Deviation Actions

Description
Ancient Astronauts:
An ASB scenario loosely inspired by the Ancient Astronauts conspiracy theories (include Stonehenge, Pyramids, AvP, Pumaman, Easter Island, Inca Crystal Skulls, first Chinese emperor was an alien, Lovecraftian Antarctica, etc).
This is a world where aliens not only exist but have been visiting Earth for many millennia (and some even going back millions of years). In the Palaeolithic, when the last glacial period of the Ice Age was still ongoing, they decided to interfere with the sapient humans that now walked the Earth, teaching them very basic principles of civilization such as how to form cohesive communities, worship gods that conveniently looked and acted like the visiting aliens and carve big rocks into funny looking shapes that may or may not have resembled their extraterrestrial overlords.
The visiting aliens did give humans a lot of technology, some of which was useful, some of which were investments for future projects and plans and some of which were funny knick-knacks that they thought made humans look cute when they worshipped them as idols. They instructed people in the importance of pyramid building, crafting monuments to centre their growing cities around and how to use their technology even if the humans were never taught how to reproduce it.
Civilizations were built with the humans being taught the basics of management to ease administration. Some even elevated their favourite humans to be leaders and put them in charge – often as middlemen or interpreters of complex instructions – between the aliens and the human populace. Then, as the neolithic era began and the last glacial cycle was a forgotten memory for humanity, the aliens all left. They didn’t give any explanation or give new orders to their humans, they simply went away. Though they were gone, the aliens did leave behind plenty of technology, some spare written texts on how to use and repair the things they left behind, a few notes on what their plans for their individual portions of the human race might have been and very lost and confused human administrators who were now struggling to think of what they should now do.
Many centuries pass, empires rise and fall but humanity never forgets the ancient gods who made their world. It is now what would be the 1st Century AD and the world is still be impacted by the remains of the visitors’ experiments.
There are several empires that continue to bestride the Earth with their caches of extraterrestrial technology but the youngest and most energetic is the Empire of Alba. Led by a council of druid-kings, the empire rose to power on the backs of the vessels that were left behind in a facility under what would be the OTL Salisbury Plain. The simple landing port built atop the Stonehenge was left largely alone for several millennia until the druids were able to decipher the means to access the facility’s fleet and use them like their lords once had.
Whilst the anti-gravity ships they use aren’t the most powerful, unlike their rivals and predecessors, the Albans haven’t exhausted their equipment yet and still have a working automated repair bay based under Stonehenge as well. There is also a suborder of druids who are trying to translate the instructions the repair bay’s AI is giving them in order to learn how to craft more vessels for themselves as well though progress is slow. One druid has recently figured out how to wire himself into the interface. His biology isn’t really built for it he has been able to connect with the AI and is currently scribbling as much as he can onto sheep skin parchment. He and his comrades don’t really understand what his writings mean but its in their own language and it’s legible so it’s a start.
Most cities in Alba are structured around a great central structure that takes the form of a large circle of megalithic stones. New construction technique they have picked up from their empire and trading partners have taught them how to build them even higher. In an attempt to look civilised and prove they are a great and ‘modern’ power, the Albans have tried to replicate the architectural style of the older empires like Sumer, Kemet, the Nahua and Harappa which has produced some rather atrocious building designs. Large pyramids and ziggurats are now common but they have also combined features from their traditional long barrows which make them look less like mountains and more ovular. The priesthood often live within the tunnels they build underneath the stone circles whilst the aristocracy, like their counterparts overseas, live in the massive, decorated pyramids.
The Alban empire is a rather strange construct compared to the empires of earlier states. Instead of direct rule, the Albans usually prefer hegemonic domination and puppet rule with some directly ruled territory to serve as airbases and allow them to project power. Though they have since incorporated direct rule, colonial settlement and integration schemes, most of the empire is still ruled indirectly. Part of this comes from their beginnings as a mercantile power but another is because of their veneration for the manner in which the ‘gods’ ruled them long ago.
