A Post from Mayari: So, uh, hey. I'm a robot from the future...

So let's talk about Transhumanism and how it relates to Cyberpunk, and Space Opera. No really, it's important to me because I am indeed a Robot Barbarian.

So where does a Robot Barbarian come from? From the far reaches of the observable universe, where if you look at the sky at the right time, it's pitch black. Nothing but a vast dark color of the unknown. Think of that. Go outside right now, and look outside at night, there are always stars.

But how do you get there? I’ll answer that in a little bit.

But Transhumanism? Cyberpunk and Space Opera? Dungeons and Dragons? I want to say that the hottest titles that deal with Sci-fi in table top gaming have this core assumption - that humans have become posthuman, something more than human and are thus able to travel to the farthest of stars.

But you know what, Transhumanism is a crux of all Sci-fi - it's a basic assumption that we have to progress past our current biological, sociological, economical, and psychological barriers to go to where we have never gone before. It easily frames two very important ideas:

Cyberpunk (high tech, low life) Transhumanism is in conflict. How does society reconcile the need to go beyond but still stay the same? How far can we go past human before we feel that we aren't human anymore? Why do we still care about that?

Space Opera (high tech, high politics) tends to use Transhumanism as a way to get past the incredible distances between places - if you aren't entirely biological, then 1000 years floating through space isn't a particularly big deal.

I think these two (three) ideas are pretty important to the A Pearl in Dark Flow setting. 

Well, let's contemplate what all this Transhumanism has to do with a game that is implicitly fascinated with Dragons, Wizards, and the haze dreams from the 70's.

In traditional DnD, travel is either painfully slow through horse drawn carts, or at a modicum of acceptability with more anachronistic modes of travel like airships. But this is all travel on a planet or “plane” as it were - anything "off planet" or other plane is rather instantaneous, cause magic. 

But let’s look at Spelljammer for a moment, and their idea of “spaceships” and “space travel”, and again with magic it makes it more like on planet naval engagements. I’m not the best acquainted with the setting, and the idea of travelling between the spheres might be a lot faster than, let’s say what we understand about moving near the speed of light and how we might get around that…

Another note: another change of base assumptions – while high level magic is considered rare in standard Dungeons and Dragons, it’s not impossible. So magically travelling to different planes is something almost expected. Travelling in a Sci-fi sort of world without being able to “Warp” or find a faster than light travel method makes interstellar, much less intergalactic travel sort of unfeasible. On the other hand, it’s a relatively simple matter to travel from continent to another at this point – so overland travel is never tedious.

Another Another Note: Science seems to have limit, up until the limit is broken, and it again becomes mundane, and sellable.

Transhumanism, and embracing the Post-Human is what allowed early travelers and colonists to get into the very depths of space – maybe not so far as the edge just yet; but at least to the discovery and adoption of Technology that is capable of faster than light travel, or bending space, or going at the speed of Plaid!

If Humanity were to traverse to the very ends of the universe, to go past Human, maybe we could take a look at a game called Eclipse Phase.

Humans have transcended ideas of a body, and can move between bodies or shells, or even just become a sentient program within the greater network. So wouldn't that effectively mean that certain subsects of sentient life never actually die? Yeah, that would be a major change in base assumptions here.

By solving the biological problem of “death” and biological resource management – not needing food or air, but maybe making a personality and memory matrix that emulates a person – soon becoming that person, travel to the far reaches of the stars becomes doable, almost simple. Upload “soul”, shoot out into space, land and create shell – viola, new colony.

But now we have another new base assumption here:

While there are ways to resurrect dead player characters - from Revivify to True Resurrection, but all involve something to with old age, the soul, and gods. If instead, player characters can cast off shells or bodies like shirts (or pants, I don't wear shirts, I'm a bloody barbarian), the concept of death is gone. Without death, there is no great equalizer, there is no avenue for divine retribution or reward. I guess the idea of non-existence is a truly terrible thing – but it’s not divine torment for eternity. In effect, religions that believe in such a thing are a wash. It is arguable that the idea of a soul and gods are made superfluous by the “digital soul” and lack of afterlife. But humans are humans – I’m sure some rock somewhere will inspire great reverence of the divine.

So let’s TL;DR this thing:

1. Transhumanism very much devalues particularly causal religions (like the good go to heaven), the concept of the soul and the afterlife.
2. It (Trans/Post Humanism) is the easiest way to bypass the problem of incredibly long travel through space – you know that place that is… hostile with a vacuum and 0 degrees Kelvin.
3.  Science is limited, until a sufficient time that it isn’t – but its nearing super science which emulate magic.
4. Once Science figures out something, it tends to make it mundane and saleable. Pan Galactic Travel becomes common, and so do Pan Galactic Gargleblasters.
5. Go look at Eclipse Phase.

So how about some races that embraced the idea of the Post-Human?

