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system attributes
Technology
Because of the nature of the game, the technology scale is privileging space exploration technology over other technological advances. Associated with each tech level is a whole host of other technological advances, and these may be extrapolated in the world design, and may be clarified with Aspects. So a T2 system can create and maintain slip-capable ships, but what that means in practice may vary from system to system: slipships might be commercially available, or they might all be controlled by a system or planetary government and used for military purposes only, for example.
t4 on the verge of collapse
T4 systems are very rare, and while they are interesting we don’t say much about them. They are on the verge of collapse—they are about to unfold one or many failed dreams, spiraling into a transhuman ascension indistinguishable from a multi-billion-death disaster. In most cases, the person developing the system should pick one and that will give us a taste of contact with these cultures, which should generally beinsular—already everyone else is looking as uninteresting as insects. Here are some possibilities:
Nanotech: submicroscopic automation has been unlocked, eventually resulting in a grey goo disaster. Early signs will be perfect health, advanced self-repairing ships, and baffling body modifications.
Unchecked intelligence: artificial intelligence has been unlocked, leading to systems that can improve themselves making some branches of technology improve exponentially. Humans become servants to the machine and the machine has inhuman motives. Eventually the humans and even the physical manifestation of the machine will be irrelevant. This all eats lots of power.
Casual FTL: t. Exeunthe key to travel outside the cluster has been discovered. Ships dump heat into “grey spaces” and some advanced vessels may travel without reaction mass. Eventually, given the infinity of possible “other” places, one is found that is vastly more appealing or vastly more dangerous. Exeunt local humanity.
Eternal life: the culture has found a way to prolong life indefinitely, but at what cost? Perhaps a race of eternal children served by machines now completely devoid of any culture but unsophisticated play. How do corporate raiders and pirates trade with children...children with super-technology weapons?
T4 doesn’t need mechanical representation. Where it interacts mechanically, it hasn’t changed much. Where it has changed it always dominates.
t3 slipstream mastery
At this technology level slipknots are easily reached both because reaction-drive technology has become very efficient and because the distance from the point can be much greater before entering the slipstream. Further, this generates less heat than at lower technology levels.
Computer systems are now very advanced and communications systems are powerful and pervasive. Power supplies can be very small with extensive life spans, but the personal fusion power plant seems improbable. Ships are very efficient and heat exchange systems use
exotic mechanisms like liquid sodium droplet collectors.
A culture at T3 will dominate a cluster unless it is ideologically opposed to doing so or politically opposed by another T3 culture: they have effective domination of space where they want it but it is likely too expensive (or simply not profitable) to do so at every world in every cluster. Instead they will protect what they perceive as their interests. They might maintain a monopoly on technology or strive to bring all cultures to their level. They might sell ships, lease them, sell space on them, or even manufacture inferior vessels at a lower effective technology rating for sale to pre-
serve their dominance.
t2 slipstream use
This culture has commercialized slipstream technology. It is expensive, requires long travel and precise positioning and is only militarily viable in
special circumstances because of the extraordinary heat debt slipstream usage accumulates. T2 implies relatively cheap and light power and a regular familiarity with space travel. At this technology it is feasible not only to travel between stars, but also to trade between them. Within the
system itself, commerce will be vigorous thanks to the ready availability of effective civilian spacecraft, and it can be expected that all habitable and many partially inhabitable worlds will have permanent colonies and industrial, military, or scientific outposts.
t1 exploiting the system
This culture is able to commercialize the exploitation of its system. Any habitable systems will likely be inhabited to some degree and any resources can be exploited for trade or use. Slipstream technology is not available but this culture can still trade with slipstream cultures rather than be exploited by them, and likely buys or rents slipships or at least space on regular routes.
t0 exploring the system
This culture has sufficiently efficient spacecraft to explore their system thoroughly. They cannot yet move huge amounts of cargo, so commercialization is still a ways away, but colonies can be established now on multiple worlds if they are sufficiently viable. This is a cusp technology, ripe to be exploited by others yet ready to emerge as a power on its own if given the chance. Much volatility potentially exists here.
t-1 atomic power
This culture can barely reach space—it may have sent some cumbersome probes out and might have a few manned vessels capable of long journeys on scientific voyages, but in general all of the action is planet-bound. Power is readily available and information technology is taking off, but reliance is on local resources. If the rest of the system is being exploited by outsiders, the locals can detect them and complain, but cannot mount any reasonable resistance. If it is profitable for others, this culture may well be carefully suppressed from advancing further. Information might be digitized. This is where Earth has been since the 1940s; while great advances in computer technology have changed things, we have not moved off planet.