The Kingdoms of the Great River in the Avlan (American) continents are the current jewel in Alba’s crown. This ancient indigenous civilization has existed for millennia and has managed to survive by assimilating migrating peoples. Unfortunately, despite still being prosperous, they had long since exhausted the technology they had been given by their own ‘gods’ and were in decline prior to accepting Alban protection. After several millennia as a hub for trade and commerce, the Kingdoms are a hodgepodge of indigenous cultures along with influences from the Nahua, Nazca, Atlantean and (now) Alban people. Though the Kingdoms have exhausted most of the extraterrestrial technology they used and exploited at their height, there is a secret cache that only the priests of the northern most kingdom know about and have hoarded for themselves.
Alba’s biggest rival is the Great Thalassocracy of Rap’Nui. As the site of another surface to orbit base, the island became the centre of an empire after they exhausted the local resources building monuments to their missing gods. The island was abandoned long before the ‘Polynesian’ people arrived but the settlers already had some experience and legends of their own local ‘gods’ and were prepared to exploit the artefacts they had left behind and worship them.
Rap’Nui is still centred on the original island which has been almost completely urbanised (though they do like their parks) and is a vast and cosmopolitan landmass. Outside of the crafting of increasingly large and lavish Moai and the collecting of mana, the Rap’Nui culture has been heavily influenced by people from around their empire. By this point a lot of other Polynesian fashions and ideas have become popular along with a few bits of pieces from their Jomon and Malai vassals and even their former Nazca and Xian enemies. The people of Rap’Nui don’t really understand that the Moai weren’t really important in the collecting of solar and stellar energy which is what the island outpost was also built to do. They still venerate the poorly maintained instruction manuals for the facility and hope that their rituals will help in the collection process.
Rap’Nui is older than Alba but still has a lot of technology. They have also tried to build up a strong enough force of conventional ‘earthly’ forces. Their sail ships are quite advanced (much like clipper ships in basic design) and allow their forces to move with some speed even if it is measured in weeks rather than hours. The distance between their territories has forced the Rap-Nui to also decentralise their empire. Merchant kings are increasingly becoming more powerful than the priests, especially as the advanced technology the traditional rulers relied on break down. In order to preserve their arsenal, the priests have commanded the empire turn more to conventional technology in order to ease the burden on their depleting and aged fleet of anti-gravity ships.
The Xian culture is a substantial empire that were traditionally ruled by a dynasty descended from a genetically engineered individual that was a hybrid of a human and the alien who managed their portion of the world. This group claimed divine descent for generations but over the centuries inbreeding led to them degenerating and a century ago the empire collapsed completely when the last emperor, an impotent and mentally retarded individual, died without an heir.
Prior to their decline the Xian were one of the most powerful states on the planet. Though their empire was vast and many of their territories were sparsely populated, they were one of the few nations that were capable of partially reproducing some of the technology that had been left for them. The dynasty’s advanced minds were more than capable of deciphering the basic instructions left behind and some of the abandoned plan notes. They weren’t able to produce anything too advanced and the increasingly insane and despotic leadership insisted on hoarding even that knowledge but it did give Xian a massive advantage in terms of materials. It also required them to secure the resources needed to produce the machinery and thus prompted their expansion in the past.
Bereft of much of its leadership and with only a select few scholars hoarding the simplified instructions on how to produce the simple or hybridised alien high technology, Xian is in decline. The empire does value education and innovation but they have incredibly high standards for admittance into their academies, even higher ones for graduation and almost impossible ones for permission to access the records for alien technology. This does ensure that only the very best people receive the positions of power that aren’t hereditary but at the same time makes so incredibly exclusive that the social and political disconnect between the elite and everyone else is still vast. The new dynasty is, of course, exempt from the standards that their predecessors set on themselves (and were originally able to meet thanks to their genetic engineering though that slipped once the inbreeding kicked in).
With the loss of their previously brilliant leadership, the growing corruption in the government and a loss of confidence in the previously ‘divine’ monarchy, the Xian are beginning to fall apart. Already the edges are fraying and the Thai, proto-Turkic and Iranian people of their furthest provinces are beginning to rebel. Warlords on the borders are seizing as much power as they can and the governors that rule over the production centres of the resources needed for the alien technology are holding these vital resources hostage and leveraging as much power as they can. The loyalist generals have been forced to once again unleash their authentic alien technology in an attempt to quell the uprisings but their forces are overstretched.
