Hard Space is taking shape!

Over two years ago I wrote an outline for a near-Earth, near-future setting called Hard Space.

Since then, Stellagama Publishing has published These Stars Are Ours! our premier space opera setting. More important to the current discussion, however, is another Stellagama product - Near Space. It uses abstracted (“flattened”) real space with some hypothetical brown and red dwarfs added for better gameability. The latter allow Jump-1 travel from Sol to other worlds. They also create a “Solar Main” allowing slow Jump-1 ships to travel quite far, albeit at a snail’s pace.

So I'm working, intermittently, on Hard Space as well.

Hard Space, which I worked on in the passing year along other projects, is a setting explicitly using the Near Space data. Right now, I post here it as a series of blog-posts for Classic Traveller and the Cepheus Engine. If there will be enough interest, I might consider making this a commercial product for the Cepheus Engine, though Ashes of Empire, a sequel to #TSAO, is also in the works.

All map locations and physical world stats in Near Space exist verbatim in Hard Space. Some colonized by humanity and some waiting to be explored.

This does not come at the expense of my main sci-fi universe, These Stars Are Ours! (#TSAO). As in my 2016 post, I have resolved to write three paragraphs of TSAO-related (or Sword of Cepheus-related) content for each paragraph I write for Hard Space.

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The elevator pitch for Hard Space is:

Cyborg Smugglers Fight Cthulhu in Space!

What does that mean?

Cyborg - this is a hardcore cyberpunk setting. Major chrome, significant upgrades of the human machine, hacking, and of course the cultural aspects of cyberpunk, such as individual vs. corporation and style being important. Think Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Smugglers - Player characters (PCs) are, at best, in a legal “grey area”, that is - bounty hunters, mercenaries, and private eyes. At worst, they are criminals and outlaws. Again, this fits the cyberpunk themes, where protagonists are often dealing with all sorts of shady business or existing on the wrong side of the law. Think Firefly.

Fight - life is cheap, and so are bullets. There are no major wars, but there are brushfire conflicts, covert operations, and police actions. Combat is by no means the center of the setting, but violence is common. Think Ghost in the Shell.

Cthulhu - the one place where the setting eschews hard-ish science is in the element of cosmic horror. Space itself is deadly; some things which dwell in it are deadlier. There will be a sanity mechanic for use in CT and/or CE as part of this setting. Jump drives and shipboard gravity, by the way, belong here. Think Event Horizon.

in Space - this is a (near future) hard-ish space interstellar setting. Space is hard. Apart from the cosmic horror element mentioned above, science is pretty hard. No grav-cars, no compact fusion power plants making your life easy - you use vector-thrust and fission. Ships have fusion-torch reaction drives. And space can definitely kill you. Think The Expanse.

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Anyhow, the premise of Hard Space is this - the year is 2170 AD. Humanity has only recently reached out to the nearby stars, but limited technology does not allow for rapid interstellar expansion. Space is dangerous, ships are small, and even seventy-three years of faster-than-light exploration and settlement have only carved out a small, sparsely populated colonial region around Sol. As the old national governments on Earth have been bled dry financially and politically by the events of the mid-21st century, space is the domain of the private sector - of the larger corporations. Once you leave Luna's orbit, Earth governments are little more than flags-of-convenience to private-sector investments and facilities. Competition among t interstellar corporations is tense and quite cutthroat, leading to a great degree of underhanded actions and industrial espionage.

Most of humanity still lives on Earth, followed by Luna and Mars. As Earth is highly polluted, extremely crowded, and suffering from an unstable climate, many people - especially from the lower classes - are willing to take major risks to move to the colonies, where living conditions are often somewhat better, and where corporate jobs abound, even if they are mostly low-level jobs. To get away from the urban blight of Earth, many would even accept the risk of travel by Low Berth. Moving to Luna or Mars is easier, but the jobs on the extrasolar colonies pay better, and some of them have actual open-air environments.

This is a time of outward expansion and adventure among the stars - and also of great, mortal danger. Going into the Unknown is a particularly risky endeavor, as the Unknown as teeth, and claws, and tentacles and even the slightest malfunction in a ship's drives or in a spacer's vacc suit could spell disaster to the hapless explorer. Corporate and government marines battle vicious pirates, desperate rebels, and nasty xenomorphs on many worlds, facing a bloody attrition rate; explorers and couriers on the frontier and beyond - colloquially called "scouts" - go among unexplored stars, and in many cases do not return from their missions. The rewards of interstellar exploration are staggering, but so are the risks...

"Going out", into interstellar space, is relatively "cheap". A wealthy cult or rich madman can charter a starship and start their own "utopia". Engage in immoral research, dabbling in the occult, and so on.

Meanwhile, very old, alien things slumber on countless worlds, awaiting the hapless explorer or greedy colonial corporate exec to stumble into them...

Sources of inspiration - literature
Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Call of Cthulhu, Shadow over Innsmouth, and other works by HP Lovecraft

Sources of inspiration - film and television
Alien and Aliens
Apollo 18
Event Horizon
Firefly/Serenity
Outland
Pandorum
Stalker
Star Hunter
The Expanse
Ghost in the Shell

Sources of inspiration - video games
Alien Legacy
Dead Space
Descent
Metro: 2033 and Metro: Last Light
Red Faction and Red Faction: Guerrilla
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Shadows of Chernobyl
System Shock 1 and 2
Deus Ex: Human Revolution


WIP Map
The two veteran players in interstellar colonization are the UN - led by Switzerland, Britain, Russia, and some Asian countries; and the International Commonwealth, which is mostly African and Chinese. The American Federation - where Brazil, Argentina, and the former US hold sway - are latecomers to the interstellar scene. However, they are aggressively expanding into further stars using cutting-edge ships with long-range jump drives.

The default setting is the UN Arm, which is mainly British and Swiss in culture, with some strong elements of Southeast Asian culture as well. The biggest corporations around the UN Arm are the Royal British Interstellar Company (RBIC), the Russo-Chinese Zhang-Markov, and the Swiss biotech giant Sanapharm.

For the full-res map - click here

Hard Space: Updated Starmap

I have updated the Hard Space map. This reflects my rethinking of the Trading Blocs.

The two veteran players in interstellar colonization are the UN - led by Switzerland, Britain, Russia, and some Asian countries including parts of the devastated China; and the International Commonwealth, which is mostly African and Chinese. The American Federation - where Brazil, Argentina, and the former US hold sway - are latecomers to the interstellar scene. However, they are aggressively expanding into further stars using cutting-edge ships with long-range jump drives.

The default setting is the UN Arm, which is mainly British and Swiss in culture, with some strong elements of Southeast Asian culture as well. The biggest corporations around the UN Arm are the Royal British Interstellar Company (RBIC), the Russo-Chinese Zhang-Markov, and the Swiss biotech giant Sanapharm.

Click here for a full-res map.

Hard Space rocket engine types

Artwork by Philippe Bouchet AKA "Manchu"
for Robert Heinlein's Time For the Stars
Torchship "Lewis & Clark"

I have decided to make interplanetary travel in Hard Space more nuanced than I have originally thought.

