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Sci-fi Setting: Concepts for a Sequel

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Nerdfish said:
IMO in a scifi setting, perhaps the player should be allowed to choose their form of government (like civilization or rise of nations). You can choose to run your colony like a business, a feudal kingdom or modern democracy. You can even choose to dissolve the colonial government so you don't have to pay upkeep and your advisors don't bother you with annoying side missions, but there should be serious side effect for doing this (e.g rule by biker gangs). Dissolving the government, however is the only way to pick a new system.
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It's an interesting suggestion, NF, though I had imagined different buildings/classes/factions would approximate most of this to begin with. For example, an Imperial Fane might be used to recruit and house Janissaries, which have good relations with the Initiates and (maybe?) Shapers, and that would represent your commitment to the old feudal system. Conversely, a Council Forum might be used for public assemblies and legal hearings (e.g, trial by jury.) That, naturally, represents your affiliations with the Republic, and thus allows you to recruit Praefects, which are usually loyal to the Logicians and (maybe) Collective.

This could tie in in other ways, too- maybe the Imperial Fane is good at recruiting natives, whereas the Council Forum is needed for higher-level housing to evolve, and allows for denser urban settlements with plenty of Guildsmen. To be honest, I suspect that corporations/merchant princes are largely facets of the republic to begin with, so I don't think they need a dedicated form of government. Naturally, of course, you couldn't have an Imperial Fane in the same settlement with a Council Forum, since Praefects and Janissaries don't get along very well. (Actually, while we're on the subject, I might imagine mild antagonism between Praefects and Runners, and possibly between Janissaries and Aesthetes...)

Actually, NF, your old suggestion on combining classes using building proximity could be a useful tool here- if you place a Garrison within the 'zone of influence' of both an Imperial Fane and Oracle's Complex in an area dominated by native tribes, you could reliably recruit something very similar to Space Marines- in the sense of Native/Janissary/Man-At-Arms with the benefits of extensive cybernetics and gene tailoring. Actually, maybe the Garrison itself could be upgraded to one building or another? Anyways...
It might still be best to let player pick the form of government they like. A lot of Scifi fans don't like feudal futures.
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Yeah, but if you were elected democratically, wouldn't there be, like, limits on your term in office? Bear in mind that even the Republic might be more similar to ancient Rome (or Elizabethan England) than a true democracy in the modern sense- while the common people get a significant say in their own affairs, there are also significant political privileges extended to the upper classes and aristocracy that tend to tilt decision-making in their favour.
I still believe that federations are more effective then the feudal system. A system that has built in separation of power (and in this case, at each level) is much less vulnerable to abuse of power.

The federation relies on legislations, rather then authority of individuals. Basic set of rules and means of enforcement can be adapted to optimize efficiency of each territory, making it cheaper to maintain, in practice, then feudalism.
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Perhaps, but under serfdom abuse of power may well be more-or-less the point. The aristocracy can basically exist to reliably extort as much resources from the peasantry as possible without outright starving them, then pass the proceeds back up along the chain of command. Punishments are cheaper than rewards, and a system that doesn't spend any resources investing in people's welfare can be very economical to run. It has obvious weaknesses, of course- difficulties in mobilising against external threats, inability to innovate, etc. but maintenance is one thing feudalism doesn't need to worry about per se.

Legislations do not, by themselves, make decisions. The 'adaptation' and 'optimising efficiency' you speak of are things that have to be done by, well, people, which eventually comes down to individuals in some form or another (unless you leave the job entirely to AIs.) The question has always been, how many people, in what positions, and what can you do to limit their tendency to abuse power? As Draxynnic has pointed out, the main function of democracy isn't to select ideal leaders and then place them in positions of power, but to minimise the degree to which people have power over eachother to begin with.


"Within limits you will learn and appreciate. For now, I warn you the Bene Gesserit work under a system of organized distrust. Have they taught you about democracy?"
"Yes, sir. That's where you vote for-"
"That's where you distrust anyone with power over you!"
 
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...Anyways. Perhaps it would be fun(tm) to think up some candidate voicelines for the various lifepaths?

