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I've been trying to figure this out and keep getting differing informtaion depending on site/person. So I figured I'd just ask here and see if I keep getting (strangely appropriate) shifting information. Now I'm pretty sure . . .
1) Anything relating to Golarion from the start of the gap is missing.
2) Anyone in the multiverse is subject to this memory loss.
3) The gods may or may not know what happened.
What I'm trying to nail down is how far this knowledge loss spreads and if its just related to Golarion or more extensive. So lets asssume an immortal, say a lvl 20 wizard with the immortal discovery. Then lets put them in a number of scenarios and how I think they'd be affected in each one. Feel free to respond with yes that's right, no I don't think it works that way or the like.
Scenario 1: Living on Golarion.
Result: Vanished with the planet.
Scenario 2: Living in the system and overseeing their business.
Result: Lost all memories relating to Golarion and the intervevning years but remember anything not related to it e.g. other cultures in other systems, business accounts and so on. For example they know Ysaki on Keldaron is their agent in charge of their operations on that planet but don't remember who their agent was on Golarion though they assume they had one. However they only know these agents prior to and after the gap but not who was there during. However they also don't remember the years when they learnt their abilities since it occured on Golarion.
Scenario 3: Travelling and exploring the multiverse having left Golarion behind many years prior to the gap.
Result: Again total memory loss of the intervening years of the gap even though it has nothing to do with Golarion.
Its Scenario 3 and 2 I'm not sure about as I can't help but wonder . . .
1) How people know Golarion is missing if they don't remember Golarion in the first place.
2) Why all non-related memories were removed e.g. "I spent 50 years in a swamp just studying the plant life there" would need to be erased.
It's pretty universal, and might not actually be related to golarion so much as golarion was a casualty of the gap.
Also, it lasted at a minimum hundreds of years, but affected thousands at least. The closer to the gap, the worse records/memories become. I think the CRB mentions thousands of years for the gap's duration.
So, the oldest records of golarion still exist. The ones detailing the whispering tyrant are blank or contradictory. The ones relating to how people developed absalom station and the tech of the pact worlds are missing entirely.
Similar stories play out across the multiverse.
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Its not a universal sweep of Golarion then as people still remember it they just don't remember how/when it became a space faring planet and then dissapeared. So if you had someone who became immortal in the wrath of the righteous path and left Golarion afterwards they would still remember those events because that was well before Golarion gained space travel much less the gap?
Its not a universal sweep of Golarion then as people still remember it they just don't remember how/when it became a space faring planet and then dissapeared. So if you had someone who became immortal in the wrath of the righteous path and left Golarion afterwards they would still remember those events because that was well before Golarion gained space travel much less the gap?
It depends on when the gap actually happened vs. when that person was born.
The eoxian bone sages are older than the gap. One day they just sort of realized that 'oh crap, a bunch of stuff is suddenly different and I don't know how that happened'.
If such an immortal character was born during the gap, then they likely reacted much like the elves. They realized they were centuries to millenia old, and had no idea why or how. Sudden amnesia for the vast majority of their lives.
A wizard born during the gap might find themselves in a demiplane and have no way of knowing how to leave, and their notes and spellbooks might very well be blank, or nonsensical.
The setting assumes the gap started at least around the time of the first pathfinder adventure path, giving a reason why all those events have been forgotten, and any world shaking things the old PCs did had no effect on the current SF universe. In a home game universe, a group could decide the gap happened after all that, and explore the consequences for their table, but the official stance is that was all during the gap. So, sadly the wrath of the righteous characters are likely to find themselves in version B of post gap memory.
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So someone who became genuinely immortal and managed to survive would find themselves waking up post gap with immense power and no idea how they became that way or who they are . . . hmmmm interesting character concept there though not one that could work in a normal game.
So someone who became genuinely immortal and managed to survive would find themselves waking up post gap with immense power and no idea how they became that way or who they are . . . hmmmm interesting character concept there though not one that could work in a normal game.
It would be a great start to a high level one shot though.
Its not a universal sweep of Golarion then as people still remember it they just don't remember how/when it became a space faring planet and then dissapeared. So if you had someone who became immortal in the wrath of the righteous path and left Golarion afterwards they would still remember those events because that was well before Golarion gained space travel much less the gap?
I would go with this.
Also, I could see people remembering vague, trivial flashes of memories of time that they were on Golarion even during the time of the gap. Nothing that leads to any useful information. And probably feeling like remembering a dream or events from a very early age. Similar to how I know I was three years old at one point - but I don't really remember much about that time.
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So someone who became genuinely immortal and managed to survive would find themselves waking up post gap with immense power and no idea how they became that way or who they are . . . hmmmm interesting character concept there though not one that could work in a normal game.It would be a great start to a high level one shot though.
Could work group of powerful individuals coming together right after the gap ends to try and figure out what happened. They never get a definitive answer obviously but they do figure out that this whatever it is is much, much bigger than just them or even just their planet. A glimpse at the chaos and confusion in a universe where people just had a massive chunk of their lives/memories destroyed. Sure you'll have some like the Eox who remember prior and some like the character I mention who doesn't remember how they got so powerful but this is everyone. Every adult with no memory of who they are, why they're living with someone or even what exactly their capable of, people in prisons with no memory of why, people in planes or other vehicles suddenly coming to with the need to control a moving vehicle or industrial machinery.