So we now have three types of rocket engines used in this setting:

1) Fusion torches. Used by starships and fast interplanetary ships. Can maintain constant acceleration/deceleration at high G (typically 1-G). Highly destructive exhaust. Ships with fusion torches use chemical thrusters for fine maneuvering (such as docking) where a fusion torch would be too dangerous. Such ships do not land, at least not in most cases but can "dock" with smaller asteroids. Unobtanium (i.e. physically possible but we don't know how to build them yet) but not handwavium (unlike J-Drives).

Note that the fusion torch is not a fusion power plant; in fact, torchships ships carry fission reactors for their energy needs (especially when the rocket is turned off). Controlled, contained fusion reactors are massive planetside affairs, to large and heavy to include in a starship.

2) Closed-cycle gas-core fission rockets ("Nuclear Lightbulbs"). Used by slower interplanetary craft and interface craft not intended for atmospheric use. Much safer than fusion torches while providing significantly better performance and endurance than chemical rockets. Such ships can land on airless worlds if they have a standard - rather than distributed - hull. However, still unsafe to use in an atmosphere due to the risk of radioactive gas leakage in case of accident or combat hits; thus, used for airless worlds where everything is sealed and radiation-shielded anyway. Realistic.

3) Chemical rockets. Used almost exclusively by atmospheric craft, as well as for fine maneuvering on ships with fusion (or even fission?) rockets. Inefficient but safe. Can land anywhere if they have a streamlined hull and can fly like an airplane in an atmosphere if they have a lifting body. Realistic.

Hard Space - Colonial Commerce Commission and Infinite Stars Cooperative

In a previous post, I have detailed the Trading Blocs, the Earthbound polities, of my Hard Space setting. In this post, I'll detail two international and interstellar organizations, the Colonial Commerce Commission (C3) and the Infinite Stars Cooperative (ISC).

Colonial Commerce Commission (C3)

The Interstellar Agreements on Colonial Commerce (IACC), signed in 2072 by the Big Four corporations and the three Trading Blocs. IACC set basic ground rules for extrasolar colonization and commerce, banned overt piracy and claim-jumping, and established the Colonial Commerce Commission (C3). The latter began as an inter-corporation arbitration body but grew to a framework of extrasolar corporate governance. It is not a government, as it does not truly govern individual citizens and holds no armed forces of its own. Rather, C3 is a system operating to serve the common interests of the Big Four and the three Trading Blocks - open commerce, avoidance of overt large-scale warfare, and preservation of the corporate order of things. C3's executive body, the Presidium, holds seven representatives - one from each Big Four megacorporation and one from each Trading Block, giving the corporations, as a group, a majority.

As part of the IACC, to facilitate trade, C3 also issues and regulates the common currency, the Credit, agreed upon and used by all corporations and governments.

Each official colony has a C3 representative, situated in its starport. The representative's job is to ensure compliance with the IACC by local corporations and authorities, handle complaints for such violations, and more than anything else - serve as a neutral mediator and arbitrator in local corporate negotiations and disputes. Getting on the representative's good side is highly useful for travellers, as such an individual and their staff often hold intimate knowledge of local corporate affairs, intrigue, and "job" oppotunities.

Infinite Stars Cooperative (ISC)
Starting as a loose professional association of deep-space explorers during the Second Generation of interstellar colonization, the Infinite Stars Cooperative grew to a tightly-knit quasi-corporation offering survey and courier services. In return for hiring its services rather than those of freelancers, the ISC guarantees professional exploration and secure courier services. Those who join the ISC begin as ISC employees. Those who survive several terms of dangerous exploration - the number changes from case to case - become ISC members and shareholders. Such members may receive their own "detached" scout craft and may operate as autonomous (virtually "independent") ISC agents. However, no one ever truly leaves ISC, and the Cooperative may reactivate a "detached" member at any time, or - more often - give such members special missions on behalf of the Cooperative.

The ISC "encourages" freelance explorers to join it, or at least pay a fee as "honorary members". This allows better job opportunities with the corporations, as well as preferred rescue operations in case of being stranded on the frontier. Rumors of "accidents" happening to non-compliant explorers have never been proven. The same goes to rumors about smuggling operations, and more than anything else - conspiracy theories, common on the internets, claiming that ISC has its own covert operations branch tackling supernatural and technological threats.

ISC also has the primary spacer journal, Infinite Stars*. It manages the Explorers' Society - which is open to non-members as well. This allows investment in the ISC by third parties. You can get into the Society if you pay the initial investment, or when a corporation of government pays for you. You then get the return on your investment in form of starship passage tickets.

Lovecraftian Magic in Traveller and the Cepheus Engine - Initial Thoughts

I am developing my own Lovecraftian magic system for use in Traveller and the Cepheus Engine. This will be especially useful with my Hard Space near-future, near-Earth Lovecraftian setting.

In a nutshell, under this system, anybody can attempt to learn spells by studying Mythos tomes; anybody can attempt to cast any spell. And there are no spell points or "hard" daily "spell slots".

HOWEVER:

1. Learning spells has a Sanity cost. So does studying the tomes to begin with. Learning also requires an INT throw to successfully learn; failure means you need to repeat studying it, again - with a Sanity cost. The more powerful the spell, the harder the INT throw to learn it.

1. Spells take time to cast; in many cases, hours. "Combat" spells, which are often weaker, usually take two full combat rounds to cast, and concentration might be broken if the sorcerer received damage while casting the spell.

1. Spellcasting requires an Occult skill throw. Fail or roll "snake eyes" (there is no automatic success in spellcasting), you'll get the spell's integral "miscast" result. The stronger the spell - the nastier the miscast.

1. The really powerful spells damage your Sanity on failure and/or on success (Commune with Cthulhu at your own peril!). So you can technically attempt to cast any number of spells a day as you'd like, and a totally clueless layman can try to learn and cast magic (with the usual DM-3 Unskilled Penalty), but the limiting factor is the risk you're taking (a very, very powerful limiting factor), as well as casting time. Cast as many times as you dare and as the casting time allows you - at your own peril!

Yes, this means that even skilled sorcerers will sometimes fail in spellcasting - at least once in every 36 spells (on average - the chance of "snake eyes"). This is H.P. Lovecraft's legacy we're talking about here - not Dungeons & Dragons. Sorcerers do not cast powerful magic casually. They may use weak spells more often, as the risks of failure for them might be bearable, but no no one takes powerful summoning and necromantic magic lightly.

This, of course, leads to all sorts of sorcerous disasters (read: adventures), as - for example - some utterly unskilled fool is just bound to try casting that 6th Circle earth-shattering summoning spell, unleashing something horrid upon the local colony!

The above were just initial thoughts and ramblings. I'll write up a more coherent magic system later on.

Hard Space: the Trading Blocs

So far I have detailed many aspects of my Hard Space setting for Classic Traveller and the Cepheus Engine, from spaceflight to history. Now it is time to detail the political "big picture" - the Trading Blocs. The next blog post will detail the Fig Four corporations, as well as the Colonial Commerce Commission and the Infinite Stars Cooperative.

