After AoD3.

[Helton]

Would the different 'zones' within the ship be independent and work together only through trade of goods and services?

I'd say so. Closed communities, guarded trade secrets, distrust of different ways of life, etc. What's your opinion?

All sounds fairly balanced. Planned, even. Not saying that's a bad thing, of course, it would be interesting if you stumbled onto some kind of generation-spanning brain trust which had salvaged the mission in this manner. Or whatever.

I'd have trouble seeing that kind of system --a series of closed societies-- developing on it's own and then not falling apart.

 

[Azael]

^
Sort of like the Foundation series?

I like this idea, it's something that I've been toying with in my head as well although I completely lack the ambition and skills to actually try and translate that idea to something useful. Based on the description, I suppose there will be a sort of ecosystem in the ship that will help provide the people with oxygen, sanitation and sustenance? Can I propose that you have a death cult that "recycle" the bodies of the deceased without longer remembering the purpose for doing so?

 

[Roqua]

Deniszi, I was just kidding. I like reading the interchange. My whole delay of game nonsense is just a joke.

 

[VasikkA]

70's sci-fi, that's something new. Some of the factions could be totally absurd and confusing, given they've had hundreds of years to evolve. There should be a secluded 'official government' with a super violent police somewhere on the ship(á la Enclave). What about the visual and artistic look, what would the colony ship look like? Retrofuturistic architecture, huge shopping malls and artificial forests in glass domes? I'm thinking 2001: Space Odyssey, is that farfetched? What about technology; lasers, bulky space suits and supercomputers? Will there be soil erosion?

An interesting concept, don't let anyone steal it.

 

[Kingston]

It would be kinda cool if another ship made contact with the one you're on (during the hundreds of years technology has advanced on Earth and so they send out a ship that runs on anti-gravity black matter quark-fusion emitter motor that a trillion times faster), perhaps bearing news of Earth's destruction and wanting to come on board with some survivors = creating conflict etc.

Plus, you could have retards in the game through inbreeding!

 

[Vault Dweller]

That is the purpose imposed on colony, for maintaining and transfering knowledge and skills of a specific branch you never got to choose. Is there space fo change without jeopardising the colony economy?

No. It can't be.

As for that purpose being higher than yours or mine; that's highly subjective.

Maybe. So, what's your purpose in life? Other than trying to make a buck (or a lira), getting married, having sex and kids, building up a lovely nest, and dying in a very confused "what the fuck was all this hassle about?" state of mind.

You may not have a personal fulfillment within your career...

I do. I have a personal fulfillment when I deposit my paycheque.

I can't say that I hate my job; I don't. I just don't see it as something that has a lot of Purpose (yes, with a capital P). I'm not sure if saving lives in a hospital or developing technologies of the future (like xbox 3!) come with extra Purpose, but I'm not really good at either of these things, so...

... but you can take risks by changing that without affecting anyone else outside your family (such as AoD being your wishful foray into game industry).

That's what I'm working on at the moment, but I'm not sure that making games could be described as "life with Purpose".

100 farmers out of 1000 deciding to "quit" and do something else is a big change for colony economy.

That's what heavy policing is for.

Implants? Brain control? Pre-birth genetic modification to determine and control who will do what best (and perhaps even enjoy it)? Totalitarian (and perhps fascist) technocracy? Deception of living environment (think Logan's Run, or The Island)? Forced fertilization (though this has to be in because you mentioned professions survived by offspring, so there has to be a way to make sure there will be an offspring in the first place, without risking it by couples who decide that they don't want to have a child) or even a whole sect of women used only for births like hatching-machines so a constant and controlled reproduction is maintained?

Too much. I see it more as an idealistic venture going wrong. Again, think Russian communism. A bunch of idealistic people decided to establish a new society where people are free, equal, and happy. Naturally they thought the future generations will share their enthusiasm and views, but they didn't. 70 years later the massive colossus collapsed and died. Why? The people factor (despite all the totalitarism and government control).

Exactly. The project is to transpot a huge amount human race and knowledge in a space ship to a far away spot which will take several generations until the ride is over. So, whoever or whatever society has come up with this project with a designated destination (and not just a "let's hope we will find a habitable planet") in the first place, must have some damn good reason for doing this and with so many things having been set in motion, anyone who would lend the fate of these 100.000 people on those people themselves has to be a moron because there are innumerable amount of things that could go wrong.

Sure. The war in Iraq? Bush had a plan to go in and ... that was pretty much it. Or the retarded Prohibition in US:

“National prohibition of alcohol -- the ‘noble experiment’ -- was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America”

Needless to say, the exact opposite was achieved. In other words:

...anyone who would lend the fate of these 100.000 people on those people themselves has to be a moron because there are innumerable amount of things that could go wrong

Welcome to Earth!

