Giant sandworms? It must be THE FUTURE!
Feb. 8th, 2019 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
general_radixSo I've been thinking about the far, far future of Inmortalitas again (i.e. the time of Marathon 2's ending), sparked by two things: a weird dream about a Marathon/Starship Troopers fusion, and suddenly having more Dune books than we did previously.
Short version: my idea of Marathon's distant future is heavily influenced by what I know of Dune, and the works of Moebius. The following obviously isn't all of my half-formed plans, just a smattering.
Much as I love my analogpunk (thanks to Mendelpalace for that term), it'd make things feel kinda stagnant if it persists ten thousand years later, hence the switch to a different form of sci-fi.
* I'm not yet sure exactly how this would come about in-universe--suggestions for cataclysmic events and/or gradual slides welcome. At any rate, it's about as recognizable to Vince and co. as [insert current date here] would be to someone from the early 1900s.
By this point, all planets in Sol Core save Mercury and Venus are inhabited to some degree, although the Jovian Republic still isn't part of the UESC/future Sol Core govt. and military; the moons of Neptune in particular are home to a roughly 70% Pfhor population, possibly the descendants of post UESC-Pfhor war colonies. It's not clear why the "Guard" would be all the way out near Pluto in M2's ending screen, just that the dwarf planet has some significance to Sol Core; in present-day Inm. I imagine it being used as a maximum-security prison planet for some time, though it might not stay that way forever.
It's also been long enough that there's many human outer colonies with few or no lingering cultural ties to Sol Core...and not all of them are friendly.
* Obviously, the Rozies don't still have the Rozinante; the poor ship wasn't time-proof and it eventually reached a point where, no matter how everyone tried to fix it up, making one more hyperspace jump would tear it apart. Good thing they unwittingly used their last jump to visit Antichthon, then... Almost everything from the Rozinante was transferred to the Manus Celer Dei, after the Rozies underwent multiple trials to earn it. (Yrro objected to making them jump through so many hoops after all the heroic things they'd already done, but he was overruled)
Folding into low Earth orbit to say "hi" did have some repercussions--namely, revealing the entire crew to still be alive after some many centuries spent away from Sol Core. (At least, I'm assuming that they would be presumed dead or even legend at some point, since it seems a likely reason for Durandal to want to do that in the first place) While many people are eager to hear whatever stories the Rozies have to tell, the UESC...well, they still have trouble with grey spots.
* Despite the best efforts of the Hindmost Creche, the Pfhor Empire never quite rebounded from the joint sacking that the UESC, Jovian Republic, and S'pht'Kr gave it, and now they're rarely-seen traders. There was also the massive ecological damage wrought upon Pfhor Prime by the crashed UESC Chimera (per Rubicon's Tycho Plank epilogue), and while it's since stabilized, the events are still a sore spot. This didn't stop High Command/its future replacement from converting the Chimera into a scientific facility; Haller's still grumpy about that.
* The Central Historical Annex, home to innumerable records of human history, is one of the more advanced and prestigious institutions of Sol Core; it's the only place where you can find the Tilthe, a device whose visual records are assembled from millions of pattern buffer scans. The Annex's director, Master Ilumis, is dedicated to providing the most truthful and accurate version of history as he can. (Meta: this is all borrowed from The Classified 19, an excellent scenario that sadly only made it to one part out of three.)
* The years have not exactly been kind to Vince. While he's often still as amiable and laid-back as he always was, he's, well...exhausted; on top of being alive for over ten thousand years, he almost certainly remembers every single one of his past lives and thus feels about as old as the Eternal Hero, if that makes sense. Plus, to put not too fine a point on it, he's seen a LOT of shit.
And, to his shame, Vince has gotten good at manipulating situations to keep them from spiraling out of control, which often involves doing some not-nice things. He often worries that it's less of a skill that rose out of necessity and more him becoming really cynical.
On the plus side, Vince has practically mastered his neural implants to the point that he's a physical god of sorts. Durandal has long accepted that, as far as that sort of thing goes, Vince has surpassed him.
* Haven't worked out all the details yet, but one planet in particular, which was a barren wasteland in what Vince would consider his time, ends up being very interesting to the Rozies for mostly the wrong reasons; a lot hinges on them allying with the right warring nation, and it's nearly impossible to figure out which one to trust.
