Legions of Steel Forum

Legions of Steel => General Discussion => Topic started by: Dave Chase on February 21, 2011, 09:29:57 PM

Title: Future history
Post by: Dave Chase on February 21, 2011, 09:29:57 PM
Clark raised a question in his State of LOS 2011 speech, about the near future history along with the world changes that have taken place since the initial release of LOS and Planetstorm.

What I would like to suggest is something that one of my favorite computer games (Fallout series) did. There they picked a point in past history and said that from that point forward things were different. In the beginning the changes were small and not always noticeable but the farther away from that point down the line of history the were bigger and more dramatic changes.

Why not do the same with LOS?

Pick a point and state something like, astronomers noticed small sources of light that seemed out of place around several stars. They did not correlate to any know celestial data nor even speculative data of planetoid bodies colliding.

Later some odd radio transmissions were picked up. Though they were not truly decoded, it was fairly easy to determine that they were actual signals being transmitted by some non-natural source.

Shortly after this, many astronomers around the world begin seeing objects that entered the solar system and then moved with implied purpose. Ie. not natural.

Contact was made with the LOA 2 days later.


Just a brief summary of a possibly future history

Dave Chase
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on February 22, 2011, 01:10:45 AM
We grappled with this for the first edition and it comes down to two factors, as far as I can tell.

1) Artistic license.
2) Relevance.

Artisitic license can be broken down further into in game simulations and then how you want to tell a story.  The more disconnected the real world is from the game world, the more freedom you have to explore all sorts of possibilities.

Relevance is the connection with the theme of the game and the stories told to what is actually happening in the real world.  My problem is that I'd like the fiction to stand alone as  pieces of literature that have something to say about our current geopolitics and such.  It is harder to do that when your future history is different from real world events.

But funny you should mention it.  About a year ago I toyed with the idea of an alternate history.  I tentatively called it LOS: EMPIRE.  America lost it's war of independence, Islam swept Africa and south Asia and the Chinese took the rest of Asia.  Russia, Europe and South America are sidelined  as bit players.  WWI happened but I wasn't sure if WWII could be avoided.  At the point of open contact (the Fantasians had been in touch with the Germans and Russians for some time) there are only three power blocks: The British Empire, The Chinese Hegemony and the Caliphate.  It makes the game simpler than having 200 nations channeled through the UNE only to be a lone voice in the League of Aliens.

But getting back to Relevance, comic books and movies do the retcon all the time to keep the stories relevant.

Sgt. Patterson was UDR and later SAS posted back to Ulster in a counter-terrorist team.  He tried to muster out after a 15 year old girl in the IRA tried to kill him and he hesitated (his 2IC killed her first).  Command had him transfered to the "Supp List" or supplementary reserve where he existed as a name on a list with a bunch of qualifications that could be reinstated if he so chose.  On his departure, he said to his commanding officer, "I can't imagine anything that would bring me back."  He said that just as the Legions of Steel were capturing planets on the outer fringe of the galaxy.  He returned to England and a loving but dysfunctional marriage and took a "normal" job that he hated.  After word of the LOA landing and that soldiers would be needed to fight a mechanical foe off-world, he reactivated himself.  The UNE was formed grudgingly, with the major powers recognizing the practical need to be part of the LOA but resenting the institution of a "world government".  The dozen or so major powers wanted to field national armies but the smaller, more numerous countries insisted on a dedicated UNE force with the proviso that no UNE force could be operational on Earth itself.  A young lieutenant's idealism lead to the Sahara Incident.  Meanwhile, national governments offered up their most dysfunctional soldiers to volunteer for UNE service.  Patterson was flagged as a problem child because he froze up.  Of course, in fighting  a mechanical foe, none of these moral quandries arise and he ended up becoming a legend, but went MIA following Junction Point.

So, how do we update this?  He served in Iraq?  Afghanistan?  Got freaked out by a teenage suicide bomber?

Of course, none of this has actually been published, but I would like to in a coherent manner.









Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Dave Chase on February 22, 2011, 08:59:46 AM
Why not just start with future history at the end of Desert Shield/Storm?

I can understand wanting to update to current events, but ...
in 5 years are you going to have to update it again, just so it accurate?
Or publish it Nov this year and then have to change it when the Middle East self destructs right afterward?

I think it early comes down to picking a point and going with it.

(This is one of the reasons that most futuristic games and stories try to set themselves into the far future and say that accurate records were lost of the far past (now) so that they don't have to worry about being accurate.

Dave Chase
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Kindred on February 22, 2011, 09:05:08 AM
Interesting alternate.

I actually wrote a series of RPG/LARPs set in an alternate history where the "split" was much more recent.

Bush (GW) decided that Iraq (and then the other Middle East countries) could not be trusted to govern themselves, and gave up all pretense of "freedom" taking them as American Protectorates and then proceeded to take over Canada and Mexico using economic sanctions and start moving the military into Central and South America. After an assassination attempt by the cabinet, Bush declared himself President for Life and, with the support of the joint chiefs, disbanded congress.

