New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

"If you could read my Mind..."

Douglas Adams once described something like our problem in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books. He called telepathy a social disease. The people inflicted with telepathy ended up talking to keep themselves from thinking. Our horror is the simple problem that the phrase "stray thought" is no longer a metaphor. And like stray dogs, stray thoughts can be rabid.

The Plague Wars left strange scars. One bizarre leftover of a virus meant to rewire brains was the discovery that PSI powers were real, and something of how they worked. The price of that discovery was the horror of uncontrolled psionic powers being loosed on society.

Long buried fears and hates given force and substance by psionic powers stalk the cities like werewolves.

More later I must go.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Long buried fears and hates given force and substance by psionic powers stalk the cities like werewolves.

Okay, this is cool: the idea that random monsters with traits that only make sense in stories are conjured up out of the human mind is one I really like. Especially if it means you need to not only "kill" the monster but sort out whatever mental problem is causing it.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

"If you could read my Mind..."

Douglas Adams once described something like our problem in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books. He called telepathy a social disease. The people inflicted with telepathy ended up talking to keep themselves from thinking. Our horror is the simple problem that the phrase "stray thought" is no longer a metaphor. And like stray dogs, stray thoughts can be rabid.

The Plague Wars left strange scars. One bizarre leftover of a virus meant to rewire brains was the discovery that PSI powers were real, and something of how they worked. The price of that discovery was the horror of uncontrolled psionic powers being loosed on society.

Long buried fears and hates given force and substance by psionic powers stalk the cities like werewolves.

More later I must go.

It's later.

One psychological theory I'm using in this setting is that as we live our lives we find memories, desires, and other aspects of ourselves, that don't fit with who we see ourselves as being. This is often unconscious. These parts of ourselves are suppressed, you might say walled off. One psychologist described these personality shards as "dead children haunting our minds." Multiple personality disorder, or more properly Dissociative Disorder is when these personality shards fight the main personality for control.

But Dissociative Disorder is vanishingly rare because most of these personality shards are so weak and minimal. But in this setting telepathy allows similar personality shards from different people to come together and form a strong personality. These disembodied personalities then seek vulnerable people in order to express themselves and fulfill their needs and desires.

These desires change according to the life experience that generated the personality shard in question. A personality shard generated out of infantile range might simply lash out in mindless violence. Erotic desires long repressed and ignored can turn random people into stalkers of differing levels of threat. The most terrifying personality shards are those shards that became the bougie man in their original personality's dreams and nightmares. Just because the main personality has resolved their difficulties and no longer needs the bougie man personality shard doesn't mean that that bougie man personality shard doesn't need to terrify or kill.

These outgrown bougies hunt the streets.

More later.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

"If you could read my Mind..."

Douglas Adams once described something like our problem in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books. He called telepathy a social disease. The people inflicted with telepathy ended up talking to keep themselves from thinking. Our horror is the simple problem that the phrase "stray thought" is no longer a metaphor. And like stray dogs, stray thoughts can be rabid.

One particularly disturbing type of personality shard involves shutting away feelings and selves that we can't be anymore. Shutting away the passion of a failed romance, shutting away a dream that can never be lived, or shutting away old sorrows that can never be resolved. These personality shards become ghostlike entities that seek out a chance to live their unfulfilled dreams and passions.

It can be a like the poem "Across the fields of yesterday day /They sometimes come to me/ A little child just back from play/ The child I used to be." Sometimes that child can't accept what they see.

[Astromancer]

A Fleet of Worlds

Is this, saith one, the Nation that we read
Spent with both wars, under a Captain dead?
Yet rig a Navy while we dress us late;
And ere we Dine, raise and rebuild their State.
What Oaken Forrests, and what golden Mines!
What Mints of Men, what Union of Designs!...
Theirs are not Ships, but rather Arks of War,
And beaked Promontories sail'd from far;
Of floating Islands a new Hatched Nest;
A Fleet of Worlds, of other worlds in quest...
That through the Center shoot their thundering side
And sink the Earth that does at Anchor ride.


What did you say these aliens are?

They aren't aliens. They're Earth humans from an alternate history. The divergence seemed to be after WWII. Stalin died early but the Space Race still happened and lasted far longer.


But what do they want with us.

To prevent the ecological collapse that exiled them from their world and to prevent the mass die off of non-Western cultures. They mean to take over the planet. They are taking all Westerners into space and turning the Earth into a wildlife preserve.

What about the people from non-Western cultures?

They see them as endangered wildlife.

Andrew Marvell's 1654 poem praises the Dutch for their triumphant survival. But it also underscores the Dutch threat to Britain. The humans of the alternate Earth have survived a brutal catastrophe. But their determination to prevent the same catastrophe on other Earths makes them dangerous
foes.

Basically, the Earth has been invaded by people who want to make us be virtuous on their terms.

More later I must go.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Andrew Marvell's 1654 poem praises the Dutch for their triumphant survival. But it also underscores the Dutch threat to Britain. The humans of the alternate Earth have survived a brutal catastrophe. But their determination to prevent the same catastrophe on other Earths makes them dangerous
foes.

Basically, the Earth has been invaded by people who want to make us be virtuous on their terms.

More later I must go.

Vague similarities to Zelazny's "This Immortal" (aka "And Call me Conrad") and Walter Jon Williams's homage to it, "Knight Moves."

In TI Earth's continents were devastated in WWIII and most survivors were rescued and taken to Vega by the blue humanoids from there. A couple of centuries later, most humans live on Vegan worlds, but govern Earth remotely. Most of civilized humans still on Earth live on islands, and aren't real keen on being governed by people who never been there, and want them to come back and rebuild Earth.

