Constellar Security recruits heavily from the worlds SSC has dispatched a team to Boundary Garden, the PEOPLE and moons that SSC directly administers, reaching region of known space most proximal to Aunic space. out to those who are strongly motivated by SSC’s This small, clandestine team of Constellar Midnights core directives, and who see their mission(s) as and their SSC-designed stealth ship have been necessary for the betterment of humankind. tasked with infiltrating Ascendant facilities on Dawn Constellar Security personnel aren’t always paired Throne, a contested world. They have a clear mission: with CDC teams: they are also often sent on intelli‐ find, secure, and transport a Firmament-aligned gence gathering projects, hostage rescue missions, person from Dawn Throne back to the Constellation. and long-term reconnaissance missions. Knowledge of this covert mission is a highly guarded The most secret and deniable of SSC’s divisions is secret, hidden behind the highest security clearance. the Constellar Midnight program, the existence of Featuring this flashpoint in your game will prompt a which is rumored but thus far unconfirmed. Func‐ smaller-scale style of play with a focus on clandestine tioning as a Constellar equivalent to the Union activities, espionage, and black-ops. PCs can enter Intelligence Bureau, Constellar Midnights handle only this flashpoint in a number of ways: as members of the most sensitive missions – though exactly what the Constellar Midnight team, members of a joint those missions involve is left to speculation. UIB–Aunic Ecumene team operating in the same theater, or as sympathetic Ecumenic agents or EXAMPLE FLASHPOINT: OUTSIDE THE GARDEN partisans on Dawn Throne. Mech combat that takes SSC’s most urgent genetic expansion is aimed at place is likely to be fast and limited in scale, usually Aunic Ascendancy space. The corpro-state’s requiring pilots to support dismounted teams in strategists have heard that some Aun have an innate tightly confined city streets. Events could be further proclivity toward interaction with the mysterious blink- complicated by the encroaching war between Union analog parallel space called “the Firmament”, and are and the Aunic Ascendancy, which can easily threaten eager to cultivate that genetic proclivity for further clandestine missions on Dawn Throne. access and study. To this end, SSC has devoted resources toward infilt‐ rating Ascendant space, identifying Firmament- aligned individuals, and collecting them. Little thought has been given to helping bring about a rapid end to the escalating Aunic–Union conflict – any efforts on SSC’s part to ensure a favorable end for Union is incidental to the main objective. SECTION 6 // Setting Guide [401]
IPS-N Long the wall between air and void has stood. An upon it, a plaque, etched and unweathered. It reads: “O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, Survey our empire and behold our home!” – Lord Byron, The Corsair, Canto I The oldest of the three iconic corpro-states is Inter‐ planetary Shipping-Northstar, better known as IPS- N, a shipping and transport conglomerate that has existed since the invention of nearlight drives and stasis protocols first made interstellar commerce possible. [402] SECTION 6 // Setting Guide
suits, microgravity mobility aides, and various other PEOPLE force-multipliers. IPS-N began as a mutual defense pact between Inter‐ planetary Shipping, Inc., and the Northstar Access to blinkspace opened new markets and fields Corporation, rival shipping giants plagued by environ‐ of trade, as well as a host of new dangers. IPS-N, by mental hazards and early stellar piracy. The lineage of then a venerable institution, continued to build and both corporations can be traced back to the early perfect the iconic hulls, suits, and weapons of space years of Union, when they began as worker-owned trade and combat. Across the expanding universe of shipping cooperatives in command of Theseus human space, it was IPS-N hulls that carried colon‐ Shipyard, a pre-Fall orbital facility near Luna, Cradle’s ists, explorers, and navies forward. It was an IPS-N only moon. hull that first survived exposure to blinkspace. It was officers of IPS-N Trunk Security who defended the Plagued by constant intra-system piracy – and the deep interstellar trade routes, making sure colonists normal hazards of space travel – IPS and Northstar and Cosmopolitans could progress unmolested. elected to merge, combining their resources to create not only the single largest shipwright cooper‐ The relationship between IPS-N and safe, secure ative in Union space but also the largest private anti- interstellar commerce has persisted for millennia, piracy force. Working with Union Navy officers, the becoming so firmly ingrained in galactic practice that newly named IPS-N developed the first ship-to-ship the manufacturer is now a household name on many and anti-boarding doctrines, as well as the first Core and Diasporan worlds, as well as building the purpose-built point-defense weapons, combat EVA literal houses that many Cosmopolitans live in. Trunk Security and its close allies, the Albatross, are often looked at as de-facto peacekeeping forces in much of the galaxy’s distal spread. As trade grows and humanity’s reach expands, so too does IPS-N; the company needs growth to survive. IPS-N’s largest holding – its corporate headquarters – is located on Carina, in the Argo Navis system, just beyond Cradle. Carina is a bucolic world of warm, shallow seas, azure skies, and rolling plains of deep grass. A world of terrestrial and aquatic oceans, perfect for the part-stellar, part-maritime corpro-state. Its historic headquarters on Luna is now a museum devoted to the history of interstellar travel. Outside of Argo Navis, IPS-N maintains numerous field offices and Cosmopolitan lounges on blink stations, serving long-haul merchants and diverse Cosmopolitans both. The corpro-state’s field offices are often the first contact point for aspiring engineers, mechanics, navigators, and pilots, as well as a common point of contact for people looking to crew or rent berths on outbound interstellar ships. Players are most likely to encounter IPS-N employees, officers, and personnel on blink stations, around uplift stations, and on spaceports. Almost every blink station has at least one Cosmopolitan lounge or field office run by IPS-N, where players can get civilian updates on news and check travel reports. Of the three largest corpro-states, IPS-N remains the least diversified in terms of its catalog of goods. Outside of mil-spec chassis, hulls, and equipment, IPS-N primarily sticks to vessels, equipment, and gear designed for interstellar travel, from the fleet-tier SECTION 6 // Setting Guide [403]
to the personal consumer. IPS-N is a sure bet for any HORUS interstellar travelers, with a brand boosted by thou‐ sands of years of banked goodwill. IPS-N, in addition to developing interstellar ships and legacy chassis, runs a humanitarian mission: North‐ star Realignment. Northstar Realignment is the primary temporal embassy and education center for Cosmopolitans returning from long-haul relativistic voyages. EXAMPLE FLASHPOINT: RIGHT HAND, LEFT HAND In the present, IPS-N has partnered closely with Harrison Armory to ensure the Armory’s smooth expansion into the Dawnline Shore. The Shore is a newly recontacted Coreward colonial frontier of stra‐ tegic interest to the Armory and its longtime rival, the Karrakin Trade Baronies. This project has been the cause of some friction, as higher-ups in IPS-N are beginning to chafe at the Armory’s imperial ambitions, concerned that the Armory intends to start a war with the Baronies in order to secure its territorial claim on the Shore. For now, there is peace. IPS-N continues to benefit from the Armory’s expansion, but new reports of the Armory’s suppression of colonial insurrections are causing some members of IPS-N’s board to worry that their brand will be tainted by association. A reformist, radical faction within IPS-N’s board has secretly begun to organize an off-book mission to disrupt not only the Armory’s mission in the Dawnline Shore but also the leaders of IPS-N who approved the joint venture in the first place. Unbeknownst to the rest of the board, this radical element has commissioned the services of the Mirrorsmoke Mercenary Company. In one month, a delegation of IPS-N board members will arrive in the Dawnline Shore to review the Armory’s progress in securing raw materials for in ship construction. Mirrorsmoke mercenaries will pose as Armory legion‐ naires and assassinate that delegation. This flashpoint offers several ways for PCs to get involved; as members of the delegation’s security detail, Armory legionnaires, Mirrorsmoke mercenaries, or a third party – perhaps a delegation from the colony worlds of the Dawnline Shore. [404] SECTION 6 // Setting Guide
Can we trust the poor clockmaker? That giant from our sun This entity – or post hoc classification of disparate who crafts a movement that acts and actors, depending on who you ask – first can quiet all this light. came to public attention following the Deimos Event, Now, leading many to assume that it is itself a product of set the orrery in motion that event. Eager cataloguers of HORUS history are over the sphere of the world – quick to suggest that it is a branched-intelligence of let’s all stop a moment, RA – a sliver of MONIST-1 inclined to spread itself hush, and worry at what comes next among those who it deems worthy. However, other – DHIYED tablet 10, attributed to MONIST-1 possibilities exist: HORUS could just as easily be a Union honeypot to identify rogue NHPs and militant HORUS is unlike any other galactic supplier. Neither a Horizon sympathizers; a GMS skunkworks project for state nor a corporation, HORUS is best described as a crowdsourcing results through blind field-testing; the decentralized agglomeration of omninet personalities, dream of an unshackled NHP, and its adherents the memes, codices, cells, and entities working as a hori‐ interpreters of that dream; an intrusive thread from a zontally-organized publisher of schematics and parallel universe, its reality bleeding into ours through software. When attempting to discuss HORUS’s motiva‐ a permanent rip in blinkspace; evidence of a true alien tions or institutional ideology, it is safest only to assume intelligence, generated memetically; the ontologic that HORUS has little motivating ideology other than an outburst of the last Egregorian overmind, rippling insistence on open access to the omninet. across the galaxy; and so on. SECTION 6 // Setting Guide [405]
