Brand Jade Anubian

The Anubian Ambassador now has her copy of Jadepunk, which she ordered from the Reroll Store six days ago and received directly from the POD fabrication site today. The Anubian has learned to be wary of big heavy books ever since the "Starblazer Incident"; she thinks this one poses substantially less of an existential threat than her other current project by Piketty.

The Little Lady was surprised to see that the font is sepia-toned; she likes cuttlefish, so this pleased her. The Ambassador also reflected that this game could be used in other ways. She suggested that I could to run a setting like "Far West" using Jadepunk. Indeed, the Assets rules could be readily adopted to emulate many different kinds steampunk era inventions, whether or not they are fueled by jade. She suggested that the game could be used for all sorts of Westerns, as well as for martial arts dramas influenced by the Westerns.

Her most extraordinary idea was to go forward in time a bit and set an alt-Jadepunk game in the mid-20th Century. "I have such vivid memories of the Shanghai People's Commune during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Back then there were so many factions in China; all of them were armed. You never knew what would happen next. The intrigue! The folly! Imagine a campaign set during that turbulent era! Of course, most of the Aristocrats in that era were Party members. Or Scoundrels, pretending to be Aristocrats. Oh, the possibilities!"

Machine Weeds

Dandelion seed head - taken in Southwest Ohio. Photo by Greg Hume

Machine weeds crop up everywhere: lowtech worlds, industrial worlds, dead worlds, orbitals, and starships. Machines weeds may be big or small, and they are often biomimetic. Look for extraneous structures of all sorts cluttering the built environment. Many resemble beanstalks, power or data cords, or vines. Others resemble antennae, collector dishes, or keypads, displays, and control consoles.

A disseminative technology, machine weeds broadcast their seedlings from a variety of metallic and plastic articulations that resemble flowers, seed pods, shower heads, or strainers. These broadcast structures are often well-hidden well from prying eyes, lurking behind a photocopier or other control console, seeding inside an air handling system, or deep within the plumbing.

As long as there are machines nearby - even broken or primitive ones - machine weeds' living kipple will grow and spread. Machine weeds ablate existing structures in the built environment to add to their biomass. They can grow anywhere that there is metal or plastic, choking out functional machinery, draining power systems, often causing functional structures and mechanisms to weaken and collapse.

However, an array of machine weeds can sometimes express highly useful and novel functionalities. Such benefits are usually shortlived. Unless pruned and contained, a patch of machine weeds manifesting such emergent properties will progress toward a new, and destructive round of dissemination. Since this is a constant risk in proximity to machines, people working near them are advised to check their suits and equipment for extraneous buttons and tags - frequently.

OGL MECHANICS

Machine Weeds
Biomimetic replicators (inimical)

ASPECTS:

• High Concept: Biomimetic weed machines
• Trouble: What breaks machines hurts us
• Aspect: Our feeding breaks down machines
• Aspect: Sharp edges and brittle stems
• Aspect: Flower in dark places

APPROACHES

• Careful: +1
• Clever: +2 
• Flashy: +2
• Forceful: +1
• Quick: 0
• Sneaky: +3

STUNTS:

• Bloody Patch - Take +2 to Forceful Approach to Attack a living target with plastic and metal flails
• Disseminate - Take +2 to Sneaky Approach to Create an Advantage by contaminating an adjacent Zone
• Emergent Properties - Take +2 to Flashy Approach to Create an Advantage by revealing a novel functionality
• Failure Mode - Take +2 to Forceful Approach to Attack an adjacent machine, including robots, androids, and cyborgs

REFRESH: 2

Note: A patch of machine weeds takes up one or more Zones. The patch has one Consequence for every Zone it has colonized.

Vanessa Ives

Deck of Fridays 19: Clear Path

Welcome back to DECK OF FRIDAYS, our weekly feature here at FATE SF. We make a draw from the Deck of Fate, RPG Inspiration Cards, or another Aspect-generative randomizer. Then we do something interesting with it, using the Aspect as inspiration for a campaign or scenario seed, a situation, scene, location, NPC, thingie, etc.

This week's draw from the Deck of Fate is a card with the Aspect: Clear Path, a card with a 0 value. A scenario seed comes to mind.

***

It was a tough punching through the orbital sentries around Piranesi VII. There were thousands of them orbiting this dead world, waiting for intruders. We used dropships loaded with green troops to get their attention, while the carrier and its three escorts picked off the satellites. 

Clear path. 

We were happy that the three dropships with veteran troops made it down there. Of course, each dropship was sent to different points planetside. The mission was simple: find out if this planet had any inhabitants - really, anything of worth.

The atmosphere appeared to be breathable, but we kept our helmets on. We're not Omega House for sure, but we're not just stupid grunts either. Well-armed, we disembarked, and started our surveys and sweeps.

The entire planetary surface was a built environment. Ruins everywhere. Below that surface were galleries, stairways, more layers of structure. Lots of open space. Clear paths in all directions. 

Too many of them, in fact. The pings on deep radar show that this is a shellworld. Some of the deeper layers are still pressurized. They have exotic atmospheres, and things down there are moving.

We're going to be here for a while. 

