Unlimit3d 8

Foreword

• This is a Squirmish papercraft game created by B&hammer40kun.
• Miniature templates have been created by James Bowen.
• Dark_Matter and Hats contributed to graphisms
• Dark_Matter, Indonesian Gentleman and SquashMonster contributed to fluff.

Fluff

Fluff is open for change, but there are a few rules that, as the control freak I am, I would like you to observe :

• Major corporations may recieve changes. Add stuff to existing coporations if you want, but I might edit your work. Discuss changes or deletions you'd like to be made on the discussion pages
• Minor corportaions and organisations can be added and edited with more freedom,
• Marginal organisations can be added as you want, and there are big chances what you'll do won't be edited, as long as it fits with the rest.
• I deeply apologize

Thanks, B&Hammer40kun.

Setting

It is the fourth millennium, and the Earth is full. With humanity numbering over twenty billion, the planet can no longer sustain human civilization. For centuries man has been fleeing to space, hoping to find new life in asteroid mining colonies and solar farms . However, space travel was expensive, and no matter how much the world's governments dedicated themselves to offloading their surplus population, their efforts made no appreciable dent in Earth's massive overcrowding. That changed forty years ago with an event referred to as "The Encounter" - the discovery of a wrecked alien craft in the Oort cloud. One of the technologies reverse-engineered from the craft allowed for affordable, faster than light travel.

With this technology in hand, humanity's ability to take to the stars finally approached their desire to do so. Millions of Earth's citizens signed on to any contracts they could find that would get them into space. The promises of clean air, no matter how artificial, real food, and comparatively greater personal space were, for many, more than enough to accept spending the remainder of one's life performing dangerous, zero-gravity mining.

Now the Outer Frontier is being colonized rapidly by a group of corporations known as the Space Exploitation Assembly. These corporations compete with eachother, often using covert violence and a thin layer of plausible deniability, for the precious materials of the solar system. However, an increasing number of their colonies are rebelling and forming their own independent governments. Amongst these rebellions it is often hard to tell the difference, if there is one, between the liberator, the terrorist, the savior, the pirate, and the lunatic - out here, far from the Earth's governments and any authority beyond a corporation's hired military, there might not be such a difference.

Major Corporations

Space Exploitation Assembly

(Part redacted by SquashMonster lost :( )

The space exploitation assembly is a group of corporation that rule over the solar system. As Earth governments have given up the idea of making law above their sky, this privilege was taken the SEA, establishing the rules of trade, travel, security, unquestionned for almost two decades before the first syndicates emerged.

Nova Mind Trust

The history of the Nova Mind Trust begins with a different organization, the Church of the Exploding Sun. A powerful cult, the Church of the Exploding Sun built dozens of massive arks - slow-moving colony ships designed to last generations - and prepared them to other solar systems. The arks were to leave in waves, starting with scientists and engineers to create the infrastructure required to start new civilizations among the stars, then a wave of workers and colonists, and finally a wave housing the church's leadership. The Sunners (a derogatory but wildly popular nickname for the cult) believed that, once their exodus is completed, the sins of the nonbelievers will cause the sun to explode and cleanse the solar system.

The Church of the Exploding Sun's exodus never finished, for the commander of one of the first wave of arks, Uriah Hugel, decided to investigate an unexpected signal at the limits of the Oort Cloud and found the remains of an alien vessel. After analyzing the craft, Hugel decided to return to the Earth and present the church leaders with a gift: the ability to travel faster than light.

With this discovery, the Church of the Exploding Sun quickly became relevant to everyone, not just a large group of crazed cultists. To facilitate this, several higher-up officials founded a corporation separate from the church: the Nova Mind Trust.

The Nova Mind Trust is, officially, a non-religious entity. The fact that its upper management is predominantly comprised of members of the Church of the Exploding Sun is, according to the NMT, nothing more than a coincidence. Transparent that this lie may be, humanity is forced to depend on the NMT. Although Uriah Hagel eventually betrayed the organization and gave faster than light travel to everyone, the rest of the alien technology remains thoroughly in the Nova Mind Trust's hands, and anyone wishing to use it must deal with them.

