Does the Starfinder setting look like this on a map?
The NS FT Milky Way Map
I wish I could post the actual picture here, but you can just go to the site and look at the map yourself. What it is, is a fictional map of the Milky Way Galaxy. Can we assume that the Starfinder Galaxy is a similar barred spiral on a similar scale? Is the setting galactic in scope?
1. probably not because EVERY SINGLE THING THERE is either trademarked/copyrighted, actually exists, or is from mythology. Also, where did you FIND that? I need this thing in my life xD
Actually exists is not really a problem, since that is not trademarked, it is just an example of a map of a galaxy. When it is galactic in scope, I don't have to bother with 3-D maps since on this scale the Galaxy is flat. I will tell you that it is hard to draw a 3-d star map of more than a hundred stars.
map of nearby stars
Here is an attempt to draw a map of nearby stars in three dimensions.
Nearby Stars
Here is another map which shows distances, but these are only capable o showing a few stars, if you want to draw a large scale map this doesn't work, the map becomes too crowded, and ever map drawn has to be shown from a specific point of view, some stars block other stars, and it becomes difficult to draw useful information from it, such as what is the distance between two particular stars on this map.
Nearest Stars
One can also list the stars like this, but as you can see, there are 53 of them. You can map locally or on the Galactic Scale and give up showing every particular star.
Yay for the graphics! mood setters if nothing else :)
It's unlikely that the Golarion system is in the Milky Way Galaxy.
In People of the Stars, reference is made to the Milk Spiral as one of the galaxies (among others named) that can be seen in Golarion's skies...
Although the name of the galaxy in which Golarion is found is not given, it is stated as not being the same as the Milk Spiral.
So...
Nice star maps!
Carry on!
--C.
<edit>
After re-reading the initial post, I realised that the question was not:
"Is the Starfinder Setting [=Golarion System etc.] in the Milky Way Galaxy(MWG)?"
but:
"Does the Starfinder Setting look like that of the picture of a ficitional MWG (i.e. is it galactic in scope)?".
...
Apologies.
Still. It has been said that, unless published otherwise, the norm for details like that should be assumed to be like that of Earth -- at least for Golarion (i.e. Pathfinder). However, it's a reasonable assumption to have for Starfinder - until we learn more from August onwards...
So. It is probable that the Starfinder/Pathfinder galaxy is similar to our own barred-spiral galaxy (i.e. the MWG).
As for whether Starfinder is galactic in scope or not: I don't think it's been stated officially. However, even if it's just limited to the Golarion system (What is the name of Golarion's sun?), that's still quite a large setting in & of itself.
We'll see come August if not sooner, I guess.
Well for my homebrew if nothing else, this Galactic Map has 20 letters A through T by 20 letters A through T. Our Sun is said to be halfway from the Galactic center and the Rim of the Galaxy, about 35,000 light years or thereabouts. Roughly this is 10,000 parsecs to the galactic center and 10,000 parsecs to the rim. (The rim doesn't end abruptly but attenuates to nothingness, we can arbitrarily set the rim at 10,000 parsecs. So for mapping conventions lets assume the Galaxy is 20,000 parsecs in radius. This map has four Quadrants labeled Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. The letter grid squares are sectors of the Galaxy, Each sector is a cube 2000 parsecs on a side. Each sector is further subdivided into 8000 cubic subsectors each one 100 parsecs on a side.
Thus we have a coordinate system to locate any object in the Galaxy:
0ABCDE123456
The first digit '0' is the galactic plane of the Galaxy, it is 2000 parsecs thick, normally it is '0', but it can be from -9 to 9 which is the number of sectors above or below the Galactic plane of the galaxy, normally the sectors other than '0' have nothing in them or very little, so they are of very little interest to Galactic cartographers.
The letters "A" and "B" in this example indicate the sector of the galaxy, then there is no number preceding it, it is presumed to be within the Galactic Plane and so therefore that number would be "0". The letters range from A through T representing the squares along the X-Y plane of the Galaxy, each cubic sector ranges from 1000 parsecs above the Galactic Plane to 1000 parsecs below it.
