The Campaign Concept

Our player characters will be a part of a UN sponsored task force heading out to an extra-solar system. The campaign will begin on "Absolute Zero" station on Vesta, the second largest body in the Asteroid Belt and site of the attack in 2105 that signalled the return of the Aberrants. “A-Naught” is the belt’s equivalent of a frontier town, offering shops, restaurants, and entertainment to miners and refinery workers. It’s also the main outer-system base for the UN Space Guard and the Seventh Legion. Most ships heading farther out of the solar system stop here for supplies and maintenance and hence it will be here that our characters find themselves as the various elements of the mission muster and assemble.

The task force is based around the Leviathan jump ship "Odysseus". Odysseus himself carries a selection of support craft within his internal bays; a full fighter squadron and eight space/atmosphere hybrid transports. Added to this, four Orgotek manufactured "scarab" Strike Frigates (each with two docked fighter craft) are externally docked like limpets to the jump ship. Completing the task force are a pair of frigate class starships.

For the last six months, the new Leviathan jump ships and returning Teleporters have reconnected humanity with the stars and promise the beginning of an era of increasing and unbroken interstellar exploration and colonization. Humanity has explored fewer than 200 extra-solar planets but the interstellar era is just beginning.

The PCs final destination is considered sensitive and is currently on a "need to know" basis. Unsurprisingly there is a lot of speculation and rumour circulating within the mission staff and residents of Absolute Zero as to where they are heading. Some suggestions are:

• Averiguas - A Sudamerican colony used for military research and testing. It is on the brink of rebellion due to the living conditions and historic treatment of the workforce during the period when Earth lost contact with the colonies
• Chromatic home world - After the alien Chromatics attacked first Karoo Mining Colony and then, about six months ago, suddenly appeared in Earth orbit and launched an attack on Luna, rumours have circulated that the UN have located the alien's homeworld and are planning a retaliatory strike.
• Far Nyumba - Humanity's most Earth-like but youngest colony. During it's isolation this scientific community almost collapsed and perished. Now that the jump ships and returning teleporters have reconnected the world with the home system the colony looks set to flourish and hopefully the mysteries surrounding the strange gas giant it orbits may start to be solved.
• Karoo Mining Colony - Orbiting a neutron star in a desolate system in the Crab Nebula, the Karroo Mining Colony was shaping up to be a “boom town,” exporting a steady stream of valuable metals and minerals and hosting a growing contingent of scientific researchers. That was until the colony was attacked without warning by the mysterious reptilian psychic aliens referred to as "Chromatics". With renewed aid from Earth the colony is starting to rebuild but Chromatic raids have not ceased.
• Khanzte Lu Ge - the largest and most well established human colony outside the solar system. This world is in the Alpha Centauri system and was established by Chinese colonists before the emergence of psions. It is currently engaged in a protracted open war with the Aberrants.
• Qinshui - homeworld of humanity's alien allies The Qin. There is a long established UN embassy but much of the heavily bio-engineered world, and it's wider solar system still remains a mystery to humanity.
• A minor world - While there are only a few long-term settlements outside the solar system there are many other smaller bases where 10 or 20 researchers investigate a planet, as well as even more worlds that Upeo wa Macho explorers visited only briefly.

...any of these could be the task force's ultimate destination.