The Drift

The Drift is a big spiral galaxy. Its catalog name is M74-Δ, but nobody out here calls it that. It is home to the Central Authority, seven species, and more broke crews than anyone can count. Chains of worlds linked by one species' trade routes are called Constellations. The Core is old, rich and full of police. The Mid is factories, farms and shipyards. The Rim is far, poor and lawless. Between them float stations, refineries, scrapyards and wrecks. Ships are old and patched. The coffee is bad. Everyone owes somebody money. Crews take whatever job pays this week, hauling cargo, pulling salvage or chasing a bounty. Out past the beacons, the dark still holds dead stations, old wrecks and signals nobody can read.

Regions and Structure

Core. The oldest, richest and most crowded worlds. The Authority, the big banks and the company towers all sit here. Police patrol the streets and the docks. Every office wants a fee or a form, and a court date can take months. The Core sells medicine, good ship parts and officer training. Bribes still work, but they cost more here.

Mid. The Mid links the Core and the Rim. It is factories, farms, shipyards, schools and cheap theaters. The rules change from port to port. One dock runs by the book. The next one pays a syndicate. A crew can make money here if it knows who to pay and when to keep its head down.

Rim. The Rim is long routes, broken beacons and fast decisions. Syndicates hold many checkpoints and storage yards. Debt courts move fast and side with whoever runs the port. Mining belts, drill sites and harvest seas send ore, fuel, ice and food inward. Smuggling and salvage fill the gaps. Most people live job to job. A lot of arguments end with a gun.

Between. The Between is everything off a planet's surface. That means stations, depots, scrapyards, farms, labs, prisons and mines. Every ship stops here for fuel, water, air or repairs. Nobody is sure whose law applies, but everybody charges a fee. Life is cramped. The Between keeps the galaxy running, and it eats crews that are not ready for it.

Transit Network

Jump Lanes. A Jump Lane is a mapped faster-than-light route between star systems. Keth beacons mark each lane and keep it safe to use. Lanes are faster than open space, but a Rim-to-Core run still takes weeks. When a beacon fails, the lane near it goes bad and ships start to vanish. When one group holds both ends of a lane, it sets the toll. Syndicates sell illegal shortcuts. They save time and get crews killed.

Ports. Core ports mean long lines, customs officers and police. Mid ports are crowded, and half the staff take bribes. Rim ports want cash on arrival for fuel, water, air and a berth. There are no courts there, only the port boss.

Blacklists. Skip enough fees or get caught with fake papers, and your ship lands on a blacklist. Most legal docks will turn you away after that.

Fuel and Water. Fuel is sold in cells. Cheap fuel is dirty and wears out reactors. Water is sold by the ton at the docks. Vellari ice is the good stuff. Cheap water is recycled and tastes of it. Stealing water gets people shot on most stations.

Crew Notes. Buy fresh lane charts. Expect long waits in the Core. Rim routes are cheaper but need bribes or guns. Crews short on cash trade work or spare parts to get out of a dock.

Communication Grid

Messages move faster than ships, but not by much. A message between two Core worlds takes days. A message from the Core to the Rim can take weeks. Crews take a job, fly for a month, and land to find the client dead, broke or in jail. Rim relay stations break down all the time.

Keth crews keep the relays running and sell the Archive of Routes, the best set of lane charts. Data brokers buy old relay logs, clean them up, and sell news on bad lanes, blacklists and new bounties. Crews choose between paying for fresh news or flying on old news.

Signals can be delayed, faked or changed. Syndicates and big companies do it on purpose. When a message has to arrive right, people pay a courier ship to carry it by hand. Slipwind and Brightline are trusted relay worlds, so crews stop there to catch up on the news.

Power Map

Central Authority. The Human-led government of the Core. It issues ID cards and ship papers, runs customs and courts, and runs the Authority police. It says it speaks for every species, but it serves the rich Core worlds. Its patrols are thin, so it pays freelancers through bounties. Many officers take bribes. On the Rim it is a joke until a warship shows up.

Planetary Governments. Every world runs itself with local taxes, rationing and security. Some have elected councils. Some are run by a company. Some are run by a warlord. They resent the Authority but need Core parts and markets, so they bend and bargain.

Mega-Corporations. The richest power. They own depots and power grids, lease mines and towers, and blacklist troublemakers. They lean on the Authority for legal cover and lose ground to syndicates on the Rim. Their workers strike when pushed too far.

Syndicates. Crime groups that run loans, gambling, drugs, protection and smuggling. Some are old family outfits with rules. Some are just gangs. They own many Rim settlements and a lot of bars in the Core.

Free Companies. Hired crews that sell escort, recovery and bounty work. Their name is their weapon, and their loyalty follows the pay. Most are one old ship and a handful of drifters.

Faith Networks and Mutual Aid. Temples, clinics, shelters, schools and burial crews that work where there is no profit. They move food and news between worlds. Sometimes they stand up to a company or a syndicate, and they pay for it.

Data Guilds. Data brokers who buy and sell records, lane news and names. For a fee, they can make a name disappear. Everybody wants to bribe them.

Money, Work and Debt

The best-paying cargo is medicine, gene treatments, computer parts, live animals and rare art. It also draws pirates and crooked customs officers.

Each species makes something the rest of the galaxy needs. Vellari tugs haul the ice that becomes most of the fresh water in the Drift. The Keth sell the lane charts. The Talarq build the reactors, and a part with the Forge mark will not blow up on you. Banks hire Synthborn to hold payments because they are hard to bribe. Knockoffs of all of these are sold on the Rim, and fake Forge parts do blow up.

Money comes as Central Credits from Core banks, company scrip, or cash from Rim money changers. Everyone owes somebody. Loan sharks lend fast and take ships when payments slip. Bounties are the one kind of pay that does not care who you are. Bring in the target, and the office pays.

Work comes in seasons. Mines boom and bust. Harvests flood the market, then dry up. Storm seasons open and close the Serean runs. Most crews live on small savings, debt and each other.

Jobs and Hazards

Common jobs are bounty hunting, convoy escort, salvage, cargo runs and ice hauling. Bounty hunters track wanted people across ports for Authority cash. Escorts keep freighters alive and talk down toll gangs. Salvagers strip wrecks and try to get out before a rival crew shows up. Ice crews guard Vellari tows from jackers. Every job can go wrong. The cargo is hot, the client lied, or the target has friends.

Every crew plans for fires, hull cracks, fake parts, crooked cops, and hired guns who walk off when the pay is late. The drill is simple. Mask on, close the bulkhead, cut the airflow, spray foam, and vent the room if you must. Test the water at every dock. Some species need special care. Talarq need mineral slurry, Vellari need salt-water baths, and Synthborn need to recharge.

The Timeline Everyone Uses

The galaxy uses the Universal Star Date, or USD. Year 0 is when the Central Authority was founded and started issuing IDs and ship papers. In the first years the Keth published their lane charts, the Vellari started regular ice runs, and Forge-marked Talarq parts became the standard. By USD 0010 the Jump Lanes were mapped and marked with beacons. The species Constellations formed soon after. The current year is USD 0107.