The Letters "C", "D", and "E" are part of the Subsector Code, Each Sector is divided into 8000 subsectors, Each Sector is 20 by 20 by 20 Subsectors which are labeled from A to T, though they don't show on this Galaxy scale map, a sector map may have them.
Each subsector is 100 parsecs on a side, they are cube shaped so the number of cubic parsecs within each is 1,000,000 ranging from 0 to 99 along each axis so 6 numerical digits locates each system to within a cubic parsec within a subsector, within a sector of the Galaxy.
That is the coordinate system I would use with this map. How do you like it?
The Galaxy is a spiral according to Children of the Void, and should still be if that piece of lore isn't changed.
Here is a Generic Map of the Galaxy I created for a homebrew Starfinder campaign, it is essentially a blank map that any GM can use to place his own worlds on.
Map of Galaxy
For calculating distance, these letters have these values
A = 0
B = 1
C = 2
D = 3
E = 4
F = 5
G = 6
H = 7
I = 8
J = 9
K = 10
L = 11
M = 12
N = 13
O = 14
P = 15
Q = 16
R = 17
S = 18
T = 19
The distance between any two squares/sectors is the Square Root of (Horizontal_Coordinate Squared + Vertical_Coordinate Squared)
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Something briefly mentioned in other threads that could make the galaxy very trippy would be "gap barriers" where light from the pre-gap era has been removed from existence and they are regions of information black out until the continuity gap is filled with new light and information from the post gap. In effect you couldnt FTL out 4 thousand light years and turn your super tech telescope back to the pact worlds to witness events because you would have crossed the Gap Barrier and would find yourself in a black void with no information to orient yourself and no idea what was around you. This barrier is constantly being pushed outward from Golarion and will eventually catch up to the edges of the universe but since no one can see past it from the inside no one knows how large the universe actually is and new systems are constantly popping up at the edges all the time.
It would be easier to print or draw the grid as a blank template using a convenient scale (0.5 inch or 1 cm per sector should suffice). Whatever the coordinates of star A and star B, find their approximate positions on the grid then use a ruler to measure the distance between.
You can resort to graph paper of any square size for a map. You could use a second sheet of the graph paper as a homemade ruler--fold the sheet in half lengthwise multiple times to make it a straightedge, then make and number your own tick-marks along the edge. In other words, make something similar to this, but without the added accordion-folding: http://guiltfreehomeschooling.org/?p=1221 (Be sure to include a '0' tick-mark so the count will not accidentally be off by one.)
World Types.
I'm going to go out on a limb here, but it seems t me that worlds can be categorized into the following types. This is not official, these are just my ideas on the matter that I would like to share.
Dwarf Worlds are worlds that are under 1000 miles (1600 kilometers in diameter. For determining size, I'd roll a 1d10*100]1d10*100 miles, where a '10' or a '0' counts as 0.
Small Worlds are worlds that range from 1000 and 4000 miles (1600 km to 6400 km) in diameter. For determining size, I'd roll a 1d4 * 1000 miles.
Medium Worlds are worlds that range from 5000 miles and 10,000 miles in diameter. For determining size, I'd roll a 1d6 * 1000 + 4000 miles.
Large Worlds are worlds that range from 11,000 miles and 18,000 miles in diameter. For determining size, I'd roll a 1d8 * 1000 + 10,000 miles.
And finally there are the Gas Giants, these range from 10,000 miles to 100,000 miles in diameter. There is some overlap here with large worlds, the difference being is that large worlds are mostly rock, while gas giants are mostly fluid, either gas or liquid. A special type of gas giant is the water giant, these are mostly made of water with a small rocky core in the center, some of these could be habitable on the surface if given the right atmosphere type. For determining side, I'd roll a 1d10 * 10,000 miles.
