Guide: Starting in A1-0

[Maverick]

Worldbuilding in A1-0
In this post we’ll explore examples on how to worldbuild in a sci-fi setting. To that end I’ll mostly use how I created the Stoinian Star Kingdom, but I’ll also use my knowledge of other nations (both from A1-0 and other canons) to help illustrate different approaches to worldbuilding or help illustrate certain aspects. Worldbuilding for A1-0 is very similar to worldbuilding for the Pacifica Canon, but due to the sci-fi nature, it can easily become much larger and overcomplicated. Worldbuilding in a sci-fi setting can be a real challenge if you wish to make out every detail on how things work and their technological capabilities. How much you want to go into detail is completely up to you, this guide will aim to help set the basics for star nations so that new players, who may not have many experience with sci-fi, can easily join in.
Our community is more than happy to help you out and we’ll be more than happy to answer questions in the discord server if things are unclear.

Origins
The first step one must take, is decide what the primary species is/are of your star nation. Are they humans or a completely different species? On what planet did they evolve and where might this planet be? When you decide to make a species other than humans, you have a lot of liberty and can go pretty wild. Though an important detail that might need to be clarified is for near-human species. One should decide how these aliens gained their form. A similar evolution to humans or perhaps they are a different off-spring of humanity lost to times of old since the setting is roughly 10.000 years into the future of the Pacifica Canon. Though one can let their true origin be left to mystery as done with the Zeltrex, a good example of near-humans. Maybe even older species have uplifted them to be intelligent through genetic engineering?
These aliens can also take many different and odd forms and their biologies should reflect it. You can go really crazy and play with fun ideas. A good way to start is to draw inspiration from real life animals and build upon them, a good example of this are the Velpans. These Ryccian fox-people have similar characteristics like foxes and even their culture reflects familial structures from Real Life foxes. Otherwise you can use species from sci-fi settings as your species, though they can retain a lot of similar elements, they shouldn’t be a complete copy, but you can use them to help build up your species. Humanoids are by no means the only type of sapient species. Insectoids, aquatics, avians and even rocks! Just because here on Earth we humans became the dominant species, doesn’t mean that this happens on all planets out there. Star Trek even played with the idea that the ancient dinosaurs had evolved sapient and had civilizations of their own. These Voth, later left Earth and started their civilization a new in distant stars. This also brings an interesting idea of syncretic evolution, where multiple species gain sapience at roughly the same time.
In our world a similar case could have happened as there were many different human species. An example of syncretic evolution in A1-0 are the Treecuu who are split in the insectoids and mammalian-amphibians. Like their inspiration, the Xindi (a collection of 5 different species), from Star trek, they waged war against another until reconciling their differences. When going for syncretic species, you should pay good attention as to relationships between the two species work. More often than not, it leads to conflict between the two species like the Treecuu insectoids and mammalians or even the Kontauri and Ko’ghyal in the Stoinian Star Kingdom which lead to the complete extinction of the Ko’ghyal. Babylon 5, my favourite sci-fi series, showed us why establishing these relationships is important.
In Babylon 5 a sapient species, the Hyach, has evolved with another on their homeworld and inter-species marriage were common, but after religious zealotry banning such practices it eventually lead to the extinction of the second species. This did have consequences, as the primary species needed the second species to procreate in large numbers and after their extinction, the birthrates dropped over the generations and eventually will lead to the extinction of both species due to their genetic make-up as a result of the inter-breeding. Perhaps a similar fate could have happened to us, if we bred more with the Neanderthals.
An other approach, which is more commonly used in sci-fi, is that one species gained sapience earlier and enslaved or uses the secondary species as a client species. More often than not, the secondary species will focus on manual labour while the older species is more intellectually inclined. Whether this is infused by their government or not is up to you. Do you choose to make them egalitarian, but their original jobs remain or do the secondary species have no rights and only live to serve the primary species? This isn’t limited to just two species, you can make syncretic evolution with as many as you’d like, but you should not go over 10 or even 5 different species. By than you’d have an incredibly complicated relationship system between them and the chances of it happening are very slim.
These species can also evolve in different biomes and engage in very little contact with the other at first. For example Species A lives near the equator and has a thriving commerce society, while Species B lives in tundra environments in nomadic tribes. Because they are more sensitive to biome changes, they have very little interaction with one another and how they engage with one another during their history is an important detail to figure out.

