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The Maelstrom is the core, central idea to our entire setting. That's ultimately what Maelstrom's Edge is all about, that monumental catastrophe causing previously stable galactic civilisations to tear each other, and themselves, apart. The Maelstrom's implacable advance on the worlds of the Spiral Arm is what feeds the conflict of our universe, sets friend and foe against each other and forces everyone in its path to fight for resources and survival.



When the Maelstrom erupted from humanity’s Capital Worlds a millennium ago, it destroyed hundreds of parsecs in the blink of an eye. A colossal energy storm spanning light years, the Maelstrom expanded ever onward, traversing dozens of light years in mere hours. It ripped apart the centre of humanity, destroying worlds in instants and leaving no time for escape. After this initial frenzy, the expansion of the Maelstrom slowed to a fraction of its initial speed as it left the matter dense Capital World systems, its coruscating red and purple blight on the sky becoming a harbinger of utter destruction to nearby worlds.

The Maelstrom travels slowly as it expands through empty space without anything to react with, but moves increasingly more rapidly as it reaches the star system and begins to react with the mass contained within. As the Maelstrom expands, it disrupts the flow of the cybel tunnels nearby, making them impassable to ships - cutting down the routes that people can escape from a system threatened by the Maelstrom and increasing the chances of armed conflict as factions fight for access to the choke point.

Maelstrom’s Edge is ultimately a wargame, and conflict between the factions is important to explain why the factions and armies are fighting each other in the battles we play on the tabletop. One of our driving motivations for creating a universe with a central narrative like the Maelstrom is that the factions are forced into difficult decisions to survive. Without such a threat, rebels that invade a spaceport and steal its ships might be considered callous and evil. But if the ships are being hoarded by their corporate owners and taking them by force is the only way that the revolutionaries might survive, suddenly the morals of the situation become a lot murkier. The way the Maelstrom causes strife and friction is great for writing compelling fiction, but also explains why the armies people have spent their time collecting and painting are fighting each other – even if they belong to the same faction!

Worlds close to the Maelstrom are attractive targets for resources, but being in the system is a huge risk, as the closer the Maelstrom gets, the more supply lines are destroyed as the dark energy ruptures out of the cybel tunnels, leaving only a handful of routes back out, usually near to the planet or other gravitational large object furthest from the Maelstrom's presence. The Maelstrom can also disrupt the energy of stars, causing supernovae for those unlucky enough to still be there when it happens...



As the cybel network is destroyed by the Maelstrom, the cybel tunnels shift and re-align, making even stable routes far away from the Edge unpredictable. Some tunnels break, dumping ships into deep space. Some are twisted, forming spirals which are virtually impossible to navigate. Other routes become erratic in size, requiring more energy and blind luck to get through them. Some tunnels are made unstable from the proximity of the Maelstrom, causing violent storms of cybel energy to arc along the tunnel, destroying ships unlucky enough to be caught in them. Travel between worlds which would normally take days or weeks can now take months or years, navigating through multiple smaller tunnels instead of one large tunnel.

This slowing of transport and disruption of communication was a deliberate move on our part – we didn’t want to make it easy for people to get away from the Maelstrom, as that removes all the threat. By making space travel hard and expensive, it creates a situation where people have the hope to survive, but only if they work hard to get offworld. The Edge is not a death sentence, and for some it’s an opportunity, but it’s a struggle. We think that makes a compelling setting with lots of great stories we can tell.

Travellers near the Maelstrom's Edge can no longer simply journey hundreds of light years in one jump like they once did. Ships wait at each node, studying the latest Guild map to satisfy themselves that the next step isn't going to get them killed. Some get stranded, their ship unsuited to making the next jump, leaving them stuck in a star system they never hoped to visit, or having to take another more tortuous route now their original option is no longer possible. These delays and inefficiencies make keeping ahead of the Edge difficult at best.



One of the balancing acts we had to make when designing the universe was to make the Maelstrom a credible threat, one that would force the people and factions at the Edge to make difficult decisions. However, the galaxy is a big place - around 100,000 light years across. Something travelling at slower-than light speeds will take far too long to become dangerous to the next star. It's the interaction the Maelstrom has with the cybel tunnels that makes it so dangerous and unpredictable.

