The Last Child | bySwarm

Genre

Science Fiction

Theme

Space ships, planned evolution, planets lost to time, the mysterious Rave, and humanity, the orphaned and last sentient species to be born, have been thrown into it all. Long ago the first sentients, the Lenia created a number of other sentient races that have carried on this tradition even after the Lenia vanished, leaving their dark legacy behind. This setting is a Gothic Space RPG with overtones of a Space Opera mixed throughout.

Background

After many centuries, humanity has unlocked the secrets of inter-stellar travel and started spreading throughout the galaxy. The first human colonies showed the humans that the galaxy was diversified and full of life, but without any other sentients as far as they were concerned. Life continued on this way for a number of years and the Human Confederation grew to control a fair number of systems. Then came the famous day in the year 4352 A.D.E. when first contact was made. It all started when a freighter was forced to make an unscheduled stop due to engine problems at the Argo system. Much to the crew’s surprise, they found themselves looking not at a quiet planet, but instead at 4 very big very active battle cruisers. The battle cruisers belonged to a race known as the Antarens. The captains of the Antaren battle cruisers at first thought that the freighter was a ploy sent by one of their enemies to trick them. Indeed, the little human freighter was nearly blasted out of existence before one of the captains realized that the beings on the ship didn’t belong to any sentient species he had ever heard of. Quite excited by the prospect of a new species, the Antarens boarded the freighter in such numbers that the ship’s life support nearly failed and it was awhile before order was returned. Long story short, eventually diplomatic channels were opened up between the two species.

After establishing diplomatic ties with the humans, the Antarens shared a great deal of information with them. They told the humans how there were in fact thousands of different sentient species spread out through out the galaxy. If anything it was odd that humanity hadn’t encounter any of the other species before their meeting with the Antarens. The Antarens reasoned that it was because so few species bothered to explore the galaxy anymore. Perplexed by this, the humans wondered why all these different civilizations wouldn’t constantly be looking for more space to expand since they were all cooped up together. To answer this, the Antarens first had to tell the humans about the Conclave. The Conclave, as the Antarens explained, was a governing body made up of representatives from all the various sentient species of the galaxy. That is not to say that there was peace though. The Conclave managed war and the development of new sentient species, it did not enforce peace or even prevent genocide. It had been this way since the first sentients, the Lenia, had created it to govern their ‘children’, the other species they raised to sentience. Since its creation many species have come and gone from the Conclave over the hundreds of millions of years it has existed to the point that none of the current members can think of the original Conclave members except as legends. The rest the Antarens felt humanity should hear from the Conclave itself.

So it was that the Human Confederation decided they should meet with this Conclave. The Conclave was very eager to meet with the humans, so it wasn’t long before the human delegation met with them in their massive Senate Hall. Though the human delegation tried to start talks about trade policies, technology exchanges, and the like, the Conclave was only interested in two things; where the humans came from and when were they planning on joining the Conclave. Needless to say the human delegation didn’t quiet know what to make of this. Eventually the Antaren representative decided to step forward and explain things to the very confused humans. She explained that while many species had joined the Conclave over the millennia, millions more had died out, be it from plague, war, old age (for some species eventually chose to die out), or a myriad of other causes. The greatest cause of extinction though was the result of the strange species known as the Rave. The Rave would appear from time to time out of nowhere and seemingly at random and attack everything they found. Ships were destroyed and planets were found as nothing more than lifeless pieces of rock after the Rave finished them. And just as suddenly as the Rave would appear, they would vanish again, leaving only the occasional survivor who too disturbed by what they had seen to explain much. The Rave had existed for as long as anyone could remember, and many believed that the Rave were the reason why the Conclave was created: to protect sentience. If it hadn’t been for the seriousness of the representative’s voice, the human delegation would have thought the representative was joking. The representative didn’t give them time to fully absorb all of this though as she was quickly moving on to explain the rest of the story. While the Rave were a constant threat, there always had been an abundance of new life to replace that which was destroyed. Just under 100,000 years ago though, the Conclave realized that the number of emerging sentient life forms was dwindling rapidly even as their numbers also dwindled. Also, unlike the Lenia, the Conclave had no idea how to create new sentient life. So an ambitious project was begun, the Guardian Program.

