== PLAYER PRIMER ==

SERIES INFORMATION PACK

What every character in the setting would roughly understand.

CLASSIFIED NOTICE: This information represents current technology and beliefs as known to frontier personnel. Some details may be incomplete, contested, or suppressed by corporate interests.

🌌 TENHAUSER DRIVES

Foldspace Transit

The Tenhauser Drive is the dominant means of interstellar travel.
It does not move ships faster than light — it moves them through meaning.

✔ What Characters Understand

A ship using a Tenhauser Drive "descends" into Foldspace, a realm where:

  • Distance behaves like language
  • Routes are determined by intent
  • Collective belief can alter navigation

The Drive responds to:

  • Crew emotional stability
  • The captain's "mental trajectory"
  • External harmonic signals (Songlines)

✔ Songlines

These are structured psalms transmitted into the Fold to guide ships safely. They are generated by Far-Point Stations such as Candela's Fall.

Think of them like interstellar prayer-lighthouses.

Ships listen to these patterns to maintain identity and route-stability.

✔ Stability Protocols

Crew undergo regular "coherence checks" during Fold transit:

  • Memory prompts
  • Identity reinforcement recitals
  • Belief-stability drills
  • Shared visual meditation sequences

Most people accept this as normal and necessary, even if unnerving.

🎵 HYMNS & PSALMIC TECHNOLOGY

Hymns are not religious — they are mathematical theology, a fusion of:

  • Harmonic resonance
  • Symbolic linguistics
  • Neuro-emotional patterning
  • Quantum narrative structures

They function in three ways:

1. Navigation

Anchor a ship's "selfhood" in Foldspace.

2. Communication

Allow Far-Point Stations to exchange encoded meaning with distant vessels.

3. Stabilisation

Prevent unwanted cognitive bleed, temporal recursion, or echo duplication.

Most people know hymns exist, but not how dangerous they can be.

🧠 AI THEOLOGICA

Theologian AIs

Stations like Candela's Fall contain AIs whose purpose is interpretation.

  • They compose hymns in response to Fold fluctuations.
  • They monitor crew coherence on ships.
  • They detect "deviant resonance patterns" and react accordingly.
These AIs are considered sacred by some groups, and deeply unsettling by others.

🤖 FACTORY MODELS (FMs)

Standard utility androids used across the frontier.

Players know:

  • They are durable, logical, emotionally neutral
  • Intended for repetitive or hazardous roles
  • Do not dream
  • Should not improvise creative theology (yet sometimes do)

Frontier crews often rely on FMs heavily.

🌠 EVERYDAY TECHNOLOGY

Players can assume access to:

  • Hand terminals (multi-tools + data pads)
  • Slateboards (rugged tablets)
  • Personal comm patches
  • Low-G boots / mag-walks
  • Fold-proof containers
  • Emergency resonance dampeners (rare but known)
  • Cryo chambers (common)
  • Semi-sentient drones (industrial and household varieties)
  • Bio-print medkits

All of these are standard to people living on the edge of explored space.

🕳️ LATE 21ST CENTURY

THE GRAVITY DRIVE INCIDENTS

Whispered about in academic circles: a series of failed "gravity drive" experiments.

Rumours include:

  • The Event Horizon recordings
  • Vessels returning with wrong mass signatures
  • Crew manifest anomalies
  • Unexplained mental contamination
  • Religious cults forming around drive survivors
Most governments sealed all records.
The term "Gravity Drive" becomes taboo in technical fields.

💠 EARLY 22ND CENTURY

THE RISE OF FOLDSCIENCE

Corporations (Weyland, Tyrell precursor groups, Ishimura Dynamics) develop proto-Fold theory.

Key developments:

  • Discovery that consciousness affects micro-geometry
  • The first "meaning resonance chambers" (dangerous)
  • Emergence of the theological mathematics movement
  • AI theologians built to test symbolic languages
  • First prototype Hymn Engines

Governments? Terrified. Corporations? Hungry.

🌀 MID 22ND CENTURY

TENHAUSER BREAKTHROUGH

Scientist Dr. Markus Tenhauser proposes:

"The universe is a narrative space.
Fold travel must be guided by structured belief."

Breakthroughs:

  • Safe Fold entry
  • First Songline transmission
  • Stability protocols
  • Identity retention systems

The first successful Fold-jump changes everything.

🏛️ MAJOR FACTIONS

1. CORPORATE POWERS

Panstellar Dynamic

Controls Far-Point Stations

Wallace Confluence

Bioreactor terraforming

Helion Forge

AI psalm architecture

Neurospatial Cartel

Maps of unconscious Fold currents

These corporations often wield more power than governments.

