I want to create a SF setting where - like Dune - there is a monopoly on space travel. I want this concept because it opens a lot of interesting ideas that aren't there when you have a setting where people can fly around wherever and whenever. However I want to do this without the use of performance enhancing drugs! Thus I came up with a 'spacing guild' of my own who have the monpoly because they have all the astrogation data - only they know where everything is. Consequently everyone has to rely on them; they have their own culture and their own vehicles and do all the travel for basically everyone. My question really is how feasible is this; what are the pitfalls with this logic and this concept and how could it really work (if at all). There is no spice/oil monopoly or psychic power involved (although I did think that the 'guildsmen' had this data hardwired into their brains in a foolproof way so that the data could be safely monpolised without relying on storing it in a machine or something). Thanks.

Since apparently even human genes can be patented, maybe there's a conglomerate that holds the patent for astrogation data. Ships have to verify that they have a representative on board, or some sort of license or whatever, or they'll be totally screwed.

Then you could have rogue, black-market astrogators and stuff.

You're curious about the feasability of this, in a scientific sense?

In the real world, anyone with enough time and a telescope can take pretty damn accurate astrogation data. That said, it isn't that hard to astrogate -- you should be way more worried about not hitting anything at all than hitting something you don't want to hit. (All that SF stuff about "running into a star?" It is way more dangerous to go spinning out into the void. But I digress.)

The thing is, I imagine that your setting has a serious fantasy element -- faster than light travel. So, in that case, there could be any number of sources of the monopoly -- data about navigation of "hyperspace," the technology of the FTL engine (which could be 'blackboxed') etc. Really, the sky's the limit! You get to decide how FTL works, anyway.

yrs--
--Ben

I don't think it sounds unfeasible at all. If you include a few rogue space travel agencies who challenge the big one, without noteworthy success, you're getting pretty close to some things that are happening already today, say, in the software business. And space travel seems like it could only be EASIER to gain a monopoly on, considering the costs involved.

Well of course there is a fantasy element to some degree, but the setting while not hard sf (i dont know hard science) is not a complete flight of fantasy.
My initial idea was to have the guildsmen have the data hardwired into them in a manner similar to Johnny Mnemonic (the book not the film) where data is stored subconsciously so the guildsman has to undergo some means to access it consciously and actually do the job. This just seemed bizarre, like drink driving in a way! However i preferred something like this than how Fading Suns, for example, which,because it relies on machinery (jumpkeys ot open jumpgates) seemed wholly fallible. After all if the monpoly relies on guildsman carrying around 'keys' in some fashion (be it astrogation black boxes or car keys) then that cannot be sustainable, surely. Plus it doesn't really appeal to my sensibilities. While the navigators of Dune aren't really playable characters (IMO - they are hardly Han Solo types) there is something engaging about the mystical elements of the prescient powers they posess.

I guess I could have petrol sniffing pilots!

If you want a robust monopoly -- one that isn't dependent on keeping one secret and falls apart when that secret gets out -- then you need to consider what makes real-world monopolies like Microsoft, power companies, and the old AT&T work, which is (besides regulation) economies of scale and high barriers to market entry: Sure, anyone can try to set up a rival software company or phone system or power distribution network, but (a) it's expensive to get started and (b) once everybody already has one common system from the monopolist, why would anybody risk buying a potential incompatible system that won't plug in to the rest of the network?

So while mapping space is indeed something anybody with a telescope and some math skills could try, why'd you buy Telescope Guy's observations when Giant Space Monopoly offers you data from a thousand survey ships? Telescope Guy may be smarter and cheaper, but there's no way he can have the same coverage. Likewise, while maybe anybody could potentially pilot an FTL ship, if they're expensive to build and operate, then it's very hard for any upstart competitor to offer reliable, affordable service.

I'm tempted to combine it with ideas based on the old Hanseatic League, whereby merchants from across the galaxy - members of various houses/governments - form a mutual support and assitance group with a common goal. They then dominate trade acorss the stars in the traditional way and as a result include many skilled xplorers/navigators and merchants under their wing building their monopoly. Because they travel the most they get the most accurate data - and because they have strong mercantile interests they can enforce their monopoly by strangling trade and trade routes. Of course they can secede from the Imperium and call themselves the Trade Federation - or at least, like Herbert's Spacing Guild, form a force that can independently rival and thus keep in check the Imperium.

