Ideas Are Easy

[Daigoro]

Data Shamans

Is there life beyond the Recycling Bin?
Where does all the data go on a corrupted or destroyed hard disk?
Did you neglect to back up all your family photos before the disk crashed?

Data shamans are able to go beyond the veil and communicate with the spirits of lost software.

They can do an after-the-fact data recovery, but also they can trawl around for secret files that their owners had thought to be long-ago deleted.

And then there are the black-hat data shamans too, who can root out all the fragments of virus code that have ever been written or cleaned away in a disk scan. Taking bits and pieces from the gigantic slush pile of discarded code, they can synthesise monster viruses to unleash upon the world.

But now, there are reports from the "after-del" that the data spirits are restless. They warn that something big is coming, bigger even than what Y2K or MyDoom threatened to be.

What existential threat could be echoing its ominous approach across both the realms of the real infosphere and the astral-bit plane?

----

There's a similar thread to this one, with a bunch of urban fantasy settings, over on rpg.net that I've been enjoying reading-
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?...ngs-Campaigns/

[Flyndaran]

Cyberpunk meets Tron. I love it. :)

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Cyberpunk meets Tron. I love it. :)

... meets Constantine, too, perhaps.

As an extension of the idea, if the shaman goes deep enough, through the layers and layers, they can go back in time, discovering other lost knowledge- books destroyed in book burnings, the Library of Alexandria or the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The other issue is if people who want to keep their secrets secret know that data shamans can find deleted data, how would they do so? They'd need a secure, vault-like recycling bin for receiving sanctioned material, but which keeps the file "alive" so that it never crosses over.

What happens to files which are copied, shared, widely-distributed, edited or corrupted would also be a problem to consider.

[Flyndaran]

Sanctified shredder bins? Laminate all shredded documents then encase in cement.

This building needs to be destroyed, but only because its foundation contains lost J. Edgar Hoover files. But it's now an orphanage!

[RyanW]

The alien invasion began at Grover's Mill, New Jersey, on the evening of October 30, 1938. Choose based on your needs:

A) The public response was initially slow, because many people mistook the reports as a Halloween themed radio show.

B) There was a degree of panic, but a quick response covered it up as a Halloween themed radio show.

A leads to a lower tech X-COM, B to a lower tech MiB.

[Methariel]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

... meets Constantine, too, perhaps.

As an extension of the idea, if the shaman goes deep enough, through the layers and layers, they can go back in time, discovering other lost knowledge- books destroyed in book burnings, the Library of Alexandria or the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The other issue is if people who want to keep their secrets secret know that data shamans can find deleted data, how would they do so? They'd need a secure, vault-like recycling bin for receiving sanctioned material, but which keeps the file "alive" so that it never crosses over.

What happens to files which are copied, shared, widely-distributed, edited or corrupted would also be a problem to consider.

I can so see this as a premise for an In Nomine-game centered around Soldiers of Destiny, Judgment, Lightning, Fate, the Game, Technology, and - if you include Minor Superiors - Revelation and Secrets, stumbling over secrets their celestials patrons didn't reveal...

I like it.

M.

[ericthered]

Mentally this one is labeled: "The day after independence day", even if it doesn't have to exactly follow the movie.

The aliens came to conquer and exterminate. In the space of a day they defeated NATO, the Russians, the Chineese, and anyone else foolhardy enough to be part of that first battle. The destroyed the great cities of the earth, and scattered refuges to the wind. Their weapons killed hundreds of millions. We never had a chance.

And then we did. The main alien ship exploded in a fireball of meteoric fragments. A flaw in the remaining alien forces was exploited and the major danger of attack ended. Earth somehow survived --- but thats not the end of the story. Its the beginning. Cities are in ruins, infrastructure destroyed, government non-existent, strange technology from the invasion abounds, not to mention the strange aliens who survived the bulk of the invasion, and indications point to a follow up ship.

The PC's have to make something of this wrecked world and close the technology gap before the colony ship arrives.

The exact flavour of this campaign can go all over the place, depending mostly on the aliens and their technology.

[Astromancer]

Dream-quest beyond Unknown Kadath!

Basically it's a Dunsanian fantasy world, like Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath a mixture of Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany. Be the new Randolph Carter wandering amoung the worlds of humanity's dreams and nightmares.

[David Johnston2]

Near Death: The characters are people who have experienced near-death experiences and discover that they now have the power to see, hear and interact with normally invisible and intangible spirit entities, and to astrally project and use powers in the astral realm inspired by how they died. And so does anyone else who has ever had a near-death experience, including a secret society who have made bargains with the darkest kinds of spirits and are eliminating anyone who doesn't join their society.

Fearless Alien Hunters: The characters are a team of people with special training and equipment who have been gathered together to fight an extraterrestrial invasion...that doesn't exist. The demons though, they exist. Your boss just doesn't admit they're creatures of supernatural evil, because that would be just silly.

Those Who Come After: Those Who Came Before ascended to incredible heights of technology and decadence...and then they were gone. Now, hundreds of thousands years in the future, the Solar System, re-engineered by the godlike technologies of Those Who Came Before to be as habitable as it would be in the pulpiest science fiction belongs to their successors, the uplifted animals who were created as half-toy, half-art projects attempting to build their own civilizations...when they aren't looking for the effectively magical relics of Those Came Before. In this future, archaeology isn't just dangerous for the archaeologist.

[FireTigeris]

It was a dark and stormy night...

No, really. It's raining so bad that the local nightlife is dead...

Well undead, and the rumor on the wet streets is that the heavy clouds are not going to lift for 10 days leaving plenty of time for evil to take hold.