Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

In 2041, astronomers on Earth witnessed the arrival of the Visitors into the Sol System and their subsequent establishment of a massive space station (SM+20) orbiting Neptune. The Visitors were obviously using some form of FTL and some form of reactionless drives, though there was not much else known about their technology because they did not respond to any messages from the Earth. Other than exploiting the resources of Neptune and the Kuiper Belt, the Visitors did not seem to care much about the Sol System.

It is now a quarter century later, and massive investments in fusion technology will allow for the first attempted diplomatic mission to leave for the Visitor space station within a year. While the journey will take two years, the mission personnel will spend the majority of that time in hibernation. At the very least, the governments of Earth want their existence to be acknowledged by the Visitors, though they would like the Visitors to pay some rent for using Neptune and the Kuiper Belt. How they will be received is anyone's guess, but the governments of the Earth are hoping for cordial acknowledgement by the Visitors.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Either the Visitors had no knowledge of humanity (which is unlikely, unless they lack radio technology, which is more unlikely), or they're being teases.

Really, hanging a huge-ass space station juuust outside reach is a great way to "subtly" encourage the humans to get off their duffs.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Possibly, or there could be other reasons. Perhaps interstellar law forbids establishing permanent bases within 20 AU of a non-FTL civilization. If the Sol System ends up being on a newly established trade route or new colonization route, putting the base at Neptune may be a good compromise location. Or their FTL might not work within 40 AU of a 1 Sol-mass star, so Neptune is the best location for a secure military base. If they anticipate future conflicts with a neighboring interstellar society, it would be useful to have a base 10 AU from the FTL line. They would have plenty of warning of an enemy force and their ships could accelerate enough to leave 'hot'.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Some potential political reasons could be pretty grim: We're so backward compared to them they can't be bothered, and might treat an inbound envoy craft as so much space junk.
OR
They're so busy with something else that they can't spare the time to talk to the locals (i.e. preparing for a battle with another space-fairing race and Sol is on the front lines!).

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Oddly, I'm working on something (with the Irari from GURPS Aliens, rather than any Star Trek races) vaguely similar, set in 2021... though given Irari tendencies, it really can't be described as a civilizing mission - it could be described as the reverse, but not really the opposite, in fact.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Another possibility is they recently had a FTL advance and are just claiming as much territory as possible before they run into someone who can do the same. While the Sol System is inhabited, they figure that we are too primitive to bother their supply base. They are not terribly interested in sharing their technology with humans anyway, as they want to claim every system possible for themselves.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

OK, I don't think this idea is going to get any more ready than it currently is, any time soon:

<TITLE> (suggestions wanted, please)

For most of humanity, First Contact occurred in 2021, when a flying saucer landed in Hyde Park a bit after lunchtime, and the Irari surrendered to the (practically defunct) British Empire. This was as much of a surprise to the British as it was to everybody else who wasn't a conspiracy theorist - for one thing, they hadn't been aware that they were at war.

As it turned out, the Irari leaders had declared war just before entering British airspace (transmitting the declaration in a language and format no-one on Earth understood), shot a few lasers at the grass in Hyde Park (doing fairly little damage), landed, and signed the document of surrender. They had done this because the Irari are emphatically unsuited to and uninterested in ruling themselves, and wanted someone else to do it, while the British had a long history of going into other people's lands and telling them what to do, while at the same time being generally nice in the modern era, and are currently desperate for a new trading partner and thus in no position to refuse. Thus, the Irari and their client species (the Coeb'lds and the Gormelites) are now under the somewhat confused and reluctant authority of the British Star Empire (OK, Boris Johnson wasn't so reluctant, but a lot of others were).

(In case anyone decides to ask, they do leave a few saucers in orbit, to neutralize attacks in the event that someone panics and decides to nuke Britain. They also access the internet to share their older tech - anything one TL behind or earlier - freely with the world, while the British government gets the modern stuff; some of it, even the weird stuff (mostly psychotronics), is surprisingly easy to make. The files are in English, but most of them can also be found in a few dozen other Earth languages.)

One may ask how the Irari got here from their star system, and did so at a speed that would allow them to be ruled by the British. They traveled via a permanent wormhole network, having discovered a partial 'map' of same about thirty years ago on a large black monolith on Irar's bigger moon; said monolith is believed to be about 66 million years old. (This, interestingly enough, is consistent with the period in which the earliest recognizable ancestor species of the Irari appeared abruptly in Irar's fossil record; said ancestor appears to have been some variety of Late Cretaceous pterodactyloid, which along with several other animals introduced at that time (apparently the only land animals on the planet) speciated to fill a wide range of ecological niches.) The Irar system is listed as having five wormholes, of which four have been rediscovered; the Sol system is listed as having seven wormholes, with only the one leading to Irar having been rediscovered.

Wormhole exploration even with the map requires finding the wormholes, which they're getting better at (the map helps, mainly by narrowing the area they need to search, but it's too old and too damaged to give them exact locations, and optical telescopes are of little help). This has involved a few vessels that did not return, as well as very recently three that they know were attacked by space pirates - one was attacked by Memer-and-Saret pirates and rescued by a Memer-and-Saret space patrol cruiser, another was attacked by Memer-and-Saret pirates and rescued itself due to the experimental weapons on board being particularly effective, and the third was attacked by what they believe to be pirates of an unknown race or races, and rescued by something that they didn't understand, which appeared to be some sort of giant energy being (an Aurora). Interestingly, the Memer-and-Saret and the unknown pirates also use roughly saucer-like craft, though many details do differ between species and designs (much like cars are in most cases broadly similar in appearance, but you can still usually tell the difference between a sports car and a station wagon of the same TL).

