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Four Spaceships

Four Spaceships

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Purely for amusement’s sake, here are the GURPS Spaceships writeups for four spacecraft in the Human Destiny setting. I’ve been finding it useful to draw up these ships using the GURPS rules, because they’re a pretty clean (and appropriately generic) system for spaceship design. Naturally, I’ll be adapting these to more system-agnostic terms as I write them up for the Human Destiny sourcebook. You’ll notice I’m already converting certain measurements to the metric system . . .

Human Protectorate Heavy Utility Lander (TL10)

Built on a 1,000-ton (SM+8) 60-meter streamlined hull, this large vehicle was a workhorse of the development of the outer Solar System.

Front Section

  • [1]: Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 10)
  • [2]: Passenger Seating (60 seats)
  • [3-6]: Cargo Hold (200 tons)
  • [core]: Control Room (C8, C/S 7, 4 control stations)

Center Section

  • [1]: Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 10)
  • [2-6, core]: Cargo Hold (300 tons)

Rear Section

  • [1]: Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 10)
  • [2-3]: Cargo Hold (100 tons)
  • [4-5]: Fuel Tank (100 tons hydrogen fuel, 30 mps delta-V)
  • [6]: Fusion Torch (0.5 G acceleration)

Features

  • Exposed Radiators

Crew Requirements

  • Pilot (Lieutenant)
  • Co-pilot (Sublieutenant)
  • Communications Operator (Enlisted)
  • Sensors Operator (Enlisted)

Details

dST/HP 70. HT 12. Hnd/SR -2/5. Move 0.5G/30 mps. Air Speed 2,800 kph. Air Hnd/SR -2/5. SM+8. Loaded mass 1,000 tons. dDR 10. Occupancy 4+60SV. Load 606.4 tons. Cost $28.9 million.

Khedai Hegemony Utility Spaceplane (TL12)

Built on a 1,000-ton (SM+8) 75-meter streamlined hull, this large spaceplane can be found all across the Hegemony. It can ferry passengers and cargo to and from the surface of inhabited worlds, make short journeys in interplanetary space, or serve as auxiliary craft for a starship.

Front Section

  • [1]: Exotic Laminate Armor (dDR 30)
  • [2]: Passenger Seating (60 seats)
  • [3-6]: Cargo Hold (200 tons)
  • [core]: Control Room (C10, C/S 9, 4 control stations)

Center Section

  • [1]: Exotic Laminate Armor (dDR 30)
  • [2-6]: Cargo Hold (250 tons)

Rear Section

  • [1]: Exotic Laminate Armor (dDR 30)
  • [2-4]: Cargo Hold (150 tons)
  • [5]: Engine Room (1 control station, 1 workspace)
  • [6!]: Reactionless Engine (1 G acceleration)
  • [core]: Fusion Reactor (de-rated, 1 PP, 3,000 years endurance)

Features

  • Exposed Radiators
  • Wings

Crew Requirements

  • Pilot (Lieutenant)
  • Co-pilot (Sublieutenant)
  • Communications Operator (Enlisted)
  • Sensors Operator (Enlisted)
  • Technicians x2 (Enlisted)

Details

dST/HP 70. HT 13. Hnd/SR -1/5. Move 1G/c. Air Speed 4,000 kph. Air Hnd/SR +3/6. SM+8. Loaded mass 1,000 tons. dDR 30. Occupancy 6+60SV. Load 606.6 tons. Cost $73.6 million.

Human Protectorate Heavy Utility Vehicle (TL10)

Built on a 100,000-ton (SM+12) 200-meter unstreamlined hull, this ship has a deep and rich history in the development of the Sol system. One of these vehicles, named Enterprise, was the first (and for a long time the only) Hegemony spaceship ever placed under human control.

Under human command, Enterprise spent decades journeying tirelessly through interplanetary space. The ship was used to set up asteroid-mining bases, to place industrial colonies on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, even to venture out to the Kuiper Belt and harvest comets for the terraforming of Mars. Along the way, the ship gave thousands of humans experience in deep-space operations using Hegemony technology. This cultural experience stood them in good stead when the Hegemony unexpectedly opened the way to the stars in the early  23rd Century.

Front Section

  • [1]: Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 70)
  • [2]: Comm/Sensor Array – Science (C/S 13, 10 workspaces)
  • [3]: Habitat (600 CE, 10 workspaces)
  • [4]: Hangar Bay (3,000 tons capacity, 500 tons/minute launch, 10 workspaces)
  • [5-6]: Cargo Hold (10,000 tons)
  • [core]: Control Room (C10, C/S 11, 20 control stations, 10 workspaces)

Center Section

  • [1]: Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 70)
  • [2]: Cargo Hold (5,000 tons)
  • [3!]: Factory – Robofac ($10 million/hour capacity, 10 workspaces)
  • [4!]: Mining (500 tons/hour capacity, 10 workspaces)
  • [5!]: Refinery (1,500 tons/hour capacity, 10 workspaces)
  • [6, core]: Fusion Reactor (4 PP, 200 years endurance, 20 workspaces)

Rear Section

  • [1]: Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (dDR 70)
  • [2-4]: Fuel Tank (15,000 tons hydrogen fuel, 180 mps delta-V)
  • [5-6]: Fusion Rocket (0.01 G acceleration, 20 workspaces)

Features

  • Exposed Radiators
  • Spin Gravity (0.5 G)
  • Total Life Support
  • Auxiliary Craft: Human Protectorate Heavy Utility Lander x3

Crew Requirements

  • Bridge Section: 12 officers, 8 enlisted (Captain x1, Commander x1, Subcommander x2, Lieutenant x3, Junior Officers x5, Enlisted x8)
  • Technical Section: 11 officers, 99 enlisted (Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x3, Junior Officers x7, Enlisted x99)
  • Flight Crew: 6 officers, 6 enlisted (Lieutenant x3, Junior Officers x3, Enlisted x6)
  • Administrative Section: 4 officers, 8 enlisted (Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x1, Junior Officers x2, Enlisted x8)
  • Science Section: 26 officers, 54 enlisted (Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x3, Junior Officers x22, Enlisted x54)
  • Medical Section: 2 officers, 2 enlisted (Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x1, Enlisted x2)
  • Services Section: 3 officers, 29 enlisted (Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x1, Junior Officers x1, Enlisted x29)
  • Passengers: 26 (2 luxury passengers, 24 passengers)
  • TOTAL: 296 (64 officers, 206 enlisted, 26 passengers) (Captain x1, Commander x1, Subcommander x7, Lieutenant x15, Junior Officers x40, Enlisted x206)

