Right–I’m back after a week of Christmas celebration, tending sick children, and moving house. (Rather more of the latter two than the former, especially given that our new flat was flooded by a careless workman on Christmas day…)
Well, I’ve been dropping hints and outright spoilers for years now (on the old WiP thread as well as here), and people have been adding their own speculation to that stew. Sorry for any confusion that results! Feel free to ask if there’s a reference to something you didn’t see in the actual game–we can put in a link to the earlier discussion to help catch you up.
I’ll kick off another WiP (open alpha) thread for Game 2 once I’ve written a stretch I’m happy enough with. Don’t worry, all, I fully intend to write it as I did Game 1.
Jumping back upthread a ways… although the injustices of “not proven” highlighted by idnlun and Mara would make it an excellent fit for the Hegemony, I’m afraid it would require a rewrite of too many trials in Game 1. Thanks for the suggestion, though, @Norilinde–I didn’t mind the diversion into Scottish law. Under most scenarios in which you run into Breden again in future games, xhe’ll have a sizeable following that would complicate the process of bringing xhim to trial…
Absolutely. But on your path, there’s no reason for anyone in the band to think twice about Breden. The bandits never knew xhim, and while I’m sure anything Mara de Jade said about xhim was negative, I can’t imagine she’s spent too much time smearing xhim as a heretic coward, either. Mara doesn’t know that Breden will pop up again, after all. So I’d expect the band to be mildly hostile rather than adamantly hostile, especially if the popping-up happens while Mara is away…
Glad you liked the rest of it! 
For what it’s worth, the mechanic originally intended for those characters was having someone from your non-preferred gender fall for you. They’re only ROs at all because I don’t want to exclude bisexual MCs.
Stand trial? The only relevant corpses are the secret god-kings of the world. They’d never recognize anyone else’s jurisdiction.
Love it. 
Choice of Rebels is a very different setting to Robin Hood. You can’t really have a kindly king beloved of (all) the commoners when the system relies on the dehumanization and systematic slaughter of commoners. The closest real world parallels, like the traditional South Asian caste system or US chattel slavery, pushed privileged people into roles where they had to perpetrate or at least condone vast amounts of brutality in order to preserve the social order.
The aristos who do evil things in Game 1 generally don’t do so because they’re sadists, but because they’re afraid and/or able to deceive themselves about the full impact of their actions. Most don’t have a personal bent for cruelty, but they’re at the top of a system that relies on cruelty to perpetuate itself. This certainly applies to the Keriatou and Pelematou, for notable example.
If you don’t want to preserve the Hegemony–incuding the idea of an extensive common law enforced more or less consistently across a vast area–then the revival of local enforcement institutions is a reasonable thing to aim for. Some have been in abeyance for centuries, but as we’ll see in Game 2, some aristarchs have preserved traditional ways more than others, so there’ll be something to build on. The most modern aspects of the Hegemony are based on the blood economy, and will thus in any case be challenging to sustain.
There’s very little difference, in the Outer Rim.
I’m delighted to hear it. I hope I can continue to write interesting failures. I certainly intend to.