INTRODUCTION
Who knows where humanity came from? Ask an Edonian, he’ll tell you Eden. Maybe they are telling the truth, but not a single non-Edonian scientist has ever been allowed to travel to Eden to verify that claim with proof. Not to mention that between the Edonian creationist theory, and the rumors that started ever since the Great Asylum, it sounds a bit more like theological propaganda. Gaians will tell you that wherever we came from, all life from Gaia originally evolved from the same root planet. They admit that planet is not Gaia mind you, but they say that the common gene matter in all their flora and fauna points to an original home plant of evolution. From what I hear, you ask a Terran, and he’ll just shrug and say that all that matters is that they managed to conquer and tame their world. I’ve never heard of anyone asking a Lilithian, but then again, I’ve never heard of a Lilithian designed to answer questions. So here I am, in the satellite worlds, asking the question that nobody seems to have the answer to… where did humanity come from, and why did it leave?
—Jacobin Trill, Archeologist and Anthropologist
The Worlds of Nod is a science fiction campaign setting with elements of space opera, military science fiction, cyberpunk, biopunk, planetary romance, and post apocalyptic genres. Its setting is largely gothic-punk in aesthetic, and pulp in adventure. It features four main worlds that act as the seats of power for four empires. These empires have historically existed in a state of war with each other. The setting takes place shortly after the four empires have forged a concord to act, if not as a peace agreement, then at least a set of laws governing war and trade. Each of these empires controls virtually countless satellite solar systems, giving a game-master plenty of room for creative expansion. The following document will describe in some detail the four empires and their seats of power, as well as a few key satellite solar systems for each empire.
The four ruling planets of the four empires are Eden, Gaia, Terra, and (it is rumored) Lilith. The four empires are known as the Edonian Empire, the Gaian Empire, the Terran Empire, and the Lilithian Empire. Each of these empires is characterized by a different flavor. The Edonian Empire is a highly religious institution ruled by a god emperor. Their priests believe in a eugenic birth program designed to breed humans “free of sin” and capable of incredible psionic feats. They are a technophobic society that views artificial intelligence, and cybernetic augmentation, as a heretical tool of the devil. All Edonian technology is powered by psionic energy, which they feel “purifies” technology of its naturally evil taint. The Edonian Empire is known for its incredible energy age equipment, and religious fervor.
The Gaian Empire is the anti-thesis of Edonian dogma. Their culture is a highly technological and corporate entity. They are ruled by a corporate republic democracy. The individual Gaian is afforded few rights, but the Gaian corporation is afforded the ultimate freedom. Each corporation chooses how it wishes to rule its own employees and land. Each individual may (theoretically) choose which corporation he or she chooses to work for. The corporations elect a corporation to preside as president over the other corporations for a term of office. Gaians are known for their advanced robotic and cybernetic advancements, and information technology. Gaians are the creators of the ARnet (augmented reality network) and HIARnet (hyper immersive augmented reality network).
The Terran Empire was born in the flames of war, and war continues to be their primary industry. The Terran Empire is ruled by a military oligarchy. A few key military bodies act as the joint rulers of the entire empire. Its population is broken up into two classes, the citizens who have served their time as soldiers of the empire, and the civilians who produce the empires everyday needs. The Terran Empire is known for its soldiers, ballistic and missile technology, advanced military vehicles, and electronic warfare. Terrans are known as the discoverers of the broadband network.
Lilithians are a people shrouded in mystery. They are not designed as a player character empire. Virtually nothing is known about their system of government. During the war, their motives remained anonymous. Likewise, their sudden sue for peace was also powered by reasons totally alien to the other empires. Indeed, the Lilithians themselves may not even be human at all. The Lilithans are masters of genetic manipulation. Their technology is entirely biological. From their vehicles to their weapons, everything is alive. Their society is genetically engineered, each member designed to perform a specific task for the greater good of the empire. While the diplomats appear entirely human, the shock troops of the Lilithan Empire seem more like monstrous creatures evolved specifically for the purpose they were created for. Their weapons of war are plasma spitting beasts with massive metal tearing talons and fangs. Ever since the creation of the concord, the Lilithian Empire is known for trading gene-templates, retroviruses, and advanced wetware to the other empires.
But even as the concord has brought the four empires together in relative peace and trade, tension continues to threaten the concords existence, and in the distant depths of unexplored space there may still lay a new threat to the survival of all humanity… among the worlds of Nod, adventure and stories await!
A Players Guide to Cultural History
A Brief History of Eden
A Brief History of Gaia
A Brief History of Terra
A More Up to Date Copy of This Thread with More Fluff and More Crunch, but in the Star Wars Saga Paraxeum Boards.
Eden is the birthplace of humankind. This is not to say that Eden is the home of humanities original evolution, but that god created man, whole, and placed him on Eden. But humanity sinned. Humanity ate from the tree of knowledge, and thus was cast out of Eden and into worlds of Nod. Humanity, non-the less, still held the seed of divinity. While much of humanity polluted itself with demonic gifts, and damned itself to forever reside in Nod, there were those who sought the purity of the natural order. These few kept their body and souls clean, and eventually managed to free themselves of their race’s sin. While humanity fed what was left of its collective soul to the great adversary, Adam and Eve carried their children across Nod and back to Eden, where the purist and holiest of them were allowed to settle down and spread the divine seed. The remainder of their children, those not eaten by sin, but lacking in the purity of their cousins, were left to wait outside the gates of Eden until such a time as they could prove their worthiness to God.
At least, that’s what Edonian dogma and the word of the Divine Text says. The truth is that Edonians know as little about the origin of humanity as anyone else. Their earliest history, just like every other culture’s, is lost in a technological dark age of prehistory. The Edonian history truly begins with the creation of the Church of the Messiah, and what the Edonian’s call the second coming. Why the second coming is known as the second coming, and what exactly the first coming was, is another mystery that remains a matter of theological interpretation. The second coming refers to the moment in which the first Edonian Son of God was born, a little over three thousand years ago. With his birth began a religion, and an empire, that has survived longer than any other institution in the known universe.
The Church of the Messiah was formed around a central figure that is said to have been the savior of the human race. He was a child so pure, that he managed to ascend his stature as a human, and become one with god. This ability has become the central pillar of Edonian faith. Humans, according to the Edonian religion, are each born with a seed of divinity. Careful breeding allows humanity to cultivate this seed. Two highly divine humans are likely to give birth to a human of even greater divine potential, for that human has within him or her self the seed of both its parents. This divinity manifests itself in the form of powerful holy ability that is often described by other cultures as psychic. The most powerful and carefully bred psychic is known as the Son or Daughter of God. Only one such child can exist at a time. Such a child is, according to Edonian Dogma, one with God. Such a child is destined to rule as a living embodiment of God, the Emperor of all God fearing humankind.
