New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Aftermath

The Plague Wars were over long ago. Except for the US and a few other nations most of the world lost four out of five people and then went through a sterility plague. But that was over when I was in grammar school. I'm a grey haired grandpa now. Why are we still providing charity for the whole planet these days? Especially when everyone says we never helped at all.

Some more notes on England.

Most English people live in the towns and generally southern English towns.

Between genetically engineered crops (the wheat grown in this England is a legume and needs no nitrogen fertilizers) and biologically enhanced farming techniques England grows enough to feed their people a basic healthy diet, nutritious if bland. Spices are imported, but expensive. Tea is grown in greenhouses in Cornwall, so tea is available. Coffee is a rare expensive import as is chocolate. Sugar from sugar beets is of high quality but pricey and in somewhat short supply. The way carrots and marigolds interact to protect each other from pests has been studied in Australia and North America and now genetically enhanced flowers provide pest control in the vast majority of farms worldwide including England.

Animal protein is a regular part of the English diet. But a small part. Meat is generally a weekly thing. Eggs and dairy products are daily.

Beer and cider are available but expensive. The quality is good though. Spirits and wine are rare and pricy. Wine is an import, and spirits are highly taxed to save grain.

Large sections of England are abandoned and have gone wild. This includes some towns and small cities. Many of these areas are dangerous to explore because the man-made structures have received no maintenance since the first wave of plague in 2052.

However, given the chaos of the Plague Wars all sorts of valuable things might be salvaged in the abandoned areas of England. Anything that could conceivably have gotten into a English country house or a local museum could be the target of a treasure hunt through the neo wilds.

Feral dogs, looking more like wolves, feral pigs, and some escaped zoo animals add serious levels of threat to the neo wilds.

Transport through most of England is by train. The roads weren't maintained and air transport was too expensive. Not all tracks were maintained either. Cars are rare anywhere, public transit does exist, but it's limited. Many towns and some suburbs are effectively islands connected to the outside world only by railroads.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Aftermath

The Plague Wars were over long ago. Except for the US and a few other nations most of the world lost four out of five people and then went through a sterility plague. But that was over when I was in grammar school. I'm a grey haired grandpa now. Why are we still providing charity for the whole planet these days? Especially when everyone says we never helped at all.

France in this setting is unusual among plague surviving nations. Most of the nations struck first with the superflus and then with Shrivel have populations about one tenth of their preplague population. France is one of the few plague struck nations that has successfully attracted immigrants. About half the population of Quebec and large numbers of other Francophone Canadians have immigrated to France. Also a fairly large group of francophones from other places as well. Thus France has a population of nine million people. Four million less than the year 1300.

Still, France perceives itself as recovering. The American fusion power plants brought the major cities to life. Farms are productive, factories are doing well, life is brutally hard, but what does one expect?

It probably helps French morale no end that there has been a revival of French literary culture. Also the French have developed a knack for sweetly goofy farce movies. These are zero budget films that brilliantly make a glaring fault a stellar feature. Plus these seemingly brainless little flicks generally have fairly wicked stings in their tails. Add to that the music scene has its own saucy little life. France may be walking wounded but they are walking proud. And walking with wicked style as well.

French agriculture is doing well. Partially this comes from investment. As French wines, cheeses, and other luxury products sell well internationally, the French have long had extra resources to invest in their agriculture. Thus the French diet is better than most European diets.

Large areas of France are wild. Those areas that were under populated in the early 21st century (example, the Central Mastiff) are wilderness in 22nd century France. Wolves are a serious threat again. At present there is a major UFO craze in France. Folklorists notice similar themes to French folktales about ogres and loup garou.

France is also having a serious wolf outbreak. The first since the Beast of Gevaudan incident in the early 18th century.



More later...

[Flaco76]

What happened to India, China or Japan?

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Flaco76

What happened to India, China or Japan?

I plan to get to them.

[David Johnston2]

Dark Forest: In the 2xth century, Earth gets splatted by a RKV originating from a point some 200 light years away. Nobody knows why. Good thing there was something like a hundred million people living off Earth by then in something like 500 space colonies, which, central government having been destroyed mostly went their own ways. Everyone went radio silent after the splat caught in the grip of semi-justified paranoia and only gradually resumed contact.

