Tales of the Future

The Universe of the Tales of the Future

The Universe is vast, and even a single Galaxy is filled with life and stories told across billions of years of time. Tales of the Future is based in science and technology, using the following guidelines:

Commerce

Shipping physical objects between the stars is expensive and generally limited to luxury goods and items that cannot be duplicated on the destination worlds. Nevertheless, there are always freighters that go from system to system, engaging in enough trade to thrive.

Communication

Communication is ubiquitous and free on nearly every civilized world. Faster than light communication within a planetary system is also readily available.

Faster than light communication beyond a planetary system is much rarer. The range is very short, and the energy potentials of hyperspace means that connections rarely hold more than one or two light-years away. It is impossible to build stable relay systems, even over those short distances.

This means the most efficient means of communication over light years is via data carried on ships. Given typical packet carrier speeds under ten light-years a day, news takes a long time to cross the galaxy under the best circumstances. Most bulk data travels on slower ships, limiting the spread of the majority of news and information to a local sphere of commerce.

Computational Intelligence (CI)

There are three levels of computational intelligence:

Artificial Stupids are limited intelligences designed for boring and repetitive tasks that would drive anyone else mad. These are everywhere and cheap, from mining robots, to "smart" doors, appliances, and toys.

Artificial Intelligence is common, where smarter machines are needed for complex tasks. Thus, AI can be found in robotic space probes, intelligent money, cyberneural assistants, and other demanding roles. There is some resistance to AI on many worlds, and an outright ban in a few backwards-looking civilizations.

Sentient AIs are far less common. These people are also not universally accepted as equals. There are significant parts of the Galaxy where sentient AIs are discriminated against or outlawed. Fortunately, more and more civilizations are insisting on their equality and inclusion.

Language

Nearly every race brings a multitude of languages with them. There are three general approaches:

First, in most galaxies, there is almost always a common language that evolves amongst the older races in the Galaxy. This doesn't help in distant regions.

Second, there are artificial stupids and artificial intelligences that specialize in translation. This software can be used directly. Once translation matrices are computed, this translation technology can be loaded into cyberneural implants for personal use.

Third, there are linguists who are skilled at learning and translating new languages.

Medicine

The wetware races with the best medical technology known in the Galaxy should expect to live at least a thousand years, and many far longer. There are some who reach ten thousand years as a biological being.

Cloning technology is well understood, but its use to produce a genetically exact duplicate of a living individual is frowned upon by most races. Similarly, it is possible to recreate nearly any intelligent machine. Nevertheless, it is not possible to copy a sentient mind from one body and move it into another, whether wetware, software, or hardware, for any extended period of time. (Copying for a day works. Copying for a year fails.)

Sentient minds can be moved into virtual existence, but it is a one-way trip, with some subtle differences in the copy.

Most races refrain from dramatic alterations in their genomes, software, or wetware. There are life-like prostheses for biological components that cannot be regrown naturally or in a laboratory. There are organic, semi-organic, mechanical, or cybernetic augmentations readily available in emergencies. Most races shy away from machine/being borganisms.

Genetic diseases are easily repaired. Medicines for treatment of other diseases are easily fabricated via nanotechnology. Examples of diseases that jump across species and genomes are rare, and are almost always the result of criminal genetic manipulation and enhancement. Many "smart" viruses aren't very smart in the end.

Mining, Heavy Industry, and Power

Most spacefaring races are capable of doing everything they need with raw materials acquired in space. These materials are robotically and nanotechnically mined from asteroids and comets. They are processed by nanotech to assemble anything those people need. Power is cheap, whether from matter-antimatter reactions or solar power when close to a star.

Nanotech

When understood and controlled, nanotech can make anything, from atomic-level constructs and bioneural devices, to food and computational devices, all the way up to growing an entire starship. This is how advanced races operate.

When misunderstood and misused, nanotech can reduce a world to "gray goo," destroying everything that once existed there.

Most races fall into the latter group. This is why nanotech is illegal and frightening in much of the Universe.

Psi

The sensorium used by the races of the Galaxy and beyond are varied, but there are no examples of unaided "Extra Sensory Perception". Unaided telekinesis, teleperception or telepathy is only found in fiction, though wetware augmentation can achieve many of these effects.

Religion

Most cultures start with some form of religion. Almost all of these dogmas do not survive contact with alien cultures and a larger Universe. There is a rich set of philosophies and philosophers that debate ethics and morals across the Galaxies, but very few of these philosophies contain an element of faith.

Stasis

There are a number of mechanisms that can place a sentient mind and its body (if applicable) into some form of stasis. This allows the being to "sleep" for an extended period of time, while aging very slowly. It is not possible to stop this aging, which places an upper limit on the time a being can spend safely in stasis.

Teleportation

There is no means of teleportation above the quantum scale, except in fiction. All travel requires moving objects from one location to another the old fashioned way.

Time Travel

There is no way to travel in time, except the usual one-day-at-a-time. Some natural philosophers and physicists believe that even if you did manage to travel in time, you'd end up in a different universe from the one you left. They are correct.

Virtual Reality

VR is ubiquitous and impossible to differentiate from the "real" world. While it is often used as an entertainment medium, its most common use is as a means of life-extension. Even with the best anti-agathics and cyborganic technology, biological beings eventually wear out. Before this happens, most biologicals have their sensorum scanned, so they can be uploaded as a fully-functional software-equivalent to their previous biological existence.

Warfare

War on a planetary scale is possible, far too frequent, and often leads to extinction events. There are many corporations, treasure hunters, and scavengers eager to recover the remains.

War within a planetary system is harder, but still too easy for many now-extinct peoples. This also brings those looking for an easy score.

The mass limits of hyperspace make interstellar warfare difficult and unprofitable. Given the free availability of almost limitless resources unclaimed and drifting in most systems, there's no reason to fight for water ice, methane, iron, gold, platinum, hooverium, or anslownium. There are also more than enough planets to give everyone a reasonable amount of room to grow. Further worlds can be terraformed, if needed.

These Tales take place in the Galaxy shared across several LARPs. The description of the science and technology of the Future is identical to those in:

If you've already played in one or more of these LARPs, you have a sense of how the Future works. The Irnh, from The Tales of Irnh, live in their own remote system, so, while interesting and in this Galaxy, their issues are relevant to their specific world.