The year 21XX. The climate crisis on Earth had gotten out of hand, but still the governments of the world had failed to solve the issue. Corporate power has colonized the solar system in an attempt to escape the governmental restrictions of Earth, instead offering a new norm of corporate citizenship. Things drastically changed when Humanity made contact with alien life. They were offered technologies to repair their dying world and a chance to join a greater intergalactic community, in exchange for adopting cultural changes and xeno-political influence. A chance humanity ultimately lost when certain extremist xenophobic groups seized power and launched a nuclear attack against orbiting diplomatic alien vessels. Most detonated early due to alien countermeasures, the resulting fallout combined with the already destabilized climate caused a global decline. Now Earth is mostly viewed as a humanitarian crisis by the intergalactic community. At best a scientific curiosity, but largely irrelevant. The pockets of humanity that had reached the starts under corporate sponsorship managed to escape the same fate, eager to leave behind their origins and seek profits in this new market unburdened by regulation or conscience. In this bold new world violating your TOS can cause you to be ejected from the nearest airlock, and those in charge can change the TOS at any time. Some humans manage to leave their corporate bondage and become independent contractors, living on the fringes of a galatic empire they are not welcome. These are their stories.