Gen7: A Crossroads Game Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Object of the Game
• Components
• Critical Task Cards
• Operations Task Cards
• File Cards
• Schema Cards
• Crossroads Cards
• Episode Objective Cards
• Personal Objective Cards
• Rules Cards
• Crew Cards
• Ship Location Boards
• Track Board
• Ship Log
• Barracks Placard
• Officer Perks
• Plot Book
• Other Components
• Setup
• Round
  • 1. Critical Tasks
  • 2. Roll Crew
  • 3. Player Turns
  • 4. System Failure
  • 5. Crew Retrieval
  • 6. Update Status
  • 7. End of Round
• End of Episode
  • 1. Record Merit
  • 2. Officer Awards
  • 3. Status Indicators at Critical
  • 4. Record Current Logic/Instinct Value
  • 5. Add Crew Relationship Cards
  • 6. Prepare Next Episode
• Credits
• Rules Reference Section
  • Active Player
  • Badge: Operations Chief
  • Barracks Placards
  • Card / Location Text
  • Chem Lab Ship Location
  • Crew Cards
  • Crew Dice
  • Critical Task Cards
  • Crossroads Cards
  • Data Center Ship Location
  • Degrade Step
  • Episode Objective Cards
  • File Cards
  • First Available Seat
  • Group Seats
  • Last Available Seat
  • Manufacturing Center Ship Location
  • Markers
  • Medical Center Ship Location
  • Merit Point Tie Breaking
  • Officer Perks
  • Officer Rank
  • Officer Spotlight
  • Officer Stars
  • Operations Chief
  • Operations Ship Location
  • Operations Task Cards
  • Personal Objective Cards
  • Plot Book
  • Previous Seat
  • Recycling Lab Ship Location
  • Remove From the Game
  • Reset the Game
  • Resource Limits
  • Robotics Ship Location
  • Rule Cards
  • Schema Cards
  • Science Lab Ship Location
  • Ship Locations
• Officer Perks Card Overview
• Round Summary
  • 1. Critical Tasks
  • 2. Roll Crew
  • 3. Player Turns
  • 4. System Failure
  • 5. Crew Retrieval
  • 6. Update Status
  • 7. End of Round

Object of the Game

In Gen7, players are officers among the seventh generation of colonists aboard an interstellar ark bound for the Epsilon Eridani system. Their ship is 142 years into their 210 year mission.

Each game session is called an episode. Players will be given episode objectives that they are trying to complete to earn officer stars, which are used to gain officer perks.

Players will be working independently to earn the most officer stars, but they must also work cooperatively to advance the episode's plot and to prevent the ship's systems from failing.

The full play of Gen7 occurs over seven episodes, during which game play and narrative choices affect the final outcome of the overall story.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

Gen7 is a narrative game. The game is ultimately not won or lost until the story's conclusion. Each episode defines goals for the players to achieve to advance, and will eventually define the conditions for determining victory. The story's conclusion, however, and whether victory is achieved will be determined by the players' actions, and NOT by a measurement of total accrued officer stars from the episodes.

Gen7 is also a campaign game. New game elements will become introduced over the course of play. Some elements may never be introduced, based on the players' actions. To that end, you may encounter terms, symbols, or values on the game materials that are not defined in this rulebook but will become defined if those game elements enter play. Be patient and explore your possibilities.

Components

CREW DICE (Green, Blue, Orange, Purple)

• D12 Robot
• D8 Officer
• D6 Colonist

Note: The terms crew, die/dice, and crew dice are interchangeable.

RESOURCE TOKENS

• Data
• Part
• Chem

BADGES

• Operations Chief

MARKERS

• Merit Point (Green, Blue, Orange, Purple)
• Hibernating Crew (Green, Blue, Orange, Purple)
• Success
• Failure
• Disabled
• Round (Current, Final)
• Plot Advance

Critical Task Cards

1. Name: The name of the critical task.
2. Division: The division the critical task is part of.
3. Resources: The resources required to complete the task.
4. Group Seats: The number of seats that must be filled with crew dice, as well as the relationship rule that must be followed.
5. Merit Award: The number of merit points awarded to each player that contributed at least one crew die.
6. System Failure: The negative effect if the critical task is not completed by the end of the round. This ship system will be degraded by this number of steps.
7. Group Seat Icon: A reminder that the seats are a group seat.

Operations Task Cards

1. Name: The name of the operations task card.
2. Resources: The resources required to complete the task.
3. Center: The ship location where the task must be completed.
4. Merit Award: The merit points awarded to the player that completed the task.
5. Merit Penalty: The merit points deducted from the player still holding the task at the end of the episode.
6. Special Text: Special instructions to follow when the task is completed.

File Cards

1. Name: The name of the file card.
2. Effect: The effect that occurs when the file card is played.

Schema Cards

1. Name: The name of the schema card.
2. Effect: The ongoing effect of the schema card when it is slotted in a barracks.
3. Focus: The effect text (in brackets) that is replaced when a schema card has focus. See Schema Cards on page 16-17.

Crossroads Cards

1. Name: The name of the crossroads card.
2. Label: A card group identifier.
3. Trigger: The criteria that determine if the card's effects are performed.
4. Options: The options given to choose from when the card triggers.

Episode Objective Cards

1. Name: The name of the objective.
2. State: The current state of the objective (success or failure).
3. Criteria: The criteria for completing the objective, and the stars earned for completing the objective.
4. Failure: The criteria that causes this or other objective cards to be flipped to their failure side.

Personal Objective Cards

1. Name: The name of the objective.
2. Criteria: The criteria for completing the objective.
3. Officer Stars: The officer stars earned for completing the objective.

Rules Cards

1. Name: The name of the card.
2. Rules: The rules to follow when using the referenced game elements. These cards will be introduced when a new game element enters play, and can be referenced until that element becomes familiar.

