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.

Table Of Contents

1. The FTL Drive and the Event
2. The Timeless Ones
3. The Great Reset
4. Ship Parts and Branding Thereof
5. Annihilation Scenarios
6. Flavour, Candy or Otherwise

The FTL Drive and the Event

lorem ipsum

The Timeless Ones

lorem ipsum

The Great Reset

lorem ipsum

Patent Ship Parts, Advantages and Catastrophic Failures Thereof

Hulls

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

Shields

• 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.

Thrusters

• 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

Heat Dispersion

• 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.

Reactors

• 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.

A Long List of Total Annihilation Reset Scenarios, Increasingly Implausible

• 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

Flavour, Candy or Otherwise

• A few interesting lexical developments from the world of Aetheria:

  • 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.)

  • Pigeons: [pirate] Finch employees/copyrighted persons. Etymology obvious.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • GenG: [general] A genetically engineered person, usually in reference to someone not exactly legally altered.

  • Jellyheads: [general] addicts and fanatics of Miss Terri’s Sugariffic Snacks

• 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.