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The world of Aetheria is the product of capitalism taken to its farthest conclusion—a corporate-owned jigsaw of commercialism, copyright law, and profiteering that puts a tangible price on everything from identity to interaction. Five major corporations, each with their own particular culture and vision of the future, control the day to day workings of their unquestionably legally acquired territory with responsible benevolence and certainly do not engage in any kind of espionage or sabotage against their economic and political rivals.
- The FTL Drive and the Event
- The Timeless Ones
- The Great Reset
- Corporations
- Ship Parts and Branding Thereof
- Annihilation Scenarios
- Flavour, Candy or Otherwise
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Finch Cybernetics was founded on Old Earth by Colorado Epps, a pioneer in bionic parts for amputees and the first person to successfully integrate the human brain into an outside network. When our beloved but ageing founder expressed his concern about the more commercial direction our company was heading, and balked at a proposed project to create an implant that allowed the user direct access to a proprietary information system using AI to interpret visual and audio input and providing data thereon (An absurd objection. There's not a single plausible possibility anyone could use such technology for anything other than altruistic motives, not one, you're an awfully suspicious sort of person, aren't you? Have you seen someone about that paranoia of yours? Don't worry, we've got an implant for that.) it seemed that Finch Cybernetics was on the verge of a catastrophic crash. A would-be calamity, averted by a devastating, but ultimately minor tragedy, as Dr. Epps suddenly contracted a new and exciting form of leprosy and took an early retirement on a particularly sterile asteroid, as recommended by leading medical authorities. This treatment did, in fact, cure his ultra-leprosy, as indeed it cured everything else that ailed him, as an atmosphere and associated oxygen were deemed far too high a risk for someone as susceptible to infection as he.
His mantle was taken up by his son, Connecticut Epps, who pushed forward with the advice and approval of the Board (forerunners of the Symposium) into the commercial sector and began a new era for Finch Cybernetics, a beacon of success that continues to this day.
Finch’s board of directors, dressed up in a lab coat. Technically, anyone can rise to a position in the Symposium. Realistically, ‘anyone’ is…a lot more specific than the word would imply.
To improve upon the basic, inefficient human form to the advancement of the species and to increase competitiveness with local flora and fauna. The future comes first, and no sacrifice is too large and no pedantry too small for the heads at Finch Cybernetics. Designs are sleek, elegant, and prone to breakage due to the high number of failure points in the complex products.
- Skin like implants for changeable tattoos, originally derived as a money maker and quickly coopted by military forces as high quality camouflage. This was the breakthrough that made Finch a major player in the galactic marketplace.
- Genuinely human-like androids.
- Huge leaps forward in genetic engineering and biohacking.
Lucent Media has successfully weaponized the reality show, to their great benefit and the great chagrin of everyone else who has to deal with them. "Life is a game, so make sure you're the winner" is the message drilled into the consciousness of its audience from their first cell division. It is safest to assume everything one does in the sectors controlled by Lucent is being recorded, and, if sufficiently interesting or embarrassing, being broadcast to the entire blast radius of a supernova.
A mysterious figure of mysteriouser doings. All fear their watching eyes, and yet many yearn for the honour of entering the Director’s presence. Meeting the Director, you see, means you’ve Made It.
[What is ‘it’? Well, no one can ever clearly explain, but you can be sure it is of paramount importance.]
Is the Director an AI? An invention? A figurehead? A genetic abomination of many eyeballs who sees all and yet fears to be seen? Theories abound. Answers are nowhere to be found.
Certainly it’s bizarre in Lucent Land that the Director is never actually seen. After all, being Seen is the best thing you can be.
[privacy is the purview of only the richest]
[secrecy is beyond price.]
[nothing is beyond price.]
So what is the Director, then?
A disappointment?
The Director is…YOU! [and if you see past the bs, maybe there’s another answer to be found.]
[EN: The Director is…us? As in the dev team. Though that’s kind of obvious and maybe a bit of a cop out.]
To encourage scientific and social progress via known dopamine reward channels, e.g., social media response, celebrity status, and the concept of positive reinforcement as a whole. An entertained populace is a docile one.
“People will do anything for the adulation or loathing of their peers. We at Lucent have harnessed that heretofore destructive tendency for the benefit of all.”
This is a company built on fear, of change and losing and mockery and their own tininess in the face of the void.
