> Human society is slowly crumbling from within and without as the ancient and overpopulated Coreworlds drift farther and farther from the newer and sparsely populated Colonyworlds ideologically yet continue to enforce evermore restrictive laws and regulations onto them. The exposal of Coreworld political corruption, coupled with the unsustainable birth crisis' straining available resources and the rise in piracy's prevention of reliable interstellar trade, has led to a rise in tension between the Core and Colonies, and already, talk of secession and alternatively subjugation has begin to reach the mainstream consciousness. Many fear a conflict spanning the breadth of the republic is inevitable, and concerningly, it is one many on both sides and more seen eager to fight.
What is your opinion of this concept?
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Yes, that's the Firefly universe before the show began.
Basically this.
I wonder, has anyone actually PLAYED the Firefly RPG? I've seen it on the shelves of a bunch of LGSs but no one ever talks abotu it on Veeky Forums.
It's classic backstory of space opera where Earth has even been forgotten.
Settings with just two major factions, the corrupt, opressive, resource-draining Core wherein bureaucrats bully commoners with unnecessary laws just for moustache-twirling evil's sake, and the brave secessionist Colonies who actually produce a resource surplus as they're innovative and unburdened by regulations, are as common as they are boring. They're especially popular among American and/or libertarian military sci-fi writers who usually just retell the Revolutionary War IN SPAAACE.
You can do way better, user. Your setting doesn't have to be original, but it has to be better than this shit.
>I wonder, has anyone actually PLAYED the Firefly RPG? I've seen it on the shelves of a bunch of LGSs but no one ever talks abotu it on Veeky Forums.
I played the first-edition Cortex version. It wasn't very fun. Plus they only had the rights to the movie (I think) so a lot of the stuff you wanted wasn't allowed to be mentioned.
Every space opera ever
>Every space opera ever
Even Buck Rogers?
OP here, I didn't mean to come off as one-dimensional, the idea is that the colonial seccessionists and coreworlder subjugationists both have valid moral reasons to fight, but are diametrically opposed to one another by necessity, as opposed to the usual one-note "freedom vs tyranny" revolutionary conflict. The Core is undergoing an unsustainable population boom and resource crisis, and is increasingly less able to sustain themselves with colonial trade, especially as piracy is hamstringing mercantile efforts, and will, unless something changes, undergo famine.
To stave off mass starvation they're demanding more and more resources from the Colonies each year, which is preventing them from achieving a profit beyond bare subsistence, and the constant stream of Coreworlder refugees fleeing crowded metropolitan slowly replacing Colonists in the planets their grandfathers settled is rapidly increasing anti-Core sentiment. Eventually, a conflict will happen, and a few other factions, pirate fleets, right/left extremist groups, and fundamentalist crusader/jihadists will attempt to take advantage of the relative anarchy. I figure this will give my PC's room to choose/create a faction, and keep things a bit varied.
I've never actually seen Firefly, so I wouldn't know.
How could I make the idea less boring?
You should watch Firefly because it's a fun show that's only one season long and will give you a lot of ideas.
Someone will probably start shitposting about it being a SJW show now that I've said I like it.
Its not a bad setup. Id say lets add some meat on those bones:
One of the stressors here is the piracy impeding trade. Id say both sides are playing a media game here to blame the pirates for the whole problem, attempting to vent some of the pressure on an acceptable target. Both sides are probably gearing up 'pirate hunting' ships to solve the problem, which each side sees (perhaps rightly) as the other side marshalling for war in plain sight under the pretense of pirate hunting.
Have the conflict not be monolithic. Some colonies align with the core worlds for cultural reasons, others are more independant. The core worlds are all strapped for resources, and are backstabbing each other for any edge they can get. Think corporate espionage on a planetary scale.
Have a core world secretly be backing one of the colonial factions, with the goal of creating a split where they are the one core world left with access to colonial resources. They would basically be kings when the dust settles, all the infrastructure and on the winning side.
I'll take your word for it.
Fantastic post user, kudos to you, I'll be sure to watch these.
I'd already planned on keeping the conflict from being cut and dry Core vs Colony, but the Coreworlds backstabbing one another over resources is a good idea, and both factions using "Pirate Hunting" as an excuse to amass arms in plain sight is even better. I can't believe I didn't think of a Coreworld conspiring with the Colonies for its own gain, but I'm glad you did. Do you think I should go with kinetic weapons, energy weapons, or a mix of the two? I'm leaning toward a mix, but gunpowder sci-fi isn't something I've seen done often.
Sounds like the most generic and uninspired, but perfectly functional concept imaginable. I have no issue with it, but it's one of the cases where it's obvious that the actual execution is going to make it live or die: the premise itself can support a good world-building, but in itself is utterly unremarkable.
So Firefly, Gundam , Killzone , Starcraft , Halo pre covenent , It's a pretty standard trope desu.
Im going to suggest something that is going to seem weird as hell, because it goes against standard scifi iconagraphy: the core worlds use railguns and missiles, the colonies mostly use lasers.
The trick is the why: in a space setting, lasers are common communications equipment. You cant not give the colonies laser tech. You might only intend to give them weak lasers, but its not that hard to rebuild them into something stronger.
Railguns, meanwhile, are purely military. And much longer range than lasers.
So the core worlds build big fancy warships designed to land killshots from 4 planets away. The colonies arm up a bunch of small ships with suped up lasers and rush the enemy, needimg to close the distance enough to pour heat into the warship and fry them.
Of course, the colonies will have some amount of real warships, but certainly much fewer than the core worlds can field. These laser militiacraft would be the bulk of their forces.
