From the Publisher's Website: Take to the stars and smuggle exotic goods across the galaxy, solve mysteries aboard space liners, or explore the frontier. HardNova II includes alien races, starships, exotic abilities, ready-to-play scenarios, reference sheets, and numerous character, robot, and starship templates. HardNova II is a roleplaying game designed to be both easy to learn and fast-paced. The versatile genreDiversion i 2d6 rules make it perfect for one-shot games, extended play, or as a framework for your own ideas. Plus you can combine it with our Active Exploits Diceless System for diceless space opera. genreDiversion i games can also be combined to expand gaming options--mix and match custom rules and features from one game with another. In short, HardNova II is fast, ready-to-use, and adaptable. You don't have to learn a complicated system, refer to scores of tables, or spend all day creating characters. The basic rules require very little study, and the advanced rules are not much more difficult to pick up. You can either create custom characters for the game or dive right in with any of the included templates. The game is designed to be light; it has a small footprint and extremely low price tag - it's not overloaded with tons of rules or an excess of information you just won't need. It's meant to get you running quickly so you can have a good time. The setting is very open, taking place in our galaxy, where Earth formed an alliance (the United Sovereign Worlds, or USU) with several alien worlds as the result of a war with a hostile species. Two centuries later, that alien species is now a member of the alliance due to genetic and economic deficiencies (and some compassion from an Earth colony). They have assimilated well, but there is still discrimination. Even a synthetic race has joined the USU, allowing for some interesting gaming possibilities. The included scenarios immerse you into the setting so even if you don't want to the run them, you've still got a lot of info to work with to flavor your setting or inspire ideas. And if you don't want to use the setting, the rules are flexible enough to handle your own ideas or that of your favorite movie, television program, comic, or novel.