History TabletopGame / BluePlanet

* Blue Planet: Recontact (2022), published by Gallant Knight Games and Biohazard Games. Successfully Kickstarted in April-May 2021; a quick-start guide is available now, with full publication planned for October 2022.

* FutureSlang: Quite a bit. The two subgroups of aquaforms are "divers" and "squid", dolphins are "fins", genetically-upgraded humans of all sorts are "genies".

* SpaceStation:
** Prosperity Station (pop. 20,000), successor to GEO-1. The overwhelming majority of newcomers to Poseidon pass through Prosperity, and the Shock Troopers stationed there can touch down anywhere on the planet within fifteen minutes. [[spoiler:It may or may not have nuclear missile silos.]]
** Colonial Station (pop. 15,500), Dundalk Shipbuilding's answer to the Incorporate towns planetside.

** Dyfedd's deliberately built deeper than it is tall to prevent it from capsizing. Its Down Town is a sprawling maze of airlocks, moon pools, submarine hangars, and air domes for cetaceans, and below those are the windowless "Morlock layers."

* CompanyTown: Simushir, run by [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld the Nippon Industrial State]]. Residents sign on for a five-year work contract, with an implanted microchip deducting every expense from the final payout; it's entirely possible to end your work contract owing the NIS money, which automatically signs you on for another five years...

* HalfHumanHybrid: The first attempts at human genetic redesign, created in 2065 by America, Germany, and Biogene as a military black project. The entire project collapsed in a PR disaster, but several varieties were [[TrueBreedingHybrid able to breed true]] and have survived to the present.
** [[CatFolk Cats]] have more or less retractable claws, better hearing, and low-light vision. Side effects include partial colorblindness, a coat of fur, and [[FangThpeak a speech impediment]].
** Silvas were an attempt to work great-ape musculature onto a human frame; an average Silva stands several centimeters taller and masses upwards of 100 kilos. They also have fur and fangs, pay extra for equipment that fits them, and are prone to health and reproductive issues that rarely come up in play.

* ApparentlyHumanMerfolk: Aquaforms come in two distinct flavors, squid with gills and divers without them. but they have webbed fingers and a [[DownplayedTrope All the biomods do give them a distinctive look]], however.

* SpaceStation: Prosperity Station (pop. 20,000), successor to GEO-1. The overwhelming majority of newcomers to Poseidon pass through Prosperity, and the Shock Troopers stationed there can touch down anywhere on the planet within fifteen minutes. [[spoiler:It may or may not have nuclear missile silos.]]

* PenalColony: Westscape's Böse Strand. Hanover Industries [[PrivateProfitPrison runs the place]] ([[HellholePrison at least on paper]]), but it's never managed to pay for itself. [[spoiler:It's not supposed to; Böse Strand is a pretext for Hanover to build up a planetside military.]]

* ArtisticLicensePolitics: The UN Security Council unanimously voted to pass governmental power to the GEO; the United States and China immediately refused to recognize the GEO's authority. In reality, the United States and China are both permanent members of the Security Council and have veto authority over any votes taken.

* ApocalypseHow: The Blight is Class 2 (Planetary scale, societal collapse).
* ApparentlyHumanMerfolk: Downplayed; aquaforms are still clearly human, but they have webbed fingers and a distinctive body fat distribution to insulate them in cold water. Some of them (Systemic Osmoforms, colloquially "squid") also have gills on their backs.

* TheFamine: The Blight, an engineered virus that was accidentally released and devastated all of Earth's crops. By the time it was done, Earth's population was less than half of what it was before it started.

* SpaceElevator: Earth has one in Ecuador. An ecoterrorist attack blew it up during the Blight, and it took decades to repair.

* CatFolk: Cat hybrids were created as primitive {{Super Soldier}}s.

* LoopholeAbuse: The Blight is gone, so the need for the GEO is nominally gone as well. However, the GEO can only be shut down by a vote of two-thirds of the members of the UN at the time of its creation... and over a third of the original members no longer exist.

* UnderwaterCity: Several, given the setting.

* MegaCorp: The Incorporate states generally all qualify.
* OneNationUnderCopyright: The Incorporate states are all corporate-run governments, originally city-states where the corporation maintained stability during the Blight.

* AlienSky: Poseidon has two moons, Proteus and Nereus. Proteus has its own life-forms, but Nereus is barren.

* {{Cyborg}}: Cybernetic augmentation is popular, but not as much as BioAugmentation. However, there are some things BioAugmentation can't do, like implanted radios and neural jacks.

