Genre: Suggested reading and viewing.

To give those going into this setting a sort of inkling of what inspired this setting, I'm presenting here a small gathering of media that provided ideas for the genre and setting ethos.

Suggested Reading: Mike Resnick's Santiago is a kind of space western, with aliens, cyborgs, con-men and gunslingers in a galaxy where you travel from star to star with no more complication than crossing the Earth's ocean on a ship today. It's very good, and has a very "legends are self-perpatuating" tone to it. Warren Ellis' graphic novel Orbiter is a clear inspiration for the hyperdrives in the setting (allowing for faster-than-light without time travel complicating things), and the White Wolf paper&pencil roleplaying game Trinity (originally ÆON, before Viacom and MTV got their law-suit-happy panties in a bunch over someone using that word in a sci-fi context) is a very good example of the general tech level of the setting (no transhumanism, no AI, but still interstellar FTL, biotech and fusion). Other inspirations are the space romps in Alan Moore's Tom Strong, as well as his Jonni Future (set in the same universe).

Suggested Viewing: Farscape, the tv-series and miniseries, to start with, to depict just how weird and wonderful and generally oddly humanoid the universe in Futurum is, and also, hot alien babes. Titan AE is another good watch, no hot alien babes (am I annoying you yet?), but cool spaceships, a generally light tone, and surprisingly clever heroes. It may also be the first sci-fi movie to take the implications of energy-to-matter conversion seriously (if an entire dominant spacefaring race is made of sapient energy-forms, how would they react when a bunch of barely evolved apes figure out matter-to-energy?), unlike Star Trek. Star Wars has a few fingers in the game (mainly for the hot alien bab- ow, quit hitting me!), as well as Chronicles of Riddick (the general competency of the protagonists in CoR is close to the starting PC of Futurum). The Fifth Element is a light-hearted romp into goofy 70's French sci-fi, with awesome action scenes, tons of humor and a visually gorgeous galaxy, not to mention hot alien babes. Ha! And last but not least, Firefly, a space western in a highly improbable solar system (and when I say space western, I mean space western) with likeable characters, cool spaceships and excellent genre awareness. And hot human babes.

Suggested Listening: The original score of the Farscape TV-series is a good place to start, as well as the score to the videogame Mass Effect, but also various 80's synth, synthpop and the likes. Eric Serra's score to The Fifth Element is another good one. Generally, as long as you avoid the too-recognizable scores to the various Star Treks and Star Wars movies, you're golden.

Suggested Playing: Mass Effect has somewhat clumsier FTL and such, but it has an amazing design and a retro 80's vibe to it, in the best way, and the vast, unexplored galaxy is very much akin to the Uncharted Territories of Futurum. Other good games are the Star Control series, but other than that most sci-fi-flavored gaming tends towards the darker spectrum. Halo might be a good setting to borrow from, excluding the somewhat more horror-oriented Flood.

Next: Some brief history and background. Just exactly why did humanity never receive any transmissions when the galaxy is so darn populated?