Torbyne wrote: Something briefly mentioned in other threads that could make the galaxy very trippy would be "gap barriers" where light from the pre-gap era has been removed from existence and they are regions of information black out until the continuity gap is filled with new light and information from the post gap. In effect you couldnt FTL out 4 thousand light years and turn your super tech telescope back to the pact worlds to witness events because you would have crossed the Gap Barrier and would find yourself in a black void with no information to orient yourself and no idea what was around you. This barrier is constantly being pushed outward from Golarion and will eventually catch up to the edges of the universe but since no one can see past it from the inside no one knows how large the universe actually is and new systems are constantly popping up at the edges all the time. Alternatively you can just let people find out what happened, assuming they even know the location of Golarion in the first place, what if they don't? What if its location was also erased along with information of what occurred during the gap, in that case, people would not know where to look, that star would be one among hundreds of billions, you would not know which star to get 4000 light years from, and it could be that people just don't perceive its existence, though it might still be there, that was the case of Earth in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. The location of Earth was erased from society's memory, but not from existence, it turned out that Earth was a radioactive cinder. There was a robot by the name of Daneel Orlov that resided on Earth's Moon and guarded this secret.
Tom Kalbfus wrote: Torbyne wrote: Something briefly mentioned in other threads that could make the galaxy very trippy would be "gap barriers" where light from the pre-gap era has been removed from existence and they are regions of information black out until the continuity gap is filled with new light and information from the post gap. In effect you couldnt FTL out 4 thousand light years and turn your super tech telescope back to the pact worlds to witness events because you would have crossed the Gap Barrier and would find yourself in a black void with no information to orient yourself and no idea what was around you. This barrier is constantly being pushed outward from Golarion and will eventually catch up to the edges of the universe but since no one can see past it from the inside no one knows how large the universe actually is and new systems are constantly popping up at the edges all the time. Alternatively you can just let people find out what happened, assuming they even know the location of Golarion in the first place, what if they don't? What if its location was also erased along with information of what occurred during the gap, in that case, people would not know where to look, that star would be one among hundreds of billions, you would not know which star to get 4000 light years from, and it could be that people just don't perceive its existence, though it might still be there, that was the case of Earth in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. The location of Earth was erased from society's memory, but not from existence, it turned out that Earth was a radioactive cinder. There was a robot by the name of Daneel Orlov that resided on Earth's Moon and guarded this secret. Well i am assuming that the Gap and disappearance of Golarion are long term mysteries that the Devs want to keep going so there should be something in the setting that prevents an easy out for PCs to just look back and be all like, "oh, it was a god with a giant burlap sack with a dollar sign on it and they just grabbed it. huh." From what has been revealed so far people seem to know Golarion used to exist and have asked questions and are actively working on finding out what happened so you'd think there would be something to make that harder.
In Asimov's setting didnt humanity spread out across the galaxy to teh point that no one even lived in the Sol system anymore? I think it is a great setting but that is a very different set up than what is being presented in Starfinder and i dont think it would work as well there.
Well the question is do people know where in the Galaxy that Golarion used to be? If they don't, then whether Golarion still exists or not is academic, because no one can find it! They might have memory of it before the gap, but they might not know where it is. Also does a Pathfinder fighter or wizard just go to bed one night and wake up in a spacesuit or a spaceship and not know what happened in between? So its not that the just wake up in a new setting with a whole bunch of new skills and character classes that they don't know how they acquired. Its not like they were suddenly shifted into the future in other words.
You ever see the show, Once Upon a Time? Is Starfinder like Futuristic Galaxy spanning Storybrooke? with a bunch of characters with fake memories to cover up the real memories that were erased?
Once Upon a Time
Wikipedia wrote: Once Upon a Time is an American fairy tale television series that premiered on October 23, 2011, on ABC. The show takes place in the fictional seaside town of Storybrooke, Maine, whose residents are characters from various fairy tales transported to the "real world" town and robbed of their real memories by a powerful curse. Episodes typically feature a primary storyline in Storybrooke, as well as a secondary storyline from another point in a character's life before the curse was enacted. The show airs Sundays at 8:00 pm ET/7:00 pm CT.[2]
I am familiar with that show but from what we know of the setting that doesnt fit. In the Starfinder setting people know that the Gap exists, the Starfinder Society actually exists just to research it and people have even attempted to divine from the gods what caused it and what happened to Golarion. So we know they know about Golarion and want to know what happened to it. We also know its still a thing unanswered and being researched after several centuries post gap so there shouldnt be an easy answer to the question.
We dont know yet how everyone across existence handled waking up one day with massive rifts in their memories but i feel the reason we are starting off several centuries after that is so that the chaos of it all has largely settled by now and people have rebuilt.
