Strangers & Friends: Cultures

Art by Juan Ochoa

Part of the Mindjammer RPG is the use of cultures to define characters' origins. Strangers & Friends is set in my own space opera setting, so the default Mindjammer cultural archetypes need modification. Here are a few of them for the Empire:

The Empire

You live within an interstellar empire built on the bones of the Star League, a corrupt Earth-based slaveholding regime. Comet Barbarians from the rim conquered the Star League and freed the slaves. Since its fall, many other civilizations, systems, and worlds have been incorporated into the Empire - many peacefully. Most worlds and systems are treated justly. Relative material equality exists on most worlds that have been part of the Empire for at least a century. The interior of the Empire is peaceful and progressive; it is well-defended by the Empire's numerous Legions and a Star Navy. However, great danger lies beyond the Empire's borders. Expansion and incorporation are the primary tools that successive Imperial Sovereigns use to tame these dangers.

Cultural Aspects: The Empire is the best society; It is natural for the Empire to expand; Fast friends with the R.U.R.
Genotypes: Human, Alien, Synth
Demeanor: Assume others want to join the Empire; distrust the remaining Comet Barbarian tribes, and others who seek to remain independent of the Empire
Language: The Prate, and many others including Glissendo and Old Martian
Tech Index: T9
Occupations: Diplomat, Nexialist, Omega House Operative, Scientist, Trader
Equipment:  Widespread use of the Mindscape; Slipknot and/or Hyperspace capable vessels

R.U.R.

The R.U.R. are a vast machine civilization whose primary systems and settlements are coreward of the Empire. A post-scarcity, post-mortality society, the R.U.R. are open to humans and other aliens and synthetics living among them. They are also curious and open to cultural exchanges with other civilizations, races, and species, co-mingling with them whenever they are welcomed. For millions of years, the R.U.R. have been in a state of war with the Anti-Consciousness lurking in the galactic core. They have warned the rimward civilizations about this insidious and expansionist menace, and have re-located many Glissendo-speaking insectoid species away from the threat lurking in the core. The R.U.R. have developed a machine conlang called Cruft, and have mastered Glopnic, a language which can be used to communicate with (and texture) space-time itself. The R.U.R. are the Empire's closest allies.

Cultural Aspects: A society of androids, robots, and Minds; Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom; Scarcity is abnormal; Fast friends with the Empire
Genotypes: Synth, some Human and Alien
Demeanor: Cooperate with other civilizations to protect intelligent life; Encourage social experiments with other civilizations; Minds with new ideas are encouraged to split off and create experimental polities
Language: Cruft, and many others including Glissendo, The Prate, Glopnic
Tech Index: T9
Occupations: Diplomat, Explorer, Merchant, Laborer, Scientist
Equipment:  Mindscape, Slipknot and/or Hyperspace capable vessels

Comet Barbarians

Common in many of the rimward areas beyond the Empire, including the Shining Lake Sector, the Comet Barbarian clans span numerous polities and borders. Clans frequently rule small interstellar empires; others extract a surplus by protecting trade or pilgrimage routes; still others are pirates, or more rarely mercenaries. Clan life is itinerant; members live in space and travel between the stars in habitats fashioned from comets and small rogue planets. Most important decisions are made by elders - usually fully embodied living elders, but more rarely collections of living brains in vats (the clans ruled by vat-elders tend to be the most conservative and insular). Comet Barbarians distrust the thanatogram-derived intelligences of the Mindscape; they fear ghosts. Clans are almost universally exogamous, and may be either matriarchal or patriarchal. Inheritance rights are often... complicated. When disputes over property and migration rights can't be solved by marriage and negotiation between clan elders, they are often settled by force - either duels or small-scale wars.

Cultural Aspects: Clan comes first; Pity the weak and sedentary; Our worlds are weapons.
Genotypes: Human
Demeanor: Deal with the Empire but resist incorporation; Dominate planet-bound societies; Fear of machine intelligences and the Mindscape.
Language: Star Urdu, Space Egyptian, Chinesean, or Sunuz; The Prate
Tech Index: T7-9 (depends on habitat)
Occupations: Barbarian, Mercenary, Noble, Pirate, Rogue, Spacer
Equipment:  Taboo against the Mindscape; Sublight, Slipknot, and/or Hyperspace capable vessels

