Dedalus Fall Setting (DF)

Timeline of the Dedalus Fall Setting

2071 — First successful Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) mining missions. Initial operations target water and carbonaceous materials.

2080 — Carbon-rich NEAs remain vital for off-Earth industry. The Moon dominates the cislunar economy, but reliance on NEAs continues.

2102 — Establishment of a mature cislunar economy. Lunar industry expands significantly.

2130 — First operational space elevator completed on Waigeo in Indonesia, spearheaded by international cooperation led by Japan. Enables vastly cheaper and more efficient access to cislunar space but soon proves too small and too remote.

2138 — Invention of the first practical long-duration ion drive. Drastically increases potential for slow but efficient interplanetary travel.

2145 — USA completes its own space elevator on Jarvis Island, focusing on military and commercial cargo transport to orbit.

2155 — China and ESA finish space elevators on Hainan and São Tomé and Príncipe respectively, expanding global access to orbit and solidifying their roles in the emerging cislunar economy.

2170 — Chaotic wave of exploration and early colonization across the solar system. Many ventures fail or are absorbed by larger players.

2195 — Second-generation colonies begin. These are launched from space habitats and successful early colonies rather than Earth.

2210 — Launch of the Mars Terraforming Initiative. Massive investment from Earth. Symbolic as much as scientific.

2225 — Mercury Industrial Boom begins. Night-side and twilight-zone settlements extract rare metals. Heavy investment from solar power harvesting firms.

2245 — Solar Alchemy Project officially launched. Ambitious Earth-based attempt to manipulate solar fusion processes and harvest exotic particles and elements from the solar corona using mega-mirrors and orbital infrastructure.

2265 — First large-scale practical fusion reactors come online. These installations require exotic materials, including those produced by the Solar Alchemy Project. Initially limited to major orbital platforms and high-priority installations.

2270 — Climate stabilization efforts on Earth begin to succeed. Massive orbital mirrors and solar shades contribute, in coordination with asteroid carbon capture systems.

2285 — Solar Alchemy Project achieves breakthrough in exotic matter synthesis. These are strategic materials for fusion power and other specialized uses.

2290 — Compact fusion reactors become viable for shipboard use but remain resource-intensive. Rare materials keep production limited to powerful states and megacorps.

2310 — Daedalus Fall: Catastrophic failure of the Solar Alchemy Project. Solar instability increases dramatically. Solar storms wreak havoc from Mercury to the Asteroid Belt. Massive losses in solar orbit infrastructure including the loss of all except the small Japanese space elevator. Earth prestige plummets.

2312–2350 — Widespread fragmentation of political and economic control. Colonies become de facto independent. Earth remains population center but loses coercive power. Apocalyptic cults and radical ideologies emerge.

2315–2330 — Rise of the Earth First movement. Following the Daedalus Fall, anti-space sentiment surges on Earth. The new Earth government calls for a rollback of space colonization and demands that colonies devolve and re-integrate. Most colonies ignore these edicts, accelerating Earth's loss of influence.

2335 — Formation of Earthforce, a militarized enforcement arm of the Earth government, intended to police and control off-world colonies. Cislunar stations and parts of the Moon are occupied. Colonies rapidly militarize in response using local 3D-printed weapons. Skirmishes erupt.

2340 — Fusion reactor designs no longer require rare materials. Decentralized manufacturing using advanced 3D-printing enables proliferation of cottage-industry fusion tech. Fusion-powered ships and habitats become common across the lawless outer system.

"Now" (Setting Present Day, \~2450) — Earth is still the most populated region but now heavily reliant on trade with self-sufficient colonies. Exploration and recovery efforts continue in Mercury ruins and abandoned solar orbit structures. High radiation limits drone use, pushing humans into dangerous salvage and diplomacy roles.

Adventure Seeds

• Abandoned mining base at an NEA. Small, rapidly rotating cylinder with high gravity gradient. Survivors abandoned in evacuation, xenophobic and radiation-scarred.

• Old base on Mercury’s dark side. Searching for data on surviving parts of Solar Alchemy project. Hazards: static electric charges in metals, seismic fissures, over-pressured living quarters holding plasma from Daedalus Fall.

• Using telemetry from previous mission to chase down a part of Solar Alchemy harvesting array and its exotic matter.

• Various space habitats governed by exotic dogma.

• Linear accelerator launching post-human pilots at very high velocities.

Dedalus Fall's Solar System

Mercury

Former mining colony destroyed by the Dedalus Fall.

Mercury hosted an industrial boom starting around 2225, focusing on night-side and twilight-zone settlements mining rare metals. Ruins of the old Solar Alchemy Project — including dangerous plasma containment chambers and wrecked magnetic launch infrastructure — remain as hazardous salvage sites. Ruins of extensive solar power generators are common in the twilight zone and make orbital hazards.

The planet’s most important infrastructure before the Fall was a human-rated magnetic accelerator capable of launching people and cargo directly into solar orbit. This massive installation was destroyed during the Fall, but enough was salvageable to reconstruct a shorter, cargo-only launcher. The rebuilt version can send 5–10 tons per shot into low Mercury orbit every few hours, feeding a “twilight station” depot in a low polar orbit that stays in Mercury’s shadow. This is not enough to be a major export, but specific orders can be fired directly into orbits that can be harvested from orbits near the Sun. Tugs constantly work to keep loads on station and deliver loads to customers in orbit of Mercury. It is well-known that some tugs will occasionally lose a load to a solar storm and sell it without registry or questions.