** For anyone who might be curious about the Starship Trooper thing: it seemed to involve Vince as an incredibly burnt-out soldier who openly voiced his displeasure with the human-bug war (though he didn't like the bugs either, suspecting that this has stopped being an act of self-defense). Also bald green humanoid women with cables and wires out the back of their skulls, who were apparently ship pilots; preeety sure that's not actually from ST.
We have the book somewhere, I think, but something tells me I'd get about as far as Paul Verhoeven did.
Short version: my idea of Marathon's distant future is heavily influenced by what I know of Dune, and the works of Moebius. The following obviously isn't all of my half-formed plans, just a smattering.
Much as I love my analogpunk (thanks to Mendelpalace for that term), it'd make things feel kinda stagnant if it persists ten thousand years later, hence the switch to a different form of sci-fi.
* I'm not yet sure exactly how this would come about in-universe--suggestions for cataclysmic events and/or gradual slides welcome. At any rate, it's about as recognizable to Vince and co. as [insert current date here] would be to someone from the early 1900s.
By this point, all planets in Sol Core save Mercury and Venus are inhabited to some degree, although the Jovian Republic still isn't part of the UESC/future Sol Core govt. and military; the moons of Neptune in particular are home to a roughly 70% Pfhor population, possibly the descendants of post UESC-Pfhor war colonies. It's not clear why the "Guard" would be all the way out near Pluto in M2's ending screen, just that the dwarf planet has some significance to Sol Core; in present-day Inm. I imagine it being used as a maximum-security prison planet for some time, though it might not stay that way forever.
It's also been long enough that there's many human outer colonies with few or no lingering cultural ties to Sol Core...and not all of them are friendly.
* Obviously, the Rozies don't still have the Rozinante; the poor ship wasn't time-proof and it eventually reached a point where, no matter how everyone tried to fix it up, making one more hyperspace jump would tear it apart. Good thing they unwittingly used their last jump to visit Antichthon, then... Almost everything from the Rozinante was transferred to the Manus Celer Dei, after the Rozies underwent multiple trials to earn it. (Yrro objected to making them jump through so many hoops after all the heroic things they'd already done, but he was overruled)
Folding into low Earth orbit to say "hi" did have some repercussions--namely, revealing the entire crew to still be alive after some many centuries spent away from Sol Core. (At least, I'm assuming that they would be presumed dead or even legend at some point, since it seems a likely reason for Durandal to want to do that in the first place) While many people are eager to hear whatever stories the Rozies have to tell, the UESC...well, they still have trouble with grey spots.
* Despite the best efforts of the Hindmost Creche, the Pfhor Empire never quite rebounded from the joint sacking that the UESC, Jovian Republic, and S'pht'Kr gave it, and now they're rarely-seen traders. There was also the massive ecological damage wrought upon Pfhor Prime by the crashed UESC Chimera (per Rubicon's Tycho Plank epilogue), and while it's since stabilized, the events are still a sore spot. This didn't stop High Command/its future replacement from converting the Chimera into a scientific facility; Haller's still grumpy about that.
* The Central Historical Annex, home to innumerable records of human history, is one of the more advanced and prestigious institutions of Sol Core; it's the only place where you can find the Tilthe, a device whose visual records are assembled from millions of pattern buffer scans. The Annex's director, Master Ilumis, is dedicated to providing the most truthful and accurate version of history as he can. (Meta: this is all borrowed from The Classified 19, an excellent scenario that sadly only made it to one part out of three.)
* The years have not exactly been kind to Vince. While he's often still as amiable and laid-back as he always was, he's, well...exhausted; on top of being alive for over ten thousand years, he almost certainly remembers every single one of his past lives and thus feels about as old as the Eternal Hero, if that makes sense. Plus, to put not too fine a point on it, he's seen a LOT of shit.
And, to his shame, Vince has gotten good at manipulating situations to keep them from spiraling out of control, which often involves doing some not-nice things. He often worries that it's less of a skill that rose out of necessity and more him becoming really cynical.
On the plus side, Vince has practically mastered his neural implants to the point that he's a physical god of sorts. Durandal has long accepted that, as far as that sort of thing goes, Vince has surpassed him.