Ecologist Explore: "To seek out new life and new civilisations."
Android Death: "These moments will be lost, like teeearshhh..."
Guildsman Purchase: "That seems an equitable investment!"
Logician Agreement: "Your argument is compelling."
Jovian Agreement: "A capital suggestion, filthy primate!"
Oracle Declines: "This conversation serves no further purpose."
Collective Joins Party: "Perhaps we can be of help?"
 
*Performs thread necromancy*

Just thought I'd mention a few things- Firstly, I've been giving some thought to using this setting for the simple java game engine I've been working on intermittently for a bit, rather than the Majesty setting directly. I'm hoping it'd help to test out gameplay ideas and keep the best elements of the original game without treading on the toes of Paradox's own IP. I did some rough mock-ups of assorted buildings here (you can see the artificer's workshop, ecologist's station, physician's clinic and aesthete's conservatory below, along with the cantina and various doodads associated with housing in the right panel.)

(Incidentally, also saw District 9 and Avatar- score for the ecologists!)
 
I want to focus on getting the gameplay in place first, and the 2D line-art has the advantage that I can prototype quickly and work out the basic architectural style/colour palette. But yeah- I'd love to able to move to 3D eventually (either using a genuine 3D engine, or with pre-rendered isometric sprites)- it's just not at the top of my list of priorities.

...Mind you, I reckon the ecologist's guild still needs work...
 
Bearing in mind this is still just a very rough prototype:

protoscreen.jpg


I have a few citizens running around the place by now, and some auto-placement of buildings (e.g, housing, cropland, plazas,) along with the appropriate associated behaviours (shopping, harvesting, manufacture, going home.) My next major steps are to get fog of war and flag mechanics up and running again (since I've obliged myself to overhaul a good deal of the old code...) Unfortunately, that will require modelling/animating some actual hostile wildlife to make things interesting, and those have to be done in 3D, so it's time-consuming. Still, I'm cautiously optimistic I'll have something people can actually play over the next few months.


I also have something close to a final list of player-built structures (aside from faction/racial buildings,) and their rough equivalents from Majesty:

Supply Depot (Trading Post. Allows farming/mining/spice hunting/energy collection.)
Bazaar (Marketplace.)
Conservatory (Royal Gardens.)
Pleasure Dome (Elven Lounge... sorta. Encourages Runners and Mercenaries to visit.)
Arena (Fairgrounds, but more violent. Needed for Janissaries.)
Forum (No direct equivalent, used for legal hearings. Needed for Praefects.)

Tek Pavilion (Magic Bazaar: illegal/dangerous technology. Encourages KotSF/Shapers/Collective.)
Barracks (Combination of Warrior's Guild, Guardhouse. Recruits Militia.)
Citadel (Palace. Also serves as a landing site for spacecraft.)

Artificer (Mining, Energy Production.)
Ecologist (Agriculture, Hunting.)
Physician (Education, Healthcare.)

Jove Beacon
Changeling Grove
Krech Ghetto
 
Yeah, I'm worried I may be injecting too much Citybuilder myself, but I am aiming to keep the amount of micro required pretty low (i.e, roads and walls auto-generate themselves.) So (hopefully) the economic side of things won't distract from the more heroic behaviours: exploration, combat, diplomacy, stealth, etc. Thanks for the feedback.
 
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In other news, I thunk up some flags. (Actually, I'm hoping to skip directly to party formation and call 'em Teams, though 'Operations/Missions' are another possibility...)
Code: 
Recon Team:     Explore, survey an area, or follow targets at a distance.
Strike Team:    Neutralise or destroy individuals, buildings, or vehicles.
Security Team:  Keep individuals, a group, or an area safe from attack.
Recovery Team:  Capture vehicles, rescue or kidnap persons, salvage supplies.
Liaison Team:   Establish good terms and standing with individuals or groups.
Covert Team:    Infiltrate an enemy camp to gain intel or attempt subversion.
The basic, default mechanism is to advertise an overall salary or payment for the task (to be delivered on completion or at regular intervals.) Individual heroes can then 'negotiate' with this a bit- e.g., an experienced veteran merc might feel their services are worth double that money- and you can then pick which heroes you accept for the job, and want to work together to complete the task (assuming they don't object to the company kept too strenuously.)

