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Brad Murray
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
http://www.vsca.ca/Hollowpoint
Hollowpoint is out! Be a bad man.
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Anyone familiar with Joshua Newman's great game, Shock: Social Science Fiction gets the idea eventually for every science fiction game: science fiction is about, at its roots, how regular human interests collide with technology. These collisions are the Shocks in Newman's game.
So it seems like this is a good way to get some momentum for a Diaspora game. Build your cluster and maybe your characters and then establish a Shock that's going to impinge on the story somehow -- it might be central, it might be directly relevant to a character, or it might be a constant background theme. So give me your shocks! I'll put a few hew now so you can see what I mean and add to it as I think of it. When I get enough I'll compile the best at our skunkworks wiki (keeping authors) and eventually publish it up as a free PDF or something, giving credit. When it gets to that point I'll contact all authors for permission before proceeding with anything.
So, shocks:
T3 - Mindwipe: the technology exists to completely and maybe irrevocably remove all of a person's memories. Is this murder? Is it used as a form of "execution"? Of suicide? How are new 'wipes handled? How do friends and family react? Is this a weapon? Can it be reversed? Can it be partially deployed?
T1 - Clones: the technology to exactly duplicate human beings exists and is relatively efficient. Governments can build armies if they like. Do clones have rights? Can they be owned? Does everyone agree? Just how handy is this exactly? Can you have clones of yourself? For organ replacement? For tedious work? Are you a clone? How do you know?
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Darren Brewster
Canada
Dartmouth
Nova Scotia
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I think some Transhuman style shocks would work quite well. Being able to copy someone's consciousness into a computer. Custom creation of better than human bodies. True artificial intelligences. Put one of these into a game as a shock could really shake things up in a good way.
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Brad Murray
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
http://www.vsca.ca/Hollowpoint
Hollowpoint is out! Be a bad man.
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ExCrusader wrote: I think some Transhuman style shocks would work quite well. Being able to copy someone's consciousness into a computer. Custom creation of better than human bodies. True artificial intelligences. Put one of these into a game as a shock could really shake things up in a good way.
Cool ideas -- let's see some! I'm not up on transhuman fiction so it's all you!
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Darren Brewster
Canada
Dartmouth
Nova Scotia
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Deal. But I will save that for tomorrow. It is past midnight on the east coast!
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Harald Wagener
Switzerland
Zürich
Zürich
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I'll try to write up the whole shock vector for military warfare. It will be highly inaccurate, open to speculation, but it may give a better insight why I think a particular invention is a shock.
T-4: sticks and stones. It's a bloody mess, but people kill each other for sticks. And stones.
T-3: advanced metal work allows for body armor that protects agains pointy sticks. As these are still unique items, they are a corner stone for feudalism by military force
T-2: slug throwers kill body armor effectively, revolutionizing warfare. At the higher rungs of this come rapid fire slug throwers and tanks, which mitigate the need for trained shooters.
T-1: air planes and rocket technology make tanks and infantry highly obsolete.
T 0: remote unmanned guided weaponry and observation drones changes the technical field of warfare again. People are removed from the "surgical battlefield", unless they're victims of this technology.
T 1: Advanced cybernetic body armor closes the gap where computer controlled systems fail. The soldier returns to the battle field, although his tasks are very different to what we know from T-2 and below. Guerilla tactics resurface and combine electronic warfare with the old and trusted techniques.
T 2: Anti gravity reduces the need for large weapons platforms and turns the battle field into a highly complex 3d space where traditional combat vehicles lose out against the flying cybernetic body armored people. The only solace for the lower tech observer is that you might be able to get a lucky shot with a T 1 laser on these guys to take them down.
T 3: shield technology makes energy based weapons useless for attacks on personell as well as prepared targets. In battle, you can now not only capture the flag, but stick to it with a flip-switch-bunker.
T 4: click. you're dead. (with apologies to the original GURPS tech level ladder).