Could work group of powerful individuals coming together right after the gap ends to try and figure out what happened. They never get a definitive answer obviously but they do figure out that this whatever it is is much, much bigger than just them or even just their planet. A glimpse at the chaos and confusion in a universe where people just had a massive chunk of their lives/memories destroyed. Sure you'll have some like the Eox who remember prior and some like the character I mention who doesn't remember how they got so powerful but this is everyone. Every adult with no memory of who they are, why they're living with someone or even what exactly their capable of, people in prisons with no memory of why, people in planes or other vehicles suddenly coming to with the need to control a moving vehicle or industrial machinery.So someone who became genuinely immortal and managed to survive would find themselves waking up post gap with immense power and no idea how they became that way or who they are . . . hmmmm interesting character concept there though not one that could work in a normal game.It would be a great start to a high level one shot though.
Literally the start of a campaign I sort of vaguely plan to run. The group is obviously not powerful, but the premise is they wake up hours after the gap, but in the drift on a ship. So their goal is to get back home, but not only do they have to wait for the signal, they also don't know where home is.
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Literally the start of a campaign I sort of vaguely plan to run. The group is obviously not powerful, but the premise is they wake up hours after the gap, but in the drift on a ship. So their goal is to get back home, but not only do they have to wait for the signal, they also don't know where home is.Could work group of powerful individuals coming together right after the gap ends to try and figure out what happened. They never get a definitive answer obviously but they do figure out that this whatever it is is much, much bigger than just them or even just their planet. A glimpse at the chaos and confusion in a universe where people just had a massive chunk of their lives/memories destroyed. Sure you'll have some like the Eox who remember prior and some like the character I mention who doesn't remember how they got so powerful but this is everyone. Every adult with no memory of who they are, why they're living with someone or even what exactly their capable of, people in prisons with no memory of why, people in planes or other vehicles suddenly coming to with the need to control a moving vehicle or industrial machinery.So someone who became genuinely immortal and managed to survive would find themselves waking up post gap with immense power and no idea how they became that way or who they are . . . hmmmm interesting character concept there though not one that could work in a normal game.It would be a great start to a high level one shot though.
I have to admit the post-gap recovery does lend itself well to the levelling system your not just mysteriously learning new spells or abilities you've never used before but as time passes your memory is recovering and your regaining more general details of what you can do. I know there's an official type of amnesia for this too that has them remmeber skills but not who they are.
Some SFS scenarios deal with the fallout* of the gap on systems other than the pact worlds and... it turns out suddenly having your entire planet wake up with amnesia can be really. Really. Bad. But also shows that its a universal phenomenon.
So I think for the rest of the non center of the universe, the pact worlds are that place where theres that uber drift beacon where drift engines came from, that just happened to lose a planet during the gap.
*sorry!
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Starfinder CRB, page 424:
"History is broken in Starfinder. No matter where you go, from
the myriad mortal worlds floating in space to the strange
realms of the gods, you’ll find the same thing: historical
records go back a few centuries and then suddenly go blank
or contradictory, shifting randomly between readings and
becoming reliable again only when referring to the dim and
misty ages of the ancient past. What’s more, this hole torn
in history isn’t restricted to blurred photographs and garbled
almanacs. Modern history begins with accounts of worlds
across the multiverse erupting in riots and panic as those living
through this transition found their memories suddenly blank
or unreliable. While these people retained all the knowledge,
skills, and interpersonal connections from their lives, specific
memories became difficult or impossible to retrieve—a woman
might have instinctively known a million tiny details about her
spouse but have had no concept of how they met or how long
they’d been married. Nations forgot why they were at war.
Angels lost track of sinners’ indiscretions. Everything in motion
remained in motion, but without context or reason."
Aaaand:
"What is known, however, is that while the Gap is universal—
and a combination of carbon dating and astrochronology
suggest it lasted several millennia—its edges are geotemporally
inconsistent. Where one star system might have accurate
records stretching back 300 years from the present, worlds
in different parts of the galaxy might have 310 years of
history, or only 275. Some scholars have even uncovered rare
“caches” within the Gap—places where accounts seem suddenly
consistent for a given period or topic. For an organization like
the Starfinders, locating these scattered bread crumbs and
syncing them up with ancient pre-Gap records may yet hold the
key to unraveling the greatest mystery of the universe."
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My entirely unofficial opinion:
There's no known link between the Gap and Golarion, other than Golarion happened to disappear during the Gap.
People who came out of the gap had knowledge. they knew their own names, for example, they knew who their parents were. They just had no memory of their lives before that moment. Imagine the things you know without having to provide historic context. You may know you like Jazz, but not be able to say exactly what moment in your own history caused that to be the case.
So a vesk coming out of the mass amnesia of the Gap might well know they are a big fan of Classic Shell Percussion music, but have no idea why that is the case.