It did have something else: a fleet and a population that moved with the protagonists, providing a backdrop of civilization and commerce and secondary characters that the they could interact with.
Why is it significant? Well, it sets up a really nice traveling community (from village to city to mega city, depending on the resources, information, and NPCs that you need) to help change the pace of downtime scenes, to sell the idea that important services and materials are continuously available to the players as they explore unknown areas in the galaxy.
Of course, shortages can trigger necessary plotlines. And factions can push similar agendas.
Firefly / Serenity
While this neo-classic TV show / movie was about an adventuring party based on a single ship (with no weapons) on the fringes of a large Alliance of worlds, there are certainly things we can borrow from this setup.
Another thing: there were some pretty nasty hush-hush projects that were partially revealed.
Who knows what other black projects reside amongst the stars, and are being covered up -- perhaps even by the members of the current fleet?
Yamato / Starblazers & Macross / Robotech
While these are very different shows, there is also that core idea of a ship separated from the civilization that birthed it, on a mission to return to and save that core civilization using alien technology that was discovered by accident.
A touch of desperation and firm resolve is mixed in with all that, along with cool fighter ships, steel-eyed captains and hotshot pilots.
CONSOLIDATION
The ideal campaign premise for me would mix in all these elements somehow.
Our "Last Fleet" campaign is a fantasy riff on BSG which has worked much better than I anticipated. It has sky ships and floating lands from a shattered world. We're in the second act of the story's arc. We started with the big battle where some of the ships of the fleet were decimated- changing the composition of the races left. Then they went through the void between until they finally found a way to another "continent." The second act has been finding resources for survival, a place of refuge, and discovering the dangerous and tangled politics of this place- all the while keeping their existence secret.
ReplyDeleteI like the 'keeping their existence secret' bit. It keeps the killing down to a minimum. Or at least visible and loud killing.
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