Setting is system-scale scifi
like the Expanse, taking place in a nebulous alien star system first colonized
by humans a century ago. The stagnant Thessalian Star Federation led by
President Pelias loses battle after battle against the ascendent Colchis Empire
led by the mysterious Aeëtes, who has recently acquired the Golden Codex, an
ancient alien artifact.
Plot
Jason is a blackwater-esque
military contractor descended from a general wrongfully killed by president Pelias,
who now offers him the job of his life to infiltrate Colchis space and Heist
the Codex. Jason gathers the system’s most notorious mercenaries and they set
out on the space corvette Argo.
A
fortuitous solar flare steers Jason’s team onto barren planet which used to
host a long-gone alien civilization. Taking refuge from the solar winds, the
Argonauts discover arcane alien ruins and suspect their civilization was never
destroyed, but simply became obsolete after they shed their physical forms.
Before they could study further an ancient security system is triggered,
awakening a titanic alien mech to smite the humans. After a running battle, the
mech’s weak spot is discovered and the ancient behemoth is deactivated.
Some
time after leaving the alien ruins, Jason’s team come across a Colchis space
prison holding the explorer Phineus, who stole an alien anti-gravity artifact
and is guarded by winged cyborg mutants. They defeat the creatures and acquire
the artifact from Phineus. They also free Medea, a Colchian renegade. The
anti-gravity artifact is later used to clear an asteroid field.
With
the help of Medea, the team goes undercover on planet Colchis and discover that
the Golden Codex is located on Emperor Aeetes’ new palace-battleship. Jason and
the Argonauts confront Aeetes, who reveals that he is going to use the codex to
fuse himself with the ship so he can be an immortal battleship space god that
can go around the galaxy blowing everything up. The Argonauts stop him I guess and
Jason decides to destroy the codex to stop it from falling in dangerous hands.
Or he uses its power to found a new space colony.
Jason is a capable soldier but a better people person able
to rein in the egos on the Argonauts. A morally straightforward leader whose worldview
centers around family, friends and going on space adventures, the quest for the
fleece sees his psyche wavering between obligations to Pelias, the seduction of
Medea and Aeetes’ promises of transcendence.
Medea is a renegade Colchian psychic and daughter to Aeetes.
Subject to torturous cybernetic and biological experimentation by Aeetes as a child
in an attempt to establish communion with the Observers, she bears a deep
hatred for everything Aeetes stands for.
Aeetes is the enigmatic super-human emperor of Colchis who secures
legitimacy by instilling an absolute sense of purpose and belief in his biologically
altered subjects. Having recently obtained the Golden codex, he promises his
people transcendence to a higher plane using its powers. In reality he plans on
using it only for himself.
The observers are alien ‘lifeforms’ based on self-aware, memetically
proliferating quarks. Through quantum mechanics hijinks, in which observation
can have a direct impact on the observed matter, so too do the Observers affect
the ‘mortal’ species through observing them. The Observers’ purpose is for the
universe to examine itself, and as a whole basically get off on watching life do its thing. Occasionally they will uplift sapient
mortals to join them in a higher plane of existence using the genetic
engineering capabilities of the Golden codex.
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