About Beyond

Beyond is a RPG (role playing game) of space exploration and first (re)contact set in a near future and using the Basic Role Playing (BRP) rule set as a framework.

Sometime in the mid 21st century, the drive was invented. Finally, interstellar travel became a practical reality. And what those first explorers found was amazing. Not only did earth like planets exist, but they abounded. Soon, all the great nations began to send out their ships to claim these new worlds and the new wealth they represented. First, the massive cost of colonization could only be born by the greatest nation states: The United States, The European Union, Russia and China. Soon other countries followed, each founding new extensions of their own homeland. Then the corporations stepped in when national pride gave way to economics. The large multinationals sponsored new colonies with an eye toward future profit.

Finally, the cost to transport a new colony reached the level where any sufficiently well backed group could afford assemble one . This was the start of the great diaspora. Mother earth was groaning under the weight of 8 billion inhabitants. Many were eager to start a new and better life. And many saw an opportunity to create a newer, better society. Every fringe group imaginable sent out colonists: religious, communist, vegetarian, maternal, fascist.

Back on Earth, the nation states continued their old squabbles - now exacerbated by new rivalries in space. The eggs were no longer all in one basket. Armies mobilized. Sabres rattled. And the unthinkable happened. Legend says it was the great East-West rivalry that started the war. There wasn't enough left to be sure. Earth was plunged into a 200 plus year dark age. And she brought all here colony worlds with her. Man lost space. The new wolds were left to fend for themselves - to succeed or fail alone.

And now, three hundred years later, man once again goes into space. It has been a grueling climb, and mother earth still bears the scars of the war fought so long ago. No there is only one great nation. Dedicated to insuring that such a war never again be fought. Dedicated to bringing all of humanity together under one great nation. The inner worlds, those closest to mother earth and best equipped to survive the long night have been brought back into the fold.

Now, the great survey ships are being readied and sent forth to find and reunite the old, lost colonies.