Shining Lake Sector

The Shining Lake Sector is a largely independent sector just rimward of the Empire. The primary economic power in the region is the R.U.R.'s ancient Kunlun Station, which is protected by the Empire's Legio XIV Lanterns of the Star Silk Road. Shining Lake Sector has been settled by humans, as well as by several Glissendo-speaking insectoid species from the core. These species were evacuated here by the R.U.R. over a million years ago. The sector is highly balkanized, with countless independent worlds and several pocket empires ruled by Comet Barbarians. While the dominant intelligent species in the region are immigrants from coreward regions, a number of worlds in the sector do have indigenous intelligent life forms, and the Achernarians have a presence in this sector as well. While the area is formally outside the Empire, the Star Navy maintains a strong presence here, which helps to keep the Comet Barbarians of the sector in check. It is reasonable to assume that the Empire's long-term goal is to formally incorporate this sector, but the timetable for that is quite unclear. Many interstellar faiths are active here, but Buddhism is particularly common among human and Glissendo-speaking species.

Cultural Aspects: The R.U.R. saved our ancestors from certain doom; Kunlun Station has a living Buddha; An uncertain future.
Genotypes: Human, Synth, Parturitionist, Dragonbeam, Broughtlow
Demeanor: Many are anxious that the sector has an uncertain future; some fear the Empire, others fear the conflicts that will be unleashed (especially with the Comet Barbarians) once incorporation begins. The R.U.R. are an unalloyed positive influence on the sector. Many prefer the sector status quo: independent worlds defended by two allied great powers (the Empire and the R.U.R.).
Language: The Prate and Glissendo
Tech Index: T2-9 (depending on world/ habitat)
Occupations: Barbarian, Diplomat, Explorer, Merchant, Mercenary, Pirate, Priest, Rogue, Spacer
Equipment:  Some worlds/habitats have Mindscape; Sublight, Slipknot, and/or Hyperspace capable vessels

Approaching Kunlun Station

Art by Juan Ochoa

Time to get back to Strangers and Friends. You can see the original posts in the series here. Our goal with this project is to do a series of posts - one per Monday - profiling each of the people pictured in Juan Ochoa's illustration. We're using Mindjammer for this project, since I want to get familiar with that implementation of Fate Core.

Kunlun Station is the informal capital of Shining Lake Sector, a Rimward region of space just beyond the Empire (the default space opera setting here at FATE SF). Kunlun Station was built by the R.U.R. over one million years ago, as part of an effort to resettle refugees fleeing the Core. The Kunlun system has one known slipknot connection, which leads to the R.U.R. industrial system of Fountain, deep within the Coreward region of R.U.R. space.

Arriving at Kunlun Station.  Pass the lonely gas giant with its entourage of moons, and go inward toward the sun. The only other object in the system is Kunlun Station. The station was built around a disk-shaped plate approximately 10 km wide on its rim side, and 1,000 km in diameter across the Plate. Most space vessels enter the station through one of the numerous ports on the rim, and then make their way to one of the numerous docking facilities deep within the station.

But the Station is far more than a plateworld. Indeed, from space that is the feature that is the station's least noticeable feature! The Mountain Zones, two huge mountain ranges, "rise" from either surface of the Plate. Each soars as much as 100 km above the Plates, with the highest mountains clustering toward the Plate's hub. The mountains are shielded by dome-like pressure curtains, which retain atmosphere within the two snow-capped mountainous hemispheres. A stable 1G is maintained throughout the upper and lower Mountain Zones, although gravity can be quite variable in strength and polarity once one is inside the Station itself. The casual observer notices rivers and streams and green mountain valleys. The careful observer sees the birds, mastodons and other megafauna, and the various small habitations, shrines, and monasteries.

Deep radar scans demonstrate that Kunlun Station has a central vacuity that is least 50 km deep and 50 km across - a cube, where the ancient "coin" had a missing square. The original structure must have been very similar to a number of ancient and long abandoned "Chinese coin" plateworlds scattered throughout the Near Rim. R.U.R. authorities state that this area is "sacred", and that they have never granted visitors access to the vacuity. But everyone who has been on the station for a while has a story to tell of an acquaintance, patron, or rival who has been there. Their reports vary considerably.

What else is inside the Station? Let's come in for a landing! Come back next time and we'll get oriented.

The Robots Are Taking Over

On the way to gaming last night, I saw this this robot repairman (complete with repairman's cap, sold separately) and his faithful robot dog companion. They both look pretty happy. The dog is definitely more of the chipper short than K-9.

The robot repairman has a gap in the teeth on the right side of his mouth - perfect for the placement of a robo-cigar, pipe, or a tool.

The side of the truck was even more fabulous, showing off the robot repairman's full-color tool belt.