Of course basically this is a justification for a whole slew of single theme micro-worlds. Included among them would be:

1. Military Bases for each of the former major powers on Earth
2. Prison
3. Wildlife preserves from each continent.
4. Research facilities
5. Shopping mall
6. Theme park
7. Mega computer
8. Lesbian separatists
9. Randites
10. Anarcho-syndicalists
11. Corporate headquarters

And so forth

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Aftermath

The Plague Wars were over long ago. Except for the US and a few other nations most of the world lost four out of five people and then went through a sterility plague. But that was over when I was in grammar school. I'm a grey haired grandpa now. Why are we still providing charity for the whole planet these days? Especially when everyone says we never helped at all.

China was hit early and hard by both the Super Flus and Shrivel . This on top of China already being in a Demographic nightmare. Simply put, even after the "One Child Policy" was gone, Chinese society had perverse incentives in their society and social policy that made child rearing very hard. Even when official policy rewarded having large families, the day to day facts of 21st century Chinese life worked against even having two children.

Thus the depopulation of China was far more brutal than normal. The present population of China is four million. Their population hasn't been that low in recorded history.

American medical aid has been profoundly helpful but any positive growth in China's population has been recent and weak.

On the other hand, land reforms, much like those America promoted in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, after WWII, have had strong positive effects. China also benefits from good relations with Taiwan (which as an island nation with excellent public health services suffered less from the Plague Wars than any other Asian nation. China's economy and education system are still shattered, but efforts are being made.
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India is generally assumed to have been a main target of the Plague Wars. Their population is down to twelve million people. An astounding plunge. Like most Asian nations population growth has been recent and weak.

India's economy and education system are near to non existent. Although projects by the Pentalpha Nations are beginning to do some good.

India is no longer one nation in this setting. Karala ( check spelling) is a strong egalitarian socialist democracy, and generally what people mean when they speak of India. Northern India is divided into several more authoritarian states.

#########

Japan suffered brutally from the Super Flus, but strict quarantines meant they had few Shrivel infections. South Korea was similar. Both nations still faced serious demographic issues after the plague. Korea benefited from reaching out to the Pentalpha Nations . Japan has remained bitterly isolationist.

More details later.

[Astromancer]

More Aftermath later, but now....

Draftees

My grandfather died just before the spring turned warm. Mom wept, I wish I could have. The storms came and several buildings fell. We all were worried.

Since the dead started walking it hasn't been safe to eat crops grown in the earth proper. We've had to make gardens on rooftops and in flower pots. We lived up high in the buildings to defend ourselves. And we had to be quiet.

But the dead rose twenty years before I was born. No one takes care of the buildings or the sewers. The buildings are beginning to fall. Most of those that haven't fallen aren't safe.

We didn't know where we could go.

Then the sky thing my mom called a helicopter came. The first people from beyond my tribe I had ever seen. They had guns and clean clothes.

They said, "Your town is going to be destroyed when the next hurricane comes through." " If your young people will join are defense force, you can be part of our community."

What choice was there? We were all weather wise. We knew he spoke the truth. We joined.

Basically, your PCs are young tribal warrior hunters who have joined the defense force of a city with access to the old technology. As pay for your services, the rest of the tribe get to live in the city too. The old shall be cared for and the little ones educated.

You lack many skills needed in the city. They've trained you up to SemiLiterate but you've learned little more. But lucky for you, raised in the city, the city folk know nothing of hunting and tracking.

Assume all PCs are about eighteen to twenty-five years old. The have excellent HT and DX, probably good ST, and IQ can't be very low to survive. Your skills are hunting, tracking, fighting, and farming skills. You have survival skills for the area you came from. Example: If your tribe lived in the ruins of New York, then you have Temperate Woodlands survival skills. Both for open woodlands and the city ruins. Everyone starts with SemiLiterate but full literacy can be bought with experience points. Your PCs can start with TL0 weapons skills, but gun skills will be taught.

The goal of the PCs is to defend their new community and make a place for themselves and their tribe within it.