Following WWIII, nation-states were too discredited and bankrupt to function individually. Furthermore, they had great trouble retaining much of their former territories. To maintain a semblance of governance, they banded together, signing trade agreements and aligning themselves with the rising corporate powers. These supra-national government entities are called Trading Blocs. Each Bloc is an economic entity first and political entity second; the Trading Blocs map to their backing corporations. On Earth, this is a corporate-government partnership. Off-world, the Trading Bloc is little more than a flag of convenience.

United Nations (UN): The original United Nations collapsed with the first shots of WWIII in 2038 and officially disbanded in 2043. However, once the war was over, China, Russia, and India reestablished the UN, at least in name. With backing from the gigantic Zhang-Markov Industries, the UN soon expanded, first to Brazil and South Africa, and later to encompass most of Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of South America. They extended invitations to the (formerly) developed nations of North America and Asia to join them, but it was clear to these nations that the UN is firmly in the hands of their old wartime rivals, and thus they refused, forming their own competing Trading Blocs instead. The UN claims much of the world's territory as its own, as noted above, but only holds tenuous control over much of inland China, Siberia, and the recovering South-East Asian jungles. It also claims the Levant as its own, but holds no power there, despite repeated attempts to force its political will on it.

Today, the UN is the most populous of the three Trading Blocs and holds the most territory. It claims to be a democratic regime with equal standing for each member-nation, but the Shanghai Arcology calls the shots (together with the underground Moscow Arcology and the fortified center of New Delhi), and Zhang-Markov calls the shots in the Shanghai Arcology. In space, the UN holds titular claim over the Coreward arm of the Solar Main, with 23 colonies, 15 of then new; it also holds 3 new outposts to the Trailing of Sol.

American Federation (AF): Rising from the destruction of WWIII, the North and Central American markets  began their slow recovery with the support of Iron Star Enterprises. Refusing to join the Russo-Indo-Chinese-controlled UN, the former United States, Canada, and Mexico joined forces economically. They later absorbed the Greenland, Caribbean states, all of Central America, and parts of South America as well. Power rests in the few central arcologies of Eastern North America, especially the Boston and New York arcoblocks. Behind this power lies Iron Star Enterprises, closely followed by the electronics and cybernetics powerhouse of Federated Robotics. The latter is not one of the Big Four but is very close to being the fifth corporation in line. The AF claims the entire North and Central America, as well as parts of South America, as its own but holds weak control outside the arcoblocks, and no control of the vast wastes of the former central and south-central United States. Particularly, despite frequent skirmishes and "police actions", both the Rockies Cantons and the Free Republic of Texas remain firmly outside AF control.

Today, the AF is the smallest Trading Bloc in terms of population and territory. Its federal regime is de jure composed of autonomous states, though the central arcoblocks enjoy the most autonomy, while the smaller urban sprawls, Caribbean islands, and South American states are little but puppets of the larger arcology-states.

International Commonwealth (IC): The European nations, Britain included, came out of WWIII in a bad shape, having much of the ground combat occur on their soil. To recover, they banded together to form their competitor to the UN, called the International Commonwealth (IC). It is de jure an open organization of nations, akin to the old League of Nations or United Nations. In addition to Western and Central Europe, it also includes Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as a number of African countries. De facto, London, Berlin, and Neo-Tokyo set the tone and the rest follows. The IC has good control of Western Europe and Japan, but little control over the Eastern European wreckage and no control at all over the wasted Australian Outback.

Today, the IC is the second largest Trading Bloc in terms of population and territory, after the UN. Like the UN, it claims to represent the interests of Humanity as a whole, and presents itself as a more "enlightened" alternative to it. However, in practice, it represents the interests of the Royal British Interstellar Society (RBIC), United European Minerals (UEM), and their smaller Japanese competitors.

The American Federation and International Commonwealth share the Rimward arm of the Solar Main, with 19 colonies, 13 of them new. They also control 6 new outposts to the Rimward-Trailing of Sol.

Hard Space - revised setting history

Here is a short historical background of my Hard Space setting. I posted a history two years ago, but this one is a revised, expanded, and edited one to serve my new (current) iteration of the setting.

World War III and Solar System Exploration: 2038-2063 (TL8)

World War III came about in 2038. Luckily enough, it did not materialize into the all-out nuclear Armageddon feared by many. Instead, the war dragged on for almost a decade until all belligerents were bled dry and exhausted by the long war years. In 2047, the war was finally over. The world was in ruins from prolonged conventional warfare and the few nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that did see use in the war.

All sides claimed victory. In reality, there were no victors - just bankrupt and impoverished nations incapable of conducting any further large-scale military operations. Politically, most governments emerged from the war at a very weakened state. They had very little support from the war-weary population. They were mostly powerless to do anything meaningful to reconstruct the ruins of their nations. Into this vacuum stepped the private sector, thrilled with the possibility of profit from reconstruction. Earth's collapsing nation-states no longer had the political power necessary to force taxes or regulations on the larger corporations. Thus these companies grew rapidly in size and power.

Bit by bit, the corporations rebuilt parts of Earth. Not all of it; not even most of it. The corporate arcologies and gated cities provided their residents with the amenities of modern life, unlike the universal poverty of the urban blight surrounding them. Rising in profits, the private sector turned its eye to research and development, as well as the industrialization of the solar system. In the late 2050's, these efforts bore fruit and resulted in a rapid succession of innovations, from suspended animation to controlled nuclear fusion.

The greatest discovery in the history of space flight came in 2061 when a dig of the Cydonia region of Mars yielded weird alien artifacts. This came after long years of rumors and strange accidents caused to spacecraft and ground vehicles in the vicinity of this region. While the Face of Mars turned out to be nothing but an oddly-shaped hill, the region itself appeared to be visited by extraterrestrial travellers, dubbed the "Visitors" or the "Antediluvians". They left behind cyclopian ruins filled with unexplainable and deadly anomalies warping time and space, as well as a plethora of artifacts, the function of which was never fully discerned so far. 

First Colonial Generation: 2063-2082 (TL9)

In 2063, research into Antediluvian artifacts recovered from Mars led to the greatest invention of all times - the faster-than-light Jump Drive. It was demonstrated by a historic month-long round-trip to Alpha Centauri by Zhang-Markov Industries's starship Zhen He. Very rapidly - some would say too rapidly - Iron Star Enterprises followed suit and launches their own exploratory starship, John Glenn, on an expedition to Barnard's Star. Thus began the first generation of space colonization.

Space is dangerous, and interstellar space more so. The first interstellar travellers found this the hard way, with high mortality rates among the early explorers who ran into deadly jump drive malfunctions, vicious alien wildlife - and soon enough, inter-corporate rivalry resulting in bloodshed. But mankind continued its march to the stars, despite the small size of interstellar ships allowed by the early jump drives. Colonies soon sprang out on planets orbiting Alpha and Proxima Centauri, Barnard's Star, and Ross 154, as well as small research outposts on rockballs in orbit around Luhman 16 and SCR 1845 6357.

