Faction Dossiers

NHist 004 // Technical

CC10 (Corporate Collective)

Lena Voss stood barefoot in the dim glow of the Thorned Verge’s observation deck, arms wrapped around herself against the chill. The ship was docked at Bastion-9 for resupply, but her mind was already out in the Black. She traced a finger along the cold glass, watching the distant running lights of other Aftermath shuttles drift like fireflies.

“Another run for the Ten,” she whispered, voice thick. “Same promise, different sector. Wonder how long until they stop pretending we’re family.”

Echo glided up beside her, synthetic eyes reflecting the stars. “Corporate benevolence has increased crew retention by forty-three percent since 2372. Yet your cortisol levels remain elevated, Lena. Would you like me to queue Anna Anon’s - Faded Stars into your neurolink? It usually helps bring your levels down.”

Lena gave a tired, crooked smile. “Yeah… play it soft.”

As the opening line began to drift through her implant — ‘We drift so far… but still I feel you near…’ — Lena closed her eyes and let the gentle melody wrap around her.

Corporate Collective – Self-Image and Philosophy (as of 2504)

The CC-10 does not see itself as a government. It sees itself as the only thing standing between humanity and total collapse. In its own records and internal communications, the Collective describes itself as “the last successful organizational model of our species” — a pragmatic, self-correcting machine that learned from the failures of old nation-states and the bloody chaos of the Corporate Resource Wars.

From the CC-10’s perspective, its greatest achievement was not the Golden Egg or interstellar expansion, but its ability to evolve. After the destruction of The Company†’s production network, the Collective consciously shifted from pure exploitation to calculated benevolence. Profit remains the core directive, but the boardrooms now understand that a healthy, motivated workforce is simply more efficient than a desperate one. This is not charity. It is optimized resource management.

The CC-10 views its employees — especially veteran Aftermath crews — as valuable long-term assets rather than disposable labor. Granting trusted crews their own ships is not an act of kindness; it is an investment. These crews have proven they can operate with minimal oversight, handle high-risk troubleshooting assignments, and return with both cargo and intelligence. Their autonomy is earned, never given freely.

This same philosophy of earned autonomy extends beyond individual crews. Just as trusted Aftermath teams are granted their own ships, entire colonies that prove stable and productive are granted limited independence through the Independent Planetary Association.

The IPA is seen as one of the Collective’s smartest strategic creations. The Free Belt Alliance uprising proved that completely closed systems breed revolt — a lesson that cost the CC-10 one of its original Ten corporations, shattered its central production network, and delivered a crippling blow to both pride and profit. Rather than risk another war, the Collective established the Independent Planetary Association as a controlled release valve.

Since its creation, the IPA has transformed what could have been permanent enemies into reliable trading partners. Successful colonies now operate with measured autonomy while remaining economically tied to the CC-10. The result has been dramatically reduced conflict, higher long-term profits, and a far more stable frontier. The Collective openly considers the IPA second only to the N.A.C.S.S. in strategic importance.

The SUBs (Synners) are tolerated as a messy but useful underclass. They fill logistical gaps the megacorps cannot or will not cover. While the CC-10 monitors them closely for smuggling and security risks, it quietly accepts their existence. Better to have controlled chaos than uncontrolled vacuum.

The N.A.C.S.S. is viewed with a mix of pride and unease. The Collective takes full credit for creating the only organization capable of responding to the Xenonid threat with the speed and brutality required. However, the complete lack of oversight granted to N.A.C.S.S. commanders makes even the boardrooms nervous. “Twice is enough” is respected, but never entirely comfortable.

In the year 2504, the CC-10 sees itself as the indispensable steward of human civilization. It believes its blend of corporate discipline, calculated generosity, and ruthless pragmatism is the only reason the species has not yet been devoured by the Black. It grants veteran crews ships and autonomy not out of warmth, but because those crews have proven they are useful — and usefulness is the only currency the Collective truly respects.

The CC-10 as Employer and Mission-Giver

To the crews of the Aftermath shuttles, the CC-10 is not some faceless monolith. It is a layered corporate ladder they can actually see and touch. At the bottom rung sits their direct logistics officer — the person who assigns their contracts, signs off on their maintenance requests, and buys them drinks when they dock. That officer reports to a regional division, which reports to a subsidiary, which ultimately answers to one of the ten core corporations of the CC-10. The distance is real, but it is not total. There are still human faces and names that crews interact with on a regular basis.

The Collective has learned, through hard experience, that content crews generate higher profit margins. Happy crews make fewer mistakes, stay loyal longer, and are more likely to survive long enough to become valuable veterans. Because of this, the CC-10 maintains active HR departments, crew welfare programs, and generous leave policies. These are not acts of kindness. They are calculated investments.

Being selected for an Aftermath crew is considered a major milestone in any corporate career. It means you have proven yourself reliable under pressure. It means the company trusts you with a multi-million credit starship and the freedom to operate with minimal supervision. Between missions, life aboard an Aftermath shuttle is genuinely good. The pay is solid, the food is better than station rations, and when you dock, people treat you like a minor celebrity. Dock workers want to hear your stories. Station kids ask for autographs. Logistics officers comp your repairs and slip you extra supplies “off the manifest.”

This is the carrot.

The stick is equally clear. The CC-10 does not force veterans out after they survive their first major incident. Instead, after every serious encounter with an alien threat, the company quietly offers retirement. The offer is always the same: a safe, stable position on a station or planetside facility. Good pay. Zero excitement. The same shift, the same walls, the same routine for the rest of your working life. Most crews turn it down. Once you’ve tasted the autonomy and adrenaline of Aftermath work, going back to mediocrity feels like a kind of death.

This balance is deliberate. The CC-10 wants experienced crews flying. They want people who have seen the Black and lived. Those veterans bring back better intelligence, complete harder missions, and inspire the next generation of crews. But the company also knows the psychological toll the job takes. The retirement offer is both a safety valve and a reminder: this life is a privilege, not a right.

In gameplay, this philosophy is reflected directly in the CC-10 crew objectives. Objective cards represent the company’s priorities — resource runs, containment operations, data recovery, and system troubleshooting. Personal objective cards let players chase greater corporate favor: better equipment, upgraded ship systems, higher pay tiers, or even more autonomy on future contracts. Travel events and docking events show both sides of corporate life — the warm welcome at friendly stations as well as the cold bureaucratic scrutiny that comes with every completed mission.

The CC-10 wants its Aftermath crews to feel valued. But it never lets them forget exactly where they sit in the hierarchy: just one small subsidiary twig, on one regional branch, of one corporate tree, in a conglomerate grove of ten.

The Aftermath Logistics Network

The Aftermath Logistics Network is the circulatory system of the CC-10. Across nine sectors — the Core plus the eight Octants — hundreds of planets, orbital stations, and deep-space refineries produce vital resources every single day. Only a limited number of Nemesis-class ships still exist, making every jump a precious, irreplaceable resource.

For Aftermath crews, this system offers something rare: real ownership over their work. Instead of repeating the same endless shift on a station until they die, they chase PINGs across the Black. The work is never routine. Some PINGs are simple. Others can pay out enough to let a crew retire in comfort.

But nothing comes easy. A PING can shift in an instant — what starts as a promising run can turn deadly without warning. High risk, high reward is the only rule out here.

Yet every veteran knows the truth: most who chase that better life never live to spend it.
This is why veteran crews keep flying. The CC-10 needs them out there. And for those good enough to survive, the Black offers the only real path to a better life.

