of world could be an interesting theme.



Alternatively, they'll quickly set up domed habitats to cram people in and either supply us with food or give us the cheapest hydroponics they know how to set up. If you're going to bother to move them, there is no point killing them, but no need to be lavish either. The worlds given will be left overs, as will the equipment. Which is not to say that it will be aweful: the cheap technology of the 21st century would be wonderful to a farmer in the 10th century BC.

[Apollonian]

They're powerful aliens. Their reasons can be as inscrutable as the GM likes, and don't need to be explained. Would we be having the same discussion if the alien in question was the Q Continuum?

Anyway, clearly the best way to game this one out is as a bottle scenario - the aliens have decided for their own inscrutable reasons that the best way for the primitive humans to negotiate things out is with a one year deadline, with delegates from each nation kept under basically house arrest. The "house" in question is of course a luxury resort centered around super-villain style maps of the Earth and the destination worlds. Regular social events lubricate negotiations. There will, of course, be no underhanded deals, business, murders, affairs, betrayals, or surprises... Y'know. Big Brother: Fate of the World edition.

Edit: The destination could be a Ringworld that's recently been vacated by a species that Ascended, and per their wishes is to be used as a nature preserve.

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this idea, powerful aliens have simply announced that the Solar System is going to be rendered uninhabitable. They have absolutely proved this. Normally we, as a species incapable of starflight, would be left behind just another sad loss in evolutions games. However, the fairies were real and they seem to have evolved on Earth. So it is assumed we're worth study.

Earth's peoples will be moved to other inhabitable worlds. Certain groups will be moved to their own worlds by themselves, India and China. Simply as a matter of population. The other planets will receive equal shares of the remaining population. The people of Earth to decide who goes to which of the five other planets.

Basically, there are two ways to work this. First is playing diplomats seeking the best neighbors. To survive, Germany is going to be on a planet with around 915 million non-Germans. Who do you think the Germans would want for neighbors? Who would they seek to avoid? The USA and Russia would be glad not to be neighbors, or so Americans would think. Maybe Russia sees the USA as an easy mark? South Korea wouldn't want anything to do with North Korea, and yet they pity the miseries of their kinfolk.

The diplomatic conference would be a fascinating game.

Finding out about the "Fairies" would be a major thing too. This world starts out with as little credence given to the existence of fairies as ours does. Now the reality of fairies is what save humanity. Questions must be answered.

I had that rough idea a few years ago. I presumed they put people into stasis and dropped them off on a ring-world with little prep; this was because the aliens were actually a kind of Von Neumman good Samaritan. Its ability to understand human society was limited.

Its approach to rescuing humanity was in essence similar to Clippy's approach to writing a paper.

[AlexanderHowl]

It is the year 2300 AD, and the Earth has been turned into a biological reserve by the Sol Federation while 10 billion humans live in space habitats throughout the Sol System. With a population of only 200 million people, primarily hospitality staff for environmental tourism and scientific staff to maintain the environment, the Earth is the literal backwater of the Sol System, as its primary role to provide biological resources to renew the life support systems of the space habitats of the Sol System. While plenty of people have been calling for the terraforming of Mars and Venus over the centuries, it is just cheaper for the Sol Federation to maintain space habitats than spend hundreds of trillions of credits a year to create inferior versions of the Earth.

Since the Earth was abandoned in 2100 so that its biosphere could be repaired, there has been a resettlement movement pushing for the recolonization of Earth, though the majority of the citizens of the Sol Federation fear that such a movement would lead to the end of human civilization. If too many people lived within a friendly environment without having to be concerned about the constant need for maintenance and upkeep, the common perspective is that they will relive the horrors and the tragedies of the 20th century. Better that only a small population be allowed to live permanently on the Earth rather than to risk the return of the mistakes of the 20th century.

Over the previous century, the Sol Federation has been using its vast wealth to construct interstellar colony fleets in the Kuiper Belt. Each interstellar colony fleet is designed to carry a population of 100 million humans, plus sufficient terraforming materials, in nanostasis for its long journey to a star system dozens of light-years from the Sol System. When they reach their destination, the colonists will spend the majority of the time in nanostasis while their new home is terraformed over the course of a thousand years.

The first interstellar colony fleet is now finished and will leave the Kuiper Belt in a decade after it loads its cargo and passengers for the long journey to Epsilon Eridani to colonize an exoplanet orbiting that star. One interstellar colony fleet will leave every decade for the next thousand years, when the Sol Federation will have sent colonies to every terraformable world within 100 light years of the Sol System. Unfortunately, extremists among the people who support recolonizing the Earth are mobilizing to cripple or destroy the interstellar colony fleets, as they believe that the only home for humanity is the Earth.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In general though, an alien civilization has no reason to save humanity and every reason not to save humanity. The cost to relocate nearly eight billion sapient with enough species for an ecosystem large enough to support them would be beyond comprehension. Allowing humanity to die out and then claiming the Sol System for themselves after the smoke clears would cost an alien civilization nothing.

