New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

The Pit and the Martians

Having watched Quatermass and the Pit (aka Five Million Years to Earth) it occurred to me, London doesn't really have that much of an occult reputation. How many of those ships are under Paris? Prague? Egypt?

A group travelling the modern world hunting down the Martians ships could make a wild campaign on present day or near future Earth.

Have the group watch the movie. Call it a security briefing.

[ronwit]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Due to the legal precedents of the Galactic Federation they needed a spacefaring nation to join the Federation. The American Moonbase was qualification enough.

This reminds me of King David's Spaceship by Jerry Pournelle. A lost human colony gets rediscovered by the Empire of Man. The locals discover that spacefaring worlds get to join. Those who aren't get colonized. They spend the rest of the book trying to learn how to build a spaceship using at best a mid-nineteenth century tech base. And do it without the Imperials, who have everything up to orbital surveillance, finding out.

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by ronwit

This reminds me of King David's Spaceship by Jerry Pournelle. A lost human colony gets rediscovered by the Empire of Man. The locals discover that spacefaring worlds get to join. Those who aren't get colonized. They spend the rest of the book trying to learn how to build a spaceship using at best a mid-nineteenth century tech base. And do it without the Imperials, who have everything up to orbital surveillance, finding out.

Great book. Of course, they were able to get a ship into orbit without being able to get it down again. But it counted.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by ronwit

This reminds me of King David's Spaceship by Jerry Pournelle. A lost human colony gets rediscovered by the Empire of Man. The locals discover that spacefaring worlds get to join. Those who aren't get colonized. They spend the rest of the book trying to learn how to build a spaceship using at best a mid-nineteenth century tech base. And do it without the Imperials, who have everything up to orbital surveillance, finding out.

That's one of those books of mine that my sister loaned to a friend and I never saw again.

Still, the basic idea of that book would make an epic campaign.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

The People have suffered for cycles untold. The impiety of the ancestors brought down the wrath of the most high. The form of his curse was the Tal'qolt, The Tal'qolt are children of the rebel gods, they have received gifts of shadow and silence from their obscene deities. The Tal'qolt walk unseen and slaughter our people by the million.

We had little faith in the capacities of the Earth Folk. They come from a primitive backwater world that barely has interplanetary space flight. When we saw the Earthfolk burning with light, we started preparing their funeral dirges.

But they routed armies of the Tal'qolt fifty times their number!

One of the Earthfolk sought me out and ask me questions, "I thought you said these Tal'qolt were invisable."

I told him they were masters of camoflage,

"But they're hot pink!"

In this setting humans are the only species that see what we call Visible Light. All other forms of Intelligent life see in the Infrared. Humans alone have the concept of color. This gives humans a super power.

This works well with the

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The New Kids

setting. Your very present day Marines in an alien setting.

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

That's one of those books of mine that my sister loaned to a friend and I never saw again.

You can download the Analog magazines (1971 Dec - 1972 Feb) that it was serialized in from http://www.luminist.org/archives/SF/AN.htm . I suspect that this is a slightly different version than appeared in the paperback.

[David Johnston2]

Humans are Space Orcs: Based on the ongoing web fiction genre...humans got out out into space and discovered that the aliens were weirdly...feeble. Humans were from a relatively high gravity world. Typically intelligent creatures were from 0.4 to 0.7 gravities worlds. They were cold blooded and had slow metabolism (meaning they have a level of Slow Time Rate). Being stronger and faster did come with it's downsides notably that we ate about three times as much as any creature our weight. But all in all, as far as the galaxy was concerned...we were badass.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Humans are Space Orcs: Based on the ongoing web fiction genre...humans got out out into space and discovered that the aliens were weirdly...feeble. Humans were from a relatively high gravity world. Typically intelligent creatures were from 0.4 to 0.7 gravities worlds. They were cold blooded and had slow metabolism (meaning they have a level of Slow Time Rate). Being stronger and faster did come with it's downsides notably that we ate about three times as much as any creature our weight. But all in all, as far as the galaxy was concerned...we were badass.

See also Alan Dean Foster's The Damned trilogy from the '90s.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Humans are Space Orcs: Based on the ongoing web fiction genre...humans got out out into space and discovered that the aliens were weirdly...feeble. Humans were from a relatively high gravity world. Typically intelligent creatures were from 0.4 to 0.7 gravities worlds. They were cold blooded and had slow metabolism (meaning they have a level of Slow Time Rate). Being stronger and faster did come with it's downsides notably that we ate about three times as much as any creature our weight. But all in all, as far as the galaxy was concerned...we were badass.

You caught me. I forgot to cite "Humans are Space Orcs" when I wrote that one down. However, although you've come up with a good setting idea, the series itself has no overarching setting. Neither "Humans Are Space Orcs" nor Humans are Space Elves" it's sister series is supposed to be a unitary setting. Can't wait to se what they do with "Humans are Space Hobbits."

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

See also Alan Dean Foster's The Damned trilogy from the '90s.

David Weber's _Out of the Night_ had almost all intelligent races being extremely peaceful herbivores. They studied Earth, and our violence repulsed them. So they gave us to the one carnivorous race in hopes that they would have enough problems with us that they'd learn to be more peaceful.

I wish he'd taken the book seriously, but he finished it with a Deus ex Vampire, and then implied we'd rule the galaxy (partially in revenge for what the peaceful races tried to do to humanity).

Space Orcs, indeed.