Runes of Electronic Suns

History

Early expeditions during the 11th century charted courses and set up navigational beacons, while landing parties discovered relics and riches.

The 12th century saw the first successful colonies established beyond Yggradil; the promise of the riches of the cosmos led to various small scale settlements mostly to give the early explorers a source of perishable supplies in the new worlds and, soon enough, to the physical embodiment of claims. While a few of these early colonies failed entirely, by the end of the 12th century the population of Midgardans outside of Yggdrasil - which at this time was still entirely of Atlantean origin - was well in excess of a quarter million souls and was growing rapidly. These worlds later became known as the Core Worlds.

The 13th century saw continued expansion to the new worlds, with two significant changes. The first was the demographic shift of population growth from mostly immigration to mostly natural growth; while immigration ebbed and flowed as established colonies absorbed additional migrants and new colonies were set up across the future Core Worlds, natural growth from progressive generations of settlers was almost geometric. The second and more significant was the beginning of non-Atlantean settlement. Imperial Xanadu, at this time still strong, was among the first but hardly alone. Having recovered from the Dammerung and spurred to action the various Alfar realms began their own explorations. In the drive to go further and farther the reclusive Zwerg of Nidavellir were bribed and bribed well for their secrets of metallurgy to build light, strong ships of iron and steel to cross to new worlds. Dozens of new - or at least unvisited in many centuries - worlds were found when Alfar magics, Zwerg metalworking and Midgar industriousness was combined. Larger, faster ships allowed for the explosive growth of trade and larger population movement.

As explorers left the comforting environs near Yggdrasil, they began to discover increasing evidence of the magnitude of Ragnarok. The worlds near Yggdrasil all showed the fading scars of Ragnarok if one knew where to look, but as the frontier began to expand beyond the inner worlds next to Yggdrasil these scars became far more visible. Ancient stoneworks and crumbling dolems even larger than Asgardan mortar heads were relics of Ragnarok, weapons of the Muspel Titans and with their animating energies long since faded. Monstrous creatures and enormous feral battle-beasts were ancient creations of the Vanir and many were found to roam these more distant worlds. The dolems were long dead but the Vanir's biological weapons were all too alive, necessitating the shipment of arms and troops to distant settlements to slay battle-beasts that had not realized the war their ancestors had fought had ended over a thousand years previously. The worst was yet to come.

The dolems were dead and the battle-beasts feral and greatly reduced over generations, but the slumbering Einhajar retained much of their terrible power. The legendary mechanical warriors of the Asgard they were self-replicating and self-maintaining machines that slept through much of the centuries awaiting further commands that would never come, only emerging to a state of half-wakefulness to conduct repairs or replacement. They too had degraded over the long centuries but not as badly as the others and when they sporadically awakened and encountered the wandering ships of Man, of Elf or of Dwarf - and recognized them as The Enemy - they left few survivors. As these attacks increased several exploring states petitioned the Asgard for help. While at first the characteristically insular Asgard rebuffed these entreaties, by the end of the 13th century opinions had changed and 'dragon-hunters' began to set sail from Asgard; some set forth to challenge themselves while others saw it as duty to clean up ancient messes. Equipped with Asgardian weapons centuries beyond anything found in the other realms they could fight and slay the Einhajar.

The 14th century thus saw a rising interaction between the inhabitants of Asgard (Asgard and Vanir both) and the people of the lower realms, especially when it came to unstructured people-to-people interactions. Formerly the Asgard had been aloof of the actions of Midgard and others with the exceptions of a few highly formalized diplomatic rites that happened at the highest levels and in structured situations, generally done to impress the Midgarans and others of the continued power of Asgard. Much more contact saw many of these barriers break down and while the Arrogant Asgardian was a stereotype grounded in truth, many of the dragon-hunters wished for little more than food, fun and fornication in between their battles. The Asgard also bartered away the least of their knowledge and in the course of the tumultous 14th century the lower realms made great strides; most say that even the basic-to-Asgard knowledge, theories and practices helped the lower realms advance two centuries in the span of one.

Asgard technologies inadvertently helped fuel the first 'world war' - the Wars of the Coalitions. While centered on Atlantis as two grand coalitions centered on the Jaian Empire and Great Albion battled for some seven years, the war impacted places far beyond Atlantis, with some minor theatres even being outside of the entire Yggdrasil system entirely. That conflict was eventually brought to an end by a combination of economic exhaustion and Asgard-Vanir diplomacy (read: a large volume of threats that brought the warring parties to the negotiating table). The following half-century into the early 15th century saw an acceleration in outworld settlements; ships were able to go further faster and with more people onboard enabling the third great wave of colonial founding. These were to become known as the Veil worlds, beyond the Verge which was itself outside of what was now firmly understood as the Core. Much of this was driven by post-war competition as the great coalitions were not content to let the other steal a march. Other states that had been essentially uninvolved in the conflict were likewise moved to action lest they also have a march stolen on them.

This half-century lul in major state warfare came to an end with the Brother's War (alternatively the Lemurian Civil War), followed five years later by the Dasso-Jaian War. In response the Asgard enacted strict, punitive restrictions on nearly every field of trade though it is now understood that this was merely a pretext to act against what the Asgard saw as continued smuggling and theft. This had little effect to the common folk - indeed the several decades following were a respite from the breakneck advances and social changes of the previous century. The most notable event of the middle of the 15th century was the 'Ascension' of the last Xanadu emperor. With the help of a renegade Asgard scientist, the emperor used a modified Einhajar device to transcend flesh and become a being of light, electricity and thought. Transcending human limits and eventually mortality itself, the emperor rules to this day, three hundred years later.

Two decades later, Midgard was rocked by the Great War. The crude steam-powered, iron-hulled ships and small-caliber artillery of the War of the Coalitions a century earlier had given way to sleek ships bristling with early guided missiles, armored tanks and walkers and supersonic aircraft. This was a war of both industry and technology and one that effectively bankrupted a number of states, saw the collapse of others and left innumerable towns and cities in rubble. Worse yet, a number of poorly-understood 'Ragnarok weapons' were unleashed on the battlefield to occasionally mixed results. In many cases geopolitical issues continued to simmer between the major powers but there was no appetite for renewed conflicts or arms races among the halls of power and even less among the citizenry. There was, however, a keen understanding that the Verge and the Veil needed to be policed and any attempt by the colonies to collect Ragnarok weapons be firmly denied. A more international organization was needed, one that could do the task without spawning just the sort of great power conflicts-of-interest that had led to the Great War.