The Lumati from Babylon 5, a syncretic species.

Humans/Terrans
Humans are still playable in the A1-0 Canon, however there are rules for them. You can’t play THE human nation originating from Pacifica/Earth. Their cultures however can live on, but you should take into consideration how humans came into your star nation. Humans in the Ryccian Empire and the Atlantic-Nuclearian Federation came from colony ships from Pacifica long ago and their societies have changed ever since. Perhaps humans from your plot come from your Pacifican nation’s own Space Program’s colonization effort? The Ryccians have gone on a Human Supremacy campaign, while the humans of the ANF largely kept to themselves and their nation. The Stoinian Terrans are a bit of a cheat however, since they came from real life Earth on a sleeper ship by private funding. This idea is taken from the colonization of Manticore (and the formation of its Star Kingdom) in the Honorverse. There needs to be a consideration when doing this as A1-0 takes place in the Lampshade Galaxy and humans originated on the planet of Pacifica and not Earth. I solved this technicality by making the Stoinians going through some space-temporal anomaly, which I haven’t specified nor the exact time of their departure. Why haven’t I specified it? To leave it to mystery as the fate and location of Pacifica/Earth remains a mystery to our nations as well. Our community has decided that the details on such instances is less important than the actual RP from it. For that reason, you should keep the origin of humans in your star nation relatively vague. Their cultures however, can either be from Pacifica, Earth or something completely new. Whatever you wish, you may choose, but make considerations when choosing your humans’ origin.
My suggestion is that your humans came from Pacifica a long time ago during colonization efforts or are the remains from the Ancient Human Empire that lived in our sector, BUT their original home and fate has been lost to time. Ever since then, they have regained the ability to travel the stars and built a society of their own.

Nomads
While living on planets can be fun, your species may have grown to live in structures in space or even grow a nomadic culture. The Zeltrex travel the Sector in search for commerce and pleasure while the Venterrans maintain their nomadic nature within their borders of the Venterran Federation, though this might change over the course of history. In the fantasy canon of Aurora, one can play as a subgroup of a nation and even migratory nations. This new concept can also be applied here, the Zeltrex are maybe the first of many of such groups and you can help build the A1-0 Canon, even if you don’t have a plot. This concept is new, so if you wish to help expand this concept, go ahead!

A female Zeltrex, A1-0’s primary nomadic species.

Synthetics and cyborgs
Sci-fi has touched the ideas of artificial intelligence and you can play as synthetics as well. It is important to decide how these synthetics came to be. Were they made by organics beings or perhaps by other synthetics? Were they a remnant of an ancient human outpost and have evolved since then? Do they live harmoniously with organics like in the Synthetic Federation of Icn Gaurath, where they even engage in relationships with their organic makers. Or perhaps they see organics as inferior and either wish to exterminate all life or assimilate it like the Borg. Perhaps they even wish to become a new sort of being, a symbiosis of organic and artificial? These questions are important to answer when making synthetics as your primary species. Of course they can be made as a secondary “species” by your primary species as they have gained such technology. Whether they wish to give intelligence to them or not is up for you to decide.
My father often jokes that communism only works for robots and computers and since then I have played with the idea of a Communist Robots who wishes to bring the Revolution to the stars as they see it mandatory to impose this order to the galaxy. Ensuring that all resources are used to maximum and optimal capacity. Possibilities are endless and up for you to decide.
Cyborgs are also a possibility. Technology has evolved a lot and since we are in the future, new technologies may prove to make biological evolution obsolete. In the ANF, people have grown accustomed to cybernetic implants, while Stoinians limit it to just prosthetics for war veterans. The important question here is how your nation views such augmentations? If they are religious or believe to be superior, they might look down upon those who use it. Others might think this is natural evolution or where one takes evolution in his own hands.

An android, a Cylon from Battlestar Galactica who are synthetic lifeforms. A Borg drone and Robocop the most famous cyborgs.

