Space Horror General

Space Horror thread?
Space Horror thread

Other urls found in this thread:

ospreypublishing.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Nazi Moonbase
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

>tfw I tried to start one earlier and it fizzled out.

And now I'm phone posting cause I'm out all night so I can check out Saturn's opposition. So kinda related I guess.

So do you guys prefer hard sci fi or soft sci fi for your horror?

I prefer hard, because things are a lot less scary if you can just blast the boogeymen with a laser and safety is just a quick FTL jump away

Normally I like my sci-fi a little on the softer side, but for suspense, hard all the way. Knowing that you can't techno-babble your way out of any situation makes it so much more effective.

...

How would you define hard sci fi and soft sci fi?

FTL drives are a point where physics breaks down because you can't theoretically travel beyond the speed of light

What the goddamn fuck is that?

Hard sci fi is constrained to the laws of physics as much as possible, and gives better justifications than "phlebotinum" when it breaks those laws

Would huge distances/light years away become insurmountable obstacles then?

There isn't a definite line, it's a scale that blurs a lot around the middle. I don't think FTL travel is an instant disqualifier from "hard" status, either--while we certainly don't have a way to make it possible today, we do have several promising leads that could *potentially* lead to ways to circumvent the light barrier without having to worry about exceeding it. Things like wormholes and alcubierre drives, for instance, are technologies that aren't feasible with our current knowledge, but could certainly provide the basis for ways around that problem to a society with a greater understanding of physics and the infrastructure to support such a project.

In practice, though, the vast majority of FTL in fiction is a pretty soft endeavor, I agree.

Not necessarily. Like, I'd consider Joe Haldeman's The Forever War hard sci fi even though it involves interstellar travel via what are basically naturally occurring Stargates. The MC acknowledged they're improbable based on his understanding of physics, as well as several other pieces if technology that show up. But at the same time, the characters are still beholden to relativity and he makes a good point that our understanding of physics is pretty limited and could definitely change after a few centuries.

I remember liking the other story in that book, about the remotely controlled drone soldiers that ends with humanity becoming super-empathetic more to be honest.

Remember: in microgravity, blood goes everywhere.

...

I'd imagine there's something. Warp engines are feasible in that if you somehow made them they'd negate that a bit. You'd still have travel time but things wouldn't be nearly as bad. Think modern jetliners versus propliners.
That'd also be something you'd want to protect as conventional engines once you get moving keep you going even if they get shut down. You lose your warp engine you're suddenly stuck between stars and at best doing "just" lightspeed which means you're corpse will be decades dead upon arrival. It also means that people won't be able to help you either as your signals still travel lightspeed so again at best the first people will hear of your troubles is when your corpse shows up at their door. Hopefully the ship has moderate AI and doesn't just slam into a planet.

It looks like a corpse in an improbable location. It raises all sorts of unsettling questions for the crew of that shuttle.

I prefer the idea of compression drives. Using artificial gravity to compress the space in front of the ship so that technically, when the ship passes and the space snaps back to its original density, the ship has travelled a great distance without travelling very fast.

Oh, I can show you such marvellous things, but where we're going we don't need eyes to see

Confined spaces, the void, everything outside your viewport being able to kill you in half a second...
Let's face it. If you want cosmic horror, the best place to set it is the cosmos.

Something being eaten by the 2001 monolith.

Obligatory

God that was so good. I remember reading that as it happened. I was hooked and would give most anything to play a game with that GM.

Is that an Event Horizon of Hellraiser reference cause I saw both recently

Hellraiser. 3, I think.

The movies didn't really scare me that much but that quote by itself terrifies my soul
I'm gonna have to ask /x/ how to ward off immortal pain / pleasure demons

Both, now also combine the two

They're called Cenobytes.

Bump

More needed

what a shame

???

>tfw none of them are tethered to the shuttle

The no eyes is strictly Event Horizon but the 'I have such things to show you' is both with only minor differences in wording separating them.

>wanting to ward off Pinhead

But seriously, I think that that was the beauty of the movies honestly. They werent strictly scary, they certainly had their creepy moments but it was mostly about the cenobytes and their scarily alluring existence. They were presented like better versions of crossroads demons. There was a promise of something hidden in there somewhere and if you managed to summon them you got it whether you wanted it or not.

Its a tempting offer, one that I would personally be interested in.

What kind of insane person would be tempted by an offer from them?

Someone that wants more than mundanity in their life. The issue comes down to if you actually want that or THINK you want that. A major issue everyone seems to have trouble with despite it seeming so simple, just like common sense.