By the closing decade of the 15th century this logic had been broadly accepted by the great powers of Midgard - some had been most reticent but once the Asgard (rather unexpectedly) announced that they would join the 'Unified Midgard League' it became a clear case of being part of the club or NOT being part of the club. While the Unified Midgard League hardly put an end to war, it did help to greatly reduce frictions that might lead to war and no 'big wars' happened through the entire 16th century. Unfortunately the grimy bush war was alive and well and the military history of the 16th century is a seemingly endless number of localized internal conflicts or border wars in the developing world, punctuated by the collapse of the communist Bafsk Pact.The story of the 16th century was instead the story of a new wave of colonial settlement, the rise of realm-spanning megacorps and, in the latter half of the century, the rapid and chaotic entry of various transhuman technologies into the civilian market.

Perhaps the most significant event of the 16th century was the 11/11 Attack in RC1555, where a highjacked sky-freighter was sent into the Realm Trade Center in Imperial City, Lemuria. This led to one of the few cases of genuine cooperation among the great powers of Midgard - unfortunately, this was the rapid and systematic induction of extensive oversight and control over deep sky shipping. In practice this resulted in a progressive consolidation of shipping in a small number of companies (or in some cases, the complete takeover by the state) and a rapid reduction in shipping to anything but 'important' ports of call. Many smaller ports and settlements of little economic or political value were cast onto hard times in what became known as the Disconnect in the Verge and Veil. The Bifrost jumpgate network, relatively small at the time, saw massive build-out over the next several decades - a policy that by happenstance or by design further reinforced the connected/disconnected split in the outer realms.

While post-11/11 politics lated for a while, a decade into the 17th century war once against stalked Atlantis. A messy border conflict on the eastern edge of Atlantis in the former Bafsk Pact began throwing ever-more sparks, eventually spiralling into a fairly significant war between the two major powers on the Atlantean continent. This culminated in the use of Einhajar-adjacent AI weapons and Dolem replicas, the situation forcing the deployment of 'dragon-hunters', the shutdown of the now and an enforced peace. Several reforms followed and the Unified Midgard League became known as the Midgard Federation (commonly just the MidFed), but many feared that the Mittelatlantis Crisis had exposed cracks in the foundations of the MidFed. More immediate concerns instead papered them over.

One of the key reforms post-Mittelatlantis Crisis was to grant greater lower-level autonomy to the newly renamed Midgard Federation's enforcement arm and in 1618 SIGURD - the Special Interstellar Government Unified Rapid Defense - was officially constituted. Its first major mission was a crackdown on 'artifact' research and smuggling. Not just Einhajar objects, partial or whole - though these were the focus - but ancient Vanir weapon-beasts, dolem fragments and increasingly anything related to Ascension. Even relatively mundane xenobiologicals such as foodstuffs or pets fell under a pall of suspicion as the great powers of Midgard tried to roll the clock back on anything not considered 'safetech'. This had the effect of pushing transhuman expertise out of the core and into the less regulated Verge and Veil. Some experts went off the grid entirely, vanishing into the disconnected worlds.

It was in in the waning of the 16th century that long-buried fault lines inside the MidFed began their seismic movements as divergent interests and goals slowly opened fissures in the pan-national organization. Where the maintenance of the status quo and (the appearance of) unity had one reigned, now political and strategic tensions were sparking into conflicts distant from Yggdrasil; while activities in the outer realms had always been rather more 'cowboy' this was the slow but steady replacement of soft influence with more heavy-handed, muscular and military influence. Many were conducted by proxy forces and the appearance of MidFed unity remained, but each one drove another wedge into the core world monolith. The Crab War, the Prelude War, the Maduras Colonial War, the August Emergency, the Bufo War, the Second Metis War, the Battle of Tannhäuser's Gate, the 1st and 2nd Kwetlem Conflicts, the Tembuch Insurgency . . . a toxic combination of rising Verge-Veil nationalism combined with Midgaran great power competition sowed the seeds of a dozen wars of note and even more bush wars.

The year is now RC1750 and the brave men and women of SIGURD are beset on all sides. The game-players in the MidFed are continuing to play their games, checked only be each other. Budgets hang by a thread, stable only isofar that no great power wishes to lose the authority brought by purse strings over the many-headed dragon they've created. Megacorporation influence grows. And finally, the past two decades of relative peace have been paid for by an arms race across the Verge and Veil.

Put on your spacesuit and grab your blaster. Your starcruiser is heading for the frontier.

Timeline

RCxxxx - Ragnarok Century (or sometimes Ragnarok Calendar)

BR (Before Ragnarok) 70 - approximate start of Ragnarok

RC0001 - Start of the Ragnarok 'century' calendar.
RC0030 - Approximate end of Ragnarok
RC0079 - Ragnarok Century calender devised with the fall of the Bifrost retroactively set as year 1.
RC0600 - Ragnarok Century calender broadly adopted across Atlantis
RC0896-0903 - The Dammerung
RC1046 - First Midgard leysloop successfully reaches another [system]
RC1139 - First succesfully colony established outside of Yggdrasil
RC1330 - Lemurian Revolution
RC1357-1363 - Wars of the Coalitions
RC1415-1419 - Brothers War
RC1424-1425 - Dasso-Jaian War
RC1468-1472 - Great War
RC1481 - Unified Midgard League founded
RC1555 - 11/11 Attack
RC1500-1600 - Corporate expansion into the Verge and Veil
RC1608-1610 - Mittelatlantis Crisis
RC1618 - U.M.L. reformed into the Midgard Federation, SIGURD constituted
RC1750 - Current Day

Gazetteer

New California

Discovered at the end of the 23rd century, New California is a paradise world, very similar to Earth and with a compatible biosphere. American settlement and investment was sustained and by the Berlin Crisis New California had become a distant but important American exocolony. The completion of a jump gate chain there in the middle of the 25th century connected it to the Solarian economy and New California boomed. This connected was broken during the Gateway Mutiny as the jump gates were disabled and New California was left on its own. Seeing this as a gross betrayal by the homeworld, domestic politics in New California swung rapidly towards the position of independence and ever since, the former colony has charted an independent path. The ULORD squadron based out of New California was one of the few that did not move into the core systems during the Mutiny and it became the nucleus of the then-raw New Californian Defense Force.

