Some Space Opera Brainstorming (long)

[smartmonkey]

So I've managed to mix Traveler, Alpha Centauri, Orions arm, Halo, W40k, and Exalted up in my head somehow. I've typed up some notes on a setting I'll eventually flesh out. For now, it's incredibly disorganized but, in my opinion, intrisnicly cool. Any/all of it is open to change. I also realize that I need to use paragraphs, but these are -just- notes. I'll clean them up in the morning. For a system, I'm either going to homebrew something, or modify Mutants and Masterminds.

-Humanity is alone in the universe, for now. About ¼ of the galaxy has been explored/colonized – tantalizing clues of alien inhabitation exist in progenitor ruins and occasional “sightings” of “alien” craft(99.999 percent of which are proven as hoaxes, but theres a sucker born every nano-second). Progenitor ruins are found on most terran worlds, vast underground complexes and towering structures that give no clue as to their purpose. The exploration and documentation of said ruins are the primary purpose of the Interstellar University (ISU), a foundation established by the Empress to “explore” (read: exploit) the progenitor legacy. ISU faculty members were some of the first to be exposed to progenitor nanites.
-Many believe the progenitors seeded earth, pointing to the fact that Ruins are only found on worlds habitable by baseline humans.
-FTL travel exists, about as expensive as a nice cruise on present day earth. Jumpgates, artificial constructs which create a wormhole, allow this travel. Ships must be equipped with a special “jumpdrive” to use a gate, and drives vary greatly in safety and quality. The best drives will move you at something like six times the speed of light, the cheapest barely hit 150% of it. Jumptravel is fairly dangerous, yearly, a few hundred ships disappear after the jump, never to be seen again. This is a tiny number compared to the millions of ships making thousands of jumps daily, but it’s still a concern. Usually, this is blamed on an error by the ships navigator/computer, but certain fringe groups think otherwise. Each gate is connected to every other one, however, the risk of mishap increases greatly with the distance traveled, especially when crossing through high density areas. Thus, most ships will make several short jumps to nearby systems, rather than one long one. Most routes are well established, and few think to try anything else, even when it could be strategicly advantageous – the risk of losing ships to the jumpspace is simply too dangerous.
-Earth is barely recognizable – covered in arcolgies, literally. No open land, imports almost everything. The sun is on a stabilization program, Mars is a massive shipyard, Venus is las-vegasish, Mercury is a corporate mining colony that’s nearly tapped out, and the gas-giants are glorified gas stations.
-Colonies are part of the Old Earth Federation. They have a independent government (various, including Fundementalism, despots, democracies, and libertarian Freetown type things.)
-The OEF is ruled by a uploaded version of it’s founder – Empress Jacqueline Carlisle, who united Earth just as it reached the cusp of interstellar travel. She is a power hungry, immortal ruler – though she realizes that a happy population is beneficial to her goals. She keeps luxuries on established, cooperative worlds high, and punishes rebellious or unproductive worlds with high taxes and military levies. Rebellions flare up fairly often, and are quashed by the powerful Navy/Marines – who receive a large portion of the OEF budget.
-Beneath the Empress is the Senate. One senator per “block” of worlds. Worlds are arbitrarily assigned to a block via special distance, leading to bitter campaigning when a say, fundamentalist Christian world is in the same block with a group of godless corporate worlds. The Empress and the Senate act as a sort of law, collecting taxes in return. They do not dictate policy to the subject worlds, at least not directly (taxes and levies are used to bring out-of-line worlds into the fold) and only the Sol system is under their direct jurisdiction. However, they control the Navy and the Marines, and have no problem destroying an upstart client government. They don’t particularly care if two subject states go to war, as long as they don’t harm OE fleet resources, or impede neutral traders. Of course, as soon as the vendetta becomes bad for the empire as a whole, or effects a specific senators finances, the Navy steps in and blows the shit out of everyone involved.
-The fringe worlds are frontier towns. Entrepreneurs run mines, farms, scavenging services, and smuggling operations. Major transport lines don’t run out into the far reaches, so small companies provide cargo and personell transport with small, fast starships. The economy is booming, and raider attacks are rising steadily. Most fringe worlds have no real government outside of the biggest gun, and are vulnerable to exploitation/enslavement by nearby governments/corporations.
-Corporations are common. Anywhere from the small transport company to the sector-spanning superpowerful conglomerate. Politically neutral, generally, though powerful. They frequently provide housing, food, etc… to employees. Some out of benevolence, some for profit/control over employees.
-Religion is vastly varied. OE religions like Christianity/Judaism/Islam, Budhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, and animism flourish in a multitude of sub sects. They vary heavily from fairly open, individualistic societies to blatantly exploitive cults. In size, they vary anywhere from controlling a half dozen prime colony worlds to a half dozen spacers on a jumpship. Religion has stayed fairly static, even after the exodus from the solar system, but a pair of new religions have risen since. The Preparers of the Way (POW) believe that the progenitor technology is a gift from god, and that his chosen ones (presumably, the progenitors) will return to do one of several different things, depending on which POWite you talk to. Some believe they will wipe out all human life, others believe they will raise humanity into godhood, and still others think they’ll just settle down and help us achieve peace in the galaxy. The Righteous Sons are a powerful cult deeply embedded in the Navy/Marine services. They believe the Empress to be divine. The cults activities are frequently beneficial to the empire, and though membership is not required for military service, it has, over the centuries, become the official religion of the armed forces.
-Psionics do not exist, except when exhibited by those exposed by progenitor technology.
-PC’s are empowered humans – some sort of progenitor technology left over from ancient civ. On the run from the Old Earth Government. They stumbled upon/were exposed to hyper-technology, and now have incredible personal powers. Most are nigh invulnerable to small arms, and display a vast array of other abilities.
- Those exposed to Progenitor nanites (aka, the empowered, genetwisted, god-touched, and thousands of others, both epithets and nicknames) are widely feared by the general populace. After initial attempts at exploiting the technology by the ISU, most of the (unwillingly, unwittingly) exposed subjects escaped and are currently on the run from the Empresses pawns. Though they blend in fairly well with the vast populace of the empire, a simple body-scan will show them as fugitives. Considering that a body-scan is a typical pre-flight boarding procedure for most major corporate interstellar liners, most of the empowered have fled to fringe worlds.
- The existence of the empowered is common knowledge. Mostly because the first exposed were brought into the presence of the empress – on camera, for propaganda reasons. Of course, moments after filming began, the empowered broke free from his restraints and managed to destroy one of her Majesties co-processors – on live camera in front of trillions of OE citizens watching from thousands of worlds.
-Those empowered captured by the Empresses goons face either brainwashing, or death for dissection. The Navy/Marines have a particular hate for the genetwisted – as the first ever seen by the public at large basically killed a portion of god while the Marines stood helpless. Most empowered captured by Righteous Sons members do not are "accidently" killed during capture and served up as dissection material.
- Weapons technology varies greatly from world to world. Energy weapons exist, but are extremely uncommon. OE forces rely on advanced projectile weapons – i.e, caseless ammo, etc. On some worlds, even more primitive weapons are common – gunpower cartridge rifles are a favorite from militaristic factions, as they are cheap, easy to produce, and effective against anything less than OE body armor. Ground vehicles tend to be either tracked, wheeled, or of the anti-grav variety, depending on the purchasers budget. The Marines use hovertanks/jeeps almost exclusively. Nukes are available to even the poorest government, though their use invites the Navies intervention, which few nations want. Generally, WMD’s are used to break strong points and against starships, almost never against population centers.
- Space combat is fairly rare, considering that the only way into a starsystem is through it’s jumpgate, and that the fortifications surrounding that are generally immense. However, once those fortifications are defeated, the system is fundamentally conquered. Common tactics include sending jump-capable nuclear warheads through before a major assault. Small fighters are common, and their pilots enjoy some prestige. Fighter are used as a screen against enemy bombers and missiles, and the real outcome of any battle is almost always decided by capitol ships.

