GURPS 4th edition. Future History

58 Pages·2021·4.08 MB·English

by  William H. Stoddard

TM
Written by
WILLIAM H. STODDARD
Edited by NIKOLA VRTIS
Illustrated by PAUL DALY,
LOKARIAN, FRED RAWLES,
and DAN SMITH
Additional Material by
KENNETH HITE, DAVID L. PULVER,
and CHRISTOPHER R. RICE
GURPS System Design z STEVE JACKSON Chief Executive Officer z PHILIP REED
GURPS Line Editor z SEAN PUNCH Chief Creative Officer z SAM MITSCHKE
GURPS Project Manager z STEVEN MARSH Chief Operating Officer z SUSAN BUENO
Production Artist and Indexer z NIKOLA VRTIS Director of Sales z ROSS JEPSON
GURPS FAQ Maintainer z Page Design z PHIL REED and JUSTIN DE WITT
VICKY “MOLOKH” KOLENKO Art Direction and Prepress Checker z NIKOLA VRTIS
Reviewers: Roger Burton West, Peter V. Dell’Orto, and Phil Masters
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STEVE JACKSON GAMES
Stock #37-0376 Version 1.0 – August 2021
®
C
ontents
IntroductIon . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Atmospheric Change ..........20 Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
About GURPS ................3 Stellar Evolution .............21 locAtion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Recommended Books ..........3 The Human Future............21 Borrowed History .............39
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 cycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 exposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Cycles in Societies ............22
1 . Future tense . . . . . . . . . 4 Economic Cycles...........22 situAtions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Defining the genre . . . . . . . . . . 4 Generational Cycles ........22 texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
ApproAches to the future . . . . . 4 Civilizational Cycles ........23 6 . characters . . . . . . . . . . 42
Extrapolation.................4 Illuminated Cycles ............23
Speculation...................5 Natural Cycles ...............23 motives AnD themes . . . . . . . . . 42
Yesterday’s Tomorrows ..........5 Climate Cycles.............24 rAce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
The Supercontinent Cycle ...24 Infomorphs and Cybershells....43
perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Near Future...............6 extreme events . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Visitors .....................43
The Middle Future.............6 Natural Disasters . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 sociAl BAckgrounD . . . . . . . . . . 44
The Far Future................6 Astronomical Disasters......25 chArActer trAits . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Genres.......................7 Asteroidal Impacts..........25 Advantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44
using the future . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Effects of Gravity...........26 Extended Lifespan .........44
Tidal Effects .............26 Jumper...................44
2 . statIcs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Planetary Disruption ......26 Longevity.................44
scAle AnD technology . . . . . . . . 8 Orbital Perturbation.......26 Perks ....................44
Technological Disasters .....27 Resistant .................44
Examples ....................8
Plagues and Invasive Species ...27 Unaging..................44
What Tech Level Is Earth? .......9
Mutants, Superbeings, Unusual Background .......45
physicAl setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 and the Singularity .........28 Disadvantages................45
Future Earth..................9
Violence ....................28 Odious Personal Habits .....45
Future Solar System ..........10
Innovations..................29 Secret....................45
Astronomical Engineering ......10
Financing Projects ............29 Unusual Biochemistry ......45
Interstellar Milieu ............10
Ethnogenesis ................29 Skills.......................45
Transcendence................11
Ontological Changes ..........30 Anthropology..............45
Biosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Area Knowledge ...........45
Evolved Life .................11 4 . dynamIcs . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Expert Skill ...............46
Engineered Life ..............12 structure AnD Agency . . . . . . . 31 Physiology Modifiers ........46
Mechanospheres ..............12 Planned History ..............31 Linguistics................46
Alien Biotas .................12 forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 templAtes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
populAtions Population Pressure...........32 Racial Templates .............46
AnD settlements . . . . . . . . 13 Economic Activity ............33 Adaptive..................46
Carrying Capacity ............13 Beliefs......................33 Homo Superior............46
Local Communities ...........13 Military Power ...............34 Prosthetic Body............47
Mobile Populations............14 Battle and Logistics .........34 Upgrade..................47
Hierarchies of Settlements .....14 Military Budget Occupational Templates .......47
sociAl orgAnizAtion . . . . . . . . . 15 Factor Table............35 Aristocrat.................47
Divergent Societies ...........15 conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48
Alien Societies ...............16 The Individual Level ..........35 Emissary .................48
The Societal Level ............36 Future Primitive ...........49
3 . KInetIcs . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Very-Long-Term Goals .......36 Habitat Manager...........49
DirectionAlity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 War .....................36 Imperial Agent.............50
Population Growth ...........18 Relative Troop Planner ..................50
Technology and Energy........18 Strength Table ..........37 Reliquarian ...............51
Knowledge ..................19 Space Entrepreneur ........51
The Kardashev Scale...........19 5 . campaIgns and Wastelander...............52
Resources...................19 presentatIon . . . . . . . . 38
Ecological Succession .........20 chAnges of stAte . . . . . . . . . . . 37 BIBlIography . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Biological Evolution ..........20
theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
C 2
ontents
I
ntroduCtIon
GURPS Future History is a guide to the creation of imagi- histories that may grow out of technologies that haven’t yet
nary futures, emphasizing society, culture, and the forces that been invented: in GURPS terms, TL9-12.
