Setting

The world is rough. Resupply is always a long way away, so vessels and equipment have to be repaired over and over again. Everything needs constant maintenance. The life that persists out here has adapted for harsh conditions. That includes people. Everything is a game of resources. And patience.

Communication is slow. We’ve cracked Jump travel, but not comms, so systems are reliant on messenger ships, which in turn are dependent on a positive cost-benefit ratio to keep running. Failed colonies are ghosted without warning. Messages may go years before response.

Hyperspace is an abyss without depth or distance. In that absence matter frays and unwinds. Navigation relies on dense calculations, generally run by the vessel's Android, while the crew sleep uneasily. It is intensely radioactive.

Cryosleep is wet. Passengers are submerged in breathable preservative. Their blood is pumped out and replaced with stable fluids. Acceleration is cushioned by swollen gel. They emerge wrinkled, sallow, nauseous, dripping wet, and heaving.

Androids are human simulacra. They do not breathe, do not eat, and do not sleep. Their artificial tissues remain vulnerable to vacuum exposure. Forms vary based on purpose and worksite. Most are not really alive. They are a mess of microcomputers and pseudoflesh, bagged up in rugged polymer. But some are running on post-human wetware or donated brain matter, surgically grafted to lab-grown skeleton, skin, and tissue.

Most food is cheap and unpleasant. Colonists and offworld crews eat dehydrated rations which are wrapped in brand-compliant designs. Industrial workers are fed through by umbilical by employer-supplied NutriPaks, which provide a drip feed of calories and electrolytes to eliminate the need for meal breaks. A nutrient-rich paste derived from algae, insects, and fungus underpins most colonial cuisine. It’s edible, but barely.

Real food is savored. Seasoned, unprocessed meals are the centerpiece of celebrations and special occasions. It is a rare link back to thousands of years of human culture and survival. The rich, of course, have plenty to eat, and consume and discard in excess.

Shelter is communal and hivelike. Crews sleep in humming cells, hot-racking when overcrowded. Showers, lounges, and mess halls are shared, privacy is a precious commodity, a total afterthought in mainstream architecture and design. Berthing areas smell like bodies, stale sweat, cheap scrub, and medicated vapors. They buzz with slow talk, muttering and speaking in vaccpig and coded slang to beat the surveillance recorders.

Shelter is a means for survival. It is well stocked with tools, equipment, and rations. Everything is built to hold up to harsh conditions for years. Chances are, it cannot be replaced. You carve out little comforts where you can, but simple things like body heat and oxygen take overwhelming precedence. Ventilation wheezes thinly. Wall panels are heavily insulated, grimy, and bare. Appliances and utensils are simple and utilitarian. Nothing else lasts out here.

Shelter is a little paradise. One of the few places you can get a break from Company Oversight. Cramped hab units are vigorously personalized with all kinds of trinkets and decorations, run off work printers or gathered in various ports of call. An un-customized space has been ceded to the Company. Don’t trust the freaks that leave it standard issue. That’s collaborator shit.

Medicine is effective but brutal. Weaving broken flesh and bone together on a rattling MedLoom is a simple, if agonizing, process. Automeds are mass-produced and widely distributed. In this way the corporations provide for their Valued Employees, enabling them to destroy their bodies day after day, mission after mission, and be put back together again. And again. And again.

The Company is an unconfirmed report, shared on talknet boards, assembled from fragmentary evidence, and used to scare children and new hires. There are a million interlocking corporations, in constant competition for budget allocation and market share, without any collective goal, only a long and desperate struggle in the light of distant stars.

Against these pressures, we persist.