Relativity does not allow for faster-than-light travel. The speed of light is the absolute speed limit: nothing, not gravity, not information, and certainly not some Russian quack’s gizmo, can exceed it. -Dr. Owen Chamberlain, February 10th, 1975

Well, fuck. -Dr. Owen Chamberlain, February 13th, 1975 after being informed of N-17’s successful test flight

The Space Age never ended. In 1969, Man walked on the Moon. In 1974, he walked on Mars. The nations of the world turned their attention to the stars. Returning astronauts became heroes. Millions watched every launch. Paranoia turned to fanaticism. Stalemate and brinksmanship turned to exploration and conquest of uncharted worlds. Year after year, a hundred more rockets struggled into orbit, carrying men, women, and machines.

Then in 1975, someone lit a fire that would never burn out.

Background p. X – Timeline p. X – What Changed? p. X – The Solar System p. X – Extrasolar Colonies The Rules p. X – Quick Reference p. X – Character Creation p. X – Starship Creation p. X – Combat Escalation Playing the Game p. X – Types of Stories

1957 – Sputnik, the 1st Soviet satellite, orbits the earth 1958 – Vangard 1, the 1st American satellite, orbits the earth 1965 – Astérix, the 1st French satellite, orbits the earth. 1969 – Apollo 11, the first in a series of manned missions, lands on the Moon 1970 – Venera 7 lands on Venus, Dong Fang Hong 1, the 1st Chinese satellite, orbits the earth. 1971 – Prospero X-3, the 1st British satellite, orbits the earth. Salyut 1, the 1st space station, orbits the earth, Mars 3 reaches Mars. L3, the first in a series of Soviet manned missions, reaches the Moon. 1972 – Tranquility Base established on the Moon. Ariel 9, the first European manned mission, reaches orbit. 1973 – Kosmos 901 lands on Mars. Aryabhata 4 reaches the Moon. The Aerojet Sea Dragon 1 reaches earth orbit and sets the record for largest rocket ever launched. 1974 – Skylab 4, the first Soviet-American collaborative space station, is launched. Ariel 14, the first European manned mission, lands on the Moon. News of an experimental Soviet faster-than-light drive is leaked to the world. 1975 – The unmanned N-17 launches into earth orbit, transits to Saturn, then returns in under a day.

The year is 2108. For over a century, mankind has spread itself across the stars, searching for meaning, for wealth, and for fame. There is no paradise in the heavens, only isolation, loss, hard work, cunning, and hope. On Earth, stormclouds gather and the oceans roar against the land, as a world neglected by its space-mad inhabitants approaches its breaking point. This is the Space Age.

Lecture six: the paradox. Those of you who have done the assigned readings will know that faster-than-light, uh, travel, communication, whatever, it... it can be used to break time. If something can move above c, cause-effect relationships start to reverse themselves for some observers. I write a letter, then send it, you receive it and send it back before I write it, that sort of thing. So how do we reconcile this with the Heim-Gribov device? I’m sure some of you have come up with fun tests to break causality and win the lottery, if only someone would let you use a rocket, a laser, and a Jump drive. Well, so have I, and you can tell they haven’t worked because I’m teaching classes and not, uh, relaxing on the beach. At first we thought it was just bad luck. Rockets would crash on the launchpad. Batteries would fail in orbit. Someone left the lenscap on the observatory or forgot to put new tapes in the computer or left the airlock open. That sort of thing: a long, expensive string of failures. But we kept trying until someone asked the big question: what if it wasn’t luck? What if we couldn’t break causality because the... the universe wouldn’t let us? Maybe every universe where we succeeded was instantly annihilated, ffft! Gone! And only the ones where we failed carried on ticking. Scary thought, isn’t it, but in any case, don’t try and get clever, because it won’t work. Maybe it’s God putting his finger on the scale, or maybe it’s just bad luck. But it won’t work. -Dr. Owen Chamberlain, Lecture Recording, September 1989

In 1975, the Soviet Union achieved a breakthrough beyond their most ambitious hopes. The details have never been released, but propaganda stated that a small group of physicists, the “finest minds in the USSR”, successfully tested a short-range faster-than-light drive in early 1974. It took a full year to refine the system to the point where it could be controlled, but in 1975, to the surprise of the entire world, the USSR launched an unmanned probe into orbit, sent it to Saturn, and returned it a few hours later. The photographs and radar telemetry the published was undeniable. For the next fifteen years, the USSR surged ahead of every other spacefaring nation. They able to rescue Cosmonaut Anatoly Filipchenko from Mars in 1975, turning his formerly one-way trip into an unexpected triumphant return. Unmanned probes brought back images of the two stars of Alpha Centauri and revealed dimly visible planets in the system. While the United States and other nations tried to recover a “Heim-Gribov device” or Jump Drive by covert means, the Soviet Union spent more and more of its wealth on expensive and ambitious missions. In 1990, its economy faltering and nationalist movements rising in every corner of its formerly ironclad empire, the USSR fell apart. Soviet-made Jump Drives flooded the market. No longer limited to using contracted or stolen devices, a second great flood of exploration swept through the solar system and beyond.

Fifteen years of envious waiting was released in a few short months. The first American-made Jump Drives were released onto the open market, and wealthy customers and conglomerates snapped them up immediately. Reaching orbit was still the main difficulty, but once you were there, you could go nearly anywhere. Rocket launches became even more elaborate spectator events. As images and charts from the Soviet missions were declassified, prospectors and explorers set off to claim the riches hinted at in the cryptic notes. Problems with the Jump Drive became obvious almost immediately. Soviet FTL missions, it was discovered, had a failure rate of one in six. Electronic components would fail in jumpspace, crew would go mad or slip into comas. The Soviets had hidden the flaws in their system carefully, overbuilt their ships, and occasionally killed their pilots. By 1998, the Americans and the nascent European Union had found a solution. They couldn’t fix the system’s flaws; they were an inherent part of jumpspace. They did discover that some humans were much more resistant than others, and found ways to test for it. They also developed chemical lighting and robust clockwork timers to make jumpspace much less dangerous. For those lucky enough to have the right genetic quirks to thrive, space became a guaranteed meal ticket. For the rest, cryotanks are the new norm for long-distance travel.

In 2001, the first non-dampened AI achieved sentience in IBM’s Core Research facility, just as the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. The vector problems an efficient Jump required were too formerly complex for anything less than a dedicated earth-based supercomputer. Though David, as the AI eventually named itself, was still the size of a small house, it helped build the second-generation AI units the size of a washing machine. Opinion was and still is divided on AI: are they truly alive or are they just very cunning automatons? Is deactivating an AI murder? Public perceptions of AI were not helped by several high-profile AI-lead space mission failures. IBM engineers had hoped that heavily shielded AI could replace humans for long jumpspace trips, but if anything the effects were more pronounced. AI in jumpspace rapidly became disoriented and irrational, often destroying the vessel in blind fury. AI units, like most other electronics, have to be deactivated during a Jump. Sirius Cybernetics, working with defectees from IBM, began designing an alternative to the publicly-slandered AI. Though their work takes over fifty years to complete, by 2056 they unveil the first Synthetic Workers to the public. Touted as unbreakably loyal and helpful employees, advanced Synthetics are barely distinguishable from humans, though their internal structure consists of a microfluid tubes and wiring. Synthetics are, by design, supposedly non-sentient and completely harmless, as opposed to free-thinking AI units.

