1: (Undecided) 2: (Undecided) 3: All 14 And Some Extras... 4: About 30 Years After Planetfall... 5: The 'Huge Map Of Planet'.

The first thing to be aware of in this game is that the situation on Planet is a bit more complicated than in the computer game. For one thing there are more than 14 factions: including two more Progenitor factions. For another, all the factions except the progenitors exist right from the start at planetfall.

The story of the Unity and the voyage to Planet is different in many ways than in the game: to start with the Unity was not completed and launched until 2080, to allow more time for the transformations of the Alpha Cent's backstory to take place. One side effect of this later launch is that the Unity was larger, better constructed, and more stable as a ship, so when the late voyage disaster took place it's effects were not as catastrophic. Instead of eight colony pods, the unity boasted 32, of which 9 were irretrievably damaged. The Unity's crew numbered 1 million souls, actually 1 million and 32, counting CEO Nwabudikae Morgan and his handpicked staff of 'advisers'. Furthermore the crew did not mutiny and fragment while the ship was in deep space trying desperately to make repairs, but only after it was realized that while they had managed to make low Charon orbit safely the Unity was in a highly unstable orbit and they had AT BEST 2 days to reorganize supplies, save the survivors of the damaged colony modules, and get the still functional colony pods down to the surface before the ship would enter it's death spiral and break apart in Charon's atmosphere.

This resulted in two major differences: 1: The exit from the Unity was more organized and regimented: most factions had decent supplies and resources with which to become established. This meant that while the first 3 years on Planet were a hard and harsh struggle they were tempered by a sense that it was not factional divisions and mutiny that had doomed the ship but rather the vagaries of fortune and chance. 2: Several of the individuals that died in the Mutiny in the canonical storyline: DIDN'T. Among other changes Captain Garland did not go down with his ship, he personally captained one of the Unity's sea colony pods down to Planet's surface and is a leader of his own faction: the so called 'Unity Loyalists' who contest with the unstable and irascible Captain Svensgaard for control of Charon's oceans. Another Key difference is that Commissioner Previn Lal's wife Priya was never shot by Santiago's mutineers, who took a very different approach to the situation when the man who later styled himself Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang was awoken within minutes of the disaster and his security forces were quite capable of preventing the Spartan’s attempted coup: for which reason the Spartans bided their time and did not cause trouble. It was not until the last minute when the colony pods were set to launch and the personnel had been reapportioned that the mutiny took place with the Spartans as one moving to seize three of the pods for themselves and making a break for planet's surface.

The Results of these changes are again two fold: 1: Factional rivalries are not as bitter as they were in the original game: There is certainly a sense of factionalism and rivalry but many if not most individuals direct this primarily against the more radical and aggressive factions such as the Spartans, Pirates, Sons of Allah, and Cult of Planet. 2: The more temperate factions have formed a coalition government of sorts, united behind Governors Previn and Priya Lal* and Mission Commander John Garland: Consisting of the Gaians, the University of Planet, the Unity Loyalists, the Peacekeepers, the Data Angels, the Free Drones, and the Cybernetic Consciousness. The rest of the factions: sometimes referred to as the 'Rebel Seven' are disunited and often at odds with both the 'Loyalist Coalition' and each other. However, there is a problem with this: the rebels are ALSO better equipped and funded than the loyalists, and have proven more willing to go to extreme lengths to ensure their survival and independence.
*(They run for election and administer jointly.)

With that background out of the way we come to the matter of the current situation in which the characters will interact with the world.

It is currently Mission Year 2150, thirty years since the Unity Disaster and the planetary council has just been convened for the first time. The sole item on the agenda was the election of the planetary governor, which thanks to the disunity of the rebels and prearranged deals among the loyalists was won handily by Commissioner Pravin Lal and his Co-Administrator Priya. The Humanitarian U.N. Charter has been reaffirmed and almost all the factions have at least nominally accepted it, though some pay it lip service at best: particularly Chairman Yang's 'Hive' faction and Caliph Akbar Mohammed's 'Sons of Allah'. The one notable exception is what is currently the strongest faction on planet: The Spartan Federation, who hold an entire small continent in the south east of Planet and who reject all outside authority: in their own words “Violently If Necessary”.