Sunward zone on Mercury reaches 700 K+ (about 430 °C) with molten metal flows, constant solar wind bombardment, and extreme radiation. Twilight zone is cooler, 250–350 K (–20 to 80 °C), still harsh but more manageable, and hosts most current settlements. Both require extreme engineering to survive thermal stress, radiation, and seismic instability. The molten metals of the sunward side are used for exotic industry and occasionally as natural hazards in adventure sites.

Nearby asteroids and debris orbiting in solar orbits close to Mercury include volatile fragments from the Solar Alchemy disaster, valuable but hazardous for explorers.

Venus

Venus is a world of extremes, locked in a slow, strange dance with the Sun. Its day lasts longer than its year, creating long periods of relentless sunlight followed by equally long darkness. The atmosphere grows denser and hotter closer to the surface, crushing and toxic, dominated by thick clouds of sulfuric acid. This hostile environment shapes every aspect of life and technology, forcing colonies to cling to the high-altitude cloud layer where pressure and temperature become marginally more forgiving, and where survival depends on constant adaptation to a volatile, alien sky.

Venus colonization pre-Daedalus Fall consisted mainly of floating cities high in the atmosphere (50–60 km), where pressure and temperature are Earth-like. These cities hosted advanced biotech research and limited bio-industry, exploiting Venus’ extreme environment as a natural lab.

The dense atmosphere below provides strong shielding from radiation, allowing radio and other electromagnetic signals to travel downwards from cloud cities to the surface and lower layers. This makes Venus one of the few places in the inner system where exploration drones can work. However, ships orbiting above the atmosphere can not reliably use electronic sensors looking down, nor can the cities effectively scan upward into space. This creates a natural electromagnetic “blind spot” between space and the cloud layer.

After Daedalus Fall, many surface and lower atmosphere installations were lost or abandoned. When Earth ordered colonies to devolve after Daedalus Fall, Venus was one of the few places that did move back to Earth as available transport permitted, but some were left behind as there was a lack of ships. Some cloud cities survived, continuing limited research and habitation amid harsh conditions and fragmented infrastructure.

Venus today features only a few surviving high-altitude cloud cities, isolated and fragile amid ongoing solar storms and atmospheric turbulence. Surface and lower atmosphere bases largely failed or were abandoned, with colonists forced back to Earth due to unsustainable conditions.

Adventure locations include drifting, possibly derelict cloud bases—some frozen in place by persistent storm eyes—offering exploration into lost biotech research and remnants of the Solar Alchemy exotic material efforts.

A unique bioengineered membrane layer may exist below the cloud cities, stabilized by a sharp thermal inversion and specialized plants or biotech. This layer could be dense, hot, acidic, and toxic beneath but have an Earth-like atmosphere on top, forming a semi-solid floating platform strong enough to walk on or build upon. It’s an exotic ecosystem and an intriguing frontier for research, survival, and conflict.

Space Habitats

From cislunar space outward, space habitats are the dominant human living spaces. These are rotating cylindrical stations in stable orbits—usually at Lagrange points or in heliocentric drift. Artificial gravity comes from spin: the farther from the central axis, the stronger the gravity. People live on the interior of the rotating tube, often in stacked levels. Spacecraft dock at the zero-G ends.

Habitats are built from the center outward. "Down" means toward the hull. A glowing central light tube provides illumination, supports plant growth, and doubles as a transit tunnel for rapid movement along the station’s length. The outermost interior layer holds parks, farms, and elite estates. Below that are habitation levels, then industry, then the bottom layers: warehouses, water tanks, and radiation shielding. In poor habitats, slums cling to the shell—where gravity is highest, shielding thinnest, and life harshest.

Larger habitats can afford to spin slowly, making Earthlike gravity stable and comfortable. Smaller ones must spin faster, causing steep gravity gradients and disorienting motion—dropped objects curve unpredictably as the habitat rotates beneath them. In large, safe habitats, gliding from the zero-G center is a popular sport.

Here are examples of typical habitats and their living conditions. Small ones are harsh. Large ones support leisure and autonomy. There are exceptions—but this is the usual pattern.

200-meter diameter, 1,200 meters long

3.0 RPM, 2.0 G at hull

750,000 m² living space

Population: ~25,000

Vertigo is constant. Gravity gradients are extreme. Most people are crammed into one level. Lower levels are barely usable. Survival depends on repression or fanaticism. A hellhole.

400-meter diameter, 1,400 meters long

2.2 RPM, 1.5 G at hull

1.8 million m² living space

Population: ~60,000

Still unpleasant. Gravity is tolerable, but vertigo remains common. The smallest model that can sustain a society. Slums likely. Low quality of life.

600-meter diameter, 1,600 meters long

1.8 RPM, 1.3 G at hull

3 million m² living space

Population: ~100,000

Livable. Most residents have a decent life. Gravity is only mildly uncomfortable. Slums exist, but there’s room for stability and choice.

1,000-meter diameter, 2,000 meters long

1.3 RPM, 1.2 G at hull

6 million m² living space

Population: ~200,000

Comfortable and affluent. If slums exist, they are maintained by policy, not necessity. Life is good unless the regime is harsh.

