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Sometime in the later years of the Roman empire, alien visitors land in Tuscany. Roman culture undergoes a rennaissance as philosophers bootstrap the empire into a spacefaring nation.

Just as we named the planets after the gods of antiquity, so did the Romans name the planets after gods from THEIR antiquity: namely, the Greek gods.

As Rome methodically spreads across the Earth, it also journeys into space, coming into contact with the insectlike/birdlike Areans (a world with several high civilizations), lizardlike Aphroditians (a world mainly of low-tech barbarians), burrowing Hermetics, and cold-loving Hephaestain Serpents.

Factions on Ares seek to use Rome, as Rome seeks to use some of them. In this game Rome is only the newest and youngest player among many: willpower is its best asset. And certain dispossessed Areans subsequently begin to prop up rivals and resistance to Imperial Rome.

Meanwhile, Rome seeks to train auxiliaries of Aphroditian heavy mounted infantry.

Orbital villas.

What's their fusion drive called? Ignis Fusionae?
 
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Hmmm... I've been reading GURPS Ancient Rome to use as a model for one of the empires on my web site.

Slaves: Androids and non-AI robots.

Endentured servants: humans and AI robots.

Gladiators: Car Wars Arenas.

Togas are worn on certain holidays. Regular 'futuristic' clothes are worn the rest of the time.

I'm tired and apparently lost the rest of my thoughts.
 
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Uplifted Mammals as slaves?

gladiatorial Powered Armor

Wrist'force field Scutum, Gladius Ballistc conversion(like the Qualta blade in farscape)

Enviro-Lorica Segmentata to full body

Renegade Legion did this rather well
 
Gotta include Poul Anderson's The High Crusade for reference; medieval English lord and his troops take over an alien ship, regard the aliens as infidels, and take a crusade to the stars. Not entirely serious, you could almost see Poul1 smiling as he wrote a lot of this.





[1] My one contact with a favorite author, I met Poul and Karen Anderson at a con in El Paso about 25 years ago. I offered to buy them beers, was embarrassed to discover that the bar did not take cash and I did not have a room to charge it to, so they bought me a beer instead. Of course, at that point I was totally tongue-tied and couldn't say much beyond, "I like your books a lot," but they were both very nice and signed a lot of my books when I brought in a sackful the next day (had to buy a volume of the Ys series so I would have something for Karen to sign).
 
Kilgs said:
Evil Space Romans are my favorite trope. I love the TOG.
Click to expand...

Renegade Legion was a fun read. Them FASA guys, well, they really hit popular tropes pretty hard over the years. Traveller, Then Battletech & STRPG, Then Renegade Legion and Shadowrun...
 
Yeah, I've always wanted to get into the fluff for BT as I hear it's amazing. But there are so many dang books I never know where to start. I had the old boxed set in the 80's and loved it. I picked up the Mercenaries book to hack the system for Traveller and found it very cool.

Renegade Legion is a really neat read. I love the setting and I've converted T-space movement to Traveller as well as some of the alien races. Actually last month I picked up the Golden Medusa adventure pack used and enjoyed the read. I never played any of the miniature stuff and have had the RPG forever. It's one of my constant reference books for coming up with ideas and such for campaigns.

It is also one of my favorite character generation table mini-games. Even more so than Traveller.

(My Gateway campaign had the Ssoran Federation just above the Khuur League.)
 
What is their fusion drive called? Or maybe they don't have fusion drive. Maybe it's gravitic, which helps explain the orbital villas...

Ignis Fusionae is perhaps their fusion gun? Or would it be called a fusion catapult?

The Areans have delicate in-system drives. Perhaps sensitive to the sun, which might explain why they haven't visited the in system.

Which means someone else visited Rome. I don't know who, and maybe it's better that way.

Aphroditians are, I expect, nomadic and strong, perhaps larger than humans, and with a shorter lifespan. No idea about their body type. Hmmmm, assume a jungly, craggy Venus with a thick atmosphere... Perhaps they're winged. They can't fly on
Terra or Ares, but they can glide. Ahh, Aphrodite the dinosauroid world. Ok got it.

So then, Aphroditian mounts are ceratopsians. Their hounds are like ... Well like what? Compsognathus? Meh.


Meanwhile, Areans have those exoskeletons as a seal against the vthin atmosphere. Plants produce and store oxygen, so grazing is the key to intelligence here. Thus grazers evolved. Other species stayed in the animal kingdom.

Everything is tall and thin on Ares. Unless there is an atmosphere pressure cycle, I don't think there will be any flying creatures.

Perhaps the Romans were visited by sophonts from Hephaestus, the now-destroyed fifth terrestrial world.
 
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Roman Empire Fusion Power Plant

Ignis Prometheus - Sparked by the Bolt of Jupiter/Zeus and fueled by the forge of Vulcan/Hephaestus, the Roman Empire's fusion P-Plant is not pretty to look at but it works. It takes up 10% more displacement tons in trade for 10% more output and its power relay aqueducts can be adjusted to surge extra power to weapons, defenses, the Chariot of Helios Heplar Drive, or other systems.
 
Hermes
Aphrodite
Terra
Ares
Hephaestus (now reduced to an asteroid belt)
Zeus Patros
Cronos
Ouranos
Poseidon



Assume Hephaestus was destroyed by one of the Arean states. Destruction is a serious matter: this is essentially genocide. Is it due to insanity, or hatred, or simple cold calculation, or something else?

What weapon was used to destroy it? Something gravitic? A near-C rock? A nudge into Jupiter's grips?

Moreover, how many survived? Do they have a colony? How much advance notice did they have? Was it like Vesuvius, or Thera?
 
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aramis said:
Renegade Legion was a fun read. Them FASA guys, well, they really hit popular tropes pretty hard over the years. Traveller, Then Battletech & STRPG, Then Renegade Legion and Shadowrun...
Click to expand...

Since the thread has been resurrected...

FASA did great settings. RPG mechanics, not so well.
 
Kilgs said:
Yeah, I've always wanted to get into the fluff for BT as I hear it's amazing. But there are so many dang books I never know where to start. I had the old boxed set in the 80's and loved it. I picked up the Mercenaries book to hack the system for Traveller and found it very cool.
Click to expand...

The Merc's Handbook was originally, itself, apparently a hack of CT Bk 4's system... Note that FASA's core team for BT were also their core team, a few years earlier, for their Traveller supplements. And L. Ross Babcock and Jordan Weissman have credits in some GDW materials, too.
 
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