Dagger 9mm - a weird little cyberpunk funnel variant for DCC

What I not at all seriously call “

Baz Luhrman’s Cyberpunk Crawl Classics”

“It is June 6, 2117, the hangover still hurts but so do the staples in your side.  The Ball Game scores are playing over last night’s body lotto numbers in your headset as hooded figures burn a body in the dumpster below, chanting low.”   

“Peace.  I hate the word. As I hate hell. All Montagues.”

Cheeky, not at all serious, near future low life low tech mayhem, drenched in neon.  With lots of unusual remixes and covers playing in the background.   A love letter to Mike Pondsmith's cyberpunk 2020, DCC, and (oddly) Baz Luhrman's Romeo & Juliet for no good reason.

So I had this mad idea for a pick up game t'other day, which I liked enough, odd as it was, to write down. and it grew. and grew.

So, here are the rough notes for a random one shot funnel, set in a near future low tech cyberpunk setting using DCC, reskinning a few tables and winging the rest.

GM notes:  Remember - corruption and innocence on every corner.  NEON NEON NEON

Pretend you are 16 again - the slightest thing is HIGH STAKES DRAMA

In short a neon drenched, 2050 univision version of Miami Vice, soundtrack by the Sisters of Mercy. Michael Mann has equipped the Band of the Hand with a laser gun.   Low tech cyberpunk, 20 minutes into the apocalypse.  

And demons, crawling out of the woodwork.

Just keep reading, you’ll get it.

All the world building you will need -

Near future somewhat low tech cyberpunk on the west coast of mexico or south america, a made up fictional city like Night City from CP2020

The big influential city state will be Rio; that’s where the UN Survival Council meets;  something big and vaguely specified has happened to most of the northern hemisphere (sp. The US, poss. Canada, Russia, much of Europe, lots but not all of asia - am actually thinking some sort of engineered pollen disaster but whatever)

This coastal made up city has a Large population of gringos  - in the International Zone

Lots of speed boats and smuggling, floodwalls, water pollution is a thing. 0

All 0 level characters

Begin play

• speaking the common tongue of the setting, Spanish.  Other recommended starting languages should include Portuguese, English,
• Have a single d4 HD and begin with a d4 (mod by STA) starting
• 5d4 UN ration chits
• A secret or complication (see below)
• With one safe place to hide (must be declared at start)
• A weapon that does a d4 at least (tire iron, rusty knife, club, etc)
• Up to d4 any other random distinctive attributes the player wishes to endow them with

Alignments are interpreted somewhat different being best described in context as being, broadly,  “Establishment,” “Self-interested,” and “Fuck the law, Down with the System!”

0level Occupation /prev en table (occupation then starting gear and conditions below)

1.the Detective -

Motive to investigate; apartment that has no power, blackjack, (d4), gloves, lockpicks, unflattering view of the human condition

2. The Scavenger

Starts with authorized cred ID designating bearer as investigator for the UN Water Authority.  (will get you in pretty much everywhere), low profile

3. Drug Mule

Three balloons up an orifice full of synthetic coke, valid international passport, Citizen Identification Number (CIN), small bag of actual peanuts

4. Information  Courier (chipped)

Black market connections, 63 Trib (like gigs) of codelocked wetware memory, one good suit, expensive sunglasses

5/ Brujeria DotD of the dead shaman revolutionary

Elaborate appearance, herbs, criminal record, police surveillance

8/ Government shill

Single nitrogen pill, heart condition, suitcase full of bearer bonds that aren’t yours

7. Corporate shill

Silverclub charge strip on your mobile, Level 2 Citizenship, list of middle managers in your way, memorized list of “disposable assets.”  Government surveillance team watching your every move, non threatening social disease.

8  the CapoeiraDistinctive haircut, A squat you are turning into a dojo, Ties to the community, a problem with bullies.  (d6 with kick or punch, d4 deed die that does not stack)

9.  The Gangster

Unregistered ceramic firearm, ablative bullets (2d6-2), mastoid induction phone, distinctive tattoo, cheap sunglasses

10.  The nomad

Small solar powered cigarette boat, fishing net, smuggling clan and criminal affiliation tattoos, freedom

11.   Moorlock - mutants and “mutants” who gather underground in rejection of society.  

Distinctive appearance, knowing your way around the sewers, decade old picture on soymilk cartons,

12.  Singer - rocker or songbird, you are a performer.  Or at least, you think you are.

Small but loyal following, an obsessed ex, glitter, makeup, performing attire, note telling you you are locked out of your recording space

Not precisely a direct map of the occupation table from DCC of course but it will suit our purposes.  Now give everyone something to hide. 