shape them. This supplement also gives tips for how to role- In the third place, it doesn’t limit itself to higher tech lev-
play in such futures. els. An imagined future can just as well involve catastrophic
In the first place, this volume complements GURPS Space. or gradual technological retrogression, or human near extinc-
It’s likely that most of humanity’s ventures into space have tion and the survivors’ creation of new civilizations, or even
not yet happened. Running games focused on such ventures actual human extinction and the appearance of new sapient
calls for envisioning the people and societies that pursue races. Any of these situations will require the use of older tech-
them – and the new societies that they may give birth to. nologies, either as a stable tech level or on the way back to
In the second place, it parallels GURPS Infinite Worlds. advanced technology. So, it relies on all of GURPS Low-Tech,
Like that book, it provides guidelines for inventing plausible High-Tech, Ultra-Tech, and Bio-Tech.
histories. But where GURPS Infinite Worlds is about histories Future history as a literary form goes back to Mary Shelley’s
that might have happened, GURPS Future History is about The Last Man (originally published 1826). The philosopher
histories that have not yet happened. In particular, it looks at Auguste Comte (1798-1857) wrote plans for a future world
guided by his nontheological Religion of Humanity.
Later, such groups as the Russian Cosmists, the
Italian Futurists, and the American Technocrats
A GURPS
Bout actively tried to bring about their specific visions of
the future. Since then, the future has proven less easy
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either to control or to predict than was once imag-
players. We can be reached by email: [email protected].
ined. But the idea of the future is increasingly part of
Our address is SJ Games, P.O. Box 18957, Austin, TX 78760.
popular culture, and future history remains a viable
Resources include:
genre for literature, visual media – and games.
New supplements and adventures. GURPS continues to The idea that the future will have a history isn’t
grow – see what’s new at gurps.sjgames.com. inevitable. Many religions look instead to a miracu-
Warehouse 23. Our online store offers GURPS print items, lous divine intervention that would bring history to an
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Warehouse 23! Just head over to warehouse23.com. would increase in the near future to a point where
Pyramid (pyramid.sjgames.com). For 10 years, our PDF change was too fast to be predicted. There is also the
magazine Pyramid included new rules and articles for GURPS, grim possibility of planetary catastrophe bringing
plus systemless locations, adventures, and more. The entire 122- both history and humanity to an end. But this book
issue library is available at Warehouse 23! assumes that we still have a future, and explores what
Internet. To discuss GURPS with our staff and your fellow that future might be like.
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join us at facebook.com/sjgames or twitter.com/sjgames. r B
eCommended ooks
Share your brief campaign teasers with #GURPShook on Twit-
ter. Or explore that hashtag for ideas to add to your own game! If you want to run a campaign set in a high-tech
The web page for GURPS Future History can be found at future, you will want GURPS Ultra-Tech and, if it
gurps.sjgames.com/futurehistory. includes interplanetary or interstellar travel, GURPS
Store Finder (storefinder.sjgames.com): Discover nearby Space. For campaigns set in technologically regressive
places to buy GURPS items and other Steve Jackson Games futures, at least one of GURPS Low-Tech or GURPS
products. Local shops are great places to play our games and High-Tech will be useful.
meet fellow gamers!
Bibliographies. Bibliographies are a great resource for find- A A
Bout the uthor
ing more of what you love! We’ve added them to many GURPS
book web pages with links to help you find the next perfect ele- William H. Stoddard lives in Lawrence, Kansas
ment for your game. with his wife Carol and their cat Macavity. He has
Errata. Everyone makes mistakes, including us – but we do traveled in time to a world very different from his
our best to fix our errors. Errata pages for GURPS releases are native era, where he has access to technologies once
available at sjgames.com/errata/gurps. only dreamed of, including devices that he used in
writing this book. He has read science fiction, includ-
Rules and statistics in this book are specifically for the
ing histories of the future, as long as he can remem-
GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition. Page references that begin
ber. He has run 14 campaigns in GURPS and has been
with B refer to that book, not this one.
writing for it since the start of the third millennium.
I 3
ntroduCtIon
C o
hApter ne
F t
uture ense
What makes a story “science fiction”? If you asked peo- GURPS already provides a detailed treatment of outer
ple who don’t read or watch much (or any) science fiction, space, in GURPS Space and other supplements. But it hasn’t
you’d get two main answers: science fiction is stories set in gone into the future in as much depth, up to now. GURPS
outer space or in the future. Both of these do describe a lot Ultra-Tech examines possible future technologies; but it
of science fiction stories. Many stories are actually both: doesn’t provide much historical, social, or cultural context for
When science fiction emerged as a genre, going into space those technologies – the focus of “soft science fiction,” where
was in the future. A complete treatment of the genre needs to “hard science fiction” emphasizes science and technology. For
include other themes, such as marvelous inventions, people this, we need to explore future history, the subgenre that looks
with strange powers, and cyberspace; but it certainly has to at the actual life of the future, from daily routines to the rise
cover outer space and the future. and fall of civilizations.