Heroes who aren't directly interested by money will still take the price advertised as an overall indication of how important the task is to you, and they'll ask instead for things that are important to them. Those could be gene samples, a crate or three of weapons, passage offworld, tougher law-enforcement, a promotion and public award ceremony, the hand of your daughter in marriage, etc. etc. etc. (It's possible there could also be a mechanism for summoning heroes to request a task individually, or setting an order to "pick 5 capable heroes for the job and don't bother me about it", to save on micro.)

EDIT: I should mention some other potential categories of 'intervention' that would probably be similar to flags in terms of programming or UI, though they might not be immediately obvious as such:
Code: 
Construction/Repair:   Placing and repairing buildings functions as a 'flag'
                       to attract labourers to the site.  Either cost credits,
                       both to pay for raw materials and labour.
Commissions/Research:  You pay craft specialists to hone their skills on a
                       particular form of good or service (which installs the
                       appropriate facilities to match.)
Envoys:                You send a representative to request a favour from a
                       Third party.  (e.g, summoning citizens/heroes to the
                       citadel for 1-to-1 discussion.)
Edicts:                You essentially outlaw a particular form of behaviour,
                       either generally or with respect to specific targets.
                       (e.g, no exploration of plains/grasslands.)
Bounties:              You place a flat monetary reward on the heads of a
                       given target (or targets of a given type.)
Tactical Deployment:   Order your standing military to assume formation and
                       perform specific tasks- necessary for vehicles/siege
                       weapons/crew recruitment.  Only legal during open war
                       against a particular enemy, may impair morale/loyalty.

Bear in mind that most or all of the above represent behaviours that citizens/heroes may perform spontaneously (e.g, exploration by Ecologists, security patrols by Militia, repairs by Freeborn, contact by the Collective. The purpose of explicit flag-placement by the player is to prioritise which behaviours are most urgent when it's non-obvious. If you really don't want heroes/citizens doing something in particular, you'd use an Edict backed up by strong law-enforcement.)

Again, I'll be sticking with the most basic functionality for now, but this is a general overview of what I'd like to show working eventually.
 
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Okay. I might as well elaborate a little on potential categories of 'hostile wildlife'. It is very unlikely that I'll get more than a couple of these modelled and animated any time in the near future, but the main idea here is to brainstorm.


Meet the Locals: Mutants, Ghouls, Primitives and the Enraged
Examples: Reavers from Firefly, the infected from 28 Days Later/I am Legend, the Cult of the Bomb from Beneath the Planet of the Apes, martian colonists from Total Recall, the Fallout series, etc.

Countless worlds have been inadvertantly settled by survivors from crash landings, others, cut off from supplies for centuries or ravaged by nuclear fire and biological weapons during the Machine Wars, and a few feature tribes of monolith-worshipping primitives present for no clear reason. Many of their inhabitants have reverted to a more natural, quasi-nomadic existence, making camp in the shadow of ancient ruins and subsisting off a harsh landscape.

Genetic deformities and rabid, contagious aggression frequently blight such communities, but while all pose a potential threat, some can be reasoned with or even afford partners for trade or recruitment. Their high incidence of favourable mutations- including Gifted- and resistance to hardship can make them valuable allies.

Habitat: Anywhere (on marginal, ruined or monolith worlds)
Likelihood of hosility: Average to High
Behaviour: Nomadic, Territorial, Raider- varies
Best handled by: Physicians, Ecologists, Shapers


Ancient Artilects: Abandoned Oracles, Drones, Tripods, Monoliths, etc.
Examples: Box from Logan's Run, AIVAS from Anne McAffrey's Chronicles of Pern, Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky, 2001 et sequels, yet more Fallout series...

In another holdover from the era of the Machine Wars, ancient military bunkers and vault installations occasionally house decaying machine intelligences, ritually re-enacting the orders of their long-vanished masters. Some are highly advanced, but most are scarcely more than automatons, and a rare few represent the legacy of truly ancient starfaring civilisations, enigmatically abandoned aeons ago.

