Gaming Trisolaris

2016 MN State Fair Arts & Crafts Exposition

A couple weeks ago, I finished reading Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past, better known as the Three-Body Problem or Trisolarian Trilogy. The trilogy has a huge fandom in China, at least one authorized sequel, and perhaps the most expansive future history since Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker. It's the best SF I've ever read, and so of course that makes me wonder aloud about how to make it gameable.

The system - that's pretty straightforward. I'd use Fate, and specifically the Diaspora rules, since they are already fine-tuned for hard SF such as Cixin Liu's trilogy. The Technology-Resources-Environment rating scales can be put to good use in the Trisolarian trilogy's universe.

Environment gets swingy in a system like Trisolaris, where prior to human contact, the system ratings alternate between E0 (garden world) and E-3 (barren world).

We also need some modifications to the T2-4 end of the Technology ratings.

Over the course of the novels, we see Trisolaris transitioning between T levels with respect to interstellar propulsion, from something like a T1 (exploiting the system, and generation ship capability) to T2 (light curvature propulsion by the third novel).

That being said, it is apparent from quite early on that some T4 technologies exist for the Trisolarians, such as sophons and the capability to block others' T-advancement through a sophon block.

Clusters are worth mapping purely as relationships rather than itineraries. Specifically, they become a way to map potential relations of power, including colonial relationships between different species in the dark forest. I suppose there need to be dark forest detection mechanics too.

Finally, what do the PCs do, and what are campaigns like? There are a lot of options here:

• The PCs are Wallfacers, or in the retinue of a Wallfacer
• The PCs are members of the ETO, another faction, a group of scientists, or even a spacecraft crew
• The PCs are Trisolarians, members of a leadership faction or even a dissident group with greater empathy for the humans
• A Trisolarian campaign should be episodic, with the plot being advanced thanks to time-hopping technologies such as hibernation (for humans), dessication facilities (for Trisolarians), or near lightspeed propulsion / time dilation as plot devices to advance the story.
• As time advances through progressive eras, the GM should engage the entire group of players in mapping key features of the setting in each era.

Strange Stars A-To-Z: "Z" Is For Zolymayas

Cluster Graphic by Lester J. Portly

Our final Strange Stars A-to-Z post is an open letter to you, dear reader. Strange Stars was built to be canon light. The Strange Stars Game Setting Book provides just enough detail for you to make the setting your own. The philosophy is that GMs are going to modify and fill out the setting anyway; our job is to create just enough to facilitate each GM's local ideation, creation, and iteration of the Strange Stars.

If you are a fan of the Diaspora RPG, you probably recognize the diagram at the top of the post as a part of a cluster of several star systems. While the Fate edition of Strange Stars is built for Fate Core, I used the Diaspora SRD to build out world generation and cluster design rules for the Strange Stars Fate Edition Rulebook. Each sphere represents a star system and its parameters for technology, Environment, and Resources. The Technology-Environment-Resources scales run from -4 to +4 as they do in Diaspora, but the details of scale are different in the Strange Stars. A tad bleaker, you might say!  The lines and curves linking the systems represent hyperspace nodes.  

Only one of the worlds up above is "official": the anchor world in the cluster is the ice-planet of Boreas, which is described in the Strange Stars Game Setting Book. Each of the other worlds in the cluster was created by me using the system and cluster generation rules in the Strange Stars Fate Edition Rulebook.

As for myself, I'll be using this particular patch of stars this coming Friday! The action will start in the Zolymayas system, which has one very hostile, industrializing world; a world that is almost self-sustaining. The kind of place that desperate people do desperate things to escape.

I hope you'll create your own worlds for Strange Stars! Make the Strange Stars yours!

Strange Stars A-to-Z: "X" is for Xe-Xem-Xir

http://www.nydela.sakura.ne.jp/delany/babel.htm

Gender neutral pronouns such as xe, xem, and xir are used by some cultures in the Strange Stars setting. They're introduced on the Terminology page (p. 29) of Trey Causey's Strange Stars Game Setting Book. You'll find ones spelled similarly if you scroll down this post from the Gender Neutral Pronoun Blog.

I've never GMed a game in a setting where gender neutral pronouns (other than "they") were in regular use at the table, although in one Diaspora campaign a player introduced and used them from time to time.

Maybe I should use them in a game (1)... and maybe also reward proper usage (2). But I would never do this as a casual change in a game or campaign, or with stranger-players about whom I know nothing, or as a joke (3).

Here's my best guess at the proper usage for gender neutral pronouns in the Strange Stars setting, with setting-appropriate context:

• Nominative/subject: "Xe was the first Hyehoon I saw with wings." 

• Objective/object: "I beat xem within an inch of xir life" said the Hwuru thug.

• Possessive determiner: "Xir spiracles sursurrate like shivers" said one Boma to another about a third.  

• Possessive pronoun: "The pretty torture-slave is xirs" the Vokun said, pointing xir lips at the Algosian procurer.

• Reflexive: "Xe is full of xemself" said the Gnome of the officious Ibglibdishpan.

Note:

(1) I would never use this with a open game table at a mainstream gaming convention. I've had players sit down to games and before they know anyone at the table make gay jokes or use language that I'd consider demeaning to women, LGBTQ folks, etc. I might use this with a group of players that I know well, ones who think linguistic experimentation is fun, and/or understand the value of gender neutral pronouns in the real world, and/or have an interest in exploring the implications of lingustic change in SFnal social systems. I might use gender neutral pronouns in an open game at Gaylaxicon 2016 or maybe at a WisCon.

(2) Possibly with a reward mechanism for proper usage. Maybe with Fate points, or maybe just as a Boost for proper usage in-character. I am not sure how this would affect the overall economy of the game, since Fate is so language-based. I wouldn't want it to be very gameable, just a reward for immersion.

(3) Pronouns are a life-and-death matter for some people, and may be seen as less important/non-negotiable/or a joke by others whose privilege (or ontological status or social position, if you prefer) allows them to play out their gender as if it were a natural category. Which it isn't. By extended metaphor and as Gang of Four taught us more than three decades ago, "Natural's Not In It" (see the video below). For some cisgender folks, gender-neutral pronouns may may be a way to emphasize or explore the alterity of a situation or setting. For some people who are trans, it may be a way to create safety at the game table. This is really one of those things that needs to be talked through carefully at the table.

The image at the top of the post is possibly the best cover ever for 
Samuel R. Delany's Babel-17.

The Green Worlds

Welcome to the Green Worlds! The Saguaro live on a considerable number of worlds within and beyond the Empire - as mercenaries, as members of the Legions of the Imperial Sovereign, and as contemplatives. A few have even established new religions, or collectivist commonwealths with human and alien partners. In contrast, few worlds welcome or tolerate the manipulative and expansionist Peyotl. These graspers and schemers are restricted to those worlds they have taken by subversion and force, or where they have established a well-defended enclave as a base for future conquest.