d g
eFInIng the enre
In the broadest sense, any story that takes place in the Beyond that, there’s the type of fiction that Heinlein cre-
future could be considered a future history. Even if it’s a sim- ated in his Future History series: a series of connected sto-
ple adventure story, its characters have a goal to attain, and ries and novels, sharing a common background, but set at
often an opposition to struggle against; and they may have different times and showing how that background changed
jobs, or resources, or an organization that gives them missions over time, sometimes as a result of the protagonists’ actions.
to carry out. Whatever the author says or hints about these It’s hard to do this in a single book – and even harder not
provides some sort of sketch of what the future is like. to abandon ordinary elements of fiction such as plot and
However, serious treatments of future settings go further characterization in doing so (as Stapledon did in his Last
than this. Asimov distinguished three broad types of science and First Men, whose account of future humanity spanned
fiction: the action/adventure story, the gadget story, and the two billion years). For the same reason, it’s hard to run a
social science fiction story. (This list may not cover all of sci- campaign that covers a long span of historical change. But
ence fiction; there are stories about the nature and destiny working out a future history, as Heinlein did, can provide
of the cosmos, such as Asimov’s own “The Last Question” a more fully thought out setting for a story or a game. That
or Stapledon’s Star Maker, that seem to form a category of working out, and that specialized fictional genre, will be the
their own.) Some stories attempt to portray future societies main focus of this supplement.
in depth, as a historian would portray a society of the past, A form that isn’t future history, but owes something to it, is
seeking to understand how it functioned and what made it the story of time travelers from the future to the present trying
what it was. In GURPS terms, they describe a setting’s culture, to bring about a different future – or to prevent this from being
laws and customs, government type, economics, and technol- done. This is common in video works such as Continuum,
ogy (pp. B505-519). Any story that’s primarily future history Terminator, and Twelve Monkeys.
addresses these issues.
A F
pproAChes to the uture
To tell stories set in the future, you need to a no-miracle future. The extrapolative
have a concept of the future. There are two writer identifies trends that have been
main approaches to getting to such a con- acting in the present and the recent
cept: extrapolation and speculation. past (see Directionality, pp. 17-21,
and Cycles, pp. 21-24) and projects
e them forward. This is also the typical
xtrApolAtIon
method of futurology as an academic
Extrapolation is an approach to the future field, in variants ranging from back-
that says, “If this goes on . . .” In the terms of-the-envelope estimates to multi-
used on p. 29 of GURPS Space, it projects dimensional computer models.
F t 4
uture ense
Such projections don’t necessarily turn out to be right! The such as the discovery of a species thought to be extinct in
futurologist may not have identified all the relevant trends; some remote place, or the rise of a small country with few
or they may not have accurate statistical data; or they may resources to a great power.
have chosen the wrong type of curve to fit to the data (see Wells called for fantastic stories to make only one impossi-
Directionality, pp. 17-21, for more on this); or multiple trends ble hypothesis and then work out its implications with rigor-
may interact in some unexpected way. It’s not just that science ous logic and careful attention to evidence. A Wellsian future
fiction writers do modeling; modeling itself is a kind of science history would make one speculation about the future and then
fiction. When the real future gets here, it’s likely to surprise us. carry things forward from there by extrapolation.
What’s the point of extrapolation, then? One point is to But not all science fiction is so restrictive. Stories of visits
add plausibility. Writers talk about “willing suspension of to planets of other stars, such as Clement’s Mission of Gravity
disbelief” (a phrase coined by the romantic poet Coleridge); or Anderson’s The Man Who Counts, often assume some form
showing that some imagined future is where present-day of faster-than-light travel as a way to get the human charac-
trends might lead strengthens that suspension. But another ters there, along with the speculative worldbuilding. Wells
point is that completely honest and conservative extrapolation himself combined time travel with speculation about human
may lead to unexpected outcomes. That makes it an aid to evolution in The Time Machine. These might be called “one-
the imagination, suggesting possible futures that the writer and-a-half-miracle” stories, as the vehicle is there purely to
or Game Master never would have come up with without it. get the characters somewhere interesting. Other stories have
multiple speculative ideas, as when Heinlein’s The Moon Is a
s Harsh Mistress portrayed prison colonies on the Moon, a self-
peCulAtIon
aware computer, and gestational surrogacy. Stories set in the
A more direct route to the unexpected is speculation: an further future are especially likely to have many different
approach to the future that asks, “What if?” In the terms used speculative elements, justified by the assumption of amazing
in GURPS Space, it envisions a future based on at least one progress in technology.
miracle (Space, pp. 29-30) and sometimes several or many In one sense, this is a second level of extrapolation. There
(Space, pp. 50-51). The speculative writer comes up with has been an identifiable trend over the past several centuries
something that can’t be predicted from the present, but that of increasing scientific knowledge, discovery of new aspects of
would be interesting – as H.G. Wells called it, an “impossible nature, and their application in advanced technologies. And
hypothesis.” Such a hypothesis may actually contradict what given current debates over fundamental physics, it’s too early
we now believe we know about the universe (in GURPS terms, to say that no new discoveries await us. The expectation of
it may be “superscience” – see pp. B513-514). But it doesn’t radical new discoveries yet to come could be justified by the
have to; it may simply be something that seems unlikely, history of radical new discoveries that have already happened.
