Wednesday Comics: Multiversal Spotlight: Earth-39

Earth-39
Apparent Concept: Earth T.H.U.N.D.E.R agents.
Pictured: (left to right) Accelerator (Lightning analog), Psi-Man (Menthor analog), Cyclotron (Dynamo analog), Corvus (Raven analog), Doctor Nemo (NoMan analog).
Sources: Tower Comics's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (1965-1969), DC Comics's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (2011-2012) .
Analog: None in previous versions of the DC Multiverse.

Comments: The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents were a creation of Wally Wood and Len Brown who wanted to combine the Justice League style superhero team with popular spy-fi like The Man from UNCLE and James Bond. All of the agents derived there powers from some device (an element Morrison has retained for his stand-ins). The characters have been published by a number of companies since their debut in the 60s. DC first attempted to publish them and perhaps add them to the DC Multiverse in the early 2000s, but things didn't come together until 2011. DC introduced a black Lightning (not to be confused with Black Lightning) into what had been an all white group and Morrison retained that element with his Agents of W.O.N.D.E.R.

Majestrum

Henggis Hapthorn, foremost discriminator (detective) of Old Earth in the far future time of the Archonate, has a problem. Well, perhaps a series of problems. First, there are his cases that may have something to do with a plot to overthrow the government, but perhaps even more troubling is the impending return of a time where "sympathetic association" (i.e. magic) is ascendant over scientific rationality. This problem has been made peculiarly personal for Hapthorn as he shares his brain with another persona, born the magically separated intuitive part of his psyche, and his integrator (a personal AI device) has been turned into a cat-monkey creature familiar. As one might expect, Hapthorn's personal woes and his case are not as separate as they might seem, and he will have to confront further magical forces.

The return of a time where magic works is familiar from games like Shadowrun and Rifts, and even kid's cartoons like Thundarr the Barbarian and Visionaries, but what none of those have is the placement of an ultra-logical, far future Ellery Queen, trying to oppose the coming paradigm shift, which has become a fairly personal affront.

Hughes's universe and his writing style are in a Jack Vance mode. His setting of the Archonate and the Spray resembles Vance's Oikumene and Gaean Reach. It makes his Hapthorn tales something like if Magnus Ridolph or Miro Hetzel was confronting the dawning of the Dying Earth. There is plenty of stuff to borrow for a Vancian science fiction game, or inspiration for a whole setting.

Majestrum is the first Hapthorn novel (though based on how it opens, I suspect some short-stories predate it). There are three others and a short-story collection, all pretty cheap for Kindle.

Time Keeps on Slippin' Into the Future

Art by Brian Despain

While I'm celebrating passing another 0.03155 Gs on planet Earth today, I'm looking forward to further updates from Con of the North where John Till, Jay over at Exonauts, and others have played a couple of sessions of Fate Strange Stars. They've been teasing a few pics, but the whole report is still pending.

If your a reader here and still on the fence about buying Strange Stars (surely there must be somebody) you might want to check out a couple of reviews from last week: here and a mini-review here.

Love Is The Drug

Even in the far future of Strange Stars love remains a somewhat fuzzy concept. Sex, on the other hand...

Anyway, in honor of Valentine's Day, revisit the Pleasure Domes of Erato or spend some time with the alluring Minga.

Random Planets

There are a lot of good planet generators in science fiction rpgs from the very science-minded ones in GURPS Space and the original version of 2300AD to the more adventure-oriented ones of Stars Without Number and Starblazer Adventures, with Traveller and others somewhere between the two poles. None of these really focus on the quick creation of the sort of cliched (and I don't mean that negatively) worlds that populate pulpy or comic book space opera and space fantasy.

