Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Good one. The PCs could be out in the solar system, involved in Earth's messy politics, frontline grunts, lots of utility here.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Thank you. I am thinking that it would be TL9 (TL8 computers, TL10 fusion) as private investment would have flowed from computers to fusion with the dot com bust and federal investment in fusion. Without the $7 trillion cost of the 'War on Terror' (Gore would have probably simply bribed the Taliban with $10 billion a year in food aid in exchange for handing over the people involved in 9/11 and would have just kept the sanctions on Iraq), the USA would have spent less money supporting its private intelligence and military companies, though the slowdown of computing technology would have made the USA less vulnerable to cyberattack. The question would be where would you put your characters within the setting?

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

That's a matter of taste. Exploring the solar system is fun. Many themes of the better Westerns could easily be moved to a frontier like Mars or the Moon. Cyberpunk/Espionage crossovers could be set throughout Europe and Asia anyplace either glamorous or down at the heels. Black Ops favors could be added to that mix in Central Asia.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Sounds like a possible backstory for WWIII/the war with the Eastern Coalition in Star Trek: First Contact.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Thrilling rock collecting action!

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Try this one...

The planet (Minerva) was settled centuries ago. The colony was founded because of a misjump. (Yes this another one of my lost colony settings). Twelve different culture groups survived. After a long period of poverty and wars, one of the cultures stabilized and slowly climbed back to TL 5. However, one culture reclaimed its heritage of democracy and has progressed more swiftly than the others because of physical isolation and greater internal stability. They've achieved TL6 and are rapidly moving toward TL 7. (Most of this world has the technology of roughly 1760 but one culture has a mix of 1920s and 30s tech).

The advanced culture wants to promote peace and help the other groups become more prosperous. Problem, each other the other groups sees the one advanced democracy as an insurmountable threat to their ways of life. It doesn't help that the other cultures are aware of how highly secular the democracy is. Each of the non-democratic cultures either has an official faith with legally empowered clergy or is officially agnostic and puts multiple strict controls on religious faith.

At the same time, each of the other cultures covets both the prosperity and technological power of the democracy. Even though their historians can show them that going for these things will bring the chaos they fear.

This setting is a mix of Swashbucklers and Sci Fi Pulp. Definitely pull out GURPS Scarlette Pimpernel if you've got it.

I left the cultures up to the reader. So you can blend in any other flavors you like.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

This one is fairly straightforward. Basically, an alien species decides to recruit. They've been sterilized in a war which they won, a pyrrhic victory, and they see humanity as clay they can mold into future generations.

The aliens show up as friendly merchants, they clearly watched a lot of Star Trek in order to come up with their spiel.
They spread Proteus viruses by various vectors.

It is long enough after the initial infections most young children worldwide are notably alien. The few adolescent altered children are torn between worlds. The aliens are trying to reestablish diplomatic ties shocked at how attached humans are to their children and also how attached the half-breed children are to their parents.

This is a role-playing heavy setting. But it could move toward espionage if the half-breed children try to win alien tech for Earth without the cultural imperialism of the aliens.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Looking at an old Kamandi comic, issue #20 (the one set in the Chicago themed amusement park), I got an idea. I'd heard that they were planning to set a new storyline with humanity is recovering from the Great Catastrophy as a prequel to rebooting the Legion of Super-Hereos.

The idea is a post-apocalyptic world on the mend. Some areas have both retained and advanced the old technology, other areas are still locked in primitivism and chaos. Descendents of space colonists who'd left the solar system centuries ago are recontacting the Earth. It's a busy setting were Mad Max type poverty and violence are only miles away from walled cities that resemble a 1940s Amazing cover. Barbarians visit spaceports. Alien anthropologists in the ruins of ancient Peoria.

PCs could start out as barbarians fleeing the rule of their local Immortan Joe seeking a better life in an advanced city. They could be city folk at one of several different tech levels trying to make their community secure and prosperous. They could be high tech extra-solar humans looking at the Mother World. Seeking their history, or to help, or merely adventure.

Given the comic book origin of this idea, mutants with powers are a solid idea. Mutants could be sought out for their talents and gifts or persecuted as monsters. Different attitudes in different areas make the most sense.

Given that this was inspired by Kamandi, multiple competing species of intelligent life (mainly uplifted animals) would be an interesting and lively addition to the setting.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

A further note on this setting. Most of the Barbarian humans and barbarian uplifted animals live in TL2-4 societies. Settled humans and Uplifted animals live in TL5-9 societies. The returning space humans live in a TL12 cultural system/eckumen.

Trade and transport are underdeveloped but improving quickly. A railroad connecting a previously isolated community to the wider world would be a good campaign for this setting.

As a nod to Thundarr the Barbarian the local mana level is mixed. None 25%/Low 30%/Normal 35%/High 10%.

Psionics are fairly common among humans, rare, but not unheard of, among Uplifted animals. Powerful psi is rare period. But most PCs should have one or two Psi Perks.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

In a distant future, sometime after 125,000AD, a scholar of literature and philosophy came upon the book To Your Scattered Bodies Go. The Scholar (whose sex and gender can't be described in 21st century terms) thought it was a fine idea.

After forming a committee to "Allow Redemption of the Ancestors" they built a Dyson Sphere, created Earthlike areas on the inner surface, and recreated everyone who lived on Earth from 250,000BC to 2100. The TL12^+ technology means that the recreation of bodies, minds, and memories is perfect (yeah that's science fantasy, not science fiction, but bear with me).

Everyone who lived to be older than Brain Maturity (full development of the organism) is now back at Brain Maturity. Those who died between five and Brain Maturity are recreated at age of death. Those below the age of five at death, or suffering from serious mental defects from birth or early childhood are taken elsewhere and raised to be assistants in the project. Everyone is in perfect health all serious defects and deformities are healed. Most people look like ideal versions of what they looked like in life. The exceptions are those like transexuals, whose body images were radically out of line with their bodies. Most transsexuals are now the sex they believed themselves to be. Other types of gender and body dysphoria are dealt with in humane and practical ways. Those humans that died after 2100AD will be dealt with later. There are vastly more of them, so it will take longer.

Yes, this resembles Riverworld. It's far more open ended. There is no particular endgame in the minds of the committee. Their goal is to give past human beings a chance to have what they have, immortality and profound freedom to explore their lives and dreams. They understand that many of the resurrected are dangerous to themselves and others, No one wants to set Hitler, Stalin, or Alexander the Great, lose on the galaxy uncontrolled. So the Sphere is a place of education and testing.

However, this world is wild exotic and has everybody that ever lived dealing with a reality they never counted on. Why not have Ben Franklin, Alice Pleasance Liddle Hargreaves, Cleopatra, Tom Mix, and John Dee, travel first the sphere and then the galaxy seeking adventure and wisdom?

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Well, you can make this SF quite easily, simply by deciding that the simulation hypothesis is true and always has been. However, from personal experience, finding out that this is the explanation of a game-world is really disappointing. You'll also have Frank Tipler jumping up and down and shouting "I was right! I was right!"

I'm coming to the opinion that a setting most readily explained in this way is too open-ended to make an interesting game world. Having some constraints focuses my mind better.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Then let us assume a precursor species had created something like the recording souls from Riverworld. Wathans, I think they were called. This would also make the starting and end points less arbitrary. They simply represent the start and ends of the precursor recording project.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

On the world of Penumbra, advanced nanotechnology allows for the interaction of the physical and virtual worlds, as physical beings can 'touch' virtual beings and virtual beings can 'touch' physical beings. At the Gateways, physical beings can enter the virtual world, being encoded as their bodies are transformed into feedstock, and virtual beings can enter the physical world, being coded into physical bodies drawn from the feedstock. Its residents do not fear death, they know that they can return to the physical world if they wish, but the majority of them prefer to spend their immortality exploring the billions of hyperrealistic virtual worlds maintained by the planetary supercomputer, where the races that once ruled the planet before their extinction teach human visitors philosophies that were old before the dinosaurs went extinct.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Try this one...

An alien species has done xenological research on the Earth. They've discovered that Earth Humans are simply immune to a major problem issue in the setting. Thus they are a massively valuable asset.

You can go several ways with this.

I remember a Sci-Fi story where Humanity was the only advanced species without telepathy. Thus they alone could fight the galactic oppressors.