Y ’ t
esterdAY s omorrows
One of the hazards of predicting the future is having entertaining; if they give pleasure to readers or players,
the future get here – and not be what the prediction said. that’s a worthwhile accomplishment. They can warn
For example, Transhuman Space, published in 2002, against undesirable futures, as Huxley did in Brave
has predictions for every year from 2011 through 2020, New World, or, less often, offer visions of desirable ones,
virtually none of which have been realized. Science fiction as Gernsback set out to do in Ralph 124C 41+. Or they
writers have a long record of falsified predictions, such as can provide a vehicle for thinking about social trends
Stapledon’s European wars, Heinlein’s lunar colonies in or conflicts – one that’s detached from the journalistic
the 1980s, and Gibson’s Japanese-dominated world econ- details of present-day events.
omy. Beyond this, styles in remoter futures also change; There’s also the option of creating or exploring the
for example, intelligent native life on Mars and Venus, or future history of some past era, whether the Age of Steam
single giant computers for an entire country or planet, no or the visions of post-World War II science fiction. The
longer appear in imagined futures. Any future history you Martians didn’t invade England in the 1890s, or New Jer-
create is going to have a limited shelf life. sey in 1938? In another timeline, maybe they did. A cam-
Does that mean creating future histories is point- paign set in such an alternate world can explore its future
less? Not at all! They have other things to offer than by many of the same methods that work for future histo-
accurate prophecy. To start with, they’re meant to be ries of our own world.
p
erspeCtIves
To count as future history, a story or campaign has to be matter of how many years have passed, but more basically,
set in our future. There has to be a path through time from a matter of how much about the present the future knows and
now to then. But depending on what kind of future it’s set in, remembers – and as a consequence, of what strategy is needed
that path may be known in more or less detail. This is partly a for creating the setting and its history.
F t 5
uture ense
t n F century – notably Lazarus Long, a 20th-century barbarian
he eAr uture
who becomes his people’s leader in a crisis) and Bujold in her
Some future histories begin now, and progress from now Wormhole Nexus series; Star Trek occupies the same time span,
into a possible future. This option is the best for pure extrapo- as does the game setting for Blue Planet. However, it’s also
lation, as the trends being extrapolated can often be based on possible to set a story in the aftermath of a disruptive event,
published statistics, and they don’t have to be carried forward when the younger generation no longer understand their par-
very far; this is the main focus of scholarly futurology, for both ents’ lives before the break; Stirling’s later Emberverse novels
reasons. But it’s also possible to introduce a speculative prem- portray such a world, through the adventures of the first and
ise and work out its likely historical impact on our familiar second generations born into it.
world. Examples of near future histories include Heinlein’s Such a world, which still remembers ours, will have con-
collections The Man Who Sold the Moon and “The Green Hills tinuity with it; some of its culture and institutions will be
of Earth” and the first three volumes of Stirling’s Emberverse modified forms of our own. It may even have scholars or
novels. Transhuman Space takes this approach to developing antiquarians who can talk about our history; in fact, a fairly
a game setting. common oddity of imaginary futures is the habit of com-
There isn’t any set number of years that defines a setting as paring some organization or crisis to a 20th- or 21st-cen-
“near future.” It’s more a matter of knowledge. If characters in tury prototype (which of course is familiar to the readers
a setting have often lived in the present and recent past, and or players), rather than something from the 10th century or
remember what it was like, then there will be a strong sense the 22nd! DC Comics, for example, had the 30th-century
of continuity with our own time. The GM needs to provide a Legion of Super-Heroes modeling itself on the half-legendary
timeline from now to then, to make it clear how people got to figure of Superboy. Some authors do work out all the inter-
the future and what big events they experienced. Given this vening stages, whether or not they set stories in those periods;
need, unless there are changes in the human lifespan, it’s safe others provide a basic sketch of how their future worlds came
to say that campaigns set less than a generation ahead will be to be and then extrapolate forward from that starting point.
near future, and campaigns set more than a century ahead Presenting this kind of world to readers or players requires
won’t be; intermediate spans are more of a judgment call. more exposition. For players, it’s safest to give a short guide to
However, in a speculative future with a radical change – for what the world is like as a whole, focusing on aspects that will
example, the return of magic or the deaths of most of human- affect their choices in character design, rather than expecting
ity in an apocalypse – “near” may be a shorter span of time, them to pick up everything they need to know in the course
ending less than a generation ahead. Whatever society people of play through indirect exposition (p. 40). If the campaign
live in after such an event will be different enough so that our is defined around a specific mission statement, the player
own time won’t seem very relevant. handout can focus on information relevant to characters who
An advantage of near future settings is that creating and would pursue that mission.
