So, I’ve developed kind of an alternative take on the post apocalyptic games we’ve been seeing a lot of lately. Since the concept has been done well and repeatedly in the recent past I doubt this will receive the warmest reception, but I found some of the mechanics of this twist appealing.
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The Rafiki began as a simple, simian, space horde. Conquering planets willy nilly, looting every resource and scavenging any technology and then moving on. Life was good. Two thousand years ago, following the noble resistance of the proud Puumon’s, the Rafiki began assimilating the conquered people into its horde. They found that the diversity of skills and genetic predispositions made the process significantly more efficient. In fact, soon they were able to obliterate the political and military institutions of a planet and suck the whole thing dry in less than what we would think of as eight months.
Then they came to Earth.
Their technology was vastly superior, and very soon most of the highly populated cities had been reduced to rubble, few nation states retained any sort of control of their borders, mass panic ruled the first few weeks.
The Americans responded by launching nuclear missiles at orbiting command centers, a particularly ballsy strategy that, while not insurmountable, posed the first major threat to the invasion. Soon Russian hackers were sending entire squadrons of troop shuttles to the bottom of the Pacific by overriding their navigation systems. The ground war in Africa became a quagmire of unbelievable proportions and Aliens technology proved no better than human when it came to the caves and mountains of Afghanistan. Emboldened by the Americans Pakistan fired nuclear missiles at some of the larger hovering ships, which had much more significant environmental impact but which was also much more effective than firing the missiles against well defended and distant orbital stations.
The coding community took on the challenge with renewed vigor after the Russian’s success and were soon able to target the crashes on specific groups of the aliens, trying to sow dissent and break down what they could already tell, a month and a half into the invasion, was a conglomerate of different species.
Their plan worked better than they had hoped, identifying a race’s ships and codes became simple and when their navigational computers accidentally charted them on intersecting courses on frequent and unexplained occasion the aliens of the Rafiki Conglomerate shot at each other as much as they shot at humans.
By three months in, the invasion was a total bust, and the races who were used to quick and easy victory had either fled the system or settled into vicious infighting. The last faster than light ship in the system was destroyed by a series of American missile strikes that overwhelmed its countermeasures.
Which is where we would start, fresh start map, create your own faction. You would be able to play as, say, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs, trying to reclaim what’s left of the USA, or any given human group that seeks power and legitimacy in what’s left of the world, I wouldn’t have any problem with people trying to play as one of the species of the Rafiki, abandoned by their fleet, but with good access to and understanding of alien technology. Other than the tall, thin, simian Rafiki (who have mostly fled anyways) those races would be characterized entirely by their player.
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Of course these different types of groups would each have their advantages and disadvantages. One way that these would be shown would be a reputation system. How good your reputation is would affect how npc’s and random human beings outside of your area of control treat you. Starting as a former member of a traditional Westphalian nation state would allow you a great deal more legitimacy to the people who used to be a part of that country and wish to remake it. Starting as an alien species on the other hand would probably put you with a negative reputation and the general scorn of most humans and even many other aliens.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat though, these people will learn to respect your authority in any event if you simply come at them with overwhelming firepower. Alien technology is scattered all over this crazy messed up world, though if you’re a human you probably won’t know how it works too well once you find it. Which is fine, that is what research is for, give it a couple of turns and invest in the R&D to master it and soon you too can vaporize anyone who stands in your way. Some less experienced human groups might also require Research and Development for more advanced human technology, if they can even get into the secured compounds. Traditional nation states will have access to these compounds and know how to operate their own machinery if they can make it out there past the militias.
Income would be represented in loose terms as your Economy. The numbers would not be particularly large but they would represent the effort of your people that you can put towards certain tasks, training as soldiers, learning how to use technology, even building new cultural wonders to increase your reputation.
Corruption is likely to be a problem though with regards to an economy. For the traditional nation states, without many of the procedures and equipment that have been used in the past for background checks, and also with the desperate need for an influx of talent, corruption will be a big problem and will slow down the economy. You are not the only vulture picking at these bones. Infighting amongst the once monolithic ranks of the Rafiki races has also initiated a tradition of corruption, although a younger one, in the remaining aliens. Rogue human operations have entirely different mechanisms for ascertaining loyalty and distributing responsibility, they have pretty low corruption and highly efficient economies.
Exploration. How would we get places? Do you know of a gas station that’s open past Armageddon? Your people can walk to explore, they could probably make it a hundred miles or so in a turn, you could triple this if you start taking care of some horses, but horses would cost non-fuel upkeep out of your economy. You could also drive, depending on the vehicles available and how much fuel they can get their hands on. I’d keep track of the fuel amounts, one unit of fuel would be about a hundred miles worth, for a normal vehicle although only half that for heavy ones like Tractor Trailers or Tanks and double that for a particularly fuel efficient model. Aircraft will also use fuel at an extremely reduced rate. Alien crafts all operate on Cold Fusion and can explore as far as they want, although they will also get shot down whenever any human can train a big enough gun on them.
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Stories. I like stories. My tendency is to reward stories heavily, but let’s not get too crazy about it. Writing stories would earn you specific rewards related to the content of the story, but it will come out statistically in one of two ways. Either the story is a piece of culture, such as a great battle that will always be remembered, or an illumination of your population and their way of life. Alternatively the story could depict some sort of effort in the scientific fields. You can earn R&D points this way, but the reward for scientific stories will be significantly lower than the reward for cultural ones it would probably max out at 1 R&D point a turn (if it maxed out at 2 then the second point would be near impossible to get) while cultural points would be unrestricted. Cultural points could be used to increase your reputation.
Starting Zones. Where you start would matter.
Middle East: Between Iraq and Calcutta there is a great deal of fallout from the Pakistani solution to alien invasion. This will slow down your economy, but also increase your reputation with the people who all need desperately to be rescued.
Africa: Disparate groups who managed to unite against the aliens have resumed fighting each other. Corruption is high but captured alien soldiers make R&D a little easier.
Europe: Europe did not come through this well, their hackers do efficient R&D but their reputations have all been diminished by their embarrassing performance in the war of the worlds.
Asia: Everyone who starts in Asia north of the Himalayas will not have their statistics changed by environment. Asia’s still in alright shape, although much of the political leadership and population centers are dead in craters and rogue aliens are still wandering much of the land.
N. America: Reduced fuel collection, increased reputation. Everyone knows that you helped stop the invasion, but they have already looted most of the gasoline and it will be difficult to get around, especially in those big cars.
S. America: Reduced R&D, Increased Economies. South America lost its share of cities, but few aliens landed there or were shot down in South America. On the other hand it is also one of the more intact parts of the map so the economies are ready to boom.
Australia: Increased fuel collection, Reduced R&D. Australia lost most of its Universities in the war, but there are large stockpiles of fuel to compensate for how far in the middle of nowhere Australia is.
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I’m working on the player template, but I wanted to test the waters first with regards to the setting.
