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Off-Topic Discussion => Arts & Talents => Topic started by: Topgun on September 27, 2010, 12:20:10 pm

Title: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: Topgun on September 27, 2010, 12:20:10 pm: I am writing something and I need help.
Basic premise:
A race is currently enslaved by aliens and have been relocated to a planet in a system near their masters.
They have a population of about one billion.
My problem is that, one, I don't know what the alien overlords do with their slaves, and two, I need the slaves to some how get their hands on military grade space ships and fight their way to their home planet.
There are other, mostly neutral factions in this universe, including an alien race at war with the overlords. I can see them helping the slaves, but I can't really imagine them just giving them a fleet of warships.

Please help me.
Title: Re: Plausible?
Post by: Scourge of Ages on September 27, 2010, 01:06:01 pm: Quote from: Topgun on September 27, 2010, 12:20:10 pm
I am writing something and I need help.
Basic premise:
A race is currently enslaved by aliens and have been relocated to a planet in a system near their masters.
They have a population of about one billion.
My problem is that, one, I don't know what the alien overlords do with their slaves, and two, I need the slaves to some how get their hands on military grade space ships and fight their way to their home planet.
There are other, mostly neutral factions in this universe, including an alien race at war with the overlords. I can see them helping the slaves, but I can't really imagine them just giving them a fleet of warships.

Please help me.
Simple:
The slaves crew the starships of their masters, and are usually kept in line with beatings and threats of genocide. They've never been able to rebel before, because there simply isn't a large enough concentration on each ship. But they have a big elaborate plan (you'll need to figure it out) to get enough of their people onto enough vessels to be able to effectively take them over all at once.
Bam, you have your fleet, your rebellion, and means to stage any number of other missions, perhaps to capture more resources in order to evacuate your people, etc. etc.
The plan: They subtly provoke a bigger, meaner race into attacking the masters, and so the masters crew the front-line warships almost exclusively with slaves because they know they'll be blasted first. When the battle comes, the slaves take their new ships and bug out, leaving the main force of masters-controlled ships to be wasted by the other guys.

Alternately, the slaves' new planet is a giant factory where starships are built, and the slaves are the builders. With very careful long-term planning, they manipulated schedules so that a great many ships will be space-worthy at the same time. Unfortunately, most of the ships they are using are un- or lightly-armed. They load up as many people as they can and embark on a campaign of capture and destruction.

Alternately, the slaves use their knowledge of advanced particle physics to whip up some really cool and destructive illusions, and send a pair of emissaries to the masters' leader to negotiate for their freedom.
Title: Re: Plausible?
Post by: headdie on September 27, 2010, 03:06:33 pm: Scourge of Ages ideas are along the lines of what i would think of, not so sure about using them for slave crews on warships but certainly maintenance/construction workers at ship/maintenance yards.

Another angle could be that the race warring with the overloards find out about this mass relocation and decide to sneak in weapons, ships and a few specialists/training officers in the hope that your "good guy" race will stir up trouble but other wise don't really care for them, kind of like the Americans during the Cold War, Afganistan vs Russia comes to mind as a RW example of this behavior.

One thing to consider is why have the overlords massed a potentially troublesome population like this, 1 billion being is a large number to manage, though on the scale of an inter stellar empire its a relatively small number that is still 1 billion candidates for trouble so probably require around a 1/4 of that number in security personnel + weapons, protection, vehicles and equipment for those persons which is a considerable outlay when at war with another inter stellar empire. Are they unusually gifted in a technical ability or other skill, do they have special environmental considerations that make them difficult to integrate into the general slave population. Why not use their home world to mass them on.

Also what does this empire use it's slave population for? perhaps in the background for the race before it was enslaved and how it has been used since you can find your answer as to how they came to be able to stage a rebellion
Title: Re: Plausible?
Post by: Sushi on September 27, 2010, 03:55:26 pm: I like headdie's idea of technology to fight coming from a third race trying to stir up trouble.

