The Inferno & the Red Eden Protocol

A ship broken in two

Something tore the Inferno apart in the dark. Its forward section crashed to Volaris and now rests half-buried in chalk-white stone at the foot of Mt. Volar, forming the backbone of a makeshift Riftwalker outpost. Its aft section still lurches through orbit above, bleeding sparks and secrets, its long-term survival uncertain. What doomed the crew, and what the ship carried, is not yet fully known.

Aeon Dynamics and the Red Eden Protocol

Decades from now, on a timeline not yet our own, the Inferno was launched by Aeon Dynamics: a corporation whose name has been scrubbed from most public records. Its mission, code-named the Red Eden Protocol, was to scour uncharted systems for the galaxy’s deadliest flora and fauna, extracting and weaponizing entire ecologies for profit and war.

The voyage was never finished. Something powerful enough to split the vessel in two reached it first, sending the forward section to Volaris and leaving the aft to die by inches in orbit. The crew vanished. The mission was redacted. Through the rift, a window has opened onto what Aeon Dynamics unleashed, and whether the Red Eden Protocol died with the ship or survived to spread.

What the wreck still holds

Much of the ship resists intrusion. Fractured automated systems still seal off key sections and repel trespassers, so Riftwalkers pry open doors, bypass corrupted access codes, and cross collapsing corridors to reach the Command Deck, where the Inferno’s final hours may still be recorded. High above, in the drifting aft, terminals continue to glow and life support sputters on in pockets. The wreck reads less like a tomb than a riddle.

The outbreak

One rumor spreads through the outpost faster than any other. Something deadly was aboard the Inferno before it broke: unseen, unheard, and able to kill. The only known survivor of the crew, Dr. Nima, speaks to Riftwalkers through their RIUs. Her team had been cultivating virulent pathogens harvested across the galaxy, and when the ship ruptured, containment may have failed. She asks the Riftwalkers to find the truth, and to stop an outbreak before it begins.