Copyright Charles E.

Duke 2002

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FREEDOM IN THE GALAXY II

1.0 BASIC CONCEPTS

{It is the year 5764 ADalthough in the sector of the galaxy that concerns us the passage of time is no longer measured as we are used to. Across the known galaxy, a band of intrepid freedom-loving souls has sparked a rebellion against a despicable imperial regime, whose stranglehold encompasses dozens of star systems. Although this war is contested not only by humans, but also by beings alien to Earth, and although it sheer magnitude dwarfs the greatest wars of Earth history, the struggle involves principles that we humans hold dearthe rights to control our own destinies and live without fear. The cry goes forth for Freedom in the Galaxy!} 1.1 INTRODUCTION a. Game description: In the game, one player controls the Rebel forces, which consist of characters, their spaceships, and possibly military units. He must attempt to spread the Rebel cause by having his characters perform missions and eventually cause planets to undertake rebellion, thus creating more Rebel military units with which to meet the Empire on equal terms. The other player controls the Imperial forces. He must attempt to quash the growing rebellion, through his military might or through missions performed by his characters. The game is played in a number of repeating sequences called game turns. In each game turn, the Rebel player, and then the Imperial player, move their playing pieces and have them carry out certain functions to further their causes. 1.2 GLOSSARY OF GAME TERMS Action Dice Rolls: The number of p2d6 rolls that a player may make to resolve a mission, depending on the environs size. Active: A unit in combat that is placed in the front line to fight normally. Attacker: The player/force which has caused a given battle by his/its actions. Throughout the rules, sometimes the defenders units are said to attack or make attacks, but this should not be confused with being the attacker. Attack Factor (AF): A measure of a units ability to harm enemy units. Simply expressed, how many d6 the unit can roll when attacking. Blockade: The action and effect of starships surrounding a planet to cut it off from the rest of the galaxy, and impeding enemy movement into and out of it. Bonus Dice Roll: Extra p2d6 rolls a player may make when resolving a mission. Break-off: An attempt by a players units to escape from the current battle situation. Character Spaceship: A unit representing a means of transport used by characters, which must not be confused with military spaceships, usually referred to as starships. Companion: A robot or intelligent animal that may be owned by a Rebel player character. Although companions are, generally speaking, possessions, they have some characteristics that make them non-player characters (such as occupying a seat in a spaceship). Counter: Cardboard counters are used as pieces in the game. Some are considered units and others simply markers. Creature: Any monster, person or animal (other than irate locals) that can be randomly encountered during a mission and usually represents a danger to the players characters. d6: Shorthand for six-sided-die roll; i.e. if instructed to d6, roll a six-sided die. This can further be modified. For example, 2d6=roll two dice; d6+1=roll a die, and add one to the result, etc. d10: Shorthand for ten-sided-die roll; i.e. if instructed to d10, roll a ten-sided die. This can further be modified. For example, 2d10=roll two dice; d10+1=roll a die, and add one to the result, etc. A 0 result is read as 10. Defender: The player/force that did not initiate a given battle. Detection: A state in which characters are known to be in the area, but not exactly where (a search is needed to actually find them). Detection usually occurs during the tracking routine, but other events may cause it as well.

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Die (dice) roll modifier (drm): A specific quantity that is added to or subtracted from the result generated by a die or dice roll. After the modification is made, the final result is what applies. Drift: Lost in space; as a result of an off-course hyperjump. Domino Effect: An effect representing the shock waves produced by an event on one planet, affecting other planets. Elite: A military unit with the best training and provided with the latest in weaponry and equipment, and plenty of it. Imperial elite units are noted by a slightly darker color background on their counters. Endurance Factor (EF): A measure of the punishment a unit can take before being destroyed, reflecting both its toughness and its agility to avoid blows. Environs: An inhabited area of a planet. Environs may be of six types: urban, wild, subterranean, liquid, air or fire. The latter four are considered special environs. Wild, any earth-type non-developed area such as jungle, desert, plains or tundra. Urban, a densely populated region that has been built up to the extent that its original ecology no longer exists. Subterranean, an underground populated habitat created naturally or by excavation. Liquid, an area composed of a sea or ocean of liquid elements, usually water, with inhabitants living on the surface of the sea, in the liquid, or on the bottom of the sea. Air, an area of a planets atmosphere populated by either creatures that fly or beings in floating habitats. Fire, although not strictly in flames, an area too hot for permanent habitation by humans and most other beings, but well suited to a few peculiar species. Escape Pod: A capsule (not actually represented in the game) that allows characters to survive (maybe) after their ship is destroyed. Essentially, a lifeboat. Force Point: A representation of men, material and capital that a player may use towards the purchase of military units. Hyperjump: See warp drive. Impulse Drive (Impulse Movement): The engines of a ship that can move its mass around in normal space, at sub-light speeds. Fine for moving within a star system, but useless to travel to other stars. Inactive: A unit in combat that is placed in the screened line and usually cannot fire or be fired at. Interception: The act of overtaking enemy military units as they attempt to enter or leave orbit around a planet. Leader: A character that has been named by a player to lead military units involved in combat. Leadership Rating: A quantification of a characters ability when leading military units. The characters ability to lead Environs Combat may be different from his rating to lead Space Combat, which is presented in parenthesis after the environs leadership rating. Light Starships: Transports, corvettes and frigates, starships that can land on planet surfaces. Maneuver Rating: A quantification of a spaceships maneuverability and ease of handling. Marker: A counter used during the game for informational purposes only. Military Units: A term encompassing ground combat units and starships. Some units that cannot fire, such as transports, are still considered military units. Mission: An attempt by a character or group of characters to achieve a certain objective beneficial to the owning player. Mob: A group of irate locals generated by rolling a die during Character Combat. Navigation Star: An especially bright or unique star not orbited by life-sustaining planets, used to aid interstellar space travel. Non-Player Character (NPC): a person or other being which appears due to certain events and that may temporarily be under a players control. Examples of NPCs are soldiers, sovereigns, companions, irate locals and creatures. Patrol: A group of soldiers generated by rolling a die during Character Combat. Percentile Dice Roll (p2d6): Whenever percentile dice are mentioned in the rules or the shorthand term p2d6 appears, it means to roll 2d6, but one of them must be colored. The colored die result is read as the tens of a two-digit number. For instance, if the colored die is a 5 and the white die is a 2, the final result is 52. Pilot: The PC controlling a character spaceship that a player is moving. Any other characters are considered passengers. Planetary Defense Base (PDB): A network of tracking equipment and land-to-air weapons spread over a planets surface, used by the player who controls the planet to defend against incoming or outgoing enemy forces.

