Savage Reich Star 02.0: The Setting

Posted on by Ron McClung

The Setting

Putting a lot of thought into a Savage Worlds conversion of Reich Star, things need to be changed to keep it connected to today’s market – relating it to what is popular today.  In that vein, the new approach will be to change the timeline slightly by backing it up a few years and taking inspiration from current media.

The intent is to make it like to existing two TV series – The Man in the High Castle (of course) and The Expanse. Taking it back to pre-TDI era – Just before FLT travel is discovered, I plan to work on the local politics of the Moon, Mars, and other space stations.  There was a game called High Colonies that was well done in terms of background and history.  I may have some influence from that.

I am also going to expand a little on how the resistance has ebbed and flowed since the end of the War.  The resistance has to have changed through the years.  As leadership on both ends change, focus on cracking down on them might change, and the resistance’s own strength might change.  Events have to occur to give the resistance more power and opportunity.  Japan probably supports the resistance indirectly at least in their efforts against the Reich, while the Reich might support the anti-Imperial resistance in enough of a way that they are a thorn in their side.  But neither support it enough to cause issues on their respective sides.  The worst thing that could happen is both sides of the resistance work together and perhaps that is when the authorities crack down.

For the Reich and the Empire to exist together for so long, a balance of power has to be struck, and that revolves primarily around nuclear weapons and whatever comes after it. Space travel and the space race would extend it to the stars.  This Cold War has to go differently then the one we are familiar with.  Each side will have the upper hand at different times, and it would have its own ebbs and flows.  Would there be surrogate wars like in our own history – Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba?  What keeps them from going all out war on each other?  Are there places on Earth they continue to fight over.

For the plot point campaign, I want to place it just before TDI is successfully tried.  This is probably where I will diverge from Ken’s original intent, though.  TDI (the hyperspace in Reich Star) was a little more prevalent then I think the government would allow, at least at first.  Control over the hyperspace ways might give the Reich the advantage it needs over its enemies, so at first, I want to have the Reich control TDI production.  So I can imagine at least for the first few decades, TDI would be controlled by whoever created it.  I have it in my mind that the Reich did but I could be wrong.  Will read into it.