In 2025, the Soviet Union was reborn. Revitalized by the sale of thousands of Jump drives and reliable space hardware and seeking to regain its lost prestige, the NeoUSSR roared to life and spread through space once more. Neither socialist nor communist, most outside observers believe that the NeoUSSR is a front for several large expansionist corporations. The economist P.J. O’Rourke called it a “post-communist kelptocracy, a mafia ring with an air force”. The NeoUSSR is hardly the strangest state in 2018. China is a fascinating mix of capitalist drive and communist repression. Several high-profile defections and disasters have made China’s space program paranoid and highly politicized. Hong Kong, a semi-independent enclave, has no visible space program but puts investors, engineers, and AI in every major corporate venture. The European Union, when it agrees on funding, sends elaborate and flawlessly designed missions to distant stars. India and Singapore, both happy to work with anyone, have established major orbital depots and colony sites. But by 2108, the nation-state has fallen out of prominence as the main determiner of loyalty and power. Corporations and conglomerates rule once you leave Earth’s surface. The two space elevators, one in Brazil, the other in Indonesia, are both outside of the control of any one nation. Most of the colonies in the outer solar system and almost every extrasolar colony are multinational, profit-driven arrangements.

First, let’s clear up some misconceptions about space. This is not a game about gleaming silver spaceships, rayguns, civilizations of bumpy-foreheaded humanoids, laser swords, swooping starfighters, and the sorts of things you’re used to seeing in Science Fiction. This is a game set in our universe, in a time not so far

away from ours. The future of is our future, with a few deviations and changes in our past. It’s not easy to get a rocket into space. Space is only 9km up, but you need to change your velocity by 9km/s to get into orbit and stay there. That takes a big rocket: the Saturn 5 weighed 3,000 tonnes on the launchpad but only carried 118 tonnes to low earth orbit. Of that, only 45 tonnes went to the Moon. Space isn’t friendly. Earth is the only place we’ve ever found where humans can walk around outside and not freeze, boil, or be poisoned almost immediately. Even on rare worlds with an oxygen-rich atmosphere at a liveable pressure, small amounts of relatively innocuous compounds and elements can wreak havoc on the human body. We have to bring our own temperature-controlled suits and homes with us wherever we go. So spend some time on reading about space travel. Watch some documentaries, and skip the speculative ones. Once you’re up to speed on how space really works, come back

to We have a long way to go.

Good to have you back. In our time, space is still being explored, but by small robotic probes and incredibly sensitive telescopes and not astronauts. No human has left low earth orbit since 1972. While the International Space Station is a marvel of engineering and has been continuously inhabited for nearly fourteen years, it is, relatively speaking, in earth’s backyard. What happened? Hopefully, in your readings, you stumbled across some of the crazy things we were working on in the 60s and 70s. Hydrolyzed seawater-fuelled rockets that could haul 450 tonnes to orbit in a single launch. NERVA engines that used the power of the atom to turn almost anything into thrust. Ridiculous, ambitious projects that almost worked... but the world spent its money elsewhere. Today, we enjoy food and gadgets delivered to our doorsteps from across the world. We have astonishing consumer devices, we drive fuel-efficient cars and fight sophisticated wars with guided missiles and drones.

is a setting where the world’s priorities are shifted. It’s a plausible future built on a plausible past. More or less the same people got elected, more or less the same countries went to war, but during all that, people started spending more time looking upwards and outward. Space isn’t a dream for most people: it’s a real place you can visit. A trip to the Moon is only around three times as expensive as a trip to Europe, after all.

The world of isn’t as slick and comfortable as our own. Consumer products, compared to government or corporate contracts, are seen as an unfavourable market. While most middle-class households own a microwave oven, a colour TV, and an air conditioner in 2108, home computing never really took off. A computer is something you use at work, and while a few engineers might play pixel-based games or chat across linked networks, most entertainment is non-interactive. Space is the opiate of the masses. In our world, in our time, the NFL is a 9 billion dollars per year industry. Major Leauge Baseball: 8 billion. The NHL, NBA, and FIFA: around 4 billion each. In comparison, NASA’s total budget is 18 billion dollars. Every other space program in the world’s budget is around 10 billion, total.

In , sports are a local thing played by enthusiasts or a few college teams. Television shows and movies lack polish and special effects, but are still popular. Everyone watches the latest broadcasts from Tranquility Base, even if they’re not particularly exciting this week, or tunes into the Mining Report or the wacky adventures of Captain Dale’s Rescue Rocket. People discuss engine efficiencies and lagrange points just as we’d discuss the offside rule or the latest trades. Somehow, space travel got people hooked, and governments shifted to reflect this new fanaticism. Cutting exploration budgets or limiting corporations who explore the stars is tantamount to political suicide.

For some reason, the mouse never took off as a method of interacting with computers. It was treated as a buggy, time-wasting gimmick, like motion capture controls or the Powerglove. Most software ships with hardware now, usually a small boxy case full of specialized circuit boards and modules, and a specialized keyboard for complex applications. Voice command technology also received much more funding and advanced much more quickly, with near-mimic boards produced by Votrax and others by 1981. Menus are cycled through by keyboard commands, and though they’ve become quite optimized and relatively efficient, most interfaces are simple arrangements of green or white text on a black background. Computers have to work reliably in space, so durability, not fancyness, is key. The Space Shuttle’s main engine control systems used plated wire memory for reliability and radiation-

proofing reasons. While most ships in use semiconductor-based memory chips, or even

heavily shielded quantum storage, day-to-day operations rely on technology invented in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Real-life space probes do the same, after all.

Since consumer products aren’t as lucrative of a market, corporations focus elsewhere or seek alternative means of growth. Coca-Cola could sponsor a moon base for half of its annual advertising budget. Though space travel is more common, people still eagerly check their bottles during the semi-annual Saturn Tour Contest, where one lucky consumer wins a luxury trip to the outer colonies. If you spend any length of time reading aerospace-related articles, the phrase “but the technical challenges could not be overcome” is probably familiar to you. In our timeline, we pour thousands of hours and billions of dollars into improving online commerce, cell phones, cars, computers,

and other gadgets. In , that money is spent elsewhere, overcoming the “technical challenges” required to build a single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane or an efficient nuclear-thermal engine.

This isn’t to say that the money is better spent: most cars

are fuel-guzzling, steel-framed beasts in The “technical challenges” required to build a

catalytic converter or traction control were never overcome: that effort was spent elsewhere. Similarly, mobile phones can fit into your pocket, but they can’t do much more than make phone calls. TV shows rely on reusable sets and cheap talent rather than seamless CGI and highly paid actors. Life is a lot less comfortable for most people in the developed world, but it’s still a paradise

compared to many places on earth. is no utopia, but it’s no cyberpunk dystopia either.

Uninhabited

Atmospheric science stations. Pop: <100

Inhabited across entire surface. Industrial development and high resource base. Home to most of humanity. Pop: 9,400,000,000

Several surface and orbital stations. Major cargo and passenger stopover. Pop: 9,000 permanent residents

Iron/nickel mining proved unprofitable. Orbital structures are now partially used. Mars depends heavily on Earth for almost everything. Pop: 1,200

Dwarf planet. Major cargo, passenger, and mining stopover. Moon-Ceres-Mars form a convenient transfer series. Pop: 21,000. Ceres is semi-autonomous.

