[Red-Blooded Earth Men] Immortal Martians

Agemegos · 10-23-2008, 10:37 PM

I'm running a campaign by VOIP (every other Friday evening) in which the player characters are two Australian soldiers who were mysteriously transported to another world by a German secret weapon in December 1917. Gravity is very light, and the PCs have found themselves large and strong to the point almost of gigantism. Their .303 SMLEs are devastatingly effective against the slender, blue-blooded locals, who use a range of mostly melee-based stun weapons and some rocket-assisted crossbow bolts with HEAT warheads. They have fallen in with a young woman who seems to be some sort of herbalist, though her preparations are startlingly effective. They have rescued her twice from those who would capture her, and the three of them have escaped on a thousand-mile trek through the desert of a sand-choked canal zone. In the course of the trek, Persatuan Milani Versana has taught them the basics of her language, Zumar.

Tonight they descend from the desert into the first village at which water is yet available, seeping along the ruined canal, and I have to commit myself to some points of exposition.

They are on Mars, of course. The locals are around ST 7 and correspondingly slender because they are adapted to the low gravity. Theirs is a decadent culture on a dying world, social discipline is a thing of the past, and the age of heroes and chivalry has returned. Relicts of Clarkean technology litter the world, but few people can repair them, none can re-make them, and the few who know what the fancy bits actually do are wizards and princes. The Persatuan's herbalism is preternaturally effective because she can recognise and knows how to use the legacy of genetically-engineered utility and pharm crops. We have, in short, the remains of a TL11 high-biotech economy gone to ruin, and presented as fantasy.

Question: should the Martians, or at least the high Martians like the Persatuan, be eternally youthful?

martinl · 10-23-2008, 11:01 PM

Unaging is TL 11 biotech, so it's certainly possible, but I don't think it's required. Perhaps they used some way of extending lifespan more convenient than species modification.

Kelly Pedersen · 10-23-2008, 11:05 PM

One interesting thought would be to make them immortal, but not have immortal memories (maybe they didn't couldn't work out the storage problem for infinite memory or something). So someone could hypothetically have been born ages ago, in the peak of Martian civilization, but now, to them, the memories are dreamlike or distorted. Lets you combine immortality with an explanation as to why there aren't some ancient engineers or technicians around who still do know how to build the tech.

Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2 · 10-23-2008, 11:48 PM

Possibility 1: There used to be lots of immortals, but in the collapse they were killed off. Being Unaging requires certain treatments to sustain. The collapse came because of a war over control of the raw materials of those treatments. Now only a handful of "wizards" or "god-kings" remain, hiding from each other.

Possibility 2: Everyone is immortal, but the memory storage technology is lost or under someone else's control. Everyone who has been "killed" so far will revive as per the Unkillable 2 rules but without their memories. (This was the plot device in a terrible 1960's novel I read once.)

Possibility 3: Only the elites were immortal, and they left, taking the bulk of the infrastructure with them.

Agemegos · 10-24-2008, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

Possibility 1: There used to be lots of immortals, but in the collapse they were killed off. Being Unaging requires certain treatments to sustain.

And what say the Persatuan is one of the very few who still knows how to perform them! Thank you very much, that will do nicely.

10-23-2008, 10:37 PM	#1
Agemegos Join Date: May 2005 Location: Oz	[Red-Blooded Earth Men] Immortal Martians I'm running a campaign by VOIP (every other Friday evening) in which the player characters are two Australian soldiers who were mysteriously transported to another world by a German secret weapon in December 1917. Gravity is very light, and the PCs have found themselves large and strong to the point almost of gigantism. Their .303 SMLEs are devastatingly effective against the slender, blue-blooded locals, who use a range of mostly melee-based stun weapons and some rocket-assisted crossbow bolts with HEAT warheads. They have fallen in with a young woman who seems to be some sort of herbalist, though her preparations are startlingly effective. They have rescued her twice from those who would capture her, and the three of them have escaped on a thousand-mile trek through the desert of a sand-choked canal zone. In the course of the trek, Persatuan Milani Versana has taught them the basics of her language, Zumar. Tonight they descend from the desert into the first village at which water is yet available, seeping along the ruined canal, and I have to commit myself to some points of exposition. They are on Mars, of course. The locals are around ST 7 and correspondingly slender because they are adapted to the low gravity. Theirs is a decadent culture on a dying world, social discipline is a thing of the past, and the age of heroes and chivalry has returned. Relicts of Clarkean technology litter the world, but few people can repair them, none can re-make them, and the few who know what the fancy bits actually do are wizards and princes. The Persatuan's herbalism is preternaturally effective because she can recognise and knows how to use the legacy of genetically-engineered utility and pharm crops. We have, in short, the remains of a TL11 high-biotech economy gone to ruin, and presented as fantasy. Question: should the Martians, or at least the high Martians like the Persatuan, be eternally youthful? __________________ Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. Last edited by Agemegos; 10-24-2008 at 12:13 AM.

10-23-2008, 11:01 PM	#2
martinl Join Date: Jan 2006	Re: [Red-Blooded Earth Men] Immortal Martians Unaging is TL 11 biotech, so it's certainly possible, but I don't think it's required. Perhaps they used some way of extending lifespan more convenient than species modification.

10-23-2008, 11:05 PM	#3
Kelly Pedersen Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada	Re: [Red-Blooded Earth Men] Immortal Martians One interesting thought would be to make them immortal, but not have immortal memories (maybe they didn't couldn't work out the storage problem for infinite memory or something). So someone could hypothetically have been born ages ago, in the peak of Martian civilization, but now, to them, the memories are dreamlike or distorted. Lets you combine immortality with an explanation as to why there aren't some ancient engineers or technicians around who still do know how to build the tech.

10-23-2008, 11:48 PM	#4
Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2 Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: The deep dark haunted woods	Re: [Red-Blooded Earth Men] Immortal Martians Possibility 1: There used to be lots of immortals, but in the collapse they were killed off. Being Unaging requires certain treatments to sustain. The collapse came because of a war over control of the raw materials of those treatments. Now only a handful of "wizards" or "god-kings" remain, hiding from each other. Possibility 2: Everyone is immortal, but the memory storage technology is lost or under someone else's control. Everyone who has been "killed" so far will revive as per the Unkillable 2 rules but without their memories. (This was the plot device in a terrible 1960's novel I read once.) Possibility 3: Only the elites were immortal, and they left, taking the bulk of the infrastructure with them.