• A vast Precursor Armada has arrived and has begun terra-forming Alterran planets into waterworlds. Unfortunately the saviour of the Galaxy has gone AWOL!
  
  
• Play solo or in a group to retrieve this reluctant hero from a ruined Precursor world - filled with traps and psionically enhanced sea-creatures.
  
  
• Without weapons, you'll have to use logic and diplomacy to succeed where earlier armed missions have ended badly.

Your Diplomatic Drop-pod plummets towards a ruined artificial moon. Yes, the one all those doomed explorers and tech-prospectors called The Maze: The ruins of vast ocean laboratory enveloped in its cracked titanium shell.

Just now Quarantine Enforcement Platforms groan to life, then turn to spew their energy upwards. The pods in your unit's swarm begin to rupture and explode around you. The radio chatter here is not a comfort.

On the slim chance you might survive the descent, you review your PDA for mission objectives:

DIPLOMATIC MISSION BRIEF:

1. Locate and retrieve the moon's sole inhabitant as a matter of urgency
2. Exercise extreme caution when interacting with local security devices

Attached are disturbing diagrams of known booby-traps that eviscerated previous agents.
You feel ill, and search for the paper bags marked with Alterra's corporate logo.

After splashdown the Player can select from dialogue options with their PDA to learn the background to their mission.

Your PDA suggests you've sustained brain injury, since you've somehow forgotten the biggest news story that ever hit the Galaxy! (Diplomatic PDAs are programmed with sarcasm to keep their users' skills sharpened). If you politely endure all this, your PDA downloads a useful news article:

- --- Scry News: Galactic Crisis Heralds New Opportunity! --- -

Less than one year since discovery of their ruins upon Planet 4546B, the fabled 'Precursor Species' has returned to the Galaxy! Their vast Armada still streams through an artefact phase-gate on the Galactic Rim, where they have rapidly terraformed several planets into ocean worlds. Alterrean R&D labs are delighted at this confirmation of their theories for the practical development of such "Genesis Devices."

Early indications are the Armada is here on business, not conquest - as they merely sweep away our attack fleets in harmless Psionic storms. But as yet no communication with the Precursors is possible, until the Diplomatic sub-contractor confirms the return of its unique Telepathic Emissary from other duties.

Meanwhile, Alterra PR reassures the few displaced billions that homelessness is a valid lifestyle choice, and that "With great new changes - come great new business opportunities."

Player(s) search for the 'Man' through this hostile and booby-trapped world, following a trail of notes and journals left in his wake. These documents come in 4 flavours:

1. Journals recording his own explorations (eventually revealing his final location).
   
2. Trap Diaries detailing his attempts at circumventing various traps (maybe useful, you reckon)
   
3. Xeno-anthropology speculations about Precursor hive-mind culture and their work here.
   
4. Man's Backstory leading to his presence here - including his unwelcome 'uplift' to become a telepath at the hands of a visiting Precursor (see Appendix below)

Human and Precursor techs become available as they are discovered during exploration.

1. Alterra Equipment, shelter and submersibles are buildable as usual. Blueprints are got by:
   - Scanning the wreckage left behind by previous failed missions here.
   - Occasional 'junk falls' of orbiting wreckage - both an opportunity and a hazard.
   
2. Precursor Devices found discarded are often repairable - including a range of colour-coded 'Psionic Skill Amplifiers' each of which grants a minor 'Uri Geller' strength' ability. Each player can only wear one of these - granting specialist roles within co-op teams working to disarm traps.

Blue - Telekinesis move objects up to 100 grams

White - Control over clocks and timers

Yellow- Alter an object's temperature 0-100 C.

Green - Morph and bend small metal objects

Red - Healing hands to replenish another's HP


The Cube movie franchise has wealth of the kind horrors needed here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_(film_series)

1. Movement into new areas require deducing a solution for circumventing a trap guarding its entrance (built by Precursors to test the qualities of candidate species considered for uplift as psionic citizens).
   
2. Careful reading of notes left by the Man will often give vital clues for puzzle solutions.
   
3. Where there are multiple solutions to puzzles, the safest involves coordinated actions from co-op players.

Although it's interior is aquatic, it is covered by a cracked metal shell encrusted with ruins of ancient Precursor origin. Several quarantine enforcement platforms still function - thanks to periodic visits from a lone Precursor (later revealed to be AL-AN).

Early game, explorers must first navigate a vast grid of varied "alien world" environments, some still housing their candidate test-species. Entrance into each alien world requires visitors to solve a lethal booby-trap puzzle - meant to screen out test-subjects with unsuitably low sapience.

Mid-game involves exploring the aquatic interior, where ecosystems thrive around the heat vents radiating from a still-functional central reactor. Thanks to Precursor experimentation, formerly weak or creatures from 4546B have surprise psionic enhancements to their ordinary features, For example:

• Psi-Peeper - It's staring eye can briefly mesmerise a predator. His pals then school around the victim to nibble at its flesh.
  
