Mike wrote: > Lost Colony like Darkover or Haven or like? > > Not unknown as a theme for fun.. > > SG1 and like are based on the idea of a lost colony or base or base or ..
How do you misplace a colony, anyway? An entire planet is hard to hide, and neither will it simply change course and sail off into the dark. Some ideas: * It is hard to believe that the coordinates of a known, well published colony world would be lost from the records, even if there was a widespread breakdown of society. Imagine a situation where the existence of Hawaii was forgotten in the continental US -- that would take a truly apocalyptic breakdown. * But what good are records if the significance isn't clear? Maybe there were thousands or tens of thousands of colonies, and most never made it into general knowledge. The typical guy on the street may be aware that "yeah, we're colonizing Sagittarius now", without any deeper knowledge. There would still be thousands of places where the coordinates can be found, like the database of every major ship, but nobody who reads the database knows that nobody else knows that the colony is important. "Not my sector, somebody else's problem ... Who is responsible? No idea. Not me, anyhow." * Or anybody interested in the matter can find out that there used to be a colony, but the assumption is that it has been abandoned a long time ago. Maybe a war at the frontier, or breakdown at home and no more resupply, most colonies fail and a cursory sweep misses some survivors. "Sure, we had colonies in Sagittarius during the Golden Age, but they are all gone. No, I haven't checked personally. That would be silly." * Perhaps the planet is known as a potential colony site, but the fact that a colony was dispatched never got recorded. A simple clerical error, or widespread commercial practice to protect business advantages. The colony wasn't lost because it was never officially recorded to start with. * More energy and deliberation would be required to falsify the initial survey report and then dispatch a colony team in secret. That could involve government or corporate black ops. * Then there are colonies founded without prior planing, and without reporting back. Either a shipwrecked colony ship, or people going out beyond known space to "find a likely world and take it". _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
