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Introduction

• Let me get this off of my chest first: This is my first time running a NRP. If you have an idea/see a problem, talk to me, I welcome advice and help =)
• This is a Sci-Fi NRP focused on controlling your nation as it enters the age of space colonization and expands into the galaxy.
• The RP will take place in an original universe, and world building will be a sizable chunk of the activity.
• The story is set to the beginning of an interstellar era, with the nations about to start exploring other stars having fully colonized their home system.
• This may use a semi-turn based system - The first post in your turn will contain your actions on the map, afterwards you will be free to post in real time to conclude the situation, whether through diplomacy, battle or what have you. Rinse and repeat. The length of the turn in real time is up to debate - I'll try to wait for everyone to finish their affairs, but if the RP falls silent for too long, I'll move it forward. This is up for debate.

The story

Long ago, there was a race whose empire spanned the entire galaxy. Nowadays they are known by many names - Ancients, Forerunners, Ancestors, Progenitors,... - none of them their own. Under their care, their galaxy flourished, as they protected and guided the weaker species on their path towards the stars. Their will was to build an empire everlasting. As their empire expanded, so did their pride. Very soon their sheep turned into slaves, and the shepherds became masters.

No longer was the galaxy an empire of understanding. Instead it was replaced by an empire of oppression and fear. And those that came before grew ever prideful, and soon the galaxy was not enough. They dreamed of an empire spanning the whole universe. Soon they reached out to other galaxies by means unknown. Whomever they found they warred with, for the universe was only theirs. Their foes fought, they failed, and they fell. But their sin didn’t go unpunished. The fate led them to a faraway place, where they discovered yet another enemy. But they were not like the others. They didn’t submit, and they didn’t die.

Ten thousand years ago, the last battle was fought. Driven back to their home galaxy, They realized the folly of their fight. Pulling the last resources of their crumbling empire, they sealed the paths into their galaxy, banning their nemesis from crushing all life within it. However, they were dealt the mortal blow. No longer able to stand on just one galaxy, the empire crumbled, and all of its nations vanished, leaving behind nothing but relics.

The mechanics

Home systems

Initially, players will be allowed to create one star system to start with. The nature of resources available in this system should be the base for the evolution and technology of your race - Does your home planet have 0.5 of Earth’s gravity? Then your race will not be too physically strong. Is your system rich in ores but not in materials usable as power source? Then your warships should rely more on kinetic weapons and armor than lasers and shields. You get the idea.

The map



The universe is quite vast, but to promote interaction between players, we'll only be operating in several interesting ones - systems you would know contain some kind of relic. Each player should have this reflected in their sheets and have their people find and recover a star chart or other means of identifying which stars may have been colonized by the former empire.

Furthermore, the subspace that will be used for FTL is an unmastered element. All that is really known is how to construct the subspace motivators and that strong gravity stabilizes the subspace field to the point when transition to and from normal space is possible without the body entering or exiting being disintegrated. The three supermassive black holes in the galaxy stabilize it to such extent that it is impossible to make an FTL exit in the blue region at the current level of technology. On the other hand, the pulsars in the orange zones influence it in another way, making subspace a violent storm that requires a special drive to make a safe transit.

In the red zone, there is absolutely nothing your instruments can detect on the sky. It seems like a glitch in the star charts your people recovered, just like the galactic core being marked as a system of importance - assuming one can even make an FTL exit that close to a black hole, navigating that area in normal space seems impossible.

Relics

All of the systems will contain a relic - a remnant of the past era, a technology or an artifact of the long gone empire. These will be unique and can be an enormous boon to your nation. Despite being from a previous era, these relics will be the most powerful instances of their type, whether they are a method of communication or an ancient battleship. Each nation will start with one relic of your design to start with - just run it by the GMs.

