[Neongelion]

So for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, the Technology Guide was released, so now you can have cybernetics, laser guns and powered armor in your heroic fantasy setting of dragons and elves. However, the book assumes that the technology is rare and mysterious; not many people know how to use them, and fewer still know the esoteric secrets of crafting a brand new Plasma Grenade.

So this gave me an idea for a setting, using the Pathfinder rules: some kind of cataclysmic event destroys civilization in the Shadowrun universe as we know it in the year 2077. This event, whether technological or magical in nature (likely both), was enough to cause the end of modern civilization but not quite apocalyptic enough to wipe out metahumanity. Fast forward about 200-600 years later, and you get this setting. Society has regressed back to something resembling the medieval ages, and Mother Nature, with the aid of otherworldly powers, is slowly reclaiming the planet. Yet remnants of the Sixth World survive, in the form of technology, ruined cities, and such. You might be getting Fallout vibes (or Rifts) from this, but I'd like it to be more based off of Adventure Time: a setting that is supposedly a quasi-medieval society but is filled with the remnants of a civilization destroyed in some horrible apocalypse.

Basically I need ideas, anything you guys can throw out there. I know the Shadowrun setting but not as well as you guys! The big things I'm brainstorming:

-What exactly was so earth-shattering that caused the total (or near-total) destruction of civilization? Not just nation-states, but the monolithic, seemingly unstoppable megacorps?

-Would the Matrix still be accessible even after centuries of disuse? Would it have mutated into another ecosystem entirely? What kind of beings would reside there?

-What kind of factions survive that directly trace their origins back to Armageddon? Surviving enclaves of the megacorps? The Great Dragons?

-How, in general, can I portray this world as distinctly being the apocalyptic, science-fantasy future of Shadowrun yet still standing on its own as its own setting? I guess this is more of a question for myself than anything else.

I apologize in advance since this is topic is only for Shadowrun's setting and is for a different system, and I dunno if that's frowned on here or not.

[Wavefire]

You're not the first to have these thoughts about SR.

1.  A new form om HMMHV (ghoul/vampire virus) that is more virulent and leads to ravening beasts. Zombie outbreak basically except instead of slow and stupid zombies you get fast predators that see into astral space.

2.  Probably not since it still requires electricity and maintenance.

3.  Dragons, Asamando (ghoul nation) and possibly any group organised along universal lines (race, sex, location).

4.  Keep all features of SR, only make them rare. People would not forget technology or how to create a community just because an apocalypse happened. Trying to build a factory that can craft super advanced cyberware might be hard with zombie hordes roving the country side though. Knowing how to do something doesn't automatically give you the ability. Basically it wouldn't be the Middle ages, it would be present day Africa. You know about things, you can handle technology but you just don't have access to it.

[GrimWulf]

@OP  You could look at something similar as to the collapse in the movie Transcendence, basically an AI gets out of control (in the views of humans) and they react by creating a virus that wipes it out. However because the AI has pretty much globally spread that they end up taking out the worlds technology infrastructure.  Because so much of everything is automated at this point everything collapsed.


@ WaveFire  Well, if it's 200-600 years in the future those skills about how to create things wouldn't be passed along unless they could be utlized in a useful way.  No need for cyber-technicians when there is no cyber to install or maintain. 

[SamTwist]

Since I'm a big Earthdawn fan, I always loved the idea of a scourge happening in the sixth world. (If you are not familiar with the Earthdawn setting, people lived in underground cities called kaers to protect themselves from the Horrors, creatures from Astral Space who could crossover when the magic level would be high enough.)

Something similar to Fallout could be adapted for Shadowrun, where people lived in hi-tech underground vaults during the scourge and after a few hundred years, decided to leave and explore the ravaged world...

[rednblack]

This is relevant to my interests, as I've been tossing around a similar idea, though I plan on using SR 5 rules.  Wavefire's scenario fits nicely with what you're going for, but I'd wonder to what extent some of the corps have been squashed.  Maybe the arcology is the last bastion of "civilization," though resource depletion and other concerns have precluded its eminence around the globe.

Other things to keep in mind.  Food production in SR is mostly limited to a few crops.  Should a disease target and destroy those crops, there's no way to feed those billions and billions of people, and it's entirely likely that the corps and governments of the world would go to war over the food that's left, leading naturally to the post-apocalyptic wasteland you're seeking. 