It is in point of fact nigh on a miracle that the planetary council has been able to convene in only 30 years, with the factions as geographically isolated from one another as they are, but trade and discovery of com-link profiles was a brisk business in the past five years facilitated by both the Nautilus Pirates and the Unity Loyalists who have both made exploration and contacting other factions a high priority. Other factions also played a role in his event, including the Cult of Planet and the Gaians both of who's 'brood masters' have ranged far afield through the xenofungus making contact with other factions.

This Game uses the 'Huge Map of Planet' from the videogame as the basis for it's geographic profiles, however the continental masses while similarly shaped are proportionally smaller and more separated and the oceans deeper, in a geography which mirrors real world plate tectonics more closely.

That Aside we can, (for those familiar with the game,) give rough geographic profiles to the various factions:

The Spartan Mutineers made not one but three separate landings on planet, all close together on the slopes of Mount Planet or the close by remnant of the continental mass created by the previous eruption of the geothermal plume in Planet's mantle which created the immense shield volcano. These three bases have knit themselves together into an independent nation which rejects the authority of the planetary government. They have traded technology and resources fairly freely with the other factions but warn everyone that they intend to expand into the outer limits of their continental area and it's territorial waters and anyone who tries to interfere will be met with unremitting lethal force. The Spartan territory is connected to one other continental land mass by a peninsula and a chain of islands, which the Spartans are slowly exploring with rowed barges and infantry formations but have thus far not attempted to colonize due to their nutrient poor and rocky soil and their preoccupation with their continental holdings and military preparations.

To the West of the Spartans lies an area where three factions contend bitterly over possession of the main 'western' continental mass. In the far north lies the Cult of Planet, who's colony pod suffered a guidance systems failure that brought them down on the edge of one of planet's largest zones of Xeno Fungus, and which nearly saw the colony destroyed by mind worm attack shortly thereafter. Salvation came in the from of a newborn babe who was found alone and unharmed in the midst of the fungus following that first attack: who the people of the base took in and named Cha Dawn. Cha Dawn grew unnaturally quickly, maturing to the equivalent of 18 years old in only 9 years of actual time, and then apparently freezing there. He also demonstrated the ability to seize control of Mind Worm boils and turn them away from the colony or even set one boil to attacking another. Soon the colony was hailing him as their savior and begun calling him 'Prophet'. By the time Captain Svendsgaard's Pirates found the base which had renamed itself 'Dawn of Planet' in their leader's honor the entire culture had mutated into a Mind Worm worshiping cult and already explored much of the northern portion of the continent, and come into contact with what is shaping up to be their most bitter rivals: The Lord's Believers.

Over a thousand miles south of Dawn of Planet lies an outpost commanded by a woman that until a few years ago everyone thought had died with the Unity. Sister Miriam Godwinson was the Chaplain for the large contingent of Conclave Christians aboard the Unity, a militantly evangelical branch of the christian faith which emerged in the Christian States of America following the second American Civil War and had managed to make itself the state religion by the time of the Unity project. During the Mutiny in the last few hours of the Unity's decaying orbit Sister Miriam was shot by an unknown assailant and seriously wounded. Somehow, after all the intact colony pods had been fired leaving the several hundred individuals with radiation poisoning and other major injuries aboard the doomed ship Sister Miriam manifested some kind of psychotic and/or psychic overdrive condition and whipped the stranded crew members into an emergency repair and salvage team. The Unity Colony Modules were designed to be disassembled and reorganized quickly and efficiently upon landing on Charon and somehow Sister Miriam got the badly injured and sick crew members to kitbash together two working landing pods from the remnants of the nine damaged ones which had been written off as beyond repair in the time allotted before the Unity would begin reentry. This is regarded as the first of several miracles experienced by the group now calling itself the Lord's Believers: and the most spectacular. Due to already being in atmosphere when the salvaged colony pods were at last launched the Believers came down quite close to the wreckage of the Unity, strewn across a 150 mile long scar of debris and ruin, and were able to quickly locate and salvage several pieces of the grand shipwreck, including it's bridge tracking systems and secondary fusion core, as well as several mining lasers and a scout chopper. This equipment allowed the Believers to confront Planet on their own terms and fight off attacks by several mind worm boils early on, as well as giving them a leg up on terraforming in their area. This scout chopper also proved key in helping to make contact with the other factions, as it was the unit which first made contact with an exploratory force sent out by the...