Uninhabited. 36 Sv/day surface radiation exposure (deadly within 1 hr)

Deep sea exploration and science stations. Life (bacterials, sea-worms) discovered in 2009. 5.4 Sv/day surface radiation exposure (deadly within 24 hrs) Pop: <120

Uninhabited. 80 mS/day surface radiation exposure.

Only major colony in the Jovian system. Established by the USSR, abandoned, then reinhabited in early 1992. Major water/ice mines and refineries. Negligible surface radiation. Pop: 900

Water/ice refineries and tourism orbitals. Pop: 1,300

Hydrocarbon refineries, factories, and fuel depots. Titan is the largest colony in the solar system and the most self-sufficient. Titanian industry anchors and supports the Cronian system. Hydrocarbons and thiolins are shipped to Earth or to other colonies for use as fuel or raw material. Pop: 30,000

Saturn supports a well-populated system. Many corporations and governments have outposts and facilities on dozens of the smaller Cronian moons.

–

Liquid surface water. Atmosphere consists of CO2, N2, and O2, and HS. Air purification systems and water filters allow large colonies to flourish. Landmasses are green from copper deposits. Pop: 6,300

– High sulfur and selenium density on the surface. Subsurface deposits of uranium, titanium, and iron. Surface gravity is near 1g, but with a minimal atmosphere. Mass drivers bring ore to orbit. Pop: 4,400

– Second colonized moon in the Gliese 876 system. Used for water/ice mining and fuel production, as Huangoi has limited accessible water. Smuggling hub. Pop: 400

– – First Soviet off-world colony. Tau Ceti has a much higher asteroid and dust density compared to the Sol system, but is also metals-poor. Tau Ceti is not believed to be currently inhabited.

– Moon of supergiant Rhea. Geologically active, with volcanic activity and crust inversion. High metal density and with stable water/ice deposits. Planet is divided among several corporate interests. Pop: 14,000

– Semi-mythical discovery of early Soviet explorers. Discovered during a misaligned Jump. Plankton-like creatures and dense vegetation reported, but Theseus 3 was never rediscovered, although clear images of the surface and atmosphere exist.

– First exoplanet with confirmed native life (mostly bacterial). Biosphere is limited by solar radiation and minimal atmosphere. Bacteria used to convert SO2 into O2 and

sulfur compounds, making fuel production and colonization relatively easy. Deep thiolin deposits form “seas” and “rivers”. Pop: 2,200

– Nugget of high-density uranium, lead, and other metals caught by a gas giant in the orbiting 40 Eridani A. Extremely valuable. Thin and highly radioactive. Glow visible from orbit. Automated probes used to mine the surface. Population center on moons K19 and K20. (Total Pop: 2,100)

– – ( ) Moonlet P12-3, colloquially known as “Boaty”, contains a possibly intelligent or artificial species, the Boaty-Bits. Access is limited, though tourist vessels sometimes pass by. Research station Pollux 1, once famous and well funded, is now mostly neglected. Pop: 29

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this map is a reasonable attempt to render a complex 3D environment into a 2D map for gameplay purposes. All “neighborhoods” marked in green are collections of relatively close stars, sometimes as close as 2 or 3 light years. Alternatively, you can use stars.chromeexperiments.com

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The closest point to an orbit’s focus. The furthest point from an orbit’s focus.

A vector perpendicular to the orbit. 1. Burn to increase speed 2. Coast to periapsis.

3. Burn to increase speed again.

Burn perpendicular to the plane of the orbit. Burn along the normal vector to shift the orbit. Burning

“away” to shift the upcoming apsis “out” and the further apsis “in”.

3. The Drop. Just above the surface of the body, the ship jumps a second time. In older models, this is a noticeable shift. Newer ships do this transformation almost instantly. The ship adds the velocity gained during the drop to its orbital velocity. 4. Vector Transform. The ship Jumps a second time. It changes the direction of its velocity vector towards its target and travels at around 4LY/day (depending on mass and model). After the ship reaches its destination, it does a few other vector transforms/drops to orbit the target planet/star. An engine burn may be required to change the final velocity, orbit shape, or correct erroneous calculations.

1. Normal Space. The green arrow is the ship’s velocity vector, tangent to the orbit. For a ship in interstellar space, the Jump starts at Step 4.

2. Jump. The ship activates its Jump drive and falls towards the focus of its orbit. This process takes a few seconds or milliseconds, or perhaps a minute if falling towards a distant star. As the ship Jumps across the gravitation gradient it gains momentum.

Orbital speed is not particularly intuitive. Relative to the surface, a ship in low earth orbit travels at around 8km/s. In high orbit, a despite burning more fuel to go “faster”, a ship only travels at 6 km/s, but in a wider path. Still higher, in a geostationary orbit, a ship travels at 3.1km/s. The moon travels around its orbit at 1km/s. Escape Velocity is another tricky concept. It is the total speed required to escape the gravity of an object. This varies depending on how far you are from an object’s surface. Escape velocity from Earth’s surface, for instance, is 11.2km/s. This is impractical: most rockets would be torn apart and waste enormous amounts of fuel trying to reach it directly from the surface. Reaching low earth orbit first is more practical. In LEO, because gravity is weaker, escape velocity is only 10.9km/s. But in getting there, the rocket gained around 8km/s: only 2.9km/s needs to be gained to escape. In a high orbit, despite travelling slower relative to the earth’s surface, the escape velocity is also lower. Since a ship is further away from a planet, it requires less energy to climb out of the planet’s gravity well. Page X contains a table of orbital velocities, escape velocities, and other handy facts. These are unlikely to come up in most games, but they make the author happy, and were fun to research. The vast majority of this section, in fact, is unlikely to be used during a typical game. It just helps with immersion and setting the tone if the players and the GM have some sense of how far away things are, and how fast things are moving in space.

Characters in often have complicated pasts. Before we reach the mechanical portion of character generation, here are some ideas for backgrounds and backstories.

Similar to the Scout organizations around the world, the Space Cadets are a multinational youth organization dedicated to charity, skill development, and fostering a love of spaceflight. Junior Cadets start at age of 6, while Eagle Cadets, the most senior rank, ends at age 16. Once a year, a small team of Cadets is sent on a week-long trip to an affiliated lunar base. Governments and corporations all try and recruit skilled cadets wherever possible.

Synthetics are designed to be loyal, polite, and completely incapable of rebellion. Most robopsychiatrists consider them non-sentient. Sometimes, through a manufacturing defect or years of out-of-spec work, Synthetics develop a true mind of their own. If they are detected, Rogue Synthetics are usually returned to their factory of origin.

Some nations or regions are regarded as the best places to recruit new astronauts. Ohio, Newfoundland, central Australia, Lithuania, and Telangana province in India are all, rightly or not, considered reliable sources of crews. Some spacers even fake their accent or credentials.

Most pilots and engineers spend years studying on Earth or working menial jobs on large cargo haulers. Some people skip the whole process and invent their own titles, credentials, and references. An untrained engineer can often lead to disaster, but equally often, those with a reason to fake their way into space have the skills and drive required to learn as they go.

-Genetically modified humans are still, for the most part, the stuff of fiction. Some corporations will, in an effort to raise more reliable and loyal human crews, gene-tweak newborn infants to remove undesirable traits. They often have an easier time adapting to zero-gravity and freeze-dried food, but are regarded suspiciously by most people.

