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Morithias
2013-08-28, 07:00 PM
I'm currently working on an idea for a sci-fi game that is similar to mass effect in some natures but different in others.

The idea is this.

In 2015, the Etherals invaded. X-com beat them back, but it was only with major losses.

In 2020, another alien race attacked. This time we were more prepared and had the whole world against it, not just X-com. Loses were minimal.

In 2025 the third invader attacked...they were curb stomped in under a month.

Now in the year 2300 humanity has taken to the stars and joined an intergalactic republic...

...and everyone is scared of them.

Psionics is extremely rare in most races, requiring heavy mental training, and even then the gift alone puts you in the 1%, it's hard enough to do mindfray, mind control is impossible for all but the best.

Not with humans. You just have to sign up for testing, and they can unlock the gift. Some human researchers are even starting to find ways to unlock the gift in people previously thought ungifted. Mind control is common rare, and mindfray can be thrown around like it was just another gun. Most scary of all is how humans use their psionics, not as top tier rulers, but as basic foot soldiers.

Humanities tech is insanely advanced. Stolen tech from 3 advanced alien races, reverse engineered, and improved on over 300 years of engineering. A single Demon-class Firestorm equipped with producible weapons can take out some battleship-class republic ships. The rare element-115 is now manufactured in a lab, mass scale.

And scary of all is how humans treat the aliens. The ones they took out and genocided 300 years ago are all but forgotten and remembered mostly as "they attacked us, we did what we had to." but other than that they're extremely diplomatic and oddly friendly, so long as you don't fire first. Scarier to some is that humans seem to find some alien races like the Twi'leks sexually attractive. Openly flirting with them. A new rule is joked about on the republic internet "If you exist, somewhere there's a human who would date you."

Now my question is...from this basic start...where do I take the plot?

First idea is some kind of eldirch invasion thing, ala the reapers, or Yuuzhan vong. Humanity has fought off invasions multiple times, so logically when the republic is attacked you put humans at the front.

Second idea is some kind of bounty-hunter/privateer/smuggler campaign. A sandbox game examining the ideas presented here about what the commonly of the gift implies, and how one should act when others fear you, in essence a mutant in a marvel universe where people aren't suicidal.

But I'd like some insight on where you would take such a premise. How would you explore the ideas? Where would you take it?

System is probably going to be Star Wars Saga d20.

Mabn
2013-08-28, 08:23 PM
well, if I were DMing it I'd have humanity enter a terrifying and bloody civil war, the effects of which are quickly felt throughout the republic. Have the players all be aliens, the lucky few who's natural ability allows them to rival a human. Have them be swept up in ripples of the conflict, acting as agents, proxies, or foils, as they grow slowly closer to earth prime and the core of the Human War.

Saidoro
2013-08-28, 10:58 PM
300 years is entirely too many, I wouldn't set this much after 2100, assuming those invasions stay on schedule. And really, you don't need any grand galactic events beyond what's already been fleshed out; you've already got a grand galactic threat in the form of humanity. Set the players as aliens having to deal with the repercussions of this new, incredibly dangerous and highly acquisitive force.

Bulhakov
2013-08-29, 02:41 AM
Plot hooks I'm thinking of:
- alien race A tries to trick alien race B into war with the humans (e.g. frames race B into some terrorist attacks), the players need to uncover the conspiracy and prevent unnecessary war
- someone develops a superweapon that needs to be destroyed (possibly before it is sold to the highest bidder), e.g. a virus that kills humans very efficiently, or some sort of sub-space bomb that kills all psionics on a planet but do no other damage
- psionics from various races learn a mind-meld ritual - creating a super-intelligent hive mind that either threatens the republic openly, or starts some sort of a large scale conspiracy

Dargaron
2013-08-29, 03:51 PM
What kind of campaign are you going for? Is Humanity's current situation supposed to be like Star Trek Next Gen: that is, sustainable, peaceful and without many side-effects? Or is it more like the other extreme, Warhammer 40K, where Humanity is powerful, but requires a ton of heroic effort to maintain what they have, and have to contend with some rather nasty consequences of their current policies?

Are Psionics cheap, plentiful and clean, or do they have nasty effects when used in large quantities or by inexperienced users, like magic in certain fiction (e.g. a powerful spell goes massively wrong, and normal creatures start mutating into Things That Should Not Be?)

Maybe the use of Psionics gives off miniscule amounts of energy in a poorly-understood form. Before the rise of Humanity, most scientists dismissed this form of energy as just the Psionic equivalent of waste heat, since it didn't seem to do anything. But because humans are capable of concentrating many more psionically-gifted people in one place than any other race before them, it turns out that "Psionic Heat" has serious negative side-effects. For one, in sufficient quantities, concentrations of Psionic Heat can begin to leech power from more conventional energy sources, discharging it in unpredictable ways.

The most unsettling aspect of Psionic Heat is that once it has become concentrated, it can really move, and has a tendency to stow away on unsuspecting ships and end up in completely unexpected places.

No one has managed to definitively prove a causal link between Psionic discharges and "anomalies of a paranormal nature." And of course, since Humanities' power is based around their mastery of Psionics, no one is particularly interested in shaking the boat (and potentially risking their careers). However, a certain segment of Humanity is aware of these disturbances. Certain groups have figured out how to neutralize these disturbances on an ad-hoc basis, but the problem is getting worse. That's where the PCs come in.

genmoose
2013-08-29, 08:45 PM
Ok here's where I would go:

So humans are relative new comers to the galactic community and folks are scared of not only what they know they can do (all the psi powers) but what they may do next. If you have aliens like the Asari who are very long lived then the could be quite fearful of what humans may do in the next 300 years, even if they stay so friendly. With the high tech you mention (implies very fast growth) they could easily outpace the entire rest of the galaxy.

