Soliciting Interest: Alpha Centauri 2/Beyond Earth Simulation

At the moment, I'm looking for both new players generally (that is, folks who want to play a faction of their own design) and new players interested in taking on specific roles that fit the broader narrative. The latter roles aren't scripted so much as they involve playing pre-designed factions with unique characteristics. I'm trying to stick to a model in which players are free to do as they please.

Welcome aboard!

I've been asked to post a parallel ruleset here so that folks from Paradox can take part without having to migrate to any other forum. I will simply post moderation in both locations.

Conceptually, this activity is more like a shared narrative than it is a competitive game. While there are absolutely many competitive aspects, including armed conflict between factions, the mechanics are very simplistic. Players have responded positively thus far. I do my best to give you enough information to make wise choices.

To create a faction, please review the original set of fourteen in Alpha Centauri and Crossfire, then provide a brief answer to the following three questions: (1) Why did civilization on Earth fail? (2) What are the irreducible truths of human existence? (3) What does your faction believe is necessary, politically and organizationally, for human civilization to succeed on Chiron? Think, too, about why even a very small cadre of Unity crew and colonists might accede to the leadership of your faction head during the Crisis of Planetfall.

I do have "special" slots open for players of factions that will shape the narrative in specific ways. Unfortunately, because of the sensitivity of those roles, I can only give very minimum detail before I assign them. Let me know if you want to go in that direction.

I intend for the game to unfold episodically, and that is what we have done thus far. The game began when the command crew awoke to address an emergency on Unity's arrival in the Alpha Centauri system. Players have spent one regular and one double-long "impulse" (roughly 36 hours) trying to organize an evacuation amidst an orgy of looting and violence. The third impulse (12 hours) ends Monday at midnight EST. Moderation will follow by Wednesday, August 27.

The rule set is simple. Based on the Wargame Developments Handbook and the "sprawling wargame" concept introduced by late historian Paddy Griffith, each player submits their orders in the form of logical argument. Players generally take between one and three actions per turn, depending upon faction size.


The template is as follows:


Action: My forces SEIZE the Emergency Command Center (ECC).

Result: Spartan forces successfully storm the ECC and execute the remaining defenders.

Reason 1: Spartan forces open the engagement by planting C4 against the hatch, then employing grenade launchers to fire high-explosive and flechette rounds into the compartment. Once the bombardment is complete, smoke rounds are fired for concealment. Spartan troops wearing respirators and night-vision goggles then storm the section, armed with assault weapons.

Reason 2: Col. Santiago hand-picked each of the Spartan stowaways, and a high proportion of Spartans have combat experience.

Reason 3: Restoration forces defending the ECC are already severely bloodied, as described in the moderation last impulse. By contrast, Spartan forces have not yet suffered significant casualties.

Each argument will then be considered. If the move is unopposed, it succeeds. If two or more players present conflicting arguments, the Umpire compares their validity. Each faction has a set of general stats, called "pips," that gives the player a general sense of his/her capabilities. If necessary, I can set probabilities and use dice, but I haven't found that necessary thus far. The point is to encourage players to take well-considered actions by forcing them to present those actions in a well-reasoned format.

Part I: Why We Went

Our story begins with a series of tragedies. Not long after the dawn of the new millennium, human civilization on Earth entered terminal decline: over-population, climate change, and political violence were rampant. Billion dollar disasters had become commonplace. Institutes designed for a more sedate time and a more predictable planet quickly proved inadequate to design, much less deploy, effective solutions to global anarchy.

If bipolarity proved dangerous but stable, multipolarity proved dangerous and unstable. Superpowers fearful of their own declining power moved to preempt would-be challengers rather than cede the stage. Failed states meanwhile provided fertile breeding grounds for transnational terrorist and criminal enterprises that became increasingly difficult to tell apart. When the United Nations succeeded (rarely) in mobilizing opposition to outright invasions, savvy governments simply turned to “parallel structures,” employing intelligence services, special forces, local proxies, and private contractors to go where uniformed soldiers could not. In 1991, global instability came to a head with the Six-Minute War: India and Pakistan annihilated one another in less than the time it took to boil an egg.

