So I always have so many ideas so wondering which of these might fit the party the best.
A Scholar among Foxes, a foreigner, something rolewise similar to a bard, but without the musical connotation that D&D often ascribes to them. magic is pulled from diverse sources of apocrypha.
A character who claims to just be a pilgrim, claims to be a simple person. perhaps extremely lucky or unlucky, depending on your point of view. knows much more than a typical pilgrim, well travelled. Townsfolk often say that the pilgrim can help with what ails you, but to not speak too loudly about it. (this character will probably need more GM talk, because of their secret, but might potentially be interesting)
[hider=TEOSC] Nation Name/Flag: Treaty on Exploration and Operation in Superluminal Contexts In accordance with Consensus of Covenants (can be abbreviated TEOSC, TEOSCOC, or TEOSCACC) this is a rough translation of an alien phrase
Map Location: (Post your claim on the starmap.)
Government Type: Long story short an Astrocratic Republic aided by a mystery cult. At the upper levels of government The highest government official has a title that might be translated as “Consul” the consul is often multiple people at once. Below the consul are an Executive Branch. A judicial branch, and a legislative branch which together decide and act on TEOSC goals. Below each of these branches is a Council of representatives. Below the consul is another few councils of representatives, the most notable of which are the Embassy Program, which handles integration of new civilizations into TEOSC and the Ominous “Itinerary” or “Order of Prophets” as its sometimes called, which is a group of Techno-psionic mystics who work as Liasons between hyperspace and “real” space, along with precursor technology. The Itinerary has a huge sway on policy within the TEOSC and all FTL capable structures are required to have one or more agents of the itinerary overseeing operation. Individual planets within TEOSC space operate as city-states, but enjoy protection and favorable trade agreements, but with some oversight to prevent “gross violations of sentient rights”
Demographics: Chiroform: Founding race of TEOSC, Eusocial low gravity bird-bat-moth like creatures. Homeworld in ruins, often cybernetically and genetically modified. Yesod: a machine race, while the Chiroformics are the founders of TEOSC, the modern day industrial and infrastructural base of Yesod made it what it is today Proteans: Shapeshifters whos civilization became experts with gravitic technology, known for their religious beliefs regarding black holes. (one of which serves as a holy site) Celestials: The Celestials origins are largely shrouded in mystery, claim to descend from humanity (and generally believe this) The Celestials have a long history of STL spaceflight, and relativistic travel. The federation considered the Celestials barbarians Crusaders: The Crusaders are believed to have been the creation of a malignant Federation AI, while clearly of human descent, the creators were turned into twisted super-soldiers who fought against the barbarians, ,early Teosc, and during the civil war, other federation polities. During the civil war Teosc rooted out and destroyed the commanding AIs “liberating” the crusaders. Most crusaders these days either isolate themselves in small communities, form charities, or serve as mercenaries. Armezoa: a “barbarian” species, fought against the federation and the Crusaders, and alongside the early Teosc. The Armezoa are often described as “living war machines” while they fought relentlessly against the Federation, they have since become more peaceful, believing “not getting into unnecessary conflicts” is a form of threat neutralization, an enemy destroyed by never being an enemy in the first place. Many other ‘barbarians’ live alongside the Armezoa. Lindwurms: snake like creatures from a high gravity scytherian world, they have very high g-tolerance, while they were not spacefaring when first contact occurred, they have since then become notable space travellers Hadalic: crablike deep sea aliens, early members of TEOSC, originating in the same system as the Chiroformics. Wizard: Anomalous Plantlike lifeforms, powerful psionicists, but difficult to integrate into society
Military:
Treaty Authorized Interstellar Peacekeeper Assembly (TAIPA, the Assembly is not believed to be in the original name, Celestial translators said that “it sounded better”): act as interstellar peacekeepers, settling disputes within TEOSC space. They also are used for guarding important infrastructure. Most ships of TAIPA fleets are designed to handle a lot of different kinds of missions. Composition is not strictly military, and contains diplomats, negotiators, beurocrats and other professions. Attached to TAIPA are the “Breach Corps” which are used for combat within starships, spacestations, and megastructures. They also have the “Drop Corps” which specialize in planetside fighting, however, such conflicts are often left to other military groups
The expeditionary forces area of operation is newly colonized worlds and unexplored space, “First In” its among the most collaborative of the militaries, with presence of every client species within, often using ships designed using a mix of different species technologies. Ships are often multipurpose and designed for long journeys, plenty of fuel, food, and other resources. They often have the largest crews, needing individuals of a variety of specialties. Often have large civilian logistics fleets travelling alongside them. This armed force has several specialized planetary operation units that are adapted to alien environments.
