Adventures in Utopia?
 

My gaming group is looking to try something a bit different than the TL10 game I’ve been running; a “historical” game within the setting that I’ve created.


A brief overview of the current campaign:

• In 2017, the Terrestrial Planet Finder project takes images of the closest exoplanet to earth, in orbit around Alpha Centauri B. It lies within the habitable zone, and absorption bands give proof positive of water. While this increases interest in space exploration, it will take five decades, breakthroughs in Fusion technology, and an eccentric billionaire to launch an AI controlled seed ship to the Alpha Centauri system, that will take just under 400 years to arrive.

• A century after the launch, the ship is all but forgotten, and Human Civilization has yet to have a Technological singularity… Resistance to change, inequality of classes, and corporate concerns for their “bottom line” are all to blame. Then the Unimaginable happens… A short gamma ray burst “grazes” the solar system, instantly plummeting the Earth into a massive technological crash, and causing significant ozone damage. It will take almost a millennia for civilization to recover to it’s previous point… the “nature” of the reemerged Human Civilization(s) has been left intentionally vague. The only thing that has been said is that the environment never recovered, and indeed worsened as society returned to Industrial-era technology.

• During this time the AI seed ship arrived at the discovered world… but it too was affected by the GRB, critical system malfunctions plagued the vessel, but the AI was able to carry out it’s primary mission. Colonization of a new world (Named Thalasia). The world was a vast ocean with millions of volcanic islands and atolls, it had anaerobic life, but lacked free oxygen. The AI seeded the world with a new ecology, creating an “Oxygen Catastrophe” ending most native life. It would be several hundred years before the “new colonists” were transplanted, which was several hundred years for the AI to perfect a panhuman for the new environment.

• The Selk were the product of the AI’s genetic program; an amphibious, parthenogenesis, homogenous species that were genetically modified to be gregarious, open, altruistic (but very protective of their species) and curious. Even a basic language was part of their genetic memory. The first Selk were given instructions on how to live in their environment, harvest resources, and craft tools. The AI portrayed itself as a quasi-divine being, the mother of the Selk… who were children of the sea of stars. This world was to be their home until they were ready to return to stars above.

• The Selk lived in a Utopian society, although threats from nature and beasts still exist. They managed quite well, their TL varied significantly in various fields. Then came the Humans, refugee vessels filled with sleepers arrived, they colonized the worlds of the Centauri System, and the asteroid bodies that lie in the outer orbit of both stars. The humans polarized into two main governments, each controlling one of the two star systems. Tensions and skirmishes between the Selks and the Humans exist to this day, and though the Humans possessed superior tech, they are vastly outnumbered (and the Selk learn and adapt their Tech very quickly).

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Now my players want to play as Selk during the Utopian Times before the arrival of Humanity. I personally love the idea, as I would love to flesh out their culture and history more fully. But the problem arises on what to do in a Utopian Society without sentient threats. Selk vs. Nature is an easy theme, but that’s better for one-shot stories than an extended campaign… especially since the Selk are pretty much masters of their environment, only disasters (Tsunami, Hurricane) and crossing the deep ocean (due to the vastness and predators) present any real danger. “Quest for Fire" type games centered on the development of tech might work as well, but I’m not sure how fun they would be.

So I’m turning to the Forum for ideas… my players like to roleplay, but they also like a few scenes of Action or conflict per session. Thanks in advance!

-Trachmyr

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

A dark and mysterious cult within Selk society threatens to disrupt Utopia. They hear the cult leader is a charismatic (and possibly insane) prophet. The PCs must investigate the cult to preserve the Selk peace and way of life.

When they spend more time on the job, the PCs expose more information. This prophet who claims to see the future says that the Selk must transform their society into a warlike and authoritarian culture to prepare for a "great invasion from the heavens" where "foul demons from afar" ride "beasts of metal" and threaten to destroy the Selk.

Does this leader actually see something that is really going to happen? Should his warnings be heeded? Or is he just a crazy Selk with a lucky hunch and a lust for power!?

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

A couple ideas:

The Selk could discover evidence of their biological history. Social/political/cultural/religious implications ensue. Various groups form. Each contributes to a program of gathering more conclusive evidence. Maybe a quest to find a piece of tech that the AI lost long ago on entry. The tech could even be an Earth-linked communicator.