Besides every game needs a merchant guild (where would Exalted be without their mysterious 'guild'?).

BTW: does anyone know what 'Combine Honer Ober Advancer Mercantiles' actually means? I know what CHOAM is meant to do (and indeed represent), but those words are baffling me.

Sydney Freedberg wrote: If you want a robust monopoly -- one that isn't dependent on keeping one secret and falls apart when that secret gets out -- then you need to consider what makes real-world monopolies like Microsoft, power companies, and the old AT&T work, which is (besides regulation) economies of scale and high barriers to market entry: Sure, anyone can try to set up a rival software company or phone system or power distribution network, but (a) it's expensive to get started and (b) once everybody already has one common system from the monopolist, why would anybody risk buying a potential incompatible system that won't plug in to the rest of the network?

You wouldn't even need the limitation of only one jumpgate between any two systems. The mere fact that a new player on the market has no chance in hell to regain his investment is enough to secure monopoly.

Ok, so I have a monopoly; a League that accompishes what I want it to. My next question is how does this group, with the monopoly (ie power) it thus has, work alongside the conventional society - the Imperium (a spacefaring empire). How can the two co exist - if at all? And if not what happens? Surely such a League, like the Spacing Guild, would overtake the Imperium (certainly in the movie version, the Guild even bullies the Emperor!) and put itself in charge. I don't want that, but I do like the idea of a League that exists somewhat independently because i think that offers gaming opportunities.

Well, the Imperium has the guns. Sure, the Guild has Jumpgates (or technology) but if the Imperium decides to get all irritated and begins blockading the end points of travel or otherwise causing a ruckus, then that puts a dent in the Guild's profits. The Guild isn't going to like that and they aren't going to want to compete with the Imperium in this arena because they are at a disadvantage. You see, the Imperium doesn't care if it doesn't make a profit.

Gaerik wrote: Well, the Imperium has the guns.

what if it's set up so that the spacers/pilots/whatever you call them have the knowledge, but as an organization/guild, lack the actual access to resources to construct the ships?

the guild will then be available for hire by anyone with ships or ability to construct them, but neither side is able to overpower the other-

spacer bolts with ship, well, no one else gets work until he returns the ship or is brought to justice.

spacer gets kidnapped so company/gov't can puree his brain and make him spill the secrets to jumping- no spacers will fly for that group

could create an uneasy balance that can provide adventure opps. conflict between the groups would likely lead to all sorts of economic upheaval and even riots, so neither side would want to upset the balance

I suggest reading a bit more of the Dune books if you want to understand whats going on with Herbert's scheme-
The Guild and the Empire have a tedious relationship. The Emperor, and the family controlling Arrakis, controls the flow of spice. Without spice, there is no space travel. Spice can't be meaningfully harvested, however, without swift space travel as provided by the Guild.
Brian Herbert's prequels are showing us more of life before spice: space travel is extremely limited, takes weeks to get from one point to another, the precient Navigators haven't even come into play, experiments on Guild-like travel are few and dangerous. We're also seeing the foundation of what would become the universe dependant on spice.
Basically, each leg of the three ruling bodies of the universe has one leg up on the others, and it ties back to the flow of spice. Each group knows it can push the others to certain limits, further if they have them over a barrel somehow. But, they know when they've pushed too far. Not to mention various laws and other such observences overpower all bodies to the point that if one of the major bodies broke it, the other two bodies would retaliate swiftly and decisively.

daMoose_Neo wrote: I suggest reading a bit more of the Dune books if you want to understand whats going on with Herbert's scheme-
The Guild and the Empire have a tedious relationship. The Emperor, and the family controlling Arrakis, controls the flow of spice. Without spice, there is no space travel. Spice can't be meaningfully harvested, however, without swift space travel as provided by the Guild.
Brian Herbert's prequels are showing us more of life before spice: space travel is extremely limited, takes weeks to get from one point to another, the precient Navigators haven't even come into play, experiments on Guild-like travel are few and dangerous. We're also seeing the foundation of what would become the universe dependant on spice.
Basically, each leg of the three ruling bodies of the universe has one leg up on the others, and it ties back to the flow of spice. Each group knows it can push the others to certain limits, further if they have them over a barrel somehow. But, they know when they've pushed too far. Not to mention various laws and other such observences overpower all bodies to the point that if one of the major bodies broke it, the other two bodies would retaliate swiftly and decisively.

