Beyond the Gates of Antares

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Beyond the Gates of Antares is a 28mm science fiction tabletop war-game, designed by Rick Priestley and Tim Bancroft and released via Warlord Games, who made the V2 rules and army lists available for free at AntaresNexus site. The only reason not to check it out is a lack of interest and/or time.

The fluff is organized enough and has enough going on on to make people interested in learning more about it, with basically 3 flavors of trans humanist societies that don't get along, several post-human subtypes (panhuman morphs) bioengineered to be better at one thing or another, aliens that work well with humans, aliens that dislike humans, aliens that despise humans, the enabler of FTL interstellar travel being a huge mystery, both figuratively and literally, explanation of several types of technologies and all the most technologically advanced forces making heavy use of their body-machine integration and using drones and electronic warfare. While Warhammer feels like medieval combat in space, BtGA does a better job explaining and trying to simulate what a futuristic, infantry-based combat would look like.

Antares utilizes the same order dice that are used in Bolt Action, but has several key differences, such as primarily using D10s and rolling for equal or under, and allowing players to field units with individual models having different statlines due to their species. Overall, the system is very crunchy, especially when compared to Mantic's Firefight, with several actions available to units, Agility rolls to move past obstacles or through difficult terrain, blast templates and overhead shots that can land on your dudes, a large variety of equipment and weapons with secondary firing modes, several possible reactions, both to being assaulted or fired at, special units that can activate two or more times per round and roughly 30 keyword special abilities, not counting each faction's unique abilities and whatnot.

Setting

Current map of Antares. The grey areas are Spill zones, which might house unaligned factions

It is the year 1325 of the 7th age, over 25,000 years into the future and Earth is but a distant memory of a long gone past.

The Antares is a colossal machine, powered by a red giant star, and a companion dwarf star, Obureg, that has tunnels and gates to millions of different places around the universe, thus acting as a Nexus. Ships that can handle the 2,000° Celsius trip while on the Nexus can easily make FTL travel by jumping through these gates. Gates aren't static and they may collapse, essentially cutting access to parts of the universe, then rebuilding the gates and pointing them to different places. Such events mark the Ages of the Antares universe, and the game is set on the brink of a probable seventh collapse.

Although it's not specified or even hinted how Antares looks, considering that ships passing through have to fly within the star's photosphere (its "surface"), almost "sailing" through its plasma currents, it's likely that the nexus is a form of Dyson Sphere, with the gates on the star-facing side. Given it's hypothetical intelligence it may even be a Matrioshka Brain. There are also gates that lie so deep within the photosphere that they can only be accessed when the gravitational pull of Obureg makes the plasma flow more amenable, which is still a very risky maneuver, because you are literally sinking deeper within a red giant star's atmosphere and gravitational pull. This also means that ships are forced to deal with a time dilation of 5.6 to 1: for every 1 hour the ship and its passengers experience, roughly 5 hours and 36 minutes passed "outside".

Obureg is as important to the maintenance of Antares as a whole as the Moon is to the Earth's oceanic currents. The dwarf companion star directs the plasma flow of the larger giant, and can also detect ship to ship combat happening within Antares, changing the plasma flow in order to destroy all those involved. How it does all that is a mystery, and leads people to believe that the whole thing might as well be some sort of sentient construct.

Finding these gates within star systems is hard, as they are basically invisible if looked at from the wrong angle, as they are "holes" into the null-space dimension that allows for the FTL transport. There is a passing mention of explorers finding alien civilizations capable of near-light speed travel that have completely failed to notice the gate within their reach. Even if they do discover a gate, it's not guaranteed they'll uncover the mechanisms to make it work.

With any attempt to control access to gates from within Antares all but impossible, control of the systems residing on the other side is what creates tensions and disputes between the powers. There are a few rule extensions pertaining space combat, but it's unlikely it'll take off, as it doesn't seem to be that popular (then again, can you point any single person even remotely aware of BtGA's existence?).

IMTel

For the most part, panhuman societies are post-scarcity and everything runs on nanomachines nanospores, son. This means that where these things are present as part of the atmosphere, called nanosphere, human brains are effectively connected to the internet, and everyone els, at all times, through the Integrated Machine Intelligence, or IMTel. This human-machine hivemind keeps track of all their physical and psychological needs. Although there's no "active" mind control from IMTel, the intelligence nudges (much like Facebook "nudges" people into using its shitty social media) people into developing specific skills, according to needs of the society and how the individual is expected to grow. It's basically the green ending of Mass Effect 3. How much this undermines people's individualism and free will is up for debate.