1,600-meter diameter, 2,600 meters long

1.0 RPM, 1.12 G at hull

13 million m² living space

Population: ~400,000

Spacious and stable. Gravity differences are gentle. Inequality is political, not structural. Open cultures thrive here.

2,000-meter diameter, 3,000 meters long

0.85 RPM, 1.1 G at hull

20 million m² living space

Population: ~600,000

Opulent. Large, slow-spinning, and easy to manage. Most inhabitants live in comfort.

Smaller habitats focus on resource extraction. Mid-sized ones support industry. Large ones host researchers, merchants, and middle-class life. All habitats have managers who rule and control resources.

A habitat can always be made shorter with only a proportional loss of size and population, preserving comfort but potentially making it less economically viable. Longer habitats can also be built, with increased risk of structural instability. There’s no hard line between a habitat and a large spaceship. Most are stationary, but some mount ion drives for slow migration or repositioning. These are often short wide habitat rings connected to vast cargo arrays that do not rotate and remain in zero-G.

Many habitats become self-sufficent city-states over time. Their isolation make them perfect for cults—religious, political, or corporate. Whoever controls the air, water, and access to zero-G controls everything. Other habitats embrace openness. Some cluster in chains, sharing transit and infrastructure. These tend to be prosperous, and diverse.

Building Space Habitats

Building a space habitat is relatively easy—just gather materials and 3D-print the structure. The hardest resource to source is carbon, needed for the biotope on the top level. Without enough carbon, soil is shallow or absent, stunting plant growth and removing the environment's natural stress relief. Many spacers would kill for carbon if their habitat is running low.

Space Habitat Terrain

Habitats present terrain unlike either gravity or microgravity. As long as you're standing on the inner surface or floating near the center, things behave predictably. But with spin-induced gravity and confusing flight dynamics, two terrain types are unique to rotating space habitats:

The first is the central zero-gravity region. From here, you can jump to nearly any point on the inner surface—if your aim and braking are good. Get it wrong, and you’ll either drift helplessly or slam into the wrong spot.

The second is the outer hull. Gravity here seems to pull away from the hull, but if you let go, you’re flung along a tangent—not straight out. As you approach the hull, it slides sideways beneath you, making it hard to grab hold. Staying close requires constant acceleration toward the surface.

This is why many Jovian personal vehicles are humanoid in form, equipped with magnetic or grappling feet to stay anchored on the outside of a habitat.

Terra

In modern usage, Terra refers to the region of space near Earth’s orbit, while Earth refers specifically to the planet.

Cislunar Space

Cislunar space is a cluttered, hazardous frontier shaped by decades of expansion, conflict, and the aftermath of Dedalus Fall. The orbital environment around Earth and the Moon is choked with debris and derelict satellites, creating a dangerous “Kepler syndrome” that complicates navigation and transit. Most tiny objects have burned up by now, making previously inaccessible areas merely dangerous—still far from safe. Cylinder habitats and stations cluster around Earth, the Moon, and their Lagrange points, but many have fallen into disrepair or abandonment following the solar catastrophe.

The congested debris fields and damaged infrastructure of cislunar space create unique adventure zones. Smugglers and runners use risky passages through the junk fields to bypass patrols and cut time, but insurance companies aggressively deny claims tied to these routes. Salvage hunting remains profitable but lethal; most easy targets were stripped clean decades ago, leaving only hazardous, heavily contested wrecks. Intelligence on salvageable sites and hidden hazards is highly valuable—espionage, sabotage, and information warfare are staples of cislunar intrigue.

Luna

The Moon is politically and culturally fractured. Control is split between Earth-based powers, independent settlements, and external factions from the Belt and Jovian space. Earthforce maintains tight control on imports and exports, particularly cargoes that could potentially be weaponized to hit Earth — this happened when Earthforce first seized control of cislunar space and they are determined to prevent a repeat.

Moon gravity remains a constant health problem: some cities rely on rotating structures to simulate Earth-like conditions; others use genetic engineering to adapt the human body. These differing approaches have hardened into cultural divisions between habitats.

Luna’s main exports are metals, silicates (for electronics), oxygen (for air and propellant), and hydrogen — as reaction mass and the fusion fuels deuterium and tritium. What the Moon lacks is carbon. Biochemicals must be imported and meticulously recycled. It's considered rude to eat and not use the restroom.

Early colonies began in lava tubes and expanded through excavation mining, controlled by large entities with heavy machinery.

Regolith mining on the surface is something else: dangerous, dirty, small scale, and mostly handled by independent crews — tough, low-gravity–adapted, and defiant. Derisively called “farmers,” they resist corporate and Earth control, making them central to black markets, sabotage ops, and pro-Luna movements. They despise fixed-price contracts and prefer to deal with outsiders and smugglers.

The most heavily guarded sites on the surface are the magnetic accelerators that launch cargo and passengers offworld. In the boom before Dedalus Fall, dozens of rails formed the backbone of the cislunar economy, shipping thousands of tons per day and making possible both Earth’s climate recovery and the colonization of the solar system. Today, only four major long-range accelerators remain in service with many more in ruins.

