Unofficial data library for the Android Universe
Introduction
The open source Archives Server provides a definitive guide to the Android Universe setting and its unique vision of the future. This unofficial data library contains essential source material to further explore the lore, showcasing the fictional universe made famous by Android: Netrunner and the Android board game.
Visions of life in the future
Mankind has spread itself out across the solar system with varying degrees of success. The Moon and Mars are colonized. A plan to terraform Mars is well underway, hindered only by a civil war that has broken out on that planet. On Earth, a massive space elevator has been built, stretching up into the sky. It is the hub of trade in the solar system, and most people refer to it as the “Beanstalk.”
Enormous megacorporations, called Corps by most, influence every facet of daily life: food, threedee, music, career choices. Jinteki and Haas-Bioroid redefine life itself, making clones and bioroids with braintaped, artificially intelligent minds. The Weyland Consortium owns a piece of everything that goes up or down the Beanstalk, and everything goes up or down the Beanstalk. Finally, NBN shapes what you think and dream, with the most extensive media network ever conceived on Earth under their control.
This Archives Server explores these corps and their most visionary innovations. It explores what technological advances and extraterrestrial expansion mean to a human population that no longer resides exclusively on Earth. And it explores the question of what it means to be human in a world filled with clones, bioroids, and other forms of artificial intelligence.
It is the Future. The World Changed. People Did Not.
The not-too-distant future detailed within this server features technology that may appear miraculous by present-day standards, but as with much of the best science fiction, the setting consistently aims toward the plausibility that originates from a seed of truth.
More importantly, there’s one element that’s immediately recognizable within the Android setting - its vision of humanity. In essence, humanity remains unchanged; humanity’s circumstances have changed, but human nature has not. Accordingly, we see ourselves within the people of Android, we identify with one or another of its many fictional figures, and we are motivated to pursue the answers to the questions they ask.
As much as it is an exploration of futuristic technologies, locations, events, and cultures, The Worlds of Android is an engaging reflection on what it means to be human. And not just what it means to be some generic “human,” but what it means to be an individual within a world that all its possibilities have enabled. What freedoms would we enjoy? What luxuries? What responsibilities would we have? At their core, the Android universe and the games set within it challenge us to consider both the largest of scales and the most intimately personal. It is a setting of vast economic forces filtered down to the level of a single individual.
Infinite Frontiers
The world has changed. Humanity has settled distant planets. We have shared the spark of life with clones and machines. Our horizon stretches outward into the distant reaches of the solar system and inward to the virtual worlds where we engage in business, pleasure, and criminal endeavors.
There is no longer a single world that serves as the center of the Android universe, there is no singular definition of what is human, and no single voice can possibly represent its future. The Worlds of Android therefore provides plentiful perspectives, documents, conversations, images, and stories to convey the tremendous, numberless variety of future experiences.
These stories, the questions they raise, and the information they provide about the not-too-distant future will naturally appeal to fans of Android: Netrunner and the Android board game, but they should also be of interest to anyone who has ever asked himself or herself where our advances in technology may lead us, and what our futures may hold. Explore these questions, and explore the future’s infinite frontiers within the Archives Server.
Disclaimer
The Android Universe and Netrunner content featured on this site, including all imagery and intellectual property, is the copyright of their respective rights holders, including Fantasy Flight Games, and is provided solely for informational and educational purposes. The open-source Archives Server project is an unofficial, non-profit and non-commercial fansite. This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Fantasy Flight Games, any other rights holders or RetekiDB. All trademarks, logos, imagery, and related graphics remain the exclusive property of their respective owners.
Netrunner is a TM of R. Talsorian Games, Inc. Android is a TM & © Fantasy Flight Games. All rights reserved. Netrunner is licensed by Wizards of the Coast LLC. © Wizards.