= LAST IMPERIUM =

Author's Design Notes and Justifications

This is a rough draft for a TTRPG setting set in the far future. I'm not really interested in making a rules system, so something like Cepheus might work. It's an open system based on Traveller. Traveller's setting is malleable and already exists as a product, so instead I'd like to see something rather specific, meaning, there's to be a limited amount of playable races and defined places. 

I'd also like to differentiate from other sci-fi franchises to some extent. This is easier said than done, but I have some ideas:

Most of explorable space is occupied by an Imperium, which in turn consists of local sub-factions. It is perhaps not dissimilar from Asimov's Imperium before its fall, with ongoing tensions and local lords vying for power. Some sectors might officially be a part of the Imperium but they are left to self govern as long as they contribute in some way.

There are some dozen alien races/species. It seems appropriate for giving the world some variety. Too many aliens might dilute the character of the whole thing.

These aliens (humans included) have mixed socially and culturally over a long period of time (not genetically as they're truly aliens), so there is not a race-vs-race situation like common in sci-fi (Star Frontiers being a bit of an exception). Possibly the aliens which were incompatible with the Imperial culture were destroyed, rejected, went in hiding or off to greener pastures.  The ones with a similar psychology remained. Basically, now they're all just citizens of the Imperium. Joe Smith across the street is a Slime, and you can't even tell from their name.

Early DnD had decidedly evil monsters to bash, but as some became fleshed out and even playable, they kinda turned into humans wearing superficial monster skin, raising... moral concerns. I'd like to dodge that by making sure that the antagonists for dungeon crawl type action are clearly monsters, hostile wildlife, space vermin, or just really bad factions (like some murder cult).

However dungeon in DnD function to level the player characters up. In Traveller/Cepheus it is more the ship that is levelled up, so dungeon crawling is not an important pillar. I think adventures in this setting could work better if more cerebral, involving sector politics, trading/transport, smuggling, assassination, protection, scouting, artefact retrieval and such.

The aliens are sort of similar in terms of ability. The reason for this is that otherwise a mixed player party would have to break up when they face an obstacle, like a strange atmosphere, water/diving, flying, entering a passage or ship. The more exotic ones (rare as PC) like the big worm can perhaps deflate (uncomfortably) if it needs to fit, and it can't really fly freely, just hover. The Nautilus can breathe on land just like a human can spend hours swimming. 

An advanced Type-III civilisation surrounds the Imperium, which is perhaps the last patch of the galaxy not to reach membership, having failed to meet some criteria. It could be said that Imperial space has turned into a reservation of sorts from the perspective of the Type-III. It is "stuck".

Unlike the slowly collapsing Imperium of Asimov's works, this Imperium is entirely stagnant, or stable as the the Throne World of Irantel sees it. It has lasted for over eight thousand years with no major changes in the last five. A lot of cultural aspects were wiped out in the turmoil of the distant past.

While Imperial function employ certain religious titles, the meaning of these have been lost. A saint for example is just a very notable well regarded person. There is no well formulated official Imperial religion, just vagueries, manners of expression and platitudes which have diluted to the point of abstraction over many millennia. Perhaps they have a particularly (deliberately?) dry book full of empty spiritual allegory and family trees, and it's just sitting there unread on billions of shelves. It's one of those presents you get, "oh, cool thanks", and just put away like a gaudy tie which doesn't fit. However, the Imperium is a large place and isolated or bottlenecked regions deviate significantly culturally from the Central Systems.

Scientific progress has been slowed by frictions in distribution, availability, communication, administration, culture, and life expectancy. The general disposition is that all discoveries has been made. Others have dedicated their entire careers to solving a problem only to later in life find it solved and logged in an Imperial Library, many centuries ago. There are undercover Inquisitors operating on every Imperial world, ready to nip dangerous research projects in the bud.

Information is distributed onboard faster-than-light ships rather than wirelessly between different star systems. There is some indication that faster-than-light communication was at some point used. Likely such a feat requires very complex on-the-fly calculations.

There are no thinking machines in general use, but a handful of complex mechanical data processors are available on major worlds to facilitate certain critical administratoral functions. All of these operate under the supervision of the TeknoInquisitors. Analog machines (compensators) are more common and are used on starships for e.g. sight, vectoring and jump "calculations". These are fast but can be imprecise if not calibrated well. Analog video is in use, and there are relay stations and satellites of sorts. Video and phone switching station commonly employ human operators. Personal cameras use instant film (self-developing) and the quality is excellent.

