Principles

This is a project to create a sci-fi setting with elements like Star Wars and Dune that is full of various sorts of adventure, the notion being to produce something worth playing in.

Those participating in creating the world are not obligated to play in the world. But the hope is that it will be inspiring enough that some of the participants in creating it will, in fact, want to play it.

Grand Setting Ideas

Life

Humans

Humans exist, though in myriad forms.

Human Culture

At least one major human culture has devolved into feudalism as a result of the struggle to control archaeo-tech resources (see below). In addition to the various noble houses, the schools that teach the psionic powers necessary to control certain archaeo-tech are also important players.

Non-Human Sapient Life

Non-human sapient life-forms exist, but none of them are at all “humanoid” in any way. If it looks at all human, it came from human stock at one point.

One type of monstrous opponent is the squid-monkey, often encountered in sub-space.

Technology

With so many kinds of humans and other intelligent life forms, technology varies considerably. We will enumerate what definitely does exist somewhere, or does not exist anywhere.

Archaeo-Tech

Long ago humans had a very high level of tech, but something happened, and society collapsed, and there was a long dark age. Since then humans have been going around trying to relearn how to use these technologies. But it has taken centuries to get them to even a barely useable level.

Employing these technologies, where possible, can give the humans capable of doing so a wide array of potential powers.

Travel

Travel for long-distances, and by any sizable ship, is only possible by expensive to construct stabilized archaeo-tech wormholes. Slower travel between close systems is possible only by smaller ships that ride on wormhole energy, which drops off fairly precipitously around 13.4 light years from the nearest wormhole, making the systems around each wormhole their own little neighborhood, reachable only by the wormhole.

Weapons?

Crystal swords that are only use-able by those who have the psionic talent to be able to use them properly. For those who can, these swords can defeat otherwise un-defeatable archaeo-tech defensive technologies.

Psionic powers given by other archaeo-tech are usable as weapons as well.

Life-Tech

Genetic engineering and cybernetics are human techs that exist, which give humans edges over each other; but they are frail enhancements compared to what archaeo-tech can provide, and thus mostly only matter to those who do not have archaeo-tech.

Locales

The travel tech creates “Nodes” (maybe a better term is needed). Inside of nodes there are systems with planets, etc. Wormholes always emerge in gravity wells of stars or black holes, but those systems may or may not have populations that live in that system (outside of a population that inevitably lives right at the wormhole).