NEW TO UNIVERSAL CENTURY 3000?

This section is designed to give you an easy to digest introduction to the Universal Century 3000 campaign setting. It will explain the world, outline the style of play that will take place and give you enough of a functional understanding of the world to begin play without having to read all the other sections if you don't want to.

Universal Century 3000 is almost always abbreviated on this site as UC3k. It's easier to type and it's also easier in conversation. It's pronounced "you-see-three-kay", like a Star Wars droid name.

The setting of UC3K is a post war Earth and the surrounding orbital space. World wars III through V have come and gone, causing much of the political landscape we're familiar with as 20th century Americans to be gone. America has actually split into two separate political entities

due to losses to the USSR. The southern states formed Imperial Americana, a right wing republic with a conservative desire to return to the days when the USA was a world superpower. The former northern states, nervous of the Soviet-annexed Canadian lands of the USSR to the north and the aggressive Empire to the south allied themselves with the USSR, forming the left wing US-Soviet Alliance (USSA).

China didn't fare especially well either, though Japan managed to pull-through with their civilization largely intact. Much of Europe and America is a devastated wasteland called "Badside" in modern parlance. In fact, 70% of the Earths surface is "Badside" with the accompanying roving, nomadic gangs of scavenger warlords, who replace the "Nomad" role of standard Cyberpunk 2020 (more on that to follow).

The destruction of so much of the Earth's surface isn't as devastating to the human race as you might expect. During and prior to these World Wars, an ambitious space colonization program was created to answer to the problems of severe overpopulation which were later made irrelevant by the depopulation associated with large-scale warfare. However, Near Earth orbit literally teems with billions of humans in enormous O'neil cylinder colonies. Which are actually much more pleasant to live in than many parts of the Earth.

So the world is made up like this: Blasted badlands ruled by roadwarriors, remnants of 20th century countries trying to rebuild and claim a place in the new world order. Newly arisen superpowers such as Olympus with A.E.G.I.S., the Earth Federation central management bureau. And the new supercorporation called POSEIDON (which is intricately linked with Japan). Poseidon is so large and powerful a company that it has more real power than many countries. It holds this position due to it's magnificently advanced technology and close relationship with Olympus. Poseidon makes it possible for Olympus to be the technological superpower that it is. In fact, Olympus rules the planet Earth. Not through military intervention and might of arms, but rather through it's effort to keep world peace and provide extensive reconstruction assistance. It is a utopian structure with utopian goals, it sees the present conflict with the Principality of Near Earth Orbitals as an unwelcome distraction from it's true task of rebuilding the Earth.

The Principality of Near Earth Orbitals are a coalition of many of the orbital colonies that seek independence from Earth rule. They are in some ways a parallel to America in it's war for independence from the British and in some ways comparable to Nazis from World War 2. They are swept up in an ideological war against the Earth that makes them willing to exterminate human life on the surface if necessary and they have committed such atrocities in their zeal and taken over such a large portion of the planet's surface that the Earth Federation cannot cease their counter-insurgency.

Your character in this story will be fighting to reclaim the Earth from the Space-born aggressors. The Earth Federation is willing to relinquish control of the Space Colonies at this point but only if a complete policy of withdrawal and non-aggression is agreed to by the Orbitals. Which they will not agree to due to their ideology of "Ereism", a belief that the Earth is sacred and should be free of Humanity to return to it's natural state. Olympus is largely eco-topian as well and agrees that vast portions of Badside need to be restored but take umbrage at te idea that humanity is not a natural part of the Earth's biosphere. The Orbital's belief in "Sideism" which maintains that the space colonies are 'meant' to be free and independent is also a factor. These two ideologies merge in Karl Rothschilde's "Contolism", a socio-political ideology that allows the colonies carte blanch to commit atrocities galore when taken in the right light. And by right light I mean the light in which it is seen by ranking NEO officers. Most notably. Captain Vorstagg. The NEO have already committed the mass genocide of billions of human lives. At this point, as far as your characters are concerned, any means are now necessary and permissible to repel the threat. So have fun and LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR!

Now that the setting is established, that brings us to an important aspect of UC3K which is massive restructuring of the standard Roles of Cyberpunk 2020. There is only room for war inUC3K. Hence Corporates, Medias, Rockerboys and Fixers are relegated to NPC status. The only corporates you're ever likely to encounter are agents of POSEIDON. The media is alost entirely net-based and requires no live reporters or talking head anchors. Professional musicians can only exist in a civilized environment and thus will rarely interact with your professional soldier characters, and Fixers are simply black market racketeers operating in developing nations where you may encounter them as arms-dealers or agents of the various Earth insurgencies that you may fight along. But they will play little part in your life as the military provides you with everything you need. Netrunners are so rare as to be irrelevant in the UC3K setting. They are replaced by the Role of Liason Officer, a kind of fixer/netrunner that acts as a go-between for you and the high command.

So that leaves Cops, who are now ESWAT, Solos who are now Soldiers, and Nomads who are now Badsiders.

That's what you play.

And, no matter which of these you play, you're STILL in the military! Because UC3K is a game of soldiers in the great war for the future of humanity. That means that in return for 3 square meals a day, free room and board, cybernetic upkeep and replacement and all the bullets you can shoot, you get commanding officers, rules of engagement, lack of supplies, constant exposure to murderous enemies and a severe lack of proximity to the ladies.

Here's another change to the classic cyberpunk milieu...races. There are actually more than just humans to be played in UC3K. You can also play an ESPer, a human, but an evolved human with psychic powers due to exposure to zero-gravity and space radiations. A Bioroid, a genetically engineered psuedo-human with an artificially long lifespan/ And a Neko, a genetically engineered cat-person optimally designed to survive the rigors of Badside. Nekos are related to Bioroids but they have normal lifespans and can reproduce. One might consider full-conversion cyborgs another race as they do have very long lifespans, barring accident, but they are just mechanized humans.