Sector Traits (Maelstrom)

Galactic Terrain Types

1 - Slow zone

Most forms of FTL travel are slowed in this sector, to at least 1/10th of its normal speed, Exotic drives move at normal speed as may other drives at GM discretion.

2 - Fast zone

FTL travel works better here, allowing most drives to make ten times normal speed.

5 - Nebula Sector

A number of large emission nebulae exist in the Orion Arm; this sector is host to one of them. The birthplace of young stars, they tend to be full of both matter and energy. The vast outpouring of energy and the masking clouds of stellar gasses make it very easy to hide things in these sectors.

3 - Resource Rich

The Persian Gulf in space, this sector has all kinds of needed and useful resources, exotic particles that can be harvested, easily accessible asteroids made of rare, hard to transmute metal floating around. Either nobodies exploited it in the past or it’s just naturally got a lot of treasure.

Either way, it’s a good place to live… or conquer.

4 - Resource Poor

This sector is mined out. Either have heavy transmutation technology or find somewhere else. At least nobody will want to conquer you for resources…

6 - Defensible

For some reason this sector is particular easy to defend. Perhaps its planets are surrounded by strange, stable boulder rings, or perhaps it was fortified in ancient times by the precursors

7 - Desert Sector

A desert sector is one with fewer habitable planets than normal. It may act as a garden sector for some alternate types of life form however, especially those that require extreme conditions.

8 - Fallow

For some reason this sector is mostly fallow, it has habitable worlds, maybe even with the remains of ancient civilizations but little sentient life.

9 - Garden Sector

Garden Sectors have huge numbers of habitable worlds previously terraformed by the precursors, the Dawn Warriors or some other agency. Worlds in Garden Sectors tend to be pleasant for a particular type of life (precursor created ones seem designed for oxygen breathers and be universally tropical)

There are also a huge number of them, with as many as three habitable planets in any given system.

10 - Paradise Sector

Like a Garden Sector only nicer, worlds in a Paradise Sector are like the Garden of Eden… or equivalent. Most paradise sectors have a minimum of four habitable planets per system.

Many Paradise Sectors have various alien ruins, though there are often fewer sentient races than might be expected due to the meddling of what ever agency created them.

11 - Hell Sector

While a Desert Sector has little life, a Hell Sector has too much. Death worlds, space monsters and other horrors congregate here, born in the screaming jungles and amid great gas giants seeded with ancient nanotech weapons.

Hell Sectors are so hostile only the toughest race can travel through them, let alone settle in them. Sentient inhabitants of a hell sector often invade surrounding sectors.

12 - Precursor Artefacts

Even older than the Dawn Wars, the Precursors were a mysterious group of races whose artefacts somehow managed to stand the test of tens of millions of years of time.

Precursor artefacts tend to be amazingly powerful and incredible hard to control. Most perform seemingly random or mysterious functions beyond mortal ken. Furthermore, even harmless Precursor artifacts can be magnets for relic races like the violent Chan-Su, making them dangerous to possess without proper precautions.

This condition means a sector has many Precursor artefact sites.

13 - Singularity Artefacts

Created by species that burned the candle at both ends, singularity artefacts are amazingly advanced and often enigmatic, but sometimes surprisingly useable especially by members of the race whose singularity created them.

Most singularity cultures rapidly burn out, self-destructing, bootstrapping themselves out of existence, ascending to higher planes or downloading themselves into VR universes of their own creation. However, many leave objects, machines and whole empty civilisations behind them when they go. These can be both good and bad for combat archaeologists who find them.

This condition means a sector has many singularity artefact sites.

14 - Dawn War Artefacts

Left in the wake of the Dawn War that raged through the Orion Arm a million years ago, Dawn War Artefacts are strange, perhaps even stranger than post Singularity or Precursor artefacts due to their strange mix of advancement and primitivism.

A major problem with this is that none of the combatants of the Dawn War are quite dead. Unearthing a Cybaeon Commander, a Mknar Battleshell or a Tilvin Mother Ship can very easily prove lethal for the planet they were dug up on. Even worse is if a major node such as a Cybaeon server is found, at this point it is likely a task force from the owner will be sent to get it back.

This condition means a sector has many Dawn War artefact sites.

15 - Mega Structures

Mega Structures dominate this sector; ring worlds, Dyson spheres, smoke clouds and other, even stranger artefacts. Either way each has massive living space on board, and is usually populated.

16 - Imperialised

Some huge stinking ape of a hegemony dominates this sector, its navies and armies poking their unwelcome noses into peoples affairs, and oppressing the populous for humanism or god and country or resources or whatever.

The Empire might be good or bad, but it’s certainly something anyone in the sector needs to consider, and it might decide to flood your markets with opium.

17 - Microstates

The opposite of imperialised, player states in the sector will be more powerful than the other inhabitants.

18 - Cosmopolitan

The opposite of Fallow, this sector is thronged with sentient life forms, almost every habitable planet having its own native sentience.

19 - Trade Sector

This Sector is well known as a place to do business, it may be part of the ancient rim trade routes, or merely rich in needed resources. Either way commerce and information flows from across the galaxy to hear, and from hear to all across the galaxy.

Inhabitants of this sector tend to be far more cosmopolitan than most, and have wide scale knowledge of the galaxy.

20 - Migration Route

One of the great migratory races of the galaxy regularly moves through this sector. They spread trade, news and so on, but may also raid and cause trouble. Many follow the Grid, entire civilizations slowly moving from Gridpoint to Gridpoint, stopping for months or years at each before moving on.

Either way massive interstellar convoys are likely to be an awesome sight to see.

21 - War Zone

A number of active wars (or perhaps just a single major, long-running one) are continually flaring up in this sector. They may be internecine or may be between two or more clades. Either way, they may have been going on for decades or centuries, with no end in sight.