I'd probably have the slave race "used" primarily in nonthreatening roles: agriculture, for example. Spread that population over the planet and have them produce food to fuel your military arm.

Alternately, you could go with a "Star Control II" kind of situation, where the masters simply want to make sure that the slaves stay repressed enough not to ever be a threat to them.
Title: Re: Plausible?
Post by: Trivial Psychic on September 27, 2010, 06:42:38 pm: Here's a thought... the slaves race have a resistance to a certain environmental considerations on the planet that they're relocated on. Perhaps, by accident, they learn that their masters have a deadly and rapidly-progressing reaction to whatever it is that the slaves are immune to. Since some of the slaves are on the maintenance crew, they have access to the environmental controls or some shield controls or something, and they manage to shut off that protective system so all the masters die suddenly and they have the colony to themselves. They know that the masters' race will send reinforcements and retake the colony, or just obliterate it from orbit as punishment, so they take control of whatever ships are there and head off. Since they're out-manned, out-classed, and out-gunned, they use guerrilla tactics and fight dirty.

On the same idea of the masters lacking a specific resistance that the slaves have, perhaps they colony is hit by a natural disaster that has the same result.
Title: Re: Plausible?
Post by: General Battuta on September 27, 2010, 07:30:58 pm: Slave species lives in filth with livestock and large numbers in small spaces. This makes them vulnerable to disease, but they rapidly develop immunity to the vast numbers of pathogens that leap from their livestock to them.

However in time one of the pathogens manages to jump to the isolated master race population on the colony and totally annihilates them.

This is basically how the flu (as well as many other viruses) spreads on Earth: it begins in an animal reservoir, hops over to populations living in squalor, then spreads.
Title: Re: Plausible?
Post by: Topgun on September 27, 2010, 09:29:49 pm: Quote from: Scourge of Ages on September 27, 2010, 01:06:01 pm
Quote from: Topgun on September 27, 2010, 12:20:10 pm
I am writing something and I need help.
Basic premise:
A race is currently enslaved by aliens and have been relocated to a planet in a system near their masters.
They have a population of about one billion.
My problem is that, one, I don't know what the alien overlords do with their slaves, and two, I need the slaves to some how get their hands on military grade space ships and fight their way to their home planet.
There are other, mostly neutral factions in this universe, including an alien race at war with the overlords. I can see them helping the slaves, but I can't really imagine them just giving them a fleet of warships.

Please help me.
Alternately, the slaves use their knowledge of advanced particle physics to whip up some really cool and destructive illusions, and send a pair of emissaries to the masters' leader to negotiate for their freedom.
While extremely cool, and a huge shout-out to the book of Exodus, it doesn't really fit with my universe and would make the meat and potatoes of the story the beginning, which I don't want to do since most of this is just a set-up for a much bigger plot.

I like the idea of the slave planet being a giant shipyard. Perhaps they could organize a mass sabotage giving the slaves working as the crew a chance to take control of various ships.

Quote from: General Battuta on September 27, 2010, 07:30:58 pm
However in time one of the pathogens manages to jump to the isolated master race population on the colony and totally annihilates them.

I like this idea too.
Title: Re: Plausible?
Post by: NGTM-1R on September 27, 2010, 11:09:52 pm: Slaves are used as infantry shock-troops aboard segregated transports, controlled by the guns of their warship escorts. Orbital bombardment remains the ultimate guaranteer of their loyalty.

During opposed landing operations, in the general confusion, a transport is hit and ends up launching its drop pods into several of the escorting warships. Whoops.
Title: Re: Plausible?
Post by: FoeHammer on September 29, 2010, 03:26:23 pm: Quote from: Trivial Psychic on September 27, 2010, 06:42:38 pm
Here's a thought... the slaves race have a resistance to a certain environmental considerations on the planet that they're relocated on. Perhaps, by accident, they learn that their masters have a deadly and rapidly-progressing reaction to whatever it is that the slaves are immune to.