all other military forces within TEOSC space are designed with more than combat in mind, with civilian applications, the Reckoning force however has one purpose: Warfare. The ships are designed with roles in mind, unlike the generalist direction of the other branches ships reckoning force vessels tend to be heavily armed with powerful engines, sometimes powerful enough that only a crew of automated systems, crusaders, armezoa, or Lindworms can survive the intense g-force (as for TEOSC inertial dampers are still the realm of scifi and theoretical physics). They have sub-branches for infantry, boarding. And even naval and air. Reckoning force has numerous levels of engagement, depending on the context they are deployed. “Warning” “Tactical” “Engagement” “Apocalyptic” and “Quietus” as the engagement level raises, the options the Reckoning force has are increased, eventually suspending all laws of conflict. The reckoning force has so far, only been used in the conflict with the Crusaders, and was key to their eventual victory.
Legacy military forces of client races, that they built before joining. All major races of TEOSC have an auxiliary force, with the largest being that of the “Celestial Starmada” unfortunately, Starmada ships have difficulty navigating hyperspace and fargates, often requiring transport by a larger ship, which is expensive as Starmada ships are already quite tall/long. The Protean auxiliary force is also highly powerful, but relies on being in the same system as a black hole in order to properly function.
the military arm of the Itinerary, heavily involved in covert ops, assassination, sabotage, subversion. Along with enforcing laws relating to misuse of technology. If you make a mistake and do it on accident, you get by with a warning and a stern talking to, if you purposefully attempt to use public ftl resources in order to achieve “forbidden flights” the gatekeepers are not required to respect your sentient rights. However, the most important job of the gatekeepers is protection of FTL technology, and where acquired, hyperdrives. Psionics is a secondary concern they deal with, however, they are far more lenient with most psionic crimes. (though they might turn you over to the local authorities).
Each system is suggested to raise, with help from TAOSC resources a system defense force to deal with local security problems and, under numerous space treaties over the years, the responsibility to respond to emergencies, either military or civil. they often have multi-purpose patrol ships with multiple missions they can do, from repairing damaged starships, to asteroid redirection, to blowing up ships that do illegal maneuvers and refuse to attempt to change course. one of the less lethal weapons sometimes used by system defense forces are "redirection missiles" which clamp onto illegally moving ships and forcibly alter their course without resorting to destruction. System defense forces have juristiction over one star system (with some special multi-system juristictions existing within the Almagest cluster) and they are often semi-independent, but they have to have special licenses and approval of operations from TAOSC. system defense guards are fairly diverse, with Foundation guards being almost unrecognizable as military (and they tend to loath combat) Starmata also have highly divergent system defense forces, due to their already strong martial tradition.
A step down from the system defense guards are the Orbital defense guards, which have juristiction over a planet or moons orbit, dealing with local threats, landing and launch clearance, customs inspections and the like, they also are often in charge of cleaning up trash that can cause hazards to orbiting vessels. Orbital defense guards like system guards vary quite a lot in different parts of TEOSC controlled space. the requirements to form an orbital defense guard are less strict than that of a system defense guard. they are generally taking orders from both the System defense guard, and the planetary administration, usually it works out ok...usually.