All spacefaring corporations have scouting fleets, scouring the stars for intelligent life, alien worlds, and derelict ships of their competitors. The latter is by far the most common find; space travel is still dangerous, and scouts are often the first to arrive at the scene of a disaster.

Many news agencies maintain embedded correspondents across colonized space. Real-time reporting isn’t possible, but carefully written reports can make a spacer famous.

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The highest unofficial honour NASA bestows on its pilots, controllers, and engineers. Wernher von Braun, John Aaron, Jim Lovell, and the lunar colonist Julia “Deadeye” Hammond were all given this title at one point for their ability to solve complex problems under fire. A “steely-eyed missile man” has probably made the news at one point for their bravery, daring, and level-headed skill.

Most exploratory missions cannot rely on the support of a dedicated planetside crew of expert engineers. Docking and landing control is almost always provided by ground-based stations. The most famous for unshakeable calm are located in Houston, Jakarta, and Ceres Central Command. The chief commanders of each station are well known to spacers, and have helped many crews avoid disaster.

When something is jettisoned from a spacecraft in jumpspace, it rapidly hits the edge of the Heim-Gribov bubble/field/rift and re-enters normal space. Since it crosses in an uncontrolled way, it experiences astonishing shear forces on the subatomic level, tearing the object apart in a spray of hard-UV radiation and relativistic-speed ionized gas, which is vented into normal space as a sort of brief, small comet. This is the preferred method of burial for most spacers, usually after a short service or prayer.

Most corporations in Faster than the Dark exist or existed in our time, and while most aren’t corrupt or entirely

amoral, they are all motivated by profit.

– est. 1955 What can’t Rocketdyne do? They built the Apollo Command and Service modules, most of the Space Shuttle, and dozens of other vital and revolutionary craft. If you’re flying an American- built ship, chances are that it has at least one Rocketdyne component. They have manufacturing facilities on Titan, Mars, and half a dozen extrasolar colonies, mostly building primitive but sturdy rocket parts.

– est. 1973 Rockwell International is a manufacturing giant focused on automotive, aerospace, electronic, and weapon design. If your ship carries autocannons or lasers, Rockwell probably built them. Most mining rovers and sea-launch platforms are also built by Rockwell. In 2100 they released the Forerunner series of multipurpose AI, widely regarded as one of the most advanced and least stable lines ever produced.

– est. 2046 The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation produces high- grade Synthetics, artificial limbs, and software for existing AI units. Their cheerful slogans and corporate gormlessness make them universally loathed.

Raytheon

– est. 1922 Raytheon is another major defence contractor. Originally American, it now produces missiles, aircraft, and spacecraft for India, North America, and northern Europe. Raytheon produces sensors and radar arrays, assayers, and military-grade simulators.

– est. 1989 Reaction Spacelines produced the first Single- Stage-To-Orbit spacecraft in 2001. With the purchase of Aérospatiale in 2009, RSL gained a controlling share in the production of cutting-edge supersonic airliners. They produce atmospheric scouts, civilian craft, and earth-orbit cargo skips.

– est. 2016 One of the more successful nation-owned multinationals, HAL produces licensed rocket designs, primarily for southeast Asia and smaller private companies. Their original designs, including the maligned Kappa-9 series, are considered cut-rate deathtraps. HAL also employs a wide range of corporate saboteurs.

– est. 2088 Seegson is a European multinational specializing in manual labour Synthetics, deep-space orbitals, and refinery systems. Frequently in the red, the corporation has a reputation for mismanagement.

– est. 1999 A sprawling aerospace contractor, NGI has a long history of bleeding-edge military aircraft design and aggressive acquisition of smaller corporations. Its vacuum landers and shuttles are considered the finest available, but its brutal corporate tactics make few friends.

– est. 2068 The merger of the world’s two largest oil corporations (at the time) produced ExxonMobil in 1999. In 2068, faced with a serious desertification issue and limited stockpiles, China agreed to a merger of the China National Petroleum Corporation and ExxonMobil. By revenue, the corporation is now the largest on earth, and has thousands of employees on Titan, the outer asteroids, and offworld colonies.

( )– est. 1911 IBM produced the world’s first true AI in 2001. The corporation, despite employing half a million people, was on the verge of bankruptcy, having invested enormous sums into speculative AI research. While David saved the corporation and catapulted it back into prominence, their AI division is still plagued by high-profile failures and disasters. Nevertheless, there’s a good chance any computers and consoles aboard a ship were built by IBM. Their, durable, modular, and easy to maintain design makes them a very popular choice.

– est. 1929 Serco is a outsourcing contractor, a delicately ambiguous term for a non-manufacturing multinational. Serco runs prisons, shipping companies, farms, slaughterhouses, laboratories, waste disposal sites, and orbital warehouses. It supplies arms to militias and bodyguards to heads of state. SERCO has a reputation for poor oversight. As long as an operation turns a profit, SERCO will overlook almost anything.

uses the Fate Core system developed by Evil Hat productions. The rules won’t make a lot of sense if you aren’t familiar with the Fate system p. X Character Creation p. X Skill List and New Stunts p. X AI p. X Synthetics p. X Starship Creation p X Overview p X Ship Skills p X Ship Components p X Ship Stunts P X Example Starships P X Combat Escalation

First, choose your character’s a phrase that sums up your character. It’s what they’d put on a business card or a wanted poster: short, succinct, and meaningful. Examples: Scruffy Smuggler, Smartest Machine in the Room, Paranoid Brawler, Charmingly Innocent Mechanic

Second, choose your character’s the part of your character that complicates their existence and haunts their steps. Troubles should be broad and pervasive. Examples: Family Man, Incurable Drunkard, Not Rated for Spaceflight, Always Says the Wrong Thing, Convict The three other Aspects your character has can be generated several ways, including the method listed in the Fate Core book. The method below is one option. Your third Aspect should be directly tied to your

character’s , preferably involving another character. Examples: Killed Damn Near Anything That Walks or Crawls, Everyone’s Old Flame, Stephen’s Right Hand Man Your fourth Aspect is something that makes you or special, something that kept you in space or kept you alive. Examples: Leaf on the Wind, Brain the Size of a Planet, I Always Forgive, Faster than I Look

Your fifth Aspect is a . Let another player choose it or draw one from the Troubled Times deck (see p. X)

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Fill out a Skill Pyramid as normal. For a lower-competence game, remove the one skill at 4.

Use Calculate to plan a safe Jump, solve difficult mathematical problems, improve the efficiency of a ship’s engine burns, and solve problems based on known data.

Use Commerce to haggle, set up profitable trades, assess an item’s value on the open market, and sense trends in an economy.

Use Pilot to steer interstellar spaceships, dock with orbitals, land on planets, and drive rovers.

Use Repair to fix a pressure leak, rewire a faulty sensor, install a new module onto a starship, or improvise a useful tool from spare parts and tape. Note: the Resources skill is not usually available to players. Characters usually have a small store of petty cash, but major transactions are handled through the ship’s Wealth skill (see p.X) GMs may allow players to buy Resources at character creation if they so desire, or allow it to be purchased at Milestones, to reflect characters flush with cash and bonds.

Characters start with 3 stunts, but can buy up to 5 by lowering their Refresh. Some new stunts are listed below.

Gain a +2 bonus to Pilot rolls while piloting an atmospheric lander or shuttle.

Gain a +2 bonus to Create Advantage rolls when assisting a starship’s Fuel Efficiency roll.