Crew Cards

1. Name: The name of the crew person.
2. Ship Position: The crew person's role on the ship.
3. Performance Evaluation: The crew person's current performance.
4. Crossroad Seed: Each crew card instructs that a specific crossroad card be added to the crossroad deck. This should be done when the card is assigned to a player during the first episode.

Ship Location Boards

1. Name: The name of the ship location.
2. Division: The border color indicates the division the location is part of, which often matches a ship system the location is governed by.
3. Seats: The available seats for crew placement. The pip count indicates if a failure marker should be placed over it when a system degrades. Seats can be filled in any order.
4. Actions: The actions that occur when a crew is seated at the location. If there is more than one action listed, the actions occur in the order listed. If an action title is in italics, it is optional.

Track Board

1. Merit Track: Tracks merit points earned by the players.
2. Head/Heart Track: This tracks player decisions and helps guide the story during player advance votes in the plot book.
3. Round Track: Tracks the current round, plot advance, and final round.

Ship Log

1. Ship Name: A space reserved for players to name the ship.
2. Officers: A space reserved for players to name their officers and track their rank.
3. Condition: Check boxes used to monitor the overall condition of the ship and its crew.
4. Notes: Space reserved for notes as directed.
5. Crew Log: Space reserved for crew log updates as directed.
6. Episode Log: Used to track who the Top Officer of each episode is and what the Head/Heart state at the end of each episode is.

Barracks Placard

1. Name: The name of the barracks.
2. Resource Storage: This section is reserved to store collected resource tokens. Note the indicated storage limit.
3. Crew Dice Reference: Reminder for dice types.
4. Crew Quarters: This section is reserved to store unseated crew dice.
5. Schema Slots: Slots reserved for the player's acquired schema cards.
6. Unique Ability: The barracks' unique ability description. In the case of the private labs, they are ship locations available only to the player controlling that barracks and are not part of any division.
7. Officer Perks: Slots for the officer perks the player has already acquired.

Officer Perks

1. Name: The name of the officer perk.
2. Star Cost: The cost in officer stars to acquire the perk.
3. Ability: The ability gained by the player owning the perk.
4. Rank Requirement: Indicates the rank the officer must be to acquire this perk.

Plot Book

1. Episode Setup: Additional episode specific setup.
2. Episode Objectives: The episode objective cards used for the episode.
3. Introduction / Plot Advancement: Narrative to advance the episode's story.
4. Plot: The next narrative goal to accomplish.
5. Special Setup: Additional setup performed during an episode.
6. Special Rules: Episode specific rules that apply while the players pursue the current plot goal.
7. Advance: Instructions for how to advance to the next plot book page.
8. Setback Effect: The penalty inflicted on the players if the plot goal is not successfully completed.

Other Components

• Robot Crew Die (D12)
• Officer Crew Die (D8)
• Colonist Crew Die (D6)
• Resource Tokens (Data, Chem, Part)
• Logic/Instinct Marker
• Round Markers: Current Round, Plot Advance, Final Round
• Operations Chief Badge
• Officer Spotlight Token
• Bookmark Token
• Failure Marker
• Disabled Marker
• Success Marker
• Hibernating Crew Marker
• Merit Point Markers

Setup

EXTRA SETUP STEPS FOR THE FIRST EPISODE:

• Retrieve a ship log for this campaign and name your ship (A).
• Each player creates a name for their officer and records it into the Ship Log (B).
• Shuffle and deal each player 1 crew card (C).
• While one player continues setting up, pass around the Officer Overview (on the back of the ship log sheets) for each player to read, or choose a player to read it aloud.

EXTRA SETUP STEPS FOR SUBSEQUENT EPISODES:

• Retrieve the ship log for this campaign.
• Check the recorded Logic/Instinct value from the previous episode and place the Logic/Instinct marker on the Logic/Instinct track accordingly.
• Give each player their saved cards, including officer perks and crew card.
• Give last episode's top officer the officer spotlight token.

SETUP STEPS FOR ALL EPISODES:

1. Place the ship location boards in the center of the play area, as shown in the Setup Example and place a success marker on the green square of each system status track. 3 Player Game Setup Only: Cover all of the 3 pip seats with a failure marker. These seats are not available, unless a special effect indicates otherwise.

2. Place the current round marker on the 1 position of the round track.

3. Place the plot book near the play area, turned to the first page of your current episode (1.00 for the first episode) and follow any special setup instructions, as well as any setup for the indicated episode objectives.

4. Separate the tokens and markers and place them into the supply area as shown in the Setup Example.

5. Place 3 Data, 3 Part, and 3 Chem tokens onto the Ship's Stores location.

6. Place any unlocked rules cards near the play area (the campaign begins with two rules cards unlocked: "Operations Meeting" and "Resource Tokens").

7. Randomly assign each player a barracks placard. Each player collects the following crew dice matching their barracks' color: 1 officer, 1 robot, 5 colonists.

   Note: The Robotics Barracks (if in the game) has one fewer colonist die, but places their robot die into their barracks instead of the supply.

8. Each player places their hibernating crew marker into the Recovery Room, their robot into the supply next to Robotics and two of their colonists into the supply next to the Medical Center. The rest of their dice are placed onto the crew quarters section of their barracks placard.

9. Perform any game setup step for each barracks (if any) and place their merit point markers at 0 on the Merit Track.

10. Shuffle the crossroads, critical task, file, and schema decks and place them on their boards. Deal out 1 file and 1 schema card to each player. Place the crossroads backer card on top of the crossroads deck.

11. Each player rolls their officer die. The lowest result gains the operations chief badge (re-roll to break ties among the lowest result). That player begins the episode in the first player position, followed by the other players in clockwise order.

