Versatile Gothic Space Setting

Superfluous Crow · August 20, 2011, 12:58:18 AM

I'm sure no one meant to be disruptive or anything, they are just different views on the subject is all :)

If you were gonna use that idea with the ruins, you can always argue that the aliens before had all the time they needed to terraform the planets and that alien/human physiology was a reasonably close match (we only have one periodic system after all, so I don't think another carbon-based lifeform is too ridiculous to consider).
Alternatively, they could have sent terraforming probes out a long, long time ago, while they were still handling the logistics of colonization.

Personally, I have no problem with you stipulating the existence of habitable planets. That's pretty standard fare for Sci-Fi after all. Maybe the humans just found a more fortunate corner of the galaxy.

Hibou · August 20, 2011, 09:04:12 AM

I am eager to see what you do with this, Humabout. There are only a few settings here at the CBG that are futuristic and feature a lot of space travel, but there's so much potential. I've also done the "planetary ranch" type of deal in my setting, where they often end up being entire continents or planets owned by an organization that's doing some dark research.

I really like that you're not going with a loud alien/AI presence; as you have said it'll definitely add to horror opportunities and such things can be so difficult to implement beyond an antagonistic perspective that it bogs down the narrative of the setting.

O Senhor Leetz · August 20, 2011, 10:47:36 AM

Quote from: Humabout
Quote from: SeÃ±or Leetzwell, I think the point we were all making about colonies was that inhabitable, earth-like worlds are excedingly rare. Like, more than I can explain with words. As far as I know, we haven't found one thats even close and scientists seem to get excited if they find a dingly little rock where the equator is as hot the north pole in January.
I have a lot of contentions with this. We are unable to detect smaller worlds because we lack the equipment to detect such minute wobbles in a star's position, and the luck of happening to be staring right down the edge of the solar system so that it's planets actually traverse the portion of the star we view is miniscule. To say that finding habitable planets is virtually impossible based on our insufficient means of detecting them is like saying that humans cannot break the sound barrier because we can't run fast enough to do it.

That said, the recent Hiparcos survey cataloged over 33,312 stars within 500 light-years of earth (excluding Sol). What you are suggesting is that it is more likely to flip a quarter 15 times (2^15 = 32,768)and get heads every single time than to find another habitable planet within 500 light-years of Earth. I'm just trying to put into perspective the statement you've just made.

Personally, I find it perfectly reasonable to assume there are habitable worlds out there. If you need an example of worlds that are close to habitable that scientists have found, despite all impediments, NASA posted this article on September 29, 2010.

</rant>

For future reference, I am stipulating, as the greatest science fiction authors we've seen have often done, that there are habitable worlds aside from Earth. My apologies for the tirade, but such nitpicking is disruptive and unproductive.

haha, I didn't mean to nitpick at all. All I was trying to get across is that since gothic implies a dark, ominous setting, space is already set up to easily use one of the darkest and most ominous things: loneliness. Space is huge, as I'm sure we all know, and those big empty spaces can be used to great effect to create a melancholic, empty, slighty unhinged setting.

If on one hand, you have only a handful of worlds, tttering on the brink of the big nasty void, I, personally, think that is much more gothic than hundreds of cozy worlds. Unless you take the WH40k route and make each world a cut-throat hive of scum and villainary (I'm sure thats spelled wrond).

Howeeeeeeeeeever, that's just me. it's your setting, not mine. But someone on the forums once wrote something along the lines of "It's better to have crappy advice than no advice at all, I can work with crappy advice, I can't work with no adive." Just giving food for thought.

Xathan · August 21, 2011, 12:47:42 PM

Quote(I'm sure thats spelled wrond)

"It's better to have crappy advice than no advice at all, I can work with crappy advice, I can't work with no adive."[/quote], I can't work with no [blank]" lines, stolen from my friend/teacher)

I do want to briefly toss in that you did state you wanted to make your universe distinctive for WH40k route, and Leetz's idea has merit - a lot of gothic horror was based on the unknown and space is huge and full of things that will kill you as is. (Not talking about aliens - talking about black holes, naked singularities, pulsars, the radiation thrown out by a supernova - basically, all the horrific things with either know or theorize exist in reality in space that would utterly destroy a human that got too close - too close in this case being measured in light years, in some cases.)

