RETROACTIVE That Seventies Scifi

Started by Modern Fairy Tale, March 01, 2015, 11:48:25 AM

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Modern Fairy Tale

Retroactive (not comparable)
1.   Extending in scope, effect, application or influence to a prior time or to prior conditions
2.   An extremely rapid speed, resulting from entering a separate dimension, termed retrospace; much faster than the speed of light.  So termed for its early, unyoked experimental effects on space-time.
The ship was accelerating to retroactive speed, when one of the engines failed.

What if the seventies got it right?

I want to start or at least partly run and play in a soft science fiction, seventies inspired playground.  Ideally I would like to run this with multiple players each invested in managing one part of the setting they are interested in and one character they have created.  This means we each get to explore our environment while keeping up one location for others to interact with.  There, of course, can be interweavings between each persons setting and character.  I want there to be intrigue, exploration, action, and a lot of very hot sex.  So in one scene a hot female space agent my be dodging burning sonic bolts with the Cosmic Mcguffin in hand and later have to unwind after debriefing with a special green pill and joining an already in progress orgy.  Hey, love is in the decade.

Does this interest you?  What would you be interested in exploring?  What kind space explorer would you want to play?  Feel free to post here or PM me and let me know your thoughts.  I will keep adding to this entry from time to time as I think of more.

RPG Inspirations:
Machinations of the Space Princess
     Actually more Heavy Metal inspired, but still very way out there, baby.
Starships & Spacemen, 2nd Edition
     This is a nice, expansive Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off sourcebook.
Galaxy Command Sourcebook
     My very first in this set, mined for nuggets of groovy inspiration.
Strange Stars
     A systemless and very visual imagining of seventies style trans-humanism.

Set Pieces I want.
Some camp sprinkled throughout.  Imagine comming upon a planet of Amazon women whose main battle ship is named Impenetrable.  Oh, and damned space hippies everywhere.  One more thing there has to be at least one sexy, green woman in a unitard.  I mean, thats just standards.

A space station as common ground to mix it up in.

A lot of spaceships.  Spaceships handled as characters and floating setting pieces.  They should be shared by multiple characters.

A happening bar with maybe black lights, floating hola hoops to unwind and hook up at.

I want two distinct forces at work.  Some kind of uptight, stellar command and a near lawless alien and pirate expanses where anything goes.  The characters can be any combination of people (some aliens) who might float in groups through all of this with a common ship or cause, perhaps. 

I want a bartering system of Mojo points.  Mojo points are kind of based on Fate points from the FATE system.  They are generated by sticking to seventies tropes and vocabulary as well as taking any inconvenience for the sake of the story.  (Logically a Mojo allowance will be given for running a location.)  This means having a weakness come up or failing something so someone can escape, etc.  Mojo points are then spent to influence things in another part of our story.  So you can add backstory, a contact or some piece of tech you just happen to have shoved in your cleavage, it doesnt matter as long as a nice flashback can show where and how this happened and it is approved by whoever is running the setting or character so influenced.  This should be a cooperative system of measured influence.  By you letting my character do this, you get a running tab at the very best galactic watering hole.  Or something like this which is not too distruptive to how this setting has gone so far.


















Black Star Empire
Agamemnon · Achilles · Helen · Menelaus · Nestor · Odysseus · Ajax · Diomedes · Patroclus · Thersites · Achaeans · Myrmidons

Neutral Argo Regenerative Commonality
Priam · Hecuba · Hector · Paris · Cassandra · Andromache · Aeneas · Memnon  · Troilus · Penthesilea and the Amazons · Sarpedon

Cliffnotes
http://www.dmturner.org/English/Exam/TWReview.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Trojan_War_characters


I want to base the beginning setting on the Trojan War.  With the Greeks being played by the Dagon the Destroyer of the Black Star Empire also known as Startroopers whom are kind of based on Ming the Merciless of Flash Gordon and the part of the Neutral Argo Regenerative Commonality or the Galactic Commonality or NARCs who are likenable to the Trojans or the Federation of the Star Trek series.  How did all of this come about?

The Terran Corporate States had a very rocky beginning.  There were would be conquerors and military industrialist which waged endless wars with each other and many bordering alien territories.  Finally after at least three galactic wars an agreement was made to enforce a peace treaty.  This became known as the Neutral Argo Regenerative Commonality.  Thier primary objective is to avoid another galactic war, which was devastating to Terran society before.  Unfortunately during this very long and complicated process aliens were introduced to humanity.  Some humans created thier own new dynasty and took over large swathes of alien territories creating the very eclectic and immortal Emperor Dagon.  He is the main threat to galactic peace at the time and has has over a decade of hot and cold war with the Terran systems.  His daughter has defected and become a very powerful member of the NARC inner circle though some believe she may be a planted spy.  What will come of all of this?

This is all very raw and still needs processing.  This means I can use ship names and character names for main characters.  They believe in Prime Ideals or Forms.  These look just like and are based on Greek gods, but they dont believe in actualy devinities.  They believe in collective psionic energy called Psychodellia.  This is based on ancient legends and so Athena is shown as the Prime Ideal or avatar of wisdom or tactics.  Psychics are trained by Temples which revere these Forms and so with focus give them more power... psychics with the responcibilites and powers of priests or shamans of our age.  So a psychic of Athena might be able to read tactics from the air or have a greater than average psychic awareness or whatever seems appropriate for the scene.  Doesnt this all sound totally convenient.

So you ask... where does the seventies fit in?  Well, I picture things like societal relavance or sexual attitudes since the rise of mankind since the last Galactic Wars.  I like the idea of intermingling classic tropes with outdated science fiction ideas of this time.  So a female cadet might wear a bellbottom pantsuit.  I picture the Commonality kind of enforces a 'status quo'... so there has to be so many 'entittled' and so many 'laborer' classes.  These classifcations were done generations ago but the family lines selected were based on financial contributions to the reconstruction of the entire Terran stellar governement.  So many of the darker lineages are left behind... thier family line classified as laborers forever, basicly.  Scenes involving this could be poignant.  Roles of genders could be explored as well.  Maybe some cool frictionless roller skates or something.

Still trowing out ideas.
She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. "Grandmother," cried the little one, "O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree." And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God. 
Hans Christian Anderson in The Little Match Girl