Interesting idea. That could work, and I know enough about the time period to make it work.

Yay!

How about 1850? Before the civil war so we have to choose a side and before the Franco-Prussian War, to see whether we ally with France who helped America during the war of independence or the other strong European power. Also 1845 Texas joined the union so there could be tension between Mexico and USA.

TheUnknowable said
Well, what idea did you have?

Fictional World, fictional peoples, all of that. If you need tech similarities think along the lines of 17th-18th century gear, supplies, and concepts. As player character's we're forced into a greater and massive area of unclaimed land thought too empty and barren by our homelands to feasibly survive. But our groups, acting independently, manage to come upon a land beyond the steppe wasteland and set down to establish their own society.

Disconnected from their homeland and its institutions they/we then must build our own institutions to serve whatever sort of ideology that our groups were otherwise exiled for. By pure need these groups will most likely have to adopt a sort of proto-socialist/pre-monetary economic system.

In short: no "Our World" past or future. I get the impression you didn't read my last post.

I read your post. You said you wanted a different world (hence the new planet), and no current cultures. 140 years in the future, there will be plenty of cultures that don't exist now, just like the hippies didn't exist during the civil war. That would give people the ability to use a modern culture if they were set on it, but make up a new one if you wanted. I thought it was a decent compromise.

The "move into a barren wasteland" thing is a good idea though. I just didn't want it to turn into fantasy (ie magic), as it's a bit easy to deal with problems like that. A different Earth with humans (or some other race) on it might work, though.

I'm still feeing "our world", I think it would be interesting to have a world decided by us and some dice, like some alternate history, dig? I mean it would still have some fiction in it (we are starting our own country) but the best fictions have non fiction in them (or a something close).

Voltus_Ventus said
dice

Now you're being lazy.

If you read the first post you would know that he was planning on using dice for randomness.

Voltus_Ventus said
If you read the first post you would know that he was planning on using dice for randomness.

yep. only way I know to add randomness to the game.

A hat and lots of paper.

TheUnknowable said
I completely forgot about Banished. We could do something like that, with each of our groups negotiating trades using the leaders (us).A few hundred years in the future the groups would have changed enough that we don't need to know a lot about them. Just read a wikipedia article on them, and we'll have the basics.Or we could be new groups, completely made up.Edit: Ok, plot idea so far:It's 2157. Only Mars and the moon are colonized, because the government couldn't control anything in the outer system given current technology.I own a ship-building and research facility in the asteroid belt that is trying to design ships for deep space exploration. I detect a signal from an old NASA probe in the Centari system. It detected a planet in orbit of Alpha Centauri that has liquid water, is in a decent orbit, has 22% atmospheric oxygen, but at less than half Earth pressure, and Chlorophyll using lifeforms. 59% probability it can support human life, given the much worse technology of when the probe was launched. I only detected the signal because I built equipment to pick up signals from all of the old satellites and probes, something only the government is likely to still do.I design a ship, using my prototype warp drive (50c, so just over a month to get there), and build it, while contacting various oppressed groups on the planet and asking them if they want to join us. Some (you guys) agree. I build a ship for each group (overextending my corporation's resources in the process, but who cares, I'm abandoning it) and we leave. For groups like the Amish, I merely take you there, as you reject the idea of owning something as advanced as a starship. My group is made up of 1000 or so asteroid miners and other "spacer" types who already don't need a government.Some time after we leave, the UN (now a planet-wide oppressive government) realizes where we went, recovers what they can of my research, and launches ships to go after us.

Ehh... I'm a sucker for sci-fi, and totally obsessed with the Alcubierre Drive. however, even that has a maximum speed of 10c. Of course, I would honestly go with an antimatter rocket for this, maybe even an Orion Drive. Even then I certainly wouldn't say there's a habitable planet around Alpha Centauri, I would say it's a moon of a gas giant or something. Of course, I would choose something in the solar system if we've only got to Mars. Speaking of the setting, it's actually quite similar to an absolutely ancient short story I wrote. Kind of nice to be reminded of it.

Also, have you ever read Escape from Terra? I think you would like it, might even give you an idea for this (The history of the universe, especially places like the belt and Mars, is pretty close to what you;re going for here.)

Keyguyperson said
Ehh... I'm a sucker for sci-fi, and totally obsessed with the Alcubierre Drive. however, even that has a maximum speed of 10c. Of course, I would honestly go with an antimatter rocket for this, maybe even an Orion Drive. Even then I certainly wouldn't say there's a habitable planet around Alpha Centauri, I would say it's a moon of a gas giant or something. Of course, I would choose something in the solar system if we've only got to Mars. Speaking of the setting, it's actually quite similar to an absolutely ancient short story I wrote. Kind of nice to be reminded of it.Also, have you ever read Escape from Terra? I think you would like it, might even give you an idea for this (The history of the universe, especially places like the belt and Mars, is pretty close to what you;re going for here.)

Why can't there be a habitable planet around it? Isn't it a G type star?
At 10c we could get there in 6 months, but with cryostasis, we could bring folks with us. I didn't think that the Alcubierre drive (or more accurately, NASAs new version of it) had a max speed of 10c, but that that was just a reference speed. Even if it does, maybe they could be stacked, or some later improvement or field shape could make it 5x faster.
I never read Escape from Terra. I'm going to bookmark it so I can read it (the webcomic, right?). The only webcomic I normally read grrlpower.

TheUnknowable said
Why can't there be a habitable planet around it? Isn't it a G type star?At 10c we could get there in 6 months, but with cryostasis, we could bring folks with us. I didn't think that the Alcubierre drive (or more accurately, NASAs new version of it) had a max speed of 10c, but that that was just a reference speed. Even if it does, maybe they could be stacked, or some later improvement or field shape could make it 5x faster.I never read Escape from Terra. I'm going to bookmark it so I can read it (the webcomic, right?). The only webcomic I normally read grrlpower.

(Yeah, the webcomic.)

It's totally possible to make an Alcubierre drive go "faster", it'll just use more negative energy. 10c would require the negative energy equivalent of the Voyager space probe, which is roughly the yearly output of all US power plants converted to negative energy. So, it would be extremely hard to create enough negative energy to give it a "speed" of 50c. Obviously, anything is possible, for all we know there will be a breakthrough that allows 1000c travel. Of course, you could always go with an antimatter drive. Not that I wouldn't join, I like semi-realistic sci-fi, but hey, look at my profile pic. Realism is nice, but not required.

As for the planet, it is totally possible for a habitable planet to be around Alpha Centauri. However, we probably would have detected it by now if it was there. That's probably why Avatar was set on a moon (aside from the fact that you get to put a gas giant in the sky), it's just more believable.

Again, realism is not all that needed. I write a lot of stories about Gliese 581g, and that planet doesn't actually exist according to the scientific community. In fact, I go out of my way to explain that it is Gliese 581g. There are closer ones to write about, I guess I just kind of like that one. Might have something to do with a song lyric (Pushing the Speed of Light, personal favorite of mine), "20 years on your homeworld's track". The Gliese 581 system is about 20-21 light years away, and I like to explore the idea of STL interstellar society. That could be it.

sounds interesting

thorgili said
sounds interesting

Which idea?

I am personally in favor of the alt-history 1800's American frontier setting.

Cam said
I am personally in favor of the alt-history 1800's American frontier setting.

I wouldn't mind that.

Neither would I.