Have you ever wanted to serve on a starship? Be a captain like Picard, Adama, Honor Harrington or James Holden? Or perhaps to serve in a lower function?

Here you will zip through the depths of space with a plucky crew of just a few... or a few thousand! Explore, trade or fight the galaxy in a richly detailed sci-fi setting.

The Galaxy

The known galaxy has been largely dominated by the Empire, a ubiquitous and technologically advanced society that encompasses all of civilized space. Only the Outer Rim escapes the Empress' grasp... and that is where rogue warlord kingdoms and pirates fester.

Distances between stars are vast and the reach of the Empire unimaginable, however faster than light travel is not possible. Communications are thus facilitated by buoys, which serve as anchors in known systems and introduce lag due to the nature of relays. However, starships can achieve startling sublight velocities by utilizing Alcubierre drives, which warp spacetime in such a way as to allow them to "skim".

The Empire

Ruled by Her Illuminate Majesty, Mother of All, the Empress. She has no personal name like Her citizens, She just IS. All things in the Empire belong to Her and are Her property, but through Her benevolence and bureaucracy She allocates all the necessities required of Her citizens.

Non-essential luxuries, material and artistic, are produced by consortiums and guilds under Her license. Money does not exist, and so personal prestige and reputation are of paramount importance.

Starships

Ranging in size from dozens of meters long to entire kilometers, starships take all forms. Alcubierre drives are massive and require a lot of space, so single-manned and similar smaller craft are incapable of skim. An engineer and navigator are the bare minimum crew on a Small sized ship, though having a captain as well is useful and typical.

Ships can be categorized broadly into four tiers:

Size | Typical Crew

Small | 3-50

Medium | 100-1,000

Large | 3,000-10,000

Massive | 20,000-100,000

Of note: Small sized ships require special training because of their superior agility and lack of inertial dampening. Crew need to be strapped in during maneuvers or risk being thrown around. (Think: The Expanse)

Potential Factions

When you begin you will be prompted for your affiliation, but just starting out it might not be clear what these choices mean.

Imperial - You are part of the Imperial bureaucracy under the Empress. (Military is obvious, but civilian ships could be research vessels, transports, etc)

Independent - The stickiest of affiliations. You lack the support of the Empire OR the backing of an Outer Rim faction. Independent starship operators are rare, but manage to eke out an existence by trading favors and jobs for barter. Typically found on the edges of Imperial space, operating back and forth between the Rim and the Empire.

Outer Rim Factions - A menagerie of crusty pirates and bloodthirsty warlords, almost any kind of scum can be found out in the Rim. Usually busy warring with each other over territory or resources, ambitious gangs or kingdoms might skirmish with the Empire over juicy targets.

Personal Notes:

I HIGHLY recommend you use a proxy for this bot. It has a lot going on, and in most cases you will be surrounded by multiple characters. A big context is going to be helpful. It was primarily tested on various flavors of DeepSeek, which handled it pretty well. I have left off many details about the setting in this description to keep it fresh, and I encourage you to play without peeking at the definitions. However, I have left the definitions open for your edification and modification.