Crews who complete their assignments cleanly and on time earn the company’s trust. They start seeing the better PINGs — higher payouts, shorter transits, easier routes. But crews that fail, dawdle, or cut corners quickly find themselves stuck with the worst jobs the Black has to offer. Some veterans say they’d happily go back to scrubbing latrines on a station rather than take the nightmare runs the company saves for its problem crews.

The Ship We Earned

Sergeant Marcus “Raze” Keller was twenty-nine when the letter came.
He was stuck on station security at Forgepoint, scanning ships, running bioscans, and patrolling cargo bays for twelve grueling hours a day. The same gray corridors. The same suspicious faces. The same recycled air that smelled like fear and fuel.
He’d been promoted once — from basic patrol to lead inspector. That small win gave him the nerve to apply for Aftermath. Over three hundred people applied for four slots. He never expected to hear back.

Three weeks later his comm woke him at 0400.

“Marcus Keller. Report to Logistics Hub 7 at 0900. Dress uniform.”

They told him he’d been selected as command crew. They were handing him his own ship.
That moment — standing there in his dress uniform while they told him the Thorned Verge was now his — was the single greatest day of his life.

Being chosen for an Aftermath crew is not a normal promotion. It’s a lottery ticket most people never even get to buy. Every sector only has a handful of these postings open at any given time. The competition is vicious. The CC-10 doesn’t just want skilled people. They want people who have already proven they can handle pressure, stay calm when things go wrong, and keep functioning when most others would break.

That’s why, when an Aftermath crew docks, people treat them differently. Station kids ask for pictures. Logistics officers buy their drinks. Even hardened Synner crews give them respectful nods. Everyone knows what it takes to earn that ship… and what it costs to keep it.

But for all the pride and status that comes with the job, there’s a very clear ceiling. A crew member might know their logistics officer well enough to call them by their first name. They definitely know their psychologist — mandatory sessions every quarter. They know the med team that pokes and scans them after every run. Some even get to meet the regional director of their subsidiary once or twice.

And then… nothing.

Everything above that level simply becomes “The Company.” When crews talk about anything higher up the chain, their voices change. Some still quietly mark the old dagger symbol beside the word in their private logs — † — even though that corporation was officially dissolved centuries ago. To them, The Company† is no longer a business. It’s something far stranger. A dead god that still owns the stars. A myth with a signature. Scripture written in contracts and jump codes.

Their logistics officer is a person.

The Company is a force of nature.

That distance is felt in every mission briefing, every commendation, and every corporate evaluation. The CC-10 may treat its veteran crews well, but it never lets them forget exactly where they sit in the hierarchy: just a twig in a tree.

It is a hard life. An adventurous life, but a dangerous one. After every serious encounter with the Black, the CC-10 quietly offers retirement — a safe station job, good pay, zero risk. A way out. Most crews eventually take it.

Epilogue

Years later, Sergeant Raze stands in the same faded uniform, staring at a new panel of five faces. The people are different — they always are. They rotate in and out. He never does.

The grin is gone. His hands are scarred. His eyes are older.

They slide the retirement papers across the table again.

He hesitates, pen hovering.

Do I sign? Do I finally sign?

The question follows him the entire Drift Cycle home.

When the Thorned Verge finally docks, the station greets them like always — kids running up, dock workers cheering, logistics officers waving. Raze forces that same old smile onto his face.

Then he sees him.

A young security officer, maybe twenty-two, scanning ships with the same dead look in his eyes that Raze once had. The same slow, soulless shuffle between checkpoints.
Raze watches the boy for a long moment… then quietly tears the retirement papers in half.
He’d rather die out here than go back to that.

Objectives & Events

The CC-10 faction drives gameplay through five distinct types of content: Crew Objectives, Personal Objectives, Intrigue Objectives, Drift Cycle Events, and Docking Events.

Crew Objectives

Crew Objectives arrive through the PING system. A PING is a short-range Proximity Identification Navigational Guide containing only a code type and basic telemetry. When a PING appears, crews must decide whether to pursue it. Pursuing a PING typically consumes an entire Drift Cycle. Only upon connecting with the local Father Node does the crew learn the full details of what they’ve actually committed to.

For Aftermath crews, PINGs are their lifeblood. They are the only way to earn significant pay and corporate favor. Every PING is a gamble they need to take.

Personal Objectives

Each crew member receives their own Personal Objectives at the start of every mission. These are deeply individual and based on the character’s history, past affiliations, favors owed, and strengths. Each player must choose one to pursue during the mission.

These personal objectives rarely come into play on simple milk runs or passenger transport. They surface when missions turn dangerous and time becomes critical. Crews often begin a mission carrying multiple personal objectives, only to discover they have time to complete just one when the situation goes sideways. This forced choice under pressure is a core part of the gameplay experience.

Intrigue Objectives

Intrigue Objectives emerge from previous choices or consequences. They are never guaranteed. A crew might rescue a survivor on a standard mission, only to have that same civilian approach them weeks later with a dangerous personal request that carries heavy political or moral weight.

Drift Cycle Events

These random events occur while traveling through the Black. A Drift Cycle represents five to ten days of isolation in deep space. During these long transits, anything can happen — unexplained spatial phenomena, sudden power failures, strange sensor ghosts, or worse.

Docking Events

These events trigger upon arrival at a planet or station. They reflect the current situation in settled space: food shortages, labor riots, corporate audits, festivals, black-market deals, or political unrest. The moment a crew docks, they are thrown back into the messy reality of human civilization.

Together, these five systems create a calculated ecosystem of grim opportunity. The CC-10 constantly offers its crews chances to prove their value… because those who survive are simply more profitable.

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NHist 005 // Military

NACSS

Prologue

The alarms screamed across Ravencrest Station as the Thorned Verge crew crowded into the cockpit, staring through the main viewport.

A sharp, clipped voice cut through the station comms — cold, professional, unmistakably N.A.C.S.S.

“Containment breach, Habitation Ring Seven. Confirmed Nightstalker infestation. Darkseed and Sangmusk Contaminant identified. Initiating emergency purge. All personnel clear the affected section. This is not a drill.”

Dr Elias Crowe questions “Habitation Ring Seven? Is that part of the supply run Echo is…” She trails off and watches the purge.

Red strobes painted an entire habitation ring. Then the charges were fired. Explosive bolts detonated in sequence. The module’s hull peeled open like ripped tin and its atmosphere exploded into space in a glittering white cloud of frozen vapor.

Dozens of bodies spilled out — men, women, children — many of them showing the telltale black veins of Darkseed infection crawling across their skin. Tumbling alongside them were several Shades, their matted fur slicked back with thick, reddish-black Sang Musk. Clutches of leathery eggs and chunks of half-formed Abattoir biomass were ripped out with them, all of it freezing instantly in the void.

And drifting just beyond the wreckage, perfectly still, was Echo.

Lena’s voice was barely a whisper, her eyes glassy.

“It was supposed to be me… I was scheduled for a supply run in that ring. Echo offered to go in my place.”

Raze was already moving. “I’m going after her.”

Minutes later the crew watched as Raze’s suit thrusters fired. He drifted out into the Black, magnetic tether trailing behind him. He caught Echo’s stiff, frost-covered body and gently pulled her back toward the Thorned Verge.

As they re-entered the airlock and the inner door cycled, Echo’s synthetic skin began to thaw. She blinked once, slowly, then looked at Lena with those glossy black eyes.

“It was only a supply run…”

N.A.C.S.S. Doctrine and Civilian Relations

The N.A.C.S.S. was not created. It was severed and unleashed.

In 2259, when the CC-10 first formed, one of the Ten corporations was deliberately chosen to serve as the permanent military contractor. That entity became known simply as the FourthTM . For 122 years the FourthTM served as the backbone of all security forces across human space. It trained planetary police, station security, corporate enforcers, and Aftermath crews. It guarded exploration fleets, put down the Free Belt Alliance revolt in 2362, and maintained order in every octant and the Core. It was the shield between the corporations and the people.