It was in the immediate aftermath of the Indo-Pakistani tragedy that French astronomers made their astounding announcement: the presence of an earth-like planet, Chiron, in the nearby Alpha Centauri system. Recognizing that the hour had grown late and that the need for diversion was dire, the United Nations tendered a British proposal of astounding ambition: to colonize this new Eden with a multinational expedition representing the best that Earth still had to offer. If all went well, the massive effort might serve to rehabilitate an international community drunk on its own delinquency. If the worst came to pass, however, at least the colonists – mankind’s legacy – would be safely away before they, too, fell victim to civilizational suicide.

Perhaps the global mania surrounding the expedition to Chiron was a predictable reaction to the visceral confirmation that nuclear war was every bit as horrible as remembered. In any event, the British motion struck a nerve: proving desperate for any excuse to step back from the brink, the remaining regional powers quickly signed on, followed in short order by much of the rest of the world. Some contributed out of hope, reflecting a late-breaking sobriety, if not optimism, brought on by recent events. Others joined the mission out of a desperate pride – to confirm, above all to themselves, that they remained relevant in trying times. Still others acceded out of nothing more than a cynical desire to reap whatever gains were made by this most ambitious gamble.

Part II: Project Unity

Code-named “Unity,” the final formula for an expedition called for sending colonists and supplies to Chiron with the objective of establishing a permanent beachhead. These early settlers would remain in contact with Earth, transforming Chiron in its image. The end-game was to be a population transfer of Biblical proportions.

Far more complex than even the largest U.N. peacekeeping operation, Project Unity was also substantially more divisive. Accession to the notion of a unitary expedition to Chiron did not necessarily signify endorsement of a particular mission command structure, much less a liberal-democratic blueprint for Utopia. If, in the end, a core of Western donor nations succeeded in exercising decisive influence over the expedition’s organizational paradigm, a full year passed before the Security Council approved establishment of a multinational space agency to design and crew the proposed starship. Another year was spent crafting the charter for the multinational development agency charged with supervising the colonial enterprise until the first popular elections could be held. Security Council members each retained independent veto over certain “sensitive” issues, including appointment of command staff. Recognizing that donor nations scarred by so many fratricidal wars were apt to be wary of initiating a fusion reaction in Earth’s orbit, Unity’s launch was made contingent upon use of a “20-power-key,” held in trust by the members of the Security Council. Yet even then, the method of crew apportioned to each donor nation relative to the size of their material donations would be amended sixty-three times over the course of the project’s thirty-year history.

Once governance had been established, a keel was laid down. A period of three decades passed as the civilian space agencies of a dozen countries put into orbit the infrastructure necessary to begin construction. Before man could travel to Chiron, he had to learn to live in Near Earth Orbit, then at the Trojan Points, and finally on the lunar surface.

In time, as Unity nearest completion, a crew was selected in accordance with the mission charter. Each of the hundreds of thousands of personnel assigned to the expedition were first nominated by a national commission, then processed against minimum qualifications set by a joint board of the Royal Society, the National Academies, the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Institut de France, and the Russian Academy of Sciences. In short, the expedition was a perfect monument to bureaucratic rationalism from start to finish.

Both the starship crew and expedition members -- every soul aboard -- spent years in intensive training, both classroom and practical. Already paragons in their fields, the Unity colonists received condensed crash-courses in disciplines such as wilderness survival, incident management, emergency medicine, wildland firefighting, agronomy, and mountaineering. In addition to their primary billet, colonists were prepared to fill secondary and tertiary billets in the event of catastrophe.

Virtually no trade or calling was excluded. Chiron was to be peopled not only by astronauts and technicians, botanists and production engineers, but judges and civil servants, poets and preachers, soldiers and sailors. Civilization was not merely to be replicated – it was to flourish.

Part III: A Sisyphean Undertaking

From the beginning, Project Unity was plagued by problems of every size and type. Cost overruns; technical delays; the collapse, obliteration, or withdrawal of member states funding critical modules; and repeated incidents of sabotage added years to the mission timetable. When the number of participating member states fell below the threshold required to sustain the project, multinational corporations were invited to take part. Integration of so many design philosophies and agendas caused significant downstream delays in mission launch.

