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Spoiler Alert! This page discusses ideas which are intended for the eyes and minds of members of the Illuminated and Revered Order of GMs only. Players, their significant others, family members and pets are nicely asked to either stop reading now, or to keep schtum about anything they see on this page. Thank you for your attention.

This article was originally inspired by a posting to the FS mailing List. The subject discussed was the possible survival and return to the Known Worlds of the First Republic generation ships mentioned in the Fading Suns rulebook. As a long-time fan of such films and TV shows as "Dark Star", "The Black Hole" and "Battlestar Galactica", as well as such books as Stephen Baxter's "Xeelee Sequence", Greg Bear's "Eon", Arthur C. Clarke's "Rama", I was intrigued by the idea of how my players would react to such isolated communities in space. This page is a discussion on introducing these sci-fi standbys into the Fading Suns universe.

If you have any comments, thoughts or insights on any of the subjects discussed below that you feel strongly about feel free to Email me your opinions, or share them with the Fading Suns Mailing List.

One of the archetypal themes of Fading Suns revolves around the rediscovery of lost technology from the Second Republic: a long-gone period of technological mastery and social Utopianism. The reactions of people living in the New Dark Ages to such items says a lot about their attitude to the society that created them. From the frothing, luddite demands of the Avestite zealot for the destruction of the new-found "godless engine" to the acquisitive, hoarding behaviour of the Al-Malik or the Engineers such devices almost always inspire strong feelings of wonder, loathing or greed.

However, there are periods of history which have been all but lost to the people of the 50th century. The Second Republic is regarded by Known Worlders much as the Roman Empire was by the peasents of feudal Medieval Europe: a 'once upon a time' of wonders, horrors, amazing technical achievements and remarkable, terrible characters. Imagine then the reactions of nobles, guildsmen and churchmen to the return to the Known Worlds of people or things from the far more distant time of the First Republic, an era that is little more than half-understood, idealized legend in the Empire of Alexius.

Bearing in mind the vast gulfs of time involved in the FS universe, and the legends and propaganda which have grown up to fill gaps in the historical record, the discovery of a First Republic deep space ship by Known Worlders would probably have the equivalent effect to established modes of thought of a Homeric galley with Odysseus at the helm suddenly sailing into port in modern-day Greece. Unlikely? Yes. Infeasable? Probably. But what a story it would make, and what uproar it would cause!

The idea of the man or object out of time is not one that is entirely new to the Fading Suns universe. Objects such as Golems, Think Machines and starships can lie deactivated for centuries until they are happened upon and reactivated by bold and hapless adventurers (one example of this genre convention is found in the Haunted Chapel chapter of "Weird Places"). Likewise objects from the distant past of the Second Republic or the Church can become either revered or reviled, depending upon whose hands they fall into. When the various Ur-artefacts scattered around the universe are thrown into this equation it becomes clear that the 'present' of the Fading Suns universe is still being affected by things created or discovered centuries ago.

People out of their accustomed historical period is less commonly discussed, the debatable exception of the android Professor Odysseus mentioned in "Forbidden Lore: Technology" and "Merchants of the Jumpweb" notwithstanding. The subject was more satisfyingly touched on in one of the FS storyseeds (these are available at the Otherspace site, and very shiny they are too). This seed concerned the recovery of an ancient Obun suspended animation capsule by the PCs. The Obun inside the archaic capsule is the last surviving member of the Pojholi family, one of the long-since defunct noble families mentioned in the Alien Lords section of "Lords of the Known Worlds" (due for republishing as half of "Lords and Priests"). The rediscovery of a single ancient member of a second-class race would probably have much less effect than the rediscoveries I intend to discuss below however...

In many way this is the least satisfying method of exploiting the rediscovery of a First Republic exploration vessel. During the course of their discoveries, be it as Questing Knights of the Empire, or as hirelings for some other faction, the PCs stumble upon a derelict ancient vessel in floating in the outer reaches of a solar system. Exploring this vast, ancient ship (perhaps crafted from an asteroid or other planetesimal) will gradually reveal a dark secret which is still able to affect the Known Worlds...

• Space Hulk
  The colony ship is unpowered and the crew are dead (either decayed to dust over the centuries, or dessicated like mummies in their sus-an sarcophogi). The freeze-dried cargoes are little more than powder and many of the solid items in the holds show the effects of extended oxidization or exposure to radiation. All the signs and markings are in a form of extinct Urthish (English, Japanese, Russian, Arabic or Hindi are all likely possibilities given the apparent history of the Fading Suns world) so archaic that even Scravers and academic characters have trouble deciphering its meaning - it is over 2000 years old after all! Perhaps the party are able to access the log and uncover the ultimately tragic story of the ship.

