New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

An inhabited system is discovered, but its residents appear to be a STL civilization, so it is considered to be a relatively primitive society. Unknown to the rest of the galaxy, the members of the STL civilization are aware of the FTL civilizations, but they are uninteresting in expanding beyond their system because they have everything they need within their system. Visitors are ignored unless they attempt to contact the STL civilization, when they mysteriously disappear.
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Yeah, not buying it. The fact that military vessels from FTL civilizations are destroyed when go in there would be enough to establish that they are not primitive. There doesn't seem to be any gaming potential in this idea.

[YankeeGamer]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Yeah, not buying it. The fact that military vessels from FTL civilizations are destroyed when go in there would be enough to establish that they are not primitive. There doesn't seem to be any gaming potential in this idea.

Instead of that, which I agree lacks gaming potential, they've put some sort of field around their system, that acts as a Cosmic Sargasso--FTL simply doesn't work in the area. It might be theorized to be a natural but rare phenomenon.

[Astromancer]

This is a simple idea. A planet named Utopia were varrious groups of utopians with different visions of the "Good Society" are allowed to go to work the kinks out of their visions in a place of relative security before going out and pioneering for real.

The PCs are troubleshooters working to keep the various utopians from harming others or themselves.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

This is a simple idea. A planet named Utopia were varrious grous of utopians with different visions to the "Good Society" are allowed to go to work the kinks out of their visions in a place of relative security before going out and pioneering of real.

The PCs are troubleshooters working to keep the various utopians from harming others or themselves.

Sounds like the inverse of an Analog story I remember. Some agent is sabotaging utopian colonies by co-locating incompatible ones on the same planet. Because utopias are stagnant and discourage growth, innovation, etc. The specific case in the story was a planet with a colony of uptight repressive religious people (wear only black, extremely limited sex, fun is forbidden) and also a colony of back to nature free love nudists.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

Sounds like the inverse of an Analog story I remember. Some agent is sabotaging utopian colonies by co-locating incompatible ones on the same planet. Because utopias are stagnant and discourage growth, innovation, etc. The specific case in the story was a planet with a colony of uptight repressive religious people (wear only black, extremely limited sex, fun is forbidden) and also a colony of back to nature free love nudists.

Sly possibility. Some "Utopias" might be judged trivial, and thus left in peace. Others might be seen as a potential threat to themselves or others. The PCs might find themselves in all kinds of problems.

[ericthered]

A colony where Virtual Reality is common to the point that most people spend 90% of their time in it, and yet remains intensely interested in the physical world, increasing material resources, performing scientific experiments, and so forth.

They perform most of their work with remotely piloted machines, even going so far as to route the senses of the machine over their own. Uninformed visitors may think they've stumbled upon a machine civilization, if it weren't for the fields of crops.

[AlexanderHowl]

The problem with an civilization that spends 90% on its time on VR is that there is no particular reason to interact with the real world. Their computing is advanced enough to allow robots to do everything, their society is egalitarian and wealthy enough that everyone can endulge in VR, and their VR is probably good enough that sex in VR is anew adequate substitute for sex in real life. At that point, the only thing that prevents extinction would be subsidies given to couples who willingly detach from VR long enough to have real sex until the woman gets pregnant (assuming they do not just let women opt for artificial insemination while they are in VR).

In such a scenario, there is no particular reason for farms, as vatgrown nutrition is probably good enough. With subterranean settlements and buried communication and power lines, the planet might appear completely uninhabited (power plants and settlements can be located beneath the ocean floor to allow for cooling efficiencies and protection from surface threats). You could possible have the world being colonized for a few decades before the original inhabitants realize that they have been invaded.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The problem with an civilization that spends 90% on its time on VR is that there is no particular reason to interact with the real world. Their computing is advanced enough to allow robots to do everything, their society is egalitarian and wealthy enough that everyone can endulge in VR, and their VR is probably good enough that sex in VR is anew adequate substitute for sex in real life. At that point, the only thing that prevents extinction would be subsidies given to couples who willingly detach from VR long enough to have real sex until the woman gets pregnant (assuming they do not just let women opt for artificial insemination while they are in VR).

In such a scenario, there is no particular reason for farms, as vatgrown nutrition is probably good enough. With subterranean settlements and buried communication and power lines, the planet might appear completely uninhabited (power plants and settlements can be located beneath the ocean floor to allow for cooling efficiencies and protection from surface threats). You could possible have the world being colonized for a few decades before the original inhabitants realize that they have been invaded.

VR has a few really good reasons to interact with the physical:

1) Their hardware is ultimately physical. They may live in minimalist pods, but their virtual environments are ultimately limited by the size and power of their computers. Convincing simulations of physical phenomenon, personal cities of NPC's, and high bandwidth communications networks (VR societies probably utterly despise lag) all depend on extremely powerful computers. Which are very resource intensive. And those resources have to be mined, manufactured, and so forth.

2) Their bodies are still physical. Yes, you can survive off of mush (and enjoy it), but that mush must still be grown. The vats need to get their energy from somewhere, and that either means some pretty nifty biotech or vast farms. The farms may not have the diversity we'd want, and possibly they grow something like bamboo or kelp, but they still are running farms. Also, if they want to upgrade their VR setup to include new senses, finer detail, and so forth, they need to keep researching biology. And they need to do it to keep improving their physical health. People will always want to live longer.

3) People want what they can't have. If something comes to you easily, you esteem it cheap. The most expensive resources in a VR society are physical ones, because they're harder to come by. Everest was climbed "Because its there".

I'm aware that the "cut off from reality in VR" is a trope, and there are decent reasons for it. One of the strongest being that many people believe that if sexual needs can be completely fulfilled virtually the society will die out within a generation. But I suspect that the population won't completely collapse, and a core of people who have kids for the sake of having kids will emerge and create a culture that reproduces. Similarly, those who remain interested in improving hardware will remain engaged in the economy and people will envy their stuff and join in.

It should be noted the folks on this planet in some ways have just embraced remotely piloted vehicles as a way to have a different body, and have used technology to make it just as satisfying as experiencing things in your biological body. Sometimes they use a virtual body, but they're comfortable with all three.

And this society is intentionally a foil to Virtual Reality Societies that try to ignore the world around them. We can certainly add stereotypical VR societies to our list. The one with a separate colony on top makes me smile.

[DocRailgun]

I understand that a few people actually enjoy raising children and watching them grow and learn rather than children merely being an unfortunate sideeffect of sex.
I realize you didn't suggest that parenthood is a burden, but rather I was responding to the idea that having easy access to satisfying virtual sex will cause people to not have children.

Originally Posted by ericthered

One of the strongest being that many people believe that if sexual needs can be completely fulfilled virtually the society will die out within a generation. But I suspect that the population won't completely collapse, and a core of people who have kids for the sake of having kids will emerge and create a culture that reproduces. Similarly, those who remain interested in improving hardware will remain engaged in the economy and people will envy their stuff and join in.
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[Flyndaran]

Nations with high standards of living do not have positive population growths of natives alone.
Someone wanting kids for personal joy is of course common. But it seems that that alone is not enough to simply keep up with normal death rates.

Of course in hypothetical VR-"owned" ultratech societies, robots and automation could easily manage things. Artificial wombs and A.I. tutors mean real human parents don't have to exist at all.