New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

India would be a center of growth, if slow growth. The Russian lands would be interesting. Multiple repressed ethnicities would be fighting to finally get free of Russia. There are groups in what is now the Russian Federation which Stalin treated with caution. Some of these groups might try to build their own empires. Being deep in the Eurasian landmass, it would be unlikely that either the Europeans or Americans would care about them. But as these revolts would be on the trade routes by which Afghani opium gets to market, organized crime would care a great deal.

If the Left stays inward focused, they'd be irrelevant in this world. But if the Left becomes truly internationalist again, you could have loads of struggle and fight.

[Astromancer]

Trouble back Home

Billy, my husband, saw it on the news first. The Hypercane they called it. A twenty mile high hurricane that sprinkled microdroplets of salt water through the ozone layer. Destroying the ozone layer in a couple of weeks. That's when we decided to get married. As we're both guys we need the use of an exowomb to have kids. We both think we are the only members of our families left.

Space colonization went like gangbusters. Cooperation on global warming, not so much. Quantum computing unlocked the problem of fusion power, but not the problem of making fusors cheap enough for the developing world. America was told to pay. The USA said the other nations should contribute according to their ability to pay. Most nations, including many that wasted large amounts of money on militaries that couldn't fight anyone but their own people and other slack jawed prestige projects like nuclear weapons, proclaimed their poverty and America's culpability. America declined to be bled to death.

As the kind of silica that the key microchips were made of was found only in North Carolina and the asteroids, American intransigence couldn't be by passed.

Meanwhile, America leaped into a whole new level of technology taking the West with them. Cities on the moon and Mars soon rose. Vast blimps in the upper atmosphere of Venus had human settlements. Space colonies clustered around the Earth and the asteroid belt. As quantum computing solved the key issues in dozens of areas of physics a type of reactionless drive was created. It seemed to defy Newtonian physics, but that was an illusion.

The solar system is a busy vital frontier. Meanwhile, back on Earth, the environment is beginning to collapse. Panic and fury are closing off any hope of stopping the disaster. The USA and its trade partners have been zero Carbon for decades. Heck the West sequestered megatons carbon. But the rest of the world was burning lignite (low value extra dirty coal) to keep the lights on.

Basically, this is a Noir setting, less cyberpunk, and more just plain punk and misery. Most people living off planet have a very high standard of living by historic standards. The problem will be refugees. Sure, given time, billions could be accommodated. No one knows if time will be given. Or how much.

If the PCs are on Earth, they're trying anything to get off planet. If the PCs are off planet, they'll do anything to stay there.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Trouble back Home

An interesting varient campaign in this setting might have the people of an evacuated island with a population like that of a midsized American town get brought up as a social experiment to see if such cultural groups could adapt during the emergency. Basically, whether or not their cultures would survive.

The PCs would be ordinary people with skill not really suitable to their new setting. The game would be about adapting both as individuals and a group.

[Astromancer]

The Ship that Fell from the Sky

We had been told by the elders that our people came from the stars. Our ancestors travelled in a great skyship as large as a mountain.

We thought that only a story until the skyship flew over. We think they landed on the narrow land between the two seas. We have been sent to find them and learn if they are friend or foe

This is a Golden Age Sci Fi setting. The planet the ancestors of the PCs crashed on was recovering from an ancient nuclear war. The local lifeforms, including the intelligent ones, were suffering from genetic damage. So the Earth lifeforms released by the castaways spread like wildfire. But instead of wiping out the native lifeforms, the Earth lifeforms provided an improved environment for the native lifeforms to recover. This caused dramatic changes in both the original native lifeforms and the Earth lifeforms that had gone wild on the new world.

The PCs are descended from the castaways. In most ways they are ordinary humans however, since coming to this planet, many of the local humans have developed PSI powers. (Nothing on the Marvel Comics level, low power but useful stuff). Other than the exotic environment and the Psi powers the local humans live at about TL4. The tech level, numbers, social organization, and intentions of the native peoples of this planet are unknown to the human communities.

Basically, the PCs are being sent out to find the new ship that recently landed. This setting combines tropes from the Planetary Romance and Post-apocalyptic subgenres. What the PCs find when they get up on the peninsula the locals call "The Narrow Land" is something the GM will have to decide for themselves. As written, it's a colonization mission being aided by the fleet. Represent the fleet with satires of your favorite Star Trek crew.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

This is a Golden Age Sci Fi setting. The planet the ancestors of the PCs crashed on was recovering from an ancient nuclear war. The local lifeforms, including the intelligent ones,

You appear to have gotten cut off at this point.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

You appear to have gotten cut off at this point.

True, but I couldn't let the cake burn.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

"We killed Earth. We haven't found any habitable planets. Terraforming any will take generations, if it's even possible. For the long-haul we're stuck in minimal space. And we're still human. That's why we need you to put down the gun."

Humanity is stuck in cramped habitats in space on on hostile planets. One wrong move could kill a lot of people. PCs are "peace officers": part detective, part psychiatrist. They need to find out who's having a Bad Day and make sure nobody gets hurt because of it (even the person with the problem).

[Astromancer]

The Founders

Our basic problem is to write the fundamental law of our society. What makes this brutally hard is that our society is made up of extreme outlier groups from a fractious society.

