Help me build a setting where the last bastions of humanity live in underground cities, safe from the earth's inhospitable surface. Conventional wisdom is that the deeper you are, the better, and cities end up looking like inverted spires with the richest living deep beneath the earth. Food can be grown with hydroponics and power is a cinch thanks to fusion/fission plants. But certain parts can be difficult to replace and disused parts of the city have fallen into disrepair. There are entire systems of tunnels and massive chambers that no longer serve any use.
The only chance for a normal person to see the surface is to join the (mecha)SUIT units who venture above ground on missions of vital importance.
How would the cities be different, what would societies become? What secrets are being kept from the average joe?
Carson Bell
>Food can be grown with hydroponics and power is a cinch thanks to fusion/fission plants.
So here's the issue with that setting then: How is the surface inhospitable? With that kind of tech, we're looking at pretty easy geodesic domes and moon colonization.
Carter Walker
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Owen Reed
Radioactive fallout? Something that makes it far more efficient to just move underground. Either that or perhaps a more alien threat. They prowl the surface but generally can't find / attack the arcologies.
Until they can.
Brayden Williams
Alien threat is more plausible. Because otherwise why wouldn't you just >spacelaunch, you know?
However, I'm not sure how easy it would be to hide the arcologies. Maybe they've got great defenses though. Could be entertaining.
Juan Cook
>why wouldn't you just >spacelaunch, you know? Insufficient reserves of fossil fuel.
You could take Pale Cocoon as an inspiration.
Brayden Wright
Assuming that they were under construction before the threat arose, it could just be that the entrances are so unassuming. It might be the equivalent of a little hut in the middle of a 100 mile forest. A network of smaller entrances would be safer than one more heavily used one I think.
Ryder Gutierrez
>Insufficient reserves of fossil fuel. Ya can't do that with ! >fusion/fission plants Project Orion can just nuke a colony ship into orbit. Don't wanna leave plot holes in a story like that, it can make readers roll their eyes pretty quickly.
But I mean, something particularly aggressive toward anything showing on the surface could be decent. Even down to 'tons of little asteroids', perhaps.
Samuel Roberts
C&C style Ion Storms? They can be predicted to a degree but never too far in advance and they'll kill or ruin pretty much anything caught in them.
Camden Hughes
Pale Cocoon seems to have the sort of tone that would work for this.
There certainly should be some big secrets hidden away.
Nathaniel Sullivan
Here's how I'd do the background lore:
Aliens invaded, and a terrible war was fought on the surface, but there was long enough to build the underground cities.
The alien value (their own) lives very highly, and are unwilling to spend the blood needed to storm the vaults. Instead, they've left teams on the surface to keep humanity under siege, while the main alien fleet left for parts unknown.
That was a few hundred years ago. The aliens garrison left on Earth is depleted, and instead of guarding each vault, they attack parties on the surface, and come down hard on any vault that dares go to far. They've also got some orbital capability for calling in the big guns.
That's your overarching plot right there. Either a desperate long term game, as the vaults race to pick the aliens apart before they themselves fail, or more standard quests for the Mcguffin, or even attempting to forge a truce.
Lots of ways you could go from there.
Cameron White
So things on the surface aren't as bad as they used to be, but the higher-ups in the city want stability and aren't prepared to have everyone rushing back to the surface.
Robert Sanchez
That could be it, or that things on the surface are still wrecked pretty bad, and they know that cities that send out a lot of explorers tend to stop answering the radio.
There could be automated defense platforms in orbit that stop an big expeditions, or permanent settlement. That could be a campaign ending plotline, trying to turn those off.
You could play around with the details and what players know a lot, depending on what kind of game (city politics, small groups exploring a wasteland, city management, etc) and what sort of theme (sci fi, horror, something like Metro: Lost Light) you want.
You could have whole games dealing with mutants in the upper levels, or a city that's running out of clean water, and wants to go to the surface. Or you could be the team they send to explore.
Evan Williams
If I were to run a game in it, it'd combine mecha action on the surface with intrigue and the like inside the city.
Grayson Foster
The city's darkest hour took place over two decades ago. The protective seals of the city's few exits were damaged beyond repair by extremely bad weapon, and were breached entirely. Near half of the entire city was slaughtered by the ensuing alien attack before it could be contained by >insert famed scientist here
Liam Myers
>What secrets are being kept from the average joe? Founders were extremists/dissident/cultists surface is habitable & inhabited by the society the founders fled from. Founders fled to escape persecution/prosecution or during/after a civil war/terror attack they launched. insects as food source: crickets/grasshopers are good as are silkworms. Soylent green addatives to bulk it out? dissidents/adventurers often get randomly selected for recon/salvage patrols but never seem to return...
Justin Ross
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John Sullivan
This sounds like a fucking fantastic setting. 10/10 would play in.
Luke Roberts
What system ya gonna use, OP?
Mason Cooper
Isn't this the "real world" of The Matrix?
Ayden Martinez
I was thinking earlier that it might be easiest to just mash Eclipse Phase and Battletech together, as dumb as that sounds.