There's a great deal of discussion on this forum, which is good stuff. But I wanna come at some of the issues from a different angle.
What do we actually want out of this setting? After all, a game setting is a playground - we want it equipped with all the best toys, eh?
So what kind of campaigns do people wish to run in it? If we rush ahead and plan our astrography etc too quickly we may end up precluding or making difficult some kind of campaigns. It may be we want to do that, but we want to make the decision ourselves rather than find its been made for us by dice rolls.
We know the local humans are solomani, that the rim war will have some major bearing on events (even if its set after the war), and that low burn tensions withthe Hivers will form the backdrop to everything.
however, thats just the big stuff - war, espionage, politics and privateering.
as the Sol Confed is anti Imperial, it should have a different character. there is less centralisation, therefore more political diversity and probably debate, but under the domination of a powerful Sol Party. There will be more dissent and perhaps aggressively competitive factions and fractions. control and policing will be less complete and probably more heavy handed. and most importantly, the lack of a central authority figure will mean powerful individual worlds will have alot more influence than in imperial affairs.
To me that means this setting is fluid and unstable and implies lots of adventuring opportunities.
piracy will need bases that allow attack of shipping lanes
smugglers will want a backwoods trading route
criminals will need planets that let them operate
colonists and settlers need worlds to settle and reasons to leave their original homes
traders will need valuable goods to move from place to place
etc etc
If we can define what we want to put here now it will help us develop the UWP data and quirks of history and politcs
What do we actually want out of this setting? After all, a game setting is a playground - we want it equipped with all the best toys, eh?
So what kind of campaigns do people wish to run in it? If we rush ahead and plan our astrography etc too quickly we may end up precluding or making difficult some kind of campaigns. It may be we want to do that, but we want to make the decision ourselves rather than find its been made for us by dice rolls.
We know the local humans are solomani, that the rim war will have some major bearing on events (even if its set after the war), and that low burn tensions withthe Hivers will form the backdrop to everything.
however, thats just the big stuff - war, espionage, politics and privateering.
as the Sol Confed is anti Imperial, it should have a different character. there is less centralisation, therefore more political diversity and probably debate, but under the domination of a powerful Sol Party. There will be more dissent and perhaps aggressively competitive factions and fractions. control and policing will be less complete and probably more heavy handed. and most importantly, the lack of a central authority figure will mean powerful individual worlds will have alot more influence than in imperial affairs.
To me that means this setting is fluid and unstable and implies lots of adventuring opportunities.
piracy will need bases that allow attack of shipping lanes
smugglers will want a backwoods trading route
criminals will need planets that let them operate
colonists and settlers need worlds to settle and reasons to leave their original homes
traders will need valuable goods to move from place to place
etc etc
If we can define what we want to put here now it will help us develop the UWP data and quirks of history and politcs