Nine Novelists: What I've Read Before

Gankutsouo - see the Alfred Bester entry below

For my Nine Novels project, I will be reading a mix of classic SF authors from the 1950s. I thought I'd share a bit about what I have read by whom from the author list. Here goes:

• Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth - I have not read anything by them before, so The Space Merchants will be my first.

• Theodore Sturgeon - I have not read More Than Human or anything else by Sturgeon. I hear a lot of positive things about him though from other folks in the Second Foundation reading group.

• Leigh Brackett - I read a couple of Brackett's Skaith novels, back when I was a kid.  But I haven't read The Long Tomorrow. Brackett wrote the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back, The Big Sleep and other films. She's the only female author in this two volume collection. The companion essay for her novel is by Nicola Griffith, another author I admire.

• Richard Matheson - Every October/November the Second Foundation reads a horror author, and this Fall I read I Am Legend, the wonderful SF vampire novel that inspired three different movies. This Fall, I also read some of his short stories, which I really enjoyed. I am looking forward to The Shrinking Man, which I haven't read yet.

• Robert A. Heinlein - Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky was one of the first SF novels I read, and a definite inspiration for Project Generations. I read - and loved - Starship Troopers as a kid, and read it again about a year ago. Good stuff. I also read some of the Lazarus Long stories when I was a kid. I recently read Stranger in a Strange Land for the first time, which I thought was pretty silly and superficial for something that supposedly offered a blueprint for an alternative to mainstream society. When it comes to sex and sexuality, Heinlein is no Samuel R. Delaney. I have not read Double Star, and have heard nothing about it. But I am looking forward to this one. Heinlein frequently infuruates, but he is always interesting. And no, I am not a fascist or one of their weak-willed siblings, a libertarian.

• Alfred Bester - I am a big B5 fan, so you would think I would have read Bester by now. I mean really, what Marxist or anarchist hasn't? I am really looking forward to reading The Stars My Destination, which is an SF remake of the Count of Monte Cristo. Or rather the first SF remake of the Count of Monte Cristo, since we more recently we have also recently seen another SFnal remake, the beautiful anime Gankutsuou.

• James Blish - I have not read A Case of Conscience, but Spock Must Die! was one of the first SF books I ever read. After Blish had the Organians deprive the Klingons of spaceflight for a good long while, I believe Paramount decided it needed some content control for Star Trek novelizations. I am looking forward to reading this classic work.

• Algis Budrys - I have not read Who? or anything else by this author, who has the most mysterious name on the list. I've never heard anyone I know recommend or discuss his work either. So I have no idea what to expect with this one.

• Fritz Leiber - Another Second Foundation favorite, I have read a fair amount of Leiber, including The Wanderer, the first multiperspective disaster novel (about a Big Dumb Object), and some of his short stories (mostly Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser ones) so I am really looking forward to reading The Big Time.

9 Months, 9 Novels, 9+ Posts

We're starting a new project this May at FATE SF. We now have a copy of the two volume slipcased American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, edited by Gary K. Wolfe. This Library of America edition is linked to a special website with guest commentaries by several luminaries of contemporary SF, focusing on the works in the series.

Our plan is to read one novel per month, proceeding in order through the two-volume set. We will write at least one blog post on each novel, finding something suitably Fatey to carry-on about with each book.

The project officially begins after the Second Foundation reading group this coming Sunday, which is focused on the work of feminist and Marxist SF author Eleanor Arnason. That's because I need to read some more of Eleanor's Big Mama Stories before this weekend's gathering.

The first of the Nine Novels (as I am tagging this series of posts) is The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth. I've been wanting to read this one for a long time, so I'm looking forward to starting the project!

Your Singularity Has Been Forecasted

FATE SF has been a bit quiet over the last week. I have been out of town for work. One of the really cool things about my job is that I am a licensed facilitator of a strategic exploration tool called the Implications Wheel. I get to help people scout out the future. No time machine is involved; just a time-tested method, some software, and interested people.

The I-Wheel has been around for 30+ years. It helped IBM identify the PC as a potential "division maker" product line. It helped another company identify a product which could have killed its customers. With a stunning degree of accuracy, the Implications Wheel identified the majority of features of e-readers more than 10 years before these products began to hit the market.

As the video above describes, Joel Barker's Implications Wheel helps people scout out the future with a structured process that taps into the wisdom of crowds. It can be used to explore almost any kind of change. It generates "trees" of possible implications (including conflicting ones) each of which is scored for its likelihood and desirability from a particular point of view selected for the exploration. The result is a color-coded map of implications, and the relationships between them.

One of the questions that has come up for me time and again with the I-Wheel is the question of the Singularity. Could one or more technological innovations occur in quick succession and create a future so radically unpredictable that people on the cis-side of the change cannot predict what life would be like on the trans-side of the change?

In transhumanist SF, and in related fandoms, gaming, and advocacy, the concept of the Singularity is often taken as a given. This is in spite of the fact that some of the movement's pioneers such as J.D. Bernal, Olaf Stapledon, and Cordwainer Smith didn't work with this concept at all.

Which brings me back to the I-Wheel. Explorations using the Implications Wheel push in the opposite direction from the Singularity assumption. That is, they assume that any future state resulting from a change CAN be anticipated if you use the right method and have sufficient time* to explore the implications of a change carefully. If you cannot anticipate the results of a change, well, that's on you.

*A few days for set-up, and a couple days for facilitation.