Well, see, I just got to starting to reread Shawn Hagen's old Starblade Battalion stories.
Then a part of my brain jumped up and declared, 'Hey, guess what? I've got this really cool universe for you to play in...'
Well, what about this, presumably RPG-like, universe, then?
Mecha space opera, if small-scale (tens of worlds, not hundreds or thousands). Various suspiciously-human-like subspecies scattered across the known worlds by some unknown precursor race, but still a couple of Real Wierdie Alien types. FTL travel on the justification that the universe's hyperspaces undergo periodic 'crystalizations' brought on by its expansion, wherein nothing is possible until hyperspace 'melts' again... Drive type is keyed wormhole, though, just because it makes things simpler to plan - and gives justification for low-relative-speed space battles at point blank range.
Psi/Magic, yes, although apparently just as another type of technology.
The overall political setting is that all of the worlds that were capable of going into space when things started to decrystalize are now going out and exploring the newly opened universe... and running into each other, of course. No sapient race is older than a certain point in time, which suggests that that unknown precursor civ also either uplifted or wiped out whatever was around before their departure.
How am I justifying the mecha? Well, the primary assumption is a fairly simple one - that Earth, far from being a perfectly normal habitable world, is actually a high-gravity zone. Most of the relevant technologies that the other nations are relying on are ones they're ahead in because, without the gravity to make launches so expensive or stress mechs' ankle joints so much or whatever, they're way ahead in lot of fields.
Naturally, each new star nation has its own, distinctive approach to mecha design and such. Like that one fighting game, but freer formed.
I have varying amounts decided about the different factions - naturally, the United Terran Nations are the best developed. The UTN's primary goal as a collective nation is pretty much the same as Japan's going into WWII - essentially, they want to gain exclusive control of every system with a wormhole into Sol, so that they can fortify them and stop worrying about people dropping troops onto Earth unannounced... They're so dedicated to this mostly because it happened right after Decrystalization, and the invaders... were not well behaved.
Their technology compares to the 'stellar standard' kind of unevenly - power generation and materials sciences are well behind, along with medical stuff, but their computer and nanotechnology defines the cutting edge. Also, their execution of the universal stardrive has the highest mass and energy overhead - they have to build bigger starships.
Their experience at and habit of designing for a harsher environment tends to make UTN non-walkers (tanks, fighters, etc.) more capable than their counterparts in other militaries, but their only mecha unit is a small, agile machine with no real integral weapons beyond its own hands and feet - it was designed to fight with carried and melee weapons, to protect the real core of the UTN army from enemy close-combat attacks. It is good at that, though. Metatextually, it'd be called a fairly typical AS if you dropped it into MITHRIL's lap.
The other two factions I've done, well, any development on carry the working tags of 'The spiders' and 'the fanatics'.
Spiders are, as you might guess from the name, non-human, being shaped sort of like a sand-dollar with seven radially arranged legs and a tube worm on top. They have five genders (three for 'standard reproduction', male, female, and bearer, fully functional hermaphrodites, and neuters), and breathe methane.
Strangely, they get along really well with humans.
Fortunately, since their homeworld happens to share a star system with a world that had a small human population on it, who they've become so closely allied with that the two 'governments' usually just get counted as one by outsiders. They also have fairly friendly relations with the UTN.
I don't know much about their technology except that they like Veritechs/LAMs/whatever you want to call them.
'The Fanatics' actually have about half a dozen different 'sects' competing for political and social influence under the umbrella of their overgovernment, only one of which really deserves the title I've given them.
Unfortunately, that sect managed to push ahead an invasion of one of the new worlds they'd discovered in hopes of securing converts... and, since Earth has a relatively large economic and industrial base, promptly ended up regretting it.
Part of their religious aspect is that the Fanatics are the biggest users of psi-tech, which lets their mecha - but only the mecha - do things like fly without engines, generate forcefields that run along a conducting surface, and other fun tricks. The overall effect should, I hope, be somewhere between Escaflowne and Eureka 7, with maybe a dash of Evangelion's AT fields.
There are at least three other slots open that don't have any sort of faction design associate with them yet - the giant walkertank people (homaging Battletech), the Gundam clones, and the super-duper psi-powered once-off megamech users (Go Nagai et al.)
Oh, and, to avoid having to actually go to war with each other, the various governments are all sponsoring and hiring various small mercenary groups to deniably carry out operations towards their goals. The various corporate and other nongovernmental entities that have been racing in to take advantage of the gaps are also in the market, of course... Who knows what the PCs might get paid to do?