The EU consolidated quickly as an actual power to avoid the American "takeover" and, at the request of the North African countries, included them (albeit as second class members)

China acted similarly but more aggressively, taking all of Asia in a storm of military and economic attacks.

The United American Protectorates, the European Union and the Chinese Socialist Republic are the three big powerhouses in that world, and in 2012, the UAP military discovered a ancient space ship under the arctic ice cap....

Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on February 22, 2011, 10:15:03 PM
We all like to play with history to contemplate "what if?"

LOS: Empire was right off the wall but could explore most of today's political issues except all tye turd throwing at the USA about what bad people they are. That they would remain part of the Commonwealth would be enough of a "take that" among eurotrash and self-loathing New Englanders to get on to other discussions. Of course, Americans would still be "Americans" although, perversely, Canadians would commonly be refered to as Americans too.

But the exploration would be with respect to the three great traditions that predominate the world today: Judeo-Christian, Communist-Confucian, and Islamic.

As for simply updating LOS, I sometimes forget just how old I am. The game was conceived in 1991, developed in 1992, and released in 1993 so this update is just short of 20 years in the making. I don't see doing another retcon in 5 years. I wonder what Professor Shadwick is up to (he's in the credits of the Advanced Rules; we consulted him on the plausibility of our future history).

I will tell you one thing, if I can fill the holes in my LOS screenplay, it would be set tomorrow.

Kindred, have you read Peter Worthington?
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Kindred on February 22, 2011, 11:03:23 PM
No, I've never read him (assuming you mean the Canadian journalist)
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: smokingwreckage on February 23, 2011, 05:05:46 AM
The thing about IRA derived violence is that it's never really likely to end, whereas the West can just leave the Middle East, civilisation as we know it can't leave Ireland.

While big-concept future alternate history can be fun, I like the dirt-and-blood feel of the national armies. A lot of rightish libertarianish types would die screaming at the UN becoming a superpower though. Probably the one thing that is dated is the "and the internet more or less dies out" bit....
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: SgtHulka on February 23, 2011, 09:34:12 AM
I will tell you one thing, if I can fill the holes in my LOS screenplay, it would be set tomorrow.

I may be misunderstanding your statement here. If so, I apologize in advance.

I always found LoS one hundred years (or more) in the future to be unsatisfying from a modeling perspective. There was nothing in the background, that I can remember, that made it *have* to be so far in the future. It could happen tomorrow, iirc, because all the technology is alien.

The problem with it being 100 years in the future is that, without colonies on other planets, it's kind of hard to figure out what earth looks like. You can't really use 40K style terrain, because that's too futuristic/weird. You can't really use human space colony terrain because there aren't any. And you can't use modern terrain for machine raids on earth because it's too far in the future.

So there was this weird no-man's land in terms of modeling planetstorm battles. Everything had to be on planetoid style landscapes or the surface of machine complexes.

I'm exaggerating of course, but wanted to throw out this slightly different perspective.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Vile on February 23, 2011, 09:48:37 AM
I'm probably going off-topic and I'm not really advocating this for LoS, but - I like SF which doesn't involve Earth at all. Leaves all the second-guessing, hindsight and "That'll never happen!" at the door. People usually say the audience likes to relate their SF to the earth they know in some way, but what was the most popular ever SF franchise?
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: SgtHulka on February 23, 2011, 11:32:08 AM
I get your point, but then I'd have to re-paint all my "earth dogs die hard".
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on February 23, 2011, 11:47:15 AM
There were a couple of conscious decisions that we made.  First was that there were no actual battles fought on Earth.  The LOA warned us ahead of time and we participated in Planetstorm which succeeded in forcing the Mavhines back. There are other human colonies (Azaramians are human, for instance) with their own quicks of culture, terrain and such that could be explored or fought over.

The choice of the early 22nd century was done to keep things familiar while putting the setting far enough in the furture that history could iron out various details.  We pegged it right about China and Germany arising as world (super) powers but totally missed the boat on 9/11 and Islam.  Is that issue a "game changer" in the literal sense that we have to alter the future history to take it into account?  Certainly, if we originally set the date of contact in the late '90s and Planetstorm  around now, there would be a pressure to retcon the Islamic issue in there somewhere.  If we set it thousands of years in the future then what happend in the last decade or so would be of little consequence.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Kindred on February 23, 2011, 12:46:36 PM
make me wonder if we should have a section just for posting LoS history and fiction...

We can use the Wiki and write up a (current LoS) timeline.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: bobloblah on February 23, 2011, 01:23:31 PM
I'll second that motion.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Dave Chase on February 25, 2011, 04:48:26 PM
With the question about the LOS future history of the Internet (as found on pages 40 & 41 of Planetstorm) along with the side bar comment on page 42 of Planetstorm called Mechanphobia, maybe instead of worrying on the current history of conflicts and governments, we  should concentrate on the public reaction to robots and automation (smart types).

