AtB without the Bomb

[Kalinda]

Something I've been toying with is the idea of an alternate AtB setting in which the plague happened, but was not followed by an exchange of nukes. Either cooler heads prevailed, or the missiles didn't work, or what have you, net result is no bombs pushing humanity over the edge into extinction. You would still have the human population dropping well below a billion, but the cities and other resources would still be mostly intact, and there would be enough humans left to rebuild.

What you likely end up with is the remaining humans struggling to rebuild civilization, while having to also deal with the rise of mutant animals. Some human groups would react like the EoH, while others might look on the mutants as allies in the fight to survive and rebuild. There would be just as much conflict and chance for adventure, but with the added long term question of what happens to the mutants once humanity reclaims the earth. Part of the long term goals of a campaign could be to make sure that the right human nations came out on top in the end.

Thoughts?

[Kalinda]

Furries and Smoothies would abound.

Possibly, possibly not, I've always wondered if the attraction/fetish would survive actually meeting a real live mutant animal... (On a side note, in my games the term for a mutant who is attracted to humans is "Skinchaser")

[Pepsi Jedi]

Thing is it'd take SOO long for them to get back up to pre "Event" numbers, and there's SOO many more animals on earth than humans. It's likely that humanity would never again regain prominence as the "Leaders" of the earth. You'd end up with some "Human" nations. Some "Animal" Nations and some "Mixed" Nations... then they'd all pick and choose who to like, who to hate and which side of which ever events they're on.. sooner or later someone would want a nation of only sheep, and they'd dress in black and call for the irradiation of the goats and .... and... and....

But I don't think all the intelligent mutant animals would just sit back and let humanity take back over and kick them out or put them under human jurisdiction. If you out number humans 20 to one, why are you going to let THEM treat you like cattle? ( Or... well other than the cow mutants but still!!))


It's a great game concept. We played a game like it once. "After the bomb sans bomb" Where much like you, humanity had the plague and were at about 1/10th what they were (( You have a bit more than we did))

It was interesting. Our Char's worked as a special forces unit for one of the "Free country's" (( Actually a part of the Pacific North West)) which accepted both humans and mutant animals but was in contention with a "Cattle Nation" Just to their west whom were all "ANTI-Human" and wanted our nation to kick out and kill the humans. Our nation wasn't having it so.... we were in a bit of a cold war sort of thing.

[Pepsi Jedi]

*Looks around and chuckles* So.. you liked my post and felt the need to post what I said again? *Grins* Or just totally didn't read it?

[Rali]

You might be interested in checking out the "Morphing Period" stories by Richard Thatcher. There were two comics put out by Shanda Fantasy Arts: "Tales of the Morphing Period" and "Morphing Period Annual 1".

The setting is one where humans are transformed into mutant animals instead of animals being transformed into anthropomorphs. I've often thought that a twist like this would really mess with the Empire of Humanity (i.e.: Creator S unleashes a said virus upon the Empire's populous).

It is set in a world very close to our own time, where an unknown scientist nicknamed "Creator S" unleashes a virus which begins to change humans into anthropomorphic creatures. The "Morphing Period" is divided into two stages, the "Fast Morph" and the "Slow Morph". The stories are for the most part slice of life entires on how this affects the everyday person. Thatcher has charts and data in his books to answer questions and aid contributors.
[link]

[Kalinda]

Interesting, I haven't seen that before. I'll look for it.

I've been fiddling around with a slightly similar concept for a setting for a few years now. Briefly: In the mid 60s children start being born as anthros, about 1 in 10 births turn up this 'deformity' and scientists are at a loss to explain why. As the children grow up they develop not only very acute senses, but enhanced IQ, strength, reflexes, and healing ability. Low level psionics are also common.

Later on, as the children born in the 60s & 70s grow up, a small percentage of the normal looking teenagers and young adults start to manifest true super powers. Flight, massive strength, energy projection, elemental control, ect. Many of them also exhibit mental instability and a disturbing 'god complex,' often going on rampages or crime sprees just because they can, showing no remorse for the loss of life. As the anthros prove to be the only ones able to fight the metahumans on anywhere near equal terms, (particulary if they team up) people start to think that they may not be the disease, they may be the antibody...