Often discovered during mining excavations, such beings are dangerous even in their decrepit state, but others are simply confused, erratic or malfunctioning. A number are sympathetic to human interests, possible to repair, bypass, or reprogram, and guard a wealth of knowledge or hoard of precious artifacts.

Habitat: Ancient vaults, ruins
Likelihood of hostility: High
Behaviour: Territorial or Pacific
Best handled by: Artificers, Initiates


Drivodils
Examples: David Wyndhams's Triffids, Little Barber Shop of Horrors, the Mycons from Star Control 2.

A dangerous species of animate, intelligent plant life, Drivodils have spread to many worlds through their microscopic seed capsules, which can slip past quarantine unnoticed in crates and soil samples. Sadly, they quickly displace indigenous plant species and, armed with barbed stings and caustic pollen, also endanger local fauna, so that their extermination has been a foremost priortity for many planetary governors.

Ironically, Drivodils have recently proven to be an excellent source of Spice, making the expense of hunting them far more palatable, and experience Changeling inflitrators have proven that peaceful coexistence is not quite outside the realm of possibility.

Habitat: Jungle, wetlands
Likelihood of hostility: Very High to Total
Behaviour: Territorial, Defensive
Best handled by: Ecologists, Shapers, Changelings


Araks: Warriors, Lancers, Nurselings, Brood Sacs, Imperatrices and Overlords
Examples: Army ants, certain termite species, Tyranids/Zerg/Bugs/Aliens, the Mind Worms from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. (Loose goblin-equivalents, crossed with rust-spitters.)

Believed to form part of the Krech's genetic template, the insectile Araks share the same propensity for rapid reproduction and complex social hierarchy- unfortunately, unlike the Krech, they are unremittingly hostile, apparently unreasoning, and highly carnivorous. Swarming in large numbers across the landscape, their combination of acid sprays, razor-sharp appendages and psychic terror can make short work of even staunch veterans.

The Araks can be captured and converted to serve Krech masters, and contact by the Collective's psychic group-consciousness can also establish good relations with the creatures. How they have spread from world to world is something of a mystery, but it is theorised that some have evolved their psionic powers to the point of mind control, allowing them to commandeer human vessels for their own use.

Habitat: Plains, grassland, deserts
Likelihood of hostility: Total
Behaviour: Nomadic, Raider
Best handled by: Shapers (maybe), Collective, Krech


Quicksilver: Thread, Ganglia, Mercurials, Oozes
Examples/inspiration: The T1000 from Terminator 2, Thread from the Chronicles of Pern, Michael Crichton's Prey/the general Gray Goo scenario. Loose troll-equivalents (they feed off economic activity.)

Normally found deep underground or in caustic, volcanic environments where geothermal or chemical power sources are abundant, Quicksilver are believed to be remote descendants of artificial, self-replicating machine life-forms. Having evolved over millennia into a self-contained ecology, they occasionally feed off the energy grid of human settlements in order to proliferate and grow.

Quicksilver make troublesome pests, as they absorb most forms of energy and quickly regenerate damage, but most have scant interest in organic life per se, and seldom threaten it unless attacked. Exceptionally learned observers- such as the Keepers of the Secret Fire- may be able to train, bribe, or reprogram the creatures to aid in defence, ore extraction or terraforming efforts.

Habitat: Caustic or volcanic environments, anywhere near powerful energy sources
Likelihood of hostility: Low
Behaviour: Defensive
Best handled by: Artificers (maybe), Ecologists (maybe), Keepers of the Secret Fire


Hrex: Hosts, Rhizomes and Symbionts
Examples: The Goa'uld from Stargate, countless body-horror sci-fi tropes, possibly Jadzia Dax from DS9, medicinal leeches. All-purpose zombification tool for turning critters into something the player can kill and not feel bad about!

Widely considered a vile and unnatural life-form, Hrex is a fungus-like organism that seizes control of a host body and compels it to seek out new victims to infest. The organism greatly increases strength and aggression but is eventually fatal to the host- even a slight scratch or bite typically being enough for transmission. The disease is curable if caught early, but many victims fail to find help in time.