In the Imperium, the term "Computers" refers to an army of mathematicians doing calculation by hand. There are even worlds which more or less specialise at computation. It's a fairly common job that's always in demand. Running a big computation, such as a physics simulation or halting problem can get very expensive. These jobs also need to be cleared by an Inquisitor.

This is not to say that the Imperium is primitive. Biology, Agriculture, Psychology, Healthcare, Metallurgy, Ship construction, Field theory, Weapons technology are all mature fields of research. 

Depending on how large the Imperium is, Radioarcheology might be a thing, that is, listening to old radio messages. These would of course degrade and distort over distance. Position could be determined by triangulation. It's possible that transmitted strong messages are simply propaganda meant to be heard however, and regular transmissions were done by other means.

It's a good idea to offer players a smörgåsbord of character options. However, this is somewhat hindered by my choice to not make a generic setting. Still, I have bunny and lizard people (which can be sexy if needed), some cute/wonky/strange creatures, a dark one, and then humans. 

Like in Banks' Culture setting there is a transhuman element. Medicinal science (many thousands of years of it) probably advanced a bit like herbology in the distant past - by trial and error, and careful consideration. And/Or it advanced during the various disaster periods. At any rate, humans can use medicines/drugs which alter superficial features of their bodies. Common uses include: healing skin injuries, burning or storing fat, building muscle, tuning basic pigmentation. This allowed for quick adaptation to new colony environments (not all worlds are perfect 1G Earths), though humans can of course adapt the environment to some degree. At the extreme end of this, humans can also regrow limbs, alter bone structure, or change sex, but those procedures can take 2-5 years. It's also possible to mitigate general age related issues. All put together, the average lifespan is around 160 years. The record of 240 is held by some empress, and she was alledgedly assassinated. Out in the peripheries life is harder with an average of around 100.

Common causes of death includes: dumb mistakes and freak accidents, war, raids and piracy, assassination and murder, hostile wildlife and natural disasters, ship malfunction, parasitic infection, exotic diseases and plagues, excessive radiation poisoning, and a form of enigmatic rapid cancer (regular cancers being easily treatable). 

In some science-fiction settings humans were isolated on planets functioning as evolutionary islands thus giving rise to various human-types. I felt this was too easy and cliché, so I took the opposite path. Within my setting, it doesn't seem realistic that all stereotypically Danish people sent to the planet Dania where they remained culturally isolated for 12.000 years.

Instead, the human genome is somewhat of a mystery as the history and origin of humanity is not known. There has been 4.000 years of chaos and 8.500 years of exchange between colony worlds (350 generations). Likely, if there are any ancient ethnic traits left, these would have to be pronounced artificially. Certain isolated planets could feature people with distinct appearances, but these would have little to do with those of ancient Earth. On top of this, it appears the human genome was radically altered at some point, to the extent that breeding with ancient humans would be fruitless.

Genetic archeology and retrogenetic surgery is a fairly modern development in the Imperium. It has become fashionable among the eccentric, rich and noble (who can afford to hire an army of computers) to change their appearance by introducing or expressing certain ancient genes. This combined with highly speculative and fanciful historical clothing makes these people become the center of attention and gossip at social events.

An early famous example of retrogenetic surgery was The Red Empress Uell Zho-Aroza Garniss II (11.910-11.989), who had big round eyes (one green one blue), very pale skin, and fiery red straight hair almost reaching the floor. She died young (at 79) from genetic complications. Even though the alteration had occupied a computer world for nearly a decade, the field of research was then still new and there were compatibility issues with the modern human genome. Nowadays it's possible to express a variety of traits using retrogenetic surgery, with offset and compatibility checks only requiring the work of a small computer city for a month or so. It's somewhat difficult for notable criminals to change (genetic) identity using this particular method. Since alterations of this nature are inheritable they have diluted into the general population over the last 500 years. It should be noted that it's always been fashionable from time to time and place to place to express unusual appearances with make-up body mods and even surgery. Actual expression of ancient genes however carries extra weight and value.

There's a certain cancer risk associated with body modification in general, and there are costs involved (time, money and some degree of physical discomfort). It's not something a member of the general population does haphazardly.

The capital system of the Imperium is called Rex, an ancient word meaning center or axis according to scholars. Most people call it Irantel though, after its third planet which is the Imperial capital world. Irantel is a busy city world, contrasted starkly by the second planet Egia, the jewel of the Imperium. It's a paradise world which is something of a natural reserve and exclusive vacation spot for the citizens of Irantel. It's completely free from dangerous space vermin as all ships and visitors have to pass through a rather thorough security check. By decree of Gladius the First some 8500 years ago, Egia is to remain natural, and so the only buildings present are a couple of ancient ruins which predate the decree. 

