Hiraeth DG:

The Lost Cradle

System: GURPS 4e – Space Opera sandbox.

Narrative lead: Players, not GM.

Players: 1-3 (beginners & veterans welcome).

Sessions: Episodic monthly quests; fail if incomplete by month end.

Tech Level: 12^ (The Age of Exotic Matter +, hard super science).

Starting money: $100,000 (if no debt or debt* ≥50).

Character points:

- - 150 CP + up to 50 in disadvantages, or
  - 100 CP + up to 50+Debt* in disadvantages (if starting with debt).

*Debt applies if the party owns their own ship and is not affiliated with a scientific, commercial, or military organization.

**One Standard Year is defined as One ten-millionth of a Galactic Year, calculated from the rotational period of the galactic core. By Human reckoning, this equals approximately 25 human life cycle.

Lost home

Compaign general objective

As a Civilian

You are a member/leader of a scientific/exploration team, working with a corporation or on a contractual assignment, with the objective of exploring a planet, a celestial object, or a space environment. Or you are sent to study a technology or the remains of an ancient civilisation.

As a Military/Operator

You are a member/leader of a military platoon or a team of security contractors, working with a private military corporation or on a contractual assignment, with the objective of securing a hostile zone, a facility, or a contested urban environment. Or you are sent to neutralize a threat, extract a high-value target, or enforce a designated area.

Characters Professions

Every crew member has a Primary Role (their core job) and a Secondary Role (what they're trained to do in a pinch). This creates:

Resilience: The ship can function if one person is incapacitated.
Conflict: A Pilot acting as Engineer is less effective than a real Engineer, creating tough choices.
Command Ambiguity: Who is really in charge? The Pilot (by title) or the Security Officer (by combat necessity)?

Scientific/Exploration team

1. The Pilot

"I'll fly her right into hell. Someone else has to get us back out."

Primary Role (Pilot): Helm control, navigation, evasive manoeuvres, astrogation (jump calculations).
Secondary Role (Engineer): Can perform emergency repairs, re-route power to engines, or stabilize a failing reactor. Cannot perform overhauls or creative jury-rigging.
Command Status: Captain by default. The ship's owner, the mission-giver, or the legally designated commander. They have the final say on where the ship goes and why. Also is the one who takes care of the communication.

2. The Engineer

"The captain tells her where to go. I tell her if she can get there."

Primary Role (Engineer): Power management, repairs, life support, weapon capacitor charging, shield modulation and hacking. The ship's HP is their responsibility.
Secondary Role (Pilot): Can maintain current course, execute a pre-plotted jump, or make a very basic landing. Cannot perform combat manoeuvres or asteroid-dodging.
Command Status: First Mate by default. Second-in-command. They assume Captaincy if the Pilot is dead/incapacitated. Their authority is technical, they can override the captain on matters of ship safety ("I refuse to route power from life support, sir.").

3. The Scientific Officer

"The unknown is just data we haven't analysed yet."

Primary Role (Scientific): Analyse alien artifacts, decipher unknown languages, operate sensors, identify anomalies, study xenobiology and geology.
Secondary Role (Medic): Can stabilize a wounded crewmate, diagnose alien diseases, and administer pre-made antidotes/drugs. Cannot perform surgery or treat trauma without the proper bay.
Command Status: No automatic command, but their word is law on alien contact and unknown phenomena. The captain can ignore them... at the crew's peril.

4. The Medical Officer

"I can put you back together. I'd rather figure out what tore you apart first."

Primary Role (Medic): Surgery, trauma care, pharmaceutical synthesis, quarantine procedures, psychological counselling.
Secondary Role (Scientific): Can operate lab equipment, analyse a known substance, or follow a research protocol written by a real scientist. Cannot identify unknown anomalies or theorize about alien tech.
Command Status: No command but has emergency override authority to quarantine any area or person, including the captain, for medical reasons (abuse of this is a major plot point).

5. The Security Officer

"I keep the peace. The question is: whose peace?"

Primary Role (Security): Combat, boarding actions, repelling boarders, internal discipline, operating ship weapons, damage control parties.
Secondary Role (Captain or 1st Mate): Can issue orders in a crisis, assume command if the chain is broken, or serve as the captain's enforcer. They are trained in leadership, but not in navigation or engineering.
Command Status: The Wildcard. They are the designated successor if they choose to be. They can act as Captain (if they relieve the Pilot, legally or mutinously) or 1st Mate (if they support the Engineer as tactical commander). This ambiguity is intentional.

Military Platoon/Security contractors

1. The Vanguard

“You want them? You go through me. And I don’t break.”

