from cre -- as a placeholder
I've also been thinking about the back story, but haven't written it down..like how
did the station get to the planet, who owns it and the Fleet ships, who will finance the reclamation and reconstruction and why, etc. Who will play the part(s) that are played by The Company, in essence, on Core.

As I sat daydreaming at my desk at work today it occurred to me that I think this is the most important of the important placeholder topics. For example, weapons and armor derive from this; maybe even the name of money. I was thinking about armor today, and really...I don't like it in a futuristic motif. Do you wear armor regularly? Probably not. And we're not even in the future yet (but I hear we will be soon). So, for back story -

1. What year is it?
2. What planet is this? Are we a kazillion light years from Earth like Core? If so, 'realistically' the year would more likely have to be 15,000 or something. I suggest we keep it in the 'neighborhood', something like Tau Ceti or Epsilon Eridani. Reachable within the next 1000 years.
3. I agree with Jerin that we not copy what we know - so rather than a Company, maybe there are competing consortiums looking for resources out this way. Or, there were competing consortiums, but now they've abandoned this system for greener pastures, and this place has been somewhat forgotten. Their loss, as we find things they missed, etc. I can later come up with some timeline historical thingies, once we decide what year it is (solving backward in a way).
4. As Vini asked me - hard sci-fi, or soft sci-fi, or what? I think it might be easier and more attractive to go 'hard' sci-fi, but that's up for debate obviously. Soft sci-fi would lean more on personal interactions and the like, and I think would require more maintenance, plus an active story arc that we're a long way from supporting. Hard sci-fi, we throw in a sci-fi universe, and let it evolve from what we hath createth.

One interesting side-note as it relates to the planet; before he died, Zhyghar sent me a very detailed list of his geological research into a Core-like planet, which will never be used in-game there. But, I have still have all of it, and it's very, very detailed. We might be able to incorporate some of it down the road for the 'detail-oriented' player who'd appreciate that sort of thing. Plus, I think it sort of cool I'd finally get to use that somewhere, since I don't think there's really any interest at Core in the science or realism side of things.