"GURPS Space Atlas 3: The Confederacy", is the third of the series of pregenerated sectors created to support "GURPS Space".
The setting for this atlas is the Great Spiral sector, a region of space colonised by slower -than-light vessels apparently launched from the Phoenix Sector featured in "Space Atlas Four". These worlds have banded together into an alliance to protect against piracy. This alliance is now threatened by the plans of one Baron Rolf von Toerbach, who believes that the region would be better run if he was in charge, and who is planning to overthrow the present government.
Like the previous books it is a 64 page book which begins with an introductory section which gives details of the base setting (organisations, pronunciation of planet names, etc) and supplies seeds for variant backgrounds (Anarchy, Federation, Imperial & Civil War) on that setting.
The "Civil War" background seed, is set after Baron von Toerbach's activates his plan of conquest and would make a good start point for a combat/diplomacy oriented campaign. A another adventure possiblility mentioned in the introduction would be for the PC's to play the space pirates that are mentioned in the background description. The precise details of how the pirates are organised are left up to the GM to decide.
This is the first book in the series to make use of colour maps, with shades of blue representing water. However it is the maps that let this book down, the sector maps both feature an additional planet (see sjgames.com for the specific errata). The planetary maps are worse, the location numbers are misplaced on most of the maps, and some maps are missing planetary capitals even though the text description says that they exist.
In one case (Velpaire) there is a string of numbers on the planet, but nothing is said about them in the information block below the map or in the text.
In two other cases (Yakutz and Zyra) the information in the planetary information page contradicts the information in the on the Planetary Record page.
On the other hand the setting does provide a good background start point, though one planet, Malthus, does not seem to fit this background. In fact Malthus would seem to be more at home in either the Old Frontiers("Space Atlas One") or Saga ("Space Atlas Four") sectors.
As with "GURPS Space Atlas", spacecraft descriptions use terms compatible with the first and second editons of "GURPS Space".
In conclusion I would recommend this book to GM's who are willing to work around the problems, as the setting does provide plenty of opportunities for adventure.
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