However, if you want the many worlds and want the Gothic route, what I'd reccomending doing is tinkering with societies - sure, every world is a cut-throat hive of scum and villainy, but they're often CLASSY cut-throat hives of scum and villainy - or at least that's the face that's presented. Think Dracula as he's often portrayed - sure, he's an awful monster that will feed on you and turn you into his eternal slave, but there's no need to be uncivilized about it.) A line from Terry Pratchett comes to mind, though I'm fudging the name because I can't remember who it was referring to - "Like most people without actual morals, Slant had standards." That, more than anything, might be what brings the Gothic to your setting.

Humabout · August 22, 2011, 01:57:54 PM

My apologies for the misunderstanding, Senor Leetz. Your clarification is certainly advice worth having. Xathan, what you suggest is something that I was tinkering with when I first starting approaching this setting. I originally began with the idea of having aliens and made a list of fears that really set off humans - things like isolation, loss of identity, corruption of the soul, etc. My original plan was to have each alien embody one or more fears, with humanity providing its usual set of fears (really, a mix of all of them). But as I gave more thought to aliens and alien cultures, the more i realized that I was just reinventing human societies or thought experiments regarding human society, all of which breaks the suspension of disbelief for me. I like my aliens more unfathomable, and only one set of aliens embodied that - a rather Lovecraftian extra-universal bunch of nasties.

That all said, Senor Leetz is dead right about space easily representing isolation. Even with hundreds of worlds, the emptiness is overwhelming, and to combine that with scattered alien ruins and vivid descriptions of other worlds otherliness could tip it into the realm of horror. Colonies on the edge of the abyss living under the decaying ruins of some unknown civilization that obviously didn't survive (or did they?), on worlds that despite their habitability, simply are not Earth. And the sorts of things that make the worlds themselves feel alien could be purely cosmetic, like retrograde or tidally locked orbits - the sun rises in the west and sets in the east; or it rises, sets, rises again, traverses part of the sky, goes the other way, and then finally sets (like Mercury). Heck, even the color of the light from the star could make it feel odd. Frank Herbert did that with Arakas and its sun being more bluish than Paul was use to.

O Senhor Leetz · August 23, 2011, 05:33:55 PM

another way you could think about going is focusing on the fragility of civilization in this infinite, dark, cold galaxy. Just because you have worlds that are inhabited, doesn't mean that have to be inhabitable. Self-contained hive cities that require just a few holes in the wrong places to totally implode or floating station-cities that teeter on the brink of falling into a death-trap gravity field or being smashed by a rogue something in space.

That being said, it takes just the right amount of something I haven't quite figured out to make a setting feel truly dangerous (and hence, gothic)

Humabout · August 24, 2011, 02:20:04 PM

Making it feel truly dangerous is mostly a matter of in-game atmosphere, I find. I'm relatively certain, with the proper DMing, even a 1950s romance set in Aspen could be "gothic". The setting as a whole being "gothic" is more about giving the GM lots to work with and largely focusing on the dark and scary bits. The examples you've given are certainly excellent examples of that.

I increasingly find myself thinking, however, that humans, if supplied with a a form of FTL that allows them relatively quick interstellar travel would naturlaly inhabit the most inhabitable planets first. Heck, depending on when FTL is introduced, we may even skip many of the bodies in our own solar system in favor of more easily inhabited exoplanets or exomoons.

That combined with the number of studies and estimations of the rate of occurrence of habitable exoplanets and exomoons (between 0.023% and 1.5% of the stars in the Milky Way. Again, returning to the 33,000 stars within 500 ly of earth, that's between 5 and 495. A wide swing, but still more than just the one (Earth). So I guess it'd be justified in having relatively few habitable planets. That would leave room open for more "interesting" colonies, for sure. And if there are ruins of ancient civilizations out there, it would sort of make things seem a bit more creepy, too. Heck, I might even shift this into a relatively closer timeframe to present day (before I was thinking in terms of "way in the future". Now I'm considering, "Hey, we're still kind of new at this").

Another idea that has wriggled into my brain is that this might work (or might not work) with a semi-pulp-weird science/nazi UFO feel happening. By that I mean that it's set in the future and we have futuristic things like dingy spacecraft and FTL drives, but there are still mad scientists discovering new and crazy things and evil people trying to use them, and conspiracies, and coverups, and stuff like you'd find in old comic books. I'm not sure that really fits with "gothic", though. I'm really liking the general focus on the bleakness of space and how humans are clinging desperately to life while dangling over the abyss.