Restrictions

Since you will be able to design every aspect of your race, some caps need to be set. Each race will be evaluated individually by the GMs, but try to keep it realistic according to the history of your race. For example, a race that has a history of wars among itself is less likely to have many colonies, however they will start with far stronger military. In contrast, a peaceful race may start with stronger economy, but will have to adapt should it find itself under siege. Some general restrictions:

• Technology: Unless your race is centered around pushing its technology to its limits, I do not wish to see “solutions to nonexistent problems” - if most of your tech is energy based, your ships will not mount mass drivers “just in case”.
• FTL: For intrasystem jumps you may use whatever type of FTL you want to, however intersystem jumps will only be available only through subspace as restricted on the game map.
• Degree of realism: I aim for this to be in the hard sci-fi category. Leave your phlogiston with your WoW character.
• Language barrier: To ease up communication, assume that ëveryone decoded the ancient language and can use it as a common ground.
• For simplicity’s sake, let's use real life units of measurement.
• Multiple races in a single nation: Will be allowed, however be prepared for extra scrutinizing by the GMs.

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Nation sheet

Using this format is not mandatory, but keep in mind this is part worldbuilding - going into details is not a crime.

Obviously interested, since I'm the one that suggested this to you in the first place. ;D
+1 interest.

I didn't get a choice in being interested.

ACTION STATIONS!

+1 Interested

Very interested in the setting and gameplay as outlined. Will hammer out a good space opera nation soon.

I'm interested, I'll start working on a NS soonish

If we find a spark, we may consider this.

Just to get it on the clear before we or someone else starts playing with it... how would "advanced" abilities like telekinesis, telepathy or such be viewed?

For simplicity's sake: will people be asked to stick to SI units of measurement? or will there be a hodgepodge of various Terran systems of measurement?

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention - I'd rather not see any humans. Feel free to speculate on why :D

@Measurements: SI or imperial I don't care, just don't invent new ones. I'm a continental scrub so it's metric for me but if you're used to inches, pounds and miles, go ahead.

"That asteroid is five pounds away! DO A BARREL ROLL TO THE METRE!"

Who wants to be human? Humans are scrubs.

Ok. Our base unit of measurement will be the attoparsec. You asked for it. 3.085 cm

On a more serious note, we'll stick to metric. If we find a species spark.

What about formerly human species? Either changed by some external force or hybridized?

Welll, I suppose it doesn't matter if I hide it or not anymore, since the RP changed drastically from the original draft.

The humans were the ancients.

Thay're just gone, and the relics left behind are their stuff. SO I guess the aliens indeed do speak English. As far as some altered form goes... I suppose a couple of survivors might have made it but for all intents and purposes, their civilization would have been reduced to a stone age. So unless the alterations somehow allowed them to repopulate and rebuild in ten thousand years what took a couple hundred millenia on the first try, I'd be inclined to say no. But if you get a spark, run it by me in a PM or I'll try to pop up in #aftermath.

The humans were the ancients.

Totally called it.

Welll, I suppose it doesn't matter if I hide it or not anymore, since the RP changed drastically from the original draft.

The humans were the ancients.

aliens indeed do speak English

Perhaps you can go with my theory from Stargate? Whereas the Ancients/Progenitors created this language so all their minions could understand them and eachother.

I'm currently rolling with the idea that humans left all of the younger races their library to find, so you could:

a) learn their language when you were advanced enough, so 1st contact with you would be easier
b) learn where to find them from the stories (That would be how you would identify the systems of interest, form legends and stuff)
c) have something nice to read

Also, we've tor possibly up to 9 people, I think that's the sweet spot. I'll be making some corrections and putting up the OOC soonish

I am interested.
As for suggestions I think a galaxy is huge thus you may want to limit things a bit. Subspace travel and such may be a way but how about establishing a network of "warp gates" Using these one can travel between two points and controlling these might be essential during the late game. With all other FTL being slow the gates would also be the centers of civilization where most of the activity be focused on. This way you can avoid the usual issue with space NRPs. Galaxies have billions or even trillions of star systems to exploit yet you still want the players to fight over territory.

As for the turn system I really don't like that but perhaps we can use this in a more subtle way. Rather than one posts or a set number of responses per turn or anything that artificial we can make the turns last 1-4 months or so. Basically we can split the game to tactical and strategical turns.

