Well, since my original idea fell through the floor, or roof - I've decided to make a new one. This is not wholly aimed at makings for an RPG. It can (in my case for instance) be just a rant about what I think would make an interesting universe. For specs on the original one go (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/postdisplay.cgi?forum=Forum11&topic;=000238")here(/url). That ended up being mostly about ships and technology, something which needs to be rectified. Now I have thought a bit about it.
First off; to make my universe, I took into hand a basic consideration of human nature:
Humans operate as a collective; though it does not need to be telepathic. There will be strong motion towards collectivity in any large planetary grouping. Please note this renders a good deal of fiction around future civilisations irrelevant. Humans just do not nuke their own species to death. Or do, similar things of that nature. This is true as long as people develop like they do now (another big if). Having a common language, a common culture, will strengthen collectivity, and having a different language, or culture, will tend to make people remain somewhat distant.
Now to my universe:
In my universe, I'll assume that settling other planets (travelling what, hundreds of light years) seperates people from the common group unconscious (i.e., Earthist). In early years, this difference would not be great, but as the population of the new world grows and becomes more established it takes on a unique identity. After a good many generations, the inhabitants might no longer act as though Earth-born were really 'human' (despite having almost exactly the same physical characteristics.) This distance has forced them to develop their own collective. Also, while evolution proceeds over 100's of millions of years, there are several quick changes that can happen over about 10 generations. On a heavy G world, people might tend to be a bit shorter. Thus, you could tell someone was a i.e. Gratthi because they were short and dense. They would also react to you as if you were truly an outsider. People from other planets would become less sociable quite quickly if regular communication was not kept up.
Settlement: Galactic settlement has proceeded in all places within the Barrier (covered later). Earth originally settled the nearby world Aleph 9 (called Dawn), and then the next one 50 years later. It was during this settlement that they first noticed the 'sociality shift' between interactions of Dawn-born and Earth-born humans. There was a lot of social unrest about the matter, and SG (it is referred to as simply 'Sol Government' instituted compulsory labour and education exchange with increased trade. This fixed the problem somewhat, and in the modern day era, they regard themselves as being fairly close.
SG's influence extends only as far as it can fund such constant interaction. It stopped settling worlds at about 15. These are run as a single government called the USC (United Sol Confederation). The USC restricts interaction between the other Fifteen, naturally, and almost all transport takes place on the exceedingly busy spaceways above Earth.
Over-colonisation in the early days resulted in several planets being settled that were simply too far away from Earth. These planets (there were 5) grew colder and colder towards Earth, at the same time settling other planets to create their own empire. They were however, rather weak in terms of manpower, and the other colonies tended to break off themselves as the 'sociality shift' became more pronounced. The colonies, settled in a pentagon at more or less equal angles from Earth, began a wave of colonisation that would end with the occupation of 1/2 of our arm of the galaxy. Colonies outside the Fifteen are recognised as being either Qelthas, Aerniac, Terebell, Olothian, or Renegeen (names subjected to change). The Founder worlds did not rule over their colonies for long, and only Olothian maintains more than 3 colony worlds. Although this is the case, when space began to run out (Earth is around the upper centre of an arm of the galaxy, there is more space down to the body of the galaxy naturally than at the tip), settlers from all factions started colonising around the Expanse nearer the centre of the galaxy. This is called the Scattering, as there are many worlds with Founder culture scattered pellmell around the place. This expansion was stopped by the Barrier.
The Barrier:
The form of travel used to cover interstellar distances (tachyon physics) do not operate in Barrier space. This is defined as space southward of Earth, that begins almost at the midway mark of our arm of the galaxy. It appears to be curved slightly outwards, indicating that the effect must be huge - originating from the centre of the galaxy to cover all 4 arms in a similar effect.
