Shattered Stars - Space Opera style NRP

[Arawak]

Shattered Stars


There was once a dream, from the architects of an empire grand- a force of cosmic order across the galaxy built by the hands of human tenacity. A dream which once expressed itself as the Terran Dominion. With its legions of mechanized infantry and advanced warp drives, the Dominion from Earth consolidated most of the species under their sovereignty for the first and only time in human existence with the vision of directing humanity to its highest potential.

That was a long, long time ago.

The present day is alien from that kind of world.

It is a world where the Dominion has become a farce of itself. While the Dominion continues to claim supremacy over all of humanity, it is a shaky claim at best. Their very legal codes do not recognize any of the societies that formed under their nose as independent. The ossified, dysfunctional nature of it all has not gone unnoticed by those who seek to break with the decrepit Dominion.

And there are those on the outside who are more than happy to make it happen...

Guidelines

1. FTL-wise, warp drives are gravity sensitive. Warp drives cannot go into regions of the galaxy where gravity is too strong.

1a. The gravity well limits basically mean you can't warp into the habitable zone around a star, within the moon system of a gas giant/planet or into the atmosphere of a dwarf planet. You can warp into an asteroid, but it isn't recommended.

1b. Wormholes do not have the gravity well restriction, but you do have to carry the other end of a wormhole to where you want it and if the link breaks, it is very hard to re-establish that link.

1c. Unique warp drive systems that break with the limits can be proposed, but they should have clear guidelines as to how they operate. Indeed, there's.. a secret warp drive type the dealers have (and offer, more on that below) that break with these systems already.

2. Technology-wise, there cannot be mega-engineering beyond the planetary scale for player factions (even the ancient aliens don't have that in the present day), the ability to make supernova inducing devices and there is a prohibition on true ASI (as an ASI would be a god computer, an AGI mainframe is fine however).

3. Alien-wise, it is recommended to make the species feel like it doesn't share the same genus as humanity at the very least. Like, make them at least as alien as a chimpanzee or gorilla if you gotta have the back breaking 2 legs thing.

3a. If you have something that be a new species of human, I would prefer them being a new species of human instead of being an alien. The human history has a lot of breathing room for that kind of background.

App Sheets

Basic app sheets. You do not need to use these app sheets at all and can use your own app sheet structure, but they exist for those who want the reference.

Faction

Name:
Overview: [A non-specific overview of the society]
Structure: [How your society governs and organizes itself]
Beliefs: [The culture/beliefs of your society]
Technology: [Technology your civilization uses. This includes your military technology]
Demographics: [The demography of your society, I recommend using mostly percentages]
Other: [Anything else]

Sapient

Name:
Overview: [A general idea what they're like]
Traits: [What are the traits of this species?]
Psychology: [What distinct aspects of the way they think/see the world are there?]
Permissions: [How can other players use this sapient? If you have no specific conditions just write 'universal' for universal access or 'none' if you want nobody else use them]
Other: [Anything else]

(Optional)

-World-

Name:
Overview:
Other:

NPC societies

The Dominion

Dominant Species

Humans
There are also various alien species under foot or in space zoos/freakshows.

Overview

The Dominion is a decrepit, ossified and ancient Imperium with an imperial senate that acts basically as a centralizing body.

The imperial senators in modern times are emperor appointed to govern and run distant, often extremely culturally distant sectors they often have no local ties to. The once effective and organized statesmanship of earlier Emperors have eroded over the centuries as the sheer administrative sprawl of the empire led to an insular elite unable to even know what is going on anymore. This would lead to increasingly decedent and impotent leaders often with no understanding of the various human societies the Dominion has sole sovereignty over.

In practice, the Dominion has fragmented considerably by present day. Diplomats to the Dominion have to wear imperial regalia, despite some of these societies not even being part of the Dominion and haven't been for many generations. Following the decorum however, is what limits the risk of punitive expeditions / interventions and allows for a lot more activity under the radar...

The Dominion's technology includes a wide range of powersuits, fast warp drives, the industrial ability to make large spaceships, fusion power, life extension tech and various other grab bag technologies with the Dominion's technology and numbers being by design balanced to the other human players.

Leader

The current "Imperial Executive of the Dominion" (or Emperor, as most call them Emperor anyways) is an extremely old man whose life was extended with advanced life extension technology known as Octo Smith. Octo Smith is a boney figure who is 275 years old by current carbon dating estimates. He is dependent on a medical power suit stylized with baroque flair he wears all the time. He is believed to have senility that even the best neurosurgeons have struggled to crack, but nobody dare questions it ever since the Bombing Incident back when he was a young, spry 230 years old and 80 years into his time as Imperial Executive.

