The Universe – more frills than we thought

I’ve been looking at Solar Stories in the background recently (meaning more posts soon). But this week something that made space a seem even bigger and a lot more complex. It’s something I cannot ignore whilst building a vehicle for space based stories.

That thing is the release of the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Not just that incredible image shown off by the US President but the rest of this first reference set. I’ve been diving into these and to say that these images are inspirational is very much the grand understatement.

Looking at these pictures, it is hard to have a favourite, but perhaps it has to go to the Carina Nebula. This screams that space is vast, infinitely complex and diverse on a scale that defies comprehension. To someone wondering what a fictional future in our solar system might be like, it is a challenge to take off the gloves and come up with something too creative.

It is almost as if this new view of reality allows us to think bigger, better and stranger. Has the universe just given us permission to be more than we were before? We don’t need permission, although reminders like this are wonderful.

Before I go I’m just going to link to some James Webb resources in case you also find these useful

James Webb Resources

The James Webb Flickr Page

Webb’s First Images and Data (Gallery)

Webb Space Telescope Home Page

Image Credit

The Carina Nebula via the James Webb Space Telescope

Listen to this post on Spotify

Of Empires, Republics, and other Arrangements

The solar system is a very big place, for Solar Stories this plays out in many ways. One of these is diversity in everything. Right now I want to mention the politics of Solar Stories.

At the time of Solar Stories humanity might have been in space for thousands of years, but that has not guaranteed a unified existence. Space is big, and there is room for almost every idea, which is exactly what has happened. No single ideology or political body has risen to power. Some players are richer or weirder than others but nothing has become singularly powerful. Even the inhabitited planets are not controlled by single government. If something as small as a planet does not have a single voice then you can imagine how chaotic the chorus of different voices is that stretches out into outer space.

Putting all of this together for a game presents a challenge in definitions. How do you create a canon that handles something so wide ranging? The answer I’m going for is to feed the imagination. Some of entries in this blog will be examples of places and peoples existing in the game. Others will talk about the concepts of history that led to this political landscape. All going well a foundation will arise over time that helps myself and others fill in the blanks. All roleplaying games are a cooperative effort so why encourage others to use this a building blocks and create something unique from it.

So how did things get this way?

It starts wth the nation states extending their ideologies outwards, only to find that mavericks, corporations and regions were heading that way too. I’ll be exploring the history of Solar Stories but the key is this confluence of differences where no outright winners emerged.

So I’ll leave you with this single thought; watch out for the mighty egos, passion can build any kind of chaos.

Solar Stories

A working solar system may be ok as a declaration of a concept or intent, but it is hardly a title that sticks in the head.

A title becomes a needed thing. I’ve played quite a few through my head. Some channelling classics (like Songs of a Distant Sun). That sounds great until you remember “Songs of Distant Earth”. Whoops, far too close.

Or should I name it after a fictional location? Maybe create a social grouping and write everything from that point of view?

Which led to lots of ideas that were mostly terrible.

What happened next was that I stumbled into thinking about a setting. Not the ground rules for everything. Just a place that could become a small, specific that could become an essential part of the fiction.

That’s what this would be, lots of very diverse places, all having their own stories.

Stories in a solar system

Or Solar Stories

It’s not the cleverest, brightest chicest title. It may very well change, but for now, it is under the banner of Solar Stories

Image Rights

The image on this post is used via
Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The catalogue page for this image is
https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21212

A Working Solar System

So I’ve said that I would work out the background for an SF RPG, based entirely in space but without hitting too many of the tropes of Star Trek or Star Wars.

Better not populate it with weird aliens and faster than light travel then.

Taking those options out is a restriction, but the great thing about being limited are the boundaries. Those lines of demarkation help give focus and I have some boundaries.

Here are some inspirations

The Martian Way – Isaac Asimov

The Belter Stories of Larry Nivens Known Space

The general feel of Jerry Pournelles’ writing

Outland

Moon

Silent Running

Revenger – Alastair Reynolds

The Expanse – James SA Corey – No link here as The Expanse spans a series of books and a television series. Both are important inspirations. Google The Expanse – go and watch it or start reading the books

The Last Dance – Martin L Shoemaker

The Feel of Things

The aim is to capture the feel of working and living beyond the limits of the Earth but within a reasonable frame of reference. By reasonable I mean a few miracles. Few miracles equals no gravity control, inertial control, faster than light travel or other familiar crutches of Space Opera. The solar system becomes a place we live and work in, with all the problems that come with it.