You realize this is basically the plot to Battlefield Earth, right?
Title: Re: Plausible?
Post by: spyderrock48 on September 29, 2010, 03:34:46 pm: this is a cool premise, are you planning on starting a mod along these lines? or just a fun story ? in any case,

Quote from: Trivial Psychic on September 27, 2010, 06:42:38 pm
Here's a thought... the slaves race have a resistance to a certain environmental considerations on the planet that they're relocated on. Perhaps, by accident, they learn that their masters have a deadly and rapidly-progressing reaction to whatever it is that the slaves are immune to. Since some of the slaves are on the maintenance crew, they have access to the environmental controls or some shield controls or something, and they manage to shut off that protective system so all the masters die suddenly and they have the colony to themselves. They know that the masters' race will send reinforcements and retake the colony, or just obliterate it from orbit as punishment, so they take control of whatever ships are there and head off. Since they're out-manned, out-classed, and out-gunned, they use guerrilla tactics and fight dirty.

I like this idea alot. If we assume that the planet they are on is being used as a shipyard planet, which is a good reason for there to be a slave population as massive as 1 billion slaves present, then you could combine the idea that through planning of making sure there are a large number of vessels space worthy on the planet at a certain time, they could adjeust, or disable the environmental controls and escape with their people on board the ships.
Title: Re: Plausible?
Post by: headdie on September 29, 2010, 04:07:40 pm: hmmm, mineral rich planet with a hostile atmosphere/radiation levels/heavy gravity/other difficult environmental conditions to the overloards would work quite nice, and if the war with the other empire isn't going as the overlords would like would make it a viable to necessary option for them. throw in Ion storms or some such to make electronic tracking of the slaves difficult allowing the slaves to plan and work safe from observation by the overloards could make it work
Title: Re: Plausible?
Post by: Topgun on September 29, 2010, 06:54:44 pm: Ive named two of the factions. The slaves are called the Ibriah (EE-BREE-AH, spelling may change), the overlords will be called the Phereos (FE-Re-OS, again spelling is tentative) and the the empire at war with the Overlords will be called the (something) Republic, or just the Republic for short.

Alternate spellings suggestions are welcome :)

Something you should know is that the Phereos and the Ibriah are: (minor)
Spoiler:
not very different biologically. Im not telling you why yet :p
So the planet can't be harmful to the Phereos and yet habitable for the Ibriah.

Ill be releasing the first part of this story when im done, thus the spoiler tags.
For now Im going with this idea:
Quote from: Topgun on September 27, 2010, 09:29:49 pm
I like the idea of the slave planet being a giant shipyard. Perhaps they could organize a mass sabotage giving the slaves working as the crew a chance to take control of various ships.

But I might throw in something about a pathogen that only affects the Phereos.

EDIT: the names are (tentatively) the Sheoloth for the slaves and Hegatha for the overlords. Trying to make names from names of actual civilizations without it being obvious is hard.
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: General Battuta on September 29, 2010, 07:14:59 pm: If they're biologically similar, it should be a pathogen that effects both, but which the Ibriah have developed immunity to due to exposure. Their population is just a giant reservoir.
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: spyderrock48 on September 29, 2010, 07:30:45 pm: please please please change the names of the factions, i know its your universe and stuff, but i mean , ibriah and phereos is just a bit to similar to israelites and pharaohs .
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: spyderrock48 on September 29, 2010, 07:33:21 pm: battuta makes a good point, the pathogen should be where it affects both, but because of the fact that the slaves have to live in much worse conditions, they have developed an immunity overtime. ( which has happened in real life , look at the american indians, and african slaves, the transfer of diseases from an immune population to a non immune can have devastating effects. )
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: Topgun on September 29, 2010, 07:50:47 pm: Quote from: spyderrock48 on September 29, 2010, 07:30:45 pm
please please please change the names of the factions, i know its your universe and stuff, but i mean , ibriah and phereos is just a bit to similar to israelites and pharaohs .
fine :p
sheoloth for the slaves and Hegatha for the overlords. I don't really care much about names anyway.
Title: Re: Plausible?
Post by: Trivial Psychic on September 29, 2010, 07:51:46 pm: Quote from: FoeHammer on September 29, 2010, 03:26:23 pm
Quote from: Trivial Psychic on September 27, 2010, 06:42:38 pm
Here's a thought... the slaves race have a resistance to a certain environmental considerations on the planet that they're relocated on. Perhaps, by accident, they learn that their masters have a deadly and rapidly-progressing reaction to whatever it is that the slaves are immune to.

