Random ideas (again)

For 'verse proposals, random ideas, musings, and brainwaves.

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Re: Random ideas (again)

Post by Somes J »

I was thinking this might be an interesting idea to explore in a modern/"urban" fantasy setting.
Souls In The Mud wrote:People are so numerous now, and souls are so desperately needed to fill those extra human slots, that the entrance requirements have dropped abysmally low. Any animal spirit can become human--for the first time in history, a majority may have no prior experience at the job. Inept souls barely ready for the responsibility of big brains and busy hands...

Conversely, animals like elephants and cetaceans were once common. Intelligent, but with toolless societies, they made a fine practice-pool for souls readying to try human responsibility--the godlike power of hands! But now, to be a rare, big-brained animal is such a choice privilege, it's only granted advanced souls. Sort of a luxury vacation...

I wonder--has this policy backfired? Is it one reason so many creatures are not doing well? Maybe it's not all poaching and habitat problems. What if these "advanced" souls, with a long history of refinement, aren't so well suited to be animals any more? Refined souls with habits like living in their heads not their bodies, like... squeamishness? Like not wanting to kill and eat their neighbors raw?

<snip>

If reincarnation's possible, this makes dangerously good sense. Wild animals WOULD be prime real estate for souls now--much rarer than humans. And scarcity creates value, right?

And humans are common--hence dirt cheap. Remember the last human lunkhead you met. Now really, wouldn't they make a perfectly good dog? What if they DID, and got promoted, but there's such a shortage of intermediate species to practice in, now, that they had to leap all the way from dog to... your neighbor?

Or your boss.
It would be interesting to explore the idea that there was some increasingly celestial bureaucracy in charge of redistributing souls, and they're like totally in crises and pulling their hair out because the damn humans won't stop breeding and trying to stop dying.

Mang, it gives me some awesomely horrible images of the guys in said organization dancing in glee every time some majorly bad stuff went down in the modern era, like WWI and WWII or the Holocaust. I mean, these guys must have loved the mass slaughters of WWI and WWII and the Holocaust and the famines under Stalin and Pol Pot. They would have temporarily relieved the shortfall! It would be like if there was a giant famine or something, and then suddenly somebody started dropping canned spam all over the landscape. I get this delightfully horrible image of some sort of lively improvised soul-auction outside Auschwitz with a million soul-collectors trying to grab the souls as they fly out the gas chambers and pawn them off to the highest bidder. All the guys in charge of distributing souls to animals would be, like, down at the Somme and Iwo Jima and Treblinka and shit, trying to take advantage of this like guys rushing a store that has a huge sale. But no matter how HUEGLY humans kill each other it's not enough to supply all the backed-up demand, so you'd have ferocious bidding wars and then fights would start breaking out over the souls and shit, and the celestial security guards would try to break them up but they'd overwhelmed and there'd be some huge free for all. Like, you can imagine some poor GI who gets shot in the Battle of the Bulge and then he dies and the next thing he knows there's twenty guys fighting over his soul being all like "he's mine!" "I saw him first!" and getting into a huge undignified brawl over him like Christmas shoppers over the last copy of the latest hot video game. And then they'd be getting all fevered as the war was drawing to a close and they don't know the next time they'll get an opportunity like this, and, like, there would have been a total madhouse down at Hiroshima and Nagasaki as everybody and his uncle rushes down there to take advantage of it before it's all over. And then, like, Japan would surrender and everybody would be happy except these guys, who'd be all sad because it's back to business as usual, and all worried because the situation is becoming ever less sustainable and pretty soon they're going to run out of souls. WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN THEN, HUH?

Or, you can imagine how these guys would have felt about the Cuban Missile Crises. They'd have been spooging themselves at the thought of a nuclear war. Man, it'd be like ... like WWII all over again just from the bombs, and then the starvation and disease and general total collapse of civilization would set in and the human population would collapse. The good old days would be back! Why, if civilization doesn't recover ... their problems are solved! And they'd be all happy and they'd be all in Kennedy and Kruschev's face, being all like "do it man! push the red button!" But of course they're transparent ghost shit so Kennedy and Kruschev can't hear them and the nukes don't fly, and the soul-collector dudes would all be totally sad. And they're, like, trying to find out ways to somehow sabotage human civilization to get the whole thing back to a sustainable level.

Or you can imagine how these people would react when humans start talking about stuff like mind uploading and immortality research. Mang, they want to skull-rape all the immortalists so bad, only they can't because they're transparent ghost shit. It's bad enough the damn humans won't stop breeding and now they're gonna STOP DYING too? The whole overstretched system would, like, collapse instantly and nothing would be born because there are no more souls, and every animal species would die except humans because they'd stop reproducing too but they're freaking immortal so it doesn't matter for them. And the soul distributors would be out of a job and they'd have to go on celestial welfare.

