L A C U N A

Archived surveys show empty space. The latest observations show stars, planets, and objects nobody can account for.

The VESPER programme was established to investigate. You will remain at Mission Control. Your probe will go where you cannot.

Plot transfers, manage power and propellant, and send instructions across the communications link. Photographs arrive in fragments. Telemetry describes where the probe was, rather than where it is now.

Study the returns before committing to your next move. A command already in transit cannot be recalled.

Survey unfamiliar systems. Examine spectra, recover samples, and listen for patterns in the noise. Land on distant worlds, descend beneath alien oceans, and inspect abandoned structures.

Some findings have ordinary explanations. Others become harder to explain the closer you look.

Watch your reserves, pressure tolerance, and damaged instruments. Choose routes that clear the star. Decide whether an uncertain contact is worth the cost of reaching it.

If a VESPER probe is lost, its carrier falls silent. Another can be dispatched. The previous vehicle cannot be recovered.

Your assignment is to gather evidence of the systems’ origin and establish a return channel to Mission Control.

You do not need to explain everything you find.

You need to make sure someone receives it.

• Command and navigate: Operate a lone VESPER probe from Mission Control. Chart unknown contacts and plan transfers around stellar hazards.

• Work across the delay: Commands take time to execute. Telemetry arrives from the past. Reconstruct incoming photographs and study the returns.

• Explore and investigate: Analyse spectra, recover samples, land on distant worlds, and dive beneath alien oceans.

• Listen closely: Tune intercepted recordings and search for patterns in unusual signals.

• Keep the mission running: Manage power and propellant, salvage resources, and repair damaged instruments where recovery is possible.

• Bring back evidence: Investigate abandoned stations, shipwrecks, buried ruins, and unexplained remains. Gather the origin archive and transmit it home.

• Carry on or start again: Reconnect with an ongoing mission or dispatch the next numbered VESPER probe in to a new solar system. Probe loss is permanent.

• More mysteries await discovery.