Introduction
ALIEN RPG setting lore earns its space when it helps the crew make a decision under pressure. The Evolved Edition core book sets the game in the 2180s on the Frontier: a region of hard work, slow communication, contested claims, rival governments, and corporate dependency. None of that has to become homework. Use the part that changes the current job: who owns the route, who needs the shipment, who can authorize a rescue, and who benefits if the facts stay buried.
This guide covers both halves of the setting. The first half is the map, the history, and the Frontier as a place people live and work. The second half is the governments and corporations that pull on every job. Each section ends in something you can put on the table. For the colonies, stations, and ships the crew will actually walk through, use the Ships, Space, and Colonies hub. Return to the ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition root guide for the full library map.
Hot Take
Lore should never delay a choice. Do not open a session with a lecture on borders and board members. Open with a problem whose answer depends on one piece of setting: the signal will take weeks to reach anyone, the settlement needs a company part, or two authorities claim the same resource. The official history of the Frontier is a great toolbox, but most tables need about three facts from it per session, and the Game Mother who knows which three will run a better game than the one who memorized the timeline.
Charted Space and the Frontier
The core book divides known space into bands that run outward from Earth. Three government-controlled arms cut across them: the American Arm of the United Americas, the Anglo-Japanese Arm of the Three World Empire, and the territory of the Union of Progressive Peoples.
| Region | What the core book says about it | Why it matters in play |
|---|---|---|
| Core Systems | Closest to Earth, the most prosperous colonies, dominated by the 3WE and the ICSC. | Where money, head offices, and orders come from. Rarely where the crew is. |
| Outer Veil | Resource-rich; settled by the 3WE over a century ago, with many worlds since annexed by the UPP. Unsafe mining has stripped some regions bare. | Old colonies, worn-out infrastructure, and disputed ownership. |
| Outer Rim | The edge of civilized space. American and UPP explorers found resource-rich worlds here that could support life without terraforming. The Colonial Navy operates here. | Military presence, border tension, and valuable claims. |
| Far Reach | Claimed but mostly uncharted space extending from the American Arm, leading to terraformed colonies truckers call the Pearl Necklace. | Long hauls with little help along the way. |
| The Frontier | Along the edge of explored space; begins at the leading edge of the Outer Veil, crosses the Outer Rim, and stretches into deep space. | Where most ALIEN RPG stories happen. |
Settlers compare the sometimes lawless Frontier to the Old West. Atmospheric processors make many worlds barely breathable. Mining worlds refine ore and fuel, agri and aquatic worlds grow food and algae, and stations such as Anchorpoint serve as neutral staging points for deep-space expeditions. Neighboring colonies fight over stakes and claims, borders shift, and colonies sometimes change hands when a dispute redraws the map.
A Short History of Settled Space
The core book's timeline runs from the 2020s to the present day of the 2180s. You do not need every entry, but these beats explain why the Frontier looks the way it does.
- Weyland Corp builds the future. After Peter Weyland's 2023 address, Weyland Corp develops FTL drives, atmospheric processors, hypersleep, and the first David androids. Its rival Sieg and Son, later Seegson, patents its own FTL drive and shares it so Weyland is not the only company to reach the stars.
- Nations merge to keep up. Corporations become so powerful that governments fall into debt to them. The United Kingdom, Japan, India, and other nations form the Three World Empire in the 2080s. Corporations looking to avoid taxes form the Central Space Consortium in the same decade, which later becomes the ICSC.
- Weyland-Yutani is born. The failed Prometheus mission and the deaths of Peter Weyland and Meredith Vickers leave Weyland Corp in financial ruin. It merges with the Yutani Corporation around the turn of the century, and nobody is quite sure who took over whom.
- The Americas unite. North, Central, and South America form the United Americas in the early 2100s to counter the 3WE. A two-year civil war on Torin Prime follows, and the UA wins it. The UPP forms in the early 22nd century as a response to both powers.
- Terraforming returns, cheaper and less safe. By the 2130s, Weyland-Yutani brings back atmospheric processors with a cheaper, less safe design and seeds colonies across the American Arm. Seegson, without a processor patent, bets on orbital station colonies and loses; most of its stations are on the market by 2140. Lasalle Bionational forms in the late 2130s from laid-off W-Y bio researchers.