  Presented properly the bleakness inherent in this failed colony vessel, with its dead crew, faded pictures, unused tools and unplanted seed crops can conjure a sense of the nihilistic horror of deep, interstellar space. Conversely it can also point up the promise, self-confidence and pride of the Old Republics. If this is well-handled the valuable antique contents of the ship may lead to an interesting moral dilemma: do the party treat the ship as salvage and loot what they can from it, or do they treat it with the respect due to the mass grave it is.
  

• Halls of the Dead
  This story-seed borrows from elements from "Dark Between the Stars" and "The Ransom of Chaz Khou" adventure presented in HDI's website, and from my own "Night of the Sand-Eating Gribbly Dead" adventure, as well as from the wasted opportunity that was the movie "Event Horizon". It shares the emptiness and bleakness of the previous idea, but with a twist: the dead do not rest easy on this vessel.

  The scores, perhaps hundreds, of deaths which occurred on the sleeper ship have resulted in the vessel being haunted by the spirits of lost and angry dead. Occult-capable characters with an affinity for spirits and the dead (Omen & Psyche users, Orthodox and Eskatonic Theurges, Manja Cultists, and possibly Gjartins) will gradually become more and more aware of these spirits as time passes. It may start with little more than an over-familiarity with the surroundings ("Of course I knew the key was in there, that's where he always kept it."), gradually extending itself to flashes of deja vu and eventually full-blown visions or flashbacks of life on the ship before the crew died.

  There are several ways this can be taken. The more blood-thirsty amongst us may want to finish the exploration with the shambling dead rising from their sus-an crypts, seeking venegance against the living who condemned them to the cold, empty Hell of the void between the stars. Another route is to have the characters gradually lose their senses of themselves as the spirits of the dead rush to inhabit new bodies (a strictly spiritual attempt to conclude their unfinished quest for a new home). One final possibility, and a conscious homage to "Event Horizon", is to have the spirits take over the ship and take the PCs with them back into the outer darkness.
  

• Message from the Edge of Time
  This idea owes a great deal to the sci-fi novels "Engines of God" (Jack McDevitt) and "Timelike Infinity" (Stephan Baxter), as well as to the H.P.Lovecraft story "The Shadow Out of Time" (available as part of any good Lovecraft collection). I would recommend picking up copies of these books and reading them, as they make for wonderful Ur/Vau/Archeo-mystery adventures, and some great Fading Suns general source material.

  The premise of this adventure, perfect for a passion-play campaign given to mysteriously-discovered prophecies, is along the lines of an omen from the past. During their centuries of travel at relativistic speeds the crew, or perhaps the governing computers, of the sleeper/generation ship had their consciousnesses projected centuries into the future due to relativistic time-dilation. The visions seen, of a universe dying millenia before its time, were worrying enough for the crew/computers to take copious notes on them. Unfortunately only part of these records have survived, giving them the required Sybilline somplexity and obscurity. What the PCs choose to do with these almost illegible, half-crazed scrawlings is up to them.

If a sleeper- or generation-ship actually made planetfall the colonists would, given a few essential criteria, hopefully be able to develop a self-sustaining society. Initial hardships during the pioneering period would inevitably cull weak children, the sick and the old through a process of natural selection, ensuring a relatively healthy and active populace. For those interested in finding out more about the subject of settler societies - one too vast and complex to go into here - I recommend you look at the history of the settlement of America, Australia and South Africa by the anglophone races, and the settlement of South America by the Hispanics.

What would such a culture, isolated for centuries and dedicated to survival against a potentially hostile world, be like? Well, first and foremost, it would have very little in common with the Known Worlds of the 50th century. This is a culture which has no knowledge of the Sathraist revolt, knows nothing about the Universal Church of the Celestial Sun, has never experienced the Second Republic, the New Dark Ages, the Regency, the Symbiots or the Emperor Wars, and may only have flirted with deep-space exploration. In other words: it could turn out any way the GM pleases.