When the Maelstrom bursts open a cybel tunnel into real space, it's extremely dangerous to anything nearby, but its progress through open space is slow (compared to FTL travel through the cybel tunnels) and predictable. Planets can see the purple stain spreading across the sky and know roughly how long they have until it reaches them. Some use this an opportunity – visiting doomed worlds to search for treasure left behind, or extracting rare metals from moons and asteroids in the path of destruction.

However, if the Maelstrom infects a new Cybel tunnel leading off to another star, all bets are off. The maelstrom converts the normal Cybel energy into a much more aggressive form that races down the tunnel to the mass at the other end, traversing lightyears of realspace in weeks or months. If a cybel gate on the far side is open, an explosive reaction occurs. If there's no open gate, the Maelstrom beats on the closed tunnel, weakening the tunnel until finally it breaks through, wreaking destruction and spreading the Maelstrom further.

What remains of mankind is trapped between the Maelstrom’s Edge and the rim-ward tip of the Spiral Arm. With mankind restricted to travelling between stars, the gulf between galactic arms is untraversable. The only direction to go is rim-wards, away from certain death into an uncertain future. It’s not all doom and gloom – there are many worlds still hundreds of lightyears from the Edge unaffected by the disaster. Further towards the rim of the galaxy are entire civilisations of alien and human cultures that trade, invent new technology, terraform worlds and live their lives as it used to be, but as refugees the Maelstrom begin to arrive, the inhabitants of these worlds too begin to look over their shoulders at what’s to come.

I am seeing an inconsistency in your background, I will be picky, but it's for your benefit because you might amend a word of a line or two here or there to clarfy what you mean before the inconsistency compounds itself.

Some fluff says the Maelstrom originated from the "heart of the galaxy".

The Maelstrom, a gigantic apocalyptic explosion of dark energy, is rapidly expanding out from the heart of the galaxy, destroying everything it touches.

Some fluff says the Maelstrom originated from the "Capital Worlds":

When the Maelstrom erupted from humanity’s Capital Worlds a millennium ago,

1. Now the Capital Worlds and the centre of the galaxy may be one and the same, inconsistency over. But in this case why aren't the Capital Worlds centred around Sol?
Are the Capital Worlds not the human empire. The below indicates the Capital Worlds are a human sphere:

As the cybel network grew out from the Capital Worlds, contact was made with some of these splinter groups of humanity

2. Also as the fluff implies that humanity is trapped down the spiral arm, suggests the Maelstrom is not central.
'Heart of the galaxy' may have a poetic meaning, to a human centred audience, implying the Maelstrom orginated from human space.



3. But you provide evidence to suggest the heart of the galaxy is the core also.

Heart of the galaxy of itself implies the centre of the galaxy. But also:

After this initial frenzy, the expansion of the Maelstrom slowed to a fraction of its initial speed as it left the matter dense Capital World systems,

Why would a human civilisation be 'matter dense'? Having cities and thriving economies rather than badlands wouldn't make much difference, if any at all, to the amount of matter to consume in a solar system. and the Maelstrom appears to be fueled by hard matter, so the mass of stellar and planetary objects matter more than the comparatively insignificant mass of the civilisations upon them, even if the engineered to way beyond Imperium of Man levels.
However in the galactic core stars are much closer together, and there is the central galactic black hole, which will be very big and logically provides the cosmic fuel for your Maelstrom.

Hi Orlanth,

thank you for your questions, after so long working on Maelstrom's Edge it's very exciting to see people spending time looking at all the work we've done.

We thought long and hard about the language use of that exact passage to try and avoid exactly what you're talking about. We do have plans for some galactic maps and timelines to better explain this worldbuilding in the future.

 Orlanth wrote:
1. Now the Capital Worlds and the centre of the galaxy may be one and the same, inconsistency over. But in this case why aren't the Capital Worlds centred around Sol?
Are the Capital Worlds not the human empire. The below indicates the Capital Worlds are a human sphere:

As the cybel network grew out from the Capital Worlds, contact was made with some of these splinter groups of humanity

The Capital Worlds are at the centre of the galaxy, or at least a lot closer to the Galaxy's core than where the Maelstrom's Edge is now, in the current setting. Maelstrom's Edge is set many many thousands of years into the future, and many of the worlds near humanity's original homeworld have long since been abandoned as their environments foundered and their resources were used up, and past wars have destroyed many planets in that region as well.