Once the human body naturally expires, which can take over 200 years, thanks to all the technological advances, the mind can be uploaded and then downloaded into a new clone body. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows, though, as the nanospores of different factions are largely incompatible with one another and are also susceptible to hacking and general electronics warfare. This is where the Freeborn houses come in: they work mostly getting stuff from one faction, sterilizing the nanospores' defense mechanisms, allowing them to work without the nanotech, then selling to other factions. Still, on the whole, being a panhuman and living within either the Senatex or Concord means you're very likely to have a long, fruitful and problem-free life, although that is only possible thanks to invasive and possibly identity altering technology. The same cannot be said for the Algoryn, as they reject IMTel integration because that'd make them more vulnerable to those two powers.

Panhumans and Aliens

The term panhuman is used to identify any species, called morphs, that originated from ancient humans. These are the Algoryn, Boromites, Ferals, Gyohn, Hantale, Krasz, NuHu and Vyess. There are also misgenic rejects, which are the results of failed experiments into creating new morphs, such as by inserting and mixing animal genes with artificial genes and another morph's genes.

Actual intelligent alien species in the setting include the Askar (insectoid, usually under command of Vorl armies), Ghar (bioengineered to destroy humans), Hükk (weird, strong aliens) and Tsan Ra (weird, insectoid gorillas). The Vorl are a separate case, as they are an amalgamation of several things into one.

There is also the Virai (Viral AI), which aren't evil per se, but don't accept a "no, thank you" to their unasked question of "do you want to be assimilated?"

Ages and Gate Collapses

As previously mentioned, the whole structure of Antares is not stable and gates collapse. Thus far, 6 collapses have been recorded, each marking the end of its respective age. Every time a collapse happens, thousands of star systems become completely cut off from the rest of the Antarean Nexus and, depending on how much they relied on imports from other planets, they may revert to any previous technological level, including techno-barbarism

Although the gates eventually rebuild, they don't necessarily reappear in the same place within Antares, so rebuilding connections is not straightforward. Not only that, the time that a system stays out of reach from the Nexus is not straightforward or linear. Due to unknown shenanigans, the time that passes within connected systems and unconnected systems is not the same, relativity notwithstanding. This means that an unconnected system can spend 1,000 local years before it's connected again, but only 100 years would have passed within connected systems, or vice versa. Yeah, it's weird like that.

Of the collapses, onee can be directly attributed to the Vorl, who gave panhumans a run for their money before fucking Antarean shit up by doing chronoplasticity experiments - causing the 3rd collapse. Many years later, the panhumans caused the 6th collapse by destroying Vorl gates, which led to a domino effect.

Where your dudes come in

Space is big^{<Citation needed>} and, while Antarean space is smaller than that, it's still very big. Just think about pretty much any sort of scifi adventure and they easily fit in within BtGA. Planet with valuable relics? Your dudes were sent in to retrieve them. Or your dudes are space pirates intent on stealing that stuff! An all-out assault on an enemy fortification in a strategically important moon? Of course! What might matter a bit more is how factions interact with each other and themselves.

In general, Senatex, Concord and Algoryn will fight each other on any chance encounter, whether on already occupied planets or in newly discovered ones. Infighting within the Algoryn Prosperate is a given, thanks to the different families vying for power. Meanwhile, the Concord and Senatex are less likely to infight, thanks to IMTel and post-scarcity giving little reason for internal struggles. Still, for those two, distance and time can end up dividing the IMTel again, making it recognize the old ally as a new enemy. To explain it with computer analogy, it's as if a Linux distro received an update but, for whatever reason, people living in a farther reach, never received it and had to develop their own, incompatible update.

Freeborn houses are much like the Great Houses of Battletech, they'll enter any fight that they believe can increase their own power, whether against different powers, or against rival houses. Among Boromites, the situation is somewhat similar, as they lack any grand power behind them and don't care at all about conquering territory, being mostly nomad workers that don't like to mingle with other panhumans and might have one or two longstanding grudges to settle around.

The Ghar and Virai will fight anyone getting in their way and fight themselves because fuck you, in the case of the Ghar, or to decide which AI is superior, in the case of the Virai.

The Vorl are a very interesting case, as they will fight panhumans as if they were little more than pests, while also fighting their own forces for reasons that vary from wanting new DNA, getting high and drunk and deciding the nest next-door looks dumb (yes, really) and even to secure resources for breeding.

Within the map, there are various Spill zones. These are pretty much unaligned systems that could house any form of civilization or society that you decide exists there.

