So, I've mentioned in Legion that I'm working on a new setting (yes, another one.) My current thoughts are towards a sort of diesel/atompunk "golden age of scifi" setting, retaining the Cold War atmosphere on Earth while encouraging interaction with the galaxy at large. The plot-to-now is essentially that, in the near future, a global war is touched off by the development of practical orbital intercept technology, effectively rendering the ballistic missile obsolete. This rapidly leads to what is essentially a reenactment of WWII with modern technology, and supersonic bombers dropping nukes everywhere. This sort of total war proves unsustainable and, after about a decade of halfhearted fighting, most of the national entities effectively collapse.
After a few decades of sorting things out, a few of the more powerful states which arise out of this conflict begin to assert hegemony and eventually reassert themselves, generally taking on the model of previous entities as a form of legitimacy (call it Roman Empire Syndrome.) A few of these are less than successful, some manage to maintain their power. Humanity reasserts itself and begins to discover all of the super neato SCIENCE! that was going on towards the end of the (rather optimistically named) Last War. These include a huge store of missiles, which provided a basis for a new space program including the wonderful former military secrets.
Alternatively, the Last War attracts alien attention, leading to an invasion and subsequent unification of humanity against the threat. This would probably create more of an 'us vs. them' atmosphere towards the rest of the galaxy, which I think would help move things in the direction I want them to go.
This will be a setting within the mainstream NSFT community, of course, with the intent of avoiding EE's unintentional isolationism.
So, why am I posting this in the advice thread? Well, I'd like some advice. I'm hoping (as usual) to avoid a quick death due to inactivity, and thus I'm introducing a few new 'features.' I'd like the advice of the FT community on them.
1. A 'chain of command' amoung nations to reduce the required player count
Previously, EE was often somewhat limited by the lack of players in certain areas. Often this meant consolidations, combining neighbors and generally trying to work out what could be shoved into which country without people noticing too much.
Fortunately, the atmosphere of the Cold War gives us something to work with in the form of alliance blocs. OOCly this means that the 'main' state of each alliance (The US, USSR, China, Britain, etc.) will be able to define the actions of the states which make up their alliance until such time as those states are played. Consider it in the light of a cooperative regime being in place at the start, which is thrown out when a player takes over (although they are free to remain in the alliance, of course.)
2. Overt warfare is strictly forbidden within Sol.
Due to the sheer number of weapons pointed at every possible target and the somewhat precarious situation of humanity at this point, the alliance blocs have agreed to put aside warfare within Sol and to combine their efforts in the galaxy at large.
This does not mean things are lovey-dovey and happy, however. Indeed, alliances are expected to make every effort to trip each other up, engage in proxy wars outside of Sol and do as much military posturing as possible. The idea is that this will encourage players to go out and do things in the mainstream FT environment, while still leaving them the opportunity to have spy RPs and infiltrate assassins into Cuba to blow up Robo-Castro. Discovery could well mean loss of inflluence with the other alliance blocs, which could lead to trouble off of Sol and possibly even to a future breakdown of the balance of power on Earth. But that would be some time in the future. It goes without saying that humanity will take it upon itself to spread its various ideologies through the galaxy, whether the various aliens they encounter want, or even understand, them.
And, happily, the formation of alliance blocs will not be a problem, as they already exist and, therefore, nobody should need to go about making them. Hooray.
3. Attempting a fine balance of pre-determined lore
This is one of the trickier things. With EE I had attempted to enforce a unified tech base and theme, which didn't work out too well. With this setting, things can be a bit more freeform and, with the guidance of Atomic Rocket, there's a common resource which will no doubt prove helpful in some aspects of the theme's technology.
We will, in essence, be talking 'semi-hard' scifi. Most likely less internally consistent than EE, but more adaptable to what people want to play.
History will most likely be worked out in the same way as before, since that generally seems to be acceptable to everybody. I'll create a timeline detailing the major points and people can then fill in the details as we go along.
I want this to work, and I believe that throwing freedom loving, well muscled, 2.5 child-having Americans/revolutionary-front-minded, glory-of-the-party-laboring, Soviet citizens out into the galaxy will lead to some amusing interactions, and hopefully a few good wars.
EDIT:
Oh, and here's a map:
http://i.imgur.com/8twipbK.pngImgur to the rescue, since Imageshack has decided that everything must be downsized.