Certificate of Irrefutability
Aliens
Forms
- Sentient alien life exists.
- Aliens can be the product/subject of genetic engineering.
- Spaceborne Fauna exist.
- Hostile Space fauna exist that can/will attack stray spacecraft that stray too close.
Physiology
- There is sophisticated silicon based life.
- Aliens are mostly strange and non-humanoid in physiology.
- The needs and wants of aliens do not linearly match to their human counterparts.
- Humans and aliens are unable to reproduce together.
- Sexual reproduction with humans is an "alien" concept to Aliens, due to differing biologies and psychologies.
- Alien methods of interfacing with space magic vary wildly due to sociological and biological differences.
“Human Aliens”
- Human biology and culture have significantly diverged in response to different environments
- There are species that have a shared human ancestor that have diverged so far they can no longer have viable offspring.
Misc
- Technologically advanced Aliens, those beyond the default technology level of humanity, are rare.
- Sentient species (aliens and humans) are known to live in shared communities.
Exploration
Earth
- Earth is unimaginably far away.
- Earth is known to be the home of humanity.
- Earth’s location and fate are long forgotten
- The setting takes place in another galaxy.
- Humanity once had archives of their past, but the data was lost or corrupted.
Planets
- Planets naturally habitable to human life are rare and precious.
- Planets are complex, and do not consist of a single biome. (Arrakis, Dagobah, Hoth, ect.)
Resources
- Harvesting resources in space is difficult and dangerous work.
- Celestial phenomena are a source of exotic resources.
Ruins
- Ruins around the sector are the remains of a former civilization clearly more advanced than our own.
- The sector lies on the frontier of a former civilization, exploration equal parts rediscovery and exploring truly unknown space.
- It is unclear if the ancient ruins belong to our ancestors or something that predated them.
- A lost civilization has left defunct great feats of stellar engineering in its passing.
- The civilizations that came before sealed away many mighty gifts, and many terrible horrors.
- Sector-wide Archaeology is a relatively new field that often misinterprets/misrepresents new discoveries.
- The sector is in the midst of an archeological gold rush.
- Archaeology is a dangerous profession. Archaeologists often kill each other for the privilege of being the first to say they found and explored a ruin.
- The ruins of multiple civilizations can be found in the sector, not all the ruins come from one previous entity.
Misc
- Star charts are old, inaccurate, and outdated.
- There is still much to be discovered about celestial phenomena (Black Holes, Nebulae, etc.)
- Spaceships often organize into convoys to traverse the dangerous and unknown regions of space.
- Asteroid fields are dangerous, lawless territories.
Space Magic
Origins
- The source of magic does not originate from this dimension.
- Space Magic has no direct bearing or relation to FTL
Cost
- Space Magic requires esoteric rituals, strange incantations, and materials
- Space Magic requires intensive training
- Space Magic is exhaustive to the user
- Repeated minor uses of Space Magic are just as dangerous for the user as a single major use.
- Use of Space Magic is addictive.
- Space Magic is confusing and inherently mysterious even to its users, requiring experimentation to figure out how to produce a consistent result.
- Those who overuse Space Magic run the risk of attracting improbable and sometimes dangerous events.
Misc
- Matter transmutation is a sign of an area where the ambient magic is concentrated enough to be dangerous for organic life.
- Space Magic cannot heal you beyond what a triage center could do.
Technology
Artificial Intelligence
- True AI is allowed but is limited by effective hard blocks on their behaviors
- True AI-controlled shells (or ancillaries) have personalities of their own, as extensions of the AI
- True AI Exists with restrictions in the sector core, but these grow lax towards the frontier.
- Some artificial life are recognized as sentient, not subservient to other species.
- AI are capable of choosing their own physical form.
- Legal AIs are virtual recreations of organic minds.
Cybernetics
- Cybernetics are available and allowed
- The body can only take a limited amount of augmentation before there are serious consequences.
- Cyborgs with completely mechanical bodies, only biological brains, can be created at great cost to the individual.
FTL Communications
- Interstellar communications are slow by default, constrained by lightspeed and the use of the gates to transmit information between systems. High priority information is delivered by FTL capable ships.
- Instant interstellar communications exist but are not cheap.
- If instantaneous communication exists, then high strength data encryption is not compatible with that form of transmission.
FTL Drives
- FTL Fuel is currently scarce in the sector.
- FTL Fuel is unstable until it is refined, a process which requires remote refineries.
- Interstellar travel takes time. Space is big
- Starships are capable of interstellar travel by their own means
- FTL drives are expensive to maintain.
- Personal use spacecraft are small and expensive.
- Space travel is dangerous, ships can be worn down over time and become rickety old things
FTL Gates
- Interstellar gates exist that allow travel between planetary systems (hexes)
- Each FTL Gate is limited to connecting to one other FTL Gate.
- FTL Gate travel is limited by a ship's size.
- Ferry ships exist that carry smaller ships through the FTL Gates.
- FTL Gates require no external power or fuel source to function.
- FTL Gates are overcrowded.
- FTL Gate travel is quick and cheap once you clear the line.
- There are unstable but valuable materials that cannot be transported via the FTL Gates.
- FTL Gates can only operate in space, at a distance from significant gravity wells.
- The materials needed to construct new FTL gates are rare, chiefly scavenged from existing defunct gates.
- FTL Gates are ancient relics and the few we have are connecting the "core".
- Control of the FTL Gates is highly contested due to control of the trade routes and tolls.
- No one entity currently controls all of the FTL Gates.
- Passengers must be safely enclosed within a vessel in order to travel through an FTL Gate.
Genetics
- Human life can be extended but only to a finite limit
- Genetic engineering is available and allowed
- Animals can be genetically uplifted.
Robots & Mecha
- Robots and Automation are not human in form
- Drones and/or Robots are prevalent in military and industrial roles
- Mecha are used in both military and non-military roles.
Teleportation
- Teleportation is possible but is a very advanced technology.
- Teleportation is possible but only on the same planet.
Terraforming
- Terraforming is possible but takes decades to complete
- The cost and benefits of finding new worlds and interstellar travel often come into conflict with the prospect of terraforming, due to costs and shared material requirements.
Warfare
- Missiles are viable weapons in stellar warfare (there is no perfect counter)
- Fighter and Bomber craft are used in space combat
- Ground to Space and Space to Ground weapons exist
- Railguns are limited to large installations (vehicles, spaceships, ect.)
- Mecha exist and are a staple of armed conflict
- Handheld weaponry is more often physical projectiles over energy projectiles however Hyper-Advanced weaponry are rare and bulky at the personal scale.
- There is no single weapons manufacturer, and as a result weapons and ammo requirements are diverse and sometimes confusing.
Misc
- Artificial Gravity Exists but is powered by Exotic Energy
- Energy generation is limited, by resources or by cost
- Society is incapable of celestial manipulation
- Nanites exist but they can not self-replicate endlessly
- Hacking is possible, but there's no one single 'catch all' solution
- The difficulties of interstellar travel mandate that most systems be self-sufficient
General
- "Space Truckers" are an essential part of interstellar trade
- There is no single unified currency
- Space nomads exist that were driven from their homeworld and/or prevented from settling upon a new one.
- Human groups have migrated to the sector at various points throughout history.
- There is no single universal time zone standard for the sector.
- Friction due to culture, faction and nationality is more common than due to looks, species and sexuality.