I can't think of how. I'm talking about something like Mad Max in spaaaaace, but it seems like if you fucked up a solar system, you could just move to another, and if you couldn't, then it wouldn't be space opera.
Trap them inside a solar system with an insanely large asteroid belt caused by the destruction of a planet, or some magical space weather.
The entire solar system has its economy destabilized and the planets become less habitable, so every civilization breaks down and people cruise from place to place taking what they can in their run down spaceships held together by spit and duct tape.
>Is it possible to have a post-apocalyptic space opera setting?
Isn't that kind of what 40k is?
>>44343061
Check out Traveller's The New Era books, which takes place right after cataclysmic events basically knocked over the whole of the Third Imperium setting and set it all on fire. It's pretty harsh.
TNE was not a very popular edition, partly because the system got really crunchy and complicated (it was the early 90s so everyone was doing it), and partly because it was so damn grim.
>>44343061
No.
>>44343061
>Is it possible to have x setting?
Yes. Stop making these threads.
>>44343061
The universe of Battlestar Galactica is pretty much this, it's not really MadMax-ey though... or is it ?
>>44343061
I think that it ought to be possible, yes. The apocalyptic scenario would just have to be much, much larger and tailored to a scifi, interstellar setting like other Anons have suggested:
>Due to a particular quirk of physics, all ships that misjump into or malfunction while in hyperspace end up stranded in a gigantic intergalactic graveyard where they must fight or ally with other lost crews to stay alive.
>Due to a world-ending war back in Earth, a remote cluster of colonies are left without guidance or resupply, and swiftly descend into anarchy as the colonial governors wage war amongst themselves.
>In the far, far distant future, the heat-death of the universe looms and survivors, pirates and raiders roam the vast blackness between the dim stars, scavenging the shattered, scattered ruins of the universe's greatest civilizations.
>>44344005
I think that the questions implicit to such threads is "how can we best create such a setting," which can grow into some pretty great worldbuilding.
>>44343061
Yeah, its called Fading Suns.
>>44343061
Space opera means you're not beholden to any rules or standards.
So obviously yes. Just say a space wizard did it.
/thread
>>44343061
Maybe everyone with half a brain did move to another solar system.
Maybe the party didn't have half a brain.
>>44344405
This, just add "or had a choice" after half a brain and you are done
>>44344405
In order to make an interstellar post apocalyptic setting work, you need to find a way to either make a universe-wide calamity or find some way of keeping people from migrating away from the disaster so easily.
>>44344511
No you don't. OP said space opera. That means you don't need a reason for anything.
it just happened. Why? Because.
That's all. It's a pretty boring genre, honestly, i don't know why anyone would bother with space opera.
>>44344603
What makes you say that you don't need reasons for anything in Space Opera, and that it is a boring genre?
>>44345053
Because you don't. Space opera is defined by it's fast and loose treatment of rules or physical constants. If OP had said "largely space opera, but i still want it to make as much sense as possible" then we would have a challenge. But just space opera? It's like a 4 year old playing pretend.
I think it's boring because without limits there can be no challenge for the writer and less satisfied.
Vernor Vinge's Zone's of thought would be one way. Simply assert that there are zones of the galaxy where only certain techs are possible, and one day the zone shifts so what once was a post-singularity world is reduced to pre-industrial levels and it is physically prevented from returning to the previous state. A Fire Upon the Deep hinges on that concept.
>>44343190
If 40k was post-apocalyptic that would mean GW advanced the timeline.
>>44344511
Space economy crashed, many planets as well as most space travel was heavily dependent on it. Life on many planets has become a fight for survival, raiding, slavery and resource wars fought by scavenged ramshackle fleets are common. Nomadic flotillas travel the systems scavenging to survive. For extra explanation for doom and gloom, the massive desperate resource wars fought for the last resources have devastated many liveable planets and left numerous dormant doomsday weapon and other perils littering space. Star maps leading to stockpiles of tech or resources and precious of all: fabled earth like garden worlds are spoken of as legends, with a mix of hope and scepticism.
>>44345551
>what the hell could solar systems possibly have to tra-
>SHUT UP IT'S SPACE OPERA
Oh, right.