With the vast profits promised by extrasolar assets, corporate competition grew to enormous proportions. In the absence of any effective government beyond Earth orbit, this encouraged cutthroat methods and led to bloodshed. Warfare began with privateering and small, but overt, mercenary actions. In 2070, it grew up to a full-scale war between UEM's Olympus colony on Proxima Centauri c and the Zhang-Markov Arcadia colony on Alpha Centauri 2f. The war raged for a bloody year. In 2071, mercenaries operating for UEM accidentally (or so the official story goes) caused a meltdown of the fission reactor powering the Arcadia 2A sub-colony. The destruction and death toll - as well as the bad press they brought - brought an immediate cease fire. This made the corporations pause and think - such warfare already began rising beyond acceptable costs, and threatened to destabilize the political situation on Earth itself.

The result was the Interstellar Agreements on Colonial Commerce (IACC), signed in 2072 by the Big Four corporations and the three Trading Blocks. IACC set basic ground rules for extrasolar colonization and commerce, banned overt piracy and claim-jumping, and established the Colonial Commerce Commission (C3). The latter began as an inter-corporation arbitration body but grew to a framework of extrasolar corporate governance. It is not a government, as it does not truly govern individual citizens and holds no armed forces of its own. Rather, C3 is a system operating to serve the common interests of the Big Four and the three Trading Blocks - open commerce, avoidance of overt large-scale warfare, and preservation of the corporate order of things. C3's executive body, the Presidium, holds seven representatives - one from each Big Four megacorporation and one from each Trading Block, giving the corporations, as a group, a majority.

Second Colonial Generation: 2082-2106 (Mature TL9)

In 2082, a transit station was built on a strange rock orbiting the dim brown dwarf HSC0801 (now Sheol), linking Sol to the Solar Main in a Jump-1 chain. This allowed larger ships to travel from Sol to the colonies. Together with the development of more robust orbital shipyards and thus a larger number of starships, the second wave of interstellar colonization in the early 2080's, colonizing seven new worlds, of them only two, orbiting 70 Ophiuchi (Tehom) and Gliese 667 (Agartha), turned out to be highly promising garden worlds, with the rest being more amenable to rare and exotic element mining.

This era saw a rise in local warfare and "police actions" on Earth itself. The Trading Blocks moved to consolidate their hold over Earth's devastated and lawless Wilds, and tighten their grip over the urban Blight surrounding the arcologies. They achieved the latter to a reasonable degree, defeating many of the urban gangs plaguing the old cities. However, taming the Wilds was a failure. Equipped with the best corporate-made equipment their limited budgets can buy, the Trading Blocks tried to force their rule over wasteland areas such as the Rockies, the Levant, and Siberia. They attempted to bring "rogue states" such as Iranistan or the Free Republic of Texas into their fold. This failed miserably. The Wilders - as corporate media often referred to such people - had no intention to be governed by the Trading Blocks. They had better knowledge of their terrain. They had much better morale than the underpaid governmental armies. By the dawn of the 22nd century, the Trading Blocks all but abandoned their dream of reconquering the entirety of Earth.

However, this warfare, as well as the horrible conditions in the Blight and the Wilds, drove interstellar expansion. People were, and still are, willing to risk the deathly perils of cryosleep to reach an extrasolar colony. Even though life is harsh on the colonies and death hides behind every corner, this is still far better than living in the blasted wastelands or shelled-out cities of Earth.

Third Colonial Generation: 2106-Present (TL10)

In 2106, research into the alien artifacts and anomalies - while yet far from bringing about an understanding of the Antediluvians themselves - gave scientists valuable insights into meta-dimensional physics and exotic matter. This brought about a new generation of jump engines, allowing both larger starships and longer travel ranges. This opened up new frontiers to Humanity. New expansion began in full swing, doubling the number of extrasolar colonies within a few years.

Today, in 2120, human space boasts 43 primary interstellar colonies. Most are very small in size, especially the remote ones, though Arcadia (Proxima Centauri III) does serve as a home to almost a eleven million people. The frontier is wide open, and starships are "cheap" enough for smaller corporations and all sorts of social and religious movements to afford. Criminals, of course, can afford them as well, and piracy is a blight on the high frontier... This is a time for daring people to go out of the Sol system and seek their fortune among the stars. Many, however, will find there not their fortune - but their untimely death.

Some initial thoughts about Sanity in Traveller

Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!

As I already noted, Hard Space has a prominent Lovecraftian flavor to it. Insanity is a major theme in Lovecraft's tales. Thus, it is a good idea to develop sanity rules for use in Hard Space. The following rules use my Task Throw rules, but are very easy to adapt to other mechanics as well. 

So, on to the insanity!

Cthulhu Mythos "insanity" is not a mental illness as we define it in the real world, even if it has shared characteristics. Mental illnesses have biological and environmental causes. 22nd century technology will probably be highly effective to treat them. For those who can afford it, that is. Mythos insanity is the metastatic realization of one's, and humanity's, insignificant place in a vast, ancient universe inhabited by beings vastly more powerful and old than humanity itself. It is the infectious insight into cosmic reality, which radically is different from the more placid reality perceived by most human beings. The human mind is unsuited to process such knowledge, insights, and realizations, and hence "insanity". Psychiatry can alleviate some of the symptoms of Mythos "insanity". Psychotherapy might even help the subject rationalize or suppress the Mythos truth, which helps with recovery. But none can cure the cancerous thoughts generated by encountering the Unknowable.

Each character starts with a Sanity rating equal to the sum of their END + INT characteristics, minus their Occult skill. Sanity cannot recover above this maximum level, though it may increase if teh character increases END or INT.

Encountering the supernatural, the Mythos or - far less often - "mundane" horrors, forces Sanity checks. These are END throws. A sanity throw may be noted, for example, as END 8+/0/1d3, which means that you must throw 8+ and add your END DM (as in MGT/CE) to succeed; you don't lose Sanity if you succeed; and you lose 1d3 Sanity if you fail.

Spacers are accustomed to encountering alien flora and fauna. However, Mythos beings do not fit well into the mundane world of xenobiology and xenoecology. Encountering supernatural monsters or phenomena damages Sanity. Studying Mythos texts, learning magic, and in some cases using magic cause Sanity loss. Misjumps, or EVA while in Jump Space, may cause Sanity loss. Resurrection as a Cyborg definitely incurs serious Sanity loss.

If you roll “snake eyes” (a “natural” 2) on your Sanity check, or lose 3 or more points of Sanity within a single encounter, the character gains Temporary Affliction, which lasts 1D rounds. This includes things such as fainting, running away in terror, psychosomatic blindness, or a violent outbreak against all in sight. (I'll build a random table in a future iteration of these rules).

When the character’s Sanity score reaches half of their maximum Sanity (rounded up), the character suffers a Permanent Affliction such as phobias, compulsions, random bursts of anger, or amnesia.

