The Artificers
Aliens aren’t exactly uncommon in the Foundation; well over half the colonies scattered throughout the Core, Incorporated Territories and the Rim contain some kind of indigenous life. When people talk about aliens they are normally either referring to nascent microbial biospheres, or to worlds where the life that has sprung up is bizzare, complex and beautiful - but clearly not intelligent. The idea of aliens with advanced intelligence, who walk around and communicate like humans do, is mostly consigned to the realm of fiction.
However, recent events - very recent, within the past decade - have revealed a number of mysterious structures through the Rim sector, particularly the most distant and least developed systems. Every detail of these ancient edifices is controversial and hotly debated. Speculation and rumour reign supreme about the stories of millennia-old ruins and mysterious artifacts that have begun to circulate in recent years.
The ancient ruins and mysterious artifacts that have been discovered seem to imply that intelligent and starfaring aliens once inhabited the most distant reaches of known space, and thrived there. Because they are known only by the works they left behind, they’ve been dubbed “Artificers” by the popular media.
It’s not known whether these Artificers were one civilisation or a collection of disparate cultures; whether they were all of the same species; or even whether their technology was more or less advanced than that of humanity. Ever since the first discoveries, though, scientific and treasure-hunting expeditions have been setting out for the long and perilous journey across the Foundation to hunt through alien ruins.
Ruins
The structures of the Artificers were built to last, and by all accounts have lain empty for thousands of years. No expedition has ever uncovered evidence of the calamity that is assumed to have wiped them from the face of the universe: no bombed-out cities, no wrecked megastructures, no mass graves. Not so much as a skeleton or a fossil has been found of them; it’s as though they spread throughout the stars, thrived, and then one day - they all just vanished.
There are lots of theories about exactly how that happened. A few of the more popular hypotheses include…
The Terraforming Hypothesis. Every halfway-viable planet in the sector abounds with alien life of some description. That’s because the Artificers seeded the Foundation with it thousands or even millions of years ago, preparing the way for their own interstellar colonisation. The “ruins” found by explorers are simply the remnants of vast terraforming engines which have lain quiet and unattended for eons, slowly gathering dust and falling apart. Clearly, the Artificers perished in some civilisation-ending apocalypse before they could reap the harvest they sowed, and the centuries have marched on without them. Will some intrepid explorer one day discover the ancient tomb of the Artificer homeworld, and learn the truth behind their demise?
The Ascension Hypothesis. The Artificers didn’t go anywhere. They have long since transcended the mundane three-dimensional universe that we inhabit, and now dwell in the incomprehensible layer of reality which humans call “otherspace” and use to travel between the stars. They dwell there still, working out inscrutable plans beyond human comprehension. Perhaps they even intervened on humanity’s behalf, opening the fortuitous wormhole that brought humans here in the first place. Are they waiting to invite us in to join them, or guarding the gates to make sure we never follow?
The Despair Hypothesis. The only way for a galaxy-spanning civilisation to vanish without a trace is a voluntary extinction; any other explanation is simply too far-fetched. The destruction of the Artificers was an act of wilful suicide, following a slow decline into despair that consumed an entire society. Perhaps they chose to simply die, or perhaps they committed themselves to an eternal slumber because they could not face eternity for a moment longer. The ruins they left behind are the circuitboards of light and crystal they uploaded their minds to, the miraculous technology which was their undoing. Are the silent monuments they left behind a grim warning about our own future, or a Pandora’s Box waiting to be opened?
Whether any of these theories resemble the truth in your version of the Foundation is up to you. If you wish, the relics can simply be priceless cultural artifacts that may hold clues about a vanished alien civilisation. The anomalies which reputedly swirl around them may just be superstition, or the vestiges of a strange technology which is difficult to understand and easy to ascribe to the supernatural.
Relics
Along with incredible stories of Artificer ruins on distant planets, mysterious relics have begun to circulate throughout the Foundation - some come from legitimate scientific expeditions, but most circulate strictly in the black market.
These objects are alien in every sense of the word, and possess bizarre properties and capabilities that seem to defy the known laws of physics. Yet they are also frustratingly opaque; they behave in unpredictable and poorly understood ways, and it tends to be difficult to make them do anything consistently. Many are particularly volatile when exposed to otherspace, which is troublesome for anyone looking to bring them home and sell them to the highest bidder.
There are rumours of artifacts that can be activated easily and have more predictable effects, but such items are kept under wraps by their current custodians. Because they are so very rare and incredibly illegal for anyone other than the Foundation to possess, most of the few Artificer artifacts in circulation are shrouded in mystery. They are traded in secret by black-market collectors, kept in the vaults of wealthy oligarchs, or safeguarded carefully by pirate royalty.
When an Artificer relic appears in the fiction, the GM should figure out the answer to the following questions:
- What does it do? How is it activated?
- What makes it difficult to safely store or transport?
- What makes it unstable, unpredictable or difficult to control?
- What happens when it’s exposed to psionics or to otherspace?