The Capital Worlds were founded by civilisations around the time of the discovery of the cybel network. The stars near the core of the galaxy are closer together on average, and there are more larger mass objects like supergiants and black holes. Because the size and stability of a cybel tunnel is linked to the mass of the object the cybel tunnel is attracted to, the star systems closer to the galaxy's core had more interlinking connections, larger tunnels that allowed ships to travel faster and more easily between the Capital Worlds. The advantage of better cybel connections between worlds made these planets and civilisations economic powerhouses, able to trade resources more easily and also being more connected on an information level (as information that doesn't pass through the cybel network is limited by the speed of light, so transporting information via cybel tunnels is much faster).

The advantages the Capital Worlds had contributed to the decline of the original homeworlds of humanity and made them the centre for many civilisations and economies. The Epirian Foundation had its headquarters in the Capital Worlds, and rich systems like the Artarian worlds used their close proximity to develop better technology and culture. The ships of the Comm Guild travelled outwards from the Capital Worlds, spreading advances from the better connected planets, but the further from the galaxy's core, the slower information and resources moved.

Of course, although the connectedness and proximity of the Capital Worlds was the reason they superseded Sol and other original diaspora worlds in power and influence, but when the Maelstrom arrived, it was also their downfall. The cybel tunnels were much closer together, and the Maelstrom travelled faster down these routes, destroying many of the Capital Worlds before anyone had a chance to escape. The Epirian Foundation's headquarters were lost, destroying the fragile balance between the different corporate franchises, which now compete for control of what's left of the Foundation's worlds and technology. The Artarian worlds barely got away, creating vast ships to escape and becoming what is now known as the Remnant Fleet.

The Maelstrom has slowed as it moves into the less dense regions away from the galaxy's core, and at the time the game is set the Edge is somewhere between the Capital Worlds and the original homeworlds of humanity.

I hope that helps explain the way our background has been developed and we welcome more questions!

Ok, thanks for that. Still seeing the wording as confusing here are some quotes to look at. I read all three fluff documents you see and something was niggling at the back of my mind after doing so.

When the Maelstrom erupted from humanity’s Capital Worlds a millennium ago,

So humans took over the galactic core?

It ripped apart the centre of humanity, destroying worlds in instants and leaving no time for escape.

Centre of humanity again. So there was a vast migration of most of humanity coreward in 'ancient history'.

For millennia before this catastrophe, humanity spread across the galaxy at sub-light speed, painstakingly eking out an existence in space and on barely habitable worlds.

It would need a LOT of millenia to get to near the core at sublight. Is this Warhamper 400000K?


Yet the cybel network was first discovered in the core, and taken outwards to find splinter groups of humanity. Meaning thev first exploration wave of sublight humans.
Therefore the cybel network discovery was alien, and humans traded for, captured, were given, or stole FTL tech.
Yet:

humankind finally discovered how to use these threads of energy--named cybel energy in our universe--as galactic shortcuts.

Implies humans developed it ourselves. I can see how we can 'discover' an alien derelict or trade ship.

Yet humans managed to get to the core and take over or share in their planets? Was this a case of so many star systems everyone can have as many as they liked? However

As the cybel network grew out from the Capital Worlds, contact was made with some of these splinter groups of humanity--or the remnants of their societies in some cases--and uneasy alliances were formed.

Implies that contact was not universally friendly and that even in plenty factions would compete. If the core was too bountiful to be hoarded by any one faction (not at all unlikely allowing for the vast number of stars there), why were the alliances uneasy?
That implies some sort of expansion struggle to get over.
And if there was an expansion struggle what did the aliens who developed FTL ahead of us have to say about it.



Its clearer than it was, but your fluff does still imply humans developed FTL technology within the human sphere and that exploded in purple energy.
Wheras it appears you mean to say. Humans drifting in space got FTL tech from alien contact, traveled to the galactic core and were allowed to or were strong enough to develop a society there in one or more higher tech civilisations backyard. Then came purple energy.

Then again this:

Of course, the generation ships that had set off for other stars had all been lost to the sands of time. The stellar distances were simply too vast, the timespans and technical challenges of communicating across interstellar space, too great. What happened to these early spacefarers is largely unknown. As the cybel network grew out from the Capital Worlds, contact was made with some of these splinter groups of humanity--or the remnants of their societies in some cases--and uneasy alliances were formed.

Implies that humans developed FTL then contacted the scattered remnants. Whereas core developed alien FTL would reach the remnants first then aliens/remnants contact the rest of humanity. Your language doesn't contradict that, but it is misleading, the choice of the word 'remnants' implies they are the last people to get connected, rather than the first. Yes remnant therefore means literally remnants of earliest furthest outward colonies, but that is also unclear from context.