Also, sorry about the stream of consciousness writing here. I'll try to make future posts flow better.

Mason · August 24, 2011, 07:39:22 PM

Quote from: HumaboutAlso, sorry about the stream of consciousness writing here. I'll try to make future posts flow better.

I like it. Makes me feel good to know I'm not the only one with a whole bunch of ideas bouncing around my head. But I would love to see some in-depth material for this setting.

LD · August 24, 2011, 10:53:51 PM

I'm unsure how useful this will be to you, but here's a cthulu-take on space, by Steerpike: http://www.thecbg.org/PLUGIN_DIR/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?61798.post

Excerpt by Steerpike-- [ooc]SOL Decadent, excessive, overripe, and largely abandoned, the Sol system is humanity's home territory and includes the moldering ghost-planet of Earth as well as twelve other planetoids. Earth itself has become a wasteland, a glassy netherworld punctuated by the husk-cities of dead civilizations, the sky palled with ash, the seas boiling with the inhuman rage of the slumbering entities therein awakened. Cythera, or Venus, is more lively, its foppish and hedonistic citizenry living out their debauched lives in the flying crystal palace-cities of that world, great transparent edifices like huge jewels drifting across the unwholesome and noxious plains below. On Mars, prospectors of the whitish platinum-gold of that world pan the desiccated river-beds or caverns and return to ragtag shanties, swathed in furs and goggles, toting clunky revolvers and cruel, serrated knives, riding horny-plated and quasi-saurian vortlups and guided by the lanky and skeletal four-armed giants known as the Aihais. Mercury remains too hot to colonize, although occasional explorers delve into the long-abandoned Yithian cities that can still be found on the scorched surface: though not nearly as comprehensive as the Great Library of Pnakotus of Earth the archives of these ruins still contain some of the Yithian scroll-tubes, etched with cosmic secrets and occult mysteries.[/ooc]

Superfluous Crow · August 25, 2011, 03:43:26 AM

Our first settlement would with high probability be a mining facility of some kind. FTL drives would give us access to a bountiful universe of rare minerals and other interesting things.
Planet's could also easily begin their settled history as penal colonies. As soon as FTL becomes widely available, a lot of companies would also be quick to set up shop as far away from official jurisdiction as possible.

O Senhor Leetz · August 25, 2011, 06:01:49 AM

But you should keep in mind that FTL travel does not mean reliable travel. The distance and angles involved in FTL need to be precise to the obscene, and I hope we all recall Han Solo's quote about flying into a sun.

Also keep in mind that FTL does not mean instantaneous either, like travels fast, the galaxy huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge. Although it may seem like an inconvenience, forcing the players to sit in cyro-snooze for 7 years would, I think, make the setting seem more serious. To counter that, you could up the median age to 150 or what have you.

These thoughts brought you by 7:00AM and South American Clubbing.

Humabout · August 25, 2011, 10:20:08 AM

Sarisa: I'll start working on some real material soon. I'm still just trying to assemble a mess of ideas into something semicoherent.

Light Dragon That's a cool idea, but I think this will get its "goth" from the terrors of living in space and the ubiquitous horror of what humans are capable of doing.

Steerpike: Freaking sweet setting, dude.

Superfluous Crow: All excellent points. I could see some less-habitable worlds used as penal colonies for sure. All of your points, really, are quite good. I think most of those would make sense as non-planetary colonies (space stations, asteroid colonies, etc.). I'd save the livable planets for proper human expansion, for reasons I will get into below.

Senior Leetz: Thank god for clubbing! Those are some of the points I have bouncing around. My general idea for FTL (which I think is getting close to complete) is that it can work over any distance within any gravitational field, and the jump is instantaneous. Now the kinks: the longer the jump, the more measurements and precision you need; the more complicated the calculations get, and as a result, the longer they take, despite the best mankind has to offer in way of computers; and the closer to a gravitational well, the less accurate the jump gets; and the longer the jump, the more power that is required, so charging up times get longer, too. So while the jump itself is instantaneous, all the preparations can take days for a reliable jump, which is not a long one. I'm ball parking (and this is far from set in stone) a reliable jump being in the 20 ly range. Of course, if you don't have astronomical data for where you are or where you're headed, you would need to acquire that data or get real lucky, so while you could eventually cross the galaxy in under 14 years, our lack of data would require a thorough astronomical survey after each jump beyond a certain point.

