Places of interest in the Harmony Habitat
From OAM
Note: older initial scenario. May or may not be reused. Current initial scenario is Perplextar Alpha.
Players begin the game in the Harmony Habitat (see OAM universe). The original stable ecology the Habermonts placed in the Harmony habitat has since been impoverished. The Harmony Cyberdemocracy tried an ambitious ecological engineering project, but left it half finished when their civilization was destroyed, and nobody has bothered to try repairing the ecology ever since. Now parts of the habitat are a wasteland where the dramatic effects of the failed ecology can be seen. The habitat is full of dead farms or other relics of a failed ecosystem, and most inhabitants who live on synthi-scoff and fabri-food created in (sometimes unreliable) autofac machines.
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Helium Springs
Players start in Helium Springs. Helium Springs is like a 21th century version of a western movie village. It is a brambly, thorny weedy plain of temperate climate, with a lot of plant and animal (mostly invertebrate and neogen) life but little bio-diversity, and not of much practical use to the colonists, because the ecosystem collapsed due to the events above. Helium Springs is named after an underground helium conduit that for a while was used to inflate blimps (during this time the township was very succesful economically) but has long since been emptied. The conduit is believed to be part of the original habitat and predates the human colonists. Helium Springs is far from the wasteland (Sapphire Plains) but the effects of eco collapse are also seen here.
Elysium
From Helium Springs players can take a bus to nearby Elysium, a multi-clade town that for a while was a successful utopian community and Permanent Autonomous Zone, before the whole project collapsed and the town was incorporated into the Harmony Republic, eventually becoming a regional economic center. It is bigger than Helium Springs and a bit more modern. In Elysium there is a bullet train station. Bullet train station are futuristic and high tech compared to our own 21st century standards.
Harmony City
One of the trains from Elysium goes to to Harmony City. Harmony City is a chaotic urban environment, where apparently there is a lot to see and to do, but at some point players realize that if they want to explore the universe this is not the right place to be. The initial release of Harmony City will consist of a few city blocks, arranged in such a way as to create the impression of a city that goes on for miles. Harmony City will be expanded in later releases.
Sapphire Plains
Players leaving Harmony City go to Elysium by train. In Elysium, besides the train going to Harmony City, there is a train going to Sapphire Plains Outpost.
From Sapphire Plains Outpost, players wishing to reach Cosmopolis and Neapolis must cross Sapphire Plains and Sapphire Heights to reach Neapolis Station, where there are trains to Cosmopolis and Neapolis. There are no trains crossing Sapphire Plains and Sapphire Heights and there is some danger on the road (see below).
New players are killed a few times before finding a safe route to Neapolis Station, and have to restart from Helium Springs. They can keep their name (it is associated to the user account) and nothing else.
Sapphire Plains are the heart of the wasteland produced by the echo collapse. The main dangers in Sapphire Plains are rockstingers and nano ghosts.
Lifeforms in Sapphire Plains
A "rockstinger" is a neogenic lifeform / biogen weapon. From a distance it looks exactly like a stone (hence the name) or a clump of dead grass. It can change its surface like a chameleon to blend in perfectly to its surroundings; it can even change its texture and shape to some degree (growing clumps like grass or a weed). Left alone it is motionless in the day and moving about slowly at night to feed on any organic matter (plants, insects, detritus in the soil) It also has some photosynthetic capacity and can survive for some time as an autotroph (eventually however it will shrink and eventually shrivel and die if not given other nutrients though). The life cycle is complex; it lays eggs which are rather like seeds (or vice-versa) which hatch into a wormlike grub that burrows beneath the surface, feeding on soil detritus and invertebrates. After some years the grub has grown large enough and enters a short pre-pupal stage. The pre-pupa is also mobile and heterotrophic, and makes its way to the surface. It looks like a large stone with a creeping molluscan foot, and lacks a sting, but is inedible (because of toxins). Under the stimulation of sunlight and moisture it transforms into a pupa, an inert stage lasting about a month in which the creature metamorphosises into the adult rockstinger.