The Guardian Program was designed to safe guard the future of the Conclave; the emerging sentient life forms. To begin with, scout ships were sent to every system in the galaxy looking for emerging sentience. When a scout ship found it, a ship, called a Guardian, armed with the most advanced weapons and shields, was sent to protect the planet from interference and the Rave. While it is true that nothing could stand up to the Rave, if anything could it was a Guardian. The Guardians would also observe the emerging sentience and would contact the Conclave when the time was right for first contact. However, the Guardian Program found only a handful of emerging sentient life forms. Since the Guardian Program’s conception those species have become members of the Conclave and no new emerging species have been fond. So it was that the Conclave resigned its to accept the coming extinction of thought. Then the humans appeared, as if they were a blessing from some god. And now that the Conclave had found humanity, they didn’t want to lose them.

Although they were intrigued by the Conclave and very interested in trading with the various species that made up its members, the humans weren’t ready to give up their freedom and join just then. Things changed though when the humans finally met the Rave.

The day was Dec. 31, 4389 A.D.E. when the Hubble Observatory detected a distortion in their sensors in the vicinity of Titan. The report was duly passed along and given no attention as everyone prepared to welcome in the New Year. As people watched the ball begin to drop in New York, just like it had thousands of times before, the sensors on the Frigate Armistice were going crazy. Even as alarms sounded across all the ships in orbit around Earth, hundreds of ships were appearing all around Jupiter. In the resulting onslaught, communication was lost with Earth. When the rest of the human fleet finally arrived, all the found was a dead world ringed in the debris from over 50 ships. There were a few survivors though. Although they were routinely question, all that was ever obtained was useless babble about ‘children’, and ‘the ending of the curse of thought’. Clearly, what the survivors had seen had driven them mad and it wasn’t long after that they all died.

Still reeling from the loss of their home world and the tragedy of it all, humanity reluctantly joined the Conclave. As fear and sorrow gave way to anger and hate, a determination grew in humanity, a determination to kill every single Rave until none were left. Towards that end, many humans have been working tirelessly for many decades. They are faced with more difficulties than they could have possibly foreseen though: war, plague, piracy, greed, and worse still, the Conclave itself. It quickly became evident to humanity why the Conclave was so desperate for their membership. The Conclave was divided in two; the old and stagnant races on the verge of extinction and the young Guardian races who are still too immature to handle the legacy that will soon be left to them, and in the middle of it all were the humans. Still, with no new emerging sentients, it may be a moot concern. Soon sentience will vanish from the galaxy, leaving only the Rave.

Antagonists & Conflict

The Rave: The primary antagonist in this setting is the Rave. Horrible, destructive, like a malignant tumor, the Rave are the scourge of the galaxy. For all the fear and hate they receive, little is actually known about the Rave. A few eyewitness accounts say that the Rave appears to have many different physical forms but for the most seem like nothing more than beasts. Also, some chatter from combat with the Rave ships suggests that while their ships are very advanced, they are in a serious state of disrepair. Some claim that the Rave were a weapon created by the Lenia while others think that the Rave are the creation of some vengeful god. The truth is actually more disturbing than any of these theories. The Lenia were a very curious people and were constantly driven to push the limits of their abilities and understanding. This had led to a great many break-throughs as well as leading to the eventual development of psychic abilities among the Lenia. To be fair, all that was developed was telepathy, but even that was a great boon. Imagine being able to search another person’s mind to find the answer to a problem you were working on. The possibilities seemed endless and led the Lenia to wonder what other psychic abilities may be developed. So it was that the Lenia began their experiments. They grew children artificially after modifying their DNA in the hopes of increasing their psychic abilities. Nearly all of these ended in failure or death. Still, eventually 13 viable children were born. In Lenian physiology, a person’s psychic abilities never emerg until puberty, so the scientists still had to wait for the children to grow some more before they could continue the experiment. As the children grew, they showed signs of higher than average brain function and signs of early psychic abilities. As the years progressed, the children remained in the labs as the full scope of their powers were beginning to be realized. Then, one day a politician came to the lab. He was there to address the Lenian government’s concerns about the dangers of the experiment. After touring the facility, the politician sat down to observe one of the children with the scientists. As they watch, the child lifted a chair in the room into the air with her mind alone, the first sign of telekinesis the scientists had seen. Panicking, the politician ordered that the subjects, the 13 children, were too dangerous to let live and must be terminated immediately. They heard him though. Even as security rushed to comply with his orders, the 13 children reached out with their minds and began crushing the guards’, scientists’, and politician’s psyche, leaving their bodies and knowledge for the children to control and use. After finishing up with the lab, the children began to reach out to the rest of the Lenia to make them their slaves. Some Lenia, sensing what was happening, activated a fail-safe device. The entire core Lenian planets were sealed away in another dimension when the fail-safe went off. Over the years the children assimilated the entire Lenia population into their being and using the Genetic Modifier to twist the Lenia populace into monstrous creatures. Still, for all their technology, they were still trapped and would eventually die. For you see, though the 13 tried over and over again, they could not have any children. While there minions numbers could increase, theirs staid the same. Eventually, due to injuries, disease, or other causes, various members of the 13 were forced to leave their bodies and merge with the psychic network that controlled the Rave. Success was to be had though, for eventually one of the 13 did have a child. This child, the last child, was to them what they had been to the scientists. As an infant it dominated the 13 and used them to control the Rave. As it grew, it learned how to open a door back into its parents’ galaxy and what it saw there scared it. There was a galaxy that would hate it and try to kill it. So it decided it would defend itself. It sent out attack parties to wipe out all sentience and thereby remove any threat to its existence. For millions of years, the last child sent its Rave to attack the Conclave, for the child was truly ageless. Then, still millions of years later, it sensed something odd. It sensed another Lenian mind. Reaching out to find this threat, the child managed to locate the planet it was on right before the Lenian life ended. In a panic, the child sent hundreds of Rave ships to investigate and destroy the threat. What they found there interested the child more than scared it. The people of the planet it attack were remarkably similar to the ancient Lenia. Enough so that they might be the key to making more children like the last child. After all it did get lonely with no one but the Rave and the 13 to keep it company. Still, these creatures were clearly dangerous, and there was that disturbing Lenian remnant, so it would have to be careful. Then the last child began to plot and scheme the final downfall of sentient life in out galaxy.