New California sits astride a number of jump routes, giving it sway over the immediate area and the Transcali Spur beyond New California is a de facto New Californian protectorate. The settlements there and several other nearby worlds have been bound into the United Systems Organization, the name a clear slap at the mother country. While relations have generally thawed since the late 25th century nadir, New California and the United Systems as a whole remains outside of the UN supervisory structure and smuggling both to and from the high-tech world remains a thorn in the UN's side.

The United Systems have adopted a joint military structure, the United Systems Military - though New California is by far the largest contributor. The USM fleet is dominated by various models of short-ranged attack ships and destroyers, built in large numbers and with few of the frills found on UN ships - with missions rarely lasting more than a month, austerity is not a penalty. New California does operate a number of larger ships however, including both short-range 'pocket dreadnoughts' and more conventional frigates and cruisers for operating down the Transcali Spur and showing the flag outside of the United Systems. Overall though, much of the USM fleet is aging, particularly the small ships. Built in large production blocks during the first century of New California's independence, construction slowed down greatly after the Solar War and the collapse of (perceived) Solar hostility. Many of these smaller and shorter-ranged ships have been mothballed or at least reduced to light maintenance only, while others have been transferred to USM states. No small number have been sold to third parties as well, though this policy has been put on hold ever since the Void Emergency.

Elysium, Star Kingdom of

Elysium was one of the first major junction systems to be discovered and by the middle of the 23rd century its lone habitable planet was being steadily colonized. While the original settlement and colonial charter originated as an Anglo-Saudi-Australian project, a century and a half of immigration from all across Earth gave it a culture all its own. Elysium was a winner in the post-Crisis age, far enough from Sol to not get hit by various onerous restrictions on advanced technology but close enough and advanced enough that it could become a major supplier of such. The defining moment in Elysium's history though was the Mutiny; immediately throwing their lot in with Sol, Elysium became a strongpoint for Solar operations against ULORD forces and has been reaping the benefits ever since. The Star Kingdom today is arguably the second most influential and powerful polity in the Verge outside of the UN itself and while Solarian patronage is not what it used to be, the UN still finds itself working around the Star Kingdom as often as it's working with.

The Star Kingdom has both protectorates in its near abroad - mostly disconnected worlds now brought into Elysium's orbit - and an informal empire spread across a rather larger span of space. The latter is bound together both by economic interests and the benefits of being an Elysian client, namely a certain protection from UN entanglements. There are an increasing number of people - and not just inside the Star Kingdom - that see Elysium as the future leader of not just the Verge but humanity as a whole, something that the Royal Court generally gently dismisses - publicly, anyway.

As the premiere trading power of the Verge and one that was granted exceptional leeway by the UN's Solarian masters, the Star Kingdom has interests across many systems and worlds. The Royal Highfleet is thus both large and well-equipped, with a particular bias towards cruisers of various type. For well over a century it is a rare crisis situation that is not graced by a squadron of Royal Highfleet star cruisers and a force of Royal Colonial Marines. The High Fleet also operates a number of dreadnoughts, though they are as much prestige pieces as anything else.

Danu Junction

The Danu system was first discovered near the end of the 23rd century, near the outer edge of what is generally considered the Verge. Its primary habitable world of Cliona is unusual in that it sits at the L4 point of the super-jovian Mave (which has some six times the mass of Jupiter), while the second (extremely) marginally habitable icebox world of Skadi orbits outside this. While it was habitable, pleasant even along the subtropical shores of its massive southern polar ocean, Cliona was simply seen as too far from Earth to be of interest to the efficient, prestige- and profit-minded colonization efforts of the great powers. Instead it was settled by a variety of oddball and often well-off groups looking to create new consocieties - many of them had also embraced varying degrees of transhumanism, thought little that was considered extreme. In this it was fairly representative of the Eversea sector as a whole.

As of the Berlin AI Crisis Danu was something of a backwater and it was disconnected in the aftermath; even if the various groups on Cliona had the private resources to create a surprisingly comfortable little nest, they had little value to distant Sol. The Clionans dealt with this situation by unearthing an atavistic piratical streak and for a time the 'Pirates of the Fairy Moon' ranged across all of Eversea. Often seized by some bizzare nobility, this state-ignored criminality was eventually dealt with by the young ULORD. This also coincidentally led to the discovery of three additional jump points at Danu; long theorized it was only the modern equipment of the ULORD task force ships that led them to being navigationally plotted. Suddenly, Danu was important and by the end of the 25th century a jumpgate chain had been lain to the Danu Junction and the previously sleepy Eversea had become a new nexus of investment. Several maegacorps set up on the then-uninhabited world of Skadi, seeking to investigate and exploit various posthuman and archeosophont sites there.

Like other sectors the Mutiny and second disconnect hit Danu hard, though as a latecomer to the jump gate network its trade was not savaged nearly as badly as others and after a few wobbles - and the seizure of several ULORD blacksites from half-hearted defenders - Danu returned to an even keel. Some strategic 'nationalizations' of stranded core world shipping and the Clionan merchant marine was the largest in the outer Verge while their ground forces were trained by stranded ULORD defectors. The ships were eventually returned of course, but by that point local shipyards had begun constructing replacements.

While the Eversea sector during the post-Mutiny era was always 'busy' from a perspective of metaphoric street-level activities, it had little of the larger-scale Problems that the UN had to regularly deal with and by the Solar War had acquired a reputation as a quiet sector. The creation and growth of the Clionan Aerospace Force from little more than a handful of observation ships as of the Solar War to the modern wide-ranging fleet of today has raised some concern among the UN but a continued working relations and some minor corruption have kept things from worsening.

UN Commands

United Nations Extra Solar Fleet - (Core Sector)

Player: NPC
-HQ Gateway
The First Fleet is the UN's primary reserve and training fleet; every officer and most enlisted has spent a minimum of one tour in the 1st Fleet. It is also where most UN ships (especially the large starcruisers) are assigned for their first deployment after leaving construction facilities in Sol or Gateway. As such the 1st fleet has a large number of subsidiary formations with evocative names like the 43rd Maintenance Group, the 11th Reserve Flotilla (Heavy) and the 99th Provisional Test Squadron. The Aresian Espatier Academy (aka Fort Durestan) also falls under the administrative aegist of the 1st Fleet. All in all, the 1st Fleet has significant fighting power on paper, but much of that is actually non-operating reserve ships or training groups.
The First Fleet also has authority over the UN's Secure Containment Facility - while there are others scattered around, when a UNnie talks about *THE* SCF (the 'Skiff'), they are talking about the massive, slowly-expanding and heavily fortified facility on Mercury's northernmost crater of Tryggvadóttir. It is broadly rumored that the facility is ringed with over a hundred nuclear land mines, enough to destroy anything inside and bury whatever's left.