Hrex has adapted to many forms of host, including humans and certain plant species, and a few of the least virulent strains permit their host's will and reason to remain intact, even transmitting memories from host to host when transplanted into new bodies- a remarkable faculty adapted by certain Shaper colonies for their own use.

Habitat: Squalid or polluted environments, wetlands, wherever potential hosts are found
Likelihood of hostility: Very High
Behaviour: Hunter, Atavistic
Best handled by: Physicians, Shapers


Giant Roaches and Roachmen
Examples: The Judas Breed from Mimic, the Fly (1986,) the Bug from Men in Black, yet more Fallout series

With their immense resistance to radiation and chemical poisoning, the humble cockroach has proliferated greatly on many ruined worlds, growing to astonishing size and filling new niches in the absence of competitor species. Many are found inhabiting the ruins of ancient settlements, but some have also adapted to nocturnal lifestyles in the open forest, and others have smuggled aboard cargo vessels to infest poorly-maintained vault complexes. Though shy and fearful creatures, Roaches spread disease and steal rations.

Far more dangerous are Roachmen, believed by some to be the legacy of a freak medical experiment gone horribly wrong. Roughly humanoid and often intelligent, they have been known to kidnap, kill and even disguise themselves as human citizens, making them adept as hunters and infilitrators. Their magpie-like fixation on shiny objects also leads them to purloin valuable cargo, of which they can accrue substantial hoards.

Habitat: Squalid settlements and vault complexes, ruined worlds, jungles
Likelihood of hostility: Low
Behaviour: Pacific, Defensive
Best handled by: Good maintenance of infrastructure.


Remoras (or Hullsuckers)
Examples: The Mynocks from Star Wars, the Star Trek episode Galaxy's Child, yet more of Adolf Schaller's floaters...

Originating on Parem IV, in their natural state Remoras are free-floating silicon-based life-forms which ride the gas giant's aerial megafauna during migrations to the upper atmosphere and feed on ambient electrical storm-currents. This habit has unfortunately led them to roost on the hulls of visiting spacecraft, allowing them journey from world to world in a state of suspended animation.

Though posing no direct threat to humans, Remoras may damage, drain or consume the components and fuel of ships, vehicles and life-support, grow to significant sizes, have the remarkable ability to generate natural shields, and defend themselves with thunderbolts. As such, Remoras are significant pests. Only a handful of erudite scholars have ever managed to domesticate a Remora, but Jovians display a natural affinity with the creatures, perhaps due to similar evolutionary origins.

Habitat: Aerial, within poorly-maintained vaults, shipyards or plazas
Likelihood of hostility: Average to Low
Behaviour: Nomadic, Defensive
Best handled by: Artificers (maybe), Ecologists (maybe), Keepers of the Secret Fire, Jovians


'Natural' Predators: Wingrays, Amoebas, Licovores, Hulk, Sand Wyrms
'Natural' Prey: Qud, Hareem, Carpets, Gigans, Gossamer
'Natural' Flora: Mycon Bloom, Terran Pine, Vapok Tree, Albedan Coral, Strain X497

Many robust species well-adapted to a particular climate are deliberately transplanted from world to world in order to aid in large-scale terraforming projects, and may precede formal human colonisation by decades or centuries. Most are harmless unless deliberately provoked, give full warning of an attack, and/or adhere to strict territorial boundaries, but may nonetheless pose a threat to the wayward traveller who ignores their scent borders.

Spice ingestion becomes concentrated in the upper echelons of the food chain, and can usually be harvested in abundance from top predators. Populations can sustain hunting indefinitely given adequate time and space to recover, but the temptation to overharvest is best combatted through strict edicts and a strong presence of Ecologists. Some can even be trained as mounts and couriers.

Habitat: Varies by species
Likelihood of hostility: High for predators, low for prey, none for fauna
Behaviour: Territorial, Defensive for prey, Ambush, Raider for predators, typically none for flora
Best handled by: Ecologists, Shapers, Changelings


EDIT: Added entries for Quicksilver, Remoras, Hrex, Roaches, and natural flora/fauna
 
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I guess my next step after that would be to think up some basic 'tech trees' for research purposes, or maybe some basic concept art for the wildlife. I'll try to have something (slightly) more concrete to announce before I post next time.
 
