Quote from: Skarg;995993Yep. I just felt you didn't qualify what you were talking about enough, making it sound like it would always be as you described, but that assumes that everyplace you're talking about can efficiently be reached and that there aren't other places more interesting to those who might travel to other systems to intervene for the reasons you're talking about.

Sure. I left that open because I don't want to overly presume those details beyond the assumptions of "Warring States in Space". Certainly those details matter - but they matter insofar as the GM decides what the nature of the status-quo is that allows for the condition of "Warring States in Space" exists. From my top-down view - you can mutate those higher-assumptions once you drill down to those details you're mentioning. From your down-up method, you're establishing details that will inform how those top-level concepts will emerge. Same thing - different vector.

Quote from: Skarg;995993Again, I'm not disagreeing for states that are empire-like and that are in close enough contact and that don't have greater concerns. I just think you're leaving out the other situations, where nations aren't empire-like and/or have more pressing issues closer to home and/or the effort to exert power is too great. It seems to me that those factors have the potential to be extreme when we're talking about different planets and especially different star systems, unless it's the far end of the ease/resource scale like Star Wars. Even Star Trek is full of huge numbers of random planets and local powers that aren't being dominated by the local empires. Meanwhile for what I'm talking about, it seems to me there are more Earth examples than not, especially before the European empires during the Age o' Colonization.

Heh I'm leaving out almost limitless options on purpose - those are things for the GM to decide. I'm only providing a large structure to start with. That's why I advocate a top-down approach, it's easier to manipulate and tweak without having anything above it suddenly be rendered moot. That's why I'm being general.

But consider what you're saying - nations that aren't empires will bend to the will of a larger and more powerful empire (assuming such things exist). To *what degree* is up to the GM and those pesky details as mentioned above. It could be trade, military, cultural - all of the above - etc. In Star Wars there are very few independent planets or multi-planetary systems. Those that maintain their true independence - do so by force. Chiss Ascendancy, the only star empire to fight the Empire to dead standstill, so much so they formed a political alliance. The Voss? Force masters on par with the Empire. Even the Republic had to compete with the Empire on equal footing. There are other consortiums out there that have direct dealings with the Empire and Republic - but again, they fall into the category of Trade, Military, Cultural. And those inconsequential to the two big organizations in Star Wars are merely that - inconsequential to the scale of those powers.

Star Trek is more interesting - but still holds to the same clause. These random planets and cultures out there are only random until they make contact and establish Trade, Military ties/enmity or Cultural contact with the Federation/Klingons/Romulans etc. How those organizations deal with new cultures are the modus operandi defined by their culture. That's where all those details matter.

Edit: And in those details that's where the game takes place. Perfect example is Firefly. Everything outside of the core systems is "the frontier" where all kinds of organizations and criminal syndicates exist. But the moment the Federal powers roll in... they become the gravity well of the situation that everything has to orbit, at least until they leave. Big fish eat littler fish. Some little fish like to hang around the big fish when they feed.

Yep. You're talking about places in range of the effective and likely influence of one or more empires. I'm just saying that there aren't always/everywhere empires in effective & likely range. Though in Star Trek and (especially) Star Wars range & logistics tend to be overpowered by situation/tech/apathy/handwavium, that seems to me like the far end of the possible spectrum.

Quote from: Skarg;996596Yep. You're talking about places in range of the effective and likely influence of one or more empires. I'm just saying that there aren't always/everywhere empires in effective & likely range. Though in Star Trek and (especially) Star Wars range & logistics tend to be overpowered by situation/tech/apathy/handwavium, that seems to me like the far end of the possible spectrum.

Yep. Can't have warring states that aren't aware of one another. Those assumptions on how those connections exist are those levers and switches GM's can invent to help regulate the game.

I used to think Star Wars specifically as being totally unrealistic in terms of how they handle logistics and technological evolution. Now I'm not so sure. Consider the issues we, today have with establishing security of technological secrets. The nature of our networking which now extends to all our devices is a gigantic security issue. There have already been some pretty massive data-breaches that almost makes the case for Stars Wars analog-tech, where things are inconveniently compartmentalized (or something like it).

That would drastically slow down the exponential growth of such an empire, outside of standard bureaucratic inefficiencies. Plus the consideration of what it would take to establish such a multi-cultural empire with an overarching culture. Likely many genocides and wars if we're assuming relative human-levels of conscious "enlightenment" (which is to say very little). Achieving that kind of homogeneity  is no small feat. So the Star Wars setup doesn't sound as far-fetched (though I do find a lot of it structurally silly) as I once thought.

Then of course there's bypassing all the current observations of the Fermi Paradox... that alone probably deserves its own thread.

Isn't NORAD offline and using 1970s technology for security purposes? You can't hack it if it's not connected.

Quote from: Dumarest;981603I'd rather watch Bad Girls, silly as it may be, over Tombstone. The latter takes itself too seriously and I found it a bore. The only part I found even watchable was "I'll be your huckleberry."

I just watched Bad Girls. That's 1 hour 39 minutes of my life I'm not getting back.

Quote from: Dumarest;995332[ATTACH=CONFIG]1678[/ATTACH]

I like this. Where is this from?

Quote from: Dumarest;996730Isn't NORAD offline and using 1970s technology for security purposes? You can't hack it if it's not connected.

Yep. Our Minuteman ICBM systems still run on 8" Floppy discs. They're in the process of being updated to modern systems now. There's a lot of talk about how it will become MORE insecure.

Conversely - I've heard the Russian intelligence agencies have gone back to paper filing systems for security reasons.

I don't really get the problem with making interesting inter-galactic factions. You don't even need them to be aliens. You can really just use different cultures/systems-of-government from  history.

Quote from: Bren;996897I just watched Bad Girls. That's 1 hour 39 minutes of my life I'm not getting back.

I like this. Where is this from?

Just from a quick Google image search for corporate espionage...provenance unknown as I didn't check beyond finding a suitable picture.

I didn't say Bad Girls was good...i just said I'd rather watch it than Tombstone. Plus I like looking at my undercover Latina Madeleine Stowe.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1780[/ATTACH]