I think all of these concepts can be implemented. I think the biggest hurdle is that each planet the PCs visit will have their own version of IDs, rights, insurance, level of surveillance, etc.
So if one was going to use this sort of thing it would be best to generate basic tiers of each.
Planet x being a tier 4 public surveillance, tier 2 in combat equipment licenses, tier 3 in police equipment and responses, and tier 5 in visitor rights and protections.
Then you can start figuring out which planet has which tier in each category.
Agreed. In fact, not only can they implemented, I can't imagine that they aren't.
But not universally. The Azlanti and even (to a lesser degree) the Veskarium have a form of unified monoculture, but the Pact Worlds is a collection a very different civilisations who happen to be neighbours, and allied against other threats. That comes with a few common laws, but the bulk of it are local and will vary from place to place.
And that's not even mentioning the smaller or lesser known empires/federations, the singular independent worlds etc.
So, heavy weaponry raising eyebrows at the restaurant ? Sure... Well, not everywhere.
IDs, anti smuggling measures, trade laws and tariffs and what not ? Yes. Except in space-neo-Katapesh, were the only law is : don't hinder other people's business.
Actual police work ? Most places, very likely. In the neo-feudalist marches of whateversheim, a lot less so.
Taking a look at our world should be a good place to start when designing laws for a world. A lot of the questions in need of answers will be the same.
I would expect more of an emphasis on health concerns, with the sheer variety of lifeforms existing in the SF galaxy.
Other than that, pretty much a variation of what one'd expect nowadays, with local specificities on top.
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I think the issue with this is the players.
Group A who like realism
Paspport? Sure I've got it here.
Spaceship papers . . . I've this will from the previous owner after we were stuck on the zombie infested space rock. Where do I file it?
Racism "Ok Sam you stay on the ship as your species are considered animals to be kept on a leash at all times here. You and Karkel will be our backup if we get in trouble."
Group B who like pew, pew, pew
Passport? This isn't the real world I've got a blaster.
Spaceship papers? "You try and take it off me skiiver."
Racism: "He looked at me funny so I had to shoot him."
I know not really answering it but the issue is what is fun and works for one group may not work as well for another.
That said I agree with look at our world and push it to account for species that are genuinely different outlooks. Same with a couple of good sci fi books.
Me I see it as a category system (and this helps my hate for the star travel system in this as it makes it hard to have variable civilation ring that i like).
Anyway you have . . . .
Core Worlds
Outlander Worders
Alien Worlds
Uknown Worlds.
Core worlds are the central and major systems of pack signatories. They have local laws you'll need to be aware of but they are part of a group who've banded together for their own survival against outside threats and they know it. So you violate local law A by murdering a high ranking diplomat you get tried by their system. You violate local law B by beating the living daylights out of a high ranking official without filing a blood feud claim first they may just ask you politely to leave rather than creating an incident (depends on the siutation). The will also have a generally agreed on system e.g. anyone travelling from station X to station Y undergoes a medical exam the minimum requirements of which vary depending on where you are and have been.
Outlander worlds these the are the colonies and far flung systems. They're aware of the pact, they have a certain amount of trade but they're a lot more indepedant. Your ID certifying you as a high ranking official of Pact World Windabi wont carry much weight and they're a lot more likely to hold you to local law standards instead.
Alien Worlds
These are things like the Atzlanti empire they're known about, their general culture and the like is partially understood but you better not go there without a lot of preperation and you can't expect any Pact rules or agreements to apply.
Uknown worlds these are the blank spaces on the map where as with Alien worlds you have no protection beyond what you bring yourself but unlike them you have no guidance at all on what to expect or deal with.
Anything and everything is available to be put into your world.
It all depends how much work you want to do to come up with house rules and what do your players care about.
My game is heavily influenced by mass effect (it is set in the Andromeda Galaxy with the players being part of the Initiative) and star trek concepts (warp drive, scanners, universal translators, etc).
Just as one example. We use warp drive in place of drift drive. We have travel times based on distances between systems and the warp rating of a ship.
In our universe drift drive is techo-magic of the highest order and extremely rare and coveted.
This was done because it is what my players wanted and like.
For my players the story is far more important than rules.
I just have to give then a somewhat believable background setting and they are fine.
I guess what I mean to say is to know your players' wants and needs.
Makes for a great time for all.
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Neat! How'd you go about figuring the various distances?
I took the Mass Effect Andromeda map online and made a decision on what 2 systems where 10 light years apart. This became the base measurement.
I am using distances had to be relative to each other and not absolute.
I wanted to give the feel of warping through space and it taking some time without having travel take years.
Then it was measuring the distances between all the systems to create at table of system A is x light years from system B.
I have an excel spread sheet that someone made for Star Wars RPG that I found online.