Looking at our history alien races have a few paths to choose from. They can accept that their time of glory is past and let humans run the show as long as they can keep some internal dominion (think Dutch, Portuguese or Spanish Empires and today's modern countries). They can become the mistress of humanity (Vichy France), which seems plausible given human attraction to other aliens. They can stubbornly resist with everything short of open war (North Korea). Or they can fight back and die since it seems humans have no problem wiping out those that attack them.

That being said here's a few potential plot threads:

1. (building off Bulhakov's idea) Two or more alien races decide their best bet is to hitch their wagon with humanity and are vying for BFF status. Rather than one big party, things turn a little Mean Girls and the PC's uncover a plot to instigate an unnecessary war.

2. A coalition of races begins to form that opposed humanity's rapid rise and 'decadent' corrupting culture. Those fearful of what humanity might bring flock to their cause. Those that are non-committal are shunned (trade sanctions, boycotts, etc). This 'League' grows in strength race by race and is almost at the tipping point where they may have a shot to beat humanity. Once they do it's feared they will instigate a war with all the resulting slaughter and damage. The PC's are tasked by someone (human government, non-aligned aliens, basically anyone with something to lose) to infiltrate the League and try to break it up. Alternatively humanity is 'framed' for some horrible scandal which will turn enough races toward the League and the PC's have to discover the truth.

3. If we get a little more sneaky a group of older races who hate humanity's rise (shadow league) secretly plot to either create or unleash some sort of end of the world big bad guy (reapers, etc). Humans take the lead fighting back and their hope is that both exhaust each other. Then they can sweep in and wipe out a weakened humanity. The PC's can help with the big war and uncover the conspiracy of what the shadow league did and what they plan to do at the end of the war.

4. A civil war breaks out within humanity. Perhaps from one of the previous plots or after some new race actually bloodies Earth's nose, a faction within humanity decides it can't play nice and wait for people to attack. It is humanity's destiny to rule the galaxy, otherwise why would they have such an advantage with psi powers and tech.
This could be played two ways, with the aggressor humans as either a small splinter group (but still powerful) that the PC's need to suppress or with aggressive humanity being the 'main stream' group and those preaching peace as the 'rebels'. The PC's must help the rebels, work with various aliens, and topple the would be conquering government.

5. Humanity takes on the role of galactic peacekeepers. The PC's work as part of a human task force sent in to end a major conflict and stop the slaughter. You could have one good and one bad side, or even two 'good' sides that conflict because of some long grudge or accident. If you want to get contemporary political, both sides are 'bad' and the poor normal people are caught in the middle.

Morithias
2013-09-02, 07:58 AM
What kind of campaign are you going for? Is Humanity's current situation supposed to be like Star Trek Next Gen: that is, sustainable, peaceful and without many side-effects? Or is it more like the other extreme, Warhammer 40K, where Humanity is powerful, but requires a ton of heroic effort to maintain what they have, and have to contend with some rather nasty consequences of their current policies?

Are Psionics cheap, plentiful and clean, or do they have nasty effects when used in large quantities or by inexperienced users, like magic in certain fiction (e.g. a powerful spell goes massively wrong, and normal creatures start mutating into Things That Should Not Be?)

It is peaceful, but shaky. Humanity is still a powerful newcomer, but so far both sides are open to each other and are bonding slowly. There are always a few xenophobes, but most of the races know that attacking the humans is basically suicide. Even with the whole republic against humanity they're unsure of their chances, due to the humans power to mind control, and the way they took down other such threats.

As far as Enemy Unknown has revealed Psionics has no side effects, and neither does the force in Star Wars d20. The one 'downside' to throwing out mindfray or mind control is that you have to wait 6-30 seconds to do it again.

The players have shown interest in playing a human force-user turned bounty hunter, and a combat droid similar to Hk-47. We are currently looking at the sandbox game with a main 'plot' about bounty hunting similar to the great hunt. They want to avoid Mass combat for now.

Thank you for your aid people.

Delta
2013-09-02, 08:15 AM
300 years is entirely too many, I wouldn't set this much after 2100, assuming those invasions stay on schedule.

I completely support this. 300 years is way, way too long, the three invasions would be rendered completely irrelevant, 300 years of progress would be more than enough to make humans going to the stars believable enough without three stockpiles of different advanced alien tech.

I'd rather make it so that the alien tech allowed humans to jumpstart technological progress so it only takes them decades to get to a point it took the other civilizations centuries or even millenia to get to, makes the race look all the more intimidating to the rest of the galaxy.

Morithias
2013-09-02, 08:17 AM
I completely support this. 300 years is way, way too long, the three invasions would be rendered completely irrelevant, 300 years of progress would be more than enough to make humans going to the stars believable enough without three stockpiles of different advanced alien tech.

I'd rather make it so that the alien tech allowed humans to jumpstart technological progress so it only takes them decades to get to a point it took the other civilizations centuries or even millenia to get to, makes the race look all the more intimidating to the rest of the galaxy.

2100 it is then. Of course that's in 'human years'.