We’re the ones left over, Wanderers like me. Nobody wanted us way back when Earth was crumbling to bits, and frankly, none of ‘em wants much to do with us nowadays either. As far as I’m concerned, that’s full-on copacetic. I don’t trust ‘em any more than a whistle on a ship. That’s how you end up dead. Me? Eh, I’m just a guy. A fleck in the starry seas, same as you and everyone else. But I settled down with a lady a few years back, Jessa’s her name; so that’s been a nice change of pace. We even got assigned to a bigger cabin here on C3, seeing as Jessa’s in the family way. We get by. Been a mercenary most of my life. All kinds of mercenary though, so it’s not like I’m always staring the inky blackness in the face, if you catch what I mean. Sometimes I’m escorting an unlucky leashup or an important somebody or other; I just go where the credits are flowing. Of course, protecting some richwad’s trade goods is always a lucrative stint, ‘cause its got to be done. Those bastards in the rest of the Coalition will steal our merch faster than a beamer, if you don’t already have one trained on ‘em, that is. This whole Coalition nonsense seems like some lonely imbie’s plan to buy himself a group of friends. Captain Osmium says it’ll be good for us, but so far I’ve only seen us Wanderer’s doing all the heavy lifting, and for what? We’ve been roaming the stars forever, so we can go wherever we want. It’s those other colonies that have planets ‘at need protection. That lot of pretentious twits up in government formed the Coalition and signed that pact, not me. The Captain told us that she threw our lot in with the Coalition forces “as a defensive measure against an imminent alien incursion.” Dogpiss. Way I see it, those Alnitaki folks are about as alien as can be, so why are they on our side? They say there are documents and DNA and whatnot to prove that they came from Earth too, but I’ve never seen the proof, have you? But hey, a man with certain talents like myself stands to profit during a war, so if I can build up a little nest egg off of this mess, I’ll hold my tongue. Harlin Pewter, mercenary aboard the Wanderer civilian vessel C3-Xoraxis

Background

Scattered throughout the stars of the Milky Way Galaxy, the disparate human settlements gradually forgot one another as they turned inwards to the challenges of establishing their civilizations. The Third Supereon saw each group adapt to their new environs, both physically and culturally, widening the ever-growing chasm between the colonies as the stars themselves spread farther apart. The impending collision of Andromeda ushered in an era of reunification and resulted in the formation of the Sapien Coalition of the Milky Way. Working together, they began preparations to colonize new sectors amidst the shifting galaxies. The Coalition launched a volley of exploratory missions to find suitable systems to call their home, but they discovered a far more immediate threat: an entirely alien species.

Coalition Strategies

The Coalition is a loose alliance of long-separated, distantly related sapiens that have each taken different paths, both culturally and evolutionarily.

Strategically, the Coalition is a methodical faction. They can be highly adaptive, manipulative and colonial; winning over neighboring sectors through political intrigue or through subversion via military efforts or even media-driven coups.

Or perhaps you will choose the path of militarization, and lead vast invading armies and call down planetary bombardments from gargantuan mega-cruisers.

Or maybe you will take an interest in exploring their artistic, poetic side. Focusing instead on culture, knowledge and the arts. Your skin might even turn blue from it.

Or when you tire of that, let go of your physical body, free your consciousness to live eternally, and then download it into a new skin of your choosing. Somewhere in that massive cloud of data, is something thrilling, waiting to be discovered and researched.

Whichever path you choose, the Coalition will have something for everyone.

Concept art progress

Eko Puteh and Zhangx have been paired up and working, respectively, on Coalition characters and their space ship designs. Above, you can see a finished trio showcasing examples of sapiens from three of the five most successful sapien species. The remaining two dominant branches: the Praecians and Wanderers, will be revealed in more detail at a later time.

Below, is a nice detail of the atypical teeth found on the Gomeish:

And some of the iterations it took to arrive at our current Alnitaki, the first was too human and the second iteration was too alien:

In parallel with Eko, another artist by the name of Zhangx powered out our space ship concepts for the Coalition. Here, you can see an example of their Frigates:

And their large Dreadnaughts:

Next steps?

We’re really happy to have been able to show you this artwork today. Our core game will offer Coalition and Sylith decks to play. We have more alien factions designed but those will be revealed somewhere in the future. Each faction has its own distinct play style and will provide you with a different set of strategies to implement

Join us next Friday as we reveal even more about our game on the journey towards our big summer 2015 Kickstarter.

GalaCollider tm. is an expandable scifi turn based card game by NeoCrux Ltd. If you want to keep informed please like our facebook page and sign up for our infrequent newsletter and tell your friends about us! You can also follow us on twitter.

Featured image courtesy of Zak Foreman, all rights reserved 2015. You can find out more about him on his Facebook and Art Station pages. All other images copyright 2015 NeoCrux Ltd. all rights reserved.