The cybel network is a natural phenomenon that is present between all objects of large mass, and humanity discovered a way to access these FTL tunnels after millenia of sublight expansion. They weren't already at the galaxy's core when they made this discovery - the expansion coreward came later.

There was no alien involvement, and no precursor technology that enabled the discovery - in fact, the cybel network was first discovered when a scientific probe studying a star's corona accidentally opened a gate into the cybel network. It was only decades later when the communications from the probe, now a dozen light years away, were picked up, that humanity realised what that such a thing was possible, and the development of the cybel network sprung out of that chance finding.

The move of humanity closer to the galaxy's core came after the discovery of the cybel network. Previously it had taken hundreds of years to travel between worlds, but now ships could move between stars in a few days or weeks. It's for this reason that the Capital Worlds settled near the galaxy's centre after the cybel network was discovered became so important and powerful so quickly - they were located along the biggest tributaries of the cybel network, and this fuelled their influence in interstellar trade and commerce.

We have a lot of background material that we've not yet shared, and we understand that we may not have fully explained every aspect of our universe in detail just yet. But we have thought about these things, and we hope that as we release more material you'll find the history of Maelstrom's Edge interesting.

 Spiral Arm Studios wrote:
The cybel network is a natural phenomenon that is present between all objects of large mass, and humanity discovered a way to access these FTL tunnels after millenia of sublight expansion. They weren't already at the galaxy's core when they made this discovery - the expansion coreward came later.

There was no alien involvement, and no precursor technology that enabled the discovery - in fact, the cybel network was first discovered when a scientific probe studying a star's corona accidentally opened a gate into the cybel network. It was only decades later when the communications from the probe, now a dozen light years away, were picked up, that humanity realised what that such a thing was possible, and the development of the cybel network sprung out of that chance finding.

The move of humanity closer to the galaxy's core came after the discovery of the cybel network. Previously it had taken hundreds of years to travel between worlds, but now ships could move between stars in a few days or weeks. It's for this reason that the Capital Worlds settled near the galaxy's centre after the cybel network was discovered became so important and powerful so quickly - they were located along the biggest tributaries of the cybel network, and this fuelled their influence in interstellar trade and commerce.

We have a lot of background material that we've not yet shared, and we understand that we may not have fully explained every aspect of our universe in detail just yet. But we have thought about these things, and we hope that as we release more material you'll find the history of Maelstrom's Edge interesting.

Thank you for the explanation. So we have found our inconsistency. This bit is plain wrong:

As the cybel network grew out from the Capital Worlds, contact was made with some of these splinter groups of humanity

The humans were not in the Capital Worlds when they discovered how to use the cybel network. The above sentence strongly implies they were.

The sentence might mean the cybel network is a web centered on the galactic core, and human splinter groups discovered how to use it. If so those two facts need separating. Alternately the sentence might better mean, the human charted cybel network grew out from the remnant colonies towards the galactic core, where they branched out strongly into local space and became increasingly attractive as the transport hub for humanity. However that isn't what the wording says.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I should add, I am not trying to score points here, just pointing something out for you before the fluff is set in stone.

Though its a good time to remind you of the old joke about Star Trek.
Space-time anomalies are caused by holes in the plot.

Will you eventually release a fluff bible or background codex?

Orlanth wrote:

Thank you for the explanation. So we have found our inconsistency. This bit is plain wrong:

As the cybel network grew out from the Capital Worlds, contact was made with some of these splinter groups of humanity

The humans were not in the Capital Worlds when they discovered how to use the cybel network. The above sentence strongly implies they were.

The sentence might mean the cybel network is a web centered on the galactic core, and human splinter groups discovered how to use it. If so those two facts need separating. Alternately the sentence might better mean, the human charted cybel network grew out from the remnant colonies towards the galactic core, where they branched out strongly into local space and became increasingly attractive as the transport hub for humanity. However that isn't what the wording says.

I should add, I am not trying to score points here, just pointing something out for you before the fluff is set in stone.

Though its a good time to remind you of the old joke about Star Trek.
Space-time anomalies are caused by holes in the plot.

That's a good catch, that sentence is misleading and we will make the changes to the documents. We can't change the Kickstarter Update texts retroactively, but we'll make sure the distinction of where the cybel network was discovered and how the Capital Worlds were colonised is made clearer in future. Thank you for the input, beta testing of the fluff material is just as key as for the rules!

