INTERSTELLAR TRAIL

A TRADING GAME AMONG THE NEAREST STARS
“Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will brave even that vast expanse. Therefore, for the sake of those who will attempt this voyage, let us establish the astronomy.” — Johannes Kepler, 1610

The year is 2202. The warp-thrust drive has made the impossible trivial: your little freighter thrusts at a constant burn to the midpoint of every run, flips, and decelerates — no time dilation, no lightspeed limit, just honest kinematics at hundreds of c. The twenty nearest star systems have been settled, and every one of them wants something the others have. You have a secondhand Space Hilux, 200 credits, and an infinite cargo hold that gets slower the more you stuff into it. All of it, Sol included, drifts inside the Local Fluff — and that is the real, no-really-look-it-up name astronomers gave the warm little interstellar cloud our Solar System happens to be wandering through. Welcome to the Fluff. Try not to spill anything.

The Grand Tour: set foot in every settled system, then return to Sol. Glory is measured in % ROI per week.

Real star positions. Real brachistochrone math: t = 2√(d/a), and thrust is fixed — a laden ship accelerates slower. Sol → Alpha Centauri, empty: 7 days flat.

SHIP MANIFEST

THE EXCHANGE

DEPARTURE PLOT —

drag to rotate · scroll to zoom · click a highlighted system (or a button below) to set course · drop-lines mark height above the Sol plane

TRADER RUMORS

Word from passing mail packets: systems paying wildly over the odds, until word gets around. “Best source you’ve found” is the cheapest price at a system you’ve actually visited — you don’t know prices where you’ve never been.

GRAND TOUR COMPLETE

Based on the Silk Road by Kris Fricke, an homage to the classic Oregon Trail