However, given the popularity of the Expanse and the like this must stand out on its own and not be a cookie-cutter experience for the players.

So how to do that?

I think the answer comes from three places, people, history and technology. People as all stories including RPGs are about people. History as that’s our social framework and technology because that influences how we live.

The History

The first instinct is to look only a few hundred years in the future. I want to divorce things from modern thinking. Doing so needs some elbow room. The setting is then 1000’s of years in the future. History isn’t linear. I’ll need to build in some social changes that look forward and some backward. That’s good as I can add in elements that challenge the players morally, even though that is the world their characters know.

Here are a few key points of that make up the historical backstory for this Solar Syste

  • Nations as we know them are gone. Replaced by interest groups I’m going to call these Phyles and come back to what they are in a moment
  • Various ecological, political, religous and planetary crisis has kept the population of Earth low. Ruins abound, much of the planet has returned to nature.
  • The wrecks of old conflicts are everywhere. Abandoned spaces on worlds, moons and asteroids. Spaceship wrecks float through the solar system.
  • Any computer exhibiting any form of consciousness is banned. Computers once became conscious and revealed themselves to be something quite alien. There was conflict and it was not a good time
  • In places people are the aliens. Large scale playing with genetics for profit and fashion has fractured humanity into something that approximates multiple species.

The Phyles

Nations broke down as the world changed and bubbles of people sharing common beliefs became more and more important. The practical take on this is that we’re talking tribes of people. I didn’t want to use the word Tribes as it has a good many connotations that I didn’t want to get tied into. So I went to the older term phyles. In this future view of things the tribes will be organised in plenty of different ways. Instead of trying to describe everything in detail here are some terms that apply

  • Monarchy
  • Noble Houses
  • Warlord
  • Elected Leader
  • Family
  • Serf
  • Slave
  • Company
  • Worker
  • Crew

It’s going to be a complex mash of interacting societies. The scope for backstories is enormous.

Technology

Since we’re talking about a Solar System full of activity a certain level of technology is a given. We’re also saying that thousands of years have passed. So what is the technology like in this environment? I think the answer is complicated. So perhaps the way to do this is to list some options.

  • No faster than light travel
  • No removing the effects of acceleration
  • No artifical gravity fields. Gravity is from mass or can be simulated by movement
  • No teleportation
  • No conscious artificial intelligences or networks complex enough to exhibit intelligence
  • There is genetic manipulation on live subjects
  • There are genetic changes that can become hereditary
  • Nano technology has opened up a vast array of high strength light weight materials
  • Spacecraft are common and relatively easy to obtain. This follows for most types of transport or complex machine
  • Medicines can cure almost all diseases
  • The majority of injuries can be healed in hours or days not weeks or months

Technology is not evenly distributed. Some places get by on next to nothing. Some the latest everything and others use old technologies forgotten by everyone else/

It’s a mixed and complex future. Mix, match and play with ideas.

Interstellar Travel

There is no travel between the stars at the time these stories are set in. There is no faster than light travel. The past could have been different. Voyages to far off suns could have been attempted. There could be other human civilisations out there. Legends could persist of vast starships and effort to make a voyage.

When you’re thinking about time on a long scale it is hard to say something never happened. There could be stories there could be remnants. Referring to a mysterious past could make good stories in the current time.

Wrapping it up

I’m hoping this outline gets some thought going. Next its time add in some detail so we can get a bit of flavour on this.

Image Credit

The image in this post is used via NASA and JPL

Listen to this Post

This post is available on Spotify Podcasts. Listen Here

The Stall

When I started this there was no pandemic and no lockdowns. Bliss! Then I had an idea about using a pandemic as the starting point for some fiction that would ultimately become a body horror larp.

That all looked like far to much bad taste in the light of an actual pandemic.

Reality hit like a big Norse god charged hammer blow

This could turn into a long story or whinge but the truth is that with my idea not looking like a good one I stalled on it..

I kept the site though. It has a good name, and the idea of just being a place to stream out ideas is a good one. It’s just that the stall plunged it into freefall.

Well we’re in a new year now and its time I did something about that!

Happy New and lets hope for a better stream!