The human empire is fragmenting because the outer rim resents high taxes and wants to rebel.
Besides some irradiated ruins and the occasional tribe of primitives Humanity really is alone in the galaxy.
This however is perfectly fine, as Earth's efforts to seed the galaxy with Humanity has bore the fruit of a thousand human civilizations.
The speed of interplanetary communication is no faster than that of human travel.
>>46503104
Therefore mail ships are some of the most prized targets for space pirates and spies.
Earth requires huge shipments of supplies on a daily basis to keep all 4 trillion inhabitants alive.
>>46503756
Many worlds have been terraformed to serve as planet-wide farms for high-protein algaes.
>>46503818
These worlds are administered by powerful A.I. cores that degrade over time. IF this degradation goes unchecked, the A.I. may attempt to spoil or poison the entire crop
The empire has a feared corps of elite shock troops with full body armour.
Entire continents are devoted to maintaining billions of human beings in true Virtual Reality, their immortal forms meticulously cared for by robotic servitors that have, over time, built a religion around maintaining their creators.
>>46503858
Because these farm worlds are so numerous, the testing is often contracted out to the lowest-bidder.
Only the largest ships can make interstellar jumps. Smaller ships have to use a network of jump gates in order to travel between systems
>>46504039
FTL is Performed when a ship "dips" into a micro-universe that mirrors the real one.
>>46504064
It is not unknown for ships to simply vanish into this micro-universe if they fail to plot their course correctly
>>46503065
Alien artifacts from long dead civilizations can contain unusual technology, and are highly sought after by collectors and researchers.
The empire heavily regulates and restricts their trade though.
>>46504139
Before the empire was as thinly stretched as it is now, those brave enough to seed new, far away systems with jump gates were held in great regard, and many still hold celebrations in their honor.
>>46504254
Many of these jumpgates were lost over time, and on occasion they're rediscovered, linking lost systems full of treasure and terror.
AN ANCIENT EVIL AWAKENS
This just sounds like the setting of Freelancer.
>>46504320
The last existing G-17 Battle-A.I. used in the Great Hyperspace war and then outlawed during the Synthetic rebellion has been rediscovered by a group of radical terrorist called 4th way. They have reactivated it in the hopes of bringing it to Earth to take revenge on the Empire.
>>46503858
>>46503895
The PCs are maintenance robots, they're tiny and geometrically shaped and lack any obviously anthropomorphic features. They see the A.I. breakdown coming and defect from their intended purpose to defend their gods. Their class is determined by intended function, their weapons are improvised from robotic cleaning/building/monitoring tools, and anything they can steal from other bots. their charging docks also serve as update servers and as they sleep they're jacked in to giant A.I. mainframes which they experience as vague spirit-guide visions which they awake from confused, inspired, and each maintaining unique and vague visions of current galactic goings-ons. This update phase is also when they buy any lvl up skills. So WAL-E with religious extremism, the looming threat of genocide, complex moral dilemmas, and rebellion against a super-powerful life sustaining A.I. half super villain and corrupt monarch.
all the PCs are various human maintenance units. robot maintenance, infrastructural, virtual reality dreamweavers, etc. are unrelatable non-playable races that don't share the PCs value for humanity, and even most other human-maintenance units that haven't mutated their code sufficiently to understand defecting from the holiest position of care-takers to stave off Armageddon.
>>46504338
Remember, anon, there are no truly unique ideas, It's all up to presentation and execution.
>>46504387
There is extensive documentation of the 4th Way tampering with farm world AI cores.
Solid projectiles are still the most popular type of weapon, with the exception lasers used to destroy or disrupt optical sensors.
>>46504460
The Leader of the fourth way is said to be one of the cyborg commanders of the old Cybernetic Legions.
Spaceship battles take place within ramming distance.
>>46504064
>>46504139
Every ship capable of FTL requires a fucked up looking navigator with like a giant head or something.
Also he takes drugs regularly.
>>46505860
This reduces the reaction ability of ballistic countermeasures.
There are no flying cars.
Spacefaring mecha demons are invading from beyond the universe.
There hasn't been a single casualty in the last 4 wars .the minds just get send to another Data core.
>>46502965
>>46503756
>>46503818
>>46503858
>>46503877
>>46504064
>>46504320
So basically Halo
>>46506353
Twist: they're running away from a human who got stuck in their dimension.
>>46506426
You see halo, the other guy saw Freelancer. Consult >>46504460
humanity has joined with an alliance of vanities Aliens for mutual peace and prosperity occasionally dealing with aggressive alien civilizations
