Diaspora

[Sonic#]

Introduction

So I've been playing this cool table-top roleplaying game recently. And while I don't normally rave about games, in this case I must. For two reasons:

1. It's a really awesome system that I've already played a couple of games in and bought the PDF book for. It's revitalized my love of designing new sectors, something I've loved to do for a while.

2. They give you free fudge dice if you post a play report and give it to them.

I insist that I'd promote the game even if I didn't get #2, but the incentive does help!

Description of system
The title refers to the state of galactic civilization after a long time of space colonization. Earth has long been lost in legend and myth. Space empires have grown and fallen. The mode of FTL travel is through slipknots that exist about 5 AU above and below the solar plane, using a specialized slip drive. The ships are roughly like those in 2001: A Space Odyssey - a certain size, roughly cylindrical in design, with lots of reaction mass and a crew towards the front.

You design the worlds. You decide the story to play once the world is designed. It's very freeform, and narrative-driven, with solid systems to support both social engagements and battle.

Finally, a bit about the dice. They're nonstandard, derived from the FATE system. You use 4d6 in each roll, with two sides denoting +, two denoting -, and two denoting a blank surface. Fudge dice are best, but I've also used plain d6's and agreed beforehand on what a + and - are. You add the result, so that a +, -, +, blank results in 1+. The probability works along a bell curve between -4 and 4. The higher, the better.

Actual Play Report
Anyway, enough of that. This evening I was playing with my brother, S. We each decided to design two systems each, with the possibility for other systems once we get going.

The systems are generated using three stats and a whole lot of creativity. The stats are Technology, Resources, and Environment. T2 is the minimum required to use a slipstream. Earth today is about at T-1 E1 R1. Here's what we rolled, with accompanying narrative aspects:

J1 - Ambrose
T1 E1 R2

Aspects:
"We all vote for maximum inefficiency"
"Our fiberoptic crystals make for an awesome interblag"
“The universe’s best tourists”

S1 - Archus
T-1 E-1 R1

Aspects:
"No news (or nukes) is good news."
"Only by malnutrition and radiation poisoning can we keep you safe!"
"Let me out of this box, guys! This isn't cool!"

J2 - Gulch
T-1 E0 R-1

Aspects:
"Laziness is a sin."
"Meet God, the atomic power plant"
“Come in, stay a while, get a few husbands”

S2 - Lotus
T2 E2 R2

Aspects:
"Welcome to paradise! Let me hold that money for you."
"Happiness: one million credits."
"We'll give you what we have, free!* ...
*Not including all of the really awesome stuff we have.”

Every system is connected to every other system via slipknots. We spent a considerable amount of time describing each system. So I'll include brief quotes from our chat session involving the planets.

Lotus:
This system, Lotus, is very wealthy. In fact, the government is controlled by the monopolistic corporation of the region: GenCorp. Prices are relatively stable, however, as resources are abundant, and money keeps circulating due to the presence of the herb known colloquially as the "bezoar weed", for its ability to cure illnesses easily.

However, governmentally, things aren't too great. Laws prohibiting the ownership of a business that gains more than 250,000 credits a year makes many good entrepreneurs go out of business.

The population isn't too large; people don't like monopoly, even in paradise. Well, a lot of them leave their planet with what money they have left, and go to the un-GenCorp'd planet near the edge of the system. (Me: Not as good of a planet, but thus far free from regulation - because it's not as competitive?) That, and the corporates feared total rebellion, so they made that non-regulated planet a sort of release valve.

A preventative birth-control policy is in effect; two children per family. But not much else in that area...

It would trade with Archus and Gulch, enough to make them respectable, but not so much as to make them independent technology. Probably basic foodstuffs and bezoar weeds. They'd view Gulch as a dependent, and Archus as a good trading partner, but still slightly dependent technology-wise.

As for Ambrose... They view them as a threat to their trading empire; if Ambrose ever discovered slipstream, or stole it from Lotus, there goes the monopoly. Ambrosians wouldn't even be allowed on Lotan ships, for fear of espionage. (Me: So they wouldn't, officially anyway, be able to travel to other systems?) Yes. And thus is preserved the trade.

Ambrose:
Its main planet is relatively along earth-parameters, except that the planet rolls sideways through space like Uranus. Which is okay because thanks to terraforming geothermal conduits heat the living spaces on the dark side. And due to the perpetual night on the other side rare dark crystals can be found, whcih are used in fiberoptics but get marred when they see unfiltered light.

There is no main government on the planet. After the last technology crash, the system became instead a direct democracy. Everyone votes on every issue. Because of this, and the number of people, very little regulation gets done, which suits everyone just fine... even if it leads to some unfortunate domestic arrangements.

