A Universal Dawn (Space Adventure Brainstorm)

Greetings and salutation, friends and strangers alike! My name is Parable and I'll be your RP Brainstorm discussion starter for this thread!

This thread is both an interest check and brainstorm conversation where we can put together ideas for a potential RP me and a few others have been kicking around. If you know me, then you've probably experienced a game or two along similar lines and I invite veterans of those games to join us for another go-around. For those of you new to this; this is a sci-fi game where you not only play as a character or set of characters, but as a whole nation. You will be creating your very own alien species and country to go along with it to play on our setting, the galaxy at large. As this nation, you'll be engaging in political maneuvering, economic planning, and very possibly military action.

But nations are more than just their leadership. To highlight the common people of the galaxy, you will also be playing as an individual who for some reason or another is travelling across the stars, going through all the player nations as they move along. This will give you a chance to show off your nation and even give you the opportunity to GM an adventure over there all on your own!

That's the general idea anyway. I do hope to take the story into a more unique direction so here's my pitch:

Our game takes place after the collapse of two galactic superpowers. Whether it was through war, economic/political failure, medical pandemic, or attack of killer bunnies or whatever they're gone. Our nations are the remnants of those great interstellar empires, newly independent states eager or not so eager to be sovereign members of the galactic community. There's a lot of instability as these new states vie with each other for the resources and infrastructure left over by the old regimes. To complicate matters, other larger nations may be moving in to snatch up the easy pickings among the new small states. Your independence may be short lived.

On the greater scope side of things, this is where your political characters come to life. In the Space!UN, you and your fellow players will decide if the galaxy moves to a peaceful future or descends into warring failed states.

On the small side, this uncertainty is prompting your common man character to pack up and leave your current home. You and your fellow players are immigrants, refugees, or anyone else who needs to travel with them seeking a safe planet to settle on.

Anyone interested? Anyone have ideas they want to contribute or questions they wanted answered? I'm sure we can all work together to have blast!

Colour me interested... although you didn't really need me to tell you that.

EDIT:

Can you expand on what you said about the smaller scale side of the game?

edited 5th Jun '16 11:56:08 AM by Flanker66

Reporting for duty!

I'm interested too! But with two conditions:

• No Prode-a-Tron 5000 things will probe anyone's butt
• A nation of psychic American Woodcock birds is not disallowed

Essentially, as of the collapse of your superpower, your character was a person without a nation. For whatever reason they don't want to be a citizen of wherever they happen to be at the moment. Maybe it's a species thing, maybe it's turbulence in the political climate or economic woes. Maybe it's personal reasons or maybe they just plain don't like were they've been living. Anywho, you'll be part of a space voyage of people in search of a new home. Along the way you'll stop at all the nations, see which ones your characters like after having an adventure or misadventure.

I plead the 19th.

O americano, outra vez!

Thanks for the response!

I'm guessing, then, that the collapse must be very recent if it's recent enough for our characters to 1) remember it and 2) for it to affect them personally?

Yep. That's the plan as of right now, anyway. Exactly how long ago it was is something we can determine here before we start, but I'm imagining something within a 2 - 8 year time frame

Are non-carbon-based life-forms still cool?

Sure.

I'm totally in for this one. (O O)

Tentative Backstory. Subject to Revision Based on Player Input.

In the far off future, there existed two great installer nations, the Great Interstellar League and the Pact.

Despite the name, the League was an oligarchical empire. Ruled by a group of sentient AI space ships, the League used their vast armada and economic power to pressure smaller states into joining their league.

The Pact was formed in direct opposition to the League by three powerful alien nations. In theory, the Pact was a voluntary association, but over time the three founding members exercised near dictatorial power over the others.

Two biggest kids on the block, it was only a matter of time before they went up against each other. In a long war, the League was defeated. Its economy in shambles, and the powerful space forces that kept its members in check crippled, the League was helpless to do anything but watch as nearly all its member species revolted. Now the League is reduced to a handful of star systems, desperately trying to reassert its authority over the rebel states.

Ironically, the Pact's victory proved a Pyrrhic one. The all-out effort to finally defeat the League had drained the Pact of many of its best and brightest, not to mention the monetary toll. Free from a common enemy, the Pact members, never as united as the League, saw little reason to remain under the heel of the founders, who for decades had redirected the resources of the members to themselves and had squashed civil liberties in the name of security. Member after member seceded, only to begin squabbling with each other as well as the wrathful Pact, which is on the verge of using force to pull the rebels back into the fold.

edited 5th Jun '16 8:33:27 PM by Parable

Niiiiiiice.

Two more questions, if you don't mind my asking:

1. What's the stance on human nations? I know some people would probably like to go down that route, but it might get a bit silly if half of the galaxy's nations are human.

2. Perhaps a bit of a dumb one, but for the adventure side - do our characters have to be refugees, or can they be along for the ride for other reasons? If the latter is true, then what would be reasonable?

1. I will allow them, but there will be a limit on the number. Don't want the galaxy awash in a sea of humanity. Earth itself was a member of one of the fallen empires.Not sure which yet.

2. They don't have to be refugees, but they do have to have some sort of reason to be travelling with everyone else. I said earlier they could have personal reason or job related. They work on the ship, they're a journalist covering refugee stories, they're mercenaries hired to protect the ship and passengers from baddies every time they stop somewhere. They're cooks or something. Possibilities are endless!

Bookmarking for interest! Maybe third time's a charm trying to get this birdperson off the ground (hehehe unintentional wordplay)

Hmm.

I'm interested. Concept is basically a much much larger scale of the RP I GM with an established backstory.

Way way back when before I joined this site, I had a character I used that I may pull out of storage for this. What is the ruling on me using already established races for this game? I'm thinking of using the Chiss Ascendancy from Star Wars.

I'm thinking of trying a race of Proud Merchant Race Guys who are basically The Greys. My concern is how these guys (who are tentatively called the Nicarist Consortium) are related to the fallen empires. I'm thinking the Nicarist were possibly in a trade agreement with one of the two empires and after said empire fell, the nation's economy went in the gutter.

edited 6th Jun '16 1:20:54 PM by AllHailThrall

You have my interest. Gonna be claiming space elves... that are also plant people and grown from the fruit of super-huge trees that also behave as giant biological supercomputers. XD

Gonna be giving my silicone-based humanoid pangolin-ish miners another go.

Eh, I wouldn't have fun playing the Nicarist. I don't know what I want to do....

I had a plant alien idea at the back of my mind but I can't do that now.

I would bring back the Ashkathi from the previous game of Parable's but it would be too hard to reconcile them with the new setting.

I have no clue.

Space!canids working with space!weasels/ferrets. As you do.

Definite interest. I've got a race of semi-anthropomorphic orca people with a serious fixation on sonic technology in the works.

Okay, I definitely know what I want to play. They're a big, slow and ponderous Heavyworlder race, with an organized, just government.

Got my interest, though I can't guarantee I'll have the time to actually join. Might make a special request to be exempt from GMing my own nation segment, depending on how busy my own RP is.

I don't think Grexia would fit with this back story; might be able to rework the Savages though... Of course I could try making something completely new, but nothing's really coming to mind currently.

EDIT: Also I'm going to bed for the night.

edited 7th Jun '16 1:16:15 AM by FirockFinion

We'll be using all original creations for this game.

Don't worry about it. And who knows, by the time we get to you, maybe you'll have the time and will.

Great to see all the interest!