Here is some of what I've come up with. Please realize that I'm working with the TNE Handbook, Survival Margin and the Hinterworlds supplement from Challenge #39 as source material. My version of the Hinterworlds isn't even close to cannon. I have several goals in designing this TNE version of the Hinterworlds.
1) Leave enough of the Imperium and former gaming environment to make implementing T20 easy. Particularly character generation.
2) Change enough to make the OTU a little different from the regular fare, such as introducing biotech, ai's and artificial life forms.
Anyway here is my first go-round. Enjoy!
HINTERWORLDS, CIRCA 1211 NE
The Hinterworlds had always been a backwater of the Imperial domains. The shattering of the Imperium by civil war and the destruction wrecked by the AI Virus changed forever the nature of the Hinterworlds. No longer the undeveloped, technologically inferior, stepchild of the surrounding empires, the Hinterworlds were put on equal footing with these once bastions of high technology and culture.
The very nature of the Hinterworlds, being distant from any of the high-tech empires, saved it from feeling the most devastating effects of the Virus. That and having a pocket empire, The Anubian Trade Coalition (ATC), composed of naturally talented psions as major players in the region. For it was discovered, quickly, by the ATC that they could identify and either destroy or render inert the psychic infestation known as Virus. This has of course given them the upper hand in the region.
There are several pocket empires or cultures in the Hinterworlds:
THE RAL RANTA (RR)
Former major player in the region, the Ral Ranta, have been forced back to a small coalition of worlds. Only the, by fallen Imperium standards, primitive technology of the Ral Ranta saved them from complete destruction by the AI Virus.
THE ANUBIAN TRADE COALITION (ATC)
They have swallowed worlds in the 80 years since the Virus release. Trading with most of the remaining civilizations either in goods or in PSI know how.
THE CYTRIALIN UNITY (CU)
The AI Virus overran the Unity but their already dual society quickly integrated the Virus and has now become a triad society. Partly Human artificials with cybernetic implants have become the de Facto rulers of the CU. The Unities faith has been twisted into a desire to expand and bring all life under the umbrella of the Unity.
THE GNIIVI
Virus ravaged the great worms. Their civilization decimated for the most part they have reverted to a primitive level and are an extreme danger to any traveler on their former worlds. Many Gniivi vampire ships stalk the stars.
THE COUNCIL OF LEH PERASH (CLP)
The CLP’s technology, built on biotech, was particularly resistant to the effects of the AI Virus. It was they who helped the Hivers, their former masters and now partners, recover from the devastation quickly.
THE OUTCASTS OF THE WHISPERING SKY (OWS)
All contact was severed from the outside when the "light storm, which invades" was brought into the Sky by a research vessel from the Imperium. Only the strangeness of OWS technology prevented the Virus from causing a similar catastrophe as befell the Imperium. Any and all ships that invade OWS territory are destroyed. A great project was begun to build larger, military vessels to eradicate the poison from the skies. Even now the OWS is constructing their fleet, perhaps the largest ever built.
THE EMPIRE OF STARS OR STAR EMPIRE (SE)
In the Adar sub-sector the single, true Imperial base having warning of the oncoming Virus, sealed itself off from the outside in an aggressive manor. First protecting the station at Adar and its deployed forces on Venad. Once sure of its inoculation the construction of the SE began by eradicating the Ral Ranta presence in the region. Now a small, militarily controlled version of the Imperium rules the Adar sub-sector.
INDEPENDENTS
The worlds that were once independent have either fallen under the rule of one of the pocket empires or still remain independent but more than likely fallen to pre-space levels by Virus. Those worlds, which had not reached a high level of technology, were spared the effects of Virus.
ECONOMICS
The Bruia Diagonal now called the “Lifeline” runs between the Star Empire and the remaining Hive Federation. This trade route has kept the Star Empire alive. But it is a dangerous run, flowing between enemy states and plagued with ships from the Pirate Nation.
Trade is conducted between the states with no outside trade with the K’Kree or the Solomani. The only former major empire with which some trade is conducted is the Hiver Federation.
Planet to planet trade is more common and dangerous. Pirates, T.E.D.’s and Vampire Ships make living rough on merchant traders. A combine of former megacorporations and noble houses has formed the Hinterworlds House Combines (HHC). Three major families or Houses rule the HHC.
-S.
