Jovian Chronicles

BEYOND THE TIIIIIIIIME

RPG and Wargame published by Dream Pod 9
Rule System	Silhouette
No. of Players	5+
Authors	Marc A. Vezina.
First Publication	1993
Essential Books	Jovian Chronicles 2nd edition, Jovian Wars beta rules.

It started as a pair of pretty nifty Mekton books, set in an original IP that was basically Gundam with all the crazy sucked out. It was thin, but inspiringly cool. The mecha and ship design was (and still is) the BEST that had ever been seen in an RPG, hands down.

Then Dream Pod 9 got a loan from their rich uncle and went solo with their homebrew Silhouette system. Using Silhouette is like using HERO System to simulate the whole of World War 2 in real time while on Vicodin. It's pretty okay I guess if you like spreadsheets. It manages to still be simpler than Mekton if you exclude crap like Reaction Mass, which nobody uses. Oh, and now the art has basically an expanded roster of mecha and spaceships, with essentially the same designs... except now they're all illustrated by an inflation fetishist.

The setting is the traditional 23rd century, and strains mightily to be Hard science fiction while still having giant robots punching each other across the Solar System. It does a neato job on the whole. The political crap on Earth is just depressingly mundane (but I'm gonna tell you it anyway!) Get ye to space and nuke some pirates.

The Solar Nations of Jovian Chronicles

Earth (Capital: Not Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)

It was the late 21st century when Earth was getting absolutely fucked six ways from Sunday. Figurative plagues of the social and economic variety, LITERAL plagues of war, famine, and needless movie sequels. Basically everything that could've went wrong most likely did. But before that Earth had colonized all the planets in the solar system, leaving said colonies high, dry, and without contact till 2184. From the ashes of the Earth rose the Central Earth Government and Administration (CEGA)(…no, not THAT CEGA), a monolithic bureaucracy masquerading as a government that holds that as a cradle of mankind, Earth is naturally the leader of the Solar System . Equally naturally, pretty much every other colony didn't see it this way and rebelled. CEGA branded these colonies rogues, intending to bring them to heel and using their resources to rebuild war-ravished Earth. Somewhat like the British Empire of the 1700 and 1800s, including absolutely astoundingly arrogant Admirals whose jingoism rivals only their ability to underestimate their opponents. Their exo-armour designs run towards ballistic throw-weights and blocky armour, with their spaceship architecture being similar in design.

Luna (Winner: CEGA Appendage of the Year)

The first member of the space colony crew, they're exactly who you think they are. Having been cut off from Earth during the collapse, the people of the Moon (called the "Selenites") had to learn to survive the hard way, which has made them a bit serious and stiff. The comfy home of many CEGA bases, Luna is supporting Earth's claim over the rest of the galaxy pretty much because they're within easy invasion distance, stand to profit a LOT from a successful takeover, and, ya'know, being more or less dependent on Earth for things like dirt, food, and other 'trivial' things. The main source of materials for CEGA's space fleet, Selenites are some of the best miners around though, even if titanium is comparably more flexible that a Selenite's views on "proper society". As a CEGA satrapy, they don't have a military unto themselves, being content with minimal CEGA equipment and a defense-only focus.

Orbitals (Runner-up: CEGA Appendages of the Year)

These are the O'Neill colonies in near-Earth orbit. Home to many refugees after Earth got weird, these space stations found themselves the victims in a galactic wide boogaloo where if you don't pick a side (or pick the wrong one) then you're getting gassed. Or punctured. Or dropped on a planet. These folks pretty much all sided with CEGA, because well, want to guess where a good chunk of CEGA' space fleet is harboured? The flip-side to this is that as the first-stop for many refugees fleeing the Earth Wars, they're cultural gumbo that rarely take anything truly seriously and are quite outspoken on it, sheltering from CEGA commissarial backlash behind the deep-walls of respect the average CEGA citizen have for them for all the refugee work done during the wars. Case in point: Editorializing CEGA propaganda is a common pastime, making these guys the setting's equivalent of Stadler and Waldorf, something that irritates CEGA to no end. See the entry for Luna concerning military assets.

Jupiter (SEIG ZION!)

The name of the game, the Jovian Confederation lived around Jupiter's orbit for over a century, working hard to make their colony the best it can be for their descendants. When they lost contact with Earth they quickly mastered space combat when everyone else in the solar system was going completely batshit insane. These people are your typical idealistic spacenoids, they believe to be fighting this war to free the solar system from the tyranny of Earth and Venus, no matter how many (other people's) lives must be sacrificed! The added fact that their leadership is a nobility known for their arrogant, ambitious and greedy nature should make anyone familiar with the source material VERY concerned. Somewhat a pastiche of 1900s to 2000s America, coupled with a lot of "We're the Good Guys" syndrome, this is the NobleBright faction (with the obligatory "Evil Ruling Subfaction"). Kicked the CEGA fleet's ass in a massive brawl just outside of the main habitat, however only a few people know how close it was of a thing. Their ship designs tends to be somewhat of a stacked-boxes concept, while their exo-designs are VERY Gundam, favouring energy weapons and laser swords. Yes, laser swords.

