About Solar Storms

Solar Storms was originally designed as a mech-sparring persistent game (beating each other up via giant robots), to be run on OpenRPG. As elements got added, it quickly grew into its own full-fledged universe, taking on a more serious, transhuman tone. I eventually decided to place the setting and rules information here on the Web instead of on a couple hundred 'nodes', to help run more traditional style games. I may try to run the persistant game, eventually. I'm designing a custom system for it, based off of a d2 System that I created.

The author of Solar Storms is me, Brandan Yares (Xeriar), a computer technician and consultant. My e-mail address is xeriar@anenris.com.

Inspiration

Blending a healthy dose of science-fiction and fantasy elements, Solar Storms has a lot of inspirational sources. A few follow, but they are by no means a complete list.

Fading Suns by Holistic Design was the initial setting that got me thinking about my own science-fiction setting. In the end Solar Storms didn't end up much like it, but there are still some key influences.

Gnosticism, an early branch of christianity, plays a strong role, namely in the idea that the observable Universe is not all there is, and that, through knowledge, one can see beyond the veil that has been pulled over our eyes and see the true scope of reality.

Xenosaga is an epic science-fiction game where technology has become 'sufficiently advanced'. Through nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and cybernetic enhancements, characters wield abilities above and beyond the scope of normal humans. Also heavily influenced by Gnosticism.

Exalted is a role-playing game by White Wolf, where the standard characters are penultimate heroes chosen by the greatest of gods to right the wrongs of Creation. It is high on action and on power - a starting character can potentially be a match for a small nation.

Star Wars. If you don't know of Star Wars, how you found this place is beyond me. While, like Star Wars, taoist thought does creep into Solar Storms, the blending of mystical and science-fiction aspects are more influential, here.

Firefly aka Serenity is another, more low-tech science-fiction setting. A space western, it has some of the feel of the original Star Trek, though the tone is a lot grittier. The theme of "rebels trying to escape the control of a government's staunch iron grip" is central to Firefly and also a key component of Solar Storms.

Dune by Frank Herbert. In particular, the first three novels. Another gritty science-fiction setting, which Solar Storms doesn't particularly mimic, the writing style and sense of continually unfolding mystery are key, here. Being a role-playing game, I plan on revealing more up front than say, novels would, but the idea is still present.

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin is probably the least of the influences, thematically. Being a science fiction setting where:

1. Dying is actually hard, especially for the genetically engineered superbeings that make up the main characters.
2. The 'magic' has world-shaking potential in a literal instead of figurative sense.
3. The 'world' is fairly utopic.

Solar Storms doesn't take a whole lot in these respects. However, it gives plenty of inspiration in areas that were lacking in my original draft - intrigue.

Musical inspiration was found in the Dr. Who theme remixes at http://whomix.trilete.net, which have a high awesomeness factor.

Science and Fundamentals

Regarding the dose of science in the science fiction, I'm not claiming to be terribly realistic. At best, there are a number of educated guesses, and on the other hand, there are the mobius patterns. In the end, I had to slow my research and speed my writing, though as of writing this I'm still making extensive corrections.

Personally, I expect the real future to be far more interesting than this little dream.

Above everything else, there is one cardinal rule in Solar Storms - causality is inviolate. To put simply, THERE IS NO TIME TRAVEL IN SOLAR STORMS and there never will be, no matter how far the setting evolves. The best you can hope to do is reset a local area of some sort to a previous state. Outside observers, however, may witness this resetting and its methods.

Yes, I talk about superluminal travel and tachyons and such, but these all, through one means or another, function within the scope of the above. Faster-than-light travel and communication, while possible, is extremely energy intensive. The exact means will be somewhat glossed over (being, y'know, a vision of the future), but, in order to retain causality, Relativity must be encapsulated in some manner. That is to say, Einstein's relativity works up to the speed of light, but not past it, so using the Lorentz or Poincare equations will only get you into silly places.