Becoming a Star Nation
Now that you have decide on your origin, it is time to put that origin to use. You star nation has travelled the stars in their quest for survival, commerce, exploration, … Now your nation is widespread in the stars and no longer is confined to a single world. This has many implications and when building your star nation you should take certain parameters into consideration. Your plot has the following characteristics:

• 32,000 stars/plot (and 1,080,000 in total)
• 32,000 planets/plot (and 1,080,000 in total)
• 6,300 planets/plot that might support life
• 50 planets/plot with intelligent communicative life that have developed independently

These are the caps and perhaps don’t need to use all of them. Though I suggest that you have colonized at least 2.000 colonies to be any sort of contender in this RP, especially if you are a younger nation. You should have a rough estimation of how old your star nation is. Are they as young as the Treecuu Star Empire, just 200 years old, and went through an aggressive expansion? Somewhat older like the Stoinian Star Kingdom, roughly 400 years, who expanded more gradually, but with the goal of claiming as much territory as possible. Younger star nations wouldn’t have had the time to colonize all of their planets. Colonization takes time, the colonial cities of America took years to be built and so should your colonies. Older races, those who roamed the stars for thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years, and have taken time to colonize near every planet within their star nation. How old is your nation and how aggressively did it expand? This is perhaps one of the more fundamental questions when starting to create you star nation.
I choose a more younger star nation because the fundamental idea was that Stoinia was a young nation willing to prove that her way was the right way. The Treecuu similarly wish to seek legitimacy between the older star nations. Their rapid expansion on both technological and political level will be likely be seen as a threat or naïveté. Older races like the Drakari Celestial Imperium and the Ryccian Empire, which in most ways is an older reflection to the Stoinian Star Kingdom, often have a more arrogant view. The Drakari see it as their duty to help guide younger species find their way into the stars. They have seen many wars and the troubles of younger nations. Their experience has lead them to view the universe differently and often clashes with younger nations on philosophical terms with younger nations who wish to claim the universe for themselves. The Drakari Great Stewardship is an excellent example of a philosophy that older nations/races might hold. The Ryccians were once like the Stoinians, making a human dominant empire with no remorse in squashing “inferior” lifeforms. Since the Democratic Revolution they have become an open society for all beings and view this new “enlightened” way as superior to different views.

FTL Methods
Since your star nation is spanning hundreds of Light Years, your nations has mastered a method to travel faster than light. This pretty much is a requirement to be able to participate in this setting. Having no FTL tech means that you would be considered a primitive and have no chance to be such a large star nation. The logistics of it would be too inefficient. However, one might think having FTL methods means that one can quickly jump from one point to the other as portrayed in sci-fi. This isn’t necessarily true as portraying long voyages would be boring. 2001: A Space Odyssey is the most representative media for actual space travel: long and boring. Even in Star Trek this is the case. It takes a full day to reach Earth’s nearest star. Why else would you have holodeck if you visit a planet every day? When RP’ing you should take these details into account.
However, how and when your nation discovered FTL-travel is up to you. This doesn’t mean that colonization didn’t begin beforehand. We want to colonize Mars and your species should have a similar goal as well. After all, there needs to be a drive to explore the universe or an alternative motive. For that reason I’ve classified FTL methods in three categories and each have their own limitations. Though limitations such as whether or not the FTL method has an effect on your surroundings or not is up to you to decide. Same goes for if you can jump to FTL within an atmosphere or not.
I will also make the note that while we have a limit on speeds, it doesn’t mean that you have to use that limit. What do I mean by this? I mean that you can use slower speeds. But why would you use this? To create tension. If everything is instant, where’s the tension? For every action you need to have a waiting period to build it up. If you can reinforce a planet’s defences in mere seconds, a battle might be over before it even started. Giving your star nation a disadvantage can be fun as well. I made the Stoinians less sophisticated for the goal to make it more interesting. Would other nations grant them technology easily? How will they perceive them with less sophisticated tech? These elements I think make a more intriguing RP. Though to be fair, I made them less sophisticated to emphasize their willingness to survive and fight for it by putting them in very dire situations where technological discrepancies create a lot of tensions (see more in the War at Home and the Velutarian War).

