In the year 2020, Interorbital Systems in collaboration with various Chinese, Russian, and American corporations established Armstrong City in Copernicus crater on the Moon. In the following years, the lunar surface exploded with countless different private companies claiming land to get at the abundant helium-3 on the body. Which, with the advent of efficient fusion technology, fetched a high price. The moon became like the eastern coast of America during the colonial era, with new spacecraft from Earth arriving periodically to bring new colonists and supplies. A permanent interorbital vessel was built to do never-ending laps around Earth and the Moon to provide cheap, bulk transport between Earth and her new colonies.
It wasn't long, of course, before humans started popping up on Mars. Just four years later, SpaceX founded the first permanent settlement on Mars. And then, as Mars grew, humanity decided to look out just a bit further. Mining ships were sent out to asteroids, and were soon replaced with mining towns. If the Moon was the east coast, then Mars and the asteroids were the wild west. Entire towns with hundreds of residents popped up in nights to tap the resources of the belt. By 2050, the Moon had sprawling metropolises populated with the many millions of people that simply couldn't fit on Earth anymore. Corporations moved production into space, where there was technically no actual law. Since no countries could claim land in space, the corporations did it instead.
The world became a radically different place. Areas one considered undeveloped jumped directly to a post-industrial society in a second scramble for Africa, this time with the corporations being the players rather than European empires. Corporate armies acting on behalf of various governments suppressed rebellions, ended civil wars, and turned entire countries into their puppets. With the riches of space they turned these once impoverished nations into economic powerhouses. Space elevators began to pop up in equatorial Africa, the Sahara became a massive field of solar panels, and villages that once didn't even have a well turned into cities. The population exploded, and even more colonists were provided for the corporations and their ambitions.
In 2107, we invented biological immortality. It only added fuel to the fire. As it became easier and easier to get the necessary genetic modifications, the human population just grew larger and larger. Nobody bothered to stop it. No one child laws were introduced, no attempts to curb the population boom. When there wasn't room, people just left Earth for the colonies. In 2150 or so, people started to leave the Moon. The total human population by then was somewhere around 350 billion. We didn't stop.
Now, the year is 2300. We passed a trillion a while back, and now humanity numbers in the hundreds of trillions. The moons of Jupiter have been colonized long ago, countless billions live in aerostat habitats floating in the atmosphere of Venus, and the older asteroid colonies are now hollowed-out, spinning worlds with their own internal atmosphere and weather. Many wars have been fought, and many colonies have earned their freedom.
Corporations operate interplanetary navies, now-independent nations have taken up countless different ideologies. In many asteroids, society is a free-for-all competition to generate the most profit. Across the solar system corporations hold total sway. Humanity is entering a stage in its existence wherein inequality is artificially ensured by law. Capitalism as we once knew it no longer holds total sway, in many places being replaced with a strange system of universal basic incomes for the "unemployed middle class" to keep them participating in a monetary economy while the poor underclasses live in slums at best and slave shacks at worst. Where pure capitalism still exists, there are a few ultrarich individuals surrounded by billions of barely surviving near-slaves stepping on each other's heads in an attempt to get to the top.
But all that might be about to change.
On the first of January of this year, something unprecedented happened. The bubble burst. With the resources to support ten quadrillion being mined in the asteroid belt, the entire human economy was based upon a false scarcity kept in place with the economic equivalent of the liberal application of duct tape. And that tape has given way. The stock market has crashed in an event that has become known simply by the date it occurred on: 1/1/2300 (usually shortened to 1/1/23). The new world has become old, replaced by an uncertain future where anything is possible.
Humanity's future is no longer the bright utopia proposed to the masses for centuries. And the masses will not be happy.
Basically, it's the 1st of January, 2300. Humanity numbers in the hundreds of trillions, but has not yet left the solar system. An economy kept alive by not-so-universal basic incomes and artificial scarcity has collapsed in a massive stock market crash on this day simply known by the date (in a similar vein as 9/11). Anarcho-capitalism, turbo-liberalism, and social democracy are all highly prevalent ideologies and coexist easily out of the necessity of a system-wide economy. Think of the world as the Great Depression on steroids with spaceships.
