Publisher's blurb:
"Wonderful... a STUNNINGLY conceived feminist critique of classic post-atomic science fiction, allowing players to explore many of the lingering tropes of the Roleplaying Game genre through a critical lense!" - Women's Journal of Review Studies
In the year 1975, NASA scientists launched an experimental rocket to test Dr. Braun Von Schnitzelbraum’s controversial Lightspeed Overthruster. The initial phase of the mission went according to plan, but when the crew reached lunar orbit and activated the Overthruster, communications with the rocket ceased with a burst of static, and NASA’s radar tracking lost sight of the craft as it accelerated beyond the orbit of Saturn. Weeks passed with no renewed contact with the craft, and all crew, including Von Schnitzelbraum himself, were declared dead. All evidence and details of this experimental mission were classified and the files conveniently lost several years later when a small fire mysteriously broke out in NASA’s records room, ensuring that Dr. Von Schnitzelbraum’s work never found its way into Communist hands.
The mission, however, was not a failure. It was, in fact, extremely successful. At 10:15 AM on the 14th of May 1975 Dr. Von Schnitzelbraum activated the Lightspeed Overthruster and the experimental rocket, the Athena-3, smoothly accelerated to its maximum projected flight speed. The Athena-3 maintained its speed and heading for 1 hour, and came to a stop far beyond the outermost reaches of the Oort Cloud. The crew performed a flight systems check, Dr. Von Schnitzelbraum looked over the data collected from the engine test, and the rocket was turned around for the return voyage. 20 minutes into that flight, the Lightspeed Overthruster imploded, and the Athena-3 was subjected to sudden deceleration.
Saturn and its moons loomed menacingly ahead as the rocket regained control. Captain Bill “Brick” Stone, commander of the mission, ordered his co-pilot to take Von Schnitzelbraum into the escape pod while he tried to save the rest of the crew by executing an emergency crash landing on the moon of Titan. Captain Stone sent one last message back to Earth over the radio before the crash, telling his wife that he loved her. The Athena-3 then fell through Titan’s atmosphere like a falling star, and broke apart as it crashed into the moon’s surface. Captain Stone was killed by the impact, and you are among the few who survived...