Collaborative World Building Effort?

[Philote]

You ever read the Pendragon books? There was a world with a similar set up in that series.

Gentleman Vaultboy wrote

Marbles.

Post Utopia, humanity makes the most importation discovery in their entire history: The Last Number. With this discovery came another one: with the complete set of numbers, we now had access to the base code of the universe.

Small supercomputers in the shape of small decorated spheres were developed. Called PRM's (Personal Reality Manipulators) when they first came out, Marbles were meant to bring humanity to the next level of personal comfort. Reprogrammable at kiosks in the home, Marbles used powerful math to bend the universe to the users will. With them, they could create a perfect world for themselves, fee of any hardship and personalized to them.

If you wanted food, you could have it. If you wanted companionship, it was yours. Any type of entertainment you wanted was at your beck and call. Each person became a world unto themselves, with no need for others. Each person had the Marble, and each tailored the Marble into their ideal world. With no need for any other appliance, society broke down and fell to ruin. Fields were reclaimed by nature, cities rusted and fell apart. With no one to maintain them, the power plants stopped and the satellites fell from the sky. That is how the end came. Not with a bang, or with a whimper. With a content sigh.

Some were strong enough to reject the Marble. These people were the New Pilgrams, and they migrated from the foodless cities out into the world. Many died as they learned and struggled to deal with things they had never had to before: growing their own food, dealing with diseases, childbirth. These people were the ancestors of modern man.

Eventually, the dreamers all died. Their bones turned to dust, their homes rotted away to nothing. But the Marbles are still there, sleeping where the old cities used to be. The Dreamers perfect worlds, preserved for all eternity. Their only legacy.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

You mean the apocalypse via paradise thing, or the marble thing? Because the marble thing is actually heavily inspired by (Read: a rip off of) Nasuverse Magic.

[Philote]

The first. In one of the Pendragon worlds they had these Pyramids that accomplished the same thing. People walked in, got hooked up in a bed and never walked out. World turned to dust around them.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

No, but I like this type of Apocalypse. If we all have to go, it should be in a state of bliss.

[Myself]

Best way to go, I suppose.

It'd leave room for the introduction of superpowers as well.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

On the list of superpower origins "having access to the personal paradise of a dead person" has to be one of the more morbid ones.

[Philote]

Yeah but its unique, and I love it when I find a new unique way to work superpowers. Opens up a whole new range of designs.

[Whd]

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[Gentleman Vaultboy]

The way I see marbles working is thus: Every one of them is the personal paradise of a person long dead. You can't change the functions of the marble, because the kiosks used to do so have long since been lost.

Anything within that person world is accessible by you, and you don't fall into hedonism in the marble because it's not your paradise. Everyone paradise it different: one person might have a grand castle filled to the brim with servants, another might have a world where they're an Olympic superman, one person could have a sunny field, an apple tree, a picnic basket, and a really good book.

Also, y'know darker things.,

I figure the really cool stuff starts to happen when Marble users fight and the worlds they control start overlapping.

[Philote]

It could be like Shaman King except with Personal Paradises instead of Dead Spirits.

[WonderDrow]

So those Marbles are portable worlds that can be collected?  And having one grants you superpowers?

What if someone loses his Marbles?

[Mik_Hael]

...I have got to keep better track of my anomaly cores.

[Myself]

WonderDrow wrote

What if someone loses his Marbles?

I see what you did there.

[Whd]

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[Ericus Europaeus (Bug)]

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[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Well, obviously if you lose the marble you lose your access to the world within it.

[Philote]

Bug has an interesting idea. If one of the Marbles was defective and radiated out on the holder then the personal paradise could combine with a person in a physical way even if the Marble was lost.

[Zaleramancer]

Or just kill them.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Both. Continual mutation, instability, leading to death.

[Zaleramancer]

So, they use the marbles to preform feats of superhuman poweress?