BobtheInquisitor wrote:Will you eventually release a fluff bible or background codex?

The rulebook in the box set will contain a lot of background material and art. Further down the line we'd love to delve deeper into the lore, but book printing is expensive so we won't have a standalone background text in the initial launch - hopefully one day if things go well!

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Will you eventually release a fluff bible or background codex?

I would also like to see one of these. Novels are all well and good but sometimes I want a to read about the background setting as opposed to a story.

EDIT: ninja'd!

Tibbsy wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Will you eventually release a fluff bible or background codex?

I would also like to see one of these. Novels are all well and good but sometimes I want a to read about the background setting as opposed to a story.

EDIT: ninja'd!

I'll third this. Bonus points if it's a pen-and-paper RPG sourcebook

We have most of the content in a place where it needs to be to do such a thing, but the focus is on the tabletop game first before we explore such options - much easier to do once we have finalised logistics channels. Thanks for the eagerness and vote of confidence though!

Honestly, I think the setting lends itself far more to RPGs and massive campaigns than to casual wargaming. My first reaction to the setting was to think it would make for a great novel series, but that it didn't make me want to play pew-pews.



To be fair, the stories The Hunter and The Scarecrow really helped to bring home the setting as a place where interesting people in exciting factions shoot the hell out of each other. Nicely done.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Honestly, I think the setting lends itself far more to RPGs and massive campaigns than to casual wargaming. My first reaction to the setting was to think it would make for a great novel series, but that it didn't make me want to play pew-pews.
To be fair, the stories The Hunter and The Scarecrow really helped to bring home the setting as a place where interesting people in exciting factions shoot the hell out of each other. Nicely done.

It is best as a background for fiction.
It is good as a miniatures wargaming background as it has an in built rational for in faction bloodshed.
It is also good for strategic wargaming, wither boardgame or computer game due to the race against the clock aquisition element. You could make a very nice boardgame out of this, with a boardmap of a planetary scale engagement and victory conditions depending on what to evacuate
Its not so good for RPG's, generally each person on the Edge will have one experience with it. If they find ways offworld they will likely travel a long way before stopping. If they don't, well.....

Is there any discussion of the rules that I can read? I can't find any.

BobtheInquisitor wrote:Honestly, I think the setting lends itself far more to RPGs and massive campaigns than to casual wargaming. My first reaction to the setting was to think it would make for a great novel series, but that it didn't make me want to play pew-pews.

What makes you say that?

Nomeny wrote:Is there any discussion of the rules that I can read? I can't find any.

Do you mean a discussion about the rules, or do you want a look at the rules that have been released? It's all up on the maelstrom's edge website, rules section on the top navigation bar.

I mean a discussion about the rules.

I haven't seen any discussion either, probably best to wait until the "Beta" release is available for backers

We are just wrapping a few more things up and then we'll rename this forum and start a whole bunch of new threads for discussion of the various elements of Maelstrom's Edge here. Thanks for your patience

 Jambles wrote:

BobtheInquisitor wrote:Honestly, I think the setting lends itself far more to RPGs and massive campaigns than to casual wargaming. My first reaction to the setting was to think it would make for a great novel series, but that it didn't make me want to play pew-pews.

What makes you say that?

r.

I say it because it seems like the defining feature of the universe is two degrees removed from the action. Everything about the Maelstrom is described on a scale that works more for Space Opera than for tabletop skirmishes: dead planets, fleeing populations, resource wars, lawlessness, ftl explosions, apocalyptic cults, science beyond understanding. The first degree from the core event of the setting, the maelstrom, will be the ways different factions form and react in response to the Maelstrom. There is a wealth of potential there for all kinds of stories, from the very personal to the swashbuckling adventure, scientific endeavor to humanitarian drama. Then, built upon that first reaction, you have secondary reactions, like how the various factions interact, compete for resources, fight out of conflicting motivations, control the populace, etc..




Automatically Appended Next Post:
some of the more recent stories have done a good job establishing the skirmish-scale elements of the game, though. The Hunter really helps to get into an Epirian mood, and the combat scenes do a good job convincing me I need some drones to play pew-pews. So, as they expand the fluff, that shouldn't be a factor.

I actually have a question about Maelstrom's Edge, Where is it going to go is it just going to be a small skirmish game or are you planning to develop it into something like Warhammer 40k?