Dang, I'm all channeling Shroom and rambling here, aren't I? But seriously man, I think there's some great black comedy potential here.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

Post by Magister Militum »

I find the potential consequences of something with the intelligence of a chimpanzee making a jump all the way to human to be absolutely hilarious.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Jesus Christ. That came out of nowhere, and it's totally manic so I'll bite!

Further extrapolation of concept:

Imagine, mang. Imagine, you talk about the Holocaust? What if all those souls, for example, went into animals, right? Into BIRDS! And imagine those angered and traumatized and hateful wretched souls whose last experience was that of suffering, and in their infinite anger their rage lives on in their new animalistic forms! If they're in birds, Jesus Christ. Imagine Mengele or Eichmann in Argentina, chillaxing and shit because the Catlick Church helped the Nazzies escape, and them WHAM! Suddenly there's a whole flockload of birds around Mengele, blocking out the sun and denying him his suntan. Mengele goes like "Scheisse, birden untermenschen animaleren!" or some shit and then, and then, all those poor Jew-souls and Slav-souls and Roma-souls and Gypsy-souls and Homo-souls in those birds just glare at him and when he moves, WHAM! The birds SQUAWK! SQUAWK! SQUAWK! and they swarm him and peck at his eyes, at his GODDAMN EYES, and they CLAW and they BEAK and they SQUAWK and CROW and they PEEL THE FLESH OFF HIS BONES!!!!

Oh mang!

You can also imagine those mass murdering motherfuckers like Hitler, they're not exactly well-connected to reality and often they're a bit loopy and indulge in all sorts of superstitious nonsense. Imagine if these guys can actually see those "Death Dealers" or "Soul Sellers" of yours. Imagine Hitler or Stalin or someone trying to cut a good bargain with them, Hitler/Stalin/whoever will provide them with a shitload of mass-murdered souls and then in exchange, the Death Dealing Soul Sellers will totally guarantee them a preferable place in the afterlife - perhaps reincarnated to a good animal, or as a human again.

But the Death Dealing Soul Sellers are treacherous and after Hitler eats his gun, he ends up getting reincarnated as a worm that gets eaten by a Jew who got reincarnated as a chicken! Cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck!

God, the Anti-Defamation League is gonna accuse me for Anti-Semitism. Oh, but fuck them, they can go illegally harvesting dead people's organs!
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Re: Random ideas (again)

Post by Somes J »

Shroom Man 777 wrote:You can also imagine those mass murdering motherfuckers like Hitler, they're not exactly well-connected to reality and often they're a bit loopy and indulge in all sorts of superstitious nonsense. Imagine if these guys can actually see those "Death Dealers" or "Soul Sellers" of yours. Imagine Hitler or Stalin or someone trying to cut a good bargain with them, Hitler/Stalin/whoever will provide them with a shitload of mass-murdered souls and then in exchange, the Death Dealing Soul Sellers will totally guarantee them a preferable place in the afterlife - perhaps reincarnated to a good animal, or as a human again.
That concept had occurred to me too. Dang, the more I think about this idea the more interesting it is. Has anybody in fantasy done a dark take on reincarnation at all along these lines?

BTW what's that animal in your sig banner? It intrigues me.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

Post by Heretic »

I think Shroom called it FROD, though googling it gave me cars and stuff. I wonder as well.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Somes J wrote:That concept had occurred to me too. Dang, the more I think about this idea the more interesting it is. Has anybody in fantasy done a dark take on reincarnation at all along these lines?
Nope, would be awesome though. Like, something really dark but ridiculous and funny but also rather violent and gross and reprehensible and not at all politically correct.
BTW what's that animal in your sig banner? It intrigues me.
It's a brachiosaurus or a diplodocus, with a hypothetical elephant-like trunk. I call it a Ford Prefect, or FROD for short.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

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MSN wrote:14/12/2009 15:30:48 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype Shroom wanted Weir to show him True Science in a chest, but even by his standards it seemed a bit weird.

14/12/2009 15:33:20 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon There's nothing wrong with that.

14/12/2009 15:33:39 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype The geometry of the flower is actually a basilisk attack.

14/12/2009 15:33:51 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon *thumbs up* I approve.

14/12/2009 15:34:08 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype Which would be an awesome defensive mechanism, by the way.

14/12/2009 15:35:17 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype A plant evolves an appearance that causes massive strokes in its primary predator species.

14/12/2009 15:35:57 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype Other species are less affected, but it is so successful it causes at least marginal effects in anything with two eyes.

14/12/2009 15:36:17 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype Humans, for example, only get intensely nauseous.

14/12/2009 15:36:41 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon That IS actually an interesting defensive mechanism. And consider, an entire world where this sort of thing goes on.

14/12/2009 15:36:42 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype Symbiotic and mutually beneficial insects, with compound eyes, are not affected.