- Things start disappearing. In 2137 Sevastopol Station is destroyed over KG-348, and other stations go silent soon after. The first Anchorpoint Station is built to give ships safe passage to the Frontier.
- Hadley's Hope. The terraforming colony on LV-426 is established in 2157. About twenty years before the present day, the UA and UPP fight the Tientsin campaign on 8 Eta Bootis A III, and neither side wins.
- 2179. LV-426 goes silent. The Colonial Marines aboard the USS Sulaco investigate, Hadley's Hope is destroyed in a thermonuclear explosion, the Sulaco goes missing, and Fiorina 161 is quarantined and shut down. The first Anchorpoint Station suffers a catastrophic reactor failure the same year.
The 2180s Situation
The present day sits a few years after those losses. The core book describes a Frontier caught between the United Americas and Weyland-Yutani, who now distrust each other over the implications of corporate foul play. Many Frontier worlds are left without the supplies or defenses they need.
Three pieces of 2180s background are especially easy to use:
- Space Beast. Convict Robert Morse's alleged account of a "dragon" on Fiorina 161 was banned at once and spread through the colonies anyway. Some readers treat it as fiction, some as evidence of company bioweapons, and some have built a doomsday cult around it.
- Rising war. Conflicts between rival sectors have increased sharply over the past five years. Rumors say an enemy state nuked Hadley's Hope because it was a bioweapon test site, or that the company is working with a rogue nation to take the Frontier.
- Marines pulled away. As Colonial Marine units are recalled and redeployed, colonists fear pirates, hostile life, and invasion. Many colonies have created their own laws, elected Marshals, or hired mercenaries.
Each of these is a job generator. A colony that elected its own Marshal has a local authority the crew can argue with. A banned book is contraband, a clue, and a belief system at the same time.
Treat Setting as a Pressure Map
Colonies, stations, ships, claims, and routes connect the Frontier, but not reliably enough to keep people safe. Travel takes time, supplies are limited, and the people with formal authority may be far away, under-informed, or invested in a result the crew does not like.
That gives a Game Mother a compact setting tool. For any location, establish only these four facts:
| Setting fact | Ask this at the table | What it creates |
|---|---|---|
| Work | What must keep functioning here? | A visible obligation: haul cargo, keep a processor running, finish a survey, protect a route. |
| Dependency | What cannot be replaced quickly? | Pressure around air, power, medicine, transport, parts, information, or skilled labor. |
| Authority | Who says they can decide? | A permit, order, contract, claim, quarantine, or local rule. |
| Distance | What help cannot arrive in time? | A reason the crew must act before an outside answer settles the problem. |
You do not need to answer every history question before play. If the crew is trying to restore a relay before a storm reaches a colony, the useful facts are that the colony cannot call for help, the company owns the replacement component, and the person with authority is on a ship that arrives tomorrow. Space has supplied the paperwork. It has not supplied the solution.
The Frontier as a Place to Play
The Frontier is most useful when it limits rescue and magnifies ordinary obligations. A delivery has to arrive. A processor has to stay online. A claim has to be defended. The crew knows what should happen, but distance, scarcity, contested authority, and uncertain information make the obvious path costly.
Treat the Frontier as a Work Environment
The core book describes the average Frontier worker as a farmer, pioneer, maintenance engineer, wildcatter, prospector, miner, space trucker, marshal, manager, or soldier. Colonists also include scouts, scientists, doctors, and journalists. Prospectors stake claims, miners rotate through one-year contracts, maintenance engineers keep the atmospheric processors running, general managers oversee it all, and truckers haul supplies in and exports out. The colonies are in an economic depression, and colonists are routinely told to ration and improvise.
