New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by YankeeGamer

Quantum 4 timelines known as OGRE-2 and OGRE 1.

You're thinking of the Q7 timeline, Combine (See Infinite Worlds Lost Worlds, end of page 16)

[YankeeGamer]

Originally Posted by TGLS

You're thinking of the Q7 timeline, Combine (See Infinite Worlds Lost Worlds, end of page 16)

Thanks. Not having that supplement, I did not know.

If I actually go as far as kicking off a cross time game, I'll likely use a few classics, and mine AlternateHistory.come for others.

The one problem with this timeline is that it's far in Homeline's future. That alone would make the desolate, uninhabited Lucifer 9 worth investigating. Sure, there's a lot of devastation, but also worthwhile things to investigate and loot.

If it's small scale operations, or even swagmen or some such, they might not realize that the timeline is still inhabited.

Infinity REALLY wouldn't want this world getting The Secret! High tech, a large population that has, for generations, dreamed of the legendary world of ancient times, where water flowed and cool breezes flow, where the stars can be seen with the naked eye...

The great open caverns are just a pale simulation of life beneath an open sky--and these people know it.

Disaster parallels are usually poor...but not this one. With a potential population of billions, even hundreds of billions, when you aren't limited to just the surface area.

I see the society as TL 9, heading to 10, or even higher in some areas, but retarded in weaponry and vehicle design. There are none better for turning solid rock into habitation.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by YankeeGamer

Disaster parallels are usually poor...but not this one. With a potential population of billions, even hundreds of billions, when you aren't limited to just the surface area.

How do you grow enough food? If you have subterranean farms you need power for lighting, and possibly heating/cooling to keep the environment optimal for the crops.

[YankeeGamer]

Originally Posted by Kale

How do you grow enough food? If you have subterranean farms you need power for lighting, and possibly heating/cooling to keep the environment optimal for the crops.

If excavation isn't too expensive, then you just excavate more caverns. Hydroponics works wonders, and some enormous caverns that have real dirt and real trees and bushes and grass to keep in touch with the heritage of the past. As for cooling--well, just go up, and there's the ideal heat sink: vast expanses of rock at near deep space temperatures.

This is a society far after the big Kerblooie, industrialized and technological. Fusion power provides plenty of power. One of Enterprise's long term goals is to recover seed from far away, and if there are other civilizations around, conduct trade in seed with them. The Svalbard Seed Bank is seen as a great prize, and if it's unoccupied, will be cleaned out, though other seed will be left in it.

TL for air, space, and water transportation is effectively nonexistent, though records are there and VR exists. Weapons TL is 8, though I might include lasers on Enterprise, though with an effectiveness of one size smaller.

Disease can be a problem when they make contact with other civilizations or even ancient ruins--virgin field epidemic.

Life in the wild may still exist in volcanic vents deep beneath the frozen ocean, where the heat melts enough water for some primitive life to survive.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

The Rose & Lotus Junction is a slightly seedy collection of Space Habitats that form a Deep Space Base. It's on a jump route that makes two areas of space profitable to access. The first of these is

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The Grey Rim

the other is a dull, but likely to thrive area of settlements and colonies. The third jump route leads back toward the main core.

The Rose & Lotus Junction is mainly an isolated city that services travelers going through. The station also mines some useful minerals and organic compounds in its immediate star system (why leave money laying on the table. There are about a dozen or more agricultural habitats as many dry docks, factory platforms (generally humans access these by Telerobotics and Waldos) and vacuum warehouses, as there are around any other Deep Space Base. There are several living areas and recreation habitats too. The main habitats with the civic and commercial centers also have living areas ranging from luxury apartments to Cheap Flophouses.

The area used to be under corporate rule by the Optimates who saw themselves as the owners and providers and thus the only true stake holders. But they've been overturned by an adventurer calling himself the Duke. As the Duke runs the station well and takes care of the populace, and keeps the galactic corporations happy enough not to want to kill him, he's left alone. There is a people's counsel, but the station is less democratic that 18th century England or early 21st century Hong Kong.

Basically a fairly pleasant cyberpunk city isolated in space. The old optimates are plotting to recover power and they have enough wealth and connections to be a threat. Meanwhile, the Duke has won popularity by good service and sound government as well as building ties to both the major space teamster unions and the most influential local corporations. So there's a behind the scenes struggle. Any outsider that looks either useful or an easy dupe is likely to be pulled it.

[Astromancer]

News from Earth just stopped. No one knows why. The commander of the colony, we're under a sort of pseudo-military rule until we can be said to have our own government says that what little info she's got disinclines her to call attention to a defenseless colony/outpost. That was forty years ago.

The terraformation project, which started well before I was born, shot forward with stunning speed. The planet (Tailtiu an Irish Goddess whose name means beautiful, associated with seasonal festivals) already had surface water, Earthlife took hold very quickly and firmly and in a mere eighty years you can breath the open air.

