Future Humans

Dr. Who

Future Humans can be very diverse. Referees have a wide variety of story line ideas to draw upon from science fiction.

Future Humans from some old TSR games:

Humans are given a background in Star Empires which can be gleaned from game’s timeline. The first human space government mentioned is the Terran Confederacy which went to war with the Moltrvrrz Empire 2,470 AD. Some more wars happen, a military take over, a popular congress and so on with humanity expanding across the stars. The first human religion mentioned is the Sect of the Hand who eventually start a holy war in 3,274 AD. By 3,575 AD the Golden Empire of Terra exists which suppresses all other religions. The Golden Empire collapse in a war of succession but results in the founding of the Unitech Polity which is still implied to be human controlled.  By 6,251 AD Terra controls over 60,000 star systems and then another equally large empire is discovered the Kolthumnx Swarm the two empires end up in a war of extermination resulting in the collapse of civilization across the galaxy by 6,893 AD and plunging the galaxy into a 3000 year dark age. The Young Kingdoms period is when the game starts at the year 9,932... the location of Terra or the Kolthumnx home worlds is no longer known.

"Humans got style!"

UFO

The first thing I noted about Star Empires' timeline is it is dark and the next is that it is human centric. Other races are mentioned and at least one predates the humans in space but the timeline uses human terms such as AD also the humans are very aggressive. However this means that because Earth time conventions are used we can draw from Earth's cultures and real history for the Space Humans. In addition there are lots of lost human colonies, making explaining why Terran type life forms are spread all over the galaxy easy to explain. There is also plenty of ancient technology some of it deadly, lots of wiped out and dead civilizations, and of course lost worlds. One of these destroyed cultures is the Holrachian Tetrarch which ties nicely into Star Frontiers' timeline concerning the disappearance of the Tetrarch culture and race.

"My planet is really dark."

The Outer Limits

The next bit of information we can glean about Space Humans in Star Empires actually comes from D&D Supplement II Blackmoor by Dave Arneson published in 1975. In the supplement is "The Temple of the Frog" both local humans and space humans exist. It seems from interviews with the early game designers this D&D world was also set in the Star Empires' galaxy and in fact the background mentions Stephen the Rock is from another world/dimension who was supposed to be protecting or policing the planet from interference because a Nexus is present there. (Nexuses are used to move quickly around the galaxy in Star Empires so this sort of implies that this planet once had something more going on here than the current primitive state of affairs.) Stephen of course kills part of his team takes over the temple using "magic" but we also learn Stephen must report once a year to a satellite in orbit make a report and turn in powerful artifacts. Thus it can be assumed or implied that the local humans are in fact descendants of Terran colonists just as much as Stephen. The background of The Temple of the Frog also indicates the planet is not as populated as one would imagine and the Brothers of the Swamp (who are human) have determined man is a threat to life or unable to survive anyway in the long run and using forbidden areas of study were developing a new life form based on amphibious life. We also learn Stephen has a bunch of high tech gizmos, armor and weapons. Once he has taken over the cult he starts helping genetically engineering the frogmen or frog folk. 

"Arn't there laws against tinkering with the DNA?"

Space 1999

Later in DA2 Temple Of The Frog published in 1986 and DA3 City Of The Gods published in 1987 we get more information, including crashed space ships. We learn Stephen and several other folks hail from the Galactic Federation. The interviews with folks playing and developing D&D in the 70s and Star Empires indicates so many aliens died, got stranded and so on that the planet ended up quarantined. Note Star Empires is set up to allow for players to develop their own empires and create an interactive setting. A Game Master need not use the games' timeline. Old D&D humans can be psionic and is a rare but unique feature of humans.

"The power of suggestion can really save a girl."

Space Mutiny

TSR of course had other games that featured future humans such as Gamma World, Metamorphosis Alpha and Star Frontiers. In Gamma World and Metamorphosis Alpha the future humans originally come from Earth aka Terra and are called Pure Strain Humans in these games. These humans beings are defined by the fact that they do not possess physical or mental mutations. In old Gamma World Pure Strain Humans are further defined as descendants of pre-2322 stock and in original Metamorphosis Alpha they would be humans descendants from humans who left Earth in 2290. In other Gamma World materials it is mentioned a fair amount of genetic engineering had occurred prior to 2322 to make humankind healthier, live longer and so on.

"Our ancestors focused on developing our minds."

