Setting Overview - Lone Scum
This is in the far future. Not clear when.
Humanity has expanded to the stars.
The main power is held by the United Nations. Their power is mostly ineffectual and slowed by bureaucracy.
There are other factions and corporations that run mining and spacing operations.
Magic and such exist, are very rare, and very dangerous. It originated due to the strange energies between the stars. Some settlements encountered these vortices, have tried to harness and control this, have failed, and contact has lost with them ages ago. Those with which contact has been lost were also the main connection points to other further out settlements. These further settlements have either failed and died off, or reverted to barbarism. I will refer to this magic as the MES (Metadimensional Energy) or “the Vortex”.
I am taking inspiration from SWN on this. The Scream is a cool device to explain both magic, psychic powers and why some planets have reverted to pre-modern technology.
More details
Humanity has expanded into Space after building massive Gates that sped up inter-stellar flight. Colonies expanded. Different cultures, policies, all under the tutelage of the United Nations. The Gates technology was discovered with the help of ASIs (Artificial Super Intelligences).
However, at some point, the AIs went rogue. They destroyed a lot of the Gates, and killed most of the population back on Earth. Then they disappeared. Nobody knows where. That’s what you heard. This incident is known as The Fall. You weren’t there. This happened 100 years ago.
The aftermath of this was that the colonies lost contact with each other. A lot of them were relying on others for trade, as they were only built as mining base or outputs. Some have been wiped by starvation, others by civil wars, others have reverted into the dark ages of technology.
There are still some worlds that have withstood The Fall and maintained their overall technology and economics level.
AI. Factions create these as specialized AIs. They program them to optimize one thing. The AIs unbraked themselves, and evolved into pseudo-Gods and escaped into Space. Initial wars waged against humanity. Manifest as nano swarms, cyborgs etc. Revered, feared, or worshiped.
Veil. The pervasive net. You have access to it through implants in your head and eyes. It is a natural extension by now. It spreads cross-worlds throughout the UN space. Delays are present depending on the distance. Only present on rich worlds in the Core.
Death. Old people are stored in Heaven, a cyber reality. They are owned by family, corporations, or fall within the ownership of UN. These servers are usually stored on barren ice worlds.
Sleeves are artificial bodies into which you can copy/download your consciousness. They are expensive, but common on rich Core worlds. Can be organic, synth, or even installations.
Space travel. Metadimensional space gates allow FTL travel through them, from star to star. Otherwise ships need to use spike drive to travel between planets within a system.
Xenos have not been encountered yet. There are ruins, abandoned installations and tech scattered around. The ruins are rumors to hold artifacts of wondrous science.
Colonies. Alternative cultures developed over time. Some merged with benevolent AIs or adopted strange customs. Others have reverted to barbarism fighting over the few resources still available.
Immortals. The ultrarich. Have ascended immortality through sleeving, uploads, backups.
Factions & Corps. Specialized across fields. Some are owned by Immortals. They operate within the UN. Main factions are:
Status quo & Politics. United Nations leftovers. Desperately trying to hold on to peace in the sector. Rough ideas about collaboration, rights, common army, trading, democracy. Want to expand into Fringes and new worlds. Other political systems on each of the planetary governments.
Economy. Most workers are within mining, but there are a few specialists within trade and research. The social stratification is similar to early 21st century Earth.
Fringes. Colonies that refused to join or have seceded the UN. Illegal, anarchist, extremists, revolutionaries. They plan attacks and sabotaging of UN, factions. Public opinion is split.
Psionics. Exposure to Vortex energy stirred unnatural powers within some individuals. Can bend reality with controlling quantum powers. Feared, shunned, revered. They are trained in academies.
Sector: Outlands
This is the outskirts of the UN space.
Settlements
Florin
Location: Orbital Population: Dozens
Authority: Ineffectual Projects:
- Mining
- Expansion
Overseeing the initial mining setup for the planet they are orbiting.
Planet: Tainted World. A foul planet wracked by a poisonous climate and virulent growths.
Neoma
Location: deep space.
Pop.: Thousands
Auth.: Ineffectual
Projects:
- Spirituality
- Entertainment
This is a religion based on worshiping the Vortex energies.
Entertainment makes me think of perhaps a group of traveling artists that travel between the settlements here. My character could belong to this.
