I'm going to start by addressing the heterogeneity here by defining what "new space opera" means
to me and then address what bits of
GURPS Ultra-Tech and
GURPS Space apply to trying to run it GURPS (which I have actually done with
Xia of The Empire of Heaven).
To me, the "new space opera" includes a lot of what was written with an interstellar or galactic scope and published after Star Wars, unless it is deliberately ultra-hard (Benford's
Galactic Center books) or deliberately retro (Bujold's
Vorkosigan books). It rejects the new wave's focus on smallish stories about the near-future on Earth, the dystopian pessimism of cyberpunk, and the rigid rules of high literary hard-sf, while still being heavily influenced by all of those. It is closely related and sometimes overlaps with radical hard-sf (
Spin and
Axis come to mind as fitting into that overlapping zone). To be (for me) "new space opera" it must:
- Have an interstellar or galactic scope.
- Be something of the epic in scale.
- Have some attention to technology and science, even if it is just consistent technobabble.
- Have technology with radical and transformative effects on daily life.
- Not ignore or retrotech the information age. Usually means that AI needs to be addressed or at least lampshaded.
Some (heterogenous) examples: Banks'
Culture, Simmon's
Hyperion and
Endymion, Williams'
Dread Empire's Fall, Leckey's
Ancillary Justice.
Now that's out of the way,
GURPS stuff:
Ultra-Tech p. 8-11:
- Most examples should start with the Radical Hard SF path, but typically include some elements of Emergent Superscience most commonly some form of FTL (and most typically stable wormholes that don't permit closed time-like curves).
- Natotech Revolutions (and even singularities!) are common tropes.
- High-Biotech may exist. Especially for radical daughter cultures or aliens.
- Safe-Tech may exist in a limited way, such as in settings where AI volitional AI are heavily controlled in order to prevent a singularity.
- Retro-tech and Psi-tech are totally inappropriate.