Setting information

Humans found alien technology a while ago and used it to expand into the universe. There are two forms of this technology: space drives, that let ships travel at high but definitely subluminar speeds, and jump drives, that let ships “jump” distances that measure in the light years. Jump drives are only possible in extremely large ships but jump gates are possible. Jump gates are built in solar systems and allow ships to pass through them to a fixed number of other solar systems. A particular group of solar systems that are linked through these jump gates is called a cluster. Note that the solar systems that make up a cluster can be any distance apart in real space.

Travel between clusters is only possible with jump ships; regular space drives don’t have the range to make it to another solar system. There are also jump ships that explore the galaxy, sort of like Star Trek. To date no one has met any aliens, though there are ruins of many such civilizations here and there. Alien technology other than the drives mentioned doesn’t work, though there is a lot of research on it.

Other than the alien technology (which was found without any aliens, but is easy to modify so that various ships can use it) most of the technology is mostly the equivalent of our 1940s and 1950s. Computers are room-sized and made up of massive numbers of vacuum tubes, communication is through telephones that all have cords, and television is in its infancy.

This cluster is called “Aiscapo” after the first system settled and named in it. The systems in this cluster all have particular cultural themes to them:

Aiscapo (Korean): The capital of the cluster, Aiscapo has a total population of about 14 million. It has a few very large cities on one planet; the other six planets are sparsely settled.

Crapworld (Trinidadian): Officially called Nodapar, this system is now used as a prison, junkyard, and toxic waste dump after the creatures who lived here proved too difficult to control.

iLanga (Zulu): Out in the middle of nowhere with no resources and an annoyingly variable electromagnetic field, this binary system’s single planet,uBuntu, is rarely visited. “Dreamers”, who have prophetic dreams, come from here. uBuntu has a third of a million people total. The PCs found out that the entire planet is actually a computer that’s designed to communicate with… something and that entering is likely to turn you into a slave who will then work on repairing it.

Piccadilly (British): Three planets, 8.5 million people, and two massive artificial ring structures are found here. The navy is especially formidable and uses metals from the rings to improve its ships.

Providence (American): A trinary solar system with two stars close enough for a very fast shuttle ship to travel between, the almost 17 million people who live here like their guns and either work in filthy factories or live in floating cities above the surface.

Vishnu (Indian): This system used to have half a million people living in it, including the lesbian separatist Labrys City. It was recently attacked by the D’vor forces and almost everyone has been killed, although details are hard to come by. There is also the remnants of the Leary, an exploratory jump ship that jumped into the system a few years ago and exploded. The PCs found out that it had been trying to escape the D’vor, but inadvertently led them here.

Walküren (German/Russian): The PCs have never been here. Total population is about 6.5 million and it’s mostly based around resource extraction and factories. It has a navy to rival Piccadilly.

Back one jump is the cluster of Panyan. Back one more jump is Zartosht. Jillian is from here and so is the Black Rose organized crime organization that she was a princess in.