The planets conquered by the Peyotl are called the Green Worlds. They have made small but significant and destructive inroads into the Empire, roughing the edges of the Imperial Extents. Theirs is a slow invasion; most Peyotl are in no hurry to do anything. The Peyotl never travel via hyperspace. Something about that medium disturbs them. Instead, some lineages of Peyotl travel at a leisurely 1% of the speed of light, while others use slipknot networks to pass through sutures in the fabric of space-time that allow for immediate transitions from system to another.

All Peyotl have in common their means of transportation: massive bioships that are composite structures grown from an ever-varying mix of substrates (animal, fungal, and plant). Each bioship is an ark, carrying an entire biosphere within it including several Peyotl clans, Saguaro footsoldiers, massive carnivorous ferns, fierce and beautiful orchids, a variety of allied insect species, and often also human slaves.

Every planetary invasion begins with a mass driver attack. Peyotl bioships cast huge seeder modules at target worlds. The heat of atmospheric re-entry triggers germination in the seeder modules. The modules release numerous species' seeds and spores in a massive air burst in the lower atmosphere, ensuring maximum distribution over target areas. At the core of every seeder module is a terraforming engine, which upon impact turns on and begins transforming the planetary environment.

Here are a few of the Green Worlds:

• Bloom, a world of shallow seas and numerous island chains, once home to a species of nomadic fisherfolk. The fisherfolk are gone now, and Bloom is entirely given over to the Peyotl and their plant and insect allies.
• Cinder, a Superearth where the Peyotl seeder module bombardment somehow went very wrong, putting enough particulate matter into the atmosphere to produce a runaway greenhouse effect. Rumor has it that some Peyotl survive in domed cities on the planet's surface. 
• Garganta, a world taken by the Peyotl after a series of furious clashes with the Empire's Legion of the Broken Branch. The loss of this system was a bitter blow to the Empire, because Garganta's slipknots open into the Tangle Supercluster - a megastructure linking more than 1,000 suns.
• Neweye, an important trade world connecting the Comet Barbarians living within the Empire with their kinfolk living beyond the Imperial Extents. Neweye is an important world for negotiating marriage alliances among the Comet Barbarian clans. The Peyotl established an enclave on a human settled equatorial island just a few dozen kilometers away from the planet's primary spaceport. (The humans have survived on the Green Isle, although they are reportedly very strange. Many have odd tumorous growths in the center of their foreheads.) Peyotl trade various drugs and pharmaceuticals for the Comet Barbarian's ample supply of ancient starcharts and other trade goods. Interestingly, a few of the Peyotl elders have made a name for themselves as matchmakers among the Comet Barbarian clans.
• Suphis II, home to the Axis Mundi trees. This world was bombarded by a Peyotl ark fleet, but was saved by the foresight of the 30th Imperial Sovereign, who after destroying the invasion fleet used Excommunication to protect the world from further incursions. It's fate is unknown at this time.

Deck of Fridays 21: Neutral Zones

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Neutral_Zone_Incursion

Welcome back to DECK OF FRIDAYS, our weekly feature here at FATE SF! Each week (more or less) since the release of the Deck of Fate, we have made a draw from the Deck of Fate, RPG Inspiration Cards, or another Aspect-generative randomizer. Then we do something interesting with it, using the Aspect as inspiration for a campaign or scenario seed, a situation, scene, location, NPC, thingie, etc.

This week's draw from the Deck of Fate is a card with the Aspect: Neutral Discovery. It calls to mind the concept of Neutral Zones. So without further ado, we have a brief quote from the 17th Imperial Sovereign, who is known as the The Shadow Cast By All Suns.

***

Nature abhors a Neutral Zone. All Neutral Zones are semi-permeable, riddled with slipknots, and layered upon with the positive and negative enumerations of hyperspace. The most fleeting of political boundaries, all such zones of exclusion eventually collapse inward upon themselves. 

Each one is a potent symbol of Defeat, of a battle or war that has been lost: a "partial victory" in the parlance of today's generals and political consultants.

Indeed, the Neutral Zones are a plague upon the body politic of our Empire. Such zones are a hindrance to advance of the Imperial Extents, and to the march of justice and friendship among the worlds. Within Our Body, they are vacuoles formed to contain an irritant, sanctuaries for inimical species and rogue Minds. Such spaces invariably become havens for pirates, privateers, smugglers, and slavers, and places of unwitting and deadly discoveries. 

Beyond Our Body, they are the space of non-confrontation with greater enemies: a haven for espionage and covert fleet maneuvers, planetary bush wars, fraught discoveries, the birthplace of pocket empires and border kingdoms, and initiatives toward diplomacy and collaboration. 

Each Neutral Zone also gives us pause for reflection, even as it halts our Fleets and Legions. An ancient Earth philosopher once wrote that an Empire's advance necessitates a hollowing at its center. An Empire produces its own negation. As we incorporate the barbarians beyond our Neutral Zones, what indeed becomes of us?

The Sword of Alexander

The Sword of Alexander (Abjuration/Curses, Cost, Per Scenario, Requires The Eye of the Nexus, Corrupting):  Slipknots are pure imminences that suture together different locations in space-time. Nexialists use The Sword of Alexander to collapse a slipknot for a determinate period of time.

The formula can be used either defensively (to close a slipknot "behind" a ship exiting a slipknot) or offensively, to collapse the space-time suture around a vessel at the exact moment the ship enters the slipknot. The latter use causes a mishap for the ship entering the slipknot. Such a use of the formula is invariably Corrupting.

To cast The Sword of Alexander, the caster makes a WIS roll: at +2, the suture closes for one day. For each additional increment of effort past +2, use The Time Table to determine the duration of time for which the slipknot is closed.

It goes without saying that the use of this formula is frowned upon by the authorities. It can cause severe economic damage - even loss of life - to systems dependent on the slipknot network for their economic well-being. On more than one occasion, local closures have led to spontaneous pogroms against members of the Nexialist Order. The Order itself is extremely circumspect in teaching this formula to its members. Only the most faithful and trustworthy Nexialists have the opportunity to learn it.

Sovereign Dreams

Anti-aircraft guns guarding the sky of Leningrad

Saturday night, we had our first dream about the Empire. The Imperial Sovereign was alone in a city under siege, on an anonymous war torn world far from Altair III.  Evasion and misdirection were the only means to survive until evacuation - for almost certainly, a rescue ship will eventually arrive. (If not, we have the seeds for a very gritty "politics-and-small arms" campaign.) These congeries of Aspects, with arbitrary line breaks, relate the experience and share a bit more of the history of the Empire. 