As long as it falls within the guidelines of the Teosc, the planets within Teosc space are allowed to build their own planetary militias, multiple if they like. these might not see a lot of action unless politics on the world is particularily spicy, but in those cases TAIPA will probably want a word with you about the crisis.
small militaries of various kinds are allowed for situations besides those covered by other militaries, these must register with both the local system defense force and TEOSC, in some situations, these requirements can be wavered with authorization of one of the interstellar armed forces. various kinds of licenses exist for military contractors, stating what kind of operations they are authorized to run. The TEOSC believes diversity is important, so there are hundreds of potential licenses, and its not too difficult to get multiple licenses. Interstellar bureaucracy however can be hellish, especially if you are not in a system with an FTL gate.
History: The areas now controlled by Teosc were, during the time of the Federation, within a hyperspace deadzone, difficult to get through for races which relied on FTL, meaning none of the native species discovered FTL travel until the Chiroformics discovered ruins of a past civilization along with the designs for “FTL gates” which are large space stations function something like federation hyperspace relays. However travel through them was much slower, akin to a federation hyperdrive in travel times. The Itinerary was formed from newly emerging psionics who believed that if improperly used, FTL technology could have extreme consequences, they were also the ones who figured out how to operate FTL gates. Within the ruins they also found what was preventing hyperspace travel within their sector, a form of hyperspace quarantine which they managed to shutdown.
Teosc spread to the stars, using leverage as the only FTL species in the sector to encourage other civilizations to agree to its terms, with a lot of freedom given to individual worlds, and with the Itinerary helping guide newly emerging psychics of those species Integration went fairly smoothly.
In the early days of Teosc, the beginnings of the Federation/Barbarian war began, with a malignant Federation AI sending an invasion force that wrecked the homeworld of the Chiroformics. The Armezoa barbarians, enemies of the federation, joined forces with Teosc to attack the federation. While the federation eventually “won” the war, Teosc had established itself as an independent government.
As the empire fell to bickering, infighting and infrastructural decay Teosc entered a golden age, building up their infrastructure, integrating more species. The FTL gates, while more expensive than the standard hyperdrives of other species, were able to better withstand the storms that plagued the galaxy.
Now with the fall of the Federation, Teosc turns its eyes coreward.
@vietmyke Like, given the size of a galaxy, could there be entire like, star empires with thousands of stars that just, havent been noticed or noticed the empire, especially pre-ftl star empires.
out of curiosity..how dense is the empire? like, how big is a sector? do they use like, self replicating clone ships to colonize? or some other method (like aura-created colonies or something)
regardless, thinking of making a bound space daimon on the run from those who would slay or worse, use them for dark ends.
Solar sails are interesting, though I think might be less useful the farther you get from a star, though im honestly not an expert on such things, and Im not sure how much thrust you get out of it.
Theres also a type of proposed engine called the "Medusa Drive" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_p… Which is like a solar sail but you throw (low yeild) nukes in its direction. its a bit more complicated than that, but its a pretty promising hard scifi design.
As for FTL drives, I think something like dune would be a fun way to do it, especially the depiction in the new movie, where it is unclear if the ship moved or is simply two places at once
Hmmm, not quite sure yet. Thinking possibly solarsail ship or something along those lines with like some system of "hyperspace" only accesible by Dune style "hyperspacd" carriers. Still all quite up in the air. Any specicic suggestions?
oh dune style sounds fun, Ill be down to talk more tommorow, now I need sleep.
Definitely agree with you, I find it has more opportunities for crreative/interesting tech ideas. I was thinking a basic framework would be a hard sci-fi equivalent to starwars, with the main storyline being focused upon a slightly shady freelance freight ship and her crew!
Huh interesting, we talking a torchship? a relativistic ship? or like..we using wormholes or something
Thinking of making a character, an agent of sorts, working on behalf of a foreign power, just deciding who they are working for, kinda variations of one idea that im not sure what to pick.
A. working on the behalf of Fae enchanters beneath the earth, seeking to expand their political influence, and ensure good relations with whoever rules. but is also opening to marrying. B.From a great city far away, mainly to gather information about rivals and potential allies, owns a bit of land to make them technically eligible as a suitor. C.something to do with the moon.
Nanaya