New Cyberpunk Setting in Work

[Scrasamax]

Basic ideas:

Penal colony on the moon, new Super-Max Slam. convicts are launched into orbit via a Mass Driver. The Driver has replaced the space shuttle for reusable orbital vehicles. It can throw anything into orbit, things with people aboard have to thrown slower and use boosters to get into orbit. Inorganic material can just be thrown hard enough to escape gravity.

Genetic modification and augmentation is possible, but officially illegal. This doesnt prevent there from being an underground network of geneticists who will do the work for the right price.

Cosmetic surgery and organ transplant is common place, organs can be grown, and financed. Have a tall stronger more beautiful you, but dont miss any payments.

Spaceflight is also common. The lagrange points are almost tenements of space stations and space habitats. Overpopulation on Earth is still a problem, but the mass export of people to these habitats, and to colonies on the moon and mars have alleviated a good deal of stress.

The solar economy is booming, as the rapid expansion of the colonies on the Moon and Mars, as well as ventures across the solar system demand a steady flow of raw and finished goods.

Travel time is closer to sailing ships centuries ago, the Moon can be reached in a day, Mars depending on location is 2 to 6 months away, and reaching points beyond Jupiter are 6+ years one way travel. Ships are powered by fusion reactors and use ion engines for propulsion, there is no warp drive, nor any subspace, so communications are also limited by distance. No talking on the phone to someone on another planet.

[Chaosmark]

You, sir, need this link: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html

This sounds interesting, though. I assume the cyberpunk comes into play as the space travel becomes background material, ayuh? Most likely, the PCs are planet-bound for some reason or another. If they need to relocate, it takes a while, but it takes a while for those following to catch them as well. The Outer Colonies might prove to be very useful safe-havens, assuming the arm of the law can't reach quite that far out with such a heavy hand...

[Scrasamax]

The link is very crunchy sir! A bit more crunchy than I needed but certainly interesting. I did read some of the space misconceptions, and I was going to go with a bit of 2001: Space Odyssey and Babylon 5 for ships and movement.

I did have two points of contention with the misconception page:

1. Space ships are laid out parallel with the thrust of axis because it is economically unfeasible to lay out a set that would be realistic. Instead of having a few large sections, each ship would be a vertical tower of decks. I've seen an old 50's space opera that had an accurate deck layout. There was so much running up and down ladders that it was easy to get lost in the layout of the ship. Plus most sci-fi romps like Trek tend to go horribly over budget, so practicallity wins out over accuracy.

2. Navy in Space: Okay, so the Air Force is the current cream of the military crop, and astronauts are air force. But once their are space craft of sufficient size, it is going to become it's own branch, a Space Navy or Spacy. The air force is built around airbases, bombers and small fighters. The navy currently has nuclear reactors, massive ships, a long tradition of maritime prowess and the experience to handle said ships. Most spaceships I rather expect to more resemble submarine crews rather than being manned by the airforce. Besides...    there is no air in space.


The Cyberpunk comes in with the moderately futuristic setting have a dark and gritty texture to it. There is still rampant overcrowding, wars break out, there is no unified government, the poor nations resent the wealthy nations, the colonies resent the landsiders, the spacers resent the governments that claim jurisdiction over them. The entire setting has set a steady course to a violent solar system wide war, maybe a few decades off, but it is coming.

[Chaosmark]

That last paragraph seals it for me. Rampant overcrowding, wars, no unified government, resentment, all leading to solar system-wide war. I'm sold.

[Scrasamax]

Earth is a bit cleaner as most of the heavy dirty industry has moved off planet. Satellite farms handle most of the industrial sector, everything from refining metals and chemicals to pre-assembly finished goods. The only aspect of industry that takes place on earth is final assembly but that is just because it is easier to drop shipments of parts to the surface rather than containers of finished goods.

Stuff gets back into orbit via the mass drivers, be it transports, space ships, or pods of raw materials needed in orbit. There arent many of the mass drivers and the machines run constantly. The rich nations and powers have access to them, the poor nations do not. As a result, the rich nations have easy access to space and the orbital habitats. Their criminals can be sent to penal colonies, and their nasty waste like nuclear waste can be launched into space where it can be stored or launched into the sun.

The habitats and stations dislike the load put on them, each outpost has a quota of work put on it, and it is almost like the industrial revolution with slave like hours, and sometimes dangerous working conditions. There is an expression on the habs 'Keep working, a dozen terrans are depending on your taxes'

Space based warfare is in it's infancy, but there is already a growing concern over control. The habitats and satellites have to be policed for rogue elements, rebellions and revolts. The Martian and Lunar colonies, crowded with excess population from earth and generally composed of criminals, settlers, and others malcontent with society chaff under the rule of their terrestrial super powers. A few unsupervised high end habitats could start building a fleet of warships for one of these disenfranchised sects, which has spurred the terrestrial powers to militarize space and arm their own ships.

Meanwhile the poor nations, struggling with moribund economies, fuel and water shortages and other basic problems watch as the super powers start building space warships, which are even more expensive than their watery counterparts.

Add into the mix: brilliant but eccentric scientific factions, some of which are pushing weapons tech, biotech, and other tech.

Rail guns
limited application energetic armor
cloning tech, to make worker drones, and so that the rich can become functionally immortal
Cyborgs
limited ability androids
AI and SI
Early stage energy and beam weapons

[Chaosmark]

SI? Synthetic Intelligence? Enhanced brains?

[Scrasamax]

I've worked with the notion that true AIs are difficult to deal with, nothing worse than a pushy machine that can think 10K times faster than a normal human. SI is a machine brain that seems like it is intelligent, but it is merely very clever. Imitation Intelligence