Setting. Jag gillar approachen som Shinobigami har till setting, med ett antal ninjaklaner och en idé om vad dessa bryr sig om samt vilka krafter de har. En ganska lös setting som framförallt är ämnad att skapa konflikter.
Det här projektet har lite andra behov, men jag landade i att jag ändå vill ha någon sorts mysterium i bakgrunden. Något påtagligt som ändå skapar en lite sliten situation. Men utan att det egentligen är där för att utforskas -- det bara är.
Min inspiration blev postkrigs-USA. Landet där den stora gigantiska krigsindustrin plötsligt står utan något riktigt syfte och alla konstigheter träder fram i ljuset. En plats där opportunister av alla de slag frodas, och uttrycket "rovkapitalism" återigen blir ganska träffsäkert. Vem bryr sig om kriget när kriget är slut, hyran måste betalas igen, vi har tusentals flygplan ingen behöver, och bilen måste lagas?
Fast tja, utan att det faktiskt är något första eller andra världskrig då. Här kommer det ljud från rymden istället, och det rör sig om alla i hela världen.
THE SIGNAL
A few decades ago, we discovered a strong signal from deep space. Whatever was sending this signal was not human in origin, and the strength and complexity of the signal implied technology far beyond ours.
We couldn’t decipher the signal, and its irregular broadcasting eluded pattern recognition. We had to assume the worst: a strong alien signal that cannot be deciphered must be of hostile intent.
Our decision was swift. We’d conscript our entire species, pool our considerable resources together, and prepare to defend ourselves from extinction.
SIGNAL DIVISION TOKI
For the first time in history, all our governments aligned.
We needed to equip and train a military first contact division that could approach and contain the source of the signal. To accomplish this, we needed the best tools, weapons, and training that could possibly be mustered; and fast.
It took five terrifying years before we could send our best to establish first contact with the slowly approaching source of the signal.
Signal Division TOKI set out. Another three years passed as it closed the vast distances. The commanders called in on schedule: they were preparing for first contact.
Moments later, the connection was lost. Not a single word of what they saw came back, and nothing has been heard since. As if the division simply vanished.
TOKI sightings have been frequently reported ever since.
None have been confirmed.
NOW
Everything is still on edge. The most expensive anticlimax in human history has inflated the spaceborne economy and then simply left it behind. Without purpose, without goals.
Everyone wonders if they should prepare for the worst or simply act as if nothing happened. Keep building, keep working, keep piling on debt.
But we also have to pick up the pieces, pay our mortgages, and figure out what comes next. The consequences of a decade of mandated spending, and its inevitable corruption, are beginning to catch up.
Opportunists are everywhere, turning scrap into profit, guns into leverage, passengers into labor, and TOKI sightings into a commodity.
You should know — you’re one of them.
