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View Full Version : Has anybody ever made the Spelljammer version of Star Wars's Galactic Republic?



Clistenes
2016-12-29, 09:17 AM
What it says on the tin.

When I read about the Spelljammer setting, it looks like the only non-evil organized faction that spans several Crystal Spheres is the Elven Fleet, and even those look more like a loose confederation of advanced elven realms than anything else...

You have to wonder how come some human empire like Shou-lung or Netheril or the Imaskari or the Suel Empire or the Baklunish Empire haven't expanded out of their own Crystal Spheres and founded Galactic Empires... and yes, I know all those empires (save Shou-lung) have collapsed, but, if Netheril or Imaskar or the Suel or the Baklunish had expanded out of Toril and Oerth their off-world colonies and provinces should have survived the destruction of their on-world empires, and the Galactic Empire would have remained...

I just think some human culture should have tried to create either a Galactic Empire/Republic/Federation...

So, do you know of any setting that includes a (non-evil) human or multi-species Galactic Empire/Republic/Federation?

Lord Torath
2016-12-29, 10:08 AM
The Piazza (http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/index.php) has a dedicated Spelljammer forum, and someone there might have made something. Night Druid worked on Hackjammer, and he detailed Steel Space, which is the headquarters for the Ogres from the Unhuman Wars. The Vodoni (from SJA4 Under the Dark Fist (https://www.amazon.com/Under-Advanced-Dungeon-Dragons-Spelljammer-Module/dp/1560761318)) have a 6-8 sphere empire.

You could always have the Imperial Elven Navy (or the Elven Imperial Navy - I've heard it both ways) lose the 2nd Unhuman War (or even the First Unhuman War, 100 years earlier, making the 2nd Unhuman War be the Elves attempting to strike back), and let the Scro and Ogres take over. You'd have far fewer Man-O-Wars and Armadas, and far more Mammoths, Battlewagons, Scorpions, and Mantises in the Known Spheres. The POTS and similar organizations would be forced "underground". The elves would be reduced to resistance groups. The EIN is generally a benevolent empire, where the Unhuman Empire would be much more tyrannical.

Clistenes
2016-12-29, 04:07 PM
The Piazza (http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/index.php) has a dedicated Spelljammer forum, and someone there might have made something. Night Druid worked on Hackjammer, and he detailed Steel Space, which is the headquarters for the Ogres from the Unhuman Wars. The Vodoni (from SJA4 Under the Dark Fist (https://www.amazon.com/Under-Advanced-Dungeon-Dragons-Spelljammer-Module/dp/1560761318)) have a 6-8 sphere empire.

You could always have the Imperial Elven Navy (or the Elven Imperial Navy - I've heard it both ways) lose the 2nd Unhuman War (or even the First Unhuman War, 100 years earlier, making the 2nd Unhuman War be the Elves attempting to strike back), and let the Scro and Ogres take over. You'd have far fewer Man-O-Wars and Armadas, and far more Mammoths, Battlewagons, Scorpions, and Mantises in the Known Spheres. The POTS and similar organizations would be forced "underground". The elves would be reduced to resistance groups. The EIN is generally a benevolent empire, where the Unhuman Empire would be much more tyrannical.

Thank you.

Jay R
2016-12-29, 04:15 PM
They're ... kind of opposites. Spelljammer is science fiction in a fantasy setting, while Star Wars is fantasy in a science-fiction setting.

Lord Torath
2016-12-29, 04:51 PM
They're ... kind of opposites. Spelljammer is science fiction in a fantasy setting, while Star Wars is fantasy in a science-fiction setting.Not really. Spelljammer is really not science fiction at all. It's actually quite similar to Star Wars. Space combat takes place at regular human-reaction speed, while long-distance travel takes place at hyperspeed (100 million miles per day in Spelljammer, or 4-and-1/6th million miles per hour, which works out to about 0.62% c, a good bit slower than Hyperspeed, but far faster than anything we have today).

Gravity is pretty much 1 G (9.807 m/s2 or 32.2 ft/s2) regardless of planet or ship size, and completely ignores Relativity, either General or Special. And you can live for up to 5 hours in open space before running out of breathable air (30 ten-minute turns), although it will start getting stale after 2d10 turns. Your ship will keep fresh air for 120 days, and you can breathe the stale air for another 120 days before it turns deadly (depending on ship and crew size). And you can breathe that air standing on the open deck of your ship. No need for an air-tight seal.