Here's a cross-reference for you: This Alien Shore by C.S. Friedman. The existence of the monopoly, how it works, and why it works - and indeed how it starts to break down - are the core of that novel. It is also, incidentally, extremely well-written and worth reading. As with most of these suggestions it rests on how hyperspace works; Friedman uses (of all things) imagery from Inuit myth, together with a genetically splintered human race.

I would suggest that it all comes down to how the FTL works, and that the sociopolitical consequences of whatever you choose (a) will not be limited to the monopoly effect, they'll include things like communications/governance issues and warfare feasibility, and (b) aren't the only things you need to worry about in terms of designing an FTL model. Technological repercussions are a big example; if you can do that, how about this, and so forth. (Subject of course to your plausibility desires, but as semihard SF, I assume this has a high plausibility standard.)

With that in mind, I would strongly suggest that you put together a design document regarding the entire structure of FTL in your setting, with all of the design objectives enumerated. List them all, then mark them as either Necessary or Desirable, and then rank the Desirable ones into an order of precedence. I'll generally reorder them at this point in my word processor so that the list puts all the Necessaries at the top, then the Optionals in order from most desired to least. Have that in your hand before you go thinking about what kind of in-setting pseudophysics you should get here.

As you point out, making the Guild not also the supreme ruler may be tricky. I would say this features into the design document above. Honestly the best way, I think, is to keep the Guild somehow (a) small in numbers, and (b) repugnant to the ordinary citizen and especially the ordinary soldier. Visual repugnance as per Herbert is only one way to achieve the latter; in Friedman's book they themselves choose to be visually distinct, but it's their insanity that makes them unable to interact on normal terms and therefore be rulers. Prejudice is, of course, just as valid a source as ugliness. But all such sources in fiction seem to tie a serious social/societal disadvantage to the transportation monopoly, and I suspect that this is why.

- Eric

as far as realism goes, i think so. convolution gives PCs and NPCs realtionships to exploit and try to take advantage off.

consider the real world example of shippers, port authorities and teamsters-

the teamsters can strike, cutting revenue of shippers and ports

ports can choose to undergo improvements to accomodate specific types of ships, forcing shippers to go elsewhere if they are no longer 'desired', or force teamsters out of work as things automate

shippers can go to cheaper ports, cutting teamsters incomes and ports revenues

now, i'm no expert on the whole situation, but throw in 'mafia' involvement in any or all of those parts and things can very interesting and convoluted

Don't feel too confined by the old bugbear of "realism". Herbert said, "damnit I want knife fights, because knife fights are t3h k3wl, but why would people have knife fights in the future when they have lasers... wait, what if there were these crazy forcefields that stop lasers but not knives?" The Holtzmann shield is there for one reason: so that Sting and Agent Cooper can have a badass knife duel.

If you buy into the Singularity even slightly, the notion of a traditional sci-fi future of an unchanged homo sapiens flying around the stars in spacecraft, killing each other (with lazerz!) over stuff like government, religion, and a scarcity-based economy is as much pure fantasy as anything Tolkien produced. This is extremely liberating creatively; once you can disassociate a space/futuristic setting from anything vaguely realistic, you realize the sky's the limit, as Ben said. Any technogibberish you toss in is pure flavor, like inventing some demonic language for a magic system.