• Silver Spoke – 50 km passenger-rated launcher to lunar orbit, marketed to tourism and prestige travel. Can only run at low Gs.
• Blue Horizon – 50 km passenger-rated launcher to lunar orbit, handling most commercial passenger traffic. Can potentially ship cargo out of Luna's gravity well but is monitored to prevent this.
• Esperance – 30 km Earthforce-controlled cargo rail capable of launching heavy loads past lunar orbit to Earth or interplanetary trajectories.
• Iron Lance – 25 km launcher officially rated for cargo to orbit, but capable of high-G launches to Earth and used for passenger smuggling. Operated by “farmer” syndicates and small traders, it is a known hub for black-market dealings and could be weaponized.

Dozens of shorter and less secure 15 km rails remain in operation for bulk cargo to lunar orbit. These feed short-haul trade and local industry.

Near Earth Asteroids

A near-Earth asteroid is one whose orbit keeps it near Earth’s distance from the Sun for most of its path. They are not “close” in the sense the Moon is—early spacecraft took months to reach them, and even with modern ion drives, travel still takes days. The same applies to other asteroids inside the main belt, though those with more eccentric orbits are harder to reach and harvest.

Resources from near-Earth asteroids were essential to kickstart the cislunar economy, and they remain the inner system’s most important source of carbon. This carbon is found in regolith asteroids—loose collections of space sand and dust. In microgravity, mining regolith directly is inefficient, even dangerous, as most of it drifts off to become dangerous debris. The standard method is to heat the regolith until it gasifies, then collect the released gases for processing.

Many of these asteroids were eventually mined out, leaving only their hollowed husks and abandoned mining equipment—valuable salvage for later ventures. Some installations may even harbor desperate survivors, overlooked or abandoned during evacuations or simply forgotten in the chaos of the Dedalus Fall.

Mars

Mars: An Adventure, Not Just Life.
Advertising slogan for Mars tourism.

Mars was an early colonization target, but the lack of unique resources, an atmosphere too thin to use yet too thick to ignore, and no good site for large-scale accelerator launches meant Mars never became a major industrial center. Its surface gravity (~38% of Earth’s) is insufficient for long-term health, so most workers live in nearby rotating habitats that provide full artificial gravity. Terraforming, a vanity project of the Terran golden age, advanced through the 22nd and 23rd centuries, with orbital mirrors boosting temperature and partial polar ice melt. Dedalus Fall destroyed most of these systems, halting progress but not reversing it. Mars now lives on borrowed time, seeking to cash in on its partially terraformed environment before it begins to degrade.

Mars is primarily a destination rather than a home—offering exclusive, high-end tourism rather than mass travel. Wealthy mobile habitats sometimes park in Mars orbit for a season, but otherwise only a few tens of thousands of affluent visitors and a large number of service personnel are planetside at any given time. Mars sells high-society pleasures with minimal regulation: gambling, personal companionship, extreme sports, mock combat, and wilderness expeditions. Radiation from solar storms, cosmic rays, and a thin atmosphere is a constant hazard, but for short stays shielding and shelters keep risks manageable—turning danger itself into an attraction. Medical regulations are lax, you can get many procedures done here that are illegal elsewhere. Long-term habitation depends on advanced medical treatment to repair cell damage. Mars also fuels a lucrative media industry producing shows of high life and sports. The finale in several solar sports leagues are played on Mars. With interplanetary media transfers so expensive, only top-rated productions are worth shipping, and Mars consistently delivers.

The workforce is a mix of young short-term workers, a genetically adapted minority, and Martian natives who cannot survive in full gravity. Most short-term staff commute from orbital habitats, while infrastructure crews live on the surface. This mix adds both vitality and tension to local culture.

The most exclusive business on Mars is diplomacy. The planet offers an opulent neutral ground for high-level talks between wealthy states and corporate powers, with a constant undercurrent of spycraft—where defectors, agents, and dignitaries rub shoulders in gilded halls, socializing and conspiring in equal measure. This is all spiced up by valuable data of all kinds, including research from the nearby orbital universities.

Near Mars Space

Phobos, Mars’ inner moon, is a rugged space rock in a tight orbit. Its borderline gravity—just high enough that only the strongest leaps can escape—makes it a center for daredevil tourism: extreme parkour, strap-on wing flight, trampoline jumps into orbit, and other sports too dangerous for microgravity. Mars’ only orbital magnetic accelerator is here, handling high-value cargo and tourism. Throughput is limited by Phobos’ size and ultra-low gravity and every launch is in full view, making covert shipments impractical.

Deimos, the outer moon, is a small, porous regolith asteroid under Earthforce control. Its surface is enclosed in a thin artificial envelope to stabilize loose material during mining, which reflects light well, making Deimos much brighter. Operations supply carbon-rich feedstock for Mars’ biotopes, along with valuable trace metals and industrial lithium deposits—critical for certain high-performance applications. Deep inside, a pre-Fall megaproject still runs, breeding tritium from the moon’s natural lithium reserves. With no accelerator, all output is shipped by spacecraft. Earthforce maintains a nearby naval base in forced Mars orbit to guard the site and to stage military exercises, some timed for visibility from Mars to add to its image of excitement and danger.

Mars orbit is crowded with large, slow-rotating cylinder habitats built for comfort and prestige. Several are universities drawing students from across the system, alongside an Earthforce academy. Sports and exchange programs foster cross-cultural rivalries and friendships, with competitions and duels—sometimes fought in Jovian exosuits—staged as spectacles for tourists.

