>>3057050

Traveller could be used if you're just lazy, it's a fairly decent system.

And I am interested.

>>3057078
Even then, it's too limited. I'd like players to make characters: young, ambitious officers setting out on a war of change. Small fish but with infinite potential.

Action would skip between battles and important choices in social/political affairs; largely a personal history of the times rather than a first hand blow-by-blow account (there are, of course, exceptions). Over a few sessions I'd like to see these young officers promoted, make friends and enemies on the battlefields and in the ballrooms. Maybe sliding into middle-age, weary but experienced. Changing the war effort, moving into politics, switching sides, making peace.
Maybe dying (in)gloriously. Rolling a new character living in the shadow of the first generation, maybe on another side? Maybe playing as an established NPC. Who knows, I wanna explore.

Sounds pretty fucking awesome. But then again, I like Nobilis. That said, more interlectual games like this should be concieved. 'Roll to avoid the trap' rehashes gets a little repetative even with swanky new genre-skins.

Fund it!

Sounds fairly cool. The impersonal approach might get a bit frustrating after a while though.

I know how I'd play my characters.

>>3057129
So a roll with the punches, generational epic? Yeah, I could see myself interesting in that.

>>3057254
I would be playing it as a kinda episodic saga, maybe split up into chapters like 'The Battle of Thetica' or 'Tolbein joins the Three-Star Coup', with the PCs acting out their roles therein: orders, movements, tactics and conversations. Things like 'My character eats' would kinda be passed over unless it's of historical note (as you might put it).

Stat wise each character would be represented by things like reputation, background, pre-existing contacts and perhaps a handful of specialist knowledges. Things like strength and dexterity don't really come into it, but there's always extraneous circumstance and should a player feel the need to lead a boarding party for fame and glory the system could easily cope. Although bad rolls might mean the death of that character rather than a section of fleet or political alliance…

Wushu would work very well for this.

Also, concept is neat and I might pinch it for future gaming. Ta, OP.

>>3057363
... or you could play with us? :<
>>3057343
I like this. So I could charge in there and wrestle the enemy commander to the ground with my bare hands and if I don't die in the process I gain an amazing reputation as a daredevil man of action! Awesome!

>>3057393
Pretty much, although while stories of your bravery and heroism might travel about the Empire (perhaps even making you a poster-boy of sorts) more conservative politicians and commanders will view your antics as wreckless and might remove refuse to deal with you, or pull you back so your hotheadedness doesn't ruin an intricate operation. Reputations are important and often double-edged.
>>3057269
Be interested now!

I'll be the ambitious son of an admiral, always trying to rise out of my father's shadow!

>>3057416
I'm interested, I'm interested! How you doing this, like what site or things would we need to get familiar with before play? play by post or something faster?

And what is your opening image from? I keep seeing it around, but I never get around to pirating it when I should.

>>3057437
Legend_of_the_Galactic_Heroes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Galactic_Heroes
Also for the episodes
http://a.scarywater.net/ca/

Could be interesting, i'd like to stay updated if you can drop some way for me to keep in contact with you.

If you are serious about the game, post in the appropriate part of the suptg website.

Anyways, I like the idea of characters on opposite sides; though it probably does make sense for them to all start out together. Sort of a "class that stars fell on" sort of situation. A generation of brilliant officers end up fighting alongside and against each other throughout their careers.

>>3057437
Probably over mIRC or the sup/tg/ chatboards.

>>3057460
Here's my email. I'm off to bed; if anyone's interested just send me a note. I'll post some setting/system in the next few days and players can converge to solidify it and suggest characters.

>>3057418
Good start! MORE!

>>3057455
110 eps + movies! Now way in fuck I'll watch all that!

Begins download....

>>3057521
>'Sort of a "class that stars fell on" sort of situation. A generation of brilliant officers end up fighting alongside and against each other throughout their careers.'
Exactly! Want to play? At first I'd have everyone start out together, but once things get off the ground playing as the other side or as a career politican or a simple soldier recounting his time in the line (think All Quiet on the Western Front).

"On Those Who the Stars Fell" sounds like a good working title actually...

