Traveller style world

Note to other authors:

Please feel free to add to this story-line I have no definite story arc worked out just a few loose ideas.

Geography for Space Opera setting: (I’ll add to this as more of the world is revealed)

The Star Empire is a human based world of the far future (1000 plus years in the future). Humanity has mastered faster than light travel and expanded across vast expanses of the Milky Way galaxy although much more remains to be explored.

Unlike many other sci-fi worlds, alien life-forms do not exist; the only other confirmed truly alien life forms are the ancients who passed through this arm of the galaxy many millennium ago leaving signs of their far more advanced civilization. The inhabited planets of the galaxy are all filled with populations of plants, animals and humans that all descend from life forms that originally lived on Earth. However this does not mean that every planet looks like Earth, nor do the lifeforms or the inhabitants that live there look identical.

A great deal of variation exists in the plant life, animals and even among the human populations of the planets that were at times isolated and evolved in isolation. Two factors in particular have led to this variation. Advances in gene manipulation in earlier human expansions allowed the genetic modification of species and even entire populations to make living on harsh planets possible. Even those humans that were not deliberately modified were often exposed to high levels of radiation and other mutagens. This is not to say that most planets are filled with bug-eyed monsters, but that if these monsters exist, that they were almost certainly descended from Terran stock.

In this the Third Imperium, there is significant bias against any genetic modifications. The culture favors those humans who have little genetic drift from the early Terran humans, while those with greater variation are ignored, despised or feared.

The core planets of the imperium are richer, with higher tech levels and more restrictive laws than the outer rim planets (think Alliance and outer planets of Firefly). The outer rim planets have wild differences in tech levels (from uninhabited or stone-aged planets to planets whose tech levels rival the core planets). These planets tend to have lower law levels, more hunger and disease and far greater opportunity for social advancement than their counterparts nearer the core. Most planets, even the very primitive planets are familiar with the arrival and departure of spaceships carrying trade goods much like the early trading ships that encountered island cultures in the Pacific even as late as the Cargo cults of the mid twentieth century.

In Core planets nearly every inhabitant is implanted with an “IP chip” (Identification Protocol) that contains a wealth of useful information. As well as the person’s identity, information such as available funds and credit history, medical history, employment history and professional certifications are all encrypted on these IP chips. Most chips also include a GPS tracker that can be used to identify where an individual is or has been. Despite the privacy issues involved with these chips, the usefulness of IP-chips has made them an everyday fact of life. Even in rim planets many people use this option to facilitate their lives the conducting transactions by waving your hand over a chip reader is so safe and efficient that many venders use no other form of transaction. The one main problem with this system is that if a person leaves one planetary system and travels somewhere else their financial records take a while to catch up.

This lag time is because of a unique characteristic of the Traveler Universe. Even though Faster-Than-Light (FTL) technology exists, there is no technology to communicate across these great distances. It can take weeks and even months for news from the Capital to reach the outlying planets. Cash must be physically carried from one planet to another in the form of encrypted chips that are deposited in banks and can be used on that planet. If you have wealth on a different planet creditors may or may not extend credit to you when you arrive somewhere new. The need for a universal network for financial services has led to several corporations that specialize in these services.

One of the most reliable sources of universal credit is the Traveler’s Aid Society. Membership in the TAS is very selective often involving placing a great deal of collateral under the TAS’s control, but once you are a member you have access to a great deal of legal, and financial backing. TAS offices are located in every major spaceport in the known world, and membership in TAS is recognized by most people as being a sign of creditworthiness.

One of the other effects of the slow communication time is the feudal nature of imperial politics. Because it takes months for news to travel from one edge of the imperium to the other, individual planetary governments operate with a great deal of autonomy. In addition to this the Empire dislikes any instability in the planets under their control, the combination of these two factors has led to a great amount of power and wealth collected by a relatively tiny fraction of powerful families. These powerful families form the ruling aristocracy of Impirial rule.

Like the Roman Empire of old Earth, the current Third Imperium is dangerously close to collapse as it has reached the limit of its expansion. Rim planets chafe under the attempts at control from planets so far away that they seem unreal. Even in the Imperial Court, the political fighting among potential heirs of the throne has created an unstable monolith waiting to be toppled.