The year is 2199. Over a hundred years ago, astronomers found an unusual object beyond the orbit of Pluto. It turned out to be a stable wormhole leading to the Lambda Serpentis system, about 40 light-years away. The second planet in the system was a water world, teeming with life, which was named Poseidon.

As the Blight worsened, international governmental authority was placed in the hands of the Global Ecology Organization, an arm of the United Nations empowered to enforce mandates worldwide; eventually, the UN itself ceded control to the GEO. As national governments fell, corporations took control of the cities they were based in, creating city-states referred to as Incorporate states.

Eventually, the Blight was conquered after almost thirty years, having cut Earth's population by more than half. As governments began to recover, they found that there was actually no way to rescind the GEO's authority; that could only be done by a two-thirds vote of the original United Nations members who authorized it...and over a third of those member states no longer existed. The recreated United Nations, the Independent nations who never accepted the GEO's authority, and the Incorporate states are all attempting to challenge the GEO, which refuses to yield the authority it has been given.

On Poseidon, when the resupply missions failed to arrive, the colonists learned how to live in a lower-tech way, aided by their genetic augmentations that made working in water easier. They also encountered a ray-like species that seemed intelligent, naming them 'nereids' ('aborigines' in 1st and 2nd editions).

* SuperSoldier:
** The hybrids were early attempts at this. Unfortunately, just because you've given somebody super-soldier characteristics, that doesn't mean they necessarily ''want'' to be soldiers...
** GEO Shock Troopers are a newer and much more successful attempt.

A colony ship, the ''UNSS Cousteau'', was sent in 2086, carrying genetically modified colonists designed to thrive on a water world: [[ApparentlyHumanMerfolk genetically redesigned amphibious]], along with [[SapientCetaceans uplifted dolphins and orcas]]. More ships were planned to follow; however, in 2090, a genetically modified plant virus called the Blight escaped into the wild and devastated Earth's food supplies.

A colony ship, the ''UNSS Cousteau'', was sent in 2086, carrying genetically modified colonists designed to thrive on a water world: humans with either gills or collapsible respiratory systems (like marine mammals), along with [[SapientCetaceans uplifted dolphins and orcas]]. More ships were planned to follow; however, in 2090, a genetically modified plant virus called the Blight escaped into the wild and devastated Earth's food supplies.

In 2169, the ''UNSS Admiral Robert Perry'' recontacted the colonists of Poseidon, leading to regular resupply and contact runs through the wormhole. There was some interest by the GEO and the Incorporate states, but no major efforts at added colonization until the 2185 discovery of xenosilicates, a material that allows much easier modifications of biochemistry than ever believed possible. One of the first applications found was a retrovirus that stops the aging process, leading to a new name for xenosilicates: Longevity Ore, or Long John for short. A gold rush followed as miners flocked to Poseidon, looking for a big Long John score that would make them rich. The population of Poseidon, only 40,000 people when the ''Perry'' arrived, has reached two million, over 95% of them Earth-born arrivals from after Recontact.

The GEO is trying desperately to maintain some sort of control. The Incorporate and wildcat miners see fabulous wealth awaiting them. Some natives are choosing to resist the newcomers, sometimes violently. And it seems that Poseidon itself might be on their side...

** Poseidon also has at least fifty known species of ''lesser'' whites, filling a role roughly akin to terrestrial sharks. An average specimen is larger than an orca, [[NonIndicativeName well camouflaged]], and hunts in schools.

* UnderwaterCity: Several, given the setting. Dyfedd's Down Town is the biggest: a sprawling and sometimes-rearranged maze of airlocks, moon pools, submarine hangars, and air domes for cetaceans. Below those are the windowless "Morlock layers," where the city overhead blots out too much sunlight to see.

* EcoTerrorist: Too many to list. The Blue Water Circle, the Children of the Widow, Free Poseidon!, shiny/soft/swimmer/hunter/killer... and that's not counting the ones from Earth, like Zero Nation. Many of them provide material support for the natives in the Sierra Nueva Cluster.

* GiantEnemyCrab: [[DownplayedTrope Less "giant" than "enemy"]] given the realities of invertebrate biology, but gladiator crabs (''C. preliator'') are the most heavily-armored crabs on Poseidon and [[AttackAttackAttack ''always'' fight to the death]].

* BoomTown: Any major city on Poseidon is a boom town right now, although Haven (the original landing site) is more so than the rest.

