Setting Seeds: The Voyage of the Alexandria
In the year 3249, humanity was about to come to an end. For centuries, they’d been at peace. War was finally a thing of the past. Unfortunately, humanity as a whole was no longer fit to survive. It’s unsure exactly what happened, but each year the fertility rate was dropping.
In 3150, the Universal Council met for the first time. Its mandate was simple: find a way for humanity to survive. For three quarters of the next century, the brightest minds all the worlds could supply collaborated. They created new forms of technology, new forms of energy, even experimented with new forms of life not based on carbon.
Nothing helped. Things were dire. At the current pace, it was unlikely that we’d be around for two more generations. On the 75th anniversary of the Universal Council’s first meeting, a charismatic leader by the name of Walter Nicklau convinced everyone to switch gears. If we could not live on in the flesh, we would live on in memory.
Thus was born Project Alexandria. Named after the fabled library of long past, it would chronicle the sum of all human knowledge, art, culture and experience– starting from the beginning.
In just 24 years, the Alexandria was ready. It was the greatest ship ever constructed, in size and scope of mission. It had the first functioning time drive, capable of traveling backwards through time. For the massive energy requirements, an entire galaxy had to be forcibly collapsed into a black hole.
The Alexandria made the jump, and its crew of thousands had a simple goal. Most would remain in stasis, and teams would take turns coming out of stasis to observe the Earth. Each would live out their lives and then activate their replacements.
Adventures of the Alexandria
Damaged thousands of years earlier in the initial jump, a piece of the Alexandria’s power core must be jettisoned. Due to some improper calculations, instead of being slingshotted towards the sun it lands near the Nile river. The PCs must help the Egyptians to construct the first pyramid to contain the radioactive material.
The PCs are awakened ahead of schedule. Something happened to the crew of the Atlantis while they were stationed off the shore of Greece, and the PCs must discover their fate.
On a routine sweep of the sea floor, the PCs discover something bizarre. It turns out to be a piece of the Alexandria which broke off after the jump, and has been down there ever since. Eventually, the PCs discover that it is responsible for planting the seeds for all life on Earth.
Very cool. Makes me want to run this as a campaign…. what game system would be appropriate though?
Aww, crap, this wasn’t supposed to be posed til next Monday. Dammit!
I guess I’ll leave it up.
Back to your original question, I have no idea. LOL! When in doubt, Savage Worlds?
I’d use BESM 3rd edition. I’d give players a choice of technologically based abilities. After all, it is adventure on ancient earth and the players have access to technology so advanced they would look like gods for the locals.
This setting is very interesting if you have a good grasp of history. You could easily make a dynastic campaign in which the players would play several generations of their characters, bent on trying to change history so it would not repeat itself.
And you could add things like historical paradox . How would the players react when they undestand that the only way to save humanity is to fake a letter from Mussolini to Hilter, thus creating the second world war ? Very nice and interesting.
History’s never been my strong point, so I could never pull something like that off. I am, however, a huge fan of ontological paradoxes (things like going back in time to father yourself), which is what I’d focus on in such a campaign…