assimilating them is fairly straightforward. They start out
from our own familiar world and modify selected parts of it, t F F
he Ar uture
based on the campaign premise. In particular, players don’t
have to read a comprehensive guide to the entire world; they Some future histories are set in times so remote that the
just need to know the important changes that have taken place. present is a legend or entirely forgotten. In a campaign with
But a disadvantage comes with this: players may think of the interstellar travel, Earth may not even be remembered as
future setting as being just like the present – as if a player in the original home of humanity, as in Asimov’s Foundation
2000 A.D. had thought of 2020 A.D. as being just like their series. In campaigns set purely on Earth, present-day civili-
own time, except with faster computers and better medical zation may have fallen to geological or climatological change,
treatments, and not thought about how the political impact as in Anderson’s The Winter of the World, or to a global war
of e-commerce and social media might have influenced their with weapons of mass destruction; or new species may have
character’s outlook on life. replaced Homo sapiens, as in Wells’s The Time Machine or
One strategy for minimizing this effect is to provide players Stapledon’s Last and First Men (after the first chapters, which
with a short list of formative events – not necessarily single present an extrapolative history of the near future); or the dis-
incidents that made the news, but experiences that most peo- tant future may be pervaded with magic, as in Vance’s The
ple shared and that would have changed many people’s view Dying Earth, or incredibly advanced science that looks like
of life. To better relate it to their characters, define each event magic, as in Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun series.
as “this many years ago.” Then ask players to think about how Such a far future setting is normally built by exploring the
old their characters were during these events, and how each implications of its initial premise. It may not have any ele-
event affected them. ments from present-day Earth at all; if it has, they are often
radically transformed. Players definitely need a guide to what-
t m F ever world the campaign takes place in – one that emphasizes
he Iddle uture
the features that make their characters different from pres-
Some future histories take place in a more distant future: ent-day humans. It may be useful to provide a list of “things
one where the world of the present is no longer well under- your character takes for granted.”
stood or directly relevant. The most straightforward way to The payoff of a far future campaign is largely the strange-
create such a future is to set it so many years ahead that every- ness of the world where it takes place. Exploring that world
one now living has died. Heinlein did this in the later volumes is often the theme of the campaign. Sources of strangeness
of his Future History (though the long-lived Howard Families can include biological change, actual magic, or “sufficiently
in Methuselah’s Children include a few survivors of the 20th advanced technology” (see Ontological Changes, p. 30).
F t 6
uture ense
In extreme cases, the far future may be
a realm of transcendent beings: extremely
g
enres advanced aliens or posthumans, immate-
rial psychic entities, self-sustaining energy
Beyond stories of humanity’s expansion to the planets or the stars, many
patterns at the end of the universe, or the
different sorts of science fiction – or fantasy – take place in the future.
like. (Vinge’s concept of the Singularity
Classic Future History: Any era. Humanity ventures into outer space, suggests that Earth will become such a
exploring, colonizing, and forming alliances or empires – or struggling realm in the not too distant future through
against their collapse. Sometimes includes contact with nonhuman races. technological advances.) Such entities don’t
Examples: Poul Anderson, the Technic History series; Isaac Asimov, the usually have a history that’s understand-
Foundation series; Lois McMaster Bujold, the Wormhole Nexus; Robert able in human terms. However, the pro-
Heinlein, the Future History; Star Trek. cess by which they attained their advanced
Cyberpunk: Typically near future. A science fictional version of noir – in state may be – and that knowledge may be
a corrupt urban future, hackers venture into cyberspace and carry out of interest to characters who have to deal
exploits against powerful corporations or bureaucracies. Examples: with them.
William Gibson, Neuromancer; Vernor Vinge, “True Names”; GURPS
Cyberworld. (The film Blade Runner has been a major stylistic influence.)
u
Dystopia: Typically middle future. Portrays a future society founded on sIng the
a harmful moral or political principle. Classic dystopias such as Aldous
Huxley’s Brave New World are static abstractions; more recent ones such as
F
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger
uture
Games series often show the dystopian society’s establishment or downfall.
Fantasy: Typically far future. Magic has appeared in the world (or
returned to it); the story focuses on its implications. Examples: S.M. Stir- What use is future history in running a
ling, the Emberverse (near/middle future, and also postapocalyptic); Wal- campaign?
ter Jon Williams, the Metropolitan series; Gene Wolfe, the Book of the New Most campaigns won’t play out a his-
Sun (actually sufficiently advanced technology commonly understood as torical course of events. The time span of
magic); Shadowrun (middle future, and also cyberpunk). a campaign is often too short to include
Geological Future: Typically far future. Set thousands or millions of significant historical changes; a decade is
years from now, when the climate and landscape have radically changed, a short time in history but a long time for
and new species may have evolved. Examples: Olaf Stapledon, Last and characters in fiction or games. And most
First Men; H.G. Wells, The Time Machine. historical events involve a large number of
Military Science Fiction: Typically middle future, but can be any. different people, too big a cast of characters
A subtype of classic future history, focused on war and military forces. for players to keep track of. It’s not impos-
Examples: Lois McMaster Bujold, the Wormhole Nexus; Robert Heinlein, sible to run a series of games spanning a
Starship Troopers; David Weber, Honor Harrington. generation or more, with cross-references
Neoprimitive: Middle or far future. The technology of the 21st century between events and perhaps with overlap-
has faded into legend or been entirely forgotten. Humanity is tribal (TL0) ping characters, but it’s a more ambitious
or lives in relatively small, often ephemeral states (TL1-3). Some postapoc- project than most GMs want to take on.
alyptic settings also fit this category. Examples: Ursula Le Guin, Always One way that future history can be of
Coming Home; Andre Norton, Star Man’s Son; Edgar Pangborn, Tales of a use is in providing a setting. Of course, a
Darkening World. game world could be just a snapshot of a
New Frontiers: Usually near or middle future. Portrays a struggle single time. But it can have more depth if
against nature, and sometimes against human or alien inhabitants of a it contains evidence of where things came
wilderness area, or against an imperial power’s attempts to oppress the from, where they might be going, and
settlers. Examples: Poul Anderson, Tales of the Flying Mountains; Robert what memories of the past people still care
Heinlein, Tunnel in the Sky; Firefly. about.