Second Fleet (Columbiad Sector)

Player:
-HQ Novopol
Second Fleet has been tasked since its inception with not only the broad mandate to police the Verge but to contain the rebels of New California. This led to a constant state of belicosity in the 2nd Fleet's area of operations and once the New Californians and their USO allies felt secure under an umbrella of steel they began to smuggle all manner of weapons to like-minded groups. The Solar War and consequent political realignments have released some of the tension but by no means have relations became 'good'. As such the 2nd Fleet's ships tend towards anti-piracy and anti-insurgent with a preference for carriers and ships with long legs.
HQ Novopol is a sprawling surface base built inside a crater on Novopol's lone moon, a large asteroid captured billions of years ago. Originally a fairly small ULORD installation it expanded greatly to serve the needs of the 'USO Containment' and has now become the single largest UN facility in the Verge.
Second Fleet also has access to several captured 'pirate' shipyards (pirate in this context being anyone that ran afoul of the UN), giving it a broad but decentralized ability to construct smaller warships as needed.
Starting Bonus: Support Modules are free during faction creation. Additional Secondary shipyards.

Third Fleet (Eversea Sector)

Player:
-HQ Danu
Third Fleet is the current home of the UN Exploration Command, an organization that actually predates ULORD (never mind the militarization of the UN in following the Mutiny). Many of the activities of Exploration Command have steadily wound down after the major burst of exploration and settlement in the 25th century and much of Exploration Command is scrapped, mothballed or simply unfilled - depending if one is talking about hardware or staff.
Overall 3rd Fleet oversees a young, underdeveloped region of space and as such much of its available assets are smaller and/or older ships, many of them exploration and survey ships that have been militarized (highly modular UN designs making this easy). This level of military strength is generally sufficient as most of the problems they deal with are petty piracy of starving asteroid miners in 3d printed gunboats raiding each other in backwater systems or theotech smuggling between dig sites, buyers and corporations. Many of the UN's rear-area facilities ended up in Eversea along with the a number of training elements, particularly those servicing the Sunbreak and Columbiad sectors. While these are important, they are not exciting; 3rd Fleet has long been considered a deadend and a place where careers go to die.
HQ Danu is built on the former den of the 'Pirates of the Fairy Moon', conveniently close to the Clionan manufacturing hub and a major source for non-sensitive supplies.
Starting Bonus: Low sector threat. Bonus $XXXX of Secondary ships during faction creation.
Starting Malus: Core ships cost double during faction creation.

Fourth Fleet (Elysium Fields Sector)

Player:
-HQ Solidarity
Fourth Fleet's area of operations include both Elysium (which poses its own unique complications) and a substantive number of prosperous worlds, many of which squabble among themselves even as they chafe under UN oversight. As such it is filled with a large and ever-increasing number of general purpose starcruisers and 4th Fleet is broadly considered the most powerful of the four numbered UN fleets. 4th FLeet has also gotten a well-deserved a reputation for being very in your face among the colonies which has driven a number into the arms of Elysium.
HQ Solidarity is fortified moon inside a large exclusion zone, completely closed to the public and home to shipyard and factories to support the heavy UN Espatier forces in the region. While not quite as large as HQ Novopol in terms of ship berths and the like, HQ Solidarity has multiple enclosed assembly rooms. 4th Fleet also operates a number of major bases across Elysium Fields and into neighboring sectors.
Starting Bonus: Bonus $XXXX of starcruisers during faction creation. Additional Star Cruiser shipyards.

Fifth Fleet (Sunbreak Sector)

-HQ Leitner
During the tenure of ULORD, Sunbreak was a continued quagmire of violence both local and interstellar, fed by various conflicting New Faiths and other ideologies. This had been slowly calming by the time of the Mutiny however, and while Fifth Fleet was initially large (and in familiar ground, given how many UN operations beforehand had worked to mediate various conflicts) its ships and crews were progressively reassigned to more needy regions over the decades. In the current day, 5th fleet is little more than an administrative HQ and a couple patrol squadrons - many believe that the 5th Fleet has in fact been cut much too deeply and that the UN needs to properly garrison the sector but so far, the demands of other sectors have came first. Some opine that this has allowed the criminal element to take root and the perceived placidness of Sunbreak is just a mirage.
HQ Leitner is a surface facility, an entire Ireland-sized island ceded as a base of operations. Originally dotted with various Espatier camps and training sites, the progressive reduction of Fifth Fleet has seen most of them fall into disuse. The former orbital station has actually been sold to private industry and a new, much smaller orbital facility provides local moorage while most depot-level maintenance is handled by Third Fleet in Eversea.

Sixth Fleet (Farsight)

-HQ Tempest
Sixth Fleet was effectively disestablished in 2671 after the Hilda Affair and Circle of Six court-martials, its ships and crews reassigned to the Fourth Fleet. While the 6th Fleet does exist on paper, these days HQ Tempest is nothing more than a cluster of offices inside HQ Solidarity. Even after thirty years the Hilda Affair still rankles many in the upper echelons of the UN and it seems plausible that if a new fleet is to be assigned to Farsight it may be a new, seventh fleet instead of the disgraced 6th.

UN Task Forces

The UN Task Forces are the other half of the overall UN enforcement and oversight structure; whereas the numbered fleets are assigned to a specific static region, the named TFs are mobile and move from region to region as needed. In practice the UN organizational structure lets them 'unload' much of their support needs onto the local numbered fleet, while the TFs bring a well-coordinated and often specialized set of hardware and staff to deal with pernicious problems. In the UN structure the commanding officers of the Fleets and Task Forces are considered equivalent, even if for operational purposes TFs are generally considered subordinate to the numbered fleet who's sector they are in.
While the numbered fleets are broadly organized on the same lines, albeit with significant variation in the specifics, the task forces are almost all functionally unique. Created for some specific purpose even if said purpose has expanded enormously, TF organization and capability is normally idiosyncratic if not downright byzantine.

