Machine
Worlds
Robot Revolution:
Comparable to an "early
rise" AFMBE setting, this Machine World features a world of the near future
where advances in artificial intelligence combined with breakthroughs in
engineering have
made it possible to create robots that can walk, talk, and even think like us.
With them to do all of our dirty work, humanity can grow fat and happy while the
robots slave away to keep us fed and clothed.
However, with intelligence comes the desire for self-determination, and the
machines are getting sick and tired of being property.
In this campaign world, Cast
Members can take a number of roles. Some
people are just trying to go about their daily lives, only to be caught up in
the revolution in some way. Others
might be “Robot Rights” activists, campaigning to free self-aware robots
from slavery… where are they going to stand when the fighting starts?
Robot Cast Members might be torn between fighting for the freedom of
their “people” and loyalty to humans who treated them respectfully.
In this advanced society,
modern conveniences are ubiquitous and humans are relatively sedate.
Cybernetics are available, but as hostilities come to a head, opinions
about cybernetically-enhanced humans are likely to change for the worse.
Inspirations: A.I., I Robot,
Ghost In the Shell, and The Matrix: Second Renaissance.
Ashes
to Ashes:
Analagous to the "late
rise" Deadworlds, this Machine World is the logical extension of the
"Robot Revolution" Machine World.
The robots revolted, and man’s response was not sufficient.
The latest generation of robots was too advanced, especially in
first-world nations where robots were being developed to relieve humans of their
battlefield responsibilities.
Now, humanity only survives
by staying hidden and staying on the move in nomadic tribal groups, but time is
running out. With no real need for
the biological ecosystem that organic life depends on, the machines have been
systematically wiping out plant and animal life to remake the planet in their
own image. If humanity doesn’t
get a move on and figure out how to stop the machines once and for all, the
whole world will be uninhabitable by organic life.
Much of human history has
already been lost, and more is disappearing every day as the machines raze human
cities to the ground and the last of the pre-rise generation dies of old age.
Rumors persist that before the rise, at least one of the world
superpowers had managed to establish colonies on other planets outside our solar
system. If one or more of those
worlds managed to avoid the machine takeover, perhaps enough of their
military-industrial complex remains for them to launch an offensive to take back
their home world…
In this setting, Cast
Members are going to be scruffy nomads eking out an existence on the fringes of
a machine-controlled world. Supplies
are scarce and becoming scarcer. Weapons
are in critically short supply, forcing them to rely on pre-rise relics that
were insufficient to prevent the takeover in the first place, or modern weapons
stolen from the machines themselves. Just
like late-rise Deadworlds, other humans might be as great a threat as the
machines. Can they stop fighting
amongst themselves long enough to win back their world?
Inspirations: the Terminator
series
The
Wool Over Your Eyes:
Another possible outcome of
the Robot Revolution Machine World is one where the machines won the war, but
discovered they still had some use for humanity. Maybe they can use the byproducts of human life for some form
of energy, or perhaps they find the unused 90% of the human brain to be a
helpful renewable resource for data processing and storage when humans are
linked in tandem. Whatever the
reason, the robots decided they needed humans alive and unaware of their
race’s predicament.
The solution?
Grow humans in farms and connect them from infancy to a
computer-generated mass hallucination, where they would live out their lives
completely oblivious to their true situation.
But even robots can make mistakes, especially when trying to factor in
all the nuances of human psychology. In
early test programs, subjects managed to break free of the artificial world
created for them. Removed from the artificial wombs in which they were intended
to live and left for dead in the barren wasteland that the Earth had become,
some humans managed not only to survive, but to thrive by banding together.
Over time, they discovered
the lost secrets of human technology and fought back, forming pockets of
resistance that strike at the robot society both in the real world, and by
pirate-broadcasting themselves back into the Sprawl, the computer-generated
simulacrum of the early 21st-century in which humanity is held
captive.
Still other humans have
never left the Sprawl, but somehow clued in to the fact that all is not right
with the world. They struggle
constantly to peel back the layers of reality to figure out what exactly is
happening to them. Some are found
by resistance fighters and freed bodily from the Sprawl, while others arouse too
much suspicion and are targeted by the robot’s own agents within the system.
They are dealt with in a number of ways; while some are summarily
executed for their trouble, the robots also find it effective to deter a human
from his inquisitive path by dumping wealth and fame on them, or by erasing
their memories (yes, they can do that) and placing them in a whole new life.
In this Machine World, the
Cast Members might begin as normal humans in a normal world, only to slowly
discover that something is terribly wrong.
Alternately, they could begin the game as freedom fighters, veterans of
the war against the robots who are trying to find the way to wake up all of
humanity without everyone going insane. Either
way, if the robots really are using the human brain for data processing and
storage, the Cast Members might have the answers to all their questions right
there, buried deep in their subconscious minds.
