{"id":592,"date":"2008-12-18T00:32:15","date_gmt":"2008-12-18T03:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/?p=592"},"modified":"2008-12-18T00:32:15","modified_gmt":"2008-12-18T03:32:15","slug":"human-contact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/2008\/human-contact","title":{"rendered":"Human Contact"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Evolution<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m in a regular game right now called Human Contact, also with Rob Bohl, and with Meg and Vincent Baker. We\u2019re using the resolution rules from the imminent Apocalypse World<\/a>, combined with the Owe List and Oracles from the Anthology Engine (as used in In a Wicked Age…<\/a> and Beowulf<\/a>). We\u2019re making up Oracle elements on the fly and tossing them into a bag, pulling them out at a slower rate than we\u2019re writing them. It\u2019s working quite well. Because of the Oracle system, we\u2019ve got a shit ton of characters, so I\u2019ll give only broad strokes:<\/p>\n

At some point, Humanity sent out starships to every conceivable humanly-habitable planet. They would take hundreds or thousands of years to arrive, and when they did arrive, they\u2019d have no way of communicating home. Sometimes, colonies would be close enough to each other that they would be in contact, perhaps more than one planet in a system, or colonies on separate continents of a planet. Usually, a colony would be lost. A million years have passed since that time. Each planet that had survivors has grown its own humans. Some remember their ancestry. Some don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

One that does is the Graciles. Inheriting their Zulu names and developing a powerful academic culture, they explore the galaxy with a network of wormholes, finding and contacting their fellow humans. They have tatooed dark skin \u2014 jewelry is impractical in 0-G \u2014 and are tall and gangly. They have opposable toes. Their clothing is subdued, their lives centuries long, their technology familiar but flawless. They are masters of the strength:mass ratio, having developed gossamer structures of titanic strength and a ubiquitous communication network. Their society is a meritocracy based on their scientific work.<\/p>\n

Another group, called the Robusts, developed cities and maybe even local spaceflight, but has since disregarded those technologies as irrelevant. Instead, they have the Dirt, a thin information-saturated crust covering the six continents of the world. It feeds them endocrinal information about their own pasts, each other, their quarry. They live in tribes of a few dozen. They are physically strong (at least compared to the Graciles, many of whom have been wounded accidentally when trying to take liberties with Robusts), they are confident of their place in their world, and they possess information about their existence in the world that clearly contradicts the Graciles\u2019 records but is no less credible. The Robusts have shown themselves quite capable of eliminating the Graciles, but hold themselves in reserve, hoping for a peaceful exchange with their cousins, whom they believe left them in the world to develop into better people. Personally, I\u2019m hoping the Dirt makes it off the planet. It\u2019s got some sort of apocalyptic agenda, itself. It\u2019s some sort of vast endocrinal system.<\/p>\n

One episode was composed entirely of a debate over academic credentials. Another was what society had the right to raise a baby borne of a Gracile and fathered by a Robust. There’s always was a lot on the line.<\/p>\n

Our principles in designing this world are that:<\/p>\n