The colonists call this planet Proteus. It is not Zezura. (Welcome Center Recording)

Pioneers are carried as digital information aboard the colony ship Cicada, bound for the planet Zezura (the New World), and fabricated on arrival. (Your Contract)

40,000 sleeping colonists count on the pioneers to build a future for humanity on this world. (Survival Guide)

A pioneer is sponsored by Alterra Alms for resettlement out of the former Mongolian Independent States and builds the colony without wage or salary, working off a debt. (Your Contract)

Proteus lies near the pulsar PSR K1745-2856 at the base of the Milky Way's Norma Arm. Human space will not reach it for about 20,000 years, which rules out rescue by a follow-up mission. (Distance from Earth)

A body made by a biobed human fabricator is called a print. All prints that share one set of memories are called a fork. (Surviving Death)

Exposure to Proteus causes a delusion the colonists call Masefield syndrome, "the call of the sea". (Welcome Center Recording)

The seawater holds a toxic dose of heavy metals. Nahema: "Nobody's survived past three months." (Welcome Center Recording)

A major transgov that supervises 11% of phase gates. Its corporate motto is "Get What You Deserve". (Alterra)

Alterra's artificial intelligence, designed to advise and protect human workers. Its original purpose was kharaa quarantine supervision on phase gates and starships. (NoA (Noetic Advisor))

The chartered independent military of transgov space, funded by 37 transgovs. Its Frontiersmen battle the kharaa xenoforms. (TSF (Trans-System Federation))

A virulent interstellar microbe that destroys genetic information. Humanity has met two strains, the green and the orange, and is at war with the alien ecosystem. (Kharaa)

An employee-owned frontier that broke away from the Chinese Territories in 2158 and was destroyed by the kharaa xenosystem. (Mongolian Independent States)

A cyborg civilization whose phase gate network spanned, and reached beyond, transgov space. They surveilled Earth more than a thousand years ago. (Architect Briefing)

A large retrovirus in the seawater. It does not share a genetic code with human life, so there is no risk of cross-infection. (Proteavirus)

Proteus is uninfected by the kharaa, or immune to it. (Proteus Medical Risks)

The ruins belong to aliens the computers call the Axum. Their survivors guard the ruins, reduced to scavengers: the Tailings. (Mantis - "A testament to our discovery")

An enormous Axum power plant, named Karakorum by the pioneers and destroyed by sabotage. (Karakorum Power Plant)

A living structure on the eastern horizon, more than two kilometers tall and nearly three kilometers wide. (Titan-class Organism)

A habitat with growbeds and berths for more than twenty colonists. Its hull was ruptured by an explosion. (Old Habitat)

Ganzo: the biobeds blew up and NoA flooded the habitat. He took the survivors to the Tadpole Pens. (Ganzo - "Survivors fled east")

Mission role: Colony purser

Mission role: Computational dynamicist, biobed administrator

Mission role: Able spacer

Mission role: Able spacer

Mission role: Able spacer

Mission role: AI ethicist

Mission role: Bosun’s mate

Mission role: Survival specialist, celebrity sponsor

Mission role: Communications specialist

Mission role: Automation manager

Mission role: Survival specialist, celebrity sponsor

Mission role: Sensor operator

Mission role: Xenogeologist

Mission role: Cook, dietician's mate

Mission role: Lead pilot

Mission role: EVA engineer, lead salvor

Mission role: Survival xenobiologist

Mission role: EVA engineer, lead diver

Mission role: Fertility specialist

Mission role: Dietician

Mission role: Astrogator, meteorologist

Mission role: Lead miner/bulk resource handler

26 names

Colony purser Anita Gottschall drowned near an angel comb.

For a second time, colony purser Anita Gottschall asphyxiated near an angel comb.

Colony surgeon Sophie Boucher helped computational dynamicist Chap Sovann reprint into a new body.

Iso asphyxiated after being abducted by alien organisms.

Colony ethicist Lucretia Kapoor drowned when her bunkroom flooded.

Lead pilot T.

Ruby's Tadpole was brought down by needler mango attack.

Singh was fatally wounded by an unknown attacker with a spear.

Singh was attacked and by aliens he referred to as Tailings.

The Tadpole Pens NoA node supported a simulation of colony surgeon Sophie "Butcher" Boucher.

K.

Colony dietician Wu Lianghai drowned when his lab flooded.

Lead salvor Tziporah "Zip" Malk fell into a trance and drowned near a titan rockbore.

Zip was electrocuted by an alien industrial system.

The blue circle on this galactic map contains the total extent of human spaceflight.

FAQ

FAQ

Isn't death irreversible?

The enormous living structure on the horizon can be characterized by what it is not:

45 logs

34 black boxes

14 active, 14 closed

12 entries