Microscope

It seems that Microscope currently doesn't have a thread for it. As such, this is now the general microscope thread, for the sharing of high concepts, periods and scenes of interest, and whatever else one wants to talk about.

On my end, I'm currently in the middle of a post-apocalyptic (also pre-apocalyptic) fantasy* game by the name of The Era of First Impact. Somehow, it developed from an incredibly dark looking story set in the period between two disease bearing asteroids to a mostly light story of cultural and scientific development, that looks like a society that might actually survive the second asteroid. Sure, one of the scenes was a submarine falling into an oceanic vent, and there was the matter of the fall of the New Portuguese and New Russian Empires due to the introduction of horrific chemical warfare, all over a series of accidents, but it has mostly been good news so far.

*There's a case to be made that it is actually science fiction. Said case involves citing the way there is no magic, there are technically aliens, scientific development has been a major driving force, and the whole matter of viruses and genetic engineering thereof being largely central. I'd argue that it isn't focused around actual science enough to fit.

Played some Microscope just less than a month ago.

We created a spanning sci-fi tale of AIs, aliens and transhumanism

The game got really exciting when someone laid down an event "Rise of the Great One" when no one knew what that meant.

Eventually a scene came up asking "How did the Great One come to be?" and eveyone picked thier roles until it got to me who was last. I said I was the first printed human. And I started playing this conflicted "perfect" man.

Later we had a scene for which cause the great one would follow. I reprised my role as the great one. In the scene an AI overlord spoke of him as an object and I objected to that. I said I found the term "Great One" offensive. The AI player retorted that is was my serial number and when I'd be put into mass production there would be a Great Two, Three etc.

Whoa! Did not see that one coming.

Eventually the Great One had to escape from the collapse of human civilisation but saved a little girl instead as the pod could only support one. The bounty hunter got me. And that was the final scene of the game.

That particular thread was really cool. I took a photograph of the table at the end so it's really easy to remember everything that happened, even weeks later.