Other Species: Just because the Conclave works together to try to protect each other from the Rave (even if it just means seeing to it that a decimated population has somewhere to go), that does not mean that the individual members always get along. War is quite common, especially with the younger species. In particular, the Evo have been the target of many religious wars. Indeed, war is one of the primary causes of extinction in the galaxy. The council tries to see that it doesn't come to that however and attempts to 'manage' the wars.

Other People: Sentient life really doesn't change that much with technological progression. Many species are still slaves to their vices, and some even encourage some vices such as theft and slavery! Still others promote meditation and honor. Players will find a world with characters filled with different beliefs and values, the true causes of conflict.

Special Features

Magic: There isn't any magic in this setting. While some technology may be so advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic and some species do have unique abilities that the uneducated would call magic, magic itself does not exist.

Technology: Technology levels vary depending on which species you are looking at. Some of the more aggressive species have advanced weaponry and shielding while more peaceful species have developed holograms and medicine. A general rule of thumb though is that while the younger races are advancing at a much faster rate than the older races, the older races still tend to have more advanced technology. Also, while technology is exchanged and shared throughout the Conclave, a lot of the technology unique to a species, especially military tech., is jealously guarded.

Gods: Religion plays a big role in this setting. There are many different religions and many different philosophies on life. Some worship the Lenia and kill any who dare trespass on their ruins. Still others worship the ancient Egyptian god Set. These religions are varied and so are their followers. One temple may send its members to help the survivors of Rave attacks with another temple of the same religion trains assassins to kill their enemies. Religion and faith play a big part of this setting, but the gods that are worshipped play no role what so ever.

Planned Evolution: Little of the ancient Lenia’s technology has been replicated or backwards engineered by any in the Conclave. One of the only exceptions is the Genetic Modifier. It allows a species to undergo a planned evolution by slowly altering their DNA. Not everyone approves of this, causing a divide amongst many populations, even whole species. Eventually, nearly everyone who had undergone genetic modification had been cast out from his or her species. Likewise their decedents, who carry the genetic alterations, have been banished. Since their banishment, they have gathered together for survival and are now known as Evos. Due to the large population base they pull from, Evos are the largest 'species' in the collective, though they do not have a representative. The gene altering has also provided them with many strange and unique abilities, some good, and some bad. Also, while it is possible to undergo some minor gene altering once you reach maturity, it is also very dangerous (most gene altering is done while a person is in the womb/egg/larval sack/what ever). It is rumored though that the Lenia had figured out someway of greatly altering a persons DNA without harming them, but this has yet to be proven.