[gaby]

The idea can wokr.

Who can have a Plague,it wipe out 4 billion,1.5 billion are the turns Human turn into Mutants animals and 500 million normal humans.

[Nowhere65]

Don't forget that when the virus comes through and kills a lot of humans and changes some animals into anthro's, the anthro's won't have an education or history to build on. (Other than the human's)

All the smart animals might be as smart as the humans but if they aren't taught anything they'd be left to their insincts and whatever discoveries they made themselves. Language would even be a problem.

No throw in the humans. The nice humans raise them up like their own childern. The means ones teach them enough to make them a slave "race".

The only way I see a "high" tech animal nation is if there was a revolt in one of the nice human settlements and the animal took over. A Hitler kind of thing.

If it happened with the slave nation, I don't think they'd retain the tech level without the humans.

No matter how smart the animals are without human education they'd be stone age or wood age at best.

Something I've been toying with is the idea of an alternate AtB setting in which the plague happened, but was not followed by an exchange of nukes. Either cooler heads prevailed, or the missiles didn't work, or what have you, net result is no bombs pushing humanity over the edge into extinction. You would still have the human population dropping well below a billion, but the cities and other resources would still be mostly intact, and there would be enough humans left to rebuild.

What you likely end up with is the remaining humans struggling to rebuild civilization, while having to also deal with the rise of mutant animals. Some human groups would react like the EoH, while others might look on the mutants as allies in the fight to survive and rebuild. There would be just as much conflict and chance for adventure, but with the added long term question of what happens to the mutants once humanity reclaims the earth. Part of the long term goals of a campaign could be to make sure that the right human nations came out on top in the end.

Thoughts?

[Rali]

The only way I see a "high" tech animal nation is if there was a revolt in one of the nice human settlements and the animal took over...

If it happened with the slave nation, I don't think they'd retain the tech level without the humans.

Heya Nowhere65

As a Planet of the Apes fan, and this reminds me of what happened in "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes". Check it out as it's one of the better movies in the series.

[taalismn]

And god forbid if they learned by watching VCR tapes and DVDs with no ryhme or reason or anyone to help them pick out the fiction from the non-fiction...THEN you'd have instinctual animalistic urges alloyed with television brainwashing...Fall of civilization insured....

[gaby]

I got idea,Leds say a small group of human scienctis dicover that mutant animals are Immune to disease that is killing off the humans,they make a drvice that can exchange the consciousness of a human with that of a Mutant animal.

They use this to save them selves,ther famlies and any one at the secret army base ther in.

What do you think?

[Iczer]

ATB minus the B?

sounds interesting.

If we take such a scenario, we can consider that a greater percentage of people would survive the overall immeadiate crisis, and that a lot of hardware would be still accessable. With a rise of mutants, both human and animal, as well as the belligerent free plains cattle, we can ut the remanent survivors in a slightly lower grade of Coalition states.

Imagine clusters of walled cities, some independant, but others banding together, an empire of humanity and bastion against the horrible mutations. a united armed forces takes back the plains of free cattle, after all they need it to grow food, and numerous agro domes ar put in place to feed the growig masses. This middle ground is where small guerilla units made up of the disenfranchised mutants conduct daring raids for equipment and food, and to sabotage any foothold humanity tries to make. Border towns spring up as we head west, some bastions of humanity, some purebreed strongholds, and some a mix of mutant hand human populations. without a Bomb, a lot of infrastructure is alive and well, but a lot of the oil wells are now bust (imagine an airborne bacteria that eats petrochemicals though!!)

So...Coalition like forces with overcrowding, ruled with fear of mutants and mutations. Clusters of mutant and human towns struggling for survival. a contested area in the middle, and possibly Oil fiefdoms in Texas

I like it

Batts

[Iczer]

what if the magical holocaust in rifts happaned in the world of atb. mutant animals vs demons.

I'm already doing something similiar. essentially, it's Chaos earth, only I'm not using MDC. The magic of the rifts have mutated several animals (as well as people) who are often mistaken fr deamons.

Of course this pleases the real deamons to no end.

Batts