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Player Character (PC): A person with a collection of individual attributes of heroic nature, controlled directly and constantly by a player. There are 20 Rebel and 12 Imperial player characters. Raking Attack: An attack by a PDB on enemy military units that are attempting to move past its weapons to or from the surface of a planet. Random Choice (Random Selection): Frequently during the game players will be asked to choose randomly between a group of items. To do so, assign numbers to each item and roll a die. For example, if you have to choose one of three ships, you could assign 1,2 to the first one; 3,4 to the second, and 5,6 to the last one and roll a d6. A die roll of 5, for instance, would indicate that the third ship is selected. Alternatively, if the items are represented by counters, you can place them in a cup and blindly choose one. Rebel Secret Base: A hidden region on a planet or a planets satellite that the Rebel player uses to stockpile material for the Rebel army. Ships-of-the-Line (SOL): Starships other than corvettes, frigates and transports (i.e., dreadnoughts, battlestars, cruisers and the Peacemaker) which because of their mass and structure can only be built and maintained in space. They cannot land in an environs but must always remain in the orbit box. Shuttle: A small short-distances vehicle without weapons or shields, not actually represented in the game, which characters may use to move between ships in the same stack, or between an environs and a starship in the orbit box of the same planet. Sovereign: A named NPC who controls the populace of a planet. Gaining the support of a sovereign may be of great aid to a player. Squadron: A group of fighters generated by rolling a die during Character Spaceship Combat. Stack: A group of units (counters) that are together, either during movement or staying in one place. Exactly where a unit is stacked (or not) can be very important during play. Star-faring Race: An intelligent race that inhabits more than one planet as a result of colonization. Starship: A military spaceship, as opposed to a character spaceship. Starships include the Peacemaker, dreadnoughts, battlestars, cruisers, frigates, corvettes and transports. System Opponents: Enemy units found randomly during missions (irate locals, soldiers, creatures, fighters) which are not in total control of the opponent, even if some technically belong to his armed forces; their existence is strictly temporary. Tracking Routine: The procedure by which PDBs and starships attempt to detect and track enemy character spaceships in order to attack them. Tribe: A group of people that emigrated long time ago from one of the star-faring races and broke off all ties with it. Tribes are not affected by domino effects. Unit: A counter that represents somethinga body of troops, an individual, a ship, etc. Warp Drive (Hyperjump Movement): The special engine of a ship that warps space and creates a not entirely understood condition called hyperspace. The ship is here this second, and then it almost instantly moves to a location many light years away. The quasi-tunnel that it uses through hyperspace is sometimes called a wormhole. The process is referred to as hyperjumping. 1.3 GAME EQUIPMENT a. The Game Map: The 22 x 34 game map portrays a slice of the central portion of the Galactic Empire. Although Imperial control extends beyond the edge of the map, these outlying areas are for the most part still being explored and developed, and thus have little effect on galactic politics. The stars and planets that are shown in the game are the most important economically and politically. The various circles and tracks on the map represent star systems, which detail political, economic, racial and geographic information on each important planet in the Empire. Also included on the map are the game turn record track and other record-keeping aids, and a key explaining how to read the planet tracks. b. The Galaxy: The Empire is composed of five provinces, each of which includes four to six star systems. The star systems are connected by space routes. The distance between two stars directly connected by a space route is about five light years. Each star system contains one to three planets, in the form of planet tracks, which present information exclusive to each planet. The playing pieces are placed on and moved around the various spaces of the planet tracks and star systems. Note: The mapboard is not a physically realistic representation of an imagined part of the galaxy, but rather a political and informational display of the Empires domain. c. The Provinces: Provincial boundary lines divide the galaxys five provinces. The central one, the First Province, is the political power base of the Empire. Running in clockwise order around the First Province are the four outlying provinces. Each sector has its own provincial government centered on a capital planet.

