Sci-Fi Kitchen Sink

[LughSpear]

So... For my next game I'm going to try to fuse all the best sci-fi settings and I need help.

The list I have so far:

-Star Trek.
-Star Wars.
-Rick and Morty.
-Doctor Who.
-Marvel.
-Dc.
-Dune.
-Mass effect.
-Alien.

What else could I add?

EDIT:
-Destiny 1 and 2.
-Overwatch.
-Bioshock.
-Xenosaga.

[Lord Torath]

Red Dwarf
Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (Sorry, it had to be done!)
Babylon 5
Stargate
Homeworld: Cataclysm
Starcraft
Battlestar Galactica

Firefly!!!!!

These settings (and SciFi settings in general) tend to have conflicting cosmologies, histories, and physics models. Have fun!

[Kalmageddon]

Warhammer 40000? Though if you have Dune and Starcraft (itself a derivate of 40K) you pretty much have all the elements already.

[Anonymouswizard]

Lensman. Can't forget Lensman. :smallsmile:

[Ken Murikumo]

-Farscape
-Dark Matter
-Ghost in the Shell (whichever incarnation you find favorable)
-Expanse
-Nier: Automata
-Gundam (or any "semi-realistic" mecha themed anime for instance)
-Halo
-Defiance

[Knaight]

A few more:

Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)
Old Man's War (Book Series)
The Damned (Book Series)
The Humanx Commonwealth (Book Series)
Titan AE (Movie)

There's also a few subgenres missing which are a bit further out of field.

Blade Runner (Movie)
Neuromancer (Book)
Terminator (Movie)
Helldivers (Videogame)

[Lord Torath]

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command!

[Crisis21]

Voltron
Power Rangers
GaoGaiGar
Gurren Lagann
Gundam
Transformers
All those giant robot shows, really.

Oh, and Godzilla. Can't forget Godzilla.

[CharonsHelper]

Shadowrun

Flash Gordon

Buck Rogers

Robocop

Lost in Spaaaaaaace

2001 a Space Odyessy (having really slow parts while you're thinking of what else to add)

Wing Commander

Deus Ex


Warhammer 40000? Though if you have Dune and Starcraft (itself a derivate of 40K) you pretty much have all the elements already.

Similar - but neither Dune or StarCraft have the warp/psychic backlash or demon summoning. Or space orks. Or Necrons. Or the dark humor of 40k.

[Deaxsa]

Enders Game (book)

To expand on wing Commander: freelancer, discovery (if you want), and Star citizen (if it gets a plot, not really sure about this myself)

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (Game)

Avatar (movie)

There's a couple long distance travel focused stories.

Edit: some.more
The Sound of Thunder (short story)
The. Veldt (short story)
Stranger in a Strange Land (book)
Futurama (TV series)
The matrix (movie series)

Does the golden compass trilogy count?
How about the early twilight zone?

Edit: how do you define sci-fi, and how do you define setting? Does planetes count? It's not really a very different setting.

[Lord Torath]

Voltron
Power Rangers
GaoGaiGar
Gurren Lagann
Gundam
Transformers
All those giant robot shows, really.So Mechwarrior/Battletech/Aerotech
Robotech
Macross
Southern Cross
Genesis Climber MOSPEDA
Macross Plus

...Robot Jox :smalltongue:

[Trekkin]

Edit: how do you define sci-fi, and how do you define setting? Does planetes count? It's not really a very different setting.

This is important; most of what has been listed thus far is cheerfully unscientific space opera or science fantasy; it's fine if that's what's wanted, but calling it science fiction is confusing. Actual science fiction is a very short list.

[CharonsHelper]

This is important; most of what has been listed thus far is cheerfully unscientific space opera or science fantasy; it's fine if that's what's wanted, but calling it science fiction is confusing. Actual science fiction is a very short list.

Well - I'd consider hard science fiction to space fantasy to be a spectrum rather than yes/no.

But yes - truly hard science fiction is a pretty short list, especially if you include anything with much speculation, as that rules out anything that takes place more than a few decades into the future.

[Squiddish]

Go to this site: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
Include everything. All of it. And also more.

[halfeye]

There are thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of books in the category science fiction. You can't read them all if you wanted to, there isn't time, and more than 24 hours of reading time is added every day.

[S@tanicoaldo]

I second Halo universe.

Also, Lovecraft, there are so many cool alien races that go beyond the "Huge demon from another demension who make you insane by just looking at it."

[ijon]

There's also a few subgenres missing which are a bit further out of field.