Sovereign Dreams In A City Under Siege

Not everything had fallen yet:

The great hotels 

In the City Center of that 
Forlorn T -2 world

Still stood

Lights still on

Up here

Unlike the soldiered 

Streets below

And the battered slums

That surround the City

Besieged by tyrants, factions, armed rats

From the west

They had marched here for Us

Wanted to strike a bargain

And win the Empire's favor
Through force

What could we do?
Just visitors here

So far from Home

No comet-scarred Third

No Krellic Fourth
No Eagle King or

Plastic educator here
To devise a winning 
Stratagem

Our strategy, then:

Stay hidden

Retire
Take no messages
Treat with no one
No deals
No fighting

Seclusion only
Like the Sovereigns 

Of Old 
(When was this, anyway?)

In this grand hotel

Still standing

A floor to Ourselves

Just room service

A few lean Red Men
Violet eyes hidden 
Behind dark shades

War harness 
Chafing 
Under olive 
Greatcoats

Thus we stay, and

Through our seclusion

To the Middle Sovereigns

Be True

(The Middle Utmost
safely ruling from sealed palaces

spun deep into future times, 

their towers only now appearing
in this late age) 

In seclusion
We await evacuation 

From above

Quetzal-Class Rapid Intervention Vehicles

Art by Juan Ochoa

The Quetzal-Class Rapid Intervention Vehicles (RIVs) are the elite vehicles used by Omega House. They are deployed to the most dangerous and remote areas of the Empire, and well beyond there.

Quetzals are not birds of prey. They are very lightly armed compared to the Empire's capital ships. But it would be a mistake underestimate them. This is Omega House after all. Their assets are never paper tigers; they are always full of surprises.

The RIVs are highly maneuverable. They can reach the 10th enumeration of hyperspace with at least some crew members remaining conscious. While crew disembodiment is frequently reported, along with some degree of hull decoherence, no Quetzal has ever been lost due to entering enumerations 8-10 of hyperspace.

Quetzals are designed to reach remote areas of space quickly, drop planetside if necessary, and rapidly assess and address exurgent phenomena. Quetzals are often deployed in pairs. When they reach their target, one typically drops planetside to investigate while the other maintains watch from orbit.

Most RIVs operate with a crew of 3-6, one of whom is typically a Witchfinder-class android. Up to 12 Omega House special operations staff can be stored in stasis tubes. Quetzals are equipped for atmospheric re-entry and carry an armored ground vehicle attached to the ship's aft belly.

The Quetzals are built from a highly customizable ship template, reportedly developed by the legendary R.U.R. Artisan-class Intelligence known as Cloud Minder. The "red eye" at the forward end of the ship is not the bridge; it is a detachable, reentry-capable module known as a General Operations Device. Each RIV crew takes pride in selecting the unique features and capabilities of their G-O-D module..

RIV modules are built with one of several pre-formatted functionalities including:

• Gamma Ray Burst Inducer
• Amphibious Saucer
• Combat Tripod
• Outpost Dome

OGL MECHANICS

Fast Strike Vessel
Scale:  Medium (3) Advanced
T+4

ASPECTS:

• High Concept: Omega House's Rapid Intervention Vehicle 
• Trouble: Repairs must be done in R.U.R. space
• Aspect: Advanced hyperspace navigation
• Aspect: Purpose-built to kick the hornet's nest
• Aspect:Witchfinder on-board

APPROACHES

• Careful: +1
• Clever: +2
• Flashy: +1
• Forceful: +2
• Quick: +3
• Sneaky: 0

STUNTS:

• Atmosphere Capable - Vehicle may land planetside
• Auxiliary Vehicle - Vehicle also carries a ground vehicle
• G-O-D Module* - A detachable single-purpose module of a specific type 
• Hyperdrive - Vehicle may enter, traverse, and leave hyperspace for FTL travel

REFRESH: 2


*The Inducer is a common G-O-D Module type. Inducers are manufactured by the R.U.R. Thingmaker-class  Intelligence known as Panjandrum. They are part of the R.U.R. armory that holds back the galactic Anti-Consciousness festering within the galactic core.

A Blue Marble-class weapon of mass destruction, the Inducer takes advantage of the fact that at every moment, somewhere in the universe, a supernova or hypernova is giving off a massive gamma ray burst. The Inducer channels a few milliseconds of a small cross-section of that burst in order to hit a continent-sized target.  The discharge is typically lethal for anything in its path.

Inducers are single-shot G-O-D Modules. They are usually detached and destroyed immediately after use, as they often produce secondary microbursts called gamma radiation aftershocks.

The R.U.R. do not entrust the general crew of a Quetzal-class vessel with authorization codes required to arm and fire an Inducer. They entrust that only to Witchfinder-class androids. This is a R.U.R. ethical safeguard against their misuse.

A Warlord's Index To Mars

Warlord of Mars (Dynamite)
Art by Stephen Sadowski

What follows is an index of links for Mars/Barsoom, with an emphasis on the pulp Mars inspired by the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and others.

FATE SF Mars Resources

Barsoom:

• Barsoom (using Diaspora Cluster mechanics)
• Richard Harris' samurai clan wars Mars
• Notes on the Planetary Romance genre

Green Martians:

• For Disapora
• For Starblazer Adventures
• Green Martian Chieftain (FAE)

Old Martians - H.G. Wells' pulpy, tentacled Martians horrors with a taste for human flesh. A Clever adversary for FAE.

• A few more cruel Stunts for the Old Martians
• Also see the Mucoid (Fighter) entry under Other Useful Mars Resources, below

Red Martians:

• Red Martian Blade - A fighting man or woman of Mars, a Flashy adversary for FAE, as well as Red Martian civilizational Aspects.
• Red Martian Scientist - A cruel, vengeful, and Clever adversary best left to his own devices in the Martian Underworld (FAE).

Technology:

• Psychic Telegraphs

Other Useful Mars Resources

• The Art of Barsoom (lurid)
• A Brief History of Tripods
• Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom Series
• Encyclopedia Barsoomia
• ERBzine's Maps of Mars
• ERBzine's The John Carter Guide to Mars
• Found Objects: The Crystal Age
• Humanspace Mars
• Invading Mars
• Manitrude (this is obviously an Abmucoid)
• Mucoid (Fighter) 
• Postmodern and Apocryphal Barsooms
• Principles of Martian Technology (Some Invasion Ideas...)
• Return to Mars
• The Shikkayi

Social Combat In Diaspora

"There's a saying: 'War is a long cliff.'" You can avoid the cliff completely, you can walk along the top for as long as you have the nerve, you can even choose to leap off, and if you only fall a short way before you hit a ledge you can always scramble back up again. Unless you are just plain invaded, there are always choices, and even then, there's usually something you missed - a choice you didn't make - that could have avoided invasion in the first place. You people still have your choices. There's nothing inevitable about it."
-Cheradenine Zakalwe
From Iain M. Banks's Use of Weapons (1990)

Banks' Use of Weapons involves a covert operation to prevent a regional civil war among the solar systems and political factions of a recently divided star cluster. The book evokes a bit of a Diaspora vibe, as the story features Zakalwe, a world-hopping hired gun for the Culture. There are a number of vignettes set in the midst of ground combats (something you can wargame quite nicely with Diaspora's platoon combat subsystem, thank you!). The novel also constantly refers to its star cluster setting simply as the Cluster, which even made me wonder whether +Brad Murray's usage of the term for the smaller units of connected solar systems in Diaspora might even be a tip of the hat to Banks.