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Karsten Sagichnicht
Germany
Berlin
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Has anyone read Richard Morgan (Altered Carbon)? I would love to include the ability to transfer minds from computer into body and vice versa, so creating the ability to "sleeve" into a new body. Morgan also added the ability to transfer the data very fast to other planets - much faster then ships can go.
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Nick O'Leary
United States
New Hampshire
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On a related note, here's a post by Fred Hicks (the mind behind Fate) about adding Shocks to Diaspora
http://www.deadlyfredly.com/2009/11/diaspora/
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Declan Feeney
United Kingdom
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T+3: Memory as Data: The merger of data and memory. When data is shared freely and peoples experiences are data does individuality still exist? Can people have privacy? Can you still be inspired? Have dreams and desires? What about relationships?
T+0: Star Children: They're born off world or perhaps on a colony. Are they still one of us? Do they care if the world was made in 7 days? Its not their world. Can we trust them? Will they think us narrow minded? Will they do what we tell them? Can we tax them? What if they want to come home?
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Declan Feeney
United Kingdom
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T+1: Oldies but Coldies: They were diagnosed with terminal diseases and frozen decades ago, and now we're thawing them and curing them. Does it matter that your great grandma seems to be thirty years your junior? Do you say shes 35 or 140? She looks 35. What if she was frozen after being pronounced dead? Is she still married? What about her property? Does it matter that her family's been living there for a hundred years? Did she visit heaven? Does she remember anything? What does the church say?
T+3: Thought Police: We can read your thoughts and know what you're going to do. We can process it in real time. Can we prosecute you for planning a crime? Even one you didn't do? What about in the moment before you acted? Is it ethical to allow you to break the law? To let you kill? Is it ethical to stop you? After all its not like your a criminal, since you haven't yet done anything. How do we prove you would have?
T+0: Organic Machinery: You're clothes are living, as is your car. They breath, to some extent they breath. Do they have rights? Do we defend them? Can we scrap them? What if they evolve? Can they get sick? Can they be pets? Are they property?
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Declan Feeney
United Kingdom
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T+3 or +4: Living Construct: The mind has been mapped. We can create a computer construct that thinks like you and remembers all that you do. It makes the same decisions and mistakes as you? Is it you? Does it have a soul? Can you prove you have something it doesn't or are we all just machines? What if you die? Does it have rights? What it someone wills their property to it?
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Declan Feeney
United Kingdom
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T+3: 100% Unemployment: Need someone to do something? We've got a bot for that. No one needs to work. Bots do everything, they even make their replacements. They handle disasters, they are the police and the governments. When you go to court its a bot that hears your appeal. They're not sentient, but they don't need to be - they've seen it all before and with knowledge management they know how to respond. How does this affect man's place in the world? What do we do? Without the fight to survive do we turn to other strife? Does anyone remember the old skills? Why?
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Declan Feeney
United Kingdom
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I'm tempted to include a T+1 about genetically engineered designer humans but Gattica did that really well. Just watch the film
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Brad Murray
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
http://www.vsca.ca/Hollowpoint
Hollowpoint is out! Be a bad man.
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Wow, great stuff Declan! Thanks so much!
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Brad Murray
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
http://www.vsca.ca/Hollowpoint
Hollowpoint is out! Be a bad man.
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Harald, that's awesome. Having a whole "theme" of shocks than run the technology spectrum is inspired.
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Brad Murray
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
http://www.vsca.ca/Hollowpoint
Hollowpoint is out! Be a bad man.
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mycroftianhorror wrote:
Thanks for that link, Nick -- I'd forgotten (embarrassingly) where I'd first read the idea. Fred's blog is always a good read.