Both civilian and military students often work in the tourism sector as a rite of passage, even if they are financially independent. Many are drawn into Mars’ high-society circuit as exclusive hosts or companions for wealthy visitors. Cadets in parade dress lend glamour to events, prompting some civilian universities to also adopt formal uniforms. Each year, a few students get lost in the lifestyle and never return to complete their studies.

Lastly, the biotope habitats—vast orbital stations replicating entire Earth biomes, from savannah to jungle, coral reefs, and primeval forest—offer a different attraction. Founded by the ultra-rich Orchid Crown Foundation as nature preserves, they now admit a limited number of tourists and big game hunters, a policy introduced by central management to capitalize on Mars’ luxury trade. Many of the on-site caretakers and ecologists view this as a betrayal of the foundation’s original mission. Large vertical terrain features like mountains or deep-sea trenches are rare; with uniform gravity a requirement, such habitats need to be be colossal to accommodate any serious height difference.

Technology

Technological development before and after the Dedalus Fall followed very different paths. Before the Fall, abundant energy, reliable long-distance communication, and near-universal automation allowed a highly centralized, interconnected civilization. After the Fall, loss of solar collection, collapse of long-range radio, and the end of sail propulsion forced technology into smaller, harder, and more independent forms.

Fusion Power

Pre-Fall, fusion power plants were massive, immobile installations requiring exotic materials and constant expert maintenance — ideal for planets and major stations, but impractical for most small craft and vehicles. Luna, Mercury, and high-altitude Venus platforms could rely on abundant solar power, Earth on orbital solar collectors. Vehicles ran on batteries or chemical engines. Post-Fall, with solar collection crippled and power grids fragmented, fusion reactors became the backbone of energy production across the system.

Fusion power is based on fusing isotopes of hydrogen. The two dominant reaction types are deuterium–deuterium (D-D) and tritium–deuterium (T-D). Deuterium is common, found in water ice across the solar system. Tritium is rare in nature due to its 12-year half-life, normally bred from lithium in reactor blankets. Rarity makes tritium a strategic resource in peace and essential in war.

Deuterium–Deuterium (D-D) Reactors

D-D reactors are the workhorses of the post-Fall economy, accounting for roughly 99% of fusion capacity. They are fuel-efficient, can run for years between refueling, and rely on a fuel source abundant on icy moons, comets, and in planetary oceans. Their main drawbacks are high ignition energy requirements and slow startup times — often days to weeks for large plants — making them unsuited to applications where immediate power is needed from a cold start.

Capital ships and major facilities typically mount multiple D-D reactors in parallel, allowing one to be shut down for refueling or maintenance while the others keep the lights on.

Uses include:

• Primary power for all large ships
• Large industrial sites, colonies, and habitats
• Stationary power generation on planets and moons

Tritium–Deuterium (T-D) Reactors

Advances in materials science shortly before the Fall produced rugged, compact T-D units small enough to fit into a mining crawler or a small spacecraft’s engine room. Before the Fall, their high cost kept them rare outside high-value or military roles.

T-D reactors burn hotter, produce more energy per unit mass of fuel, and can be brought online in hours rather than days. They can idle on standby to achieve full capacity in minutes — at the cost of wear and burning a trickle of fuel. They are compact for their output, but inefficient, consuming tritium rapidly and generating heavier neutron flux, especially in small reactors, requiring more shielding and more frequent overhauls.

Because they must be shut down completely for refueling, ships rarely rely on them alone for sustained operations. Instead, they are used for burst-power roles or to jump-start larger D-D plants.

Uses include:

• Power plants for small, high-performance craft such as space fighters
• Burst-power units for artillery ships, point-defense platforms, and energy weapons
• Auxiliary “starter” reactors for bringing large D-D plants online
• Mobile salvage and recovery ships restarting cold-shutdown reactors
• Dedicated yard or wharf facilities for capital ship reactor start-up

Many large installations have a T-D reactor kept cold, to be started in an emergency. This dual-system approach creates a steady civilian demand for tritium in addition to military needs — keeping breeder facilities strategically valuable even in peacetime.

Ion Drives

Before the Fall, ion drives were favored for deep-space travel, while the inner system depended on magnetic solar sails for interplanetary travel. After the Dedalus Fall rendered sail propulsion unworkable, ion drives became essential for all but the shortest routes. They are more costly to run and require constant maintenance, making fuel depots and workshops strategic points worth fighting over.

Ion drives are most efficient on large ships. Under constant acceleration, a heavy freighter carrying 15% of its mass in reaction mass can maintain about 0.02–0.05 G for weeks, covering interplanetary distances in 15–60 days. Shorter, high-acceleration runs (0.1–0.2 G) are possible for military ships but require 30–50% of the ship’s mass in propellant, drastically cutting endurance. Personal and utility craft still use chemical rockets for short hops, mining runs, and rapid maneuvers.

Rocketry

Even in the fusion era, rockets remain the simplest and most reliable means of producing short, high-thrust burns. In this context, “rocketry” covers all propulsion systems that expel reaction mass directly for thrust, from simple chemical engines to advanced fusion-thermal drives.