Aside from these big three, there are several regional or minor great powers as well. Some of them are former superpowers who once bestrode the world thanks to the gifts their ‘gods’ had left them in the past. Others are either new powers, some of which have risen from the older empires through stolen alien technology.
The Kingdom of Sumer is one of the oldest empires and was one of the primary centres of extraterrestrial investment in the distant past. Their empire once spanned much of the globe and dominated the Mediterranean, challenged only by the Xian, Harappa and Nahua. The gradual depletion of their arsenal eventually led to their decline. Corruption and challenging of the ruling priest kings finally spelled doom for the Sumer empire. The modern kingdom is a shadow of its former glory, is ruled by a king who claims descent from their former godly rulers (and may be the last of a genetically engineered lineage) and is actually ruled from the city of Uruk. Their power and influence is now tied to the Towers of Babel – an unfinished orbital elevator that serves as a solar collector array and useful port for their remaining anti-gravity ships – and Druaga – a massive surface to surface/orbit particle cannon that can shoot across continents and is primarily powered by Babel’s power collectors. The current owner of the weapon’s activation key has holed himself up in the control room though and hasn’t been seen for decades. At the same time he hasn’t activated the massive tower either.
The Minoans built their kingdom on top of a menagerie set up by an alien investor who was interested in both genetic engineering and Earth’s biosphere. The people who settled the island that (now long gone) alien built their outpost upon have become experts at breeding, wrangling and using the bizarre hybrids he produced. Though they aren’t as effective as the anti-gravity ships and heat rays of their old Sumerian rulers, the war beasts of Minoa do provide them an advantage and, unlike the hard technology, are much easier to reproduce. The Minoan Ecumene is a loose thalassocracy that rules over the Minoan colonies and their various vassal peoples, connecting them through networks of sea routes. The colonies are mostly autonomous as the Minoans lack rapid transport but all theoretically swear fealty to the high-king. Minoa itself is rather fond of labyrinthine cities, much of which is situated underground like the ancient menagerie they settled. The colonies, however are into the more modern pyramids and Sumerian inspired ziggurats.
Kemet is another ancient empire and Sumer’s oldest rival. Like Sumer, Kemet was one of the older uplifted civilizations. It has gone through several incarnations where migrating people have moved in, overtaken the previous population but been assimilated by the culture. Kemet also used to rule one of the larger empires before overuse of their technological arsenal led to their decline. The current god kings rule a land that is a shadow of its former self. They continue to build great pyramids and inter their dead royalty in them as they believe their previous ‘godly’ rulers once did back when they walked the Earth. Now that most of their old weapons are gone or exhausted, they are even weaker than Sumer and cautious of the power the Tower of Druaga gives them. They do, however, have a trump-card. Kemet is in possession of the world’s only interstellar ship that was left behind by the visitors. Kemet is still working out the finer details of how to activate and operate it but they are already preparing an expedition that is being outfitted like the great and wealthy burial of a king for a voyage into the heavens. At the same time, they have no idea what secret their ‘gods’ buried under the Great Pyramid even as they guard the immense structure and prevent anyone from going inside. All they know is that the pyramid descends further into the earth than it does into the air and those who have descended into it return changed… if they ever return at all.
The Nahua are a culture who became rather insular after their ‘gods’ left them. The isthmus was visited by several different groups who all did their own experiments with the local people. Whilst a general cultural pattern did emerge for the Nahua people, the divisive nature of their origins meant they were never able to properly capitalise on their technology and remained rather regional. After so many centuries the Kingdom of Misianahuatl has finally united them all. The priest kings continue to offer sacrifices to the gods as their ancestors did but they still won’t return no matter how many hearts are given to them in offering. Whilst the priests kings are the true authority of Misianahuatl, their central ruler is the son of the Puma God. Despite intermixing with people from beyond their borders (the current Pumaman is unmistakeably of European heritage) their engineered enhancements have not been diminished and they still know how to use the incomprehensible technology that, when combined with his genetically engineered traits, grants them great power.
Nazca and Akakor were once both great empires that vied for control of the continent. Now they are shattered husks of what they once were, their arsenals almost completely empty and their empires almost completely usurped by foreigners. Nazca has been more accepting of trading with other powers though and the current king is both ambitious and pragmatic with his new dreams of recovery and expansion.