Maybe Humanity's tolerance for alien environments is vastly greater than normal. No, I'm not saying we humans have hidden superpowers. It's just that most other species are vastly more fragile about changing gravity or other environmental factors. Perhaps calcium loss from bones starts at 0.9 of most species local gravity or something just as nasty.

Whatever Humanity is seen as must control property. maybe individual humans aren't slaves, but it isn't much better than that.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

One of my setting concepts has humans and other Earth creatures as powerful anti-psis, such that anyone who also has active psi abilities is unlikely to notice, and if they do, unlikely to accomplish much of anything. Most other species use psi and psychotronics (which human anti-psi also interferes with) for nearly everything, the way modern Earth (2018 CE) uses internal combustion engines and electronics. This makes us both useful and dangerous (and our technology is strange and confusing to them).

A slight tweak looks a lot like your 'without telepathy' option, with the Evil Alien Empire being powerful psis who can be stopped dead by an angry eight-year-old human.

EDIT: Another variant, possibly but not necessarily with your idea, is that humans are naturally-powerful and talented telepaths, but have such strong mind shields that very few humans ever notice the power (other Earth creatures either also possess powerful mind shields, or are anti-psis). First contact goes weird fast, as all the humans in the area start hearing voices as the alien vessel comes into their range, and the aliens are knocked out by so many humans unknowingly Telesending at them at once, and some of them accidentally mind-controlling the poor aliens. Luckily, the flying saucer has computers that are not affected by telepathy, and were set to retreat into orbit.

After that, Earth was quarantined... until the Space Alliance met an advanced, hostile race of telepaths (thus coming back to your concept), and the SA Council decided that they needed our help against the Evil Space Empire. Alternatively, they quarantined Earth and classified why, then forgot about it until we got out into the galaxy on our own.

Either way, imagine never knowing that you were a telepath, until suddenly you meet someone who doesn't have a mind shield...

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Maybe Earth life is the only kind of life that sleeps, which means it's the only kind that has access to the Dream Realm.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Who cares if it isn't mine. It's fun and interesting.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

You may be thinking of Alan Dean Foster's The Damned Trilogy, in which humans have a natural aptitude and propensity for violence not shared by civilized species. This is a stroke of luck for the galactic community that discovers Earth, as it is losing a war to a species of aggressively hegemonizing telepaths... whose mind control it also turns out humans are immune to, thanks to their violent psyches.

Other species are grateful for human assistance in the war, but do tend to regard individual humans as walking bombs, liable to go off at any moment. (In GURPS terms, it's something like a -3 reaction roll that gives a bonus to Intimidation.)

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

A truly fascinating hidden superpower.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

I hadn't heard of the series. However, I remember that Asimov. in order to please John Campbell, gave humanity extra capacity in violence. Because Campbell liked having humanity be, in some way or other, superior to aliens, Asimov preferred not to have aliens in his stories.

I wonder if the trilogy is a commentary on either Campbell's attitudes or that of many Hollywood films.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Try this one...

Aliens came long ago. They said that humanity was like a pot-bound plant, we needed to be moved to someplace roomier. Someplace where we could spread out. The old ones said the horizon on our old world went down. A ship sailing away from you sank below the horizon. How strange the old world was.

In this setting, humanity was removed from the Earth several centuries ago. For a long time, people had trouble keeping track of time. It can be difficult to judge the time on a Ringworld. So the date humanity was first taken, June 3, 1914, was the last date everyone agreed on.

Humanity is very spread out. The English were placed on an island 15,000 miles away from the Irish. Not that the Irish had any complaints. Some cultural groups are so far away they haven't been recontacted.

Lack of resources slowed down technological development. Many places regressed to TL4 or further. The United States, or the republic based on the old USA, is a solid TL4+3. The PCs are explorers seeking lost nations like China, India, Tibet, or Australia. The explorers are using a TL4+3 Clipper Ship to sail oceans far vaster than Earth's to rediscover the wonders of humanity.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Try this idea...

This is only part of a setting, but a good place to set adventures. I think that most successful sci-fi and/or fantasy TV shows then to be built around either a place or group that goes everywhere (Star Trek's Enterprise, Doctor Who's Tardis) or a place that everyone comes to (The Babylon5 station in Babylon5, Sunnydale in BtVS). What this setting is built around is the latter. The setting is the orbital end of Earth's Beanstalk.

By its nature, the setting is the point of contact between Earth and the Solar System. I see this as being in a setting like THS or something similar. Earth is the center of the Human Universe. If interstellar travel exists, extrasolar worlds are frontiers or exotic and alien in the same way China was in Marco Polo's day.

in some ways, this setting would be like 19th century Hong Kong, Jakarta, or Singapore, or 18th Century Nagasaki, the gate into an exotic and ancient world. Like 19th century New Orleans, St. Louis, or Melbourne, the gate to the frontier. It depends on which direction the PC is traveling. If you think of Robert Louis Stevenson idea of London as "Baghdad on the Thames!" then you've got an idea of what to go for.

Pcs could also play staff or residents of the station. Dealing with all the opportunities and problems such a gateway local would bring.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Try this idea...

On the planet Tethys human settlers were involuntary. They were mutants or mutant sympathizers judged to be disruptive to society's attempts to rebuild after the wars. However, once it looked likely that there was going to be another series of wars (and that the emergency government was never going away anyway) people volunteered to go to the space colonies. Mutants that had long been hidden went to the rocket bases to emigrate to the stars.

Tethys received less help from the Earth than the other colonies, On the other claw, they were far less Supervised as well.

This is basically a Golden Age Sci Fi setting. There has been a nuclear war, the mutants were treated as a moral and spiritual pollution, as were those who defended the civil liberties of the mutants. So far so typical for a large number of Sci Fi narratives circa 1950-1960. The twist is that the mutants and their sympathizers have been sent to a space colony.

Assume that the general setting is Tech Level 7+2^. This is meant to represent the kind of tech they talk about in period Sci-Fi.

Another setting assumption is that Tethys is suitable for human habitation in the same way as the majority of "Class M" planets in an old Star Trek: OS episode. You can eat the exotic fruit and if there were alien Space Babes around they could mate with humans and have healthy babies.

The war scare was justified. Earth is now dead. Earth's colonies are surviving, in a few generations, they might thrive. Tethys is the poorest and least populated of the colonies, but they aren't destitute.

There have been no new colonists from Earth to Tethys for three generations. Given that Tethys has lower background radiation than Earth, no new genetic damage is being done to the colonists. The normal course of events has been weeding out the more severe mutations. At least bigotry and violence aren't major sources of death.

Psionics are a major part of the setting. PCs can take one of the 25-point packages from GURPS Psis with no Unusual Background. GMs should limit how many points PCs place in Psi powers.

This is setting is a Sci-Fi Western set after a nuclear war. Like the 19th century American West this is a poorer more isolated version of the society these people left behind. There are a few university towns which have a full range of available technologies and services. But poverty and isolation created by underdeveloped transport systems mean the majority of the colonists live at lower Tech Levels.

Although as written, this setting had no aliens native to Tethys, having humanoid aliens of the Star Trek type, i.e. humans that look odd, would fit the genre conventions.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

The world is dying. A botched scientific project (dealer's choice) that ignored all safety advice and warnings is going to render the Earth uninhabitable. There is a highly developed extraplanetary infrastructure including Lunar cities, Mars settlements, Space habitats from the orbit of Mercury to the orbit of Neptune, and interstellar colonies and FTL drives. Problem: the means of getting off the Earth aren't up to the task of evacuating the Earth. Mind you, if you could get everyone off there would only places/resources for a few millions if you could distribute the people perfectly. Before the ecological/environmental collapse caused by the botched project makes the world uninhabitable without sealed environments with the ability to produce their own oxygen.

This is a survival game, survival horror really. Zombies are replaced with desperate hoards of terrified people fighting for survival (nastier and more deadly than zombies any day of the week). Less than one Earth person in a thousand will be alive in this setting in two years. Will your PCs be among them?

Alternate goal, you and your group/allies have built a shelter that is sealed from the environment and can produce oxygen and food as well as other basic needs. Problem, keep your safe base secret and secure while getting the last few necessities from a city filled with desperate doomed people.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

{The Farfarers}

The planet Apedemak is a fairly dry world. Only about 53% oceans and the continents arranged in such a way as to have large areas of desert relative to total surface area. There are fertile areas and enough plantlife worldwide to maintain enough oxygen in the atmosphere for Earth lifeforms.