12. Shuffle the operations task deck and place it on its board. Draw 2x + 1 operations task cards (where x is the number of players) and pass them to the player in the last position. In counter-clockwise order, each player chooses one of the operations task cards and passes the rest. After each player has taken two cards, place the remaining card face up at the bottom of the operations task deck.

13. Go to the next page of the plot book and read its text aloud. (Game elements can be read by any player unless otherwise specified.)

A labeled Setup Example diagram is provided showing the ship location boards, division boards, barracks placards, ship log, track board, plot book, and crew dice laid out per the numbered steps above.

Round

Gen7 is played over a number of rounds as dictated by the current episode. Each round has seven steps.

1. Critical Tasks
2. Roll Crew
3. Player Turns
4. System Failure
5. Crew Retrieval
6. Update Status
7. End of Round

1. Critical Tasks

A number of critical task cards are drawn from the deck and placed face up in the critical task row. The number of cards drawn is determined by the player count, as well as the current round. For information on how many critical tasks are drawn each round refer to the chart on the critical tasks game board.

2. Roll Crew

Each player rolls the crew dice that are in the crew quarters area of their barracks placard.

3. Player Turns

In clockwise order starting with the operations chief, players will each take single turns, one after another, until all players must pass on their turn.

A TURN

During a player's turn, they are considered the 'active player'.

A turn requires the active player to seat one crew die from their barracks into an unoccupied seat. If the active player has crew at their barracks, they MUST seat a die as part of their turn. If no die can be placed, one of their crew dice must be placed into the Recovery Room of the Medical Center.

Note: The die result does not need to match the number of pips on the seat, but some seats (e.g. group seats) have seating rules that must be followed.

In the case of group seats, more than one die may be seated. The active player may choose to fill all the seats from their own barracks, or they may solicit other players for contributions of crew to collectively fill the seats. The active player must seat at least one die and group seats must be filled simultaneously (i.e. you may not fill one of the group seats and add more crew on a later turn).

After seating crew at a ship location, the actions of that location are performed. Action titles in italics are optional.

FILE CARDS

At anytime during their turn or when contributing crew to a group seat, a player may play as many file cards from their hand as they desire.

If a card is permitted to be played on another player's turn, it will indicate that specifically on the card.

CROSSROADS CARD

At the end of a turn, if any of the crew seated were officers (regardless of the contributing player in the case of group seats or the operations meeting), a crossroads card is drawn. The player drawing the card should not be one who seated an officer die, if possible. Keep the back of the card hidden.

If the card's trigger criteria are met, read the card aloud and present the options to the triggering player (but not the effects of those options). Some cards have options that are presented to all players.

In the case of multiple officers seated during the same turn, evaluate the crossroads card's trigger against all of the just seated officers. If multiple officers could trigger the card, it is triggered by the one controlled by the player closest to the active player in clockwise order (starting with the active player).

After an option is chosen, reveal the effects. After the effects are performed, it is removed from the game (for the remainder of the campaign).

PASSING

Once a player has no remaining crew in their barracks, they must pass their turn. When all players must pass, the Player Turns step of the round ends.

4. System Failure

Critical task cards that have not been completed now apply their system failure effects. Degrade the affected systems by moving their status indicator markers to the right by the indicated number of steps.

If the movement of the status indicator would go past the critical position, apply the effect listed at the critical position an additional time for each step that would exceed critical.

5. Crew Retrieval

Each player retrieves their crew dice, first from the Recovery Room, and then any other ship location or card. Officer and colonist crew are placed in the crew quarters of their barracks placard. Robot crew (unless part of the Robotics Barracks) are returned to the supply.

6. Update Status

Clear the ship locations of any disabled markers.

Clear the critical task row of cards, returning them face up to the bottom of the critical task deck.

For each system division with a degraded status, use failure markers to cover any seats within that division that match the pips at, or to the left of, their status indicator marker.

7. End of Round

Any game effects that occur at the end of a round occur now. This often includes plot advance effects which should follow any other effects.

After performing those effects, if the current round marker is at the final round marker, go to the End of Episode; otherwise advance the current round marker by one round and return to step 1.

End of Episode

At the end of an episode perform the following steps.

1. Record Merit
2. Officer Star Awards
3. Status Indicators at Critical
4. Record Current Logic/Instinct Value
5. Add Crew Relationship Cards
6. Prepare Next Episode

1. Record Merit

Each player that has any operations task cards remaining in their hand deducts the cards' merit penalty from their merit point total. Then, use the notes section of the ship log to record the average merit score for all of the players. (Determine the average by adding together each player's score and dividing by the number of players.)

2. Officer Awards

Any player that earned 50+ merit points gains a rank and tracks this under their officer name on the ship log. Any player that scored fewer than 50 merit points underlines their current rank on the ship log. If this would be the third time underlining that rank, instead they gain a rank.

Each player determines which officer star awards they qualify for. These are found on the episode objective and personal objective cards. Once the awarded star numbers are determined, each player may then spend their officer stars to acquire up to 2 new officer perks.

When acquiring a new officer perk a player may first discard any number of their current officer perks. Reduce the cost of the new perk by half the star value (round down) of each discarded perk.

A player can have a maximum number of perks equal to their current rank level (all players begin at rank level 1, 'Ensign' with 1 officer perk slot available). A player cannot acquire a new perk if they are already at their maximum, unless they first discard a perk as described in the paragraph above.

After acquiring new officer perks, each player uses the note section of the ship log to track how many stars they have remaining. These stars carry over and can be spent at the end of future episodes.

3. Status Indicators at Critical

On the Ship Log under the Condition section, check off a box for each status indicator marker at critical. By popular vote, select a ship location within the division of the critical system (e.g. if the computer system is critical, the Science Lab is within the computer division and is a possible selection). Write down the selected location's name in the Notes section of your Ship Log. If this isn't the first time choosing this location, note the quantity next to its name (e.g. Science Lab x2).