Technological failures are also entirely possible.  While the matrix probably wouldn't exist in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, there could still be PANs, WANs, hosts, and drones, depending on the tech that's left.  Working tech is probably highly sought and very valuable. 

[emsquared]

First off, you do realize that IRL Mankind has went from Medieval to Space Age in 600 years right? 200 years is all it took for Industrial economies to rise to power and fade to obsolescence. And that's all through/with the necessarily slow process of the original development and progression of that technology - and without Magic. Even if 9 out of 10 people died (leaving ~600,000,000 people on Earth, same numbers of people as there were in ~1700), so long as all examples and documentation of technology (even/especially just basic engines) were not destroyed - which would be nearly impossible to manage, it would only take Man a few decades to bounce back to a recognizable modern society. 200-600 years after the Apocalypse? We're back to the Matrix (probably an all new one), new bioware and nanoware being developed, and building space colonies again.

What you're talking about would require the presence of an enduring force or global condition that would inhibit the growth and development of civilization like has never even been comprehended, much less seen, before. So I guess that's what you'd probably need to come up with for your scenario as described to be plausible.

I guess to go a little further towards answering your original question(s) "What exactly was so earth-shattering that caused the total (or near-total) destruction of civilization?", it would require something like Magic. Of course, magic was already around in SR and hasn't had such effects yet, but we all know where it can go with the Horrors. I really don't even know that something like a comet striking the earth and sending it into an Ice Age would do the job, unless it killed like 99 out of 100 people (sending population levels back to Stone Age levels). And even then, the survivors would probably be in large-ish pockets, somewhat negating the effects of the population loss.

[Neongelion]

First off, you do realize that IRL Mankind has went from Medieval to Space Age in 600 years right? 200 years is all it took for Industrial economies to rise to power and fade to obsolescence. And that's all through/with the necessarily slow process of the original development and progression of that technology - and without Magic. Even if 9 out of 10 people died (leaving ~600,000,000 people on Earth, same numbers of people as there were in ~1700), so long as all examples and documentation of technology (even/especially just basic engines) were not destroyed - which would be nearly impossible to manage, it would only take Man a few decades to bounce back to a recognizable modern society. 200-600 years after the Apocalypse? We're back to the Matrix (probably an all new one), new bioware and nanoware being developed, and building space colonies again.

What you're talking about would require the presence of an enduring force or global condition that would inhibit the growth and development of civilization like has never even been comprehended, much less seen, before. So I guess that's what you'd probably need to come up with for your scenario as described to be plausible.

I guess to go a little further towards answering your original question(s) "What exactly was so earth-shattering that caused the total (or near-total) destruction of civilization?", it would require something like Magic. Of course, magic was already around in SR and hasn't had such effects yet, but we all know where it can go with the Horrors. I really don't even know that something like a comet striking the earth and sending it into an Ice Age would do the job, unless it killed like 99 out of 100 people (sending population levels back to Stone Age levels). And even then, the survivors would probably be in large-ish pockets, somewhat negating the effects of the population loss.

I'm aware of the rapid pace humanity gained in the past centuries, which is why I'd imagine that magic, or at least supernatural forces, played at least a partial, if not a major, component of the theoretical apocalypse. Something like in Rifts, where the ley lines across the planet flare up and bring about terrible natural disasters (eruption of Yellowstone?), rampant "mana storms", portals to other planes (and bringing with them extraplanar terrors), and so on.

Entities like Feuerschwinge would actively work to return both the landscape and societies to something resembling the Fourth World. Some would try to do it in a non-violent way (like Feuerschwinge...I hope), hiding ruins, taking away (but preserving) any data or, heaven forbid, books that could tell people how to make tech; others would use more direct and violent methods, ruthlessly hunting down anyone who possessed "the tools that poisoned the Earth", ie anything more advanced than a crossbow is unacceptable to these militant sects.

Unrelated, but in this setting, elves are a critically endangered species. I was trying to figure out a way to explain why they're that way, and I think a mutant strain of HMMHV that would be fairly benign to other metahumans would have been brutal to elves. It also has the effect of dramatically lowering the fertility of the elves who survived being exposed to the virus, leaving birth rates at an all time low for them.

