Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

This is a variant of the setting of a Charles Stross story, Missile Gap. There's a lot of cool stuff in the story; read it before developing ideas.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Strange Dawn

Are you the person who is going to explain the lights on the dark of the moon?

They don't need much explanation,
they're moonbases.

How is that possible? They weren't there yesterday!

Your yesterday was different than mine.

That can't be.

Europe was held in a stasis field by extradimensional aliens.

Quit quoting old Doctor Who plots. This isn't a fantasy.

You might wish it was. Europe has been held in stasis for sixty years.

The Aliens, no one ever knew what they called themselves or even what they looked like. Came one early summer morning in 2025. Others came with them some aided humanity. Parts of the Earth were locked in stasis fields, or at least that's what they were called. Stasis fields were a Sci Fi concept used to name what no one understood.

Those that aided humanity gave humanity, or at least the free humans, technologies advanced over what anyone had known before, the Allies also
introduced humanity to powers of the mind "Psionics " These Allies soon trained humanity in these skills.

The Allies had the ability to prevent the stasis fields in several areas of the Earth. North America, the Caribbean, the Antepodes, Polynesia, India, Japan, Southeastern and Maritime Asia, and most of East Africa were able to fight. Twenty-five years after they came the Aliens left. The Allies told humanity that the Aliens were still a deadly threat but our Earth would never be the battleground again. Then they left after telling humanity how to disrupt stasis fields. They warned some would take time to fade. Most of Africa and all of South America were freed in a few months. After a few years, only Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals, from Svalbard to Malta, was in stasis. Now, May 30th, 2085, Europe is free.

The world has gone through sixty years of war, reconstruction, and change. You, a European that went to bed in 2025 is now awake in 2085. The world beyond Europe is a bizarre mixture of the Jetsons, Mad Max, and Barbarella. Go forth and figure it out.

Basically, you (the PCs) are strangers in a psychedelicly strange land. Everybody has changed so find out who they are now.

Note: Europe was chosen because many lands beyond Europe care about what happens there. So the PCs won't be dismissed as mere barbarians by everyone. Some yes, but not everyone.

More later...

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

There is a Cepheus engine module called Omega 99. It is based on the series Space 1999. Updated for modern times. Instead of getting blown out of orbit, the moon jumps to another point in space surrounded by advanced alien empires. Instead, the moon jumps backward in time to the present or anytime since WWII. do the various moonbases belong to the nations that sent them or do they band together to pool their resources. Does a German base belong to the Nazis. Even if they share their knowledge freely, can Russia or China adapt to the new technologies as fast as America or Japan. All sorts of possibilities arise.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Got to love a Moon War Now! campaign.

I would be particularly interested in a very moon - exclusive campaign.

Imagine if Earth is out of the picture. Allegiance to Earth nations is tertiary at best. Play with ideological factions, which makes sense particularly if most moon bases are international (say, ESA+NASA) or commercial.

Clearly looking at far superior space flight tech. Either pretty far in the future (100+ years) or maybe less but with a huge economic incentive. Something like "alien artifact troves" level incentive. Which is a nice source of supertech and powers, if you want. Maybe PCs are special because they have an unexplained inherent ability to use alien tech.

Still need a reason that Earth is not involved. Could be that after a few/tens of/hundreds of thousands of people made it to Luna, atomic war broke out and now Earth can't send anyone else. Or alien interdiction field or Earth in stasis until the Lunars fix things.

Mars also works for this, if you want aircraft to work and terraforming to be an objective, though you need way more advanced tech. With a bit more technology you can justify the jovian moons, implying inter-lunar combat.

I find myself by far most interested in the first space war, regardless of where it is. When people are still trying to figure out what space warfare even is, and players can really shine by developing entirely new strategies.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

It will make this setting more playable if I give you a rough idea of the chronology of the sixty years Europe was frozen.

2025-2030 The Crisis

Earth was a very minor side issue for the Aliens. Preventing our destruction was a minor but useful move for the beings called the "Allies" to do. The beings the Aliens sent to disrupt and put down humanity's resistance were in many ways the equivalents of cleaning robots. Still these first five years brought horror and despair.

2030-2040 The War

This is the period were humanity fought back. It wasn't easy. The period started with a victory that was a brutal humanitarian disaster. The stasis field over Southwestern Asia collapsed. Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Sudan, most of Syria, two-thirds of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the Gulf States, with the exception of Oman, were free. However they were also cut off from water and grain shipments. Because the prevailing winds had to go over the stasis fields covering Europe, the Maghreb and the Western Mediterranean, the moisture was wrung out of them and the fall from the top of the stasis fields heated the air. The combined drought and heat wave exterminated whole populations.