>>3057579
Or should that be "On Those Whom the Stars Fell"? Damn.

Anyway, any interest? Email me.

>>3057579

Shifting views through playing different characters does sound good, but I'd definitely be interested in playing a character that ends up fighting against some of the very people he was trained alongside; ala the American Civil War or philosophical Separatists (like Dooku is at first believed to be) in Star Wars.

>>3057393

Lack of time means I can't. Sorry; otherwise I'd've loved to join in. :~

>>3057619
I'd suggest you'd keep the same character until death or retirement, working to build up a history and reputation for that person.
The English Civil War might be a more appropriate comparison for what I have in mind; loyalties and ideals more flowing than in America (which seemed to be more of an incident of one's birth). But yeah, fighting aside and against older generations and idealistic upstarts alike is the dish of the day.

>>3057630
A true shame. Well, if you're hanging around later this week I'll have some setting stuff up and open for discussion; I'd love your imput.

Right, I'm off. Email me.

Bwha ha ha!

Pretty cool.
This thread needs some more Sci-fi art and then a good archiving!

Anon with no time, here. I've emailed these to OP but figured I should post to let people tell me what they think, as I am also going to bed.

Civil war should probably be between two factions + many subfactions - any more and you get bogged down in inter-faction politics and power-play (!= intra-faction stuff, i.e. between different subfactions) rather than epic, tragic conflict between two superpowers.
I'd suggest one be a church and the other some sort of secular organisation - e.g. the Empire was built on fire-and-brimstone religiousness but over the last two centuries its rulers progressively secularised the whole thing; a recent-ish (50years?) resurgence in the "Old Testament" belief has culminated in a civil war as the head of the Church declared a fatwa-equivalent on the morally-decadent government which proceded to crumble to be replaced by an overtly anti-theist new order intent on annihilating the Church - part of the irony is that they've replaced a belief in God with a "civil religion" (see Rousseau's Du Contrat Social if you're unfamiliar with the idea).
None of this science vs. religion bullshit - this is sci-fi, so everyone accepts that science is win. There's no proof of God's inexistence, so faith is still entirely possible - God is a matter of the heart and not the mind (cf. Pascal, etc.). This is Starship Troopers-esque devotion to civil society opposed to a fanatical devotion to God/the Other.

Thoughts? I've sort of gone ahead and launched the world-building collaborative effort. Hope OP is okay with that.

>>3057850

Bah, sorry for the formatting. Copy-pasted from email.

Also emailed OP.

>>3057850
Not to mention the potential for regional loyalties, those closest to the heart of the government and the far flung reaches. Plenty of room for rivalries similar to Germany before Prussia tried getting everyone's shit together.

Be sure to include the epic ice burn from Ep11 of LoGH.

"The Kaiser has decided you will be sentenced to death. Because of his affection to you you will be allowed suicide. He will also attend your funeral."

>>3057850
Nice. Really nice.

Bump for potential!

Needs kewl aliens

>>3059797

No-time anon says ta.

Also, bump.

>>3059812
It will not (,and here's were I put my foot down,) have aliens.

>>3061567


So it's Dune Reloaded?

Bump. Also I'm interested.

Colour me interested.

Any info on a timeframe? I tend to be available at odd times for most timezones, so that's really the biggest limiting factor for me.

>>3061577
There have been other space operas without aliens, but the comparison's valid. More far-reaching, less spice and less sci-fi fantasy.

>>3061598
Well, I'm GMT and would be likely playing during the evening-night.

>>3061669
Hm. Ideal time for me would be roughly morning to afternoon in GMT...

I could do evenings if it's on Friday or Saturday, though.

We really should exchange emails or IM stuff if we're interested in doing this for reals.

I want. GMT+1

gmt -6, but my schedule may be able to compensate. depends, really.

>>3061693
Sounds great. Saturdays looks good.

Thanks for all the emails guys, I'll respond to each of you shortly.
As for the now, I want to hear space-opera character concepts!

bump

>>3063313

IN the name of jesus i want in on this!!

AIM: xf4m1n3x

email: [email protected]

I live in IL so central time which is what? GMT-1?