If many of the technical problems were foreseeable, this made them no less tractable. To make a bad situation worse, the United Nations proved unable to effective manage a project as large and politically fraught as the construction of a fusion-powered ark capable of carrying nearly a quarter-million people and the equipment with which they would build a functional colony.

The number of contractors alone became almost unmanageable. Numerous false starts during design and construction led to replacements or retrofits – of the power pack, the guidance systems, the primary thruster assembly, and more. Deconfliction of work orders was an especially wicked problem in an environment where deadlines were routinely missed. Entire modules would be installed one month, only to be torn out the next because other projects required access to work spaces that had been inadvertently sealed. United Nations auditors repeatedly discovered that the contents of entire cargo bays were out of specification, spoiled, damaged, missing, or, worse, unauthorized.

Colonist selection meanwhile touched off countless arguments and not a few riots as governments tendered candidates considered unacceptable by their neighbors. Many of those picked to serve were killed before they could report for duty, some by angry neighbors convinced that the United Nations was suborning their governments, others by the militaries of foreign governments determined to minimize their adversaries’ contribution to the expedition. By the time the expedition left Earth orbit, United Nations security services estimated that fully twelve percent of colonists had spent more than a year in hiding.

To make difficult matters worse, some nations insisted on using the Unity mission not as a basis for sending their best and brightest forward toward a new tomorrow, but to divest themselves of malcontents and ne'er-do-wells. If the United Nations was fortunate, these were merely political prisoners, but several bays' worth of convicts were also taken aboard in the expectation that they would prove useful at hard labor.

Part IV: The Unity

[This section shamelessly taken from Jon F. Zeigler, "GURPS: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri," first ed. (N.p.: Steve Jackson Games, November 2002).]

The United Nations Starship (U.N.S.) Unity was the paramount achievement of human civilization, reflecting the concerted effort of the greatest minds and largest economies remaining on Earth after the disasters of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Unity spent twenty-four years under construction and six in trials. It was (and remains) the largest object ever built by man. Once completed, the miles-long vessel was stocked over a further five years by orbital factories built to furnish the last of the heavy equipment. The colonists were equipped with every useful item that could be packed in a crate and sent up the space elevator constructed for that purpose: small modular reactors, prefabricated shelters, earthmoving equipment, medical supplies, and much more. More than a half-million passengers were entombed in the vessel’s heavily-shielded cryo-bays, there to spend a forty-year journey in silent repose. After the expedition arrived at Chiron, the Unity would commence an orbital survey, deploy landing pods, and, finally, seed the planet with additional colonists and supplies not sent during the first wave.

Realizing that construction would need to begin decades before launch – the first draftsmen knew they could little conceive what technologies might be available nearer the date of Unity’s departure – the ship was designed in modular fashion. The stardrives, primary reactor, and mainframe computer were among the final components introduced. But if this philosophy ensured that Unity could benefit from certain major advances in materials science, structural engineering, and automation made over the course of more than two generations on the stocks, it was not a panacea.

Several serious problems presented themselves. First, an undertaking so large required that supplies be laid in on a continuous basis over the course of generations. Many colonists therefore had to be trained to operate technology last used by their grandparents. Second, legacy systems were often found too expensive to “swap out” late in the day despite Unity’s modular design. As a result, the processing power of the ship’s computer cores was actually insufficient to run software spanning so many different eras. Much of the functionality (and therefore the value) of newer components was thereby denied to the expedition. Third, there were sometimes compelling arguments to gut entire compartments of the starship in favor of newer, more reliable or more capable solutions. Considerations of time and cost meant that these retrofits were usually accomplished at the expense of future accessibility for repairs. Finally, the number of crew required to operate such a disparate collection of systems -- even if only during acceleration, deceleration, and the ship’s cannibalization -- was prohibitive, “crowding out” inclusion of additional talent in other areas.