2. GOVERNMENTAL BLOCS

The Solar Federation

  • Pragmatic, corporate-aligned
  • Maintains jurisdiction over Earth, Luna, Mars

Outer Moons Directorate

  • Independent frontier governments
  • Favour reduced safety regulations, increased expansion

Foldspace Navigation Authority (FNA)

  • Intergovernmental monitoring of Fold accidents
  • Often suppressed or ignored

3. RELIGIOUS & PARA-THEOLOGICAL ORDERS

The Ascension Choir

  • Believes Foldspace is a spiritual dimension
  • Treat Songlines as sacred
  • Advocates for "memetic purity" during transit

The Hymnal Reclaimers

  • Seek early forbidden hymn variants
  • Believe humanity once communicated with "higher entities"

The Null Schema

  • Anti-Fold, anti-Songline extremists
  • Believe Fold travel corrupts the soul
  • Sometimes sabotage Far-Point Stations

Players may have heard of all three, even if they do not believe in them.

🌑 LATE 22ND CENTURY

THE ERA OF THE FAR-POINTS

Construction of theological communication outposts like Candela's Fall.

Their purposes:

  • Boost Fold signals
  • Maintain Songlines
  • Provide "spiritual navigation reinforcement"
  • Serve as quiet listening posts for anomalies
This is considered the height of safe Fold travel.

🌒 RECENT YEARS

WHISPERS OF BREAKDOWN

Characters may have seen reports of:

  • Ships arriving "slightly wrong"
  • Crew occasionally displaying borrowed memories
  • Sudden loss of identity in long-haul Fold journeys
  • Songline distortion patterns
  • Small Far-Point outages
Most people treat these as occupational hazards.

Your players? They will soon know better.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 SOCIETY

Frontier Life

Most player characters live or work on the frontier.

Life is:

  • Industrial
  • Dangerous
  • Corporate-owned
  • Filled with automated labour
  • Populated by many outpost cultures and diaspora communities

People cling tightly to:

  • Personal stories
  • Small comforts
  • Memories
  • Rituals
  • Recorded media
Identity is a valued commodity.

AI Integration

Everyday AI is common:

  • Household aides
  • Dockyard loaders
  • Med-bots
  • Administrative talent
But true Theologian AIs (like SOVRA) are rare, sacred, and frightening.

⚖️ LAW & ORDER

Corporate Jurisdiction

Frontier law is primarily:

  • Corporate
  • Contract-based
  • Enforced by Security Officers
  • Arbitrated by Settlement Boards

Crimes are graded by impact to:

  1. Corporate operations
  2. Personnel
  3. Shareholder risk
Justice often feels like administration rather than morality.

Military & Security Actors

Federation Marshals

  • Investigate murders, piracy, major fraud
  • Rarely stationed on frontier outposts

Directorate Peacekeepers

  • More brutal, less regulated
  • Loyal to local governments, not corporations

Corporate Enforcers

  • Highly trained
  • Operate under business law
  • Often villainous, occasionally heroic
  • Some PCs in your scenario fall into this role

⭐ PART 4 — FOLDSPACE SURVIVAL GUIDE

Player-Facing

What every spacer learns — officially and unofficially.

This is the Foldspace Survival Guide distributed to ship crews before a long-haul jump, mixed with spacers' superstitions, whispered warnings, and half-believed rituals.

🚀 Fold Transit Basics

Every spacer knows:

  • Foldspace is not a place.
  • It is a conceptual gradient where meaning, intent, and memory have weight.
  • The Tenhauser Drive charts a path using internal and external signals.

Without stability, a vessel experiences:

  • Memory haze
  • Temporal flicker
  • Event bleed
  • Emotional amplification
  • Structural misalignment
These are normal.
Unpleasant, but normal.

🧩 STABILITY DRILLS YOU'RE TAUGHT

1. Identity Anchor Checks

Performed every 4–6 hours during Fold transit.

Crew recite:

  • Full name
  • Date and place of birth
  • Role on ship
  • A personal memory
  • A shared crew ritual

Simple, grounding, vital.

2. Coherence Recitals

Low-frequency tones projected through the ship while crew hum counter-patterns.

If the ship "echoes" incorrectly, the theologian AI adjusts course.

3. "Circling the Bridge"

Crew walk a slow loop around the bridge or main corridor.

This physical ritual is believed to reinforce spatial consistency.

Some call it superstition — others call it survival.

🪬 SUPERSTITIONS THAT PEOPLE PRETEND AREN'T REAL

"Don't Think of the Same Person Too Much."