You realize this is basically the plot to Battlefield Earth, right?
Actually, the whole concept seemed to remind me of that movie... which I was doing as much as I could to forget.
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: spyderrock48 on September 29, 2010, 07:56:47 pm: haha sorry to come across as trying to force you to change it, but i think it will help with making your story seem more original
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: Topgun on September 29, 2010, 07:59:25 pm: Quote from: spyderrock48 on September 29, 2010, 07:56:47 pm
haha sorry to come across as trying to force you to change it, but i think it will help with making your story seem more original
It gets more original as it goes, after the Sheoloth liberate themselves things get different pretty fast. I am just stealing a bit from the bible to get things started
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: bobbtmann on September 30, 2010, 01:16:46 am: You could look to the past for inspiration. Find some stories about the slave trade in America, then transport them to the future. Kind of like the tv show Firefly.

And if you're looking into pathogens and all that, then let's be realistic. The powerful overlords aren't going to be the ones dying, it's going to be the slaves. The overlords probably have access to future-healthcare. I can't imagine the whole population of slaves is going to have an immunity either, so a lot of them are going to die when the disease first appears.

Maybe the appearance of the disease and the subsequent deaths are what prompt the slaves to rebel. Rising up takes a catalyst, you know. And a disease that the overlords can hide from would certainly inspire negative feelings.

And do the races have to be good or bad? How about the other races are indifferent to the suffering of the slaves. That'll add a touch of realism. The slaves could rise up, only to discover that nobody else cares.

Those are just some of my thoughts on the matter of slaves, diseases, and rebellions.
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: General Battuta on September 30, 2010, 01:20:17 am: Quote from: bobbtmann on September 30, 2010, 01:16:46 am
And if you're looking into pathogens and all that, then let's be realistic. The powerful overlords aren't going to be the ones dying, it's going to be the slaves.

Yes, that's totally the way it's worked in history. :p The groups that live with livestock and in crowded conditions are the ones that have access to the disease reservoirs. They develop immunity and pass the pathogen to other populations that they've previously been isolated from.

This is why the Europeans had an enormous built-in pathogen arsenal when they made contact with the formerly isolated Americas.

Quote
The overlords probably have access to future-healthcare.

The 1918 flu epidemics were touched off by a sudden rapid flurry of international travel related to World War I. Modern medicine didn't save anybody.

Quote
I can't imagine the whole population of slaves is going to have an immunity either, so a lot of them are going to die when the disease first appears.

If the disease has been latent for generations?
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: NGTM-1R on September 30, 2010, 03:14:18 am: Quote from: General Battuta on September 30, 2010, 01:20:17 am
The 1918 flu epidemics were touched off by a sudden rapid flurry of international travel related to World War I. Modern medicine didn't save anybody.

Because it wasn't that modern yet. Now that everyone learns germ theory in middle or high school, it might be a tad different.
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: spyderrock48 on September 30, 2010, 07:05:31 am: Quote from: General Battuta on September 30, 2010, 01:20:17 am
Quote from: bobbtmann on September 30, 2010, 01:16:46 am
And if you're looking into pathogens and all that, then let's be realistic. The powerful overlords aren't going to be the ones dying, it's going to be the slaves.

Yes, that's totally the way it's worked in history. :p The groups that live with livestock and in crowded conditions are the ones that have access to the disease reservoirs. They develop immunity and pass the pathogen to other populations that they've previously been isolated from.

This is why the Europeans had an enormous built-in pathogen arsenal when they made contact with the formerly isolated Americas.

Quote
The overlords probably have access to future-healthcare.