Any civilization that's developed interstellar travel can easily make whatever it needs out of shit it finds in asteroids and comets. Limited resources and the necessity of interstellar trade don't make sense in such a setting.
False. You can have all of the metal in the asteroid belt and still not be able to build a tomato out of it. In a setting with tapped solar resources, ships and stations are cheap to make but all of the things people need to live are a scarcity. You cant grow corn on Mars, the soil there is a dust of radioactive toxic metals. You want to grow crops, you need to create microbially actibe processed soil. Thats time consuming work. You can survive on hydroponically grown food in the meantime, but thats dependant on human control and thus fragile, prone to failure, and not suited to a bunch of inefficient but still useful and desirable plants. Like trees.
Not really true. Pretty much all you need is basic elements (metals, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen etc..) and energy. You can't grow corn in Martian soil, but you can grow food as long as you have access to water and sufficient energy. And common interstellar travel implies the energy is largely not a concern anymore.
That said, you can pretty much ignore those facts for the sake of creating drama and conflict, unless you are going for a hard sci-fi route.
Y'know, I would really think about subverting the boring "Imperials vs Colonies" conflict by shifting the opposition from "Core vs Frontier" to "Insiders vs Outsiders".
In this scenario, the Empire would be actually a very good place. The system would be benign and effective, even if strict but just. There would be no abuse of weaker colonies, no corruption of power, and only so much political drama that keeps the Empire excited. The administration and the bureaucracy would be extremely competent and realistic, the military and law enforcement would be a little scary but also an unflinching upholder of peace and justice, and the economy would run on a loose alliance of syndicalist megacorps and busy merchant guilds. The whole thing would be like a perfectly working machine, with each gear turning for the benefit of all.
Problems start when someone finds themselves outside of this machine for one reason or another. This is surprisingly easy to do, it is enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time to miss the turn of your gear, and the machine will leave you behind. And if you ever try to go back, you will find that the perfect machine is now running with your absence now being part of the order - you showing up will disrupt the machine and it will repulse you. And things ain't that nice without the Empire taking care of you.
The number of these outcasts has reached a critical mass as of lately. They start to get organized and cause disruptions all around the Empire. The more you mess with the machine the more it will miss a step, and thus more and more people will fall out, further fueling the outcast horde that in turn will mess around even more. The Empire is quick to react and mobilize, but the chain reaction has been set off, and it might be already too late.
No matter what side they choose, the PCs will watch Utopia burn - they can either swing the torch or try to stop the inferno with their bucket of water.
For some flavor and extra sides you can add in some political parties, religious sects or whole new faiths, and local independence movements for their local star system cultures. The people who are part of these movements are trying to form their own interstellar nations from the conflict.
There centers of these movements would be in the more stabilized inner colonies between the core and and colony worlds that have a great deal of development and industry of the former and the raw resources of the latter.
How the fuck are hydroponics more prone to failure than growing your crops outside where weather and insects and disease can get to them?
You can leave your crops alone outside for a week and they will be fine, because plants have been growing without human intervention for millions of years.
In a hydroponic ecosystem, there is no wiggle room. Any number of mistakes or failures can kill the plant. Water temperature, nutrient solution, circulation... if everything doesnt work exactly as designed the crop dies.
And it will work exactly as designed because you've got AI handling all that for you.
I always unironically add a planet called Carcosa where there is some strange evil cult. Every single time
Neat. I've added quite a few things like cults, religious orders, weird faiths and esoteric groups. All that strange stuff thats hiding in the shadows of the major events going on in space setting I've been working on.
Absolutely brilliant, I'm definitely using this, thank you.
That's a fascinating concept, but my players were wanting a semi-hard sci-fi civil war campaign, not a semi-hard sci-fi dystopian campaign, I'll definitely keep that in mind though.
I'll definitely be including plenty of minor factions, subfactions, and offshoots of subfactions as the campaign goes on. Feel free to suggest anything that comes to mind.
This user has it right. In-settint, terraforming technology is still in its infancy and earthlike biospheres are common enough that colonization is simpler than terraforming barren planets. Minerals are dirt cheap, and they're only that expensive because the prospector syndicates keep the price artificially high to earn a living wage and then some. Food is less so, and many poorer Coreworlders subsist on synthesized nutrient packs, which are unhealthy and lead to malnourishment over a lifetime's consumption.
1: AI has not been stated to exist in-setting.
2: An AI is only as infallible as the smartest guy to have programmed it. A brilliant AI given bad instructions still produces bad results
3: Even a magically infallible AI still can be tripped up by a downward spiral caused by equipment failure. Simple-Complex systems in action. Once the dominos start falling, you cant make a saving move because none exist.
you should read this series
If you didnt work out the backstory yet ive got a suggestion.
Humanities first steps at interstellar civilization were through sleeper ships which were able to establish colonies on many new worlds that didnt need terraforming. These would go on to become the core. Once proper mass produced FTL tech was developed it opened the floodgates turning many of these worlds into dumping grounds for the excess population from earth but had the side effect of causing rapid resources consumption on those worlds just to create base necessity living conditions as the core populations exploded.
Other more daring folk looked beyond these worlds and braved the dark beyond to set up the outer colonies however they did so without enough support from the core and therefore couldn't build them up enough to support the mass exodus of people from the core once they came.
Make sure to include neutral smuggler cartels transporting arms and armor to the Colonies and essential supplies to the Core at an obscene markup.
So it's the Codominion, Starfire, Firefly, and several thousand others setting?
Do you really want to know our opinions?
Kinda reminds me of Halo desu