Postapocalyptic: Typically near or middle future. Civilization has col- Another use for future history is map-
lapsed, and most of humanity has perished. The survivors struggle to stay ping out times of crisis, which can be good
alive and establish refuges (near future); later generations live on in the settings for dramatic storylines. A time of
ruins, building a new society with new customs (middle future). Exam- troubles is also a time of adventures – and a
ples: Robert Adams, the Horseclans; George R. Stewart, Earth Abides; S.M. time of opportunities for people to step up
Stirling, the Emberverse; Mad Max; Fantasy Games Unlimited, Aftermath! and do what’s needed.
Transhumanist: Typically middle future. Advances in artificial intelli- Over a longer timescale, any historical
gence, biotechnology, or nanotechnology enhance human capabilities, change is likely to have people who embrace
offering the prospect of transforming civilization or making humanity the change and people who resist it. Know-
obsolete. Extreme versions envision a technological Singularity. May also ing which side the characters are on can
have an outer space setting, like classic future history. Examples: Vernor help focus their motives. Different charac-
Vinge, Zones of Thought; Walter Jon Williams, Aristoi; Ghost in the Shell; ters on different sides can be a source of
Transhuman Space. dramatic tension (see Conflict, pp. 35-37).
F t 7
uture ense
C t
hApter wo
s
tAtICs
In physics, statics is the study of systems without motion At a more abstract level, a world whose history is cyclical
or change, usually as the result of a balance of forces. History (Cycles, pp. 21-24) may have changes that come back to the
can also include periods when things aren’t changing. same point over and over.
Realistically, human beings aren’t likely to attain complete Stasis can also be the starting point for a story about dis-
stasis; if they did, the result wouldn’t be “history.” But there ruption. The protagonists may bring about the disruption, or
can be long periods when things change slowly; and people struggle heroically against it, or be caught up in it and have to
in such a period may assume that their stable world will go survive. A society that is truly static can be a natural setting for
on indefinitely, for good or bad. Science fiction writers of the an aristocrat (pp. 47-48) whose family has been running things
Cold War era, for example, often assumed that their bipo- for generations (or centuries or millennia). A habitat manager
lar world would go on into the middle future, as in Blish’s (pp. 49-50) or imperial agent (p. 50) can play a part in keeping
A Case of Conscience. Such slow change is suggested by sto- a society static despite disruptive forces.
ries where historical periods last for many thousands of years. Whether a future world is actually stable or not, it can
be convenient to describe it as if it were stable – in effect,
to take a snapshot of it at one moment and use that as a
context for actions that don’t involve historical change.
Take an Empire that was
Roleplaying games may also assume a stable future set-
ting as a stage for their characters’ actions (see Structure
Roman and you’ll find it is at
and Agency, pp. 31-32). This approach is common in histo-
ries of the middle and far future (pp. 6-7). It’s often useful
home in all the starry Milky Way.
in roleplaying campaigns as well; many campaigns span
periods without significant historical change, letting
– Isaac Asimov,
their future be treated as a static background.
“The Foundation For the Game Master designing a campaign, historical
statics defines the setting, including its scale, geography or
of S.F. Success” astrography, and societies. For players, statics defines the
possible backgrounds for their characters and the things
they take for granted about the world.
s t
CAle And eChnologY
The most basic question about a future setting is how Realm Management, pp. 4-6, for a more detailed treatment
large it is. Does it spread across multiple galaxies, like E.E. of scale.)
Smith’s Lensman universe? Does it cover the solar system,
like Stapledon’s Last and First Men? Is it confined to a single Examples
region, like Pangborn’s Tales of a Darkening World, set in the
Each tech level lists the fastest means possible for that
American northeast? How big an area needs to be mapped
level, followed by typical distances for each transportation
and described to prepare for a campaign?
benchmark.
This question of scale depends primarily on transportation.
A government or other organization can only take meaningful TL0: Travel on foot, or by paddled or poled boats. 3 miles;
action in places its agents can travel to and report back from, 3,300 miles; village or town.
usually in less than a year. And transportation is an aspect of TL1: Travel on foot, or by rowed or square-rigged boat or
tech level (see p. B512). ship. 3 miles; 5,000 miles; barony, county, duchy, or small
Transportation affects the scale of campaigns at multiple nation.
levels. Three transportation levels are useful benchmarks: a TL2-3: Travel on horseback, or by rowed or square-rigged boat
convenient daily commute, or the length of a local errand (an or ship. 10 miles; 5,000 miles; large nation.
hour’s travel); a journey of exploration (a year’s travel); and the TL4: Travel on horseback, or by full-rigged ship. 10 miles;
scale of the largest political units, in terms of the canonical area 9,000 miles; large nation.
classes (p. B177). This assumes that there are no superscience TL5: Travel by railroad or steamship. 15 miles; 27,500 miles;
technologies such as faster-than-light travel. (See GURPS large nation.
s 8
tAtICs
TL6: Travel by railroad, automobile, or airplane.