Player-NPC relationship recommendations

Human players ideally have all matter of relationships with the Dominion, from loyalist to an ancient lost colony that developed into a force of its own- it doesn't matter, the universal sovereignty of the Dominion is applied to all human societies no matter how distant or different. Non-human players are often just despised by the Dominion, even the more advanced ones.

The Dominion is a faction that is used as a foil for the human players.


The Dealers

Not much is known as the 'dealers', only how at times they manifest in various UFOs and such and often make offers to various beings, whatever their background. They always manage to know the language and situation when they appear, with Dealer sightings permeating the galaxy. Not much is known of them beyond their advanced technologies and their selective generosity with it. The nature of these dealers is not well known at the start, but will become known as the RP progresses.

These technologies tend to be black box technologies that usually work when abiding by the agreement you made with them.

Karbana Kinnis

Overview

Karbana Kinnis is an enigmatic city world of alien origin. Karbana Kinnis is a living fragment of a civilization lost to time. A civilization whose artifacts found by archaeologists led to it being believed they were just extinct until much more recently. Karbana Kinnis is an extremely insular world, with seemingly endless urban sprawl covering much of the planet with with an ecology of automata who have kept the sprawling, escherian cities intact over many millennia. It is a highly populated world however- with numerous factions who all share the same planet and loathe everything outside of the endless cities they call home.

The many layers of Karbana Kinnis have created a world that simply is overwhelming in scope, with orbital security systems that make bombing it near impossible. They evidentially once had far more massive populations and wormholes to other, distant worlds. All of the wormholes shut off and signs of mass die off suspiciously absent on the surface. What lurks in the depths of such vast city will take one hell of an expedition to find out.

Player-NPC relationship recommendations

Karbana Kinnis is a place multiple alien players can co-habitate, as the many districts have created a wide selection of sub-regions ideal for the various city world descendants of this fallen society to branch out in many different directions and societies Gravity wells vary in the different layers of Karbana Kinnis, with low gravity floating regions in low orbit sky cities tethered to the world itself by space elevators maintained tediously by the automata and high gravity regions in the depths of Karbana Kinnis filled with the stench of death. Being a part of Karbana Kinnis gives you more leeway with tech than usual, along with access to the fossil wormholes that weren't closed off. You also get access to a bit of GM spoiler lore. However as a trade off, you will have more black boxes to work with and a general anxiety of the non-city world parts of the galaxy... which is most of it.

Outsiders to Karbana Kinnis ideally have interest in the world as it is a world flooded with ancient alien technology.

Additional Information

The current year is 3475 AD, or year 1120 IE (Imperial Era).

There will be a map, but I haven't plotted out the placement of the NPC factions (The location of Karbana Kinnis, the sphere of influence for the Dominion) yet.

Here's the Discord

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[Sigma]

This has my interest.

[Nate1008]

yes

[Brithwyr]

Interested and mostly ready to start.

Sinnsyk Star Network

The Sinnsyk Star Network

Overview:
What can be said about the Sinnsyk Star Network? It is a spectre, a ghost that haunts government officials the way the boogeyman haunts misbehaving children. Most have heard it's name, but few can say they have ever come in contact with the organisation directly. The Network certainly seems active. It's practically a cliche that every time there's a terrorist attack or a violent insurrection for someone to blame it on Network meddling, to the point that plenty of people don't even believe the Network exists. In the eyes of a the public, "the attackers were connected to the Sinnsyk Star Network" is just shorthand for "we don't know who caused this and we refuse to acknowledge our own failings".

The Network, of course, does exist.

To prove they exists, you don't need any high-profile leaders giving their confessions, nor do you need to see ships emblazoned with their sigil handing out weapons to rebels. You just need to go into the poorest regions, and you'll see the scars of their influence. Pallid, sickly addicts with bags under their eyes living in bullet-hole ridden slums in areas dominated by gang violence; that is their doing.

The Network thrives on unrest and chaos, and will go to great lengths to keep the uncertainty going in order to suck the money out of the poor suckers they affect. To this end, they will partner up with anyone who gives the legitimate government the side-eyes. They'll back fascists on Venus and communists on Mars, sell bombs to anarchists and guns to monarchists. Chaos is their best friend, and stability their worst enemy. Nothing will drain their influence like a stable government with few enemies; thankfully for them, those seem to be few and far between.

There is one more thing, something that puts the Network head and shoulders above any of its competitors; the Network is extremely proud and well-organised. A local meth-head's product is rife with impurities and a regional arms-dealer is flakey and unreliable, but the Network's stuff is of the highest quality and arrives exactly when it is expected to. Their reputation for quality is doubtlessly what has allowed them to get ahead of their rivals, but has come with the hefty premium that you would expect from a high quality product.

Today, the Network remains one of the biggest threats to Galactic stability out there, and it's pacification will be necessary before the galaxy knows peace. Whether it can be befriended permanently remains to be seen, but if it can't, any future conqueror will have to dismantle it.

