I like my sci-fi to be deep and have a rich story. Even if it is just a game. Id like some C&C please. I know you guys will be brutally honest. You all seem to have a great knack for that ;) But like I said, I like my sci-fi to have very rich and long back stories. Herbert’s Dune is a great example of what I enjoyed immensely simply because there was so darn much of it. All his books, his son’s books, and the Dune encyclopedia. It’s all good reads. Anyway, what I’m trying to do is paint a picture of the universe our game Fleets finds itself in. The game itself wont actually see the Core World’s navy. The game is mega mining corp vs mega mining corp. please let me know if this paints a good picture for you. If not, what can I do to improve it. Anything confusing like I did not supply enough information on a seemingly important subject? Thank you in advance. It is 242 years after the reorder of civilization. Humans have colonized and terraformed countless worlds and moons in 4 other star systems. Humanity is experiencing it’s strongest golden age. There is no pain or suffering. There are no poor, weak, downtrodden, broken or beaten people left in the colonies or on Mother Earth. These are the Core Worlds. Humanities legacy. But in deep space, in the Void, it is an entirely different story. There the dominion of man is shattered. Everything men consider good is stained. Everything that is pure in the Core Worlds is polluted in the Void. Mother Earth and her children feed from minerals that come from deep space. The cheap and plentiful raw materials support the Core Worlds way of life, their prosperity, and they care not where they come or how they are acquired. As long as the resources continue to flow. In the Void, in the vast expanse’s of nothing, there are men working until their death to bring Civilization its milk and honey. Some of these men, if they can be considered such, are more of an appliance to their masters than anything else. They spawn not from the union of man and woman but from an amalgamation of bio-chemicals. Test tube children born not in a hospital from happy parents but on a farm to scientists. They go not to school to learn their ABC’s but are instead jacked into a mainframes where their lessons of life are uploaded to their raw minds. Their neural patterns are read, logged and mapped and with that map their lives are decided for them. Miner, soldier, bio-computer, manager, scientist, pilot or raw bio-material for those who are not up to par. It is more efficient and cost effective this way. Less than indentured servants. Less than slaves. The inhabitants of the Void, those who are created by and belong to their Corporations, are property. Machines. Appliances. Those who’s neural maps show signs that they would serve best as a pilot or manager are granted some autonomy with their own minds. Those who show superior promise are molded into scientists, officers in the Corporation’s Fleets or even made Executives of the Corporation itself. Each Corporation is ruled by a ridged cast system. Those living, working and dying in deep space know that the human mind is the most advanced computer in the ‘verse. Nothing comes close save for the technology of Mother Earth which is denied to them. So, to close that technology gap, the Corporations began molding some of their farm grown humans into bio-computers. These poor souls are stripped of everything remotely human about them. They are the lowest rung of the cast but, paradoxically, also the most important. They are stripped of everything that makes one human. Unneeded bodily systems and even appendages are taken from them so as to not take up precious computing power. Arms, legs, most biological systems and even the eyes are taken. But their ears and vocal chords are left alone to receive and acknowledge orders. On most of the Fleet vessels the main CPU is a stump of a man plugged and jacked into the ship itself for only a human mind is capable of navigating the Void. The human mind and the high technology of the Core Worlds. At this time, in the Core Worlds, technology is advanced. More than it has ever been in human history. Officially the humans of the Core Worlds have dubbed this era “The Age of High Technology” and they alone control it. The Core Worlds do not allow those of the Void to possess technology such as theirs. After all, it is the technology of Mother Earth that allows them to live in such comfort. How could they survive without the raw materials the Corporation’s in the Void bring them if the Corporation’s had the technology to live in comfort as well? There would be no raw materials. No supplies. They would have to work again. No, they will never work again. They will never have to. There is a balance now. The Corporation’s work to supply the Core Worlds with what they need and they are repaid with what they need to continue supplying the Core Worlds. Those who run the Corporation’s and their highest level executives have a standard of living superior to most humans in the Core Worlds. If they are kept happy the Core Worlds will be happy too. But that does not stop the Core Worlds from having their own Fleets. After all, if all of the Void Corporation’s decided to bite the hand that feeds them, chaos would in sue. Mother Earth’s “Defense Force” is officially on guard for the possibility of hostile alien incursion against the Core Worlds even though no sign of life has ever been found beyond that of a microbe. But everyone knows that the real reason for the Fleet is utter fear of the Void Corporation’s and their military skill. The Defense Force has full use of all of Mother Earth’s technology. She has the best Capital Ships, the newest Strike Fighters, the finest weapons, the best and most advanced sub systems even conceived. She is also as large as all the Void Corporations Fleets combined. The crews are highly disciplined and the officers are all Fleet School graduates. That amounts to men and woman skilled at shining boots and officers who excel in simulations. She is like the greatest sword even smelt but never taken from its scabbard. Never once used in combat. Not once in over 200 years. Some are of the mind that if that sword was ever pulled form that scabbard the hilt would fall off. They are probably right. On the other side of the fence are the fourteen Fleets of the Corporations. At each other throats every day trying to secure mining rights. Fighting and dying simply for access to strip mine systems. The experience they garnered from continual combat has sharpened their blades. They are on point. In the beginning wars were declared between rival Corporations. These were the first of the Corp-Wars and they were fought over territorial rights which encompassed vast stretches of space and hundreds of star systems. But claiming empty space and holding onto it are entirely different things. Being able to lay claim is easy but it is almost impossible to hold so the boarders were taken down and it has become each Corporation for itself. There are no more declarations of war. War just is. Outside of the sphere of prosperity that is Mother Earth, there is no peace in the ‘verse. [Edited by - CharlesFXD on July 16, 2006 1:52:49 AM]

