I’m a huge Star Wars nerd, so on this special day I wanted to talk about how *Aether Circuits*, my indie TTRPG, was *heavily* inspired by Star Wars, especially in its early design.

Back when I first started working on AC, it was basically a dieselpunk Star Wars. I’m talking trench coats, busted airspeeders, and arcane-tuned rifles. The vehicles, the rebel-vs-empire dynamic, the mystical energy that flows through everything—it was all there. The game’s original blueprint had robed mystics dueling in the ruins of shattered gods while Aether-powered walkers stomped across the battlefield.

The Force? That *became* Aether. But I didn’t just stop at copying—it evolved.

I started digging deeper into the *scientific metaphors* of the Force. What if “magic” was an expression of real forces in nature? That led me to design Aether as a particle that connects all things, but its expressions are shaped by fundamental forces: **electromagnetism, gravity, strong and weak nuclear force.** These directly influence how spells and aetheric powers behave in the world.

Want to levitate something? That’s Aether affecting gravity. Casting lightning? Electromagnetic disruption. Creating force shields or warping space-time? Those ideas came straight from sci-fi thinking, run through a fantasy lens.

The end result became less of a Star Wars clone and more of a *love letter* to what Star Wars *sparked* in me as a kid: the idea that science and mysticism could coexist in storytelling, and that rebels with strange powers can still change the fate of galaxies.

Happy Star Wars Day, and if you’re working on your own games, don’t be afraid to wear your influences on your sleeve. Just make sure to alchemize them into something *uniquely yours*.

May the Aether be with you.

May the 4th Be With You – Aether Circuits Was Born From the Force