Partyland

[Transreal Clouden]

The Earth is about to be destroyed but Humanity doesn't know it yet. The daughter of the alien who has set this event in motion decides to save humanity without alerting her mother. Her chosen instrument: post invitations to a social gathering in areas with large numbers of reproductive-age humans. That's right, we're evacuating the Earth by inviting college students to a party.

Partyland is on another planet far away from the soon to be destroyed Earth. You reach it by taking a strange and possibly uncomfortable Elevator ride. Once you arrive you find yourself in a world designed with a near-human aesthetic sense but distinctly inhuman understandings of such things as privacy, modesty, and safety standards. There are six home complexes each corresponding to a color, connected by ~70km of underground Mall Corridors. Each home complex is also surrounded by a variety of above and below ground wonders which vary from color to color.

The main conflict in this setting comes from surviving in this new strange world, coping with the death of almost everyone you know and love, and of course any conflicts the guests bring with them.

[Transreal Clouden]

Partyland also has a magic system of sorts. Everyone who rides the elevator will have the standard package of Partyland magic.

Individuals with partyland magic can 'link' with one another by making eye contact and share surface thoughts. If you're not paying attention individuals may perceive this as if they had been speaking aloud. It is impossible to lie within a link. The link requires shared emotional context, this can be affectionate but it can also occur between individuals fighting one another, or otherwise in conflict. With practice the link can allow you to share of yourself more deeply. While linked your perception of time is dilated normally this is only by a factor of two or three but with greater emotional context this can increase up to 20x so you perceive 20 seconds as having passed for every real second. Some individuals can induce a link-state alone, this allows them to act in something like bullet time, though their body is not accelerated in any way.

The Black Home complex is surrounded by 6 self-contained environments, each of which has food which when eaten while living in that environment will enhance the powers granted by the magic. The Black environment enhances your time dilation factor allowing you to live days in minutes. The Yellow, grants you the ability to induce a lucid dreaming state while linked and use it to construct fantasy worlds to live in. The Green greatly enhances your memory, clarifying some older memories and granting eidetic memory going forwards. The Blue upgrade allows you to form group links, where the baseline ability only works in pairs. The White upgrade allows you to interact with Partyland computers using linking. The Red allows you to make changes to your mind, or help others make such changes this allows for among other things treatment of depression and OCD as well as suppressing unwanted memories.

[Kappa]

What's hte deal with the aliens, why are they destroying Earth?

[atheistcanuck]

to make room for an interstellar superhighway?

[Transreal Clouden]

So, in the story this is based on it was because humans were on the verge of discovering magic and they wanted magic all to themselves. I'm not sure if I want to keep to that specific flavor of Xenophobia, but I think it's still out of Xenophobic destroy people before they're a threat to our dominance // blinkered vision of the world.

[DanielH]

Is the destination Venus or is it just that the few details I saw in thread about the planet instead of the complex coincidentally match Venus? Higher gravity, bigger sun, and I think there was another.

[Transreal Clouden]

So the specific canonical destruction of the solar system occurs when a neutron star collides with the sun, causing a massive burst of radiation that wipes out all unshielded life in the solar system. Not unlike a nova in miniature. Anything in the solar system is basically gone. That said the precise reason the Earth is being evacuated is something I'm willing to tweak depending on the preferences of other writers.

Also, the world of partyland has a tad bit lower gravity, not higher, but given that you mentioned Venus I assume that was just a typo on your part.

[Transreal Clouden]

So a few people have asked about why the Aliens destroyed the Earth and/or saved people. I talked about this a little on Discord so I my as well update the thread here.

The aliens in question built a religion around their magic and one of the tenets of their religion is that only species with exoskeletons are worthy of magic in the eyes of their god because others would use magic to evil ends. So in accordance with their religious beliefs they made plans to destroy the Earth. The Daughter of the alien carrying this out was already quietly thinking about how right her religion was and this pushed her over the brink into rejecting the religion in which she was raised. But she was about to be of age to ritually sacrifice her ability to feel emotions or otherwise act counter to the religion's teaching so she decided to save a group of humans then upload herself into a computer on Partyland while committing suicide in her original body to cover her tracks.

The thing is that she was still a bit conflicted about her actions so she constrained herself from being as helpful as she would be inclined to be towards the humans in Partyland so that she could fairly evaluate whether the humans were in fact evil.