To increase confidence that their “Frankenstein’s monster” of a starship would survive its long interstellar journey, Unity’s designers arranged for redundancy of function whenever possible. They also installed layered safeguards: ablative armor, blow-out panels, extensive fire suppression, and air-tight bulkheads behind which entire sections of the ship could be sealed off or even jettisoned independently. While most emergency protocols were automated, the crew also included a large complement of firefighters, fire control technicians, and damage control teams that trained for years to manage shipboard emergencies and could be brought out of hibernation on short notice.

The colonists were placed into cold sleep immediately before launch. Only a corporal's guard of reactor operators and bridge crew were kept awake to transit Unity to the edge of the solar system before the activation of its massive engines.

Since the ship was designed only for travel to a particular destination, there was no hope of return to Earth in the event of calamity. Once the colonists have been disgorged, the ship will be cannibalized to create the upper terminus of a space elevator in Chiron's orbit.

Part V: The Journey

[This section also shamelessly taken from Jon F. Zeigler, "GURPS: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri," first ed. (N.p.: Steve Jackson Games, November 2002). I also took some material about solar sails from the "JumpShip" entry on http://www.sarna.net.]

Unity launched with a 5.3-hour high-acceleration boost, after which it was almost one million miles from Earth and traveling at a speed of over 100 miles per second. The ship deployed its Bussard ramjet, using the thin hydrogen gas of deep space for fuel. This second stage of acceleration brought Unity to a cruising velocity of about eleven percent the speed of light. There was later a turnover in interstellar space, during which the ship deployed an enormous, parachute-like solar array several kilometers in diameter, followed by slow deceleration using the ramject scoop fields to “brake” against the interstellar medium. Final entry into the Alpha Centauri system and insertion into Chiron’s orbit was accomplished using a fusion rocket. The ship’s supply of fuel and reaction mass was calculated with extreme precision, leaving almost no room for error.

Later, some of the colonists realized how miraculous a successful journey would have been. The mission had been planned in relative haste, and construction had amply borne out the truth of Murphy’s Law. Any mishap during the long flight might have doomed the crew. As it happened, the bulk of the journey went without incident – but, in late 2099, as Unity was decelerating into the Alpha Centauri system, it collided with a tiny fragment of space debris. The interloper was no larger than a pebble, but at the starship’s speed, even such a small object could have devastating impact. One of Unity's eight cryobays was completely destroyed, killing tens of thousands of colonists and crew in an instant. Damage to other parts of the ship was widespread, if not crippling.

The greatest hazard lay in damage to the fusion drive, shut down by the master computer to prevent it tearing the ship apart: there was now no way for the Unity to stop, so close to journey’s end. Although deployment of the solar sail in a correct attitude offered some breaking force, if nothing was done, the ship would fly past Chiron and be forever lost.

Captain John Garland and his command staff were automatically roused from cryo-sleep when the emergency occurred, two weeks before the final flyby of Chiron. They, in turn, awakened the many hundreds of crew members required to conduct damage assessment and attempt repairs. A number of these personnel had previously experienced long isolation on purpose-built satellites in Earth orbit while training on damage control applications before mission launch, but others were simply engineers and technicians from compartments readily accessible to the survivors. In short, men and women from all walks of life were quickly confronted with a largely unique experience of participation in an endeavor that demanded not only cooperation, but integration into an essentially paramilitary hierarchy.

Chief Engineer Prokhor Zakharov judged that the fusion drive could be partially repaired, but also reported that many of the cargo bays were no longer functional. Still others could theoretically be jettisoned to fall to Chiron independently, but were inaccessible from within the starship itself. There was no way to determine, as yet, the status of their contents. The refugees could only hope that many of their comrades and much of the vital equipment would be deployed by automated systems, as the Chief Engineer believed likely. Captain Garland quickly ordered that the ship's remaining landing pods be loaded in the expectation that the mission might have lost future access to the Unity's stores. He then made the difficult choice to abandon ship once closer to Chiron. Much of the remaining engineering staff was then awakened to assist Zakharov's repairs. Meanwhile, additional crews were brought out of cold sleep to prepare the pods and, if possible, obtain access to blocked cargo bays before Unity was abandoned.

Part VI: Terminus

[The final portion of this section shamelessly taken from Jon F. Zeigler, "GURPS: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri," first ed. (N.p.: Steve Jackson Games, November 2002).]

