Cpt BlackThorne
Mongoose
Well...what sort of artifacts are we talking about here....weapons are too obvious and more advanced jump engines....well what has been left behind?
Technology of the Ancients
- Thread starter Cpt BlackThorne
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GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
Just about anything, really. One offhanded mention some years ago was that the most common "artifact" was the apparent equivalent of building materials. Bricks of unknown material, specifically.
Also, the Black Globe Generator started as a cache of Ancients devices.
Also, the Black Globe Generator started as a cache of Ancients devices.
alex_greene
Guest
The most basic Ancient technology takes the form of potsherds: bits of container, small pieces of smashed items that can be pieced together. Things like broken bits of jewellery, rubble that used to be masonry, things like that. Straps, hooks, connectors - the Ancient version of Velcro and buttons. But made of marvellous materials, the composition of which the Imperium couldn't even begin to guess how they were made.
Something like finding a genuine Roman artifact, only made out of PVC or modern memory metal of the kind they use in fancy spectacles. Actually, finding a set of spectacles of clear Roman origin dating from 10BC would be a typical example.
Next to the equivalent of finding the equivalent of Assyrian Scotch tape are things like the remains of warrior helmets, broken armour, clothing and items like that. Items which provide an indication as to what the species may have looked like. Imagine finding a pair of spectacles dating back to Ancient Rome, or a Pictish ballpoint pen. Even the absence of a kind of Artifact could indicate something about the species: for instance, if no Ancient archaeological dig ever found anything resembling a flight of stairs, a ladder or indeed any kind of doorway on the ground floors of buildings, it might indicate something about the Ancients - namely that they may have actually been a race of beings that could fly ...
Archaeologists would kill for Artifacts which carried on them anything resembling depictions of Ancients, or any kind of Ancient writing. Genuine Coyns from the Ancients' time, as compared to modern Coyns used by the Droyne today, are most prized because they seem to virtually be the only actual known Ancient writing system extant. Almost as if the Ancients never wrote anything down, but kept everything in their heads with perfect memories ...
And then there's the high tech stuff the player characters would want, like disintegrator pistols, endless antimatter batteries that never run dry, psionic telepathy amplifiers, grav propellers the size of water biscuits that can propel humanoids through the air twice as fast as an Air'Raft, and so on. But that stuff should be rare; the stuff of legend.
The LBB Adventures Twilight's Peak and Secret of The Ancients went into greater detail on this topic.
Something like finding a genuine Roman artifact, only made out of PVC or modern memory metal of the kind they use in fancy spectacles. Actually, finding a set of spectacles of clear Roman origin dating from 10BC would be a typical example.
Next to the equivalent of finding the equivalent of Assyrian Scotch tape are things like the remains of warrior helmets, broken armour, clothing and items like that. Items which provide an indication as to what the species may have looked like. Imagine finding a pair of spectacles dating back to Ancient Rome, or a Pictish ballpoint pen. Even the absence of a kind of Artifact could indicate something about the species: for instance, if no Ancient archaeological dig ever found anything resembling a flight of stairs, a ladder or indeed any kind of doorway on the ground floors of buildings, it might indicate something about the Ancients - namely that they may have actually been a race of beings that could fly ...
Archaeologists would kill for Artifacts which carried on them anything resembling depictions of Ancients, or any kind of Ancient writing. Genuine Coyns from the Ancients' time, as compared to modern Coyns used by the Droyne today, are most prized because they seem to virtually be the only actual known Ancient writing system extant. Almost as if the Ancients never wrote anything down, but kept everything in their heads with perfect memories ...
And then there's the high tech stuff the player characters would want, like disintegrator pistols, endless antimatter batteries that never run dry, psionic telepathy amplifiers, grav propellers the size of water biscuits that can propel humanoids through the air twice as fast as an Air'Raft, and so on. But that stuff should be rare; the stuff of legend.
The LBB Adventures Twilight's Peak and Secret of The Ancients went into greater detail on this topic.
An item I created yesterday is called the Matter Grabber and is based loosely on the weapon found in Half Life 2 It has a range of 14 meters, and can transport an item of approximately 50kg, with built in inertia dampers to stop it from being dragged into the operator. It can be used as a weapon of sorts, but is not designed as such.
