Mother, do you think they'll like this song?

[robotnik2004]

I really am going to run that long-threatened Starchildren game shortly. In preparation for character generation and movie night this week (I think Jess has Hedwig and Velvet Goldmine on tap, both fine choices) I'll post some of my assorted notes. I've done a major overhaul of the system (we'll be using Hero Quest) and a slight remix of the setting (you'll note some Grant Morrison influences, plus I'm opening it up to 70s Funk and Metal in addition to the canon Glam). You may think I'm putting far too much thought into a game about alien rock stars, but it will get much sillier once we bring in the Glamour rules... and besides, do we really want to follow those kinds of thoughts (about what's worth putting thought into and what isn't) to their logical conclusions?

We'll start with the overview and the main antagonists. (Though players are welcome to take them on as PCs—I'm particularly fond of the conflicted bad guys described in the last paragraph.)



They Came To Rock
The year is 2074. The world is a grim and dreary place. Years ago, humanity abdicated control of its own minds to a legion of technocrats and memetic psychologists. The Ministries of Sound, Sight, Touch, Taste, and Thought—known collectively as "Mother"—came to control culture in all its forms, permitting only the blandest of actions, experiences, and ideas. The minds of the people became Mother’s property. Brainwashed into passivity or medicated into a haze, humanity trudged stupidly through a gray world robbed of color, glamour, pain, or joy.

Until the Starchildren came. They came across the black gulfs of space, alien visitors seeking the origin of ancient radio signals that had transformed their world—century old signals from Earth that their makers called Glam. And Funk. And Rock. The greatest of Earth's gifts to the cosmos, this thing called Rock changed the alien race forever. They evolved ears simply to hear it, and throats to sing it, and bodies to dance. They remade themselves in the image of the music's Earthly makers—new gods named Ziggy and Iggy and Bootsy and Gene.

The Earth the Starchildren found was not the Rockly paradise they had expected. But they have begun to remake the Earth as surely as Rock once remade them. They dazzle humanity with their unearthly beauty and forbidden music. Human youth are starting their own bands, inspired by these rockers from beyond the stars. In soundproofed clubs and on smuggled eight-tracks, they spread the sounds and ideas that can no longer be contained. A revolution has begun... to ROCK.

Mother
The five Ministries known as Mother control all thought and culture in the synarchist state of 2074. "Synarchism," the opposite of primitive "anarchism," means complete control of culture and ideas so that every word and every thought work in harmony towards the greater good. This is the final society, Mother proclaimed. This is the end of culture. But Rock had other plans.

Mother's five branches are, again, the Ministries of Sound, Sight, Taste, Touch, and Thought. (No, there is no Ministry of Smell—though there could be an underground funk band by that name.) The Ministry of Sound controls audio culture, and is for obvious reasons the most prominent Ministry in the war against Rock. Music in 2074 is a controlled substance. The Hush Police patrol everywhere with hyperbolic microphones in search of the unauthorized emissions they call Sound Crime. The Ministry of Sight, smaller and less prominent than the Ministry of Sound, controls art and visual culture in the same fashion. The Ministry of Touch regulates physical interaction, in particular sex. Sexual activity without proper authorization is known as Touch Crime. The Ministry of Taste controls not food but fashion, policing Mother's dress code (akin to that of a dreary British public school). Most mysterious and feared is the Ministry of Thought, which decrees which ideas are permissible and which constitute Thought Crime.

Mother's minions include: the Synarchrats, the legions of officious pencil pushers that populate all five Ministries; the Hush Police and Bedtime Police, shock troops of the Ministries of Sound and Touch, respectively; Mother's Little Helpers, undercover informants and agent provocateurs that have infiltrated the world of youth culture and rebellion; and Mad Social Scientists, deranged geniuses who engineer the subliminal programming and the drugs that keep the people docile and loyal to Mother. (See also Darkchildren and Beautiful Fascists, below.)

Meme War
It is a fundamental tenet of synarchism that power is based not on military or economic might but on control of culture and ideas. This is why the Starchildren, and Rock, are so dangerous to Mother's rule. Both sides agree that the Revolution will be not be fought with guns or money but with music, fashion, and art. The battlefield will be youth culture and young minds.