During the setup of future games, for each location listed in the Ship Log, place a Failure Marker in the first available seat of the location. If there is a quantity next to its name, cover that many seats with a Failure Marker.

4. Record Current Logic/Instinct Value

Check the Logic/Instinct Track for the current Logic/Instinct value and record that value on the Ship Log under the Episode Log section next to the episode you just finished playing.

5. Add Crew Relationship Cards

Add the cards listed in the Crew Log section of the Ship Log to the crossroads deck. Cross off the card entries in the Crew Log after doing so.

6. Prepare Next Episode

If this is not the last episode, save the ship log, locations and rules cards that are in play for the next episode. Store each player's officer perk and crew cards for use in the next episode. If a player has a crossroad card that says, "keep this card" save that card for the next episode as well.

Credits

Game Design: Steve Nix Production: Colby Dauch Writing: Mr. Bistro, Steve Nix Graphic Design: David Richards, Kendall Wilkerson Art Direction: Samuel Vega, Isaac Vega Illustration: David Auden Nash, Gunship Revolution, Jen Santos, Marlon Ruiz and Justin Cruz Editing: Jonathan Liu Play Testing: Timothy Meyer (Lead), Dylan Arena, Todd Fast, Brian Gardner, Gage Kastner, James Lawton, Adrienne Mueller, Michelle Nix, Jeremy Kincaid, John Pankonien, Caleb Underwood, Benjamin Brow, Robert Klotz, Nick Conley, Joshua Adams, Chris Bybee, Tyler Brown, Michaela Meyer, David Meyer, Gabe Meyer, William Aucremanne, Sarah Aucremanne, Alex Hines, Danielle Stump, Ashley Goodroe, John Stock, John Holliday, Gordon Helle, Mike Kutz, Sean Monson, Eric Lotos, Jennine Lotos, Finn Dobosh, Caleb Dobosh, Doug Dobosh, Matias Korman, André van Renssen, Man-Kwun Chi, Ron Wood, Elan Pavlov, John Dony, Ray Sevits, Jeffrey Berman, Chang Yu-Cheng, Felix Yeh, Eric-Kuo, Andrew Schaff, Joanna Johnson, Tracy Krause, Yang Mei-Lan, Hannah Hester, Hannah Shull, Rosarita Williams, Jeff Wilkinson, Jacsama

www.plaidhatgames.com

© 2018 Plaid Hat Games. Gen7 and Plaid Hat Games are trademarks of Plaid Hat Games. Plaid Hat Games is a division of Asmodee North America, Inc., 1995 W County Rd B2, Roseville, MN 55113. 651-639-1905. Actual components may vary from those shown. Made in China. THIS PRODUCT IS NOT A TOY. NOT INTENDED FOR USE BY PERSONS 13 YEARS OF AGE OR YOUNGER.

Rules Reference Section

The following topics are presented in alphabetical order, each with a more detailed description of their rules. Game elements that are added during the story will have their own rules card to refer to.

Active Player

The player currently taking their turn is referred to as the active player.

Badge: Operations Chief

The operations chief badge is randomly assigned at the start of an episode to one of the players, and later can be acquired by being the first to seat an officer or colonist at the Operations location to start a meeting.

The current holder of the operations chief badge begins each round in the first position to act. They are also called upon to break voting ties.

Barracks Placards

Each player will randomly receive a barracks placard at the start of each episode. From episode to episode, which barracks the player commands will likely change, encouraging a different strategy for play.

CREW QUARTERS

Unseated crew should be stored on the crew quarters area of the barracks placard.

RESOURCE STORAGE

Collected resource tokens should be stored on the resource storage area of the barracks placard. Each barracks has the same resource token storage limit of 15 tokens per resource type.

SCHEMA SLOTS

Each schema slot can hold one face up schema card, and a second face down schema card underneath it as a focus.

UNIQUE BARRACKS ABILITIES

Each barracks has one unique ability.

The Science Barracks has a Private Science Lab. This seat is available only to the controlling player. It counts as a lab, but it is not part of any division. When seating a die at this private lab, in addition to gaining data, the player may pay 3 data to activate the optional analyze action.

The Engineering Barracks has a Private Recycling Lab. This seat is available only to the controlling player. It counts as a lab, but it is not part of any division. When seating a die at this private lab, in addition to gaining parts, the player may pay 3 parts to activate the optional design action.

The Bioscience Barracks has a Private Chem Lab. This seat is available only to the controlling player. It counts as a lab, but it is not part of any division. When seating a die at this private lab, in addition to gaining chems, the player may pay 3 chems to activate the optional revive action.

The Robotics Barracks begins each round with their robot die in their barracks, replacing one of their colonist dice. Additionally, the Robotics Barracks has a Reprogram seat that allows the player to send any player's robot die back to their barracks (allowing them to place it again on a subsequent turn). This seat is available only to the controlling player. It is not part of any division.

Card / Location Text

When a card / location effect contradicts the rulebook, the card / location effect takes precedence.

Chem Lab Ship Location

The Chem Lab location is part of the biosphere division.

CHEMS

Gain chem tokens for your barracks based on the seat occupied. Each other crew currently seated at the chem lab gains 1 chem token for their barracks. After you take or skip the Donate action, discard any chem tokens in excess of your barracks limit.

DONATE

An optional action to donate 3 or 6 chem tokens from your barracks to the Ship's Stores to earn 1 or 2 merit points, respectively. You may not donate if it would cause the Ship's Stores to exceed its resource limit.

Crew Cards

Each player is randomly dealt a crew card prior to the first episode of a campaign. This identifies a crew person that the player has a relationship with (a close friend, mentee, etc.) Some crossroads cards will trigger for a player based on which crew card they have.

Crew Dice

Crew dice come in three forms: officer, colonist, and robot. The terms crew, die/dice, and crew dice are interchangeable.