Chemical rockets survive mainly in small craft and outpost service. They are cheap, mechanically simple, and use propellants that can be refined almost anywhere. Their endurance is poor, but for liftoffs from moons, asteroid hops, or quick docking maneuvers, they are unmatched in convenience.

Fusion-thermal rockets use a ship’s fusion plant to superheat a light propellant — often water or hydrogen — with lasers or magnetic heaters, then expel it through a magnetic nozzle at extreme velocities. They burn reaction mass faster than ion drives but can sustain powerful thrust for hours. Large fusion-powered ships can combine these systems, using ion drives for cruising and rockets for combat or rapid course changes.

Rocket engines of any kind are governed by fuel discipline. The more thrust demanded, the faster reaction mass is burned, and the heavier the engine and associated systems become. High-G craft sacrifice endurance for agility, making them short-range interceptors or boarding ships. Long-range attack and capital ships are designed for lower acceleration to conserve propellant over extended missions.

Magnetic Acceleration

Mass drivers and electromagnetic launchers use magnetic fields to accelerate a payload along a track at high speed. The principle is simple—switching magnetic coils on and off in sequence—but the engineering challenges are immense. Tracks must be extremely straight and stable, power delivery must be precisely timed, and any misalignment can destroy the payload or launcher.

Pre-Fall, magnetic acceleration was mainly used to move bulk cargo between orbital facilities and planetary surfaces, especially from low-gravity bodies where chemical launch was wasteful. Dense cargo like metal ingots, refined ores, and water ice could be launched at hundreds of Gs without damage, making them ideal for high-throughput shipping. Passenger launches were limited to a few Gs for comfort and safety.

The track length needed depends on the local gravity and desired final velocity. On Luna, achieving low orbit (≈1.7 km/s) at 3 G requires about 50 km of track; on Phobos or Deimos, where escape velocity is under 10 m/s, only a few hundred meters are needed. For bulk cargo, accelerations of 100 G or more are possible, meaning even lunar escape velocity can be reached in under 1 km of track. On Mercury, where escape velocity is ≈4.25 km/s, a 3 G passenger launch would require roughly 300 km of track, but hardened cargo could be flung in only a few kilometers.

Post-Fall, the same technology was adapted for military use. Higher accelerations—up to 10 G for crewed craft, far more for hardened munitions—can hurl projectiles, cargo pods, or even small ships at significant relative velocities. The technique is most effective from bodies with low escape velocity, where the launcher can be mounted directly to the surface and fire without atmospheric interference. Vacuum environments also allow for extremely long launch tracks without drag losses.

Limitations include the fixed location of the launcher, its vulnerability to attack, and the difficulty of aiming at distant moving targets. Launching crewed craft above a few G requires specialized training, genetic modification, or cybernetic reinforcement. Most human crews stay in the 2–4 G range, but unmanned craft and drones can be designed for far higher accelerations.

Strategic use varies by site. Some facilities focus on bulk cargo and fuel shipments; others double as defensive batteries, able to launch interceptors or kinetic kill projectiles at hostile craft. The largest can serve as force multipliers in fleet actions, sending small craft on pre-calculated, low-power “cold runs” that are nearly invisible until the target is in range.

Laser Communication

Post-Fall, radio signals in the inner solar system were drowned in interference. Laser communication became the only practical means of high-bandwidth interplanetary data transfer. It required powerful transmitters and massive, precisely aimed receivers, limiting it to planets, moons, large asteroids, and stationary habitats. Even these were imperfect targets, since orbital adjustments and hazard avoidance could break alignment. Most ships lack the power to transmit over long ranges, though larger craft can manage short-distance laser links. For most purposes, ships rely on courier drones carrying physical data cores between hubs.

Expert Systems

General AI never worked. Every serious attempt ended in disaster — rogue behavior, mass suicide, or breakdown into useless output. What endured were expert systems — narrow-focus automation capable of flawless repetitive work but incapable of planning or innovation. Pre-Fall, these could be coordinated over vast distances by human supervisors. Post-Fall, without real-time control, drones require on-site human oversight, greatly increasing labor needs. Armed drones survive in limited roles under strict, pre-set engagement rules. The term “AI” has fallen out of use in favor of the more modest “expert system.”

Gene Therapy

Advanced gene therapy can halt aging, but only up to a point. Initial treatments are as easy as vaccines, eliminating most cancers, repairing radiation damage, and making long-duration cold sleep possible. Lifespans of a century and a half are routine, two centuries are possible for the wealthy or lucky, but each additional round of rejuvenation is more costly and dangerous. Only rarely can humans reach three centuries without lethal complications. Bodies and minds stay young, preventing the cultural stagnation of elderly populations, but also locking entrenched elites in place for generations. However, rapid technological change leaves older-but-rejuvenated citizens constantly retraining to stay relevant.

Ovulation can be controlled, eliminating undesired menstruation and maintaining female fertility throughout an extended lifespan, removing the need for contraceptives. Gene therapy is routinely used to remove genetic disorders and substandard human traits, but attempts to create “superhumans” have a negligible success rate. Genetic screening tends to reduce the occurrence of exceptional traits such as artistic brilliance or unorthodox problem-solving, at the cost of genetic diversity.

More radical alterations — regeneration of limbs and organs, adaptation to alien environments, and major redesign — remain experimental, expensive, and risky.

