Plagued by the powerful Edge World criminal organizations, the Barrier Border Worlds are not a friendly place for a rookie freelancer. Only more experienced pilots with advanced ships dare venture forth into these often hostile systems...

These systems lie between Liberty and the other major Houses. All have trade lanes and jump gates to connect the Houses, and some have bases and way stations, but the level of development is almost universally less than in the House systems, and the level of criminal activity almost universally higher.

The Independent Worlds (Article by Microsoft Game Studios)

Hudson
Hudson is one of the two independent worlds that separate Liberty space from Rheinland. Hudson is part of the Tanner Asteroid Belt, named for captain Steve Tanner of the Liberty exploratory vessel Einstein, whtich stumbled onto the Bering system in A.S. 94. The asteroid belt, which consists of fairly dark asteroids, was not previously spotted by astronomers.

In 661, a survey expedition financed by Interspace Commerce...

As the Kusari sleeper ship approached the Sirius sector, they looked for evidence of high percentages of water, analyzing spectrographic wavelengths of various planet atmospheres. One area in particular looked interesting. Lying near a distinctively shaped blue nebula that the on-board astronomer named the Crow, it was composed of relatively young stars, and possessed at least two planets with high amounts of atmospheric water vapor and oxygen. Planetfall was made on the New Tokyo in 5 AS., five years after the arrival of the Liberty. New Tokyo had plenty of water. What it didn’t offer was much land. The ocean planet was dotted with a few small volcanic islands...

Five great ships launched during the Exodus, each protecting precious human cargo deep within their metal wombs. They fled for the stars, away from the final spasm of war that swallowed their first home in fire and then in blackness. Somewhere out there they would make a new home. They would begin again. This time…this time they would not repeat the mistakes that had been made before.

Five great ships. One was lost en route. The names of the other four now are legend: Kusari, Rheinland, Bretonia, and Liberty….

Pre-Settlement

In the tumult of the Exodus, The Liberty launched before the other great sleeper ships. Colonists whisper, even today, that the launch date may have been intentionally moved forward against the explicit wishes of the Great Planners...

The Nomads are dangerous alien creatures created by the Dom’Kavash Empire as a way to protect their space and repel invaders, and can be found within the Sirius Sector. While technically the protectorate species of the area, they are stated as having attacked the Sirius Sector before. They have the ability to possess humans and give them super-strength, among other abilities.

Nomads wield sophisticated weaponry which requires no energy to fire, yet their ships lack any kind of shielding. Because of this, they have relied on their ability to possess humans in an attempt to divide the colonies against one another, until humanity’s forces are so weak from infighting that they could easily be mopped up by Nomad technologies...