Setting
Dystopic hard sci-fi, high-tech plus hyperspace travel setting about 300 years in the future. Intelligent machines are used for most labour, but sometimes human labour is just cheaper, if just far enough from regulated areas.
There is no known intelligent alien species, but a lot of simple and complex alien life forms have been found. Recent advancements in material and propulsion technologies sparked rumours that findings of advanced alien technology could be kept secret by the Court.
History
The first expansion
(2020-2120)
For about one hundred years, humans dabbled around in the solar system. They built colonies on Earths moon, on Mars and floating in Venus’ atmosphere. Some probes were sent out to the surrounding star system, accelerated to relativistic speeds by lasers. The new data brought fascinating insights, but showed even more, that interstellar travel is hardly possible for humans.
While people on earth slowly adapted to the now unstoppable climate change, the first colonies outside of earth reached independence.
The era of prosperity
(2120-2163)
With ever better technology, more efficient energy conversion and the incredible riches of the asteroid belt, humans moved more and more towards utopia. At least so they thought.
While things looked better and better, the riches still didn’t get spread evenly. Rich people still got ever richer and with all the new technology also their possibilities for surveillance. One day, a group of hyper-rich people came together to lay the foundation for the Disruptive Court.
The era of the Disruptive Court
(2163-2245)
A group of extremely rich and powerful people came together, to find a way to engrain their power into the fabric of humanity. They came up with the idea to secretly take over the AI controlled systems of the governments and corporations of the world. With their already extraordinary power and resources, they build a group of highly specialized AIs that worked together in tandem to become the most advanced, versatile and powerful AI system ever created. With its help, the Disruptive Court became the de-facto power of humanity. They controlled every machine, every decision and many of the implants that became common extensions to the human biology.
The second and third expansion
(2245-2312)
The Disruptive Court drove further expansion of humanity outwards, beyond the asteroid belt, and inwards, closer to the sun. New settlements on the gas giants moons and in their clouds brought even more prosperity. Research stations everywhere, even inside the sun, were built and brought tremendous scientific advances. New developments allowed for ever more energy to be controlled.
One day, something extraordinary happened on the Chromosphere Observation and Science Platform, or COSP, situated inside the chromosphere, the “coolest” layer inside the sun.
High energy experiments, using the intense magnetic fields and the strong gravitational forces, lead to the discovery of what is now known as Hyperspace. Although complete understanding of it was, and still is, out of reach, it became clear very soon, that movement through hyperspace happens outside the boundaries of the physical reality. Only a few decades later, routine travel from one solar system to another was established. Humanity expanded further. Complex alien biomes were found, settlements around other stars were established.
Today
(2312-today)
Humanity visited hundreds of star systems and settled in dozens of them. But traversing hyperspace is still expensive, relatively slow and not well understood. The sheer amount of star systems reachable with a Level 1 jump made it infeasible to settle anywhere further away than one jump from the established colonies. But this didn’t stop people from doing it anyway, which is why there is now the so-called Rim: Star Systems mostly further away than 15 parsecs from Sol, usually outside direct control of the Court, but also hard to build and keep alive. The most well established colonies are around Mizar and Alcor, two close stellar neighbours, around 25 parsecs away from Sol.
Money
There is a generic digital currency that is simply called credits, which can be used to pay most official things. Unofficial payments cannot be done this way, without huge effort. It is possible, though, to either use goods to trade or to buy "coins", an electronic currency that can be taken out of and later be fed back into the official system. Coins are accepted as a cash-like currency by some. Generating coins from credits immediately puts you on a watch-list, but is still pretty common in some less developed settlements close to and in the Rim. Later, it usually cannot be tracked further.
Travel / Transport
Matter-Antimatter-Drives, short MADs, are the common propulsion engines for normal space travel, while so-called hyperspace hooks are used for interstellar travel.
Transport costs 10-100 cr/kg/week, depending on hull space usage, necessary transport conditions, etc:
- 10cr/kg/week: small, dense boxes that don't need atmosphere
- 100cr/kg/week: full life support, including atmosphere and temperature control
Cost can differ for lower or higher accelerations than the usual 1g.
Travel typically costs 5kcr (no comfort) to 15kcr (economy) per week inside controlled space. Prices differ in the Rim.
Hyperspace travel costs a minimum price, fixed by the cost of a hyperspace hook. Additional costs are coming from cryo chamber use and maintenance. Every living, conscious creature needs to be in cryosleep by regulation. Even in the Rim, nobody would dare to stay conscious, because of the serious mental issues caused by hyperspace.
Distant travels far beyond the Rim are possible with Hyperspace jumps, but they get more unreliable the further the jump. A jump takes about 7–10 days, but time is a very weird thing in hyperspace, so it might also just be two days or, in very unlucky cases, two months. The probability of weird effects is listed in this table:
| Level | Max. Distance | Critical Failures |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10pc / 33ly | ~1 per 100M |
| 2 | 100pc / 325ly | ~1 per 10M |
| 3 | 500pc / 1.5kly | ~1 per 1M |
| 4 | 1250pc / 4kly | ~1 per 100k |
| 5 | 1750pc / 6kly | ~1 per 10k |
| 6 | 2500pc / 8kly | ~1 per 1k |
| 7 | 3000pc / 10kly | ~1 per 100 |
| 8 | 4000pc / 13kly | ~1 in 10 |
| 9 | 5000pc / 16kly | ~10 in 10 |
For a list of possible effects, see:
Social Status
Everyone, knowingly or not, gathers social points throughout their lives. The resulting score gives them more or less freedom in different places of the Court controlled space.
The score is a number between -1000 and 1000 and every individual is born with zero points. Throughout their life, the score slowly grows by one point per year, where nothing happened. Most people, who simply do nothing special and just live their day-to-day life, might reach a score of +120, maybe +130 this way, depending on how long they live. Small deeds might earn them another point per year. To earn more points…?
Body Mods
Cybernetic implants and other bio modifications are very common.
Let players choose some on their own and roll others, depending on their social status in the world.