PIONEERS
As the 27th century draws to a close, six great Civilisations occupy a volume of space in the core of one of the spiral arms of the milky way galaxy.
The Earth Empire, inheritors of Humanity's homeworld, proud, progressively feudal and pious.
The Federation of Humanity, former revolutionaries, now the ultimate expression of objectivist capitalism.
The Co-Operative, the fringe element of the human race. anarchist groundbreakers, egalitarian glory hounds.
The Many. an arthropodic species with a religious drive to expand their civilisation throughout the universe
The Collegiate Assembly of the Tribe of Zebulon, a society of reptilian hominids for whom knowledge truly is power.
The Distributed Process, a non organic civilisation exploring the boundaries of space and thought.
Each is dependant on the exotic element ardanium for trade, travel and war. with ardanium a ship can bend spacetime and traverse the gradient thus created, defeating the circumstances limiting normal velocities to 300000 kilometers a second.
But ardanium is rare, and while each civilisation has many commercial and civilian ships, and maintains a modest military fleet, stockpiles are dwindling. less and less is found each year, despite concerted survey efforts on all fronts.
Six Years ago, though, the newly discovered world of Reddeluto looked set to change the balance. A shaky treaty, signed by all six Civilisations, prevented all out war, and limited exploitation of the planet's mineral resources to on-foot, old fashioned prospecting and the staking of claims. Because Reddeluto held many, many times the amount of ardanium so far gathered by all six Civilisations combined.
Disaster struck, in the form of a gargantuan interstellar Gigafauna. A creature the size of a moon, that drew sustenance from the temporal distortions caused by Ardanium powered gradient travel. The creature left a trail of worlds aged prematurely to distruction behind it, and looked set to consume Reddeluto. The operatives of the Six Civilisations built a weapon to slay the beast, but when it was activated, the death throes of the monster transported them… elsewhere.
Now, lost far from home, six thousand personnel with only a glorified customs enforcement fleet and a badly damaged administrative space station to call home, activate the Ulysses Protocol.
Can they find a way home? And if not, can there be a life for them out here, wherever that is?
See Events for the details of our next exciting adventure