Venus (Completely Trustworthy People)

The third of the most-powerful factions in space, Venus is the rich kid who is never actually caught breaking the rules, but is behind every damn bit of drama in the school. Originally founded by Terran corporations who could very blatantly see the writing on the wall for Earth and felt like relocating, Venus has turned been marginally terraformed, and is now SCIENCEHYPERCORPVILLE. Seriously. They're the New Rich of the solar system, they know it, and they plan on making sure everyone follows their lead eventually. However, they have one of the smaller populations in the solar system, so these guys are also the default "sneeki-breeki" faction, disguising their drive to rule to solar system behind being The Trendy People. They have all the newest, flashy stuff, and they let everyone know it. How? Advertising. Everywhere. Even their trade ships, which sport massive holoscreen systems to better advertise their wares. That those holoscreen systems can also be used as active camouflage or that their warships just happen to be built on the same shaped hullplan as their merchant fleet is a complete fabrication by their biggest trading rivals (and nearest neighbors), Mercury. Their design philosophy is summed up in two words: sneaky and techy. Cloaking ships and exo-armours, disguised warships, and so forth. Also ninjas. In tactical power armour. With swords. But are absolutely NOT ASIAN.

Mercury (Send Ice Cream)

Former wage-slaves of Venus, Mercury basically unionized as a nation, and Venus has never forgiven them for it. For their part, Mercury does mining, power-generation, high-tech electronics and shipping. A lot of shipping. Like a lot. Because what they sell, everyone wants, they go everywhere in the solar system, so they're about as neutral as neutral can be. Even smaller of a population that Venus, they pack their people into a fraction of the space, leading to some rather Hive-like conditions and in consequence, some rather unique social pressure workarounds. One part Dwarf, one part socially-expected incel (having a closet that is just yours and yours alone to be alone in is considered a human right), Mercurians are known for being stupidly hard-working and VERY clannish. Most of their design focus is reusability and reliability. Their warships double as haulers. Their exo-armours and exo-suits double as cargo-movers and mining systems. Everything seems to be heat-proofed. Even the ice.

Mars (Send Guns)

Space Africa. Possibly Space South Pacific. Currently has a free-for-all civil war going on between the Federation (not-really-fascists, supported by CEGA) and the Free Republic (not-really-hippies, supported by Jupiter). When you dig into it, what you have is a squabble between East Germany and West Germany in the 1960's, where nothing has sparked into a full-blown war solely because both sides have to share what's left of their space infrastructure. But wow, are "border discussions" frequent though. As the first of the terraforming projects, Mars exports biotech in a big way, but collectively it's still a fraction of any other nations' GDP, especially since their brand-new space elevator had a whoopsie, and now both factions share a lovely new planetary lawn feature consisting of the solar system's longest trench. Fingers are still-being pointed as to the instigators of it all. Has no space military assets beyond a handful of defense sats, and pretty much uses second-hand Jovian and CEGA equipment sourced from whoever they can get it from this week.

The Belt

] Jovian Chronicles' Periphery, only these guys genuinely want to be left alone and don't kill each other. Absolutely, completely militarily insignificant, they're completely peaceful people and would never think to cause trouble for anyone, especially since they're not a nation in any real sense of the word and so have practically no military to speak of. That said, they're a major source of materials for everyone in the system, and being unaligned, get leaned on all the time. So in the end, the normal reaction is to simply surrender, although there have been the occasional high-energy discussions when someone poaches a claim and are sloppy about it. Also have the best engineers and technicians in the settings, hands-down. A Belter repair kit might only be chewing gum and a used bandage, but a Belter can patch a fusion drive together with it.

Saturn & Titan

Much like the Belt, Titan's not really a nation at all, rather being a mining and chemical engineering outpost. Working on Titans puts you about as far away from civilization as humanly possible, so things are a bit isolated around here. Titanians tend to stick together, identifying more with fellow workers instead of their homeland. The entire war between CEGA and Jupiter passed mostly as a "oh, the mail's gonna be late?"-level of awareness for most people here. That said, the Jovians treat it as their own back-yard, trying to drive off rival mining companies from other solar nations, and the others respond in kind. Predictably, "random acts of piracy" pretty much abound around here. They have no actual military, and much like Luna and the Earth Orbitals, rely on corporate security and whoever's navy is currently conducting "non-privateering" actions nearest to whatever issue has cropped up.

Others

There are also some minor factions that pervade the galaxy such as:

• The United Space Nations (who are literally the United Nations in space, and about as useful.)
• The Solar Cross (Doctors REALLY Without Borders....or gravity for that matter. Also Red Cross, if the Red Cross operated the space equivalent of the tactical ambulance crews from Cyberpunk.)
• The Venusian Bank (One part Citibank, one part Evangelion's SEELE. No, seriously. Might be trying to own everything. Might be trying to turn everyone into space jellyfish.)
• The Mercurian Merchant Guild (The Hanseatic League in space, complete with Merchant Princes and bitching about customs' inspections.)
• SolaPol (The result of Interpol going to infinity and beyond, coupled with WH40K's Mechanicus' viewpoint on unrestricted science; has all the science-nifty, including soothsaying AI and an immortality bed.)
• STRIKE (a terrorist organization who wants all humanity to be controlled by Earth. Not Venus-controlled-CEGA Earth, though. As one could probably guess, they are all very reasonable gentlemen, and had absolutely NOTHING to do with a lawn feature.)
• ZONet (Was Space CBC. Is turning into Space FOX News. Is still showing Simpson reruns.)
• Inter-settlement Geographic Society (National Geographics Society in space. Includes photo-spreads of mostly-nude Belters in culturally-appropriate settings.)

Gallery

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  Exo-armors piloted by Lieutenant Bash, Lieutenant Junior Grade Orange, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Guya.

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  Beautiful minis.

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  Dp9's Mecha boner is so great they even made garage kits of their exo-armor designs.