The second coming refers to the first ascension of a Son of God. A figure said to be so powerful, that with his birth all of Eden trembled. This figure is said to have united the scattered tribes of Eden under his banner, and to lay down the word of the Divine Text. He created an empire, and defended it with holy manifestation. In order to ensure that with his passing the tribes would not once again scatter, he gathered all of those who showed a strong seed of divinity, and dubbed them his priesthood. He taught them of the breeding program, and showed them god’s will. He began the careful selection that would always ensure that each generation had one Son or Daughter of God to act as God Emperor of Eden. He initiated the (over two thousand year) rule of the Church of the Messiah, and created the first Order, the Order of the Prophets, an Order dedicated to bringing the word of God to his people. Almost nothing about pre-second coming Edonian culture is known, though Edonian dogma says that they lived in a state of barbarism.
After the church was erected, but before Edonians began their crusade into Nod, much of Edonian history details the slow creation of their culture. In the early days of the church, Heretics (defined as those of lower birth who sought to gain more power than their position within the divine breeding program allowed, or psychics that refused to heed and follow the voice of God) continued to exist as a significant entity. The Order of the Templar was eventually created to protect the Church against any heretic military threat. The Order of Inquisition formed in order to seek out and uproot any secretive heretical elements of Eden, often eliminating such elements before they managed to successfully materialize. The church ruled, classes formed, and a global guild economy took root under the watchful eye of the Church.
While all new technology was carefully monitored, to ensure that it did not lay down demonic lay lines with unholy energy, not even the Church could completely stop technological progress. Nor, in fact, did the Church want to. While inhuman energy sources could be used to create demonic lay lines, divine energy had no such stigma. When the first inventors learned that divine energy could be harnessed into carefully structured mechanisms, Eden began its quest to modernization at breakneck speed. About a thousand years ago this led to the creation of the first Edonian Nodship, a vessel designed to traverse the space surrounding Eden. Soon after, the priesthood learned that a sufficiently powerful psychic, acting as a navigator, could use a Nodship to fold the space between star systems. It was then that the first cousins of Eden were found. Eden then began its crusade into Nod, and its quest to eradicate all demonic presence in the universe. Converting all humanity to God’s holy will was deemed to be of the utmost importance, and the interstellar Edonian Empire was born.
Perhaps the most important planet to be discovered by the Edonians pre first contact with another interstellar empire occurred when the Edonians found a fairly evolved planet called (by its inhabitants) Gravitus some seventy years ago. Gravitus boasted a fairly evolved community that already possessed rudimentary space travel capabilities. Eden sent three massive warships into the system, and within twenty-four hours destroyed all major bodies of military power in Gravitus’s solar system. They informed Gravitus that its electronic based technology was demonic, and its use a sin against god. All Gravitus inhabitants were to pledge faulty to God, or die on the pyre of their unholy disbelief. While combing through the population to find the random few possessing the divine seed, or its potential, Eden discovered something it had never previously encountered. Gravitus boasted an organized form of psychic training of its own. Prior to Eden’s arrival, any human possessing psychic capability had been drafted into Gravitus’s military, and trained to use their potential in combination with an advanced form of stealth and recognizance style warfare. These troops were called ghosts. Some ghosts even boasted cybernetic enhancements that allowed them to plug themselves into small weapons of war, and psychically affect these weapons as if they were part of their own bodies. Such practice, as it employed cybernetic pacts with demonic energy, was quickly outlawed, and any possessing the implant were bound as heretics. Mau’Ud the third, the current God Emperor of Eden at the time, attempted to then integrate the remaining ghosts as a wing of the holy Church of the Messiah. However, many ghosts remained heretics, committing acts of guerilla warfare against the church, constantly attempting to remain hidden from the Inquisition. This led to a general sense of superiority by the majority of the rest of the church towards the Ghosts of God, those ghosts that kept their oath of allegiance to the Church.
Twenty five years ago the Edonians had first contact with another interstellar empire, Gaia. When the warship Divine Fury stumbled upon a small backwater Gaian satellite system, they were appalled by what they saw as a culture of demon worshipers. Its inhabitants were served by homunculus, demons crafted through electronic lay lines, and its populous augmented with similar cybernetic enhancements. Its people were a window for the demonic entities of hell, and some priests claimed that this nefarious civilization even ventured into hell’s realm, making pacts with demonic entities directly. No matter the Gaian assurance that the Gaians were in fact in control of their abominable creations, the Edonians lay fire to the system, and destroyed every last Gaian entity within it. Assuming that the satellite system was in fact the whole of Gaian civilization, the Edonians were caught by surprise when a fleet of Gaian war machines found an Edonian satellite system, and put it to a similar fate a few months later. With this action a crusade against the Gaians was declared.
Sixteen years ago the Edonians had second contact with a strange empire full of what they perceived to be monsters. An Edonian war fleet stumbled into a flock of mammoth creatures floating through space surrounded by a cloud of smaller living spatial entities. These squid and insect like creatures destroyed a full quarter of the Edonian fleet, suffering heavy losses themselves, before the Edonians attempted to send telepathic transmission of truce. By some miracle, the creatures responded. Soon, a diplomatic meeting was arranged. Naked humans of startling beauty greeted the Edonians. After some time the Edonians came to the conclusion that the creatures were in fact descendents of God’s third child, Lilith, the mother of monsters. No matter how strange (and at times despicable) the Lilithians seemed, the Edonians were sure of one thing: the Lilithians, whose entire technology was based around living organic matter, were not in league with demonic forces. Fearing a war on two fronts, the Edonians chose the lesser of two evils, and formed an alliance with the Lilithians. The Edonians would receive aid and reinforcements from the Lilithian military, and would provide the same to the Lilithians, who complained of a war on their own front.
The alliance seemed a blessing at first. Ten years of virtually constant victory against the Gaians, as well as the Lilithian foe known as the Terrans, led the Edonians to believe that victory was at hand. This ended abruptly six years ago. The Edonians and the Lilithians had, up to that time, fought armies composed only of Terran or Gaian unites. The two had never been allowed to come into contact. A Terran general managed to successfully track an Edonian and Lilithian fleet, that had not left Terran space, after one such battle. Unfortunately for Eden, a Gaian general had been tracking the same fleet after a battle in Gaian space a few weeks before. When the Terran and Gaian fleets happened to accidentally come within communications distance, they picked up each other’s transmission signals. Soon after the two attacked the Edonian and Lilithian fleet in unison. The combined forces of Terran weaponry and electronic warfare coupled with the number of demonic drones the Gaians could throw into battle was virtually unstoppable. For the next four years Eden and Lilith suffered defeat after defeat. What meager victories the Edonians and Lilithians could muster were better described as stalemates.