>>3063313
Previously emailed you.

An otherwise average non commissioned officer finds himself thrust into power when, through an unlikely marriage, he becomes second-cousin-twice-removed to a regional lord. Unwilling to have family ties with such a lowly position, the lord pulls strings and the non-com receives a commission.

Due to his low birth, he is generally shunned by the more conservative of the officer class and he quickly realizes he probably won't advance much beyond his distant cousins orchestration, as he believes he has no future, he holds nothing back from his superiors, acting as the needed dissenting voice or second opinion.

However, he is competent in his duties and finds use serving in less sought for roles: Serving in numerous military observations and expeditions, envoy duties, and liaisons. As such, he has developed a rather wide array of contacts, which he manipulates furiously to counteract any would be attacks from the upper echelons, guaranteeing his continuing influence.

>>3063313
An idea I came up with in a thread that sadly wasn't archived about disabled characters:

An officer of less than brilliant acumen who failed her superiors one time too many. This time, though, she was horribly disfigured when her ship's bridge caught fire. The wrong moment, then, to have annoyed her superiors. Having been patched up to the point where she can fight, she is thrown onto a reserve fleet's flagship and told she will be given reconstructive surgery only when she is victorious.

As a result, she's hideous to look at and horribly driven by blind selfish ambition.

>>3063313
You've got all the archetypes of Space/Sea Captains:

Badass gruff types who are too old for this (Global/Daitetsu &c)
Hardline Ruthless types who will stop at nothing to win (Reinhard, Thrawn &c)
Awesome types who have awesome plans (Yang Wenli/Hornblower &c)
Mary-Sues (Honor Harrington/that Serrano bitch from the Elizabeth Moon novels)

>>3063816

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is a term originally referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. It is now often used to refer to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Central Standard Time is GMT-6. So, when it is 6pm in London, it is noon in Chicago.

>>3061567

No-time anon here,

I could see aliens akin to the ones from Stephen Donaldson's Gap cycle. For those not in the know, it features a cold war between humankind and a race of creatures called the Amnioni (singular Amnion) that breed through rewriting other creatures' DNA via the use of mutagens.

These aliens would definitely not be a real power in the civil war, as far as I'm concerned. In fact, they'd probably be selling arms to both sides equally. Maybe persuading them to support one or the other cause openly and militarily might be a goal for one of the characters; but otherwise, I think they'd work well as a galactic superpower that officially doesn't want to breach the Empire's sovereignty by taking a side, but just wants to profit.

Also, the Amnioni are a) completely fucking alien due to having a hivemind and a genetic code completely different to what we know and b) therefore need to create hideous "hybrids" by rewriting half of certain individuals' genetic code to make them into Amnioni that understand humans.

LotGH awesome

>>3064786
If there had to be aliens, I'd prefer the kind of 'aliens' like in the Hyperion books;

Not truly aliens, but just humans who have lived on spaceships for many generations and who\ve become adapted to life in space. Maybe with genetic modifications, maybe just evolution...

Human once, but human no longer.

>>3063944
Reinhard was never ruthless, it was Oberstein that was the ruthless one

>>3057850
"I'm in agreement with you regarding the nature of the civil war - two opposed powers make it far more dramatic and concisive as a narrative function than multi-faceted party politics (although that may play a small part). I'm open to the religion concept; I initially had my doubts (what with God-Emperors being a sci-fi staple on /tg/) but you know your stuff and it's definitely selling.
Originally what I'd had in mind was a more secular and political divide: the Emperor and the High-Nobility/Electors as a conservative force resisting calls for change in the distribution of power out from the central capital systems and allowing the general body of lords/marshals more individual power within their systems (whether for personal gain or social concern is debatable). Things spiral, accusations are bandied, heads roll (to be brief) and it comes down to the Imperial Fleet moving to suppress dissenters. Those reformists set against the Grand Nobles have pooled their political/economic powers and created a new army to resist central control. Players could be of the old guard (the Loyalists) or of the new blood (the Reformists) - I was planning on starting with the latter, a new fleet commanded by inexperienced youths. Of course, this is all debatable - as a student of history I love seeing how things slowly spiral into and out of control for different factions for definite reasons. Then again our ideas are in no way incongruous and both a political and religious split (perhaps the Reformists want to replace the old 'civil religion' with a new zealotry? Could both parties be divided further on the issue? Perhaps it’s a small section of the reformist powers pushing for this change?) would add further depth to the campaign world.

