The theme is based off a Sci Fi universe that Jarvis has been dreaming up for over 30 years at this point. Considering “Hard” sci-fi as being as strictly adherent to known scientific principals as possible, this is more of a “Firm” sci-fi setting; there is a deep technological and realistic basis for most things, but a few things (such as artificial gravity) are gently handwaved in to make the setting easier to play in.

Comparing the theme to well known Sci Fi franchises, the closest match is the 'modern' Battlestar Galactica series reboot. Many things work considerably differently from BSG, but that show has the correct “feel”. The Starship Troopers movie (NOT Book!) and Firefly/Serenity could also be pretty good analogs. In a moment, we will run down some sci-fi tropes and how the Space Fox MUCK (SFM) setting deals with them, but first a little bit more overview.

SFM follows the adventures of a single ship; the Legacy Flint-Vasa, or just the Legacy for short. It is a Legacy Ship which is basically a family operated ship intended to be passed down from one generation to the next. Players on the MUCK are, for the most part, crew on the Legacy; the Legacy is a “superfreighter” (think: container ship) capable of hauling incredible amounts of cargo and also passengers. Being an independent ship and not beholden to corporate interests, it operates mostly amongst the colonies and on the fringe, allowing the opportunity for many adventures.

Passengers enable the entropy of 'guest stars' that can show up and interact with the crew, then leave. While day to day life is something we encourage people to roleplay in order to do something every day, there will be 'story plots' on a weekly basis that people may partake in. The kinds of stories we want to tell are things like:

• Exploring interesting colony worlds
• Helping those in distress
• Encounters with the military
• Encounters with pirates or other ne'er do wells
• Scientific ventures of various kinds
• Ways the crew entertain themselves while under way
• Tending to passengers
• Exploring derelicts
• Encountering unknown circumstance and dealing with them
• Stow-aways / hazardous cargo
• Many, many more …

Here's a few common sci-fi tropes and how we handle (or don't handle) them.

• Star Trek Transporters: Don't exist
• Star Trek Replicators: Don't exist, but there are 3D-printers for food and other material which are common.
• Energy Weapons: May exist on military ships, no hand held ones
• Forcefields: Don't exist
• Artificial Gravity: Does exist, but can have some oddities. See the Settings Bible entry about it.
• Faster than light travel: There are multiple different methods, with different issues and side effects. Generally speaking, time dialation isn't a problem. See the FTL entry in the Settings Bible.
• Computers: quantum computers are common place. AI exists for a variety of things, but there are no (known) sentient computers or artificial life forms.
• Communications: long distance communication is awkward. No communications work while the ship is traveling FTL; long distance communications (i.e. communications requiring faster than light transmission for the message to get to its destination in a reasonable time) require a Comm Relay.

The ship is owned by Jaymie and Jarvis Flint, Maria “Ria” Flint (Jarvis' older sister), and Enkeli Vasa. Enkeli is a Space Boomer who was born and raised on a ship. Jaymie and Jarvis met Enkeli and fell in love with the lifestyle, and along with Jarvis' older sister who was able to secure major financing for the venture, they were able to purchase a new ship.

The Legacy Flint-Vasa is a superfreighter approximately 600 meters long, comprising of three major sections. The 'living space' which is the fore-most section; this is 6 decks and contains the bridge, crew accommodations, passenger accommodations, entertainment areas, food, shuttles, and so forth. Then there's the ship's spine; approximately 400 meters worth of the ship is the spine itself, and different “things” can hook onto the spine.

For instance, large pods containing cargo, labs, fabrication facilities, additional accommodations, or other such things may attach to the spine. Grids of cargo containers can be attached similar to a modern container ship. Or large 'bulk' items such as pieces of space station or huge industrial machinery can be affixed to the spine with the space equivalent of cargo straps.

Then in the aft, there are four decks in the engineering section where 4 large Ripple Drives power the ship's FTL capabilities along with a huge injection-fusion core generating enough power to run a large city.