Cybernetics: Recent advances in medicine have made it possible for people to re-grow lost limbs and organs. Before this discovery though those missing limbs and organs were replaced with cybernetic counterparts. Hence the cyborgs were born. Even to this day, some individuals from all species chose to become cyborgs instead of re-growing their limbs. Some say it gives them power while others say it is because it is cheaper. While it is true that a person could replace their arm with a cannon, or replace their legs with a hover craft device enabling them to move at over 80 mph without tiring for a number of hours (cybernetic parts receive power from organic factories built into them which are fed by the body), cyborgs do have a number of drawbacks. One is the social drawback. People tend to look at cyborgs were the average person in the twenty-first century looked at tattoo covered people. Also, the obvious mechanical aspect of the person leads to a few difficulties, but not as many as are faced by the purely mechanical species.

PC Role

Players can play as a whole host of different species and sub-species, all with different and varying roles, jobs, beliefs and goals. Players could play as a group of space pirates, researchers, militia, crew on a battleship, or as heroes trying to save the galaxy, or any number of other possibilities or combinations of those. One idea I had right now was to tie players together in a mutual loss of their loved ones to the Rave, and together they embark on a journey to find some lost trove of Lenia weaponry to destroy the Rave, but that is just one scenario. In short, they are normal people of the setting who through events designed by the GM become something more (or less depending on your prospective).

Comments

Fenris

Submitted by Zack Faust on Tue, 02/23/2010 - 10:58.

Thankyou for you kind review that is so very reflective of this setting. I've talked to her and she told me she didn't know how to alter her previous review after she saw the changes I made and accidently double reviewed. I'd gladly delete the old review and she would to (if she could figure out how). I was going to contact Mike in a minute before you posted that however, so thank you for taking care of it for me.

Edit

Submitted by Zack Faust on Tue, 02/23/2010 - 11:43.

I apologize for how aggressive I was in my post, that degree was unwarranted on my part, and I am sorry.

Apologies.

Submitted by Fenris on Wed, 02/24/2010 - 04:32.

As I said, my original review was no fair judgement of the setting, nor was it intended to be the finalized version of it. I know it was somewhat mean-spirited, but it was also only a placeholder. I can understand that this seemed to be insulting but that was not the intention of the review; the idea was that the double review was removed (I didn't know that only one review per user counts).
If this has hurt any feelings, I apologize, but again this was not my attention.

For future reference

Submitted by mikeb on Tue, 02/23/2010 - 11:36.

For future reference, even though people can post more than one review, only the highest ones count for each user. So if someone submits two reviews, only one of them counts. Also, please read:
http://byswarm.com/forum/free-all/some-thoughts

I think you've got a good

Submitted by mikeb on Tue, 10/13/2009 - 18:17.

I think you've got a good start, Zack, but I wanted to give you some feedback before I post a review.

One of the things that I found intriguing from your background was the Guardian concept. What sorts of individuals are the guardians? Are they powerful beings, or are they more like the scouts of the Collective?

Something that I think might make the setting really compelling would be if humanity had been given something in the past by someone from the Collective in order to hide them or protect them to help explain why they had never been found. Were they perhaps a fail safe should the Rave get too powerful and the Collective become too weak? Maybe there's something about humans that keeps them out of the universal consciousness. I'm a big fan of mysteries and conspiracies which is why I make these suggestions. :)

Finally, I would wait a day or two to come back and edit your concept. There are some pieces that I had to reread a few times to understand what you were trying to say. While the writing isn't everything to a good concept, it helps people better understand what you are try to describe.

Thanks, I know it still needs

Submitted by Zack Faust on Tue, 10/13/2009 - 19:39.

Thanks, I know it still needs a lot more work though!

I was imagining the Guardians as powerful warships built long ago by the Dacia that while autonomous, still are capable of receiving commands from the Collective (by the way, do you think I should change then name? Re-reading my summary, I keep thinking of the Borg whenever I see it).

Oh, I completely agree, I love conspiracies and mysteries. :) Right now I'm playing with a number of ideas as to what is so uniuqe about humans (you guessed a few of them by the way, so nice job! :), but I haven't come to a decision yet. One that I'm leaning towards right now is that Earth was the last planet the Dacia inhabited before they died out. However, a few survived, and when they saw humans begin to emerge as a sentient life, the began to direct human evolution towards something that would eventually defeat the Rave. Having started humans done the long road towards their destiny, the Dacia used the last of their technology to hide Earth from the rest of the Galaxy until such time as the humans were ready. How's that sound?