Choose the kind of work before choosing the danger. That gives the crew a reason to be present and a clear measure of what failure costs.
| Frontier work | Ordinary obligation | Pressure that can complicate it |
|---|---|---|
| Hauling or cargo delivery | Deliver supplies, equipment, or people | A delay, damaged cargo, disputed manifest, or route that cannot be trusted |
| Surveying or prospecting | Confirm a site, map terrain, or secure a claim | Exposure, missing equipment, conflicting claims, or a finding that changes the contract |
| Mining or industrial work | Keep output moving and workers safe | A shutdown, missing part, unsafe access route, or pressure to restart too early |
| Farming or aquatic production | Maintain food production | Environmental failure, ration pressure, equipment problems, or competing needs for power and water |
| Maintenance or repair | Keep life-critical infrastructure working | Scarce parts, a dangerous worksite, uncertain diagnostics, or authority that delays action |
| Marshal or security work | Keep a route, station, or settlement orderly | Weak authority, a labor dispute, a territorial claim, or a demand to protect property over people |
The location does not need to be empty wilderness. A crowded station, a company-owned mine, an agri-world, and a neutral staging point can all be Frontier locations when they depend on difficult work and have no easy fallback. The Ships, Space, and Colonies hub covers how those places function as play locations.
Start With an Ordinary Obligation
The strongest Frontier scenario begins with something the crew understands. They have been hired to deliver a component, inspect a claim, find a missing team, reopen a route, or settle a practical dispute. Then add one complication that forces people to show what they value.
| Starting job | Complication | Decision it creates |
|---|---|---|
| Deliver a replacement part | The settlement needs it for life support, but the crew's ship needs the same type of part before departure | Who receives the part, and who accepts the risk? |
| Survey a mineral site | Another group says the claim is already theirs | Do the crew verify the facts, negotiate, withdraw, or enforce an order? |
| Retrieve a missing worker | The safest route would delay a separate emergency | Which obligation comes first, and who makes that call? |
| Escort a cargo shipment | The cargo is valuable to the sponsor but dangerous to carry through the local environment | Is the contract worth the exposure to the crew and the settlement? |
| Restore a communications relay | The last transmitted report may be wrong, incomplete, or deliberately altered | What can the crew know before they decide whom to warn or trust? |
The job gives the scenario traction. The complication turns it into play.
Use Distance to Create Decisions
The core book is specific about why help is slow. Interstellar transmissions are not instantaneous and can take weeks or months to arrive. Signals route through Weyland-Yutani's satellite grid, known as the Network, and when comm traffic is heavy a caller can wait days for authorized time. Intrasystem calls are close to real time. Because replies take so long, colonial managers, marshals, and commanders often act on their own reading of policy, which the book notes can produce some strange interpretations of the law.
Use these facts to make local choices meaningful:
| Distance problem | What it looks like | Crew decision |
|---|---|---|
| Delayed communication | Help exists but will not arrive before the deadline | Send the message anyway, make a local call, find a witness, or change the deadline. |
| Slow travel | Rescue, supplies, or enforcement are days away | Repair, ration, negotiate, divert, or leave before things get worse. |
| Scarce infrastructure | One system supports several people or jobs | Prioritize, improvise, trade, or expose who caused the shortage. |
| Local interpretation | The site manager is making up policy as they go | Obey, appeal, document it, or take the decision away from them. |
A ship can divert, but the diversion changes cargo, fuel, maintenance, or the contract. A part can be ordered, but the crew decides what the settlement does until it arrives. A distant authority can issue instructions, but the people on site carry the consequences. Distance works when it sharpens the crew's choices rather than replacing them.
Make Claims and Boundaries Matter
The Frontier has shifting borders, neighbors with competing stakes, and armed conflicts over claims. Several governments and many corporations have interests there. You do not need a political briefing to use this. You need to know who says they have authority, what they want, and what they will do if ignored.
Build a dispute with three positions:
- The formal claim: a government, company, station authority, or contract says who owns the route, resource, or decision.
- The practical claim: the people living or working there rely on it to survive, keep their jobs, or keep a future.
- The contested fact: a record, boundary, shipment, discovery, or incident could change who is right.
The crew can examine evidence, negotiate, protect someone, exploit an opening, obey an order, or decide which claim deserves support. The Corporations and Factions section below covers the powers behind these disputes.