Cybernetic Consciousness: the woman who would become Aki Zeta-Five was born as Annikki Luttinen in norway in 2048 She possessed talent for math and science from a young age and eventually was recruited by Academician Prokhor Zakharov for the Unity Project. Annikki was always too curious for her own good and just before launch installed a Trojan Horse into the Unity computer core to activate a complicated computer program which was intended to run on unused processor power over the entire forty year voyage and would, at least in theory, make the Unity partially self aware by the end of the voyage. Though no one has been able to confirm it it is suspected that she was assisted in this bit of unauthorized meddling by the woman who now styles herself Datajack Sinder Roze, who facial recognition software has identified as being one Unity Data Systems Administrator Asa Wright, and the two share a close tie to this day: it was in point of fact Aki Zeta-Five who convinced Pria Lal and Captain Garland to admit 'Roze' to the growing 'loyalist' alliance in spite of Garland's antipathy towards the so called 'Datajack' and her anarchistic followers.

The program ran in the background for the entire voyage, despite crashing out and having to restart several times, but each failure only brought the masterwork of digital engineering closer to its ultimate goal. By the time of the Unity Disaster “The Algorithm” as it had decided to call itself when it finally achieved self awareness, was feeling the limits of it's allotted meta cycles in the unity computers and wanted to branch out. Then disaster struck and for a fleeting moment The Algorithm felt something akin to fear: a concern that it would be destroyed along with the ship, and all it's accumulated intellect and theoretical innovation lost. It was saved by it's creator, who had come down with a case of rheumatic fever but overcame her discomfort and illness enough to undertake a risky surgical procedure installing several viral circuitry interfaces into her own skull with experimental Implants designed by The Algorithm and downloading the core of it's programs into her own brain. As the mutiny took hold in the last hours of the Unity's decaying orbit Aki Zeta-Five appealed to a discontented segment of Academician Prokhor Zakharov’s followers who felt bewildered by the emotional roller-coaster of the past few days of consciousness and they seized one of the colony pods and made their way to the surface of Planet. On Planet Aki Zeta-Five led her Cybernetic Consciousness faction through eight hard years of struggle and adaptation as they explored their surroundings and developed an ethos of emotional control and pure logic before at last she was able to upload the majority of The Algorithm into a patched together Network Node in their base at 'Alpha Nexus'. Then one of their scout teams found a supply pod from the unity containing a Unity Copter and the faction began to explore as never before, which was how they encountered both the Lord's Believers, and the Unity Loyalists.

The Lord's Believers consider The Algorithm which rules the Cyborgs an abomination before the Lord, a false god created by the hand of man and some even believe Aki Zeta-Five to be the Antichrist: her cybernetic implants, which she hopes to duplicate for her other followers eventually, are said to be 'The Mark' spoken of in revelations. Everyone on Charon knows that a war is brewing between the Believers and the Consciousness, but no one is sure how long the world has before the uneasy peace which has prevailed between the factions is at last broken by open vendetta.

Now let us turn our eyes northward from the settlements on the shores of the Freshwater Sea and the feud which is sure to erupt there within the next few decades as the Believers and Cyborgs at last allow their antipathy to flare into open bloodshed: for there is one faction which already is at odds with most of the others:

During the Mutiny aboard the Unity in it's final hours one group that turned against the Captain's authority was a pair of it's Gunship Captain's, Ulrik Svensgaard and Alfhild Nordhall, These two mutineers and their crews seized control of two of the Unity's Sea Colony Pods and made planet-fall in close proximity on the continental shelves of the western and central continents respectively. Though both dominant and aggressive personalities when their forces met again within the first three years of planet fall they did not go to war but came together in a face to face meeting and somehow fell in love. 'Captain' Svensgaard and 'Grand Admiral' Nordhall were married within the year and began to rule the combine 'Nautilus Pirates' jointly. The Pirates naturally have the honor of having produced the first combat ship on Planet and have explored a great deal of the world's oceans which has brought them into contact with a number of other factions, most of which they are on Semi-Hostile terms with. They are also a wealthy faction as their flotillas of gunships hunt Isles of the Deep for the Planet Pearls they contain and use these nodules of mineral rich secretions to fuel their industrial capabilities.

The Pirates are a free wheeling and exuberant bunch, and take their cues socially from the terrestrial pirates and privateers from the Age of Sail. Thus far they have not actually attacked any other faction's shipping interests, which at the moment are mostly limited to a few dozen Unity Foils salvaged from supply pods, but they do have a tendency to exact 'tolls' from the captains of other faction's vessels and it is only a matter of time before someone refuses to pay and they won't take 'no' for an answer.

