DREAMATION 2010 PREVIEW EDITION A far-future space setting for Joshua A.C.

Newman’s
social
science
fiction
 Special Dreamation 2010 Preview

T
his is a special preview edition, made specially for players at Dreamation 2010 on
the weekend of February 18-21 in Morristown, New Jersey.

It’s part of a larger project, and I want to try out some simple
parts with Shock: enthusiasts gathered at Dreamation. But
because there’s setting material involved and I wanted to get
some long-term play feedback, I had to make sure everyone
had a reference and would be able to take a copy to try it out
with their krewes back home.

Shock:Human Contact
So, what you hold here is a tiny scrap of the setting material
Dreamation 2010 Preview
that I’ve been designing with the help of Meguey and Vincent
©Februar y 2010 Baker, Rober Bohl, and Soren Roberts.
Joshua A.C. Newman
of the glyphpress This game started as a response to Star Trek, but wound up
heavily inspired by Ian M. Banks’ books Use of Weapons and Player
Xenoglyphs on page 9
©2010 Soren Rober ts who of Games; Vernor Vinge’s Deepness in the Sky, and Isaac Asimov’s
also helped design the Foundation trilogy. If you like this game, you’ll love those books.
Academy starship.
And I hope, vice-versa.
For questions, absurdly
opinionated blog posts,
suggestions, and
other suppor t, come to

glyphpress.com
A
cademics — the hominin native to Earth — are the most
basic form of the many forms of human in the galaxy.
Adults stand between 2 and 2.2 meters tall with skin that
ranges from a light brown to charcoal black and occasional
midnight blue, depending on the requirements of their
environment. Their toes are prehensile, one of a thousand
subtle genetic modifications made many generations ago to
enhance the spaceworthiness of the species.

Since almost all Academics spend a good portion of their lives

in space, they tend to not wear loose hair and jewelry. Their
propensity for decoration is typical of all hominins, though.
They tightly braid their hair and dye their skin with moving
abstract patterns.

When in formal settings, such as aboard a starship, Academics

wear black and brown uniform skinsuits that double as space
suits.
 The Academy
For over 800 years, the Academy has been the shining light
of Earth. Its founders pulled civilization from its last fall, a
catastrophic war of tribal and religious conflict, where diseases
and machines were the weapons and most often the only victors.

The Academy is the beacon of the hominin mind. It has replaced

scarcity of resources with abundance of thought. It is centered
around a powerful, rationalist philosophy to focus the
faculties of the mind to explore, to understand, and to use new
understanding to improve the lives of all those within its reach.

It is a meritocratic democracy, with the career-long, network-

moderated reputation of its members giving weight to their
opinions. Without money, reputation is the sole resource,
leaving Academics free (and encouraged) to pursue the avenue
of exploration and creation to which they are drawn.

The Colonies
Earth’s past contains many accounts —  some recorded in
deliberately, some only discovered archaeologically —  of
exoduses to the stars precipitated by sociopolitical shifts in the
life of Earth.

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Generation ships have been frequently reinvented, entire
civilizations traveling the stars on low-thrust engines for
hundreds or thousands of years, intending to found colonies
when they arrived at their destinations.

Some refugees were frozen cryogenically, their minds and

bodies slowed to a glacial crawl while they hurtled through
space toward the most distant of destinations.

There are tales — probably apocryphal — of consciousnesses

encapsulated in palm-sized devices and hurtled at the stars,
but no technology exists to record or synthesize a mind today.
The mechanics of the hominin mind remain a mystery.

For the last three centuries, the Academy has been recording
the bubblings of civilization on distant stars — its scientists
have observed colonies’ reinvention of radio and occasional
encrypted cacophony of information networks. Sometimes the
signal offers no clue to its nature.

The time has come to say hello.

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 cometary “smart ice” reaction mass
1km diameter at launch
500,000,000,000 kg
Academy Interstellar
Travel
The gulf between stars is vast beyond any comprehension of
the hominin mind. But for all of recorded time, there has been
suspicion that we’ve been trying to go the long way.

