Three enemies with nothing in common, falling to the same ground.

01 · THE FALL

The last battle of the war was fought in orbit, and nobody won it. What survived came down.

A disciplined military column that landed in formation. A salvage combine that crashed working. And the descendants of a crew that fell here long before either.

The world is plateau country — flat tops, sheer walls, and a few worn ramps that decide everything. Wreckage is the only economy at first. Salvage gets you started; processing and fabrication are how you stay.

It is a single-player real-time strategy — a game of ground taken slowly and held, not of reflexes.

Eight identical tracked armoured carriers in formation on wet mud, hulls marked with a plain unit emblem. — FIG. 02 · NINTH COLUMN — tracked carriers in formation, first muster on the mud flats.

FACTION 01 · MILITARY REMNANT

The Ninth Column

Landed in formation. Held it.

Eight carriers down; eight accounted for.

Fuel is rationed. Ground is logged. Nothing moves without an order.

They do not salvage for wealth. They salvage to keep the column running.

A crane suspends a verdigris-stained engine section above a cluttered salvage yard of stacked hull parts. — FIG. 03 · TENDER COMPANY — engine section recovered, yard three.

FACTION 02 · SALVAGE COMBINE

Tender Company

Crashed working. Cranes were running before the dust settled.

Everything has a price and a place on the manifest.

They take what falls and make it turn — mismatched, patched, paying its way.

Recovered: one engine section. Booked against fabrication.

A weathered ship hull half-buried in moorland, timber shelters built against its flank under low fog. — FIG. 04 · FIRST FALL — the old hull, still standing on the moor.

FACTION 03 · THE OLD CREW

First Fall

They were here first. Long before the war reached the sky.

The hull is home now. Timber against metal; smoke from the old vents.

They remember the fall the way others remember a birth.

Sheer-walled, flat-topped plateaus standing over a braided valley under overcast light. — FIG. 05 · PLATEAU COUNTRY — sheer walls above the braided valley.

02 · THE GROUND

Flat tops, sheer walls, a few worn ramps.

What you hold above, you hold. What you leave below, you lose. The ramps are narrow and there are never enough of them.

High ground is taken by the ramps, or it is not taken at all.

Burned hull fragments scattered across an empty plain, a broken landing pod in the lower foreground. — FIG. 06 · DEBRIS ARC — burned hull fragments on the open plain.

03 · WHAT REMAINS

Wreckage is the only economy at first.

You strip what fell — panels, cores, spars — and feed it into processing. Processing becomes fabrication, and fabrication is how you stay. Nothing here was built for you; all of it can be made to serve.