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RPGs / Couple ideas for plot hooks / settings [thematically fit for Eclipse Phase]
« on: November 22, 2014, 02:25:49 PM »
I was reading this article http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26597-watch-a-tapeworm-squirm-through-a-living-mans-brain.html?utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=SOC&utm_campaign=hoot&cmpid=SOC|NSNS|2014-GLOBAL-hoot#.VG_tD75ReJU about a tapeworm that had taken up residence in a man's brain and started thinking this might work for an Eclipse Phase setting. However, instead of the players being infected, why not have the players setting set place inside of an AI or alien brain. Image something ("the facility") is dug up by Firewall and investigated over several years, but nothing ever happens. Finally, Firewall decides that it is either dead, dormant, or non-functional and assigns the PCs to enter the "facility." Once inside, even the most innocuous movements and prodding cause huge repercussions on the outside (destroying space stations, shooting out massive kill rays into the depths of space, etc).
Communication to the outside should be sporadic and extremely urgent (..shhhhhh.. TURN IT OFF! A REFUGEE SHIP WAS JUST ANNIH..shhh) causing the PCs to become more and more exploratory. This causes even more problems as the PCs unwittingly are causing a seizure in some alien or TITAN technology which is extremely powerful but was just minding its own business contemplating the eons, or playing space battleship with a forked version of itself).
Depending on the direction, the PCs could eventually be "extracted" which is terrifying but causes them no extra harm and then the "facility" launches itself off in some crazy way (a shifting of colors, watching it fold itself in a fractal origami pattern until it hurts to look at, etc). Or the PCs could be sealed off in a specimen jar and placed among other entities.
A second idea I had occurred when I inadvertently looked at the sun before I looked away by habit. Suddenly the whole concept seemed incredibly scary - there is an omnipresent thing in the sky which will cause permanent injury by looking at it for too long. Of course it is common place so no one thinks to speak of it except to teach children. What if there were other objects out there like this? Or what if only certain communities knew about them and didn't think to tell others? Think of some no-man's-land where against all odds, a thriving colony is discovered. The PCs are sent in with some high-tech blocking suit (tech jargon ho!), to try to make contact and find out how the colony is shielded only to discover that it is a cultural artifact - don't look (hear, smell, touch?) the object. Maybe it's a monolith, maybe it's like the sun but not.
Hope someone is able to use some of this!
Communication to the outside should be sporadic and extremely urgent (..shhhhhh.. TURN IT OFF! A REFUGEE SHIP WAS JUST ANNIH..shhh) causing the PCs to become more and more exploratory. This causes even more problems as the PCs unwittingly are causing a seizure in some alien or TITAN technology which is extremely powerful but was just minding its own business contemplating the eons, or playing space battleship with a forked version of itself).
Depending on the direction, the PCs could eventually be "extracted" which is terrifying but causes them no extra harm and then the "facility" launches itself off in some crazy way (a shifting of colors, watching it fold itself in a fractal origami pattern until it hurts to look at, etc). Or the PCs could be sealed off in a specimen jar and placed among other entities.
A second idea I had occurred when I inadvertently looked at the sun before I looked away by habit. Suddenly the whole concept seemed incredibly scary - there is an omnipresent thing in the sky which will cause permanent injury by looking at it for too long. Of course it is common place so no one thinks to speak of it except to teach children. What if there were other objects out there like this? Or what if only certain communities knew about them and didn't think to tell others? Think of some no-man's-land where against all odds, a thriving colony is discovered. The PCs are sent in with some high-tech blocking suit (tech jargon ho!), to try to make contact and find out how the colony is shielded only to discover that it is a cultural artifact - don't look (hear, smell, touch?) the object. Maybe it's a monolith, maybe it's like the sun but not.
Hope someone is able to use some of this!
