User:Shaps-cloud/Sandbox-examples

Example Entries

Ideally, longer entries will have their own pages eventually

Entry 1: TerraGov (Organization)

Location: Capital on Terra in the Sol System, spread throughout Civ-Space with influence dropping as distance increases.

Type of Org: Galactic Governing Body

Description: Easily the most powerful and massive organization in existence, TerraGov is the broadest governing body in the galaxy, operating like an imperium. Based in the Sol System, TerraGov operates on a tiered system for how much influence it exerts in a given region. Within Sol, they maintain a heavy presence and are responsible for maintaining law and order over smaller jurisdictions like planets and countries, as well as managing system-wide policy, elections, and finances. Outside Sol, their influence is much more diffuse and they shift to the role of primary peacekeeper between the smaller governments and organizations that lay within Civ-Space. For regions a short distance from Sol, this may mean appointing large delegations that advise and oversee regional governments while maintaining peacekeeping fleets and martial bases within their borders. Further away, near the peripherals of Civ-Space, they may be limited to sparse government embassies, listening outposts, and expeditionary fleets to maintain their presence.

Taken in total, TerraGov maintains the largest fleets and wields the most resources in the galaxy by several orders of magnitude, but they also claim the most territory by far. While they maintain a number of bases and colonies outside Sol (with a growing concentration in the Alpha Centauri system), they are more than happy to let smaller governments and even large corporations shoulder the bureaucracy of maintaining settlements and order on the edges of Civ-Space. In these scenarios, TerraGov maintains a more hands-off approach and mainly functions to assist with record-keeping, communication, and protection of TG assets/fleets from pirates and other hostile forces.

Notes:

• Most crew members are probably citizens of TerraGov and exist in their records in some form or another, unless they hail from an extremely backwoods/peripheral place.
• Nanotrasen's biggest source of funding, whether from purchasing their products or through research grants.
• Mostly focused on expanding space-eastward, especially toward Alpha Centauri. Presence near SS13 is mostly limited to a group of embassies in the Spinward Stellar Coaltion.

Entry 2: Spinward Stellar Coalition (Organization) (WIP)

Location: Space-east of the station, just within Civ-Space

Type of Org: Regional Governing Body

Description: The Spinward Stellar Coalition is the closest governing body to SS13 that isn't an outpost for TerraGov, and controls many of the nearby destinations that the stations' crewmembers spend their extended off-time when not on rotation or staying in an NT housing accomodation. The SSC is fairly small in the grand scale of independent governments, and their territory consists of a few sparsely populated planets and orbital outposts. Life this far from Sol is rather austere, but the citizens of the core SSC are honest, hardworking folk by and large.

The SSC does its best to accommodate Nanotrasen's presence on the Periphery, and a good amount of their economy is based around supporting NT and other large corporations operating on the Space-Westward Periphery, despite their presence here predating NT's by several decades. The government is often characterized as bending over backwards to keep NT happy and avoid losing their business, and often averts its eyes from the frightening events and tales surrounding their nearby space stations. Nanotrasen, fully aware of their bargaining power, takes full advantage of this and often cheats on its taxes, violates SSC cargo and shipping codes, and even hinders or outright ignores investigations and inquisitions coming from the SSC when convenient, all while still maintaining a friendly, pleasant tone in communications. Some more cynical observers speculate that the only thing keeping Nanotrasen from outright ignoring the SSC altogether is the Coalition's embassies and friendly relations with TerraGov.

This power dynamic has begun to change in recent years, however, as TerraGov becomes more interested in NT's constant scandals. Emboldened by the greater TG presence, the SSC have begun standing up for themselves more often, and Nanotrasen has begrudgingly made more attempts to appease the Coalition and abide by their rules.

Notes:

• A popular living location for nearby NT crewmembers who are unsatisfied living on NT property and want more freedom and normalcy in their off time. Most seasoned employees can afford a decent living space on one of the planets or orbital facilities, and the commute from the SSC core to NT's Peripheral Dispatch Station is only a day or two by mass transit. If your character has a private apartment or domicile nicer than a closet and isn't at least a head of staff, they probably live here.
• Lots of neat tourist and recreational destinations for crewmembers on leave from work! The locals will probably hate you though, because of what some dumb band of assistants did to the place last weekend. And the weekend before that. And the weekend before that.......

