Spaceflight, starships, extraterrestrials.

[Aurelius]

So it seems to me that exploring or even leaving the solar system would be very possible for mages. While I realize that it's beyond the scope of the published setting, I can't seem to stop thinking about it.

What, if anything, is out there? Do the Exarchs rule the entire universe, or are they the petty gods of a backwater planet? They seem oddly anthropocentric if the former is the case. Do the rules of reality change past a certain threshold, as you move into the domain of other, stranger entities? Does the Abyss have some sort of physical analogue that separates humanity from the stars? Was the Awakened City in fact a universe-spanning civilization?

I'm struggling to imagine a consistent setting in which mages haven't asked these questions. And presumably they have the capacity to answer them to some extent, particularly since.spaceflight might lead to a wealth of new Atlantean discoveries or perhaps some measure of freedom from interference for archmasters.

What do you guys think?

[projectmoon]

The closest answer to this I've found in the core material is that it's possible to go beyond the Astral Solar System, but the things that lay beyond it are strange and not understood, and tend to devour/destroy mages. The Chronicles of Darkness is very human-centric, and anything that comes from beyond Earth is ill-defined at best. Then again, the books make various references to the possibility of aliens existing. I think this is something that is basically left to the Storyteller.

[Mrmdubois]

Yup, that’s all ST territory, so will vary from game to game.

[Aurelius]

Suppose I'm the Storyteller in question and I'm looking for inspiration? I'd love to hear any ideas you guys might have.

[Vent0]

First, you'll need to answer the questions you asked in the OP. After that we can help with implications, consequences, and details.

Bare in mind that current technology makes space travel difficult, even for Mages. Spell Control Limits means Mages need a degree of power already just to maintain the spells needed for survival. Space teleportation is limited to Sympathy, which is also going to be hard to get.

[Aurelius]

Well, alright. I guess I can toss out some of the ideas rattling around in my head.

So the most obvious possibility, the "null hypothesis" if you will, is the Empty Cosmos. The universe is vast and beautiful and profoundly sparse. Nothing absolutely prevents mages from exploring it, and perhaps some do, but there's also no great incentive to do so. There are no Mysteries out there, or at least, none that are easy to find beyond some ruins on Mars. Sol is a local maximum of strangeness, meaning and comfort, and leaving just doesn't make that much sense. Perhaps some Libertines or Théarchs have dreams of interstellar colonies, but they're almost as far in the future as their Sleeper counterparts. As far as we can tell, the Exarchs have dominion over all of time and space and they kind of haven't done much with the place.

Alternatively: Space is a Lie. Our perception of the universe as vast, and our own corner of it as tiny and insignificant is part of that Lie, a symbolic reflection of our domination and confinement by the Exarchs and the Abyss. It's an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. Not sure what it would look like to see past that illusion though.

I feel like the above thoughts are perhaps most readily consistent with the official setting.

Another option draws inspiration from Lovecraft's short story "The Other Gods". When the Exarchs ascended, they threw out the previous gods of Earth and took their thrones. However, the gods of Earth were not the biggest fish in the celestial pond. They were sufficiently powerful to deter the eldritch powers that be from simply making a meal of us though, and now that responsibility falls to their replacements. Perhaps the Abyss was created in an act of desperation to fend these Other Gods off. Even they aren't so keen on the unmaking of all truth. Of course, the Abyss is also a major threat in its own right and the Exarchs would really appreciate it if you would all just stop distracting them from dealing with all of this already. In this interpretation, it is actually possible to physically leave the domain of the Exarchs and is also a really bad idea.

Final semi-related idea. I was reading the description of the Wraiths of Epochs legacy. One of their attainments allows them to use postcognition in a way that bypasses effects that obscure or destroy history, e.g. those of the Cult of the Doomsday Clock. An NPC character concept popped into my mind. Shadow Name Nibiru, because she once used Wraith postcognition while looking through a telescope and saw a planet that isn't supposed to exist. That's about as far as I've gotten :P

[nofather]

This is all I know, from the Astral book.

'Few souls venture outside of Earth’s solar system. Despite the malleable nature of time, millennia-long subjective durations (and unknown, intervening dangers) drive virtually all travelers insane. Furthermore, it is said that there are beings outside the astral solar system that hunt dreamers who would venture too far. But there are always stories about secret routes that can take a soul to Aldebaran or Arcturus in an instant — and cautionary tales about what she might encounter when she gets there. It is said that the distant stars are prisons for monsters so powerful that the true gods couldn’t drive them into the Abyss, or that the Abyss conquered most of the other suns and planets. This explains why humans have never found signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Nothing survives but the degenerate slaves of alien, dark gods.'