Then the Xenonids arrived in 2381.

For nearly a decade the FourthTM tried to fight this new war under corporate oversight. Officers hesitated when infected family members were involved. Scientists were allowed to study specimens in the hope of finding weaknesses. Compassion and intellectual curiosity repeatedly cost lives.

One of the costliest failures happened in the Beith Octant. A nearly completed terraforming world — just years from full habitability — was lost because the FourthTM tried to protect both the terraforming effort and the research teams studying captured specimens. While they hesitated and delayed, the infestation spread too far. The world had to be abandoned entirely.

The final breaking point came on Earth itself.

The first invasion struck the British Isles. The FourthTM barely managed to contain the outbreak before it reached the European mainland. The second came when Xenonids landed in Brazil. Within days the jungle had become a breeding ground. The creatures spread faster than anyone believed possible. In the end, the entire planetary military and every available orbital platform had to bombard the continent. The scars across Brazil are still visible two centuries later.

Those two invasions of Earth proved beyond any doubt that hesitation killed billions.

The CC-10 finally accepted reality: the same force could not protect humanity from the Black while still trying to serve corporate and scientific interests. The FourthTM remained the internal military — the buffer that dealt with corporate politics and civilian enforcement. The N.A.C.S.S. was unleashed as a completely autonomous force with one purpose: to do what had to be done.

The N.A.C.S.S. was given sole authority over all operations involving the Black. They alone decide when and where to glass a world, conduct orbital strikes, or enact terminal sanction. They are the boots on the ground, the mobilized forces that respond within cities and stations. They conduct aerial patrols and orbital eradications. They have no role in human policing, corporate security, or civilian matters. Their only mandate is the complete eradication of Intruder threats.

The FourthTM retained all responsibility for human space. They oversee planetary police, station security, corporate enforcement, Aftermath crews, and internal investigations. Their actions range from preventive measures and overt interdictions to covert operations. They maintain order among the human population and monitor for Synner activity. They handle all matters that do not involve the Black.

The two organizations kept identical rank structures so there would never be confusion in the field. They are twin siblings with very different natures. The FourthTM shields the N.A.C.S.S. from corporate pressure. The N.A.C.S.S. protects what the FourthTM cannot.

Their doctrine is brutally simple: “Twice is enough.”

One confirmed outbreak is studied under strict containment. The second is annihilated without debate.

The men and women of the N.A.C.S.S. are not inhuman. They feel the same desperate urge to save an infected child. They understand the burning curiosity to study a specimen for the greater good. But they made a deliberate choice to bury those feelings the moment they put on the uniform.

They are the ones who give the order to burn a newborn colony before the first cry has even left its lungs. They are the ones who look a mother in the eye and vent her child into the Black. And they do it knowing they will never be forgiven… and that they were never meant to be.

They protect worlds they will never be allowed to live in.

They do not ask for gratitude. They only demand compliance.

Civilian Relations

After 123 years of war, civilians have come to understand this truth at a bone-deep level.
Many worlds actively support the N.A.C.S.S. despite the resentment. Strong, self-reliant planets regularly hold large recruitment drives, proudly sending their best young men and women to serve. Others have willingly granted the N.A.C.S.S. entire continents for training grounds and permanent bases. A short tour with the N.A.C.S.S. is often seen as a form of civic duty — something many young adults do before returning to civilian life.

The social contract remains harsh but honest:

“Prove you’re useful to society, or we’ll make you useful on the front lines.”

Productive citizens are generally left alone. The idle, the criminal, and the unproductive are conscripted. The Black is advancing, and someone, anyone must hold the line.

This system breeds resentment. Civilians still curse the masked troopers who glass cities and vent stations. But they never turn the black ships away.

The invasions of Earth changed more than just military policy. Planetary infrastructure was permanently altered. To this day, no inhabited world allows direct shuttle or dropship traffic between orbital stations and continental mainlands. All space-to-surface traffic is routed exclusively through island chains — Madagascar, Japan, Hawaii, and others. Entire societies reorganized their cities, economies, and daily lives around this single defensive reality.

The N.A.C.S.S. accepts this paradox without complaint. They do not need to be liked.

They only need humanity to survive long enough to keep hating them.

Aftermath Relations with the N.A.C.S.S.

Every Aftermath crew carries an established compliance history with the N.A.C.S.S.
Crews with a record of full compliance move through N.A.C.S.S. checkpoints and quarantine protocols with minimal interference. Their operations are processed as low-risk and are often granted expedited clearance.

Crews with a record of prior non-compliance face heightened scrutiny. Inspections are more thorough, blockades more restrictive, and any incident at a station or colony may result in the crew being detained for additional screening.

While the N.A.C.S.S. maintains strict separation from civilian and corporate affairs, compliance records are cross-referenced during Drift Cycle Events and Docking Events. A crew’s past performance with the N.A.C.S.S. frequently determines how quickly — or how harshly — they are processed when their paths intersect.

The Weight of Command

The N.A.C.S.S. holds absolute power with no oversight. In exchange, they offer something almost no one else in the galaxy is willing to give — radical transparency. After every major action they submit exhaustive after-action reports and hold formal debriefings with the FourthTM . They do not ask permission. They simply explain, in unflinching detail, why entire colonies had to die. It is the only way the rest of humanity can live with what they have unleashed.

These monthly briefings, always held from the Core so the signal can ripple outward evenly across every octant, have become the most visible expression of that transparency.

N.A.C.S.S. Monthly Strategic Update – News Feed – 14 March 2503
1.42 Billion NeuroSyncs. Signal Flared 310k Signal Rejections 19k

As Fleet Commander Brogan approached the podium, a reporter’s hot mic picked up her quiet whisper: “Twelve pips… wow… look at his shine.”

Brogan stepped up to the podium, his face like chipped granite. Behind him, casualty figures scrolled in cold white text.

“During the month of February, terminal sanction was enacted on eleven orbital platforms, three major colonies, and Twenty-two outlying settlements. Total confirmed loss of life… Seventeen thousand four hundred and sixty-two.”

A reporter in the back turned to her floating Oculus and began whispering live commentary. Brogan’s eyes locked onto her.

“Turn that Oculus off.” The room went silent. “I said turn that god damn off.”

The reporter froze. Brogan stepped forward, voice low and burning.

“You’re Core-born, aren’t you? Never had to sleep wondering if tonight’s the night the Black comes through the walls. So you sit there and whisper cute little commentary for your audience while we list the names of the dead. Those aren’t numbers. Those are people we had to kill so the rest of you could keep breathing. Some corporation wanted an extra half-percent on their quarterly report and it cost us ten thousand lives. You will sit down, shut up, and listen to every single one of them.”

He returned to the podium and continued reading the list of lost stations and colonies in a voice like grinding stone.

When he finished, General Amara Karpelli stepped forward, her expression unreadable.

“Full after-action reports and decision debriefings have been filed with the FourthTM and are available upon request. We remain committed to full disclosure.”

She paused, then added quietly:

“If you wish to honor the fallen, a public burn-code has been provided. Anna Anon has recorded the full reading of every name lost from Veyra Reach, a glassed settlement - her hometown. I suggest you listen to it. All of it.”

Command took no questions. They simply left the briefing room. The feed ended in silence.

Marks of Service

Those who complete even a single tour with the N.A.C.S.S. are authorized to wear a small star pip on their collar. On stations and colonies across the galaxy, that little star is a common sight. It is never discussed. It is simply understood.

They did their time. They carry the weight. They will never be the same.