the ftl model is more like star wars - ie ships just 'jump to lightspeed' and go from a to b. They need navigation data, but there are no jumpgates or space folding. I've never been a fan of jumpgates (I don't think they work in fading suns for instance at all) and foldspace is just dune dune dune! The freer model of ftl as shown in star wars i think is more liberating, even if it's not very technologically sound. Jumpgates (like B5) are limiting IMO.
So, I think it's a question of 2 entities giving what the other needs: the League have the best astrogation data and trading resources while the Imperium make the goods, including the best ships (not to mention having a strong miltary force which the League doesnt and isnt).
Here are my notes for the League (rough):

Born in the fires that raised the Imperium to the stars, the League is a trade organisation that has grown from a cabal of affiliated merchant princes and nobles into one of the most powerful groups in the universe. The League created many colonies and posts on planets across space within and without the society that would become the Imperium; this quickly cemented their powerbase that exists yet. Working with the best captains and crews they could hire, the League also explored much of space and acquired an unparalleled store of navigation and astronomical data. From this was created the ‘book of the stars’ a – now ancient and invaluable –navigation codex. Because no pilot could safely and reliably (or at least economically) without this data, the League were further able to create a powerful presence.

In time the League used its resources to develop a unique Astrolabe, which would be itself incorporated into interstellar vehicles. Programmed with data from the League’s private codex, League Astrolabes could be updated with new data as it entered the book (all but instantaneously, allowing for time distance and technology). The League created and maintained its monopoly on travel and trade by likewise maintaining a monopoly on the book and the Astrolabe – which no other ship or faction could use without subscribing to the League’s charter in every aspect (i.e. filling the seemingly endless coffers of the League). Furthermore, while other entities were welcome to create their own space fleets, they could not use League data or tools (i.e. the book and the astrolabe) to aid in navigation – and League subscribers would face extreme censure for providing this data without permission. Ships from non-League vessels and crews found with such resources could even be impounded.

This of course led to friction between the Imperium and the League, however the Imperium managed to gain one concession; the League could not in turn use information (such as it was, compared to the League’s own) collected and created by those who signed to the charters of the Imperium. However, while the Imperium was powerful indeed, it could not compete with the League in these areas; in quiet corners of space League members eager to increase the League’s data stores exploited those motivated by profit. Thus much of what the Imperium pioneered the League into its own monopoly, strengthening it thus. Of course the Imperium visited its own penalties on those members who broke its charters – worst of all exile from the safety and culture of the Imperium. Those houses, groups or even individuals so outcast find upon themselves a death sentence for sure; excommunicated from all society and support.

Sounds good.

Just as a thought on the Astrolabe, you might be able to pull off a "boostrapping" monopoly. The Astrolabe is only valuable because it's effectively "networked" and can download information from the master database. It has to network via FTL comm. This can (readily and probably necessarily) include transmitting the astrolabe's position and identity. What this means is that not only is it useless to steal an existing Astrolabe since it'll get a "yeah, right, the cops are on their way" response if you ask for jump data... it's also useless to reverse-engineer one since the transmit process is also dependent on the jump data. So without having a whole lot of jump data already, you can't build a practical system because you can't send home for more data. That's cool.

If you want some technobabble to go with it, the data is nonlocal; it depends on the Fourier transform of all known space or something. This means that the data point you gather at your own location or via your own instruments isn't actually at all relevant to you; it's a data point which might help open up sufficient certainty for reliable jumps somewhere totally different.

- Eric

You have extrapolated more than I have (which is kind of frightening! ;) )

So basically without an astrolabe, knowing where you are becomes impossible because its only the data it contains that provides a context. Since the astrolabe is the most efficient navigational tool - because of the data it has access to (like google) - flying interstellar without one becaomes very risky. Risky because a) you fly with potentially unreliable data and b) you have no support network to fall back on.

It reminds me of those devices people have in their cars to tell them where they are (ie tell them they are lost) - unfortunately those devices, I cannot take seriously ('you missed your turn...you are now lost michael').

Essentially the League's captains provided their navigational data and the League itself pioneered the primary unviersal astrogation tool and now they have the means to back it up. The univers'e best air traffic control!

Yah - although I would suggest that it's not knowing where you are that's the problem. This is something which is measurable locally and using things we know; basically, we could (given enough time) do this today. Thus it would strain my suspension of disbelief to see this as the thing one cannot do without the Astrolabe.