14/12/2009 15:36:50 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon Clever.

14/12/2009 15:37:13 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype Evetually, herbivores evolve with eyes that cannot look down.

14/12/2009 15:37:30 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype Or have hardwired reflexes not to look down.

14/12/2009 15:37:45 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon Hilarious!

14/12/2009 15:38:59 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype And they start eating the plants again. The plants in turn grow taller.

14/12/2009 15:39:17 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon Such a world would be frightening indeed.

14/12/2009 15:40:02 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype You either end up with entirely blind herbivores (who must defend against predators with an entirely different set of mechanisms)

14/12/2009 15:40:58 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype Or plant-eating insects take up the niche, grow to giant sizes with absence of avian or mammalian predators.

14/12/2009 15:42:04 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon But wouldn't the plants eventually develop to kill insects too?

14/12/2009 15:42:37 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype It's probably difficult, since insects work by completely different eyes and brains.

14/12/2009 15:42:45 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon Fair point.

14/12/2009 15:43:01 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype It would like saying the herbivores evolve a new visual system to cope.

14/12/2009 15:44:15 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype ^Or that might even happen but only as a pure brain mutation, but the side effect is the new strain of herbivores has a completely different behavior pattern.

14/12/2009 15:44:36 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon This is complete madness ...

14/12/2009 15:44:41 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype ...like sentience.

14/12/2009 15:45:07 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype The ability to double check itself.

14/12/2009 15:46:25 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype As for speculating what kind of intelligence would develop from a brain built to proof itself against neural basilisk attacks, that's beyond me.

14/12/2009 15:46:49 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon Yeah, we're getting into some serious neuroscience at this point.

14/12/2009 15:47:16 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype Considering neural basilisk attacks themselves have very little basis.

14/12/2009 15:47:48 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon Which is perhaps fortunate.

14/12/2009 15:48:32 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype ...and also evolved long, dexterous manipulators to pick food without having to look at them too closely.

14/12/2009 15:49:21 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon You're detailing the rise of man. ;-)

14/12/2009 15:54:16 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype Another variety of the "uberspecies with ridiculously deadly homeworld", I feel.

14/12/2009 15:54:40 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon It is, yeah, but at least it's creative.

14/12/2009 15:55:14 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype All that they would carry into space with them are some strong and weird aversion behaviors, really.

14/12/2009 15:55:52 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon Which is something of a subversion of the 'deadly species' thing.

14/12/2009 15:56:47 Chekhov's Balloon Newtype And a deadly fear of flowers.

14/12/2009 15:57:18 Newtype Chekhov's Balloon Which is potentially hilarious.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

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If the attack is remotely realistic its vector of attack might be something like pulsed wavelengths of light projected along certain frequencies and at certain durations to cause paralysis and epilepsy-like fits. Of course the target could then develop the evolutionary equivalent of polarized visors; an eyelid-like membrane that simply filtered light coming in on the wavelengths favoured by the attacking plant would render the target pretty much immune already.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

Post by Somes J »

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Nope, would be awesome though. Like, something really dark but ridiculous and funny but also rather violent and gross and reprehensible and not at all politically correct.
Hmm, another idea inspired by the same source to incorporate into that growing universe:
Just A Few More Years wrote:Humanity is approaching either a singularity, where change is so fast we're effectively godlike... or a collapse. In general, humanity's growing godlike powers don't bother me; many folks I know could make perfectly decent gods right now. In a way, given the tools and economic powers they have, they already are. Trouble is, so much power means just a few crazy saboteurs can wreck the world!

So Earth's nature-spirits have decided to crash our technology soon, before things get that unstable.

On the astral plane, I meet the panel of devas/spirits responsible for the die-back to come, and beg them to delay just a few more years. I agree "The saboteur problem is real, I don't dispute your verdict that we need a Great Slump Back--nap time for humanity! We've been playing uninterrupted too long; we're getting cranky."

"But," I argue, "great works are being written, and they'll profoundly affect society during the fallow time. Rather than sink back to barbarism and patriarchy we might have something enlightened and humane from the start. Give us just a few years!"

