Mega-Corporations

With the global markets crashed and rebuilding after the Modern Dark Age, many corporations merged into massive conglomerates to pool resources and work with newly rebounded governments. These governments turn a blind eye to the monopolization of these resources & technologies in exchange for backing against other rival governments. The Corporations realize people want government and not a company running their lives so they stick to using the political system to their advantages. Though the exception was China where the traditional communist system was able to deflect any kind of MegaCorp takeover and later the nationalizing of the MegaCorps in Russia & Korea.

Sadicorp: Company closely aligned with the Alliance & the Confederation. Deals in consumer goods, cybernetics, military hardware, and fuel. Major influence on mercenaries & militaries.

Based in Neuvo Francisco, Zion, and Lunar Base. Leader in colonial technology, teraforming, and human resources. Does deal in espionage & selling of stolen secrets.

NeoGenesis: Based in London & Aldrin City. Built on genetic & molecular manipulation technologies. Known for questionable & dangerous experiments.

NET23

New Edge Technologies: (aka NET23) Based on Mars. Developer of Edge advancements, augments, and propulsion. Struggles to keep in line with Martian Neutrality.

Earth Governments

With the worldwide currency crash of the late 21st century, Earth falls into a new Dark Age of war & strife. What emerges is the unification of global powers by 2129 and the dissolvement of the United Nations in 2181.

Atlantic Alliance: United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, European Union.

People's Republic: China, Russia, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia.

Southern Coalition: Australia, India, Africa, Middle East.

The Lunar Cities are divided up among the Big Three, but is really ruled by the Syndicate from the shadows, as it is an aging territory that is a drain on resources.

Mars declares itself neutral & forms the United Colonies of Mars. The Atlantic Alliance refuses to acknowledge the secession and begins the Shadow War but thanks to Mars' local Corporation, Net23, the Alliance struggles to get the upper hand  against the Martian Edge technologies. 

The Free

The Free

Former Grey, now digital intelligence in advanced robotics.

Set number, consciousness stored in Mothership.

Never has duplicates of the same individual until death.

The Grey have always been resourceful and advanced with their technology, so when they faced a losing battle against the Dyranni mind control they took the ultimate step to protect themselves and a future for all sentient life. This sacrifice forced the Grey to upload their consciousnesses into an elaborate server of digital intelligence. Calling themselves the Free, the sought to find a way to stop the Dyranni threat among the uncharted systems to keep hidden from the Confederation.

The Free have a set number, even though they are in robot bodies. When one loses connection with their Mothership, its current saved memories are installed into a new body. It is believed that it could be dangerous to have multiples of the same consciousness acting on their own. Their bodies are easily modified to hide within any populace thanks to their Mirage Drives.

Each cell is based on a Mothership where their memories are stored. These Motherships are massive built to process the digital intelligence but also as factories to build whatever the Free need for their missions. To keep them hidden the Mothership has an advanced cloaking device to avoid detection. The Mothership also has prototype FTL drives, allowing the Free to travel from system to system.

23rd Century Earth

With the development of transcranial implants, man has enhanced his brain beyond what mere DNA could provide. Technological & scientific advancements have developed so quickly and easily, the global populace has tripled in size in less than a decade. To battle the growth of population & scarcity of resources man traveled to his next frontier to conquer: his own galaxy.

Corporations begin to merge into massive entities now referred to as MegaCorps after Earth's currency crash & patent wars of the late 21st century. Governments turn a blind eye to the monopolization for the wealth of technology to make life easier. The moon becomes our first colony, followed by Mars, and then hundreds of asteroid stations to mine the belt.

The UN calls a special conference of the remarkable breakthrough of the FTL drive theory. To encourage the creation of such a device the UN declares a challenge to the government that successfully completes a Gate their first pick of a habitable planet. Earth’s political wars comes to an end as the old nations band together into three new entities: Atlantic Alliance (America & Europe), Peoples’ Republic (Russia & China), and the Southern Confederation (Africa, Middle East, & India).

