Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

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taalismn
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

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One of the Rifters has a species of Grays trying to eliminate the disruption caused by the Rifts by turning Earth into a black hole.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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taalismn
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

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People’s Republic of Contoon and the Lo-Ting Electorate(Anvil Galaxy)
“Ever since that little dust-up at Ulcha Unita the ‘toonies and the tingies have been walking on eggshells. The ‘toonie junta’s nervous as hell about a popular uprising now that ‘Murderous’Mucus’ kicked the bucket, and the newly returned tingie aristocracy hope the peasants’ hangover lasts long enough that they forget why they supported the Mingus-dingus in throwing out the aristos in the first place. There are signs that things are improving, despite the disruption of trade, but there are still constant security checks and curfews in the ‘toonie cities, and spontaneous party-riots on Lo-Ting. If you’re traveling in the sector and visit either world, best not to advertize that you’ve been to, or are going to, their neighbors.”

Two minor one-system star-nations on the edge of Central Alliance space that were ruled respectively by Generalissimo Mucuis and High Mingu Tak Baol. Both nations were originally part of a larger hegemony, the short-lived Galderic Republic, held under the iron hand of empire-builder wannabee Prosecutor-General Goral Thorndak. However, before Thorndak could expand beyond the four systems he held, his ‘enlightened’ economic policies and police-state social management got him executed in a predictably inevitable uprising. Rather than form a socially enlightened government, however, the two leading revolutionaries and planetary leaders instead turned on each other, effectively split the old Republic between them, and commenced a decades-long war that effectively neutralized any gains made in the revolution.
It was only when the Central Alliance finally flexed its muscle in the region, that the decades-long feud ground to a halt, and both leaders were forced to an unwelcome truce or face the prospect of regime change by visiting Cyberhawks.
A subsequent and mutual effort by both leaders of the two warring nations to bury the hatchet (in each other) went VERY wrong starting when an unprepossessing astromechanic named Tanar Shey set out to test a new asteroid-mining system of his own design, and, after much misadventure, ended up married over twenty times over simultaneously, the richest man in the sector, and honorable Pudah-Pleasure-King-of-the-Feista-for-Life of the themepark moon of Fuzzinon in the Ulcha Unita system. He also got to sit ringside to the destruction of both the Contoon and Lo-Ting warfleets and their respective hardliners
Currently, both the Contoon Republic and the Electorate are in shambles. With their military fleets (and most of their merchant marine) gone in the debacle at Ulcha Unita , any chance of re-initiating hostilities is effectively nil. Frankly, the surviving governments of both planets are sighing in relief and debating whether or not they should join the Central Alliance, or try going it alone(there’s some talk also of collaborating with Ulcha Unita, since that system is now ROLLING in wealth). Both Contoon and Lo-Ting are still at odds with each other diplomatically, but as the provisos of the non-aggression treaties forced on them by the Cyberhawks are still in place, and their force projection capabilities pretty much vaporized, all the two nations can do is exchange awkwardly worded and increasingly lame-sounding protest notes and weak threats.
The other two planets, Balzaac and Endamoor, of the former Galderic Republic were assimilated into the Central Alliance.


A. Size
(Contoon) Single Planet
(Lo-Ting) Single Planet
B. History
(Contoon) Newcomers---Evolved on Contoon, and became assimilated into the Galderic Republic.
(Lo-Ting) Newcomers---Apparently settled by slowboat from unknown regions of space/time(the humans claim descent from ‘Old Eridani’)
C. Level of Technological Sophistication
(Contoon) Mature Space Age---The Contoonians supposedly have some advanced biotech and the ability to manufacture biosystem androids, but these techologies are supposedly military secrets, many of which were either destroyed over Fuzzinon, or buried by the surviving military in an effort to ‘clean up’ their tottering regime.
(Lo-Ting) Mature Space Age---The Lo-Tingians are said to have a knack for chemical engineering, especially synthesizing biofuels and propellants, though it’s also been rumored that the late High Mingu had a very specialized poisons lab.
D. General Attitude/Culture
(Contoon) Non-Interventionists, after the debacle at Ulcha Unita
(Lo-Ting) Non-Interventionists, after the debacle at Ulcha Unita
E. Racial Composition
(Contoon) New Species---Aquatic humanoids who have adapted to land, but still spend as much time in the water as on land. They get a +1d4 to P.P., P.E. and Speed, and fall within the Galactic average for SDC/Hit Points. They actually get along quite well with humans, as long as they aren’t from Lo-Ting.
(Lo-Ting) Humans. The Lo-Ting will admit, privately, that the ‘toonies are actually fairly attractive as a people, but publically don’t trust the ‘slimies’.
F. Government
(Contoon) Former Militocracy under Generalissimo Mucuis, but now has reverted to a council of hastily promoted junior officers(the higher ranks got eliminated along with the Generalissimo at Ulcha Unita ).
(Lo-Ting) Former Autocracy under the High Mingu, but a hastily-convened government of formerly disenfranchised aristocracy have regained control.
G. Administrative Control
(Contoon) Draconian---The military police and informer networks are still in place, and the new ruling junta has not yet relaxed any restrictions...in fact, the junta is desperately trying to avoid any unrest.
(Lo-Ting) Loose; the return of the aristocracy hasn’t geled yet and there’s a lot of lip service given to the old laws still in place.
H. External Trade
(Contoon) Military---Under the Generalissimo, Contoon’s biggest industry was trading in weapons to protect themselves from those rotten Lo-Tingians. Post- Ulcha Unita , that trade has collapsed.
(Lo-Ting) Military---Similarly, the Lo-Tingians were trading in weapons just to keep up with their rivals the wretched Contoonians.
H1. Commodities
Exports:
(Contoon) Raw Materials(Energy; petroleum and biofuels)---Ironically, the Contoonese could make a happy living selling materials to Lo-Ting’s factories(if the latter would re-open), but currently relations remain tense.
(Lo-Ting) Consumer Goods---Lo-Ting is known for low-cost consumer goods like holographic projectors, VR headsets, video games, and cheap household appliances. Similarly, Lo-Ting could make a handy profit selling consumer goods to Contoon if the junta would lift both the trade sanctions and open up their civilian markets.
Imports:
(Contoon) Raw Materials(Organics)----The Contoonians have a growing love of animal fibers and lumber.
(Lo-Ting)Consumer Goods---The Lo-Tingians have an appetite for luxury goods, pornography, and anything that promises great sex and good times.
I. Status
(Contoon) Imperiled----The new junta of Contoon just wants to survive long enough that they can establish legal amnesty for themselves and all retire safely. The junta would be happy to have Central Alliance support patroling their streets and waterways, but are afraid of what would happen if General Noldek were to challenge them for rule of Contoon.
(Lo-Ting) Imperiled---The formerly deposed, now re-instated, Lo-Tingian nobility want to re-assert control, but the masses want to party. Happy anarchy seems to be the rule of the day, but how long the good times are going to last when people sober up is what has the authorities worried.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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taalismn
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

Delian Consortium(Thundercloud)
“Back in the day it was truly said that if a citizen saved up enough, they really COULD buy a Delian senator...or at major shares in one. Nowadays, though, the politicians pretty much own the customer base. ”

The Delian Consortium is a splinter-culture of the Human Alliance, founded by colonists seeking independence and a fresh start away from the nascent CCW. Originally seven worlds were founded by the Dela Colonial Corporation, with a democractic charter binding the original seven worlds.
The corporate Delian Consortium took over the reigns of government when it became apparent that centralized civil authority couldn’t handle running the affairs of a multi-world organization. The Consortium essentially bought the government and moved in to run it like a corporation or multi-planetary. For nearly a century of progress, this worked just fine, with the corporations advancing the state of the art and adding new members into a robust interstellar economy, and the Delian Consortium was a model of a healthy corporate-run star nation.
What started as a way of streamlining Big Government and making it more accountable to the people, via market pressure, has unfortunately become corrupted over time, with an increasing amount of wealth going to the senior corporate officials. What most benefits the syndicates and their top management quickly becomes law and the security contractors sent in to enforce the law. The justice system has become pay-for-play, and those unfortunate enough to make wealthy enemies soon found themselves being detained, shaken down, or worse(deported to offworld labor camps, for instance). Providing affordable services to a wide customer base took a backseat to maximizing profits for a privileged few.
The Delian Consortium has run into some trouble of late. A brewing war between the Splugorth and the Shemarrian Star Nation in adjacent star systems has panicked member worlds along that border, and a number of political prisoners and renegades recently released from the infamous MaxLoc prison facility, liberated by the Bloodriders, have begun returning to the Consortium and stirring up trouble.
A. Size
Modest---18 systems
B. History
Splinter of the Human Alliance
C. Level of Technological Sophistication
Advanced Space Age---About on a par with the average CCW member, or the core Golgan Republik.
D. General Attitude/Culture
Enlightened Imperialists---Could be considered this broadly.
E. Racial Composition
Predominantly Human(89%)
F. Government
Syndocracy--- Corporate syndicates run the Consortium
G. Administrative Control
Was Restrictive, but has lapsed to Loose
H. External Trade
Raw Materials--The Delian Consortium plies raw materials in trade from its many mines, second only to its farms for productivity.
H1. Commodities
Exports: Agricultural----Despite the DC’s strong industrial base, it is best known for exporting grain and processed algae from large corporate farms.
Imports: Vehicles----Political in-fighting and corporate bloat in the DC led to a recent collapse of their transport industries(several corporations have, in fact, pulled up stakes and moved, lock, stock, and barrel, to other polities), and to cover the gap, the DC has been importing more advanced and reliable vehicle designs from abroad.
I. Status
Crumbling---Despite a strong economy, the Consortium has begun to fracture, as the syndicates’ popularity is being strained. Some of the newer members, especially those near the Splugorth incursion zone in the sector, have complained about the older core worlds getting the lions’ share of resources, while more pressing requests and distress calls from the latecomers fall on deaf ears. In response, the Consortium HAS been beefing up its military forces, with the security contractors increasing the benefits for enlistment, and several large orders for advanced military equipment have been let out to Naruni Enterprises. However, the latter move has put strain on native armaments manufacturers, who feel that the contracts should have been handled in-house. As a result, several of the member corporations have indicated that they might be better off pulling out of the Consortium altogether and rejoining the HA or going to the CCW.
A good number of security contract personnel, disgusted with corruption in the uper ranks, have also quit their syndicates to go freelance, or even go pirate. To compensate, some of the syndicate services have turned to hiring outside mercenaries. The use of these outside hired-guns in police actions has further alienated some syndicate members, who are keeping their own raised militias back from pan-Consortium service.
Finally, a number of ‘undesireables’ exiled to the Deon MaxLoc and freed by the Shemarrians, have been showing up on border worlds, stirring up trouble and telling of the rampant political corruption that landed them there.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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taalismn
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

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Seneky Caliphate(Anvil Galaxy)

“The Seneky are convinced that they have scientific proof of an afterlife, and that’s colored their culture. Mind you, they’re not in a hurry to shuffle off the mortal coil any time soon, but I was rather shocked when one of their nata-princesses, who I’d rescued from pirates in my duty as a CCW sector patrol officer, arrived at the hospital where my daughter was suffering from terminal Aier-Saci Syndrome, and the princess was already on an operating table and minutes away from offering up her heart and lungs for transplant when I returned with the Consortium doctors and the necessary biosystems to cure my little girl. I had to do some quick talking to convince the princess that that wasn’t how I wanted a life-debt resolved, and then I had to pry the enraged doctors I’d brought along off the local Senekian surgeons who were all for going along with the princess’s shocte-pact, and already had the knives and rib spreaders out, citing that it was their sacred duty to obey and facilitate the nata-aiom caste. The Consortium physicians had other things to say about that, and if I hadn’t acted fast, the Hippocratic Oath might have been seriously strained to say the least.”
---Captain Sedward, Senek Sector, CAF, Consortium of Civilized Worlds, attaché to the Seneky Embassy

The Seneky Caliphate is a small star nation on the edge of the CCW expansion zone in the Anvil Galaxy. They are a traditionalist Human culture with echoes of Old Earth India/SouthEast Asian society. They are nominally allied with the CCW and would seem likely to join in the next century, but for now they cling to their independent status.
The Caliphate’s homeworld, Pasadur, is surrounded by a unique energy field that the Seneky have taken as scientific proof positiive of an afterlife, as the Pasadur claim the field holds the spirits of deceased Senekians. Psychics visiting the world have concluded that the field and its ‘inhabitants’ are NOT just haunting entities(the usual suspects in the case of ghosts) but may indeed be the discorporated memories of deceased Seneky. The Seneky have taken the field to heart, and, even as the Caliphate has expanded, Pasadur remains the final destination of the terminally ill and aged of the Caliphate, with final pilgrimages to the homeworld arranged to allow the dying to die on Pasadur and join their ancestors in the ‘afterlife’.
It is the unique psychic field of Pasadur that many xenosociologists hold ultimately responsible for that fact that a unique form of human sacrifice, or ‘shocte’, as practiced among the Seneky. Shocte can only be performed with WILLING subjects, and sacrificing anybody else is regarded as pure and dishonorable murder. Shocte is, ironically, most practiced among the traditional aristocracy of the Seneky, who feel that it is the purest and highest honor of the ‘refined bloodlines’ to give up their bodies and lives to greater purpose. A Seneky may thus chose to honor a lifedebt(such as, ironically, having one’s life saved) by giving up their own at a chosen time(like giving up a vital organ to save a benefactor). With the growing influence of the CCW influencing the Caliphate, shocte has become a less common practice, but the upper classes still practice it using various loopholes. Fortunately, modern advances in technology(especially medical and biotech) and a long period of peace, have allowed the Seneky upper classes to regrow their numbers from earlier ages of sacrifice, as well as negate the need for such sacrifices in the first place, but there are still occasions where shocte again arises.
The Caliphate is nominally allied to the CCW, but has put out feelers to the UWW and other independent star nations. As the Caliphate’s prosperity has increased, it has also seen an increase in local piracy, and the Caliphate’s military is looking to upgrade its capabilities(thus leading to both Naruni Enterprises and Hartigal Combine taking an interest in the Caliphate).
A. Size
Modest: 12 systems, 6 of which hold habitable worlds.
B. History
Newcomers; there is some evidence that the original Pasadurans were transplanted by the Veda pantheon at some time in the distant past, though their history prior to that event remains unknown.
C. Level of Technological Sophistication
Mature Space Age, but rising to Advanced with the influx of trade and technological exchanges.
D. General Attitude/Culture
Peaceful Expansionists
E. Racial Composition
Human-dominated (90%); aliens are granted special status as ‘others in residence’; not second-class citizens but not granted the same range of rights and responsibilities as native-born humans(for example, traditionally ‘others in residence’ are not obliged or permitted shocte-rites).
F. Government
Aristocracy, though there is a growing democratization going on, especially amongst the middle classes.
G. Administrative Control
Restrictive---Traditional Seneky Caliphate culture is bound by a tight system of secular and religious laws. Outside influence has loosened many of the strictures, but many, if not most, Seneky still feel bound by tradition to follow many of the older laws.
H. External Trade
Though the Seneky Caliphate is still considered a small time trading power, they are beginning to make their mark on the galactic markets:
-Luxury Goods---The traditionalist Seneky have acquired a reputation for high quality, hand-crafted luxury goods such as furniture, textiles, architectural adornments, and jewelry.
H1. Commodities
Exports: Spacecraft---The Caliphate does a brisk trade in small, local-space spacecraft of particular opulence. Their shuttlecraft and personal transports, such as solar yachts, have an eccentricity and luxurious design that appeals to many more-monied outsiders. Commissioning a personal transport from Seneky is increasingly popular with the well-to-do from places such as the Paradise Federation and the Altess worlds.
Imports: Manpower---The Caliphate is looking to improve their skill base of workers with galactic knowledge, so they’ve recently opened up several of their borderworlds to colonization by outsiders with generous incentives offered to immigrate to the Caliphate. Indeed, a good percentage (40%) of their defense forces is made up of ‘house’ mercenaries and citizenship-incentive immigrant recruits.
I. Status
---Boom-time; the Caliphate is on an upswing with galactic trade.
The growth is not without problems, though, as outside influences and an influx of foreign colonists have led to strain within the strict, tradition-bound Seneky culture, and culture clashes with outsiders invited in, but expected to submit to the Caliphate caste-system. Efforts to accommodate the new citizenry have frayed relations between some of the traditional social classes, and in some cases have marginalized some of the previously more prominent castes.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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SolCannibal
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:Kasenti Stellanion(Anvil Galaxy)

Recently, the Stellanion has been shaken up by the revelation that the kingdom’s leadership had been infiltrated and unduly influenced by an alien intelligence posing as one of the Kasentis’ traditional ancient gods. The malign alien intelligence was moving to take even greater control when it was slain by a mixed group of outsiders, commoners, and misfits, preventing a larger conflict from breaking out. In the aftermath of the demise of the alien puppetmaster, there has been much reshuffling of power as several noble Houses have collapsed, been dissolved, or have torn themselves apart, and a number of commoners raised by royal decree to the peerage.


I ask myself how is it established the deity is an impostor - beside "the idea of such abhorrent works and agenda coming from our god's will is patently absurd and the cultists' compliance with it as truth only shows how thoroughly demented and corrupt they had become" assertions, that is. :wink:

In that vein, what might the fate of their traditional ancient gods as a whole have been. The whole mess might spawn some serious spiritual crisis, renaissance or both, one might guess. Another fine mess for the Queen or the AI-killing heroes to deal with or take advantage of.
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:[
I ask myself how is it established the deity is an impostor - beside "the idea of such abhorrent works and agenda coming from our god's will is patently absurd and the cultists' compliance with it as truth only shows how thoroughly demented and corrupt they had become" assertions, that is. :wink:

In that vein, what might the fate of their traditional ancient gods as a whole have been. The whole mess might spawn some serious spiritual crisis, renaissance or both, one might guess. Another fine mess for the Queen or the AI-killing heroes to deal with or take advantage of.



Exactly. She might well be facing a series of religious reformists and maybe some avatars of other gods and wannabe gods claiming to represent the missing god/dess...on top of the social upheaval. Does she imprison all the 'messiahs' popping up, or ignore them(at her possible peril).
Yep, after a succession of nice stable polities, I wanted one that could be on the up-and-up, but could also be heading for a second serious crisis. PCs could make a name for themselves, carve out their own kingdom, or maybe earn a House and Title, depending on what they do in this region of space.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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SolCannibal
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:[
I ask myself how is it established the deity is an impostor - beside "the idea of such abhorrent works and agenda coming from our god's will is patently absurd and the cultists' compliance with it as truth only shows how thoroughly demented and corrupt they had become" assertions, that is. :wink:

In that vein, what might the fate of their traditional ancient gods as a whole have been. The whole mess might spawn some serious spiritual crisis, renaissance or both, one might guess. Another fine mess for the Queen or the AI-killing heroes to deal with or take advantage of.



Exactly. She might well be facing a series of religious reformists and maybe some avatars of other gods and wannabe gods claiming to represent the missing god/dess...on top of the social upheaval. Does she imprison all the 'messiahs' popping up, or ignore them(at her possible peril).
Yep, after a succession of nice stable polities, I wanted one that could be on the up-and-up, but could also be heading for a second serious crisis. PCs could make a name for themselves, carve out their own kingdom, or maybe earn a House and Title, depending on what they do in this region of space.


Not to mention other issues like how connected to any of those deities - or foreign ones - might the "idol-shattering heroes" or not be, as taking down an AI can require lots of normal & supernatural firepower, how truly banished/dead it actually counts as, possible ties of either the false god, the group that defeated its cult or any of the many reformists sects, could or not have with one or more sides in the Minion War, among many possible loose ends.

Lots of directions for PCs to find opporttunity/trouble to get themselves into.

One more thing.... if one of Kasenti traditional ancient gods was replaced by an impostor, how did the other traditional cults respond to that - and what does it say about them and their gods if the answer/reaction/warning of any was "none"?
Last edited by SolCannibal on Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:One more thing.... if one of Kasenti traditional ancient gods was replaced by an impostor, how did the other traditional cults respond to that - and what does it say about them and their gods if the answer/reaction/warning of any was "none"?


Depends; if the deity inquisition was part of one side in a pantheon. the other god-sects might lend their support to efforts to depose the imposter, find out what happened to the real god/dess, and restore balance to the pantheon. If a rival deity, the other cults would work to discredit their rivals, play up their own god/dess to take the missing one's place of prominence, and actively encourage followers to interfere with the competition's efforts to redress the absence of their object of veneration. This could mean destroying relics, objects that might be used to find/resurrect the deity, or hunting down any mortals identified as containing the essence of a godhead that could replace the missing deity(this includes kidnapping or slaying anybody who is believed to be the reincarnation of the rival god/dess).
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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SolCannibal
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:One more thing.... if one of Kasenti traditional ancient gods was replaced by an impostor, how did the other traditional cults respond to that - and what does it say about them and their gods if the answer/reaction/warning of any was "none"?


Depends; if the deity inquisition was part of one side in a pantheon. the other god-sects might lend their support to efforts to depose the imposter, find out what happened to the real god/dess, and restore balance to the pantheon. If a rival deity, the other cults would work to discredit their rivals, play up their own god/dess to take the missing one's place of prominence, and actively encourage followers to interfere with the competition's efforts to redress the absence of their object of veneration. This could mean destroying relics, objects that might be used to find/resurrect the deity, or hunting down any mortals identified as containing the essence of a godhead that could replace the missing deity(this includes kidnapping or slaying anybody who is believed to be the reincarnation of the rival god/dess).


It sort of leaves the question of how could the other gods let the usurpation of the original cult come to pass in the first place. That a group of misfits and outsiders would settle the issue, at the cusp of silent disaster, can bring doubts to mind and make one question itself somewhat, in unsettling ways, about the motives and agendas of their deities. Supposing they are even there anymore and the cults are not a bunch of pyramid scams lead by cabals of magicians, psychics or who knows what.

As an aside, and in a quite unrelated note, i'm also toying with writing another outlier system of the Solex Federation, but going in a sort of oppposite tack in relation to Gevadan so to speak.

A scrappy border system where the colonial authorities, dealing with the bad hand they received (planet with already existing native population & culture, turned penal colony to boot), have been playing nice with colonials and gone partly native for generations, creating of a place that while not rich on anything in particular (and poor in some ways) has managed to prosper through becoming an isle of cooperation and stability, what has lead to a recent but steady migration/smuggling of out-world relatives of some of the colonist families and growing anti-pirate (great way to poach more ships) and anti-slaver (great way to add troops through thankful soldiers in the short term - and allies/contacts through thankful relatives in the mid to long term) operations, what is sending interesting waves to all kind of directions.
Pull out? Quite the opposite, they are diving in headfirst, opportunists/reformists out to "save" the Federation from itself. :wink:
Last edited by SolCannibal on Sat Feb 15, 2020 3:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:[
Pull out? Quite the opposite, they are diving in headfirst, opportunists/reformists out to "save" the Federation from itself. :wink:



They're going to need more than a little luck. The extremists on both sides are whipping up the respective populations, corruption is rife, and the quiet atrocities are mounting(no nuking cities yet, but dissenting crew members in the Fleet are arbitrarily executed, there's a slave trade in brain-broken officers of both sides, and more than a few military personnel with personal grudges are using the opportunity to settle them. And that's just the MILITARY(it's worse than the CoDo breakup).
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:[
Pull out? Quite the opposite, they are diving in headfirst, opportunists/reformists out to "save" the Federation from itself. :wink:



They're going to need more than a little luck. The extremists on both sides are whipping up the respective populations, corruption is rife, and the quiet atrocities are mounting(no nuking cities yet, but dissenting crew members in the Fleet are arbitrarily executed, there's a slave trade in brain-broken officers of both sides, and more than a few military personnel with personal grudges are using the opportunity to settle them. And that's just the MILITARY(it's worse than the CoDo breakup).


True, but then they are no angel or heroes, but trying to play the game against itself toward their own ambitions - collecting refuges to settle their own area and help keep things working (expand, only if luck and time allow it), making some contacts and allies among moderates & disatisfied in many worlds along the way, minimizing internal conflict while working toward quotas to minimize attention from central government. Corrupt they are, but they want their cow fat and healthy so they can milk it much and well. This stability helps the system serve as a escape valve of sorts, while getting some connections in places high and low.

