Scifi setting progress

[Lloyd Dupont]

Hi yall.. as some might have noticed.. I seem kind of stuck at trying to come up with a satisfying scifi setting I can believe in and that is a fertile ground for adventures...
(the general idea I am aiming for now is adventures somewhere inside one of the Master of Orion empires. A video game where aggressively techno-expansionist-industrialist space empires compete for galactic dominance)

First, curiously, even though I quite enjoyed playing the following scifi video games: Mass Effect, Star Wars Knight of the Old Republic or Cyberpunk 2077, none of thee please me as GM. ME or KOTOR have singular super powerful enemies obviously labelled as guy, not my cup of tea. and Cyberpunk has an insane amount of street violence that I can't just believe for a successful space empire aggressively pushing against other equally hungry and successful space empire (the Master of Orion formula).

But yea! I got a breakthrough! just sharing here for posterity... And brainstorming / comment?
The space empire government need be illegitimate. Hell even our democracy are only about 70% legitimate these days, and declining I reckon (By legitimate I mean the people support the system of government and feel protected by it). Once a government is illegitimate, it's a fertile ground for corruption, secret society, private security forces... Many of those government are dictatorship in MoO, and the few democracy can be old "corpocracy" and no longer supported by the people either.
In such situation the state monopoly on violence is shaky, at best.

From that, and the ongoing conflict with border empires, so many consequences:
- first they might be long never ending war zones, all the private contractor milking the money making war machine
- here comes: idle mercenary forces (racketeering), criminal union, smuggling of good - even ordinary ones, yeah!
- also, I could easily prevent player from walking in the street in full combat armor (a bit annoying) and force a stealthy game play: if the player are too obvious the state will arrest them and fine them 10,000 credit for "public disturbances" and if they make too big a mess of their missions, the state might investigate and the result might displease both their enemies and their employer...
- plus I can always arrest players for whimsical reason (they got served first at a bar, where a dignitary's son was in queue! 😛 ), always good fun! 😄 

[Lloyd Dupont]

This is good relevant info too.. 

 

[Questbird]

I am getting some sci-fi RPG inspiration from the game Elite: Dangerous. In that game there is a background political system which is affected by the actions of the players. There are three 'superpowers': the Federation, Empire and Alliance. Each system has a clutch of local factions, usually about seven. Some factions operate in multiple systems, but their influence and relationships to each other in each may vary depending on their relative influence. Some systems are 'controlled' by a faction; others may be contested. Bases and planetary settlements may be controlled by different factions. Each of the factions is connected to the superpowers (occasionally there is also an independent faction). The factions have different forms of government, broadly autocratic, democratic or corporate. Factions with roughly equal influence in a system will be in competition if they are of similar governmental types, or at war otherwise. The total influence of all the factions in the system is 100%. Doing missions for a faction will improve its influence (and that of its parent superpower) at the expense of others in the system.

Anyway, long story short, this faction system creates plenty of opportunities for local mercenaries, pirates, bounty hunters and couriers. One faction's pirates are another faction's righteous privateers. One faction's agitators and propagandists are another faction's couriers of vital electoral information. One faction's 'system security' might be an oppressive police state to their opposition, etc. Behind it all, the super powers (the equivalent of your MOO space empires) are playing the local factions in their game of thrones.

I'm using a system inspired by this for my online Coriolis: The Third Horizon game, which has 10 Horizon-spanning factions. In each system I make sub-factions with allegiance to one of the game factions. As the players help or hurt these organisations through play I adjust their reputation with the governing factions accordingly.