Taking a short route requires going around space, rather

than through it. In the last decade, that hyperspace has been
preliminarily mapped and routes plotted.

Wormholes —  black holes pointed at each other through

hyperspace —  are the shortcut that hominins have sought for
all time. And the Academy has learned how to direct them.
habitat ring/cable spool
.5km diameter Above and below the ecliptic of nearly every star, just under
~1rpm .
62% the distance to its Oort cloud of comets,  lies a particular

sensor array knot in spacetime. That knot can be carefully manipulated until
radius 2km
it connects with another such knot, and a small object, such as
a starship, pushed through.

thrust nozzle and radiator array

engine module That careful manipulation requires an enormous expenditure
of delicately manipulated mass and energy. A wormhole can be
held open only momentarily for the particular mass of the ship.
vector spike
The entrance can be held open for only the tiniest fraction of a

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second as the ship continues to accelerate through
the wormhole.
There is, as yet, no way to pull a ship through. The trip
is one-way until the explorers’ wormhole mechanism
is constructed at the other end by an autonomous
system, released upon exit. Complicating matters
are the unpredictable ripples in hyperspace caused
by the passage of such a craft —  that particular
connection will be unusable for months until the
space stops quivering, releasing exotic particles and
causing measurable fluctuations in the mass of the
space around it. Travel through the wormhole while
this continues to happen has unpredictable effects
— probes sent through have been lost, though whether
destroyed, adrift in hyperspace, or sent as a mirror
image elsewhere in the Universe, it is impossible to know.
The Net
All Academics  are implanted with a bioelectrically powered
radio connection to the Net. They are in constant contact with all
other Academics, able to share visual and auditory information
as well as text limited only by distance and the speed of light.
How long does it take?
It takes about 2 years to get to the
wormhole above the north or south
pole of Earth’s star, and, since most
colonized planets are in the same
“goldilocks zone” around a similar
star, about the same to arrive.
The starship burns constantly, turning
the ice to plasma, first accelerating it
toward the wormhole, then turning
and decelerating to the destination.
The engine, its massive ice ball reduced
to a tiny sphere, launches the habitat
ring into a braking orbit, burning off the
ring’s extra speed on multiple passes
through the top levels of atmosphere
of the planet. The engine module goes
on, accelerating again in automated
search of a comet to turn into a new
ball of reaction mass, returning a year
or so later, if all goes well.
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 Other sensory information can be logged, though it is considered
very intimate to share such data.

The Network is also how Academics share edited, published

knowledge. When an Academic has done research, it is
assumed that they’ll edit and publish work on the subject for all
to appreciate. This is the primary activity in which Academics
exploring hominin cultures will be engaged.

Other Academic
technologies
There are several other technologies used to good effect by the
Academy:

Materials
The Academy’s material engineering approaches the ideal
of known physical limits. Flying machines are so finely
constructed as to be nearly invisible. Exoskeletons that
multiply the strength of the wearer many times are no heavier
than normal clothes. Materials that change color and opacity at
command are common.

Starships drop a cable centimeters in diameter, but tens of

thousands of kilometers long, onto planet surfaces in order

6
to facilitate transport to and from the surface and draw power
from the planet’s magnetic field.

Embedded information processing

Most objects used by Academics are “smart” to some degree.
Tools configure themselves according the requirements of the
user, taking simple voice commands. Clothes tailor themselves,
vehicles drive themselves (or assist the passengers in
driving). Computation is cheap, effective, and ubiquitous. Most
Academics wouldn’t know how to get along without such
materials.

Language translation
The first team of Academics on the ground always includes at
least one specializing linguist. The linguist adds to the natural
language translation capabilities of the Academy, working
from hand symbols and drawings up to spoken language, puns,
irony, and jokes. Natural language translation cannot be fully
automated, but the translation system is an extremely effective
method of teaching the language on the fly.

Any newcomer armed with only the translation system and no

actual experience with the language will make embarrassing
errors and incorrect assumptions.