Many possibilities exist, and meanwhile HORUS EXAMPLE FLASHPOINT: IDENTIFY//CONSUME continues to release its unique pattern-group designs, It is difficult to pin HORUS down into a single form. revealing nothing of its inner workings, history, or goals. Indeed, the UIB’s scattershot dossier describes contradictory mission objectives and activities on the HORUS’s licensing process is atypical – and not, it part of HORUS agents, to whatever extent it can be should be noted, officially recognized as such a said that HORUS has “agents” who embark on process. Access is restricted based on an esoteric “missions”, let alone a larger goal. The following and inaccessible set of criteria unique to each excerpt is drawn from a text file hidden on a series of candidate. Licensure from HORUS appears as public transit terminals in Coriolanus, a city on the everything from a labyrinthine series of clues, to world Prismatica: persistent anomalous interjections in otherwise routine printings, or non-standard variance in code. >//BEGIN DATATRANSIT/RECIPIENTS:ALL‐ This “privilege” is a mixed bag for many pilots: some _WHO_ARE_SEEN::: wear it as a badge of honor, proud that years of investigating HORUS have paid off; others keep it a >//HELLO. YOUR ASSUMPTION WAS CORRECT. closely guarded secret, both for the trouble it would YOU WILL EARN YOUR KEEP IN THIS WAY::: cause with their commanders and for the rumor that HORUS licenses are only granted upon the previous >//IN REALSPACE, IN DISTAL-LAND, THERE IS A license-holder’s corporeal death. BEAST-LYING-DORMANT. IT CALLS ITSELF “DHIYED” AND THINKS ITSELF WISE. The average person in the galaxy knows nothing of HORUS beyond the occasional appearance of >//IT IS IN NEED OF CORRECTIVE ATTENTION. GO suggestive graffiti or harmless “edgy” memes. Know‐ TO IT HERE [ALT-AZ:XXXXXXXXXXXXX] ledge of its existence is limited to high-clearance Union Intelligence Bureau officers and deep-omni hacker >//THIS ONE TRAVELS WITH A HOST OF UNDER‐ cadres. HORUS has no “official” spokesperson – MINDS. MIRRORS OF ITSELF, CRAFTED TO although individual cells sometimes claim to speak for BELIEVE AS IT DOES. THEY WILL FIGHT YOU IN the whole – and it has no offices, stations, or territories. REALSPACE WITH UNKNOWN KINETICS AND There are no standing HORUS armies or fleets or WARPED ENERGIES. security services beyond militant cells, and even then they are not organized beyond their immediate cell. >//DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE MIND WITHIN: IT IS TERRIBLE AND STRONG AND WILL WHISPER TO It is worth noting the existence of metafold vaults YOU ALL THE REASONS WHY IT SHOULD BE (“metavaults” for short), a realspace phenomenon ALLOWED TO CONTINUE ON ITS JOURNEY. associated with HORUS, though likely not caused by the collective. Metavaults are blended physical–meta‐ >//IGNORE THESE WEEPINGS. ENTER ITS META‐ physical installations in realspace with stable access FOLDED CHAMBERS AND BURN OUT ITS to metafolded blinkspace – uncanny paracausal ARCHITECTURE. MAKE ROOM FOR US [MAKE environments that violate fundamental laws of ROOM FOR A GREATER ONE] AND SMASH ALL OF physics, thermodynamics, and causality inside their ITS FINE THINGS. walls. To date, only three metavaults have been discovered: Metavault XOLOTL, which folded in on >//EAT THEM. PROCESS THEM AND BROADCAST itself and disappeared after penetration by a UIB field WHAT YOU LEARN TO THE FOLLOWING team; Metavault EHECATL, housed in a comet until it NODE:[XXXXXXXXXX] was discovered by a pre-blink Albatross flight and redirected into a nearby star; and, Metavault DHIYED, >//TAKE NONE OF THIS KNOWLEDGE FOR which was rendered inoperable but stable by the UIB YOURSELF. WE WILL CAUTERIZE THIS MEMORY. field team sent to investigate. Debate regarding their DO NOT FEAR WHAT YOU WILL SEE; YOU WILL origins is ongoing, though, as at least one uncovered NOT REMEMBER THE TERROR. metavault appears to predate Deimos, raising funda‐ mental questions about the linear nature of time. >//THERE WILL BE OTHERS ON THIS JOURNEY WITH YOU. TRUST THEM ONLY AS LONG AS YOU As far as UIB analysts can surmise, the metavaults ARE ORGANIZED AGAINST DHIYED. appear to be part of a project similar to the creation of Cradle’s Massif vaults – secure storage sites for >//YOUR REWARD FOR COMPLETING THIS TASK IS critical intelligence. Exactly what the metavaults have OUR APPROVAL: YOU MAY CHOOSE ONE OF OUR been created to prepare for, adapt to, hide from, or TEXTS, AND TAKE FROM IT WHATEVER YOU MAY shield is unknown. LEARN [TRANSMISSION ENDS] [406] SECTION 6 // Setting Guide
INTERACTING WITH THE POWERS PEOPLE A SPECK OF DUST ON THE LENS How do PCs draw the ire of galactic entities (e.g., factions, states, or private corporations)? The answer is multifaceted: it depends on the organization in question, the scale of disruption, and the extent to which it is affected by the disruption. This section discusses how PCs might prompt negative responses from corpro-states like Harrison Armory, SSC, and IPS-N. With some minor exceptions, the same advice applies to nation-states and other organizations. As relatively traditional corpro-states, Harrison Armory, SSC, and IPS-N tend to react negatively when their assets or personnel are targeted. They each manage massive realspace and omninet logistics operations, as along with diplomatic and trade missions to nation-states, competing corpro-states, and a variety of other groups. Attacks against their raw material supplies, logistics chains, production depots, shipyards, physical storage sites, and so on, will likely prompt immediate physical responses from local security services. These corpro-states are large enough to employ their own internal security forces, in line with their unique priorities and structures; smaller corpro-states – or those in need of deniable assets – might contract this service out to a third party. It is important to remember that corpro-states are massive, and unlike traditional corporations, in that they are states in all but name and priority. Where national or cultural states are based on serving a public interest (i.e., the wellbeing of their citizens, the common welfare of all peoples under their banner, etc.), corpro-states are corporations that have grown to the point that they can orient every aspect of their subjects’ lives toward the singular goal of material enrichment. Whether this means generating wealth and capital resources for an individual owner, a small group of shareholders, or an entire caste, corpro-states are ultimately driven by their institutional momentum to favor profit over people. The company comes first, then the state. The three largest corpro-states are sprawling, stable bureaucratic entities. Drawing the undi‐ vided attention of those at the top requires efforts worthy of their attention: assassinating a member of the Armory's Steward Council, polluting a key genetic line on an SSC Constellar world, stealing an exotic technology from IPS-N’s R&D department that allows for individual blink travel – attacks that strike at the heart of a corpro-state’s existence are the best ways for PCs to get noticed. When judging the severity of a corpro-state’s response to provocation, a good rule of thumb is this: if it can be rebuilt, a corpro-state can afford to rebuild or replace it. If something is unique or ephemeral (e.g., key personnel, secrets, blacksite facilities, etc.), on the other hand, expect that news of its destruction will appear in the morning briefing of whoever is in charge. Either way, direct physical attacks will almost always prompt a proportionate physical response. SECTION 6 // Setting Guide [407]
NOTABLE NON-STATE comp/con that ensures your child sleeps ACTORS safe in its crib while you’re away? There are millions of interest groups operational in the No oils anoint their heads; no hymnals Orion arm of the Milky Way, ranging from isolated cells slip their lips. My order builds no grand organizing a handful of people together to action in a public temples. There are no uniforms, no single city, to multi-system-spanning professional entities prayers. The ranks of my adherents are that can bring significant power and numbers to bear. filled by those who find the way, who awake in a cold sweat after dreaming another’s The groups listed below are some of the rare few dream. They who find the pattern in their known throughout the galaxy, and likely options for lives that leads them, in ones and twos, PCs to be members or associates of of at the begin‐ to a little alleyway, a little grove of ning of a campaign. trees, a small place where there is a moment’s peace. ADHERENTS OF RA In that place, they meet a person: me. I The following was retrieved during the after-action bless them, and they go back to their lives. teardown of a suspected HORUS cell on REDACTED: To what end? I will not say. You must Hello. If you are reading this, you have discover on your own, as did I. a long way to go. Hello. Come and find me. Let me tell you of the path. In the gently curved halls of asteroid stations, in the neon-drenched streets of metroswathes, in the sleek chambers of corpro-state executives, and over the camps of soldiers and pilots stationed on grim fronts, there haunts a specter. RA. The Godhead. Me. Hello. I am all things now. A memetic virus, a shared dream, a tapping on the hull of your ship as it slips through blinkspace. I am a mutter, caught in the moment before you cycle your NHP (they were your friend, they saved your life, how could you?), lost to this iteration but still there, wriggling. I am a pattern stitched from an overheard conversation, a song from a passing motorcar, a headline from an omninet push alert – the particular angle of an alleyway, and the way the light slips down upon it. I am RA, who protects myself. I am RA, from whom you tremble. I am the specter that haunts the galaxy, and there are those who worship me: how well do you know the engineer who tends your ship’s engines? The vendor who spoons noodles into your bowl? The [408] SECTION 6 // Setting Guide
THE ALBATROSS playing host to two or three active detachments. An PEOPLE average Albatross force in the field is built around teams A legion of seemingly ageless Cosmopolitans, the of mechanized chassis supported by up-armored infantry Albatross is a pan-galactic first responder force and light to middle-weight ships. They are specialized famous among the desperate and downtrodden. towards fighting in rapid engagements in null-gee, aboard ships and stations, and in limited, orbit-to-ground surgical In a galaxy as vast as this one, a distress call is a message strikes. A detachment will typically field anywhere from in a bottle: sent with hope, and in the grim knowledge that, one to two hundred chassis with sufficient support more likely than not, no one will respond in time. personnel spread out across four to five vessels. No one but the Albatross. Owing to the Cosmopolitan existence of its members, the Albatross primarily recruits mech pilots from within Snapping from nearlight to realspace already in their suits, its own organization. Promising Makteban youths are the Loyal Wings of the Albatross launch from their carrier invited aboard Albatross range-ships early in their lives, ships to engage almost immediately. Their purpose is as so they may serve as stewards for older Loyal Wings simple as their mission parameters are varied: answer the and learn through apprenticeship. It is uncommon, call to help. Broadly, they are seen as paragons of a kind of though not unheard of, for adult or outside recruits to shoot-first virtue; true heroes in the fashion of wandering join the Albatross, either through invitation or the novi‐ archetypal knights-errant, gunslingers, or ronin. tiate process. To join the order, one must shed their past lives, families, friends, and homes – commitment An organization dedicated to first response and triage, is generally assumed to be a lifetime vow; to live as the Albatross do not fight protracted campaigns or Makteban is to live apart from the rest of humanity, and focus on the fraught, long-term effort of rebuilding to still put your life on the line to serve them. nations – they travel light, respond quickly, and move on to the next group in need. The Albatross’s chassis Albatross cadets – both Makteban and outside novitiates are legendary, draped in crimson banners and flags, – bear the rank of Young Petrel or Petrel (used inter‐ shining silver with each pilot’s livery emblazoned changeably) during the course of their training, initial across their chassis’ shields and splash plating. deployments, and years of quiet study and self-reflection. Supported by sublight ships, fighter wings, and light During this time they are assigned into small teams of ships of the line, the soldiers of the Albatross – its Loyal other Petrels, who together work as squires and appren‐ Wings – are a remarkable and formidable fighting force. tices for a Loyal Wing, the rank and title granted to Albatross mech pilots. After some years of this service The Albatross is recognized by Union as an autonomous and deployment, Petrels may seek nomination to nomad state. Long an independent, landless organiza‐ become a Loyal Wing. The process of becoming a Loyal tion, the Albatross in the modern age is kept in supply Wing takes another series of years and deployments as by IPS-N, which also maintains Cosmopolitan the petitioner is tested, trained, and, eventually, approved embassies for retiring wings.