t-2 industrialization
The industrialized culture is capable of mass production and local exploitation, but power is still expensive and not widely available. The primary world occupied is extensively explored but the rest of the system is known only by records dating from before technology fell to this level. If other systems are exploiting the other worlds of this system, the locals may not even know about it. This corresponds to Earth (European) technology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
t-3 metallurgy
This culture has fallen so far that it is only capable of basic metallurgy. If there is power, it is supplied by machines that the locals can no longer maintain and probably do not understand. Something catastrophic must have pushed this culture so far back and the world likely bears the scars of it. This technology band includes most of Earth’s technology from 3000 BCE to the eighteenth century—the bronze age, the iron age, and into the modern period.
t-4 stone age
This culture may not exist. If there are people at all here, they have no useful technology to draw upon. Anything beyond simple tools constructed from raw material on raw material must have been imported or is an artifact from an earlier age. Note however, that this might equally describe an outpost (scientific, commercial, military,or otherwise) that has no intrinsic capacity for manufacture.
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Environment
Generally a high-environment system is going to see vast immigration. How the local system inhabitants feel about that will drive regional politics and adventure.
e4 many garden worlds
This system is implausibly rich in habitable worlds. This could be a random effect—perhaps several worlds occupy a broad biozone and their moons are big enough to hold water and atmosphere. Or perhaps there are multiple stars far enough apart to each support comfortable worlds. Whenever we have a system with 4 in any stat it is worth exploring extremes as they will generate play motivations reliably. Perhaps, for example, the system is a ringworld—this would certainly satisfy the “many garden worlds” criterion as it represents thousands or even millions of times the surface area of a typical planet. Or maybe dozens of worlds have been terraformed, some supplying their own heat from advanced technologies no longer in evidence. Perhaps the star is surrounded by a cultured rosette of five or more worlds, all in the same orbit.
e3 some garden worlds
This system has at least two worlds that are inhabitable by humans at ground level. These systems do not need an unnatural explanation, but they might have one. Immigration will be substantial and, as with E4, will be something that drives politics in the area (and beyond—the places that people are coming from care about this effect as well).
e2 one garden and several survivable worlds
An E2 system has one world perfectly suited to human habitation and several that can be inhabited with some hardship. It’s not necessary that any particular technology be available to survive on the difficult worlds, but there could be. The survivable worlds may represent terraforming efforts from the past or those underway by current governments. If Venus and Mars had turned out just a little differently in our own system, it might qualify as E2. Survivable worlds are intended to be extremes of human habitation: ice worlds, desert worlds, or even water worlds fit this category.
e1 one garden and several hostile worlds
This is a comfortable system to occupy, simply because it’s common enough, it has a single world that easily sustains humans at any level of technology, and some of the other worlds may be amenable to terraforming or relatively inexpensive occupation through technological adaptation. The hostile worlds in this system cannot be occupied without some technology to counteract whatever makes them uninhabitable. They are not, however, actively destructive to human life. A vacuum world that has minable water might be hostile. A world with very high pressures, or one with a normal pressure but no oxygen would also qualify. Extremes of cold or heat are fine. Europa in our own system, if it contains liquid water beneath its icy and airless surface, would qualify. If there are no other high environment systems in the cluster then these hostile worlds may well be filling up with claim-stakers and squatters.
e0 one garden world (and perhaps some barren worlds)
The most common system environment classification, this represents a system with a single world capable of comfortably supporting human habitation without special tools. Any other worlds in this system are uninhabitable without significant technological support. These other worlds are likely low gravity, no pressure, and probably have either no water or water locked up in underground ice. While hard to use for civilians, they might support a military or trading base.
e-1 survivable world
This system contains a single habitable but unpleasant world. The world may be defined by extremes of temperature, water availability, weather, pressure, or some other factor, but it has breathable air at the surface and water in sufficient quantities to support life. No other world in the system is anything but an airless rock. Aside from the story of emigration that is likely a constant problem, another question that might have adventures as aenvironment
e-2 hostile environment
This system has a single world that can reasonably support a population and that world is hostile to it. If this world does not sustain a technology of T0 or higher, then the technology the population needs to survive is not indigenous, and that’s a story in itself. These worlds are not vacuum worlds and there is gravity, but the atmosphere does not support human life, or the temperatures are too extreme to be mitigated by simple clothing, or there is no water to be had short of chemical extraction from more complex molecules.