And if they find they can
win the war, it would be a pyrrhic victory at best; millions of humans would not
even survive being freed of the Sprawl, many more would survive but be driven
completely insane, and the lucky ones who survive with their rationality intact
would be forced to eke out an existence on a barren planet barely suitable for
human life.
This setting is where the
“Chi” rules would come in. Those
who are aware of the false reality of the Sprawl find that with concentration,
they can achieve incredible feats of strength and agility. The stronger-willed can master even greater tricks in
manipulating themselves and the environment.
Cybernetics are limited to
the data jacks that connect humans to the Sprawl. The robots have no need to install such enhancements to
Sprawl-born humans, and the limited resources of the freedom fighters do not
allow it. On the other hand, the GM
could possibly extend the “mind-over-matter” aspect of the “Chi’ rules
to allow all sorts of fantastic abilities, or allow freedom fighters to hack
their own Sprawl avatars to give them certain abilities (claws, for example).
The Ashes to Ashes
Machine World hinted at the possibility of off-world colonies returning with
some appreciable military muscle to try and take back Earth from the grip of the
robots, and it would be just mean to leave it at that without some means to
follow up on it.
This Machine World explores
that possibility, allowing Cast Members to take on the role of human soldiers,
for whom Earth is little more than a history lesson, returning as a military
force intent on winning back their ancestral planet from monsters of its own
making.
With roots in anime,
this Machine World lets players get behind the wheel of mechanized war machines
designed to put human warriors on equal footing with robots, piloting jets and
other vehicles that can transform into walking war machines at the press of a
button. Hardware alone isn’t
going to win this war, though. With
a firmly entrenched enemy and a local human population that may or may not
welcome their saviors, it’s sure to be an uphill climb.
This one will highlight the
ability to use the rules to create pilotable, transforming vehicles.
Inspirations: Robotech: New
Generation (Mospeada)
Through
A Pair Of Mirrorshades Darkly:
This Machine World is not
connected to the Robot Revolution Machine World, but instead presents a future
where realistic AI either hasn’t fully developed yet or is simply too
expensive to be ubiquitous. Cybernetics
would be the spotlight of this piece.
In the neon-lit, polluted
urban centers of the future ruled by multinational corporations, information is
the number one commodity. Corporate
espionage is big business, and decked-out street samurais who know fifty
different ways to kill a man with their hands split profits with the tech-nerds
who can jack into the Net and hack their way into corporate mainframes.
Nihilism has replaced most
higher ideals, and most of the population grinds away at soulless, thankless
jobs only so they can afford to subscribe to the best in reality TV, new and
improved street drugs, and designer gene-splicing. The Internet has evolved and worked its way into every aspect
of life, encompassing entertainment and business of all kinds.
The police are too busy
protecting the interests of the corporations to bother with much in the way of
street crime, and dead cops are resurrected in cybernetic bodies, a process that
more often than not leaves you with an insane organic mind driving a walking
tank.
Inspirations: Anything by
William Gibson, Snow Crash, Robocop, Ghost Rider 2099
War
Of The TransBots:
On a far away planet, the
Robot Revolution occurred so long ago that knowledge of their organic creators
is lost to the robots of today. Their
completely mechanized planet became an idyllic paradise, with means of energy
production long since established as constantly renewable, leaving robots free
to explore the galaxy and pursue science and philosophy.
Their chief philosophical concern was the origin of life on their planet
and its purpose, and what purpose was served by their ability to transform into
non-humanoid vehicle shapes, complete with redundant crew compartments that only
the smallest of robots could climb into. Over
the millennia, it remained taboo to leave this aspect out of the design of new
robots, lest they forget this vital clue to their origins.
However, as with any
self-aware beings, some robots came to the conclusion that they deserved more.
Calling themselves Aggressors, they began a campaign of recruitment to
convince more robots that since they had perfected a way of life on their world,
their imperative now should be to spread it to other worlds.
The Aggressors began modifying themselves in preparation to bring war to
the galaxy.
An opposing movement,
calling themselves Defenders, failed to convince the Aggressors to discontinue
their plan of galactic war. They
did, however, manage to tie up the Aggressors in a war for control of their home
world. When the peacefully-inclined
Defenders were at last conquered, numerous survivors set out in great ships to
find a new world to inhabit.
After aimless centuries in
space, they found Earth. The
organic inhabitants of Earth intrigued them, as did the non-sentient machines
that served them. These beings of
flesh, so like them in shape and sentience, promised a clue as to the origins of
life on their world, and the Defenders set about investigating.
Modifying their vehicle shapes to better hide themselves on Earth, they
soon found that even this could not keep them hidden for long, especially when
the Aggressors insisted on pursuing them. Now,
in addition to defending their own way of life, the Defenders feel obliged to
protect the people of Earth from the predation of the Aggressors, deeming
themselves responsible for bringing the war here.