A HARD LIFE AMONGST THE STARS

“There are other worlds than this one, and if there is no air to breathe, we will simply have to make it.”

—PETER WEYLAND

Living in space ain’t pretty. Human life is cheap and so are paychecks. There is always someone worse off, willing to do your job for even less, so you better not screw up and lose the one you have. In most professions, having dirt on your employer or becoming a certified expert in a field are the only ways to maintain any semblance of job security.

Aside from the luxury accommodations of the corporate elite and the cutting edge weapons of the Colonial Marines, almost everything is grimy, used, and in need of repair. The only colonists guaranteed to receive new parts and equipment are the miners and atmospheric processor support personnel on planets consistently exceeding their corporate quotas. In remote sectors, imported technologies are overpriced and hard to come by, so most equipment is jury-rigged, modified, and made from recycled and refurbished materials. In some territories, vehicles and starships are still in use that are nearly a century old. Instead of the expensive, three dimensional holographic displays of yesteryear, most spacecraft are equipped with conventional monitors and basic sensor packages. Over the past several decades, MU/TH/UR computer systems have become less about the sophistication of the AI and more focused on utilitarian function. Even spacesuits are bulkier and provide less protection than those produced during the golden years of space exploration.

In essence, humankind as a technological society is on the decline.

Humanity never would have left the cradle of our solar system without the foresight of visionary entrepreneur and businessman Peter Weyland. Under his stewardship, the Weyland Corporation introduced three things that ensured humanity’s dominance over the stars—the capacity to travel at faster than light speeds, the introduction of the hypersleep chamber, and the ability to terraform whole worlds.

FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT

The ability to travel faster than light is the lynchpin of humanity’s expansion outside our own solar system. Without it, there would be no extrasolar colonies and no corporate star empires. First developed by Weyland Industries in the 2030s, these engines are sometimes referred to as displacement drives. The system works on the principle of an inverse relationship between velocity and the flow of time. An FTL drive achieves these speeds by displacing the volume of space preceding a spacecraft and drawing the vessel forward with it. Accelerating to faster than light speeds is not instantaneous. Ion thrusters build speed up to the point where the displacement drive can take over, gradually propelling starships to several times the speed of light.

When they were first deployed a hundred and fifty years ago, FTL engines could impel a starship such as a Heliades class Space Exploration Vehicle at 10 to 15 times the speed of light. Even though modern ships can travel from 50 to upwards of 700 times FTL, that still means it can take weeks or even years to travel the whole of charted space. To complicate matters, prolonged travel at faster than light speeds can cause a syndrome in mammals known as Neurological Distortion Disorder—or the NDDs for short (see the text to the right). To combat this and to conserve resources on long trips, space travelers spend most of their FTL time in stasis.

HYPER SLEEPING WITH THE STARS

Even before FTL was possible, hypersleep technology was in development. As early as the 2020s, Peter Weyland had ordered his scientists to find a way to extend life indefinitely. While not exactly what Weyland had in mind, the resulting technology was a significant leap forward. The ability to slow a life-form’s biological processes to a near standstill was beneficial to both the medical industry and deep space missions at sublight speeds. When FTL became a reality, stasis was adapted as a solution to resource management on space flights.

Hypersleep was soon found to offer other benefits to man’s health in space. Traveling faster than the speed of light can have a distortion effect on human perception. Known as Neurological Distortion Disorder, this syndrome causes paranoia, epilepsy, psychotic behavior and other adverse effects. Worse than that, the faster one travels, the worse the symptoms. Stasis protects space travelers from the NDDs, with the added benefit of arresting aging on a cellular level.

THE SLEEP OF AGES: The process of entering hypersleep involves a mixture of gases and lowering one's temperature significantly. While travelers are not conscious when in stasis, they can—and are encouraged to—dream. As brain functions are also slowed during hypersleep, a single dream can last months. In fact, an entire industry has been created to take advantage of this. Dreaming in hypersleep promotes mental health and can help a body’s natural regenerative healing.