If and when a character’s Sanity score reaches zero, the character becomes a permanently insane NPC, unless the Referee decrees that advanced psychiatric care (when available) can restore the character to a semblance of sanity.

Characters may regain Sanity in various ways:

• Successfully completing an adventure against the Mythos recovers 1 Sanity point.
• Every year of convalescence (non-adventuring life) recovers 1 Sanity point.
• Every week in psychiatric hospitalization recovers 1 Sanity point.

1D months in psychiatric hospitalization may remove a single Permanent Affliction.

Entering psychiatric hospitalization often has a social and personal cost. At the Referee's discretion, characters spending long periods of time in psychiatric institutions might lose points of their SOC characteristic or even find difficulties acquiring legal weapons on higher law level worlds, among many other things.

Hard Space: Thoughts on World Generation

Hard Space inherits all its physical world data from Near Space, as well as its baseline map. However, I am now generating the colonies' world characteristics. Below are a few notes about this.

The key to everything are the colony's Generation and the world's habitability.

1st Gen colonies are relatively heavily populated (up to several millions) and have a more elaborate and powerful administration; 3rd Gen colonies have tiny populations and are typically quite lawless, at least outside the (small) main colony town/dome/mine. 2nd Gen colonies are in between.

People prefer to live on habitable, or almost-habitable worlds; even a tainted atmosphere is vastly preferable to vacuum or an Exotic atmosphere. Unless very mineral-rich, non-habitable worlds have outposts, with small populations and typically minimal administration. Habitable or near-habitable worlds have colonies, with larger populations, and the more complex government this entails.

Note that, as in much of the "source material", Hard Space has a nearly uniform tech level across the worlds. Every sanctioned colony is TL10, though much hardware is TL9 (as TL10 is very new). Also, I have already determined the starports of all sanctioned colonies.

So:

Population

Outposts (regardless of generation) have a population digit of 1d3. Most non-habitable rockballs are outposts. Add DM+1 for Starport D, or DM+2 for starport C.

1st Gen colonies have a population digit of 1d3+4.

2nd Gen colonies have a population digit of 1d3+2.

3rd gen colonies have a population digit if 1d3+1.

Government

Most colonies are corporate colonies. Throw 1d6 per colony: on 1-4, this is a single corporate colony; on 5 this has multiple colonies (Gov 7); on 6 it is non-corporate (governmental or private initiative).

For non-corporate colonies, throw for government as per the Traveller (or CE) rules.

For corporate colonies, throw 1d6: 1, Gov 1; 2, Gov 3; 3, Gov 5; 4, Gov 8; 5, Gov 9; 6, Gov B.

Gov 1 - local corp focuses strictly on business and mostly ignores the bigger picture of governance. Weak governmental apparatus might be in place.

Gov 3 - local corp management runs things with little regard to those below.

Gov 5 - local corp department heads run their departments like personal fiefdoms.

Gov 8 - local corp runs a surprisingly efficient administrative apparatus with effective governance and meritocratic promotions. The corporate "ideal".

Gov 9 - local corp is a bureaucratic nightmare with poor leadership.

Gov B - local corp exec runs the place like his personal kingdom.

Law

1st Generation - law is 1d6+Gov-2 for a minimum of 1 (sanctioned colonies always have some law).

2nd Generation - law is 1d6+Gov-4 for a minimum of 1.

2nd Generation - law is 1d6+Gov-5 for a minimum of 1.

Hard Space: Updated Astrography

I've updated the map of my Hard Space setting. The main change is the inclusion of 9 new outposts to the Trailing. These are Jump-3 from Sol, and thus, per Classic Traveller Books 2-3, the largest ship that can get there directly from Sol without  a 6-jump detour in J-2 is 400 tons; the large Jump-1 ships cannot get there from sol at all. Colonization was virtually impossible before TL10 (reached 14 years ago). Today, a few tiny outposts exist in these remote stars.

For a full-res map look HERE.

Hard Space: Starflight

After discussing the subject of sub-light, real-space travel in my Hard Space setting, it is time to discuss the second part of travel, and that means interstellar flight. So how does this work?

• Interstellar travel uses the Jump Drive. The jump drive is a complex contraption manipulating an Antediluvian artifact - a Spindle - to punch a transdimensional between real space and the alien realm called Jump Space. The complexity and size of the drive determines its capability to manipulate its Spindle, hence the different jump rates.

• A jump is approx. 7 days in length and transports the ship one parsec per jump number, as in baseline Traveller.

• Unlike baseline Traveller jump drives, Hard Space jump drives do not require fuel, only energy input from the power plant. However, after a jump, the drive requires time to "spool" and recharge. This time is 1D days minus the attending engineer's skill, to a minimum of one day.

• Jump drives require a gravity well on both sides. A small brown dwarf is sufficient. There are no "empty-hex jumps" or "calibration points" - you need a star on both sides.

• Jumps can be inaccurate. The higher the ship navigator's throw when plotting the jump, the closer to its destination the ship emerges. An unlucky navigator might find their ship in the outer system, while a skilled or lucky navigator might emerge directly into orbit of the target world. Ships do not emerge within large masses or very close to them - so there is no risk of emerging inside a sun or planet.

• Misjumps are dangerous and can result in encounters with the Unknown and insanity. This is messing with barely-understood alien technology and parallel dimensions which defy too many rules of physics. A good jump throw avoids most of the unpleasantness, but a misjump exposes the crew to all sorts of nastiness. Beware.

• Needless to say, I'll have to create my own custom jump throw table to account for accuracy in the target system and to the lack of jump fuel.

• I'm using Little Black Books drive TLs and letters. This means that you can reach Jump-3 at TL9 and Jump-4 at TL10. Humanity in Hard Space is at early-mid TL10. This also means that smaller ships can jump further and are faster than larger ships. Of course, this entails a small-ship universe. This also means that the only drives available are Book 2 A-H drives. The biggest jump capable ship is 1,000 displacement tons in volume. 800-ton ships may achieve Jump-2, while 600-ton ships can achieve Jump-3 and an 400-ton ship may achieve Jump-4.

• If using Cepheus Engine drives with these TLs, ships would be different - the maximum ship tonnage becomes 1,800 tons, but the largest ship capable of Jump-3 is 500 tons in volume and you can have a Jump-2 1,000-ton ship.

• In any case, Drives E-H are very new - Humanity reaches TL10 only 14 years ago. Before that, the largest jump-capable tonnage was 800 displacement tons, and  the largest J-2 ship was 400 tons. This gave rise to the vast expansion of the third generation of colonization, with much larger tonnages at Jump-2 and better.

• In any case, far jumps mean less payload. While there is no jump fuel, ships travelling the fringe require propellant for their engines, especially when not expecting each orbital refueling.

