[Diaspora] Friday Night Science Fiction

[Paka]

The Valiance Corporation started out as the humble Valiance Arms & Mercantile Company with nothing but 3 pre-slipstream technology old-fashioned rocket ships delivering goods and services to the space colonies all over the Vestal system.

How far we've grown together. Now our slipstream-capable armada delivers plague curatives as far away as the inhospitable frontier moons of Binghamton to ball bearings and microchips to the garden worlds of Ithaca. The post-war economy has allowed us to save countless clones from a life of slavery and we have the honor of depositing these sentient beings wherever a slipknot might take them so that they might start life anew.

Welcome to the Valiance family. We hope this guide might help you as you venture forth into the star cluster to enforce corporate policy and make the future more valiant.

- Valiance Corporation Employee Handbook: Introduction

Getting together with a group of fellas who have never gamed all together before to play Diaspora. We got along well last night and made up our star cluster. I would've liked to have seen more +4 and -4 stats on the rolls for each system (our highest and lowest were +2 and -2) but it remains an exciting place to get our game on. We fleshed out the aspects for each system, noticed where the resources and garden worlds had ended up, which systems were slipknot gate hubs and the political situation just kind of presented itself to us.

We bounced around campaign concepts...diplomats, journalists, archaeologists...and ended up as employees for the science fiction inter-stellar equivalent of the East India Trading Company.

The characters are absolutely sweet. I really liked what we came up with.

And that there is the magic of gaming. We got together, introduced ourselves, rolled some dice, drew some diagrams and a few hours later we had a setting.

Rock on.

It was important that we had a game where players could not show up week to week and we could keep on keepin' on.

I will likely write up each game as a company memo with out of game notes and player posts to talk about how the system and mechanics shook out for us. I will post up the contents of the setting bible google doc once it is more fleshed out.

 

[halfjack]

This is one of the most hopeful starting scenarios I've seen for Diaspora, so I'm excited to see where it goes. Have you got a cluster map yet to show off?

 

[madwabbit]

Sweet! Looking forward to more dispatches and company memos.

 

[jccohen]

Hope

This is one of the most hopeful starting scenarios I've seen for Diaspora, so I'm excited to see where it goes. Have you got a cluster map yet to show off?

I can see where you got the hope, I think, since the introduction to the manual posted seems to be an indicator of the corporate growth, but remember, those *are* "recruiting materials" so to speak.

At the table, the game... well, it isn't absent hope, but there's definitely some dark corners of the universe itself. I'd say it has more potential, than hope. Whether that potential will be filled by daring or despair, I'm not sure yet. I guess we'll see in play.

-JC (one of the players)

 

[Paka]

Sweet! Looking forward to more dispatches and company memos.

Subscribe now and you can join the Valiance Corporation Rocketeers, a group of elite consumers who get special bargains on all manner of Valiance Corp. products, from our legendary ball bearings to the classic Colt Slugthrower.

 

[halfjack]

You know, the darker the universe is the more opportunity there is for hope. Hopefulness is mostly about direction -- are the characters rebuilding or just profiteering in the destruction, abetting a deeper fall? No matter how dark things are, a team that is rebuilding is hopeful.

 

[jccohen]

You know, the darker the universe is the more opportunity there is for hope. Hopefulness is mostly about direction -- are the characters rebuilding or just profiteering in the destruction, abetting a deeper fall? No matter how dark things are, a team that is rebuilding is hopeful.

I see what you are saying. Ironically (maybe?) my character is the company man who's main objective in life seems to be making sure the bottom line comes out at a profit - think Paul Reiser's character from Aliens - so there may be some hard choices in there.

We may pride ourselves on delivering the cure for a plague, but if the colony can't afford the payment any longer, its my job to say no.

-JC

 

[halfjack]

See, THAT'S dark. And not so hopeful. Maybe your character will get eaten by a giant bug!

 

[Storn]

This got a bit long.. but I like it. The bio (and phases) for my PC Anton Kilkenny

Bio:
Childhood [Phase 1]: Born to Ashton and Markeena Kilkenny, two professors at Charleston University. A child of some privilege, Ashton was a willful boy. Always filled with a spirit of adventure and a love to tweaking authority figures, he also had a keen interest in games of all types. Love to play just about anything. Despite his liberal upbringing, Anton felt confined and maybe ...too safe. He ran away at 11 to join the Vestal Navy as a cabin boy. By the time he was a teen, he had moved into the junior officer academy.

Navy Service [Phase 2]: The navy gave some important structure to the young, wild Anton. He was a promising officer, smart, quick, had an aptitude with mechanical systems. There was always a poker game going on base somewhere. But his disdain for bad leadership continued to hold him back and sometimes get him into downright trouble. His first tour he saw action as a young 2nd Lt at 16 on the cruiser class VES (Vestal Empire Ship) Valiant Griffin. His silver spoon captain, Jon Richart was incompetent, getting the job through connections as opposed to merit. The action saw the Valiant Griffin holed in 5 separate places. 2nd Lt. Anton led repair teams while under fire and kept the Valiant Griffin afloat. He was rewarded with a 1st Lt. promotion and the command of long range recon Scout "boat" B-122. His 2nd tour once again resulted in a fiasco from higher command. During the last days of the war, the B-122 was sent on a deep recon far out from the Binghamton system, because the Admiral Leon Schneckty was convinced that Ovid ships had slipped through before the blockade was in place and where hiding (for 5+ years) somewhere out there. This was over Lt. Anton's serious objections. Not only did B-122 miss the final battle of the war when the Ovids made a push for the bargaining table by attacking the small Vestal fleet at Binghamton, B-122 almost ran out of fuel and water because of orders to continue to stay far, far on the periphery of the system. Lt. Anton came back to find Leon Schneckty then denying he sent the B-122 out and it was Lt. Anton's own initiative and that it was Lt. Anton's own desertion that left a hole in the blockade. Anton got back at Schneckty by sneaking into the admiral's quarters and sending the private log of the admiral on a news drone back to Vestal. Then punched the admiral out on the review deck of Fort Trafalgar in front of everyone. Anton was drummed out of the navy.

