"This is the search. It is your duty and your trust. The future of humanity has been placed in your hands. Listen hard and look long, because they're out there, waiting for us. And I don't care if they're allies, enemies or rivals - let's find them... before they find us."
- Admiral Jason Yamamoto, to the graduating class of 2400 upon the conclusion of the S.E.T.I. FRD 003 King Snake, Drake Class Fast Reaction Dreadnought's training tour of duty.
POLICY
SETI is run by the Chief Directorate, composed
of one Director from each Division and the Chief Director.
Organizational Culture: Members of SETI often speak of "the Search." They use it in reference to SETI itself, as well as their sworn mission to discover extraterrestrial intelligence. SETI views the search as critical to the survival of humanity. They may well be right.
Ellipse Stations - between Earth and Mars, site of battles between the Union and the Republic
Mars - Balkanized between Martian Republic and UEG.
Cydonia - Capital of Martian Republic
Canal City
Lowell Dome
Polar City - Capital of Solar Union on Mars
Ares Dome
Phalanx City
Spear Dome
Olympus Mons - erupted in 2307, destroying Olympia Dome
Camber Dome
Komarov Dome
Asteroid Belt - UEG, Martian Republic, Solar Union, various Korps, Islamic Nations etc.
Jupiter - Ganymede is Martian Republic - Callisto, Europa (Clarke Dome), and Io are SOL. The Bussard Project was launched here in 2211 and successfully made it to Barnard's Star and back.
Saturn - Solar Union states: Titan, Rhea, Iapetus, Dione, Tethys
Uranus & Neptune - Solar Union, populated mostly by scientific installations and two SOL patrol bases.
Pluto's former moon Charon continued to orbit the newly named Plutonian Wormhole. The United Nations wasted no time in sending an emergency mission to set up Tartarus Base on that moon, which would eventually become SETI's first extraterrestrial base. The base on Charon eventually grew into Tartarus City, SETI's headquarters in the SOL system and beyond.
In practice, the Solar Union is heavily influenced by the United Earth Government (formerly the United Nations), which is in turn a product of the Universal Treaty Organization (formerly NATO, SEATO, ANZUS and other regional alliances). The UTO is dominated by the North American Republic (formerly the USA and NAFTA nations), the United Kingdom, and the European Union.
Needless to say, interplanetary and interstellar politics can become rather intricate. Conflicts of interests run much deeper than Earth versus Mars, or Solar Union versus Korporates. Many different factors and subtle influences affect any struggle or open warfare. Just like the complexities of real life.
Formally, all interplanetary and interstellar colonies are the province of the Solar Union, and not other planetary, international or national alliances. The sedition presented by the Martian Republic is the primary exception to this, along with NGO's such as Korporations and SETI.
ETHOS vs UNION, time travelling war. Tesseract Factories of Tindalos. Transient Domains and nodeless routing. Quantum Computing. Infinite Recursion. Interstellar Communication Technology
In essence, Tech Levels in GURPS SETI 2401 are divided into several variants. There are Early TL's where many items have much greater mass or energy requirements; Mature Tech, which is similar to that described in Ultra-Tech; Late Tech, which may incorporate experimental versions of the next level. There is also the rate of development: Linear Development operates much like the Ultra-Tech vision of the future, Plateaued Dev. is stagnant due to lack of resources or social pressures, while NeoTec Dev. flucuates wildly.
In NeoTec, Engineering becomes unable to cope with such rapid advancement, and NeoTec often becomes too dangerous or obsolete to use after an intolerably short time. For example, teleportation powered by anti-matter may be discovered online (only modeled on AI), and fall apart because of interference from some new form of forcefield or Superluminal drive. It is also possible that it's anti-matter power source might be vulnerable to the latest nanotechnology. In essence, the State Of The Art [SOTA] rises and falls like the stock market, and is overseen by a body known as the New Technology Regulatory Commission.
OldTek vs NeoTec confers the advantage of serving as a tranparantly bogus rationale for allowing conflicting technological devices to be introduced from a variety of fiction, gaming and other sources without fear of contradicting or interfering with continuity. As a form of game balance, each item of NeoTec has a chance of becoming obsolescent depending on the power of the item and the game system in use. In GURPS, this would certainly qualify as a greatly increased chance of malfunction.
There are many different means of Superluminal travel, and each has it's benefits and drawbacks.Hyperdrives, Jump Drives, Warp Drives, Stargates/Wormholes, Jump Points. All of these drives are very slow, the fastest capaple of travelling about a light year each day. Naturally, this excludes stargates or anomalies such as the Plutonian Wormhole, Psionic Slingshots and Precursor Portals.
2200's - Interstellar colonies founded on Epsilon Eridani, Tau Ceti and Wolf 359.
2211 - The Bussard Project started.
2230 - Jumpspace Consortium develops two seperate means of interstellar travel.
2300's - SETI becomes increasingly powerful after the discovery of Precursor relics on Sirius VII and first contact with Dronespace.
