Let's make a space setting, one post at a time >Each

>>54959594
>USA and USSR exploded in a space race across the Orion Arm

>The Cold War got a whole lot colder once the space fights began.

>>54959594
Transhuman technology is possible, but not popular for ideological reasons in both polities.

>>54959612
Space exploration and colonization is driven by effort of individual national states.

The earliest interstellar expeditions still continue somehow.

FTL engines are actually powered by repurposed nuclear warheads. Radiation is a key factor in passing the speed of light.

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Raw computing power has outstripped software development due to rare metals mined from asteroids. This means that while AI exists, it still runs on a close relative of DOS

>>54959658
Such as, unexpectedly, Argentina!

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>>54959704
One of these massive AI's is running in the next election for US president.

>>54959773
This is due to a combination of factors: A high number of ex-Nazi scientists who were, for a variety of reasons, not scooped up as part of Paperclip, and a naturally occurring chamber under the mountains of Patagonia that has functioned as a fantastic reactor and nuclear research center

The commonwealth has pooled their resources and formed a closer union to rival interstellar superpowers.

No intelligent alien life has been encountered so far.
in fact, nothing beyond amoeba and bacteria so far.

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>>54960032
Das gay. I want alien enviroments, if not sentient aliens.

>>54959983
This includes India, who stayed a major part of the British economy and culture.

>>54961074
Overruled

The Shared Space Economy, for whatever reason, is currently overblown and suffering from massive inflation.

>>54960032
Maybe they're just on the verge of encountering them. Campaigns could be about first contact or the aftermath, but we leave it up to GMs to make their aliens.

>>54961074
>>54961169
>>54961226

There are plenty of RUMORS of people who claim to have seen alien worlds full of life and even intelligent beings, but so far nobody has offered any proof.

These claims are collectively known as "bigfoots", which is assumed to be an ancient Earth term for a big liar.

>>54961344
What if instead of calling them "bigfoots" (which sounds kinda wierd), people say liars have big feet?

>>54961344
>ancient term
Wait how far future are we? I thought thus was like modern day-->2050 or so.

Alright so far as factions we have
>The United States of America
In a cold war with the SU, long standing feud. While they're behind the soviets in their space colonization effort they lead the entire world in terms of nuclear and military
>The Soviet Union
With their economy on the verge of collapse they are kept together through a mixture of their absolutely massive space empire and their brutal peace keeping methods cough cough asteroid gulags cough cough
>The Combined people's commonwealth
Closely knit confederation of European countries, mainly between France and Great Britain and their puppets. The third major powerhouse they're only really held back by a lackluster bureaucracy and a slow political system
>The Socialist republic of Argentina
Secretly controlled by a secretive elite of Nazi's who escaped after the war. Reflects the ideology and aesthetic of the third Reich but this time with South American Spanish speakers. Very secretive, they're the fourth most prominent faction, annexing multiple south American countries by gaining US support under the guise of fighting communism, they now have spies in most political spheres of the world who ensure their actual motives stay secretive

I like the sound of this

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>>54961599
Maybe some kind of Asian tiger coalition of zaibatsu's/chaebols and stuff like Hong Kong/Singapore. Not a nation per se, but a coalition/council of ostensibly private entities that control regions of space.

Earth itself is quickly becoming an irradiated wasteland as a result of humanity's increasing reliance on radioactive materials they don't quite understand.

A terrorist group located in the saturn asteroid belt. Using caves in many of the asteroids as hiding. They have few ships and mostly travel with space walk thrusters wich makes them difficult to detect. They defend their territory with rifles and guerrila tactics.

Billy Mays is president. He made himself known as the spokesperson that outlined the details of the arcane and revolutionary technological advances of this new space age in long-form commercial advertisements.

>>54961714
The radiation from these strange materials is changing people. Into what? No one knows yet. But mutations end up being less erratic than one would expect, and people who are heavily exposed to these materials are incurring bizarre changes in personality, cognition, and physiological senses, some even gaining completely new senses and seemingly insane, but in practice coherent, thought patterns.

>>54961852
He is actually a robotic probe sent by an alien race halfway across the galaxy for unknown purposes. The rest of the gov't catches wind of this, but all efforts to depose or remove him are thwarted to comedic effect. Once it is determined that he appears to be harmless, they stop trying, under the condition that he continues to roleplay as an ordinary human.

There are extremely dangerous suits that allow people to fight at FTL speeds for short periods of time.

FTL travel induces a large amount of strain on unprotected peoples. Most people get around this by being locked inside of temporary cryostasis chambers by pilots and shiphands tend to have very short lifespans

most superpower's population with the exception of the USSR is entirely made of transgenders

>>54962093
To counter this pilots and essential crew of USSR vessels are being genetically modified to cope with the strain of FTL. This is having some adverse effects.

>>54962262
While the USSR is working on modifying humans, other nations have started developing human analogous robots that would be capable of crewing ships and resisting FTL. They've been having mixed results.

>>54962223
Due to this there is a rebel underground forces in the USA, using codename PEPE on secret meetings, seeking to overthrow transgenders ruling their country.

The moon "disappeared" in 1978

There exist independent colonies in certain sections of uncharted space created by those with the power/resources/luck required to attain a space-faring vessel and the people to man them.

Secretly, however, The Third Reich had acquired space travel before everyone else, during the second world war, they set up on Mars before the end of the war, and continue to this day.

>>54963257 Nvm, I just realised that contradicts the current state of Argentina.

>>54963318
Not if it's a secret and they're part of Argentina's success as an enclave.

>>54963345
Shit, you're right.

store bought wasabi isnt just horseradish and food coloring, but genetically modified pea paste

>>54962371
So did Japan.

>>54959594
Star Wars was a documentary

Most of these 'transgender' people were actually genetically edited, artificial humans. Sometimes they're also augmented with certain skills and bioenhancements, such as heightened reflexes or stronger muscles.
They are called Replicants.

>>54962223
>>54962330
Come on guys this is not cool.
Everyone let's overule this shit? It's not like your players would love to play in a /pol/ed setting since most of them are normies who never steped foot on 4chan let alone /pol/.

American colony ship gets borded in earth's orbit by desperate people running away from earth and it's ever growing pollution.

>>54966390
you never read "forever war", did you?

>>54962223
>>54966390

Plot twist: most superpower's population consists only a few thousand "chosen" people, the rest are living in de-nationalized communities. As expected, these "chosen" are decadent and corrupt, rotten to the core both ethically and morally.