>>3065897
He became sorta ruthless once his gay friend died.

>>3065951 con't.
Similarly the idea that an Empire has to be autocratic could be altered - perhaps it's a sprawling democracy? Partial representation? Ah, and one last idea: while the Empire is vast enough to seem self-contained it wouldn't be the only nation in the galaxy, perhaps a Democratic/Fascist counterpart could be invented for added dimensions as the campaign expands it’s purview, as well as smaller industrial/economic havens both recognised and illegal for the players to flee to or perhaps subjugate. I'm keen for the setting to be humans-only; we're far more diverse and prejudiced against one other without the need for blue skin and forehead ridges or space zombies.

Some excelent ideas guys. I love the Half-cousin and Mutilated Admiral ideas! Keep it up!

>>3065957
I was going say 'fuck you kircheis wasn't gay' but then I thought about it... fuck.

Forgive me for being lame, but I thought I should post some suitably Space Operatic music to stir some creativity.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlci-kCEaKE Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" - 4th movement
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jxboIzX5E-I Keiki Kobayashi's 'Razgriz' (Ace Combat 5)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn0pkXyp97Q Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition

>>3066006
LoGH is a very, very homosocial story.

>>3066006
>>3066037
But Kircheis was in love with his best friend's sister I don't think you can call that gay.

>>3065951

I too had the loyalist/reformist thing in mind, just the other way around - the reformists want a return to the old values, pre-religion-being-ignored, whilst the loyalists have replaced the Emperor with an elected Interim War Council in order to crush the religious types, whose actions caused the war when the High Priest/Prophet/Whatever ordered a mob to storm the Emperor's palace.

Either one works, really. I think my version has a clearer good guys/bad guys thing going (la Résistance versus Islamic fundamentalism, rather than traditionalists versus hopeful religious people). It boils down to what we want: an evil faction with good guys and a good faction with evil guys, or two grey factions.

>>3065967

Autocracy != bad. It worked for a few thousand years.

I'd enjoy the idea of the Emperor having been an enlightened despot, Catherine II of Russia -style. Definitely make it representational monarchy, though, with the rich in a certain region of space all technically having the right to vote, but in practice choosing one of their numbers to be sent to the Imperial Court and represent their interests.

>>3066067
This, like many things, reminds me of something George Carlin said.

"I think, instead of the way we do things now, we should have a king. And if he's not doin' a good job, we kill him."

I do very much like the idea of the religious people being called Reformists either way (whether it's because they believe in the Tale of Bob the Reformed from the Bobblebook, or because they want to reform society). If anon agrees I suggest we refer to Faction A, the successors to the Empire, as Loyalists, and Faction B, the religious nuts, as Reformists.

So... if we were to do this, where and when would we be doing it? I'm not all that IRC savvy, but I can use the chatboards on sup/tg/ just fine.

Oh wow. Reposting 4 times...

>>3066076

No.

No more fucking kings.

>>3066088
IRC would be easiest.

I'm partial to Rizon myself, since the other channels I frequent are on there as well. They also have a handy webclient for people without a real IRC client: http://www.rizon.net/index.php?page=webchat

But it's up to the OP, I guess. If you want to be sure, just send him an email.

>>3066021

you set the mood perfectly, i applaud you good sir.

>>3061567

Fuck off. Realistic aliens which interact with humanity (probably after a war or two) is probably what's missing in most Space Opera, making them seem more unrealistic then they seem.

Only thing worst is the ALWAYS EVIL ALL THE TIME aliens.

bump for epic

bump

>>3066112
Vimes?

