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MTU Confederation of Stars

Here are the flavor pieces I gave to player after to character generation to give them an idea of the universe.

They are in the form of CNN headline news blurbs

All typos and stupidity are mine.

CNS- 2-41-639
Palatine Beta 2
Officials today disclosed ongoing negotiations with representatives of the Joydel system. According to sources, negotiations to date have been primarily around technological transfer and mutual security. “The addition of Joydel as an affiliate would mark the Confederation’s first major expansion since Bronflete. We are eager to explore the opportunities that Joydel offers.”

The General Assembly was in a furor over the announcement and requested the Ministry of Colonial Service and Ministry of Protection report on the current situation regarding Joydel.

***************
Ministry of Colonial Service, Scout Division today changed the status of the Espinoza from overdue to missing. The Espinoza, one of the newer 1000T deep exploration tenders, last communicated 4 days after last turns Founding Holiday.

***************
Recent cost overruns and production delays have caused Admiralty to postpone its transfer to Fortress 1. Admiralty is expected to move prior to Remembrance Holiday.

Farden Station
Naval spokesperson reports that the new Cyclops class heavy cruiser has finished its last set of trial runs. The Navy heralds the program as an unequivocal success. Three more hulls are on order by the Bureau of Ships in this budget cycle. Expectations are for ten vessels in addition to the two currently under trial.

Nikolai
Senator Albert Smith, late Proconsul of the Nikolai Senate, was taken into custody and indicted by the MOJ for bribery, malfeasance, fraud and sedition. This makes the third indictment of Senator Smith by local or Confederation officials in the past five years. He was acquitted of previous charges and claims innocence. “This is another attempt by my political enemies to dirty my name and try to hijack the upcoming election. The people of Nikolai know who their friends are. They aren’t these jackbooted MOJO thugs.” The MOJ is requesting extradition to Palatine Beta 2, as Nikolai is one of three systems that prohibit valediction during felonious criminal trials.

Tyson
Alderac Metals, holder of the charter for Tyson 2, states the opening of Tyson to general colonization is on schedule for Setebre of this turn. Company officials also quote COO Alois Depard-Smyth that the Tyson division should show profits prior to colonization, 3 years earlier than expected. Strong heartstone sales are the reason, according to Depard-Smyth.
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Tenntrav,

I think you've done a good job here by providing the characters with some insight into recent activities, and demonstrating that there are potential conflicts within the setting you are creating. I assume you've woven some adventuring ideas around a few of those tidbits, so I hope it all works out well.

Is there anything you can share with us about how these were received by your players?

Keep On Travellin',
Flynn
 
The purpose of the CNS is to give ideas about the universe as it is unique, 3d, no Imperium, etc.

The first and last blurb are adventure threads. The group was hired by Alderac after the absolutely necessary 1st adventure bar fight.

I used the bar fight to show my players, d20 D&D gamers one an all, just how deadly combat is in T20. I think they got the idea. Three shots fired. One wounded, one mook almost dead. I gave them extrapolations on weapons whose rate of fire was greater than one and everyone's eyes got big. Lesson learned...when someone pulls out a weapon duck or run....and now everyone is looking at the quickdraw feat.

The authorities held the players overnight to check out everyone's story (illustrating point 2 there are ramifications in being associated with violence). This also gave the Alderac recruiter (who staged the barfight) the time and ability to find out everything about the PC with a well placed bribe.

Now the PCs are off to Tyson under contract. They will encounter additional/different CNS postings and get (if they think about it) an idea of how information travels in a universe where news travels as fast as the fastest ship.
 
Here is another set of writing in the form of textbook/lecture notes. They start at about the 6th grade level and go to university.

This was given to players prior to character generation.

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The age of space exploration really began in –73 D (2011 ce). In that year a group called NASA sent two rockets with big telescopes into orbit around Sol, the birth home of all humans. Those telescopes pointed to Alpha Centari and Proxima Centari. They found planets around those two star systems. On Paradise in the Proxima Centari system, they discovered life. The telescopes couldn’t actually see plants growing or animals moving through the telescope. Sol is much too far away from Proxima Centari. The telescopes did see oxygen and methane gases in Paradises’ atmosphere. These two gases cannot be in the same place together unless something is constantly making the methane and oxygen. It was the easporix in the oceans, the tiger grass, the trufula trees, the jackhares and all the other life on Paradise that were and are making oxygen and methane today.

