It is the Year 2100. The Earth is at war. Nuclear weapons have been used in anger. Much of civilization is destroyed. Yet before the nukes started going off established lunar bases had been made and scientists and some of the very rich have escaped the carnage to begin life anew. Seeing the destruction as the result of widespread ignorance, these people, some now in their second full generation in space, have declared themselves independent and above it all. Already mutated by the effects of light gravity, they have come to call themselves the Celestials.

And they will stop at nothing to insure that the rest of humanity never joins them.

Scattered thoughts...

Quote from: PookaScattered thoughts...

Maybe by gene tampering or whatnot they have "children" on Earth who they call Avatars, who carry out their undeclared war on humanity. That's if it's undeclared. And you know the pcs are.....these Avatars. Oh, common on the poor players must have some fun

Or they could be renegade Avatars seeking to protect humanity from their "parents" all the while fighting others of their kind. There could be some biblical shadings...you know the Avatars could be mistaken by some as prophets, cults could be formed around them etc.

Just throwing around some ideas here, hope this is the purpose of this thread

Regards,
David R

It is.  It must certainly is.  A lot of variables, but thoughts of things like genetic manipulation and the like. Plus their must be a compelling reason for them to *care* about the goings on on earth - raw materials access would probably be #1.

Quote from: PookaPlus their must be a compelling reason for them to *care* about the goings on on earth - raw materials access would probably be #1.

How about this. The Celestials must realize that events on Earth could eventually reach their shores. History has shown that no country is immune from events that happen far away from them - just take this concept to a planetary scale.

Also there could be individuals/org here on Earth eager to find out the secrets of the Celestials - that is if they have any. They could be researching ways to maintain  permanent contact with these beings with or without their(Celestial) consent.

Regards,
David R

Possibly, however - I don't want the world to be *completely* gone via nuking.  Just enough of the things went off to make life unpleasant.. Let's say Iran nuked NYC and in retaliation the US made the whole country a glassed over parking lot (a disturbingly real possibility but this is a near future game). For the most part though earth is intact, except that civil strife is rampant.  The US has become an oligarcy outright through a secretly passed amendent allowing poll taxes to block out the poor.

Thoughts...

I suggest reading lots of Ken Mcleod, particularly the Fall Revolution series (they can be read in any order).  Similar premise, though his space dwellers were attempting to rebuild civilisation - typically without the consent of the Earth dwellers

Asking yourself questions can help.

What are the ongoing goals of the Celestials? What means do they have to carry out their goals? Does their philosophy preclude or include morally reprehensible acts? Where do they get their resources (i.e., do they get anything from Earth, with or without the Earthlings knowing about it)?

This sounds cool.

I'd say find out what roles the Players would like to play, and go from there.

If they want to be servants of the Celestial, fine...go with that Avatar idea. But  no group I've ever played with liked the idea of being lickspittles to "The Man" (except a select few Vampire players;))

The more likley scenario for my players would be playing survivors on Earth...and, I'm not sure that in the "War against the Earthlings" scenario you describe if the Lunar Colonies would be the biggest threat to a Post APocalypse Earthbound humanity (It mightn't even be in the top 10).

Proabably the Earthbound setting would involve a few obvious things...

1) Competition for scarce resources: The manufacturing titan that was the US/China/Japan etc has gone way south thanks to--if not the nuclear blasts/fallout--then to the EMP which has reduced most new production to about Cottage Industry level. Thus, remaining manufactured goods are valuable as hell.

2) "Reshuffling of the deck": With the climactic change triggered by enough Nuclear Detonations to pave nation with glass, mosto fthe world's food production ability is in new hands. The central US is now mostly desert, while it's coastlines are swamp. Canada and Russia (should they remain viable as nation states) tundra turns into arable land. But "Arable land" doesn't produce food on it's own, and while the nations in question scramble to make use of this new resource, the world starves. China most certainly looks hungrily west to the new Russian breadbasket...the US looks North to Canada.

How may Celestials are there? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?

I can't honestly think that a world in as much turmoil as you describe would give that much concern to resource-poor "Cultural Elites" a million miles away by spaceship.

Unless of course the Celestials had some ability to "Raid" Earth...but given that they are no longer used to Gravity, they would likely be annihilated in Combat by either quantity or quality.

I'm babbling

Yeah, I think Teflon Billy's on the right track here. The most important question that I can think of is: what sorts of things are the player-characters going to be doing?

And next: how important is earth to this setting? Is the "stop at nothing to prevent the rest of humanity from joining them" going to be a (the) key conflict in the setting? Or is it just an excuse to get away from the earth and do stuff in a completely non-earthbound environment? Or on the other hand, are the celestials mainly NPC-types that lurk in the background while the PC earthlings deal with post-nuclear crap?

How important is verisimilitude: are you after speculative fiction or just trying to evoke certain thematic effects? Mutation from the effects of light gravity, after two generations, seems a bit of a stretch. Now, genetic manipulation to cope with light gravity and other issues of living in space, that both makes more sense and ties better into a sense of the Celestials as self made elite superman trying to leave humanity behind.

Here are some random questions I would explore.

When the Celestials first left Earth how many people knew of this?

What kind of tech did they use to leave Earth and build their Lunar colonies?

Were the first Celestials composed of various Earth cultures?

When they got there how has Celestial culture evolved? Are they religious? If so, what do they believe in? Are they a fractured people? If not what is the dominant political system amongst them?

What kind of tech do they have? How are they coping surviving on their own?

What abilities do they have if any? How has this affected the way they live?

Have they maintained contact with earth? Do they have relatives on Earth? How have they maintained contact with earth? Can Earth contact the celestials?

What did they do during the nuclear war? How has the shift in the political landscape affected the way they view Earth?

What kind of tech has Earth got? Is it controlled?

What is the political landscape around the world? What are the earthlings view of the celestials esp if they originally composed of other earth cultures. Did specific celestials keep in touch with their native goverments?

What happened to all the tech that was used by the original earth leavers?

Were big corps invoved? Who funded the colony in the beginning? What happened when they declared themselves independent? Was there some method of control used to maintain contact?

Lastly, this is more about style and atmosphere - but do you have a particular feel you want to project - what inspires you, be it movies, books, artwork. Is there anything specific?

Yeah, loads of questions - some of them asked before by other posters, but this is just some of the issues that I think would help in getting a handle on the Celestials and the setting in general

Regards,
David R