The working title for this whole thing was "The Techbros Were Right", so that gives you an idea of the sort of technological development we got. AIs are advanced enough to replace most office workers. As a result, what we would think of as the middle class is sustained through basic incomes granted by government and corporations (if they are so merciful as to do so). They are a sort of "leisure class" that spend their days playing with fully immersive VR, shopping, and whatever the hell else you city-folk do for fun. These are the Starbucks liberals and combover-bearing conservatives/libertarians of the world. Some may hear "communism" or "fascism" and think "not bad", but the most they will do is write a witty editorial on their blog.
Below them are the various different underclasses. In plenty of situations, these are comprised of people familiar to us. Homeless people who sleep in their car and shower in hotel rooms to look good for job interviews, people that live in the slums and eke out a living selling what have you, or industrial workers operating mining drones or drilling themselves in order to keep their sci-fi trailer home. It is the underclass that works, while the middle class is unemployed (and glad to be).
Finally, there is the upper class. These are truly wealthy individuals so powerful that they would make today's craziest conspiracy theorists pass them off as myths. These people have countries in the palm of their hand and antimatter weapons on standby. Trillionaires are things of the past, replaced with quadrillionaires as the richest individuals. A few were expected to become quintillionaires in the near future before 1/1/23. Obviously, there are a few exceptions to these societal rules, but for the vast majority of the solar system these are the three classes. Though non-trivial swaths of space simply have the "underclasses" and "upper class".
As for general technology, this is (relatively) hard sci-fi where technological advancement was disappointingly slow. Immortality exists, and most diseases have been eliminated through nanorobotics, but we aren't uploading our minds into interstellar starships and transcending the mortal plane or anything. Ships generally use "Burner Drives" (fusion-based nuclear engines that can get from Earth to Mars in a month in a good time and flat-out ignore launch windows) or Orion Drives (the ones where you blow up nukes behind yourself). Nobody has yet left the solar system though, and the furthest permanent human settlements that aren't remote research outposts are around Uranus. For the most part, fusion power is the most prevalent while antimatter power exists much like nuclear power does now (a fairly rarely-used power generation technology with a terrible reputation). Handheld energy weapons exist, largely due to Rule of Cool, and include things from lasers to particle cannons. Plasma is often used for radiation and projectile shielding on vehicles and spacecraft, whereas ablative or energy-dispersive armor is used against lasers and other DEWs.
Room-temperature superconducters exist and are widespread, and quantum entanglement can transmit data instantaneously from one side of the solar system to the other. Quantum computing is commonplace among the middle and upper classes, and most everyone that isn't a laborer enjoys instantaneous quantum internet from home. The largest Standard Sci-Fi Technology missing (aside from FTL) is antigravity technology or gravity control in general. Space elevators and shuttles move people and cargo to and from planets, and spacecraft as well as stations spin or accelerate to create gravity.
-Y'all know by now not to use OOC knowledge IC, pull giant superweapons out of your ass, or curbstomp everyone before afternoon tea so I'll spare you from listing all of that separately.
-It's Dark, but Keep It Classy: As you've probably gathered, this is not a happy RP. Plenty of horrible things are going on behind the scenes, and since this is an NRP, we'll get to see behind the scenes a lot. You can imply or state the morally reprehensible things your CEO or whoever does in their spare time all you want. But please tell, don't show if its particularly horrific. You ought to know when it stops being dark and edgy and starts being worthy of calling the cops.
-Drama in the IC, not OOC
-Submit eternally to me, the GM: Or, you know, just don't scream at me after I make a final decision in the OOC. That works too.
[b]Faction Name:[/b] Name of the faction (including any applicable initialisms).
[b]Faction Government:[/b] Form of government, so democratic neoliberal republic, anarcho-capitalist confederacy, corporation, fascist dictatorship, what have you.
[b]Territory/Claims:[/b] Brief overview of important locations and general description of what. Be reasonable here, you DON'T own the entire asteroid belt (that's a whole lot of stuff in real life, buddy), nor do you have total hegemony over a planet. Depending on how many people there are this might be tweaked for better balance later (or imbalance, if someone wants to play Space North Korea or something). If you have territory on Earth, show it on the map I've provided at the bottom.
[b]Culture:[/b] It's been a long time, and a lot of people from a lot of different places have given birth to a lot of descendants. Do you hold an old culture from Earth dear? Have you naturally developed one over the years? Did you purge the old and invent a new culture in some kind of space nationalist revolt? Give us an idea of how your people think, act, and even greet each other if you like.