Your project seems interesting and very well thought but resembles some already made RTS. Im fan also of many sci-fi series (like Stargate or Star Trek).

Another initial idea besides yours could be this (hope you dont mind for sharing this):

Majesty: Revelation.

Some alien spaceship (no more than 2 km in lenght) should crash in some part of Ardania a few years after the goblin invasion of kingmaker. When the locals detect it, they see there are alien beings who survived the crash they have never seen, alive, and not only one species. The reason of the crash could be intense magic enough to interfere a routinary interstellar travel disrupting the navigational routines leading to an unavoidable crash; such peak on magic interference on the planetary system remains a mistery. The ship could be ruined to the point of being unable to get back to space and communicate with others, or not, that´s up to whoever does the story. And as they are not hostile they try to stablish friendly relationships with locals. Demons and golbins, orcs, and all those by definition hostile races see the threat of such powerful beings and attack them. The alien beings are more powerful than all of them, but instead of erradicating all of those hostile races in self defense, they simply left them be while they remain untouched due to their hugely efficient protective shields (much better than those of the Protoss) that are by design released on any part of themselves, making themselves, and their buildings literally immortal under ardania´s locals point of view. Humans, elfs, dwarfs, etc, dont understand such philosophy and ask for help to aliens as if they were gods but they wouldn´t help at all in therms of military support; just a little technologically, and more than everything spiritually, making them being much more aware of what´s out there the planet where Ardania is and wich is really the potential that all of the species on the planet have wich is in base the same for all of them no matter their alignment. (all the species means also Demons, goblins, undead, and orcs, between all other supposedly evil species).

Locals will see this as heresy, won´t understand it, and many factions will start being against those aliens for it, without any sucess, i have to admit. But, at leas, ideologically.

Locals will be only able to handle certain technologies given as a gift by the aliens if they all mature spiritually enough to not to use them to destroy other not so evolved species on the same planet. Worship starts on those aliens wich creates conflict between the already stablished for millenia worshiping of the common gods; the common gods reveals themselves as alien races as well who have interfered with ardania´s people in their favour for selfish interests. That´s some interesting plot for me.

The aliens are not hostile, but the locals, scared, are, mistakenly. That is some initial idea i liked a lot to be put under a Fantasy environment like the one of Ardania or any other of the many out there.

It happens some similar history in D&D, and it´s a very interesting story. (The Kingdom of Blackmoor story). The Ancestrals in Warhammer, also, they were much more inmature and created stargates in "warhammer planet" the same way they were created in doom 3 in the northern part of mars. How funny, in any RPG, demons appears out of a mistakenly opened gate. Why?, Lol, sounds familiar?.

Mixing Sci-Fi and Fantasy would be just a good dream come true. Not just turning Majesty only in Sci-Fi. Because everything of Majesty that we all love will remain untouched in the beginning, and a new universe like the one you planned could be introduced at the same time giving a lot of stuff to make a hundred stories out of it. An Hybrid.
 
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Ojcar, please don't take this the wrong way, but some parts of your post are a quite difficult to read because of small errors in spelling, grammar, or punctuation. It would probably help if the post was formatted more carefully. Thank you for the feedback in any case.

I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread by another poster that this concept would probably work better as a spinoff to Majesty than as a direct sequel, and I'd probably agree with that idea. Personally, I'm a little leery of most efforts to combine SF and fantasy, since the respective genres are based on different concepts. (In SF, it's desirable to have a strong underlying explanation for things and an extrapolation from current technological or scientific trends, which doesn't gel well with incorporating aspects of the supernatural. Admittedly, even pretty 'Hard' SF seems to allow a lot of wriggle room for things like psychic abilities or essentially divine powers on the part of hyper-advanced extraterrestrial civilisations. Anyways.)

That said, the idea of a setting a sequel to Majesty in an equivalent to the late renaissance (like much of Warhammer) or steampunk victoriana (a la Arcanum) or a near-future cyberpunk dystopia (a la Shadowrun) is potentially very interesting.
 
Thanks. I'm fond of star trek myself, of course, and I think Falotar did an interesting bit of far-future fanfic set in Ardania, involving orbiting space stations and the like. (It wasn't especially to my taste, but I guess you could argue there's room for the franchise to grow in that direction.)