25 miles; 27,500 miles; large nation.
w t l I e ?
TL7-8: Travel by automobile or airplane. 55 miles; hAt eCh evel s Arth
27,500 miles; large nation.
Science fiction – especially in film and television – often assumes
TL9: Travel by maglev and rocketry. 375 miles; 2.2
that each planet is a uniform place, with a single climate, culture,
astronomical units; large nation or planet.
society type, and so on; and, as part of this, that the entire planet
TL10-12: Hyperloop and constant-acceleration
has a single TL. This is convenient if the protagonists are only vis-
space travel. 750 miles; varies; planet or
iting and won’t see much more than the area that holds the space-
planet/satellites.
port. It’s also plausible for a recently colonized planet with a small
Notes: For TL5-8, the figure of 27,500 miles population that hasn’t spread out much. But for Earth, or an alien
represents circumnavigation of the Earth on a homeworld, or a planet colonized several centuries ago, more vari-
course that avoids the Suez and Panama Canals. ation likely exists.
Greater speeds were actually possible; in 1889, GURPS considers present-day Earth to be TL8, because the
the reporter Nellie Bly circled the Earth in 72 days wealthiest and most powerful nations are largely TL8. But many
(paying a visit to Jules Verne, author of Around the nations have lower technological capabilities, even if they can
World in Eighty Days), or about a fifth of a year. At import technology that is more advanced. Smaller societies can
TL8, circumnavigation by air is possible in days. have much lower capabilities – as low as TL0 in isolated groups
The interplanetary distance of 2.2 astronomi- such as the Sentinelese people of the Andaman Islands, who vio-
cal units (205 million miles) assumes a minimum- lently resist any contact with the outside world.
energy Hohmann transfer orbit. The distance rep- So what tech level is Earth overall? The average power con-
resents the separation of two orbits; the actual sumption is about 20¥ the human metabolic rate, a bit past medi-
course is a significantly longer curve. For space eval levels but short of the Industrial Revolution (Technology and
travel with six months of constant acceleration Energy, pp. 18-19). About 50% of the global population is urban-
followed by six months of constant deceleration, ized, a level reached by Great Britain in the 19th century. World per
the straight-line distance is 1.5 trillion miles (or capita income is $10,500/year, a bit more than the average for TL4
16,130 astronomical units) ¥ acceleration in Gs. (p. B517). Considering all of this, Earth might be thought of as TL5
on the average, with places such as the United States, Sweden, and
Example: A high-performance light sail with an
Japan being more advanced.
acceleration of 0.006G can travel 97 astronomical
units in a year, or roughly twice the distance from
Earth to the Kuiper Belt.
p s
hYsICAl ettIng
The most basic feature of a future era and of a roleplay- proposals include damming the Mediterranean to create
ing campaign is its physical setting: its landforms, its oceans more land area as its water level decreased (as suggested in
and atmosphere, its weather and climate, and its built envi- 1928 by the German architect Herman Sörgel, who called
ronment. The GM can describe these in terms of geology and the new lands “Atlantropa”) and irrigating the Sahara and
meteorology, sometimes of astronomy, and to some degree of other major deserts. Geoengineering, the use of technological
engineering, which depend on the span of the campaign. methods to maintain or improve Earth’s habitability, is the
focus of current proposals for coping with climate change.
F e A less attractive variant on this theme is a hyperurban-
uture Arth
ized Earth, as in Asimov’s The Caves of Steel or Williams’s
Some future histories are confined to the planet Earth. Metropolitan, where heroic efforts are needed simply to keep
Humanity may not yet have gotten into space; or they may vast future cities from dying.
have gone there and come back, or failed to survive; or they Earths in remoter futures may have changed radically with
may have given up the attempt and turned back to Earth, the passage of time, in a new ice age, a “greenhouse Earth”
through lack of ability or lack of will. period when temperatures even at the poles seldom fall below
Near and middle future Earths are usually physically sim- freezing, or a rearrangement of the continents by tectonic
ilar to present-day Earth. If there are major changes, they are forces (see Natural Cycles, pp. 23-24). In the even longer run,
typically the result of a catastrophe, such as a nuclear war carbon dioxide levels may be too low for plant life to survive
(common in fiction of the 1950s and 1960s), drastic climate (see Atmospheric Change, pp. 20-21). At this point, if the human
change (common in more recent fiction), or an astronomical race or any of its descendants are still confined to Earth, they
event such as the passage of a massive body near Earth’s orbit will become extinct, long before the Sun becomes a red giant
(see Astronomical Disasters, pp. 25-27). What the transformed and engulfs the inner planets (see Stellar Evolution, p. 21).
Earth is like depends on the nature of the catastrophe; it may Optimistic future Earths may have limited space travel
have radioactive wastelands, glaciers created by a nuclear with no permanent residents in space habitats – perhaps only
winter, or melted icecaps and inundated coasts. to Earth orbit; perhaps including the Lagrangian points for
In more optimistic visions, Earth may have been trans- the Earth-Moon system, or the Moon itself. Such a future can
formed by planetary-scale engineering projects. Classic be treated as effectively the same as one confined to Earth.
s 9
tAtICs
F s s This proposal requires an asteroid at least 55 miles in diame-
uture olAr Ystem
ter; some 250 asteroids at least this large are known.
