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Eschaton / Meanderings Part 2: Setting
« on: April 17, 2011, 07:12:33 PM »
I also really like the Lem quote you posted. Solaris is one of my favourites, the book and both movies, all for the same reason, all for different reasons.
I find that the book is one of the best representations of human contact with an incomprehensible alien species/society/intelligence/whatever. Humans have spent 100 years trying to understand Solaris, to no avail, and then they shoot some rays into it and their lives are destroyed in a matter of days by concrete but incomprehensible phenomena.
I was already thinking it would be nice to play a game in the AW style, but set during the/an apocalypse, where there's still society and technology, but that contact with something Other begins to break that down. What happens to individuals standing on that line?
The Other could be technology/the singularity, it could be Lovecraftian aliens like in CthulhuTech, it could be psychic vampires, it could be an alien race on the other side of the psychic maelstrom who have used up all their resources and now want to use up humanity's. A whole range of stuff could be handled, from cyberpunk cliches to psychic Japanese schoolgirls fighting ghosts to grimdark spaceships lurking around inhospitable planets to government secret agents in disposable bodies sent to do undercover work in breakaway religious sects at the cusp of inhumanity.
TRANSCRIPT
Theoretically, we experience reality on three levels. Obviously, there is the material universe, the primary framework that all other internal frames of reference are created to deal with. That's Level 1.
But there is also information, especially important in this digital age. As this is not necessarily a physical thing, but it also does not exist within a person's mind, it is termed Level 0. This is partly to acknowledge it's virtual aspects, as users can be fooled into thinking a digital existence is just as concrete as a material existence.
There is also the collected experiences that happen inside the mind. This is Level 2. Each person has their own Level 2 inside themselves, they share Level 1, and they require special skills and technologies in order to access Level 0.
However, our work has revealed new horizons, just as the Industrial and Digital Revolutions expanded the physical limits of the human body and mind. Level 2 can be shared. Is this the cause of our next discovery, or the result? Even more exciting is the possibility of a still-theoretical Level 3. We believe that Level 3 is the natural home of another world entirely, undreamed of by humanity.
Although our communal Level 2 experiments are still at the preliminary stages, we are confident our results are real and can be replicated by others. We have decided to attempt to contact Level 3, to create a bridge between it and Level 2, with the eventual hope of bridging Levels 3 and 1, if our findings are correct.
I find that the book is one of the best representations of human contact with an incomprehensible alien species/society/intelligence/whatever. Humans have spent 100 years trying to understand Solaris, to no avail, and then they shoot some rays into it and their lives are destroyed in a matter of days by concrete but incomprehensible phenomena.
I was already thinking it would be nice to play a game in the AW style, but set during the/an apocalypse, where there's still society and technology, but that contact with something Other begins to break that down. What happens to individuals standing on that line?
The Other could be technology/the singularity, it could be Lovecraftian aliens like in CthulhuTech, it could be psychic vampires, it could be an alien race on the other side of the psychic maelstrom who have used up all their resources and now want to use up humanity's. A whole range of stuff could be handled, from cyberpunk cliches to psychic Japanese schoolgirls fighting ghosts to grimdark spaceships lurking around inhospitable planets to government secret agents in disposable bodies sent to do undercover work in breakaway religious sects at the cusp of inhumanity.
TRANSCRIPT
Theoretically, we experience reality on three levels. Obviously, there is the material universe, the primary framework that all other internal frames of reference are created to deal with. That's Level 1.
But there is also information, especially important in this digital age. As this is not necessarily a physical thing, but it also does not exist within a person's mind, it is termed Level 0. This is partly to acknowledge it's virtual aspects, as users can be fooled into thinking a digital existence is just as concrete as a material existence.
There is also the collected experiences that happen inside the mind. This is Level 2. Each person has their own Level 2 inside themselves, they share Level 1, and they require special skills and technologies in order to access Level 0.
However, our work has revealed new horizons, just as the Industrial and Digital Revolutions expanded the physical limits of the human body and mind. Level 2 can be shared. Is this the cause of our next discovery, or the result? Even more exciting is the possibility of a still-theoretical Level 3. We believe that Level 3 is the natural home of another world entirely, undreamed of by humanity.
Although our communal Level 2 experiments are still at the preliminary stages, we are confident our results are real and can be replicated by others. We have decided to attempt to contact Level 3, to create a bridge between it and Level 2, with the eventual hope of bridging Levels 3 and 1, if our findings are correct.