Earth, December 21, 2098

The future holds nothing but promise.

For the past fifty years, humankind has enjoyed a golden age of learning, science, and relative peace. Cracking the genome and mastering particle physics were the twin keys to unlock the doors to the future. Medical cloning, cybernetics, and nanotechnology have extended the average human lifespan within sight of a second century. Revolutionary disease cures and genetic manipulation have allowed a ninety-year old man to have the body and mind that a thirty year old would envy a century before.

Cheap clean power and artificial gravity have unlocked space and the depths of the oceans, and mankind is contemplating Mars not only as a permanent residence but also as a stepping stone to the outer planets. Robotics, artificial intelligences, and neural linked virtual realities allow this exploration to be done in safety.

The mega-cities of Earth have been improving themselves for a half-century and are no longer dark places full of crime and refuse as pollution is scrubbed from the air and water, and glittering strings of hover-vehicles replace all but the last wheeled vehicles. The urban centers are sprawling, but in between are vast expanses of restored wilderness, and a traveler flying from the BAMA to Chicago would overfly a sea of green between the swaths of glittering skyscrapers.

Perhaps most impressive of all is the peace. After the wars and unrest of the Twenty-twenties the last three-quarters of the twenty-first century have been peaceful and prosperous throughout all of the first and most of the second and third worlds (what little “third world” there could still be said to exist.)

What little political squabbling exists is over the regulation of the newest frontiers in transhuman augmentation: cybernetic and bionic augmentation, neuroelectronic stimulation and chemical and genetic manipulation not for medical purposes, but for cosmetic other reasons. Some argue that augmenting the human body so a man can lift two tons has no practical application in the age of construction robotics, while others argue that in a post-militaristic society there is no reason a woman should not be allowed to transplant her brain into a military-grade cyborg. The jury is still out.

And while the rumored “new Cold War” between the power blocs over who can militarize these new technologies most effectively is probably very real, no specter of apocalypse hangs overhead as it did after the second world war, and all in all the future is a better place for all the improvements man has made. Yes, the average citizen cannot cook his own dinner, and eighty percent of the world’s population would surely perish if the silent power stations stopped providing their (practically) free energy, but the last time anyone lost power even for a minute was in 2053, for a half hour.

Life is good. The future is bright.

If there is any downside to the future it is this: we are not supermen. The Heinleinean superman who can con a ship, set a bone, butcher a hog, program a computer, birth a child, fight a war and write a sonnet does not exist in this world. In fact, if you ask the average fellow in the corridor how to make dinner he would tell you to order it through CityNet via your integrated home computer system, and he would be perfectly sensible to do so.

Oddballs have firearms, nutjobs leave the city for anywhere but a (slightly) different city, weirdos know how to start a fire. The Boy Scouts struggled to survive the Twenty-Twenties (they did, because a group of boys, organized, and with knives are going to hold their own in gang warfare fairly well) and came through, but changed. They were happy to put the dark behind them and camping is off the curriculum.

Most people do not commute outside their ‘Scraper. Many can’t drive, who needs to with a roboTaxi on the roof-port day and night? The most greenery one might see is if you have a grass carpet, and those are very Twenty-Seventies.

Of course the essential services do exist. Combined Police/Fire stations, but mostly just in case, and the government didn’t relax after it regained order, just put on a friendly face. You’d probably be amazed to know how many people in your ‘Scraper are in the National Guard. Or maybe not! What do you do?

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Character Creation will use SPIRIT (found here, re-imaged as SWASH here) for easy of use and familiarity. I cannot explain it better than FreakyBoy, and will not attempt to. The SPIRIT point budget is six points.

What I want from you, bare minimum:



If you have questions that will not reveal the setting that I will not reveal ask them! If you have questions about the setting that might reveal what the setting may be, PM them!

I know that there are those here who know what this is. And I like you all the more for it. But keep it to the PMs please, until I reveal what is behind door number two. Interested parties post here. The post above this one will have character-type details in a little while.

I'm always up for playing in a Skitz game. Unless people don't want me to, in which case I won't.

This party is interested. Particularly if it would not cause too much undue comment to go about everywhere in powered armour.

In like Flynn. And I'll kill Flynn if it means getting in.

It would.

First, that would be barbaric.
Second, it would be absolutely unnecessary.
Third, it would be insanely illegal and expensive.

Even the military finds it more cost effective and safer to use small combat robots (in the ten-foot range) over man-sized powered armors. Perhaps the next generation of infantry fighting suit will be fully powered, but for now augmentation exoskeletons are reserved for support troops, emergency response personnel (fire/rescue for example) and mechanics who have to use big wrenches.

Why, you would give your neighbor a heart attack!

Character creation necessaries above.

Mmmmm. Uutopiarific! I look forward to creating a citizen who can order food with rare skill, whose skill at Civ XX is unparalleled and who works quietly as a secretary at a non-profit.

You know, someone who would really help the party.

For party-ness, everyone gets to live on the 83rd floor of 'Scraper seventeen (west), Chicago. It's a nice neighborhood on the 83rd floor (which itself is three stories high. The center of Scraper seventeen is open, with nice balconies. You all probably would shop at the same grocery store, if those were still a thing.

Think "Blade Runner, if everything didn't suck" or "Fifth Element, but without the awful pollution, aliens, or interstellar travel." In fact, strip the ETs and IST from both settings and they could be the LA and NYC of this setting (everyone knows LA is a hole, and that BAMA/NYC is fulla bums anyway)

I'm interested. Not sure if I can actually join, but I'm most definitely interested.

Can't believe I'm the first one up! Skitz, I can think of quite a few ways this utopia could go, and they are all awesome.

STAN
Physical media is so 20th Century.

I'm maybe in. If Skitz approves my character concept, I'll start working on some numbers.