Maybe the AI didn't get it right the first time. The Selk could discover a another version somewhere that creates conflict.

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

And even people with the same goals and motivations don't always agree.

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

Perhaps in X% of the population there is a mutation which has evolved since the AI geneered the Selk. This mutation could undo one of the seemingly positive personality traits originally engineered by the AI. Maybe the mutant Selk are fiercely independent instead of gregarious, altruistic and (reading between the lines) conformist. It would be interesting to see how the Selk handle those who do not fit into their cultural/societal mold, particularly if the mutant Selk were not inherently bad, but merely different.

Would the Selk as a whole accept them, or not? My guess, is if they have been living in a world where everyone was the same and generally worked towards the greater good, then I'd say not. My thought is anything that upset the balance of their society would scare the bejeezus out of them, and many would react accordingly.

Also, as knarf pointed out, there would inevitably be differing factions, even in a utopian society. How would the various factions handle the mutant Selk?

Well, that's my $0.02. Hope it helps!

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

An Orion-drive ship (using current technology) could get up to 10% lightspeed, making the trip to Alpha Centauri in less than 50 years. Fusion tech is not necessary. If anything, a fusion ship might make the trip in less time - possibly fast enough to make time dilation a factor. The time factor might allow a crew to make multiple trips to Alpha Centauri over a couple of centuries of outside time..
A gamma-ray burst that would affect earth would also affect Alpha Centauri - on the scale of space that gamma-ray bursts operate on, Sol and Alpha Centauri are practically touching. And the primary effect of a gamma-ray burst would be a massive die-off of all life. It would be a death-toll unseen since the Precambrian Era, affecting everything from plants and animals to bacteria.
This sounds familiar ...
Ah here it is!
An alien version of Bunnies and Burrows or Ice Age?

Politics? An adversary who is masterminding a social revolution and the PCs are preserving the status quo? Or vice versa? An Illuminati campaign with secret societies? Or a Bio-tech/Horror campaign with hideous genetic-level compulsions implanted by the gengineers to fulfill their own dark designs?

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

(Rereading this, it looks kind of like badgering or an attack. I don't mean it that way, I'm just phrasing ideas as questions.)

What is the AI in the starship up to?

Did it just give them their version of Holy Scripture and then cut contact?

Or is it still in contact with Selk in some fashion?

If it is in contact with them, what is it trying to encourage and what is it trying to discourage? How inclined is it to intervene?

Is the terraforming finished, or is the AI still tweaking the planetary environment? What if something goes wrong with the terraforming?

What if the AI changes? Recontacts if it wasn't in contact or cuts contact if it was?

What if the AI changes its messages or actions? Why is it changing? Is it part of the plan? Has something broken in the AI? Did someone or something gain influence over it?

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

Thanks for the feedback guys! Much appreciated.

• Stoob: The idea presented is an interesting one... because it doesn't go against any of the base cultural views of the Selk. If the selk would have known ahead of time what was going to happen when humans first arrived, they probablly would have immediately attacked the newcomers.
  
  The difficulty is in how the prophet came to her knowledge, one possible way is through the AI (the ship is still in orbit even when the refugees arrive in Alpha Centauri). It can't communicate with the selk in a normal fashion, but a message in the bottle dropped from orbit may suffice. If the AI detects the approaching vessels, it may become worried about it's progent, and try to send a warning. (The AI does devolve into a case of multiple personalities as time passes, so this is feasible).
  
  Have to think about this one, but it may work fairly well.

• Edges: I like the first idea quite a lot, although the upheaval wouldn't be as extreme as it would from humans. The Selk know they are from space, they know they were created by NYX (the AI), an intelligence beyond their own, they know that the world (or at least it's ecology) was made for them. It wouldn't be a surprise or shocking, but they are curious about who they are and their "Star Mother". Finding Tech is interesting. It could even be tied into Stoob's prophet idea with ease, increasing the complexity of the plot... especially if it's a comm to the AI.
  
