just let them pick the homeworld traits they want and they can have come form some world outside of the marches. thiers no need to shoehorn their homeworlds into the setting (unless a player wants to be Marches born).
I was kind of hoping to steer them into a
Space Pirate/Bounty Hunter/Mercenary type of adventure group.
I would like to discourage PC's from having alien races as a PC, but I suppose a Vargr wouldn't be too bad.
ok, thats fine. a lot of people don't like the Rubber Forehead Aliens in traveller and Star Trek, either.
my suggestions:
the players are the core of a small, single ship merc group, named to taste (eg
"hammers slammers", "Von Richthofens Flying Circus", "Duke of Ankh Morporks Own". let them come up with a cool name. and kudos if you can name where all 3 names come form.), and "commanded" by a NPC businessman you control. his role is to manage the negoication of contracts and such while the PCs deal with the "military" side of things (i.e. he hands the players the adventure brief and says "go do that", then fades into the background until the end where he says "well done, heres your payment, and your next contract").
thier are other members of the merc group, but those are just NPCs to fill out crew rosters (i.e. extra gunners, spare mechanic, etc).
If you feel up to it, have the players roll up two seperate PCs each: a "space" character and and "ground" character. that way, all of the players can always be involved in the action, be it ship combat or personal fights, without half the players being forced to sit out because they choose to be ace mechanics rather than Marines.
for this sort of active, combat oriented game, you're going to want to give them a good, combat oriented ship, one with the armour and firepower to keep them alive. of the core rulebook ships, I'd suggest a Gazelle Close Escorts (400 ton, J4, M4, 8pts of armour, 4 turrets, and a launch for those "shuttle" missions you might want to run)
if you have/want to use the expanded ship building rules form High Guard and the ships form Traders and Gunboats, then the Firey class Gunned escort makes another, IMO better, boat for such a party (400 tons, J3, M5, 3 turrets and a 50 ton Fusion gun bay. nasty thing at shorter ranges). I;d suggest a few mods to the ship, but thats only if your comfortable with the ship building rules.
for an reoccuring antagonist, heres an idea:
the players merc group formed by breaking away form a another, larger merc group that has a number of contracts and assets all over the marches. the bussnessman that founded them (your NPC plothook giver) was a junior member of the larger groups board that decided to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. He charms the players into forming teh core of his new company and, by some savvy political moves (and a few leagally gray ones), is able to get most of the players starting equipment (including the ship) "released" form their old company and to join his new one.
now, understandably, the old group is less than happy that an upstart board member has run off with several of the best employees and a few billion credits worth of stuff, and all (more or less) above board and untouchably. So, when they can, they seek to make life hard for the players. maybe they accept contracts that put them on the other side of a fight. maybe they pull strings to make starport customs be anal with the players. maybe they just spit at them in the bar.
