Welcome to the HeavyMetalPro Forums

When humanity started colonizing other planets, the Terran Alliance was giving out starships, some people ran further than most.

About 1600 light-years due spinward of Terra, past the Twilight nebula, lies what many of its inhabitants refer to as the Outer Zone. This area is literally filled with hundreds of suitable worlds, giving the impression of the Taurian Concordat’s Hyades cluster writ large. The region is largely peaceful, the technological advances are considerable, but the various interstellar nations are militarized to a degree that would seem insane to spheroids. In addition, the major reason for the peace is neither the Ares Conventions, nor the similar New Geneva Conventions signed by the OZ nations, but something much older: Mutually Assured Destruction. It is for these reasons that they can boast something the rest of the Inner Sphere cannot: They were never part of the Star League.

Ironically, the primary reasons for their militarization were found back in the Inner Sphere. In the chaos after the Outer Reaches Rebellion, the combination of heavy and obvious militarization across the Inner Sphere, the use of military force to suppress internal dissent, the perception that the military is less accountable to the citizens and is becoming more involved in the political process, and a total and utter disregard for collateral damage caused many people to have an understandable reaction: 'Let's get the hell out of here!' The militarization and violence across the Inner Sphere easily allowed people wanting to leave the Inner Sphere behind and find somewhere to start a new life to be funneled towards the OZ. Many of these people entered the OZ at the New Geneva system, where they later joined one of the existing nations, or more rarely, started their own.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay now.

This is my attempt to create an area of space not filled with stagnated segments of the dismembered corpse of the Star League. This is part of the background. I would like it if you guys could help me out here.

"East" or spinward of the Inner Sphere seems to be a REALLY popular place for people to put their personal factions or game universes. My Astral Republic, Motown's Outlands Alliance, Cav's Corona Expanse, "Far Country", the list goes on. Not saying that it's wrong in your case...I'm just wondering why we all seem to keep going that general direction, to whatever distance.

Anyway, what have we got so far:

- The story of the Outer Zone starts with the First Exodus, and the massive "Run Away!" from the whacky Terran Alliance. That allows plenty of time (most of a millenium to the canon present) for factional development, population growth, and so forth. You could build and populate an entire new Inner Sphere-sized game world in that amount of time, if you want to go that big with it. Running from the First Exodus also provides a good set of starting attitudes that help explain how the Outer Zone got to its present state.

- 1600 LY from Terra is a pretty impressive distance even by CBT's interstellar scale. Assuming 30 LY jumps and one week recharging times with no extra stops, that's just over a year of travel one way. Therefore, the Outer Zone can develop independently of most events elsewhere; if you like, you can pretty well ignore the canon entirely. For a dash of scientific realism, you could Google an actual star map of the area you have in mind, and use that to help develop your geography. Alternately, you could do what I did with my Astral Republic, and just make it all up and hide it in Terra's Zone of Avoidance to avoid the research headache.

- Having never been part of the Star League, and developing independently from the Inner Sphere simply due to sheer distance, will definitely make the Outer Zone very different from the CBT canon. At that distance, and over centuries of time, locals may come to think of Terra and the Inner Sphere as just "that mess we left behind," or even as a myth.

I'm at work right now, so I will try to come up with more thoughts later.

_________________
Be careful what you wish for. I might let you have it.

I never thought about East as popular myself. I always thought it was South for original factions that was popular as they wouldn't have to worry about Clans deciding to invade from that direction, and the Canopans, Free Worlds League, Fedsuns, and Taurians would make relatively nice neighbors compared to the Dracs and such.

The 1600 ly distance took three years to travel by the first people to get there. When they started building their own jumpships and coming back to pick up volunteers, they took one and a half to one and three-quarter years with their drives. With their modern drives...that's a whole 'nother story.

Incidently, the geopolitics of OZ is actually not that dissimilar to that of modern day Earth. The fact that the colonists belong to various factions that disliked the Western Alliance, Terran Alliance, Terran Hegemony, Star League, and the other successor states might have had something to do with it.

BTW, when I say they never were part of the Star League, I didn't mean that the Star League didn't know of their existence.

What year is it?

What technology level are we talking about?

Who are the major players, and how much territory/population/resources do they control?

_________________
New Horizons Battletech campaign homepage: http://www.heavymetalpro.com/forums/vie ... 10&t=22137

The Expanse Battletech campaign homepage (currently defunct): http://www.heavymetalpro.com/forums/vie ... hp?t=17910

The year is 3000.

The technology level is easily as ahead of the Clans, Word of Blake, and Comstar as the Star League was ahead of the Periphery. Much of their technology actually isn't lostech.

I'm still hashing out the major powers.