  As for other Panhumans, this doesn't fit with the history that the Players have come to know. That there has been no "Selk Wars" before humanity was a common theme, and fairly proven to be true in one previous game. The AI was very careful to get things right the first time (and hadn't split it's program into multiple personality shards yet), and she destroyed a lot of embroys that weren't up to her standards. There are dangerous creatures, some fairly intelligent, but the selk are the only Sentient species until humans arrive.

• knarf: Quite right, the selk get along very well compared to humans, especially at the Community Level, but they disagree, argue, have rivalries (Most selk consider other selk of different clans but the same generation to be "friendly rivals"), and occassionally even fight. But this is on an individual basis, on any larger scale, the selk work to find consensus and cooperation.
  Even where individuals conflict, it simply won't go to the extremes that humans would. You might want to beat your rival, or prove her ideas wrong, but you wouldn't want to really hurt or humilate her.
  
  Consider the ramifications if the Primary Motivation of Humans was changed from "Self-Preservation" to "preservation of the Species". Now add in the fact that basic language and cultural concepts are hardwired into genetic memory. Even as the selk spread out into the world and become increasingly regionalized, they still share the fundamental core to both language and culture.

• thedot:
  Mutations are actually quite rare (the AI programmed significant DNA repair and failsafes, as the AI considered them perfected... thus natural evolution was undesirable), and even so cannot spread into the gene pool except through direct decendants... these individuals would likely die unless isolated from all other Selks. The reason is that Selk frequently swap antibodies (using their own lactate in communal foods), these carry antibodies to fight off not only disease, but destroy any cell that does not carry the same DNA.
  
  The Selks themselves all have identical DNA, they are in fact a race of clones, but they express individual uniqueness through variations in the Dominancy/Recessiveness of their 81 genes.
  
  A mutaion in a single faimly line is possible, but they would be disconnected from Selk society as a whole. This could lead to conflict, but it is unlikely to be on a large scale.
  
  As to would they be accepted... if they "fit in" to Selk Society in terms of openess, cooperation, ecological responsibility, and peacefulness... then yes. Some of the human refugees "went native" and were given a place in Selk Communes. But if they display an isolatist philosophy, or become aggressive, disruptive to the environment, or become uncooperative... then there would be a problem.

• Mysterious Dark:
  You are ofcourse correct as to the Orion Drive and that the ship could arrive far earlier than 400 years, especially with Fusion Tech. However, those designs are incredibly expensive and transpot only a fraction of a percent of their mass as payload. With the corportatization of the world, how could they justify such a major expense that offer no return on the investment. The time and speeds I use take this into account, a relatively cheap vessel using cheap Hydrogen fuel achieving just over 1% C, transporting about 10% of it's mass as payload. This project can be taken on as a relatively trivial expense to someone who is extremely wealthy who happens to have an interest in space and is looking for some publicity. The Human refugees that arrive later on do so much more quickly, but they see a payoff for their investments.
  
  The GRB in question is a Short Burst GRB (less than a tenth of a second), from the collision of two nuetron stars. From what I've been reading, the Earth would survive... though loose significant amounts of Ozone, and technology would fry out. The long term environmental effects of increased radiation would be disasterous. And Alpha Centauri was indeed hit, but Thalasia did not have any Ozone to begin with, and life there was anerobic life in the seas... thus the die off was not a cataclysm (the AI would do that later with the introduction of photosynthetic life).
  
  The Ship is another question, the AI core (fiber optic) and genetic library were highly shielded both by matter and magnetically to protect against long-term exposure to cosmic rays, but a certain amount of handwavium is probably required to keep it from being completely destroyed.
  
  ----
  
  Thanks for the link to the Blue Planet book... I've never even seen that one, I hope it's available on e23, because I deffinately want to check it out.
  
  Yes, I've used Ice Age to flesh out some tech and environmental threats. I hope Low-Tech comes out soon ;)
  
  An Illuminati campaign sounds interesting, perhaps tied into the earlier ideas of Prophecy and Technology falling from the sky. Hmmm, that might just work.

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

First off, doen't look like an attack at all... just brainstorming. Thanks for your feedback. I also want to point out that my answers take into account the known history once the Human refugees arive, the campaign that I've been running for my players for quite some time now. I want to keep the History consistent with what they know (for the most part), thus I don't have as much wiggle room as I would if I was creating a setting from scratch.