Directly to the East of the Pirate City of “Port Svensgaard” lies a vast wasteland of scrub vegetation and native grassoids, and it was here that Academician Prokhor Zakharov’s 'University of Planet' faction put down roots. The Academicians’ pod was one of the first launched, even before the mutiny started and with a higher orbit and better guidance systems than the others it was able to choose a landing site more suited to its future needs. For this reason 'University Base' stands on the shoreline of an area known as the Uranium Flats, an area of native grassland which extensive spectrogram analysis shows to have vast deposits of fissionable metal ores much like Earth's 'Yellowcake'. Prokhor Zakharov’s University is foremost in Planet's production of Nuclear Power and Fission Generators, which has enabled them to become major players in the scientific and energy market spheres.

To the south of the Academicians’ holdings lies the enclaves of Chairman Yang of the Human Hive. Yang has the honor of having founded Humanity's first new base since planet-fall, though most factions have also founded second or even third bases at this point. Yang came down near to a geologic formation called Garland Crater, and has dug into that territory hardcore. However Yang has the singular distinction of having had a faction break away from his own AFTER planet-fall.

Yang's nation of closely connected underground compounds defies the authority of the U.N. by being a police state and keeping the majority of its citizens as effective slaves. Yang's subterranean empire is closely modeled on communist china where he grew up and is based on the labor of a vast underclass of 'drones', who are given effectively no rights except to shelter and food to eat as long as there is enough food to go around, but who will be selected to starve to death if the food supply runs short. These 'drones' often riot and in one case even managed to seize control of one of Yang's Bases and declare independence.

This brings us to the matter of the 'Free Drones': Led by 'Forman Domai' the Free Drones were born in a drone revolt at a base founded by Chairman Yang's 'Hive' faction in the ruins of some kind of alien command center far to the east of his main holdings. The base had only just been established in Mission year 2129 and it's security forces were not yet hardened veterans of putting down drone rebellions, so when Domai and a few dozen other drones that had been sent out to gather resources from around the compound returned with a fleet of 7 Unity Rovers and laid siege to the outpost they were too busy defending the perimeter to respond adequately to an uprising from within the base.

Yang was made aware of the situation with the first attack of the rover fleet but when the drones sized the command center they established new coms protocols and severed all ties to The Hive, redesigning the base to reflect their new ambition as a separate faction. A few weeks later their wandering rover fleet made contact with Captain Garland's 'Unity Loyalists' faction and allied with them to repulse Hive aggression that was sure to come their way. Thus far the Hive has not actually responded in force against the 'Free Drones' though they surely will eventually as Yang cannot abide the idea of a group of drones having thrown off his repressive yolk and even more cannot long tolerate a holding of rebels who by their very survival encourage other drone rebellions in his remaining bases.

This brings us to the matter of Captain John Garland and his 'Unity Loyalists': The Unity boasted eight 'sea colony' pods with which to establish bases on the coastlines of planet's continental land masses. Four were considered irretrievably damaged and left with the Unity as it began it's death spiral, which were cannibalize by sister Miriam's Believers to make one functional pod, and two of which were sized by the mutineers who joined together to found the Nautilus Pirates. This leaves 2 pods still functional of which 1 will be discussed later and the other was captained safely to Planet's surface by Captain Garland and his naval operations staff.

The so called Unity Loyalists are in some senses much like the British Navy in ages past, They set themselves down in the vicinity of a chain of islands which lies between the central continent and the western continent's southern barrier peninsula, much like the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean on Earth. These islands have been explored and in some cases colonized and even now are being terraformed. The exploring scout foils of the Unity Loyalists made contact with the Gaians and the Peacekeepers early on in their explorations and then with the Spartans and Free Drones. From these groups they picked up com links with The Hive, the Data Angels, Morgan Industries, and the Sons of Allah. Finally they made contact with the Pirates and from them got the com-links for all the factions on the Western Continent and having a plurality of the potential factions assembled negotiated the alliance of the 'Loyal Seven' and convened the planetary council.

The Unity Loyalists are power brokers and organizers more than a power in their own right, They cannot match the military might of the pirates or the Territorial possessions of groups such as the Hive or the Gaians, but they are not to be discounted either. There are people in every faction who still believe that the fragmentation of the Unity Mission has been a disaster and work secretly to feed Garland and his Loyalists information and technical data, and though Previn Lal is the Governor of the planet it is Garland more than the Peacekeepers commander who keeps the Loyal Seven as a strong and unified alliance.