Structure:
The Network is fairly loosely organised, with leaders being assigned on an ad-hoc basis with increasingly specific goals and mission parameters. Leading the Network is a shadowy cabal known as The Seven. These warlords assign tasks to various underbosses, who in turn delegate tasks out to their subordinates, and so on down the chain, but beyond the Seven, the exact nature of one's role in the Network is flexible. Most of the lackeys at the lower, middle and even the early upper levels of the Network have no idea who The Seven are and their loyalties are more to their particular boss than to the Network as a whole.

Further confusing organisational structure are the associates: organisations that haven't been invited to join the Network, but work closely with the Network due to their similar goals. These associates will have their own internal structure, and may even count Network members among their ranks, but they are separate and distinct from the main body of the Network.

Technology:
[Technology your civilization uses. This includes your military technology]

Demographics:
The Network has an estimated 325,000,000 members and associates, of which the majority are human.

[Sigma]

WIP Sheet.

Aurolian Republic

United Republic of the Aurolian Stars

Overview:
Structure:
While legally speaking, the Aurolian Sector is a republican “protectorate” of the Dominion. In actuality, the Aurolian Sector is run by a fully autonomous Federal Republic.
The Aurolian Government is split between Three Branches, the Executive Branch, that being the Office of the Chancellor who is both the Head of the Senate and the Commander-in-Chief of the Republic’s Armed Forces. One of the many tasks of a Chancellor consist of the creation of Laws, the signing of articles of diplomatic importance such as treaties, to appoint judges for the Interstellar Court and so on.

The Legislative Branch, that of which being the Aurolian Senate. The Senate's main tasks consist of the passing of laws brought forward by the Chancellor, passing or vetoing Legislation by the Chancellor, and are to give consent to enact a Declaration of War. And finally, there is the Sectorial Court, who are responsible for the enforcement of the Laws created by the Chancellor and passed then enacted by the Senate within the sector. SC Judges are appointed by the Chancellor.

Star Systems within the Republic are partially autonomous entities who are responsible for both maintaining worlds and installations within, and to maintain its own defense with their local System Defense Force to act as its shield.
Demographics:

• Baseline Humans-62%
• Human Offshoots-22%
• Aldzir-12%
• Other Xenos-4%

Aldzir

Overview:The Aldzir are a semi-marine mammalian-like species native to the moon of Nasj. The Aldzir are covered from head to toe in thick fur. Their Fur coming in several varying shades depending on the region of their homeworld, the most common colors being Brown, Gray, White and or stripped colors. The Aldzir have two sets of eyes, an adaptation of their semi-aquatic existence, their vision more sharper then the average human. The upper, smaller pair of eyes are made use to traverse underwater when scavenging for food, the bottom larger eyes are their primary ones for sight in the surface.

Aldzir eat and communicate via a trunk, although unimposing at first, inside a Aldzir trunk are tiny sharp teeth to aide them in siphoning blood and shredded meat. Aldzir speak with high-pitched chirps, buzzes, and grunts, it is physically impossible for Aldzir to speak any other languages and often are in need of special translation collars or if one were study and learn their dialect.
Traits: As stated, the Aldzir make excellent swimmers, and in addition to this, have great strength, moreso compared to a human, a fierce combination with their long claws.
Psychology: [What distinct aspects of the way they think/see the world are there?]
Permissions: Universal

Military:

[Arawak]

It's off to a nice start.

If there's any comments/concerns, please do air them since there's a couple amendments missing.

One of them is that I'm uncertain on magic policy, as my usual guideline is to just not have it- but I am not sure that rigidity is viable.

Fandom content is another deal, I forgot to put that policy in the current guidelines but I tend to be someone who would prefer original content. I wouldn't want someone air dropping the covenant into the RP, for instance. (Especially if it's with the 343i covenant designs, those look terrible)

[Nate1008]

Hmm... I think Magic should be allowed, under strict restrictions... e.g: No planetary destruction unless given special conditions, modifiers, or other abilities such as a mega-structure that amplifies the magic at the cost of a mass of resources to construct the mega-structure, lots of time to cast the spell and power up the mega-structure, and LOTS of energy (Kinetic, heat, electricity, e.g) to use the mega-structure. OR: Greatly limit the magic to things like targeting a small group of people or objects to one person or object rather than something that can affect or destroy entire planets... basically, greatly limit magic or add severe costs to balance it. That way its not necessarily possible to power-game with Magic, and it can become a super powerful tool at a given time, with obvious restrictions...

[DELETED jdl3932]

Well here's my old one.

[Brithwyr]

I think any "magic" should be stuff that can reasonably be considered to be either a natural ability - like how dragons breathe fire - or at a stretch, something that can be attributed to psychic powers. Nothing big or game-changing

[Kinith]

Hider

I'm in.

[Blandina]

I'm interested