Turn Rumors Into Playable Leads
The core book says stories spread faster than light on the Frontier: ruins older than humanity, derelict ships once flown by giants, parasitic lifeforms that overrun whole worlds, company bioweapon programs, and ships, stations, and colonies that simply vanished. A rumor should not replace a scenario. It should invite the crew to spend time, supplies, and trust to learn more.
| Rumor element | Give the crew | Keep uncertain |
|---|---|---|
| A concrete lead | A coordinate, damaged transmission, witness, missing shipment, or physical sample | Whether the source is reliable and what waits at the destination |
| An interested party | A sponsor who wants it found, a survivor who wants it ignored, or a rival who wants to arrive first | Their full motive and what they will risk |
| A cost of investigation | Fuel, time, a contract penalty, a supply problem, or a rival's head start | Whether the discovery will be worth that cost |
The crew needs enough information to decide whether learning more is worth the price, instead of confirmation that the rumor is true before acting.
Build a Frontier Scenario Loop
Use this loop when preparing a Frontier job:
- Give the crew a practical obligation tied to work, transport, a claim, or a settlement.
- Establish what resource, route, system, or authority makes that obligation possible.
- Introduce evidence that the dependency is failing, disputed, or more dangerous than advertised.
- Put people or a valued outcome on both sides of the next decision.
- Let the result change the crew's supplies, reputation, access, contract, or next destination.
The Frontier becomes memorable when it does not wait for one spectacular event. It keeps asking the crew to solve a real problem with incomplete information, limited time, and consequences that follow them to the next port.
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Corporations and Factions
Corporate horror needs competing incentives instead of all-knowing villains. The core book frames the 2180s as a tug of war between governments and corporations, and says outright that government control is largely an illusion: the nations need the companies to keep interstellar commerce, deep-space mining, and the military running. Governments, companies, military units, and colonial authorities all have resources, obligations, and blind spots. They can help the crew, exploit the crew, or do both in the same job.
Start With an Incentive, Not a Logo
Before introducing a faction, decide what it wants from the current location: a claim honored, an inspection completed, a route reopened, a research project protected, a border secured, or public order kept. Then decide what it can offer and what it will risk.
| Faction question | Useful answer at the table |
|---|---|
| What does it need now? | A shipment, a result, a worker, an asset, a route, a vote, or control of information. |
| What can it offer? | Transport, money, permits, protection, equipment, access, records, or a local contact. |
| What does it fear losing? | Profit, authority, safety, reputation, a claim, a contract, or a strategic advantage. |
| What cost will it shift? | Risk to workers, a delay to a settlement, secrecy imposed on the crew, or a problem left for someone else. |
| What can the crew change? | The evidence, timing, agreement, rescue, delivery, public account, or who receives help. |
The point is to create a decision rather than to explain every event in the setting.
Governments as Sources of Authority
The Frontier is dominated by the United Americas but crossed by several nation-states in an uneasy alliance. Their differences matter most when they shape who has formal authority, what protection they can provide, and which obligation collides with the crew's problem.
| Government | What the core book establishes | Playable pressure |
|---|---|---|
| United Americas (UA) | The most powerful starfaring and colonizing nation. Runs the Colonial Marines and Colonial Navy. Its Colonial Administration supports UA colonies, and the Colonial Marshal Bureau is its law enforcement arm, working with the ICC. Most UA colonies sit in the American Arm of the Outer Rim. | On the Frontier, the UA shows up as a Marshal, a Colonial Administration bureaucrat, or a Marine commander. Marines can be called on to protect Weyland-Yutani assets, which many officers resent. |
| Three World Empire (3WE) | Formed from the UK, Japan, India, and other nations. The most technologically prosperous power, holding most colonies in the Core and Outer Veil and only a limited Frontier presence. Weyland-Yutani holds a seat in its parliament. | Frontier worlds answer to a provisional governor whose taxes, tariffs, and policies the crew must deal with. Its own Royal Marines Commandos are limited, so the Colonial Marines protect its Frontier colonies under treaty. |
| Union of Progressive Peoples (UPP) | A socialist bloc with a vast but resource-poor territory. It refuses to deal with corporations, which leaves it a step behind in technology. It does not terraform, so it builds underground and domed colonies. Its Space Operating Forces rival the Marines, and its Ministry of Space Security runs spies across the Frontier. | A hungry, overcrowded power pushing for new worlds, in a cold war with the UA. A UPP colonization convoy and a UPP war fleet can look alike on a sensor screen. |
| Independent Core System Colonies (ICSC) | A loose alliance of worlds outside any government, run by the corporate Central Space Consortium and clustered in the Core's New Eden Sector. Members pay corporations for protection. Anchorpoint Station is ICSC-governed neutral ground. | A haven for people fleeing their governments, a smuggling and black-market hub, and a recruiter trying to talk successful colonies into leaving the UA or 3WE, which is illegal. |
Do not reduce any government to a single moral label. A UA Marshal can be protecting a settlement while enforcing an unfair order. A UPP official can want a resource her people badly need while threatening a local claim. A 3WE governor can want stability while being cut off from what workers need. An ICSC contact can offer freedom from one authority while binding the crew to a private debt.
