This post might run a little long. I had a nightmare a few nights ago that I wanted to share on the forum because it was heavily influenced by pathfinder. In fact it took place in Golarion's not too distant future. In my dream I was a low level illusionist, I would guess around 5th as later in the dream fireball would be the most impressive spell I would cast. I found myself in Cheliax trying to escape the country with my real life girlfriend. Golarion had basically experienced a near apocalypse. Several spawn of Rovagug had been released, including the Tarrasque. Numerian technology had been reverse engineered. From this, weapons of mass destruction were employed to kill these massive spawn of the beast. Surprisingly the weapons worked and I could see the massive corpses of some of these beasts slowly dying out in the landscape. We were even wearing steampunkish goggles as ash was still falling from the sky. The destruction caused by these weapons caused power vacuums in several countries. Cheliax was particularly bad. I was using illusion spells to bypass checkpoints run by devilish hellknights. In the dream I truly felt terror knowing that if we were caught our deaths would not be quick.
As we walked along people were drug out of their houses, beaten, and shot. We approached the final checkpoint and my illusion spells were running low. 3 guards were checking identities. For a moment they were clustered together, along with several bystanders. From invisibility I uttered the words FIRE BALL and killed everyone at the checkpoint. We ran through. Horrified at what I had done, I knew someone might come after us.
3 people followed behind us. I attempted to hide us in the sewers. We hid in the shadows and the 3 figures walked into the sewers looking for us. 2 male and 1 female, they all looked like agents from the matrix movies. I started attacking them from the shadows and quickly noticed my attacks passing through them. They were just illusions, another illusionist had been sent to kill us. He was invisible, but I managed to hear him. I reached and grappled him, causing him to drop his spell component pouch which I quickly kicked to scatter the contents. An unseen forced started gathering the lost components for him just as I began choking him. His illusions all came to aid him in the grapple, I knew they wern't real but they were still able to push, blind, and interfere. The unseen force put a candle in his hand and we began to struggle as he started to light it. The dream ended. It had been a while since I had been that scared. It was all so vivid.
I think this dream was my mind trying to do a bit of problem solving and creative worrying. I have planned several adventures as of late and I can't help to wonder why the hell the technology in Numeria isn't sweeping throughout the world. You would think every country in the world would be worrying about the technology in that place. If I were a demon cult I would be trying to open up another world wound in Numeria. Hell I read an article the other day that British spies were concerned that the Chinese had obtained a UFO and were reverse engineering it. Wouldn't it be way worse in a world were a UFO crash isn't uncommon knowledge?
Anyway, I thought I would share this. I figured the Homebrew forum was the best spot for this. I hope somebody enjoys this. When I first awoke from the dream it felt very important to share at the time :P
Numeria is probably only a few scientific breakthroughs away from being able to replicate the alien tech, and at that point they could indeed start roflstomping their neighbours.
It'd make for an interesting setting, when "powerups" come falling out of the sky at random places and in random intervals. You end up with a world in permanent socio-political flux - and always only one UFO-crash away from a total disaster.
Numeria hasn't taken over the world because the Technic League is run by a bunch of short-sighted, backstabbing psychopaths. They're all too busy with gaining and keeping personal power to ever really be a threat to their neighbors. If someone actually managed a breakthrough, they'd be immediately assassinated by the others to prevent them from taking power the others covet. Numeria also doesn't have anything even close to the infrastructure that would be required to actually replicate Androffan tech.
Numeria hasn't taken over the world because the Technic League is run by a bunch of short-sighted, backstabbing psychopaths. They're all too busy with gaining and keeping personal power to ever really be a threat to their neighbors. If someone actually managed a breakthrough, they'd be immediately assassinated by the others to prevent them from taking power the others covet. Numeria also doesn't have anything even close to the infrastructure that would be required to actually replicate Androffan tech.
I hear you on the Technic League, that slipped my mind. However, other countries in Golarion are going to be extremely interested in the technology found in Numeria. Its going to slip out sooner rather than later as the tech is not exactly uncommon knowledge. In addition we have Brigh, a deity who encourages innovation and science who happens to be on good terms with most of the other gods. This is a huge advantage over our own history as our real world religions did no always play nice with science AND we did not get a major UFO crash until the 1940s when our tech was already humming along.
I have had a few days to ponder the dream, and I have started writing a little for a campaign. 200 to 500 years in Golarion's future Rovagug finally starts breaking free from his prison. Several spawn ravage the planet. Most spawn are highly resistant to magic. Nukes, or their equivalent seem to be able to kill these massive beasts. People's faith in technology surges as their faith in magic wanes. However, the world is nearly in ruins and Rovagug still claws at his prison.
I think I might actually use D20 Modern, Past, Future, and Urban Arcana for the adventure I run. Trying to go for a steampunk meets cyberpunk feel.