Many people will simply break down like you said. That's one of the most obvious, foreseeable problems.

Yet people running/participating in such projects tend to be very idealistic. As for foreseeable problems... take Interplay for example (I was going to throw some work examples of some really dumb shit at you, but let's talk about a subject that's familiar to all). Does any of what happened to the company make sense? Cancelling two almost ready cash cows: BG3 and FO3, killing BIS, the only profitable department, deciding not to renew the BG license, focusing on shitty consoles games (shitty means not heavy titles like Morrowind and KOTOR, but really crappy games like FOBOS, part1), etc. You may say "uh, dude, making games and sending colony ships to Alpha fucking Centauri are totally different things". Sure, but the common factor in both cases is human nature, which never seems to change. If people are involved, fuck ups are guaranteed, but rarely foreseen, because statistically people in charge are morons.

Sending all these people to space for generations, knowing it will cause problems and still giving control to people does not compute.

Does what's happening in Iraq compute to you? There you go.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves here, guys?

Think of it as talking about settings in general, not discussing an actual project.

I'd have trouble seeing that kind of system --a series of closed societies-- developing on it's own and then not falling apart.

Not on its own. Each society is based on the professional zone from the early days. An industrial metal processing complex will "mutate" into a small metal crafting clan located in a well defended fortress ("upgraded" factory building), while farmlands would be out in the open and would have to form larger communities and form some militia to protect their "borders".

Based on the description, I suppose there will be a sort of ecosystem in the ship that will help provide the people with oxygen, sanitation and sustenance?

Yep.

Can I propose that you have a death cult that "recycle" the bodies of the deceased without longer remembering the purpose for doing so?

Sure. A lot of activities should be based on the old rules and traditions that nobody understands anymore.

Some of the factions could be totally absurd and confusing, given they've had hundreds of years to evolve.

Yep, like those people in The Stars My Destination chanting "Quant Suff!" (short for quantum sufficit, but completely forgotten what it once meant).

What about the visual and artistic look, what would the colony ship look like? Retrofuturistic architecture, huge shopping malls and artificial forests in glass domes? I'm thinking 2001: Space Odyssey, is that farfetched? What about technology; lasers, bulky space suits and supercomputers?

That's how I see it too. Retrofuture all the way.

 

[JuJu]

Read this for inspiration. There could be a lot you could take from this story.

Next generations worrying that they will spend their lives in a spaceship doesn't sound right for me. Do christians worry about not being in Eden? No they don't. And people living whole their lives in a spaceship probably wouldn't care about such a mythic place as 'Earth'.

Also the questions arise about How have people lost contact with earth? Why don't they know about the tech? And why there aren't any history and science records? One of the answers could be: It was supposed to fail. For example - The previous government has built a spaceship, and a new one comes to power at final stages of it's production. The new government understands that the ship is a waste of time and money and people there will probably die, but the public likes it. So they stuff the ship full of it's political enemies and lounches it somewhere far away. After a month or to the government announces that the contact with the spaceship is lost and they don't care about it anymore.

Also the mutants aren't really plausable. You can't develop a resistance to radiation - it just fucks up your genes, unless it is so strong that it scorches your brain. The mutants could be people abusing genetic engineering, and the factor that limit's other people access to mutant infested areas could be either biologic or chemic by nature, like poisonous gas in air supply or some nasty bacteria accidentally created by mutants.

 

[kingcomrade]

There must be power armor, nuclear missiles, flamethrowers, machine guns, radiation, rocket launchers, and a cyberdemon-esque monster for your setting to be cool.

 

[Kingston]

"It was supposed to fail" would be considered a "total Fallout ripoff OMG!11ONEONEeleven", if the idea ever came to fruition as a game.

 

[stargelman]

It's inspired by 70's sci-fi.

A huge colony ship carrying 100,000 colonists is launched to Alpha-Centauri. The ship is automatic. The journey will take 700 years, so only the distant descendants of the original colonists will reach the destination.

I read that and immidately thought of the Doctor Who episodes "The Ark". Very similar setting, from 1966. Have you seen it?

 

[sportforredneck]

I see it more as an idealistic venture going wrong.

Isn't that basically the thought behind Bioshock?

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's basically the thought behind every big idea people came up with and thought it would be great and definitely work as intended: democracy, the Maginot Line, multiculturalism, the Tower of Babel, religion, etc.

 

[Human Shield]

Arguably the best way to ensure disaster would be to keep everyone tightly in line for the entire trip...

That's how I see it. Heavy policing, lotsa rules that must be followed, hard discipline, etc. Very stylish and totalitarian, and the very reason for the mutiny.

Then it would make more sense to be coming from a oppressive Earth and having a "revolutionary war". Maybe the ship left a string of satellites or hyperspace communication and relies on Earth for certain things, and the revolution cut the strings. Maybe all knowledge was rout learning from machines and the cut off shut down several systems (paralleling America breaking from England even when we got more subsidies then paid taxes and being left without support). And you could add a 'loyalist' ending of contacting Earth again.