The 1918 flu epidemics were touched off by a sudden rapid flurry of international travel related to World War I. Modern medicine didn't save anybody.

Quote
I can't imagine the whole population of slaves is going to have an immunity either, so a lot of them are going to die when the disease first appears.

If the disease has been latent for generations?

all good points :)
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: General Battuta on September 30, 2010, 08:28:53 am: Quote from: NGTM-1R on September 30, 2010, 03:14:18 am
Quote from: General Battuta on September 30, 2010, 01:20:17 am
The 1918 flu epidemics were touched off by a sudden rapid flurry of international travel related to World War I. Modern medicine didn't save anybody.

Because it wasn't that modern yet. Now that everyone learns germ theory in middle or high school, it might be a tad different.

That's a fair point (and that goes to bobbtman as well), but my thought was that you still need time to isolate and study a new pathogen when it arrives in your population. If you're a cloistered, isolated, perhaps genetically homogeneous group of Master Species living amongst but segregated from an enormous number of Slave Species in terrible squalor, and then something like a slower-acting hemorrhagic fever leaps the boundary, you could have 2050-era medical technology and still suffer enormously.
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: bobbtmann on September 30, 2010, 09:15:22 am: But with their technology, it's possible the overlords already know about diseases that are rampant in the slave population. If the slaves are some genetically engineered variant of the overlords, then they'd be able to predict which diseases are out there. The only way they'd be caught off guard is if the disease is completely new. Maybe it's like the avian flu and it crossed from livestock (also living in squalor) over to the slave population.

Having a brand new disease as the catalyst for a story sounds like a good idea to me.
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: General Battuta on September 30, 2010, 09:22:03 am: Quote from: bobbtmann on September 30, 2010, 09:15:22 am
Maybe it's like the avian flu and it crossed from livestock (also living in squalor) over to the slave population.

Yeah, I should have made that more specific in my original post.
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: Topgun on September 30, 2010, 10:49:19 am: The pathogen I am introducing won't wipe out the overlords, just hit the ones in charge of the slaves hard enough to diminish their numbers enough to allow the slaves to put their plan into action.

The republic is mostly indifferent to their plight but are wiling to help them if it means causing trouble for the overlords. As a whole they are not good guys.

The catalyst that causes the uprising is that now the overlords are using the slaves to build warships and crew them. Because of the slaves' culture, they view forcing someone to kill another extremely serious, far worse than regular slavery. Add to the fact that before the war the slaves were allowed to mostly govern themselves, as long as they completed their duties, and they have more than enough reason to start a rebellion.
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: Trivial Psychic on September 30, 2010, 11:20:46 pm: Just a query about the level of control that the overlords have. Do they allow the slaves to breed on their own, maintain a family existence where the children are raised by the parents (I guess I'm projecting some human values to these slaves, but only as a starting point), or do they control the breeding process (restrict menstrual cycles with drugs), segregate the females and turn them into simple breeding machines, with a select group of males so to produce the most desired physical offspring? Do they skip traditional reproduction and use artificial insemination? Do they in fact take the reproduction away from the beings entirely and do it all in a laboratory? Certainly, allowing traditional families would allow the passing down of culture and hatred (for the overseers) from one generation to the next. Just some angles that perhaps you haven't thought of.
Title: Re: Topgun's Fiction Universe
Post by: Rodo on October 01, 2010, 03:52:16 pm: Masters make psychological / genetic research on specimens of the inferior race.

One of the projects goes bad and a single entity acquires a strange power to fusion itself with machinery thus giving complete to almost complete control of said machine (think something like HW Cataclysm Beast).

This "pathogen" extends from ship to ship rapidly in the first weeks as the members of inferior race seem to be quite receptive to this kind of virus and they already serve in the master race ships.

There's a relation between beings / machinery to achieve a complete absorption, this is discovered by the dominant race after certain amount of time, then the removal and elimination of the remnants of the dominated race begins.

The ships that were infected make a rushed offensive to reach their brothers and save them from extermination.

blah blah blah...