What is your secret? What do you need to keep hidden?

1. Child - regardless of custody, you have a child you in some way care for.
2. Conspiracy - you saw something or read something you shouldn’t have.  They know.
3. You are dying.  Why are you still here?
4. You recognized another PC from your childhood but you have had extensive body sculpting at some point since then.  What do you remember about them?
5. The space brothers said it was time.   You know that they are right.   How are you preparing?
6. You never killed that man.  No one else knows.   You are innocent.  Does this matter?
7. You do NOT know who it was you woke up next to, only that they are very very very dead.   What did you do next?
8. You had no idea they were taking pictures.  This is….humiliating.  How far will shame take you?
9. They will never believe you, but the doors are opening.   The gates grow thin.  You can hear them whispering……..
10. You will do anything for the cause.  ANYTHING.  Why do people find this so unsettling?
11. You are a factory mutant. Sure you can pass for human but you know what you are (might be experimental test subject, might not even be human but surgically modified to appear so)
12. You are actually a cop. You filthy stinking narc.

Dark future urban landscape equipment table (replaces table)

1. Zip gun
2. Vape pen
3. Burner (unlisted mobile phone)
4. Balisong (butterfly knife)
5. Ration card (50 chits)
6. (removable) false prints (eye and finger) - one use
7. Work visa
8. Water purification tablets
9. Antibacterial stim shot (mostly anti cholera, also protects against typhoid, diphtheria, measles)
10. Contrasol gel (protect against harmful UV radiation)
11. Pack of 3 ZombieCon. Drug-a-thug patches. DC 16 Fort save or drop to the ground for 5 rounds, drooling and pissing.  (Wearer adds Armor bonus of armor to the save)
12. Pack of redsmokes - delays onset of cancer; illegal on planet earth
13. Recycling Kidney (implant)  adds 4 to Fort and Will saves v. poison;  d4 fumble die
14. Penlight laser, 4 minutes of use. 1d6 continuous damage. Illegal.  Ignores non metallic armor
15. glare resistant lens implants - +6 save v. dazzling and blindness d4 fumble  
16. Nostrilplugs - allows user to filter out inhaled toxins and undesired scents;  removable with two minutes and a screwdriver. They are obvious when inserted however.
17. Skinphone - just what it sounds like, in right or left forearm, configurations.   Difficult to read through dirty skin and gets VERY warm when used a lot.   Also you cannot turn it off.
18. Brass knuckles - shifts damage die up one glass in melee
19. Plasma cutting torch (60 second battery life; 1d12 damage)
20. 1st gen Cybernetic limb (d8 fumble die, add 2 to AC permanently and 3 hp; NSA)

Who do you have connections with?

Baggage handlers on the Corpstrip at the Aeropuerto

Customs enforcement officers

Members of the UN OccFor in the Canal zone.

Someone in Sanitation and Recycling (Soyorange, General Population Works, Transnational Hazard Control, etc.)

A Ripper Jack

A triad

A repeat anonymous tipster to the narco squad.

Services for hire (by the week)

Neighborhood “protection”  - 20 chits and up

(confers ability to ask for help in a violent situation)

Ripperjack or jill

Stabilizing dead/dying patient min.50 chits

Major surgery (cybernetic limb, open heart surgery, etc.) 250 chits+

Other convalescence (sick, disoriented, etc) 5-15 chits

(charged daily if communicable)

A guy who will “hold something” no questions asked 15 chits and up

Liquidating “undocumented features” with the local Trid. 25% market value

Random features & complications for at any time of the game (day or night)