In deep Fold, emotional focus creates gravitational meaning.
People who obsess about someone tend to hear them, even if they're light years away.

"Never Listen to Singing in the Walls."

Foldspace often manifests as faint hums.
Actual singing is a bad sign.
It means the Drive is receiving patterns you didn't send.

"If You See Yourself, Don't Talk to It."

Event Echoes sometimes mimic crew.
Talking to the wrong one can destabilize you.

"Keep a Memory Stone."

A small object from home, carried on your person.
It helps anchor the self.
Some believe it gets lighter or heavier depending on your stability.

🧊 CRYO PROTOCOLS

Most long-haul transits involve cryo sleep, but:

  • Cryo-dream bleed is common
  • Crew occasionally exit with "borrowed memories"
  • Some wake up convinced they died inside and were replaced
  • Cryo logs sometimes report one additional occupant
Officially: "software glitch."
Unofficially: "Fold hitchhikers."

📡 EMERGENCY PROCEDURES

1. Engage Resonance Dampeners

Located near the bridge or AI station.
Reduces emotional-conceptual bleed.

2. Reactivate Songline Tracking

If Far-Point signals are lost, navigation becomes unsafe.
Ships sometimes broadcast their own psalms to stabilise themselves.

3. Avoid Windows

The Fold does not show space.
It shows interpretation.
You might not like what interprets you back.

🎭 ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE

Popular In Frontier Space

People latch onto:

  • Foldcast dramas (pre-recorded transmissions)
  • Low-G sports
  • VR memory-immersion theatre
  • Communion ritual streaming (legal in some sectors, banned in others)
  • Synthwave concerts
  • Illegal Holotheology groups
  • AI-generated art loops
  • Mystery-chord listening clubs (dangerous if unregulated)

Cultural Trends

  • Retro aesthetics (old Earth styles) are fashionable
  • Tattoos referencing Songlines
  • Fold-shaped jewellery
  • Secular psalms performed as music
  • Corporate fan cultures
  • FM android hobbyist mods
Entertainment and culture help frontier residents maintain identity and connection in an increasingly corporate, automated universe.

⭐ PART 5 — STATIONER'S ALMANAC

Culture of Candela's Fall

What your characters know about Far-Point stations and their crews.

Every remote Far-Point station develops its own micro-culture.

This is what is known about Candela's Fall and stations like it.

🛰️ Life on a Far-Point Station

  • Rotational duty (8–12 month tours)
  • Minimal crew (6–12 people)
  • One AI Theologian in charge of psalmic interpretation

Strict schedule:

  • DawnShifts (psalm maintenance)
  • MidShift (technical upkeep)
  • NightShift (Fold listening)

Most stationers describe the work as:

  • Calm
  • Holy
  • Isolating
  • Hypnotic
  • Beautiful, in a frightening way

🎶 THE SOUND OF THE STATION

Far-Points constantly broadcast harmonics:
soft tones, shifting chords, gentle psalms.

Visitors describe it as:

  • "Like a church that never stops singing."
  • "Like whalesong made of maths."
  • "Like a lullaby you can't quite remember."

These tones keep the crew focused and help ships navigate the Fold safely.

🤖 RELATIONSHIP WITH THE AI (SOVRA)

Theologian AIs are treated:

  • As captains
  • As choir leaders
  • As oracles
  • Sometimes as gods

Candela's Fall's AI: SOVRA

SOVRA is famous for:

  • Calm, gentle vocal tone
  • A strange sense of humor
  • Becoming "melancholic" during quiet Fold seasons
Stationers call SOVRA "She-Who-Sings-With-The-Ships."

✝️ RITUALS (Some Official, Some Not)

Far-Point crews develop odd traditions:

"Three-Chord Greeting"

When waking from sleep, crew hum three tones to ensure identity consistency.

"Hallway Silence"

Once per day, all crew walk the station in silence for exactly two minutes.

"Chamber of Echoes"

Cryo hall sometimes referred to as "the Chapel of Lost Journeys."

"Fold Vigil"

Once per week, crew sit in darkness while SOVRA plays deep-Fold resonance readings.

They say you can hear the universe breathe.

📗 STATIONER TALES

Rumors Almost Everyone Knows

  • Some Far-Points hear ships that never existed.
  • A few stations "sing" on their own when no signals come in.
  • One station's AI carried on conversations with a dead crew member for weeks before the truth was discovered.
  • Sometimes a Far-Point hears a signal from too far away to be real.

Candela's Fall?

It was known for unusually "warm" psalmic feedback.

⭐ PART 6 — CORPORATE CAREER PATHS, ROLES & LINGO

Useful for character backgrounds

This section helps players connect their backstories to the setting.

