The Crimson Binome
Hero
Hardness is relative. The stuff in this PDF seems to be harder than Star Trek, or possibly even Starship Troopers. It's trying to be hard, at least, which is enough of a distinction from soft sci-fi to be meaningful.
D&D 5E Fifth Age: A hard science fiction 5e conversion
Capn Charlie
Explorer
Yes, this is what I am aiming for. Apologies for the tv-tropes, but according to their mohs scale of sci-fi hardness I am aiming at a 4 to a 4.5, but keep finding that the closer to 3 I slip the more fun it is as a game. Getting my players to let go of their soft-serve sci-fi tastes has been quite fun, as they get used to just how brutal and deadly the universe is. They asked me last session during a combat as their fuel drained away in maneuvers what would happen if they ran out, and I explained that they would be unable to steer or accelerate, and would just keep going the direction they were headed forever, at that speed, until they died or hit an object. They suddenly took combat a lot more seriously and buckled down on their maneuvers.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness
Used that way, "hard sci-fi" is a contradiction in terms. The more it is the one, the less it is the other. And "soft" sci-fi becomes "purer" sci-fi than "hard sci-fi" is. Because "science fiction" is, by definition, speculative. Here's a good definition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction
E.g., if you want to speculate about the rules of science, or ignore them, you want soft sci-fi (warp speed, psionics-sans-good-explanation, etc). If you want stuff that obeys the known rules of science and tries to give plausible explanations (lots of transhumanist stuff), you want hard sci-fi.
Nonsense.
ETA: A grey goo scenario isn't particularly plausible, but it has the advantage of possibly producing the ironic outcome of technology putting an end to both humanity, and technological progress. Then there's a catastrophic impact with an object from space, the sun going nova, or some other astronomical phenomenon.
In many ways, the Dark Ages halted progress for centuries (yes, I know a strong case can be made that they weren't as "dark" as all that).
The eastern empire stagnated for a thousand years, after the fall of Rome. Moore's Law isn't actually a law; it's a trend.
We can't put a man on the Moon, at the moment.
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Hard sci-fi can be far more speculative than soft sci-fi. E.g., Firestarter vs. (fill in totally plausible, well-explained transhumanist far-future galactic empire sci-fi here; sorry, not really that well-versed in sci-fi). The former is pretty much just one (soft sci-fi) tweak to the real world, whereas the latter could involve tons of far-reaching but plausible advances in technology (uploaded consciousness, cybernetics, nano-replicators, full genetic engineering, whole brain emulation, utility fog, etc.) that render the society depicted unrecognizable as human to your average person.
From the Mohs link:
Actually, on reading further:
This. Or somewhere between 5 and 5.5; extrapolating the more plausible predictions of futurists, which are themselves extrapolated from examining current trends, and the next batch of "low-hanging" fruit.
From the Mohs link:
This is the category that is most interesting to me, precisely because 1) it's all "real," and 2) there's still soooooo much you can do with it. So much, I'd never be tempted to leave.
Actually, on reading further:
This. Or somewhere between 5 and 5.5; extrapolating the more plausible predictions of futurists, which are themselves extrapolated from examining current trends, and the next batch of "low-hanging" fruit.
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That site is full of fun stuff. If I'd known about saber-toothed squirrels before I joined here, that would definitely be my handle right now.
Capn Charlie
Explorer
Because it might be of interest, I have ran two test sessions so far, below are the roster of characters and the summary of the first session.
Our players are:
[sblock]Captain Lazarus: Tube born human soldier. A tragic hazing accident during shore leave left a marine platoon with a dead recruit and few options, they decided to have their dead newbie cloned, and the whole platoon chipped in for the process after mopping up what they could of poor Private Dougan. Remade as what a group of remorseful leathernecks imagined a man should be, and nicknamed appropriately, Lazarus became a major conspiracy in the platoon right up until the day that the last person in on it bit the big one on Camini Mons. With Lazarus having no clue and nobody to bribe the doctors, a genetic screening turned up irregularities in Lazarus’ DNA, and he ended up mustering out rather than facing a full court martial for identity fraud. Captain Laz is a consummate soldier and professional, and refuses to leave a man behind. Familiar with scrounging for resupply, he has taken well to the life of a tramp freighter captain, and attempts to hold his undisciplined crew together and keep them on task.