OFFICER DICE

The officer die of a barracks represents the player's character in the story. When they are seated, the potential for crossroads cards to trigger occurs. Officer dice are 8-sided (D8).

COLONIST DICE

The colonist dice of a barracks represent the bulk of the ship's crew and its primary work force. Each has their own issues they are going through, and some of these stories will be explored in the crossroads cards. Colonist dice are 6-sided (D6).

ROBOT DICE

The robot die of a barracks represents a programmable robot assistant to the ship's crew. They are requisitioned from the Robotics location, or are inherently part of the Robotics Barracks. Their tireless aspect makes them especially useful when group seats are involved, as they can cover two of those positions by splitting their value in half as evenly as possible. Robot dice are 12-sided (D12).

Critical Task Cards

To complete a critical task, all of its group seats must be filled (following the indicated seating rules) and any required resource tokens paid from the Ship's Stores, player barracks or from the card itself.

The completion requirements must all be met simultaneously, not as partial contributions over multiple turns (i.e. a player may not seat one crew into a group seat, hoping that any remaining seats or resources are contributed during a later turn.)

A player contributed to a critical task if they seated a crew die. Contributing players may then also provide resource tokens, play file cards or trigger schema or officer perks to help complete the critical task.

A completed critical task remains completed even if dice or resource tokens are removed from it.

MERIT POINT AWARDS

At the time of the critical task's completion, each barracks that contributed gains the merit point award. A barracks that contributed multiple crew dice does not receive additional merit points.

SEAT RELATIONSHIPS

Only certain values of crew dice can be contributed to a critical task. Each group seat informs players as to what values of crew dice can be seated there.

DIVISION

Each critical task card is part of its listed division. This is important for the triggering of crossroads cards, as well as crew totals located within a specific division.

Crossroads Cards

A crossroads card is drawn at the end of any turn in which officer dice were seated. The player drawing the crossroads card should be a player who did not seat one of the officer dice, if possible. Keep the back of the card hidden.

In the unlikely event that the crossroads deck is empty, skip this step.

TRIGGER

The trigger criteria (text in bold italics) is evaluated to determine if the card takes effect. If so, the card's narrative should be read and options will be presented to the indicated player(s). The mechanical effects of the options listed are not read until after the choice has been made. When performing effects, do as much of the effects as possible.

If the card is not triggered, return it face DOWN to the bottom of its deck.

In the case of multiple officers seated during the same turn, evaluate the crossroads card's trigger against all of the just seated officers. If multiple officers could trigger the card, it is triggered by the one controlled by the player closest to the active player in clockwise order (starting with the active player).

Data Center Ship Location

The Data Center location is part of the computer division.

FILE

Draw the top 2 cards from the file deck and keep 1. If any other effect allows you to draw additional cards, only 1 is kept from all those drawn.

TERMINAL

An optional action to complete one Data Center operations task. To complete the task, you must also discard the task's resource token cost from your barracks.

Degrade Step

A penalty that moves a status indicator marker to the right by one position. Each degrade step changes the status color of the affected division.

Episode Objective Cards

The episode's plot book will define the episode objective cards to include during game setup.

Episode objective cards describe methods for earning officer stars. The officer star awards are tracked either on the episode objective cards themselves, or on other game elements referred to by the objectives.

Some episode objective cards have success and fail sides. At an episode's start, these cards begin with their success side up and have instructions for when they should be flipped to their fail side. The fail side may contain a reduced award, or no award at all.

During the end of episode steps, the officer star awards are determined.

File Cards

File cards gained are placed into a player's hand, along with their uncompleted operations task cards. There is no limit for the number of file cards in a player's hand.

Any time during a player's turn, even between actions at a location, any number of file cards may be played to trigger their effects.

Once played, a file card is returned face up to the bottom of the file deck. When the last face down file card is drawn, shuffle the face up file cards and place the deck face down on its board.

When a player searches the file deck, they may search face up and face down cards. When instructed to shuffle the file deck, turn all cards in the deck face down and shuffle it.

First Available Seat

Occasionally an instruction will indicate something should be placed into the first available seat of a location. This would indicate the seat of the location with the fewest number of pips that is not already occupied by a die or failure / disabled marker.

Group Seats

Group seats are indicated by a connected seat block. When seating one or more of their own crew at a group seat, the active player may solicit crew contributions from other players. If another player contributes crew, they may also assist with resources from their barracks, playing file cards, and activating schema cards or officer perks toward satisfying the requirements of the group seat. All of the seats must be filled and any cost tied to the group seats (e.g. resource tokens for a critical task) must be paid simultaneously.

SEATING RULES

A group seats block will often have a relationship rule for the values of the dice seated within the block.

• A die with a value of 4 or higher must be seated in the left seat and right seat. A die with a value of 2 or lower must be seated in the middle seat.
• The value of the die in the right seat must be exactly 1 higher than the value of the die seated in the middle seat which must be exactly 1 higher than the value of the die seated in the first seat. For example: A 1, 2 and 3 could be seated here or a 4, 5 and 6.
• The dice seated here must all be the same value.
• The combined value of the dice seated in the left and middle seat must be lower than the value of the die seated in the right seat.

ROBOTS

Robots are tireless, which grants them a special ability to fill two positions of a group seat at once. The value of the robot die is split as evenly as possible in this case, for the purposes of following the seating rules (e.g. a robot die with a value of 11 seated at two positions within a group seats block would actually represent values of a 5 and 6).

Last Available Seat

Occasionally an instruction will indicate something should be placed into the last available seat of a location. This would indicate the seat of the location with the greatest number of pips that is not already occupied by a die or failure / disabled marker.

Manufacturing Center Ship Location

The Manufacturing Center location is part of the power division.

SCHEMA

Draw the top 2 cards from the schema deck and keep 1. If any other effect allows you to draw additional cards, only 1 is kept from all those drawn.