How do you feel about genetic engineering? I'm not talking about catgirl bioroids but creating Homo Sapiens Superior. I could see the default religious nation disliking it while another nation embraces eugenic germline gengineering. They are screened before they are even conceived for hereditary diseases and susceptibility to cancer or mental illness. Everyone has sex-selected children, boosted immune systems, good looks, athletic build, 20/20 vision, and extended lifespan. If you want to short circuit a lot of the craziness that comes with gengineering just say that forced growth tanks don't exist. All modifications are made to the zygote which is then brought to term in a surrogate mother. The child grows up at a normal rate. In fact, I could see all members of this nation as being sterile. Both as a form of population control and because unaided reproduction is viewed as too chaotic and inefficient.

>>3066327
>making them seem more unrealistic then they seem

First of all, that sentence doesn't even make sense.

Second, there is no fucking reason why aliens would make anything more realistic. As far as current devices go, no hint sentient alien life has been detected anywhere in the galaxy. While I'll be the first to admit that that's not proof that there IS no intelligent alient life out there, it does make it very plausable to assume that any given 'space empire' will not encounter intelligent alien life either. Slightly more plausable than the opposite, at least.

Thrid, the main reason I dislike whole "space=aliens" cliché is that alien races are rarely ever done well. I'll admit that there's nothing saying they can't or won't be done well, but most alien races in established fiction are quite honestly just retarded concepts.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, for the kind of setting the OP has in mind, aliens are completely unnecessary. It's not "to boldly go" Star Trek exploration, nor the WH40k "aliens vs humans let's fight". It's set in space, yes, but it's about war and politics and social development. Things that are just alot easier to do right and a lot more believable to pull off if it's humans against humans. There's absolutely no need for alien influence at any point because it just distracts from the matters at hand.

Personally, I think it's a very good decision from the OP to exclude aliens from the game.

bump

>>3066060
I'm positive I want to portray two very grey sides; the players will all start on one or the other and perhaps change around or abandon both as the campaign progresses, consigned to neither side by moral principal – more on ideals and narrative justice than anything.
The style of game play I'm striving for might see you play a character, then his son, then his son's aging rival - what might start as a war of religion might descend into broader social issues over race, representation and citizen's rights. Peace might be gained, lost, gained again. Wars with other nations, a collapse into warlordism, anarchy? What they choose and where they go is up to the players.
“>the reformists want a return to the old values”
That what I said! I think I’d like the motives for the rebelling faction (the reformists – so called because of their ardent desire to reform the empire) to be somewhat varied, allowing for a greater player exploration of issues. Some religious, some egalitarian, some over independence, some in protest – presuming the players (if they choose the reformists) are victorious in their rebellion then how the new government will function adds a new layer to the gameplay; I want this to continue and change and grow; to get stuck in a theme-rut would be terrible.

>>3066067
In my reading it's struck me that autocracy relies solely on the character of the autocrat. Noble men incur enlightened ages, their conceited sons usher in tyranny. The Emperor (or even King, Kaiser, Tsaar, Imperator, Grand Duke.. the list goes on) could well be a just, charismatic figure chosen by God/Providence to rule the Empire and is supported not only by High Lord/Electors, the highest rank of the Imperial Diet, but also by largle sections of popular opinion. The Parliament, while the franchise is highly restrictive, seats members who (for the most part) are sincerely representing their constiuant population centers/systems.
The rebels/reformist movement is led, I suggest, by the lower nobility; men of means and power side-lined by tradition and legalities, unable to effectively rule due to pressures from central government to conform in both action and faith.
While the civil war is one of independance, it's not a clear-cut virtuous mission against tyranny. The Lesser Nobles, joined by Industrialists and spurned Higher Nobles, fight not only to overthrow the yoke for the good of the people but to gain a great deal of personal power too!
Ambitions run wild; it's not Tyranny vs. Democracy - it's Monarchy versus Meritocracy!

>>3067318

>Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, for the kind of setting the OP has in mind, aliens are completely unnecessary.

Unnecessary, yes. Counter-productive, no. This is why I was advocating having Amnioni-style aliens who don't set foot in human space at all.

Either way, aliens are definitely not mandatory.

>>3068919

I can dig that.