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T+1 or higher: Longevity Treatments: Sure, clinical immortality may be the realm of societies on the verge of collapse, but the technology exists to slow the natural breakdown of human bodies to the point where one might live in excess of 500 years. At T+1, the drugs and procedures are likely expensive, leaving the rich and powerful in stronger positions than ever, able to extend plans well beyond the lifetimes of the rest of the population. How can you hope to compete with someone who's had centuries of experience, resources, and contacts? At T+2, the treatments might be much more available, leading to a potential population explosion if left unchecked. What happens to a workforce when the majority of the "adults" are centuries-old? What happens to the concept of reaching "maturity"?
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Brad Murray
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
http://www.vsca.ca/Hollowpoint
Hollowpoint is out! Be a bad man.
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Here's some from a pal I used to game with in college, who decided particle physics experiments were more fun:
T+3: Probability Spliced: Probabilities can be explored. Universes will split at each quantum of time, but can be joined/coalesced. The technology to manipulate the subjective personal "timeline spectrum" in this way is found orbiting a totally fucked up solar system. Do you dare use it? How to handle this madness? I mean, playing the lottery becomes irrelevant.
T+2: Blindness: A viral infection sweeps the planet and blinds every human on the planet, some apes and a rare species of mountain goat. Looks like trouble.
T+4: Causality is just an Option: Till now, causality was at the foundation of everything. But we learn that causality can be "violated" locally. First experiments are attempted in your lab. What happens? Does it matter? Are you going to tell the Pentagon of your success?
T+1: Molecular Intelligence: A method is developed to store and process data in mundane materials (plastics, structural materials) at a molecular level. Materials become massively modular, interconnected, networked cpus. The threshold towards self-organization is reached. What does mankind do with this? Do we nuture it and encourage massively accelarated evolution, where humans become a part of a new entity, or do we fight it to save our ass from becoming irrelevant?
T+0: Planetary Phase Transition: Your scientists were wrong about global warming. A phase transition occurs. The average temperature rises by 9.3 degrees within 24 months and stays there. 3.1 billion dead. That's the good news....
T+2: Relatively Secure: The mass of your solar system was catapulted after a quadruple quasar collision at highly relativistic speeds 12.1 billion years ago. After the second solar formation cycle and planetary recombination, your species emerged as intelligent ...and in trouble. Because for the last 2034 years, you've known that your system is going to collide with the Peta Sabulatorous system at 0.57c and you've done nothing about it. OK, so you've got another 130 years before gravitational tides will rip you apart, your technology level is high enough to do something about it, and your individual life expectancy of your species is 192 years. But you're a lazy, complacent bunch of furry octopods.
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Brad Murray
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
http://www.vsca.ca/Hollowpoint
Hollowpoint is out! Be a bad man.
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Here's another one of mine, adapted from Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky:
T4 - Spy Motes: a collapsing (or perhaps already collapsed) culture is infested with spy motes -- devices no larger than a spec of dust that are powered by any ambient electromagnetic radiation and constantly broadcast their position and a little data from their EM detectors to anyone listening. With the right equipment a person could see anything they can and even manipulate objects and electronics at a distance. Maybe form images with them or otherwise get creative. Thing is, they are leaking out -- the things hitch a ride on every ship that moves through the system and infest other worlds. Thankfully the only autofactories are on the origin system -- unless the motes can make a factory that makes more motes? What are the effects of pervasive and mutual surveillance to the source culture? How do other cultures react to them? Threat? Boon? Surely individuals leverage them to advantage, but is it legal? Are there quarantine procedures for ships? What are the penalties for importing motes? For possessing a controller? For using one?
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Joshua A.C. Newman
United States
Northampton
Massachusetts
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Hey, guys. Judd Karlman just pointed me over to this thread and I thought I'd offer a hand.
The important thing about Shocks is that they change everything (for very specific values of everything — in particular, the Issues on the Y axis). If they're not directly affecting stuff, they're Minutiæ. Like, in Blade Runner, flying cars aren't a Shock. They're symbolic of the stratified society, sure. But they're an expression of the social issues in the fiction, not an additional pressure. What is an additional pressure is the presence of the replicants. Cross Replicants with Slavery, and you get Blade Runner.