1. Rolling blackouts
2. Practice disaster or air raid drills - some people ignore the latter
3. Random police paddy van and rounding up the usual suspects’
4. Immigration is checking all gringos for something.  Hope you have the usual squeeze.
5. Total  burn ban in progress.  Military police might just shoot you for smoking.
6. Stage 2 Fog Warning - hazard condition declared, Fort saves in order without protection
7. Defense Condition - threat of imminent attack (real or invented) brings city to standstill, strategic lighting and power measures implemented.  At night things are likely to get ugly before the lights come back up.
8. Death Squad - run.
9. Neighborhood you are in is declared Unsanctioned.  Police barricade and Urban Renewal Team to follow in 10d4 minutes.  After the mass arrest and “broad jurisdictional authority” a follow up sweep by Corp Sec teams or Urban Pacification forces is likely.   Time to be elsewhere.
10. Judgement night - local upper class population coordinates race war against the underclass; neighborhood locked down while random acts of vigilantes and terrorists are common
11. Memeprank - every mobile in the city rings simultaneously for the next twenty minutes until the local telecom grid is secured.   Phones and other wireless devices will be useless for the duration.
12. Night of Power - the underclasses are sick of it.   In a moment of pure serendipity, rival bands of oppressed citizenry participate in a major uprising;  dominant wealthy population will be hunted in neighborhood for 1d7 nights;  

Random so you want to get across town encounters table  

1. Refugees - group of 11-30 smelly gringos shuffling in packs looking for handouts.  May have seen things but do not speak the local language. 25% chance per round of interaction of attracting attention of Immigration Rover squads.
2. Snap Crackle - unseemly group of 5+1d7 drug crazed gangbangers looking for trouble. You?
3. Spot Immigration Checkpoint - show your CIN, your real honest to goodness passport, your corporate ID, or get rolled into a green tank along with the rest of the gringos. Enforcement unlikely to care if you are innocent or a citizen if you can’t prove it.
4. Demonic & spiral graffitti everywhere, in bright dayglo neon colours.  75% chance already being scrubbed by U.N. Sanitation and Information Enforcement engineers.  Keep walking
5. Unscheduled political rally - a protest, sit in, or other demonstration is happening, likely with fireworks, shouting through loudspeakers, and low key info terrorism.  88% chance of just being local corp kid privileged students, momentarily exploring democracy.   12% chance C.I.A. man, or other terrorist using rally as cover to do some recruiting.
6. Assault & Protection Cops locking down a four block radius off up ahead;  some corporate tower or other enclave is reporting an ongoing terrorist action;  true or not, the neighborhood SecFor should be distracted for a bit.  Don’t look like a terrorist though.
7. “Fiiiiiigh-ters! Come out and Play!”  two bizarrely adorned youth gangs decide that THIS is the place to hold their knock out, drag in the mud Great Big Turf Battle.   Characters who are insistent will be met with molotov cocktails, spray paint and zip guns.  Maybe the odd motorcyclist with a katana.
8. Playback dealer abruptly ingratiates themselves amongst the group while a large team of thick necked mercenaries look around for someone.  Will likely say anything to get the group to protect them for the next few minutes.
9. Someone released riot control gas.  There wasn’t even a riot emergency declared.   Those 4040 canisters keep fizzing tho so everyone make a Fort save DC 14 to avoid sinus bomb.
10. One of the disenfranchised, obviously sick, old, promptly dies at the characters feet.   Possibly they may do so only after handing the characters something (their phone, a data tape, a baby, their data dachshund, etc.)
11. Monson.  Weather control is on the fritz again.   Visibility reduced to 50, half that at night.
12. Stage IV alert declared;  there has been another outbreak of Fruit Blight, so the city must be sprayed.  You have 20 minutes to get under cover before a DC 14 Fort attack by gaseous airborne fungicide attempts to render you unconscious.   Nostrilplug users are unaffected though their skin will ITCH.

Places to start a session

The aeropurete - shuttle coming in? (big trouble in little china)

Waiting at the Transit Kiosk (for train and or bus)

Just outside the Detention center (all being discharged from police custody)

Lobby of a major building

On public transport - the same bus or tube capsule

A Secret meeting called by someone they all knew

Just outside a church

Just inside a (real) church - hiding out from search squads, neighborhood monsters, or worse

Freight elevator in a major hotel

Music Festival

Subculture convention

Around a table with a map, guns, and a plan.

