Diaspora
The Intro
Diaspora is the name of the rule set this short trial campaign is using. Diaspora describes itself thus:
a role-playing game that uses the FATE system to deliver a hard science-fiction framework for adventure, where you build the setting on top of the basic, gritty axioms of the universe: everything is bigger than you are. You will pilot spaceraft driven by fusion torches that light the night sky towards rifts in the fabric of space that shift you between a small number of lost worlds, each with thousands of years of history. And it’s all yours.
which seems to leave a reasonable amount of clear blue sky between here and Gin Lane.
The game is set in a small cluster of star systems with a limited number of defined links allowing faster than light (FTL) travel between them. There are believed to be a lot of clusters of human settlement, but it is an article of faith as there is rarely contact between them – the FTL links, the “Slipstreams” are too unreliable, or even non-existent, for inter-cluster travel.
Apart from the FTL, the technology is what can be seen as within the realms of the possible in the early 21st century. Spaceships have reaction drives to get them to the inter-system jump points (“slipknots”) in days or weeks, they don’t zoom around like Star Wars or Star Trek. SF readers will be pretty close to the basic tech style if they think of CJ Cherryh’s Company War period.
Aside: In fact my first thought was to use the Company War as the background – I have the game, map and the most, that is all, of the books. I decided against because I’d feel obligated to read the books again, which would take time, and I’d just like to try to play the rules straight first time through. Later maybe…
Clark’s Law science 1 does exist, but is restricted to occasional and very transient civilisations which transcend and vanish or just collapse in relatively short order. In the ruins though occasional Clark’s Law artefacts survive, so Archaeology is a popular pursuit. Pretty much anywhere. People have been around here for a long time; cultures and civilisations have risen and fallen again and again.
1 Sufficiently advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic.
To provide a bit of variety in the cluster, the stars and worlds, players and GM all come up with system Names, Descriptions and Aspects, for the GM to mangle and misinterpret in play. To that end here’s the Belmar Cluster:
The Belmar Cluster
The circles are systems, the grey lines are the known jump routes (“slipstreams”). The systems are clickable links to the relevant wiki page.
- Grey systems are sub-spaceflight tech,
- Blue have spacefight,
- Pink systems have jump tech.
I’ve rotated the map from the conventional horizontal layout because it makes it easier to fit on the page, but it has the side benefit of showing whether links are to a system’s zenith and nadir slipknots. Pleased with myself? Yep.
2010-06-07: moved the descriptions to the wiki at Belmar Cluster on Wikidot