UbiquitousRat's Roleplaying Dreams: Mindmapping Ideas

This morning I spent a few minutes jotting down a few ideas which came out of the discussion from my last post on SF themes.

It's interesting that, having shamelessly pinched the suggestion that the transition from an Earth-focus to an Interstellar focus might be fun, I've been able to generate a few top-level ideas that seem to flow naturally into one-another.

This is raw stuff. It's not in any way polished... just off the top of the head meanderings. It can and (if it goes anywhere) will change.

Why share it? Well, two reasons:

It exposes the creative process to anyone interested.
It invites comment and refinement.

Can you help?

Do you fancy helping me create something fresh for SF gaming?

If so, then you can help me most by ADDING ideas. Let's say that again... ADDING.

I don't need criticism or comments that tear down... I need stuff that adds and builds. Details, refinements, depth.

If you want in then simply grab the mindmap image, look it over, and post your suggestions in the comments below. You can click it to make it larger, right-click it, and then opt to save it as an image.

Game on!

5 Comments:

At 2 November 2012 at 10:07 , Swelter said...: Awesome mind map!

Gonna chew on it for a couple of days and see what pops out. nom nom nom
At 2 November 2012 at 17:47 , UbiquitousRat said...: Thanks - I'd appreciate that! Collaboration wins every time...
At 7 November 2012 at 22:58 , Swelter said...: This is early days on these ideas. Feel free to use them or to ignore them entirely as you see fit. If you like I'll kick them around a bit more in the coming days or post up some other ideas for development. If you don't like the direction some, or all, of it takes hack it apart and take whatever is useful out of it.

I imagine a setting where the current trend toward sub national ethnic identity results in a further fracturing of existing nation-states as large ethnic groups move for independence.
Examples might include Quebec, Alsace, Greater Kurdistan etc.
Some of these new small states could be wholly the domain of a particular corporation who enables the formation of the state and dominates it economically and politically.
New technologies are increasingly reliant on rare earths that are now a Chinese National Monopoly.
Conflict arises (with all the usual excuses given about Human Rights etc..) as some of these smaller states enter into hostilities (likely covertly but possibly even open warfare) with the Chinese State over control of these resources.
Some of these rare earths are located well outside of the actual Chinese controlled territories and so gives rise to the possibility of going to war with the countries where the resources are located rather than taking China on directly.

Wars and duplication of research efforts are draining terrestrial resources very rapidly which spurs the development of solar mining colonies.
These colonies prove costly to establish but relatively less expensive to steal and subsequently fortify. At this time vast resources are being spent by the separate competing entities to research and develop a star drive.
Zero G manufacturing and rare earths prove critical to this technology.

One or more entities realize that, while the conflict has spurred the R&D accelerating the pace of technological advance, the enormous consumption of non renewable resources (both from ongoing R&D and from resource intensive warfare) will make leaving the solar system impossible if left unchecked.

A decision is made to consolidate research efforts, reduce consumption of critical resources, and aggressively expand exploration/exploitation within the Solar system.

Not everyone is a fan of consolidation...

Many questions can arise.

Who decides to drive the consolidation and what form does that take.
Imagine the consequences of say.. Axiom International having effectively its own country in the form of Alsace.. in the middle of Europe... and unilaterally entering into an armed conflict with China.
Discovery of a technology that permits planetary analysis at interstellar distances (from a space station for example) within the Solar system. This spurs and guides the plans of the Actors.
Imagine that this detailed surveyor technology reveals compelling evidence of industrial pollution or environmental modification on a planet(s) orbiting a distant star.

Is there a hidden trigger placed by external (extraterrestrial or extra dimensional) entities and what are the effects of activating such a trigger?

What are the religious and scientific ramifications. Will unity be required to face the unknown together? Who will lead humanity to Space and how will they choose to proceed?
At 8 November 2012 at 18:14 , UbiquitousRat said...: I really like these ideas and am wondering if we can keep this dialogue going off-blog and in greater detail.

I need, however, to ruminate on them and consider how these hard-SF amd economic thoughts can gel with my vision for a spiritual dimension... which is not a problem, just thought-provoked.

Can we use email or another medium
At 8 November 2012 at 23:42 , Swelter said...: Sure email is great and skype etc I'll shoot you the address in email.

Mindmapping Ideas

Can you help?

UbiquitousRat's Roleplaying Dreams

Friday, 2 November 2012

Mindmapping Ideas

Can you help?

5 Comments:

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