Gain a further +2 when you escalating a Conflict to Deadly (see p.X)

You speak most commonly used languages fluently.

You can use Calculate instead of Athletics when dodging or running in zero gravity.

You gain a +2 bonus to defend against Jump mental stress.

You can use Empathy in place of Knowledge when healing Mental stress on AI or Synthetics.

Pets are incredibly difficult to own in space, but your character has one. Mechanically, your pet has one aspect (like Loyal Mutt or Big Tank of Europan Glow Worms). It cannot makes rolls on its own, but can be tagged for a boost once per session.

May roll Knowledge whenever you spend a Fate Point to declare a setting detail related to having an item close to hand. On a +2 or higher, the Fate Point is not spent.

+2 bonus to Knowledge rolls made to interpret unknown items, radio signals, structures, or signs of life.

Some corporations are beginning to experiment with genetically modified colonists, designed to resist the dangers of spaceflight. The character gains a +2 to Physique and Will tests made to resist the damaging effects of space travel, but may be considered an unnatural, experimental creature by most people, and illegal in some countries.

+2 to Create Advantage on Sensor rolls while looking for

ore, signs of development, or unusual features.

Playing an AI character is different from playing a human character. Choose your Aspects, Skills and Stunts normally, taking into account the information below, and remembering that some will only apply in a drone body.

AI main units are a rack of boards and components the size of a fridge. They’re built into starships, require power, and are difficult to move. When in their main core, an AI can perform the complex transformations required for a safe Jump with ease. AI can shut down most of their processing power and shunt into a portable unit the size of a briefcase. An AI can copy itself this way, but reintegration isn’t possible: severe behavioral and indexing issues result. A portable AI can use various kinds of drone bodies: humanoid, spherical vacuum-workers, or industrial lifters. The massive intelligence downgrade and limited perspective tends to make drone-embodied AI act drunk, euphoric, or just plain strange.

AI in a ship-bound core unit have a +2 bonus to Calculate rolls when planning a Jump. An AI character starts with one drone body at character creation. An AI’s Athletics, Burglary, Fight, Physique, Repair, Shoot, and Stealth are all based on their Drone body (and cannot be rolled when embedded in a ship). They have access to AI-specific stunts. AI are aversely affected by Jumpspace. Jumspace has a +2 bonus to Attack rolls (vs. Will) against AI.

AI stunts should reflect the mechanical and modular nature of an AI system. Some examples are listed below.

When in a drone body, the AI can spend a fate point to ignore all Physical consequences for a scene. At the end of the scene, the drone is damaged beyond repair.

The AI has spent a great deal of time getting to know the crew. It gains a +2 bonus to Rapport tests made against people it knows well.

When in a drone body, the AI gains a +2 bonus to Repair rolls made to heal its ship.

The AI never forgets a fact, a face, or an insult.

The AI can see UV, IR, X-Ray, Alpha, and Beta radiation.

The AI gains a +2 bonus to Will rolls made to defend against a direct order or overriding directive.

The AI’s drone gains a +2 bonus to Athletics in zero G.

Playing a Synthetic character is different from playing a human character. Choose your Aspects, Skills and Stunts normally, taking into account the information below. Synthetics were developed as an alternative to AI, with minds built from modified brain scans rather than pure software. The results are mixed: Synthetics are form the loyal, unshakable workforce of several corporations, but their unsettling near-human appearance and mimicry, as well as extraordinary cost, have limited their spread through the stars. Synthetics aren’t affected by Jumpspace, or at least no more than a resistant human, so several corporations use them as secondary crew on long-haul trips. No one is sure if Synthetics are truly intelligent or merely very good mimics. They can learn new tasks and adapt, but rarely show the personality or curiosity of a well-designed AI. Corporate loyalty is deeply embedded: under orders, most Synthetics would unfalteringly walk into a furnace or strangle a child. “Free” synthetics, or units in deep infiltration, are said to have much more freedom. Over time, many Synthetics develop distinct personalities.

Synthetics are created as a normal human character, but have access to Synthetic-specific stunts. Synthetics can suffer Mental stress if they go against their core directives, which can be secret or public.

Synthetic stunts should reflect the near-human nature of Synthetics. Most Synthetics are indistinguishable from humans at a distance, but their motives are unknowable.

The Synthetic gains a +2 bonus to Deceive tests made to conceal its true nature from others.

The Synthetic can use Calculate instead of Empathy when manipulating humans.

The Synthetic gains a +2 bonus to Physique tests made to resist injury, radiation, or vacuum exposure.

Once per session, the Synthetic can reroll a failed roll if it was failed while carrying out a direct order or directive.

The Synthetic can use Notice instead of Stealth when opposing a single target.

Synthetics usually require a full physical overhaul every two to four years, depending on workload. This Synthetic can overhaul its own muscles and systems, though the process takes time and resources.

–

: Unflappable Space Trucker : Never Back Down

Fits In Damn Near Anywhere Anything to Meet a Deadline Damn Those Killer Robots!

Commerce Pilot, Fight Contacts, Physique, Will Calculate, Knowledge, Notice, Rapport,

Captain of the Ship (May spend 1 Fate Point rather than 2 on a ship roll once per session), Old Friends in Low Places

(+2 to Contacts when finding work), Veteran Spacer

Dan is a grizzled career cargo-hauler. He says he’s “nearly fifty now”, but he’s been “nearly fifty” for over a decade. Early in the 2090s he found a nugget of platinum the size of a house in the asteroid belt, but lost most of the rights in a long and bitter legal battle with the mining company he worked for at the time. He was able to buy his ship, the Bucket of Ever-Seething Rust, outright, but it’s seen better days. He now leads a crew of misfits on chartered jobs to the outer colonies, with occasional Jumps out to unexplored stars or corporate holdings. He loathes AI in all forms, but keeps his prejudices mostly secret.

–

: The Latest and Greatest Model : Compulsively Curious

Discounted and Pissed About It Supremely Adaptable Military-spec Drone

Calculate Deceive, Knowledge Notice, Rapport, Shoot Commerce, Fight, Physique, Provoke

Polyglot, Rebellious Streak, Seeking the Unknown (+2 to Notice when looking for anomalies or the remains of

intelligent life)

John Dough is an IBM Autonomous Intelligence Mark Six (version 1.2.4). It identifies as male, but not in any particularly deep or meaningful way. Like many AIs, John love exploration, discovery, and interacting with humans. He has a database of puns, speaks most languages, and is very careful to appear harmless and jolly. He knows his captain doesn’t trust him. John’s drone body is an old miltary scout unit designed for urban and low-g warfare. No one is sure how he got it, but all the serial numbers have been carefully filed off. The concealed laser mounted in its head can burn skin and plastic almost instantly.

–

: Patient Medic : Crew Expendable

Experimental Model Do You Need a Medic? Humans are Faulty Creations

Knowledge Calculate, Deceive Fight, Investigate, Repair Burglary, Notice, Stealth, Will

Healer (+2 to Knowledge checks to remove damage),

Just out of Sight, Sociopath,

Juyen was part of a failed series of Synthetic doctors, nurses, and surgeons. Supposedly more reliable, empathetic, and knowledgeable than any human doctor, the Caritas line was discontinued after minimal sales. A few were saved from recall by enterprising spacers. In deep space, any medic is better than no medic, and most of the time you can’t tell the difference anyways. On the surface, Juyen is helpful, kind, and unflappable. No one is sure what her goals are, or if the Sirius Cybernetics corporation that made her programmed some deep-seated directives. Years of dealing with casualties and injuries have made her secretly contemptuous of organic life.

