As anyone who has read the XXVc World Book and/or Earth in the 25th Century knows, Mother Earth is in dire straits is 2456 AD. Pollution, disease, warfare (including conventional, nuclear, biological, chemical, etc), a depleted ozone layer... the list is a long one and each has taken a heavy toll. Add to that a drastically depleted human, animal and plant population and you have to start to wonder how it could ever be possible for Earth to recover.
From where I'm sitting, Earth couldn't, especially not with RAM's continued efforts to annihilate the planet's inhabitants. As far as I know (and I'd love it if someone showed me different) no solution is given in the published material beyond the efforts of certain groups such as NEO to throw off RAM's oppression. After that? Who knows. The obvious answer, to me, is the same process that made Mars a more or less livable planet and that is terraforming. Conditions are so bad on Earth that it would take the same colossal effort that made the other planets inhabitable to revive the near-fatally damaged ecosystem.
Failing that, who knows? Say your campaign goes as planned and eventually Mars is defeated or at the very least made to look elsewhere for plunder. Then what? How does NEO even begin the effort? Personally, I never got past the idea of terraforming, so I have no other answer to give, but I'd like to know what plan the two of you that read this blog would have NEO and friends set into motion. Maybe there is something obvious I'm overlooking. Maybe something not so obvious and I'm just a dumbshit.
Thus I put it to you, dear and loyal readers. How would you handle the situation in your game?
This...this...wasn't the way the comics were!
ReplyDeleteThere were comics?!?
ReplyDeleteWell, rudimentary ideas have been advanced in the books, like genetic banks kept in the arcologies which could be used to reseed Earth with a multitude of lifeforms. With the advantage that these lifeforms all once considered Earth their habitat.
ReplyDeleteIn a campaign there could be a MacGuffin hunt for something that will tremendously help restoring Earth. Just like the GECK (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) in Fallout 2. It would certainly make for a better campaign than "A Matter of Gravitol"... Possibly involving either the Stormriders of Jupiter (and their advanced knowledge of genetics), or some happy accident from the competing terraforming attempts of Titan, or maybe even a totally bizarre ancient alien artifact...
Yes, there apparently were comics. Before most material saw release. Ain't got em, so I can't say more...
Following the hard sci-fi axioms in place in XXVc, any attempt at terraforming would be a colossal undertaking, so restoring Earth to its former state would most likely never occur within the timeframe of any campaign. But I do like the idea of the players chasing after a too-good-to-be-true cure for Earth's ills. You definitely game me some good ideas to consider.
ReplyDeleteAbout the comics- I was actually making a joke to my chum Ettin, who, like myself, has an interest in the old Buck Rogers newspaper comics of the 1930's.