Ask them not to do it? Don't be silly. The only sane verdicts are crash soon or crash now. Letting us develop nanotech in a world full of haters... now that'd be cruel. And irresponsible. Tough love requires a crash.
Obviously these guys are a prime example of the statement that the gods are generally unpleasant people who should be killed for the good of everyone else and probably would be if people could find a way to launch nuclear missiles at right angles to reality, but I was thinking about what arguments I'd use against them if I were in the same dream (and assuming I'm actually lucid). Well, assuming logical and moral arguments don't work, I'd fall back to threat. Remember you transparent ghost shit douchewipes, we're a species that considers stories like Masada moving and heroic (never mind it probably didn't actually happen that way IIRC, that's not the point), does things like Jonestown and Waco, and produces and appreciates things like Claud McKay's If We Must Die. Push us to the wall and we're capable of being just as dickish as any fuckopathic transparent ghost shit with delusions of transcendent goodness. If we figure out it's you that's destroying our civilization we'll probably do something like try to mess up the biosphere as much as we possibly can. Because you seem to care about that shit so it would make a good deterrent, and because even if it doesn't work we can be spiteful. If I'm going to end my days starving to death because civilization collapsed or dying of some disease that would be easily cured by antibiotics in some shithut in a horrible post-apocalyptic shitworld it would give me great consolation simply to know we hurt you before we went down. The sheer joy of knowing that would make dying of cancer at 45 instead of something else at 60 in my shithut because we expended the world's entire nuclear arsenal on random patches of jungle worth it for me. I bet we could really fuck up that terrarium of yours if we tried and had nothing to lose. Manufacture huge quantities of horrible poisons and dump them into every single river. Firebomb the rainforests with napalm until they cease to exist. Blow up the entire nuclear arsenal in random, preferably ecologically rich localities in a pattern designed to make the fallout spread on the winds and currents for maximum damage. Start handing out hunting licenses and bounties for every megafauna there is, with extra-high prices on the heads of keystone species. Trawl the oceans and coral reefs with dragnets. Maybe do some geoengineering, seed the atmosphere with particulates to cause an ice age or something. I seem to remember the Russians had some doomsday plan for building a giant nuke the size of a container ship that would blow up if WWIII happened and totally fuck shit up, maybe we could build a couple of those and keep them at strategic locations. Heck, forget all that petty shit, we have a space program! We can deflect asteroids! Make us desperate enough and we can pound your terrarium with big rocks and totally wreck it!

I think this would be awesome to use in a story. Gaia decides she's had enough of our shit and threatens to destroy us ... and we tell her back "do that and we'll declare war on the biosphere! You think we're fucking things up now, you just wait until we're consciously trying to kill every animal bigger than a mouse! We'll do it, because without civilization most of us are going to starve to death anyway and many of us don't exactly cherish the notion of squatting in shitmud in some shithut for the rest of their shit lives in some shit postapocalyptic shitworld, so we won't have much to lose." And she'd have to back down.

I think you could combine this with my earlier idea. Like, the soul collector dudes were all going to the nature-guardian dudes and telling them "the humans are totally screwing up your planet, will you get off your ass and start doing something about it?". But then when the nature-guardian dudes go to threaten the humans the humans just give them some MAD and they have to back down. And the soul collector dudes are even more furious and scared now, because the humans are now getting so out of control they're actually telling GODS to get stuffed.

Man, I like this game of taking New Age hippie stuff and making it all dark and then giving it the same treatment that Stuart Slade gave the Abrahamic mythology in The Salvation War, only with less huge waves of horned apes with bronze pitchforks getting mowed down with machine guns and more Vladimir Putin telling The Goddess of Plants that if she acts against humanity he will have giant guns start blowing particulate matter into the atmosphere until it starts an ice age.
It's a brachiosaurus or a diplodocus, with a hypothetical elephant-like trunk. I call it a Ford Prefect, or FROD for short.
I like it. Somehow it looks all wary and suspicious and cranky and yet cute.
Last edited by Somes J on Tue Jan 05, 2010 12:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

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There seems to be an implicit either/or assumption in there somewhere I just don't agree with. Either we crash or we'll fuck up the environment. What do these guys think'll happen when this presumably civilization-ending 'crash' comes about? Do they think people will just go quietly into the night? Fuck no, there'll be wars and plundering that'll make WW2 look like a day at Disneyland as humanity desperately struggles against itself to survive the apocalypse. If I'm Russia for example, I might just want to make damned sure that whatever remains of my population when Armageddon is through doesn't have to worry about competition coming up from the south. So I let fly the nukes and wipe out as much of the Chinese population as I can, and I irradiate the watershed areas of their great rivers as well just to make sure they won't get up before Mother Russia does. After all if there's going to be famine, I'll better make sure the other guy starves before I do.

The question that needs to be asked is: even assuming these "crash = necessary" guys are correct, what possible way could "Gaia" have to take humanity out of the equation that doesn't somehow end with the natural world taking massive collateral damage in the process? Honestly, if you ask me these "nature-spirits" missed their shot. If they're so worried about nature they should've taken the pesky humans out somewhere in the late-19th or early 20th century. 'Cause any time after the 1970s and setting a civilization-ending cataclysm in motion will probably end in global thermonuclear war anyway... And with tens of thousand of nuclear weapons, the effect of that just won't be any fun for the tree-hugging spirits.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

Post by Somes J »

Siege wrote:<snip>
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Of course, keep in mind the original description was of a dream the guy had: dreams by their nature have very poor to nonexistant fridge logic filters and are often going to be full of holes when you subject them to rational analyses, I would imagine.