Star Trek

Star Frontiers designers decided to change the origin story for humans. Originally they were going to have the humans come from Earth in one great big colony ships similar to the Warden from Metamorphosis Alpha but not the Warden. However as more generic backgrounds were in vogue at the time they went with "Near the center of a great spiral galaxy, where the stars are closer together than Earth's sun and its neighbors, a Human race developed. They were not identical to Humans of Earth, but they were not very different, either." The humans in Star Frontiers always in the art look very much like Earth humans nor was anything ever published that really makes them pop out as different from Earth humans. The practical result is some Game Masters have the Frontier humans coming from Earth and others not, and pretty much they are not different except for a longer life span probably because of medical break throughs and engineering like suggested in later Gamma World materials.

"Of course I am human! We were engineered this way."

Star Trek

A couple non TSR games:

Mutant Future uses the term Pure Stock Humans or Pure Humans but it is a similar concept as we see in old Gamma World in that these are the non mutant descendants of those humans that survived the end of civilization. These humans can be damaged by radiation but will never mutate because they have developed a natural or even engineered immunity to radiation. FrontierSpace has humans speaking Terran and coming from another galaxy completely.

Other Humans in general:

"Regulate this!"

Space Mutiny

Humanoids are generally considered mutated human stock in games such as Gamma World or Mutant Future. Some mutant humanoids will look normal others will possess physical differences. Mutations that become a stable part of populations genetic make-up effectively creates a new race of humans or a new sentient race if the differences are big enough. An example from Star Frontiers would be the "alien race" Mhemne; their DNA is genetically a match with humans; but they are covered by long hair all over. If their hair is removed they look like normal humans except for subtle racial differences. So what we have here is an isolated population of humans that developed a mutation that is also stable that created a new human race.

"What do you mean we are related on my mothers' side?"

Jason of Star Command

The latter D&D modules mentioned above go into a little detail about how Frog Folk are being created by Stephen. Stephen is injecting normal humans with a virus that alters permanently their genetic makeup and turns them into Frog Folk. Humans can be specifically engineered to survive different environments in sci-fi settings and such beings might look very alien or not even able to breed without science's help with a normal human. Clones also another option in science fiction.

"I am here to file a claim against forced genetic engineering against my wishes!"

Men In Black III

If you want to create more human options in a game such as people from planet X are more disease resistant, or ones from planet G are resistant to radiation, or are humans from planet A tall, skinny and weaker because of low gravity simply developing modifiers is a good way to go about. In fact a very alien setting can be created with just humans as your one and only intelligent race, racial differences can be so extreme as to make the different kinds of humans appear to be unique species.

"Well this guy launched a nuclear strike and well now we are all blue, what's your excuse?'

Buck Rogers In The 25th Century

I put together Star Frontiers, FrontierSpace & Mutant Future humans to compare how they deal with human abilities. These are all different game systems.

Mutant Future:

Pure Humans
Hit Dice 1d8 per point of CON
Mutations: None
Cannot be mutated by radiation.
+3 to CHR, INT and CON

Mutated Humans
Hit Dice 1d6 per point of CON
Mutations: 1d4 physical, 1d4 mental

Star Frontiers:

Life Span 200 years
Move: 10
+5 to any one ability

Mutated Notes for SF from Gamma Dawn:

-20 penalty on reaction rolls with un-mutated individuals of the same base species

FrontierSpace:

Life Span 100 years
Move: 8
Can raise one ability by +5 & lower one by -5
Uses a chart to determine origin modifiers as another option.
Note a section on Psionics exists and is an option for the Referee to use or not use. This option has powers very similar to some mutations.

As you know each system is different mechanically but has an internal logic. In games like Mutant Future non-mutated humans are given a few more hit point potential, are not capable of being mutated and get bonuses to abilities to help make up for their lack of mutant powers. Often old intelligent technology will only recognize pure strain humans.

Star Frontier has a fan developed system that heavily penalizes the mutant when dealing with his own race, and such prejudices are often legalized as well.

FrontierSpace does not yet have mutant rules.

Game differences include life spans as well.

These are all things to think about when defining your future space humans...

How long will they live on average? How might that effect the game? Star Frontiers' long life spans could lead to over population problems quickly, so how does the society deal with that?
Do they have special pros and cons to them concerning specific worlds/races or is everyone the same?
If you have unique human races what makes them so? (You can build on this over time) Is it just cultural or physical too?
Are you going to have psionics or other mutations?
Do they look like Earth humans or do space humans look different? Yellow, Pink, or Blue skinned? Funny colored hair?

"It's the natural clean living man, maybe our water is different? Do you dig it?"

Star Trek

All the pictures I posted from these old shows or movies could easily simply be humans with unique genetic traits. Though some where meant to be "aliens" others are in fact "mutants" instead.

"We are the new Master Race, the rest of you are now our slaves!"

Dr. Who