The highly advanced colonies of Mars decided they were sustainable enough for their own independence, but the Alliance disagreed after realizing neither the Coalition or Republic would fight for the colonies.But it was the Martian advancement in Edge technology that defeated the Alliance Armada which forced a shaky treaty between the two. The United Nations dissolves due to the inability of the major alliances to cooperate. The major breaking point was compromising on a unified Space Law. Afterwards Space is deemed lawless as the Alliances race to complete their own Jump Gates.

Dyranni

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” - Tolstoy


Dyranni
Large Reptilian.
Prefers dry hot desert environments.
Originated on Nyru
Snakelike body with 4 weak arms; evolutionary remnants no longer used
Powerful Pheromones to influence & subdue predators or gain mates & power
Now used to subjugate alien lifeforms they meet.
Mastered Edge of Thought
Females larger & number one for every five males.
Caste System: Non-Dyranni, Overseers, Scholars, & Lords.
Never developed a warrior caste & the most powerful Dyranni are the ones with the strongest Pheromone glands and/or Edge powers.

Pre-Space civilization consisted of a peaceful empire ruled by the powerful Mind Lords who first sbujugated the insectoids (the Klii) of their planet to become their manual laborers. After a 1000 years of prosperity space travel was developed & quickly colonized three planets in their system. 300 years later using space hibernation travel they reached three more systems where they found Gray artifacts. With these artifacts & discovery of a failed alien civilization, the Dyranni were able to make their own Jump Gate and develop early Edge theories and powers. When the Gate was completed, the Gray initiated contact and invited the Dyranni to the Galactic Confederation.

The Grey only had a few life forms develop Jump Gates without their direct help, so they were pleasantly surprised by the Dyranni’s resourcefulness, devotion to scholarly pursuits, and even their lack of war. The Dyranni on the other hand felt intimidated by the Gray and other races of technological advancement after a millennia of being the dominate species of their planet. The Dyranni accepted a position in the Confederaton so they could learn more. After 200 years of membership the Dyranni left to become isolated while they mastered Edge of Thought on their own for another century. When they returned after the Second Galactic Civil War, they pledged to end war for good and soon used their powers of Thought to instrument a coup against free will.

The Third Galactic Civil War (also called the Dyranni Overthrow), pitted the Dyranni & their thralls against any aliens that sent robotic armies & fleets against them. If any organic life met a Dyranni they were easily controlled and the war became a losing one, so the Grey had no choice but escaped to unknown space to develop a resistance in hiding. In their sixtieth millennia as Star Lords, the Federation has 35 advanced members & 20 junior members, all controlled by the Dyranni Mind Lords.

The Grey

"You might imagine an uncharitable extraterrestrial observer looking down on our species... - with us excitedly chattering, "The Universe is created for us! We're at the center! Everything pays homage to us!" -and concluding that our pretensions are amusing, our aspirations pathetic, that this must be the planet of the idiots."   -Carl Sagan

The Grey

Prefers Zero-G environment

Thin body without external organs & gray skin with large oval head, large black eyes, small mouth.

Mastered Edge of Space

Average height is 5 feet, but age is the largest determining factor as Greys grow taller in their older age or when they do not reproduce.

Asexual, reproduction through controlled budding.

Believed to be the oldest living race in galaxy, though they would argue against it.

Having a billion old civilization that can travel anywhere in the galaxy caused some confusion as to the history of the Greys. Now their Pre-Space lives are only shrouded in myths, but we do know their planet of origin was a low gravity liquid planet lost in a supernova of their star half a billion years ago when they left to explore the galaxy. Most Greys believe a prophet arose from their primitive species to teach them the way of the Edge so they would no longer be restricted by the laws of nature and its hardships. Once mastered they spread throughout the galaxy using their new abilities without the use of hard technology.

During their exploration they discovered other life but all were too primitive or still restricted by the science they still perceived. So the Greys formed a loose treaty to nurture life and aid other civilizations from hardships. After many millennia, they realized too many lifeforms relied on war to to deal with their problems so they agreed to form a galactic council to teach the Edge to only those worthy and peaceful enough to stop further hardships onto others. Many ideas from other alien cultures were used in creating the first Galactic Confederation which resembled a council of various species to provide advice and aid to those that required it. It was very successful in preventing large conflicts until the Ja’Orda Revolt arose from the disagreement of two council members over the spread of the Grotawn Plague by pilgrims. The conflict split the council into two factions with the Grey leading the Life group that could not allow the eradication of a species because of the disease they carried. This lead to the First Galactic Civil War, the eradication of the Grotawn, and the formation of the Galactic Empire. The Greys knew the war was lost when the more war-like species joined the Death faction so to prevent any further loss of life, they surrendered in less then a year. The Second Confederation formed after the war to have more control over the events in the galaxy and creation of the Confederation Enforcers to stem further armed uprising.