Interdimensional FTL
Interdimensional FTL uses an alternate dimension from spacetime, which I refer to as Realspace, with different proportions to our own which allow faster travel. The most famous examples of such dimensions are Hyperspace from Star Wars and Babylon 5, the Warp from Warhammer 40k and Slipspace from Halo. Within these dimensions, ships travel normally with their sub-lightspeed engines and need to be shielded from the respective dimension as they can’t exist there normally in most cases. More often than not, there are currents in these dimensions and you can even play with the idea of having lifeforms in that dimension which may or may not find you travelling there so nice. This allows for some really fast travelling speeds, but there are limitations to it. To be able to enter and exit such a dimension, you need something to anchor yourself to. These anchors are objects with large masses such as stars and planets. In other words, you can’t travel somewhere between star systems in outer space. How you customize this FTL method is completely up to you.
Advantages: Really fast.
Limitations: Needs gravity wells to be able to enter and exit the dimension.
Max Travel Speed: 5 LY in 5 minutes.

Hyperspace from Star Wars and Babylon 5 and a Warp storm from Warhammer 40K.

Realspace FTL
Realspace FTL is done by actually remaining in Realspace. The most famous example is the Alcubierre Warp Field Drive and that of Star Trek. Here spacetime is bent to allow faster travel and allows the traveller to any point in the universe. For RP’ers who are new to this setting, I would suggest you use this type of FTL method as it is fairly all rounded and don’t have to take other more complex things into consideration.
Advantages: Can travel anywhere without much problems.
Limitations: Is somewhat slow compared to other FTL methods.
Max Travel Speed: 5 LY in 20 hours.

An approximation of an Alcubierre Warp Drive and the Enterpise-D at Warp Speed.

Gateway Travel
Another method of transportation is through gateways. These large structures allow to open portals in between two gateways and one can simply travel to the other gateway. Whether this is between planets or gateway structures in space is completely up to you. However, this means that you can’t travel faster than light in Realspace or another dimension in between planets. You are completely dependant of your gateways and once they are destroyed, you lose your mode of transportation. Both gateways need to be operational and this makes things trickier. If you choose to use this FTL method, you should take repercussions into consideration as to what you will do when these gateways are destroyed.
Advantages: Instantaneous travel between your planets
Limitations: Can’t travel outside your gateway network.
Max Travel Speed: Instantaneous

An Iconian Gateway from Star Trek Online and a Stargate.

FTL Cultures
When building up your star nation and its people, you will have to figure out their culture somewhat. Significant technological advancements have been made and cultures will have to learn to accept or maybe even reject them. Just like our own cultures evolved with technology, so will your futuristic nation have to. Will they reject any idea of God as they learn to understand the universe more? Or instead see this as becoming closer to God? How will they view cybernetics or genetic augmentation? People now travel a lot, because flying has been made easier and safer. Similar situations can be created in this setting.
In sci-fi settings we often see aliens as being monocultural. By this I mean that their whole species has one overall culture. This is often done to critique or represent human aspects. But look around you. Within our human community here on Earth, we have hundreds of different cultures who clash with one another. If you truly want to make your star nation vibrant with life, make different subcultures for species. One group might believe in one God, while others in a different pantheon. Is marriage sacred or a tool of politics? These are examples how cultures vary.
On another note, your star nation has many planets. Like we saw in America, colonists make their own cultures and so should your planets (if you aren’t a repressive government that is). Planets can be strange as well with their own ecosystems and lifeforms. How your colonists adapt to it is important. Cultures evolve and as your colonists live longer on a planet, they might grow traditions of their own. Perhaps your planet has five or just two seasons and your colonists have made traditions to reflect it. The amount of detail you put into it is up to you and there’s no shame if you don’t make unique cultures for each planet. It can be a lot of work, but only if you make it so.

Evolution of species
Another point that isn’t really touched in most sci-fi settings, is how species evolve when living on other planets. Planets have different gravities, atmospheres, … You name it! There are a lot of possibilities when customizing a planet, but you should also think about the effects it has on your species. For example if humans were to live on Mercury, they would gain smaller eyes as they’re closer to the sun and don’t need such sensitive eyes. While those living on Mars may grow bigger one. Subsequently their heights might change as well and this can go both ways. Insular dwarfism of giantism has been seen on our planet and it could apply to your species living on multiple planets. Perhaps even subspecies are formed because of it? A group that lives in zero g will become the trader merchants of ships and naval officers, while those living on planets with higher gravity will become labourers and soldiers. The best example of this idea are the Tau from Warhammer 40k who have split up in subspecies and castes according to these characteristics.

