My recent readings in science fiction have had me thinking about Star Frontiers. The setting more than the game mechanics. I've done various riffs on the species and things before, but I don't think I've ever really thought about how I'd run it "straight"--at least not since I ran it in middle school. Here are some bullet points of things I've thought of:
Managed Tech
"We of the Institute receive an intensive historical inculcation; we know the men of the past, and we have projected dozens of possible future variations, which, without exception, are repulsive. Man, as he exists now, with all his faults and vices, a thousand gloriously irrational compromises between two thousand sterile absolutes – is optimal. Or so it seems to us who are men."- Jack Vance, The Killing Machine
Technology marches on and Star Frontiers is very much retrotech, which I would mostly keep, I think, but rather than just pretend technology never advanced in some areas, I like I would lampshade it with the existence of something like the Institute in Vance's Demon Princes novels that limits the available technology. Perhaps they do so because of the excesses of the past? Maybe AI or transhumanism or both drove humanity to Frontier Space from their homeworld?
We're Pan-Galactic
The pervasive Pan-Galactic Corporation could drive things in a cyberpunkian direction, but I think I would want to wink at the dystopian potential of this rather than making it the primary theme. Corporate futures aren't uncommon in science fiction pre-cyberpunk (it shows up in the 70s comic Star Hunters, for instance) but I'd think I'd want to take a sort of American Flagg! or 2000AD satirical nod to it rather than make everything about fighting the system.
Rockets
Star Frontiers doesn't mention any sort of gravity generating tech and Knight Hawks has ship decks aligned like floors in a skyscraper. I'd retain that hard(er) science fiction approach.
17 comments:
I have had this idea about Star Frontiers where the PGC use their control of the market and mass-media, along with political influence, to stifle technological development and limit what is available in the "Core Sector." That is, to push consumerism, they would produce low-quality hardware with planned obsolescence so people are forced to replace equipment that "burnout" after so much time or use. Due to all the commercialism and media hype, everyone thinks that is normal and rush to buy the latest model with only superficial "improvements."
On the other hand, there are antiques and devices build on remote sector beyond the reach of PGC influence that are rugged, reliable and can be used for as long as they are property maintained, even defying the normal (rule) restrictions placed on common models. So a gun, inspired by Captain Harlock's 'Cosmo Dragoon', presented in SF as an old service pistol a romanticized era of exploration, would be seen as too old and unsafe for normal use, if not banned in places. But with improved power capacity, greater damage output, rechargeable cells and the cultural symbolism that it conveys, it becomes a prize for any seasoned adventurer worthy of wielding it. While some planet-born rube would scoff at it, a savvy spacer who know better would pay respect.
Its like finding magic weapons and armor in D&D, but in this case, you start off with cheap disposable BIC lighters until, at some point, you eventually come across an old-ass, reliable Zippo lighter and you never go back.
Good thoughts. I could see that working well.
As I recall, the Institute turned out to be quite fatally flawed and rather villainous itself. No reason any tech-retarding organization couldn't be the same. The degree of patronizing elitism required to justify such a thing is inherently open to corruption and abuse.
The real problem I have with Star Frontiers done "straight" is that the Frontier is a Frontier to nowhere. There's no info worth mentioning of where the core of civilization is, no thought put into the trade and migration that should be flowing too and from the Frontier, and they introduced way too many canonical alien species just in the Volturnus modules for it to be reasonable for there to only be four allied civilized species opposing the Sathar. Sophonts are apparently really common in this setting, easily on par with Star wars.
You have to do so much work to get the published setting to make any sense at all it's arguably easier to just build from scratch instead.
That may well be true.
My thought would be regarding the core, is that it's lost to them. Perhaps a collapsed gate/wormhole or either exile by the transhuman forces/AI. Both of these things add elements to the setting of course, but mostly in gaps.
All the sophonts is sort of hokey, but Volturnus is sort of a planetary romance thing. Either you allow that and lampshade it by having people in-setting be mystified by all this or you could delete Volturnus.
I always thought that the ancient Eorna uplifted all the other volturnian races to sentience.
Love it. Nothing really clever to add except to marvel at how well you recapitulate Rules 7 and 8 of Wile E. Coyote:
"All materials tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme Corporation."
"Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote's greatest enemy."
Maybe that's all Star Frontiers (and Volturnus in particular) really is.
It's River Song!!
@alea - seems likely.
@bombasticus - ha!
@Tim - spoilers! ;D
The funny thing is, I'm pretty obtuse when it comes to Sci-Fi...and so, too (I think), are my kids. I could probably run SF VERY straight-faced, even without adding a cynical take on the PGC, and my children would (probably) eat it up.
[I bring up my kids because they're the ones I'm usually gaming with these days]
It has always been the Star Frontiers SYSTEM that I have issues with, not the setting. From my POV, the setting is far easier than Star Wars or Star Trek...or even something more human-centric like an Asimov novel.
I have run the classic modules and original campaigns over the years, and if you dig into the materials, you'll find both some obvious errors (e.g., Dralasites don't see color (Expanded Rules, p6 under senses "Dralasites see only in black and white." but in the same book, p50, "Inner Reach (Dramune) has an unusual local custom. The Dralasites colony by the Terledrom government. that live there dye their skin various colors to show their mood for the day. The dyes wash off easily.") and some clearly inferred origins.