Other items that could be created are technologies that simulate psionics. The matter Grabber is a tech item that creates a telekinesis effect.
Other items that could be created are technologies that simulate psionics. The matter Grabber is a tech item that creates a telekinesis effect.
I recall that as well. I also recall that it's mentioned that the Ancients expiremented with all sorts of tech variations, which allows for multiple versions of the same thing, but using different methods. So in the case of bricks, they may all be the same material, but radically different shapes, or the same shape/size, but radically different materials.GypsyComet said:
Don't forget plant and animal life as "Ancient devices", as we do have some evidence that the Ancient's were prone to genetic tampering. Sometimes the creatures themselves will still be around - like the Vargr - but more often than not, they will show up as remains/fossils/etc that seem out of place. IE, someone finding the original lab that the Vargr were created in could find Terran Canine skeletons in a "wierd" place, like an airless moon with no other evidence of animal life.
Bricks and disintegrator guns are small fry IMO - I like my precursor races to be alien, enigmatic and mysterious and more than a little mind-blowing.
One thing I made years ago for my setting was a Nova Damper. It looked like a planet from the outside (a hellish world completely covered with a thick acrid atmosphere and highly acidic oceans) but whenever the WD in the system got close enough to its primary to cause a nova, the device kicked in. It worked by totally removing the kinetic energy from every single molecule on the planetary surface to power it (I have no idea if you'd get enough power to do anything from that, but it sounded cool at the time), effectively freezing the planet and its atmosphere solid. It then used that power to create forcefields around every inner planet in the system and make a massive spherical shell around the star at the asteroid belt that was further out, so the nova effects could not damage the planets or anything beyond the asteroid belt. And then at the end, it remelted the planet and everything was back to its hellish norm.
Why they'd do that for an uninhabitable system, nobody knew. That was part of the mystery (also, my Ancients weren't Droyne. Nobody knew what they were, but they definitely weren't Droyne).
Another artifact was a solid black sphere that just appeared under the surface of a large planet. It was detected when it annihilated a spherical volume of rock around it and caused a seismic disruption. All it does is spin and blast out a lighthouse beam of neutrinos and other exotic particles from its rotational poles, that can go straight through matter and into the depths of space. Again, nobody knows what it's for, but some suspect it's a beacon, and are a bit worried as to what it's calling out to - either way, nobody can even scratch the thing, and it defies analysis. Again, it's a big mystery.
Basically, my Ancients are more in line with 2001. They don't leave toys like Black Globe Generators or Ray Guns or broken pottery for people to play with - they leave things that change planetary systems and make people very nervous.
One thing I made years ago for my setting was a Nova Damper. It looked like a planet from the outside (a hellish world completely covered with a thick acrid atmosphere and highly acidic oceans) but whenever the WD in the system got close enough to its primary to cause a nova, the device kicked in. It worked by totally removing the kinetic energy from every single molecule on the planetary surface to power it (I have no idea if you'd get enough power to do anything from that, but it sounded cool at the time), effectively freezing the planet and its atmosphere solid. It then used that power to create forcefields around every inner planet in the system and make a massive spherical shell around the star at the asteroid belt that was further out, so the nova effects could not damage the planets or anything beyond the asteroid belt. And then at the end, it remelted the planet and everything was back to its hellish norm.
Why they'd do that for an uninhabitable system, nobody knew. That was part of the mystery (also, my Ancients weren't Droyne. Nobody knew what they were, but they definitely weren't Droyne).
Another artifact was a solid black sphere that just appeared under the surface of a large planet. It was detected when it annihilated a spherical volume of rock around it and caused a seismic disruption. All it does is spin and blast out a lighthouse beam of neutrinos and other exotic particles from its rotational poles, that can go straight through matter and into the depths of space. Again, nobody knows what it's for, but some suspect it's a beacon, and are a bit worried as to what it's calling out to - either way, nobody can even scratch the thing, and it defies analysis. Again, it's a big mystery.
Basically, my Ancients are more in line with 2001. They don't leave toys like Black Globe Generators or Ray Guns or broken pottery for people to play with - they leave things that change planetary systems and make people very nervous.
