Space Senators

Overview

The Cloud is bisected by a great void of dark, obscuring gas; the Rift. On this side is the Mulian Republic, on the far side are the Atlantean Worlds. The few lonely stars lying between them are the gatekeepers of travel, host to ancient fortifications and frontier fleets. In its two thousand years the Republic has never fallen, but in this debased era, it may be in its final act.

Humanity is not native to the Cloud; ancient histories speak of an emmigration from the Great Wheel. Many worlds were seeded by this emmigration wave, an era dimly illuminated by only slightly less ancient histories - the Thurian age, named after the near-mythical Thurian empire. A surprisingly small amount is known about the ancient Thurians, with fact difficult to seperate from fiction. Whatever the truth, the Thurians spread humanity to even more worlds of the Cloud before they collapsed. The resulting dark ages lasted a millenia or more, until the Dawn Wars saw the creation of the Naacal Republic - which, after more than a century of crusades and expansions, had brought civilization to much of the Cloud and driven the blackguards and reavers to the Unknown Regions. Symbolically renaming itself the Mulian Republic, a golden age had dawned.

The fortunes of the Republic waxed and waned over the centuries - no polity could be steady state for millenia. Eras of divided government caused stagnation, Wars against Turan, Kesh and Alkheen shifted its borders, assimilation of neobarbarians and xenos into the Republic expanded these borders in sudden jumps, the discovery of the fabled Star Forge brought forth a new era of rejuvenation. All of these filled libraries of histories, more words than could be read in a lifetime.

These glory days are long in the past, however. The rise in regionalism has been mirrored by the collapse in effective authority by the various Republican organs. Atlanteans have become more bold in pressing at the Rift Marches. The most powerful beings in the Cloud - senators of the Republic - act on their own authority more and more often. Rumors even swirl that the long-suppressed Meru - an enigmatic mystic order opposed to the dictates of the Klein Institute - are not as extinct as they were thought.

These may be the final days of the Republic. Will you save it or bring it down?

The characters

The Republic Senate today is a vast and unwieldy organization, constituted with thousands of seats. Necessary perhaps given the number of worlds in the Republic, but arcane rules and divergent interests have choked much of the life from the chamber. A number of political parties exist, each broken into a number of interest groups and splinter conspiracies. More than one Senator retires every week on average, a simple statistic that tells the size of the body.

The party members are either junior Senators - presumably of a like mind - or close, important associates.

Administrative Attributes

Characters in Space Senators are larger-than-life individuals; after all, when even the most junior elector represents many millions of souls and a budget to match they are someone important. They can call upon scientific experts, military leaders, bureaucratic majordomos and sundry others, not to mention vast and obscure legal precedent or galactic-scale resources. The companions and associates of senators are equally positioned; what non-senators might lack in some aspects they would gain in others. As a consequence, all characters have Administrative Attributes, not just senators.

Administrative Attributes represent, in essence, substantial and important resources a character has access to; warships and troops, economic wealth and freedom from many mundane entanglements are three examples.