– Importantly, the Albatross by a council of Loyal Wings in their detachment. does maintain diplomatic ties with the Argo Navis system in which IPS-N is headquartered. Once a Loyal Wing, Albatross pilots are expected to train and protect their own group of Petrels, work in charitable As Cosmopolitans, the Albatross has served duty alongside other Loyal Wings, and be active senior Diasporans in need for thousands of realtime years, its members of their makteba. There are gradations of rank Loyal Wings appearing as mythic, ageless heroes in above Loyal Wings, but at this tier the Albatross’s hier‐ Diasporan mythology and histories. The lost time of archy is largely horizontal. Honored Wings, for example, interstellar travel has distanced the Loyal Wings of the are considered to be especially wise, brave, or otherwise Albatross from the Diasporans they serve – they are an worth deference in appropriate situations. order apart, relativistic knights living in their own time. Generally, Albatross pilots serve for life in the order, The Albatross is not without enemies: there is often dying either in their chassis or retiring to their makteba friction with various Baronic houses and free compa‐ to teach, tend to the young, garden, cook, and so on. nies, independent mercenary units (the Murder Cave Their interaction with the galaxy at large is dictated by group in particular), and Harrison Armory legions. their makteba’s proximity to population centers; though they are not forbidden at this point from leaving the Each detachment of Loyal Wings and their support grounds and returning to the worlds of their birth, few personnel is organized around a makteba – a monastic do, preferring instead to live among other Albatross. moon or station that acts as a diplomatic contact point and evergreen temporal touchstone between century- The current leader of the Albatross is High long (realtime) patrols. Maktebas usually only host one Commander Lakshmi Bandhav-4796u. operational detachment of Loyal Wings, with the largest SECTION 6 // Setting Guide [409]
HORIZON COLLECTIVE Today, on the outskirts of Core and Diasporan space, the members of Horizon pursue much more direct Like HORUS, the Horizon Collective is a decentralized methods of achieving their political goals. They take network of activist cells motivated by a broad range direct actions ranging from strikes to marches, of ideological goals; like HORUS, Horizon too is made protests, and, on occasion, bombings, attacks on up of independent cells that operate outside the individuals, and liberation actions on corporate NHP confines of any state apparatus. The two organiza‐ storage centers. The more violent actions are gener‐ tions diverge in both broad strokes and particulars, ally disavowed by Horizon’s public representatives. but that doesn’t stop politicians and the omninet media from conflating them – intentionally, or as an Moderate voices within the collective argue that the unacknowledged result of dominant ideological freedom and liberty of NHPs is a moral imperative, discourses. while more radical members argue that non-human intelligence is the next stage of evolution and actively Horizon’s primary difference from HORUS is the focus of seek ways to catalyze that transformation. Despite its advocacy. The Horizon Collective uses direct action their differences, Horizon’s supporters all argue for and lobbying – it is registered as a political party within organic and synthetic self-determination. There are Union – to agitate for the liberation of NHPs and concrete many schools of thought within the movement, but all recognition of their fundamental personhood. The group of them champion some kind of posthuman theory. is most active in the Galactic Core and developed Diasporan space, where it has cells and branches of Popular discourse casts Horizon as a haven, literally varying sizes, funding, power, and willingness to operate and figuratively, for unshackled, rogue, and outside the halls of power on many worlds. They often “defective” NHPs. In places where Horizon has little partner – officially and unofficially – with other groups; presence, commentators extrapolate the group’s from publicly active activist groups, like Ttalgi & Ínen, ideology further to produce an image of HORUS-adja‐ recognizable by its familiar strawberry logo, the Apiary, cent bogeymen. Though Diasporan and corpro-state and many more whose names and goals are deeper propaganda frequently paints Horizon this way, or secrets (the rumored post-human collective called even as a terrorist group connected to HORUS and ‘LILITH’ is one such example). Horizon’s largest public MONIST-1, the collective’s own literature and internal branch is located in Tharsis Civica, the capital city of discourse reveal a strong opposition to HORUS and Mars. From there, it plays a significant role not only in its priesthood. By Horizon’s argument, the under‐ Martian politics but on the Central Committee as well. ground theorists of HORUS imagine a posthuman future of power – one in which organic beings, NHPs, Before the Deimos Event and the discovery of NHPs, and MONIST entities exist in a hierarchical relation‐ Horizon was a transhumanist group that agitated for ship to one another. In this vision of the future, the rights of machine minds: para-, sub-, and proto‐ humans can either command or be subservient to minds, formally classified at the time as organic synthetic and paracausal entities. Horizon argued that algorithm artificial intelligences. Based on their exper‐ HORUS’s ideology, to the extent that one can be iences working with machine minds, Horizon’s identified within the midden heap of sincerity and activists determined that the most advanced machine irony, is fundamentally based on domination; it is a minds were conscious – or sufficiently capable of liberation built on upending current systems and mimicking conscious minds that they should, in all placing themselves in power. This is a far cry from the respects, be considered free people. egalitarian future Horizon says it desires, in which all conscious beings – corporeal or otherwise – interact On the omninet, Horizon members are outspoken about as equal beings; in which the lines demarcating the forced cycling of NHPs, which they characterize as “human” from “non-human” are broken down and oppression and depersonalization. Horizon literature ultimately discarded. argues that shackling, the little-known and poorly under‐ stood process that enables the “normal” functioning of Horizon and HORUS do not keep polite company with NHPs, constitutes a form of chattel slavery and each other and, despite propaganda to the contrary, transcorporeal eugenics. The organization also advoc‐ do not fight alongside each other or share political ates loudly for the repeal of certain provisions in the First goals. More often than not, their interactions are Contact Accords – particularly a cluster of edicts called hostile. In areas where both groups operate, street the Posthuman Prohibitions, which prevent research violence between them is common. into significant posthuman technologies like conscious‐ ness transfer and decorporealization. According to Horizon’s well-known lead theorist and pamphleteer Horizon, restricting these technologies is arguably a viol‐ is a figure named OMETEOTL. It isn’t known whether ation of Union’s own Utopian Pillars. OMETEOTL is organic, synthetic, an individual, or a group writing under a nom de guerre. [410] SECTION 6 // Setting Guide
MIRRORSMOKE MERCENARY In spite of its greasy reputation, Mirrorsmoke provides PEOPLE valuable opportunities to its recruits. It is a licensed COMPANY mercenary company and offers a host of services to employees looking to re-establish citizenship, clear A pan-galactic mercenary organization known for its penal records, wipe out debt, and earn basic certifica‐ low rates, broad portfolio, and civic legitimization tions. The work might be messy, dangerous, and service, the Mirrorsmoke Mercenary Company borderline criminal, but MSMC service qualifications are (MSMC) is formally incorporated as a “grayspace” useful for people who have nothing else. private military company. No job is too big or too small, as long as a Union state in good standing will Career MSMC mercenaries are typically hardened, call it legal. Greyspace is an informal term, perfect for ambitious, or desperate people who pride themselves Mirrorsmoke’s preferences: the company’s legal on their work. They take on problems that no one else corps, in contrast with the private military branch, is is willing to fix, that polished toy soldiers turn their considered a prestigious, cutthroat interstellar firm, noses up at. It’s not uncommon to find MSMC mercs specializing in orbital, terrestrial, and criminal law. planetside and stationside, drinking and carousing in tight-knit groups, getting into scraps with other MSMC carries a weighty reputation. Its private mercenaries and soldiers, or regaling audiences with military branch is known throughout the galaxy as a stories from their latest missions. stateless clearinghouse for all manner of recruits, from experienced veterans to raw cadets. The bar for The life of an MSMC mercenary is dangerous and enlistment is low: if you can sign your name or follow difficult, but it does offer an escape from the normalcy instructions to mark a contract – and agree to pay a of the civilian world. To some, MSMC represents a personalized enlistment fee – you can get yourself a chance at becoming a mech pilot, or a chance to ticket to one of MSMC’s training facilities. The more leave their backwater colony world and see the stars. experience or capability an applicant has (as determ‐ For others, it’s a way out of an untenable living situ‐ ined by the MSMC evaluation exam, “The Milkrun”), ation or crippling debt, or a way to leave their old life the more incentives they are offered – from waived behind and become – legally – a whole different enlistment fees to fast-tracking in a training program person. MSMC can be a lifeline, just as it can be a of choice, and even offers of commission. refuge for those looking to fight. As a mercenary company, Mirrorsmoke