Primary Role (Vanguard): Absorb damage, control enemy movement, protect allies, draw aggro, hold chokepoints. High health, heavy armor, or energy shields.
Secondary Role (Any – choose one):
- Demolitions: Breach doors, clear obstacles.
- Heavy Weapons: Suppress enemy squads.
- Drone Handler: Deploy a small shield or decoy drone.
  (No default secondary—they are pure combat, but can take one utility pick.)
Command Status: No automatic command, but in a firefight, their “hold or push” decision often becomes de facto tactical direction. If no Operator or Medic speaks up, the Vanguard leads by standing in front.

2. The Field Medic

“I’ll patch you up. First, let me figure out what’s killing you.”

Primary Role (Medic): Heal wounds, stabilize bleeding, administer stimulants, remove poison/disease, revive downed allies. Uses medkits, auto-injectors, or field surgery tools.
Secondary Role (Scientific Officer): Can analyze alien biology, test unknown substances, operate a portable scanner, identify toxins, or deduce environmental hazards. Cannot perform full lab work or theoretical xenology.
Command Status: Medical override – can order any team member to stop, be examined, or evacuate, regardless of rank. Abuse leads to mutiny.

3. The Operator

“I break things. Or I fly things. Or I talk to things. Depends on the mission.”

Primary Role (Operator): High single-target or area damage, precision shooting, hacking enemy systems (in a tech sense), or laying traps. The team’s offensive scalpel.
Secondary Role (choose one – defines their non-combat utility):
- Pilot: Can operate ground vehicles, small shuttles, or drones. Including performing combat manoeuvres under fire with a level of penalty.
- Engineer: Can repair Armor, recharge shields, jury-rig weapons, or disable traps. Including performing full system overhauls.
- Cultural Expert: Can decipher alien languages, navigate social protocols, identify factions, or barter. Including performing deep anthropology with research time.
Command Status: No inherent command, but if their secondary role is Pilot or Cultural Expert, they may assume temporary authority during vehicle ops or first contact. The team’s “specialist in the moment.”

What's Hiraeth

Hiraeth (Welsh pronunciation: [hɪraɨ̯θ, hiːrai̯θ]) is a Welsh word for a type of longing or homesickness for Wales, particularly of a nostalgic character. It is the name given to the closest dwarf galaxy to the former Milky Way, established during the accord of the same name between the Federation and the Imperium. The accord designated that dwarf galaxy as a neutral space where only non-military personnel from all human and alien factions could meet to dispute differences or exchange scientific progress. It was also established as an outpost to follow the progression of the unknown phenomenon that plunged the entire Milky Way into darkness.

Today it is one of the biggest free-world factions, holding one of the most important scientific, economic and military impacts on the whole intergalactic scene.

Scientific impact

The asymmetry of neutrality

Hiraeth's scientific weight comes not from its own research capacity but from being the only place where Federation, Imperium, and alien Survey Corps data gets pooled. No single faction would share with another directly, but all of them deposit findings at Hiraeth because the accord obligates it and because they want access to what others deposit. Hiraeth becomes an aggregator rather than an originator. Its institutions don't produce the best science, they produce the most complete science. The practical consequence: any expedition into the Milky Way dark zone is coordinated through Hiraeth, making it the de facto operational brain of the most important ongoing scientific mystery in the known universe, without actually controlling the mystery.

Economic impact

The bottleneck model

Hiraeth doesn't need to be the largest economy. It needs to be the one nobody can route around. Its position as the closest intact body to the former Milky Way, combined with its neutral status, makes it the natural waypoint for any long-range transit between the Andromedan and Triangulum theatres. Tariffs, docking fees, resupply contracts, insurance underwriting for expeditions into the dark zone, all of this flows through Hiraeth infrastructure. Think less "financial capital of the universe" and more "the port city that taxes everything passing through the strait."

Military impact

The deterrent, not the force

This is the most delicate one because Hiraeth was founded as non-military. The solution is that its military significance is structural rather than active. Its neutrality is enforced by the fact that any faction that violated it would lose access to the accord's scientific exchange and the waypoint infrastructure, a cost no faction wants to pay. Hiraeth doesn't project force; it projects consequence. It probably maintains a modest defensive fleet framed as "security personnel" rather than military, but its real deterrent is that it would take a catastrophically bad political calculation to attack it. Over time, that structural safety has made it attractive to defectors, dissidents, and independent researchers, which has organically built up a genuinely capable population with military expertise, even if the institution itself stays formally neutral.

Current year is 4E115 (115 of the 4th human Era)

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