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The First Province also contains the throne planet, Orlog 162, the ceremonial center of the galaxy. The provinces regulate Imperial taxation and Imperial movement. d. The Star Systems: The 25 circular displays on the game map are star systems. At the center of each is a star, which is named and numbered. For example, near the center of the mapboard is Zamorax, star 13. Note that each star has two digits, the first being the number of the province. Each star system has from one to three planets. Each of these is represented by a partial or full circular ring surrounding the star. Actually, a system may have more planets than those that are shown on the map, but they are uninhabited and have no importance in the game. Each star system contains two drift areas, 1 and 2. Drift 1 represents the area not in the immediate vicinity of the inhabited planets of the star system, but still within the orbit of its outer planets. Drift 2 represents areas that are relatively close to a star in cosmic terms, but too far away to travel using impulse velocity {at least before the crew reaches old age; a light year or so.} e. The Planets: There are 51 planets in Freedom in the Galaxy. A planet is represented by a planet track, where most of the action of the game will take place. Each planet track includes information about the planets inhabitants, its political leaning, size, economic value and other specific properties. Refer to the following key to understand what the terms and numbers on a planet mean. The sample planet is Orning 241, which orbits the star Gellas 24, in province 2. A. The orbit box names and number the planet. Note that the first two digits of the planets three-digit number are those of its star. {We like to refer to planets using their name and number together, like Midest 341. It sounds good to our science-fiction-fan ears. But of course, you could call it simply Midest or planet 341.} Units may be placed in orbit around the planet by placing them in this box, and are considered to be in space. B. In this corner of the orbit box may appear the term capital, throne, secret, or the name of a star-faring race (indicating that races home planet). If one of these terms appears, it denotes the important political status of the planet, making it a major point of contention between the players. C. The political track is used to record the current loyalties of the planets populace regarding the Empire. A loyalty marker is moved from space to space on this track to describe the planets prevailing disposition. The number on each space is used to assign a numerical value to each status. For example, unrest is 2 in terms of the Empire and +2 in terms of the Rebels; patriotic, in contrast, is +2 in Imperial terms and 2 in Rebel terms. This track is also used to identify the current strength and status of the planets PDB. D. S (start rebellion) and A (Armageddon) denote where a planets loyalty marker is placed at the beginning of a scenario. AC indicates that in an Armageddon scenario, the planet begins already in Rebel control. E. An environs is the planets surface, or other inhabited areas such as the atmosphere or oceans. A planet can have from one to three environs, each with its own characteristics. Most of the action in the game takes place here. All environs are assumed to be adjacent to all other environs on the planet, regardless of their possible separation on the track.

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F.

The environs size rates its population and geographic extent. Although not an exact measure (other factors are involved) it can be considered that the population of an environs is approximately equal to its size times 100 million. This number defines the number of military ground units that a player may stack there, and also the number of action dice rolls he may make when performing a mission. G. In the left hand side of the environs appears the name of one or more races. If the name is followed by a star, it is a star-faring race. H. In the middle of the environs is the resource rating. This number is used to determine how many Rebel military units are created if the planet goes into rebellion. If the number is not followed by a star, it means that the environs is not very industrialized and therefore is restricted in the unit types that it can produce. The resource rating is also used to determine Imperial taxation. I. In the lower right hand corner of the Environs may appear a coup rating (as in the example) or the name of a sovereign, indicating that a coup is easier in that environs, or that it has a sovereign ruler, respectively. J. In the upper left hand side of the environs is the environs type symbol, which determines what type of Rebel units are created if the planet goes into rebellion, and affects the strength of certain military units. K. In the right hand side of the environs may appear the name of a creature. If an action dice roll determines that a creature attacks, its attributes are determined by looking it up in the Creatures Chart. f. The Cards: There are 116 cards in Freedom in the Galaxy; 32 player character cards, which describe the attributes of all the important personages that took part in the rebellion, for better or for worse; 28 possession cards representing spaceships, robots, and other objects of aid to characters; 8 soldier cards, used when armed escorts come into play; 5 mulligan cards, used to cancel an unlucky die roll; 29 galactic event cards used in the galactic stage to determine a special condition for each galactic turn; and 14 strategic assignment cards used to regulate the movement of Imperial forces. g. The Playing Pieces: The back-printed cardboard counters provided in Freedom in the Galaxy are used as pieces in the game. Those counters that represent something substantiala body of troops, an individual, a shipare referred to as units. Other counters that are used during the game for informational purposes only are not units, and are generally called markers. Note: A PDB counter is a marker, not a unit.