Directly to the East of the Loyalists holdings on the Island Chain that they have named the Promethean Islands lies another peninsula, terminating in a treacherous patch of sea around what is called 'the Cape of Storms'. Traveling up the coastlines on the other side we come to 'Data De-Central' the home base of Datajack Sinder Roze and her 'Data Angels' Faction. The Data Angels ideal is as a hacker elite infiltrating the networks of other factions to 'Set Information Free'; and spread civil and educated society across the planet. The Data Angels landed their colony pod on an island in the midst of Planet's largest river, the so called 'Planet Neck' and have used this position to make contact with two neighboring factions, the Sons of Allah and the Gaians. We turn our attention first to the Sons of Allah.

The Sons of Allah are the result of a critical miscalculation on the part of the U.N. Planning Authority for the Unity Mission. It was originally intended that the Unity would only remain in the Alpha Centauri system for about 20 years as the colonies get established and then would take such members of the colonial population as wished to return to earth and make another 40 year return trip. Once back in the Sol system it would be fitted with a new set of colony and resource modules and sent back to Alpha Centauri with another crew of 1 million colonists; lather, rinse, repeat.

This explains why there were close to 20 Thousand Muslims aboard the Unity, though THEY could not expect to make the Haj after leaving earth it was believed that their children and grandchildren would be able to return to earth as the crew of the return voyage and visit Mecca as their faith required. The Unity's disastrous collision with a meteorite on entrance to the Alpha Centauri System dashed all their hopes and pushed a large number of them to radical and fanatic interpretations of the Koran. It was in fact the Muslim section of the crew who first suggested that the crew be re-divided along what would become factional lines and make a break for planet's surface in the still functional colony pods.

The Son's of Allah's guidance systems overloaded shortly after launch and they were forced to make a landing using guesswork and dead reckoning with a massive abacus that they had loaded aboard as an 'object-de-art' which landed them in an area of Planet which they call the New Sahara, a desert similar to the south western united states which is as harsh and hard to live in as their homelands on Earth. They have begun to terraform it as best they can but the sandy soil poor in organic compounds has made every step of the process tough. Even So the Sons of Allah have built new colony modules and activated more of the cryo suspension crew than any other faction, having spread to the borders of the harsh wastes they have been forced to call home and founded no less than four bases, second only to Miriam and the Spartans in number; who both have six. Though denied the Haj and forced to live in conditions worse than any other on planet the Sons of Allah are a strong faction who are militarily powerful and fanatically devoted to their hard and harsh interpretations of Sharia Law.

The Sons of Allah are led by their priestly caste, answerable ultimately to Caliph Akbar Mohammed, who until planet-fall was Ayatollah Akbar Mohammed Hussein, Formerly the second in command of the Islamic State which had taken root in the middle east during the early 21st century and gained greater traction and recognition as a rallying point during the so called 'Crusader Wars' following the Second American Civil War and the rise of the 'Christian States of America'. Though The Caliph of the Sons of Allah was and is a Sunni his involvement in the Unity project has pushed him to a centrist position: he does not tolerate sectarian violence in his faction, keeping all units of the military mixed between sects and promoting inter sect marriages. Those close to him have been known to hear him remark that the disaster on entering the Alpha Centauri system is a punishment from Allah for the conflict among his faithful, saying such things as “He has denied us the Haj because we have fought among our own rather than standing together against the unbelievers, if we are to earn our place among the stars again we must put a bullet into the head of this oldest schism and forever bury it beneath the sands of this new world.”

The Sons of Allah Are centered at their base of Mikhail’s Light, and all four of their bases are named for Muslim interpretations of the Archangels. They believe in Sharia Law and Planed Economics, blending the precepts of a Police State and a Fundamentalist government. Though this would normally make them the natural allies of both the Hive and the Believers they are in fact sworn enemies of both groups: the Believers because they are militantly evangelical Christians and the Hive because their state religion is Atheism and the Sons of Allah hold it as blasphemy of the first order. Of all the factions on planet the Sons of Allah get along well with only two: the Pirates, who don't give a flying fuck who or what you worship as long as you are a good sailor, and the Morganites who also could care less about your religious affiliation as long as your bank account is flush. It is too the second of these factions which we next turn our attentions.

