A long, long time ago, a brilliant little show hit the air-waves that captivated those of us who were looking for a little bit of adventure in our lives. The SeaQuest, a sleek underwater marvel, cut its way through the last unexplored Terran frontier, seeking scientifically sound adventure and showing us that a talking dolphin can be just as fun as Niven tells us they can be. After a fairly intense season finale, we watched as the SeaQuest plunged to its destruction in a grave of undersea magma, with the promise of a new craft to come.
And came it did, though not the way we thought it would. When SeaQuest returned to the air-waves, we were astounded that the world had changed so much. Chaos Clouds and ancient gods now inhabited the undersea universe. Aliens abducted the SeaQuest. Things just got stranger and stranger, until the third season, when it all just started to get silly.
But I loved those first two seasons, even if things got so very odd between them. And so I've wanted to present this cosm for a long, long time...
In ancient times, gods strode the face of the Earth and Atlas balanced the heavens on his shoulders. Wizards searched out the secrets of the universe while men looked up to the stars and sought there prophecy. But other men joined them and stared up, seeking laws... seeing not magic but rules that governed a clockwork universe. As humans began to discover the rules of the cosm in which they lived, the universe's fragile laws and Axioms began to shift to reflect the new perception of it. This was no Magna Verita, however; this was a robust cosm which sought co-existence with all of its parts and as such, things of magic and absurdity were not eliminated or forced to suffer the lingering death as the axioms which supported them withered away. Rather, they were encapsulated in pocket dimensions formed by the Cosm, held safe and away so that no part of the whole would be lost.
Eventually, humanity had made headway into charting their world's rules. The atom had been split, genes had been mapped, and the world had been explored a hundred times over. But in this cosm, the spirit of adventure continued to thrive and humanity as a whole pressed onwards, exploring the last and greatest unknown: the oceans which made up more than two-thirds of the Earth which sustained them. The world focused on the vessel which would come to be synonymous with this voyage into the new frontier: the SeaQuest Deep Sea Vehicle, the Holy Grail of the seas, science and the exploration which was fundamental to the spirit of humanity.
Thus, when the SeaQuest met its end, a shock ran through the collective spirits of humanity. The SeaQuest had galvanized humanity; and with its destruction, a lynch-pin of reality had just been yanked free. In a frenzy of confusion, the cosm was thrown into a tizzy and the axioms washed, fracturing with the belief of a humanity which was almost too certain of its own status as Titans. Pocket universae which had long since been held separate from the cosm were abruptly re-absorbed and incorporated into a now accepting universe. And the world... well, it didn't notice, as the people in the Cosm were Transformed to match the new reality around them.
Now, a new world awaits the rebuilt SeaQuest. It's a world that's at once alien from anything that they've known before... and yet, somehow, it's home...
| Magic | 5 | (Magic exists mostly in terms of flashes of deja vu, moments of clarity and occasionally the manifestation of very brief unexplained occurrences. People do not control magic, as it is simply not a part of their lives) |
| Social | 26 | (Society exists under a close approximation to a 'government for all'. Societal reform is the rule rather than the exception. Earth is united). |
| Spiritual | 7 | (Many worship, but very few divine interventions are recorded outside of Holy Texts. Science is fast becoming a new religion in its own right. Most gods have been relegated to mythology and fiction). |
| Technology | 24 | (Earth has reached a new reinessance of technology. Many advanced thought the realm of fiction have come true. But as yet there are no flying cars). |
| Magic | 12 | (Conjouration of Something From Nothing is possible, though not under human control. Things like 'Chaos Clouds' become possible as sudden manifestions. The magic axiom blends seamlessly with the Tech one: magical events will almost always have technological explanations). |
| Social | 25 | (Society is still united under one government, but it's beginning to fracture. Within a season, it will have dropped to the 22-23 range, as the axiom wash continues to destabilize the connectivity formed between humans). |
| Spiritual | 13 | (As the pocket dimensions opened and people lost their faith in science, something Else began to fill the void. The gods of the past rushed into the void, though for the most are still unknown to the world. Further, they're bound by the law of Scientific Explanation, which still limits them). |
| Technology | 25 | (Ironically, the people's lack of faith in science has actually caused the axiom to rise. Think of it as if we, in our society with tightly controlled science axiom, suddenly as a whole 'decided' to allow for Zap guns and anti-grav belts. Within a season, the Tech axiom will be used to its full potential, allowing things like Daggers and the like to exist. However, due to the drop in the Social axiom, humanity is no longer able to work together as effectively, and so grand projects like the SeaQuest will become more difficult to create). |
This law states that absolutely anything in the SeaQuest universe, no matter how absurd, can be explained by science; and further, that a scientific explanation (though not necessarily this one) will be true, or near enough to true to count. In practice, when using contradictory magic within the cosm, the Seaquest's Tech axiom may be substituted for magic. If, however, the magic-user still manages to Disconnect while using their magic, then the cosm's laws will Transform that use of magic into something more suitable for science to explain. Note that this Transformation will last until the user can Reconnect to their home cosm.
The SeaQuest cosm is a robust one. Nothing is ever lost; rather if there's something which cannot exist in the Cosm, it will be encapsulated in a pocket dimension until such a time as it can escape or else the world's axioms become more accepting of that thing. In practice, any time a Four-Case contradiction in this cosm results in a disconnection, the person who performs the contradiction must spend a possibility or be removed to a specially created pocket dimension which will support them.
Wherever humanity goes, there is something to discover. It doesn't matter if they shoot probes into space or search undersea: as long as humanity looks, it will discover something. The cosm tends to enforce this on P-rated especially, since they're the ones who most often are restless enough to search for new things. Note that this doesn't even have to be spatial exploration; a person who searches all of their life for the cure for cancer will discover something along the way... though not necessarily the cure that they had hoped to find...
High Lord: None. No Darkness Device has yet taken up residence in this cosm, and let's hope it stays free for a while!
Back to the RPG page.