After the Last Age - A Post-Post Apocalypse RP

Quiet One

My God! It's full of Stars.
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Scifi, some fantasy, Mature. Anything that gets my gears going. Not opposed to Yaoi or Yuri.
Hello, everyone. I have an idea for a roleplay in a far future. The setting is thousands of years later. Long ago humanity passed the Singularity - where artificial intelligence becomes on par with human intelligence - and as a result shortly after this grand development technology spiraled out of control. Genetic modification, nanobots, AI machines, cybernetic enhancements, new energy sources, quantum technologies - all these breakthroughs blossomed basically all at once. As a result, culture became more and more interwoven with technology and power being in the hands of just about everyone. Lots of chaos, some governments trying to reign in control of these breakthroughs, others trying to fight for the free choice of the people to abuse all this power. Eventually, after a few devastating wars, society around the world collapsed and the world was forever changed.

Humanity is pushed back to the Stone Age culturally, but of course there's so much relic technology around that things aren't as primitive this time around. There are some small cities built in the ruins of Old World cities or in the giant trees, but other humans have formed tribes called Noms - nomads that travel in convoys of modified cars and horses. Nanobots have integrated themselves into every living thing on the planet. Trees are reinforced with nanobot-steel and thus stand taller than any skyscraper. Giant insects, animals and even people have these worked into their body, and humans have figured out how to use this nanotech for healing and enhancing their strength or durability. Some nanobots have pooled together in massive marshes and gained sentience, becoming semi-liquid metal machines that have little regard or respect to their former human masters. Nanobots function a lot like magic in this world.

There's also some leftover genetic tech sitting around. Rapidly accelerated CRISPRs, these tubes of tech can take a gene from a living animal and mix it with a character with a little help. It helps that genetic modification is evident in everything. All foods are the evolved descendants of GMOs, animals that were once pets are now roaming the wild with all their modifications. Monsters created by people who wanted to play god wreak havoc every now and then.

Cybernetic mods are still prevalent too, but they aren't as long-lasting as they used to be because no one knows how to build new parts for these incredibly advanced bionics. They are, however, very useful, including extra storage in hollow points, enhanced jumping, and built-in weapons.

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So this is my world. I just have one problem - I'm struggling to come up with a plot for it. One idea I had was that everyone plays characters that were put in stasis until one of the old wars ended. They were supposed to be in hibernation for 25 years, but due to some errors emerge 5200 years later in the future described. The lab they were put in is underground, and after all this time their brains have failed to hold onto most of their memories about who they were, so everyone has amnesia. Good news, the techies planned for this and built a back-up modem with all their memories in it. Bad news, it's 5200 years in the future. If you think that data isn't corrupted beyond use, you're crazy. So they have to rebuild their lives from nothing in a world completely foreign to them.

The bad news with this plot is that there's not much meat to it once they get comfortable. I'm looking A) for interest in this idea and B) for any possible plots we could guide characters through. Feel free to leave any questions along with interest, please.
 
I'm interested, as for ideas for a plot? This seems like a very open ended RP so the possibilities are limitless
 
@Ur Degaton Thanks for expressing interest. The plot possibilities is what originally had me concerned, but I've been thinking and wondering if it'd be good to make this an episodic adventure. Like one "chapter" or "season" or whatever we want to call it we're doing one thing, and then when we finish we do something totally different.
 
@Ur Degaton Thanks for expressing interest. The plot possibilities is what originally had me concerned, but I've been thinking and wondering if it'd be good to make this an episodic adventure. Like one "chapter" or "season" or whatever we want to call it we're doing one thing, and then when we finish we do something totally different.
I'm down with that, having it be episodic would help the story flow easier. Instead of characters doing something and then turning around and doing something else, having the adventures cut into chapters will help keep things organized.
 
I guess I have a few questions. You said we're back to the stone age in a cultural sense - how exactly do you mean? For example, is there any modicum of language? If so, how will we interact with what I shall call the 'natives' since language has probably changed quite a bit? How would they interact with one another? Is the general structure of a community a small family/tribe?

How are nanomachines used? I know you said like magic, but did you have an actual explanation of how they are manipulated? Or is it just magic?