While the number of pips denotes rank, the color of each pip tells the true story of the wearer.

A white outline on black simply means the individual completed a term of service. It is the most common pip seen on retired civilians across the galaxy. A solid white pip signifies that the wearer saw direct combat against the Black. A silver pip marks those who not only fought, but took part in a notable rescue operation where lives were saved. A gold pip is awarded for acts of heroism that turned the tide of a battle. An amethyst pip — a deep purple gem set into the star — is reserved for those who suffered severe injury while performing an act of heroism.

Civilians have learned to read these colors just as well as active personnel. Even people who have never worn a uniform can instantly recognize when someone is wearing silver, gold, or amethyst. The phrase "they've got shine" has quietly entered everyday speech, meaning the person has seen real shit.

This is why a veteran with shine rarely pays for his own drink. In bars across the settled worlds, it's not uncommon to see someone silently slide a glass across the counter and simply say, “Thanks for the shine.” No further words are needed.

Stolen Valor

There is a thriving black market for pips, especially among Synners. Forged silver and gold pips can be bought in the darker corners of stations and colonies. But wearing one you didn’t earn is as dangerous as inviting an Intruder into your home.

The N.A.C.S.S. and FourthTM do not tolerate stolen valor. Those caught wearing unearned pips — and those selling them — rarely make it to trial. The ones who do reach a courtroom are immediately stripped of their civilian status and conscripted. They are rushed to the front lines, where they finally get to earn the pip they stole… or die trying.

The IDEA

All N.A.C.S.S. operations follow a strict process known internally as the IDEA - Identify, Decide, Execute, and Assess.

Identify. Before any action can be taken, the threat must first be located. The N.A.C.S.S. monitors all forms of communication, emergency broadcasts, the official reporting line, routine interdiction stops, dockside security screenings, and passive monitoring. When necessary, they work with the FourthTM’s covert operatives to uncover groups attempting to hide the truth.

Decide. Once a threat is identified, a field commander makes a rapid, decisive call. They pull real-time footage from Mother Boxes, Father Nodes, and the FourthTM’s access to local security systems. Military Oculus drones are frequently deployed for remote survey. If no feeds are available or the situation is close quarters, they send in recon teams — a last resort due to the extreme risk involved.

Execute. The N.A.C.S.S. responds with overwhelming and immediate force. There is no such thing as overkill — overkill is simply the appropriate amount of force required. The concept of proportional response does not exist in their doctrine. They prioritize quick, decisive action because any prolonged engagement is a losing battle. This includes boots on the ground, military Oculus drones, Scorch Hawks — high-altitude napalm drones whose only function is to locate and immediately incinerate any intruder infestation — and C.R.U.S.H. — Configurable Response Unit Siege Hybrid units. Total air superiority is guaranteed. Our overwhelming firepower is completely indiscriminate — it kills Intruders and civilians alike. Yet the Intruders’ elusive nature often makes close-quarters combat unavoidable, so those units must get in and out before the big guns arrive.

Assess. After action, the N.A.C.S.S. evaluates whether further response is required and compiles a full report. They document military and civilian casualties, acknowledge the planetary or station-wide impact, and submit complete disclosure to the FourthTM. They also live with the knowledge that every trooper sent boots-on-ground today may be the enemy they have to burn tomorrow.

Communications

The N.A.C.S.S. uses four distinct layers of communication.

Registry Ping is the standard system used across corporate space. Managed by the CC-10, these tiny all-direction bursts carry only a single code and telemetry data. They can only be sent through a Mother Box or Father Node.

Tight Beam is a focused transmission used solely by the military. When the exact location of a receiver is known, messages can cross an entire solar system in roughly one hour. While technically readable by most, the ability to send tight beam is a restricted military privilege.

Golden Egg subspace provides true near-instantaneous communication. Only Nemesis ships and stations equipped with a golden egg can send and receive messages across vast distances almost immediately. Aftermath crews regularly request temporary access when docking at these locations.

As ships enter a star system and draw closer to inhabited worlds, they begin receiving the Open System Broadcast (OSB). This is the constant flood of civilian entertainment, news, advertisements, and public data streams. Crews often joke that you know you’re almost home the moment the OSB starts blasting through the ship.

In addition to these systems, the military relies on short four-digit code bursts. A few quick bursts can convey complex orders that any trained soldier can instantly understand. These codes can be typed from a terminal or quick-burned onto surfaces as scannable symbols.

Reading these symbols can be done through standard issue eyepieces, contacts, cybernetic implants, or an Oculus drone.

For completely silent transmission, elite scouts and stealth operators can use retinal communication, sending data simply by moving their eyes across pre-set codes.

The N.A.C.S.S. has not changed its coding system in generations. Attempting to hijack or misuse any of their signals is considered as suicidal as taunting the Intruders themselves.

Epilogue

Raze pressed a hand to his commlink, trying to cut out the blaring warning sirens. “Echo, what’s the IDEA?”

Echo answered instantly. “Carnomorph outbreak on a lockdown research base. Thirteen minutes until three CRUSH units level the facility. Oculus and Scorch Hawks are already on site.

Objective: extract as many uninfected survivors as possible.”

Raze and Echo sprinted past walls covered in QUARANTINE • QUARANTINE quick-burn codes.

“So much for following Doctrine,” Echo muttered.

“We have FourthTM orders. Good enough,” Raze replied gruffly. “Move it!”

A Shambler lunged from a side corridor. Raze dropped it without breaking stride. Echo quickly scanned for more intruders.

Lena’s voice crackled over comms. “We’ve got six confirmed clean. But Raze… we’re losing this one.”

The sound of the Thorned Verge’s engines in overdrive blazed behind Lena. Dr. Crowe’s voice came over the comms. “The Verge is overheating. Staying burning like this, we have to be quick.”

Raze rounded the corner and saw three civilians huddled against the bulkhead, bodies slick with thick, pulsing Chumbleed. Their desperate screams echoed down the corridor. “Please don’t leave us!” The roar of a Butcher echoed around the corridor behind them.

Before he could answer, a Scorch Hawk streaked over his shoulder. The napalm burst turned the corridor into an inferno, swallowing the civilians mid-scream.

Raze’s jaw tightened. He had made this same call a dozen times when he was an enlisted soldier. His silver pip was coated with tarnish he couldn’t seem to wipe clear.

“Time’s up,” he growled. “We’re pulling out. Now.”

Echo tried to interject — “We have five more minutes to…” — but Raze’s icy glare cut her off cold.

As the distant roar of CRUSH walker getting into position grew louder, the Thorned Verge crew ran for extraction, leaving the burning corridor and fading screams behind them. As their Aftermath launched, artillery shells impacted the site, leveling the structure they were just in.

Some days even they had to accept it: not everyone could be saved.

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NHist 006 // Medical

IPA (Independent Planetary Alliance)

Prologue

The Thorn Verge detached from Haven Station Five with a soft clunk of docking clamps.
At least… they were pretty sure it was Station Five. The crew never could keep them straight. Every orbital platform above Haven looked identical — same gray corridors, same cold lighting, same corporate logos stamped across every bulkhead.

As the ship pulled away, Echo’s calm voice drifted across the bridge.

“Confirming departure from Haven Station Seven.”

Raze let out a low snort. “Told you.”

Dr. Elias Crowe leaned back in his chair, watching the planet slowly turn beneath them — endless identical grids of corporate farmland stretching from horizon to horizon.
“Another drift cycle on this rock,” Crowe muttered. “I was starting to forget what color a real sky is.”

Echo’s synthetic fingers danced across the controls. “Shall I set course to chase the sunset, Doctor?”

Crowe gave a tired chuckle.