Edit: you think this one has bad fridge logic problems, read Fisher Girls (warning: may be somewhat NSFW). The protagonist was a horribly naive idiot. An alien I know nothing about except what he chose to tell me offers to infect me with a genetically engineered bioagent he cooked up that he tells me will give me the ability to consciously regulate my fertility. Nothing bad could possibly happen from taking him at his word and allowing him to infect me with this bioagent. I will sail home and not worry about the fact I am probably releasing this unknown alien bioagent all over the place, and when I get home I will deliberately infect lots of people with this bioagent for money. Hey, I've been eating normally so why am I suffering symptoms of kwashiorkor? I'm tempted to write a darkfic that follows it completely faithfully until the epilogue, where we get a section from the PoV of the "Dragon" and find out it was actually a Beserker probe and the "gift" was something like this.

In-universe, my guess would be they're worried about humans eventually doing something that would be even worse for the biosphere than a nuclear exchange would be. Actually, since I'm combining it with the "running out of souls" premise that gives them a good excuse right there. If humans take up all the souls then nothing else will be born. That means every nonhuman species with a soul goes extinct. Which, depending on what animals do and do not have souls, might be everything with the smallest stirrings of sentience. I'm offhand thinking fish and everything up have souls, and maybe some other intelligent animal branches like cephalopods ... killing all of those species would be a much bigger ecological disaster than any nuclear war could do.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

The brachiosaurus was brought up to me by PREGRIN, by the way, so credit to him for providing me the ugly dinosaur I now use for my sig.


I kinda dealt with the topic at hand though, in my native Filipino story Bawal Umihi Dito. I think after the story, the local Filipino government decides to outlaw trees or something.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

Post by Somes J »

Shroom Man 777 wrote:I kinda dealt with the topic at hand though, in my native Filipino story Bawal Umihi Dito. I think after the story, the local Filipino government decides to outlaw trees or something.
That was good. That would be another cool idea to add. Local mythological monsters all over the planet are starting to come to alive and attack towns and cities ... and mostly get quickly pwnz0wn3d by local law enforcement and National Guard.

I think I'm going to start a new thread to discuss this mad budding universe that's percolating in my brain.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

Post by Magister Militum »

I'm putting this here instead of in TEG's own forum because I'd appreciate some more varied feedback and because I think this might also be of use to those planning out major pan-galactic wars and such.

For those of you who aren't aware, I'm in the process of rewriting (if you can even call it that, considering the fact that the original went nowhere) Gotterdammerung, the first part of a trilogy that covers a cataclysmic event that will alter the balance of power in my verse. Prior to the shit hitting the fan, the main powers of the galaxy have aligned themselves into two opposing blocs and are now embroiled in a war that spans across not only the Milky Way but also in the colonies and satellites/puppets/protectorates in the Clouds of Magellan, Sagittarius, Canis Major, and Draco (either by straight up conflict or, in the case of certain puppets, proxy conflicts).

Now, the smaller satellite galaxies are pretty much arranged into their own theaters, each one being divided up into various fronts and campaigns. My issue now is with the heart of the war, the Milky Way. Naturally, creating one whole theater for the galaxy would be far too cumbersome and complex, which necessitates dividing it up into multiple theaters. The question for me, though, is how many? Two? Three? Four ala dividing up the galaxy into four pie pieces, like Star Trek's quadrants? The flip side to this is the fact that too many independent commands could create confusing chains of command (a parallel to our world be the complex relationship between the China-Burma-India Theater and the South-East Asian Theater during WWII, as well as Stillwell's manipulation of the rampant confusion to work outside of the chain of command).
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Re: Random ideas (again)

Post by Shady »

Ideas you say...I may have some lame ones, but let me give this a try. This is just something I thought of the other day, when I was bored and was stuck waiting for a friend to come pick me up. Anyway, any thoughts, criticisms and comments are welcome. Consider this a practice run in universe creation. :D

OK, here it goes...

For millions of years the milky way galaxy was dominated by two highly advanced alien races, caught in an eternal war against each other, not caring for the younger races that they destroyed in their war. Time and constant warfare had unfortunately for them, taken it's tall - and the two mighty races had managed, after millions of years of fighting, to almost completely wipe each other out. Only a few worlds, and a couple of hundred ships had remained, from empires that once spanned most of the galaxy and commanded fleets of hundreds of thousands of ships.

Several of the younger races saw an opportunity in the decline of the two races, and decided to take advantage of it. When the remaining fleets of the two alien races were engaged in a battle over the home world of one of them, they seized the moment and deployed planet killing weapons en mass, scorching the planetary surface of their every remaining world - almost entirely wiping them out.

