Gauging Interest- Your gods are giant robots.

[Inerrant Lust]

Short Summary;

So, I had an idea based on some drawings I did awhile back. I took deities from ancient cultures and re-imagined them as giant robots. I even wrote a little story about them. Essentially, there are giant mecha which have such amazing technology as to be considered magical. No, beyond magical... godlike. Every civilization that comes across them advances leapyears just from study, but their true powers are ever unknown. Sure, it might take a little bit from Zone of the Enders, but I have taken the concept and run with it. :P

The Solar System
A binary star system, with two yellow suns of similar mass orbiting each-other around a barycenter. All planets in this solar system have a period in their orbit where they are in-between the two suns, resulting in a period of seemingly endless daylight and warmer temperatures.

Godmachines
These machines are sophisticated to the point of appearing like deities. They are machines, definitely- but can heal and regenerate much as humans regrow skin cells. Though metal, they are as flexible as a human- in some cases able to dramatically alter the physical state of some of their components. But above all, they are ruled by an intelligence that speaks and shares thoughts with the pilot- known as a prophet.

Few people can become prophets. Becoming a prophet for a godmachine is an intimate- almost sexual affair. There are no buttons, no levers, no controls within the machine to speak of. Both godmachine and prophet experience an orgasmic event as their mind and body become one with the machine, and the entire process has been described as similar to coitus for both males and females. The voice and perceived personality of a godmachine is seemingly tailored to the prophet and for this reason has always been of the opposite gender, or the same in the case of homosexual prophets.

Still, becoming a prophet does not unlock a godmachine's full potential. Only through time and shared experience has the godmachine been willing to share the secrets of the universe with those who inhabit its skeleton. Some prophets speak with their godmachine at every moment, others only hear whispers and the softest of urgings.

Where do we begin?
You, the players... have a few options here.

Do you want to be the first ones to discover the godmachines? And subsequently the first prophets? This one will be very hard science but with the introduction of godlike beings opening a veritable pandora's box of technology. You will be playing humans who pretty much become intermediaries between their planet and 'Gods', exploring the way this changes society.
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Do you want to be the prophets during the period after their discovery where secrets are gradually being uncovered, leading to an explosion of technology and discovery? This is less hard science... faster-than-light travel is probably in the works at the time of this RP, derived from a godmachine. You may be playing the first humans to explore the world outside their solar system.

Or would you rather be prophets during a period where they are commonplace and fairly understood- with technology derived from them pretty much ubiquitous? The science will be very light and fluffy- almost space opera-y. Godmachines are like deities in a D&D campaign... not very mysterious, perhaps aloof but they are real and definable.

[Rajah]

I like the first option and the second option in the specific case of the Event Horizon scenario, first humans outside the solar system. Who plays the gods, are they player or GM characters? Do they all agree? Do they have a Plan, or plans? Can a god be insane? What's the tech level in the first option? What're the gods at to begin with in terms of potency, given a rough scale of Guymelef -> Gundam MS -> Jaeger -> Armored Core -> Protagonist Gundam -> "I have a thing that burns cities"?

[Terian]

Might be interested, it's a premise with some potential at least.

[Inerrant Lust]

What I had in mind for character creation is that you play a character and you pick a deity from myth. For the most part, I'll be playing the machines. They are mysterious beings who do not always tell you everything when you first combine with them. Some have difficulty communicating with them at all.

Although the characters will all be human, this isn't Earth. In case you didn't notice, the two suns dualistically orbiting each-other is supposed to be a Tao sort of thing. Expect a lot of mystical symbolic things like that.

For example, in a little rough draft I made- the very first godmachine ever discovered was named Thoth. Thoth being the Egyptian god of science, philosophy, balance, magic and other things. The first man to become a prophet was a scientist and a pacifist. He referred to it as Seshat (the feminine counterpart of Thoth) and led humanity to a greater heights of exploration while never sharing anything that could have been primarily used as a weapon.

Not all of the godmachines 'agree'. It will not be clear how much the prophet controls the machine or vice versa. Expect similarities to their realworld counterpart (IE; A godmachine named Loki is likely not being entirely candid to those who listen/pilot it...) and conflicts as they existed in the realworld pantheons. Also, since this will be a mashup- you can also expect interactions between the different mythologies (Hindu godmachines and Norse godmachines, ect.) They can be insane.

In the first option, humanity pretty much is around the tech level of the 1970s just prior to discovering the first godmachine- since it is on the moon.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Aaru
The 'homeworld', and host to most technologically advanced humans, though they are few in number owing to their planet's inhospitable nature. Aaruan society is marked largely by desert nations that primarily live by water at the poles.

Aaru is divided by an inhospitable desert at the equator, yet the two civilizations on opposite sides of the planet developed nearly in tandem to one another. In 82 BT, a scientist on the northern pole bounced a radio signal off the ionosphere and made contact with the south pole for the first time. Despite being separated for thousands of years, the two peoples appeared to have a similar genetic ancestry and cultural roots. Furthermore, ancient myth spoke of humans being exiled to Aaru from the gods that reigned on the moon. It was around this time that radio signals were being received from other planets within the solar system- speech broadcast in an unknown language. Efforts were made to contact these people, but there was initially no response. Archaeology became the preeminent field of study, and with information gleamed from ancient temples across the world, an expedition was made to the moon. There, in the year 0 BT, they found Thoth- the godmachine.

The planet itself has very few seasons owing to its minimal axial tilt, but the average temperature at the desert equator is 76 ºC (168 ºF) and the polar region is 27 ºC (80 ºF), making only the tropical poles habitable for humans. There are several lakes and seas that provide for the population on the poles. There are over two thousand cities in 29 major states that make up the 1.4 billion Aaruans. There are several distinct ethnic groups, but they share in common a tendency towards darker skin tones and black hair owing to their planet's harsh exposure to the suns' rays.

So that's pretty much the set-up for the first one. Note that there are other life-forms in the solar system, sending out radio signals but have so far been unable to reply to anything sent their way. Exploring the solar system would be the main plot of the first option. To keep the mystery, I have kept the details of the other life-forms from this description... but if you'd like to play someone other than an Aaruan, that's quite doable. Discovery goes both ways, afterall. ;)

As for initial power-level... I imagined that Thoth could quite possibly have put itself between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the 1970s and brought an end to conventional war. It probably wouldn't be able to stop the majority of the ICBMs or been able to move/act fast enough to prevent, say, a full-scale invasion of a country the size of China or the continent of Europe. But it could pretty much crush the invasion in a few days of constant fighting.  Could it survive a nuclear blast? ...Maybe... maybe the prophet wouldn't survive or it would have greatly diminished ability- but I think the machine itself would survive. So... Jaeger-level... ish? But Thoth could also travel through space and across Aaru's deserts... which is the sort of technological leap that it bestowed upon humanity.

[Swordsman18]

I am interested, so are we going with the first option then?

So are you saying that some of the PCs are going to be linked to the God Machines?