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Vancho1 · 10-11-2018, 04:22 PM

GM's Note:

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Scattered Stars

In the aftermath of a great war over the remaining resources of Earth, Humanity became for the first time united under a single banner. The Earth Union, founded by people tired of war, quickly encompassed all the nations of Earth and ended generations of conflict. The discovery of the warp drive which “folds” through higher-dimensional space to reach new destinations has finally opened space to us. What were before months-long journeys by chemical thrusters have become a few minutes’ jump. Humans expanded, colonized the solar system, and then the stars. Over time, the rechristened Sol Union became more authoritarian, and people chafed under its dictates, especially in the colonies. Tensions were rising, but nobody thought it would change as Earth controlled the network of jumpgates that made once-expensive travel safe and reliable. Solar fleets patrolled all the colonies, extending the long arm of Earth over the galaxy.

Everything changed two months ago. In a surprise attack, the colonies breached the jump perimeter, seized the jumpgate network and pushed back the Sol Union fleets to the solar system. The government collapsed suddenly, and it all looked like the war would end then and there. However, without a strong force to oppose them, the Colonials turned on each other instead of finishing off Earth. As they fought, Earth, Mars, and the Jovian moons formed a temporary alliance to kick out the colonials from Sol. They reclaimed one of the gate hubs, and since then chaos has ensued. The colonies have been quick to declare their own governments, while the Solars are trying to reunite humanity under their banner.

You have been caught up in this conflict, whether you like it or not. There is no escaping the war, for the war has reached even the most far-flung of stations. Neutrality is not an option – as many unfortunates have learned at the end of a plasma rifle. How you deal with this war is in your hands. Will you fight? Will you run for survival? Or will you seek to broker a peace between the warring factions? Only time will tell if you succeed…

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A Note on FTL:

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SpoilerThe warp drive is based on the fundamentals of higher-dimensional space, or hyperspace for short. It turns out that there are six spatial dimensions, not three, but in most circumstances we see only three because the other group of dimensions are parallel at all times to our own. This creates the illusion of three dimensions, though now we know ways to detect and manipulate these extra spatial dimensions. It turns out that gravity is the main force keeping the dimensions parallel, and thus with a localized concentration of energy in a particular configuration we can overcome the gravitational binding force and “fold” through the other three dimensions. The more energy put into a jump, the farther we can diverge the dimensions from parallel. This leads to a vital trade-off: for a fixed amount of energy, we can either fold a short distance a lot, leading to fast travel time, or a longer distance less, giving slower travel. Additionally, gravity will disrupt a jump, depending on the amount of energy we put into it. To be able to jump through a planet takes a lot more energy than making multiple jumps to go around, for example – though again the tradeoff is speed. Finally, jumps can be disrupted by adding additional energy to pull the dimensions back together; this is the basis for the jump inhibitor perimeter that kept Sol isolated from the rest of the galaxy.

It is theorized that in some parts of the universe, gravitational anomalies could result in natural folds in space-time. We call these folds “wormholes”, though none have been discovered so far. On the basis of this theory we developed the jumpgate – a pair of space stations which pull each other together through the parallel dimensions to create a semi-permanent fold. Jumpgates require a lot of initial investment, but once they have been established they are much less expensive to operate than long-range jumps. Most civilian transport is done through the jumpgate network, as it speeds up transit between far-flung reaches of human space.

Jumpgates are fairly reliable, though they occasionally require maintenance. As they usually cover longer distances, both gates must be active to be able to travel through them. If one of the pair is shut down, the other will go into a standby state, waiting for the hyperspace fold from its pair. Gates are usually arranged in hubs, protected by a military and administrative station which serves as a warp interdictor as well. Thus, gates are not well-suited for frontline action, as it is risky to transit warships when you do not control both ends of the gate. Still, they are an important piece of civilian infrastructure and are thus a valuable strategic target.

The era of mass communication that predated the warp drive sadly did not continue. Once it was perfected, the warp drive allowed ships to outrun their signals, making EM-wave communications obsolete for anything larger than planetary scale. As we colonized more of space, we became more isolated. Like in the ancient past, news takes days, even weeks to cross from one end of space to the other. Though many have tried to crack hyperwave theory and create an FTL communicator using various methods, none have succeeded. Until that hurdle is climbed, we are stuck with ships carrying information across space, with all the risks that entails.

Warfare was also changed dramatically by the warp drive. Suddenly, the old doctrine of long-range detection and engagement no longer applied – no matter how good your missile’s tracking is, it won’t be of much use if the enemy can see it and warp out of the way. Similarly, most of our sensors data became useless, as ships’ light-echoes still persist even after they’ve jumped. This has led to combat becoming much shorter-range, where laser communications and visual targeting are fast enough to not be affected by warping away. Ships will close in to where their warp interdiction fields meet and then engage, as anything farther-range is a waste of ammunition and power. One interesting consequence is the new reliance on fighters and on mechanical armor, or mechs. As short-range battles change the balance of power away from heavy firepower, the smaller target profile and larger maneuverability of small craft becomes attractive. Battleships are even more expensive than before, requiring huge warp interdiction fields as well as their long-range weaponry to be effective. However, this has made them far more deadly – able to stop a smaller ship from jumping while outranging its weapons. This has created a polarization in ship types – small and maneuverable versus large and powerful. Mid-sized ships are usually either highly specialized in their roles or simply produced by people who can’t afford large battleships.

One such specialized medium-hull ship is known as a punchthrough. This was the colonies’ secret weapon that allowed them to so quickly break through Sol’s defenses. A punchthrough is a ship consisting of three things – a huge warp drive, a lot of heavy ordinance, and a single pilot seat. They jump with as much power as possible, trying to get as close to the interdictor station as they can, and then fire the heavy weaponry to take it out and clear the path for allied ships to jump in. Of course, this is often deadly for the pilot, as the punchthrough has no maneuvering thrusters or defense weaponry. All sides have adopted these ships for attacking fortified positions, and work is being done on removing the pilot altogether. The best defense against a punchthrough is defense in depth – mobile interdictors with point-defenses fare much better than the old static stations with warship patrols.

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