 November 26, 2014 - 5:51pm | Refer to: Alpha Dawn Basic Game Rules. Alpha Dawn Basic Game Rules (Inside Cover) History Near the center of a great spiral galaxy, where stars are much closer together than Earth's sun and its neighbors, a Human race developed. They were not identical to the Humans of Earth, but they were not very different, either. When these Humans discovered that waves of subspace pi-tachyon particles could cross interstellar space faster than light, they realized they had found a link to the star. A radio message that would have taken years to travel between stars could be sent with subspace communicators in months or even weeks. The Humans started broadcasting news of themselves to the neighboring stars, and found they were not alone. The Humans made contact with an inventive race of insect like creatures called Vrusk, who had developed limited space travel decades earlier. One of the Vrusks' mining colonies had already contacted another race, the shape changing Dralasites. The two races had been exchanging information for several years.The Vrusk and Dralasites were pleased to learn of another race. They sent a wealth of scientific information to the Humans. Using this new knowledge, the industrious Humans quickly developed interstellar spaceships. The three races met in a large area of space known as the Frontier. There they also discovered the Yazirians, a race of tall, maned humanoids. Soon, settled worlds in the Frontier became melting pots for the four race, with dazzling mixtures of architecture and alien cultures. To supply the needs of these worlds, the first interstellar company, the Pan-Galactic Corporation, was formed. It developed interests everywhere, from scientific research to farming to spaceship building. PGC even created its own language, Pan-Galactic, which soon became the most common language of all races on the Frontier worlds. Many large companies which started later were modeled on PGC but none approach the size or power of the Pan-Galactic Corporation. Then, the Sathar appeared. No one knows where they came from or why. They attacked and destroyed lonely systems on the edges of explored space, moving slowly inward. Survivors described Sathars as wormlike creatures 3 to 4 meters long. That was all that was known about them, because they would rather kill themselves than be captured. As the danger increased, the Humans, Dralasites, Vrusk, and Yazirians formed the United Planetary Federation (UPF) to defend their worlds. The mysterious Sathar were forced back, but before long they returned in a more sinister form. The Sathar had learned that they could not beat the UPF in battle. Instead, they began hiring Yazirian, Human, Dralasite and Vrusk agents to sabotage interstellar trade and interfere with local governments. The UPF created the Star Law Rangers, and interstellar police force, to track the Sathar's agents from planet to planet and fight them on their own terms. But despite the efforts of the Rangers, the sly Sathar agents have become the most dangerous threat ever to face the United Planetary Federation and the frontier corporations. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 26, 2014 - 6:43pm | Important points 1. Basic Game is explicit on the No Earth question. 2. First Contact was between the vrusk and dralasties via a mining colony. This suggests physical contact. 3. Second Contact was via contact between humans, drals and vrusk and seemed to be a period of "Can You Hear me now?" chatter. 4. Third Contact was "they also discovered the yazirians" which I think means that they were all a little high on interstellar travel and were poking around and discovered the yazirians through physical contact. It does not say if the yazirians already has space flight or not which is significant to some fan cannon. 5. PGC is founded during this age of contact and it provides the impetus to develop an interstellar community in part to serve the needs of its business. The old Ephemeris web site had the bit of fan cannon called the Society for the standard day- there is probably no harm writing that in since this doesnt attribute GST time as a PGC invention. 6. the sathar invasion of the Frontier here sounds like a slow build up giving them time to decide to form the UPF not like the events described in zebs. this is significant when it comes to harmonizing with Zebs. 7. Not to start the govenment argument again from elsewhere but it seems to me that Star Law is started on the authority from whatever document was signed to form the UPF. "to track them from planet to planet and fight them on their own terms" in other words there was probably a challenge to star law authority and the supreme court of that colony ruled that they did have the authority based on the document or treaty the formed the UPF since its mandate and empowerment is to stop the sathar. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 26, 2014 - 8:19pm | Near the center of a great spiral galaxy, where stars are much closer together than Earth's sun and its neighbors, a Human race developed. They were not identical to the Humans of Earth, but they were not very different, either. its interesting that this comment says humanity evolved near the center of a spiral galaxy and yet the Frontier sector does not resemble the center of a galaxy. Nothing suggest a star exodus for humanity but that could be one way to harmonize that. The maps that give a direction for the Great Expanse would suggest that the Frontier sector is at the edge of an arm of the spiral coming off the center of galaxy. So perhaps near the center is just relative. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 November 26, 2014 - 10:15pm | Could be very relative... maybe they are actually not near the center. I decided to try and work on their colonization patterns the last few days just for Humans, based on what I could find in modules & Zebs & AD... it goes not well. It seems to me Zebs is way off when compared to module time lines. Theusus System seems to be colony 1 for humans in Zebs & modules but past that it gets dodgy. WWL settled by colonists from Theusus, ruling family has ruled for nearly 400 years. 299 PF for Theusus is not enough time in my opinion and 60 PF for WWL being discovered is most certainly not enough time for these sources to agree. The only way I could make Zebs human colonization pattern work was if in or around 260 PF Prenglar is colonized by Humans 2nd, along with the other two races... then the dates given and route patterns for the other Human colonies work better. But the WWL module clearly indicates many colonization paths went through their space... and the map does not agree with this in my opinion. Theseus to Prenglar then they
find Dixon and Cassidine from Prenglar. Then from Cassidine to Madderly’s Star, Dixon’s to Truane’s,
Prenglar to Timeon, Theseus to WWL, Tristkar was colonized by WWL folks but they had to back track to Theseus and then to Tristkar. There are several Plague Worlds that could have been Human Colonies based on which colonies are near them but zip info on them so that is another best guess. I am thinking if it took about 500 years (as suggested in the development notes of the game) to set up viable colonies and another 500 years for said colonies to get to the point of trade, the PF dates in Zebs are probably off. But that info in my notes from some place on this forum is not official... AD or Module or Zebs. I have not started comparing the time line of the other race's colonies and then compared their locations on the map yet... but they are next. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
November 27, 2014 - 3:32am | I think the Frontier could do with 1000 years of active History before the UPF is formed. That some of those plague worlds might be lost colonies and outposts from this time that were destroyed by the sathar leading up to the formation of the UPF. I'd have to pull a map out but plague worlds north and west on the map should work. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 27, 2014 - 11:49am | Yeah, I am thinking much more time needs to be added too. I have started fiddling, but for WWL to work it looks like 300-325+ added to all PF dates involving humans that would do the least damage to reordering the Zebs colonization timeline for humans. The order of discovery of each human colony system in Zebs affects the order of potential colonization and the patterns that can occur. Another question has to be asked did humans in space get their new radio tech figured out on their Home World or did that happen on a Colony already near or in the Frontier? It would make sense the Vrusk would over hear them talking between systems if the Vrusk where near or in the line of communication somehow. Or where the space humans doing the Seti thing from their HW? It would make a difference... Space Humans chat with Vrusk 350 PF (Zebs), then a mere 50 years latter (350 PF Zebs) everyone meets, and 299 PF Zebs first human colony system "discovered" but does that really mean? Does that mean the colonization fleets (not scouts) met and then fanned out? Also that means no one can be more then 50 years away from Prenglar, but realistically they would need time to build ships & put the expedition together so they would have to be