--from “The Beginning Scientist’s Guide to the Stars”

Forward Station was the first deep space relay station commissioned by the United Nations of Sol, precursor of the Terran Federation. This station was located near a gravitational anomaly two light years from Sol, enabling humanity to leave the confines of its birth system and begin its long march to colonize the galaxy. Forward Station was the prototype colonization station employed to spread humanity to habitable planets during the First Diaspora. When a habitable planet was found, stations would be assembled near an anomaly, comet or gravitationally significant mass that was in the space route to the system to be colonized. In 31 D the first colonists left from Forward Station and colonized Paradise, the first extra-Solar colony. Forward Station at its largest, 72 D, displaced 3.5 million metric tons and was home to over 10,000 persons.

During the 2nd Nation State War terrorists destroyed over half the station. The invention of the Jump Drive made the station obsolete, and it was abandoned and decommissioned in 118 D.

--entry from “Encyclopedia Intragalactica” 379 Antiquity Edition

The causes of the Second Diaspora (SD) are myriad, but the primary causes are the same as those that caused great emigration throughout the ages. Overpopulation, a great leap in the modes of transportation, repression and concentration of economic power into the hands of a few individuals or political entities, and war. One important point to remember when thinking about the SD is that the emigration from the core systems was not all at once nor was it in one direction or for one reason. The SD occurred over a 26 year period. The reasons for the generation ships emigration from Sol between 108 and 116 were due to overpopulation, failing economic systems and political repression. The reasons for the later emigrations were due to the advent of the jump drive and inexpensive exploration of nearby clusters of systems that were within the range of those early jump drives.

The two recognizable waves of emigration were vastly different. The first émigrés were political discontents, religious groups, corporate collective entities and even displaced war veterans. Many first wave emigrants were typical citizens of Sol or Paradise, but many desperate individuals or groups were also willing to take the enormous risk of sub-light space flight and travel to distant, unknown systems. Later emigrants were typically yeoman technicians, professionals, and skilled laborers who sought opportunity on the frontier. They tended to have more capital and skills than earlier colonists and they tended to emigrate to systems that had established colonies. The first group was cast adrift or fled bad situations on Sol. The second wave was asked to come to the new frontiers and left equally from the core systems where their departure caused a significant brain drain.

-- from “Lectures to Diplomatic Corp” by Prof. Tetsubo Ishiki

Interstellar warfare remains an extremely expensive endeavor. Without a doubt, the cost of interstellar war drove the dark night to engulf more systems than it would have under more normal economic pressures. The Herculean cluster was at the far edge of Federation expansion and has seen numerous governmental structures rise, wane and die in the past three centuries. The most recent, the Confederation of Stars, incorporates a loose central governing council that allows relative local autonomy. The primary focus of the Confederation is to promote trade, culture and security between its members. Each full member of the COnfederation has at least one seat on its ruling body, the High Council. Additional seats are based upon population. With its population more than equal to the rest of the Confederation, Palatine Beta and its companion Palatine Beta dominate the High Council. The Confederation is currently composed of seven members and eleven affiliate systems, and there are 14 seats on the High Council.

The Confederation and the nearby Eigenmann worlds as well as the Republic of Kos generally respect the colonial service codes and the body of common law that has arisen from them. The Confederation, in an attempt to further its legitimacy, has gone so far as to call its military wing the colonial service, although what it is colonizing or how the service differs from a starfaring navy remain to be observed.

--- from "Polities in the 7th Century Post Diaspora " by Akram Solicpicos

Two entities are known inhabit the political and economic space beyond the edges of stellar polities. They are the merchant families with their generational starships and the megacorps. Seven merchant families are known to the Confederation although there may be more. The most prominent by far of these trader families in the Confederation is the Makenzes. Three megacorporations, Ling, Alderac Metals, and Zatrain, have offices in one or more Confederation systems. Two, Ling and Alderac, have Charter companies who control planets or systems in the Confederation.

--- from "Polities in the 7th Century Post Diaspora " by Akram Solicpicos

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