 April 10, 2011 - 6:46pm | was thinking about Shadow's work in this project and how a chemical fuel dominated setting with maybe a few extremely expensive atomic engines in government hands would work for a SF meets Firefly Lasers would be extremely rare 1 or 2 star systems should be removed from the AD map. maybe recast PGC as the Blue Sun Corp. Maybe write in Pale's police action with New Pale to put an end to its food riots to fit the American Civil War theme that Firefly had Might be best to center most of the campaign's action in one system without much likelihood of jetting to other systems. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 10, 2011 - 5:37am | Adventures within a system would be interesting. Remove lasers and screems from the equipment list. Perhaps the party is the first team to venture between the stars. |
May 10, 2011 - 8:27am | set early enough in the timeline and there would be no sathar threat, so... besides pirates what stirs the the action/conflict pot for interesting storylines? 1. Hazk Nar piracy raids 2. Free World Rebellion on Zikkit 3. Family of One pushing for emipire/hegemony (with no sathar threat they wont have the pressure to form a UPF style government and may view other core 4 races through the lens of yazirian clan vs human clan or vrusk clan etc. 4. some other alien threat I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 10, 2011 - 12:31pm | Corp wars. Government wars. Untamed worlds within the star system. A ancient race or creatures or warbots is discovered and loosed or re-activated. |
 May 10, 2011 - 5:17pm | Minimum Year 205PF to 200PF meets the following criteria:
Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
May 10, 2011 - 7:01pm | sorry spirit coyote but with all the problems in the Zebs timeline I dont use it for anything but reference material and research. Hence my timeline project and the recent article in the SFman. Also I redesignated the portion of the timeline when most of the Frontier's colonies are being founded as the Age of Colonization which pretty much ends with the First Sathar War and the Age inbetween the 2 sathar wars, which in theory, is the time time period when most if not all the modules take place as the Age of Adventure. It just made sense to do that. A ancient race or creatures or warbots is discovered and loosed or re-activated. I see evidence of what you've been reading lately in this statement. However, what about an ancient clikk threat centered on abandoned or lost Clikk war machine assets- maybe not the bolo sized tank like in Sun Down on Star Mist but something more along the lines of w00ts warbots from his recent reading of Han Solo and the Lost Legacy. This story line would have the benfit of being canon in origin, involve ancient lost civilizations stuff (which is always fun), be a credible threat, and something that could be dealt with and doesn't logically change the setting like a new race would; after all once you've dealt with the ancient warbot army left behind by their long dead masters the threat is pretty much over making room for the sathar to show up. It also has the added benefit of explaining how the races of the Frontier were ready to resist the sathar so soon after their sudden appearance- IMO the Frontier needed some sort of military threat to prime its pump or it never would have been able to deal with the sathar let alone in the short time frame that they did. Also, as a twist, I would make it that the Frontier does not have portable laser technology in the form of hand or rifle lasers but by the end of the warbot adventure PGC gets its hands on laser technology from the clikk war assets and reverse engineers it and thats how lasers came to be new items in the Frontier during the age of adventure. This means that the PCs start out the adventure without lasers but can obtain "laser artifacts" from the clikk warbots- and who doesn't like to find ancient alien artifacts? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 10, 2011 - 7:26pm | TPC, nice stuff. :-) jedion - great idea about the clikk - they appear to be very warlike, at least the clikk found in the frontier are, perhaps they are a invasion force and the original clikk home-worlds are more diversified. Any artifact used would have the -20% usage penalty, characters might not even know how to use it, assuming it's made for clikk digits. Sure would be nice to have a flow chart of found equipment, like Gama World had. |