For a scenario, ask one official question: who can authorize this, who can stop it, and who has to answer if it fails? The crew's relationship to that authority creates the scene.
Corporations as Sources of Dependency
The core book says the real power lies with corporations that cross every border, because they make and control the technology the star nations need to survive. A company does not need to own everything to have a hold on people. It may control a route, a patent, a processing plant, a transport contract, a workforce, a maintenance system, or information someone needs.
| Organization | What the core book establishes | Question to put on the table |
|---|---|---|
| Weyland-Yutani | The dominant conglomerate: synthetics, ships, computers, weapons, mining, shipping, terraforming, and colonies, plus a secret bioweapons R&D division. Its "Dog Catcher" teams hunt Xenomorph specimens. Built the Network communication grid. | What does the company promise to provide, and what does it expect the crew or colonists to overlook? |
| Lasalle Bionational | A biological research company founded by ex-W-Y staff. Known for radiation-resistant crops, engineered livestock, pathogen vaccines, and a bioweapons division in an arms race with W-Y. Runs a farming colony on Terraform 3. UPP spies are inside it. | Is the company's practical support worth the research access, secrecy, or risk it demands? |
| Seegson | A European maker of cheaper alternatives to W-Y products: the A.P.O.L.L.O. mainframe, Working Joe synthetics, vehicles, security, and communications. Survives on sales to backwater and Frontier colonies, and is trying to sabotage W-Y there. | Does the affordable option create a dependency that shows when the system fails? |
| Interstellar Commerce Commission (ICC) | Regulates interstellar trade, licenses ship crews, enforces quarantines, and can search cargo at random. Presented as independent but actually owned by Weyland-Yutani. | Who benefits from this inspection, delay, or seizure? |
| Smaller companies | The book lists others such as Chigusa, Hyperdyne Systems, Kelland Mining, Lockmart, and the Steer City Cattle Company. | Who is being squeezed between a larger contract and the people doing the work? |
The book also gives each major company a current scandal or project you can drop into a job: Seegson recently sold a shipment of Working Joes before their behavior inhibitors were installed, to an unknown buyer on the Frontier; Lasalle Bionational has bred its own Xenomorph hive for study; and W-Y is chasing specimens after LV-426 and Fiorina 161.
Avoid deciding that a corporation is secretly behind every problem. Let it be self-interested, powerful, and limited by poor information, internal conflict, cost, local resistance, regulation, and its own past choices. That leaves the crew room to negotiate, expose, sabotage, cooperate, or walk away.
Faith on the Frontier
Not every faction wears a uniform or a logo. The core book notes that settlers promised a paradise found drudgery instead, and many turned to religion. Traditional faiths are common, and isolated areas have produced apocalyptic sects, including the Practitioners of the Holy Immolation and the Church of Immaculate Incubation. The Space Beast cult is another example. A congregation can be a colony's real social authority, a source of shelter, or a group that reads a Xenomorph sighting as prophecy.