Habitat Allocation

  • Luxury Cabins x2 (8 CE)
  • Cabins x145 (290 CE)
  • Passenger Luxury Cabins x2 (8 CE)
  • Passenger Cabins x23 (46 CE)
  • Briefing Room x10 (10 CE)
  • Establishment x10 (20 CE)
  • Large Astronomy Lab (20 CE)
  • Large Chemistry Lab (20 CE)
  • Large Geology Lab (20 CE)
  • Large Physics Lab (20 CE)
  • Office x6 (6 CE)
  • Sickbay x40 (40 CE)
  • Steerage Cargo x92 (92 CE)
  • TOTAL 600 CE

Details

dST/HP 300. HT 14. Hnd/SR -4/5. Move 0.01G/180 mps. SM+12. Loaded mass 100,000 tons. dDR 70. Occupancy 344ASV. Load 18,494.4 tons. Cost $16.34 billion.

Khedai Hegemony Long-Range Exploration Starship (TL12)

This starship, built on a 30,000-ton (SM+11) 150-meter unstreamlined hull, is a mainstay of the Hegemony’s mission to explore and monitor interstellar space. Thousands of ships in this class are constantly on the move throughout the wilderness spaces supervised by the Khedai Hegemony. In particular, ships like this began to fan out from Sol soon after the Conquest.

Early in the 23rd Century, the Hegemony began to recruit human crew for these exploration missions, permitting them to contribute to surveys within ten parsecs or so of Sol. Later, Aminata Ndoye (one of the first humans to earn officer’s rank in the Interstellar Service) worked aboard several ships of this class. Indeed, she was the first human to command one of them, the Challenger, during its history-making expedition toward the stars of Orion.

Front Section

  • [1]: Exotic Laminate Armor (dDR 150)
  • [2]: Comm/Sensor Array – Science (C/S 14, 3 workspaces)
  • [3]: Open Space (0.5 acres, 3 workspaces)
  • [4-5]: Habitat (400 CE, 6 workspaces)
  • [6]: Defensive ECM (-2 to hit, 3 workspaces)
  • [core]: Control Room (C11, C/S 12, 15 control stations, 3 workspaces)

Center Section

  • [1]: Exotic Laminate Armor (dDR 150)
  • [2-3]: Hangar Bay (2,000 tons capacity, 200 tons/minute launch, 6 workspaces)
  • [4-5]: Cargo Hold (3,000 tons)
  • [6!]: Factory – Nanofactory ($30 million/hour capacity, 3 workspaces)
  • [core]: Total Conversion Reactor (5 PP, infinite endurance, 3 workspaces)

Rear Section

  • [1]: Exotic Laminate Armor (dDR 150)
  • [2]: Defensive ECM (-2 to hit, 3 workspaces)
  • [3-4!!]: Reactionless Drive (2 G acceleration, 6 workspaces)
  • [5-6!!!!]: Super Stardrive (FTL-4, 12 workspaces)

Features

  • Exposed Radiators
  • Spin Gravity (0.3 G)
  • Stealth Hull (-12 to detect)
  • Total Life Support
  • Auxiliary Craft: Khedai Hegemony Utility Spaceplane x2

Crew Requirements

  • Bridge Section: 9 officers, 6 enlisted (Commander x1, Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x2, Junior Officers x5, Enlisted x6)
  • Technical Section: 5 officers, 40 enlisted (Lieutenant x1, Junior Officers x4, Enlisted x40)
  • Flight Crew: 4 officers, 8 enlisted (Lieutenant x2, Junior Officers x2, Enlisted x8)
  • Administrative Section: 3 officers, 5 enlisted (Lieutenant x1, Junior Officers x2, Enlisted x5)
  • Science Section: 24 officers, 48 enlisted (Subcommander x1, Lieutenant x3, Junior Officers x20, Enlisted x48)
  • Medical Section: 1 officer, 1 enlisted (Lieutenant x1, Enlisted x1)
  • Services Section: 1 officer, 11 enlisted (Lieutenant x1, Enlisted x11)
  • TOTAL: 166 (47 officers, 119 enlisted) (Commander x1, Subcommander x2, Lieutenant x11, Junior Officers x33, Enlisted x119)

Habitat Allocation

  • Luxury Cabins x2 (8 CE)
  • Cabins x90 (180 CE)
  • Briefing Room x6 (6 CE)
  • Establishment x6 (12 CE)
  • Astronomy Lab x6 (12 CE)
  • Biology Lab x6 (12 CE)
  • Chemistry Lab x6 (12 CE)
  • Geology Lab x6 (12 CE)
  • Metallurgy Lab x6 (12 CE)
  • Physics Lab x6 (12 CE)
  • Office x4 (4 CE)
  • Sickbay x20 (20 CE)
  • Steerage Cargo x98 (98 CE)
  • TOTAL 400 CE

Details

dST/HP 200. HT 14. Hnd/SR -2/5. Move 2G/c. SM+11. Loaded mass 30,000 tons. dDR 150. Occupancy 184ASV. Load 5,508.4 tons. Cost $14.0 billion.

Aminata Ndoye

Aminata Ndoye

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Here’s a first cut at a Human Destiny character under the evolving Basic Roleplaying (BRP) design. This is my occasional protagonist, Aminata Ndoye, as she first appears in the novelette “Pilgrimage.” At this point she is sixteen years old, having just finished her primary education, and she is starting to consider what she plans to do with her life.

Aminata Ndoye

  • Female human, age 16
  • Height 1.72 m, mass 60 kg
  • Deep brown skin, dark brown eyes, close-cropped black hair, solid athletic build
  • Resident of Dakar, Haute-Guinée du Nord
  • Mixed Wolof and Egyptian Arab descent
  • Sunni Muslim with Sufi influences
  • Social Standing: 22% (Gold card)

Characteristics

  • STR 13 (Effort roll 65%)
  • CON 14 (Stamina roll 70%)
  • SIZ 12
  • INT 17 (Idea roll 85%)
  • POW 12 (Luck roll 60%)
  • DEX 16 (Agility roll 80%)
  • CHA 13 (Charm roll 65%)
  • EDU 11 (Knowledge roll 55%)

Damage Modifier: +1d4
Hit Points: 13
Fatigue Points: 27
Power Points: 12
Experience Bonus: +9%
Movement (MOV): 10 units/round

Skills

Only those skills that have been improved from their default value (based on skill base values and category bonuses) are specifically listed here.

