Reverberations of the Singularity

I’ve been thinking about resurrecting a very old game. It was, and now I can’t remember, either the second or third game I designed and played. I love the feel of the world but I think it got away from me in the original version.

I also need to find a new name for it. It was originally called Aftermath, but that’s been taken. The original version would probably be labeled as a poor rip off of Numinara if I published it today (Even though I wrote it in the 90s). I recently had a little spark of an idea that would pull it away from that.

So what is it? It’s a post apocalyptic world, there was a war with weapons that a modern day person would still not really understand. So technology was once really really high. Society has recovered to the level of medieval times in most places but there are a few cities that make high tech items.

A main technology that is being reproduced is called a KAF (Kinetic Abatement Field) unit. They dampen kinetic energy, making projectiles drop out of the air after a few feet. There are personal versions and big versions that protect armies or cities. This means that any combatant has to be ready to drop their gun and pick up a sword if a KAF is activated.

There are laser guns, but they are hard to find, expensive and usually can only fire once (think of fighting with muskets).

The thing that got away from me was the big bad threat. I have some ideas about what would work as an improved concept. I’m thinking the big apocalyptic war was caused by getting close to a computational singularity and people fought over it.

There are however computer cores that house AIs that are left in old server rooms buried in military bunkers and deep basements. They are valued as oracles, objects of power for the knowledge they hold. Finding them can reveal old knowledge, powerful knowledge.

However reviving the AIs revives the threat of the singularity. One or more cores were activated that corrupted others an now they have taken rulership of the largest city state in the known world.

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