Two years ago Eden suffered what its historians now describe as the Twin Calamities, or the Twin Betrayals. Due to the continued mistreatment of ghosts as the hands of other Church orders, a full seventy-five percent of all ghosts sought asylum with Terra. This only served to make the Terran infantry a more fearsome and formidable foe. Within a few months, Lilith, without warning Eden, sued for peace with the Gaian and Terran forces. Eden was left with little choice. It could not hope to survive against the Gaian and Terran forces without aid. When Lilith and Terra offered Eden a chance to enter into the newly formed CONCORD, the current Emperor Paul’Ud the first, despite the disapproval of the order of the Inquisition, accepted.
For the last two years Paul’Ud has attempted to rebuild his war torn empire. A trade embargo against Gaia and Gaian goods has been issued. Laws against any form of mistreatment towards the remaining ghosts have been passed (though some still call them lurks where the law cannot hear). Still, the order of Inquisition stares ever outward at perceived demonic threats, and struggles to stop the corrupt elements of the CONCORD from permeating Edonian culture. Life on Eden goes on, and the order of the Templar stands ever ready, their holy blades just a thought away…
A Dogmatic View of Technology
It is said that Terrans have fought war since before recorded history. Whether that claim is true or not, they have fought wars for as long as their history has been recorded. Before they possessed advanced technology, when they could not even imagine that other worlds might exist, they fought wars with sword and spear. Countless cultures have risen to dominance in Terran history, only to be toppled in what they thought was their prime by a new rising culture. As Terrans modernized, and faced an industrial revolution, their history became marked by World Wars. When the Terrans finally entered into the information age, they discovered that there world was too small for all the inhabitants of their planet to peacefully coexist. Cold wars became hot wars, and cultural conflict continually threatened to tear the planet apart.
Eventually, a little over five hundred years ago, Terrans invited their first spaceship capable of deep space travel, and Terrans began to expand outwards. At first the expansion was slow. Terrans lacked the ability to travel faster than the speed of light. The first Terran colonists would spend lifetimes traveling to nearby solar systems cooped up in city sized ships designed to carry self supporting populations. Then, about four hundred years ago, Terrans made an exciting discovery. The first jump gate was in fact a natural phenomenon. A colony discovered a nearby spatial anomaly, a stable wormhole. Soon the colonists discovered how to intentionally create their own wormholes. The process was twofold. First, highly advanced technology had to be used to exploit gravitational resonances found in binary star systems in order to bend the space-time continuum, effectively creating artificial wormholes. Then, large fusion reactors generating magnetic fields would hold these wormholes open. The knowledge of this technology was quickly spread throughout the Terran systems. After Terrans discovered that roughly one in three star systems produced the necessary resonance to build a jump gate, the next hundred years was spent reconnecting Terran colonies to Terra, and the governments to whom they technically belonged.
Ever since Terrans had globalized, corporations had played an increasingly important role in the planets macro-social structure. Multinational corporations were often hard to police, as they spanned across land that belonged to many different governments. Such corporations could pick and choose where they would build what aspects of their infrastructure based on the rules governing various areas of Terra. When Terra expanded out to the stars many corporations did so as well. The first colonies had virtually no real contact with other worlds. Information transmission was possible, though slow. Physical travel, until the jump gate network began to form, was so slow that it was virtually non existent. These colonies technically belonged to one of the governments from Terra itself; however they had no real contact with these governments except through the ideal of loyalty. In the vacuum of any meaningful contact with the parent governments to whom these colonies belonged, the corporations that populated them thrived in a space virtually free of any outside interference. When these colonies reconnected with Terra through the jump gate network, what they discovered was that the ideal of loyalty is very different from the act. Suddenly Terran bodies of governance, which had no role in the two hundred year process of colonization, expected the ability to lord over what they felt technically belonged to them. It was not only people that could move through the jump gate network, but discontent.
Approximately three hundred years ago this discontent turned into a multisolar civil war. Where this civil war began, who struck the first blow, and exactly why, is still disputed by Terran historians. However, within a few years war spread throughout the jump gate network. Many jump gates were destroyed. Manny others soon found themselves guarded by fleets of ships designed to keep the spatial roadways open. Terran history, once again, was marked by war. The governments of the Terra, and those loyal to them, banned together and formed the first multinational Terran Alliance. Together they created the first Spartans, genetically engineered warriors, and bred armies. Over the next fifty years the armies that fought for Terran governments slowly became the purpose of the governments themselves. Presidents, prime ministers, were all forced to become generals. After about two hundred and fifty years ago the Terran Alliance had succeeded in winning a virtually decisive victory. All colonies still connected to Terra by the jump gate network were firmly under the heel of power belonging to one of the Terran governments.
Two hundred and fifty three years ago these governments banded together to create the multinational and multisolar legislature that has existing as the primary source of Terran culture ever since. All corporations were forced to choose loyalty to a single government. A corporation would never again be allowed to build any of its infrastructure on land that belonged to a different government. No corporation could ever possess military technology. Governments would be responsible for producing their own, heavily policed, military technology. The people producing this technology, both theoretically and practically, would be technically designated as soldiers themselves. Any corporation suspected of creating or possessing military technology would be disbanded. In order to gain the rights of a citizen a civilian would be forced to serve a term of service in their government’s military. Only citizens could hold managerial positions in corporations, or own corporate stock. By the time of this legislature governments were already virtually armies. After this legislature, Terra and all its colonies became an entity ruled by a military oligarchy. The most powerful governments would remain the most powerful. They would defend each other, protect each others assets, and ensure that any non governmental entity that attempted to raise the military might necessary to attempt to usurp authority would quickly be quashed. The powers that produced this legislature two hundred and fifty three years ago are the powers that rule Terran space to this day.
Thirty three years ago Terra met the first threat that it faced in over two hundred years. It began with an asteroid that crashed into a Terran satellite colony. By the time the colony realized that the asteroid was infected with… something… it was too late. The colony was overrun with what officials could only describe as the Horde. Terrans saw no intelligence, or technology, of note amongst this horde. Their weapons were claw and tooth, or naturally occurring plasma that they seemed to spit or spew from various oraphises. At first the Terran colonies categorized the Horde as an infestation, a race of space cockroaches that somehow managed to come into accidental contact with their people. After their first defeats, Terra realized just how wrong they were. The Horde used tactics. Its creatures were evolved to fill roles in combat as adequately as any Terran vehicle of war. With this realization, once again, the Terran governments banded together as a unified whole. Once again, Terra and all of its people went to war.
Sixteen years ago Terran speculations about the Hordes intelligence were confirmed. The Horde began to fight battles with an ally. Fearsome opponents who used what Terrans could obviously categorize as technology began to fight alongside the Hordes beasts. This enemy was human, fought with blasts, beams, and even blades of energy, and was every bit as fearsome as the Horde itself. Terrans had only barely managed to keep the Horde at bay. After the Horde forged this alliance, the next ten years of Terran history is marked by defeat after defeat.