It's transmitting anything through hyperspace that's impossible without it. Imagine an Earthside instantaneous transmit mechanism which would let you jump from Tampa Bay to Paris... but the math involved requires knowing the current local temperature in Moscow, Vancouver, and Rio. The idea in that last post was that not only that... but the only way to get that information in real-ish time is to know fairly recent temperatures in Tehran and Iceland. And so forth. Oh, and by the way don't forget to send in temperature readings in Tampa Bay and Paris, please. Somebody else will need those.

It's up to you what jumping without this information does. Fails to start, has a chance of failing to start, ruins the jump engine, throws you randomly throughout space, etc. The latter is, honestly, kind of interesting on two fronts. One, it meshes interestingly with the mechanism I'm suggesting above. Following up on the above, let's say you were wrong about conditions in Rio. This messes up your calculations... and you end up in Rio instead of Paris. Gives all kinds of interesting "survey voyage" possibilities whose major risk is simply that you may never get back to anywhere civilized again. Wildcatters and so forth - cool. Putting them straight to the place where the data is inaccurate means that if a legit jump fails... it puts you straight into where the action is, whatever it was that caused the insufficient data. The other reason why I suggest this option is by analogy to something that happened in one of my wife's games, a cross-dimension soap opera thing.

She says to her GM one day: "I'm bored. I set the D-Hopper to random... and hit go."

Talk about scene frame.

- Eric

Harlequin's approach would create lots of efficiencies-of-scale that would work for a monopoly. Sure, the Small Start-Up Company can figure out your position well enough to start a jump -- but they probably don't have the Giant Monopoly's wealth of data on possible destinations, especially not if to get from Point A to Point B you also need data on Points X, Y, and Z.

The other thing about the efficiencies of scale is that they don't need to be anywhere near absolute, for most story purposes.

If an Astrolabe can get you from Point A to Point B in one jump, and a Calculon-3000 Astrobrain gets you from Point A to Point B in one big jump and five minor corrections, then the Astrolabe folks still have an effective monopoly amongst all the people who can't afford those minor corrections. That includes folks interested in speed, interested in not popping up outside a spaceport's security zone, interested in comfort, interested in the appearance of power, etc., etc.

But there are legitimate reasons for using the Calculon, as well. Probably cost, desperation, a desire to thwart monopoly, trouble with the League, etc., etc.

In short, you can create a world in which the way you get around sends a message about the type of people you are. Yes, I'm thinking about that beautiful, ugly, reliable, broken-down ship Serenity, from Firefly, as I write this.

>Yah - although I would suggest that it's not knowing where you are that's the problem. This is something which is measurable locally and using things we know; basically, we could (given enough time) do this today. Thus it would strain my suspension of disbelief to see this as the thing one cannot do without the Astrolabe.

It may be possible to do on a planetary scale - but surely not on an intergalactic scale. Thus while the average starship can take local data with sensors and whatnot, it cannot put this information in proper context without a tool like the League Astrolabe because this device not only sends the local data to the source (updating the source - watch out for the meteroite ive just spotted or the nearby sun going nova) but receives the necessary contextual info. With both elements (local data and 'context data') the pilot can a) know exactly where he is and b) go somewhere else and c) knwo what's happening in this somewhere else (so as not to end his trip real quick like).

Is this perhaps what you are saying?

It's been a long time since I studied economics.

TonyLB wrote: In short, you can create a world in which the way you get around sends a message about the type of people you are...

I'd actually be quite intrigued to hear what the "real point" is, in the view of the guy designing this system. It might be something like what I've proposed (which would, indeed, be where I myself would head in such a setting), but he might just as well have an entirely different set of priorities.

I like Tony's suggestion a lot. Mitigating the monopoly constraint to add a high-risk workaround gets you a lot of story possibilities. How and where the risk shows up is up to you. (The phrase "These methods will necessarily have at least twice as many Botch dice" comes to mind.)

