Yet Another Brain Fart -- err, plot bunny

[Valles]

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Edit: if you want them to fight, but they are not after the same real estate, why not make it over a particularily rich asteroid belt?

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Mrrg. Sort of in that direction, yeah.
To illustrate what I'm thinking for FTL, a jump point is an orbiting phenomenon associated with a given star of stellar class K7 or higher. Any given jump point will grant the ability, assuming the proper drive, to 'jump' to another, specific and unalterable, jump point associated with another star nor more than about five parsecs distant.
Sol has eight - Tau Ceti, Epsilon Indi, 61 Cygni, Procyon, Epsilon Eridani, Sirius, Alpha Centauri, and Groombridge 1618.
Which last has a well-developed Paladin mining colony, specifically controlled by the Fanatic sect.
The Paladin 'homeworld' is three jumps from Earth, and that colony is on the shortest route. Coincidentally, the Paladins never really got in the habit of using radio communications, which was why we've never heard of the folks, and the next nearest homeworld is on the opposite side from theirs - and about twenty parsecs farther.
Hmm. That would be the Battletech people, I suspect, and wonder if a sufficiently plausible line of bullshit could be produced to include a 'Space 1888' style steampunk group in our already established set...
Mrgh. Inconvenient radio transmissions. Dealing with them requires either a handwave of higher quality than I'm up to producing at this time of night or a considerably greater distance than I'd prefer.
Thoughts? And, now that I'm back with my Jovian Chronicles sourcebooks, I'll try and do some write-ups for example machines...
Ja, -n

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