Blue Planet (May 2016)
Wednesday 16 March 2022

In March 2022 we revived the May 2016
Blue Planet Classic Bundle featuring
Blue Planet, the
Biohazard Games SFRPG about exploration and conflict on the ocean world of Poseidon. With its convincing depictions of an alien planet’s geography, climate, and ecosystem,
Blue Planet sets the standard for “hard” (scientifically accurate) sf roleplaying. Ahead of the new
Blue Planet Recontact edition due later this year (funded in a big
April 2021 Kickstarter campaign), this revival once again brought you
both the First and Second Editions of the
Blue Planet rules and all their major supplements —
everything you need for open-ended adventuring on this “sandbox” waterworld.
AD 2078: Investigating an anomaly at the edge of the Solar System, the
Prometheus II probe discovers a traversable ‘wormhole’ (space warp) that leads to the Lambda Serpentis system, 35 light-years from Earth. Ten years later, the United Nations establishes a small frontier colony of genetically engineered humans and ‘genlifted’ cetaceans on the system’s habitable ocean world, Poseidon. Earth’s civilization promptly collapses for over a century, but the abandoned colony thrives. Now it’s 2199, and Earth’s resurgent government(s) and Incorporate States have returned to Poseidon in a gold rush for the life-prolonging xenosilicate
Long John. There’s a world to explore, an alien ecology to study or plunder, criminals to catch — and the original pioneers are rebelling. Meanwhile, deep in Poseidon’s endless ocean, mysterious “aborigines” pursue unknowable goals of their own.

On this wide-open frontier you can try just about anything, take on just about any profession, and be any kind of person — or uplifted dolphin, orca, or whale. (Play a beluga whale! With a
rocket launcher!) Poseidon is a place where life is hard and dying is easy — where GEO Marshals enforce the peace and wired mercs patrol deep waters in deadly fighter subs — where corporate greed and human desperation ravage an alien ecology, threatening to plunge humanity into a war of survival with an ancient legacy. The 23rd Century will be a time of unprecedented possibilities, not just for institutions and governments, but for real people (and cetaceans) who have the will and courage to build a future for themselves.

Once again there were
five titles in this revived offer’s
Player Collection (retail value
$52.50) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete
Blue Planet First Edition rulebook (1997), the Second Edition (“v2”)
Blue Planet Player’s Guide (2000), the
Fluid Mechanics technology book,
Ancient Echoes (cetacean characters), and all eight issues of
Undercurrents, the free Biohazard Games promotional newsletter (1997-2007).

This revival’s
Moderator Collection added
six more titles worth an additional
$67.50, including the
Blue Planet v2 Moderator’s Guide, the location sourcebook
First Colony,
Frontier Justice (crime and law enforcement),
Natural Selection (planetary ecology), the First Edition setting supplement
Archipelago, and the
Access Denied GM screen and insert booklet.

In a Free Zone of blighted 22nd-Century Earth, all these titles together would cost you
$120, adjusted for for two centuries of inflation. Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to this
Blue Planet offer’s designated charity,
Ocean Conservancy. Ocean Conservancy works to protect the ocean from today’s greatest global challenges. The Conservancy creates science-based solutions for a healthy ocean and the wildlife and communities that depend on it.