Ad Astra

―Teaser for *Ad Astra*

***Ad Astra: To The Stars*** is a science-fiction adventure series that serves as a spin-off to the *Hyperion* Saga, the first to not be a part of the COSMOS anthology series. Set after the events of *Part III: Leviathan Falls* in the Milky Way, specifically in the corporate-owned colony of Aschere, *Ad Astra* will follow the adventures of the Stargazer, a survivor of time dilation sickness who gains the ability to manipulate time and sets out to solve the mystery behind their identity and seek their fortune.

Three installments are currently in development, each with different themes and storylines. The first, *Part I: A Stranger in a Strange System*, will be released in 2021 and is described as a conventional sci-fi thriller. The second, *Part II: The Heist of Hardy's Hall*, will be released in 2022 and will follow a heist storyline. A third instalment titled *Part III: The Dweller in Dark Space* is in early development and is described as a "murder mystery".

## Plot

*After being recovered from the orbit of a black hole, a stranger with amnensia and a swingin' style sets out to uncover their true identity and seek their fortune in the Aschere System, a new frontier hiding vast treasures and unimaginable horrors.*

## Setting & Story

### Setting

Set around 200 years after *Part III: Leviathan Falls* of *Hyperion: A Space Adventure*, *Ad Astra* takes place in the Aschere System, a recently colonized star system located in the Virgo Stellar Stream. The system is owned and governed by the Virgo Holdings Board, a collective of several powerful corporations and their CEOs that purchased colonization rights from the Human Interstellar Network. Corporate law controls nearly every aspect of society in the system, right down to the behaviour and mannerisms of its colonists. Each planet in the system is owned and governed by a member-corporation of the Virgo Holdings Board.

In the early days of the system's colonization, an ark dubbed the *Sojourner* was launched toward the system to colonize a planet bearing the same name. However, the *Sojourner* never arrived, and instead the planet was used as a weapons testing site, transforming the garden world into an inhospitable nuclear wasteland home to valuable salvage and violent mutated creatures.

### Story

#### Part I: A Stranger in a Strange System

*In the corporate controlled Aschere System, an unnamed passenger on a derelict colony ship finds themself at the precipice of a series of bizarre adventures.*

## Characters

### Main

* The Stargazer: an amnesiac who gains the ability to manipulate time after surviving time dilation sickness and decides to use their talents to seek their fortune and find the truth behind their past
* Paraskevi Rambo: an engineer from the settlement Forefront on New Eden VI who joins the Stargazer on a system-spanning treasure hunt
* Lydia Candy: a sawbones and former adventurer to joins the Stargazer on their adventure
* Elrinnak: A shilt treasure hunter who prowls the nuclear wastelands of Sojourner
* Tommy Zhao: a scavenger with connections to the Broker who is descended from the taikonauts that discovered Aschere
* ALFIE: a self-aware artificial intelligence that holds grievances against organics, especially humans
* Don Laser: the CEO of Aschere Collateral, a private paramilitary with aspirations to join the Virgo Holdings Board

**Other**

* Dimitri Harlow: a mysterious information broker known simply as "The Broker", Dimitri Harlow knows every clandestine secret there is to know about the Aschere System and its inhabitants
* The Whale: an extradimensional entity that takes the form of a whale and communicates with the Stargazer