Probably a stretch, I know.

But after reading the passage at the beginning of this post, I had the sudden realization that you could play out this dance on a long cliff at the edge of war using the social combat rules in Diaspora. Which got me started re-reading those rules a couple of nights ago around midnight.

The social conflict rules map rather well to what Gramsci called a war of position (ideology, propaganda, persuasion, negotiation), which often precedes or precludes a war of maneuver (the hottest and most fluid forms of conflict).

The map could present polarized competing endpoints such as Total War Breaks Out vs. A Path to Peace. A critical part of the contest for Zakalwe, the agent of the Culture, is to find, get close to, and push/re-position a central "NPC", the retired Cluster leader Beychae: the one person with the ability hold things together in the Cluster and prevent a regional war.  Beychae's buried deep in an archive in an undisclosed location, under the watchful eyes of Governance, a faction apparently opposed to the Culture's interests. The brush fires have already started in a number of areas of the Cluster; time is of the essence for even someone of Beychae's stature and credibility to prevent a regional war.

The figure of Beychae is a present absence for the first third of the book. I suppose he's a bit like a kinder, gentler Marshall Tito - one who just sort of faded away, after defeating an enemy and unifying diverse peoples into a single state. (I have about 100 pages to go in the book so that may become a bit clearer by the weekend.)

The book feels fresh, almost timeless. It's hard to believe the passage above was written 23 years ago, and published just a year before the Yugoslav Wars began.

It could have been written about Syria.

Comet Barbarians Clan Location Table Key

Yesterday, I posted a 4DF space-based location table for generating the home bases of various Comet Barbarian tribes, clans, khanates, and principates called the Comet Barbarians Clan Locations Table.

Today, we are presenting a bit more detail on the locations described. Each definition also has a T-level based on the Diaspora RPG's standard descriptors for Tech level. Occasionally, the E-scale for Environmental conditions is also referenced.

Location Descriptions

Multiplanet Rosette - Like the Puppeteer homeworlds in Larry Niven's Known Space setting, this location is a fixed geometric arrangement of planets around an artificial star. This is a T4 location which requires artificial gravity for optimal maintenance.

Iceball - This cometary habitation was tunneled out of an ice comet. It typically travels at sublight speeds, and stays a safe distance away from its system's sun. The comet's ice can be used as propellant for maneuvering. Typically such locations are T1, but are often escorted by T2 or T3 vessels, and have hangar facilities for shuttles from those vessels.

Cluster of Small Rocks - This Comet Barbarian clan location is in fact an archipelago of small cometary rocks equipped with thrusters. It is usually accompanied by one or more conventional space vessels as armed escorts. The rocks comprising the Cluster may be equipped with either STL or FTL drives. Rocks with STL drives will usually be T1; however some Rocks have very crude T0 to T1 tech; they are armed with crude atomics and are powered by leaky, aging reactors. FTL-equipped rocks will typically be T2, but may go as high as T3 if equipped for the construction/repair/salvage of FTL vessels.

Rogue Planet - The majority of planets in the galaxy are wandering the depths of interstellar space as Rogue Planets. Most are entirely natural. A few are constructs such as the Shell Worlds found in Star Trek's Yonada, Iain M. Banks' novel Matter, and Fritz Leiber's SF classic The Wanderer.  Comet Barbarians have settled numerous such worlds, digging elaborate tunnel complexes under their surfaces to conceal their true purpose. The majority of such worlds have T1 or T2 technology, and are E-1 or E-2 with respect to habitability. Most Shell Worlds will be somewhere between T1 to T4, and are generally E-1 to E4.

Fleet Cluster, Active & Mobile - Some Comet Barbarian clans travel in fleets of FTL vessels. Few of the vessels are physically connected, but they often make FTL jumps in tethered electronically to a command ship. Such fleets are typically T2.

Sargasso Fleet Cluster, Mobile - A Sargasso Fleet Cluster is a cloud of individual space vessels. Comet Barbarians in a Sargasso Fleet are limited to one solar system (or one location in interstellar space). Many ships are physically connected to each other, but with mobile fleets some local maneuver is possible; for example, a mobile Sargasso Fleet Cluster change its relative location from another object in the system by 1-8 AU. Mobile Sargasso Fleet Clusters are typically T1, but may contain one or several T2 vessels.

Sargasso Fleet Cluster, Immobile - A Sargasso Fleet Cluster is a cloud of individual space vessels at a fixed location in a solar system or in interstellar space. Many ships in such fleet clusters are physically connected to each other, and damaged, in disrepair, and/or heavily jury rigged. Such immobile fleet clusters have very little local maneuver capability: typically just enough to maintain a fixed position and not collide with other objects such as planets. Some immobile Sargasso Fleet Clusters are located near jumpgates or slipknots to facilitate interstellar travel and raids. These locations are typically T0 toT1, but may contain one or several T2 vessels.

Ancient Temple Planetoid - A Comet Barbarian clan has made their home on a planetoid with an ancient temple ruin. The planetoid may be an active pilgrimage site providing an additional revenue source for its new guardians, or a long-forgotten place of worship built by a Forerunner race. The technology level may be anywhere from T-1 to T4. In the latter case, the temple itself may be a jealously guarded secret or a weapon of unimaginable power.

Human Generation Ship - Gigantic, long-abandoned STL generation ships make an ideal haven for Comet Barbarians, and still-inhabited generation ships also have their advantages. The original inhabitants of a generation ship may have evolved into Comet Barbarians after making contact with FTL cultures. Alternatively, the original inhabitants may have intermarried with a Comet Barbarian clan as insurance against exploitation or attack by outside parties, or by rival groups within the great ship. Such vessels are most often T1, but may have degenerated since launch to T0 or T-1; any lower on the tech scale than that and they will not be very desirable base locations for Comet Barbarians. Such generation ships are typically protected by one or more T2 or T3 vessels. Once Project Generations is completed, there will be many new resources for FATE-based generation ship games.

Alien Generation Ship - Gigantic, long-abandoned alien STL generation ships sometimes make an ideal haven for Comet Barbarians, while still-inhabited alien generation ships present their own unique opportunities and risks as home bases for Comet Barbarians. Alien generation ships often hide great mysteries and can confer secret advantages upon the clan that possesses one. Like their human counterparts, most alien generation ships will be T1, and may have degenerated since launch to T0 or T-1; any lower on the tech scale than that and they will not be very desirable base locations for Comet Barbarians. Such generation ships are typically protected by one or more T2 or T3 vessels.