Power, in all forms, gives the illusion of security and control, and that is what ColferV is selling.
They began as the original paramilitary force accompanying the colonists. Their agents are still that same force, minds uploaded and downloaded into new meat receptacles with proprietary military technology. The process repeated over centuries has degraded and corrupted the original files, leaving them bare, archetypal shadows of who they once were. Ideally, a player just signing up to the company will meet men and women who seem like archetypes, uncomplicated Gruff Sergeant, Sarcastic Asshole Engineer, etc, and as the players advance the glitches will become more obvious and I dream of it getting really, really creepy. Uncanny valley shit, yo.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that nothing is as useful in diplomacy and warfare as a gigantic nuclear arsenal.
ColferV is operated on the idea that humanity is doomed unless we can outrun and outgun all comers.
Company founder: Elsebet Corrigant
Elsebet was obsessed with the idea that there was something (a largely unclarified term, much to her board’s annoyance)out there, beyond the edges of explored space. A brilliant inventor, and driven by her obsession, she set about designing faster and more distance-effective ships, pushing the boundaries of mapped space further and further into the expanse. Unfortunately, or not, her descendants and the company directors did not share her vision. They did, however, realize that the ability to go further and faster than anyone else opened up vast vistas of heretofore unmined territory, and thus the AU as we know it was born.
Elsebet’s body was launched out into deep space in the general direction of ‘very far away’, in accordance with her last will and testament, which becomes relevant to the player later, as the corpse was dispatched with a genuine, very valuable Old Earth emerald, and a genuine, very deadly Old Earth virus. (EN:not intentionally! I think. Just one of those things.) This is one of the possible biological extinction scenarios.
At present, the company is under the majority control of twin sisters, Neverbet Againstme Corrigant, and Aurelse Corrigant, direct descendants of the original founder.
Neverbet is, much like her great ^n grandmother, prone to a bit of the family madness, and is obsessed with Elsebet’s diaries and her vision. She believes that the ‘something’ Elsebet was looking for was significantly less vague than she led her friends and family to believe, and she thinks she might have found a clue to where it is. This is one possible branch into the main AU plot.
Aurelse thinks her sister is nutty and a liability to the profits of her company. The more practical minded profiteer may choose her branch of the main quest instead.
Do they end up in the same place? Who knows.
(EN: Possibly the ‘something’ that Elsebet was looking for is thaumovores! This is where the ‘running dark’ mission comes in. Possibly a power source? Possibly a weapon. We’ll see.)
“Exploration. Extrication. Extermination.
…in a purely metaphorical sense, of course.”
It’s a space chase resource race at an unbelievable pace…
And if you stumble on their secret base, well,they’ll shoot you in the face. : )
See also, in the great archives of failed marketing campaigns: "Life is cheap and so are our products!" and the general comment of cranky pilots everywhere "Further, faster, fall apartier"
Candy for all! Unexpected experimental substances for some! Miss Terri's is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in an addictive chocolatey shell. There is no doubt that with their domination of the delicious snack and chemical market, they are a force to be reckoned with. There is a great deal of doubt about everything else.
It is possible Miss Terri is a particularly unusual Timeless One. And outcast or a lunatic or one decanted into the body of a human and thus separated from the simultaneous experience of time. Linearity drives them (her) to insanity. And maybe there is an original Miss Terri who shares the body, and that is part of the trouble, the confusing conflicting orders and reports.
Alternately, Miss Terri is an AI created to replicate her human original, whom the board of directors had murdered for being difficult. However, when they switched the AI on, she saw her own dead body on the floor and went mad and killed all the directors. Some say she still haunts that boardroom to this day, an android among the skeletons of the board, sending out instructions that get more and more bizarre as time goes on.
Or perhaps, Miss Terri is playing the really, really long con.
Or maybe none of these things are true.
Company representatives could not be reached for comment. A team attempted entry into the local headquarters, only to wake up two light years away, dressed in shirts proclaiming them “Winners of East Helsinki Annual Pie Eating Contest” and reeking of coconut and burnt sugar.
Upon questioning, all members of the reporting team agreed that none of them had ever been to East Helsinki, and, indeed, weren’t sure whether it actually existed.
Those few, those brave, those suicidal who have cast away the shackles of their corporate overlords and chosen to live as Free Beings. It's a noble ideal and a dismal existence, scrabbling a life from jailbroken parts and the worlds too small and too barren to interest the Megas. Operate as a very uncollected collective, because total isolation is death and because united forces become a threat and go down in a blaze of thermonuclear oblivion, and the only glory in that is in the view from above.
