This one small thought had taken up residence in the back of my mind, and is preempting thoughts about any other game material I was working on.
It continued to just sit there, laughing at me for about a week. Then I wrote this:
"The Event, dubbed the Dark Matter Shift, occurred in the year 2468. Scientists are still have not been able to determine what caused it.
The Shift travelled across the universe in a wave, through the DarkMatter cloud. The Shift according to ancient texts, affected all the proto-particles at the subatomic level. As the Shift crossed the Universe, it rewrote the foundational laws of physics in almost undetectably subtle ways."
I had thought that might have been it, that this idea might leave me alone and I could go back to thinking about the fifty other game related things that are colliding in my head at any given moment.
I was wrong.
Now the questions started...
How long would it take to rediscover FTL technology?
How would the vast human empire fare when FTL travel is lost, what about if interstellar communications were also affected?
Would the planets in human controlled space maintain their current level of civility, would they devolve into barbarism?
Is the ability to travel in Hyperspace gone entirely, or just requires different technology to access?
Would the profuse diversity of human technology render different physics in different regions of the galaxy?
Would the Shift affect different regions of the Universe in different ways?
What happens to all the ships currently in transit when the shift hits?
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it's what I have so far.
On the drive home today, I realized I'll need to create a vast space empire, then figure out what happens to it. Then make a smaller empire that is just starting out.
I've started a new composition book for notes on this new setting, and if I can maintain this momentum, I'll have a new setting fairly soon.
Have fun folks!