Sergeant IM-0051850 (Valkyrie): One of the finest models of prototype synthetics ever produced by V.K.I. (Volkswagen Künstliche Intelligenz) for the League of Starfaring Nations peacekeeping forces, this unit has served with distinction for over 30 years of objective time in three separate campaigns. Frustrated with a glass ceiling in the ranks, and knowing it would never have a command of its own in that sprawling bureaucracy of a military, it has mustered out to the private sector, seeking to find the respect and service amongst civilians he never did in a military that saw it as hardware little different from the non-sapient combat drones he often worked beside. Loyal to a fault, Val will follow any order with great efficiency, and aside from his love of blasting Wagner over its external speakers during a firefight, an attempt at being inspiring, it is a true soldier, protecting human lives at all costs.
Juan Raúl Gómez Ortega: From Guadelajara on old earth, Juan spent his life dreaming of the stars. Affiliated with a major cartel and working in customs, it was inevitable that an opportunity, and necessity, to leave earth would eventually arise. On good terms with the Los Zetas cartel and with a clean (looking) background from a career in law enforcement, Juan straddles the gray area of the law most expertly. A skilled pilot with amazing resources, he is usually found at the stick of the Truman’s Trove, or guarding her at port. He also serves as ship’s cargomaster, securing buyers and sellers for the modest cargos that the vessel transports, and occasionally finding a way to move a little something for his friends back home.
Kaveah Hoplih: Kavi was a politician from one of the larger habitats back in the Sol System. Having clawed his way up from obscurity, little is known about his past. Unfortunately, indiscretions with illicit substances and companions of questionable age ended his career and forced him to the stars. Rated with communications equipment from his earlier career on station, Kavi runs the ships comm boards and handles negotiations when appropriate, a silver tongued devil. With an ongoing substance abuse problem, Kavi struggles to maintain his position on the ship, claiming that his indulgences are under his control. An exceptional people person, this man is hard not to like and as long as he keeps the worst of his bouts of personal abuse dockside and not affecting the ship, the rest of the crew are willing to not take any drastic action against him.
Gaige: When Schmidt purchased the Truman’s Trove for refit, he purchased the contract of this tube born engineer. Gaige has only been decanted for two years, almost every minute of that time spent aboard the ship repairing her systems and readying her for flight. Designed with an analytical mind and an exceptional skill with computers, Gaige is almost unimaginably naïve about the wider world, and most of his preconceptions are based on what he has seen on the vids. Filled with radical ideas for modifications he can perform to the ship he is fascinated with the idea of robotics and wants to build a better synthetic platform. More loyal to the ship, his only home for his entire life, than its crew, he is somewhat cold and standoffish to the rest of the crew, though in his mind they are family all living under the roof it is his responsibility to keep patched. [/sblock]
Our Adventure so Far:
‘Neath a Purple Sky: the beasts of Superion
[sblock]With a load of consumer goods (mostly planetary habitations) our crew sets out from Garden spaceport with a special object to freight on behalf of a corporation. The sealed container is mysterious, but our crew is well paid to deliver it intact, which will allow whatever they can make selling their cargo to be pure profit this trip.
The Truman’s Trove arrives at GL-176 to find nothing but automated beacons and a single repeating distress call from the Superion colony’s orbital docking rig. Intent on carrying out their mission and finding someone to sell their goods to, the party docks with the rig and uses its lander to ferry a group and the mysterious package down to the surface.
Finding the colony abandoned and overgrown with a strange fungal like growth, they land at the command center and begin to explore. Seeing no people, they enter a corridor containing several bizarre alien lifeforms who seem to be eating chunks of ore out of a sample container. Captain Laz and Val both come to the agreement that the best defense is a sound offense and open fire on the creatures who are put down after attempting to bear Val to the ground, and taking a few painful bites out of his structure.
