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homullus posted:Were it a game I ran, the "human genetics failed!" would just be the stories that the Archons told everyone else, since they're obviously genetics-fixated. Something else happened. No reason why that couldn't be the case! They leave it very open ended for you to explore.
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Aug 8, 2017 18:25
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S.J. posted:No reason why that couldn't be the case! They leave it very open ended for you to explore. Yeah. I can't shake the feeling that the setting could have used another development pass, especially as compared to the rules. Really pleased that the rules got the number of hours that they did.
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Aug 8, 2017 18:55
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Keep in mind also regarding humanity, they never found a single goddamn thing in space. They had advanced beyond faster then light travel, to the point of simply controlling gravity effortlessly and terraformed the UNIVERSE. ...And they never found a single loving alien. They were, in fact, entirely, entirely alone in the universe, forever. So hell yeah, plug me into that machine heaven, space is bullshit. ( This is also why the Twi-Far are such unexplainable weirdos - the Faren shouldn't exist, and nobody knows what the gently caress ) Also, the lack of "genetic diversity" makes a bit more (sci-fi) sense when you remember that one of the big major forbidden human technologies that people WON'T gently caress with...is cloning. After all, it's always been a pretty standard theme in sci-fi that making clones of clones is always a terrible idea.
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Aug 8, 2017 22:34
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Yeah, messing around with genetics to the point where you understand how to create new life, but still refusing to do whatever it is you discovered to yourself, even if it means the death of your species? Kind of a big deal.
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Aug 8, 2017 22:39
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One notable thing about the Corp that isn't very well explained is that the Corp don't really have families like humans do. Either because of genetics or culture, they don't have tight-knit familial ties, to the point that they can't take the Family perk from Protagonist Archive. And that's really weird, because they're literally the only species with that limitation- the crazy H.R. Geiger murderbeasts, the posthuman robot dudes, and the living ravenous bio-weapon ooze aliens can all take Family, but the Corp can't. EDIT: If this is genetic, I can see why super-individualist hypercapitalism appeals to them, since they are all individuals.
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Aug 8, 2017 23:20
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I think it's probably cultural- you see at least one fiction piece where they're at least familiar with the idea of it. It's just that they view the archon as lovely parents (And Xion, for that matter, which is why they were open to working with the Nephilim.) and are basically going 'Well, if that's how family works, gently caress you, purple dad"
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Aug 9, 2017 00:39
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S.J. posted:Yeah, messing around with genetics to the point where you understand how to create new life, but still refusing to do whatever it is you discovered to yourself, even if it means the death of your species? Kind of a big deal. As I recall, the Archons were made when humanity was already done for. It was basically the last thing they did. EDIT: Like, remember: Human technology isn't genetic technology. That's Archon and Xion tech. Human technology is electronics. Nobody knows how the gently caress ley lines and ley line engines work because not even the Archons 100% knew. That was human tech. Not theirs. It's why Xion won the war - much as they tell themselves otherwise, Xion was their perfect child, in that it perfected their technology - genetic modification. It's why Archon modifiers and Xion modifiers are different. Xion modifiers uses the same technology the Nephilim do, which is modifying and creating life. The Archon modifiers are more "advanced" because, well, they never actually got past mimicking their human creators. Ratoslov posted:One notable thing about the Corp that isn't very well explained is that the Corp don't really have families like humans do. Either because of genetics or culture, they don't have tight-knit familial ties, to the point that they can't take the Family perk from Protagonist Archive. And that's really weird, because they're literally the only species with that limitation- the crazy H.R. Geiger murderbeasts, the posthuman robot dudes, and the living ravenous bio-weapon ooze aliens can all take Family, but the Corp can't. It's absolutely cultural. The thing to remember with the Corporation is that, inside the Corporation, everyone is a rival to some degree. The stories really don't go into how Corporate families work - literally we don't know if they even really HAVE a family unit - other then that their birth rate is actually in negatives. The crazy H.R. Geiger murderbeasts do care, because genetic manipulation is what they are all about; they are very explicitly making new generations if just to learn from them, with the caveat that they are in fact very literally making new generations. But Corps? Why should I give a poo poo about having a kid? I have more important things to do. Like make more money then my neighbor. The other thing to remember with the