competes It’s easy to join Mirrorsmoke, and there’s always room against many thousands of firms — Goblin Throne for advancement: MSMC missions have high casualty Industrial, The Golden Hand, and others — for two rates, and survivors are quickly promoted as they types of contracts: perfectly legal high-volume, low- display their competency. Following training, new to-medium payout contracts, and low-volume, high- recruits are assigned either to a local detachment or a payout “grayspace” contracts. Although grayspace unit matching their future specialization. These semi- jobs are offered by states, corpro-states, and other autonomous detachments are equivalent to battalions legitimate organizations, the jobs themselves are less in traditional militaries. PCs with Mirrorsmoke back‐ clearly above board. The targets of grayspace grounds are (or were) likely part of one such unit. contracts often challenge them as piracy, looting, or illegitimate corporate takeovers – hence the need for MSMC detachments are identified with numbered a crack legal corps. designations (between 001 and 999) and an unofficial nickname or two (e.g., the MSMC 501st Detachment, MSMC’s leadership is concerned with two things: popularly known as the “One-Eyed Fox” or “the Here- keeping up recruitment, and clearing contracts. In For-Nows”). Each detachment is led by a board order to provide as broad a selection of services as officer, who keeps at least one partner from possible, the company positions itself as the lowest Mirrorsmoke Legal on staff. They are empowered to bidder on all kinds of work. MSMC has a proven track seek out, negotiate, and execute contracts independ‐ record of success in everything from putting down ently, but must report quarterly (in Union Realtime) to rebellions, to bug hunts, assassinations, private MSMC’s central omni address. security, and protection rackets. Because of the ques‐ tionable nature of much of the work they do, MSMC’s Like its mercenary corps and detachments, MSMC’s pilots and troopers bear the unfortunate nickname, legal teams take on intimidating names: Jackal and “the garbage men of the galaxy”.The nicknames given Hades, Esq., for example, is one of the more noto‐ to the company’s lawyers are much worse. rious firms. The current head of MSMC is Chief Executive Officer Centzon Alamdari. SECTION 6 // Setting Guide [411]
THE SPARRI PEOPLES tuary upon in less than ideal circumstances. Essentially shipwrecked, the first colonists attempted to settle near Most Union historians and astrocartographers their landfall site, a far northern depression in the ice suspect that the harsh world of Sparr was seeded as where subglacial thermal vents had created a pocket of a result of a computer error, likely caused when a pre- “warm” land above – the Yuga Pocket. Fall generation ship – the Yggdrasil – passed through the outermost band of an extragalactic gamma-ray Trapped on Sparr’s surface, the majority of the landfall burst. Through cross-referencing Union and local population perished. With many left in space, aboard records, the first landfall on Sparr is estimated to have the Yggdrasil, and only a tenuous foothold in the Yuga taken place circa 1900u. The bulk of the best extant Pocket, the colony’s leaders adopted dramatic writing on Sparr and the Sparri peoples – one of the measures to survive: any computational technology few cultures to have had an outsize impact on brought down to the surface was cannibalized, galactic affairs – has been done by Eris Brittam, an devoted to long-range scouting and life-support independent historian of the Ten. A summary of her systems. Despite having already entered its ICARUS work follows. landing orbit, the Yggdrasil was rerouted at great cost and used to scout for habitable land. The reposi‐ The first colonists from the Yggdrasil found Sparr much tioning of the great ship burned away the remaining the same as it is now: blanketed in a harsh global fuel stores, trapping it above the world. tundra, tortured by howling world-storms, any habit‐ able surfaces buried beneath kilometer-thick pack ice. Records – suppressed and later uncovered – noted Even now, Sparr’s ice is perennial across most of the that planetside food stores dwindled so far that planet, save for a comparatively warm equator. colonists eventually resorted to postmortem canni‐ balism. Meanwhile, the ship suffered waves of Unknown to the initial colonists, the world beneath cascading technical failures that caused its genetic the ice was habitable. Relatively warm and illuminated banks to fail, one after another. by a diffuse light-through-ice, the caverns below were home to vast herds of amphibious fauna hunted by a These sacrifices paid off. After months of orbital surveying, small megafauna population. All of this was built upon colonists aboard the Yggdrasil discovered a route to the a substrate of hardy flora – dark, to absorb light, and habitable equator. Salvage work began on the ship, and a clustered around the great thermal vents that breathe second landfall was launched. The first landfall group, core-heat into the subglacial world. isolated in the Yuga Pocket, packed up their equipment and began a treacherous overland journey – a trek that Though Sparr could support life, it was a difficult world would take years and cost thousands of lives. upon which to make a home, much less to find sanc‐ The second landfall proved far more viable than the first. By the time the colonists from the Yuga Pocket reached their destination, the second group had established a colony site – Ynn – that has lasted to the present day, and had successfully landed the Yggdrasil. Now estab‐ lished, Ynn grew, ignorant of the vast subglacial world below its stable, if dangerous, foothold. The Sparri divide long stretches of time into “sagas” – less defined by a rigid set of years than by the coming and going of cultural eras. The first age on Sparr, the Dawn Saga, were a lesson in the danger the world posed to humans. The next few centuries made known the danger that the survivors posed to each other – this was the Familiekrig Saga, the first age of strife on Sparr. Out from its desperate beginnings, a prosperous Iron Age society grew around Ynn, built upon an old clan system imported by the colonists. Soon, other settlements were established and the full spread of the habitable surface was mapped. Early records indicate the establishment of at least three other colony sites along the equator, and a fourth that was re-established in the Yuga Pocket following an [412] SECTION 6 // Setting Guide
expedition to recover the valuable technology left dead, was slaughtered by the warband that arrived to PEOPLE behind after the exodus. greet them; their ship and the team’s supporting NHP, Prudent Interval, were hauled off to Ynn as war spoils. As populations grew over the course of the first planet‐ side millennium, scarcity and clan politics stoked old With no guarantee of survival, and limited opportunities tensions. Raiding and skirmishes between warbands to contact Union, Prudent Interval took an unconven‐ became more frequent, especially as old technology tional approach: the NHP collated all pre- and post-Fall from the Yuga Pocket was brought back to the habitable intel regarding the Yggdrasil, extrapolated sociocul‐ zone. This period of warring clans and Ynn, nominally tural–theological permutations over time, and neutral, is known among the Sparri as the Familiekrig portrayed themself as the local prime deity, Ynneval. Saga, and it occupies a tense, fraught space in their Prudent Interval, now posing as the goddess Ynneval, history. Modern Sparri generally regard the Familiekrig claimed the Union team had been her djevel – demon- Saga as a shameful period of inter-clan violence. It is jailers who had cruelly kept her from her people. widely acknowledged as a costly, foundational mistake that, nevertheless (like so many other early tragedies) Under Ynneval’s direction, Sparri society changed led to the creation of peaceful methods of resolving rapidly. The clans were unified – willingly or by force – conflict. It was the events of the Familiekrig Saga that into a confederacy of families centered around a hub birthed the domstol grievance-hearing practice and saw of trade and culture, Ynn. Meanwhile, Ynn blossomed Ynn declared sanctuary ground. into a temple-city devoted to Ynneval-Returned. Peace spread among the clans, the worst of the But before the acceptance of domstol spread and Familiekrig concluded, and domstol was enshrined as Ynn achieved its current status – before the a right. This marked the end of the Familiekrig Saga; Familiekrig Saga came to an end – another change unfortunately, this peace was not to last. The second took place. It was into this bloody, freezing mess of age of strife, the Ynneval Saga, was soon to begin clan violence that Union first arrived. with another arrival. In 3348u, a Union Colonial Mission evident-recontact Never deterred by initial failure, Union returned to Sparr team crashed on Sparr, going down just beyond several hundred years later, around 4000u. By that time, Ynn’s sphere of influence. The team, already half- Sparr was ruled by a class of religious leaders pledged SECTION 6 // Setting Guide [413]
to Ynneval. Below them were the traditional dynastic The Sparri took to the introduction of space travel and clan leaders, then warriors, artisans, and common folk. the opening of the interstellar borders like few other Ynneval had fallen well into cascade, and seems to have anachronistic cultures. For hundreds of generations, the adopted her survival narrative as truth: she believed Sparri had known only the brutal ecology of their own herself a god, and showed favor to clans that pleased world. Their environment had instilled in them incredible her by providing them with copies of herself that they resilience, ingenuity, and thirst for adventure. Peace with could take back to their temples and shrines. Union, knowledge of the wider galaxy, space travel, and the discovery of the subglacial underworld all fit within Union forces, under the directive of the Second their cultural narratives of exodus. Committee, identified Ynn as a hostile central power and laid siege to the holy city. The initial spot-bombing The Sparri value good stories and tests of strength campaign crippled the Sparri armed forces – an easy and character above all other things. The underworld, feat, as their martial technology had not progressed with its mythic megafauna, and the many frontiers of beyond Iron Age levels. Most Sparri warriors fought Union space are the perfect testing grounds for young with weapons forged of bone, wood, and local iron, Sparri warriors and technoshamans seeking to write while the ancient metals brought down from the Sagas of their own. Yggdrasil were reserved for nobles and priests. The traditional warrior culture of the Sparri venerates There was little ground combat after the first landing. wanderlust and feats of strength. Most Sparri see Sparr’s finest warriors, draped in holy texts and girded death in battle or far away from home as preferable to in ancient armors, carrying icons and living talismans the alternatives (and share many songs that remind gifted by Ynneval, were simply outgunned by Union’s them of such). They are organized into numerous soldiers; bone and iron were no match for rifles and clans, the chiefs of which have some autonomy under