Take this current news of today (or this month at least)

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/31jan_r2/ (http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/31jan_r2/)

Here we are in 2011 and we are sending up robots to aid man in space. ;)

Dave Chase
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on February 25, 2011, 05:46:23 PM
Mechanophobia and "death of the internet" make complete sense within the game but should be retconned for the simple fact that many new players would have no living memory of a world without the internet: it would be so. . . alien. However, there is a lot of buzz over cyberattacks as between countries or terrorism a la Live Free or Die Hard (as Earth Dogs do).

I can see the militia movement in the USA going crazy over the UNE being a type of world government, but the UNE Charter only permits the use of UNE troops off-planet as illustrated in the Sahara Incident. There would probably be UNECOMs in the Antarctic, Europe (Switzerland?), and maybe Brazil, India and Canada, as well as the moonbase known colloquially as "Lunacom". But certainly there would not be one in the USA, Russia or China due to domestic, political concerns.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on February 25, 2011, 06:09:43 PM
No, I've never read him (assuming you mean the Canadian journalist)

Yes, I think he wrote a speculative fiction novel about the Americans invading Canada, circa late 20th century. It didn't go well for the invaders. :-)
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: HardRock on February 26, 2011, 04:26:27 AM
John Ringo's Posleen series is set a year or two ahead. I thought of LoS's UNE when I read them. Very similar, horde marching through the galaxy, aliens federation contacts earth for help. Power armor vs waves of aliens. What's not to like!

Henry
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: earthdog on February 28, 2011, 08:35:20 AM

While I’m unable to find the speech mentioned in the first post (imagine that, only a few posts and I’m already lost): Why would you need to change the background?

A: To present a more unified United Nations?:
 The fluff already states that both national and international composed units exist, everybody is supposed to fight happily together under the UNE banner.
I personally rather like the possibility of stabbing each other in the political back, gives you plenty of opportunity for human vs human action (evil grin)

B: Changing level of technolggy?
If you’re worried about technology levels, I don’t think that lasers and powered armour will become outdated in a few years time, simply describe the crunchies weapons as assault rifles rather than naming a specific type and you’re fine.

C: Changing the political state of a country?
People attitudes will change only slowly and a country’s popular name probably won’t change at all.

D: Incorporate currents events like 9/11 or Afghanistan?
What does that change for the need to fight against the Machines, just be sensible with your army composition and don’t put rival factions in the same company. I mean most of the allied units in WWII didn’t include British, American, French, Russian, and Polish troops in a single company or even army. Simply send rival units to different starsystems and you’ll have no problems.

E: Because nobody remembers a world without internet?
I don’t remember the Olympic games in which genetic manipulation was banned, but it simply serves to set the mood.

Only thing you could do is change a few dates. Just don’t refer to specific actions for an individual and you’re basically timeless. You can name specific actions in a units history (just don’t state they were this or that many years ago).
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: grendeljd on February 28, 2011, 09:20:42 AM
There was an incredibly good article about the future of military technology in the January issue of Popular science entitled 'The Terminator Scenario'.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-12/terminator-scenario (http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-12/terminator-scenario)


It discusses the explosive growth of AI tech and its place in the current American military. There is a demand to have as much as a third of their vehicles to be unmanned as early as 2015!

While AI tech may not replace humans in the UNE, perhaps incorporating this concept into some portable unmanned gunpods would be fitting... or perhaps it could be added to the background simply to acknowledge this new modern tech but state that they are unable to use AI tech against The Machine, as it is able to take control of such devices too easily and turn them against their users...

And speaking of that, with the modern advent of ubiquitous wireless technology, how could that be incorporated?  Imagine a Machine unit that could wirelessly hack a suit of power armour within a certain range...

In the same issue of pop science there was another cool article about current powered exoskeleton tech - the current real precursor to powered armour is becoming much more sophisticated, even though it still relies on having an external power source plugged into it. The suit is called the XOS 2;

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/09/27/sarcos-xos2-the-real-life-iron-man/ (http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/09/27/sarcos-xos2-the-real-life-iron-man/)
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: sergeant_hastp on February 28, 2011, 03:42:22 PM
I imagine that it would be hard to 'trust' AI soldiers fighting alongside you, when you are battling for survival against intelligent machines.

Like dismantling the internet, the advent of the Legions of Steel might prompt humanity to shy away from its flirtation with AI. 

AI warmachines might encounter a state of 'internment' on Earth, along with AI utilities, manufacturing facilities and construction workers.

Human labour and craftsmanship might experience a revival.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Dave Chase on February 28, 2011, 05:43:08 PM

While I’m unable to find the speech mentioned in the first post (imagine that, only a few posts and I’m already lost): Why would you need to change the background?
...

Ah, sorry about that. Maybe Clark or Kindred could post it as it's own thread (I don't want to be the poster of someone elses work as the thread creator.)