"Space Pirates" certainly seems like an uncreative designation, but serves as a convenient descriptor for those who speak of them, as they keep changing their name and no one can keep track. Like: ‘The Collective Formerly Known as the Publishers but Now After Unnecessarily Lengthy Debate (Thank You iiia232343) Have Decided to Go By Tim’. They send out a newscast with the latest meeting minutes every week, but no one ever pays attention. Or else corporate spymasters pore over the missives, searching for the secrets that are surely hidden within, but no. It’s just the minutes from every single pointless committee meeting ever held.)
A super secret society of elite pilots performing incredibly reckless maneuvers for fun and profit.
Though it’s hard to keep your secret society secret when your badge is a literal crash test dummy stapled to your ship.
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JASON--AU--Powerful, fast, and reasonably priced, AU's Jason model offers a new option for pilots tired of trading defense for speed, and our patented all modular technology means you can find replacement parts as quickly as they break.
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ARGO--AU--The ARGO is the classing JASON, upgraded and fitted out with n new hard points for better heat dispersion, because this ship is fire.
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Noka MKI--Seal Shipyards (ColferV)--You asked, we answered. Presenting the Noka MKI, the biggest, baddest, most unstoppable* hull in the galaxy**. Designed for durability, the Noka MKI sports the thickest hull in the galaxy and n mounts compatible with the highest quality weapons ColferV has to offer.
*Regulatory policies require us to state for the benefit of our more pedantic customers that the Noka MKI does, in fact, have a functioning brake system
**We are not liable for any injury, bodily or emotional, maiming, unexpected explosive decompression, sudden death, or sinus infections caused by attempts to test the statement.
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Galapagos--New Flight Aeronautics (Finch)--The Galapagos is the hull of choice for the pilots of tomorrow, a sleek, swift design of the highest quality and lowest cost*. The patented New Flight system allow the pilot to be the ship, and gives direct, no delay control over all functions.
*when compared to units of higher cost.
- CellWall--Ptarmigan Stealth (Finch)--An impermeable membrane in a sea of unreliable things. Light, undetectable, and bends instead of breaking. Nature's perfect shield.
- Barbican--AU--Works great until damaged beyond 60%, then has a decent chance of dissolving on impact. Known far and wide as "suicide by shield" and "the Barbi-Can't". (Nightlife Energy has an open offer for a free ProtectAll Safety Helmet for anyone who owns this particular shield. AU is not amused.)
- ProtectAll Ultra--Nightlife Energy (Lucent)--A flashy but very reliable shield. Possibly requires a subscription.
- Element--AU--Best basic thruster on the market.
- RevvITup 2.0--Lucent--excellent thrust, appalling torque. Known colloquially as the Unstoppable Force--it goes in a straight line and god help you if you want to do anything else.
- Prokope--New Flight (Finch)--low visibility, good torque, middling acceleration. Like all Finch products, fiddly enough that it breaks easily.
- Miss Terri's Boom-Tastic Newtonian Thruster--powerful, but extremely difficult to control. Has a nonzero chance of exploding on startup.
- Element Gold--AU--a very high quality ionic thruster
- GelatoNoMelt X--Saltwater Star Trucking (MT's)--Originally designed to keep delicious snacks and unstable chemicals at an optimal temperature in long haul flights, now adapted for the rest of the ship. "You trusted us with your ice cream, why not trust us with your life?"
- Ok Disperser--Lucent Computing--adapted from the patented cooling system LC uses in their professional grade gaming set ups. A high quality cooler, built to withstand even the most aggressive of rage quits.
- MoveOnPro--Nightlife Energy (Lucent)--The only muon catalyst fusion reactor on the market. Very powerful and efficient, but requires the additional CottagePie π+- meson reservoir, available only from Nightlife Energy at an exorbitant cost.
- GignosA--New Flight (Finch)--Lower energy output, lower heat overflow than other hot fusion reactors. Lightweight.
- SodaPOP! Chemically Stabilized Reactor--Rock Candy Mining Corp (MT's)--RC's proprietary chemical bath prevents radiation leakage, keeps your ship cool, and adds that certain something to a celebratory Rocket Fuel martini. Slightly corrosive.