Tactical Phase:
- Your actions happen in real time (typical RP pace)
- You can fight, negotiate, explore and such (generally do action-heavy things)
- Can't do anything which takes up a longer span of time (months or so)
Strategic Phase:
- Once everyone is done with their tactical phase the GM declares the strategic phase
- Players draw up a list of actions they do during this timeframe(1-4 months, you decide)
- You can build up forces, research stuff, spy on people and do other things which require a longer term
- Some of these actions may require more than one strategic turn (depending on how much time they would reasonably take)

This isn't actually an idea of mine but took from a different NRP. Anyways it appears to work well. If you are interested I can explain more details.

Anyways, I may join this game as an earlier version of Morte.
Is it a problem if I am already at war with one or more alien races? It would serve to explain their militaristic tendencies and general xenophobia.

@Willy Vereb

That system is something along the lines I was thinkign at. I already tried the idea similar to the warp ghates, but it was crashing too much with the relics being thrown into the mix.

As for the territory, the relics take care of that - if you settle systems without those, you will be left hopelessly behind and ready for others to tear you apart. As far as fleet movements go, sure you can stage your task group in a different system, but that would leave you a few ships short on defense - it just isn't practical.

And yes, that is a problem unless those species are within the same star system. I want everyone to start off on relatively equal footing, realism has to make way for gameplay in that regard. You could go that way, or have two sapient species evolve on one planet to fight like the Centauri from B5. Or maybe jsut have your people born with different colors of skin and have them go on a genocidal rampage like we humans like to do

I'd like to hear mroe about the game system or have a link to said RP.

roleplayerguild.com/topics/80178-stell..
roleplayerguild.com/topics/74392-from-..

Examples of the Morte from previous NRPs. Although I plan to rework them considerably.
Another option could be the Martians but they work the best when:
- they have other races to manipulate
- The setting has humans to whom they have hateful ancient history
So that kinda rules out this game.
I have other options but somehow I wish the Morte be in for this mess.

OOC is up. Link also in OP here. Since we have 10 people interested and I don't really care for much larger group, I'm putting the OOC up as full for now. We'll see how many people stick around, then maybe reopen.

@Willy Vereb

That system is something along the lines I was thinkign at. I already tried the idea similar to the warp ghates, but it was crashing too much with the relics being thrown into the mix.

As for the territory, the relics take care of that - if you settle systems without those, you will be left hopelessly behind and ready for others to tear you apart. As far as fleet movements go, sure you can stage your task group in a different system, but that would leave you a few ships short on defense - it just isn't practical.

And yes, that is a problem unless those species are within the same star system. I want everyone to start off on relatively equal footing, realism has to make way for gameplay in that regard. You could go that way, or have two sapient species evolve on one planet to fight like the Centauri from B5. Or maybe jsut have your people born with different colors of skin and have them go on a genocidal rampage like we humans like to do

I'd like to hear mroe about the game system or have a link to said RP.

I see.
Well, the point would be exactly that these aliens would strike from other star systems or be nomad/pirate factions that ravaged their civilization for centuries.
Morte would've eventually repelled these enemies through attrition and heavy defense. They would only develop FTL technology after they find a relic in their home system. Up to that point the Morte thought FTL travel is impossible and the fact their enemies didn't line up for a second invasion kinda confirmed their views (those aliens may or may not had FTL prior).

Anyways, I have a faction which is similar to the Morte but being assholes without alien invasion. They are called the Galaxian Empire (or at this point they're rather the Terran Empire). They think humans are God's creation and they have the right to eventually control the stars. Think of a less grimdark version of the Imperium from Warhammer 40000.
As for what would humans do here when the said race is extinct. Parallel development theory. Basically the assumption that in a similar environment it's highly likely that a similar race with eerily similar culture may develop. Of course this is BS kinda abused by Star Trek but that's a reason enough to have "humans" here.

As for the detailed version on the two-phase turn system:
forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/..
It also includes a bunch of other mechanics so if you don't wish to read it all go down near the bottom of the first post.
You can also check the IC thread to see this in action:
forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/..
Go till you find something with the strategic turns.

I'd rather not have humans period. Get creative! (I know i am guilty of having humanoid race as well, but at least change it enough to be interesting. I for example changed the element their chemistry is based upon). It can get wild, have this for an example.

I'll take a look at the system tomorrow.