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 Weapons
When pressed, Academics will use weapons to bring an end to
a conflict gone wrong. Because violence is considered evidence
of failure, the Academy considers precise forensic record
keeping absolutely necessary in order to find out what went
wrong. Tools that are designed to be weapons track and record
tremendous amounts of information about any violent act (if not
temporarily silenced). If queried, the weapon or projectile will
report the hormone levels of the attacker and attacked, as well
a 3D model of the situation from the point of view of the weapon.

The two weapons most used by Academics are the Needle and
Smartglue.

Needles are 10 cm-long straight rods that shoot tiny flechettes.

They will guide themselves in flight to find the target at which
they were aimed, pierce them, and either drug the target or
expand rapidly, causing tremendous trauma. If they are unable
to reach their target, they expand prematurely, turning into a
ball of fluff.

Smartglue is a generally useful tool with obvious weapon

capabilities. It is either thrown by hand or launched with a
small compressed gas charge. When it impacts, tiny filaments
explode, entangling the target in a very fine web. The filaments
are fantastically strong and embedded with enough processing

8
to take simple commands —  “Let him speak” or “Let go” for
instance. It will ask for confirmation if given a command that
will hurt the individual it is holding, based on a broad knowledge
of force and physiology.

The Work of an
Academic
Living for centuries, Academics often have several specialties
in their lifetimes. Furthermore, because they need to spend
years isolated from their home culture, each individual needs
thorough versing in law, agriculture, medicine, and the “soft
form” martial arts of the Academy.

Nonetheless, they will have passions for which they’ve been

selected, and they’re expected to follow the passions they had
when they left on the expedition.

Groups work in close-knit teams, organizing themselves

according to specializations.

Anthropology
Anthropologists study human cultures and are the core
scientists of the Academy’s exploratory teams. Some study
a culture by becoming an accepted member, while others

9
 remain distant, endeavoring to keep from influencing their
experimental subjects. Some study artifacts while others study
language or other living cultural forms, hoping to add to the
Academy’s understanding and share the Academy’s way of life
with the colonists.

Archaeology
Archaeologists search for records of a society’s origins. No
one knows how long hominin colonies have existed and it is the
objective of the archaeologist to help figure that out. On Earth,
hominin ancestry goes back to a clear point 100,000 years ago.
Before that, the zoology of the planet was starkly different from
what it’s become, a fact made clear by the records, intentional
and other wise, of earlier civilizations. From bone needles and
pottery shards to ceramic fibers and lost cities, the galaxy surely
holds many mysteries in the strata of its inhabited planets.

Biology
Life is abundant in the galaxy. Where life is not forbidden by rain
of molten rock or pressures that make hydrogen fall as snow, it
lives. Hominins have surely learned to live with local flora and
fauna. What are they, and what is waiting to be discovered? And
what happens when something discovers us back?

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Rules
Making a culture
If your Protagonist in a Colonist, make sure at least one Link
and/or your Antagonist is an Academic, and vice-versa.

The Shock for the first episode in a colony is the arrival of the
Academy.

All players who are playing *Tagonists in a Colonist culture

describe a few of Minutiæ about the Colony and the particular
culture they live in on that Colony. Listen to each other and run
with each other’s ideas.

Name in particular:
• What your people wear
• What they eat
• What their shelter is like
• What their family structure is like
• What they look like e.g. color of skin, height and proportions.

If relevant, you might consider

• What they trade
• What their music is like
• How they travel

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 Inter-Protagonist conflict
When two Protagonists are in a Conflict, the Antagonist player
of the current Protagonist tells the opposing Protagonist how
many Credits zie is spending. The opposing Protagonist can
divide up those Credits into whatever configuration of dice zie
requires.

The opposing Protagonist does not roll a Minutia die and can
not gain Features.

Changing minds
When your Intent is to change a Protagonist’s mind —  by any
means, from argument to seduction to brainwashing —  your
Intent is really to make the Protagonist in question add the
desired effect as a Link in addition to existing Links.

For example, if Ayize want Timande to fall in love with her, her
player gives that as hir Intent. If zie wins the Conflict, Timande’s
player writes under Links, “In love with Ayize”. It can now be
used in addition to Timande’s other links only by asserting it
in deed. If Timande acts like he’s in love with Ayize during or
leading up to a Conflict, his player can reroll the dice to change
a result.

