Help with some sci-fi worldbuilding and other things

[Executor]

Good day, one and all.

On another forum, I take part in a rather interesting sci-fi strategy RPG, which pits homebrewed science fiction empires against each other. Some of these homebrew factions are interesting and original. Others... not so much.

What i'm submitting this thread for is a hand in this game. Not in the game mechanics, but in the fluff, the backstory, the 'real' aspect of the game. How hard shots hit, how fast ships go at FTL, that kind of stuff. The kind of stuff that is necessary for good RP, but doesn't necessarily affect gameplay. Specifically, i'd like some help developing a history that explains how this enormous variation of cultures came to exist. We've got everything from a literal Space-British Empire (complete with starfaring WWI dreadnoughts) to flying whale-people to starfaring werewolves, and explanation of galactic history would be great. We can't rely on players of our own to make it, because they'd inevitably be biased to their own faction ('Oh, my faction used to the rule the galaxy' stuff), so i'm going to an outside observer, you guys.

I'd also like to see how you rate the mishmash of factions for interest and originality, compared to other established sci-fi settings. We've recently had a restart in our game, so not all of the subforum names will match up with the factions in them right now, and not all of the faction info is finished. And finally, if anyone's interested in a versus discussion, how would some of these empires fare against empires from published sci-fi settings like Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica (new, not old), Firefly, Halo, etc.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=624

Here's the link with all the info for all the factions. Let's hear what you think.

[Mx.Silver]

Any chance of giving us a summarry of each of them? That's kind of a big list and some of the forums are a bit empty. Might be helpful.

I'll have a look over it myself. Just a quick question, what type of game is this for? Video-game? Pen and paper? Board game? Tabletop miniatures? Each kind of benefits from a different level of fluff strength/open-endedness.

Also, some paragraph in your post might be nice too, it's a bit of a wall of text at the moment

[Executor]

Sorry, sometimes I kinda get into 'the zone' when i'm writing a long post, and I end up forgetting paragraphs.

Let's see here, off the top of my head:

Space British Empire: Just what it says on the tin, Edwardian-era British Empire transplanted to the future. Cool but inefficient starship design based on WWI dreadnoughts, primarily armed with coilguns and railguns which fire 100-ton slugs of metal at 1% c, so the impact is typically in the 100-megaton range.

Leviathan Commonwealth: Floating whale-like creatures, with powerful physic abilities. Their weaponry is based on plasma, which heats us matter to thousands of degrees, with the expected effects upon ships or ground targets.

The Triumvirate: A group of three races who've banded together to form a single nation under one banner, governed by a caste system. One of the races is a warrior-race, the second workers and farmers, the third scientists and engineers. They prefer directed-energy weapons which, like the Leviathans, rely on heating.

Savonian Collectives: Humanoids, rather similar to Protoss in appearance (shorter head, and wider waist though). By evolution, they are nocturnal predators on a extremely cold Hoth-like world. Their preferred weapons are a combination of plasma weapons and antimatter missiles which turn the target itself into a bomb through the matter-antimatter reaction.

The League of Trantor: A confederation of multi-racial business corporations, guilds and conglomerates, governed by a Guildskraat. A sort of mash-up of Foundation with Dune. They rely on a mixture of railguns and antimatter missiles for their military.

The Tribe of Xiro: The aformentioned space-werewolves. Not a lot of information about them down yet, but they also seem to rely on magnetic weaponry.

The Theian Confederation: More humans, these ones more obviously steampunk than the British. They rely on a Phlebutonium-type thing called Claudia, which reacts with water to release excessive amounts of energy. This is used to operate work technology rather similar to the steamworks of Earth's 19th century, but more potent. Their weapons also seem to be kinetic in nature.

More information can be reached through the appropriate threads.

[Dervag]

I'm more interested in social systems than weapons for the moment.

If you're willing to invent enough technomagic, almost any kind of weapon can be made to work. Social structures and alien psychology, on the other hand, can be discussed a bit more coherently even if we don't know exactly what all the technomagic is capable of.

[Executor]

Well, the Space-Brits are a classical parliamentary constitutional monarchy, with the same class divisions as you'd see in Victorian Britain. There's a couple federal democracies, such as the Valerran Alliance, and the Confederation of Theia. There's a handful of super-capitalistic states, more or less ruled by corporations, like the League of Trantor and the Interstellar Banking Corp. The Leviathans come across as a communistic bureaucracy to me, but that's just my own impression.

These are just off the top of my head. For more detail, you have to consult the respective faction threads.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Hm what I don't get is how the Leviathans developed what's essentially human cognitive ability. They apparently think exactly like us, to the point of going through the same historical processes and formation of societies like hours, yet at the same time their environment is not even remotely similar. Hell, one of the main reasons we developed cognition in the first place is because there was already a rich history of our ancestors (like chimps) using tools... From what I gather the Leviathans had pretty much nothing to use as tools.

[Executor]

Apparently that player is replacing the Leviathans with another species called the Cathar, which evolved from that planet's equivalent to felines. Felines with opposable thumbs and a prehensile tail, I guess.

[Thiel]

Apparently that player is replacing the Leviathans with another species called the Cathar, which evolved from that planet's equivalent to felines. Felines with opposable thumbs and a prehensile tail, I guess.

Oh great, a nation of catgirls.

[Dervag]

Apparently that player is replacing the Leviathans with another species called the Cathar, which evolved from that planet's equivalent to felines. Felines with opposable thumbs and a prehensile tail, I guess.

If they're a lot like terrestrial felines:

What kind of civilization would a bunch of nonsocial carnivores create? It would not look much like a human one, I imagine.

[13_CBS]

If they're a lot like terrestrial felines:

What kind of civilization would a bunch of nonsocial carnivores create? It would not look much like a human one, I imagine.

Or, if their civilization IS like a human one, why? Was it due to outside cultural influences? Something else?

[Executor]

If they're a lot like terrestrial felines:

What kind of civilization would a bunch of nonsocial carnivores create? It would not look much like a human one, I imagine.

Well, I believe these felines are closer to our lions in behavior, rather than tigers or other big cats. So there definetely was a pre-existing social structure in place, of sorts. Matriarchal, rather than patriarchal, as I understand it.

[Dervag]

That's a good start.