This month I’ve been working on the content for Empire and Legacy. Here’s one of the events I’ve written:
Here’s the text of the event, since Patreon doesn’t give me a way to add alt text for images:
GOLADRION PRIME: …a factory planet located towards the inner end of the Perseus Arm. Originally a mineral-rich world with a carbon dioxide atmosphere, it was terraformed in 9437 IE by Utopian Industries…By the 12th millennium IE, it was a major supplier of parts to several Imperial Navy shipyards.
…In 11485 IE, Goladrion Prime was the site of a planet-wide strike, the emperyx’s response to which would set a precedent for labour relations during the last decades of the Empire…
—Galactopedia
Industrial disputes on corporate-owned planets are not uncommon, but they usually resolve themselves before they reach the notice of the Imperial Palace. This time, however, an entire factory world has downed tools, and negotiations have stalled. Not only that, but this is a planet that supplies vital ship components to several Imperial Navy shipyards. If this issue is not resolved swiftly, ship construction and repairs will fall behind schedule.
The CEO of Utopian Industries requests your help in putting down the illegal and unreasonable strike. The corporation has already offered every practical concession, he says, including higher wages and more thorough safety protocols, but the strike’s ringleaders refuse to negotiate. The strikers demand nothing less than democratic governance of their own factories—an absurd request, since those factories are the property of the corporation.
The People’s Assembly representative for the planet’s population, meanwhile, shows you videos of workers toiling away in squalid, dangerous conditions. The strike is not something the population have undertaken lightly: the factory world is reliant on imported food and medicine, which the corporation has been withholding since the start of the strike, but the strikers still feel like starvation and disease is less evil than continued corporate rule.
The Guild of Extraction Companies and the People’s Assembly each ask you to take their side. The Imperial Navy, meanwhile, merely wants you to get the ship components flowing again, one way or another.
Options:
* Send an Imperial Arbitrator to enforce a compromise
* Send Imperial Marines to put down the strike
* Order the corporation to cede control of the planet to the strikers
It’s somewhat longer than a Chiron Gate event because I’m going for a slower pace of game, with more reading between each choice. Like most events, it starts with a Galactopedia entry to set the scene, and then goes into the normal second-person narration. You can click on the Galactopedia link to get the full entry, and if you view it again after the event you’ll see the effect of your choice.
Many of the events will be disputes between two or more factions, where your choices will end up pleasing one faction at the expense of another. There will often also be a compromise option, which no one will like, but no one will dislike as much as if you’d definitively sided against them.
Unlike in Chiron Gate, where you’re trying to choose the best option for the situation you’re in, the choices in this game are more about roleplaying. Any one of these options could be the best, depending not only on the current state of the game but also on what kind of emperyx you’re trying to be.
As I write these events I’m gradually filling in the setting, which will be the most detailed one that I’ve done for a game. For example, the Imperial Arbitrators show up in several events, and are an institution that’s important but doesn’t rise to the level of a proper faction. I might write another dev blog focused on that later.
Anyway, I’ve made this post into a poll so you can vote for what you would do! The Empire awaits your command…
Send an Imperial Arbitrator to enforce a compromise 42%
Send Imperial Marines to put down the strike 5%
Order the corporation to cede control of the planet to the strikers 53%