Welcome, Children of the Scrap, to Pinea, the glorious junkyard that we all live upon. Pinea has been used as a dumping ground for spaceships for nearly 5 galactic empires and only the most recent one has been human. Its already ruined atmosphere and ecosystem makes dumping ships and other metals and dangerous materials regretless and brings countless scavengers to its crust.



When first rising out from their core system, humans were in search of both new technologies and materials to improve their weak ships. Pinea, being within a few short jumps of the humans’ home system, became the source of materials and technologies that humanity needed. The vast number of alien ships and systems for reverse engineering and the countless scrap-able hulls turned this planet into a huge corporate interest. However, as with all corporate interests, Pinea was doomed to fail.

Greed. Greed was the final failing that brought Pinea to the state that it is today. The corporations that once threw volleys of humans at the planet and funded countless bubble cities eventually decided that humans were too costly. With the advancement brought by Pinea robots became common technologies. Early on they were easy to control with simple verbal commands and were limited in exactly what they could do, but they allowed one person to have ten people’s worth of work done in the same amount of time.



At first it was a gentle incline as smarter ‘Thinkers’ were created to allow one human to do more people’s worth of work. Eventually the first fully autonomous robotic scavenger was released onto Pinea. With the same limitations as the humans when it came to tools, these early Thinkers were still obedient and controllable. It was not a luxury that would last forever.

What pushed everything over the edge was when the first ‘Commander’ was built. Eventually the corporations began to disagree, and with that came the technologies of war and the horrors they bring. The defining tool of war was the Active Construction Technologies System (or ACTS) which was a system for deploying self-reproducing nanites that could change the very atomic structure of the materials they gathered as well as be launched like a spray and build preloaded plans.

ACTS allowed both Commanders and Thinkers to set up far more advanced construction in the Scrap Fields of Pinea. Military bases, distribution centers, and scavenger bases began popping up all over the surface. The Commanders and Thinkers then began to adapt ACTS into factories that built modifications on the service drones that humans had already had for nearly two centuries. ACTS also allowed simple matter mines to take the place of more advanced materials gathering.



One day, the day no one was prepared for it, several of the Commanders went rouge. The first sign was when the Gehanna Corporation Scrap Retrieval Headquarters was destroyed by artillery fire. That was when the humans realized the had gone too far. Early on, most of the peaceful scavenger Thinkers aided in the human’s defense, eventually giving them a slight technological advantage.

As time went on, the scavenger Thinkers were hunted down by the Commanders. While the Thinkers were able to produce a greater volume of materials quicker, the Commanders’ ability to produce better military units quickly overwhelmed a majority of the Thinkers. Even as this happened, neutral groups of Thinkers and Commanders chose to not involve themselves with a side in the conflict.

This neutrality proved to be their undoing. Without any form of unity, all these neutral machines were easy pickings when the humans influence started to diminish. The untapped resources the neutrals guarded were often the target of Commander attacks or human trade attempts. Many times, this would result with them being destroyed by the overzealous Commanders.



The War has been going on for 5 years now. Most of the once great human bubble cities have become either Commander fortresses or ruins scrapped for all usable materials. Only three known cities remain: Shiny York, Waylin, and Pyk.

Shiny York was one of the first military bases set up by the corporations. The outside of it is covered in defenses from laser and railgun turrets to anti-ship weapons to their crown jewel, a non-physical barrier system. The only one to have successfully worked, this system has helped keep the city from damage in countless battles and serves to make Shiny York a constant target of power-hungry Commanders. It is in near perfect condition within the city and has the most advanced human military.

Waylin was built at a cross-roads for no other purpose than to act as a storage facility. Now, however, the massive warehouses remain empty and act as extra living spaces and growing facilities. This gives Waylin the advantage of food and medicine when trading with both the other colonies and what organic scavengers have made their ways in the scrap fields. This city is fiercely defended by a mixture of fast moving laser cannons that destroy anything hostile and units from both the other cities they supply with food.

Pyk was the newest city when the War began. It was nothing more than a small scouting outpost, but its small size soon became its advantage. The Commanders paid little attention to Pyk during the majority of their fighting. As time went on, however, Pyk has expended down. With only guards and an entrance on the surface, Pyk is secured by layer after layer of destroyed ship that they have expanded into to try and survive.

While these cities each have their own reason for surviving, humans have survived because of some more universal reasons. The humans in general have better technology, allowing their foot soldiers to pose a credible threat to the machines and their defenses are able to fend off wave after wave of the enemy.While the machines adapt to new problems with old solutions, the humans have a way of introducing new ways of thinking to deal with these problems which lead to countless advances which have proved critical to making it this far. They also have the arrogance of the machines on their side, as of late. There is rumor that the Commanders have begun to wage war among themselves and that is why the attacks have slowed.

Even though the humans have the technological advantage, both the humans and Commanders are always looking to get their hands on whatever new science and technology lies hidden within the Scrap Fields.

Timeline:

• 2016 - The current year
• 2025 - The first successful colony on another planet
• 2032 - The first "starships" exit their orbital "docks"
• 2036 - The first commercial starships are open for purchase
• 2044 - Starships have become the standard for moving about from station to station and planet to planet
• 2048 - The first successful FTL drive is completed, nicknamed "Project Explorer"
• 2053 - The "Star Seeker" program begins
• 2057 - Pinea is discovered by Star Seeker V
• 2060 - Corporation funded colony "Unum" is founded on Pinea
• 2068 - The "Drone" program begins to create robots that would handle scavenging dangerous areas
• 2077 - The first Drone is revealed
• 2080 - The "Thinker" project begins
• 2083 - The first Thinker begins hauling in scrap
• 2085 - ACTS I is released for commercial use
• 2088 - The "Commander" program begins
• 2090 - The first Commander proves they are a success by leading an assault on a new comer's colony
• 2094 - Several Commanders and Thinkers begin creating more of themselves
• 2095 - Gehanna Corporation Scrap Retrieval Headquarters is destroyed by an unordered artillery strike
• 2100 - The current year

Masters of war, these machines stand between 8 and 12 feet in height with integrated ACTS units. They have weapons that often rely on power rather than depleting their limited supply of mass and they specialize in creating military units. Nothing created by a Commander is defenseless, and because of this is more expensive and complex. They are very aggressive by nature and are used to being in complete control because of their drones. Science to them is practical and rarely do they research anything without cause.

Commanders are difficult to kill and normally arrow-like in shape to help with deflecting attacks. They typically have two light weapons and a heavy weapon as well as enough armor to bust into a military installation with only a handful of units. Commanders like to attack in waves.



Masters of turning the Scrap Fields into usable facilities, these machines stand between 7 and 10 feet tall with optimized ACTS units. Their weapons almost always draw from the massive mass reserves that are standard. Most structures and units created by Thinkers are cheap, easy to mass produce, and serving a specific purpose. However, anything that involves gathering, transporting, and using mass are well beyond the capacity of what Commanders’ units could do. Overall Thinkers are calm, cool, and collected with a focus on gathering mass and using it as efficiently as possible. Science to Thinkers is the Holy Grail, and any discovery warrants research into what it could possibly do.

Thinkers are typically rounded in shape to help their hulls handle the force applied by collapsed scrap. They typically have only one medium sized weapon that gives them a balance between fighting everything and just enough armor to allow them to retreat behind walls of units. Thinkers like to keep attacks constant and prefer to weaken an enemy’s supply line then whittle them down.