(There may be other forms of FTL in-setting, but the Irari don't have one yet, and haven't directly encountered anyone who does.)

Technologically, the Irari are a TL(6+3)^ (Dieselpunk/Atompunk, with psi-tech) civilization (having oddly gone from vacuum tubes directly to vacuum microelectronics, among other things). Irari Gadgeteers are fairly common compared to other races (a little over one in a thousand), generally with a few limitations including either 'ESP, -10%,' or 'Probability Alteration, -10%,' and often 'Focused: <specific skill, skillset, or type of technology>' (value varies depending on narrowness), Accesibility limitations, Temporary Disadvantages, and/or other limitations. (Quick Gadgeteer exists in this setting, but is always psionic, and frequently accompanied by some form of Backlash or Nuisance Effect, or Temporary Disadvantages like Megalomania or Weirdness Magnet.) Psychotronics are very common, and closely integrated to many other technologies (including all 'superscience' tech), though biological psi-tech is rather limited, and the Irari had basically no psi drugs at all until encountering the Coeb'ld homeworld. (I'm working on a separate post in this setting for psi abilities and related details, because there's no way it'll fit under the character limit on this one.) Studying the history of Irari space programs is like reading & watching accounts of a few different people playing versions of Kerbal Space Program on supercomputers, but mostly in grainy black & white, with sapient pterosaur-people, a more realistic physics engine, and no physicsless parts (psychotronics are not physicsless, they just use aspects of the physics engine of reality that we haven't discovered yet). Fewer deaths than you might expect from that description, though. As the Irari homeworld has historically had more copper than iron accessible to miners, they tend to use lots of bronze or brass, and other alloys.

The Irari believe themselves and the Coeb'lds to be genetically engineered, and know for a fact that the Gormelites are.

The Gormelites are at roughly TL7^ and falling (their ancestor race may have been TL8^ with TL9^-10^ bio-tech, or TL9^ while retaining a lot of durable TL8^ second-line equipment, and having some experimental TL10^ tech). Many Gormelites have a phobia about AI due to the use and actions of robots and other artificial intelligences during the Final War. A distant human relative, their extinct ancestor race appears to be decended from Paranthropus/Australopithecus. The Gormelites are the only ones in the Irari sphere of influence to have proper police forces (mostly gendarmeries) from a human perspective, due to older Gormelites who had been MPs & gendarmes before the Final War attempting to continue the tradition, with varying degrees of success. The Irari first encountered their world a bit over fifteen years ago (Earth and Irar years are pretty close in length).

The Coeb'ld homeworld's most advanced civilization is at TL(5+1)^-(5+2)^, with fluidic computers and advanced steam engines. Coeb'lds are blue-skinned (and are basically GURPS Banestorm Kobolds with a range of useful Talents), but appear to be related to humans through Homo floresiensis, H. sapiens denisova, or H. s. neanderthalensis. Their homeworld has few fossil fuels (and a short fossil record), but lots of plants, including several types of peat. They were 'discovered' by the Irari about nine years ago.

The Memer-and-Saret are at early TL10-equivalent with early TL9^-equivalent psychotronics, and are the only other space-faring race the Irari have made diplomatic contact with; they were first encountered three years ago. The second group of pirates appear to be roughly TL10^-equivalent, and may not be all from a single race. The giant energy beings (Auroras: 3,000-point psychic 'space gods' without a clear template) are beyond technology as we understand it. Species that the Memer-and-Saret have informed the Irari of include Sparrials (TL9^-equivalent), Drachids (dragons; TL12^-equivalent), Verms, Mrowruu (Felinoids from Basic Set p261; TL10^-equivalent Bio-Tech), and Traders (roughly TL12^+). (If the Markann exist in this setting, they should be TL11^, or possibly TL12^.)


Thoughts?

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

First, how did the Irari know anything about Earth cultures? Second, why choose the British after they managed to lose their entire Empire after WW II? Third, how could they convince the UK to accept more immigrants?

Now, I could see an alien species who needed someone to tell them what to do to surrender to Queen Elizabeth II. After all, she is technically the head of the Commonwealth of Nations and technically (though it is a polite fiction) owns a significant proportion of the Earth's surface as Crown Lands. Now, while that would be a hilarious situation, I think making Queen Elizabeth II their head of nation could technically work, as she would likely be quite gentle with them (assuming she accepted).

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Canada's Governor General system mostly works. It might be implemented in such a situation for the Irari. Canada's GGs and Lieftenant GGs are mostly media icons and "elder statesmen/women" that form figureheads for the country and provinces. In the case of the Irari though they could serve as the official head of a ruling council of ministers instead of a ceremonial head as they do in Canada.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

If they need humans to have the kind of drive to be rulers but don't want to risk being overwhelmed maybe pick a smaller place. Tonga has a monarchy and 100,000 total population.