Setting Principles

Disconnected diaspora. Human beings have unlocked technology that allows them to travel between the stars faster than the speed of light. Yet a voyage between two systems can still take weeks to complete. Interstellar travel is a significant endeavour, and distant colonies can be almost completely cut off from civilisation at large. It means that even in the far-flung future, there are still remote frontiers and unexplained mysteries out there in the dark. The Foundation can barely hold itself together, and it is local and colonial authorities that dictate the law of the land.

We’re alone. Mankind has explored and settled dozens of systems in the past century of space exploration. Many of the worlds we’ve found have indigenous biospheres; too many and too compatible with terrestrial life to be mere coincidence, according to some xenobiologists. Despite that, humans have yet to find sapient life anywhere in the universe. Attempts to develop true artificial intelligence have been ongoing for decades, but only sophisticated autonomous programs have been the result. Humanity seems to have been left to its own devices - at least for now.

It’s a haunted universe. Everywhere humans have settled, they’ve been greeted by inexplicable mysteries. Some of those mysteries can be found out in the open, baffling the Foundation’s greatest minds: the poorly understood principles behind faster-than-light travel, or the suspicious abundance of alien life throughout the Foundation. Others are the subject of ghost stories and urban legends, half-believed superstitions warped by whispered retellings.

High tech and low life. The Foundation has fusion power, antigravity technology and faster-than-light travel. However, these revolutionary technologies are not distributed equally. Advanced technology and scientific breakthroughs have not fundamentally changed the power structures of the Old Earth; they have only reinforced them. If you choose to live beyond the influence of these structures, you pay for freedom with hardship and struggle - and often with outdated tech that wouldn’t be out of place in the present day.

It’s not over yet. The oligarchs and corporations that run the affairs of humanity can seem insurmountable, but they’re not. They haven’t won yet, and under the veneer of strength they’re weaker than they seem. There are still people and places beyond their influence; your characters count themselves amongst that number. Hope is a rare and precious thing, but it still exists in the universe. It won’t survive without a lot of help.

Regions

The Core is a tight cluster of about a dozen star systems, most within a few parsecs of each other, and the basis of the Foundation’s power. Its birthright is the legacy of the Old Earth and it is the center of the inhabited universe - at least, that’s how they see themselves. Some would call the Core the pinnacle of human civilisation and technology. Others would call it a repressive oligarchy ruled by hereditary dynasties and entrenched megacorporations.

The younger outer systems of the Core are sometimes called “the territories”. Too far from Tau to manage centrally, these colonial governments have a lot more latitude and autonomy than the “coreworlds” proper. Unfortunately, the megacorps take full advantage of this lack of oversight, treating the territories like their personal playground. This game does not take place in the Core, but your adventures might take you to some of these outer territories.

The Rim is where this game is set, and it’s where most of your adventures will take place. Humanity has left the century of rapid expansion, when new habitable planets were being discovered every year; the majority of those systems were simply too far from the Core to be brought fully into its sway. Today, those systems make up the Rim.

The Rim is home to the most remote systems that humans have settled in thus far, and to the youngest colonies. Though the Foundation still proclaims its sovereignty and authority over them, Rim systems are mostly beyond its ability to enforce anything but the occasional bout of vicious frontier justice (usually dispensed from the missile bays of a gunship). Don’t poke the bear, and you’ll probably be left alone.

With isolation comes neglect, and many Rim systems became forgotten backwaters when the initial boom of interstellar colonisation died down. The fledgling colonies that held onto their independence paid a heavy price for it, and many are still paying. Life on the Rim can be brutal and short, but freedom from the imperialism of the Foundation is worth it for some.

System Names: Tau, Eden, Amber, Mira, Eyrie, Limina, Monte Cristo, Nova Sirius, Phoenix, Shaw, Vera’s Star, Wayfarer, Zenith, Bei’An, Eschaton, Hope, Lucerne, Magrit, Ishani’s Star, Nemesis, Saanvi, Samarkand, Sentinel, Markov’s Folly

History

The Foundation, the interstellar government that dominates the Core and strangles the Rim, started with the Beyonder. That fateful vessel brought humanity from the ruins of the Old Earth and into their new home amidst the stars. They were a collection of scientists, engineers, pilots and mechanics drawn from across the nations of the Old Earth, but the people who inhabit the Foundation today have kept little of their old allegiances and affiliations.

For every piece of the Old Earth that was recovered from the databanks of the Beyonder or reconstructed from the hazy recollections of the first colonists, ten things were lost. The Foundation is, after all, a post-apocalyptic society that was built from remnants and fragments of what came before. Its culture is an irregular alloy of the old and the new, mixed and remixed until no one can tell where one ends and the other begins.

Language

The languages of the Foundation are those that were spoken by the crew of the Beyonder or were recorded in its databanks. A great many have been lost forever.

Universal is the “official” language of the Foundation, and the common tongue of spacefarers. It’s a modified version of Mandarin Chinese riddled with loanwords. It’s close enough to its origin that someone who speaks Universal can puzzle out old manuals from the Beyonder, but still very different from the language that was once spoken on the Old Earth. If you’re in a spaceport that sees passengers from all over the Foundation, you’re almost certainly reading or speaking Universal.

Universal is not the only language spoken in the Foundation, though. The other languages brought to space by humankind - along with a handful of brand new ones - can still be found in places. They’re much more marginalised, though. You’ll find other languages spoken by certain communities and subcultures, for example, or used only by members of certain religious institutions.

The languages you’re most likely to hear out there include: Cantonese, English, French, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish. You’re much more likely to find people using other languages out on the Rim, where the normative influence of the Foundation is weaker. It’s still rare to meet someone who doesn’t speak Universal at all, but not unheard of.