The day side, by the way, is rather normal - a prime tourist destination, and also full of solar panels. And finally, there is a decrepit space elevator on the pole on the night side. They normally just use shuttles to and from the surface, but the elevator is still technically operational.

It does not appreciate being cut out of interstellar travel, being fond of traveling themselves. Of course citizens or spies occasionally get abroad, but they consider it culturally stifling - they like traveling around on occasion, though the system is well enough that immigrants aren't cut out.

The system has a sizable military presence monitoring the slipstream. Think uneasy, but cooperative in trade. There are a few starbases for trade, lying along the most common trajectories to reach the world at different parts of the year. Thus the business on the stations is usually seasonal. Never dead, but less active at certain parts of the year. It has no official stance towards the other systems, except for limited tourist excursions by citizens that can pay for smuggling.

Archus:
I'm thinking police state, where the system's cities are closely guarded, "allegedly" to keep the populace from killing themselves after a recent civil war ravaged the countryside due to the use of nukes. Think Cuban missile crisis gone too far, but the world barely pulled through.

There were three factions: A, B, and C (arbitrary names, yay!). A and B fought with nukes and killed each other and many civilians in the process. Then C was like, "We didn't fight, we're moral, blah blah," and took control peacefully. And now maintains control by the editing and exclusion of information.

(Me: Any vestiges of former civilization?) Undiscovered as of yet, but legends tell of an ancient race that lived there before; their evidence is the apparent psychological breakdown of those walking in certain areas, even before the civil war.

[The environment] used to be much like Earth; now, radiation has affected it greatly, and as such, the biospheres have suffered. A lot of food has to be imported, or grown hydroponically.
So the diet would be largely vegetable/protein...or, in the case of livestock, only eaten if it's never been alive in the wild; meat is uncommon, as you might expect.

Archus is growing angry over the withholding of useful technology by Lotus. There's little they can do about it, though, as Lotus has slipstream, and Archus doesn't. (Me: Hmm. Ambrose would be sowing the discontent too, offering its own terraforming technology to repair their atmosphere in return for future cooperation. The progress is understandably slow though.) Yeah. That too. Their current policy: continue trade until the items given can be reverse-engineered, then cut themselves off, making Ambrose and Lotus both lose a major trading partner.

Self-sustenance is what they're trying for.

Gulch:
It's a Puritan-like colony and a semi-matriarchal polygamous society. The religious leaders also are the government, in many cases. There are small township parishes, each ruled by a mayor that is normally the pharisee. And then a college of benedicts looks over them all.

The people generally have a hard work-ethic; due to the limited resources, anyone who isn't a hard worker is branded with an "L" and sent into the wild. (S: So I'm guessing "religious tolerance" isn't their watchphrase.) No. Laziness is a prime sin.

The power plants also happen to be the religious centers. Kept alive by acolytes and usually guided by an engineer that actually does understand the science behind it. But such knowledge is highly restricted outside the religious college. (S: So it's almost like how Foundation was.) Pretty much. They know that it works according to Natural Law, but they attribute the ritual of its working to the ritual of how things work generally, and attribute that to Ram, the Goddess of the eternal poles. (Slipknots.)

And they've sent probes into space, but don't have much in the way of rocket technology - they basically shoot probes by a high-power railgun. Which is a relic of a left-behind defensive system. Which is why it can be fired without frying the electronics.

Gulch is open to trade and emigration, the latter if they admit the state religion. They actually aren't a proselytizing system, but they (hah) acknowledge that others might want to join the faith, and welcome new colonists - so they do send traveling ministers abroad.
Their major cities are open to Lotus due to their technological force, but the presence is rather resented as a sinful and corrupting influence.

(S: So Gulch isn't happy, either.) But they maintain some modicum of order through the possession of the railguns

And they have proposed alliance with Archus, whom they feel have a compatible system of government and are the least of evils. An ideological alliance based in relations to other cultures and governments. They rather like the Ambrosians, except direct democracy doesn't suit them. (S: Is there any strain caused by Archus's proposal of self-sustenance?) Not really, since they also pride themselves on being self-sustaining, with their work ethic.

Summary
And so now we have a cluster to start telling our stories. I'm open to suggestions. Scott's already suggested his main character, a renegate Lotus executive that sympathizes with the Ambrosians. So thus far it's shaping up to be a story of intergalactic intrigue and blockade-running. Where we go for now, who knows?

Anyway, I really suggest people look into this if you're into narrative-driven roleplay at all. Once the summer comes in, I might even be willing to play a little online.

I know this is long, so thanks for your patience, no matter how little or much you read. Comments welcome.

And the website for future reference: http://www.vsca.ca/Diaspora/

[Jenner]

I'll toss this over to my GM.

Sounds fun.

I'd pirate your system