But I will post it here in quote for you. (Please note: the only editing that I did was format, so that it would fit properly in this window.)

Quote from: Clark Browning
Gentlemen, (and ladies, if there are any)

I’ve started working on the Legions of Steel 3e Compendium. It’s a project that probably should have been started 15 years ago, right around the time I ended up at law school and Global Games imploded. Instead, Planetstorm attempted to put everything in one place at one time, but with respect to an "outdoor" environs that wasn’t constrained by boards, squares, and mazes of halls, walls, rooms and doors. Of course, the games are different and Planetstorm itself had a number of issues. But the fact remains that after the release of Junction Point we had
over 300 pages of rules, background, figures, weapons, scenarios and such. There were inconsistencies, errata, and changes from the release in spring of 1993 to the end of 1995. Then came 200 pages of Planetstorm.

Personally, Marco and I went off to play some rather expensive games. He is now a film producer in the process of getting together $7 million dollars to finance his first feature film. I spent the last several years as a divorce attorney;
and being fed up with that I now have an application pending with JAG as I teach grade 12 in the meantime. Life is almost stable for a change. Marco doesn’t have any interest in getting back into games as far as I know. He still owns
all the original masters for the 100+ figures we developed for LOS and is open to putting them back into production again. I hold the intellectual property – the copyrights and trademarks – for LOS, so I can do what I want with the books, but Marco and I have to agree on what to do about the figures.

What I want to do is take the basic rules (Rules of Engagement from the second edition), Scenario Pack, Advanced Rules, Alien Sourcebook and Junction Point to streamline, re-edit, reorganize and republish everything in a single volume. It would be released online as well as a print-on demand option that I will be looking into for anyone who wants a professionally printed and bound hard copy.

I wanted to get as much input as I can on what people have been doing with Legions of Steel: their views on the rules as well as the material, and also the sort of cross-property mixing that has been going on (Assault Fiend vs Dalek,
Fantasians vs Gene Stealers, UNE fighting alongside the Rebel Alliance, etc).

I have a concept – structure – that I wanted to run by everyone to have a way of examining and classifying the rules and their mechanics. This is separate from the background material which, in light of 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the rise of China as a superpower, needs a bit of a retcon. Maybe we need to rethink setting the opening events at the dawn of the 22nd century as well.

But to get back to the focus of this post, the rules and their mechanics. What I created I have posted in the files section as "The Rules Matrix" which is a visual guide to what I am describing.

Any game that is a simulation – whether of actual events or fantastic stories – has two basic requirements: the setting and the rules. The rules should simulate the setting, whether it is strictly historical or based on fictional elements.
The rules should both reflect and reinforce the genre of the source material. Legions of Steel is a science fantasy setting unto itself but the genesis was from a number of real-world scenarios in the late 20th century. First was the
idea of a small force of special forces troops – commandos – fighting a larger force of highly motivated militia or terrorists. Then we had the fantasy element of the enemy being soulless machines and the reversal of the commandos
trying to bomb the enemy rather than preventing the enemy from bombing them. (As an aside, the original - way back – draft had the human section facing 12 Nightmares. The artist who did the original (black) box cover said "There is no way you can not have the big guy - Assault Fiend, Mk I - in the basic game.") The game evolved intentionally to try and reflect Soviet vs NATO troops c1990, as I was a member of the Canadian Forces and had trained in section assaults with the FNs as well as retrained with the new 5.56 mm weapon set. But we added
fanciful elements to spice things up.

Given the setting and its conventions, you have to deal with the rules and their mechanics. A setting will imply in-game elements that need to be simulated. At its most basic, any small unit skirmish rules have to include a way for X to shoot at Y. Objectively speaking you, cannot have a gun battle game without rules on how to shoot guns. How you do this is not as clear cut. There is a question of what factors do you consider in your simulation. Some of these
factors might add to the game but are not strictly necessary. There is also the requirement of playability. A perfect simulation doesn’t necessarily make a great game if it sucks to be those people who get the short end of the stick.
This last point looms large in recent FPS computer games set in Iraq or Afghanistan. In reality, any time Al Queda or the Taliban stand and fight NATO or American troops, they get slaughtered, but that wouldn’t make a good game if
– as these games allow – you are playing one of the terrorists

Then you add additional elements that enforce or reflect the source material and playability, but less often or more obliquely. Leadership is a good example in that it adds to the game play significantly but not as much as the fire
resolution system.

The point being is that game rules come on a sliding scale from absolutely necessary to completely irrelevant. Furthermore, the rules will fall on a two dimensional grid when you consider a second factor: the designer’s preference.

While necessity is fairly objective in that people can largely agree on what you need or don’t need to reflect or enforce a particular genre, designer preference is far more subjective. First is in the interpretation of the source material. With art, the artist themselves has only one among many interpretations of the meaning of a work. So even if the source material is written by the game designer, there will be elements that reflect the author’s interpretation,
perhaps in contrast with the interpretation that a reader/player has.