Some things I'm going for outside the setting:
-Epic scale. I want PC's to conquer worlds and destroy starfleets. Plenty of room for that, so far.
-High tech, but not uber-high-tech. Energy weapons exist, but they aren't perfected. Caseless projectile weapons something like what we might develop in the next decade are the standard issue for most decent armed forces, with poorer goverments issuing weapons that wouldn't have been out of place in WW1. Humans use jumpgates based off of Progenitor designs. I'm thinking a thousand years or so in the future, yet the average person lives more or less as we do today. A 9-5 job, a wife, two kids, and a job. On prosperous worlds anyways. On the fringe, it's more like the wild west.
-Human civilization is vast and varied.
-The OEF isn't intrisncly evil - the Empress takes care of those that cooperate, and doesn't outright slaughter those that don't - but she isn't a nice person. Certainly to the empowered she's a -very- not-nice person.

Comments?

[devlin1]

I thought you said this was going to be long!

[cczernia]

Don't care for the Exalted influenc ( ie - the empress and the PCs playing pseudo gods.) The rest is a lot like "Fading Suns" so that I like. I also strongly suggest you check out Metabarons.

Actaully, let me take that back. Certain uber powers like that of Paul Maud Dib Atriedes where he could see in the future and around him allowing him to easily make decisions and wage war on the universe is very cool.

Uber powers like Leto Atriedes II and the Metabaron where he is running around real fast and kicking ass seemed silly and boring IMHO.