During the period when Earth decided that shipping the poor to colonies out in the galaxy was THE ANSWER! to both poverty and social injustice, the planet Apedemak was picked to be the dump {err} reservation planet for the unassimilated tribal peoples of Northeast Africa and nearby areas of Southwest Asia. Many others from the area, mainly the poor and those who wanted to turn back the clock, emigrated to this world as well. most of the local communities resemble the Arab lands in the Middle Ages, only poorer.

There is a large scout base on the planet. A major city has grown up around the base which is at the mouth of one of the larger rivers.

Certain aliens, likewise desert dwelling people who wish to "get back to basics" have also settled on this world.

Some groups of equatorial islands have a wet tropical climate. These islands grow spices and incense from many different worlds.

This setting is basically a cross between the Arabian Nights, Casablanca and similar melodramas, Northwest Smith, and Flash Gordon. If your setting has Psi or Magic, sprinkle in some Dune. Useful as a campaign setting on a change of pace one-off.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

In the distance future, human civilization has carved itself out a niche by being willing and able to exploit the resources of the plentiful rogue objects that drift between the stars in the Orion Arm. While other species squabble over the limited resources available to each star system, there are an average of 100,000 rogue planets per star in interstellar space, though they are primarily rogue dwarf planets orbited by debris clouds (effectively asteroid belts rather than planets). Even so, human civilization has settled billions of rogue planets throughout the Orion Arm and, while they individually only support an average population of few billion, human civilization is the largest and wealthiest in the Orion Arm.

While each rogue planet is an independent polity, they are members of the Human Alliance, which represents human civilization. Few other alien species understand the sheer size and wealth of human civilization, and the Human Alliance would like to maintain that ignorance. The Human Alliance also maintains thousands of terraformed biological preserves orbiting stars that it uses to renew the genetic material of the human polities.

Recently, the Human Alliance has noticed several hundred human polities disappearing every year. While they were small polities, no more than a few million resident each, no evidence remains to point to the fate of the polities, just space colonies hollowed out by something. The public is starting to notice something odd though, and immigration from smaller polities to large polities has reached an all time high as humans seek safety in numbers.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Depending on how many nukes they have left, and how many they can build, one way to get a lot of people (and other lifeforms) off the Earth is through 'Old Boom-Boom' - that is to say, the Orion drive, an open, pulsed nuclear propulsion system. In this scenario, the environmental impact of using nuclear bombs to produce thrust is irrelevant.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Maybe there are a few bombs left. But if you ever read When Worlds Collide or saw the film, building a spaceship is easier than keeping it if you're found out. Floods of desperate people want your ride.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Try this one...

Escaping a nuclear war, small bands of human survivors have used time travel to build a base in the Pleistocene epoch, when Vega was the North Star. On an island that is only above water because of the lowered sea levels. Of course, the people who built the base named it Atlantis.

The base was built first as a scientific research base but as the nuclear loomed and seemed inescapable it was changed into an escape plan. About half the population at the time of the war was from the USA and fits the normal demographics of people who've been to college in the USA. The other half of the population was drawn from close allies of the USA or foreign experts and scholars who were rushed to the time machine before fallout poisoned the Earth.

In the decades since the war, the base has grown to a few hundred thousand people. The Tech Level is on the border between eight and nine. Although economic restraints make life less comfortable than that would suggest.

The goal of the base is to build a FTL drive and take the remnants of Humanity out of the solar system. The theory of the Time Machine implied for a FTL drive and anti-gravity. It is really just a matter of engineering and building an industrial infrastructure and the drives.

The problem is that there is a growing group that feels that instead of fleeing to the stars, they should rewrite history. This group is small and divided, but vocal and passionate. Humanity beyond the island is vulnerable, history is fragile. Can your PCs preserve the past, or are you determined to shatter it?

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Well, the viability of that probably depends on how likely that would cause a time paradox.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

They may assume that either they are already in a time paradox, or that time paradoxes are myths. Given the circumstances they are living under, these aren't difficult views to come to. And assumptions don't have to be right or worthy to motivate action.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

The PC's are researchers actively attempting to find out how time paradoxes work. They are under intense political pressure, and this process seems to be a lot more complicated than it should be. Are paradoxes time-sensitive? is someone interfering with the research? Which factions are meddling, and are they meddling from the present or from the future?

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Oh, clever! Paranoia and conspiracy neatly gathered together.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

The Underlands

A Reality Quake hits the Earth in 2019, suddenly cave systems around the world link into distant planets throughout the galaxy. An old system of travel by gates within the mass of planets is open. Or perhaps reopened is the better word. For these gates were opened in the past. Think of what the faerie tales, folk tales, legends, and myths, always told us lived in caves. Mind you it's a game of "telephone" and our ancestors didn't always get the details right but the general idea is a good guideline.

In the fifty years since the gates opened Dragons and Faeries, Ogres and Dero, have all come through the gates. Humanity has spread out to the stars, subways lead to the new vast frontiers.

Different nations deal with the threats and opportunities in their own unique ways. China, because her Mercantilist policies have been rejected and countered, has focused on aggressive and brutal off-world empire building to keep the ruling clique in charge. The USA has been much more Laissez-faire. The EU tends to criticize the USA sharply, and the Chinese softly, and they are pretty aggressive in Empire building too. Other nations make use of their cave opportunities in their own ways.

Large numbers of humans are settled off planet. New foods and products have been introduced to humanity. Inequality drives masses of poor and working-class people off Earth, as does ethnic cleansing and climate change. The elites are delighted to push colonial settlement as a way to meet the needs of the poor and the workers on the cheap.

Many of the new societies set up off world are radically egalitarian, which terrifies the elites. Worldwide there is a propaganda campaign to undermine this. The West pushing rugged individualism and the East and South pushing hypernationalism. Meanwhile, groups of humans and near humans (how near can vary greatly) who have long lived off planet, are often in conflict with the new explorers, settlers, and resource extractors. The Americans generally follow a policy of "We made bad mistakes before, let's avoid a repeat" and show sensitivity to the locals. China rolls coldly over the locals. Others fall somewhere between.

Note: Many off-worlders have psionic abilities. Some teach humanity new arts, others strike back, HARD!

The peoples beyond Earth speak of Magonia and say they lost the way to get there. Some think Magonia is at the True center of the gate system. Others say it is in orbit or on a planet beyond the gate system. Stranger tales are common too.

The Tech Level is 9. It's about as far into TL9 as 1955 was into TL7, medicine and biotech are somewhat further advanced.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

One of the larger and more advanced off-world nations, settled by Greek speakers and in contact with the Earth at least until the Byzantine period (They know of Justinian but nothing of Charlemagne), is more technologically advanced than Earth's norm (Use Trashuman Space as a handy model). The city-state called Adocentyn (assumed to be the inspiration for the utopian city in the Picatrix) seems to be both interested in diplomatic relations and standoffish at the same time.

Recent reports of a Shamballa are confused and disturbing. The rumors of Agartha are even more so. It is doubly disturbing because Agartha was generally seen as a 19th century fiction! Was there some kind of contact no one knew about? How was it kept secret?

Recently, divers in lake Svetloyar have met people claiming to be from Kiteh. The Russian Orthodox church is both terrified and intrigued.

Meanwhile, strange birds and animals in the artic are causing rumors of Thule and Hyperborea.

UFOs have been seen worldwide leaving caves. Where are they coming from? Could the reports of "Nordic type Aliens" claiming to be from Venus or St. Martin's Land be real? And how does any of this relate to Magonia?

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Try this one...

The year is 2269, this is an early TL12 society. There was no superscience. Yes, there has been interstellar flight. The top speed was 0.04C, No expedition has yet reached its goal. Meanwhile, the terraformation of Mars goes well. The atmosphere won't be breathable for generations, but progress has been impressively fast. Programs to terraform Venus claim excellent prospects. They claim them a lot.

Meanwhile, the study of the human brain has made unexpected breakthroughs. Massively unexpected breakthroughs, about thirty years ago they found magic! Talk about surprises.

This is basically a very Hard Sci Fi setting with magic coming back, or maybe coming for the first time. The academic blood feuds have been impressive. Reporters have learned that asking archeologists about archeological traces of magic is grounds for getting a trowel stuck in your face. Always remember, magic is a jarring shock to this world and really does not fit.