  • Communication Skills (+9%)
    • Language
      • Wolof (native) 90%
      • Arabic 40%
      • French 60%
    • Persuade 50%
  • Manipulation Skills (+10%)
  • Mental Skills (+8%)
    • Knowledge (Literature) 20%
    • Science (Astronomy) 30%
    • Technical (Computer Use) 40%
  • Perception Skills (+10%)
  • Physical Skills (+7%)
    • Pilot (Small Aircraft) 30%
  • Combat Skills (+10%)

Personality Traits

  • Sympátheia – 60% kosmos, 40% khaos
  • Logismós – 70% kosmos, 30% khaos
  • Prónoia – 50% kosmos, 50% khaos
  • Prokopé – 50% kosmos, 50% khaos
  • Andreía – 70% kosmos, 30% khaos
  • Evexía – 50% kosmos, 50% khaos

General Commentary

In my opinion, this exercise didn’t turn out too badly. It took me maybe an hour to draw up this character, and that’s with me being out of practice with BRP character design and without a paper character sheet to work with.

At this point in her life Aminata is clearly very talented and she has started to develop some skills, but she is far from being a world-class expert on anything. She’s just the equivalent of a precocious high-school student, after all. Her personality traits seem reasonable – Aminata tends to be cool and rational, but she has a sympathetic streak, and she’s also quite brave in a tight situation.

This would be a good example of a very young Human Destiny character with exceptional characteristic rolls, just starting out on an adventuring career. I’m thinking that the character-design rules are on the right track so far.

Thoughts on Fourth Millennium

Thoughts on Fourth Millennium

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“Battle of Pydna 168 BCE,” by Peter Connolly

While I continue to make incremental progress on Architect of Worlds and Twice-Crowned, I also keep thinking about what’s likely to be my next big tabletop RPG project, beginning later this year. That’s a full-fledged historical-fantasy game, probably published under the Cypher System, with the working title of Fourth Millennium.

The premise is that this is the ancient Western world, centered around the Mediterranean basin, but it’s not exactly the world we see in our history books. There are fantastic elements: spirits that can be bargained with, gods who may or may not be kindly disposed toward mortals, magic that works more often than not, strange creatures that lurk in the wilderness beyond the borders of civilization. It’s also an alternate history, with several points of divergence: a survival of Minoan civilization, a Hellenic world that didn’t commit suicide in the fifth century BCE with quite so much short-sighted enthusiasm, an Alexandrian οἰκουμένη that managed to survive its founder’s death. The setting is divided between two incipient world-empires and a whole host of minor kingdoms and barbarian peoples, each with their own distinctive flavor.

One thing I’ve been thinking about is the “canonical adventure” for the setting. My past experience with RPG design tells me that this is really important. Potential players and game-masters need to be clear as to what they can expect to do in a setting. Dungeons & Dragons centers around the dungeon crawl. Traveller centers around doing odd jobs to survive on the fringes of interstellar society. Transhuman Space, when we first developed it, was a lovely rich setting that didn’t have a clear answer for “what do the characters do?” and that handicapped it for a long time.

So what will player characters in Fourth Millennium be doing? I think that boils down to the motto for the setting – something that may end up being the core book’s subtitle:

The future is in your hands.

The idea is that player characters will be thoroughly involved in history as it unfolds in this alternative world. They’ll start out as agents for powerful people – an ambitious Roman senator, a powerful post-Minoan priestess-queen, a provincial governor in the Alexandrian empire, that sort of setup. At first they’ll be carrying out missions for their patron – accumulating rewards of wealth and treasure, sure, but also gathering social standing and authority. Eventually they’ll become more independent, becoming movers and shakers in their own right. They’ll feel as if they’re making a mark on the future of the world – although, to be sure, Fate and the gods will have their own say.

So yeah, fighting monsters, but more often human foes: cutpurses and assassins, pirates, brigands, barbarian raiders. Exploring the uncivilized wilderness, traveling in strange foreign lands. Solving mysteries, making scientific discoveries, writing books that everyone wants to read. Making brilliant speeches, intriguing to discredit or eliminate political rivals, persuading people to vote one way or another. Making a fortune in trade or loot, or just collecting the revenue from big land-holdings. Fighting in wars, even commanding armies. Winning elections, holding political office, governing whole provinces. Eventually reaching the top of the social pyramid in whatever republic, kingdom, or empire you call your own. The end-point of a successful long-term campaign might be to gather such fame and glory that people will still be talking about you at the end of the Fourth Millennium.

One major inspiration here might be games like Pendragon or Paladin – games that aren’t just richly imagined settings, but structured campaigns that encourage play across years and even generations.

I know, I know. Ambitious as all hell, especially for a one-person development shop. Well, a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. And you never know, maybe the Muses are thinking kindly of me.

Fourth Millennium

Fourth Millennium

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Alexandros III of Makedon, called “The Great,” first Great King of the Argead dynasty (2702-2735 EK) (Image by Arienne King, original found here)

By the reckoning of years used in the Danassan Hegemony, the date is 3000 Ἔτος Κόσμου, the three thousandth year since the creation of the world. A new millennium is at hand, an age of prosperous cities and growing empires, new gods and ancient mysteries, science and darkest magic. It seems likely to be an age of conflict as well. Ambitious generals and kings struggle for power, and barbarian peoples look with envy on the wealth and sophistication of civilized lands. What history will reveal next, not even the gods can know for sure.

Fourth Millennium has been conceived as a game setting, derived from some of my own fiction: short stories set in the Greek “Heroic Age” as well as the novel-in-progress Twice-Crowned and its eventual sequels. It’s grown past its literary beginnings, though, taking on shape as a rich alternate-historical fantasy world.

Fourth Millennium echoes the Mediterranean world of our own history, in the first century before the Common Era . . . but fate has taken its own turns here. An offshoot of Minoan civilization survived, creating a neo-Hellenic culture in which women hold religious and political power. The Peloponnesian War may have taken place, but its outcome was less viciously harmful to the Hellenic civilization at its peak. Alexander the Great may have died young, but his son survived and came out on top of the civil wars that followed his death. The Roman Republic is on the rise, but it faces tough competition in the East, in the form of an Hellenistic world that is stronger and more unified.

