[Shaira]

I think one of the issues with SF roleplaying is simply that the future ain't what it used to be. To future proof what you're writing beyond a few years you have to think *very big* indeed, otherwise you end up producing rules or settings that contain retro elements and you have the "alternate history" klooge to enable it (kind of like starting up a Twilight 2000 or Traveller OTU campaign now. My phone outsmarts a Model 2/bis every time...). The only SF writer I can think of from more than 50 years back who isn't riddled with anachronism is Cordwainer Smith, and his marvellousness mostly holds together from placing little emphasis on chrome and more on societal and psychological future development. Dune, although younger, is another prime candidate for still holding water - and for similar reasons.

Does anyone remember Alternity? Tried to be a universal set of SF rules, IMHO ended up spreading itself so thin you had to rewrite most of the rules for your own setting (unless playing space opera). The conclusion I would draw from Alternity is that to get a usable set of SF rules, you more or less have to pin down the setting first (even though you can gloss over the fact by using generic names like "Space Opera", "Traditional SF RPG", "Super-tech", "Transhuman", whatever).

So, when we sit here discussing SF rules for BRP, maybe we're talking about (at least) 3 different things:
i.) Space Opera, Traveller-type stuff.
ii.) Hard SF - 2300, Aliens-type stuff
iii.) "Predict the amazing future and blow your mind" type stuff (a la Ian Banks, Cordwainer Smith, Stephen Baxter, Peter Hamilton, etc).

Here's my take on it:

1.) BRP could easily be expanded to incorporate Hard SF chrome. Vehicle-design rules, laser & particle weapons, space travel & manoeuvre rules, planetary & star-system design, all extrapolated from what we currently know and our current understanding of physics and tech. This would fill out one area of the BRP "hard rules" which would be very usable.
2.) Doing the above would satisfy gearheads and provide a rules basis for the type i and ii SF styles above. For example, you could probably use the "hard SF rules" to fire up your Traveller game in BRP. Or more or less any other Hard Tech or Space Opera game.
3.) The Super-tech approach would need a loose set of assumptions to work from which would need to be predefined. You could use the Culture setting as the basis, or you could roll your own. You would then use that loose setting (sort of like the original OTU setting implied by the 3 LBBs in Classic Traveller - no real detail but heaps of assumptions) to fill out a set of rules - ie how intelligent starships work, what kind of geneering everyone can have, longevity effects, all that good stuff.

So, that looks like 2 projects to me. The first - a Worlds Beyond rewrite involving the best of Ringworld minus the setting (but with the "implied" setting), to cover the Space Opera / Hard Tech games - effectively a "rules expansion" for BRP. The second - a completely new beast Which Has Not Been Written Yet, which might use some of the rules from the SF Rules Expansion (ie planetary design, some vehicles, etc), but would ignore stuff like computer programming skills, in favour of its own background - ie effectively a "setting sourcebook".

How does that sound?

Cheers,

Sarah