For the general look and style of this future rewatch Robots of Death. Oscar Wilde, who called decadence "a purple golden word," would approve of the lavish luxury of this setting. Look at the Aesthetic Movement these people have their physical needs met, they now want satisfaction and pleasure. Also, reread Noir and Hardboiled Detective stories. Unlike cyberpunk, this world isn't doomed or lost, democracy is real, but there is corruption and the rich have too much power. Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe might be dazzled by this world's wealth and beauty, but they'd recognize the same old stink of corruption and greed. Strangely, even though the poor have more security, comforts and luxuries than most early 21st century Americans in the upper middle class, poverty still creates desperation and frustration. Still, this world is beautiful and exciting, most people have hope and are right to see it that way.

For magic either use path/book magic for a low key magic, which can still be powerful. Otherwise, use Realm magic. Crib freely from both or either Gurps: Monster Hunters and Gurps: Mage: The Ascension. The Realms would be Space, Time, Entropy/Luck/pattern, Forces, Life, Matter, Society, Information, Spirit, Manna/Quintessence, Mind and Reality/Dimension.

There is a movement called the New Alchemy that blends magic with science and technology. This can be represented by the Weird Science skill. The scientific study of magic is Thaumatology. The practice of magic is Ritual Magic (style). Every group of Mages has it own style. Freely raid M: tA's many groups. Don't forget the crafts, many of them are quirky and obnoxious, great roleplaying.

A group of engineer/shamans have created a FTL drive. They have made flights back and forth in the solar system that prove the drive prototype works. They're building the first starships.

PCs in this setting can take so many roles. Earth provides the widest variety but the solar system still has elements of the frontier to it. Being on the first starships either as mages or any other part of the crew.

Note: the mages have the same petty politics as many other creative or academic groups in this setting. Please work on your best Jonathan Harris impersonation or maybe Imelda Staunton if you want real evil. Either can represent a troublesome older mage very nicely.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Long ago, a society that called itself Utopia Major, whose Tech Level was beyond 12^, set up a planet sized Amusement Park based on J.R.R. Tolkien's Second Age of Middle Earth. The Valar and Magic ran by the use of vast computers stored in alternate dimensional spaces near the planet in question. Chants in Quenya really could alter reality or speak to the "gods." The thoughts of every living being on the planet were recorded as they happened, so there was an afterlife of sorts. Men, Elves, Ents, Dwarfs, Hobbits, Orcs, and Trolls, lived and fought. Their lives were real but lived in a vast artifice.

One day Utopia Major fell, and they fell hard. The Middle Earth they built was forgotten and ran on by itself.

Now, long after Sauron's fall and the Third Age began, the distant descendants the Utopians have found their way to this long forgotten toy world.

Basically, your bold heroic Golden Age Sci Fi space explorers on Middle Earth. Tolkien is obscure mainly because he hasn't been translated from ancient languages in millennia. So, although Middle Earth isn't ready for Northwest Smith, James Kirk, or Barbarella could any of them be ready for Galadriel or Gandalf?

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

{The Farfarers}

The planet Auvergne was settled long ago and became isolated before the colony was fully stable. The economy collapsed and society followed. The Auvergnes had recovered to TL 5/6 depending on their area and the local economy. The population grew to more than 300 million spread over the inhabitable continents and several major island chains.

A local Multi-Stellar nation has rediscovered the planet, Auvergne. They've set up a large Scout Base on an island (roughly as large as Martha's Vineyard) just a few miles offshore from the planet's largest port.

The TL12^ base is slowly transforming the planet. Agriculture and fishing near the base, or easily connected to it by the river the port city is built on, is booming. Highly skilled advisors from the Multistellar Nation are backing technological and industrial growth. New Universities and teaching hospitals have been founded.

Meanwhile, many isolated rural communities and conservative groups in the more prosperous areas find their world collapsing. When a proud warrior nation finds that peace is now going to be enforced on them, they tend to fall apart. As the cities near the scout base boom economically they pull in young people from poor isolated areas. Those many rural areas begin to wither and fade.

PCs could be rebels striking out against the changes that cause their communities to wither and fade. For a classic Golden Age Sci-Fi touch PCs could be young rural people seeking the fortunes in the stars.

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The Station had long been isolated. The wars burned throughout the solar system. Still, no one seemed to think an isolated space habitat out in the Oort Cloud was important enough to bother with. The one AI driven warbird that got out to within a few million miles of the Station saw it as a resource to be harvested later and nothing to waste bombs on.

That was centuries ago. The Station has heard no signals that suggest that civilized life survives closer to the sun. Then, the same warbird driven by the same AI returned. The AI says that there is some life left on Earth and maybe other places. It no longer values war or cares for long dead ideologies that treat sophant life as a cheap joke. It wants allies to try to heal what is left in the ruins. it also offers the folk of the Station a chance to move closer to the sun to the richer resources closer to Sol.

This setting is basically the THS setting run forward through a "Final War" and into a post apocalyptic "Long Night." The Tech Level of the Station is a mature 10 except in biology and chemistry were it's more like a mature TL11.

The PCs are parahumans with high stats and multiple mental and physical advantages and a greatly extended lifespan. That said, they've lived their lives in a small city totally isolated from any outside cultures except through their fine libraries.

The adventures would involve exploring the ruins of civilization and contacting survivors, biological or otherwise. maybe even going to Earth itself to find its secrets and wonders.

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What wondrous ruins they would be. I'd be interested in saying that the war spurred weird science, and all kinds of bizarre phenomenon can be found in the inner solar system. Landing on Earth itself would subject you to things all the more outlandish.

Chronobombs, sentient incendiaries, stable neutronium projectiles, stasis shields, warp exponentiators, green goo swarms, singularity tunnels...

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it is clear to me that we've watched some of the same TV and film SF, and read similar novels, short fiction, and comics.

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I'd play in this campaign. I might even set it up, someday, if Facets ever ends (it's on end-of-school-year/holiday hiatus, and I'm jonesing).

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The Planet Hessengau has more life than such a thin atmosphere would suggest. Most of the lifeforms of Hessengau live in the deep trenches that rend the surface of this world. The plains that make up most of the surface of the planet are as cold and sterile as the high Himalayas. This means that the deep valleys are nearly as separate from each other as distant planets.

Given that Hessengau is in a star system with 12 active gates that lead to multiple trade entrepots having areas where wide varieties of aliens can live comfortably is a major economic boon.

Basically, an Earthlike valley would be a base/outpost for Earth type lifeforms. Other valleys could be far more exotic.

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This idea rifts off of Metamorphois Alpha and The Starlost. It also assumes that the THS setting is what this world's 2100CE was like and that that apocalyptic hints at in the vignettes in GURPS: Biotech is also in the deep background.

The Mariposa had made the long voyage. The voyage was longer than the time between the founding of Rome and the launch of the ship. The vast ship found suitable worlds, swift transport took terraformation pods to the waiting worlds.

The early reports were good but they stopped too soon. Telescopic examinations suggest the worlds targeted are now green fertile and earthlike, but nothing of why there is no answer from those sent ahead.

The long voyage saw degeneration among the people, few, a tiny few, have the ancient skills. The people are divided into separate parahuman tribes. Settling humanities new worlds won't be easy.

Basically, humanity is both technologically and culturally retrograde after a multi-millennia voyage in a Generation Starship. The Mariposa was built and launched after a series of genocidal wars throughout the solar system. The passengers and crew were the battle-scarred survivors of incredible horror. There were wars fought on the Mariposa and much was lost.

Although there are a small group of Aristocrats that have early TL12 skills and knowledge, the vast majority have an oddly assorted mix of skills from Tech Levels 5 through 8. Those political and cultural ideas we associate with the modern West are either kept secret by the Elites or are held as secret lore by the people.

The Elites of the Mariposa govern with a political theory and practice drawn from Chinese Legalism, the more anti-democratic aspects of Greek philosophy, and the Guilstan's teachings about submission to authority.

There are groups among the people who vaguely remember there was another way. They tend to keep what they know quiet because the Elites are merciless about crushing anything that might challenge their rule.

Still, the Mariposa won't last much longer. Survival requires settling the new worlds. Settling the new worlds will require a loss of control. The Mariposa was damaged during entry into its new star system and the resources needed for the short term survival of the ship mean that the Elites will have to teach large numbers of people TL12 skills and allow far more independence than they like. The secret rebels know this and bide their time.

