When I think of Space Opera, my mind naturally focuses on people zapping from one end of the galaxy to another, from the core worlds to the outer rim, from solar system to solar system without a thought. Space Fleets. Galactic Wars. Aliens. Blasters. All good. The one problem with this is it institutes a certain scale, and once you set a scale certain things fall within and without that scale. In this case, what tends to get missed is the sheer vastness of space. Individual solar systems are massive and each individual planet potentially has the richness of Earth itself. All this is lost as each planet becomes one location of many quickly visited, often simplified to a signature type, such as a water or desert world.

In the back of my mind, I've been thinking lately about space opera on a different scale: no FTL drives, solar system only. At first, I couldn't get my head around it, but as usual, the ever bountiful internet and TV shows come to the rescue. You have to remember the solar system is big. Very big. It's not small. You just have to get your brain into the scale. TV shows like Firefly, Battlestar Galactica and role-playing games like Fading Suns help in this matter, along with Wikipedia.

Technology is always a strange one, as unless you go for the space opera approach of it being a 'galaxy far, far away' or ridiculously far into the future, you face the technological development of today. So, you either completely ignore that or have some sort of 'golden age' that has fallen. I'm thinking fallen 'golden age' due to some war. Who knows what with, but the point is all sorts of mad, out of control technology has been lost enough to be dangerous science, both because it did prove dangerous, to a degree, and because it brought about the war. This re-creates the science on the edge factor and allows for lots of existential risk. As a result, in a way, technology is more advanced but not as far advanced as it should be. Typical space opera.

In the solar system, Earth is obviously the richest asset, as such it has to be as interesting, and potentially capable of enough stories that you never have to leave (just like the real world). You have the chance to mix it up due to the 'fall event'. You could have the different regions of Earth facilitate different story types. Japan is a futuristic wonderland. The US is a mixture of coastal havens and a wasteland with mutant tribes in the centre, complete with 'Amtrak Wars' wagon trains. Europe has also suffered, with city arcologies being dominant. China is potentially the new power. People live in the oceans allowing for 'SeaQuest' situations. Lots of possibilities.

Once we move away from Earth we have numerous options. You can have floating cities just outside Earth orbit. Serious colonisation of the Moon. A half terraformed Mars. The asteroid belt is a hot-bed of mining outfits, a bit like 'oil rigs' but on a massive scale and much lonelier. It may also be a lawless frontier? Hell, you could have floating aerostats cities in the glorious Venusian atmosphere. This then creates the need for space ships to travel between the various locations, thus turning the solar system into a new version of the ancient seas. If the oceans are big enough to play host to navy fleets and trade then the solar system certainly is, accepting space opera factors being in place. You also have the concept of the inner and outer solar system. The inner system before the asteroid belt can be more 'colonised' while the outer system beyond the belt is remote, mysterious and not colonised.

You take a space opera view of space vessels, essentially creating an analogue between solar system travel and the oceans of Earth, either surface or submarine. Not exactly the same, but similar. The vessels are akin to something like Battlestar Galactica, with a strange juxtaposition of technologies, possessing 'artificial gravity', life support, fancy computer interfaces and being capable of having gunfire on board without falling to bits, while at the same time having sensors that offer enough blindness for things to be strange (no sensing out to Jupiter from Mars) and battles interesting. We can also ignore the 'no horizon' of space, etc. Space vessels have that semi-realistic feel of Battlestar Galactica in terms of how they move and use missiles and projectile weapons and have ablative armour not shields. Obviously, some fancy drive exists, say an ION drive, that allows reasonable, but not too fast, travel times within the system and we ignore relativistic effects, navigation problems and the need for shielding. Why does space combat happen so slow like in Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica? Usually this is via separating STL from FTL speeds. Hmmm, maybe it's 'just so', after all, Star Wars STL drives are ludicrously fast but battles still go slow!

If a space navy existed, what would they be protecting people from and who could they have occasional spats with? That's the main issue in 'solar system space opera'. Individual nations of Earth? New factions of some sort? It might be more a 'policing' force? I'm thinking old-style political blocks like the EU, an Asian Block, North and South America, etc. Possibly.

Threats? The usual stuff. Fringe science (or re-discovered dangerous science). Apocalyptic cults. Genetic madness. Psychic emergence. Conspiracies. Corporate power. Ancient mysteries. Secret organisations. Aliens. Essentially existential risks. What happens if a damaged alien ship appears in the system? An ancient ruin discovered on Mars? A wormhole on the edge of the solar system? Or an intelligence from the 'Darkness Between the Stars', outside of the suns reach, in deep space, takes an interest? Lots of possibilities.

So, after a bit of breaking the back of it, solar system limited space opera is possible. It may even be a very cool alternative. You may also be able to achieve a rich, less broad brush scale, while sacrificing none of the epic nature intrinsic to Space Opera. It was tasking me, and this is the result of my small, sporadic considerations.