So we know these things about the setting and the people in it:
They know the Gap happened.
They know Golarion is a planet that used to be where Absalom Station is.
They know the gods cant or wont explain what happened.
After several centuries they still look for and havent found an answer.
Based on all of that, i just threw out a possible way of making the gap more PC proof. without reading the actual book though i cant say how its handled, its all just speculation at this point. but i feel confident that some of the option you suggest, not knowing what Golarion was or where it was, not knowing they lost memories, those dont seem to fit with the pieces they've fed us already.
Tom Kalbfus wrote: Well the question is do people know where in the Galaxy that Golarion used to be? Yes, they do. Golarion's solar system is the seat of the Pact Worlds, and Absalom Station is sitting in the same orbit. And local systems outside the solar system (the Near) are explored to the point that many have travel beacons. This was answered pretty clearly in the Q&A.
Quote: If they don't, then whether Golarion still exists or not is academic, because no one can find it! It may well be the Aroden Question of Starfinder and be pretty academic regardless.
Quote: Also does a Pathfinder fighter or wizard just go to bed one night and wake up in a spacesuit or a spaceship and not know what happened in between? So its not that the just wake up in a new setting with a whole bunch of new skills and character classes that they don't know how they acquired. Its not like they were suddenly shifted into the future in other words. They weren't. Apparently people came to and things were going on. They knew what was going on, but not why. As in some wars were going on, and on day 1 (post Gap) people knew they were at war, but not if their nation attacked or what kicked the whole thing off.
As for wizards going to bed and wake up in a ship, no, that doesn't seem to be a thing. It's 'the far future', and centuries past the Gap, and probably centuries passed before whatever happened happened. So you've got an undisclosed amount of time before, during, and after the Gap for people to adjust to the new united magic and guns and ships and whatnot.
There would be some immortals and long lived races that lived through the gap, but for most people, it was something that happened to their great, great, great grandparents. When doddering elven sages ramble on about wizards, people presumably are either bored or listen out of a detached academic interest. And that's assuming a fairly tight timeline. Pathfinder to Gap to Starfinder could well be upwards of 1000 years.
What I would like to know more about is the organizational structure of the political map of the galaxy (or whatever passes for 'known space'). How have the different interstellar nations of the galaxy carved it up?
There's four basic paradigms which can be remembered as different kinds of foods:
(1) The Rainbow Sherbet Paradigm: In this arrangement, true visible international borders exist all over the galaxy and are well-defined line segments (or plane segments) on the 2D (3D) galactic map. There may be unclaimed star systems or territories (e.g. regions of lethal radiation), but every cubic light-year of interstellar space and its contents can be identified as belonging to one or another interstellar government or organization, or else as neutral territory, non-aligned states, or under dispute between the great powers. The largest entities may even be able to claim a significant section of one or more spiral arms of the galaxy, or may control even an entire arm unto itself. In an extreme version of this paradigm (Neapolitan Ice Cream), the galaxy is divided among very few monolithic powers with broad, sweeping borders.
(2) The Fruit Salad Paradigm: In this arrangement, a government or organization may be able to claim small clusters or chains of star systems that are grouped together, but for the most part, no interstellar entity can enforce a claim to any large area of the galaxy. Certainly not a significant portion of any one spiral arm of the galaxy. The larger nation-states or organizations can stake out definable interstellar borders around their home territories, so that a given star system can be said to be inside or outside their jurisdiction or de facto control.
(3) The Cupcake With Sprinkles Paradigm: In this arrangement, most star systems are controlled by one interstellar nation or another, but these territorial claims are all jumbled together like a handful of colored chocolates. There's no national borders that extend beyond the outer planets of any one star system. All interstellar space is effectively neutral or unclaimable, but every star's planetary system is under the control of whoever has set up shop there.
(4) The Powdered Doughnut Paradigm: In this arrangement, even different planets in the same star system can be controlled by different governments and organizations. From a "big picture" perspective, all the territories of the different nation-states and organizations blend together and are virtually indistinguishable. The only thing left that's visible is the "powdered sugar" of stars scattered all over known space. It's unusual for a single entity to have total control of a star system; either no one else has ever tried to set up a colony there, or all other comers have been repulsed, or the star system has been extremely fortified against invasion. There's nothing even remotely resembling an international border because all areas of space outside the satellite orbits of any given planet is virtually a no-man's-land.
