Time Skip Ideas

[Roger]

This is a sequel to the best selling New Setting Ideas. In short, the idea this time is to skip the timeline forward an undetermined number of years (I've suggested approx. 100 years). This allows us to change some of the stuff in the Firefly universe and spice things up without completely throwing away the source material. It's less work on the admins creating, less on the members learning material, and it will still hopefully attract people that want to RP Firefly.



Points of Concern

• We're in the future away from the events of the show and movie. However, our site does not allow canons anyway.
• There is a little work to be done by staff, but I live for that kind of stuff anyway.
• There will be some reading for new and old members alike to see what has happened in the last X years, but there will always be some reading. At least the time skip will be a lot less reading than a completely new setting.
• The site will drift further from the series and might potentially be less appealing to some prospective members, but it stays in the same Firefly setting and offers a fresh alternative after 10 years.

What has happened over the time skip?

• Reavers are back to the way they were during the series and not as they were in the movie. They lurk in certain remote areas of space and raid passing ships. However, their numbers are incredibly small and they aren't plotting some big takeover or anything. They are the space boogeyman not some major threat to the human race. Any further experimentation with the PAX is also unlikely.  Heck, maybe we'll write off Serenity and say that is not canon for our site.
• The Alliance has since shrunk DRASTICALLY. By that I mean the Alliance comprises most of the Core and a handful of other places scattered around. The rest of the 'Verse is in a pre-Unification War independence. Some planets are completely sovereign. Some might be split between competing governments on that very planet. There might be mini-empires or other "super governments" that encompass a few planets either through choice or force much like the Alliance itself. When it comes down to it, the Alliance is still the strongest and most advanced, but there are so many others out there that they no longer dominate.
• Technology has progressed in that time frame, not drastically but enough that anything within the realm of possibility that you didn't see in the show might now be possible.

What does this mean for the RP?

• A greater diversity of locations. Governments, laws, customs, military/police forces, etc. can now be more unique and varied from the simplicity and uniformity of the Alliance controlling everything. We can further tailor planets, cultures, and governments to suit our RP needs without such restraints.
• Tons of conflict. There will be little to nothing on the scale of the massive Unification War, but numerous competing states means numerous conflicts. Maybe it's a bloodless trade war with sanctions and embargoes, or perhaps border patrol forces of planet A are giving the citizens of planet B trouble when they want to pass through. Maybe it's real fighting from just small skirmishes to full scale war between planets. Whatever it is, the 'Verse is now so large that nearly anything can happen to suit your needs, and many such conflicts would be so insignificant that you can write your own little battle without worrying about the effect on the site-wide history.
• Characters can be copied over easily. For the most part, the setting is identical. The only real issue people would run into would be the Unification War in their bios in which case you just write in some other war, one of many across a divided 'Verse and then custom tailor it to fit your age and level of commitment to fighting instead of being forced to fit into the site's only war (i.e. young characters who were too young to ever fight, or complex characters like Harper that had trouble fitting all the years together right can now write to their needs).
• Fun! It's new and exciting to jump start our writing. Hopefully it works, and the entire idea is to facilitate more RP and provide the best possible setting for us.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Long as the above was, there is a lot to write into a time skip. How long do you all think we should make the time skip? What other changes should there have been? Any ideas for new political boundaries and organizations?

Let's get this thing done. We've been talking about it for a month now.

[Wisper]

I don't have any specific suggestions on the amount of time to skip, but I think at least 50 years minimum.

Reavers going back to being the boogeyman tales is a-ok with me, along with the rare occurrence of coming across them.

Along with the alliance's control shrinking alot, perhaps the blue sun corp broke off from having connections with them (other than inside surveillance of course) and became one of those other governments? Thinking they could do a better job at taking over the systems control-wise over time, cutting out the middle man per-say that the alliance was.

I'm okay with the idea that there has not been another huge war, between the signal and more time down the line it just could have gotten worse for them. Especially if they lost the support of the blue sun corp, i'm sure that would be a pretty big blow.