Secondly is the selection of mechanics. While one can make fact-based, logical arguments on the relative merits of, say, 3d6 vs d20 to generate a random number with a mean of 10.5, how you incorporate those mechanics into a game is largely a matter of personal preference. And that personal preference can be shared by others who end up converting one game to another. However, it is not a completely solipsistic affair as designers generally design games for other people to play, so their preferences also reflect the desires, preferences and
behaviours of the players they write for.

So what you get is a two-dimensional array to describe rules and their mechanics in terms of how necessary they are to the game, and how much the designer prefers them over other options. This results in five basic classes of rules and their mechanics.

CORE RULES

The standard rules of any game will be those that people largely agree are necessary and, at a minimum, they are willing to go along with designer on how they are reflected in terms of mechanics and such. It covers a fairly large
section of mental real estate but the idea is that the core rules will simulate what needs to be done in the way the designer envisions. And your typical player will be happy with that.

Examples are easier to come by from Planetstorm as it was the last publication with the most rules.

Pinning is a core rule. It isn’t strictly necessary for a skirmish game, but to reflect the battle drills as taught by the Royal Canadian Regiment Battle School in 1990 as well as my personal preferences in that regards, and the simplicity of a near miss to pin you down, the rule would fall high and to the right on the rules matrix, well within core rule consideration.

ALTERNATIVE RULES

Variations on the core rules can be useful under particular circumstances. The initiative rules from the basic game will probably end up as alternative rules if the assumption shifts from a two-player, two unit engagement to a multiplayer with multiple units each.


The wounding rules from the Advanced Rules are presently incompatible with the pinning rules from Planetstorm. They could be used as alternatives unless and until an integrated rule is created to reflect both at the same time.

Overall, a set of Simplified Rules (Beginner, Cadet, whatever you want to call them) would be alternative rules. On the flip side, leaving out a core rule is an alternative, such as dropping leadership or suppression for the first few
games with a novice.

SUGGESTED RULES

These are very much a designer’s pet rules that can’t be justified by any objective need in the game itself. The Decimation rule from Planetstorm is an example. Randomly killing off 10% of your forces simulates pre-game combat and encourages a logical mix of troops while dissuading the use of one-trick gimmick armies, but it certainly doesn’t belong in the core rules, and wouldn’t be appropriate in campaign games.

OPTIONAL RULES

So-called "advanced rules" will fall in here as these are rules, mechanics and sub-simulations that are in the mushy middle such that people, including the designer, don’t get particularly passionate about them one way or another, but
they can make for a change of pace, or be included for completeness. Ammunition and Electronic Warfare fall into this category. They can add a new dimension of play, but tend to be heavy on the bookkeeping so they aren’t core, suggested or alternative.

Scarecrow’s artillery rules posted on this site could make for good optional/advanced rules for Planetstorm.

EXPERIMENTAL RULES

These tend to be house rules and otherwise player/fan generated add-ons. You definitely don’t need them to play the game as originally envisioned, and the designer has issues with them due to genre reflection, the mechanics aesthetics, or even out of legal concerns over copyrights and trademarks. They can also be tied to a particular scenario and may be difficult to export to other scenarios due to concerns over balance.

So you get collapsing roofs, low ammunition and powers using "the force" or "chaos" and such.

With some additional structure, these can become optional rules, and perhaps alternative or even suggested.

So that is where my head is at. Your comments are most welcome.

Clark Browning
los2010@ymail.com

Dave Chase
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on February 28, 2011, 05:54:08 PM
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AIIsACrapshoot (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AIIsACrapshoot)

Check out this web page. There are more related to sci fi conventions on robots and stuff; in fact, just about anything from any genre or medium.

The update is to incorporate 9/11 in the future history while keeping the same characters at an appropriate age: keep everything more relevant to real world events. If Patterson was battling the IRA back in the '80s he'd be in his 50s now. If Date of Contact is kept as per the rule books, he hasn't even been born yet. If he served in Iraq or Afghanistan then he is like so many guys people know in the here and now.

If you read up on powered armour you will find that the key stumbling block is a mobile power source. Backpack cold fusion solves that problem. There are others in terms of actuator power, speed, preciseness and weight, and the basic ergonomic issue of laying an exoskeleton over a creature with a natural endoskeleton, and still have an acceptable range of motion.

While we were a bit idealistic I certainly didn't picture Earth's geopolitics as being all sunshine and roses. In fact, I figured that many countries would keep their best soldiers for their national forces while the loose canons and other problem children would get shuffled off for UNE duty. 
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: smokingwreckage on March 01, 2011, 10:54:02 PM
... which makes the UNE forces very entertaining in terms of fiction or RPG potential. Mish mash of multi-national misfits, trained to elite levels and fed into a meatgrinder? The drama writes itself.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on March 02, 2011, 08:01:26 AM
The scenario "The Misfits" sort of nudged up against that line.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Kindred on March 02, 2011, 09:09:50 AM
it does open some stories that could be used in an RPG.