As in any survival situation involving a large, heterogeneous population working in smaller groups, distinctive factions soon began to form. The largest of these were typically associated with members of the expedition’s senior leadership, reflecting their nominal status as the heirs to particular national and/or therefore ideological agendas. Several of these individuals, though nominally under United Nations command, proved insubordinate when Garland rejected their proposed courses of action for achieving a safe Planetfall.

Was Project Unity destined to fail? Would the same divisions that emerged under the stress of fighting for sweet life above Chiron have likewise metastasized were the mission executed under design parameters? Certainly some of Garland's misfortunes were a reflection of the decision to take aboard crew and leadership whose commitment to the vision a unitary colony was simple fiction. Without the ability to plumb the depths of mens' hearts, the truth of the matter may be impossible to know. How much of what happened next was the result of honest belief that Garland was incompetent to save his people, and how much the result of giving the dogs too much freedom on the leash?

What is known is that Garland's trouble began in earnest when he made the decision, against Zakharov's advice, not to verify the computer's conclusion that Cryobay Six had lost power, and therefore life support. Garland justified his choice on grounds that to reach Cryobay Six, firefighting and damage control parties would be obliged to expose themselves to unacceptable hazards for which nearly all of them lacked the appropriate life safety equipment. Several of Garland's subordinates consequently announced their intention to withdraw from the expedition's leadership structure by arrogating landing pods to themselves and those under their putative command. Garland, who countered with accusations of mutiny, was then obliged to relieve these officers of command, along with the not inconsiderable number of crewmen whom they had succeeded in rallying behind their cause.

Once under watch by a complement of United Nations marines (more crew risen from stasis, this time with the express objective of enforcing Garland's authority), the arrested officers and those who joined them began to articulate detailed, and sometimes mutually exclusive, visions of social, economic, and political organization for the colonists after Planetfall. None of these visions were consistent with the blueprint originally laid out in Geneva.

A new flashpoint then lit off as the crew worked to simultaneously prepare the landing pods while still working to restore fusion power and access portions of the ship still deemed within reach. The abandonment of Cryobay Six left Garland's senior staff uncertain about his confidence in Zakharov and to them suggested an intention to depart Unity with a wide margin of error. For some, this was the wiser course of action: better to lay in what was close to hand and flee before the ship came apart at the seams; Chiron, after all, could provide, although the first years would be very hard. Others had a larger appetite for risk, feared that Chiron might not be as accommodating as imagined, or prioritized recovery of crew that might not be deployed if automated systems failed. In the end, a majority of Garland's officers urged him to reassign resources from the fusion drive, on which repairs were proceeding at speed, to more aggressive exploration of the damage ship, a purpose not entirely compatible with Garland's intended strategy of loading the landing pods with materials from undamaged bays using all available hands.

Already crumbling, the expedition was finally shattered when both communications arrays were destroyed in new and spontaneous explosions, suggesting sabotage. Contact with Earth -- an important source of legitimation for Garland, his loyalists, and the expedition's original charter -- was lost. Trouble now multiplied more quickly than the players could react.

The captain continued to awaken Marines, armed Zakharov's engineers, and ordered that a last-minute search be mounted for active saboteurs and stowaways. Firefights erupted throughout the ship, causing further damage that the survivors can ill afford. As some of the crew under arrest were liberated, landing pods were loaded and launched independently. Vigilante action against saboteurs real and suspected further charged an already-hostile atmosphere.

In the penultimate tragedy of Planetfall, Garland's command was finally overthrown even as it collapsed around him. Going off-watch for a brief period to rest and wash some of the stimulants from his system, Garland was not present when Zakharov made a fateful suggestion: if control of the Unity cannot be reestablished, each leader among the crew should take one of the landing pods, break away from the starship, and make an independent attempt at landing and settlement. If any faction leaders wished to devote resources to recovery of certain starship components in the time remaining, they were free to do so. In this manner, each faction would test the wisdom of its perceptions (and the strength of its convictions) against the others. Zakharov concluded by insisting that colonists and supplies should be divided among the landing pods at once, with larger factions receiving accordingly larger shares.