[mataglap]

Interesting so far. I can see some spots that look like holes now, but as you said, it's just some notes. I'd like to see a few more of the serial numbers filed off when you do the next pass.

How superpowered are the empowered? Fly? Fly in space? Energy blasts? How would they destroy a starfleet?

[smartmonkey]

How superpowered are the empowered? Fly? Fly in space? Energy blasts? How would they destroy a starfleet?

I haven't quite decided that bit yet. I'm going to say that the truly advanced ones can probably crush a medium sized starship without breaking a mental sweat. Lower powered ones could expect to survive short exposure to vacum, being able to survive a few hits from small arms, and probably kill or render brain-dead a target at a short distance. If I end up using MnM, I'll probably let players decide overall how the Progenitor nanites have changed/blessed them. Cos I'm lazy like that. Any other system, and I'd have a concrete set of abilities for them to pick from.

Don't care for the Exalted influenc ( ie - the empress and the PCs playing pseudo gods.) The rest is a lot like "Fading Suns" so that I like. I also strongly suggest you check out Metabarons.

My god! 'zerniac doesn't like the semi-supernatural bits! I understand where you're coming from, though.

The empress is more something I stole from 40k. I.E, the immortal, worshipped, power hungry ruler. The players being "pseudo-gods" is really the reason I started work on this. I wouldn't call them godlike, but they are vastly more powerful than the average human, though they can -still- be killed fairly easily, especially when outnumbered - which they are. This isn't going to be Exalted in space. It isn't intended to be. Though I acknowledge that the plight of the Solar Exalted is on of the big inspirations for what the empowered are going through so far. In fact, the Empress resembles the deathlords far more than the Scarlet Empress from Exalted in her motives.

Actaully, let me take that back. Certain uber powers like that of Paul Maud Dib Atriedes where he could see in the future and around him allowing him to easily make decisions and wage war on the universe is very cool.

I'm pondering something similar, where the empowered aren't blessed with vast physical power, but rather with an intimate knowledge of the surrounding space/time through some sort of sixth sense. At low levels, they'd be able to sense the surrounding area perfectly, even through walls - as they advanced, they'd be able to tweak space/time in greater and greater ways. Something like that.

I thought you said this was going to be long!

It was three singlespaced pages in word. I thought that was fairly longish. Smartass. ;-)

Interesting so far. I can see some spots that look like holes now, but as you said, it's just some notes. I'd like to see a few more of the serial numbers filed off when you do the next pass.

I set out with the intention to write up a space opera setting. None of the ideas I have below are original or particularly creative, but so far I think the mix has been pretty cool. Any holes you'd care to point out?

Posts replied to as I think up replies.

In any case, I'm debating the Jumpgate bit. As much as I like the Weber-style fortification/controlled exit idea, I'm also worried that it'll make the empowereds on-the-run status implausible - I may end up settling down with a star-warsish warp drive, or going with a network of jump gates. I.E, rather than jumpgates facilitating travel (and being to go wherever you want through one), each gate would lead to a half a dozen other locations. Which makes the colonization of the empire plausible (gates only lead to worlds which are, or were previously, habitable), and would make mapping a massive pain in the ass.

Anyways. More to come at some point.

[cczernia]

Originally Posted by smartmonkey

In any case, I'm debating the Jumpgate bit. As much as I like the Weber-style fortification/controlled exit idea, I'm also worried that it'll make the empowereds on-the-run status implausible - I may end up settling down with a star-warsish warp drive, or going with a network of jump gates. I.E, rather than jumpgates facilitating travel (and being to go wherever you want through one), each gate would lead to a half a dozen other locations. Which makes the colonization of the empire plausible (gates only lead to worlds which are, or were previously, habitable), and would make mapping a massive pain in the ass.

Anyways. More to come at some point.

My suggestion would be to just run it. Come up with the base concept for the characters and what group they belong to. Just enough so they can make characters. Start plugging details as you play. Before you know it you'll have a kick ass setting.

[smartmonkey]

My suggestion would be to just run it. Come up with the base concept for the characters and what group they belong to. Just enough so they can make characters. Start plugging details as you play. Before you know it you'll have a kick ass setting.

I'm thinking an ISU team, complete with science ship. Of course, they've been exposed, and are currently on the run, but...

and yes, I do plan on letting players define bits and pieces of the setting as I go along. More fun that way.

[cczernia]

Originally Posted by smartmonkey

and yes, I do plan on letting players define bits and pieces of the setting as I go along. More fun that way.

Yep, I've done it once and had a blast.

[smartmonkey]

Yep, I've done it once and had a blast.

It just strikes me as a great idea. Let the players define their own homeworld/places they've been, and then they get to run around in them in the game.