What do space empires fight over?

[Morrus]

true. but then they didn't take up arms?

Well, there was a rebellion and everything. So, yes?

 

[Wolfram stout]

Treaties.

Spaceduke Franz Ferdinand (of Space) was killed.

Due to various eons-old treaties, this sets various factions to war.

Those factions call in other treaties, setting other factions to war.

Generations have passed. No one really remembers Spaceduke Ferdinand (of Space). But the treaties hold!

Pulling from WW1 as well, the rulers know each other and don't like each other. For those of the same species, they are related and truly hate each other.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

Water is like the most common thing in the universe.

Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is the most common element in the galaxy, and oxygen is necessarily plentiful on any habitable planet. There aren't going to be that many places you want to go which don't have a plentiful supply of either water or its ingredients.

Water is one of the most vital resources for maintaining a civilization, and doesn't necessarily appear in large enough quantities to be cheap everywhere one goes. Transportation of water can be a hassle, so space empires might fight over natural water reservoirs as prime strategic locations.

Star Trek Voyager's first season emphasized the need for water among spacefaring peoples, and how valuable it is in the absence of replicator technology.

Water and its ingredients may be common on habitable planets, but a space empire can't just set up strategic outposts on habitable planets, otherwise there would be gaps in its border security. Transportation of large quantities of water might very well be necessary during space wars, which can be further complicated by pirates and enemy attacks on supply lines.

The form of water is also important. For example, the Earth is the only planet (and Titan the only moon) in the solar system with liquid water. Specialized equipment is needed to extract and safely convert usable water on other planets; this is equipment that takes up space on a spacefaring vessel, possibly increasing the cost of construction a lot or forcing significant design choices at the blueprint stage.

Common doesn't necessarily mean enough when it comes to the fine details, and the devil is in the details.

 

[Blue]

Manifest destiny.

Projecting. As in "if I was in their position I'd take our stuff, so we should attack first so they can't".

Jealousy - you have X, we want it. (Could be resources, tech, peace, whatever).

Client races. Hmm, they are good on those methane worlds that are worse then airless for us because they corrode everything? Maybe we can make them produce things for us.

 

[RobJN]

Space Pirates.

Each of the stellar nations is certain that their neighbors are the ones promoting piracy along the various spacelanes. The pirates, of course, play this up to make their lives/livelihood easier.

Pirates are bad because they trade in slaves/drugs/contraband. Other nations find their neighbors' tech on the pirate black markets. So obviously, the pirates must go because they're a) aware of the various nations' dirty secrets, and b) putting said secrets up for sale to the highest bidder...

 

[tomBitonti]

some questions:

What is the tech novel of the target civs? Is there any resource which is scarce? What are their motivations? Are these idiosyncratic or highly emotional or irrational? Are any of the civs non-emotional and highly ordered? Are the civs comprehensible to each other? Are you looking for ”hot” wars — with a lot of fighting — or “cold” wars, with more propaganda and indirect struggles, and lots of subterfuge? Or wars conducted within economic or information system? Or great but non-violent religious conflicts?

 

[Zardnaar]

Philosophy.

One empire is into bioengineering.

Another is religious doesn't like modifications.

Another empire uses cybernetics or entechment.

Another empire is mono gender reproducing via cloning.

Another empire follows the teachings of the ancients but has it terribly wrong. They've perverted the good or don't realize the ancients were evil.

One civilization has a megaengineering structure. Ring world, dyson sphere, orbital elysium, artificial planet etc.

One empire has turned their home planet into a machine world essentially uninhabitable.

One empire is psionic.

One empire uses bio tech.

Basically they're all going in different directions. No one likes the cloners, the techno empire wants to entech everyone the religious types farm.

Played alpha centaurus? Space fascists, commies, hippies, neo libs, peaceniks, science etc.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If there are no pressing territorial reasons for conflict, then that takes out an awful lot of possibilities. Historically religious and dogmatic reasons for conflict were little more than trumped-up excuses for either political or territorial reasons. Have a bunch of nobles that you think might cause you political unrest? Time for a Crusade! send them off to The Holy Land. Want to annex a neighbouring state? They're keeping us from reuniting with our traditional brothers!

You can go the religious route, but then you have to support it with pure dogma. From Here 'Til Underverse Come!

You can go the ancient technology route, but that's just substituting what your "scarce commodity' is. I used this in an old Space Opera RPG campaign, pre-Babylon 5 by a decade or more. A trope is still a trope, even when you change the window dressing.

There is something that you can do with tech, however. Different species aren't necessarily going to develop a given tech at the same time. Conflict could arise if one species withholds effective tech from another. More efficient drives that reduce fuel use. Better oxygen or waste recycling tech. Artificial gravity. You can't go too far, though, or any conflict would be over in seconds. The Minbari easily rolled up any human defence right up to the Sol system, barely breaking a sweat. If drives and weapons are TOO much out of scale then it's tough to maintain the conflict, unless the more advanced race is pacifistic to a fault.

