Twilight of the Surreal

  Mechane, Atomo and Spatia  had a delightful little trade union going. Things improved with time. Spatia's ships improved their drives and began reaching other forgotten though populated worlds. However, when were people ever content for long?  Nottusa, the most populous, some would say advanced ,nation on Mechane was a republic. It had a well developed and politically active set of corporations, made even richer and more active by the affluence afforded by trade with Spatia. Eventually Nottusa saw a change in leadership. The new regime decided the trade agreements with Spatia were not in their best interest and they demanded a bigger cut of everything, raising the price of goods. This didn't sit well with the Spatians who soon found their trade ships boarded and further harassed by Mechane vessels built on Spatia.  It was a small ship Universe (the people living in it just called it the Universe.) Invasion options were limited. Mechane had a huge population, was already crank

 Kills what? RP hooks mainly. On various forums I have seen a never ending hunt for rules to design better and more accurate star systems, in accordance with then latest astronomical data. Let me throw cold water on this right now: your players care a lot less about this than you think.  I wrote Solar Sagas, a planetary setting in the Old Solar System where everything was (at least marginally) habitable, in the tradition of Golden Age SF. I didn't get burned in effigy (that I'm aware of).  Discussion on one forum turned to a habitable planet around a white dwarf star. The OP got little encouragement for it. I remembered some articles I read and started hunting (Perplexity really makes this job easier). Sure enough the good old space telescope found a number of planets and other objects orbiting  white dwarfs. One planet was even in the Goldilocks Zone.  To give the detractors a fair chance, the articles pointed out many problems with a habitable world. For one thing the expansi