Fighting piracy is an extension of this double-dealing - theoretically helping preserve order but actually stealing their resouces and bases to boost their own where possible under everybody's noses. Going up against the slavers is indeed their riskiest move, as it can get them noticed by too many people in all sides too quickly, but well, even prospective warlords can have faults like moral standards (or sorts). Even if they will protest otherwise and claim to do it for underhandedly pratical (collecting favors from rescued - and healed - slaves and their families in so many worlds), or propaganda reasons. ;)

At least an entertaining springboard for a game to start from, i hope.
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taalismn
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

Go for it, and post what you formally come up with. I'd like to see what people do with any material I've posted. :)
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

Travesdeen Empire(Extradimensional)

“The Travesdeen gains power by consuming its victims; pop unexpectedly out of nowhere, hit soft targets hard and fast, loot, rape, and burn. Kill anybody who resists or who lacks any utility to them, and forcibly draft the traumatized survivors into slavery and conscript military service.
That’s the hell we’re facing; what we pulled out of our prisoners is that the front lines of their military are cannonfodder pulled from the Travees’ previous conquests. Whether it’s hostages held back on their worlds, explosive collars or implants, brutality at the hands of other soldiers, or drugs and brainwashing, and we’ve seen all of those ploys in play, they motivate their victims to fight for them.
Besides figuring out where they’ll hit next, we’re facing a problem of identifying their command structure and finding its weak points, preferably before we have to, or they decide to, kill a good number of poor yats whose only crime was being on the losing side of a one-sided curbstomp.”
---Major Erben Havs, Military Intelligence, Greater New England Armed Services

“There’s little enough known about the Travesdeen, aside from what few bits of information have come out of the United Systems Alliance. General concensus from analysts is that they’re small terrors rampaging through a small corner of space-time, and that if they run into the CCW or the TGE, they’re going to get their asses handed to them. Right now, they only really seem to be a concern to folks with outdimension interests, and even then, it seems to be just a part of the United Systems Alliance that’s got them to deal with. That’s just as well with the CAF; they have enough to deal with in THIS universe that they don’t have to bother with this new bunch of yahoos who aren’t even in this reality. Let the usans deal with them.”
---Colonel Asle Tolman, Office of ExtraDimensional Studies, CAF, Consortium of Civilized Worlds

“If we had somebody with the resources and numbers like the CCW with us on this one, we could probably steamroll the Travees FLAT inside a week, after recon and planning. That would save a LOT of trouble and free a lot of slaves. However, we are NOT seeing a lot of will from the CCW, since they don’t see themselves as being directly affected. Calling it somebody else’s problem doesn’t help a whole lot of somebody elses who are suffering at the hands of these technobarbarians.”
---Colonel Sobis Needla, Project Outstep, Greater New England

The Travesdeen are an extradimensional polity of humans who have established a small cross-dimensional imperium based on terror. The Travesdeen launch expeditionary forces through weaknesses in space/time to raid other worlds, attacking communities and utilizing the element of surprise and their advanced warmachines to overwhelm the local defenders, then rape and pillage the stunned civilian population. The Travesdeen Empire is not yet known as a presence in the Three Galaxies, though they may have struck backwater worlds and communities and not been identified as such. They have made a number of attacks on other alternities and pocket universes.
The Empire’s brutality, compared to organizations such as the Splugorth and Naruni, amounts to chicken-stealing and side alley thuggery(though not to those directly impacted by the attacks). The Travesdeen, through either careful planning or sheer luck, do not seem to have encountered any opposition more powerful than themselves, at least until they sent expeditionary dimensional-thread fortresses to ‘adjacent’ dimensions that contained pastoral peoples ripe for conquest. They were right about one; the people there fell easily and quickly to the Travesdeen slavers. The other targeted universe they were wrong about; the peaceful pastoral city turned out to be an exercise mockup on a military reservation jointly maintained by several extradimensional/interstellar polities. Once the fell intent of the Travesdeen invaders was discerned, the United Systems Alliance and their affiliates in the Gentiswan military reservation complex hammered the surprised Travesdeen as the latter still poked around empty buildings, fascades, and holo-emitter-generated ‘natives’. Superior numbers, technology, weapons, and training made an immediate impact on the Travesdeen force.
And the Alliance wasn’t yet done with the Travesdeen. In a happy coincidence for the natives, the Alliance was in the process of trading with the natives of the adjacent universe-world, Auspen. Once word got out of a similar enemy brutalizing the friendly locals there, the Alliance sent their own expeditionary force and ran down the Travesdeen slavers before they could completely savage the local Auspenites and cart them all into Travesdeen slave pits. Auspen has since become a United Systems Alliance protectorate state, while Alliance technicans pick over the captured hardware of the two vanquished slaver expeditions.
Currently, the Travesdeen Empire has made at least one major enemy, but the United Systems Alliance is stymied by their lack of knowledge of the true extent of the Empire and its operations. They’ve identified one possible conduit of the Travesdeens’ expansion, and possibly others, but have no hard data on other regions they might be operating in. While the battles of Gentiswan and Auspen have shown Travesdeen military units to be, technology- and training-wise, the weaker, the USA has yet to learn the full resources, numbers, and capabilities the Empire may have on its own worlds. As such, as the Minion War rages about the Alliance’s dimensional sprawl, grabbing first priority in the Alliance’s attention, theTravesdeen Empire, for now, is regarded as a lesser priority; the Alliance has established what they hope is a blocking force on Auspen and ready-reaction forces on Gentiswan.

A. Size
The Travesdeen hold away over four major settled worlds, but have raided dozens more.
B. History
The Travesdeen appear to be native to their home dimension
C. Level of Technological Sophistication
Roughly equivalent to the Coalition States or Northern Gun of Rifts Earth. They possess MDC materials, but only on vehicles and heavier structures, possess combat robots, and their troops wear environmental body armor(high SDC).
The Travesdeen have pursued technological extradimensional travel instead of interstellar travel, possibly due to light speed restrictions in their home universe(or perhaps because they discovered d-travel before ever attaining interstellar flight, and stopped pursuing the latter).
The prefered weapon of war is armored giant warbots that act as both terror weapons and utility vehicles. The only reported vessels, so far, are large saucer-like dimensionally-travelling fortress-transports, equivalent to a star frigate in MDC, that can appear inside a planet’s atmosphere and deploy a battalion’s worth of troops and combat armor. The prefered weapon of choice of their armed forces are light MD energy weapons and exploding bullet projectile weapons.
D. General Attitude/Culture
Warrior Culture---Conquered peoples are forcibly assimilated into the Empire as slaves and janissaries
E. Racial Composition
Human---The Travesdeen have encountered a number of different septs of baseline humanity, but have apparently never run into nonhuman intelligence. They seemed quite shocked when they encountered nonhumans on Gentiswan.
F. Government
Military Dictatorship---The military runs the empire, with a council of generals selecting an emperor from amongst their ranks. When an emperor shows weakness, he is summarily overthrown(and typically killed) and a successor appointed in his place.
The various levels of Travesdeen government seem to differ only in their methods of brutality.
G. Administrative Control
Draconian----The capital world is peaceful enough, but as a police state built on the backs of slave labor, there’s a strong undercurrent of coercion by brutality; everybody toes the line and obeys orders, or faces harsh discipline at the hands of the security forces. Slaves(especially the conscript soldiers) are often implanted with exploding ‘loyalty ‘ chips that cause near-instant death when activated.
H. External Trade
None. The Travesdeen Empire believes that it has a monopoly on a particular technology(dimensional travel) and is ruthlessly exploiting it to their advantage. They have stumbled across signs of more advanced societies out there, but the reaction is divided between ignoring them or looting anything interesting in hopes it will yield possible new weapons and counters against whatever threats ultimately emerge.
H1. Commodities
Exports: Terror
Imports: Slaves, plundered materials and technology.
I. Status
Rising, at least until the incidents at Gentiswan and Auspen.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

FigureI'd start throwing these here, although they're really linked to the Paladin Steel/Greater New England organization.

Just some worlds on the table.


Agasar IX---Mining and Scientific Research Outpost(Anvil Galaxy)
(aka “Dryroc’)

“We’re here to mine -tungsten-, the bones of heavy industry. We pretty much leave those sci-scouts alone and hope they don’t bring back something nasty from the other side of a rift. THAT ever happens, we’re to abandon operations, no questions asked, and the military’s made up enough nukes from the local pitchblend we mined for them that they can irradiate a fair amount of the planet and hopefully stop the whatever it is. Not all the extraction crews are happy with the thought, but I remind them that it was poking through rifts that found them this planet and the work here in the first place.”

“We’ll either need more temporary housing or more heavy spacelift capability; the Outstep evacuation’s proving better than expected in the numbers of survivors we’ve been able to find. I’d prefer both, if possible. If you can’t cut some more transports free from somewhere, but if not, can you ask some of our allies for assistance? This is a humanitarian crisis after all!”

“We’re moving several thousand survivors a month out of an estimated planetary population of seven billion before they started throwing nukes around. We expect that number to slow down as the search teams run out of places the fallout hasn’t reached yet, so we’re also moving what animals and plants we can gather in. Maybe not all of them will be suitable for the refugees’ new homeworlds, but at least they’ll have more bits and pieces of their past to take care of, even if they’re gene samples. And some of that stuff might be valuable to the gene markets. The time ratio’s working to our advantage, though; we’re faster here than on the other side, so we can move things along fast before the next bunch comes through.”

Agasar IX(Named as the 9th world of interest by the Agasar-Orenim Deep Search Observatory*) is a barely habitable world; it is too hot, dry, and the gravity too heavy for the comfort of most humanoids. Its atmosphere can only be breathed for short periods of time and the indigenous life is too scant and poisonous to sustain colonization. Though it could possibly be terraformed to a more habitable state, the United Systems Alliance currently isn’t bothering, despite them having done so with other, more hostile worlds. Nevertheless, Agasar IX receives a fair amount of attention from the GNE scientific community.
Agasar IX’s main claims to fame are large deposits of tungsten ore, pitchblend, and diamond, and that it has weak dimensional fabric. Greater New England OUTSTEP extradimensional scouts have been using this fact to probe various other universes. Agasar IX’s hostile environment makes it suited for containing most hostile lifeforms coming the OTHER way through a Rift.
More recently, the scout base on Agasar IX discovered a newly opening rift-zone to an alternate Earth(designated Shute-1) that was going through the end-throes of a global nuclear war; the massive sudden die-off and PPE-release had triggered the formations of dimensional rifts. Under GNE direction, OUTSTEP has been gathering as many survivors as they can access and sending them through to habitat modules on Agasar IX. From there they’re being sent to more habitable worlds through the United Systems Alliance. This has led to an expansion of the OUTSTEP facilities that will likely be retained as part of the scientific post once the rescue efforts are concluded.

*ESCAPESHUTE----This is the codename assigned to the Shute-1 rescue effort. Currently OUTSTEP is taking advantage of the slower rate of time(1 to 14) on the Shute-side of the Rifts to expedite processing of refugees on the Agasar IX side. Travel between the two worlds is primarily through surface rifts(OUTSTEP has built a containment dome around the main Rift nexus), but the GNE has also managed to punch through a sapce connection, allowing them to send through(and return) several aerospace vessels that are used to reconnoiter possible survivor sites from orbit and land temporary shelters while they gather in refugees and get through them through the dimensional rift.

Solar System (Agas-Oren)
Number of Stars: 2
Types of Stars:(Agas I) Orange Dwarf
(Agas II) Red Dwarf
Number of Planets: 5
-Terrestrial---Orenis Cope---Tiny OCope is Mercury-like in being blasted by both Agas I and II. The rocky lifeless world isn’t even being considered as a mining planet, as it lacks Mercury’s shadow-side, and surface temperatures are hot enough to quickly degrade any economical mining operation’s equipment.
-Terrestrial----Orenis Chapte---This huge rocky world sports punishing gravity and a turbulent atmosphere, making it unsuitable for colonization.
-Terrestrial---Agasar IX is the system’s lifeworld.
- Gas Giant---Huge Orenis Pale has some distinction of hosting several ice mining operations on its moons, sending a stream of ice payloads to the habitats on Agasar IX. A lunar colony of some 18,000 inhabitants provides addotional services to the miners, and an orbiting research station wotj another 9,000 provides backup for the facilities around Agasar IX.
- Gas Giant---Small Orenis Kled is a dark body world that barely registers on any scans of the Agas-Oren system.

Planet---Agasar IX
Type: Terrestrial
Diameter: Large, 22,000 km.
Gravity: 1.7 g
Temperature: Warm; average planetary temperature is 128 F.
Unusual/Special Features:
*Weak Dimensional Fabric----Random rifts form fairly easily, especially with a little assistance, in Agasar IX’s atmosphere.
Atmosphere: Tainted---The air can be breathed for short periods of time(one’s P.E. x2 in minutes) without ill effect(aside from the temperature), but it is too high in carbon monoxide and ozone to breath longer without assistance.
Terrain: Two types of terrain dominate Agasar IX’s surface; large plains and crag-lands.
Notable Mineral Concentrations:
- Tin
- Scheelite
- Antimony
- Pitch Blend
- Borax
- Sulfur
- Diamond
- Talc
Hydrosphere: Desert. Most available water is locked deep underground, and seeps up through vents or cave systems. The settlements on Agasar IX are supplied primarily from space.
Biosphere: Sparse---Life on Agasar IX has hardly evolved beyond the bacterial stage
Civilization:
In addition to several large(heavily automated) mining operations, there are also several large OUTSTEP bases. Currently the latter are centred around several large envirodomes holding both the established dimensional gates to Shute-1, and refugee housing. Once the evacuation effort from Shute-1 sunsets, the domes will become part of the expanded agent campus for the OUTSTEP bases.
Population:
55,000 between the various camps and bases. Currently there’s an additional 25,000 additional support personnel and 70,000 refugees as part of the Shute-1 evacuation effort.
There’s also several space stations in orbit, including an ore transfer station. PS has hurriedly expanded one of the stations into a large capacity personnel transfer station for handling refugees. The GNE/USA is also building a WZ-554-SC Frontier Space City/Habitat Platform as part of the expanded OUTSTEP facilities, with the intention of servicing interdimensional exploration spacecraft and probes.
Technology:
Galactic technology is absolutely necessary to survive on the surface. The USA has had to erect gravity-insulated and temperature-controled habitation domes on the surface, and supply them with water brought in from the outer solar system. Many of the staffers on Agasar IX have cybertech or biotech augmentation.
Economy:
Mining/Scientific Research
Wealth:
As a working resource planet, Agasar IX can be considered Average with reagrds to quality of life in the mining camps, and Depressed in the refugee centers. Most of the refugees were allowed to carry only a few personnel items to speed evacuation, with a few heavier items warehoused for later transport(and/or decontamination).
Government:
Corporate/Government---The mining camps are run by Paladin Steel, while the scientific side of things is run by the GNE/USA government.
Law Level:
Stable---There’s some rowdiness in the minng camps, but that’s handled by corporate security. The bulk of the trouble is in the refugee processing centers, where fear and desperation sometimes break out into fights between the refugees, or resentment against their ‘alien’ rescuers leads to riots.
Popularity:
Agasar IX is regarded as an acceptable posting for miners looking for steady work, though the local environment means that recreation opportunities are very limited. Most miners will serve 1-2 year hitches before rotating out.
For the thousands of refugees being moved through the processing domes and embarkation stations, opinions range from ‘blessed sanctuary’ to ‘scary alien prison’.
Stability:
Stable---Besides the usual problems with hard-working miners, the real problem is handling the refugees, most of who are scared and desperate and wanting answers. As hard as the OUTSTEP authorities try to bring each group up to speeed on who the GNE is, what they can do, how much they can do, and what’s going to happen to the refugees, there’s always a good proportion of the survivors who panic or get aggressive regardless.


*Agasar-Orenim Deep Search Observatory----CCW-based planet-survey/search organization. Word is that the Observatory’s founders, Ketretch Agasar and Tompin Orenim, agreed to name find worlds after themselves, with Agasar, who put up most of the funding for the organization, getting the more interesting worlds and Orenim getting the rest.


Kendelson/Hopeland(Mining Colony/Refugee World)(Anvil Galaxy)

“Folks around here know what it’s like to have seen the Beast in a mushroom cloud. The living here might not be as easy as they once had it, but they’ve seen FAR worse.”

“Yeah, ‘Hopeland’ sounds rather corny, even to the people who live there, but they tried oit a lot of other names like ‘New Zion’, ‘Second Paradise’, ‘New Earth’, ‘Second Chance’ and the like, and they finally agreed that ‘Hopeland’ was the least pretentious in any of the languages they speak, so it stuck. And it does sum things up for the folks; it’s their land of hope.”

“The original discovery shaft’s been sealed and is now under eighty feet of asteroid water; I arranged for the climate-engineering authority to create a new lake over the site using the ice tankers. Making the survey sites off-limits as part of the new hydrology remodelling will buy us some time, but it’s not a permanent solution; that killaryte’s going to be rediscovered by -somebody- or word is going to leak out somehow, and we’ll be back to square one unless we have a working plan to deal with it in place.”

Kendelson is a colony world originally surveyed and developed as a mining colony, but which has since become a sanctuary-world for displaced refugees from an alternate Earth, who have named their new world ‘Hopeland’.
Nuclear war was the cause of displacement of the new residents of Kendelson/Hopeland, who were rescued by GNE Outstep scouts who managed to shepherd them through dimensional rifts to safety. Kendelson was chosen as an endpoint because of its proximity to the access rifts(on virtually uninhabitable Agasar IX) to the shatterworld Earth.
The Kendelsonians’ original Earth is still open dimensionally(and time moving at a substantially slower rate there), and a trickle of refugees still comes through the rifts, to be routed to Hopeland once they clear medical, but the planet has been written off as a shatterworld. An example of grimdark Hopelandian humor is joking about telling how long a newcomer has been on Kendelson with a geiger counter and a calculation of their registering radiation half-life.
Kendelson is in the process of being mildly terraformed, particularly around the refugee resettlement communities. Ice tankers drop fresh water into the local watershed areas and newly dug reservoirs and waterways, and massive plantings have taken place in adjacent areas. While some mining takes place, Hopeland is looking to develop its agriculture as its major focus(some Alliance sociologists fear that the Hopelandians may, at least for the near future, be embracing a luddite reaction to the sort of high end technologies that were used in the war that destroyed their homeworld).
The average Hopelandian shows the scars of nuclear war; radiation damage has led to a higher than normal rate of cancer, and a full 70% of the residents have required medical cybernetics to survive. 40% have undergone partial or full bionic conversion. though that number has dropped in recent years to 20% as PS/ASI has introduced body re-sheathing, allowing many cyborgs to be reincarnated in flesh and blood cloned bodies free from radiation damage. Both advanced genetic medicine and magic have worked to clean up damaged genomes, and a new generation of humans born on Kendelson show few signs of abnormal mutation.
While some effort has been made to reconstruct the Hopelandians’ original communities from their Earth, many have decided to try something new. While much of Hopelandian architecture retains the blocky modular shelter and envirodome architecture of the early settlement, the Hopelandians are starting to experiment with more decorative architecture, incorporating elements of their late homelands.
Kendelson is regarded as an Alliance ‘sanctuary world’ and as such has had few expectations or requirements asked of it in contributing to the United Systems Alliance, as the Hopelandians are still recovering from the effective death of their original homeland. However, it has become a tradition that many Hopelandians, especially those trained in medicine, particularly cybernetic medicine, to volunteer to do tours with the USA services.

There is one big snake in the grass for Kendelson, however; prospectors have recently discovered substantial deposits of Killaryte in the northern land masses. Though Paladin Steel doesn’t know how to process the mineral, they could potentially make a considerable profit selling the stuff to the CCW, which has been working on ways to undercut Naruni Enterprises’ monopoly on processed K-HEX products. The discovery and mining of Killaryte on Kendelson could make the planet very wealthy, and promote a thriving weapons and explosives industry on the planet. The Hopelandians, having fled the catastrophic results of one world war, however, may be less than pleased at the prospect of their new sanctuary of peace becoming an arsenal, no matter how much money it may pour into their community coffers. Such development would also attract unwelcome attention in the form of claim jumpers, arms companies, pirates, and Naruni espionage teams; Hopeland would be facing the same sort of threat as the Denlech if word got out about the Killaryte in Kendelson’s crust. And having promised and delivered the refugees a peaceful world to start over in, PS/ASI isn’t about to renege on that promise and move them out to some other planet to make way for expanded mining operations.
For now, PS/ASI has managed to suppress word of the killaryte deposits, and only a few senior officials in both the USA and the Hopeland administrations know of the discovery, but are keeping silent about it until they can figure out a course of action.

Solar System
Number of Stars: 1 (Kendelson’s Star)
Types of Stars: Orange Dwarf
Number of Planets: 3
- Terrestrial---(Kendelson) System lifeworld
- Gas Giant---(Kendie II/’Papilon’)(Huge)---Kendie II has swept up large amounts of system debris, giving it large rings that make it visible with the naked eye from Kendelson. Its large moon system also makes it attractive for exploitation, and the terraformers of Kendelson have been mining water ice from several of its moons to send to Kendelson. Papilon is home to some 17,000 terraformers and deep space miners, as well as a gas mining operation and starship refueling station.
- Gas Giant---(Kendie III)(Small)---Uranus-like Kendie III has yet to receive a name from the Hopelandians, and the Alliance astrosurveyers who have studied the planet haven’t named it anything special. Aside from a few thin rings and two almost perfectly diametrically opposed giant storms in its thick atmosphere(which has led to suggestions of it being called ‘Yin-Yang’), there’s not much (yet) of note about this gas giant.

Planet(Kendelson/Hopeland)
Type: Terrestrial
Diameter: Average(11,5000 km diameter)
Gravity: Average; nearly exactly 1.0 g.
Temperature: Cool....Akin to Alaska with regards to seasonal extremes
Unusual/Special Features:
-Energy Field; Kendelson has exhibited a higher than normal magnetic field that sometimes interacts with Kendelson’s Star’s solar wind, to create very vivid aurora activity. These solar storms interfere with regular radio transmission and reception(and forces the orbiting space stations to use comm-lasers to communicate with the planetary surface), but are regarded by the Hopelandians as beautiful natural fireworks.
Atmosphere: Earth normal with regards to density and composition.
Terrain:
Kendelson supports a variety of terrain types, though the rolling hills and broad valleys of the southern continents are of the most interest to the colonists.
Unusual Mineralogy: Substantial amounts of killaryte have been found under the northern continents
Notable Mineral Concentrations:
- Molybdenite
- Colombite
- Gold/Silver
- Antimony
- Thorium
- Emerald
- Platinum
- Talc
Hydrosphere: Balanced, but to make conditions more suitable for the food crops being planted and planned, terraformers are adjusting the hydrological balance by bringing in additional water from offworld and establishing a series of wetlands around the most promising colony sites.
Biosphere: Thin; mainly lichens and algae. Kendelson wasn’t slated for advanced ecoforming until the decision was made to develop it as Hopeland, so a more aggressive ecology has been introduced.
Civilization:
Colonial, Refugee. Kendelson has been settled by refugees fleeing a nuclear war- ravaged alternate Earth.
Population:
6.9 million, + another 15,000 Alliance miners.
Technology:
Effectively Early Space Age, but possess advanced cybernetics/bionics. Hopeland also boasts an advanced body reconstruction/cloning medical center.
Kendelson has three Plymouth-class space stations of note in orbit, one serving as a passenger terminal for travelers, another as a cargo transshipment station(including minerals brought up from the planet), and the third a space- and geo-sciences platform overseeing the planetary ecoforming. There are also about a dozen defense satellites(battle-rings) in orbit doing additional duty as skywatch and communications platforms. Hopeland has about two dozen shuttles of various types at its disposal.
Though Kendelson has substantial deposits of thorium, the residents of Hopeland have decided NOT to exploit this resource and build fission reactors, rejecting nuclear technology in favor of ‘green’ power sources and PS-built fusion power systems.
Economy:
Mining, agriculture
Wealth:
Can be considered to be Poor; most of the refugees arrived with only a handful of personal belongings, and the economy has been geared towards survival and providing the basics. The people have enough to eat, places to sleep, work to keep busy, and entertainment(much of it provided from the United Systems Alliance), but conspicuous consumerism and a luxury economy is still a ways off.
Government:
Confederacy---Given the varied ethnic and national backgrounds of the refugees, a confederacy-style government, overseen by the GNE/USA, was deemed best, while the refugees work, gradually, to merging into a common democracy.
Law Level:
Lawful; nobody wants to repeat the bad ol’ ways of the past in their new home. Thus, the law system is fair and just, and few people act against the good of the all. It helps that the GNE has lent a substantial number of Combat Psychologists to Hopeland to help smooth any ruffled feathers. It also helps that the United Systems Alliance had provided the newly established local constabulary with some tough-looking hombres from their military to help keep order.
Popularity:
Popular; a few populist leaders have emerged to engage the colonial oversight administration set up by the Alliance, and these leaders have the refugees’ trust and support, especially in the setting of an agenda of peace and cooperation.
Stability:
Stable, but there are occasional grumblings about some some groups fearing losing their identity amongst the other refugees, and wanting to start ethnic-centered settlements of their own. For the most part, these grumblings subside, but continue at a lower level. As Hopeland grows, and more refugees trickle in, these grassroots movements may continue and grow.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
User avatar
taalismn
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

Okay, some reposted and expanded material on the United Systems Alliance, as prelude to posting some sample worlds of this polity:


What if PS/GNE founded a star-nation?

United Systems Alliance(USA)

“The USA is just big enough to have some substance, sophisticated enough to have some idealistic ambitions, small enough to lack the wasteful overspending habits of larger star nations, and the wisdom to realize that they’re not the biggest dog in the neighborhood. Which one of those four attributes will break down first is a matter of conjecture and no small amount of betting in the circles of society-watchers.”

“The USA apparently believes in getting involved in a number of low-tech skirmishes and interventions....probably going on the idea that if they help the locals deal with a particular problem, they can leverage it into **** of recruits and access to resources from the grateful locals later. That might work, but it might backfire bad on them if they get tangled in too many little brush wars, or if the other side in a trench fight gets support from somebody bigger than the USA...like the TGE or worse looking to fight a proxy war. They’re going to have to be REAL careful to avoid getting trapped in something like that.”