Hard Space - Spaceflight

How do you travel between planets in Hard Space? I've written about this subject before, in the previous iteration of Hard Space, but since then I have had some new ideas, especially following a very fruitful discussion on the Citizens of the Imperium forums. So here you go for spaceflight:

• There are no gravitics in this setting. Not even as a side-effect of the Jump Drive. Neither are there reactionless drives. So there are no air/rafts - instead, you use a tilt-rotor, chopper, or ducted fan/vector-thrust. Or just a ground vehicle. You also must use reaction engines to travel in real space, mainly fusion torches. Which leads to the next point.

• Interplanetary travel uses fusion torches. These require a fusion power plant, which uses regular Traveller p-plant stats. 10% of ship tonnage in propellant ("fuel") allows 100 thrust hours at 1-G*; faster travel requires a proportionally larger fuel tank. For example, 100 hours of constant 2-G acceleration would require 20% of ship tonnage in propellant.

• Fusion torches are devastating and dangerous to use in atmospheres. Thus, the cost of streamlining subsumes interface engines, such as Scramjet engines coupled with vector-thrust jets for the final landing (or initial takeoff) itself. Most starships are not streamlined and use streamlined small craft.

• Again, there are no gravitics in this setting. Stations spin. Ships have a "tower tail-sitter" structure with the engines below the "floor". This allows "gravity" by constant acceleration or deceleration. Ships in orbit either dock with a station, or stay in a powered orbit at 0.1g acceleration to maintain some shipboard "gravity". In long-term orbital "parking" without a station, this will require refueling from time to time.

• There are no inertial dampers. This means that travellers must endure acceleration stress when accelerating beyond 1-G. Commercial ships, and even military ships in routine non-emergency travel, often stay at 1-G acceleration while travelling. For higher acceleration, crews and passengers buckle down and get a "cocktail" IV. The "cocktail" is a mixture of several medications allowing functioning and preventing stroke during high-G maneuvers, such as during combat or when travelling beyond 1-G acceleration.

• Better starports provide their own interface craft for swift off-loading and loading of the visiting ship. Starports A's (Earth, Luna, and Mars) have "beanstalks" (space elevators) for massive transportation of material between surface and orbit. Starport B has a large "highport" space station and a fleet of heavy interface shuttles. Starport C has a small "highport" and a smaller fleet of interface shuttles. Starport D lacks orbital facilities but often has some interface shuttles available. Starport E rarely has any local infrastructure, though some colonies do keep local small-craft which may assist in offloading a coming trader.

• Some smaller starships can land in atmospheres. However, the axis of a starship and that of a streamlined aircraft (or small craft) are different due to the above-mentioned gravity concerns and the ships being "tail-sitters". Starships capable of landing do so like rockets, with chemical (or plasma?) thrusters for both descent and ascent. A bit like the proposed (real-world) Phoenix Single-Stage-To-Orbit fully-reusable launcher/lander.

In the next post, I'll detail interstellar travel.

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* Yes, I know this is grossly unrealistic in terms of engine efficiency, but its still a far smaller "handwave" than reactionless grav-drives, and it also prevents the "near-C rock" issue with gravitic thruster plates. Also using volume rather than mass for ships for Traveller legacy compatibility...

Hard Space - Preliminary notes on Technology

Below are some preliminary notes on technology in my Hard Space setting for Classic Traveller and the Cepheus Engine.

• Hard Space is generally TL10. Cybernetics, computers, and medical/pharmaceutical technology are at TL13.

• Corporations try to develop all sorts of cutting-edge technologies. Prototypes of such technologies, often found in high-security laboratories, may be up to TL16. The higher the prototype's TL, the more dangerous it is. Messing around with TL11+ jump technology is particularly dangerous and often creates catastrophic results (ala Event Horizon). "True" AI is TL16, a "holy grail" of corporate IT R&D, and will most likely produce catastrophic results omce created (ala System Shock)...

• I'm using my own cybernetics rules for CE (which work perfectly with CT as well).

• I'm using 3-Book Classic Traveller drive TLs. This means that smaller ships are faster than larger ones, and that you can attain Jump-3 at TL9 and Jump-4 at TL10, albeit on very small ships. Also, there are definitely no empty-hex jumps - you need a gravity well on both sides of the jump. This means that space has a "topography" and that commerce and colonization strongly prefer "mains" allowing Jump-1 travel.

• As I noted before, there are no gravitics and no grav vehicles.

• Fusion plants exist, as well as fusion-torch drives, but fusion is expensive and bulky. The smallest fusion reactor available is 1.2 displacement tons - approximately 16 or 17 cubic meters - in volume and costs MCr3. 

On a side note, one thing I am thinking about is setting Hard Space in 2120 rather than 2130. I do like the "(exactly) one century into the future"* vibe of 2120, thoughit requires significant developments (J-Drive and potentially fusion) in the 2050's. Even then, this means that all colonies are young - 1st generation colonies are 65 years old, 2nd generation colonies are 41 years old, and the oldest 3rd generation colonies are at most 16 years old. There are people born outside of the Sol system, and people who are the second (and in some cases even the third) generation of extrasolar spacers!

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* If this develops into something substantiation, 2020 seems like a reasonable deadline for publication

Hard Space tentative astrography

Here is the Hard Space work-in-progress map. It uses my Near Space map as a baseline and the world's physical stats are identical to those of Near Space.

Humanity has 43 extrasolar colonies, 28 of them established in the last 15 years.

The "trading blocks" - supranational governments on Earth and corporate flags-for-convenience in space - are the American Federation, the International Commonwealth, and the United Nations. AF and IC members do not belong to the UN, which is now only one of three blocks. They grew out of international trade and military agreements following the chaos of WWIII.

The UN - by far the most populous trading block on Earth itself - officially governs the Coreward arm of the Solar Main, with 23 colonies, 15 of then new.

The American Federation and International Commonwealth share the Rimward arm of the Solar Main, with 19 colonies, 13 of them new.

The map does not show (yet) unsanctioned colonies set up by all sorts of non-governmental parties and non-affiliated states.

For the full-res map look HERE.

Hard Space Redux Design Notes

Over two years ago I wrote an outline for a near-Earth, near-future setting called Hard Space. Since then, Stellagama Publishing has published These Stars Are Ours! our premier space opera setting. More important to the current discussion, however, is another Stellagama product - Near Space. It uses abstracted (“flattened”) real space with some hypothetical brown and red dwarfs added for better gameability. The latter allow Jump-1 travel from Sol to other worlds. They also create a “Solar Main” allowing slow Jump-1 ships to travel quite far, albeit at a snail’s pace.

Hard Space is a setting explicitly using the Near Space data. Right now, I post here it as a series of blog-posts for Classic Traveller and the Cepheus Engine. If there will be enough interest, I might consider making this a commercial product for the Cepheus Engine. All map locations and physical world stats in Near Space exist verbatim in Hard Space. Some colonied by humanity and some waiting to be explored.

This does not come at the expense of my main sci-fi universe, These Stars Are Ours! (#TSAO). As in my 2016 post, I have resolved to write three paragraphs of TSAO-related (or Cepheus Light-related) content for each paragraph I write for Hard Space, whether on this blog or otherwise.

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The elevator pitch for Hard Space is:

Cyborg Smugglers Fight Cthulhu in Space!

