"Sci-Fi Setting Projects" Topic

I've been trying to work out a sci-fi setting for all the 15mm stuff I've bought from CPBelt, Rebel Minis and others but I've yet to come up with a good foundation to build on.

My ideas thus far:
1. United Earth Federation vs. Aliens (all kinds of em)
2. Divided earth vs each other and aliens.
3. A rogue planet/quadrant of rebel humans in the Star Trek setting.
4. A federation of both earth/aliens vs other aliens.

What setting do you use or have come up with for your own 15mm scifi gaming?

I really like GURPS Transhuman Space as a human vs. human with lots of intrigue type of hard sci-fi setting. The solar system still seems big in that universe, and "aliens" are more AI and how far we take the modification of humanity than some creature from another star.

That is different from Traveller?

Yes, very, very much so.

THS is cyborgs and genetically engineered people and minds uploaded to computers and such. It could be interesting, but I wouldn't want a setting to focus on it.

For my games, I'm looking at an Sol-centric government that has colonized a lot, is having trouble maintaining control of those colonies, and some of the most distant colonies about to discover that they Are Not Alone.

I'm using a modified version of the setting of Dead Space.

Lot of colonies, no starfaring alien races have been directly met (but the occasional remnant has been found and hushed up, such as the Markers).

Lot of corporate espionage and the like.

Some constantly varying melange of 2300, Traveller, GZGverse and the like. I've seriously considered having it set all on an Earth where the aliens come to us, with Earth playing the part of Africa in the 20th Century.

Infinity. 2 major human empires, 3 minor powers, the super-UN, the forces of the AI that runs most of the Human Sphere, and then the Combined Army of the Evolved Intelligence (with 3 different factions in the Combined Army, plus the AI that runs it).

Most battles are small-scale things more suited to RPG events than to 15mm, but there's constant jockeying for position between all the human powers, and planetary invasions from the EI.

I've seriously considered having it set all on an Earth where the aliens come to us, with Earth playing the part of Africa in the 20th Century.

oooooh. tempting stuff.

I got Combatzone to use for other game settings which it is very good at.thing is the setting in the book is actually really good and fun to play with big Corporations building and defending their own areas while the rest of the world fights themselves and the corps.
combatzonechronicles.net

Mine's fairly weird… basically I take Rifts Earth, pop it through another Rift so that it arrives in another universe where the Chinese took to space and made contact with a plethora of aliens. The New German Republic ends up acting as an OPFOR for the Coalition States in addition to all the D-Bees, muties, dragons, Cyber Knights, etc…

The end result is several factions:
-New German Republic
-Coalition States
-Galactic Trade and Finance Organization (GTFO) composed of the
Chinese Cahong, Naruni Enterprises, and a number of alien mercs,
etc…
-Anything else I want to throw in, Futurama, Orks, RT-Era Space
Marines, the Fighting Spartan IIs, etc…

My setting is set after a diaspora from Earth by STL ship. Enough ships made it to set up viable human civilizations on dozens of worlds, which developed in isolation for a few centuries. A few worlds have recently (within the last few decades) come up with a viable FTL drive and are starting to contact each other again. Some of the worlds are unified and are even planting new colonies of their own, while others are balkanized.

As human FTL-equipped scouts are pushing out the boundaries of known space, they are running into aliens. So far most of the aliens have been low tech or just as divided as humanity, but I'm sure a big unified power is lurking out there somewhere…. ;)

The advantage of this setting is I can drop in new factions whenever I feel like it- it just means a new colony was re-discovered.

-Will

A sprawling Terran Empire that has over-expanded pretty badly into segments of three spiral arms of the Known Galaxy, has adopted a satrapal system ala the Achaemenid Persian Empire to try and maintain some semblance of control over their claimed territory while trying not to stress past the breaking point a very thinly spread Imperial Navy, and there's more than one set of barbarians at the gates human and alien, to say nothing of assorted rebellious satraps, would-be dictators, would-be free republics, marauding space pirates, marauding aliens, psychopathic alien-built warmachines that killed off their creators millions of years ago and are now out to purge the universe of all "biological contamination," ad endless nauseum.

Are we having fun yet?

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

psychopathic alien-built warmachines that killed off their creators millions of years ago and are now out to purge the universe of all "biological contamination,"

I hate it when that happens.

I'm thinking Colonial Marines trying to keep various fractious colonoists, bandits and rebels in line and from killing each other.

Not sure about aliens. Bug types are cool, but how smart are they? The Quar are just too funny in a low tech kinda way. GZG has a few intersting types as well like the Ixx etc.

Still torn on terrain; snowy or semi arid or jungle?

I've had a couple of concepts in my head for a while.

Firstly, I wanted the traditional huge invader fleet, like Tyranids, Yuuzhan Vong or the Borg – what Iain M. Banks calls an Outside COntext Problem, except I wanted humanity to be that threat. So I thought to make the setting a nearby* galaxy – a Magellanic Cloud or Andromeda – to which humanity was evacuating en masse for some reason in huge worldships. The human fleet and/or faction would be outriders and scouts creating a beachhead for the main 'civilian' fleet.

The second idea was to have two human factions. The first faction would be the 'pubic' face of humanity to the galaxy at large, made up of the 'homeworlds' that were the first dozen or so planets colonised by humanity in 'prehistoric' times. Earth itself would be a myth, it's exact location unknown. This faction would be the traditional BSG or B5-style human fleet. The second faction would be from Earth itself, newly resurgent and expansionist after a millenium or so of lurking quietly in the solar system.

