Space Opera Part Deux

So I’ve been running this Space Opera campaign idea around a bit more in my head and have a few more random thoughts to add to it.

So this star cluster (a group of stars near each other and grouped together) is a remote region that is not resource rich, it doesn’t have any real strategic value, and isn’t claimed by either major government surrounding it. So why the hell would anyone live there? Well, being not claimed by either government is exactly the type of place people who want to be left alone would go. There are always humans who will flee from civilization to be where they can just be left alone and I’m sure there are species of aliens that would do the same.

There are bound to be enough resources and such in the area to seem at least attractive enough to people to move out to there, so it isn’t going to be devoid of an economy. It’ll just be smaller than other areas. Maybe there’s a nice planet that people will fly to as a tourism destination, possibly on the way to another destination. So one planet in the entire cluster will have a larger economy and population than the rest of it, but it will be more of a tourism/consumer based economy than anywhere else in the cluster. Most of the cluster’s economy would be based around feeding raw materials and supplies to the largest consumer in the area because that’s how economies tend to work.

This means that interstellar shipping will be important. Great time and place to be a trader… or a pirate.

With the lack of a central government, each system is going to be policing their own territory and not caring about what other places are doing. Coupling this with how much shipping is going to the same location you’re going to see a decently large pirate presence throughout the cluster. The area being poorly patrolled by civilized society means that privateers, security companies, and bounty hunter types exist in droves to help provide the law and order. Most of them are even pretty decent folk.

Okay, so let’s talk about technology. Since this is my personal setting it has its own set of tech. Most of it is pretty straightforward.

Let’s start with propulsion and interstellar travel. Keep in mind that we’re going to go with the cinematic approach to speeds similar to how Star Wars or space flight sim games like Wing Commander use. It isn’t realistic and is explained by the “Rule of Awesome” as to why this is even practical. So you have 3 speeds of travel; Local/Combat, In-System Navigation, and Interstellar.

Local/Combat speeds are the slowest and are based upon the speeds required to safely maneuver near gravity wells of certain strength or around other ships. It also enables ships to operate weapons safely and accurately. This propulsion system is based off of Fusion/Plasma Engines generating thrust.

In-System Navigation (I-SN, ISN Drive) is kind of like Warp Speed, but it only works while within a certain distance of a star’s gravity well, the further away it is from the star the slower it goes. Once you pass the Interstellar space threshold the I-SN is about as useful as the engines for Local speeds. This is a separate type of engine that is essentially a field generator that manipulate space-time/gravity around it similar to the familiar warp-drive but interstellar space doesn’t have enough gravity generating matter available to provide the “wave/bubble” effect.

Interstellar navigation was a difficult thing for the various species to master. The true key to making a functioning interstellar drive was to design a system that didn’t interact with the physics of our universe. The Sub-Space Drive (SSD, sub-drive, subspace field generator, SFG) is the interstellar drive of this setting. It basically covers its parent ship with an energy field that allows it to travel into another reality that exists partially within our own. These drives more or less open a shortcut between two points in reality using subspace as the path because subspace doesn’t work the same as our universe and allows for quicker travel. The Navigation of subspace is dangerous and difficult. It must be plotted carefully or else you could end up very off course very quickly. Navigation Computers make it easier but they can take a while to put together a course. Auto-pilots can also help to handle the dangers of subspace, but leaving them entirely in charge without oversight has led to some spectacular disasters over the years. (There’s a lot more about the subspace field generators bouncing around in my head but I’m just going to call this much a good starting point for most people) Oh, one last thing about them, don’t use one that’s broken. It’s bad news. What they find is messy to say the least.

Weapons Technology is based around the classic trio of Projectiles, Missiles/Torpedoes, and Energy Beams. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Energy Beams/Weapons are based around Plasma technology. Projectiles are based around rail-guns. Missiles/Torpedoes come in various shapes and sizes and each have a different mission to fulfill. Defensive measures generally are energy shields, but there are anti-missile systems and armor plating as well.

The newest type of torpedo that is driving military planners crazy is the “Skipper” torpedo. Typically attached to a very large warhead and designed to take down the most heavily armored starships, the skipper torpedo has a small subspace field generator on it that allows it to briefly enter subspace. This essentially allows it to increase its speed and range with the same fuel load and makes it harder to target with anti-missile weaponry. The skipper’s targeting system can also time the shifts to subspace to bypass the defenses and come back inside of its target. These systems are extremely limited in distribution, expensive, and heavily controlled by the various governments of the galaxy.