Humans Variant X.X

Three types of humans, with all varying degrees of Posthuman that question what it means to be human.

Jinzo

Robots with Selfhood - you know the deal, an obvious echo to the question of the validity and existence of the soul. And to Warforged and the Matrix, and Ghost in the Shell.

Speaking of Ghost in the Ghost in the Shell...Next Post might have to do with the Ultranet, Cybernetics, Disconnects, and Overflows…

Anyway, tell me what you guys think. I’ll be raging around a forest full of cyber-bunnies with deadly sharp teeth…

Post from Mayari: I could be a time traveller.

So, while you dear reader maybe reading this post first, it is the second one I have written. That could make me a time traveler - a robot (barbarian) that leaped through time.

But, where was I?

Or when was I?

I think I was ahead of myself. Talking about Transhumanism and how it permeates the current mainstream philosophy of Sci-fi as a genre. But why would anyone want to wax poetic about that?

I do assume some might, so I won't begrudge them any -

But I have come to you to propose an idea! A project! A new paradigm shift. Well, at least where it concerns Dungeons and Dragons in the Fifth Edition!

Sure, this doesn't sound like anything different, quite frankly, it's not.

I'd like to re-work Dungeons and Dragons into the Sci-fi/Urban Fantasy genre. I call this project "A Pearl in Dark Flow" or something better when it strikes from the future with a laser katana.

I'm sure everyone living in a basement has wanted to be Kirk wandering the universe in search of the perfect green lady. And really there are sufficient games that would emulate that perfectly well - like OVA or BESM (3rd), or Traveller, etc.

Or maybe wanted to play some really hardcore Sci-fi and messy rules like RIFTS or Robotech with giant robots, or maybe go the FATE route and use Mindjammer or Nova Praxis, Yeah all of those systems probably do it better, but they have one thing that they aren't - they aren't Dungeons and Dragons.

Dungeons and Dragons is some sort of strange mistress, I both hate and love it - it's always the TRPG I return to when I'm tired of complicated or narrativist gaming. Something about class structure and levels puts this raging robot at ease. I can play as a well defined archetype with strong a feel of progression, and kill things and take their stuff. Good times, good times.

But, there is an inherent problem to Dungeons and Dragons as presented - it's incredibly difficult to break out the of the implicit genre (Fantasy with a strong Western Bias) to play things I love like
Sci-fi, Modern, or even Urban Fantasy.

Here are some thoughts about it:

• Magic is implicitly strong in DnD, it's vehicle that forces characters to become epic - also it's supposed to be incredibly individualistic and rare. You can't divorce magic from class structures, balance, and game design philosophy.
• Science and Industry are anathema to the same philosophy that DnD uses about magic. Science and Industry - at least as best as we see it in our real world tend to be tied together. Both egg each other on, and consequently magical things become mundane. 
• Seriously, look at cell (God I'm dating myself by saying that) phones - now completely ubiquitous and with the internet! Yeah, given that in less than decades ago that would have been something akin to Cyberpunk and Sci-fi. But imagine that in a fantasy world? Every peasant having a device that connects them to each other and the flow communication is constant? Yeah, no go there buddy.
• Only Wizards and their magical buddies can connect you to grandma in the next town, and if only they feel like it. Or they can charge you the fee of a small castle to make an item that lets your send a short message once a day to one other person who happens to hold the other piece of the same item. 
• Wizards would be genuinely scared of anything resembling technology since it ruins their strangle hold on power and mysticism. They can't charge that small castle when a smart entrepreneur has figured out radio waves, set up radio towers, and is selling ham radios for about as much it costs to live in an expensive hotel for a day or two.

So I think fellow game enthusiasts we have to change some base assumptions and expectations.

• With Technology, Science, and Industry on the dominant end, Magic is rare, expensive, and ultimately inefficient. It does on the other hand have a wow factor. 
• Magic and magical effects are available in tangible, and more importantly, affordable items that anyone can use. Restrictions would be based on laws and safety - things like Fireball grenades are plentiful, but not available. Ray of Frost guns are just that, anyone with enough fingers can shoot it. 
• Quite frankly, casting something as a spell is more draining than it is to go to the effort of acquiring the same effect from a manufactured item. 
• This being a Sci-fi setting, Transhumanism and lack of religions or at least active religiosity is frowned upon - meaning that temples are just places of worship, rarely do divine miracle actually occur. And the activities of god or gods are non-apparent or non-existent.
• This effectively neuters almost all casting classes. 
• "But this is Dungeons and Dragons!" you say. "You can't remove casting classes! What will become of my Bard?"
• "Your Bard is spoony and dead." I would say. But! But! Okay, I won't neuter magic all the way, just make it less useful. 

Anyway, here's my Introduction to my new Campaign Setting (more like universe) of "A Pearl in Dark Flow".  

Tell me what you think. I'll be sharpening my laser ax.