You all suck.

So what I think I've decided is that humans of different nations all colonized for different reasons, but after a while felt that they would be better off nationalizing, so through various methods (from bloody coup to apathy, really), they formed their own nations on these planets. Sometimes there is more than one nation per planet/satellite, other times people just spread out and form more or less city states. That's pretty vague, because it happens a few hundred years before the story. Anyways, over time, more people move around, people become restless, new cultural aspects are created, etc. and they don't really align themselves as originating from Earth (although typically earth is still a major trading partner for obvious reasons -- many planets are inhospitable otherwise, or were terraformed. Some are earth-like enough to be self sustainable with some effort). Somewhat importantly, though, is that there are no known aliens. I have thought about adding aliens as a sub plot, but I'm up in the air. I don't want them to be little green men or shallow or anything.

So back to the humans wars/fighting break out among people on different planets - conflict doesn't really arise between Planet A and Planet B, but rather between the nation on the east side and the west side of the same planet. I figure that all planets will have some semblance of a military, and some sort of ability for interstellar travel, even though those will be on varying levels. These outfits of mercs start popping up to help deal with the conflict. The main characters are part of a very large outfit - a few thousand people - but they're pretty decently spread out, with the exception of one planet, so they rarely see many more of their outfit other than when they're at wherever headquarters are (probably not Earth, I think). They go intervene, with various levels of success, thanks, etc., pack up and move to the next planet.

Intervening for the most part are sub plots, and I say that because they go do their work and then they won't go back. It isn't that they are out at these planets looking for something or fighting the same foe. I feel like that would more than likely be more accurate. I could foresee an ambitious group trying to cause problems between these small nations so that they can interlope and take resources...otherwise I don't know how I could fit them altogether. So the main plot, I think will deal with the characters interacting with each other, or with themselves, or with some other minor character. I have some ideas, but none concrete enough to share. One is with a character who is obsessed with the idea that his father was kidnapped by aliens (to which, of course, the characters don't really believe happened), and I think he'll run into him at some point, one way or another. Another is more sobering I think, with a guy who thinks he can read a book/article about a subject and understand and perfectly, and in the end it kills him when he tries to HALO jump :\

My biggest hurdle still is understanding how some things work. I've decided that for the most part their space ship will not be for combat, simply for deploying them, landing, and keeping a huge ground/air arsenal in the cargo hold (although Rods from God would be cool). I don't know much about combat, so I gotta read up on that. Luckily I've got some help on some of this, because my bf is really into that type of stuff, especially air combat, which will probably be an important factor (not in outer space obviously). And I should probably look into things like astronomy, because even though I find it interesting and I feel that I could write on it without looking stupid, I'm not an expert by any means. I'm not too worried...hopefully I have the resources to get the basic understanding I need to accomplish this....