My concern with Fred's setup is that he's not giving the players any way to interface with Issues. In Shock: that's done with your Antagonist. There's no such thing in FATE. I'll put good money down on the low-impact nature of the Issues that are run in a game of Diaspora unless you really figure out a way to apply meaningful moral pressure that is directly crossed with the Shocks.
So, here's the challenge you're giving yourself:
1: Figure out what all the stuff is that matters in the world to the players.
2: Make it so that stuff is inescapable.
3: Make it so there lines are drawn in the sand at every turn by all *Tagonists. Then make them decide between crossing that line out of necessity or staying on their side out of principle.
(... and then you'll have written Shock
Unsurprisingly, I look at this the other way around. I want to use Diaspora as a Minutia generator. I want to use it to generate texture both in setting and characters (who, in Shock: are treated as elements of setting anyway). I want to use Diaspora (and/or maybe some hacked up version of FATE) to make the characters more peoplish than they are in Shock:
Shock: treats characters — protagonists, especially — with the cruel and ironic sense of humor that you expect in science fiction. They don't survive often, and they've often compromised everything for something that turns out to have little value in the end. The game gives you remove from that so that you're not emotionally too tied to the character to make (or let) that happen to them.
Using a character-driven system like FATE will make that pain all the more sweet (which is what you're asking for here.)
But not using Issues (either by not using a proper Grid at all, or by not giving them teeth) That's softpedaling. You've made Shock: into a dashboard clock, not a turbocharger.
Please note: I don't own Diaspora. I'm certainly curious about it, but when I had the money for it, Lulu wasn't selling it. So if I'm under some misapprehension about how it works (though Fred didn't seem to think I was), please let me know.
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Brad Murray
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
http://www.vsca.ca/Hollowpoint
Hollowpoint is out! Be a bad man.
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Thanks Josh! My thought is that we necessarily want to softpedal the Shock mechanism because, well, your game does it better. But pulling a kernel out of your game -- the idea that cool sf is fiction where a technology changes how humans interact -- can be replanted as a way to pump ideas into a more traditional game framework like Diaspora.
I think it would be a mistake to drill too close to Shock: itself when playing Diaspora because Diaspora and Shock are not the same things at all. And when we want Shock we have it!
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John Lammers
United States
New Hampshire
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T3 - Failsafe: Recent advances in security screening--pattern-matching brainwaves for identity and "motivation signatures" led to a breakthrough discovery. Researchers found a way to "turn off" people via long-range electronic transmissions, rendering them catatonic (or worse?). The Failsafe makes wars and law enforcement instantaneous and tidy--anyone who's ever been screened can be "turned off". But who's at the switch? Who wants to destroy the transmitters? How are "people of means" guarding against the Failsafe being used on them while the normal folk are at its mercy? Was that accident on Carthage 4 really an accident? Rebels employ "Unscreened"--people from backwater planets, who have never been screened and are thus opaque to the Failsafe signal. Others use countermeasures like "iMask" to disguise their brain signatures from the Failsafe signal.
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Joshua A.C. Newman
United States
Northampton
Massachusetts
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Actually, at the risk of being kinda douchey, can I ask you a question?
What's Diaspora about?
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Brad Murray
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
http://www.vsca.ca/Hollowpoint
Hollowpoint is out! Be a bad man.
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Joshua A.C. Newman wrote: Actually, at the risk of being kinda douchey, can I ask you a question?
What's Diaspora about?
Diaspora is about competence in a strange place -- bending your excellence to unexpected purpose.
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Mark Shocklee
United States
Downey
California
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T3 - Slipdrive Communication: Cultures are able to place position-keeping satellites in orbit at the slipknot for communication. (See page 20 for a discussion of Slipknot stations.) Communication time in-system would be 2500 seconds to travel 5AU to the in-system router. The router would send a message to the appropriate satellite that exchanges place with its partner in the other system on some schedule. The message would then be sent to the router and either delivered or directed to another satellite for transmission. Communication times would therefore be 5000 seconds + (number of systems traversed * satellite exchange delay). (This has already come up in game and could be viewed as the cluster internet.)
