The plot pot.

[Malanimus]

It seems that a lot of people like THS but get stuck for plotlines.

OK, to help out I'm opening a thread called "The plot pot" for people to toss ideas into and take ideas from. So if you have any ideas for a THS plot, toss it in here.


"Resistance is futile". OK, I could see the ultimate bad side of cybertechnology, the borg, being possible in THS. MAybe some major corporation (Notice I didn't say an evil corporation, the term evil corporation is redundant.) is experimenting with cyber implants for it's employees to make them better workers. Of course the employees aren't forced to get implants, they can choose not to, the corporation will respect their choice and wish them luck finding new jobs.

Of course the implants are meant to create a nice, obedient drone labor pool, and things get really out of hand the the emergent 'collective mind' , which is programmed on a strictly material, profit basis, decideing to expand itself and eliminate all that is 'irellevant', like freedom, individuality, leisure, etc.

(Personally I always saw the borg, at least the original, pre voyager, pre first contact form, as the ultimate 'corporate entity' and could see it getting started as a form of corporate employee control that grew out of control, so this might be a good thing to deal with in THS.)

So the PCs end up being the only thing standing between the whole solar sysem and a bunch of cyberzombies who think that everything but the bottom line in 'irrelevant'.

[Sam Baughn]

How about a thriller, where the PCs are hired to protect a SAI and investigate who keeps trying to assassinate him? It seems pointless to kill someone who has a digital backup, but it turns out that the murder attempts are being made by a xox of the target, who feels that the only way to 'correct' the divergence between the two copies is to kill the 'original' and replace the backup with a copy of itself.

[Arcid]

Never underestimate the value of old TV series for some good plots.

The Village

The Village is based on the series The Prisoner, essentally the Village is a European experimental facility (based on the idea from the original Prisoner series that one of the MI6 SAIs found) that is entirely run as a VR program that captured foreign agents can be plugged into if getting information out of them isn't immediatly vital. Agents are then worn down by the members of the community being ruthlessly polite, pleasant and civilised towards them.

The PCs can be introduced as prisoners (In which case the entire stay in the village should be littered with evidence that there is a traitor in their group, implicating everyone at one time or another) or as wardens (in which case everyone should be given a secondary assignment to keep a check on another PC to make sure their loyalty isn't faltering)

[Gilfander]

There are tons of great ideas that can be used. My campaign is using the concept of a system wide government that controls the population with memes. The people vote on everything but by use of timing, wording and meme the government prodict what the result of any ballet will be in advance. By this method the illusion of freedom is preserved but the government is really a high tech dictatoriship. The PCs have found out about this and are now being hunted by the government. Can they over come the memes being used against them? Can they form a resistance against the evil power behind the government?

Just one idea. There are tons of adventures I've run or have planned accross the solar system.

[Cypher]

A popular character and concept theme for me in THS is the idea of an ordinary person (Bot Boss, underemployeed, etc) ends up in the middle of extraordinary situation either by accident or design. Considering the availability of useful equipment and infomorphs in the setting it's not that hard for someone make the jump from "just another wage slave" to pro-active freelancer and troubleshooter.

[Malanimus]

How about a secret group, like a secret law enforcement outfit or some sort of top notch trouble shooters, who 'recruits' more or less ordinary people and uses them as special agents after giving them cyber upgrades and such?

People might be picked for a strong sense of right and wrong over other criteria, to prevent corruption.

[Cypher]

Originally Posted by Malanimus

How about a secret group, like a secret law enforcement outfit or some sort of top notch trouble shooters, who 'recruits' more or less ordinary people and uses them as special agents after giving them cyber upgrades and such?

People might be picked for a strong sense of right and wrong over other criteria, to prevent corruption.

I can see a Ghost in the Shell Section 9 type of group using civies if they don't have agents that either have certain skills or social connections. I wouldn't give them that much in upgrades, the demo-spys* will already have what they need. Though getting SotA equipment will of course be part of thier compensation.

My current team is based around young Bot-Boss at an Isolate resort. He meets up with a bodyguard/specops bioroid that's on a semi-sabbatical. Occasionally the two will be called to assist with national security, as a price for thier freedom.

*A new term. Similar to the cyber-democracy movement, ordinary, trustworthy citizens are picked to assist in various security and intel assignment.

[DryaUnda]

Originally Posted by Gilfander

My campaign is using the concept of a system wide government that controls the population with memes. The people vote on everything but by use of timing, wording and meme the government prodict what the result of any ballet will be in advance. By this method the illusion of freedom is preserved but the government is really a high tech dictatoriship.

Hmm? What government is this?

Originally Posted by DryaUnda

Hmm? What government is this?

Pah! This is just a conspiracy meme seeded by the Erisians to **** off the Bavarian Illuminati!
I could tell you who *really* rules the world, but you're not cleared for that.

Layers and layers of memes, until the players have no clue whatsoever about what's really going on in the world, and flee in isolation. Illuminati an THS, a match made in Heaven!

--
I.

[bardolph]

SPOILER ALERT! ALL MEMBERS OF "PISO MOJADO", DO NOT READ FURTHER!!


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I'm working on a campaign where the PC's are a bunch of low-life floater farhaulers hired to tug a comet from the Kuiper Belt to Mars.

Of course, because of the long journey, they have to make several stops, perhaps in the moons of Uranus and Saturn, maybe Titan (or one of the Trojans), and somewhere in the Main Belt. Each stop will have some kind of side adventure, and each PC will have some kind of personal mission on some remote station (re-unite with mom, get revenge on some old enemy, etc).

The closer they get to the Inner System, the more attention they get from bandits, soldiers, and corporations, who seem to have an unnatural interest in the comet.

Once they reach Mars, they will get the strange order to keep tugging the comet to Earth orbit.

The kicker will be that the "comet" is actually a miniature black hole (unbeknownst to the PC's), and that the PCs' benefactor is actually a terrorist group who hopes to use the 'hole as a political bargaining chip.

Should be great fun :)