At onset, in 1993, the fiction development group realized that conflict for the service must be inter-species. Due to the concepts of mass destruction and planetary genocide, the elements must use the same mechanisms that science fiction author Gene Rhoddenberry and Rod Sterling employed to frame political and theological ideas in their 1960s works for television screenplays.

Each species represents an ideology and philosophy based on technology and the interests of their culture in Beyond War. These objectives are divided by technology and biology, setting them apart from other cultures and creating established 'cultural secrets' that each civilization is willing to engage in armed conflict to protect or keep exclusive, much like nuclear arms control in the modern (1990-2009) era.

The struggle to do so, including protection of technology lost in deep space exploration and discovery of precursor technologies in deep space, set the framework for the storyline of the Beyond War Universe.

Despite the number of species (12) and scale of the technology, players experience the game from the perspective of a single ship captian and crew who may - by their own actions - elect to participate in various degrees for or against larger political and planetary forces seeking their support. This model follows 'free choice' styles prior seen in Fallout (series, PC), and models of game play common to Wasteland and early (1980s) PC titles.

Some species are defined by their technology, and the intermingling of technology and species depends largely on the actions of the player and regional politics. However, the game system does create mechanisms that deter the use of crew who are opposed to these views, and directly respond to actions of the player and other users in the response and leadership of working crew from diverse cultures.

Home