'I keep my sanity tied to my hip with very thin thread. Somedays when I am pushing through the throngs of people all staring at tiny screens in their heads or in their hands I start feel that thread slipping. On those days I know that my only salvation is docked at the spaceport. My savior is not some luxury liner or high speed transport filled with perfectly balanced environments and a history of 'punctuality'. This man's spaceport messiah is more often than not a century old craft whose airlock is caked with the mud of a hundred worlds, with a computer programed in a dead language and a captain that makes his living looking for the slimmest trade margins in the most distant stars. When I sign on to the crew of such a craft I feel my thread of sanity tighten. I know that when we break through that blue ceiling we will be passing the soul crushing civilized worlds and heading for the fainter stars.'

-J. Mitchell Overnantuck, Unlicensed Jump Drive Navigator

'Captain's log, date unknown. We have been exploring a region of dead space, wandering between the dull cinders of dying suns, looking for an explanation to what happened in this sector of space. Our charts show that this sector should be bursting with life - young stars and verdant worlds - but all we have seen is a stellar wasteland.' -Log entry recovered from a derelict exploratory vessel on the fringe of the Miros Waste

While every ship has antigravity engines in this day and age, leaving a full gee planet can take most smaller ships quite a while. The presence of numerous anti-gravity fields can cause interference and fluxation in power broadcast, some comm channels and of course, cause "traffic control issues" as they are flying out. There is a better, safer way to launch them.

Maxwell Cyler, Developer, to the Congessional Areospace Committee

A collection of plot hooks for a game on the road, or more precisely, on the route.

- "Course heading, Captain?"
- "Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning."

The D'athri took to space in such a way to make Terrans look "gun shy". They can be found in small numbers in and around every space port in Known Space.

The Future is for sale.

These are the worlds and planets encountered by daring space explorers.

Ships, that have character, are the best means to get to the stars.