From Beyond [ EDIT ]

Setting: Farley's World is the definition of off-the-grid; located way out in JADES=GS z13-0, in a galaxy which might actually be one of the oldest things in the universe. Farley himself, who was some kind of tech guru and apparently one of those ultra-rich but ultra-introverted types, bought the thing a few generations ago on the cheap so he could feel truly alone. Super cheap, actually, because its big (for a litte K-class, anyways) orange sun probably only has a few billion years left in it and the cost of opening a wormhole gate to it from the galactic core and through fields of deadly radioactive quasars is astronomical.

Farley died over a century ago but the colony kind of stuck around, maybe because most folks born there can't nearly afford to leave. It's got a few hundred thousand inhabitants, mainly kept alive by the fact that the farming is good, there's a few minerals you can mine that are only theoretical back on Earth, and there's always some scientific conglomerate funding research to stare out into the void and see what stares back.

Except, it seems like something may have been for a while, and we never saw it ourselves.

The Immediate Issue: Approximately two weeks ago, scientists began detecting strange bursts of frequencies on various radio antennas across the planet, but they assumed the source to be something from Farley behaving erratically, either a malfunctioning satelitte or merely an echo caused by some type of atmospheric phenomenon, as multiple teams confirmed the signals were originating from planetary orbit.

No instrument they pointed in that direction seemed to find anything there in any spectrum except, eventually our old reliable, visible light. Telescopes and cameras caught a few small, fuzzy shapes that they seemed to have trouble rendering, backlit by small bursts of exhaust. As the Orbital Guard scrambled to get more craft into the air, the scientists pointed more telescopes in that direction and someone (with the aid of bad aim) spotted something in the background.

Much farther out in the distance, in space that other instruments said was empty, loomed another silent shadow, without other readings it was hard to gage its distance, but it was growing larger by the day.

At the same time, someone managed to isolate a burst of garbled radio from the orbital transmissions that seemed to be repeating more or less consistently. Sounded like lots of clicks and hisses, something like: "Heh-pah... Sisti... heh-pah." If it was an attempt at a human language it seemed distorted or mostly unintelligible, though it gave a bunch of internet experts on linguists and shortwave enthusiasts plenty of fuel to argue about its meaning.

Farley's Prime Minister acted swiftly to appoint a special panel of military and scientific experts to advise on the next steps, and a response team was rapidly assembled. Based on your expertise, your number came up.

First contact with the first sentient alien lifeforms ever encountered? It's going to be yours, whether you like it or not.

The universe as we know it: While this story is set a couple hundred years in our future after mankind has spread throughout galaxies, I'd like to try and run it (despite my relative ignorance) as a bit harder sci-fi. Meaning not so much that I'll get the science right (I'm sure I won't remotely, but since it'll be a collaborative Fate game, interested parties can correct me as we go), but that human technology will lean more toward modern day limitations and less toward 'magic'. For the most part physics operates as we know it now (and things in space are astoundingly far apart, etc.) with the notable exception of humanity being able to open temporary interstellar gates to get around the light speed issue.

The key limiting factor being that these gates require immense amounts of energy and a corresponding investment of time and resources/capital and are therefore vastly expensive. This means that effectively, there are no 'warp drive' ships hopping between the stars. Gate technology is limited to the highest ranks of government/military/elite, and even among them travel between systems is generally something that happens a few times a year rather than 'once per episode', etc.

As a result, the sphere of humanity has expanded beyond Earth to hundreds of different planets and space habitats, but slowly due to the cost of exploration and other technological limitations. Generally, new colonies form only as factors such as overpopulation/destruction of an existing world or unresolvable conflict made it necessary. Due to the cost and limited access to the required technology, the government of new worlds usually arises from the will of the shareholders who organized them; be they corporate, patriotic, or religious groups; or merely the idle rich. Thus, the sphere of humanity has no universal governance. Still, most rely on some supplies from Earth and the Galactic core and the difficulty of transporting large forces generally keeps the peace (as it is generally easier to form a new colony than conquer an existing one unless the latter is visibly failing (though conspiracy theorists claim some have been at times infiltrated and overthrown from within).

This game is explicitly friendly to LGBT and any other minorities or marginalized groups; and players should be free to call out upfront to the group any topics/themes to be avoided as uncomfortable. At darkest, I'd expect this game to have an 'R-rated action movie' level of content with no gratuitous sex or violence.

(Images courtesy of my awkward modification of https://mapoftheuniverse.net/ and NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), L. Hustak (STScI). Science: B. Robertson (UCSC), S. Tacchella (Cambridge), E. Curtis-Lake (Hertfordshire), S. Carniani (Scuola Normale Superiore), and the JADES Collaboration - https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.04480, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=126503040)