Factions

Faction	Short Fluff
Algoryn Prosperate	The Algoryn Prosperate is the largest and amongst the most advanced of the independent panhuman federations, boasting over 300 federated systems plus 3000 subjugated ones, and fights a constant war to protect its borders, as their location within the Nexus is right between the Senatex and Concord, as well as the main target of Ghar attacks. On the field, they often rely on elite troops and commanders.
Boromite Guilds	The Boromites are bio-adapted for asteroid mining and thus all look like variations of Thing from the Fantastic Four. Their hardiness makes them highly valued mercenary fighters and they uniquely make use of weapons developed from mining tools including mass compactors and frag borers. On the field, these fellas are the most likely to engage in glorious melee, thanks to their natural toughness and strength.
Panhuman Concord	The military of the Panhuman Concord is directed by a branch of the IMTel called the Concord Combined Command – or C3. The Concord responds to threats against it with logical ruthlessness, dispatching heavily armed forces throughout Antarean space. On the field, they're among the shootiest soldiers available, with plenty of ranged ordnance, while being unfit for close combat.
Freeborn	The Freeborn are great merchants and traders whose fleets maintain a free-flow of commodities and technology across the whole of Antarean space. They hire armed troops to anyone willing to pay for them. They generally field slightly inferior versions of troops available to other factions, but have access to a larger variety of units to choose from, as they are the merchant faction, so to speak.
Ghar Empire	The resident grimdark/evil faction. The Ghar are twisted, spiteful and pitiless creatures driven by an unquenchable hatred of all panhumans. They view other kinds of human as vermin that it is their job to eradicate. The Ghar themselves are hunched, repulsive creatures but they are rarely seen out of their huge, amoured battle suits. Their tech is relatively primitive, powered by unstable plasma reactors that constantly leak toxic radiation. They tend to field very powerful and uniquely keyworded units, as well as some cannon fodder. The ideal way of using them is going all out on the enemy, losses be damned.
Isorian Senatex	The original Pan-Human Concord, the Isorian’s broke off (became a separate shard) when they became infected with biosilicon nanospore. As a result, their organic aesthetic is very different and one of the most interesting to be found and they utilise their former alien enemy, the Tsan, in their forces. They are, however, as advanced as the Concord and have access to some unique equipment and capabilities in both weapons, armour and the Tsan Ra aliens. Similar to the Concord, they prefer to be a shooty army, though with focus on being the nimble kind of shooty: all their light infantry can use the "Down" action if they're shot at, even if they were already activated. When finesse won't do, they rely on the Tsan Ra for messy assaults and heavy armor.
Virai Dronescourge	The mandatory "life-erasing robot AI" on nearly every sci-fi setting. Vira are an artificial life form with a complex machine intelligence. They do not call themselves the Virai: it is the rest of the universe that has done so – Viral AI. Even their logo is the warning symbol used by the Antares races to warn of Virai – the stylised top down view of a Virai Warrior drone. On the table, they are similar to Tyranids, with commanders being the most important units, surrounded by swarms of smaller constructs ready to rip apart their enemies.
Vorl Ordo	The Vorl are an intelligent, technologically alien species who were connected to the Nexus some time during the PanHuman Second or Third Ages (precise connection times are not known). They are a symbiosis, a merge of three distinct creatures who, far back in their evolution, merged to better forage and survive. Since then, the Vorl have continually tampered with their genetic make-up – indeed, it is part of their (complex) reproductive practices that DNA from species they eat are incorporated into their offspring. On the tabletop, they are a very flexible force, usually working better with units carrying more models than having more units and command dice.

Stat Breakdown

Example stats card
Trooper	M	Ag	Acc	Str	Res	Init	Co	Special
Concord Strike Trooper	5	5	5	5	5(7)	7	8	-
Isorian Tsan Ra Trooper	6	5	5	7	6(8)	6	8	Monitor

• Move (M or Mv). This indicates the model’s basic move in inches. The most common M is 5”.
• Agility (Ag). Used when moving across awkward terrain.
• Accuracy (Acc). Used when shooting to determine if a shot hits.
• Strength (Str). Used when fighting hand-to-hand to determine if a strike hits.
• Resist (Res). A defence against enemy attacks. If the Res stat has a second number in brackets this is the Res including the most often-used bonus from any armour.
• Initiative (Init). Used when making reactions.
• Command (Co). A measure of a unit’s morale used when testing to activate a unit or to check its willingness to fight on.
• Special. The column at the end of the stat-line indicates special rules that apply to that unit or individual.

Mapping your own Antares

You know how those old ADnD games had all sorts of rules for exploring large hexes, mapping them out as part of your campaign? The fellas at the Nexus provide a pdf with lots and lots of information on how to map the Antarean surface. The shardhexes that you're invited to map can be assumed to represent an area of ~0.4 SAU (Standard Astronomical Unit). You can roll to determine the number of gates within, their depth, gate transit time, angle within the exit star system, star type and its distance from the gate and even its history. They even allow players to submit their "discoveries" for some shardhexes (a sub-subdivision).

This package of map building tools certainly invites players to try and make their games part of a grand strategy campaign or, for those with a penchant for writing, lots of guidelines on how the "galactic standard" is supposed to be.

External Links

In case you've missed the ones thrown around the article:

• Rules central, with PDFs for the rules (duh), weapons and equipment, lore stuff, etc.
• Army Lists, each faction has its own PDF, roughly 10-15 pages long.