3 Factions with grievances

Wealthy Argentinian beef ranchers v more trad agribusiness

Dagger Arms and the local anti gun coalition

Indigenous tribe v. biological/chemical research corp

Distant Locations

(You are Here - An unnamed city on the west coast of south america)

Baja california

West coast of old Mexico (what’s left of the old country; occupied by )

Eastern (Nuevo) Mexico (TransNat paradise)

The Rio Grande Containment Zone (the Pollen authority can shoot to kill)

The Eastern Allegheny Evacuation Authority (Rand Worldwide contracting to the UN)

The City-state of Imperial Rio (location of UN1)

The Federated Republic of New Swaziland (constant warfare)

The Cape Town Alliance (where water is free and wifi a human right)

Mombasa Free Trade Zone

The Qatar Ruin

The Blue Hole of New Tamiland

Survivors Alliance of Micronesia (nomad paradise)

Remember that plants need fertilizer so let the players take the story seeds with a side of their own bullshit and everyone will be happier. :)

Lies, Rumors, and Story seeds - everyone gets one

1. “There were three pale guys in vinyl coats….floating through the streets last night”
2. “Go ahead, try to leave the city. You can’t,.  The world outside the city is a lie.   I think we’re on a spaceship actually….”
3. “Dude, it’s just an illusion.  WAKE UP.  The sorcerer’s dead.  Snap out of it man!”   sooooo confusing…...
4. At night the lady on the flatscreen talks to you, tells you you are in a coma and that none of this is real. “You need to Wake Up.”
5. The preacher was yelling when they drug him away.  “Demons among us!  More everyday!  The cracks in the world run with black earthblood.”  wonder what all that meant?
6. For the last week you have been having an intermittent acid flashback, taking the form of your dead sister, who will just suddenly appear and start talking to you about … well pretty weird stuff.   You really wish this would stop soon. \
7. “The time is soon - we’re almost ready to take the production line.  If we can do that, we can hold the factory.  Then we’ll have real power.”
8. City Sector 21, location A contains a confirmed Delta Primary.  You would investigate yourself, just to see it with your own eyes, but you are quite rightly scared shitless……
9. “My child, come to me, pledge your soul unto me, and I will grant you a storm that will rain death on those who have harmed you.  Kiss the bullets and let me in your heart.”
10. You have the landing time and coordinates for an orbital drop - a tank groan ton of hydroponic fruit and factory beef.  Worth … tens of thousands of Actual Credits.   They come down in drone piloted capsules.  There’s a fifteen minute wait before automatic pickup.   
11. Account number QXv74218718965 / alephcode BacardiSunrise   
12. “Thanks to brothers and sisters in revolution inside, 640 incarcerated juves are going to be discharged onto the streets of near Freedom Plaza at noon today.  A lot could go unnoticed in the tuckus.”

Quick objectives

Escape a roundup by someone - Corporate Security, Immigration, the Police, a cult.

Get back at someone who fucked you all over.   A dirty cop?  A member of corporate security?  A fence left you hanging on a deal?

Get in somewhere you shouldn’t be to get (back) something that someone else has.   Finesse or brute force works.

Find the person that knows the thing.

Stop them by any means necessary

He must be protected.

A race against time to reach a specific location.   

And you can always use the brilliant heist generator in Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad #3..  

Season liberally with the bits above and throw it all on the table.  Ideally use all of the pregens.  With a large group you’ll want to make more.  Could work very well tourney style with everyone getting one character and going from there.     Tables are weighted toward personal preference - lower tech, lower gloss, higher grit cyberpunk, almost always involving crime and or political enterprise. Your mileage may vary.  More Streets of Fire than Ghost in the Shell.   If you get hard up, just steal liberally from Walter Jon Williams’ Hardwired, any episodes of Miami vice you can remember, or just recycle GTA Vice City and stick it in 22nd century Megacity Not Quito Not Bogota, as that’s kind of what I’m going to do when I spring this on the fam the next chance I get to drop a one shot.

If you have a stack of survivors who have made it to level 1 at the end I don’t know what to tell you.  Go with straight DCC classes and wing it, grab something out of CRAWL, or Crawling Under a Broken Moon, (Both very fine publications by the way!) or Crawljammer, wherever you like, or make it up.  