GRAVITY DRIVES

Corporate scientists are always working on advances in FTL technology. A recent development operates by generating waves of force throughout the length of the vessel which propel it past light speed without the aid of thrusters. Called Gravity Drives, these systems create a distortion in space-time, allowing starships to enter Einsteinian Space—a relative state of non-existence in the material universe, allowing ships to travel much faster than conventional FTL. The technology is a giant leap forward, but the NDDs still require travelers to enter stasis for prolonged journeys. The details of this process and the principles behind it are currently classified by Weyland-Yutani. Still in experimental trials, Gravity Drives are mostly unknown on the Frontier, found only on high-end company yachts and exploration ships hailing from the Core Systems. A fortuitous byproduct of the gravity drive is that the fields generated by it provide powerful protection against ballistic and energy attacks. Gravity Drives are finely calibrated and weight sensitive—any unaccounted for mass aboard a starship utilizing the system risks severe course deviations.

CHARTED SPACE

Welcome to space. You’re going to die here—and when that happens, your relatives are going to need to know where to pick up your body and whether to burn it or shoot it back into the void. The star map on the inside covers of this book shows all of charted space. The three largest sections divided by government are the American Arm of the United Americas, The Anglo-Japanese Arm of Three World Empire, and the Collectivist Block of the Union of Progressive Peoples. These national domains cut through the Core, Outer Veil, Outer Rim, and Far Reach of known space. THE CORE SYSTEMS are those closest to Earth. They are the most prosperous colonies and the playground of the elite. The 3WE and ICSC dominate this region of space.

THE OUTER VEIL: Outside the core systems is the Outer Veil. Rich in resources for mining and cultivation, the colonies of the Outer Veil were terraformed and settled by the 3WE over a century ago. Since then the UPP has annexed many worlds here. Vast regions of space in this region have been stripped bare and made uninhabitable through unsafe mining methods.

THE OUTER RIM: Beyond the Outer Veil is the Outer Rim. Out here American and UPP explorers discovered several resource rich planets that could support human life without terraforming. The Rim is the outer edge of civilized space.

THE FAR REACH: Extending from the American Arm of the Outer Rim is the Far Reach. This area of claimed but mostly uncharted space stretches through vast areas of the unknown to a scattered group of terraformed lifeblood colonies essential to the UA and 3WE. Space truckers call this string of worlds the Pearl Necklace.

THE FRONTIER: Along the edge of explored space lies the Frontier. It is a free-for-all land of opportunity constantly expanding the boundaries of known space. Beyond that lies darkness.

LIVING IN SPACE

So, you want to try your hand at surviving on the Frontier. The average blue-collar worker here is a farmer, a pioneer, a maintenance engineer, a wildcatter, a prospector, a miner, a space trucker, a marshal, a manager or a soldier—all dirty and hard-working professions. Only a select few get to call themselves explorers.

The best long-term option available to the common human is to become a Frontier colonist. The vetting process isn’t easy—in addition to competency and physical prerequisites, candidates must endure an intense psychological screening process that many potential colonists fail. However, once you are approved for a colony, you are essentially set up in that position for life, assuming you don't screw up royally. Corporations and the colonial administration can’t be bothered to replace a farmsteader or terraforming maintenance engineer like you for minor infractions. Also, the job has the added bonus of your descendants inheriting your position.

Unfortunately, there is no glory or glamour to be had as a colonist—the colonies on the Frontier are experiencing an economic depression while the companies in the Core Systems grow fat off of the hard labor of others. Supplies are limited and more often than not, colonists are told to ration and improvise.