Suggestions?
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"
Then a part of my brain jumped up and declared, 'Hey, guess what? I've got this really cool universe for you to play in...'
Well, what about this, presumably RPG-like, universe, then?
Mecha space opera, if small-scale (tens of worlds, not hundreds or thousands). Various suspiciously-human-like subspecies scattered across the known worlds by some unknown precursor race, but still a couple of Real Wierdie Alien types. FTL travel on the justification that the universe's hyperspaces undergo periodic 'crystalizations' brought on by its expansion, wherein nothing is possible until hyperspace 'melts' again... Drive type is keyed wormhole, though, just because it makes things simpler to plan - and gives justification for low-relative-speed space battles at point blank range.
Psi/Magic, yes, although apparently just as another type of technology.
The overall political setting is that all of the worlds that were capable of going into space when things started to decrystalize are now going out and exploring the newly opened universe... and running into each other, of course. No sapient race is older than a certain point in time, which suggests that that unknown precursor civ also either uplifted or wiped out whatever was around before their departure.
How am I justifying the mecha? Well, the primary assumption is a fairly simple one - that Earth, far from being a perfectly normal habitable world, is actually a high-gravity zone. Most of the relevant technologies that the other nations are relying on are ones they're ahead in because, without the gravity to make launches so expensive or stress mechs' ankle joints so much or whatever, they're way ahead in lot of fields.
Naturally, each new star nation has its own, distinctive approach to mecha design and such. Like that one fighting game, but freer formed.
I have varying amounts decided about the different factions - naturally, the United Terran Nations are the best developed. The UTN's primary goal as a collective nation is pretty much the same as Japan's going into WWII - essentially, they want to gain exclusive control of every system with a wormhole into Sol, so that they can fortify them and stop worrying about people dropping troops onto Earth unannounced... They're so dedicated to this mostly because it happened right after Decrystalization, and the invaders... were not well behaved.
Their technology compares to the 'stellar standard' kind of unevenly - power generation and materials sciences are well behind, along with medical stuff, but their computer and nanotechnology defines the cutting edge. Also, their execution of the universal stardrive has the highest mass and energy overhead - they have to build bigger starships.
Their experience at and habit of designing for a harsher environment tends to make UTN non-walkers (tanks, fighters, etc.) more capable than their counterparts in other militaries, but their only mecha unit is a small, agile machine with no real integral weapons beyond its own hands and feet - it was designed to fight with carried and melee weapons, to protect the real core of the UTN army from enemy close-combat attacks. It is good at that, though. Metatextually, it'd be called a fairly typical AS if you dropped it into MITHRIL's lap.
The other two factions I've done, well, any development on carry the working tags of 'The spiders' and 'the fanatics'.
Spiders are, as you might guess from the name, non-human, being shaped sort of like a sand-dollar with seven radially arranged legs and a tube worm on top. They have five genders (three for 'standard reproduction', male, female, and bearer, fully functional hermaphrodites, and neuters), and breathe methane.
Strangely, they get along really well with humans.
Fortunately, since their homeworld happens to share a star system with a world that had a small human population on it, who they've become so closely allied with that the two 'governments' usually just get counted as one by outsiders. They also have fairly friendly relations with the UTN.
I don't know much about their technology except that they like Veritechs/LAMs/whatever you want to call them.
'The Fanatics' actually have about half a dozen different 'sects' competing for political and social influence under the umbrella of their overgovernment, only one of which really deserves the title I've given them.
Unfortunately, that sect managed to push ahead an invasion of one of the new worlds they'd discovered in hopes of securing converts... and, since Earth has a relatively large economic and industrial base, promptly ended up regretting it.
Part of their religious aspect is that the Fanatics are the biggest users of psi-tech, which lets their mecha - but only the mecha - do things like fly without engines, generate forcefields that run along a conducting surface, and other fun tricks. The overall effect should, I hope, be somewhere between Escaflowne and Eureka 7, with maybe a dash of Evangelion's AT fields.
There are at least three other slots open that don't have any sort of faction design associate with them yet - the giant walkertank people (homaging Battletech), the Gundam clones, and the super-duper psi-powered once-off megamech users (Go Nagai et al.)
Oh, and, to avoid having to actually go to war with each other, the various governments are all sponsoring and hiring various small mercenary groups to deniably carry out operations towards their goals. The various corporate and other nongovernmental entities that have been racing in to take advantage of the gaps are also in the market, of course... Who knows what the PCs might get paid to do?
Suggestions?
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"