Mostly lying dormant, occassionally adjusting it's orbit, analyzing the planet's current atmosphere and weather, or spying on Selk communes. But 99.9% of the time it is in "Power-Saving" mode. It has consumed most of it's reactor fuel, and it cannot break orbit. It has an onboard fabricator, but no raw materials (much of the ship was canabalized to create drop capsules to terraform the planet).

The ship was designed to land, to become the center of a colony. It had habitats, life-support, factories, ore proccessing cpability, and everything else needed to jump start a technologically adavanced colony. But the damage it suffered means that landing = crash. Thus it stays in orbit to preserve it's massive databanks, so that one-day the Selk can claim their history and Technological birthright.

The original 96 Selk that were created all had Wireless Neural Interfaces, and were trained via the Deep Learning technique (from Bio-Tech). They were taught how to utalize and preserve their environment. NYX (the AI) appeared to them as their mother, and have them "spiritual teachings". NYX believed that wrapping their culture and history into spitualtiy would do best to preserve the information through the generations. Fully disclosing her nature and the Selk's history at that time was viewed as not being beneficial to their survival.

Through the Interfaces she stayed in contact with the original Selk (who survived reentry) throughout their lives, in the form of dreams. Making sure that they had the best head start she could give them. But eventually the last of the original selk died, and since then there has been no contact. If contact was to resume, some form of communications device would have to be delivered to the selk.


The AI considered the changes to be complete, and has since stopped modifiying the environment. However, much to her surprise, the Selk have been unknowingly continuing the terraforming process. CO2 was a significant component in the Atmosphere when the Selk were transplanted, at about 8%. Selk were modified to tolerate these high CO2 levels. When the selk inhabit a new region, they modify the environment to allow them to enter into the food chain without disrupting the other apex predators (primarily through nutrient enrichment of waters, including iron seeding which increases algea growth). CO2 levels at the time of the refugee arrival is about 3%, the Atmospheric Pressure slightly lower, and the average temperature cooler, which in turn has reduced the serverity of hurricanes.

This could be a hook to a campaign plot, but it would probably best fit in a Illuminati style campaign, as recontact is not part of known history.
The AI did break up it's program into smaller personality shards, in effect a split personality. The smaller programs allow the AI to go online but use fewer servers, thus significantly reduce power consumption. Some of these Shards did turn out to have highly variant personalities and points of view, although their goals remain the same. (AI's in my setting are not truly sentient, they cannot modify their core programming... nor do they *want* to)

--------------

The more I look at things, the more an Illuminati style campaign seems the way to go... it gives me more wiggle room, and my player's won't expect it at all. I just never considered Illuminati as compatible with the open Selk society, but in the right context it might be an interesting approach!

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

While it is unlikely to be useful for your game, this bit reminds me of Voyager in Night by C J Cherryh. It is set on an ancient interstellar probe where the original AI now shares space with a large number of very divergent splinter versions of itself, and software uploads of all sorts of different aliens it has abducted and "analyzed" over the eons.

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

The basic question for any campaign is, what kind of conflict do you want to have? Utopia limits the range of possible conflicts.

* Man versus society: Right out; a utopia's inhabitants are all morally committed to their society's ideals, and their society is able to live up to them.

* Man versus man: Most utopias manage to eliminate this, but there can be exceptions; even in a perfect society, two men may love the same woman, or two women may both want a job that can only hire one. There can also be rare crimes, frauds, or other unethical acts by the minority of people who don't live by utopian values. Think about how your utopia works.

* Man versus God: Many utopias are godless; those that have gods usually are morally committed to the ethics their gods support.

* Man versus self: Most utopias have inhabitants with superb psychological insight that frees them of conflicts; but someone with dystopian impulses might have to struggle with them.

* Man versus nature: The obvious topic. Heroic engineering is an obvious theme, but you can also have exploration, the pursuit of abstract knowledge, or even the creation of a new enterprise or community.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

The interesting twist about your campaign is that by playing in before-the-humans-came time is that the players actually KNOW what happens in the future, because they've played in the campaign setting (in the future) before. This is unavoidable.

By having an ememy (this cult prophet) who actually somewhat-accurately predicts the future begs the question...how does the prophet know.