That sounds like a pretty cool plot all up.

If this was word for word the background story you were going to include in your game, I'd rewrite the 4th paragraph. You use the "they something not to something" sentence structure three times in a row.

As far as influences are concerned though, the void supplying the core sounds a lot like the plot for gundam wing, with the colonies supplying earth.
The human computers for ships sound a lot like the mentats/spacing guild from dune, mixed with fleet command from homeworld. Do they add anything to your story?

It seems odd that you put so much effort into describing the core fleet if they don't feature in the game.
The experienced voiders vs the untried earth fleet is a nice point. It would even work nicely in gameplay terms. Computer AI is never as good as a human, and this allows you to give them a superior force to compensate for their inferior tactics.
If I read that backstory and was then put into the shoes of the corperations, I'd be wondering when I could get stuck into these core worlds.

At the moment it seems like you've fleshed out two sides, and that they should be in conflict. If that isn't the case, you should flesh out some rival corperations for the player to root for, seeing as that will be where the conflict occurs.

[Edited by - CIJolly on July 15, 2006 5:01:39 PM]

Thank you CIJolly. I simply deleted “They must flow.” It was kind of unneeded.

Does it sound like Gundam? I’ve never seen Gundam before. Is it very much alike? Or, in your opinion, is it ok since the mining fleets are supplying Earth and the colony worlds? Not the colonies supplying Earth.

Quote: The human computers for ships sound a lot like the mentats/spacing guild from dune, mixed with fleet command from homeworld.

THANK YOU!…heh heh
What I want to show is how meaningless human life is to these mining mega-corporations.
Humans are grown in tanks on farms to serve and I want to show how disturbing that is.
The Mentat is one by choice. Fleet Command chooses to link with the mothership. These poor slobs have no choice. They don’t even know what a choice is. They are appliances.

Do they add anything? Other than showing that the bottom line is more important than life itself. I am a firm believer in the free market and capitalism so writing about this is a lot of fun for me.

I’m also a big cyber-punk/steam-punk fan. I think being wired up to a mainframe and wearing tight black leather is sexy..lol just don’t tell my wife, k?



I know. It does talk a lot about the Core Worlds and not much about the Corporations. I’ll be adding more later. Like I said above, I love a good, long and deep back story. I plan to fill the web page with all background information of this universe I can think of. Maybe this or something like this will be a prologue to the Core Worlds link.

I have a bit more to share. Should I post it here or in another thread?
I’m going to go over it first. BBL with another story.

Quote: Original post by CharlesFXD

Quote: The human computers for ships sound a lot like the mentats/spacing guild from dune, mixed with fleet command from homeworld.

THANK YOU!…heh heh
What I want to show is how meaningless human life is to these mining mega-corporations.
Humans are grown in tanks on farms to serve and I want to show how disturbing that is.
The Mentat is one by choice. Fleet Command chooses to link with the mothership. These poor slobs have no choice. They don’t even know what a choice is. They are appliances.

Do they add anything? Other than showing that the bottom line is more important than life itself. I am a firm believer in the free market and capitalism so writing about this is a lot of fun for me.