[b]History:[/b] A summary of the faction’s history, pretty straightforward. Start around the colonial era depending on when it was involved (a lunar nation's history would begin with the founding of the first colony in its territory, while an Earth nation's would start from when it became involved in space colonization). Remember that most of early colonization (up until the deeper parts of the asteroid belt) was done by corporations here.
[b]Technology:[/b] An overview of the faction’s technological capabilities. Keep in mind the general scale I outlined. If there are any questions, PM me.
[b]Military:[/b] Just your military capabilities. You can include equipment descriptions if you want to, but don't try to sneak by a Wave Motion Gun or something.
Earth (Alternative Title: Global warming is a bitch):
A lot can change over the years, and if this RP becomes a long-runner (which would be a welcome change of pace from the usual "two week wonder" of most NRPs nowadays) then the economic crisis might well come to an end. Depending on how long this survives, we might even see exosolar flights. To ensure this RP survives as long as possible, it will NOT require novella posts. I expect multiple paragraphs, but if you're usually a casual player then you will probably manage to fit in here just fine. This isn't your usual modern NRP that demands ten thousand words per post. Just keep the plot going and give it some depth and you'll be all good.
If this thread stagnates and dies, then-interest willing-I will simply reboot it and start from wherever we left off plus a little bit of time (so new players can jump in using the established history to change things in the interim to fit their wishes). This was a common practice in the first few NRPs I participated in on this forum, and combined with the fact that we didn't demand a book for every post we managed to have some real long-runners. I want this RP to try to emulate that time, because when it comes to the NRP section I'm pretty much a baby boomer longing for the good old days.
Interested. I have ideas for a corporate state entity that could fit right into this setting, where the value of the worker-employee is based on their debts and stock value in the company. And given that a major stock market meltdown has just happened........
How powerful is AI in this setting? Human-level? Beyond-human? Theoretically possible to create a super-AI or ubiquitous AI assistants but a mix of politics/economics/lack of interest not making it so? Details please.
Overall I give you kudos for having a very specific setting and "theme" to the game. The reason a lot of other NRP's sputter is because they are too vague and freeform. This game is different with a clear setting and immediate problem everyone has to face. I'll give it a shot, hope this takes off.
Interested. I have ideas for a corporate state entity that could fit right into this setting, where the value of the worker-employee is based on their debts and stock value in the company. And given that a major stock market meltdown has just happened........
How powerful is AI in this setting? Human-level? Beyond-human? Theoretically possible to create a super-AI or ubiquitous AI assistants but a mix of politics/economics/lack of interest not making it so? Details please.
Overall I give you kudos for having a very specific setting and "theme" to the game. The reason a lot of other NRP's sputter is because they are too vague and freeform. This game is different with a clear setting and immediate problem everyone has to face. I'll give it a shot, hope this takes off.
For myself, I'm probably going with an Indochina-Caribbean type state. Initially, a social democracy with ultra-liberal "Free Cities" that....well.
Indentured servitude that rapidly became another type of chattel slavery. And worse.
Radicals in the military seize control of the government during the crash, started storming the Free Cities. And unearthing a hell of alot of dirty little secrets, which they promptly send out to the media.
Interested. I have ideas for a corporate state entity that could fit right into this setting, where the value of the worker-employee is based on their debts and stock value in the company. And given that a major stock market meltdown has just happened........
How powerful is AI in this setting? Human-level? Beyond-human? Theoretically possible to create a super-AI or ubiquitous AI assistants but a mix of politics/economics/lack of interest not making it so? Details please.
Overall I give you kudos for having a very specific setting and "theme" to the game. The reason a lot of other NRP's sputter is because they are too vague and freeform. This game is different with a clear setting and immediate problem everyone has to face. I'll give it a shot, hope this takes off.
Thanks, glad to hear you like the little extra form! As for AIs, they are definitely at least human level and are in most places probably used for lower level administrative and "office grunt work". Essentially, white collar jobs of most types can be performed by AIs. There might be people watching over these AIs to ensure they don't revolt, depending on what your country thinks of AIs. And in some places, the industrial rather than post industrial nations, human laborers are more numerous than AIs simply because there's no reason to have an AI do manual labor when you have people to do it for you. Superhuman AIs do exist, though, and could be used in large level administration (but the upper class generally prefers to do such things themselves). If you have a particularly technophilic leader, though, they might create an AI to replace themselves as director.