[Transreal Clouden]

Alright, so Rockeye challenged me to make the upgrades harder to get but also more challenging in some ways, also to distribute them more thoroughly so they're not all in black section. I'm describing a bunch of things that would be hard for a character to figure out so I'm putting it in a spoiler box.

Challenges

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Red) It's My Party // Heartbreak World
The red challenge obelisk is hidden in the gardens around the Red mall home complex, it requires that you manufacture specific items at 6 different engineering complexes around red sector to grant the ability to make changes to your mind, or help others make such changes this allows for among other things treatment of depression and OCD as well as suppressing unwanted memories. It also gives you access to the more advanced engineering complexes
white) Great Balls of Fire // Be Prepared
The white challenge obelisk is at the other end of the river in the massive biosphere One it requires that you collect items from centerpoint island, the entrance complex, and four caves secreted around the biosphere for an upgrade that allows you to interact with Partyland computers, the ivy, and animals using linking. This allows you to interview for director level positions.
blue) House of the Rising Sun // It’s Gonna Be Ok
The challenge obelisk is at the Exit of the Broken Carriage Zone Ski Resort, it requires collecting a prize from each of the six levels of the resort. It grants the ability to form group links. It also unlocks a map of the other facilities on the planet, and how to get there.
green) I Can See Clearly Now // Children of the Sun
The green mall challenge obelisk is located in a grotto off a large pool in the green safe area. It requires you to find six specific books in libraries located around the green sector, and pass a test on them. The upgrade greatly enhances your memory, clarifying some older memories and granting eidetic memory going forwards. The challenge obelisk also grants access to the gene-bank, uterine replicators, and a larger maternity complex.
black) In the Year 2525 // Year 3000
You need to collect a specific food from each of six smaller biospheres to unlock a challenge obelisk hidden in a museum in the outer reaches of the black sector: An upgrade that enhances your time dilation factor allowing you to live days in minutes. And grants access to a complete map of the main Hexagon complex.
yellow) Stairway to Heaven // The Real World
The Yellow mall challenge obelisk is in the center of the university complex, it requires obtaining an item from each of the six terminal stores in the mall to grant you the ability to induce a lucid dreaming state while linked and use it to construct fantasy worlds to live in. It also gives the secret of the exits to the wilderness that are in the terminal stores.

[Transreal Clouden]

So I've been reworking The Partyland setting with the help of Teceler and Guilty. It's still a work in progress and a lot of the original worldbuilding is the same but some has been updated.
I haven't worked out replacement challenges yet but the rewards have been revised.

Special Complexes

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Red is Caretaking, The caretaking section contains as it's major complex the genetics database and exowombs, along with specialized facilities to transfer pregnancies safely to exowombs.
Orange is Education. The major complex of the Education section is a university complete with science labs suitable for introductory courses, lots of classrooms, etc
Yellow is Research/Knowledge That's the section that contains most of the science museums and similar places. It has as it's major complex facilities to either contain or access remotely research labs for most scientific fields.
Green is for Innovation/Invention, Green's major comlex is a large set of rapid-prototyping and engineering design complexes. This also includes some supercomputers for optomizations stuff.
Blue is for Skill/Creation. The blue section has most of the Art museums and lots of little art studios. The major complex though is a massive manufacturing complex capable of producing most of the things in the mall and some other things besides.
Purple is for Medecine. Their major complex is more or less a medical research lab combined with specialized facilities for replacing limbs or organs. It's also the facilities for recreating humans from Sapphire's Database of scans. It is in this Facility that Ilona woke up initially before being uploaded.

The Introduction to the different parties in the lobby has also been revised. Instead of random song names partygoers are now greeted with evocative quotes.

Quotes

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Red: "Caring about others, running the risk of feeling, and leaving an impact on people, brings happiness."
Orange: "A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning."
Yellow: “Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.”
Green: “What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try again. Change the world.”
Blue: "Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation."
Purple: "The aim of medicine is to prevent disease and prolong life, the ideal of medicine is to eliminate the need of a physician."

Teceler has also designed a beautiful map for the rough layout of the main complex. The small midpoint Hexagons are the home areas for each party. The Spirals show the layout of the underground malls.

Map

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