I've been toying with working on a series of random generators for exactly those sorts of settings. A more granular series of tables is probably to come, but I wanted to present an alternative "quick stock planet" alternative list first:

1. Amazon Planet: Women warriors who either have no males or keep them in as slaves. The opposite is the misogynistic Man's World. The lack of the other sex may result from a Secret.
2. Anachronistic World: Strangely resembles a historical Earth period, culture, genre, or work of fiction.
3. Bucolic Backwater: A sleepy agrarian world where no one expects anything interesting to happen. Its native culture or cultures are likely to be irritatingly quirky.
4. Casino World: Vegas in space.
5. Crossroads World: A myriad of races and cultures congregate for trade, religious pilgrimage, or the like.
6. Desert Planet: Whether hot or cold, this world is bone dry and harsh. Better to stick to the few oasis or canal cities and stay away from the volatile, deep desert-dwellers.
7. Ecumenopolis: A planet-spanning city. 
8. Forest/Jungle Planet: Titanic trees (and possibly tree-towns) and an over-abundance of wildlife.
9. Hellworld: Incredibly hostile environment whether due to ultra-deadly fauna, toxic atmosphere, poisonous biosphere or some other factor. There is always a good reason to travel here, however.
10. Ice World: Sheathed in thick glaciers, this planet's inhabitants are inured to cold or live in compounds protected from the elements.
11. Junk World: Detritus from an ancient civilization (or a current one) covers this world.
12. Pleasure Planet: A world famous, or infamous, for its hedonistic pursuits. Likely a vacation destination.
13. Paradise Planet: An idyllic world, either obviously highly advanced or hiding behind a faux-primitivism. where all wants and needs are fulfilled. Of course, that may just be how things appear and it is, in fact, a False Paradise.
14. Prison Planet: The most notorious criminals in the galaxy are kept here, possibly with political prisoners. Likely to somewhat inhospitable natively, otherwise it would be used for another purpose.
15. Ruined World: A post-apocalyptic planet, scarred by the fall of a previous civilization, perhaps long ago, perhaps relatively recently. 
16. Swamp World: Humid and fetid; full of things that slither and crawl.
17. That’s No Ordinary Planet! Roll on the sub-table below.
18. War World: Inhabitants have been locked in an age old conflict between two blocs, factions, or a neighboring world. The landscape is devastated and the people mistrustful, heavily armed, and possibly mutated.
19. Water World: Planet-spanning oceans with floating cities or mer-folk.
20. Wild World: Only rudimentary civilization at best, but plenty of dangerous megafauna.

Some of these aspects can be combined, of course. Any single-biome world might have another theme, as well.

That's No Ordinary Planet! Sub-table

1. It's alive
2. It's artificial
3. It's a gigantic spaceship
4. It's a petrified giant
5. It's an egg
6. It's a shell around a slumbering space god-monster.

Wednesday Comics: Multiversal Spotlight: Earth-38

Earth-38
Apparent Concept: Earth Generations.
Pictured: (left to right) The Bat-Man from 1938 (Bruce Wayne), Supergirl (Kara Kent), Knightwing (Clark Wayne), Batman in the 80s (Bruce Wayne, Jr.), Superman from 1938 (Clark Kent), Joel Kent.
Sources: Superman & Batman: Generations (1999), Superman & Batman: Generations 2 (2001), and Superman & Batman: Generations 3 (2003).
Analog: The world of Generations was designated as Pre-Crisis Earth-3898 in Absolute Crisis on Infinite Earths (2006).

Comments: The three Generations limited series were written and drawn by John Byrne. The series follow Superman and Batman and their respective families from their first meetings as kids to the future. Here's a good article on the series, including a family tree.

The first appearance of the Generations universe is actually a crossover with Marvel: Batman & Captain America. The epilogue has Batman and Robin rescuing Captain America from the ice in the 1960s. The Robin depicted has red hair, suggesting he is the Bruce Wayne, jr. Robin from Generations.

Audience Participation

With Strange Stars out for a few weeks now (and reviews appearing), enough time has probably past that I can query folks as to what they'd like to see here on the blog to further explore the setting. So, what would you like to see next?

One thing I haven't talked about yet is the League of Habitats (other than Circus and a brief mention of High Lonesome). I could elucidate more on time frames for hyperspace travel or earlier historical eras like the Archaic Oikumene or the Radiant Polity. Then there's always more practical stuff like currency or sample names for more cultures. I did a post a while back getting very specific about inspirations for particular cultures, and I could always do something like that again.

Those are my ideas but you may have others. So what would you guys like to see? Comment here or drop me an email with suggestions!