Make Local Representatives Human
The crew rarely argues with a whole government or board of directors. They deal with a station manager, Marshal, company agent, scientist, cargo supervisor, Marine officer, labor organizer, or contractor. Give that person a job to do and something to lose.
| Representative | What they can offer | Public position | Private pressure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company agent | A contract, transport, equipment, records, or payment | Protect the contract and company interest | Their career, a promised bonus, missing information, or an order they do not fully support |
| Colonial official or Marshal | Permission, procedure, local knowledge, or protection | Maintain procedure and avoid panic | Thin resources, political scrutiny, or responsibility for people they know |
| Military officer | Security, equipment, and a chain of command | Complete the mission and protect the unit | Orders that conflict with civilians, incomplete intelligence, or an unacceptable casualty risk |
| Research lead | Expertise, data, or a useful facility | Preserve the project and gather results | A deadline, a safety concern, a sponsor's demand, or fear of losing credit |
| Labor or settlement representative | Knowledge of what the location needs to survive | Protect the people who rely on the site | Little formal power, a divided community, or people who cannot leave |
Do not make every representative dishonest. A sincere person with a conflicting duty is often more useful than a villain with an obvious lie. The crew should understand why someone is asking for a hard thing even when they refuse. For Company Agent player characters and the agenda boundaries that go with them, see the Company Agent Guide.
Build a Faction Conflict the Crew Can Change
Use this preparation sequence:
- Assign one practical objective to each active side.
- Give each side one resource, one limit, and one consequence it wants to avoid.
- Introduce an immediate problem that makes both objectives impossible to satisfy cleanly.
- Give the crew evidence, an offer, or a person in danger so they can choose a response.
- Carry the result forward as changed access, trust, supplies, orders, or future work.
For example, a company transport arrives with parts for a colony processor and a sealed research container. A Colonial Marshal wants the container inspected before release. The company agent says the delay risks the settlement's air. The workers believe the company has held back spare parts before. None of these positions has to be fully right. The crew can check the paperwork, prioritize the repair, negotiate a supervised inspection, expose a lie, or choose whom to trust, and that choice should change the next job.
Keep Secrets Fair
Secrets create tension when they limit certainty rather than when they erase player choice. Give the crew something to act on: a contradictory log, a missing manifest entry, a restricted door, an injured witness, a suspicious order, or an offer with a deadline. Keep the hidden detail hidden, but reveal enough for players to decide whether to investigate, prepare, bargain, or refuse.
The same applies to player characters. A Company Agent's agenda creates excellent pressure when the group has agreed on boundaries for secrets and conflict. The goal is a situation where loyalty, survival, opportunity, and trust make competing demands, rather than a surprise betrayal.
Start Local, Then Pull the Wider World In
Begin with the people physically present, give each one a practical goal, then decide which larger interest makes that goal harder.
| Local problem | Wider setting pressure | Crew decision |
|---|---|---|
| A colony needs a replacement part | The part belongs to a corporate shipment with another destination | Deliver as contracted, bargain, buy time, or accept a breach of contract. |
| A route has become dangerous | A government patrol declares it restricted while a settlement needs supplies | Obey, investigate, find another route, or take the risk openly. |
| A Marine unit has been recalled | The colony has elected a Marshal with no backup | Support the Marshal, hire protection, or leave before trouble arrives. |
| An ICC team wants to search the cargo | The company that owns the ICC also owns the cargo | Comply, stall, check the manifest first, or ask who ordered the search. |
Prepare One Decision for the Next Session
Before the next ALIEN RPG session, write one sentence for each prompt:
- What ordinary job has brought the crew here?
- Which Frontier dependency makes that job urgent?
- Who claims authority over the solution?
- Who pays if the crew follows that authority?
- What can the crew do instead?
For example: a crew delivers a replacement air-scrubber component to a remote colony, but its own ship needs the same type of part before departure. The settlement manager has a corporate order. The captain has a duty to the crew. The workers have nowhere else to get air. That is enough setting to begin play. Every government, company, rumor, and piece of history you add afterward should make that decision sharper.
Continue with the Ships, Space, and Colonies hub for the places the crew travels through, or return to the ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition root guide for the full library map.
Where To Go From Here
Put this setting to work at the table: build the ships and settlements it describes with the Ships, Space, and Colonies guide, and pace the pressure a Frontier job creates with the Game Mother Resources guide.
Source Scope
Setting details in this guide were checked against the ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition Core Rulebook sections covering charted space, the history of settled space, the governments of the Frontier, and the corporations that compete for its resources. Full faction rosters, complete timelines, and the book's own scenario seeds stay in the book. Return to the ALIEN RPG Evolved Edition root guide for the complete library map.
