[OOC] Kumlatu

[TheUnknowable]

Advanced Interest Check Casual Interest Check Based on a story I was writing. In the late 21st century, humanity was overpopulating the Earth. With 12 billion people on it, Earth's resources were running out. Mankind looked to the other planets in the solar system to provide it with the resources it needed to survive. In order to move the resources throughout the system humans built coil guns to shoot goods to their destination. Eventually, the magnetic coils were replaced with artificial gravity coils, allowing for even faster and more energy efficient launches. They continued to improve on these gravity coils, lowering the travel time of ships by more and more, until the gravity coils started distorting the fabric of space around them, even tearing it, launching the ships into "subspace", for lack of a better word. Humanity learned to build subspace anchors to keep ships in subspace for longer, effectively letting them decide how quickly they wanted their "depth" in subspace to decay, which controlled when they reemerged from it into normal space. These subspace anchors allowed ships to be sent to other star systems, though they were unmanned and had to communicate with Earth via messenger pods sent from a Hyper-rail built at their location. Where these probes reported planets that humans could live on, ships of a few thousand humans were sent there. They were to build infrastructure for the waves of ships that would follow, doubling the planet's population every two years. In orbit around one of these worlds a hyper-rail was built, and the all-clear message was sent. Enough oxygen, life, and gravity, correct temperature range, and no signs of intelligent life detected. When people from Earth arrived, however, their ship developed numerous, inconsistent problems and they were forced to land. Within hours they were surrounded by thousands of alien warriors, and those that survived or didn't fight back were enslaved. They managed to get off a warning to Earth, but the bureaucrats simply changed the planet to "not suitable" status and stopped sending colonists to it. The aliens forced the humans to reproduce technology for them, setting up electricity, computers, and communications for the rich and powerful, many of them part of the priesthood. The Earth people came to realize that these aliens were human as well, or at least something close to it, when they started reproducing with their slaves. Investigation lead to a startling truth, they were the descendants of the people of Camelot. From the Sacred Story told in the temples, Merlin was half demon, his father being a summoned being that was forced to impregnate his mother. When he was in his sixties he began communicating with his father, who promised him his own world. They told him of one far away and taught him to create a portal to it. When the time neared, he urged Arthur and his knights to go quest for the San Grail, a mystical artifact of great power. When they left, he told the people that they had a choice. Either come with him to create a new society where they would all learn magic, or be destroyed. Those that chose the later were used as fuel of the spell, along with all other life in the area he didn't intend to take with him. On their new world they formed a new society, under Merlin as high priest, and to this day they say he still lives. The conditions of the new world, along with breeding with demons and other spirits changed them. They grew so that even the shortest adults were over six feet tall. Their skin took on an orange tint, and they became much stronger, both physically and magically. Eventually, the slaves formed a resistance, along with those of their population that had problems with the priesthood or simply craved power for themselves. They taught the slaves magic and, along with the technology they could salvage from the ship or create, they use it to wage war against the priesthood that had enslaved them.

Magic is divided into 5 types:

1. Telepathy: communicating with the mind 2. Telekinesis: Moving things with the mind 3. Energy: Manipulation of different energy types 4. Spirit: Manipulation of spirits 5. ESP: Knowledge gained through unknown means

Certain advanced technologies also exist:

1. Warp drive: An alternate form of FTL travel, it is slow (1.1 to 2.3 c for the time period in which the colony ship was launched). Ships generally only use it to adjust there position in system or if they missed their mark with the hyper-rail travel. Requires large amounts of Negative Matter to function. 2. Quantum Entangled Communication (QEC): Recently mentioned in a recovered message from Earth, the resistance has yet to find one. Requires the two people who are communicating to have a matching pair of communicators. 3. Shields: EM shields block energy only, Cold plasma shields block both energy and physical objects, but more weakly than EM shields block energy. 4. Energy weapons: Lasers are pure energy, plasma is both energy and physical, rail guns are mostly physical. 5. Fusion reactors

Animals on Kumlatu

1. Tarsh Beetles: Originally the size of large dogs, they have been altered and selectively bred by the Kumlatu for centuries. These Beetles look like Armadillidiidae from Earth. They eat dirt, and the microflora and microfauna in their digestive system absorb nutrients from it, producing more nutrients for it to absorb. Their waste fertilizes the ground behind them, creating large areas of rich soil which are used as farm land. They also produce a nutrient rich secretion known as Tarshpaste. It is used to feed their offspring (hundreds of beetles the size of the human hand which hide under their shell) but humans can eat it. They prefer not to, as it tastes terrible and isn't a balanced meal, making it useless as a long term food source.