The Second Galactic Civil War erupted when the Owallaowalli were denied admittance to the Confederation due to their war-like tendencies and oppressive government. The political minority left the government but to prevent the enslavement of other races, the Confderation agreed to fight the secession. The bloody conflict resulted in the eradication of two species, seventeen planets, and over twenty trillion lives. The result was a Dark Age that lasted ten millennia due to the destruction of numerous Jump Gates and the Greys self-isolation from the conflict. The Third Confederation was formed by the Starforge Alliance and the Grey returned to be given the absolute control over it. The Greys realized the past conflicts were caused by the inability to make the hard decision for the good of the Universe so they took a stronger stance on what was best for the majority of life instead of all life.

The Third Galactic Civil War was short and almost bloodless when the Dyranni arose to remove free will to impose practical elimination of political war. The Grey that were away travelling tried to raise a resistance but fell to the Dyranni mind control. Those not made into thralls fled to uncharted space to keep their free will and had to make the difficult decision to forgo organic life to become the Free, digital life in the shell of a machine. Now the remaining Grey travel the stars finding new life and helping them develop Jump Gates so they too can join the peaceful Galactic Confederation.

Space Age - Genesis

"In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written small, the artist’s signature. Standing over humans,gods, and demons, subsuming Caretakers and Tunnel builders, there is an intelligence that antedates the universe."                                   -Carl Sagan

Space Age began as just an idea for a sci-fi RPG when I was in college. I always have grand ideas, write them down, but never finish them. In the original Notepad file, titled Gates RPG, I wrote the ideas down for a setting that seemed to grand and to big to run. Later after updating to a Who, Where, When, What format; it seemed more concentrated to our solar system based on the Carl Sagan's idea of Contact, but instead these aliens had darker intentions then the book & movie. Even in the notes, I never had good names for alien species and kept them as "Species X" or "Species Z".

So almost a decade later in Colorado, my gaming group seemed burnt out to D&D 4e's over reliance on character sheets and dice rolling. Between our RPG week, a board game night of Dominion made me realize how I could use a Deck Building concepts in a card based RPG. Over the next four weeks of using a Magic Card Editor program I came up with a basic framework but needed a setting to test it. I didn't have the energy or time to come up with a homebrew one, and since most of us just finished playing Mass Effect 2, I decided to use that as the backdrop.

The campaign lasted almost a year, and to our surprise there weren't alot of fixes we had to do. (Though one player realized a cheat when he could spray bullets infinitely). By the end of the campaign of saving the Citadel from a rogue planet controlled by a psychiotic Cerberus agent, we found alot about the system. So the flurry of excitement fueled me to write an original setting which led to me looking back at my old RPG files and stumbling on the Gates RPG. It was perfect for what I wanted.

Another campaign, Space Age: Ascension, told the story of the shadow war of two alien races waging across the universe and more surprisingly, Earth. While running the campaign, I tried to look at the system as a neutral party, trying to break it and criticize it to oblivion. This led to burning out and doubting the system, stating I didn't like the math. But it was my players that continued to praise it and ask for more, but I needed a break so I ran a Planescape game based on the new Gamma World rules (yeah my group likes simplicity).

Nearing the end of the Planescape campaign, I told them we'd end it soon and switch to the FFG's Star Wars RPG, but they dragged their feet. And after a test game to show them the cool system, they still moaned about going back to Space Age.
"I just hate character sheets." or "Im not a fan of these dice."

So back to Space Age. I think I fixed a few things, but more importantly I realized it doesn't matter if the system is broken or perfect, its if the group has fun every night. So this blog will collect all the background, rules, and other stuff that flies through my head.

If you are interested in the game PLEASE PLEASE let me know. I would love feedback.