Below: I was doing some more research on the occurrence of habitable planets (defined as between 0.3 and 2 Earth Masses within the habitable zone of a star) and came up with a wide enough field of answers that I can safely drop the number of inhabited worlds drastically. Current estimates are between 0.015% of stars and 1.5% of stars. So anywhere between 5 and ~400 stars within 500 ly. So I've chosen the number to be around 24. That's enough for humanity to grow a lot and for there to be lots of secondary colonies and factions, but still keep it all manageable. It should also put a lot of space between colonies and make each one far more important to humanity as a whole. For some reason, that sort of gives me more of a "on the brink of the abyss" feel than 200+ colonies.

O Senhor Leetz · August 26, 2011, 10:16:41 AM

as for your FTL travel, you could have only certain lanes and areas of the galaxy or setting area mapped and thus restrict travel to only the known parts of the galaxy. This would,

A.) keep your setting somewhat concentrated in another infinite setting space

B.) lurking pirates with gravity well generators waiting along trade lanes. obv.

C.) the mysterious emptiness outside the mapped galaxy.

D.) exploring that vast mysterious emptiness.

E.) The danger of getting lost in SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE.

Humabout · August 26, 2011, 07:48:33 PM

I've been giving a lot of thought to (a) and come up with a good justification for trade routes. Because the more precise the data and better mapped an area is, I could see astrometric laboratories sprouting up at regular intervals between colonies that continuously measure and compute regular jumps between each other. They could sell this information to starships that jump there and greatly reduce their travel time for a cost. These would eventually grow into trading posts and "truck stops" and possibly into even larger, more expansive colonies. This wouldn't necessarily make starfaring safe or cheap, since these stations could easily become entangled in crime syndicates and smugglers.

(B) Obviously. Hehe. Honestly, I"m not entirely certain just how prevalent or feasible piracy in the traditional sense really is in space. Of course, some not-so-honest salvage ships might help create wrecks to feed their business, and privateers are as good a way to deal with enemy merchants as any.

(C-D) While somewhat problematic to GM as a game, this would certainly have major horror potential. Massive survey ships trying to poke their heads into the Abyss and see what they can find before something dark and nasty lops it off.

(E) lol! yup.

Humabout · August 27, 2011, 12:43:38 PM

So after some thought as to how to continue, it strikes me that I need to start in on exactly what technological advances have occurred and work out some implications thereof.

Perhaps the most important bit of technology to work out is that of how ships get around. Obviously, I'm using a somewhat finicky stardrive that lets a ship "safely" jump as long as it is a given distance from any large masses. I'm looking at making that distance around twice the distance to Pluto, give or take. Shorter jumps within a system are possible, but it might be faster to use engines, since jumps require lots of measurements and calculations, and jumps closer to a star (or planet or moon) are less accurate.

This leads to a potential need for subluminal drives. Traditionally, we see reaction engines that use anything from nuclear piles, fusion torches, plasma rockets, or ion streams to propel ships at low (or in some sci fi, high) accelerations part of the way and then coast the rest. This certainly is sufficient, but it would take a REALLY long time to get anywhere. The other possibility is that of a reactionless drive that can be powered by some sort of powerplant (fission or fusion, most likely) and provide unlimited acceleration. Taking into acount the restrictions in speed imposed by relativity, you could get from Earth to Pluto (accelerating half the journey and decelerating the other half) in 18 days if accelerating at 1 G.

If we introduce gravity manipulation technology, it could (with a stretch of the imagination) explain both superluminal and subluminal drives, and provide artificial gravity in starships and space colonies. Alternatively, the superliminal and subluminal drives could be related technology that doesn't rely on gravity manipulation, and so you'd still have to worry about atrophy in space, contend with local gravities of bodies, use spinning compartments to simulate gravity, etc.

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Versatile Gothic Space Setting

Superfluous Crow

Hibou

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O Senhor Leetz

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Mason

LD

Superfluous Crow

O Senhor Leetz

Humabout

O Senhor Leetz

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