RULES

Nation Creation

Nations-states are the intended primary player style of Ruins, these are the planets located in the Verge that are seeking their own destiny among the alien stars and represent the rare highly stable worlds that survived the Disruption. Most but not all of them are worlds that were amicable to human life and development and range from developed to mid 21s century to late 22nd in terms of infrastructure, and have populations that numbers in tens of millions.

Nation Starting Package

National Template
5 NP (Nation Points) in National Taxes
2 NP in Trade
2 NP in Ground Forces
2 NP in Aerospace Forces
2 NP in Noncombat Units
2 NP in unassigned military
5 Nation Points to be used as desired
3 Special Points (SP) to be used as desired
Resting Stability 50

Player nations have to describe their:

Homeworld:
Government Type and Ideology: Affects stability, if you’re the baby eaters of Zardoz and you ally with Ghandi of Neo-Avatar, you’re going to lose stability, if you’re the Iron Prussians of New Stadheim and you invade Bonaventure to increase your realpolitik you will gain in stability. High stability allows for bonus income and rules and special events that are good. Low stability leads to unrest and potential civil war.
Background: Were they are a forced colony of exiles or planned colony settled by the space Mormons?

Fluff will help integrate you into the game setting, as well as how your nation develops, a Marslike planet of underground space dwarfs might get a bonus to asteroid mines as a random example while a Earthlike planet may get an economic boom as more people settle the untouched lands.

National Templates

Colony Origin
Everyone came from somewhere.

Major Power Colony - The major states of Earth scattered colonies far and wide, master-planning them as microcosms of the homeworld. +3 Diplomacy ranks
Polyglot Settlement - A majority of colonies were settled in a relatively ad-hoc manner with no strictly defined cultural origin. +2 Diplomatic ranks
Frontier Consociety - Many of the later or more distant settlements were spearheaded by various groups with plans to create strange new societies. +1 Diplomatic rank, +1 Perk (must cost 1 point, does not count against normal limit)
Absolute Weirdos - A rare few colonies have, often due to events that happened after the colonial founding itself, gone completely strange by the standards of most people. +0 Diplomatic rank, +10 Resting Stability, +1 Occult Rank

Astrographic Location

Just A Place - Most colonies (and the vast majority of major ones) have no particularly noteworthy location in overall human space. [+1 Nation Point]
Ragged Edge - While human space has no strictly defined border, the outer edge of the Verge starts to fade into poorly plotted systems very rapidly. Out on the edges of known space you'll find a lot of time to stare into the abyss. [+1 Special Point]
Busy Neighborhood - Your system is in a particularly dense region of space, giving you both ample local trade opportunities and regional rivals. [Trade +$50/per, Military +$1000, must have at least one neighbor-related trait]
Nexus - A handful of star systems are blessed with a particularly large number of jump points, making them natural gathering points. [-1 Nation Point, +$500 Trade, enhanced UN presence, some traits have modified costs]
Cul-de-Sac - Not every jump point leads to more jump points. Many don't lead anywhere exciting, while a few lead to nice planets that sadly have no other jump points. [Some traits have modified costs]
Backwater - Sited in a cluster of closed jump points, navigation near your home system is a notorious pain. This hampers large-scale settlement and trade, but it also hampers all but the most determined UN patrol squadrons as well. Win some, lose some. [Modified nation generation]

Diplomacy and Relations

Rank 0: Your society (or at least your diplomatic corps) is strange and difficult for outsiders to deal with.
Rank 1: You are often characterized as standoffish or having weird cultural quirks that fairly regularly cause problems for more straight-laced types like the UN.
Rank 2: People are people all across space, though distant Earth and its people share little points of understanding with you.
Rank 3: You are a precious copy of your Solarian patron.
Rank 4: Your society follows Earther trends and cultural norms to a level that is downright slavish, if not outright Stepfordian. Your people actually find it difficult to deal with fellow Vergers.

Economic Structure

Continental Economy - While technically incorrect, the concept of "continental" powers and economies is still useful when discussing far-flung worlds in the blackness of space. These economies are inward-focussed with much of their strength being internal; at the most extreme they are autarkic and isolated from the rest of humanity in any meaningful sense. Taxes +$50/per, Trade -$100/per
Trading Economy -

Landmarks

Landmarks are large, noteworthy structures; examples include orbital elevators, enormous lunar massdrivers, a massive space fort built during the rough years, etc. While many landmarks (in this context) are built objects, particularly critical bits of geography may also classify; vast deserts that surround the habitable cities Many major worlds have one, a few have more. The effects of each will be determined with a GM, though all of a same type (eg, orbital elevators) will generally have the same effect.

Nation Points

These are used to customize your nation. They can be spent on the following in whatever combination desired.

+$150 National Taxes
+$200 Trade
+$2000 in Starting Military
A Landmark
Raising Diplomacy and Relations one level
Perks
If your number of perks is greater than 3 + your number of flaws, each perk that exceeds this costs 1 extra NP

Special Points

Unique Technology
These are special technologies that you have invented, improved, mass produced and generally made your own. While not secret, they are not easily copied by others without either diplomacy or theft - it's one thing to know that your ships are armored in Krupp-II Ferro-Scale Armor, it's completely different to know the specific manufacturing process. A GM will work with you to create them.

Rank 0 (0 SP): Nothing special.
Rank 1 (1 SP): 1 unique tech.
Rank 2 (2 SP): 2 unique techs.
Rank 3 (4 SP): 3 unique techs.

Unique Abilities
These are more nebulous 'abilities', things that your state has cultivated over the years. They are organizational and structural in nature and cannot be easily replicated without sometimes literally a generation of work - technology can be stolen, but the KGB wasn't built overnight. Examples might be an omnipresent security state, deep and abiding ties with revolutionaries across the Verge, covert vampire hunters, an exceptional ability to make sense of the delphaic pronouncements of the posthumans, etc and sundry. A GM will work with you to create them.

Rank 0 (0 SP): Nothing special.
Rank 1 (1 SP): 1 unique ability
Rank 2 (3 SP): 2 unique ability
Rank 3 (6) SP): 3 unique abilities

Occult Lore
The occult is a very broad set of believes, practices and knowledges that fall outside the 'accepted' norm. At the dawn of the 27th century this most regularly means topics like interacting with posthumans or decoding the works of the long-lost Forerunners who settled the worlds when humans were still inventing fire. That is not the limit though, there are many poorly-explained and poorly-understood phenomenon in the deep black, some of which harken back to a more mythical era of Earth's history.

