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Old 09-18-2020, 08:44 AM   #1
Astromancer
 
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Default Rearranging the setting.

This thread is about taking the Transhuman Space setting is switched up in some way or other. Example: It's hinted in both the 3ed and 4th eds of GURPS:BIO-TECH that there was a post apocolyptic setting about 50 years into the future of the setting. It was a rationalised Gama World slanted toward gothic-horror and action movie violence. Certainly a different world.

Another setting might involve one of the powers having conquered the Earth and forcing everything into their chosen mold. Forcing the megapollycultural world of THS into a monoculture is a classic cyberpunk theme.

Having the mechanics of the Alcubierre Drive basically solved and several models of warp ship exploring the nearby stars would also make a great campaign.

Give us some of your ideas.
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Old 09-18-2020, 12:42 PM   #2
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Default Re: Rearranging the setting.

Meridian, in All-Star Jam 2004. The more extreme outsystem polities flow together into State of Mind, while Meridian's limited cyberdemocracy descends from the more Earth-based ones. Note also the presence of Tokamura Tanith Hecate.
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Old 09-18-2020, 09:50 PM   #3
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Default Re: Rearranging the setting.

A couple of possible ATE variants (at least on Earth):

1. In 2050, astronomers discover a large asteroid on a course that will lead it to collide with Earth a a high enough relative velocity that there isn't time to shove it off course. When this happens depends on things about the tech of the setting that I don't know well enough, but i was thinking it hits in the 2080s or 2090s, giving a few decades to evacuate the regions likely to be hardest hit (they should be able to pretty quickly determine roughly where on earth it will hit, even if they don't know the exact location)... but there's no way to get everyone, nor can they get the majority off the planet. Building large numbers of habitats and expanding existing ones would need to be done as soon as possible, but they would need to be ready before the people arrive, and the number left on Earth when the Dinosaur-Killer hits would still be probably at least an order of magnitude more than those in space.

Then you have the issue that everyone is going to try to get on, and some of them will decide that if they can't go, no-one can, which means the need for massive security to keep people from destroying the vessels or letting off bioengineered plagues or... well, the Last Days would be a horror on top of horror, and then there's all the culture clashes out in space. Even if the game is set decades after the meteor hit, they'll still be adjusting in some areas. Meanwhile, depending on how bad things are on Earth, there may still be people living like Mad Max down there, or there may be no-one, or it may have been not so bad as expected.


2. Imagine something like the Genetics Wars of the Psi Trek setting, just (probably) without the psi, and with the outer space parts being far closer to TS. If you want, some of the bioroids and parahumans could resemble Star Trek races, but I was mostly thinking of a 'we did it to ourselves' sort of post-apocalypse. The number of people making it off earth would be far lower, but depending on how the wars went, the number on Earth might be quite small (in Psi Trek, Earth's population went from more than 9.5 billion in 2050 to around 5.2 billion in 2060, and kept falling for decades after that, hitting a low point in 2095 of 2.37 billion). Likewise, some of the stations that refugees went to might be uninhabited due to hidden nanoplagues and bioplagues or smuggled bombs (also a problem in the other idea), vessels might have been turned away and left to die, or constantly wandering, doing odd jobs for fuel and other resources.
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Old 09-19-2020, 12:06 AM   #4
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Default Re: Rearranging the setting.

One possibility is a failed Singularity, perhaps in 2075, where a network of experimental SAIs attempt to forcibly convert humanity from biological life to digital life but they fail after uploading one-half of humanity. After the failed Singularity, the survivors among humanity would hunt down and annihilate any sapient AI in existence, leaving only a few hidden pockets in the Outer Sol System beyond the orbit of Saturn. Transhumanity would send fleets to hunt down the last of the sapient AIs because they do not want to give them a second opportunity to drive humanity extinct.
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Old 09-19-2020, 02:52 PM   #5
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Default Re: Rearranging the setting.

I mean, what does it really need to be transhuman space, or an arrangement thereof?