The forth planet is Ploxis, a small and completely barren world with no natural resources. It acts as an outpost and way station but is hardly of interest to anyone visiting the system. The outer four planets are gas giants with a few minor moons. 

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TIMELINE

Author's note: Whether this timeline is hopelessly distorted history, or an  accurate account of the events in a parallel universe, I leave up to the reader (a player character of course wouldn't know). I wanted to explore the idea of what could happen to a culture if no reports or records, visual or otherwise, could be trusted over the course of decades, centuries and millennia. So, I guess a slightly different setup than the usual AI killer robots (or a general Butlerian Jihad).

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In Light of the Contact in 12.451

We Present

The Reconstructed Human Timeline

With Findings by

Professor Manshark F.Gozig
Professor Archivald F.Balk
Doctor Lupton B.B.VonLeer
and additional group members*

of University Prime, Irantel, Sector 0.0.0
- Year 12.501 Imperial -
 
As known to all, the history and origin of Humanity was lost in the ancient past due to forces of corruption and degradation. There has of course been many speculative works written on the topic over the millennia, but now we possess one truly reliable source of information from an outside observer. During the brief contact with the "Type-III" at the northern perimeter in 12.451, a home world known as "Earth 4-56:3" was named. A rather strange name to be sure, but it likely made sense to name a world such in primitive times.

So, while the was no world with such a name in Imperial Registry, you may note that a set of coordinates were fortunately also provided. These lead us to the world of Arath, a slag world destroyed in a collision event sometime between 2.700 and 2.900. However, Arath, or Earth as we shall now call it, has a large moon. It from this body which our expeditions over the last 50 years have retrieved the spectacular Moon Urn Collection with its Etched Chronicles, detailing events taking place on ancient Earth and its surrounding territories. It has been reliably dated to Year 1.648 Imperial. Certainly, this collection is the oldest known reliable source now available to historical researchers.

The urns were buried inside a lava tube which partially collapsed during bombardment of debris from Earth. The surviving urns were in such poor condition that they took decades to reconstruct by conservationist group A & B.

Five years ago our research group was contacted by Doctor Lupton of Trayeene 4.52.-1:4. Having read Professor Archival's recent publication of "Mysteries of the Moon Urns", she quickly discovered a link to the Trayeene Colony Slabs. Though these are dated 2.460~2.580, they closely match the Etched Chronicles of the Moon Urns, and are likely the work of a notable historian at the time who had access to material now lost to us.

Since Trayeene lies so near Earth it was likely an early colony world. The timeline below is an amalgamation of data provided by the two sources.

Work by Gurn Yam (6.080-6.172) must now considered apocryphal, along with most of the Valley Scrolls and early Yun-gu Glassware that he based much of his work on. By extension, the Decorated Ship Plates from the Gul-gu Graveyards and Derelict Fields should also be ignored.

The New Timeline

0 As retroactively established by Emperor Gladius (I). 

300~ Humanity existed alone on its origin world, Earth.
Powerful thinking machines enabled the first post-fact information apocalypse, fuelling the usual ill-informed conflicts  thoroughly degrading civilisation and populations over centuries. Thinking machines could no longer be constructed towards the end and their role became largely forgotten or misunderstood, blame having been put elsewhere.

550~ Beings from another world contact Saint-Emperor Nero and an alliance is formed. It's unclear which species these beings belong to, as the depictions do not correspond to any known biological configuration of now active Imperial members.

With the help of these beings humanity rebuilds and establishes its first star colonies, of which three are still known: Trayeene, Oxidus and Solaran.
When it's discovered what lead humanity to near extinction the first known legislation against thinking machines is passed, though the details are unknown. Quite probably the human genome was altered globally as this era approached a crisis point, and was later somewhat bottlenecked to perhaps a mere 6 billion.

640~ The alliance collapses into barbary after a vicious attack of some sort. Six centuries of unknown activities. Conceivably, complex automated humanoid systems were employed though no remains of such a thing have ever been found. It's more likely that they never existed. (Note: certainly not surviving to present day hiding in the population?) 

