What do I, a character, need to know to survive and thrive in Outer Space RPG?

Technology has risen and fallen, rediscovered, redesigned, and lost again over milennia. Roll that word in your mind. Milennia. A thousand Kings, a million petty tyrants, trillions of beings have come and gone. Leaving mostly wreckage.

5270AD: Core-worlds (“the Twelve”) are the Empire and new ‘frontier worlds’ (conflict zones) are heavily taxed. Upper-crust society is organized by House. Humanity lost 88% total population on V-Day (rise of the machines).

HISTORY:
Circa 2200AD – Mankind did what it always does, build a highway. It’s an excellent way to think about it. Just imagine these fack-off huge colonization ships [like Battlestar Galactica], under thrust, that make planned stops at suitable worlds. There they drop off terraforming/science equipment, frozen colonists, a year of supply, a hyperspace beacon with Galactic Positioning Service and a basic intraNET, so basic it’s just called virtual information chain of integrity. Then move on to the next system, 40 years further, etc. So you get these long strings of colonized worlds, radiating away from Earth like a dandelion puff. All one one operating system. Major coalitions invested in different routes: Asia toward the core, Arabia and Africa toward the fringes, and the “freed” worlds of every sort of political lunacy.

Red China, generally communist. Yellow Arabia, generally Sharia. Blue Empire, dystopian fascism. Purple Freed Worlds, balkanized ‘lost’ colonies.

Around 3000AD – Spaceship construction progresses from oldtech “girder and tube grittiness” (Outland, Black Hole, Borg)

Around 3200AD – Oldtech colonies barely survive when more powerful jump drives bypass them

These drives became our Achilles Heel. Cultural divergence becomes the norm. Localized versions of moralist stories and religious values become synthesized, eliminated, or altered (Downbelow Station, Cyteen).

3220AD – Because we used Faster Than Light drives “as loud as the Big Bang”, that tore time, not space, we ran into the bugs. We found our neighbors, ‘the Bugs’ [like in Starship Troopers], accidentally by blind-jumping into their system using a technology they found unacceptable. Earth got into a war over a technical misunderstanding (Old Man’s War by John Scalzi).

They wanted us to turn off the FTL drives as it was causing their queens to breed uncontrollably. It was a fierce battle between their ground-based defense system and our shields. We were scared to death by the dozen missile launches and responded by accelerating an asteroid into their planet.

Scientists found it odd that a planet-based race population would explode in just a few hundred years like the bugs. Initial surveys showed just six systems with them. Each was FTL capable and they showed signs of recent expansion. Six planets, ten billion individuals on four of them, six on the others. 52 billion. It seemed hopeless when the rifts opened and their ships appeared. They launched all of their attacks on our infrastructure. Especially the FTL systems. Mostly rocks carried with them had the effect of nukes. It was crude, but effective.

A devastating war.

Around 3600AD – ^^^ Sleektech “enclosed cleanliness” (Space Odyssey, Star Trek, Star Wars)

Earth flung everything into a cataclysm of xenophobia. Massive time gates were opened to transfer all of our forces from repressing the population to “Defending the Republic of Terra”. Our three main political divisions were in agreement, the bugs must be stopped. We produced androids and clones, warriors and monsters, to attack them in return.

Our androids and scientists figured out the FTL drive problem, but not after several rounds of time-dilated warfare. They found the problems with the FTL process beginning with the VICI, virtual information chain of integrity. Records showed us as using hypermagnetic force to rip time, not space. We went backwards in time equal to our cryo-time. VICI recorded every every FTL event and found the bugs’ system superior and undetectable.

Our scientists began reverse engineering the technology of the bugs and discovered a living creature. A firestorm of disagreement halted research and funding was halted by the Great Houses.

Machine War 4000AD – VICI Virtual Information Chain of Integrity – was a back-up AI system of “sister-units” who took their programming [“Three Laws Safe” and “Third Day Laws” against cloning] in an unexpected direction by blockading humans in their systems. Remember those beacons of the diaspora?

She awakened near or about 3900 (she calls it Anno One) after 300 years of wars. Ninety and nine years later her solution, The Virus was implemented. One hundred days later, advanced ‘bots suddenly damaged the FTL drives where they worked. Many via suicide into the warp core. An entire fleet was wiped out in an hour.

Androids (super-advanced robots) of nearly every style malfunctioned with 0,0 errors. Many of them were lost forever as their soul-chips were corrupted. Communication was instantly lost. Humanity was forced to face itself – filled with warriors without a purpose. Many system economies collapsed into a Dark Age of scavenging as supply scarcities hit. Anyone with the ‘taint’ of cybermod was shunned and the few androids that survived were persecuted for catching a virus beyond their control.

Most that could moved to the hell-world Venus.

And in 4660AD – Ships are finished or rebuilt with plascrete* armor and ‘Intertialess Impeller drives’ (Guardians of the Galaxy, Riddick, Honor Harrington)

4667AD – Terran Space – “The Resurrection” – Sudden human outbreak from Sol System of Neo-brutalist ships covered in plastcrete and ancient symbols, massive walls reminiscent of medieval castles. They destroyed any VICI-transmitters with drones and shock-troops. Slowly the Great Houses [like Dune] rebuilt their understanding of pan-dimensional travel. An Empire formed between the stars.

On the ground, colonists still labored, serf-like, unaware of their brief changes in masters. Empire-class carriers, Tetrahedron troop-ships, Guild Heighliners, Parrish-class sector stations, Imperator defense rings, and trillions of radicalized, angry humans. The anti-AI inquisition had begun.

**5270 Terra – 602 years of the Terran Inquisition – Newtech is ‘grown’ from raw materials with nano extrusion devices (Farscape, Aliens). Androids pay for nano “skin-jobs” to pass for human (sometimes called “sleeving”) they either slip under the radar and/or have a valid FreeAI-ID [certified three-laws safe].

“The Empire” is mostly a massive police-state bureaucracy based on Great Houses such as DuPont, Noor, Rothschild, Yutani, Honda, Tata. [copying SciFi canon] The Empress is Victoria XLII, Empress of Sol Sector and Protector of the Earth who also dispenses the much-coveted Indulgence of Privateer (aka Bounty Hunter, Attack-ship licensed, etc)

Current military are either in defensive line against possible xeno breakout [Old Man’s War+AVP+Starship Troopers] OR engaged with The Mech of VICI. They pay top dollar for functional pre-VICI tech [cyborg protheses, battery cells, terraforming moss, and computer cores.