[Space] Baseline Universe

[Kalzazz]

TL 10ish, though other stuff can exist and things. For instance lightsabres, must have lightsabres. Also the AK-47 and RPG-7 are eternal, they never grow old and are still used in TL 10 (mostly by mooks), ships and such are mostly based off Star Wars or Spelljammer or Treasure Planet (Jedi exist and revere George Lucas as the prophet who foretold their coming . . . . why exactly made X-Wings and Ties etc are never fully explained (OOC because it started in D6, and stats existed for Star Wars ships, so of course people used them))

I mostly just steal various fantasy races, though occasionally some aliens show up to though are mostly just anthro animalish (such as Steggoids - Anthro Stegosauruses' and Porcupineans (anthro porcupines from the planet Porcupinea)) and also stuff from Star Wars, but primarily elves, dwarves, orcs, demons, dragons, fairies etc. Genetically modified (to the point where its noticeable) people are rare and unusualish. Though species doesnt play a huge role, your much more likely to fight the Purple Piranha Gang or the Cult of Foom or Evil Megacorp Inc which all are equal oppurtunity employers than you are 'the Orks' (well, sorta . . . Im a lazy DM, so you often fight 'a dozen orks with AK-47s' compared to '3 orks, 1 elf, 4 humans, 2 halflings, a dwarf, and a sentient rhododendron with AK-47s' (but also common to fight 'a dozen mooks with AK-47s'). Pokemon also exist, and may be genetically engineered based on the popular TV show from the past

Hyperdrive because Im so used to playing Star Wars . . . . though I have an alternate flavor text involving 'Fast Gear' for FTL, 'Slow Gear' for non FTL, magnetic propellors, revolutions, Tokomak Boilers for power, and ships having wakes. Culturally getting a captains license is viewed as an important thing for teenagers to do, just like a drivers license is now

21XX or 'sometime in the future', the current day time period is called 'The Weather Balloon Era', based on the notion the people of that era dismissed aliens and magic and such as weather balloons

[David Johansen]

I'm thinking it might be useful to work from the angle of making the setting as broad as possible.

The baseline universe needs to be open to playing the widest possible range of games.

It needs higher and lower tech areas. Areas that are primarily human and areas with a space opera mix. Areas where hard science is more prevalent and areas where super science is the norm. Psi needs to exist but be sufficiently below the radar to be ignored if you don't like it.

I'm thinking a two drive setting may be the answer. The hyper drive is great for short distances but the jump drive is better for crossing the galaxy. Jump gates are expensive and huge and ultra high tech. This gives us the potential for large backwaters of lower tech without entirely throwing away hyperdrive. Yes hyperdrives are good. Go read Insurrection and the other Star Fire based novels by David Weber and Steve White. Choke points make for absolutely nasty naval battles.

Reactionless drives exist but require unobtainium that can only be handled with ultratech. This gives us a reason to use reaction drives in the backwaters. Alien races are fairly scarce. There's maybe 20 in the whole galaxy with only half a dozen having the ultra tech stuff. The back waters tend to be one or two races in broad area. Humanity is in the ultratech club but only an evolved, psychic variety. Ordinary base line humans don't have psi, nor do most of the lower tech races.

The mix of races would include the really alien stuff and furries but be set up so you could easily leave the furries out of your private backwater. Most of the races would map to popular media critters but there'd be plenty of room to plug in your own.

I'd probably go with Hyper Drives being TL 9 and the backwaters having limited amounts of TL 10 while the ultra tech jump gate neighborhoods would be mainly TL 10 with limited access to TL 11.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by David Johansen

I'm thinking it might be useful to work from the angle of making the setting as broad as possible.

Reminds me of Orion's Arm

[Hai-Etlik]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Suppose you were going to run an (interstellar) Space game. Or in fact are.

What would your Tech Level be?

Probably TL 10 overall, maybe retarded or advanced in a few places for a bit of variety.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Would you have spacefaring alien rivals to humanity or just genetic variants of humanity?

The enemy need not be a different species. Nationalism works just fine in Battletech and the Honorverse (

Spoiler:  

Yes there is Mesa, but the Manticorans and Havenites were both largely baseline humans.

)

So I'd either go for nations of similar humans, or outright aliens, or both.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

What would be your preferred propulsion model?

Pseudovelocity drive. For FTL, hyperdrive, or the same pseudovelocity drive can just be dialled up to way beyond the speed of light to be a warp drive.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

How far in the future would it be?

Just about anything works depending on the particular mood I'm after. For something leaning toward 'hard' I'd probably go for something in the range 2150-2400, for more space opera feel, I'd probably prefer something like SW, BSG, or Foundation where modern Earth history is functionally irrelevant.

[Apache]

Either G:Trav or GISW. Probably GISW, as its already 4e and its easier for new players (Earth vs the evil Imperials....)

Homebrew GSpace background?

Now + 500 years or so.

3 different human polities, no spacefaring alien species (yet....), and a handful of intelligent alien races (straight outta GAliens, yo. And one from Trav...the Jgd-II-Jag).

Starfire-reactionless drive (has built in nuke dampener), force fields (for the warships), contragrav, classic GSpace hyperdrive (from 3e Space), average TL 10^. Energy weapons for the military folks, civilians and lesser beings get by with guns, etc. No FTL comms.

Basically try for a Piperesque feel to it. Think of his Terran Federation stories and you pretty much nail it.

[David Johansen]

I lean towards the year 4000 so that humanity has had time to disperse and become common place thus allowing for lots of interesting little pockets.

Yes you can just do the earth as a lost colony thing but personally I'm tired of ancients, and ancient astronauts, and all that stuff.

If there are a couple hyper advanced races I'd want them to be a little removed from the whole lords of order and chaos thing we got in B5.

[Joseph Paul]

Aw rates of dispersion in a 3-D volume. I was about to look up thoughts on that for my major ancient empire.

[vicky_molokh]

TL9 with some ^, maaaybe TL10^ at most. Hyperspace mostly mimicking Babylon 5 and/or Star Control. NO FTL Comm. Inertialess or pseudoinertialess drives. Aliens in the style of either B5 or SC - i.e. ranging from Forehead to Starfish Aliens, plus some artificial ones, but no currently active energy beings, unless they're just background fluff or a cosmic horror (again, as in SC3). I'm not ready to seriously GM space yet, but this is vaguely what my default universe looks like.

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

...

BTW, why are you plagiarizing Sir_Pudding's user title?

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

Aw rates of dispersion in a 3-D volume. I was about to look up thoughts on that for my major ancient empire.

I'd look here, here, and here for well-researched and well-thought-out info.

Once again Atomic Rockets saves the day! Have a sci-fi problem? Hit it with Atomic Rockets!!