I converted the calculations to suit my needs.
I suspect someone more versed in Excel could really make this work even better.
So when my players travel between two points we enter the distance, the warp rating of the ship, the total pilot skill and the total engineer skill. The pilot and engineer both roll a D20 and it is entered.
So for example: A warp 3 vessel travelling 20 light years with the pilot and engineer both having a +15 in their respective skill and each rolling a 10.
It will take the vessel 6 days, 2 hours and 47 minutes to complete its trip.
If the vessel had a warp 4 engine instead of 3 then the travel time would be 4 days, 16 hours and 8 minutes
There is a change per day of a random encounter, which can alter the time.
My players love it. Gives a nice sense of travel.
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Starfinder is fantasy game set in space. It is written for the type of story where you go on the epic quest to take your crystal laser battleaxe to the land of unicorns to charge its ultimate power in order to face down the evil space wizard and save the galaxy. Along the way you team up with space knights to defeat the goblin king and maybe have a space battle in submarines, because it's cool.
Starfinder focuses on fun and game mechanics, with only a passing nod to verisimilitude. Now it's certainly possible to add in sci-fi elements, to try to explain things, and make the setting feel more real, but you do have to spend the work to add them in, and I would even go so far as to say these elements are absent by design. It is intended to be a fantasy game, not a sci-fi one.
So on to the topic at hand, I think you could implement any of the modern concepts you described no problem. What would be a problem, and I strongly suggest avoiding, would be anything related to economics. There in lies madness.
The price of gear in Starfinder is 100% based upon game mechanics with no consideration to real world parallels, logic, or verisimilitude of any sort. "Credits" exist solely for PCs to purchase personal gear. You can't even purchase a starship, or anything else like property, a home, a business. It's very much not a game set up to play space merchants. This is an intrinsic part of the system due to the level based gear, which is a foundation for much of the game design. If you want to change this... you're probably better off trying out a different game entirely.
I really like Starfinder for the space fantasy game that it is, but it's very much designed for playing Flash Gordon, not Firefly.
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The point on economy is important.
I do however believe Starfinder to be more versatile than just high fantasy in space. But that's another discussion.
To the original point : I would only have players feel the weight and weirdness of law and bureaucracy when it adds something, which is likely to be when circumstances are highly unusual.
- Dealing with customs of a culture with surprisingly different laws/rules.
- A port they're used to suddenly becoming a pain to deal with, and having to figure out why : is a higher up pressuring the port's staff to mess with them specifically ? Is everyone on edge because war's on the horizon ? Are they looking for something or someone ?
- Coming back to find your ship dismantled by jawas only to learn that yeah, that's legal here.
-...
This is however the kind of things you probably shouldn't abuse, as it's a valuable tool because it's uncommon, and you'll want to know if your players care for that kind of plot.
Or to put it more simply : don't have paperwork that is as boring as it is in the real world.
Make it clear that it happens, because you don't dock at Absalom Station and not register/sign a bunch of paper... but as long as it's routine, that's something for the characters to deal with, not the players.
There's a lot of potential there, for more intrigue focused campaign. But it's not for everyone.
My general take is that policing, identification, customs, etc. do exist in the Pact Worlds, to varying degrees. This is explicit in some cases, in fact. Visitors to Castrovel need to deal with bureaucracy to arrange travel documents, and its implied that the Ring of Nations on Vercues has solid law enforcement (as opposed to the Outlaw Kingdoms).
The problem facing the Pact Worlds, however, is that the system is just too big and too porous. Aliens arrive from the far reaches of the galaxy every day at Absalom Station, for example, and most of Akiton is simply lawless. When people come in from the Vast or Akiton's wastes, they need to be entered into the system quickly, with literally no way to confirm their actual origins. Thus, ID exists in this highly technological world, but it's inescapably easy to fake. Create your documents, slip them into the system, and you're done. For folks coming in from the cold, no paper trail exists to follow.
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Anything and everything is available to be put into your world.
It all depends how much work you want to do to come up with house rules and what do your players care about.
My game is heavily influenced by mass effect (it is set in the Andromeda Galaxy with the players being part of the Initiative) and star trek concepts (warp drive, scanners, universal translators, etc).
Just as one example. We use warp drive in place of drift drive. We have travel times based on distances between systems and the warp rating of a ship.
In our universe drift drive is techo-magic of the highest order and extremely rare and coveted.
This was done because it is what my players wanted and like.
For my players the story is far more important than rules.
I just have to give then a somewhat believable background setting and they are fine.
I guess what I mean to say is to know your players' wants and needs.
Makes for a great time for all.