About mentats, I would argue that they are superior beings who get special mental powers in exchange for mild psychological deformations; while these human computers are mutilated, less than human. In a sense they are the opposite of Dune's long and pervasive evolution of various forms of physical and mental perfection.

The setting seems nice; the text is very clear, but it could be cut to little more than half.
The only perplexing point is the ownership and upper management of Void corporations: "meritocracies" based on tests (and maybe predetermined types; see A. Huxley's Brave New World) can produce slaves, not faithful managers with creativity and ambition; if by chance such people appeared they would escape ASAP and become, for example, independent contractors or colonists in secluded places.
Above the level of slaves there are moderately oppressed or almost free people who want to accumulate wealth, form a family and provide for their descendents. They cannot be slaves; they must be the privileged oppressors that keep the slaves down.
All seems to suggest that these Void masters are Core citizens or vassals.
Do the Void corporations descend from Core corporations, from "independent" colonists, from a mixture of both? The question relates to the specific reasons for rebellion and infighting that the Void upper class could have.

Quote: Do the Void corporations descend from Core corporations, from "independent" colonists, from a mixture of both? The question relates to the specific reasons for rebellion and infighting that the Void upper class could have.

I’ve begun a back-story that’ll outline how the corporations and the colony worlds came to be coming shortly.

Yes, the Void corporations did originate on earth. No, they are no longer associated with earth or the colony worlds in any way other than to sell their minerals.

It happened like this. I’ll give you a quick break down of the next story because it answers your question I think.

Earth eventually built several colony vessels and set their sights on the stars. The first to be colonized is Alpha Centauri (and I wrote in that radio spectrograph telescopes detected a 90% that the atmosphere on one of the worlds in AC is habitable with minimum teraforming. My science in that area is not up to par so I have to do some more reading but this is something that we do today in a fashion)

Anyway, the colony ship slated to make their way to AC cant just go and set up. They need operational and support help. So, the earth organization that set up this colonization project (imagine a world wide NASA) asked for bids from the already existing Sol mining corporations. GMC won the bid (not the auto maker) and they will be the company that goes with the colonization vessel. They will be their support from orbit mining the system for the raw materials, building the automated orbital factories etc etc that the colonists need. GMC is the sole supporter of this colony. They have a complete monopoly.

I’m asking the reader to assume that it will become less expensive to leave and enter a planets atmosphere in the future that will make production in orbit, even orbital farms, cost effective.

As more and more colony vessels are ready, the space administration asks for more interested Sol based mining companies to bid for the contract.

So, that’s how the Sol based mining companies eventually make their way out to deep space. They are attached to the colony worlds.

Many many years later, as space travel becomes faster, these mining corporations push out into deeper space away from the colony worlds to garner more and more resources to sell to Earth and her colony worlds.

At this point the corporations are more or less like you’d expect to find today. The people mining are employees. They have 401k’s and all that. The mining corporations don’t have militaries.

But over time, to cut costs, some mining corporations begin growing their own people.

In the beginning these people were born and were just like every other human. They still wanted pay, retirement, and after a while they began forming unions, striking etc etc.

Well, the Corps didn’t want that. Sure, they were paid less, but they didn’t want to pay them at all so they engineered a new kind of employee.

These people are engineered to do their job and nothing else. When their shift is done, they don’t go to the local space station pub and knock back a few. They go to their closet, plug in to their feeding tubes, and jack into their corporate net to sleep.

Well, this didn’t work out to well either. They did their jobs but they had no initiative. If something went wrong somewhere they didn’t have the ability to fix it which would stop the entire production system.

Imagine a line of workers. On worker doesn’t put the red cap on the Dohizamachallit machine. The next worker in the line needs that cap to put the black cap on so he shuts down unable to figure out what happens next. The next worker needs the black cap to be able to put on his orange cap and it goes down the line from there.

So, they engineered managers. Just enough initiative and common sense to be able to fix things when they go wrong. But not enough to rebel. Not enough to want to leave and become freelance.

Whats freelance? Whats leaving?

Later on, as you read in the other story I posted, the Captains of the space vessels seem to be just like you and I. They are in a way. To run a vessel you need a lot of initiative and autonomy.

But they have built in mental blocks that wont allow them to do anything other than serve their corporation to the best of their ability.

If there are infractions, well, that’s where the Inquisitors come in. The Inquisitors function in a similar manner as an SS Party Officer or a Red Army Propaganda Officer would in ww2 when they were embedded into divisions to make sure the soldiers were all good party men.

Does that answer your question? It’s a pretty bleak future, eh?