Cheers, C66

 Cobra66 wrote:
I actually have a question about Maelstrom's Edge, Where is it going to go is it just going to be a small skirmish game or are you planning to develop it into something like Warhammer 40k?



Cheers, C66

As it stands now, the game is definitely a squad-based game, not pure skirmish, but with only smaller-sized squads. The rules are targeted to be ganular enough to play with only a smallish force (20-40 models) on purpose. That's the size of game we are looking to make.

The goal is to make that the best game possible, similar to the way Warmahordes stays foucsed on about that model count. If you wanted to play a true 'army scale' squad-based game with the Maelstrom rules, it would probably take quite a while to complete, and not be the very best game experience at that level.

So in short, we are not looking to replace something like 40K with Medge...we are aiming for a smaller model-count experience, and that's where we plan to stay for the foreseeable future. I know for some people that statement will be a turn-off, while for others, it is exactly what they're hoping to hear.

Any news on the progress for those who don't do Kickstarter?

Everything remains on track, though updates are centralised to the kickstarter at the moment, with the most recent one publicly viewable here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/medge/maelstroms-edge-a-next-gen-sci-fi-miniatures-warga/posts/1288180

One of the things you can do in the game, if you dont already is provide rational for factional warfare.

If Space Wolves fight Ultramarines it doesn't make much sense and frankly would be a huge waste of extremely precious resources. Honour deules and simulations aside.

'It's a sim' is always an excuse for blue vs blue lineups but Maelstroms Edge due to its background has its own. It might be worthwhile to list some in the fluff so players get more immersion.

Here are the two I think miost likely.

Epiran vs Epiran is relatively straightforward, in the final months of a colonies life there may be more soldiers defending resources than ships to extract them. At the very end discipline can likely breakdown. Though this assumes that these battles occur in the final days of the planet.

Karist vs Karist. Somewhat more difficult but how about this one. I take it that Karists are taught to be believe to become part of the Maelstrom they need to be caught up in it while alive? Just being a corpse on the planet isnt necessarily enough. If this is so then perhaps one subfaction thinks the other heretical enough, probably for hidden political motives, that they should be killed off so that they wont pollute the Maelstrom when it arrives.
You can kill heretics anyway, its a staple for this type of faction infighting, but the background gives a level of urgency to killing off a rival faction, and a reason to be thorough. In most religions you can leave apostates alone to divine judgement, in the Karist religion someone who gets away and spreads a heretical Karist message could get into Karist heaven but reason of geography rather than spiritual health. Would Karists want to share afterlife with heretics? Hell no, so you need to wipe them out before the purple energy arrives.

I honestly find it a turn-off when the fluff bends too far to justify blue vs blue. AT-43 came off a bit cheesy Always dropping ominous hints of discord in every group of three or more people. Sometimes it is better just to say nothing and let the players decide if they care enough to invent a fluffy reason for in-fCtion warfare.

If it must be justified, I would prefer for it to be brief if the faction's disposition doesn't naturally lend itself to infighting. Maybe they can just mention shadowy groups of mercenaries or revolutionaries who use Karist clothing and armor for deniability, for example.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I honestly find it a turn-off when the fluff bends too far to justify blue vs blue.

I agree, the only time Gw attempted any rationalle was with Grey Knights, and they did a fairly extensive job, if not always successfully.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

AT-43 came off a bit cheesy Always dropping ominous hints of discord in every group of three or more people.

This is true.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Sometimes it is better just to say nothing and let the players decide if they care enough to invent a fluffy reason for in-fCtion warfare.

That is lazy as it adds an important void in the fluff. Take Battletech for instance, there are so many convoluted political agendas going on that fights break out, nevertheless in certain points on the timeline certain factions were at peace. While some of the cassus belli in Battletech went too far at least there was a form of consistency.
Saying nothing however is immersion breaking, why would Karist fight Karist, if good reasons can be given a list should be made. It would help to make a list of every faction as the game grows including the obvious. So you would also get an entry of Karists vs Epirian with some bullet points about why they fight. Just pick a reason from the bullet pointed list or make up your own.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

If it must be justified, I would prefer for it to be brief if the faction's disposition doesn't naturally lend itself to infighting.

Its armed factional conflict involving humans, infighting is always an option.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Maybe they can just mention shadowy groups of mercenaries or revolutionaries who use Karist clothing and armor for deniability, for example.