>take Total Annihilation
>advance plot a bit after the final battle
>¿¿¿
>profit
Alternatively, I always had a feeling that the star wars universe is just rebuilding from being a post-apoc setting. That's why there is so much anachronical technology.
OP, go and download all the books in the Horus Heresy General OP. Right now. Read the fluff sections (generally the first half of each volume). If you are impatient skip to the Legion-specific sections and read their early campaigns. The entire game is about how an attempt to unfuck the galaxy ultimately failed.
If you want a more realistic take on space apocalypse, read Chasm City. Main character takes 100 year voyage to ultra-advanced society. When he gets there everything is fucked.
>Reactor online
>Sensors online
>Weapons online
>All systems nominal
In cowboy bebop humanity had terra formed and developed fast travel between the worlds of the solar system but hadn't breached deep space. That sort of universe but Maxier would be pretty cool I think
Read Against a Dark Background. It takes place in a solar system that orbits a rogue star, so all galaxies are millions of lightyears away. Basically every time they get to an interstellar tech level they get planetary cabin fever since they can never leave their solar system, and have an apocalypse. By the time the book takes place they have had probably thousands of such rises and falls and finding lost superweapons is just a matter of doing a little digging.
>>44344603
>>44345173
>That means you don't need a reason for anything.
>It's like a 4 year old playing pretend.
>I think it's boring because without limits there can be no challenge for the writer and less satisfied.
You know you don't have to go 110% off the deep end into maximum Gonzo Fantasy No Explanations or Limits Ever just because you want to have space magic and warp drives, right?
It's like how not all science fiction has to be as painfully cynical and low-key as possible until it drives off all fun and might as well just be a book set in the real world.
>>44346009
>cynical
fuck me you're on point, modern sci is fucking depressing
>>44346009
Calm down, i said that if OP had been more specific that we could have imposed limits, but OP did not specify as such.
The Mote In God's Eye has shades of this. It's set during a resurgent empire a century or so after the fall of the First Empire of Mankind, and this resurgent Empire finds an alien civilization stuck in the middle of it.
>>44346036
That's the consequence of growing up. How depressing is it that santa doesn't exist?
>but it seems like if you fucked up a solar system, you could just move to another,
Why? Another inhabitable solar system is orders of magnitude farther away from us than the planets in our own. You don't even need a bullshitted reason, it could just be the limitations of technology and the prohibitively long journey.
>>44346119
If interstellar space is just pic related it'd work.
Anyone who's tried has just presumably died in an expansive nothingness.
>>44343061
Yes just have interstellar travel not invented prior to the reason for the cataclysm. Earth or the habital world(s) are fucked and now humanity survives in space ships and stations throughout the solar system.
Scavenging and raiding each other is now the only way to survive; with people making short drops down to the planets to extract technology; before having to go orbital again.
>>44346083
Wait, what? No, it's just trendy and easy to write how the world's gonna be or is fucked up, that's all.
>>44346498
>believing in self-aggrandizing false narratives.
Okay buddy, nothing bad ever happens. Whatever you say.
>>44346631
welp, now I'm crying
>>44346759
Suffering comes from desire. Adjust your desires to compensate. The world won't adjust for you.
>>44343061
The Riddick movies seems to take place in some sort of post-apocalyptic setting.
I mean, the absence of references to Earth and the wildly inconsistent tech level would suggest a cataclysm in the past.
>>44346631
>that moment when the third lion just walks up and eats the calf
>>44343061
Not an RPG but the Prophet comics pretty much fit that to a T
>>44346800
The Riddick movies are inconsistent as fuck. The first one mentions suggesting it's a level aliens universe (ie couple of hundred years from now at most). The second one goes to out right Star Wars.
Haven't seen 3, hopefully they found a balance.
>>44345806
To elaborate, the history of Battletech before the Succession Wars, especially in the Periphery region, fits this well.
>>44344347
Don't /thread yourself. Fuck. It doesn't matter how good you think your point is, at least fucking samefag if you're going to be a faggot.
>>44346631
Sad, but a lion's gotta eat too.
>>44343061
They're stuck in a solar system wide dyson sphere, and to escape they must make the sun go supernova.
>>44343061
There was a fallout theme'd DnD style pen and paper game.
>>44343061
The Succession Wars era from Battletech is exactly what you want.
