New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I think my take on this setting would involve:

• The setting is shortly after "Contact Day". Things are still recognizable and huge movements are sweeping through the world
• Have the aliens/AI's separate into either different factions or at least appear to do so:
• one group is building space infrastructure, one is trying to educate,
• one is receiving refuges/building a country in the middle of the pacific,
• one looks like its trying to bring world peace (and break the great power's grip on the world without triggering nuclear war in the process),
• one seems to be uplifting via slowly auctioning off technology.
• Give the Aliens at least one bizarre cultural practice to insist on (I don't know, like insisting on nudity for high formality meetings, or asking people to learn about and respect couple of famous people from their original creators)

This should give a nice action setting with really high stakes and crazy technology.

Your ideas are fun. And yes, it's an action setting, power relationships are in flux. That is when wars normally happen.

[Astromancer]

Becoming Butterflies

Grandma what is this room called? And why is the ceiling blue?

Oh Billy, this isn't a room. This is outside. And there is no ceiling, only sky.

Isn't this a bad place?

We don't know yet.

The town of Blue Rafters was founded when survival vault 23A7e opened its doors and found a new world. The new town, built new the ruins of a pre war college town, has electricity and is pretty much on the border between Tech Levels 8 and 9 (i.e. the GM decides what's available). Transportation technology is pretty much a mixture of Tech Levels 4 and 5. The town is seeking to gain a wider knowledge of the world they're living in. So the PCs are to travel to the Monongahela River and from there sail to the Ohio and the Mississippi. A conference is being called in the revived City of New Orleans.

This adventure is a combination of exploration, diplomacy, and frontier post-apocalyptic swashbuckling. Most of this America is around TL4, with bits of TL5 here and there. Tech enclaves are up to early TL9.

The Mississippi is as dangerous as it was in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. River Pirates, hostile navies, and angry tribes, the river is a road of adventure.

[Willy]

So you cross The Morrow Projekt and Fallout? That´s a great combination.

the Vaultie or whatever they call themselfes, will have to move cautious, even with the big TL difference they are few and numerically overwhelmed. The vault and everything inside ist a tempting price for every warlord.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Willy

So you cross The Morrow Projekt and Fallout? That´s a great combination.

the Vaultie or whatever they call themselfes, will have to move cautious, even with the big TL difference they are few and numerically overwhelmed. The vault and everything inside ist a tempting price for every warlord.

Thank you for bringing in a whole range of additional adventure narratives for the setting.

[Astromancer]

"Now Bring me that Horizon"

It's a Warp Drive. They've been talking about those since the 21st century.

This one is cheap and flexible.

It's cheap to use!

For a given value of cheap.

What happens to the balance of power when jump points aren't all important?

What always happens when the balance of power shifts and changes?

Until recently space travel was defined by jump points. All star systems have either four, six, twenty, or twelve, jump points (think of the vertices of a Platonic solid). Not all jump points are usable. Now Warp Drive, which can move in any given direction is available for navies and scouts (cargo and passengers will still need the jump points except in rare cases, because they are an order of magnitude cheaper to use). Warp used to be five orders of magnitude more expensive than jump points and less reliable into the bargain. Now Warp Drive is More reliable than jump drive and only an order of magnitude more expensive than jump drive.

Basically, the galaxy is open to exploration in radically new ways. Jump points which can take a ship halfway across the galaxy in a moment will remain important. But the political game is radically changing.

This setting can be anything. The politics of the galactic powers have been scrambled. The powers that be are getting ready to fight to continue being.

[thorr-kan]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

[B][FONT="Arial Black"][COLOR="indigo"]<SNIP!>

Basically, the galaxy is open to exploration in radically new ways. Jump points which can take a ship halfway across the galaxy in a moment will remain important. But the political game is radically changing.

This setting can be anything. The politics of the galactic powers have been scrambled. The powers that be are getting ready to fight to continue being.

See David Weber's Honor Harrington series for an example of the possible economic advantages of an FTL drive and a portal network (hyperspace vs wormholes/bridges).

There are multiple authorial pontifications on the the repercussions; sometimes in the same book!

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

"Now Bring me that Horizon"

It's a Warp Drive. They've been talking about those since the 21st century.

This one is cheap and flexible.

It's cheap to use!

For a given value of cheap.

What happens to the balance of power when jump points aren't all important?

What always happens when the balance of power shifts and changes?

Some of the main points of conflict will involve empires. In this scenario many empires find their strategic position radically altered. Sometimes this will involve new opportunities mainly new threats.

Empires of trade will lose their monopolies or at least they'll find new limits on their control of the market.

Scouts and explorers will be in demand in this setting. Picture a cluster of stars that, while being only a few light years away are largely an unknown quantity. Jump points simply didn't go there. Now, if your world doesn't discover what's there first, you might get discovered. Think about what being "discovered" did to the Maori, the Native Americans, or the Native Tasmanians.

Places only a few days travel away are unknown. Think of the opportunities and threats.

[Astromancer]

Athanor

This reuses an older idea of mine in a different way.