After deciding how to slot your schema cards, you may discard face up to the bottom of the schema deck any schema cards that you do not want to keep or cannot slot/focus.

WORKBENCH

An optional action to complete one Manufacturing Center operations task. To complete the task, you must also discard the task's resource token cost from your barracks.

Markers

Markers are used in the game to track information.

MERIT POINT MARKERS

Each barracks in an episode has a merit point marker to track the earned merit points for that episode.

HIGH MERIT POINT 50 / 100 MARKERS

If a barracks' merit points reach 50, the controlling player flips their merit point marker to the 50 side and their merit point marker is reset to 0.

HIBERNATING CREW MARKERS

Each barracks in an episode will begin with their hibernating crew marker in the Recovery Room. This marker is used by the Medical Center's Suspended Animation action as a two-step process to revive colonist dice from the supply to be used by their barracks.

SUCCESS MARKERS

Success markers are most often used to track plot progress, but can also be used as a reminder for other game elements (e.g. the number of times the Robotics Barracks player performs the donate action).

FAILURE MARKERS

Failure markers are most often used to cover seats within a division as it degrades, or to track the number of times the plot has failed to advance. A seat covered by a failure marker may not be occupied by crew. Failure markers on seats at ship locations are not removed at the end of a round.

DISABLED MARKERS

Disabled markers are most often used to temporarily cover seats. A seat covered by a disabled marker may not be occupied by crew, but disabled markers on seats at ship locations are removed at the end of a round.

CURRENT ROUND / FINAL ROUND MARKERS

The current round marker begins an episode on the round track at 1. The final round marker may be defined at an episode's setup, or placed later by the plot. When a round completes with the current round and final round markers on the same value, the end of episode steps occur.

PLOT ADVANCE MARKER

The plot advance marker is placed following an episode's setup or special setup instructions. It is a reminder to the players that their current plot goal must be completed by the end of that round in order to successfully advance without a setback effect.

Medical Center Ship Location

The Medical Center location is part of the biosphere division.

SUSPENDED ANIMATION

Either place your hibernating crew marker into the Recovery Room, or exchange your hibernating crew marker in the Recovery Room with one of your colonist dice from the supply.

Once all of your colonist dice are retrieved from the supply, skip the Suspended Animation action when seating crew at the Medical Center.

EXPERIMENT

An optional action to complete one Medical Center operations task. To complete the task, you must also discard the task's resource token cost from your barracks.

Merit Point Tie Breaking

A tie between players with their merit point markers on the same value is broken in favor of the player that reached, or exceeded, that value first. When multiple merit point markers are stacked on the same value, any marker beneath another marker breaks the tie in its favor (and is considered to have a higher merit point value).

To assist with tracking the correct positions of the merit point markers, use the following rules:

When moving a merit point marker in a positive direction, place the marker on top of any existing merit point marker(s) at its destination. If multiple markers are being moved in a positive direction at the same time, move the markers in order from highest to lowest merit point value (obeying the tie breaking condition for markers at the same value).

When moving a merit point marker in a negative direction, place the marker at the bottom of any existing merit point marker(s) at its destination. If multiple markers are being moved in a negative direction at the same time, move the markers in order from lowest to highest merit point value (obeying the tie breaking condition for markers at the same value).

Officer Perks

Between episodes, a player can purchase up to 2 perks by spending their acquired officer stars. These perks are kept for future episodes. A player can have a maximum number of perks equal to their current rank level (all players begin at rank level 1, 'Ensign' with 1 officer perk slot available).

When acquiring a new officer perk a player may first discard any number of their current officer perks. Reduce the cost of the new perk by half the star value (round down) of each discarded perk.

A player cannot acquire a new perk if they are already at their maximum, unless they first discard a perk as described in the paragraph above.

Officer Rank

Each player begins the game with their officer at rank 1, Ensign. While the Officer Performance episode objective is in play, earning 50 or more merit points during an episode will award a player's officer with a rank promotion increase of 1. An officer can advance through the ranks of Lieutenant, Lt. Commander, Commander, and finally the maximum rank of 5, Captain.

OFFICER PERKS

A player's officer rank number is the maximum number of officer perks that they can possess at one time. The officer perks themselves also have a rank requirement, which must be met in order to acquire that perk.

VOTING

A player's officer rank number is the number of votes cast by that player when a vote occurs. All of a player's votes will be cast for their decision (e.g. a player with a rank 3 officer deciding to vote with a thumb up would cast 3 votes for the thumbs up option).

Officer Spotlight

When a player completes the Top Officer episode objective, part of their reward is to gain the Officer Spotlight for the following episode. The Officer Spotlight allows a player to ask for a second crossroads card to be drawn if the first crossroads card does not trigger at the end of a turn when seating their officer.

Officer Stars

Earning officer stars is the principal goal for each player throughout the story. These stars are a currency that allows a player to purchase officer perks.

Operations Chief

The player holding the operations chief badge has the ability to determine the outcome of player voting ties when they occur.

At the start of each round, the player holding the operations chief badge is in the first player position.

Operations Ship Location

The Operations location is part of the operations division. Only officers and colonists may be seated at Operations; no robot crew.

OPERATIONS CHIEF

The active player seating their officer or colonist die must choose the operations chief seat, gaining the operations chief badge.

OPERATIONS MEETING

In clockwise order following the active player, each player may immediately contribute an officer or colonist die from their barracks to join the meeting.

After each player has had an opportunity to join the meeting, draw 2x + 1 operations task cards from the deck (where x is the number of crew at Operations). If the last face down card is drawn from the operations task deck, shuffle the face up cards at the bottom to form a new deck. Pass the selection of operations task cards to the player with the highest valued crew seated at Operations (with ties awarded to an earlier placed die). The selection of cards will be passed clockwise twice around the table to all of the players attending the meeting. During the first pass, each player must take a card from the selection of operations task cards. During the second pass, each player may take a card from the selection.