* CorporateWarfare: All of the Incorporate powers are capable of it. [=GenDiver=]'s currently the worst offender on Poseidon; in addition to a one-sided (and very secret) campaign against Atlas Materials, they're waging a very publicized war against natives in the Sierra Nueva Cluster. [[spoiler:Their current plans for that war may or may not involve targeted bioweapons.]]

* GiantEnemyCrab: [[DownplayedTrope Less "giant" than "enemy"]] given the realities of invertebrate biology, but gladiator crabs (''C. preliator'') are the most heavily-armored crabs on Poseidon and [[AttackAttackAttack mindlessly territorial]]. They ''never'' flee, and encounters with other gladiator crabs often end with both dead of exhaustion.

* HotSubOnSubAction: By the nature of the setting, this is not an uncommon form of warfare, especially when attacking (or defending) underwater facilities.

* WretchedHive: Nomad, a [[MobileCity historic native fleet-village]] and collapsed BoomTown. Poseidon's underworld elements use it as a market and neutral ground, and the GEO would rather keep tabs on them than fight them to clean up the place.

* DesignerBabies: The 'Transhuman' alpha genies are basically better than normal humans across the board.

* ExtraEyes: There's no standard number or layout, but ''everything'' that evolved on Poseidon has more than two eyes. Many animals have stripes of eyespots down the sides of their bodies. [[spoiler:So do children born in some places.]]

* MobileCity: Lavender Organics's [[CityOnTheWater Dyfedd]], built on hexagonal rafts 20 meters thick, a kilometer across, and [[UnderwaterCity deeper than they are tall]]. Under full power and with a fleet of tugs it can reach speeds as high as 3 kph.

* SeaMonster: The mercifully rare greater whites (''L. dominatus'') are longer than blue whales, perpetually rotting, and able to track vehicles by their batteries. They can capsize small boats with the wake of their swimming, and respond to larger ones by [[GoombaStomp landing on them]].
** Poseidon also has at least fifty known species of ''lesser'' whites, filling a role roughly akin to terrestrial sharks. An average specimen is larger than an orca, [[NonIndicativeName well camouflaged for its environment]], and hunts in schools.

* TentacledTerror: Polypods (''M. magnus'') are territorial and known to reach 30 meters long. A signature hunting strategy is to wait underneath a sargassum raft; when they feel something moving overhead they [[AttackOfTheMonsterAppendage punch their tentacles through the sargassum, grab it, and pull it under]].

* Second Edition Revised (2012), published by [[FASA FASA Games]]. Two hardcover books with several hardcover supplements.

* Second Edition Revised (2012), published by FASA Games. Two hardcover books with several hardcover supplements.

* ApparentlyHumanMerfolk: Downplayed. The "aquaform" natives have genetic augmentations that either provide them with the ability to dive deeply like marine mammals, or to live underwater like fish.

* BilingualDialogue: Interspec was developed to make this possible, because cetaceans can't speak human languages. Sonic trodes and vocal synthesis offer a digital workaround, but [[StarfishLanguage even after 150 years this often turn into word salad]].

* FesteringFungus: Many species of fungus can get into exposed wounds, leading to fevers, organ inflammation, and brain damage within days. They're collectively called fast fungus, because they also get into the organic parts of equipment (like the ubiquitous bioplastic), which they can ruin in ''hours.''

* FlyingSeafoodSpecial: Blimps. Eel dragons (''A. volatilis'') are actually amphibians, but certainly look the part.

* IntroducedSpeciesCalamity: A mild example with Galapagos marine iguanas, brought for meat and eggs by the Athena Project. Their algae-based diet stops them from becoming too destructive, but Poseidon has lots of algae, and the iguanas have fewer predators than humans.
* LivingGasbag: Blimps (''G. fluitarus'') have bodies up to 40 meters long, filled with hydrogen metabolized out of seawater; in warm or sunny weather this lets them drift over the ocean for hours at a time. They're a considerable nuisance, with paralyzing neurotoxic stingers and a tendency to explode.
* LongevityTreatment: Long John's most famous use, and the reason Poseidon is like this today. Aging can't be reversed yet, but it can be stopped for about a year; the price of a single therapy regimen currently runs 50,000cs with no sign of going down.

* SapientCetaceans: All the species that survived, thanks to uplifting programs.

* UpliftedAnimal: Bottlenose dolphins and orcas were uplifted in time to join the colonization of Poseidon. Common dolphins, belugas, and pilot whales have joined them since.