“Consider us an economic alternative to the stuffy bureaucracy of the you-know-who. No established cartels, no protectionist trade policies, no rigged bidding...just straight service and quality for your money.”

“They irresponsibly give high technology and immigration capability to peoples who couldn’t manage their own homeworlds! They’re another T’zee crisis in the making! Or Chor’ii for that matter!!!”
“They’re accepting a lot of refugees that the Consortium isn’t dealing with. And their extradimensional capbilities, although not as extensive as Phaseworld’s, still gives them some serious access to territory we don’t. The Alliance is quietly building up some good clout with humanitarian groups, and a loyal following in numbers we’re not able to see. That’s what I’d be more concerned about.”
---Overheard at a CCW diplomatic event

“So you’re ‘Speece Americuh!’. Dull, drab, loud, bossy and armed to the teeth?”
“So you’re from another Earth analogue world, huh? Have another cheeseburger and free wifi, and stay where you aren’t scaring the small animals.”


The United Systems Alliance is a misnomer in many respects; it’s actually more of a confederation or loose military-economic union of planetary nations and only a few wholly unified solar systems. The USA is an outgrowth of the trade- and mutual-defense pact Alliance founded by Rifts-Earth Greater New England, and it is that latter nation-state which provides much of the texture and attitude to the USA. Many of the planetary members are in fact fairly lightly settled worlds that were colonized by refugees assisted off Rifts Earth by the GNE, corporate colonies set up to exploit local resources, or are national ‘redoubts’ settled by other city/nation-states in the Alliance as insurance against their homelands on Rifts Earth ever falling to the Coalition States or some other threat. Others are colonies that tried to ‘go it alone’ from the CCW or other star nations, but have found themselves needing an extra hand surviving. A few nominal or notional members of the USA are star-nations in their own right, and provide economic stiffening and even some military assistance to the Alliance.
As one might suspect, the USA has a strong North American flavor to its culture. GNE soldiers provide the most visible aspect of their military. The USA’s insignia is the American flag-based ‘storm banner’ with thirteen red and white stripes, and a galactic whorl in the corner.
The USA has strong relations with the CTRL(Corianus-Typhen-Rosette League) and WZTechyards(who provides many of the USA’s heavier starships), as well as the Independent Rim Alliance. They have good relations with the Shemarrian Star Nation, and have reached out to a number of other star nations(such as the nascent World League of Ser-Chai, the Celsian Primarchy, Kamasauni Stellar Coalition, Cisen-Adeta Republic, Botwani Union and the Trevis Collective ) who have signed, at the least, trade treaties.
For their part, Three Galaxies nations like the CCW and TGE regard the USA as a paper tiger, even with their cross-dimensional aspects factored in. The USA simply lacks the necessary manpower and massive logistics necessary to challenge the Great Powers on either offense or defense, though they might, it is acknowledged, bloody a few noses in local fighting. The CCW tolerates USA overlap in their territory in part because the USA espouses many similar policies, and their mutual defense treaties and convoy escorts mean that the CAF doesn’t have to stretch its resources in the same sectors that the USA operates. In CCW space, the USA operates much like a more species-inclusive and tech-liberal version of the Human Alliance, moving, trading, and recruiting freely as long as it obeys the CCW laws, doesn’t disrupt the galactic economy, and doesn’t involve the CCW in any wars. Some within the CCW and UWW are, in fact, cultivating contacts in the USA for their knowledge of other powers with interdimensional links, such as the Splugorth, so for now the USA is allowed to recruit new members along the borders of CCW space.
Occasionally, with regards to its activities in the Thundercloud Galaxy, the USA has been accused of ‘claim-jumping’, grabbing prospective new colony worlds with an eye towards later selling access to later arrivals. It has also been accused of ‘poaching’ worlds, as in USA-associated actions around New Vita Colony and Vivisanda, the former being a world that was ‘snatched’ from a colonial development group, and the latter being a slowboat colony being armed against Golgan takeover. So far, however, while complaints have been made, no real legal action has been moved against the Alliance.

A. Size
Large; claims about 110 associated worlds, but many of these worlds are barely above self-sufficiency levels, many are nominally affiliated with other organizations as well, and some exist outside the Three Galaxies/universe altogether. Has also laid claim to several dozen fallow worlds in the Thundercloud Galaxy.
B. History
Newcomers; effectively an outgrowth of corporate networking and trade dealing.
C. Level of Technological Sophistication
Galactic Age; about one or two generations behind the CCW, and Golgan top-line units. WZTechyards and Aegis Stellar Industries are the two largest common spacecraft manufacturers currently linking the USA worlds and helping members upgrade.
D. General Attitude/Culture
Enlightened Expansionists eager to increase their influence through trade and mutual security.
E. Racial Composition
70% human, but even that is checkered with gene-augs, offshoot septs, and mutants. The USA is an equal opportunity recruiter.
F. Government
Loose confederation of multiple member states and corporate organizations.
G. Administrative Control
Loose---Members run their own affairs and conduct their own diplomatic business, but subscribe to a common commonsense Bill of Rights and contribute to shared defense, be it active troops and aerospace assets, or basing privileges.
H. External Trade
*Raw Materials----While general trade is the blood of the USA, most of the commerce is in raw materials to feed the industrialized members to produce goods for the less well-off members, or to buy from outside concerns.
H1. Commodities
Exports: Raw Materials----The USA mainly taps into the potential resources of its members to sell to the more populous and industrialized star nations.
Imports: High Tech----Most of what the USA buys is what it can’t produce for itself; cutting edge technologies to improve their own position and quality of life.
I. Status
Ascendant; especially in the rim territories and the Thundercloud where a great number of struggling colonies are potential members. Also known to recruit heavily from ‘hellworlds’ where overpopulation and ecological collapse has led to desperation. The USA then uses its advanced(by member state standards) technology to help uplift them or develop offworld habitats.

Governance
“Just so we’re agreed; we’ll interfere if one of us gets toppled by an evil despot, but we will NOT interfere in each others’ free elections or successions, as long as they’re lawful and don’t violate the Common Bill of Rights.”

The various members of the USA maintain their own governments and in-house organizations(including protectorates); there is no central figurehead of authority in the USA. Representatives of the various member-worlds meet regularly at rotating locations to discuss matters of importance to the whole, and several joint organizations are emerging to oversee and conduct policy decisions.
In the case of common-held protectorates, the USA councils vote to select the imposed governing bodies, until such a time as the protectorates are granted independence or become members of the Alliance in their own right.

InterworldTrade Commission(ITC)
“The coreworld corporations accuse us of price-fixing and protectionism, but we’re just negotiating fair prices for our goods. We don’t want our worlds to one day be owned by subsidiaries of TaggieCorp or StarMart.”

“This is what we get for exiling all those lawyers to the Fringe.”

The ITC is the Alliance regulatory and advisory bureau that facilitates trade in the Alliance, helping negotiate trade deals and standards amongst the various worlds of the Alliance, and advising on trade policy with outside polities. Though the ITC cannot enforce policy (Alliance worlds are generally allowed to carry out their own trade), it’s understood that the purpose of the Alliance is to make things EASIER for members to trade amongst themselves and with outsiders, so gross violators of the standards set by consensus risk possible censure and exclusion from more lucrative group actions. Though not as far-reaching as the CCW’s TVIA, the ITC has still had its moments in proving able to face down outside trade cartels trying to muscle in and exploit Alliance worlds(many of whom are inexperienced in the nuances of Galactic trade law, or are just plain desperate for outside trade).
The ITC consists of bureaucrats and lawyers drawn from the various member worlds of the USA, and meet regularly to review trade treaties and evaluate trade trends. While an oft-made complaint by outsiders(especially Naruni Enterprises) is that the ITC is hardly impartial, and that it protects a virtual monopoly by corporate ‘giants’ like WZT Techyards and Paladin Steel/Aegis Stellar Industries, it’s also kept a number of smaller local companies from being swallowed up by larger coreworld concerns, and provided incentive for new companies to move into Alliance space.


United Systems Alliance Marshals’ Service(USAMS)
“Currently things are a bit wild with regards to the Service; it’s no secret among the Marshals and the our-Alliance services that the law, with regards to ‘apprehension and arrest’ gets pretty rubbery out in the Fringe Zone until we can get a common and comprehensive legal code established. Though I’ve heard talk that there’s hope from in inside and outside that they hope that doesn’t happen too soon. Seems a lot of criminals avoid our sectors if they think they can’t surrender and play the system, and a few police groups chase their wanteds out into Alliance space figuring we’ll fatally take care of the problem.”

The USAMS is a tentative effort to create an Interpol-style organization between USA members, with specially trained and mandated extraterritorial agents granted powers to pursue criminal investigations and fugitives amongst the various worlds of the Alliance. The USAMS is still in its formative stages, with much legal wrangling going on, as well as discussions of the training and equipping of the agents. Studies of the CCW Star Marshals are being undertaken, and there is some thought of hiring the TMC to train the agency. Currently a few agents have already been fielded, seconded from the police agencies of several member worlds. The Alliance wants to get this organization well underway to give the Alliance greater credibility when dealing with other extraterritorial law enforcement groups, like the aforementioned Star Marshals, on matters of criminals crossing USA territory(or fleeing to adjacent star nations).
As there is not yet any formal training program(or even official title) for agents of the USAMS, operatives can be of any of the law enforcement or military(with an emphasis on law enforcement) OCCs from Rifts, Manhunter, Aliens Unlimited, or Phaseworld.

United Systems Planetary Protection Council(USPPC)
“Harrisar scarlet tuna are virtually extinct, but the University of ApriGwuyn thinks they can clone them from DNA samples. The terraforming pools on Manticus’s moons can be rebooted and we can keep a population of there until Harrisar’s oceans are cleaned up. The Manticusans are willing to help out, but they want assistance with removing the last of their old nuke waste dumps.”

The USPPC is an environmental protection organization that provides advice and oversight on matters of planetary environment, colony selection, and colonial development. The USPPC combines the efforts and resources of various smaller organizations, and acts as a SuperFund oversight committee on environmental remediating, conservation, and terraforming technologies. They also train shattertechs and global hazmat response crews. Current efforts include the cleaning up of overpopulated and polluted Harrisar, studying records of the terraforming of Kellest(and whether the plague there really was a bad mutation of T-forming microorganisms), remediating efforts on Tenlen, agricultural impact studies on Mestos, and the ongoing battles against artificial super-predators introduced by the Splugorth on Genahser.

United Systems Amalgamated Communications Service (USACS)
“We need to know what’s happening at the far end of Alliance space as quickly as possible if we’re to serve the needs of everybody in this agreement we’ve made among ourselves. Not weeks or months later, but as quickly as possible. Not just military emergencies either; free trade needs reliable communications to grow and prosper.”

USACS is an effort to tie the Alliance together with a shared communications network. While couriers and package delivery is generally handled by private contractors and government vessels, interstellar transmissions were handled originally only by a few privately-owned networks, or tied into the larger networks of neighboring polities. The Alliance hopes to remedy that patchwork with a government-run, publicly traded state communications corporation responsible for building and maintaining a network of FTL radio stations and relays through Alliance space, and research comm security and new technologies. One of the biggest problems facing Alliance communications is that not all of the member-states are astrographically contiguous, but are spread out across several galaxies and even universes. Besides stations, USACS maintains a growing fleet of specially-equiped relay ships, allowing for extension of service into new territories as well as restoration of service in event of a station’s breakdown or destruction. USACS is also establishing a number of depot stations to service remote relays and resupply the relay ships.


United Systems University(USU)
“Got a grant to study some interesting phenomena out in the Fringe. Some group called the oosu is putting us up in return for finding sharing. Sounds a lot better than roughing it and trying to pry more funding for resources out of the school financial office.”

The USU is an effort to streamline collaborative educational and scientific research resources between Alliance members, allowing less well-off members to send students to learn at better equipped facilities, and the larger educational institutes to send students on field work in ‘safer’ environments than sending them out of the Fringe.
The scientific aspect centers initially around the research and development divisions of WZTTechyards and Paladin Steel/Aegis Stellar Industries(which also has a large vocational training program) with an eye towards training to create and maintain technologies of mutual importance to the worlds of the USA, such as interstellar communications, ship design, defense, and terraformiing/xenobiological adaptation and response. However, the public face of USU is civilian in nature, and the Alliance hopes that with a comprehensive enough organization, they will be able to attract the attention of educational institutions in the more developed polities(such as the CCW and UWW) and form similar links to them(incidentally increasing the USA’s access to cutting edge technologies).
In collaboration with the ITC, USU also sets ground rules for joint development programs and revenue-sharing from jointly developed technologies and operated facilities, such as FTL radio relays and hypergates.

Military Forces(Alliance Joint Command)(AJC)
(aka ‘System Army’)

“The CAF doesn’t exactly respect the Alliance’s AJC, because there’s still a lot of bias against ‘Rim riff-raff’, but they like the fact that the Alliance taking its own merchant protection into its own hands takes heat off the CAF to stretch itself thin protecting the outliers. They’ll come to respect the AJC soon enough, though.”

“Why did we invade Ferendao, you ask? It’s not even in the Three Galaxies! They hardly have space travel! Why should anybody care? Well, according to dimensional folding, they occupy a fold-space right near several Alliance worlds. They’d discover that soon enough, especially with the dimensional weakening caused by the mass die-off they inflicted on one of their nations with a bioweapon. The sort of people who used that weapon aren’t the sort of people we want as neighbors, so we intervened. Friendly neighborhood intervention to avoid a repeat of that biowarfare attack one day landing on one of our members.”

The USA can call upon the armed forces of its member worlds for joint defense and occasionally to affect regime change on worlds considered of value/security risk(if only by dint of proximity to other Alliance members) to the Alliance. However, many of the members lack the means(budget, manpower, or techbase) to supply more than a token force(often volunteers from their planetary militia). WZT and Aegis Stellar Industries supply most of the spacecraft and much of the military equipment, but the USA’s individual system militaries can display a hodgepodge of equipment locally-made or acquired on the galactic market. A few of these organizations are especially noteworthy:

*Greater New England-Alliance Armed Services. The Regular Military of the GNE has become the core of the USA’s military organization. What was once a ‘Foreign Legion’ of non-Terrans has become the basis of the USA’s growing System Army. Combined arms and a ready willingness to accept and adapt new species and technologies are the GNEAS’s strengths.
*Harrisar Legions---Harrisar is a badly overpopulated Human world, and the USA military’s ‘foreign legions’ have provided an outlet for the population. Though accused of being made up of poorly-trained conscripted cannon fodder, the Harrisar Legions are actually shaping up into effective combat units. Even more important, the Legions are showing more loyalty to the USA than to the power blocs back home.
*Skensi Royal Commandos---A zealous and well-trained anti-pirate force. They have a historical reputation for ruthlessness and don’t always abide by more humane laws with regards to treatment of (pirate) prisoners.
*Kellestian Space Guard---Small, but tough, and well-trained anti-piracy force. The rather flamboyant and distinctive rainbow paint jobs of KSG ships mirror the Kellestians’ own iridescent skins, the legacy of an ancient plague.
*Averian Angel-Knights---Though currently very few in number, these winged warriors have unique powers and a zealous dedication to righteousness.
*Grendlesec Bashers----Originally a PMC hired by the government of Nettavan to handle a crisis, Grendlesec became established as resident mercenaries, and then more formally as THE Nettavan military
*Tmelain Republican Aggression Regulators---Once a state-raised mercenary service meant to raise money for the cash-strapped refugee Tmelain, inclusion in the USA has allowed the Tmelain to pull increasing numbers of the RAR back to serve in defense of the Republic, though seeing as part of their operating costs acting on behalf oft he Alliance is paid out of Alliance funds, it can be argued the RAR still acts as a mercenary organization. However, few doubt that the RAR has experience, motivation, and solid organization. They also have some of the largest troop transports and planetary assault carriers in the Rim.
* MechanismWarriors of Hadazad---These skilled and fearless warriors pilot some of the bigger and more powerful mecha available to the mainstream star-polities. Their main weakness, though, is that their almost ritualized combat styles sometimes blind them to the realities of galactic warfare. They’re learning fast, however.
*Thunderbolts----A potent force of combat mages and monster slayers from Jovenia, the self-professed descendants of an army of magic-using soldiers displaced by a space-warping WMD deployed in a catastrophic ancient war, and forced to establish a refugee community in exile. The Thunderbolts are expert demon slayers, and eagerly volunteer for service if supernatural foes are suspected, but they are less adept/useful in conventional warfare or anti-piracy patrol actions.


The GNE/United Systems Alliance operates several divisions of starships in its forces, depending on the area of responsibility and assigned duties.

Colonial Homeguard Force----This is a unit attached to a large or sensitive colony deemed to need space protection. They do not often venture far outside their assigned system, but will occasionally meet incoming or accompany outgoing convoys. Most CHF vessels tend to favor non-FTL, high-local space capability, and heavy weaponry. CHF also typically takes care of local space minefields, battlelite nets, and orbital monitor stations. The warships in PS/ASI’s home Rifts Earth system are considered to be part of the Homeguard Force, High Fleet One.

Frontier Defense Force---This is a ‘super-reserve’ force based out of an established colony or starbase that patrols an area encompassing several settled or claimed systems. The FDF maintains listening posts and navigation aides, patrols looking for pirates, escorts convoys, and acts as a ‘fire brigade’ to attacks on colonial systems. Speed, sensors, and firepower tend to be favored in FDF vessels. The FDF has an increasing number of heavy FTL units, such as battlecruisers and fast battleships, to quickly reinforce beleaguered CHF defenses.

Merchant Defense Force---This is a dedicated force , typically operating under the command of Paladin Steel/Aegis Stellar Industries, and nominally under the FDF, that protects PS/ASI and Alliance shipping. Most MDF vessels fall in the destroyer to light cruiser classes, as well as light carriers, with range, speed, and sensory capabilities being emphasized. MDF vessels can typically be found escorting convoys, and they operate a large number of merchant-cruiser conversions and Q-ships.

Expeditionary Force Reserve ---This is another ‘super-reserve’ force held in readiness for force projection, be it offensive operations against pirate strongholds, Splugorth outposts, or other opposition forces. EFR works hand in hand with Regular Army, Marine, and Stelmarine commands as troop transport is a large part of their responsibility. EFR has the largest concentration of heavy FTL warships, though only slightly more than FDF.

Exploration Command---The smallest of the divisions, Exploration Command is dedicated to interstellar(and interdimensional) scouting and exploration. They also provide back-up to civilian exploration efforts, working hand in hand with civilian subcontractors and licensed scouts. Exploration Command also acts as overwatch during the initial stages of colonial settlement, working hand in hand with the Frontier and Merchant Defense Forces. Their vessels tend to be long on endurance, range, speed, and sensors, and lighter on armaments.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

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Worlds of the United Systems Alliance(Cosmic Gazetteer abstract)

Mestos(United Systems Alliance member)(Vecar VIII)(Anvil Galaxy)

“You done lucked out, lady, crashing on Mest when you did so....coupla years back you’d have had to wait a coupla years ‘til the next dust-hauler stopped over here. Nowadays? Three months until the fruit-boat lifts. Say, you know how to work a swamp combine?”

“Mestos is metal-poor, has gravity that rots bones, is cold as hell, and its primary export is a fruit that tastes incredibly bland even buried in yahha sauce. It has no moons, nothing out of the ordinary, and no close planetary neighbors. It’s a thoroughly boring place. On the other hand, it has a breathable atmosphere, liquid water, gravity, and local food that you can eat. Compared to a whole helluva lot of other worlds, Mestos is paradise. They just suffer in comparison to more developed worlds.”

Mestos is an agricultural colony world by necessity; it was originally settled by mining conglomerate Polytectoncorp to exploit several discovered deposits of valuable minerals. However, turns of bad fortune stemming from poor mineralogy and corporate shortsightedness have left the once-promising colony world in an economic lurch.
Mestos is low-gravity and also crust-poor in heavy metals, leaving it reliant on offworld sources for industrial feedstocks. It is now believed that the ore beds that attracted development in the first place originated from asteroid landings on Mestos. The planet is a solitaire; there is some speculation that Vecar VIII may have lost the rest of its planets and debris disc to a wandering star(receding Vecar VI is a good suspect for this case of cosmic grand theft planet).
Unfortunately, Mestos was abandoned by its sponsors when the original mineral deposits played out after some forty years. With a barren solar system lacking in other planets nearby to prospect and develop, and with little desire to go into the open colony business, Polytectoncorp decided to pull out. Little provision was made for sunsetting operations on the planet, and only those with the clout and money to relocate were able to leave. However, a number of the non-essential personnel and a few diehards were left behind to fend for themselves. Without offworld support, keeping the infrastructure going became more and more difficult, and the planet was soon on its way to becoming a ghost town world. What few young people remained on Mestos would typically try to jump planet on the occasional visiting starship, to seek their fortunes elsewhere, leaving the planetary population aging and in decline.
The United Systems Alliance came to Mestos’ rescue, offering them low-interest loans and equipment to bootstrap their economy onto a surer footing. Exploiting their abundant water and breathable air, the Mestosians are attempting to go into large scale agriculture.
The main agricultural product of Mestos is currently the moho-fruit, a native tuber-like plant that grows fast, in abundance, and is edible by most carbox metabolisms, though it’s been charitably described as lacking in flavor*. Mestos currently ships moho in bulk to provide Mestos with some sort of positive balance of trade, at least until they can find other things to build up their economy.
The United Systems Alliance sees Mestos’ value as a viable habitable world and is willing to invest in Mestos’ rebirth as an agricultural planet and reverse the depopulation trend.
Mestos is considered so poor that while most pirates in the sector know of it, few bother going near it. However, the fact that Mestos has a viable biosphere and an investment in agriculture machinery, has prompted the Alliance to refurbish the planet’s spacestation and add facilities for a couple of light warships to monitor traffic in the system(a popular joke on Mestos is that just one of the corvette-class warships costs more than the GNP of Mestos...for a decade).
As a member of the United Systems Alliance, Mestos’ contribution to the commonwealth is minimal; they have little in the way, currently, of resources, no offworld military presence to speak of, and hardly enough population to qualify as a settled world. Mestos does send a few students to the United Systems University to study technology and agriculture, and the USACS is considering putting a relay station and rescue depot on the planet. However, Mestos provides the USA with a friendly port and geopolitical presence in the region.

(*One critic compared it to ‘mashed styrofoam’ )

Solar System(Vecar VIII)
Number of Stars: 1
Types of Stars: Yellow Dwarf
Number of Planets: 1
-Terrestrial(Mestos)

Planet(Mestos)
Type: Terrestrial
Diameter: 8,000 km
Gravity: Light; 0.4 g
Temperature: Cool; Siberia-like
Unusual/Special Features:
-Energy Field---Though Mestos lacks the sort of crustal activity that would pump heat through volcanism into the atmosphere, the planet seems to have an energy field that acts in much the same way, providing a ‘heat blanket’ keeping the planet from getting colder. USA scientists are trying to figure out if the field gets its energy from some sort of transfer with the planet’s core, or from interaction with Vecar VIII’s solar wind.
Atmosphere: Earth-like and Breathable
Terrain: Mostly swamp. Mestos has little in the way of plate tectonics to promote mountain building.
Notable Mineral Concentrations:
-Iron
-Tin
-Wolframite
-Antimony
-Gypsum
-Sulfur
-Calcite
-Graphite
At one time Mestos had several sizeable deposits of Kihvite, a sapphire-like crystalline material with applications in the manufacture of superconductors. Only a few traces of the mineral remain on Mestos after the big strikes were played out; a few Mestosians still laboriously seek to sift out and sell the remaining crystal to the occasional visiting merchant starship.

Hydrosphere: Wet; Mestos is 55% covered in shallow seas, though much of the open water is crusted over with ice most of the Mestosian year. During its short, but hot, rainy season, Mestos is prone to heavy rains.
Biosphere: Thin---Mestos has a thin ecosystem that is plant-based. Currently the most advanced animal lifeforms are a number of small aquatic inveterbrates, and there are fossil signs that the Mestosian ecology may have supported a greater variety of lifeforms in the past, but that they died out(the same asteroid impact that deposited kihvite crystals is suspected as the cause). Colonial activity may be causing a revival of interest in, and proliferation of, the local ecosystem, as several native plant species have been found to have commercially exploitable properties. The cutting back of some rampant native plants, bereft of their original animal controls, may also be rebalancing the Mestosian ecology.
Civilization:
Colonial
Population:
75,000
Technology:
Roughly equivalent to IndustrialAge at the time the Alliance came across them. The most treasured items of Mestosian technology were scavenged and still functional pieces of hardware left over from the mining boom like solar panels, batteries, and electric motors. Alliance investiture is slowly raising the local level with new agricultural gear being brought in and several medical clinics being established to better accommodate the locals.
Economy:
Was mining, but is moving into agriculture.
Wealth:
Impoverished ---Was barely getting by when the Alliance dropped in. The situation has improved slightly with the agricultural conversion starting to kick in and a reliable means of moving product to market, but the planet is still dependent on offworld assistance for anything more than basic subsistence.
Government:
Democracy. There was no central government at the time the Alliance arrived; only a number of small town councils who put up some resources to have somebody monitor the still functioning deep space radioes and navigational beacons. Since becoming an Alliance member, Mestos has started a much larger central council to apportion aide and handle offworld trade. A headman/governor nicknamed the ‘Spotsman’(as in’ the guy on the spot’) acts as spokebeing for the planet.
Law Level:
Moderate; law tends to be enforced by the village headsmen, and most generally agree on certain crimes in common requiring harsh penalties(like murder, or hoarding medicines, or tampering with the powerplants). There’s a lot of chicken-stealing level crimes, however, that are generally resolved through personal fisticuffs and vigilante justice.
Popularity:
Ambivalent; not everybody believes in the ‘great reawakening’ promised by foreign investment(they’ve heard it before), and thre’s a fair amount of betting on when the ‘offworld highpockets’ are going to get tired of trying to turn Mestos around and will pull out like Polytectoncorp did. There’s also a number of young people aren’t too keen on what seems to bigger farms coming in, rather than something more exciting.
Stability:
Stable; most of the locals have taken a wait-and-see attitude to see if the Spotaman got conned.