[rednblack]

@emsquared, I'm not sure that I agree.  While the "dark ages" aren't nearly as dark as they are popularly characterized as, they were definitely regressive and the period lasted for hundreds of years at some of the most benign estimates.  Keep in mind this was also during a period when there were entire castes of people who could read and should have had access to written records.  I think it's a mistake to look at human progress as a linear line leading upward as time passes.  Each epoch has its own unique challenges as well as its own boons.  In the world of SR, where books are obsolete and the near whole of human knowledge, expertise, and technological innovation exists in the matrix, should the matrix fall, collective human history falls with it. 

As for small engines, this indeed poses a "problem," if we're wanting to arrive at a post-apocalyptic scenario, but I think you can logically explain a great deal of it, and hand wave the rest.  Engines need fuel, and it all comes down to resources.  Engines may well exist, but without a steady power supply, they're next to useless, and having engines could very well be mostly in the domain of various warlords struggling for power, a la Mad Max.  If the events that led to the post-apocalyptic scenario involved widespread use of EMPs, you could simply hand wave engines away pretty easily, as all of the modern tech would be dependent upon computers to function. 

There's also, I don't know, therefore magic to keep in mind.

Last, just because human society would have the opportunity to right its course and bring us back to civilization, there's no reason to believe that one society-crushing cataclysm wouldn't be followed by another 50, 100, 200 years later.  Likewise, you can always tweak numbers, so that it's not 9 out of 10 who perished but 99 our of 100, or even 9,999 out of 10,000.   

[8-bit]

Maybe I'm not familiar enough with lore, but how would EMPs even affect the Matrix? The majority of electronics are based off of optical processors due to having more processing power, better speed, etc. Sure, some stuff is fried, but I was under the impression that 95% of things were naturally EMP proof due to not being based on (very fragile and delicate) electronic processors. No difference to your average Joe, or even the majority of shadowrunners, but still a significant difference.

I might be wrong though, I am not *that* familiar with Shadowrun's background.

[rednblack]

Maybe I'm not familiar enough with lore, but how would EMPs even affect the Matrix? The majority of electronics are based off of optical processors due to having more processing power, better speed, etc. Sure, some stuff is fried, but I was under the impression that 95% of things were naturally EMP proof due to not being based on (very fragile and delicate) electronic processors. No difference to your average Joe, or even the majority of shadowrunners, but still a significant difference.

I might be wrong though, I am not *that* familiar with Shadowrun's background.

I'm not personally all that up on the lore myself, so you may very well be right there. As far as the electronics arms race goes though, I'm sure a clever GM could come up with something else to have the same effect. Viruses, a new type of head crash that infects "infrastructure" -- for lack of a better word -- etc. would all be possible.

Thanks for mentioning the EMP thing. I hadn't considered that.

[emsquared]

While Europe was fussing over internal squabbles and religion, Asia and the Middle East were making great strides in science and mathematics that would influence everything that came after. So while a pocket populations progress may have flatlined or maybe declined, Mankind still progressed. Even then, the Dark Ages were followed by the great leap that was the Rennaisance. So no, of course it is not consistently linear but the trend is still always up. People require stability, so while population increases so to must progress to maintain that stability. And just because physical books and records are no longer widely (or even narrowly) used, doesn't mean they no longer exist or that people no longer know how to use them.

Engines do need fuel, and there's millions of gallons of it sitting in tanks spread across the country, just waiting to get us to the point (quite rapidly) where we can extract it again. Finding fuel won't be an issue, maintenance might, however the plethora of unused/abandoned tech should take care of that too. Ultimately, it is a fiction and of course you can hand wave whatever you want, but 600 years later and people are just starting to emerge again? seems like a ridiculous stretch even if you have a whole jazz stage production's worth of hand waving. As for this technology being in the sole possession of warlords, that most definitely would fall under the category of one of those "enduring forces" I talked about in my OP. Same with the cataclysm after cataclysm, that would be one of those "global condition"s I mentioned in my OP.

Anyway, point wasn't that its impossible or unreasonable to try and think of a situation(s) where this could happen, more that the OP hadn't thought enough about the root premise as it was described. Basically, instead of telling him what he should have for his story, I wanted to give him some principles around which he could really think about it for himself.

[AndyNakamura]

Neongelion, you might want to check out the Numenara RPG by Monte Cook. It is pretty close to the theme you seem to be going for.