Spelljammer is really more like Pirates of the Carribbean in a 3D ocean than any kind of science fiction. There might be much less resistance to Spelljammer if more people understood that.

sktarq
2016-12-29, 05:15 PM
The reason none of them did it was that it messes-up the groups running each product group in the company publishing the work.

Spelljammer shoehorned in the three major other realms (settings) but was not allowed to make major differences to those worlds.

It is more real world business issues than game issues.


That said having Netheril, Imaskari, Suel, etc colonies that end up taking over their new spheres after their homelands fell has been a pretty common idea in my experience. - some historical precedence like Cathage taking over from Tyre and the other Phonetician home cities.

TheTeaMustFlow
2016-12-29, 08:11 PM
One of the problems is Spelljamming travel is pretty darn slow (for example, getting from Oerth to the Greyspace shell alone should take 80 days), and worse, once you try to leave a crystal sphere, unreliable. Communication is similarly difficult, because the Phlog blocks basically every means of magical communication. Trying to control territories in multiple spheres is a very difficult task. Not impossible, as the IEN and Vodoni show, but very difficult - note that both of these entities are very stretched out and are often only rulers in name only.

The other problem is the Arcane. The list of groups with the ability to manufacture Helms themselves is a very short one, and if you're not on that list, then you're at the mercy of the not-so-jolly blue giants, who may be negatively disposed towards your ambitions, and will express their displeasure with an embargo. (If you have a problem of this, you can take it up with their complaints department, which is a ship (http://www.spelljammer.org/ships/IvoryTower.html) that outmasses any other ship in Known Space (excepting the Spelljammer) by more than an order of magnitude. Sure, it doesn't have any listed weapons. Just go ahead and try and shoot one, I'll watch.

Finally, there are some other really nasty stuff out there in the Void that any prospective imperialist might want to worry about. Death Shades. A certain ridiculously big dolphin-shaped ship with a sphere of annihilation sting. Constellates - i.e. actual freaking constellations what are alive and move and throw bits of sun at people (or ships, or fleets, or planets) who upset the Space Gypsies. Tinker Gnomes.

The point is, the Spelljammer universe is very hostile to large-scale political organisation, being dark, mysterious, and full of gribbly horrors, strange unknowable powers beyond mortal ken, and giant space hamsters. (We never did find out what killed off the Space Leviathans, did we...)

Lord Torath
2016-12-30, 02:47 PM
The Arcane aren't very choosy about their customers, though. As long as the Unhuman Empire doesn't interfere too much with the Arcane, they'll be happy to sell helms to them. Plus, didn't the Neogi create Lifejammers and Death Helms? And I think the Scro invented The Pump?

Also, since Helms are pretty much indestructible, you can increase your supply by defeating your opponents. If you assume the Unhumans won the first Unhuman war, they'd probably have no shortage of helms from plundered elves, humans, and random traders.

The bit about communications being slow is very true, though. The EIN is really more a group of allied fleets than any kind of an actual empire. It takes the better part of a year to get communication from one sphere to another and back (travel through the Phlo is highly variable, taking between 10 and 100 days to reach the next crystal sphere). If you let the Unhuman war be won by the humanoids (Kobolds, Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Ogres, etc), I can easily see the Unhuman fleets breaking up into a bunch of "space gangs," all loosely allied with each other, while still flying the "Imperial" flag.

Elven communications are miserable in space; some elven ships disappear every year without anyone noticing. The elves are willing to sustain a certain number of such losses in standard patrolling, and write off such ships as "overdue" as opposed to being lost.This would almost certainly the case with the Unhuman Empire as well. I'd suspect that they'd be willing to write off more ships than the elves before reacting.

There are also several evil Slaver Groups (Chainmen, Free Neogi) and Military Brotherhoods (The Long Fangs, the Tenth Pit), but they are more or less underground in the standard setting. I think the Tenth Pit would like to be an Evil Empire, and would probably be a suitable choice to elevate if you are so inclined. I see them cutting down on smuggling and piracy much more than the Unhuman Empire would be inclined to do. As long as the Unhuman Empire ships can go and do whatever they want, they won't care about smugglers or piracy. I see the Tenth Pit caring more about that (nobody steals cargoes or sells folk into slavery but US!). The Tenth Pit is more likely to run afoul of the Arcane, though.

