What No Aliens!?
Time to start talking about some of the design decisions behind the Twilight Sector Campaign Setting. One of the first decisions that I made in designing the setting was not to include aliens. At least not right away. The decision goes back to one of the prime rules of horror stories but I think it applies to storytelling in a science fiction setting also, DON’T SHOW THE MONSTER. It’s much more menacing, mysterious or whatever other adjective that starts with m you want to use, if the audience (in this case your players) don’t see the big demon or angel of the setting. If we work that into the life of the campaign don’t we have a cool story line?
I know that aliens are standard fare for science fiction games. Players like to play the big walking rug or the sneaky little lizard but is there a way to have your cake and eat it too? Almost universally aliens in science fiction are just humans with some over exaggerated human traits. To find real aliens you really have to go to Nivin or Heinlien and for the most part the exceptional aliens that those two geniuses created wouldn’t necessarily make good player characters. It would be a blast to play a Puppeteer but allowing one player to have a character with gear that would totally outclass the rest of the players wouldn’t go over real well or everyone would fight to be the Puppeteer. So I made the decision that we could handle the whole playing alien type characters another way. But that’s a subject for another post.
So by not having aliens what do we gain? Besides the aforementioned not showing the monster thing, we do get two great advantages. We get to use humanities first contact with true aliens however we want. This is a great plot device that we’ve just gained and by having it in our pocket but even more importantly create a dynamic ongoing campaign. We get to explore how this new discovery will affect humanity and the relationship that will develop between the two species. Image how dramatic it would be to have a group of player characters be the ones to first discover the first alien entities. Or the pressure you could put them under knowing that their actions could possibly affect how the relationship between the two species develops. The possibility of discovering aliens, the actual discovery of said aliens, and the development of the relationship with those aliens are plot devices we can use to drive an ongoing campaign for quite some time.
I’ll leave you this time with a section from the Twilight Sector Campaign Setting discussing one alternative to aliens, artificial intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence:
The human mind is still the smallest and cheapest computer available in the 29th century. Humanity has however come to depend on artificial intelligence. AIs run almost everything in a modern society. In the case of the Deramus Enclave they run a stellar nation.
AIs run most routine functions in society. Things like manufacturing, traffic grids, utility monitoring and scientific research. Often tasks like research are done in conjunction with humans and where human labor is especially plentiful and thus cheap they often direct the work of humans. Where human labor is not cheap AIs direct robotic devices in tasks like manufacturing.
AIs are created in one of three categories which reflect the AIs sentience level.
Level One, which represent AIs which are capable of sentient behavior. They can learn but lack some of the attributes which set the human mind apart. They are only abstractly self-aware, they do not display self-initiative or non-linear reasoning ability. They show only marginal creativity nor do they display empathy for other intelligence’s. A Level One AI requires an upgraded (cost x 10) model 4 ships computer.
Level Two AIs are capable of initiative and do have some limited empathy and some creativity although they are not as creative as the human mind. However it can be very difficult to tell a Level Two AI from an Aware AI simply from conversation. There have been recorded instances of Level Two’s who have added additional code to themselves and evolved into Aware AIs. Level Two AIs need an upgraded (cost x 10) model 5 ships computer or its equivalent in processing power to occupy.
Level Three, AIs are aware AIs and the equivalent of the human mind and maybe more. They are self-aware, creative, intuitive, display initiative and show empathy towards other sentients. The Aware AI does have some advantages over its human counterparts. It invariably displays a tremendous work ethic, it does not need time off nor does it rest. Because of the tremendous processing power needed to run this level of software, an Aware AI program cannot run on anything less than an upgraded (cost x 10) model 6 ships computer.