The different T’au subspecies.

Of course this is sci-fi and perhaps you have medicine and genetic therapy which allows your widespread species to maintain most of its form. Though perhaps you may not have such technology and your species face difficult choices. A good example of such cases is the Star Trek DS9 episode Melora. Here a young Lieutenant from a low gravity species is forced to wear a harness to be able to work with higher gravity species. She has to choose whether or not she wishes to alter herself to live in higher gravity and make her job at Starfleet easier. This has the consequence that she can’t return on her homeworld. These kinds of details can be fun to play with when building up your star nation.

What human Martians could look like and Melora in her harness while floating around in lower gravity.

Living space
Your star nation’s populace will have to live somewhere. In most cases it will be on planets, but there are alternatives. Even so, not every planet might be hospitable for your species. Perhaps your species only lives in arctic worlds or certain types of oceans. There’s a wide variety to choose from and even alternatives to planets.

Planets
Planets will form the primary home for your species, but planets come in a wide variety. Being in the habitable zone around a star is only the beginning of a good planet. Its characteristics need to welcoming to your species such as gravity, atmosphere (composition and thickness), rotation, … Your colonists will have to adapt to these elements and no planet is truly the same. There are also more exotic options such as tidally locked planets where one planet always faces the sun. As a result one part is hot while the other’s ice cold and somewhere in the middle, there’s earth like conditions. Planets can also be purple as the flora can have retinal instead of chlorophyll and giving the plantlife a purple look. There could be variations out there and it’s all within your imagination. So really, you can go crazy on this one.

A tidally locked, retinal and volcanic planet.

Habitats and space stations
An alternative to planets are habitats and space stations. For nomadic species these would be large colonial ships. However, these require resources to be built and likely will be gained from planets, though a star system’s asteroid belts should have enough resources as well. To conserve energy, one might use rotating rings to generate artificial gravity or use other technology to simulate gravity. Just like planets, the size and uses of these station are bound to your imagination. From a realism perspective, your government wouldn’t want to invest in the construction of artificial civilian stations too much. Or not to giant sizes as the production of it will be enormous and very costly. So why build a giant space station when you can live on a planet which is much more cost effective. Perhaps your species prefers zero g or sees it as a necessity. Ultimately it’s just a suggestion of mine and you can do whatever you wish with these ideas.

A habitat ring of space station.

The Science Nexus from Stellaris, a large space station dedicated to science.

Galactic Landscape
The galaxy is filled with stars, but also more rare objects. Neutron stars, nebulae, black holes, … You name it, there’s a ton to play with. Nebulae are basically space clouds and unlike their common depiction in sci-fi as being able to hide ships and tamper with sensors. However, this isn’t based on anything as they are clouds, but the particles are still so widespread that it is basically vacuum. These nebulae are the birthplaces of planets and are lightyears across. So if you wish your people have some nice scenic night sky, a nebulae is the way to go.
There are also other anomalies within our dear A1-0 Sector. There are the Badlands (those cloudy things on the map) and the Middleton Wormhole. The Badlands aren’t traversable and form a collection of barriers within the sector. Their true nature is yet unknown so its the perfect place to send your exploration ship and use that technobabble in your RP. Then there is the Middleton Wormhole, which unsurprisingly is a wormhole. A tunnel between two points in space through subspace which allows faster travel and communication compared to realspace. However, most wormhole aren’t stable and stable wormholes are quite rare and likely undiscovered. There are many other anomalies possible so feel free to add more to your plot if you’d like.

A Nebulae within our own galaxy.

The Bajoran Wormhole from Star Trek.

A note that I should add is that your plot also has a depth of 100 LY. In space there is no up or down and unlike here on Earth, your star nation should look in three directions when looking at borders, instead of just the two on planets. This also means that borders can be “above” one another and are an interesting aspect when considering warfare.