We have a group founded by secular wannabe Brahmins who are fixated on prestige for themselves and ultra refined requirements for purity for everyone else.

Anarchio libertarian capitalists demanding total freedom plus inviolate property rights.

Several religiously based monarchies that can't tolerate each other.

And several sane and rational democracies that want nothing to do with any of the others.

And a central authority demanding unity.

GURPS Alpha Centauri was about several different cultural groups clashing in violent struggle. This set up is similar except that an outside power is requiring peace and unity. This is a game of political and social struggle.

Basically, the PCs are political operatives and espionage agents rolled into one. They are on a settled extrasolar planet ready for greater autonomy. The struggle is to manipulate the local planetary constitutional convention to favor your factions ideals and goals. Missions can vary from stealing documents to sabotaging formal dinners. You want to strengthen your side and weaken everybody else's.

[Astromancer]

Spring Storms

The very fact he called himself Doctor Chiller, made him seem totally ridiculous. Then he killed the city of Oslo by burying it in ice. I never heard of any survivors.

A dozen champions fought him. They all died. And the few witnesses say he brought the ice as he lay dying.

That was back in 1938. Only now is his icy grip fading.

This is a superhero setting set in the year 2050. This 2050 is from a world that was like the Superhero comic books of the 1940s. The big difference is that a powerful supervillain won a pyrrhic victory, or maybe the heroes won the pyrrhic victory. Either way the world has been in an artificial ice age since 1938. That ice age is now beginning to fade.

In 1938 a group of heroes roughly equivalent to Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman (the 1941 altered human version), Starman, Hawkman, Hawkwoman, Dr. Fate, Mary Marvel, Bullet Man, Bullet Woman, Plastic Man, Uncle Sam, the Ray, Phantom Lady, Wildfire (the 1940s heroine), and Captain America, formed an alliance to save the USA, or what was left of it. They also brought together the many strange technologies they had to restore society.

Helping this group was the odd fact that the new colder world made the American southwest and Northern Mexico rainier and cooler. Which favored agriculture. The US and Mexico became partners in rebuilding civilization in North America.

A different group of heroes ( pick who you like from British comics, they had superheroes too) led the survivors from the British Isles (except for the Irish who went to California) to Australia. Like California Australia is wetter in this world. Powerful enchantments enriched the soils of Australia and new farms fed the people.

The French went to their North African colonies which were also cooler and rainier. They allowed the Spanish, Italians, Danes, Swedes, Finn's, and Norse to join them.

Hitler, believing that the Germans would thrive in the cold, prevented any migration until far to late. Most other Europeans didn't have a chance.

The Asian peoples took a brutal hit if they lived in the Islamic lands or East Asia. Small remnants survived. Southern Japan having a Canadian climate and a larger remnant population. India and Southeast Asia were reduced to deserts when the monsoon stopped. Mass starvation destroyed all but the far South and Sri Lanka. The remnants of the Dutch and British militaries struck to hold power. The British and Dutch royal families intermarried and the empires merged.

Latin America and SubSaharan Africa were largely untouched. Although the Caribbean now has a cool temperate climate north of Trinidad.

Florida is the only area of the eastern US were agriculture is still possible. From the Texas border to Florida, the climate resembles Labrador. Southern Florida is more like coastal Maine or New Brunswick.

Worldwide the sea level is about twenty feet lower. Snowfields didn't get the chance to become ice sheets.

The Tech Level is odd here. From a GURPS point of view it's all over the place. Just think about how 1940s comic books envisioned the future. For the purposes of a game let's say the tech level is TL6+2^ in most of the world. California and eastern Australia have an emerging TL6+3^. Many poorer areas are at TL6+1^.

More later.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Spring Storms

The very fact he called himself Doctor Chiller, made him seem totally ridiculous. Then he killed the city of Oslo by burying it in ice. I never heard of any survivors.

A dozen champions fought him. They all died. And the few witnesses say he brought the ice as he lay dying.

That was back in 1938. Only now is his icy grip fading.

The US is a Democratic Socialist state in this setting. Jim Crow was broken up and generally ditched during the early stages of the crisis. As there were no organized groups to resist the change the grumbling was powerless. Similarly, because of the crisis the change in American law from capitalist to socialist met no organized resistance.

The US is prosperous and stable in the more settled areas. Although the edge of the habitable zone can have a wild west feel. As the ice slowly retreats this area will get larger and wilder.

Vancouver is the only area of Canada still habitable. During the early stages of the crisis they joined the US for survival. The Anglo-Dutch Imperium disputes that move. The people of Vancouver forcefully explain they are part of a democracy. And they say they plan to stay so.

Australia and Southeast Asia are the Anglo-Dutch Imperium. This is an aristocratic empire. The House of Commons has some power. However, the Monarch and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal hold most of the power. Non-whites rarely get the vote. Property qualifications, which are much higher on Non-whites, restrict White voter participation as well.

The Anglo-Dutch Imperium struggles for control of Africa with the French Republic and contests the Monroe Doctrine with the USA. Both the Anglo-Dutch Imperium and the French Republic see Latin America as a good source of colonies.

Japan is allied with America in this setting. They mean to preserve their independence.

More later.