Southern coastal China was freed from the stasis fields in 2036. Between the Allies maintaining the Indian Ocean monsoon system and greater trade these areas didn't starve. They quickly became a series of city states focused on trade. In 2039 Oman was freed from stasis. They also missed the brutal side effects because of improved sea trade.

However, humanity largely regained control of the seas and skies of Earth by 2040.

2040-2050 The Lunar Invasion

The project of building infrastructure on the moon was the most demanding aspect of this period but it was not the only front in the war. However, between asteroid mining to bring in new resources needed to fight the war and the lunar stasis field disruption stations, the space front got the main attention. The increased numbers of human psis made the attacks of the Aliens a waste of time.

The reconstruction of Earth's economy starts in this period.

2050-2055 The Recovery

This period starts with the end of Alien attacks on the Earth and sees a massive rebuilding and recovery. Most of the Earth outside of Europe is freed from stasis fields in this period or soon after. Technologies like fusion power generation are widely distributed in this period.

2055-2085 The Prosperity

This period started with setting up a stable trade system that functionality brought the benefits of the American "New Deal" to the whole planet. Between the spread of advanced technologies jumping most of the planet to TL10^ and peace, prosperity became the norm.

More later...

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

With me, knowing the spelling of my intended meaning is the issue.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

The Tech Level of the Earth beyond Europe is rather confusing. Example: the spaceships used to travel to the moon and around the solar system (and around the Earth as well, they are cheaper to use than jets and competitive with ships in several markets) are TL12^. They use both antigravity and a reactionless drive. But many other technologies are middle TL9. Between gifts from the Allies and humanity needing to focus on a crisis technological research and development got skewed. Less developed areas are catching up. Thirty years of peace and prosperity have changed many things.

Brain Science (an interdisciplinary field covering the functions, structure, health, and development of the brains of living creatures), quantum computing (including "good enough AI," i.e. "It's good enough to be seriously useful even if it isn't truly A.I."), genetic engineering, fusion energy generation, and spaceflight and space survival related fields are all highly advanced.

Like the present day (September 2024) Netherlands vast amounts of agricultural produce are grown in greenhouses. These are more technologically advanced than the present day Dutch greenhouses. Pretty much only grain and livestock are raised outside of greenhouses. Mariculture (raising vast schools of fish in enclosures in the deep seas) provides the majority of the world's animal protein. The use of agricultural robots run by "good enough" AI makes it easy to radically reduce the inputs of pesticides, fertilizers, and other agricultural chemicals. The intense and precise attention given each plant (made possible by AI) basically makes farming industrialized automated gardening.

The focus on Brain Science, required to understand Psi, has led to impressive advances in pedagogy. Because the ways the human brain processes information is vastly better understood some subjects are easier to learn. This isn't because the subject matter has changed, it because the subject matter is taught far more effectively. The most dramatic change is the improved teaching of Mathematics. In normal GURPS settings Mathematics is a Mental Very Hard skill. In this setting it a Mental Average skill. Not because of any change in the subject matter, just in how the subject is taught. How this effects all science and engineering skills should be obvious.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Psionics are fairly common in the human population beyond Europe. It's assumed that Europe will catch up fairly quickly. Because of the practical needs of the war Telepathy, ESP, Ergokinesis, and Probability Alteration, are by far the most common powers. Healing, Anti-PSI, and Telekinesis, are rare, but not extremely so. Astral Projection, Psychic Vampirism, and Teleportation, aren't unheard of. The first four shouldn't require an UNUSUAL BACKGROUND. The second three should require an UNUSUAL BACKGROUND. The last three should require a very steep UNUSUAL BACKGROUND.

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The first fifteen years of the war brought dramatic cultural changes. Many traditional practices good and bad stopped without restarting. Examples would include the view of the South and Texas as culturally distinct. Dixie as a concept fell out of the language. Traits like racism, homophobia, class bigotry, all greatly faded. Holiday traditions were restricted by rationing and shortages. Trick-or-Treat, Easter Egg hunts, exchanging Christmas gifts, all faded. Only the last came back.

In academia certain fields of study closed down for a couple of decades. When the Traditional Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies came back cultural priorities and opportunities weren't the same. The priorities of the decades after WWII seemed as distant and bizarre as the priorities of Hellenistic Greece. And where the art and poetry of Hellenistic Greece still spoke to people (especially in the new translations made possible by improved language learning) 1950s French philosophy and British Cultural Criticism and European Critical Theory in general didn't. The Academic community of the 1950s believed that breaking the transmission of culture would save humanity. After the horrors of the Crisis period and the deprivation of the War itself, the fear is that cultural heritage would be lost or die. The passion of late 20th century and early 21st century academics to erase culture and have a forcefully clean slate was seen as threatening and alien.

More later...