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Ancient Artifact Ideas

Cryton said:
I really like this one. And those things seem to turn up EVERYWHERE!


"Rubber-Ducky, you're the one..."
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Duck Description: [DATA EXPUNGED] See image. THIS IS NOT A DUCK. THIS IS NOT A DUCK. THIS IS NOT A DUCK. THIS IS NOT A DUCK. THIS IS NOT A DUCK. THIS IS NOT A DUCK. THIS IS NOT A DUCK.
Notes: Context or content of duck unknown.
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Log of Anomalous Ducks (SCP Wiki)
Regrettably, the associated images for that page were removed due to attribution issues.
This one was the "grape duck".
 
The Gvurrdon Vargr

The Gvurrdon Vargr is a statue of a female vargr 46cm tall and weighing 8.56kg. It is covered in a black lacquer which is dull in finish. The gross details are an accurate depiction of an ideal mature female vargr. It is an interesting object, solid and appears a cast of some dense metal. Close inspection reveals handling wear of many years and scratches of several hundred years. Sophisticated scanning equipment is required to penetrate the item to reveal its structure

The fake is composed of a 2-5mm thick organically derived (insect carapace) lacquer over a 23% silver/ 77% gold electrum cast. There is a greater background radiation of 14 rem/hr. This is due to microwavelength ion emission in the silver used. The origin of which may be determined by rigorous testing and research, as perhaps deep in the Gvurrdon Sector. There are no voids or compartments within.

The actual item beneath the lacquer is composed of an embedded skeleton and nervous system of zuchai crystal in a flesh-like matrix of multiple rare earth elements depicting organs, muscle tissue, fat and covered in a furry skin of nanocarbon fibers and polymers. It too, is covered by a 2-5mm thick carapace of black organic lacquer. The origin of this lacquer is of great antiquity, perhaps 200-250,000 years ago

to Trained Psionics within 1.5m the object impresses on the character the poice of a Bell or chime. Other than this, the object will only affect a species with the SDVIEC genetic code.

The actual object is an Ancient Artefact. Its full purpose is unknown, however it does cause psionic awakening in members of the vargr species with a PSI of 9 or more. Variations in its adjustments over the millennia have given it the unsettling occasional powers of granting nearby vargr a PSI of F and awakening their latent Psionic talents which then may overwhelm the totally untrained individual.
 
Grav_Moped said:
Duck Description: [DATA EXPUNGED] See image. THIS IS NOT A DUCK. THIS IS NOT A DUCK. THIS IS NOT A DUCK. THIS IS NOT A DUCK. THIS IS NOT A DUCK. THIS IS NOT A DUCK. THIS IS NOT A DUCK.
Notes: Context or content of duck unknown.
Status: Missing

Log of Anomalous Ducks (SCP Wiki)
Regrettably, the associated images for that page were removed due to attribution issues.
This one was the "grape duck".
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Love it! :rofl:
 
Don't Annic

As part of a long-obsolete idea to retcon ANNIC NOVA, I considered making the ship's accumulator sails function by having a device that created a Black Globe-like effect but as a surface effect on conductive material rather than as a stand-off forcefield -- a Black Sheet, as it were. This would allow the collector sails to be some mundane material such as metallized mylar, and thus easily replaced if damaged or worn.

Whatever it is about Black Globes that makes them a stand-off forcefield breaks the ability to collect the "magic particles" needed to power a Jump drive, but as a surface effect it can collect them.

The surface-effect field can't absorb kinetic energy. Anything touching it gets quickly drained of all forms of non-kinetic energy. (Yeah, physics doesn't work that way. Whatever.)

What's not known about this when found, is that it was originally a component of a star-killer weapon. Put the surface effect on the armored outer hull of a double-hulled ship, leaving only a small opening protected by massive repulsors. Point an enormous spinal meson gun out through the hole. Drop it into a star, firing the meson gun into the star's core. The meson gun is of course powered by the Black Sheet generator.

Drop it in, and wait for the Earth-shattering "Kaboom".

It breaks high-TL space combat, of course. It's a black globe, but you can re-radiate unreasonable amounts of absorbed energy AND shoot back around the edges.
 
A nearly-complete pair of Tipler Cylinders (per Tipler's paper, "Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation".) These would be extremely large and long parallel cylinders made of collapsed-star material, and would have the means of spinning them up onsite, but, oddly, it would not be complete. If spun up, there would be a path between them that would enable time travel.

Read the Larry Niven short story of the same title (it's in the collection Convergent Series) for why it's incomplete and why the PCs would be well advised to leave it alone, run away very fast, and forget they'd ever seen it.

It WILL NOT be completed. The universe itself hates time machines.

(Oh, and of course the math turned out to be wrong and it wouldn't actually work. This is SF, though...)
 
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stealth said:
"Roadside Picnic" reminds me of "The Missing Room". Thanks for mentioning it, it was fun to read about it. One day, I may even read it.

When I make my artifacts, I go utilitarian. "The Inventory Gun", for example, teleported the target to a stasis warehouse 400,000 years in the past. The target vanishes, and an inventory reciept slowly settles to the ground in it's place.
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A variant of this might be you end up at the warehouse where all missing socks, pens, and other mundane items that seemingly always get lost go... There's an elderly person running the place they eventually run into... Getting out is a very convoluted process...
 
BlackBat242 said:
Where's your Peril Sensitive Sunglasses ©®?
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They seem to have gotten scratched by a small metal model of a starship that somehow ended up in the same pocket. :)

I'm probably remembering it wrong, but I think they were "Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses".
Yep, I was right. Thanks, Google!


The things you remember over the years...
 
Back on Topic

Artifact ideas:

1. A maker device that manufactures random objects using any material as feedstock. Most of these objects are completely incomprehensible and apparently useless. Some are dangerous. (They're random because the controls themselves are impossible to figure out.)

2. One that's sort of based on the idea that the map of the Traveller universe is 2-dimensional because the zone within which Jump Drives work is a relatively thin disc (the Jump Plane): The Artifact is a very-long-range interstellar drive (like Hop, Leap, or Bound Drive) that doesn't work within the Jump Plane.

Activating it results in a misjump to the nearest point outside the Jump Plane (above or below it). Note that at this location, a Jump Drive will not function. Burn the fuel, charge the caps and dump the energy into the Zuchai Crystals and... nothing. There's nothing actually wrong with the Jump Drive -- it's space itself that's messed up.

The Ancients' fast stardrive works perfectly out here, though, if the players can bring themselves to trust it after it threw them out into the edge of nowhere! It can't get them back into the Jump Plane, though (it'll just bounce off it like hitting a 100D Jump Limit). Getting back home again just requires realizing that they need to get back into the Jump Plane the slow way (Maneuver Drive, low berths, and significant time at fractional-c velocity).
 
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