Part VII: The Crisis of Planetfall

At first, the command crew hesitated, reluctant to take the final step of dissolving an expedition that might, by virtue of size alone, ensure their collective survival. After all, some leaders had already succeeded in laying by crew and items that would be indispensable once on the surface. Zakharov himself spoke from just such a position, speaking for most of the expedition's electrical and mechanical engineers. Rear Admiral Gerard Darlan, commander of Unity's marine contingent, already controlled the primary armory. If his Marines did not have a total monopoly on violence, it appeared likely that they could establish one soon after making landfall. Then, too, there were smaller factions whose cast of actors was better-suited to building a colony than most: the contractors of Comprehensive Transport led by Marcel Salan boasted a wider range of useful skills than almost any other faction, while the so-called Spartans, a collection of survivalist stowaways already on their way to Planet, had come aboard with their equipment pre-positioned. In any case, Zakharov's proposal was rejected and the mission rendered defunct.

The game begins in the ninety-six hours immediately prior to the final evacuation of Unity. Many of the accessible cryo-cells have been ordered open, and colonists are awakening to a dying starship and a fractured expedition. Factions form and dissolve amidst an orgy of looting and violence. Although the expedition’s leadership have already succeeded in apportioning the ship’s dozens of landing pods between themselves in an equitable manner, their failure to reckon with the emergence of leaders from other quarters (or the duplicity of those party to the original pledge) means that anyone who expects to retain a position of leadership or a scrap of supply must fight for those privileges.

Escaping Unity is not only a matter of seizing (and holding) a landing pod, but choosing when and how to depart. Some factions are plundering the ship’s stores indiscriminately, laying hands on whatever seems as if it might be of use. Weapons, rations, seed stock, earthmoving and water purification equipment are perennially popular. Other factions seek cargo particular to their agendas: laboratory equipment, nerve staples, lathes, & etc. There is also the matter of those crewmen still in stasis, conveniently organized by nationality and specialty. Some leaders attempt to lay claim to all persons of a certain ethnic or linguistic origin, others to those with given skill sets. Most factions take colonists of any stripe, intending to render them drones or enforce ideological purity at a more convenient time.

Each landing pod, called a Unity pod, is an independent spaceship. Incapable of long-range flight, they are instead to be used first as landers, then as the basis for hermetically sealed colony modules suitable for hostile environments. Never meant to fly again, they will be gradually cannibalized. Each landing pod is sufficiently large to accommodate one thousand passengers and contains supplies appropriate to allow for construction of a self-sustaining settlement. Of course, by filling the remaining (and considerable) cargo space with additional materials and crew, factions can greatly enhance their outlook once planet-side.

Many of Unity’s cargo bays, regardless of their contents, were never designed to be manned; instead, they were programmed to deploy automatically from orbit once the initial wave of crew and colonists established themselves on the ground. The planned orbital survey would have indicated ideal drop points. Already, the crew has activated many thousands of these "colony" or "supply" pods, content that they be scattered at random rather than simply left aboard the doomed starship, but many more supply pods remain to be deployed.

Supply pods vary in size from the very large (with volume sufficient for ten thousand occupied cryo-beds) to the very small (containing only a few vehicles or one very large piece of equipment). They are sealed against the elements and can even float if they land in water. All are equipped with inertial dampeners and retro-thrusts to ensure soft landings. Some pods carry robotic explorers that will conduct remote surveys, farming, or mining operations. These may later be absorbed into the territory of an active colony. The number of such pods already deployed suggests that they will continue to be found for decades.

Thus far, the focus has been on Unity. Players woke, variously attempted recruitment, exploration, and/or damage control, and then made their escape with as much loot as could be carried.

Generally speaking, factions located in the aft compartments cooperated to provide life-saving services to injured crew and prevent a meltdown of the ship's secondary reactor. Although they failed in this goal, they did succeed in forging a workable coalition under the general guidance of Rear Admiral Darlan, senior officer over the ship's small Marine contingent. Most of these factions, including Pravin Lal's "Peacekeepers" and the contractors of Comprehensive Transport, suffered heavy doses of radiation during evacuation to landing pods. The aft section is now more or less fully evacuated.