Alien Space Fortress - This may be a fixed position in space, or a mobile battlestation of some kind. It may be long abandoned by its original inhabitants, retain a secret enclave of those inhabitants' descendants, or have a thriving alien population that is allied with or subservient to the Comet Barbarians. Tech level may be anywhere from T-1 to T4. Alien Space Fortresses at T3 and T4 often possess incredibly powerful secret weapons, which may confer great advantages on the Comet Barbarian khan or princeling who possesses the fortress. Such locations are often protected by T2 or T3 Comet Barbarian support vessels, and may even have vast hangars to accommodate those ships.

Alien Megafauna - The galaxy is a very big place, and filled with strange things. Some Comet Barbarian tribes have managed to find and colonize the bodies of gigantic alien space creatures. Whether these are the corpses of ancient space monsters, creatures from beyond time and space, or benevolent creatures making very slow migrations across the galaxy, the Comet Barbarians who inhabit them and burrow deep within their flesh and bones tend to be very strange barbarian clans indeed. With extra organs, weird pets and familiars, and odd mutant powers. Best beware and steer clear. Such clan locations tend to be much lower tech: anywhere from T-4 to T1 is typical. When such settlements have an escort fleet, it is almost always crewed  by an allied clan.

Ripple Bethorm - This is a pocket universe on the move. A Ripple Bethorms navigates space at one fixed speed, either STL or FTL. They often follow predictable courses through the galaxy. Almost anything may be on the inside of a Ripple Bethorm, from a vast hollow world environment to an entire solar system suspended in a starless void. T4 technologies are required to create and sustain such spaces, but those technologies are usually operating in the background, well beyond human control. The entrance to a Ripple Bethorm is a very small fracture in space-time. Often Comet Barbarians will protect this opening with a T2 or T3 ship located just inside the fracture. Clans living within such pocket universes may be at any level of technological development, from T-4 to T3, but whatever the general level of development there will always be a T2 to T3 elite capable of crewing Comet Barbarian ships.

Screens Up!

FATE Ringworld! I am thinking about running this at Con of the North in 2014! For system, I would use either Starblazer Adventures or FAE.

You are looking at the GM side of the GM screen for Starblazer Adventures. On G+, someone recently posted their GM table arrangement for FATE Core, which included a GM screen, NPCs on large index cards, and an RPG manual from another Chaosium boxed set from the same era, the 1980s.

This led one person to speculate that the GM must be old school, and that they thought GM screens were unnecessary for FATE. To be clear, at least one FATE RPG has a GM screen: the massive Starblazer Adventures RPG. The screen has most or all of the tables likely to be used in play, as well as the sequences for person-to-person and starship combat. It is a quite useful screen, with incredible full color art from the Starblazer Adventures comic on the player-facing side.

That being said, I almost never use GM screens in the "upright" (i.e., standing) position. I keep them folded-up and at my side as a ready reference. I don't like barriers that block my line of sight or that of the players, and FATE games tend to involve a lot of reach and toss actions with Fate Points.

If some FATE gamers express discomfort with a GM screen this may reflect the traditional symbolic role of those screens: they are the primary symbol of GM authority in RPGs.  "The GM is god." The underpinnings of the world which the PCs experience is hidden behind the screen. "Don't look behind the screen", to paraphrase the Wizard of Oz. Moving forward almost 40 years, FATE strives for an affect that is aptly expressed as "the table decides" and "the table builds the world". I think this language was introduced to FATE by Diaspora, but it is certainly a sentiment that has been deepened and reinforced by FATE Core.

As someone who played Whitebox D&D and Blackbox LBB Traveller, I do not recall using screens for either of these games. They may have been available, but my friends and I certainly didn't use GM screens until 1st Edition AD&D was published. So arguably, a screen isn't even necessary for old school RPG play. As far as I am concerned, it is a matter of preference and organizational approach used by the GM.

Screens are a tool.  Some GMs use screens to:

• Assert a degree of authorial control and authority at the table. And mystery/mystique. You have to have a bit of that magic air to GM. Few GMs are purely a facilitator. 
• Hide things: notes, maps, and possibly dice rolls. 
• Stage things (such as miniatures or other props) until they are needed.
• Manage the operational complexity of rules/mechanics (and there is significant variance in level of complexity among the different implementations of FATE). 

Of course, there are other approaches to managing operational complexity of rules and mechanics. For example, Diaspora uses cheat sheets for mechanically involved sequences such as person-to-person combat, platoon combat, space combat and social combat. So, sheet rather than screen. Diaspora also encourages the use of a "caller" (as opposed to GM) to manage these particular rules operations.

In summary, I think people shouldn't read too much into the use or non-use of a GM screen. It's a tool, and each GM puts different tools in their toolbox according to their specific style and needs.

The Fate of the Maltruskan Union

http://www.krazykimchi.com/hominids/

No moment in the history of the Terran Expansion is as shameful as humanity's first encounter with an alien civilization, the Maltruskan Union.  The Maltruskans were a gracile hominid race that had settled many worlds near Sol. Their society was mercantile and clan-based. Their technology was a stable Imperial Standard T+2 on the Diasporic Scale of Galactic Development, and they made good use of the ancient network of slipknots, as well as of hyperspace travel.

The Mastruskans' Fall after their first encounter with humanity was precipitous. The problem was both biochemical and psychic. Biochemical: the Maltruskan's were vulnerable to a form of pheremonic attraction and servitude to humans. Psychic: the Maltruskans were moderately empathic, and overly responsive to humans' appetitive nature and the instinctive psychic pressure that humans exerted in proximity to Maltruskans.

Of course, the problem was also imperial: the humans of the Terran Expansion era simply didn't care very much about the welfare of even very similar species. They viewed the Maltruskans as one more resource to exploit to Terran advantage.

The result was the wholesale disintegration of Maltruskan society: their mass enslavement on the humans' plantations and in their extractive industries, and the destruction of the Maltruskan's household, clan, and inter-clan systems. Within a few years of their initial contact with humans, Maltruskan society and technology was in ruins, and only a few enclaves of an odd, subterranean troglodytic Maltruskan sub-species remained extant.

Things did not fare well for the Maltruskans' new masters, either. Once the Maltruskans' network of settled worlds had been overrun and incorporated into the Terran Expansion zone, human expansion stopped, and human-settled worlds became ever more culturally involuted, decadent, and ineffectual. Some Imperial scholars have suggested that this was a hidden vulnerability inherent in the empathic bond established between human masters and their Maltruskan slaves. Whatever the case may be, the end of the Terran Expansion Era came swiftly in the form of an invasion of Comet Barbarians from the periphery of the Terran Expansion zone.

