(Warning - this post contains Links to TV-Tropes).
There are two big Settings for RPGs - Fantasy and Science Fiction; while there a tons of Fantasy-CRPGs, there are only a handful of SciFi Games - and they are either ancient and/or bad. IMO that is because science doesn't give enough room for exciting fiction anymore
Here is my greatest problem with SciFi:
Space is far too huge... the distances are to big to make interesting exploration-stories while still keeping enough science in the fiction that it doesn't turn into Fantasy
To get anywhere interesting, we need to travel faster then Light - the Hyperspace of Star Wars or the Warp Drive of Star Trek is needed, but if we handweave this stuff in our setting, we might as well introduce dragons and wizards...
Even if a Warp-Drive is possible, there is probably so much energy and knowledge needed, that the world would turn into an utopia long before we even have a fracture of that power and technology that would be needed for FTL-Travel. A this advanced humanity isn't interesting anymore - and it won't have any exciting adventures, because every other FTL-travelling Species would also have solved all it's problems and the more primitive Species wouldn't stand a chance against a FTL-travelling civilization.
So, what other possibilities then FTL-Travel are available for interesting space-exploration stories ?
a) Generation Ships
If it takes a few hundred years to get somewhere, you probably need a few (hundred-?)thousand people to ensure that somone gets there... this ships probably would look more like small artifical worlds then traditional spaceships. It might make only sense to build this things if you want to settle somewhere, I don't think we would build them for exploration.
I can't even think of a exciting story with generation ship using aliens that arrive on earth - they are either so advanced that the roflstomp earth (That was the Plot of V), or they won't have the resources for a war for the earth. We might get a decent story of human settlers that arrive on a primitive world ? Maybe Aliens form a dying world who come as refugees who have to work with diplomacy and/or guile and secrecy ? Well, they probably won't be able to sneak on us, not enough obstacles in space.
b) Cryopreservation
Sounds a bit more interesting for a exploration setting; the explorers would be en route for hundreds of years, but what adventurer would be stopped by that ? It would stop expanding nations though; it would make no sense to send a fleet for 80+ years into space, wait till the plundered a system and wait another 80+ years for their return, wouldn't it ? It could be an interesting Setting, where a group of Cryo-Adventurers are on a mission to find out what happened to all the generation-ships, that started over the last few hundred years or some advanced settlers that return to earth with cryotech to search for their roots ? (Thats my personal SciFi Heartbreaker).
c) Worm-Holes
It could be that we find one wich is the interchange to the galactic highway system ? Unrealistic but not impossible ? Could be a way for still working tradtional Space Operas (It's used i.e. in the Stargate series). But it feels like a cop-out.
d) Stories in our Solar-System
Well, not many interesting places here - Ganymed or Europa maybe ? It will probably end the same way as stories from Moon, Mars or Venus, when science marches on...
Maybe terraformed Places in our Solar System ?
e) a few FTL-Ships from vanished super-aliens ?
Only a few such ships exist, one for the protagonists and a few others ? Unrealistic, but might work; on the other hand we might also introduce Dragons and Wizards again...
Maybe we should just leave out the Science and use a Setting like the old Masters of the Universe, where we can have Starships and Magic
There are two big Settings for RPGs - Fantasy and Science Fiction; while there a tons of Fantasy-CRPGs, there are only a handful of SciFi Games - and they are either ancient and/or bad. IMO that is because science doesn't give enough room for exciting fiction anymore
Here is my greatest problem with SciFi:
Space is far too huge... the distances are to big to make interesting exploration-stories while still keeping enough science in the fiction that it doesn't turn into Fantasy
To get anywhere interesting, we need to travel faster then Light - the Hyperspace of Star Wars or the Warp Drive of Star Trek is needed, but if we handweave this stuff in our setting, we might as well introduce dragons and wizards...
Even if a Warp-Drive is possible, there is probably so much energy and knowledge needed, that the world would turn into an utopia long before we even have a fracture of that power and technology that would be needed for FTL-Travel. A this advanced humanity isn't interesting anymore - and it won't have any exciting adventures, because every other FTL-travelling Species would also have solved all it's problems and the more primitive Species wouldn't stand a chance against a FTL-travelling civilization.
So, what other possibilities then FTL-Travel are available for interesting space-exploration stories ?
a) Generation Ships
If it takes a few hundred years to get somewhere, you probably need a few (hundred-?)thousand people to ensure that somone gets there... this ships probably would look more like small artifical worlds then traditional spaceships. It might make only sense to build this things if you want to settle somewhere, I don't think we would build them for exploration.
I can't even think of a exciting story with generation ship using aliens that arrive on earth - they are either so advanced that the roflstomp earth (That was the Plot of V), or they won't have the resources for a war for the earth. We might get a decent story of human settlers that arrive on a primitive world ? Maybe Aliens form a dying world who come as refugees who have to work with diplomacy and/or guile and secrecy ? Well, they probably won't be able to sneak on us, not enough obstacles in space.
b) Cryopreservation
Sounds a bit more interesting for a exploration setting; the explorers would be en route for hundreds of years, but what adventurer would be stopped by that ? It would stop expanding nations though; it would make no sense to send a fleet for 80+ years into space, wait till the plundered a system and wait another 80+ years for their return, wouldn't it ? It could be an interesting Setting, where a group of Cryo-Adventurers are on a mission to find out what happened to all the generation-ships, that started over the last few hundred years or some advanced settlers that return to earth with cryotech to search for their roots ? (Thats my personal SciFi Heartbreaker).
c) Worm-Holes
It could be that we find one wich is the interchange to the galactic highway system ? Unrealistic but not impossible ? Could be a way for still working tradtional Space Operas (It's used i.e. in the Stargate series). But it feels like a cop-out.
d) Stories in our Solar-System
Well, not many interesting places here - Ganymed or Europa maybe ? It will probably end the same way as stories from Moon, Mars or Venus, when science marches on...
Maybe terraformed Places in our Solar System ?
e) a few FTL-Ships from vanished super-aliens ?
Only a few such ships exist, one for the protagonists and a few others ? Unrealistic, but might work; on the other hand we might also introduce Dragons and Wizards again...
Maybe we should just leave out the Science and use a Setting like the old Masters of the Universe, where we can have Starships and Magic