People are almost certainly leaving this system unless it has some wealth in resources or technology or both.
e-3 barren world
An E-3 system is desolate. The only planet remotely viable for colonization contains no air and any water to be had must be mined or chemically extracted. If the local technology is below T1, then the technology that supports the local population must not be indigenous. It may be an asteroid belt.
e-4 no habitable gravity or atmosphere
This system may as well be filled with gravel. There are no worlds worthy of the name. It is entirely likely that this system has no regular habitants at all and that any technology rating suggests the capabilities of the occasional scientific or military outpost. Anyone living here is living in a man-made structure in space.
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Resources
The resource value of a system is what drives the economy. It tells you if the system is economically dependent on other systems, or if it is supporting them. In order to cultivate a story for a system, invent the flow of trade in this way: every system with a R-2 or less is getting something from somewhere, and every system with an R2 or more may very well be the source. Knowing what these economic factors are should create plenty of room for competing interests and establish some conflicts between systems.
r4 all you could want
R4 systems are packed with valuable metals, minerals, and other precious things. They are studded with ice-laden asteroids, heavy-metal rich rings around relatively quiescent planets or other gravity wells, are showered with convertible radiation, and megatons of cheap r-mass are everywhere. The question you want to answer about any given R4 system is, “How did this happen?” Because this is atypical in the extreme. Such a system might be home to one or more very-high-density objects—perhaps a neutron star or even a black hole. These things may well be very dangerous indeed, even though there are riches to be had here by side effect. This site may be the remnant of a vast and recent supernova. Whatever makes this place so rich, it is extreme and improbable. The one thing that is certain about an R4 system is that someone is getting rich. If the locals are equipped to mine it, then they are either rich or at war. If they are not equipped to mine it then someone else is or they are leasing the technology to do it themselves. The fate of this system may rely heavily on its most powerful neighbours—a T3 system might own this place or it might protect it as part of its concord,keeping all members rich. There is enough here to make the entire cluster wealthy, provided everyone is happy with their share. Consequently no such system is entirely wealthy.
r3 multiple exports
A system this rich has far more than it needs. If it has the technology to do so, then it is exporting either raw material (at the low end of the technology scale) or manufactured goods (if it is lucky enough to have a high technology compared to the rest of the culture). If its technology is not space-faring then it may be leasing slipships and trying to get there on its own. There’s enough here for plenty of systems to stay wealthy.
r2 one significant export
An R2 system has more than it needs—either a little more of everything or a lot more of one thing. This system is possibly the only place in the cluster with more of a particular valuable commodity than anywhere else. There’s not enough here to start a war over, unless the rest of the cluster is especially resource-poor. If the locals don’t have the technology to exploit it then someone else does.
r1 rich
This system may be an active trader in cluster-wide commodity markets if its technology level is sufficient. Even if the technology is low there will be an active trade in rights to spacefaring neighbours to exploit the outer system, simply because taking things by force is not all that profitable for the minor gains in an R1 system.
r0 sustainable
A sustainable system like this is generating no particular surplus but no particular needs, either. It gains nothing by exporting, importing, or licensing operation inside its boundaries and regardless of its technology rating, it has enough of everything it needs. An R0 system may become quite insular—having no extremes of need or surplus, it may not interact with the rest of the cluster at all.
r-1 almost viable
R-1 systems are lacking something. This may explain their technological lag or be a focus of their technological excess. It might explain their poor environment or technology. If other stats are high, then they will be the source of trade for the missing resource. R-1 systems are low-pressure sources of trade conflict.
r-2 needs imports
At R-2, however, the pressure for conflict becomes high: this system cannot sustain itself without some imports. If it has nothing to trade then it is failing. If it has something to trade then it is doing so and probably not on favourable terms. Consequently R-2 systems are likely embroiled in conflict (though not necessarily military) both internally and externally.
r-3 multiple dependencies
The R-3 system is completely at the mercy of its neighbours. It absolutely requires imports to avoid rapid degeneration and must be prepared to either fight for those imports, pay far too much for them, or fail. At R-3 a system is desperate.
r-4 no resources
R-4 systems have nothing. It is so very unlikely that a system will have absolutely no resources that it demands an extraordinary explanation. Who swept this system clean? Using what technology? Or is it devoid of minerals for natural reasons—perhaps this region of space is somehow brand new, and this is a first generation star presenting no opportunity for heavier metal production. If it was swept clean, why? Why does a culture exist here at all? If it has positive values for technology and/or environment, what does that mean? How is the technology sustained—or is it?
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