On the verge of annihilation, it was luck that saved Terran society. Admiral Deacon Hoth was tracking an enemy fleet that failed to leave Terran space after a battle with Terran forces. By chance, while doing so, he happened to intercept transmission signals very similar to those used by Terran forces. Soon after, he made first contact with Gaian forces. At first their language barrier was a problem, but necessity quickly overcame this difficulty. From the Gaians he learned a name for the Horde’s allies, the Edonians. Together the Terrans and Gaians attacked, and destroyed, the Edonian and Horde fleet. For the next four years the two cultures banded together, and continued to do the same.
Two years ago Terra was contacted by a fairly large Edonian force that had found its way into Terran space. The force called itself the Ghosts of Gravitus. To the Terrans surprise, they requested asylum from Eden, and were willing to fight alongside the Terran forces to get it. The Terrans readily agreed once the force demonstrated its impressive psychic combat potential.
Within a few months Terra made first peaceful contact with the Horde. A massive space beast managed to somehow contact a Terran force on Terran frequencies. A meeting was requested. At the meeting Terran officials met with a species of Horde they had never met before, human. Beautiful, naked, diplomats met the Terran officials. First these diplomats gave the Terrans a new name for the Horde, the Lilithian Empire. Then, they offered a truce, an end to thirty one years of bloodshed. Their terms were simple, an end to all hostile actions. Almost all Terran colonies still in Lilithian possession would be returned, and Lilith would offer up knowledge of some of its capabilities in the area of genetic manipulation. Their one condition was that the agreement would be made between the Terran, Lilithian, and Gaian forces, and that the Terran and Gaian forces would offer the Edonians the same. If the Edonians refused, Lilith agreed to help Terra and Gaia destroy them. Within a few months the CONCORD was formed.
For the last two years life in Terran space has largely returned to normal. With trade opening between the various cultures, Terrans are seeing a new age of technological prosperity. However, without the threat of war to unify all the Terran people into a whole, and with the Gaians as an example of a culture free of Terran censorship, once again the whispers of dissension have begun to lightly mist the culture’s most recent victory, and once again Terran governments have turned their eyes upon their own people…
A Great War Pastime: Bug Hunting
Its dark, rich with possibilities ... Impressive ... most impressive ! The kind of setting I think «Future» should have.
I would suggest that you actually write up the origines of human life in the galaxy. What as become of this ancient civilisation? Are they aware of their descendants plight? If they are, do they have the means or the will of influencing events. Are they monitoring the 4 races.
Keep up the good work
I can't wait to see what some of the gear of each race produces. You could even expand on the psy-gadgets and the like hinted at in d20 future/future tech that we never saw with the Edonians.
Do all races use jump gate/artificial wormhole technology to travel interstellarly or do they have their own unique way of traveling faster than light? Like Star Trek's 'warp drive' of having the ship enter subspace.. or Babylon 5's hyper space, basically another dimension or some such that allows for faster travel, or Star Wars version of hyperspace... or Dune's version of folding space.. or..
what's that book I read.. Cadet, followed by Lieutenant and then Captain.. the ships had a drive that was like folding space crossed with hyperspace of star wars i think. a ship would power up its drive (which also provided artificial gravity i think), fold/enter other space, orient itself and jump quite a distance, then travel in real space for a couple of weeks, jump again, travel in real space, then make final jump. The reason for the three jumps to a location was due to it was easy to miss your target location in one big long jump (which would be near instantaneous (like an hour or so jumping). so making several jumps to established 'jump' locations in transit was safer (and closer) and the traveling in real space had some other benefit that I can't remember besides getting you a little closer and giving you some speed for when you got there I think.
Anyway.. Looking forward to more from this. Oh! would you be using your Starship/Weapons/Mecha rules for this setting?
I also like the ambiguity and tension created by not knowing the true origin of humanity...
I would suggest that you actually write up the origines of human life in the galaxy. What as become of this ancient civilisation? Are they aware of their descendants plight? If they are, do they have the means or the will of influencing events. Are they monitoring the 4 races.
The lack of information about the true origin of humanity is intentional. I left behind/will leave behind hints in the backstory of each culture, but the origin of humanity is not supposed to be player privileged information. However, I will leave a spoiler here just for you.
WARNING! Spoilers Contained
Eventually, there will be a GM only section of this setting which includes some suggestions on the origin of humanity, and Lilith, as well as the nature of the "5th threat." According to the suggestion I will provide in that section, the origin of humanity is earth. This setting takes place thousands upon thousands of years in the future. Before ANY of these cultures left their dark age, humanity reached what d20 Future would term PL8/9 back on Earth, with one exception: their faster than light travel was lethal to humans. Pretty much, they built a Chronometric Shifter, but could not figure out a way to speed up the amount of time spent traveling aboard a ship. The result was that humans, from earth, could not spread out among the stars effectively...
Meanwhile, humans polluted and destroyed their planet, eating up all its resources. The human atmosphere slowly became more and more lethal to the human nervous system, and their planet lacked what was needed to keep their technological infrastructure working. Their solution came in the form of cybernetics. More and more, humans stopped being humans, and started becoming machines. Near the end, many humans downloaded their consciousness into robotic bodies. Those humans without the money to survive were left to die of asphyxiation. The benefit of these robotic bodies was that humans could now travel in their starships, as robotic bodies do not age with time. As a result, they began traveling to other planets and stripping them of their resources like locusts.
Some humans did not agree with the direction humanity was taking. These humans wanted to save what made humans humans in the first place, biology. They built three colony ships. These colony ships were designed to terra-form planets, and leave the seeds necessary for human existence behind. Each colony ship was a community in and of itself. This was necessary, as before the inhabitants of any ship would reach their destination, they would grow old enough to die. One of these ships was named Adam. Another was named Eve. The final ships name is a bit of a secret (even to me). However, the AI of the third ship went haywire, and it basically disappeared, leaving Adam and Eve behind. It went haywire, and decided that ALL biological matter, and its existence, was the most important thing in the universe. It decided that it had to find a way to make itself a biological entity, and that humanity's (read biological CULTURE) survival was less important that the survival of biological matter (read, things made out of DNA).
Adam and Eve traveled space creating planets, and seeding humanity, until eventually time and age weathered their technology. Their final resting place is unknown. All of the cultures in The Land of Nod, with the exception of one, are colonies that were once seeded by Adam and Eve. The "5th threat" that I hinted at in the Introduction is Earth. Lilith is the result of the 3rd ship.
Eventually, there will be a GM only section of this setting which includes some suggestions on the origin of humanity, and Lilith, as well as the nature of the "5th threat." According to the suggestion I will provide in that section, the origin of humanity is earth. This setting takes place thousands upon thousands of years in the future. Before ANY of these cultures left their dark age, humanity reached what d20 Future would term PL8/9 back on Earth, with one exception: their faster than light travel was lethal to humans. Pretty much, they built a Chronometric Shifter, but could not figure out a way to speed up the amount of time spent traveling aboard a ship. The result was that humans, from earth, could not spread out among the stars effectively...