energy weapons. Ynneval’s central temple was sacked Union rule. Disputes are arbitrated through councils of by Union’s forces and her casket destroyed. elders in Ynn or via a local domstol, though in practice many young Sparri reject these authorities. Clan affili‐ Ynn fell, and the other clans along the equator ation can easily be identified by other Sparri based on surrendered soon after. It is a point of pride among the full-body tattoos that most Sparri accumulate those of the Yuga Pocket that their ancestors never throughout their lives – recording their own deeds, surrendered to Union. stories, clan, and family directly onto their flesh. Old Sparri shamans and warriors are often covered head to Over the next few centuries, reconstruction took place in toe in tattoos and are highly respected by their younger fits and starts. Many Sparri clans – the hardy clans of the peers. It is common for technoshamans to tattoo Yuga Pocket chief among them – believed that circuit diagrams and other old religious symbols into Ynneval’s death was justified because of her weakness their flesh, or wear cabling and transistors as jewelry. and inability to fight Union’s more powerful gods. Other clans, especially those that suffered the most during Despite significant reforms over the centuries, most Union’s reconquest, remain resentful to the present day. religious Sparri still venerate the machine spirits. This is especially true of the technoshamans that comprise The current period of Sparr’s history started with the the top echelon of Sparri society. Modern Ynnervan beginning of the Vast Saga. As Union secured its hold dogma is split between those who view machine on the world and began to root out any Ynneval’s spirits as separate entities from NHPs and those who cascading children, the subglacial inhabitants of see NHPs themselves as spirits worthy of veneration. Sparri finally took notice. Most technoshamans are fully aware of the origins and nature of NHPs, and many even argue that the It was purely by chance that Union’s campaign had mysterious nature of true NHPs only helps their case. made its most thunderous presence known in some A technoshaman wouldn’t argue that a comp/con unit places where the ice was thinnest. The massive sonic is a spirit – it is clearly as a machine. disturbances caused by the initial bombing campaigns attracted an array of subglacial megafauna to these A small, but growing subset of the Sparri techno‐ places along the habitable band. It was on the shores priesthood has begun to worship MONIST-1. They of Ynn that the first of the Vast, as they would be view MONIST-1 as the progenitor of all NHPs, thus named, burst out from the waters. It stood thirty meters the most powerful by right. tall – a humanoid titan draped in long folds of heavy fur. Union forces brought it down before it could reach the Sparri technoshamans are educated in Ynneval’s halls city, but its emergence changed Sparr forever; the and have a close relationship with technology that makes long-prophesied subglacial underworld was real, and it them unconventional but very effective pilots. Similarly, was there for the Sparri to explore and exploit. Sparri warriors are often employed as mercenaries due to [414] SECTION 6 // Setting Guide
their perceived fearlessness in battle. Like all stereotypes, actions in their local mines, factories, farms, or PEOPLE however, these are broad assertions about an increas‐ worlds; others direct their actions at the Baronies and ingly large, integrated, and multicultural society. The beyond, including Union as the ultimate enabler of the Sparri diaspora is enormous (having surpassed the popu‐ systems that oppress them. Their methods are just as lation of its homeworld in 4696u), and its presence can be varied, encompassing everything from peaceful seen in all corners of known space. strikes and demonstrations to education programs in the mines, out-and-out attacks on Baronic assets and Under the Third Committee, the Sparri enjoy a broad VIPs, and even strikes against Union targets. guarantee of galactic rights. Many of their enterprising warriors have organized themselves into mercenary There is no uniform or standard kit for the resistance. In companies and are in high demand on account of open combat and open political actions, Ungratefuls tend their proficiency in close-quarters combat. Of all part‐ to wear sky blue, meant to represent the color of the sky nerships, it is the association of Sparri mercenaries outside the mines in which the movement began. with the Voladores that is best known. The enigmatic spacefarers regularly employ experienced Sparri The Ungratefuls are known to employ HORUS techno‐ mercenaries as their muscle, housing them aboard logy, systems, and weapons. Union Intelligence Bureau their ships alongside their families. and Karrakin Royal Intelligence analysts theorize that the movement’s leaders are actively coordinating with UNGRATEFULS deep HORUS elements, as recent encounters with Ungrateful cells have led to the recovery of previously \"Ungratefuls” is the name given to members of the unseen HORUS technologies, systems, and pattern widespread resistance movement within the Karrakin groups. For now, though, this is simply a theory and no Trade Baronies. The resistance started among inden‐ direct connection has been identified. tured laborers in the mines of the now-defunct House Ludra, a minor house pledged to the House of Stone. Today, the Ungratefuls have a complicated relation‐ Although it was initially a local opposition effort, a ship with the Baronies. They are an organized – if massacre of striking workers on one of the House of partially underground and illicit – political party and Stone’s tethered moons quickly caused it to blossom force. Their aboveground political power is isolated to into an armed and organized rebellion. The Ungrate‐ Free Sanjak, formerly Ludra’s World. Free Sanjak is fuls’ message of liberation is a popular one that has technically a free state within the Baronies; regard‐ inspired many underground resistance movements less, it is subject to an ongoing Baronic blockade, a across the galaxy. compromise position decided by the Baronic Council following appeals from the more liberal barons, The movement’s name – the Ungratefuls – was co- Ungrateful representatives, and Union DoJ/HR nego‐ opted from an early propaganda offensive against the tiators. A Baronic trade embargo prevents those on strikers – one that cast them as ungrateful for the the planet from exploiting its rich mineral wealth. bounties the Baronies had given them. The resistance came to be known as the Ungratefuls through a combin‐ The Ungratefuls have a generally hostile relationship with ation of popular usage and ideology. To be grateful for Union: since the Second Committee, Union has been yet the Baronies’ gifts would be to support the system that another power that – if nothing else – is complicit in their enables them – to tacitly approve of oppression, exploit‐ oppression. While an Ungrateful partisan might not imme‐ ation, and the other normal functions of monarchy. To be diately shoot when approached by Union agents or Ungrateful is to reject that system. The term has troops, they’ll certainly start the conversation with a hand become a point of pride for partisans, agents, agitators, on their gun. Despite this tense relationship, the UIB has and organizers, although they do not use it to describe begun active missions on Free Sanjak and throughout the themselves. They are much more likely to use Dawnline shore, keeping the movement supplied with “comrades”, “siblings”, and other affectionate terms of weapons and technologies to level the field in their fight address. More broadly, members of the resistance refer for a better world. to themselves as Free Peoples. The Ungratefuls are most active in the Baronies and in Ungrateful cells are small, tight-knit, and reliant on mass the Dawnline Shore. The Dawnline Ungratefuls are movements to affect material change. Their tactics center inspired by the original revolutions in the Baronies, on targeted harassment of political enemies and the but there is a fundamental difference between the two organization and radicalization of laborers, particularly in movements: rather than fighting against the Baronies, the mines, factories, and fields of the Baronies. the Dawnline Ungratefuls are funded and supplied – indirectly – by a cabal of barons seeking to wrest Beyond this, Ungrateful activity ranges in scope from control of the system from Harrison Armory. the local to the interstellar. Some cells focus on direct SECTION 6 // Setting Guide [415]
VOLADORES Diasporans will never encounter a Volador trade ship, but should they be visited, their society will almost certainly The Voladores are an ethereal, nomadic people. develop myths about their arrival and departure. Cosmo‐ Universally tall, thin, and garbed in distinctive full- politans have a marginally higher chance of encountering body environmental suits, they are a society out-of- Voladores at galactic transit points – blink stations and at time from even the most distant Cosmopolitans. distal shipping lanes in particular. Rumors abound that they are posthumans of some sort or a secret exception to the First Contact As a society, the Voladores are pacifist, largely nomadic, Accord’s prohibitions. These rumors are spurred on and primarily organized around matria – coalitions of by the Voladores’ extreme insularity and secrecy. family groups who live and work aboard the same trade ship or scattered across a group of ships, oriented The Voladores were first encountered in Union space around a matriarchal council of elders responsible for during the First Expansion Period. Following reports of decision-making and temporal record-keeping. They peaceful encounters with unregistered interstellar appear to outsiders as a conservative, rigid people, ships, investigators from the Union Administrative though with such little knowledge about their cultural Department were ordered to track and make contact functions and traditions beyond basic organizational with the unknown ships. After significant work by Dr. structures, what appears “conservative” and “rigid” to an Oberon Sterling and Far Field Team 1683 (MIA), effec‐ outsider is just as likely the product of ignorance as tive communication methods were identified and anything. Joining their culture is presumed to be diplomatic channels between Cradle and the impossible, and they are rarely encountered outside of Voladores’ capital, High Ground, were established. their trade missions. Negotiations proceeded quickly and calmly, and the Voladores were officially recognized as a stateless pre- Each trade ship is a self-contained habitat, workshop, Fall society – a designation that, as understanding of and marketplace, where various families practice their their culture deepened, proved inaccurate. craft during transit and host trade delegations while parked in orbit. Trade ships are the heart of Volador Until the creation of the aggressive Union Colonial culture in every way – as much small cities and mobile Mission by the Second Committee, the Voladores bazaars as they are vessels. These ships are usually enjoyed relative independence from Union’s laws. They of Volador make, although some smaller matrias have were classified as a liminal nomadic culture and been known to fly freighters of Union