Adventurers can come from a variety of origins: Greeks of several varieties, Romans and other Latins, Celts, Germans, Berbers, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Judeans, Persians, and many more. They may be warriors and soldiers, oracles and seers, legates and senators, or philosophers and scientists. There will be a variety of possible campaign structures: military stories, politics and intrigue, high-stakes commercial ventures, mysteries, exploration, possibly all of these at once.

The concept in my head is for a Cypher System game, published under the Monte Cook Games open license. I can already see the broad outlines of the game, and a lot of details that will fit the setting. I’m still debating whether to write one book or two here – there may be so much setting detail, so much to suggest a variety of structures for campaigns and adventures, that it won’t all fit in one volume.

Best guess is that I’ll be pulling together notes for Fourth Millennium while I work on getting Architect of Worlds out the door in the first half of this year. I might post a few fragments and notes here, or push them to my patrons as small freebies. Once Architect is finished, assuming my muse is still engaged by then, serious work on this project is likely to get under way.

Have to say, the more I think about this project the more excited I am for it. The ancient Mediterranean world has been a personal fascination for over half my life; it will be nice to get back to it as a game designer. Not to mention I’ve learned a lot since I wrote GURPS Greece, coming up on thirty years ago . . .

Human Destiny: Technology Levels

Human Destiny: Technology Levels

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Here’s a small sample of material for the Human Destiny setting and game book that’s slowly taking shape. In the Cepheus Engine and related tabletop games, there’s often a system of “technology levels” that helps characterize what kind of gear and weapons one might expect to find on a given world. The concept has its problems, but it’s a quick shorthand that’s useful for game purposes. Since Human Destiny is eventually going to be published as a Cepheus Engine game, it seems useful to put together a set of “tech level” tables for the setting.

Here’s a first very rough draft for that section of the Human Destiny sourcebook.

Technology Levels in the Human Destiny Setting

The Khedai Hegemony maintains a sophisticated scheme for classifying the technological and social progress of emerging civilizations. The following system of “tech levels” is a (vastly simplified) shorthand for the Hegemony’s scheme.

General Technology

As is the standard in any Cepheus Engine game, Technology Level or Tech Level is a measure of the social, scientific, and industrial progress of a given world or society. In Hegemony documents, each TL has an evocative descriptor, and can be associated with an approximate era in human history.

TLDescriptorApproximate Date or Typical World
0Era of Stone ToolsPaleolithic, Mesolithic, or Neolithic society
1Era of Metal Tools3000 BCE
2Era of Exploration1500 CE
3Era of Mechanization1750 CE
4Era of Electricity1900 CE
5Era of Radio1930 CE
6Era of Atomic Power1950 CE
7Era of Space Exploration1970 CE
8Era of Information1990 CE
9Era of Crisis2020 CE
10 (A)Low Interstellar SocietyMinor human colony world or outpost
11 (B)Low Interstellar SocietyMajor human colony world or outpost
12 (C)Average Interstellar SocietyMaximum level for the Human Protectorate
13 (D)Average Interstellar SocietyMaximum level for a second-tier client society
14 (E)High Interstellar SocietyMaximum level for a first-tier client society
15 (F)High Interstellar SocietyMaximum level for the Khedai Hegemony as a whole

It may not be immediately obvious, but the Hegemony’s scheme for classifying technological progress includes two singularities, each of which creates a discontinuity in the above table.

The normal pattern for any newly evolving technological civilization is to progress from TL 0, passing through the higher levels in order, finally reaching some maximum level of social and technological progress. At this point the civilization invariably suffers an existential crisis that, at a minimum, forces all its component societies back to some lower TL. This may happen multiple times before the sapient species in question is finally driven into extinction. The highest point of independent development is almost never higher than TL 9. In fact, civilizations that reach TL 9 on their own almost always suffer particularly deadly collapses, likely to cause immediate species extinction – hence the term “Era of Crisis.”

The transition from TL 9 to TL A represents the first discontinuity or singularity in the scheme. Very few civilizations manage to pass the Era of Crisis on their own. Almost all societies that survive the transition and attain interstellar status do so only because an older civilization intervenes, as the Khedai Hegemony did with humanity.

Under the Praxis observed by the Khedai Hegemony, newly discovered sapient societies at TL 0-3 are observed from a distance under a strict non-interference policy. Societies at TL 4-9 are subject to close observation, and possibly annexation if (as in almost all cases) they appear unlikely to survive on their own.

The interstellar levels that follow (TL A through TL F) do not represent a hierarchy of new technologies that appear one after the other in a progressive fashion. Instead, they represent an array of mature technologies, all millions of years old, which are all available throughout the Hegemony. The TL of a world which falls in this range represents the kind of technology that is widely available on that world, because it is locally manufactured and can be supported by existing infrastructure. Items from a higher TL will also be available, but possibly at a higher cost in social credit, or with specific limitations under the Praxis.

Humans know nothing about any technologies above TL F. Humans may speculate, and the khedai doubtless know what technologies might be possible, but under the Praxis such possibilities are cloaked in silence. A few humans suspect that this silence conceals a second discontinuity or singularity, beyond which even the Hegemony dares not go.

Energy Technologies

The Hegemony’s scheme for classifying technologies is most strongly determined by a society’s ability to harness and direct energy to carry out the work of civilization.

TLTypical Developments
0Muscle power
Domesticated animals
Slave labor
1Hydromechanical power
Water wheels
2Wind power
Windmills
3Steam power
Exploitation of fossil fuels (coal)
Crude electrical transmission and storage
4Widespread use of electrical power
Exploitation of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas)
Oil refining to produce high-quality fuels
Hydroelectric power
5Rural electrification
Urban power grids
6Nuclear fission reactors
Regional power grids
7Increasing use of solar power
Continental power grids
8Mass application of renewable energy
9Crude “smart grids”
Possible abandonment of fossil fuels
10 (A)Advanced “smart grids”
Advanced fission power
Superconducting power transmission
Hyper-efficient power cells
Solar power satellites
Complete abandonment of fossil fuels
11 (B)Nuclear fusion reactors
12 (C)Advanced fusion power
13 (D)Antimatter generation and transport
14 (E)Advanced antimatter power
Portable fusion power
Catalyzed fusion
15 (F)Miniaturized fusion power

Communications and Information

This category covers technologies for generating, transmitting, storing, and applying information. It also includes various forms of artificial intelligence and artificial sapience.