Meanwhile, humans polluted and destroyed their planet, eating up all its resources. The human atmosphere slowly became more and more lethal to the human nervous system, and their planet lacked what was needed to keep their technological infrastructure working. Their solution came in the form of cybernetics. More and more, humans stopped being humans, and started becoming machines. Near the end, many humans downloaded their consciousness into robotic bodies. Those humans without the money to survive were left to die of asphyxiation. The benefit of these robotic bodies was that humans could now travel in their starships, as robotic bodies do not age with time. As a result, they began traveling to other planets and stripping them of their resources like locusts.
Some humans did not agree with the direction humanity was taking. These humans wanted to save what made humans humans in the first place, biology. They built three colony ships. These colony ships were designed to terra-form planets, and leave the seeds necessary for human existence behind. Each colony ship was a community in and of itself. This was necessary, as before the inhabitants of any ship would reach their destination, they would grow old enough to die. One of these ships was named Adam. Another was named Eve. The final ships name is a bit of a secret (even to me). However, the AI of the third ship went haywire, and it basically disappeared, leaving Adam and Eve behind. It went haywire, and decided that ALL biological matter, and its existence, was the most important thing in the universe. It decided that it had to find a way to make itself a biological entity, and that humanity's (read biological CULTURE) survival was less important that the survival of biological matter (read, things made out of DNA).
Adam and Eve traveled space creating planets, and seeding humanity, until eventually time and age weathered their technology. Their final resting place is unknown. All of the cultures in The Land of Nod, with the exception of one, are colonies that were once seeded by Adam and Eve. The "5th threat" that I hinted at in the Introduction is Earth. Lilith is the result of the 3rd ship.
Edonian Capitol ships have to be piloted by a psychich. This psychic can, while in the "captains chair" (its actually more of a pod), bend time and space and send a ship into the fourth dimension (where it can travel many times faster than light). The actual bending of time and space is done by a technological hyperdrive. The psychic is needed to "feel" the universe in order to plot a safe course. In the 4th dimension objects leave a "mass shadow" behind. Traveling through a mass shadow is dangerous. Without the psychic to sense out a safe rout, an Edonian ship that entered into hyperspace would likely run into a mass shadow and destroy itself.
The Terran people effectively create a safe route through hyperspace by creating an artificial wormhole. In any binary solar system, there exists a phenomenon that can be used to create a wormhole to its binary twin. A wormhole is essentially a safe path through hyperspace between those two stars. The only real problem is that this requires a) a binary solar system and b) the necessary technology to create this wormhole in both solar systems. That means that for Terrans, traveling between Terran controled space is very quick. However, traveling to unexplored space must be done in real time, and thus is VERY slow.
Gaians do pretty much the same thing Edonians do, but without the psychic. Instead of a psychic to "sense out" a safe route, Gaians have created complex artificial intelligences designed to calculate a safe route. In order to do so, Gaians require a vast amount of information about the space through which they intend to travel. The more information, the easier it is to calculate a safe route to their intended destination. There is a Gaian corporation that is basically a massive database that stores the most up to date information about known space. Through their HIARNet Gaians can access this database, and pay for up to date information about the space between them and their destination. Their ships A.I. can then use this information to calculate a safe route through hyperspace, allowing the Gaian ship to make their jump. Gaian "hyperlanes" are basically routes that are very frequently traveled, and thus the Gaian database possesses more information about these routes, making them easier and safer to travel. Essentially, Gaia paves roads with information, not brick. :P
Oh, I just realized that I never responded to the question about faster than light travel. All sci-fi essentially uses the same principle for faster than light travel. They name it slightly differently, but in all cases, it involves a ship traveling through the 4th dimension in order to travel faster than the speed of light. Thus, each of my four cultures will do the same, but in a slightly different way. I am going to have a section dedicated just to space travel and the various infrastructures of space travel among the different cultures, and I have already talked a little about the way Eden and Terra do it in their brief history sections, but here is a little more information to clarify things for now:
Edonian Capitol ships have to be piloted by a psychich. This psychic can, while in the "captains chair" (its actually more of a pod), bend time and space and send a ship into the fourth dimension (where it can travel many times faster than light). The actual bending of time and space is done by a technological hyperdrive. The psychic is needed to "feel" the universe in order to plot a safe course. In the 4th dimension objects leave a "mass shadow" behind. Traveling through a mass shadow is dangerous. Without the psychic to sense out a safe rout, an Edonian ship that entered into hyperspace would likely run into a mass shadow and destroy itself.
The Terran people effectively create a safe route through hyperspace by creating an artificial wormhole. In any binary solar system, there exists a phenomenon that can be used to create a wormhole to its binary twin. A wormhole is essentially a safe path through hyperspace between those two stars. The only real problem is that this requires a) a binary solar system and b) the necessary technology to create this wormhole in both solar systems. That means that for Terrans, traveling between Terran controled space is very quick. However, traveling to unexplored space must be done in real time, and thus is VERY slow.
Gaians do pretty much the same thing Edonians do, but without the psychic. Instead of a psychic to "sense out" a safe route, Gaians have created complex artificial intelligences designed to calculate a safe route. In order to do so, Gaians require a vast amount of information about the space through which they intend to travel. The more information, the easier it is to calculate a safe route to their intended destination. There is a Gaian corporation that is basically a massive database that stores the most up to date information about known space. Through their HIARNet Gaians can access this database, and pay for up to date information about the space between them and their destination. Their ships A.I. can then use this information to calculate a safe route through hyperspace, allowing the Gaian ship to make their jump. Gaian "hyperlanes" are basically routes that are very frequently traveled, and thus the Gaian database possesses more information about these routes, making them easier and safer to travel. Essentially, Gaia paves roads with information, not brick. :P
ah, i see. so gaians and edonians have star wars like systems (well, endonians is a cross of warhammer 40k warp and starwars hyperdrives), and terrans have wormhole tech (which is similar to jump gates). but how long is the travel in the wormhole for terrans? is it near instantaneous once you cross the event horizon like in stargate? or can take several minute to hours depending on how much farther the two points are, like the bajoran wormhole in ds9 (which took so x amount of minutes and had to travel at a certain speed so as to not damage the celestial beings living inside)?
i guess you're right about all all faster than light drives entering a 4th dimension. although star trek warp drive they don't enter the 4th dimension of subspace entirely as they can still interact with the main dimension (like colliding with asteroids, weapons fire)... although i could be wrong on that... been awhile since i've watched any star trek or read any of the tech manuals or other papers out there.
looking forward to more about this setting
Travel time for wormholes or hyperdrive takes the exact same amount of time. It is not instant, but it is very quick. It would take only hours to cross the galaxy.
ah, ok. so a distance of like say 10 AU would be like a couple of seconds to minutes, while say 100 AU is an hour, or so? I guess you'll clarify that later on. But thank you for clearing that up for me.
