Ad Astra: A Science Fiction Game

Recent Changes

4 Nov 2002
Finished converting the history section to XHTML.
28 Feb 2002
Moved Ad Astra to theculture.org.
Started converting the site to XHTML/CSS. During the transition the presentation will be extremely inconsistent and many links will fail to work. Please bear with me.
12 May 2001
Changed the colour scheme
Added partially rewritten account of the Escalation of Resistance on Mars.
4 August 2000
Replaced the message board with a proper mailing list.
22 January 2000
Improved the presentation of some sections.
23 August 1999
Added a Gallery of Orrery Pictures produced using a program I've been working on (still full of bugs!).
13 May 1999
Cleaned up the presentation a bit.
6 May 1999
Fixed a stupid problem with character encodings that made large parts of the site unreadable.
5 May 1999
Fully rewritten account of how Active Unrest Begins on Mars.
Added some bits and pieces to the Secret Section. Surely you don't expect a link to this :-)
25 April 1999
Added a brief description of Izanami, the main world of Delta Pavonis System.
Added a Message Board for Ad Astra discussions.
2 March 1999
Completely rewritten account of Belt Development and Independence.
22 February 1999
Added a description of the Ghosts, a posthuman Belt phyle.
Merged the history sections on Transnational Corporations and Other Supranational Blocs into a new one on the Decline of Nation-States; this section is almost entirely rewritten.
Merged the two sections on the EF in the 21st century into one on the Rise of the Eurasian Federation.
Further changes to the Design Sequence subsection of the Technical Reference section.
New data on Tau Ceti System. I am re-generating the Archipelago systems using Accrete, so system data should not be considered authoritative for the immediate future. I am also working on a map generating program, so there may soon be maps of the main Archipelago worlds available.
5 November 1998
Many presentational improvements.
Slightly updated account of Earth's Collapse and Recovery in the aftermath of Shiva.
29 October 1998
Some expansions and clarifications of the Design Sequence subsection of the Technical Reference section - you still can't design anything though!
Added some new things for anyone who can find them.
20 October 1998
Revised section on the Corporate Nuclear Rivalry of the late 22nd century (this section is now almost finished).
Improved the navigation bars in the History.
13 October 1998
Revised section on the Martian Underground.
Revised section on the Outposts in the Belt.
Added the beginnings of a Vehicle Design Sequence to the Technical Reference section.
Expanded and revised the Designers' Notes.
Moved to a new home at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory.
19 January 1998
Added preliminary information on the Beta Canum and Chi1 Orionis systems.
18 January 1998
Added a description of aeroshells to the equipment list.
Added preliminary information on the Beta Comae System.
16 January 1998
Gave the Technical Reference section a standard frames presentation, and updated some of the content. Much remains to be written or revised in this section however.
15 January 1998
Improved the presentation a bit.
Added a completely revised section on the Colonisation of Mars.
7 October 1997
Dramatically improved the presentation, with new indexes for the Archipelago and Sol System sections, new tracks through the History, a new Front Page, and many smaller changes.
Newly revised section on the First Steps into Sol System.
Restored the section on Lesser Powers of Sol System with some updates.
Added some more physical data sections to the Archipelago.
1 July 1997
Completed the transition to Geocities. I'm afraid that the old list of new features was lost somewhere in the transition from the old host, so there may be some things not signposted from here (and there will almost certainly be many bugs in the new HTML code).
Added some new material to the section on the Belt and converted it to use frames.
Added some preliminary notes on the Xiekantra, the native sophonts of Persephone.
Added physical data for DM+19 279 and its main world,Persephone.
12 June 1997
Exanded the sections on Earth and Cis-Lunar Space greatly and merged them as a single section on Cis-Luna. There is a lot of new material scattered through this section. The most substantial changes are to the sections on Note that links to sections on Earth and Cis-Lunar Space from further down this list will no longer work.
11 June 1997
Added a full acount of the Hellas Revolt.
Gave the Equipment Guide the frames treatment.
New-look Index Page.
9 June 1997
Converted the History to use frames to make it easier to read.
8 June 1997
Added a short section on First Contact with the Soos'Aer.
Added section on the Corporate Nuclear Rivalry of the late 22nd century.
2 February 1997
Added an image of a Soos'Aer. Thanks to Craig Dean (Thargon) for ray-tracing this picture. Also put some anatomical sketches in the same section.
8 November 1996
Added a history section on the Dark Days in Cis-Luna in the aftermath of the Martian War.
14 October 1996
Added a partial Equipment Guide.
Added section on Imperial Philosophy.
Started a News and Rumours section.
Fully revised Immortality Treatments and Belt Dominance.
Split section on AAS into The Brazilian War and The American Alliance.
Shifted some material from The Colonisation of Mars into First Steps into Sol System.
21 June 1996
Major update to the History.
16 June 1996
No update again: History is still imminent (It is getting so long that I don't want to convert it to HTML [by hand] until it is completely ready). Also expect some News and Rumours sometime soon. Recent delay is due to revision and exams.
Further notice: three months of summer vacation start soon, so there will probably be very little new Ad Astra stuff on the website in the immediate future (there may be one or two updates between now and October, but I'm not promising anything).
17 March 1996
No update: just a notice that I won't be on the Net for the next five weeks or so (although Dave may be around for the next week or so). Don't expect any updates in this time (or prompt replies to any mail), but at the end of this time there will be a major update. Also possible for mid-April is the first scenario of Sol Campaign, A Knife in the Shadows (which will be available by e-mail only).
13 March 1996
Updated the Designers' Notes.
20 February 1996
Nothing new for the public website- we're working on plot and secret background at the moment. This is just to say that Ad Astra is still in development.
29 January 1996
Put a non-HTML, not quite complete version of the History on the site.
23 January 1996
Updated Earth.
Updated The Belt.
Updated Cis-Lunar Space.
1 December 1995
Added a short section on the Belt.
Updated Earth.
28 November 1995
Added a Glossary.
Modified the Designers' Notes.
Slight update to Cis-Lunar Space.
11 November 1995
New introduction and picture on the Index.
Some new pictures for Sol System.
Many small bug-fixes.
10 November 1995
Added Cis-Lunar Space.
Updated Sol System.
6 November 1995
Added Netscape background textures to most documents.
Fixed many small problems.
3 November 1995
Updated Sol System pictures.
Added short text on Persephone, the colony world at DM+19.
2 November 1995
Added some pictures to the Sol System section.
Modified Inspirations slightly.
31 October 1995
Corrected order of Colonies on the index page.
30 October 1995
Started What's New? List.
Modified Inspirations for Ad Astra.
Added some links to Colonies from the index page.

The future of Ad Astra

Rich and Dave Mon Nov 04, 2002
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