The first idea is largely inspired** by the Pearson's Puppeteer fleet in Ringworld, and the second by Asimov's Spacers, as described in Foundation and Earth.

* For a given value of "nearby", anyway.

** Sounds better than "stolen from".

Still torn on terrain; snowy or semi arid or jungle?

I'm going with semi-arid; it's the most versatile. You can have deserts, savannahs or other grasslands, small forests, badlands, all mixed together. Scrublands can be almost as close a terrain as a jungle.

Are we having fun yet?

Yes we are!

Reminds me that I have to post something about my setting, as I refer to it in my product descriptions.

Very short summary follows.

Humanity is in the second half of this millenium. In the first half, man had not yet achieved FTL travel. The Mekanoids, sentient robotics, arrive in earth orbit and begin destroying the planet. Before they get too far, the Triangulates, winged aliens, arrive hot on their heels, defeat the Mekanoids, and share amazing tech with humanity. Not only tech though, a philosophy of peace that changes the planet.

For a century earth lives an idyllic peace and space travel explodes, exploration and colonization being simple because of the FTL tech granted to humanity by the Triangulates. Human scout volunteers go all over the galaxy exploring the star systems on solitary missions. For instance, Helen Sepulveda, a scout from the former Cuba, discovers that a star system has an HLS planet (human life sustaining) and so she posts the star system and it's named after her. (She would eventually find another system with an HLS planet, which would be named Sepulveda-A, but the planet in that system would soon be occupied instead by the Garn and used as a border fortress world and trading depot.)

The seventh planet in the system, Sepulveda 7, can sustain life without terrafarming, and also has vast angravium beds where angravite "seas" used to bloom. The planet also has existing angravite "seas," where the mineral courses up into the air, lifting anything that enters. Like liquid seas, the vast angravite "seas" sustain thousands of different species of life most of which can only live in the angravite. Eventually angravite condenses into angravium and stops leeching into the air, and the sea fades, but this takes millions of years. Once condensed into angravium the material can be mined to run anti-grav engines.

After about a century, the lesson of the Triangulates begins to fade in the hearts of humanity, as the Triangulates said it would, but the clarity they provided to humanity never completely disappears. But human nature begins to assert itelf again, and, due to the exploration movement, humans also begin contacting alien races also saved from Mekanoid destruction by the Triangulates -- aquatics (Pelagic Dominate) and reptilians (Garn). All are seeking to colonize the same valuable worlds, and wars begin.

The Garn sometimes ally with the Federation, sometimes make war on it, rather like the relationship between the English and the Dutch in the second half of the 17th century.

The Pelagic Dominate is a different story altogether.

These aquatics in fact seem bent on terrestrial genocide, for unknown reasons (although they DO have their reasons, for in their time of exploration they ran into something very nasty indeed). The Dominate in fact promptly launches a full-scale invasion of the Federation, target Earth, when the Terrans initially contact them for diplomatic purposes, which onslaught is only defeated with an all-out Federal effort.

The senior commanders who control entire Federal "march" sectors (which abut alien-controlled space) tip the balance in humanity's favour, and when this First Pelagic War is finally over these commanders are granted semi-autonomous governance of their sectors, which become known as "Freeholds."

These are supposed to be governed under certain parameters, and usually are, but some of the Freehold commanders begin to act like breakaway empires, especially in the Jo-el Freehold, in which Sepulveda 7 is located. In the Jo-el Freehold, a brilliant but haughty commander eventually is followed in succession (a violent one) by a deranged, megalomaniacal daughter who, unlike most Freehold commanders, is openly despotic and rules by fear and the widespread use of alien mercenaries. These include the one type of Pelagic sentient that willingly interacts with other life forms, the Karkarine landser, shark-like amphibians with a dark sense of humour who find it easy to interact with terrestrials and who will work as soldiers for anyone's coin. It's widely known of course that they provide detailed reports of the sectors in which they fight to their utterly inscrutable, jellyfish-like overlords once they return to the Dominate.

The federal govenment is placed in a quandary when a Freehold commander acts as a breakaway, for the Freehold grant is taken very seriously by the other Freehold commanders, and outwardly attacking one commander could start a civil war.

Yes, believe it or not, that is a very short summary. There's much more! But my finger is tired.

"I'm going with semi-arid; it's the most versatile. You can have deserts, savannahs or other grasslands, small forests, badlands, all mixed together. Scrublands can be almost as close a terrain as a jungle."

Um, what are you aliens doing here in North Texas?

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Um, what are you aliens doing here in North Texas?

That is a good portion of a campaign, right there.

"I thought they were busy cutting trade deals down in Houston. What are they…oh, that can't be good."

"That is a good portion of a campaign, right there.

"I thought they were busy cutting trade deals down in Houston. What are they…oh, that can't be good.""

You mekanoids get off my LAWN!!!"

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net
"Honey?!! Call the Frisco Police Department for me… I've just shot another one of those Mekanoids trying to sell us pest control services again…! What's that? Oh, I don't know why they keep ignoring our 'no solicitors' signs… just single-minded I guess, kept shouting 'EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!' even after I put another round through it's brain box!"