Technology:
Probability Physics:
What we know today of probability and chance is little more than how to calculate exactly the odds of something occurring. In the future, probability can not only be calculated, it can be fixed. There is a chance for everything. There is a chance that your atoms, all of them, could suddenly re-materialise around Alpha Centauri. Though this chance might be smaller than 1:all the superstrings in the universe, it is still a chance. Using an arcane technology developed by the Juniper Project AI's, the chances for various simple actions can be fixed. The simpler action, the simpler it is to program the P (probability machine) to fix the action. Space travel is achieved by use of a P, to manipulate the chance that all the atoms in a spaceship are altered into tachyons (faster than light atoms). This can be fixed quite easily, for although the chances of turning into tachyons is remote, it is a simple operation. The P gathers the probability of it occurring and activates at 1:1 odds. The ship's P then boots the ship out of tach when it arrives at a suitable destination (the better the P, the more it can be 'tachyoned'. Early ships travelled only a slightly faster than light. Modern ones can go at several hundred times light speed.) Stargates operate on this principle as well, making use of a 2 way system to help the P detemine the location. It is somewhat exorbitant in terms of cost, but the effect is instantaneous - by manipulation of the chances, a spaceship's atoms can rematerialise in a system hundreds of lightyears away.
As you can imagine, this can also be used for weapons and all form of combat, domestic fun, etc...
PhegSpheres:
Near Earth in the east side of the galaxy is a collection of long dead colony worlds from another race. Though the cities of this race (who were called the Pheg's) have long since been excavated and robbed, there is one thing that they had in abundance: PhegSpheres. It is perhaps one of the few things that scientist's have been unable to replicate in Pheg technology. However, these spheres were perhaps as abundant in Pheg culture as the common tv is today. Billions of Pheg spheres were stolen from the Pheg digs and cities and proliferated the galactic Earth community. They are remarkable for their 'empathic' as it were, abilities. An ordinary human, in close range of PhegSphere, has his/her emotions amplified around them. This can be any emotion, love, hate etc... humans near the PhegSphere feel this emotion in clarity equal to the intensity divided by the number affected, with several interesting and obvious results. If there is a collision of users, the PhegSphere becomes a veritable muddle of emotion and is useless. When used as a weapon, the PhegSphere strips the weaker person of any semblance of collectivism. 'Absolute individuals', they lose there ability to feel empathy with other humans, or indeed cruelty. They are referred to as 'droners', because they tend to wander aimlessly. It should be noted that these individuals are no longer affected in any way by a PhegSphere. Droners tend to take their possessions and leave humanity, settling on uninhabited nearly-abandoned planets. The number of droners is steadily increasing, as droners multiply and children are not born with empathic emotions. They are excellent mercenary fighters, having little or no fear, or sense of pain/pleasure.
Wars:
War happens quite often, depending on how different people's collective identities have become, and just ordinary diplomacy. Spaceship combat is handled via a variety of weapons, mostly covered in the original Session. At ground level, troops are armed with P-Guns and p-armour. Generally, such weapons do not come with their own P, but have a static charge in their battery of Probability for the set task. One can fire only so many shells at a trooper wearing p-armour at point blank range, before the probability's of a collision become simply too great. Of course, and equal probabilty with armour and weapon tend to negate the effects. Despite it's widespread use, P technology is still relatively high-level as ground combat, and most colonies except the old established ones use normal weapons.
Castes:
There are some castes, and there is a high-level test the government uses to determine how suitable people are for different castes. Suitability for a caste is normally not genetically based. Genetic technology btw, is practiced, - but rarely. There is too great a danger of contaminating the gene pool - or so the governments of the era think.
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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.
(This message has been edited by Joveia (edited 02-02-2002).)
(This message has been edited by Joveia (edited 02-02-2002).)
). Ship weapons will mount more energy weapons as coherent energy in space doesn't have atmosphere to degrade the power of the focused beam of a laser. Cannons that fire pulses of charged particles add a small kinetic force behind a high-energy attack that can damage shipboard electronics as well as cause heat stress to the hull. Projectile weapons are good for pierceing the hull, but have the drawback of not moving quite fast enough for long range attacks in space. Energy weapons move at a significant % of c, thus making precision firing a better possibility. Guided missiles haven't fallen out of use though, and swarms of anti-ship missiles I could easily see being common.
You could also have sawbladed knuckle dusters with the force field as well.