It is the worst Battletech era, though. Mad Max in space is stupid and not fun
>>44347236
Oh sorry i'll put a trigger warning on it next time, kay?
>>44347302
You're both twats.
>>44344283
>>In the far, far distant future, the heat-death of the universe looms and survivors, pirates and raiders roam the vast blackness between the dim stars, scavenging the shattered, scattered ruins of the universe's greatest civilizations
Shit i always had a plan to do something like thins. Homebrew style you know.
Kind of mix between rusty apocalypse setting, hyper-advanced clarktechan mindfuckery and a tad of hopelessness just to make everyone miserable.
Never got into it.
>>44347260
So, BLAME! then?
>>44347302
You could try not being a faggot instead. Might help in other areas too.
>>44347367
>>44347307
>waaah waaah waaah!
>>44343061
Interstellar travel happened without faster than light travel. Starships rely on bulk antimatter fuel, and the infrastructure was one of the first things to go when the disaster hit.
>>44343190
Well, some parts of it.
>>44347670
...what...what WAS the secret weapon?
>>44343061
Depends on how much space! you want OP.
You could do people colonise the new planet and lost their tech without much difficulty. You could also maybe a whole new solar system if you want to be generous à la firefly. But Interstellar afterwards travel after that would be out of the question.
Otherwise maybe the Stargate up?
>>44347517
>>44347670
The interesting thing about Warhammer is that it's so far into the fulture and massive and statically old that it probably wouldn't altered to much if they lost faster then light travel.
The battles would be isolated but they wouldn't stop.
>>44343061
Yes, it's called Stars without Number.
>>44343061
Stars Without Number is technically post-apocalyptic, since the "current" date of the setting is a few hundred years after a massive psychic shockwave fucked up the golden age humanity was having. You could keep it so there aren't many/any world's with widespread advanced tech usage, aside from possibly scavenged golden age tech.
>>44347791
A shitload of squigs
No, really
>>44348210
I lost my shit so hard when I read that last page.
>>44343061
>CTRL+F
>No Gurren Lagann
Kamina died for your sins.
>>44348893
Take your awful taste in anime elsewhere.
Surprised not one has mentioned this, likely due to genre difference, but the background setting for eclipse phase could work for the post apoc part. Earth fucked, limited to single system, some areas of stable civilization, adjust effectiveness of nanotechnology to fit desired mad max scrap ships.
Other idea would be to have it set in a system that was in the process of being colonized when the giant Stargate wormhole station that was sent the slow way blew up leaving everyone stranded with whatever they have
Fading Suns is pretty close.
>>44344005
>being a newfag
>>44343061
Interstellar travel is invented and becomes cheap. Parts are everywhere. Colonies abound, but still depend heavily on supplies from earth (or a cluster of wealthy early colonies). Earth (or those core worlds) descends into war, the newer colonies are starving, but tech for spaceships is still fairly easy to come by.
It'd be similar to the Age of Strife period of 40k history. Society loses its scientific knowledge, but has blueprints or small manufacturing machines that can make useful parts if you need them. I guess in Mad Max they don't even have that, so you can scrap that idea if you prefer.
You just need some sort of societal collapse after interstellar travel is made easy.
>>44350490
Fading Suns is more "Impending Apocalypse" last I looked.
SWN has its recent disaster, Ashen Stars has a mystery Event, Traveller TNE has the tech-eating Virus with flattened civilization with prejudice. Ringworld was post-superconductor plague.
Space Opera can easily simulate the needs of a PA setting simply by not having every world be inhabited or happy, and having your FTL be just slow enough that getting from bright light to bright light requires time in the wilderness among the old ruins, dead stations, and graveyard worlds.
>>44351310
Yeah, I said Fading Suns, but I meant Stars Without Number.
>>44345206
40k is post apocalyptic. Its just that the most recent apocalypse was 10000 years ago so a decent amount of recovery has been achieved.
>>44343061
LEXX?
TravellerTNE has already been mentioned as post apocalypse. The Traveller equivalent of "here it comes" would be Hard Times, which is the endgame for the Rebellion of MegaTraveller.
>>44346797
>confusing sympathy with suffering while pseudo Buddhist blathering
>dharmacostanza.jpg
I've been wondering something along the same line.
