Starflung

[gothwalk]

Once upon a time, there was a shared world called Angwels, written by a bunch of people in and around the Dublin University Science Fiction Society, many of whom had better things to be doing, but couldn't be bothered to do them. Angwels fell in on itself and decayed (after a few attempts at implosion), and grand plans were formed for other shared settings. One of these was a cyberpunk setting, which was to be called Matrix. This film thing came out and swiped the title, though. Another was called Starflung. The concept was simple.

In 2048, scientists on Mars discovered a faster-than-light propulsion method. It was simple, it was cheap, and the only reason it had never been discovered before was it would only work outside a circle of a certain radius, centred on a star. Earth lay within the Sun's FTL suppression radius, Mars outside.

With this discovery, people started to leave Earth in earnest, not just to the colonies on the Moon, Mars and the Jovian satellites. Every minority group that possibly could sold all their assets, built colony ships, and set course for planets charted by Hubble and its descendants. This went on for about twelve years, and then, almost without notice or reason, Earth went mad. Nuclear war - nobody's sure why - and a nuclear winter. The colony ships lost contact, of course, and went their separate ways, finding all kinds of alien life, and each establishing their own civilisation - or in some cases, remaining as drifters and wanderers. Mars and the Jovian colonies found that there was equal investment in surviving without Earth, and in building colony ships, and opted for the latter. Earth and the solar system were left empty, and eventually, they were lost to the memory of the scattered starflung humans.

Now, skip forward three thousand years. An exploration ship has found ruins of a dead civilisation on the third planet of a minor star. Invesigation has shown that the inhabitants were human, and the time frame proved it. Earth has been found again.
Religious groups, archaeologists, fanatics, acadamics, pro- and anti-human groups from across the galaxy are converging.

So. Sci-fi is scattered, but a few of the people involved in Angwels are still about. Between those and new volunteers, I figure something could be made of this shared world setting. Is there interest?

(All credit to bluedevi and pennydreadfuls for providing the third reminder of the old shared worlds in a week.)

Comments

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Nuclear war - nobody's sure why

I thought it was supposed to be a Neo-Mayan terrorist group stealing warheads to bring about the predicted Mayan apocalypse... oh, hang on, that was supposed to be in 2012, and that's a wee bit soon for Mars now. Did you shift it forward on that basis, or am I just confused? (When does Dubya plan the Mars base, anyway? :) )

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

Cool concept.

[salith.livejournal.com]

Sounds a little like Heavy Gear (http://www.dp9.com)... only a little though :)

[graylion.livejournal.com]

that is a cool concept - what do you want to do with it?

[kmlahti.livejournal.com]

A very cool setting, kind of reminds me of Asimov's foundation stories. It'd make a darn good RPG-setting. Or a movie. Both.

[two-star.livejournal.com]

What's the motivation that these civilizations have for forgetting where the sun is?

[aidian.livejournal.com]

sounds a lot like GURPS Traveler, in reverse. In Traveler, mankind leaves Earth... Only to meet up with itself out in space. Or rather, a slightly diverged variant of the original seed, which was spread to Earth and this other planet (i forget the name/location) by an earlier progenitor species.

[syleth.livejournal.com]

Certainly interest here. Ix-nay on the plague of itchy balls.

Any setting that doesn't absolutely force me to be too far into high fantasy or heavy sci-fi would be great.

[(Anonymous)]

There must be an equivelent of Godwin's law that applies to scifi premises rather than usenet. Among the list of things that should be on it are colonies on Mars, FTL travel, seducing nublie aliens, post nuclear-war earth, super/genetically engineered/mutant humans taking over, benevolent aliens providing technology/guidance to humans. Your premise is scoring pretty high, so you've just got to work a few more in ;-)

Scifi that makes thinly veiled references to well know religious themes should also be avoided - this would have saved us all from The Phantom 'virgin birth' Menace.

[grutok.livejournal.com]

You played in my Alternity campaign, and younever mentioned Starflung to me....why?????
I AM INTERESTED!!!!!!

[magiien.livejournal.com]

That sounds a little like the short story/novella Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge. I forget the author. It was a woman, and I read it in a Year's Best edited by Gardner Dozois around 7 or 8 years ago. The story was a bunch of aliens that had been enslaved by a rapidly expanding and conquering humanity, one that just as suddenly collapsed in on itself so much that humans were essentially extinct. The aliens are trying to find out what caused humanity's ambitious drive so that they can recognize the signs before it happens again.
But, anyway, I liked that one, so I'd probably like the stories in Starflung as well.

Angwel's is sort of alive and well -- Anyway it's Extraordinary!

[calphus.livejournal.com]

Sorry I put the reply in the wrong place. I'm used to blog spot and regular web boards. Actually, Thadea's, Aunt Orelle owns Angwel's and the stories there have been hers.

The old membership was always welcome back. I know the current Angwel's was very American in the worst way imaginable but then so am I and so are Thadea, Haldis, and Orelle.

Eileen H. Kramer/and all the Avatars
ehkuhall7@tacheiru.every1.net