But the wonder of the nearly miraculous speed of the terraformation has brought a new burden. People want to break up the colony and go elsewhere, anywhere away from the authorities who they say are tyrants.

The leaders say we are still few and weak. We must all work hard or civilization itself will collapse and all that humanity has learned will be lost.

Others say we must listen to the sky for other humans and send signals. The leaders say, we don't know if we'll bring friends or foes to us.

Others say we lack unity because we need to participate in a democratic government to build common cause. The leaders say we are too fragmented and burdened with constant labor to build a democracy.

The leaders say many, many things. Fewer people listen everyday.

Revolution or stability at a struggling extrasolar colony.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Kale

How do you grow enough food? If you have subterranean farms you need power for lighting, and possibly heating/cooling to keep the environment optimal for the crops.

You either use artificial lighting to grow crops, or you use something more exotic. A while back I saw an article pointing out we currently have a functioning method for turning electricity into food. You use the electricty to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen, then use methanization to turn the hydrogen and CO2 into methane and oxygen. You feed the methane to certain bacteria, which turn it into protein (this is a real technology). Then you either eat that or feed it to livestock with less refined pallets than your own.

Having found this method, I've started sticking it everywhere in my hard sci-fi.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by ericthered

You either use artificial lighting to grow crops, or you use something more exotic. A while back I saw an article pointing out we currently have a functioning method for turning electricity into food. You use the electricty to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen, then use methanization to turn the hydrogen and CO2 into methane and oxygen. You feed the methane to certain bacteria, which turn it into protein (this is a real technology). Then you either eat that or feed it to livestock with less refined pallets than your own.

Having found this method, I've started sticking it everywhere in my hard sci-fi.

I could see this being used to create plant and animal food. With humans, I think you'd need TL10 or better for this to taste good enough to be anything but emergency human food. Although, I could see special medical cases of extreme allergies requiring this kind of food.

[YankeeGamer]

Originally Posted by ericthered

You either use artificial lighting to grow crops, or you use something more exotic. A while back I saw an article pointing out we currently have a functioning method for turning electricity into food. You use the electricty to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen, then use methanization to turn the hydrogen and CO2 into methane and oxygen. You feed the methane to certain bacteria, which turn it into protein (this is a real technology). Then you either eat that or feed it to livestock with less refined pallets than your own.

Having found this method, I've started sticking it everywhere in my hard sci-fi.

I was envisioning hydroponics as the main food source, both for animals and plants Meat may also be cloned piece by piece, but it's a mater of cultural pride to keep GROWING food--part of a culture of pride--move forward, but never forget the planet that was.

There's even dirt farms and parks, and pseudo-wilderness in vast caverns far beneath the frozen ground and sea and air. As the civilization expands, spoil is deposited above ground, and whatever is needed is brought below.

"A Pail of Air" is a cult favorite of the "Air Patrol," the men and women who collect frozen air and remove spoil--after it's been sifted for needed minerals.

, but there's an ongoing process to keep genetic diversity to a point. Turning electricity into food is also possible, but I' going to assume that taste isn't as good as real food. Also, producing real food is part of the heritage of the lost days of the sun.

In the years since the disaster, Home has expanded, and even sent out short to mid range explorers, contacting a few civilizations that have managed to barely hang on--more often, finding the sad frozen refuges that did not last.

Now the mighty Enterprise, 300,000 tons of fusion powered crawler, is ready to make the first forays into more distant lands. Contacting new life, new civilizations is one goal--but so is retrieving genetic samles from the far reaches of the world. The Svalvard Seed Bank is one goal, but genetic samples of animals of all sorts are also on the list.

I'm not sure where the best place to put "Home" is, but for me to most effectively run a game or write a story, it needs to be in the United States or Canada, ideally--that's the society I'm most familiar with...

[Astromancer]

Try this one..

Deep brain scans, charting brain function in real time, begins to be a seriously useful tool both of medical diagnosis and research into the basic workings of the brain by 2027. By 2035 serious anomalies are being noticed in patients suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personalities). Some of the observed brain function patterns make no sense for human brains, even severely injured ones.

Later on, research into people who claim to be "Psychic," (in order to understand the physical basis of their delusions) found some people you really could function as clairvoyants! Working with their own brainscans they could learn how to open their own powers more fully. Later on they discovered that ritual actions aided people in more effectively using a wide range of powers.

Some of those with "powers" have realized the anomalies in the brains of some Dissociatives were alien entities attempting to take over the minds of vulnerable people. They used to call those demons.

It's now 2100, it's a new age of magic!

Basically, Transhuman space with Ritual Path/Book Magic and Alchemy that is basically Weirder Science, much Weirder. Still, anything that gives you FTL travel.

The Demons, Daemons, Djinni, Fay, Ghosts, and other less than corporeal strangeness are also back. Some want to talk, some want power.

Whether or not you throw in GURPS: Black Ops is your call. But if you do, the Greys want a talk show gig!