Tennison (Thundercloud Galaxy)

“We still don’t know where the aliens came from; they dropped out on us from the deep dark with litte warning. Thre was some speculation that they might have originated from one of the gas giants, because of some sensor returns that the orbitals detected before they got taken out, but we checked them out and found no signs of secret alien civilizations lurking out there. Hell, we don’t even know WHY they attacked. It’s all still a mystery, and we HATE mysteries.”

“Know what I really hate about these early-stage biome worlds? Lack of cover. No trees, hardly any shrubbery worth ducking behind, barely any natural camouflage you can hide under. Tennison was like that; unless you could find or dig a hole large enough for yourself, and pull it over you, the alien mechs would spot you and come pay you a visit. No wonder the smallkin militia were so effective during the invasion; those little guys could find cover just about -anywhere-. “

Tennison is a sparsely settled colony world that PS/GNE/ASI has been cooperatively managing with its USA allies and several other concerns, the planet having been discovered and initially claimed by the CCW, but the rights subsequently sold to a consortium of lesser polities that have agreed to develop the planet together. Ten different groups have claimed colonial steadholdings on the planet and are peacefully developing them, though each has small security forces for anti-piracy duties. Early soil tests showed that Tennison’s soil chemistry was well-suited for growing crops of offworld species, and several native plant species showed commercial potential, so agricultural was touted as a draw to colonize the planet.
Tennison’s main claim of note is that the planet recently came under attack by an unknown alien antagonist who jammed radio communications from orbit, then attempted to isolate and destroy the scattered settlements piecemeal. The largest military contingent on the planet was a GNE garrison who quickly re-established communications using Smallkin couriers, then managed to coordinate planetary defense while arranging for reinforcements to be Rifted in.
The alien force that attacked Tennison remains unidentified; they used drones and robots of a previously unidentified type to carry out their assault.

Note: The worlds of the Tenz-84 system were named for the six-man crew of the CCW scoutship that first entered the system. Unfortunately the ship was destroyed with all hands during an accident exploring one of the gas giants . Their colleagues on the accompanying CCW cruiser that was acting as their mothership named the system’s planets in their memory.

Solar System(Tenz-84)
Number of Stars: 2
Types of Stars:
Tenz-A---Yellow Dwarf
Tenz-B--Red Dwarf
Number of Planets: 9
- Terrestrial(Ember) ---A small, rocky, airless world constantly blasted from both sides by the solar flux from both Tenz suns, and by orbital passes perilously close to Aura.

- Exotic(Aura)--Aura is a band of plasma storms surrounding the two stars of the Tenz system. The exact mechanism sustaining and containing the plasma is unknown. Some have speculated that the Tenz system was once a trinary star, but one star failed to form properly, or was pulled apart and became the band of gases excited to plasma state by Tenz-A and Tenz-B’s solar output(though many astronomers think that the two stars don’t put anywhere near the amount of energy necessary to trigger normal gas compositions to such a state).

- Asteroid(Glint)----Glint is a Ceres-sized planetisimal with a high albedo, hence its name of Glint.

-Terrestrial(Ethan)----A small, cloud-shrouded world. It might make an attractive prospect for terraforming, what with its reducing atmosphere.

-Terrestrial(Tennison)---System lifeworld

- Gas Giant(Karlson)---A modest Neptune-sized gas giant that lacks moons. The USA was considering establishing a gas-mining station around it to provide fuel and other consumables for transiting starships, but the attempted invasion has caused a re-thinking of these plans until the colonial developers can consider a way of protecting the station from future incursions. For now, when the stations around Tennison need gas, a gas miner ship with armed escort is sent out from Tennison orbit to scoop up the required material.

-Gas Giant(Atghrew)---This gas giant earned the early distinction of claiming the lives of the entire crew of the scoutship CAFZ-1700 when they got caught in upper atmosphere turbulence and the ship was destroyed. Over a decade later, Atghrew came under scrutiny again when it was suspected that the alien attackers first appeared from somewhere near the gas giant. This has fueled all sorts of speculation that the planet may harbor a previously undetected alien civilization, or mask a wormhole/jumppoint, and that the CAFZ-1700’s destruction was not an accident as previously thought. However, intense probing and study has yet to turn up anything more than circumstancial evidence. Still, however, the United Systems Alliance has seeded Atghrew’s paltry moon system with surveillance platforms and, it is rumored, a mine field.

-Gas Giant(Kibland)----A large gas giant with an extensive moon system, Kibland was initially given little attention, but in the aftermath of the invasion, Kibland is considered to be possibly more attractive as a gas-mine site as its large moon system is more likely to attract and support mining operations, which, in turn, would justify a larger defense investment to protect both the mining colonies and gas-scooping station.

-Gas Giant(Voren)---Like Atghrew, Voren got exensively scanned and scouted after confusing sensor readings prior to/during the alien attack on Tennison indicated that part of the alien invasion force originated near it. Again, nothing substantial has been found to incriminate the gas giant as anything other than a cold, lifeless ball of gas.

Planet(Tennison)
Type:Terrestrial
Diameter: Large
Gravity: Low; 0.8 g
Temperature: Cool; average temperature rage is +45 degrees F to -30 degrees F
Unusual/Special Features:
-Craters---Tennison is pockmarked with some fairly extensive craters, averaging 2d4x10 miles in diameter. This suggests that at some time in the past, the planet was subjected to rather fierce meteor bombardment.
Atmosphere: Dense, but breathable
Terrain:
-Craters and Extensively Canyoned
Notable Mineral Concentrations:
- Magnesium
- Zinc
- Copper
- Mercury
- Thorium
- Ruby
- Sulfur
- Talc

Tennison’s topsoil is notable for being exceptional growing media, if watered, and exhibits great fertility.

Hydrosphere: Badlands---Tennison’s surface boasts few bodies of open water; a few small ponds and waterholes, and creeks at the bottom of the many canyons and ravines.
Fortunately, moisture can be condensed from the dense atmosphere; the colonists on Tennison have developed methods of anchoring high-altitude balloons that float in the thick clouds and capture moisture that is then dropped down hollow tethers to the ground.
Biosphere: Thin----Despite the tested fertility of the soil, Tennison’s native life is rather thin on the surface, having not evolved past lichens and mosses. Given access to enough water, however, the local plant life will take off with nearly explosive growth.
Several indigenous plants have shown commercial potential:
-Tannim Moss----A thick nutrient-rich moss that dries well into a stable form and is compatible with a number of physiologies.
-Agrain Spagna---A lichen that grows prolifically on rock slopes. It has been shown to be a rich source of anti-bacterial chemicals.
-Tema Vella---A thick lichen that forms peat-like layers. Though slower-growing than Tannim Moss, Tema Vella is just as nutritious and viable as a food crop.
Civilization:
Colonial, Settled
Population:
803,000
Technology:
Galactic
Economy:
Agricultural---Tennison’s economy relies on the cultivation of various genetically-tweaked crops that have proven to thrive in the dense atmosphere. Mining is a secondary industry.
Wealth:
Though still considered to be at the break-even point, early projections based on crop yields and quality of crops predict that Tennison could become Rich within several decades.
Government:
Tennison is run by a consortium of colonial developers who signed a joint development charter, some of the terms of which follow:
* Respect agreed-upon allotment borders
* Enclaves must be reasonably self-sufficient, or at least have their own supply chain for regular operations. Establishment of a joint pool of supplies/resources to be tapped in event of emergency.
* Expected to contribute to a joint planetary defense militia

-Greater New England----GNE has a dual agricultural and mining colony of several thousand colonists, but their biggest role on Tennison is selling equipment for colony development. After the alien invasion, they’re also emerging as the de facto planetary militia as well. Among the GNE colonists is a large contingent of Smallkin. While their settlements came under attack, and took heavy damage, the GNE enclaves were also among the more heavily armored and armed communities on Tennison, and were able to hold their own much better.

-Grevedos Faceton---A CCW-based mining company; they’ve established several mining camps. GF brought their own corporate security in the form of several squads of second-hand modified Groundpounder PA(supposedly listed as ‘mining exoskeletons’).

-Tucsor Botanical---CCW-based agricorp. They’ve established several scientfic plantations to test various plant species of commercial value. They lost one outpost in the alien attack, along with several of their onsite corporate security hovervehicles.

-Mersman Horticorp----Commercial rivals to Tucsor Botanical. They would have preferred to have a larger spread on-planet, or ideally the whole planet, but lacked the resources to acquire their own world, so they decided having a foothold on Tennison was better than nothing. They are, however, further along in their plans to cultivate profitably. They have a corporate secuity force consisting mainly of armed hovercars and some missile launchers around their main facilities, manned by ‘security consultants’(i.e. mercenaries).

- Gemmerson Xtra-Realty---Planetary development company. They’ve established a small ‘commune’ for ‘frontiersmen’, and markets lots aimed towards lower-class colonists. They’re banking on immigration subsidies being offered by the world government of their homeworld of Mazah to relieve overcrowding. However, it should be noted that the territories on Tennison are not Mazah’s only offworld colony, nor are they the most hospitable; Mazah has planted its flag on at least one, much more habitable, world which it has openned to settlement by its better-heeled citizens. Tennison offered a secondary or tertiary choice that Mazah could settle with a lower investment of resources, as much of the fieldwork was already being done by the other developers, and much of the startup costs shouldered by Mazah’s Alliance partners. Gemmerson’s already been criticized for asking for assistance providing equipment that should have been part and parcel of their minimum self-sufficiency under the colonial development charter.

- Church of Bodapes----Religious commune, seeking to establish a new enclave. They’ve already landed a couple of thousand settlers eager to build a ‘New Soles’, a religious sanctuary of sorts. They took some casualties during the invasion, but seem to have escaped the full attention of the aliens in favor of more important targets. The Bodapesians regard their losses as ‘a trial of faith’ and have worked around the damage done to their colony.

- Bedorn Biocentric---Pharmaceutical agricorp. Their holdings were not adjacent to either Tucsor or Mersman. Their isolated location worked against them, as their settlement was almost totally wiped out by alien strikes. Bedorn has been slow in recovering from the loss of several hundred researchers and settlers, and may give up operations and sell to one of the other concerns.

-SarPed---SarPed is a publically-owned corporate colony set up by Free Pinari, as a means of providing expatriates from their Golgan-dominated homeworld with refuge and sources of employment, as well as financing various anti-Golgan groups. SarPed is mainly interested in mining, but have taken a recent interest in Bedorn’s flagging fortunes. SarPed maintains a small but well-armed contingent of militia, mainly equiped with gear bought from GNE .

-Gumpac Medeseaed---One of the more interesting enclaves on Tennison is the colony established by the human Medeseaed government. They decided to give the embattled, embittered, and restless(and historically discriminated against) Gumpad ethnic minority their own offworld enclave to quell complaints that the Gumpad people were being left, by deliberate bias, out of the colonial stakes. The global government tossed them a bone by buying into a large spread on Tennison and allowing the Gumpad exclusive colonization rights. Unlike Mazah, the Medeseaed know that the agricultural prospects for the sort of crops they’re planting look VERY favorable, and that the Gumpad are being given a major boon, not a slum or ghetto allotment on a penal colony. If all goes right, the Gumpad will be making money hand over fist as farm-barons on Tennison selling cash crops very much in demand back home, their approval and newfound support of the Medeseaed countering conservative objections over handing an apple to a minority group, and all the other minority former opposition groups clamoring to be favored with the next extrasolar colonial plum.

- Coreshem Geolaandsward----The emergent world of Api is a minor member of the United Systems Alliance, but wanted to establish a place for themselves on other worlds. Their colonial allocation on Tennison represents their first offworld/extrasolar colony, and the joint development seemed like a safe bet for the Api effort. The Api contingent took the part about ‘contributing to a joint planetary defense militia’ seriously and sent a contingent of its own military along.

Law Level:
Lawful----There’s too much to do for and too few people for crime to really be an issue. Each colonial enclave handles its own law enforcement according to its established native law and tradition. Issues between enclaves are decided, under Alliance treaty, by a council of members, in which case incidents may be remanded to the appropriate jurisdiction.

Popularity:
Again, popularity is not really an issue, what with the various colonial enclaves just starting out and the settlers being volunteers. There have been some settlers who have decided to pull out after the alien attacks, but there have been enough incoming to balance the loss.

Stability:
Turmoil. The recent alien attacks have been cause for concern for the participants in Tennison’s development. While most of the members of the colonization consortium have cautiously decided to stick with the effort, but ramp up their defense efforts, there have been a few members, like Bedorn Biocentric, who are considering pulling out.
Last edited by taalismn on Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

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Speaking of Mestos, comparing its gravity and what we do know of Earth's core supposed composition, i did some quick checks & calculations, based on which i would guesstimate that its nucleus might be mostly a Scandium-Titanium-Vanadium mix in place of Earth's mostly iron-nickel one. Not that other materials could not be found on either core or surface, but i guess native veins of ore would be anywhere between Cooper to Uranium's availability on Earth, while the trio of elements i mentioned should be considerbly more accessible in Mestos.

What might that mean or be useful for, no idea yet, now it's up to any other armchair enterpreneurs or planetelogists to play with that ball. :D

The pirates in the area sound not very smart as, while an awful target due to its utter backwardness, the same things makes it promising as a potential hideout and pirate port, imho.
The bunch of tunnels excavated by the original mining operation on the planet even contributes for that also.

IF it had decent PPE sources - debatable, i admit, considering the absence of other celestial bodies and possible past cosmic disaster - the planet might be even more valuable for magic-wielding people wanting to do their own thing away from prying eyes and ears. And now i'm thinking of some esoteric society coming to Mestos, spreading rats or some other vermin that would be quite ok with the Moho fruits for food and boom with their abundance, only to do their mass extermination when the population reaches on billions or more, to boost the planet's ley lines to a level more desirable for them. :twisted:
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:Speaking of Mestos, comparing its gravity and what we do know of Earth's core supposed composition, i did some quick checks & calculations, based on which i would guesstimate that its nucleus might be mostly a Scandium-Titanium-Vanadium mix in place of Earth's mostly iron-nickel one. Not that other materials could not be found on either core or surface, but i guess native veins of ore would be anywhere between Cooper to Uranium's availability on Earth, while the trio of elements i mentioned should be considerbly more accessible in Mestos.

What might that mean or be useful for, no idea yet, now it's up to any other armchair enterpreneurs or planetelogists to play with that ball. :D

The pirates in the area sound not very smart as, while an awful target due to its utter backwardness, the same things makes it promising as a potential hideout and pirate port, imho.
The bunch of tunnels excavated by the original mining operation on the planet even contributes for that also.

IF it had decent PPE sources - debatable, i admit, considering the absence of other celestial bodies and possible past cosmic disaster - the planet might be even more valuable for magic-wielding people wanting to do their own thing away from prying eyes and ears. And now i'm thinking of some esoteric society coming to Mestos, spreading rats or some other vermin that would be quite ok with the Moho fruits for food and boom with their abundance, only to do their mass extermination when the population reaches on billions or more, to boost the planet's ley lines to a level more desirable for them. :twisted:



THANK YOU for those observations! :ok:
You just turned sleepy backwater Mestos into a potential security headache...especially if anybody DOES discover minerals or other reasons to set up an aggressive presence there, forcing the local Alliance sector military commander to belatedly facepalm with a "who have THOUGHT we should have posted a larger presence out there!?"


But yeah, my only defenses are a) for the series of worlds belonging to the USA, I've been using the random roll charts in 'Anvil Galaxy' with a mineralogy table cribbed from an old 'Well World' RPG...then tweaked as necessary so I don't have 99% lifeless uninhabitable worlds, while also presenting myself with a challenge to see what I can do with what I get.

Also, b) as mentioned, the USA is a bit resource-strapped on average because many of its worlds are lower-end(with a few wealthy members, as we shall see in future posts), hoping to leverage up into better economies. Extensive re-surveying and resource-assessment is part of the plan.

And yes, piracy is a BIG concern in the Alliance worlds, especially those worlds that are above the 'chicken-stealing level' to use a term from H.Beam Piper's Space Viking.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:Speaking of Mestos, comparing its gravity and what we do know of Earth's core supposed composition, i did some quick checks & calculations, based on which i would guesstimate that its nucleus might be mostly a Scandium-Titanium-Vanadium mix in place of Earth's mostly iron-nickel one. Not that other materials could not be found on either core or surface, but i guess native veins of ore would be anywhere between Cooper to Uranium's availability on Earth, while the trio of elements i mentioned should be considerbly more accessible in Mestos.

What might that mean or be useful for, no idea yet, now it's up to any other armchair enterpreneurs or planetelogists to play with that ball. :D

The pirates in the area sound not very smart as, while an awful target due to its utter backwardness, the same things makes it promising as a potential hideout and pirate port, imho.
The bunch of tunnels excavated by the original mining operation on the planet even contributes for that also.

IF it had decent PPE sources - debatable, i admit, considering the absence of other celestial bodies and possible past cosmic disaster - the planet might be even more valuable for magic-wielding people wanting to do their own thing away from prying eyes and ears. And now i'm thinking of some esoteric society coming to Mestos, spreading rats or some other vermin that would be quite ok with the Moho fruits for food and boom with their abundance, only to do their mass extermination when the population reaches on billions or more, to boost the planet's ley lines to a level more desirable for them. :twisted:



THANK YOU for those observations! :ok:
You just turned sleepy backwater Mestos into a potential security headache...especially if anybody DOES discover minerals or other reasons to set up an aggressive presence there, forcing the local Alliance sector military commander to belatedly facepalm with a "who have THOUGHT we should have posted a larger presence out there!?"


But yeah, my only defenses are a) for the series of worlds belonging to the USA, I've been using the random roll charts in 'Anvil Galaxy' with a mineralogy table cribbed from an old 'Well World' RPG...then tweaked as necessary so I don't have 99% lifeless uninhabitable worlds, while also presenting myself with a challenge to see what I can do with what I get.

Also, b) as mentioned, the USA is a bit resource-strapped on average because many of its worlds are lower-end(with a few wealthy members, as we shall see in future posts), hoping to leverage up into better economies. Extensive re-surveying and resource-assessment is part of the plan.


Well, the USA definitely have an issue with quite limited human and military resources in relation to ammount of territory - non-contiguous to further complicate things - they have to cover, map, patrol and study. Potential resources are great but getting a clear idea of what you actually have, where and how to get the better use of it takes investment, both monetary and logistics. So their focusing mainly on what is just in front of their noses is comprehensible, they have much catching up to do before they can effectively get the most out of their stuff.

That said, is there any member state of theirs with a overpopulation or refugee crisis that could provide a lot of people that would appreciate a more spacious and sedate enviroment - and maybe do the re-surveying and resource-assessment for them? :wink:

taalismn wrote:And yes, piracy is a BIG concern in the Alliance worlds, especially those worlds that are above the 'chicken-stealing level' to use a term from H.Beam Piper's Space Viking.


Well, as i said previously, the pirates are the ones who might be underestimating the place. That said, i've lately thought of two reasons they might not see such an opportunity in Mestos:

- Mestos is a sleepy place in a mostly sleepy corner of space. While it's neighbors might be more developed, none of them are exactly prize targets either. A good harbor is of little value for raiders with no major trade routes to strike at nearby.

- One (or more) big well-established port-of-call already exists in the area, possibly one in a more developed world, hiding in plain sight through the magic wonders of bribing, corruption and graft. No need to look for a place to shape up when you are ensonced a comfy niche of your own already. At least until the vagaries gang/crew rivalries, meddling law-enforcing authorities and such get in the way, leaving a group of bilge rats in need of a new hidey-hole to nurse their wounds. :twisted:

And on a little aside of possible interest in relation to local weather and flora, i came across this.
Last edited by SolCannibal on Tue Jul 21, 2020 5:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

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That's why I like the idea of contra-gravity FTL being affected by mass concentrations in space, and there being 'lanes' and regions of space where the drives go faster or slower depending on gravity along the way.
Worlds in mass-dense regions become favored by species using certain forms of STL drives because, the dangers of relativistic particles ablating your ship aside, there's FUEL you can harvest on the way.
Later, once they get CG-drives, stellar polities start looking for out of the way systems in 'clear' zones as prime property because they make good stopover places on those long jumps, and as aid stations for those CG-FTL vessels that drop out in the middle of nowhere far FAR from the usual colonization zones.


SolCannibal wrote:[
That said, is there any member state of theirs with a overpopulation or refugee crisis that could provide a lot of people that would appreciate a more spacious and sedate enviroment - and maybe do the re-surveying and resource-assessment for them? :wink:

And on a little aside of possible interest in relation to local weather and flora, i came across this.




There are....There's Harrisar, which has been named, which is a world approaching T'zee-like 'Soylent Green' levels of overpopulation and environmental degradation....they contribute a lot of soldiers and unskilled albor willing to work for a stake on new worlds. There's quite a few 'shatterworlds'...failed colonies and alternate dimension worlds that have suffered disaster('Hopeland over under the Paladin Steel thread is a world settled by refugees from the Southern Hemisphere of a nuked Alt.Earth).
I'll be detailing a few of the shatter-worlds and some more refuge-worlds in the near future.

Oh, and the arctic plants? Beautiful.....good basis for some of those cold worlds' ecologies. Especially if they're the result of earlier attempts at terraforming or the survivors of climate change.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:That's why I like the idea of contra-gravity FTL being affected by mass concentrations in space, and there being 'lanes' and regions of space where the drives go faster or slower depending on gravity along the way.
Worlds in mass-dense regions become favored by species using certain forms of STL drives because, the dangers of relativistic particles ablating your ship aside, there's FUEL you can harvest on the way.
Later, once they get CG-drives, stellar polities start looking for out of the way systems in 'clear' zones as prime property because they make good stopover places on those long jumps, and as aid stations for those CG-FTL vessels that drop out in the middle of nowhere far FAR from the usual colonization zones.


Now that's something to tinker with if i ever take some time to mess with "space travel logistics" in the 3 Galaxies or somesuch.

Little aside, what powers are involved with the "Great Colonization Game" in Thundercloud beside the CCW and TGE? It has been some time since i last checked that book.

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:That said, is there any member state of theirs with a overpopulation or refugee crisis that could provide a lot of people that would appreciate a more spacious and sedate enviroment - and maybe do the re-surveying and resource-assessment for them? :wink:

And on a little aside of possible interest in relation to local weather and flora, i came across this.




There are....There's Harrisar, which has been named, which is a world approaching T'zee-like 'Soylent Green' levels of overpopulation and environmental degradation....they contribute a lot of soldiers and unskilled albor willing to work for a stake on new worlds. There's quite a few 'shatterworlds'...failed colonies and alternate dimension worlds that have suffered disaster('Hopeland over under the Paladin Steel thread is a world settled by refugees from the Southern Hemisphere of a nuked Alt.Earth).
I'll be detailing a few of the shatter-worlds and some more refuge-worlds in the near future.


It has crossed my mind that Mestos might make a somewhat ok 2nd home for natives from "Shute-1", the post-nuclear war alt Earth whose population the GNE-people have been relocating to Agasar IX. That said, going from a hot desert heavy gravity planet to a semi-arctic low gravity one might not be the wisest of the steps. Sending people that haven't spent much time "adapting" to Agasar IX might be advisable if the someone in brass decides to try that out.

People from that Earth's equivalent of Canada, Alaska, nordic countries & Soviet Union/Russian Federation might be the most suited to the planet - and in fact their personal familiarity with similar enviroments could make them better at exploring/occupying Mestos than anyone beside the native mestosians. People from massive crossnational mountain systems like the Andes or Himalayas might have an easier time there than many other populations.

Except for the gravity difference, for most of them it might be almost like relocating to another of their homelands. Damn, just timing things to send people from those regions straight to Mestos through rifts could still be something of a logistical nightmare, but a far less resource-intensive way of dealing with at least one considerable chunk of that planet's population than what they currently have at Agasar IX.

That said, even if they do manage to make it happen with almost no hitch, it will mean Mestos getting a population boom in the tens to hundreds of millions of people, with about a half-dozen to a dozen different languages of varying familiarity to the coordinators of the relief effort between them. Things would be crazy.

taalismn wrote:Oh, and the arctic plants? Beautiful.....good basis for some of those cold worlds' ecologies. Especially if they're the result of earlier attempts at terraforming or the survivors of climate change.


