Ideas Are Easy

[crretin]

Battalion: The players play members of the allies secret psionic army in WW2

[woodchuck]

September 13, 1999 an alien space craft that will later be called SDF-1 crashes into the Moon and sends it hurtling out of the Solar System. The crew of Moon Base Alpha struggle to unlock the secrets of Robotechnology and get back to Earth.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by woodchuck

September 13, 1999 an alien space craft that will later be called SDF-1 crashes into the Moon and sends it hurtling out of the Solar System. The crew of Moon Base Alpha struggle to unlock the secrets of Robotechnology and get back to Earth.

Couldn't you just have a random wormhole open up and swallow the moon, and then randomly spit it out again in various places in the universe?

That strains credulity a lot less.

I mean, I was 12 years old when Space 1999 first aired in the United States, and even I knew the cause of the disaster was silly, as was the notion that the moon could reach another solar system (much less more than one) in the lifetime of any of the crew.

Getting hit by an alien spacecraft is even less plausible than an explosion in a nuclear waste depot. Any disaster energetic enough to blast the moon out of its orbit would just turn it into gravel, instead.

[Flyndaran]

My entire family made fun of me for watching Barbara Bain attempting to act. But we all have our guilty pleasures that seem aggressively counter to our natures.
I will say one thing in my defense of Space: 1999: there were very few science fiction shows during my childhood.

A later episode of Space 1999 did show how much havoc the loss of the moon caused on earth.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Couldn't you just have a random wormhole open up and swallow the moon, and then randomly spit it out again in various places in the universe?

That strains credulity a lot less.
....

Magical gates aren't any more credible.

But for gaming, a Philadelphia Experiment style disaster causing an entire space station to shift realities sounds awesome.

Reminds me of The Time Tunnel, Quantum Leap, and Sliders.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Couldn't you just have a random wormhole open up and swallow the moon, and then randomly spit it out again in various places in the universe?

That strains credulity a lot less.

I mean, I was 12 years old when Space 1999 first aired in the United States, and even I knew the cause of the disaster was silly, as was the notion that the moon could reach another solar system (much less more than one) in the lifetime of any of the crew.

Getting hit by an alien spacecraft is even less plausible than an explosion in a nuclear waste depot. Any disaster energetic enough to blast the moon out of its orbit would just turn it into gravel, instead.

The SDF-1 was a space ship that was 1.2 kilometers long. When its hyperdrive started up accidentally it transported a sphere which contained the entire island it had crashed on. Now I wouldn't personally use that idea to move the entire moon, but maybe a hundred miles or so would be enough to transport plenty of resources with you. Although one idea I've considered is doing Apocalypse Troll. The whole moon is a gigantic Death Star underneath a thick layer of camouflaging stone. You could explore the interior decks for a lifetime.

Or alternatively you could go with the more reasonably sized Deimos, which is also a lovely name for a warship.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The SDF-1 was a space ship that was 1.2 kilometers long. When its hyperdrive started up accidentally it transported a sphere which contained the entire island it had crashed on. Now I wouldn't personally use that idea to move the entire moon, but maybe a hundred miles or so would be enough to transport plenty of resources with you. Although one idea I've considered is doing Apocalypse Troll. The whole moon is a gigantic Death Star underneath a thick layer of camouflaging stone. You could explore the interior decks for a lifetime.

Or alternatively you could go with the more reasonably sized Deimos, which is also a lovely name for a warship.

For some reason that reminds me of that godawful Doctor Who episode where the moon is really an egg getting ready to hatch. The plot was an incoherent mess with it gaining mass to equate earth gravity for no rational reason, and leaving an exact moon duplicate to vaguely match previous episodes of future earth.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Magical gates aren't any more credible.

But for gaming, a Philadelphia Experiment style disaster causing an entire space station to shift realities sounds awesome.

Reminds me of The Time Tunnel, Quantum Leap, and Sliders.

That idea would also work better than something hitting the moon, or blasting it out of orbit with a nuclear explosion.

[Chris Goodwin]

Originally Posted by crretin

They came from the sea: 50 years ago giant monsters rose from the sea to lay waste to civilization, now humanity has finally been able to make a weapon to defeat these monsters, mecha. Basically a post apocalyptic pacific rim.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Why is humanity better able to manufacture mecha after civilization has been laid waste than when they still had their knowledge and industrial base? Mecha seem to require tech-a.

How about this: mecha reproduce.

They are unequivocally mechanical, though of an extremely high tech level. They self repair, slowly, when damaged. If, say, an arm gets blown off, and they are unable to reattach it, the stump sort of heals over. Maybe it can somehow be coaxed to regrow, if the post-apocalyptic denizens can figure out how.

And then, somehow, they reproduce. If you get two (or more?) together at the right time, they emit some kind of a seed, and when put together with another seed you have an egg. In the right conditions (maybe some kind of energy input and some way to carry off waste heat) it will mature and eventually hatch into a new mecha.

The mecha themselves might develop into various taxons, and might only be able to reproduce within (or without!) those taxons.

(What happens when someone has enough tech to put parts back together, but doesn't have their own mecha? They scavenge parts, basically every bit blown off of a mecha they can find, and try to put them together so they'll work. They keep trying and trying, not succeeding, until one day one of them comes across a forgotten seed, or a broken egg, and tries to implant it into their Frankenmech...)

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

That idea would also work better than something hitting the moon, or blasting it out of orbit with a nuclear explosion.

Whether technobabble with real words, or technobabble with complete silliness like multiple universes and phasing into and out of reality is better is purely aesthetics.