“No point. It’s the same sunset wherever you go on this planet.”

A slow grin spread across Lena Voss’s face as she stared at the nav display.
“Well… Tempest won’t be.”

One by one, the crew let out a collective sigh of relief — the kind you only make when you’re finally leaving a corporate world behind and heading towards an IPA.

What the IPA Actually Is

The Independent Planetary Association is not a rebellion. It is a concession.

From the CC-10’s perspective, the IPA is damage control. Created after the bloody Free Belt Alliance revolt of 2362, it was a pressure valve — a tightly regulated legal path for colonies to exit the system before they tried to burn it down.

From the colonies’ perspective, it is a rejection. These worlds have turned their backs on corporatocracy, not just as a form of government, but as a belief system. They no longer accept that human life should be organized around profit, productivity, and corporate loyalty.

At its heart, the choice to become an IPA is a declaration that identity matters more than security. In a galaxy being devoured by the Black, some planets have decided they would rather face the monsters with fewer shields than continue living as cogs in someone else’s machine.

This rejection takes two forms. Some worlds are trying to revive ancient cultures and faiths their ancestors carried across the stars — Muslim communities, Catholic enclaves, socialist idealists, and others who were transplanted as cultural blocs during the great migrations. Others, like the people of Tempest, have forged entirely new frontier cultures through generations of brutal struggle. After two centuries of terraforming a nightmare world, they no longer see themselves as corporate employees. They see themselves as a people who earned their planet with blood and wind.

Whether reviving something old or creating something new, these worlds have chosen the right to reclaim their soul — even if it means giving up the CC-10’s promise of safety.

The Path to Independence

Separating from the CC-10 is a cold and soulless process. It is not a declaration of independence — it is a spreadsheet checklist. The megacorps designed it this way on purpose.

Becoming an IPA world is deliberately difficult. The CC-10 has no interest in making it easy for planets to leave their control.

To qualify, a planet must meet all of the following requirements:

Governance

Maintain sufficient settlements to govern and police its inhabited landmass (minimum 12 major settlements)

Demonstrate governance redundancy with multiple administrative centers

Prove a fully functional replacement government is already in place and ready to assume control

Population & Stability

Have a minimum planetary population of 500,000 people, with no single settlement holding more than 10% of the population

Demonstrate a supermajority of the population in favor of independence with no ongoing armed conflict

Self-Sufficiency

Be a fully completed Earth-style planet with a self-sustaining atmosphere and ecosystem
Prove economic and resource redundancy (no single region controls more than 30% of critical production)

Have been continuously inhabited for at least four generations (\~120–150 years)

Corporate Obligations

Repay all outstanding infrastructure debt to the CC-10

Maintain full N.A.C.S.S. compliance, granting unrestricted operational authority including the right to enact terminal sanction

Complete a 10-year probationary period under CC-10 observation

Only when every single box is checked will the CC-10 even consider granting independence.
And that is exactly why so many worlds still fight to earn it. They are willing to endure one final soulless corporate ordeal so they never have to live under one again.

Why Planets Choose to Split Off

It always comes down to the same thing.

After generations of living under corporate rule, people reach a point where they can no longer stomach it.

This is where the grievances come pouring out.

They’re tired of the constant, condescending lie of “corporate benevolence” — that smug corporate claim that the CC-10 only wants what’s best for them. They’re tired of being told they should feel grateful for the very system that treats them like replaceable assets. They’re tired of having no real autonomy, where every law, every tax, every school curriculum, every justice system, and every cultural decision ultimately answers to distant executives who have never once set foot on their planet.

They’re tired of watching their labor and resources constantly extracted while the real wealth flows off-world. They’re tired of their children being raised as corporate assets instead of citizens, constantly measured, ranked, and optimized for productivity. They’re tired of slowly losing their soul.

Some worlds grieve the ancient faiths, languages, and traditions the corporations systematically erased. Others burn with frontier resentment, generations having poured their blood and sweat into planets they still don’t legally own. Whether the wound is old or new, the feeling is the same:

“We have given this world our grandparents, our parents, and now our children — and still we are treated as nothing but property.”
This is why they endure the cold, soulless checklist. Because remaining corporate has become more unbearable than the risk of standing on their own.

They are not just fighting for independence.

They are fighting to regain their soul.

Rights and Freedoms

After surviving the cold gauntlet of the independence process, an IPA world finally receives what it has fought so hard for: the legal right to be itself.

They gain full sovereignty over planetary governance. They may draft their own constitution, establish their own system of government, and create whatever laws their people see fit. They control their own courts, taxation, education, and planetary defense. No corporate board can overrule them.

But the deepest freedom is cultural.

For the first time, these worlds can stop the slow erosion of their identity. They can restore their ancestral language, structure their society around their faith or values, and teach their true history instead of a corporate-approved narrative. Parents no longer have to hide their traditions from their children. Artists no longer have to justify their work through a lens of productivity.
On Tempest, this freedom is felt in the skies. For generations the CC-10 banned parasurfing — the insanely dangerous sport where riders launch themselves into the planet’s violent upper atmosphere on nothing more than a reinforced board, riding gale-force winds at terrifying speeds. Corporate officials called it “unacceptable risk” and “bad for productivity.” Now, as an IPA world, Tempest has legalized it. Their people openly celebrate their identity as wind-hardened energy junkies who laugh in the face of danger.

This new freedom is a double-edged sword. Without corporate oversight, there is no one to stop them from making terrible decisions. A planet can now choose paths that are reckless, oppressive, or self-destructive — and there will be no distant authority to step in and prevent it.

They have earned the right to succeed or fail completely on their own terms.

This is not mere political independence.

This is the right to reclaim their soul.

This is the freedom to stop surviving as corporate property… and to start living as a people.

Limitations and Obligations

While IPA worlds enjoy significant freedom on their own soil, they remain bound by several critical limitations imposed by the CC-10.

They must maintain open communication regarding any major events or crises on their planet. They are required to immediately report any confirmed Intruder infestation and grant the Fourth and the N.A.C.S.S. full access and cooperation during any outbreak.

They are fully responsible for their own internal law enforcement and crime. They are strictly prohibited from forming military alliances with other IPA worlds or external powers.

All interstellar activity falls under CC-10 jurisdiction. The moment any ship, person, or cargo leaves their solar system, it becomes subject to Collective law. This includes interstellar travel, trade, communications protocols, and the operation of Golden Eggs — even if the IPA world technically owns them. Ownership of Nemesis ships is permitted, but their use remains tightly regulated by the CC-10.

The CC-10 will only recognize and conduct official business with one planetary government at a time. Even if an IPA world fractures into multiple factions or competing governments, the Collective maintains formal diplomatic and trade relations with whichever government it officially recognizes — and will not engage with any rival factions.

In many ways, the relationship between the CC-10 and an IPA world functions much like relations between sovereign nations of old — filled with complex agreements covering extradition, tariffs, currency recognition, immigration, and countless other bureaucratic details.
At the end of the day, IPA worlds are free to govern themselves… but only within the carefully drawn lines the CC-10 permits.

The Golden Egg Friction

The most significant point of political friction remains the status of the Golden Eggs. While an IPA world may physically house these artifacts, the CC-10 maintains absolute legal jurisdiction over them. These objects are far more than just technological curiosities; they are the sole keys to accessing subspace, serving as the essential conduits for interstellar navigation, communication, and travel. The CC-10 argues that allowing a non-corporate entity to control a Golden Egg—essentially handing over the keys to the subspace network—would be a systemic risk to the entire galaxy. This causes constant, high-stakes tension when IPA worlds attempt to repurpose the artifacts—whether to boost local power grids, establish private long-range comms, or shortcut travel routes—only to find themselves facing terminal sanctions for "unauthorized tampering" with what they consider their own vital planetary property.