In KM the protagonist invented zero-point energy reactors, and used the money he made from it to research rejuvenation. But rejuvenation is only available if you sign over all your Earth real estate and agree to emigrate. So Earth is mostly empty. Some won't go for it, of course.

[Astromancer]

Dandelions through the Pavement

We are building our land here. That's part of what terraforming means. We chose to build our land over here away from the rest of you. We want to live in peace. Why does that upset you. You always called us warmongers.

You were always far away from others. It let you go your own way without others having any say in your lives. We need to take that freedom from you in order to feel safe.

You want to make us the victim of war threats and other violence to secure the peace?

This world, Maia, is one of the first extrasolar planets to be terraformed. It was a vastly better candidate for terraforming than Mars ever was. At present people can't breathe the atmosphere. On the other hand, there are oceans. The atmospheric pressure is higher than Earth's (level on Maia is like being on the shores of the Dead Sea). Cyanobacteria is rapidly oxygenating the atmosphere. But rapid is a relative term.

Several human communities live on Maia. There is a basic divide between those who nations got them to Maia from Earth on their own ships, and those that came on other nation's ships. A division between rich democracies and poor autocracies.

This scenario is like GURPS: Alpha Centauri but different. The cultures aren't pure. Each society is complex and has multiple impulses and incompatible goals within their cultures as well as between them. Also, although contact with Earth is limited, Maia isn't isolated. Actions on Maia will be judged on Earth. All the players are aware of the outside audience.

Assume the same technology as Transhuman Space only with FTL drives. This is simply a time-saver. If you want another technological background, go for it.

This is mainly a game of diplomacy and social maneuver. However, acts of violence, made to look like accidents, are a real threat. The PCs will need to derail such attacks without causing scandal back on Earth.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Dandelions through the Pavement

We are building our land here. That's part of what terraforming means. We chose to build our land over here away from the rest of you. We want to live in peace. Why does that upset you. You always called us warmongers.

You were always far away from others. It let you go your own way without others having any say in your lives. We need to take that freedom from you in order to feel safe.

You want to make us the victim of war threats and other violence to secure the peace?

This world, Maia, is one of the first extrasolar planets to be terraformed. It was a vastly better candidate for terraforming than Mars ever was. At present people can't breathe the atmosphere. On the other hand, there are oceans. The atmospheric pressure is higher than Earth's (level on Maia is like being on the shores of the Dead Sea). Cyanobacteria is rapidly oxygenating the atmosphere. But rapid is a relative term.

Several human communities live on Maia. There is a basic divide between those who nations got them to Maia from Earth on their own ships, and those that came on other nation's ships. A division between rich democracies and poor autocracies.

This scenario is like GURPS: Alpha Centauri but different. The cultures aren't pure. Each society is complex and has multiple impulses and incompatible goals within their cultures as well as between them. Also, although contact with Earth is limited, Maia isn't isolated. Actions on Maia will be judged on Earth. All the players are aware of the outside audience.

Assume the same technology as Transhuman Space only with FTL drives. This is simply a time-saver. If you want another technological background, go for it.

This is mainly a game of diplomacy and social maneuver. However, acts of violence, made to look like accidents, are a real threat. The PCs will need to derail such attacks without causing scandal back on Earth.

Recently several western nations have sent large groups of colonists relative to the planetary population. As written the planet had a population of around 100 thousand people. This population is more or less evenly divided between the two major factions, The new settlers will equal about eighty percent of the previous population, Thus making the Non Western alliance a minority of less than a third of the population.

To add to the NonWestern alliance's woes, cramped quarters for most of their workers (housing is a lower priority), and restrictive treatment of young women has constricted the birthrate. Meanwhile the Western alliance has slow steady population growth.

[Astromancer]

All the King's Horses and all the King's Men

What I don't get is why when we bring in railroads,
fusion power plants, schools, running water, hospitals, and prosperity generally they don't seem to understand how to act. These people are Americans like us. They are part of the world that created these things.

No, their ancestors were part of that world. These people have been ruled either by bandit chieftains or theocrats for generations.


The Plague Wars were hell. But some groups held on to science and technology, and more importantly democracy and civil liberty. In America these survivor communities banded together to revive civilization. It turned out to easier said than done.

During the second Dark Age new power elites rose up. These new elites haven't formed a functional aristocracy yet but they certainly don't want democracy. High tech, well yes, and the wealth to maintain armies. Every little bandit wants to be King of America. Every theocrat wants to be the High Priest of Earth.

These elites see the new cities and they are torn between greed and disgust. The new cities meant to revive civilization in America are democratic and egalitarian! Neither theocrats nor chieftains can tolerate such things.

Meanwhile, the people are divided. The young, especially women and the poor, flock to the cities seeking better lives. This hollows out villages and distorts hierarchies. If all the poor go to the cities, who will do the labor on the chief's land? If all the young women flee to the towns, were will the children come from? One can't be a patriarch if you have neither wives nor children.

Basically, this is a complex multilayered struggle. You have a feudal society (mainly TL4 and some TL5) competing with an egalitarian social democratic society (TL9, but with certain restrictions on technology because of resource issues). Neither society is well situated to just attack the other, but conflict is growing.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Basically, this is a complex multilayered struggle. You have a feudal society (mainly TL4 and some TL5) competing with an egalitarian social democratic society (TL9, but with certain restrictions on technology because of resource issues). Neither society is well situated to just attack the other, but conflict is growing.

TL 4 societies can't compete with TL 9 settings. This is another curbstomp setting. It isn't even particularly likely that the cities that managed to retain their population and technology would be egalitarian social democrats because the most likely approach to preserving them intact would involve some pretty tight restrictions.