What remained was a few hundred ships, caught in the midst of their final battle. Upon realizing what had happened, enraged by the loss of everything they had, every remaining ship of both species had joined the battle over the planet. It was to be their final battle, victory or annihilation.

The battle lasted for hours and in the end only two ships remained, one of them decided to flee - the other followed, intent on destroying it. However, those who had destroyed their worlds - this alliance of younger races, would not allow them to simply escape after all they had done. They had taken an oath to kill every single last one of them.

So, a massive combined fleet of the younger races gave chase to the escaping ancients. And although the technological difference between the young and the old was great, they were only two ships - already damaged from battle and facing thousands of opponents, not to mention that they were still fighting each other.

The combined fleet had caught up with the two ships of the old ones on the edge of a remote solar system, the ensuing battle was short lived - as one of the two ships, in a desperate attempt to escape, deployed it's last remaining super weapon, a bomb so powerful that when it detonated it destroyed the combined fleet entirely and greatly damaged the two ships.

Unable to do much, but limp away, the two ships crash landed on different continents of a nearby planet. The two ancient races would continue their battle on this beautiful blue world.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

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What's funny about your beginning premise is that it vaguely mirrors the ancient history of my own TEG, albeit TEG swerves off into a whole 'nother direction. Anyways, I find the concept to be potentially very interesting. Do humans exist in some fashion, or have we become lackeys to our alien overlords?
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Re: Random ideas (again)

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Magister Militum wrote:What's funny about your beginning premise is that it vaguely mirrors the ancient history of my own TEG, albeit TEG swerves off into a whole 'nother direction. Anyways, I find the concept to be potentially very interesting. Do humans exist in some fashion, or have we become lackeys to our alien overlords?
I haven't read TEG, but if you think it's too similar - I'll just trash the idea.

As for the other stuff, Humans do exist and are not slaves - at least not all of them. I figured the ships crash on earth somewhere around year zero or something(our calendar), but the survivors of both races are forced to hide among the locals, humans that is - because of the grand alliance of younger races that wants to exterminate them and is searching the universe and killing off any survivors.

Anyway, fast forward two thousand years and the situation has changed and has complicated greatly. First of the Galaxy is ruled by the alliance of those same younger races, they have formed a federation of sorts and have taken it upon them selves to protect all the other younger races, who are just starting up. Such as the humans.

The human race has developed pretty much the same as in the OTL, with a few minor exceptions. Our ancient guest did not intervene too directly because they feared detection by the federation. Instead they spent the time refining their technology and repairing their ships, which are hidden somewhere beneath the Earth's surface, preparing their master plans for Galactic Domination and extermination of their enemies and influencing human development and history for their own purposes.

Human history is full of mythical stories of the secret wars between the servants and followers of the two races. They needed someone to do what they could not do openly, due to fear of detection, the human race turned out to be the perfect tool. The aliens do control certain human factions, which do their bidding for them - but there exist human organizations and governments who know of their existence and are also part of the secret wars. They fight to protect humanity against the alien menace, even if they do not understand the full extent of the alien threat.

I figured in recent times, things are getting more complicated because humanity is progressing fast and will soon reach a level that will qualify them for "First Contact" and entry into the federation, upon reaching it - the federation will initiate First Contact. And if that happens then our uninvited guests would soon find themselves facing their own demise.

They are determined to stop that from happening, no matter the cost, because they need more time - to prepare for their comeback on the galactic scene. That of course will not be easy, because the humans have shown time and again, that they will not simply lay down their lives and accept alien rule, they will instead fight to the last man, to prevent that from happening.

So as the time of First Contact approaches, the three way battle for dominion over Earth intensifies - as all three sides have little time and stand to lose everything.

I have more ideas, this would need a lot of fleshing out in order to make a proper setting, but this would obviously require much work, so before I do that - I want to know if it's original and interesting enough for me to continue...if it's too similar to something that already exist, then it's not worth the effort and I will move on to other ideas. So, thoughts? Comments?
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Re: Random ideas (again)

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Shady wrote:
Magister Militum wrote:What's funny about your beginning premise is that it vaguely mirrors the ancient history of my own TEG, albeit TEG swerves off into a whole 'nother direction. Anyways, I find the concept to be potentially very interesting. Do humans exist in some fashion, or have we become lackeys to our alien overlords?
I haven't read TEG, but if you think it's too similar - I'll just trash the idea.
They are only vaguely similar in the sense that a massive collapse of civilization occurs and that younger civilizations begin to emerge in the place of the massive, Local Group-spanning empire. Besides, this all takes place close to 100,000 years ago from the 'modern' date of TEG (69th century). By all means continue with the idea, as it near-totally different from mine.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

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I like the idea, Shady. Modern or near-future Earth becomes the playing ground for some intergalactic game of intrigue and espionage, neo technoir dickstabbing and spy games, while the background deals with an epic thousands-years worth of interstellar backstory. Ultratech alien assholes in hiding, biding their time to wreak their revengeance, while using the humans as unwilling pawns in their bid for vengeance.

