Monday, January 18, 2016

SWN World Tags in Strange Stars


Stars Without Number has an interesting way of presenting world information by use of  "tags." Many of these takes are familiar science fiction tropes/elements and work fine in Strange Stars, but some are more specific to the Stars Without Number setting and are based on different assumptions. Here's a list of those that don't really work with Strange Stars and in some cases how they can be tweaked to fit:

Alien Ruins: These could be alien, but are just likely to be ancient ruins from the time of the Archaic Oikumene or before.

Altered Humanity: Much less notable in Strange Stars than in the standard standard SWN, but it is still usable for more extreme cases.

Eugenic Cults: The rough equivalent of these can be found in the Strange Stars, but given the commonness of genetic modification, the “eugenics” element is less important than the “cult” part.

Exchange Consult: This organization doesn’t really have an equivalent.

Forbidden Tech: Much of the technology considered forbidden in the standard setting of SWN is common in the Strange Stars, so the use of this tag would be limited.

Perimeter Agency: In Strange Stars, the equivalent of this group might be Luddite or anti-technology fanatics/cultists.

Preceptor Archive: These would be replaced with troves of data or technology from earlier time periods, mostly the Archaic Oikumene, but possibly the Radiant Polity. The Library of Atoz-Theln would have the suitably modified version of this tag.

Pretech Cultists: Like the eugenic cultists above, the focus should be on the odd use of a technology rather than its mere existence.

Primitive Aliens: Probably just “primitives” of a nonbaseline or exotic biotype, rather than actual xenosophonts.

Unbraked AI: This would instead be a “Tyranny” that just happened to have an infosophont tyrant.

Xenophiles/Xenophobes: Again, read “alien” simply as an “exotic clade.”

No comments: