So you wanna play some GURPS?

Game setting

Technology and Travel

The world is described as TL 8, Mars. This is a fair distance into the future, but technology has failed to have any of the breakthroughs seen in some science fiction. Cloning exists (but without the rapid grow spinoff in Car Wars); limiting its use to people with fertility problems. It is against the law to harvest clones for organs (not that that stops everyone). Nanotechnology does not exist in any form. Space travel is roughly comparable to sea travel between Europe and the US two hundred years ago. It is fairly common, but still rather expensive and only big organizations have ships (mostly corporations, plus some government ships). Travel time from Earth to an orbiting station is only a few hours from launch (but there are only a couple of launches a day). A trip to the Moon takes four days. It takes about three months to reach Mars; travellers from Earth take a booster up to orbit where they transfer to a long haul vessel. The asteroid belt (as a whole, getting to any particular rock may take much longer depending on the location of Mars) takes over six months. (For those who care, taking off from large masses is done via fairly efficient/high thrust liquid fuel rockets. Any long term travel is done via extremely efficient/low thrust ion engines.)

Earth

Earth is getting somewhat crowded. The population is approximately ten billion, but has stopped growing for the most part. The first world nations of North America and Europe have united under a Confederation of Democracies (COD), while most of the third world have remained separate entites. Warfare is seldom, but can be fairly intense. It is restricted to territorial disputes between third world nations, with some interference by the COD. There is a steady demand for materiel, which is fulfilled by mining operations in the Belt.

Corporations

The big corporations started on Earth as conglomerates (e.g. Turner Post Disney Bell Airways). After the government allowed corps to have their own space vessels, and later allowed them to finance colonization of the Moon and Mars, the corps extended their powers on the new colonies. Today the corps are even larger and more powerful; and more likely to try and prove it - at least on Mars. The Moon was colonized under close supervision of Earth, and government investigators are only a few days away. But on Mars the corporations have had far more leeway. The government was unwilling to foot the bill for most of the work done, and the supervisors for the local law enforcers are always three months away. Corporations built Mars, and they run it too. However, there is always the danger of word getting back to Earth, so most conflicts occur just below the public awareness level. Corporate espionage and midnight raids are the meat and drink of corp agents.

The Moon

The Moons meager mining operations, low gravity, and close government leash make it a small and quiet place. No one remains on the Moon for more than a year, and most people are tourists or work on refueling stations.

Mars

Statistics
This is where your characters will start their adventure. They may be native, or immigrants from Earth. Native people suffer greatly from Mars' low gravity. Anyone native to Mars should have ST less than 10 and low HT. Since no one would want their child to grow up on Mars if financially possible, you should also come from a poor family. As mentioned above, corporations enfoce their own set of laws on Mars. Corporate 'security' forces are empowered to make arrests and use lethal force (and characters working for corps are eligible for the legal enforcement advantage). At the same time, the early immigrants have brought along their own enforcers. Ethnic gangs rule the residential sections on Mars. They are tolerated because at times the corps may want to use force that is not directly traceable to themselves. Gangers have access to a variety of weapons manufactured by the local corps, however most fights are settled with fists and knives - the better to keep a low profile. (Most of the weapons from Ultra tech are available. The CR of Mars colony is 2 allowing most light weapons to be carried. Gangers and corp agents have access to legality 2 weapons, with no permits required).

Mars acts as a processing center and warehouse for minerals coming from the asteroid belt, and from local mines. Some of the processing is done in ground based factories (powered by the same fusion reactors which provide power to most of Mars and similiar to ones on Earth). The cheaper, heavier minerals are handled by orbital refineries (which are powered by solar panels).

The primary spaceport is Pax Mars. Pax acts as a warehousing, high class residential, and tourist district. It is the site of the only Earth government forces and is the most law abiding. There are a number of smaller settlements belonging to each corporation which have local warehouses, processing plants, housing for employess, and perhaps a landing field. Landing fields are required to have a government customs house, so many corps prefer not to have them (at least not openly...). There are a number of joint fields operated in between a number of corp settlements. These fields form the basis for the other non-corp settlements. Tourists (and the commerce that they support), scientists, and beaurocrats make up the population. The largest of these is New Mars City, where the outskirts of several corp cities come together at a large landing field.

Character generation

This is a fairly straight forward campaign. Each character:

Any questions please email me!