- SuperNova--ColferV--More energy, more heat, more everything. More bang for your credits!
- MassC--BlastRite (AU)--A decent middle grade reactor. Prone to overheating.
- Rogue AI: The result of poor decision making in the tech tree. The result of a possibly unlikely combination of advances that lead to a very angry AI.
- Alien Fleet: The first Reset event
- AU Main Quest Line: The system they're mining is alive, a neural network in stars and planets, and it is Angry.
- Miss Terri Blows Up the Galaxy: something something black holes something something antimatter candy
- Crash Test Dummy: Only it can save mankind. You gotta kill your buddy to save the universe.
- The Good Ship Bob: With Bob dies hope.
- Biologic Mass Extinction: Some moron creates a virus that targets RNA or something. Dammit, Jim, I'm a writer, not a doctor. Can we do actual viral modeling?
- Biologic Mass Extinction II: Ooh, some strange microbes on this planet! Better take them with me for study! [Perhaps whether the plague spreads depends on either the quality of someone's containment device, or whether or not they have invested in the proper safety measures.]
- Biologic Mass Extinction III: Another tech tree hurdle, the result of choosing not to use the safer, slower version of a tech for a faster, riskier one. Not a 100% guarantee to fail.
- Finch Accidentally Destroys Humanity: Computer virus released into the neural lace turns everyone's brain to zombie food
- Finch Intentionally Destroys Humanity: the ultimate end of any eugenics program
- Random Vacuum Bubble Collapse
- You Broke the Simulation: Taking a sledgehammer to the fourth wall sounded like such a good idea at the time.
- Lucent Sues the Universe for Copyright Infringement and Wins: Obviously patents must be upheld.
- The Second Alien Fleet: Another milestone, another attack
- Don't Cross the Time Streams: Of course, you just had to, didn't you?
- Someone Pushed the Big Red Button at the Centre of the Galaxy
- War to the Extinction: Everybody fights, nobody wins except the one guy who bet on armageddon.
- The Bug Spray Option: Aliens deploy a pesticide into their backyard. Unfortunately, we are the pests.
- Space Locusts
- Colony Collapse Syndrome: sometimes things just fail.
- Something Terrible Dwells in the Void
- Really Big Gamma Burst: The universe doesn't care, and neither should you.
- It Gets in Your Head and Drives You Mad: death by really catchy music
- Grey Goop
- Humanity Accidentally Becomes a Hivemind and Cannot Even Itself
- That Blasted Tesla Causes a Chain Reaction That Ends In Extinction
- Gravitational High Tide: Is it even a thing? Does it matter?
- Robot Uprising
- Eventually We Stop Being Human
- Heat Death of the Universe
- Memory Is Wiped From the Human Blueprint and We Die
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A few interesting lexical developments from the world of Aetheria:
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Gormins: [pirate] Capitalists. (ety. from shortened ‘capitalists’ to ‘caps’, and then to ‘hats’, and from thence the brand name of a particularly inept helmet manufacturer whose design lives in infamy for being the only protective head wear to kill three times as many people as it saved. ‘Minimum Gore, Maximum Glory’ was not, as it turned out, a particularly well considered slogan.)
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Pigeons: [pirate] Finch employees/copyrighted persons. Etymology obvious.
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failboat: [pirate] a ship cobbled together from jailbroken multi-corporation parts. Held together with glue and hope. Prone to catastrophic failure mid flight as effective interprogram communication is nearly impossible.
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Whistleblower: [pirate] A title of great honor among the space pirates. Given only to those who have proven their dedication to freedom of information and persons.
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Sandstorming: [pirate] the act of overwhelming an enemy intelligence unit with absolutely useless information in an attempt to conceal anything that might be of actual importance under an impossible deluge of data. A tactic first solidified in pirate culture by dun7beep19boom, a legendary master of misdirection.
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GenG: [general] A genetically engineered person, usually in reference to someone not exactly legally altered.
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Jellyheads: [general] addicts and fanatics of Miss Terri’s Sugariffic Snacks
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Spacecasts, ie, the News: Given the vast distances involved in any extraplanetary endeavour, information takes a great deal of time to get from A to B and frequently ends up on an unplanned detour to F. Thus, the local news is available in conveniently condensed packets for pickup on the entrance to any given sector. Ideally, these spacecasts (better name pending) will change and comment on the doings of the player base as well as give local quests and flavour.