The one time pirates got a hold of a cache of these weapons the cost and damage was catastrophic. The pirates didn’t survive, not a single one. There has been a big push to adapt this technology to fighters and ships, but each time they activate the test ships’ drives all organic matter disappears from the ship within the first few skips through subspace.

Stealth technology is essentially unheard of. Most everything that is able to circumvent a certain type of sensor is easily going to be able to be detected by another type of sensor. Most of the known types of stealth craft are extremely expensive, ridiculously short range, and extremely underpowered. They will usually be deployed by a different ship that acts as their support ship/carrier. Typically they will be used for Spec-Op insertion planetside. Most reconnaissance work is conducted by spies in civilian ships and cheap probes that only escape detection most of the time due to their small size.

One relatively common tactic in full-scale warfare is the use of boarding ships/pods on the target. The targets in these cases are going to be Starships, Space Stations, Planets, etc. There are two types of boarding ships, Breachers and Cutters. Cutters fly their way onto the hull of an enemy ship, using plasma beams it cuts open a section of the hull and allows its occupants to enter into an enemy ship and later be able to escape with ease just by reboarding the ship and flying away. Cutters are great for  Spec-Ops teams with precise missions to accomplish. Breachers on the other hand tend to be more brutal and direct in their approach.

These heavily armored and very fast ships act like missiles filled with troops. They slam through the enemy hull and anchor themselves to it, making it extremely difficult to remove the ship. Once the hull is breached the hull on the Breacher opens to allow all the troops inside to rapidly board the ship. These are typically used in large numbers when the controlling fleet knows it has a good chance of capturing an enemy’s vessel with those troops.

On the ground, limited stealth field generators can give some semblance of cloak to unaided vision, but most security systems and vision enhancement equipment is able to see through these devices. People will carry around man sized versions of the energy/projectile/missile variety and wear armors of various types. Robots, super-medicine, bionic/cybernetic implants, cloned body parts, and other such things will end up existing as well.

After looking through the book for D6 Space I realize I’m going to have to design equipment myself and/or steal it from other settings because the core rulebook has pretty much nothing in it. Same thing goes for ships. At least there are extensive design rules for that. I’ll probably just steal already existing pictures of other settings ships and use them as filler and a template for the time being.

As far as aliens go, I’ve never actually populated this setting with specific species before. I just never got around to actually doing it, I was too busy with the sculpting of the Humans and their struggles to actually give them specific aliens to encounter and deal with. I’ve got ideas about what’s out there, but my sensibilities regarding alien races have changed themselves so many times over the years that nothing has survived a purging of Tropes and silliness. I really need to figure out a few of them now.

Welcome to the Collective

So I’ve long held the belief that the United Federation of Planets from Star Trek is actually run by a shadowy government that controls all major decisions behind closed doors. There’s plenty of evidence for it within the various media to support it, mostly having to do with the insane number of corrupt/crazy officials and organizations within the Federation. (Section 31 anyone?) Part of that Alex Jones style conspiracy theory leads to what the true origin of the Borg are, a failed Federation experiment that was luckily shot far away from the federation shortly after the dangers were discovered.

If you can see the underlying corruption of the federation and know its history with awful experimentation and those very experiments going awry rather spectacularly very often you can understand how it might be possible. Just think of any episode of TNG where they’re trying some type of new experimental tech and it almost destroys a world or starts poking holes in reality or causes everyone on the ship to begin to de-evolve. How about that holodeck? With the safety protocols disengaged it can cause a real warp core breach or allow an antique gun to be used to slaughter some Borg.

Now think about that while imagining this. (Spoilers of Voyager ahead) In Voyager the Borg started to get explained. Some of their origins, their tech, and all of that other stuff is brought into the light. One episode the crew finds a planet full of former Borg who were separated from the collective and had to fend for themselves. It was a pretty interesting episode. Basically what you should take out of it though is what the Neural Link of the Borg is capable of doing. It is able to share all the thoughts, memories and mental energies of those in the link with all the others. It creates a sense of bliss and the positive energy is capable of stimulating rapid healing of life-threatening energies.