One of the Comet Barbarians' chieftains became the first Imperial Sovereign. Glorious First conquered all the worlds of the Terran Expansion zone, and she began the forcible Separation of the human and Maltruskan populations.  The second and third Imperial Sovereigns completed the dismantling of the traffic in Maltruskan flesh - which extended into the barbarian zones well beyond the formal Terran Expansion zone. These two Sovereigns abolished slavery of all species and kinds within the Empire forever.

The fourth Imperial Sovereign, also known as the Banisher Pontiff, carried out a decree of Excommunication on several Maltruskan worlds that had been purged of human populations. In this way, it was hoped that the Maltruskans might rebuild their culture and civilization, even if limited to a few isolated systems.

Notwithstanding that, there continue to be Maltruskans out and about amidst the Empire. A brave few make their way among humans by using hermetically and psychically shielded encounter suits. Still others have established small clans on remote or barbaric worlds. It is said that a few Maltruskan tribes even wander the deserts of the Imperial Throne World of Altair III. Still others - perhaps the troglodytic psychics - are said to have taken refuge within the lower levels of the Imperial Palace itself.

More than a few humans, meanwhile, dread the day when the humans of the Empire have that inevitable disastrous first encounter with a species for which they are not biochemically or psychically prepared. If this disaster befell the starfaring Maltruskans, why couldn't a similar one befall humans themselves? Modern Imperial Quarantine Procedures are based on the assumption that one day this will happen.

The Architects: Silent Builders Of Refuge

Paolo Soleri's Asteromo

The Architects, or Silent Builders, should not be confused with The Engineers; they have nothing in common with those blundering celestial giants. Far from being engineers of bio-terror and death, The Architects are builders of refuges and sanctuaries for those whose lives have been endangered by others. Their species is at least 250 million years old, if one judges by the Silent Builders' artifacts: the great arcologies they reveal to those fleeing war, genocide, and persecution. Because of their antiquity, and the active role they play in preserving the weakest among the younger races, The Silent Builders are properly understood as a Forerunner-class species with a Preserver ethos.

The Empire first discovered the work of The Architects immediately after the legendary Anti-Annexation Campaign in which the Joyful Brigade laid waste to the numerous hive worlds of The Assembled Totality. Journeying far past the dead worlds of the Totality, the Imperial Dreadnought Brief Exposure and its seven escorts discovered something interesting - an impregnable orbital arcology of extremely advanced design - in a resource-rich but supposedly uninhabited system of the Dying Swan Cluster.

The Cluster's systems had long been mapped by the far-ranging agents of the RUR. As the Imperial vessels began new sensor sweeps of the system, they were suddenly displaced a hundred light years' distance coreward, their drives damaged beyond repair. The next mission the Empire sent to that system  was diplomatic; it negotiated a successful non-aggression and trade pact with the Enclosed Totality, the refugee state that controlled the orbital.

A dozen arcologies are known to have been built by The Architects within the Imperial Extents. They exist peacefully within the Empire as independent states; most are extremely ancient habitations which long preceded the Empire's rise.

Three of these arcologies are space habitats; the remainder are arcologies built on planets or moons. Ten of the Silent Builders' arcologies are home to refugee populations from one or more worlds; two house refugees from the Empire's own Wars of Expansion. Another of the dozen hosts no refugees; it is located in thhe poorly defended Interstitial Region of the Empire and has been taken over by pirates. The twelfth, known as The Unheralded Habitation, is a black hexahedral arcology that has been uninhabited for centuries. It is regarded with superstitious dread by the hillfolk who inhabit the distant mountain villages overlooking the great structure on the Plains.

Soleri's Hexahedron (pop. 170,000)

Hundreds of the Silent Builders' arcologies are known to exist beyond the Empire. The largest number that have been mapped exist in a halo of systems surrounding the RUR Workers-State. From the RUR, a "tail" of arcologies extends further coreward from RURspace towards the galactic center. New arcologies continue to be discovered near current zones of galactic conflict. The Silent Builders place these refuges just far enough away from epicenters of conflict to ensure that opposing parties of belligerents do not discover them.

Refugees from current and recent wars rarely discuss how they found these sanctuaries. But the historical records of long-established refuges contain vague yet tantalizing hints. The Architects' constructs are almost never discovered; they are almost always revealed in a previously uninhabited or disused star system. The Record Halls of these ancient arcologies often contain references to a "Herald" who appeared to their war-torn ancestors and led them to safety.

Where these arcologies actually come from, and where and how they are built, continue to be mysteries.   One day a system is entirely barren, empty of built structures and habitations; the next day a city-building is already there in-system, ready and waiting.  For this reason, if no others, many seek out the Silent Builders to learn and master their techniques.

OGL MECHANICS

The Architects, a galactic organization

ASPECTS:

• High Concept: Builders of refuge-arcologies 
• Trouble: Long-sought by the curious 
• Aspect: Drawn to places of great conflict
• Aspect: The weak must be saved
• Aspect: From among the weak we find our Heralds

APPROACHES

• Careful: +3
• Clever: +4
• Flashy: +1
• Forceful: +2
• Quick: +2
• Sneaky: +3

STUNTS:

• Sudden Revelation - Once per scenario, the Silent Builders may reveal one of their refuge-arcologies in previously uninhabited system. This puts a new location into the game.
• A Herald Shall Lead Them - Once per scenario, the Silent Builders may uplift as their Herald someone from a species that is threatened with extinction. The Herald's body will be suffused nanomachines that render it nearly invulnerable, and their mind will know the words and the way to bring their people to a hidden refuge. After leading their people to safety, they will simply fade from sight and memory, joining the Silent Builders in their Greater Refuge.

REFRESH: 2

Babylonian Encounters: The Sanctuary Of Enever

"Hello Babylon 5" by Egri

Timeframe: Season One and After

Location: GREEN SECTOR, Deck 2, Segment 7 (one unit Forward from Na'Toth's  quarters)

Name:  The Sanctuary of Enever

DATA FILE

There is no Minbari temple in The Garden's Religious and Cultural Centre on Bablyon 5, but deep within the station is a sacred place to which only Minbari of the Worker Caste have unrestricted access: The Sanctuary of Enever. The Minbari known as Enever was the first of his race on the Station. In fact, he was here before construction was even begun, as Enever was a space-architect of the Worker Caste.

His duty to his Caste and to the Grey Council was to contribute funds on the behalf of the Minbari Federation to support the construction of Babylon 5, as well as to contribute the Minbari hand and eye to the construction of a space station that was both functional and beautiful. He succeeded, but at a great personal price.

Enever was already dying when he arrived at Epsilon III. He came with a crew of 50 Minbari architects and engineers of the Worker Caste. Enever told no one of his illness until he was very near the end. He suffered in silence. Enever endured the great pain through meditation and prayer. He worked night and day to devise plans that were pleasing to both Minbari and human eyes, and acceptable to EarthGov. Enever and his fellow Minbari workers designed the hull exterior "to reflect the light of errant and missing souls", an expression they explained to their confused human counterparts as an allusion to the tragedy and loss experienced by both sides in the Earth-Minbari War.