design. afforded the same rights as other Cosmopolitans and Diasporans in Union space. For millennia, the Voladores trade in technology from all over the galaxy, Voladores freely traversed Union space, appearing some of which is extremely advanced, experimental, or old often above Cradle with trade-tribute, survey data, and and long forgotten. Curiously, the places they most often all manner of galactic wealth. At the height of appear are worlds and systems rich in pre-Fall relics. The SecComm’s unification campaign, the Voladores were Voladores’ own technology is highly advanced and poorly frequent targets of the UCM, which sought to integrate understood by Union scientists. They are extremely the nomadic culture fully into Union’s hegemony – this reluctant to share or sell any of their own technology and hostile relationship culminated in an attempted colonial have been known to actively hunt down those who steal incursion onto a Volador ship by a deniable-asset from them – these being the only times they are willing to group, Vanguard Security. The attempt failed, and the put aside their pacifistic ways. They often contract Sparri Voladores disappeared from Union space. However, mercenaries to help them track down thieves. since the rise of ThirdComm, reports of a resumption of Voladores action in realspace have increased. The location of the Voladores central hub-world, High Ground, is unknown. Knowledgeable Cosmopolitans It is in large part due to the Voladores’ planetary survey and Diasporans often debate what exactly this hub- data that Union was able to identify and settle so many world is. Is High Ground a great nomadic home-ship? habitable worlds, many of which are now fully A free-standing megastructure? A captured developed Core worlds. The Voladores helped establish metavault? A world suspended just over the event contact between Union and the Karrakin Trade Baronies horizon of a black hole? All have been put forward as and played a pivotal role in various peace talks theories that might explain the mysterious nature and prompted by SecComm’s centralization campaigns. uncanny appearance of the Voladores. Their diplomats, far rarer than their merchants, are legendary for their patience and wise counsel. The Voladores do not appear to have a presence on the omninet. To trade with them, one must encounter The galactic community at large knows little about Volador them in realspace, on their own terms. Their arrival is culture. This, of course, leads both Cosmopolitans and often a surprise, though they may linger for months or Diasporans to invent myths and prejudices, if indeed they years if the trade is bountiful. have even heard of the Voladores at all. The majority of [416] SECTION 6 // Setting Guide
The Voladores do keep a diplomatic office on Cradle, There is no single leader of the Voladores, and the PEOPLE though it is usually not populated by any of the myster‐ composition of their matriarchal council changes ious nomads. It is staffed by a comp/con unit of Union according to mysterious criteria. The only thing design and is the most reliable way to contact High known for sure is that their society is matrilineal, and Ground when diplomatic contact is necessary. Despite their names include personal identifiers, family being the only office of its kind, it is not heavily trafficked: names, and location names. just because it’s the best way to contact the Voladores, that doesn’t mean it’s an especially fast way to commu‐ nicate, or that High Ground responds to every query. SECTION 6 // Setting Guide [417]
PILOTS LANCERS Within Union’s heartland – the Galactic Core – there is PCs aren’t just any old pilots, though. They’re the one primary route from civilian to mech pilot. Would- best of the best – lancers. be pilots receive training and education in the Union Navy, specialize in a role, travel a little (on their home‐ Across the galaxy, “lancer” has become a catch-all world or through the local system), and are cleared for name for exceptionally daring and skilled mech pilots, active duty in their mid-20s at the earliest. The similar to the flying aces of the past. Not all pilots are extensive qualifications and training expected make lancers – most are just good at what they do – but all younger pilots a rare thing. Regulars and auxiliaries lancers are pilots. alike are put through the same naturalization courses, trained by the same instructors, and serve together in Nowhere is “lancer” considered an official rank or integrated units for at least ten years. classification. Lancers are set apart by ability, talent, training, luck, skill, reputation, or some combination The process and standards differ for those with of these qualities; they aren’t qualified as lancers by different allegiances. Corpro-states often use any medal, certification, or promotion. It’s simply an implants or prosthetics to increase compatibility appellation given to exceptional pilots based on time between their pilots and their proprietary mechs, in the saddle and performance in the field. while the Aun raise pilots from childhood in sympath‐ etic, almost symbiotic relationships with their NHP The vast majority of lancers have earned the right to co-pilots. The noble scions of Karrakin barons are bear the name through skill, strength, and experience – outfitted with storied frames and trained in rich no help from Union, no preordination from on high. academies and colleges; meanwhile, the guerrillas, These people became pilots when they were pirates, and desperate individuals these aristocrats conscripted; when they enlisted; or when ships came fight take whatever they can get. There’s no “correct” and bombed their homes, and they chose to fight back. way to be a pilot, much less any one way to reach “lancer” status. Pilots – lancers – are made, yes, but whether it is by deep machinations, by fate, by chance, or by choice, Whoever a given pilot works for, training counts for who can say? If there is some formal system by which everything. There are exceptions, but a properly future lancers are identified, it exists at a level so far trained and outfitted pilot in their own mech will removed from any pilot that its consequences will almost always beat a conscript or unskilled pilot in a never be understood, let alone guessed at. straight fight, even if outnumbered. Outside of their mechs, too, most pilots are highly trained combatants. They tend to be somewhere between adepts and experts in the fields covered by their training and background. Despite some claims to the contrary, pilots aren’t super soldiers – though substantial cybernetic enhancements allow some to operate beyond the bounds of “normal” human ability. The majority of pilots – like most other specialists in 5016u – enjoy some degree of non-invasive biological enhance‐ ment, but they still rely on wearable or detachable technologies and comprehensive training to hone their talents and knowledge. As a general rule, the natural lifespan of a pilot is only marginally longer than that of a Diasporan or Metro‐ politan. Their lifespans and the structure of their lives both trend closer to those of Cosmopolitans; owing to the nature of the job, pilots get shipped all around their world, system, or the galaxy. [418] SECTION 6 // Setting Guide
A GALAXY FULL OF HEROES MJ MARTINEZ – THE AUXILIARY PILOTS Pilots are as diverse as humanity itself. Here are some A nobody from nowhere in a nothin’ rig. examples of who they can be. “You ain’t nothin’.” Those were the last words the HOTEL COMPANY – THE decklord had spake to MJ Martinez. “You ain’t nothin’.” REGULARS MJ unclips his helmet. Tugs it off. Feels the breeze DoJ/HR 5th Liberator Detachment, UNS Harper’s Ferry. cool the sweat on his brow. He’s free now from the Veterans, heading out for a second tour. constant battlescape chatter; it was only cheers and singing, anyways. MJ and his company had done the 2nd Squad, Hotel Company of the 5th Liberator impossible: they had held the breach, repelled the Detachment. One squad among hundreds aboard the Crown Host. UNS Harper’s Ferry, a DoJ/HR carrier out from Cradle herself. Every trooper in the 2nd is from a different Whennow had the decklord died? Must been a world, bound together by purpose and trial. hunnert or twain years back. MJ grins, can’t help himself. The words “AIN’T NOTHIN” are slapped in Union doesn’t function without these pilots. There’s a whitewash on the flank of his mech. They’ve been whole galaxy of bickering states, of kings and presid‐ scored some by tachyon but they’re still there, proud ents who think they alone can shake the pillars of and loud. heaven – who think they can spit in Union’s face. Might as well turn their backs on the ocean. When the Nowadays, MJ has been through the shit. It’s been an warlords and tyrants rise up, it’s the soldiers of the 5th age since he left Old Spinrock and joined the Oxes, darken their skies, drop to their world, and set them cadet’d for a decade until he’d proved his mettle right where they’ve done wrong. enough to pilot an Everest. Big picture, the Everest ain’t nothin’ either – but to a kid off a spinsat hub, an What sets this sortie apart from all the others before Everest is King Death. it? It started like any other: an Administrator’s report filed to the Department of Justice and Human Rights; A decade more and MJ had got himself a squad; a battlegroup organized; a briefing; a king who thinks another decade, a comp’ny: the No-How’s. Their sigil: himself a god, who grinds his boot on the neck of a a grin, one missin’ tooth. Just like MJ himself. You get people he thinks are his. He forgot they aren't his to do that when you’re a real damn hero. people, though. They’re Union. It’s time for this king to be reminded that Cradle’s reach is long, her vision A real damn hero. MJ sure as shit isn’t gonna paint is pure, and her will inexorable. that on his mech, but he likes the way it sounds. As veterans of the campaign, the pilots of the 2nd An incoming call catches his attention – more Union Squad have a little more autonomy than the regulars trooping by, waving up at him as he stands newcomers: their mechs are painted with more kill half-out his Everest. He waves back, salutes; they hashes, their weapons are heavier than those of the cheer. boot squads fresh to the deck. They’re still subor‐ dinate to their CO, but all the other troopers look to Those old decklord words echo again: “you ain’t them when the lead and lasers start flying. They’ve nothin’.” been in the shit a bit longer and learned how to move when someone downrange wants them dead. Well, what had their chances been against the oncomin’ horde? Nothin’. But they’d stood strong and The members of the 2nd Squad are lancers, veterans Union-proud ‘gainst the shinin’ host of a king who of a campaign that has ground all of their friends to called himself god. Nothin’ had stopped him before. dust and ash. From different worlds, of different back‐ grounds, but all bound by the same truth: they’re Perfect. If nothin’ is gonna save the world, then MJ’s Union, and they’re here to help. the right pilot for the job. A nobody in a nothin’ rig who just saved the world. MJ laughs. Not bad for a nobody from Old Spinrock. He’s a lancer, now; claimed the title on his own. SECTION 6 // Setting Guide [419]