I think you could do it if you had recenttly had a war - some sort of massive clusterfuck and now it's the years after that.
You don't neccessarily need to have it so that people can't leave; hell maybe they have. Maybe most people who could have gotten the hell out and what you've got left is the solar system after planets were nuked, habitats bombed and the government failed and everyone who who already could left. Then everything becomes a bit balkanized and there's a nice 20-40 year window where society slowly fits itself back together again.
It has the benefit of being slightly more hopeful than you average post apoc scenario, because you can see things getting better it's just going to take a while.
The idea I ended up running with was that sublight speed was a bit difficult, but that Gates at the edge of teh solar system was essentially stuff that flipped you to another corresponding gate. Then following a terrorist attack the Sol gate is crippled, which strands everyone in the solar system.
You get sort of the same tech level as Serenity and some other "Space Western" type deals, where ships still allow you to move around and you can still get from place to place but most of society is slowly tumbling in on itself.
Does Living Steel/rhand morningstar mission Counts?
If I got the story right:
Evil elite control earth and the good site try to fight against this
Good side lose.
After some amount of time, good side run to another solar system.
They find there good aliens that are smarter and more technological advanced.
Evil Elite find they are on this solar system and invade them.
They sort win again but the battle continue.
While loosing good humans soldier, decide to put themselves into cryogenic machines to fight later.
After some amount of time after it there is a invasion of evil aliens, on this solar system, they come with their mother-ship and put a send a virus into the planet that make most humans psychopaths.
But humans actually find a way to sort of damage the mother ship and now evil aliens are stranded on this solar system.
On the living steel rpg you play as criogenic characters that wake up in the middle of this mess.
After some amount of time, with all those battles and mess, this place go to a medieval-ish post apocalipse era
On rhand morninstar mission you play as guys that wake up on this mess
>>44347173
Meh. I always thought it was supposed to be something similar to Firefly but larger in scope, but like you said, the writers and directors have never seen fit to grace us with some actual fucking exposition.
>>44343061
I feel like that is exactly what Eclipse Phase is. The opera bit is up to the GM obviously
>>44343061
That's literally the Outer Rim in Star Wars. You'd be hard pressed to find a planet without desperados, slavery or organized crime.
I've had an basic idea for a general space post apocalypse setting for a while.
Basically, some virus or something spreads to basically everywhere, completely destroying a massive galactic empire. It could kill, make crazy, or just straight up make zombies. Who knows what's going on on planets, but frankly who cares, because you're in space, and your PoS ship can't take re-entry.
So basically you have the remains of some glorious spacefaring civilization floating around in space. Giant ships or space stations, giant deserted hulks of metal, either empty, or full of nasty nasty pirates or zombies or crazies or something.
I guess your PCs would be a crew that has a ship and travels from wreck to wreck salvaging what they can at each wreck and having adventures. idk, could be pretty cool I think.
>>44346083
Santa is real and preparing for take-off ras we speak; whether or not he's able to reach you, or whether there's more than one of him as the Russians seem to think (making it a network of Santas as opposed to a single dude using magic to perform a seemingly improbable feat), is another point entierly.
>>44343061
Go play Rogue Trader, OP. You have plenty of options for how you can add salvage and primitive kitbotches to your degraded copy of a Dark Age of Technology tramp freighter. You can go around oppressing random planets of humans that have backslid into feudal society and enact piratical plots against your rivals.
>>44343061
> but it seems like if you fucked up a solar system, you could just move to another
...no; not even close. Moving form system to system would either require significantly-FTL FTL-travel, or some sort of stasis-sleep that would prevent you from aging. Just write it so that it takes a few weeks to get from planet-to-planet, in a mega system with a dozen planets and a dozen more dwarfs, and still more moons. The planets that "have," are running dry and/or fucked up by war, and the planets that "have not," had not, and were leaning on the planets that had; which have now gone to shit so everyone's going to shit.
https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/121483/heimot
https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/161892/fragged-empire
>>44358695
There is a difference between an apocalypse consuming one world of a setting (see Babylon 5's season 4 flash-forward for one example) or a few worlds (essentially the basis for both Battlestar Galactica renditions) and consuming everything you could ever reasonably reach.