Rank 0 (0 SP): 21st century level of understanding of all things paranormal, from posthuman theotechnology to exotic and dangerous xenomorphs to the haemovore virus to the Things Outside - the truth is out there and maybe you know it exists, but its not wherever you are. (Most Solarian powers and those that reject various dangerous theotechnology sit here)
Rank 1 (1 SP): You have accumulated some occult lore. At this stage you can broadly identify differences between the origins and sources of occult power, and with some effort conduct appropriate countermeasures. You may select one field of knowledge that you are proficient in. (Most Verger states that have spent any significant time chasing posthuman technology sit here)
Rank 2 (3 SP): Your library is well-stocked and smells of rich mahogany. The paranormal is no longer a stranger and you are one of the elite few to have knowledge spanning multiple disciplines. You may select two fields of knowledge that you are proficient in.
Rank 3 (6 SP): You leave the matters of the occult to top men and even the Lin Chinese consider you a peer - or perhaps a threat. You can be assumed to be proficient in all types of occult knowledge.

Nanofabs
Additive manufacturing technology (3D printing) is ubiquitous and has been for a large part of a millennia. However there is still degrees to it, and advanced posthuman-derived nano-fabs can construct objects rapidly and at atomic levels of precision.

Rank 0 (0 SP):
Rank 1 (1 SP):
Rank 2 (2 SP):
Rank 3 (4 SP):

Perks

Large Population (2) - The Verge is half of humanity, and you’re part of the reason. While the average Verge state can be measured in the tens of millions, your population is well into the hundreds of millions, having surpassed all but the most populous Midgaran state in the past few years of immigration from the Core and displacement from various wars. Your state is culturally resilient as a consequence of sheer inertia, and has a lot of bodies to throw at problems. Development projects to improve living standards however, may be much more expensive.
Population by Proxy (1) - Your state’s core population is extremely small proportional to its landmass, most likely under five million. This may be because of extensive automation, or a permanent underclass. Spending to increase stability is typically much cheaper, and your various forces are robotic or mercenary by majority, reducing the Stability costs of huge casualties in offensive wars.
People's Champion (2) - Your government is popular with the people, harder to lower your stability and easier to increase it. Your base Stability is increased by 10 points and you will always recover at least 2 points of Stability if you are below base Stability.
Lotus Eaters (1) - Your population works through the system to iron out grievances, doubling your return to resting stability if you are below resting, but as it is thoroughly disarmed and rules-following any invader - or oppressive government - will find little or no popular resistance.
The Trusted Organs of Morality (2) - You have some force in your state, be it a religion, cult, social norm or even just a powerful press which has the trust of vital sections of your political (and politically active) classes which gives you a shield of virtual stability. However, you must appease this force or the virtual stability will become negative.
The War Machine (2) - Your society has been oriented towards the production of weaponry and your people accultured towards the need and righteousness of doing so. For every $1 spent on military procurement you receive $1.5 in actual military units, though your people expect you to use it. Giving this largess away to fellow travellers is acceptable, but profiteering will swiftly stack up negative issues - from popular revolt to the rapid growth of a fantastically corrupt industrial-mafioso class.
Star Fleet (2) - Your state is greatly invested in exploration and commerce. The final cost of non-combatant ships (explorers, freighters, 'civilian' ships, etc) that you build and/or operate is multiplied by x0.8, reducing both construction and upkeep costs (it's suggested for bookkeeping clarity that you also record the standard cost, perhaps in brackets). However, your people will require that you continually conduct exploration and commercial missions due to the importance of exploring and helping the universe.
Admiralty (2) - Your fleets are well trained and your admirals can sometimes miraculously avoid catastrophe.
Ultimate Badasses (2) - Your ground troops are the heirs to various famous elite military groups such as the United Lemurian Marine Corps, SIGURD Espatiers, the Jaian Foreign Legion and the Asgard Dragon-Slayers. With a strong esprit de corps and training to match, your troops are certainly some of the best. Be warned though, excessive losses will grind away skilled troops and hard-won experience.
Cosmo Albania (2) - Star systems are dirty, messy places full of comets, asteroids and other space detritus. Your state has cultivated a particularly keen sense of this cosmo-terrain and given a bit of time can effectively hide all sorts of things from supply dumps to battleships from all but dedicated search, and your star system is often littered with various little surprises and munitions stores.
Office of Naval Infanticide (1) - For whatever reason you can't stop making new technology in the most dangerous and immoral way possible. Each new technology you develop takes 3/4ths normal time (or even less) but also has a GM-determined stability loss.
The Library of Ruins (3) - Your state has begun assembling a collection of exotic alien paraphernalia and seemingly-supernatural devices, chancing on some relics of those who came before that are completely beyond replication. Begin with 1d3 Artifacts (Clients get 1 Artifact). Such devices more easily find their way into your possession and are more stable.
Occult Nexus (2) - Your world is a mecca for the unusual. The specifics can vary greatly and must be defined - posthuman spires out in the countryside, a shallowing to the Things Outside, dangerous xenomorphs thankfully on the far side of an ocean, etc and sundry. This provides easy access to the physical artifacts of a field of Occultism, though it does mean you may regularly deal with unwelcome visitors, thieves and fedora-wearing, whip-wielding lion uplifts.
Extraterritory (X) - Your state is not limited to a single realm-world; see full rules below
Hang Together [Borders] (2) - Your world-realm is host to several other smaller states that look towards you for leadership. While they have their own foreign and domestic policies they will broadly align with yours; this effectively gives you added weight in interstellar politics as you have your own cheering section and they will often also provide help in justified military actions.
Assembly Prestige (2) - When your state speaks, others listen. Assume your voting tendency is replicated x5 in the Assembly of the Verge and x10 in the MidFed General Assembly. Should the Security Council ever restore the non-permanent seats, expect to be shortlisted for it.
The Blunder Bus (2) - Somehow, despite all the diplomatic missteps you make and bombastic threats you make, your state comes out smelling like a rose. Or at least freshly-mowed grass. Is it all just a big joke or do people ignore you? Either way, it works out. Verge NPCs are well-disposed towards your state and will generally ignore minor bad behavior that doesn't directly affect them and the MidFed will often give you top cover and keep SIGURD out of your business. Boys will be boys.
Corporate Cooperation (2) - Your state has cultivated (or been cultivated to have) a strong connection to one or more megacorporations which has a vested interest in your continued well-being and stability.
Mayflower Society (2): Colonization bonus, civilians are quicker in moving in and making you get money. Gain +1 prestige for colonies and quicker advancement to next rank, though your population will expect you to defend the colonies with full force.
Star Patrol (2) - Your anti-piracy patrols are very effective and you can engage in anti-piracy patrols in NPC systems to increase goodwill.
The Biggest Gang (2) - You have deep connections to the various pirates and criminals of human space and your anti-piracy operations are as much an enforcement of turf as they are an enforcement of laws. Engaging in anti-piracy operations provides a return of money, though you are also known far and wide as being dirty as sin.
Blackbeard 2525 (2) - The Golden Age of Cosmopiracy was the half-century preceeding the Mittelatlantis Crisis, but the recent explosive growth of spaceborne commerce, unaccounted-for weaponry and trans-Verge chaos has opened the door to a new age of cosmopiracy. Old habits die hard and it turns out you can teach an old zero-G dog new tricks. Your corsairs and related ships are 50% more effective at piracy and they gain an additional single size-2 weapon slot, this weapon must be paid for like any other weapon.
Fanatics (2) - Your society has adopted a stark or at least highly divergent view of life and death; perhaps your people seek martyrdom and to ride forever shiny and chrome, have deep-seated fears of The Other or there is simply a social fascination with beautiful death. No matter the specifics, your ground troops will often fight to the death if ordered and your civilian population will prove difficult for outsiders to coerce with force. If combined with 7.62nd amendment your civilian population is essentially one enormous militia ready to lay down their lives for the parentland.
7.62nd Amendment (2) - Your country includes numerous organised armed groups, small and often well-hidden fortifications, and a general do it yourself creed when it comes to defense. This can be helpful against invasion but any major stability drop is likely to lead to violence. You are basically Lebenon, Afghanistan, Star Wars, or Medieval Europe. Often interacts poorly with the more statist Star Patrol powers due to stark differences in philosophy.
Ship Enhancer (2) - You may buy any one (1) enhancement off a hull enhancement list twice, with the exception of Variants.
Core Ship Yard (2) - You may construct Core Warships.
Mystic Haven (2) - Your world-realm is a little bit out of the norm, with a bustling hyper-evolutionary biosphere that bears all the hallmarks of the anciant Vanir.