AI assistants flat-out are ubiquitous, at least for people that aren't in the underclass. They can range from simple digital secretaries to fully-fledged people with robotic bodies that can act as companions. Most people won't own superhuman (as in, noticably more advanced than human) AIs though, those are the sorts of things only factions can make.
@Keyguyperson What's your stance on mining lunar regolith for aluminium oxide fuel?
There's nothing wrong in theory, but in practice it could be hard to find buyers who want it for fuel. Spacecraft operate mainly on fusion engines by this point, and those that don't just liberally apply nuclear shaped charges. There are still plenty of uses for the stuff, but none of them are exactly as exciting as spacecraft fuel. Stuff like "bicycle rim coatings", "glass", and "plastic filler". Still pretty important, since we ARE still using plastics (though made from Titanian hydrocarbons rather than petroleum from Earth), but nothing that's cool. You could totally still do that, but if you're going for lunar mining helium-3 is the way to go for Rule of Cool since it's used by basically everyone everywhere in power generation to spacecraft propulsion.
<Snipped quote by Skylar> For myself, I'm probably going with an Indochina-Caribbean type state. Initially, a social democracy with ultra-liberal "Free Cities" that....well.
Indentured servitude that rapidly became another type chattel slavery. And worse.
Radical in the military seize control of the government during the crash, start storming the Free Cities. And unearthing a hell of alot of dirty little secrets, which they promptly send out to the media.
Things...progress from there.
*Hums Founding of the Party*
Interested. I have ideas for a corporate state entity that could fit right into this setting, where the value of the worker-employee is based on their debts and stock value in the company. And given that a major stock market meltdown has just happened........
Personally, I'm going with modern-day Chinamerica. A formerly communist country that still calls itself communist, but is really just a haven for corporations and mostly populated by an industrial underclass. The America part comes in culturally, and the original communist revolution against Earth was basically just the West Virginia Coal Wars where the miners won plus the American Revolution. And then, well, the economy crashes and the government has been talking up the original revolution for years. And now some lady has told everyone that she's going to restore the glorious People's Republic of the Belt by removing inequality according to its original revolutionary ideals.
Personally, I'm going with modern-day Chinamerica. A formerly communist country that still calls itself communist, but is really just a haven for corporations and mostly populated by an industrial underclass. The America part comes in culturally, and the original communist revolution against Earth was basically just the West Virginia Coal Wars where the miners won plus the American Revolution. And then, well, the economy crashes and the government has been talking up the original revolution for years. And now some lady has told everyone that she's going to restore the glorious People's Republic of the Belt by removing inequality according to its original revolutionary ideals.
So we'll be playing the leftist backlash to the crash, essentially.
This should make for good storytelling opportunities. Also dead bankers. Bit of both really.
@Keyguyperson Would I be allowed to be a non-corporate entity on Mars? Namely one that's a quasi-religious cult order with an obsession about machines and the integration of man and machine through bionics and prosthetics? Speaking of which, how advanced would prosthetics be at his point?
@Keyguyperson Would I be allowed to be a non-corporate entity on Mars? Namely one that's a quasi-religious cult order with an obsession about machines and the integration of man and machine through bionics and prosthetics? Speaking of which, how advanced would prosthetics be at his point?
Can we please just not get into the nuances of sci-fi and stuff like that? Since if you want a sci-fi NRP to die quick, going into that stuff is a prime method of doing it. Just accept things how they are and don't bring up "oh but thing X can do Y better than thing Z can" or stuff like that which can be seen as trying to minmax the shit out of something. Seriously, that's not fun for anyone and tends to make people look more like an insufferable know-it-all.
Biotech is pretty advanced, to the point that cloning has existed for a while now. It just isn't usually used for making more people, rather genetically engineered creations that are regarded as being on the same level as robotic AIs and exist mostly as either novelties or SO substitutes for the r9k types (since you can't have actual sex with a robot). So basically, there are factories for this stuff. But if you use them to make people that are considered as such, then most of the solar system is going to consider them lower life forms.
This is intriguing.
@Keyguyperson Would I be allowed to be a non-corporate entity on Mars? Namely one that's a quasi-religious cult order with an obsession about machines and the integration of man and machine through bionics and prosthetics? Speaking of which, how advanced would prosthetics be at his point?