Speaking of secrets, I was planning on adding this in at a later revision, but I may as well mention it now to see what you think about it. I was thinking about making one of the great secrets of the galaxy that the Rave were actually created as a weapon by the Dacia! However, the Dacia couldn't turn their weapon off and the Rave slowly went about begining their makers' destruction. Thoughts?

Yeah, that is one of my big problems. I get an idea in my head and my fingers just can't keep up, and it just comes out as a jumbled mess. Thanks for the advice though, I'll come back in a few days and clean it up! :)

Author

Zack Faust

History

Member for: 46 weeks 4 days

Setting Concept Score

2.6

Read review by cptbeefalo

Posted 27 weeks 1 day ago

by cptbeefalo

Inspiring:

Originality:

Writing Quality:

Not bad. A few thoughts, in random order:

- the Rave sounds a little trite (like a bunch of goth kids with glow sticks), I mean who named them that and why? The description brings a mix of Reavers from Firefly with Masters of Orion 2 villains - the Antarens. Not terrible, but not seemingly that original.

- Why would any species have a fail-safe device that locks their OWN planets into another dimension? Very odd. Also, MOO 2 again, just in reverse.

- I like space settings, they are rare for the most part and lend themselves to tech trees and futures that can be very open-ended, which in turn leaves alot of options open for players. That said, I'm not sure this one is that original or that inspiring. The best I can think of for this system is the different techs and shields and such we could do for various species, but there are more original and better story settings we can use if we want to do that. I like the tech, cybernetic and genetic evolution aspects of this tale, and the no magic at all (something a bit different from most of the other submissions), but since we are looking for something to work on to then turn into a viable sellable game package, I just don't feel this has the legs for it.

Read review by Fenris

Posted 27 weeks 3 days ago

by Fenris

Inspiring:

Originality:

Writing Quality:

This seems to be a very solid SF setting. It hassome neat ideas, could offer a vast sandbox to explore (I like it when the settings are not too restrictive or too much focused on one specific campaign) and I like most of the ideas

I am not that fond of science fiction in general, so I gave it a lower inspiration rating, but still, this is a solid setting.

Read review by Satyr

Posted 28 weeks 1 day ago

by Satyr

Inspiring:

Originality:

Writing Quality:

As a Hard SF setting, I would fully support this. As a Space Opera setting I can hardly care for it. Still, there is little in here which I haven't seen somewhere else, so I don't think it is that innovative.

As with all of Zac Faust's settings I found this very hard to review, because there are many good ideas involved here, but they don't have a very RPG-heavy tone to them; they read and feel like the introduction to a novel's setting, or perhaps for a shared universe of writers, but I have troubles to find a good starting point for a campaign in here.

So, basically, this is a cool fictional setting, but not necessarily a very RPG-y one.

Read review by Riona Lionheart

Posted 28 weeks 2 days ago

by Riona Lionheart

Inspiring:

Originality:

Writing Quality:

Read review by chado

Posted 28 weeks 5 days ago

by chado

Inspiring:

Originality:

Writing Quality:

Although I would be the first to admit a bias favoring science fiction themed concepts, I am afraid to many of the ideas here seem like a rehash of other existing concepts. It is clear that the concept takes a fresh approach, but I just don't find key details that would make The Last Child stand out among the existing sci-fi games. I do think the concept could work with further detail. It may be that I simply am not seeing clearly the differences that would make the concept stand out. From what I am seeing here it is quite clear that you would be able to add further detail. The write up is well organized, includes good details, but what it lacks is something that would set it apart.

Read review by mikeb

Posted 29 weeks 4 days ago

by mikeb

Inspiring:

Originality:

Writing Quality:

See my earlier comment.

Read review by robosnake

Posted 44 weeks 6 days ago

by robosnake

Inspiring:

Originality:

Writing Quality:

Be sure to check out the spelling as you edit this setting. One thing that struck me as interesting are questions of post-human Evos, and I'd like this to play out in some way that isn't overt (physical) conflict. This is definitely a basic idea with a lot of implied complexity that isn't spelled out, so I'd like to see more of the things hinted at expanded upon. This is definitely a place where originality could come out.