This setting is about exploring the land and building settlements while avoiding the control of the Elites. The Elites believe they saved humanity and that only they can build a safe and worthy future for Humanity. Sure they have privileges and luxuries, but they earned them and they are a small recompense for the hard work of the Elites.

The New Worlds were terraformed by AIs sent on by Ansible 800 years before the Mariposa arrives. All life on these planets came from Earth-life. That said, how these lifeforms evolved under the strange pressures of these new worlds and what choices the AIs made in Terraformation leaves large areas for exotica in the setting.

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The old ones say the People came from somewhere else. The Sky Folk took the ancestors from the place they called home. Why they brought them to this world the ancestors were never told. They were given some plants and animals from their world an allowed to farm and raise their animals. Then the Sky Folk left.

In the years after the Sky Folk left they met the Others the Monkey Folk, the Bat Folk, and the Dragon Folk. They seem to be left behind too. Why? For what purpose? The Dragon Folk simply kill humans. The Bat Folk avoid humans, but a form of trade has been arranged. The Monkey Folk will speak and even be friendly for a while. But they've shown that, in their minds, neither honor or morality extends to Humans.

Survival is hard, but the People endure.

This is a GURPS: Land Out of Time setting. The four groups (The People, Monkey Folk, Bat Folk, and Dragon Folk [Use Reptile Men]) were all brought to this world with agricultural plants and domestic animals from their homeworlds. Unknown to The People (and thus to the PCs) there are also Cat Folk, Otter Folk, and Owl Folk. Both the Bat Folk and Owl Folk can fly. The Monkey Folk have Prehensile tales. like Otters, the Otter Folk are fine swimmers and have many aquatic adaptations.

The people of this world are TL2, the People, the Bat Folk, the Owl Folk, and the Cat Folk, are a mature TL2. They also have books and writing. Making long lasting materials to write on is expensive and time consuming. The Monkey Folk (although they have greater intelligence) are only just barely TL2 and don't much care about technology or permanent homes or dwellings and disdain writing. The Dragon Folk are also barely TL2. Although intelligent, the Dragon Folk are Hidebound and lack curiosity. They have a writing system, but only their priests use it. The Otter Folk are also barely TL2. They follow a Transhumant lifestyle. Which discourages technology. although the Otter Folk have the best boating and fishing technology. The Otter Folk have heard of writting and would like to gain that skill.

The Dragon Folk always treat those of other species as non-people and evil spirits to be driven off or killed. In fact, they treat Dragon Folk of unknown tribes in the same way.

The Bat Folk are isolationists. They will experiment to see if limited cooperation can be had. But they only want a little cooperation.

The Monkey Folk came from a post-apocalyptic world. They are Anarcho-Primitives. They reject and disdain society and community beyond the Band level. although not evil at heart, they are Antinomians and are often irresponsible or cruel.

The Cat Folk are Proud and suspicious. But if approached well, they could be allies.

The Otter Folk are also possible allies. However, all Otter Folk are at least Playful at the Quirk level. They rarely come across as serious. Their easygoing ways can seem like those of the Monkey Folk.

The Owl Folk also seek allies. They are however highly manipulative and sneaky. They can be honorable, generous, and respectful, but they'll drive anyone to distraction with their manipulations and tricks.

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At first, the explorers thought they'd found the inspiration for Hyperborea. What else could a tropical valley in the northern mountains of Northeastern Greenland be?

However, as there was more exploration of the valley, it was noticed the stars were wrong. In mapping the valley and photographing the skies it was soon realized that the valley leads to eleven other worlds. Preliminary explorations suggest that these others worlds have Earth lifeforms, or at least no clearly nonterrestrial lifeforms have been found. All of the worlds are reached through a far northern valley like the one in Greenland.

A series of multinational teams drawn from the NATO nations and EU members are being sent out to find answers.

Basically, this is a setting for 600 pt PCs or better. The PCs are going out into Earthlike worlds totally unknown to science. They'll all come out into climates like Northeastern Greenland. They'll be going into unmapped wilderness with no knowledge of what lifeforms or societies they might meet.

This is meant to be contemporary.

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This TED Talk provides a simple idea for a threat. The crisper technology can be made transgenetic along with desired traits. Thus if you have a situation somewhat like this book with a desirable trait causing horror and panic.

With the technology described in the TED Talk, the trait can become a dominant that everyone descended from those who have the trait will inherit. Mind you, the trait could be seen as evil by many people in the setting. Heck, they could be fully or partly right.

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On a related note, I've always liked the idea of taking grounded yet highly speculative science fiction, then erasing history somehow and having the characters think of it all in mythical terms.

You get these speciated parahumans living in tribal groups on a terraformed (and magnetically protected) Luna. The Earth is a greenhouse world covered in volcanic smoke and evaporated seas. Some lunar inhabitants are genetically adapted for spaceflight, others are subaquatic forms, and many have inherited a number of obscure vanity mods. Some many-times-reformatted robots rove the high mountains, while the jungles are home to uplifted elephants, chimps, tigers, and wolves. Dolphins are the second-most-common sapient (after humans as a whole,) and they share the lakes with uplifted octopi with extremely alien mindsets...

But from the player's perspective, they see this:

The Silver Stone is the immobile center of the universe, around which all else rotates, while the swift bead stars are warriors forever protecting the world from demons and sickness. The gods made mankind, as well as the Twitchers, thick-boned and fast-thinking servants of K'bal; the Sea People, who serve Akwa; and many other forms of mankind alike. Beware the high mountains, for vengeful demons dwell there (though some still parlay with them, risky though it may be). The Jungles are home to the beasts; do not go there without your wits about you. The Sea People and the Dolphins are bitter foes, but sailors that show sufficient respect can treat with them...

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This reminds me of a Novel I once read which was set on the Moon. It was based on a dream one of Jung's patients told him. It was about a beautiful winged vampire and living on the moon.

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On similar lines would be the Darkangel books by Meredith Anne Pierce.

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I think those are the books. Having looked it up they are the books! Thank you! I forgot the name.

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I'm rereading The Lord of the Rings over the holiday and it struck me that Bree makes a good model for scattered areas of settlement on Golden Age Sci Fi colony/settlement worlds. Bree is an isolated cluster of villages isolated in some ways, but not in all ways. Bree is at a crossroads of two main roads, one of the roads is now largely abandoned. Still, on a colony world well away from the spaceport you could easily have a small town with nearby villages. Like Bree, an isolated island of settlement and cultivation in a vast wilderness.

These can be great places for PCs to come from, or, like Bree in the novel, it could be a place were outsiders bring intrigue or danger.

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To give a worked version of my idea...

"The First settlers named the town Bree, it's from a book in the Library, the name of the river, "The Withywindle," came from the same book. Must not have gotten that far into the book, both names come from near the front. And that river in the book wasn't even near the town of Bree neither.

Still, the river is a better road than the road they built through here and got them to place the town here. Guess we can start calling the road "The Greenway" like the north/south road in the book. Or we could if grass grew in the desert over beyond the River."

A busy crossroads is always a good spot for a town. A place where a main road crosses a navigable river is always a good place for town or city. Especially if there is fertile land around. In my example, the terraforming of a very Earthlike planet has created a river. On one side of the river are foothills with fertile land. The plains on the other side were always a desert and like many areas in southwestern California, Arizona, or New Mexico. In many ways, the town of "Bree" I've set up is a classic break of bulk point. It is also a good place to rest after or before crossing the desert. In a largely empty continent, we're relatively early in the settlement of this world, this crossroad is a vital place for a settlement.

"There are some other towns around here. Windfarm is up in the hills. The name says it all. The wind never really stops up there and they have, build, and maintain windmills. Sweetwater is a village in the middle of the desert, about ten miles southwest of here. The local microclimate lets them grow citrus fruit, avocados, pomegranates, and anything else that can't take frost. Moria is also a name from the book, it is a mining town, they also have foundries and similar things. Helvetica seems to be named for a typeface, I think they tried to name it for Switzerland, a place on the Homeworld. Unicorners got its name from a rock that was supposed to look like a unicorn. I don't see it.

Smaller towns would grow up around the main town creating an island of small towns around the main settlement.