I'm still deciding on how I want to calculate exact distances and the times it takes to travel through them... To be honest I was actually toying with the possibility that no matter how far your destination, travel time through hyperspace/a wormhole would be static/slightly random. For example, it would always take 1d6 hours multiplied by the grade of your hyperspace engine or wormhole grade (lower numbers mean faster travel times). The idea being that real space and hyper-space are relational, but NOT directly tied to each other. A tunnel through time and space is a tunnel through time and space, and no matter where you are going, the time it takes to travel through it has more to do with the the length of the tunnel than how far the entrance and the exit are in real time/space. Thoughts?
the faster times with better grade of drive is understandable, follows star wars hyperdrive logic. lower number, faster the ship went (falcon's .75 wasn't is? or was it .50? fastest hunk of junk out there :D )
variable speed for wormholes... hmm... makes sense, due to the wormhole probably has to have it's path snake around mass shadows like planets, blackholes and suns... (like the view you see from stargate atlantis when they step through the gate and you see a snaking path going through space).
could have it as 1 to 10 AU is like 1d4 hours, 11 to 50 1d6+2, 100 to 500 2d6, or something. that's for base grade of drive (like say x2 using star wars drive designators). so your x1 has -2 hours to the travel time to a minimum of 1, perhaps?
Imagine it like this. Astronomers today believe that all 3 dimensional space actually exists on the surface of a 4th dimensional sphere (it has to do with the fact that radiation signals seem to have a horizon much the way visible light meets a horizon on the surface of a planet). Think of a balloon. All the solar systems, stars, galaxies, actually exist on the surface of this balloon. The 4th dimension is the air inside the balloon. Traveling through the 4th dimension does not correlate to the 3rd dimension in the manner you are thinking. You don't have to snake around planets, or suns. What you are actually doing is pushing one point on the balloon with your finger towards another point on the balloon, also with your finger, until your two fingers are touching. It does not matter how far you would have had to travel along the surface of the balloon, once your two fingers are touching, you have the same distance to travel. Get my drift?
I'm using the Star Wars Saga rules for this, so the number that a drive has is actually used to multiply the "base hours" as it were (it does not add or subtract hours, you just multiply the base hours by the drives number). I'll think about leaving the number of hours you travel as still being based on how far you are traveling, but honestly, the more I think about 4th dimensional theory, the more I think that having travel time be static and unchanging (IE: it does not take more time to travel farther) actually makes more sense. See, a wormhole does NOT actually travel THROUGH real-space. In your example you are still thinking 3 dimensionally: you are imagining your worm-hole snake through real-space, meaning that the length of your "tunnel" depends on how far you are going. The truth is, it doesn't.
Imagine it like this. Astronomers today believe that all 3 dimensional space actually exists on the surface of a 4th dimensional sphere (it has to do with the fact that radiation signals seem to have a horizon much the way visible light meets a horizon on the surface of a planet). Think of a balloon. All the solar systems, stars, galaxies, actually exist on the surface of this balloon. The 4th dimension is the air inside the balloon. Traveling through the 4th dimension does not correlate to the 3rd dimension in the manner you are thinking. You don't have to snake around planets, or suns. What you are actually doing is pushing one point on the balloon with your finger towards another point on the balloon, also with your finger, until your two fingers are touching. It does not matter how far you would have had to travel along the surface of the balloon, once your two fingers are touching, you have the same distance to travel. Get my drift?
yes. I get this. much better than some other explanations I've had. So fix time would make sense.
huh... the hyperspace in babylon 5 now makes even more sense now.. it's a vast... space... which connects all points together.. although in that hyperspace the farther you have to go in the galaxy the farther you have to travel in that space.. not best example, but does help understanding of that show's system.
now.. you just need a name for this setting's particular 4th dimension.
The wormholes are called jump-gates, the hyperdrives are called jump-drives, and the Edonians call the process Nod-jumping... I think jump-space works, no?
jump-space.
The wormholes are called jump-gates, the hyperdrives are called jump-drives, and the Edonians call the process Nod-jumping... I think jump-space works, no?
sounds ok. they are 'jumping' space after all. heh.. nod-jumping.. sounds like something GDI troops from C&C would do :P
No one remembers the time before time, except maybe Papa Legba. They say that once there was another world, other gods, but then there was the Apocalypse. Loki, it is said, should know something about the Apocalypse. After all, it is Loki who escaped the Apocalypse, and brought with him Hunin and Munin, thought and memory. It is said that he baked a delicious pie, and offered it to the two ravens. When they pecked at the pie, desiring its delicious contents, they discovered that Loki had placed a spell on the food. Becoming captured in its sticky innards, they soon found themselves unable to escape. Loki then took this pie and found Gaiah. But Papa Legba, lord of the Gaian gods, sensed Loki’s nature, and was going to kick the scoundrel out of his court. Loki then offered Papa Legba two things if he would let him stay, his service, and the birds Hunin and Munin. Finding the bird like servants to be absolutely wondrous, creatures of information and exchange, Papa Legba freed them, and allowed Loki to stay. But of where they came from, neither the birds, nor Loki, would say. Every Gaian, it is said, is but a gleam in the eyes of those two birds. Gaians are the thought and memory of that other time, before time, before the Apocalypse.
At least, that’s the story a Gaian hogoun, or priest, will tell you if you ask him where Gaians came from. If you ask a Gaian scientist the same question, the story changes a little. Every creature on Gaia evolved from the same primordial goop. There is simply too much DNA in common for them not to have. Originally, Gaians thought that this origin of all living life was Gaia. Of course, originally, Gaians thought that the sun orbited around Gaia, and the stars were Papa Legba and his court.
In its early days, Gaia’s history is much the same as Terra’s. They fought wars, formed early feudal governments, modernized, faced an industrial revolution, faced political revolution, modernized some more, and entered into the information age. The first technological leaps that Gaia made happened around this time. Gaia managed to produce an Augmented Reality Network, or ARNet for short, that connected the entire globe. The idea was to create a method of digital interaction which no longer required face to screen interaction, so that using an information system would no longer be as much of a conscious and intentional act. At first augmented reality developed alongside virtual technology. As the tools for truly immersive virtual networks developed, and affordable interaction technology become available, augmented reality saw leaps and bounds of development. Developers begin to try and make the evolving Virtual Reality Network, or VRNet for short, and the real world coincide. Virtual reality began to be structured like the real world so that a building’s virtual page could co-exist with the building’s physical existence. By the late information age the VRNet was actually an AVRNet, or Augmented Virtual Reality Netowork. Almost every person walking down a Gaian street was (virtually) permanently jacked into the net and viewing, through a pair of VR glasses embedded with a GPS locater, an amalgamated mixture of the real and virtual worlds. People in any given room were equally likely to actually be there physically, or just be a far-casted avatar, a virtual representation designed to fill in for their physical selves. Fashions even became augmented, and youth subcultures could often be seen walking about sporting angel wings, flaming auras, and other such digital adjustments. When walking down the street, personalized add pop-ups also become another everyday fact of Gaian life, as ads were no longer forced into physical two-dimensional spaces. Around this time Gaia also produced its first true artificial intelligences, and the strict protocols governing their production, programming, and ownership, that Gaia still follows to this day.
