New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[ronwit]

Originally Posted by thorr-kan

It's a compelling campaign seed.

There are a number of CoC scenarios that take this exact stance. They read well, and I think they'd make excellent scenarios, if my group played regular CoC.

Eldritch Skies by Battlefield Press calls itself Lovecraftian SF.

[David Johnston2]

Ooh-ooh! I just thought of a great premise for a science fiction setting!. Somehow we have invented an inexpensive method for moving ships at relativistic speeds. Thus, every time a ship returns from an interstellar excursion, after a few weeks of travel dozens of years have passed on Earth. But in a bizarre adaption to this problem, a whole subculture exists of families and lovers of starship crew who put themselves into suspended animation awaiting their return. giving them the chance to watch society change around them in time lapse.

It's no damn use for gaming. But isn't it pretty?

[Dr. Beckenstein]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Ooh-ooh! I just thought of a great premise for a science fiction setting!. Somehow we have invented an inexpensive method for moving ships at relativistic speeds. Thus, every time a ship returns from an interstellar excursion, after a few weeks of travel dozens of years have passed on Earth. But in a bizarre adaption to this problem, a whole subculture exists of families and lovers of starship crew who put themselves into suspended animation awaiting their return. giving them the chance to watch society change around them in time lapse.

It's no damn use for gaming. But isn't it pretty?

It is VERY pretty. :-)

So, what if the sleepers want to steer (or prevent) the changes, maybe with awake servants or computers?

And so the cyberpunks of your campaign start to wonder who is hiring them to bring down politicians, artists or philosophers who are rocking the boat. When they follow the money (tm), they end in a cryogenic facility ...

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Ooh-ooh! I just thought of a great premise for a science fiction setting!. Somehow we have invented an inexpensive method for moving ships at relativistic speeds. Thus, every time a ship returns from an interstellar excursion, after a few weeks of travel dozens of years have passed on Earth. But in a bizarre adaption to this problem, a whole subculture exists of families and lovers of starship crew who put themselves into suspended animation awaiting their return. giving them the chance to watch society change around them in time lapse.

It's no damn use for gaming. But isn't it pretty?

The ship crews in C.J. Cherryh's Merchanter setting eventually formed themselves into extended family groups, for similar reasons.

Even though the ships in that setting had hyper drives, the crew still experienced enough time dilation that their lives grew ever-more out of synch with "stationers," planetary residents and others who never left solar systems.

As such, they couldn't realistically maintain relationships with anybody not on their own ships. Even different ships flew different routes with different lengths of journeys, so the personal lifetimes of the different crews also grew out of synch.

So, the crews became extended, intermarried family groups, and the unattached female crewmembers helped maintain genetic diversity by having (more or less romantic) sexual affairs with people they met during layovers at the stations along their trade routes. The entire crew/family helped raise the children.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

The ship crews in C.J. Cherryh's Merchanter setting eventually formed themselves into extended family groups, for similar reasons.
<snip>
... and the ... entire crew/family helped raise the children.

This book made a huge impact on my perception of the potential future cultures and subcultures which could result from interstellar travel.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

It's no damn use for gaming. But isn't it pretty?

Pretty and useful. I've never run a campaign in an UT interstellar space trading setting, but if I do, I'll be using something similar to add nuanced and differing options for the PCs.

[Flyndaran]

It's also a nice way to promote long lasting culture without invoking literal age stopping technology. With near constant reawakenings of wealthy but "young-old" individuals, change would come more slowly, I think.

My mind immediately goes to a murder mystery. An apparently accidental power loss results in a group of sleepers dying. Was it all just to kill one of them? And who would have a grudge for someone that entered hibernation decades ago?

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

The ship crews in C.J. Cherryh's Merchanter setting eventually formed themselves into extended family groups, for similar reasons.

Even though the ships in that setting had hyper drives, the crew still experienced enough time dilation that their lives grew ever-more out of synch with "stationers," planetary residents and others who never left solar systems.

As such, they couldn't realistically maintain relationships with anybody not on their own ships. Even different ships flew different routes with different lengths of journeys, so the personal lifetimes of the different crews also grew out of synch.

So, the crews became extended, intermarried family groups, and the unattached female crewmembers helped maintain genetic diversity by having (more or less romantic) sexual affairs with people they met during layovers at the stations along their trade routes. The entire crew/family helped raise the children.

My impression is that the matrilineal family ship system developed in the sublight era when a ship spent a decade or so between station calls. It then persisted into the FTL era. I believe that one of the unstated agendas of the Merchanters Alliance is to maintain the Family ship system even though with FTL it is economically inefficient.

(I also blamed the sublight era for the ships docking at the rim silliness, but Word Of God says I am wrong about that, rim-docking came *after* FTL.)

[Willy]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

My impression is that the matrilineal family ship system developed in the sublight era when a ship spent a decade or so between station calls. It then persisted into the FTL era. I believe that one of the unstated agendas of the Merchanters Alliance is to maintain the Family ship system even though with FTL it is economically inefficient.

As far as I understood it it makes still a lot of sense, because it are family ships, with each family member holding a share of the ship. For new ships this system is unecessary, but the old familys insist on a system that effectively only allows only them to have freighters, or better purpose build freighters.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Willy

As far as I understood it it makes still a lot of sense, because it are family ships, with each family member holding a share of the ship. For new ships this system is unecessary, but the old familys insist on a system that effectively only allows only them to have freighters, or better purpose build freighters.

They also built it into the Treaty of Pell. Union is only allowed to build warships, not cargo ships. The Alliance is only allowed to build cargo ships, not warships. (Both sides try to cheat, of course.) Ostensibly, this is to lock in the stalemate that led to the peace. Union has military supremacy, but the Alliance can destroy Union's economy with a boycott. But it also conveniently gives the Family ships control of any new cargo ships. And note in Finity's End one of the terms of the deal is building a new ship to recreate the Quen Family ship. This is nominally the first FTL cargo ship that has been by anyone outside the Sol system in fifteen years. No ships have been built to increase shipping capacity, or even to make up for wartime losses.

I forget which book, but in one of them there is a rumor that Union may build cargo ships and give them to Families. So say, Dublin Again can split their crew and make a new ship Dublin Yet Again (or some such).

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Ooh-ooh! I just thought of a great premise for a science fiction setting!. Somehow we have invented an inexpensive method for moving ships at relativistic speeds. Thus, every time a ship returns from an interstellar excursion, after a few weeks of travel dozens of years have passed on Earth. But in a bizarre adaption to this problem, a whole subculture exists of families and lovers of starship crew who put themselves into suspended animation awaiting their return. giving them the chance to watch society change around them in time lapse.

It's no damn use for gaming. But isn't it pretty?

Sorta kinda like that is the Joan D. Vinge story Tin Soldier, but the subculture is one guy.

STL ships are crewed exclusively by women because men go crazy or something if they travel not in suspended animation. So a trading ship comes to a planet every 20 years, or every 4 years from the crew's perspective. So spacer culture is explicitly set up to deal with this. The story's protagonist is an unusual case, a planet-bound bartender who ages very slowly because of a rare side effect of his prosthetics. So his bar is popular with spacers because unlike everyone else, he is still there and unchanged from their last trip.