The architect's body was found shortly before the official opening ceremonies for the new station. His Worker Caste colleagues brought him home immediately for final ceremonies. But they left something of Enever behind, in the diplomatic aide's quarters he had used during his time on the station. These quarters became The Sanctuary of Enever, a meditation space within the deck reserved for Babylon 5's most important ambassadors and their aides.

Only a member of the Worker's Caste can open the door to this sanctuary. In the center of the room is a small dais on which a lavender crystal stands on a pedestal. When the door to the room is closed, the crystal glows to life. A holographic model of the Babylon 5 station is then projected within the room. Once can use hand gestures to expand the model to zoom in on particular areas and features.

Curiously enough, the model somehow stays up-to-date with the station's current configuration (including its complement of fighters, defensive systems, ships and shuttles docked in the Zero-G Docking Bay, and other internal features). In fact, the map is more accurate than the station's official maps, which are imprecise for certain areas of the ship. How the holographic model is updated is uncertain, as the walls of the sanctuary are unusually well-shielded against all manners of eavesdropping and electronic surveillance.

Once every year on the anniversary of the station's official opening, a member of the Worker Caste arrives from Minbar to conduct a special ritual of remembrance for Enever. At other times, members of the Worker Caste come here to meditate and pray. The Worker Caste say: "In this place, the eye, the hand, and the mind are in harmony; the soul is united".

The sanctuary's door will open for any member of the Worker Caste but only for members of that caste. Station personnel have not been able to break the code that controls access to the room.

PLOT HOOKS

• One rumor about the sanctuary is that the hologram has another setting: it can also project an ever-outward spiraling network of jumpgates and star systems, with Babylon 5 at its center. Many of these are unknown to Earthforce and IPX, both of whom would like access to the sanctuary in order to map them.
• Ambassador Kosh has been witnessed entering and leaving the sanctuary without Minbari escort. The Minbari refuse to comment about this. Commander Sheridan once asked Ambassador Kosh: "What do you do in there?" Kosh replied: "Silence makes the mind sing."*
• Anyone with psi-skills who passes by the sanctuary will sense the presence of a powerful mind at work within the room - even when no one is inside. If they venture within the sanctuary, they will be drawn to the lavender holographic crystal on the dais. It is psychically active.
• Immediately below the sanctuary is a 7' x 3' x 3' cavity that is surrounded by very advanced machinery. Scans reveal the outline of a body within the chamber... one with a Minbari skeleton.

OGL MECHANICS

ASPECTS:

• High Concept Aspect: A living tribute to Enever
• Trouble Aspect: Many wish to enter 
• Only the Worker Caste has the key
• One hologram hides another
• A favorite haunt of Ambassador Kosh

*Thanks to +Jeremy Whalen for letting me use this fine Koshism.

Babylonian Encounters: Bartoli's Breads & Bakery

Timeframe: Season One and After

Location: Two locations: one in Blue Sector, Central Corridor, Segment 10 (just opposite the entryway from Customs), one in Red Sector, Deck 28, Segment 8 (just aft of the Lower Zocalo).

Name:  Bartoli's Breads

DATA FILE

Infamous with station personnel for baking and serving "the worst bread in the universe", Bartoli's Breads & Bakery's kiosk in the Central Corridor is a quick stop for pastries, sandwiches, and coffee for new arrivals on the station. Bartolli's also has a full bakery and restaurant in Red Sector for shoppers willing to take a few small steps off the Lower Zocalo. You will always find a Centauri or two buying pastries there.

Both locations are indeed very popular with the station's alien residents. Bartoli's markets itself as offering "real human treats, just like the first Bartoli's Bakery back on Earth." This slogan has led to jokes about "Bartoli's pastries being people." While most humans think the pastries aren't very good, the aliens don't seem to mind, and the price point is high enough to make up for the lack of repeat human customers. Business is so good in fact, that Bartoli's near-Zocalo location is a sit down restaurant. Some of the canned sandwich meats are actually quasi-fresh.

Owner Luciano Bartoli is meticulous about paying his bills on time, unlike many station vendors, and he has leveraged this reputation for punctuality and reliability into a side business in catering. Bartoli's provides pastries and sandwiches for many station conferences, with the exception of those held in the Babylon Hilton. The delivery business means that Bartoli's personnel have the run of many areas of the station, including a number of very secure areas. You can find them making deliveries almost everywhere it's safe to go.

PLOT HOOKS

• Station authorities have received anonymous complaints from humans about the food at Bartoli's: specifically, that the fillings in some of the pastries contain Centauri spoo. Regulations require the authorities to mount a food inspection since some humans have food allergies to this popular food (and we use the term loosely). 
• Bartoli's delivery staff have recently been observed several times bringing new packages back from a delivery location. Sometimes the packages are brought all the way back to the bakery, while at other times, the packages get delivered to a third location. These deliveries often involve Centauri customers, but also sometimes Security personnel. Station authorities want it investigated...discretely.
• A group of Narn toughs has on several recent occasions roughed up Centauri patrons at the Bartoli's location near the Zocalo. Luciano Bartoli has had enough. He decides to hire some muscle (and brains) of his own to figure out who these ruffians are, and teach them a lesson. 

OGL MECHANICS

ASPECTS:

• High Concept: A favorite stop for aliens and new arrivals
• Trouble: The worst bread in the universe
• We pay our bills on time
• Fresh canned coffee and meats
• The run of the station

Babylonian Encounters: Maxwell Flint

We're resuming our long-promised sub-series about the people and places of the Babylon 5 station. This sub-series uses Diaspora RPG as its systemic reference, but will use FATE Core/FAE's High Concept and Trouble Aspects to help define the most important Aspects of a person or place.

We begin with a station resident who is a veteran of the Earth-Minbari War.

Timeframe: Season One and After

Location: RED SECTOR, Deck 30, Segment 6, in the block of cheap housing adjacent to the lift. There is a mixed retail area nearby, as well as Alien Sector lodgings and Alien Bazaar space (see Mongoose's Guide to the Station, p. 54 for the deck map).

Name:  Lt. Maxwell Flint, Earthforce, ret.

Jerome Flynn as Maxwell Flint

DATA FILE 

Maxwell Flint is a veteran of the Earth-Minbari war. After serving on several Earthforce vessels as a communications and intelligence analyst both during and after the war, he mustered out and used his Earthforce connections to secure a construction job as part of the workforce building Bablyon Station.

He helped build-out the station's communications networks, and currently works on an on-call basis to assist with repairs to the station's communications systems and interstellar tachyon communications network. He can also be hired out for repairs on private ships' communications systems.