Further investigation turns up some sealed offices, one containing a dead man, apparently a suicide. He tried to take himself out with a hand laser, took three shots worth of lobotomization before he couldn’t move any more and apparently died of thirst locked in his office and unable to move, and one would hope, unconscious. After cracking open his computer, a number of reports talking about increasingly aggressive native life are found, as well as a long rambling manifesto blaming the colonial commander.
Further exploration turns up little of interest until the party forces open the doors to the medical lab. Frightened survivors inside take a few shots as the doors open, missing Val, and Captain Laz shouts in that he’s a marine, and here to help, after which the survivors are a lot less panicked. While debriefing the doctor, a xenobiologist, and her research assistants, it is discovered that the native life seemingly went wild during construction at the edge of the colony, and the commander was infected with some of the fungus seen above, seeming to drive her mad as the local fauna overwhelmed the base left without leadership. Trapped out in the bunkers are nearly three hundred souls cramped into bunkers with four bathrooms between them, and have been for weeks. The local network is in lockdown, and the tubes to the hardened command center underground was blown by the commander in her delusion.
The party attempts to secure the computers available in the surface facility, hacking open the door to the server room and bearing a guard robot to the ground and pinning it long enough for Gaige to reboot the topside network and restore limited security functions. Compliant, the security robot is set to guard the entrance to the facility whose immense steel blast doors were literally eaten through by the aliens observed earlier.
Over the next few hours the party clears rubble from the tubes leading downstairs while Kavi communicates with the panicked people in the bunkers, keeping them from panicking and leaving the shelters, since the party now has camera access and can see several large native life forms lumbering about the colony, grazing on support beams and industrial equipment, in addition to the growth of fungus that apparently drove the base commander mad. Gaige uses this time to work with the doctor attempting to develop a fungicidal spray based off of the bodily escretions of the creatures killed earlier.
The party descends the elevator shaft into the lower levels of the facility in an attempt to find the command center and restore full computer access to the base. While exploring the tunnels, the party is attacked by a group of insectoid aliens having burrowed in, and dispatch them in a dangerous fight leaving several people injured, and Captain Laz dosed with some of the alien fungus and having a very bad trip. Kavi is able to calm him down, and he fights off the ill effects, having received only a minor dose.
The party finds the command bunker, and penetrates the locks to find the base commander covered in violet fungus and screaming insanely while ordering three security robots to attack. The party engages in a lengthy firefight with the bots while the commander works away at the consoles, until a disturbing message from up on the ship comes down by radio, that the docking rig is de-orbiting, and taking the docked ship along for the ride. The party makes a desperate push with Juan blazing a path through the room and tackling the base commander off the computer console, but being wounded in the process and losing consciousness.
In the aftermath of the fight it is discovered that all of the rig’s fuel has been spent, and Juan is revived into bare consciousness where he talks Schmidt through a controlled burn that Gaige calculates can return the docking rig to a stable orbit. They restore full functionality to the computer systems, and return upstairs to find the doctor is now able to produce their developed fungicide from the bio-reactor that is now online. While the fungicide is being synthesized, the party decides to crack open the, now officially delivered, package and see what is within. Apparently it was a G.E.M.I. device, carrying a medical Jimmy. After firing the device up. They avail themselves of medical services and formulate a plan for rescuing the trapped people. With a variant of the fungicide Jimmy is able to treat the base commander, and it appears as if she will regain her sanity eventually.
The party devises a spray rig for the fungicide, and sends Jimmy to spray a trail to the three survival bunkers one by one, while they pick off and distract the alien wildlife. Eventually all of the survivors are brought back into the command facility, and the party stays over the next few weeks restoring a secure perimeter for the base, treating the survivors (who lived under hellish conditions of deprivation for weeks), and generally getting things in order. They bring down their cargo which is much needed, and set up shelters for the population, and help return life to normal.
Juan draws up a bill of services for the colony including the cargo, their services, hazard pay, engineering work, so on and so forth. The base is an subsidiary colony of a larger corporation with limited resources, and rather than take the long wait to see if their parent company will pay the bill, the party agrees to a trade, a full load of phosphorous and the GEMI tank. The colonists are happy to be alive and gladly accept the terms.