Even if an alien civilization was compassionate enough and wealthy enough to save humanity, human biology is probably incompatible with the biology of the life of every other planet in the galaxy, meaning that the alien civilization would have to terraform planets for humanity. Now, an alien civilization might split the difference and just create an ark for the life of the Earth, and they would include a small population of humans in the ark. After the cataclysm, the aliens could reseed the Earth with the life from the ark.

If in fact the Third Imperium in Traveller heard that an alien world was about to be destroyed it would gather tremendous resources to conduct an evacuation and write off the sunk cost as good propaganda. That is a human majority civilizations. And it probably has enough places to dump DPs that may not be pleasant but at least are not being sucked by a black hole. Why should not at least some aliens do the same for the same reasons?

[Flyndaran]

Aliens would be alien. They could act or not act for reasons that make zero sense to us.
They could feel guilty for either being directly responsible or indirectly by way of not paying attention to the threat leading to the destruction of the solar system.
They could find humans or even dogs cute, and saving humans is just the collateral goal.
They could have ideological hatred for global extinctions regardless of how "unworthy" any particular species may seem.
They could feel nostalgia to their past primitive nature, or suffer from a form of the noble savage myth.
They could simply be using us as a lucky excuse to use their technology or predictive computations on moving ecosystems to terraformed worlds.

Those are just off the top of my head that makes sense to my human sensibilities.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Someone on a writers how to book said they had written a story where aliens had found out that the core of the galaxy had exploded ages ago and the wave of the explosion would reach Earth soon. They dropped by to try to evacuate Earth.

I stole that idea and sold an article to Pyramid (the older webzine) rifting off that idea. "...And I Feel Fine." was the title.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Does it even matter? If the aliens are planning to dump a billion people randomly into uncharted wilderness, most of them are going to die, and by the time the neighbors matter to the survivors, none of them are going to have much continuity with the current governments of Earth and their policies. If they are going to provide more infrastructure and information than that, then the thing to be aiming for is the places with the best of that infrastructure or the best resources, exactly who gets the less desirable parts of the best world on offer isn't terribly important.

The aliens are providing infrastructure help and allowing groups to go ahead and prepare for their people's arrival. I never said everything is happening next week. I assumed that you'd set up a reasonable timeframe because the aliens want humanity to survive.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In general though, an alien civilization has no reason to save humanity and every reason not to save humanity. The cost to relocate nearly eight billion sapient with enough species for an ecosystem large enough to support them would be beyond comprehension. Allowing humanity to die out and then claiming the Sol System for themselves after the smoke clears would cost an alien civilization nothing.

Even if an alien civilization was compassionate enough and wealthy enough to save humanity, human biology is probably incompatible with the biology of the life of every other planet in the galaxy, meaning that the alien civilization would have to terraform planets for humanity. Now, an alien civilization might split the difference and just create an ark for the life of the Earth, and they would include a small population of humans in the ark. After the cataclysm, the aliens could reseed the Earth with the life from the ark.

Your game is different than mine. I assume that if the aliens want us to die, simply leaving us alone achieves that. As they want us to live, they'll make the effort to achieve that. The worlds in question have been prepped. They were seeded with Earth life and made ready. In your game you can decide how long this took and how finished it is.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

They're powerful aliens. Their reasons can be as inscrutable as the GM likes, and don't need to be explained. Would we be having the same discussion if the alien in question was the Q Continuum?

Anyway, clearly the best way to game this one out is as a bottle scenario - the aliens have decided for their own inscrutable reasons that the best way for the primitive humans to negotiate things out is with a one year deadline, with delegates from each nation kept under basically house arrest. The "house" in question is of course a luxury resort centered around super-villain style maps of the Earth and the destination worlds. Regular social events lubricate negotiations. There will, of course, be no underhanded deals, business, murders, affairs, betrayals, or surprises... Y'know. Big Brother: Fate of the World edition.

Edit: The destination could be a Ringworld that's recently been vacated by a species that Ascended, and per their wishes is to be used as a nature preserve.

A lovely way to play the scenario. Yes, the focus is meant to be on the humans with a gun to their collective heads. "Big Brother!FATE of the WORLD Edition" is a wonderful way of looking at the thing. I love being understood and solid improvements offered.