Corporation is that outside the Corporation, it may as well be a full blown cartel. Undercutting your neighbor is one thing - doing it so a Kaltoran can get a break, hey now, that's extremely different. To the non-Corp species, the Corporation tries to keep an organized front. That means they AREN'T going all Shadowrun on each other, at least not typically, because that means a non-Corp might get a leg up on us. Also, keep in mind, one of the big things about Corps is that they are super super super super organized. The Corps are naturals when it comes to organizing things, creating hierarchies, and grouping together. The Kaltoran divide themselves constantly on a family basis - Corps don't. They're ALL Corps, regardless of blood. Also, just gonna go ahead and say that while it is absolutely cultural...it's also very thematic. The whole idea of playing a Corp is that you're the underdog who's gonna make it on their own. They don't have the awesome gifts and powers or whatnot that the other species do. Think about their benefits. Wealth, Resources, and Influence. It's not that all Corporates are super wealthy (though most are), it's that they're connected. Kaltorans keep everything in the family, Legion work off strict military hierarchies with plenty of powerful individuals with pull, Nephilim do nothing but constantly try to give themselves and their creations an upper hand, but Corps don't work that way. You gotta get your own poo poo. Nobody's doing that for you. The other species had all their "blessings" from their creator - we gotta do it the hard way. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Aug 9, 2017 |
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Aug 9, 2017 08:20
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ProfessorCirno posted:As I recall, the Archons were made when humanity was already done for. It was basically the last thing they did. Sure, but that's kind of the point. Do we even bother saving ourselves? Or do we just create a remnant legacy? They decided they'd rather go away. You get to explore the why, and that's cool as hell. For different groups of humans, that could be completely different reasons to explore. Especially for the Corp, who have extreme similarities to humanity. S.J. fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Aug 9, 2017 |
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Aug 9, 2017 08:22
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S.J. posted:Sure, but that's kind of the point. Do we even bother saving ourselves? Or do we just create a remnant legacy? They decided they'd rather go away. You get to explore the why, and that's cool as hell. For different groups of humans, that could be completely different reasons to explore. fwiw I edited a bit more in.
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Aug 9, 2017 08:25
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ProfessorCirno posted:fwiw I edited a bit more in. Thanks, I wouldn't of seen that. Did the Archons/Xion actually create new genetic technologies that humanity hadn't? Or were they still working with the technology that humanity had left around? Certainly they were focused on that aspect of course, but the Archons could've been plopped into the middle of a bygone civilization with nothing more than basic concepts of their own creation and become obsessed with the idea, holding high opinions of themselves and the technology that had been used to create them, since they were the only remaining legacy of their creators.
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Aug 9, 2017 08:28
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We dunno. We don't know how the Archons were created - only that they were, and it was humanity's last action. Part of the game is that we indeed know almost nothing about what the Golden Age of Humanity was like. We just know it ended. Long before any of our characters were born. In-character stories tell us that, at least so far as the Corporates knew or were concerned, the Archons did more or less nothing with their birthright other then argue. They didn't explore; didn't invent. They played god with genetics, and that's about it, and could barely agree on even that. Like, the big thing to remember about the Archons is that they sucked. They were assholes who would create a new "species" for fun, decide it wasn't good enough, then shipped them all to a shithole island in a poisonous world to be kept there by one of their "favored" species so they wouldn't have to deal with it. As for humans...consider. They had, in fact, Won. As much as a species can "Win" the game of life, they had. And after that...well, what's left? They had cloning. They had their perfect Robot heaven. They had the galaxy under their thumb. They had torn lines in reality itself. Why be some kinda loving chump and deal with bullshit-rear end real world problems? In other words, humanity's problem wasn't "too much miscegenation." It was not enough. They stopped loving. And they stopped giving a gently caress. As for making the Archons then slipping away...well, is it that odd? At a certain point, whoever was TEAM ARCHON probably figured humanity was already on it's way out the door. Better to create something new to inherit what you'll leave behind. ADDENDUM TO CORPORATES: One last thing to remember is that Corporates, uh, don't have elders. The current generation? Is largely the same generation that actually left Varsphere. Remember - not that much time has actually passed since the various species came together. The Corporate elite is made of actual literal former warlords. There's nobody who COULD pass something down to you, because they're probably dead, on another planet, in another system, that you'll never return to if you can help it.