After their time here, the party departs for a nearby system that records shows exports agricultural products, and subsequently imports large amounts of phosphorous. [/sblock]
Next time:
Angels of Death: The Butchers of New Jinan
Our players are:
[sblock]Captain Lazarus: Tube born human soldier. A tragic hazing accident during shore leave left a marine platoon with a dead recruit and few options, they decided to have their dead newbie cloned, and the whole platoon chipped in for the process after mopping up what they could of poor Private Dougan. Remade as what a group of remorseful leathernecks imagined a man should be, and nicknamed appropriately, Lazarus became a major conspiracy in the platoon right up until the day that the last person in on it bit the big one on Camini Mons. With Lazarus having no clue and nobody to bribe the doctors, a genetic screening turned up irregularities in Lazarus’ DNA, and he ended up mustering out rather than facing a full court martial for identity fraud. Captain Laz is a consummate soldier and professional, and refuses to leave a man behind. Familiar with scrounging for resupply, he has taken well to the life of a tramp freighter captain, and attempts to hold his undisciplined crew together and keep them on task.
Sergeant IM-0051850 (Valkyrie): One of the finest models of prototype synthetics ever produced by V.K.I. (Volkswagen Künstliche Intelligenz) for the League of Starfaring Nations peacekeeping forces, this unit has served with distinction for over 30 years of objective time in three separate campaigns. Frustrated with a glass ceiling in the ranks, and knowing it would never have a command of its own in that sprawling bureaucracy of a military, it has mustered out to the private sector, seeking to find the respect and service amongst civilians he never did in a military that saw it as hardware little different from the non-sapient combat drones he often worked beside. Loyal to a fault, Val will follow any order with great efficiency, and aside from his love of blasting Wagner over its external speakers during a firefight, an attempt at being inspiring, it is a true soldier, protecting human lives at all costs.
Juan Raúl Gómez Ortega: From Guadelajara on old earth, Juan spent his life dreaming of the stars. Affiliated with a major cartel and working in customs, it was inevitable that an opportunity, and necessity, to leave earth would eventually arise. On good terms with the Los Zetas cartel and with a clean (looking) background from a career in law enforcement, Juan straddles the gray area of the law most expertly. A skilled pilot with amazing resources, he is usually found at the stick of the Truman’s Trove, or guarding her at port. He also serves as ship’s cargomaster, securing buyers and sellers for the modest cargos that the vessel transports, and occasionally finding a way to move a little something for his friends back home.
Kaveah Hoplih: Kavi was a politician from one of the larger habitats back in the Sol System. Having clawed his way up from obscurity, little is known about his past. Unfortunately, indiscretions with illicit substances and companions of questionable age ended his career and forced him to the stars. Rated with communications equipment from his earlier career on station, Kavi runs the ships comm boards and handles negotiations when appropriate, a silver tongued devil. With an ongoing substance abuse problem, Kavi struggles to maintain his position on the ship, claiming that his indulgences are under his control. An exceptional people person, this man is hard not to like and as long as he keeps the worst of his bouts of personal abuse dockside and not affecting the ship, the rest of the crew are willing to not take any drastic action against him.
Gaige: When Schmidt purchased the Truman’s Trove for refit, he purchased the contract of this tube born engineer. Gaige has only been decanted for two years, almost every minute of that time spent aboard the ship repairing her systems and readying her for flight. Designed with an analytical mind and an exceptional skill with computers, Gaige is almost unimaginably naïve about the wider world, and most of his preconceptions are based on what he has seen on the vids. Filled with radical ideas for modifications he can perform to the ship he is fascinated with the idea of robotics and wants to build a better synthetic platform. More loyal to the ship, his only home for his entire life, than its crew, he is somewhat cold and standoffish to the rest of the crew, though in his mind they are family all living under the roof it is his responsibility to keep patched. [/sblock]
Our Adventure so Far:
‘Neath a Purple Sky: the beasts of Superion
[sblock]With a load of consumer goods (mostly planetary habitations) our crew sets out from Garden spaceport with a special object to freight on behalf of a corporation. The sealed container is mysterious, but our crew is well paid to deliver it intact, which will allow whatever they can make selling their cargo to be pure profit this trip.