I suggest at least, classes named Ronin (for your warrior / street samurai types), and I think for the moment handling any cybernetics or biomods or whatever by winging off of the MDoA system but I find that one of the game’s most versatile subsystems, so I would.

Fury's (for your capoeira, martial arts, and corporate ninja types who are mechanically kind of thieves but they can spend luck to power special abilities instead; kind of like MDoA),   And i’m sure there’s a monk/martial artist class around somewhere to fill in even better.

You’d need some kind of charisma based sort of face, or Suit class but that would have to be it’s own thing.  Pro’lly dabbling in social abilities in some way.    And of course some sort of technie type but nothing so specific as a netrunner.  We’ll call it Cracker (faint connotations intact for our cyberpunkish purposes) and assume they are electronic intrusion specialists of all kinds.

I’d use Wizard verbatim for any   magickal highjinx;  I assume some sort of demonic or planar incursion responsible so it should work fine.  Be creative with your choice of patron.  Pick something pop culturally appropriate, or something cool from your normal DCC game when taken out of context ( my game will feature Unholy Bullet Nuns who follow the Red Queen from my DCC campaign frex, just to kind of sin city the whole thing up) and wing the results table. You can record it later if this is a recurrent phenomenon after all.  Aside from that, I have some vague notion of sea level rise corresponding to a rise in elemental magic power but it’s only a vague notion. This is a sketch of a setting, in motion, do with it as you please.

If you want any genejokes or uplifted animals in setting, use the Manimal class from MCC.  Same with actual mutants.

I’d steer clear of throwing clerics into the mix but more power to you, especially if your table can handle the awkward questions that come with cleric abilities in a modern setting…..you are of course free to drop your normal DCC party here for a weekend and see what kind of hell they can raise also.   That sounds fun…...\

Damn this got long. :0  If you do run this little experiment, please tell me how it went.  I’ll share the results of any follow up. Good gaming!

Concluding my Rocket to Garm blather

DAR/Rocket to Garm

I left off bleating about some sort of vague timeline. Unfortunately I've had lots of time to think abotu this.   So... a vauge post 1949 timeline then? By vague I mean a handful of events from which to web things out if necessary. Point by point.
Curiously I find myself maknig up a spin off game in the 50s taking a cue from Justice League : New Frontier. (Of course I do....) /So perhaps I can be forgiven for the first bit. Anyway here's the rest of my brainstorming. More will be forthcoming in the eventuality I do anything with it.

Also, I am still working thorugh learning Blogger's interface so bear with me on the inexplicable formatting these past few posts seem to have gotten up to.

Mars

1957 - Mystic Theurges of L. Ron Hubbard

Bit of an aside as the crumbling us struggles to remain competitive.  the Alfar and Svartalfar who have been "guests" of the US gov't since 1950 care of a rogue MI6 telepath go rogue.  
The short one - coded Clarice grows tired of speaking with the Gray alen from faerieland at Area 51 and so goes AWOL from Dreamland. 
flees into the seedy disepunk hollywood underbelly of Los Angeles.  (Ultimately hidden by L. Ron Hubbard)

Svartalfar identified as Gerfired remains with the captured serpentech, and the roswell UFO (grays from faeire) all at Area 51.  Gerfried has the US ready to throw sweitch on first secret fusino plant (powering LA) by late 1957

Martians attempt to invade in 1957...George Pal style.  Cylanders plumet into the atlantic (england’s not there folks) and across the length of the poisoned lands (not local microbes but the seprent taint is what kills them)

Many land in E CAlifornia however like the movie

America's pocket mystic resources (the captured svartalfar, the saucertech) used up for the most part. (clarice) She bails and does not come back

The succession 

Henry IX is King until around 1972 - 1974) when Eiizabeth II becomes monarch.????

- will have to see if Liz II survived WW2 in timeline; I don't think so though.
unless she died (she turned 18 in 1944)  (Was supposed to take over when she was 18 - at least possibly - but this continuity is one of greatly retarded equal rights for women and minorities in the New British Empire.  Once she takes over that begins to thaw, slowly.