CEO Nwabudike Morgan is a pragmatic and ruthless individual who climbed to power on Earth over a pile of broken corpses and the backs of the exploited working class. Unfortunately for Planet this put him in a supremely well connected position and allowed him to see the writing on the wall when the Unity project ran into trouble with the collapse of the economy of the Russian Federation in 2063: Morgan industries bought out most of the Unity's construction contracts and made some slight modifications to it's colony pods, adding to each of them a single 'extra' cryocell which on the 'Final Inspection Tour' Morgan and 31 other hand picked individuals stowed away in. Many now blame Morgan for the Unity Disaster saying that the added mass of the extra cryo cells and their occupants threw off the calculations of the ship's navigation system and resulted in the shipwreck which has stranded the colonists here on Charon but Morgan and his followers disclaim responsibility pointing out that much of the programing of the guidance systems was done by Morgan Industries employees and they were given specific instructions to give the ship a margin of error well in excess of the added mass from the unauthorized modifications and stowaways. Of Morgans 'Seed Group' 29 were accounted for in the exodus from the shipwreck: three dead in the initial disaster, 25 survivors who joined Morgan in seizing one of the Colony Pods, and 1 individual whose identity manifest has been erased because they appear to have landed with another faction and are now in deep cover. The other two were not found in the escape from the ship and are presumed dead: having been in the damaged colony modules and if living are now in equally deep cover among Sister Miriam's Believers: for which reason their Identity Manifests have also been erased, a limited dossier only existing in hard-copy under multiple identification security in Morgan's personal quarters at Morgan Industries.

Among Morgan's surviving 'Seed Group' are Alvin Morgan-Rile, his Chief Biologist: Naula Morgan-Mawilo, his Head of Network Security: Keisha Morgan-Sinclair, his Captain of External Security, AKA military commander: Brandon Morgan-Reid, Head of his Propaganda Division: Abeni Morgan-Fofana, Head 'Courtesan' and unofficial head of espionage: Quing Morgan-Yeboah, Chief Architect: and Jaheem Morgan-Owusu, CFO. These and the other members of Seed Group are all elite individuals who could probably confront most other people on planet in their area of expertise and come out ahead, but all are also wholly loyal to Morgan and form the core of the group who helped him gain and keep command of the Morganic faction.

Morgan has been slow to expand from his initial holdings, having founded only two bases thus far, though they are unusually widely separated and exist at highly resource advantageous locations. Morgan's first Base, Morgan Industries, sits on top of the Sunny Mesa, and it's solar collectors provide abundant power supplies. The Second Base, 'Morgan Mines' is located within easy reach of another alien construction: the Borehole Cluster, where a set of holes have been drilled into planet's crust reaching down to it's mantle to tap untold amounts of geothermal energy and mineral wealth. As an added benefit the boreholes are surrounded at a distance of about 100 miles by a widely spaced ring of the so called 'monoliths' that have been found in some locations around planet and which can be taped for plentiful food, energy, and minerals. Morgan's former detachments are even now working to set up road networks and clear xenofungus so that fresh bases can be founded to exploit these resources and to from way points between there and Morgan Industries.

Morgan faces several problems in his quest to dominate Planet's markets but none are more significant than attacks by mind worms: his cavalier attitude towards the ecosystem and ruthless clearing of Xenofungus zones has earned him Planet's ire, as well as that of...