What does that mean?

Cyborg - this is a hardcore cyberpunk setting. Major chrome, significant upgrades of the human machine, hacking, and of course the cultural aspects of cyberpunk, such as individual vs. corporation and style being important. Think Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Smugglers - Player characters (PCs) are, at best, in a legal “grey area”, that is - bounty hunters, mercenaries, and private eyes. At worst, they are criminals and outlaws. Again, this fits the cyberpunk themes, where protagonists are often dealing with all sorts of shady business or existing on the wrong side of the law. Think Firefly.

Fight - life is cheap, and so are bullets. There are no major wars, but there are brushfire conflicts, covert operations, and police actions. Combat is by no means the center of the setting, but violence is common. Think Ghost in the Shell.

Cthulhu - the one place where the setting eschews hard-ish science is in the element of cosmic horror. Space itself is deadly; some things which dwell in it are deadlier. There will be a sanity mechanic for use in CT and/or CE as part of this setting. Jump drives and shipboard gravity, by the way, belong here. Think Event Horizon.

Space - this is an (early) hard-ish space interstellar setting. Space is hard. Apart from the cosmic horror element mentioned above, science is pretty hard. No grav-cars, no fusion making your life easy - you use vector-thrust and fission. Ships have reaction drives. And space can definitely kill you. Think The Expanse.

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Anyhow, the premise of Hard Space is this - the year is 2130 AD. Humanity has only recently reached out to the nearby stars, but limited technology does not allow for rapid interstellar expansion. Space is dangerous, ships are small, and even sixty-three years of faster-than-light exploration and settlement have only carved out a small, sparsely populated colonial region around Sol. As the old national governments on Earth have been bled dry financially and politically by the events of the mid-21st century, space is the domain of the private sector - of the larger corporations; once you leave Luna's orbit, Earth governments are little more than flags-of-convenience to private-sector investments and facilities. Competition among the "Big Four" interstellar corporations, and to a lesser degree between their rivals, is tense and quite cutthroat, leading to a great degree of underhanded actions and industrial espionage.

Most of humanity still lives on Earth, followed by Luna and Mars. As Earth is highly polluted, extremely crowded, and suffering from an unstable climate, many people - especially from the lower classes - are willing to take major risks to move to the colonies, where living conditions are often somewhat better, and where corporate jobs abound, even if they are mostly low-level jobs. To get away from the urban Blight of Earth, many would even accept the risk of travel by Low Berth. Moving to Luna or Mars is easier, but the jobs on the extrasolar colonies pay better, and some of them have actual open-air environments.

This is a time of outward expansion and adventure among the stars - and also of great, mortal danger. Going into the Unknown is a particularly risky endeavor, as the Unknown as teeth, and Claws, and tentacles and even the slightest malfunction in a ship's drives or in a spacer's vacc suit could spell disaster to the hapless explorer. Corporate and government marines battle vicious pirates, desperate rebels, and nasty xenomorphs on many worlds, facing a bloody attrition rate; explorers and couriers on the frontier and beyond - colloquially called "scouts" - go among unexplored stars, and in many cases do not return from their missions. The rewards of interstellar exploration are staggering, but so are the risks...

"Going out", into interstellar space, is relatively "cheap". A wealthy cult or rich madman can charter a starship and start their own "utopia". Engage in immoral research, dabbling in the occult, 

Meanwhile, very old, alien things slumber on countless worlds, awaiting the hapless explorer or greedy colonial corporate exec to stumble into them...

Sources of inspiration - literatureMars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Call of Cthulhu, Shadow over Innsmouth, and other works by HP Lovecraft

Sources of inspiration - film and televisionAlien and Aliens
Apollo 18
Event Horizon
Firefly/Serenity
Outland
Pandorum
Stalker
Star Hunter
The Expanse

Ghost in the Shell

Sources of inspiration - video gamesAlien Legacy
Dead Space
Descent
Metro: 2033 and Metro: Last Light
Red Faction and Red Faction: Guerrilla
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Shadows of Chernobyl
System Shock 1 and 2

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Empty-hex jumps and space topography

A common convention in (modern-day) Traveller and similar sci-fi RPGs using jump-drives and a hexagon star-map is that you can jump into "empty" hexes on the map and jump out of them, given enough fuel. Older incarnations of these games allowed jumps only between hexes containing a "world" (that is, a star with planets).

In this regard, one thing I was recently thinking about is that there are certain advantages to ruling out empty hex jumps. If you can jump into an empty star-map hex, then jump again to another system, you can essentially reach almost any star with almost any starship with enough drop tanks or inflatable fuel tanks - as well as extended life-support supplies. This makes space "flat" - crossing a 3-parsec "mini-rift" with your Free Trader is simply a matter of preparation and giving up some of your cargo space.

However, when you rule that you need a gravity well - that is, a star's mass - for the jump-drive to "focus" on, this changes things - now space has a "topography". In real-world (or fantasy world) planetside geography, you can't just travel anywhere in a straight line, at least if you move on the ground or sail on bodies of water. There are mountains and rivers, forests and bogs - in many cases, you will take a longer route to circumvent such an obstacle and not simply go straight through it. The same goes to jump-travel across a star-map where you cannot jump into "empty" hexes. Your Jump-1 Free Trader will have to take longer routes to reach worlds at a 2-parsec or wider gap from it; some worlds will simply be inaccessible to it as only a Jump-2 or higher ship can reach them. Even your trusty Jump-2 Scout will have to take detours around Jump-3 or wider gaps and there will be a few worlds only an advanced (and expensive) higher-Jump ship could reach.

This makes space interesting. There are various implications. First, it makes high-jump ships much more important - if your empire has Jump-3 while its rival has only Jump-2, you might be able to circumvent even its best-planned border defences and simply Jump over them. If you want to hide something, find a world accessible only by Jump-3 or higher and most civilians will simply be unable to reach it; go behind a Jump-4 or Jump-5 rift, and almost no one could get there. Trade and colonisation will develop along certain routes. Empires will fortify certain worlds, made strategic as they provide the sole access points into the empire using the rival's best Jump-drives. The empires themselves will develop along Jump-1 Mains allowing low-cost transport and develop much slower across Jump-3 or higher gaps.

This makes things interesting and makes space less "flat". I like that.

Near Space Poster Maps - now in Print!

The Near Space hexagon-based poster star-maps are now available for order from Zazzle! High-res, high-quality 2D maps of the space and stars around Sol ready for your near-Terra sci-fi RPG needs! Based on actual, up-to-date stellar data which was abstracted and "flattened" for gaming ease.

There are two versions available - one in full color, the other with a white background for easy Referee's scribbling and notation.

Get them from OUR ZAZZLE STORE.

Near Space

Stellagama Publishing proudly presents: Near Space!

