Mandate Archive: The Dust

A handful of fear from a dead empire.

The Terran Mandate was forced to let the frontier worlds go when the expansion of the Second Wave sent too many colonists too far from the core's organs of control. The Directorate did not intend to make that mistake a second time. The Dust was their solution- a planet-wide mist of microscopic nanites, conduits for the unblinking gaze of the AI Maestros and their panopticon security state. Not a single core world escaped the basilisk glare of the Dust and its masters, until the madness of men and the cold resolve of the Maestros clashed in the last hours before the Scream destroyed them both.

Now the Dust remains scattered throughout abandoned Mandate bases and derelict Fleet ships, watching for what never comes. Unsleeping AI security directors and mad explorers stand ready to seize control of this waiting storm, and as the nanofabs begin to groan to life after half a thousand years, the black streamers of Dust promise a new night without end.

This supplement for the free Stars Without Number sci-fi role playing game details not only the insidious nature of the Dust, but also the exotic configurations of long-lost Mandate technology and the dangers of experimenting with their alien designs. New Mandate devices and weapons are included for your Stars Without Number game, all waiting to be found in long-lost Terran caches or aboard starships left derelict for five hundred years.