This could apply to anyone and could be listed under generic reasons for blue on blue, alongside simulator training.

I would prefer for all Karist vs Karist fighting to be unfluffy than for it to end up like Battletech. Just not something I enjoy. I do not agree that the fluff needs to provide a framework for every possible game pairing. "It's a Sim." Is superior in m view to the kinds of contortions and unnecessary grimdarkening necessary to make every pair of factions viable enemies no matter their location, strength or psychology.

However, since MEdge has not released most of its background, I have no idea if they have seamlessly covered all their bases or not. If it's done well, then I won't have any complaints.

Thanks for the comments.

Blue on blue fights is something I was passionate about justifying in the background. It always frustrated me that many 40k games I used to play would be imperium vs imperium, which is not something that logically makes sense. But then when such battles (such as Grey Knights vs Blood Angels, for instance) were described in the Codexes, they felt completely out of whack with the setting and character of the factions.

The Maelstrom's Edge setting is a natural fit for blue-on-blue combat, due to the nature of the way interstellar travel works, and the disruption caused by the Maelstrom itself. Even before the Maelstrom erupted, travel was fairly slow by SF standards - jumps between cybel gates are a few days or weeks, but journeys from the gates (usually around stars or gas giants) to inhabited planets are limited by non-relativistic speeds.

As a result, although there are organisations that stretch across large portions of the galaxy, they aren't centrally run in the same way that say the Imperium is in 40k. The Epirian Foundation for instance, allowed their employees to set up semi-independent franchises to explore new regions of space for resource exploitation and colonisation. The central Foundation would send trustees to oversee the operations and ensure they followed Epirian procedure, but mainly franchises were allowed to expand and compete on their own merits.

With the Maelstrom disrupting trade routes and closing links between planets, coordinating that kind of operation has become exponentially harder, and with the destruction of the Foundation's central HQ, franchises are essentially completely independent. As a result, it's not unheard of for Contractors from say, the Forthrast Syndicate to be forced into a standoff with an Araldyne robot defence over a key staging post, or for groups of freelance SecDef forces employed by rich entrepreneurs to fight over the spoils of an abandoned planet in its dying hours before the Maelstrom reaches it.

In other factions, we've tried to include similar schisms and differences in viewpoint so that blue-on-blue battles are plausible (and allow for fun stories and missions). The Broken are a loose organisation of rebels, pirates and other bands of survivors, and infighting and competition is rife. The noble houses of the Remnant Fleet prefer not to fight each other directly, but their handpicked sponsored teams of Champions have been known to fight proxy battles to settle disputes.

The Karist Enclave is more unified than the others in many ways, bound by their belief in ascension and the need to show others in the galaxy the truth of the Maelstrom. But like many religions, differences in how to practice and spread those beliefs have occurred, and so infighting does sometimes happen - in the novels for instance, the Karist military leaders disagree with the priesthood on methodology of converting Zycanthus. Although in this case, it doesn't come to violence, there are a few different interpretations of exactly what the Fourteen prophets that founded the Enclave actually meant by their teachings.

I'm currently finalising the fluff content for the rulebook, before it's sent for formatting and printing - things are progressing to get everything into the hands of our backers. i look forward to more of these conversations when the book is in people's hands!

Thanks for replying. The remnant fleet sounds I teresting already. Epirians seem a natural faction for blue vs blue, and I bet there will be a lot of room for stories there. Without knowing a lot more about Karist theology, I remain unconvinced. To me, it sounds a lot like the old 40k IG chestnut of "local leader is crazy," which hardly needs much rule book fluff space devoted to it.

While you're here, I'd like to ask a couple questions.

1. Any plans to release transcripts of the audiobooks?

2. Where the paper books at?

I think the main philosophy I have in my writing is that getting people to agree 100% on anything is all but impossible, but that conflict is what makes for good storytelling. Hopefully people like the way we address it.

On your questions, all our short stories, including the audiobook texts, will be collected into anthologies of stories, including those by our guest authors (the ones we've received so far kick ass). These will be ebooks only I expect as the market for hard copies of short storie collections is quite small.

We've nearly finished sorting the logistics for selling the hard copies of the novels (boring stuff like ISBNs, warehousing, etc), they should be available in a month or so. Our biggest priority at the moment is getting all the box set content done so we can deliver on time, but we know that people are wanting the paperbacks so we're pushing hard on getting the last few details of shipping, etc over the line.