Gaias next leap of technological evolution came in the form of cybernetic implantation. Many implants remained restricted, but nearly every Gaian saw the benefit of a neural computer link. Such a link, implanted into the base of a Gaians skull, allowed a Gaian to download information directly into their brain, turning their own mind into a hard drive. This allowed virtual reality to become hyper immersive, and transformed the AVRNet to a Hyper Immersive Augmented Reality Network, or HIARNet for short. The result was that the augmented aspects of Gaias world became physically real, at least as far as a HIARNet user was concerned. While this came with certain benefits (trying on virtual jeans to decide which pair you liked most, augmented smells and nonvisual stimulants, and improved tactile realism, as well as removing the need for manipulator gloves in order to physically interact with the augmented information), it came with certain dangers as well. Suddenly a digital knife became just as deadly as a real knife.
Additionally, it was around the time that Gaia developed the HIARNet that the first cases of “a ghost in the machine” began to surface. It seemed that certain pieces of the complex code present in a positronic brain could unintentionally combine to form new code. This new code would sometimes cause an A.I. to create new sets of behavioral protocol, protocols that some might argue could be interpreted as true sapience. Gaia, however, did not. Instead it classified such programs as faulty, and developed an agency of bounty hunters designed to find, and destroy, such machines.
But it is not the HIARNet, or A.I., which marked what Gaians remember as the true turning point for Gaian culture at that time. Rather, the invention that Gaians claim changed Gaian life forever was the jump-drive. By this time Gaia had already produced high tech spacecrafts. However, Gaia could not expand to the stars efficiently as its spacecrafts could not travel faster than the speed of light. Gaians were simply unwilling to move to a location that would be completely separated from their home world, and information networks. Instead, ever since the production of their first A.I., Gaia had sent countless unmanned robotic probes out into the stars with the express purpose of gathering information and relaying it back to Gaia. About four hundred years ago a Gaian scientist named Donavan Basell was examining this data. In the data he found numerous cases of a specific frequency of radiation surrounding collapsed black holes. Gaian scientists had long believed that certain collapsing black holes would temporarily become a worm hole, or a tunnel through the fourth dimension. All of three dimensional matter, they proposed, existing on the surface of a fourth dimensional sphere. A worm hole, or tunnel through this fourth dimension, would essentially push two points of this sphere together: it would be like taking a balloon, and pushing two points of the balloon together, with your fingers, until those two points touched. Donavan Basell hoped that by studying the radiation left behind collapsing black holes he might discover a way to artificially push a physical object into the fourth dimension, effectively causing it to jump space and time as if it had entered into a worm hole. If he could, then travel time would have nothing to do with real space distance. Once two points of the surface of the “galactic balloon” touched it made no difference how far those two points were on the surface of the balloon. When Donavan Basell succeeded, producing Gaia’s first jump-drive, the particular frequency of radiation that the process leaves behind was forever after named Basell radiation.
At first, Gaia’s expansion towards other solar systems was slow. While it took virtually no time to jump from solar system to solar system, in order to make a safe jump an extremely complicated set of calculations had to be made. Exploration into jump-space proved that physical objects left a mass shadow behind. These shadows reached from the surface of the fourth dimensional sphere towards its center. Traveling through a mass shadow could have disastrous effects, potentially destroying a starship and everyone on board. As it proved to be impossible to change the course of a jump after it was initiated, this meant that in order to make safe jumps a ship had to have detailed information about all the space between its point of departure, and point of arrival. The astrometric probes that Gaia had sent out to collect data proved to be imperative to the planet’s initial push outwards. A company called Starwatch Incorporated happened to own over eighty percent of all astrometric probes that had been sent from Gaia, and as a result remains one of the most influential corporate entities in Gaia’s economic/political sphere to this day. Anyone wishing to travel outward was forced to buy information from Starwatch. This gave corporations, who tended to be able to place the largest bids, a definitive advantage in the race towards the stars. Within a hundred years Gaia managed to colonize countless planets, but in almost every case planets were claimed in the name of corporate entities. As these planets were outside the influence of any Gaian political bodies, this allowed corporations to essentially become bodies of governance in and of themselves, as any planet claimed by a corporation became governed by that corporation. In almost no time at all corporations militarized in order to protect their new found assets. Soon, the business term “hostile takeover” took on new meaning, and the period of history that Gaia labels The Corporate Wars began.
By some three hundred and twenty years ago The Corporate Wars had left a number of planets desolate, destroyed by weapons of mass destruction. The corporations decided to turn to the one entity with which none of them had a problem, the one entity to which all of them geared their wares, The United Nations of Gaia, and request official mediation. The talks were long, and arduous, but eventually an agreement was made. The corporations decided to form a body of government, amongst themselves, that would mirror the one that the United Nations of Gaia had long ago produced to govern international disputes. All the corporations signed a treaty designed to set guidelines and laws governing acceptable practices of interstellar business and trade. The combined power of all these corporations was named The United Corporations of Gaia, and every four years the corporations agreed to have a democratic corporate election in which a corporation would be designated as President of the United Corporations of Gaia for a four year term of office. No corporation would ever be allowed to hold the term of office for more than two terms. In this manner, a unified body of government was created to stop the chaos of The Corporate Wars, and bring the Gaian people together when necessary.
For over two hundred and ninety years the corporations of Gaia have expanded, and prospered, among the stars. Then, twenty five years ago, a small backwater Gaian satellite system named Yurkanin made first contact with another interstellar empire. Up to this time, the only other human inhabited planets Gaia had come upon existed in a state of virtual barbarism. Most were nowhere near managing to send a vehicle into space, and many had yet to move past a feudal existence. The only real effect these planets had on Gaian culture was to prove that Gaia was not, in fact, the birthplace of human evolution. But this interstellar empire was something else. They called themselves the Edonians, and Yurkanin met with their officials in the hopes of finding a new partner in trade. What Yurkanin’s spokespeople did not realize was that their meeting was actually a trial, and the result was that they were found guilty. The Edonians put the solar system to the torch, but not before Yurkanin had sent detailed information about the meeting to certain allied delegates in the United Corporations of Gaia. When Yurkanin broke off all contact with outside sources, the United Corporations of Gaia sent organizations to investigate. What they found was an atrocity, one which broke all the interstellar laws that had been put in place hundreds of years ago. The United Corporations of Gaia tracked down the perpetrator (by the residual Basell radiation they left behind), and as a unified body attacked. With this action, The Great War began.
