User Guide

GETTING STARTED
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to FIRAXIS Games’™ second offering, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri™.
As with all games from FIRAXIS, fun and imagination rule, and we have tried
to make a very complex topic accessible and interesting.
It is an ambitious game, addressing some very fundamental issues facing
mankind as we approach the new millennium. What sort of technologies can
we expect to deal with within the next couple of centuries? How will we use
these technologies — for good or for evil? In fact, what ideologies will be para-
mount in the next millennium, and do these ideologies imply new and differ-
ing definitions for “good” and “evil”? What is the ultimate goal for humanity?
THE STORY
Soon after the new millenium begins, humankind’s oldest enemies — war,
famine and disease — are winning the battle on planet Earth. The United
Nations decides to attempt the mission that has been the dream of countless
science fiction writers and fans for generations: the colonization of a New
World, before it is too late. The establishment of a new outpost for mankind
as an alternative to the decaying situation on our mother planet seems to be
the last and best hope for the continued existence of mankind.
Code named “Unity,” the plan is simple. Send enough men, women and sup-
plies to the earthlike planet, Chiron, orbiting the primary star in the Alpha
Centauri system. Give them the seeds for planting a new society — technolo-
gy, knowledge, and experts of every kind. Insure that the mission, U.N. spon-
sored, stays on track by carefully monitoring its progress from Earth. Then,
when the time is right, and if the need still exists, begin shuttling others to
the New World at Alpha Centauri.
But space travel is a difficult undertaking, even now. It is hard to reach our
own moon. Even if we had the capacity to make it to a distant planet, will we
GETTING STARTED
CHAPTER 1
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