Moment of Crisis [Phase 3]: Given his almost supernatural ability to count cards, keep statistics and read people, Anton found that gambling could actually be a living. By the time he was 25 he was a full time professional gambler, travelling all over the cluster for a game or two. And while he could do sleight of hand, create mechanical cheats for every type of gambling, he disdain cheats and cheaters... often going out of his way to punish them. No, he preferred Lady Luck and a whole lot of prep work called research. He will study vids of other professional poker players, he will read voraciously about sports teams and statistics. He has worked as a croupier at various Casinos for 2 months to 1/2 a year. Eventually, he became well-known and eventually was invited to invitational only Mah Jong tourney on Covert. Which rarely invites non-Ovidians. At the same time, and underground poker tournament was happening. Anton did extremely well and won the freedom of some 50 clone slaves when the Tong boss Ibichi put them up as collateral. Then at the public tournament, he discovered that Jung Soo and Rennie Gertz were in collusion and using sleight of hand to build the best hands so Jung Soo would win, Anton called the two on it. Jung Soo drew on Anton, Anton shot him, severely wounded him and then covered Gertz who was thinking of drawing his own hideout. The court was going to be stacked against Anton Luckily, Paul Rojas was at Covert, looking to recruit some naval clones. He also pieced together that Jung Soo and Rennie Gertz were Ibichi's men and had deliberately provoked Anton to try and kill him. With diplomatic pressure from the Vestal Navy and gov't, blackmail by Rojas, Anton was released into Rojas's custody.

Sidetracked [Phase 4]: The 450 passenger Starliner Passionate Embrace was the way back to Vestal space for Rojas, Anton and most of the 50+ clones. Sabotage is suspected, but never been proved. When Passionate Embrace Slipped into Vestal space, it was waaay off track. And just to add fire, the jump seemed to trigger some kind of coma-like flu in most of the ship's crew. The firepan is that several subsystems were off-line and oh yeah, Vestal's largest gas giant with the biggest gravity well was right outside the window. Carter Manning, a "named" clone came to the rescue. Having been trained as a naval officer, Carter took control of the remaining standing crew and more than a few civilians. Anton quickly fell into old navy habits and help get key systems back online while Carter plotted a slingshot maneuver around the massive planet.

Recruited [Phase 5]: Rojas, having gotten the okay to put together a crew for a Valiance Arms ship, offered both Carter and Anton jobs. While Anton is not convinced that Valiance Arms is the benevolent megacorp we all see in the AdVids, he does owe Rojas and he does like Carter. Carter gets a ship. Anton gets to travel and see if there are more games to be had. And maybe a bit of adventure too.

 

[Paka]

Cluster data download commencing.

Please stand by...

New Ovid

*Export: Slaves
*Clones and Corruption
*Cloning is the work of god</li>

Tech: +2
Env: +2
Res: +2


"Our holy work will be done by multitudes, engineered by god's own designs. When the divine toil is done, Elijah will report the coordinates of our savior, beyond man or woman, to take us to the blessed seat of our ancestors, the Holy Planet, the land of Red Dust, the Middle Kingdom."

- Genetic Destiny Report, Double Helix Revelations, 3:12

Culture: New Ovid's lush system is administered by a theocratic state, a complex science-religion with a hierarchical society of cloned slaves, science-priests and bureaucrats. The war's harsh impact on the system, along with a powerful scientist caste led to the rise of this powerful religious state. The religion is building towards a prophesied transhuman messianic scientist who, according to their holy book's formulas, will deliver the lost art of the FTL drive, allowing for the human empire to be whole once again, uniting the lost tribes and taking the faithful to Old Earth.

Description of New Ovid System: The system's slipknots lead to Vestal, Candor and Lodi, making it a vital hub for the entire cluster, rivaled only by Vestal itself. New Ovid's capital planet, Covert (capital city: Chung Kuo), is a lush garden with diverse environments that are entirely colonized from the ocean's depths to the space elevators leading to low orbit satellites. Several other planets, N.O.II, N.O.III and N.O.IV are being terra-formed by clone slaves, led by the finest xenographical engineers in the cluster. The worlds are harsh at best and brutally dangerous at worst but are well supported by a robust system of satellites and spaceports.

Habitation: The population of the New Ovid system is just under 15 billion people, including clones. Covert is said to be the planet where the ancient astronauts first set foot after landing in their FTL arks. The bishops claim that all of the beasts on Covert are from ancient Earth, having been transplanted. Any species deemed to be not of Earth origin by the holy scientists are quarantined and stamped out.

The population on the capital live in tremendous towers that connect with geo-synchronous satellites, erected by the ancients. The clones live in cramped mega-cities that burrow into the earth while the holiest of the functionaries live in natural wonderlands.

The cloned slaves are exported all over the cluster as both slaves to those systems where it is legal and as indentured servants. The cyclopean factory cathedrals that manufacture the clones can be found all over the system, well guarded as holy industrial sites.