I can't see any version of an independent Kide surviving. As Dave noted, they're just too close to the RC to be allowed to get away with anything.
That's a shame, of course, since Kide is exactly what I think most Pocket Empires would look like, TED government and all. And nicely Player Character sized too - if you only have a handful of smallish starships, and one of them is crewed by the PCs, they are big fish in your small pond. Or they could be leading the mission to the other inhabited world in your "empire", or...
I put a bit of effort into finding an alternative location for an "empire" of that type, but nothing really jumped out at me. Part of the problem was that potential locations are just too common!
A bigger problem was the effort involved in designing the worlds around it. Path of Tears, and the RC in general, was a hard act to follow. Even stealing worlds from it and gluing them into "my" setting would have left a vast amount of work to be done.
Incidentally, I was particularly fascinated by the article on Hiver Client States, and I would love to have run a game based on the one in the Hinterworlds. It could have been an interesting variation on the RC - similar in some ways, but with different priorities and attitudes, and of course with both greater dependence on the Hivers and lower levels of assistance from them.
I'd see such a game combining "corridor clearing" missions aimed at protecting and broadening the communication routes between the Hivers and the RC, and a bit of slightly rebellious independent expansion/exploration into the core of the Hinterworlds.
That's a shame, of course, since Kide is exactly what I think most Pocket Empires would look like, TED government and all. And nicely Player Character sized too - if you only have a handful of smallish starships, and one of them is crewed by the PCs, they are big fish in your small pond. Or they could be leading the mission to the other inhabited world in your "empire", or...
I put a bit of effort into finding an alternative location for an "empire" of that type, but nothing really jumped out at me. Part of the problem was that potential locations are just too common!
A bigger problem was the effort involved in designing the worlds around it. Path of Tears, and the RC in general, was a hard act to follow. Even stealing worlds from it and gluing them into "my" setting would have left a vast amount of work to be done.
Incidentally, I was particularly fascinated by the article on Hiver Client States, and I would love to have run a game based on the one in the Hinterworlds. It could have been an interesting variation on the RC - similar in some ways, but with different priorities and attitudes, and of course with both greater dependence on the Hivers and lower levels of assistance from them.
I'd see such a game combining "corridor clearing" missions aimed at protecting and broadening the communication routes between the Hivers and the RC, and a bit of slightly rebellious independent expansion/exploration into the core of the Hinterworlds.