Darklight Drives If humans found another planet with the use of slow ships, have they developed faster vessls, perhaps reaching light speed or have a device which creates mini-worm holes that they use to plot movement to other systems? If they have, then what happens when they pop into the Known Worlds?" Maybe they will be seen as "Demons" that "appear from nowhere". And a wormhole might be seen as a black sun which appears and disgorges demons. -- Lee Watts (quoted from the Fading Suns Mailing List) Note: The above is a fascinating idea, I will give one caveat however. Such a system of travel would most likely be a unique item or process derived from Annunaki technology (vide the Sathra Stone from "Dark Between the Stars" or the Philosopher's Stone/Gargoyle used to teleport Vladimir's flagship). Although characteristic of, amongst others, the "Star Trek" universe such wormhole/'space-folding' devices seem a little out of synch with the 'feel' of Fading Suns for my personal tastes.

The question of why such a culture remained isolated during the grand explorations of the Second Republic must also be addressed. The simplest answer is to say that either their system's jumpgate was sealed from their side or that the system jumpgate was either incomplete or damaged beyond repair. This forced the culture to develop alternative means of inter-system travel, perhaps via an elaboration of their founders' generation-ship technology, or through the development of a different means of travel entirely (see the "Darklight Drives" sidebar). Such a novel way of travelling between the stars has the potential to make even the most jaded Charioteer sit up and listen. :-)

To return to the subject of an isolated culture derived from a First Republic colony ship. One concept which occurred to me for this culture is the mysterious Rweng, against whom the Wersa cultures fought in the 42-4300s. After centuries of struggle against the less-than-ideal climate and ecosystem of their planet (let's borrow the name Pergamun from "Star Crusade") Rweng culture took on characteristics somewhat reminiscent of Ancient Sparta: militaristic, centralist and communal, with a highly developed sense of manifest destiny. When their scientists discovered Pergamun's jumpgate and later decoded a jumproute (to a system the Rweng christened Galahaut) a pseudo-Sathraist mystery cult developed amongst the star pilots, soldiers and administrators who travelled to the new system to establish a colony there.

Over the generations of travel between the Rweng worlds via the jumpgate the incidence of psychic ability in the populace rose remarkably (opinion is greatly divided over whether the jumpgate granted humans psychic ability or merely amplified latent powers). The Rweng government was quick to grasp and exploit the potential of psychic powers and instituted a selective breeding program to increase the chance of psychically capable children among the populace. After several generation the governing bodies of the Rweng proclaimed psionics the basis of citizenship, creating a psychically capable elite and a 'mind-blind' underclass.

Encouraged by success, by Sathra visions experienced by their rulers, and by the sense of manifest destiny inherent in Rweng culture, the scientists and Sathra cults experimented further with the jumpgates, eventually opening routes to some of the Vuldrok worlds (circa 4200). The Rweng poured through the gates and, determined to settle these new worlds, ran afoul of the Wersa culture. The prolonged war against the Wersa soured the Rweng on exploration and, following their defeat in the 4300s, their culture became more introspective and less extroverted.

So what potential for storylines does a society like this create? Perhaps the most obvious is that for whatever reason the Rweng decide to give exploration another go. What their actual purpose is, war, exploration, trade, etc. should initially be unclear, but the Vuldrok are hardly likely to take kindly to the return of their ancestral enemies. What position will Alexius and the princes of the Known Worlds take towards this new threat from beyond the borders? Will the League want to open new trade routes to these lost children of Terra? What about the Universal Church? These are humans bereft of the Pancreator's light for centuries, but they are also mind-witches and Sathraist devil-worshippers!

Other story opportunities arise from exploring the world of a human culture which has little in common with ones own. This can either be played as a serious anthropological or missionary effort or, for those GMs and players with allegorical tastes and a passing familiarity with books such as "Utopia" or "Gulliver's Travels", might become serio-comic travelogues designed to make the characters question the assumptions of their own culture.

The one major problem with using a First Republic sleeper-ship colony as the basis for a lost world which has little history of contact with the rest of humanity is that some of the wonder of the situation is lost. Instead of being 'people out of time' the people of this world become 'just another' lost world. The lost world model keeps the isolated culture within the Fading Suns paradigm of planets around jumpgates, but also loses a certain something by doing so.

This story seed has much in common with the ghost ships mentioned above. The primary difference: the cargo and crew of the ship isn't dead, just sleeping in cyrostasis (suspended animation). The ship will probably scan the system it appears in and head for the planet most likely to harbour life. Cue "ID4" or "Armageddon" scenes as the Noble Houses, Church and League fight over the implications, opportunities and threats presented by the ship. When it arrives in orbit around [insert planet as appropriate] the vessel begins to reactivate and defrost its' contents, thousands of settlers expecting a brave, pristine new world to conquer. How will the settlers react to news they can't land on the world they have spent centuries dreaming of?