May 10, 2011 - 7:55pm | Ok, well what I outlined works for the timeline presented in AD and Zebs, I don't see the problems others do, but that's ok. I don't know what you have changed, so I can't really comment on how to set it up, whatever fits for you.. I have been biasing everything I've posted on the A-Z timeline, most everything fits in there for me, like this, even. In simplicity it is an early Age of Adventure setting that you described, and fits in nicely with a Firefly Thematic, and fits all the requirements of a sparse world count, ridiculously slow ships, lots of planetary barons and tycoons, several major corporations, and at least three militaristic factions to throw into a civil war... several minor civil wars already present... the Yazirian Natives being exploited... The man-bug racial hate groups... the rise of the Zent... I have actually done this one before, both before and after Firefly aired... and there is already enough in there to justify the Muster Fleet being ready to have there butts handed to them, by the time of the first Sathar War. (SW-I could hardly be called a victory, more a fight for survival that ends with the plague worlds, and a Sathar retreat that leaves everyone wondering why they stopped.) Very easy to keep everything in a single system indefinitely, since only the larger ships make jumps, and scout/privateers are not that cheep, or very FTL capable yet. All things in total it feels VERY sci-fi western, and the MAJOR pirate activity, Sathar threat, and Ominous UPF don't come into the setting till much later... no issues with ret-coning timeline mistakes due to player interactions with history...  I hate paradox!all I have to go on, so I'll stfu-me...  just noting that it does really work Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
May 10, 2011 - 8:00pm | @ w00t: I'm not even sure if I'd use the clikk but just their war assets like what happened on star mist- they dumped their cargo and abandoned the heliopes could bring a Clikk out of suspended animation as part of the grand finale; could even recycle the heliopes at some point. Important to not rock the boat for the Sundown on Star mist module though so maybe no recycling- besides slave infantry and bolo sized tanks what else might the clikks employ? I like the idea of an army of war bots but it seems that the warbots should be scaled to compliment the bolo sized tank- mecha sized? chicken walker AT-AT sized? small, medium and large sized mechs? lost tech that is accidently reactivated and threatens the whole Frontier really appeals to me. @thespiritcoyote: There have been threads discussing the problems with the timeline on this site: http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/3649 Note: in the title of the above link I asked for ideas on how to fix the timeline but the thread ended up being a slash and bash of the timeline. In the end I just got busy with working on the article I submitted to issue 16. The drive was to be able to provide the fluff for my own players in the real world. EDIT: what if the tech base that built the clikk laser is the same tech base is identical to the tech behind the sathar's laser? This would mean that the reverse engineered laser introduce by PGC would be nearly identical to sathar lasers even to the point that ammo from one would fit into the other- Currious! in fact in the climax of dealing with the clikk war assets an automated signal goes out to report to the long gone masters of the war bots but its this signal that alerts the sathar to the presence of the core 4 in the Frontier and causes them to marshal forces that come calling during SW1 I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 10, 2011 - 11:17pm | I know I just don't see it, I have heard many arguments but I always have a ready solution, so it usually turns into yet-another-coyote-lecture-session or I stfu-me. I know no one really appreciates my know-it-all-attitude least of all me and I feel like I have done that recently a bit much I don't really know everything like your version of the timeline for example, I don't know it ... see ... I don't know everything yeah, I like to tackle the timeline from a constructive approach, how does it work, rather than what is broke... [edit: yep, I checked out the link, too many questions, that are all answerable, but would take a month of sundays to do so... exactly what I expected...] since I don't know your timeline basis, I don't know for example how many worlds, and in what state of population they are in (I have some really good material, that can give me a really good year by year population, and see how long it takes to become what size how fast it can generate a self sustaining gross product... yadda-yadda.), but if you have just a few worlds in a young frontier (I offered the canon First Seven systems that are in the First Chartered Decleration of Frontier Cooperation), and about three outposts (the next four stars to be "discovered/colonized" (it's kinda hard to not discover a star, unless ye be blind, they are kinda obvious.).. Dramune, Athor, K'tsa-Kar, K'aken-Kar.) and if those young frontier worlds are all pretty much locked up by the major Baron/Tycoons of the three races, under an initial representation from a Foundation of The Pan Galactic Society, there is still a lot of room for the Human-Vrusk civil war issues on Kddikt, the Zent that rises on the Vrusk outposts of K'tsa-Kar, K'aken-Kar in response to Human Vrusk-Hate groups. The Red Star Corporation (which later devolves into the Red Star Devils, shhhh... when the Star Barons are coup'd and the Pan-Gal Corporation is Chartered...) [ puts on his dread-locks