Freelancer (video Game) - Plot and Setting

Plot and Setting

The events in Freelancer take place 800 years after those in the video game Starlancer (2000). The solar system was engulfed in a civil war, fought between the Alliance and the Coalition. Facing defeat, the Alliance placed its people in stasis and sent them to the Sirius system, where they settled and transformed the surrounding space (the Sirius sector) into a region of political intrigue and opportunity. The rule of the sector is mostly split among four houses, each named after the sleeper ship that brought them to the system. Each house exhibits the culture of its terrestrial ancestor: Liberty of 1920s United States, Bretonia of Victorian era United Kingdom, Kusari of Shogunate era Japan, and Rheinland of Second Industrial Revolution Germany. The fifth sleeper ship, Hispania, suffered a malfunction en-route and was abandoned in deep space. The descendants of its crew became pirates.

Freelancer's planetary bodies and space stations lie on a single plane. There are 48 known star systems, and spacecraft can travel from one system to another by passing through jump gates. Within a system, spacecraft can travel in the trade lanes—a series of gates that connect to form a "space highway"—to quickly reach places of interests, such as planets, space stations, and mining operations. Asteroid and debris fields populate some of the systems, and secret hideouts and derelicts with valuable items exist in deep space. Merchant ships ply the trade lanes, carrying cargo from system to system and occasionally coming under attack by pirates. Patrolling the systems are police and large naval warships.