Note: A player may never have more than 5 operations task cards in their hand. If they are prompted to take a new card when they already have 5, they may examine the selection but should not take a card.

Return the unselected card(s) face up to the bottom of the operations task deck.

Operations Task Cards

Operations task cards are gained at the start of an episode, or by attending an operations meeting at the Operations ship location. If its deck should ever run out, the face up operations task cards at the bottom should be shuffled to form a new deck.

When a player searches the operations task deck, they may search face up and face down cards. When instructed to shuffle the operations task deck, turn all cards in the deck face down and shuffle it.

These task cards are held privately by each player and provide a merit point award for their completion. In order to complete an operations task, the owning player must seat a crew die at the center defined by the task, perform the center's action that allows for the completion of an operations task, and pay the listed resource token cost. Note that each center's action only allows for the completion of a single operations task.

When an operations task card is completed, the owning player earns the listed merit point award and places the completed task card face up at the bottom of the operations task deck. In some cases, the operations task card will also include a game effect that triggers upon its completion.

HAND LIMIT

Operations task cards go into a player's hand, along with any file cards that they might possess. A player may not have more than 5 operations task cards in their hand at any time. If a player has 5 operations task cards, they may not take or gain another.

END OF EPISODE

Any operations task cards remaining in a player's hand at the end of an episode applies a merit point penalty, deducting merit points from the owning player's total.

Personal Objective Cards

If the Personal Objectives episode objective is in play for an episode, each player will receive three personal objective cards during setup: one matching their assigned barracks, one plan A, and one plan B.

These cards offer the player additional opportunities to earn officer stars for their officer. All of the personal objective cards may be completed in an episode.

Personal Objective: Plan A and Plan B cards, when initially acquired, are private information. When a personal objective card's criteria are met, it is revealed to the other players and left face up next to their barracks placard.

Plot Book

Each episode's narrative advances through the plot book.

When instructed by the plot book to advance to a new section, turn to the appropriate page and section and read the contents aloud.

The plot book will inform you on when to skip ahead on a page or advance to a new page and section. Do not turn a page unless instructed to do so.

While moving through the plot book, you may be instructed to skip or advance to a new section. If so instructed, do not read or act on any of the text between your current section and the indicated section. You jump directly to the section indicated and proceed from there.

At an episode's conclusion, the plot book will inform you where to place your bookmark for your next episode. You are often instructed to add new game elements as well, which will be featured in the episodes to come.

Previous Seat

Some game effects refer to a die in relationship to its previous seat. Seats are ordered from least number of pips to greatest number of pips. Example: The previous seat to the seat with 3 pips is the seat with 2 pips.

Recycling Lab Ship Location

The Recycling Lab location is part of the power division.

SEATING RULE

When seating a die here, it's value must be greater than or equal to the die in the previous seat.

PARTS

Gain part tokens for your barracks based on the seat occupied. After you take or skip the Donate action, discard any part tokens in excess of your barracks limit.

DONATE

An optional action to donate 3 or 6 part tokens from your barracks to the Ship's Stores to earn 1 or 2 merit points, respectively. You may not donate if it would cause the Ship's Stores to exceed its resource limit.

Remove From the Game

If a game element instructs you to remove it from the game, this element will not appear in the rest of your story. Place it aside until you reset the game.

Reset the Game

At the end of your story, you will be able to reset the game for a new story. To do so, separate the game elements by their ID and return them in order to their packs or envelopes (in some cases, the element's rule card will assist you in this). Game elements without an ID are 'open' at the start of a new story.

Resource Limits

The Ship's Stores, as well as all player barracks, has a limit of 15 resource tokens of each type (i.e. 15 data, 15 part, 15 chem).

When a barracks gains resource tokens from a lab, the resource limit is temporarily ignored to allow for a player to then perform the Donate action. Any excess tokens must be discarded to the supply. The Ship's Stores resource limit may never be exceeded, thus preventing the Donate action if the donation amount would exceed the limit.

Robotics Ship Location

The Robotics location is part of the computer division.

ROBOT CREW

Gain your robot crew die from the supply (you may not seat your crew here if your robot is not in the supply). The robot die is immediately rolled and placed onto your barracks placard. If the robot's result is a 1, you instead set the result to any desired value.

Robot crew may not be seated at Operations.

TIRELESS

A robot die may fill two positions of a group seat at once. The value of the robot die is split as evenly as possible in this case, for the purposes of following the seating rules (e.g. a robot die with a value of 11 seated at two positions within a group seats block would actually represent values of a 5 and 6).

Rule Cards

Rule cards are provided as additional reference information, or are included when new game elements are introduced. These cards can be placed near their game elements during setup until the players have a good understanding of their function.

Schema Cards

Schema cards gained are slotted into a player's barracks placard. When (and only when) a new schema card is acquired, a player can remove any previously slotted schema cards and reconfigure their schema choices. If the schema deck should run out, shuffle the face up schema cards at the bottom to form a new deck.

When a player searches the schema deck, they may search face up and face down cards. When instructed to shuffle the schema deck, turn all cards in the deck face down and shuffle it.

Schema cards have ongoing effects that benefit a player in various ways. Any applicable schema card is triggered when its described effect condition is met.

A barracks cannot slot two schema cards with the same name though the second could be used as a focus.

FOCUS

In addition to slotting a schema card into an empty slot, a single schema card may be slotted face down behind another schema card in the same slot. With this configuration, the face up schema card gains focus. A schema card with focus replaces the indicated text in its effect with the text listed within the focus description.

SLOT LIMIT

Each barracks placard may slot up to 2 schema. When a player has more cards than can be slotted or used to focus, they must discard the excess cards face up to the bottom of the schema deck.

Science Lab Ship Location

The Science Lab is part of the computer division.