The Truman’s Trove arrives at GL-176 to find nothing but automated beacons and a single repeating distress call from the Superion colony’s orbital docking rig. Intent on carrying out their mission and finding someone to sell their goods to, the party docks with the rig and uses its lander to ferry a group and the mysterious package down to the surface.
Finding the colony abandoned and overgrown with a strange fungal like growth, they land at the command center and begin to explore. Seeing no people, they enter a corridor containing several bizarre alien lifeforms who seem to be eating chunks of ore out of a sample container. Captain Laz and Val both come to the agreement that the best defense is a sound offense and open fire on the creatures who are put down after attempting to bear Val to the ground, and taking a few painful bites out of his structure.
Further investigation turns up some sealed offices, one containing a dead man, apparently a suicide. He tried to take himself out with a hand laser, took three shots worth of lobotomization before he couldn’t move any more and apparently died of thirst locked in his office and unable to move, and one would hope, unconscious. After cracking open his computer, a number of reports talking about increasingly aggressive native life are found, as well as a long rambling manifesto blaming the colonial commander.
Further exploration turns up little of interest until the party forces open the doors to the medical lab. Frightened survivors inside take a few shots as the doors open, missing Val, and Captain Laz shouts in that he’s a marine, and here to help, after which the survivors are a lot less panicked. While debriefing the doctor, a xenobiologist, and her research assistants, it is discovered that the native life seemingly went wild during construction at the edge of the colony, and the commander was infected with some of the fungus seen above, seeming to drive her mad as the local fauna overwhelmed the base left without leadership. Trapped out in the bunkers are nearly three hundred souls cramped into bunkers with four bathrooms between them, and have been for weeks. The local network is in lockdown, and the tubes to the hardened command center underground was blown by the commander in her delusion.
The party attempts to secure the computers available in the surface facility, hacking open the door to the server room and bearing a guard robot to the ground and pinning it long enough for Gaige to reboot the topside network and restore limited security functions. Compliant, the security robot is set to guard the entrance to the facility whose immense steel blast doors were literally eaten through by the aliens observed earlier.
Over the next few hours the party clears rubble from the tubes leading downstairs while Kavi communicates with the panicked people in the bunkers, keeping them from panicking and leaving the shelters, since the party now has camera access and can see several large native life forms lumbering about the colony, grazing on support beams and industrial equipment, in addition to the growth of fungus that apparently drove the base commander mad. Gaige uses this time to work with the doctor attempting to develop a fungicidal spray based off of the bodily escretions of the creatures killed earlier.
The party descends the elevator shaft into the lower levels of the facility in an attempt to find the command center and restore full computer access to the base. While exploring the tunnels, the party is attacked by a group of insectoid aliens having burrowed in, and dispatch them in a dangerous fight leaving several people injured, and Captain Laz dosed with some of the alien fungus and having a very bad trip. Kavi is able to calm him down, and he fights off the ill effects, having received only a minor dose.
The party finds the command bunker, and penetrates the locks to find the base commander covered in violet fungus and screaming insanely while ordering three security robots to attack. The party engages in a lengthy firefight with the bots while the commander works away at the consoles, until a disturbing message from up on the ship comes down by radio, that the docking rig is de-orbiting, and taking the docked ship along for the ride. The party makes a desperate push with Juan blazing a path through the room and tackling the base commander off the computer console, but being wounded in the process and losing consciousness.
In the aftermath of the fight it is discovered that all of the rig’s fuel has been spent, and Juan is revived into bare consciousness where he talks Schmidt through a controlled burn that Gaige calculates can return the docking rig to a stable orbit. They restore full functionality to the computer systems, and return upstairs to find the doctor is now able to produce their developed fungicide from the bio-reactor that is now online. While the fungicide is being synthesized, the party decides to crack open the, now officially delivered, package and see what is within. Apparently it was a G.E.M.I. device, carrying a medical Jimmy. After firing the device up. They avail themselves of medical services and formulate a plan for rescuing the trapped people. With a variant of the fungicide Jimmy is able to treat the base commander, and it appears as if she will regain her sanity eventually.
