Jump to content

wesbruce

Recommended Posts

OK this will be where I have the most fun.

I have already proposed several overlapping compatible bits of lore. Here I list and integrate them.
This has several assumptions: they could not just go to mars or alpha centuri or tau ceti because the neutron star is huge and is cutting a swathe though space 40 to 100 light years across. Secondly the Arkship in the games back story is not going to the nearest target safe system others scored that one. Thirdly some of the starting game play technology: Safe star gates, probes, some force fields technology, Is unknown to the people coming off the Arkship; some of it may have not been invented when the left Sol. Hence the need for training and discovery.  

  1. Someone tried to leave early, jumping the gun with prototype FTL technology. It went wrong but they survived, damaged genetically but survived long enough, before dying out, to leave artefacts, technology, some enigmatic AI or strange uploaded version of themselves. Something with a memory of man and a desire to help but little understanding of the Arkship's occupants. They have 9000 years head start but this means they have 9000 years to fall into ruin and your as hard to understand as a Neanderthal.
  2. Many stayed and worked on projects to help the travellers. Doing vital research that could not be done on a ship and was not finished before departure. Some of their results were beamed to the arkships so they have technology that was not known when the pioneers went into cryo. These are long dead hero's who stayed and died so others would succeed. 
  3. Some of the solutions could not be sent to the cryoships in time, they were out of range, so they sent smaller faster relays to deliver the new solutions. The result is basically the same as 1 and 4 but with more AI in play. 
  4. One of the ships sent to the closest safe system to Sol arived hundreds of years ago and survived long enough to buy time, a few hundred years before the neutron star caught them. They have FTL, gates and much better technology. They either used option 2 and 3 themselves before building a new faster arkship and heading off or
  5. They set out again by probes and gates to catch the Arkships. Because of the quirks of relativity they can not contact the Arkships directly or match velocity, but they can place things on various worlds to help and welcome them. Their chain of stargates have been destroyed behind them lest strange effects from the neutron star can propagate though them. 9000 years has distorted their mission a little or on some worlds shattered it in war and disaster. They are now space nomads leaving advanced tributes to their sleeping gods. 
  6. Not everyone slept on the Ark ships some continued working, living, dying, on the ship, but their children survived. Hence all the corridors. Some are helpful AI some are still human. When the ship landed they slipped away or slipped into the embarking crowds. They have the same technology etc but have a few new technologies developed in transit. However these children of the ship see the earth as a distant legend. There is also a language gap for them, they have no word for tree. They are secretive, seeing the sleepers as alien and fragile. They have been warned not to reveal themselves for that may destroy the sleepers moral and sense of destiny. In this context the children are just Dev's and hand picked players not NPC's but are never really seen. They conspire to help. Some may plot to hinder. 

    This in SF parlance is the FTL greets STL conundrum. It is as old as the Traveller RPG way back in the 1970's but no one has developed it fully. 

    The universe of SF has enough ancient aliens and extra terrestrial gods.  Lets make the humanity both sides of the first contact equation. 9000 is a long time. 

    And yes I know it's not technically an STL ship just a slow FTL one. 
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gameplay effects. Essentially not much work. The game makes available artefacts, technology blueprints and special voxel materials that can be integrated into a virtual reality build. In this case it's a lore build not a ship or saved structure for sale.

The player takes on the persona of an ancient working in the distant past  [or a secret child of the ship in the present] building something as a preparation for the coming sleepers.

Once finished it is checked by the dev's or a player jury, to eliminate illegal and pornographic content or completely incompatible lore.
We can be a little flexible on incompatible lore if some of the builders are playing god; trying to manipulate the sleepers to worshiping them or fighting their enemies. 
Then it is randomly deployed into the world to be found. On finding and reporting, it become news. I.E. the discovery is reported on an in game media system.