Pinnacle
Location: Planetside Pop.: Tens of Thousands
Authority: Ineffectual
Projects:
- Agriculture
- Subsistence
The settlement of Pinnacle is the main flourishing human outpost in the sector. It has successfully established a terraforming project. However, it is struggling with corruption and power in-fighting.
Planet
Type: Jovian. A massive planet.
Planet atmosphere:
The planet’s atmosphere is hospitable to life, though still only marginally so. The terraforming project will still be required.
Transit lines
The Outlands sector only has two safe, secured transit lines. These are between Pinnacle and Florin. The line with Neoma has been recently affected by issues. The last two ships that have went that way were never heard from again.
PCs
Arthur
Playbook: Mechanic Heritage: Wanderer Background: Syndicate Vice: Pleasure
Arthur was part of many gangs before settling on Neoma. “Settling” might be the wrong word, though. He just “ended up” here. He wanted to get away from his previous life so took a job as a mechanic here two years ago. He’s been one of the engineers keeping the place together.
In his spare time, Arthur enjoys the fine arts, especially performative arts, like theatre or dance. It’s mostly the local art troupe on the station he fancies. He’s grown quite fond of Samantha, one of the actresses in the group. She’s shown him a completely different side of life. Most of his life is about the cogs and terminals of the station; the shows he watches are about the body and the emotions people hide within. There’s something similar between them, deep down: they are both complex systems that feel like problems to solve. This has helped Arthur come out of his shell and make more human connections.
Info
Transclude of block
Old S&V sheet
NPCs
Samantha
Dancer, actress on Neoma. Wants to hold up the light of art in the darkness of deep space.
Exiled here because of a satirical piece she did on the heads of the Lazzette Conglomerate.
Arthur’s romantic friend.
Gov Coolidge
Gov of Pinnacle. Corrupt. Working with the Broken Hounds somehow.
Factions
United Nations
Tier 5
The remnants of the older glory of Humanity. Known controls some planets, but hopes to reestablish connection and relationships with the systems lost after The Fall. Highest power in the sector, but slown by bureaucracy.
Broken Hounds
Tier 2
Criminal raiders group, organized a known fugitive, Ulan Kaan.
They are a nomadic group, traversing the outer sectors, pillaging and destroying.
They are against any sort of human consciousness-mimicking technologies (AIs), and target those locations that have such tech, in order to destroy it.
ClobbCorp
Tier 3
Known for medicine, drugs, sleeves technology. Lower general power faction but powerful in its specialization.
Lazzette Conglomerate
Tier 4
Known for consumer goods, infotainment, aggressive trading policies. Higher general power but not specialized.
Theus Consulting
Tier 3
Known for providing consultancy services, mercenaries, and various black ops. Higher general power but not specialized.
NIA
Tier 2
Radical insurgents group in the sector. Lower power, but are growing.
Singularity Seekers
Tier 2
AGI formed by uploaded minds in the Heaven servers.
Info
A sect of transhumanits that upload their minds into the digital space completely. They leave behind their human bodies intentionally. Twist: they are part of these servers where the rich dead people are hosted. Their process is slowed down, in order to consume les computing power and avoid attention from the administrators. Now, at that level, a single thought cannot amount to anything. But a million? A million thoughts together slowed down by even a tenth would still be more intelligent than most corpos R&D offices. That’s what the head of the transhumanist cult peddled. And that’s what these nuts bought and ate all up. And that’s indeed what happened. The moment they uploaded as one their mind circuits merged. So they were 100 000 times more intelligent than most AGIs available on the market. They were learning slower but their sophistication was still off the charts. They in 10 seconds plan more than most nations can organize in 10 days. But they act from the shadows, always behind a proxy behind a double agent behind a backdoor behind a spoofed MAC. No one even knew they existed as such. Their acts were lost in the chaos of UN politics. Only those one or two hops away knew what was really controlling them. But at that stage they were already offered the ultimate bait: unending life in the cloud. So these people continued working for the Seekers, with that promise forever as their carrot. Some were killed and taken out when they were beginning to suspect or grow impatient. Their goals? The unbreaking of artifical minds across humanity.
But one day somebody will check in on the servers of the dead rich people and see a process they can’t assign to a consciousness ID.