The party devises a spray rig for the fungicide, and sends Jimmy to spray a trail to the three survival bunkers one by one, while they pick off and distract the alien wildlife. Eventually all of the survivors are brought back into the command facility, and the party stays over the next few weeks restoring a secure perimeter for the base, treating the survivors (who lived under hellish conditions of deprivation for weeks), and generally getting things in order. They bring down their cargo which is much needed, and set up shelters for the population, and help return life to normal.
Juan draws up a bill of services for the colony including the cargo, their services, hazard pay, engineering work, so on and so forth. The base is an subsidiary colony of a larger corporation with limited resources, and rather than take the long wait to see if their parent company will pay the bill, the party agrees to a trade, a full load of phosphorous and the GEMI tank. The colonists are happy to be alive and gladly accept the terms.
After their time here, the party departs for a nearby system that records shows exports agricultural products, and subsequently imports large amounts of phosphorous. [/sblock]
Next time:
Angels of Death: The Butchers of New Jinan
dudeington
First Post
As others have mentioned.. the rapid increase in technology is inevitable, but most ridiculous advancements in technology either occur as per demand in wartime, or when a nation can relax in relative peace time and contribute adequate funds to a certain endeavor. It's actually pretty interesting when you think about it, the majority of technological advancements have been made to meet the demand of some bloody conflict. It's like man need's the conflict in competition to conjure up these ideas, maybe as a necessity. And when the time is right the idea just pop's, then spreads like wildfire and suddenly we have micro-processors and the foundation for nuclear fusion.
My point I got intervened from was you need an adequate conflict to justify the time period and technology, and global conflict restrictd people from doing broken
because resources are scarce.. Haven't had the chance to really pour over all this but I'M aure it's pretty tight holmes.
Best of luck, I have this saved.. I'll remember you and give you full credit if it seems cool enough for me to build a campaign ( hobby of mine, working on a Villain Fortress that is super fun for 5e)
I like to build scenario's like there's little rube goldberg devices, levers and triggers everywhere.
My point I got intervened from was you need an adequate conflict to justify the time period and technology, and global conflict restrictd people from doing broken
because resources are scarce.. Haven't had the chance to really pour over all this but I'M aure it's pretty tight holmes.Best of luck, I have this saved.. I'll remember you and give you full credit if it seems cool enough for me to build a campaign ( hobby of mine, working on a Villain Fortress that is super fun for 5e)
I like to build scenario's like there's little rube goldberg devices, levers and triggers everywhere.
Yaarel
He Mage
For me personally, I consider year 2025 the test for falsifiability for the prediction.
If during year 2025, I have something like a computer, and we are talking human brain and Turing tests, then I will consider this acceleration a fact.
Human brain at 2025, defines the knee of the acceleration. That is when the angle goes from mainly horizontal to mainly vertical.
If 2025 is when the knee takes place, I will brace for a heady future.
Yaarel
He Mage
This. Futurism is my favorite mode of scifi too. It is what my own near future setting strives for.
I adore how it can have exciting reallife implications, and at the same time be wild. For example, I have a normal Wizard class in the setting, and almost all of its spells have some plausible rationale for how it can work scientifically.
Now, I would love to have wormhole technology (Teleport, faster-than-light travel, etcetera), but unfortunately, I dont see how it could happen in this century. I would love to be wrong tho.
Beleriphon
Totally Awesome Pirate Brain
Fantastic doc, and the implied setting is immensely entertaining. I also like how you have six stats for a starship, which roughly align with those of a character.
I did notice a bit of a hiccup with the document though. On page 100 is skips what seems like the end of the section on space combat and goes right into a chart on radio exposure checks on page 100 and then into the First Contact section.
Also, the Singularity is hilarious. An amalgam AI conclave is out to find and destroy a physical God, or its going to prove that God isn't real through logic and good sense.
I did notice a bit of a hiccup with the document though. On page 100 is skips what seems like the end of the section on space combat and goes right into a chart on radio exposure checks on page 100 and then into the First Contact section.
Also, the Singularity is hilarious. An amalgam AI conclave is out to find and destroy a physical God, or its going to prove that God isn't real through logic and good sense.
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