Europa 2315 (IB)

Starfox's Blades in the Dark hack

Europa: The Moon of Mazes

This is a picture of the state of Europa in 2315, 5 years after the Fall.

Europa is the Jovian system’s great forbidden laboratory, a maze where science brushes against horror and every dive into the ide and black ocean beneath is a dip into the unknown. Long before the Fall, before any Jovian colonies, Earth declared the moon interdicted to preserve its subsurface ocean and prevent contamination of any Europid life. Drilling was done for research only. But once colonization began in earnest interdictions mean little to the colonists. By the 2180s, independent crews were already drilling through the crust, sending submersible drones into the abyss. Contamination followed — Earth microbes, engineered strains, and human industry mingling with fragile mats of native life. Earthforce still insists on the ban, but Jovians ignore it and enforcement is impossible.

Native Life

• Originally sprawling colonies of simple cells clustered around hydrothermal vents, metabolizing sulfur and metals.
• Over thousands of years, these mats secreted silicate and exotic ices denser than water, creating labyrinthine “reef vaults” on the ocean floor.
• After contamination, hybrids rapidly appeared:

• Small motile grazers feeding on the mats.
• Rare mobile mats drifting like dark carpets or translucent veils.
• Hybrids are unstable and localized; each unexplored vent may hold something entirely new.

The speed of this process is amazing and confusing to science, it is as if Europa's life was just waiting for a purpose to start acting on its own.

Ice Hazards Radiation makes the open surface lethal; colonists survive by digging into the ice. Even a few dozen meters provides shielding, while deeper caverns give long-term safety and stability.

• Ice mining is limited — bulk ice is cheaper on Callisto — but Europa’s exotic biochemistry keeps scientists, smugglers, and nobles returning.
• Subsurface caverns may trap oxygen from radiolysis, sometimes mixed with sulfur or organics. Normally harmless in vacuum, these pockets can erupt if ignited by thrusters or torches.
• Cryotectonic movement fractures the crust into canyons and twisted, maze-like fissures.
• At depths of hundreds of meters or more, exotic ice phases may occur, luring glaciospeleologists into unstable tunnels.
• Exotic types of ice can have strange optical properties, sometimes transparent to the point of invisibility or acting as natural mirrors or lenses.
• Ferroelectric ice (Ice XI) sometimes forms in long-sealed ice caves. It is valuable, but can distort radio signals, scramble sensors, and even store dangerous electric charge.
• Aeons of mineral deposition have turned fissures and reef vaults into natural treasure vaults.

Water Hazards Europa’s abyss is as dangerous as its surface. Beneath tens of kilometers of ice, the ocean is held under pressures that dwarf Earth’s deepest trenches. Europa’s ocean is not just dark and alien — it is a place where the very weight of water is deadly.

• At ~2,000 atmospheres, the pressure is crushing. Human physiology cannot withstand it; mechs and subs need reinforced hulls made especially for this. Experimental “liquid breathing” systems exist to survive these depths, but failure means death by crushing or by catastrophic decompression. Drones and posthuman conversions are the safest method of access.
• Any borehole or fissure that opens into this reservoir risks violent blowback: super-pressurized water will surge upward, decompress, and flash to steam, fracturing surrounding ice and entombing or destroying whatever pierced the crust. A full-scale surface geyser from human drilling is unlikely — the ice will choke the breach long before the water reaches the surface — but any submersible, diver, or tunneling rig can be caught and crushed in an instant.
• Salt and ice can solidify out of the water, usually at inversion layers or influenced by currents and tides. These interfere with sensors and are hazards to fast-moving craft. Mats of vegetation can be lifted by currents and will often drift into such areas too, creating pockets of life.
• Radio and radar does not work in this sea. The usual method of communication is to lay a string of buoys connected by thin cables to communicate.
• Sonar does but with limited range and require sonic discipline. Multiple sonars in the same area can make all of them blind.
• Near the bottom the thermal vents and exotic ice disturb sonar, and local life can be attracted to sources of sound seeking intermittent volcanic vents to feed on.

Adventure Hooks

• The Maze Above — Cryotectonic fissures in the ice promise rare deposits. But as explorers push deeper, the ice begins to scream and shift.
• The Maze Below — A coral-like labyrinth built by native life hides under their mats. Mapping the maze could yield silicate treasures — if explorers survive.
• The Forbidden Vent — Drilling into a “dead” vent found it crawling with hybrids. Scientists want samples, knights seek honor, and everyone fears what will emerge.
• Oxygen Firestorm — A stranded crew hides in an ice cavern, unaware it holds a pocket of oxygen and volatile organics trapped by cryotectonic shifts. Normally inert, the mix only becomes explosive if ignited by a fusion thruster or plasma torch — turning the cavern into a brief but deadly inferno.
• The Smuggler’s Haul — Black-market organics from Europa’s depths are rumored to enhance neural interfaces. Earthforce wants them destroyed, scientists want them preserved, nobles want them monopolized.
• The Lost Dome — A pre-Fall research station lies buried in ice. Its records may reveal the first contamination site — or worse, what the researchers found.
• Franz's Plasma Tunneler — A Jovian inventor wants a live test of his new plasma tunnel rig to “outrun refreeze.” It works for a few hundred meters — then the bore self-chokes, pressure climbs, and the rig starts to freeze into the ice.