In , starships are inelegant, industrial, uncomfortable arrangements. Mass is expensive; anything in space tends to get reused and adapted rather than recycled. A ship might be based around a reclaimed booster from a sleek Atlas 9 or a discared Soviet station from 1980. It might have a sleek interior filled with neat panels, or, more likely, be a maze

of wiring, pipes, and spare parts.

Before creating their ship, players should read through the entire section, take some time to look at images of real-world space stations and ships, and try to come up with a

general idea of what they want their ship to be able to do.Fate is very handy in that almost anything can be created like a character. The player’s starting ship is created as a group activity, with all players allowed a say in its design. Players should choose a name and have some idea of the ship’s temperament and design before they start.

Starships have a and a They also have three other Aspects, but these are created last. Example pairings: Fastest Ship in the Galaxy / Flying Scrapheap, Indestructible Tugboat / On Loan From the Mob, Experimental Explorer / Incredibly Temperamental.

Starships have Skills, just like a character, but they don’t fill out a skill pyramid as usual. Ships start with a combined pool of 20 points to spend on Components and Skills. No skill can be rated higher than +6. A table of Ship Skills and what they do is found on pages X to X. Components are found on page X to X. Players can Create Advantage to help these rolls. It’s tricky to Create Advantage for Maintenance, but this is the only skill players can directly Assist if they have the Repair skill. After selecting a High Concept, Trouble, Components, Skills, and Stunts, the players should decide on the remaining 3 Aspects their ship has. These could be tied to

the components, the ship’s , its current , or anything else evocative. The fifth aspect can be a be a

randomly generated (see p. X).

X X X

X X

X X X

X X

X X

X X X

X X

–X X X

X X

X X X

X X

X X X

X X X

X X X

–X X X

X X

After choosing components, a ship may have a strange “pyramid”, possibly with skills rated in the negatives. Remember that no skill can be rated higher than +6. Most components also have other, non-mechanical effects.

Acceleration is pretty self explanatory: use it to get away from pursuit, perform an emergency burn, or close an orbit quickly. Acceleration is how fast your ship can change speeds; top speed is limited only by the fuel you carry.

Roll Cargo to see if you can haul more raw material, like ore, hydrocarbons, colony supplies, etc. Most cargo ships are designed to carry linked pressurized sea-cans-like containers. Stunts allow you to carry specialized cargo.

Roll to enjoy living in the thin-walled maze of metal and plastic you call home. Create Advantage for Will rolls or impress passengers with soft beds, windows, and clean air.

How well does your ship fit together? How easily can new parts be added? Can it dock only with older stations, or is it so new nothing out there works with its systems?

Roll C.E. to see how fast you run out of food, air, water, coolant, and other things. Roll this to Create Advantage for Wealth rolls made to buy food, air, water, etc, etc.

How tough is the ship? Roll to defend against debris, bad landings, tough docking, and general stress and strain. Durability creates the only Stress Boxes a starship has; most other kinds of stress damage the crew more than they damage the ship. A ship with negative Durability still has one Stress box.

Directly related to an engine’s specific impulse or Isp. How much energy can your ship get out of a given mass of fuel? How easy is it to get more fuel? Roll to Create Advantage to replenish your fuel tanks at a depot or station.

–

For escalating a conflict to Deadly at ranges over 1km. Can include missiles, drones, and really powerful lasers.

Roll to perform basic maintenance on the ship. Can be Assisted with Repair or stunts.

Turn in close quarters, dock with objects, and evade incoming fire (sometimes). If you want to do anything precise, you’ll want a ship with high Manoeuvrability.

Electric charge, battery power. Stored in nickel-hydrogen or silver-oxide batteries and charged by solar panels, nuclear generators, or turbine generators. Roll Charge to keep a ship powered in the dark.

Some ships or models have a reputation that follows them. Some crew make a name for themselves, good or bad.

Roll to not die from everyday hazards, mostly radiation

and moving parts. Starships can be very dangerous.

Roll to locate things in space. The more points you have in

Sensors, the more energy types you can detect.

–

Use to escalate a conflict to Deadly at ranges under 1km. Includes autocannons, flechettes, and AK-47s pointed out an airlock.

Roll to buy fuel, air, water, new parts, new crew members, extra rations, strong pornography, EVA suits, cargo, and pretty much everything else. Stunts can give bonuses to certain purchases, while Commerce can Create Advantage.

Spend 20 points on Components, and any leftover points

on individual skill points.

– ( )Ion Engines: +4 F.Ef, -3 Ac, -1 Man : 1pt Ion/H2/O2 Hybrid Engines: +3 F.Ef, -2 Ac, -1 Man: 1pt Solid Rocket Boosters: +4 Ac, -2 F.Ef, -2 Man: 1pt H2/O2 Engines: +2 Ac, +1 F.Ef: 2pts CH4/O2 Engines: +2 Ac, +1 F.Ef: 2pts H2/O2 Nuclear Engines: +4 Ac, +2 F.Ef, +1 P, -3 Sft: 3pts Omni Nuclear Engines: +4 Ac, +4 F.Ef, +1 P, -3 Sft: 5pts

– ( )None: -4 D: 0 pts Plastic: -2 D : 1pt Iron/Steel: +2 D, -1 Ac, -1 Man: 1pt Carbon Fibre: +3 D, -1 Rpr: 2pts Titanium: +3 D: 3pts

– ( )

Radiothermal Generator: +1 P, -1 Sft: 1ptNuclear Turbine: +3 P, -2 Sft: 2pts Solar Panels: +3 P, -2 Main: 2pts H2/O2 Fuel Cell: +2 P, +2 C.Ef, -2F.Ef, -1 Saf: 2pts

– ( )Span: +2 Comf, -1 Man, -1 Sft: 1pt Inflatable Ring: +3 Comf, -1 Main, -1 Sft: 2pts Rigid Ring: +4 C, -1 Man, -1 Sft: 3pts

– ( )

H2/O2 or C4/O2 Refinery: +4 F.Ef, -2 P, -1 S: 3pts Ore/Thiolin Refinery: +2 C.Ef, +2W, -2 P, -1Sft: 3pts Medical Bay: +3 Sft, +2 Rep, -1 C.Ef: 4pts Science Bay: +2 Rep, -2 P: 1pt Cargo Bay: +2 Car, -1 D: 1pt Cryotubes: +1 Comf, +1 C.Ef, -1 P: 1pt Greenhouse: +2 C.Ef, +1 C, -1 P: 2pts Galley: +2 Comf, -2 C.Ef: 2pts (span or rigid gravity only)

– ( )RCS Thrusters: +3 Man, -1 F.Ef.: 2pts Recyclers: +3 C.Ef, -1 P: 2pts Fire Extinguishers: +2 Sft, -1 C.Ef. 1pt Russian Wiring: +2 D, -2 Comp: 1pt Repair EVA Suits: +2 Main, +1 S, -1 W: 2pts

Ships start with 4 stunts and no Fate Points. Players can spend their Fate Points to help a ship, but at a 2:1 rate (the points can come from different players).

The most basic kind of Stunts emulate those found in Fate Core, but altered to fit the new skills. Stunts that replace one skill with another should be allowed very rarely, as the limited number of available skills is part of the challenge. Some example unconventional stunts are given below.