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If the reroll fails, Timande’s player must change the Link to
reflect a change in that relationship — perhaps “Infatuated with
Ayize” or “Resentful of Ayize”.

If the roll succeeds, Timande’s player must leave it alone.

As normal, links can be used any time that relationship is at

stake.

Getting ready for the next session

Protagonists:
When your Protagonist’s story is over, make a new Protagonist
sheet.

• Write down your three favorite Features from the old sheet.
• Now copy over your Links. Any Link that was used must be
copied over. Any that was not used this episode may be copied
over at your discretion.
• Choose someone from those Links to be your Antagonist
next time.
• When everyone’s done for the night, share with everyone what
changed for your Protagonist.
• Write down your new Story Goal and share it with the group.

Ending this story

This might be the end of this story! The Story Goals of the
players might have all been resolved in such a way that there’s

13
 no more to tell here. Maybe they stay and live there, maybe the
starship leaves orbit never to return.

The Academy
What happens next has everything to do with the needs of the
players.

• Do you start a new expedition, setting out from Earth? With

these same Academics or new ones?
• How is the Academy changed by its interactions with the
cultures of the colony? Do its laws change? Its technology?
Its exploratory policies?

The Colony
• Do Colonists join the Academy, integrating with the starship
crew?
• How have the cultures in the colony changed through contact?
• If they’re a spacefaring culture, do they ally themselves with
the Academy? Do they become enemies?

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Æsthetic principles
What the Academy looks like
• Academic technology, on the whole, does not glow. Text and
images look as though they are printed on paper.
• The arrival or departure of a starship uses a fantastic amount
of energy. It’s the brightest thing in the sky, visible even
during the day when it’s nearby.
• Academic uniforms and spacecraft are dark grey and
brown when practicality doesn’t require other colors. As an
institution, they dislike ostentation.
• Because of their free movement on Earth, Academics tend
to look and think very similarly, belonging to a superculture
that covers the planet.
• Sensors are ubiquitous long, straight whiskers that stick out
perpendicular to the surface of the spacecraft, clothing, or
equipment doing the sensing. Sensors are attached to many
objects often used as functional jewelry.
• There are no beam weapons, force fields, artificial
intelligences, or antigravity.
 What the Colonies look like
• Colonies usually have multiple ethnicities. They will have
tribes, nations, languages, religions, and variations in
physiology from area to area and among groups in a given
area.
• Colonists want things from the Academy — they might bring
legitimacy to a ruler or relief to an afflicted group. But they
also want things from each other.
• Every society has an aesthetic. Look at a particular human
culture and expand on that. People who live on the ocean may
have art that looks like Haïda or Inuit art — bold, gemetric,
and expressive. People who live in mountains may make a lot
of terra cotta — soft shapes, pottery, and bricks.
• If the people write, what are their writing implements like?
That will effect the way their writing looks. Do they write with
brushes? By carving in stone? With pens? By pressing shapes
into soft clay? Try making writing the way they do to figure out
what it looks like.

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Join the Academy
I put together this Preview of Shock:Human Contact to get some
creative input from you! I’d love to hear from you and hear how
your experiences have gone with the game.

xenoglyph
The glyphpress blog can be found at glyphpress.com. There,
you’ll find science/fiction posts, art, and commentary on the
world from the perspective of a science fiction enthusiast.

Xenoglyph also has a forum where you can discuss Shock:,

Human Contact, and game design. I’d love to hear how your
adventures in the expanding Academy have gone.

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a far-future setting for Joshua A.C. Newman’s
social
science
fiction

For 800 years

the Academy has been slowly bringing the
humans of Earth back from the brink of extinction
to enlightenment. For the last 300, it has looked
in wonder at the faint signals from the stars,
knowing that humans had fled their home deep
in its terrible past and may now be struggling
without aid. Only now, with its powerful wormhole
technology, can the Academy bring its light to the
rest of the galaxy.

This special Dreamation 2010 preview includes

material about the Academy and limited rules
specific to its mission of exploration.

You need a copy of Shock: to play.