Helldivers (Videogame)


throwing in starcraft and quake 2/4 should cover this pretty well though, since you have the totally-not-zerg as bugs, definitely-not-protoss as illuminates, and absolutely-not-strogg as cyborgs

throw in a heaping helping of DEMOCRACY as well and that's helldivers

[Kami2awa]

I second using something similar to 40k (or just plain old 40k). The human race is spread across the galaxy (or many galaxies) and factionalised into a billion and one groups. Space is big (you wouldn't believe...) and so anything you can imagine might exist somewhere.

Another route is to just do Doctor Who. The TARDIS can land anywhere anywhen, and even occasionally in parallel realities or timelines that didn't happen, and so it can run into any story or setting you can imagine. It's possibly the most flexible framing device ever invented.

The idea of a multiverse opens up a lot of possibilities. Different contradictory views of the future could exist in different realities. All you need is a way of getting from one to the next.

Finally, I have always thought that certain sci-fi stories could co-exist in the same universe. Alien(+Predator) and Blade Runner is one example. We see very little of future Earth itself in Alien, and Blade Runner has its "off-world colonies" which I would say is where Alien takes place. The existence of the Aliens is certainly not common knowledge, which is why there's no mention of them on Earth. You could happily put Red Dwarf in that setting as well, now that I think about it.

Some of the settings you mention are not contemporary with one another, so perhaps they are elements of your setting's past (Alien could take place while humans are in the early stages of FTL travel, so perhaps it will take a couple of hundred years before anyone establishes the Federation of Star Trek - which leads to the possibility that there are eventually Predators in the Federation*).

The superhero ones are trickier, because really that's a different genre - though you could have them be sufficiently advanced aliens, or genetically enhanced humans.

*Actually ST Voyager did have the Hirogen, who were not dissimilar to the Predators.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Starship Troopers.


Yes, the movie version.
(Okay, sure, it's basically Warhammer 40K, but it has to be named just for how people react to reading that suggestion. ;))


How are you going to try and tackle it? Start with a generic system and from there approximate ships and characters from different universes, or start with designing mechanics on which the chosen universes can run and then trying to blend them together? The first option can mix way more universes (I could see the "matrix" machines or skynet/terminators or the aliens or predators as civilizations or constructed armies in a WH40K game, in some cases there even already is a generic brand version available without any homebrewing), but the second one will give a much stronger feel of uniqueness to each one.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Anything done by Gerry Anderson - yes, even Space 1999. :smallamused:
Blakes 7
Andromeda
X-Files
Event Horizon
Virtually everything in 2000AD except Slaine

And there's a couple of TV series that came to mind that may be quite obscure outside the UK - Star Cops (late-80's, set 2020s, fairly hard SF, about a law enforcement agency operating in orbital facilities and a lunar base) and Bugs (mid-90s, set "five minutes from now", broadly focussed on cyber-tech and related fields, and creator of possibly one of the best fictional government agency names ever - The Bureau of Weapons Development :smallamused:).

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Star Cops

Do they hand out speeding tickets to Space Truckers?

Because I'd play that campaign.

[Anonymouswizard]

Starship Troopers.


Yes, the movie version.

Why not both versions at once? Two successor nations to one state with the same core idea, one follows the movie and is fascist and sends troops to die en mass, the other is more like the book in that is not a great society but is decent enough, and uses smaller numbers of troops in high tech powered armour (one trooper per mile should be sufficient).


If it's not been mentioned yet, Eclipse Phase. It's a combination of several that have and may have been mentioned already (Takeshi Kovacs, Ghost in the Shell, and Revelation Space were definite inspirations), but it's still interesting.

[Firest Kathon]

Honorverse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorverse) (the setting/universe of David Weber's Honor Harrington books)

[Shamash]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Metroid.

[Knaight]

This is important; most of what has been listed thus far is cheerfully unscientific space opera or science fantasy; it's fine if that's what's wanted, but calling it science fiction is confusing. Actual science fiction is a very short list.
Star Wars was listed in the very first post - there's a reason I expanded this with Schlock Mercenary and not The Cold Equations.


throwing in starcraft and quake 2/4 should cover this pretty well though, since you have the totally-not-zerg as bugs, definitely-not-protoss as illuminates, and absolutely-not-strogg as cyborgs

throw in a heaping helping of DEMOCRACY as well and that's helldivers
Pretty much - it's a few quirks of the aesthetic (the broad concept is basically Starcraft, the particulars of the aesthetic aren't), plus the hilarious political cynicism involved in Super Earth fighting for DEMOCRACY and LIBERTY juxtaposed against the implied actual reasons for the wars that make it sing.

[jayem]

Foundation (&Robots etc..)
Verne&Wells (it's a bit local)
Lewis's Space Trilogy

[lightningcat]

Honorverse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorverse) (the setting/universe of David Weber's Honor Harrington books)

Most things by David Weber (http://www.davidweber.net/books)