Or a mix of both things in Mestos case, though the Moho-fruit i'm guessing is more probably the second type.

Found some more stuff related to the subject here and here. As an aside, it has crossed my mind if the main problem of the Moho fruit might not be just the lack of an experienced & creative enough cook to find the right way to prepare. Cassava can be toxic depending on type and yet we on Earth found ways around it successful enough to make it into a popular source of food. A few million extra hungry mouths might certainly help with finding that kind of missing inspiration for local culinary. :wink:

It also crossed my mind that the local seas and their untapped & unknown reserves of sea life, algae & plankton might also be of major help with commercial products or more immediate food sources to deal with a hypothetic mass of subartic refugees from "Shute-1".
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

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SolCannibal, you aiming' to be the new Chief Economic Redevelopment Officer for Mestos? :D
Because you may have just turned the planet's fortunes around.

Now I gotta make descriptions for a reliable and reproducible artificial Rift Gate that the GNE can tote around and set up linkages.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:SolCannibal, you aiming' to be the new Chief Economic Redevelopment Officer for Mestos? :D
Because you may have just turned the planet's fortunes around.


Mestos has an Economic Redevelopment Office?! The USA is already more interested in the planet than people give it credit for!! :lol:

taalismn wrote:Now I gotta make descriptions for a reliable and reproducible artificial Rift Gate that the GNE can tote around and set up linkages.


Portable pyramids or Millenium trees shrubs that grow super-quick upon finding a free nexus to occupy?
What kind of styles of magic are the NGE, USA & associates familiar with?
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:
taalismn wrote:SolCannibal, you aiming' to be the new Chief Economic Redevelopment Officer for Mestos? :D
Because you may have just turned the planet's fortunes around.


Mestos has an Economic Redevelopment Office?! The USA is already more interested in the planet than people give it credit for!! :lol:


They'd have to establish such an oversight office if they're investing. If the planet didn't have a Chamber of Commerce before, it does now.
Even in the cases where they're doling out welfare to refugee worlds/settlements and protectorates, there's an effort to get a return on the investment of resources by seeing how best a world/people can be worked into the greater Alliance economy and infrastructure. Will the people work on farms or in factories? Can we build space stations to refuel transports? Can we base warships/security forces or communications relays on or over the planet?
It's not just 'what can we get out of it in the long run?', but also if people are working productively, that's less time spent worrying. It helps downtrodden folks establish a sense of purpose, of working towards their future, and not being abject beggars at the whim of others' pity-charity.
Last edited by taalismn on Wed Feb 12, 2020 1:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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SolCannibal
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:
taalismn wrote:SolCannibal, you aiming' to be the new Chief Economic Redevelopment Officer for Mestos? :D
Because you may have just turned the planet's fortunes around.


Mestos has an Economic Redevelopment Office?! The USA is already more interested in the planet than people give it credit for!! :lol:


They'd have to establish such an oversight office if they're investing. If the planet didn't have a Chamber of Commerce before, it does now.
Even in the cases where they're doling out welfare to refugee worlds/settlements and protectorates, there's an effort to get a return on the investment of resources by seeing how best a world/people can be worked into the greater Alliance economy and infrastructure. Will the people work on farms or in factories? Can we build space stations to refuel transports? Can we base warships/security forces or communications relays on or over the planet?
It's not just 'what can we get out of it in the long run?', but also if people are working productively, that's less time spent worrying. It helps downtrodden folks establish a sense of purpose, of working towards their future, and not being abject beggars at the him of others' pity-charity.


Now that some quite sensible enlightened self-interest in governance.

Wait, wait, wait, big issue just crossed my mind: what was the tech level on "Shute-1", when the superpowers nuked each other? It could be anywhere from "late 1940s just out of our WW2 equivalent" to "late 2090 at the cusp of a Chaos Earth mess" and much in between (Heroes Unlimited or Splicers?).

Kind of a big issue as one works in adapting milllions of refugees to a backward corner of FTL society....
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

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SolCannibal wrote:Now that some quite sensible enlightened self-interest in governance.
Wait, wait, wait, big issue just crossed my mind: what was the tech level on "Shute-1", when the superpowers nuked each other? It could be anywhere from "late 1940s just out of our WW2 equivalent" to "late 2090 at the cusp of a Chaos Earth mess" and much in between (Heroes Unlimited or Splicers?).

Kind of a big issue as one works in adapting milllions of refugees to a backward corner of FTL society....



Yeah, Greater New England may be a corporate state, but it's also a 'green' socialist state. The Company takes care of its workers and finds jobs for everybody it can, uses and reuses resources, and uses advanced technology to extend the working lifespan and versatility of its workforce. It's not always perfect, but out of the all the odds of failed states, it works. That philosophy has bled over into the handling of the United System Alliance's handling of hardluck cases. Even the diehard raw capitalist members of the Alliance appreciate that work ethic and how surrounding themselves with happy productive neighbors with spending money, rather than hungry desperate choke-worlds that are breeding grounds for piracy and revolution, works in their favor.

As for the refugee situation?
Late 1940s/early 50s, nuclear navy. The name alone tells you how much I hated 'On the Beach'.

But I imagine if you're seeing only a few aspects of the FTL society, and you're barely out of the pulp sci-fi era and believing in flying saucers, our displaced Earthfolk might adapt surprisingly well, especially if they're determined to hang on to the better parts of their culture.
It's the WORSE parts of their culture that will take a beating.
Then again, colonies tend to limited in many aspects of the more corrupting influences of modern society. There's no galactic internet, for instance, and the authorities(both Alliance oversight and their opposite numbers among he refugees) are going to be looking out for anybody from outside trying to sneak in addictive materials.
But yeah, unless the new colonists make a deliberate effort to restrict themselves to specific levels of technology, their kids are going to probably wind up leaving the farms and taking up careers as starship crew or FTLcommtechs in a couple of generations.
Still, that's better than being irradiated dead meat on a dead world.....
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:As for the refugee situation?
Late 1940s/early 50s, nuclear navy. The name alone tells you how much I hated 'On the Beach'.

But I imagine if you're seeing only a few aspects of the FTL society, and you're barely out of the pulp sci-fi era and believing in flying saucers, our displaced Earthfolk might adapt surprisingly well, especially if they're determined to hang on to the better parts of their culture.
It's the WORSE parts of their culture that will take a beating.
Then again, colonies tend to limited in many aspects of the more corrupting influences of modern society. There's no galactic internet, for instance, and the authorities (both Alliance oversight and their opposite numbers among he refugees) are going to be looking out for anybody from outside trying to sneak in addictive materials.
But yeah, unless the new colonists make a deliberate effort to restrict themselves to specific levels of technology, their kids are going to probably wind up leaving the farms and taking up careers as starship crew or FTLcommtechs in a couple of generations.
Still, that's better than being irradiated dead meat on a dead world.....


Truth be told, i was thinking more on terms of how much catching up those people - or their children - will have to do before they can serve their benefactors as anything beyond cheap labor/muscle.

As "atomic powers" go, late 40s/early 50s puts them kind of in the low end of the spectrum. Not ideal, but still serviceable and they might be bringing more numbers than anyone beside the Harrissans (depending on how lucky or not they were with the whole "mass death causing rifts, that send the fallout to other dimensions, somewhat diminishing the enviromental hazards" equation).

Anyway, it's a fact Mestos might end up with quite the population boom if the NGE manages to set up some mass rifting operation between it and "Shute-1" (with or without Agasar IX as waypoint of sorts).
Last edited by SolCannibal on Tue Jul 21, 2020 5:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:
taalismn wrote:
Truth be told, I was thinking more on terms of how much catching up those people - or their children - will have to do before they can serve their benefactors as anything beyond cheap labor/muscle.


Well, fortunately in the Three Galaxies there doesn't seem to be any sort of widespread 'Prime Directive' slapped down....The GNE/PS/ASI prides themselves on their vocational educational system, especially with regards to technical professions. Though they may not have access to the cutting edge tech of the TGE/CCW core worlds, they teach practical workable reliable technologies and methodologies .
Plus there's the bioborg/slave rehab/social acclimation programs.
It's adhoc 'McGuyver' and 'Extreme Makeover', but it works(we think).

Now, if Mestos ever turns out to be a mineral motherlode, or turns into a hyper productive garden-spot, Polytectoncorp might try to horn back in, claiming that they still have a stake on Mestos(they don't; they haven't done anything there for over a decade, but the law tends to be a little fuzzy on planetary leaseholds)...and anything involving lawyers can get ugly-annoying real fast ....
Last edited by taalismn on Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:
taalismn wrote:
Truth be told, I was thinking more on terms of how much catching up those people - or their children - will have to do before they can serve their benefactors as anything beyond cheap labor/muscle.


Well, fortunately in the Three Galaxies there doesn't seem to be any sort of widespread 'Prime Directive' slapped down....The GNE/PS/ASI prides themselves on their vocational educational system, especially with regards to technical professions. Though they may not have access to the cutting edge tech of the THE/CCW core worlds, they teach practical workable reliable technologies and methodologies .
Plus there's the bioborg/slave rehab/social acclimation programs.
It's adhoc 'McGuyver' and 'Extreme Makeover', but it works(we think).


I understand - and considering they are basically a state from Rifts Earth that found a way to make the jump to interestellar exploration in the 3 Galaxies, it stands to reason that "uplift programs" and making partnerships with people on lower rungs of the technology pyramid would figure proeminently in their administrative policies.

That said, depending on the numbers of survivors they manage to relocate to Mestos it could become a considerable finances sink for the USA, though definitely not the biggest one. Overall, there's a lot of factors to check on and many ways it could play out, and for Mestos to grow much & quickly in the USA's priority list. It beggars the question of how will the natives react to being swamped in such a wave of immigrants.

Little aside - i think the Conversion Book mentioned in passing the Yeti from himalayan foklore actually being Rahu-man living in the area. Would that also occur in other alternate Earths or be unique to the Himalayas of BtS/Rifts? They could be an extra factor in the arrangement of things.

And now i'm thinking that if they have been on BtS/Rifts for so long, there could be a centuries old Rahu-men empire on Rifts Earth occupying a chunk of the Himalayas (they expanded, both for themselves and the Chaos Earth survivors sake) and curtailing the expansion of the Yama Kings in China. I love when completely new ideas spontaneouly buds from a previous one, even more when they are homebrew kingdoms to insert in Rifts Earth (that might or not have alternates in other Earths).

taalismn wrote:Now, if Mestos ever turns out to be a mineral motherlode, or turns into a hyper productive garden-spot, Polytectoncorp might try to horn back in, claiming that they still have a stake on Mestos(they don't; they haven't done anything there for over a decade, but the law tends to be a little fuzzy on planetary leaseholds)...and anything involving lawyers can get ugly-annoying real fast ....


That is an interesting potential complication indeed, though considering they abandoned the system in the first place - instead of leaving a horde of drones, to keep mineralogy surveys going just in case, while they invested in places of more immediate relevance to their interests - suggests the opposite. My guess is that some local factors, like being an out of the way system with not many waypoints close by, complications in the extraction of the trio of elements i cited (all quite reactive and cost-intensive to purify or alloy individually on their own) among others made keeping the balance sheets out of red more costly then they cared to.

Now if some bigger business shark like, for a bit of a cliche, Naruni Enterprises or the Hartigan Combine, acquired their claims on Mestos and other places through a merger.... well, that's a whole different bag of cats for sure. :wink:
Last edited by SolCannibal on Tue Jul 21, 2020 4:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

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Next Entries on Worlds of the United Systems Alliance: Capsule Summaries:

Kellest(United Systems Alliance member)(Anvil Galaxy)
“Most folk see the colors in a Kellestan and think of them as scars of a horrible time carved in the bodies of a pitiable people. The Kellestians see their colors as a badge of honor; the universe tried to kill them and -failed-.”

Kellest is a former Human Alliance colony that was effectively abandoned by the HA and the Cosortium of Civilized Worlds when a plague, possibly of alien origin(though some blame a mutation of a terraforming organism), swept the planet. The agrarian Kellestans had little ability to combat the pandemic, and tne planet was far enough away from the coreworlds of civilization that help was not soon coming from offworld. The Human Alliance decided to write off Kellest and diverted interstellar shipping away from the system, a decision helped by the fact that the original Kellestan colonists had left their homeworld in protest of governmental policies they found intolerable.
Kellest was quarantined from the rest of the galaxy for nearly a century, until more recent humanitarian efforts were made to study the plague, and the planet and its surviving inhabitants finally declared noncontagious. The planet’s population made a fast rebound after the plague had burnt out. Still, however, Kellest suffered from the reputation of being a ‘plague world’ and few outsiders showed any interest in interacting with the Kellestians, especially when it became evident that the plague had permanently marked the population. The exceptions were a number of rather brave free traders and the United Systems Alliance.
Because the United Systems Alliance has been the only galactic polity that has opened trade with recovering Kellest, the Kellestians have been grateful to the USA, and as soon as they were able, applied for full membership. They have been making a rapid recovery to becoming a starfaring people since.
Kellest is a military contributor to the USA’s joint armed services, though much of their most modern equipment comes from PS/ASI and WZT sources. A growing number of recruits to the aerospace forces come from Kellest, and their defense force ships are easily distinguished by the colorful patterns covering their hulls, in imitation of the Kellestians’ skin patterns.
Unbeknownst to the Kellestians, because of their past brush with plague and current appearance, they have been put on a hit list of species and cultures to be destroyed on sight by the germophobic Hemites.

Note: Kellestians are distinguishable from other humans by their ‘gasoline glow’ skins-their skin has an oily sheen appearance, with flowing mottled patterns of vivid blue and orange. These patterns are as distinct to each individual as fingerprints. Kellestians also have an increased resistance to disease(+3 save vs disease).

Solar System(Sarhest)
Number of Stars: 1
Types of Stars: Blue Dwarf
Number of Planets: 6
-Gas Giant(Lensa)----Lensa possesses five sizable moons, many of which have an atypical tilted polar orbital path, almost as if they were all knocked askew relative to Lensa’s orientation. Lensa’s largest moon, Kellest, is Mars-sized and habitable. Premen, another moon, is home to a former Human Alliance SpaceForce base that has since been taken over and expanded into the Kellestian Space Guard Training Academy.

-Terrestrial(Boli)--An enormous rocky world shrouded in a tainted methane atmosphere. Boli’s intense gravity has discouraged surface exploration, though the Kellestians have set up an outpost on one of its three moons.

-Gas Giant(Mevian)---A small gas giant, Mevian has two large moons, Pevan and Corses, both of which have icy crusts, and subcrustal liquid oceans. Signs of organic molecules in deep ice cores taken on Pevan have led to a moratorium on deep subcrustal drilling being declared until the Kellestan science bureau can safely determine that they wouldn’t be contaminating a pristine ecosystem(for obvious reasons they’re leery of alien contamination). Corses, on the other hand, has been found to be lifeless, and commercial drilling for water has begin on a limited scale.

-Terrestrial(Rokar)---Mars-sized, but a LOT colder, Rokar is being developed as a splinter colony world of Kellest. Mining is the main focus of the colony, but a strong industrial presence is developing.

-Gas Giant(Schien)--- Another small gas giant, Schien plays host to a thin ring system.

-Terrestrial(Eker)---- A MASSIVE, but cold, rocky outer world, Eker exhibits signs of a classic molten core heating a liquid ocean under its deep covering of ice. Surface sampling of the ice and associated geyser activity, though, has shown, as yet, no signs of life. Eker has thus been tentatively cleared for more extensive and invasive exploration, with a eye towards eventual exploitation, but the planet’s heavy gravity field( 5.0 g) make future colonization difficult without gravity shielding.


Planet(Kellest)
Kellest is actually a Mars-sized moon of Sarhest’s innermost gas giant, Lensa.
Type: Terrestrial
Diameter: 9,000 km
Gravity: 0.9 g
Temperature: Temperate
Unusual/Special Features:
*Odd Orbit; Kellest actually makes a a polar orbit around Lensa, and travels almost perpendicular to Lensa’s orbital plane. This allows Kellest to enjoy full exposure to Sarhest’s solar warmth.
Atmosphere: Thin, but breathable
Terrain: 2, Kellest’s terraforming has sculpted the landscape into upwelling highlands and large coastal plains.
Notable Mineral Concentrations:
- Colombite
- Scheelite
- Molybdenite
- Wolframite
- Samarskite
- Emerald
- Calcite
- Diamond
Hydrosphere: Soaking Wet---75% of Kellest is covered in open water.
Biosphere: Thin----There’s not a great lot of variety or diversity in the Kellestian environment that can’t be traced to deliberate terraforming-related genetic engineering. The seas have been seeded with a variety of plants and animals, and the land similarly planted with staged ecosystem levels.
One theory currently being bandied about is that Kellest DID have some native life, albeit at the microbial level, and this interacted disasterously with some of the terraforming bacteria to produce the Kellestan Plague(aka ‘Kellest’s Revenge’). This has been hard to prove since apparently the terraforming utterly eliminated any pre-eixisting native Kellestian biome(or so everybody hopes).
Civilization:
Settled---Kellest is approaching a breakout phase, where more and more offworld settlements are originating from Kellest.
Population:
3.7 billion, many on offshore manmade islands, but a growing number live in new space colonies.
Technology:
Galactic, but are one or two tech-generations behind powers like the Central Alliance.
The Kellestan military ‘inherited’ two Corister-class corvettes and a Stonewall-class cruiser once used to enforce the quarantine of their world. These ships were left behind when the Human Alliance withdrew its formal presence in the system. These ships have since been supplemented with a number of patrolcraft and light warships acquired from WZT through the USA.
Economy:
Agriculture/Aquaculture; Kellest is mainly devoted to raising and harvesting aquatic plants and animals in large aquafarms. Offworld industry, however, is catching up and set to surpass agriculture as the main moneymaker for Kellest, though their goods still have some public relations problems(they’re using the USA trade network to avoid any negative associations the market might have equating Kellest with the ancient plague).
Wealth:
Average; Kellest is currently breaking even, but trade with the other United Systems Alliance worlds is causing an upward trend and Kellestian economists are predicting good times ahead.
Government:
Democracy---Surprisingly, the martial law council that ruled over Kellest during the plague decades gracefully stepped aside when the plague emergency subsided, and people began thinking about civil government again.
Law Level:
Lawful---Kellest has a strong global legal code in place.
Popularity:
Fanatical----Optimism on Kellest is at an all-time high with the growing economic numbers and a number of successful and much-publicized actions by the Kellestian Space Guard against pirates in the sector.
Stability:
Long-Standing; Kellestans realize that things could have gone FAR worse for them, both in terms of the effects of the plague and in the effects on their society, but the government has brought them through thick and thin, and now into a time of dawning prosperity.


Tenlen(United Systems Alliance Protectorate)(Anvil Galaxy)
“When they made contact with galactic society, the Tenlen were prepared to give up their world and their society and cheerfully assimilate into any culture that would take them in. That’s how rotten things had gone for them.”

“’If Tenlen’s so badly in need of help, why are you restricting access?’ We hear that a lot. It’s simple; Tenlen’s ecoystem is borderline right now; any casual introduction of extraterrestrial biota might be enough to send it into a death spiral. The kicker’s the political situation, though. They still got doomsday cults trying to bomb space launch and eco-remediation tech facilities. Tenlen is, was, may still be early gal-tech, so they have technology that can potentially damage Galactic ships...consider it to be an unsecured Class 3 warzone with bioweaponry and nukes. And nobody wants the terrorists to gain access to nanites or antimatter or any vessel they can turn into a relativistic missile. So follow the beacons in-system, check in at Vigard Station, and have your paperwork in order if you want to trade. Otherwise, stay away from Sowlis until the situation’s been stabilized and you won’t get in the way of the planet-workers.”

“Tenlen’s not quite dead, but it’s going to need some infusions of TLC to restore it.”

“We had several bombing attacks on the spaceport and the field temperature regulation works; more of the damned ‘green avengers’. It’s hard to be sympathetic towards fanatics who are trying to nullify efforts to repair their world. Well, we got green avengers too; those ecoterrorists are learning that our military’s more than willing and able to kick their teeth down their throats.”

Tenlen is a Human-settled world that at one time was quite habitable, but centuries of ecological mismanagement, resource depletion, and bitter civil war, have reduced a once beautiful world to a biological wasteland, imploded global civilization, and reduced a once thriving world population of several billion to a mere few million, barely able to maintain what remains of their technological civilization.
Tenlen joined the United Systems Alliance out of pure desperation, hoping to gain access to advanced technologies to save their planet, or, at the very least secure escape for the survivors.
While the USA can’t devote the full weight of resources they would like to the restoration of Tenlen, they have enlisted what terraforming experts they can to start amelioration efforts. Shattertechs have arrived to take on the challenge of healing the planet. While the Tenlenians express hope that the galactic technology can save their planet, they are still looking towards extrasolar colonies as a fallback for preserving their people.
Work on Tenlen is hampered by several small, but fanatical, factions of Tenlenites who feel that either they should eschew all technology and attempt to live as simply as possible, or else that it is the will of the divine that the Tenlen branch of Humanity die with their world. These groups have helped accelerate the deterioration of the Tenlen ecology through terrorist actions, as well as damaged or destroyed local efforts to repair the ecology or escape offworld. With the revelation of galactic humans and others, and the arrival of high tech starfarers to Tenlen, some of these groups have turned their aggression on the outsiders.
Another problem is that Tenlen has been discovered by other outsiders. Though the planet may be damaged, Tenlen still possesses resources that make the world a tempting target for planet-pirates. Despite a security perimeter being established around Tenlen, several have already reached the planet’s surface, the pirates raiding abandoned cities or the few still functioning factories or farms, and have made off with gene stocks, refined materials, or, more ominously, samples of the bio-weapons used in the Tenlens’ wars.
The Sowlis system has been registered by the United Systems Alliance as a Restricted System(Class 4). Though travel is allowed through the other worlds of the system, access to the system’s lifeworld(Tenlen) is restricted without the permission of both USA and Tenlen officials.

Solar System(Sowlis)
Number of Stars: 1
Types of Stars: Blue Dwarf
Number of Planets: 5
-Asteroid/Dwarf Planet(Stwega)----Slightly larger than Ceres, rocky and dry Stwega is only of interest to scientists. Currently plays host to an automated solar observatory and solar flare alert station.

-Terrestrial(Telen)----System Lifeworld

-Gas Giant(Harod)--- The Tenlenians had hopes of established offworld colonies on the moons of Harod, but several efforts to establish beachhead presences failed due to sabotage, and the effort was suspended in favor of the slowboat scheme to escape the solar system entirely. The Tenlenians have since, with Galactic assistance, revisited their plans and now have a small colony outpost. Access to the base is restricted though, due to ongoing security concerns.

-Gas Giant(Vigard)---The USA has established a small naval base on one of the moons of Vigard. Non-USA Galactic contact with Tenlen is staged through a commercial space station adjacent to the base; Galactic ships coming into the system to do business(or hoping to do so) MUST report to this facility before being permitted to approach Tenlen proper. Tenlenian access to this facility is -severely- restricted. A taskforce of four frigates and two light fighter-carriers enforce this.

-Gas Giant(Lohis)---Cold Lohis and its small moon system has little to offer the desparate Tenlenians, though the USA has established several small research facilities and a communications relay station in its orbit. There has been some thought of using Lohis as a staging area for ort cloud ice mining operations if a more extensive operation to reverse Tenlen’s environmental damage(such as building an orbital sunshade, or introducing extra water in the form of comets) were decided upon.


Planet(Telen)
Type: Terrestrial
Diameter: 12,180 km
Gravity: 1.02 g
Temperature: Temperate, but trending towards global warming as a result of greenhouse gases and pollutants
Unusual/Special Features:----
Atmosphere:
Breathable, but with a rising level of greenhouse gases and traces of radioactive fallout.
Terrain:
Varied; Earth-like in varieties of terrain.
Notable Mineral Concentrations:
- Copper
- Sapphire
- Scheelite
- Mercury
- Ruby
- Calcite
- Flourite
- Gypsum
Hydrosphere:
Balanced, with slightly more water than land. However, a substantial amount of the available free fresh water has been polluted and requires advanced treatment to be safely potable.
Biosphere:
Thin; Tenlen’s once thriving ecosystem has been badly damaged; monoculture and biowarfare has wrecked most of the planet’s agriculture, and pollution, climatic change, and over-exploitation have killed most of the fauna. Shattertechs and local biologists are in a desperate race to save what they can, and get genetic samples of what they can’t conserve.
Civilization:
Settled, but in decline/imperiled
Population:
Was once 8.7 billion, but is down to 94 million
Technology:
Early Space Age---The Tenlenians were experimenting with early STL/relativistic interstellar drives(ramscoops and traction drives) in an effort to launch ‘seedcorn’ colonization efforts as a last resort. The USA has introduced some galactic technologies, but FTL drive ships remain in the galactics’ hands for now.
Economy:
Industrial, with efforts to convert to an agritech economy.
Wealth:
Impoverished; most of the once substantial planetary GNP is tied up in efforts to hold the line against total envionmental and infrastructure collapse.
Government:
Democracies were once the favored trend in Tenlen governments, but the worsening planetary crisis has led to over a decade of martial law, suspension of elections, and the imposition of a paramilitary global government
Law Level:
Bordering on Lawless. The Tenlen global authority has recently allowed the United Systems Alliance to deploy Alliance troops and PMCs to defend sensitive sites and root out terrorist cells, in retaliation for several attacks on offworlders.
Popularity:
-Restless & Divided ----Most native Tenlenites want their governments to do something to reverse the crisis and the death spiral their world seems to be in, but fear that too little is being done, it’s too late, or that the governments are only trying to save their own skins.
Stability:
Unstable; currently the global government is holding onto law and order, but a still-active number of ‘doomsday’-style cults and societies launch attacks on targets such as infrastructure and conservation/eco-remediation efforts. Offworlders and space travel facilities have become recent targets
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

Those make quite an interesting duo indeed.