On another note, I have been making some gradual progress. I came up with some flag concepts, though they still may be a tad garish...
EDIT: Better version below...

I will probably get basic recon-exploration and strike-bounties done over the next month or so, and maybe one or two monsters to hunt. ...Hopefully.

On another other note, I was thinking that, in the same way that the Arena acts as a source of entertainment and a way to hone advanced combat skills, the Forum could be used to train diplomacy or social skills- you can imagine senators debating legislation, arguing on behalf of plaintiffs and trying to sway public opinion through duels of wits...
 
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i haven´t read all your posts i this thead, "tldr", sorry, but, what are you thinking on doing, if i can ask that, a mod of the actual majesty 2 with his engine or an entirely new game (wich sounds quite strange)?.

Another thing i want you to consider is that the limits on mixing fantasy and sci-fi resides on your own understanding of the universe. You don´t know how all works, so you have your limits on that. But, never think there isn´t anyone out there that knows more than you do. The true brilliant level of work resides on mixing fantasy with sci-fi on the level i have mentioned, i think. Just in a raw an crude playground. I mean, you are "duneizing" "stacrafizing" "startrekizing" "starwasizing" or whatever in the same level, the franchise of Majesty. but, if you dont mind about doing more of the same... no problem.

From my perspective, there is not such thing as "supernatural ocurrences". Everything is natural, bound to some physical and a mental conditions in wich, in this unlimited universe, they can happen while science isn´t advanced enough to explain it, but if it were, it will. Your own mindset is the limit. Your own narrow perspective. I mean, you can only paint what you are limited to be aware of. And your intelligence, your awareness, your hability to perceive the evidence, is conditioned and limited. What i want to emphasize is that.

Actually, we have both elements here as well, the fantasy one, and the sci-fi one: we have strong underliying explanation for things Ardania natives could consider "magical", and Ardania natives have strong beliefs in their supernatural ocurrences, wich, paradoxically, seems "magical" to us. Imagination is the key to create a coherent story.

I think, there are planets out there beyond this earth, like That of Ardania, or the Middle earth; the missing link, the end of the Fantasy, seems not to be an insane idea. From my actual mental reasonings, i think such planets does exists out there in this galaxy or beyond. Not that they are like those imagined here, but filled with those things we actually, can´t explain... and call them "supernatural", because our minds cannot understand what they are seeing...
 
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At this point, I'm basically programming an entirely new game, albeit one that has deliberately similar mechanics (and, in many respects, a similar setting/background) to the original Majesty. I've considered doing a 'mod' of Maj2's engine before, but the problem is that Maj2 is already, in essence, a 'mod' of an existing 3rd-party-licensed game engine, which to my understanding substantially limits the available scripting facilities. (Some years back I made an effort to mod the Warcraft 3 engine into a Majesty clone, but the process was Like Kicking Dead Whales Down The Beach given the broken state of the JASS scripting language. So, I'm not going down that road again unless I have a strong assurance that the scripting facilities are up to the task.)

From my perspective, there is not such thing as "supernatural ocurrences"...
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Well, yes. This is why fantasy is called 'fantasy'- it openly acknowledges it's own impossibility. It's honest about it's limitations, which gives it more freedom to use it's supernatural elements as a plot device to explore moral or emotional questions. It trades a degree of relevancy for the sake of greater expressiveness.

SF, by contrast, is first and foremost concerned with some form of logical speculation from present scientific knowledge. This isn't to say that magic can't have laws or limitations, and even 'hard' SF tends to be very tolerant of psychic abilities or god-like extraterrestrials. But the primary focus is different in each case: emotion/mystery/the supernatural vs. reason/predictability/science. Even when SF includes things not explained by modern science, there's always a hint or suggestion at how it might be.

In GNS terms, it's basically a conflict between Simulationism and Narrativism. This isn't to say that one genre is 'better' than the other- I loved the Earthsea series better than I did the Foundation saga- but the idea that you can casually combine the two usually betrays a poor understanding of both genres, and it's rarely been done very well. (See also: midichlorians.)
 
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