Players collaborate and compete to shape the future of the new human colony on Niwa. The game emphasises strategic cooperation, negotiation, and occasional conflict, reflecting the dual themes of colonisation and survival in a science-fiction setting.

Create alliances, negotiate trades and policy, and sometimes engage in conflict to protect or expand your factions interests on the planetary map. These alliances, conflicts, and negotiations have mechanical requirements and impacts.

Players represent various factions and roles within these factions - you can read more about them on the linked pages below. These roles work together to draft and resolve policies and decisions that affect the colony's development and respond to crises. Players use cards that represent resources, blueprints, and other assets to support or oppose initiatives, reflecting their faction's strategy and objectives.

The game's narrative outcome hinges on the players' ability to manage these resources effectively and interact with other factions within the political landscape of Niwa.

While the content of this game is relatively light (and often tongue in cheek), there is still scope for the game to touch on the following issues:

• Political and corporate corruption
• Social unrest and collapse

As with all Sydney Megagamers events, the social contract we subscribe to explicitly rules out the following in our games or the narrative players create:

• Racism
• Sexism
• Homophobia
• Transphobia
• Any other kind of discrimination or exclusion.

While this game has serious political elements to its design, players should remember that it's also based heavily on satire.

15 years ago, as Earth stagnated in the grip of a bitterly cold war for what precious few resources remained to us, the interstellar probe Fortune – forgotten by all but a few dedicated enthusiasts – changed everything.

Fortune sent back details of an astonishing find – a habitable planet, tantalisingly close.  The planet, dubbed Niwa (Garden) by the Japanese scientist leading the research team, sparked new hope in humanity and new conflict as the world’s powers raced to be the first to claim Niwa and its treasures.  

The second space race came close to crashing the global markets as nations and multinational corporations alike sunk all their resources into interstellar transport. 

The cold war turned hot as nations pushed to dominate this new space race.  Proxy wars broke out rapidly across the planet, while esoteric cyber and financial warfare systems were unleashed in the shadows.  While never turning into total war, the discovery of Niwa drove humanity to the brink of destruction. 

Alliances were forged and shattered, treaties torn and negotiated until three international groups emerged.  The Global Interoperability Council, The League, and Shanghai Cooperation Organization – loose federations of allied or like-minded nations bringing their pooled resources to bear in the desperate race to make it to Niwa.

Earth’s corporations, too, were not left idle.  Hungry to get in on the action, tore each other apart in a frenzy of mergers, hostile acquisitions, and rapid technological development.  In the end, six vast megacorps were left standing, holding various contracts and keys services for any planned mission to Niwa: Universal Banking Group, Persephone, Caine Enterprises, Wey-Tani Industrial, Losanna and Prometheus Communications Group.

As the world stood on the very brink of self-destruction, something, some last shred of reason, pulled humanity back from the edge.

One thing was clear: no single government alliance or company would be able to support the kind of mission needed to access Niwa’s desperately needed resources. 

These nine major Factions were bound together under the Treaty of Niwa, with the singular goal of reaching Niwa formed the megaproject colony-ship “Mandjet”.

The initiation of the Mandjet Project was a true unifying force – every nation-state, corporation, and non-government organisation on Earth wanted to be part of it.  And just as well – the vast cost of the Mandjet Project required the investment of resources, expertise and capital on a scale never before seen.  Each of the project’s main sponsors had their own reasons for getting involved – be it altruistic, a spirit of scientific discovery, a desperate need for resources, or raw commercial opportunity.

Yet by the end of the project, even these colossal mega-organisations were stretched to breaking point by the construction of the Mandjet and the supply ships which would follow in its wake, shuttling much-needed colonists and high-tech equipment to the Niwa colony before filling their holds with raw materials and exotic wonders.

When the Mandjet finally launched and set sail, no Faction could afford to let the mission fail.

Niwa is just barely within the systems Goldilocks zone, nearly too hot.  It has no frozen polar regions but plenty of liquid water.  it has an active geomagnetic field, semi-predictable seasons, and it has life.  An abundance of life. 

Atmospheric conditions are rich but survivable, and with respirators and air-conditioning it could even be close to being called comfortable. If not a little humid.   

Niwa consists of a single landmass, a Pangaea, with its equivalent evolutionary state being described as broadly similar to the Eocene or Oligocene epochs of earth.

So far, the probe ship Fortune has identified the life systems to be carbon based. Initial reports shows the flora is dense and lush, whereas the fauna is described as large and potentially dangerous.    

Niwa orbits a class G star with a 26hr day and 311 days’ year.  It has an equivalent Earth masses of 1.27. 

Despite the ongoing conflict on the planet, or perhaps because of it, science and technology of Earth continued its projected path of exponential growth.  3D printers can build both immense infrastructure and basic organs, computers are faster and smaller, most people accept Augmented Reality as part of their everyday life, self-driving cars are normal.

Humanity is in constant connection through wearable devices, pseudo-AI and quadruped robots are used in industry.  Exoskeletal suits reduce manual labour and artificial limbs are better than the originals.  

Yet despite these advancements, life remains hard for much of the population. 

What there isn’t is teleportation, time-travel, laser swords, laser guns, psionics, or other things of that ilk.  This is a gritty near future setting.

The great ship Mandjet is a colossus of a machine built with more function than form.  With every Faction’s requirements being different it ended up as mismatched, inefficient design.   Trying to be everything to everyone while maintaining a design which would take us to Niwa. 

The ship is designed to form the very centre of the Niwa Colony.  Upon landing it is to be deconstructed and transformed into the infrastructure needed to run the Colony.  This includes Power stations, Water treatment plants, Spaceport, Assembly buildings, Auto fabrication plant, and all other buildings needed create a self-sufficient Colony from the start. 

Nearly 900 Colonists made the journey on the Mandjet and can call themselves the first settlers of Niwa but many more will follow as the promise of a new life on a new world is better than the reality of Earth.

The choice of landing zone was driven by geological stability, elevation, proximity to water and general safety.  To achieve this the planet was extensively scanned the side effect of which resulted in a highly detailed map showing geological densities below the thick jungle.  A large area was prepared by remotely operated machines before the Mandjet’s arrival.