JUST IN TOWN FOR SUPPLIES

While most Frontier jobs are colony-based, they all interact in one way or another. Prospectors and wildcatters survey the terrain, staking claims to mineral deposits and drilling exploratory wells in unexplored regions. Miners often serve a one-year contract at a particular colony site before being rotated out. Farmers grow produce, maintenance engineers keep the atmospheric processors running, general managers oversee it all, and the marshals keep everyone in line. Space truckers deliver supplies to the colony and bring that world’s exports back to the Inner Core Systems. Many corporate cargo haulers are former Colonial Navy veterans who are down on their luck. The Colonial Marines and Navy protect these worlds, also rotating in and out along the Frontier. Finally, corporations will send security and assessment teams to ensure their resources are being well cared for. Taken all together, it represents the well-oiled machine of commerce—and everyone in it is just a cog, a replaceable cog.

Then there is the fringe element.

Mercenaries, vagabonds and privateers move from colony to colony, looking to eke out a living on the fringe of normal society. Some are criminals on the run, others are just disenchanted with colonial and corporate bureaucracy. Many are dangerous.

SPACESHIPS

Between scouting missions and cargo runs, people on the Frontier spend a lot of time in massive metal cans hurtling through space. Starships are designed for functionality, not aesthetics. Floor gratings can be removed to access conduits located beneath them, and exposed machinery and tubing line the walls in all but the crew’s quarters.

A LONELY LIFE: Living on spaceships can mean sleeping for months at a time. To complicate matters, all this travel back and forth can severely alter personal dynamics. When you spend a few years making cargo runs in hypersleep you don’t age all that much, while your family has been living active lives planetside. Children grow up and lovers grow older. Relationships tend to unravel, leaving you with only your work and your crew.

SPACE STATIONS

Space stations are mostly designed in a similar fashion to spacecraft—the difference being that there are many more habitat areas, as well as large open malls. Station design is as varied as that of starcraft—some consist of several towers with a connecting latticework of travel tubes while others are built out into the spires of massive decommissioned refinery modules. Still more utilize more traditional forms such as a wheel or sphere. While most are built out of titanium composite and other high-end alloys, some, such as the religious colony Arceon, are also composed of exotic materials. Most space stations are like overpopulated cities in space—quarters are cramped for all but the elite, those in the working class live and work right on top of one another, and crime runs rampant.

CLAUSTROPHOBIA IN THE VOID: People need room to breathe. Space itself might be vast, but there just isn’t a whole lot of it available in the stations floating amongst the stars. As windows are a commodity in space, space stations often have recreation centers and botanical gardens equipped with environmental walls. These large monitors project breathtaking views of natural vistas such as wooded glades, tropical beaches, or majestic mountain ranges. While expensive models include a three-dimensional projection, cheaper and more prolific models use flat-screen video.

DEEP SPACE COLONIES

The concept of the colonies that was sold to the general public was one of an off-world paradise. While some planets did eventually become just that, they are the product of the blood, sweat, and tears of generations of colonists.

TERRAFORMING: Terraforming began at home in the 2010s, repairing the earth’s ecosystem from the ravages of war and pollution. The next step was the Moon, where localized areas were pressurized and transformed. Mars soon followed. While global warming was arrested as soon as the processors took effect, it still took decades to make the Earth whole again. In a move to acclimate people to the idea of life amongst the stars, Sir Peter Weyland offered incentives to move off-world and colonize the solar system while the Earth healed. The strategy was successful, and soon colonies were popping up as far away as Saturn. Within a decade of the inception of the FTL drive, Weyland Industries had set up an Atmospheric Processing Plant (APP) on an extrasolar world, and it wasn't long before people were eager to colonize there as well. In the 21st Century, terraforming helped humanity to settle the stars. The costly process was exacting and only performed on planets that had near earth conditions, thus prompting the planet to help sustain itself once the expensive terraforming was complete.

When the Yutani Corporation merged with Weyland Corp at the start of the 22nd Century, terraforming was deemed unprofitable and put to rest. Instead, W-Y astronomers searched the heavens for planets that could support human life on their own. Colony missions like the Affiance and the ill-fated Covenant were sent off to start life on newly discovered Earth-like planets. Without the enormous economic strain that the Weyland Corporation had endured in their efforts to transform entire worlds, Weyland-Yutani prospered. The new model wouldn’t last. As more and more people relocated to the existing off-world colonies, populations on these worlds soared and resources again diminished. Soon, the supply of habitable worlds was outweighed by demand.