Actually, with the advances of airsoft and nerf technology, it might be interesting to LARP...
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: smokingwreckage on March 04, 2011, 08:03:11 AM
Oh, I'd run LOS in an RPG in a heartbeat, but not a combat-focused RPG. Something like Burning Wheel. Beliefs regarding your squadmates, Instincts regarding racial prejudice, and Traits based around the array of twitchy, violent or incongruously pacifistic, scarred veterans. Plenty of room for combat, yes, but the combat vs the machines/GM is a backdrop for a basically PvP drama that might culminate in shining heroism or outright bastardry.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: grendeljd on March 04, 2011, 10:33:08 AM
Somewhere in a post, Clark mentioned wanting to change the name of the League of Aliens. I had a  bit of 'anagram diarrhea' yesterday at work, and came up with the following list of ideas. Be forewarned, it may seem very repetitive, I got playing with variations on themes a lot. Also note - a few mention 'swap' in the brackets, I was just intending that the order of the words change without having to retype everything;


Union of Sentients [UoS]
Union of Sentient Species [UoSS or USS]
Union of Sentient Races [UoSR or USR]
Union of Intergalactic Sentients [UoIS or UIS]
Union of Pan-Galactic Species [UoPS, UPS or UPGS]

Pan-Galactic Union [PGU]
Pan-Galactic Coalition [PGC]
Inter-Galactic Union [IGU]
Inter-Species Union [ISU]
Inter-Species Coalition [ISC]
Inter-Sentient Species Union [ISSU]
Sentient Species Union [SSU]
Inter-Sentient Species Coalition [ISSC]
Sentient Species Coalition [SSC]
Inter-Sentient Race Coalition [ISRC]
Sentient Race Coalition [SRC]

Confederation of Intergalactic Species [CoIS or CIS]
Coalition of Intergalactic Species [CoIS or CIS]
Coalition of Intergalactic Sentient Species [CISS – the ‘Ciss Army’, ha ha]
Coalition of Intergalactic Sentient Races [CoISR or CISR]
Coalition of Pan-Galactic Sentients [CoPS, CPS or CPGS]
League of Intergalactic Sentients [LoIS or LIS, or swap to ILS]
League of Intergalactic Sentient Species [LISS, or swap to ILSS]
League of Intergalactic Sentient Races [LISR, or swap to ILSR]
League of Pan-Galactic Sentients [LoPS, LPS or LPGS or swap to PGLS]

The next batch could also work as a title for the united military forces of the LoA, along the line of the UNE/Infranite 'JEF';

Machine Elimination Coalition [MEC]
Machine Elimination Forces [MEF]
Machine Defense Coalition [MDC]
Machine Counter-Incursion Forces [MCIF]
Anti Machine Incursion Forces [AMIF]
Anti Machine Incursion Coalition [AMIC]
Anti Machine Incursion Union [AMIU]
Machine Repulsion Force [MRF]
Sentient Defense Force [SDF]
Sentient Races Defense Force [SRDF]
Sentient Species Defense Force [SSDF]
Pan Galactic Defense Force [PGDF or PDF]
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: sergeant_hastp on March 04, 2011, 01:34:15 PM


ISAF:  Interstellar Security Assistance Force.

 :D

Title: Re: Future history
Post by: smokingwreckage on March 05, 2011, 01:51:54 AM
Why change the LOA? The acronym is a bit close to the LOS but it's a neat hat-tip to the League of Nations.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on March 05, 2011, 11:31:11 AM
"League of Aliens" is what English speaking Humans call them. The propwr English translation is much longer and the real name is all but unpronouncible.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Dave Chase on March 05, 2011, 02:59:36 PM
"League of Aliens" is what English speaking Humans call them. The propwr English translation is much longer and the real name is all but unpronouncible.

After 7 days of attempting to translate the actual name given to the LOA, most of the human translators had several headaches and dizzeness (and those were the mild cases.)

The first syllable (of 247) translated into something close to this according to what notes could be coherently read

wewhoareallthatlive ofdifferentnamesare oneoftheuniverse

After hearing this, One of the British Generals commented that sould like a politicians explaination for a League, and so born was the name

League of Aliens.

;)

Dave Chase
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on March 05, 2011, 08:58:08 PM
As per the basic rules, the organization is called the "Interstellar League for Mutual Homeworld Defence From Intergalactics".

The word of the day is "plenipotentiary".  :D

In German, the organisation name would be: Inter-Sterne-Liga für Gegenseitige Vater Welt Abwehr von Inter galaktisch

Of course, the Germans just love their compound words so that would be one long, frickin' word.

(When Marco and I were at Gen Con we met a guy from a German distributor who gave us his business card.  His title was  Handlungsbevolensma chtiger (or something very similar) When we asked what this meant he paused and hmmed and then said "manager". )

So, what cool acronym (because Germans love those too) would they use?