The strangest of the civilizations are the terrifying and unknowable Tza’rar. Largely uninterested in uplifting humans, the aliens that landed on the continent built their outposts, stocked it with equipment for settlement and took humans from around the world to experiment on. Instead of leaving, the population dug the catacombs of their new cities deeper and deeper into the crust and then disappeared, leaving the human breeding populations they had been cultivating, lost in their now empty metropolises. Unlike the other civilizations, the people who would become the Tza’rar were taught nothing of the technology they were now left with and they suffered for it in the cold Antarctic environment.
The modern Tza’rar are a wretched debased piratical culture, squatting in the dark metropolises that refuse to decay no matter what happens within or around them. The people have finally learnt how to use the technology their former rulers abandoned with them, using the massive anti-gravity ships that stole their ancestors away millennia ago to raid and slave in massive expeditions. Some are taken back to serve as slaves in the remaining active mines and horrific agricultural zones. Most, however, are sacrificed in ritualistic cannibal orgies as offerings to the cruel gods of the Tza’rar. The priests venerate the cold, uncaring beings that took their ancestors from their homes, forced them to the terrible land they now inhabit and then left them to their fate.
The priests are still finding useful applications for the various kinds of technology they continue to uncover even after so many centuries. Surgical lasers and refuse re-processors have now found use as torture devices, engineered food crops are used to sacrifice people by being implanted in the bodies of victims and harvesting engines are used as vehicles of war. The Tza-rar are just as likely to fight with one another, every city-state fighting for resources or the attention of their gods, praying and fearing that they will notice the destruction of their cities and return.
Technologically this world is all over the place. Humanity still relies on the technology of their gods but does not understand how to reproduce them. Manufacturing machines can be operated but rarely ever repaired and the actual secrets of the construction of high technology is unknown as the factories are almost entirely automated. Many priests jealously hoard what little knowledge there is of the machinery and even when study is undertake there is little progress. Technological stagnation has characterised humanity for many millennia due to the previous abundance of devices and the religious reverence of its exclusivity. Only in the last few centuries have the Neolithic and Bronze Age societies now begun to promote innovation as the old caches of machinery are depleted around the world.
Military elite go to battle in flying warships armed with lethal heat rays, ion cannons and other esoteric devices whilst the majority of the troops still fight on foot, horseback or chariots with iron and steel weapons. Transporters and stellar gates (with a very limited range of course) allow instantaneous transport but have strict weight limits and high power requirements that are harder and harder to meet as generators break down or run out of fuel. Accurate maps of deep space are craved into the walls of temples that witness human sacrifices, made in hope that the priests may interpret the meanings of the constellations. Vast monuments that were once built with advanced construction machinery are now reproduced with vast armies of slave labour that wield iron tools instead of cutting lasers.
There are, in addition to these devices, the countless things that are still not understood by humanity. Some of them are machines so advanced that interfacing with them is absolutely impossible. Others, however, are terrible things that the visitors attempted to bury long ago. These are dark and horrific secrets that the humans who are now left to guard them, have no real defence against. Already the indescribable prisoners are scrapping at the doors of their cells and screaming at the guards, demanding freedom. Cults are appearing around the world, worshipping foul gods that demand their followers commit horrific acts on their behalf. In addition to this, the Tza’rar are sending out agents to enhance these cults and further their expansion in preparation for the rise of the nameless gods who wait.
With every passing year, a little more knowledge is lost by humanity and the attempts to try to preserve it are inadequate. As more and more machinery breaks down or is lost, the old empires that relied on them are falling apart and the new states are struggling to learn their lessons from the examples of their predecessors. Strain is already showing and the priests are concerned for what this could mean. If the gods do not return to guide them, the world they have built will disappear and no-one wants to consider what would emerge from the ashes.
i can't help but comment a bit. i predict the minions are going to become a much bigger deal as time goes on, for two very simple reasons: their biotech creatures can be replaced and improved further by animal husbandry and controlled breeding--and their dominion is a lot less militant and controlling than many of their rivals. Alban might be a problem for them in the long term....unless those all important maintenance facilities of Alban's were lost.