This is my map of the Galaxy with stars. Well stars of particular interest anyway, the small dots are main sequence stars, the large ones are giant stars approaching the end of their lives. This map could be superimposed on top of the official map of the Galaxy when it comes out, Galaxy has billions of stars after all, so you can't map every single one. This is a map of my stars and where they are in relation to each other. Typically planets are inhabited by one major race or another, there are human worlds, elven worlds and even Orc worlds!
Matthew Shelton wrote: What I would like to know more about is the organizational structure of the political map of the galaxy (or whatever passes for 'known space'). How have the different interstellar nations of the galaxy carved it up?
There's four basic paradigms which can be remembered as different kinds of foods:
(1) The Rainbow Sherbet Paradigm: In this arrangement, true visible international borders exist all over the galaxy and are well-defined line segments (or plane segments) on the 2D (3D) galactic map. There may be unclaimed star systems or territories (e.g. regions of lethal radiation), but every cubic light-year of interstellar space and its contents can be identified as belonging to one or another interstellar government or organization, or else as neutral territory, non-aligned states, or under dispute between the great powers. The largest entities may even be able to claim a significant section of one or more spiral arms of the galaxy, or may control even an entire arm unto itself. In an extreme version of this paradigm (Neapolitan Ice Cream), the galaxy is divided among very few monolithic powers with broad, sweeping borders.
(2) The Fruit Salad Paradigm: In this arrangement, a government or organization may be able to claim small clusters or chains of star systems that are grouped together, but for the most part, no interstellar entity can enforce a claim to any large area of the galaxy. Certainly not a significant portion of any one spiral arm of the galaxy. The larger nation-states or organizations can stake out definable interstellar borders around their home territories, so that a given star system can be said to be inside or outside their jurisdiction or de facto control.
(3) The Cupcake With Sprinkles Paradigm: In this arrangement, most star systems are controlled by one interstellar nation or another, but these territorial claims are all jumbled together like a handful of colored chocolates. There's no national borders that extend beyond the outer planets of any one star system. All...
This is still a bit of guesswork but i think Starfinder uses a mixed buffet for governments.
The core system seems to be a Powdered Donut with each world run by its own style of government but all the governments in the system more or less get along without open warfare in a U.N. styled Pact World league. i imagine part of their charter is that they wont be out gobbling up other systems to come back and take over the home system with a massive fleet.
Outside of the Pact World there is the obligatory tyronid/zerg/space bug things that are probably more of a hivemind plague of Fruit Salad.
The Dominion of the Black might still be kicking around as either a Fruit Salad or Cupcake Sprinkles based on where their portals and FTL means have allowed them to spread.
I think outside of four or five major Polities we will see a lot of powdered sugar throughout the rest of the galaxy.
I just thought I'd share this, it is a Solar System I worked on for a Spelljammer setting. One of the things that bothered me is that it didn't matter how far a planet was from its primary, this rearrangement of our Solar System puts all the planets within the habitable zone of the Sun. For Starfinder, you can just ignore the Crystal Sphere I put around it. Each planet has a resident Roman deity living on it. I took the fact that the planets were named for Roman gods and turn it around, here the Roman Gods reside on those planets, they are local deities however, their power and influence doesn't extend much beyond this system.
Here is the current state of my map of the Galaxy. It also contains partial system stats, basically the primary star type and color as well as the size of the main world and its diameter in miles. I also have a section on how those stats are generated. The stars are representative of all the stars in the Galaxy, just to give you a sampler. The purpose of the map is not to locate every star, that is impossible, but if the PCs are somewhere in this Galaxy, and they want to know what is the nearest star system, that is the first one they find, if they want to look for others in that same sector, I can generate new star stats in the fly. But as there are billions of stars, it really is not possible to map every one.
By the way I have six size categories for worlds, Asteroid, Dwarf, Small, Medium, Large, and Giant. Giant is short for Gas Giant, Dwarf is short for Dwarf planet or world. (Could be a moon for instance)
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