Conspiracy Theories

[Anthony]

The thing to remember about conspiracy theorists is that, to really be considered a conspiracy theorist, it's not enough to believe in a conspiracy -- rather, the person should have an objectively unreasonable belief in a conspiracy, and the fact that there's something weird going on with tech makes a lot of theories less unreasonable than they otherwise would be. A common marker is someone who believes in multiple contradictory theories.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The thing to remember about conspiracy theorists is that, to really be considered a conspiracy theorist, it's not enough to believe in a conspiracy -- rather, the person should have an objectively unreasonable belief in a conspiracy, and the fact that there's something weird going on with tech makes a lot of theories less unreasonable than they otherwise would be. A common marker is someone who believes in multiple contradictory theories.

That depends on if it gets to the point where it would qualify as a Delusion in GURPS terms. A conspiracy theory is literally just a theory that there's some organized conspiracy behind something (or behind a coverup of it), and for it to be considered unreasonable often only requires it to be counter to the official story (at least so long as the bulk of the media supports said official story, which in turn will typically result in the bulk of the populace similarly agreeing with it). Someone who is obviously bonkers may have some difficulty being enough of a political opponent to matter (although this isn't necessarily the case).

Of course, what would be funny is if the Enemy's theory is actually correct, but they've misidentified the PC as being a part of it. Or, alternatively, the targeted PC is a part of whatever's happening, but the Enemy's theory about what's actually going on is far from the mark.

[Chris Goodwin]

Bill, do you have GURPS Illuminati? That can prove helpful. The Pyramid Magazine volume 2 collection has a lot of conspiracy theory related material in it as well. Using the Illuminati or INWO card games to generate conspiracies might work. (Deal out random cards and set them into power structures? Tarot readings using Illuminati cards?)

If all else fails, there's the Fnorder.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Chris Goodwin

Bill, do you have GURPS Illuminati? That can prove helpful. The Pyramid Magazine volume 2 collection has a lot of conspiracy theory related material in it as well. Using the Illuminati or INWO card games to generate conspiracies might work. (Deal out random cards and set them into power structures? Tarot readings using Illuminati cards?)

If all else fails, there's the Fnorder.

Thanks for the suggestion. However, I'm particularly looking for invented conspiracy theories that don't exist now, but that might be imagined as having come into existence in a setting where the world is sliding toward a technological abyss. I don't think the Illuminatus! material is primarily aimed to facilitate that; at least, the card game didn't seem to.

[jason taylor]

Every single conspiracy theory has just enough truth to it to get people to believe it but no one knows about the real one...

Transdimensional Aliens are experimenting on humans. They regularly release conspiracy theories to see what happens.

Or is the real conspiracy someone manipulating the Transdimensional Aliens...?

Or someone manipulating the manipulators...?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Every single conspiracy theory has just enough truth to it to get people to believe it but no one knows about the real one...

Transdimensional Aliens are experimenting on humans. They regularly release conspiracy theories to see what happens.

Or is the real conspiracy someone manipulating the Transdimensional Aliens...?

Or someone manipulating the manipulators...?

That's rather like the Asimov story where jokes were introduced into human life by alien experimenters. And once this is discovered, the aliens no longer find jokes useful and they stop being funny.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's rather like the Asimov story where jokes were introduced into human life by alien experimenters. And once this is discovered, the aliens no longer find jokes useful and they stop being funny.

Asimov had another one where Earth is a petri dish for alien experiments and now they are nudging things towards nuclear war to sterilize it for the next experiment. And using mind rays to induce suicide in anyone who realizes this or works on the force field technology that could stop nuclear war.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The sunspots theory might be plausible ... On the other hand, I'm not seeing the conspiracy element. Any thoughts?

Well, the sunspots thing is the sticky, easy to accept part of the theory. The part that gets people into the bubble. Then you construct the rest like:
1) Why is technology failing? Sunspots.
2) Why do sunspots cause technology to fail? XYZ.
3) Well if this is so obvious to me, why doesn't anyone else know about it? The government doesn't want people to know about it.

And from there you can loop it into basically anything. Here are some examples.
-> The government is controlled by corporations who are going to make a far more expensive solution than wrapping them in tinfoil.
-> The government can't stop it and they're concealing the evidence so they can remain in charge as society collapses.
-> Aliens control the government and they're doing it to prepare for colonization.
-> This is the apocalypse, the government is controlled by the anti-Christ and is doing this to conceal the existence of God.
-> A ring of adrenochrone harvesters that control government did this to destroy evidence of their operations and things are getting out of hand.
-> The mechanism that all technology runs on is actually fake and powered by the souls of aborted babies, and the aborted baby soul supply chain has been disrupted so now things are falling apart.
-> King Charles has decided he wants the British Empire to rule publicly again, and that was easier in the age of sail, so he's directing his agents to let the sunspots destroy everything.
-> The sunspots destroying everything is actually a good thing, and will disrupt the operations of some vaster, more invisible conspiracy, so we shouldn't do anything.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Well, the sunspots thing is the sticky, easy to accept part of the theory. The part that gets people into the bubble. Then you construct the rest like:
1) Why is technology failing? Sunspots.
2) Why do sunspots cause technology to fail? XYZ.
3) Well if this is so obvious to me, why doesn't anyone else know about it? The government doesn't want people to know about it.

And from there you can loop it into basically anything. Here are some examples.
-> The government is controlled by corporations who are going to make a far more expensive solution than wrapping them in tinfoil.
-> The government can't stop it and they're concealing the evidence so they can remain in charge as society collapses.
-> Aliens control the government and they're doing it to prepare for colonization.
-> This is the apocalypse, the government is controlled by the anti-Christ and is doing this to conceal the existence of God.
-> A ring of adrenochrone harvesters that control government did this to destroy evidence of their operations and things are getting out of hand.
-> The mechanism that all technology runs on is actually fake and powered by the souls of aborted babies, and the aborted baby soul supply chain has been disrupted so now things are falling apart.
-> King Charles has decided he wants the British Empire to rule publicly again, and that was easier in the age of sail, so he's directing his agents to let the sunspots destroy everything.
-> The sunspots destroying everything is actually a good thing, and will disrupt the operations of some vaster, more invisible conspiracy, so we shouldn't do anything.

So basically the mysterious conspiracy is that the government is either evil or incompetent?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'm preparing to start a new campaign, in a style that I think of as slow apocalyptic: It's set in a world where technology has been ceasing to function, not precipitously but gradually, month by month.

Have you decided yet why this is actually happening? If so, the conspiracy theory can surely be created by carefully misinterpreting part of the real cause.