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Aug 9, 2017 08:46
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Sure is interesting that -after- humanity's supposedly died out without ever finding aliens, we've got energy beings everywhere. (And those are so far the only 'aliens' we know about) I mean I'm not saying that the Faren and the All-being are the space ghosts of a branch of humanity that didn't upload themselves but instead did something like Sublimation from Iain Banks, but.
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Aug 9, 2017 14:44
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Maybe we weren't looking the right way (method, not direction)?
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Aug 9, 2017 15:56
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I always kind of assumed that humanity "died out" in the same way the Neanderthals did.
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Aug 9, 2017 18:39
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Halloween Jack posted:I always kind of assumed that humanity "died out" in the same way the Neanderthals did. That could be a neat twist, that humanity ended up 'creating' the archons by evolving into them
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Aug 9, 2017 19:03
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I'm gonna sorta keep hammering on the Corporation thing here one last time, but something to consider: far as we know the archons didn't use, uh, capitalism. Or any economic structure. Again, human technology left them with what may as well have been an infinite land of plenty. One that they happily shared with their favored species. Kaltoran and Ursai didn't want for anything, ever. On the other side of the table, the Vargarti didn't have anything, and their lovely island with little to no resources quickly turned into Mad Max World. Corporates aren't genetically predisposed to capitalism or anything like that - it's just the first thing they encountered an actual belief system, or at least one that didn't hang on them worshiping their garbage "masters." And what's more, it's an ethos that claims anyone, no matter how unloved, unlucky, or unwanted, can make it big. Anyone can stand free and independent. Anyone can. And most importantly, this isn't an ethos the Archons ever had - it's what their creators, the glorious Humans had. It's no wonder the Vargarti turned to it as fast as they did. And back in the Haven system, what do they provide that the others don't have? Organization and manufacturing. You know, those things the Archons always did for everyone else so they never had to worry about it, except the Archons aren't around anymore. So yeah, the big thing with Corps is that no matter how rich you are and no matter how influential you are, you still got a chip on your shoulder. They were never meant to succeed and they know it. Every success is a spit in a god's eye. Every victory over the odds is a statement. Every time they triumph over the Kaltoran (and there's a reason they dislike the Kaltoran and Remnant as much as they do) is proof that you don't need to be born special. You could also look at them and their tech (hint: Corporates aren't just usually the only ones making new poo poo, they're also the one working with electronics) and realize that they aren't the equivalent of atheists compared to the others - they just traded their poo poo gods (Archons) for better ones (humans).
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Aug 9, 2017 21:25
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I'm not sure it's possible for a society or even large group to not have an economic model. Do you mean that they didn't have trade, or ownership/property rights, or something else? I'm not well-steeped in the lore, and this is interesting stuff.
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Aug 9, 2017 21:27
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We don't know what ownership or property rights they had, but we know that when Corporates showed up with the concept of currency, Kaltoran looked at each other and said "lmao the gently caress is that?" And likewise, when Corporates showed up with the idea of legal land ownership, the Kaltoran again looked at each other and went "What if instead gently caress that, I just settle wherever I want anyways, even if you're already building poo poo there?" But beyond that...who would the Archons trade with? Remember, it was JUST THEM, and whatever species they created - and they were not created as equals. The Archons didn't trade with their creations. They lorded over them. And far as we know, none of the Archons ever split off to do their own thing; they barely even explored the area they had. They kept to their small empire and were happy to keep making new species while ignoring everything else. Until they made one that actually WAS better then they were.
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Aug 9, 2017 21:34
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ProfessorCirno posted:far as we know the archons didn't use, uh, capitalism. Or any economic structure. ProfessorCirno posted:But beyond that...who would the Archons trade with? Remember, it was JUST THEM, and whatever species they created - and they were not created as equals. The Archons didn't trade with their creations. They lorded over them. quote:Again, human technology left them with what may as well have been an infinite land of plenty. One that they happily shared with their favored species. Kaltoran and Ursai didn't want for anything, ever.