• Psi-Rockpuncher - Punching the water causes a telekinetic shock-wave to impact distant targets.
  
• Psi-Hoverfish - Can push a predator away towards the surface by imparting an upwards telekinetic thrust.
  
• Psi-Bleeder - Cast a hallucination of themselves growing to leviathan proportions. Players fleeing for nearby shelter are welcomed by a hungry nest of life sized bleeders.

• Late game. At the heart of the moon's ocean lies the Reactor Zone. This is where you can find the 'Man' has retreated and built a sturdy marine base. Well. . . providing you're built all the tech needed to endure the region's intense pressure, heat, and radiation.
  
  
• The Man pilots a chunky Seamoth and flees at first sight of you. But since his craft is lead-lined against the local radiation you can easily chase him down, and then just hold his craft in the beam of a stasis rifle. He's cranky about that, and will demand to know your business.
  
  
• You can ignore his complaints and drag him back to the surface as your prisoner in a stasis bubble. (Alterra now has an air transport waiting). However, this tactic risks giving your game a VERY bad ending.
  
  
• Much wiser is to pursuade him (through dialogue options) about why he is obliged help Humanity, even though it's individuals seem so hopelessly self-interested.
  (material for this debate seen here: https://philodive.com/blog/breaking-down-altruism--a-philosophical-perspective and https://thisvsthat.io/moral-agent-vs-moral-subject )
  If you succeed he will then return voluntarily, Conveniently, return can be made directly to orbit, via a phase-gate he has discovered in this zone.

The player is present at the diplomatic negotiations with the Precursors on their flagship. This includes AL-AN will speak in support the Human species - provided the Man was retrieved willingly and unharmed,

1. It is revealed the Precursors rate Humanity as a "Feral Pre-sapients" now infesting most of this Galaxy, and capable of unleashing Khaara as a bio-weapon The Precursors' arrival was to cleanse all the most human-infested planets.
   
   
2. AL-AN reports that 'Man in the Maze' forced uplift as telepath was a last-ditch experiment he made to show that humans might be able to bear the burden of telepathy, and so, should be considered 'sapient'.
   
   
3. The Precursors' concede that the Man's willing return from self-exile to help Humanity (a species he now despises), was a very unexpected result. It indicates that humans are at least marginally evolved beyond simple self-serving animals, and so are granted provisional survival rights as a "Viable Species."
   
   
4. Cut-scene plays - showing the Precursor fleet departing the Galaxy. Hooray!

If instead, the Man was returned by force, rather than persuasion (i.e. dragged in by a propulsion cannon) the outcome of the meeting will be much less favourable:

1. AL-AN's appeals for preserving Humanity will be dismissed as invalid:
   "Even their Emissary is presented here in chains!"
   
   
2. A cut-scene is shown of the Precursors rapidly terraforming several occupied planets.
   "The schooling species of water-worlds have such great potential to evolve as Hivemind civilisations" they say consolingly.
   
   
3. But the player will have a final opportunity argue for Humanity and halt this destruction by choosing answers wisely from a dialogue tree that navigates a philosophical debate between Collectivism and Individualism, In evidence of Collectivism's faults, the player can outline the Precursor's earlier failures on Planet 4546B. For more meat on this bone see: https://philodive.com/blog/individualism-vs--collectivism--a-philosophical-perspective
   
   If a stirring defence of individualism is made, then the Precursors will make a grudging departure. If not, all human-occupied planets are terraformed as above. Boohoo for us!

Discoverable in-game, through following his scattered paper-trail of journal entries.

His own mission to the Maze

Several decades past there was a satellite sighting of a single Precursor working within the Maze. ALTERRA sent in a lone unarmed trade emissary - seeking to purchase rare psionic services suitable for industrial espionage. There he met AL-AN (the Precursor encountered in Below Zero). The Man returned, now gifted with an unlimited psionic ability- but not quite what was hoped for.

The 'Gift' of Enlightenment:

The Man's telepathic skill was such that he could not help but see the naked flaws in everyone met. Likewise, everyone could see into his mind and we equally unimpressed. It seems the raw ego of any non-hive minded creature can look pretty ugly up close. Even his formerly blissful marriage became marked by mutual distaste, and soon fell into a shambles.

Self Exile

Unable to work, and both shunned and revolted by Humanity. the Man chose self-exile back inside the perilous Maze. Through the passing decades he felt safe from unwelcome visitors - only praying for the return of Al-AN to undo his curse.

Situation:at Game Start

Oblivious to recent Galactic events, he is aware only of a series armed expeditions arriving in search of him. Prudently the Man repaired and reset many of the traps, and then retreated deep into the safety of moon's watery interior.



























He's a cranky looking bloke!

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