If you visit Kunlun Station, these kinds of characters are a common sight. I may just stat them up for Strangers & Friends.

Strangers & Friends: Shining Lake Sector

http://www.suppressedhistories.net/goddess/xiwangmu.html

Shining Lake Sector is a vast region of space located just beyond the Empire. Shining Lake Sector is a prosperous autonomous zone - one with many local conflicts due to the prosperity of the sector. In this politically turbulent zone, factional alliances are often quite fleeting, and the plethora of micro-polities that may rule one or several systems rise and fall quickly.

The sector has both human and alien species, with humans belonging to one of two gene lines:

• East Asians who arrived in the sector on the free trader and colony vessels of the Early Diasporic Era.
• Comet Barbarians whose clan movements crisscross sector boundaries between the Empire and the Shining Lake Sector. The most prominent clans include: 
• Green Comet Barbarian clans that have migrated outward as the Empire's borders expanded; these tribes form the core of the Legio I Green Banner Army; 
• The Black Comet Barbarian clans, who form the core of Legio V and Legio X; and 
• The Gold clans who maintain several "independent" pirate fleets that invariably target any interests or powers that get in the Empire's way.     

Three prominent alien species also have a presence sector-wide, but none have their origins here. The sector's de facto capital, Kunlun Station, started its existence one million years ago as a vast refugee relocation facility. Built by the R.U.R., Kunlun Station was established using a slipknot connection from Fountain, an industrial system in a coreward region of R.U.R. space. Through the Fountain slipknot, three endangered species fleeing the Anti-Consciousness at the galactic core were evacuated from the Embattled Wavefront and helped by the R.U.R. to resettle in Shining Lake Sector:

• Parturitionists, a species of giant arachnids that have established friendly relations with humans. The Parturitionists helped the first pioneers from Earth establish new human populations in this sector. Parturitionists and humans have co-colonized many worlds in the sector, and on some worlds have even established households together. 
• Dragonbeams, a long-bodied, double-winged avian insectoid species. Dragonbeams avoid FTL travel, claiming it disrupts their consciousness. Instead, they visit other worlds by beamcasting their consciousnesses through hyperwaves. Their 'casts are then downloaded into prefabricated bioroids on destination worlds.
• Broughtlow, an extremely warlike species of insectoid 'hoppers. Shortly after their relocation to Shining Lake Sector, it became clear that the Broughtlow were not only a warrior race, but also xenophobes bent on exterminating other species. The R.U.R. acted quickly, using genegeneered viruses and other methods  to diminish this species. The resulting alterations in the Broughtlow genome caused a rapid crash in their intellectual capacity. The Broughtlow are no longer capable of piloting or navigating spacecraft, or of building technology above a  T3* level. They are still apt mercenaries, however, and are capable of using modern arms and armor with the assistance of a maintenance crew.

Numerous other minor species exist in the sector as well, such as the Ruhai (the kneeling winged figure depicted in the image at the top of this post). 

As noted above, most inter-system conflicts in Shining Lake Sector are economic in nature. They are due to competition over the particularly lucrative trade with R.U.R. space. The sector is largely friendly to the Empire because the dominant economic force in the sector - the R.U.R. - are the Empire's closest allies. The Empire in turn protects its R.U.R. allies and trade in the sector.  The Empire garrisons Legio XIV Lanterns of the Star Silk Road.on Kunlun Station, and as well as at several other critical trade outposts and worlds in the sector. Finally, the pirate fleets of the Gold Comet Barbarians also look after the Empire's interests, reducing the need for the Empire to maintain large battle fleets in the sector.

Next time we'll look at Kunlun Station itself. It's the heart of Shining Lake Sector.

*Using the Mindjammer scale.

New FATE SF Series: Strangers & Friends

Art by Juan Ochoa

We're starting a new Monday series here at FATE SF, courtesy of some great art from a comics project that Juan Ochoa has given us permission to use. Our series is called Strangers & Friends, and will feature a set of NPC write-ups for use in Fate SF RPG games. Are they strangers? Are they friends? You'll have to decide by using them in your games.

Most write-ups will use Mindjammer stats, because I want to stretch those muscles a bit. The characters will be pretty usable in that world, but their bios and history will be written for the default FATE SF space opera universe of the Empire. These folks live in an anarchic border region of the Empire where people have many interactions with the autonomous zones beyond the border.

Next week, I'll be fleshing out the border region in a series of posts.

On Monday, June 30th, we'll post the first the individual character write-up!