Clistenes
2016-12-30, 04:32 PM
I think the Imaskari, Netherese, Suel or Baklunish would be mere than able to capture, reverse-engineer and duplicate the Series Helms, Pool Helms, Lifejammers, Death Helms, Forges, Furnaces, Antifurnaces, Gnomish Helms...etc., of other spelljamming races, or to create their own version form the scratch...

The problem of long distances could be solved by building permanent Portals; if they couldn't build Portals between different Crystal Spheres, no problem, just take a detour: Build two Portals, each connecting a different Crystal Sphere to an interface station in the Plane of Air or the Outlands.

The Spelljammer ships would just fulfill the role of scouts and explorers, seeking new worlds to conquer. The actual conquest would be made by troops sent through the Portals. The Empire could sent a "diplomatic" expedition of "friendly" merchants and diplomats, explore the Crystal Sphere, seek a place to build an outpost, and once there, open the Portal. They could send troops, workers, weapons, food, building materials, helms and shrunk ships through the Portal.

Or maybe it isn't an Empire, but an enlightened Federation that seek allies among the civilized races in all Crystal Spheres, build a network of Portals and usher in an era or cultural exchange, trade and cooperation (until the Dark Lord comes, of course).

The Empire/Federation/Republic shouldn't interact with Krynn, Toril and Oerth, but there are a bajizillion Crystal Spheres out there, plenty of space for the Empire to expand without coming near to The Triad.

sktarq
2016-12-30, 09:25 PM
The issue with portals. Trust and logical collapse.

People tend to not like things they have no control of in their own territory. And sure they seem nice but if in a hundred year they get overrun by the cousin of Iz you'll have a huge problem. So while it sounds nice it is filled with problems. Imagine an embassy that can teleport in tanks and attack helicopters in our world, wouldn't be popular with the home nation.

Also people are by nature tribal and prone to overstate unlikely but personal catastrophic threats. Which would make a strong isolationist backlash to such behavior.

Also if you have enough portals, running logistics and an economy model breaks down quick. Well to put it more properly it creates forces that would be highly visible and interferes with the stories that the GM wants to tell.

Clistenes
2016-12-31, 06:54 AM
The issue with portals. Trust and logical collapse.

People tend to not like things they have no control of in their own territory. And sure they seem nice but if in a hundred year they get overrun by the cousin of Iz you'll have a huge problem. So while it sounds nice it is filled with problems. Imagine an embassy that can teleport in tanks and attack helicopters in our world, wouldn't be popular with the home nation.

Also people are by nature tribal and prone to overstate unlikely but personal catastrophic threats. Which would make a strong isolationist backlash to such behavior.

They don't need to ask permission. They choose an unclaimed, worthless planetoid, put their base there, build the portal, and done! They have either their beachhead for an invasion or an embassy/trading colony.

And most Oerth/Toril/Krynn-like worlds won't realize what's going on, only that the Spelljammer traffic suddenly rises (as I said, they could pass helms and shrunk ships through the portal), and that's assuming they even know what Spelljamming is. By the time they realize what's going on they either have an unstoppable invading fleet in their Crystal Sphere or they have gotten used to the alien ambassadors and merchants.



Also if you have enough portals, running logistics and an economy model breaks down quick. Well to put it more properly it creates forces that would be highly visible and interferes with the stories that the GM wants to tell.

Not if the setting is based on the existance of an interplanetary Empire/Republic/Federation. Portal traffic would mess with Dragonlance, Greyhawk or FR, but it would be an integral part of the Galactic Empire/Republic/Federation setting, the same way it is an integral part of Planescape.

sktarq
2016-12-31, 12:56 PM
When I say the economics and logical model breaks down I mean the GM's.

I causes such a massive amount of work to figure out the consequences of the interlinked portals which if you don't do a clever player will and shortcut/massively derail adventures in ways that the DM is not ready for-which can kill the fin at the table.

Also consequences of the portals often lead to a drop in the need for PC's - hell big semifunctional empires do that in general but with portals even more so.

It may be a logical extrapolation of game rules but it isn't likely to make the game more fun.

Unless you like EVE - it could become very like EVE without the large scale social dynamics. . . But it would be a very different game.

And the idea that Planescape "works" is a debatable issue.