TLTypical Developments
0Oral communication
1Written communication
Printing press (block printing)
Crude cryptography
2Printing press (movable type)
Advanced cryptography (manual)
3Telegraph
Early telephones
4Teletype
Widespread telephone networks
Advanced cryptography (electromechanical)
5Radio broadcasting
Massive special-purpose computing devices
6Television broadcasting
Massive general-purpose computing devices
Information theory
7Early packet-switched networks
Personal computers
Industrial automation
Advanced cryptography (digital)
Public-key cryptography
8Global Internet
Advanced personal computers
Advanced ICS/SCADA systems
Large-scale public-key infrastructures
9Miniaturized personal computers
Early natural-language interfaces
Early automatic translation
Sophisticated robots and drones
“Cloud” computing
Crude quantum computation
10 (A)Advanced natural-language interfaces
Advanced automatic translation
Cybershells
Ubiquitous computing
Large-scale quantum computation
11 (B)Sophisticated personal assistants
Advanced expert systems
Advanced cybershells
Sophisticated personality emulation
12 (C)Early Virtual Sapience systems
Fully Turing-capable systems
Undirected machine learning
“City minds”
13 (D)Advanced Virtual Sapience systems
14 (E)Early Artificial Sapience systems
Proof-of-consciousness systems
“World minds”
15 (F)Advanced Artificial Sapience systems
Transapience threshold

Environmental

This category covers technologies that can alter or maintain planetary environments. It also covers common developments in environmental awareness – the process by which a civilization learns how its own activities can impact the environment upon which it relies for support.

TLTypical Developments
0Agriculture and pastoralism
Early trade networks
Forest clearing
Overhunting
Megafaunal extinction
1Early cities
Basic aqueducts and sanitation
Advanced trade networks
Continental empires
2Global trade networks
Transcontinental empires and colonization
3Indoor plumbing
Advanced sanitation
Large-scale use of fossil fuels
Large-scale habitat destruction begins
4Super-cities (>1 million)
Large-scale water treatment
Sophontogenic climate change begins
5Super-cities (>10 million)
6Megalopolitan regions (>50 million)
“Green Revolution” in agriculture
Awareness of global harms from pollution
7Megalopolitan regions (>100 million)
Sophontogenic mass extinction begins
Awareness of sophontogenic climate change
8Gene-modified crop species
Awareness of sophontogenic mass extinction
9Crude geoengineering
Civilizational collapse
10 (A)Organic urban reserves
Advanced geoengineering
Climate and ecological remediation
De-extinction
11 (B)Domed cities
Artificial species to fill ecological niches
Type I (Mars) terraforming
12 (C)Advanced climate and ecological remediation
“Biome minds” monitor wild ecosystems
13 (D)Type II (Venus, Mercury, Luna) terraforming
14 (E)“World minds” monitor global ecosystems
15 (F)Type III (extremal) terraforming

Medical

This category covers medical and biological technologies.

TLTypical Developments
0Herbal remedies
Crude surgery and prosthetics
1Diagnostic process
Basic understanding of anatomy
2Advanced understanding of anatomy
Crude immunization techniques
3Germ theory and bacteriology
Epidemiology
Antiseptic surgery
Advanced anesthesia
Crude psychiatry
4Antibiotics
X-rays and other internal imaging
Public health measures
Mass vaccination
5Blood transfusions
Discovery of transplant rejection
6Eradication of some infectious diseases
Discovery of the structure of DNA
7Theories of molecular evolution
Crude genetic engineering
Advanced prosthetics
8Crude gene therapies
Simple genetically modified organisms
Crude sense-replacement implants
9Advanced sense-replacement implants
Crude artificial organs
10 (A)Advanced therapeutic gene modification
Extensively engineered organisms
Full-function artificial organs
Advanced geriatrics
Effective psychiatry
11 (B)Artificial plant and animal species
Simple pantropic engineering
12 (C)Nanotech therapies
Brain transplants
Personality recording (cyber ghosts)
Advanced pantropic engineering (germ-line)
13 (D)Full-body prosthetics (“bioroid” bodies)
14 (E)Biological immortality
Full personality uploading (cyber immortality)
15 (F)Cyber transcendence

Surface Transport

This category covers technologies for transport on or near a planetary surface.

TLTypical Developments
0Long-distance travel by foot
Domestic animals (riding, beasts of burden)
1Crude wheeled vehicles
Rowed watercraft
Early sailed watercraft
2Advanced wheeled vehicles
Blue-water sailing ships
3Steam engines
Railroads
Steamships
4Internal combustion engines
Early automobiles
Early aircraft
5Widespread automobiles
Local highway systems
Jet aircraft
Containerized shipping
6Large nuclear-powered vehicles
Continental highway systems
Supersonic aircraft
Global standards in containerization
7Early maglev systems
8High-speed maglev systems
9Early “self-driving” vehicles
10 (A)Early gravitic transport
Advanced “self-driving” vehicles
Regional and continental hyperloop
11 (B)Advanced gravitic transport
Transcontinental hyperloop
12 (C)Beanstalk interface
13 (D) 
14 (E) 
15 (F) 

Space Transport

This category covers technologies for transport and artificial stations in interplanetary or interstellar space.

TLTypical Developments
0 
1 
2 
3 
4 
5Sounding rockets
6Orbital rockets
Early interplanetary probes
7Manned spacecraft
Advanced interplanetary probes
8Reusable shuttles
Large-scale interface transport
Space telescopes
Small orbital stations (constant resupply)
9Crude interstellar probes
Manned interplanetary outposts
Moderate orbital stations (constant resupply)
10 (A)Early gravitic (reactionless) drives
Artificial gravity
Interplanetary colonization
Large and self-sufficient orbital stations
Planetoid habitats
11 (B)Advanced gravitic drives
“Space cities”
12 (C)Slow FTL (Alcubierre) drives
Interstellar colonization
13 (D)Medium FTL drives
Planetary “ring cities”
14 (E)Fast FTL drives
15 (F)Starbridge (wormhole) construction

Heavy Weaponry

This category covers weapon technologies for large-scale military use, as well as military applications of some other technological categories.