How Other Factions View the IPA

The CC-10 did not create the IPA out of wisdom. They created it because they had no choice.
After the Free Belt Alliance revolt of 2362, they cautiously allowed the first planet to secede. When that went smoothly, they allowed more. What followed was a series of expensive disasters. Newly independent worlds fractured into civil conflict, collapsed economically, or became infested breeding grounds. Several had to be forcibly brought back under control at great cost.

That is when they built the current system — the long, brutal checklist a planet must satisfy before independence is granted. To the CC-10, the IPA is a tightly regulated compromise, born from bitter experience.

The N.A.C.S.S.

The N.A.C.S.S. attitude toward IPA worlds is simple and pragmatic: “Comply and we won’t have a problem.”

As long as an IPA planet reports infestations immediately and grants them full operational freedom, the N.A.C.S.S. largely leaves them alone. However, they watch IPA worlds more closely than CC-10 planets. Some IPA worlds actively court their favor — granting them entire continents for bases or instituting mandatory service in the N.A.C.S.S. These cooperative planets are viewed with cautious approval. Others do only the legal minimum and are watched with quiet suspicion.

Other IPA Worlds

There is a natural sense of kinship among IPA worlds. Every independent planet understands the brutal checklist they all had to endure.

However, this “brethren” feeling is complicated. Old cultural, religious, and ideological divides remain strong. The result is a strange mix of mutual respect and low-level rivalry. They are less a unified bloc and more a loose collection of stubborn cousins — glad the others got out, but not necessarily eager to live under the same roof.

The SUBs/Synners

The SUBs are largely indifferent to the political ideals of the IPA. What they care about is opportunity.

To them, an independent planet is simply a lucrative new market. With reduced corporate oversight and weaker law enforcement, both legitimate small businesses and gray-market operators find IPA worlds far more welcoming. Legitimate mom-and-pop SUBs see a chance to grow without being crushed by megacorporate competition. The shadier elements see softer targets and easier smuggling routes. More organized and better connected than the IPA worlds themselves, the SUB network quietly views independent planets as excellent places to do business — both the clean kind and the dirty kind.

Life on an IPA World

Step off a shuttle onto an IPA world and you immediately feel the difference.
Corporate planets all carry the same sterile sameness. A ranching world feels like ranching no matter where you go. A farm world feels like farmland in every direction. Everything is shaped by the same corporate template.

IPA worlds are not like that.

Forced to prove economic and settlement redundancy to earn independence, every IPA planet is required to be diverse. Different regions develop their own identities, industries, and cultures. The entire planet feels alive with variety instead of corporate uniformity.

And yet that freedom comes with a brutal truth.

These worlds have finally reclaimed their soul — but they may not live long enough to enjoy it. The Black is always out there. Eight alien races want humanity extinct, and every IPA world now stands with fewer shields and less backup than it had under CC-10 protection. The vibrant chaos that makes them feel alive also makes them feel dangerously exposed.

The celebrations are louder, the culture is richer, the people are freer… but the fear is sharper. Every festival, every act of defiance, every moment of genuine self-expression now carries the quiet understanding that this might all be snatched away the moment the sky cracks open.

They got their soul back.

Whether they get to keep it is another question entirely.

Gray Markets

Independence is not a binary state; it is a spectrum that blurs at the edges of IPA space. On the fringes, where even the reach of the IPA government is thin, exist the Shadow Markets. Run by the SUBs—and more specifically the ruthless Synner syndicates—these are unregulated space stations, hollowed-out rogue moons, and derelict tankers that operate entirely outside of both corporate and IPA law. They serve as the true neutral zones of the galaxy, where Aftermath crews can fence sensitive data or secure illegal Nemesis parts without asking questions. These lawless hubs emphasize the reality of the frontier: the further you get from the CC-10’s core, the more the soul of a place is defined by what you can get away with rather than what is written in a constitution.

Returning to the Fold

Not every planet that leaves the CC-10 stays gone.

Some return — quietly, sometimes even gratefully.

The reasons vary. Some collapse under gradual decline: slow economic decay, crumbling infrastructure, and steady population loss over decades. Others fall to sudden catastrophe — devastating civil wars, economic implosions, or natural disasters no amount of preparation could have prevented. A few are ravaged by the Black itself, requiring major Fourth or N.A.C.S.S. intervention that leaves them unable to meet even the minimum requirements of independence.
For the people of these worlds, the shame is deep and private. They fought for generations to break free, only to watch their dream collapse. Their leaders feel it most acutely — the quiet humiliation of having to ask their former masters for help.
The re-assimilation process is designed to be a thorough dismantling of independence. It begins with the arrival of CC-10 transition teams who immediately seize control of all twelve major administrative centers. Local governors and elected officials are not just removed; they are systematically replaced by corporate proxies—executives from the nearest corporate hub who view the planet as a distressed asset rather than a society. This creates a deeply humiliating transition period where the planet’s hard-won laws are overwritten by corporate bylaws overnight, and citizens must watch as their cultural symbols are stripped from public buildings to make room for familiar, sterile corporate logos.

The CC-10 understands this shame perfectly.

They never speak it aloud. They don’t need to. The simple fact that a planet is returning to the fold is the most powerful advertisement they could ask for.
Every prodigal world sends the same unspoken message:

They tried.
They failed.
They came home.

IPA Worlds and Aftermath Crews

For Aftermath crews, IPA worlds are a very different experience than corporate space.
The CC-10 controls the vast majority of the galaxy and therefore generates the overwhelming majority of missions. However, the most unique, chaotic, and personally charged missions almost always come from IPA worlds. The missions that emerge in IPA space tend to be messier, more morally gray, and deeply tied to local politics, culture clashes, or hidden agendas.
Corporate space gives crews volume.

IPA space gives crews stories.
That is why many Aftermath crews deliberately route through independent worlds — even though they know the jobs will be far more dangerous.

Epilogue

Two drift cycles later, the Thorn Verge finally reached Tempest.

What should have been a clean docking turned into a three-hour nightmare. The orbital stations were absolute chaos — ships stacked in disorganized holding patterns, conflicting manifests, and station controllers arguing over comms in three different languages. Nothing looked the same. Nothing worked the same.

When they finally stepped off the ship and into the station proper, it hit them like a physical wave.

The air was thick with smells — spiced street food, engine grease, sweat, and something sweet and floral they couldn’t identify. The walls were covered in clashing colors and hand-painted signs. Vendors shouted over each other in a dozen different dialects. People moved in every direction at once.

A small child darted through the crowd and bumped into Crowe, disappearing just as quickly. Crowe’s hand immediately went to his pocket.

“Son of a bitch… he got my comm.”

Lena Voss just laughed, eyes wide as she took in the overwhelming chaos around them.
“Welcome to Tempest.”

The crew stood there for a long moment, completely shell-shocked by the riot of color, noise, and life.

It was loud.
It was messy.
It was alive.

And every single one of them already knew… no matter how many times they came here, it would never feel the same twice.

↑ Back to dossiers

NHist 007 // Personnel

Subs (Syndicate of Unincorporated Businesses)

Prologue

The Rusty Valve reeked of spilled synth-whiskey and old blood. Five figures hunched in the back corner, shoulders tense.

A thick Synner with ritual scars crawling up his neck slid a data chit across the table. “Old N.A.C.S.S. frigate. No transponder, no Motherbox. She’s completely in the cold, cold black.”

His eyes flicked between Raze and Lena. “You two still have your active N.A.C.S.S. codes?”

