Space 1889 is a planetary adventure in the vein of Verne, Wells, and H. Rider Haggard. It's the 1889 that you vaguely remember from history, with a European peace and a scramble for Empire, trains and factories but only the most experimental cars. There are a few teensy differences. First, Thomas Edison invented a device in 1870 called the ether propeller, which allows travel in space. Mars, Venus, and Mercury have all been explored. Mars is populated by a decadent race in dusty cities along canals, with bands of wild nomads. Martian liftwood allows the creation of ships that can fly to an altitude where the ether propeller takes them into space. Mars is mostly dominated by the British. Venus is a swampy planet with dinosaurs, lizardmen, and efficient German plantations. Mercury has a livable river separating regions where lead vaporizes and air freezes. The setting seems ripe for adventure, with vast wildernesses to explore, principalities both human and alien to conquer, and many treasures to exploit.

The system is Ubiquity, a stat+skill dice pool where even results count as a success. There's an automatic success rule, which is good because the system seems extremely punishing. My analysis shows a decent chance of success at half your total rating, bad odds (p=0.3) one above that, poor odds (p = 0.1) two above that, and beyond that, forget about it!

I haven't yet played this game, so I do have some skepticism about the setting. There are hooks everywhere, but how do they catch? I'm not running the game, so less concerned. And as for Ubiquity, it's serviceable, but for a game based around expeditions and/or social status, could use some more mechanical heft there. Also, combat by the book involves rerolling initiative every round, which why?