Many science fictional futures have humanity venturing Far future histories may have even larger-scale efforts to
out into the solar system, but not going beyond it. This expan- reshape the solar system. In 1960, Freeman Dyson proposed
sion may be a central theme in near futures. Middle and far that advanced civilizations in other solar systems might have
futures are more likely to show an inhabited solar system, surrounded their stars with orbiting light collectors to cap-
especially if the setting doesn’t assume faster-than-light travel. ture their total energy output – an idea now called Dyson
Many future histories have envisioned human colonies on spheres, though Dyson himself credited it to Olaf Stapledon’s
the planets and the larger satellites. Early stories assumed that Star Maker (published in 1937). Dyson spheres are sometimes
Mars and Venus were fairly Earthlike. Since the astronomical envisioned as solid shells, but even disassembling all the
discoveries of the 1960s, authors have had to show human col- planets probably wouldn’t provide enough material for such
onists dealing with much harsher environments. Some stories a structure, and no known material would have the required
assume the possibility of terraforming, or physically modifying structural strength. Swarms of orbiting power stations (a
a planet to support terrestrial life – a challenging project for Dyson swarm) would be more workable, though maintaining
Mars and a nearly impossible one for Venus. Bodies too small them would demand incredibly complex orbital calculations.
to retain an atmosphere, such as Mercury or the Moon, would In 1985, David Criswell proposed the more radical concept
be much more likely to have underground habitats, with sur- of star lifting: extracting matter from the Sun or another
face activity limited to resource extraction and perhaps indus- star – possibly powered by the star’s own energy output, col-
trial production. lected by a Dyson sphere. This could prolong the Sun’s life
Other writers envision human colonies in the asteroid belt, (since less massive stars have longer lifespans; see Stellar
perhaps supported by mining. A possible option for the nearer Evolution, p. 21) and Earth’s habitability, and the extracted
future could be mining asteroids whose orbits bring them mass could be used to create more orbital power stations or
close to Earth, and possibly adjusting those orbits to make artificial planets.
them satellites of Earth, for convenience. Either near-Earth or Such large-scale projects would require enormous spans
more distant asteroids might be reshaped into orbital habitats of time. Terraforming Mars would take at least 1,000 years
spinning on their axes to provide simulated gravity. Recent (GURPS Mars discusses the subject in some detail). The
science fiction has often envisioned such habitats as providing astronomer Fred Adams estimates that one asteroidal fly-by
homes to large off-Earth populations. per 6,000 years would preserve the biosphere till the Sun
Of course, a civilization that can move asteroids into becomes a red subgiant. Star lifting reducing the Sun’s mass
near-Earth orbits can also aim them at Earth, as weapons. by 1.5% (equivalent to the mass of the smallest possible brown
Inhabitants of the Moon or the asteroids might rule Earth or dwarf star) is estimated to take 50,000 years. A future history
the solar system through the threat of “throwing rocks.” Or based on any of these has to assume organizations much more
a future Earth might have been devastated by attacks from stable than any that have yet existed.
orbit, leaving behind postapocalyptic ruins – or being terra-
formed to restore its habitability. I m
nterstellAr IlIeu
Another option is repeated asteroidal flybys that would
increase the Earth’s orbital speed, moving it into a more dis- A great deal of classic science fiction involved travel
tant orbit (see Effects of Gravity, p. 26) to compensate for the to other stars, from Smith’s Skylark novels to Bujold’s
Sun’s increasing temperature (see Stellar Evolution, p. 21). Vorkosigan series; and present-day science fiction still
includes such stories. Originally, the journey itself
was the focus of the story. As more such stories were
written, starships and star gates became secondary,
AstronomICAl with the focus being the heroes’ adventures in other
solar systems, or – in future histories – the interstel-
e
ngIneerIng lar societies that interstellar travel held together.
The usual assumption was that both travel and com-
Various proposals for visiting, making use of, and reshap-
munication would be faster than light. However, a
ing celestial bodies require technology advanced beyond what
minority of writers envisioned interstellar voyages
now exists. The following list suggests tech levels suited to var-
taking decades or centuries, made possible by “gener-
ious projects.
ation ships” whose crew raised children to take over
TL9: Interplanetary travel; sealed habitats; orbital colonies; for them; by induced hibernation; or by relativistic
mining near-Earth asteroids; geoengineering. time distortion that compressed a centuries-long
TL10: Fast interplanetary travel; reshaping asteroids into hab- round trip into a few years for the voyagers. Such sto-
itats; simple terraforming (e.g., Mars). ries have become more common as the theoretical
TL11: Interstellar travel; difficult terraforming (e.g., Venus). complications of superluminal travel have become
TL12: Shifting planetary orbits; Dyson swarm; planetary disas- more widely understood – for example, that faster-
sembly; star lifting. than-light travel might allow time travel and time
TL^: Antigravity/gravity augmentation; reactionless drives; paradoxes. A slower-than-light interstellar society
faster-than-light travel; solid Dyson sphere. would be more tenuous and decentralized than any
type of society that has existed on Earth, but stories
can be told about such societies.
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tAtICs