As written, the city that took the PC's tribe in floats near the surface of the sea far from land. Low enough to be safe from storms but not so deep that pressure is a problem. Their power source is Ocean Thermal Energy. The living quarters are roomy, warm, and clean.

The PCs help the city folk to scavenge the ruins of the civilization that fell. Those raised in the city need the PCs' wilderness skills. That's why they didn't just let you die.

The Zombies seem to be of several different kinds. Use GURPS: Zombies or All Flesh Must be Eaten as a guide to types.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Aftermath

The Plague Wars were over long ago. Except for the US and a few other nations most of the world lost four out of five people and then went through a sterility plague. But that was over when I was in grammar school. I'm a grey haired grandpa now. Why are we still providing charity for the whole planet these days? Especially when everyone says we never helped at all.

I'm going to focus on the Pentalpha Nations now. Only the United Celtic Republic (UCR) and the southern border of the North American Federated States (NAFS) make good adventure areas. But they define a lot of the background.

The name Pentalpha Nations refers to their symbol, the pentalpha. A pentalpha is the outline of a five pointed star. The particular image used of a white star on a green field is Sir Gawain's shield device. The five points of the star represent the wounds of Christ, the whole thing together symbolized Sir Gawain's role as the healer knight. The American president who chose the symbol said that it symbolized both the commitment to heal the world and to keep the peace.

More later I must go....

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Aftermath

The Plague Wars were over long ago. Except for the US and a few other nations most of the world lost four out of five people and then went through a sterility plague. But that was over when I was in grammar school. I'm a grey haired grandpa now. Why are we still providing charity for the whole planet these days? Especially when everyone says we never helped at all.

It's important to remember that the Pentalpha Nations also went through a massive transformation during and because of the Plague Wars. New Zealand is the least changed. Australia after that. I'll focus most of my attention on the North American Federated States (Nafs) and the United Celtic Republic (UCR).

The superflus crashed the world economy. In many ways money became meaningless and unreal in large areas of the planet. Survival became the only goal. And, when there is no one to exchange goods with, a medium of exchange is pointless.

In the United States, where a large antivaxer movement existed, the population plunged from 350 million to 275 million in a few weeks. Even though large areas of the nation were vaccination programs had been widely supported were untouched by the plagues, chaos was everywhere. The President declared a national emergency. By luck the US had a very capable President, if ill suited to do the job under normal conditions.

The President called a constitutional convention. The restructured government was meant to be efficient and responsive to the people. It drew on ideas proposed by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. It tossed aside most of Alexander Hamilton's modeling of the US government on the 18th century British government. People still speak of it as the Constitution of 2052, as opposed to the real one. But that group is generally very old and very small.

Between the new constitution and the worldwide economic crash, power relations in the USA shifted radically. Living off investments ceased to be a thing. Money either simply stopped having value or hyperinflated, or tax structures changed. Inequality was ground away by the ongoing disaster. "Old Money" became an abstraction. The stock market closed for a few years. The Rich as a social group and power block were gone for awhile. Everywhere on Earth.

In the Pentalpha Nations the governments still worked and basic necessities were maintained during the crisis. As a new economy grew up as the plagues subsided society and government had been drastically reformed to survive the plagues. As the post plague world was unlike the early 21st century suggestions that the reforms should be undone were unpopular. People felt much more secure with a social democratic nanny state.

Given the new legislature in the USA was proportionately elected and unicameral, the old national parties broke up and were replaced with new ones. The terms of debate changed. In a multiparty government negative campaigning and attack ads don't work as well. It's more important to be for something than against something. To stand out from the crowd and get votes you need to explain why your platform matters.

This was most dramatic in the USA, but all the Pentalpha Nations were forced through this.

Although it would seem the Plague Wars mainly wounded the hard Right, but the dramatic shift in attention from Identity Politics to survival politics radically transformed the Left as well. Eternally finding new ways to rehash colonialism and neocolonialism simply faded away. A plague created by an unknown power nearly erased humanity. Suddenly the politics of representation in nursery rhymes seemed less than real.

The Left moved back towards economic issues and serious programs. Electability and building coalitions became more vital. Talking to the masses, instead of at them, became all important. Thus the pre-plague Left, like the pre-plague Right became irrelevant. To a great extent, the whole Left-Right paradigm, which started with the French Revolution, was fatally wounded by the Plague Wars. And died in the recovery.