We could do easy political boundaries and do clusters of planets as one group along with a few here and there solo. Easily could give all of the white sun to the alliance - save for persephone - which aided with the criminal element could make itself it's own government - crazy as that sounds lol. But being that it's pretty much the center of the criminal world it would be good to keep it out of the alliance's full control I think.

[Roger]

Re: time skip period

I pushed it ahead 62 years. See the timeline thread for what I did.

Re: Blue Sun and Alliance and Stuff

GET OUT OF MY HEAD! Onas and I were talking about this earlier in the week. It was decided that Blue Sun and other major corporations could become governments unto themselves, particularly in the more distant areas of the 'Verse. Blue Sun or the CMC or whatever IS the law out on whatever distant world.

Meanwhile the alliance is basically the entire White Sun system until you get to Persephone which controls the outer region of the system. The culture clash is just too much since Persephone is the definition of border not core. There is also that criminal element going on. Oh, and yeah, plot purposes. So Persephone is a independent force that basically controls entry and exit from White Sun. They're also corrupt as hell and have these major crime organizations operating pretty much in plain sight.

Other than that, we had some ideas for the outer systems and how many major powers we'd want to contend with. I think for the most part, planets will be independent unless noted otherwise. I think Red Sun will have a strong rivalry between two competing factions, but the worlds are tied to them through a loose confederation rather than a strict or domineering relationship. Georgia will have maybe three major powers but they'd operate more with spheres of influence than anything. Blue Sun would have no major powers save for large corporate influences. Then Kalidasa would have four petty kingdoms/empires/whatevers out there. Just my thoughts currently.

I've also started to edit things around here. If we back down from this (and I hope we don't but actually get things rolling ASAP on something) then I tracked my changes so I can undo the damage. The only major work would be for me to update the list of planets, that thing no one reads with all that insane data on it. Newly terraformed worlds, population growth, affiliation to the new factions, etc. needs to be done. Other than that, old threads would need to be shuffled around and the directories of old data (e.g. character birthdays) would need to be archived and new threads made.

[Wisper]

Timeline looks great, I love how you kept the Beylix rebellion idea in there

Everything else sounds good to me, we could easily notate the government situation for each planet in it's board description as well. I'll try to do some general moving threads and such today, we've all been sick though so no promises but I would also like to see things get going asap

[Wisper]

Yautja
@ros

Are you two keeping the Opinicus or scrapping it?


@anyone with an opinion

Scrap the Dawn?

[Deleted]

Keeping the Opi.
I'm dropping Aeryn, so I'm all for getting rid of the Dawn.

[Roger]

The dawn should be scrapped. A military ship is a good idea, but it requires a decent number of people and it requires a certain type of character and RP style that not everyone can RP/wants to RP. I think we should leave the idea hanging out there in the hopes that maybe down the line we could get enough people really interested, but for now we should drop it. Even if Vex and Ollie both showed up and wanted to do it, that's not enough.

[Yautja]

Yes to the opi, and scrap the dawn. Opi will live again as soon as the site reopens for bizz. As for the dawn, it's military. No one wants to rp it, and when they think they do, it's overly romanticized in the writer's head until their in it, in which case its boring like the real military, until a fight starts, but the boring stuff drags down the threads, and you never see the exciting parts that would have come later.

It's a vicious cycle.

Sorry I didn't reply on this topic sooner btw, I have spoken extensively with Roger and Edi, and we have plans in the works for the opi. All Roger's thoughts on the timeline and pretty much everything he has said I have already discussed with him, and he has my personal approval... for whateva the hell thats worth...

Same for the Peerless, although the Roster is looking short. Spoke to Aven today, he's down of course, still no word from the others. Looking to make a pilot with us Wisp? Be good to have you back on the boards again.

[Wisper]

I haven't decided what I'm doing as far as character yet. I know I'm going to stick to just one and leaning toward a mechanic, that's about all I know ATM lol.

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