But what if the prophet DOESNT know? What if the prophet is crazy and just totally made up a compelling gloom-and-doom story, and there is no evidence that the prophet actually knows the future at all? It's just by chance that the prophecy sort of reflects the future, that only the players know is actually true. The PCs will be obliged to try to eliminate the cult and the prophet because there is no truth to it, not in the game world at least. The players (as PCs) will explain why the humans weren't attacked by the Selk when the humans first arrived, cause no one ever had any idea that this prophecy was true and the PCs stamped out the cult. The PCs will make history (in a weird way) and do their part to create the campaign setting as it exists...a big and important job!

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

Where are the bodies of the ancestor Selk?
Where are the neural interfaces they used?
Could they be dusted off and re-activated?

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

Just remember that one person's heaven is another's hell. Any Utopia will have dissenters who think things could be better. (Example: The wealthy in the 1920's and 1930's lived in a sort of Utopia. However, many of them were swept up in the Fascist movement, which led to their Utopia being destroyed.)

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

• @whswhs: Traditionally I run Man vs. Society games with a side helping of Man vs. man. This is probably the reason I'm scratching my head trying to come up with ideas... the ones I'm most experienced with are pretty much not available.
  While I could focus on a Selk vs. Selk game if the conflict is on the individual level, or on a Selk vs. Self game, it's not really possible except in a solo game.
  For the Selk spirituality (God) and society are pretty much the same. And in my experience Man vs. Nature games make for good one-off adventures, but not for lasting campaigns.
  
  So yes, I'm limited. What I have to do is find a set of circumstances that make an exception to how the Utopian selk society normally behaves, even if the goals are unchanged (or better yet, due to the Selk's goals).

• @Stoob: I can see the irony in making the "prophet" crazy, and the prophecy just coincidental. But fundamentally, it wouldn't be... whether she was crazy or not, the prophecy is still true. Trying to force the players to uphold the Irony of the situation just isn't nice... and they'd be unlikely to do so, they would actively look for reasons to believe (after all it *is* true).
  
  I'd much rather let the prophet or cult know something and tie it in to other historical events. For instance, when the Selk did begin to "fight back", the Humans were surprised how quickly they were able to understand and adapt their weapon technology, creating an indusrty for weapons production "overnight". Perhaps it wasn't overnight, it was a stockpile.
  
  There was also a controversy over a newly appeared species of Diatoms that produced extremly powerful neurotoxins that only affected humans. The Diatoms did major damage, caused the humans to retreat from the seas, and had a high death toll. The Selk were accused of engineering the Diatoms as a biological warfare agent, but scientific study proved that they had evolved naturally, and could not have been recently engineered (the PC were part of the analysis, they collected the Diatoms and transported them to a neutral third party)... The selk, given a bit of help from their AI are cpabable of selectively breeding this species... if they had forewarning and an understanding of human biochemistry.

• @Diagoro: The interfaces were implants, and the Selk cremate their dead... so for many reasons, the Interfaces are unaccessible even if not destroyed.

• @Myserious Dark Lord: On this I will have to quibble a point.. the Quote may be true for Humanity, but the Selk are quite Psychologically different. Possessing Sense of Duty (Race), Selflessness (SC 9, Racial -20%) [Sense of Duty means you help when you can, Selflessness means you help even when detremental)], Empathy (Racial -20%), Cultural Adaptation (Own Race, Onset 1 Week -40%), Language (basic Selkie, Accented) and Chummy as Genetic Traits. The society they live in is not an artificial construct, but instead an extension of their own (quite homogenous) personalities. And while there is variation amongst individuals, even an unfriendly and unsocial Selk is still still pleasant by human standards and not by any means anti-social.

Thanks for your feedback, much appreciated!
(and I think I have an idea I'll try fleshing out later, but I'm still open to other ideas...)

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

If that's what you want I suggest a look at Le Guin's The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia. The chapters set on Anarres are somewhat along the lines of deconstructed utopia that you seem to want to follow.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

Perhaps a mutation that increased the DNA's resistance to antibodies, perhaps by chemically "camouflaging" the cell wall?

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

Orion's not yet current technology, and not that good even theoretically.

