New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain

Extinction groups? Why would anybody try to make Humans extinct?

Because they believe in some "higher" entity or ideology that supersedes human desires or just don't like humans.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain

Extinction groups? Why would anybody try to make Humans extinct?

They actually exist, you know. Read their disturbing literature.

[johndallman]

See also "antinatalism", the belief that having children is ethically wrong.

[Astromancer]

In the USA the Human Extinction Movement is a minor fringe element in the ecology movement. They aren't well liked.

That said, most HEMs are nonviolent. It's just that the future world in my setting has set them off.

[Astromancer]

The Four and Twenty Sailors

By its nature a Time War is hard to write a chorology for. Effects can proceed causes and even prevent them from being. We don't know how many sides are in the war. From the events no one goes too, we assume most if not all the players are Westerners. No one helps Hitler nor Abdul Rahman. But there are many attempts to kill Washington, Napoleon, and Bismarck.

To win we must either appease our foes or wipe them out.


Basically, a surrealistic espionage campaign. The
PCs are chornokinetics. Time Jumpers trying to keep the pieces of their history together. Your friends and foes change with every mission. A serious Marxist would know that Marx drew great inspiration from the American Revolution and the Early Federal period of American history. A less sophisticated Marxist might want to strangle George Washington in his cradle. But although the Time Agents of a foreign power might need certain parts of your history, don't bet on them needing them all. An even greater threat is historical ignorance. Not knowing what counts can lose you everything.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The Four and Twenty Sailors

By its nature a Time War is hard to write a chorology for. Effects can proceed causes and even prevent them from being. We don't know how many sides are in the war. From the events no one goes too, we assume most if not all the players are Westerners. No one helps Hitler nor Abdul Rahman. But there are many attempts to kill Washington, Napoleon, and Bismarck.

To win we must either appease our foes or wipe them out.

A few options for consideration.

A) There seems to be several European factions that feel reducing racism in the USA suits them. Well as American time travelers it suits you too. So the plan is simple, kill John Wilkes Booth before Good Friday of 1865. Complications, Booth is a tough and dangerous customer and several factions seem to think Lincoln's death in April of 1865 is vital to their plans.

So kill or incapacitate Booth and keep Lincoln alive. If you can't keep Lincoln alive at least make sure Andrew Johnson doesn't become president.

B) In a Late Victorian London a mathematician with a talent for making clockwork has built a functional Difference Engine . The technology seems to be perfectly period appropriate. But a clockwork computer could have been made as early as the mid 18th century, earlier if you could get the right quality of metal. The real issues were in the concept itself.

The problem is "Who is this inventor?" and also "Is he or his machine part of a plot?"

C) Someone has arranged for the survival of several large, well sealed, jars with dozens of books in them. It's clear the jars were buried in late antiquity. The discovery of the jars so soon after the printing press has gotten to Italy is meant to make sure that copies of the books spread quickly around Europe. Why?

Given the large number of books it seems certain that many of the books are red herrings. But which ones?

So far a printed copy of Emperor Claudius' History of the Etruscans is in circulation, as well as a book of Nero's poems. Both are fascinating but unlikely to change the world. What else is waiting? And will the attack be obvious or subtle?

D) A more involved longer term campaign. Basically, build a railroad from Northern India to China in the Victorian period. The difficulty of getting supplies and munitions to the Chinese Nationalists during WWII greatly lengthened the land war in China and made Mao's communists the sure winners after the war.

If a secure route from Northern India to Western China were built decades before the war, and a route the Japanese couldn't block, the post-war world is transformed. This means that many different factions will try to stop you. Which means you'll never know if the people trying to ruin your plans and drive you away are time war agents or just locals.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

A) There seems to be several European factions that feel reducing racism in the USA suits them. Well as American time travelers it suits you too. So the plan is simple, kill John Wilkes Booth before Good Friday of 1865. Complications, Booth is a tough and dangerous customer and several factions seem to think Lincoln's death in April of 1865 is vital to their plans.

So kill or incapacitate Booth and keep Lincoln alive. If you can't keep Lincoln alive at least make sure Andrew Johnson doesn't become president.

And for a tragic twist, perhaps some of your opponents are anti-racists who are convinced not letting Lincoln get assassinated is the thing that'll make it worse.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

And for a tragic twist, perhaps some of your opponents are anti-racists who are convinced not letting Lincoln get assassinated is the thing that'll make it worse.

Your brain is evil. I admire that.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

If a secure route from Northern India to Western China were built decades before the war, and a route the Japanese couldn't block, the post-war world is transformed. This means that many different factions will try to stop you. Which means you'll never know if the people trying to ruin your plans and drive you away are time war agents or just locals.

I read in several recent publications from the last 25 years, that the nationalist army of china was hampered by the lack of ammo and supplies but the biggest problem for them were 2 other things. A lot of corruption, big parts of the elite an namely Chiang Kai-shek´s own family and another big problem he was himself infertile and his only son a "guest" in moscow. Letting his troops loose on the communists would endangering his bloodline and in a certain way also his afterlife, so Kai-Shek didn´t fight the communists when he could, even if Mao was actively fighting alongside with japanese troops. The nationalists were a very long time more than able and ready to crush the communists but were strctly ordered not to. There is proove that on several occasions nationalist forces "forgot" supplies so the communists found them, ordered by Kai-Shek himself. This helped the ragtag army of Mao to survive the war.
Therefore Mao was in the better position, after WWII to engage the nationalists, even than Kai-Shek played nice as long as he could.

If you want the nationalists to win, you have at least free Kai-sheks son from Stalin´s hospitality and bring him into the US or GB, because this 2 governments are anti communist, and would press Kai-Shek to attack Mao early on.
Or better remove the whole Kai-Shek Clan from power and install someone else. Because even if Kai-shek decides to fight, his family is his other weakness and they were corrupt to the bone. A lot of money and stuff for the army just "vanished", it was partly doing more harm than the thin supply lines to the allys

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

B) In a Late Victorian London a mathematician with a talent for making clockwork has built a functional Difference Engine . The technology seems to be perfectly period appropriate. But a clockwork computer could have been made as early as the mid 18th century, earlier if you could get the right quality of metal. The real issues were in the concept itself.

The problem is "Who is this inventor?" and also "Is he or his machine part of a plot?"

Charles Babbage designed the Difference Engine in the 1820s. The reasons it was never completed were funding and organisation, not missing concepts.

If someone has built a working Analytical Engine, that's more impressive, but it only requires the ability to sort out the differences in Babbage's various stages of designs, create a complete design and then fund and run a complex and expensive engineering project. The actual plot is "Did the chap think of doing this by himself, or is someone manipulating and funding him?"