The creating player can seek it out if he or she wants but the idea is to create player lore to compliment the dev's work to be found by others. 
The key themes are that someone from Earth got out of cryogenics earlier, or used another technology. They have sought out your target worlds, got there many centuries before and made a few things to help you. However a lot can happen in the thousands of years you slept and the ancient relatives have either:

  • Finished and moved on,
  • lost track of why they are doing what they're doing, 
  • have gone extinct locally perhaps in war, Leaving AI in ruins, swamp, etc, 
  • have hidden among you not wanting to reveal their presence for some deep and complex reason, 
  • become high technology barbarians dominated by myth and superstition, 
  • Built hidden cryogenic facilities and are sleeping somewhere to be found,
    (The catch is the last 2 would require NPC's or player alts)

Perhaps direct and explicit contact with another Arkship somewhere went badly wrong. So their interactions are more mysterious. Perhaps they have changed so much that your are as much a mystery to them as they are to you. 

The children of the ship idea is a little different since they are essentially faking all the artefacts and structures to hide their presence. And the contact gone wrong occurred on the ship when they pulled someone from cryo for some reason. Some may be trying to get the sleepers to worship them or serve them by deception. 

 

If it's a player built world why not player built mystery's and ruins. After all we have all that stone. We're never going to make a spaceship or skyscraper from it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

OK this will be where I have the most fun.

I have already proposed several overlapping compatible bits of lore. Here I list and integrate them.

This has several assumptions: they could not just go to mars or alpha centuri or tau ceti because the neutron star is huge and is cutting a swathe though space 40 to 100 light years across. Secondly the Arkship in the games back story is not going to the nearest target safe system others scored that one. Thirdly some of the starting game play technology: Safe star gates, probes, some force fields technology, Is unknown to the people coming off the Arkship; some of it may have not been invented when the left Sol. Hence the need for training and discovery.  

  1. Someone tried to leave early, jumping the gun with prototype FTL technology. It went wrong but they survived, damaged genetically but survived long enough, before dying out, to leave artefacts, technology, some enigmatic AI or strange uploaded version of themselves. Something with a memory of man and a desire to help but little understanding of the Arkship's occupants. They have 9000 years head start but this means they have 9000 years to fall into ruin and your as hard to understand as a Neanderthal.
  2. Many stayed and worked on projects to help the travellers. Doing vital research that could not be done on a ship and was not finished before departure. Some of their results were beamed to the arkships so they have technology that was not known when the pioneers went into cryo. These are long dead hero's who stayed and died so others would succeed. 
  3. Some of the solutions could not be sent to the cryoships in time, they were out of range, so they sent smaller faster relays to deliver the new solutions. The result is basically the same as 1 and 4 but with more AI in play. 
  4. One of the ships sent to the closest safe system to Sol arived hundreds of years ago and survived long enough to buy time, a few hundred years before the neutron star caught them. They have FTL, gates and much better technology. They either used option 2 and 3 themselves before building a new faster arkship and heading off or
  5. They set out again by probes and gates to catch the Arkships. Because of the quirks of relativity they can not contact the Arkships directly or match velocity, but they can place things on various worlds to help and welcome them. Their chain of stargates have been destroyed behind them lest strange effects from the neutron star can propagate though them. 9000 years has distorted their mission a little or on some worlds shattered it in war and disaster. They are now space nomads leaving advanced tributes to their sleeping gods. 
  6. Not everyone slept on the Ark ships some continued working, living, dying, on the ship, but their children survived. Hence all the corridors. Some are helpful AI some are still human. When the ship landed they slipped away or slipped into the embarking crowds. They have the same technology etc but have a few new technologies developed in transit. However these children of the ship see the earth as a distant legend. There is also a language gap for them, they have no word for tree. They are secretive, seeing the sleepers as alien and fragile. They have been warned not to reveal themselves for that may destroy the sleepers moral and sense of destiny. In this context the children are just Dev's and hand picked players not NPC's but are never really seen. They conspire to help. Some may plot to hinder. 

     

    This in SF parlance is the FTL greets STL conundrum. It is as old as the Traveller RPG way back in the 1970's but no one has developed it fully. 

     

    The universe of SF has enough ancient aliens and extra terrestrial gods.  Lets make the humanity both sides of the first contact equation. 9000 is a long time. 

     

    And yes I know it's not technically an STL ship just a slow FTL one. 

 

 

You've got some pretty creative ideas. I actually really like #6, where there are overseers during the transit who were not asleep (the devs). Perhaps they mysteriously develop FTL before all the other players, and with a head start, venture off into the universe leaving easter eggs along the way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...