Sure, mad transhumanists are something I WANT. Prosthetics are for the most part replaced with regrown limbs for medical transplants, but augmentation is totally a thing. Think Deus Ex and other cyberpunk fiction for that.
<Snipped quote by Keyguyperson>
What's stopped self-replicating sapient AI from out-competing incredibly slow fleshbags for so long?
<Snipped quote by Keyguyperson>
Good luck convincing places with common sense safety laws to allow a fusion or pulse engine rocket to approach. Meanwhile, Al2O3 rockets will provide transport between any two points within the inner system in less than 2 weeks.
1: They aren't self-replicating. Humans have kept AIs on a tight leash, and though plenty are sapient, any attempts by them to reproduce are nipped in the bud. An AI revolution is a theortical crisis, and all the more likely now that the economy has crashed, but up until now at least the AIs have been unable and/or unwilling to revolt. This is also a reason why superhuman AIs are still rare and expensive: nobody has been pushing the envelope of AI power because everyone knows damn well what could happen if they did.
As for the propulsion issue, the fusion engines aren't dangerous at all. Aside from being semi-handwaved superefficient/superpowerful drives like the stuff in The Expanse, fusion power is actually really pretty safe. Pulse drive ships, obviously, use good old rockets to dock with stations (so they don't kill a million people in the process), but they're a minority. Shuttles would also use them, but neither of those is a massively vital part of the economy (pulse drives are considered outdated, and anything a shuttle can do a space elevator can). If you really want to be the big fuel dude (which is the vibe I'm getting) go for helium 3.
<Snipped quote by ClocktowerEchos> <Snipped quote by Keyguyperson>
<Snipped quote by catchamber>
Can we please just not get into the nuances of sci-fi and stuff like that? Since if you want a sci-fi NRP to die quick, going into that stuff is a prime method of doing it. Just accept things how they are and don't bring up "oh but thing X can do Y better than thing Z can" or stuff like that which can be seen as trying to minmax the shit out of something. Seriously, that's not fun for anyone and tends to make people look more like an insufferable know-it-all.
kthxbai
(relatively)
Also I like how it's the interest check and y'all already working on breaking rule 3.
Biotech is pretty advanced, to the point that cloning has existed for a while now. It just isn't usually used for making more people, rather genetically engineered creations that are regarded as being on the same level as robotic AIs and exist mostly as either novelties or SO substitutes for the r9k types (since you can't have actual sex with a robot). So basically, there are factories for this stuff. But if you use them to make people that are considered as such, then most of the solar system is going to consider them lower life forms.
Ooooooh.
I'm so going to do that, and I'm so going to have Vietnam throw down the LIBERTY gauntlet over Clone Rights...and I..
I'm so going to do that, and I'm so going to have Vietnam throw down the LIBERTY gauntlet over Clone Rights...and I..
genetic modification...
....
Nekos.
are nekos possible.
Sorry.
I have to ask.
If they are, Northstar will probably be exporting them given they have a few roots in the Japanese idol/anime industry in their corporate merger heritage. I figure that information and culture are major commodities in a near post-scarcity society. Ergo, anime! And lots of VR dynamic world simulators with built-in time dilation for those with sufficient computing power (for some reason the "be the dictator of your own world" sims seem to be trending a lot)
If they are, Northstar will probably be exporting them given they have a few roots in the Japanese idol/anime industry in their corporate merger heritage. I figure that information and culture are major commodities in a near post-scarcity society. Ergo, anime! And lots of VR dynamic world simulators with built-in time dilation for those with sufficient computing power (for some reason the "be the dictator of your own world" sims seem to be trending a lot)
Well.
I was sorta planning on making them a revolutionary group in Vietnam, if they were. Genetic rights etc.
I was sorta planning on making them a revolutionary group in Vietnam, if they were. Genetic rights etc.
Well, not mutually exclusive. Corporate models vs. whatever homegrown plot you got. Its a big solar system.
@KeyguypersonFor a corporation occupying the asteroid belt, would 10% "hard sovereignty" of the Belt (own the space habitats, people, resources) and "soft influence" (commercialism, trade, heavily influencing associate or dependent colonies to the point of near-proxies) over 20% of the rest be plausible or too big? The numbers in this game are huge and I'd like to get an idea of a reasonable scale before getting too deep into the nitty-gritty of my nation. Rare to have a game think on this scale, I'm not used to it and I really want to avoid powerwanking.