Kellest bounced back frorm the brink of extinction and if population numbers serve as an indicator - 3,7 billion is something like Earth's human population between 1960 and 1974, closer to the second - bounced back BIG time. Quite the feat for an once plague world. The Hemites might bite much more than they can chew depending on how big is their own society.

I can also see Kellestians bonding with Machine People over how they were both screwed over big time by the Human Alliance. Specially if one considers that for some time Machine People traders and such might have been one of few people with no qualms about contacting, trading and interacting with them in general. Hmmmm, that opens some fun angles of crosscultural play.....


Meanwhile Tenlen is noteworthy for almost diammetrally opposite reasons. They went from a population of billions to tens of millions. Their population is 1/100th of what it once was, what in itself must put quite the crimp in their government even keeping it all together. At present all their people might fit nicely in a dozen of their old metropolises with room to spare. Damn, just one megacity/metropolitan area might sufice.

That the doomsday cults are still active and organized enough that the USA must account for them as one of the major issues under such circunstances is downright uncanny and to me seems to point out to some sort of external influence/support going on, either some group with supernatural support akin to the Grim Reapers in Rift Earth or whatever is behind the mess in Dead Reign or some kind of secret criminal ring involved with the smmuggling of biotechonology and artifacts from the ruins across the planet, maybe even two groups or one that does a bit of both (for vultures in more ways than one).

Just my first thoughts on their context at the moment.

edit: got the final population of Tenlen wrong by one magnitude. Corrected myself and tweaked the text accordingly.
Last edited by SolCannibal on Tue Jul 21, 2020 5:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:T
I can also see Kellestians bonding with Machine People over how they were both screwed over big time by the Human Alliance. Specially if one considers that for some time Machine People traders and such might have been the one of few people with no qualms about contacting, trading and interacting with them in general. Hmmmm, that opens some fun angles of crosscultural play......


Oh...I got a people in work-up who can sympathize with the Machine People even more so than the Kellestans....and these folk REALLY got boned over...

Yeah, there's many shades of hard luck in the United Systems Alliance, but there's also a good deal of (to borrow from 'Firefly') "If you can't run, walk, if you can't walk, crawl, and if you can't crawl, find somebody to carry you...", plus a lot of "Lean on me , and let me lean on you , and we can both let somebody else lean on us, and together we can limp on....". There are worlds that are recovering, and helping the next guy in line recover too.

There will be some real pits, and there will be some gem-systems...and just maybe, with some resistance, the pits can yield up their own gems....
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:T
I can also see Kellestians bonding with Machine People over how they were both screwed over big time by the Human Alliance. Specially if one considers that for some time Machine People traders and such might have been the one of few people with no qualms about contacting, trading and interacting with them in general. Hmmmm, that opens some fun angles of crosscultural play......


Oh...I got a people in work-up who can sympathize with the Machine People even more so than the Kellestans....and these folk REALLY got boned over...

Yeah, there's many shades of hard luck in the United Systems Alliance, but there's also a good deal of (to borrow from 'Firefly') "If you can't run, walk, if you can't walk, crawl, and if you can't crawl, find somebody to carry you...", plus a lot of "Lean on me , and let me lean on you , and we can both let somebody else lean on us, and together we can limp on....". There are worlds that are recovering, and helping the next guy in line recover too.

There will be some real pits, and there will be some gem-systems...and just maybe, with some resistance, the pits can yield up their own gems....


True, and that's some interesting dynamic in the works - one that might make them both friends and enemies they might not even imagine know they exist, what to say of having a vested interest in their actions & projects.

On a little aside that has been in my head since my "Rahu/Yeti Empire" comment.... is there an equivalent to the random tables of this topic for Rifts, either in books or other section of the forums? Thinking that some shared post-apoc kingdom-making would be fun to look for.
Last edited by SolCannibal on Tue Jul 21, 2020 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:[

On a little aside that has been in my head since my "Rahu/Yeti Empire" comment.... is there an equivalent to the random tables of this topic for Rifts, either in books or other section of the forums?




You mean like the Anvil Galaxy planet creation tables? For Rifts Earth? No; there's a few point construction tables for communities in the Adventure Guide and Rifts Australia, but they're for single communities and not kingdoms.
Phase World: Thundercloud Galaxy has random roll tables for creating native peoples with regards to local numbers and sacred technologies/relics, that you can combine with the Phaseworld species generators and the Anvil Galaxy planet construction tables(the latter one-third, dealing with government and stability, if you don't mind some Maguyering the relevant parts together and look at the result cross-eyed.

PFRPG Land fo the Damned also has random roll tables for creating new species in SDC; they're a bit more detailed than the Phaseworld tables for biological aspects, but don't touch on random community, politics, or social orders.

You could maybe use my Random Roll Castle tables for making Yeti strongholds. :D
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

Two more worlds...similar but different.

Eugenia(United Systems Alliance member)(Gantros)(Anvil Galaxy)
“There’s some thought that the Eugenians think they, by dint of their credit chips, run the Alliance from their desks. That’s a fallacy; the Eugenians have proven that they are perfectly willing to put in the effort...REAL effort....to make the Alliance work. They just make use of a resource, money, that they have in abundance. And if the Alliance works smoothly, they stand to make MORE money in the process.”

“Eugenia looks pretty rizzy if you’re a Rim-runner, but the fact of the matter is, it’s on a level with the lesser coreworlds for all its wealth.”

“The Alliance has been true to its word and kept commercial traffic in the Rim pirate-free. That’s good for our business, and it makes them a worthwhile ongoing investment for us. Instead of bothering the Consortium for more ships, we can get a more immediate response from Alliance members closer to our home. They don’t shrug us off because in most cases they’re directly affected too.”

Eugenia is one of the more prosperous(if not THE most prosperous) worlds of the United Systems Alliance. The planet was originally settled by one of the pre-Annexation Wolfen diasporas, and didn’t look back, the colonists having found themselves a nice niche on the Fringe. The Gantros system is rich in natural resources and near several busy travel lanes so Eugenia draws a good amount of its prosperity from being a local trade hub and materials supplier. With the offer of being part of another trade network, the United Systems Alliance, the Eugenians enthusiastically joined. Even with so many of the other members of the USA being on the low end of the economic scale, the merchants and bankers of Eugenia have done quite well by the commerce added and protected by the Alliance. Eugenian banking houses are considered among the safest and most reliable in the sector; it’s rumored even the Altess have money in Eugenian accounts(even though the Altess could buy the entire Gantros system outright if they wanted to), and the Alliance certainly has opened accounts.
Eugenia maintains a powerful system defense military, well-funded by the oligarchs. The Eugenian defense forces were equipped with older Naruni gear, but with WZT and the Alliance coming in, the Eugenians, who had been hearing of how NE had sunk their claws into other client-states, were grateful to begin transitioning to other equipment without NE’s strings. Hartigal Corporation has recently approached the Eugenian government about servicing, refurbishing, and resupplying Eugenia’s older equipment; the Gantron Parliament is debating the issue.
As a member of the United Systems Alliance, Eugenia tends to keep its military forces, the Deep Guard, close to home, but it enthusiastically bankrolls defense industries such as shipyards(including at least one new PS/ASI battleship), and makes loans to USA members to jumpstart their own economies. Several Eugenia-based corporations have signed development deals with Greater New England-based Paladin Steel/Aegis Stellar Industries, most notably Agoa Atmospheric Fuels and Hallman Stellar Harvestors, who are mining the PS/ASI-held Tesgold/Tesgetti VII star system.
Not surprisingly, Eugenia hosts a lot of Alliance policy and InterWorld Trade Commission meetings.

Solar System(Gantros MG032124)
Number of Stars: 1
Types of Stars: Orange Dwarf
Number of Planets: 11
-Terrestrial(Eugenia) System Lifeworld

-Gas Giant(Ellus)--- Huge Ellus is surrounded by a moon system rich in resources that are exploited by Eugenia’s space industries. WZT has several shipyards here.

-Gas Giant(Megeos)--- A possible failed protostar, Megeos is incredibly rich in hydrogen and helium isotopes used in fusion reactors. Megeos supports a booming gas-mining industry. Agoa Atmospheric Fuels maintains its main offices on one of Megeos’ moons.

-Gas Giant(Partah)--- A modestly-sized gas giant, Partah’s large moon Medemos plays host to a mining and resort colony, the latter offering aerostat ‘cruises’ in Partah’s atmosphere.

-Asteroid(Edegha)--- Edegha’s almost comet-like orbit with multiple close passes around Partah. Megeos, and Bormis puzzles many astronomers, who wonder if the asteroid was artificially nudged at some time in the distant past. Geological surveys of the rocky body show no evidence of prior presences or any particular geochemical properties that might make anybody want to move it.

-Asteroid(Vegos)--- A large mineral-rich planetissimal, Vegos is the location of the Hallman Stellar Harvestorplex, a colony and corporate HQ office complex.

-Gas Giant(Bormis)--- Massive gas giant Bormis with its extensive moon system, is another future mining site.

-Terrestrial(Algris)--- A small rocky world, Algris has little to offer the casual visitor, though the Eugenians have surveyed it for future mineral exploitation.

-Gas Giant(Neftos)--- Giant Neftos supports several small settlements on its giant moon Visigis, and a service port for spacecraft to refuel. Its high orbital inclination makes it somewhat easier to approach, making it a good stopover for sector interstellar traffic.

-Terrestrial(Porgoren)--- Mars-sized Porgoren has also been surveyed for future ‘hardsite’ colonization, though not for many more years. However, the Eugenian Deep Guard have rcently found signs that somebody has been illegally mining on the planet, so Porgoren is getting a second and more extensive look to see what’s so valuable on the dark cold world.

-Asteroid(IgginsAlef)--- This deep space rock plays host to a large hyperspace communications relay. It also has had the unwelcome distinction of having been attacked several times by pirates trying to disrupt Eugenian financial communications. The Eugenian Deep Guard have subsequently tacked on a military station to IgginsAlef and no further attacks have occured, but the fact that they happened at all worries some Eugenians.


Planet(Eugenia)
Calling Eugenia a ‘lifeworld’ is something of a misnomer, as the planet is a cold, naturally lifeless rock. However, it has a location near a major trade lane, rich mineral resources, significant amounts of water, tolerable temperatures, and the necessary ingredients to support dome cities. The early miners struck it rich, combined with the traders’ fortunes rich enough to construct vast underground eco-caves and surface envirodomes. These enclosed cities have increased in size and opulence. Many visitors speak of the ‘tunnels of light’ and the palatial domed estates of the oligarchs, as well as the museums, art salons, and lavish civic centers.
In the Rim, Eugenia is often held up as an example of how a naturally terrestrial world and native ecology aren’t needed to make a paradise. It has acquired a Paris-like reputation of being a cultural center of the Fringe.

Note: Eugenian Wolfen are distinguished from their mainstream kin by having distinctively longer ears, slightly larger and more rounded eyes, and a more mottled, striated skin(+25 SDC), which gives their covering fur a distinctive raised ‘puff’ or ‘ruff’ look.

Planet(Eugenia)
Type: Terrestrial
Diameter: 13,000 km
Gravity: 1.04 g
Temperature: Frigid---Temperatues on Eugenia’s surface average about -318F. Few Eugenians venture out on their planet’s surface, even with deluxe envirosuits.
Unusual/Special Features:
-Moons(5)---Eugenia’s five small moons are all developed into spaceports, orbital factories, or colonies. There’s been some discussion that if Eugenia were to ever try to build an orbital elevator, one of the moons would be drafted to be the orbital anchor.
Atmosphere: Trace; mainly argon and methane.
Terrain: Eugenia’s terrain is dominated by rocky highlands and large plains
Notable Mineral Concentrations:
-Antimony
-Chromium
-Molybdenite
-Wolframite
-Ruby
-Thorium
-Samarskite
-Quartz
Hydrosphere: Moist; 70% ice coverage
Biosphere:
Scant; there are some surafce organisms adapted to the cold and near airlessness, but these are known to be non-native species brought in inadvertantly by spacers.
Civilization:
Settled
Population:
2.9 billion, 78% of whom are Wolfen
Technology:
Galactic----Eugenian money buys a lot of shiny new tech, so Eugenia often boasts domestic tech equal to the coreworlds of the CCW.
Economy:
Trade---Eugenia makes a pretty credit off servicing trade through several adjacent sectors, as well as providing minerals.
Wealth:
Rich---The Eugenians are arguably filthy rich off their businesses and investments and it shows in the opulance of their underground cities and space stations. Besides mineral trading, Eugenia is a regional banking and insurance center
Government:
Oligarchy, bordering on Plutocracy. Eugenia’s social, religious, military, and business elites have all decided to share power, meeting in the Gantron Parliament to discuss and decide matters of government. The social media gains its power from control of media and public celebrity, the religious element by catering to religious tolerance, the military collects on tariffs, and the business elite waxes wealthy from trade and banking. The courts are scrupulously fair, however, so the working class doesn’t feel threatened by the wealthier elites.
Law Level:
Lawful----Eugenia enjoys a fair and open legal code and honest law enforcers. There is the occasional tourist incident, or oligarch/plutocrat who manages to buy their way out of a crime, but in general people are well-behaved on Eugenia.
Popularity:
Beloved; the good times enjoyed by the Eugenians have made their current government very popular with the people.
Stability:
Solid---Barring an upheaval in the economy, most people are fully behind the government.


Mazah(United Systems Alliance member)(Anvil Galaxy)
“Not everyone’s in the Alliance for ideological or altruistic reasons; some look to their own cultures first, which is perfectly understandable. But I just wish that the Mazahan diplomats would be less obvious about their participation being only until somebody offers them a better deal.”

Mazah is a small stellar polity that joined the United Systems Alliance as a junior member. They are involved in trade and some colonial development, but not much else. They are a Human sept, having arrived in the Alahaz system by generational ship several thousand years ago, though it is possible that they may have been dimensionally rifted as well, given that no known Human culture matches the origin culture of the Mazahans (as much as their surviving records can tell).
There is no denying that life on Mazah is harsh; cold and forbidding, the planet is virtually uninhabitable. Unlike Eugenia, another planet where the settlers made their own idyllic paradise out of a cold and forbidding world, the early Mazahans didn’t have the benefit of communication with a supportive greater universe, a nearby galactic trade route, and exportable minerals to provide them with income. The Mazahans didn’t know where they were, thought they were alone in their corner of the universe, and had no means of leaving the Alahaz system and seeking a more suitable world to colonize. They had to make do with what they had and what they found. Nevertheless, the first colonists made a go of developing the planet, burrowing below its surface to make cave-communities, and tapping the planet’s geothermal heat to melt ice and heat their new homes. The early Mazahans laboriously created a fail-safe artificial ecosystem to warm and feed subsequent generations. The effort cost them much of their early technology however, and the Mazahans backslid with the regards to spacefaring to focus instead on environmental sciences, and to maintain the cavern-cities and underground lakes that sustain them. That took up most of their energies for many centuries, as progress was not always assured(Mazahan history tells of a number of early cavern-cities that failed and Went Cold, being abandoned in the process until resettled many years later).
Despite having a unified world government for several generations, Mazah suffers from an economically-stratified society, with frequent flare-ups of class warfare. They were in a lull between cycles of social upheaval when a CCW-flagged merchant scoutship stumbled across the Alajaz system and made contact with the Mazahans. The existence of other starfaring humans with FTL capability came as something of a shock to the Mazahans. and the early introduction of some of the common domain technologies of the Three Galaxies sent destabilizing shocks through parts of the Mazahan economy.
Since introduction to the greater Three Galaxies, the Mazahans have taken a conservative attitude towards getting involved. Rather than put themselves out and exposed to the attentions of unknown alien organizations, and already seeing the effects on their society of Galactic open market technologies, the Mazahans are playing it close, seeing what they can get out of Contact without risking themselves. Already they’ve acquired a few FTL transports of their own and some other common domain technologies. Besides their home system, Mazah has planted colonial enclaves on two other extrasolar worlds and has been eying several other promising sites.
The Mazahans are distinguishable by being cooly, if politely, enthusiastic about being members of the USA organization, and are primarily interested in getting access to a trade network and colonial development. They’ve been rather more reticent about pledging support to joint defense, and about regulating the activities of some of their corporations outside their home space. This has given them a (unfair) reputation for being self-centered and noncommittal, as well as for taking advantage of others’ generosity without paying anything in return. This reputation hasn’t been helped any by the actions of many Mazahans and their organizations offworld where, away from the commonsense restrictions and conservatism enforced by the cavern-life, ‘outside fever’, a tendency towards rash and opportunistic behavior seems to take gold. Mazahans are a thrifty, conservative people, frugal with their resources, which may rub other cultures more used to generosity and more open give-and-take the wrong way. Their struggling economy just amplifies their apparent qualities of financial tightfistedness and miserly behavior. However, if early reports on Mazah’s mineral wealth are correct, the planet stands to make a fortune off the technowizardry-driven Crystal Trade alone.

Solar System(Alahaz)
Number of Stars: 1
Types of Stars: Orange Dwarf
Number of Planets: 8
-Gas Giant(Trendou)---A small gas giant that, judging by its large and dense rings, destroyed at least one large moon or possibly a small planet.

-Terrestrial(Mazah)---System lifeworld

-Gas Giant(Tequid)---Several of Tequid’s icy moons have been settled along the same lines as Mazah itself. These colonies are presided over by offshoot cadet branches of the aristocratic houses of Mazah.

-Gas Giant(Skoeck)-----Massive Skoeck is distinguished by having several large storms(‘Skoeck’ is a multi-eyed monster in Mazahan legend). Besides a few scientific probes, there’s little to attract attention to the gas giant.

-Asteroid(Enorth)---A ‘sun grazer’ asteroid with a cometary orbit.

-Gas Giant((Kepnor)---Small gas giant, notable mainly for a wide equatorial band of lighter-colored gas/clouds.

-Gas Giant(Voeth)---Small Uranus-like cold gas giant. It displays rather energetic aurora activity, suggesting some sort of exotic energy processes inside its clouds, or possible interaction with radiation from Micla, with which it seems to be orbitally locked.

-Exotic(Micla)----This may be the remains of a white dwarf, though how a dead star got carved apart so remains a mystery. The small, incredibly dense, but also very cold, stellar object circles far out in Alahaz’s Oort Cloud. It has been given the name ‘Micla’ by Mazahan astronomers, after a folklore character, an enigmatic ghost or spirit said to wander the dark distances between cave-habitats. .
Micla has been suggested in several theories of the Mazahans’ origins. One theory claims that the original Mazahan generational ship may have been pulled through a wormhole generated by Micla, while another theory speculates that the starship may have become trapped temporarily in a temporal pocket created by the white dwarf fragment, meaning that the original Human culture that sent the Mazahans out may be far further in the past than originally thought.

Planet(Mazah)
Type: Terrestrial
Diameter:(Average) 10,000 km
Gravity: Low; 0.7 g
Temperature: Frigid
Unusual/Special Features:
Atmosphere: Dense; mainly methane fog.
Terrain:
Unusual Seismology---Despite having a molten core and sub-crustal hot springs, Mazah has very little seismic activity, and little of its internal heat reaches the surface. The Mazahans have not recorded a violent volcanic eruption in over a thousand years.
Notable Mineral Concentrations:
-Copper
-Wolframite(very abundant)
-Manganese
-Gold/Silver
-Samarskite
-Emerald
- Ruby
-Quartz
Hydrosphere: 67% of Mazah’s surface is covered in thick(500 ft or more) ice. At least Mazah had plentiful water to offer the first settlers.
Biosphere:
Scant; the early Mazahan settlers found a thin subterranean native ecology when they broke into the first hot springs caves. Much of this native biome, mainly crude bacterial mats and chemotropic lichens, was wiped out during the colonization; either displaced and swept aside, or adapted to serve the colonists.
Civilization:
Settled
Population:
` 3.8 billion
Technology:
Late Information Age, Early Space Age. Though their environmental and life support sciences are on a Galactic level, they’ve become virtually enshrined as part of Mazahan culture, With resource utilization/’greentech’ being encouraged, other technologies suffered, and a technological stasis ensued. Only with an opening up to galactic trade has progress resumed.
Economy:
Industrial---Much of Mazahan industry goes to maintaining life support and recycling materials. Mazah could teach other folks a thing or two about large-scale closed cycle life support.
Wealth:
Depressed----First Contact with FTL Galactic society came as a shock to the Mazahans, and their economy went into a near shutdown when the prospects of imported advanced technology threatened to render their native tech obsolete overnight. The economy still hasn’t recovered completely.
Government:
Aristocracy---The early life support engineers established themselves as a hereditary aristocracy and techno-priesthood. Several times over the centuries, social upheaval has led to the replacement of the original families, the rebels taking their place and becoming new houses of aristocrats in their turn.
Law Level:
Overbearing----Keeping the life caverns going has made for a strict society.
Popularity:
Ambivalent(currently)---Mazah has seen cycles of civil disorder, mainly centered around disputes between the socioeconomic classes. The current growing disputes are about access to Galactic technology and new colony worlds.

Stability:
Stable; the need to control any violence that might threaten the life support systems of the cave-cities has meant that few people are wanting to upset the status quo. Thus civil wars on Mazah tend to be low-key affairs, with unspoken restrictions on the sorts of weapons used.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

Eugenia, a whole planet of financial wolves, now that's a scary image..... :D
More seriously now, i like seeing a world where the norm goes at least a little against the grain of the usual portrayal of a race in the game.

Mazah is an interesting case in that they are a less advanced society so centralized & stratified it makes them overly conscious of their vulnerabilities and the resulting cool overcautiousness bordering on paranoia is damaging their image in ways they cannot even imagine at the moment but may hit them, hard, if they make some self-absorbed bad decisions, like on their reticence about joint defense treaties, one of the USA selling points with most other beginning star nations. They can also definitely learn a thing or two from more contact with Eugenia.

Little aside, it has crossed my mind that the recently nuked world of "Shute-1" is also the place of origin of most of the colonists relocated to Hopeland, no?
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:Eugenia, a whole planet of financial wolves, now that's a scary image..... :D
More seriously now, i like seeing a world where the norm goes at least a little against the grain of the usual portrayal of a race in the game.
Little aside, it has crossed my mind that the recently nuked world of "Shute-1" is also the place of origin of most of the colonists relocated to Hopeland, no?


Yeah....I created a random roll table for myself when rolling up 'Variant on an existing species' under my own Random Interstellar Kingdoms' table, so I don't constantly mentally default to 'Humans, humans, humans everywhere." Sometimes I get some really colorful choices, like pacifist Ogres, industrialist Orcs, or mercantile/craftsmen Goblins.

And Shute-1 COULD be a source of Homeland residents, but it might also be 'Shute-2' or 'Nuked-B' :bandit:
Plus there's some displaced Aussies on the jungle-island settlements on Ari-Kan/Moyanon(Shemarrian enclave world with a few GNE settlers).
Lot of shatterworlds out there, especially out-dimension(whenever I want to give some grim dark world a second chance :wink: ).
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:Eugenia, a whole planet of financial wolves, now that's a scary image..... :D
More seriously now, i like seeing a world where the norm goes at least a little against the grain of the usual portrayal of a race in the game.
Little aside, it has crossed my mind that the recently nuked world of "Shute-1" is also the place of origin of most of the colonists relocated to Hopeland, no?


Yeah....I created a random roll table for myself when rolling up 'Variant on an existing species' under my own Random Interstellar Kingdoms' table, so I don't constantly mentally default to 'Humans, humans, humans everywhere." Sometimes I get some really colorful choices, like pacifist Ogres, industrialist Orcs, or mercantile/craftsmen Goblins.


Not quite as against the grain, but once made a kingdom of TW kobolds, inspired by some blurb in PF comparing their craftsmanship with that of the Jotan giants (whom the Conversion Book gives a lower requirement to be TWs). I also remember from a rifts game where we played soldiers of an young nation in the border of the magic zone (kind of like the GNE, i guess) where one of our squadmates was an orc who was a university professor, oceanographer and explorer (pretty much a tusked, green-skinned Jacques Costeau) in his home dimension. and became a soldier of the Alliance because well... how could a rifted non-human scholar not join a campaign to resist Coalition encroachment? :wink:

Also rolled some random young conquering star empire dominated by a splinter of an existing species and have considered making them Noro because that would be a quite unusual - and contentious - direction for a whole branch of them to take.

