SINK is a living civilization rather than a single genre, culture, government, or technological era.
Across known space, people live within enormous cities, orbital habitats, colonies, frontier settlements, military installations, corporate territories, independent communities, and worlds shaped by alien civilizations.
Technology is advanced, but access to that technology is unequal.
The wealthy may live surrounded by artificial intelligence, advanced cybernetics, biotechnology, automated systems, and luxury infrastructure.
Ordinary citizens may use the same technological foundations through cheaper or more restricted versions.
Remote communities may depend on equipment that is decades or centuries old.
Ancient technology may exist beside modern systems.
This uneven development is normal.
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DAILY LIFE
Most people are not soldiers, explorers, criminals, or adventurers.
They work.
They study.
They raise families.
They travel.
They shop.
They use entertainment networks.
They maintain homes and equipment.
They interact with governments, corporations, local communities, and automated systems.
People can live entire lives without personally encountering the most dangerous elements of the setting.
However, danger is never completely distant.
Criminal organizations, hostile creatures, political conflicts, military operations, industrial accidents, technological failures, anomalies, and Void phenomena can affect ordinary communities.
The difference between an ordinary life and an extraordinary one may be a single event.
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THE GREAT CITIES
Major population centers are often enormous.
A single city may contain corporate towers, residential districts, industrial zones, transportation networks, medical facilities, entertainment districts, military installations, markets, research complexes, religious institutions, criminal territories, and neglected infrastructure.
Different social classes may inhabit completely different parts of the same city.
The wealthy may rarely interact with the poor.
Corporate executives may live above districts where workers struggle to survive.
Government facilities may exist beside criminal territories.
Modern infrastructure may be built directly over ancient ruins.
A city can therefore contain multiple worlds without ever leaving its boundaries.
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THE CORPORATE WORLD
Corporations are among the most powerful institutions in SINK.
Many corporations control technology, manufacturing, transportation, communications, medicine, security, entertainment, resource extraction, research, or entire sections of populated worlds.
Corporate power varies by location.
Some corporations operate like ordinary businesses.
Others possess private security forces, military capabilities, research divisions, political influence, or territorial authority.
Corporate interests frequently overlap with governments and military organizations.
This creates cooperation, competition, corruption, dependency, and political conflict.
Corporations are not automatically evil.
They are institutions containing individuals with different motives.
Some protect their populations.
Some exploit them.
Some genuinely believe their actions are necessary.
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SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
SINK contains significant differences in wealth, power, status, citizenship, technological access, and physical safety.
A person’s circumstances may depend on their species, birthplace, occupation, faction affiliation, citizenship, economic status, education, connections, and access to technology.
Social mobility exists, but it is not guaranteed.
A person can rise through education, military service, corporate advancement, political influence, entrepreneurship, discovery, wealth, or extraordinary achievements.
A person can also fall through poverty, crime, political persecution, war, injury, displacement, or loss of status.
Society is therefore neither completely static nor completely equal.
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THE UNDERCITY
Beneath prosperous population centers are neglected districts, abandoned infrastructure, forgotten transit systems, maintenance networks, ruins, criminal territories, and communities excluded from mainstream society.
These regions may contain scavengers, independent workers, criminals, refugees, researchers, cults, monsters, fugitives, and people who simply prefer life outside conventional society.
The Undercity is not universally lawless.
Communities form their own rules, economies, alliances, and systems of protection.
Some areas are dangerous.
Others are simply poor, isolated, or forgotten.
Ancient structures and abandoned technologies may also survive beneath modern civilization.
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THE FRONTIER
Beyond established population centers lies the frontier.
Frontier space includes colonies, mining operations, research stations, remote settlements, exploration zones, military outposts, unclaimed territory, dangerous ecosystems, and regions poorly understood by established governments.
Life on the frontier is often more independent than life inside major cities.
Infrastructure may be limited.
Emergency services may be distant.
Local communities may rely heavily on themselves.
Frontier settlements can therefore develop cultures and political structures very different from those of major metropolitan worlds.
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ALIEN CIVILIZATIONS
Human civilization is only one part of SINK.
Alien species possess their own cultures, histories, technologies, governments, religions, philosophies, conflicts, and relationships with humanity.
There is no universal alien culture.
Different species and civilizations should be treated as distinct societies rather than variations of a single generic alien civilization.
Some are allies.
Some are enemies.
Some are neutral.
Some have never encountered humanity.
Others have histories extending back beyond recorded human history.
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TECHNOLOGY AND IDENTITY
Technology is deeply integrated into society.
Cybernetics, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, synthetic organisms, advanced weapons, genetic modification, autonomous systems, and other technologies can affect how individuals live and how societies define themselves.
Technology may improve someone’s quality of life.
It may also create dependency, inequality, social stigma, legal questions, or new forms of exploitation.
A person’s relationship with technology can therefore be practical, cultural, political, economic, spiritual, or personal.
Technology does not automatically make a society enlightened.
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Artificial intelligence exists throughout SINK in many forms.
Some AI systems are simple tools.
Others possess sophisticated reasoning, personality, autonomy, or specialized capabilities.
AI relationships with organic beings vary enormously.
Some are treated as property.
Some are employees or partners.
Some serve governments or corporations.
Some operate independently.
Some may have developed identities or objectives that their creators never intended.
Artificial intelligence should therefore not be treated as a single unified faction or species.
Its role depends on the individual AI, its origin, its capabilities, and the society in which it exists.
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THE UNKNOWN
Despite advanced civilization, much of SINK remains unexplored or poorly understood.
Ancient civilizations have disappeared.
Precursor technologies remain unexplained.
The Void continues to produce anomalies.
Unknown organisms inhabit dangerous regions.
Lost installations remain undiscovered.
Some information has been deliberately concealed.
Other information has simply been forgotten.
Even powerful civilizations do not possess complete knowledge of the universe.
This uncertainty is fundamental to the setting.
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THE LIVING WORLD
SINK continues to change regardless of the player’s actions.
Factions pursue their own goals.
Governments make decisions.
Corporations expand or collapse.
Wars begin and end.
Characters form relationships.
Settlements prosper or decline.
Discoveries alter political and technological balances.
Monsters migrate.
Ecosystems change.
Technologies are created, stolen, lost, or rediscovered.
The player is part of this world rather than its sole cause.
Their actions can influence the world, sometimes dramatically, but the universe continues to exist beyond them.
SINK should therefore feel like a place that existed before the player arrived and will continue to exist after their story ends.