Terms and Conditions

The defining characteristics of any setting are what special abilities and restrictions affect characters, and the special rules for the society that the characters exist in. The following list shows the most important rules thaf the world of Iridium Moons follows.

Society

99% of the population of known space lives within the home systems of their species.
State governments usually exist only in the home systems and major colony worlds close to them.
All systems that are outside the juristiction of state governments are collectively referred to as interstellar space in legal and economic contexts, though this is different concwpt from the astronomical term.
There are no national laws in interstellar space, but companies that are known to violate the interstellar conventions on basic personal rights are faced with severe sanctions on doing any business in the home systems, which few of them can afford.
The infrastructure and industry of interstellar space is almost exclusively owned and operated by private companies.
The terms and condition for the use of planetary spaceports and space station take the function of local laws, which are enforced by company security staff.
Most major companies maintain significant private paramilitary forces typically called militias, that often include warships like destroyers and cruisers.
There are countless small independent settlements, which are typically completely dependant on a single company for all transactions. These business relationships are almost always highly exploitative.
Companies are highly protective of independent settlements and mines under their control and go to great lengths to keep them from gaining economic autonomy or dealing with competing companies.
Most people working on spaceships, space stations, and spaceports can speak the Interstellar Trade Language, but use various native languages for regular conversations within ethnic communities.

Space Travel

Ships can only jump to hyperspace if they have sufficient distance from a star.
Ships automatically jump out of hyperspace if they come within the same distance of a star.
The minimum distance from a star where hyperspace drives can work depends on the star's mass.
Ships arriving in a system come out of hyperspace at a random point at the minimum diatance from the star, even when they start the jump from the same point at the same time. It can take days for fleets to regroup after arriving in a system.
Navigation computers can only calculate courses for hyperspace jumps between two stars whose position and movement have been measured with extreme accuracy. Such information is stored in hyoerspace charts that have to be updated every few years. Only systems that might have potential economic value are measured to be included in hyperspace charts.
The quality of navigation computers determines the maximum distance for a jump they can calculate. To travel longer distances, ships have to make multiple jumps between charted stars, which forces ships with less powerful computers to take longer routes.
Close to a star, all ships can only travel at sub-lightspeed. It typically takes a week or more to travel between habitable planets and the edge of the system.
All communication and detection is only at lightspeed. Messages between systems must be carried by ships.
Artificial gravity on spaceships and space stations exists, but it can be turned off or disabled.

Combat

There are no energy shields or barriers.
There is no teleportation.
There are no fighter spacecraft.
All guns fire solid projectiles. They are typically railguns, but poorer planets often use chemical propellant cartridges.
Large knives and short swords are widely regarded as superior to guns for fighting without gravity inside cramped spaceships. They also have fewer legal restrictions on planets and are not spotted by weapon detectors.

Other Rules

Intuitation provides greatly increased perception, empathy, and intuition, but has no supernatural power to acccurately see the future or read thoughts.