And if anyone is actually fluent in German, please correct me (I did one course in grade 10 and otherwise rely on Google Translate)
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on March 05, 2011, 09:26:45 PM
On a different bend, sticking to a time a century from now sort of sidelines any other media references.  In particular is music.  Predicting musical tastes in a hundred years is mugs  game but it is nifty to to enjoy the soundtrack to your characters. . . .

OR how many light years are the Fantsians and Infranites from Earth?  What do Paache Raiders and Privateers boogie to?
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Dave Chase on March 05, 2011, 11:56:25 PM
On a different bend, sticking to a time a century from now sort of sidelines any other media references.  In particular is music.  Predicting musical tastes in a hundred years is mugs  game but it is nifty to to enjoy the soundtrack to your characters. . . .

OR how many light years are the Fantsians and Infranites from Earth?  What do Paache Raiders and Privateers boogie to?

Or you can pull a Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and say that current music is vogue (or in fashion because people long for the days before the LOS situation.

Dave Chase
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on March 06, 2011, 10:47:08 AM
It's plausible that popular music goes in cycles but we don't know for sure with only 60 years of rock 'n roll.

I'm not a music guru, but is there anything really "new" out there that is not a derivative of the last 40 years of the 20th century?
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Arfiel on March 07, 2011, 07:45:01 PM
Inter-Species Union (ISU) can't be used.

That is a form you have to fill out when you want to marry a species other than your own.
You can't get those forms in the USA.

Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Dave Chase on March 22, 2011, 01:08:47 PM
Well, with the additional new things happening around the world, I think it is even more important to pick a date and assume that the world as we know it changed into the LoS world.


Dave Chase
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on March 24, 2011, 12:04:35 AM
My leanings now, after reviewing the discussions, is to stick to plan A and keep the LOS time line in the early 22nd century while composing a narative that smooths out 9/11 and such to get to where we want to be.  It's a bit of a mugs game to speculate on what will happen with the rate of technological advance given Moores Law and such but the general attitude has to be that it all asymptotes by about 2050 when we reach ZPG and get AGW under control (*cough*).

Right now I am teaching a course in World Issues and the wonderful thing about teaching is that it forces you to learn stuff so you can pass on that knowledge.  Population projections are that China will max out, India will keep growing, and the USA will top 400 million. Meanwhile, some figure Canada could take agressive measures to get our population up to 100 million (ie. triple current numbers!).

The list of possible game changers is too long to contemplate.

I figure we stick to the plan for game purposes.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: grendeljd on March 24, 2011, 11:48:45 AM
Speculation on tech is always tough - you could easily date yourself prior to some big invention that changes things [internet, wireless tech?] or look amazing for predicting in a vague way something that actually comes down the pipe as an extension of current tech.

I just found the classic cartoon Robotech on Netflix this morning, and had to giggle a little as I watched the first episodes of Macross for the first time in maybe 15-20 years... the SDF-1 crashed to earth in 1999, and the  rest of the story takes place in 2009. It's so weird that that is in our past now, lol! Regardless, the story still works because they picked a date as a start point - if an alien ship really crashed in our world in 1999, it would change everything from then on [though being more conscious of technology as an Industrial Electrician, I personally think it might take more than ten years to crack and start reproducing alien tech with no aliens to teach it to us...].
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: smokingwreckage on April 18, 2011, 09:24:28 AM
Picking demographics is a mug's game, too. The UK for example apparently recently went from death-spiral (population decline that historically would have been irrecoverable, given smaller populations and poorer tech) to maintenance.

I wouldn't pick on any one ecological bogeyman either; Paul Ehrlich for example has been proven wrong pretty much every decade since the late 60's.

But, if Earth is in decline at the point the aliens show up.... then it is. If that's a requisite of the fiction, you write it in. Certainly having the world about to collapse into multiple war-fronts as hungry but well armed dogs scrabble for the meatiest energy and ore bones adds to the "Earth Dogs" attitude and gives a solid reason why the probable superpowers of the time; say US, India, China, someone in Europe (France, more likely Germany or the UK?), maybe Japan, maybe an SE-Asian or South American economy or bloc, would submit to an overarching quasi-federal political umbrella. 

"Hey look! ALIENS!" is a great way to back out of a no-winners 5-way without losing face.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: grendeljd on April 20, 2011, 09:40:58 AM
Some tech would be an absolute game-changer too. Has anyone here ever read The Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age)

Incredibly intelligent sci-fi concepts on nano-tech. I love this book. If that kind of tech came into being, it would alter everything we currently do. Of course, I don't think it's worth worrying over as related to LoS - it just re-enforces the idea that if you pick a time and stick to extrapolating from that point on, the world you create will feel cohesive.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: smokingwreckage on April 20, 2011, 10:16:45 AM
Yeah if you go too far into analysing the tech it turns into long-form hard sci-fi, wherein the question is about a particular technology.