Raze gave one sharp nod. Lena’s scarred fingers drummed once against the table, eyes gleaming.

The Synner smiled, gold teeth glinting. “Good. Bring me what’s left of her.”

Lena leaned forward. “What are we getting out of this?”

“The part you need might be in there,” the Synner said. “If not… I know I have it.”

As everyone gets up to leave, Crowe is the last one out. He gives the Synner a slow, deliberate head nod, then quietly drops a small stack of cold hard cash on the table — real physical currency, a genuine rarity these days on a space station.

What the SUBs Actually Are

In the Black, the word “SUB” doesn’t mean one thing.

It means three very different things wearing the same mask — and you will never know which one you’re looking at.

The first are the local operators — the true mom-and-pop SUBs. These are the honest, hardworking crews that keep remote stations and colonies alive. They’re the ones who’ve been running the same supply route for thirty years, who’ll fix your air scrubber for half what the CC-10 charges, and who still remember your kid’s name. They’re just trying to make an honest living outside the corporate machine.

Then there are the CC-0s or Zeros — the hungry dreamers trying to build something big enough to get bought out by the CC-10. And then there are the Synners — the smugglers, mercenaries, scavengers, and black-market operators who chose to live outside the law and use the system against it.

The danger is that they all call themselves SUBs.

An honest supply runner and a professional smuggler can be standing right next to each other, and you will never know the difference. The friendly freighter that just docked might be carrying medicine… or it might be carrying something that will get your entire station vented.

But the blade cuts both ways.

Because they share the same name, even the honest mom-and-pop SUBs get the side-eye. Many people assume that if you’re not CC-10, you must be a Synner. Hardworking crews that have never broken a law in their life still get treated with suspicion, whispered about, and sometimes outright refused service — all because they share a label with people who would sell their own mother for the right price.

That’s the real curse of the name “SUB.”

It protects the criminals.

And it punishes the honest.

Structure & Organization

The SUBs have no central leadership, no headquarters, and no formal organization. Their entire structure is built on one thing: communication.

Whether it’s a message quietly piggybacked through a CC-10 subspace channel, an encrypted burst hidden inside an OSB advertisement, or a whispered conversation sealed with a handshake and a drink in the back corner of a bar — staying connected is how they survive.

At the local level, reputation is everything. On any station, especially IPA worlds, SUBs are simply the independents everyone knows. They’re cheaper and faster than CC-10 contractors, but they offer no certifications and use refurbished parts. Their only guarantee is their word. If they fail, word spreads fast and their business dies.

These local operators form loose, informal networks. Mechanics who work on the same systems know each other, compete during the day, and buy each other drinks at night. If one crew can’t handle a job, they’ll refer the customer to someone they trust — even a competitor. This referral chain stretches across stations and planets.

The Zeroes work both sides of the fence. They maintain the same local reputation networks while also cultivating contacts inside lower-level CC-10 subsidiaries — their lifeline to the corporate ladder they hope to climb.

The Synners take it further. Honest repair crews quietly rely on them to steal rare parts. Zero inventors use trusted mom-and-pop SUBs to install prototypes under the radar. In return, Synners need legitimate operators to actually make their stolen goods functional. The legal and illegal sides are deeply intertwined.

Communication is the real glue. Legitimate SUBs can ask to use a Nemesis ship’s subspace comms as a courtesy — but every message is logged and tracked. Synners offer the untraceable alternative. Using contacts aboard Nemesis ships, they piggyback messages through official subspace channels so they vanish into the noise. Some of the more powerful Synner groups even have access to the same short four-digit military code bursts used by the N.A.C.S.S.

They’ve embraced the name the CC-10 gave them as an insult. While the corporations buy respect with contracts and credits, SUBs earn theirs through skill, reliability, and surviving the
Black on their own terms.

In the end, the SUBs aren’t an organization.

They’re a web of relationships, favors, and whispered words — held together by the simple truth that in the Black, no one survives alone.

How They Survive in the Black

SUBs don’t live outside the CC-10 system. They live in its cracks.

Every ship still needs fuel, docking fees, and maintenance. Every crew still has to follow most CC-10 regulations for space travel. The difference is they don’t have corporate oversight watching their every move. They can bend the rules, cut corners, and make side deals that a logged Aftermath crew could never get away with.

Their ships are almost always junkers — ugly, patched-together relics that outsiders mock but SUBs wear as a badge of honor. To the CC-10, these ships look like flying scrap heaps. To their crews, they are home. Everything they own in the universe lives inside those dented hulls.
Survival is a daily exercise in painful choices. Fuel or parts? Food or that failing component? Take the risky job for quick credits or play it safe? There is no corporate logistics officer making these decisions for them. There is only the crew, the ship, and the Black.

This reality splits SUBs into two very different lives.

Some are route runners — mom-and-pop crews who have flown the exact same route for decades. Everyone in the sector, even CC-10 logistics officers, knows them and quietly admits they can do that specific run better than any corporate crew. These crews have deep local knowledge and steady, if modest, work.

Others are true gypsies — ship-born wanderers who will chase a job anywhere the Black takes them. They live full-time aboard their junker with no home port. When something critical breaks in the Drift, there is no backup. No warranty. No rescue beacon. Luck doesn’t get you anywhere on the Drift.

When these ships dock for repairs, the difference becomes painfully obvious.
A CC-10 Aftermath vessel with a problem gets put on the official maintenance list. They have all the correct parts… but they’ll wait weeks because the corporate backlog is massive.

A SUB junker gets Jojo Bob.

Jojo has time. He’ll start work immediately. But he’s working with refurbished parts, scavenged components, and whatever he could quietly trade for. The job gets done faster and cheaper — though rarely to corporate standards.

The questionable origin of those parts hangs in the air like smoke. Everyone knows a SUB will buy a legitimate CC-10 part when they can afford it. But when they can’t… well, nobody asks too many questions.

SUBs fill every dirty niche the CC-10 refuses to touch. They run the junkyards, the back-alley pawn shops, and the loan sharks. They thrive on cash and barter deals that stay off the books, avoiding taxes and tracking. Some Synners will even charge customers the full tax… then conveniently “forget” to send it to the CC-10.

The Zeroes play a vital role in this ecosystem too. These ambitious inventors develop new prototypes and improved components, then go shop-to-shop offering deals to mom-and-pop SUBs: “Install this on your customers’ ships, I’ll cut you a good rate, and help me prove it works better than the CC-10 version.”

Through the Aftermath Logistics Network, even the CC-10 quietly depends on them to fill gaps their own system can’t handle.

SUBs survive by being faster, cheaper, and far more flexible than the corporations that surround them. They bend where the CC-10 cannot. They make deals in the shadows of official systems. And they keep flying on ships the CC-10 scrapped ten decades ago, piecing them back together with spit, prayers, and stubbornness.

But that same flexibility comes at a terrible cost.

The same willingness to cut corners and avoid official channels that keeps them alive is also what lets the Black slip through the cracks with them.

The Black - Sensory Entropy

In the drift, the “Black” is more than just a destination or a job site; it is a hostile, indifferent entity that actively fights to reclaim the space stolen by humanity. It doesn’t merely exist; it degrades. Equipment rot is a constant, quiet war—gaskets that harden and crack in the vacuum-cold, wiring that grows brittle from the subtle radiation leaks of aging reactors, and hull plates that groan as the Black exerts its endless, microscopic pressure.

To the SUBs, the Black is a sensory experience. It is the rhythmic, metallic ping of the hull cooling in the shadow of a dead moon; the sharp tang of ozone that clings to every piece of salvaged gear; the way the darkness seems to absorb sound, making the silence on a ship feel heavy, like a physical weight pressing against the chest. It is a place of erratic hazards: void-storms that scour sensors blind, gravity wells that pull at the gut, and signal interference that transforms a crystal-clear comms-burst into a chaotic, unsettling static.

