First, please read the post through.  Then watch the (NSFW: boobies) music video at the bottom.  Then tell me what you think.

It is the year 20157.  Humanity is led by a syndicate of genetic intellectuals, the product of a millennias-long breeding project to produce an ultimate being.  Psychic, genetically perfect, extremely long-lived and bred to lead, they control through sheer force of will the fate of twenty billion humans throughout the solar system and colonies beyond.  The last two thousand years of their reign has been one of general peace; their prescience simply forbids uprising, rebellions and more importantly the conditions that give rise to such strife.

These are no benign oligarchs, though.  They are arrogant, cold, and distant.  They view the rest of humankind as a minor nuisance, but one they are oath-bound to guide.  Their inner circle is a Byzantine mix of personality cult, religion, and martial society.  They maintain an army of cloned soldiers, ready and willing to ruthlessly carry out their diktat.  

The leaders, the elite of the elite, wear the Golden Gauntlet.  A cybernetic device, it chooses the wearer, rather than simply being bestowed.  It increases the prescience and other mental abilities of the wearer a hundred-fold.  It can be refused, but refusal draws the hatred and derision of the rest of the Society.  While expulsion from their ranks is entirely unheard of, earning the enmity of fellow members is in effect a living death.  No requests will be honored, no alarms or concerns heeded unless actual evidence is seen by other members.  Families are torn apart by such shunning, and while open conflict between is unthinkable, the net result is the same.

Humanity at large is maintained at a level of technology comparable to the distant late 20th and early 21st century of the past.  Fashion, design, art; all things (humanity is told) reached its pinnacle in the mid 21st century, the Golden Age when fusion technology and early nanotechnology was discovered.  Thus further human progress is held in stasis, with the reason given that humankind has reached its peak.

Of course, this is a lie; the Syndicate simply wishes to maintain its power over the masses of humankind, and keeping them in a technological Dark Age maintains this status quo.

There are members of the Syndicate who are not so hardhearted; who view humanity as more than cattle they are tasked with keeping penned in, but they must closely guard their feelings and can never act overtly, but can in secret help humanity itself evolve further.

Likewise, there are those members of mundane society who have begun to question the status quo.  People are born on, live on, and die on a single world; sometimes within a single megalopolis.  Travel on a single world is discouraged; between worlds, forbidden.  But there are those who for whatever reason (perhaps thanks to those within the Syndicate who eschew the values of their peers) have certain gifts that allow them to move unseen by the minds of their "betters".  They are now stepping onto the stage of human history, readying themselves for a bold action.  There are even rumors that a Gauntlet has chosen a mundane human...

http://vimeo.com/68389373

01:06 to 01:31.

Awesome concept but a few questions: what are the PCs to do in this brave new world? I'm getting a kind of "Jedi versus Nazis"/"Equilibrium" vibe, is this a game about an insurrection? What kind of toys do they get to play with? Hook meh!

Quote from: The Traveller;712437Awesome concept but a few questions: what are the PCs to do in this brave new world? I'm getting a kind of "Jedi versus Nazis"/"Equilibrium" vibe, is this a game about an insurrection? What kind of toys do they get to play with? Hook meh!

For a low powered game, yeah, you'd have the players as insurrectionists, fighting on the Jedi-vs-Nazi front as you say (good description, btw.)  For a high powered game, they could be part of the Syndicate, trying to take down the system from within.

edit: also did you think my exposition and the video were tonally synchronized?  That's what I was hoping for.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;712461For a low powered game, yeah, you'd have the players as insurrectionists, fighting on the Jedi-vs-Nazi front as you say (good description, btw.)  For a high powered game, they could be part of the Syndicate, trying to take down the system from within.

edit: also did you think my exposition and the video were tonally synchronized?  That's what I was hoping for.

It definetely helped to set the mood, rockin' vid by the way, those were some driving beats. So you're going for more of a gothic, blood versus blood, political gamesmanship sort of setting? Sounds like a blast, a dystopian Venetian genetocracy at the height of its power - have you got any particular political mechanics in mind (ie reputation, standing, favour tokens etc)? I think the trick with this setting will be to not go too high falutin', but keep touchstones people can relate to.

Quote from: The Traveller;712595It definetely helped to set the mood, rockin' vid by the way, those were some driving beats. So you're going for more of a gothic, blood versus blood, political gamesmanship sort of setting? Sounds like a blast, a dystopian Venetian genetocracy at the height of its power - have you got any particular political mechanics in mind (ie reputation, standing, favour tokens etc)? I think the trick with this setting will be to not go too high falutin', but keep touchstones people can relate to.

Yeah, I don't want to skate towards stuff like Nobilis or Exalted; there needs to be grit here.  With that said, yeah some rules for political machinations would be nice.  I eschew "sense motive" in the strongest of terms, so stuff like that would have to be avoided.  Given that most Syndics are at least somewhat psychic, or have some kind of psionic ability (some stronger than others, hence the Syndicate leaders who wear the Gauntlets), a lot of the game would tend to be keeping your own thoughts safe from others.

Reputation and Standing are definite candidates for inclusion.

At first I started this as a thought experiment for "hey put this setting in whatever system" but the more I think bout it the more I think it merits its own system.