The area of space surrounding Sol warrants a proper sci-fi role-playing game adaptation. Indeed, many games adopted the region, either as a two-dimensional abstraction or as some representation of the real three-dimensional space. However, currently, there is little in the way of an up-to-date, concrete star-maps of Sol's immediate neighborhood for the various OSR sci-fi RPGs, such as the Cepheus Engine, 2d6 sci-fi games, and several other games utilizing a two-dimensional hexagon star-map. This product comes to remedy this issue.

This product provides a full Sol-centered, hexagon-based star-map, 20 parsecs by 16 parsecs in size - a "Quadrant" if you will. Additionally, it provides full Cepheus Engine (and 2d6 sci-fi SRD) data for the "main world" planets of each and every star involved, ready for you, the Referee, to colonize.

For your convenience, we also provide expanded Temperature rules for the included worlds, fully compatible with the Cepheus Engine rules, as well as a short overview of star spectral types.

We based these maps on real, up-to-date astronomical data, which we have abstracted into a two-dimensional hexagon grid where each hexagon is one parsec in width. We tried to make sure that the system data suits the data we have now – as of the summer of 2016 – about our stellar neighborhood, though abstracted, as noted above, for gaming use.

All maps, UWPs, and rule data in this product are fully open-content, as per the OGL. This means that you may take this data, and even the maps, and directly base your own sci-fi RPG product on them, even include the map or a modified version of it in your product. And yes, this includes commercial products as well!

Get it HERE!

Hard Space: Starship Decisions

Decisions regarding spacecraft and starflight in my Hard Space setting for Classic Traveller:

1) In this setting, there are no empty-hex jumps. You need a gravity well to jump from or jump to, though being too deep in a gravity well is risky as usual. This gives space a "topography".

2) M-Drives are not reactionless Magneto-Gravitic drives but fusion engines. The "power plant fuel" is actually M-Drive fuel/propellant. The power plant actually has a reserve of hydrogen (or even He3) enough for decades. What you need LHyd for is the M-Drive. This produces constant thrust, giving the ship constant gravity - it is built as a "tower" with the engines on its "bottom" - though without inertial damping this means that you usually don't go over 1G unless in emergencies and combat, and then you need to be strapped into an acceleration couch. I know very well that the fuel consumption and thrust here are a handwave - in reality you will need MUCH more propellant and you'd usually avoid constant acceleration due to limited propellant - but its still a much smaller handwave than that required for gravitics...

3) As a result of the lack of gravitic technology, most starships don't land on planets. Instead, they use interface craft. Most ships thus carry small craft for landing purposes. Heavy freighters usually travel from high port to high port - as loading an unloading with shuttles could be unwieldy - and thus rarely appear on the frontier. The exceptions are Scout/Couriers and Free/Far Traders, which are "flying saucers" with their engines on their "bottom". When they enter an atmosphere and gravity well, they turn off their fusion drive and use interface drives to fly like aircraft, but the floor remains in the same direction, only now using local gravity instead of acceleration-based "gravity".

4) I am using Book 2/Book 3 drives and drive TLs: heavier ships are slower and ships are usually small.

5) As interface craft would now take some serious tonnage on most starships, I am increasing the TL from TL10 to TL11 in order to accommodate larger ships - up to 2,000 tons on a Solar Main only ship.

Hard Space - History

Here is a short historical background of my Hard Space setting.

History

World War III came about in the early 2040's, but luckily enough it did not materialize into the all-out nuclear armageddon feared by many. Instead, the war dragged on for over a decade, until all belligerents were bled dry and exhausted from the long war years. In 2053, the war was finally over, and the world was in ruins from prolonged conventional warfare and the few nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that did see use in the war.

All sides claimed victory but in reality, there were no victors - just bankrupt and impoverished nations incapable of conducting any further large-scale military operations. Politically, most governments emerged from the war in a very weakened state and had very little support from the war-weary population. The governments were mostly powerless to do anything meaningful to reconstruct the ruins of their nations; into this vacuum stepped the private sector, thrilled with the possibility of profit from reconstruction. Earth's collapsing nation-states no longer had the political power necessary to force taxes or regulations on the larger corporations, and these companies grew rapidly in size and power.

Bit by bit, the corporations rebuilt parts of Earth. Not all of it; not even most of it. But the corporate arcologies and gated cities provided their residents with the amenities of modern life, unlike the almost universal poverty of the urban blight surrounding them. Rising in profits, the private sector turned its eye to research and development, as well as the industrialization of the solar system. In the early 2060's, these efforts bore fruit and resulted in a rapid succession of innovations, from suspended animation to gravitic control, as well as improvements to the fusion power technology existing from before the war. In 2067, gravitic technology led to the greatest invention of all times - the faster-than-light Jump Drive, demonstrated by a historic month-long round-trip to Alpha Centauri by Zhang-Markov Industries's starship Zhen He. Very rapidly - some would say too rapidly - Iron Star Enterprises followed suit and launches their own exploratory starship, John Glenn, on an expedition to Barnard's Star. Thus began the first generation of space colonization.

Space is dangerous, and interstellar space more so. The first interstellar travellers found this the hard way, with high mortality rates among the early explorers who ran into deadly jump drive malfunctions, vicious alien wildlife - and soon enough, inter-corporate rivalry resulting in bloodshed. But mankind continued its march to the stars, despite the small size of interstellar ships allowed by the early jump drives. Colonies soon sprang out on planets orbiting Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star, and Ross 154, as well as a small research outpost on a rockball in orbit around Luhman 16. With the development of more robust starship shipyards and thus a larger number of starships, the second wave of interstellar colonization in the early 2090's, colonizing seven new worlds, of them only one, orbiting Wolf 424, turned out to be a highly promising garden world, with the rest being more amenable to rare and exotic element mining.

The greatest discovery in the history of space flight came in 2099 when a detailed dig o the Cydonia region of Mars yielded weird alien artifacts after long years of rumors and strange accidents caused to spacecraft and ground vehicles in the vicinity of this region. While the Face of Mars turned out to be nothing but an oddly-shaped hill, the region itself appeared to be visited by extraterrestrial travellers - dubbed the "Visitors". They left behind unexplainable and deadly anomalies warping time and space, as well as a plethora of artifacts, the function of which was never fully discerned so far. Rumors of similar "Visitation Zones" on GL674 IVa and Ross 128 II were strongly denied by Iron Star and Zhang-Markov, respectively. In 2116, research into the alien artifacts and anomalies - while yet far from bringing about an understanding of the Visitors themselves, their purpose, or their civilization, gave scientists valuable insights into meta-dimensional physics and exotic matter, bringing about a new generation of magneto-gravitic and jump engines. These new engines, allowing both larger starships and longer travel ranges, opened up new frontiers to Humanity.

Today, in 2130, human space boasts 35 primary interstellar colonies. Most are very small in size, especially the remote ones, though Proxima Centauri III does serve as a home to almost a hundred thousand people. The frontier is wide open, and starships are "cheap" enough for smaller corporations and all sorts of social and religious movements to afford. Criminals, of course, can afford them as well, and piracy is a blight on the high frontier... This is a time for daring people to go out of the Sol system and seek their fortune among the stars, though many will find there not their fortune - but their untimely death.