New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The Visitation

The most important forms of transport in this world, that are rare in ours, are Airships and sail ships. Windpowered transport may be slow and involve irregularities because of the weather but it requires very little fuel and costs are low. Airships make full use of TL8 and certain Lurjahri designs.

This world's sailships are TL8, but the lack of space programs for nearly a century means that satellite navigation isn't available. However, other than that navigation is TL8. Carbon fiber composites are the normal hull material.

The Lurjahri had used airships for millennia (their technological progress was stopped for unknown reasons which they refuse to explain). Certain Lurjahri who dislike their own cultures gladly join human societies. Lurjahri airshipmen brought their skills to human societies.

Lurjahri fusors are rapidly becoming more common and the communities that become re-electrified generally have an economic rebirth. Since humans are better at economics than Lurjahri and almost always more egalitarian humans tend to make wider, fuller, and more innovative use of any technology they get hold of. Thus the advantage in technology the Lurjahri had when they first came to planet Earth (Mature TL8 for millennia) is rapidly fading.

The Lurjahri, fearful of being left behind and facing technologically superior neighbors, now try to hire tech savvy humans and otherwise learn from humanity. But the rigid hierarchical mindset of most Lurjahri societies gets in the way.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The Visitation

North America has a few functional nations. New England, the Canadian Maritimes, southern Quebec, New York State, the northern two-thirds of New Jersey and Pennslyvania, form the Federal Union of America. This mainly democratic society (it is becoming better in being both democratic and unified) is fairly prosperous and stable. They've been far better than most at preserving humanity's cultural and technological heritage. They're a TL8 society and have not just integrated alien tech they are making technological progress. Except for the alien tech brought by the Lurjahri (mainly fusion, quantum computing, sophisticated airship tech, and techniques, and advanced high density batteries) little or none of the FUA technology is something that would be more advanced than what might be expected by an informed observer of the present day within the next five years.

The Southeastern USA was a major site of Lurjahri invasions and the Lurjahri fought hard to take the land. The Lurjahri communities that came through there felt that their deities had promised them this land for their own and the locals as slaves to work it. The Southerners said no. The fights continue, there are few stable communities. The local tech level tends to be between four and five.

(more later)

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Ugh. I could've lived out the rest of my life quite happily without ever knowing anything about that Evola character. Too bad that bomb fragment in Vienna didn't hit him, higher up. The cerebral cortex would've been fine.

He makes for a good villain, though, and any game is better when you get to kill Fascists. Any group that adopts views even remotely similar to those Evola advocated would make for great evil villains.

He is, of course, alive in Dsp-Italy in my Five Earths setting, and is more dangerous than in OTL, as mysticism grants actual powers in that setting, rather than merely granting a way to mess with the superstitious. In that sort of world, he could be interesting as an ally that the PCs would prefer not to have, since that Italy will be joining the Allies once the right excuse manifests.

[AlexanderHowl]

On the system of Sshihhirr, the closest human approximation of a language that causes insanity when any human attempts to learn it, an ancient race practices rituals that were old when the first plants seeded the continents of the Earth. The nature of the natives are a mystery to humanity, as any human that sees them, directly or indirectly, must be retrained for the rest of their life to avoid committing suicide as the memory haunts them for the remainder of their days. Even AI are not immune to their influence, as any AI who attempts to learn their language becomes irreversible corrupted and any AI who perceives their form attempts to commit suicide.

Despite the risk, humans desire the ancient technology of the natives of Sshihhirr. The laser weapons forged on the planet have a 90% efficiency, as compared to the 45% efficiency of human weapons, meaning that they cause 25% more damage than human weapons, and their spacecraft are similarly improved compared to human spacecraft. The natives learn the language of the humans in order to facilitate trade, and humans who were born blind negotiate the deals between human clients and native merchants.

In exchange, the natives desire the sounds of female human orgasms on analog recordings, which they seem to value according to a formula that no human has determined, as one hundred different analog recordings might only buy a laser pistol while one analog recording might buy a spaceship. On occasion, the natives arrange for the originator of an especially valuable recording to 'perform' in person, suitably blinded to protect her sanity, and she will return to human space with riches beyond imagination.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The Visitation

The Rocky Mountain West, Western Canada beyond Manitoba, and the Pacific Coast from Baja to Alaska are a series of loose confederations and warring states. Refugees from other lands went to the Western USA in search of survival. The Lurjahri, liking neither mountains nor arid lands attacked only California. They got wiped out but the floods of desperate refugees collapsed the economy and the society.

None of these governments seem to last long except a few small city states like San Francisco or Vancouver. The stable city states have tech levels of six to eight, with the Bay Area being most advanced.

Ontario, Manitoba, and the US Midwest are areas of Lurjahri invasion. Ontario and Ohio are slowly ousting the Lurjahri and are seeking alliance or membership with the Federal Union of America. There are stable communities of Legalist and Ritualist Lurjahri in Manitoba, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas. Minnesota, Wisconson, and Western Ontario are troubled by communities of Occultist Lurjahris. The other parts are war zones or human strongholds.

(more later)

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The natives learn the language of the humans in order to facilitate trade, and humans who were born blind negotiate the deals between human clients and native merchants.

Why not by telephone, or by mail? Or just by having the humans wear blindfolds?

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In exchange, the natives desire the sounds ... on analog recordings

Unusual. Why aren't digital recordings any good? Surely the sampling rate and bit depth could be increased to cover any precision of resolution.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Why not by telephone, or by mail? Or just by having the humans wear blindfolds?
...

Psychic projections of visual information? Only those who completely lack the ability to process sight can survive. Brains of those that go blind before age 7 or so "steal" the visual sections for non-visual purposes.

[TGLS]

Fails to explain why those who are blinded later seem to be OK, or why indirect sight (which presumably covers anything from accurate paintings to mirrors) causes insanity.

[Flyndaran]

With it affecting even A.I.s, you're going to have to accept a lot of hand waving no matter the pseudoscience or outright magical explanation.

[PTTG]

Superpowers of some kind start springing up around the planet. A team of educators and first-gen supers (who aren't practical for field work) are assembled to operate a school for new pubescent supers.

Play it soft and light by having PCs be students at a somewhat more diverse and modern Hogwarts.

Play is hard and dark by having PCs be teachers at an enclave with questionable political ties.