I'm not sure if this scratches your Kide itch or not, but what if you took
Kide right where it was and set up the PCs so that they could be standing
around when some kind of coup against the TED happened and gave them the
opportunity to take over the coup and put themselves in power? Then, as
fast as they could, they would have to re-arrange the government, restore
freedom to the people, dress things up, and then when the RC gets there
they would say, "Greetings, heroic and fair Star Vikings, welcome to the
Kide Participatory Democracy, we have heard of you from afar, and long
awaited your coming."
And then they try to convince the RC to give them some kind of independent
operator's license, bring them some bootstrap/uplift help, etc. They would
have to come up with some kind of justification, "well, don't you know,
people around here will only accept a ruler with (XX arbitrary
characteristic), which we already have, but you will be hard-pressed to
replace. We will happily administer this small realm according to your
rules, which will save you all the trouble of an invasion.
As with the other scenario, if I had to put on my Official History of the
New Era hat I'd probably have to say, "nope, probably didn't happen," but
if it's fun, your game, your rules. Besides, any more "realistic" PE you
could create elsewhere in the former 3I is also unlikely to wind up in the
official TNE history. In fact, it already didn't. But borrowing a page
from bimbob's book, you could find some account in the 1248 book and say,
"History records a falsified story of how the XX PE contributed to New Era
history, completely sanitizing the hijinks of the True Lord Protectors."
Given these historical results (this much expansion by this date), get as
close as you can.
Is the Hiver client state/Hinterworlds article from Challenge? I know I
had to read, edit, and develop all of those, but don't remember that.
> 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.
Kide right where it was and set up the PCs so that they could be standing
around when some kind of coup against the TED happened and gave them the
opportunity to take over the coup and put themselves in power? Then, as
fast as they could, they would have to re-arrange the government, restore
freedom to the people, dress things up, and then when the RC gets there
they would say, "Greetings, heroic and fair Star Vikings, welcome to the
Kide Participatory Democracy, we have heard of you from afar, and long
awaited your coming."
And then they try to convince the RC to give them some kind of independent
operator's license, bring them some bootstrap/uplift help, etc. They would
have to come up with some kind of justification, "well, don't you know,
people around here will only accept a ruler with (XX arbitrary
characteristic), which we already have, but you will be hard-pressed to
replace. We will happily administer this small realm according to your
rules, which will save you all the trouble of an invasion.
As with the other scenario, if I had to put on my Official History of the
New Era hat I'd probably have to say, "nope, probably didn't happen," but
if it's fun, your game, your rules. Besides, any more "realistic" PE you
could create elsewhere in the former 3I is also unlikely to wind up in the
official TNE history. In fact, it already didn't. But borrowing a page
from bimbob's book, you could find some account in the 1248 book and say,
"History records a falsified story of how the XX PE contributed to New Era
history, completely sanitizing the hijinks of the True Lord Protectors."
Given these historical results (this much expansion by this date), get as
close as you can.
Is the Hiver client state/Hinterworlds article from Challenge? I know I
had to read, edit, and develop all of those, but don't remember that.
> 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
> 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.