>How would you define hard sci fi and soft sci fi?

Hard has defined rules. They may not be grounded in reality but they are there.

Soft is when there are no solid rules and the whole sci-fi part is little more than a setting.

what would happen to blood in zero G (with atmosphere so it doesn't flashboil/freeze) for extended periods of time? Would it form little scab bubbles? or would it stay as liquid?

>Someone that wants more than mundanity in their life.

Pretty much this. Knowing what I know about the cenobytes and their realm I wouldnt but when its just some shadowed mystery of greater things and immortality (which is all the people who fell to them knew) it is offly tempting. Its not a matter of sanity, its about wanting more.

Its like becoming a Lich if you didnt know what a Lich actually was. All you knew is that you would live forever and there was a promise of greater things/power. So you attain the materials required and perform the ritual and then suddenly youre this skeleton with your soul in a box who is incapable of ever feeling any sense other than sight ever again as you slowly go insane because of your inherent connection to demon lords. It all sounded so promising and wonderful beforehand, even if the means of attaining it were strange. But now youre stuck like this, unable to go back and no one to blame but yourself.

Thats a good question. If it ever stopped 'moving' then Id assume so (or given enough time while moving slowly).

But I dont know enough about fluid mechanics or blood to answer properly.

Scabs happen because of platelets and clotting. Platelets need to clog the hole to do what they do, floating blood doesn't really have a hole, so not that.

I mean the cellular stuff gonna die eventually if only because they'd run out of nutrients, not sure about how much oxygen would get in, but that might be a factor. Probably wouldn't rot or get too nasty.

Just like brownish red bits that eventually evaporate leaving powdery crud that would eventually settle (it's going to be moving if only slightly)?

>You lose your warp engine you're suddenly stuck between stars and at best doing "just" lightspeed which means everyone you knew will be decades dead upon arrival

FTFY. Time dilation, bitch.

Something wonderful ...

You will be too. Time dilation does not mean you don't die in that scenario. As for how long your family is dead for depends on how long before you left you arrive in the warpless scenario.

What about spaceworms? Or is that too cliche?

Actually that's precisely what it means. If you're moving at light speed, you won't experience ANY time. If you're moving at near light speed, it means you'll experience almost no time relative to a stationary observer.

Key word being relative, Mr. I didn't list a reference frame for my velocity.

Also 2 other things to keep in mind. A physical object cannot pure light speed, so you wouldn't be traveling at pure relative timelessness, and in this scenario the warp drive be busted, so you're moving on "normal engines" and the like.

The second is if near light speed travel is also a thing, who the fuck would just warp space time to travel a handful of light years? Best have packed for a hell of a lengthy trip.

Do a biological dyson sphere esque thing. I have a greentext about one somewhere, cant find it where it was like a giant Cacodemon that drifted through space swallowing anything in its path.

The catch was that it was basically hollow on the inside with the things it swallowed typically going to fuel its 'core' or whatever. But some pieces would drift and land on the inside of its skin, and some of those things would have other life forms on them just trying to survive however they can.

>Key word being relative, Mr. I didn't list a reference frame for my velocity.
It does mean that you can traverse light years in weeks or even days from your own point of view.

>The second is if near light speed travel is also a thing, who the fuck would just warp space time to travel a handful of light years? Best have packed for a hell of a lengthy trip.
Because years is still a long time.

No Junji Ito? Damn shame.

...

What the fuck, is she? giving a tongue job to a planet?

No, first she licks it to see if it tastes good. Then she devours it.

It's a funny little comic. Junji is all over nasty, gory horror.

...

What a thrill.

With darkness and silence through the night.

Man, this makes me want to play an Apollo 13 campaign except it's not merely just an oxygen tank ignition

What a fear in my heart!

But you're so supreme!

Anyone got any interesting ideas for Space Spooky?

>computer picks up additonal crew member after salvage mission
>computer picks up less crew members after salvage mission
>bare footprints in the moon dirt
>Immaculate ship with a friendly AI, but no crew in sight
>Exploring a colony where all the inhabitants just disappeared
>Body horror aliens
>The pilot starts seeing images of her childhood in the alien ruins and refuses to ever leave
>Crew lands on a moon, discovers remains of a previous expedition they were never told about

Share your plot hooks

>inb4 ghosts of Mars

I'D GIVE MY LIIIIIIIFE~

Not for honor, but for youuuu

>ghosts of mars
if anyone here has the screencaps, now it's the time

ospreypublishing.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Nazi Moonbase

A13 was hit by energy weapon from the moon.

