NOMAD Confederation Space

This is a proposed one-shot, limited campaign, or unlimited campaign using the Faster Than Light: Nomad rules (or the Quickstart Rules) in the Confederation Space setting.¹

The Setting

In brief, Confederation Space is a standard Nomad (or Cepheus or Classic Traveller) setting. While nominally all planets are part of a grand Confederation, in practice all planets are on their own. Some have developed client relationships with other, richer planets. Some are colonies wholly dependent on their owners.

Not all planets are independent. Some have been assimilated by would-be successors to the old Confederation, such as the Kante Empire² or the Etanoi Republic³.

And then there’s the Transhuman Commonwealth, which is a Late Galactic civilization of robots who, playing against type, doesn’t hate all humans or want to conquer the galaxy but does minimize contact with plain old humans.

Most of the population of the Confederation are human, or as near enough as to make no difference. A minority are Xenos, “aliens” with a curious resemblance to humans or other Earth creatures. Despite Earth being in another quadrant entirely …

Minor Differences From 2021

In the original post I introduced some ideas that for the Nomad interpretation I need to walk back.

• Stargates are out. Small starships with reasonably sized FTL drives are the norm.
• Ships still use some version of a reaction drive, albeit improbably efficient and compact ones.
• Ships don’t have “shields” or g-warp fields. All ships have armor instead.
• FTL travel isn’t a “jump”. Ignore all the “Jump Effect” stuff.
• As per Nomad, it takes about a week to traverse hyperspace, or a day or two with Galactic Age technology.
• “Interstellar communications” in the Confederation involve someone getting in a starship and delivering the message to its intended recipient by radio. (The Kante Empire is experimenting with a sort of FTL Telegraph but they’re not in ships yet.) It’s very Age of Sail.

Otherwise the Confederation is exactly as I described back in 2021. Mostly.

The Campaign

I have a few campaign ideas. They need fleshing out, starting with a simple sector map, but I think I can ramp up quickly.

(Note: for a quick primer on Technological Ages, see this.)

Generic Space Campaign

Technological Age: Early Interstellar

The player characters are Free Traders in a Scout-class ship (or leased/stolen Picket) trying to make ends meet through legal or illegal means.

Space Patrol

Technological Age: Early Interstellar

Player characters are all members of a local planet’s “space patrol”, hunting down pirates. Including those who try to make ends meet through illegal means.

Imperial Trouble Shooters

Technological Age: Late Interstellar

Player characters are soldiers, agents, or other members of the Kante Empire, sent as troubleshooters when a “client” seems unhappy with the service the Empire provides. (Imagine those ground-crawlers complaining about how we defend their planets for a paltry percentage of their planetary wealth!) The PCs’ job is to get to the root of the problem.

No Taxation Without Representation

Technological Age: Early Interstellar or less

As members of a Republic colony, the PCs must deal with arrogant Republic officials, native wildlife, native Xenos, rebel sympathizers, Republic sympathizers, and all manner of vexations while trying to make a colony world into a full Member World. No, really. Stop laughing.

Creating Characters

In most cases layers may use anything in the main Nomad rulebook to create their characters, including Psionics. Just follow the rules; you’ll be fine.

The Ship

If the players need a ship, the GM will present them one. They can even design it, if nothing in the book appeals to them (or suits the campaign). They may have to go into hock up to their eyeballs, or steal it and have every local Star Patrol ship looking for them. But they’ll get it.

Equipment

Players may equip themselves with anything Interstellar Age and older (e.g. Space Age, Mechanical Age, etc.).

The Commomwealth sells some Galactic Age stuff to select customers, i.e. the sort of people who own planets. If you have to ask howm much it costs, you can’t afford it.

Cosmic Age equipment isn’t available on any market the PCs would be aware of. The only sources would be the vanished Ancients, the very hostile Dominion of the First at the trailing edge of Confederation Space, or the mysterious and baffling Ylem Wraiths at the spinward edge of Confederation Space. Want some? Go there and get it. And try not to die or get catapulted into a previously unknown region of space by cranky cosmic entities.

Other Books

Most supplements from Stellagama Publishing are fair game.

• The players may purchase any Synthoids available at their Tech Age, if the ethical problems don’t bother them.
• When it’s released, anything from Spaceships Go! will be available, subject to the same restrictions.
• The contents of The Devil’s Hyperspace, when that’s released, will probably be strictly off limits. Sorcery is just old-school psionics anyway.

House Rules

Any house rules I come up will appear as “addenda”. Most will be small, possibly experimental tweaks or expansions of the rules, or information about the setting. (Or both.)

What about my prior creations?

• The FTL Telegraph has only been recently (re?)invented, and it’s only available on certain Imperial bases due to difficulties with tracking down ships in motion. The Kante Empire can therefore relay short messages between bases at standard FTL speeds without risking messenger ships. Nobody else can.

• Only the Transhuman Commonwealth have the Hypernet. They can exchange information much faster than the Empire: days, not weeks. But no, they’re not offering to hook up the rest of the galaxy.

• Fabricators (when I finish them) exist, but they’re mainly a background industrial technology. Shipboard food you eat is fabricated from, well, you don’t want to know what. Other than that, you’ll never really notice or use one.

• Full Body Cyborgs are a thing, but as the article says a rare and expensive thing.

• Nothing from the Stellar Alliance is available. The Stellar Alliance is a completely separate thing, and at least one Tech Age ahead of Confederation Space.

• You won’t be playing a Transhuman. Accept it.

• Other gadgets aren’t available at all.

The Sector

Here is that simple sector map of Danaut Sector, made with Hex Kit.

It’s based on the data below, created randomly from a Python script.

Note that this represents the publicly available information about the sector. See below for an explanation of column values.

Appendix: Explanation of Terms

TC (Trade Class)

Characteristic

TA (Technological Age)

See the book or this article for more information.