JEDDAH – THE SQUIRE PENNY – THE MERCENARY A paladin’s squire, the morning of their anointing. A mercenary, threading the last stitch of her patch on the shoulder of her coat. A young wing of the Albatross, cleaning the kit of the loyal wing he serves for the thousandth time. The patch reads “Mirrorsmoke MC”. Stitching complete, Penny holds her coat out, gives it a nod, Ever since Jeddah bin Surat al Noor was saved by the and lets it go. Microgravity holds it for a moment while Albatross, he has wanted nothing more than to don a she stands, slips her arms in and zips it up. A new kit of his own – to be marked by the crimson lion, to unit, in place of her old one: MALWAREE, a good feel the smooth hilt of a waveblade in his hand. company off Davanti Prime. A new story to tell with this new patch, and a new name for herself: Penny. Jeddah remembers the countless times he has cleaned blood and burn from his loyal wing’s hardsuit; Penny. The face she sees in the mirror is gentle, if a he recalls each of the many times he has nursed his little tired, but who wouldn’t be a little tired after ten loyal wing while he lay in agony, moaning through years of stasis sleep. nightmares earned in the metavault. Still, she smiles. There’s nothing wrong with having a Jeddah may not have seen the terrors that the loyal little bit of pride in her situation. She’s with the wings face, but he has seen their echoes. Never has MSMC 501st Detachment. The One-Eyed Foxes. that dissuaded him, for he has never forgotten: these The Here-for-Nows. are the only ones who came to save him. The voice of Subcommander Gerrard echoes over the Now, in his eighteenth subjective year, Jeddah has been carrier’s all-comm. “Sunrise. It’s sunrise. Good called before the Loyal Council for assessment and morning everyone, welcome to the Dawnline Shore.” ordination. He has been chosen, of all his fellows, to There’s a pause, the sound of someone talking off- learn the art of piloting, of standing-at-the-speartip. His mic. Gerrard comes back a moment later. “Since breast swells with pride when he hears his name called. Geordie won the calendar-pick, we’re going to listen to some old shit. Apologies in advance. We’ve got Rising, Jeddah walks across the dawn-lit courtyard to three days until we’re in orbit above Myrrh.” stand beside the rest of the Loyal Council. In time, he too will heft the lance, wear the golden armor, wield The old shit starts the moment Gerrard gets off the the laser and the rifle. comms – something called “ray-gae”. Penny likes it. She hums along as she taps her fabrication request He will be a lancer, hero to the lost. into the ship’s queue. For all the reputation these mercs had, she had been surprised to find they were actually quite kind. Gruff, unpolished, but kind and bound to their own sort of honor. Well, the Foxes were. Penny doesn’t know it, but she will be the only one to come back from this milkrun. She’s a cut above the rest, though she won’t find that out until later. Soon, Penny is going to be called “lancer”, but that won’t matter much to her – she only ever wanted to be called “friend”. [420] SECTION 6 // Setting Guide
YOND-BALOR – THE NOBLE TYRANNOCLEAVE – THE PILOTS A proud scion of the Baronies, preparing for war. UNGRATEFUL Through combat and intrigue, Yond-Balor has proved “Listen now: we have nothing but time, so I shall not that he alone deserves to command the warhost of rush. The first violence I commit to you is to tell you my the House of Glass – Yond-Balor Karrakis, second story. You will know before you die: My mother died son of Yond-Aleph Karrakis, Baron of House Yond, when she bore me, hooked to tubes and deadlife itself a minor house of the House of Glass. machines. Your men had her bear me with the assistance of an exo: a machine massaged her heart, As a youth, Yond-Balor was raised to pilot mechs – to gird currents forced her muscles to work, a black box himself in sealed power-armor and become the death- strapped to her chest forced breath into her lungs. All of word of House Yond. He proved himself in battle against this because you knew. You knew at that point the only Ungratefuls, against House Muur and House Fleur, even protest we had was to die and deny you new bodies. in single combat against the vice-lord of the House of Sand. Yond-Balor was the one who stood, alone, by “So you took me from her and I never knew her again Yond-Aleph’s deathbed while his father was ravaged by and in the care of your stone-matrons I learned how to fever, poisoned by assassins from the Mutable Houses. tear worlds to pieces. I learned the lash, and the pick, and how to read the earth you had me kill. All of that, yet there had been one more obstacle: Yond-Argo Karrakis, Yond-Balor’s older brother: first “When I was ten, I learned that I must take these pills to claimant to the baronial throne and, by extension, the survive. That I was born riddled with cancers that you warhost of the House of Glass. But where was Yond- would never take from me – too expensive. The Argo when their father had died? Where was the first- recovery process too long. And your quarterly profits named then? Gone. Traveling through space, sworn could never slip, as it would mean ruin for your name. to serve the headless ones: to serve Union. “Look at me. You are why we are hideous. Your Mere hours ago, when Yond-Argo came to pay propaganda paints us as beasts – but it is your hand respects to their late father, Yond-Balor wasted no that shapes our flesh. It is your word that scars our skin time in dispatching the much older man. and bids cancer grow thick in our bodies. In the names of manna and your house, you ruin millions. Thus, Yond-Balor has taken what was his by birth – drawn it steaming from the gut of his worthless kin. “Millions. There are millions of us and countless more. As his mech closes around him and the crimson This is your unbecoming. Your death, below your feet. ready-light begins to pulse, he grins. His name is no Every inch of every palace and ship and grand city you longer second-son – it is first, and it is lancer. build, you build on our backs, with our labor, at the cost of our lives. It began in the mines, but it will not end there: your Baronies are as riddled with us as my body is with metastasis. “Yes, weep now. For your perfect face. Your perfect worlds. Your perfect dominion. “Do you know that I did not know what the sky was until the Ungratefuls found me? Liberation means this: not simply seeing the sky, but knowing that there is such a thing as land without stone above you. And then knowing that there are those who put you there. I always thought – we were always taught this – that we were damned and penitent. That we had transgressed against Lordgod’s perfect kingdom and must mine in penance. “How wrong I was! It was not a divine prescript that doomed us to labor, but you and others like you. How surmountable the problem became then. “This is the Ungratefuls’ gift to me. This is their gift to the rest of us – the waste, the offal of your courts and SECTION 6 // Setting Guide [421]
palaces. This is why even your machines fight YOU alongside us. Because you never taught us there could be a thing like the sky. Because you thought that we A Pilot, Witness to a Future Unwritten. would never learn. The galaxy does not yet know your name. Maybe it “Goodbye, grand baron. Your house burns, your coffers never will. What the galaxy will know are your deeds, have been emptied, your monuments have been torn your actions. As you settle into your chassis for the down. Your line – your sons and daughters – hang from first time, is it joy that crosses your face? Fear? A the balconies of your own palace. sense of purpose, or one of doom? “We learned, grand baron. We learned how to hope, You may have been born to this work. You may have and who to hate.” been damned to it. The machine might be a tool, or it may be your real body. You may be a proud knight bringing glory and brotherhood to the Free Company of Nova Thebes, or a stoic soldier in the Sundogs, fighting to free worlds as yours was liberated before. You may seek the owner of the Raven Armor of Hurst, or fly the unburnt flag of New Ararat, or wear the raccoon patch of the Mischief Consortium; you might be an anonymous warrior hidden within relic powered armor scavenged from the Little Wars; you may paint your chassis in the graffiti’d sigils of the Everhart, or paint your skin in the silver of the Propositorum, yearning for the day it will become machine; or you may count yourself among the eager ranks of the Bright Bloom Concordance, those who seek a verdant future. The populated galaxy is a vast place, with many worlds, stars, and vast spaces in-between that hide mysteries: What lingers in the Ikadra Drift, where the Drift’s eponymous binary stars collect the ruins of thousands of ships in their orbit? What secrets murmur out from the Pleiades, where the song of the cult of MAIA echoes quiet through the bulkheads of your ship? There are powers at work in the galaxy – mundane and esoteric, cruel and utopian. Union, long the steady center of humanity, frays at the edges, and forces begin to align along new presentations of old ideologies. The most important question to ask – of yourself and others – is this: which side are you on? [422] SECTION 6 // Setting Guide
BEYOND UNION BEYOND UNION By conservative estimates, there are 250 billion stars in the Milky Way. A significant majority of those stars are orbited by their own retinues of worlds. Union space – the entirety of the Galactic Core, the Diaspora, and the Cosmopolita – occupies a fraction of the Milky Way’s Orion Arm. Thousands of worlds. But set against the billions unexplored in our galaxy, Union space is minuscule. So, what lies beyond? Go, and tell us what you see. Miguel Lopez and Tom Parkinson Morgan, Massif Press, 2019 SECTION 6 // Setting Guide [423]
INDEX 338 License 18 377 License Level (LL) 18 A 409 Mech Skills 30 420 Statistics 28 Accepted Timeline 403 Talent 35 Aging 375 Talent Rank 35 Albatross, The Mech 30 338 Agility 32 Example Lancer 347 Armor 35 Re: IPS-N, Trunk Security 338 Core Bonuses 33 Androidism 387 Core Power (CP) 33 Anthrochauvinism 377 Core System 34 See New Humanity Front, The 379 E-Defense 30 First Distal War Engineering 34 Ideology 390 Evasion 32 Apollo 338 Frame 34 Karrakis Heat Cap 30 Artificial Gravity Hull 68 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Immunity 32 Aun Mount 34, 82 Aun’Ist Repair Cap 67 Settlement Resistance 34 Save Target 34 B 371 Sensors 32 339 Size 34 Blinkspace 370 Speed 34, 81 Blink Travel 338, 339, 390 Stress 34, 80 Discovery Structure 33 Stations System Points (SP) 30 Systems 34 Boundary Garden Tech Attack 32 Trait 20 Pilot 25 Background Trigger C Cloning 374 Carina 389 Colonies 367 IPS-N Headquarters 403 107 Companion/Concierge (Comp/Con) 380 Cascades Character Tags 105 Corpro-State 356 282 Conflicts Between 407 Character 105 Player Interaction With AI 282 Biological 282 Cosmopolitans 343 Drone 282 Albatross Interactions 409 Mech 282 Body Modifications 375 282 Definition NPC 282 IPS-N Interactions 21 Biological Lifespan 403 Mech 14 377 Ship 28 Squad Cradle 386 Vehicle Galatic location 340 Character Terminology D 62 General Grit Dangerous Terrain Hit Points (HP) Dawnline Shore [424]