I don't like the idea of it being a religion based struggle. Make it about technology instead. Something personal to humanity (human bioengineering, Strong AI, mind expansion drugs) that makes people wonder if it's such a good idea to introduce. Something like the Arm vs Core in TA but less...shitty.

>>3068919
Me, by the way.
>>3067107
Interesting idea. Gattaca all over again.
Perhaps, and this could be interesting, eugenics was part of the nations history? We have this weird preconception that, in sci-fi, things can't evolve because the future is a solid-form absolute.

Maybe the Imperial Government of 100 or even 200 years ago enforced genetic laws as an ideological will-to-power move but it was consequently condemned by the opposition as a twisted, genocidal conceit as society (which is cosmographically separated enough as it is) was wrenched apart by the perceived separation between the 'working man' and the 'ubermenschen' and the persecution of the former. Public riots, general strikes and bourgeoisie-planned bank-runs crippled the nation and forced the abolition of genetic laws, ending both the faltering steps of a genetically superior race (perhaps the Amnioni) and the then-current ruling dynasty.
Descendants of these ‘perfect’ beings are still said to exist and, while two hundred years of interbreeding as somewhat besmirched their genetic pedigree, their cultural heritage and infamy lives on.

>>3069095
I have to say I agree. While what no-time has posted is interesting the whole 'religion-in-space' thing has been done to death on /tg/ as the OP points out. Secular politics, economics and civil rights need to be explored as reasons for conflict, as well a religion. To suggest the American Civil War was simply about slavery would be rather narrow, for example. I think OP gets this, and this is way I'm interested in playing: we're cleverer than those GW blockheads, right?

>>3069256
Less of that, more of this.

Who says it all urban sprawl?

Right, I'm off to bed. Email me if you're a hungry, hungry hippo.

This sounds really cool; I'd be interested though I'm afraid to embarrass myself; I've really only experience with combat-heavy systems and whatnot. An intellectual game would be a nice change of pace but I'd be put off were I constantly outclassed by other players slinging around philosophical principles of whatever.

So for now I'll keep an eye on this, and try to determine exactly what kind of game it'll be.

Pic sorta-related in that it turned up in google search for "officer."

The conservation here seems to be bringing up the three concepts of empire/emperor without you knowing it.

The two main ones, traditional rivals and foes (A and B for the sake of example): A has a true autocrat, albeit a highly effective one. B has a "mandate of heaven" style monarch who is more the center of all society and culture than the leader of the government per se. C, the basically background fluff and occasional foil distant empire, has a non-hereditary political strongman who is basically a tradition sanctified military dictator (the position is sanctified, those who fill it come and go). Which emperor is backed by grand nobles, which emperor is backed by a parliament, and which emperor is backed by high-electors (who while not in any way democratic have duties and responsibilities that make them more than just regular vassals while still not being a parliament, even an all noble one) is open to interpretation; as is the question of which is experiencing the monarchy vs. meritocracy partially religious schism civil war.

My 2 cents is that the society of A would be based entirely on rank and title and probably have serfs, and A would have record-breaking monarchical powers for that nation but actually be using it to turn the over-privileged viscounts into a competent government; B would have a society where all castes are equally restricted by tradition; and C would be an "honor"-ocracy where rather than ancient noble bloodlines the aristocracy (those fit to lead, basically) are the ruling class through the concept of having more honor (land and/or military glory, traditionally).

>>3069611

basically you have

A. Ze power hungry kaiser...who is actually a lot better with the decadent, serf abusing divine right nobles on a leash than the way things were

B. The celestial emperor of august personage...and the traditional peers, gentry, and peasants who all have predetermined cogs in society

and C. The imperator and the rest of the patrician/equestrian aristocracy dominated society

>>3069611
I do not consider B a very realistic emperor. Sure, it's how certain societies have painted themselves, but in reality you still have new dynasties toppling old dynasties, ruling for some generations and then being toppled themselves. In the meantime the small people don't care as much about the distant emperor as about the next harvest.

I just cannot fathom a society where the picture of the sagacious and mighty imperial family having ruled for eons by the will of heaven is *actually true* instead of nationalistic propaganda.