Sixteen years ago the balance of war tipped in favor of the Edonians. Where they had fought alone on the field of battle for nine years, they were suddenly joined by monstrous entities capable of surviving in the vacuum of space. Suddenly, Gaian history was marked by virtual defeat after virtual defeat. It was not until General Ovid Kain tracked an enemy fleets Basell signature to what he would later find out was Terran space that their luck changed: he was contacted by an alien people on a frequency very similar to the one used by Gaian forces. At first their language barrier was a problem, but necessity quickly overcame this difficulty. Soon, General Ovid Kain realized that the Terrans had discovered something of which the Gaians could only dream, an array capable of sending signals on a frequency that would establish a network with any electronic technological device, whether such a device was equipped with a receiver or not. For all of Eden’s dogma that their technology was not “demonic,” their devices, and their equivalent of Gaia’s computer network, registered as an electronic technological device to Terra’s broadband arrays (though albeit in a far more misty and ephemeral manner than either Gaian or Terran technology). Between the Terran broadband array, Gaian information technology, and the combined military might of both, Gaia became the demon that Eden had so long ago accused it of being. General Ovid Kain, with the help of the Terran forces, destroyed the fleet he had been tracking. For the next four years the combined might of the Gaian and Terran forced allowed the two to win victory after victory.
Two years ago the Terrans informed the Gaians that Eden’s monstrous allies had contacted them, and offered a truce. Despite their victories, each year of war continued to cast an astronomically high toll on Gaia’s economy. Gaia agreed to Lilith’s terms (a name it learned for the first time during these peace talks), and agreed to be part of an offered truce with Eden. Within a few months the CONCORD was formed, and The Great War had come to an end.
Since then the United Corporations of Gaia have returned to business as usual, with the added benefit of new trade partners. Once again, Gaians can return to what they do best: Gaians can return to turning a profit. Except, in the depths of Gaian cyberspace something is different, something has changed. Nobody can say exactly when, and nobody can say exactly how, but while everyone was paying attention to The Great War something happened. If you listen to the whispers in the street, whispers vigilantly denied by the United Corporations of Gaia, you will hear someone say that Papa Legba and his court speak to the hogoun again, they speak over cyberspace; perhaps there is something to old legends after all…
Augmented Life as Usual
Ok, well, if nobody has any preference about what they would like to see next, I am going to work on my starship fluff.
WOOH! starship fluff!
and other major items of interest not found in the book.. like the Gaian robots and stuff?
Robot fluff will come after I am done writing the starship fluff for all the different cultures, though I may put up a few pertinent robot descriptions for Gaia (as they are mentioned in the vehicle descriptions) first....
Ok, well... I am pretty much finished writing my Gaian starship fluff, although its actually going to be Gaian Vehicle fluff (it includes 1 tank). Here is the thing though, when I was writing my fluff, I did not really describe the way any starships looked. I described what they were created for, what they are good at, how they are used, which companies made them, stuff like that. I didn't really go into too much description about appearance because a picture is worth a thousand words, and thus I found pictures of all my starships to show to my players (when I get a chance to run this setting). There is one exception... the AAT1-Scorpion, for which I could not find a picture that looked like what I wanted, so I just describe the thing). However, that being said, I don't really know how to post pictures up on the internet. This is because I don't really have any place to host the pictures I would put up. By any chance, is there anyone out there willing to help me out with this so I can include pictures along with the fluff? If so, thanks in advance!
Robot fluff will come after I am done writing the starship fluff for all the different cultures, though I may put up a few pertinent robot descriptions for Gaia (as they are mentioned in the vehicle descriptions) first....
photobucket is your friend. you can even set it so that people can't go looking through you album except through the links directly to specific pictures. there's also image shack, but i find it has more downtime than photobuck sometimes.
also i use deviant art for pictures sometimes. i usually try and contact the person or have a link/give credit for where i find pictures if i can remember them.
Many thanks Kronos182. I was asking myself the same question as Cyber-Dave but he was faster than me on the keyboard. Thanks to you I will be able to add pictures and schematics to the «Rise of the Kinori Campaign» tread. ;)
you're welcome
I have also put up three pictures, however, the one for Gaia is WAY to large. Does anyone know a website where I can easily re-size pictures?
Thanks.
oh.. and i love the choice of using the clone troopers picture. love it!
I actually got the picture re-sized by the time you posted that. :P
Ah, I see. Still looking forward to more.
Once I have a link for my post on those boards, I will provide it here. Please, keep checking out the thread there if you enjoy the setting! There will be tons more fluff to come still... It will just be interspersed with Star Wars Saga crunch.
Edit: Ok, the link for the version of this thread which I will keep updating with more stuff can be found here: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=980912 .
I will stop by here to let people know when I update my thread over there, and will put another copy of the above link in my first post on this thread. I will not be posting any more fluff or crunch here, however, as it really makes more sense to have this post in the Paraxeum of the Star Wars boards.
Anyways, hope people enjoy!
I've finally taken the time to read over your Nod setting.
How large are these Empires meant to be? You mentioned in the intro that you are only giving the important 'satellite' solar systems, which means this is a galaxy spanning game?
Or even multiple galaxies? What sort of alien species are you including in this campaign setting. You mentioned in the Terran section that they hunt 'bugs', but thats about as concrete as you get about the aliens.
Just curious.
I have copied and pasted your questions into the "good copy" thread, and responded to them in detail. Please come check it out at the link found in my signature!
And thank you very much for giving my setting a read! Seeing as Elysium Nebula is the quality of a setting I aspire to, having you read over my setting and comment on it is quite the honor. :D
Feel free to come check it out in the good copy of my Land of Nod Campaign Setting thread (link found in my signature).
Hey Skritti. Out of curiosity, did you read the good copy of my setting found in my signature, or just the parts of my setting I put up here?
Actually, just the stuff here. But I'll nip over to the SW forums to have a look at what you've done over there as well. Looks neat so far.
P.S. So, skrittiblak, what do you think of the work over in the good copy version of the thread?
I have a major essay due the day after tomorrow, and I still don't have a single word written. Ah well. I'll just write 3000 tomorrow and I should be good. At least I have gotten to spend the last few weeks doing research. Damn writers block.
Anyways, I'll try to have some stuff up soon, but realistically, after how burnt out I am from school writing, its going to be at least another week.
Hehehe. I havn't had a chance to update the good copy for like 2 weeks.
I have a major essay due the day after tomorrow, and I still don't have a single word written. Ah well. I'll just write 3000 tomorrow and I should be good. At least I have gotten to spend the last few weeks doing research. Damn writers block.
Anyways, I'll try to have some stuff up soon, but realistically, after how burnt out I am from school writing, its going to be at least another week.
That's ok. I'm sure what you will come out with will be great, just like the rest of the setting so far.