Fondation for Outer Settlement

The Foundation for Outer Settlement styles itself as a non-profit organization with the goal of getting every individual that wants to live in space the opportunity to do so. However, this is just a marketing ploy, and as often as they like to imply a non-profit status, they never say it outright for fear of being barred from the Space Exploitation Assembly for false advertising.

The Foundation for Outer Settlement is, quite simply, a very unscrupulous corporation with a talented marketing department. When the FOS builds a colony, it is always highly-specialized, and never self-sufficient. Some colonies grow food, others mine water, others mass produce air. The FOS offers transport to their colonies for cheaper than any other corporation, and with no indentured servitude in their contracts. Once at their new home, however, colonists quickly discover that the FOS does not provide cheap transportation back to Earth, that the FOS is the only organization that ships food, water, and air to their colony, and that making the payments required by the FOS for these shipments requires constant, back-breaking labor. Those who refuse to work themselves to exhaustion are often killed by the other members of the colony to eliminate the dead weight. They are, in essence, slaves.

The Foundation for Outer Settlement is also a leader in human biological modification research: they can easily find volunteers for inhumane and dangerous procedures by offering the volunteers transport to colonies with less horrific conditions. Additionally, since the FOS is the only organization that the colonies can contact, it is extremely easy for the FOS to cover up any incident within the colony that leaves the outside of the colony unmarred. It is widely suspected, but never truly proven, that this has something to do with the FOS's wildly successful biological weapons research division.

Patrician Inestment Conglomerate

The Patrician Investment Conglomerate is, at its heart, a cartel of outstandingly wealthy investors who decided they needed a foothold in space. In addition to a moon-based palace-town that serves as a headquarters, the patricians have several colonies, massive freight ships, and small military organizations at their disposal. Each of these is fantastically well-equipped, and even more fantastically profitable. Patrician mining colonies inevitably end up mining the rarest minerals, patrician freighters inevitably haul the most valuable cargoes, and patrician militaries inevitably fight the most profitable wars.

The patricians accomplish this partly through good business sense, more through an expensive ring of corporate spies amongst all their competitors, and even more importantly through the use of artificial intelligence. The patricians are one of the most AI-tolerant organizations in the solar system, to the point that several patrician-owned companies have AI CEOs. Artificial intelligences are often considered to be too focused on the goals they are given to be trusted by a group who's goals involve subtlety and human factors, but the Patricians are openly motivated purely by their own profit.

Although those assets owned directly by the Patrician Investment Organization are the best-equipped in the solar system, they are few in number. The bulk of the patricians' clout comes in the form of shares of other corporations and outstanding loans to corporations and governments.

Helion Peace Keeping Corporation

(Part redacted by SquashMonster lost :( )

The Helion Corporation is financed by the SEA in order to maintain peace and order, but also to enforce the regulations created by the SEA. They are forbidden to own any colony, meaning their forces is bound to their space frighters, circling space around the "sensitive areas". They also fight a guerilla war against what they consider "outlaws", trying to force everyone under the rule of the SEA. Most Helion operative don't realize who they're fighting for, and think they are a legitimate police force, some even believe to lead a cruisade.

Free Space Federations

(HOW COMES I CAN LOSE SO MUCH MATERIAL DAMNIT !)

Marginal Corporations and Organisations

Banghuela's Corsairs

After the opening of the space as a ground of conquest, some Earth governments chose to send undiscriminately their prisoners, and particulary the "political" kind to pentitentiary colonies on Ceres, which has been fortified to prevent any assault aimed at freeing its particular residents. Problem was that the prisonners rebelled and took over the base, offering them a shelter the HPKC could not uproot. They count toward the most virulent members of the Space Liberation Front.

Crunch

beginning the game

There are two kinds of maps in Unlimit3d 8 : the meta-map and the territorial maps. The Meta-Map is a map where all the territories are noted. A Territorial Map is a map where the buildings of each territory is noted. At the beginning of a campaign, 1000 Stelar Credits (SC) and one territory of the meta-map is awarded to each player. It comes with a Station, Command center, Power plant, Radar, Landing pad and Living quarters. Once the players have noted on their territory map the place of each building, they can begin their first turn.