Chakotay has his life saved by this energy from the link and is then used by one of the groups on the planet to reactivate their hive mind. Within seconds of activation the war the two sides we fighting stops without so much as an afterthought given to everyone one the planet's feelings on being reintroduced into a hive mind that crushes their individuality.

This is a majorly important thing to understand. The Borg are linked by their hive mind and share the same voice because of this one invention, the neural link. Everything else is just an expansion of this if you really think about it. The episode in question ends with the crew reactivating the neural link between all of these former Borg which ends their war immediately because they are all suddenly one again. It’s a weird thing to think about too long.

(I can only imagine what would happen if someone had a string enough will to overpower the others within the collective or was manipulative enough to convince the collective to follow their will, or hell, reprogram the link to make themselves have a higher priority within the thought protocols or whatever you want to call them.)

Everything else the Borg do, use, or create is an expansion of this Link. The link provides them with the ability to solve problems quickly and with one voice while keeping all who are in it healthier. This was a benevolent invention with good intentions until something or someone caused a catastrophic failure of the system. Like maybe a corrupt/crazy Starfleet Admiral or Federation official?

So the theory I’m getting to is that this was a major cybernetics project for the Federation. All sorts of ways to remove the need for food, breathing, etc while making each individual safer and allowing a ship to function better. This would likely be happening during a time of active warfare, so possibly during Kirk’s time. Instant communication and better combat capabilities are all things you desperately research. Each of the individuals who were in there getting implants were volunteers, each with differing specialties, most of them scientists though who then used this link to enhance their information sharing which helped accelerate this project.

The project must have been producing great results. They managed to create devices that replaced biological functions and some others that were useful for shipboard work, computer interfacing, and combat (like a reprogrammable personal shield generator). They even developed a way to recharge these devices with an exterior power source so they wouldn’t need to each be carrying miniature warp cores with them everywhere they went. They called these regeneration alcoves. Everything was going great until they added their final volunteer.

I’m going to guess that this volunteer was an attractive young woman who had a rough past. Possibly growing up on a war torn world and suffered varying abuses from her time there. Maybe she had lost multiple limbs throughout her life as well as some types of extensive and permanent organ damages as well. The researchers took pity on her and tried to help he out by giving her these implants. I’d imagine she took to the implants very quickly and was beyond happy to receive them. Maybe this awakened one of those deep seated addictions that can only appear in someone who has suffered a long train of abuse. This led to her need to fill her body with technology. She had to replace the weak flesh. When the researchers began to worry about her sanity and attempted to slow her down she took control of their collective by sheer force of will. It was then she started to call herself the Queen.

The one researcher who was left who was luckily able to break the link before she could take control of him. He tried to run as quickly as he could, but the others were too capable and almost succeeded in capturing him and forcing him back into the collective. He was saved at the last minute after an entity calling himself “Q” basically froze them in place. The researcher begged the entity to assist him, which he agreed to do on one condition, Humanity would need to be judged X number of years in the future to determine if they were worth continuing to exist after unleashing what this collective would become. Of course he agreed and Q sent the Queen and her collective to a random spot in the Delta Quadrant.

The Admiral/Official in charge of the project briefed his superiors and Section 31 about this incident after interrogating and imprisoning the lone researcher. The information was secreted away and hidden to preserve the peace of the Federation during the war so as to not give the Federation nor Star Fleet a bad rap.
Meanwhile in the Delta Quadrant the Collective took control of the world they were transported to and began to use their scientific knowledge to build themselves up and force more sentient beings into their collective. Eventually they were able to get their hands on a Nanotech scientist who was able to finalize their transformation into the Borg that we know now by creating the nanoprobes that became their most useful weapon in forcefully assimilating others. The nanoprobes took care of building the initial implants that make a Borg what it is, most importantly the Neural Link.

The Queen achieved technical immortality by being able to move “her” to whatever vessel that exists that can handle her individual consciousness.

Wow, that got off my original intent rather quickly…

The point is, this neural link uses positive feelings and instant communication to all those who are connected to allow a bunch of people to communicate their thoughts and ideas across the link. It’s a future Facebook.
Social networks are starting to show signs in studies as being as addicting as heroine. It produces a mini-high every time you click a “Like” button or when someone responds to any of your posts. It is a social link that connects you with other people nearly instantaneously and keeps you there with the positive feelings that you get from it.

Social networking is the start of the Neural Link!