It’s Romans. In. Spaaaaaaace on today’s episode of System Mastery. Thrill at the game designed to be compatible with a bunch of other games! Marvel at page after page of legion construction flowchart! If you’re a fan of the game, ready your emails about the stuff we forgot to mention (hint, Edge)!
System Mastery 
TBF, everyone, at least in the West, is still fascinated with the glory of Rome, with any new radical government since the Middle Ages trying to build themselves off the marble ideal of the Roman Republic or Empire. From such diverse nation states as the Holy Roman Empire, to the early United States, to Nazi Germany, to even Romania, everyone’s been trying to claim it’s either some extension of Rome or the New Rome. So, it’s not that beyond belief that someone in the far future someone would try to emulate that.
The wargames still have fans. Interceptor and Centurion still have online support from fans, but Legionnaire has largely fallen by the wayside. Interceptor, in particular, still has some cred for being an early sprite-based space dogfighter, similar to Wing Commander. That said, from what I recall of one of (or only) the adventure books, for Legionnaire, you were supposed to be playing small unit commando groups doing infiltration and sabotage of the other side. But even that book had scenarios for Interceptor and the other games. There was supposed to be a squad minis game for Renegade Legion, called Phalanx, but it fell through.
The thing that I found out recently, and could explain some inconsistencies in the game line, but it was revealed a few years ago that Renegade Legion was supposedly an attempt by FASA to get the Star Wars license from Lucasfilm, which ultimately went to West End Games. You can even see some similarities with Star Wars, with the TOG being staffed by shock-white armored stormtroopers, a horrific atrocity where the TOG Navy blows up a planet that galvanizes support for the Commonwealth, and the Kess-Rith being essentially Wookies.
Truly FASA were the LJN of RPG publishing.
The reverse appearance penalty/bonus thing kind of makes sense, as a way to give humans a relative penalty from the perspective of the weird aliens. It’s not that the aliens all find each other super attractive, but they consider each other to be way more attractive than they find humans.
Did you mean “jeremiad”?
jeroboam – n. a large wine bottle having a capacity of about four ordinary bottles or 3 liters
That is a lot of faith.
Nice you reviewed the game I sent you! Was an entertaining podcast. I knew you guys would get a kick out of the aliens.
Thanks for a great reaad