DATA

Gain data tokens for your barracks based on the seat occupied. The # symbol represents the die value of the placed crew, and the calculation total is rounded up. After you take or skip the Donate action, discard any data tokens in excess of your barracks limit.

DONATE

An optional action to donate 3 or 6 data tokens from your barracks to the Ship's Stores to earn 1 or 2 merit points, respectively. You may not donate if it would cause the Ship's Stores to exceed its resource limit.

Ship Locations

Ship locations possess seats for crew, providing actions to the player choosing to seat crew there. Actions listed in italics are optional.

DIVISION

Each ship location is part of its listed division. This is important for the triggering of crossroads cards, as well as crew totals located within a specific division.

Ship Log

The Ship Log will be used to track the progress of the entire story. It includes space for the players to name their ship and keep notes, with other areas reserved exclusively for game effects.

CONDITION

At the end of each episode, a box is checked off for each status indicator marker at critical. Upon the first occurrence, card B1 is retrieved from pack B. Should all boxes become checked, card B9 is retrieved from pack B.

CREW LOG

This space is used to track choices made during the game, often from crossroads cards options.

EPISODE LOG

This area is used to record the Top Officer and ending Logic/Instinct state for each episode.

Ship Stores

Ship's Stores is part of the operations division.

Resource tokens in Ship's Stores may be used by any player, but only for the completion of critical tasks.

Tokens

Tokens are used in the game as a resource currency, or spent to trigger game effects.

RESOURCE TOKENS

Data, part, and chem tokens are the primary resource currencies in the game, and are required to complete most critical and all operations tasks. To pay a resource cost, players discard the resource tokens from their barracks to the supply.

In addition to using resource tokens for the completion of tasks, each resource type has an additional use.

DATA

Before drawing any cards for the File or Schema action, you may spend up to 2 data to draw the same number of additional file or schema cards. Note: this only allows you to draw extra cards to select from; you only keep one card and return the others face up to the bottom of their appropriate deck.

PART

On your turn or when contributing to a group seat, you may spend 2 parts to adjust the value of a robot in your barracks or at that group seat by up to 2 (in either direction within the die's natural limits).

CHEM

On your turn or when contributing to a group seat, you may spend 2 chems to change the value of an officer or colonist die in your barracks or at that group seat to any desired value.

Trading or Gifting

Players may not trade or gift any game elements to each other.

The only allowed contributions are when group seats are involved, and the contribution must be solely used toward the seating of crew or paying the costs associated with those group seats.

Voting

When a vote is called for, players may discuss their opinions until one option receives a majority of votes. If the players are split evenly and no option can receive a majority, the current operations chief decides the vote.

OFFICER RANK

A player's officer rank number is the number of votes cast by that player when a vote occurs. All of a player's votes will be cast for their decision (e.g. a player with a rank 3 officer deciding to vote with a thumb up would cast 3 votes for the thumbs up option).

Logic / Instinct Track

When instructed, the current value of the Logic/Instinct Track will add that number of votes to the appropriate option: Logic or Instinct. When this occurs, the Logic/Instinct marker is reset to 0.

Officer Perks Card Overview

Perk	Star Cost	Ability
Innovator	3	When drawing schema cards at the Manufacturing Center, draw 1 extra card at no part cost. (Still keep only 1 card.)
Investigator	3	When drawing file cards at the Data Center, draw 1 extra card at no data cost. (Still keep only 1 card.)
Motivator	3	Once per episode, you may increase the value of each colonist die in your barracks by up to 3 (up to the die's natural maximum value).
Bioscientist	4	Gain 3 bonus officer stars when completing an operations task at the Medical Center.
Chemist	4	Gain 1 bonus chem token when seating crew at a chem lab.
Engineer	4	Gain 3 bonus officer stars when completing an operations task at the Manufacturing Center.
Scientist	4	Gain 3 bonus officer stars when completing an operations task at the Data Center.
Scrapper	4	Gain 1 bonus part token when seating crew at a recycling lab.
Analyst	4	Gain 1 bonus data token when seating crew at a science lab.
Lone Wolf	5	When an operations meeting is called, you may take one card from the top of the operations deck instead of joining the meeting.
Academic	5	When seating your crew in the computer division, you may alter their results by +1 or -1 (within the die's natural values).
Caretaker	5	When seating your crew in the biosphere division, you may alter their results by +1 or -1 (within the die's natural values).
Natural Leader	5	When seating your crew in the operations division, you may add up to 2 to their result (up to the die's natural maximum value).
Workhorse	5	When seating your crew in the power division, you may alter their results by +1 or -1 (within the die's natural values).
Courageous	6	Gain 1 bonus officer star when contributing crew toward the completion of a critical task.
Hoarder	6	Once per episode, gain 5 part tokens.
Hacker	6	Once per episode, gain 5 data tokens.

Round Summary

For full details, see Round on page 10.

1. Critical Tasks

Draw critical task cards, placing them in the critical task row.

Round	3 Players	4 Players
1	1 Critical Task	2 Critical Tasks
2	2 Critical Tasks	3 Critical Tasks
3+	3 Critical Tasks	4 Critical Tasks

2. Roll Crew

Each player rolls the crew dice that are in the crew quarters area of their barracks.

3. Player Turns

In clockwise order starting with the operations chief, players will each take turns choosing a crew die from their barracks to place at an unoccupied seat.

4. System Failure

Critical task cards that have not been completed now trigger their system failure effects, degrading the status of affected systems.

5. Crew Retrieval

Each player retrieves their crew dice from the ship locations and cards, and returns their robot crew to the supply.

6. Update Status

Seats are cleared of disabled markers and seats are covered by failure markers for divisions with degraded systems.

7. End of Round

End of round effects occur, followed by end of round plot advance effects.

If this was not the final round, advance the current round marker by one and return to step 1.