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<blockquote data-quote="MarkB" data-source="post: 9300505" data-attributes="member: 40176">The Mass Effect setting resolves some of your issues. Its equivalent of jump points are Mass Relays, massive ancient devices that allow long-range cross-galactic travel along specific routes. They're nigh-indestructible, and beyond that nobody wants to mess with them because (a) none of the current civilisations have the resources or know-how to build new ones, and (b) when they do go up, they take out the whole star system with them. They're also hard to blockade, because emerging ships can materialise anywhere within a few hundred kilometers of the relay.Beyond that, ships have FTL drives capable of traversing distances between stars in a matter of weeks (and between points in a star system within hours), so interstellar civilisations tend to form in 'bubbles' around a relay - they can expand further out to more distant star systems, but the further you are from the nearest relay, the more disconnected you are from the wider galaxy.And finally, the entire basis of the setting's advanced technology is Element-Zero (Eezo), a rare element that affects local mass when electrically charged. It can do everything from power FTL drives to give people telekinetic powers, and it's formed only during high-energy events such as supernovas, so it's not something you can just find lying around in plentiful quantities in every settled star system - it's something you need to go out and acquire if you want to build your advanced tech, so it's an incentive to explore, trade and wage war.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="MarkB, post: 9300505, member: 40176"] The Mass Effect setting resolves some of your issues. Its equivalent of jump points are Mass Relays, massive ancient devices that allow long-range cross-galactic travel along specific routes. They're nigh-indestructible, and beyond that nobody wants to mess with them because (a) none of the current civilisations have the resources or know-how to build new ones, and (b) when they do go up, they take out the whole star system with them. They're also hard to blockade, because emerging ships can materialise anywhere within a few hundred kilometers of the relay. Beyond that, ships have FTL drives capable of traversing distances between stars in a matter of weeks (and between points in a star system within hours), so interstellar civilisations tend to form in 'bubbles' around a relay - they can expand further out to more distant star systems, but the further you are from the nearest relay, the more disconnected you are from the wider galaxy. And finally, the entire basis of the setting's advanced technology is Element-Zero (Eezo), a rare element that affects local mass when electrically charged. It can do everything from power FTL drives to give people telekinetic powers, and it's formed only during high-energy events such as supernovas, so it's not something you can just find lying around in plentiful quantities in every settled star system - it's something you need to go out and acquire if you want to build your advanced tech, so it's an incentive to explore, trade and wage war. [/QUOTE]

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