The majority of storylines inspired by this version of events will stem not from the mysteries surrounding the ship, although there should be a few of these ("What do you mean those holds are classified? Are we your friends or aren't we?"), but from the inter-play between the two divergent cultures involved. The First Republic was in some ways inspired by the modern world of globalization and corporate power, as well as by the fictitious worlds of "Cyberpunk" and the gritty sci-fi of the "Alien" quartet or "Traveller 2300": how difficult are these free-thinking, profit-oriented people going to find it coming to terms with the Known Worlds?

This particular evolution of the remnants of the First Republic concept makes for a great table-top/LARP cross-over. Political wrangling and scheming between the powers-that-be and the ship's heirarchy can go on away from the vessel ("I do not recognize your authority Captain.", "Nor I yours, Archbishop!") while first contact or salvage teams from Academy Interrata, the Terran Museum of Antiquities, etc. nobble one another in between making discoveries and breakthroughs on the ship.

Oh, to complicate things even further: what if the sleepers did bring something back from the depths of space with them? Perhaps something similar to what is in the Forbidden Chapel on Manitou (see "Weird Places for more on this). *wink* :-)

Picture the scene: one or other systems of the Known Worlds is attacked by raiders who attack and loot ships, then disappear out into deep space. Accusations fly, duels are fought and spies work overtime, but nothing is discovered or resolved. As time goes on the raids grow more frequent and intense and the involved parties more outraged and erratic until finally the perpetrator's sublight world-ships appear in the afflicted system. As well as having a political mystery thread this plotline has the potential to make a great first contact campaign which can lead either to a new faction emerging in the Known Worlds, or to open war with a threat from the outer void!

With twenty-five centuries of divergent social, cultural and biological evolution to their name the inhabitants of the generation ships are going to be remarkably different from the humans of the Known World. What forms the humans in the ships take after 2500-odd years in deep space is anyone's guess. Socially and culturally I'm put in mind of Games Workshop's Craftworld Eldar (perfectionists ruled by Seers), Joe Haldeman's "Worlds" trilogy (for divergent cultural norms which may develop away from the homeworld) and, for those of you who have read "Hyperion", the Ousters. Another, rather less esoteric, take on the 'isolated society' experience is available in the "Lost World: Gateway" section of this website. An additional reference which might be of interest for the (sizable) FS contingent who spracht Deutsch is the German pulp sci-fi series "Atlan:Abenteuer der SOL" (thanks to Schoasch for the reference).

I'm tempted to leave the cultural practises of the generation-ship raiders opaque to the players, at least initially. Possibly they will be organized in a fashion similar to the Ukari, with various clans or associative groups being the main form of social organization. I envisage less anarchy and a greater rigidity than we are familiar with from the Ukari however. It may be possible to use the race as a metaphor on utilitarianism and the close-mindedness a pragmatic worldview brings. With this in mind they will probably be ruled by a republican clan-council of some kind (as such an organization lends itself better to conservatism than does the rule of a single person), with concensus amongst the council members being binding upon their clans.

Their religious practises of such a void-race are a painful question which has given me much pause for thought recently. All the religions presented in Fading Suns to date are, with the possible exception of the Sathra cults (which are in many ways a mystery religion) and one or two of the Vuldrok temples, those of groundling cultures. In sublimated fashion the Sun, the Earth or the Sky are the primary objects of veneration of all the races of the Known Worlds. When the connections between the religions of the Known Worlds, the Anunnaki and the demons of the outer darkness are borne in mind, the question becomes even more fraught. At the moment I favour a variation on the Vuldrok or Ukari veneration for the powers of the outer dark (Sathra/Surtur/Sukara, the Serpent of the Void, etc.), although this may change as I work out the details of the culture.

Biologically the inhabitants of the generation-ships are unlikely to be anything like their ancestors. I'm currently thinking in terms of a rigid caste system of various phenotypes created by genetic manipulation and optimized for certain types of work. This is primarily an extension of the space-nomads of the Kurgans introduced in "Star Crusade" as practised by a culture where survival, utility and efficiency are the highest goods. I envisage Avestites foaming at the mouth the moment they encounter one of these human varients, and...cue the action! :-)

I hope this little treatise has given you some inspiration and material to work with. If you do manage to make use of any of these incoherent ravings please let me know.

This file last modified 20/06/2000.