2307 - Olympus Mons catastrophically erupts on Mars, shattering Olympia Dome and burying the rubble under tons of fiery ash.
2400's - The SETI CENTURY
2401 - Plutonian Wormhole penetrated and DarkRing discovered.
2403 - Earth Shattered by sinister Gravitational anomalies. DIASPORA begins. DarkRing stargate technology unlocked by SETI, exploration of the DarkSector begins.
2404 - First Contact with Symphony Sphere.
2405 - Coriolis Droneworld attacked by the Swarm, shortly thereafter the Rigel colony is destroyed by the Swarm.
2407 - Camber Corporation founds the first DarkSector colony on Umbra VII.
2410 - The Vanishing Point - Psionic "Critical Mass" reached.
2500's - Most interstellar colonies become fully terraformed and habitable.
2600's - Psionics become nearly universal. Some sort of quantum leap in psychic powers seems to have occured. Minor powers appear hereditary but psionics (which are much more powerful) do not seem to be genetic in nature.
2649 - Diamond Skyhook begins construction on Eridani Prime using gestalt telekinetics. The materials are mined from the Eridani Diamond Fields, an "asteroid cluster" of gigantic diamond shards possibly left over after a gas giant.
27?? - Tesseract Wars. Time Travel begins unraveling causality.
The Construct could be an alliance of aliens once oppressed by humanity. This Construct purchased some starships from the Procyon shipyards of the Martian Republic (Procyon is a more powerful base for the MR than Mars itself). They used these starships to seek out Precursor technology, and got lucky. Now they are using this Precursor Tek to wipe out human oppression. --NOTE-- this violates the Tech Level 9 feel I have decided upon. But can be altered to getting ships from another race, and seeking Precursor stuff in the Human sphere.
Whips - a bundle of snakes with porcupine quills
and long tentacle whipcords (with nasty venomous hooks) for manipulative
organs.
Whips have one to seven heads.
Walkers - Like a Giraffe/Anteater with two prehensile
tongues.
Welders - Blobs that 'thermocouple'
What is the nature of the Construct? Political, Psionic Gestalt, Industrial Alliance, Enslavement? To destroy the CONTROLLERS? To obey the CONTROLLERS in hopes of the totalitarian elite gaining unholy powers? A slave trade amongst themselves? Several of these things? To pass judgement on 'lesser' species on behalf of themselves or something else?
There is a fear that the Martian Republic is influenced or controlled by some malevolent alien sentience. Perhaps it is this force that assisted this version of the Construct. Perhaps it is the CONTROLLERS.
A species overtaken by it's own biotechnology. Unrelentingly hostile, even among themselves. Insane, inexplicable ecology that somehow manages to function in defiance of conventional science.
Swarms are controlled by powerful psionic Queens who use drones to receive and amplify their telepathic control over the warriors. Swarm Queens can wrest control of Drones by telepathic force. The Hive Queens are non-sentient and sessile until it is time to swarm. Leaving the sentient telepathic reciever drones to run things. Dronespace is much larger than the Solar Core or the Symphony Star Sphere combined.
"The sentient species of the Symphony bring their long established behaviors into space with them. The Grazers still attempt to feed on the Woodwinds, while their Winger 'allies' look out for Hunters. In return the Grazers allow the Wingers to collect their nutrient rich dung, which the Wingers trade to the Woodwinds in exchange for the psychoactive fruit and pollen of the treefolk.
The Wingers view their dealings
with the Woodwinds as simple mercantilism, while the mobile plants treat the exchange with an almost religious reverence, especially where their pollen is involved. The Frogs are the wild card in this equation and frequently 'harvest' the Treefolk of their life giving riches.
Most SETI Xenobiologists cannot resolve how five seperate sentient species competing and interacting with one another could possibly arrive through natural selection. However, no evidence of any of the various Precursor civilizations has been found in Symphony space."
- Gerhard Alain, Xenobiologist, SETI OC23 Stroke of Lightning, Berendzen Class Observer Cruiser.
GATEMAKERS - Theoretical stargate creators. The Stargate is a wormhole that can be opened or closed.
GIANTS - Cosmic Engineers, Post Singularity Culture. Captured and Enslaved by OTHERS.
ENGION - Crystalline Precursors, of Blue Planet? Galactic in origin, but currently Intergalactic. Drain Magic or other Ley Line energies from planets with huge crystalline pyramids.
OTHERS - Other Dimensional entities of great power. Power great enough to enslave Cosmic Engineers. Probably Great Old Ones.
CAMPAIGN TYPES
S.E.T.I. Marines (Exploration & Response)
Asteroid Miners (WolfPac, think of Armageddon)
The Colony Ship travelling or arriving to found
a new colony
Freebooters (the stereotypical SF game)
Martian Rebels/Republicans (Espionage)
NewTek Commissioners
Psions
LEXICON
AI - Artificial Intelligence
GEO - Global Ecology Organization
MR - Martian Republic
NGO - Non-Governmental Organization
UEG - United Earth Goverment