Talk:Ahaja Bucherei
Notes (2007)[edit]
Should this be filed under People?
- - Sstefan 13:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- Well, Ahaja is a person, of some importance. This is one of those weird articles that, while it should be split, rewritten, and refiled under different names, looses a bunch of its interesting qualities when done so. I know of a few more of these essays (Peter Gray wrote a few, and there are some more in the HIWG data) that we may want to put some thought into how to classify and link together. Tjoneslo 13:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- I thought that I had put this page in the People section. Ah well, another example of my technological ineptitude.
- -Vendarth 18:53, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I wrote this non-canonical entry as an adventure ‘hook’ involving the search for a galactic Shangri-La. It is intended to evoke Hilton’s ‘Lost Horizon’ and Asimov’s ‘Second Foundation’, mixed with a dash of Indiana Jones. I foresaw the player character’s being hired by UML to participate in the original DAMISS expedition, getting caught up in the subsequent media circus (including offers of hefty bribes to give exclusive stories, etc.), and then be retained to serve in the expedition to find Bucherei’s refuge. Along the way, the expedition would be hounded by expeditions mounted by rival media firms, and forced to deal with ubiquitous Bucherei ‘buffs’ (obnoxious but harmless) and conspiracy theorists (potentially dangerous). Player characters and NPCs could be offered bribes, drugged, attacked or even kidnapped in order to extract information about the UML expedition’s discoveries. Local branches of rival media conglomerates would try to spy upon the expedition, and use bribery, rumors and planted contraband to have starport authorities hamper its progress.
I also foresaw conflict between the TNS correspondent and the UML team over what course the expedition would follow. The TNS correspondent, for example, would try to steer the expedition towards Red Zones and other 'mysterious' systems merely in order to sustain an aura of tension in her series of stories -- knowing all the while that these destinations had nothing to do with Bucherei.
I never decided precisely what the final “truth” about Ahaja Bucherei was, so that is open-ended and entirely up to the referee. Some possibilities that I toyed with included:
- 1) TOTAL REGRESSION: The Dru’mhilla exiles wound up settling a remote planet where, due to deliberate choice (based on a back-to-basics philosophy), they experienced such severe technological regression that their descendents now survive in utter barbarism. Vior, in the Outrim (see Leviathan), was one possible location in this case. Under this scenario none of the inhabitants have psionic powers.
- 2) PARTIAL REGRESSION: The exiles’s descendants have experienced substantial technological regression and now use their psionic powers exclusively to dissuade visits by off-worlders, who are seen as hostile and intolerably disruptive. Here I was thinking of another system described in Leviathan where the inhabitants use psionic powers to make offworlders either forget their visit entirely -- or kill each other off. Under this scenario, none of the original exiles survive.
- 3) HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT: The exiles and/or their descendants have established a psionic colony devoted to preserving knowledge and the arts and sciences against the decay of interstellar civilization. However, contrary to popular belief, it is not ‘hidden’ per se, but operates right out in the open, much as Asimov’s Second Foundation presented itself to the rest of the universe as the University of Trantor. Whether or not any of the original exiles survive, thanks to anagathics, is up to the referee.
- 4) THE FULL MONTY: All of the wildest speculations about Bucherei’s psionic utopia are true. It is a hidden colony on a world thought to be uninhabited (or uninhabitable) that is ‘cloaked’ from discovery by unimaginably advanced psionic powers. Perhaps the inhabitants have used their psionic powers to cause the Imperial authorities to classify the world as a Red Zone and/or publish misleading USP data. Bucherei and many of the original exiles are still alive. How the UML/TNS expedition would find the colony under these circumstances is a difficult question to answer.
In all scenarios, it is assumed that the derelict was removed from mothballs or a museum setting and refurbished for its final flight. Whether those who died on the derelict were fleeing for reasons of survival, political/religious dissidence, or a simple desire to escape their unique culture is up to the referee. Naturally, in casues #3 and #4, one must assume that the derelict set out on its final voyage early enough that jump-capable ships were not available.
Uncertainty about the age and course of the Derchon Anomaly derelict -- and whether or not it had 'turned over' at intermediate destinations -- leaves open a broad range of possible points of origin for the referee to choose.
- - Vendarth 17:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)