As for specifying position or worrying about meteorites etc., I'm afraid that if you want semihard SF then, by me, these can't be the problem. It is easy to pinpoint your position provided you have good star charts, and it's almost impossible to stop people from building their own star charts sufficient for this. This is because you don't need ALL the stars, just the main ones, and because the maps change very very very slowly, and because you can build them using remote observations. So if knowing where you are is the problem, then it has to be because you need to know this to ridiculous accuracy. (For instance, variations in the size of your ship due to temperature fluctuations in the microwave background of space could arguably be a bigger factor in being unsure where you are. I say arguably, please do not actually argue it, that's not the point.) Moreover (in the real world, at least) space is so incredibly empty that if you simply blipped into a completely random set of coordinates then the odds of it being occupied by anything more than (say) a hydrogen atom in the volume of your ship are infinitesimally small.

You could do it, by postulating something which makes it not random; perhaps 99.9% of possible jumps end up in the hearts of stars, and so forth. But the question of where the meteorites are, on the far end, only matters if your space looks extremely different from real space.

To me it is much simpler for it to be some other variable than "where am I?" which is answerable only by an Astrolabe. "What's the Sternholz Improbability Function here/now/there/inbetween?" is honestly a more plausible question, not just from the point of view of it being answerable only by the League and not by Joe Astrogator... but also, frankly (speaking as one who could actually explain General Relativity to someone), it's more plausible as the kind of information you might really need for this sort of thing.

- Eric

TonyLB wrote: I'd actually be quite intrigued to hear what the "real point" is, in the view of the guy designing this system. It might be something like what I've proposed (which would, indeed, be where I myself would head in such a setting), but he might just as well have an entirely different set of priorities.

Let me push this whole "real point" thing back a step further (which we should've done for you earlier, frankly, but darn it, we love our science fictional economics!):

In your game, what do the characters do? And what do you want the players to feel about it?

Now, you can say "anything they want," and having that flexibility is a worthy goal, but presumably you have some core idea in mind. E.g. Tony brings up Firefly, which is about low-powered romantics who keep on losing but stay true to themselves and each other (uh, mostly); you bring up Dune, which is about high-powered Machiavellis who make terrible moral compromises to accomplish great things (uh, mostly). And Star Wars is yet another model: The heroes consistently sacrifice rationality to stay true to their feelings -- "Use the force" instead of the targeting computer, or rescue your friends when you know it's a trap, or try to redeem your father when everyone else has given up on him -- and it always works out in the end. And C.J. Cherryh has a sort of clinging-on-the-edge-of-survival vibe, and Heinlein is a weird combination of hard-edged practicality and libertarian nudism, and so on and on and on. I don't think anyone can make a good game that accomodates all of these equally well. You have to choose.

So -- deep breath, clear your mind, find your Happy Space, etc. -- just imagine you and your friends playing this game, when you've made it the best that it can be: What are you doing? And why is it so damn cool?

Get a good grasp of that, and all the stuff about interstellar travel and politics and technology will start to fall into place.

>Let me push this whole "real point" thing back a step further (which we should've done for you earlier, frankly, but darn it, we love our science fictional economics!):

The question wasn't intended to explain the entirety of the setting.

>In your game, what do the characters do? And what do you want the players to feel about it?

the characters are members of various factions in a distant far future setting where nobility rules a galactic empire without an emperor.

The Imperium was created from the ruins of an earlier (now ancient) empire known as the republic of the gods, so named because it was dominated by very powerful beings who are now seen - worshipped and revered - as just that. These figures are myth to the common man - as most dieities are, however they were real in their time and just as powerful. Though they long passed into myth they exist yet moving behind the scenes and using agents to further their goals; just like every other faction in the game.

The power vacuum exists after the Imperial throne was overtaken by a being chosen - created even - by the gods. This being was designed to take over what its creators felt was a corrupt empire and to place humanity back on track. His followers present another faction, but the leader is conspicuous by his absnence (thus such pc's have to find their own motives and beliefs).

Playing a noble is another factional choice whereupon the pcs can fight to take the throne or re eastablish the old, trusted order, or whatever.

That is the central idea: there is a power vacuum and the struggles of various factions create various possibilities for character choice. The noble houses are one while the League/Guild/whatever is another. There are others still.