Flaws

Yearning Masses (2) - Your state is deeply unstable and an emancipatory desire has begun to manifest, demanding a change from the status quo. Your resting Stability is 10, meaning it will constantly tick down towards the revolution unless abated somehow.
MidFed Sanctioned List (2) - You're a rogue state as defined by the MidFed as well as your previous actions. While at the moment there is no political will in regime changing your state, you are on thin ice with the MidFed great powers and other NPCs. This flaw may not be taken if your Diplomacy & Relations stat is 3 or higher.
Bete Noire (2) - The collective Verge states and even possibly SIGURD treat you with distate if not outright hostility, but your Midgaran patron ensures your safety in face of this obviously completely unwarranted opprobium. This flaw may only be taken if you have Diplomacy & Relations 3 or higher.
Verge Hatemagnet (2) - A few states have found themselves on the shitlist for much of the Verge; ironically (or not) these tend to be states that have strong ties to the great powers of Earth - they are often decried as various forms of sellout, puppet, quisling and the like, though some are simply roundly disliked and have absolutely no friends whatsoever - such as the late and unlamented Praetoria. NPC Verge states will generally avoid positive diplomacy with you and all tech trades with Verge states will cost +1 lab each. PC verge states cultivating ties with you may face stability problems.
Empty Chair (1) - You have no say in MidFed politics, not even a token vote in the General Assembly unlike many sanctioned states. Additionally, Empty Chair states are passed over as recruitment grounds by SIGURD and other transtellar organizations meaning you don't even have some basic influence in them simply be having nationals as part of their staff and management.
Old Model Army (2) - Built by the lowest bidder, then stored improperly for a decade, then given to poorly trained conscripts. The state's military readiness is just very poor and even cutting-edge equipment will probably be somehow misused. You get a 10% penalty to all die rolls in battle or the equivalent (eg -1 on a D10)
Peaceniks (2) - Your people don’t like offensive war and will lose stability if you engage it.
Dirty Cops (1) - Your anti-piracy efforts have been compromised and you are more vulnerable to it
Keystone Navy (4) - Perhaps regime loyalty is more important than competence or you just regained the stars, for the immediate future your fleet will make blunders.
Supernormal (2) - While you may have knowledge of the occult and even a map to it, it seems to continually elude you. Posthuman spires will be bereft of any easily-accessible machinery, vampire cults will actually just be goth nightclubs and Muspel dolems will be nothing more than musty old stonehead carvings - impressively large and disapproving but how many carven basalt heads do you really need?
Lobotomy Corporation (2) - Your state officially denies any existence of Paracausal Phenomenon. Speaking of such things in public results in psychiatric confinement, or worse. You may never make use of alien artifacts and other one-off devices, and have additional vulnerabilities to users of such phenomenon.
Cerberus Syndrome (2) - Your people just can't stop licking the black goo. You can investigate and even exploit occult artefacts but you will take a steady stream of casualties and overrun research facilities doing it. This may however lead to faster occult research
Prophet of Profit (4) - You state is fantastically inefficient when it comes to weapons, perhaps seeing the entire military as just a massive state-sponsored grift program or simply one with overly excessive bureaucracy. The final cost of military units you build and/or operate is multiplied by x1.25, representing the relatively inefficient nature of your armed forces. Moreover, altruism is a foreign word and both your state and your people will look poorly on acts of charity.
Disunited [Borders] (2) - You are the single greatest power on your homeworld but it is not under your control, there are 1-3 powers on your realm who are not easy pushovers even if they are significantly smaller than you individually. They are not intrinsically hostile but expect them to react to your actions, especially bad ones.
Factious [Borders] (2) - You merely one among several PC grade powers on your homeworld (1-3). The other powers are not intrinsically hostile; they may object to certain actions taken against you (for instance, an off world invasion) but may also attack or otherwise punish you if you conduct yourself poorly. This flaw will generally have a GM meddling in your affairs fairly regularly.
Surrounded [Borders] (2) - You are in a particularly thickly settled region of space, meaning that you will generally need to pay better attention to your (many) neighbors lest you trip over them.
Coldest War [Borders] (4) - A nearby system houses a power that wants your blood, if combined with Disunited they will have a client state among your neighbors. If combined with Surrounded, you are probably facing a coalition of powers. You may elect to be mutual Coldest War with another willing PC, for those who want to engage in guaranteed PVP.
Carter Burke (2) - One or more megacorporations has its hooks into your state. Their influence is pervasive and while they cannot necessarily dictate the course of your ship of state, they can free-ride off you, copy your advances and 'borrow' your military for purposes such as protecting their property. If combined with Corporate Cooperation you probably are an outright megacorp-state.
Political Science (2): Your R&D efforts are behind the times and focused on other matters then important stuff of better laser guns.
5 Year Plan (2): Economic slow growth hampers your nation.
Dark Fate (2) - The universe just has it out for you. This is a meta-game disadvantage which will effectively harden the GMs hearts against you; they will not give you the benefits of the doubt or fudge dice in your favor. You are still the protagonist of your story but you're no longer playing Civilization, you're playing Dwarf Fortress.
No-Name Ships (2) - hull enhancements cost double.
Limited Shipbuilding (2) - you may only construct Secondary Warships, though this limit does not apply to using NF. If you are a Cul-de-sac this flaw returns 2 points.