LoS is about humans from a brink of collapse earth getting thrust onto a galactic stage to shore up a brink of collapse alliance war.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Vok Ytalinov on April 22, 2011, 04:34:15 PM
I guess you can't really ignore 911, but we already have China, or the Sino Nipponese power bloc active, powerful, and pursuing its own agenda with ETs, more specifically, the Zoyone hive...I think the Internet free world of UNE earth is a neccessity given, if nothing else, the Runaway.  Besides, the lack of the internet might illustrate the sheer gravity of the LOS threat to the wired youngsters of today.  And, who knows, the military need for computer security vs the public and corporate desire for freedom and ease of commerce, respectively is not without post 911 parallels...
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: smokingwreckage on April 26, 2011, 09:35:29 AM
I can see Runaway type attacks ending the full sensory immersion idea pretty quickly. If you read some of the side-stories in a series I don't recommend (Rifters by Peter Watts) the Internet is already being overrun by "wildlife" by the early 2030's; artificial life and genetic algorithms driving the "evolution" of a whole pseudo-ecosystem of spambots and viruses...

Just so you know, Rifters has a lot of really nasty stuff in it: child abuse, rape, and extreme sadism are just some of the things characters suffer or inflict in the fiction. "Blindsight" on the other hand is freaking brilliant and explores ideas of consciousness, intelligence, and evolutionary fitness versus extinction that all go nicely with Legions of Steel.

http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm (http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm) The whole novel online for free.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Nukelavee on April 26, 2011, 10:07:14 AM
Starfish was iffy, Maelstrom actually reins things back in a bit...

Blindsight rocked.

But, yeah, I can see any kind of informational tech being SO security concious with something like the Machines around.

In turn - I could see a tendancy, at least on Earth, towards giving internal security departments way too much power...
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: smokingwreckage on April 27, 2011, 06:40:42 AM
Yeah, and what I like about LoS is it isn't utopia or dystopia. There's room for things like overzealous cyber-security without having to do a rehash of 1984. You don't even have to have any real faith in the UN to buy the idea that it, being a bureaucracy with nominally global reach was the fastest, neatest fit for a loose-and-leaky "Earth Federation". The rushed negotiations under pressure, the fact that most governments the world over are trying quietly or overtly to subvert or circumvent the structure, it all has the feel of real politics, real history.

Also, by making sure that so many players are not merely a drab dull grey but a genuine mix of the truly admirable and the utterly hopeless or self-serving, you keep the game open for all sorts of things, including RPGs with scope for political, merchant, criminal, enforcement, or military campaigns.
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on April 27, 2011, 04:01:40 PM
The universe of Legions of Steel is neither utopian nor dystopian.  Overall, it reflects my own mix of cynicism and optimism.  There is a lot of room to explore what would have happened to Earth itself over the next century, and then how Contact and the LOS threat would change things.  Keep in mind that it was originally written just as the internet was coming online, so to speak.  Fifteen years ago, if you had talked about internet video streaming from my cell phone, that would have struck me as science fiction.

I have never read Rifters or Blindsight but I nosed about on the internet.  And, of course, I have seen the Transformers movies which can give you an idea of the mischief that rogue machines could cause on a wired world.  So it still makes sense for LOS Earth to back away from internet connectivity due to security concerns.

But the ramifications of that would be interesting to explore.  It wouldn't make a great deal of difference from a military standpoint, but it would change everyday life.  I don't think it would cripple the economy or anything: with the uplift technology (and we really need a better name than uplift or neotech etc) the economy would lurch sideways and get back to producing actual physical things rather than doc com vapour millionaires.  With licensing, the UNE would become largely self-funding. Cold fusion could potentially solve energy/carbon emissions problems, etc etc.  And the politiking would continue. 

We have a federal election this coming Monday here in Canada.  The leading Conservative Party has pledged to pass an omnibus criminal justice bill within 100 days if they score a majority (which is a coin toss right now).  Buried within that legislation - which there basically will be no time to debate - are internet provisions that allow cops to get warrantless access to your personal information, requires internet providers to create ways of spying on people, and allows for the cops to get warrants to access that information or even tap into communications in real time.  And this is Canada!

Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Dave Chase on April 27, 2011, 07:41:45 PM
...
We have a federal election this coming Monday here in Canada.  The leading Conservative Party has pledged to pass an omnibus criminal justice bill within 100 days if they score a majority (which is a coin toss right now).  Buried within that legislation - which there basically will be no time to debate - are internet provisions that allow cops to get warrantless access to your personal information, requires internet providers to create ways of spying on people, and allows for the cops to get warrants to access that information or even tap into communications in real time.  And this is Canada!

Ouch. Hope it gets stopped.

On with your lack of internet in the LOS/Planetstorm Earth, I wonder if there might not be a slight increase in the resurgance of Amish or other down to earth, use as little technology as possible or even the Ludlites (spelling) possibly becoming a religion of sorts.

Dave Chase
Title: Re: Future history
Post by: Clark on April 27, 2011, 08:56:15 PM
I suppose that UPFE would have embodied that.