* Haven't worked out all the details yet, but one planet in particular, which was a barren wasteland in what Vince would consider his time, ends up being very interesting to the Rozies for mostly the wrong reasons; a lot hinges on them allying with the right warring nation, and it's nearly impossible to figure out which one to trust.
** For anyone who might be curious about the Starship Trooper thing: it seemed to involve Vince as an incredibly burnt-out soldier who openly voiced his displeasure with the human-bug war (though he didn't like the bugs either, suspecting that this has stopped being an act of self-defense). Also bald green humanoid women with cables and wires out the back of their skulls, who were apparently ship pilots; preeety sure that's not actually from ST.
We have the book somewhere, I think, but something tells me I'd get about as far as Paul Verhoeven did.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 07:39 am (UTC)The minute you mentioned Dune, I thought about how the culture (within the first books) banned any kind of technology that involved computers. Also how humanity was biologically engineered within the Dune series to be living computers instead.
That would be an interesting thing to explore when the Manus Celer Dei races around the Solar System. A look into how humanity has evolved biologically, along with their planet population, and politics. Although I doubt Durandal will have the patience for a anti-computer version of humanity for long. ^_^
You may not have sand worms now... But!!! We can always give worms to your Pfhor traders and have them become the next Hive... (Cackles evilly from the shadows.)
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 02:43 pm (UTC)Well, Sol Core continues to use computers and make AIs/androids like they always do; as for Planet Asshole, they might pride themselves on having found something more "efficient" (and at least one bigwig in the nation that touts this this most scoffs at Vince for "needing" so many androids, which doesn't endear them to him).
Humanity's biological evolution: you know, I had a thought earlier that boiled down to "what if elves exist now". XD (Thought about bringing in the Awoken, but Raz aside, I'm currently hesitant to bring in major Destiny concepts wholesale...) the fir'Bolg from Myth, maybe?
Ooooh dear. XD
no subject
Date: 2019-02-10 03:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-10 04:04 pm (UTC)(An aside: this seems to be one of those areas that scenario-makers never got around to exploring, for whatever reason)
no subject
Date: 2019-02-10 06:35 pm (UTC)This event might be able to keep everything on this particular evolutionary branch for a long time. Maybe some of the outer forgotten colonies managed to get to a sufficient point to get to the technologi but didn't success because every resource is dedicated to just surviving harsh environments.
Stagnation is a risk, but seeing how they managed that in Wharammer 40k, I think that's something that can happen, especially when existential dangers are continuously looming. (Speaking of W40K, the T'au symbol is... somewhat familiar.)
Agreeing with Vulthuryol above: Pfhor as worm trainers :D
I'm curious about Moebius' work: are there works in particular that inspired you? Or just the general aesthetic/storytelling?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-10 07:55 pm (UTC)I had in mind that AIs/androids still exist, but it's possible that their role in society is much different now (AIs/androids were recognized as human eons ago, but it still took a while for organic humans to realize that the system of creating AIs with specific purposes in mind often led to abuse).
Hm...perhaps one of the consequences of that big "we dun goofed" event is that cyberspace is now actively hostile to sentient life and no matter how isolated you try to keep an instance of it, it'll eventually mutate? This new cyberspace poses no danger to humans or helper programs, but it's too risky to put a true AI out there anymore, so everyone's activated in-vessel and no android created after a certain date understands what cyberspace used to be like; it's all remote-access only, at best.
(To be determined: whether or not this also effects the Jjaro, or just the human-accessed parts of cyberspace)
There were probably already a lot of weird, experimental technologies in development when this happens, but the event forces most of it out into the wild as humanity scrambles for viable substitutes.
All this, on top of trying to sort out that genetic disaster. Possible results: Replicants are now legal to create outside of the UEG and the first elves are born to most of the survivors...unfortunately, even after things stabilize many years later, the elves never quite escape the stigma of being "phage-born" and end up forming their own societies elsewhere (some in the more accepting Jovian Republic, most on outer colonies), along with any other variant humans born during that period.
The Rozies have second-hand knowledge of the above, but per M2, don't drop by 'til much, much later. (Maybe they were at Antichthon when the cataclysm got rolling?)
--
wrt: Moebius: mostly the general aesthetic, I think, though a specific work of his that comes to mind is Azrach.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-15 09:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-15 09:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-15 08:09 pm (UTC)