and a rainbow hat  ] It's all in the timeline man, I tell ya' its already in there, you just gotta read it right, man... no prob... a very rich history full of all kinds of riff-raff and high-heroics... centuries worth..... shhh... I don't think I would worry about replacing the Sathar... there is still the Human-Vrusk wars, the Yazirian Exploitation, The Dralasite Drag Queens ... (what? no nevermind... you are too young.... lets just say that everyone agrees that Dral live on protein pudding... and everyone is happy) ... early piracy and smuggling, no vox-boxes or any established Pan-Gal language, makes for very easily disgruntled associations between the Big Three in the First Seven, and the Yazi are all like, excuse me, but we were here first!! Then there are the famines, and the unions, and the anarchs, and the achronics (factions within each of the races that just want to return to simpler times), the religiosity nuts, and the 'roid pilgrims, and one space militia trying to be bigger'n'badder than another space militia, start fighting over hunks of rock floating between their planets, and HUGE 8hull space exploration frigates running off to try and find new worlds to exploit ... chaos and mass hysteria, xeno-phobia and starvation, politics are cheep, news travels slow, revenge is always vac-sealed, interstellar wars last years and are over before the first shot is fired, but bring casualties in the thousands in one strike... most people never leave a single system, factionalism in a single system is high, and there is plenty for a rocket-thrust trader-ship to do in just one system (Firefly style, but maybe with a few less terraformed moons). If I were to use a big-baddie like the Clikk or a small Sathar outpost, I would do it on one of the quarantined planets (pre-quarantine) but not where it become a cause of those quarantines, I personally have a reason for those already. I would think Theseus, Prenglar, or Cassidine, would make nice places to host such a campaign, and still be within a Pan-Gal influence... droping their populations one catagory to reflect an earlier time, but Madderly's Star and Truane's star, are still the sites of some really nice civil-wars, can't overlook that. Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
May 11, 2011 - 1:15pm | Dude there are so many illogical inconsistencies in the timeline that I'm surprised that you dont see it. and since you like to inflict prolific and prolong posts on us all you should do a little penance and do a little reading in that thread. 1. First off the order it lists that planets are colonized makes no sense since there would have to be jump routes that dont exist on the map 2. The order of the colonization of Volturnus and the first appearance of the sathar makes no sense since the sathar would have to be a known threat at the time of the Volturunus modules or the UPF would never see the need to send a battle fleet to fight them in Zebulon. 3. Detials of the timeline dont match up with details given in the White Light module as well and 4. There were other issues as well but the ones above stick out off the top of my head. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 11, 2011 - 2:22pm | Expanding the heliopes sounds like a must for the setting.
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May 11, 2011 - 3:33pm | jumps are not straight-lines, or exclusive routes between systems, 10-30ly maximum jump distances depending on the engine (exact figure I have to look up) and the jump-routes listed on the map are the common lines of safe-civilian traffic that luxury liners, and average transports are able to use and still keep their insurance premiums low, and are therefore easy to purchase astrogation data for those. The Volturnus campaign is rightly confusing in it's timeline because, (and this was stated in many interviews by the original team) it was a work in progress that developed before the timeline, never fully completed to the satisfaction of the author, but had to be put out there so that they had product, (believe me I hate the sloppy work too, but I understand it) and the ret-con fixes that have been mentioned are based on what they (the original designers and play-testers) themselves offered as a proper placement. eror is a Human trat and creeps into everything, even a homebrew setting, it only becomes a big issue when the George Lucas dies and no-one wants to support the Timothy Zahns. While I do recall hearing apologies from the team on the White Light inconsistencies, I don't know them well enough to comment without a specific example, and possibly some research time... I know that there are misprints and inconsistencies, having worked on several massive Star Frontiers Projects, and been graced with varying degrees of assistance from other talented individuals and original team members... but I do not find them as horrible as I used to because of that as well. The answers are out there, and often right there in the timeline itself, and while it may be easy to toss out a setting because it