Edited for crappy spelling

What if it isn't ancient technology, but "modern" technology.
The Ascended Federation has the most advanced technology in the known universe (and the ascended Federation has explored more than most).

The other human colonies weren't as successful. The Federation has relatively strict non-interference protocols, because it believes others should only attain such technology if they are "ready" for it. That might be an "holier than you" attitude or something actually based on hard-won experience, but either way, they are not sharing. Their policy also means that they will never seriously hurt any of the "lesser" people. They will likely blow up a station or ship that comes under control, but only if they can minimize the loss of life.

But the tech they have is really awesome. Drugs that provide practical immortality, allowing century old humans to eventually achieve mastery of mind over body, allowing them to ascent into a higher plane of existence. Programmable matter that can be turned into anything. Most of the stuff might have the limitation that it is still used up, the real jackpot would be taking over one of their industrial fabber ships or one of their colonies, but that is practically impossible, because the Federation defensive tech at full power is utterly impenetrable.

The "lesser" colonies of man are trying to get access to whatever they can. Maybe some Ascended Federation freighter full of programmable matter got lost in an ion storm. Maybe somewhere a young member of the Ascended Federation rebelled against their non-interference policy and dropped some drugs to help a colony in need to deal with a terrible plague. Maybe an old communication satellite or observational satellite was discovered and cold provide access to their instantaneous FTL communication or observational abilities.

It is still a fight for rare resources, but there is also dogma involved:
Some people believe the Ascended Federation are basically living gods in space. They believe that the Federation will share its technology once everyone has agreed to stop stealing and using it, and collect it for safe-keeping, possibly returning it to the Federation even.
Some people believe whatever they find must be put to immediate use. Past attempts to understand the Federation's technology have mostly failed or brought only little advanced - if you have a ton of programmable matter, turn it into something useful. If you have some medical nanites that can cure a plague, use it on the next chance you have.
Others think you should study the artifacts and learn how they work.
And yet others believe that the Ascended Federation's technological gifts are temptation that leads to the people fighting each other, instead of working together for a greater good.

 

[Ryujin]

What if it isn't ancient technology, but "modern" technology.
The Ascended Federation has the most advanced technology in the known universe (and the ascended Federation has explored more than most).

The other human colonies weren't as successful. The Federation has relatively strict non-interference protocols, because it believes others should only attain such technology if they are "ready" for it. That might be an "holier than you" attitude or something actually based on hard-won experience, but either way, they are not sharing. Their policy also means that they will never seriously hurt any of the "lesser" people. They will likely blow up a station or ship that comes under control, but only if they can minimize the loss of life.

But the tech they have is really awesome. Drugs that provide practical immortality, allowing century old humans to eventually achieve mastery of mind over body, allowing them to ascent into a higher plane of existence. Programmable matter that can be turned into anything. Most of the stuff might have the limitation that it is still used up, the real jackpot would be taking over one of their industrial fabber ships or one of their colonies, but that is practically impossible, because the Federation defensive tech at full power is utterly impenetrable.

The "lesser" colonies of man are trying to get access to whatever they can. Maybe some Ascended Federation freighter full of programmable matter got lost in an ion storm. Maybe somewhere a young member of the Ascended Federation rebelled against their non-interference policy and dropped some drugs to help a colony in need to deal with a terrible plague. Maybe an old communication satellite or observational satellite was discovered and cold provide access to their instantaneous FTL communication or observational abilities.

It is still a fight for rare resources, but there is also dogma involved:
Some people believe the Ascended Federation are basically living gods in space. They believe that the Federation will share its technology once everyone has agreed to stop stealing and using it, and collect it for safe-keeping, possibly returning it to the Federation even.
Some people believe whatever they find must be put to immediate use. Past attempts to understand the Federation's technology have mostly failed or brought only little advanced - if you have a ton of programmable matter, turn it into something useful. If you have some medical nanites that can cure a plague, use it on the next chance you have.
Others think you should study the artifacts and learn how they work.
And yet others believe that the Ascended Federation's technological gifts are temptation that leads to the people fighting each other, instead of working together for a greater good.

Reminds me, vaguely, of "A Fire Upon the Deep" except that being able to use higher technologies involved physical location within the galaxy, not just possession of the technology. The "higher beings" had to literally create "lower beings", in order to be able to communicate down at their level.

A Fire Upon the Deep - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Eltab]

Which kinda brings up the whole stupidity of moisture farmers on Tatooine. Why live on a desert planet farming water? Tree farmers don't go to the plains and wait for trees to happen. A smart moisture farmer sets up where the water is. Like a watery planet.

Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru would have been much wealthier if they could have talked shop with a Dune Fremen.