Plants of Kumlatu

1. Kont: A grass that grows in the wakes of Tarsh beetles. It is planted throughout the Kumlatu villages, including on roofs, so that they blend in with nature.

Kumlatu Culture

1. Kumlatu rarely marry unless they are rich or powerful and need to establish legitimacy for their wealth or position. This could be the result of the forced polygamy of their ancestors, meant to diversify the gene pool, or a tradition caused by how common death was in the early days, as they didn't want to get married, then have the person die. They do, however, form long term monogamous relationships, especially when children are involved. 2. If children have no parents or the parents are unable to care for them properly, the community will help take care of them. Orphans are generally adopted by a family in the area that wants another child. This is generally only sustainable because the natural birth rate for Kumlatu is quite low, generally only two or three natural children per person. 3. Kumlatu do not erect monuments for the dead, including grave stones. If you want to remember the dead, you live for them. This has lead to the practice of memorial missions, in which their friends and family do something in their name which they would have wanted to do, in order to remember them. 4. Children born to a slave and a free person can be claimed by the free person, setting them free. Children born to two slaves don't have this option, unless a free person wants to adopt them, taking them from the parents. 5. To most Kumlatu, religion is extremely important. The temple has several priests which use their telepathy to activate the pleasure centers of large numbers of people's brains simultaneously. The devoted followers, however, usually believe it to be a gift from the spirits, and those that don't are simply addicted to it.

[TheUnknowable]

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[TheUnknowable]

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[TheUnknowable]

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[TheUnknowable]

Anyone interested?

[TheUnknowable]

Anyone want to join?

[Marshall]

Listen. This looks like it could be amazing but there is too much to it. The reading of it goes like this: Sci-Fi Space Adventure, ok some magic thrown in, wtf Merlin?, Demons? In short, I think you should take this to the drawing board, rethink what people want to RP about and go with that. I suggest something more like, Sci-Fi starts to merge with "magic" due to some material. Sci-Fi Roleplayers like realism. Fantasy Roleplayers want medieval. Good luck.

[TheUnknowable]

Listen. This looks like it could be amazing but there is too much to it. The reading of it goes like this: Sci-Fi Space Adventure, ok some magic thrown in, wtf Merlin?, Demons? In short, I think you should take this to the drawing board, rethink what people want to RP about and go with that. I suggest something more like, Sci-Fi starts to merge with "magic" due to some material. Sci-Fi Roleplayers like realism. Fantasy Roleplayers want medieval. Good luck.

@Marshall

1) Why does fantasy have to be medieval? Does magic cease to exist when technology advances? 2) There actually were stories of Merlin being sired by a demon. Probably started by the Catholic church, but, whatever. 3) There is a tombstone in England that says it's Author's tombstone, but there is no evidence that Camelot existed. Is it such a stretch that in a world where magic existed, magic could have destroyed it? 4) Some aliens have magic, some don't. This is humans without magic running into those that have magic. 5) Have you never wanted to write an original idea, not just another cookie cutter sci-fi of fantasy world? This is my attempt to do that. 6) most fiction sounds weird if you just read the premise. Ex: the Egyptian gods were aliens that burrow into your neck and take control of your body. Humans from the USAF go to other worlds through an ancient alien wormhole generator that those aliens left here but can't make, in order to fight the Egyptian god aliens. Also the Roswell grey aliens were the norse gods and the aliens that made the wormhole machine were humans that evolved before us and got superpowers, then became gods, but real ones this time. And Merlin and Morgan Lafey were one of them. Think of it this way: Magic was practiced in the past, and got very powerful. Merlin left for another world at that time, taking people with him. Hundreds of years later, after magic has died out, humans travel to that world with science. They clash.

[Marshall]

That all may be true but from the public opinion of this so far I'd say a revision is necessary if you want to succeed. And yes I have wanted to write an original idea, in fact I'm currently helping to write a custom DnD campaign.