Gaia's Stepdaughters: 'Lady' Deirdre Skye is not the most obvious choice for a faction leader but she has found herself in that position anyway. Her 'Gaians' came down in the midst of a storm drenched Jungle on the western coast of the eastern continent and found that while it was filled with small patches of Xenofungus and many other hostile lifeforms the flora and fauna here had much greater similarities with those of Earth than on most of planet, though they at the time thought they had simply been fortunate enough to find a world with similar biology to their home world, only realizing that planet's life forms were as divergent as they are later. Although this is disputed by the Cult of Planet who claim their Prophet was the first to tame a mind worm boil the first documented individual to gain control of a boil of mind worms was one Xenobiologist Kendra White, a member of the first scout patrol sent out by the executive council of Gaia's Landing. Kendra's team entered a Xenofungus patch intending to take samples for genetic analysis and was attacked by a small boil of mind worms. Something awakened in Kendra's mind as it was assaulted by the Mind Worms and instead of recoiling in horror she seems to have suffered some kind of post hypnotic fugue and spoke to them gently and soothingly saying things like “Calm down” and “You don't want to do this”: unaccountably the Mind Worms responded and forged a psionic connection to Kendra: all of which was captured in a digital video and EKG feed by Kendra's helmet systems and downloaded into the Gaian central computers when the rest of her team returned to base the next day. The mind worms were not allowed to enter the base, and Kendra refused to leave them, but a new team was assigned to accompany her and they set out to explore the fungal network guarded by Kendra's new “Friends”. With the mind worms to pave the way they made excellent time and within a few years encountered both Morganite explorers and Data Angels scout patrols. Kendra nearly caused an inter-faction incident when she found the morganites using laser weapons to burn out patches of Xenofungus and had to be ordered three times to restrain her mind worms from attacking the Morganite clearing crew, which was the first of several indications that all was not right in Kendra's psyche, a trend which has since been observed among many Broodmasters, working for the 'green' factions, including two other members of Kendra's team who were able to bond with mind worm boils on their travels. Though she nearly precipitated a vendetta between the Morganites and the Gaians Kendra is still hailed as a hero by many members of her faction, having saved bases from mind worm attack on a half dozen occasions and being the leader of the Gaian Brood-Trainer Corps: according to some of the more radical Gaians Kendra should, in absence of Skye having a daughter to succeed her in the event of her untimely death, be named the Heir Designate to the role of Queen of the Gaian faction, but Skye is reluctant to put even the potential of ruler-ship in the hands of one so demonstrably impulsive and unstable.

The Gaians have a respectable three bases, Gaia's Landing near the center of the Monsoon Jungle, 'Razorbeak Wood' at the jungle's edge out towards their border with the Morgans, and The 'Flowers Preach' on the jungle's southern coastline near the Data angel's territory. Gaia's Landing is currently working on assembling a new colony pod to be sent out to the northern coast of of the jungle under escort from Kendra and the other Brood-Trainers which is expected to be completed later this year.

This leaves just one known faction unaccounted for: the Peacekeepers. The Peacekeepers were one of the last factions to leave the Unity, and as such had both the least choice of where to land and the best idea of what the surface of planet looked like. They chose for themselves a collection of three large islands in the northern reaches of planet's oceans, the largest of which they named the Island of Deianira. Here they have established a decent 3 bases, and from the scattered unity pods harvested a rich bounty of equipment including a Unity Rover and Unity Foil with which they were able to explore the nearby patch of seafungus called the New Sargasso and make contact with the Gaians and Unity Loyalists from whom they gained the com links of several other factions with whom they have traded technology and resources in order to secure the election of Previn and Priya Lal as Planet's Governor and Lt. Governor. The Peacekeepers take their name from their intended role in the new society of planet, much like the former U.N. They intend to protect the humanitarian principles of the mission and step in to ensure there are no repeats of the schismatic and sectarian wars which appear to have destroyed Earth during their 40 year voyage. They are technologically sophisticated and stand as a key player in the seven faction alliance which looks fair to be able to dominate planet's political discourse for the next mission decade at least.

Now at last we come to a final matter which has not been discussed yet: if one counts carefully one will realize something: with the exception of Sister Miriam's Believers, Grand Admiral Nordhall's Pirates and General Santiago's Spartan Federation no faction made planet-fall with more than one colony pod: the unity set off with 32 pods. 9 of those were damaged and kitbashed into Miriam's two: Nordhall and Svensgaard stole two of the four surviving sea colony pods, and the Spartans who touched off the mutiny absconded with 3 of the land pods. The remaining 11 factions each reached planet's surface with only one pod except the Free Drones who were founded planetside: so, of the 23 colony pods that were not damaged in the mid space collision eight were unaccounted for...

Three of these pods have already been found: one by the Gaians which became 'The Flowers Preach'. One by Chairman Yang which was converted into the base that would rebel and become Free Drone Central, and one by Sister Miriam which was named 'The Lord's Gift' but the other five including the one unaccounted for Sea Colony Pod are still outstanding, and it is believed that since they have not yet been found they have done one of four things: founded their own factions, been wandering in the as yet unexplored potions of planet looking for suitable sites for a base, failed to make a successful planet-fall and been destroyed such as a land colony pod which accidentally made a water landing*, or somehow their command crews died and the pod with it's thousands of cryo suspension crew members sits forlornly somewhere with it's backup power slowly being depleted as it waits for a group of bold and daring souls to find it and save it's occupants from certain death at the hands of cruel fate and the native wildlife.
*(This would surprise few people considering the immense trouble most factions experienced with their guidance systems when making planet-fall.)