T3 - Quantum Vacuum Zero Point Energy: Energy can be extracted directly from "empty space". It might be possible to build a drive based upon Casimir Pressure at T4. (I wasn't sure if this should be considered T4, based upon the mention of 'Non-Netwonian' or 'free' energy sources.)
T2 - Genetically Engineered: Parents can test their unborn children for genetic defects and can re-engineer them to correct defects or to select for desirable traits. There are a variety of traits whose de-selection could be controversial. How would the transition culture deal with the differences between parents and offspring?
Using a hopefully not too controversial example: If obesity could be genetically controlled:
1. How would children view their obese parents, particularly ones that suffer from diseases linked to obesity?
2. Would it be a crime to have children naturally - that is ones that were not corrected for all genetic disorders? At minimum, it might be considered immoral.
3. How much genetic engineering is needed before you are considered a new species?
4. As with our farm animals, can the lack of genetic variability cause problems? Maybe a disease will run rampant in the population because of the lack of genetic variability.
Weapon Systems Many technological innovations get developed first by the military and then filter down to civilian uses.
T3 - Nanowar: Spray organic disassembler into the atmosphere of your enemy and your problems will just dissolve away. Maybe by T4, you can target only the conscious life forms on the planet and leave the biosphere intact for your to colonize later.
Maybe a better approach (that might be a lower tech level) is to target a critical component in the biosphere. Using a real world example, there is currently a virus affecting bees,
T2 - Mind Programming: Before we have Mindwipes, maybe we can just do a bit of mind programming. After all, we don't need to control your mind completely, but just for an instant.
T1 - Asteroid Redirection: To start exploiting your system, you need to be able to move asteroids to where they will be useful. It isn't too difficult to modify the trajectories to drop them on the cities of your enemies or even to destroy their planet.
Comments
1. It would be easy to envision a Diaspora setting similar to ships from some of the newer Dune novels. The T2+ ship allows the lower tech ships in-system drive ships to dock onto a mother ship; the mother ship makes the slipstream jump and the in-system ship decouples and travels to the planet.
2. Since I have Swine Flu, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology on the brain at the moment - while it is a rare event for diseases to jump between species, if that were to happen between sentient species in a scifi setting, that would certainly be a shock to the system.
Using the Diaspora setting where there are mostly humans, all of the first contact worries about exchanging disease are a real concern. In fact, that might have been a good choice for the weapon systems list. Lets call this 'suicide mission', where a ship crew purposefully infects themselves with a deadly virus and then visits a system with the intent of transmitting it to the population. Are they acting alone or were they under government orders?
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Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is decent inspiration for relatively-hard options as well:
T3 - Self-Aware Colony: The people of this colony have turned over its administration to a borderline-AI-level computer system. It's extremely efficient and effective, leading to ever more power concentrated into the virtual hands of this computer system. After decades of satisfaction with the system, the populace decides to turn over even the law-enforcement aspects of government to the colony itself. What happens when the colony itself is able to remove those it decides are detrimental to its progress?
T1 - Mind/Machine Interface: Direct Neural Interfaces have advanced to the point that humanity can become directly linked to hardware and control it with a mere thought. The failsafes are relatively primitive, though - how does one weigh the incredible sense of control and immersion offered by direct connection versus the fact that you can be rendered vegetative by a nasty bug or malicious hacker? Electronic Warfare just became personal.
T1 - Virtual World:: Interfaces (possibly the M/M interface above!) have advanced enough that full virtual immersion replaces what we know as the internet. How does humanity react when not only do they have a world's worth of information at their fingertips, but every sensation they can imagine pumped directly into their brain?
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http://www.vsca.ca/Hollowpoint