With robotics and fusion, society might not have a working class generally, nor absolutely poor people either. Although relative poverty and social issues involving status and prestige, will likely remain. This sort of Low Scarcity Society (Post Scarcity seems like a superlative utopian thing to me) would have very different ways of seeing things. The old paradigms that started in 18th century Europe could hardly be relevant.


More later.

[Inky]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Some more notes on England.

Most English people live in the towns and generally southern English towns.

Between genetically engineered crops (the wheat grown in this England is a legume and needs no nitrogen fertilizers) and biologically enhanced farming techniques England grows enough to feed their people a basic healthy diet, nutritious if bland. Spices are imported, but expensive. Tea is grown in greenhouses in Cornwall, so tea is available. Coffee is a rare expensive import as is chocolate. Sugar from sugar beets is of high quality but pricey and in somewhat short supply. The way carrots and marigolds interact to protect each other from pests has been studied in Australia and North America and now genetically enhanced flowers provide pest control in the vast majority of farms worldwide including England.

Animal protein is a regular part of the English diet. But a small part. Meat is generally a weekly thing. Eggs and dairy products are daily.

Speaking as someone from England, this all sounds like it makes sense, you've done your homework. The flowers are an interesting bit of local colour, although I'm not sure about the "genetically enhanced" part - widespread use of American GM plants doesn't seem to go with widespread distrust of biotech and of America. Though people aren't always consistent.

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Beer and cider are available but expensive. The quality is good though. Liquor and wine are rare and pricy. Wine is an import, and liquor is highly taxed to save grain.

Elderberry/cowslip/parsnip wine and other forms of home-made hooch might make a comeback. (It's a standing joke that some of these are much more alcoholic than you'd expect from something so Laura Ashley-sounding). As for spirits (as it would be in British English - "liquor" over here is a vague term for alcohol in general), my immediate thought was "You don't necessarily need grain for that". Anything that can ferment can be distilled - potato peel, pea pods. Either commercially, if anyone will buy it, or at home. Of course, as the US Prohibition era demonstrated, that can be seriously dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. There'll probably be occasional news items of someone who's perished through distilling and drinking something he really shouldn't have.

Elderberries might become a valuable commodity, actually - something to have your PCs find if they crit a foraging roll. Elderberries are known to have anti-viral activity, and if that became well known it might be popular in a country that's both terrified of viruses and terrified of doctors. (There's a proprietary elderberry extract, Sambucol, usually sold for flu, that was advertised on TV at the start of the coronavirus outbreak. Shortly afterwards, they stopped advertising it for a while, because they'd sold out).

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Large sections of England are abandoned and have gone wild. This includes some towns and small cities. Many of these areas are dangerous to explore because the man-made structures have received no maintenance since the first wave of plague in 2052.

However, given the chaos of the Plague Wars all sorts of valuable things might be abandoned in the abandoned areas of England. Anything that could conceivably have gotten into a English country house or a local museum could be the target of a treasure hunt through the neo wilds.

Feral dogs, looking more like wolves, feral pigs, and some escaped zoo animals add serious levels of threat to the neo wilds.

Transport through most of England is by train. The roads weren't maintained and air transport was too expensive. Not all tracks were maintained either. Cars are rare anywhere, public transit does exist, but it's limited. Many towns and some suburbs are effectively islands connected to the outside world only by railroads.

Don't forget bikes. Lots of bikes in Britain, and they don't need fuel. Modern models aren't as indestructible as ones from a few decades ago, but given the drastically reduced population, I wouldn't be surprised if there were still plenty of usable bikes to go around forty years later, even if no more were being built. (This is one of those post-apocalypse scenarios where technology will be fairly plentiful - fewer people, little damage to technology, the only problem is maintenance and parts).

Bikes aren't at their best on unmade roads, though, though off-road cycling is of course a thing. Horses might make a comeback, for those who can afford the upkeep - they don't have a problem going across country. Probably the hardier, semi-pony types, not thoroughbreds. Actually, you can possibly add a few horses to that list of feral animals.