So, I've had a campaign idea that I've had bouncing around my head for awhile now. I attempted to run it with an old group using Saga Edition, but the group fell apart shortly after the opening session and I had to end the campaign. I'm hoping to revive it with a new group, but before I dive in, I'd like your opinions/suggestions.

Twenty years after the battle of Yavin, an ex-Rebel finds a semi-stable hyperspace tunnel leading through the Tangle and into the Unknown Regions. For various reasons known only to himself, this man decides to assemble a fleet and lead an expedition across the divide, with the end goal of establishing a new colony. The PCs are either invited or hired to be a part of the fleet.

In the opening session, the fleet makes the first jump across the divide, only to encounter an Imperial interdiction fleet. The fleet is forced to flee. The PCs discover that an Imperial warlord found the tunnel and fled across shortly after the Emperor's death. In the decades since, he's been slowly building up a force and is preparing to invade the New Republic and re-establish the Empire.

Now, the PCs and the colony fleet are trapped in the Unknown Regions, and have to contend with Imperial patrols, strange natives, hostile environments, and the intrigues and dramas of the fleet and its colonists.

So my questions to you are as follows:

If you were the PCs, where would you like to see this campaign go?

What kind of strange creatures/locations could I have the PCs encounter?

What weapons/resources should this warlord have at his disposal?

Any other comments, questions, or concerns are greatly appreciated.

How's the guy going to build up a fleet in the middle of nowhere?

How can he capitalize on resources without factories and workers to do the work?

Is there a distant civilization out there? Can he try to enlist their help to fight the "evil" Republic? Then the pc's try to get the truth out. ***EDIT: (was saying Imp./Rep. could be seen differently out there...see my next post below...)

@DurosSpacer, I think the point is that the Empire is still supposed to be the "bad guys," and that the PCs are enlisted or hired by the New Republic.

Were I a PC in this campaign, I'd expect to see some fantastic new locales and strange phenomena. After all, it's the Unknown Regions. Maybe the PCs are outmatched and stripped of most resources, and need to enlist the help of some potentially friendly allies or find some exotic technology to help them defeat the warlord.

Sounds like an Avatar/Battlestar Galactica/Lost in Space mashup.

As a player, I'd want to be able to do Civilization building. So the autofactories, autominers and other industrial requirements would have been brought with during the 'colonization'. We'd have to establish a base, install our industrial capabilities and start manufacturing weapons and ships. We'd then have to scout the other planets/systems in the area in order to find raw materials that weren't present at our base to supplement our supplies. This would lead to interactions with locals and the beginnings of a trade alliance/federation aimed at kicking the Imperials out.

Conversely, we could become allies of the Imperials and include them as trade partners.

In the EU the Unknown Regions are pretty well developed actually and you could borrow from that if you wanted. Consult Wookieepedia. The Chiss try to keep a pretty tight ship so they'd probably be very curious about all these newcomers, and not particularly welcoming.

@awayputurwpn....I was a bit short on that idea because I was on my smartphone, which I am usually not. Now that I am at home....

@captainfreeman1....

To be clear, I think it'd be a GREAT twist in the campaign for the PC's to arrive to find out that the Imperials that fled to the Unknown Regions, stumbled upon a modern civilization, and then DECEIVED them into believing there was an expanding Evil Empire called "The New Republic" that was a threat to them. (Obviously a big LIE.) Therefore, the civilization has been helping the Imperials build up to launch a preventative invasion to save their star system from being conquered by that evil Republic Empire.

When the PC's arrive there they find that The Imperials are viewed as the 'Good Guys' and, upon detection, the PC's are met with extreme hostility as their Republic Symbols are recognized and cause terror among the populace!!! (the PC's will be WILDLY surprised to be shot at and cursed on-sight.) At first, they may even think that the Republic had wronged these people somehow in the past. It'll take some time for the PC's to unravel what is going on (like it's some kind of opposite Bizarro universe). It is up to the PC's to get the truth out, but after all of the propaganda concerning how the Republic alters video and rewrites data files and frames others for their crimes, it'll be tough.

This is a scenario you can't solve with a blaster rifle. The PC's have to find someone they can convince and trust. And, why should the PC's be believed? Look at all the Imperials have done to promote peace with this new civilization!!! Medicine, hospitals, self-defense, protection, shipyards, military presence, orderly gov't, etc...

After all of that is sorted out (if it is at all)......you can get back to Imperial invasion plans once the 'truth' becomes known.

@DurosSpacer I'm thinking the warlord "commandeered" several refugee ships before his jump, and has "enlisted" (read: enslaved) some of the locals to buff up his workforce. Much of the infrastructure would have to be built up during his 20 year exile. To solve the problem of manpower, I'm thinking he delves into cloning/battle droids, possibly finding one of the Emperor's hidden tech caches (similar to Wayland and Mount Tantiss during the Thrawn Trilogy).

Edit: Just saw your second post, and I find I am very fond of the idea. I might be stealing it.

@Braendig I will admit, I often default to describing the idea as "Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars Edition". The ability to go ahead and establish the colony anyways, regardless of the Imperial presence, is one option I look forward to exploring.

@politicfish I'm actually attempting to avoid the Chiss. One of my recent campaigns was hijacked by a player knowing significantly more about Mandalorians than I did, and I'd like to avoid similar incidents. On the other hand, though, I've found Wookieepedia to be an amazing resource on many occasions.

Yep! The cloning and/or droid thing could be one of those technological advancements they 'shared' with the systems there. Turns out the systems were rich in minerals and ores but did not have the technology to make use of them. How are the PC's going to convince these peoples that their great benefactors are, in fact, the bad guys? (Let the PC's figure this one out...'cause I really don't have an answer for it!)

I think that enslavement is what the PC's expect, but the Empire didn't always use brute force. I mean, Palpatine had otherwise good-aligned people working for his goals and objectives by playing Mr.Nice-Guy to them. I am always a fan for NOT giving the PC's what they expect. Maybe the locals call it "The Great Enlightenment" period of their history when the Imperials arrived and helped them so much?

This is a very good idea!

I may use it myself, but substitute Imperials for Seps, and give my PCs knowledge of an escape route (my PCs probably wouldn't like being stranded in the UR.) I would give the same info to the Seps, and it could be a kind of race to an unstable tunnel that only 1 could escape from

Dude, I'm shocked that nobody has mentioned the Darkstryder campaign yet. Why reinvent the wheel when WEG has already done most of the heavy lifting for you. That story arc sounds perfect for what you had in mind.

(On that note, how awesome would it be for FFG to do their own massive multipart Superarc?)