BUILDING BETTER WORLDS: Over the next fifty years, more and more resources were found on barren worlds along the shifting Frontier, prompting Weyland-Yutani to resurrect terraforming and create a new fast and dirty form of atmospheric processing. Recycling a hundred-year-old ad campaign, Weyland-Yutani again boasted they were “building better worlds.” The claim was and still is debatable. Colloquially called a “Shake and Bake” colony, an Atmospheric Processor (AP) is introduced to a planet or moon to scrub its atmosphere without the safety standards of the original Weyland APPs. Essentially giant fusion reactors, these completely automated W-Y APs still require constant monitoring and maintenance, and colonies are often set up on worlds for the sole purpose of servicing them. Weyland-Yutani has deployed APPs across the Frontier, creating colonies on any world that might have exploitable resources.

Terraforming can be a misnomer. It can take decades to transform a planet’s ecology, and it doesn't always hold. Most of the worlds undergoing the process will never become earth-like. They are barren, desolate, and alien places that the processors can only alter enough for man to survive on without a pressure suit. Some of these worlds even require APs to constantly run in order to maintain a suitable atmosphere, making the processor a prime target for enemy powers and insurgents. Some planets or planetoids that are rich in mineral resources are simply unable to even begin to support the terraforming process. In those cases, pressurized facilities are built on the surface to house laborers and their families. Because of this, colonies can be built in nearly any environment. Ocean, jungle, desert, arctic, and barren worlds are all common.

LIVING QUARTERS

In space, no one can hear you snore… in hypersleep, at least. When not in stasis, however, you need a place to bed down and call your own. Here are your options.

ON ROTATION: As a mining and construction worker, you are often on rotation, and therefore do not rate for full quarters. Instead, you bunk in communal sleeping areas called cages. These facilities have stacked levels of meshed enclosures just long enough for a bedroll and tall enough to sit up in. A small locker and personal effects area is built into the headboard, and privacy is accomplished through the use of blinds. Just as on starships, showers and toilet facilities are shared.

LONG HAULS: On military and commercial starship runs, most of your sleep time is done in stasis pods. For personal time while traveling in system, many freighters have a common area with recessed bunks built into the walls. Like the cages, these accommodations can be closed off with blinds or curtains, and can be decorated according to your discerning tastes (or lack thereof). Showers, the bathroom, galley and mess area are all communal on these service ships, so the coffin-like bunks offer the only private place for most military and long-haul crews.

CRAMPED QUARTERS: On some space stations, populations are high, and space is optimized. Don’t expect to get too comfortable in such places. The lower levels of stations like Gateway have tight hallways and cramped studio apartments with kitchenettes and bathroom facilities all in the same small area. These apartments can be so small that it is uncomfortable for two people to navigate one at the same time.

GALAXY STANDARD: Crew quarters on colony and scientific exploration ships are often more roomy, consisting of a standardized studio area with a small private bathroom. If you’re skilled enough, you might even rate your own viewport.

LUXURY ACCOMMODATIONS: Don’t expect to spend much time in any of these. Lavish to the extreme, these penthouse apartments on starships and stations are sometimes located on a separate module with its own support system and supplies. They are spacious, extravagantly stocked with food, drink, and whatever its occupants might need to survive for up to two years on their own.

FUNCTION BEFORE FASHION

On the Frontier, you dress for success, and here that means practical. Clothing is usually overalls, jumpsuits, leather gloves, bomber jackets, and ball caps, all in muted colors and often decorated with colorful patches and corporate logos. On colder worlds, colonists and explorers wear dark, layered parkas and form-fitting leather aviator helmets or fur-lined, billed hats with ear flaps. Marshals generally wear blue, gray, or tan utilitarian uniforms, and military personnel of course dress in khakis and olive drab. Company reps often wear suits in inappropriate places, distinguishing themselves from the blue-collar workers. Corporate fashion includes dark gray, navy, and black with white shirts and upturned collars along with skinny ties. On planetoids with nebulous atmospheres, compression suits are worn, ranging from cumbersome padded models to the sleeker, more advanced corporate spacesuits.