Particle Weapons

Fusion power brought three distinct kinds of particle weapons into service.

• Atmospheric charged-particle projectors act as guided lightning guns, firing along an ionized path to deliver a devastating electrical discharge. These can kill outright, disable electronics, or fry sensors at short to medium range.
• Spaceborne charged-particle weapon behave differently. Without air to guide the beam, the charged particles disperse quickly, functioning more like a shotgun blast of charged pellets. They do minimal damage to armor but can overload electronics, disrupt sensors, and cause painful nonlethal injuries to unshielded crew. After the Dedalus Fall, their utility dropped sharply due to heavier ship shielding and increased solar wind interference.
• Neutral-particle projectors are the artillery of space combat, delivering immense kinetic and thermal damage at extreme range. They are most effective against slow or stationary targets. The particles travel at sub-light velocities, meaning fast or maneuverable ships can evade. Limited post-Fall sensor ranges reduce their long-range advantage, but they remain deadly in the outer system.

Laser Cooling

Rather than relying on broad thermal radiators, some advanced ships use laser-based heat dumping: a heat exchanger that converts waste thermal energy into a coherent, high-powered light beam. This beam vents excess energy in a narrow cone, usually aligned with the main drive plume, masking it from most viewing angles. The approach avoids the usual thermal signature and works even in extreme environments where traditional radiators would melt.

The key breakthrough was developing solid-state emitters capable of operating at reactor temperatures without degradation. While not perfect — all heat still needs to be shed — laser cooling allows higher sustained power output, better stealth, and greater survivability near hostile stars or in combat.

Spacecraft and Space Warfare

Space warfare after the Dedalus Fall is shaped by the realities of propulsion, detection, and the cost of reaction mass. Space flight is less about “speed” in the traditional sense and more about acceleration (how fast a ship can change course or velocity) and delta-V (the total change in velocity a ship can sustain before exhausting its propellant). While constant-acceleration craft simplify maneuvering compared to present-day delta-V–limited ships, battle is still defined by geometry and fuel discipline. High-G burns are decisive but costly; every ton of reaction mass spent on maneuver is unavailable for later pursuit, retreat, or course correction.

Surprise and Engaging the Enemy

Ships at high relative speeds cannot effectively engage each other, the close-range time window is too short. This requires matching velocities, approaching at slow relative speed. With post-Fall radar clutter, it is impossible to detect approaching ship at range, both sides have to rely on scout craft, which must return to base to report. This opens up various surprise scenarios.

• Deep Space Interdiction Almost all space encounters happen near a destination. Engaging ships in deep space transit is almost impossible. Travelling at huge velocities, any encounter far away from a destination only lasts minutes, and with no warning it is impossible to engage an enemy under these circumstances. If you have intelligence on how the target is about to travel it is possible to intercept at slow relative velocities, making this a standard engagement, from most distant to closest.
• Standoff Artillery The attacker foregoes stealth and pelts the target with artillery at extreme range. The defender can calculate the attackers position and send its own fighters to interdict. This turns the tables, forcing the defender to counter-attack, but only works against stationary targets - even ion engines allows you to duck this type of attack. The attacker benefits from scout craft to act as forward observers and a rely chain to forward scout reports back to the artillery platform.
• Distant Launch This is a low risk ow reward strategy. Launch fighters at long range with the carrier travelling at high speed relative to the target. Running cold and only powering up at attack range, this can bypass outer defenses, but the combat window is short, only allowing for a single attack run before velocity carries the fighters out of range. The carrier diverts its path around the target to pick up its fighters afterward. This pickup position is the most dangerous point, the defender can calculate approximately where it is to be and launch its own fighters to intercept.
• Close Launch This is a high risk, high reward strategy. The carrier runs cold on a trajectory that ends up near the target at low relative velocity and coasts in without accelerating, only releasing fighters very close to the target. If this achieves surprise it gives the fighters a much longer attack window, potentially inflicting a lot of damage. If detected on approach the carrier is a sitting duck and will have to launch its fighters as a defense when the target sends its own fighters.

Battle Environments

• Deep Space – The preferred arena for large-scale battles. No gravity wells to distort orbits; geometry is straightforward and predictable. Engagements occur in three dimensions but are easier to coordinate.
• Combat in a Gravity Well – Every thrust alters your orbit, creating complex and counterintuitive motion. Surprise and timing are critical, but engagements are harder to sustain. Fleets often avoid major battles close to a planet unless a target in low orbit demands immediate destruction. The exception are very large and shallow gravity wells like that of Jupiter or the Sun – as long as you are not too close to the primary, this is effectively deep space.
• Combat on a Space Habitat: Habitats presents two terrains unlike either gravity or microgravity. The first is the central zero-gravity region. From here, you can jump to nearly any point on the inner surface—if your aim and braking are good. Get it wrong, and you’ll either drift helplessly or slam into the wrong spot. The second is the outer hull. Gravity here seems to pull away from the hull, but if you let go, you’re flung along a tangent—not straight out. As you approach the hull, it slides sideways beneath you, making it hard to grab hold. Staying close requires constant acceleration toward the surface.

