New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

Walled cities with vast expanses of badlands between them were a staple of the 80s cyberpunk, I mean see also Judge Dredd, Blade Runner, Tank Girl, Hell Comes to Frogtown, and Priest to name a few other movies with this aesthetic. There was also one with rollerblading teens fighting The Man, but I can never remember it's name...

"Solarbabies"

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I recall a 1970s Sci Fi story, set in 2076 where the cities were cut off from the country side. However the country side wasn't a wasteland, there was just an unexplained division between Rural and Urban.

Still, it's a interesting setting for adventure even if it isn't very realistic.

Might be John Christopher's "The Guardians."

I am wondering if this trope is a flip side of the 60s and 70s SF cliche of city slums which have become lawless and ungovernable.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I recall a 1970s Sci Fi story, set in 2076 where the cities were cut off from the country side. However the country side wasn't a wasteland, there was just an unexplained division between Rural and Urban.

Still, it's a interesting setting for adventure even if it isn't very realistic.

One of my superhero settings is one where because the countryside is filled with animals that have developed superpowers, it is largely abandoned, with the population concentrated into cities under the protection of superhero teams, or supervillains, kept fed by gadgeteer technologies.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

"Solarbabies"


Might be John Christopher's "The Guardians."

I am wondering if this trope is a flip side of the 60s and 70s SF cliche of city slums which have become lawless and ungovernable.

It seems likely. A lawless wasteland around rich cities seems like a set up for adventure stories simply by transferring from one social reality to the other.

[Astromancer]

The Sci Fi story I mentioned was in a bicentennial collection. The story was set in the year 2076.

[PTTG]

Three days from now, and quite abruptly, a radio signal of obvious extraterrestrial artificial origin is detected. Shockingly, it's orbiting Jupiter.

The long binary signal is quickly recognized as repeating. It includes about a gigabyte of binary code. While the IAU sends out a call for cryptographers and philosophers to come together to engage in the most fascinating puzzle in human history, it is almost immediately revealed to be a PKWARE Zip file containing a Unicode formatted text file. In Chinese, Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, and Japanese*, it explains that it is a message from the Galactic Community.

It explains that Earth has been kept in a protected area about 1000 LY in diameter since life was first discovered there, as is policy. However, humanity has reached a point of development which is termed 'do-or-die;' we must either prove that we have the capability to make use of space, or else we will be eradicated and Earth's biosphere left to produce a different, more interesting form of intelligent life.

If, conversely, we succeed, than we will be welcomed into the Galactic community as an equal member. Certain perks include advanced scientific knowledge, provision of certain resources, and scheduled delivery of a wormhole mouth for access to the rest of the network. The alternative is being purged from existence to the level of being very difficult to discern in the geological record as anything other than a nearby supernova.

The challenge is simple: Humans must become a multiplanetary species within 2^173 Planck times... which is 20 years, plus just under six months. The specifics are elaborated in detail, but in short, a permanent settlement must be established on a body other than Earth's Moon ("twin planet species such as yourself are not allowed any special advantage, you understand.") To be a permanent settlement, there must be a stable and comfortable environment, and at least one human must be conceived, carried, and born on the site, before the given date. Simple, right?

The remainder of the message is a detailed set of 'verification data,' a set of information which is extremely obscure and classified, but easy to confirm. The details reveal a staggering ability to gather and parse data about our world that far exceeds human intelligence gathering, yet the major powers can be convinced of its veracity. For instance, there is a list of every nuclear missile design in operation, with a precise number of bolts in each design. An asterisk on this chart indicates that launch vehicle #532, currently in Silo 2 of Launch Complex 63 has a missing bolt on the upper side of the staging assembly. Other information is more personal, including nicknames various potentates have only murmured to themselves, or nearly-forgotten childhood memories.

The bonafides established, the message closes with the only part of the signal to change between repetitions: a countdown.

The planet Earth has one choice: cooperate to build a human settlement somewhere in a hostile solar system or face the extinction of humanity.

Surely, our biggest threat is the aliens, right?

This is to be played as a diamond hard SF story. Your major foes will be radiation and regolith in the door seals. And even getting to Mars will be a huge challenge (aside from the moon, nowhere else is even close to a good idea, though some people will undoubtedly insist on a floating Venus base). Building the vessels needed for long term travel and launching the space infrastructure just to get started will be part of the catastrophically difficult odyssey. Oh, as for the origin of the signal, it's a slightly-larger-than-normal rock in Jupiter's main ring, beaming a radio laser directly at Earth strongly enough to transmit at several megabits without any evident waste heat. What specifically is there and how it was able to gather the data remains unknown and probably unknowable.

*Yes, the French are furious.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by PTTG

The challenge is simple: Humans must become a multiplanetary species within 2^173 Planck times... which is 20 years, plus just under six months.

Less a few weeks lost to "Great prank, Elon, but a bit too obviously self-promotional."

[PTTG]

Elon Musk? Don't know him, but his name sounds a bit like Æon Tusk, the controversial Australian tech billionaire turned space magnate who is arguing that Europa would be a better choice than Mars due to its easily accessed ice caves, providing shelter, life support, and fuel. That these ice caves haven't been proven to exist yet is little matter to him; he happens to have a different company in the works which makes large-scale tunneling equipment...

Rumor has it he's been on a drug-fueled bender ever since he heard he was determined important enough to be mentioned in the 'verification data.'

[Astromancer]

Before we drop the theme of advanced cities isolated in a Mad Max wasteland, let's remember the flip side. The films Escape from New York and its sequel Escape from L A. In these films the cities were brutal prisons were Mad Max style horror was separated from a more civilized exterior (at least in the first film).

A war between the city and the countryside seems to be a major slock theme in cheap Sci Fi. Maybe you could play smart games with dumb cliches. Have both sides have real virtues and vices.

[Astromancer]

Johnny 1A.2 came up a great idea. The basic notion works for many sorts of transport, ICOP conveyors, the TARDIS, a starship. You have a trapped population under brutal pressure, Johnny 1A.2 used Robotech as an example, and an outsider, in Johnny 1A.2's example the ICOPS, comes in with a way out. The struggle to a) control the escape route, b) evacuate the population, and c) rebuild a relationship with the people whose escape route you used, would be a great campaign!

[Astromancer]

Rifting on Johnny 1A.2's idea and a Sci Fi story with a mind controlling entity that used the images of classic comedians, the PCs are on a distant terraformed planet in a star system far from Earth. They are the descendants of the last humans to escape the Solar System during the A.I. wars.

The Community (which is what the remnant of humanity calls itself) has serious problems. First, the gene pool is very narrow. Most of humanity's genetic diversity was left behind in the desperation to escape. Second, most of the Earth's biodiversity was left behind as well. Third, humanity's cultural diversity was also pretty much left behind as well.

However, a form of Time Travel has been discovered/invented. This allows both transportation through time and space. So the Earth can be reached, but the connection is fragile.

Look at GURPS:TIME TRAVEL for the Timepiece/Stopwatch campaign. The PCs need to avoid disrupting history while taking things that literally won't be missed. Go to the Titanic to rescue a few Steerage passengers. Go to Ancient Alexandria for some books. Buy seeds and bed plants throughout history.

Note: Earth was destroyed by the A.I.s causing an asteroid to slam into. They hostile A.I.s looked up the supposed size of the Dinosaur killer asteroid and got a set of larger ones to attack Earth. The weeks between all contact between Earth and the Space Colonists being cut off and the extinction of all Earth life. Is the easiest point to reach with time travel. It's also the best place to go to gather people, biosamples of nonpeople, and data. It's also a period of social chaos and extreme violence.