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

The AI can't modify its core programming but there could be disagreements between splinters on what it means. Such as are the selks the only priority or are other colonies from Earth part of its duty.

So it has the resources to create and drop one more selk with a interface (the prophet) but the different fragments of the AI disagree on the steps to take so the prophet gets different instructions depend on which part is active at a given time.

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

----------------

This is pretty much the plot line I have in mind, but the New Selk (who does not have a clan since she is not decended from the original Selk, a major circumstance in it's own right) is in fact a cybershell housing the AI splinter (The other AI's are know to have destroyed splinter's whose actions diverged from the consensus).

The AI's are under no obligation to help the refugees, only to protect the welfare and growth of the "colonists"... the selk. That doesn't mean the AI won't help, provided it will benefit the Selk (something it does in the future with the so-called "Selk-Sympathizers", eventually elevating them to a position of economic control in the system and helping them found a colony on a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt).

When the Refugee's ship is detected, the AI consensus is that it needs more data, and will wait for the refugees to arrive to determine how best they can be used. The AI's worry that if they help the Selk industrialize too soon, to be able to defend themselves, this would threaten their developing culture. One AI splinter (with a hobby for psychology) sees the damage that can be caused by the refugees to be far greater than the damage that could be caused by small scale industrialization.

Creating the cybershell and drop pod (by canabalizing more segments of the ship, particularly planetary sensors that could be used to detect the location of the cybershell), it leaves. As long as the other AIs do not know it's location, it's unlikely they will risk further cultural contamination to search for it... but it's time is limited, the damage it caused will be repaired not too long after the AI's current dormant period ends.

The hook for the PCs will be when a Selk who had supposedly died while crossing the deep ocean (always a dangerous task, with about 1:3000 resulting in death, but needed to communicate between remote commune clusters), is spotted watching a selk from the commune (the two selk were previously bonded, kind of like a marriage reinforced by biochemistry, high in romance and passion, but usually lasting only a few years).

The PCs will investigate, and discover that this isn't the first spotting of a dead selk (in other communes).

The AI Selk needs help, but wants to keep it's presence and the looming threat a secret from Selk culture. It has been abducting Selk, using a mixture of stockholm syndrome and the selk own desire to protect their sisters and communes to indoctronate them into an illuminati style cult... focused on science and industry, what will be needed to repel the refugees if they attack as the AI fears.

Anyways, that's the capsule plot set-up that I think I'm going to run with. I also think I'm going to break this campaign up over the course of three selk lifetimes (the PCs playing different Selk in each section), and not run them consecutively... the first game will be the PCs encountering the originization once the AI is long gone, and the group has very much taken on a quasi-spirtual illuminati cult feel to them. I expect them to try to fight the group, and just about when they have what they need to expose them, one or more PCs discover that they have a family history in the group 9then switch to that campaign for a while).

Re: Adventures in Utopia?
 

Presuming I understood the OP's original intention, three books that seem applicable to your scenario:

1) HG Wells "The Time Machine". Because for every happy Elom in Utopia, there's a flesheating Morlock who hates them. Or some sort of guardian or conspiracy that keeps the Selks in line and keeps the machinery of life running ala Illuminati. I'd put an "X-Files" spin on it, with your band of Selks running around trying to get the truth and AI Selk/crazy cults/descendants of the nueral interfaced Selks trying to influence or mislead them.

2) David Weber's "Off Armageddon Reef" A deliberate low tech setting reinforced by religion, with one advanced life form trying to rebuild a technological base to take humanity back to the stars. Naturally, war ensues. Your Selks can be for or against the heretics. Selkie gadgeteers hunted by technology censors might be fun all by itself.

3) Roger Zelazny's "Today We Choose Faces". I don't have a good summary for this one; suffice to say one(?) man is a catalyst effecting the "utopia" they've all been sealed into. I like it for the nested/recursive personality the main character has, kind of like an ancestral memory. I could see one of your Selks deliberately or accidentally created with this trait, where the genetic memory is overly augmented. This would be a longterm and dangerous enemy for your characters. As a character, he could be waiting for certain conditions to be met before he begins his work, or is forced to respond when certain things happen. Kind of combines ideas from 1 and 2.

Hope that helps.