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This idea is based on a novel I read in the 1970s. It was a post-apocalyptic novel, and fairly grim, but really funny. The humor elements were mainly character comedy and snark, but one of the main elements of the novel would make a good campaign.

The novel takes place after a pandemic kills 90% of humanity. There is evidence that a second round of the plague, which would kill 99% of the survivors is coming. Problem, technophobia, and anti-intellectualism were rampant before the plague hit, and religious hysteria set in among the survivors. Anti-science and technology memes are virulent and strong. So research to both create a vaccine and to train doctors to use the vaccine are often violently attacked.

PCs are part of an underground movement trying to preserve learning, science, and technology.

The Tech Level before the plague seems to have been an early TL9. The present Tech Level seems to be a mid-19th century TL5 and falling. Literacy is not the default outside of enclaves of education. Semi-Leteracy is the default. Most nations have collapsed in the novel. The trip the lead characters make from California (which has a Duke) to Chicago is through a patchwork of disorganized mini-states and independent towns. Xenophobia is the norm.

In one of the subplots, New York is striving to preserve knowledge but has become rigid and fears to allow the extension of knowledge or too much sharing of knowledge. This suggests that even those committed to the preservation of knowledge and fighting the plague could be deadly enemies.

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Try this variant on the THS setting. Theosophy believes in something called Root Races it involves a system of spiritual evolution. But Madam Blavatsky was a strange figure whose writings are a mishmash of random learning and scraps of insight and blather. Just because she said she was guided by noble pure-hearted spirits of light why should we take her at her word? Moreover, even if she spoke to spirits she and the spirits themselves saw as virtuous and pure, how do we know the spirits' ideas of "good" and "virtue" are anything like ours. The Nazis, who also believed in mystical race theories, would have proclaimed their virtue and they did so.

In the THS setting another group of parahumans is no big deal, normally. The idea that an old mystical/occult group would design parahumans according to their ideals isn't new or even extraordinary in setting either. Thus the arrival of The Sixth Subrace of the Ayran Rootrace will only be mildly annoying. Parahumans named in very bad taste. It will only be later that the PCs think they're stuck in a Village of the Damned remake! ;-)

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Try this one...

The ship misjumped while heading for Tau Ceti. They figured out two things about the misjump, first, they jumped about 2,500 lyrs further than they meant to, second, they had jumped backwards in time. How far back wasn't known.

Lucky for the passengers and crew of the ship the cargo and passengers were mainly for colonization projects. An even wilder piece of luck was a planet more suitable for terraformation than Mars. With an equatorial circumference of 21,000 miles and surface water and only very primitive lifeforms, the planet was a godsend.

The lottery to name the planet was won by a Quaker group and they choose the name Bethesda after the biblical pool associated with healing. The name was accepted and the planet settled.

Now, 800 years later starships with mainly human crews have found the planet Bethesda.

During the struggle to terraform Bethesda the government started on the ship first fragmented and then grew repressive. Then as the government grew more repressive it grew rigid and collapsed. The Ship had come from a TL10^ world, but by the time they're found, the planet Bethesda is at TL6 in the cities, rural areas are generally at TL5. Some enclaves are more advanced, some up an early TL9.

There are few nations, some confederations or empires are large, but effective control rarely extends very far. Local strongmen and warlords are a commonplace misery.

The explorers come from a multi-species Federation which has strongly democratic values. They're TL12^ and fascinated by this isolated world for one reason, the locals have made breakthroughs in Psionics. The explores come from a society were Telepathy and ESP are understood and not rare. On the planet Bethesda they have a wider range of abilities.

The PCs are either off-world explorers seeking to understand this strange isolated world or it Psionic lore or locals seeking ways to bring democracy and freedom to their backwards world.

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I don't know if I have done this before:

Trade artifacts from a mysterious civilization that everyone talks of but only exists in tales have reached the market of a starport on the edge of known space. Your colony is planing to send an expedition.

All the factions are intriguing for a part of the expedition. Who will be captain? Who will the board of directors of the company sponsoring the expedition be. So on.

The first phase will be a political game about getting a share in the expedition. The second about the expedition itself.

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Infinite Worlds In Space. I'm aware of the reasons why the Infinity setting avoids settings with interstellar travel but a lot of the problems are solved if instead of instead of being a universe hopping campaign with some space travel instead you are an interstellar campaign with some universe hopping. You know like Star Trek. You just have to say that universes are only accessible in places where the historical changes make a difference.

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Or maybe Infinity is <Starfleet>'s* liaison organization for the Guardian of Forever. Tweak it a little so they can go through the portal to different dimensions but they're anchored to their own timeline; any changes they produce create a new (and not necessarily stable) timeline. Play involves negotiating with the Guardian and testing the limits of what they can do, and of course things going wrong every so often and some villain, innocent, or monster ends up in mainline spacetime and has to be dealt with.

Then they discover that the Klingons have access to a Guardian or the Mirror Universe Empire is making moves through their version, and it's all phasers, torn shirts, and technobabble.

* Sub in your organization/universe of choice. What does Darth Vader do with the Guardian equivalent? How about the Bene Gesserit? Princess Aura? The Guardians of the Galaxy?

Alternately, it might be fun if the dimensional portals are big ship-sized ones and anchored, like your classic hyperspace gateway - the one on this side of the solar system takes you to Alpha Centauri, but the one on THAT side puts you in a Sol system where Third Rome rules the quadrant with an iron fist and is looking to expand. Part of the fun might be discovering new gates and figuring out if they're dimensional or just hyperspace. Or if there's a difference.

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I don't remember you offering this before. Let me praise you for this idea. It's a highly flexible frame that can be dropped into so many sci fi and fantasy settings. Your idea is simple brilliance.

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We are told not to cross the streams, so I'll do that. The steams I'm crossing are Fray which is a cyberpunk take on BtVS and Firefly which is a sci fi take on Westerns and Pirate stories. The basic idea is to take GURPS: Monster Hunters, a classic sci fi frontier area, and a dollop of Eldritch Skies, blend and enjoy.

If you want to use the Firefly Characters, Kaylee is the slayer, and River is more powerful/dangerous.

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A long time ago I read Walkers on the Sky. Not a great novel, but the world in the book is lively.

The setting is post-apocalyptic, one of those last remnants of humanity escape in an experimental starship and settle a new world in the stars. We don't learn this at first. The planet is only a little larger than the moon. The atmosphere is held on the planet by a TL12^ "Woven" force field. There are three levels of this woven field. The lowest holds in a higher than Earth normal air-pressure, the second level is about Earth normal air-pressure, the highest level has an air-pressure like Nepal or Denver. These Woven force field tents don't cover the whole planet...yet. We don't go to the edge of the sky in the novel.

The lowest level has wonders like lakes were the oxygen content of the water is high enough for people to breath underwater. People can wear wings and fly on the lowest level. The Tech Level is mainly Neolithic zero to one.

Most of the story takes place in the second level. The setting was mainly tech level two/three. The "Woven" force field could be walked on. If the field was cut/broken it quickly rewove itself. The Force Field can be walked on. Ships cut through the force field and hang a keel below the ship and sail across the sky. The force field is the sea in this section. Along with regular islands were mountains or hills poke through the force field, there are sandbar like islands on the force field. Steams flow across the force field and sometimes small lakes fall through the sky causing wild rains below. Note: Horses hooves rip through the field if they run. However, dog drawn chariots work just fine and camel's hooves don't tear the field.

The third level isn't visited in the book. Human scholars and scientists are taken there by the "Gods." The "Gods" are immortal space travelers who built this world. These immortals seem to be hypocrites whom embrace Ultra-tech for themselves and feel that most people should live "simple, natural, low-tech" lives.

The Gods have created replays of different Earth cultures they think are cool. This means Samurai can meet Vikings or Aztecs and if fits the setting. Many of these cultural replays are romanticized versions of the society in question.

More later if I remember more useful details. Ask questions if you want to.

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Here's parts of a review of the book.

"The back of the book makes this whole thing out to be a lot more weird and experimental and original than it is. Whoever wrote that for DAW didn’t read the book, which is not unusual, but they also didn’t read Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light, from which this text cribs a bit heavily in some places.

There’s got to be a term for a narrative that features humans with godlike powers (due to technology) lording it over humans that are stuck in a sort of cultural and technological stasis because of it. It’s a plot similar to the idea that gods are aliens with high technology, but different enough to be notable. The former is a little less trite, at least.