This environment doesn’t just break machines; it erodes the sanity of those who spend their lives within it. Long-haul SUB crews speak of “Black-sickness”—a low-grade, persistent paranoia that sets in after weeks of seeing nothing but the void. It’s the feeling that the darkness outside is watching, that the ship is slowly becoming a tomb, and that the only thing keeping the void from rushing in is a few inches of rusted, patchwork metal. For the crews who live out here, the Black is a living adversary. It is the final judge, the cold grave waiting for a single mistake, and the only reality that truly matters.

Culture & Way of Life

You can spot a SUB the moment they walk into a room — not by what they say, but by how they look and how they move.

Most honest SUBs carry the marks of a lifetime spent working with their hands. Their skin is pale from years under artificial lights, their faces lined from stress and recycled air. Their hands are scarred and calloused, often missing fingertips or whole digits. These aren’t fashion statements. They’re the result of always choosing “buy the tool, not the new finger.”

Their lives are deeply solitary. Many live above their tiny corner shop or aboard their ship with only a partner or small family. There is no corporate dormitory, no break room full of coworkers. They work whenever they’re awake and sleep when they can’t stay conscious any longer. They have no real community — just an endless stream of strangers passing through their shop or docking at their ship.

This strange existence leaves them profoundly isolated even while constantly surrounded by people. It also makes them the most susceptible group to infection in the settled worlds. No one is watching their back. No one notices when they start acting strange.

Because they are so transient — you may only see a SUB once or twice — many people treat them as disposable. It’s easy to use them, cheat them, or take advantage of them when you know you’ll probably never see them again. Their world openly includes whores working in their shops and aboard their ships, which only reinforces the idea that SUBs exist in a moral gray zone where normal rules don’t apply.

Everyone knows some SUBs simply disappear. Others come back… but they’re never the same. They return as Lab Rats — carrying something inside them that doesn’t belong to them anymore.

The N.A.C.S.S. makes no attempt to hide it. Their motto is spoken openly: “Productive citizens are generally left alone. The idle, the criminal, and the unproductive are conscripted. The Black is advancing… and someone, anyone, must hold that line.”

And far too many of those conscripted come from SUB ranks.

Beyond appearances, the cultures diverge sharply.

Honest SUBs and Zeroes tend to be warm, generous, and good-hearted. They live on the edge every single day and they know it, so they look out for each other. There’s a real “I got your back” blue-collar spirit among them.

Synners, by contrast, are noticeably more distrusting and guarded. They operate in a world where trust is a liability and betrayal is common. They’re always looking for the angle.
This stands in sharp contrast to the average CC-10 employee — the soulless cog who performs the same repetitive task for twelve hours a day with no pride and no real connection to their work. SUBs may live harder lives, but they still have something the corporations stripped away long ago: a soul.

Relationship with the Other Factions

SUBs live in a constant state of wary distrust — not just toward outsiders, but toward nearly everyone, including their own.

The IPA worlds rely on SUBs as a vital lifeline for parts and supplies they can’t get without crawling back to the CC-10. But even that dependence comes with suspicion. Independents know SUBs are their best option, yet they can never quite shake the fear that today’s friendly trader might be running something far darker in their hold.

The CC-10 officially views SUBs as a necessary nuisance — cheap, unregulated labor that fills the gaps their own bloated system can’t handle. Privately, they see them as vectors for contamination and potential rebellion.

Even among SUBs themselves, trust is fragile. Honest crews have heartbreaking stories of friends they’ve worked with for ten or fifteen years suddenly turning them in for the right payoff. One bigger cut, one offer of a clean record from the N.A.C.S.S., and suddenly a decade of shared meals and shared risks means nothing.

Honest SUBs see Synners as a necessary evil — sometimes even romanticizing them as modern Robin Hoods — but they never fully let their guard down. Synners, in turn, view honest SUBs as convenient camouflage for their operations… and as easy marks when the opportunity appears.

The Zeroes walk the tightrope between both worlds, never fully trusted by either side.

And the N.A.C.S.S. barely registers SUBs at all — until one of them causes an outbreak. Then they become a problem to be erased without hesitation.

In the end, SUBs survive by needing each other… while never truly trusting anyone.

Role in the Universe

In a galaxy increasingly run by cold, soulless corporate machinery, the SUBs have carved out something far more valuable than mere survival.

They have reclaimed their souls.

While CC-10 employees spend twelve hours a day performing the same repetitive tasks with dead eyes and no pride, SUBs wake up every single morning knowing that if they don’t work, they don’t eat. It is a daily terror — but it is their terror. They chose it. And because they chose it, they can still love what they do.

They live isolated lives. They are used, discarded, and sometimes taken in the night. They are surrounded by strangers but have no real community. They are the first to be conscripted when the Black needs bodies to throw at it. And yet… they are still here.

The IPA worlds gained their freedom by rebelling against political control.

The SUBs rebelled in a much quieter, more stubborn way — by refusing to let their work become meaningless.

They are the ones who still take pride in a job well done. They are the ones who will stay up for three days straight fixing your ship because you’re a regular, not because some algorithm demands it. They are the ones who remember your name, who know your ship’s strange little quirks, who understand that a good tool is sometimes more important than a hot meal.

They are also the ones who quietly carry the scars of what the galaxy does to people it considers disposable. Some of them disappear. Some of them come back wrong. And still they keep flying.

In the end, the SUBs’ greatest contribution to the universe isn’t the repairs they make or the gray-market goods they move through the Black. It’s the simple, stubborn, almost defiant proof that a person can still love what they do — even when the galaxy itself has forgotten how.

Even when it keeps trying to take that last piece of them away.

Epilogue

The Thorned Verge drifted away from the dead N.A.C.S.S. frigate in heavy silence.

No one spoke.

They had found exactly what Crowe was looking for.

The hull breach had been deliberate — one of the crew, driven mad by the Voidseeders, had blown it from the inside. Dozens of bodies remained strapped in their seats, faces frozen in terror, iridescent Veilscars still faintly glowing across their skin.

But the worst was the harvest room.

Dozens of severed heads lined the walls, vivianite crystals blooming from their skulls like obscene violet flowers.

Lena stepped inside and suddenly began shaking. She looked at the arrangement, the crystalline growths, and the horrific brutality and realized she just walked into a nest. A primal rage grew within her. Moments later the Wail tore out of her.

The sound that came from her throat was not human. It was something ancient, broken, and wrong — a screeching, warping howl that made the ship itself feel like it was screaming with her. When it finally died, she collapsed to her knees, shaking violently, tears freezing on her cheeks.

No one touched her.

They finished the salvage in silence.

Back aboard the Thorned Verge, the crew drifted to their quarters without a word.

Raze sat at his desk for a long time, staring at the retirement papers he had ripped up three drift cycles ago. With steady hands, he taped it back together, and signed them.

Lena curled up in the corner of her room, arms wrapped around her knees, whispering to the Hollow Choir’s voices only she could still hear - remnants from the Voidseeder's Nest.

Echo sat motionless in the cockpit, faithfully logging the entire illegal operation into her Motherbox uplink — an act that would flag them the moment they docked anywhere.

And Crowe retired to his quarters alone. He reached into his coat and slowly pulled out a single shard of a Vivianite Shrieker. The crystal caught the dim light, pulsing with faint violet light that reflected in his eyes. Crowe's face spread with a maniacal smile.

The Thorned Verge flew on, carrying four people who were no longer a crew — just four broken souls drifting through the Black, each already gone in their own way.

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