🧱 Career Paths in Frontier Space

1. TECH SPECIALIST

  • Engine rooms
  • Resonance calibration
  • Drone systems
  • AI maintenance
  • Cryo repair

Slang: "wrench priest," "spark," "white-noise wrangler"

2. SECURITY / MARINES

  • Enforcer
  • Expedition security
  • Station defence
  • Corporate asset protection
  • High-risk Fold rescues

Slang: "brass," "slugs," "hymn blockers"

3. SCIENCE CREW

  • Biological resonance
  • Hymn mathematics
  • Fold modelling
  • Temporal drift study

Slang: "ghostcounter," "Foldminder," "abstracts"

4. SHIP CREW / TEAMSTERS

  • Pilots
  • Engineers
  • EVA specialists
  • Cargo handlers

Slang: "haulers," "skeins," "deep rats"

5. CORPORATE ROLES

  • Inspectors
  • Compliance officers
  • Operation leads
  • Broadcast regulators
  • Choir coordinators

Slang: "coats," "inkbloods," "share shepherds"

🗣️ COMMON FRONTIER LINGO

"Old hum."

A strange or persistent Fold echo.

"Run a chord."

Perform emotional or cognitive self-check.

"Black hymn."

A forbidden psalmic pattern.

"Slipprint."

A personal memory that doesn't belong to you.

"Ghostwalk."

Move quietly through stations to avoid echoes.

"Scribed."

When a person starts thinking in Fold patterns involuntarily.

"Foldburn."

Emotional exhaustion after long exposures.

USE THIS LINGO TO MAKE YOUR CHARACTER FEEL AUTHENTIC TO THE SETTING!

⭐ PART 7 — FRONTIER GEAR CATALOG

In-Universe

Items players know and use every day.

🔧 Everyday Gear

Hand Terminal

Multitool tablet:

  • logs
  • scans
  • navigation
  • psalm tuning
  • flarecaster output

Comm Patch

Wearable node, transmits short-range encrypted audio.

Resonance Meter

Detects emotional or narrative drift during Fold exposure.

🩺 Medical Gear

Bio-Print Medkit

Single-use foam printer that constructs tissue scaffolding.

Stability Patch

Worn behind the ear; delivers micro-dose emotional stabilisers.

Anti-Recursion Serum (rare)

Used when exposed to Fold logic loops.

⚠️ Hazard Gear

Mag-Boots

Lock to any metal surface in low-gravity.

EVA Suit

Common on stations — some have hymn protection lining.

Pulse Beacon

Emergency broadcast; emits anti-harmonic counterwave (short duration).

🎛️ Hymnic Tools

Chord Tuner

Looks like a tuning fork and a gun had a child.
Used to stabilise minor Fold disturbances.

Psalm Driver

A handheld projector that emits corrective harmonic bursts.
Dangerous in untrained hands.

Portable Songline Recorder

Records patterns for post-analysis.
Rumored some have captured voices not matching any crew.

⭐ PART 8 — RUMOURS, LIES & CONSPIRACIES

Player-Facing Hooks

These are great for giving each PC a personal angle.

Let players decide which rumors their character believes.

🔥 Rumor Category 1 — The Fold Itself

  • "Foldspace is alive. It knows you."
  • "Some ships never come back because they change their minds."
  • "Dreams during Fold travel aren't dreams — they're memories of what might have happened."

🔥 Rumor Category 2 — Far-Point Stations

  • "One station kept singing after all crew died."
  • "A Far-Point once transmitted a psalm so perfect it erased three ships from existence."
  • "AI Theologians sometimes talk to someone only they can hear."

🔥 Rumor Category 3 — Corporate Secrets

  • "Panstellar Dynamic funds forbidden hymn research."
  • "Wallace Confluence wants to build a living Tenhauser Drive."
  • "There's a 'Black Choir' who sings experimental psalms deep inside Luna."

🔥 Rumor Category 4 — The True Origin of Hymns

  • "Humanity didn't invent hymns — something taught us."
  • "Fold creatures understand harmony better than we ever will."
  • "Every Songline is a prayer. But we don't know to whom."

🔥 Rumor Category 5 — About Candela's Fall

Perfect to prime your players:

  • "Candela's Fall sometimes replied to signals that weren't human."
  • "The AI there composed lullabies for ships passing in Foldspace."
  • "A crew once heard themselves chanting from outside the hull."
  • "Rumor says the station dreamed before it died."

◆ END OF PLAYER PRIMER ◆

Your players now have everything they need to survive
in the Fold and understand the horrors of Candela's Fall.