EXPLORATION

Space is infinite and full of possibilities. For a century and a half, humankind has traveled to exoplanets to find new resources and new lifeforms. Yes, you know there are dangers—you aren’t an idiot. But the chance to be at the forefront of human expansion in both territory and knowledge is too thrilling to ignore.

THIS IS RUMOR CONTROL

Ask yourself the big questions—where do we come from? What makes the universe work? For the past century humankind has stood on the precipice of the answers to these and other questions about life, space, and our own origins.
Carrying on the legacy of pioneering entrepreneurs Peter Weyland and Hideo Yutani to push the boundaries of human understanding, the company needs inquisitive minds to explore new worlds and help plumb the depths of space. You’re a pioneer—our future is yours to find. Discover a mineral-rich moon and have a colony named after you. Catalog a new lifeform and receive shares in its future exploitation. The secrets of the universe await you out there amongst the stars, along with the resources humankind needs to conquer the Middle Heavens and beyond.

HERE ARE THE FACTS

Exploring new worlds is a dangerous proposition. Corporate management will make snap decisions to prioritize the success of the mission over your goddamn life. Alien planets mean alien lifeforms and alien dangers unique to each new world. While there is often a backup team on your Scientific Exploration Vessel, that’s it—if something threatens the ship itself, you are all screwed and on your own.

ENDURANCE TESTS AND CROSS TRAINING

Explorers are required to be at their physical peak before being approved by their sponsors for expedition duty. Many are cross-trained in starship piloting and repairs to help support a SEV’s crew as needed. You want this job, it’s time to get ripped. You prefer a pot belly, colonial life is for you.

ICC QUARANTINE

Upon returning to any space station, major traffic hub, or core system from any exploration mission resulting in contact with an extrasolar lifeform, expedition teams are required to spend anywhere from 24 hours up to 90 days in ICC quarantine. If any exploration team fails to notify an ICC branch representative of said contact its members will face fines, imprisonment, and confiscation of assets.

COMPENSATION

Unlike most careers on the Frontier, explorers are well paid for their work. Incentives often include book deals, dedicated laboratories after a decade in the field, and positions at prestigious universities.

EDUCATION AND EQUIPMENT

Whether they got it via scholarship, legacy, or corporate sponsorship, explorers are required to be graduates of high education. Some have even been known to pay their own way, but that’s increasingly rare in today’s corporate owned colonial communities. Most are company-sponsored, signing over their careers to corporate greed. The few elites that make a name for themselves are rewarded lucrative incentive packages—and some of those have their education contracts bought out by the prestigious Geholgod Institute, allowing them the freedom to choose their own career paths after that.
As far as gear goes, most corporations put their products through field trials on expeditions, so explorers usually have access to the very best (if not always the most thoroughly tested) equipment money can buy.

DANGERS OF SPACE

Faraway colonists report strange findings, spaceship crews on the Frontier discover inexplicable signals and encounter creatures and phenomena that defy classification. It’s an explorer’s job to investigate and classify these things—but on what particular layer of hell will you find yourself—and what demons lurk there?

SPATIAL PHENOMENA

Black holes, dark matter, neutrino bursts, and quasars— extraordinary things take form in deep space, their very existence spitting in the eye of an absolute vacuum. Spatial anomalies are disturbances in the natural order of the universe. They can take the forms of gravity fluctuations and irregularities, ripples in space that can damage equipment and personnel, alterations in the laws of physics, and areas of disruption inimical to the human brain.

LIFEFORMS

For the first 40 years of extrasolar exploration, nothing larger than a microbe was discovered on alien worlds. The first reported (although unconfirmed) alien lifeforms were worm-like creatures discovered by biologist Rafe Millburn and recorded on the Prometheus mission logs in 2093. By the turn of the century, other species had been discovered.
One outer rim colonial outpost discovered they had a nocturnal pest problem—poodle-sized cockroaches. Named Pudel Blattoptera, the insects proved to be docile and intelligent enough to be trained as domestic pets—although there wasn’t much of a market for them in the core systems. Eventually other creatures were discovered—arthropods to synapsids, marsupials to tetrapods—all numbered and recorded in the Weyland-Yutani extrasolar species catalog.
There are even rumors of a black list double X addendum to the W-Y catalog—one that includes truly alien lifeforms ranging from deadly bacteria to eyeless ebon and albino human-sized things with metal teeth and acid for blood—but these are, of course, rumors.

REMNANTS OF RUINED CIVILIZATIONS

There is nothing more disconcerting than exploring a new world for the first time and finding the archaeological remains of its former inhabitants. Several colonies have unearthed evidence of previous occupants. Some in the scientific community believe these to be the remnants of the Engineers—mysterious beings that are said to have created humankind. Others have a more rational reason for it. Humankind has been out about the stars for the past 150 years. In that time, there have been several colonies that have failed and installations that have been closed.
When the Weyland-Yutani merger went down, several colonies were dropped from the colonial catalog. While some of these were simply closed and evacuated, others were left to fend for themselves. Conspiracy theorists claim that still others were transformed into company blacksites for all kinds of bioweapons research. One thing’s for certain—there are indeed abandoned outposts and derelict spacecraft out on the Frontier.

ASTEROIDS, MOONS, AND PLANETOIDS

Airless asteroids, desolate deserts, magma moons and water worlds—a variety of hostile environs await you on the frontiers of civilizations. Creating such worlds is covered in detail in chapter 12 of the core rulebook.