Are the two ultratech old aliens working together, or do they also hate each other forever even though they're stranded and in hiding on Earth?
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Re: Random ideas (again)

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Magister Militum wrote: They are only vaguely similar in the sense that a massive collapse of civilization occurs and that younger civilizations begin to emerge in the place of the massive, Local Group-spanning empire. Besides, this all takes place close to 100,000 years ago from the 'modern' date of TEG (69th century). By all means continue with the idea, as it near-totally different from mine.
Cool, thanks mang. I think I might want to take this more seriously and flesh out the concept.
Shroom Man 777 wrote:I like the idea, Shady. Modern or near-future Earth becomes the playing ground for some intergalactic game of intrigue and espionage, neo technoir dickstabbing and spy games, while the background deals with an epic thousands-years worth of interstellar backstory. Ultratech alien assholes in hiding, biding their time to wreak their revengeance, while using the humans as unwilling pawns in their bid for vengeance.
Pretty much what I had in mind, with a lot more added in. :D
Are the two ultratech old aliens working together, or do they also hate each other forever even though they're stranded and in hiding on Earth?
They hate each other and want to exterminate one another, but their conflict has been low key ever since they arrived on Earth, due to the fear of being discovered before they are ready.

I think I'll put some more work into this, flesh it out a bit and see where it goes.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

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But the only traces of both old ancient races are on Earth? Are there no scattered survivors in some places in the galaxy? With the New Races trying to exterminate them, it seems like the new guys have become just as bad as the old aliens and seems like an interesting juxtaposition. You should play with that kind of stuff.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

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Shroom Man 777 wrote:But the only traces of both old ancient races are on Earth? Are there no scattered survivors in some places in the galaxy? With the New Races trying to exterminate them, it seems like the new guys have become just as bad as the old aliens and seems like an interesting juxtaposition. You should play with that kind of stuff.
Shroom, get out of my head!!! :D

Seriously, I have a lot of ideas and any input you guys have is welcome. This might turn out to be quite an interesting project.
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Re: Random ideas (again)

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Random Verse Idea:

I was thinking of a District 9-flavored work, a gritty grim piece of pseudo-hard near-future science fiction that blends D9 with some of the themes discussed in Avatar, and the morally bankrupt views of those might makes right milwankers and paleoconservatives.

Like, somehow, some way, Earth gets invaded by aliens. Presumably they want to mine all our unobtanium, or maybe something else. Maybe they sent an emissary, like ET or Gort, but he/she/it got mistreated by the humans. The aliens then proceed to invade Earth and occupy it, to bring peace and freedom and elevate mankind to make him ready to enter interstellar society.

Except, they don't. They say these nice things in the omnipresent telescreens, they say that they're sharing their wonders with us, they say that they're giving us technology to cure disease, they say that they're disarming our nukes and bringing world peace and ending hunger. But they're not!

Their principal collaborators would be the most developed nations on Earth. But even in North America, there are parties that don't want to cede control to the alien overlords. There's resistance, there's splinter movements and secessionists and outright rebellion.

What do the aliens do? Well, they certainly can't let their occupation of Earth be threatened - so they go out of the green zone in their flying machines and fighting machines, and they begin pacifying the natives. They do this with the aid of human auxiliaries, of American and Western militaries being kitted with alien tech. Except, this time, the resistance is closer to home. Imagine the American Midwest, where god-fearing folk see these filthy godless alien insects taking over the government and imposing SPACE SOCIALISM and GALACTIC GUN CONTROL! They won't let this stand! They resist - survivalist groups, fringe yokels, they all fight for their freedoms.

So the aliens and their human auxiliaries clamp down on them. They come in the night, kick doors down or abduct people with their ships, and raid homes and check for weapons. Humans with guns have their weapons confiscated. Humans who resist are dealt with. Humans who have suspected ties to resistance movements or anti-alien organizations or terrorist insurgencies are captured and brought in for processing.

In the green zones of control in the Americas, the aliens proceed to interrogate captured humans. By simulatedly drowning them, or by using neural stimulation to make people feel as though they've been set on fire. Of course, this is all done via simulation, so they're not actually drowning or being set on fire. They just feel every second of it as though it's really happening. But it's not, and there is no physical harm done, so it's a-okay, right?

In Midwestern America, Latin and South America and Europe, the aliens expand their line of control. But parties in the Third World, China, the Middle East and so on and so forth are so far unaffected - for now. However, they know the aliens will eventually come for them. So they fund the resistance movements in the Americas. China and Russia could give the Branch Davidians all sorts of Stinger missiles. Hezbolla could train Americans to make IEDs and suicide bomber vests.

