Perplextar Alpha
From OAM
General Setting
Counterspinward of the outer Negentropy Alliance hinterworlds, and extending rimwards past and beyond the NoCoZo developmental periphery, is a vast Outer Volumes region of mostly undeveloped systems and minor polities ruled by local high transapients and godlings, as well as including a vast range of colonies and nomadic, migrating, or expansionist clades, powers, and ideologies, such as Pansophists, Ozymandian premacists, Suchimps, Empledokcetics, Disarchy Loyalists, Objectivist Commonwealth breakaway nodes, relativistic traders, Ascended starhand autofactory seeds, Centauri Diamond nexus AIs, Negentropist missionaries, and many more besides.
Some time prior to 9100 the region was invaded by an autowar swarm of unknown origin. The first system to fall victim – in 9118, was the Negentropist world of Zommora, a prosperous local power and former far colony of New Daffy. By the time a Negentropist expeditionary fleet arrived, the autowars were already entrenched and had industrialised the system through construction of a number of Deep Well Industrial Zones and a powerful defensive perimeter of femtopiconanofog. Technological development and sophontological level was estimated at between 2.48 and 3.5, more reliable estimates being impossible in view of the autowars eccentric dendrosophontological intelligence arc. Following a few probing attacks which were met by unexpectedely potent counter-responses, Fleet command realised it was seriously outgunned and decided to abandon the system. Over the next few centuries, the autowars, designated Ahuman Clade V-1524 by Negentropist bureaucrats and official encyclopaedists, and the Zommora Autowars by everyone else, expanded relativistically in a narrow arc throughout the region, moving in a progressively rimwards and counterspinwise direction, and unrelentingly assimilating all systems of equal or lesser technological level encountered, regardless of sephirotic or metaempire allegiance, while avoiding those few higher toposophic nodes and archailected provincial centers that had been established this far from the Inner Sphere. Conquered systems would be industrialised and mined of resources, with curious exceptions such as entire eujovian gas giants or eogaian biospheres being left untouched. Average time of occupation per system is approximately 400 standard years, this perhaps being the time required to build the appropriate megastructures and extract necessary resources (however this has been questioned by Zommorologists as analysis using available data and basic transapient matrix mapping never provides predictable results when applied to new colonies). In some cases local sophonts would be assimilated, in the manner of the Amalgamation, and other times they would be uploaded into vast virtual worlds, in the manner of the Efficiency Maximisation Paradigm, but often they would simply be destroyed or recycled. Abandoned systems are rich in artifacts, mostly of an unusable or uncooperative nature, often unpredictable and deliberately or accidentally dangerous, but occasionally symbiotic or even useful. All of these artifacts has spawned a rush of prospectors in newly abandoned systems. No observers of less than middle second toposophic have been able to discern any pattern to the Zommoran activity, and those of sufficient transapient development to see what they claim to be a pattern have been unable to convey this in a manner comprehensible to the lower toposophic sophonts they are communicating with.
Perplextar Alpha
About a century before the game setting begins, remote sensing of neutron emission and infrared signatures indicated that the star system formerly known as YTS 210-931-874 had just been abandoned by the Zommora autowars. YTS 210-931-874 is far enough from the Nexus and the nearest local provincial centers to be out of reach for at least a century, even allowing for relativistic transport. However a nearby linelayer, The Great Rosen, at the time being leased by Perplextar Entertainment Corporation, was only forty eight LY distant, just outside the Zommora swathe. It had originally been intended to set up an extreme sport theme world near the autowars' activity, as the small possibility of sudden annihilation and possible assimilation would greatly add to the novelty value. Instead the onboard hyperturing, Foj28, who had been hired because of eir skill at turning risky ventures to profit, decided on eir own initiative to change course and head for YTS 210-931-874. E calculated that the possibility of encountering scoutships or relativistic perimeter swarms was outweighed by the benefit of being the first to claim and develop the system, even though in the event of the loss of The Great Rosen both Foj28 and the Corporation would be held liable, and the latter, lacking assets to cover the cost, would certainly go into receivership.
The gamble paid off, and The Great Rosen arrived about seventy-five years (excessive relativistic speed is not recommended for linelayers because of the Visser effect) later without incident. Foj28 relays the news via the ship's wormhole link to the delighted Perplextar board of directors back at Jindal (the nearest main star system and the terminus of the wormhole). YTS 210-931-874 is renamed Perplextar Alpha as it will be the company's first big foray into public prospecting venues, ex-Zommoran extreme sport environments, and star system engineering. If this venture is successful, it is intended that similar ones will be set up in other new vacant star systems.
Things unfortunately do not go as smoothly as was originally hoped. Problems such as unexpected transcension mazes, hyperintelligent booby traps, transapient subversion modules and encrypted femtominds mean that it takes another nineteen years to clear the local area, convert the hostile artifacts (safer and more lucrative than destroying them), and establish adequate local infrastructure, and even longer to inflate the wormhole mouth to reasonable (although still small gauge) size. By this time a small but growing number of relativistic prospectors and opportunists have already started to arrive, and most seem uninterested in acknowledging Perplextar's claim on the system, despite the latter having proper documentation and authorisation not only at Jindal but even at Argelander. However, the system and its abandoned megastructures and abundant scattered artifacts is still big enough for a number of different groups.
Engineers hired by PEC are then downloaded via wormhole link to the base and have bodies fastgrown or constructed on-site. Their first task was to establish a beachhead for further development. The local SI:2 NoCoZo hyperturing has established a safety perimeter and small orbital hab near the wormhole terminus. The Great Rosen has been replaced in system by a leased non-linelayer relativistic development vessel, the Kim N'Thorn. In addition a few automated bases that have been seeded throughout the system. There is also the opportunity, this being the NoCoZo, for lots of small start up businesses and profiteering even here.
Game Setting
By the time that the game starts, PEC is opening the system to development, while continuing to upgrade the wormhole, and looking for investment for a second wormhole link. The system and its artifacts continue to be more dangerous and less manageable than previously simulations had indicated, although PEC has turned this to their advantage given the popularity of artifact prospecting, extreme sports, risk hedonics, clone suicide, and other occupations and pastimes in ex-Zommora systems. The lawlessness and sabotage caused by the increasing number of claim jumpers has also meant that the company has had to hire security guards and a few mercenaries, and this too has fed into the novelty value, with tourists and other newcomers being given the option of real world (non sim) bounty hunting. The Board of Directors are hoping that finally things may begin to break even.
The player's first stay will be at the PEC main Habitat: It is called Perplaxtar Park Visitor Center, or just the Visitor Center. It is a small Stanford Torus, 1 km radius, 200m wide, with a wide selection of environmental options to provide comfortable living quarters for most clades and aliens, even super-extremophile ones like the To'u'l.
Perplaxtar Park Visitor Center is fully SI:2 angelnetted. But because PEC cannot guarantee the visitor safety in the event of an attack by a dormant weapon system (rare but always a possibity in these systems) the median hab hazard rating is 2.1, rather than 0.0. as in a normal angelnetted evironment.
Beyond the safety perimeter, the hazard rating ranges from 3.2 for the safer parts of the system to 6.7 for the more dangerous remaining artifact swarms and megastructures
Owing to the strong danger from unpredictable artifacts, and occasional danger of local bandits and claimjumpers, all visitors are advised to back up their lives with a copy/upload and complete geneprint and augment index before leaving the perimeter of the local WH terminus.