Max, as his friends call him, undoubtedly knows numerous back doors into the station's communication systems and the local hub for the jumpgate's tachyon communications network. His apartment on the station is filled with vintage military communications equipment, much of which is directly connected to the station's communications secure hub.

Station staff haven't discovered this intrusion yet.

But a careful review of the station's communications logs would reveal many brief and almost untraceable communications ... some occurring within the station itself, some being station-to-ship transfers, and others being data transfers piggybacking onto Earthforce's own transmissions through the tachyon network.

A careful search of  Flint's quarters will also reveal numerous hidden and highly encrypted data crystals... way too many for a communications repairman. His quarters are also better shielded against EM noise than most; and the shielding goes in both directions.

Like many veterans, Maxwell Flint resents the Minbari, He will stay clear of most aliens, with the exception of the Narn. He has done many favors for them, they pay well, and he appreciates their straightforward manners.

PLOT HOOKS

• Earthforce has engaged Flint as an asset in running a counterespionage operation against the Narn. Through Flint, Earthforce is feeding the Narn false intelligence in order to see how they respond to different political and military scenarios.
• Flint is deeply in debt to loan sharks in the Downbelow. To recover his funds and pay off his debts, he has been snooping-in on Earthforce military intelligence signals (such as Earthforce fleet locations and intelligence such as Centauri diplomatic chatter) and selling that information to the Narn. 
• Flint is a comms repairman who often picks up privileged information from his private customers (typically small merchant and diplomatic vessels). He uses this information to tip off allies on Babylon 5 about potentially lucrative trade deals.
• On who knows? behalf Flint has been installing transponder software on a number of private ships he services. The software transmits a location ping using a ship's tachyon transponder just before a jump into or out of hyperspace. This allows a ship's location to be tracked inter-systemically.

OGL MECHANICS

ASPECTS:

• High Concept Aspect: Mustered out, but always on call
• Trouble Aspect: Narn-friendly xenophobe
• Communications and cryptography expert
• Veteran of the Earth-Minbari War
• Been on the Station since the beginning

Apex Skill: Communications (space)

Stunt: Military Grade Communications 

Project Generations - Scenario Writing

Generation Ship art by Fraterchaos
http://shadowness.com/fraterchaos/generation-ship-2

I spent the day today working on the scenario chapter for Project Generations, the FATE-based SF series on generation ships that I am writing for +Chris Birch's Modiphius Entertainment. The first Project Generations product is tri-statted for Starblazer Adventures, Diaspora, and Bulldogs! 

Once I turn in the manuscript for this one, I'll be working on an all-new Project Generations product for FATE Core. I already have some great new ideas for that one. Really over the top!

Chapter Six of the current project is where the scenario lives. The previous chapters build up to the scenario, but also give you TONS of new tools for running games set on generation ships, stats for two sample generation ships , a deck-by-deck treatment of one generation ship, and stats for numerous auxiliary/support ships for use inside and outside the vessel. (These come in helpful because generation ships can be HUGE!)

The scenario chapter broke 31 pages today of single spaced text - it's a monster! The chapter includes background on the generation ship used in the scenario, information on its current state and the rival factions on-board, rules on awakening from cryostasis on a generation ship, drop dice tables for ship locations, and scenes. I think whether you like to use a scenario in its entirety, or you prefer to pick and choose a few elements of a published scenario to use in your own game, you'll get good value out of this product.

My goal is to get most of the scenario finished this weekend. We'll still have some NPCs to statt out during the week, but if I can finish the scene pieces this weekend, we'll be in good shape to finish the writing before April.

Then comes art and layout, which is in great hands with the team Modiphius has together!

Just look at what they are doing for Achtung! Cthulhu over here!

Diaspora Parameters for Babylon 5

Back in January, I posted revised Diaspora parameters for use with the Babylon 5 setting. A couple of weeks ago, I put together a set of Aspects for the station. Today we are putting those two things together, treating the station as a planet or system using Diaspora mechanics.

Some of the ratings below may be controversial. I am certainly interested in what others might say.

For System Type, I am using "Major Power Base". When the series starts, Babylon Station is an Earthforce facility, and therefore an asset of a Major Power.

For the Technology parameter, I am using only T+1. This isn't simply because the station lacks artificial gravity - an area where the humans are clearly "behind" the other great powers at the beginning of the TV series. The lower score reflects the fact that B5 most likely lacks the capacity to manufacture items of the size and complexity of jumpgates. It can certainly operate these systems, and can probably repair these systems within certain limits - but it isn't laying down new track, so to speak.

With respect to the Environment parameter, I chose "Survivable World". Again this is probably subject to debate, but it seems pretty clear to me that while there are certainly large areas of the station which are extremely comfortable, there are many other areas, such as Downbelow, which are quite miserable.

For the Resources parameter, I selected "Multiple Dependencies". It is pretty clear that without fairly continuous trade, the station cannot maintain itself and its population.

OGL MECHANICS

System Type: Major Power Base

Technology: T+1 ~ Minor Powers

• Use jumpgates, use tachyon communications networks

Environment: E-1 ~ Survivable World

Resources: R-3 ~ Multiple Dependencies

ASPECTS:

• Babylon 5 was a dream given form
• A port of call for refugees, smugglers, businessmen, diplomats and travelers from a hundred worlds
• Our last, best hope for peace
• Nothing here is what it seems

With thanks to Babylon 5 Quotes, and in particular to "The Gathering" quotes page.

Microscope and Doctor Who

Our Thursday night gaming group has been playing some sessions of Microscope. It's a storygame which I first learned about through the Diaspora RPG listserv. I have now played it twice. This week's game was particularly fun. We decided to do a game about Space Vikings. Real Space Vikings, the kind who use longships with oars and sails to cross the foamy ether-seas to other worlds.

Our future history (the creation of which is the game of Microscope) began by establishing the beginning era and the end era for our story - the bookends for the timeline as it were. The beginning was the launch of Ragnar's fleet into the ether; the end point was the establishment of a democratic Viking space commonwealth.

The game's mechanics structure play in such a way that players take turns interpolating additional eras between the bookends, and/or specifying events that happen within specific eras. Players can choose to play out certain historical events so that the group can answer a specific question, and determine how historical events moved forward.

In our case, one of the key events that was played out was the question of "What did the Vikings take away from Mars?"  Individual players have a lot of say about what happens when it is there turn to be in the spotlight, but the mechanics establish some preliminary groundrules at the beginning of play (examples from this game were "I want this to be fantasy"; "I don't want this to be SF"; "I want there to be real Vikings with longships"; "I want there to be a Barsoom").

So I had an epiphany tonight about how to bring a bit more time travel to the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG. Why not use Microscope to create a world timeline for a campaign? The bookends would be fixed points in time. Maybe what happens between these bookends would be more fluid. Its an idea worth exploring a bit more with the gaming group. Maybe something interesting could come from it.