No, this book has a different set of cliches:

People left Earth on a colony ship
The people who ran the ship kept all the Sufficiently Advanced Technology
They keep the colonists in what amounts to a zoo
And they set themselves up as gods
Once you get past that, though, the rest of the book is pretty solid, actually.

Our hero is a dude named Signi Signison. Like everybody else in the book, he’s from a place that is a direct analogue to someplace in Earth’s history. I guess he’s some kind of neo-Viking. He makes frenemies with a guy who is a sort of neo-Celt, and they arrive at one point in some sort of neo-Rome, and it goes on.

At least in this book those things are given a reason. It’s not a great reason, but at least its there. We don’t get the lowdown on the gods of this world until very late in the book, but we can skip ahead a bit. The crew members of the ship who kept all the technology basically each picked a culture they liked and modeled their followers after it. After many, many years, the cultures they were emulating were forgotten but the customs remained pretty much the same.

But wait, there is something original about this book! This is where the real meat comes in. This is the part I like. See, this planet, Melior, was pretty crappy when they found it. It was about the same size as Earth’s old moon, and about as hospitable to boot. The scientist gods terraformed the crap out of it using some unknown techniques, but one thing they did essentially defines the planet. They put up a sort of force field to keep the atmosphere in. This is where it gets good.

See, the force field is somewhat pliable. It doesn’t bend much, but you can cut it. You can also walk on it. Society got stratified so that some people live on top of the force field and others live on the ground below. After a while the two societies began to diverge evolutionarily. The people on top of the field consider themselves denizens of the Middle World, while the gods live above in glory and the Neathings live below in depravity.

Ships ply the force field between nations. This is where Signi comes in. He’s signed up for a ship to earn his lot in life. Said ship, a trading vessel, sets out. Signi thinks things are going pretty well. He meets up with a guy named Tamlin, a member of some rival civilization to Signi’s, and they swear eternal enmity to each other until it turns out that they’re both being duped. They get sold off to slavers so that the ship can pass. Tamlin goes down fighting but Signi gets sold off again to some guy named Darya, a son of the emperor of a place named Nasron. Things go okay for a little while until Darya’s brother takes the throne and gets all crazy. Darya is a good guy, he’s against slavery and stuff like that, but his brother, Naresh is a nasty character. There’s some fighting and Signi decides to escape on an aircraft designed by this guy Augrim.

The gods of Melior expressly forbid developing technology. One of the commandments of the church is something like “Thou shalt not know too much.” Augrim has been developing his airplane in secret, but Signi knows about it and forces Augrim to fly him away. They don’t get very far until the middle of the book happens and they fall through the force field into the world below.

The book does a lot to take a fantasy setting and set it up using technology and futuristic evolution and stuff like that.

Signi also meets a guy named Weldon who is also a god. Weldon explains to Signi the whole deal with the gods, which we’ve already been over. They’re effectively immortal and have some crazy tech that lets them get away with whatever they want. They’ve been running this show for ten thousand years. Weldon tells Signi (and us) about what led them to this planet. It’s your basic “Earth got crappy because of people being people” story. For a while they all lived on the Moon, but that got crappy too, so a colony vessel set out and found Melior. The crew members set up societies based on their own preferences and, for the people’s own good, set restrictions on technology. The gods don’t interfere directly with goings-on, but they do send down commandments and do things like mating with regular people that they find attractive. That last bit comes into play later.

Oh, and Signi meets up with Tamlin again. He fell through the force field earlier and has set up with the Neathings and learned their ways. He no longer has a blood feud with Signi, which makes things easier, and they go from frenemies to just pals. It’s from him that we learn a lot about what’s going on with all the regular people.

Signi and Zilith, a woman who can fly with wings fastened to her arms, learn that the Nasronites have gotten interested in coming down to the surface to round up slaves. Such a thing is supposed to be forbidden, but apparently the gods of Melior care about as much about their commandments as the gods of Earth, so they get away with it for a while. Signi and Zilith wage war against them, however, and that’s essentially the end of the book. Signi and the Neathings (a good band name) win the war, as you’d probably expect, and it’s revealed that Signi is Weldon’s son so he gets to go to live with the gods if he wants to. Pretty nice.

Signi was a pretty believable hero. He wasn’t all-powerful (even if he was half-god), but he was at least competent.


There was a lot going on in this book and a lot of it was handled competently. It’s just a shame that there wasn’t much going on that was relevant to the story, such as it was. It flowed well and was very readable. I do recommend the book if you’re into this sort of thing. If you’re into well-built worlds that make a good amount of sense even as they toe the line between magic and technology, then this is a book for you. If you’re into characterization and story, which is where I tend to fall, then maybe less so. Still, I’d kind of like to steal some of the elements for a homebrew RPG campaign. I think the setting has a lot to offer."

He's right, not a great novel but a good setting for an RPG campaign.

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Thanks....

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Try this one...

The anomaly glows green in the visible spectrum, so it was given the name Elessar to cover the color and its strange properties. The Elf or Eagle Gate is the most stable wormhole in the known universe and the only known jump point between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Thus the airless worlds of the nearest star-system (the star is called Doorstep) are valuable places to hold bases both to set up Entrepots and bases to protect trade or prey on it.

The small worlds of the star Doorstep are the most massively cosmopolitan places in the galaxy, mainly because everyone who trades needs to come here.

The PCs are part of the local security force. Their job is to prevent war and riot. They are surrounded and radically outnumbered by vast numbers of aliens from thousands of worlds.

You might want to read this comic or maybe this comic. No, just read both and get wilder from there.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Try this one...

In the year 2077, in late October, while performing an experiment which required three triangulation points Something happened. What isn't understood, most of the people who understood the experiment were outside of the triangle working at what they called the focal point. The Triangle was equilateral and 250 miles on a side. One point was inland far behind a University town with a large State University with a fine Library. One point was on a small island a couple of miles off the coast. The final point was on a headland jutting out into the sea. A small manufacturing city, two large towns, productive farmlands, a large fusion power plant, a boatyard, and other useful things, were within the triangle.

From the point of view of those within the triangle, nothing happened. Beyond the triangle, the world is a post-apocalyptic wilderness. The radiation level is higher than it should be out there. So far there is no evidence of pathogens or other problems. In trips made by some of the members of the ROTC, there was evidence of at least a century of time having passed outside the Triangle. The Astronomy faculty pined it down to a passage of 137 years.

There have been sightings of survivors, but no contact yet.

The Tech Level before the event was nine. Sustaining that will be hard. Putting together what happened will take time. Holding society together is also going to be a problem.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Astromancer;

You have a lot of interesting ideas, that I generally enjoy reading.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

The Long Night is coming and the empire is crumbling. A federation of border communities explores and finds a planet harrassed by raiders. They cut a deal. The planet will let them build a Starport on barran land. In return they must agree to keep off the raiders.

The first immigrant fleet sets out, lands and builds and fortifies a starport, then more and more come. Generations later you will be hero worshiped by children until a sourpuss steps up and claims you were all just thieves and scoundrels. Thus your names will live on as the founders of a civilization.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Where have I heard a story like this before?

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

I may have, certainly others have. It is not a new one. Though the details of the treaty allow for more family-friendly native relations while the part about the immigrants agreeing to high guard justifies having constant warfare embedded in their constitution.

The Ihaiti often make similar treaties.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

"The world is a hollow sphere, there are legends of a vast black cave with beautiful lights called stars deep below the ground we stand on. There are heretical legends that say people came from outside the world. But heresy brings death by fire."

The spheres seem to be a strange sport of a Tech Level 12^ society. Each sphere is close to 1,800 kilometers in radius. The inside of each working sphere has a biosphere composed of life forms that seem to originate from the Earth. The ancestral life forms seem to have been taken from the Earth in the Pleistocene or Placenzian periods. Humans and humanoids have been found within the spheres.

There seems to be an artificial gravity field. The direction of acceleration of free falling bodies (down) is out from the center of the spheres. The "Gravity" in the spheres is 0.897G. The air pressure at "Ground Level" is 18psi. There is a luminous effect at the center of each sphere which seems to be a hologram like thing. These are the source of light and warmth inside the spheres. They have cycles in the production of light and heat creating Day/Night and Seasonal cycles. They're also a major focus of study by scientists exploring the spheres.

