FASA Games, Inc.

You could make an adventure that evolves. A nice "crescendo".

You can give the background and something silly and harmful becoming a grand scheme and problems everywhere.
Of course, the epic needs the feeling, emotion involved so that it can trully capture the GM and Players.

Good NPC's, with good reaons and plots are always good for you crossing the universe!

Completely agree with Holz.

Wryfool: That's certainly an interesting proposition. I am a little apprehensive about a campaign centered around Alexius (or any other of the REALLY bigshot people), although the royal wedding could definitelly work as a nice backdrop, especially for a political intrigue/Questing Knight troubleshooters kind of story. And to establish Alexius’ empress without setting in stone exactly who she is, by in the future referring to her as “The Royal Consort” is brilliant. Thanks!

Holz: Yes, without an emotional impact there really isn’t much point to a story. Things must MATTER!

I don't know what are the plans of FASA for Fading Suns, but Instead of just giving the picture for all to play, make it alive.

At least once a year an adventure telling the things that happened or The Town Crier's Guild give us hints of how things are developing in the back ground.
Or make a contest that people post what is happening on they're campaigns and use it to fill in the holes. =D

All interesting thoughts (although they require more work than one might think). But it hink we need to be very careful with the meta-plots. A sizable portion of the community absolutely loaths them, and even for those who appreciate such things it is very easy to get it wrong. But yeah, more stuff going on would be nice. (There is talk of doing a dev.blog, although we're all insanly busy...)

It seems political intrigue is a popular choice

@Angelman

I agree with you that FS would have to be careful with a "metaplot" book, or even the appearance of one. Some people hate metaplots reflexively now, but many of them hate them for the following reasons:

1: They often take agency away from the PCs and have them become spectators for the actions of NPCs.
2: The often irrevocably change the setting, and all future books assume that those setting changes have happened.
3: They can be heavy-handed, making large-scale changes to a setting that screw with player options.
4: They are sometimes written in a purposefully obfuscatory manner, refusing to tell the Players or even the GM involved what is going on, to spread out the mystery and sell future metaplot products.
5: They sometimes make setting changes that severely alter the tone or themes of the setting.

A good example of a metaplot change was the Empire increasing the ranks of the Questing Knights, done between 1st and 2nd ed of Fading Suns. First Ed made it seem like Questing Knights were elite forces, not starting characters. The 2nd ed rulebook changed that. It was well done because it avoided all the problems listed above. There was an in-game reason given, and it caused no grief that I can think of (except maybe to those untrustworthy and vainglorious Mantis Knights!).

Good points, Wryfool. I wonder, perhaps metaplot stuff is best left for sourcebooks? We are planning to touch on several things regarding the development of the young Empire, and the place of Questing Knights (among other things) within it, and also doing a Patriarchal thing at some point, but perhaps doing it as adventures is not the best option? The QK metaplot was moved between editions (FS1, FS2, and slightly FSR), but there were no timeline advancement in the dramas. Personally, I would much rather play a game focusing on what it is to be a QK, then a game where a band of QK get to influence who becomes Alexius' spouse, or whatever. I don't know why, but the meta-plots as adventures never appealed to me as a player, although there might be very interesting repercussion of meta-plot advancements that is worth gaming out. Now, everyone is different of course, and what I personally prefer doesn't necessarily dictate what we will do... still, just saying...

As a hater of metaplot, I feel like I need to chime in and say I'm against advancing the timeline in any way. Don't kill off the patriarch. Let the game masters develop their own plots around the sickly and reclusive space pope.

My overall issue with meta plot is that why create tension that makes the game interesting (great plot hooks) to only to close that loop in the following supplement?