was difficult to find a specific peace of information, it is also easy to find out with a quick post if anyone else has a gap-filler or knows is aware of the missing text... sometimes it is simply in another location, hidden in an unrelated paragraph and been overlooked, sometimes it is in the form of a connection that was there but not laid out in detail. Believe me I have questions I'd like someone to answer about the setting too... I usually can find what I need nowadays, and have been given unexpected solutions often enough to know that it isn't broken, just frequently misrepresented or misunderstood... When I first got the AD box and read through it, I had many of those same questions you asked, and I had not even seen the KH book yet... so it isn't just the timeline that causes those questions, or just KH that defies AD, AD defies itself on many things. ...sigh... sorry, I was only trying to contribute to the Firefly set up, as it is of interest to me, but I approached it from what I know, I don't really want to debate over the "missing/misplaced/overlooked details" in the setting, but I can try to answer questions as I know them, or offer solutions as I can conceive them. I do know they exist, and it is unfortunate, I just don't feel so strongly about those issues to throw out the entire egg-basket because there is one egg smaller than the rest, I'll just make an omelet instead. The Firefly themed aesthetic is a very kewl idea, and if there is anything useful in anything I can suggest, I am honored to present it for perusal, if there are any adjustments to my thoughts I might need to make to fit your concept better, I can try to do that too, My initial attempt was just to fill in that 'when and where' question with a mutually familiar source.The second post was to show the environment in a more generic form as it relates to the Star Frontiers setting. The third post, I repeated more elements of the second in more detail, where I could stay more generic to timeline, and tried to point out possibilities for those Antagonists that could be an alternative to an over-arching menacing god-like alien presence, like the Sathar, and Mechanon, or any appearance of the Clikk is likely to bring with it. Only thing I have been thinking about since my last post, is that there was laser-tech in Firefly, and it had been around long enough to make a laser an antique heirloom... and Though it may not seem like it is on the surface, Firefly(Early Type-II) is a more advanced society than Star Frontiers (Early Type-I). In both cases the background setting and arching story, is largely influenced by the 'paradigm shift' that takes place, often violently and with much resistance, either recently occurred or still occurring, as the new level of society is settled into. Adjust any of my suggestions as you see a need to do so, or ignore them completely if they fail to be useful, ask for clarification if it isn't clear what I meant and you want to know more. I am not claiming to know everything, or citing that everything I use is canon and pure Star Frontiers, I do try to keep to canon as a placeholder for discussion, and try to make a reference back to it when I can if I go off track, just for those that might be following along and want to see it from that view, I was a lurker once too so I tip-my-hat to those I will never hear from .Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
May 11, 2011 - 6:23pm | Firefly TV episodes had fairly simple plots that usually built one off the other and catered to the Western theme PCs could get involved in a cattle drive (or whatever is used as a large meat animal is consumed on the world involved) moving the heard through desolate wastes to market (star port instead of the rail head). old fashion Bank job is cliche, and 7 Samurai/Magnificant 7/Battle beyon the Stars may also be too cliche but maybe not. Stagecoach adventure recast in SF terms? this could work too. If the PCs do something to garner a price on their head a Good, the Bad and the Ugly scenario could be introduced. Bad evil sherriff hasselling the poor innocent brothel workers require help (Unforgiven and Firefly but just a new twist on 7 Samurai) I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
September 9, 2011 - 7:24pm | simple plots strung along through one heck of a plot-arch... sounds like a campaign you got there.. Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
September 7, 2011 - 4:37pm | I really like Firefly/serenity, alot, even though I didn't like the casting choice for Captain Reynolds or the few illogical items in the setting. But I've enjoyed watching the DVD of the series over and over agian. The subplots, Most of the characters are spot on. The feel of the story rocks. Love Adam Baldwin as Jayne and Allen Tudyk as the pilot. Wonder what it would be like to run a campaign in a system like Dramune during the real early days of the Frontier where most ships are system ships and interstellar craft tend to be government ships. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
