New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

It's not an objection. I just think it's funny. If you must know it sounds like an extreme example of Can't Argue With Elves.

The Aliens are simply a Deus ex Machina to get all Humanity off the Earth and create a network of Earth like worlds to explore on foot.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The Aliens are simply a Deus ex Machina to get all Humanity off the Earth and create a network of Earth like worlds to explore on foot.

I suppose thought of in that way it is the same principle as 1632.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The Aliens are simply a Deus ex Machina to get all Humanity off the Earth and create a network of Earth like worlds to explore on foot.

One thing that bothers me about all sorts of settings of this general type is one of scale. Getting all humanity off Earth, or even founding colonies, sending military expeditions or just having enough trade to actually matter very much, requires lots of big gates (or starships or conveyors or whatever). Handing one key to the President is not going to cover it, you are going to need to hand out millions of them, and can probably forget about keeping that under any kind of coherent control.

Not that lots and lots of independent actors with lots of divergent goals is a bad thing in an adventure setting, and you've already largely built that into the setting. I think the only fix you need is that this group isn't picked because they have THE passkey, there were lots of them, but the aliens are only reactivating this particular one. Maybe this is the most advanced or populous world, or the one they think has the best shot at forming that organization they want for some other reason. Maybe they just like the way founder effect and slight divergences have flavored human blood there and want to spread those genes to other worlds before closing the paths again. Doesn't matter really.

Edit: Indeed if the aliens are just the Deus Ex Machina setup, it may be better not to involve them at all in the methods and motivations of the re-contact process. You may still need them as a sufficiently powerful driver to justify pushing *everybody* off Earth, but the re-contact could just be "our world as discovered how to punch into the subspace tunnel net they closed off and abandoned and is curious about everybody else". The Gods don't actually need to be still on-stage actors.

[Astromancer]

The elders say our ancestors came from places called America, England, Ireland, France, Japan, and many other lands. These lands had a strange kind of horizon you couldn't see beyond. Things went BELOW the horizon! The Americans say they were brought here after a war were the South tried to leave their nation, South was a direction but what kind of direction it was eludes me. The Japanese say they came here after the Shogun took all the swords away from the peasants and any guns from any one. The Chinese say the Ming were being crushed by the Manchus. Many can't say when their ancestors came.

Now strange news comes. Men from beyond the skies. People like us. Or are they?

We must know if they are people like us.

Basically, humans, and possibly others, were brought from the Earth to a Ringworld. Rumors have come through the trade routes that new humans have come from "beyond the Skies."

The PCs come from a Tech Level Four society (although they might have traded for relic tech) and they are searching for the "New People."

Note: The New People could be space explorers who got to the Ringworld by themselves or a new batch of abductees.

[dataweaver]

Consider combining this with Janissaries.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Consider combining this with Janissaries.

I don't know that story. But combine away. I think I came up with a simple flexible frame that can be taken in dozens of ways.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I don't know that story. But combine away. I think I came up with a simple flexible frame that can be taken in dozens of ways.

I don't want to spoil it; but it deals with humans being transplanted from Earth to an alien world on a periodic basis, resulting in a world not unlike the one you're describing, culturally. The reason I'm suggesting it is that it gives a justification as to why this happens, and why the alien world is still in the equivalent of the middle ages despite the transplants having been going on for thousands of years.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

I don't want to spoil it; but it deals with humans being transplanted from Earth to an alien world on a periodic basis, resulting in a world not unlike the one you're describing, culturally. The reason I'm suggesting it is that it gives a justification as to why this happens, and why the alien world is still in the equivalent of the middle ages despite the transplants having been going on for thousands of years.

The real question on Earth is why did the West have its bizarre and unprecedented technological and scientific breakthroughs. As these people are living on a ringworld
Ala Larry Niven many needed resources are scarce.

Besides, Medieval Technology is TL3. These folks are more like 1700AD. They haven't had the resources to get to industrialization.

As for the rest, I was criticized for opposite sin before.

[dataweaver]

Let's just say that janissaries posits a… different explanation.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Let's just say that janissaries posits a… different explanation.

Oh! The Janissaries theme suggests that those that took humans and other beings to the Ringworld we're breeding them for warriors. If one assumes that they aliens or whatever are taking their time and letting each group of sophant beings provide an evolutionary challenge to the others, the setting stays pretty much the same.

But it's a cool logic.