The game sounds exiting! I would love to join and the time is almost good to me (I would be around half or 1 hour late in each session though - work - and Mondays and Tuesdays are not good). To join to the brainstorming of the group, lets talk about more details. There is highly unlikely we would have our own spaceship, more likely the group has been loaned one in the exchange of certain services. So to keep Matt's desire of prospecting, exploring and/or hunting aliens; here is some idea that in my mind: Questing Knights and their retinue, The Company of Phoenix All of the characters serves in one way or another directly the new Emperor Alexious, nobles swear a term of fealty to him while other members from the Church, the Merchant League, or freeman (or even certain aliens) would either serve the Emperor directly (as the Company open to none nobles too) or some of the nobles. This choice would let the player to select a wide variety of backgrounds, though all of the players should have similar "benefices" (advantages) of some short, representing the fealty to the Emperor. Also to be part of the Company could give a wide variety of missions too, from exploring lost worlds from battling alien threats to confrontation with rebellious nobles. Members of the Merchant League Nobles? Who cares about them? All of the characters are member of the Guilds. Obviously everyone needs the pilots from the Guild of Charioteers in a ship, ship engineers, and generally the ones who are most close to the high technology. Maybe the ship is the base of a mercenary team having mostly Musters around, or the ship is owned by the Guild of Scravers, specializing to recover lost technologies and dig in archaeological sites. Or the Giuld of Charioteers supports the team of smugglers. Oath of Fealty of a Noble House Instead of serving the Emperor directly the team could be in service of a noble house, either having it's support from an NPC noble or one of the characters are a noble and having an access to some resources of it's house. Obviously the most important decision here would be the question of which house? But otherwise the team could be more free with missions, a wide range of goals could serve a house interests. The Universal Church's ship How about a team that serves the Universal Church? Could be a very interesting situation... Maybe it is a team of Inquisitors, exploring heretics and banned technologies across the known worlds. Or maybe it is a missionary ships sent to new worlds and lost worlds to spread the influence of the Universal Church and save the souls. Or perhaps they are a fleeing heretics, seeking a new world to settle?