I don't remember seeing such a "tweaking existing species" table. Ccould you post it here?

taalismn wrote:And Shute-1 COULD be a source of Homeland residents, but it might also be 'Shute-2' or 'Nuked-B' :bandit:


Well, there was some other stuff, like references to slower time ratio in the home dimension and the use of Agasar IX as a waypoint before the actual mass relocation, that led me into that line of association. :P

And well, there's no problem with being the same alt-earth or not - truth be told Hopeland and Mestos have some funny similarities in the matter of weather too and i see no issue in that. In fact it could serve as an excuse to facilitate a transfer of the Hopeland natives to a place withh much in common but without (as far as currently known) the mixed blessing/pandora box of the kinsenite veins.

taalismn wrote:Plus there's some displaced Aussies on the jungle-island settlements on Ari-Kan/Moyanon(Shemarrian enclave world with a few GNE settlers).
Lot of shatterworlds out there, especially out-dimension(whenever I want to give some grim dark world a second chance :wink: ).


Don't remember seeing those guys before. Incidentaly that one world i imagined to insert in the Solex Federation does have something of a "Space Australia" vibe in my mind.
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:[

I don't remember seeing such a "tweaking existing species" table. Ccould you post it here?.


Not so much as a 'tweaking' table as just random species selection. I then use the Phaseworld Alien Generation table on Rifts Phaseworld pg. 6-107, Steps 5 & 6 to create variants...or I use the Monster Generation tables in PFRPG Land of the Damned to preroll stats. But I'll post the Random Common Species table by tomorrow...

But with tweaks, you don't want to get TOO off the original species unless you plan on creating a new species(okay, so Asgard Elves are MDC, and Atlanteans are arguably human...at least until they removed the 'Interfertile with regular humans').

That, and seeing what the Random Roll Planet generation comes up with might modify a species...Worlds with heavy gravity might breed stronger, shorter, builds, while planets with thin, but still breathable, atmospheres may favor more efficient lungs and resistance to altitude sickness(think Sherpas). Violent atmospheres or intense solar radiation might favor thicker skins or cancer resistance(unless you wanna go the other way and have a sickly tumor-ridden population barely hanging on, or who only comes out at night).
Last edited by taalismn on Sun Feb 16, 2020 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

Skensi(United Systems Alliance Member)(Skronis IX)
“I don’t care if these pasty-pale-skins are a new species in these parts. They took over a refueling station, attacked a free trader, and enslaved its crew. That makes them pirates, and you know what Royal Commandos do to pirates?”
“SLICE’UM!”


Skensi is a world inhabited by the shalri, a variant-sept of elvenkind. They appear to have been seeded on their world by parties unknown sometime in the very distant past, as the Skensi-shalri have no ancient myths or records of having lived anywhere else but Skensi. They gradually evolved a global culture with multiple nation states, most of which still had monarchies and aristocracies, and were at an Industrial Age level of technology when galactic civilization made contact with them. They had a decade of sporadic contacts with galactic traders before word got out about Skensi’s resources to the wrong people.
Skensi has had the past misfortune of being a major pirate base hub for several decades, after a particularly powerful pirate band invaded the planet, wiped out several small nation states, cowed the others with superior firepower, and set up base as warlords. The Ganalith Brotherhood thereafter welcomed other pirates to come refit and resupply, fence their loot, and enjoy Skensi’s fine climate, with the occasional raid made on the remaining free native nations for sport and tribute.
This arrangement lasted for several decades, until the locals had enough. A growing resistance movement gathered under the leadership of one of the few kingdoms(the House of Auld) that refused to knuckle under. With smuggled high-tech weaponry to match the invaders’, the resistance took over those kingdoms that had collaborated with the pirates or become puppet-states...the pirates thought the local feuding of little consequence and as fine entertainment. By the time the pirates wised up to the true extent of the resistance, it was too late; a powerful unified front swept down on the Ganalith bases and rolled over them. Even the spoiling nuking of several local cities didn’t dampen the spirit, and only fueled the rage, of the attackers, who stormed the pirate strongholds. Fighting continued for several years, mainly with pirate bands that thought they could take back the Brotherhood’s kingdom, but the Skensi ultimately triumphed, taking back their planet from their alien oppressors.
The Skensi have used their captured technology to pull themselves up into the Galactic Age. They used their smuggling contacts to feel out potential allies in the galactic community, and made peaceful contact with the United Systems Alliance soon afterwards.
Today the Skensi Royal Commandos(an elite force drawn from all the planet’s military forces) are rightly feared throughout their sector as a zealous anti-pirate taskforce, known in the criminal underworld and the open press as the ‘Skensian Scourge’. The Skensian Royal Navy is nearly as feared; though small, its crews show an equal zealousness, if not the same level of skill, as the Commandos. Inclusion in the United Systems Alliance has allowed them to extend their reach and they are enthusiastic supporters of the USA’s trade protection patrols. The SRN claims a number of captured and repurposed pirate vessels as auxiliaries, but they have acquired several updated PSS/ASI-DDS-01 Sangu Light Destroyers, PS/ASI-SFG25 BlackJack-class Frigates, PS/ASI- SC07 Nao Medium Multipurpose Interstellar Transports(configured as Marine transports), three WZ-CRZ-014 Mogami Cruisers and two PS/ASI/WZT-C75 Shepherd Light Cruisers through the USA.

Note: Skensian shalri-elves are distinguished by having a slightly shorter and more muscular build(+1d4 to P.S. and P.E. )

Solar System(Skronis IX)
Number of Stars: 1
Types of Stars: Yellow Dwarf(Skronis IX)
Number of Planets: 1
Terrestrial(Skensi)---System lifeworld
Asteroid Belt---Skronis IX has a large, but thin, asteroid belt farther out from Skensi than Sol System’s is. It wasn’t until the Skensians obtained fast galactic spacecraft that they were able to begin exploiting the belt for resources. There is some speculation that during planetary formation, Skensi gravitationally vacuumed up the nearer bodies in lieu of gas giants, or that much of the missing inner system mass may have been in the form of earlier nearer-sun planets that got consumed by the star.

Planet(Skensi)
Type: Terrestrial
Diameter: 18,000 km
Gravity: 1.4 g
Temperature: Temperate, but on the tropical side
Unusual/Special Features:
*Craters---Skensi is pockmarked with the remains of ancient cosmic bombardments.
*Moons (19)---Skensi boasts no less than nineteen moons. Since Skensi’s breakout into its space age, all of these moons have been developed in one way or another.
---When one vengeful pirate group attempted to deorbit one of the smaller moons into Skensi, the Skensians stepped up their investment in space and in asteroid management; today all of the smaller moons have been fitted with gravitational control mechanisms to prevent them being dropped.
Atmosphere: Normal, breathable
Terrain: Varied; mountain highlands, rolling hills, large valleys, coastal plains, large deserts/savannahs. Some of the deserts play host to some rather interesting(and treacherous) sinkhole activity and dry geysers.
Notable Mineral Concentrations:
- Amethyst
- Chromium
- Tin
- Molybdenite
- Emerald
- Arsenic
- Borax
- Samarskite
Hydrosphere:
Balanced---About 45% of Skenzi’s surface is covered in open water.
Biosphere:
Diverse---Skensi boasts a strong and diverse ecology. It suffered somewhat under the Ganalith Brotherhood and several ‘disciplinary’ nukings.
Civilization:
Established
Population:
5.5 billion
Technology:
The Skensians bootstrapped themselves into a Galactic Age techbase using what they captured from the pirates or bought from smugglers.
Economy:
Agricultural, but with a growing Industrial sector.
Wealth:
Prosperous---The Skensians are doing quite well for themselves, especially after opening their world to outside trade, citing their success in keeping their corner of space pirate-free.
Government:
Aristocracy---Skensi managed to hang onto its aristocractic traditions into its budding galactic age. Governance still lies in the hands of a heriditary organization of nobles dating back to the pre-Occupation era, as do many of the new industries.

Law Level:
Overbearing----Nobody wants civil strife that a potential offworld enemy could exploit, so the paramilitary law enforcers who made the transition from rebel armies to official police tend to be a little heavy-handed. Most native Skensians put up with this, especially since the expansion of the middle class has meant that there’s potentially a lot more to steal for any ambitious criminal.

Popularity:
Popular---The House of Auld is still the primary power-broker on the planet, and they continue to keep popular support by playing up the inroads the SRC have made against piracy in the sector, the shiny new warships they’re deploying, and the new improvements in the standard of living that are being made. Having the endorsement of the House of Auld is still a surefire way for regional governments to win popular support.
That having been said, there are several reform movements that want to even the playing field as it were, and get more commoners into the government.
Stability:
Stable, but Skensi went from neo-feudal to galactic tech-levels in the matter of a few decades, and the effects on traditional Skensian society have begun to show. The explosion of a growing and increasingly more powerful middle class has led to growing pains, especially with regards to the existing noble houses and aristocracies. There’s been growing calls for a global reformation of government to better represent the shift in economic power, while a small, but vocal, minority want a return to the pre-occupation power blocs and the restoration of those kingdoms absorbed by the House of Auld(which, they claim, has retained too much power in the years since the Liberation). However, there’s enough majority support for the Auld-led coalition government and its policies, especially with regard to galactic trade, that protests have not led to violence to date. Pretty much ALL Skensians agree that nobody wants another alien occupation and that any future changes to Skensian government must be peaceful and leave the world strong enough to fend off any future invasions.


Kestra(United Systems Alliance member)(Thundercloud Galaxy)
“The winged ladies over there in the platinum-plated bikini armor? Averi Strike Warriors. They look neobarb, but those blades of theirs are Kittani-style plasma conduits and the fancy metal lacework they’re wearing probably has some wired-in protective charms. That’s ignoring the fact that they’re born bioborgs and those wings really are functional. Here’s my heads up to you; may as well go over and say hello because we embarked them at Kestra and they’re aboard as military observers. That means they’ll probably be assigned to watching over the shoulders of your platoon, so be polite.”

Kestra is a minor member of the USA. It has the distinction of playing host to two different intelligent species.
Kestra is home to the Dallgera, a non-human and nonnative people who are the apparent survivors of an ancient spacewreck. The Dallgera, who are found nowhere else in the Three Galaxies, lost much of their technology and culture in the struggle for survival over the centuries, and were barely scraping by when another group of spacefarers looking for safe harbor came down from their skies.
These newcomers were the Averi, a breakaway sect of the Cheral, a mutant human sept belonging to the Church of True Humanity, based on Hablis III. Noted for their superpowered constitutions, angelic appearance, and militant evangelical culture, the Hablisian Church of True Humanity tended to look askance at nonhumans and be condescendingly polite to humans who weren’t ‘blessed’ with the Cherals’ mutant gifts.
The Averi are made up of ex-members of the CoTH, who took issue with the Church’s policies. The differences in opinion grew so disparate that eventually the dissidents decided to leave and start their own colony. This was done quietly, as both sides did not want to risk a public confrontation that might result in a more violent schism. However, the Averi still had to take off with scant resources and what equipment they could acquire on short notice.
The Averi, looking for a new world to call their own, wandered space until they came across Kestra. Though not ideal, to the Averi with their limited resources and a deteriorating starship Kestra looked like paradise(Later they would claim they were obviously divinely guided to the system).
Contact with the local Dallgera followed soon afterwards, and the Averi soon found that their technology could solve a number of the Dallgerans’ most pressing problems.

Since then the Dallgera and the Averi have formed a symbiotic coexistence. The Averi have established themselves in mountain aeries and castles, while the lowland Dallgera have been gradually uplifted with the assistance of advanced technology. The Dallgera provide the Averi with material support. The Averi provide high-tech manufactured goods, teaching materials, and provide weather monitoring and protection from space hazards. The Averi are also teaching selected Dallgera about science, advanced technology, civics, and the greater galaxy. A small corps of Dallgera work closely with the Averi on improving the lot of their fellows, including working on the Averi space station, and a number of Dallgera have even accompanied their Averi benefactors offworld and out-system.

The Averi hope to one day use Kestra as a launching pad for their own campaign of goodness into the greater galaxy, but their small numbers and limited resources, even with Dallgeran support, have stymied these plans, at least until they made contact with the United Systems Alliance. The Kestrans now hope that with the support of the USA, they can revisit their plans, Already, the Averi have acquired a number of space assets from the USA, to supplement and replace the adhoc space efforts they improvised upon arrival. The Averi have also sent observers and small numbers of their Holy Warriors to participate in USA efforts.

Unfortunately, though the Averi leadership tried to make their separation from the CoTH quiet and non-confrontational, times have changed, and elements amongst the Averi now want to more publicly declaim the CoTH. This is matched by more conservative members of the CoTH who have learned of the Averi and are appalled that such heresy was not more stringently punished, and that the Church should make a greater effort to force the Averi back into the fold, Though war does not seem imminent, other members of the USA are watching the situation with concern, not wanting the Alliance to be drawn into a religious conflict.

Solar System (Chemega VII)
Number of Stars: 1
Types of Stars: Orange Dwarf
Number of Planets: 8
-Terrestrial(Kefus)--Kefus is an inhospitable Venus-like world wrapped in hot poisonous clouds. With extensive terraforming, it could potentially be inhabitable one day, but with Tershor and Chakes providing much more attractive and immediate colonization potential, any move to terraform Kefus is far off.

-Gas Giant (Relsin)---Relsin is a misplaced gas giant in the process of being eroded away by solar wind.

-Terrestrial (Kestra) System Lifeworld

-Terrestrial(Tershor)---Tershor would be a good place to colonize if not for its cold temperatures and thin atmosphere. As it is, it’s considered a good prospect for terraforming and the USA is negotiating agreeable terms with the Averi and Dallgera to start the process rolling. The Averi early on made planetary surveys using modified shuttlecraft to make the trip from Kestra, but lacked the resources to establish more than a token outpost on the planet.

-Terrestrial(Chakes) Mars-like Chakes is also considered a good prospect for colonization. The Averi have also visited Chakes in the past surveying for minerals. They’ve agreed to let several USA concerns establish mining outposts on the planet in return for a cut of the profits and mined materials.

-Exotic(Showdan)---Showdan is a large comet, or a very energetically geysering large icy planetoid; Pluto-sized Showdan jets vast quantities of water vapor into space which gets recaptured into a floating cloud around it, some of it falling back to the surface. USA scientists aren’t sure what’s powering the activity, as they’ve been hard-pressed to get probes under the body’s icy crust; constant eruptions and ice quakes regularly overturn and resurface the ice.

-Terrestrial (Tilan)---A miniscule planet that seems gravitationally locked to Showdan and seems to be shepherding it in a stable orbit.

-Gas Giant(Elgin)---Jovian-scale Elgin plays host to a bevy of moons that seem natural locations for gas-mining colonies.

-Asteroid--Recent surveys of this rocky body have discovered the remains of an ancient structure, believed to be an automated outpost of some sort. Though initially believed to related to the stranding of the original Dallgera on Kestra, materials analysis has shown that the structures predate the estimated arrival of the Dallgera by several tens of thousands of years.

-Asteroid(Bromond)---Cold, distant Bromond shows signs of having survived a massive impact sometime in the distant past; nearly a quarter of the body’s surface is dominated by a massive crater and rippled impact zone around it. Bromond also shows signs of a large mascon near the center of itself; Alliance scientists are wondering whether they should attempt a deep-penetration probe to ascertain what that mascon is.

Planet (Kestra)
Type: Terrestrial
Diameter: Small; 7,000 km
Gravity: Low, 0.7 g
Temperature: Temperate
Unusual/Special Features:
-Long Revolution---The Kestran ‘year’ is 2.5 Earth-years long.
-Craters---Kestra shows the signs of past violent asteroid bombardment; large craters dot the planet’s surface.
-Energy Field ----Kestra exhibits a strong magnetic field, far stronger than it should be for such a small planet. This in turn seems to have trapped a good amount of gas swept off the inner gas giant Relsin. The trapped gas, ionized by the solar wind from Chemega VII, forms impressive and near-constant auroral activity above the planet’s poles.
Atmosphere: Terrestrial, breathable nitrox mix.
Terrain: 3; high mountains, rolling hills, and coastal plains.
Kestra’s high peaks play host to the Averis’ high-tech aeries.
Notable Mineral Concentrations:
- Wolframite
- Iron
- Magnesium
- Manganese
- Nickel
- Fluorite
- Samarskite
- Platinum
Hydrosphere: Moist---Roughly 58% of Kestra’s surface is covered in open water.
Biosphere: Dense; Kestra has a diverse and rich ecosystem. Unfortunately, only a few of the indigenous species contain the essential nutrients to maintain the Dallgera at optimum health.
Civilization:
Settled
Population:
37 million Dallgera
36,000 Averi
Technology:
The Averi converted their transport cruiser-class starship into an orbital station. Besides the still functioning guns on the ship, the Averi have a dozen armed shuttlecraft for space actions and system defense. They’ve since supplemented that with several dozen defensive satellites they acquired from the USA’s suppliers.
The Dallgera were at a Medieval level of technology when the Averi arrived, and have been uplifted to an early Industrial Age; steel production has begun, railroads and telegraphs are beginning to link communities, steam power is coming on the scene, and crude crystal radio sets are becoming a thing of the Dallgeran governments.
Economy:
Agrarian; the Dallgera are primarily farmers just entering an Industrial Age
Wealth:
Was effectively Impoverished before the Averi came; has been effectively raised to Prosperous with the Averi uplift and offworld Alliance trade.
Government:
The Averi are governed by a matriarchal church, with officers elected by a Council of Elders.
Dallgerans have been ruled by a feudal aristocracy that arose out of earlier strongman holds. Under the Averi they have begun holding Councils of Lords with the idea of formalizing a global parliament.
Law Level:
Lawful. A Pax Averi has been set in place settling most of the disputes amongst the Dallgeran kingdoms. Itinerant Averi justices provide a monitoring service on local courts and provide an appeals system. Though some(locals and outsiders) fear that thus may undermine the local Dallgeran magistrates and law, the fact of the matter is few of the truly guilty try appealing their cases to the Averi, as the Averi have both advanced forensic science and psionics on their side, and the sentences they mete out can be arguably more severe than the local courts’.
Popularity:
Wildly Popular---The Dallgera virtually worship the Averi, who can pretty much do no wrong in the Dallgeras’ eyes. Even all these years later, when an Averi makes their way to the Dallgera surface, they can expect to be mobbed by well-wishers and the happily curious.
Stability:
Solid. Despite some growing pains courtesy of the industrial revolution launched on the planet, the social situation is considered stable, especially with the oversight of the Averi.

Dallgera(Species)
“Where ever the Dallgera originally came from, being stranded on Kestra drained a LOT of their vitality from them, if the results of the Averi medical tests are any indication. Once the Averi began supplying them with nutritional supplements, the Dallgera become almost an entirely different people. Stronger, faster, more beautiful....that’s across the population....so it wasn’t just luck of genetics when it came to the ‘royal look’ shared by only the aristocrats and their knight-champions...it was access to better food.

The Dallgera are an intelligent species ‘native’ to Kestra, though they didn’t evolve on the planet. They are the survivors of an ancient space disaster, though it is not clear if the Dallgera were catastrophically left on the planet or were deliberately marooned. In either case, the Dallgerans’ ancestors were not well-equipped for colonization.
Life on Kestra proved harsh for the Dallgera and, despite the richness of the local ecology, the Dallgerans were barely surviving by subsistence farming. Mineral deficiencies, in particular, were major factors in the decline of the Dallgera; the local ecology contained few of the mineral compounds essential to Dallgeran good health, and concentrations of those same minerals buried too deep under Kestra’s crust for the primitive technology the Dallgera possessed to reach. A few native plants and animals contained substances in large enough quantities that they could sustain Dallgeran health, and these species and the areas they grew best in became the cause of many small wars over the years, until the Dallgerans began more systematically farming them, but getting every Dallgeran the appropriate minerals still proved problematic, and famines and blights were a constant problem for the species.
The arrival of the Averi changed that, once the newcomers became aware of the Dallgerans’ problems, With the ability to technologically extract and concentrate mineral compounds, and make nutritional supplements available to the Dallgera, the Averi could help solve the crippling mineral deficiencies. Too, certain of the food plants the Averi brought to transplant on their new colony world have also proven able to concentrate Dallgera-beneficial phytochemicals. The effects, along with other general improvements made possible by Averi technology, have led to dramatic improvements in Dallgeran health; infant mortality has fallen, and the Dallgera as a whole have become revitalized.
The Averi, having seen the dramatic change in the Dallgera with the restoration of the right ingredients for good health, sense great potential in the species, and the Averi have come to see themselves as the ‘Protectors of the Dallgera’.
The Dallgera regard the Averi as their saviors and would worship them but for the Averis’ claims NOT to be divine beings(divinely blessed but not divine in and of themselves)

Alignments: Any, but most(90%) have chosen to follow their Averi benefactors’ lead and follow the path of Good.
Lifespan: 60 years at the time of the Averi Arrival. Since then, the Dallgera have proven to have a potential lifespan of 90 or more years.
Size: 4-5 ft tall
Gender: Heterosexual
Physical Description/Appearance:
Humanoid, with leathery tan or gold skins. Their oval eyes are bright white or silver, with very small pupils. Their facial muscles aren’t as capable of flexible expression as humans’, so they tend to look as if they have fixed scowls or glares. In the middle of their foreheads is a crystalline bioluminescent organ. They have long rich full hair on their heads, with colors tending to dark blue or red.
Since the Averi have been providing them with the nutrients lacking in their diet, the Dallgera have undergone a marked change, filling out, becoming more muscular, and taking on a very real glow of good health that previously only a privileged few possessed.
Disposition/Attitudes:
The hard-scramble business of trying to survive on Kestra has bred in most Dallgera a long-suffering, pragmatism and gloomy outlook. Since the Averi came and more Dallgera children live past their fifth birthday, the Dallgera have become more optimistic and enthusiastic about their future prospects. The Dallgera are determined to make the most of their new health and prosperity.
Most Dallgera regard the Averi with an almost reverent awe akin to hero worship. Even when told that the Averi are NOT gods, the Dallgera tend to accept this with bemused indifference to the joke and keep on doing what they were before.
Physical Attributes:(These stats reflect post-Averi, properly-nourished, Dallgera....numbers in parenthesis represent pre-Averi averages)
IQ: 3d6
ME: 3d6
MA: 3d6
PS:( 2d6+3) 4d6+8
PP: ( 1d4+4) 2d4 +18
PB: ( 1d4+4)2d4 +14
PE: ( 2d6) 3d6+20
SPD: ( 1d6+4)4d6+20
(ISP):----
(PPE): 2d6
Hit Points: (25) 65
SDC: (50) 120
MDC:----
Horror Factor:----
Natural Abilities:
*Hawk-like Vision---(1 mile)2 miles, +1 initiative, +1 strike w/ ranged weapons
*Bioluminescence----The organ/gland in the middle of the Dallgeran forehead can radiate a bright, cool light(radiates no heat) up to 100 ft away(30 ft in pre-Averi Dallgera), With concentration, they can focus a beam of light an extra 2d6 ft per level of experience.
*Bio-Regeneration---A properly nourished Dallgera can regenerate 3d6 SDC/Hit Points an hour, and even regenerate lost limbs in 1d6x10+15 days! Pre-Averi Dallgera had lost this ability.
*See the Invisible--While not readily apparent on magic-deficient Kestra, Dallgera encountering Averi with psychic invisibility, or taken offworld to encounter others with magic or psychic invisibility have displayed the previously unsuspected ability to see through such paranormal cloaking. Dallgera can thus see through magic, psychic, and paranormal invisibility and illusions, with a range of 100 ft. With concentration, they can extend their paravision an extra ME+2d6 ft per level of experience.
Psionics: None
Magic: None
Cybernetics/Bionics: None; the Dallgera lack the technology for such, and their Averi patrons don’t have the technology to create xeno-cybernetics (nor do the Averi particularly believe in cybernetics or bionics, relying on their own endowed abilities and skills). Besides, their newly regained bio-regeneration abilities take care of the need for replacement limbs quite nicely.
Available OCCs:
Can take most of the non-magical/non-psychic OCCs of the PFRPG
A few Dallgera are being trained by the Averi in higher-tech professions
RCC Skills:
Native Language
Skills of Note:
About 60% of Dallgera have learned Trade Four from the Averi.
Culture:
The Dallgera were at a medieval level of technology when the Averi arrived, and the Cheral have been carefully uplifting them with the introduction of steampower, telegraphy, and other early technologies. The Dallgera also had a feudal political system. While the Averi bootstrap projects have encouraged the growth of a professional middle class, the Dallgera seem to have transferred their awe and respect of the traditional aristocracy to their Averi benefactors, with the Averi often being addressed accordingly.
Last edited by taalismn on Tue Feb 18, 2020 7:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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SolCannibal
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:
I don't remember seeing such a "tweaking existing species" table. Ccould you post it here?.


Not so much as a 'tweaking' table as just random species selection. I then use the Phaseworld Alien Generation table on Rifts Phaseworld pg. 6-107, Steps 5 & 6 to create variants...or I use the Monster Generation tables in PFRPG Land of the Damned to preroll stats. But I'll post the Random Common Species table by tomorrow...


Yes, a "Random Common Species table" would be much help indeed to me in jumpstarting things. Now that i thought of it, there are a bunch of ways for me to come up with random cultural traits or tendencies if need be i could mess with.

taalismn wrote:But with tweaks, you don't want to get TOO off the original species unless you plan on creating a new species(okay, so Asgard Elves are MDC, and Atlanteans are arguably human...at least until they removed the 'Interfertile with regular humans').