TLTypical Developments
0 
1Battering ram
Torsion-powered war engines
War chariot
War galley
2Bombards
Bronze and iron cannon
Crude rocket artillery
Blue-water warships
3Artillery
Rocket artillery
Heavy machine guns
Steam-powered warships
Reconnaissance balloons
4Crude chemical and biological weapons
Crude military aircraft
5Atomic weapons
Long-range ballistic missiles
Advanced chemical and biological weapons
Advanced military aircraft
6Thermonuclear weapons
Transcontinental-range ballistic missiles
Nuclear-powered warships
7 
8Early applications of cyberwarfare
9Full integration of cyber into kinetic warfare
Extensive use of drones and unmanned vehicles
Heavy mass-driver weapons and railguns
10 (A)Advanced cyberwarfare
Nanotech weapons (“devourer clouds”)
Advanced mass-driver weapons and railguns
Heavy laser cannon
11 (B)Gravitic artillery
Plasma cannon
Neural suppression field (“stunner”) weapons
12 (C)Fine-scale remote stunners
Nuclear fission suppression systems
13 (D)Fusion-temperature plasma cannon
X-ray laser cannon
14 (E) 
15 (F)Gamma-ray laser cannon

Personal Weaponry

This category covers weapon technologies for individual use.

TLTypical Developments
0Clubs and cudgels
Stone-tipped spears
Bow and arrow
Hide and leather armor
1Bronze and iron swords
Metal spearheads and arrowheads
Longbow, composite bow, and crossbow
Bronze and iron armor
Ring and scale mail
2Matchlock and wheellock firearms
3Flintlock firearms
Rifled firearms
Repeating firearms
4Cartridge ammunition
Light machine guns
5Advanced rifled firearms
6Submachine guns
7Grenade launchers
Advanced body armor (ballistic fabrics)
8Crude “smart weapons”
9Crude mass-driver or “gauss” weapons
10 (A)Advanced gauss weapons
11 (B)Gravitic weapons
Personal laser weapons
12 (C)Personal plasma weapons
Personal stunner weapons
13 (D) 
14 (E)Personal fusion weapons
Personal X-ray laser weapons
15 (F) 
Human Destiny: The Careers List

Human Destiny: The Careers List

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Here’s another teaser for the Cepheus Engine hack I’m putting together, for the new version of the Human Destiny sourcebook. This is part of the character design rules – the draft list of available “careers” for characters to indulge in during the lifepath generation process.

Again, this list is kind of atypical for a Cepheus Engine game. A few of the careers here are somewhat analogous to the ones you’ll find in the classic space-opera RPG that the engine emulates. Others are not – again, Human Destiny stories are likely to be heavily social-interaction-oriented, in a context of post-scarcity economics and a strong interstellar state. That sets different parameters (and constraints) on the kind of “adventures” that are likely to happen.

Careers List

  • Activist – Individual who pursues a cause, agitating for social or political change.
  • Artist – Individual who pursues celebrity status and supplements the Citizen’s Allowance by producing and selling works of art or handicraft.
  • Athlete – Individual who pursues celebrity status and supplements the Citizen’s Allowance by taking part in one or more competitive sports.
  • Bureaucrat – Official in an organized bureaucracy, either under the Hegemony or in an éthnos, charged with following the details of administrative process.
  • Citizen – Individual who subsists almost entirely on the Citizen’s Allowance, and who spends most of their time on entertainment or socializing.
  • Colonist – Individual who has settled on a more-or-less Earthlike (or terraformed) world and works to support the human community there.
  • Counselor – Individual who provides psychological care or social services.
  • Dissident – Individual who has rejected Hegemony society, but still uses some technology and lives in a Free Zone.
  • Ecological Reclamation Service –Member of the Hegemony’s scientific corps, overseeing wilderness reserves to support and protect the natural ecology.
  • Entertainer – Individual who pursues celebrity status and supplements the Citizen’s Allowance by performing before an audience.
  • Feral – Individual who has escaped the Hegemony entirely, by rejecting all technology and living in the deep wilderness.
  • Guard Service – Member of the Hegemony’s paramilitary force, enforcing the Praxis on planetary surfaces, also (rarely) carrying out annexation against pre-stellar civilizations.
  • Influencer – Individual who advocates for ideas, products, or services, primarily on the global information grid.
  • Interstellar Service – Member of the Hegemony’s interstellar paramilitary force, carrying out missions involving peacekeeping, enforcement of the Praxis, and exploration of deep space.
  • Mediator – Individual who provides negotiation or conflict-resolution services.
  • Physician – Individual who provides medical care.
  • Rogue – Individual who frequently engages in deception and subterfuge, whether in violation of the Praxis or not.
  • Scholar – Individual who is engaged in and has expert knowledge of a science, or some similar formal body of organized knowledge. Also, anyone attending or teaching at an institution of higher learning.
  • Service Specialist – Individual who provides personal service to others, most often in the hospitality or leisure industries.
  • Spacer – Individual who works aboard a deep-space outpost or colony, usually on an asteroid or moon.
  • Technician – Individual who is skilled in designing, building, maintaining, or repairing complex technological systems.

Now that I’ve blocked this out, the rest of the character generation rules should follow without much trouble. We’ll see how much progress I’m able to make over the next week or two.

Human Destiny: the Skill List

Human Destiny: the Skill List

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I’ve been working on a Cepheus Engine kitbash for my Human Destiny setting bible and game.

One thing that became obvious fairly quickly is that the usual skill sets for Cepheus Engine, as derived from Traveller, may not work well in this setting. The typical premise in the older games is a band of misfit characters trying to make a living through some combination of troubleshooting, mercenary work, or tramp-freighter trade. Those are a lot less likely in Human Destiny stories, which are more likely to be heavily social-interaction-oriented in the context of post-scarcity economics and a fairly strong interstellar state. Think Star Trek or the Culture, rather than Firefly or The Expanse.

So here’s the tentative skill set for the new game. I anticipate task and conflict mechanics to work in a standard manner for Cepheus Engine, but this is distinct enough from the SRD that the game will certainly be presented as “An Alternate Cepheus Engine Universe.”

Incidentally, I spent a lot of time reviewing other science-fiction games in my library to remind myself how this was done elsewhere. It’s actually rather amusing how many games, published across four decades of time, have taken very similar approaches to this problem . . .