Amidships, saboteurs engaged in running firefights with damage control parties, security teams, and anybody else who accessed hydroponics or nearby cryobays. The so-called Spartan Confederation was the primary guilty party here, but many similar groups became active throughout the ship, including a kind of anarchist militia known as The Labyrinth. The Spartans did great slaughter and appear to remain active in these spaces. What was left of the Gaians, who formed in the hydroponics bays during the very earliest part of the crisis, retreated aft to board one of the remaining Landing Pods.

Forward, several factions, all labeled "cults," worked to try and carve out entire sections in which they could loot and recruit in relative peace. Now, most of this section is in the hands of Miriam Godwinson's Conclave. A small group of individualists known as The Exiled hold the connector module giving access from amidships.

There are a number of factions already active on the original forum as well as several others that have demonstrated interest. So far, factions include: The Human Hive, The Lord's Conclave, The Restoration (dedicated to resumption of the mission), The Tribe (Charles Manson in space), Operation: Aveh (Heil Hydra!), Tomorrow Rising ("balancer" faction determined to discourage opportunistic aggression), The Labyrinth (agenda unknown), The Spartan Confederation, The University of Planet, The Sisterhood of Gaia, The Exiles (militant individualists), the Estado Novo (1970s Portugal, in space), The Human Ascendancy (Khaaaan!), and The Restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Also looks like we might have Bene Gesserit-style faction and a faction dedicated to transhumanism.

Unity is certainly the most massive object, by volume, ever made by Man. I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you doubt that ability of various pods to perform "braking" functions for Unity. Can you elaborate?

You're more than welcome to help with the technical end of things. God knows I've struggled to find people competent in those areas. I just don't want to disappoint you too much when it turns out we didn't think of certain things that must seem elementary to anybody with even a basic education in physics.

For now, let's assume that Unity was able to use thrusters to slow down. The damage was, after all confined, to the secondary reactor, meaning that power was still available for most thrusters.

With respect to factions...


In terms of player factions, we have:

The Restoration. "Uh, guys? Let's play the adventure." The mission loyalists, led by the commander of the expedition's small complement of professional soldiers. Attempted to initiate and sustain damage control operations. Thwarted. Led by Rear Admiral Darlan, formerly of the Union Française.

The Guardians of Truth. "Call me Deepthroat." The U.N. constabulary, led by an independent inspectorate general. Dedicated to transparency and empiricism. Investigating the cause of the accident. Led by Max Stewart, the mission's Inspector General, formerly of the United States of America.

The Ascendancy. "Khaaaaan!" Radical scientists dedicated to creation of homo superior through a combination of genetic manipulation, selective breeding, and applied neuroscience. Led by Tahmineh Pahlavi, the mission's chief geneticist, formerly of the Imperial State of Iran.

The Lord's Conclave. "We put the Ah! in Apocalypse!" Fundamentalist kritarky that regards Chiron as Paradise. A radical sect of the Orange-Catholic faith. Led by Miriam Godwinson, formerly of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The Exiled. "Be an individual. In a group."

The Worker's Council. "The only thing you have to lose is your originality." The union.

The Tribe. "The Manson Family Reunion." Nominal leader one John Baptist Keller, formerly of the United States of America.

The Human Hive. "License to Kim Jong-Il." Led by Sheng-ji Yang, formerly an adviser-without-portfolio (functionally, a political officer) to Captain Garland, leader of the Unity crew.

The Consensus. "Humanists. Now with extra bullets." Seeking transcendence through excellence in mind and body.

Humanity First. "Be happy. Or else."

The New School. "Our name is a killing word." Bene Gesserit types.


In terms of non-player factions, we have:

Gaia's Stepdaughters. Space hippies. Lady Deirdre Skye was the expedition's chief biologist. She is from Free Scotland.

The Dispossessed. A sort of coalition of the less palatable Cold War allies of the West whose governments were barred from participation in the Unity project. The Henry Kissinger Appreciation Society, if you will.

Archimedes's Exiles are dedicated to the transformation of Planet pursuant to requirements of human settlement and consequent creation of a society without want. Their leader is Bharat Ganrajya, a male from the Republic of India and the Unity's former Chief Engineer.