[rednblack]

@emsquared, all solid points.  A couple things worth considering.  The world has never seen a global crash.  Certainly Asia, the Middle East, and even the Americas kept on trucking when the Roman Empire fell, just as northern Europe would have kept on trucking had the Roman Empire fell a few centuries earlier.  As it was, though, when the empire fell there were stark repercussions for the affected area, and since the world of SR is a fairly globalized one, the affected area could be wherever people inhabit. 

As for fuel, again, a very solid point.  In the fictional SR world, though, there's no reason to posit that future stores of fuel exist.  Maybe the peak oil folks were right all along, or maybe the areas of the world where good stores of fuel exist have all been turned to glass.  Regardless, gasoline doesn't have a very long shelf-life and ethanol additives only make that worse. 

As for the 600-700 year question, I am totally in agreement with you there.  Personally, I'm more interested in post-apocalyptic stories that happen either immediately after or are only a generation or two distanced from whatever the great cataclysm is.  And partly that's because I like stories where part of  the drama centers around the possibility of saving or resurrecting civilization in some of the manners you've described.  But, the OP wants a 600-700 years-later scenario, and I'm just trying to make something like that work.  I think you and I are on the same page there.  Also,

seems like a ridiculous stretch even if you have a whole jazz stage production's worth of hand waving. .

this kind of made my day

[Neongelion]

Neongelion, you might want to check out the Numenara RPG by Monte Cook. It is pretty close to the theme you seem to be going for.

Oh yeah, I'm quite aware of its existence, even bought myself a copy of the core book. The setting is one of the main inspirations for this!

While Europe was fussing over internal squabbles and religion, Asia and the Middle East were making great strides in science and mathematics that would influence everything that came after. So while a pocket populations progress may have flatlined or maybe declined, Mankind still progressed. Even then, the Dark Ages were followed by the great leap that was the Rennaisance. So no, of course it is not consistently linear but the trend is still always up. People require stability, so while population increases so to must progress to maintain that stability. And just because physical books and records are no longer widely (or even narrowly) used, doesn't mean they no longer exist or that people no longer know how to use them.

Engines do need fuel, and there's millions of gallons of it sitting in tanks spread across the country, just waiting to get us to the point (quite rapidly) where we can extract it again. Finding fuel won't be an issue, maintenance might, however the plethora of unused/abandoned tech should take care of that too. Ultimately, it is a fiction and of course you can hand wave whatever you want, but 600 years later and people are just starting to emerge again? seems like a ridiculous stretch even if you have a whole jazz stage production's worth of hand waving. As for this technology being in the sole possession of warlords, that most definitely would fall under the category of one of those "enduring forces" I talked about in my OP. Same with the cataclysm after cataclysm, that would be one of those "global condition"s I mentioned in my OP.

Anyway, point wasn't that its impossible or unreasonable to try and think of a situation(s) where this could happen, more that the OP hadn't thought enough about the root premise as it was described. Basically, instead of telling him what he should have for his story, I wanted to give him some principles around which he could really think about it for himself.

Thing is I don't just want to hand wave all that away, hence why I think this post  and your previous one is insightful! And as I said in the OP I'm willing to go from only two centuries after the apocalypse to about six centuries. I'm thinking that a lot of the unused and abandoned tech in the world was either deliberately buried, stolen, or hoarded by powerful individuals, and that other forces of nature, natural or supernatural, continued to wreck havoc across the world for at least a quarter of the period between the apocalypse and the present day, stifling any attempt at rebuilding civilization.

At the same time, I also like the idea of societies or parts of the world where Sixth World tech is not only more common, these areas of the world are very close to pre-apocalypse society. Or at the very least they are parts of the world where technology was utilized earlier. Which might add another problem I guess: if these areas exist, how come the regions around them are still savage wastelands in comparison? Perhaps the chain of natural and supernatural disasters prevented this, or the majority of them have become paranoid, insular communities, all believing themselves the last bastion of civilization on the planet.

[Wavefire]

Have done a lot of thinking about this since the first post and have changed my mind quite a bit. To have a post apocalyptic society I now think you'd need at least 1 of 3 different scenarios.

1.  Apocalypse is on going (zombies, constant mana storms or similar)
2.  Resources are so scarce that every day is a brutal fight for survival. Starving people create little progress. Could be boring to play though.
3.  An agency working to prevent progress. This was what happened during the Dark ages in Europe where the church actively discouraged exploration and advancement. This agency would destroy tech and suppress knowledge and advancement. In their own enclaves they would probably have access to a better life though.