White Dwarf 56 The Last Log: A far future scenario set on a distant planet. Worth a hunt if you can get it, maybe the planet calls the ship down thru singing to the AI pilot

...

>farish future
>humanity is just starting to effectively colonize planets
>one day you get some massive blast of data from...somewhere
>upon further inspection its a distress signal from an alien civilization
>they claim to be in your system some planet or two away despite a thorough survery of the system prior to colonization
>after the initial hiccup of translation they're quiet responsive, with delay taken into effect of course
>this is the first time either society has encountered an alien race
>they're claiming that some disaster is befalling their species
>they just aren't sure what it is
>they say that cities around their world just go dark one by one without warning
>those that look into it physically don't come back and sattelite imagery shows nothing wrong
>the colony takes it upon themselves to come and offer aid in any form they can
>colony ships become jurry rigged space arks
>transports to personal vehicles fill up and tie on as many supplies as they csn manage and still take off
>everyone takes it upon themselves to suit up and show off what humanity can do
>upon arrival you find only a barren world
>just as the survey had suggested originally
>as millions of human craft touch down hundreds of millions of humans poor out to offer aid and support in anyway that they can
>only to find skeletal and windworn ruins of vast cities millenia old preserved only by the thin atmosphere
>as far as anyone can tell the alien race you spoke to only weeks prior has been dead longer than humanity has existed

...

>funny comic
The part where everyone was flying around the world broke my sides.

>investigate derelict ship
>it always shows the same face, no matter which angle you view it from

>crew hears announcements coming over the intercom that make no sense, but actually are conversations happening in the future

Woah has Veeky Forums read my mind? Was actually going to come on here to ask if any space survival rpgs actually have been written.

>on awaking from cryosleep, the crew realize they all shared the same dream of being examined by nonhuman creatures.

>the party discovers a derelict ship in a decaying orbit around a gas giant. On closer inspection, it's their own. If they board they find their own desiccated remains, still strapped into their stations.

>an anomalous radio signal leads the party to a beacon placed on an asteroid. The beacon is nonhuman in origin and is laying on top of a large sarcophagus with the carving of an early Era cosmonaut space suit across the top.

Is this actually real?

Wat

>party investigates ancient alien complex on a lifeless moon.
>all throughout they encounter ghostly astronauts
>the ghosts are the players at different points in time

The AI is malfunctioning but has no malice in its heart, it tries to help the PCs as much as it can but it's not all there
It keeps stuttering and tries to say its name SHODAN. No it's really STEVE

A female survivor helps the PCs but there is always something off about her instructions, either they arrive too late for an event she says is happening right at that moment or things go missing
The PCs break into her office, her helmet is smashed and they find her mummified remains
She has been dead far longer than the PCs have been on the ship/station

>suddenly one of the colony ship that landed on the planet go dark

Only good space worms are the mindworms from SMAC

I would also like to know

Space explorers find an empty city on a planet that looks like a 16th century colony, and they find a diary written in English

Wasn't that an episode of star trek TOS? It was based on Paradise Lost or something like that?

Sounds like something Star Trek would do.

I just like the idea of OOPArts in space

That sounds kind of good, but if I'm running hard sci fi I'd probably try to avoid any "two gangster planets and a cowboy world!" plotlines.

...

...

...

Some of this is just atmospheric.

Come on, cowboy worlds are great! "Pardner, I don't know nothin' about no fusion engines, I just know I need to beat Black Joe in a gunfight at the foot of Olympus Mons at high noon or he's gonna take over all of Rattlesnake Gulch!"

...

...

...

Cowboy worlds are great.

But not if I'm running The Thingterstellar Horizoshinedorumlien: Resuropa Report.

Well I guess there are just some things on which we will never agree, then.

This thing is fucking cool

Oh shit, I know what I'm planning on throwing at my players
Plot twist, the thing isn't even evil just curious and may even be friendly

Please, you're making me want to play SS13 again.
Don't stop

This is kinda more of the same, if you like it.

What in the glorious and fiery hells is that?

References to
The Thing
Interstellar
Event Horizon
Sunshine
Pandorum
Alien
Europa Report
One more?

I think instead of Alien it's Alien: Resurrection

That's a woman in need of rescuing, of course.

Alien: Resurrection

Does anyone have the picture of the tall, dark humanoids with glowing light for faces?

I think they were giants and standing in water, and it was night.