Arawak

The Grand Enigma of 82 Eridani - One star system, infinite possibilities [Looking for Humans to get the show on the road!]

One thing about the 2nd edition OP you may notice when it is made is how I can be vague beyond mentioning natives, custodians and some vague overview of human history that really just gives people a loose timeline to answer questions like "when did humans get spaceships again after having to build up from just a few thousand people?". Humans are prone to division so multiple human factions I view as a given and thus I don't even dare speak of the details in regards to what human societies exist in this universe.

Similar with the custodians and the intelligent (or at least well organized) aliens. That is all player domain and so I don't go into it much. I just hope that players can work together to string together things to keep things coherent. That's why I suggested a way to link Lio's insectoids with Nytefall's and went as far as to have a "no redundant sapients" guideline to enourage such lore linking.

I like my aliens multicultural.

The Grand Enigma of 82 Eridani - One star system, infinite possibilities [Looking for Humans to get the show on the road!]

@Nytefall
It's not my setting. It's our setting.

I just am the GM and set the foundation for who knows what the players do. I seek to basically serve as a directing force to allow for a emergent story to come from the contribution of multiple people. The guidelines I set are to encourage creativity instead of stifle it since I believe when you have limitations set creative thinking becomes more likely.

For instance inspiration from a human culture I understand, but you make it very obvious with the mention of Wendingos and use of Mammoths on a alien planet.

Either way expect a better organized OP before tomorrow as I have tons of free time right now.

I won't by Tuesday though.

The Grand Enigma of 82 Eridani - One star system, infinite possibilities [Looking for Humans to get the show on the road!]

@Nytefall

While I was off put by the last app, this concept is everything that I didn't want people doing in regards to the alien species by using a human culture as basis for your civ (your civ comes off as something from a fantasy NRP) to such blatant extent that I believe a communication problem has happened with the OP.

It's not the best written OP so i'll close this thread and remake the interest check from scratch with more pictures, better presentation and more clarity in regards to what the worldbuilding guidelines are along with adding in travel rules and whatnot.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

Sometimes I want to cry when I place worldbuilding guidelines that state no humanoid/furry aliens (and god no to space elves), no pop culture and no space-whatevernation I like.

And than someone does all the above anyways.

I am not trying to be completely obstructive with guidelines either, my belief is that with a list of NOs and a good set of environments with a decent set-up scenario you open creative thinking more than just giving someone a box you can do anything you want in.

Maybe I just have bad luck with who gets interest in my stuff.

The Grand Enigma of 82 Eridani - One star system, infinite possibilities [Looking for Humans to get the show on the road!]

@Nytefall With the same species?

Ezekiel's cold enough to have icy regions so you wouldn't need to change much.

The Grand Enigma of 82 Eridani - One star system, infinite possibilities [Looking for Humans to get the show on the road!]

In that case I recommend having them be related more to Liotrent's stuff.

My personal suggestions is that they could be a more developed off shoot of an imperial caste Liotrent mentions that developed to have more specialized military castes and is more independent thinking compared to the general hives due to how they make clones instead of rely on a queen while enslaving the other mantids for the shit work like spartans in Greece did. They sound like they use similarish tech anyways, so they may share similar tech even if your military tech is more advanced.

They don't need to be space faring to be powerful and you can always have a "empire armed the barbarians" fuck up from another player in the back story to justify having space faring capability.

Though in terms of physical design they sound like cave dwellers so they fit into Ezekiel. Only difference is that they may due to the lower gravity have soldier castes that take advantage of the low gravity, cavern and mountain filled environment of Ezekiel.

I swear I fixed the image. I see it on my end.

The Grand Enigma of 82 Eridani - One star system, infinite possibilities [Looking for Humans to get the show on the road!]

I finally have a simulation of the Gabriel system:



From Left to Right: Luke, Gabriel, Solomon, Ezekiel and (if you see it) Ezra.

It only took a morning of tediously balancing things and screaming every time the moon system fell apart or one of the worlds got set on fire from tidal heating.

One major difference from the diagram is that Ezra now orbits Ezekiel as a tiny moon for it turns out that a subgiant water world like Gabriel can only hold so many moons so I put the burden on Ezekiel to hold Ezra (which is that speck on the right).

Amazingly enough that actually worked.

I also switched Exodus out for a ice world named Luke. By accident I found out my innermost world actually could realistically be a ice world despite the tidal heating.

Finally I will put genuine consideration in adding a exotic hot biosphere in the inner star system based on a actual exoplanet orbiting Eridani and likely building out the whole solar system, though don't expect much in regards to habitable worlds. Just lifeless worlds or worlds with some strange esoteric things hostile to human existence.

Interplanetary exploration takes a long time though, it will take weeks to reach these other rocks. On the other hand better to strip mine the asteroids and strip down metal rich ruins in other regions of the star system than strip mine the planet you set up with society on, right?

@Nytefall
There's already another player with a hivemind, consider sharing concepts with him and not just arbitrarily introducing redundant entities. There is a lot I don't like about the app, but the main thing that bothers me is that the Ouroboros Empire is something that was cut and paste without considering the context of the setting given the mention of a empire that spans, if not dominates multiple planets.

In most space NRPs it would be fine, but here it makes you a superpower.

The Grand Enigma of 82 Eridani - One star system, infinite possibilities [Looking for Humans to get the show on the road!]

@Liotrent
Finally I should note that Ezekiel is in the same moon system as Solomon.

The astrophysics of a 5-body planetary system are turning out to be hell though. I am seriously tempted to make Solomon into a full fledged gas giant at times but have so far resisted this change as I want multiple worlds in close proximity to each other like in a jovian moon system.

In Universe Sandbox I managed to get three bodies, but whenever I try for a 4th or 5th body it falls apart.

The actual 82 Eridani system has 3 burning hot super-earths in the inner system, so Gabriel is the 4th planet from the sun despite being actually closer to 82 Eridani than Earth is (82 Eridani is a not as hot as the sun is, it's a G8 star).

UPDATE:

It would seem that I can make a Ice world part of the Gabriel system after all, replacing the acid world with a large ice world as the innermost world. Or perhaps it is a highly acidic ice world!

This is possible due to the smaller size of the ice world and having a low atmospheric pressure. Lots of volcanic activity on said ice world though.

The Grand Enigma of 82 Eridani - One star system, infinite possibilities [Looking for Humans to get the show on the road!]

@Oraculum
You have lots of creative freedom with custodians. The major drawbacks is that I you have to take orders from PM or at least pretend to (though if you don't I will make IC consequences happen for your disobedience).

In terms of designs you can be biosynthetic, digital, logic breaking and surreal as you want them to be. They can be everything from a monitor, to automatons enforcing long dead laws on every living thing, the beings that keep the machinery of Solomon, Ezra and so on functioning and so on.

Basically the custodians reveal the ancients to be much less monolithic than first impressions of the sprawling ruins or mega engineering projects would make you think.

As for familiarity, they'd know more than the humans but still be in the dark on things even if they have a much better understanding of the nature of Solomon and the whole star system for that matter. Changes are you have visited every world at some point if you are a custodian that can travel between worlds and have likely been around for some ridiculous amount of time (though custodians can also be generational in nature).

The Grand Enigma of 82 Eridani - One star system, infinite possibilities [Looking for Humans to get the show on the road!]

I'd go with the walkers instead of anti-gravity... Even humans i'd prefer having wheeled vehicles still.

All in all when you must choose between the high-tech or the lower tech option, opt for the cruder tools.