Technologies

Standard Techs

These are technologies that are as common and as critical in the 27th century as the internal combustion engine was in the 20th. Almost everywhere that isn't a complete hole will be able to build or at least repair them, even if the specific models might not be cutting edge. Standard techs have no defined effects as they are assumed to be baked into everything you build.

Jump Drives - Without these, you're locked in one star system. Modern models are significantly superior to the first generations that spread humanity to the stars and the operating principles are well-understood today (even if it did take a century to fully understand the esoteric physics the posthumans were using)
Weber Drive - Travelling to another star system is well and good but moving via pure Newtonian methods once you're there is pure torture. Humanity couldn't get rid of its slow and unwieldy fusion thrustships fast enough when the Weber Drive was invented. They still have glowy bits though, so sci-fi wasn't entirely wrong.
Gravity-Resist - One of the key inventions of the late pre-FTL age, gravity-resist systems greatly reduce the effects of gravity upon a vehicle or volume. While not a propulsion system in itself, gravity-resist allows for the casual surface to orbit launches of the FTL age. All but the most backwards of colonies make a point of retaining the ability to at least maintain and service gravity-resist motors.
Spin Gravity - A ship travelling under Weber Drive feels no acceleration, meaning the only way to generate gravity for its crew (at least until the much later invention of artificial gravity) was spin habitats.
Automation - Since the dawn of space exploration, spacecraft were heavily automated - most of them were robotic probes, after all. That trend never reversed and for the entirety of the FTL age humanity has travelled the stars as passengers. While most spacecraft do have a crew to provide oversight and objectives, this rarely exceeds what amounts to a command crew and whatever mission specialists are needed. The ships simply fly themselves most of the time, and with networked maintenance droids, take care of themselves as well. It helps there's no rust and corrosion in space.
Human Genetic Modification - It has been many centuries since the tools of genetic manipulation were turned on humanity. Many of the ills big and small were banished, from nearsightenedness to sickle-cell anemia and healthy ages significantly increased. Later, more aesthetic changes became possible - the whole rainbow of hair and eye color, even skin color to a degree, various physical changes such as pointed ears, luminescent spots and lightly modified morphology, some more divergent have even adopted things like scales. Ultimately however while these may mean a great deal to the individual, to a state people are still people.

Common Techs

Common techs are often technologies a bit more difficult to replicate than standard techs or require more specialized industrial bases. Not everywhere can build them - even fairly well-off worlds - but they are broadly understood and the barriers tend to be infrastructural instead of knowledge. Common techs have defined effects, some of which may be fairly minor while others might be quite important.

Artificial Gravity - Actually generating a stable 1G gravity field in a specific volume proved to be a surprisingly difficult problem to crack, efforts to reverse-engineer posthuman devices continually failing. Non-post humans are stubborn however, and eventually the secret was uncovered. Even so, many worlds still have not fully embraced artificial gravity - it's an expensive refit, after all.
Energy Shields - Energy shields were first invented in the middle of the 24th century and by the start of the 25th had ushered in a new era in warship design. The prevailing 'eggshell with hammers' methodology had become obsolete, now that ships had at least a degree of protection against powerful lasers and railguns. The Solarian powers went to great lengths to keep this potent technology out of the hands of the Vergers, though it spilled during the Mutiny.
Utility Fields - A derivative of energy shielding, utility fields are used for non-protective purposes as the name implies. Their use has spread around, though many worlds rely on older, tried-and-true methods. I practice they are often combined with more analogue methods to give the best of both worlds.
Advanced Stealth - Various methods of stealthing have been in use since before humanity reached Mars, never mind the stars and there is a constant arms race between sensors and stealth. So called 'advanced' stealth is an entire evolutionary leap though, combining a number of specialized devices to make a hole in space that has a good chance to evade even the most modern sensors. There are certainly design sacrifices that must be made and, just as critically, the technology is illegal to use under prevailing interstellar laws and agreements - except for the people making the rules that is, namely Sol and the UN.
Umbral Cloak - Another, entirely different method of hiding a ship from detection, the Umbral cloak was invented in secret by ULORD and was thought lost for the century after the Mutiny. That is until an anti-UN group stumbled across an old blacksite and spread the logs around to various Interested Parties. The UN was unable to fully control the technology, though after the Driveliner War there's been buy-in among Verger states to maybe take their collective foot off the gas when it comes to building fleets of hidden commerce-raiding attack boats.
Dynaphones - Originally a fairly obscure detection device that saw little use outside of the laboratory, the sudden arrival of the Umbral cloak in the Verge led to a scramble to develop a countering technology. While not perfect, dynaphones were much better than any alternatives and military-grade models were developed, particularly in those worlds somehow involved in the Driveliner War.
Entropy Sinks - For decades the UN blandly labelled their advanced heat-dissipation system as 'M3 Standard Laser Coolant'. It was only as part of the Hilda Affair that the truth came out - that this 'standard laser coolant' was actually a highly sophisticated non-localizing thermal dissipator. Elegant and effective.
Cyborgization -

Unique Techs

These are technologies that are generally only recently invented and have not spread beyond their point of origin.

This list will be created as technologies are invented!