Bionics are still prevalent, but I assume cannot be made. So then are they implanted when needed and removed from the dead? What happens if a bionic breaks?

I might come up with more, but that's a few things that came up. And don't worry if you can't answer them all right away, because I know that feeling.
 
@Mythy the Dragon-Wolf well, it's probably somewhere between Stone Age and Bronze Age. We probably know how to forge metal, but not build advanced tech. When I say that it's primitive from a cultural angle, I sort of meant stuff like there's no money and everything's done by a barter system, farming is rare if not completely non-existent, there's very little in the way of structured government or formal education...stuff like that. The language thing is actually a good question I'm struggling to come up with a practical answer for. I could handwave that issue and just say they speak English, but I'm not happy with that without at least SOME explanation. One thing I considered was that recordings of our languages made them last much longer in a purer form, so that even though some words and phrases are foreign to the main characters, they'd still get the gist. But if you want, suppose I could try to throw together a hodge-podge future language. I've kind of done it before (but only with swear words).

The nanobots can be reprogrammed using various pieces of equipment. One a sort of "alchemist table" that breaks down materials into their base elements then uses the nanobots to rebuild into certain structures. Another is a sort of manacle that's strapped to the wrist and programs the nanobots about to go into you to do certain things, like reinforce muscles or monitor your health. The people using this equipment don't understand how it works, only how to use it, so to them it's essentially magic. It helps that this stuff is practically indestructible.

Yes for the first part. Bionics are essentially stripped from the dead and traded away (unless there's some cultural thing like the chief of a Nom tribe must have a bionic arm). When a bionic breaks you can either get lucky and find a trader that specializes in bionic parts - likely having raided an abandoned factory for the materials - or you have to improvise and use parts from other machines and just make it work. The bionic gets uglier, less functional, and often more complex over time as a result, but it's kind of the only option.

Any more feel free to ask.
 
Hm... I'll tentatively add in my interest, see how this goes.
 
I'm interested! I'm getting a sort of horizon zero Dawn meets Repo: the Genetic Opera kind of vibe
 
Horizon Zero Dawn was a big inspiration, yes. Glad you're interested!
 
@Quiet One One idea I just had with the language is that, if society was so advanced, it may not be too much of a stretch to say that everyone spoke one sort of hybridized language. That way we can understand the natives (mostly) and they can (mostly) understand us. If that makes sense?
 
So...the people who have been in stasis for more than 5,000 years are speaking the same hybridized language as tribes post the collapse of society? I can imagine everyone in the new world speaking the same tongue - to a stretch - but maybe have a grace period where the characters learn it? Or can just cheat and put a language download in
 
I know language evolves quickly, but I think that would also slow down with the collapse. Granted, there would of course be terms that we'd have no clue what they are at first, but if the meat of the language is similar we can at least have something to start with
 
Hm...I definitely see a lot of shared words, so maybe mostly the same can work. I'll have to make up some slang and hybrid words, but only having to do a few is much better than having to do that with a whole language. I can knock that out in a weekend.
 
Considering that these "Wars" you mentioned, regressed humanity into a psuedo-stone age. It makes me wonder just what exactly happened to cause such a regression to happen? Was it by nuclear war? Years of constant conflict that eventually collapsed society? Or is it just a mystery to be uncovered?
 
Partly mystery, but remember what I said about the pools of nanobots gaining sentience? Well one of the factors in the collapse is that the machines humans were using decided to rebel. And I don't mean they waged man vs machine war on humans. I mean they just turned themselves off and refused to work for them anymore (AI is a little wiser than human intelligence). This isn't the sole cause for the collapse, but it's one of many causes.

The exact chain of events I wanted to keep vague, and since they happened thousands of years ago, I figured they didn't matter as much as the details of the present our characters find themselves in.
 
So...got three right now. How many do we want in this before I start making the OOC and eventually IC threads? I personally would like to see at least a couple more interested members first.
 
So...got three right now. How many do we want in this before I start making the OOC and eventually IC threads? I personally would like to see at least a couple more interested members first.
Really it's up to how many you want, and how comfortable you are putting the game off until you get that many.
 
Sounds magical