The reason for wanting something more than just 'lets get in our ship and fly off somewhere' is not just one of realism (ie that sort of thing is too simplistic), but to add some depth to the setting. A force that controls a monopoly (or a majority interest) in space travel adds all sorts of opportunities.

It's not solely about space travel in the way Firefly might be; being a member of the league or a pilot for a House is just one of many choices.

So there are great similarities to the kind of SF that Dune creates - empire, nobility 'guilds' and human gods. The power vacuum is purposefully an empty stage waiting for new heroes to stride upon and the feel should be epic. Thus it is somewhere between Dune, Star Wars (more the Clone Wars I think - outright conflict offers much drama, something Dune as an rpg lacks), Greek myth (the Iliad and whatnot) and Exalted (thse pc's who serve the gods - lets call them heralds - are powerful representatives of ancient forces bound by their master's dictates).

So 'anything' isn't far from the truth, but a more structured anything.

The system, btw, will be d6. I like D6 and I brought d6 space and star wars.

About the "League Astrolabe" idea:

As you've constructed this, the interstellar military (which the Imperium would absolutely require) relies on the League's Astrolabe data just as much as any other interstellar traveler. That means the League and the Imperium can't plausibly be at odds for long; the League has the power to immobilize any ship of the Imperium at will, but the Imperium's military has no equally swift response. Logically the Imperium has to have started as the League's defense force against piracy, and the Astrolabe would be the most important of the Imperium's crown jewels. Moreover, any database similar to the Astrolabe, but not networked with it, would be a challenge to Imperial authority, and a seed of a rival interstellar polity.

I think the logical way to get the stories you want, given this technical base, is to have the Astrolabe destroyed in the course of the usurper's takeover. That forces the regional authorities (your "nobles") into building private astrogation databases, just to keep interstellar trade afloat -- which would normally be a League privilege, of course, and the local League representatives are likely to resent the encroachment.

>As you've constructed this, the interstellar military (which the Imperium would absolutely require) relies on the League's Astrolabe data just as much as any other interstellar traveler.

The actual astrolabe and the navigational codex was inspired by reading about the Hanseatic League and the sailors who used something called the Book of the Sea to essentially navigate by.

Also part of what interested me about the monopoly concept was these sorts of situations. By monopolising space travel, the League can set up odd situations such as controlling how parties go to war! The League can determine when and thus how parties fight - interesting (perhaps implausible I don't know). They could transmit each side the co ordinates for a battlefield. This could well be some world outside of the Imperium they want subdued which they can use themselves! All sorts of possible machiavellian shennanigans arise which - most importantly - lead to good story opportunities.

>I think the logical way to get the stories you want, given this technical base, is to have the Astrolabe destroyed in the course of the usurper's takeover. That forces the regional authorities (your "nobles") into building private astrogation databases, just to keep interstellar trade afloat -- which would normally be a League privilege, of course, and the local League representatives are likely to resent the encroachment.

So we have a League that formed in ancient times that represent the origins of this setting. The League itself was a mercantile empire that explored and organised trade networks, rebuilding the society that fractured during the end of the old regime (the republic of the gods).

Later, a military force is created to protect League interests. This militia falls under the purview of one or more of the noble houses within the League. Those in charge of the League are also nobles, but more pwoerful merchant princes and the like.

Soon the military and their merchant masters fall out and many other nobles are forced to take sides - either with the league itself against a coup by the military; or with the noble militia against an oppressive and profiteering regime.

And now i'm stuck.

Okay, players running factions to try to take advantage of a power vacuum. Gotcha.

Then I think these are the questions you need to ask about absolutely every group in the game:

• What can they do for the players?• What do they want the players to do for them?

Yet another argument for the League not being an absolute monopoly, by the way, since it means that they can be swayed by players who will help them suppress their rivals.

TonyLB wrote: Okay, players running factions to try to take advantage of a power vacuum. Gotcha.

Then I think these are the questions you need to ask about absolutely every group in the game:

• What can they do for the players?• What do they want the players to do for them?

Yet another argument for the League not being an absolute monopoly, by the way, since it means that they can be swayed by players who will help them suppress their rivals.