LIVING EXPENSES
Nothing is for free on the Frontier, not even breathing. The chart below shows typical living expenses, depending on your taste for luxury and what you can afford.
WEEKLY COST	LIVING STANDARD
$25	Minimum
$100	Basic
$300	Normal
$2,000	Luxurious

MONEY AND IDENTIFICATION, PLEASE

Just whose money are you spending, anyway? Identification and credit accounts are linked in the colonies, and can be accessed in a variety of ways. Most colonists carry a metal and transparent plastic prism ID account card that is encoded to the owner’s thumbprint—debits only occur when the proper recipient is holding the card. Other forms of ID in the colonies include access codes, retina scans, genetic breath analyzers, plastic or metal barcoded dog tags, and barcode tattoos—although the latter are usually reserved for convicted criminals.

COLD CASH: Credit accounts constitute the majority of transactions throughout the territories, but life on the Frontier can be different. What if you want to make a private purchase? Often, a transaction without a record is favorable. Most accepted cash is in denominations set by particular corporations, and their worth goes up and down based on the value of company stock. This can lead to problems when a particular business only accepts specific forms of currency. Rather than bank notes, these are corporate notes. National currencies are usually in electronic credit accounts only, as most governments prefer to keep track of all their citizens’ transactions. However, as the United Americas has grown disenchanted with their reliance on corporations like Weyland-Yutani and Lasalle Bionational, the Federal Reserve has proposed resurrecting the United American Dollar as paper currency.

CURRENCIES: All debits and credits are measured in, and converted to, United American (UA) dollars, Three World Imperial (3WE) yen, or Union of Progressive Peoples (UPP) yuen. Bills are available in different denominations, such as 5, 10, 20, 100, 1,000, and 10,000—there are no singles. Some corporate paper currencies include:

W-Y COLONY DOLLARS: (Pronounced Why) Weyland-Yutani currency—the hundred W-Y dollar bill has a security hologram imprint of Peter Weyland on its face. Other bills depict company pioneers such as Meredith Vickers, and both Jenny and Hideo Yutani.

SEEG BILLS: Not as widely accepted as W-Y dollars, these bills bear only the Seegson logo and a holographic denomination.

BINAT COINS: These tokens are made of a mixture of standard and precious metals, ranging from steel, copper, and platinum to even rarer earth metals.

Conversion rates are always in flux, but as a rule of thumb, W-Y dollars maintain their value, and thus are the most sought after.

WORK FOR HIRE

Let’s face it—you are out here for the paycheck and not much else. In the adjacent table are some typical salaries on the Frontier. Base salaries are low because corporations don't want you to own anything—they want to own you. Corporate credit and loans are also available. Frontier employee compensation packages also include living quarters, standard rations, bonuses, shares, claims, and medical benefits. But brush your teeth, because no-one includes dental. Ever.

OCCUPATION	WEEKLY SALARY RANGE	INCLUDES BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO
Colonial Labor	$500 $640	Miners, prospectors, farmers, drivers, mechanics, and service personnel
Commercial Employees	$400 $960	Space truckers, officers, technicians, cargo handlers, pilots, navigators, medical and science officers
Corporate and Government Officials	$540 $1,200	Administration, execs, secretaries, sales persons, auditors, hitmen, and agents
Law Enforcement	$400 $700	Colonial Marshals, federal investigators, colonial guard and security
Military Officers and Enlisted Personnel	$500 $760	All Army, Marines, and Navy roles
Elite Occupations	$1,300 $20,000	CEOs, chairpersons, entertainment professionals, dreamers, scientists, doctors, elite assassins, governors and high ranking military

COMMUNICATIONS ON THE FRONTIER

Interstellar space is vast. Transmissions are not instantaneous, sometimes taking weeks or months to reach the recipient. Fortunately, Weyland-Yutani has built a sophisticated communication satellite grid surrounding most inhabited sectors of space. Known as the Network, all signals are routed through it, sometimes bouncing off of thousands of comm arrays before reaching their destination.