closer. So do we assume everyone was using FTL or did some come in slow boats? Agreed, but we know they first had it the opposite idea but went no Earth. So if not Earth then they still need a Home World that did the parallel development thingy. So here are names from various cultures and spellings meant to express the idea of planet Earth, such as a god/goddess of, or dirt, world, land, floor, ball of land, sphere, under heaven: Maybe we could tweak up a name? Tellus, Tarra, Tarri, Gaea, Gaia, Tierra, Monde, Erde, Tianxi, Didiu, Kadoor Ha'aretz, Pamant, Vilag, Jord, Jordin, Jorth, Jorthin, Maa, Chikyu, Maalim, Jorden, Jorthen, Jordkloden, Soilworld (lol), Alardh, Zeme, Eordan, Eorthan, Eorde, Eorthe, Geo, Artez, La Terre, Mundus, Orbis, Ge (Gee), Kosmos, Mundi, Mala, Ala, Hyphellos, Mondas, Tlalticpac, Tianxia, Zhongguo, Di, Qiu, Tir, Y Byd, Tyr, Aldunia, Oikoumene, Ilavrita-varsa, Bharata-varsa, Bhu-mandala,... The HW name probably should be a back burner thing though for right now. "2. First Contact was between the vrusk and dralasites via a mining colony. This suggests physical contact." Again I agree. 410 PF means the V & D had 90 years of contact before meeting humans in person, and the mining colony is more specific than radio chatter implied for human first contact... so physical is highly likely. I tend to think they where already near or in the Frontier... the mining colony would have been probably at the edge of Vrusk territory in or just outside of the Frontier in my way of thinking about it. This does not meant the Trade House Fleet did not come from the Vrusk HW it probably did. Drals and Vrusk during that 90 year period had probably already set up trade between their various worlds outside of the Frontier. "Implied timeline event" System discoveries PF: 1) Drals are already in the Frontier for sure, and they appear to set up a joint colony with the Vrusk, before humans get to the Frontier. This makes sense as both are on good terms. 2) 1 year after meeting Theseus becomes first Human Colony System. So colony fleet already was on their way and maybe a few well suplied scout ships met the others? Or is the human HW only 1 years FTL away or so? 3) It took 40 years for the Drals to find a habitable planet in the Prenglar System... a bit long, but based on it being near where everyone met it seems likely all 3 races where invited to develop the planet so this would be colony 2 for humans & possibly 3rd for Drals & 2nd for Vrusk. This would be a Trade Planet for all 3 races. This also explains the H colony pattern the best in Zebs because they seem to go through Prenglar and not WL. 302 PF Fromeltar (Note this has a V/D planet... they may have colonized together) (D discovery) 300 PF the 3 meet 299 PF Theseus (H) 260 PF Prenglar (D) 249 PF Cassidine (H) 220 PF Dixon's Star (H) 210 PF Madderly's Star (H/V) 200 PF Truane's Star (H) 170 PF Dramune (D) 168 PF Athor (Y) 161 PF K'tsa-Kar (V) 156 PF K'aken-Kar (V) 155 PF Gruna Garu (Y) 146 PF Kizk'-Kar (V) 129 PF Araks (Y) 94 PF Scree Fron (Y) 61 PF Zebulon (H) The extra info here is in conflict with Modules I think. 60 PF White Light (H) Note 200 years later from WL ... Triskar (H) which does not work at all in Zebs timeline, it is clearly suppose to be an isolated H colony dealing with interracial issues once the Vrusk decided to do business there and growing pains of such changes... so I am unsure what to do with them, as this is a colony that is on Zebs map but no colonization date is given in Zebs... There are of course more planets but right now I was working on PF years. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
November 27, 2014 - 1:41pm | If am thinking if we did not want to tweak the TL too much maybe we just move WL to around the same time as Penglar is discovered say 265 PF or 255 PF then that means Triskar could be found in 60 PF? What do you all think? "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 December 4, 2015 - 2:48pm | For my game, "Earth" is just in a different place, and it's history is mostly parallel with Earth from RL with a few additions from franchises I intend to incorporate (but not necessarily the whole of those franchises), such as Weyland-Yutani from the Alien-verse. I'm toying with tweaking things further and doing a smush with Avatar (with WY being "the Company"). This all happened probably a century or two before Contact with the Frontier. Something BAD happened, and all knowledge of how to get back to Earth was lost, and a great deal of the tech (such as AG as in the Alien movies) went with it. (Perhaps Unobtanium was vital to the creation of AG and there is no Uo in the Frontier?) |