Tomorrow Rising is a faction premised on the achievement of negarchy, or the "natural" self-restraint of states in roughly equitable balance-of-power relationships. Their leader is Jamai van Tromp, a female from the Dutch East Indies. She was formerly the Unity's armory officer. Van Tromp has proposed that the various factions adhere to an essentially Westphalian doctrine in their dealings with one another and has expressed her intention to form "defensive coalitions" against would-be aggressors. She is especially interested in forming makeshift alliances against the Spartans.

Comprehensive Transport is Anaconda Copper, Weyland-Yutani, OMNI Consumer Products, and the Kel-Morian Combine all rolled into one. They are led by Marcel Salan, the company's Director of UNITY Operations, a male from the Republic of Quebec, a department of the French Union. Since the crisis of Planetfall, CT has made common cause with The Restoration, dispatching its large force of private military contractors on joint patrols with Darlan's Marines.

The Spartan Confederation appeared hell-bent on terminating the mission with extreme prejudice. Led by self-styled Colonel Corazón Santiago, they came armed for bear.

Morgan Industries. One of the many apparent stowaways concealed behind false bulkheads was Nwabudike Morgan, formerly the world’s richest man. Discovered by security personnel during Garland’s initial sweeps, he was initially confined in the crew quarters near the bridge. A rags-to-riches story, Morgan was born in the town of Walviis Bay in Südwestafrika, a protectorate of South Africa. Smuggling himself across the border to Portuguese West Africa, thence to the Belgian Congo, and finally as far as independent Katanga, Morgan made his first million by age twenty, then went on to play a major role (and profit handsomely as a middle man) during the Saharan Burst Wars of the late 1980s. Although his calls for a society based on free trade and ingenuity were perhaps non-sequitor whilst the ship burned around him, Morgan was eventually liberated by paid retainers shortly after Garland’s death and whisked away to points unknown.

Estado Novo. A project of the ship's one-time XO, who aims to found a society based on the tripartite pillars of hierarchy, theology, and authoritarianism. Their leader, Dom Francisco d'Almeida, has publicly discounted the idea of attempting to restore contact with Earth.

The Dispossessed, a motely collection of personnel from Western-alligned pariah states, have rallyed to a Nicaraguan agronomist by the name of Ajax Róger Jarquín. He proposes a politically simplistic "frontier society," the purpose of which is to guarantee citizens in their enjoyment of personal property, which may include human chattel if the rumors are accurate.

The University of Planet, under Premier Zakharov, ought to be familiar. He's essentially playing the roles of both mad scientist and militant atheist. Zakharov believes that the universe is eminently "knowable" and that all of man's problems can be managed through the proper application of technology. His engineers tried, and failed, to recover the secondary reactor back on Unity, although he was also the first to voice lack of faith in Garland.

The Labyrinth are a bunch of cultists with guns. Enjoy. Their leader is a mysterious individual known only as "Seth."

The Core are interested in the further development of artificial intelligence to manage the dangerous work of terraformation.

The Arm are militantly opposed to the "corrupting influence" of thinking machines. While willing to use computer terminals, they draw a sharp line well before cyborgs and robots. The Arm have been all but wiped out by The Hive.

The Founders are a cabal of engineers who have worked with a rogue element of security personnel to "hijack" much of the contents of a cryobay. They are reportedly nerve-stapling thousands of colonists ahead of planetfall. Word has it that the former set themselves up as putative "gods" over their massive, involuntary labor force.

Operation: Aveh is a fascist paramilitary organization that appears to have coordinated a mass infiltration of the crew.

The Restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a Mormon church that aims to bring all mankind into the fold. The Mormons have been all but wiped out by The Hive.


This faction template might prove of interest to you. We're aiming for a quasi-1980s/1990s vibe in terms of the social and moral "problems" that the factions purport to solve. Plenty of room for additional NPC's as needed.

GreatWyrmGold, while I have no problem with your faction idea -- I think every player needs to take the helm of a group that they feel strongly about -- you'll find that similar factions are a dime-a-dozen right now among our player base.