Initial Notes

Hokay, I have the prerequisite number of go-aheads to start this project. Here's some things you may want to know if you are just exploding with anticipation.

BASIC SETTING: Humanity, thriving off of the abundant energy and incredible economic boon caused by cleaner fission processes, expands to colonize any and all even remotely feasible worlds in the Sol system. This is supported by extensive terraformation processes developed originally on Earth in order to repair its somewhat damaged ecosystem and adapted for nearly any biome(or lack thereof) imaginable. Venus, the Moon, Mars, a good smattering of the moons of the gas giants, and even some parts of the Asteroid belt, as well as numerous orbital colonies, have allowed humanity to be given some breathing room. Unfortunately, after an extended period of time being apart from eachother, people's views of how the universe should run naturally diverge. It was inevitable that civil war on a System-wide scale would break out, but it was rather surprising how quickly it turned nasty.
After a prolonged period of fighting, a new foe threw itself at humanity all at once: The Enoken. Who knows why they started in on humanity, or the Sol system, or whatever. As humans tried to redirect their efforts against this new threat, it became increasingly obvious that this was a war that could not be won. Thankfully, the Exodus Project, a Earth led project to develop a starcraft capable of bringing a genetically sustainable population of humanity to another system, had been leaked much earlier. As the various factions raced to make sure that their version of humanity was kept alive, pure guesswork was made as to where to send the ships. It was almost literally at the last minute that each of the factions received their own version of the same secret knowledge: A survey that reveals a planet, in a faraway system, which has a 85% chance of being able to support human life.

And so, each ship secure in the knowledge that only they have this one last, best chance to ensure the survival of humanity, they each are heading for one nasty surprise...

That which will be attempted:

Although, in the end, MD stagnated because of its poor ruleset, it must be admitted that the ruleset provided a much-needed basis for everyone's nation as it stands today. As such, a ruleset is important for such Empire building games, if not forever, then at least at the outset.
However, noting that much of the problem came from using a poorly balanced, poorly written ruleset, I intend to avoid that pothole by making my own ruleset with blackjack and hookers to be used. Much like the army rules I shellacked together, this means that I can A: Make sure its balanced for our specific group, B: Know every facet of it so some piddly, unnoticed feature of the rules doesn't take me by surprise, and C: if all else fails, change it on the fly to reflect how I intended it to work. Additionally, in terms of readability, I'm making the ruleset as simple as I can manage: Hopefully, the most complex math that will need to be done is basic addition and subtraction.


However-
Since the ruleset is my own, and needs work, then unlike MD, the actual Empire Creation part of this process will be done BEFORE the ruleset is provided. Essentially, before such considerations as Where to put the colony and "How I mine for fish" come into play, I'll want to see a very basic summary of who you will be representing.
Things to keep in mind when pondering on this:
Where you come from is important: Humanity spread all across Sol. Who put up the money and resources for this project?
Government is important.
Goals for Colonization are important.
Culture is important.
Who is leading this expedition is important.

Those are just some things. I'll cover specifics later.