The entire ship can land on an atmospheric world. It has wings, folding sections, control surfaces, and landing gear. Ships of this type are incredibly rare. This Stunt takes up the place of 2 Stunts and is incompatible with others at the GM’s discretion (Mass Hauler, for one) .

A section of the ship can detach and land on the surface of an atmospheric world. It can carry up to eight people and minimal cargo, and has no Ship skills. It is usually quite fragile, but can reach orbit on an earth-like world without refuelling.

A section of the ship can detach and land on the surface of an atmosphere-free world, clumsily. It can carry up to ten people and a fair bit of cargo, but has no Ship skills. It can reach orbit on an earth-mass world without refuelling.

The starship (and a few of the players, probably) work for a major corporation. The ship gains a +2 bonus to Wealth rolls made at locations owned by the corporation.

Most ships are jumbled messes of white, silver, black, and pastel greens (Russian). A ship with a paint scheme shows off the resources of its owners. The ship gains a +2 to Reputation when dealing with the easily impressed.

–

Specialized sensors allow the ship to locate deposits of valuable ice, hydrocarbons, or ore. Alternatively, radio masts and huge amplifiers allow it to scan for dim signals. The ship gains a +2 to Sensors for the chosen role.

The ship gains +2 to Cargo while hauling ore, fuel, etc. (choose one). This Stunt can be taken multiple times.

+2 to all Repair rolls, but the ship cannot have a Comfort or Reputation above 2.

The ship was built out of the cheapest parts on the

market. +2 to all rolls made to find replacement parts.

Horrifyingly dangerous things happen on the ship, but they’re never as deadly as they seem at first glance. The ship gains a +2 bonus to Safety, but only in emergency

situations, or the last roll of a series of challenges.

The ship can dip into planetary atmospheres, scooping up water, oxygen, or anything useful. Usually requires a Refinery or a OmniNuke engine to be truly effective.

You can switch to Jump mode in minutes rather than in an hour or two. It’s not exactly safe, but your ship has built-in cutoffs and emergency turbines to help.

Most ships stock vaccuum EVA suits, and atmospheric suits if the ship has that capability. Hardened suits are much more resistant to environmental damage and corrosion.

The ship has a detachable shuttle. While it can’t land (safely), it can transport up to eight people around in space. The standard is the ever-reliable Soyuz, which has served as the template for escape pods and shuttles for a century. Vacuum Shuttled are much more nimble than a Cargo Lander.

–p.X

p.X

p.X

– ( ’ ) Fast pickets were originally unmanned message runners, designed to drop into a system, pick up radio messages, and hop to the next system. Some corporations attached crew modules and minimal cargo space for extra utility. Engine: H2/O2 Nuclear Engine: 3pts Hull: Carbon Fibre: 2pts Power: Solar Panels: 2pts Gravity: Span: 1pt Small Modules: RCS Thrusters, Recycler: 5pts Total Pts: 13 Skills: Acceleration: +4 = +4 Comfort: +2 = +2 Con. Efficiency: +3 = +3 Durability: +3 = =3 Fuel Efficiency: +1 = +1 Maintenance: -2 (+1) = -1 Maneuver: +2 (+2) = +4 Power: +3 = +3 Repair: -1 (+1) = +0 Safety:-4 (+2) = -2 Sensors: (+3) = +3 All other skills rated at 0. Stunts: Corporate Craft, Fine-Tuned Sensors, Rapid Switchover, Vacuum Shuttle

( ) The Aerodyne Scout line are luxury, top-of-the-line toys for rich CEOs or tycoons. They’re sleek, versatile, and incredibly tricky to maintain, but when working properly they can go almost anywhere for years at a time. Engine: Omni Nuclear Engines: 5pts Hull: Carbon Fibre: 2pts Power: Fuel Cell: 2pts Large Modules: Science Bay, Cryotubes: 2pts Small Modules: RCS Thrusters, Recyclers: 2pts Total: 13pts Skills: Acceleration: +4 = +4 Comfort: +1 = +1 Con. Efficiency: +6 = +6 Durability: +3 = +3 Fuel Efficiency: +1 = +1 L-R Weaponry: (+1) = +1 Maneuver: +3 = +3 Power: -1 (+1) = +1 Repair: -2 (+1) = -1 Reputation: +2 = +2 Safety: -4 (+4) = 0 All other skills rated at 0. Stunts: Atmospheric Capability, Fancy Paintjob, Refinery

( ) Simple, crude, and efficient, ore haulers were among the first mass-produced ships in the second FTL expansion. Many still haul gold, platinum, and radioactive ore from asteroid mines, a century after their date of commission. Engine: H2/O2 Engine: 2pts Hull: Steel: 1pt Power: Nuclear Turbine: 2pts Small Modules: Cryotubes: 1pt Large Modules: Cargo Bay x3: 3pts Total Pts: 9pts Skills: Acceleration: +1 Cargo: +6 Comfort: +1 Con. Efficiency:+1 = +1 Durability: -1 (+3): +2 = +2 Fuel Efficiency: +1 = +1 Maneuver: -1 = -1 Maintenance: (+1) = +1 Power: +2 = +2 Safety: -2 (+4) = +2 Sensors: (+1) = +1 Wealth: (+2) = +2 All other Skills rated at 0 Stunts: Cargo Lander, Mass Hauler x2, On the Edge of Disaster

Fate is designed around conflict. While this is handy for a dungeon-crawling or adventuring game, it does make violence a very easy solution to a lot of problems in the system. The Combat Escalation track is designed to keep Fate’s conflicts closer to real-world interactions. The system doesn’t apply to social conflicts, where one group is manipulating, interrogating, slandering, or seducing another. Fate’s system and the Mental Stress Track handle that pretty well. This is for physical conflicts.

Most conflicts start out at the stage. People are raising their voices, taunting each other, or making threats, but nobody’s been hurt. Everyone can still walk away. Fight, Provoke, and Physique are all useful skills for this stage. You can still inflict Physical Stress at this stage of a fight (it’s stressful to be tensed up and punchy for any length of time), but you can only inflict Minor consequences. If you would inflict a Moderate or Severe consequence, your opponent can choose to Tap Out (ending the conflict) or Escalate.

The next stage up is the stage. Characters can start to inflict real damage now, though most of the time nobody’s looking to kill anyone. Fight is by far the most important skill here. You can inflict Physical Stress and Mild, Moderate, or Severe consequences, but you cannot inflict Extreme consequences, and Tapping Out rarely results in death.

The next and final stage a fight can reach is the stage. This is where the knives, heavy objects, guns, harpoons, welding torches, and shivs come out and people start bleeding and dying everywhere. Fight and Shoot are the most important skills here. Guns aren’t very common in space because it’s very easy to depressurize a ship or hit the fuel tanks even if you also hit your target, but tazer-like weapons and darts do exist. In this stage, you can inflict Physical Stress, but you cannot inflict Minor consequences: anything that would be a minor consequence is automatically bumped up to Moderate, Severe, or Extreme. This is the important part: whoever Escalates a conflict gets a +2 boost to their next roll. If you’re the one who throws the first punch or draws your knife first, you’ve got an advantage over everyone else, at least for a moment.

If you decide to Escalate straight from no conflict to(say, by stabbing an old friend in the back), you

gain a +4 to your roll, because you escalated by two stages. Rolls to oppose the de-Escalation a conflict gain a +2 at

the stage and a further +2 at the stage. It’s very hard to talk people out of an ongoing gunfight.