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Aug 9, 2017 21:39
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Halloween Jack posted:Even opulently wealthy aristocrats need a way to count how much stuff they have, if not for resource allocation then for dick-waving purposes. They were literally left with the end of human society's technology, which basically left them without want. But they probably never needed or wanted for anything, and they seemed to have been fairly coordinated in their genetic efforts, so it's just guesswork as to how something like that would operate, and there isn't a lot of first hand evidence of what individual Archons were like. But the 'as far as we know' part is important there, because the legacies that the Archons left the universe were most certainly not economic legacies. They did not create socio-economic theories that they imbued onto their creations, they just used them and/or disposed of them.
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Aug 9, 2017 21:43
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Halloween Jack posted:Even opulently wealthy aristocrats need a way to count how much stuff they have, if not for resource allocation then for dick-waving purposes. Except the only thing they cared about was creating the perfect species. There was no resources to allocate, the count for everything was "infinite", there was nothing to dick wave about except what they could create. Everything in the universe was available to them with ease, which is a big part of why they were focusing on creating what wasn't there.
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Aug 9, 2017 21:44
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And there certainly could have been some sort of economy of thought or genetic creation in the context of their society, but who knows what that might have looked like?
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Aug 9, 2017 21:46
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The implication is basically that the Archons were born into post-scarcity, and it was only the X'ion and the Nephilim coming and destroying them piece by piece that ended that.
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Aug 9, 2017 21:47
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I don't really believe in post-scarcity; I'm sure that even if they were on a a GURPS TL12 level, someone was saying "Sorry, you have to wait until next week before we can send you one of the Star Forges." But I get it, none of that means much to their slave races. Their economic system was something like "robot ships arrive and give us boxes of stuff, or not."
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Aug 9, 2017 22:03
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Halloween Jack posted:I don't really believe in post-scarcity; I'm sure that even if they were on a a GURPS TL12 level, someone was saying "Sorry, you have to wait until next week before we can send you one of the Star Forges." I don't think post-scarcity necessarily means that they could instantaneously have anything they wanted with no physical restrictions on time and space.
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Aug 9, 2017 22:16
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Halloween Jack posted:I haven't read every book in the line in detail, but I never got the impression that Kaltorans were living lives of luxury. I took it that the Archons valued them because they were genetically engineered to be blue-collar laborers and technicians, and were good at it. Kaltorans aren't engineered to be blue-collar laborers and technicians, though. They're engineered to be crystal typed toga wearing sci-fi advanced space elves. They're decently good at everything - or at least, they're not BAD at anything, at least not until the Corporates come along and introduce the idea of wealth - and they had these perfect genetic memories so they'd always be able to do better and better then their ancestors and remember those far off times and etc, etc, etc. It's just that they're crystal typed toga wearing sci-fi advanced space elves who had the world end on top of them and all their civilization was eradicated. Kaltorans aren't engineered to be technicians. They became technicians in order to desperately survive. One of their preferred cultural weapon types is irradiated, and I guarantee they weren't genetically engineered to weaponize radioactive waste. The Archons weren't engineers, and they weren't empire builders. They were eugenicists. It legit says so in the core book. "Obsessed with genetic perfection, the Archons became eugenicists: new Archons were designed rather then born." The Kaltoran represented a "step up" for them, and were exalted. The Vargarti represented a "step back" for them, so they were abandoned and put under "stewardship." They didn't bother trying to expand on the human ideals of invention and exploration. They wanted to beat the humans at their own game. They wanted to create perfection. And they did, or at least, they made THEIR view of perfection. Which was a monster without any concept of empathy, full of pride and arrogance, and obsessed with perfection. Oops.
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Aug 9, 2017 23:13
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It should also be noted that the Archons never actually figured out all the poo poo humans had done. They only ever mastered genetic engineering - anything electronic or otherwise non-biological was a black box full of mysteries to them, which they would occasionally break open and take things from without knowing how they worked.
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Aug 9, 2017 23:39
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Halloween Jack posted:I don't really believe in post-scarcity; I'm sure that even if they were on a a GURPS TL12 level, someone was saying "Sorry, you have to wait until next week before we can send you one of the Star Forges." This is a rather dim view to take.
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Aug 9, 2017 23:40
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Mors Rattus posted:It should also be noted that the Archons never actually figured out all the poo poo humans had done. They only ever mastered genetic engineering - anything electronic or otherwise non-biological was a black box full of mysteries to them, which they would occasionally break open and take things from without knowing how they worked. See also: Mechanoids. I'm still amused by how many horrible apocalyptic monsters the Archons made in the war that now everyone has to deal with because they didn't think to program anything more specific then "KILL EVERYTHING ORGANIC."