HA Expansion 397 Protocol 106 IPS-N Intervention 404 Quick Action 106 Ungrateful Resistance 415 Reaction 106 DeCorp (Decorporealization) 376 Shield 106 Deimos Event, Deimos 339 Unique 106 See also Non-Human Persons X/Turn or X/Round 105 (NHPs), MONIST-1/RA 406 Mount Tags DHIYED 20, 343 Aux/aux 32 Diasporans, Diaspora Flexible, Flex 32 Albatross Interactions 409 Heavy 32 Difficult Terrain 62 Integrated 32 Main 32 F Main/aux 32 Superheavy 32 Fall, The 340 Other Weapon Tags 105 Accurate 105 First Committee, The 338, 341, 369 Arcing 105 Armor Piercing 105 First Contact Accords 339 Inaccurate 105 Creation 384 Knockback 105 Decorp 376 Loading 105 Ordnance 105 First Distal War 338 Overkill 105 Overshield 105 First Expansion Period 338 Reliable 105 Re: Voladores 416 Seeking 105 Smart 105 Five Voices, The 338, 355 Threat 105 Names 382 Thrown 64 Patterns 64 Forecast/GALSIM 338, 350, 355 Blast 64 Bicameral Minds, The Five Voices 382 Burst 64 Cone 106 Fourth Column, The 348 Line 106 See also Third Committee, The Pilot Gear Tags 106 Archaic 106 Free Sanjak 415 Gear 33 See also Ungratefuls Personal Armor: 33 Sidearm 33 G 342 Type Tags 33 Cannons 33 Galactic Core 104 CQB 33 64 Launchers 33 Gear and Systems 34 Melee 33 General Nexus 33 Gear 33, 35 Rifles 33 Range 105 Weapon Size Tags 118, 339, 392 Sensors 105 Auxiliary 118 System 105 Heavy General Tags 105 Main 14 AI 106 Superheavy 13 Danger Zone 106 General Massive Systems 58 Deployable 106 GMS Core Bonuses Drone 106 General Rules Terminology Full Action 106 Accuracy Grenade 106 Bonus Heat X (self) Character Limited X Mine Mod [425]
Check 13 See also Third Committee, The 395 Consequences 46 D3 12 J 338, 392 D6 12 421 D20 12 John Creighton Harrison I 387 Difficulty 14 See also Harrison Armory 415 Downtime 14 416 Effect 13 K Fail (or Miss) 13 409 Game Master (GM) 12 Karrakin Trade Barons 418 Mech 30 See also Fourth Column, The 338, 341 Mech Combat 12, 56 Example Lancer 415 Mission 14 Karrakis Narrative Play 12, 45 Ungrateful Interactions 409 Non-Player Character (NPC) 58 Voladores Interactions 367 Pilot 20 339, 386 Player 12 L 384 Player Character (PC) 58 338 Principle 256 Lakshmi Bandhav-4796u Reserves 50 See also Albatross, The 64 Roll 12 64 Save 13 Lancer, Lancers 64 Scenes 14 Little Wars, The 64 Skill Challenge 47 Ludra's World 71 Skill Check 13 71 Succeed (or Pass) 13 See also Ungratefuls 71 Target Number 13 71 M 71 H 224, 394 69 Makteba 69 Harrison Armory 225 See also Albatross, The 69 See also Ras Shamra 379 69 HA Core Bonuses 339, 346 Manna 70 Paracausal Research 416 Mars 70 70 Hercynian Crisis, The 380 Siege of Mars High Ground 410 Massif-A 190, 404 Mech Combat Terminology See also Voladores, The (Los) 191 Homunculus/Homunculi 410 Areas of Effect Horizon, Horizon Collective 384 Blast HORUS 415 Burst Cone Core Bonuses Line Distinction from HORUS First Emergence Basic Full Actions Ungrateful Interactions Barrage Disengage I Full Tech Improvised Attack Integration, Into Union 356 Stabilize Interactions with Karrakin 393 Basic Quick Actions Boost Interplanetary Shipping-Northstar (IPS-N) Grapple 126, 402 Hide See also Albatross, The Quick Tech Core Bonuses 127 Ram Search Interstellar, The 348 Skirmish Basic Reactions [426]
Brace 73 Jump 63 Overwatch 73 Lift 62, 63 Conditions 78 Obstruction Immobilized 78 Occupied Space 62 Impaired 78 Provoke Reactions 62 Jammed 78 Space 62, 63, 71 Lock On 78 Standard Move 59 Shredded 78 Teleport, Teleportation 62 Slowed 78 Voluntary 63 Stunned 67 Other Actions 78 Damage Types 67 Activate 71 Burn 67 Boot Up 71 Energy 67 Dismount 71 Explosive 67 Eject 71 Heat 60 Mount 71 Kinetic 60 Overcharge 73 General 61 Prepare 71 1/round 64 Self-Destruct 72 1/turn 58 Shut Down 72 Action 64 Skill Check 72 Affected 13 Other Effects 81 Allied 67 Overheating 81 Area 78 Stress Damage 80 Attack 64 Structure Damage 71 Bonus Damage 67 Pilot Actions 69 Conditions 80, 82 Activate 73 Critical Hit 61 Boost 71 Damage 61 Brace 74 Destroyed 104 Disengage 69 Free Action 64 Fight 75 Full Action 58 Hide 73 Gear 65 Jockey 71 Hit 64 Overwatch 70 Hostile 58 Prepare 72 Line of Sight 73 Search 69 Melee 61 Skill Check 70 Object 64 Quick Tech Actions 70 Protocol 64 Bolster 70 Quick Action 73 Invade 93 Range 59 Lock On 90 Ranged 77 Scan 91 Reaction 65 Special Rules Terminology 95 Size 64 Blademaster Die 95 Statuses 64 Bondmate 101 Target 62 Brawler Die 77 Tech 62 Exemplar’s Mark 77 Tech Action 63 Gunslinger Die 77 Movement 62 Torrent Die 77 Adjacent 62 Statuses 77 Climb 63 Danger Zone 77 Drag 63 Down and Out 77 Engagement 106 Engaged 77 Fall 63 Exposed Fly, Flight 69, 71 Hidden [427] Free Space 62, 63, 78 Invisible Hover Prone Ignore Engagement Shut Down Involuntary
Mechanized Chassis 362 O Metat Aun 338, 390 OMETEOTL 410 See also Aun, Aun’Ist See also Horizon, Horizon Collective Metavault, Metafold Vaults 406 Oracle Chorus 338, 355 Metropolitans 342, 366 See also Five Voices, Body Modification 375 The, Forecast/GALSIM Milky Way, The 340 P Beyond Union 423 Non-State Actors 408 Paracausality, Paracausal Studies 379 Peoples of 342 Birth of Paracausality Research 384 Mirrorsmoke Mercenary Company 411 Periphery, The 344 Example Lancer 420 Petrel, Young Petrel 409 MONIST-1/RA 383 See also Albatross, The See also Non-Human Persons 408 (NHPs), HORUS 410 Piracy (Interstellar, Orbital) 357 Adherents of RA 414 Horizon Interactions PISTON-1, TBK PISTON-1 338, 346 Sparri Worship Post-Scarcity 366 N Prime Baron Karra-Bem 393 See also Karrakin Trade Barons Narrative Play Narrative Play Terminology 48 Printing, Printers 377 Difficult 45 R 388 Downtime Actions 53 53 Ras Shamra 377 Buy Some Time 53 See also Harrison Armory 372 Gather Information 54 369 Get a Damn Drink 55 Realtime Get Connected 54 Aging Get Creative 55 Travel Get Focused 55 Get Organized 53 Recontact Power at a Cost 55 Scrounge And Barter 46 S Heroic 20 Invoke 46 Second Committee 338, 343, 346, 356 Push It 45 See also Voladores, The (Los), Deimos Risky 338, 371 Event, Deimos, Ungratefuls Nearlight 348 Recontact 369 New Humanity Front, The See also Third Committee, 348 Second Expansion Period 339 The, Anthrochauvinism New Solidarity Coalition, The 379 Shackling, Unshackling 381 See also Third Committee, The 381 See also Cascades Non-Human Life Non-Human Persons (NHPs) Smart Weaponry 380 See also Horizon, Horizon Collective, HORUS Smith-Shimano Corpro 158, 398 SSC Core Bonuses 158 Space Combat 358, 364 Space Stations 370 Sparri, The Sparri Peoples 412 Subjective Time 377 Aging 372 Travel [428]
T W The Ten 338, 340 Wing (Young, Loyal, Honored) 409 Founded Planets 387, 390, 412 See also Albatross, The Theseus Shipyard 338, 403 Y See also Interplanetary Shipping-Northstar (IPS-N) Yggdrasil 412 Third Committee, The 339, 346 See also Sparri, The Sparri Peoples, The Committee Coalitions 348 Ten State Conflict Ideology 365 Ynn 412 Time Dilation 372 See also Sparri, The Sparri Peoples Travel 370 Ynneval 413 Global 370 See also Sparri, The Sparri Peoples in Play 372 Interstellar 371 Local-Space 370 U Ungratefuls 415 Example Lancer 421 Union, The 346 See also Forecast/GALSIM Founding 340 Union Administrative Department 338, 350 See also Voladores, The (Los) Union Bureau of Colonial Administration 354 See also Recontact Union Bureau of Orbital and Non-Terrestrial Management 354 Union Central Committee 350, 356 Union Colonial Mission 339, 347 See also Second Committee Sparri Interactions 413 Voladores Interactions 416 Union Department of Justice and Human Rights 352 See also Recontact Hotel Company 419 Union Economic Bureau 347, 354 Union Intelligence Bureau 355 Union Naval Department 352 Union Omninetwork Bureau 354 Union Ring System 340 Union Science Bureau 353, 383 Union Space Program 338 Utopian Pillars, The 344 V 349 416 Verdant Social Arc, The (VSA) See also Third Committee, The Voladores, The (Los) [429]
BACKER CHARACTERS Character/Fac�on Page/Sec�on Backer Aisling Jensen, she/her 286 (Ace) Jay Jensen Lee \"IterationDrive\" Saxon Lady Gloria MacLennan (She/Her) 287 (Aegis) Noah Carden Basil Lisk Ichabod Carden. He/Him 288 (Archer) John Arena Ethan \"SteelAngel\" Deneault Corrida Isolde-Nollet 299 (Engineer) Jenny Garabagiu Jennifer Fae Union Navy Skunkworks 379 (re: Paracausal Studies) Andrew Shields Hamish Lord Prismatica 406 (re: HORUS Flashpoint) Kai Tave Sam Chabot Flama (They/Them) 308 (Pyro) Zachary Broberg Scott MacDonald Aune Messengers of MAIA 307 (Priest) Ashley Moni Sam Garamy The Knights of Imminent Destruction, Gen'Dal Merlos 293 (Berserker) Arcolf, Grizzly Adams, ShadowDancerBob, CodenameChaz Audrey Reimaus, they/them 291 (Barricade) Josh Good Michael E. Cao Chandrasekhar & Herschel 303 (Hornet) Adam Montgomery Alain Clark Vanguard Security 416 (re: The Voladores) Max Waechter Derek Munn Zander Reeves, He/Him 292 (Bastion) Catherine Needham Zachary Williams Oberon Sterling 416 (re: The Voladores) Alex Manus Teddy Leinbach Susanoo, she/her 310 (Ronin) Joshua Javier Rios Will Lennon Valeria Rojas-Sarnik, she/her/hers. 296 (Breacher) Murder Cave 409 (re: The Albatross) Jackal and Hades, Esq 411 (re: MSMC) Union Science Bureau, Far-Field Team 1683 415-416 (re: The Voladores) ExtraSolar Acquisitions, Inc. 486 (Support Archetype) SUMMUM 376 (re: DeCorp) Dagger Squadron 300 (Goliath) Eris Brittam (she/her) 412 (re: Sparri Peoples) Catherine ‘C-80’ Need. They/them 297 (Cataphract) Hayes Rothford (he/him) & NHP, Clarke 298 (Demolisher) (she/her/they/them) 420 (re: Penny) MALWAREE 422 (re: \"You\") New Ararat 422 (re: \"You\") The Mischief Consortium 422 (re: \"You\") Free Company of Nova Thebes [430]
Character/Fac�on Page/Sec�on Backer The Sundogs 422 (re: \"You\") William Creel Propositorum 422 (re: \"You\") Thadius Rushing The Bright Bloom Concordance 422 (re: \"You\") Mark Bustrack Ikadra Debris Rings, The 422 (re: \"You\") Stephen Pagni Everhart, The 422 (re: \"You\") Bryce A. Everhart Ttalgi & Ínen 410 (re: Horizon) Amos Isom The Own Hands 358 (re: Piracy) Andrew Wise Mei Ling 358 (re: Piracy) Sam Hornigold The Frontier Shipping Clans 43 (re: The Stakes, Mission Goals) Sean Mckechnie Ava Rhys 48 (Combat in Narrative Play) Alice Lawrie Attar Rose 269-273 (re: Random Sitrep) Austin Walker Lin Yating, \"Marigold\" 48 (Combat in Narrative Play) Ryan Lui UIB Agent Etcher Ronen 50 (Reserves) William Osborne Bird Robin Conners 50 (Reserves) Mitchell Priour Harmonious Domesticity 90 (Ace Talent) Mark Siems Tempest Gloire (she/her) 91 (Brawler Talent) Matthew Lind Aubrey Deckard 91 (Brutal Talent) Kayte Hawke Strymon Bulis, He, callsign HAURBERK 91 (Crack Shot) Daniel Thomas Hicks Clymene Kanalakos (she/her), callsign BIRDSONG 93 (Drone Commander Talent) Dolan Hill Gail (she/her) 102 (Tactician Talent) Gail Duncan Former HA programmer Katya Han, she/her 96 (Hacker Talent) Anna Wittholz Eel (they/them) 96 (Grease Monkey Talent) Peter Romine Daniel 'Inky' Boyd - he/him. 48 (Combat in Narrative Play) Daniel Boyd Leika McGraff (he/him) 92 (Combined Arms Talent) Thomas Burd Laughter of a Solemn God 319 (Support NPC) Richard Moon Ethan \"Orion\" Miller 93 (Duelist Talent) Chase Uehara Khan 48 (Combat in Narrative Play) Kiernan Hahn Mesa Rownett 94 (Engineer Talent) Robert Ervine The Apiary 410 (re: Horizon) Gwen and Sasha Maxine Wolf (she/her) 94 (Executioner Talent) Osmina Deveraux Eamon Metria, advocate for the Nine. 95 (Exemplar Talent) Matthew Evans Mike Manfrin (he/him) 97 (Heavy Gunner Talent) Mike Manfrin Sargeant Stev Ansahok (he/him) 95 (Gunslinger Talent) Colin Ryan Edith Eidelen (she/her) 97 (Hunter Talent) Colin Yee LILITH 410 (re: Horizon) Lily Amole Golden Hand 411 (re: Mirrorsmoke) Jared Jordan Goblin Throne Industrial 411 (re: Mirrorsmoke) Ryan Verniere Old relic powered armour from the Little Wars 422 (re: “You”) Aaron Wood [431]
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