1300~1500~ Remnants of Humanity are absorbed into the Proto-Imperium which governs over "many stars". During this era only very simple thinking machines are allowed, but the tolerance slips over time, leading us into the Lost Millennium. Several alien species  disappear one way or another during this time (notably the Ing, Varvar, Xexerplek - we refer you to Professor Dietrich Hasselwangs excellent paper "The Missing Species Question" covering this topic, albeit more from a biological perspective).

1.648 The Moon Urns are crafted (according to astropositional date stamps).

2.460~2.580 The Trayeene Slabs are crafted. Unfortunately nothing of value has been unearthed on either Oxidus or Solaran.

Then the timeline proceeds according as traditionally accepted, summarised as:

2600~ The Great Crusade Fleet of Hansar (IV) the Kind unifies the scattered remnants of civilisations of every species throughout space into the Old Imperium. Thinking machines are now completely outlawed. Emperor Hansar is betrayed and assassinated by the evil Nimbu (*curse their name*). The Nimbu are cleansed but succession issues following the short rule of Emperor Gozig the Gentle leads to Zladvazar the Murderous taking power, leading the Old Imperium into inevitable destabilisation and the Second Dark Millennium. This time period really is too complex to untangle here, but we feel like Inquisitor Barnaby Tarn's or Sir Volvo H.Godborn's reconstructions fit best with our new timeline, dated as they may be.

2.700~2.900 Earth's surface is destroyed in a natural or induced collision event.
 
4000 The migratory fleets of the Furfle arrive from a section of space beyond what is now the Southern Perimeter. This coincides with the founding and coalescence of the current Imperium by Gladius (I) and thus modern Imperial history begins.

12.501 The present at time of publication. In accordance with, and in full compliance with the law, no digital resources known to us have tainted this research, nor could they have survived to this day, nor could they even be read by any existing mechanical systems. This paper has been approved by Grand Inquisitor Shiva Zelnick of Irantel. With special thanks to our Majesty Zhev Aegis Aralheim XIV for logistical, economical, administrational and spiritual support. Blessed be His Name. (Note: Probably just hastily signed some evaluation done by an upper clerk and the research team knew it but had to be polite.) 

* Group Members: Reginald Olux Gaizhel, Norma L.Paddle, Jun, Zhwen Bermait II, Hel Bhozha, Max Sweherig, Bo Jahain Senior, Strauzz S.Schleck, Urza N.Mitsuba, B.Banamba, Hassmann, Uma & Nea Jol, Go Tazaki, "Qmac", X.Lussachi, Lea N.Bhozha, Zoe VonVoortz, and the many volunteers at site 1 & 4. 

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Book Format

• G5 169x239mm with a stapled spine. The G5 format was used in 1980's Sweden for various university and highschool publications, but also by our D&D & Mutant RPGs. 

• Plain two-column layout on plain paper (off-white?) with no border effects. Two column might make the print a bit small though, too small for ageing eyes which might frankly be the target demographic for this type of product.

• Georgia, or a rounded serif font, for an old book feel. Modern print can make the serifs very sharp and artificial looking. Possibly a sans for headings.

• Colour illustrations. I like B/W but I'm not very good at it.

World Book Content Structure

After the credits blurb follows a 30 second summary/introduction/tagline to give the reader a quick understanding of the overall structure. Something a bit longer than that of 40K Rogue Trader.

This is directly expanded upon with a guide to the Imperium, 3-5 pages + illustrations, with sections for the physical structure of the Imperium, its citizens and races, politics, timeline, ships, weapons, tech, and notable worlds. These topics are all covered later in more detail in individual sections. This means the text unloads information with increasing detail rather than strictly dividing it at the start. The illustrations should be scenes and not detached objects/figures (incorporating those requires more mental labor on part of the reader). 

The meat follows, with detailed individual sections + spot illustrations such as standing figures, technical ship plans and rows of guns. Some story vignettes for the races. A loot table. Monsters might still need to be in scenes. The map likely needs to be poster. Possibly I could write a deterministic procgen for systems.

Illustrations should not be irrelevant mood art, highly styled or abstract, nor highly polished or artificial looking. I'm going for a handcrafted look, realistic in term of proportions, but clearly hand crafted with visible strokes. Both spot and some scene illustrations could fade to a white background rather than having a sharp square frame.

A separate book could contain content which would clutter up the main World Book: Author's notes and philosophies, a note on how Traveller/Cepheus differ from DnD, examples of how to handle certain rule situations, some FAQ material, examples/walkthrough of how to make a character/ship/world, example characters, house rules, porting to other systems. Perhaps an NPC generator, Adventure generator.