This is the kind of travel I prefer it keeps civilizations in a general area of space, allows a lot more room for dangerous alien forces (ancient evil, Hive, borg) to lurk out there without being discovered whereas colonies scattered all over means your aware of a lot more of the galaxy/universe your in. Plus given the travel times issue your now able to have a proper ring system for the players core worlds, protectorate, rim, uknown regions. With the core worlds the earliest settled, most advanced and regimented (safe), protectorate worlds are the ones that were settled in the second/third wave there are securtiy forces but they're more dangerous especially away from the planet itself, rim worlds are the wild west a sheriff here or there but no real security when you travel beyond the planet itself, lots of independant and primitive systems. Uknown regions the vast unexplored galaxy with who know's what things lurking beyond the light of civilazation lost colonies, mad cults, alien races . . ..
I also tend towards a modified star trek drive system with . . .
Warp Drive: Original cubic warp system used by most species.
Transwarp: revised exponential speed system for advanced aliens like the borg.
Quantum Slipstream: Most advanced system in my system = 50 million times speed of light (stargate system from stargate left by ancient race).
Teleportation: Favoured by powerful beings and gods but unless your a god (q) level being bulk transport requires either the rare Quantum Slipstream system or starships that are a lot slower.
I also use the doctor who tech level system.
Technology level.
1: Primitive - Stone age.
2: Metalworking - Bronze to Middle ages, swords and steel.
3: Renaisance - 15th to 17th century earth, gunpowder, sailing ships and art.
4: Industrial - 18th to 20th century earth, industrial revolution, steam and manufacturing.
5: Space faring - late 20th and 21st Century earth, colonization of the solar system, system wide travel.
6: Star faring - 22nd to 30th century earth, faster than light travel, transmats.
7: Advanced interstellar empire 31st to 49th century earth, no time travel.
8: Time faring, 51st century earth.
9: Advanced time faring - Daleks.
10: Time Lords
11: Ancient Time lords, The dark times, rassilon and Omega
12: Beyond comprehension, abilities only available to the eternals (gods).
Magic scale is generally the same but there's a bit more of a shifting nature e.g. Golarion is tech level 3 sailing ships, gunpowder and art but there are indviduals able to travel between the stars thanks to advanced magic (Baba Yaga), the technology the technic league are scavenging and portals between planets. So I generally go with "Overall planetary level not small elite".
The drive systems roughly correspond to . . .
Warp: TL 6.
Transwarp: TL 7 to TL 8
Quantum Slipstream: TL 9
Teleport: Short range TL 6, System wide TL 7, intersystem 8.
However the Quantum Slipstream and teleport systems also tend to require either knowledge of or a receiver at the destination and teleports have the energy requirements spike up exponentially with distance. So its most useful for an intersystem teleport system unless your a TL9+ race and even then teleports across the galaxy are reserved for rare complex plots with long term goals. The quantum Slipstream was a revision of the technological transmat (teleport system) to allow for more controlled travel at interstellar distances with lower (though still immense) power requirements at the loss of instant travel and a requirement for a transmission/receiving station.
Also unlike you the travel times are the same for the warp drive with no player intervention on that side e.g. the nearest star is around 4.37 light years away. So that gives us . . .
Warp 1 (light speed): 4.37 years which I think is around 4y4m13d give or take.
Warp 2 (3 times light speed): 4.37/3 = 1.45 (repeating so around a year and a half.
Warp 4 (64 times light speed): 4.37/64 = 0.068 x 12 = 0.8 x 31 = 25.4 or a bit under a month travel time.
I include 4 here to show my progression distance / speed of light travelled at. Numbers after the decimal point are multipled by 12 or months in a year. Numbers after that decimal point are multiplied by 31 for highest number of day's in a month (not perfect but we don't have consistent months). That gives you years, months and day's then if you care more you can multiply numbers after decimal point for hours and minutes respectively. Transwarp uses a slightly different speed value (warp 2 is 10 and warp 4 is 102 so even before its exponential increase transwarp is faster. Quantum slipstream is always 50 million if you actually want to go beyond a "quick trip for tunnel").
Where the pilot/engineering checks come in are for steering the ship at speeds below warp speed (pilot) or getting more out of an engine (engineer). So an engineer can make a roll to push an engine beyond its rated specs allowing a trip to be made quicker e.g. warp 4.5 rather than warp 4 or allow a short burst of warp 5 to 6 without blowing the ship up. Piloting is to steer the ship in system avoiding obstacles and gets progressively harder as you move faster or in a field of debris.
I also use a personal variant on the teleport with distances that it and interplanetary teleport are able to actually reach. Greater Teleport is effectively unlimited ON a planet and interplanetary is not galaxy wide.
Moving on from my nattering about my travel speeds I'd also like to suggest you look at the early doctor who series and some of the new who (avoid Jodie Whitaker as that era's mostly preaching) for an idea on how to create a space civilation and what might or might not be included for various species.