The creature can also reproduce asexually (by laying eggs) or sexually in the pre-pupal stage. Isolated individuals always reproduce asexually, but a large number of prepupa will sense each other via pheromones and reproduce hermophroditically.
All the other stages of the life-cycle are harmless. But if you come within approx. ~2.5 meters of an adult rockstinger it may or may not fire a poison dart from a spikey 3+meter long whip-like sting that uncoils like a spring (the whip stings you, leaving the dart inside). If the player steps on it it automatically will. The dart contains a fatal fast-acting neurotoxin. The dart cannot penetrate protective clothing or thick footwear. However the rockstinger will aim the dart for the torso or the throat. The creature is blind, but has an uncanny ability to sense vibrations, the rate and distance of footsteps, etc and judge the mass and therefore the height of the person from that.
There is an antidote, so if the player is lucky enough to be hit on a limb the other players can make a tourniquet and give em an injection. If hit on the throat or torso, you can still give an antidote (I don't know much about first aid, but it would be the same as a highly venomous spider or snake bite at that position)
Rockstingers can occur solitary, but are more often found in clusters. When occurring in a group they will tend to wait for the victim to approach and then all will sting at once (they have no real brain, only a nerve net like a cnidarian (jellyfish etc), but this is is all wired into their wetware).
Rockstingers have been eradicated in many areas, but they are difficult to locate, the eggs can remain dormant for decades, and they are very prolific; a single individual will lay thounsands of eggs at a time. They also have no real natural enemies.
In one of the last attempts to fix the eco system, Cyberdemocracy scientists had introduced programmed nano swarms. There have evolved in life-like swarms like in Crichton's Prey (nano ghosts). Nano ghosts are one of the reasons why they are so paranoid against nano and other advanced technologies in Harmony Republic.
Nano ghosts do not eat the whole habitat (or at least all life in it) because they have not yet broken free of the blocks that the Cyberdemocracy scientists put in place when they designed them. Their functioning of a nano ghost swarm depends on an element in short supply. Of course there is always the possibility that they break free and learn how to manufacture/do without this element. This contributes to exhacerbating the fear of nano in Harmony.
The density of rockstingers and nano ghosts is such that a player has about 75% probability of running into one (almost certain death) before reaching Neapolis Station.
Other risks
Other dangers the players face in some areas are war-like nomads, bandit-infested roads, and so on. In parts of Sapphire Plains, the player may be held up by bandits who don't kill em but take all eir protective clothing and supply of anti-venom. Then they are big trouble if they run into rockstingers!
Neapolis
Neapolis is an important and prosperous trading city, where artifacts from out-hab make their way throughout Harmony habitat. Neapolis was named the "New City" by its original settlers in relation to the "Old City" of Jaremic (now Harmony City). It is an intersting place full of rich history. Although it generally isn't dangerous in itself, there are lots of hawkers selling dodgy tech at cheap (and sometimes expensive) prices.
Crime is much less than in Harmony City, although there are local criminal gangs who run a small but flourishing drug, proscribed nanotech, and arms trade; but generally most dangerous tech is screened at Cosmopolis
Neapolis Station
From Neapolis Station there is a train to Port Cosmopolis. Looking looking something like a cross between a monorail and a large and spaceous ski lift, it winds along the ends of the hab cylinder up steep terrace mountains, stopping at a few small towns along the way. The train is pressurised (like a modern aircraft) because above a certain height the air is too thin for âbaselineâ humans to breath.
Port Cosmopolis
When a player reaches Port Cosmopolis she gets a backup done at the Cosmopolis Upload Station and the fun begins. She can explore Cosmopolis a bit before leaving the hab, either by upload/teleport or on a ship, assuming she has money for a passage. She can then spend time exploring other habs and worlds in the Chawan system. Each stage leads to innumerable possibilities and branches for exploration (of course as with Harmony City it isn't necessaary to model every part of every hab and moon and planet etc). Eventually the quest leads to the wormhole terminal, and hence the possibility of leaving Chawan altogether.
