Just more info;
SM2 was an Empire setting, indeed very Dune or Star Wars like. With very few aliens, it was also very Foundation like. Very Political with fueding houses and corperations all under the rule of the Emperor.
Privateers is a bit more Star Treck really. It assumes the Ancients seeded planets with genetic stock, resulting in the six races, 4 mammal, one insect and one reptile. The races are scattered throughout the galaxy and often primative ancestors exist on those other worlds (on earth, all but the oorts do, which must have gone extinct sometime ago). What exactly the ancients were trying to do is unknown and a field of worthy scientific exploration (and was the bases of my first adventure).
The setting is written up for humans and oorts to have met first in space and formed a union (which would become the ISC, a loose confederation of cooperative worlds). They established a program for "gearing up" other human and oort worlds. In time, other discovered species were included, and after much debate I might add.
A military coup leads to the forming of the Joronian Empire, which launches a war against the ISC. This is were the game picks up. The ISC is bigger, has better tech in general, wealthier with a much better developed economic base, but the attack caught them totally off guard and only now are they unitingand racing to build fleets and armies.
The players are assumed to be Privateers, spacers with writs of piracy essentially to attack Joronan shipping. Privateers also join in on official military mission and even fleet actions. The setting is rife with adventure possibilities, even if the players don't want to be Privateers.
hope that helps.
lynn