Too true. To be honest, 9 times out of 10 when i want to come up with some new species of variant of an existing, i just use that "unusual features" sub-table on page 18 of the RMB. Damn, sometimes i also use "type of enviroment" one (among others) to extrapolate how advanced or not might a group's place of origin be. I have something of a habit of repurposing stuff from the books to other functions in find convenient.

taalismn wrote:That, and seeing what the Random Roll Planet generation comes up with might modify a species...Worlds with heavy gravity might breed stronger, shorter, builds, while planets with thin, but still breathable, atmospheres may favor more efficient lungs and resistance to altitude sickness(think Sherpas). Violent atmospheres or intense solar radiation might favor thicker skins or cancer resistance(unless you wanna go the other way and have a sickly tumor-ridden population barely hanging on, or who only comes out at night).


Have to reread that stuff - Aliens Unlimited also had some simple ones i once adapted while making up a "random Splugorth slave/imprisoned raider" table.
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taalismn
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:[

Yes, a "Random Common Species table" would be much help indeed to me in jumpstarting things. Now that i thought of it, there are a bunch of ways for me to come up with random cultural traits or tendencies if need be i could mess with.




Here you go, sport. :D


Random Roll Common Species(Three Galaxies)
01-20% Humans
21-30% Elves
31-40% Dwarves
41-50% Wulfen
51-55% Minotaurs
56-65% Orcs
66-70% Goblins
71-75% Seljuk
76-80% Noro
81-83% Ogres
84-90% Coyle
91-95% Kankoran
96-00% Lizardmen
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
User avatar
SolCannibal
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Posts: 2392
Joined: Wed Sep 21, 2011 1:25 pm
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:[

Yes, a "Random Common Species table" would be much help indeed to me in jumpstarting things. Now that i thought of it, there are a bunch of ways for me to come up with random cultural traits or tendencies if need be i could mess with.




Here you go, sport. :D


Random Roll Common Species(Three Galaxies)
01-20% Humans
21-30% Elves
31-40% Dwarves
41-50% Wulfen
51-55% Minotaurs
56-65% Orcs
66-70% Goblins
71-75% Seljuk
76-80% Noro
81-83% Ogres
84-90% Coyle
91-95% Kankoran
96-00% Lizardmen


Thanks a bunch.

And sorry for the nitpickery but..... Wouldn't Coyle & Kankoran count as variant Wolfen :?:
As an aside, i wasn't even aware of them having a presence in the 3 Galaxies.
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taalismn
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:[

And sorry for the nitpickery but..... Wouldn't Coyle & Kankoran count as variant Wolfen :?:
As an aside, I wasn't even aware of them having a presence in the 3 Galaxies.


I'd considered it, but I think that they're significantly different.
I also didn't see them listed on the stats that I consulted for population breakdown in the Three Galaxies, but included them anyway as potential canine rivals/'sneak-ins' under the shadow of the Wolfen.
And maybe because I figure canines are more likely to give rise to variant septs like the hominids.

I didn't include Krreghor on that chart, because the origins of the Kreeghor are already well-documented, as there's little wiggle-room for offshoot Kreeghor who don't owe their origins to the Splugorth uplift experiments(that's not to say that there COULDN'T be populations. of Kreeghor the Splugorth took and settled elsewhere before the kreeghies threw out the big eyeballs, but we're dealing with MOST COMMON species with likely variants).

Likewise I left out the Catyr. The Golgans I see, again, has having less opportunities to have been somehow spread by various means across the 3g/Megaverse; they're straight-line descendants of the Republic(though, I guess you could regard the Bakalaponan Golgans as a nascent offshoot of the baseline Golgans, but they differ MENTALLY, and not physically from the Republican Golgans)
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:I didn't include Krreghor on that chart, because the origins of the Kreeghor are already well-documented, as there's little wiggle-room for offshoot Kreeghor who don't owe their origins to the Splugorth uplift experiments(that's not to say that there COULDN'T be populations. of Kreeghor the Splugorth took and settled elsewhere before the kreeghies threw out the big eyeballs, but we're dealing with MOST COMMON species with likely variants).


And now i'm imagining some Kreeghor that might be very different culturally from their imperial brethen, being part of the liberated servant populations of one of the Splugorth kingdoms overtaken by the UWW.
Thought they might count as being kind of different by virtue of the utter absence of Royals or Witches among them. Hmmmm....
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

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Veranan(Protectorate)(Anvil Galaxy)
The native was a frightening patchwork of perfectly proportioned faux flesh and exposed skeletal frame. Duct tape covered some gaping holes, torn rags hid others. A face that may have been cute at some other time, now looked maniacially disturbing, with a cracked lopsided plastic grin and ragged mob of wildly-colored plastic hair, offset by a crudely -soldered antenna protruding from where an ear once was. Oil stained the torso and painted the face. A pulse pistol which could only have come from offworld was held casually in one metal-knuckled hand, the other hand playing with the hilt of a knife scabbarded on a belt of energy cartridges hanging on skeletal metal hips. Red-glowing eyes gazed unblinkingly at the Systems Alliance planet scout.
“Yeah, I’m a Leisa 318 frame. That’s a pleasure-bod; I thought that after eighty years in a meat-bod gone to seed I’d have some fun with my new life when I uploaded over. And the brain-matrix had plenty of mem-capacity so I could keep learning new things. Pity the bombs hit so soon afterwards; the Leisa series was so new that spare parts have been hard to come by, scrounging the scrap-piles. But I get by, learning to make do. I remember losing friends, I remember losing two daughters I helped build, to the raiders. And I remember learning to kill them. I remember every one of the bastards I killed. So tell me, what’s so special about you new lot from the skies that we shouldn’t kill you like the other grave-robbers, eh, Alliance-man?”


“You’d think the things would modify themselves into better combat forms, but they insist on keeping their ‘human’ forms no matter how beat-up they get. There’s something disturbing about machines mimicing real humans like that. And you’re trying to convince me the things I’ve been hunting are people-intelligent? I know your people like making yourslves over into fullcon cyborgs and bioborgs when it makes you better able to go after people like me, but you think those things out thee are people too? They’re just going through the motions acting human, that’s all. Ain’t a smart thought in their heads that ain’t a preprogrammed routine put in there by some long-dead techie who wanted to make-believe his robots really loved him or cared for his family. We were doing them a favor shutting them down and all.”

“Whoever attacked the Veranans in the long run made themselves a serious enemy. If they feared killer robots , then it’s a case of a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Veranan is a formerly Human-colonized world known for the mass-production of cyberhumanoid robots. It was once a lush living world with a vibrant, peaceful, intellectual, technological culture, but is now a battered, ruin-strewn world dotted with craters, radioactive ruins, barely functional robots, and a small and hidden population of increasingly angry A.I.s.
Veranan was a distant world settled by academics wishing the room to pursue research and development. Isolated for the most part far from the hubbub and frenzy of the Human Alliance coreworlds, Veranan nevertheless prospered. Veranan’s scientists specialized in A.I., spawning a wide range of helpful artificial intelligences, including several virtually indistinguishable in mental and emotional life from humans. They even perfected a means of transferring intelligence into a robot body, raising the possibility of transhuman immortals. Veranan society began gearing up for a merging of the flesh and the meck, with a prediction of a variety of septs(organics, cyborgs, A.I., transorganics) coexisting in a ‘soft’ posthuman techno-singularity. So caught up in their work and optimistic plans for the future, the Veranans paid little attention to events happening back in the Human Alliance.
Unfortunately, word got out about the ‘automated world’. Anti-AI paranoia was running deep amongst the worlds around the Human Alliance in the wake of the Automaton Wars, and Veranan became a target of anti-A.I. sentiment. Even though the robotics of Veranan used a system unlike those compromised in the Automaton Wars, somebody decided that the planet posed a threat. It is not known if it was another Human world or an alien species afraid of another outbreak of rogue machines, but Veranan was suddenly and viciously attacked. Without warning, Veranan was bombarded with nucleonic and kinetic WMDs from space.
While Veranan’s major cities and communities were obliterated, however, many smaller outposts and communities survived, but barely. However, virtually all of the organic Veranans died in the attacks, or the aftermath. Many robots also perished, destroyed outright or from power loss when their service stations and central control AIs were destroyed. The ecology was savaged by the radioactive fallout and poisons released by the vaporized cities and other targets, and communications networks were shattered, leaving what few survivors there were isolated in their shelters and hiding places, afraid to come out and expose themselves if there were follow-up attacks.
Veranan became a ‘ghost-world’, inhabited by zombie-like robot drones carrying out their last programmed routines, a handful of sentient/sapient AIs, and a few transferred intelligence cyberhumanoids. Recovery was slow; the survivors traumatized by the sheer violence of the attack that shattered their world. There is also some evidence that their attackers at least temporarily lingered in orbit or set up a satellite mine field in low orbit that attacked anything emitting radio signals or even just moving on the surface, though no physical hardware of such satellites currently exists(making determining who the attacking party was all the more difficult). In any case, the surviving Veranans could and did not easily dig their way out of the ruins of their civilization and rebuild.
Adding to Veranan’s woes is that when the Veranans began to get their act together, the planet was rediscovered by the galactic community, and it was by opportunistic fringe-worlders, who saw fit to use the planet as a plunder-hoard and hunting ground. Veranan is subject to metal- and tech-bandits looking to pull refined metals and working tech from the ruins. ‘Drone-hunting’ has also become a sport of these unscrupulous vultures, who find hunting the remaining ‘bots, especially those with any sort of intelligence and self-preservation sense as fine entertainment. These ‘sportsmen’ have casually and callously destroyed what few works the survivor Veranans managed to repair or rebuild, thinking them the work of mindless(if sophisticated) machines trying to restore services.
Led by the remaining transferred intelligence hybrids, the higher-end survivors have banded together into guerilla cells, hiding on the planet and mounting a resistance to the tech-bandits and hunters. Sadly, Veranan was a peaceful society, lacking much in the way of a tradition of arms(so, no hulking war-robots), so the guerillas have had to improvise from what they can scavenge, and from what they can take off downed pirates. The bandits have responded to the mounting and progressively more intelligent resistance with more energetic and violent hunts.
The danger is that if the Veranans become TOO good at defending themselves and ousting the raiders, the bandits may decide to give up on their current policies and finger Veranan to the larger powers as a ‘rogue robot nest’ or a ‘chromite terrorist haven’ and let the still-AI-paranoid Human Alliance re-nuke the planet.
The Veranans have become refugees on their own planet, struggling to survive, scrounging spare parts and energy from the ruins around them and occasionally what they can take off unwary bandits, and fleeing savage robot-hunters from space. Sadly, many of the transferred intelligence/cyborg/hybrids and higher-functioning AIs have become mentally unhinged by the enormity of their loss, and the grinding stress of the passing centuries. Some survive hoping to one day restore their world to a free paradise, while others live only for revenge against their attackers, or all organic life in general. The few new AIs the older ones have painstakingly assembled have known only the wreckworld growing up.

Things have only gotten more complicated when the United Systems Alliance, following leads on a possible pirate base system, stumbled across Veranan. After a few hostile encounters on the planet’s surface, GNE psychics using Object Read on captured Veranan machines made the startling discovery of the intelligent remnants trying to survive. After much slow and tentative work approaching the local resistance, the USA has made contact with the Veranans.
The Alliance regards Veranan as something of a hot potato. While the GNE in particular produces its own truly intelligent ‘bots and recognizes AIs as citizens, and is on good terms with the Shemarrian(Star) Nation(and SUSPECT they may harbor AIs of their own), they know that not everybody, even other Alliance members, share the same sentiments, and that the Human Alliance(and CCW) has anti-AI tendencies. Sympathetic to the plght of the Veranans and also wanting to head off a future of Veranan extinction(or, because of their Rifts Earth origins, the GNE recognizing that the Veranans just might arise from the ruins, ally with someone or someTHING unscrupulous, and start making OTHER people extinct), the Alliance has been very careful in handling the Veranan situation.
For now, the Alliance has declared Veranan a Closed/Proscribed System(and quietly as a Protectorate), citing the still-radioactive ruins as hazards. The Alliance mounts a space guard while conducting covert negotiations with the Veranans. They have not been a hundred percent effective at stopping the raids, nor at convincing all the Veranan cells that the Alliance has only benign intentions towards them, but they have managed to prevent other star nations and planet-prospectors from taking an interest in the Verad system. A few Veranans have been taken offworld to be repaired and take part in diplomatic negotiations(they are typically introduced/mistaken for PS-produced cyberhumanoids or androids) to quietly gain sympathy and allies for their cause, and the Alliance has provided the planetbound Veranans with some material and tech-transfer. The Alliance is also quietly looking into rumors that some of the intelligent robots were captured in previous raids and sold to the galactic black market as slaves; recovering such enslaved intelligences its with the abolitionist stance of most Alliance members.
The fear, though, is if Veranan and its history are rated out to the more conservative CCW or other powers, the USA’s arbitrary jurisdiction over the system successfully challenged, and the planet TRULY interdicted, or worse. While an interdiction might allow the Veranans breathing room to recover, it would also remove any inconvenient witnesses from the system. A.I.-phobes in the CCW might vote the Veranans as non-intelligent and thus effectively legalize the ‘bot-hunts, something that the Alliance could not stand for.
Ironically, the Shemarrian Tribe known as the Radiant Edge would be PERFECT to take over supervision of Veranan, with both their robotic nature and radiation-scrubbing technology, except that the Alliance doesn’t know that the Shemarrian Fringe-Tribe exists, nor have they mentioned Veranan to their allies(and the Ghost Riders haven’t yet hacked it from any Alliance database).

Veranan Free‘Bots---The most numerous surviving Veranan free A.I./Transferred Intelligence ‘bots are cyberhumanoid simulacra in form, meant to emulate human looks, with performance specs falling generally within human parameters. Generic stats run from 90 SDC to 120 MDC main body, Robotic P.S. 15-22, P.P. 12-22, P.B. 7-24 , Spd 15-60 MPH.
The long decades of existence on the run, however, have damaged the ‘bots’ looks(-2d4 to P.B.), durability(many have lost 1d4x10 % of their original main body damage stats) and most(99%) have had to improvise repairs to themselves or do without accessories such as full faux flesh coverings. Improvised RTGs or battery packs provide power, and a few have laboriously handmade nuclear fusion mini- powerplants or recharge from still-functioning solar cells(most of the original pre-Bombardment RTG mini-nukes are deteriorated past useful output, and the clearing skies have allowed the overlooked solar arrays to begin producing useful amounts of power again) . Those with megadamage frames generally serve as the front line combatants and warriors; those with weaker structures serve in support roles, though EVERYBODY is expected to be able to fight if necessary. A few of the older or more extreme Veranans have crafted exoframes and heavy weapons to their bodies in attempts to up-gun themselves against pirate power armors and vehicles.
The true A.I. ‘bots have been upgraded with a few combat skills(or else have learend them the same as neural intelligence AI rules). A few started out with programming apllicable to security and police robots, but the Veranans lacked any serious combat machines analogous to Triax’s DV-40 Hunter/Killer Drone or Coalition States Skelebots.
Transferred Intelligence-Hybrids for the most part started out as scientists or engineers. Most have picked up some combat skills over the decades of fighting the pirates.

Solar System(Verad)
Number of Stars: 1
Types of Stars: Yellow Dwarf
Number of Planets: 6
-Terrestrial(Veranan)---System lifeworld

-Gas Giant(Schayell)----Several of Schayell’s moons were in the process of being developed, with robot/android factories on them. Sadly, the moons of Schayell were not overlooked by the same hostiles that attacked Veranan, and the moon bases were similarly slammed. However, the moons appear to have received only casual attention from the subsequent planet-pirates, and Alliance orbital surveys have shown that some of the facilities have survived more or less intact, though not operating. One of the requests(or demands) that the Veranans have made is to be able to personally survey the moon factories to see what, if anything, can be recovered.

-Terrestrial(Raydim)---A cold, methane-atmosphered planet. In their scientific zeal, the Veranans established a research outpost on Raydim. United Systems Alliance scout ships later found the still radioactive crater many years later.

-Terrestrial(Costrel)---Similar to Raydim, Costrel is cold and covered by a thick methane atmosphere. There were plans to establish bases on Costrel similar to that built on Raydim, but these were unrealized when Veranan was bombarded.

-Asteroid(Avex)---Ceres-sized Avex was once home to its own science colony and robot factory, and was hit like all the other targets in the Verad system when the hammer came down. The attackers used KEWs, however, and enough survived that when the pirates began arriving, they found that remaining functional robots had cobbled together some working facilities on the planetissimal. These facilities were smashed and looted, and the pirates set up a base on Avex, from which they conducted raids on Veranan. Avex was smashed a third time when the United Systems Alliance anti-piracy taskforce arrived and set up their own base of operations, while studying what was left of the previous installations.

-Gas Giant(Lolim)---Out on the edge of the Verad system, Lolim is a solitary world that the Veranans sent a long duration automated research platform to study. No signs of the satellite has been found, and it is unknown if the science station was deliberately destroyed or ran out of power and fell into Lolim of its own.


Planet(Veranan)
Type: Terrestrial
Diameter: 9,000 km
Gravity: 0.85 g
Temperature: Was temperate, but suffered a nuclear winter in the aftermath of the bombardment. Veranan is still slightly cooler than normal.
Unusual/Special Features:
-Debris Ring---A thin orbital debris ring marks the remains of the old colony ship-turned-spacestation that once orbited Veranan.
Atmosphere: Tainted. Veranan’s atmosphere still carries traces of fallout, and fine-particled dust is a constant problem. Dust masks at the least are recommended for visits, and radiation screening and prophylactic anti-cancer treatments for longer stays.
Terrain: Four+ terranes. Veranan has a variety of terranes, but very little seismic activity, and its few volcanic mountains grow quite tall and central to the many small continents.
Notable Mineral Concentrations:
- Aluminum
- Iron
- Amethyst
- Molybdenite
- Fluorite
- Arsenic
- Samarskite
- Platinum
Hydrosphere: Moist; 68% of Veranan’s surface is covered in open water.
Biosphere: Was once Dense, is now Sparse. A few plant species, such as Gator-Pines, are struggling to make a comeback, but these fast-growing scaly-barked trees are also the most likely to be chopped down for timber or set on fire for entertainment by the pirates. Virtually all land lifeforms bigger than insects have been rendered extinct.
Civilization:
Can be considered Settled by dint of numbers, but the current population is Revenant.
Population:
Once possessed a global population of 715 million organic citizens and at least that number of ‘bots. Now it’s estimated that about 3 million free’bots survive, of which 25% are hybrids.
(Most of the orginal organic population was concentrated in the handful of academia-cities on Veranan, while satellite communities played host to semi-retirees and the growing number of TI-hybrids, their NI assistants, and cadres of centrally-controlled agri-and labor drones).
Technology:
Galactic, specializing in robot design and A.I. architecture at its height.
Economy:
Was once Industrial; now effectively Scavenger-Barter, with a few remaining scientist-engineers producing a handful of new power systems and A.I.s each cycle.
Wealth:
In its heyday, Veranan could be considered Utopian, but is now Impoverished bordering on Absolute Squalor.
Government:
Could be considered a Mechocracy, but also a combination Meritocracy/Gerontacracy. The oldest surviving ‘bots are generally in charge of the scattered network of cells. Occasionally the cells are able to coordinate and cooperate on joint operations such as attacking pirate encampments or restore underground factory facilities, but there is no one global government.
Law Level:
Moderate; the free’bots have law and cooperation protocols they operate by when dealing with other ‘bots, but it’s attempt to apply the old pre-Bombardment Veranan legal codes to their current situation. However, in disagreements between cells, the rule of numbers and firepower tends to decide things, and none of the laws apply to offworlders.
Popularity:
Unpopular. Though the various remaining cells of Veranan resistance agree upon fighting the raiders, they disagree amongst themselves what their ultimate goal should be. Some want to make a go at restoring Veranan to its former glory, while others want to capture starships and flee beyond any possible pursuit. Other want to take the fight back to their persecutors and exact revenge. Even in their dealings with the USA, there is no one central authority negotiating with the offworlders, and not everybody trusts the Alliancers.
Stability:
Among themselves, the status can be considered to be Unrest, with resistance cells not always agreeing on the means of securing their world, or the distribution of scant resources.
The Veranans have tried many times to rebuild their world and techno-infrastructure but have been beaten down time and again by raiders. It’s taken all their effort to keep repairing damaged ‘bots and produce a handful of new ones able to fight back.
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:And now i'm imagining some Kreeghor that might be very different culturally from their imperial brethen, being part of the liberated servant populations of one of the Splugorth kingdoms overtaken by the UWW. Thought they might count as being kind of different by virtue of the utter absence of Royals or Witches among them. Hmmmm....



Yah...you could make a whole campaign around them, but I figure that such enclaves would be rather rare. Sorta like the colony of peaceful Kzin in the expanded Known UNiverse of Larry Niven(though admittedly there are actually TWO worlds with 'peaceful' Kzin in EKSU...Wunderland and the Angel's Pencil colony which has intelligent females and Kzin telepaths who aren't second-class citizens).
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
User avatar
SolCannibal
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:And now i'm imagining some Kreeghor that might be very different culturally from their imperial brethen, being part of the liberated servant populations of one of the Splugorth kingdoms overtaken by the UWW. Thought they might count as being kind of different by virtue of the utter absence of Royals or Witches among them. Hmmmm....



Yah...you could make a whole campaign around them, but I figure that such enclaves would be rather rare. Sorta like the colony of peaceful Kzin in the expanded Known UNiverse of Larry Niven(though admittedly there are actually TWO worlds with 'peaceful' Kzin in EKSU...Wunderland and the Angel's Pencil colony which has intelligent females and Kzin telepaths who aren't second-class citizens).


Just need some fine-tuning here and there - like an explanation for why would they prefer to stay as a minor member of the UWW instead of joining their brethen as [near] top dogs in the TGE (beside the astrographical, that is) - and it should be good to go.

Considering the great appeal of the UWW is its access to craploads of magic knowledge & resources and that one of the big edges on having a Kreeghor community on one's territory would be their potential as infiltrators in the TGE, i'm tempted to waive the typical Kreeghor inability with psionics or magic (not to mention their lack of an equivalent to the Kreeghor Witches). My bad, the Kreeghor actually might be capable of doing magic by RAW, it's just that they never study it due to their warrior proclivities.

Ok, a splinter-nation of "all common" Kheeghor with an interest in magic - possibly bio-wizardry, learned from their old Splugorth masters and to better enhance themselves with symbiotes & (maybe) rune weapons - full of bad vibes & attitude, but still in the "good guys" side, in a way like the space minotaurs, sounds like a fun spin to play with.
Last edited by SolCannibal on Wed Sep 15, 2021 6:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:Just need some fine-tuning here and there - like an explanation for why would they prefer to stay as a minor member of the UWW instead of joining their brethen as [near] top dogs in the TGE (beside the astrographical, that is) - and it should be good to go.

Considering the great appeal of the UWW is its acess to craploads of magic knowledge & resources and that one of the big edges on having a Kreeghor community on one's territory would be their potential as infiltrators in the TGE, i'm tempted to waive the typical Kreeghor inability with psionics or magic (not to mention their lack of an equivalent to the Kreeghor Witches). My bad, the Kreeghor actually might be capable of doing magic by RAW, it's just that they never study it due to their warrior proclivities.

Ok, a splinter-nation of "all common" Kheeghor with an interest in magic - possibly bio-wizardry, learned from their old Splugorth masters and to better enhance themselves with symbiotes & (maybe) rune weapons - full of bad vibes & attitude, but still in the "good guys" side, in a way like the space minotaurs, sounds like a fun spin to play with.



Hey, I had fun creating an entire mirror universe where the Splugorth were all recognized as altruistic humanitarians(which does NOT mean they eat humans)who got high off good vibes, and the Atlanteans were recognized as screw-up jerks, so go for it. :D
-------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"

--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
User avatar
SolCannibal
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Re: Random Interstellar Empires/Star Kingdoms

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:Just need some fine-tuning here and there - like an explanation for why would they prefer to stay as a minor member of the UWW instead of joining their brethen as [near] top dogs in the TGE (beside the astrographical, that is) - and it should be good to go.

Considering the great appeal of the UWW is its acess to craploads of magic knowledge & resources and that one of the big edges on having a Kreeghor community on one's territory would be their potential as infiltrators in the TGE, i'm tempted to waive the typical Kreeghor inability with psionics or magic (not to mention their lack of an equivalent to the Kreeghor Witches). My bad, the Kreeghor actually might be capable of doing magic by RAW, it's just that they never study it due to their warrior proclivities.

Ok, a splinter-nation of "all common" Kheeghor with an interest in magic - possibly bio-wizardry, learned from their old Splugorth masters and to better enhance themselves with symbiotes & (maybe) rune weapons - full of bad vibes & attitude, but still in the "good guys" side, in a way like the space minotaurs, sounds like a fun spin to play with.



Hey, I had fun creating an entire mirror universe where the Splugorth were all recognized as altruistic humanitarians(which does NOT mean they eat humans)who got high off good vibes, and the Atlanteans were recognized as screw-up jerks, so go for it. :D


The fun part is that making the Atlanteans in jerks ain't even difficult - you just take away the guilt over past mistakes, or make them a little too sanctimonious/prone to beat the drum of their own acomplishments since in monster/undead slaying & etc.
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