Wow, Fifth Age. This is a very high quality pdf.
The illustrations are beautiful and present an appealing setting.
I havent looked at the mechanics yet, but if theyre using 5e theyll probably be good.
Since the goal is to make this ‘hard’ science fiction, I have some concerns about how plausible any futuristic setting might be.
Consider the acceleration of technology. (See Kurzweil, etcetera). It is literally impossible to imagine what the ‘far’ future might be like.
By about year 2025, something comparable to our laptop will be as intelligent as a human. At this time, supercomputers will be even more intelligent. In our century, the 2000s, computers will become vastly more intelligent than our entire human species put together. The only way for humans to keep up, is for humans to use technology to enhance our brain, whether by implanting hardware, wetware, or genetic modification. In sum, by the end of this century, by the 2100s, a single human then will be more intelligent than our entire human species today put together.
We literally cannot imagine what year 2100 will be like.
This acceleration of intelligence makes ‘Star Trek’ scenarios impossible. By the time that humans have the technology to cross the galaxy, humans will necessarily be so intelligent, it is literally impossibly for us to predict, imagine, or even comprehend what they might be doing. Captain Picard certainly wont be worrying about whether he is bald or not.
This makes any kind of ‘far’ future setting, by definition, the opposite of a ‘hard’ science fiction.
Now looking at the illustrations in the Fifth Age pdf. The pictures suggest a ‘near’ future setting. Robots, cyborgs, ‘unmodified’ humans, and ‘synthetics’, all coexisting. For most images, I can imagine them happening within our century, the 2000s. Maybe sometime between 2030 and 2050? (I know, not far away!)
The ‘synthetics’ probably have wetware deriving from human brains to achieve actual living, sentient, consciousness. I doubt humans will understand how hardware can artificially duplicate sentient life yet.
The only problem I can see, is the spaceships. There is no way humans will invent space travel during our century. Therefore, by the time humans do invent it, humans will necessarily be ‘modified’, super-intelligent, and beyond the scope of what we can image.
However, the aliens in the setting can provide the narrative solution.
Suppose, when the Greys - the Greyliens - arrived on our planet, the Greyliens brought their space travel technology with them. So, we humans, in our century, are using their technology to travel thru space. We arent the ones who invented it yet. So us ‘unmodified’ humans can still sail around in space.
Now, according to this narrative, these Greyliens also didnt invent this space travel technology. They seem as primitive as we humans are. But they are ‘scavengers’, and ‘resourceful’, and make use of the technologies from other alien species who are far more advanced than any of us.
The narrative only needs a pretext to explain how Greyliens got a hold of this kind of technology. Maybe the advanced species that invented space flight, is benevolent. I suspect, the species must be compassionate to avoid destroying itself in the first place. So, in some context, this advanced species expressing goodwill, thought it was a good idea to give Greyliens a spaceship. Why? Who knows why? That advanced species would be so intelligent, we couldnt understand the reason why they did it anyway. But they didnt try to get the spaceship back. So maybe it has something to do with the technological species being compassionate - in some alien way.
So, a timeline for this ‘near future’ ‘hard science’ setting seems possible.
Somewhere around 2020, the Greyliens arrive on earth in their spaceship. In this decade, the spaceship itself knows how to reproduce spaceships. Humans develop a fleet spanning the solar system. Some are even spanning the galaxy. This is mostly sightseeing tours. Besides some mining projects, and a few biodome experiments, space colonization is brand new and modest.
So, the setting takes place somewhere between 2030 (after human cultures are feeling the impact of superintelligent computers, cyborg technology, and synthetic life) and 2050 (before technology accelerates beyond the capacity of normal ‘unmodified’ humans to comprehend what is going on). Greyliens have a decade or two to fit into human cultures. Notably, during these two decades, there are already supercomputers who are doing who knows what!
2030 to 2050.
This is a very small window in time for this kind of setting.