Tentative Skill List

Artistic Skills

  • Fine Arts (Specializes to Architecture, Body Art, Calligraphy, Drawing, Interior Decorating, Musical Composition, Photography, Poetry, Pottery, Sculpting, Video Production, Virtual Production, Woodworking, or Writing)
  • Handicrafts (Specializes to Basket Weaving, Brewing, Blacksmith, Bookbinding, Carpentry, Cooking, Gardening, Glassblowing, Jeweler, Leatherworking, Masonry, Needlework, Sewing, Winemaking, or Woodworking)
  • Performing Arts (Specializes to Acting, Dancing, Singing, or a specific musical instrument)

Athletic Skills

  • Athletics
  • Free Fall
  • Observation
  • Riding
  • Sports (Specializes to a specific sport)
  • Stealth
  • Unarmed Combat

Interpersonal Skills

  • Carousing
  • Debate
  • Deception
  • Diplomacy
  • Games (Specializes to Gambler, Virtual Gamer, or a specific game)
  • Instruction
  • Interrogation
  • Leadership
  • Negotiation
  • Personal Service
  • Persuasion
  • Public Speaking

Operations Skills

  • Battle Dress
  • Demolitions
  • System Operations (Specializes to Comms, Computers, Security, Sensors, or Telepresence)
  • Vacc Suit

Outdoor Skills

  • Animal Handling
  • Navigation
  • Survival
  • Tracking

Professional Skills

  • Admin
  • Broker
  • Forensics
  • Law
  • Medicine
  • Memetics
  • Politics
  • Profession (Specializes to a specific career)
  • Protocol
  • Strategy
  • Streetwise
  • Tactics

Scientific Skills

  • Research
  • Science (Specializes to Anthropology, Archaeology, Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Ecology, Economics, Geology, History, Linguistics, Literature, Mathematics, Metallurgy, Meteorology, Paleontology, Philosophy, Physics, Physiology, Planetology, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, Theology, or Xenology)

Starship Skills

  • Astrogation
  • Engineering (Specializes to Drive, Life Support, or Power Plant)
  • Gunnery (Specializes to Bay Weapon, Orbital Bombardment, Spinal Mount Weapon, or Turret Weapon)
  • Pilot

Technical Skills

  • Civil Engineering
  • Construction
  • Cybernetics
  • Electronics
  • Gravitics
  • Mechanics

Vehicle Skills

  • Air Vehicles (Specializes to Airship, Grav Aircraft, Rotor Aircraft, or Winged Aircraft)
  • Ground Vehicles (Specializes to Cycle, Hovercraft, Tracked Vehicle, or Wheeled Vehicle)
  • Water Vehicles (Specializes to Motor Ship, Sailing Ship, Small Craft, or Submarine)

Weapon Skills

  • Guns (Specializes to Archaic Guns, Energy Guns, Gravitic Guns, and Stun Guns)
  • Heavy Weapons
  • Melee Weapons (Specializes to Fencing Weapons, Impact Weapons, Knives, Staves, or Swords)
  • Missile Weapons (Specializes to Bows or Crossbows)

Current status of the project: I had vaguely hoped to have a new partial rough draft for my patrons by the end of December, with the character rules more or less finished, but designing this list took a lot longer than I expected.

I’ll have my formal “planning for January” blog post in a few days, but I suspect my main efforts for next month will involve finishing this game-design task so I can push a version 0.4 draft to my patrons, and possibly writing a new Human Destiny novelette. A murder mystery, oddly enough, although murders are vanishingly rare in the Human Destiny setting . . .

Game Design Prospectus: A “Silmarillion” LARP

Game Design Prospectus: A “Silmarillion” LARP

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One piece of my game-design history that doesn’t get out much today is that I used to design LARPs (Live Action Role-Playing games) for local conventions. The idea is that with character packets and minimal rules, players move freely around a big room to interact, rather than sitting around a table with paper, pencil, and dice. Games like this tend to be big, negotiation-heavy political things, and you often need two or three GMs to make them work.

Probably my best work was a “first contact” LARP, set in the late 21st century, in which half the players represented human factions – nation-states and such – and the other half were all factions from a Galactic Empire that had just met humans. The result was a four-hour social furball, as alliances formed and shattered, and everyone did their best to scheme their way into an advantage given the rules I had designed for them. The game almost ran itself, and it was wonderful to watch.

Today that piece of my creative brain woke up with a vengeance, while I was listening to my audiobook of The Silmarillion in the car, as one does.

Working title: “The Fall of the Noldor.”

The game would be designed for about 20 players. It would start with each player handed their character packet and a cheap flashlight. Players find that they are to take the roles of children or grandchildren of Finwë – only Fëanor himself is played by a GM. After everyone has a chance to read over their material, the lights are turned out and the next few scenes are played out in complete darkness, to simulate the confusion after the death of the Two Trees.

The game properly begins with a GM walking in and calling the Noldor to a meeting before the king’s house in Tirion. Once the players gather around, probably using their flashlights to see, the GM delivers Fëanor’s speech, in which he kicks off the rebellion against the Valar and the exodus back to Middle-earth. He closes with the Oath of Fëanor.

The rest of the game follows the debates and conflicts that follow while Fëanor leads the Noldor to Middle-earth. Who will follow Fëanor in swearing his Oath? Will all the Noldor agree to follow him, or will some or all of them remain behind? Will they recognize him as king, or will they choose another descendant of Finwë to follow? Will they travel light, or try to bring some of their treasures? Will they negotiate with the Teleri for their ships, or will they try to take them by force? What happens when the Valar intervene? How will the Elves survive, marching thousands of miles in the dark wilderness? How will they make the crossing to Middle-earth? What will happen when Fëanor himself turns against the people he regards as insufficiently loyal?

There should be a web of cross-cutting loyalties and resentments among the characters. I’d want to distribute specific resources among them, so they have to share and trade in order to succeed – also, so there won’t be enough of anything for everyone to succeed. I’ll probably need mechanisms for each Elf-leader to gather and keep a following among the Noldor population, carry treasures or supplies, and meet natural challenges during the march. I’ll need a mechanism for combat against anyone who might try to stop the Noldor – or, if worst comes to worst, among the Noldor themselves.

Since a lot of players probably know the story already, I might need to throw a few curve-balls into the plot. Hmm.

. . . Well, I’ll probably never actually design this in full, and if I do I’ll probably never get the chance to run it. Still, it’s a neat thought-exercise. Besides, any excuse to recite some of the speeches from The Silmarillion is welcome! Tolkien had a gift for dramatic dialogue.

A Character Sheet

A Character Sheet

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Making good progress on the proposed Cortex Prime sourcebook for the Human Destiny universe. The character rules, in particular, are pretty much done in a rough draft. To test them out, I worked up a character sheet for my usual protagonist in those stories: Aminata Ndoye, the young woman from Senegal who is destined to be the first human starship captain.

What follows is pretty crude – Cortex Prime normally emphasizes the use of well-designed “character files” and this is just text – but it should get the idea across.