Entry 3: Central Command (Location/Organization) (WIP)

Location: Highly classified.

Type of Org: Department of Nanotrasen

Description: A division of Nanotrasen's Special Projects Division, known simply as Central Command (or CentCom) to the crews it oversees, this department is responsible for handling administrative duties for NT's Space-Eastward Periphery space stations. These duties range from mundane and routine accounting tasks to highly sensitive and specialized matters that require special attention and care, and CentCom is fittingly staffed by a wide range of (supposedly) highly skilled Nanotrasen officers from a variety of backgrounds. The location of CentCom is highly classified, and the facility makes use of powerful signal jammers and bluespace disruptors to keep unwanted intruders out. When the situation at one of the surrounding stations goes critical, survivors of the incident are shuttled here for debriefing and observation.

Notes:

• Home of the NT Emergency Response Corps, an elite group of NT's best field agents.
• Staffed by a slew of high ranking officials, including Admirals and Corporate Directors.

Entry 4: Space 'Nam (Event/Factoid)

Description: Space 'Nam does not exist, and it does not refer to a real conflict or place. Rather, it is a popular expression used in a similar vein to the "School of Hard Knocks" to refer to learning through life experiences.

Example usage:

Assistant A: Wow, George! You may only be a 17 year old high school dropout who spends most of their free time eating random pills and debris they find on the floor, but you sure do seem to know a lot about open heart surgery! What's your secret?

Assistant B: I, err, picked it up during a tour in Space 'Nam. Now quit fidgeting so much, you really can't afford me nicking anymore veins.

Creationism Corner

Q: How can I submit to this project? A: Hold on tight, I'll have more info later. In the meantime, peruse these sections

Writing For the Medium (HEAVY WIP)

Some thoughts and tips on what to write for lore.

• Keep your descriptions terse and emphasize why the subject you're writing about is relevant and important. Wikipedia/encyclopedia articles and textbooks are excellent examples of how to do this. The best bits of lore are ones that you begin reading and immediately have sparks fly in your mind for all of the possibilities and connections it opens up, and get you excited for what you can do with it. The object here isn't to show off your cunning wit or beautiful prose, it's to provide context for people to roleplay with in a fast moving game. If a submission doesn't have some kind of hook for players to bring it up in game, or to back up other lore that can be brought up, it's probably bloat.
  • Are you writing about an event or entity that no one alive knows about or is so deeply classified and guarded that no one will ever know about it or be affected by it? It's probably not worth writing about.
• Choose your subjects and angles purposefully, and consider the ratio of new connections you open up with a submission with the possibilities that it extinguishes. Giving a brief description of a small regional government body that NT deals with and some crewmembers hail from adds a lot of new hooks for people to build on and reference without doing much to curb future submissions. Detailing the entire history and timeline of Nanotrasen on the other hand significantly locks down the fluidity and potential for future submissions, and will likely be rejected.
• Don't use in-universe media lightly, especially to hint at things. It can be tempting to use a newspaper article, press release, communication log, personnel file, etc etc, to describe something as X while throwing up a bunch of very obvious red flags that X is very much wrong and that the source is horribly misinformed at best or outright lying at worst. Curb this impulse. Even in professional video games with professional writers, these documents often go far overboard and make no sense in-universe.

Ideas for future contributions :)

• Medical research/supply companies that work with NT (CMO's hypospray mentions DeForest Medical Corporation, good opportunity)
• Space Wizard Federation description (maintain their spookiness and the vagueness of whether they're just highly advanced scientists with a flair for theatrics or actual wizards)
• Some kind of space carp wildlife protection group that objects to NT's xenobio experiments and sends agents into the station could be neat
• Write-ups of the major individual Syndicate groups (Gorlex Marauders, Donk Co., etc etc)