The resistance grows bloodier. Defending their homes from alien occupation, and fighting against extraterrestrial torturers and killers, desperate Americans begin planting home-made explosives or actively infiltrate the green zone to launch suicide attacks. They kidnap alien-supporters and begin beheading them, while posting videos on the internet.

The aliens see this rising resistance and decides to strike at the other parties that have supported the resistance groups. Alien craft begin surgically (and sometimes orbitally) bombarding targets in the Second and Third world, and alien overwatch troops and their human auxiliaries could invade a couple more nations and the cycle of violence continues. The alien technology is unmatchable, and the humans can only invent or innovate so much countermeasures. The aliens get more brutally efficient in their cracking down of human freedom fighters - they recruit auxiliaries not only in America, but elsewhere by promising them money and immunity. These humans can function as disposable soldiers, or intelligence gatherers, or convenient torturers and atrocity-committers. While the aliens themselves do not use atrocity-weapons, they might provide their human proxies with gas. They will promote these proxy governments, which more often than not will be dictatorships or other authoritarian regimes that will do anything it takes to fight anti-alien resistance.

However, perhaps the situation on Earth is not as hopeless as it seems. The alien resources are getting strained - the human resistance IS slowing down their resource extraction efforts. Also, the alien supply lines are likewise impeded - Earth is a bit far away, even for them, and interstellar logistics is a bitch to maintain.

Moreover, maybe other alien polities begin supporting the human resistance? They might want to see the occupying alien species hurt or otherwise inconvenienced on Earth? The resistance movement could end up having other alien allies siding with them and providing them with new tech as well?

As to why the aliens invade and occupy America first, perhaps America could've gone all Comix-style and done some interstellar dickeries of its own? Ala Stargate, except the aliens fight back and they recognize the independent American nation as their specific enemy and thus invade and occupy America? Or America could've presented the largest conventional opponent of any alien invasion force, and thus it became the biggest priority target to defeat and occupy? Which is why the alien forces have conveniently attacked and occupied not just the USA, but also developed nations in Europe and China? Sounds reasonable.


And yes, this IS a very transparent attempt at making a metaphor on the War on Terror.

I want the aliens to use white phosphorus. Space phosphorus. And also Agent Orange. Except instead of Fallujah, they can do it in New York. :twisted:
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Re: Random ideas (again)

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Intellectually I realize this is a pretty horrible idea, and yet I can't help loving the concept. There's so much room for absolutely terrible inversions...
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Re: Random ideas (again)

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Oh, it's a fucking atrocity, I know. But that's the point. Imagining it happening to your society and your nation is very wrong and disgusting and terrible - but we're perfectly comfortable with discussing these things when it's happening to someone else in Bakalakadaka Street, over at Bumfuckistan.

I can imagine the initial alien invasion using shock and awe tactics to orbitally bombard Washington DC to decapitate the American government. Then we can have alien special forces hunting down American leaders from bunkers. They can dig them out of holes in the ground, just like Saddam Hussein, and after a kangaroo court they can hang them inside apartment buildings. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! :twisted:

AHA! Habitable planets are rare, so the aliens begin building SETTLEMENTS in the Green Zone. America's got lots of urbanized land, which will make decent living conditions for the aliens. So they kick the human occupants out into the Midwest or something. Build reservations in Yellowstone while giving them zombie plague blankets. They can make the human refugees WALK to Nevada, just like what happened to the Navajo Indians.

The aliens will send food shipments, but human redneck warlords will hog up all the food while machinegunning civilians. Before aliens send OVerwatch snipers to kill Mohammad Billy Bob Aidid! Then an Iranian-sold MANPAD shoots down a saucer, but the aliens will LEAVE NO EXTRATERRESTRIAL BEHIND! So they try to save their kin, while angry redneck hordes mob them and get fucking slaughtered en masse! *cue patriotic music* *cue alien gunships strafing Americans hopped up on khat*

Imagine a pair of brave patriotic alien snipers, defending the saucer crash site, and valiantly they kill dozens of savage Americans with their sniper rayguns before the brutal khat-chewing American mobs overwhelm them and the uncivilized savages start hauling their corpses across the street! For their bravery, these aliens will be awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Space Honor - posthumously, these honors will be given to their grieving widows. :(

*cue alien operatives running out of the hostile alien city, and back into the Green Zone where cheering waving humans welcome them*

:lol:

The aliens will have sunglasses. An alien gunship will mistake a Fourth of July fireworks celebration for gunfire and orbitally bombard a bunch of Americans celebrating independence day. The alien occupation leader will regret this accident and apologize to humanity. They will offer to build an alien reeducation camp in the name of the dead children. Hearts and minds! :lol:

Man, if this was Half Life we can have Dick Cheney becoming Doctor Breen. Then the Combine can build the bigass alien interdimensional Citadel tower in the WTC site. The human resistance can destroy it by flying airplanes into it. FOR FREEDOM! :lol:
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