- ( Also look up: What about Henry's two sons, William & Richard?)

so possibly Henry IX dies just shy of the moon shot in 72 and so she (Queen Liz II or someone else) is the monarch on the throne (by days) when the British astronauts land on the moon.  And Claim it for Britain.

So if not Elizabeth II then someone else...but filling a simliar role for our purposes.  Either way, even if it is her, different husband, and different kids.   (who would presumably be from India South Africa. Canada,  or Australia but still brit and white of course)

Space!

So...1972 to 2000 the next wave of space;  Britain establishes their permanent foothold in space and then works to secure it, largely by "any means necessary."  

- the moon is regarded as soverein British Territory.

A notion to make the US a client state of Imperial Britain, at least at first.  

1975 - The United States’ 20th and final Fusion plant goes on line. The second era of the United States has begun.

• Pact with Britannia;  mutual defense, we’ll sell you fission nukes;  you agree not to develop fusion bombs or tech;  we’ll keep fusion weapons to ourselves….BUT
• American Fusion (it’s a nationalized company;  also one of those pesky Svartaflar own 52% of it) will come to Britains lands set up, build, and run, fusion power plants for Britain but that’s it.  
• Later a revised agreement has americans as necessary crew members on all Torchships as they will share the tech but ONLY if the Americans keep the fusion specifically to themselves

likely someone challenges this and finds themself at war with Britain.  Japan?    What's become of Russia?  ( I think I like Japan as an adversary better tbh)

Of course, the Rotting Carcass

80s speaking of “the Containment” usually means a period beginning here;  the absolute transformation of Europe, Africa, the Atlantic, by the rotting carcas and all it has released
What kind of environmental/exo/extinction level catastrophie is that?

What about south american/antarctic nazis?

What ABOUT The soviets?
Kind of like the idea of them getting frozen by glacier;  maybe this necesitates them moving to mars.

While America has Fusion power in this equation, long enough to play itself as a useful if traitorous client state to Britain, it probably remains mired on the ground, invading Mexico in 2001 (the issue of the succession, as with a lot of the dangling plot threads from DAR are purposefully here not being resolved) However lots of individual AMERICANS are in space, and an increasing amount of US business is making the transition.

What about the Moon?

September 9th to 13th 1999 Garm eats the moon

Some knid of exotic mega disasdter happens to the moon
-this likely cripples the inevitable Garry Anderson UFO/Space 1999 British moonbase, to say the least, .

I'm going with the moon being shattered as I do have a soft spot for rhsttered moons in the sky.
Also, this provides a dandy rationale for a large scale migration into the solar system (well besides the rotting organic megastructrure and it's hostile to all life interior ecosystem) ala
Cowboy Beebop, Eclipse Phase, and that old Tom Swift reboot from the 1980s

So people are leaving or wanting to leave the old shattered earth in droves. Again, I'm hearing the set up to 85% of Phil Dicks' near future output here.

At the very least I feel that regardles of how this is or isn't understood in universe, burgeoning Imperial Space Britain at this point probbaly goes all 9/11 war on terror with it.  Blames it on “terrorists, separatists, anarchists, and those sympathetic to communist propaganda.”
The usual basically.

Meanwhile in the Solar System - who goes where first?  

Britain to mars by 88 - maybe give the "expeditionary force" from the 50s some payback
Instead find Bradbury like empty cities

Soviets?  Red Mars - perhaps they get to Mars first?

Swamps of Venus by ???  (or someone else got there first?  Russia?  Unlikely....)

2001 - 2017:  the Rise of the Sons of Space

So the second half of this future rationale looks like this t - he inner solar system opens up and it is the new Golden age for Brittania;  in space it is the Pax Britannia as in space mother england reigns supreme

Rise of Japan and it’s space defense forces - more than a litle influenced by Space Cruiser Yamamoto as Britain wanes over the next few decades.

The golden age of British space Exploitation begins.  The miniing of the belt under the watchful eye of the crown.   

First appearance of space pirates in the asteroid belt.