Thought experiment for the OP. Start with Star Wars: A New Hope, but instead of accepting the movie's plot as taking about a week, assume that the Battle of Yavin is five years later and that the Death Star has been pulling the trigger on every world with even a whiff of the Rebellion. Which is to say, most of them. What sort of galaxy does that band of Rebels on Yavin have to return to?
>>44346083
>Modern sci-fi has "grown up".
>Implying the masterpieces of sci-fi were from a time when sci-fi hadn't grown up yet.
>Implying the works of Alfred Bester, Phillip K Dick, Stanislaw Lem, Arthur C Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin etc were childish.
What the fuck are you smoking?
>>44360283
>>Implying the works of Alfred Bester, Phillip K Dick, Stanislaw Lem, Arthur C Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin etc were childish.
>Not mentioning Asimov
Shiggy diggy
>>44360283
My, that straw man doesn't bear the least resemblance to what i said.
Try to make an argument without putting words in my mouth. Those authors lived in the space age. We do not. They had a naivete that technology would continue as it had. They did not recognize practical limitations.
>>44360304
I just gazed at my bookshelf and named the first ones I saw, anon. I didn't want to make a list of all great sci-fi ever, since I might as well copy-paste the sci-fi masterworks index.
>>44360317
If you were arguing that modern sci-fi has changed in tone because of changes in real world technological development, then that's one thing. We could agree on that, although considering technology has advanced in other avenues rapidly then I would say it's far more complicated than that.
But the use of the phrase "growing up" implies a moral judgment; that previously, sci-fi was childish, even if it was well-meaning, it was blindly optimistic and wrong about technology; now it sees the world as it truly is. As if Sci-fi needs to correctly predict details of the future to be worthwhile, rather than to be an avenue for humans to consider their place in a changing world, or, ultimately, a vehicle for telling good stories.
>>44343061
Space travel is not something you can really do half assed with jury rigged equipment without everyone horribly dying.
>>44360658
>If you were arguing that modern sci-fi has changed in tone because of changes in real world technological development, then that's one thing. We could agree on that
That is what i am saying.
>But the use of the phrase "growing up" implies a moral judgment; that previously, sci-fi was childish
Compared to what we know now, they do reflect a sort of childish view of the world and of technology.
>As if Sci-fi needs to correctly predict details of the future to be worthwhile
To me it does. I prefer reading stories that i can believe have the possibility of coming true. Most science fiction does not meet that criteria, but i can usually still enjoy them as long as they make no pretense of being realistic.
It's obvious that almost nothing Asimov wrote about would ever be realistic, but the stories are still interesting because of the drama unfolding in the story.
>>44360735
The idea that, for example, The Stars My Destination represents a view of the world and technology that is "childish" seems absurd. It's not exactly sunshine and rainbows and people singing kumbaya. The main character is a rapist asshole.
As for sci-fi needing to be able to come true; that's just your personal opinion. I'm pretty sure most people don't need their sci-fi to predict the details of the future accurately for it to possess great literary merit. Claiming that past sci-fi is somehow lesser because it's proven inaccurate from a modern perspective is an absurd presentism, never mind how it looks past the underlying theme and story and focuses on surface detail.
>>44360817
Then that's that.
>>44343061
>I can't think of how. I'm talking about something like Mad Max in spaaaaace, but it seems like if you fucked up a solar system, you could just move to another, and if you couldn't, then it wouldn't be space opera.
A post-apocalypse is just fiction set in the dark period after the collapse of human civilization. So if you want space opera post-apoc, set your game after the collapse of whatever galactic empire or federation or whatever the human race (and other alien species) were a part of.
Perhaps imperial infrastructure has just given way, and people now have to utilize jump engines rather than the traditional warp gates. Or maybe it's a generation or two after the annihilation of the capital planet, and no one has stepped in to take the reins.
>>44343061
It couldn't be a natural disaster, like a supernova or what ever.
It'd have to be like, a nano-machine, that lies dormant on spacecraft or even aliens/people, then, for what ever arbitrary reason.... It becomes active and fucks shit up.
Perhaps it drives sentient beings insane, except a small percentage? Or causes technology to rogue, what ever it is, it is a rolling apocalypse, so where ever any one could flee, it can follow.