[Aurelius]

Ooooooh, interesting!

[Mr.F.I.X.]

Have you looked at the mirrors book? It explores the space opera from various perspectives

[FallenEco]

Have you looked at the mirrors book? It explores the space opera from various perspectives

Not the book proper. You are referring to the Mirrors: Infinite Macabre pdf only supplement.

[Mr.F.I.X.]

FallenEco Ah, my mistake but yes that was what I was referring. I did not realize it was only pdf support.

[2ptTakrill]

If you really want to take your game into space you don't have to let the limits of magic stop you, after all if I use Mind Mastery to boost my Intelligence and Science skill to say...8 or higher (making a grand total of 16) there is no telling what scientific achievements I might make in one life time. Now if Mages started doing that in the sixteen hundreds we could easily be living in Star Trek by now.
This hasn't happened, why, because someone keeps hitting reset on reality, undoing all of these wonderful achievements.
Still even in a reset things fall through the cracks.
It wouldn't be a stretch to have your characters find a hidden government bunker, that never existed, containing a science based star gate, that was never invented, linking to a counterpart in the remains of a colony on another world, that never knew the touch of man.
All without changing anything in the core setting.

[MovingMind]

Another option draws inspiration from on Lovecraft's short story "The Other Gods". When the Exarchs ascended, they threw out the previous gods of Earth and took their thrones. However, the gods of Earth were not the biggest fish in the celestial pond. They were sufficiently powerful to deter the eldritch powers that be from simply making a meal of us though, and now that responsibility falls to their replacements. Perhaps the Abyss was created in an act of desperation to fend these Other Gods off. Even they aren't so keen on the unmaking of all truth. Of course, the Abyss is also a major threat in its own right and the Exarchs would really appreciate it if you would all just stop distracting them from dealing with all of this already. In this interpretation, it is actually possible to physically leave the domain of the Exarchs and is also a really bad idea.

i find this idea really interesting, mind if i put it on another thread, jot down some other points that occurred to me and see what the hivemind thinks of this take on the universe?

[Aurelius]

Mirrors: Infinite Macabre looks excellent. Thanks for the recommendation!

Wrt putting this on another thread, go for it! I'd enjoy reading that.

(And in general, everyone is invited to assume that my posts are in the public domain. )

[kryptonitekrusher]

So it seems to me that exploring or even leaving the solar system would be very possible for mages. While I realize that it's beyond the scope of the published setting, I can't seem to stop thinking about it.

What, if anything, is out there? Do the Exarchs rule the entire universe, or are they the petty gods of a backwater planet? They seem oddly anthropocentric if the former is the case. Do the rules of reality change past a certain threshold, as you move into the domain of other, stranger entities? Does the Abyss have some sort of physical analogue that separates humanity from the stars? Was the Awakened City in fact a universe-spanning civilization?

I'm struggling to imagine a consistent setting in which mages haven't asked these questions. And presumably they have the capacity to answer them to some extent, particularly since.spaceflight might lead to a wealth of new Atlantean discoveries or perhaps some measure of freedom from interference for archmasters.

What do you guys think?

A couple of things:

- This may be very doable if you imagine solar bodies as droplets or bubbles (their own distinct realms.) You can describe hellscapes with the same language as science fiction novels, with exact measurements; or talk about distant worlds with whimsy. An adventure on Mars isn't much different from an adventure in a realm with a red sky with extremely harsh environment. Just prepare accordingly as mages. Where in the universe this realm (but actually planet) sits is as relevant as you guys want it to be. There is no shortage of sci-fi where TPTB find a way to another world previously thought unreachable.

- Distance, or Space, is relevant because scientists sometimes express that an object sufficiently distant from another can be understood (informally) as occupying another dimension. This refers to objects that exist beyond the edge of the observable universe and are accelerating away from us in perpetuity at faster and faster velocity.

The only way to reach those places is through miracle of science.

- If you buy into multiverses, or if you sprinkle a bit of sci-fi and real science, you make believable places that operate under really funny rules. But WoD has magic, so you can push this into the realm of ridiculous.

The Supernal Realms could be a very real place in some higher-dimensional state (to borrow from new age spiritual terminology), but it could also be something that extends beyond scientific appreciation.

The key might be to express it as both scientific and fantastic, but always mysterious and never resolved.

WoD depicts its details as unresolved and up for endless debate and exploration - so if you do follow sci-fi, it might be beneficial to leave plenty of room for mystery and alternative theories.


Because WoD is so maleable, I think the things you want to explore are perfectly within reach.