Alicornutopia

Yeah, I thought about recommending some of the military SF that I enjoy, but none of it sounded like a situation that would be well-suited to Effulgence. OMW and GB are both very military-y. Last Colony less so, but still doesn't feel quite right. However, have you read Zoe's Tale? Supplanting canon characters there could make a *great* Effulgence setting, IMO.

Safehold is borderline - the canon includes a lot of battle descriptions, though most of them aren't actually requisite (Weber likes his battle scenes; this is very clear in all his writing) - but taking on the church of Safehold would certainly require *some* fighting even if it mostly happens off-camera. It's kind of like the ostensible reason for the Roanoke colony, except that the aliens have *won*; the last of the human fleet is destroyed in a series of diversionary strikes to keep the aliens from seeing the colony ship. Samaria I can't comment on except to the degree that Effulgence gave me a feel for it, but it's definitely got similarities. The reason that the PICA - Personality something Cybernetic Avatar - doesn't just go attack the church directly is that some of the high-tech stuff of the church still functions, and she worries that this includes defenses that would detect/destroy her, and there's an orbital bombardment system in place that is definitely believed to still be operational (under automated control) even though nobody on the planet knows how to direct it anymore. No equivalent of the ship's AI that anybody on Safehold knows how to talk to. The tech suppression is different from what you see in Memory of Earth (for one thing, it's more consistent; directed energy weapons even just for hunting would be a major No) and it's human-enforced rather than continually externally imposed, but otherwise there are similarities in how it produces a bunch of decent-to-live-in-but-no-you-can't-have-cars societies (Safehold's medical knowledge is far ahead of medieval Earth's, though most of that is "religious tradition" rather than anything that could be termed scientific).

Aaaand now I want to ask what your thoughts are on Effulgencing the Homecoming series would be. On the one hand, weird SF take on the Book of Mormon with "deities" pushing people into taking this interstellar journey. On the other hand, the setting is screwed up in a number of ways that could be Belled, on either end of the time line. I'm actually tempted to say that it might make more sense to do such a setting on the world of Earthborn, rather than Memory/Call of Earth, but there's promise there too. I wasn't going to recommend reading the series if you hadn't already, but if you have...

I'll see about wrapping up WoT-stuff into a new thread, unless Alicorn tells me not to bother. :-)

EDIT: Dies the Fire? Basic premise is modern earth, and then suddenly the rules of physics change and everything even remotely "high tech" stops working. More accurately, the rules of physics start *cheating*; electrical impulses still travel along neural paths and lightning still occurs, but so far as humans trying to *use* electricity goes, it may as well not exist. Gases still expand as they heat up, but past a certain point (well below the threshold for an internal combustion engine, or even most steam engines) pressure just stops increasing. Stuff still burns if it's supposed to be flammable, but the speed of that burning is capped; you could light a trail of gunpowder and it would burn to the end of the trail, but if that trail ended in a barrel of gunpowder the barrel would just burn merrily rather than exploding. Anyhow, as you might imagine, society collapses pretty much overnight, most people in cities starve, saying that people turn to "banditry" would be an understatement, etc. I haven't read the latter books of the series, which apparently get downright *mystical*, but I enjoyed reading the first one and it's got no lack of room for either green or purple characters.

EDIT2: On the subject of Scalzi's books, have you read "Redshirts"? If not, you reallllllllly should. Unlike most of my recommendations, it's a single novel of entirely reasonable length, although you won't fully get it unless you're at least vaguely familiar with Star Trek (especially the original series), which is after all where the term "red shirt" comes from. It is clever, funny, involves a range of genre-savviness, and... I should probably stop there, because spoilers, but it's worth reading. Whether it's worth Effulgencing I'm less sure of, but it could be?

Zoe's Tale requires a fair amount of backstory to work the way it does which doesn't match existing attractors - who were you imagining replacing with whom?

I have read the Homecoming books but for some reason always call them Memory of Earth (as a series) in my head. The fundamental project of the Oversoul would bewilder a Bell, I think. Like, what's so great about abandoning the current only home of humanity and going to colonize someplace already occupied by two reasonably comfortable sapient species? She'd also be really hard to render functional with the Oversoul in her head once she found out about that. And I can't think of much plot hook for making her an angel or a digger. Overall I don't have enough here to recommend that kappa read the books, as I don't think he already has.

I have not read the books, although I might own them; the titles sound familiar. Who wrote them? And what the heck is an Oversoul?

Orson Scott Card. Jovah-esque spaceship god.

Who exists in people's heads in some unspecified way...?

Homecoming (Memory of Earth, Call of Earth, Ships of Earth, Earthfall, Earthborn) is by Orson Scott Card (the "weird SF retelling of the Book of Mormon" was a strong clue, if you're familiar with his writing beyond the Ender series). It's about as blatantly a religious analogy as Narnia is, maybe even more. The Oversoul is a God-analogue AI that guides society to keep it from becoming too self-destructive (for example, suppressing any research that could lead to world-destroying weapons) but it becomes worried when it starts losing its grasp on people, and convenes an expedition to return to the planet where it was made (Earth) in the hope that it can be repaired or the problem otherwise be fixed. The mental influence it exerts on people would be Very Distressing to a Bell, although that by no means would prohibit one from being part of the expedition; they were selected because the Oversoul *could* communicate with (and influence) them more than most people, amongst other things. Worth noting that I'm pretty sure the return-to-Earth expedition didn't know about the ascent of the Angels and Diggers when they departed. The Oversoul had been off Earth for a *long* time.

It's true that a lot of backstory canon tweaking would be required to make Zoe's Tale compatible, but I think it's doable? Bell as a stand-in for Zoe means her early childhood would have been pretty different from the usual template, but could otherwise be persuaded to work. Alternatively, editing her backstory to be more in line with the template attractors is a thing one could do if you could keep a reason for her bodyguards to be a thing *or* give her some other reason to have a resource that lets her get off the planet. Her adventures on Roanoke would be fun to see - Bells making first contact is neat! - but solving the overall setting problems would be awesome. Perhaps it's not to be, though.

I'm pretty sure that if immunity to the Oversoul's mindreading is possible, template attractors would make a Bell have it.

I was thinking in a way to adapt 4400 for Effulgence, I don't think time-travel serves the plot that well.

So my idea for 4400-ish effulgence, is currently vague, but with concepts that can be adapted.

Like in the series, a large group of missing people suddenly appear without aging a day, and eventually they discover different powers.

Instead of being a complicated (read: makes no-sense) time-travel plot to shape the future by changing the past, the secret plot is: A group with high-tech/magic (or magictek) from another universe is trying to exploit this universe "natural resource" of people with powers, they are being kidnapped and held in stasis on a spaceship until the right moment to strike. A traitor (Libby?) caused the captive people to be safely "ejected" back to Earth in a single place.

I probably can hammer things out better for this later xP

Spider-Bella?

Joker seems like they could be slotted into the Harry Osborn seat, since rich, abusive father is an attractor for them.

Never heard of 4400.

I think a Spider-Bell would not go into crime fighting (spiders are squishy, self-preservation etc. etc.); I'm not sure she'd do anything much with it, actually, except change her major as needed to figure out No Seriously What The Fuck.