Mother was surprised by the arrival of the Starchildren and the eruption of Rock five years ago. But her Mad Social Scientists have not been idle since then. In the memetic labs of the Ministry, they engineer their own fads, their own forms of music, their own youth culture—co-opted and hollow, yet diabolically appealing to the brokenhearted, disenfranchised youth of the 2070s. The Beautiful Fascists are perhaps their most frightening creation, a youth counter-rebellion that has worried even the Synarchrats with its cruel purity and high fashion. But all memes and fashions splinter and mutate in the viral petri dish of youth culture. Rumors fly about which bands and which subcultures are genuine and which are creations of the Ministries. Even the most brilliant memetic analysts can rarely say for sure.

And while Mother's minions scheme to co-opt and pollute Rock, Rock in turn touches them. Try as they might to insulate themselves, those on the front lines of the fight against Rock are the most likely to be contaminated. So while many rockers and groupies are secret informants for the Ministry of Sound, just as many Mad Social Scientists are addicted to the forbidden rhythms they dissect. And there are jackbooted Hush Police who secretly dream of rocking out, and grey-garbed Synarchrats who long for that strange androgynous boy-girl with unearthly skin and doe-like eyes.

Next Time: The Starchildren, the Darkstar, and the Mothership Connection.
After That: The Invincible Chord Goddess.

Comments

[that-cad.livejournal.com]

I don't even know what to say beyond...

\m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/

Christ on a stick, man, this setting sounds AWESOME! I absolutely cannot wait for you to run it! And is it wrong for me to still want to be a Beautiful Fascist?

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Very ncie revisioning of the Starchildren background. I approve.

[that-cad.livejournal.com]

By the bye, this alleged "character creation" session "this week" — did you send out invitations and forget to invite me? Or did I read that wrong?

[editswlonghair.livejournal.com]

Nicely done. And eerily relevant given how I fear this country is the early stages of becoming a fundamentalist christian theocracy run by the 700 Club, Opus Dei, and happy clappy McChurches.

Def. hoping I'll be able to make it to this. I'll have to crank up "2112" on my iPod on the car ride home! :)

[sneech515.livejournal.com]

Wow, so many ideas and influences, all turned up to 11. Well done. I'm sorry I can't be there to see it.

I've always thought the lyrics to Bowie's Starman -- "he'd like to come and meet us/but he thinks he'd blow our minds" -- had a vaguely sinister ring to them. I always figured it would be good soundtrack material for 70s-set Cthulhu. (Hee hee. "That 70s Shuggoth")

Hmmm. Maybe the Starchildren will stop off at Mars first, to pick up some spiders.

Beautiful Fascists

[mgrasso.livejournal.com]

narcissisme may disagree on this front, but I have to picture the Beautiful Fascists as early-80s New Wave/New Romantic/electronic musicians. Lots of pale white makeup, lipstick, and suits with skinny ties. Like Gary Numan crossed with the guys from Human League and ABC. That's just me, though.

[ezrael.livejournal.com]

What, no Karma Police? But people's Hitler hairdos will make people feel ill!

Seriously, this is one of the more out there ideas I've seen for an RPG in some time, and is very cool. Not that you needed me to tell you that.

Awesome, but no can do Thursday

[dkoulomzin.livejournal.com]

Thursday won't work for me... so sorry.

I'd really like to participate in this game though. Is it ok to miss this session?

I have a great character concept, complete with a soundtrack. Jess can testify.

[gammafodder1.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I wish I could be there. You do realize that the real world reference about the Ministry of Sound controlling audio culture does come a little too close to the truth, don't you?

Have a great time running this fantastic sounding campaign (without the Tdot crew, unfortunately). I do get first rights on the screenplay, of course.

[head58.livejournal.com]

hmm. Maybe if I told Ali I had gotten a second job I could sneak out to play in this game. Because time commitments aside, I know if she ever knew about it she would demand to play in it and I would be the gaming widow here.

Damn it, now I'm going to have Cheap Trick's "Dream Police" and Styx's "Heavy Metal Poisoning" in my head all night...

Another geezer commenting...

[dreamsanon.livejournal.com]

Hey, Rob,

Just to echo the sentiments of your old-school gaming posse - damn, I'm envious. I'd be all over playing a Bootsy-Collins, bass-playing, fro-funkadelic alien.

By the way, last night I had a vision of a pirate radio station in a coverted submarine, surfacing only to rock under the cover of night, illuminating the coastlines with funk and fury...

[doctor-toc.livejournal.com]

Wow. When we got the game in at Pandemonium, I remember thinking it was one of those really cool ideas that no-one would ever actually play. Thanks for proving me wrong!

Sounds like it's going to be an awesome campaign. I'd love to know how it works out.

"Take a look at the law man, beating up the wrong guy..."