By the 1990s the first british subjects are being born off world

2000 - Britain launches it's Jupiter probe,

- a year later, Britain launches it's Saturn probe.  The Saturn probe is lost

December 2001 the Saturn mission is, under great secrecy, lost; shades of the book version of 2001

Eventually (8 years later) the Russians (on Mars?) are preparing their own Voyage to Saturn.
However there is not a monolith awaiting them. There are alien horrors on Titan however, who wish to control humans as puppets......

Imperial Space Britain

The Solar System navy flies under the flag of the southern cross. Terrestrial Britain is comprised of Southern Africa, all of Australia, and Canadian America. (Despite two revolts) Most of the nation at this point is in low orbit, around the new Lunar belt, on Mars, over Mars, or in the Belt. In space they *are* civilization.
And that's the problem. Britain is not the progressive bastion that it is in our world. Women, people of colour, and sexual and gender minorities still struggle for recognition, let alone an equal share. In the Solar system, the old values are eroding rapidly under the survivor rigors of space living. Something must give sooner or later.

At least some of the Space Pirates are probably made of revolutionary types who wnat equal - or at least more - representation in Britain, in the System, wherever.
If the Space Pirates have a Secret Base in the belt, then maybe these rebels should control it to some degree?
.
Mars has a number of Free Mars movmements, regardless of where on or over Mars you happen to be.

The British Imperial Space Patrol campaign arc

Game is probably set in the c. 2014 - 2018 era; There will be a cadet class graduating in 2017 or whenever date the game is set.

The Space Patrol is probbaly the result of the Garm Incident. While it is theoretically international, it's heavily contolled and influenced by Briitish power, especially since British power has been waning in all other areas since they lost the moon....

I expect the characters would all be fresh out of boot rosy cheeked cadets doing basic Space Patrol stuff


who are dealing with an increasingly gray seres of circumstances over the course of their job. Lots of episodic adventures at first, eventually drawing them into the deeply conflicts of the setting until they feel a need to Pick A Side.

GARM part two - brainstorming

So.  the Day after Ragnarok - the sequel

ROCKET TO GARM

A tale of the British Royal Rocket Patrol!

So, to carry the thought exercise forward, were I to develop this enough to pitch or run this, I think ultimately the list of sources (posted, so prospective players would have some notion where I’m coming from) would look something like this

Dan Dare & the Day After Ragnarok of course

the Ministry of Space
Triplanetary

UFO Belter

Space 1999

2001 A Space Odyssey

Robert Heinlein, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, a lot of early Philip K. Dick, and the Jetsons

So with all of this, and an eye toward all of the “Rocket Patrol” era of SF , I’d populate the inner and outer solar system, pepper the colonial powers out by extrapolating forward from DAR (which leaves off in summer 1947 I think).  

On that last I would need, at least for my own purposes, something like a post 49 timeline (again heavily inspired by ministry of space).

I’ve pro’lly got a bit of the Expanse in here but that’s because

a) I've got it on the brain a little

b( the Expanse is genius and

c) the Expanse incorporates a metric grinth load old golden and early silver age ideas about the Dawn of the Solar System Age.  

Go read your Heinlein juveniles  It’s in there.  This sort of thing used to be hard coded into Classic Traveller back in the day. I own a copy of GDW’s Belter. )   Either way we’re talking about what is on the surface a game of “Plucky engineers, everyone has a slide rule, and torch ships are just now a thing.”  

Of no great surprise to anyone who knows me, I would be drawing a fair bit of inspiration from Ellis’ Ministry of Space.  Maybe all of it.  I’m sure I could work out some vague timeline.  

Also! one of the awesome things that Hite does in DAR is seed the book with references to other works of thematically or period related media or fiction.  Dan Dare gets checked, so does UNIT, so does a LOT of things.  This trend would persist with this project to some degree.   

The big question would be for me What does the Title pertain to?  Rocket to Garm?

Since Garm, mythologically eats the world, and since we’re allowed to incorporate other media, I’m just going to suggest that right now, the whole ministry of space timeline gets interrupted by Garm, eating the moon AKA a colossal atomic explosion on the far side of the moon on September 10, 1999.   If the command staff happen to resemble Martin Landau and Barbara Bain you can only blame me so much.  

Next, I shall hash out that timeline and figue out what thee is to do in this Rocket Age solar Darestopia