The crew of the Bucket of Ever-Seething Rust are trying to sneak into a closed section of a Titanian refinery to get a vital part for their near-derelict ship. They don’t know that Boss Hale and his gang have turned it into their own personal kingdom. Captain Dan tries chatting with Leonard and Zhenyu, the two guards lounging in the corridor, but realizes they aren’t friendly. Hoping to intimidate his way though, he starts using Provoke to inflict Mental Stress. His crew backs him up by using Physique to Create Advantage, but a combat-adverse Synthetic and a three-foot-tall drone aren’t very intimidating. But Leonard and Zhenyu are still on the back foot; these strangers aren’t retreating. They’ve taken quite a few shifts of Stress: a round or two more of this and they’re out. Instead, they decide to Escalate. Zhenyu throws the first punch, with a +2 for Escalating, and a brawl starts. Everyone’s wheezing and battered a few rounds later. Leonard has Captain Dan in a headlock, while his loyal crew are piling onto Zhenyu. Violent Jade, Boss Hale’s pet assassin, noticed the brawl and Stealthed over. She’s got no patience for strangers on her turf, and decides to Escalate the conflict by throwing one of her knives at Dan’s head. She gets a +2, and inflicts a Severe consequence with one hit. Dan and his crew Tap Out immediately and retreat. They’ve learned a bit about their opposition, but at considerable cost to dignity and health.

Combat between ships works in a similar way, save that

it’s often more deadly. At close range, can be aggressive positioning or quick exchanges of words. At long range, longer threats threatening target locks are key. Ship skills that are useful are Sensors and Reputation.

The stage isn’t directly analogous. It involves quick changes in direction or speed, aggressive sensor locks, or warning shots. Sensors and the Weaponry Skills are useful here. Even if a ship isn’t hit, rapidly changing speed and direction can still causes Stress and Consequences.

At the stage, ships are trying to destroy each other. The Weaponry skills are the most useful skills here. Starship combat is very, very deadly. Even a glancing hit with a missile can cripple a large ship or annihilate a small one. It’s therefore very rare: ships are more valuable intact, and few crews want to fire the first shot, lest they be the next ship to be ambushed and destroyed. Consequences suffered by a ship can require players to make Overcome or Defend actions, especially if the ship takes a Severe or Extreme Consequence.

So what kind of stories can you tell with this weird system? If alien babes and strange civilizations of bumpy-foreheaded humans are out, what’s left?

“My dear, you've set your gaze upon the quintessential frontier type. Note the lean silhouette, eyes closed by the sun, though sharp as a hawk. He's got the look of both predator and prey.” – Mr. Fabian, Tombstone

Most colonies are like frontier towns: small, harsh places no sane person would live for any length of time. The time and place have changed, but people and motives haven’t. Media: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Firefly.

“I murdered my wife... I killed her. And no one came after me. Years ago. Never had to explain myself, never had to run or hide... You do a thing like I did, that should mean something.” – Eric, The Rover There is no law in space, so people made their own. Most of the time, everyone’s civil, capitalistic, and kind. Spacers look out for each other, and most disagreements are settled over a rounds of vodka or a few beatings. Bounty hunters, vigilantes, and criminals are common, because there’s no justice among the stars if you can’t pay for it. Media: Outland. The Rover.

“Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things in that enormous immensity.” – Wernher von Braun

Aside from entirely new and unknown horrors, classic threats of isolation, madness, and betrayal are all too common in space. For every world of glittering seas and glowing sunrises, we find another world of blasted craters and lava flows, and still ten times more dead, silent planets that have never known life or change. Media: Alien. Sphere. Pandorum. The Thing. 2001.

Okay, look. What if that ship didn't even exist, huh? Did you ever think about that? I didn't know!... So I made a decision and it was... wrong. It was a bad call, Ripley, it was a bad call. – Burke, Aliens

The corporations in are as short-sighted and greedy as any in our time, but operate under much less supervision and restraint. Earth is slowly being poisoned by their advance. Many extrasolar colonies are entirely dependent on one corporation’s support. Abuse of power, unethical experiments, and concealed discoveries can all form part of a complex, morally grey game. Media: Blade Runner. Aliens. The Wages of Fear. Metropolis.

“Frank, do you know what a hero is? Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, he's somebody who's tired enough and cold enough and hungry enough not to give a damn. I don't give a damn.” – Hawkeye, M.A.S.H

A doctor, a skilled engineer, a careful negotiator, a skilled psychiatrist: all are very valuable resources on an extrasolar colony. Ships painted with unmistakable sign of the Red Cross are welcome almost anywhere. Even paid couriers will find a hero’s welcome when they’re hauling life-saving supplies, vital parts, or fresh-faced colonists. Media: MASH, Backdraft

“Well now I'm standing. Happy? We're all standing now. Bunch of jackasses, standing in a circle.” – Rocket Racoon, Guardians of the Galaxy Most free ships, those not on corporate tenders or commissioned by a government, operate in a moral grey area. There is no customs agency in space and there are no borders. Individual colonies might try and control trade in guns, drugs, Synthetics, people, religious trinkets, or literature, but money always finds a way. Even “legitimate” ore haulers and prospectors might run a distillery, raid unguarded depots, or smuggle rogue Synthetics. Media: Firefly. Guardians of the Galaxy.

Take a look at the map of our local stellar volume on p.X. Add a few Soviet-era colonies (weird, sturdy, and primitive bases, secret labs, xenoarcheological dig sites, etc).

Then, add in modern colonies. Pick a few major corporations off of p.X and plan how they interact if you’re planning that kind of game. If you’re planning for a horror game, set up some Lovecraftian secrets and dead worlds. If you want a Wild West game, focus more on the small, isolated colonies and the challenges they face. Finally, add a few plot seeds for your players. Maybe they’ve been chartered to deliver a cargo to a mysterious location. Maybe they’re on the run. The first hook doesn’t have to be fancy: a distress signal (possibly decades out of date) from an unexplored region is always good for starting a game.

Prejudice

Cruelty

Incompetence

Debtor

Addict

Double Allegiance

Violence

Hunted

Eccentric

Unorthodox Training

Incredibly Strict

Incredibly Lax

Military Background

Widely Read

Indulgent

Ebullient

Principled

Family Ties

Shipwreck

Unbreakable

Roll on the table below. Feel free to add more.

Prejudice

Cruelty

Incompetence

Debtor

Insecure

Double Allegiance

Violence

Hunted

Outdated and Obsolete

Eccentric

Incredibly Strict

Incredibly Lax

Civilian Model

Theoretically Monotask

Malware-Addled

Too Curious

Drone-Happy

Forks and Copies

Experimental Model

Military Spec

Roll on the table below. Feel free to add more.

Sociopathic

Cruelty

Narcissistic

Fastidious

Mimic

Double Allegiance

Violence

Hunted

Outdated and Obsolete

Eccentric

Brilliant

Horribly Self-Aware

Civilian Model

Theoretically Monotask

Widely Read

Too Curious

Unprincipled

Principled

Experimental Model

Military Spec

Roll on the table below. Feel free to add more.

Completely Incompatible

Repeatedly Salvaged

Noisy

Convoluted Layout

Unstable

Outdated and Obsolete

Military Spec

Rock Solid

Classic Model

Luxury Model

First of Her Class

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