Campaign background (Unforgotten)

 There have always been Wars between the Center, the Inner Worlds, and the Border, the Outer Worlds. There have always been casualties of those Wars. The Common man always took the hardest blow. But not today. Not this time. This time we will protect our home, our families, not some mythical "greater purpose". Listen to me. We need to do this, so we and our families don't just disappear, erased from history by those Innerworlders. - Speech by unknown Farmer General, Last Inner-Outer War
 * Unforgotten

=The Empire= Man expanded into the Black, colonizing all that lay before him. Or at least all that was economically viable. Meanwhile, on the Homeplanet, a single man took all the power and renamed himself Emperor. All worlds were beholden to him. As time went on, the Empire grew large, so large that normal control was impossible. And so the Nobility was born. The Emperors' finest manned his ships, staffed his Bureaucracy, and ruled his planets.

The Inner Worlds
These were the developed worlds, the ones that needed lots of cheap raw material. They had a structured, affluent society with everything they could want for, except one thing: freedom.

Culture
The Empire prides itself on being a homogenous culture, based on arabic and asian ancestry. Worth is based on traditional knowledge and working capacity, although manners are very important in cultured society. A certain amount of roguishness (tempered by good breeding and education) is allowed the young and restless, but should never result in law-breaking (that is, observed and recorded law-breaking). Age should always be respected, even between high and low: a baronet's son should let the elderly cleaner exit from the elevator first (in the unlikely event they ever met). Society is regimented, with people going to the schools their families have always gone to, except for the ones who pass the public examina (available to everyone), providing a way to elevate the gifted.

The Outer Worlds
The Wilds, the Fringe of the World. The place where people came to make their own fortunes, where they came to live free.

The Wars
The Inner needed the Outer, but the Outer soon didn't need the Inner. So they stopped paying Inwards, and started building their own futures. The Emperor and the Corps did not take kindly to this, and the Wars were a fact. After every War, some Outer Worlds became Inner, and the Cycle started anew.

The Traders
Outside the Gate network, the only possibility to form trade routes were using expensive slingshot ships, hobbled together with the meager technologies available on the Outside. The traders became the common denominator of the Outer Worlds: everyone knew them, everyone needed them. As time went by they became postmen, smugglers, raiders, pirates, ambulances and newsmen in the Outer Worlds. And were instantly outclassed when a Gate was built in the system, turning the world into a future Inner World.

Now
=Tech=

Outer
Animals are the most common means of transport in the Outer Worlds, with some "horseless" carriages, built on jet engines and repulsors. Trains are also commonly built with varying levels of technology, from electric "water"-trains to plasma-driven steam engines, with everything in between.

Inner
The Inner Worlds do not have that many personal vehicles, mostly because it is frowned upon socially, and there are ubiquitous types and numbers of semi-personal public transportation (like the module trains and flying platforms).

Gates
There are Gates that can fling many spaceboats several hundreds of light years. Big, lumbering monstrosities that require enormous amounts of energy, often not firing more than once a week. This is the only way spaceboats without slingdrives or Navigators travel between the stars.

Slingdrives
These are ship-mounted engines that propel a starship tens of light years. These have a recharge of several weeks, unless recharged at a Gate or similar facility.

Grayspace and Navigators
There is a third, more unusual option, where a Mystic Navigator using a Grayspace inductor can place the starship in Grayspace, where distances are reduced to almost nothing.

Travel times
Gates and Slingdrives are almost instantaneous, but have a limited range. The Gates are built in different configurations, but all reach at least 96.7 lightyears, up to about 1000 lightyears. Slingshots reach at least 19.34 lightyears, up to about 200 lightyears. Navigator ships are only limited by their normal endurance, but travel slower, with speed starting at 3.43 lightyears / day increasing to about 300 lightyears / day after a week. As the Galaxy is about 100000 light years across, this means that it takes about a year to cross it. As this is as fast as anything can travel, news takes about a year to filter from one corner of the World to the other. Expeditionary forces have been sent towards Andromeda, but aren't coming back anytime soon.

Antimatter and Ship's Guns
Ship's guns normally fire energy, elemental or subelemental beams, and missiles are normally nuclear. The Imperial Navy uses antimatter relativistic drones on their line capital ships, but is incredibly paranoid about their handling.

Personal Guns
In an atmosphere, solid projectile hurling still rules supreme, although some heavy support energy guns exist for the pure shock and awe.

Defenses
The best materials there are go into building Imperial ships plying Space between Inner Worlds. Light as silk and hardier than steel, they double as material used for armor and vehicles.

Force fields
Both ships and people may be protected by force fields, which are universally good at protecting against both energy and projectile weaponry, although limited versions exist. Melee weapons and special "dump web" grenades are the best for taking down shields. Shields crackle and spark when they deflect the energy into the ground, and often melt the surroundings creating hazardous zones of molten lava. Force fields are notoriously expensive, but still used a lot by the Imperials. On the Outer Worlds, force fields are used to protect orbital habitats and critical installations, where the cost is offset by the benefits.

Armor
Armor is also present on the modern battlefield, much more so than force fields. They consist of materials able to withstand much more impact than their density belies, which converts most hits into knockback, flinging soldiers backwards or into the ground. A second type of armor is the Mecha armor, which adds heavy support weapons and battlefield movement systems to the existing sensor and communication systems in normal armor. On the Outside, Armor is a scarce commodity, and some people use unpowered Armor, clumsy and cumbersome, but somewhat efficient in keeping people walking and talking.