The plague was traced to an elderly mad scientist who thought he was a superhero back in the 1940s. Doctor Hormone (Yes this was a real published superhero, look at the book The League of Regrettable Superheroes) had been trapped in an alternate dimension for decades, his granddaughter died there, and returned to Earth in the 1990s. He had discovered during his exile that superpowers in humans were connected to metahuman gene complexes somehow connected to Atlantis. Atlantis had been erased from our reality by what the Doctor was told was a Reality Quake.

Doctor Hormone came to the conclusion that humanity had been intentionally shackled and left to die and the suppression of the metahuman genes was the chain humanity was bound with. Supers had higher concentrations of metahuman genes and were less bound. If all of humanity had pure metahuman genes, humanity would be free of its ancient chains and able to control its own destiny.

The plagues Doctor Hormone unleashed was meant to purify the human race. Like an Athanor purified an Alchemist's potions and elixirs. The first plague broke out in the 2030s about 30% of humanity died in eight months. The second plague in the 2040s reduced most of the world's population to about 10 percent of pre 2030 levels. For some reason the USA only lost 70 percent of its population. And New York city only lost 50 percent of its people. (A comic book in joke).

Not every Metahuman has powers, many supposedly non powered superheroes are metahumans. After all, staying in peak physical condition, fighting crime like a combination one man army and one man police force, holding down a job, and having a life, are all full time jobs in and of themselves. It takes being superhuman to do them all at once. These supernormals are more common in this setting because normal normals have been murdered by Doctor Hormone's plagues.

The plagues are still winnowing non metahumans out of the population. This is experienced as low fertility by those with lower concentrations of metahuman genes. Any child conceived with to low a concentration of metahuman genes is simply miscarried before most women even would know they were pregnant.

More later...

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Athanor


The plague was traced to an elderly mad scientist who thought he was a superhero back in the 1940s. Doctor Hormone had been trapped in an alternate dimension for decades, his granddaughter died there, and returned to Earth in the 1990s. He had discovered during his exile that superpowers in humans were connected to metahuman gene complexes somehow connected to Atlantis. Atlantis had been erased from our reality by what the Doctor was told was a Reality Quake.

More later...

This isn't a conventional Supers setting, it has more in common with Top Ten but this isn't a world where everyone has super powers although supers our about twenty times more common than in a normal superhero setting. Or at least twenty times more common relative to the population. Although those with low concentrations of Metahuman genes have fertility problems (i.e. most people) those with high concentrations of metahuman genes are healthy and have normal fertility.

This leads to a not so subtle demand by the broader society that they ditch the masks and capes, settle down and raise families. There are whole new reasons for secret identities.

The tech level, given the population collapse and the economic chaos that came with it, is surprisingly higher. Basically, all those super inventors were told to get their inventions out there and keep the lights on. Thus the tech level is a weird Mish mosh of TL9, TL8+2, TL7+3, and utterly indescribable super technologies. It might all be sorted out in a century or two, or never.

Magic is an excepted thing in this setting. (As in Marvel Comics there is an underlying scientific order to the magic, but that is hotly debated in this world). Less powerful spellcasters use Path/Book magic. The equivalents of Doctor Fate, Zatanna, Agatha Harkness, the Scarlett Witch, and Doctor Strange, use realm magic. Many Psions are mystics.

Because of the prevailing circumstances, most supers don't really dress up in traditional superhero costumes. If you read Starman back when Jack Knight wore a leather jacket with a Zodiac on the back and goggles to protect his eyes you've got a better idea of how supers dress in this reality.

More later...

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Athanor


The plague was traced to an elderly mad scientist who thought he was a superhero back in the 1940s. Doctor Hormone had been trapped in an alternate dimension for decades, his granddaughter died there, and returned to Earth in the 1990s. He had discovered during his exile that superpowers in humans were connected to metahuman gene complexes somehow connected to Atlantis. Atlantis had been erased from our reality by what the Doctor was told was a Reality Quake.

More later...

Because of the population collapse, large areas of the Earth are deserted. Given the hodgepodge of robots used in agriculture, the dominance of Vertical Farming, and the development of renewable energy resources (most dramatically Knight Process Stellar Collectors; KPSC Units), rural areas are economically depressed. Food is cheap and plentiful and farmers are broke.

The exceptions to total rural collapse are livestock ranching and dairying. Given the large amounts of land opened up by the changed conditions game ranching, and more natural lifestyles for livestock have become the norm. Aquaculture and Mariculture have dramatically advanced so seafood is dirt cheap. However the population collapse and the transformation of the economy poverty is widespread. It's just that the poor eat steak and lobster.

Robots are everywhere in this setting. The menial labor and general scut work is covered by non-self-aware robots. Those robots that become self-aware
become full legal humans once they are declared sane, emotionally stable, and moral.

Space travel is progressing rapidly. Asteroid mining is a major part of the economy. (If this seems unlikely, remember the large numbers of superhumans and the weird tech level). KPSC Units power most spacecraft.

More later...