Tactical Zones

Space battles often move through three overlapping ranges:

• Long Range – Artillery exchanges and standoff weapon use. Detection and interception dominate; neutral-particle projectors are most effective here.
• Mid Range – Attack craft engage capital ships; point-defense fire and interceptors try to thin the attackers.
• Close Range – High-G maneuvering and rapid vector changes. Interceptors and boarding craft fight in short, violent passes where fire windows are seconds long.
• Boarding – Large, predictable targets like habitats and ion-drive ships can be swarmed, but doing so consumes enormous amounts of reaction mass. Boarding actions are dangerous and rarely attempted without total surprise or overwhelming suppression. Still, boarding is an alternative to destroying a target that just won't give up.

Combat Roles

• Artillery – Long-range fire support, often delivered by neutral-particle projectors. Effective against static or slow targets; less useful in fast-moving engagements. Vulnerable if caught without escorts.
• Carriers – Project force through wings of small craft. Typically form the backbone of offensive fleets, with heavy point-defense arrays to protect against counterattack.
• Interceptors – Short-range defense and close-in attack. Operate from carriers or bases; burn reaction mass rapidly in high-G dogfights.
• Attack Craft – Medium acceleration, long endurance. Specialize in independent strikes, coasting cold for stealth before attacking and disengaging.
• Boarding Craft – Close to a target and match velocity for capture. Only viable after suppression of defenses.

Weapons Employment

• Lasers – Ideal for short to mid-range precision fire; point-defense staple.
• Neutral Particle Projectors – Long-range, high-damage artillery; cannot be intercepted.
• Charged Particle Weapons – In atmosphere, act as lightning projectors; in space, serve as short-range disruptors for electronics and crew.
• Missiles/Drones – Effective at short to medium range; long-range missiles are rare due to navigation difficulties in the post-Fall environment.

Operational Realities

• Fuel Discipline – Commanders must balance decisive acceleration with the need to preserve reaction mass for later phases of a battle.
• Crew Endurance – Even with gene therapy, sustained high-G maneuvers are limited by human physiology. Combat at 5G is near the practical maximum without artificial support.
• Civilian Conversions – Many “warships” are converted mining or cargo craft. In emergencies, habitats can be armed rapidly if enough raw material is available.

Capital Ships

Capital ships are the backbone of any fleet, serving both as mobile command platforms and the primary source of heavy firepower. They are heavily shielded against radiation and debris, with armor more akin to layers of ablative gravel than the rigid plating of ancient sea warships. This design soaks up hits and sheds energy over time, making them tough to kill outright. Hulls are heavily compartmentalized, and crews operate in vac suits during combat, rendering decompression a slow and usually non-fatal threat.

Capital ships often mount multiple independent power plants and thruster arrays to remain combat-capable even after taking severe damage. Sizes vary dramatically:

Small capital ships lack artificial gravity and can only sustain months-long deployments.

Largest capital ships are functionally mobile habitats, crowded with permanent crews, production bays, and the ability to build fighters from scratch.

Two main types dominate the role:

Carriers – These deploy interceptors, attack craft, and boarding vessels. In practice, they become the heavy hitters of a fleet, projecting force through their wings of small craft. Carriers themselves carry extensive point-defense arrays and limited heavy weapons for close defense.

Artillery Ships – The siege trains of space warfare. Their primary weapons are long-range neutral particle projectors, which cannot be intercepted and can hammer static or slow-moving targets from beyond the reach of most defenses. Artillery ships have little use in mobile fleet battles and may arrive only after the fighting is over. However, if built for lower acceleration to save on cost and mass, they require escorts to survive the journey to the target. Different fleets adopt different doctrines, with some insisting on artillery capable of keeping pace with the main force and others treating them as slower, protected assets.

Interceptors

Interceptors are short-range, high-acceleration craft designed for defense and fast attack in the immediate battlespace. Even these limit their sustained burn to about 5G — enough to overwhelm most opponents without killing the pilot. Reaction mass is consumed at a prodigious rate, making interceptors dependent on carriers or nearby bases for refueling and maintenance.

Their role is to dominate close-range engagements, where superior thrust allows rapid vector changes, forcing enemies into high-angular-velocity targeting problems. Interceptors are armed for these knife-fight ranges, favoring high-energy lasers and charged particle weapons, where accuracy and rapid target switching matter more than endurance.

Attack Craft

Attack craft are designed for independent strikes at much greater ranges than interceptors. They sacrifice peak acceleration for longer operational endurance, allowing them to launch from standoff carriers, coast cold to the target for stealth, and strike before returning along a circuitous route.

They excel at hit-and-run attacks against shipping, installations, and isolated capital ships. If intercepted, they can fight back but — like WWII torpedo bombers — they are at a disadvantage against dedicated interceptors. Attack craft often mount turreted weapons for defense against high-angular-velocity targets and carry standoff armaments such as short-range missiles or neutral-particle guns for engaging from beyond immediate point-defense range.

Boarding Craft

Boarding craft are built to match velocity with a target, something only possible against a vessel with low or no thrust. This slow, deliberate approach is highly vulnerable to defensive fire, so boarding attempts require complete surprise or prior suppression of the target’s point-defense systems. Charged-particle weapons are often used for this suppression, as they can fry sensors and electronics without destroying the prize.

For the final approach, boarding craft may use a brief, extreme-G burn to close the last few kilometers quickly. While boarding actions are dangerous, they can be highly profitable — the only way to seize an intact ship or habitat that refuses to surrender.