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Aug 10, 2017 02:06
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Halloween Jack posted:I always kind of assumed that humanity "died out" in the same way the Neanderthals did. It says somewhere in the books (I don't remember where offhand) that humanity died out because we basically had nothing else to do. We hit the Singularity, progressed well past that, explored the universe and found nothing, terraformed every drat planet we came across...there was nothing left. Every horizon had been crossed, every development developed. We gave up because we'd done everything we could. Literally. Also, I always got the impression that Kaltorans were basically pets to the Archons. They were like Pearls in Steven Universe: they're designed to stand next to you, look pretty, and hold your stuff. ProfessorCirno posted:See also: Mechanoids.
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Aug 11, 2017 00:04
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Also on that last point the minds in these mechanical bodies couldn't even hold the full person they were ripping out. So they got a fragment of a person, and then hosed them up beyond that.
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Aug 11, 2017 00:14
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I mean, like I said, the mechanoids weren't the only ones. See also: the Zhou. The Archon war strategy was to go full scorched earth on their own side in a desperate attempt to keep themselves alive, eagerly throwing all their children overboard pretty much immediately.
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Aug 11, 2017 01:20
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Evil Mastermind posted:It wasn't so much bad programming as grabbing what they thought were AIs and sophisticated programs, hammering the code into new functionality without really knowing how to do that, and jamming them into killbots to be pointed at the Neph. Turns out that those "programs" were self-aware copies of the minds of humanity, who were being pulled from virtual Heaven, having their minds warped and networked against their will, and turned into killbots. Of course they'd go insane. Speaking of this: is there a good indicator in the books of what pieces of setting lore are things players should know, and what are things that are secrets until they find them out? I'm sure it depends on the GM and the particular game, but I like knowing what lore tidbits are recommended to hold back for cool/unsettling future discoveries. Harrow fucked around with this message at 14:51 on Aug 11, 2017 |
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Aug 11, 2017 03:16
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Not really- I mean, the Mechanoid thing might be a secret to some people, but on the other hand it's an explicit background option for a potential PC.
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Aug 11, 2017 03:26
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unseenlibrarian posted:Not really- I mean, the Mechanoid thing might be a secret to some people, but on the other hand it's an explicit background option for a potential PC. Ah, true, I suppose that's pretty much necessary to have out in the open with the Palantor around.
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Aug 11, 2017 03:45
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Harrow posted:Ah, true, I suppose that's pretty much necessary to have out in the open with the Palantor around. They're pretty rare, to be fair, and I doubt they're announcing to the galaxy out loud all the details of their past. Probably not common knowledge, but certainly possible that people know about it.
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Aug 11, 2017 03:56
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Palantor also tend not to identify as human any more, anyway, but rather as a child-race of humanity, given how none of them can remember much about being human besides, occasionally, a desire for pants.
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Aug 11, 2017 08:56
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Does anyone have a preferred starter adventure for a Fragged Empire campaign? I'm starting one at the end of the month and really have no idea where to begin. I've never run a published adventure before, so that'd be kind of foreign to me, but I think the idea of a really exploration-driven, open-ended campaign is new to both me and my players so my usual "start the players off chasing a strong long-term plot lead" technique might not be appropriate. I'm considering a modified version of Ghost Ship Carthage with a different ending that leaves a few more things hanging. I'm not sure if I necessarily want to start off with something that goes for a horror atmosphere necessarily, but it seems like an easier (and shorter) adventure to run than something like Let Sleeping Gods Lie.
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Aug 11, 2017 14:54
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I'm not sure if it was just use, but using Ghost Ship Carthage as our group's first adventure left the gang feeling like there was a giant landslide of resources rewarded at the end of the scenario (a rain of trade boxes) that left us wondering if it was par for an FE adventure or if the scenario just didn't realize how monty haul that was / seemed to be.
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Aug 11, 2017 16:03
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I figured that windfall was to let the characters get established, not that it was a part of a pattern or a module design error. I've only read it and not played it, though.
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Aug 11, 2017 16:05
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