A bit of notation: anywhere I have a number in parentheses, that indicates a character trait that contributes one die of that size to the player’s dice pool. So, for example, “(6)” means that trait contributes a 6-sided die. Cortex Prime builds dice pools out of 4-sided, 6-sided, 8-sided, 10-sided, and 12-sided dice, and the bigger the die the more likely it is to produce a good result.

Aminata Ndoye

Student at the École supérieure de l’astronautique in Toulouse, province of Midi de la France.

Stands 168 centimeters tall, masses about 60 kilograms, age 17 Earth years. Her skin tone is deep brown, her eyes are such a dark brown as to be almost black, and her hair is black and cut very short.

Aminata is invariably cool, collected, and rational. She has already demonstrated courage and decisiveness, even under pressure. It is rare for her to lose her temper or otherwise display uncontrolled emotion, and she deals with others with calm, unshakeable courtesy. Strangers often find it difficult to get to know her, as she is something of a workaholic and appears to have little sense of fun or humor.

Distinctions

(8) Devoted Sunni Muslim

Islam is just as important to me as science when I try to make sense of the world around me.

  • Gain a PP when you switch out this distinction’s (8) for a (4).
  • Spend a PP to step up a Value when you reconnect with your core identity.

(8) Going to the Stars Someday

Nothing and no one will keep me tied down to the Earth.

  • Gain a PP when you switch out this distinction’s (8) for a (4).
  • Spend a PP to reroll your dice when the test or contest is in direct pursuit of your core ambition.

(8) Life is an Equation to be Solved

It’s all about figuring out the unknown variables.

  • Gain a PP when you switch out this distinction’s (8) for a (4).
  • Spend a PP to double your Skill die when you embrace your personal style.

Values

  • (8) Sympátheia
  • (10) Logismós
  • (6) Prónoia
  • (6) Prokopé
  • (6) Andreía
  • (4) Evexía

Relationships

  • (10) The Hegemony (Gold card)
  • (6) Valérie Chauvin
  • (6) Nguyen Thi Mai

Skills

  • (6) Influence
  • (8) Know
    • (6) Astronomy
  • (6) Move
  • (6) Notice
  • (6) Operate
  • (6) Play
  • (6) Survive

Resources

                None

Some commentary, for the Cortex-unaware among my readers:

Distinctions are core pieces of a character’s identity. It’s expected that just about any test or contest the character gets into will involve one of their Distinctions.

Values are kind of like “attributes,” but they measure the character’s commitment to certain ethical or philosophical principles. I’m taking a small risk here by defining six Values for characters and naming them in a language most players won’t know (Classical Greek). I’m hoping to convey the alien-ness of the values system that people in this universe are trying to live under.

In this case, Aminata’s higher Values indicate that she’s good at understanding other sentient beings, empathizing with them, and persuading them. She’s very good at rational thinking and taking an objective viewpoint. On the other hand, her main weakness is evexía, which means something like “hygiene,” “self-awareness,” or “self-care” – she’s a bit of a workaholic, and tends to throw herself into problems without taking proper care of her own needs.

Relationships are ties the character has to other people or institutions. In this case, Aminata has a very strong Relationship with the Hegemony, the alien empire humans live under in this universe. She has an unusual level of privilege under Hegemony law. She also has Relationships with two other students at the “space academy” where she is currently studying.

Skills should be fairly straightforward. Cortex Prime encourages creators to name Skills with simple action verbs, to help make it clear when one of them comes into play. I’ve drawn up a list of Skills that’s a little longer than the default one in the core book, but for a space-opera setting that should work well.

Here, Aminata is just starting out at said “space academy,” where she and her fellow students are going to spend several years going through a grueling schedule of academic study and physical training. It occurs to me that Cortex Prime would have no trouble supporting a series of game sessions based on that situation . . .

The Elevator Pitch

The Elevator Pitch

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Here’s a chunk of the growing draft for the Human Destiny Sourcebook. This is a piece of the Introduction, an “elevator pitch” for the book and the setting it will describe.

In the middle of the Twenty-First Century, the age-old question of “are we alone in the universe?” got a sudden and very emphatic answer.

Earth was in bad shape at the time. Global depression, ecological collapse, runaway climate change, and half a dozen regional wars – one of them nuclear – had thrown the world into chaos. Civilization seemed to be on the brink of total failure, and many wondered whether the human species itself would survive.

Then the khedai came.

The khedai were the overlords of a vast interstellar empire, the Hegemony: tens of thousands of worlds, trillions of sentient beings, all living in relative peace and prosperity. They first became aware of Earth just after the turn of the century. At once, they began planning to intervene before we humans could finish rendering our home world uninhabitable. They sent a fleet to Sol and began building the infrastructure they would need.

Thirty years later, just as a few humans were becoming aware that something strange was happening in the outer solar system, the Hegemony finally made its move. The invasion of Earth began in September of 2044, and it was over in less than six months. The khedai called it the Fifth Rimward Intervention, and they considered it a minor skirmish on the frontiers of their empire. Humans called it simply the Conquest.

The khedai were certainly imperialists, but they turned out to be surprisingly benevolent overlords. The resources of Earth and the solar system were not plundered. In fact, the Hegemony worked to rebuild shattered ecosystems, restoring much of Earth’s natural beauty and health. Humans were not enslaved. In fact, most humans found themselves enjoying a higher standard of living than ever before, without having to work for any of it. The Hegemony enforced a system of laws that most humans found reasonable, and they did so with majestic impartiality.

The khedai have always claimed that they came to Earth only to save humanity from its self-destructive nature. They claim to mean us no harm, and they express a wish to see us someday become mature citizens of the galaxy.

Even so, for two hundred years many humans have resented the Hegemony. They feel that the human species has been forced to give up its freedom and its ambitions in exchange for a false security – the life of animals on exhibit in a zoo. Dissent and passive resistance continue to the present day.

In recent years, however, there are signs that the Hegemony’s policy toward humans may be about to change. More humans have been elevated to positions of authority in the cities of Earth. More humans have been encouraged to move to the colonies on Luna, on Mars, and elsewhere in the solar system. More humans have been permitted to travel to other stars. A few humans have been selected to serve aboard Hegemony starships, as crewmen and even as officers.

It is the middle of the Twenty-Third Century on Conquered Earth, and you are one of those exceptional humans. You stand out in a crowd. You have dreams and aspirations that can’t be denied. Whether it’s a quest for a meaningful life on Earth, a career of hard work in the colonies, or a vision of exploring the stars, you have only to step up to the challenge.

The galaxy doesn’t belong to humans, but that doesn’t mean you can’t earn a place in it.