After I read through the setting, I sat down and laid out a campaign on rpol that ran for 317 posts and one combat. Towers Intangible wasn't that transhuman (no bio-transhuman and AI is just being developed), and it didn't have too much to do with space. It mostly focused on ubiquitous and integrated virtual reality and robots, with a little memetics planned in the wings. I also tried to play with solving current problems bringing new ones to light: Global Warming is solved by orbital shades and mirrors, but now the weather is controlled by an NGO with corporate ties you really can't trust and whose competence or malice is unprovable. Another organization is saving and restoring vast tracks of wildlife and lifting people out of poverty... by moving the people to massive complexes that are habitable mostly via copious use of virtual reality. An energy company has had lost of success with geothermal... but that might be triggering earthquakes. And so on. I can't say what parts came from where, but I certainly ran it while inspired by transhuman space.
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Old 09-19-2020, 07:34 PM   #6
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Default Re: Rearranging the setting.

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
One possibility is a failed Singularity, perhaps in 2075, where a network of experimental SAIs attempt to forcibly convert humanity from biological life to digital life but they fail after uploading one-half of humanity. After the failed Singularity, the survivors among humanity would hunt down and annihilate any sapient AI in existence, leaving only a few hidden pockets in the Outer Sol System beyond the orbit of Saturn. Transhumanity would send fleets to hunt down the last of the sapient AIs because they do not want to give them a second opportunity to drive humanity extinct.
Such an incident would also be a decent excuse for humanity putting more effort into developing bioroids and improved brains, so that they don't need to use digital AIs for any tasks that would normally benefit from them (I considered something like that for a TS/Reign of Steel fusion).
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Old 09-20-2020, 05:35 AM   #7
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Default Re: Rearranging the setting.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Prince Charon View Post
1. In 2050, astronomers discover a large asteroid on a course that will lead it to collide with Earth a a high enough relative velocity that there isn't time to shove it off course. When this happens depends on things about the tech of the setting that I don't know well enough, but I was thinking it hits in the 2080s or 2090s . . .
Those options don't join up. If it's detected 40 years in advance, it has to be in solar orbit, and the THS of 2100 can build a terrifying amount of hardware in a few years. Any asteroid too big to divert with that much time would already be known now, in 2020.

Something from outside the solar system can be too big or too fast to be diverted, but it would hit Earth in 10 years at most after detection.
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Old 09-20-2020, 08:02 AM   #8
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Default Re: Rearranging the setting.

You could steal from the novel (it was made in to a movie) When Worlds Collide! Simply have two planets, one Earthsized the other the size of Uranus, appear out of interstellar space from an odd angle. The gravitational mess would complicate everything.

Another tack is to have everyone despair over deflecting the asteroid, launch a space migration, and then after years of crisis and turmoil, discover they can deflect the asteroid because their technology has advanced. Suddenly, people who worked together and made sacrafices feel they've been had.

It's another style of crisis.
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Old 09-20-2020, 09:40 AM   #9
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Default Re: Rearranging the setting.

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
Something from outside the solar system can be too big or too fast to be diverted, but it would hit Earth in 10 years at most after detection.
We had what would have been about one year's warning with Comet Kahoutek. It's fantastically unlikely to happen but something rather large coming in from the outer darkness is my "plausible" scenario for a doomsday impactor.

Of course, Tranhuman Space (even in 2050) is so advanced in space development that they wouldn't need a full year.

With 40 years warning something that was so big that it couldn't be deflected would be totally non-survivable rather than an opening to an After The End game.
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Old 09-20-2020, 07:54 PM   #10
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Default Re: Rearranging the setting.

Hm...

Jam Tales of the Solar Patrol with Transhuman Space. The alternative solar system provides an excellent driver for space exploration. I'd scrap the Jovian Overlord and the Red Hive and bring in Duncanites and great power competition. I'd push the current year towards the mid-century and make transhumanism a newer thing, and perhaps a wedge between Earth and the colonies.
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