None of the cultures in the spheres have a Tech Level above three. There are no fossil fuel deposits. Psi phenomena are far more common among the populations in the spheres than in the general human population. Another source of serious study.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Try this one...

The past changed, and the PCs were somehow left behind. Multiple factions are at war, the present dominant faction (The True and Secret Kings) rules through corporate states. They have a form of fascism that uses the structures of corporations in place of the state. The state is also the Capitalist and owns the church as well.

The reason the rulers spend so much energy on control is that they know that other factions could bring back the old reality. A vast democratic society that sprawled across most of the Galaxy and allowed the citizens the freedom to shape their lives to their own dreams. But in a world of Freedom and Fairness with society organized as networks of equals had no place for secret kings.

Still, the far smaller more controllable human society the Kings rule has vastly fewer people, tens of billions rather than uncounted trillions, and a lower level of technology (TL10^ rather than TL12^). This means the weight of all those souls cut off from their lives and reality weakens the new reality of the True and Secret Kings. Thus the Kings must rule with an iron fist and secretly. They must also limit human potential. Only the True Kings and their loyal servants may use the true art. Even the idea of Magic must be forbidden! Poverty among the masses, strict censorship, rules and control for their own sake, a cold, prudish, rigid puritanism, all help to limit the people and their souls.

This is a Secret Magic Campaign set in a dystopian future dominated by interstellar corporations. Think of it as Mage: The Ascenion meets The Sun Makers. With a generous side of Madness Dossier. Start the PCs as desperate outcastes or malcontents in the dystopian interstellar state, then let them know they were wizards and star wandering heroes. And that's what they are being hunted for.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Rifting off the Madnesss Dossier again, this time blending it with THS.

There were other histories, a nuclear war, one where the Nazis won, one where the old kings never fell and joined their crowns with the church and the corporations, worlds where things simply withered and collapse, sometimes from climate change, sometimes form simple despair. Poison hellwords that want to come back.

The chance of these worlds returning involves Pragmaclasts. Items left over from other world paths and futures lost. The agency has one job, to find and destroy pragmaclasts. Beware, a certain type of person, someone who hates the world and loves the hell the pragmaclast is linked to will fight to get enough pragmaclasts together to crack reality. Neo-Nazis still fighting for the Fuhrer, would be masters of the universe, fools hungry to be barbarian warlords, and idiots who think they are of the lineage of Christ and the True Merovingians. You must in secret fight these mad fools and their dark cults of nihilism and slavery.

These alternate realities aren't as real as our world, they need to leach off our reality. Each pragmaclast allows a little of our world to be bled away. If more than a few pragmaclasts are gathered together then reality quakes can bring people and things from other realities to our own. Some of these know how to pop our reality like a soap bubble.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

I've got one campaign going and will likely play in another starting this year, so I'll not start up a third, any time soon.

However, this goes on the prospectus, when I do. This is a great campaign concept, although I might set it sooner than the dawn of the 22nd Century. That might be too much.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

This is very high praise.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Try this one...

The second half of the 21st century was looking good. Big breakthroughs in fusion and high temperature superconductors (some of these superconductors worked up to 150 degrees Celius) led to a new industrial revolution. Advances in fields like robotics (especially Agricultural Robotics), vertical farming, material science, batteries, and supercapacitors, made optimistic views of the future fashionable even among serious intellectuals. Then the caldera went up.

The Caldera was in southern Siberia in a less studied area. China took the first hit and collapsed hard and fast. Then, the masses of sulfur-dioxide and fine ash particles caused dramatic global cooling, more dramatic than 1816 and scientists say it could last for decades. Frost and snow have collapsed outdoor agriculture in the temperate zone and brutal drought is collapsing the tropics.

Because of fashions in food production, the USA, Korea, Israel, Japan, Canada, Australia, Iceland, and New Zealand, all went into vertical agriculture. They still experienced food shortages, but no mass starvation. In most of the rest of the world, the passion for organic farming led to crisis and violence from massive crop failure. What little food aid the USA, Canada, Australia, and NZ, could manage, they gave. The crisis prevented either those receiving the aid from understanding there was little to give or those giving the aid from understanding why the receivers couldn't be understanding.

The local year is 2065. The tech level is nine with some technologies that normal GURPS Ultra-Tech counts as superscience. Humanity is struggling to survive. Wars and rumors of wars are everywhere in spite of the simple fact that it's a logistical nightmare to move an army in this weather and with massive food and equipment shortages. The economy has gone from boom to collapse (famine will do that, especially if it lasts).

The PCs could be diplomats trying to prevent war or gain food aid. They could be building vertical farming facilities in Europe and trying not to be killed in food riots for withholding food they haven't grown yet. The PCs could be escorting food trucks in gang held territory for desperate communities on the edge of starvation.

PCs could be enhanced with either cyber-gear or Bio-mods. Especially if they are agents or need to run for their lives frequently.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

It strikes me that you could create a lively and interesting "Twenty Minutes into the Future" setting with cheap High Temperature Superconductors that superconduct up to 300 degrees Celius. You'd be in a sort of TL8+1 setting. There would be so many things that a TL9 society could do that this society couldn't do, but you'd have levitating cars. How so many technologies work would change quickly, there would be an economic boom and a burst of utopianism. At the same time, many people who don't see the world moving their way would be in a screaming fury.

If nothing else you can cross Ray Gun Gothic with cyberpunk and leave the PCs guessing about what kind of future they've stumbled into.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

They were watching Independence Day at my place this morning. A truly brainless film that runs on its perverse charm. I never saw the sequel, which my sister, a big fan of the first film, found charmless and dull. Moreover, a rematch strikes me as dull but try this idea...

The aliens struck ten years ago back in the 2040s. The scientists that survived said they were technologically retrograde. To me, that is further proof the aliens were as dumb as a sack of hammers. They're dead, they never seem to have read H.G.Wells or studied bacteriology. The creeps did wipe out the Earth's cities and most of the people. Still, more survives than you'd think.

Basically, a society in transition from TL8 to TL9 gets nearly wiped out by the degenerate remnants of an alien fleet, The shattered remnants are trying to put the world back together.

The aliens seem to have seen China as the center of Earth civilization. So the alien attack hit there first and hardest. Europe, as the second most urbanized area on Earth, was also brutalized. The USA, although hit hard, was less totally torn up than either of the first two areas. Also, a decade and a half of trying to revitalize rural areas meant the USA's infrastructure was far less centralized than most other industrial nations.

Fun wild card. The aliens seem to have been telepathic. Many victims of their telepathic attacks seem to have gained a crude control of psi powers they never knew they had. Thanks to TL9 brain mapping techniques humanity is now beginning to awaken their mental powers.

The PCs could have many roles. Aid workers rebuilding...well anything. PCs as law enforcement agents or soldiers trying to keep the peace or protect those rebuilding society would work too. Diplomatic games either between or within nations seems like a viable option too.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

This one starts in the past but it is Sci Fi.

Basically, in the early 1960s aliens showed up and announced that the Sun was going to be destroyed and you folks (the human species) were to be moved to safety. There were attempts at resistance, they weren't important because no one could do anything that seemed to affect the aliens or their machines and devices.

The population of the world where the PCs ancestors were taken, generally with their whole communities, including buildings and streets, intact, was drawn mainly from Europe, North America, North Africa, the West Indes, Indonesia, East Asia, and India. After a period of confusion, a stable democracy was formed. Limited contacts from other colony worlds were allowed for a few decades.

After the aliens deemed Humanity was settled, or as settled as they were going to be, they informed Humanity that were from a different universe. Humanity wasn't alone in this universe but the other races of this universe were very far away from both humanity and each other. The various human worlds were within reach of each other if people developed the right technologies.

That was the last the Aliens communicated to Humanity that the PCs know of.

Humanity had been divided into fifty groups and spread to as many different worlds. Each world seems to have been terraformed into something at least as good as Earth, if not in some ways better. The few tens of millions on each world grew their populations quickly, at least while the contact was maintained.

But that period was long ago in the late 1900s and early 2000s. It is now the year 2538. The people of the PCs world have achieved FTL drive. An exploratory fleet has been built to look for the other worlds of Humanity.

This is a TL12^ world with psionics. The style is Raygun Gothic blended with just enough New Wave to make things uneasy.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

I like the idea overall. But what happened to the aliens? Did they nuke and leave, are they still around, or were they destroyed?