Intersystem communications are much more immediate, ranging from real time to a short lag, depending on how far out one is from the recipient.

Massive antenna arrays and satellite dishes dominate spacecraft, stations, and ground facilities, and a viable hard-wired uplink to them is necessary for transmissions of any kind. Both interstellar and intersystem long distance personal calls can be extremely expensive, and if there are few comm facilities available or there is high comm traffic across the Network, you can find yourself waiting days before you receive authorized time for that critical call.

As it can take extended periods for a reply, most colonial general managers, marshals, and military commanders are forced to make decisions based on their personal interpretation of policy without the approval of the company or Colonial Administration. As life out on the ass-end of space can take its toll on the psyche, this sometimes leads to bizarre extrapolations of laws and procedures.

LOST IN TRANSMISSION: No one can hear you scream, but you can hear a star sing. Space is also noisy. Pulsars, black holes, and other stellar phenomena all produce transmissions on a wide variety of frequencies. Communication buffers weed out these errant signals, but because of this, legitimate transmissions with weak signals can sometimes be lost in the mix.

Intersystem call cards are tied directly to a specific recipient. These cards provide you with a direct line to your loved ones—Network and distance permitting. Often used as business cards by corporate reps, these transparent prism plastic cards will automatically connect to the rep’s receiver when inserted into a comm terminal. The charge is usually billed to the company, but can legally be reversed if a corporate deal goes sour.

MEDIA

There is no such thing as the free press on the Frontier. Most journalists are corporate-owned, and the few that aren’t are either spin doctors for their government or just haven’t been bought off yet. Propaganda is the norm as each company decides what news to broadcast. Colony-based signals broadcast local news. Due to transmission times, Network broadcast Interstellar News is often weeks out of date, so most colonies have stopped tuning in—something that could be potentially catastrophic if an enemy or alien threat were to make its way along the frontier.

ENTERTAINMENT

Just like in every age before, 22nd Century people are easily bored. On the Frontier, that boredom is remedied through music, drink, and recreational drugs prescribed by company physicians. On the music scene, classic rock and country have seen a resurgence along the outer colonies. Recordings are downloaded from the Network and copied onto disposable cassettes. If one pays heavy subscription fees, broadcast entertainment can also be accessed. Most of the recreational content on the Network exists to promote a company's products and consists of reality programming, shopping networks, and glorified corporate propaganda. Just as it is with computer equipment, entertainment technology ranges from high-end holographic representations to the standard monotone, two-dimensional monitors. Entertainment terminals on colonies, stations, and even some ships provide access to a variety of electronic games.

RECREATIONAL DRUGS AND DRINK: Time to get your buzz on. Alcohol remains the old go to, with whiskey and vodka dominating the market. The beer of choice on the frontier is Weyland-Yutani’s original and genuine “extra strong” Aspen beer. It’s watered down and tastes like piss but it gets the job done—and it’s better than that Souta Dry crap. Other substances and supplements are covered under Pharmaceuticals.

PERCHANCE TO DREAM

As noted earlier, a lot of time in space is spent in cryosleep—a state in which your bodily functions and aging are slowed to the point of near suspension. Your mind, however, can dream. In fact, an entire industry is devoted to manufactured and creative dreams. Talented dreamers can manipulate their own dreams, which can be recorded by expensive monitoring equipment and played back for the entertainment of less imaginative sleepers. Skilled dreamers weave and craft stories and adventures in their subconscious minds. Those sponsored by corporations—which is most of them—insert subliminal messages into your mind as you sleep. With some skill, it’s possible to use dream monitoring equipment combined with a Neuro Visor helmet to consciously enter the dream of someone in stasis and communicate with them.