I see it like the 16-month Magellan's trip around the world in 16th century. Or those small colonies that were established in the New World relying exclusively on dumb luck and the colonists' ability to survive for a few years (at least).

Except that they starved because they were set up to be socialist and were full of lazy and thieving bastards (the decadence you like). They didn't just stop knowing how to grow stuff there was no incentive because whatever you worked to grow got stolen by someone else.

The Great Thanksgiving Hoax

"Many early groups of colonists set up socialist states, all with the same terrible results. At Jamestown, established in 1607, out of every shipload of settlers that arrived, less than half would survive their first twelve months in America. Most of the work was being done by only one-fifth of the men, the other four-fifths choosing to be parasites. In the winter of 1609-10, called "The Starving Time," the population fell from five-hundred to sixty.

Then the Jamestown colony was converted to a free market, and the results were every bit as dramatic as those at Plymouth. In 1614, Colony Secretary Ralph Hamor wrote that after the switch there was "plenty of food, which every man by his own industry may easily and doth procure." He said that when the socialist system had prevailed, "we reaped not so much corn from the labors of thirty men as three men have done for themselves now.""

So have the farmer's work be given to the science rulers from the beginning and have the system break by itself and set the revolt as the point of the game. Maybe it was same on Earth but the massive inefficiencies was off-set by more expansion and more resources. The settlers started as serfs and break away from Earth.

 

[denizsi]

Deniszi, I was just kidding. I like reading the interchange. My whole delay of game nonsense is just a joke.

Don't mistake me for someone suffering from oversensitive crybaby syndrome I can tell why you're doing that if you have exposed yourself to Mount & Blade forums though.

Maybe. So, what's your purpose in life? Other than trying to make a buck (or a lira), getting married, having sex and kids, building up a lovely nest, and dying in a very confused "what the fuck was all this hassle about?" state of mind.

All I can say besides personal fulfillment is to die with as few "shit, I wish.." as possible, and perhaps do something to find a place in people's memories at some point. Also, while I have this weird impulse to do something good for my country on a political level in future (weird because I think patriotism is absurd, even though I feel like one sometimes), I can't help thinking it's such a waste of time and energy (I suspect that I feel that way because of my admiration and longing for ideals like democracy and justice done right in social life, not that I really care about my fellow countrymen).

As for a comparison to the proposed purpose of the space colony; I'm going straight into academy where I'll be playing a small role in transfering the knowledge and skills to maintain my branch(es) to others. That and the space to keep studying in my trade (one of which is engraving (metal and wood), which isn't really doing well compared to other, more popular branches) on an academic level is part of that personal fulfillment for me. However, I can't say that this won't change in future in relation to the payment. It's too early to tell. Ultimately, all of that is futile since I'll die anyway.

sip

Actually, after some thinking over what galsiah and you later said, I came to see it as plausible to a degree, but I still see a clear distinction between the past and present campaigns you gave as examples and one which is bears one single original goal: make it so that mankind will flourish in Alpha Centauri.

Looking at real world morons (Bush, Blair) hints us of some of such extreme control methods in future. Some recent subjects from UK include a national finger-print database to cover all new-borns, genetic inspection to the pregnants for determining possible future criminals, punishment on families whose children do bad things (Blair even got mocked and targeted himself for this as his son turned out to have a record for driving drunk), and who knows what else I don't know/remember and much less the stuff going on in US. So I don't see why any of those extreme control methods (at least and especially to be used for keeping military in absolute control) would be over the line, even with most desperately idealistic people. You know, even with so much control, things can go wrong through men's own doing (yes, a departure from my original stance "source of problem can't be human-originated").

 

[Elhoim]

Perhaps the ship was formed by idealistic men that wanted to escape the iron-fist controlled Earth...

 

[kingcomrade]

Or maybe they were fleeing the failure of the free market and global warming.

 

[Fez]

And all the street crime cause by them.

 

[[Jez]]

Maybe when the ship finally arrives to the planet it has already been colonized by another race?

 

[The_Pope]

It would be more entertaining if humans invented FTL transport during that 700 years and a second colony ship arrived first.

 

[almondblight]

So are you not considering a dungeon crawl type game based on AoD combat you said people had suggested? That sounded kind of fun.

 

[Section8]

So are you not considering a dungeon crawl type game based on AoD combat you said people had suggested? That sounded kind of fun.

He's going to license the idea to Obsidian.

 

[denizsi]

If Obsidian drops the habit of working on established and big-shot IPs only by then, then I'd wager they would gladly welcome some or any ideas.

 

[meeneque]

Sounds like Brian Aldiss' 'Non-stop', but it was 60s.