Let's start with Yazirians who have the Frontier's South West (Screen From, Araks, Athor, Gruna Gary). Two worlds have a heavy pop density, and one of these is a theocracy where everyone wears uniforms. Zeb's guide shows that all of these were "discovered" and colonized, one probably by some religious group perhaps seeking an escape from persecution or some autonomy? The Yazirians have a small strip of "multi-cultural" worlds between them and the rest of the Frontier, which is interesting and makes sense since the order of meeting was Dralasite-Vrusk, then Human to the first two and finally Yazirian.
Moving on there is really only one Dralasite world: Terledrom in Fromeltar, implying this is their homeworld. Later in Zeb's Guide this is one of the worlds that is never "discovered" in the timeline. Dralasites expanded to Dramune ("discovered" by them in 170pf), but that system has one planet that is an outpost with a lot of crime and the other is minor. But looking between the lines here, the Dralasite are under the thumb of the Vrusk who are their neighbors. This means that the Dralasites are most likely from the "Frontier," and they aren't really masters at home.
I saw "Pan-Galactic" and immediately thought it'd be a commercial space liner company known for its attractive, snappy-dressing stewardesses and going to exotic, far-flung locations.
@Sam - doesn't surprise me at the contradictions. Particularly between Aeb's guide and the rest.
@jdh417 - I'm trying to picture a Vrusk in a stewardess outfit.
@jdh417: I agree!
@trey: me either
For some reason the second half of the post didn't appear, so hear it is:
The Vrusk themselves are next door in the northeast with the clearly Vrusk named systems (Kizk-kar, K'aken-kar, K'tsa-kar) and much is made of their mercantilism and, frankly, expansionism. All three of the Vrusk systems in Alpha Dawn are "discovered" by Vrusk per Zebulon's guide and are really colonies. There's also an interesting world first explored in a module where Humans and Vrusk do not get along and terrorism rears its head: Kraatar in the Tristkar system.
This leaves Humans (Madderly's Start, Dixon's Star, Theseus, White Light and Timeon). These are not all nice places, incidentally. White Light has a horrible nickname and is a depressing mud ball with a constitutional monarchy (there's some hints of an Earth origin here incidentally in the British Empire if you look at Knight Hawks closely, but that might be a stretch. Would love to know what others think). There are also some autocratic systems in the mix. The order of discovery is interesting, entering from the bottom, southeast corner of the map: Theseus (299pf), Dixon's Star (220pf), Madderly's Star (210pf), Timeon (152pf), White Light (60pf).
So in my game, I play that Dralasites are natives and most of the rest of the species arrived via slower-than-light travel to start, spreading from their starting points. In one campaign I had a "star gate" system in ancient history that then was destroyed, cutting a cargo culture off from the means to make technology, which partly explains why an interplanetary society has some strange idiosyncrasies in technology (like computing, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, etc.). It also helps explain relatively low manufacturing and, to be honest, a small population base for a large number of planets. The actual fleet size of the planetary militias and UPF is small, as is the personnel.
Some combination of these can add quite a bit of color and explain a lot without violating canon. Adding to what's in the material can round out quite a bit in a pretty satisfying way, and it's entirely possible then thatt pushing further to the southeast of the Frontier could move Earthward, to the northeast toward the Vrusk, to the west towards Yazirians of a different sort. And of course, the Sathar are found out there as can be found in quite a bit of material!
Interesting! Are those dates from Zebulon's?
Yeah - all the dates are in the Zeb's timeline, which is useful even if you are playing AD or KH alone.
Dralasites do only see in black and white, but that doesn't make the "mood paint" custom one bit unreasonable. People with true color blindness are perfectly capable of discerning shades of colors (which they see as grays, but they're still shades),and the two people I've known who suffered from it could do so with remarkable precision, far better than I can manage with very similar shades of (say) green or red. One of them was the best painter I've ever met, despite relying entirely on labelling his paints and feedback from folks with color vision as to what combinations were appealing. There were a few occasions where two very different colors registered as the same gray to him, but they were very few and far between.
Those Dralasites might only understand "puce" or "lavender" as shades of gray, but they'd be able to differentiate them with ease and understand the implicit meanings in the shades - and possibly better than the other species could.
@Dick Mcgee: That is helpful! I hadn't thought of it as similar to Human color blindness at all, but that analogy makes sense. I've heard that there are different types of color blindness in us Humans, and that the impact varies; so I don't have a problem (anymore) with this seeming inconsistency in the rules. Thank you! It's always been jarring for me to run into that even though I know the authors aren't perfect, it breaks the verisimilitude and won't from now on.
I also heard in a review that many video games aren't designed with this color filtering effect in mind for color blind adaptation. I was reading on this "lack of options for colorblindness" for Larian (who also claimed that colorblindness is not the same thing as no color vision) on Reddit early and never connected these!
I think in a SciFi game, I now have all I need to fill in the gaps! after all, it's not presented as a disadvantage for Dralasites but rather as (forgive the unintended pun) color on them.
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